upon thee and true that God is angry vehemently angry But Expone juststiam irae Dei deal clearly with the world and clear God and confesse it is because of thy sinne When Cain says My sin is greater then can be forgiven that word Gnavon is ambiguous it may bee sinne it may bee punishment and wee know not whether his impatience grew out of the horrour of his sinne or the weight of his punishment But here wee are directed by a word that hath no ambiguity Kata signifies sin and nothing but sinne Here the holy Ghost hath fixed thee upon a word that will not suffer thee to consider the punishment nor the cause of the punishment the anger but the cause of that anger and all the sin Wee see that the bodily sicknesse and the death of many is attributed to one kind of sinne to the negligent receiving of the Sacrament For this cause many are weak and sick amongst you and many sleep Imaginem judicii ostenderat God had given a representation of the day of Judgement in that proceeding of his for then we shall see many men condemned for sinnes for which we never suspected them so wee thinke men dye of Fevers whom we met lately at the Sacrament and God hath cut them off perhaps for that sin of their unworthy receiving the Sacrament My miseries are the fruits of this Tree Gods anger is the arms that spreads it but the root is sin My sin which is another consideration We say of a Possession Transit cum onere It passes to me with the burthen that my Father laid upon it his debt is my debt so does it with the sin too his sin by which he got that possession is my sin if I know it and perchance the punishment mine though I know not the sin Adams sin 6000 years agoe is my sin and their sin that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton writings of mine will be my sin though they come after Wofull riddle sin is but a privation and yet there is not such another positive possession sin is nothing and yet there is nothing else I sinned in the first man that ever was and but for the mercy of God in something that I have said or done might sin that is occasion sin in the last man that ever shall be But that sin that is called my sinne in this text is that that is become mine by an habituall practise or mine by a wilfull relapse into it And so my sin may kindle the anger of God though it bee but a single sinne One sinne as it is delivered here in the singular and no farther Because of my sinne Every man may find in himself Peccatum complicatum sinne wrapped up in sinne a body of sin We bring Elements of our own earth of Covetousnesse water of unsteadfastnesse ayre of putrefaction and fire of licentiousnesse and of these elements we make a body of sinne as the Apostle says of the Naturall body There are many members but one body so we may say of our sin it hath a wanton eye a griping hand an itching ear an insatiable heart and feet swift to shed blood and yet it is but one body of sin It is all â—and yet it is but One But let it be simply and singularly but One which is a miracle in sin truly I think an impossibility in sin to be single to be but One for that unclean Spirit which possessed the man that dwelt amongst the tombs carryed it at first as though he had been a single Devill and he alone in that man I I adjure thee says he to Christ and torment not me not me so far in the singular but when Christ puts him to it he confesses we are many and my name is legion So though thy sinne slightly examined may seem but One yet if thou dare presse it it will confesse a plurality a legion if it be but One yet if that One be made thine by an habituall love to it as the plague needs not the help of a Consumption to kill thee so neither does Adultery need the help of Murder to damn thee For this making of any One sin thine thine by an habituall love thereof will grow up to the last and heaviest waight intimated in that phrase which is also in this clause of the Text In facie paccati that this sin will have a face that is a confidence and a devesting of all 〈◊〉 or disguises There cannot bee a heavier punishment laid upon any sinne then Christ lays upon scandall It were better for him a mil-stone were hanged about his neck and hee drowned in the Sea If something worse then such a death belong to him surely it is eternall Death And this this eternall death is interminated by Christ in cases where there is not always sinne in the action which wee doe but if we doe any action so as that it may scandalize another or occasion sin in him we are bound to study and favour the weaknesse of other men and not to doe such things as they may think sins We must prevent the mis-interpretation yea the malice of other men for though the fire be theirs the fewell or at least the â—ellows is ours The uncharitablenesse the malice is in them but the awaking and the stirring thereof is in our carelesnesse who were not watchfull upon our actions But when an action comes to be sin indeed and not onely occasionally sin because it scandalizes another but really sin in it selfe then even the Poet tels you Maxima debetur pueris reverentia si quid Tâ—rpe paras Take heed of doing any sinne in the sight of thy Child for if we break through that wall we shall come quickly to that faciâ—m Sacerdotis non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed in the presence of the Priest they will look him in the face nay receive at his hands and yet sin their sinne that minute in their hearts and to that also faciem seniorum non erubuerunt they will not be afraid nor ashamed of the Office of the Magistrate but sin for nothing or sin at a price bear out or buy out all their sins They sin as Sodom and bide it not is the highest charge that the Holy Ghost could lay upon the sinner When they come to say Our lips are ours who is Lord ever us They will say so of their hands and of all their bodies They are ours who shall forbid us to doe what wee will with them And what lack these open sinners of the last judgement and the condemnation therof That judgement is that men shall stand naked in the sight of one another and all their sinnes shall be made manifest to all and this open sinner does so and chuses to doe so even in this world When David prays so devoutly to be cleansed from his secret sins and Saint Paul glories so devoutly in having renounced the
and fragrancy which the word breaths out That they shall see it that is understand it consider it For as when the wicked come to say The Lord does not see it it is presently added Neither doth the God of Iacob regard it It is a seeing that induces a regarding so when the godly come to see their afflictions they come to regard them to regard Gods purpose in them Vidisti Domine ne sileas sayes David All this thou hast seen O Lord Lord do not hold thy peace David presumed that if God saw his afflictions he would stirre in them when we come to see them we stir we wake we rise we looke about us from whence and why these afflictions come and therein lyes this comfort Vidi I have seen afflictions I have been content to look upon them to consider them The Prophets in the Old Testament doe often call those sights and those prenotions which they had of the misery and destruction of others Onus visionis Onus verbi Domini O the burden of this sight O the burden of this message of God It was a burden to them to see Gods judgements directed upon others how much more is it a burden to a man to see his own affliction and that in the cause thereof But this must be done we must see our affliction in the Cause thereof No man is so blinde so stupid as that he doth not see his affliction that is feele it but we must see it so as to see through it see it to be such as it is so qualified so conditioned so circumstanced as he that sends it intends it We must leave out the malice of others in our oppressions and forgive that leave out the severity of the Law in our punishments and submit to that and looke intirely upon the certainty of Gods judgement who hath the whole body of our sins written together before him and picks out what sin it pleaseth him and punisheth now an old now a yesterdayes sin as he findeth it most to conduce to his glory and our amendment and the edification of others We must see the hand of God upon the wall as Belshazzar did for even that was the hand of God though wee cannot read that writing no more then Belshazzar could Wee must see the affliction so as we must see it to be the hand of God though wee cannot presently see for what sinne it is nor what will be the issue of it And then when we have seen that then we must turn to the study of those other particulars for till we see the affliction to come from God we see nothing There is no other light in that darknesse but he If thou see thy affliction thy sicknesse in that glasse in the consideration of thine own former licentiousnesse thou shalt have no other answer but that soure remorse and increpation you might have lived honestly If thou see thy affliction thy poverty in that glasse in the malice oppression of potent adversaries thou wilt get no farther then to that froward and churlish answer The Law is open mend your selfe as you can But Iactate super Dominum saith David Lay all thy burden upon the Lord and hee will apply to thee that Collyrium that soveraigne eye-salve whereby thou shalt see thy afffiction it shall not blinde thee And see from whence it commeth from him who as hee liveth would not the death of a sinner And see why it commeth that thou mightest see and taste the goodnesse of God thy selfe and declare his loving kindnesse to the Children of Men. And this is the comfort deduced from this word Vidi I have seen affliction And this leadeth us to our other Comfort That though these Afflictions have wrought deepe upon thee yet thou canst say to thy soule Ego vir I am that man Thy Morality thy Christianity is not shaked in thee It is the Mercy of God that wee are not conumed saith Ieremy here And it is a great degree of his mercy to let us feele that wee are not consumed to give us this sense that our case is not desperate but that Ego vir I am the man that there remaineth still strength enough to gather more That still thou remainest a man a reasonable man and so art able to apply to thy selfe all those medicines and reliefs which Philosophy and naturall reason can afford For even these helps deduced from Philosophy and naturall reason are strong enough against afflictions of this world as long as we can use them as long as these helps of reason and learning are alive and awake and actuated in us they are able to sustain us from sinking under