thought or said or done any thing offensive to him It is therefore onely in the third sense of this word as it is Verbum Ecclesiasticum A word which S. Paul and the other Scriptures and the Church and Ecclesiasticall Writers have used to expresse our Righteousnesse our Justification by And that is onely by the way of pardon and remission of sins sealed to us in the blood of Christ Jesus that what kinde of sinners soever we were before yet that is applied to us Such and such you were before But ye are justified by the name of the Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6 11. Now the reproofe of the World the convincing of the World the bringing of the World to the knowledg that as they are all sub peccato under sin by the sin of another so there is a righteousnesse of another that must prevaile for all their Pardons this reproof this convincing this instruction of the World is thus wrought That the whole World consisting of Jews and Gentiles when the Holy Ghost had done enough for the convincing of both these enough for the overthrowing of all arguments which could either be brought by the Jew for the righteousnesse of the Law or by the Gentile for the righteousnesse of Works all which is abundantly done by the Holy Ghost in the Epistles of S. Paul and other Scriptures when the Holy Ghost had possessed the Church of God of these all-sufficient Scriptures Then the promise of Christ was performed and then though all the world were not presently converted yet it was presently convinced by the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost had provided in those Scriptures of which he is the Author that nothing could be said in the Worlds behalfe for any other Righteousnesse then by way of pardon in the blood of Christ Thus much the Holy Ghost tels us And if we will search after more then hee is pleased to tell us that is to rack the Holy Ghost to over-labour him to examine him upon such Intergatories as belongs not to us to minister unto him Curious men are not content to know That our debt is paid by Christ but they will know farther whether Christ have paid it with his owne hands or given us money to pay it our selves whether his Righteousness before it do us any good be not first made ours by Imputation or by Inhesion They must know whose money and then what money Gold or Silver whether his active obedience in fulfilling the Law or his passive obedience in shedding his blood But all the Commission of the Holy Ghost here is To reprove the World of righteousnesse To convince all Sects in the World that shall constitute any other righteousnesse then a free pardon by the incorruptible and invaluable and inexhaustible blood of Christ Jesus By that pardon his Righteousnesse is ours How it is made so or by what name we shall call our title or estate or interest in his Righteousnesse let us not enquire The termes of satisfaction in Christ of acceptation in the Father of imputation to us or inhesion in us are all pious and religious phrases and something they expresse but yet none of these Satisfaction Acceptation Imputation Inhesion will reach home to satisfie them that will needs inquire Quo modo by what meanes Christs Righteousnesse is made ours This is as far as we need go Ad eundem modum justi sumus coram Deo quo cor am eo Christus fuit peccator So as God made Christ sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we are made the righteousnesse of God in him so but how was that He that can finde no comfort in this Doctrine till he finde How Christ was made sin and we righteousnesse till he can expresse Quo modo robs himself of a great deale of peacefull refreshing which his conscience might receive in tasting the thing it selfe in a holy and humble simplicity without vexing his owne or other mens consciences or troubling the peace of the Church with impertinent and inextricable curiosities Those questions are not so impertinent but they are in a great part unnecessary which are moved about the cause of our righteousnesse our justification Alas let us be content that God is the cause and seeke no other We must never slacken that protestation That good works are no cause of our justification But we must alwaies keepe up a right signification of that word Cause For Faith it selfe is no cause no such cause as that I can merit Heaven by faith What doe I merit of the King by beleeving that he is the undoubted Heire to all his Dominions or by beleeving that he governes well if I live not in obedience to his Laws If it were possible to beleeve aright and yet live ill my faith should doe me no good The best faith is not worth Heaven The value of it grows Ex pacto That God hath made that Covenant that Contract Crede vives onely beleeve and thou shalt be safe Faith is but one of those things which in severall senses are said to justifie us It is truly saîd of God Deus solus justificat God only justifies us Efficienter nothing can effect it nothing can worke towards it but onely the meere goodnesse of God And it is truly said of Christ Christus solus justificat Christ onely justifies us Materialiter nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransome for our sins but the obedience of Christ It is also truly said Sola fides justificat Onely faith justifies us Instrumentaliter nothing apprehends nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee but thy faith And lastly it is as truly said Sola opera justificant Onely our works justifie us Declaratoriè Only thy good life can assure thy conscience and the World that thou art justified As the efficient justification the gracious purpose of God had done us no good without the materiall satisfaction the death of Christ had followed And as that materiall satisfaction the death of Christ would do me no good without the instrumentall justification the apprehension by faith so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification by which all is pleaded and established God enters not into our materiall justification that is onely Christs Christ enters not into our instrumentall justification that is onely faiths Faith enters not into our declaratory justification for faith is secret and declaration belongs to workes Neither of these can be said to justifie us alone so as that we may take the chaine in pieces and thinke to be justified by any one link thereof by God without Christ by Christ without faith or by faith without works And yet every one of these justifies us alone so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that meanes by which any of these are said to justifie us Consider we then our selves as men fallen downe into a darke and deepe pit and justification as a chaine consisting of
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
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
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
Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized from their sins And therefore this of Aquinas not reaching to S. Pauls Quid de illis and Quid illi to these men thus baptized is not that sense neither which we seek But the time will not permit us to pursue the severall interpretations of those Moderni whom directly or comparatively we call Ancients Neither truly though there be many other Interpreters then we have named are there many other interpretations then we have touched upon or then may be reduced to them And therefore to end here this consideration of the Fathers and those whom they esteem Pillars of their Church we are thus much at our liberty for all them That first there is no unanime consent in the interpretation of this place and that which they binde themselves to follow is the unanime consent of the Fathers And then though the Fathers had unanimely consented in one and that one had been the exposition which Bellarmine pursues yet we might by their example have departed from it for in the Roman Church Fathers and Fathers Fathers Popes themselves And howsoever the Fathers may be Fathers in respect of us yet in respect of the Pope who is S. Peter himselfe and alwayes sits in his person the Fathers are but children sayes Bellarmine were of opinion That the Sacrament of the Lords Supper was absolutely necessary for children to their salvation and this opinion lasted in force and in use for divers hundreds of yeares neither was it ever repressed by Authority till the other day in the Councel of Trent but wore out of it selfe long before because it had no foundation So the opinion of the Millenarians That Christ with his Saints should have a thousand years of a temporall raign here upon earth after his second comming had possessed the Fathers in a very great partie The Fathers in a great partie denied that the soules of good men departed were to enjoy the sight of God till the Resurrection And the Fathers affirmed That the cause of Gods election was the foresight of the faith and obedience of the Elect. These errors are so noted even by the Authors of the Roman Church for I depart not herein from their own words and observations as that they still present them so Omnes plurimi All the Fathers Most of the Fathers were of this and this opinion And yet for all these Fathers no man in the Roman Church is so childish now as to give his child that Sacrament or to accompany those Fathers in those other mistakings This hath been done in fact they have departed from the Fathers And then for a Rule Cardinall Cajetan tels us That if a new sense of any place of Scripture agreeable to other places and to the analogy of faith arise to us it is not to be refused Quia torrens patrum because the streame of the Fathers is against it For they themselves have told us why we may suspect the Fathers and by what means the Fathers have falne into many mis-interpretations First they say Quia glaciem sciderunt because the Fathers broke the Ice and undertook the interpretation of many places in which they had no light no assistance from others and so might easily turne into a sinister way And then Rhetoricati sunt say they The Fathers often applyed themselves in figurative and Hyberbolicall speeches to exalt the devotions and stir up the affections of their auditory and therefore must not be called to too severe and literall an account for all that they uttered in that manner And againe Plebi indulserunt as S. Augustine sayes of himselfe sometimes out of a loathnesse to offend the ignorant and sometimes the holy and devout and that he might hold his auditory together and avert none from comming to him he was unwilling to come to such an exact truth in the explication and application of some places as that for the sharpnesse and bitternesse thereof weaker stomachs might forbeare So also they confesse too that ex vehementia declinarunt In heat of disputation and argument and to make things straight they bent them too much on the other hand and to oppose one Heresie they endangered the inducing of another as in S. Augustines disputations against the Pelagians who over-advanced the free will of man and the Manicheans who by admitting Duo principia two Caufes an extrinsique cause of our evill actions as well as of our good annihilated the free will of man we shall find sometimes occasions to doubt whether S. Augustine were constant in his owne opinion and not transported sometimes with vehemency against his present adversary whether Pelagian or Manichean Which is a disease that even some great Councels in the Church and Church-affaires have felt that for collaterall and occasionall and personall respects which were risen after they were met the maine doctrinall points and such as have principally concerned the glory of God and the salvation of soules and were indeed the principall and onely cause of their then meeting there have beene neglected Men that came thither with a fervent zeale to the glory of God have taken in a new fire of displeasure against particular Heretiques or Schismatiques and discontinued their holy zeale towards God till their occasionall displeasure towards those persons might be satisfied and so those Heresies and Heretiques against whom they met have got advantage by that passion which hath overtaken and overswayed them after they were met And whatsoever hath fallen into Councels of that kinde Ecclesiasticall Councels may possibly be imagined or justly be feared or at least without offence be pre-disswaded and deprecated in all Civill Consultations and Councels of State That Occasionall things may not divert the Principall for as in the Naturall body the spleene may suffocate the heart and yet the spleen is but the sewar of the body and the heart is the strength and the Palais thereof so in politique bodies and Councels of State an immature and indigested an intempestive and unseasonable pressing of present remedies against all inconveniencies may suffocate the heart of the businesse and frustrate and evacuate the blessed and glorious purpose of the whole Councell The Basiliske is very sharpe-sighted but he sees therefore and to that end that he may kill So is so does passion Who would wish to be sharper sighted then the Eagle And his strength of sight is in this that he lookes to the Sun To looke to things that are evident The evident danger of the State and the Church The evident malice and power of the enemy The evident storme upon our peace and Religion To looke that God be not tempted by us nor his Lieutenant and Vicegerent wearied and hardened towards us This is the object of the Eagles eye and this is wisdome high enough Where men see a great foundation laid they will thinke that all that is not onely to raise a Spittle to cure or a Church-yard to bury a few diseased
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
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
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
