Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized from their sins And therefore this of Aquinas not reaching to S. Pauls Quid de illis and Quid illi to these men thus baptized is not that sense neither which we seek But the time will not permit us to pursue the severall interpretations of those Moderni whom directly or comparatively we call Ancients Neither truly though there be many other Interpreters then we have named are there many other interpretations then we have touched upon or then may be reduced to them And therefore to end here this consideration of the Fathers and those whom they esteem Pillars of their Church we are thus much at our liberty for all them That first there is no unanime consent in the interpretation of this place and that which they binde themselves to follow is the unanime consent of the Fathers And then though the Fathers had unanimely consented in one and that one had been the exposition which Bellarmine pursues yet we might by their example have departed from it for in the Roman Church Fathers and Fathers Fathers Popes themselves And howsoever the Fathers may be Fathers in respect of us yet in respect of the Pope who is S. Peter himselfe and alwayes sits in his person the Fathers are but children sayes Bellarmine were of opinion That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper was absolutely necessary for children to their salvation and this opinion lasted in force and in use for divers hundreds of yeares neither was it ever repressed by Authority till the other day in the Councel of Trent but wore out of it selfe long before because it had no foundation So the opinion of the Millenarians That Christ with his Saints should have a thousand years of a temporall raign here upon earth after his second comming had possessed the Fathers in a very great partie The Fathers in a great partie denied that the soules of good men departed were to enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection And the Fathers affirmed That the cause of Gods election was the foresight of the faith and obedience of the Elect. These errors are so noted even by the Authors of the Roman Church for I depart not herein from their own words and observations as that they still present them so Omnes plurimi All the Fathers Most of the Fathers were of this and this opinion And yet for all these Fathers no man in the Roman Church is so childish now as to give his child that Sacrament or to accompany those Fathers in those other mistakings This hath been done in fact they have departed from the Fathers And then for a Rule Cardinall Cajetan tels us That if a new sense of any place of Scripture agreeable to other places and to the analogy of faith arise to us it is not to be refused Quia torrens patrum because the streame of the Fathers is against it For they themselves have told us why we may suspect the Fathers and by what means the Fathers have falne into many mis-interpretations First they say Quia glaciem sciderunt because the Fathers broke the Ice and undertook the interpretation of many places in which they had no light no assistance from others and so might easily turne into a sinister way And then Rhetoricati sunt say they The Fathers often applyed themselves in figurative and Hyberbolicall speeches to exalt the devotions and stir up the affections of their auditory and therefore must not be called to too severe and literall an account for all that they uttered in that manner And againe Plebi indulserunt as S. Augustine sayes of himselfe sometimes out of a loathnesse to offend the ignorant and sometimes the holy and devout and that he might hold his auditory together and avert none from comming to him he was unwilling to come to such an exact truth in the explication and application of some places as that for the sharpnesse and bitternesse thereof weaker stomachs might forbeare So also they confesse too that ex vehementia declinarunt In heat of disputation and argument and to make things straight they bent them too much on the other hand and to oppose one Heresie they endangered the inducing of another as in S. Augustines disputations against the Pelagians who over-advanced the free will of man and the Manicheans who by admitting Duo principia two Caufes an extrinsique cause of our evill actions as well as of our good annihilated the free will of man we shall find sometimes occasions to doubt whether S. Augustine were constant in his owne opinion and not transported sometimes with vehemency against his present adversary whether Pelagian or Manichean Which is a disease that even some great Councels in the Church and Church-affaires have felt that for collaterall and occasionall and personall respects which were risen after they were met the maine doctrinall points and such as have principally concerned the glory of God and the salvation of soules and were indeed the principall and onely cause of their then meeting there have beene neglected Men that came thither with a fervent zeale to the glory of God have taken in a new fire of displeasure against particular Heretiques or Schismatiques and discontinued their holy zeale towards God till their occasionall displeasure towards those persons might be satisfied and so those Heresies and Heretiques against whom they met have got advantage by that passion which hath overtaken and overswayed them after they were met And whatsoever hath fallen into Councels of that kinde Ecclesiasticall Councels may possibly be imagined or justly be feared or at least without offence be pre-disswaded and deprecated in all Civill Consultations and Councels of State That Occasionall things may not divert the Principall for as in the Naturall body the spleene may suffocate the heart and yet the spleen is but the sewar of the body and the heart is the strength and the Palais thereof so in politique bodies and Councels of State an immature and indigested an intempestive and unseasonable pressing of present remedies against all inconveniencies may suffocate the heart of the businesse and frustrate and evacuate the blessed and glorious purpose of the whole Councell The Basiliske is very sharpe-sighted but he sees therefore and to that end that he may kill So is so does passion Who would wish to be sharper sighted then the Eagle And his strength of sight is in this that he lookes to the Sun To looke to things that are evident The evident danger of the State and the Church The evident malice and power of the enemy The evident storme upon our peace and Religion To looke that God be not tempted by us nor his Lieutenant and Vicegerent wearied and hardened towards us This is the object of the Eagles eye and this is wisdome high enough Where men see a great foundation laid they will thinke that all that is not onely to raise a Spittle to cure or a Church-yard to bury a few diseased
one or few such fooles but emphaticall because that foole that any way denies God is the foole the veryest foole of all kinds of foolishnesse Now as God himselfe so his religion amongst us hath many enemies Enemies that deny God as Atheists And enemies that multiply gods that make many gods as Idolaters And enemies that deny those divers persons in the Godhead which they should confesse The Trinity as Jews and Turks So in his Religion and outward worship we have enemies that deny God his House that deny us any Church any Sacrament any Priesthood any Salvation as Papists And enemies that deny Gods house any furniture any stuffe any beauty any ornament any order as non-Conformitans And enemies that are glad to see Gods house richly furnished for a while that they may come to the spoile thereof as sacrilegious usurpers of Gods part But for Atheisticall enemies I call not upon them here to answer me Let them answer their own terrors and horrors alone at mid-night and tell themselves whence that proceeds if there be no God For Papisticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me Let them answer our Laws as well as our Preaching because theirs is a religion mixt as well of Treason as of Idolatry For our refractary and schismaticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me neither Let them answer the Church of God in what nation in what age was there ever seen a Church of that form that they have dreamt and beleeve their own dream And for our sacrilegious enemies let them answer out of the body of Story and give one example of prosperity upon sacriledge But leaving all these to that which hath heretofore or may hereafter be said of them I have bent my meditations for those dayes which this Terme will afford upon that which is the character and mark of all Christians in generall The Trinity the three Persons in one God not by way of subtile disputation as to persons that doubted but by way of godly declaration as to persons disposed to make use of it not as though I feared your faith needed it nor as though I hoped I could make your reason comprehend it but because I presume that the consideration of God the Father and his Power and the sins directed against God in that notion as the Father and the consideration of God the Son and his Wisedome and the sins against God in that apprehension the Son and the consideration of God the Holy Ghost and his Goodnesse and the sins against God in that acceptation may conduce as much at least to our edification as any Doctrine more controverted And of the first glorious person of this blessed Trinity the Almighty Father is this Text Blessed be God c. In these words Divisio the Apostle having tasted having been fed with the sense of the power and of the mercies of God in his gracious deliverance delivers a short Catechisme of all our duties So short as that there is but one action Benedicamus Let us blesse Nor but one object to direct that blessing upon Benedicamus Deum Let us blesse God It is but one God to exclude an Idolatrous multiplicity of Gods But it is one God notified and manifested to us in a triplicity of persons of which the first is literally expressed here That he is a Father And him we consider In Paternitate aeterna As he is the eternall Father Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ sayes our Text And then In Paternitate interna as we have the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father As he is Pater miserationum The Father of mercies And as he expresses these mercies by the seale and demonstration of comfort as he is the God of comfort and Totius consolationis Of all comfort Receive the summe of this and all that arises from it in this short Paraphrase The duty required of a Christian is Blessing Praise Thanksgiving To whom To God to God onely to the onely God There is but one But this one God is such◠tree as hath divers boughs to shadow and refresh thee divers branches to shed fruit upon thee divers armes to spread out and reach and imbrace thee And here hee visits thee as a Father From all eternity a Father of Christ Iesus and now thy Father in him in that which thou needest most A Father of mercy when thou wast in misery And a God of comfort when thou foundest no comfort in this world And a God of all comfort even of spirituall comfort in the anguishes and distresses of thy conscience Blessed bee God even the Father c. First then 1 Part. Benedictus the duty which God by this Apostle requires of man is a duty arising out of that which God hath wrought upon him It is not a consideration a contemplation of God sitting in heaven but of God working upon the earth not in the making of his eternall Decree there but in the execution of those Decrees here not in saying God knowes who are his and therefore they cannot faile but in saying in a rectified conscience God by his ordinary marks hath let me know that I am his and therefore I look to my wayes that I doe not fall S. Paul out of a religious sense what God had done for him comes to this duty to blesse him There is not a better Grammar to learne then to learne how to blesse God and therefore it may be no levity to use some Grammar termes herein God blesses man Dativè He gives good to him man blesses God Optativè He wishes well to him and he blesses him Vocativè He speaks well of him For though towards God as well as towards man 1 Sam. 25.27 2 King 5.15 reall actions are called blessings so Abigail called the present which she brought to David A blessing and so Naaman called that which he offered to Elisha A blessing though reall sacrifices to God and his cause sacrifices of Almes sacrifices of Armes sacrifices of Money sacrifices of Sermons advancing a good publique cause may come under the name of blessing yet the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a blessing in speech in discourse in conference in words in praise in thanks The dead doe not praise thee sayes David The dead men civilly dead allegorically dead dead and buryed in an uselesse silence in a Cloyster or Colledge may praise God but not in words of edification as it is required here and they are but dead and doe not praise God so and God is not the God of the dead but of the living of those that delight to praise and blesse God and to declare his goodnesse We represent the Angels to our selves and to the world with wings they are able to flie and yet when Iacob saw them aseending and descending Gen. 28.12 even those winged Angels had a Ladder they went by degrees There is an immediate blessing of God by the heart but God
because he may have roome in an Hospitall or reliefe by a pension when he comes home lame but because he may get something by going into a fat country and against a rich enemy Though honour may seeme to feed upon blowes and dangers men goe cheerefully against an enemy from whom something is to be got for profit is a good salve to knocks a good Cere-cloth to bruises and a good Balsamum to wounds God therefore here raises the reward out of the enemy feed him and thou shalt gaine by it But yet the profit that God promises by the enemy here is rather that we shall gaine a soule then any temporall gaine rather that we shall make that enemy a better man then that we shall make him a weaker enemy God respects his spirituall good as we shall see in that phrase which is our last branch Congeres carbones Thou shalt heape coales of fire upon his head It is true that S. Chrysostome and not he alone takes this phrase to imply a Revenge Carbones that Gods judgements shall be the more vehement upon such ungratefull persons Et terrebuntur beneficiis the good turnes that thou hast done to them shall be a scourge and a terror to their consciences This sense is not inconvenient but it is too narrow The Holy Ghost hath taken so large a Metaphor as implyes more then that It implyes the divers offices and effects of fire all this That if he have any gold any pure metall in him this fire of this kindnesse will purge out the drosse there is a friend made If he be nothing but straw and stubble combustible still still ready to take fire against thee this fire which Gods breath shall blow will consume him and burn him out and there is an enemy marred If he have any tendernesse any way this fire will mollifie him towards thee Nimis durus animus sayes S. Augustine he is a very hard hearted man Qui si ultro dilectionem non vult impendere etiam nolit rependere Who though he will not requite thy love yet will not acknowledge it If he be waxe he melts with this fire and if he be clay he hardens with it and then thou wilt arme thy selfe against that pellet Thus much good Origen God intends to the enemy in this phrase that it is pia vindicta si resipiscant we have taken a blessed revenge upon our enemies if our charitable applying of our selves to them may bring them to apply themselves to God and to glorifie him si benefaciendo cicuremus sayes S. Hierome if we can tame a wilde beast by sitting up with him and reduce an enemy by offices of friendship it is well 〈◊〉 much good God intends him in this phrase and so much good he intends us that si non incendant if these coales do not purge him Aben Ezra Levi Gherson si non injiciant pudorem if they do not kindle a shame in him to have offended one that hath deserved so well yet this fire gives thee light to see him clearely and to run away