Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
the Kings of Israel themselves their owne Rabbins tell us that they were not ordinarily anointed but onely in those cases where there arose some question and difference about the succession as in Solomons case there because Adoniah pretended to the succession 1 Reg. 1. to make all the more sure David proceeded with a solemnity and appointed an anointing of Solomon which otherwise say their Rabbins had not been done But howsoever it may have been for their Kings there seemes to be a plaine distinction betweene them and the Prophets in the Psalme for this evidence of unction Touch not mine Anointed sayes God there Ps 105.15 They they that were Anointed constitute one rank one classis and then followes And doe my Prophets no harme They they who were not Anointed the Prophets constitute another classis another rank So that then an internall a spirituall unction the Prophets had that is an application an appropriation to that office from God but a constant an evident calling to that function by any externall act of the Church they had not but it was an extraordinary office and imposed immediatly by God and therfore the people might seem the more excusable if they did not beleeve a Prophet presently because the office of the Prophet did not carry with it such a manifestation by any thing evidently done upon him and visible to them that by that that man must be a Prophet But as God clothes himselfe with light as with a garment so God clothes and apparells his works with light too for frustra fecisset sayes S. Ambrose God had made creatures to no purpose if he had not made light to see them by Therefore when God does any extraordinary worke he accompanies that work with anextraordinary light by which he for whose instruction God does that work may know that work to be his So when he sent his Prophets to his people he accompanied their mission with an effectuall light and evidence by which that people did acknowledge in their owne hearts that that man was sent by God to them Therefore they called that man at first Roeh videntem a Seer one whom they acknowledged to have beene admitted to the sight of God in the declaration of his will to them for so we have it in Samuel He that is now called a Prophet 1 Sam. 9.9 was before time called a Seer And then that addition of the name of a Prophet gave them a farther qualification for Nabi which is a Prophet is from Niba and Niba is venire facio to cause to make a thing to come to passe So that a Prophet was not onely praefator but praefactor He did not only presage but preordain that is there was such an infallibility such an inevitablenesse in that which he had said as that his very saying of it seemed to them some kind of cause of the accomplishing thereof For hence it is that we have that phrase so often in the new Testament This and this was thus and thus done that such and such a Prophecy might be fulfilled They never went to that heighth that such or such a secret purpose or unrevealed Decree of God might be fulfilled but they rested in the Declaration which God had made in his Church and were satisfied in the execution of his Decrees in his visible Ordinances Therefore the increpation which the Prophet layes upon the people here Lord who hath beleeved our report is not that they did not beleeve those Prophets to be Prophets for though that were an extraordinary office yet it was accompanied with an extraordinary light neither was it that they did not beleeve that those things which were prophecyed by them should come to passe for they beleeved that man to be Roeh a Seer one that had seen the Counsels of God concerning them And they beleeved him to be Nabi venire facientem one upon whose word they might as infallibly rely as upon a cause for an effect But this was the sinne of this people this was the sorrow of this Prophet that they did not beleeve these predictions to belong to them they did not beleeve that these judgements would fall out in their time In one word present security was their sinne And was that so hainous So hainous as that that is it with which God was so highly incensed Esay 28.14 and with which he meant so deeply to affect his people in that considerable passage in that remarkeable and vehement place where he expostulates thus with them Heare ye scornfull men yee that make a jest a scorn of future judgements Heare ye scornfull men that rule this people sayes God there you that have a power over the affections of the people in the Pulpit and can perswade what you will or a power over the wils of the people in your place and can command what you will you that tell them sayes the Prophet there we have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell feare you nothing let us alone ambitious Princes shall turn their forces another way antichristian plots shall be practised in other nations you that tell them sayes he when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to you howsoever superstition be established in other places howsoever prevailing armies be multiplied else-where yet you shal have your religion your peace still for we have made a covenant with death with hell we are at an agreement Heare ye scornfull men sayes God you that put this scorn upon my predictions your covenant with death shall be disanulled Esay 28.18 and your agreement with death shall not stand the faire promises of others to you your own promises to your selves shall deceive you and the overflowing scourge shall passe thorough Esay 28.19 thorough you all for you you scornfull men shall be trodden down by it and as it followes there in an elegant and a vehement expression it shall be a vexation onely to understand the report You that would not beleeve the report of the Prophet that for these and these sins such and such Judgements should fall upon you shall be confounded even with the report the noyse the newes how this overslowing scourge hath passed thorough your neighbours round about you how much more with the sense when you your selves shall be trodden down by it There is scarce any of the Prophets in which God does not drive home this increpation of their security Ezek. 12.22 and insensiblenesse of future calamities As in Esay so in Ezechiel God sayes what is that Proverb which ye have in the Land of Israel it was it seemes in every mans mouth proverbially spoken by all what was it This The dayes are prolonged and every vision failes V. 27. The vision which he sayes is for many dayes to come and he prophesieth of the times afarre off But sayes God there In your dayes O rebellious house will I say the word and performe it Not say it
is done sayes the Apostle So that here is the case if the naturall man say alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature if the Jew say alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets If the slack and historicall Christian say alas they are but generall things done for the whole world indifferently and not applyed to me which I reade in the Gospell to this naturall man to this Jew to this slack Christian we present an established Church a Church endowed with a power to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soule to spread the balme of his blood upon every bleeding heart A Church that makes this generall Christ particular to every Christian that makes the Saviour of the world thy Saviour and my Saviour that offers the originall sinner Baptisme for that and the actuall sinner the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that a Church that mollifies and entenders and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgements of God and then consolidates and establishes the diffident soule with the promises of his Gospell a Church in contemplation whereof God may say Quid potui Vineae what could I doe more for my people then I have done first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world and then to spread a Church over the whole world by which that death of his might be life to every soule This we preach this we propose according to that commission put into our hands Ite praedicate Goe and preach the Gospell to every creature and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report In this then the Apostle and this Text places the inflexible the incorrigible stiffenesse of mans disobedience in this he seales up his inexcusablenesse his irrecoverablenesse first that he is not afraid of future judgements because they are remote then that he does not beleeve present judgements to be judgements because he can make shift to call them by a milder name accidents and not judgements and can assigne some naturall or morall or casuall reason for them But especially in this that he does not beleeve a perpetuall presence of Christ in his Church he does not beleeve an Ordinance of meanes by which all burdens of bodily infirmities of crosses in fortune of dejection of spirit and of the primary cause of all these that is sin it selfe may be taken off or made easie unto him he does not beleeve a Church Now as in our former part we were bound to know Gods hand and then bound to reade it to acknowledge a judgement to be a judgement and then to consider what God intended in that judgement so here we are bound to know the true Church and then to know what the true Church proposes to us The true Church is that where the word is truely preached and the Sacraments duly administred But it is the Word the Word inspired by the holy Ghost not Apocryphall not Decretall not Traditionall not Additionall supplements and it is the Sacraments Sacraments instituted by Christ himself and not those super-numerary sacraments those posthume post-nati sacramēts that have been multiplyed after and then that which the true Church proposes is all that is truly necessary to salvation and nothing but that in that quality as necessary So that Problematical points of which either side may be true in which neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation those marginal interlineary notes that are not of the body of the text opinions raised out of singularity in some one man and then maintained out of partiality and affection to that man these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church nor lay obligations upon mens consciences They should not disturb the general peace they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another The Act then that God requires of us is to beleeve so the words carry it in all the three places The Object the next the nearest Object of this Belief is made the Church that is to beleeve that God hath established means for the application of Christs death to all in all Christian Congregations All things are possible to him that beleeveth Mar. 9 23. saith our Saviour In the Word and Sacraments there is Salvation to every soule that beleeves there is so As on the other side we have from the same mouth and the same pen He that beleeveth not is damned Faith then being the root of all Mar. 16.16 and God having vouchsafed to plant this root this faith here in his terrestriall paradise and not in heaven in the manifest ministery of the Gospell and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose for faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching which are things executed and transacted here in the Church be thou content with those meanes which God hath ordained and take thy faith in those meanes and beleeve it to be influxus suasorius that it is an influence from God but an influence that works in thee by way of perswasion and not of compulsion It convinces thee but it doth not constraine thee It is as S. Augustine sayes excellently Vocatio congrua it is the voice of God to thee but his voice then when thou art fit to heare and answer that voice not fitted by any exaltation of thine own naturall faculties before the cōming of grace nor fitted by a good husbanding of Gods former grace so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace but fitted by his preventing his auxiliant his concomitant grace grace exhibited to thee at that time when he calls thee for so saies that Father Sic eum vocat quo modo seit ei congruere ut vocantē non respuat God calls him then when he knows he wil not resist his calling But he doth not say then when he cānot resist that needs not be said But as there is podus glcriae as the Apostle speaks an eternall weight of glory which mans understanding cannot cōprehend so there is Pondus gratiae a certain weight of grace that God layes upon that soule which shall be his under which that soule shall not easily bend it self any way from God This then is the summe of this whole Catechisme which these words in these three places doe constitute First that we be truely affected with Gods fore-warnings and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve that judgement to be denounced against my sin And then that we be duely affected with present changes and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve this judgement to come from thee and to be a letter of thy hand Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright for thy more publique glory and me for my particular reformation And then lastly to be sincerely and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church and to rest in them for the means of our salvation and to
