our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâ—an Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
came to that Synod from other places desire to be excused from assenting to the displacing of those Apocryphall Books For in that place as we see by Athanasius they prescribe For though they be not Canonicall saies he yet they are Ejusdem veteris Instrumenti libri Books that belong to the Old Testament that is at least to the elucidation and cleering of many places in the Old Testament And that the Ancient Fathers thought these Books worthy of their particular consideration must necessarily be more then evident to him that reads S. Chrysostomes Homilie or Leo his Sermon upon this very part of that Book of the Maccab to which the Apostle refers in this Text that is to that which the seven Brethren there suffered for a better Resurrection And if we take in the testimony of the Reformation divers great and learned men have interpreted these Books by their particular Commentaries Osyander hath done so and done it with a protestation that divers great Divines intreated him to do it Conrad Pellicanus hath done so too Who lest these Books should seeme to be undervalued in the name of Apocryphall saies that it is fitter to call them Libros Ecclesiasticos rather Ecclesiasticall then Apocryphall Books And of the first of these two books of the Maccab he saies freely Reverà Divini Spiritus instigatione No doubt but the holy Ghost moved some holy man to write this Book because saies he by it many places of they Prophets are the better understood and without that Booke which is a great addition of dignitie Ecclesiastica eruditio perfecta non fuisset The Church had not been so well enabled to give perfect instruction in the Ecclesiasticall Story Therefore he cals it Piissimum Catholicae Ecclesiae institutum A most holy Institution of the Catholike Church that those Books were read in the Church And if that Custome had been every where continued Non tot errores increvissent So many errors had not growne in the Reformed Church saies that Author And to descend to practise at this day we see that in many Churches of the Reformation their Preachers never forbeare to preach upon Texts taken out of the Apocryphall Books We discerne cleerely and as earnestly we detest the mischievous purposes of our Adversaries in magnifying these Apocryphall Books It is not principally that they would have these Books as good as Scriptures but because they would have Scriptures no better then these Books That so when it should appeare that these Books were weake books and the Scriptures no better then they their owne Traditions might be as good as either But as their impiety is inexcusable that thus over-value them so is their singularity too that depresse these books too farre of which the Apostle himselfe makes this use not to establish Articles of Faith but to establish the Hebrews in the Articles of Faith by examples deduced from this Booke The example then to which the Apostle leads them is that Story of a Mother and her seven Sons which in one day suffered death by exquisite torments rather then break that Law of their God which the King prest them to break though but a Ceremoniall Law Now as Leo saies in his Sermon upon their day for the Christian Church kept a day in memory of the Martyredome of these seven Maccabees though they were but Jewes Gravant audita nisi suscipiantur imitanda It is a paine to heare the good that others have done except we have some desire to imitate them in doing the like The Panegyricke said well Onerosum est succederebono Principi That King that comes after a good Predecessour hath a shrewd burthen upon him because all the World can compare him with the last King and all the world will looke that he should be as good a King as his immediate Predecessour whom they all remember was So Gravant audita It will trouble you to heare what these Maccabees which S. Paul speaks of suffered for the Law of their God but you are weary of it and would be glad we would give over talking of them except you have a desire to imitate them And if you have that you are glad to heare more and more of them and from this Apostle here you may For he makes two uses of their example First that though they were tortured they would not accept a deliverance And then that they put on that resolution That they might obtaine a better Resurrection What they suffered hath exercised all our Grammarians and all our Philologers and all our Antiquaries that have enquired into the Racks and Tortures of those times We translate it roundly They were tortured And S. Pauls word implies a torture of that kind that their bodies were extended and rackt as upon a drumme and then beaten with staves What the torture intended in that word was we know not But in the Story it selfe to which he refers in the Maccab you have all these divers tortures Cutting out of tongues and cutting off of hands and feete and macerating in hot Cauldrons and pulling off the skin of their heads with their haire And yet they would not accept a deliverance Ver. 24. Was it offered them Expresly it was The King promises and sweares to one of them that he would make him Rich and Happie and his Friend and trust him with his affaires if he would apply himselfe to his desires and yet he would not accept this deliverance This is that which S. August saies Sunt qui patienter moriuntur There may be many found that dye without any distemper without any impatience that suffer patiently enough But then Sunt qui patienter vivunt delectabiliter moriuntur There are others whose life exercises all their patience so that it is a paine to them though they indure it patiently to live But they could dye not only patiently but cheerefully They are not onely content if they must but glad if they may dye when they may dye so as that thereby They may obtaine a better Resurrection And this was the case of these Martyrs whom the Apostle here proposes to the imitation of the Hebrews They put all upon that issue A better Resurrection So the second Brother saies to the King Ver. 9. Thou like a Fury takest us out of this life but the King of the World shall raise us up who have dyed for his Law unto everlasting life Here lay his hope That that which dyed that which could dye his body should be raised againe So the third Brother proceeded Ver. 11. He held out his hands and said These I had from Heaven and for his Laws I despise them and from him I hope to receive them again There was his hope a restitution of the same hands in the Resurrection And so the fourth Brother Ver. 14. It is good being put to death by men to looke for hope from God Hope of what To be raised up againe by him There was his hope And he
Solomon do for the most part hold in Christ Christ is for the most part the Wisdome of that book And for that book which is called altogether The book of Wisdome Isidore sayes that a Rabbi of the Jews told him That that book was heretofore in the Canonicall Scripture and so received by the Jews till after Christs Crucifying when they observed what evident testimonies there were in that book for Christ they removed it from the Canon This I know is not true but I remember it therefore because all assists us to consider Wisdome in Christ as that does also That the greatest Temple of the Christians in Constantinople was dedicated in that name Sophia to Wisdome by implication to Christ And in some apparitions where the Son of God is said to have appeared he cals himself by that name Sapientiam Dei He is Wisdome therefore because he reveales the Will of the Father to us and therefore is no man wise but he that knowes the Father in him Isidore makes this difference Inter sapientem prudentem that the first The wise man attends the next world the last The prudent man but this world But wisdome even heavenly wisdome does not exclude that prudence though the principall or rather the ordinary object thereof be this world And therefore sins against the second Person are sins against Wisdome in either extreame either in affected and grosse ignorance or in overrefined and sublimed curiosity As we place this Ignorance in Practicall things of this world so it is Stupidity and as we place it in Doctrinall things of the next world so Ignorance is Implicite Beliefe And Curiosity as we place it upon Practical things is Craft and upon Doctrinal things Subtilty And this Stupidity and this Implicite faith and then this Craft and this Subtilty are sins directed against the Son who is true and onely Wisdome First then A stupid and negligent passage through this world as though thou wert no part of it without embarking thy selfe in any calling To crosse Gods purpose so much Stupiditas as that whereas he produced every thing out of nothing to be something thou wilt go so far back towards nothing againe as to be good for nothing that when as our Lawes call a Calling an Addition thou wilt have no Addition And when as S. Augustine saies Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler Creature then the Sun in this respect because a Fly hath life in it selfe and the Sun hath none so any Artificer is a better part of a State then any retired or contemplative man that embraces no Calling These chippings of the world these fragmentary and incoherent men trespasse against the Son against the second Person as he is Wisdome And so doe they in doctrinall things that swallow any particular religion upon an implicite faith When Christ declared a very forward knowledge in the Temple at twelve yeares with the Doctors yet he was there Audiens interrogans He heard what they would say and he moved questions to heare what they could say for Ejusdem scientiae est scire quid interroges quidve respondeas Luke 2.46 Origen It is a testimony of as much knowledge to aske a pertinent question as to give a pertinent answer But never to have beene able to give answer never to have asked question in matter of Religion this is such an Implicitenesse and indifferency as transgresses against the Son of God who is Wisdome It is so too in the other extreame Curiosity And this in Practicall things is Craft Curiositas in Doctrinall Subtilty Craft is properly and narrowly To go towards good ends by ill wayes And though this be not so ill as when neither ends nor wayes be good yet this is ill too The Civilians use to say of the Canonists and Casuists That they consider nothing but Crassam aequitatem fat Equity downe-right Truths things obvious and apprehensible by every naturall man and to doe but so to be but honest men and no more they thinke a diminution To stay within the limits of a profession within the limits of precedents within the limits of time is to over-active men contemptible nothing is wisdome till it be exalted to Craft and got above other men And so it is with some with many in Doctrinall things too To rest in Positive Divinity and Articles confessed by all Churches To be content with Salvation at last and raise no estimation no emulation no opinion of singularity by the way only to edifie an Auditory and not to amaze them onely to bring them to an assent and to a practise and not to an admiration This is but home-spun Divinity but Country-learning but Catechisticall doctrine Let me know say these high-flying men what God meant to doe with man before ever God meant to make man I care not for that Law that Moses hath written That every man can read That he might have received from God in one day Let me know the Cabal that which passed betweene God and him in all the rest of the forty dayes I care not for Gods revealed Will his Acts of Parliament his publique Proclamations Let me know his Cabinet Counsailes his bosome his pocket dispatches Is there not another kinde of Predestination then that which is revealed in Scriptures which seemes to be onely of those that beleeve in Christ May not a man be saved though he doe not and may not a man bee damned though he doe performe those Conditions which seeme to make sure his salvation in the Scriptures Beloved our Countrey man Holkot upon the booke of Wisdome sayes well of this Wisdome which we must seeke in the Booke of God After he hath magnified it in his harmonious manner which was the style of that time after he had said Cujus authore nihil sublimius That the Author of the Scripture was the highest Author for that was God Cujus tenore nihil solidius That the assurance of the Scripture was the safest foundation for it was a Rock Cujus valore nihil locupletius That the riches of the Scripture was the best treasure for it defrayed us in the next World After he had pursued his way of Elegancy and called it Munimentum Majestatis That Majesty and Soveraignty it selfe was established by the Scriptures and Fundamentum firmitatis That all true constancy was built upon that and Complementum potestatis That the exercise of all power was to be directed by that he reserves the force of all to the last and contracts all to that Emolumentum proprietatis The profit which I have in appropriating the power and the wisdome of the Scriptures to my selfe All wisdome is nothing to me if it be not mine and I have title to nothing that is not conveyed to me by God in his Scriptures and in the wisdome manifested to me there I rest I looke upon Gods Decrees in the execution of those Decrees and I try whether I be within that Decree
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
faine reduce it to a narrower compasse of time Hâ—die si vocem ejus audieritis that you would heare his voyce to day and not harden your hearts to day And to a narrower compasse then that Dabitur in illa hora sayes Christ Luk. 12.12 The holy Ghost shall teach you in that houre In this houre the holy Ghost offers himselfe unto you And to a narrower compasse then an houre Beati qui nunc esuritis qui nunc fletis Luk. 6.21 Blessed are ye that hunger now and that mourn now that put not off years nor dayes nor hours but come to a sense of your sins and of the meanes of reconciliation to God now this minute And therefore when ye reade Iusta pondera just weights and Just balances Levit. 19.36 and just measures a just Hin and a just Ephah shall ye have I am the Lord your God Do not you say so I will hereafter I will come to just weights and measures and to deale uprightly in the world as soon as I have made a fortune established a state raised a competency for wife and children but yet I must doe as other men doe Levit. 23. when you reade Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day and by the way remember that God hath called his other holy dayes and holy convocations Sabbaths too remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here doe not you say so I will if I can rise time enough if I can dine soon enough when you reade sweare not at all doe not you say Matt. 5.34 no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not beleeve me without swearing and laugh at me if I did not sweare for duties of this kinde permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of Gods word such as just and true dealing with men such as keeping Gods Sabbaths such as not blaspheming his name have no latitude about them no conditions in them they have no circumstance but are all substance no apparell but are all body no body but are all soule no matter but are all forme They are not in Genere deliberativo they admit no deliberation but require an immediate and an exact execution But then for extraordinary things things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us whether we consider matters of Doctrine Extraordinary and new opinions or matter of Practise and new commands from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seeme to us to rise or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seeme to fall it is still in genere deliberativo still we are allowed nay still wee are commanded to deliberate Melch. Canus to doubt to consider before we execute As a good Author in the Roman Church sayes Perniciosius est Ecclesiae It is more dangerous to the Church to accept an Apocryphall book for Canonicall then to reject a Canonicall booke for Apocryphall so may it be more dangerous to doe some things which to a distempered man may seeme to be commanded by God then to forbeare some things which are truely commanded by him God had rather that himselfe should be suspected then that a false god should be admitted The easinesse of admitting Revelations and Visions and Apparitions of spirits and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church And then the overbending and super-exaltation of zeale and the captivity to the private spirit which some have fallen into that have not beene content to consist in moderate and middle wayes in the Reformed Church this easinesse of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist and this easinesse of submitting to the private spirit in the Schismatike hath produced effects equally mischievous Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side Basil by the Papist and Phrenzy on the other side by the Schismatick Multi prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time and his prophecy of ours That many times an over-vehement bending into some way of our owne choosing does not onely withdraw us from the left hand way the way of superstition and Idolatry from which wee should all draw but from the middle way too in which we should stand and walk And then Leo. the danger is thus great facile in omnia flagitia impulit quos religione decepit diabolus As God doth the devill also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument And in other tentations the devill is but a serpent but in this when he makes zeale and religion his instrument he is a Lyon As long as the devill doth but say Doe this or thou wilt live a foole and dye a begger Doe this or thou canst not live in this world the devill is but a devill he playes but a devils part a lyer a seducer But when the devill comes to say Doe this or thou canst not live in the next world thou canst not be saved here the devill pretends to be God here he acts Gods part and so prevails the more powerfully upon us And then when men are so mis-transported either in opinions or in actions with this private spirit and inordinate zeale Quibus non potest auferre fidem aufert charitatem sayes the same Father Though the devill hath not quenched faith in that man himselfe yet he hath quenched that mans charity towards other men Though that man might be saved in that opinion which he holds because perchance that opinion destroyes no fundamentall point yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked and endangered in his uncharitable thinking that no body can be saved that thinks otherwise And as it works thus to an uncharitablenesse in private so doth it to turbulency and sedition in the publique Of which Eusebius we have a pregnant and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperour In his time there arose some new questions and new opinions in some points of Religion the Emperor writ alike to both parties thus De rebus ejusmodi nec omnino rogetis nec rogati respondeatis Doe you move no questions in such things your selves and if any other doe yet be not you too forward to write so much as against them What questions doth he meane That is expressed Quas nulla lex Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit Such questions as are not evidently declared and more then evidently declared necessarily enjoyned by some law some rule some Canon of the Church Disturbe not the peace of the Church upon Inferences and Consequences but deale onely upon those things which are evidently declared in the Articles and necessarily enjoyned by the Church And yet though that Emperor declared himselfe on neither side nor did any act in favour of either side yet because he did not declare himselfe on their side those promovers of these new opinions Eo pervenere sayes that Author ut imagines Imperatoris violarint They