from him and to assure thee that he whom so many benefits cannot reconcile is irreconcileable SERMON XI Preached upon Candlemas day MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good cheare thy sins be forgiven thee IN these words Divisio and by occasion of them we shall present to you these two generall considerations first upon what occasion Christ did that which he did and then what it was that he did And in the first we shall see first some occasions that were remote but yet conduce to the Miracle it selfe some circumstances of time and place and some such dispositions and then the more immediate occasion the disposition of those persons who presented this sick man to Christ and there we shall see first that Faith was the occasion of all for without faith it is impossible to please God and without pleasing of God it is impossible to have remission of sins It was fides and fides illorum their faith all their faith for though in the faith of others there be an assistance yet without a personall faith in himselfe no man of ripe age comes so far as to the forgivenesse of sins And then this faith of them all was fides visa a faith that was seen Christ saw their faith and he saw it as man it was a faith expressed and declared in actions And yet when all was done it is but cum vidit it is not quia vidit Christ did it When he saw not Because he saw their faith that was not the principle and primary cause of his mercy for the mercy of God is all and above all it is the effect and it is the cause too there is no cause of his mercy but his mercy And when we come in the second part to consider what in his mercy he did we shall see first that he establishes him and comforts him with a gracious acceptation with that gracious appellation Fili Son He doth not disavow him he doth not disinherite him and then he doth not wound him whom God had striken he doth not flea him whom God had scourged he doth not salt him whom God had flead he doth not adde affliction to affliction he doth not shake but settle that faith which he had with more Confide fili My son be of good cheare and then he seales all with that assurance Dimittuntur peccata Thy sins are forgiven thee In which first he catechises this patient and gives him all these lessons first that he gives before we ask for he that was brought they who brought him had asked nothing in his behalfe when Christ unasked enlarged himself towards them Dat prius God gives before we ask that is first And then Dat meliora God gives better things then we ask All that all they meant to ask was but bodily health and Christ gave him spirituall and the third lesson was that sin was the cause of bodily sicknesse and that therefore he ought to have sought his spirituall recovery before his bodily health and then after he had thus rectified him by this Catechisme implyed in those few words Thy sins are forgiven thee he takes occasion by this act to rectifie the by-standers too which were the Pharisees who did not beleeve Christ to be God For for proofe of that first he takes knowledge of their inward thoughts not expressed by any act or word which none but God could doe And then he restores the patient to bodily health onely by his word without any naturall meanes applyed which none but God could doe neither And into fewer particulars then these this pregnant and abundant Text is not easily contracted First then to begin with the Branches of the first part of which the first was 1 Part. to consider some somewhat more remote circumstances and occasions conducing to this miracle we cannot avoid the making
have of the plurality of the persons in the Scriptures And because we are not now in a Congregation that doubts it nor in a place to multiply testimonies we content our selves being already possest with the beliefe thereof with this illustration from the old Testament That the name of our one God is expressed in the plurall number in that place which we mentioned before where it is said Deut. 6.4 The Lord thy God is one God that is Elohim unus Dii one Gods And though as much as that seem to be said by God to Moses Eris Aaroni in Elohim Thou shalt be as Gods to Aaron Exod. 4.16 Yet that was because Moses was to represent God all God all the Persons in God and therefore it might as well be spoken plurally of Moses so as of God But because it is said Gods appeared unto Iacob And againe Dii Sancti ipse est Hee is the Holy Gods Gen. 35.7 Ios 24.19 Iob 35.10 Gen. 1.26 Gen. 3 22. And so also Vbi Deus factores mei Where is God my Makers And God sayes of himselfe Faciamus hominem and Factus est sicut unus ex nobis God sayes Let us make man and he sayes Man is become as one of us We imbrace humbly and thankfully and profitably this shall we call it Effigiationem ansarum This making out of handles Or Protuberationem mammarum This swelling out of breasts Or Germinationem gemmarum This putting forth of buds and blossomes and fruits by which we may apprehend and see and taste God himself so as his wisedome hath chosen to communicate himself to us in the notion and manifestation of divers persons Of which in this Text we lay hold on him by the first handle by the name of Father Blessed be God even the Father c. Now we consider in God Pater Essentialiter a two-fold Paternity a two-fold Father-hood One as he is Father to others another as to us And the first is two-fold too One essentially by which he is a Father by Creation and so the name of Father belongs to all the three Persons in the Trinity Eph. 4.6 for There is one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Which is spoken of God gathered into his Essence and not diffused into persons Esay 9.6 In which sense the Son of God Christ Jesus is called Father Vnto us a Son is given and his name shall be The Everlasting Father And to this Father even to the Son of God Mat. 9.2 in this sense are the faithfull made sons Son be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Mark 5.34 sayes Christ to the Paralytique And Daughter thy faith hath made thee whole sayes he to the woman with the bloody issue Thus Christ is a Father And thus Per filiationem vestigii By that impression of God which is in the very beeing of every creature Iob 38.28 God that is the whole Trinity is the Father of every creature as in Iob Quis pluviae Pater Hath the raine a Father or who hath begotten the drops of dew And so in the Prophet Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one Father hath not one God created us But the second Paternity is more mysterious in it selfe and more precious to us as he is a Father not by Creation but by Generation Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ Now Personaliter Generationem istam quis enarrabit who shall declare this generation who shall tell us how it was who was there to fee it Since the first-borne of all creatures the Angels Esay 53.8 who are almost sixe thousand yeares old and much elder in the opinion of many of the Fathers who think the Angels to have been created long before the generall Creation since I say these Angels are but in their swathing clouts but in their cradle in respect of this eternall generation who was present Quis enarrabit who shall tell us how it was who shall tell us when it was when it was so long before any time was as that when time shall be no more and that after an end of time wee shall have lived infinite millions of millions of generations in heaven yet this generation of the Son of God was as long before that immortall life as that Immortality and Everlastingnesse shall be after this life It cannot be expressed nor conceived how long our life shall be after nor how long this generation was before This is that Father Nazian that hath a Son and yet is no elder then that Son for he is à Patre but not Post Patrem but so from the Father as he is not after the Father He hath from him Principium Originale Biel. but not Initiale A root from whence he sprung but no spring-time when he sprung out of that root Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ Wherefore blessed Quia potuit Because he could have a Son Non