and the Elders come to Iudith and they say to her Judith 15.8 Thou art the exaltation of Jerusalem thou art the great glory of Israel thou art the rejoycing of our Nation thou hast done all these things by thy hand And all this was true of Iudith and due to Iudith and such recognitions and such acclamations God requires of such people as have received such benefits by such instruments For as there is Treason and petty-treason so there is Sacriledge and petty-sacriledge and petty-sacriledge is to rob Princes and great persons of their just praise But then as we must confer this upon them so must they and we and all transfer all upon God for so Iudith proceeds there with her Priests and Elders Begin unto my God with Timbrels sing unto the Lord with Cymbals exalt him and call upon his name So likewise Elizabeth magnifies the blessed Virgin Mary Blessed art thou amongst women And this was true of her and due to her Luke 1.42 and she takes it to her self when she sayes there From henceforth all Generations shall call me blessed but first she had carried it higher to the highest My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit doth rejoyce in God my Saviour In a word Christ forbids not this man to call him good but he directs him to know in what capacity that attribute of goodnesse belonged to him as he was God That when this man beleeved before that Christ was good and learnt from him now that none was good but God he might by a farther concoction a farther rumination a farther meditation of this come in due time to know that Christ was God And this was his Method Now this leads us into two rich and fragrant fields this sets us upon the two Hemispheares of the world the Western Hemispheare the land of Gold and Treasure and the Eastern Hemispheare the land of Spices and Perfumes for this puts us upon both these considerations first That nothing is Essentially good but God and there is the land of Gold centricall Gold viscerall Gold gremiall Gold Gold in the Matrice and womb of God that is Essentiall goodnesse in God himself and then upon this consideration too That this Essentiall goodnesse of God is so diffusive so spreading as that there is nothing in the world that doth not participate of that goodnesse and there is the land of Spices and Perfumes the dilatation of Gods goodnesse So that now both these propositions are true First That there is nothing in this world good and then this also That there is nothing ill As amongst the Fathers it is in a good sense as truly said Deus non est Ens Deus non est substantia God is no Essence God is no substance for feare of imprisoning God in a predicament as it is said by others of the Fathers that there is no other Essence no other Substance but God First then there is nothing good but God neither can I conceive any thing in God that concerns me so much as his goodnesse for by that I know him and for that I love him I know him by that for as Damascen sayes primarium Dei nomen Bonitas Gods first name that is the first way by which God notified him self to man was Goodness for out of his goodnesse he made him His name of Jehova we admire with a reverence but we cannot expresse that name not only not in the signification of it but not considently not assuredly in the sound thereof we are not sure that we should call it Jehova not sure that any man did call it Jehova a hundred yeares agoe But August ineffabili dulcedine teneor cum audio Bonus Dominus I am not transported with astonishment as at his name of Jehova but replenished with all sweetnesse established with all soundnesse when I hear of my God in that name my good God By that I know him and for that I love him For the object of my understanding is truth but the object of my love my affection my desire is goodnesse If my understanding be defective in many cases faith will supply it if I beleeve it I am as well satisfied as if I knew it but nothing supplies nor fills nor satisfies the desire of man on this side of God Every man hath something to love and desire till he determine it in God because God only hath Imminuibi lem bonitatem as they render Dyonisius the Areopagite an inexhaustible goodnesse a sea that no land can suck in a land that no sea can swallow up a forrest that no fire can waste a fire that no water can quench Aug. He is so good goodnesse so as that he is Causa bonorum quae in nos quae in nobis the cause of all good either received by us or conceived in us of all either prepared externally for us Idem or produced internally in us In a word he is Bonum caetera bona colorans amabilia reddens it is his goodnesse that gilds and enamels all the good persons or good actions in this world There is none good but God and quale bonum ille sayes that Father what kinde of goodnesse God is this doth sufficiently declare Quòd nulli ab co recedenti bene sit That no man that ever went from him went by good way or came to good end There is none good but God there is centricall viscerall gremiall gold goodnesse in the roote in the tree of goodnesse God Now Arbor bona bonos fructus sayes Christ If the tree be good the fruit is good too The tree is God What are the fruits of this tree What are the off-spring of God S. Ambr. tells us Angeli homines virtutes eorum Angels and men and the good parts and good actions of Angels and men are the fruit of this tree they grow from God Angels as they fell Adam as he fell the sins of Angels and men are not fruits of this tree they grow not radically not primarily from God Nihil in se habet Deus semi-plenum saies Damascen God is no half-god no fragmentary God he is an intire God and not made of remnants not good only so as that he hath no roome for ill in himself but good so too as that he hath no roome for any ill will towards any man no mans damnation no mans sin growes radically from this tree When God had made all sayes Tertullian he blessed all Maledicere non norat quia nec malefacere saies he God could no more meane ill then doe ill God can no more make me sin then sin himself It is the foole that saies There is no God saies David And it is the other foole sayes S. Basil that saies God produces any ill par precii scelus quia negat Deum bonum It is as impiously done to deny God to be intirely good as to deny him to be God For we see the Manichees and the Marcionites and such
and make him like himself The implicite beleever stands in an open field and the enemy will ride over him easily the understanding beleever is in a fenced town and he hath out-works to lose before the town be pressed that is reasons to be answered before his faith be shaked and he will sell himself deare and lose himself by inches if he be sold or lost at last and therefore sciant omnes let all men know that is endeavour to informe themselves to understand That particular Iesum that generall particular if we may so say for it includes all which all were to know is that the same Jesus whom they Crucified was exalted above them all Suppose an impossibility S. Paul does so when he sayes to the Galatians If an Angell from heaven should preach any other Gospell for that is impossible If we could have been in Paradise and seen God take a clod of red earth and make that wretched clod of contemptible earth such a body as should be fit to receive his breath an immortall soule fit to be the house of the second person in the Trinity for God the Son to dwel in bodily fit to be the Temple for the third person for the Holy Ghost should we not have wondred more then at the production of all other creatures It is more that the same Jesus whom they had crucified is exalted thus to sit in that despised flesh at the right hand of our glorious God that all their spitting should but macerate him and dissolve him to a better mold a better plaister that all their buffetings should but knead him and presse him into a better forme that all their scoffes and contumelies should be prophesies that that Ecce Rex Behold your King and that Rex Iudaeorum This is the King of the Iews which words they who spoke them thought to be lies in their own mouthes should become truths and he be truly the King not of the Jews only but of all Nations too that their nayling him upon the Crosse should be a setling of him upon an everlasting Throne and their lifting him up upon the Crosse a waiting upon him so farre upon his way to heaven that this Jesus whom they had thus evacuated thus crucified should bee thus exalted was a