grace of Christ shall be of Energy and Efficacy sufficient to save us St. Augustins Caution in the mean time for the Law of Nature cannot but seem very Poinante Adolet non abolet Naturam Gratia this Law from Sion this Law of Faith doth not disanul but Corroborate and confirm and actuate Natures Law And for the Law from Sinai however Christ by being made a Curse for us hath taken away the Curse thereof Gal. 3.13 yet as that was our School-Master to bring us unto him Gal. 3.24 so is he our Exemplary Guide to lead us to the fulfilling thereof I came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law Mat. 5.17 And this may you see to be the Apostles clear Determination after his most Solicitous Debate of the Point Rom. 3.31 Do we then make void the Law of God through Faith God forbid rather we establish the Law The drift of this Law is far from broaching or countenancing any Doctrin of such a Liberty of conscience as with the Saints of the new Calendar is no better then Licentiousness that Sanctification and Obedience is no less the scope of this then either of the former Lawes And therefore St. Peters Caveat in the 2. of his 1. Epistle to his scattered strangers you may see to be that they use not their Liberty for a Cloak of Malitiousness or wickedness for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Original equally importeth both but that by well-doing they put to silence the Ignorance of Foolish Men And St. Iames his peremptory conclusion it is in the 1. of his Epistle and 25. whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty this Law of Faith is a Law of Liberty indeed but such an one as is far from taking off the Yoak of Obedience from our Necks and therefore immediately may you see to follow and continueth therein being not a forgetful Hearer but a Doer of the work that Man only shall be Blessed in his Deed Indeed it cannot be denied but that Christ beareth a great part of this Yoak for us that which may justly cause him to minde us that that part of the Yoak he hath left for us to bear Is easie Mat. 11.30 Howbeit {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} there are as the Apostle seasonably Itemeth his Colossians in the first of that Epistle 24. as after-sufferings so After-doings of his likewise to go thorough with in the weak Endeavours and Evidences of which poor Patience and Performance shall we at last notwithstanding all this our Book-learning prove defective or faulty so that if either our chearfulness in suffering after his example or promptness in Acting according to his commands shall not prove such as shall become this our Prime Book his glorious Gospel too just reason shall we at last finde for our Concluding and complaining as the Preacher Eccles. 12.12 There is no end of making and setting before us many Books and with Nero when he was sometimes to Signe a sentence of Death the mildest Speech that ever fell from so Bloody a Monster in extream Anguish of Spirit wish utinam nescirem Literas O! that I had never known Letter in a Book I can but turn over the Books in haste The second that shall be opened is Gods Day-book which yet hath two Tomes that serve to the making it up whereof the one is that of our own Conscience the other of Gods Remembrance For the first of these Annals and Diaries I finde thus distinguished by Tacitus that the former is a Register of the greater the latter of the less matters of State In this Diary or day-Day-book you shall be sure to meet with a Rhapsody of all sorts of matters both greater and less together not the works of your Hands only and the words of your Mouths but even of the most secret and recluse thoughts of your Hearts No sooner is there any Evil acted or Spoken or but conceived by us but that Inimici viri Domestici ejus our conscience which is our House-hold Enemy is ready accordingly as Iob sometimes wished in the 31. of his Book and 35. to write a Book So that for whatever sin of ours whether Manual or Vocal or but Mental our Conscience will still be present to put in Execution what the Lord sometimes gave in charge to his Prophet Esay 30.8 to note it in a Book And however a Malefactor here may have just reason to interpret his being put to his Book for a special Act of Mercy whence the old word amongst us of a mans being saved by his Book this Book-trial of all we shall in conclusion finde to be the most Severe for that this Great Judge himself shall at the time of our Arraignment without any just censure of Entrenchment or Usurpation assume the Ordinaries Place and will then without the least Extention of any favour to be looked for clearly and candidly publish and proclaim in the Audience of the whole Earth whatsoever he shall finde written In Libro Aperto in this Book when it commeth to be opened The first way of writing I ever read of was in Stone and the first Writer God himself who writeth the Law in two Stony Tables with his own Hand Exod 30.18 Conscience is not Ignorant of this way of writing but after the example of God himself whose vicegerent she is writeth as is Iudahs sin written Ier. 17.1 with a Pen of Iron with the Point of a Diamond the Characters of our several misdeeds in the Stony Tables of our Hearts Whose Thoughts therefore as the Apostle Rom. 2.5 shall at the last Day