generavit potentia sed natura God did not beget this Son because he had alwayes a power to doe so for then if this Son had ever been but in Potentia onely in such a condition as that he might have been then this had not been an eternall generation for if there were a time when only he might have been at that time he was not He is not blessed then because cause he could is he blessed that is to be blessed by us because he would beget this Son Non generavit voluntate sed natura God did not beget this Son then when he would that is had a will to doe so for if his will determined it now I will doe it then till that there had been no Son and so this generation had not been eternall neither But when it was or how it was Turatiocinare ego mirer sayes S. Augustine Let others discourse it let me admire it Tu disputa ego credam Let others dispute it let me beleeve it And when all is done you have done disputing and I have done wondring that that brings it nearer then either is this That there is a Paternity notby Creation by which Christ and the Holy Ghost are Fathers too nor by generation by which God is though inexpressibly the Father even of our Lord Jesus Christ but by Adoption as in Christ Jesus he is Father of us all notified in the next appellation Pater miserationum The Father of mercies In this alone Pater we discerne the whole Trinity here is the Father and here is Mercy which mercy is in the Son And the effect of this mercy is the Spirit of Adoption by which also we cry Rem 8.15 Abba Father too When Christ would pierce into his Father and melt those bowels of compassion he enters with that word Abba Father All things are possible to thee Mark 14.36 take away this Cup from me When Christ apprehended an absence a
In thy Treasury in thine Ordinance in thy Church Thou hast it to derive it to convey it upon us Here then is the first step of Sauls cure and of ours That there was not onely a word the Word Christ himselfe a Son of God in heaven but a Voyce the word uttered and preached Christ manifested in his Ordinance He heard a voyce He heard it How often does God speake and no body heares the voyce Audivit He speaks in his Canon in Thunder and he speaks in our Canon in the rumour of warres He speaks in his musique in the harmonious promises of the Gospel and in our musique in the temporall blessings of peace and plenty And we heare a noyse in his Judgements and wee heare a sound in his mercies but we heare no voyce we doe not discern that this noyse or this sound comes from any certain person we do not feele them to be mercies nor to be judgements uttered from God but naturall accidents casuall occurrencies emergent contingencies which as an Atheist might think would fall out though there were no God or no commerce no dealing no speaking between God and Man Though Saul came not instantly to a perfect discerning who spoke yet he saw instantly it was a Person above nature and therefore speakes to him in that phrase of submission Quis es Domine Lord who art thou And after with trembling and astonishment as the Text sayes Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me to do Then we are truliest said to hear when we know from whence the voyce comes Princes are Gods Trumpet and the Church is Gods Organ but Christ Jesus is his voyce When he speaks in the Prince when he speaks in the Church there we are bound to heare and happy if we doe hear Man hath a natural way to come to God by the eie by the creature Rom 2. So Visible things shew the Invisible God But then God hath super-induced a supernaturall way by the eare For though hearing be naturall yet that faith in God should come by hearing a man preach is supernatural God shut up the naturall way in Saul Seeing He struck him blind But he opened the super-naturall way he inabled him to heare and to heare him God would have us beholden to grace and not to nature and to come for our salvation to his Ordinances to the preaching of his Word and not to any other meanes Though hee were blinde even that blindnesse as it was a humiliation and a diverting of his former glaring lights was a degree of mercy of preparative mercy yet there was a voyce which was another degree And a voyce that he heard which was a degree above that and so farre we are gone And he heard it saying that is distinctly and intelligibly which is our next Circumstance He heares him saying that is He heares him so as that he knowes what he sayes so Dicentem as that he understands him for he that heares the word and understands it not is subject to that which Christ sayes That the wicked one comes Mat. 13.19 and catches away that that was sowne S. Augustine puts himselfe earnestly upon the contemplation of the Creation as Moses hath delivered it he findes it hard to conceive and he sayes Si esset ante me Moses Confes l. 1. c. 3. If Moses who writ this were here Tenerem eum per te obsecrarem I would hold him fast and beg of him for thy sake O my God that he would declare this worke of the Creation more plainly unto me But then sayes that blessed Father Si Hebraea voce loqueretur If Moses should speake Hebrew to mee mine eares might heare the sound but my minde would not heare the voyce I might heare him but I should not heare what he said This was that that distinguished betweene S. Paul and those who were in his company at this time Ver. 7. Acts 22.9 S. Luke sayes in this Chapter That they heard the voyce and S. Paul relating the story againe after sayes They heard not the voyce of him that spoke to me they heard a confused sound but they distinguished it not to be the voyce of God nor discerned Gods purpose in it Ver. 28. In the twelfth of Iohn there came a voyce from Heaven from God himselfe and the people said It thundred So apt is naturall man to ascribe even Gods immediate and miraculous actions to naturall causes apt to rest and determine in Nature and leave out God The Poet chides that weaknesse as he cals it to be afraid of Gods judgements or to call naturall accidents judgements Quo morbo mentem concusse timore Deorum sayes he he sayes The Conscience may be over-tender and that such timerous men are sick of the feare of God But it is a blessed disease The feare of God and the true way to true health And though there be a morall constancy that becomes a Christian well not to bee easily shaked with the variations and revolutions of this world yet it becomes him to establish his constancy in this That God hath a good purpose in that action not that God hath no hand in that action That God will produce good out of it not that God hath nothing to doe in it The Magicians themselves were forced to confesse Digitum Dei Exod. 6.16 The finger of God in a small matter Never thinke it a weakenesse to call that a judgement of God which others determine in Nature Doe so so far as works to thy edification who seest that judgement though not so far as to argue and conclude the finall condemnation of that man upon whom that judgement is fallen Certainely we were better call twenty naturall accidents judgements of God then frustrate Gods purpose in any of his powerfull deliverances by calling it a naturall accident and suffer the thing to vanish so and God be left unglorified in it or his Church unedified by it Then we heare God when we understand what he sayes And therefore as we are bound to blesse God that he speakes to us and heares us speake to him in a language which wee understand and not in such a strange language as that a stranger who should come in and heare it 1 Cor. 14.23 would thinke the Congregation mad So also let us blesse him for that holy tendernesse to be apt to feele his hand in every accident and to discerne his presence in every thing that befals us Saul heard the voyce saying He understood what it said and by that found that it was directed to him which is also another step in this last part This is an impropriation without sacriledge Sibi and an enclosure of a Common without damage to make God mine owne to finde that all that God sayes is spoken to me and all that Christ suffered was suffered for me And as Saul found this voyce at first to be directed to him so