subject of infinite admiration but mixt with infinite confusion too Wretched Blasphemer of the name of Jesus that Jesus whom thou crucifiest and treadest under thy feet in that oath is thus exalted Uncleane Adulterer that Jesus whom thou crucifiest in stretching out those forbidden armes in a strange bed thou that beheadest thy self castest off thy Head Christ Jesus that thou mightst make thy body the body of a Harlot that Jesus whom thou defilest there is exalted Let severall sinners passe this through their severall sins and remember with wonder but with confusion too that that Jesus whom they haue crucified is exalted above all How farre exalted Three steps which carry him above S. Pauls third heaven Factus He is Lord and he is Christ and he is made so by God God hath made him both Lord and Christ We return up these steps as they lie and take the lowest first Fecit Deus God made him so Nature did not make him so no not if we consider him in that Nature wherein he consists of two Natures God and Man We place in the Schoole for the most part the infinite Merit of Christ Jesus that his one act of dying once should be a sufficient satisfaction to God in his Justice for all the sins of all men we place it I say rather in pacto then in persona rather that this contract was thus made between the Father and the Son then that whatsoever that person thus consisting of God and Man should doe should onely in respect of the person bee of an infinite value and extention to that purpose for then any act of his his Incarnation his Circumcision any had been sufficient for our Redemption without his death But fecit Deus God made him that that he is The contract between the Father and him that all that he did should be done so and to that purpose that way and to that end this is that that hath exalted him and us in him If then not the subtilty and curiosity but the wisedome of the Schoole and of the Church of God have justly found it most commodious to place all the mysteries of our Religion in pacto rather then in persona in the Covenant rather then in the person though a person of incomprehensible value let us also in applying to our selves those mysteries of our Religion still adhaerere pactis and not personis still rely upon the Covenant of God with man revealed in his word and not upon the person of any man Not upon the persons of Martyrs as if they had done more then they needed for themselves and might relieve us with their supererogations for if they may work for us they may beleeve for us and Iustus fide sua vivet sayes the Prophet Habak 2.4 The righteous shall live by his owne faith Not upon that person who hath made himself supernumerary and a Controller upon the three persons in the Trinity the Bishop of Rome not upon the consideration of accidents upon persons when God suffers some to fall who would have advanced his cause and some to be advanced who would have throwne downe his cause but let us ever dwell in pacto and in the fecit Deus this Covenant God hath made in his word and in this we rest It is God then not nature not his nature that made him And what Christ Christus Christ is anointed And then Mary Magdalen made him Christ for she anointed him before his death And Ioseph of Arimathea made him Christ for he anointed him and embalmed him after his death But her anointing before kept him not from death nor his anointing after would not have kept him from putrefaction in the grave if God had not in a farre other manner made him Christ anointed him praeconsortibus above his fellows God hath anointed him embalmed him enwrapped him in the leaves of the Prophets That his flesh should not see corruption in the grave That the flames of hell should not take hold of him nor sindge him there so anointed him as that in his Humane nature He is ascended into heaven and set downe at the right hand of God For de eo quod ex Maria est Petrus loquitur sayes S. Basil That making of him Christ that is that anointing which S. Peter speakes of in this place is the dignifying of his humane nature that was anointed that was consecrated that was glorified in heaven But he had a higher step then that God made this Iesus Christ and he made him Lord Dominus He brought him to heaven in his own person in his humane nature so he shall all us but when we shall be all there he onely shall be Lord
the Subject the holy Ghost and him moving and moving upon the waters in our regeneration Here as before our first Terme and Consideration is the name The Spirit of God 2. Part. Spiritus sanctus And here God knows we know too many even amongst the outward professors of the Christian religion that in this name The Spirit of God take knowledge only of a power of God and not of a person of God They say it is the working of God but not God working Mira profunditas eloquiorum tuorum The waters in the creation Aug. Confess 12. c. 14. were not so deep as the word of God that delivers that creation Ecce ante nos superficies blandiens pueris sayes that Father We we that are but babes in understanding as long as we are but naturall men see the superficies the top the face the outside of these waters Sed mira profunditas Deus meus mira profunditas But it is an infinite depth Lord my God an infinite depth to come to the bottome The bottome is to professe and to feele the distinct working of the three distinct persons of the Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost Rara anima quae cum de illa loquitur sciat quid loquatur Not one man C. 30. not one Christian amongst a thousand who when he speaks of the Trinity knows what he himself meanes Naturall men will write of lands of Pygmies and of lands of giants and write of Phoenixes and of Unicornes But yet advisedly they do not beleeve at least confidently they do not know that there are such Giants or such Pygmies such Unicorns or Phoenixes in the world Christians speak continually of the Trinity and the holy Ghost but alas advisedly they know not what they mean in those names The most know nothing for want of consideration They that have considered it enough and spent thoughts enough upon the Trinity to know as much as needs be knowen thereof Contendunt dimicant C. 11. nemo sine pace vidit istam visionem They dispute and they wrangle and they scratch and wound one anothers reputations and they assist the common enemy of Christianity by their uncharitable differences Et sine pace And without peace and mildnesse and love and charity no man comes to know the holy Ghost who is the God of peace Id. l. 11.2 22. and the God of love Da quod amo amo enim nam hoc tu dedisti I am loath to part from this father and he is loath to be parted from for he sayes this in more then one place Lord thou hast enamoured mee made me in love let me enjoy that that I love That is the holy Ghost That as I feele the power of God which sense is a gift of the holy Ghost I may without disputing rest in the beliefe of that person of the Trinity that that Spirit of God that moves upon these waters is not only the power but a person in the Godhead This is the person Ferebatur without whom there is no Father no Son of God to me the holy Ghost And his action his operation is expressed in this word Ferebatur The Spirit of God moved Which word as before is here also a comprehensive word and denotes both motion and rest beginnings and wayes and ends We may best consider the motion the stirring of the holy Ghost in