troubled And David let me fall into the hands of the Lord for great are his mercies but let me not fall into the hand of man 1 Chron. 22.13 And our Ieremy in this Lamentation Lament 3.21.22 This I recall to minde therefore I have hope it is of the Lords mercy that wee are not consumed because his compassions faile not Upon this apprehension of both judgement and mercy in God Ieremy was comforted and expressed it in this Lamentation that wee through patience and comfort of the Scripture may have hope the same word Littenoth signifies both Lamentation and consolation for comfort takes best from one that laments with us and he condoles truely that useth all meanes to comfort I called upon thy name O Lord and thou didst heare my voice Lament 3.53.54.55.56.57.58 Thou drewest neere in that day and sayedst when I called feare not O Lord thou hast pleaded the causes of my soule thou hast redeemed my life Thou hast redeemed observe Ieremy that lamented for the losse of Iosiah his King was comforted in the promise of Jesus his Redeemer Thus the soule having at last wrought up to Gods judgement findeth there mercy also And in this mercy of God meetes againe with the great Shepheard that had deserted it and from this shepheard obtaines grace both to repent of it owne ruine which offended God and blancht the shepheard and to judge charitably of others in the same condition By which grace it proceedes to patience both to endure the present affliction and to waite for deliverance Heb. 11.35 whether present deliverance or a better resurrection Mat. 12.20 when and in what manner the wisdome of God shall by sending forth judgement unto victory upon impenitent sinners and the Sonne of righteousnesse with healing to contrite hearts worke out the redemption Mal. 4.2 The end beloved of every Text wee preach to you is that you winde your selves into the truth it holds forth And the aime of this my present Text is that you conforme your selves to it celestiall semblance To be selfe centred is earthly and sensuall but to move for the publick good is heavenly and spirituall If therefore there be any fellowship of the spirit saith Paul 2 Philip. 4. Looke not every one on his owne things but on the things of others for by embracing this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ignatius speakes this true gallantry of harmonious love while every one seekes the good and bewailes the evill of every one a private evill is so divided that it is heavy to no man and a particular good so communicated that it redoundes to all Now he that will seeke the good of all must observe the course which he takes who rules all heere our Text requires conformity to an higher heaven then the materiall and diffuse as he diffuseth else he may confound when he thinkes to communicate And wee read that God led his people while he delighted in them by the hand of Moses and Aaron But that in his displeasure the Sunne the greater light is turned into blood and the lesser the Moone into water Ps 77.20 Wee have heere the spirit of God testifying in Josiah dying and Ieremiah crying Parumnè ad vos said Ieremy in this Lamentation Lament 1.12 as leaving this bridge for Posterity to passe from Iudah to England Is it nothing to you Yea our Syon may asselfe the words and go on with them Behold and see si major est ullus dolor quam dolor meus that lesser is all other sorrow then my sorrow I have had successively I would I could say succesfully three religious vertuous orthodox Princes Elizabeth James and Charles I had a glorious face of a Church a Church the very eye and excellency of all other Churches In Henry the 7. by my King I was freed from the division of Roses bitterer then wormewood sharper then the thistle In Henry 8. I shaked off by my King the Ecclesiasticall Tyranny of Anti-christ In Edward 6. purity of Religion sprang up with my King which though it was watred with the bloud of Martyrs under Mary that sister without breasts yet grew it the more glorious under those my three envies of all Kingdomes Elizabeth Iames and Charles But now facta est in pace amaritudo mea amarissima may I say with the sick Hezekiah behold upon my peace is come great bitternesse Esay 38.17 My bitternesse was great in the opposition of Hereticks greater in the death of my children the Martyrs but now in my peace my bitternesse is become greatest by the desolation of my dearest children the King and the Prophet Of whom since God had promised me Zach. 6.13 The counsell of peace shall be betwixt them both I sayd with my selfe as Iob did I shall dye in my nest my bow shall be renewed in my hand Iob 29 18.30.26 But when I lookt for light eruperunt tenebrae then darkenesse surprised me Ægyptian darkenesse my waters were turned into bloud my Land brought forth frogs in my Kings chambers palpable darkenesse not onely such as learned judgements can discerne but such as all hands but the actours feele and tremble at Parumnè ad vos turning againe for the people is it nothing to you is the case of Iosiah so lamented by Ieremiah nothing to you Ier. 5.31 Doe my people love to have it so And what will you doe in the end thereof Shall that of Iosiah be verified in you Esay 26.11 Lord when thy hand is lifed up they will not see but they shall see They will not see that the guilt proceeds from them but they shall see that the judgement runs to them They will not see that the judgement lookes at them while it is snatching at the Crowne and the Ephod but they shal see it and be astonisht when those being taken away it shall seize on them irrecoverably This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by whatsoever