to a not being that which it was before onely the name of God is I am In which name God gave Moses and does give us who are also his Embassadors so much knowledge of himselfe as that we may tell you though not what God is yet that God is God in the notification of this name sends us sufficiently instructed to establish you in the assurance of an everlasting and an ever-ready God but not to scatter you with unnecessary speculations and impertinencies concerning this God He is no fit messenger between God and his Church that knowes not Gods name that is how God hath notified and manifested himselfe to man God hath manifested himselfe to man in Christ and manifested Christ in the Scriptures and manifested the Scriptures in the Church the name of God is the notification of God how God will be called by man and that is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and how God will be called upon by man that is that all our prayers to God be directed in and through and by and for Christ Jesus If we know the name of God Qui sum I am that is beleeve Christ Jesus whom we worship to have been from all eternity to be God and then for more particular points beleeve those Doctrines quae sunt which are that is Quae sunt ubique semper as Lyrinensis sayes which have been alwayes beleeved and alwayes beleeved to have been necessary to be beleeved as articles of Faith through the whole Catholique Church if we know the name of God thus we have our Commission and our qualification in that Gospell Goe and teach all Nations Mat. 28.19 and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost that is the name of God to a Christian the Trinity And least that Commission so delivered in the generall and fundamentall manner professing the Trinity should not seem enough it is repeated and paraphrased in the verse following Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you First there is a Teaching good life it self is but a commentary an exposition upon our preaching that which is first laid upon us is preaching and then teach them to observe that is to practise breed them not in an opinion that such a faith as is without workes is enough and teach them to observe All For for matter of practice He that breakes one Law is guilty of all and he that thinkes to serve God by way of compensation that is to recompense God by doing one duty for the omission of another sins even in that in which he thinkes he serves God and for matter of beleefe he that beleeves not all solvit Iesum as S. Iohn speakes he takes Jesus in peeces and after the Jews have crucified him he dissects him and makes him an Anatomy We must therefore teach all but then it is but all which Christ hath commanded us additionall and traditionall doctrines of the Papist speculative and dazling riddling and entangling perplexities of the Schoole passionate and uncharitable wranglings of Controverters these fall not in Moses Commission nor ours who participate of his we are to deliver to you by the Ordinance of God Preaching The name of God that is how God hath manifested himself to man and how God will be called upon by man That God is your God in Christ if you receive Christ in the Scriptures applyed in the Church And farther we carry not our consideration upon this second excuse of Moses in which as in the former he considered his insufficiency in the generall he considers it in this that he had not studied he had not acquired he had not sought the knowledge of those Mysteries which appertained to that calling implyed in that that he did not know Gods name His third excuse which induces a great discouragement Non eloquens arises out of a defect in nature whereas the former is rather of art and study and consideration and to be naturally defective in those faculties which are essentiall and necessary to that work which is under our hand is a great discouragement Lamenesse is not alwayes an insupportable calamity but for Mephibosheth to have been hindred by lamenesse then when he should have received favour from the King and setled his inheritance this was a heavy affliction Lownesse of stature is no insupportable thing but when Zacheus came with such a desire to see Christ then to be disappointed by reason of his lownesse this might affect him It is not alwayes insupportable to lack the assistance of a servant or a friend But when the Angel hath troubled the water and made it medicinall for him that is first put in and no more then to have lyen many yeares in expectation and still to lack a servant or a friend to do that office this is a misery And this was Moses case God will send him upon a service that consisted much in perswasion and good speech and he sayes O my Lord I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant Ver. 10. Where we see there is some degree of eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Messages There are not so eloquent Bookes in the world as the Scriptures neither should a man come to any kinde of handling of them with uncircumcised lips as Moses speaks or with an extemporall and irreverent or over-homely and vulgar language Prov. 16.1 The preparation of the heart is of the Lord sayes Solomon but it is not only that The preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. To conceive good things for the glory of God and to expresse them to the edification of Gods people is a double blessing of God Therefore does Hester form and institute her prayer to God so Ester 14.12 Give me boldnesse O Lord of all power but she extends her prayer farther And give me eloquent speech in my mouth And the want of this in a naturall defect and unreadinesse of speech discouraged Moses And when God recompenses and supplyes this defect in Moses he does it but thus I will be with thy mouth and I will teach thee what thou shalt say Still it is Moses that must say it still Moses mouth that must utter it Beloved it is the generall Ordinance of God of whom as we have received mercy we have received the Ministery and it is the particular grace of God that inanimates our labours and makes them effectuall upon you All that is not of our planting nor watring but of God that gives the increase But yet we must labour to get and labour to improve such learning and such language and such other abilities as may best become that service for the naturall want of one of these retarded Moses from a present acceptation of Gods imployment And so truly should put any man that puts himself or puts his son upon this profession upon that consideration whether he
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
bottomelesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus so they would know as well what God hath done for my soule as what my soule and body have done against my God so they would reade me throughout and look upon me altogether I would joyne with Iob in his confident adjuration O Earth cover not thou my blood Let all the world know all the sins of my youth and of mine age too and I would not doubt but God should receive more glory and the world more benefit then if I had never sinned This is that that exalts Iobs confidence he was guilty of nothing that is no such thing as they concluded upon of nothing absolutely because he had repented all And from this his confidence rises to a higher pitch then this Nec clamor O Earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place What meanes Iob in this Doubtfull Expositors make us doubt too Some have said Clamor that Iob desires his cry might have no place that is no termination no resting place but that his just complaint might be heard over all the world Stunnica the Augustinian interprets it so Some have said that he intends by his cry his crying sins that they might have no place that is no hiding place but that his greatest sins and secret sins might be brought to light Bolduc the Capuchin interprets it so according to that use of the word Clamor God looked for righteousnesse ecce clamorem behold a cry that is Esay 5.7 sins crying in the eares of God But there is more then so in this phrase in this elegancy in this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in Iobs mouth Let my cry have no place In the former part Iobs Protestation he considered God and man righteousnesse towards man in cleane hands and in pure prayers devotion towards God In this part his Manifest he pursues the same method he considers man and God Though men knew all my sins that should not trouble me sayes he and that we have considered yea though my cry finde no place no place with God that should not trouble me I should be content that God should seeme not to heare my prayers but that hee laid me open to that ill interpretation of wicked men Tush he prayes but the Lord heares him not he cries but God relieves him not And yet when wilt thou relieve me O thou reliever of men if not upon my cries upon my prayers Yet S. Augustine hath repeated that more then once more then twice Non est magnum exaudiri ad voluntatem non est magnum Be not over-joyed when God grants thee thy prayer Exauditi ad voluntatem Daemones sayes that Father The Devill had his prayer granted when he had leave to enter into the Heard of Swine And so he had sayes he exemplifying in our present example when he obtained power from God against Iob. But all this aggravated the Devils punishment so may it doe thine to have some prayers granted And as that must not over-joy thee if it be so if thy prayer be not granted it must not deject thee God suffered S. Paul to pray and pray and pray yet after his thrice praying granted him not that he prayed for God suffered that si possibile if it be possiblle and that Transeat calix Let this Cup passe to passe from Christ himselfe yet he granted it not But in many of these cases a man does easilier satisfie his owne minde then other men If God grant me not my prayer I recover quickly and I lay hold upon the hornes of that Altar and ride safely at that Anchor God saw that that which I prayed for was not so good for him nor so good for me But when the world shall come to say Where is now your Religion where is your Reformation doe not all other Rivers as well as the Tiber or the Poe does not the Seine and the Rhene and the Maene too begin to ebbe back and to empty it selfe in the Sea of Rome why should not your Thames doe so as well as these other Rivers Where is now your Religion your Reformation Were not you as good run in the same channell as others doe This is a shrewd tentation and induces opprobrious conclusions from malicious enemies when our cries have no place our religious service no present acceptation our prayers no speedy return from God But yet because even in this God may propose farther glory to himselfe more benefit to me and more edification even to them at last who at first made ill constructions of his proceedings I admit as Iob admits O Earth cover not thou my blood let all the world see all my faults and let my cry have no place let them imagine that God hath forsaken me and does not heare my prayers my satisfaction my acquiescence arises not out of their opinion and interpretation that must not be my triall but testis in coelis My witnesse is in heaven and my record is on high which is our third and last Consideration We must doe in this last as we have done in our former two parts crack a shell 3 Part. to tast the kernell cleare the words to gaine the Doctrine I am ever willing to assist that observation That the books of Scripture are the eloquentest books in the world that every word in them hath his waight and value his taste and verdure And therefore must not blame those Translators nor those Expositors who have with a particular elegancy varied the words in this last clause of the Text my witnesse and my record The oldest Latine Translation received this variation and the last Latine even Tremellius himselfe as close as he sticks to the Hebrew retaines this variation Testis and Conscius And that collection which hath been made upon this variation is not without use that conscius may be spoken de interno that God will beare witnesse to my inward conscience and testis de externo that God will in his time testifie to the world in my behalfe But other places of Scripture will more advance that observation of the elegancy thereof then this for in this the two words signifie but one and the same thing it is but witnesse and witnesse and no more Not that it is easie to finde in Hebrew nor perchance in any language two words so absolutely Synonymous as to signifie the same thing without any difference but that the two words in our Text are not both of one language not both Hebrew For the first word Gned is an Hebrew word but the other Sahad is Syriaque and both signifie alike Levit. 5.1 and equally testem a witnesse He that heares the voyce of swearing and is a witnesse sayes Moses in the first word of our Text and then the Chalde Paraphrase intending the same thing expresses it in the other word Sahad So in the contract between Laban and Jacob Gen. 31.47 Laban calls that heap of stones which he had
your Master hath dealt thus mercifully with you all that to you all all he sends a message Sciant omnes Let all the house of Israel know this Needs the house of Israel know any thing Needs there any learning in persons of Honour We know this characterizes this distinguishes some whole Nations In one Nation it is almost a scorn for a gentleman to be learned in another almost every gentleman is conveniently and in some measure learned But I enlarge not my self I pretend not to comprehend Nationall vertues or Nationall vices For this knowledge which is proclaimed here which is the knowledge that the true Messias is come and that there is no other to bee expected is such a knowledge as that even the house of Israel it self is without a Foundation if it be without this knowledge Is there any house that needs no reparations Is there a house of Israel let it be the Library the depositary of the Oracles of God a true Church that hath the true word of the true God let it be the house fed with Manna that hath the true administration of the true Sacraments of Christ Jesus is there any such house that needs not a farther knowledge that there are alwaies thieves about that house that would rob us of that Word and of those Sacraments The Holy Ghost is a Dove and the Dove couples paires is not alone Take heed of singular of schismatical opinions what is more singular more schismaticall then when all Religion is confined in one mans breast The Dove is animal sociale a sociable creature and not singular and the Holy Ghost is that And Christ is a Sheep animal gregale they flock together Embrace thou those truths which the whole flock of Christ Jesus the whole Christian Church hath from the beginning acknowledged to be truths and truths necessary to salvation for for other Traditionall and Conditionall and Occasionall and Collaterall and Circumstantiall points for Almanack Divinity that changes with the season with the time and Meridionall Divinity calculated to the heighth of such a place and Lunary Divinity that ebbes and flowes and State Divinity that obeyes affections of persons Domus Israel the true Church of God had need of a continuall succession of light a contiuall assistance of the Spirit of God and of her own industry to know those things that belong to her peace And therefore let no Church no man think that he hath done enough or knowes enough If the Devill thought so too we might the better think so but since we see that he is in continuall practise against us let us be in a continuall diligence and watchfulnesse to countermine him We are domus Israel the house of Israel and it is a great measure of knowledge that God hath afforded us but if every Pastor look into his Parish and every Master into his own Family and see what is practising there sciat domus Israel let all our Israel know that there is more knowledge and more wisdome necessary Be every man farre from calumniating his Superiours for that mercy which is used towards them that are fallen but be every man as far from remitting or slackning his diligence for the preserving of them that are not fallen The wisest must know more though you be domus Israel the house of Israel already Crucifixistis and then Etsi Crucifixistis though you have crucified the Lord Jesus you may know it sciant omnes let all know it S. Paul saies once If they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of life but he never saies if they have crucified the Lord of life 1 Cor. 2.8 they are excluded from knowledge I meane no more but that the mercy of God in manifesting and applying himself to us is above all our sins No man knowes enough what measure of tentations soever he have now he may have tentations through which this knowledge and this grace will not carry him and therefore he must proceed from grace to grace So no man hath sinned so deeply but that God offers himself to him yet Sciant omnes the wisest man hath ever something to learn he must not presume the sinfullest man hath God ever ready to teach him he must not despaire Now the universality of this mercy Sciant hath God enlarged and extended very farre in that he proposes it even to our knowledge Sciant let all know it It is not only credant let all beleeve it for the infusing of faith is not in our power but God hath put it in our power to satisfie their reason and to chafe that waxe to which he himself vouchsafes to set to the great seale of faith And that S. Hierome takes to be most properly his Commission Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide natur alibus rationibus adjuvare Let us indevour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are objects of faith so as that we are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to be deduced and proved that is the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these Books to be or not to be Canonicall Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a naturall man God does not seale in water in the fluid and transitory imaginations and opinions of men we never set the seale of faith to them But in Waxe in the rectified reason of man that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seale of faith They are not continuall but they are contiguous they flow not from one another but they touch one another they are not both of a peece but they enwrap one another Faith and Reason Faith it self by the Prophet Esay is called knowledge Esay 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many sayes God of Christ that is by that knowledge that men shall have of him So Zechary expresses it at the Circumcision of Iohn Baptist That hee was to give knowledge of salvation Luke 1.77 for the remission of sins As therefore it is not enough for us in our profession to tell you Qui non crediderit damnabitur Except you beleeve all this you shall be damned without we execute that Commission before Ite praedicate go and preach work upon their affections satisfie their reason so it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easinesse in beleeving except you know also what and why and how you come to that beliefe Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever he must chaw and pick bones before he come to assimilate him
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or cōcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