zeale and the rest of the holy Ghost in moderation If we be without zeale we have not the motion If we be without moderation we have not the rest the peace of the holy Ghost The moving of the holy Ghost upon me is as the moving of the minde of an Artificer upon that piece of work that is then under his hand A Jeweller if he would make a jewell to answer the form of any flower or any other figure his minde goes along with his hand nay prevents his hand and he thinks in himself a Ruby will conduce best to the expressing of this and an Emeraud of this The holy Ghost undertakes every man amongst us and would make every man fit for Gods service in some way in some profession and the holy Ghost sees that one man profits most by one way another by another and moves their zeal to pursue those wayes and those meanes by which in a rectified conscience they finde most profit And except a man have this sense what doth him most good and a desire to pursue that the holy Ghost doth not move nor stir up a zeale in him But then if God do afford him the benefit of these his Ordinances in a competent measure for him and he will not be satisfied with Manna but will needs have Quailes that is cannot make one meale of Prayers except he have a Sermon nor satisfied with his Gomer of Manna with those Prayers which are appointed in the Church nor satisfied with those Quailes which God sends the preaching of solid and fundamentall doctrines but must have birds of Paradise unrevealed mysteries out of Gods own bosome preached unto him howsoever the holy Ghost may seem to have moved yet he doth not rest upon him and from the beginning the office and operation of the holy Ghost was double He moved and rested upon the waters in the creation he came and tarried still upon Christ in his Baptisme He moves us to a zeale of laying hold upon the meanes of salvation which God offers us in the Church and he settles us in a peacefull conscience that by having well used those meanes we are made his A holy hunger and thirst of the Word and Sacraments a remorse and compunction for former sins a zeale to promove the cause and glory of God by word and deed this is the motion of the holy Ghost And then to content my self with Gods measure of temporall blessings and for spirituall that I do serve God faithfully in that calling which I lawfully professe as far as that calling will admit for he upon whose hand-labour the sustentation of his family depends may offend God in running after many working dayes Sermons This peace of conscience this acquiescence of having done that that belongs to me this is the rest of the Spirit of God And this motion and this rest is said to be done Super faciem And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters which is our last consideration In the moving of the Spirit of God upon the waters Facies aquarum we told you before it was disputed whether the Holy Ghost did immediatly produce those creatures of himselfe or whether he did fecundate and inanimate and inable those substances the water and all contained under the waters to produce creatures in their divers specifications In this moving of the Spirit of God upon the waters in our regeneration it hath also been much disputed How the Holy Ghost works in producing mans supernaturall actions whether so immediately as that it be altogether without
necessity of being borne againe of Water and the Spirit The holy sense of our naturall wretchednesse is his For It is he that reproves the world of Sin of Righteousnesse of Iudgement The sense oftrue comfort is his Acts 9.31 The Churches were multiplied in the comforts of the Holy Ghost All from the Creation to the Resurrection and the Resurrection it selfe is his Rom. 8.11 The Spirit of him that raised Iesus from the dead shall quicken your mortall bodies by the same Spirit 2 Cor. 1.22 Eph. 1.13 Iohn 4.14 Mat. 3.11 Zach. 12.10 Heb. 1.9 Rom. 8.26 He is Arrha The earnest that God gives to them now to whom he will give all hereafter He is Sigillum that seale of our evidence You are sealed with that holy Spirit of promise He is the water which whosoever drinks shall never thirst when Christ hath given it And he is that fire with which Christ baptizes who baptizes with fire and with the Holy Ghost He is Spiritus precum The Spirit of grace and supplication And he is Oleum laetitiae The oyle of gladnesse that anoints us when we have prayed He is our Advocate He maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And when our groanings under the calamities of this world are uttered without remedy he is that Paracletus Iohn 16.7 The Comforter who when Christ himselfe seemes to be gone from us comes to us who is as Tertullian expresses it elegantly enough but not largely enough Dei Villicus Vicaria vis Christi The Vice-gerent of Christ and the Steward of God but he is more much more infinitely more for he is God himselfe All that which S. Iohn intends in the seaven Spirits which are about the Throne is in this One in this onely Spirit August 1 Cor. 12.4 who is Vnicus septiformis solus multiplex One and yet seaven that is infinite for Though there be diversity of gifts yet there is but one Spirit He is God because the essentiall name of God is his Therefore let us call upon his name And because the Attributes of God are his Therefore let us attribute to him All Might Majesty Dominion Power and Glory And he is God because the Works of God are his 1 Cor. 6.17 Therefore let us co-operate and work with this Spirit and we shall be the same Spirit with him He is God Persona That was our first step and our second is that he is a distinct Person in the God-head He is not Virtus à Deo in homine exaltata Not the highest and powerfullest working of God in man Not Afflatus Divinus The breathing of God into the soule of man These are low expressions for they are all but Dona Charismata The gifts of the Holy Ghost not the Holy Ghost himselfe But he is a distinct person as the taking of the shape of a Dove and the shape of fiery tongues doe declare which are acts of a distinct person It is not the Power of the King that signes a pardon but his Person When the power of the Government was in two Persons in the two Consuls at Rome yet the severall acts were done by their severall Persons Wilt thou ask me What needs these three Persons Is there any thing in the three Persons that is not in the one God Yes The Father the Son the Holy Ghost fals not in the bare consideration of that one God Wilt thou say What if they doe not What lack we if we have one Almighty God Though that God had no Son nor they two no Holy Ghost We lacked our redemption we lacked all our direction wee lacked the revealed will of God the Scriptures we have not God if we have him not as he hath delivered himselfe and he hath done that in the Scriptures and we imbrace him as we finde him there and we finde him there to be one God in three Persons and the Holy Ghost to bee one of those three and in them we rest He is one Ex filio but one that proceeds from two from the Father and from the Son Some in the Greek Church in later times denied the proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Son but this was especially a jealousie in termes They thought that to make him proceed from two were to make duo principia two roots two beginnings from whence the Holy Ghost should proceed and that might not be admitted for the Father and the Son are but one cause of