all timorousnesse that my Transgressions are not forgiven or my sins not covered In the first Act we consider God the Father to have wrought He proposed he decreed he accepted too a sacrifice for all mankind in the death of Christ In the second The Covering of sinnes we consider God the Sonne to worke Incubare Ecclesiae He sits upon his Church as a Hen upon her Eggs He covers all our sinnes whom he hath gathered into that body with spreading himselfe and his merits upon us all there In this third The not Imputing of Iniquity we consider God the Holy Ghost to worke and as the Spirit of Consolation to blow away all scruples all diffidences and to establish an assurance in the Conscience The Lord imputes not that is the Spirit of the Lord The Lord the Spirit The Holy Ghost suffers not me to impute to my selfe those sinnes which I have truly repented The over-tendernesse of a bruised and a faint conscience may impute sinne to it selfe when it is discharged And a seared and obdurate Conscience may impute none when it abounds If the Holy Ghost work he rectifies both and if God doe inflict punishments according to the signification of this word Gnavah after our Repentance and the seals of our Reconciliation yet he suffers us not to impute those sinnes to our selves or to repute those corrections punishments as though he had not forgiven them or as though he came to an execution after a pardon but that they are laid upon us medicinally and by way of prevention and precaution against his future displeasure This is that Pax Conscientiae The peace of Conscience when there is not one sword drawne This is that Serenitas Conscientiae The Meridionall brightnesse of the Conscience when there is not one Cloud in our sky I shall not hope that Originall sin shall not be imputed but feare that Actuall sin may not hope that my dumbe sins shall not but my crying sins may not hope that my apparant sins which have therefore induced in me a particular sense of them shall not but my secret sins sins that I am not able to returne and represent to mine owne memory may for this Non Imputabit hath no limitation God shall suffer the Conscience thus rectified to terrifie it selfe with nothing which is also farther extended in the Originall where it is not Non Imputat but Non Imputabit Though after all this we doe fall into the same or other sins yet we shall know our way and evermore have our Consolation in this That as God hath forgiven our transgression in taking the sins of all mankinde upon himselfe for he hath redeemed us and left out Angels And as he hath covered our sin that is provided us the Word and Sacraments and cast off the Jews and left out the Heathen So he will never Impute mine Iniquity never suffer it to terrifie my Conscience Not now when his Judgements denounced by his Minister call me to him here Nor hereafter when the last bell shall call me to him into the grave Nor at last when the Angels Trumpets shall call me to him from the dust in the Resurrection But that as all mankinde hath a Blessednesse in Christs taking our sins which was the first Article in this Catechisme And all the Christian Church a Blessednesse in covering our sins which was the second So I may finde this Blessednesse in this worke of the Holy Ghost not to Impute that is not to suspect that God imputes any repented sin unto me or reserves any thing to lay to my charge at the last day which I have prayed may be and therefore hoped hath been forgiven before But then after these three parts which we have now in our Order proposed at first passed through That David applies himselfe to us in the most convenient way by the way of Catechisme and instruction in fundamentall things And then that he lays for his foundation of all Beatitude Blessednesse Happinesse which cannot be had in the consummation and perfection thereof but in the next world But yet in the third place gives us an inchoation an earnest an evidence of this future and consummate Blessednesse in bringing us faithfully to beleeve That Christ dyed sufficiently for all the world That Christ offers the application of all this to all the Christian Church That the Holy Ghost seals an assurance thereof to every particular Conscience well rectified After all this done thus largely on Gods part there remains something to be done on ours that may make all this effectuall upon us Vt non sit dolus in spiritu That there be no guile in our spirit which is our fourth part and Conclusion of all Of all these fruits of this Blessednesse there is no other root but the goodnesse of God himselfe but yet they grow in no other ground then in that man 4. Part. Dolus In cujus spiritu non est dolus The Comment and interpretation of S. Paul Rom. 4.5 hath made the sense and meaning of this place cleare To him that worketh the reward is of debt but to him that beleeveth and worketh not his faith is counted for righteousnesse Even as David describeth the blessednesse of Man sayes the Apostle there and so proceeds with the very words of this Text. Doth the Apostle then in this Text exclude the Co-operation of Man Differs this proposition That the man in whom God imprints these beames of Blessednesse must be without guile in his spirit from those other propositions Si vis ingredi Mat. 19.17 If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements And Maledictus qui non Cursed is he that performes not all Grows not the Blessednesse of this Text from the same roote as the Blessednesse in the 119. Psal ver 1. Blessed are they who walke in the way of the Lord Or doth Saint Paul take David to speake of any other Blessednesse in our Text then himselfe speaks of If through the Spirit yee mortifie the deeds of the body yee shall live Rom. 8.13 Doth S. Paul require nothing nothing out of this Text to be done by man Surely he does And these propositions are truly all one Tantùm credideris Onely beleeve and you shall be saved And Fac hoc vives Doe this and you shall be saved As it is truly all one purpose to say If you live you may walke and to say If you stretch out your legges you may walke To say Eat of this Tree and you shall recover and to say Eat of this fruit and you shall recover is all one To attribute an action to the next Cause or to the Cause of that Cause is to this purpose all one And therefore as God gave a Reformation to his Church in prospering that Doctrine That Justification was by faith onely so God give an unity to his Church in this Doctrine That no man is justified that works not for without works how much soever he magnifie his faith
why then doest thou set me up as a marke to shoot at But Iob never hopes for ease in any such allegation Thou hast made my soule a Cisterne and then powred tentations into it Thou hast enfeebled it with denying it thy Grace and then put a giant a necessitie of sinning upon it My sins are mine own The Sun is no cause of the shadow my body casts nor God of the sins I commit David confesses his sinnes that is he confesses them to be His And then he confesses His He meddles not with those that are other mens The Magistrate and the Minister are bound to consider the sins of others Non alienae for their sins become Qaodammodo nostra in some sort ours if we doe not reprove if the Magistrate doe not correct those sins All men are bound to confesse and lament the sins of the people It was then when Daniel was in that exercise of his Devotion Confessing his sinne Dan. 9.12 and the sinne of his people that he received that comfort from the Angel Gabriel And yet even then the first thing that fell under his Confession was his own sin My sin And then The sinne of my people When Iosephs brethren came to a sense of that sin in having sold him none of them transfers the sin from himselfe neither doth any of them discharge any of the rest of that sin Gen. 42.21 They all take all They said to one another sayes that Text we all we are verily guilty and therefore is this distresse come upon us upon us all Nationall calamities are induced by generall sins and where they fall we cannot so charge the Laity as to free