either Accuse or Excuse us After this another way of writing in Barks of Trees was found out whence our Books amongst the Latins still retain their Names Libri Barks or Books Nor is Conscience unacquainted with this way of writing neither A Book a Register-Book she keepeth of all our Enormities and Impieties whereof every Page shall appear filled with the sad Items of our Blasphemies our Perjuries our Debaucheries our Dalliances our Oppressions our Extortions our Murthers So that every one of us by way of an heavy Position shall have too just reason to bespeak our Consciences for all these as doth David the Lord by way of an anxious question for his Members Psal. 139.15 In thy Book are all these things written The Egyptians after this found out another way of writing by Hieroglyphicks strange and uncouth Characters and these impressed in Paper then made of Reeds as now amongst us of Rags And the Destruction of these Reeds the Prophet Isaiah seemeth to bewail as a dreadful part of Gods doom upon Egypt in the 19. of his Prophesie and 7. The Paper-reeds saith he by the Brooks shall wither and be no more And at this time of the standing up of the Dead Small and Great before this Righteous Judge of the whole Earth as we shall see the sign of the Son of Man Mat. 24.30 which even by the
Confession of the most Reformed Divines shall be the Sign of the Cross which shall then as a Glorious standard before a victorious General in a Triumphant manner be carried before him so shall we likewise in this Book of Conscience see many other signs Hieroglyphicks too And then where shall the bribing Gehaze hide his Head when he shall see the Hieroglyphick of two Talents of Silver of which he hath cheated some Credulous Naaman where the Extorting Ahab at the sight of the Hieroglyphick of a Vineyard Where the Blood-thirsty Herod and Assassine Pilate at the sight of the Hieroglyphicks of Thousands of Innocents they have most unjustly Imprisoned Condemned and Butchered Where the wanton at the now sad sight of his lustful Mistresses with whom he hath formerly taken his fill of lawless Love Where the Riotous at the sight of the full-crowned Cups wherewith he hath every day been intoxicating his Frantick Brains no less dreadfully then undeniably indenting their several Guilts Nor yet hath Humane Invention stayed here but hath devised a latter way of writing with the Juice of Limons whose Characters are in no wise to be read until you bring them to the Fire but then may they easily and distinctly be read by every Eye The Conscience writeth no way more like then this Here the Letters wherein she sets down our Lapses are ofttimes so mysterious and obscure that they are no way obvious to any Mans scarce to our own Eyes Nay as we say that there is none so blinde as he that will not see who seeth not how prone we are deliberately to hood-winck our selves for the shutting of our sins clean out of the reach of our eye-sight Lest as the People in the Prophet Esay 6.10 seeing with our Eyes and hearing with our Ears and understanding with our Hearts we might be converted and God should heal us But when these shall come to be brought to that Fire of Judgement which shall Burn up the whole World with the works thereof then shall they appear in such just and full Dimensions that the clear sight of them shall strike us with Horrour and Astonishment Conscience then that as her Master will search Ierusalem with Lights Zephan 1.12 shall by the Light of this Fire search into the most secret and recluse corners of our Hearts and expose our most secret sins not to our own private only but to the whole worlds publick view and will then round every one of us in the ear for every particular sin of ours as did Nathan sometimes David for his Adultery 1 Sam. 12.12 Thou didst it secretly but I will do it openly and before the Sun And yet is not Humane Invention in this Case come to its Hercules Pillars a way of writing by Characters and Ciphers is of late grown very ordinary and familiar with us And let it be our subtlest Study to write our sins in never so abstruse and dark an Impress of this nature yet will Conscience be sure to make her self Mistress of the Key and so unciphering whatsoever we have written will be publishing the Contents to the whole world And then though as an Atome in the Ayre is not to be seen as long as the Sun withdraweth himself but Myriads innumerable as soon as he openeth our sins that all our life long perhaps having wilfully resolved to walk in Darkness and the Shadow of Death have no more appeared unto us then Atomes in a Cloudy Day will then too palpably discover themselves at the appearance of this Sun of Righteousness and at our Common standing up both Small and Great before this Iudgement Seat But be it that Conscience may be so wrought upon as to embesil or Cancel whatever Handwriting in this Tome of hers she may have against us yet is there in this Book another Tome of Gods Remembrance wherein whatever Evidence may be recorded we may in no wise hope that it shall be so slubbered or suppressed but that it will too surely be produced Our Apostles passage to this purpose is very Pregnant and Pithy in the 3. of his 1. Epistle If our Hearts condem us not then have we Confidence towards God but God however