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
of sinnes But with this man in our Text Christ goes farther and comes sooner to an end He exercises him with no disputation he leaves no roome for any diffidence but at first word establishes him and then builds upon him Now beloved which way soever of these two God have taken with thee whether the longer or the shorter way blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for that If God have setled and strengthned thy faith early early in thy youth heretofore early at the beginning of a Sermon now A day is as a thousand yeares with God a minute is as sixe thousand yeares with God that which God hath not done upon the Nations upon the Gentiles in six thousand yeares never since the Creation which is to reduce them to the knowlege and application of the Messias Christ Jesus that he hath done upon thee in an instant If he have carried thee about the longer way if he have exposed thee to scruples and perplexities and stormes in thine understanding or conscience yet in the midst of the tempest the soft ayre that he is said to come in shall breath into thee in the midst of those clouds his Son shall shine upon thee In the midst of that flood he shall put out his Rainbow his seale that thou shalt not drowne his Sacrament of faire weather to come and as it was to the Thiefe thy Crosse shall be thine Altar and thy Faith shall be thy Sacrifice Whether he accomplish his worke-upon thee soone or late he shall never leave thee all the way without this Confide fili a holy confidence that thou art his which shall carry thee to the Dimittuntur peccata to the peace of conscience in the remission of sins In which two words we noted unto you that Christ hath instituted a Catechisme an Instruction for this new Convertite and adopted Son of his in which the first lesson that is therein implyed is Antequam rogetur That God is more forward to give Antequam rogetur then man to aske It is not said that the sick man or his company in his behalfe said any thing to Christ but Christ speakes first to them If God have touched thee here didst thou aske that at his hands Didst thou pray before thou camest hither that he would touch thy heart here perchance thou didst But when thou wast brought to thy Baptisme didst thou ask any thing at Gods hands then But those that brought thee that presented thee did They did in thy Baptisme but at thine election then when God writing downe the names of all the Elect in the book of Life how camest thou in who brought thee in then Didst thou aske any thing at Gods hands then when thou thy selfe wast not at all Dat prius that 's the first lesson in this Catechisme God gives before we aske Meliora and then Dat meliora rogatis God gives better things then we aske They intended to aske but bodily health and Christ gave spirituall he gave Remission of sinnes And what gain'd he by that why Beati quorum remissae iniquitates Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven But what is Blessednesse Any more then a consident expectation of a good state in the next world Yes Blessednesse includes all that can be asked or conceived in the next world and in this too Christ in his Sermon of blessednesse saies first Blessed are they for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven and after Blessed are they Mat. 5.3 5. for they shall in her it the earth Againe Blessed for they shall obtaine mercy and Blessed for they shall be filled Remission of sins is blessednesse and as Godlinesse hath the promise of this world and the next so blessednesse hath the performance of both He that hath peace in the remission of sinnes is blessed already and shall have those blessings infinitely multiplied in the world to come The farthest that Christ goes in the expressing of the affections of a naturall Father here is That if his Son aske bread he will not give him a stone Luk. 11.12 and if he aske a Fish he will not give him a Scorpion He will not give him worse then he ask'd But it is the peculiar bounty of this Father who adopted this Sonne to give more and better spirituall for temporall Another lesson which Christ was pleased to propose to this new Convertite Causa morborum in this Catechisme was to informe him That sins were the true causes of all bodily diseases Diseases and bodily afflictions are sometimes inflicted by God Ad poenam non ad purgationem Not to purge or purifie the soule of that man by that affliction but to bring him by the rack to the gallowes through temporary afflictions here to everlasting torments hereafter As Iudas his hanging and Herods being eaten with wormes Acts 12. was their entrance into that place where they are yet Sometimes diseases and afflictions are inflicted onely or principally to manifest the glory of God in the removing thereof So Christ saies of that man that was borne blinde that neither he himselfe had sinned John 5. nor bore the sinnes of his parents but he was borne blinde to present an occasion of doing a miracle Sometimes they are inflicted Ad humiliationem for our future humiliation So S. Paul saies of himselfe That least he should be exalted above measure 2 Cor. 12.7 by the abundance of Revelations he had that Stimulum carnis That vexation of the flesh that messenger of Satan to humble him And then sometimes they are inflicted for tryall and farther declaration of your conformity to Gods will as upon Iob. But howsoever there be divers particular causes for the diseases and afflictions of particular men the first cause of death and sicknesse and all infirmities upon mankinde in generall was sin and it would not be hard for every particular man almost to finde it in his owne case too to assigne his fever to such a surfet or his consumption to such an intemperance And therefore to breake that circle in which we compasse and immure and imprison our selves That as sinne begot diseases so diseases begot more sinnes impatience and murmuring at Gods corrections Christ begins to shake this circle in the right way to breake it in the right linke that is first to remove the sin which occasioned the disease for till that be done a man is in no better case then as the Prophet expresses it If he should flie from a Lion Amos 5.19 and a Beare met him or if he should leane upon a wall and a Serpent bit him What ease were it to be delivered of a palsie of slack and dissolv'd sinews and remaine under the tyranny of a lustfull heart of licentious eyes of slacke and dissolute speech and conversation What ease to be delivered of the putrefaction of a wound in my body and meet a murder in my conscience done or intended or desired upon my neighbour To
be delivered of a fever in my spirits and to have my spirit troubled with the guiltinesse of an adultery To be delivered of Cramps and Coliques and Convulsions in my joynts and sinewes and suffer in my soule all these from my oppressions and extortions by which I have ground the face of the poore It is but lost labour and cost to give a man a precious cordiall when he hath a thorne in his foote or an arrow in his flesh for as long as the sinne which is the cause of the sicknesse remaines Deterius sequetur A worse thing will follow we may be rid of a Fever and the Pestilence will follow rid of the Cramp and a Gout will follow rid of sicknesse and Death eternall death will follow That which our Saviour prescribes is Noli peccare ampliùs sinne no more first non ampliùs sinne no more sins take heed of gravid sins of pregnant sinnes of sins of concomitance and concatentation that chaine and induce more sins after as Davids idlenesse did adultery and that murder the losse of the Lords Army and Honor in the blaspheming of his name Noli ampliùs sin no more no such sin as induces more And Noli ampliùs sinne no more that is sin thy owne sin thy beloved sin no more times over And still Noli ampliùs sin not that sin which thou hast given over in thy practise in thy memory by a sinfull delight in remembring it And againe Noli ampliùs sin not over thy former sins by holding in thy possession such things as were corruptly gotten by any such former practises for Deterius sequetur a worse thing will follow A Tertian will be a Quartan and a Quartan a Hectique and a Hectique a Consumption and a Consumption without a consummation that shall never consume it selfe nor consume thee to an unsensiblenesse of torment And then after these three lessons in this Catechisme Sanitas spiritualis That God gives before we aske That he gives better then we aske That he informes us in the true cause of sicknesse sinne He involves a tacit nay he expresses an expresse rebuke and increpation and in beginning at the Dimittuntur peccata at the forgivenesse of sinnes tels him in his eare that his spirituall health should have beene prefer'd before his bodily and the cure of his soule before his Palsie that first the Priest should have beene and then the Physitian might bee consulted That which Christ does to his new adopted Sonne here the Wiseman saies to his Son Ecclus. 38.9 My Son in thy sicknesse be not negligent But wherein is his diligence required or to be expressed in that which followes Pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole But upon what conditions or what preparations Leave off from sin order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickednesse Is this all needs there no declaration no testimony of this Yes Give a sweet savour and a memoriall of fine floure and make a fat offering as not beeing that is as though thou wert dead Give and give that which thou givest in thy life time as not beeing And when all this is piously and religiously done thou hast repented restor'd amended and given to pious uses Then saies he there give place to the Physitian for the Lord hath created him For if we proceed otherwise if wee begin with the Physitian Physick is a curse He that sinneth before his Maker V. 15. let him fall into the hands of the Physitian saies the Wiseman there It is not Let him come into the hands of the Physitian as though that were a curse but let him fall let him cast and throw himselfe into his hands and rely upon naturall meanes and leave out all consideration of his other and worse disease and the supernaturall Physick for that 2. Chron. 