mony is issued that is his Church where his merits should be applied to the discharge of particular consciences Coloss 2.9 So that here is one fulnesse that in this person dwelleth all the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily Here is another fulnesse that this person fulfilled all righteousnesse and satisfied the Justice of God by his suffering Thren 1.12 non est dolor sicut there was no sorrow like unto his sorrow It was so full that it exceeded all others And then there is a third fulnesse the Church Eph. 1.23 which is his body the fulnesse of him that filleth all in all perfit God there is the fulnesse of his dignity perfit man there is the fulnesse of his passibility and a perfit Church there is the fulnesse of the distribution of his mercies and merits to us And this is omnis plenitudo all fulnesse which yet is farther extended in the next word Inhabitavit It pleased the Father that all fulnesse should dwell in him The Holy Ghost appeared in the Dove Inhabitavit Remigius but he did not dwell in it The Holy Ghost hath dwelt in holy men but not thus So as that ancient Bishop expresses it Habitavit in Salomone per sapientiam He dwelt in Salomon in the spirit of wisedome in Ioseph in the spirit of chastity in Moses in the spirit of meeknesse but in Christo in plenitudine in Christ in all fulnesse Now this fulnesse is not fully expressed in the Hypostaticall union of the two natures God and Man in the person of Christ For concerning the divine Nature here was not a dram of glory in this union This was a strange fulnesse for it was a fulnesse of emptinesse It was all Humiliation all exinanition all evacuation of himselfe by his obedience to the death of the Crosse But when it was done Ne evacuaretur Crux Christi 1 Cor. 1.17 as the Apostle speaks in another case lest the Crosse of Christ should be evacuated and made of none effect he came to make this fulnesse perfit by instituting and establishing a Church Esay 1. ult The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him saies the Prophet of Christ There is a fulnesse in generall for his qualification The Spirit of the Lord but what kinde of spirit It followes the spirit of wisedome and understanding the Spirit of Counsell and Power the Spirit of knowledge and of the feare of the Lord we see the spirit that must rest upon Christ is the Spirit in those beames in those functions in those operations 〈…〉 as conduce to government that is Wisedome and Counsell and Power So that this is Christs fulnesse that he is in a continuall administration of his Church in which he flowes over upon us his Ministers Joh. 1.16 for of his fulnesse have all we received and grace for grace that is power by his grace to derive grace upon the Congregation And so of his fulnesse all the Congregation receives too and receives in that full measure That they are filled with all the fulnesse of God Eph. 3.19 that is all the fulnesse that was in both his natures united in one person when the fulnesse of the Deity dwelt in him bodily all the merits of that person are derived upon us in his Word Sacraments in his Church which Church being to continue to the end it is most properly said habitavit in him in him as head of the Church all fulnesse all meanes of salvation dwell and are to be had permanently constantly infallibly Now how came Christ by all this fulnesse Complacuit this superlative fulnesse in himselfe this derivative fulnesse upon us That his merits should be able to build and furnish such a house to raise and rectifie such a Church acceptable to God in which all fulnesse should dwell to the worlds end It was onely because complacuit it pleased God for this personall name of the Father It pleased the Father is but added suppletorily by our Translators and is not in the Originall It pleased God to give him wherewithall to enable him so farre for this complacuit is as we say in the Schoole vox beneplaciti it expresses onely the good will and love of God without contemplation or foresight of any goodnesse in man Catharin nam hac posita plenitudine exorta sunt merita First we are to consider this fulnesse to have been in Christ and then from this fulnesse arose his merits we can consider no merit in Christ himselfe before whereby he should merit this fulnesse for this fulnesse was in him before he merited any thing and but for this fulnesse he had not so merited August Ille homo ut in unitatem filii Dei assumeretur unde meruit How did that man sayes St. Augustine speaking of Christ as of the son of man how did that man merit to be united in one person with the eternall Son of God Quid egit ante Quid credidit What had he done nay what had he beleeved Had he eyther faith or works before that union of both natures If then in Christ Jesus himselfe there were no praevisa merita That Gods fore-sight that he would use this fulnesse well did not work in God as a cause to give him this fulnesse but because hee had it of the free gift of God therefore he did use it well and meritoriously shall any of us be so frivolous in so important a matter as to think that God gave us our measure of grace or our measure of Sanctification because he fore-saw that we would heap up that measure and employ that talent profitably What canst thou imagine he could fore-see in thee A propensnesse a disposition to goodnesse when his grace should come Eyther there is no such propensnesse no such disposition in thee or if there be even that propensnesse and disposition to the good use of grace is grace it is an effect of former grace and his grace wrought before he saw any such propensnesse any such disposition Grace was first and his grace is his it is none of thine To end this point and this part non est discipulus supra magistrum The fulnesse of Christ himselfe was rooted in the complacuit It pleased the Father nothing else wrought in the nature of a Cause and therefore that measure of that fulnesse which is derived upon us from him our vocation our justification our sanctification are much more so we have them quia complacuit because it hath pleased him freely to give them God himselfe could see nothing in us till he of his owne goodnesse put it into us And so we have gone as farre as our first part carries us in those two branches and the fruits which we have gathered from thence First those generall doctrines that reason is not to be excluded in matters of religion and then that reason in all those cases is to be limited with the quia complacuit meerly in the good
in a disease very little capable of cure then when he had so farre resolved and slackned his sinewes that he could endure no posture but his bed he suffered himselfe to be put to so many incommodities It was good evidence of a strength of faith in them that they could beleeve that Christ would not reject them for that importunity of troubling him and the congregation in the midst of a Sermon That when they saw that they who came onely to heare could not get neare the doore they should thinke to get in with that load that offensive spectacle That they should ever conceive or goe about to execute or be suffered to execute such a plot as without the leave of Christ if Christ preached this Sermon in his owne house as some take it to have been done or without the Masters leave in whose house soever it was they should first untile or open and then break through the floore and so let downe their miserable burden That they should have an apprehension that it was not fit for them to stay till the Sermon were done and the company parted but that it was likeliest to conduce to the glory of God that Preaching and working might goe together this was evidence this was argument of strength of faith in them Take therefore their example not to defer that assistance which thou art able to give to another Ne dic as assistam cr as sayes S. Gregory doe not say I will help thee to morrow Ne quid inter propositum beneficium intercedat Perchance that poore soule may not need thee to morrow perchance thou maist have nothing to give to morrow perchance there shall be no such day as to morrow and so thou