the afflictions of this world for they have sustained many a Plato and Socrates and Seneca in such cases But when part of the affliction shall be that God worketh upon the Spirit it selfe and damps that enfeebles that that he casts a sooty Cloud upon the understanding and darkens that that he doth Exuere hominem devest strip the man of the man Eximere hominem take the man out of the man and withdraw and frustrate his naturall understanding so as that to this purpose he is no man yet even in this case God may mend thee in marring thee hee may build thee up in dejecring thee hee may infuse another Ego vir another Manhood into thee and though thou canst not say Ego vir I am that Morall man safe in my Naturall Reason and Philosophy that is spent yet Ego vir I am that Christian man who have seen this affliction in the Cause thereof so farre off as in my sinne in Adam and the remedy of this affliction so farre off as in the death of Christ Iesus I am the Man that cannot repine nor murmure since I am the Cause I am the man that cannot despair since Christ is the remedy I am that man which is intended in this Text Gheber Not onely an Adam a man amongst men able to convince me though they speak eloquently against me and able to prove that God hath forsaken me because he hath afflicted me but able to prevail with God himself as Iacob did and to wrastle out a blessing out of him though I doe halt become infirm with manifold afflictions yet they shall be so many seals of my infallibility in him Now this comfort hath three gradations in our text three circumstances which as they aggravated the discomfort in the former so they exalt the comfort in this part That they are His The Lords That they are from his rod That they are from the rod of his wrath We may compare our afflictions that come immediately from God with those that come instrumentally from others by considering the choice and election which David made and the choice which Susanna made in her case The Prophet Gâ—d offers David his choice of three afflictions War Famine or pestilence It does not appeare it is not
hidden things of dishonesty how great a burthen is there in these open and avowed sins sins that have put on so brasen a face as to out-face the Minister and out-face the Magistrate and call the very Power and Justice of God in question whether he do hate or can punish a sinne for they doe what they can to remove that opinion out of mens hearts Truly as an Hypocrite at Church may doe more good then a devout man in his Chamber at home be cause the Hypocrites outward piety though counterfeit imprints a good example upon them who doe not know it to bee counterfeit and wee cannot know that he that is absent from Church now is now at his prayers in his Chamber so a lesser sinne done with an open avowment and confidence may more prejudice the Kingdome of God then greater in secret And this is that which may be principally intended or atleast usefully raised our of this phrase of the Holy Ghost in David A facie peccati that the habituall sinner comes to sin not onely with a negligence who know it but with a glorious desire that all the world might know it and with a shame that any such Iudge as feared not God nor regarded man should be more feareless of God or regardless of man then he But now beloved when we have laid man thus low Miserable because Man and then Diseased and that all over without any soundnesse even in his whole substance in his flesh and in the height of this disease Restlesse too and Restlesse even in his bones diffident in his strongest assurances And when we have laid him lower then that made him see the Cause of all this misery to be the Anger of God the inevitable anger of an incensed God and such an anger of God as hath a face a manifestation a reality and not that God was angry with him in a Decree before he shewed man his face in the Law and saw Mans face in the transgression of the law And laid him lower then that too made him see the cause of this anger as it is sinne so to be his sinne sinne made his by an habituall love thereof which though it may be but one yet is become an out-facing sinne a sinne in Contempt and confidence when we have laid Man laid you thus low in your own eyes we returne to the Canon and rule of that Physician whom they call Evangelist aâ—â— medicinae the Evangelist of Physique Sit intentio prima in omni medicina comfâ—rtare whether the physician purge or lance or sear his principall care and his end is to comfort and strengthen so though we have insisted upon Humane misery and the cause of that the anger of God and the cause of that anger sinne in that excesse yet we shall dismisse you with that Consolation which was first in our intention and shall be our conclusion that as this Text hath a personall aspect upon David alone and therefore we gave you hit case and then a generall retrospect upon Adam and all in him and therefore we gave you your own case so it hath also an Evangelicall prospect upon Christ and therefore for your comfort and as a bundle of Myrrhe in your bosomes we shall give you his case too to whom these words belong as well as to Adam or David or you There is no soundnesse in my flesh because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sinne If you will see the miseries