is greater then our Conscience and seeth all things It is a received Maxime amongst us of Aged men that there is no Faculty in them decayeth so soon as their Memory It is otherwise with the Antient of Days for so finde we this Judge Dan. 9.7 expresly stiled his Memory no more then his Days Psal. 102.27 are at any time failing him He hath his Book of undecaying Remembrance as for those that fear his Name Mal. 3.16 so for those that transgress any of his Laws out of which as the good Householder out of his Treasury Mat. 13.54 he will still be readily drawing out an heavy charge both of our Old and New sins against us Nay whereas Memoria est Praeteritorum our Memory hath nothing naturally for its object but things past whatever we have Acted or are Acting at any time throughout the whole course of our Lives is still present to his Remembrance I Remember all their wickedness is the Lords own word of his People now their own doings have beset them they are before my Face And now when these two Tomes of our own Conscience and Gods Remembrance shall make up a day-Day-book like that in the Prophet Zach. 5.2 a Flying Book whose wings shall carry it from one End of the Heaven to the other that every Man may run and read the Contents thereof a Great Book and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as it is in the Proverb a Great Evil in being so Great a Book of twenty Cubits long and ten Broad whereof every Page shall be filled up with the black Catalogue of our deep Carowsings our wanton Dalliances our horrid Oppressions our Sacrilegious Transactions our damned Dissimulations how shall it appear unto us like that Roul of Ezechiels Book in the 2. of his Prophesie and 10. written within and without with Lamentation and Mourning and woe If some upon but a Private perusal of their yet perhaps secret sins which their Consciences in their Solitary Retiredness have called to their Remembrance have most desperately made their own Hands their own Executioners then how insupportably think we shall the Burthen of our Anguish lie upon us when God out of the Book of his Remembrance shall be publishing a particular List of all our Errours and Enormities in the Audience of the whole World And shall therefore be upon the point of his just Tasting us as Babylon in the 16. of this Book and 19. with the Cup of the Wine of the fierceness of his wrath This Book my Beloved is not yet Opened And then as we hope to escape the fierceness of this wrath at this Day when both Small and Great of us shall stand before this Iudgement-Seat Prevention we say is the Heart of Policy if we Judge our selves the Apostle warranteth us that we
shall not be Judged 1 Cor. 11.31 no such way shall we finde for the Prevention of that heavy vengeance which in that Day will otherwise too surely overtake us as to take a Private and Early Revenge upon our selves making us our own Accusers Judges Executioners Putting in Execution the severe Sentence of unfained Repentance and Mortification for all our sins that so these sins of ours may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come from his gracious Presence And for whatever time in this valley of Tears we may have remaining our wisdome shall be to improve our utmost care and Study for the writing of whatsoever we shall Enrol in this Book with the fair hand of Integrity and Innocency No soul for the present can conceive the comfort that our Hearts in that Day shall be sensible of if at the Bar of this Judicatory we shall be able fearlesly to justifie our Handwriting as upon the Bench did Pilate sometimes his Quod Scripsi Scripsi what I have written I have writen And yet have we not thoroughly Surveyed this Judges Library There is yet his Book of Records remaining of which we shall only take a Cursory view and so Claudite jam Rivos shut up for the present And another Book was opened which was the Book of life What the Preacher sometimes of Making Eccles. 12.12 no less just reason shall we have to say of Reading There is no end of Reading many Books Multitudo Librorum destruit Animum saith the Oratour A Multitude of Books doth rather puzle and perplex then furnish and inrich the understanding and Memory Nay it fareth with the Readers of Books as with some Travailers of Countries which they only Cursorily run through a superficial account may they give of their Names and Sites but unless they Stay and Sojourn in them for some time little use or Fruit will there appear of all their Travails Nay of the reading of any Books but those we have here now before us and God knoweth how soon we shall see opened whether History or Philosophy or Philology much more of Romances of Pasquils of Play-books or whatever other Pamphlets what St. Augustin sometimes of works that are not grounded upon Faith in Christ that it is Cursus celerrimus preter viam a pretty kinde of Course for the passing away of time but still besides the way Nay the most Studious and Solicitous reading of all such as these unless as our Divine Apostle sometimes it be for the unbending the Bows of our Minds and loosing their strings for a time that may the more vigorously and chearfully return to them we shall in Conclusion finde to be but as that Bread of deceit in the wiseman Pro. 20.17 such as shall fill the