a City or the Martyrdome of an Army This was not a red Sea such as the Jews passed a Sinus a Creek an Arm an Inlet a gut of a Sea but a red Ocean that overflowed and surrounded all parts and from the depth of this Sea God raised them and such was their Resurrection Such as that they which suffered lay and bled with more ease then the executioner stood and sweat and embraced the fire more fervently then he blew it and many times had this triumph in their death that even the executioner himself was in the act of execution converted to Christ and executed with them such was their Resurrection When the State of the Jews was in that depression in that conculcation in that consternation in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision in the field of dry bones so Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man dost thou think these bones can live that these men can ever be re-collected to make up a Nation The Prophet saith Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest which is not only thou knowest whether they can or no but thou knowest clearly they can thou canst make them up of bones again for thou madest those bones of earth before If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first and as he said to the Prophet Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man so he had said to them Filii Dei as you are the Sons of God illumined by his face do you think that this clod of red earth can make a man a man that shall be equall to you in one of his parts in his soul and yet then shall have such another part as that he whom all you worship my essentiall Son shall assume and invest that part himself can that man made of that body and that soul be made of this clod of earth Those Angels would have said Domine tu scis Lord thou must needs know how to make as good creatures as us of earth who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth of nothing before To induce to facilitate these apprehensions there were some precedents some such thing had been done before But when the Church was newly conceived and then lay like the egge of a Dove and a Gyants foot over it like a worm like an ant and hill upon hill whelmed upon it nay like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques when as she bled in her Cradle in those children whom Herod slew so she bled upon her crutches in those decrepit men whom former persecutions and tortures had creepled before when East and West joyned hands to crush her and hands and brains joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her in this wane of the Moon God gave her an instant fulnesse in this exinanition instant glory in this grave an instant Resurrection But beloved the expressing the pressing of their depressions does but chafe the Wax the Printing of the seale is the reducing to your memory your own case and not that point in your case as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire and prisons that was the least part of your persecution for it is a cheap purchase of heaven if we may have it for dying Mat. 13.44 To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is is not so hard as not to know it To part with all for the great Pearle not so hard a bargaine as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had we could not say heaven was kept from us when we might have it for a Fagot and when even our enemies helpt us to it but your greater affliction was as you were long before in an insensiblenesse you thought your selves well enough and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance and of superstition when you in your Fathers were so farre from expecting a resurrection as that you did not know your low estate or that you needed a Resurrection And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it a reformation of it Now who have their parts in this first resurrection or upon what conditions have you it We see in the fourth verse They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus that is that are ready to be so when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony In the meane time as it followes there They that have not worshipped the Beast that is not applied the Honour and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign to any forraign State nor the Honor due to God that is infallibility to another Prelate That have not worshipped the Beast nor his Image sayes the Text that is that have not been transported with vain imaginations of his power and his growth upon us here which hath been so diligently Painted and Printed and Preached and set out in the promises and practises of his Instruments to delude slack and easie persons And then as it is added there That have not received his mark upon their foreheads That is not declared themselves Romanists apparently nor in their hands sayes the Text that is which have not under-hand sold their secret endeavours though not their publique profession to the advancement of his cause These men who are ready to be beheaded for Christ and have not worshipped the Beast nor the Image of the Beast nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands these have their parts in this first resurrection These are blessed and holy sayes our Text Blessed because they have meanes to be holy in this resurrection For the Lamb hath unclasped the book the Scriptures are open which way to holinesse our Fathers lacked And then our blessednesse is that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ Now since this first resurrection since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ but 100. yeares But if we persist in a good use of it our posterity shall adde the Cypher and make that 100. 1000. even to the time when Christ Jesus shall come againe and as he hath given us the first so shall give us the last resurrection and to that come Lord Jesus come quickly and till that continue this This is the first resurrection 2 Part. Apeccato in the first acceptation a resurrection from persecution and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell And in a second it is a resurrection from sin and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person Aug. So S. Augustine takes this place and with him many of the Fathers and with them many of the sons of the Fathers better sons of the Fathers then the Romane Church will confesse them to be or then they are themselves The Expositors of the Reformed Church They for the most part with S. Augustine take this first resurrection to be a resurrection
straite may say to those gates Psal 24.7 Elevamini portae aeternales Be ye lifted up ye eternall gates and be ye enlarged that as the King of glory himself is entred into you for the farther glory of the King of glory not only that hundred and foure and forty thousand of the Tribes of the children of Israel but that multitude which is spoken or in that place which no man can number of all Nations and Kindreds Apoc. 7.19 and People and friends may enter with that acclamation Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever And unto this City of the living God Heb. 12.22 23 24. the heavenly Ierusalem and to the innumerable company of Angels to the generall assembly and Church of the first bâ—â—n which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then that of Abel Blessed God bring us all for thy Sons sake and by the operation of thy Spirit Amen SERMON XXV Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1630. MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay THese are words spoken by an Angel of heaven to certain devout Women who not yet considering the Resurrection of Christ came with a pious intention to do an office of respect and civill honour to the body of their Master which they meant to embalme in the Monument where they thought to finde it How great a compasse God went in this act of the Resurrection Here was God the God of life dead in a grave And here was man a dead man risen out of the grave Here are Angels of heaven imployed in so low an office as to catechize Women and Women imployed in so high an office as to catechize the Apostles I chose this verse out of the body of the Story of the Resurrection because in this verse the act of Christs rising which we celebrate this day is expresly mentioned Surrexit enim for he is risen Which word stands as a Candle that shews it self and all about it and will minister occasion of illustrating your understanding of establishing your faith of exalting your devotion in some other things about the Resurrection then fall literally within the words of this verse For from this verse we must necessarily reflect both upon the persons they to whom and they by whom the words were spoken and upon the occasion given I shall not therefore now stand to divide the words into their parts and branches at my first entring into them but handle them as I shall meet them again anon springing out and growing up from the body of the Story for the Context is our Text and the whole Resurrection is the work of the day though it be virtually implicitely contracted into this verse He is not here for he is risen as he said Come and see the place where the Lord lay Our first consideration is upon the persons Mulieres and those we finde to be Angelicall women and Euangelicall Angels Angels made Euangelists to preach the Gospell of the Resurrection Mal. 3.1 Apoc. 1.20 and Women made Angels so as Iohn Baptist is called an Angel and so as the seven Bishops are called Angels that is Instructers of the Church And to recompence that observation that never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman here are good women made Angels that is Messengers publishers of the greatest mysteries of our Religion For howsoever some men out of a petulancy and wantonnesse of wit and out of the extravagancy of Paradoxes and such singularities have called the faculties and abilities of women in question even in the roote thereof in the reasonable and immortall soul yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create a doubt almost an assurance in the negative whether S. Ambroses Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul be truly his or no that in that book there is a doubt made whether the woman were created according to Gods Image Therefore because that doubt is made in that book the book it self is suspected not to have had so great so grave so constant an author as S. Ambrose was No author of gravity of piety of conversation in the Scriptures could admit that doubt whether woman were created in the Image of God that is in possession of a reasonable and an immortall soul The faculties and abilities of the soul appeare best in affaires of State and in Ecclesiasticall affaires in matter of government and in matter of religion and in neither of these are we without examples of able women For for State affaires and matter of government our age hath given us such a Queen as scarce any former King hath equalled And in the Venetian Story I remember that certain Matrons of that City were sent by Commission in quality of Ambassadours to an Empresse with whom that State had occasion to treate And in the Stories of the Eastern parts of the World it is said to be in ordinary practise to send women for Ambassadours And then in matters of Religion women have evermore had a great hand though sometimes on the left as well as on the right hand Sometimes their abundant wealth sometimes their personall affections to some Church-men sometimes their irregular and indiscreet zeale hath made them great assistants of great Heretiques as S. Hierome tels us of Helena to Simon Magus Hieror and so was Lucilia to Donatus so another to Mahomet and others to others But so have they been also great instruments for the advancing of true Religion as S. Paul testifies in their behalf at Thessolonica Of the chiefe women not a few Great and Many For Acts 17.4 many times women have the proxies of greater persons then themselves in their bosomes many times women have voices where they should have none many times the voices of great men in the greatest of Civill or Ecclesiasticall Assemblies have been in the power and disposition of women Hence is it that in the old Epistles of the Bishops of Rome when they needed the Court as at first they needed Courts as much as they brought Courts to need them at last we finde as many letters of those Popes to the Emperours Wives and the Emperours Mothers and Sisters and women of other names and interests in the Emperours favours and affections as to the Emperours themselves S. Hierome writ many letters to divers holy Ladies for the most part all of one stocke and kindred and a stock and kindred so religious as that I remember the good old man saies That if Iupiter were their Cousin of their kindred he beleeves Iupiter would be a Christian he would leave being such a God as he was to be their fellow-servant to the true God Now if women were brought up according to S.
Hieromes instructions in those letters that by seaven yeares of age they should be able to say the Psalmes without book That as they grew in yeares they should proceed in the knowledge of Scriptures That they should love the Service of God at Church but not sine Matre not goe to Church when they would but when their Mother could goe with them Nec quaererent celebritatem Ecclesiarum They should not alwaies goe to the greatest Churches and where the most famous Preachers drew most company If women have submitted themselves to as good an education as men God forbid their sexe should prejudice them for being examples to others Their sexe no nor their sins neither for it is S. Hieromes note That of all those women that are named in Christs pedegree in the Gospell there is not one his onely Blessed Virgin-Mother excepted upon whom there is not some suspitious note of incontinency Of such women did Christ vouchsafe to come He came of woman so as that he came of nothing but woman of woman and not of man Neither doe we reade of any woman in the Gospel that assisted the persecutors of Christ or furthered his afflictions Even Pilats wife disswaded it Woman as well as man was made after the Image of God in the Creation and in the Resurrection when we shall rise such as we were here her sexe shall not diminish her glory Of which she receives one faire beame and inchoation in this Text that the purpose of God is even by the ministery of Angel s communicated to women But what women for their preparation their disposition is in this Text too such women as were not only devout but sedulous diligent constant perseverant in their devotion To such women God communicated himself which is another Consideration in these persons As our Saviour Christ was pleased that one of these women should be celebrated by name for another act upon him Mary Magdalen Maria. and that wheresoever his Gospell was preached her act should be remembred so the rest with her are worthy to be known and celebrated by their names Therfore we consider Quae and quales first who they were and then what they were their names first and then their conditions Bodin de repub l. 6. c. 4. There is an Historicall relation and observation That though there be divers Kingdomes in Europe in which the Crowns may fall upon women yet for some ages they did not and when they did it was much at one time and all upon women of one name Mary It was so with us in England and in Scotland it was so so in Denmark and in Hungary it was so too all foure Maries Though regularly women should not preach yet when these Legati à latere these Angels from heaven did give Orders to women and made them Apostles to the Apostles the Commission was to women of that name Mary for though our Expositors dispute whether the Blessed Virgin Mary were there then when this passed at the Sepulchre yet of Mary Magdalen and Mary the Mother of Iames there can be no doubt Indeed it is a Noble and a Comprehensive name Mary It is the name of woman in generall Gen. 2.23 For when Adam sayes of Eve She shall be called Woman in the Arabique Translation there is this name She shall be called Mary and the Arabique is perchance a dialect of the Hebrew But in pure and Originall Hebrew the word signifies Exaltation and whatsoever is best in the kinde thereof This is the name of that sister of Aaron Exod. 15.20 and Moses that with her Quire of women assisted at that Eucharisticall sacrifice that Triumphant song of Thanksgiving upon the destruction the subversion the submersion of Aegypt in the Red Sea Her name was Miriam and Miriam and Mary is the same name in women as Iosuah and Iesus is the same name to men The word denotes Greatnesse not only in Power but in Wisdome and Learning too and so signifies often Prophets and Doctors and so falls fitliest upon these blessed women who in that sense were all made Maries Messengers Apostles to the Apostles in which sense even those women were made Maries that is Messengers of the Resurrection who no doubt had other names of their own There was amongst them the wife of Chusa a great man in Herods Court Luke 8.3 24.10 his Steward and her name was Ioanna Ioane So that here was truly a Pope Ioane a woman of that name above the greatest men in the Church For the dignity of the Papacy they venture to say that whosoever was S. Peters Successor in the Bishoprick of Rome was above any of the Apostles that over-lived Peter as S. Iohn did Here was a woman a Pope Ioane Superiour to S. Peter himself and able to teach him But though we found just reason to celebrate these women by name we meant not to stay upon that circumstance we shut it up with this prayer That that blessing which God gave to these Maries which was to know more of Christ then their former teachers knew he will also be pleased to give to the greatest of that name amongst us That she may know more of Christ then her first teachers knew And we passe on from the Names to the Conditions of these women And first we consider their sedulity sedulity that admits no intermission no interruption no discontinuance Saeduls no tepidity no indifferency in religious offices Consider we therefore their sedulity if we can I say if we can because if a man should sit down at a Bee-hive or at an Ant-hill and determine to watch such an Ant or such a Bee in the working thereof he would finde that Bee or that Ant so sedulous so serious so various so concurrent with others so contributary to others as that he would quickly lose his marks and his sight of that Ant or that Bee So if we fixe our consideration upon these devout women and the sedulity of their devotion so as the severall Euangelists present it unto us we may easily lose our sight and hardly know which was which or at what time she or she came to the Sepulchre They came in the end of the Sabbath as it begun to dawne Mat. 28.1 towards the first day of the week sayes S. Mathew They came very early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mark 16.1 Luke 24.1 John 20.1 the Sun being then risen sayes S. Mark They prepared their Spices and rested the Sabbath and came early the next day sayes S. Luke They came the first day when it was yet dark sayes S. Iohn From Friday Evening till Sunday morning they were sedulous Athâ—nas busie upon this service so sedulous as that Athanasius thinks these women came foure severall times to the Sepulchre and that the foure Euangelists have relation to their foure commings Hierome and S. Hierome argues upon this seeming variety in the Euangelists thus Non