the Holy Ghost if we may use that word Cause in this my stery And therefore it is as suspiciously and as dangerously said by the Master of the Sentences and by the later Schoole That the Holy Ghost proceeds Minùs Principaliter Not so radically from the Son as from the Father for in this action The Father and the Son are but one roote and the Holy Ghost equally from both In the generation of the Son the Father is in order before the Son but in the procession of the holy Ghost he is not so He is from both for where he is first named he is called Spiritus Elohim The Spirit of Gods in the plurall In this Chapter in the ninth verse Gen. 1.2 he is the Spirit of the Son If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And so in the Apostle God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts God sent him and Christ sent him Gal. 4.6 Iohn 16.17 Iohn 20.22 If I depart I will send the Comforter unto you He sent him after he went and he gave him when he was here He breathed upon his Apostles and said Receive ye the holy Ghost So he is of both But by what manner comes he from them By proceeding Processio That is a very generall word for Creation is proceeding and so is Generation too Creatures proceed from God and so doth God the Son proceed from God the Father what is this proceeding of the holy Ghost that is not Creation nor Generation Nazianz. Exponant cur quomodo Spiritus pulsat in arteriis tum in processionem Spiritus sancti inquirant When they are able clearly and with full satisfaction to tell themselves how and from whence that spirit proceeds which beats in their pulse let them inquire how this Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sonne And let them think till they be mad and speak till they behoarce and reade till they be blind and write till they be lame they must end with S. Augustine Distinguere inter Processioncm Generationem nescio non valeo non sufficio I cannot distinguish I cannot assigne a difference between this Generation and this Proceeding We use to say they differ principio That the Son is from the Father alone the holy Ghost from both but when this is said that must be said too That both Father and Son are but one beginning We use to say They differ ordine
one or few such fooles but emphaticall because that foole that any way denies God is the foole the veryest foole of all kinds of foolishnesse Now as God himselfe so his religion amongst us hath many enemies Enemies that deny God as Atheists And enemies that multiply gods that make many gods as Idolaters And enemies that deny those divers persons in the Godhead which they should confesse The Trinity as Jews and Turks So in his Religion and outward worship we have enemies that deny God his House that deny us any Church any Sacrament any Priesthood any Salvation as Papists And enemies that deny Gods house any furniture any stuffe any beauty any ornament any order as non-Conformitans And enemies that are glad to see Gods house richly furnished for a while that they may come to the spoile thereof as sacrilegious usurpers of Gods part But for Atheisticall enemies I call not upon them here to answer me Let them answer their own terrors and horrors alone at mid-night and tell themselves whence that proceeds if there be no God For Papisticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me Let them answer our Laws as well as our Preaching because theirs is a religion mixt as well of Treason as of Idolatry For our refractary and schismaticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me neither Let them answer the Church of God in what nation in what age was there ever seen a Church of that form that they have dreamt and beleeve their own dream And for our sacrilegious enemies let them answer out of the body of Story and give one example of prosperity upon sacriledge But leaving all these to that which hath heretofore or may hereafter be said of them I have bent my meditations for those dayes which this Terme will afford upon that which is the character and mark of all Christians in generall The Trinity the three Persons in one God not by way of subtile disputation as to persons that doubted but by way of godly declaration as to persons disposed to make use of it not as though I feared your faith needed it nor as though I hoped I could make your reason comprehend it but because I presume that the consideration of God the Father and his Power and the sins directed against God in that notion as the Father and the consideration of God the Son and his Wisedome and the sins against God in that apprehension the Son and the consideration of God the Holy Ghost and his Goodnesse and the sins against God in that acceptation may conduce as much at least to our edification as any Doctrine more controverted And of the first glorious person of this blessed Trinity the Almighty Father is this Text Blessed be God c. In these words Divisio the Apostle having tasted having been fed with the sense of the power and of the mercies of God in his gracious deliverance delivers a short Catechisme of all our duties So short as that there is but one action Benedicamus Let us blesse Nor but one object to direct that blessing upon Benedicamus Deum Let us blesse God It is but one God to exclude an Idolatrous multiplicity of Gods But it is one God notified and manifested to us in a triplicity of persons of which the first is literally expressed here That he is a Father And him we consider In Paternitate aeterna As he is the eternall Father Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ sayes our Text And then In Paternitate interna as we have the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father As he is Pater miserationum The Father of mercies And as he expresses these mercies by the seale and demonstration of comfort as he is the God of comfort and Totius consolationis Of all comfort Receive the summe of this and all that arises from it in this short Paraphrase The duty required of a Christian is Blessing Praise Thanksgiving To whom To God to God onely to the onely God There is but one But this one God is such◠tree as hath divers boughs to shadow and refresh thee divers branches to shed fruit upon thee divers armes to spread out and reach and imbrace thee And here hee visits thee as a Father From all eternity a Father of Christ Iesus and now thy Father in him in that which thou needest most A Father of mercy when thou wast in misery And a God of comfort when thou foundest no comfort in this world And a God of all comfort even of spirituall comfort in the anguishes and distresses of thy conscience Blessed bee God even the Father c. First then 1 Part. Benedictus the duty which God by this Apostle requires of man is a duty arising out of that which God hath wrought upon him It is not a consideration a contemplation of God sitting in heaven but of God working upon the earth not in the making of his eternall Decree there but in the execution of those Decrees here not in saying God knowes who are his and therefore they cannot faile but in saying in a rectified conscience God by his ordinary marks hath let me know that I am his and therefore I look to my wayes that I doe not fall S. Paul out of a religious sense what God had done for him comes to this duty to blesse him There is not a better Grammar to learne then to learne how to blesse God and therefore it may be no levity to use some Grammar termes herein God