hast lost that opportunity of thy charity which God offered thee to day Vnica beneficentia est quae moram non admittit onely that is charity that is given presently But yet when all was done when there was faith and faith in them all Cum non quiae and faith declared in their outward works yet Christ is not said to have done this miracle quia sides but cum fides not Because he saw but onely When he saw their faith Let us transferre none of that which belongs to God to our selves when we doe our duties but when doe we goe about to begin to doe any part of any of them we are unprofitable servants When God does work in us are we saved by that work as by the cause when there is another cause of the work it selfe When the ground brings forth good corne yet that ground becomes not fit for our food When a man hath brought forth good fruits yet that man is not thereby made worthy of heaven Not faith it selfe and yet faith is of somewhat a deeper dye and tincture then any works is any such cause of our salvation A beggars beleeving that I will give him an almes is no cause of my charity My beleeving that Christ will have mercy upon me is no cause of Christs mercy for what proportion hath my temporary faith with my everlasting salvation But yet though it work not as a cause though it be not qui a vidit because he saw it yet cum videt when Christ findes this faith according to that gracious Covenant and Contract which he hath made with us that wheresoever and whensoever he findes faith he will enlarge his mercy finding that in this patient he expressed his mercy in that which constitutes our second part Fili confide my son be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Where we see first 2 Part. our Saviour Christ opening the bowels of compassion to him and receiving him so as if he had issued out of his bowels and from his loynes in that gracious appellation Fili my Son He does not call him brother for greater enmity can be no where then is often expressed to have beene betweene brethren for in that degree and distance enmity amongst men began in Cain and Abel and was pursued in many paires of brethren after in Sacred and in secular story Hee does not call him friend that name even in Christs owne mouth is not alwaies accompanied with good entertainment Amice Mat. 22.12 quomodo intrasti saies he Friend how came you in and he bound him hand and foote and cast him into outer darknesse He does not call him son of Abraham which might give him an interest in all the promises but he gives him a present Adoption and so a present fruition of all Fili my Son His Son and not his Son in law he loads him not with the encumbrances and halfe-impossibilities of the Law but he seales to him the whole Gospell in the remission of sinnes His Son and not his dis-inherited son as the Jewes were but his Son upon whom he setled his ancient Inheritance his eternall election and his new purchase which he came now into the world to make with his blood His Son and not his prodigall son to whom Christ imputes no wastfulnesse of his former graces but gives him a generall release and Quietus est in the forgivenesse of sinnes All that Christ asks of his Sons is Fili da mihi cor My Son give me thy heart and till God give us that we cannot give it him and therefore in this Son he creates a new heart he infuses a new courage he establishes a new confidence in the next word Fili confide My Son be of good cheere Christ then does not stay so long wrastling with this mans faith Confide and shaking it and trying whether it were fast rooted as he did with that Woman in the Gospell who came after him Mat. 15.22 in her daughters behalfe crying Have mercy upon me O Lord thou Son of David for Christ gave not that woman one word when her importunity made his Disciples speake to him he said no more but that he was not sent to such as she This was far very far from a Confide filia Daughter be of good cheere But yet this put her not oft but as it followes She followed and worshipped him and said O Lord helpe me And all this prevailed no farther with him but to give such an answer as was more discomfortable then a silence It is not fit to take the childrens bread and cast it unto dogs She denies not that she contradicts him not she saies Truth Lord It is not fit to take the childrens bread and to cast it unto dogs and Truth Lord I am one of those dogs but yet she persevers in her holy importunity and in her good ill-manners and saies Yet the Dogs eate of the crums which fall from the Masters table And then and not till then comes Jesus to that O Woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt and her Daughter was healed But all this at last was but a bodily restitution here was no Dimittuntur peccata in the case no declaration of forgivenesse
himself I said I shall not be moved And there is a security of the faithfull a constant perswasion grounded upon those marks which God in his Word hath set upon that state That neither height nor depth nor any creature shall separate us from God But yet this security is never discharged of that feare which he that said that 1 Cor. 9.27 Phil. 2.12 1 Cor. 10.12 had in himself I keep under my body lest when I have preached to others I my self should be a cast-away And which he perswades other how safe soever they were Work out your salvation with feare and trembling And Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall As then there is a vitious an evill security and that holy security which is good is not without feare so there is no feare of God though it have some servility so farre as servility imports but a feare of punishment but it is good August For Timor est amor inchoativus The love of God begins in feare and then Amor est timor consummatus The feare of God ends in love 1 sâ—l 2.11 which David intends when he sayes Rejoyce with trembling Conceive no such feare as excludes spirituall joy conceive no such assurance as excludes an humble and reverentiall feare There is feare of God too narrow when we thinke every naturall crosse every worldly accident to be a judgement of God and a testimony of his indignation which the Poet not altogether in an ill sense calls a disease of the soule Quo morbo mentem concusse timore deorum He imagines a man may be sick of the feare of God that is not distinguish between naturall accidents and immediate judgements of God between ordinary declarations of his power and extraordinary declarations of his anger There is also a feare of God too large too farre extended when for a false feare of offending God I dare not offend those men who pretend to come in his name and so captivate my conscience to the traditions and inventions of men as to the word and law of God And there is a feare of God conceived which never quickens but putrifies in the womb before inanimation the feare and trembling of the Devill and men whom he possesses desperate of the mercies of God But there is a feare acceptable to God and yet hath in it a trembling a horrour a consternation an astonishment an apprehension of Gods dereliction for a time The Law was given in thundring Exod. 20.20 and lightning and the people were afraid How proceeds Moses with them Feare not saies he for God is come to prove you that his feare might be before your faces Here is a feare not that is feare not with despaire nor with diffidence but yet therefore That you may feare the Law for in this place the very Law it selfe which is given to direct them is called feare As in another place God himselfe is called feare as he is in other places called love too Iacob swore by the Feare of his Father Isaac that is Gen. 32.53 by him whom his Father Isaac feared as the Chalde Paraphrase rightly expresses it Briefly this is the difference between Fearfulnesse and Feare for sowe are fain to call Timiditatem and Timorem Timidity Fearfulnesse is a fear where no cause of fear is and there is no cause of feare where man and man onely threatens on one side and God commands on the other Feare not thou worme of Iacob I will help thee Esâ—y 41.14 Heb. 11.23 saith the Lord thy redeemer the Holy one