sinister passages and tumults it makes now an eddy at the King and Prophet will winde about againe and with a crooked turne empty direct judgement elsewhere It is your glory that as the vindication of God and the King the sympathy of the King and the Prophet so the welfare and ruine of the people and the King make up a trinity of combinations a threefold corde that cannot be broken If you serve the Lord and not rebell against his word both you and your King shall be nigh unto the Lord your God but if you doe wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King said Samuel to the desirers of change of Government Beloved if that conformity to the celestiall semblance of the Text in being every one in commune bonus good not to himselfe alone but to the publique in his private calling would satisfie the whole end of the Text and our present case I could dismisse you with a compendious method of that duty namely that since every mans civill activity cannot extend so largely his devotion may come home to every mans doore to his Sonnes and his Daughters to his Garners his sheepe and oxen to his peace and tranquillity yea to his disposure to the Lord his God For all this is done by praying for the King This were enough in a composed State but it is not so with me sayd Job once Iob 9.35 The greatest of all the men of the East and our Syon now my Crowne is cast to the ground and the Sunne is gone downe upon my Prophets Mic. 3.6 Therefore when the foundations are cast downe what shall the righteous doe As he propoundes our case who had experience of it and he addes the resolution the Lord is in his holy Temple the Lords Throne is in Heaven Psalm 11.3.4 Observe the Symetry of the partes on earth foundations in the plurall the King and the Priest but unity in the patterne in Heaven the Lord yet in proportion to the building on earth expressed likewise as in the plurall the Temple and the Throne If then you would have your dayes on earth as the dayes of Heaven as Moses exhorted the Israelites Deut. 11.21 Doe as he commandeth in whom Heaven and Earth are revealed and reconciled Render to Caesar and render to God Math. 22 21. Heere 's both Caesar propounded and God and yet but one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea and first it is sayd to Caesar For of the good wee can render to God Caesar is the Minister to us and what obedience wee render to Caesar is rendred to God as the terminative object After all the rendring to Caesar there remaines a rendring to God and in all the rendring to Caesar there is a further rendring to God Render therefore to Caesar and render to God sed ipsum Caesarem reddite Deo but restore Caesar himselfe to God as he is a foundation restore him to God by acknowledging him to be from God as he is a shaken foundation restore him to God to the service that God hath ordained him for and to the meanes to performe the same For you owe to the patterne in Heaven and through the foundation on earth must render justitiam Throno Templo preces justice to the Throne prayers to the Temple the Throne in Heaven requires of you justice too and the Temple in Heaven prayers for the King on earth Discite justitiam moniti non temnere Divos Take heede Subjects how you deale with Kings he that must judge betwixt you is a King not a Subject Restore then to God his King lest you be like those Gyants the Aloades that sacrificed to their God Mars and yet fettred his hands Let us conclude with our Ieremy and his Lamentation Lament 5. vers 21.22 Turne us unto thee O Lord and wee shall be turned renew our dayes as of old unlesse thou hast utterly rejected us and cast the nice upon us Gloria Deo Christo FINIS
the body though it seem to nature like the irrecoverable falling drop of raine into the Sea takes not away the naturall relation of the body which is twofold One of the materiall body to it private soule of which Iob sayd Job 19.26 though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my selfe and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reines be consumed within me And Paul this corruptible must put on incorruption Cor. 15.53 this despicable this numericall corruptible arguing from the exemplary cause the second Adam to all the faithfull and againe concluding from the finall cause to all men generally wee must all appeare before the Tribunall of Christ that every one may receive in his body the things he hath done Cor. 5.10 Whereupon as Hierome reports the Church of Aquileia that when they pronounce the beliefe observe that of ancient the beliefe was rehearsed in the Congregations for visible confession of the faith is the forme of the visible Church speake that Article emphatically of this flesh pointing every one to his forehead Of the latter relation of the mysticall body which is the body and soule of the believer to Christ know you not saith Paul 1 Cor. 6.15 that your bodies are the members of Christ And againe this is a great mystery but I speake of Christ and the Church Eph. 5.31 For that two shall be one flesh veriùs intelligitur saith Augustine de Christo Ecclesiâ hath its full truth in Christ and the Church Now the reason why God would suffer this vessell of flesh consigned to glory fall into corruption and not translate it presently as he was able into corruption may be thus gathered from his word It stood with the wisedome and power of the great Maker all whose gifts are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to let that earthen vessell which himselfe had framed in the confines of spirituality and now by the envy of the Devill was blemished to continue ever in that deformity but