ignorance that all blessings spirituall and temporall too proceed from God and from God only and from God manifested in Christ and from Christ explicated in the Scriptures and from the Scriptures applyed in the Church which is the summe of all religion God hath given us this Legacy of knowledge Cognoscetis At that day you shall know as knowledge is opposed to ignorance As it is opposed to inconsideration Inconsideratio it is a great work that it doth too for as God hath made himself like man in many things in taking upon him in Scriptures our lineaments and proportion our affections and passions our apparell and garments so hath God made himself like man in this also that as man doth so he also takes it worse to be neglected then to be really injured Some of our sins do not offend God so much as our inconsideration a stupid passing him over as though that we did that which we had that which we were appertained not to him had no emanation from him no dependance upon him As God sayes in the Prophet of lame and blemished and unperfect Sacrifices Offer it unto any of your Princes and see if they will accept it at your hands So I say to them that passe their lives thus inconsiderately Offer that to any of your Princes any of your Superiours Dares an officer that receives instructions from his Prince when he leaves his commandements unperformed say I never thought of it Dares a Subject a Servant a Son say so Now beloved this knowledge as it is opposed to inconsideration is in this that God by breeding us in the visible Church multiplies unto us so many helps and assistances in the word preached in the Sacraments in other Sacramentall and Rituall and Ceremoniall things which are auxiliary subsidiary reliefes and refreshings to our consideration as that it is almost impossible to fall into this inconsideration Here God shewes this inconsiderate man his book of creatures which he may run and reade that is he may go forward in his vocation and yet see that every creature calls him to a consideration of God Every Ant that he sees askes him Where had I this providence and industry Every flowre that he sees asks him Where had I this beauty this fragrancy this medicinall vertue in me Every creature calls him to consider what great things God hath done in little subjects But God opens to him also here in his Church his Booke of Scriptures and in that Book every word cries out to him every mercifull promise cries to him Why am I here to meet thee to wait upon thee to performe Gods purpose towards thee if thou never consider me never apply me to thy selfe Every judgement of his anger cryes out Why am I here if thou respect me not if thou make not thy profit of performing those conditions which are annexed to those judgements and which thou mightest performe if thou wouldest consider it Yea here God opens another book to him his manuall his bosome his pocket book his Vade Mecum the Abridgement of all Nature and all Law his owne heart and conscience And this booke though he shut it up and clasp it never so hard yet it will sometimes burst open of it selfe though he interline it with other studies and knowledges yet the Text it selfe in the book it selfe the testimonies of the conscience will shine through and appeare Though he load it and choak it with Commentaries and questions that is perplexe it with Circumstances and Disputations yet the matter it selfe which is imprinted there will present it selfe yea though he teare some leaves out of the Book that is wilfully yea studiously forget some sins that he hath done and discontinue the reading of this book the survay and consideration of his conscience for some time yet he cannot lose he cannot cast away this book that is so in him as that it is himselfe and evermore calls upon him to deliver him from this inconsideration by this open and plentifull Library which he carries about him Consider beloved the great danger of this inconsideration by remembring That even that onely perfect man Christ Jesus who had that great way of making him a perfect man as that he was perfect God too even in that act of deepest devotion in his prayer in the garden by permitting himselfe out of that humane infirmity which he was pleased to admit in himselfe though farre from sin to passe one petition in that prayer without a debated and considered will in his Transeat Calix If it be possible let this Cup passe hee was put to a re-consideration and to correct his Prayer Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine bee done And if then our best acts of praying and hearing need such an exact consideration consider the richnesse and benefit of this Legacy knowledge as this knowledge is opposed to inconsideration It is also opposed to concealing and smothering Occultatio It must be published to the benefit of others Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae celata virtus sayes the Poet Vertue that is never produced into action is scarce worthy of that name For that is it which the Apostle in his Epistle to that Church which was in Philemons house Philem. 6. doth so much praise God for That the fellowship of thy faith may be made fruitfull and that whatsoever good thing is in you through Iesus Christ may be knowne That according to the nature of goodnesse and to the roote of goodnesse God himselfe this knowledge of God may be communicated and transfused and shed and spred and derived and digested upon others And therefore certainly as the Philosopher said of civill actions Etiam simulare Philosophiam Philosophia est That it was some degree of wisedome to be able to seeme wise so though it be no degree of religion to seeme religious yet even that may be a way of reducing others and perchance themselves when a man makes a publique an outward shew of being religious by comming ordinarily to Church and doing those outward duties though this be hypocrisie in him yet sometimes other men receive profit by his example and are religious in earnest and sometimes Appropinquat nescit as S. Augustine confesses that it was his case when he came out of curiosity and not out of devotion to heare S. Ambrose preach what respect soever brought that man hither yet when God findes him here in his house he takes hold of his conscience and shewes himselfe to him though he came not to see him And if God doe thus produce good out of the hypocrite and work good in him much more will he provide a plentifull harvest by their labours who having received this knowledge from God assist their weaker brethren both by the Example of their lives and the comfort of their Doctrine This knowledge then 2. Part. In die which to work the intended effect in us is thus opposed to ignorance and to inconsideration and to
unto all men and then herein also is Gods mercy to man magnified that it is to man that is only to man Nothing can fall into this comparison Non Angelis but Angels and Angels shall not be forgiven We shall be like the Angels we shall participate of their glory which stand But the Angels shall never be like us never return to mercy after they are fallen They were Primogeniti Dei Gods first born and yet disinherited and disinherited without any power at least without purpose of revocation without annuities without pensions without any present supply without any future hope When the Angels were made and when they fell we dispute but when they shall return falls not into question Howsoever Origen vary in himselfe or howsoever he fell under that jealousie or misinterpretation that he thought the devill should be saved at last I am sure his books that are extant have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting and irreparable condemnation To judge by our evidence the evidence of Scriptures for their sin and the evidence of our conscience for ours there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels but of man and redeemed us Iude 6. having reserved them in everlasting chaines under darknesse How long Vnto the judgement of the great day sayes that Apostle And is it but till then then to have an end Alas no It is not untill that day but unto that day not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have but inflict accidentall torments which they have not yet That is an utter evacuation of that power of seducing which till that day come they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men To that are they reserved and we to that glory which they have lost and lost for ever and upon us is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually Ver. 2. Mercy and peace and love is multiplied unto us for sin and all sin blasphemy and blasphemy against the Son shall be that is is not nor was not but may be forgiven to men to all men to none but men And so we passe to our second part In this second part 2. Part. Divisio which seemes to present a banke even to this Sea this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens to the mercy of God we shall proceed thus First we shall inquire but modestly what that blasphemy which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost is And secondly how and wherein it is irremissible that it shall never be forgiven And then thirdly upon what places of Scripture it is grounded amongst which if this text do not constitute and establish that sin The sin against the holy Ghost yet we shall finde that that sin which is directly intended in this text is a branch of that sin The sin against the holy Ghost And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence to arme you with some instructions against those wayes which leade into that irrecoverable destruction into that irremissible sin for though the sin it self be not so evident yet the limmes of the sin and the wayes to the sin are plain enough S. Augustine sayes Quid. There is no question in the Scripture harder then this what this sin is And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this Sicut una divinitas una offensa As there is but one Godhead so there is no sin against God and all sin is so but it is against the whole Trinity and that is true but as there are certain attributes proper to every severall person of the Trinity so there are certaine sins more directly against the severall attributes and properties of those persons and in such a consideration against the persons themselves Of which there are divers sins against power and they are principally against the Father for to the Father we attribute power and divers sins against wisdome and wisdome we attribute to the Son and divers against goodnesse and love and these we attribute to the holy Ghost Of those against the holy Ghost considered in that attribute of goodnesse and of love the place to speak will be in our conclusion But for this particular sin The sin against the holy Ghost as hard as S. Augustine makes it and justly yet he sayes too Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis non decipere falsitate sententiae God would exercise us with a hard question but he would not deceive us with a false opinion Quid sit quaeri voluit non negari God would have us modestly inquire what it is not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin It is for the most part agreed that it is a totall falling away from the Gospell of Christ Jesus formerly acknowledged and professed into a verball calumniating and a reall persecuting of that Gospel with a deliberate purpose to continue so to the end and actually to do so to persevere till then and then to passe away in that disposition It fals only upon the professors of the Gospell and it is totall and it is practicall and it is deliberate and it is finall Here we have that sin but by Gods grace that sinner no where It is therefore somewhat early somewhat forwardly pronounced though by a reverend man Certum reprobationis signum in spiritum blasphemia That it is an infallible assurance Calvin that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost For whatsoever is an infallible signe must be notorious to us If we must know another thing by that as a signe we must know that thing which is our signe in it selfe And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is Did we ever heare any man say or see any man doe any thing against the holy Ghost of whom we might say upon that word or upon that action This man can never repent never be received to mercy And yet sayes he Tenendum est quod qui exciderint nunquam resurgent We are bound to hold that they who fall so shall never rise again I presume he grounded himselfe in that severe judgement of his upon such places as that to the Romanes Rom. 1.18 When they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate minde That that is the ordinary way of Gods justice to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit but S. Paul blasphemed and S. Peter blasphemed and yet were not divorced from God S. Augustines rule is good not to judge of this sin and this sinner especially but à posteriori from his end from his departing out of this world Neither though I doe see an ill life sealed with an ill death dare I be too forward in this judgement He was not a Christian in profession but worse then he are
gods as there are Creatures from God and more then that as many gods as they could fancie or imagine in making Chimera's of their owne for not onely that which was not God but that which was not at all was made a God And then as in narrow channels that cannot containe the water the water over-flowes and yet that water that does so over flow flies out and spreads to such a shallownesse as will not beare a Boat to any use so when by this narrownesse in the Gentiles God had over-flowne this bank this limitation of God in an unity all the rest was too shallow to beare any such notion any such consideration of God as appertained to him They could not think him an Omnipotent God when if one God would not another would nor an Infinite God when they had appeales from one God to another and without Omnipotence and without Infinitenesse they could not truly conceive a God They had cantoned a glorious Monarchy into petty States that could not subsist of themselves nor assist another and so imagined a God for every state and every action that a man must have applied himselfe to one God when he shipped and when he landed to another and if he travailed farther change his God by the way as often as he changed coynes or post-horses Deut. 6.4 But Heare O Israel the Lord thy God is one God As though this were all that were to be heard all that were to be learned they are called to heare and then there is no more said but that The Lord thy God is one God There are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make God the Author of sin but yet when they say That God made man therefore that he might have something to damne and that he made him sin therefore that he might have something to damne him for truly they come too neare making God the Author of sin for all their modest protestation of abstaining So there are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make Saints Gods but yet when they will aske the same things at Saints hands which they do at Gods and in the same phrase and manner of expression when they will pray the Virgin Mary to assist her Son nay to command her Son and make her a Chancellor to mitigate his common Law truly they come too neare making more Gods then one And so do we too when we give particular sins dominion over us Quot vitia tot Deos recentes sayes Hierom As the Apostle sayes Covetousnesse is Idolatry so sayes that Father is voluptuousnesse and licentiousnesse and every habituall sin Non alienum sayes God Thou shalt have no other God but me But Quis similis sayes God too Who is like me Hee will have nothing made like him not made so like a God as they make their Saints nor made so like a God as we make our sins Wee thinke one King Soveraigne enough and one friend counsellor enough and one Wife helper enough and he is strangely insatiable that thinks not one God God enough especially since when thou hast called this God what thou canst Hâ—â—â—r he is more then thou hast said of him Cum definitur ipse sua definitione crescit When thou hast defined him to be the God of justice and tremblest he is more then that he is the God of mercy too and gives thee comfort When thou hast defined him to be all eye He sees all thy sins he is more then that he is all patience and covers all thy sins And though he be in his nature incomprehensible and inaccessible in his light yet this is his infinite largenesse that being thus infinitely One he hath manifested himselfe to us in three Persons to be the more easily discerned by us and the more closely and effectually applied to us Now these notions that we have of God as a Father as a Son as a Holy Ghost Trinitas as a Spirit working in us are so many handles by which we may take hold of God and so many breasts by which we may suck such a knowledge of God as that by it wee may grow up into him And as wee cannot take hold of a torch by the light but by the staffe we may so though we cannot take hold of God as God who is incomprehensible and inapprehensible yet as a Father as a Son as a Spirit dwelling in us we can There is nothing in Nature that can fully represent and bring home the notion of the Trinity to us There is an elder booke in the World then the Scriptures It is not well said in the World for it is the World it selfe the whole booke of Creatures And indeed the Scriptures are but a paraphrase but a comment but an illustration of that booke of Creatures And therefore though the Scriptures onely deliver us the doctrine of the Trinity clearely yet there are some impressions some obumbrations of it in Nature too Take but one in our selves in the soule The understanding of man that is as the Father begets discourse ratiocination and that is as the Son and out of these two proceed conclusions and that is as the Holy Ghost Such as these there are many many sprinkled in the Schoole many scattered in the Fathers but God knowes poore and faint expressions of the Trinity But yet Praemisit Deus naturam magistram Tertul. submissurus prophetiam Though God meant to give us degrees in the University that is increase of knowledge in his Scriptures after yet he gave us a pedagogy he sent us to Schoole in Nature before Vt faciliùs credas prophetiae discipulus naturae That comming out of that Schoole thou mightest profit the better in that University having well considered Nature thou mightest be established in the Scriptures He is therefore inexcusable that considers not God in the Creature that comming into a faire Garden sayes onely Here is a good Gardiner and not Here is a good God and when he sees any great change sayes onely This is a strange accident and not a strange Judgement Hence is it that in the books of the Platonique Philosophers and in others much ancienter then they if the books of Hermes Trismegistus and others be as ancient as is pretended in their behalfe we finde as cleare expressing of the Trinity as in the Old Testament at least And hence is it that in the Talmud of the Jews and in the Alcoran of the Turks though they both oppose the Trinity yet when they handle not that point there fall often from them as cleare confessions of the three Persons as from any of the elder of those Philosophers who were altogether dis-interested in that Controversie But because God is seene Per creaturas ut per speculum per verbum ut per lucem Aleus In the creature and in nature but by reflection In the Word and in the Scriptures directly we rest in the knowledge which we
of excommunication That others should esteem them so and avoid them as such persons is sometimes debated amongst us in our books If the Apostle say it by way of Imprecation if it sound so you are to remember first That many things are spoken by the Prophets in the Scriptures which sound as imprecations as execrations which are indeed but prophesies They seeme to be spoken in the spirit of anger when they are in truth but in the spirit of prophesie So in very many places of the Psalmes David seemes to wish heavy calamities upon his and Gods enemies when it is but a declaration of those judgements of God which hee prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them They seeme Imprecations and are but Prophesies and such wee who have not this Spirit of Prophesie nor foresight of Gods wayes may not venture upon If they be truly Imprecations you are to remember also that the Prophets and Apostles had in them a power extraordinary and in execution of that power might doe that which every private man may not doe So the Prophets rebuked so they punished Kings So a 2 King 2.24 Elizeus called in the Beares to devoure the boyes And so b 2 Kings 1. Elias called downe fire to devoure the Captaines So S. Peter killed c Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira with his word And d Acts 13.8 so S. Paul stroke Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse But upon Imprecations of this kinde wee as private men or as publique persons but limited by our Commission may not adventure neither But take the Prophets or the Apostles in their highest Authority yet in an over-vehement zeale they may have done some things some times not warrantable in themselves many times many things not to be imitated by us In Moses his passionate vehemency Dele me Exod. 32.32 If thou wilt not forgive them blot me out of thy booke And in the Apostles inconfiderate zeale to his brethren Optabam Anathema esse I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 In Iames and Iohns impatience of their Masters being neglected by the Samaritans when they drew from Christ that rebuke You know not of what spirit you are In these Luke 9.55 and such as these there may be something wherein even these men cannot be excused but very much wherein we may not follow them nor doe as they did nor say as they said Since there is a possibility a facility a proclivity of erring herein and so many conditions and circumstances required to make an Imprecation just and lawfull the best way is to forbeare them or to be very sparing in them But we rather take this in the Text Excommunicatio to be an Excommunication denounced by the Apostle then an Imprecation So Christ himselfe If he will not heare the Chruch let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican That is Have no conversation with him So sayes the Apostle speaking of an Angel Anathema If any man if we our selves Gal. 1.9 if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Now the Excommunication is in the Anathema and the aggravating thereof in the other words Maranatha The word Anathema had two significations They are expressed thus Quod Deo dicatum Just Mart. Quod à Deo per vitium alienatum That which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum Ab hoc recedebant Chrysost tanquam à