Mouth yea the Stomack with nothing but Gravel and so shall leave a Man in an imminently perishing Condition So that then when we have proved our selves Helluones Librorum such exquisite Cormoants of all these kinds of Books as to appear to have sucked out and swallowed down all their Marrow and Quintessence yea so as to be able to make our Discourses Centoes of them perhaps yet at last when we have thoroughly examined our selves too just cause may we finde for the bemoaning and bewailing us as doth the Prophet himself in another Case Isaiah 49.4 I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength for nought Yea when all these shall appear to be no other but as small Straws and Sticks and Sand gathered up by a whirle-winde making a strange shew and Noise for a time but immediately vanishing into nothing of those other shall we have only reason to say in comparison of these what David sometimes of Goliahs Sword 1 Sam. 21.9 There is none like unto them for that these only we shall finde to prove unto us as Eliahs fiery Chariot 1 Kings 2.11 the only present means to convey us to Heaven and therefore only of true use indeed for the making up of a Christian Library Two of these Gods statute-Statute-book and his Day-book his Statute-book made of three Tomes in the first whereof is the Law of Nature in the second the Law from Sinai in the third the Law from Sion his Day-book of two whereof the one is that of our own Conscience the other of Gods Remembrance we have already taken a Summary view of the third his Book of Records we are now as far as will consist with the dull Edge of our Mortal Eysight at least with the practise of our Christian Modesty to look into And then another Book was opened which was the Book of life And this Book as Zanchy. L. 5. c. 2. Q. 3. de Nat. Dei hath will observed is of a twofold nature The one is that wherein the Church registreth those for the Sons of God that by an outward Profession of their Faith whether in their own Persons or their Delegate God-fathers and God-mothers are received into her bosome notwithstanding that many of them afterwards appear upon Trial to be Impostours and Hypocrites And of this Book is it that St. Augustin interprets those passages of Holy Writ that seem to import an Apostaticall falling away of some after Grace received It is impossible saith the Author to the Hebrews for those that were once Inlightned and have tasted of the Heavenly gifts and been made partakers of the Holy Ghost if they shall fall away to renew them again to Repentance Heb. 6.6 upon which words the same Father hath well observed that there are more then a good many Temporizers that assume unto themselves the Shapes of true Believers that seem to have received the Grace of the Holy Ghost but have nothing less then so And from this Grace it is not possible only but ordinary to fall away Which Grace yet in the mean time is no more true Grace then a Falling-Star is a true Star of the Firmament They went out from us saith our Apostle because they were never of us in the 1. of this Epistle cap. 2. v. 19. Let them be wiped out of the Book of the living is the Kingly Prophets dreadful Execration against the Blood-thirsty Enemies of his son and Saviour Psal. 69.29 and not be written amongst the Righteous i. e. saith the above praised Father since they are Formal Hypocrites Personating true Professours unmask O Lord their Hypocrisie and make them appear in their genuine Shapes that so whatever counterfeit Shews and Semblances they have hitherto made as their Names were never written in the Calendar of Saints in the Church-Triumphant rase them out likewise of the List of the Church-Militant Saints The other Book of life is that certain and immutable Foreknowledge of God whereby from all Eternity he hath and beyond all Tract of time will acknowledge those for his whom he hath Predestinated to the Adoption of Sons and ordained to be Heirs of Everlasting Life The one of these is as a Cornfield overspread with Tares as well as Wheat The other
as the time of Harvest to make a separation between them The one of them is as a Mass of Gold and Dross blended together the other as a Fire to distinguish and divide them asunder The Letter of the former may scarce be of a visible impression the Character of the latter is indeleble Be our names never so fairly written in the former they may yet afterwards be obliterated but once Recorded in the latter they can never possibly be Blotted out I cannot stand here at large to exagitate the Malepert Humours as of those Chymick Spirits that will needs be preproperously drawing the Elixir and Quintessence of a Church out of a Church whereinto none shall be received but Saints of their own Canonization Qui vult ante egressos Angelos c. saith St. Greg. They that will be separating the Reprobate from amongst the Righteous before it shall please the Lord to send forth his Angels to that purpose he neither understandeth the Scriptures nor his own Bounds or Limits so neither of those Finde or rather Make-faults that will needs be Quarrelling with the Paper of this Book as if it were not able to bear Ink certainly not to preserve the Letters of those Names fair that are therein Registred Exegi Monumentum AEre perennius No Monument of Brass so