rather to returne it into the lumpe and mould it over againe and this councell of the Almighty wee reade first foretold in the old Testament Jer. 18.6 then fulfilled in the new God is the Potter and wee the clay saith the same our Ieremy who prophesied of the buying of the Potters field Mat. 27.9 when by the envyer of the Potter this vessell was deformed Iesus Christ overcomming the Malignant defacer purchased of God with the price of his owne bloud the moulding againe of the Vessell which he had redeemed from the enemy Wherefore he gave us a manifest tryall in his owne body which though he suffered to dye to purchase the remaking of all the rest yet it as it needed no new molding for any staine and to be returned into the lumpe so could not be held of death nor see corruption So the grave is the Potters field purchased with Christs bloud and burying the placing of the shivered vessell in Godslimbeck to be new cast when he shall with fire calcine the whole masse of the world carnis aurum è limi sordibus excusato censu eliquabit saith Tertullian alluding to that of Malachy Mal. 3.17 And they shall be mine in the day when I make up my jewels Therefore my beloved Brethren be stedfast unmoveable alwaies abounding in every worke of the Lord and duty of devotion forasmuch as you know your labour is not in vaine in the Lord but what is done herein to the Body is not Bodily but Spirituall and full of glorious hope as if your now departing soule should whisper thus to the Body feare not deare sister our instant seperation nor thy folowing dissolution I know that our Redeemer liveth and I have intrusted him with thee so that he is both a Proprietary and a Dâ—positary and by this my last Testament I bequeath thee to him who with his owne bloud purchased of the great Potter thy reparation and whom the God of Peace brought againe from the dead by the bloud of the everlasting Testament I know whom I have trusted and I am perswaded that he is able to keepe thee whom I have committed unto him against that day Wee have learn'd from the Text that Religious mourning and decent buriall are to be performed to every Christian and that sorrow and death continue after Noah a generall inundation we finde in that Jâ—siah dyed and Jeremiah lamented And Jeremiah lamented Observe how the spirit of God dwels upon and delights in enlarging this Testimony what an honourable Crowne of suffrages encompasseth this Jeremiah lamented First imediately before the Text the tide of teares brake in upon Hierusalem then surrounded Juda then overflowed all Judah and Hierusalem universus Juda Hierusalem luxerunt yet still the floud swells and with it the expression of the spirit of God moving upon the sad face of the waters and Jeremiah lamented as if all the former teares had beene in Jeremiah's teares drown'd crown'd wept over againe Then presently after the Text for like a Sepia Jeremiah deales his black dole round about him first all the singing men and the singing women the whole quire replicant resownd Jeremiah's epicediall anthemes further they made them an ordinance in Israell these pious Homilies are injoyned to both Kingdomes by an Ecclesiasticall constitution can there be any more yet yea Ecce scripta sunt Behold they are written in the Lamentations recorded and acknowledged by the spirit of God as his owne made part of Gods word so that we may say to this day God laments for the King by Jeremiah Jeremiah lamented one of the Priests Jer. 1.1 of the sonnes of Aron sacerdos è sacerdotibus saith Hierome to whose holy order Gods owne word made it a prophanation to mourne for the dead Levit 21.1 upon the death of the King the divine Law admits a prohibition upon such an occasion the head used to sacred unction is bedowed with teares and the water hath got above the oile thus Jeremiah the Priest lamented Jeremiah lamented the Prophet the egregious Prophet Jer. 1.5.10 sanctified in the wombe knowne before formed set over the Nations and Kingdomes to root out and pull downe to build and to plant This Jeremiah the Prophet lamented Ieremiah had oft had just cause to mourne for himselfe v. 8. in the 20 chapter I cryed out I cryed violence and spoile because the word of the Lord was made a reproach to me and a dirision dayly In the 18 chapter they said come let us divise devices against Jeremie let us smite him with the tongue v. 18. In the 37 chapter he was apprehended and accused of treason v. 15. and falling away to the enemies of the State and thereupon smitten and cast into the dungeon yet all this writ him not in the black letter and great charactet of a Lamenter but now some occasion hath presented
Propheticall breath so in Propheticall teares it is embalmed and continued to all Posterities which shall wonder and be amazed even the Kings of the earth and all the Inhabitants of the world Lament 4.12 and not believe that the enemy could have entred the ports of the Daughter of Zion having so religious a King under whose shadow they lived securely among the Heathen Lament 4.20 But hearing withall that this King was so taken away they shall acknowledge that the God of Israel dealt therein with that people and Josiah in the same manner as he dealt once with David and them 2 Sam. 24 1. He that suffered David to sinne in numbring the people for the sinne of a number whom he would destroy suffering also Josiah so zealous for the Law and the weale of the people to goe against the word in the mouth and fall by the sword in the hand of Necho 2 Chron. 