16. Asa had had a great deliverance from God when the Prophet Hanani asked him Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubins a huge Host but because after this deliverance he relied upon the King of Syria and not upon God the Judgement is From henceforth thou shalt have wars That was a sicknesse upon the State then he fell sick in his own person and in that sicknesse saies that story He sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian and then he dyed To the Lord and then to the Physitian had beene the right way If to the Physitian and then to the Lord though this had beene out of the right way yet hee might have returned to it But it was to the Physitian and not to the Lord and then he died Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis saies S. Ambrose there is but one Almighty and none but the Almighty can cure all diseases because hee onely can cure diseases in the roote that is in the forgivenesse of sins We are almost at an end when we had thus Catechised his Convertite thus rectified his patient Scribae Pharisci hee turnes upon them who beheld all this and were scandaliz'd with his words the Scribes and Pharisees And because they were scandaliz'd onely in this that he being but man undertooke the office of God to forgive sins he declares himselfe to them to be God Christ would not leave even malice it selfe unsatisfied And therefore do not thou thinke thy selfe Christian enough for having an innocence in thy selfe but be content to descend to the infirmities and to the very malice of other men and to give the world satisfaction Nec paratum habeas illud ètrivio sayes S. Hierome do not arm thy self with that vulgar and triviall saying Sufficit mihi conscientia mea nec curo quid loquantur homines It suffices me that mine own conscience is cleare and I care not what all the world sayes thou must care what the world sayes and thinks Christ himself had that respect even towards the Scribes and Pharisees For first he declared himself to be God in that he took knowledge of their thoughts for they had said nothing and he sayes to them why reason you thus in your hearts and they themselves did not could not deny but that those words of Solomon appertained only to God 2 Chron. 6.30 Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men And those of Ieremy The heart is deceitfull above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and I try the reines Let the Schoole dispute infinitely for he that will not content himself with means of salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled will come too late let Scotus and his Heard think That Angels and separate soules have a naturall power to understand thoughts though God for his particular glory restraine the exercise of that power in them as in the Romane Church Priests have a power to forgive all sins though the Pope restraine that power in reserved cases And the Cardinals by their Creation have a voice in the
richer yet neither am I poorer then I was for that But if I have no comfort from the Holy Ghost I am worse then if all mankinde had been left in the Putrifaction of Adams loynes and in the condemnation of Adams sin For then I should have had but my equall part in the common misery But now having had that extraordinary favour of an offer of the Holy Ghost if I feele no comfort in that I must have an extraordinary condemnation The Father came neare me when he breathed the breath of life into me and gave me my flesh The Son came neare me when he took my flesh upon him and laid downe his life for me The Holy Ghost is alwaies neare me alwaies with me with me now if now I shed any drops of his dew his Manna upon you With me anon if anon I turne any thing that I say to you now to good nourishment in my selfe then and doe then as I say now With me when I eate or drink to say Grace at my meale and to blesse Gods Blessings to me With me in my sleep to keep out the Tempter from the fancy and imagination which is his proper Sceane and Spheare That he triumph not in that in such dreames as may be effects of sin or causes of sin or sins themselves The Father is a Propitious Person The Son is a Meritorious Person The Holy Ghost is a Familiar Person The Heavens must open to shew me the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father as they did to Steven But if I doe but open my heart to my selfe I may see the Holy Ghost there and in him all that the Father hath Thought and Decreed all that the Son hath Said and Done and Suffered for the whole World made mine Accustome your selves therefore to the Contemplation to the Meditation of this Blessed Person of the glorious Trinity Keep up that holy cheerefulnesse which Christ makes the Ballast of a Christian and his Fraight too to give him a rich Returne in the Heavenly Jerusalem Be alwayes comforted and alwayes determine your comfort in the Holy Ghost For that is Christs promise here in this first Branch A Comforter which is the Holy Ghost And Him sayes our second Branch the Father shall send There was a Mission of the Son Missio God sent his Son There was a Mission of the Holy Ghost This day God sent the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost But betweene these two Missions that of the Son and this of the holy Ghost we consider this difference that the first the sending of the Son was without any merit preceding There could be nothing but the meere mercy of God to move God to send his Son Man was so far from meriting that that as we said before he could not nor might if he could have wisht it But for this second Mission the sending of the holy Ghost there was a preceding merit Christ by his dying had merited that mankinde who by the fall of Adam had lost as S. August speaks Possibilitatem boni All possibilitie of Redintegration should not only be restored to a possibility of Salvation but that actually that that was done should be pursued farther and that by this Mission and Operation of the holy Ghost actually really effectually men should be saved So that as the work of our Redemption fals under our consideration that is not in the Decree but in the execution of the Decree in this Mission of the holy Ghost into the World Man hath so far an interest not any particular man but Man as all Mankind was in Christ as that we may truly say The holy Ghost was due to us Luâ—â— 24. And as Christ said of himselfe Nonne haec oportuit pati Ought not Christ to suffer all this Was not Christ bound to all this by the Contract betweene him and his Father to which Contract himselfe had a Privity it was his owne Act He signed it He sealed it so we may say Nonne hunc oportuit mitti Ought not the holy Ghost to be sent Had not Christ merited that the holy Ghost should be sent to perfect the worke of the Redemption So that in such a respect and in such a holy and devout sense we may say that the holy Ghost is more ours then either of the other Persons of the Trinity Because though Christ be so ours as that he is our selves the same nature and flesh and blood The holy Ghost is so ours as that we we in Christ Christ in our nature merited the holy Ghost purchased the holy Ghost bought the holy Ghost Which is a sanctified Simony and hath a faire and a pious truth in it We we in Christ Christ in our nature bought the holy Ghost that is merited the holy Ghost Christ then was so sent A Patre as that till we consider the Contract which was his owne Act there was no Oportuit pati no obligation upon him that he must have been sent The Holy Ghost was so sent as that the Merit of Christ of Christ who was Man as well as God which was the Act of another required and deserved that he should bee sent Therefore he was sent A Patre By the Father Now not so by the Father as not by the Son too For there is an Ego mittam If I depart I will send him unto you But Iohn 16.7 cleane thorough Christs History in all his proceedings still you may observe that he ascribes all that he does as to his Superiour to his Father though in one Capacity as he was God he were equall to the Father yet to declare the meekenesse and the humility of his Soule still he makes his recourse to his inferiour state and to his lower nature and still ascribes all to his Father Thouh he might say and doe say there I will send him yet every where the Father enters I will send him saies he Whom Luke 24.49 I will send the Promise of my Father Still the Father hath all the glory and Christ sinks downe to his inferiour state and lower nature In the World it is far otherwise Here men for the most part doe all things according to their greatest capacity If they be Bishops if they be Counsellors if they be Justices nay if they be but Constables they will doe every thing according to that capacity As though that authority confined to certaine places limited in certaine persons and determined in certaine times gave them alwaies the same power in all actions And because to some purposes hee may be my superiour he will be my equall no where in nothing Christ still withdrew himselfe to his lower capacity And howsoever worldly men engrosse the thanks of the world to themselves Christ cast all the honour of all the benefits that he bestowed upon others upon his Father And in his Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine O Father be done He humbled himselfe as low as David in his Non nobis
15. That some men were baptized Pro mortuis for dead that is as good as dead past all hope of recovery So he dyed then Now beloved who hath seene a Father or a friend or a neighbour or a malefactor dye Luke 16.30 and hath not beene affected with his dying words Nay Father Abraham sayes Dives that will not serve That they have Moses and the Prophets Sermons will not serve their turnes But if one went to them from the Dead they would repent And the nearest to this is if one speake to them that is going to the dead If he had beene a minute in Heaven thou wouldst beleeve him and wilt thou not beleeve him a minute before Did not Iacob observe the Angels ascending as well as descending upon that ladder Trust a good soule going to God as well as comming from God And then as our Casuists say That whatsoever a man is bound to do In articulo mortis at the point of death by way of Confession or otherwise he is bound to doe when he comes to the Sacrament or when he undertakes any action of danger because then he should prepare himselfe as if he were dying so when you come to heare us here who are come from God heare us with such an affection as if we were going to God as if you heard us upon our death-beds The Pulpit is more then our death-bed for we are bound to the same truth and sincerity here as if we were upon our death-bed and then Gods Ordinance is more expresly executed here then there He that mingles falshood with his last dying words deceives the world inexcusably because he speakes in the person of an honest man but he that mingles false informations in his preaching does so much more because he speaks in the person of God himselfe They to whom S. Paul spake there are said all to have wept and to have fallen on Pauls necke and to have kissed him But it is added they sorrowed most of all for those words That they should see his face no more When any of those men to whom for their holy calling and their religious paines in their calling you owe and pay a reverence are taken from you by death or otherwise there is a godly sorrow due to that and in a great proportion In the death of one Elisha King Ioash apprehended a ruine