of the thing it self so it is if I believe the Preacher to be an ill man I shall not be much the better for his good Sermons Thus they were injurious in the manner of their calumny they were so too in the matter to calumniate him therefore because he applyed himself to sinners The Wise-man in Ecclesiasticus institutes his meditation thus 11.12 There is one that hath great need of help full of poverty yet the eye of the Lord looked upon him for good and set him up from his low estate so that many that saw it marvelled at it Many marvelled but none reproached the Lord chid the Lord calumniated the Lord for doing so And if the Lord will look upon a sinner and raise that bedrid man if he will look with that eye that pierces deeper then the eye of heaven the Sun and yet with a look of that eye the womb of the earth conceives if he will look with that eye that conveys more warmth then the eye of the Ostrich and yet with a look of that eye that Bird is said to hatch her young ones without sitting that eye that melted Peter into water and made him flow towards Christ and ratified Matthew into air and made him flee towards Christ if that eye vouchsafe to look upon a Publican and redeem a Goshen out of an Egypt hatch a soul out of a carnal man produce a saint out of a sinner shall we marvel at the matter marvel so as to doubt Gods power shall any thing be impossible to God or shall we marvel at the manner at any way by which Christ shall be pleased to convey his mercy Chrysolog Miraris eum peccatorum vinum bibere qui pro peccatoribus sanguinem fudit shall we wonder that Christ would live with sinners who was content to die for sinners Wonder that he would eat the bread and Wine of sinners that gave sinners his own flesh to eat and his own blood to drink Or if we do wonder at this as indeed nothing is more wonderful yet let us not calumniate let us not mis-interpret any way that he shall be pleased to take to derive his mercy to any man but Clem. Alex. to use Clement of Alexandria's comparison as we tread upon many herbs negligently in the field but when we see them in an Apothecaries shop we begin to think that there is some vertue in them so howsoever we have a perfect hatred and a religious despite against a sinner as a sinner yet if Christ Jesus shall have been pleased to have come to his door and to have stood and knock'd and enter'd and sup'd and brought his dish and made himself that dish and seal'd a reconciliation to that sinner in admitting him to that Table to that Communion let us forget the Name of Publican the Vices of any particular profession and forget the name of sinner the history of any mans former life and be glad to meet that man now in the arms and to grow up with that man now in the bowels of Christ Jesus since Christ doth now begin to make that man his but now declares to us that he hath been his from all eternity For in the Book of Life the name of Mary Magdalen was as soon recorded for all her incontinency as the name of the blessed Virgin for all her integrity and the name of St. Paul who drew his sword against Christ as soon as St. Peter who drew his in defence of him for the Book of life was not written successively word after word line after line but delivered as a Print all together There the greatest sinners were as soon recorded as the most righteous and here Christ comes to call not the righteous at all but onely sinners to repentance And so we have done with those pieces which constitute our first part Christ by his personal presence justified feasting and feasting in an Apostles house and feasting with Publicans and sinners though the Pharisees calumniated him malitiously in the manner injuriously in the matter and we pass to our other part from the Historical and Occasional to the Catechistical the Doctrinal Part. The other Part the Occasion the Connexion was of the Text Part II. and we cannot say properly that this Part the answer is in the Text for indeed the Text is in it the Text it self is but a piece of that Answer which Christ gives to these Calumniators First Christ does afford an Answer even to Calumniators for that is very often necessary Respondet Calumniae not onely because otherwise a Calumniator would triumph but because otherwise a calumny would not appear to be a calumy A calumny is fix'd upon the fame of a good man he in a holy scorn and religious negligence pretermits it and after long after the generation of those vipers come to say In all this time who ever denyed it A seasonable and a sober answer interrupts the prescription of a calumny discontinues the continual claim of a calumny disappoints and avoids that Fine which the calumny levied to bar all posterity if no man arise to make an answer Truely there are some passages in the Legend of Pope Joan which I am not very apt to believe yet it is shrewd evidence that in so many hundreds of years six or seven no man in that Church should say any thing against it I would they had been pleas'd to have said something somewhat sooner for if there were slander mingled in the story and if there be it must be their own Authors that have mingled it yet slander it self should not be neglected Christ does not neglect it he justifies his conversation with these sinners and he gives answers proportionable to the men with whom he dealt First because the Pharisees pretended a knowledge and zeal to the Scriptures Ose 6.6 he answers out of the Scriptures out of the Prophet Misericordiam volo Mercy is better then sacrifice and an Evangelical desire to do good upon sinners better then a Legal inhibition to come near them And Christ seems to have been so full of this saying of Ose as that he says it here where the Pharisees calumniate him to his disciples and when they calumniate the disciples about the sabbath he says it there too He answers out of Scriptures because they pretend a zeal to them and then because the Pharisees were learned and rational men he answers out of Reason too The whole have no need of the Physician I come in the quality of a Physician and therefore apply my self to the sick For we read of many blinde and lame and deaf and dumb and dead persons that came or were brought to Christ to be recovered but we never read of any man who being then in a good state of health came to Christ to desire that he might be preserv'd in that state The whole never think of a Physician and therefore Christ who came in that quality applied himself to them that
which must save our Soules is not confined to Cloysters and Monasteries and speculative men only but is all so evidently and eminently to be found in the Courts of religious Princes in the tops of high places and in the Courts of Justice in the gates of the City Both these kinds of Courts may have more directions from him then other places but yet in these places hee is also gloriously and conspicuously to be found for wheresoever he is he cries aloud as the Text saies there and he utters his voyce Now Temptations to sin are all but whisperings we are afraid that a husband that a father that a competitor that a rivall a pretender at least the Magistrate may heare of it Tentations to sin are all but whisperings private Conventicles and clandestine worshipping of God in a forbidden manner in corners are all but whisperings It is not the voice of Christ except thou hear him cry aloud and utter his voice so as thou maist confidently doe whatsoever he commands thee in the eye of all the world he is every where to be found he calls upon thee every where but yet there belongs a diligence on thy part thou must seek him Quaerere Esaias is hold saith St. Paul and saies I was found of them that sought me not when that Prophet derives the love of God to â—he Gentiles who could seeke God no where but in the booke of Creatures and were destitute of all other lights to seek him by and yet God was found by them Esaias is bold cries the Apostle that is It was a great degree of confidence in Esaias to say That God was