meaning is His absolute will is that they should die And let them shift as they please and wind and turn themselves to slip out of reach after all defalcations and subtractions they can make it will arise near to this sum which I am almost afraid to give you That God is willing we should die For to this purpose they bring in also Gods Providence To this purpose I should have said to none at all For though God rule the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by this law of Providence as Nazianzene calleth it though he disposeth and ordereth all things and all actions of men yet he layeth not any law of Necessity upon all things Some effects he hath fitted with necessary causes Prima part q. 22. art 4. that they may infallibly fall out saith Aquinas and to other effects which in their own nature are contingent he hath applyed contingent causes so that that shall fall out necessarily which his Providence hath so disposed of and that contingently which he hath left in a contingency And both these in the nature of things necessary and contingent are within the verge and rule of his Providence and he altereth them not but extra ordinem when he would do some extraordinary work Psal 104.19 when he would work a miracle The Sun knoweth his seasons and the Moon its going down and this in a constant and unchangeable course but yet he commanded the Sun to stand still in Gibeon and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon Josh 10.12 But then I think all events are not as necessary as the change of the Moon or the setting of the Sun for all have not so necessary causes Unless you will say to walk or stand to be rich or poor to fall in battel or to conquer are as necessary effects as Darkness when the Sun setteth or Light when it riseth in our Horizon And this indeed may bring in a new kind of Predestination to walk or to stand to Riches and Poverty to Victory and Captivity as well as to everlasting Life and everlasting Perdition But posito sed non concesso Let us suppose it though we grant it not that the Providence of God hath laid a necessity upon such events as these yet it doth not certainly upon those actions which concern our everlasting welfare which either raise us up to heaven or cast us down to destruction It were not much material at least a good Christian might think so whether we sit or walk whether God predetermin that we be rich or poor that we conquer or be overcome What is it to me though the Sun stand still if my feet be at liberty to run the wayes of Gods commandments What is it to me if the Moon should start out of her sphere if I lose not the sight of that brightness which should direct me in my way to bliss What were it to me if I were necessitated to beggery so I be not a predestinate bankrupt in the city of the Lord Let him do what he will in heaven and in earth let the Sun go back let the Stars lose their light let the wheel of Nature move in a contrary way let the pillars of the world be shaken Let him do what he will it concerneth us not further then that we say Amen so be it For we must give him leave who made the world to govern it If all other events and actions were necessary we might well sit down and lay our hands upon our mouth But here lis est de tota possessione We speak not of riches and poverty or fair weather and tempests but of everlasting life and everlasting damnation And to entitle God either directly or indirectly to the sins and death of wicked men so to lay the Scene that it shall appear though masked and vailed with limitations and distinctions and though they be not positive yet leave such premisses out of which this conclusion may easily be drawn is a high reproch to Gods infinite Goodness a blasphemy however men wipe their mouthes after it of the greatest magnitude Not to speak the worst it is to stand up and contradict God to his face and when he sweareth he would not have us die to proclaim it to all the world that there be thousands whom he hath killed already and destroyed before they were and so decreed to do that from all eternity which in time he swore he would not do I speak not this to rake the ashes of any of those who are dead that either maintained or favoured this opinion nor to stir the choler of any man living who may love this child for the fathers sake but for the honour of God and his everlasting Goodness which I conceive to be strangely violated by this doctrine of efficacious Permission or by that shift and evasion of a positive Efficiency joyned as it is said inseparably with this Permission of sin which is so far from colouring it over or giving any loveliness to it that it rendreth it more horrid and deformed and is the louder blasphemy of the two which clotheth as it were a Devil with Light who yet breaketh through it and rageth as much as if he had been in his own shape Permission is a fair word and bodeth no harm but yet it breatheth forth that poysonous exhalation which killeth us For but to be permitted to sin is to be a child appointed to death The antients especially the Athenians did account some words ominous and therefore they never used to speak them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Prison they called the House Helladius apud Photium the Hangman the Common Officer and the like And the Romanes would not once mention Death or say their friend was dead but Humanitus illi accidit We may render it in the Scripture-phrase He is gone the way of all the earth Josh 23.14 1 Kings 2.2 What their phansie led them to Religion should perswade us to think that some words there be which we should be afraid to mention when we speak of God Excitation to sin Inclination Induration Reprobration as they are used are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ill-boding words But yet we must not with the Heathen onely change the language and mean the same thing and call it Permission when our whole discourse driveth this way to bring it forward and set it up for a flat and absolute Compulsion For this is but to plough the wind to make a way which closeth of it self as soon as it is made This is not to teach men but to amaze them Sermo per deflexus anfractus veritatem potiùs quaerit quà m ostendit saith Hilary When men broach these contradictions to known and common principles when they make these Meanders these windings and turnings in their discourses they make it also apparent that they are still in their search and have not yet found out the