of all He wept over his face 2 King 13.14 and said O my father my father the Charet of Israel and the horsemen thereof He lost the solicitude of a father he lost the power and strength of the Kingdome in the losse of one such Prophet But when you have so sorrowed for men upon whom your devotion hath put and justly put such a valuation remember that a greater losse then the losse of a thousand such men may fall upon you Consider the difference betweene the Candle and the Candlestick betweene the Preacher of the Gospel and the Gospel it selfe betweene a religious man and Religion it selfe The removing of the Candlestick and the withdrawing of the Gospel and the prophaning of Religion is infinitely a greaten losse then if hundreds of the present labourers should be taken away from us Mat. 8.12.21.43 Apoc. 2.5 The children of the kingdome may be cast into utter darknesse and That kingdome may be given to others which shall bring forth the fruits thereof and The Lord may come and come quickly and remove our Candlestick out of his place pray we that in our dayes he may not And truly where God threatens to doe so in the Revelation it is upon a Church of which God himselfe gives good testimony The Church of Ephesus of her Labours that is Preaching Ver. 2. of her Patience that is suffering of her Impatience her not suffering the evill that is her integrity and impartiality without connivence or toleration And of her not fainting that is perseverance and of her having the Nicolaitans that is sincerity in the truth Ver. 6. and a holy animosity against all false Doctrines And yet sayes he I have something to say against thee When thou hast testified their assiduity in Preaching their constancy in suffering their sincerity in beleeving their integrity in professing their perseverance in continuing their zeale in hating of all error in others when thou thy selfe hast given this evidence in their behalfe canst thou Lord Jesu have any thing to say against them what then shall we we that faile in all these look to heare from thee what was their crime Because they had left their first love Left the fulnesse of their former zeale to Gods cause Now if our case be so much worse then theirs as that we are not onely guilty of all those sins of which Christ discharges them and have not onely left our first love but in a manner lost all our love all our zeale to his glory and be come to a luke warmnesse in his service and a generall neglect of the meanes of grace how justly may we feare not onely that he will come and come quickly but that he may possibly be upon his way already to remove our Candlestick and withdraw the Gospel from us And if it be a sad thing to you to heare a Paul a holy man say You shall see my face no more on this side the Ite maledicti Go ye accursed into hell fire there cannot be so sad a voyce as to heare Christ Jesus say You shall see my face no more Facies Dei est qua Deus nobis innotescit sayes S. Augustin That is the face of God to us by which God manifests himselfe to us God manifests himselfe to us in the Word and in the Sacraments If we see not them in their true lines and colours the Word and Sacraments sincerely and religiously preached and administred we doe not see them but masks upon them And if we do not see them we do not see the face of Christ And I could as well stand under his Nescio vos which he said to the negligent Virgins I know you not or his Nescivi vos which he said to those that boast of their works Mat. 7.22 I never knew you as under this fearfull thunder from his mouth You shall see my face no more I will absolutely withdraw or I will suffer prophanenesse to enter into those meanes of your salvation Word and Sacraments which I have so long continued in their sincerity towards you and you have so long abused Blessed God say not so to us yet yet let the tree grow another yeare before thou cut it downe And as thou hast digged about it by bringing judgements upon our neighbours so water it with thy former raine the dew of thy grace and with thy later raine the teares of our contrition that we may still seethy face here and hereafter here in thy kingdome of Grace hereafter in thy kingdome of Glory which thou hast purchased for us with the inestimable price of thine
fainting with that After his weeping and dissolving with that After his consuming and withering with that foresees no rescue no escape Inveteravit he waxes old amongst his enemies Who were his enemies and what was this age that he speaks of It is of best use to pursue the spirituall sense of this Psalme and so his enemies were his sins And David found that he had not got the victory over any one enemy any one sin Anothers bloud did not extinguish the lustfull heat of his owne nor the murther of the husband the adultery with the wife Change of sin is not an overcomming of sin He that passes from sin to sin without repentance which was Davids case for a time still leaves an enemy behind him and though he have no present assault from his former enemie no tentation to any act of his former sin yet he is still in the midst of his enemies under condemnation of his past as well as of his present sins as unworthy a receiver of the Sacrament for the sins of his youth done forty yeares agoe if those sins were never repented though so long discontinued as for his ambition or covetousnesse or indevotion of this present day These are his enemies and then this is the age that growes upon him the age that David complaines of I am waxenold that is growne into habits of these sins There is an old age of our naturall condition We shall waxe old as doth a garment Psal 102.26 David would not complaine of that which all men desire To wish to be old and then grudge to be old when we are come to it cannot consist with morall constancy There is an old age expressed in that phrase The old man which the Apostle speaks of which is that naturall corruption and disposition to sin cast upon us by Adam Rom. 6.6 But that old man was crucified in Christ sayes the Apostle and was not so onely from that time when Christ was actually crucified one thousand six hundred yeares agoe but from that time that a second Adam was promised to the first in Paradise And so that Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world from the beginning delivered all them to whom the means ordained by God as Circumcision to them Baptisme to us were afforded and in that respect David was not under that old age but was become a new creature Nor as the Law was called the old Law which is another age also for to them who understood that Law aright the New Law the Gospel was enwrapped in the Old And so David as well as we might be said to serve God in the newnesse of spirit and not in the oldnesse of the Letter Rom. 7.6 so that this was not the age that opprest him The Age that oppresses the sinner is that when he is growne old in sin he is growne weak in strength and become lesse able to overcome that sin then then he was at beginning Blindnesse contracted by Age doth not deliver him from objects of tentations He sees them though he be blind Deafnesse doth not deliver him from discourses of tentation he heares them though he be deafe Nor lamenesse doth not deliver him from pursuit of tentation for in his owne memory he sees and heares and pursues all his former sinfull pleasures and every night every houre sins over all the sins of many yeares that are passed That which waxeth old is ready to vanish sayes the Apostle Heb. 8.13 If we would let them goe they would goe and whether we will or no they leave us for the ability of practise But Thesaurizamus we treasure them up in our memories Rom. 2.5 and we treasure up the wrath of God with them against the day of wrath And whereas one calling of our sins to our memories by way of confession would doe us good and serve our turnes this often calling them in a sinfull delight in the memory of them exceeds the sin it selfe when it was committed because it is more unnaturall now Ezek. 23.19 then it was then and frustrates the pardon of that sin when it was repented To end this branch and this part So humble was this holy Prophet and so apprehensive of his own debility and so far from an imaginary infallibility of falling no more as that after all his agonies and exercises and mortifications and prayer and sighs and weeping still he finds himselfe in the midst of enemies and of his old enemies for not onely tentations to new sins but even the memory of old though formerly repented arise against us arise in us and ruine us And so we passe from these pieces which constitute our first Part Quid factum what David upon the sense of his case did to the other Quid faciendum what by his example we are to doe and what is required of us after we have repented and God hath remitted the sin Out of this passage here in this Psalme and out of that history 2 Part. where Nathan sayes to David The Lord hath put away thy sin and yet sayes after 2. Sam. 12.13 The child that is borne to thee shall surely dye and out of that story where David repents earnestly his sin committed in the numbring of his people and sayes Now now that I have repented 2 Sam. 24.10 Now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly yet David was to indure one of those three Calamities of Famine Warre or Pestilence And out of some other such places as these some men have imagined a Doctrine that after our repentance and after God hath thereupon pardoned our sin yet he leaves the punishment belonging to that sin unpardoned though not all the punishment not the eternall yet say they there belongs a temporary punishment too and that God does not pardon but exacts and exacts in the nature of a punishment and more by way of satisfaction to his Justice Now Stipendium peccati mors est There is the punishment for sin The reward of sin is death If there remaine no death there remaines no punishment For the reward of sin is death And death complicated in it selfe death wrapped in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding sheet It is death aggravated by it selfe death waighed downe by death And what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his grave stone It is death multiplied by it selfe And what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death It is Morte morieris A Double death Eternall and Temporary Temporall and Spirituall death Now the Temporary the Naturall death God never takes away from us he never pardons that punishment because he never takes away that sin that occasioned it which is Originall sin To what Sanctification soever a man comes Originall sin lives to his last breath And therefore Heb 9.27 Statutum est That Decree stands