found of them that sought him not Rom. 10.20 It was a boldness and confidence which no particular man may have that Christ will be found except he be sought he gives us light to seek him by but he is not found till we have sought him It is true that in that Commandement of his Primum quaerite Regnum Dei First seek the Kingdom of God the primum is not to prevent God that we should seek it before he shewes it that 's impossible without the light of Grace we dwell in darknesse and in the shadow of death but the primum is That we should seek it before we seek any thing else that when the Sun of Grace is risen to us the first thing that we do be to seek Christ Jesus Amos 5.4 Querite me vivetis Seek me and ye shall live why we were alive before else we could not seek him but it is a promise of another life of an eternall life if we seek him and seek him early which is our last consideration The word there used for early signifies properly Auroram Early the Morning and is usually transfer'd in Scriptures to any beginning of any action so in particular Evill shall come upon thee Esay 47.11 and thou shalt not know Shakrah the morning the beginning of it And therefore this Text is elegantly translated by one Aurorantes ad me They that have their break of day towards me they that send forth their first morning beames towards me their first thoughts they shall be sure to find me St. Hierom expresses this early diligence required in us well in his translation qui mane vigilaverint They that wake betimes in the morning shall finde me but the Chaldee Paraphrase better qui mane consurgunt they that rise betimes in the morning shall finde me for which of us doth not know that we wak'd long agoe that we saw day and had heretofore some motions to find Christ Jesus But though we were awake wee have kept our bed still we have continued still in our former sins so that there is more to be done then waking we see the Spouse her self saies In my bed by night Cant. 3.1 I sought him whom my Soule lov'd but I found him not Christ may be sought in the bed and missed other thoughts may exclude him and he may bee sought there and found we may have good meditations there and Christ may be neerer us when we are asleep in our beds then when when we are awake But howsoever the bed is not his ordinary station he may be and he saies he will be at the making of the bed of the sick but not at the marriage of the bed of the wanton and licentious To make haste the circumstance only requir'd here is that he be sought early and to invite thee to it consider how early he sought thee It is a great mercy that he staies so long for thee It was more to seek thee so early Dost thou not feele that he seeks thee now in offering his love and desiring thine Canst not thou remember that he sought thee yesterday that is that some tentations besieged thee then and he sought thee out by his Grace and preserved thee and hath he not sought thee so so early as from the beginning of thy life nay dost thou not remember that after thou hadst committed that sin he sought thee by imprinting some remorse some apprehension of his judgments and so miro divino modo quando te oderat diligebat Grego by a miraculous and powerful working of his Spirit he threatned thee when he comforted thee he lov'd thee when he chid thee he sought thee wen he drove thee from him He hath sought thee amongst the infinite numbers of false and fashionall Christians that he might bring thee out from the hypocrite to serve him in earnest and in holyness and in righteousness he sought thee before that amongst the Herd of the nations Gentiles who had no Church to bring thee into his inclosures and pastures his visible Church and to feed thee with his word and sacraments he sought thee before that in the catalogue of all his Creatures where he might have left thee a stone or a plant or a beast and then he gave thee an immortal Soul capable of all his future blessings yea before this he sought thee when thou wast no where nothing he brought thee then the greatest step of all from being nothing to be a Creature how early did he seek thee when he sought thee in Adam's confused loynes out of that leavened and sowre loaf in which we were all kneaded up out of that massa damnata that refuse condemnable lump of dough he sought and sever'd out that grain which thou shouldst be yea millions of millions of generations before al this he sought thee in his own eternal Decree And in that first Scripture of his which is as old as himself in the book of life he wrote thy name in the blood of that Lamb which was slain for thee not only from the beginning of this world but from the writing of that eternal Decree of thy Salvation Thus early had he sought thee in the Church amongst hypocrites out of the Church amongst the Heathen In his Creatures amongst creatures of an ignoble nature and
in the first vacuity when thou wast nothing he sought thee so early as in Adam so early as in the book of life and when wilt thou think it a fit time to seek him Prov. 1.28 There is an earliness which will not serve thy turn when afflictions and anguish shall come upon thee they shall seek me early and shall not find me early in respect of the punishment at the beginning of that but this is late in respect of thy fault or of thine age when thou art grown old in the custome of sin for thus we may misuse this early and make it serve all ill uses if we will say we will leave Covetousness early that is as soon as we are rich enough Incontinence early that is as soon as we are old or sick Ambition early that is as soon as we have overthrown and crushed our enemies irrecoverably for thus we shall by this habit carry on this early to our late and last houre and say we wil repent early that is as soone as the bell begins to toll for us It is good for a man that he beare his yoke in his youth that he seek Christ early for even God himself when he had given over his People to be afflicted by the Chaldeans yet complains of the Chaldeans Esay 46.6 that they laid heavy loads upon old men though this yoke of this amorous seeking of Christ be a light yoke yet it is too heavy for an old man that hath never us'd himself in all his life to beare it even this spirituall love will not sute well with an old man if he never began before if he never lov'd Christ in his youth even this love will be an unweildy thing in his age Yet if we have omitted our first early our youth there is one early left for us this minute seek Christ early now now as soon as his Spirit begins to shine upon your hearts Now as soon as you begin your day of Regeneration seek him the first minute of this day for you know not whether this day shall have two minutes or no that is whether his Spirit that descends upon you now will tarry and rest upon you or not as it did upon Christ at his baptisme Therefore shall every one that is godlie make his Prayer unto thee O God in a time when thou may'st be found Psal 32.6 we acknowledg this to be that time and we come to thee now early with the confession of thy servant Augustine sero te amavi pulchritudo tam antiqua tam nova O glorious beauty infinitely reverend infinitely fresh and young we come late to thy love if we consider the past daies of our lives but early if thou beest pleased to reckon with us from this houre of the shining of thy grace upon us and therefore O God as thou hast brought us safely to the beginning of this day as thou hast not given us over to a finall perishing in the works of night and darkness as thou â—ast brought us to the beginning of this day of grace so defend us in the same with thy mighty power and grant that this day this day of thy visitation we fall into no sin neither run into any kind of danger no such sinne no such danger as may separate us from thee or frustrate us of our hopes in that eternall kingdom which thy Sonne our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To whom with the Father c. A SERMON of Valediction at my going into Germany at Loncolns-Inne April 18. 