of Man in their exaltation and in their accumulation too in their weight and in their number take them in the Ecce home when Christ was presented from Pilate scourged and scorned Ecce home behold man in that man in the Prophets They have reproched the feetsteps of thine Anointed says David slandred his actions and conversation He hath no form nor comlinesse nor beauty that we should desire to see him says Esay Despised rejected of men A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefes And Ecce homo behold man in that man in the whole history of the Gospell That which is said of us of sinfull men is true in him the salvation of men from the sole of the foot even unto the Head there is no soundnesse but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores That question will never receive answer which Christ askes Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Never was never will there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow because there can never be such a person to suffer sorrow Affliction was upon him and upon all him for His soule was heavy unto death Even upon his Bones fire was sent into his bones and it prevailed against him And the highest cause of this affliction was upon him the anger of God The Lord had afflicted him in the day of his fierce anger The height of Gods anger is Dereliction and he was brought to his Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We did esteem him striken of the Lord says Esay And we were not deceived in it Percutiam pastorem says Christ himselfe of himselfe out of the Prophet I will smite the shepheard and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered And then the cause of this anger sinne was so upon him as that though in one consideration the raine was upon all the world and onely this fleece of Gedeon dry all the world surrounded with sinne and onely He innocent yet in another line we finde all the world dry and onely Gedeons fleece wet all the world innoceâ— and onely Christ guilty But as there is a Verè tulit and a Verè portavit surely he bore those griefes and surely he carried those sorrows so they were Verè nostri surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrows he was wounded for our transgressioâ—â— and bruised for our iniquitles The Chastisement of our peace was upon him 〈◊〉 â—efore it must necessarily follow as it does follow there with his stripes wee 〈◊〉 for God will not exact a debt twice of Christ for me and of me too 〈◊〉 therefore Quare moriemini Domus Israel since I have made ye of the houshold â— of Israel why will ye die since ye are recovered of your former sicknesses why will die of a new disease of a suspicion or jealousie that this recovery this redemption in Christ Iesus belongs not to you Will ye say It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands Dei viventis of the living God 'T is so a fearfull thing But if Deâ—s mortuus the God of life bee but dead for mee be fallen into my hands applied to mee made mine it is no fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Non sat is est medicum fecisse suum officium nisi agrotus adstantes sua It is not enough for Christ Jesus to have prepared you the balm of his bloud
them To sever the King and the Kingdome and pretend the weale of the one without the other is to shake and discompose Gods building Historically this was the Jewes case when Ieremy lamented here if he lamented the declination of the State in the death of the King Iosiah And if he lamented the transportation of Zedekiah and that that crosse were not yet come upon them Or if he lamented the future devastation of that Nation occasioned by the death of the King of Kings Christ Jesus when he came into the world this was their case prophetically Either way historically or prophetically Ieremy looks upon the Kingdome but yet through that glasse through the King The duty of the Day and the order of the Text invites us to an application of this branch too Our adversaries did not come to say to themselves Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome stand the materiall Kingdome the plenty of the Land they would have been content to have but the formall Kingdome that is This forme of Government by a Soveraigne King that depends upon none but God they would not have So that they came implicitely 〈◊〉 Nolumus Regnum hoc we will not have this Kingdome governed thus and they came explicitely to a Nolumus Regem hunc as the Jewes were resolved of Christ We will not have this King to governe at all Non hunc Will you not have him you were at your Nolumus hanc long before Her whom God had set over you before him you would not have Your not Anniversary but Hebdomadary Treasons cast upon her a necessity of drawing blood often and so your Nolumus hâ—nc your desire that she were gone might have some kinde of ground or colour But for your Nolumus hunc for this King who had made no Inquisition for blood who had forborne your very pecuniary penalties who had as himself witnesses of himself made you partakers with his Subjects of his own Religion in matters of grace and in reall benefits and in Titles of Honour Quare fremuerant Why did these men rage and imagine a vaine thing What they did historically we know They made that house which is the hive of the Kingdome from