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit the craft of the Serpent eyther the poyson of the Serpent in a self-despaire or the sting of the Serpent in an uncharitable prejudging and precondemning of others when a man comes to suspect Gods good purposes or contract Gods generall propositions for this forgiving of transgressions is Christs taking away the sins of all the world by taking all the sins of all men upon himselfe And this Guile this Deceit may also be in the second in the Covering of sins which is the particular application of this generall mercy by his Ordinances in his Church He then that without Guile will have benefit by this Covering must Discover Covering Qui tegi vult peccata detegat is S. Augustines way He that will have his sins covered let him uncover them He that would not have them known let him confesse them He that would have them forgotten let him remember them He that would bury them let him rake them up There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid Mat. 10.26 that shall not be knowne It is not thy sending away a servant thy locking a doore thy blowing out a candle no not though thou blow out and extinguish the spirit as much as thou canst that hides a sin from God but since thou thinkest that thou hast hid it by the secret carriage thereof thou must reveale it by Confession If thou wilt not God will shew thee that he needed not thy Confession He will take knowledge of it to thy condemnation and he will publish it to the knowledge of all the world to thy confusion Tufecisti absconditè sayes God to David by Nathan Thou didst it secretly 2 Sam. 12.12 but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun Certainly it affects and stings many men more that God hath brought to light their particular sins and offences for which he does punish them then all the punishments that he inflicts upon them for then they cannot lay their ruine upon fortune upon vicissitudes and revolutions and changes of Court upon disaffections of Princes upon supplantations of Rivalls and Concurrents but God cleares all the world beside Perditio tua ex te God declares that the punishment is his Act and the Cause my sin This is Gods way and this he expresses vehemently against Jerusalem Behold I will gather all thy Lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure Ezch. 16.37 and all them that thou hast loved with all them that thou hast hated and I will discover thy nakednesse to all them Those who loved us for pretended vertues shall see how much they were deceived in us Those that hated us because they were able to looke into us and to discerne our actions shall then say Triumphantly and publiquely to all Did not we tell you what would become of this man It was never likely to be better with him I will strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was borne Hos 2.3 Howsoever thou wert covered with the Covenant and taken into the Visible Church howsoever thou wert clothed by having put on Christ in Baptisme yet If thou sin against me sayes God and hide it from me I am against thee and I will shew the Nations thy nakednesse and the Kingdomes thy shame Nahum 3.5 To come to the covering of thy sins without guile first cover them not from thy self so as that thou canst not see yester-daies sin for to daies sin nor the sins of thy youth for thy present sins Cover not thy extortions with magnifique buildings and sumptuous furniture Dung not the fields that thou hast purchased with the bodies of those miserable wretches whom thou hast oppressed neither straw thine alleys and walks with the dust of Gods Saints whom thy hard dealing hath ground to powder There is but one good way of covering sins from our selves Si bona factamalis superponamus Gregor If we come to a habit of good actions contrary to those evils which we had accustomed our selves to and cover our sins so not that we forget the old but that we see no new There is a good covering of sins from our selves by such new habits and there is a good covering of them from other men for he that sins publiquely scandalously avowedly that teaches and encourages others to sin Esay 3.9 That declares his sin as Sodom and hides it not As in a mirror in a looking glasse that is compassed and set about with a hundred lesser glasses a man shall see his deformities in a hundred places at once so hee that hath sinned thus shall feele his torments in himselfe and in all those whom the not covering of his sins hath occasioned to commit the same sins Cover thy sins then from thy selfe so it be not by obduration cover them from others so it be not by hypocrisie But from God cover them not at all Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Even in confessing without forsaking there is Dolus in spiritus Guile and deceit in that spirit Noluit agnoscere maluit ignoscere S. Augustine makes the case of a customary sinner He was ready to pardon himselfe alwaies without any confession But God shall invert it to his subversion Maluit agnoscere noluit ignoscere God shall manifest his sin and not pardon it Sin hath that pride that it is not content with one garment Adam covered first with fig-leaves then with whole trees He hid himselfe amongst the trees Then hee covered his sin with the woman she provoked him And then with Gods action Quam tu dedisti The Woman whom thou gavest me And this was Adams wardrobe David covers his first sin of uncleannesse with soft stuffe with deceit with falshood with soft perswasions to Vriah to go in to his Wife Then he covers it with rich stuffe with scarlet with the blood of Vriah and of the army of the Lord of Hosts And then he covers it with strong and durable stuffe with an impenitence and with an insensiblenesse a yeare together too long for a King too long for any man to weare such a garment And this was Davids wardrobe But beloved sin is a serpent and he that covers sin does but keepe it warme that it may sting the more fiercely and disperse the venome and malignity thereof the more effectually Adam had patched up an apron to cover him God tooke none of those leaves God wrought not upon his beginnings but he covered him all over with durable skins God saw that Davids severall coverings did rather load him then cover the sin and therefore Transtulit He tooke all away sin and covering for the coverings were as great sins as the radicall sin that was to be covered was yea greater as the armes and boughs of a tree are greater then the roote Now to this extension and growth and largenesse of
mine because I gave the example and we aggravate one anothers sin and both sin both But there is a publication of sin that both alleviates nay annihilates my sin and makes him that hates sin Almighty God love me the better for knowing me to be such a sinner then if I had not told him of it Therefore doe we speak of the mystery of Confession for it is not delivered in one Rule nor practised in one Act. In this Confession of Davids Divisie I acknowledged my sin unto thee c. We shall see more then so for though our two Parts be but the two Acts Davids Act and Gods Act Confession and Absolution yet is there more then one single action to be considered in each of them For first in the first there is a reflected Act that David doth upon himselfe before he come to his Confession to God Something David had done before he came to say I will confesse As he did confesse before God forgave the iniquity of his sin Now that which he did in himselfe and which preceded his Confession to God was the Notum feci I acknowledged my sin which was not his bringing it to the knowledge of God by way of Confession for as you see by the Method of the Holy Ghost in the frame of the Text it preceded his purpose of confessing but it was the taking knowledge of his sin in himselfe It was his first quickning and inanimation that grace gave his soul as the soule gives the child in the Mothers womb And then in Davids act upon himselfe followes the Non operui I have not hid mine iniquity none of mine iniquities from mine owne sight I have displayed to my selfe anatomized mine own conscience left no corner unsearched I am come to a perfect understanding of mine own case Non operui This is Davids act upon himselfe the recalling and recollecting of his sins in his own memory And then finding the number the waight and so the oppression of those sins there he considers where he may discharge himselfe of them And Dixi sayes David which is a word that implies both Deliberation and Resolution and Execution too I thought what was best to doe and I resolved upon this and I did it Dixi Confitebor That I would make a true a full a hearty Confession to God of all those sins for such we see the Elements and the Extent of his Confession to be He will confesse Peccata Transgressions Sins Neither by an over-tendernesse and diffidence and scrupulosity to call things sins that are not so nor by indulgent flattering and sparing of himself to forbear those things which are truly so He will confesse Peccata Sins and Peccata sua His sins First Sua that is A se perpetrata He will acknowledge them to have proceeded and to have been committed by himself he will not impute them to any other cause least of all to God And then Sua non aliena he will confesse sins that are his own sins and not meddle with the sins of other men that appertain not to him This is the subject of his Confession Sins His sins and then Peccata sua Domino His sins unto the Lord both in that consideration That all sins are committed against the Lord and in that also That Confession of all sins is to be made unto the Lord And lastly all this as S. Hierome reads this text and so also did our former Translation Adversum se Against himself that is without any hope of reliefe or reparation in himself He begins to think of his own sinfull state and he proceeds to a particular inquisition upon his conscience There is his preparation Then he considers and thereupon resolves and thereupon proceeds to confesse things that are truly sins And then all them as his own without imputing them to others If they be his own without medling with others And these to the Lord against whom all sin is committed and to whom all Confession is to be directed And all this still against himself without any hope from himself All this is in Davids action preparatorily in himself and then declaratorily towards God and doe but make up our first Part. In the other which is Gods Act towards David the Absolution the Remission the Forgivenesse we shall consider first the fulnesse for it is both of the sin and the punishment of the sin for the word imports both and our two Translations have expressed it between them for that which one Translation calls the Iniquity of the sin the other calls The punishment And then we shall consider the seasonablenesse the speed the acceleration of Gods mercy in the Absolution for in David it is but Actus inchoatus and Actus consummat as in God David did but say I will confesse and God forgave the iniquity and the punishment of his sin Now as this Distribution is Paraphrase enough upon the text so a little larger Paraphrase upon every piece of the Paraphrase will be as much as will fall into this exercise For as you see he branches are many and full of fruit and I can but shake them and leave every one to gather his own portion to apply those notes which may most advance his edification First then in this mystery of Confession 1 Part. Notum seci we consider Davids reflected act his preparatory act preceding his confession to God and transacted in himselfe of which the first motion is the Notum feci I acknowledged in my selfe I came to a feeling in my selfe what my sinfull condition was This is our quickning in our regeneration and second birth and til this come a sinner lies as the Chaos in the beginning of the Creation before the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the waters Dark and voyd and without forme He lies as we may conceive out of the Authors of Naturall Story the slime and mud of the River Nilus to lie before the Sun-beames strike upon it which after by the heat of those beames produces severall shapes and formes of creatures So till this first beame of grace which we consider here strike upon the soule of a sinner he lies in the mud and slime in the dregs and lees and tartar of his sinne Hee cannot so much as wish that that Sunne would shine upon him he doth not so much as know that there is such a Sunne that hath that influence and impression But if this first beame of Grace enlighten him to himselfe reflect him upon himselfe notum facit as the Text sayes if it acquaint him with himselfe then as the creatures in the Creation then as the new creatures at Nilus his sins begin to take their formes and their specifications and they appeare to him in their particular true shapes and that which hee hath in a generall name called Pleasure or Wantonnesse now cals it selfe in his conscience a direct Adultery a direct Incest and that which he hath called Frugality and