the Clergy nor so charge the people as to free the Magistrate But as great summes are raysed by little personall Contributions so a little true sorrow from every soule would make a great sacrifice to God and a few teares from every eye a deeper and a safer Sea about this Iland then that that doth wall it Let us therefore never say that it is Aliena ambitio The immoderate ambition of a pretending Monarch that endangers us That it is Aliena perfidia The falshood of perfidious neighbours that hath disappointed us That it is Aliena fortuna The growth of others who have shot up under our shelter that may overtop us They are Peccata nostra our own pride our own wantonnesse our own drunkennesse that makes God shut and close his hand towards us withdraw his former blessings from us and then strike us with that shut and closed and heavy hand and multiply calamities upon us What a Parliament meets at this houre in this Kingdome How many such Committees as this how many such Congregations stand as we doe here in the presence of God at this houre And what a Subsidy should this State receive and what a sacrifice should God receive if every particular man would but depart with his own beloved sin We dispute what is our own as though we would but know what to give Alas our sins are our own let us give them Our sins are our own that we confesse And we confesse them according to Davids Method Domino to the Lord I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord. After he had deliberated Domino peecavi and resolved upon his course what he would doe he never stayed upon the person to whom His way being Confession he stayed not long in seeking his ghostly Father his Confessor Confitebor Domino And first Peccata Domino That his sins were sins against the Lord. For as every sin is a violation of a Law so every violation of a Law reflects upon the Law-maker It is the same offence to coyne a penny and a piece The same to counterfait the seale of a Subpoena as of a Pardon The second Table was writ by the hand of God as well as the first And the Majesty of God as he is the Law-giver is wounded in an adultery and a theft as well as in an Idolatry or a blasphemy It is not inough to consider the deformity and the foulnesse of an Action so as that an honest man would not have done it but so as it violates a law of God and his Majesty in that law The shame of men is one bridle that is cast upon us It is a morall obduration and in the suburbs next doore to a spirituall obduration to be Voyce-proofe Censure-proofe not to be afraid nor ashamed what the world sayes He that relyes upon his Plaudo domi Though the world hisse I give my selfe a Plaudite at home I have him at my Table and her in my bed whom I would have and I care not for rumor he that rests in such a Plaudite prepares for a Tragedy a Tragedy in the Amphitheater the double Theater this world and the next too Even the shame of the world should be one one bridle but the strongest is the other Peccata Domino To consider that every sin is a violation of the Majesty of God And then Confitebor Domino sayes David I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord Domino confitebor sinnes are not confessed if they be not confessed to him and if they be confessed to him in case of necessitie it will suffice though they be confessed to no other Indeed a confession is directed upon God though it be made to his Minister If God had appointed his Angels or his Saints to absolve me as he hath his Ministers I would confesse to them Ioshuah tooke not the jurisdiction out of Gods hands when he said to Achan Josh 7.19 Give glory unto the God of Israel in making thy confession to him And tell me now what thou hast done and hide it not from me Levit. 14.2 The law of the Leper is That he shall be brought unto the Priest Men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor are they to be brought in chains as they doe in the Roman Church by a necessitie of an exact enumeration of all their sins But to be led with that sweetnesse with which our Church proceeds in appointing sicke persons if they seele their consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a speciall confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest And then to be remembred that every comming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this world and we should doe as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our death-bed And to be remembred also that none of all the Reformed Churches have forbidden Confession though some practise it lesse then others If I submit a cause to the Arbitrement of any man to end it secundùm voluntatem sayes the Law How he will yet still Arbitrium est arbitrium boni viri his will must be regulated by the rules of common honesty and generall equity So when we lead men to this holy ease of discharging their heavy spirits by such private Confessions
yet this is still limited by the law of God so far as God hath instituted this power by his Gospel in his Church and far from inducing amongst us that torture of the Conscience that usurpation of Gods power that spying into the counsails of Princes supplanting of their purposes with which the Church of Rome hath been deeply charged And this usefull and un-mis-interpretable Confession which we speake of Adversum me is the more recommended to us in that with which David shuts up his Act as out of S. Hierome and out of our former translation we intimated unto you that he doth all this Adversum se I will confesse my sinnes unto the Lord against my selfe The more I finde Confession or any religious practise to be against my selfe and repugnant to mine owne nature the farther I will goe in it For still the Adversum me is Cum Deo The more I say against my selfe the more I vilifie my selfe the more I glorifie my God As S. Chry sostome sayes every man is Spontaneus Satan a Satan to himselfe as Satan is a Tempter every man can tempt himselfe so I will be Spontaneus Satan as Satan is an Accuser an Adversary I will accuse my selfe I consider often that passionate humiliation of S. Peter Exi à me Domine He fell at Iesus knees saying Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord Luk. 5.8 And I am often ready to say so and more Depart from me O Lord for I am sinfull inough to infect thee As I may persecute thee in thy Children so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances Depart in withdrawing thy word from me for I am corrupt inough to make even thy saving Gospel the savor of death unto death Depart in withholding thy Sacrament for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh and to make the balme of thy blood poyson to my soule Depart in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and rebellion into their nature And if I be too foule for God himselfe to come neare me for his Ordinances to worke upon me I am no companion for my selfe I must not be alone with my selfe for I am as apt to take as to give infection I am a reciprocall plague passively and actively contagious I breath corruption and breath it upon my selfe and I am the Babylon that I must goe out of Gen. 32.10 Mat. 8.8 or I perish I am not onely under Iacobs Non dignus Not worthy the least of all thy mercies nor onely under the Centurions Non dignus I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe That thy Spirit should ever speake to my spirit which was the forme of words in which every Communicant received the Sacrament in the Primitive Church Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roofe Nor onely under the Prodigals Non dignus Luke 15.21 Not worthy to be called thy sonne neither in the filiation of Adoption for I have deserved to be dis-inherited nor in the filiation of Creation for I have deserved to be annihilated Mark 1.7 But Non dignus procumbere I am not worthy to stoop down to fall down to kneele before thee in thy Minister the Almoner of thy Mercy the Treasurer of thine Absolutions So farre doe I confesse Adversum me against my selfe as that I confesse I am not worthy to confesse nor to be admitted to any accesse any approach to thee much lesse