Deo abalienatum From the first kinde men abstained because they were consecrated to God and from the other because they were aliened from God and in that last sense irreligious men such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ are Anathema aliened from God Amongst the Druides with the Heathen they excommunicated Malefactors and no man might relieve him in any necessity no man might answer him in any action And so amongst the Jews the Esseni who were in speciall estimation for sanctity excommunicated irreligious persons and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields By the light of nature by the light of grace we should separate our selves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons and that with that earnestnesse which the Apostle expresses in the last words Maran Atha In the practise of the Primitive Church Maran Atha by those Canons which we call The Apostles Canons and those which we call The penitentiall Canons we see there were different penances inflicted upon different faults and there were very early relaxations of penances Indulgences and there were reservations of cases in some any Priest in some a Bishop onely might dispense It is so in our Church still Impugners of the Supremacy are excommunicated and not restored but by the Archbishop Impugners of the Common prayer Booke excommunicated too but may bee restored by the Bishop of the place Impugners of our Religion declared in the Articles reserved to the Archbishop Impugners of Ceremonies restored when they repent and no Bishop named Authors of Schisme reserved to the Archbishop maintainers of Schismatiques referred but to repentance And so maintainers of Conventicles to the Archbishop maintainers of Constitutions made in Conventicles to their repentance There was ever there is yet a reserving of certaine cases and a relaxation or aggravating of Ecclesiasticall censures for their waight and for their time and because Not to love the Lord Iesus Christ was the greatest the Apostle inflicts this heaviest Excommunication Maran Atha The word seemes to be a Proverbiall word amongst the Jews after their returne and vulgarly spoken by them and so the Apostle takes it out of common use of speech Maran is Dominus The Lord and Athan is Venit He comes Not so truly in the very exactnesse of Hebrew rules and terminations but so amongst them then when their language was much depraved Dan. 4.16 Deut. 33.2 but in ancienter times we have the word Mara for Dominus and the word Atha for Venit And so Anathema Maran Atha will be Let him that loveth not the Lord Iesus Christ be as an accursed person to you even till the Lord come S. Hierom seems to understand this Dominus venit That the Lord is come come already come in the flesh Superfluum sayes he odiis pertinacibus contendere adversus eum qui jam venit It is superabundant perversnesse to resist Christ now Now that he hath appeared already and established to himselfe a Kingdome in this world And so S. Chrysostome seemes to take it too Christ is come already sayes he Et jam nulla potest excusatio non diligentibus eum If any excuse could be pretended before yet since Christ is come none can be Si opertum sayes the Apostle If our Gospel be hid now it is hid from them who are lost that is they are lost from
comes Job 1.6 that the Sonnes of God present themselves before the Lord Satan comes also among them Not onely so as S. Augustin confesses he met him at Church to carry wanton glances between men and women but he is here sometimes to work a mis-interpretation in the hearer sometimes to work an affectation in the speaker and many times doth more harme by a good Sermon then by a weake by possessing the hearers with an admiration of the Preachers gifts and neglecting Gods Ordinance And then it is not onely their naturall power as they are Angels nor their united power as they are many nor their politique power that in the midst of that confusion which is amongst them yet they agree together to ruine us but as it follows in our text it is potestas data a particular power which besides their naturall power God at this time put into their hands He cryed to the foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt All other Angels had it not nor had these foure that power at all times which in our distribution at first we made a particular Consideration It was potestas data a speciall Commission that laid Iob open to Satans malice Potestas data It was potestas data a speciall Commission that laid the herd of swine open to the Devils tranportation Much more no doubt Mat. 8.32 have the particular Saints of God in the assistances of the Christian Church for Iob had not that assistance being not within the Covenant and most of all hath the Church of God her selfe an ability in some measure to defend it selfe against many machinations and practises of the Devill if it were not for this Potestas data That God for his farther glory in the tryall of his Saints and his Church doth enable the Devill to raise whole armies of persecutors whole swarmes of heretiques to sting and wound the Church beyond that ordinary power which the Devill in nature hath That place Curse not the King no not in thought Eccles 10.20 for that which hath wings shall tell the matter is ordinarily understood of Angels that Angels shall reveale disloyall thoughts now naturally Angels do not understand thoughts but in such cases there is Potestas data a particular power given them to do it and so to evill Angels for the accomplishment of Gods purposes there is Potestas data a new power given a new Commission that is beyond permission for though by Gods permission mine eye see and mine eare heare yet my hand could not see nor heare by Gods permission for permission is but the leaving of a thing to the doing of that which by nature if there be no hindrance interposed it could and would do This comfort then and this hope of deliverance hast thou here that this Angel in our text that is the Ministery of the Gospel tels thee that that rage which the Devill uses against thee now is but Potestas data a temporary power given him for the present for if thy afflictions were altogether from the naturall malice and power of the Devill inherent in him that malice would never end nor thy affliction neither if God should leave all to him And therefore though those our afflictions be heavier which proceed ex potestate data when God exalts that power of the Devill which naturally he hath with new Commissions besides his Permission to use his naturall strength and naturall malice yet our deliverance is the nearer too because all these accessory and occasionall Commissions are for particular ends and are limited how far they shall extend how long they shall endure Here the potestas data the power which was given to these Angels was large it was generall for as it is in the former verse it was a power to hold the foure winds of the earth that the winde should not blow on the earth nor on the sea nor on any tree What this withholding of the winde signifies and the damnification of that is our next Consideration By the Land Venti is commonly understood all the Inhabitants of the Land by the Sea Ilanders and Sea-faring men halfe inhabitants of the Sea and by the Trees all those whom Persecution had driven away and planted in the wildernesse The hinderance of the use of the wind being taken by our Expositors to be a generall impediment of the increase of the earth and of commerce at Sea But this Book of the Revelation must not be so literally understood as that the Winds here should signifie meerly naturall winds there is more in this then so Thus much more That this withholding of the winds is a withholding of the preaching and passage of the Gospel which is the heaviest misery that can fall upon a Nation or upon a man because thereby by the misery of not hearing he loses all light and meanes of discerning his owne misery Now as all the parts and the style and phrase of this Book is figurative and Metaphoricall so is it no unusuall Metaphor even in other Bookes of the Scripture too to call the Ministers and Preachers of Gods Word Cant. 4.16 by the name of winds Arise O North and come O South and blow on my Garden that the spices thereof may flow out hath alwayes been understood to be an invitation a compellation from Christ to his Ministers to dispense and convey salvation Psal 135.7 by his Gospel to all Nations And upon those words Producit ventos He bringeth winds out of his treasuries and Educit nubes He bringeth clouds from the ends of the earth Puto Praedicatores nubes ventos August sayes S. Augustine I think that the holy Ghost means both by his clouds and by his winds the Preachers of his Word the Ministers of the Gospel Nubes propter carnem ventos propter spiritum Clouds because their bodies are seen winds because their working is felt Nubes cernuntur venti sentiuntur as clouds they embrace the whole visible Church and are visible to it as winds they pierce into the invisible Church the soules of the true Saints of God and work though invisibly upon them Psal 18.10 So also those words God rode upon a Cherub and did fly He did fly upon the wings of the wind have been well interpreted of Gods being pleased to be carryed from Nation to Nation by the service of his Ministers Now this is the nature of this wind of the Spirit of God breathing in his Ministers Spirat ubi vult John 3.8 that it blowes where it lists and this is the malice of these evill Angels that it shall not doe so But this Angel which hath the seale of the living God that is the Ministery of the Gospel established by him shall keep the winds at their liberty And howsoever waking dreamers think of alterations and tolerations howsoever men that disguise their expectations with an outward conformity to us may think the time of declaring themselves growes on
not Oportet impleri Scripturam The Scripture must be fulfilled We doe not wish them we do but Prophesie them no nor we doe not prophesie them but the Scriptures have preprophesied them before they will fall upon you as upon Iudas in condemnation and perchance as upon Iudas in desperation too Davids purpose then being in these words to work to their amendment Mollior sensus and not their finall destruction we may easily and usefully discerne in the particular words a milder sense then the words seeme at first to present And first give me leave by the way only in passing by occasion of those words which are here rendred Convertentur Erubescent and which in the Originall are Iashabu and Ieboshu which have a musicall and harmonious sound and agnomination in them let me note thus much even in that that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with a propriety but with a delicacy and harmony and melody of language with height of Metaphors and other figures which may work greater impressions upon the Readers and not with barbarous or triviall or market or homely language It is true that when the Grecians and the Romanes and S. Augustine himselfe undervalued and despised the Scriptures because of the poore and beggerly phrase that they seemed to be written in the Christians could say little against it but turned still upon the other safer way wee consider the matter and not the phrase because for the most part they had read the Scriptures only in Translations which could not maintaine the Majesty nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall Their case was somewhat like ours at the beginning of the Reformation when because most of those men who laboured in that Reformation came out of the Romane Church and there had never read the body of the Fathers at large but only such ragges and fragments of those Fathers as were patcht together in their Decretat's and Decretals and other such Common placers for their purpose and to serve their turne therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue to try controversies by the Fathers But as soon as our men that in braced the Reformation had had time to reade the Fathers they were ready enough to joyne with the Adversary in that issue and still we protest that we accept that evidence the testimony of the Fathers and resuse nothing which the Fathers unanimly delivered for matter of faith and howsoever at the beginning some men were a little ombrageous and startling at the name of the Fathers yet since the Fathers have been well studied for more then threescore yeares we have behaved our selves with more reverence to wards the Fathers and more confidence in the Fathers then they of the Romane perswasion have done and been lesse apt to suspect or quarrell their Books or to reprove their Doctrines then our Adversaries have been So howsoever the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under that imputation that their Scriptures have no Majesty no eloquence because these embellishments could not appeare in Translations nor they then read Originalls yet now that a perfect knowledge of those languages hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those Books we are able to reply to them that there are not in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures and that nothing is more demonstrable then that if we would take all those Figures and Tropes which are collected out of secular Poets and Orators we may give higher and livelier examples of every one of those Figures out of the Scriptures then out of all the Greek and Latine Poets and Orators and they mistake it much that thinke that the Holy Ghost hath rather chosen a low and barbarous and homely style then an eloquent and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe To returne and to cast a glance upon these words in Davids prediction Erubescent upon his enemies what hardnesse is in the first Erubescent Let them be ashamed for the word imports no more our last Translation sayes no more neither did our first Translators intend any more by their word Confounded for that is confounded with shame in themselves This is Virga desoiplinae sayes S. Bernard as long as we are ashamed of sin we are not growne up and hardned in it we are under correction the correction of a remorse As soone as Adam came to be ashamed of his nakednesse he presently thought of some remedy if one should come and tell thee that he looked through the doore that he stood in a window over against thine and saw thee doe such or such a sin this would put thee to a shame and thou wouldest not doe that sin till thou wert fure he could not see thee O if thou wouldest not sin till thou couldst think that God saw thee not this shame had wrought well upon thee There are complexions that cannot blush there growes a blacknesse a sootinesse upon the soule by custome in sin which overcomes all blushing all tend ernesse White alone is palenesse and God loves not a pale soule a soule possest with a horror affrighted with a diffidence and distrusting his mercy Rednesse alone is anger and vehemency and distemper and God loves not such a red soule a soule that sweats in sin that quarrels for sin that revenges in sin But that whitenesse that preserves it selfe not onely from being died all over in any foule colour from contracting the name of any habituall sin and so to be called such or such a sinner but from taking any spot from comming within distance of a tentation or of a suspition is that whitenesse which God meanes when he sayes Thou art all faire my Love Cant. 4.7 and there is no spot in thee Indifferent looking equall and easie conversation appliablenesse to wanton discourses and notions and motions are the Devils single money and many pieces of these make up an Adultery As light a thing as a Spangle is a Spangle is silver and Leafe gold that is blowne away is gold and sand that hath no strength no coherence yet knits the building so doe approaches to sin become sin and fixe sin To avoid these spots is that whitenesse that God loves in the soule But there is a rednesse that God loves too which is this Erubescence that we speak of an aptnesse in the soule to blush when any of these spots doe fall upon it God is the universall Confessor the generall Penitentiary of all the world and all dye in the guilt of their sin that goe not to Confession to him And there are sins of such waight to the soule and such intangling and perplexity to the conscience in some circumstances of the sin as that certainly a soule may receive much ease in such cases by confessing it selfe to man In this holy shamefastnesse which we intend in this outward blushing of the face the soule goes to confession too And it is one of
God against sin and sinners Vt erubescatis that we might see blood in your faces the blood of your Saviour working in that shame for sin That that question of the Prophet might not confound you Were they ashamed when they committed abomination nay they were not ashamed Ier. 6.15 Erubescere nesciebāt they were never used to shame they knew not how to be ashamed Therefore sayes he they shall fall amongst them that fall they shall do as the world does sin as their neighbours sin and fall as they fall irrepentantly here and hereafter irrecoverably And then Vt conturbati sitis that you may be troubled in your hearts and not cry Peace Peace where there is no peace and flatter your selves because you are in a true Religion and in the right way for a Child may drowne in a Font and a Man may be poysoned in the Sacrament much more perish though in a true Church And also Vt revertamini that you may returne againe to the Lord returne to that state of purenesse which God gave you in Baptisme to that state which God gave you the last time you received his body and blood so as became you And then lastly Vt erubescatis velociter that you may come to the beginning of this and to all this quickly and not to defer it because God defers the judgement For to end this with S. Augustines words upon this word Velociter Quandocunque venit celerrimè venit quod desperatur esse venturum How late soever it come that comes quickly if it come at all which we beleeved would never come How long soever it be before that judgement come yet it comes quickly if it come before thou looke for it or be ready for it Whosoever labours to sleepe out the thought of that day His damnation sleepeth not sayes the Apostle It is not onely that his damnation is not dead that there shall never be any such day but that it is no day asleepe every midnight shall be a day of judgement to him and keepe him awake and when consternation and lassitude lend him or conterfait to him a sleep as S. Basil sayes of the righteous Etiam somnia justorum preces sunt That even their Dreames are prayers so this incorrigible sinners Dreames shall be not onely presages of his future but acts of his present condemnation SERM. LVI Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.1 2. Blessed is he whose trangression is forgiven whose sinne is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquitie and in whose spirit there is no guile THis that I have read to you can scarce be called all the Text I proposed for the Text the first and second verses and there belongs more to the first then I have delivered in it for in all those Translators and Expositors who apply themselves exactly to the Originall to the Hebrew the Title of the Psalme is part of the first verse of the Psalme S. Augustine gives somewhat a strange reason why the Booke of Enoch cited by S. Iude in his Epistle and some other such ancient Books as that were never received into the body of Canonicall Scriptures Vt in Authoritate apud nos non essent nimia fecit eorum Antiquitas The Church suspected them because they were too Ancient sayes S. Augustine But that reason alone is so far from being enough to exclude any thing from being part of the Scriptures as that we make it justly an argument for the receiving the Titles of the Psalmes into the Body of Canonicall Scriptures that they are as ancient as the Psalmes themselves So then the Title of this Psalme enters into our Text as a part of the first verse And the Title is Davidis Erudiens where we need not insert as our Translators in all languages and Editions have conceived a necessity to do any word for the cleering of the Text more then is in the Text it selfe And therefore Tremellius hath inserted that word An Ode of David we A Psalme of David others others for the words themselves yeeld a perfect sense in themselves Le David Maschil is Davidis Erudiens that is Davidis Eruditio Davids Institution Davids Catechisme And so our Text which is the first and second verse taking in all the first verse in all accounts is now Davids Catechisme Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven c. In these words Divisio our parts shall be these first That so great a Master as David proceeded by way of Catechisme of instruction in fundamentall things and Doctrines of edification Secondly That the foundation of this Building the first lesson in this Art the first letter in this Alphabet is Blessednesse for Primus actus voluntatis est Amor Man is not man till he have produced some acts of the faculties of that soule that makes him man till he understand something and will something Till he know and till he would have something he is no man Now The first Act of the will is love and no man can love any thing but in the likenesse and in the notion of Happinesse of Blessednesse or of some degree thereof and therefore David proposes that for the foundation of his Catechisme Blessednesse The Catechisme of David Blessed is the Man But then in a third Consideration we lay hold upon S. Augustins Aphorisme Amare nisi nota non possumus We cannot truly love any thing but that we know And therefore David being to proceede Catechistically and for Instruction proposes this Blessednesse which as it is in Heaven and reserved for our possession there is in-intelligible as Tertullian speaks unconceivable he purposes it in such notions and by such lights as may enable us to see it and know it in this life And those lights are in this Text Three for The forgivenesse of Transgressions And then The Covering of sinnes And lastly The not imputing of Iniquity which three David proposes here are not a threefold repeating of one and the same thing But this Blessednesse consisting in our Reconciliation to God for we were created in a state of friendship with God our rebellion put us into a state of hostility and now we need a Reconciliation because we are not able to maintaine a war against God no nor against any other enemy of man without God this Blessednesse David doth not deliver us all at once in three expressings of the same thing but he gives us one light thereof in the knowledge that there is a Forgiving of Transgressions another in the Covering of sinnes and a third in the not Imputing of Iniquity But then that which will constitute a fourth Consideration when God hath presented himselfe and offered his peace in all these there is also something to be done on our part for though the Forgiving of Transgression The Covering of sinne The not Imputing of Iniquity proceed onely from God yet God affords these to none but him In whose spirit there is no guile And