1619. SERMON XIX Ecclesiast 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth WEE may consider two great virtues one for the society of this life Thankfulness and the other for attaining the next life Repentance as the two pretious Mettles Silver and Gold Of Silver of the virtue of thankfulness there are whole Mines books written by Philosophers and a man may grow rich in that mettle Serm. 19. in that virtue by digging in that Mine in the Precepts of moral men of this Gold this virtue of Repentance there is no Mine in the Earth in the books of Philosophers no doctrine of Repentance this Gold is for the most part in the washes this Repentance in matters of tribulation but God directs thee to it in this Text before thou come to those waters of Tribulation remember now thy Creator before those evill dayes come and then thou wilt repent the not remembring him till now Divisio Here then the holy-Ghost takes the neerest way to bring a man to God by awaking his memory for for the understanding that requires long and cleer instruction and the will requires an instructed understanding before and is in it self the blindest and boldest faculty but if the memory doe but fasten upon any of those things which God hath done for us it is the neerest way to him Remember therefore and remember now though the Memory be placed in the hindermast part of the brain defer not thou thy remembring to the hindermost part of thy life but doe that now in die in the day whil'st thou hast light now in diebus in the days whilst God presents thee many lights many means and in diebus juventatis in the days of thy youth of strength whilst thou art able to doe that which thou purposest to thy self And as the word imports Bechucocheica in diebus Electionum tuarum in the dayes of thy choice whilst thou art able to make thy choyce whilst the Grace of God shines so brightly upon thee as that thou maist choose the way and so powerfully upon thee as that thou maist walke in that way Now in this day and in these dayes Remember first the Creator That all these things which thou laborest for and delightest in were created made of nothing and therfore thy memory looks not far enough back if it stick only upon the Creature and reach not to the Creator Remember thy Creator and remember thy Creator and in that first that he made thee and then what he made thee He made thee of nothing but of that nothing he hath made thee such a thing as cannot return to nothing but must remain for ever whether happy or miserable that depends upon thy Remembring thy Creator now in the dayes of thy youth Momento Gen. 8.1 First remember which word is often used in the Scripture for considering and taking care for God remembred Noah and every beast with him in the Ark as the word which is contrary to that forgetting is also for the affection contrary to it Esay 48.15 it is neglecting Can a woman forget her child and not have compassion on the son of her womb But here we take not remembring so largly but restrain it to the exercise of that one faculty the memory for it is Stomachus animae The memory sayes St. Bernard is the stomach of the soul it receives and digests
vow is included all the service that he could exhibite or retribute to God Now his staffe is become a sword a strong Army his one staff now is multiplyed his wives are given for staffes to assist him and his children given also for staffes to his age His own staffe is become the greatest and best part of Labans wealth In such plenty as that he could spare a present to Esau of at least five hundred head of cattell The fathers make Morall expositions of this That his two bands are his Temporall blessings and his spirituall And St. Augustin findes a tipicall allusion in it of Christ Aug. Baculo Crucis Christus apprehendit mundum cum duabus turmis duobus populis ad patrem rediit Christ by his staffe his Cross muster'd two bands that is Jews and Gentiles We finde enough for our purpose in taking it literally as we see it in the Text That he divided all his company and all his cattell into two troups that if Esau come and smite one the other might scape For then onely is a fortune full when there is somthing for Leakage for wast when a Man though he may justly fear that this shall be taken from him yet he may justly presume that this shall be left to him though he lose much yet he shall have enough And this was Jacobs increase and height and from this lowness from one staff to two bands And therefore since in God we can consider but one state Semper idem immutable since in the Devil we can consider but two states Quomodo cecidit filius Orientis that he was the son of the Morning but is and shall ever be for ever the child of everlasting death since in Jacob and in our selves we can consider first that God made man righteous secondly that man betooke himself to his one staff and his own staff The imaginations of his own heart Thirdly That by the word of God manifested by his Angels he returns with two bands Body and Soul to his heavenly father againe let us attribute all to his goodness and confesse to him and the world That we are not worthy of the least of all his Mercies and of all the Truth which he hath shewed unto his Servant for with my staff I passed over this Jordan and now I am become two bands A SERMON Preached at White-hall Serm. 13. April 19. 1618. SERMON XIII 1 Tim. 1.15 This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners of which I am the chiefest THE greatest part of the body of the old-Testament is Prophecy and that is especially of future things The greatest part of the new-Testament if wee number the peeces is Epistles Relations of things past for instruction of the present They erre not much that call the whol new-Testament Epistle For even the Gospells are Evangelia good Messages and that 's proper to an Epistle and the booke of the Acts of the Apostles is superscrib'd by Saint Luke to one Person to Theophilus and that 's proper to an Epistle and so is the last booke the booke of Revelation to the severall Churches and of the rest there is no question An Epistle is collucutio scripta saies Saint Ambrose Though it be written far off and sent yet it is a Conference and seperatos copulat sayes hee by this meanes wee overcome distances we deceive absences and wee are together even then when wee are asunder And therefore in this kinde of conveying spirituall comfort to their friends have the ancient Fathers been more exercised then in any other former almost all of them have written Epistles One of them Isidorus him whom wee call Peluciotes Saint Chrysostom's schollar is noted to have written Myriades Nicephor and in those Epistles to have interpreted the whole Scriptures St. Paul gave them the example he writ nothing but in this kind and in this exceeded all his fellow Apostles pateretur Paulus quod Saulus seceret saies St. Austin That as he had asked Letters of Commission of the State to persecute Christians so by these Letters of Consolation hee might recompence that Church againe which hee had so much damnified before As the Hebrew Rabbins say That Rahab did let down Jofuah's spies out of her house with the same cord with which she had used formerly to draw up her adultrous lovers into her house Now the holy-Ghost was in all the Authors of all the books of the Bible but in Saint Paul's Epistles there is sayes Irenaeus Impetus Spiritus Sancti The vehemence the force of the holy-Ghost And as that vehemence is in all his Epistles so amplius habent quae e vinculis as Saint Chrysostome makes the observation Those Epistles which were written in Prison have most of this holy vehemence and this as that Father notes also is one of them And of all them we may justly conceive this to be the most vehement and forcible in which he undertakes to instruct a Bishop in his Episcopall function which is to propagate the Gospell for he is but an ill Bishop that leaves Christ where he found him in