of Israel Moses Parents had overcome this fearfulnesse They hid him sayes the Text Et non metucrunt Edictum Regis They feared not the Proclamation of the King Because it was directly and evidently and undisputably against the manifest will of God Queen Esther had overcome this fearfulnesse she had fasted and prayed and used all prescribed and all possible meanes and then she entred the Kings Chamber against the Proclamation with that necessary resolution Si peream peream If I perish Esther 4.16 I perish Not upon a disobedient not upon a desperate undertaking but in a rectified conscience and well established opinion that either that Law was not intended to forbid her who was his Wife or that the King was not rightly informed in that bloody command which he had given for the execution of all her Countrymen And for those who doe not overcome this fearfulnesse that is that feare where no cause of feare is and there is no cause of feare where Gods cause is by godly wayes promoved though we doe not alwayes discern the wayes by which this is done for those men that frame imaginary feares to themselves to the with-drawing or discouraging of other in the service of God we see where such men are ranked by the Holy Ghost when S. Iohn sayes The unbeleeving the murderer the whore-monger the sorcerer the idolater Apoc. 21.8 shall have their portion in the lake of brimstone which is the second death We fee who leads them all into this irrecoverable precipitation The fearfull that is he that beleeves not God in his promises that distrusts God in his owne cause as soone as he seemes to open us to any danger or distrusts Gods instruments as soone as they goe another way then he would have them goe To end this there is no love of God without feare no Law of God no God himselfe without feare And here as in very many other places of Scripture the feare of God is our whole Religion the whole service of God for here Feare him includes Worship him reverence him obey him Which Counsell or Commandement though it need no reason no argument yet the Apostle does pursue with an argument and that constitutes our second Part. Now the Apostles arguments grow out of a double root 2 Part. One argument is drawne from God another from man From God thus implied If God be a Father feare him for naturally we acknowledge the power of a Father to be great over his children and consequently the reverent feare of the children great towards him The Father had Potestatem vitae necis A power over the life of his child he might have killed his childe but that the child should kill his Father it never entred into the provision of any Law and it was long before it fell into the suspition of any Law-maker Romulus in his Laws called every man-slaughter Parricidium because it was Paris occisio He had killed a man a Peere a creature equall to himselfe but for Parricide in the later sense when Parricide is Patricide the killing of a Father it came not into the jealousie of Romulus Law nor into the heart or hand of any man there in sixe hundred yeares after Cum lege coeperunt Seneca facinus poena monstravit sayes their Morall man That sin began not till the Law forbad it and only the punishment ordained for
sacrifice to his memory For whilst his conversation made me and many others happy below I know his humility and gentleness was eminent And I have heard Divines say those vertues that are but sparks on earth become great and glorious flames in heaven He was borne in LONDON of good and vertuous Parents And though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly seeme sufficient to dignifie both himselfe and posteritie yet Reader be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that have and deserve great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended from the Family of the famous Sir Thomas More sometimes Lord Chancellor of England and also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left behind him the vast Statutes of the Lawes of this Kingdome most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him till he was nine yeares of age he was then sent to the Universitie of Oxford having at that time a command of the French and Latine Tongues when others can scarce speak their owne There he remained in Hart Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors in severall Sciences to instruct him till time made him capable and his learning exprest in many publique Exercises declared him fit to receive his first Degree in the Schooles which he forbore by advise from his friends who being of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath alwayes tendred and taken at those times About the fourteenth yeare of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both soiles he staid till his seventeenth yeare All which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no Degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About his seventeenth yeare he was removed to London and entred into Lincolnes Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of wit learning and improvement in that profession which never served him for any use but onely for ornament His Father died before his admission into that Society and being a Merchant left him his Portion in money which was 3000. li. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him there also Tutors in severall Sciences as the Mathematicks and others to attend and instruct him But with these Arts they were advised to instill certaine particular principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors though secretly profest themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides their opportunity the example of his most deare and pious Parents which was a powerfull perswasion and did work upon him as he professeth in his PREFACE to his Pseudo-Martyr He was now entred into the nineteenth yeare of his age and being unresolved in his Religion though his youth and strength promised him a long life yet he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples which concerned that And therefore waving the Law and betrothing himselfe to no art or profession that might justly denominate him he began to survey the body of Divinity controverted between the Reformed and Roman Church Preface to Pseudo-Martyr And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his owne words So he calls the same Spirit to witness to his Protestation that in that search and disquisition he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himselfe by the safest way of frequent Prayers and indifferent affection to both parties And indeed Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had seen her Being to undertake this search he beleeved the learned Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore undertook the examination of his reasons The cause was waighty and wilfull delaies had been inexcusable towards God and his own conscience he therfore proceeded with all moderate haste And before he entred into the twentieth yeare of his age did shew the Deane of Gloucester all the Cardinalls Works marked with many waighty Observations under his own hand which Works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most deare friend About the twentieth yeare of his age he resolved to travell And the Earle of Essex going to Cales and after the Iland voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and saw the expeditions of those happy and unhappy imployments But he returned not into England till he had staid a convenient time first in Italy and then in Spaine where he made many usefull Observations of those Countries their Lawes and Government and returned into England perfect in their Languages Not long after his returne that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdome the Lord Elsmore Lord Keeper of the great Seale and after Chancellor of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting both his person and condition received him to be his chiefe Secretarie supposing it might be an Introduction to some more waighty imployment in the State for which his Lordship often protested