thereof A Psalme of David giving Instruction And having given his Instruction the first way by Rule in the two former verses That Blessednesse consisted in the Remission of sinnes but that this Remission of sinnes was imparted to none Cui dolus in spiritu In whose spirit there was any deceit he proceeds in this Text to the other fundamentall and constitutive element of Instruction Example And by Example he shews how far they are from that Blessednesse that consists in the Remission of sinnes that proceed with any deceit in their spirit And that way of Instruction by Example shall be our first Consideration And our second That he proposes himselfe for the Example I kept silence sayes he and so My Bones waxed old c. And then in a third part we shall see how far this holy Ingenuity goes what he confesses of himselfe And that third part will subdivide it selfe and flow out into many branches First That it was he himselfe that was In doloso spiritu In whose spirit there was deceit Quia tacuit because he held his tongue because he disguised his sinnes because he did not confesse them And yet in the midst of this silence of his God brought him Ad rugitum to voyces of Roaring of Exclamation to a sense of paine and a sense of shame so far he had a voyce but still he was in silence for any matter of repentance Secondly he confesses the effect of this his silence and this his Roaring Inveteraverunt Ossa My Bones waxed old and my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer And then thirdly he confesses the reason from whence this inveteration in his bones and this incineration in his body proceeded Quia aggravata manus because the hand of God lay heavy upon him heavy in the present waight and heavy in the long continuation thereof day and night And lastly all this he seals with that Selah which you finde at the end of the verse which is a kinde of Affidavit of earnest asseveration and re-affirming the same thing a kinde of Amen and ratification to that which was said Selah truly verily thus it was with me when I kept silence and deceitfully smothered my sinnes the hand of God lay heavy upon me and as truly as verily it will be no better with any man that suffers himselfe to continue in that case First then 1 Part. Exemplum for the assistance and the power that example hath in Instruction we see Christs Method Quid ab initio how was it from the beginning Doe as hath been done before We see Gods method to Moses for the Tabernacle Looke that thou make every thing Exod. 24.40 after thy patterne which was shewed thee in the Mount And for the Creation it selfe we know Gods method too for though there were no world that was elder brother to this world before yet God in his owne minde and purpose had produced and lodged certaine Idea's and formes and patterns of every piece of this world and made them according to those pre-conceived formes and Idea's When we consider the wayes of Instruction as they are best pursued in the Scriptures so are there no Books in the world that doe so abound with this comparative and exemplary way of teaching as the Scriptures doe No Books in which that word of Reference to other things that Sicut is so often repeated Doe this and doe that Sicut so as you see such and such things in Nature doe And Sicut so as you finde such and such men in story to have done So David deals with God himselfe he proposes him an Example I aske no more favour at thy hands for thy Church now then thou hast afforded them heretofore Doe but unto these men now Psal 83.3 Sicut Midianitis as unto the Midianites Sicut Siserae as unto Sisera as unto Iabin Make their Nobles Sicut Oreb like Oreb and like Zeb and all their Princes Sicut Zeba as Zeba and as Zalmana For these had been Examples of Gods justice And to be made Examples of Gods anger Num. 5.26 is the same thing as to be a Malediction a Curse For in that law of Jealousie that bitter potion which the suspected woman was to take was accompanied with this imprecation The Lord make thee a Curse among the people So we reade it But S. Hierome In Exemplum The Lord make thee an Example among the people that is deale with thee so as posterity may be afraid when it shall be said of any of them Lord deale with this woman so as thou didst with that Adulteresse And so the prayer of the people is upon Booz Ruth 4.11 Vt sit in Exemplum as S. Hierom also reads that place The Lord make thee an Example of vertue in Ephrata and in Bethlem that is that Gods people might propose him to themselves conforme themselves to him and walke as he did As on the other side the anger of God is threatned so Ezek. 5.15 Jer. 48.39 God shall make thee Exemplum stuporem An Example and a Consternation And Exemplum derisum An example and a scorne That posterity whensoever they should be threatned with Gods Judgements they might presently returne to such Examples and conclude if our sins be to their Example our Judgements will follow their Example too a judgement accompanied with a consternation a consternation aggravated with a scorne we shall be a prey to our enemies an astonishment to our selves a contempt to all the world We doe according to their Example and according to their Example we shall suffer is not a Conclusion of any Sorbon nor a decision of any Rota but the Logique of the universall Universitie Heaven it selfe Zech. 13.5 And so when the Prophet would be excused from undertaking the office of a Prophet he sayes Adam exemplum meum ab adolescentia Adam hath been the example that I have proposed to my selfe from my youth As Adam did so in the sweat of my browes I also have eat my bread I have kept Cattle I have followed a Country life and not made my selfe fit for the office and function of a Prophet Adam hath been my Example from my youth And when Solomon did not propose a Man he proposed something els for his Example an example he would have Pro. 24.32 He looked upon the ill husbands land and he saw it over-growne Et exemplo didici disciplinam By that example I learnt to be wiser Enter into the Armory search the body and bowells of Story for an answer to the question in Iob Quis periit Who ever perished being Innocent Job 4.7 or where were the righteous cut off There is not one example no where never Answer but that out of Records Quis restitit Job 9.4 Job 11.10 Who hath hardned himselfe against the Lord and prospered Or that Quis contradicet If he cut off who can hinder him There is no Example No man by no meanes So if
onely yet if we pursue Gods Method and see what our understanding can doe we shall see that out of ratiocination and discourse and probabilities and very similitudes at last will arise evident and necessary conclusions such as these That as there is a God that God must be worshiped according to his will That therefore that will of God must be declared and manifested somewhere That this is done in some permanent way in some Scripture which is the Word of God That this booke which we call the Bible is by better reasons then any others can pretend that Scripture And when our Reason hath carried us so far as to accept these Scriptures for the Word of God then all the particular Articles A Virgins Son and a mortall God will follow evidently enough And then those two Propositions Mysteria credenda ut intelligantur Mysteries of Religion must be beleeved before they be understood and Mysteria intelligenda ut credantur Mysteries of Religion must be understood before they can be beleeved will be all one For God exalts our naturall facultie of understanding by Grace to apprehend them and then to that submission and assent which he by grace produces out of our understanding by a succeeding and more powerfull Grace he sets to the Seale of faith Waite thou therefore upon God his way present unto him an humble and a diligent understanding conclude not too desperately against thy selfe if thou have not yet attained to all degrees of faith but admit that preparation which God offers to thine understanding by an assiduous and a sedulous hearing for a narrower faith that proceeds out of a true understanding shall carry thee farther then a faith that seemes larger but is wrapped up in an implicite ignorance no man beleeves profitably that knows not why he beleeves The subject then that this worke is wrought in is that faculty mans understanding There God begins in the Instruction of this text Thou shalt understand Thou shalt The act shall be thine but yet the power is mine faciam te I will make thee understand which is another Consideration in this part God doth not determine his promise here Faciam in a Faciam ut intelligas I will cast an understanding upon thee I will cause an understanding to fall upon thee but it is faciam te intelligere I will make thee to understand Thou shalt be an Agent in thine own salvation When God made the Asse speake under Balaam God went not so far as this first step not to the faciam ut intelligas he imprinted infused no understanding in that Beast When God suffers the hypocrite to praise him he imprints no understanding Here is a Frustra colunt It is a worship that is no worship when it is with the lips onely and the heart far off So when a Papist cryes Templum domini Templum domini Visibility of a Church Infallibility in a Church here is no understanding He pretends to beleeve as the Church beleeves but he knowes not what the Church beleeves no nor he neither upon whom he relies for his Instruction his Priest his Confessor They are deceived that thinke every Priest or Jesuit that comes hither knowes the Tenets of that Church it is a more reserved a more perplexed a more involved matter then so To contract this Consideration when a Preacher speaks well and destroys as fast by his ill life as he builds by his good doctrine Psal 111.10 here is no understanding neither A good understanding have all they that keepe the Commandements not all they that preach them but that keepe them It is all they 1 Joh. 2.3 and onely they There is no other assurance but that Hereby we are sure that we know him if we keepe his Commandements This is our Criterium and onely this hereby we know it Pro. 18.9 and by nothing els So that as he that is slothfull in his worke is even the brother of him that is a great waster So he that builds not with both hands life and doctrine Chrysost is slothfull in his worke He that preaches against sin and doth it Instruit dominum quomodo eum condemnet He doth not so much teach his Auditory how to scape condemnation as teach God how to condemne him In these cases there is no understanding at all In the case of the Asse and the hypocrite and the blind Romanist and the vicious Preacher In some other cases there is understanding given but without any concurrence any cooperation of man as in those often visions and dreames and manifestations of God to the Prophets and his other servants There was a faciam ut intelligas God would make his pleasure knowne unto them but yet not as in this Text where God makes use of the man himselfe for his own salvation But yet it is God and God alone that does all this that rectifies our understanding as well as that establishes our faith It is my soule that sayes to mine eye faciam te videre I will make thee see and my soule that sayes to mine eare faciam te audire I will make thee heare and without that soule that eye and eare could no more see nor heare then the eyes and eares of an Idol so it is my God that sayes to my soule faciam te intelligere I will make thee understand And therefore as thou art bound to infinite thankesgivings to God when he hath brought thee to faith to forget not thy tribute by the way to blesse and magnifie him if he have enlarged thy desire of understanding and thy capacity of understanding and thy meanes of understanding for as howsoever a man may forget the order of the letters after he is come to reade perfectly and forget the rules of his Grammar after he is come to speake perfectly yet by those letters and by that Grammar he came to that perfection so though faith be of an infinite exaltation above understanding yet as though our understanding be above our senses yet by our senses we come to understand so by our understanding we come to beleeve And though the Holy Ghost repeat that more then once Domine quis credidit Lord who beleeves our report And that Shall the sonne of Man finde faith upon earth when he comes though he complain of want of faith yet he multiplies infinitely that complaint for want of understanding and there are ten Non intelligunts for one Non credunt ten increpations that his people did not understand for one that they did not beleeve because though faith be a nobler operation God takes it alwayes worst in us to neglect those things which are nearest us as he doth to neglect the ordinary and necessary duties of Religion and search curiously into the unrevealed purposes of his secret counsails And this Instruction to the understanding he seemes in this text to extend to all for this singular word Te I will make Thee Thee to understand includes no exclusion
of man do not become the servants and instruments of that Grace Let all that we all seeke be who may glorifie God most and we shall agree in this That as the Pelagian wounds the glory of God deepely in making Naturall faculties joynt-Commissioners with Grace so do they diminish the glory of God too if any deny naturall faculties to be the subordinate servants and instruments of Grace for as Grace could not worke upon man to Salvation if man had not a faculty of will to worke upon because without that will man were not man so is this Salvation wrought in the will by conforming this will of man to the will of God not by extinguishing the will it selfe by any force or constraint that God imprints in it by his Grace God saves no man without or against his will Glory be to God on high and on earth Peace and Good will towards men And to this God of Glory the Father and this God of Peace and reconciliation the Son and this God of Good will and love amongst men the Holy Ghost be ascribed all praise c. PREBEND SERMONS Preached at St. PAULS The first of the Prebend of Cheswicks five Psalmes which five are appointed for that Prebend as there are five other for every other of our thirty Prebendaries SERM. LXV Preached at S. Pauls May 8. 1625. PSAL. 62.9 Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To bee laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity WE consider the dignity of the Booke of Psalmes either in the whole body together or in the particular limmes and distribution thereof Of the whole Body Basil it may be enough to tell you that which S. Basil saith That if all the other bookes of Scripture could perish there remained enough in the booke of Psalmes for the supply of all And therefore he cals it Amuletum ad profligandum daemonem Any Psalme is Exorcisme enough to expell any Devill Charme enough to remove any tentation Enchantment enough to ease nay to sweeten any tribulation It is abundantly enough that our Saviour Christ himselfe cites the Psalmes not onely as Canonicall Scripture but as a particular and entire and noble limme of that Body All must be fulfilled of me saith he which is written in the Law Luk. 24.44 in the Prophets and in the Psalmes The Law alone was the Sadduces Scripture they received no more The Law and the Prophets were especially the Scribes Scripture they interpreted that The Christians Scripture in the Old Testament is especially the Psalmes For except the Prophecy of Esay be admitted into the comparison no booke of the Old Testament is so like a Gospel so particular in all things concerning Christ as the Psalmes So hath the Booke of Psalmes an especiall dignity in the intire Body all together It hath so also in divers distributions thereof into parts For even amongst the Jewes themselves those fifteen Psalmes which follow immediatly and successively after the 119. Psalme were especially distinguished and dignified by the name of Graduall Psalmes Whether because they were sung upon the Degrees and staires ascending to the Altar Or because hee that read them in the Temple ascended into a higher and more eminent place to reade them Or because the word Graduall implies a degree of excellency in the Psalmes themselves I dispute not But a difference those fifteen Psalmes ever had above the rest in the Jewish and in the Christian Church too So also hath there beene a particular dignity ascribed to those seven Psalmes which we have ever called the Penitentiall Psalmes Of which S. Augustine had so much respect August as that he commanded them to be written in a great Letter and hung about the curtaines of his Death-bed within that hee might give up the ghost in contemplation and meditation of those seven Psalmes And it hath beene traditionally received and recommended by good Authors that that Hymne Matt. 26.30 which Christ and his Apostles are said to have sung after the Institution and celebration of the Sacrament was a Hymne composed of those six Psalmes which we call the Allelujah Psalmes immediatly preceding the hundred and nineteenth So then in the whole Body and in some particular limmes of the Body the Church of God hath had an especiall consideration of the booke of Psalmes This Church in which we all stand now and in which my selfe by particular obligation serve hath done so too In this Church by ancient Constitutions it is ordained That the whole booke of Psalmes should every day day by day bee rehearsed by us who make the Body of this Church in the eares of Almighty God And therefore every Prebendary of this Church is by those Constitutions bound every day to praise God in those five Psalmes which are appointed for his Prebend And of those five Psalmes which belong to mee this out of which I have read you this Text is the first And by Gods grace upon like occasions I shall here handle some part of every one of the other foure Psalmes for some testimony that those my five Psalmes returne often into my meditation which I also assure my selfe of the rest of my brethren who are under the same obligation in this Church For this whole Psalme Psalmus integer which is under our present consideration as Athanasius amongst all the Fathers was most curious and most particular and exquisite in observing the purpose and use of every particular Psalm for to that purpose he goes through them all in this maner If thou wilt encourage men to a love and pursuit of goodnesse say the first Psalme and 31. and 140 c. If thou wilt convince the Jewes say the second Psalme If thou wilt praise God for things past say this and this And this and this if thou wilt pray for future things so for this Psalme which we have in hand he observes in it a summary abridgement of all For of this Psalme he sayes in generall Adversus insidiantes Against all attempts upon thy body thy state thy soule thy fame tentations tribulations machinations defamations say this Psalme As he saith before that in the booke of Psalmes every man may discerne motus animi sui his owne finfull inclinations expressed and arme himselfe against himselfe so in this Psalme he may arme himselfe against all other adversaries of any kinde And therefore as the same Father entitles one Sermon of his Contr a omnes haereses A Sermon for the convincing of all Heresies in which short Sermon he meddles not much with particular heresies but onely establishes the truth of Christs Person in both natures which is indeed enough against all Heresies and in which that is the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father God of God this Father Athanasius hath enlarged himselfe more then the rest insomuch that those heretiques which grow so fast in these our dayes The Socinians who deny the Godhead of Christ