to an act so neare Reconciliation to thee as an accusation of my selfe or so neare thy acquitting as a self-condemning Be this the issue in all Controversies whensoever any new opinions distract us Be that still thought best that is most Adversum nos most against our selves That that most layes flat the nature of man so it take it not quite away and blast all vertuous indeavours That that most exalts the Grace and Glory of God be that the Truth And so have you the whole mystery of Davids Confession in both his Acts preparatory in resenting his sinfull condition in generall and survaying his conscience in particular And then his Deliberation his Resolution his Execution his Confession Confession of true sins and of them onely and of all them of his sins and all this to the Lord and all that against himselfe That which was proposed for the second Part must fall into the compasse of a Conclusion and a short one that is Gods Act Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin This is a wide doore 2 Part. and would let out Armies of Instructions to you but we will shut up this doore with these two leaves thereof The fulnesse of Gods Mercy He forgives the sin and the punishment And the seasonablenesse the acceleration of his mercy in this expression in our text that Davids is but Actus inchoatus He sayes he will confesse And Gods is Actus consummatus Thou forgavest Thou hadst already forgiven the iniquity and punishment of my sin These will be the two leaves of this doore and let the hand that shuts them be this And this Particle of Connection which we have in the text I said And thou didst For though this Remission of sin be not presented here as an effect upon that cause of Davids Confession It is not delivered in a Quia and an Ergo Because David did this God did that for mans wil leads not the will of God as a cause who does all his acts of mercy for his mercies sake yet though it be not an effect as from a cause yet it is at least as a consequent from an occasion so assured so infallible as let any man confesse as David did and he shall be sure to be forgiven as David was For though this forgivenesse be a flower of mercy yet the roote growes in the Justice of God If wee acknowledge our sin 1 John 1.9 he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sin It growes out of his faithfulnesse as he hath vouchsafed to binde himselfe by a promise And out of his Justice as he hath received a full satisfaction for all our sins So that this Hand this And in our Text is as a ligament as a sinew to connect and knit together that glorious body of Gods preventing grace and his subsequent grace if our Confession come between and tie the knot God that moved us to that act will perfect all Here enters the fulnesse of his mercy Plenitudo Rev. 3 20. at one leafe of this doore well expressed at our doore in that Ecce sto pulso Behold I stand at the doore and knock for first he comes here is no mention of our calling of him before He comes of himselfe And then he suffers not us to be ignorant of his comming he comes so as that he manifests himself Ecce Behold And then he expects not that we should wake with that light and look out of our selves but he knocks
in that Church had charged the Jewes That they had rased that clause out of the Hebrew Leo Castr and that it was in the Hebrew at first A learned and a laborious Jesuit for truely Lorinus Schooles may confesse the Jesuits to bee learned for they have assisted there and States and Councell-tables may confesse the Jesuits to be laborious for they have troubled them there hee I say after he hath chidden his fellow for saying That this word had ever been in the Hebrew or was razed out from thence by the Jewes concludes roundly Vndecunque advenerit Howsoever those Additions which are not in the Hebrew came into our Translation Authoritatem habent retineri debent Their very being there gives them Authentikenesse and Authority and there they must be That this in the Title of this Psalme be there wee are content as long as you know that this particular That this Psalme by the Title thereof concerns the Resurrection is not in the Originall but added by some Expositor of the Psalmes you may take knowledge too That that addition hath beene accepted and followed by many and ancient and reverend Expositors almost all of the Easterne and many of the Westerne Church too and therefore for our use and accommodation may well be accepted by us also We consider ordinarily three Resurrections A spirituall Resurrection a Resurrection from sinne by Grace in the Church A temporall Resurrection a Resurrection from trouble and calamity in the world And an eternall Resurrection a Resurrection after which no part of man shall die or suffer againe the Resurrection into Glory Of the first The Resurrection from sinne Esay 60.1 is that intended in Esay Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Of the later Resurrection is that harmonious straine of all the Apostles in their Creed intended I beleeve the Resurrection of the body And of the third Resurrection from oppressions and calamities which the servants of God suffer in this life Calvin Iob 19.26 Ezek. 37. some of our later men understand that place of Iob I know that my Redeemer liveth and that in my flesh I shall see God And that place of Ezekiel all understand of that Resurrection where God saith to the Prophet Sonne of man can these bones live Can these men thus ruined thus dispersed bee restored againe by a resurrection in this world And to this resurrection from the pressures and tribulations of this life doe those Interpreters who interpret this Psalme of a Resurrection refer this our Text Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Consider how powerfully God hath and you cannot doubt but that God will give them a Resurrection in this world who rely upon him and use his meanes whensoever any calamity hath dejected them ruined them scattered them in the eyes of men Say unto the Lord That he hath done it and the Lord will say unto thee that he will doe it againe and againe for thee We call Noah Divisio Ianus because hee had two faces in this respect That hee looked into the former and into the later world he saw the times before and after the flood David in this Text is a Ianus too He looks two wayes he hath a Prospect and a Retrospect he looks backward and forward what God had done and what God would doe For as we have one great comfort in this That Prophecies are become Histories that whatsoever was said by the mouthes of the Prophets concerning our salvation in Christ is effected so prophecies are made histories so have wee another comfort in this Text That Histories are made Prophecies That whatsoever we reade that God had formerly done in the reliefe of his oppressed servants wee are thereby assured that he can that he will doe them againe and so Histories are made Prophecies And upon these two pillars A thankfull acknowledgement of that which God hath done And a faithfull assurance that God will doe so againe shall this present Exercise of your devotions be raysed And these are our two parts Dicite Deo Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works that part is Historicall of things past In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee that part is Propheticall of things to come In the History wee are to turne many leafes and many in the Prophecy too to passe many steps to put out many branches in each In the first these Dicite say ye where we consider first The Person that enjoyns this publike acknowledgement and thanksgiving It is David and David as a King for to Him to the King the ordering of publike actions even in the service of God appertains David David the King speaks this by way of counsell and perswasion and concurrence to all the world for so in the beginning and in some other passages of the Psalme it is Omnis terra All yee lands Verse 1. and All the earth Verse 4. David doth what he can that all the world might concurre in one manner of serving God By way of Assistance he extends to all And by way of Injunction and commandement