whose time the Gospell is yet no farther then it was how much worse is he in whose time the Gospell loses ground who leaves not the Gospell in so good state as he found it Now of this Gospell here recommended by Paul to Timothie this is the Summe That Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners c. Division Here then we shall have these three Parts First Radicem The Roote of the Gospell from whence it springs it is fidelis sermo a faithfull Word which cannot erre And secondly we have Arborem Corpus the Tree the Body the substance of the Gospell That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners And then lastly fructum Evangelii the fruit of the Gospell Humility that it brings them who embrace it to acknowledg themselves to be the greatest sinners And in the first of these the Roote it selfe wee shall passe by these steps First that it is Sermo the Word That the Gospell hath as good a ground as the Law the new-Testament as well founded as the Old It is the word of God And then it is fidelis Sermo a faithfull Word now both Old and New are so and equally so but in this the Gospell is fidelior the more faithfull and the more sure because that word the Law hath had a determination an expiration but the Gospell shall never have that And againe It is Sermo omni acceptatione dignus Worthy of all acceptation not only worthy to bee received by our Faith but even by our Reason too our Reason cannot hold out against the proofes of Christians for their Gospell And as the word imports it deserves omnem acceptationem and omnem approbationem all approbation and therefore as wee should not dispute against it and so are bound to accept it to receive it not to
must that does that did dye ever since it was made I carry a Soul nay a Soul carries me to such a perpetuity as no Saint no Angel God himself shall not survive me over-live me And lastly says he Terrenus sum Coelestis I have a Body but of Earth but yet of such Earth as God was the Potter to mold it God was the statuary to fashion it and then I have a Soul of which God was the Father he breath'd it into me and of which no matter can say I was the Mother for it proceeded of nothing Such a Mystery is man here but he is a Miracle hereafter I shall be still the same man and yet have another being And in this is that Miracle exalted that death who destroys me re-edifies me Mors veluti medium excogitata Cyril ut de integro restauraretur homo man was fallen and God took that way to raise him to throw him lower into the grave man was sick and God invented God studied Physick for him and strange Physick to recover him by death The first faciamus hominem the Creation of man was a thing incomprehensible in Nature but the Denuo nasci to be born again was stranger even to Nicodemus who knew the former the Creation Joh. 4.3 well enough But yet the Immutabimur is the greatest of all 1 Cor. 15.57 which St. Paul calls all to wonder at Behold I shew you a Mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed A Mystery which it Nicodemus had discern'd it would have put him to more wonder then the Denuo nasci to enter into his mothers womb as he speaks to enter into the Bowels of the Earth and lie there and lie dead there not nine months but many yeers and then to be born again and the first minute of that new Birth to be so perfect as that nothing can be better and so perfect as that he can never become worse that is that which makes all strange accidents to natural Bodies and Bodies Politike too Scientia all changes in man all revolutions of States easie and familiar to us I shall have another being and yet be the same man And in that state I shall have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Of which three things being now come to speak I am the less sorry and so may you be too if my voice be so sunk as that I be not heard for if I had all my time and all my strength and all your patience reserv'd till now what could I say that could become what that could have any proportion to this knowledge and this glory and this face of Christ Jesus there in the Kingdome of Heaven But yet be pleased to hear a word of each of these three words and first of Knowledge In the Attributes of God we consider his knowledge to be Principium agendi dirigens The first proposer and Director This should be done and then his Will to be Principium imperans the first Commander This shall be done and then his Power to be Principium exequens the first Performer This is done This should be done this shall be done this is done expresses to us the Knowledge the Will and the Power of God Now we shall be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the Knowledge and the Will and the Power of God shall be so far communicated to us there as that we shall know all that belongs to our happiness and we shall have a will to doe and a power to execute whatsoever conduces to that And for the knowledge of Angels that is not in them per essentiam for whosoever knows so as the Essence of the thing flows from him knows all things and that 's a knowledge proper to God only Neither doe the Angels know per species by those resultances and species which rise from the Object and pass through the Sense to the Understanding for that 's a deceiveable way both by the indisposition of the Organ sometimes and sometimes by the depravation of the Judgment and therefore as the first is too high this is too low a way for the Angels Some things the Angels do know by the dignity of their Nature by their Creation which we know not as we know many things which inserior Creatures do not and such things all the Angels good and bad know Some things they know by the Grace of their confirmation by which they have more given them then they had by Nature in their Creation and those things only the Angels that stood but all they do know Some things they know by Revelation when God is pleased to manifest them unto them and so some of the Angels know that which the rest though confirm'd doe not know By Creation they know as his Subjects by Confirmation they know as his servants by Revelation they know as his Councel Now Erimus sicut Angeli says Christ There we shall be as the Angels The knowledge which I have by Nature shall have no Clouds here it hath that which I have by Grace shall have no reluctation no resistance here it hath That which I have by Revelation shall have no suspition no jealousie here it hath sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a respiration from God and a suggestion from the Devil There our curiosity shall have this noble satisfaction we shall know how the Angels know by knowing as they know We shall not pass from Author to Author as in a Grammar School nor from Art to Art as in an University but as that General which Knighted his whole Army God shall Create us all Doctors in a minute That great Library those infinite Volumes of the Books of Creatures shall be taken away quite away no more Nature those reverend Manuscripts written with Gods own hand the Scriptures themselves shall be taken away quite away no more preaching no more reading of Scriptures and that great School-Mistress Experience and Observation shall be remov'd no new thing to be done and in an instant I shall know more then they all could reveal unto me I shall know not only as I know already that a Bee-hive that an Ant-hill is the same Book in Decimo sexto as a Kingdom is in Folio That a Flower that lives but a day is an abridgment of that King that lives out his threescore and ten yeers but I shall know too that all these Ants and Bees and Flowers and Kings and Kingdoms howsoever they may be Examples and Comparisons to one another yet they are all as nothing altogether nothing less then nothing infinitely less then nothing to that which shall then be the subject of my knowledge for it is the knowledge of the glory of God Gloria Dei Before in the former acceptation the glory of God was our glorifying of God here the glory of God is his glorifying of us there it was his receiving here it