If thou desire revenge upon thine enemies as they are Gods enemies That God would bee pleased to remove and root out all such as oppose him that Affection appertaines to Glory Let that alone till thou come to the Hemisphear of Glory There joyne with those Martyrs under the Altar Revel 6.10 Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord dost thou deferre Judgement and thou shalt have thine answere there for that Whilst thou art here here joyne with David and the other Saints of God in that holy increpation of a dangerous sadnesse Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in mee That soule that is dissected and anatomized to God Psal 42.5 in a sincere confession washed in the teares of true contrition embalmed in the blood of reconciliation the blood of Christ Jesus can assigne no reason can give no just answer to that Interrogatory Why art thou cast downe O my soule why art thou disquieted in me No man is so little as that he can be lost under these wings no man so great as that they cannot reach to him Semper ille major est August quantumcumque creverimus To what temporall to what spirituall greatnesse soever wee grow still pray wee him to shadow us under his Wings for the poore need those wings against oppression and the rich against envy The Holy Ghost who is a Dove shadowed the whole world under his wings Incubabat aquis He hovered over the waters he sate upon the waters and he hatched all that was produced and all that was produced so was good Be thou a Mother where the Holy Ghost would be a Father Conceive by him and be content that he produce joy in thy heart here First thinke that as a man must have some land or els he cannot be in wardship so a man must have some of the love of God or els he could not fall under Gods correction God would not give him his physick God would not study his cure if he cared not for him And then thinke also that if God afford thee the shadow of his wings that is Consolation respiration refreshing though not a present and plenary deliverance in thy afflictions not to thanke God is a murmuring and not to rejoyce in Gods wayes is an unthankfulnesse Howling is the noyse of hell singing the voyce of heaven Sadnesse the damp of Hell Rejoycing the serenity of Heaven And he that hath not this joy here lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joyes of heaven and hath neglected or refused that Earnest by which God uses to binde his bargaine that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of Heaven as a River flowes into the Sea This joy shall not be put out in death and a new joy kindled in me in Heaven But as my soule as soone as it is out of my body is in Heaven and does not stay for the possession of Heaven nor for the fruition of the sight of God till it be ascended through ayre and fire and Moone and Sun and Planets and Firmament to that place which we conceive to be Heaven but without the thousandth part of a minutes stop as soone as it issues is in a glorious light which is Heaven for all the way to Heaven is Heaven And as those Angels which came from Heaven hither bring Heaven with them and are in Heaven here So that soule that goes to Heaven meets Heaven here and as those Angels doe not devest Heaven by comming so these soules invest Heaven in their going As my soule shall not goe towards Heaven but goe by Heaven to Heaven to the Heaven of Heavens So the true joy of a good soule in this world is the very joy of Heaven and we goe thither not that being without joy we might have joy infused into us but that as Christ sayes Iohn 16.24.22 Our joy might be full perfected sealed with an everlastingnesse for as he promises That no man shall take our joy from us so neither shall Death it selfe take it away nor so much as interrupt it or discontinue it But as in the face of Death when he layes hold upon me and in the face of the Devill when he attempts me I shall see the face of God for every thing shall be a glasse to reflect God upon me so in the agonies of Death in the anguish of that dissolution in the sorrowes of that valediction in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration I shall have a joy which shall no more evaporate then my soule shall evaporate A joy that shall passe up and put on a more glorious garment above and be joy super-invested in glory Amen SERM. LXVII The third of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls November 5. 1626. In Vesperis PSAL. 64.10 And all the upright in heart shall glory I Have had occasion to tell you more then once before that our Predecessors in the institution of the Service of this Church have declared such a reverence and such a devotion to this particular Booke of Scripture The Psalmes as that by distributing the hundred and fifty Psalmes of which number the body of this booke consists into thirty portions of which number the body of our Church consists and assigning to every one of those thirty persons his five Psalmes to bee said by him every day every day God receives from us howsoever wee be divided from one another in place the Sacrifice of Praise in the whole Booke of Psalmes And though we may be absent from this Quire yet wheresoever dispersed we make up a Quire in this Service of saying over all the Psalmes every day This sixty fourth Psalme is the third of my five And when according to the obligation which I had laid upon my selfe to handle in this place some portion of every one of these my five Psalmes in handling of those words of the Psalme immediately before this in the seventh verse Because thou hast beene my helpe therefore in the shadow of thy Wings I will rejoyce I told you that the next world Heaven was as this world is divided into two Hemispheares and that the two Hemispheares of Heaven were Joy and Glory for in those two notions of Joy and Glory is Heaven often represented unto us as in those words which we handled then wee sailed about the first Hemispheare That of Joy In the shadow of thy Wings will I rejoyce So in these which I have read to you now our voyage lies about the Hemispheare of Glory for All the upright in heart shall Glory As we said then of Joy we say of Glory now There is an inchoative joy here though the consummative joy be reserved for Heaven so is there also such a taste such an inchoation of glory in this life And as no man shall come to the joyes of Heaven that hath no joy in this world for there is no peace of conscience without this joy so no man
him but his hinder parts Exod. 33.23 Let that be his Decrees then when in his due time they came to execution for then and not till then they are works And God would not suffer Moses his body to be seene when it was dead Deut. 34.6 because then it could not speake to them it could not instruct them it could not direct them in any duty if they transgressed from any God himselfe would not be spoken to by us but as hee speaks of himselfe and he speaks in his works And as among men some may Build and some may Write and wee call both by one name wee call his Buildings and wee call his Books his Works so if wee will speake of God this World which he hath built and these Scriptures which he hath written are his Works and we speak of God in his Works which is the commandement of this Text when we speak of him so as he hath manifested himselfe in his miracles and as hee hath declared himselfe in his Scriptures for both these are his Works There are Decrees in God but we can take out no Copies of them till God himselfe exemplifie them in the execution of them The accomplishing of the Decree is the best publishing the best notifying of the Decree But of his Works we can take Copies for his Scriptures are his Works and we have them by Translations and Illustrations made appliable to every understanding All the promises of his Scriptures belong to all And for his Miracles his Miracles are also his Works we have an assurance That whatsoever God hath done for any he will doe againe for us It is then his Works upon which we fix this Commemoration Deutipse in operibus illis considerandus and this glorifying of God but so as that wee determine not upon the Work it selfe but God in the Work Say unto God to Him how terrible art thou that God in thy Works It may bee of use to you to receive this note Then when it is said in this Psalme Come and see the Works of God and after Come and heare all yee that feare God in both places it is not Psal 66.5 Verse 16. Venite but Ite It is Lechu not Come but Goe Goe out Goe forth abroad to consider God in his Works Goe as farre as you can stop not in your selves nor stop not in any other till you come to God himselfe If you consider the Scriptures to be his Works make not Scriptures of your owne which you doe if you make them subject to your private interpretation My soule speaks in my tongue else I could make no sound My tongue speaks in English else I should not be understood by the Congregation So God speaks by his Sonne in the Gospel but then the Gospel speaks in the Church that every man may heare Ite goe forth stay not in your selves if you will heare him And so for matter of Action and Protection come not home to your selves stay not in your selves not in a considence in your owne power and wisedome but Ite goe forth goe forth into Aegypt goe forth into Babylon and look who delivered your Predecessors predecessors in Affliction predecessors in Mercy and that God who is Yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever shall doe the same things which he did yesterday to day and for ever Turne alwayes to the Commemoration of Works but not your owne Ite goe forth goe farther then that Then your selves farther then the Angels and Saints in heaven That when you commemorate your deliverance from an Invasion and your deliverance from the Vault you doe not ascribe these deliverances to those Saints upon whose dayes they were wrought In all your Commemorations and commemorations are prayers and God receives that which wee offer for a Thanksgiving for former Benefits as a prayer for future Ite goe forth by the river to the spring by the branch to the root by the worke to God himselfe and Dicite say unto him say of him Quam terribilis Tu in Tuis which sets us upon another step in this part To consider what this Terriblenesse is that God expresses in his works Though there be a difference between timer and terror Terribilis feare and terror yet the difference is not so great but that both may fall upon a good man Not onely a feare of God must but a terror of God may fall upon the Best When God talked with Abraham a horror of great darknesse fell upon him Gen. 15.12 sayes that Text. The Father of lights and the God of all comfort present and present in an action of Mercy and yet a horror of great darknesse fell upon Abraham When God talked personally and presentially with Moses Exod. 13.6 Moses hid his face for sayes that Text he was afraid to looke upon God When I look upon God as I am bid to doe in this Text in those terrible Judgements which he hath executed upon some men and see that there is nothing between mee and the same Judgement for I have sinned the same sinnes and God is the same God I am not able of my selfe to dye that glasse that spectacle thorow which I looke upon this God in what colour I will whether this glasse shall be black through my despaire and so I shall see God in the cloud of my sinnes or red in the blood of Christ Jesus and I shall see God in a Bath of the blood of his Sonne whether I shall see God as a Dove with an Olive branch peace to my soule or as an Eagle a vulture to prey and to prey everlastingly upon mee whether in the deepe floods of Tribulation spirituall or temporall I shall see God as an Arke to take mee in or as a Whale to swallow mee and if his Whale doe swallow mee the Tribulation devour me whether his purpose bee to restore mee or to consume me I I of my selfe cannot tell I cannot look upon God in what line I will nor take hold of God by what handle I will Hee is a terrible God I take him so And then I cannot discontinue I cannot breake off this terriblenesse and say Hee hath beene terrible to that man and there is an end of his terror it reaches not to me Why not to me In me there is no merit nor shadow of merit In God there is no change nor shadow of change I am the same sinner he is the same God still the same desperate sinner still the same terrible God But terrible in his works Reverendus sayes our Text Terrible so as hee hath declared himselfe to be in his works His Works are as we said before his Actions and his Scriptures In his Actions we see him Terrible upon disobedient Resisters of his Graces and Despisers of the meanes thereof not upon others wee have no examples of that In his word we accept this word in which he hath beene pleased to
never an Author So no man thought his house well furnished if he had not Indulgencies for every season if he bought not all that came to market if he had not Indulgence upon Indulgencies present and successive Indulgences possessory and reversionary Indulgences totall and supernumerary current and concurrent Indulgences to delude the justice of God withall Well to our true Purgatory which we spake of before Those crosses which God is pleased to lay upon us belong true Indulgencies The constant promises of our faithfull God that he will give us the issue with the tentation and that as the Apostle sayes No tentation shall befall us Si non humana but that which appertaines to man 1 Cor. 10.13 Now for this Humana tentatio tentation or affliction that appertaines to man it is not onely affliction that appertaines to man so as that other men doe inflict it when wicked men revile and calumniate and oppresse the godly it is not onely that Chrysost though so S. Chrysostome interprets it Nor is this affliction appertaining to man because man himselfe inflicts it upon himselfe our owne inherent corruption being become Spontaneus Daemon a Devill in our owne bosome it is not onely that though so S. Hierom interpret it Hieron nor is this affliction appertaining to man so called Humana as humanum is opposed Daemoniaco That all torments falling upon the Devill worke in him more and more obduration but the corrections inflicted by God upon man worke a reconciliation it is not onely this though so S. Gregory interpret it But this affliction appertaines so to a Christian man Gregory as the soule it selfe and as reason appertaines to a naturall man He is not a man that is without a reasonable soule he is not a Christian that is without correction It appertaines unto man so as that it is convenient more that it is expedient more then that that it is necessary and more then all that that it is essentiall to a Christian As when the spirit returnes to him that gave it there is a dissolution of the man So when God withdrawes his visitation there is a dissolution of a Christian for so God expresses the spirituall Death and the height of his anger in the Prophet I will make my wrath towards thee to rest Ezek. 15.42 and my jealousie shall depart from thee That is I will looke no more after thee I will study thy recovery and thine amendment no farther Have ye forgot the Consolation sayes the Apostle what is that Consolation Heb. 12.5 6. Is it that you shall have no affliction No This is the Consolation That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth It is generall to all sons for If ye be without correction whereof all are partakers then are ye bastards and not sons Ver. 8. And then to shew us how this Purgatory and these Indulgencies accompany on another how Gods crosses and his deliverances doe ever concurre together wee see the Holy Ghost hath so ordered and disposed these two Mercy and Correction in this one verse Ver. 6. as that we cannot say which is first the Correction or the Mercy the Purgatory or the Indulgence For first the Indulgence is before the Purgatory The Mercy before the Correction in one place Whom he loveth he chasteneth first God loves and then he chastneth and then after The Purgatory is before the Indulgence the Correction is before Mercy He scourgeth every son whom he receiveth first he scourges him and then he receives him They are so disposed as that both are made first and both last wee cannot tell whether precede or succeed they are alwayes both together they are alwaies all one As long as his love lasts he corrects us and as long as he corrects us he loves us And so we have a justifiable prayer for the Dead that is for our soules dead in their sins Cor novum O Lord create a new heart in me And wee have a justifiable Purgatory Purgabit aream Luke 4.17 Esay 26.15 If we be Gods floore he hath his fanne in his hand and he will make us cleane And we have justifiable Indulgences Indulsisti genti Domine indulsisti genti Thou hast been indulgent to thy people O Lord thou hast been indulgent to us Wee cannot complaine Ier. 4.10 as they begin rather to murmur then to complaine Ah Lord God surely thou hast deceived thy people saying you shall have peace and the sword pierceth to the heart For when this sword of Gods corrections shall pierce to the heart that very sword shall be but as a Probe to search the wound nay that very wound shall be but as an issue to draine and preserve the whole body in health for his mercies are so above all his works as that the very works of his Justice are mercy And so not the Prayer for the Dead not the Purgatory not the Indulgences of the Roman Church but we who have them truely doe truely receive a benefit from this Text which Text is a proofe of the Resurrection Because wee feele a Resurrection by grace now because we beleeve a Resurrection to glory hereafter therefore we can give an account of this Baptisme for the dead in our Text The particular sense of which words will be the Exercise of another day This day wee end both with our humble thanks for all Indulgences which God hath given us in our Purgatories for former deliverances in former crosses and with humble prayer also that hee ever afford us such a proportion of his medicinall corrections as may ever testifie his presence and providence upon us in the way and bring us in the end to the Kingdome of his Son Christ Jesus Amen SERM. LXXVIII Preached at S. PAULS June 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead WEE are now come at last Divisio to that which was first in our intention How these words have beene detorted and misapplied by our Adversaries of the Roman Church for the establishing of those heresies which we have formerly opposed And then the divers wayes which sounder and more Orthodoxall Divines have held in the Exposition thereof that so from the first Part wee may learne what to avoid and shun and from the second what to embrace and follow Of all the places of Scripture which Bellarmine brings for the maintenance of Purgatory excepting onely that one place of the Maccabees And of that place we must say as it was said of that jealous husband which set a watch and spie upon his Wife Quis custodit custodes Who shall watch them that watch her So when they prove matters of faith out of the Maccabees we say Quis probat probantem who shall prove that booke to be Scripture by which they prove that doctrine to be true But