I had pity on thee This is the natural and most necessary inference that can be drawn from these premisses What a sick soul then is that which when Mercy overshadoweth her bringeth forth a monster breathing forth hail stones and coals of fire even that cruelty which devoureth those she should foster This is the most false illation can be made For God freely profereth remission of sins to work in us the like mind and affection and pardoneth all by proclamation that we may forgive one another To conclude this It is with this great example of God's Goodness to us as it is with his Word and Spirit and other benefits They are powerful to work miracles to heal the sick to give eyes to the blind to give life to the dead to remove mountains any difficulty whatsoever but they do not necessarily produce these effects because there still remaineth an indifferency in the will of man and a possibility to resist It is the office of the Spirit to seal us to the day of our redemption and he is powerful to do it but he doth not seal a stone which will take no impression or water which will hold no figure His Word is his hammer but it doth not batter nor soften every heart How often is his Word in their mouth how often do they publish his mercies his wonderful mercies to the world whose very mercy notwithstanding is cruelty His Benefits are lively in themselves but dead and buried in an ungrateful breast Therefore to make his Mercy efficacious to let it work what it is very apt to work let us not onely hear God when he speaketh to us by it and go out to meet him when he cometh towards us by his exemplary goodness put off our shooes from our feet at the appearance of this great light to wit all our turbulent motions beat down all the contradictions of our mind and take the veil from before our eyes that we may discern his Mercy as it is working remission of sins but withall planting that love in our hearts which must grow up to shadow all the trespasses of our brethren And this power and influence the Mercy of God hath to work in us the like softness and tenderness of heart to others if we hinder it not if Covetousness and the Love of the world and that False love of our selves and other vile affections stand not up and oppose it We must now in the next place weigh the Force and Power which our forgiveness of our brethren hath to move God to shew mercy unto us And indeed it may seem to have some causality in it For as I told you the SICUT in S. Matthew is ETENIM in S. Luke as we forgive saith the one for we forgive saith the other But indeed they are both one and ETENIM is no more then SICUT And it is observed that this conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it carry with it the appearance of a Causal yet both in the New Testament and in humane Authours serves sometimes for nothing else but to make up the connexion For take Compassion and all the vertues which are commended to our practice take that Charity which is the fulfilling of the Law yet all will not make up a Cause either efficient or formal Rom. 3.24 of Remission of sins which is the free gift of God But because our Saviour hath told us that if we forgive men their trespasses our heavenly Father will forgive us we may say it is a Cause a cause so far as without it there is no remission of sins For though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains though I give my bread to the poor and my body to be burnt yet if I have not charity if I do not forgive my enemies there is no hope of remission Or it is as I told you causa removens prohibens a cause in this respect that it removeth that hindrance that obstacle that mountain which standeth between us and the Mercy-seat For God's Goodness is larger then his Beneficence He doth not do what good he can he doth not do what good he would because we are uncapable He doth not shine in full beauty upon us because we are nothing but deformity We will not suffer him to be good we will not suffer him to be merciful we will not suffer him to wipe out our sins by forgiveness we set up our rampiers and bulworks against him and our Malice is strong against his Mercy But so far it is a cause and may be said to produce it as the effect is commonly attributed to such causes which though they have not any positive causality yet without them the effect cannot be accomplished Thus Blessedness is placed as a title and inscription upon every vertue Blessed are the poor in spirit Blessed are the merciful Every vertue maketh us blessed but not every vertue without all So naked and destitute is every vertue if it be not accompanied with all nor is any vertue truly a vertue if it do not savour and relish of the rest For it is universal obedience that God requireth at our hands And though forgiveness of sins go as it were hand in hand with every vertue yet it is so in every vertue that we cannot find it but in all We are baptized for remission of sins We believe to remission of sins We forgive that our sins may be forgiven Yet none of these are available alone not Baptism without Faith nor Faith without Love The profession of Christianity taketh in all that is praise-worthy all vertues whatsoever As the Oratour telleth us that to his art of Oratory not onely Wit and Pronunciation and Command of language but also the Knowledge of all the arts are necessary quae etiam aliud agentes ornat ubi minimè credas excellit which adorneth our speech when we do not intend it and is a grace which sheweth it self in every limme and part of it and is very eminent where we do not see it So though the habits of Vertues be as distinct as their names yet they all meet in that general Obedience and Sanctity of life which denominateth a Christian And there is not any vertue but hath some appearance and is in part visible in every one My Christian Fortitude sheweth it self in my Temperance my Temperance in my Bounty my Faith in my Charity and my Charity in my Hope And as in an army of men though the Captain and Leader be commonly entitled to the victory yet was it vvrought out by the several and particular hands of every common souldier and by the united force of the vvhole battalion so that vve truly say All did overcome and Every one did overcome So vve may attribute Remission of sins to every vertue vvhich vve can never obtain but by the embracement and practice of them all Our Saviour's words then If ye forgive ye