that begun in Moses in darknesse in the Chaos and it ends in Saint John in clearnesse in a Revelation Here is the compass of all time as time was distributed in the Creation Vespere mane darknesse and then light the Evening and Morning made the Day Mystery and Manifestation make the Text. The Doctrine of the present Season is Mortification Humiliation and the experience of the present Place where we stand now in Court is that the glory of the persons in whose presence we stand occasions Humility in us the more glorious they are the humbler we are and therefore to consider Christ as he is received into glory is as much the way of our Humiliation and Mortification as to consider him in his Passion in his exinanition At least how small account should we make of those things which we suffer for Christ in this world when we see in this Text that in the describing the History of Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension the Holy Ghost pretermits never mentions never seems to consider the Passion of Christ as though all that he had suffered for man were nothing in respect of that he would suffer if the justice of God had required any heavier satisfaction The Text then is a sufficient Instruction to Timothy to whom this Epistle is sent and to us to whom it is sent too that thereby we might know how to behave our selves in the House of God which is the Church of God the pillar and ground of Truth as is said in the verse immediately before the Text to which the Text hath relation we know how to behave our selves in the Church if we know in the Text that such a Mystery of godlinesse there is and know what it is Our parts therefore are but two Mystery and Manifestation In the first the Apostle proceeds thus First he recommends to us such Doctrine as is without controversie and truly there is enough of that to save any soule that hath not a minde to wrangle it self into Hell And then he sayes that this Godlinesse though it be without controversie yet it is a Mystery a Secret not present not obvious not discernable with every eye It is a Mystery and a great Mystery not the greatest but yet great that is great enough he that knowes that needs no more And then for the second part which is the manifestation of the Mystery we shall look upon that by all those beams which shine out in this Text Abortu ad Meridium from Christs East to his Noon from his first manifesting in the flesh to his receiving into glory Part I. First then he proposes Doctrine without controversie for Quod simpliciter predicatur Augustine credendum quod subtiliter disputatur intelligendum est That which Christ hath plainly delivered is the exercise of my Faith that which other men have curiously disputed is the exercise of my understanding If I understand not their curious disputations perchance I shall not be esteemed in this world but if I believe not Christs plain Doctrine I am sure I shall not be saved in the next It is true that Christ reprehends them often Quia non intellexerunt but what Scripturas legem because they understood not the Scriptures which they were bound to believe It is some negligence not to read a Proclamation from the King it is a contempt to transgresse it but to deny the power from which it is derived is treason Not to labour to understand the Scriptures is to slight God but not to believe them is to give God the lye he makes God a lyer 1 John 5.10 if he believe not the Record that God gave of his Son When I come to heaven I shall not need to ask of S. John's Angel nor of his Elders Ubi Prophetae ubi Apostoli ubi Evangelistae where are the Prophets where are the Evangelists where are the Apostles for I am sure I shall see them there But perchance I may be put to ask S. Paul's question Ubi Scribae ubi Sapientes 1 Cor. 1.20 where are the Scribes where are the Wise men where are the Disputers of the world perchance I may misse a great many of them there It is the Text that saves us the interlineary glosses and the marginal notes and the variae lectiones controversies and perplexities undo us the Will the Testament of God enriches us the Schedules the Codicils of men begger us because the Serpent was subtiller then any Gen. 3.1 2 Cor. 2.3 he would dispute and comment upon Gods Law and so deceiv'd by his subtilty The Word of God is Biblia it is not Bibliotheca a Book a Bible not a Library And all that book is not written in Balthazar 's character in a Mene Tekel Upharsim that we must call in Astrologers and Caldeans and Southsayers to interpret it That which was written so as that it could not be understood was written sayes the text there with the fingers of mans hand It is the hand of man that induces obscurities the hand of God hath written so a man may runne and read walk in the duties of his calling here and attend the salvation of his soul too He that believes Christ and Mahomet indifferently hath not proposed the right end he that believes the Word of God and traditions indifferently hath not proposed the right way In any Conveyance if any thing be interlin'd the interlining must be as well testified have the same witnesses upon the Endorsment as the conveyance it self had When there are traditions in the Church as declaratory traditions there are they must have the same witnesses they must be grounded upon the Word of God for there onely is truth without controversie Pilate ask'd Christ Quid veritas what was truth John 18.38 and he might have known if he would have staid but exicit sayes the Text there He went out out to the Jewes and there he could not finde it there he never thought of it more Ask of Christ speaking in his Word there you shall know produce the Record the Scripture Jude 1.3 and there is Communis salus I wrote unto you of the common Salvation What 's that Semel tradita sides sayes that Apostle there The Faith which was once delivered to the Saints where semel is not aliquando once is not once upon a time I cannot tell when but semel is simul once is at once The Gospel was delivered all together and not by Postscripts Thus it is If we go to the Record to the Scripture and thus it is if we ask a Judge I do not say The Judge but A Judge for the Fathers are a Judge a Judge is a Judge though there lie an appeal from him And will not the Fathers say so too Quod ubique quod semper that 's common salvation which hath bound the Communion of Saints that which all Churches alwayes have thought and taught to be necessary to salvation Ask the Record
that it comes to the Sickness but not to the physick In small diseases saith St. Basil we go to the Physitians house in greater diseases we send for the Physitian to our house but in violent diseases in the stupefaction of an Apoplexy in the damp of a leturgy in the furnace of a Pleurisie we have no sence no desire of a Physitian at all When this inordinate love of Riches begins in us we have some tenderness of Conscience and we consult with Gods Ministers After we admit the reprehensions of Gods Ministers when they speak to our Consciences but at last the habit of our sin hath seared us up and we never find that it is we that the Preacher means we find that he touches others but not us Our wit and our malice is awake but our conscience is asleep we can make a Sermon a libel against others and cannot find a Sermon in a Sermon to our selves It is a sickness and an evil sickness Visibilis Now this is not such a sickness as we have onely read of and no more It concernes us not onely so as the memory of the sweat of which we do rather wounder at the report then consider the manner or the remedies against it Those divers plagues which God inflicted upon Pharoah for withholding his people That devouring Pestilence which God stroke Davids kingdom with for numbring his people That destruction which God kindled in Sennacheribs army for oppressing his people These because God hath represented them in so clear and so true a glass as his word we do in a manner