he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship account him so much to be his servant as to forget hee had beene his friend and to testifie it hee used him alwayes with much curtesie appointing him a place at his owne Table unto which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment with much love and approbation being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends for the space of five yeares In which time he I dare not say unfortunately fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman who lived in that Family Neece to the Lady Elsmore Daughter to Sir George More Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some immation of their increasing love and the better to prevent it did remove his Daughter to his owne house but too late by reason of some faithfull promises interchangeably past and inviolably to be kept between them Their love a passion which of all other Mankind is least able to command and wherein most errors are committed was in them so powerfull that they resolved and did marry without the approbation of those friends that might justly claime an interest in the advising and disposing of them Being married the newes was in favour to M. Donne and with his allowance by the Right Honourable Henry then Earle of Northumberland secretly and certainly intimated to Sir George More to whom it was so immeasurably unwelcome that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration should
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
1 Thes 5.16 I may have leave to speake here hereafter more seasonably in a more Festivall time by my ordinary service This is the season of generall Compunction of generall Mortification and no man priviledged for Iesus wept In that Letter which Lentulus in said to have written to the Senate of Rome Divisiâ— in which he gives some Characters of Christ he saies That Christ was never seene to laugh but to weepe often Now in what number he limits his often or upon what testimony he grounds him number we know not We take knowledgethat he wept thrice Hee wept here when he mourned with them that mourned for Lazarus He wept againe when he drew neare to Jerusalem and looked upon that City And he wept a third time in his Passion There is but one Euangelist but this S. Iohn that tells us of these first teares the rest say nothing of them There is but one Euangelist S. Luke Luke 19.41 Hcb. 5.7 that tells us of his second teares the rest speake not of those There is no Euangelist but there is an Apostle that tells us of his third teares S. Paul saies That in the daies of his flesh be offered up prayers with strong cries and teares And those teares Expositors of all sides referre to his Passion though some to his Agony in the Garden some to his Passion on the Corsse and these in my opinion most fitly because those words of S. Paul belong to the declaration of the Priesthood and of the Sacrifice of Christ and for that function of his the Crosse was the Altar and therefore to the Crosse we fixe those third teares The first were Humane teares the second were Propheticall the third were Pontificall appertaining to the Sarifice The first were shed in a Condolency of a humane and naturall calamity fallen upon one family Lazarus was dead The second were shed in Contemplation of future calamitie upon a Nation Jerusalem was to be destroyed The third in Contemplation of sin and the everlasting punishments due to sin and to such sinners as would make no benefit of that Sacrifice which he offered in offering himselfe His friend was dead and then Jesus wept He justified naturail affectins and such offices of piety Jerusalem was tobe destroyed and then Jesus wept He commiserated publique and nationall calamities though a private person His very giving of himselfe for sin was to become to a great many ineffectuall and then Jsus wept He declared how indelible the naturall staine of sin is that not such sweat as hi such teares such blood as his could absolutely wash it out of mans nature The teares of the text are as a Spring a Well belonging to onehoushold the Sisters of Lazarus The teares over Jerusalem are as a River belonging to a whole Country The teares upon the Crosse are as the Sea belonging to all the world and though literally there fall no more into our text then the Spring yet because the Spring flowes into the River and the River into the Sea and that wheresoever we find that Jesus wept we find our Text for our Text is but that Iisus wept therefore by the leave and light of his blessed Spirit we shall looke upon those lovely those heavenly eye through this glasse of his owne teares in all these three lines as he wept here over Lazarus as he wept there over Jerusalem as he wept upon the Crosse over all us For so often Jesus wept Fitst then 1 Part. Humanitus Jesus wept Humâ—nitus he tooke a necessary occasion to shew that he was true Man He was now in hand with the greatest Miracle that ever he did the raising of Lazarus so long dead Could we but do so in our spirituall raising what a blessed harvest were that What a comfort to finde one man here to day raised from his spirituall death this day twelve-month Christ did it every yeare and every yeare he improved his Miracle Mat. 9.25 In the first yeare he raised the Governours Daughter se was newly dead and as yetin the house In the beginning of sin and whilst in the house in the house of God in the Church in a glad obedience to Gods Ordinances and Institutions there for the reparation and resuscitation of dead soules the worke is not so hard In his second yeare Luke 7.15 Christ raised the Widows Son and him he found without ready to be buried In a man growne cold and stiffe in sin impenetrable inflexible by denouncing the Judgements of God almost buried in a stupidity and insensiblenesse of his being dead there is more difficultie But in his third yeare Christ raised this Lazarus he had been long dead and buried and in probability puttrified after foure daies This Miracle Christ meant to make a pregnant proofe of the Resurrection which was his principall intention therein For the greatest arguments against the Resurrection being for the most part of this kinde when a Fish eates a man and another man eates that fish or when one man eates another how shall both these men rise againe when a body is resolv'd in the grave to the first principles or is passed into other substances the case is somewhat neere the same and therefore Christ would worke upon a body neare that state abody putrified And truly in our srirituall raising of the dead to raise a sinner putrified in his owne earth resolv'd in his owne dung especially that hath passed many transformations from shape to shape from sin to sin hi hath beene a Salamander and lived in the fire in the fire successvely in the fire of lust in his youth and in his age in the fire of Ambition and then he hath beene a Serpent a Fish and lived in the waters in the water successively in the troubled water of sedition in his youth and in his age in the cold waters of indevotion how shall we raise this Salamander and this Serpent when this Serpent and this Salamander is all one person and must have contrary musique to charme him contrary physick to cure him To raise a man resolv'd into diverse substances scattered into diverse formes of severall sinnes is the greatest worke And there fore this Miracle which implied that S. Basil calls Miraculum in Miraculo a pregnant a double Miracle For here is Mortuus redivivus A dead man lives that had been done before but Alligatus ambulat saies Basil he that is settered and manacled and tyed with many difficulties he walks And therfore as this Miracle raised him most estmation so for they ever accompany one another it raised him most envy Envy that extended beyond him to Lazarus himselfe who had done nothing Iohn 12.10 and yet The chiefe Priests consulted how they might put Lizarus to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus A disease a distemper a danger which no time shall ever be free from that whereforer there is a coldnesse a disaffection to Gods Cause those who are any way