his own Like a man a man of sorrows a worm and no man a despised rejected man He will have us call him so he hath put it into our Creed and counts it no disparagement He set a time for it and when the appointed time came he was made like unto us and all generations may speak it to his glory to the end of the world Before he appeared darkly wrapped up in Types veiled in Dreams beheld in Visions That hee appeareth in the likeness of our flesh that he appeareth and speaketh and suffereth in our flesh is the high prerogative of the Gospel And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Image or likeness in the form of a servant our very picture a living picture a picture drawn out to life indeed such a picture as one man is of another 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Comparison For how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons He is a Shepherd to guide and feed us a Captain to lead us a Prophet to teach us He is a Priest and he is the Sacrifice for us He is Bread to strengthen us a Vine to refresh us a Lamb that we may be meek a Lion that we may be valiant a Worm that we may be patient a Door to let us in and the Way through which we pass into life He is any thing that will make us like him Sin and Error and the Devil have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us then Christ hath to save us 3. Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his exemplary Virtues and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection that neither the cursed Hereticks nor the miscreant Turk nor the Devil himself could reach and blemish it Never was Righteousness in its vertical point but in him where it cast not the least shadow for Envy or Detraction to walk in Amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal we read of none that called his piety into question And all this for our sakes that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger in his Humility abate our Pride in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness in his Bounty spend our selves in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion He appeared not in the Cloud or the fiery Pillar not in Darkness and Tempest not in those wayes of his which are as hard to finde out as the passage of an arrow in the air or a ship in the sea but in tegmine carnis as Arnobius speaks under no other covert than that of our flesh so like us that we may take a pattern by him This indeed may seem an indignity to God And in all ages there have been found some who have thought so Not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betray too great a folly in believing it but even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaketh Christians themselves and children of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls them ill lovers of Christ who did rob him with a complement and to uphold his honour did devest him of his Deity Marcian and Valentinus could not endure to hear that Christ took the same nature and substance with Man but will have him to have brought a body from heaven The Manichees would not yield so much but ran into the phansie of an aereous imaginary body Arius circumscribed him within the nature of Man and brought him within the circle and circumgyration of Time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a time when he was not was an article of his Creed Nestorius did not in terminis divide Christ into two Persons but denying the Communication of Idiomes did in effect bring in what he seemed to deny a Duality of Sons Homo Christus nascitur non Deus The Man Christ was born not God saith he And it was his common proverb Noli gloriari Judaee The Jew had no cause to boast who had crucified not the Lord of life but a man Bimestrem trimestrem Deum nunquam confitebor was his reply to Cyril at Ephesus and so he flung out of the Councel Whilest with great shew of piety and reverence they stood up to remove from God the Nature they unadvisedly put upon him the Weakness of Man drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution as if God were like unto us in our worst complexion who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take and affect that similitude alone which presents us greater and fairer than we are Our pictures present not us but a better face and a more exact proportion and with it the best part of our wardrobe We are but grashoppers but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders in the largeness and height of the Anakim This opinion we have of our selves and therefore are too ready to perswade our selves that God is of our mind and that God will descend so low as to take the likeness of a mortal though he tell us so himself yet we will not believe it Which is to measure out the immense Goodness and Wisdome of God by our digit and scantling by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick phansie to bound and limit his determinate will by a piece of sophistry and subtle wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. to teach God to put our own shapes upon him to confine him to a thought And then Christ hath two Persons or but one Nature a Body and not a Body is a God alone or a Man alone The whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith must shiver and flie into pieces But we have not so learned Christ not learned to abuse and violate his great love and to call it good manners not to make shipwrack of our faith and then to urge our fears and unprescribed and groundless jealousies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why should we fear where no fear is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes Shall he lose in his esteem because he fell so low for our advancement Or can we be afraid of that Humility which purchased us glory and returned in triumph with the keyes of Hell and of death He made himself a Shepherd and laid down his life for his Sheep and shall we make that an argument that he is not a King He clothed himself with our flesh lights a candle sweeps the house descends to low offices for our sake so far from being ashamed of our nature that he made hast to assume it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dost thou impute this to God No to us his Humility is as full of wonder as his Majesty Non erubescimus de Christo
of those profitable and honourable evils which we have set up as our mark but cannot so fairly reach to if we stand in open defiance to all Religion And therefore when that will not joyn with us but looketh a contrary way to that which we are pressing toward with so much eagerness we content our selves with some part of it with the weakest and poorest and beggerlyest part of it and make use of it to go along with us and countenance and secure us in the doing of that which is opposit to it and with which it cannot subsist And so well and feelingly we act our parts that we take our selves to be great favourites and in high grace with him whose laws we break and so procure some rest and ease from those continual clamours which our guiltiness would otherwise raise within us and walk on with delight and boasting and through this seeming and feigned paradise post on securely to the gates of Death In what triumphant measures doth a Pharisee go from the Altar What a harmless thing is a cheat after a Sermon What a sweet morsel is a widows house after long Prayers What a piece of justice is Oppression after a fast After so much Ceremony the blood of Abel himself of the justest man alive hath no voice For 3. These outward