see them Things in other stories we do but hear things in the Scriptures we see The Scriptures are as a room wainscotted with looking-glass we see all at once But this evil sickness of reserving riches to our own evil is plainer to be seen because it is daily round about us dayly within us in our consciences experiences There are sins that are not evident not easily discerned therefore David annexes a Scedule to his prayer after all Ab occultis meis mundame saith David There are sins which the difference of religion makes a sin or no sin we know it to be a sin to abstain from coming to Church our adversaries are made beleeve it is a time to come There are middle-men that when our Church appoints coming and receiving and anoother Church forbids both they will do half of both they will come and not receive and so be friends with both There are sins recorded in the Scriptures in which it is hard for any to find the name the nature what the sin was how doth the School vex it self to find out what was the nature of the sin of the Angels or what was the name of the sin of Adam There are actions recorded in the Scriptures in which by Gods subsequent punishment there appears sin to have been committed and yet to have considered the action alone without the testimony of Gods displeasure upon it a natural man would not easily find out a sin Numb 22. Balaam was solicited to come and curse Gods people he refused he consulted with God God bids him go but follow such instructions as he should give him after And yet the wrath of God was kindled because he went Numb 20. Moses seems to have pursued Gods commandement exactly in drawing water out of the Rock and yet God sayes Because you believed me not you shall not bring this congregation into that land of promise There are sins hard to be seen out of the nature of Man because Man naturally is not watchful upon his particular actions for if he were so he would escape great sins when we see sand we are not much afraid of a stone when a Man sees his small sins there is not so much danger of great But some sins we see not out of a natural blindness in our selves some we see not out of a natural dimness in the sin it self But this sickly sin this sinful sickness of gathering Riches is so obvious so manifest to every mans apprehension as that the books of Moral men and Philosophers are as full of it as the Bible But yet the Holy Ghost as he doth alwaies even in moral Counsels exceeds the Philosophers for whereas they place this sickness in gathering unnecessary riches injuriously the Holy Ghost in this place extends iâ— further to a reserving of those riches that when we have sinn'd in the getting of them we sin still in the not restoring of them But to thee who shouldest repent the ill getting Veniet tempus quo non dispensasse poenetebit there will come a time when thou shalt repent the having kept them Hoc certum est Ego sum sponsor Basil of this I dare be the surety saith St. Basil But we can leave St Basil out of the bond we have a better surety and undertaker the Holy Ghost in Solomon So that this evil sickness may be easily seen it is made manifest enough to us all by precedent from God by example of others by experience in our selves Solomon To see this then is an easie a natural thing but to see it so as to condemn it and avoid it this is a wisemans slight this was Solomons slight The wiseman seeth the plague Psal 50.18 and shunneth it therein consists the wisedome But for the fool when he sees a theif he runneth with him when he sees others thrive by ill getting and ill keeping he runs with them he takes the same course as they do Beloved It is not intended that true and heavenly wisedome may not consist with riches Iob and the Patriarchs abounded with both And our pattern in this place Solomon himself saith of himself That he was great Eccles 2.9 and increased above all that were before him in Ierusalem and yet his wisdome remained with him The poor man and the rich are in heaven together and to show us how the rich should use the poor Lazarus is in Abrahams bosome The rich should succour and releive and defend the poor in their bosomes But when our Saviour declares a wisedome belonging to Riches as in the parable of the unjust Steward he places not this wisedome Luk. 16. in the getting nor in the holding of Riches but onely in the using of them make you friends of your Riches that they may receive you into everlasting habitations There 's no Simony in heaven that a man can buy so much as a door-keepers place in the Triumphant Church There 's no bribery there to see Ushers for accesse Gen. 28. But God holds that ladder there whose foot stands upon the earth here and all those good works which are put upon the lowest step of that Ladder here that is that are done in contemplation of him they ascend to him and descend again to us Heaven and earth are as a musical Instrument if you touch a string below the motion goes to the top any
just occasion to exercise the same affection piously and religiously which had before so sinfully transported and possest it A covetous person who is now truly converted to God he will exercise a spiritual covetousness still he will desire to have him all he will have good security the seal and assurance of the holy Ghost and he will have his security often renewed by new testimonies and increases of those graces in him he will have witnesses enough he will have the testimonie of all the world by his good life and conversation he will gain every way at Gods hand he will have wages of God for he will be his servant he will have a portion from God for he will be his Son he will have a reversion he will be sure that his name is in the book of life he will have pawns the seals of the Sacraments nay he will have a present possession all that God hath promised all that Christ hath purchased all that the holy Ghost hath the stewardship and dispensation of he will have all in present by the appropriation and investiture of an actual and applying faith a covetous person converted will be spiritually covetous still So will a voluptuous man who is turned to God find plenty and deliciousnes enough in him to feed his soul as with marrow and with fatness as David expresses it and so an angry and passionate man will find zeal enough in the house of God to eat him up All affections which are common to all men and those to which in particular particular men have been adicted to shall not only be justly employed upon God but also securely employed because we cannot exceed nor go too far in imploying them upon him According to this Rule Col. 1. St. Paul who had been so vehement a persecutor had ever his thoughts exercised upon that and thereupon after his conversion he fulfils the rest of the sufferings of Christ in his flesh he suffers most he makes most mention of his suffering of any of the Apostles And according to this Rule too Salomon whose disposition was amorous and excessive in the love of women when he turn'd to God he departed not utterly from his old phrase and language but having put a new and a spiritual tincture and form and habit in all his thoughts and words he conveyes all his loving approaches and applications to God and all Gods gracious answers to his amorous soul into songs and Epithalamians and meditations upon contracts and marriages between God and his Church and between God and his soul as we see so evidently in all his other writings and particularly in this text I love them c. August In which words is expressed all that belongs to love all which is to desire and to enjoy for to desire without fruition is a rage and to enjoy without desire is a stupidity In the first alone we think of nothing but that which we then would have and in the second alone we are not for that when we have it in the first we are without it in the second we were as good we were for we have no pleasure in it nothing then can give us satisfaction but where those two concurr amare and frui