for thee Martyrium and his blessed Servants the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did so for him and thee for his glory for thy example Can there be any ill any losse in giving thy life for him Is it not a part of the reward it selfe the honour to suffer for him Muk 10.30 When Christ sayes Whosoever loses any thing for my sake and the Gospels he shall have a hundred fold in houses and lands with persecutions wee need not limit that clause of the Promise with persecutions to be That in the midst of persecutions God will give us temporall blessings but that in the midst of temporall blessings God will give us persecutions that it shall be a part of his mercy to be delivered from the danger of being puffed up by those temporall abundances by having a mixture of adversity and persecutions and then Tertul. what ill what losse is there in laying downe this life for him Quid hoc mali est quod martyrialis mali non habet timorem pudorem tergiversationem poenitentiam deplorationem What kinde of evill is this which when it came to the highest Ad malum martyriale to martyrdome to death did neither imprint in our holy predecessors in the Primitive Church Timorem any feare that it would come not Tergiversationem any recanting lest it should come nor Pudorem any shame when it was come nor Poenitentiam any repentance that they would suffer it to come nor Deplorationem any lamentation by their heires and Executors because they lost all when it was come Quid mali What kinde of evill can I call this in laying down my life for this Lord of life Cujus reus gaudet Idem when those Martyrs called that guiltinesse a joy Cujus accusatio votum and the accusation a satisfaction Cujus poena foelicitas and the suffering perfect happinesse Love thy neighbour as thy selfe is the farthest of that Commandement but love God above thy selfe for indeed in doing so thou dost but love thy selfe still Remember that thy soule is thy selfe and as if that be lost nothing is gained so if that be gained nothing is lost whatsoever become of this life Love him then Dominus as he is presented to thee here Love the Lord love Christ love Iesus If when thou lookest upon him as the Lord thou findest frowns and wrinkles in his face apprehensions of him as of a Judge and occasions of feare doe not run away from him in that apprehension look upon him in that angle in that line awhile and that feare shall bring thee to love and as he is Lord thou shalt see him in the beauty and lovelinesse of his creatures in the order and succession of causes and effects and in that harmony and musique of the peace between him and thy foule As he is the Lord thou wilt feare him but no man feares God truly but that that feare ends in love Love him as he is the Lord Christus that would have nothing perish that he hath made And love him as he is Christ that hath made himselfe man too that thou mightest not perish Love him as the Lord that could shew mercy and love him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen Returne againe and againe to that mysterious person Christ And let me tell you that though the Fathers never forbore to call the blessed Virgin Mary Deiparam the Mother of God yet in Damascens time they would not admit that name Christiparam that she was the Mother of Christ Not that there is any reason to deny her that name now but because then that great Heretique Nestorius to avoid that name in which the rest agreed Deiparam for he thought not Christ to be God invented a new name Christiparam Though it be true in it self that that blessed Virgin is Christipara yet because it was the invention of an Heretique and a fundamentall Heretique who though he thought Christ to be anointed by the Holy Ghost above his fellowes yet did not beleeve him to be God Damascen and his Age refused that addition to the blessed Virgin So reverently were they affected so jealously were they enamoured of that name Christ the name which implyed his Unction his Commission the Decree by which he was made a Person able to redeeme thy soule And in that contemplation say with Andrew to his brother Peter Invenimus Messiam I have found the Messias I could finde no meanes of salvation in my selfe nay no such meanes to direct God upon by my prayer or by a wish as hee hath taken but God himselfe hath found a way a Messias His Son shall bee made man And Inveni Messiam I have found him and found that he who by his Inearnation was made able to save me so he was Christ by his actuall passion hath saved me and so I love him as Iesus Christ loved Stephen all the way Iesus for all the way Stephen was disposed to Christs glory but in the agony of death death suffered for him Christ expressed his love most in opening the windowes Acts 7.56 the curtaines of heaven it selfe to see Stephen dye and to shew himselfe to Stephen I love my Saviour as he is The Lord He that studies my salvation And as Christ made a person able to work my salvation but when I see him in the third notion Iesus accomplishing my salvation by an actuall death I see those hands stretched out that stretched out the heavens and those feet racked to which they that racked them are foot-stooles I heare him from whom his nearest friends fled pray for his enemies and him whom his Father forsooke not forsake his brethren I see him that cloathes this body with his creatures or else it would wither and cloathes this soule with his Righteousnesse or else it would perish hang naked upon the Crosse And him that hath him that is the Fountaine of the water of life cry out He thirsts when that voyce overtakes me in my crosse wayes in the world Is it nothing to you all you that passe by Lament 1.12 Behold and see if there by any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger When I conceit when I contemplate my Saviour thus I love the Lord and there is a reverent adoration in that love I love Christ and there is a mysterious admiration in that love but I love Iesus and there is a tender compassion in that love and I am content to suffer with him and to suffer for him rather then see any diminution of his glory by my prevarication And he that loves not thus that loves not the Lord God and God manifested in Christ Anathema Maranatha which is our next and our last Part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the Apostle by way of Imprecation 3 Part. Imprecatio that he wished it so or pronounced by way
Life or that I should bee separated from Christ though all the world beside were to be blotted out and separated if I staid in The benefit that we are to make of the errors of holy men is not that That man did this therefore I may doe it but this God suffered that holy man to fall and yet loved that good soule well God hath not therefore cast me away though he have suffered me to fall too Bread is mans best sustenance yet there may be a dangerous surfet of bread Charity is the bread that the soule lives by yet there may be a surfet of charity I may mis-lead my selfe shrewdly if I say surely my Father is a good man my Master a good man my Pastor a good man men that have the testimony of Gods love by his manifold blessings upon them and therefore I may be bold to doe whatsoever I see them doe Be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 1 Cor. 11.1 is the example that Christ gives you Be yee followers of mee as I am of Christ is â—he example that the Apostle gives you Good Examples are good Assistances but no Example of man is sufficient to constitute a certaine and constant rule All the actions of the holiest man are not holy Hence appeares the vanity and impertinency of that calumny with which our adversaries of the Roman perswasion labour to oppresse us That those points in which we depart from them cannot be well established because therein we depart from the Fathers As though there were no condemnation to them that pretended a perpetuall adhering to the Fathers nor salvation to them who suspected any Father of any mistaking And they have thought that one thing enough to discredit and blast and annihilate that great and usefull labour which the