to all his to all that are under his government Dicite say you that is you shall say you shall serve God thus And as he gives counsell to all and gives lawes to all his subjects so he submits himselfe to the same law For as wee shall see in some parts of the Psalme to which the Text refers he professes in his particular that he will say and doe Iosh 24.15 whatsoever hee bids them doe and say My house shall serve the Lord sayes Ioshua But it is Ego domus mea I and my house himselfe would serve God aright too From such a consideration of the persons in the Historicall part wee shall passe to the commandement to the duty it selfe That is first Dicite say It is more then Cogitate to Consider Gods former goodnesse more then Admirari to Admire Gods former goodnesse speculations and extasies are not sufficient services of God Dicite Say unto God Declare manifest publish your zeale is more then Cogitate Consider it thinke of it but it is lesse then Facite To come to action wee must declare our thankfull zeale to Gods cause we must not modifie not disguise that But for the particular wayes of promoving and advancing that cause in matter of action we must refer that to them to whom God hath referred it The Duty is a Commemoration of Benefits Dicite Speake of it ascribe it attribute it to the right Author Who is that That is the next Consideration Dicite Deo Say unto God Non vobis Not to your owne Wisdome or Power Non Sanctis Not to the care and protection of Saints or Angels Sed nomini ejus da gloriam Onely unto his name be
in whose person God assures both our temporall safety and our Religion We passe now from this consideration of the persons which though it be fixed here Dicite in the highest in Kings extends to all to whom any power is committed To Magistrates to Masters to Fathers All are bound to propagate Gods truth to others but especially to those who are under their charge And this they shall best doe if themselves be the Example So far we have proceeded and we come now to the Duty as it is here more particularly expressed Dicite Say unto God Publish declare manifest your zeale Christ is Verbum The Word and that excludes silence but Christ is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that excludes rashnesse and impertinence in our speech Inter caeteras Dei appellationes Nazianz. Sermonem veneramur Amongst Gods other Names we honour that that he is the Word That implies a Communication Gods goodnesse in speaking to us and an obligation upon us Josh 10.12 to speake to him For Beloved That standing of the Sunne and Moone which gave occasion to the drawing of so much blood of the Amorites is in the Originall not Siste Sol but Sile Sol He does not bid the Sunne and Moone stand still but he bids them say nothing make no noise no motion so Be the Sunne the Magistrate and be the Moone the Church Si sileant if they be silent command not pray not avow not Gods cause Acts 2.3 Mat. 12.22 Mar. 7.32 the case is dangerous The Holy Ghost fell in fiery tongues he inflamed them and inflamed them to speake Divers dumb men were presented to Christ but if they were dumb they were deafe too and some of them blinde Upon men that are dumb that is speechlesse in avowing him God heaps other mischievous impediments too Deafnesse They shall not heare him in his word and Blindnesse They shall not see him in his works Dicite Magis quà m cogitare Say sayes David Delight to speake of God and with God and for God Dicite say something We told you this was Magis quà m Cogitare That there was more required then to thinke of God Consideration Meditation Speculation Contemplation upon God and divine objects have their place and their season But this is more then that And more then Admiration too for all these may determine in extasies and in stupidities and in uselesse and frivolous imaginations Gold may be beat so thin as that it may be blowne away And Speculations even of divine things may be blowne to that thinnesse to that subtilty as that all may evaporate never fixed never applied to any use God had conceived in himselfe from all eternity certaine Idea's certaine parterns of all things which he would create But these Idea's these conceptions produced not a creature not a worme not a weed but then Dixit facta sunt God spoke and all things were made Inward speculations nay inward zeale nay inward prayers are not full performances of our Duty God heares willingliest when men heare too when we speake alowd in the cares of men and publish and declare and manifest and avow our zeale to his glory It is a duty Minùs quam facore which in every private man goes beyond the Cogitare and the Admirari but yet not so far as to a Facite in the private man Private men must thinke piously and seriously and speake zealously and seasonably of the cause of God But this does not authorize nor justifie such a forwardnesse in any private man as to come to actions though he in a rectified conscience apprehend that Gods cause might be advantaged by those actions of his For matter of action requires publique warrant and is not safely grounded upon private zeale When Peter out of his own zeale drew his sword for Christ Origen Nondum manifestè conceperat Euangelium patientie He was not yet well instructed in the patience of the Gospel Nay he was submitted to the sentence of the law out of the mouth of the supreme Judge Mat. 26.54 All they that take the sword that take it before it be given them by Authority shall perish by the sword The first law that was given to the new world Gen. 9.4 Gen. 9.6 after the Flood was against the eating of blood God would not have man so familiar with blood And the second commandement was against the shedding of blood Who so sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed Nay not onely where Peter was over-forward of himself to defend Christ by armes but where Iohn and Iames were too vehement and importunate upon Christ to give them leave to revenge the wrong done to him upon the Samaritans Luk. 9.55 Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them Christ rebukes them and tells them They knew not of what spirit they were that is of what spirit they ought to be They knew sayes S. Hierome they had no power of their own They goe to him who had And they doe not say Domine jube Lord doe thou doe it but Thou shalt never appeare in it never be seene in it onely let us alone and we will revenge thee and consume them Though they went no farther then this yet this rash and precipitate importunity in Iames and Iohn as well as that hasty comming to action in Peter was displeasing to Christ Dicite speake so far goes the duty of this Text Speake by way of Counsell you that are Counsellors to Princes And by way of Exhortation you that are Preachers to the people but leave the Facite matter of action to them in whose hearts and by whose hands and thorough whose commandments God works We are yet in our first Opera in our Historicall part Commemoration and there we made it in our distribution and paraphrase our next step what we are to commemorate to employ this Dicite this speaking upon and it is upon Gods works Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works So that the subject of our speech let it bee in holy Conferences and Discourses let it be in Gods Ordinance Preaching is not to speake of the unrevealed Decrees of God of his internall and eternall purposes in himselfe but of his works of those things in which he hath declared and manifested himselfe to us God gave not alwayes to his Church the Manifestation of the pillar of Fire but a pillar of Cloud too And though it were a Cloud yet it was a Pillar In a holy and devout and modest ignorance of those things which God hath not revealed to us we are better settled and supported by a better Pillar then in an over-curious and impertinent inquisition of things reserved to God himselfe or shut up in their breasts of whom God hath said Ye are gods God would not shew all himselfe to Moses as well as he loved him and as freely as he conversed with him He shewed
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