whence all her honey comes that house where Iustice her self is conceived in their preparing of Laws and inanimated and quickned and borne by the Royall Assent there given they made that whole house one Murdring peece and charged that peece with Peers with People with Princes with the King and meant to discharge it upward at the face of heaven to shoot God at the face of God Him of whom God hath said Dii estis You are Gods at the face of God that had said so as though they would have reproached the God of heaven and not have been beholden to him for such a King but shoot him up to him and bid him take his King again with a nolumus hunc regnare we will not have this King to reign over us This was our case Historically and what it is Prophetically as long as that remains to bee their doctrine which he against whom that attempt was principally made found by their examination to be their doctrine That they and no Sect in the world but they did make Treason an article of Religion That their Religion bound them to those attempts so long they are never at an end Till they dis-avow those Doctrines that conduce to that prophetically they wish prophetically they hope for better successe in as ill attempts It is then the kingdome that Ieremy laments but his nearest object is the King Hee laments him First let it be as with S. Hierome many of the Ancients and with them many of the later Rabbins will have it for Josiah for a good King in whose death the honour and the strength of the kingdome took that deadly wound to become tributary to a forain Prince for to this lamentation they refer those words of the Prophet which describe a great sorrow In that day shall there be a great mourning in Ierusalem as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon which was the place where Iosiah was slain There shall be such a lamentation says the Prophet in this interpretation as was for the death of Iosiah This then was for him for a good King Wherein have we his goodnesse expressed Abundantly Hee did that which was right in Gods fight And whose Eye need he fear that is right in the Eye of God But how long did he so To the end for Nero who had his Quinquennium and was a good Emperour for his first five years was one of the worst of all Hee that is ill all the way is but a Tyran Hee that is good at first and after ill an Angels face and a Serpents taile make him a Monster Iosiah began well and persevered so He turned not aside to the right â—and nor to the left That is if we apply it to the Iosiah of our times neither to the fugitive that leaves our Church and goes to the Roman nor to the Separatist that leaves our Church and goes to none In the eighteenth year of his reign Iosiah undertook the reparation of Gods house If we apply this to the Iosiah of our times I think in that year of his reign he visited this Church and these wals and meditated and perswaded the reparation thereof In one word Like unto Iosiah there was no King before nor after And therefore there was just cause of lamentation for this King for Iosiah historically for the very loss of his person prophetically for the misery of the State after his death Our errand is to day to apply all these branches to the day Those men who intended us this cause of lamentation this day in the destruction of our Iosiah spared him not because he was so because so because he was a Iosiah because he was good no not because he was good to them his benefits to them had not mollified them towards him for that is not their way Both the French Henries were their own and good to them but did that rescue either of them from the knife And was not that Emperour whom they poisoned in the Sacrament their own and good to them and yet was that any Antidote against their poison To so reprobate a sense hath God given them over herein as that though in their Books they ly heaviest upon Princes of our Religion yet truly they have destroyed more of their own then of ours Thus it is Historically in their proceedings past And Prophetically it can be but thus since no King is good in their sense if he agree not to all points of Doctrine with them And when that is done not good yet except he agree in all points of Iurisdiction too and that no King can doe that will not be their Farmer of his Kingdome Their Authours have disputed Auferibilitatem Papae whether the Church of God might not be
teach valour yes And nothing but feare True feare As Moses his Serpents devoured the false serpents so doth true fear all false fear There is nothing so contrary to God as false fear neither in his own nature nor in his love to us Therefore Gods first Name in the Bible and the Name which he sticks to in all the worke of the Creation is his Name of Power Elohim El is fortis Deus The God of Power and it is that Name in the plurall multiplied power All Power And what can he feare God descends to many other humane affections you shall read that God was Angry and sory and weary But non timuit Deus God was never afraid Neither would God that man should be So his first blessing upon man was to fill the earth and to subdue the creatures and to rule over them and to eat what he would upon the earth All Acts of Power and of Confidence As soon as hee had offended God the first impotency that he found in himself was