Centuriators the Magdeburgenses tooke in compiling the Ecclesiasticall Story that in every age as they passe those Authors have laid out a particular section a particular Chapter De navis Patrum to note the mistakings of the Fathers in every age This they thinke a criminall and a hainous thing inough to discredit the whole worke As though there were ever in any age any Father that mistook nothing or that it were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to note such a mistaking And yet if those blessed Fathers now in possession of heaven be well affected with our celebrating or ill with our neglecting their works certainly they finde much more cause to complaine of our adversaries then of us Never any in the Reformation hath spoken so lightly nay so heavily so negligently nay so diligently so studiously in diminution of the Fathers as they have done One of the first Jesuits proceeds with modesty and ingenuity and yet sayes Quaelibet aetas antiquitati detulit Salmeron Every age hath been apt to ascribe much to the Ancient Fathers Hoc autem asserimus sayes he Iuniores Doctores perspicaciores This we must necessarily acknowledge that our later Men have seen farther then the elder Fathers did His fellow Jesuit goes farther Hoc omnes dicunt Maldon sed non probant sayes he speaking of one person in the Genealogy of Christ This the Fathers say sayes he and later men too Catholiques and Heretiques All But none of them prove it He will not take their words not the whole Churches though they all agree But a Bishop of as much estimation and authority in the Council of Trent as any Cornel. Mussuâ— goes much farther Being pressed with S. Augustins opinion he sayes Nec nos tantillum moveat Augustinus Let it never trouble us which way S. Augustine goes Hoc enim illi peculiare sayes he ut alium errorem expugnans alteri ansam praebeat for this is inseparable from S. Augustine That out of an earnestnesse to destroy one error he will establish another Nor doth that Bishop impute that distemper onely to S. Augustine but to S. Hierome too Of him he sayes In medio positus certamine ar dore feriendi adversarios premit socios S. Hierome laies about him and rather then misse his enemy he wounds his friends also But all that might better be borne then this Turpiter errarunt Patres The Fathers fell foully into errors And this better then that Eorum opinio opinio Haereticorum The Fathers differ not from the Heretiques concurre with the Heretiques Who in the Reformation hath charged the Fathers so farre and yet Baronius hath If they did not oppresse us with this calumny of neglecting or undervaluing the Fathers we should not make our recourse to this way of recrimination for God knowes if it be modestly done and with the reverence in many respects due to them it is no fault to say the Fathers fell into some faults Yet it is rather our Adversaries observation then ours That all the Ancient Fathers were Chiliasts Millenarians and maintained that error of a thousand yeares temporall happinesse upon this earth betweene the Resurrection and our actuall and eternall possession of Heaven It is their observation rather then ours That all the Ancient Fathers denied the dead a fruition of the sight of God till the day of Judgement It is theirs rather then ours That all the Greek Fathers and some of the Latin assigned Gods foreknowledge of mans works to be the cause of his predestination It is their note That for the first six hundred yeares the generall opinion and generall practise of the Church was To give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants newly baptized as a thing necessary to their salvation They have noted That the opinion of the Ancient Fathers was contrary to the present opinion in the Church of Rome concerning the conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sin These notes and imputations arise from their Authors and not from ours and they have told it us rather then we them Indeed neither we nor they can dissemble the mistakings of the Fathers The Fathers themselves would not have them dissembled Hieron De me sayes S. Hierom ubicunque de meo sensu loquor arguat me quilibet August For my part wheresoever I deliver but mine owne opinion every man hath his liberty to correct me It is true S. Augustine does call Iulian the Pelagian to the Fathers but it is to vindicate and redeeme the Fathers from those calumnies which Iulian had laid upon them that they were Multitudo caecorum a herd a swarme of blinde guides and followers of one another And that they were Conspiratio perditorum Damned Conspirators against the truth To set the Fathers in their true light and to restore them to their lustre and dignity and to make Iulian confesse what reverend persons they were S. Aug. cals him to the consideration of the Fathers but not to try matters of faith by them alone Lactant. For Sapientiam sibi adimit qui sine judicio majorum inventa probat That man devests himselfe of all discretion who
for so is it twice taken in one verse Psal 58.4 Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent so that this Hot displeasure is that poison of the soule obduration here and that extention of this obduration a finall impenitence in this life and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next to dye without any actuall penitence here and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter David therefore foresees that if God Rebuke in anger it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure 1 Sam. 2.25 For what should stop him For If a man sinne against the Lord who will plead for him sayes Eli Plead thou my cause sayes David It is onely the Lord that can be of counsell with him and plead for him and that Lord is both the Judge and angry too So Davids prayer hath this force Rebuke me not in anger for though I were able to stand under that yet thou wilt also Chasten mee in thine hot displeasure and that no soule can beare for as long as Gods anger lasts so long he is going on towards our utter destruction In that State it is not a State in that Exinanition in that annihilation of the soule it is not an annihilation the soule is not so happy as to come to nothing but in that misery which can no more receive a name then an end all Gods corrections are borne with grudging with murmuring with comparing our righteousnesse with others righteousnesse Job 7.20 In Iobs impatience Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi Why hast thou set me up as a marke against thee O Thou preserver of men Thou that preservest other men hast bent thy bow I. am 3.12 and made me a mark for thine arrowes sayes the Lamentation In that state we cannot cry to him that he might answer us If we doe cry and he answer we cannot heare Job 9.16 if we doe heare we cannot beleeve that it is he Cum invocantem exaudierit sayes Iob If I cry and he answer yet I doe not beleeve that he heard my voyce We had rather perish utterly Ver. 23. then stay his leisure in recovering us Si flagellat occidat semel sayes Iob in the Vulgat If God have a minde to destroy me let him doe it at one blow Et non de poenis rideat Let him not sport himselfe with my misery Whatsoever come after we would be content to be out of this world so we might but change our torment whether it be a temporall calamity that oppresses our state or body or a spirituall burthen a perplexity that sinks our understanding or a guiltinesse that depresses our conscience Vt in inferno protegas Job 14.13 as Iob also speaks O that thou wouldest hide me In inferno In the grave sayes the afflicted soule but in Inferno In hell it selfe sayes the dispairing soule rather then keepe me in this torment in this world This is the miserable condition or danger that David abhors and deprecates in this Text To be rebuked in anger without any purpose in God to amend him and to be chastned in his hot displeasure so as that we can finde no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel no conditions no power of revocation in the severe threatnings of the Law no difference between those torments which have attached us here and