Retentive as the Paper no Characters therein engraven so Lasting as the Letters of this Book Which therefore that they be not Blurred or Sullyed by any bold or prophane Hand that may prematurely offer at the opening of this Book are to be kept close and Shut up until the Day of our Common standing up both Small and Great before God And yet this Book which this Great Judge hath designed not to be locked up within his Archives only but there laid up and that clasped yea Sealed yea and that with no less then seven Seals in the 5. of this Book and 1. for the Concealment of the Contents from the discovery of the most Curious piercing and Searching Eye there want not yet uncommissioned Inquisitors that will not only be breaking open but will be therein Impudently Enrolling and Cancelling what Names they please In the 12. of Daniel where the Prophet heareth of a Time and Times and half a Time for which the wonders foretold him shall â—ast he presently groweth Inquisitive O my Lord saith he what shall be the end of these things But the Answer he receiveth is no less Sharp then Short Go thy way Daniel for the words are closed and Sealed up until the time of the End When we hear of a Book wherein this Great Judge of Heaven and Earth hath Registred the Names of his chosen ones we presently with the Prophet have an Itch in our Fingers for the searching of the Records Yea and not only so but a restless pain in our Tongues They stretch forth their Mouth unto the Heavens saith the Kingly Prophet and their Tongue walketh through the Earth Psal. 73.9 until we have published and proclaimed yea not seldom fained and fabled the Contents We Saints of the last Edition and our own Canonization have our Names only written in this Book and have therefore exclusively Title not for the future only to Heaven but to Earth for the present Whereas all the men of the World besides are left out as Reprobates and so divested of all manner of Interest whether in Temporal or Eternal Inheritance Which distinction yet either for Number or Names of Persons much more may in no wise be expected shall come to any Mans Cognizance until the Dead Small and Great Arising to stand up before God this Book with the others come to be Opened Certainly this Book is yet so fast shut up and Sealed until the last Day that whoever he be that shall arrogate to himself a Faculty of the Knowledge of the Contents and in the mean time much more assume a Power of publishing the Names therein recorded of such an one and that with modesty shall I have reason to say that he speaketh without Book And now then how well will it become us in this Case {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to bewise unto Sobriety Mollia sunt Parvis Prata terenda Rotis to be wary how we adventure upon the Plowing up of Deep Lands with slight and slender Carriages Certainly it will be wisdome as Charity enough in every one of us to look to one There is none so lawful none so useful a Scrutiny as leaving others to Stand or Fall to their own Master to make a diligent enquiry every one of us for our Particular Names whether they be Enrolled in this Book or no And in this Scrutiny this Enquiry in no wise can we better satisfie our selves then I say not by breaking open the Seals of this Book but by looking into the other books whereof each we are to look upon but as an Index to this See we that our Conversations be as far as Humane Frailty shall enable us with a Capacity composed unto the Dictates of the Law of Nature the Law from Sinai the Law from Sion being such in one word as in the word of the Apostle Phil. 1.27 may become the chief of these Books the Glorious Gospel of Christ See we every one that in the Book of our Conscience and the Book of Gods Remembrance the Blots of all our sins whatsoever may as in a Table-Book appear written Spunged out by the precious waters of unfained Repentance be now henceforth be all over written with the fair Characters of Righteousness and Holiness And then shall we not need to distrust but that we shall appear clear when we shall come to be Judged out of those things which shall appear written in these Books according to our works Which might fitly bring me to the survey of the two last remaining Particulars the Equal Proceedings of the Court and the Infallible certainty of all but for that their but Cursory view would take up more time then for the present can be well afforded leaving them for a competent Argument which may well take up our next Days entire Perusal beseech we the Almighty in the mean time to grant that the words we have this Day heard with our outward Ears c. The Third SERMON Apoc. 20.12 I saw the dead small and great c. Iohn 5.27 And shall come forth those that have done Good to the Resurrection of Life and those that have done Evil to the Resurrection of Damnation Justine Martyr Quemadmodum omnibus Corporibus à Deo procreatis hoc insitum est ut Vmbram habeant sic Deum quoque qui Iustitia praeditus est tum iis qui virtutem sibi colendam proposuernut tum iis qui vitium amplexari maluerint pro cujusque Merito Praemia Poenasque tribuere consentaneum est Apoc. 20.12 I saw the Dead Small and Great stand up before God and the Books were opened and then another Book was opened which was the Book of Life and