to love and to enjoy In sensual love it is so Quid erat quod me delectabat nisi amare et amari I take no joy in this world but in loving and in being beloved in sensual love it is so but in sensual love when we are come so far there is no satisfaction in that the same Father confesseth more of himself then any Commission any oath would have put him to Amatus sum et perveni occulte ad fruendum I had all I desir'd and I had it with that advantage of having it secretly but what got I by all that Ut caederer virgis ardentibus ferreis zeli suspicionis et rixarum nothing but to be scourg'd with burning iron rods rods of jealousie of suspition and of quarrels but in the love and enjoying of this text there is no room for Jealousie nor suspition nor quarrelsome complaining Devisio In this text then you may be pleased to consider these two things Quid amare quid frui what the affection of this love is what is the blessedness of this enjoying but in the first of these we must first consider the persons who are the lovers in this text for there are persons that are incredible though they say they love because they are accustomed to falshood and there are persons which are unrequitable though they be believed to love because they love not where as they should When we have found the persons in a second consideration we shall look upon the affection it self what is the love in this text and then after that upon the bond and union and condition of this love that it is mutual I love them that love me and having passed those three branches of the first part we shall in the second which is enjoying consider first that this enjoying is expressed in the word finding and then that this finding requires two conditions a seeking and an early seeking And they that seek me early shall find me The Person that professes love in this place is wisdom her self First part The Person as appears at the beginning of the Chapter so that sapere et amare to be wise to love which perchance never met before nor since are met in this text but whether this wisdom so frequently mentioned in this book of Proverbs be sapientia creata or increat whether it be the wisdom or the root of wisdom Christ Jesus hath been diversly debated the occasion grew in that great Councel of Nice where the Catholick Fathers understood this wisdom to be intended of Christ himself and then the Arrian hereticks pressed some places of this book where such things seemed to them to be spoken of wisdom as could not be applyable to any but to a Creature and that therefore if Christ were this wisdom Christ must necessarily be a Creature and not God We will not dispute those things over again now they are clearly enough largely enough set down in that Councel but since there is nothing said of wisdom in all this book which hath not been by good expositors applied to Christ much more may we presume the lover in this text though presented in the name of wisdom to be Christ himself and so we do To shew the constancy and durableness of this love the lover is a he that is Christ to shew the vehemency and earnestness of it the lover is a shee that is wisdom as it is often expressed in this Chapter she crieth she uttereth her voice yea in one place of the Bible and only in that one place I think where Moses would express an extraordinary and vehement and passionate indignation in God against his people when as it is in that text his wrath was kindled and grievously
God and live in his fear to be mercinarij per laborem to be the workmen of God and labour in his Vineyard to be filij per lavacrum to be the sons of God and preserve that Inheritance which was sealed to us at first in Baptism and last of all Amici per virtutem by the good use of his gifts the King of Kings shall be our friend That which he said to his Apostles his Spirit shall say to our spirit here and seal it to us for a Covenant of Salt an everlasting John 15.14 an irrevocable Covenant Henceforth call I you not servants but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father have I made known unto you And the fruition of this friendship which neither slackens in all our life nor ends at our death the Lord of Life for the death of his most innocent Son afford to us all Amen A Serm. 25. SERMON Preached at the SPITTLE Vpon Easter-Munday 1662. SERMON XXV 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ THe first Book of the Bible begins with the beginning In principio says Moses in Genesis In the beginning God created heaven and earth and can there be any thing prius principio before the beginning Before this beginning there is The last Book of the Bible in the order as they were written the Gospel of St. John begins with the same word too In principio says St. John In the beginning was the Word and here Novissimum primum the last beginning is the first St. John's beginning before Moses Moses speaking but of the Creature and St. John of the Creator and of the Creator before he took that name before he came to the act of Creation as the Word was with God and was God from all Eternity Our present Text is an Epitome of both those beginnings of the first beginning the Creation when God commanded light to shine out of darkness and of the other beginning which is indeed the first of Him in whose face we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God Christ Jesus The first Book of the Bible is a Revelation and so is the last in the order as they stand a Revelation too To declare a production of all things out of nothing which is Moses his work that when I do not know and care not whether I know or no what so contemptible a Creature as an Ant is made of but yet would fain know what so vast and so considerable a thing as an Elephant is made of I care not for a mustard seed but I would fain know what a Cedar is made of I can leave out the consideration of the whole Earth but would be glad to know what the Heavens and the glorious bodies in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars are made of I shall have but one answer from Moses for all that all my Elephants and Cedars and the Heavens that I consider were made of nothing that a Cloud is as nobly born as the Sun in the Heavens and a begger as nobly as the King upon Earth if we consider the great Grand-father of them all to be nothing to produce light of darkness thus is a Revelation a Manifestation of that which till then was not this Moses does St. John's is a Revelation too a Manifestation of that state which shall be and be for ever after all those which were produced of nothing shall be return'd and ressolv'd to nothing again the glorious state of the everlasting Jerusalem the Kingdom of Heaven Now this Text is a Revelation of both these Revelations the first state that which Moses reveals was too dark for man to see for it was nothing The other that which St. John reveals is too bright too dazling for man to look upon for it is no one limited determined Object but all at once glory and the seat and fountain of all glory the face of Christ Jesus The Holy Ghost hath shewed us both these severally in Moses and in St. John and both together in St. Paul in this Text where as the Sun stands in the midst of the Heavens and shews us both the Creatures that are below it upon Earth and the Creatures that are above it the Stars in Heaven so St. Paul as he is made an Apostle of the Gentiles stands in the midst of this Text God hath shin'd in our hearts Ours as we are Apostolical Ministers of the Gospel and he shows us the greatness of God in the Creation which was before when God commanded light out of darkness and the goodness of God which shall be hereafter when he shall give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus So that this Text giving light by which we see light commanded by God out of darkness and the Object which we are to see the knowledge of the glory of God and this Object being brought within a convenient distance to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ And a fit and well-disposed Medium being illumin'd through which we may see it God having shin'd in our hearts established a Ministry of the Gospel for that purpose if you bring but eyes to that which this Text brings Light and Object and Distance and Means then as St. Basil said of the Book of Psalms upon an impossible supposition If all the other Books of Scripture could perish there were enough in that one for the catechising of all that did believe and for the convincing of all that did not so if all the other Writings of St. Paul could perish this Text were enough to carry us through the body of Divinity from the Cradle of the world in the Creation when God commanded light out of darkness to the Grave and beyond the Grave of the world to the last Dissolution and beyond it when we shall have fully the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Now whilst I am to speak of all this this which is Omne scibile all and more then can fall within the comprehension of a natural man for it is the beginning of this world and it is the way to the next and it is the next world it self I comfort my self at my first setting out with that of St. Gregory Purgatas aures hominum gratiam nancisci nonne Dei donum est I take it for one of Gods great blessings to me if he have given me now an Auditory Purgatae auris of such spiritual and circumcised Ears as come not to hear that Wisdom of Words which may make the Cross of Christ of none effect much less such itching Ears as come to hear popular and seditious Calumnies and Scandals and Reproaches cast upon the present State and Government For a man may make a Sermon a Satyr he
Serpent was wiser then any beast It is so still Satan is wiser then any man in natural and in Civil knowledge 'T is true he is a Lyon too but he was a Serpent first and did us more harm as a Serpent then as a Lyon But now as Christ Jesus hath nail'd his hand-writing which he had against us to the Cross and thereby cancelled his evidence so in his descent to hell and subsequent acts of his glorification he hath burnt his Library annihilated his wisdom in giving us a wisdome above his craft he hath shin'd in our hearts by the knowledge of his Gospel Measure not thou therefore the growth and forwardness of thy Child by how soon he could speak or go how soon he could contract with a man or discourse with a woman but how soon he became sensible of that great contract which he had made with Almighty God in his Baptism how soon he was able to discharge those sureties which undertook for him then by receiving his confirmation in the Church how soon he became to discern the Lords Spirit in the preaching of his Word and to discern the Lords body in the Administration of the Sacrament A Christian Child must grow as Christ when be was a Child in wisdom and in stature Luc. 2. first in wisdom then in stature Many have been taller at sixteen then ever Christ was but not any so learned at sixty as he when he disputed at twelve He grew in favour says that Text with God and man first with God then with man Bring up your children in the knowledge and love of God and good and great men will know and love them too It is a good definition of ill love that St. Chrysost gives that it is Animae vacantis passio a passion of an empty soul of an idle mind For fill a man with business and he hath no room for such love It will fit the love of God too so far as that that love must be in anima vocante at first when the soul is empty disencumbred from other studies disengaged in other affections then to take in the knowledge and the love of God for Amari nisi nota possunt says St. August truely however we may slumber our selves with an opinion of loving God certainly we do not we cannot love him till we know him and therefore hear and read and meditate and confer and use all means whereby thou mayst increase in knowledge If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them says Christ you are not happy till you do them that 's true but ye can never do them till ye know them Zeal furthers our salvation but it must be Secundum scientiam Zeal according to knowledge Works further our salvation but not works done in our sleep stupidly casually nor erroniously but upon such grounds as fall within our knowledge to be good Faith most of all furthers and advances our salvation but a man cannot believe that which he does not know Conscience includes science it is knowledge and more but it is that first It is as we express it in the School Syllogismus practicus I have a good Conscience in having done well but I did that upon a former knowledge that that ought to be done God hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge that was the first and then of the knowledge of the glory of God that is our second term in this first acceptation of the Word The light of the knowledge of the glory of this world Gloria Dei is a good and a great peece of learning To know that all the glory of man is as the flower of grass that even the glory 1 Pet. 1.24 and all the glory of man of all mankind is but a flower and but as a flower somewhat less then the Proto-type then the Original then the flower it self and all this but as the flower of grass neither no very beautiful flower to the eye no very fragrant flower to the smell To know that for the glory of Moab Auferetur Esai 16.24 it shall be contemned consumed and for the glory of Jacob it self Attenuabitur It shall be extenuated 17. â—4 that the glory of Gods enemies shall be brought to nothing and the glory of his servants shall be brought low in this word To know how near nothing how meer nothing all the glory of this world is is a good a great degree of learning It is a Book of an old Edition to put you upon the consideration what great and glorious men have lost their glory in this world Give me leave to present to you a new Book a new consideration not how others have lost but consider onely how you have got that glory which you have in this world consider advisedly and confess ingeniously whether you have not known many men more industrious then ever you were and yet never attained to the glory of your Wealth Many wiser then ever you were and yet never attained to your place in the Government of State and valianter then ever you were that never came to have your command in the Wars Consider then how poor a thing the glory of this world is not onely as it may be so lost as many have lost it but as it may be so got as you have got it Seneca Nullum indifferens gloriosum says that Moral man In that which is so obvious as that any man may compass it truly this can be no glory But this is not fully the knowledge of the glory of this Text though this Moral knowledge of the glory of this world conduce to the knowledge of this place which is the glory of God yet not of the Majestical and inaccessible glory of the Essence or Attributes of God of inscrutable points of Divinity for scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria Prov. 25.27 as St. Hiero and all those three Rabbins whose Commentaries we have upon that Book read that place He that searches too far into the secrets of God shall be dazled confounded by that glory But here Gloria Dei is indeed Gloria Deo the glory of God is the glorifying of God it is as St. Ambro. expresses it Notitia cum laude the glory of God is the taking knowledge that all that comes comes from God and then the glorifying of God for whatsoever comes And this is a heavenly art a divine knowledge that if God send a pestilence amongst us we Come not to say it was a great fruit year and therefore there must follow a plague in reason That if God swallow up an invincible Navy we come to say There was a storm and there must follow a scattering in reason That if God discover a Mine we come not to say there was a false Brother that writ a Letter and there must follow a discovery in reason but remember still that though in Davids Psalms there be Psalms of Prayer and Psalms of Praise