the everlasting torments of Hell it selfe That we have lost all our joy in this life and all our hope of the next That we would faine die though it were by our own hands and though that death doe but unlock us a doore to passe from one Hell into another This is Ira tua Domine faror tuus Thy anger O Lord and Thy hot displeasure For as long as it is but Ira patris the anger of my Father which hath dis-inherited me Gold is thine and silver is thine and thou canst provide me As long as it is but Ira Regis some mis-information to the King some mis-apprehension in the King Cor Regis in manu tua The Kings heart is in thy hand and thou canst rectifie it againe As long as it is but Furor febris The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever or Furor furoris The rage of madnesse it selfe thou wilt consider me and accept me and reckon with me according to those better times before those distempers overtooke me and overthrew me But when it comes to be Ira tua furor tuus Thy anger and Thy displeasure as David did so let every Christian finde comfort if he be able to say faithfully this Verse this Text O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure for as long as he can pray against it he is not yet so fallen under it but that he hath yet his part in all Gods blessings which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons and which we seale to every soule in the Sacrament of Reconcilation SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long THis whole Psalme is prayer And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory as in the first verse or Postulatory Something David would have forborne and something done And in that Postulatory part of Davids prayer which goes through six verses of this Psalme we consider the Petitions and the Inducements What David asks And why of both which there are some mingled in these two verses which constitute our Text. And therefore in them we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions and some of the Reasons For in the Prayer there are five petitions First Miserere Have mercy upon me Thinke of me looke graciously towards me prevent me with thy mercy And then Sana me O Lord heale me Thou didst create me in health but my parents begot me in sicknesse and I have complicated other sicknesses with that Actuall with Originall sin O Lord heale me give me physick for them And thirdly Convertere Returne O Lord Thou didst visit me in nature returne in grace Thou didst visit me in Baptisme returne in the other Sacrament Thou doest visit me now returne at the houre of my death And in a fourth petition Eripe O Lord deliver my soule Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me and thy benefits I make occasions of sinne In all conversation and even in my solitude I admit such tentations from others or I produce such tentations in my selfe as that whensoever thou art pleased to returne to me thou findest me at the brinke of some sinne and therefore Eripe me O Lord take hold of me and deliver me And lastly Salvum me fac O Lord save me Manifest thy good purpose upon me so that I may never be shaken or never overthrown in the faithfull hope of that salvation which thou hast preordained for me These are
sighed and so he groaned he laboured he was affected bitterly with it himselfe And he declated it he made it exemplar and catechisticall that his dejection in himselfe might be an exaltation to others And then hee was not ashamed of it but as he said of his dancing before the Arke If this be to be vile I will be more vile So here if this passion be weaknesse I will yet be more weake for this winde brought raine These sighs brought teares All the night make I my bed to swim c. The concupiscencies of man are naturally dry powder combustible easily Lacrymae easily apt to take fire but teares dampe them and give them a little more leasure and us intermission and consideration David had laboured hard first Ad ruborem as Physitians advise to a rednesse to a blushing to a shame of his sin And now Ad sudorem Hilar. he had laboured to a sweat for Lacrymae sudor animae moerentis Teares are the sweat of a labouring soule and that soule that labours as David did will sweat as David did in the teares of contrition Till then till teares breake out and find a vent in outward declaration wee pant and struggle in miserable convulsions and distortions and distractions and earthquakes and irresolutions of the soule I can beleeve that God will have mercy upon me if I repent but I cannot beleeve that is repentance if I cannot weepe or come to outward declarations This is the laborious irresolution of the soule But Lacrymae diluvium Nazian evehunt animam These teares carry up our soule as the flood carried up the Arke higher then any hils whether hils of power and so above the oppression of potent adversaries or hils of our owne pride and ambition True holy teares carry us above all And therefore when the Angel rebuked the people for not destroying Idolatry They wept Iudg. 2.5 sayes the text there was their present remedy and they called the name of the place Bochim Teares that there might be a permanent testimony of that expressing of their repentance that that way they went to God and in that way God received them and that their Children might say to one another Where did God shew that great mercy to our Fathers Here here in Bochim that is Here in teares And so when at Samuels motions and increpation the people would testifie their repentance They drew water 1 Sam. 7.6 sayes the story and poured it out before the Lord and fasted and said We have sinned against the Lord. They poured water Vt esset symbolum lacrymarum That that might be a type and figure Nab. Oziel in what proportion of teares they desired to expresse their repentance For such an effusion of teares David may be well thought to intend when he sayes Effundite coram Deo animam vestram Poure out your soules before God poure them out in such an effusion in a continuall and a contrite weeping Still the Prophets cry out upon Idols and Idolaters Vlulate Sculptilia Howle ye Idols and Howle ye Idolaters He hath no hope of their weeping And so the devil and the damned are said to howle but not to weepe or when they are said to weepe it is with a gnashing of teeth which is a voyce of Indignation even towards God and not of humiliation under his hand So also sayes the Propher of an impenitent sinner Induratae super petram facies They have made their faces harder then stone Ier. 5.3 wherein Thou hast stricken them but they have not wept not sorrowed Out of a stone water cannot be drawne but by miracle though it be twice stricken Numb 20.11 as Moses stroke the Rock twice yet the water came by the miraculous power of God and not by Moses second stroke Though God strike this sinner twice thrice he will not weepe though inward terrors strike his conscience and outward diseases strike his body and calamities and ruine strike his estate yet he will not confesse by one teare that these are judgements of God but naturall accidents or if judgements that they proceeded not from his sin but from some decree in God or some purpose in God to glorifie himselfe by thus afflicting him and that if he had beene better he should have fared never the better for Gods purpose must stand Therefore sayes God of such in that place Surely they are poore that was plaine enough and they are foolish too sayes God there And God gives the reason of it for they know not the judgements of God They know not his judgements to be judgements They ascribe all calamities to other causes and so they turne upon other wayes and other plots and other miserable comforters But attribute all to the Lord never say of any thing This fals upon me but of all This is laid upon me by the hand of God and thou wilt come to him in teares Raine water is better then River water The water of Heaven teares for offending thy God are better then teares for worldly losses But yet come to teares of any kinde and whatsoever occasion thy teares Esay 25.8 Deus absterget omnem lacrymam there is the largenesse of his bounty He