performances and this formality in Religion have the same spring and motive with our greatest and foulest sins The same cause produceth them the same considerations promote them and they are carried to their end on the same wings of our carnal desires Do you not wonder that I should say The formality and outward presentments of our Devotion may have the same beginnings with our sins may have their birth from the same womb that they draw the same breasts and like twins James 3.11 are born and nurst and grow up together Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter No it cannot But both these are salt and brinish our Sacrifice as ill smelling as our Oppression our Fast as displeasing as our Sacrilege and our Hearing and Prayers cry as loud for vengeance as our Oppression We sacrifice that we may oppress we fast that we may spoil our God and we pray that we may devour our brethren Ezek. 16.44 Like mother like daughter saith the Prophet They have the same evil beginning and they are both evil Ambition was the cause of Absaloms Rebellion 2 Sam. 15. 1 Kings 21. Gen. 34. and Ambition sent him to Hebron to pay his vow Covetousness made Ahab and Jezebel murderers and Covetousness proclaimed their fast Lust made Shechem the Son of Hamor a ravisher and Lust made him a Proselyte and circumcised him Covetousness made the Pharisee a ravening Wolf and Covetousness clothed him in a Lambs skin Covetousness made his Corban and Covetousness did disfigure his face and placed him praying in the Synagogues and in the corners of the streets Ex his causam accipiunt quibus probantur saith Tertullian They have both the same cause for the same motives arise and shew them both The same reason maketh the same man both devout and wicked both abstemious and greedy both meek and bloody a seeming Saint and a raging Devil a Lamb to the eye and a roaring Lion Scit enim diabolus alios continentiâ alios libidine occidere saith the same Father The Devil hath an art to destroy us with the appearance of virtue assoon as with the poyson of sin For 4. This formality in Religion standeth in no opposition with him or his designs but rather advanceth his kingdome and enlargeth his dominion For how many Sacrificers how many attentive Hearers how many Beadsmen how many Professours are his vassals How many call upon God Abba Father who are the Devils Children How many openly renounce him Ex malitia ingenium habet Tertull. de Idololat and yet love his wiles delight in his craft which is his Malice How many never think themselves at liberty but when they are in his snare And doth not a fair pretense make the fact fouler Doth not Sacrifice raise the voice of our Oppression that it cryeth louder Doth not a form of Godliness make Sin yet more sinful When we talk of heaven and love the world are we not then most earthly most sensual most devilish Is the Devil ever more Devil then when he is transformed into an angel of light And therefore the Devil himself is a great promoter of this art of pargetting and painting and maketh use of that which we call Religion to make men more wicked loveth this foul and monstrous mixture of a Sacrificer and an Oppressor of a Christian and a Deceiver of a Faster and a Blood thirsty man And as he was most enraged and impatient as Tertullian telleth us to see the works of God brought into subjection under Man who was made according to Gods image so is it his pride and glory to see Man and Religion it self brought under these transitory things and even made servants and slaves unto them Oh to this hater of God and Man it is a kind of heaven in hell it self and in the midst of all his torment to see this Man whom God created and redeemed do him the greatest service in Christs livery to see him promote his interest in the name of Christ and Religion to see him under his power and dominion most when he waiteh most diligently and officiously at the altar of God The Pharisee was his beloved disciple when he was on his knees with a disfigured face These Jews here were his disciples who did run to the Altar but not from their evil waies who offered up the blood of beasts to God and of the innocent to him He that fasteth and oppresseth is his disciple for he giveth God his body and the Devil his soul He that prayeth much and cozeneth more is his disciple for he flattreth God but serveth the enemy speaketh to the God of truth with his lips but hearkneth to the Father of lyes and deceit I may say the Devil is the great Alchymist of the world he transelementeth the worst things to make them more passable and to add a kind of esteem and glory to them We do not meet with counterfeit Iron or Copper but Gold and Pretious stones these we sophisticate and when we cannot dig them out of the mine or take them from the rock we strive to work them by art out of Iron or Copper or Glass and call them Gold and Diamonds Thus doth the Devil raise and sublime the greatest Impiety and gild it over with a Sacrifice with a Fast with Devotion that it may appear in glory and deceive if it were possible the very elect We see too many deceived with it who having no Religion themselves are yet ready to bow down to its Image wheresoever they see it and so fix their eye and devotion upon it that they see not the Thief the Oppressour the
another mightily and doth sweetly order all things For which way can frail Man come to see his God but by being like him What can draw him near to his pure Essence but Simplicity and Purity of spirit What can carry us to the God of Love but Charity What can lead us into the courts of Righteousness but Justice What can move a God of tender mercies but Compassion Certainly God will never look down from his Mercy-seat on them that have no bowels In a word what can make us wise but that which is good those virtues Temperance Justice and Liberality which are called the labours of Wisdome Wisd 8.7 Hebr. 6.5 What can bring us into Heaven but this full tast of the powers of the world to come So that there is some truth in that of Gerson Gloria est gratia consummata Glory is nothing else but Grace made perfect and consummate For though we cannot thus draw Grace and Glory together as to make them one and the same thing but must put a difference between the Means and the End yet Wisdome it self hath written it down in an indeleble character and in the leaves of Eternity That there is no other key but this Good in the Text to open the gates of the kingdom of Heaven and he that bringeth this along with him shall certainly enter Heaven and Glory is a thing of another world but yet it beginneth here in this and Grace is made perfect in Glory And therefore in the last place God's absolute Will is not only attended with Power and Wisdome but also with Love And these are the glories of his Will He can do what