35 22. That the Bulwarke which stood in the way of the destroyer once broken downe the floud of the wrath of God quâ data porta ruat might thenceforth breake in upon a rebellious Nation that so they might be punished by his death who was suffered to slip for their punishment and by whose righteous life they would not be reformed As for that one act of Josiahs going to war against Pharoh piety forbids us to thinke that Iosiah would have done it had he beene forbidden by the mouth of Ieremiah or any of Gods Prophets But in the mouth of Pharoah what more authority could this interdiction expect from Iosiah then that commination from the mouth of Zenacherib obtained of Hezekiah 2 King 18.25 Indeede wee who now have the story written since by the holy Ghost reade that Iosiah hearkned not to the word of Necho from the mouth of God 2 Chron. 35 2â— But if this were a ruine and such an one was Moses his at the waters of Meribah so subtile that it must be a quick eye can discerne it wee may say with Gregory pro qualitatibus subditorum disponuntur acta regentium the actions of Kings are by Gods permission and overruling hand disposed according to the desert of their Subjects justus interim Judex c. In the meane time the just Iudge vindicates those sinnes of the King at their hands for whose sake he was suffered to slip Heere the sinne of Iudah came to it height in their greater guiltinesse of his lesser sinne Their sinne had it complement in his slip and their punishment it beginning from his death O the just and unsearcheable judgements of the great King From this judgement wee are taught how sacred a relation is betwixt a King and his people so strong so neare is it that he that atempts to part them had better halfe cleave a great Oake and forcing the sides to open stand betwixt them at their suddaine clapping together againe See the piety of this potent relation on the Kings part in Moses Exod. 32.32 O forgive the sinne of this people or else blot me out of the booke thou hast written See it in David what have these sheepe done Let thy hand be upon me and my fathers house 2 Sam. 24.17 On the Subjects part how strong and indelible this naturall love to their King is though indeede the wife be more subject to the tempter wee reade in those sensitive creatures in which Rege incolumi mous omnibus una amisso rupere fidem in naturall men which upon the violent death of their King even after a good successour was possessed have never rested till the doers were punished as in DomitiaÌ„ some have died for pitty to their King as in Otho and the best Optimus Emperor executed that which Nerva coted to him out of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But where the knowledge of God was this zeale was ever more warme The people sayd to Samuel who is he that sayd Saul shall not raign over us Bring the men that wee may put them to death 1 Sam â— 1 1â— And the same people that were deluded by Absolom to rebell against David their King after the fit was over were so â—ealous for him that they were at strife through all the Tribes of Israel who should be first in bringing back the King and expiating their rash folly with redoubled Loyalty 2 Sam. 19.42 The strength of this relation is the reason that God sometimes punisheth a King for the peoples sake as heere in Iosiah sometimes the people for the Kings sake as in Saule 2 Sam. 21.1 And sometimes lets the King transgresse that he may punish the people as in David 2 Sam. 24.1 This solemne course of Almighty God in punishing is the strength of the current of Jeremiahs Lamentations for Iosiah so drawing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the people from that one act of Iosiah to consideration of their past sinnes and from the death of Iosiah to their present judgement and so to God himselfe And this is the decumanus fluctus now have teares swelled to their Land-marke springing from sorrow for common death and vulgar mourners to the chiefe mourner the Prophet and the hyperocall sorrow for a King then rising from the death of a King to the losse of a Iosiah thence to the consequent of the losse it diffuseth then swelleth againe to the departure of the great shepheard thence passeth to the motive cause of all these sinne At last it mounts up to the efficient and disposer Almighty God So our Ieremy in this Lamentation for Iosiah Lament 3.42.39 Wee have transgressed and rebelled and thou hast not pardoned and againe wherefore doth a living man murmure a man for the punishment of his sinne For even those whom God hath forsaken grieve at their punishment they have not cryed to me with their heart when they howled upon their beds saith Hosee Hos 7.14 but this is a signe that the party under punishment is yet a man a live man when the soule stumbles not and stops either murmuring at the punishment or at the second cause quarrelling but leaping over and rising above both second causes and punishment ascends to God arguing thus with our Ieremy in this Lamentation Lament 3.37 Who is he that saith it and it comes to passe when the Lord commandeth it not Out of the mouth of the most high proceedes not evill and good Thus persuing our sinnes to God wee finde in him both judgement and mercy judgement by which he hath but from us to punish mercy in which he hath of his seminarium miserecordiarum to be gratious and repent him of the evill upon the evils repentance 2 Cor. 1.3 Whereas if wee stay in our afflictions either out of dulnesse or impatience at the second causes and instruments by higher pressures wee become hardened and dejected by greater moreover in the men that oppresse us wee shall finde onely insultation and matter of provocation is my complaint saith Iob Iob â—1 4. to man if it were so how should not my spirit be