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
everlasting they have begun already here that which they shall never end there Deeis qui voluntatem Dei facere nolunt fit voluntas Dei It is Panis quotidianus A loafe of that bread which is to be distributed every day A saying of S. Augustine worthy to be repeated in every Sermon That upon them who will not doe the will of God the will of God is done And God executes his righteous sentence upon them and he executes his justice upon others also by giving them instructions from the impatience and obduration of these Fata fugiendo in fata ruant They chide and they wrangle they wrastle and they exclaime at their miseries in an intemperate sorrow and this intemperate sorrow is the heaviest part of the judgement of God upon them they are too sensible of their afflictions that is too tender too impatient and yet altogether unsensible without all sense of Gods purpose in those afflictions In hell it self they know that they are in hell And yet in this world there are Dolores inferni Sorrowes that have begun hell here and they that are under them are stupified and devested of all sense of them That sense that is bodily and carnall they abound in They feele them impatiently but of all spirituall sense they are absolutely destitute They understand not them nor Gods purpose in them at all yet they are Many and Great and Eternall For by all these heavy talents doth the Holy Ghost waigh them in these words They are Many Many Now the pride of the wicked is to conceale their sorrowes that God might receive no glory by the discovery of them And therefore if we should goe about to number their sorrowes they would have their victory still and still say to themselves yet for all his cunning he hath mist they would ever have some bosome-sorrowes which we could not light upon Yet we shall not easily misse nor leave out any if we remember those men that even this false and imaginary joy which they take in concealing their forrow and affliction is a new affliction a new cause of sorrow We shall make up the number apace if we remember these men that all their new sins and all their new shifts to put away their sorrowes are sorrowfull things and miserable comforters if their conscience doe present all their sins the number growes great And if their own conscience have forgotten them if God forget nothing that they have thought or said or done in all their lives are not their occasions of sorrow the more for their forgetting the more for Gods remembring Indgements are prepared for the scorners sayes Solomon Prov. 19.29 God foresaw their wickednesse from before all times and even then set himselfe on work To prepare judgements for them And as they are Prepared before so affliction followeth sinners Prov. 13.21 sayes the same Wise King It followes them and it knowes how to overtake them eyther by the sword of the Magistrate or by that which is nearer them Diseases in their owne bodies accelerated and complicated by their sins And then as affliction is Prepared and Followes and Overtakes so sayes that wise King still There shall be no end of plagues to the evill man We know the beginning of their plagues Prov. 24.20 they are Prepared in Gods Decree as soone as God saw their sins we know their continuance they shall Follow and they shall Overtake Their end we doe not know we cannot know for they have none Thus they are Many And if we consider farther the manifold Topiques and places from which the sorrowes of the wicked arise That every inch of their ground is overgrown with that venomous weed that every place and every part of time and every person buddes out a particular occasion of sorrow to him that he can come into no chamber but he remembers In such a place as this I finned thus That he cannot heare a Clock strike but he remembers At this hour I sinned thus That he cannot converse with few persons but he remembers With such a person I sinned thus And if he dare goe no farther then to himselfe he can look scarcely upon any limb of his body but in that he sees some infirmity or some deformity that he imputes to some sin and must say By this sin this is thus When he can open the Bible in no place but if he meet a judgement he must say Vindicta mihi This vengeance belongs to me and if he meet a mercy he must say Quid mihi What have I to doe to take this mercy into my mouth In this deluge of occasions of sorrow I must not say with God to Abraham Look up to heaven and number the Starres for this man cannot look up to heaven but I must say Continue thy dejected look and look downe to the earth thy earth and number the graines of dust there and the sorrowes of the wicked are more then they Many are the sorrowes And as the word as naturally denotes Great Great sorrowes are upon the wicked That Pill will choak one man which will slide down with another easily Great and work well That sorrow that affliction would strangle the wicked which would purge and recover the godly The coare of Adams apple is still in their throat which the blood of the Messias hath washt away in the righteous Adams disobedience works in them still and therefore Gods Physick the affliction cannot work So they are great to them as Cains punishment was to him greater then he could beare because he could not ease himselfe upon the consideration of Gods purpose in laying that punishment upon him But it is not onely their indisposition and impatience that makes their sorrowes and afflictions great They are truly so in themselves as the Holy Ghost expresses it Job 31.3 Is not destruction to the wicked and strange punishment to the workers of iniquity A punishment which we cannot tell how to measure how to waigh how to call A strange punishment Greater then former examples have presented There the greatnesse is exprest in the Word And in Esay it is exprest in the action When the scourge shall run over you Esay 28.18 and passe thorow you Eritis in conculcationem You shall be trodden to dust Which is as the Prophet cals it there Flagellum inundans An affliction that overflowes and surrounds all as a deluge a flood that shall wash away from thee even the water of thy Baptisme and all the power of that And wash away from thee the blood of thy Saviour and all his offers of grace to worthy receivers A flood that shall carry away the Ark it selfe out of thy sight and leave thee no apprehension of reparation by Gods institution in his Church A flood that shall dissolve and wash thee thy selfe into water Thy sorrowes shall scatter thee into drops into teares upon a carnall sense of thy torment And into drops into incoherent doubts and
had been well if Bathsheba had bathed within doores and with more caution but yet these errors alone we should not be apt to condemne in such persons except by Gods permitting greater sins to follow upon these we were taught that even such things as seeme to us in their nature to be indifferent have degrees of naturall and essentiall ill in them which must be avoyded even in the probability nay even in the possibility that they may produce sin And as from this Example we draw that Conclusion That sins which are but the Children of indifferent actions become the Parents of great sins which is the industry of sin to exalt it selfe and as it were ennoble it selfe above the stocke from which it was derived The next sin will needs be a better sin then the last So have we also from David this Conclusion that this generation of sin is infinite infinite in number infinite in duration So infinite both waies as that Luther who seldome checks himselfe in any vehement expression could not forbeare to say Si Nathan non venisset If Nathan had not come to David David had proceeded to the sin against the Holy Ghost O how impossible a thing is it then for us to condition and capitulate with God or with our owne Nature and say to him or to our selves We will sin thus long and no longer Thus far and no farther this sin and no more when not onely the frailty of man but even the justice of God provokes us though not as Author or cause of sin to commit more and more sins after wee have entangled and enwrapped our selves in former Who can doubt but that in this yeares space in which David continued in his sin but that he did ordinarily all the externall acts of the religious Worship of God who can doubt but that he performed all the Legall Sacrifices and all the Ceremoniall Rites Yea we see that when Nathan put Davids case in another name of a rich man that had taken away a poore mans onely sheepe David was not onely just but he was vehement in the execution of Justice Hee was saies the text exceeding wroth and said As the Lord liveth that man shall dye But yet for all this externall Religion for all this Civill justice in matter of government no mention of any repentance in all this time How little a thing then is it nay how great a thing that is how great an aggravating of thy sin if thou thinke to bribe God with a Sabboth or with an almes And as a criminall person would faine come to Sanctuary not because it is a consecrated place but because it rescues him from the Magistrate So thou comest to Chuch not because God is here but that thy being here may redeeme thee from the imputation of prophanenesse At last Nathan came David did not send for him but God sent him But yet David laid hold upon Gods purpose in him And he confesses to God he confesses to the Prophet he confesses to the whole Church for before he pleads for mercy in the body of the Psalme in the title of the Psalme which is as Canonicall Scripture as the Psalme it selfe hee confesses himselfe plainly A Psalme of David when the Prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba Audiunt male viventes quaerunt sibi patrocinia peccandi Wee heare of Davids sin August and wee justifie our sins by him Si David cur non ego If David went in to a Bathsheba why may not I That Father tels you why Qui facit quia David fecit id facit quod David non fecit He that does that because David did it does not doe that which David did Quia nullum exemplum proposuit For David did not justifie his sin by any precedent example So that he that sins as David did yet sins worse then David did and hee that continues as unsensible of his sin as David was is more unsensible then David was Quia ad te mittitur ipse David For God sends Nathan to thee August with David in his hand He sends you the Receit his invitations to Repentance in his Scriptures and he sends you a Probatum est a personall testimony how this Physicke hath wrought upon another upon David And so having in this first Part which is the Consideration of the persons in our Text God and David brought them by Nathans mediation together consider wee also for a conclusion of this Part the personall applications that David scatters himselfe upon none but God Tu me and hee repeats it doe Thou purge mee doe Thou wash mee Damascen hath a Sermon of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin which whole Sermon is but a Dialogue in which Eve acts the first part and the blessed Virgin another Tu. It is but a Dialogue yet it is a Sermon If I should insist upon this Dialogue between God and David Tu me Tu me Doe thou worke upon me it would not be the lesse a profitable part of a Sermon for that For first when we heare David in an anhelation and panting after the mercy of God cry out Domine Tu Lord doe thou that that is to be done doe Thou purge doe Thou wash and may have heard God thereby to excite us to the use of his meanes say Purget natura purget lex I have infused into thee a light and a law of nature and exalted that light and that law by a more particular law and a clearer light then that by which thou knowest what is sin and knowest that in a sinfull state thou canst not be acceptable to me Purget natura purget lex let the light of nature or of the law purge thee and rectifie thy selfe by that Doe but as much for thy selfe as some naturall men some Socrates some Plato hath done we may heare David reply Domine Tu Lord put me not over to the catechizing of Nature nor to the Pedagogie of the Law but take me into thine owne hands do Thou Thou that is to be done upon me When we heare God say Purget Ecclesia I have established a Church settled constant Ordinances for the purging and washing of souls there Purget Ecclesia Let the Church purge thee we may heare David reply Domine Tu Alas Lord how many come to that Bath and goe foule out of it how many heare Sermons and receive Sacraments and when they returne returne to their vomit Domine Tu Lord except the power of thy Spirit make thine Ordinance effectuall upon me even this thy Jordan will leave me in my leprosie and exalt my leprosie even this Sermon this Sacrament will aggravate my sin If we heare God say Shall I purge thee Doest thou know what thou askest what my method in purging is That if I purge I shall purge thee with fire with seaven fires with tribulations nay with tentations with temporall nay with spirituall calamities with wounds in thy fortune wounds