he will and he will do it by the most proper and fittest means and whatsoever he requireth is the dictate of his Love When he sent his Son the best Master and Wisest Lawgiver that ever was on whose shoulders the government was laid Isa 9.6 he was ushered in with a SIC DILEXIT So God loved the world John 3.16 God's Love seemeth to have the preeminence and to do more then his Power This can but annihilate us but his Love if we embrace it will change our souls and angelifie them change our bodies and spiritualize them endow us with the will and so with the power of God make us differ as much from our selves as if we were not annihilated which his Power can do but which is more made something else something better something nearer to God This is that mighty thing which his Love bringeth to pass We may imagin that a Law is a mere indication of Power that it proceedeth from Rigour and Severity that there is nothing commanded nothing required but there is smoke and thunder and lightning but indeed every Law of God is the natural and proper effect and issue of his Love from his Power it is true but his Power managed and shewn in Wisdome and Love For he made us to this end and to this end he requireth something of us not out of any indigency as if he wanted our company and service for he was as happy before the creation as after but to have some object for his Love and Goodness to work upon to have an exceptory and vessel for the dew of Heaven to fall into As the Jews were wont to say propter Messiam mundum fuisse conditum that the world and all mankind were made for the Messias Psal 2.7 whose business was to preach the Law which his Father said unto him and to declare his will And in this consisteth the perfection and beauty of Man For the perfection of every thing is its drawing near to its first principle and original The nearer and liker a thing is to the first cause that produced it the more perfect it is as that Heat is most perfect which is most intense and hath most of the Fire in it So Man the more he partaketh of that which is truly Good of the Divine nature of which his Soul is as it were a sparkle the more perfect he is because this was the only end for which God made him This was the end of all Gods Laws That he might find just cause to do Man good That Man might draw near to him here by obedience and conformity to his Will and in the world to come reign with him for ever in glory And as this is the perfection so is it the beauty of Man For as there is the beauty of the Lord Psal 27.4 so is there the beauty of the Subject The beauty of the Lord is to have Will and Power and Jurisdiction to have Power and Wisdome to command and to command in Love So is it the beauty of Man to bow and submit and conform to the will of the Lord for what a deformed spectacle is a Man without God in this world Eph. 2.12 which hath Power and Wisdome and Love to beautifie Beauty is nothing else but a result from Perfection The beauty of the Body proceedeth from the symmetrie and due proportion of parts and the beauty of the Soul from the consonancy of the will and affections to the will and law of God Oh how beautiful are those feet which walk in the wayes of life How beautiful and glorious shall he be who walketh in love as God loved him Eph. 5.2 who resteth on his Power walketh by his Wisdome and placeth himself under the shadow of his Love And thus much the substance of these words affords us What doth the Lord require Let us now cast an eye upon them in the form and habit in which they are presented and consider the manner of proposing them Now the Prophet proposeth them by way of interrogation And as he asked the question Wherewith shall I come before the Lord so doth he here ask what doth the Lord require He doth not speak in positive terms as the Prophet Jeremiah doth Ask for the old paths Jer 6.16 where is the good way and walk therein Isa 30.21 or as the Prophet Isaiah This is the way walk in it but shapeth and formeth his speach to the temper and disposition of the people who sought out many wayes but missed of the right And so we find Interrogations to be fitted and sharpned like darts and then sent towards them who could not be awaked with less noyse nor less smart And we find them of diverse shapes and fashions Sometimes they come as Complaints Psal 2.1 Why do the heathen rage sometimes as Upbraidings How camest thou in hither Matth. 22.12 2 Sam. 2 22. Matth. 22.18 sometimes as Admonitions Why should I now kill thee sometimes as Reproofs Why tempt ye me you Hypocrites And whithersoever they fly they are feathered and pointed with Reason For there is no reason why that should be done of which Christ asketh a reason why it is done The question here hath divers aspects It looketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forward and backward It looketh back upon the
singulorum that the benefit of one and every man may be the same So that what Deceit hath purloyned or stoln away or Violence snatcht from others is not Profit because it is not honest Res furtiva quousque redierit in domini potestatem perpetuò vitiosa est And the Civilians will tell us that that which is unjustly deteined is not valuable is of no worth till it return to the hands of the lawful proprietary Again in the second place Justice and Honesty are more agreeable to the nature of Men then Profit or Pleasure For these Reason it self hath taught us to contemn He most enjoyeth himself who desireth not pleasure he is the richest man who can be poor and we are never more Men then when we least regard these things But if we forfeit our Integrity and pervert the course of Justice we have left our selves nothing but the name of Men. Si quod absit spes felicitatis nulla saith S. Augustine If we had no eye to eternity nor hope of future happiness si omnes Deos hominé que celare possimus Tull. Off. 3. saith Tully if we could make darkness a pavilion round about us and lye skreened and hid from the eyes of God and Man yet a necessity would lye upon us to be what we are made to observe the lessons and dictates of Nature saith one Nihil injustè faciendum saith the other Nothing must be done unjustly though God had no eye to see it nor hand to punish it This doctrine is current both at Athens and Jerusalem both in the Philosophers School and in the Church of God To give you yet another reason but yet of near alliance to the first Whatsoever we do or resolve upon must habere suas causas as Arnobius speaketh must be commended by that cause which produceth it Now what cause can move us to desire that which is not ours What cause can the Oppressour shew that he grindeth the face of the poor the Thief that he divideth the spoyl the deceitful Tradesman that he hath false weights pondus pondus a weight and a weight a weight to