blesses man Dativè He gives good to him man blesses God Optativè He wishes well to him and he blesses him Vocativè He speaks well of him For though towards God as well as towards man 1 Sam. 25.27 2 King 5.15 reall actions are called blessings so Abigail called the present which she brought to David A blessing and so Naaman called that which he offered to Elisha A blessing though reall sacrifices to God and his cause sacrifices of Almes sacrifices of Armes sacrifices of Money sacrifices of Sermons advancing a good publique cause may come under the name of blessing yet the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a blessing in speech in discourse in conference in words in praise in thanks The dead doe not praise thee sayes David The dead men civilly dead allegorically dead dead and buryed in an uselesse silence in a Cloyster or Colledge may praise God but not in words of edification as it is required here and they are but dead and doe not praise God so and God is not the God of the dead but of the living of those that delight to praise and blesse God and to declare his goodnesse We represent the Angels to our selves and to the world with wings they are able to flie and yet when Iacob saw them aseending and descending Gen. 28.12 even those winged Angels had a Ladder they went by degrees There is an immediate blessing of God by the heart but God
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
the face of the whole Church of God even to the end of the world for so long these Records are to last he proposes himselfe for an Exemplary sinner for a sinfull Example and for a subject of Gods Indignation whilst he remained so When I kept silence and yet roared Thy hand lay heavy upon me and my moysture was turned into the drought of Summer And so we are come to our third Part He teaches by Example He proposes himselfe for the Example and of himselfe he confesses those particulars which constitute our Text. Three things he confesses in this Example 3 Part. First that it was he himselfe that was in doloso spiritu that had deceit in his spirit Quia tacuit because he held his tongue he disguised his sins he did not confesse them And yet in the midst of this silence of his God brought him Ad Rugitum to voyces of Roaring of Exclamation To a sense of paine or shame or losse so farre he had a voyce But still he was in silence for any matter of repentance Secondly he confesses a lamentable effect of this silence and this roaring Inveteraverunt ossa His bones were consumed waxen old and his moisture dried up and then he takes knowledge of the cause of all this calamity the waight of Gods heavy hand upon him And to this Confession he sets to that seale which is intended in the last word Selah First then David confesses his silence therefore it was a fault And he confesses it Silentium as an instance as an example of his being In doloso spiritu That there was deceit in his spirit as long as he was silent he thought to delude God to deceive God and this was the greatest fault If I be afraid of Gods power because I consider that he can destroy a sinner yet I have his will for my Buckler I remember that he would not the death of a sinner If I be afraid that his will may be otherwise bent for what can I tell whether it may not be his will to glorifie himselfe in surprizing me in my sins I have his Word for my Buckler Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus God does nothing but that his Mercy is supereminent in that work whatsoever But if I think to scape his knowledge by hiding my sins from him by my silence I am In doloso spiritu if I think to deceive God I deceive my selfe and there is no truth in me When we are to deale with fooles we must or we must not answer Christi Prov. 26.4.5 as they may receive profit or inconvenience by our answer or our silence Answer not a foole according to his foolishnesse lest thou be like him But yet in the next verse Answer a foole according to his foolishnesse lest he be wise in his own conceit But answer God alwaies Though he speak in the foolishnesse of preaching as himselfe calls it yet he speaks wisedome that is Peace to thy soule We are sure that there is a good silence for we have a Rule for it from Christ whose Actions are more then Examples for his Actions are Rules His patience wrought so that he would not speak his afflictions wrought so that he could not He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter and he was dumb Esay 59. Psal 22.15 There he would not speake My strength is dried up like a potsheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jawes and thou hast brought me into the dust of death sayes David in the Person of Christ and here he could not speak Here is a good silence in our Rule So is there also in Examples derived from that Rule Reverentiae Hab. 2. ult There is Silentium reverentiae A silence of reverence for respect of the presence The Lord is in his holy Temple let all the world keep silence before him When the Lord is working in his Temple in his Ordinances and Institutions let not the wisdome of all the world dispute why God instituted those Ordinances the foolishnesse of preaching or the simplicity of Sacraments in his Church Let not the wisedome of private men dispute why those whom God hath accepted as the representation of the Church those of whom Christ sayes Dic Ecclesiae Tell the Church have ordained these or these Ceremonies for Decency and Uniformity and advancing of Gods glory and mens Devotion in the Church Let all the earth be silent In Sacramentis The whole Church may change no Sacraments nor Articles of faith and let particular men be silent In Sacramentalibus in those things which the Church hath ordained for the better conveying and imprinting and advancing of those fundamentall mysteries for this silence of reverence which is an acquiescence in those things which God hath ordained immediately as Sacraments or Ministerially as other Rituall things in the Church David would not have complained of nor repented And to this may well be referred Silentium subjectionis Subjectionis 1 Cor. 14.34 1 Tim. 2.11 That silence which is a recognition a testimony of subjection Let the women keep silence in the Church for they ought to be subject And Let the women learne in silence with all subjection As farre as any just Commandement either expresly or tacitly reaches in injoyning silence we are bound to be silent In Morall seales of secrets not to discover those things which others upon confidence or for our counsell have trusted us withall In charitable seales not to discover those sins of others which are come to our particular knowledge but not by a judiciall way In religious seales not to discover those things which are delivered us in Confession except in cases excepted in that Canon In secrets delivered under these seales of Nature of Law of Ecclesiasticall Canons we are bound to be silent for this is Silentium subjectionis An evidence of our subjection to Superiours But since God hath made man with that distinctive property that he can speak and no other creature since God made the first man able to speak as soone as he was in the world since in the order of the Nazarites instituted in the old Testament though they forbore wine and outward care of their comelinesse in cutting their haire and otherwise yet they bound not themselves to any silence since in the other sects which grew up amongst the Jews Pharisees and Sadduces and Esseans amongst all their superfluous and superstitious austerities there was no inhibition of speaking and Communication since in the twilight between the Old and New Testament Luk. 1.20 that dumbnesse which was cast upon Zacharic was inflicted for a punishment upon him because hee beleeved not that that the Angel had said unto him we may be bold to say That if not that silence which is enjoyned in the Romane Church yet that silence which is practised amongst them for the concealing of Treasons and those silences which are imposed upon some of their Orders That the Carthusians may never speake