him for his ease that is compound with him easily and continue him in his estate and errors but Cape nobis Take him for us so detect him as he may thereby be reduced to Christ and his Church Neither onely this counsel of Christ to his Church but that commandment of God in Levit. Exod. 23.3 Lev. 19.15 is also applyable to this Non misereber is pauperis in judicio Thou shalt not countenance a poore man in his cause Thou shalt not pity a poore man in judgement Though a new opinion may seeme a poore opinion able to doe little harme though it may seem a pious and profitable opinion and of good use yet in judicio if it stand in judgement and pretend to be an article of faith and of that holy obligation matter necessary to salvation Non misereberis Thou shalt not spare thou shalt not countenance this opinion upon any collaterall respect but bring it to the onely tryall of Doctrines the Scriptures In the beginning of the Reformation in Germany there arose a sect whom they called Intermists and Adiaphorists who upon a good pretence were like to have done a great deale of mischiefe They said Since all the hope of a Reformation that we can promise our selves must come from a generall Councell and of such a Councel we can have no hope but by the Pope it were impertinent and dis-conducing to our owne ends to vexe or exasperate the Pope in this Interim till the Councel be setled and so the Reformation put into a way and in the Interim for this short time till the Councel these Adiaphora the indifferent things in which mild word they involved all the abuses and all the grievances that were complained of may be well enough continued But if they had continued so long they had continued yet If they had spared their little foxes then they had destroyed their vines If they had pitied the poore in judgement the cause had been judged against them If they had reprieved those abuses for a time they had got a pardon for ever And therefore blessed were they in taking those children and dashing them against the stones In taking those new-born opinions and bringing them to the true touch-stone of all Doctrines An ab initio whether they had been from the beginning or could consist with the Scriptures Neither doth this counsel of Christs Take us these little foxes nor this commandment of God Thou shalt not pity the poor in judgment determine it self in the Church or in the publique only but extends it self rather contracts it self to every particular soul and conscience Capite vulpeculas Take your litle foxes watch your first inclinatiōs to sins for if you give them suck at first if you feed them with the milke and hony of the mercy of God it shall not be in your power to weane them when you would but they will draw you from one to another extreme from a former presumption to a future desperation in Gods mercy So also Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity the poore in judgement now that thou callest thy selfe to judgement and thy conscience to an examination thou shalt not pity any sin because it pretends to be a poore sin either poore so that it cannot much endanger thee not much encumber thee or poore so as that it threatens thee with poverty with penury with disability to support thy state or maintaine thy family if thou entertaine it not Many times I have seene a suitor that comes in forma pauperis more trouble a Court and more importune a Judge then greater causes or greater persons And so may such sins as come in forma pauperis either way That they plead poverty That they can doe little harme or threaten poverty if they be not entertained Those sins are the most dangerous sins which pretend reason why they should be entertained for sinnes which are done meerely out of infirmity or out of the surprisall of a tentation are in comparison of others done as sins in our sleep but in sins upon deliberation upon counsell upon pretence of reason we doe see the wisdome of God but we set our wisdome above his we do see the law of God but we insert and interline non obstantes of our own into Gods Law If therefore thou wilt corruptly and vitiously and sinfully love another out of pity because they love thee so If thou wilt assist a poore man in a cause out of pretence of pity with thy countenance and the power of thy place that that poore man may have something and thou the rest that is recovered in his right If thou wilt embrace any particular sin out of pity lest thy Wife and Children should be left unprovided If thou have not taken these little foxes that is resisted these tentations at the beginning yet Nunc in judicio now that they appeare in judgement in examination of thy conscience Non misereberis Thou shalt not pity them but as Moses speakes of false Prophets Deut. 13. and by a faire accommodation of all bewitching sins with pleasure or profit If a Dreamer of Dreames have given thee a signe and that signe be come to passe If a sin have told thee it would make thee rich and it have made thee rich yet if this Dreamer draw thee to another God If this profit draw thee to an Idolatrous that is to an habituall love of that sin for Tot habemus recentes Deos quot vitiae sayes S. Hierom Hieron Every man hath so many Idols in him as he hath habituall sins yet Though this dreamer as God proceeds there be thy brother or thy son or thy friend which is as thine owne soule How neare how deare how necessary soever this sin be unto thee Non misereberis sayes Moses Thine eye shall not pity that Dreamer thou shalt not keepe him secret but thine owne hand shall be upon him to kill him And so of this pleasurable or profitable sin Non misereberis Thou shalt not hide it but poure it out in Confession Non misereberis Thou shalt not pardon it no nor reprieve it but destroy it for the practise presently Non misereberis Thou shalt not turne out the Mother and retaine the Daughter not leave the sin and retaine that which was sinfully got but devest all roote and body and fruits by confession to God by contrition in thy selfe by restitution to men damnified Elfe that will fall upon thee and thy soule which fell upon the Church That because they did not take their little foxes they endangered the whole vine Because they did pity the poore in judgement that is as S. Augustine sayes they were loath to wrastle with the people or force them from dangerous customes they came from that supine negligence in tolerating prayer for the Dead to establish a doctrinall point of Purgatory and for both prayer for the Dead and Purgatory they detort this text Else that is if no Purgatory why then are these men
Leo Magnus 42. B. 48. C. D. 63. B. 221. E. 321. B. 431. B. 535. D. 604. A. Leo Castrius 695. D. Lex XII Tabularum 445. D. Lombardus 237. B. notatus 334. E. Lorinus 426. C. 574. C. 687. E. 695. D. Lutherus 18. D. 130. B. 205. A. 231. C. 232. D. 271. D. 301. D. 404. C. Apophthegma ejus 405. C. 417. B. 426. A. 479. E. 501. A. 687. B. 786. B. 798. E. Lyra. 50. B. 555. D. M Magdeburgenses 489. C. 799. C. Maldonatus 197. D. 356. E. 489. D. 739. D. 771. B. 798. A. Mariana 687. E. Martialis 550. B. S. Martialis 758. C. P. Martyr 271. B. 347. C. Masoritae 153. C. Maximus 63. A. 535. E. Matchiavel 744. B. Melancthon 92. C. 744. C. 798. E. Melchior Canus 42. A. 740. B. Menander 220. A. Mendoza 162. B. D. Munsterus 747. C. Musculus 775. A. N Nicephorus 31. D. dictum ejus de Chrysostomo 490. C. 699. B. O Oecumenius 66. A. 232. C. 527. A. Oleaster 391. D. Origenes 99. D. 102. A. 118. C. 128. E. 170. E. 201. C. 262. D. 263. C. 299. B. 333. B. 362. C. 363. D. 386. B. 411. C. 546. C. 700. C. 710. E. primus concionator 758. D. 770. D. 784. C. Osiander 221. C. 298. B. P Palladius 473. C. Pamelius 329. C. Panigorolla 166. A. Papias 739. E. Paracelsus 64. E. Paraphrastes Chaldaeus 134. A. 269. D. 404. B. Pellicanus 221. C. 404. C. Peltanus 97. E. Pererius 50. A. 740. A. Philo Judaeus 170. B. 417. D. 420. C. 550. B. 561. C. 680. D. 812. C. Picus 531. D. Pindarus 442. D. Piscator 46. C. 49. E. 131. E. 737. E. 799. A. Plato 46. D. 68. E. 168. D. 318. D. 442. D. 752. E. 783. E. 812. C. Plinius 17. A. 222. A. 385. C. 537. D. 617. B. 665. B. 713. A. 788. B. Plotinus 812. C. Plutarchus 665. C. Polycarpus 758. C. Polybius 482. D. 551. A. Porphyrius 207. B. 289. B. Prosper 240. D. Prudentius 262. E. Psalmi Arabicè 582. A. Ptolomaeus 818. B. Q Quintilianus 289. B. R Rabbi Aben Ezra 131. C. Rabbi Moyses 63. E. 66. B. 608. B. Rabbi Solomon 50. B. 404. B. Reuchlinus 541. C. Rhemigius 4. B. 340. A. Ribera 184. C. Roffensis 789. A. Ruffinus 270. E. Rupertus 51. B. S Salmeron 489. D. Sanctius 151. E. 405. E. Sandaeus 495. A. 690. D. Scotus 111. B. Scribanius 142. C. Schonfeldius 743. B. Seneca 147. E. 168. E. 362. B. 387. E. 388. A. 713. E. 789. B. 812. D. Serarius 406. B. Septuaginta Interpretes 404. B. 416. A. 528. B. 585. A. Severianus 249. C. Sextus Senensis 786. E. Sidonius Apollinaris 33. B. Sophronius 490. C. Stenartius 605. E. Strabo 198. D. Stunnica 133. A. Synodus Dordrecthana 742. C. T Tacitus 481. E. Talmud 379. C. 492. A. Tannerus 605. D. Tertullianus 17. C. 18. A. 33. E. 80. A. memoria lapsus 101. B. 152. A. 168. C. 181. E. 207. E. 289. B. 290. D. 309. D. 312. B. 334. B. 337. B. C. 369. E. 370. E. 379. B. 388. A. 395. B. E. 397. E. 400. A. B. 408. A. 414. E. 504. B. 739. E. 783. E. 794. C. 800. E. Testamentum Syriacum 636. C. 737. E. Theocritus 478. A. Theodoretus 91. B. 232. A. 305. D. 462. A. 578. D. 795. A. Theophylactus 91. B. 181. B. 246. B. 527. A. 609. C. 795. C. Tremellius 131. E. 133. E. 510. A. 560. C. 585. A. 690. B. 737. E. 809. C. Trismegistus 287. B. 295. B. 347. C. 379. C. 501. C. Turrecremata 603. C. V G. Valentia 356. D. 605. D. Vincentius Lyrinensis 47. A. 699. B. 722. D. Virgilius 744. C. 784. A. Vita P. Nerei 116. E. Vega. 339. D. Ulpianus 194. E. Vossius 740. A. Us pergensis 208. A. Vulgata Editio 146. D. 157. D. 162. C. 260. A. 288. D. 311. A. 505. C. 610. E. 711. D. 717. C. 743. C. 761. B. W Waldo 291. D. AN ALPHABETICALL TABLE OF THE PRINCIPALL CONTENTS IN THIS BOOK The number of the