will wipe all teares from thine eyes But thou must have teares first first thou must come to this weeping or else God cannot come to this wiping God hath not that errand to thee to wipe teares from thine eyes if there be none there If thou doe nothing for thy selfe God finds nothing to doe for thee David wept thus Nocte thus vehemently and he wept thus thus continually In the Night sayes our Text Psal 42.3 Not that he wept not in the day He sayes of himselfe My teares have been my meate both day and night where though he name no fast you see his diet how that was attenuated Lament 1.2 And so when it is said of Jerusalem Shee weepeth continually in the night it is not that she put off her weeping till night but that she continued her dayes weeping to the night and in the night Plorando plorabit sayes the Originall in the place shee does weepe already and shee will weepe still shee puts it not off dilatorily I will weepe but not yet nor shee puts it not over easily suddenly I have wept and I neede no more but as God promises to his children Joel 1.23 the first and later raine so must his children give to him againe both raines teares of the day and teares of the night by washing the sinnes of the day in the evening and the sinnes of the night in the morning But this was an addition to Davids affliction in this night weeping that whereas the night was made for man to rest in David could not make that use of the night When he had proposed so great a part of his happinesse to consist in this Psal 4. ult That he would lay him downe and sleepe in peace we see
him Psal 81.11 as with David in a Dilatation and then in a Repletion God enlarged him and then he filled him He gave him a large and a comprehensive understanding and with it A publique heart And such as perchance in his way of education and in our narrow and contracted-times in which every man determines himselfe in himselfe and scarce looks farther it would be hard to finde many Examples of such largenesse You have I thinke a phrase of Driving a Trade And you have I know a practise of Driving away Trade by other use of money And you have lost a man that drove a great Trade the right way in making the best use of our home-commodity To fetch in Wine and Spice and Silke is but a drawing of Trade The right driving of trade is to vent our owne outward And yet for the drawing in of that which might justly seeme most behoofefull that is of Arts and Manufactures to be imployed upon our owne Commodity within the Kingdome he did his part diligently at least if not vehemently if not passionately This City is a great Theater and he Acted great and various parts in it And all well And when he went higher as he was often heard in Parliaments at Councell tables and in more private accesses to the late King of ever blessed memory as for that comprehension of those businesses which he pretended to understand no man doubts for no man lacks arguments and evidences of his ability therein So for his manner of expressing his intentions and digesting and uttering his purposes I have sometimes heard the greatest Master of Language and Judgement which these times or any other did or doe or shall give that good and great King of ours say of him That he never heard any man of his breeding handle businesses more rationally more pertinently more elegantly more perswasively And when his purpose was to do a grace to a Preacher of very good abilities and good note in his owne Chappell I have heard him say that his language and accent and manner of delivering himselfe was like this man This man hath God accompanied all his life and by performance thereof seemes to have made that Covenant with him which he made to Abraham Multiplicabote vehementer Gen. 17.2 I will multiply thee exceedingly He multiplied his estate so as was fit to endow many and great Children and he multiplied his Children so both in their number and in their quality as they were fit to receive a great Estate God was with him all the way In a Pillar of Fire in the brightnesse of prosperity and in the Pillar of Clouds too in many darke and sad and heavy crosses So great a Ship required a great Ballast So many blessings many crosses And he had them and sailed on his course the steadier for them The Cloud as well as the Fire was a Pillar to him His crosses as well as his blessings established his assurance in God And so in all the course of his life The Lord was here and therefore our Brother is not dead not dead in the evidences and testimonies of life for he whom the world hath just cause to celebrate for things done when he was alive is alive still in their celebration The Lord was here that is with him at his death too In morte He was served with the Processe here in the City but his cause was heard in the Country Here he sickned There he languished and dyed there In his sicknesse there those that assisted him are witnesses of his many expressings of a religious a constant heart towards God and of his pious joyning with them even in the holy declaration of kneeling then when they in favour of his weakenesse would disswade him from kneeling I must not defraud him of this testimony froÌ„â—y selfe that into this place where we are now met I have observed him to enter with much reverence compose himselfe in this place with much declaration of devotion And truly it is that reverence which those persons who are of the same ranke that he was in the City that reverence that they use in this place when they come hither is that that makes us who have now the administration of this Quire glad that our Predecessors but a very few yeares before our time and not before all our times neither admitted these Honourable and worshipfull Persons of this City to sit in this Quire so as they do upon Sundayes The Church receives an honour in it But the honour is more in their reverence then in their presence though in that too And they receive an honour and an ease in it and therefore they do piously towards God and prudently for themselves and gratefully towards us in giving us by their reverent comportment here so just occasion of continuing that honour and that ease to them here which to lesse reverend and unrespective persons we should be lesse willing to doe To returne to him in his sicknesse He had but one dayes labour and all the rest were Sabbaths one day in his sicknesse he converted to businesse Thus He called his family and friends together Thankfully he acknowledged Gods manifold blessings and his owne sins as penitently And then to those who were to have the disposing of his estate joyntly with his Children he recommended his servants and the poore and the Hospitals and the Prisons which according to his purpose have beene all taken into consideration And after this which was his Valediction to the world he seemed alwaies loath to returne to any worldly businesse His last Commandement to Wife and Children was Christs last commandement to his Spouse the Church in the Apostles To love one another He blest them and the Estate devolved upon them unto them And by Gods grace shall prove as true a Prophet to them in that blessing as he was to himselfe when in entring his last bed two dayes before his Death he said Help me off with my earthly habit let me go to my last bed Where in the second night after he said Little know ye what paine I feele this night yet I know I shall have joy in the morning And in that morning he dyed The forme in which he implored his Saviour was evermore towards his end this Christ Iesus which dyed on the Crosse forgive me my sins He have mercy upon me And his last and dying words were the repetition of the name of Jesus And when he had not strength to utter that name distinctly and perfectly they might heare it from within him as from a man a far off even then when his hollow and remote naming of Jesus was rather a certifying of them that he was with his Jesus then a prayer that he might come to him And so The Lord was here here with him in his Death and because the Lord was here our Brother is not dead not dead in the eyes and eares of God for as the blood of Abel