buy with and a weight to sell with If you ask them What cause they will either lye and deny it or put their hand upon their mouth and be ashamed to answer Here their wit will fail them which was so quick and active to bring that about for which they had no reason It may be the cause was an unnecessary Fear of poverty as if that were a greater sin then Cousenage It may be the Love of their children saepe ad avaritiam cor parentis illicit Foecunditas prolis saith Gregory In 1 Job c. 4. Many children are as many temptations And we are soon overcome and yield willing to be evil that they may be rich and calling it the Duty of a Parent when we feed and cloth them with our sin Or indeed it is the Love of the world and a Desire to hold up our heads with the best These are no causes but defects and sins the blemishes and deformities of a soul transformed after the image of this world These are but sophismes and delusions and of no causality For it is better I were poor then fraudulent better my children should be naked then my soul better want then be unjust better be in the lowest place then swim in blood to the highest better be driven out of the world then shut out of heaven It is no sin to be poor no sin to be in dishonour no sin to be on a dunghil or in a prison no sin to be a slave But it is a sin and a great sin to rise out of my place or either flatter or shoulder my neighbour out of his and take his room It is no sin to be miserable in the highest degree but it is a sin to be unjust or dishonest in the least Iniquity and Injustice have nothing of reason to countenance them and therefore must run and shelter themselves in that thicket of excuses must pretend Want and Poverty and Necessity and so the object of my concupiscence must authorize my concupiscence the wedge of gold must warrant my theft and to gain something be my strongest argument to gain it unjustly De Offic. 3. And therefore Tully saith well If any man will bring in and urge these for causes argue not against him nor vouchsafe him so much as a reply Omnino enim hominem ex homine tollit For he hath most unnaturally divided Man from himself and left nothing but the beast Nature it self our first Schoolmistress loatheth and detesteth this nor will it suffer us by any means to add to our own by any defalcation from that which is anothers And such is the equity of this position that the Civil Law alwaies appealeth unto it Videtur dolum malum facere qui ex alienâ jacturâ lucrum quaerit He is guilty of cosenage and fraud who seeketh advantage by another mans loss Where by Dolus malus is understood whatsoever is repugnant to the Law of Nature or Equity For with the beams of this Law as with the beams of the Sun were all humane Laws written which whip Idleness which pin the papers of Ignominy the best hatchments of a Knave in the hat of the Common barretter which break the teeth of the Oppressour and turn the bread of the Deceitful into gall Upon this basis this principle of Nature Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you Matth. 7.12 even so do unto them hang all the Law and the Prophets For the rule of behaviour which our Saviour set up is taken out of the treasury of Nature For this is the Law and the Prophets that is Upon this Law of Nature depend the Law and the Prophets or By the due and strict observing of this the Law is fulfilled as S. Paul speaketh or This is the sum of all which the Law and the Prophets have taught to wit concerning Justice and Honesty and those mutual offices and duties of men to men A rule so equitable so visible even to the eye of a natural man that Severus a heathen Emperour made it his motto and some have engraven it in their rings VISNE HOC FIERI IN AGRO TVO QVOD ALTERI FACIS Wilt thou do that in another mans field which thou wouldst not have done in thy own Would any Impostour be caught by craft Would any Spoiler be spoiled Would any Cheat be cozened Would any Oppressour have his face ground Would any Calumniatour be slandred And why should any man claim the privilege of his Humanity if he be not willing to grant it to all Why should this secure me from injuries and leave my brother as a mark for Deceit to go about and Malice and Covetousness and Power to shoot at Why should not this Law of Nature be an amulet to secure all mankind from the venom of Fraud and Injustice This Law of Nature
seemeth him good THese words are the words of old Eli the Priest and have reference to that message which young Samuel brought him from the Lord such a message as made both the ears of every one that heard it tingle Come see the work of Sin what desolation it maketh upon the earth Hophni and Phinehas the two profane and adulterous Sons must die old Eli their indulgent Father the High Priest must die Thirty four thousand Israelites must fall by the sword of the Philistines The Ark the glory of Israel must be taken and delivered up in triumph unto Dagon This was the word of the Lord which he spake by the mouth of the child Samuel v. 19. Rom. 4.17 and not a word of his did fall to the ground What God foretelleth is done already With him who calleth the things that are not as if they were as the Apostle speaketh there is no difference of times nothing past nothing to come all is present So that Eli saw this bloody Tragedy acted before it was done saw it done before the signal to battle was given saw his sons slain whilst the flesh hook was yet in their hands saw himself fall whilst he stood with Samuel saw the Israelites slain before they came into the field and the Ark taken whilst it was yet in the Tabernacle A sad and killing presentment whether we consider him as a Father or as a High Priest as a Father looking upon his Sons falling before the Ark which they stood up and fought for as a High Priest beholding the people slain and vanquished and the Ark the glory of God the glory of Israel in the hands of Philistines But the word of the Lord is gone out Isa 55.11 and will not return empty and void For what he saith shall be done and what he bindeth with an oath is irreversible and must come to pass And it is not much material whether it be accomplished to morrow or next day or now instantly and follow as an echo to the Prediction Nam una est scientia futurorum saith S. Hierome Ad Pammach adversus errores Joan. Hierosol The knowledge of things to come is one and the same And now it will be good to look upon these heavy judgments and by the terrour of them be perswaded to fly from the wrath to come as the Israelites were cured by looking on the Serpent in the wilderness For even the Justice of God though it speak in thunder maketh a kind of melody when it toucheth and striketh upon an humble submissive yielding heart Behold old Eli an High Priest to teach you who being now within the full march