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
us nor great persons can advance for us nor any Prince can take from us This is the Lord in this place this is Iehova and Germen Iehovae The Lord Esay 4.2 and the off-spring of the Lord and none is the off-spring of God but God that is the Son and the Holy Ghost So that this perfect blessednesse consists in this the true knowledge and worship of the Trinity And this blessing that is the true Religion and profession of Christ Jesus Populus is to be upon all the people which is our last Confideration Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord Psal 33.12 and the people whom he hath chosen for his Inheritance And here againe as in the former Consideration of temporall blessednesse The people includes both Prince and people and then the blessing consists in this that both Prince and people be sincerely affected to the true Religion And then the people includes all the people and so the blessing consists in this that there be an unanimitie a consent in all in matter of Religion And lastly the people includes the future people and there the blessing consists in this that our posterity may enjoy the same purity of Religion that we doe The first tentation that fell amonst the Apostles carried away one of them Iudas was transported with the tentation of money and how much For thirty peeces and in all likelihood he might have made more profit then that out of the privy purse The first tentation carried one but the first persecution carried away nine when Christ was apprehended none was left but two and of one of those two S. Hierom saies Vtinà m fugisset non negasset Christum I would Peter had fled too and not scandalized the cause more by his stay in denying his Master for a man may stay in the outward profession of the true Religion with such purposes and to such ends as he may thereby damnifie the cause more and damnifie his owne soule more then if he went away to that Religion to which his conscience though ill rectified directs him Now though when such tentations and such persecutions doe come the words of our Saviour Christ will alwayes be true Luke 12.32 Feare not little flocke for it is Gods pleasure to give you the Kingdome though God can lay up his seed-corne in any little corner yet the blessing intended here is not in that little seed-corne nor in the corner but in the plenty when all the people are blessed and the blessed Spirit blowes where he will and no doore nor window is shut against him And therefore let all us blesse God for that great blessing to us in giving us such Princes as make it their care Nebona caducasint ne mala recidiva That that blessednesse which we enjoy by them may never depart from us that those miseries which wee felt before them may never returne to us Almighty God make alwaies to us all Prince and people these temporall blessings which we enjoy now Peace and Plenty and Health seales of his spirituall blessings and that spirituall blessednesse which we enjoy now the profession of the onely true Religion a seale of it selfe and a seale of those eternall blessings which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for his in that Kingdome which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood In which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXV Preached to the King at VVhite-hall April 15. 1628. ESAY 32.8 But the liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand BY two wayes especially hath the Gospell beene propagated by men of letters by Epistles and by Sermons The Apostles pursued both wayes frequent in Epistles assiduous in Sermons And as they had the name of Apostles from Letters from Epistles from Missives for the Certificates and Testimonials and safe-conducts and letters of Credit which issued from Princes Courts or from Courts that held other Jurisdiction were in the formularies and termes of Law called Apostles before Christs Apostles were called Apostles so they executed the office of their Apostleship so too by Writing by Preaching This succession in the Ministery of the Gospell did so too Chrysost Therefore it is said of S. Chrysostome Vbique praedicavit quia ubique lectus He preached every where because he was read every where And he that is said to have beene S. Pelusiota Chrysostomes disciple Isidore is said to have written ten thousand Epistles and in them to have delivered a just and full Commentary upon all the Scriptures In the first age of all they scarce went any other way for writing but this by Epistles Of Clement of Ignatius of Polycarpus of Martial there is not much offered us with any probability but in the name of Epistles When Christians gathered themselves with more freedome and Churches were established with more liberty Preaching prevailed And there is no exercise that is denoted by so many names as Preaching Origen began for I thinke we have no Sermons till Origens And though hee began early early if wee consider the age of the Church a thousand foure hundred yeares since and early if wee consider his owne age for Origens preached by the commandement and in the presence of Bishops before he was a Churchman yet he suffered no Sermons of his to be copied till he was sixty yeares old Now Origen called his Homilies And the first Gregory of the same time with Origen that was Bishop of Neocesaria hath his called Sermons And so names multiplied Homilies Sermons Conciones Lectures S. Augustins Enarrations Dictiones that is Speeches Damascens and Cyrils Orations nay one excercise of Caesareus conveied in the forme of a Dialogue were all Sermons Add to these Church-exercises Homilies Sermons Lectures Orations Speeches and the rest the Declamations of Civill men in Courts of Justice the Tractates of Morall men written in their Studies nay goe backe to your our owne times when you went to Schoole or to the University and remember but your owne or your fellowes Themes or Problemes or Common-places and in all these you may see evidence of that to which the Holy Ghost himselfe hath set a Seale in this text that is the recommendation of Bountie of Munificence of Liberalitie The Liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things hee shall stand That which makes me draw into consideration Divisio the recommendation of this vertue in civill Authors and exercises as well as in Ecclesiasticall is this That our Expositors of all the three ranks and Classes The Fathers and Ancients The later men in the Romane Church and ours of the Reformation are very near equally divided in every of these three rankes whether this Text be intended of a morall and a civill or of a spirituall and Ecclesiasticall liberality whether this prophecy of Esay in this Chapter beginning thus Behold a King shall reigne in righteousnesse Ver. 1. and