joy we shall see when we see him who is so in it as that he is this joy it selfe But here in this world so far as I can enter into my Masters sight I can enter into my Masters joy I can see God in his Creatures in his Church in his Word and Sacraments and Ordinances Since I am not without this sight I am not without this joy Here a man may Transilire mortalitatem Seneca sayes that Divine Morall man I cannot put off mortality but I can looke upon immortality I cannot depart from this earth but I can looke into Heaven So I cannot possesse that finall and accomplished joy here but as my body can lay downe a burden or a heavy garment and joy in that ease so my soule can put off my body so far as that the concupiscencies thereof and the manifold and miserable enâ— cumbrances of this world cannot extinguish this holy joy And this inchoative joy David derives into two branches To rejoyce and to be glad The Holy Ghost is an eloquent Author Exultatio a vehement and an abundant Author but yet not luxuriant he is far from a penurious but as far from a superfluous style too And therefore we doe not take these two words in the Text To rejoyce and to be glad to signifie meerely one and the same thing but to be two beames two branches two effects two expressings of this joy We take them therefore as they offer themselves in their roots and first naturall propriety of the words The first which we translate To rejoyce is Ranan and Ranan denotes the externall declaration of internall joy for the word signifies Cantare To sing and that with an extended and loud voyce for it is the word which is oftnest used for the musique of the Church and the singing of Psalmes which was such a declaration of their zealous alacrity in the primitive Church as that when to avoyd discovery in the times of persecution they were forced to make their meetings in the night they were also forced to put out their Candles because by that light in the windowes they were discovered After that this meeting in the darke occasioned a scandall and ill report upon those Christians that their meetings were not upon so holy purposes as they pretended they discontinued their vigils and night-meetings yet their singing of Psalmes when they did meet they never discontinued though that many times exposed them to dangers and to death it selfe as some of the Authors of the secular story of the Romans have observed and testified unto us And some ancient Decrees and Constitutions we have in which such are forbidden to be made Priests as were not perfect in the Psalmes And though S. Hierome tell us this with some admiration and note of singularity That Paula could say the whole book of Psalmes without booke in Hebrew yet he presents it as a thing well known to be their ordinary practise In villula Christi Bethlem extrapsalmos silentium est In the village where I dwell sayes he where Christ was borne in Bethlem if you cannot sing Psalmes you must be silent here you shall heare nothing but Psalmes for as he pursues it Arator stivam tenens The husbandman that follows the plough he that sowes that reapes that carries home all begin and proceed in all their labours with singing of Psalmes Therefore he calls them there Cantiones amatorias Those that make or entertaine love that seeke in the holy and honorable way of marriage to make themselves acceptable and agreeable to one another by no other good parts nor conversation but by singing of Psalmes So he calls them Pastorum sibilum and Arma culturae Our shepheards sayes S. Hierome here have no other Eclogues no other Pastoralls Our labourers our children our servants no other songs nor Ballads to recreate themselves withall then the Psalmes And this universall use of the Psalmes that they served all for all gives occasion to one Author in the title of the Booke of Psalmes to depart from the ordinary reading which is Sepher Tehillim The booke of Praise and to reade it Sepher Telim which is Acervorum The booke of Heapes where all assistances to our salvation are heaped and treasured up And our Countryman Bede found another Title in some Copies of this booke Liber Soliloquiorum de Christo The Booke of Meditations upon Christ Because this booke is as Gregory Nyssen calls it Clavis David that key of David which lets us in to all the mysteries of our Religion which gave the ground to that which S. Basil sayes that if all the other Books of Scripture could be lost he would aske no more then the Booke of Psalmes to catechize children to edifie Congregations to convert Gentils and to convince Heretiques But we are launched into too large a Sea the consideration of this Booke of Psalmes I meane but this in this That if we take that way with God The way of prayer prayer so elemented and constituted as we have said that consists rather of praise and thankesgiving then supplication for future benefits God shall infuse into us a zeale of expressing our consolation in him by outward actions to the establishing of others we shall not disavow nor grow slacke in our Religion nor in any parts thereof God shall neither take from us The Candle and the Candlestick The truth of the Gospel which is the light And the cheerfull and authorized and countenanced and rewarded Preaching of the Gospel which is the Candlestick that exalts the light nor take from us our zeale to this outward service of God that we come to an indifferency whether the service of God be private or publique sordid or glorious allowed and suffered by way of connivency or commanded and enjoyned by way of authority God shall give us this Ranan this rejoycing this extern all joy we shall have the publique preaching of the Gospel continued to us and we shall shew that we rejoyce in it by frequenting it and by instituting our lives according unto it But yet this Ranan this Rejoycing this outward expressing of our inward zeale Delectabimur may admit interruptions receive interceptions intermissions and discontinuances for without doubt in many places there live many persons well affected to the truth of Religion that dare not avow it expresse it declare it especially where that fearfull Vulture the Inquisition hovers over them And therefore the Holy Ghost hath added here another degree of joy which no law no severe execution of law can take from us in another word of lesse extent Shamach which is an inward joy onely in the heart which we translate here to be Glad How far we are bound to proceed in outward declarations of Religion requires a serious and various consideration of Circumstances Dan. 6.10 You know how far Daniel proceeded The Lords had extorted a Proclamation from the King That no man should pray to any other God then the King for
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoâ—t the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D
in our warres but his peace and that after this fast which in the bodily and ghostly part too we performe to day and vow and promise for our whole lives he will bring us to the Marriage Supper of the Lambe in that Kingdome which our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERM. LV. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.8 9 10. Depart from me all ye workers of iniquitie for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly THis is Davids profligation and discomfiture of his enemies this is an act of true honour a true victory a true triumph to keepe the field to make good one station and yet put the enemy to flight A man may perchance be safe in a Retrait but the honour the victory the triumph lies in enforcing the enemy to fly To that is David come here to such a thankfull sense of a victory in which we shall first confider Davids thankfulnesse that is his manner of declaring Gods mercy and his security in that mercy which manner is that he durst come to an open defiance and protestation and hostility without modifications or disguises Depart from me all yee workers of iniquity And then secondly we shall see his reason upon which he grounded this confidence and this spirituall exultation which was a pregnant reason a reason that produced another reason The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will heare my prayer upon no premises doth any conclusion follow so Logically so sincerely so powerfully so imperiously so undeniably as upon this The Lord hath and therefore the Lord will But then what was this prayer that wee may know whether it were a prayer to be drawne into practise and imitation or no. It is not argument enough that it was so because God heard it then for we are not bound nay we are not allowed to pray all such prayers as good men have prayed and as God hath heard But here the prayer was this Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly But this is a malediction an imprecation of mischiefe upon others and will good men pray so or will God heare that Because that is an holy probleme and an usefull intergatory we shall make it a third part or a conclusion rather to enquire into the nature and into the avowablenesse and exemplarinesse of this in which David seemes to have been transported with some passion So that our parts will be three the building it selfe Davids thankesgiving in his exultation Divisie and declaration Depart from mee all yee workers of iniquitie and then the foundation of this building For God hath heard and therefore God will heare and lastly the prospect of this building David contemplates and lookes over againe the prayer that he had made and in a cleare understanding and in a rectified Conscience he finds that he may persist in that prayer and he doth so Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly First then we consider Davids thankfulnesse But why is it so long before David leads us to that consideration Why hath he deferred so primary a duty to so late a place 1. Part. to so low a roome to the end of the Psalme The Psalme hath a Deprecatory part that God would forbeare him and a Postulatory part that God would heare him and grant some things to him and a Gratulatory part a sacrifice of thankesgiving Now the Deprecatory part is placed in the first place Vers 1. For if it were not so if we should not first ground that That God should not rebuke us in his anger nor chasten us in his hot displeasure but leave our selves open to his indignation and his judgements wee could not live to come to a second petition our sinnes and judgements due to our sinnes require our first consideration therefore David begins with the deprecatory prayer That first Gods anger may be removed but then that deprecatory prayer wherein he desired God to forbeare him spends but one verse of the Psalme David would not insist upon that long When I have penitently confest my sinnes I may say with Iob My flesh is not brasse nor my bones stones that I can beare the wrath of the Lord but yet I must say with Iob too If the Lord kill me yet will I trust in him God hath not asked me What shall I doe for thee but of himselfe he hath done more then I could have proposed to my selfe in a wish or to him in a prayer Nor will I aske God Quousque how long shall my foes increase how long wilt thou fight on their side against me but surrender my selfe entirely in an adveniat regnum and a fiat voluntas thy kingdome come and thy will be done David makes it his first worke to stay Gods anger in a deprecatory prayer but he stayes not upon that long he will not prescribe his Physitian what he shall prescribe to him but leaves God to his own medicines and to his own methode But then the Postulatory prayer what he begs of God employes six verses as well to shew us that our necessities are many as also that if God doe not answer us at the beginning of our prayer our duty is still to pursue that way to continue in prayer And then the third part of the Psalme which is the Gratulatory part his giving of thanks is shall we say deferred or rather reserved to the end of the Psalme and exercises onely those three verses which are our Text. Not that the duty of thankesgiving is lesse then that of prayer for if we could compare them it is rather greater because it contributes more to Gods glory to acknowledge by thanks that God hath given then to acknowledge by prayer that God can give But therefore might David be later and shorter here in expressing that duty of thanks first because being reserved to the end and close of the Psalme it leaves the best impression in the memory And therefore it is easie to observe that in all Metricall compositions of which kinde the booke of Psalmes is the force of the whole piece is for the most part left to the shutting up the whole frame of the Poem is a beating out of a piece of gold but the last clause is as the impression of the stamp and that is it that makes it currant And then also because out of his abundant manner of expressing his thankfulnesse to God in every other place thereof his whole booke of Psalmes is called Sepher tehillim a booke of praise and thankesgiving he might reserve his thanks here to the last place And lastly because naturall and morall men are better acquainted with the duty of gratitude of thankesgiving
before they come to the Scriptures then they are with the other duty of repentance which belongs to Prayer for in all Solomons bookes you shall not finde halfe so much of the duty of thankfulnesse as you shall in Seneca and in Plutarch No book of Ethicks of morall doctrine is come to us wherein there is not almost in every leafe some detestation some Anathema against ingratitude but of repentance not a word amongst them all And therefore in that dutie of prayer which presumes repentance for he must stand Rectus in curia that will pray David hath insisted longest and because he would enter and establish a man upon a confidence in God he begins with a deprecation of his anger for but upon that ground no man can stand and because he would dismisse him with that which concerns him most he chooseth to end in a Thanksgiving Therefore at last he comes to his thanks Gratiae actae Now this is so poore a duty if we proportion it to the infinitenesse of Gods love unto us our thanks as we may justly call it nothing at all Bernar. But Amor Dei affectus non contractus The love of God is not a contract a bargaine he looks for nothing againe and yet he looks for thanks for that is nothing because there is nothing done in it August it is but speaking Gratias dicere est gratias agere To utter our thanks to God is all our performance of thankfulnesse It is not so amongst us Philo Iudae Vix aut nunquam apud nos purum merum beneficium Every man that gives gives out of designe Martial and as it conduces to his ends Donat in hamo There is a hook in every benefit that sticks in his jawes that takes that benefit and drawes him whither the Benefactor will God looks for nothing nothing to be done in the way of exact recompence but yet as he that makes a Clock bestowes all that labour upon the severall wheeles that thereby the Bell might give a sound and that thereby the hand might give knowledge to others how the time passes so this is the principall part of that thankfulnesse which God requires from us that we make open declarations of his mercies to the winning and confirming of others This David does in this noble and ingenuous publication Discedite and protestation I have strength enough and company enough power enough and pleasure enough joy enough and treasure enough honour enough and recompence enough in my God alone in him I shall surely have all which all you can pretend to give and therefore Discedite à me Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity Here is then first a valediction a parting with his old company but it is a valediction with a malediction with an imprecation of Gods Justice upon their contempts and injuries There was in the mouth of Christ sometimes such a Discede such an Abito as that farewell was a welcome as when he said to the Ruler John 4.46 Luke 7.50 Abito Goe thy way thy son liveth And when he said to the woman Goe in peace thy saith hath saved thee This going was a staying with him still Here the Abite and Venite was all one He that goes about his worldly businesse and goes about them in Gods name in the feare and favour of God remaines in Gods presence still When the Angels of God are sent to visit his children in the middest of Sodome or where they lie and languish in sordid and nasty corners and in the loathsomenesse of corrupt and infectious diseases or where they faint in miserable dungeons this Commission this Discedite goe to that Sodome to that Spittle to that Dungeon puts not those Angels out of the presence of God No descent into hell of what kinde soever you conceive that descent into hell to have been put the Son of God out of heaven by descending into hell no Discede no Leave no Commandement that God gives us to doe the works of our calling here excludes us from him but as the Saints of God shall follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes in heaven so the Lamb of God shall follow his Saints wheresoever they goe upon earth if they walk sincerely Christ uses not then as yet as long as we are in this world this Discede of David to bid any man any sinner to depart from him But there shall come a time when Christ shall take Davids Discede the words of this Text into his mouth with as much and more bitternesse then David does here Nescivi nos I never knew yee and therefore Depart from me yee workers of iniquity So have you his Protestation Servi sui his Proclamation They must avoid but who Who be these that David dismisses here Take them to be those of his owne house his Servants and Officers in neare places whose service he had used to ill purposes as Davids Person and Rank and History directs us upon that Consideration and we shall finde all such persons wrapt up in this danger that they dare not discharge themselves they dare not displace nor disgrace those men to whom by such imployments they have given that advantage over themselves as that it is not safe to them to offend such a servant Naturâ nec hostem habet nec amicum rex sayes a wise Statesman In nature that is Polybius in the nature of greatnesse and as great great persons consider no man to be so much a friend nor to be so much an enemy but that they will fall out with that friend and be reconciled to that enemy to serve their own turne sayes that Statesman But yet when great Persons trust servants with such secret actions as may bring them into contempt at home or danger abroad by those vices if they should be published they cannot come when they would to this Discedite Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity We have this evidently and unavoidably we cannot but see it and say it in this example which is before us even in King David He had imployed Ioab in such services as that he stood in feare of him and indured at his hands that behaviour and that language Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants that have saved thy life 2 Sam. 19. and thy sons and daughters and wives and concubines thou regardest neither thy Princes nor servants but come out and speak comfortably unto them for I sweare by the Lord except thou doe come out there will not tarry one man with thee this night David indured all this for he knew that Ioab had that letter in his Cabbinet which he writ to him for the murther of Vriah and he never came to this Discedite to remove Ioab from him in his life but gave it in Commandement to his Son 1 Kings 2. Let not Ioabs hoary head goe downe to the grave in peace Here is the misery of David