and shew of the enemy and of those judgements which came apace towards him like an armed man not to be resisted or avoided and hearing that from God which shook all the powers of his soul settleth and composeth his troubled minde with this consideration That it was the Lord and with this silenceth all murmur slumbreth all impatience burieth all disdain looketh upon the hand that striketh and boweth and kisseth it and being now ready to fall raiseth himself up upon this pious and heavenly resolution It is the Lord. Though the people of Israel fly and the Philistines triumph though Hophni and Phinehas fall though himself fall backward and break his neck though the Ark be taken yet DOMINVS EST It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Which words are a Rhetorical Enthymeme perswading to humility and a submissive acquiescence under the hand the mighty hand of God by his power his justice his wisdome which all meet and are concentred in this DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. He is omnipotent and who hath withstood his power He is just and will bring no evil without good cause He is wise and whatsoever evill he bringeth he can draw it to a good end And therefore FACIAT QVOD BONVM IN OCVLIS SVIS Let him do what seemeth him good Or you may observe first a judicious Discovery from whence all evils come It is the Lord. Secondly a well grounded Resolution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to behave himself decently and fittingly as under the Power and Justice and Wisdome of God Let him do what seemeth him good The first is a Theological Axiome It is the Lord There is no evil in a city which he doth not do Amos 3.6 The second a Conclusion as necessary as in any Demonstration most necessary I am sure for Weakness to bow to Omnipotency In a word the Doctrine most certain It is the Lord All these evils of punishment are from him And the Resolution which is as the Use and Application of the Doctrine most safe Let him do what seemeth him good Of these we shall speak in their order And in the prosecution of the first for we shall but touch upon and conclude with the last that you may follow me with more ease we will draw the lines by which we are to pass and confine our selves to these four particulars which are most eminent and remarkable in the story 1. That Gods people the true professours may be delivered up to punishment for sin 2. That in general judgments upon a people the good many times are involved with the evil and fall with them 3. That Gods people may be delivered up into the hands of Philistines and aliens men worse then themselves 4. That the Ark the glory of their profession may be taken away These four points I say we shall speak of and then we shall fix up this Inscription DOMINVS EST It is the Lord and when we have acquitted his Justice and Wisdome in all these particulars we shall cast an eye back upon the Inscription and see what beams of light it will cast forth for our direction In the first place of Hophni and Phinheas the Text telleth us that they hearkened not unto the voice of their Father 2 ch v. 25. because the Lord would destroy them Which word Quia is not causal but illative and implyeth not the cause of their sin but of their punishment They did not therefore sin because God would punish them but they hearkened not to the voice of their father therefore the Lord destroyed them As we use to say The Sun is risen because it is day for the day is not the cause of the Suns rising Chap. 2.12 but the Sun rising maketh it day They were sons of Belial vessels already fitted for wrath as we may see by their many fowl enormities and therefore were left to themselves and their sins and to wrath which at last devoured them God's decree whatsoever it be is immanent in himself and therefore cannot be the cause of disobedience and wickedness which is extraneous and contrary to him Nor can there be any action of God's either positive or negative joyned with his decree which may produce such an effect And what need of any such Decree or Action to make the sons of Eli disobedient
and opposite to his Wisdome and Goodness and which his soul hateth as That he did decree to make some men miserable to the end he might make his Mercy glorious in making them happy that he did of purpose wound them that he might heal them That he did threaten them with death whose names he had written in the book of life That he was willing Man should sin that he might forgive him That he doth exact that Repentance as our duty which himself will work in us by an irresistable force That he commandeth intreateth beseecheth others to turn and repent whom himself hath bound and fettered by an absolute decree that they shall never turn That he calleth them to repentance and salvation whom he hath damned from all eternity If any certainly such beasts as these deserve to be struck through with a dart No it is not boldness Exod. 19.12 Hebr. 12.20 but humility and obedience to God's will to say He doth nothing but what becometh him and what his Wisdome doth justifie Eph. 1.8 He hath abounded towards us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul in all wisdome and prudence His Wisedome findeth out the means of salvation and his Prudence ordereth and disposeth them His Wisdome sheweth the way to life and his Prudence leadeth us through it to the end Wisdome was from everlasting Prov. 8.23 And as she was in initio viarum in the beginning of God's wayes so she was in initio Evangelii in the beginning of the Gospel which is called the wisedome of God And she fitted and proportioned means to that end means most agreeable and connatural to it She found out a way to conquer Death and him that hath the power of Death the Devil Hebr. 2.14 with the weapons of Righteousness to dig up Sin by the very roots that no work oâ— the flesh might shoot forth out of the heart any more to destroy it in its effects that though it be done yet it shall have no more force then if it were annihilated then if it had never been done and to destroy it in its causes that it may be never done again Immutabile quod factum est Quint. l. 7 to draw together Justice and Mercy which seemed to stand at distance and hinder the work and to make them meet and kiss each other in Christ's Satisfaction and ours for our Turn is our satisfaction all that we can make Condigna estsatisfactio mala facta corrigere correcta non reiterare Bern. de â—ust Dom. c. 1. Satisfactio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antioch â—â—neil can 2. These she hath joyned together never to be severed Christ's Sufferings with our Repentance his agony with our sorrow his blood with our tears his flesh nailed to the cross with our lusts crucified his death for sin with our death to it his resurrection