Figures referreth to the Page the Letter to the like Letter in the Margin A ABsolute Decree how dangerously man may be abused by it 691. E There is no such in God of punishing man but as a sinner 675. C. D. E Absolution of sinnes the power of it 143. A. B The cheerefulnesse of their spirits that have newly received it 264. A 596. B The necessity of it 370. A. B Active life and Contemplative both good 30. D One not to despise the other ibid. Admiration and Wonder how it stands between Knowledge and Faith 194. A Adoption in civill use the Lawes and Customes of it 27. B Applyed to our spirituall Adoption ibid. Adversity not the best time to seeke the Lord in 139. C. D. 245. D. E Whether Adversity or Prosperity be the cause of most sinnes 658. D Adultory God expresseth all carnall and spirituall sinne by the name of Adultery 632. E Advice to bee mixed with Love and Charitie 93. C How many doe miscarry in it ibid. D Afflictions wherefore inflicted upon Men 109. C Wherefore on godly men 129. B. 480. A. B. C 664. E They are not evill 170. D Common as well to the good as bad 420. E Age the center of Reverence 31. D Allelujah Psalmes which they are and how many 654. A Almes to be done 94. B. 106. C Cheerfully and without delay 107. D Against those that neglect them 414. B Wee not to consider the person too severely that is to receive them 764. A Against being Alone 51. E. 761. E. 762. A Alphonso King of Casteel his blasphemy 640. E Amen ever doubled by Saint John and why 658. B Anabaptists their wicked opinions 23. C. 91. C 344. D Anathema the severall acceptations of it 401. E Saint Andrew the first Saint in the Calendar and why 718. C. D Angels how reconciled by the death of Christ 9. B Whether they understand thoughts 111. B Or see the Essence of God 120. E. 121. D. E They pray for us 130. A Whether they shall give account of their Stewardship over us at the day of Judgement 234. E. 235. A Thought in the Greeke Church to be created before the World 235. E Nothing in Scripture about their creation 235. D Not in themselves Immortall 237 B. C. Some men called by the ministry of Angels even from the beginning of the world 261. E They that fell might have repented according to the Schooles 262. B They that fell shall never befor given 346. B Of tutelar Angels 422. B Angels created with the Light 729. C Anger in God two errours about it noted by Lactantius 408. D Anointing in Scripture not alwayes taken for reall Unction 44. E. 45. A c Anointing proper to Kings as well as Priests 396. A Ant and the Bee the difference betweene their labour and yet we are commanded to learne of both 712. E Apatheia against indolencie and emptinesse of all Affections 156. A Apochrypha Bookes the good use that is made of them 220. D Of their esteeme
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoâ—t the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D
Silence which is good 576. B. C Silence which is bad 577. D Good to be Silent sometimes even in good things and when 576. E Simple-men of this world why chosen for Christs Apostles 719. C Singular Gods speakes of things of grace in the Singular but of heavie things in the plurall number ever 711. A Single instances no safe concluding from them 460. E Neither in the case of the Thiefe on the Crosse nor S. Paul 461. B Singularity not ground enough to condemne every opinion 234. C Against Singularity 51. D. 177. C. 573. D. 722. B Of a Single testimony 234. B Sinne the cause of all sicknesses 109. C Little light and customarie Sinnes how dangerous 117. B. 164. C. D. 585. E All Sin is from our selves not from any thing in God 118. A. 330. D The Sin of the Heart the greatest of all Sin and why 140. D How well some Men husband their Sin 147. A That it is good for men to fall into some Sinnes 171. B. C Sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. C Whether it have rationem demeriti and may properly offend God 342. C Sinne not meerly nothing 342. E Not so much of any thing as of Sinne 343. C How soone Sinne is followed of Repentance 540. C How Sinne rises by little and little in us 585. C Against sitting in the time of Divine Service 72. D Socinians their monstrous opinions 317. C And nicknaming of Athanasius Sathanasius 654. D Against the growth of that pestilent Heresie of Socinianisme 821. B Sorrow for the dead how lawfull 157. C. D. E. 822. D Of the end lesse Sorrow of the wicked 632. B No communication of their Sorrow 634. D The Soule of the miseries of it in the body 190. A Of the lazinesse of the Soule in the disquisition of any Divine Truths 190. B C Of her excellency of knowledge in the next world ibid. C. D Of bending the Soule up to her proper height and putting of her home 483. D Soule and Spirit what the Fathers understand by them in Scripture 517. C Subjects how to looke upon the faults and errors of their Governors 13. C How reverent to be towards their Princes 92. D Supererogation against Workes of Supererogation and of the fondnesse of them 390. C 494. E. 495. A. 547. C. 732. E Superstition better than Prophanesse and why 69. A The danger of it to be prevented but how 485. E Supplications how they differ from Petitions or Prayers 553. E Synedrion the Originall and power of the Synedrion or Sanhedrim amongst the Jewes 491. E Herod called before it but not when hee was King 492. A T TEares against their inordinatenesse 155. A Never ascribed to God 156. D Well employed for the dead though they be at rest 157. A Of those whose constitution will afford no Teares 160. D Foure considerations that will enforce Teares 160. E. 161. A Of Teares shed for worldly losses ib. C. D. 162. A For sinne 539. B Of the effect of Teares 162. B How God is said in Scripture to heare Teares that make no sound 552. E Teares the humidum-radicale of the Soule 577. E Temporall blessings how seldome prayed for in Antiquitie 750. D. E They are blessings but blessings of the left hand 751. D Nothing permanent in them 823. D Tentations all men not alike enabled against them 310. E Whether it be lawfull to pray against all kind of Tentations 527. C One of the Divels greatest Tentations it is to make us think our selves above Tentations or Tentation-proofe that they cannot hurt us 603. E The use and necessity of them 789. C Thanksgiving the duty of thanksgiving better than that of Prayer 549. D How small it is if proportioned to the love of God unto us 550. B Thoughts of the greatnesse of sinnes of thought 140. D. 543. D Titles and bare empty Names how men are puffed up with them 734. D Torturing whether or no to be admitted in case of Religion 194. D Tongue how many it hath damned 344. B Tradition against the making of Traditions articles of Faith 779. D Transubstantiation the riddles and contradictions of it 36. E What true Transubstantiation in the Sacrament may be admitted 693. C Tribulations the benefit of them 563. B 604. A. B Spirituall Tribulations and afflictions heavier than Temporall 665. B. D. E Tribulation and affliction part of our daily bread which wee ought to pray for and how 787. B Tribute God never wrought miracle in the matter of money but onely for Tribute to Caesar 91. E Trinitie the knowledge of it not by naturall reason attained 301. B Not one of a thousand knows what himselfe meanes when he speakes of the Trinity 307. E Some obumbrations of the Trinity even in nature 379 What are illustrations of it to us Christians are no Arguments unto the Jewes 417. B Foure severall trinities 417. E. 418. A It is the onely rule of our Faith the Trinitie 426. E To be believed first of all but not last of all to be understood 428. C. D The opinions of severall Hereticks concerning it 429. D The severall wayes of expressing it by figures and letters 429. E Troubles five severall sorts of Troubles 518. D The universality and inevitablenesse of them 664. B Truth not alwaies to be spoken 576. E Turning of Gods Turning to us and of our Turning to God 524. B. C. D. 525. A. B. 526. A. B V VAgabonds and incorrigible rogues against receiving or harbouring of them 415. B. C Vaine things in themselves may be brought to a religious use 226. E Vbiquetaries 67. E Confuted by the Angels Argument 248. C Of that Vicissitude which is in all temporall things 823. D Vigils why discontinued in the Primitive Church 813. A Virginitie The dignity and prayse of it 17. C. D Three Heresies impeaching the Virginity of the blessed Lady 17. D Against vowed Virginitie 30. D Virgin Mary The errour of Tertullian about her 18. A Of the Manichees and Anabaptists 23. D Against appeales to her in heaven 46. A Borne in Originall sinne 314. A Called of the Fathers Deipara but not Christipara and why 400. D Threatned at a siege of Constantinople to bee drowned if shee did not drowne the enemy 418. E The Church onely in the Virgin Mary according to the Schoole 603. C Against Vncharitable objecting of repented sinnes 499. D Vnitie the Devils way to breake it 138. D The Vnsatiablenesse of sinne 709 C Vprightnesse what Vprightnesse is required of man in this world 677 B. C What it is to bee Vpright in heart ibid. 678. A. B. C Against Vsury 753. E. 754. A. Vulgate Edition of the Antiquity and Authority of it 542. E Not to be preferred before the originall ibid. W VVArre the miseries and incommodities of it 146. C. D Waters those of Baptisme sinne tribulation and death 309. C. c What is meant by Waters in Scripture 598. D Waiting upon Gods time how it consists with fervent Prayer 34. D Wings the severall acceptations of the Word in Scripture 671. B Winning upon God by prayer how well God likes it 513. E Wisdome of sinnes against it especially ignorance and curiosity 411. B Witnesse the credit of the Testimony dependeth much upon his credit that is the Witnesse 238. B Women our Saviour came from such as were dangerously suspected and noted in Scripture for their incontinence 24. A Never any good Angell appeared in the likenesse of a Woman 242. D Whether Women were created after Gods Image a question in S. Ambrose his Commentaries upon the Epistles that hath called those Commentaries in doubt 242. E Of Womens able in State affaires and matters of Government ibid. Powerfull in matters of Religion both on the right hand and on the left 243. A Wonder the difference between the Philosophers and the Fathers about wondering 194. A Word of God the very Angels of heaven referre themselves unto it 249. E Stronger than any reason to a Christian 394. B 815. A The onely rule of Doctrine 738. E The World is a sea and in how many respects 735. C Workes wee no enemies to good workes as the Adversarie doth traduce us 82. A. c No Faith without them 136. A We are to continue in them 554. B Workes good when to a good end 82. E To be done of what 83. A How they may be seene of men 141. B Sometimes there is good use in concealing our Workes of mortification 538. E Of those imperfections which are in the best of our Good Works 820 D. E Wounds of love how God doth so wound us that we kisse that hand that strikes us 463. A Z ZEale to be reconciled to discretion 10. A How the devill makes it his Instrument 42. B Of the Zeale we ought to have to Gods service 72. D Zeale distempered what it will doe 237. A Zeale and uncharitablenesse are two incompatible things 480. E Of Daniels Zeale in praying against the expresse Proclamation of the King 814. A. B. C Zoroastes he only laughed when he was born 21. A FINIS Errata Pag. line reade 22 39 waives 22 40 waives 22 50 waives 110 52 when he 116 40 may come 142 31 the Cato's 164 39 Manours 196 15 in indignifying 420 32 man 426 45 blown 534 35 Topicks 710 46 exorcised 751 43 or any people 782 63 Interimists In the life Pag. 15 line 12 for merit reade mercy Pag. 16. line 40. for friends reade friend