fear I heard thy voice and I was afraid says he He had heard the voice of Lions and was not afraid There is not a greater commination of a curse then that They shall be in a great fear where no fear is Which is more vehemently expressed in another place I will set my face against you and yu shall flye when none pursues you I will send a faintnesse into their hearts and the sound of a shaken leafe shall chase them as a sword Flase feare is a fearfull curfe To feare that all favours and all preferments will goe the wrong way and that therefore I must clap on a byasse and goe that way too this inordinate fear is the curse of God Davids last counsail to Solomon but reflecting upon us all was Be thou strong therefore and show thy selfe a man E Culmine corruens ad gyrum laboris venit The Davill fell from his place in heaven and now is put to compasse the earth The fearfull man that fals from his morall and his Christian constancy from the fundamentall rules of his religion fals into labyrinths of incertitudes and impertinencies and ambiguities and anxieties irresolutions Militia vita our whole life is a warfare God would not chuse Cowards hee lad rather we were valiant in the fighting of his battels for battels and exercise of valour we are sure to have God sent a Cain into the world before an Abel An Enemy before a Champion Abel non suspicor qui non habet Cain Gregor we never heare of an Abel but there is a Cain too And therefore think it not strange concerning the fiery triall as though some strange thing happened unto you Make account that this world is your Scene your Theater and that god himself sits to see the combat the wrestling Vetuit Deus mortem Iob Iob was Gods Champion and God forbad Satan the taking away of Iobs life for if he die sayes God in the mouth of that Father Theatrum nobis non amplius plaeudetar My Theater will ring with no more Plaudites I shall bee no more glorified in the valour and constancy of my Saints my Champions God delights in the constant and valiant man and therefore a various a timorous man frustrates disappoints God My errand then is to teach you valour and must my way be to intimidate you to teach you feare yes still there is no other fortitude but the fear of the Lord. We told you before sadnesse and fear differ but in the present and future And as for the present Nihil aliud triste quà m Deum offendere There is no just cause of sadnesse but to have sinned against God for sudden sadnesse arising in a good Conscience is a sparke of fire in the Sea it must goe out so there is no just cause of fear but in Gods displeasure Mens in timore Domini constituta non invenit extra quod metuat God is all and if I be established in him what thing can I fear when there is nothing without him nothing simply at least nothing that can hurt me Quae sunt in mundo non nocentiis qui extra mundum sunt This world cannot hurt him that made it nor them that are laid up in him Ionas did but change his vessell his ship when he entred the Whale he was not shipwracked God was his Pilot there as well as in the ship and therefore he as confident there It is meant of Christ which is spoken in the person in Wisdome Who so hearkneth unto me shall dwell safely and be quiet from the feare of evill And therefore when you heare of warres and commotions be not terrified these things must come to passe but the end is not by and by Imaginations and tentations and alienations and tribulations must come But this is not the end the end that God lookes for is that by the benefit of his fear we should stand out all these So thē to teach you the fear of the Lord is to teach you what it doth that you may love it and what it is that you may know it That w ch it doth is that it makes you a constant a confident a valiant man That which God who is alwayes the same loves How doth it that Thus. As he that is falne into tha Kings hand for debt to him is safe from other creditors so is he that fears the Lord form other fears He that loves the Lord loves him witl all his love he that fears the Lord fears him withall his fear too God takes no half affections Upon those words Be not high-minded but fear Clement of Alexandria hath another reading super-time over-feare that is carry thy fear to the highest place place thy fear there where it may be above all other fears In the multitude of dreams there are divers vanities but feare thou the Lord. All fearfull things passe away as dreams as vanities to him that fears the Lord They offer at him but in vain if he be established with that fear In Christ there was no bone broken In him that feares the Lord no constant purpose is ever shaken Of Iob it is said that he was perfect and upright That is a rare wonder but the wonder is qualified in the addition He feared God So are they put together in Simeon Iustus timoratus he was a just man how should he be otherwise He feared God Consider your enemies and be not deceived with an imagination of their power but see whether they be worthy of your feare if you feare God The World is your enemy sed vicit mundum be of good cheare for I have overcome the world saith Christ. If it were not so yet we are none of it ye are not of the world for I have chosen you out of the that world Howsoever the world would doe us no harm the world would be good