with our justification For he bore our sins that he might cast them away he shed his blood to melt our hearts he dyed that we might live and turn unto the Lord and he rose again for our justification and to gain authority to the doctrine of Repentance Our CONVERTIMINI our Turn is the best Commentary on his CONSVMMATVM EST It is finished for that his last breath breathed it into the world We may say it is wrapt up in the Inscription John 19.19 JESVS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS For in him even when he hung upon the cross were all the treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge hid Col. 2.3 In him his Justice and Mercy are at peace for to reconcile us unto God he reconciled them one to another The hand of Mercy was lifted up ready to seal our pardon we were in our blood and her voice was Live we were miserable Ezek. 16.6 and she was ready to relieve us our heart was sick and her bowels yerned But then Justice held up the sword ready to latch in our sides God loveth his Creature whom he made but hateth the Sinner whom he could not make And he must strike and yet is unwilling to strike If Justice had prevailed Mercy had been but as the morning dew Hos 6.4 13.3 and soon vanished before this raging heat And if Mercy had swallowed up Justice in victory God's hatred of sin and his fearful menaces against it had been but bruta fulmina and portended nothing but been void and of none effect Psal 130.3 Deus purgari homines à peccato maxime cupit ideoque agere poenitentiam jubet Lact. l. 6. c. 24. If God had been extreme to mark what is done amiss men would have sinned more and more because there would have been no hope of pardon And if his Mercy had sealed an absolute pardon men would have walked delicately and sported in their evil wayes because there would have been no fear of punishment And therefore his Wisdome drew his Justice and Mercy together and reconciled them both in Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice and our duty of Repentance the one freeing us from the guilt the other from the dominion of sin And so both are satisfyed Justice layeth down the sword and Mercy shineth in perfection of beauty Rom. 3.3 God hateth Sin but he seeth it condemned in the flesh of his Son and fought against by every member he hath He seeth it punisht in Christ and punisht also in every repentant sinner that turneth from his evil wayes He beholdeth the Sacrifice on the Cross and the Sacrifice also of a broken heart and for the sweet savour of the one he accepteth the other and is at rest Christ's death for sin procureth our pardon and our death to sin sueth it out Christ suffereth for sin we turn from it His satisfaction at once wipeth out the guilt and penalty our Repentance by degrees destroyeth Sin it self Tert. De anima c. 1. Haec est sapientia de schola caeli This is the method of Heaven This is that Wisdome which is from above Thus it taketh away the sins of the world And now Wisdome is compleat Justice is satisfied and Mercy triumpheth God is glorified Man is saved and the Angels rejoyce Heus tu peccator De poenit c. 8. bono animo sis vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur saith Tertullian Take comfort sinner thou seest what joy there is in heaven for thy return What musick there is in a Turn which beiginneth on earth but reacheth up and filleth the highest heavens A repentant sinner is as a glass or rather Gods own renewed image on which God delighteth to look for there he beholdeth his Wisdome his Justice his Mercy and what wonders they all have wrought Behold the Shepherd of our souls see what lieth upon his shoulders Luke 15.5 6. You would think a poor Sheep that was lost Nay but he leadeth Sin and death and the Devil in triumph And thou mayest see the very brightness of his glory and the express image of his three most glorious
which it is hard to number quocunque sub axe They are in every climate and in every place but most often in the Courts of Princes and in the habitations of the Rich who can do evil but will not see it who can make the loud condemnation of a fact and the bold doing it the business of one and the same hour almost of one and the same moment The others are not many for they are a part of that little Flock Luk. 11.32 And the good Shepherd will not drive them out of the fold for the weak conceit they had that they had gone too far astray Errour is then most dangerous and fatal when we do that which is evil not when we shun and fly from it as from the plague and yet cannot believe we are removed far enough from the infection of it Therefore again Despair may have its original not onely from the acrasie and discomposedness of the outward man or from weakness in judgement and ignorance of our present estate which may happen to good men even to those who have made some fair proficiency in the School of Christ and to which we are very subject amidst that variety of circumstances that perplexity and multiplicity of thoughts which rise and sink and return again and strangle one another to bring in others in their place but it may be brought in by our very care and diligence and intensive love For care and Diligence and Love are alwayes followed with Fears and Jealousies Love is ever a beginning till all be done and is but setting out till she be at her journeys end The liberal man is afraid of his almes the temperate mistrusteth his abstinence the Meek man is jealous of every heat Pietas etiam tuta pertimescit Piety is afraid even of Safety it self because it is Piety and cannot be safe enough And if it be a fault for a man thus to undervalue himself it is a fault of a fair extraction begotten not by blood Joh. 1.13 or the will of men not by Negligence and Wilfulness and the pollutions of the Flesh but by Care and Anxiety and an unsatisfied Love which will sometimes demur and be at a stand in the greatest certainty so that though the lines be fallen to him in a fair place Psal 16.6 and he have a goodly heritage a well-setled spiritual estate yet he may sometimes look upon it as bankrupts do upon their temporal worn out with debts and Statutes and Mortgages and next to nothing Every man hath not a place and mansion in heaven who pretendeth a title to it nor is every man shut out who doubteth of his evidence This diffidence in ones self is commonly the mark and character of a good man who would be better Though he hath built up his assurance as strong as he can yet he thinketh himself not sure enough but seeketh for further assurance and fortifieth it with his Fear and assiduous Diligence that it may stand fast for ever Whereas we see too many draw out their own Assurance and seal it up with unclean hands with wicked hands with hands full of blood We have read of some in the dayes of our forefathers and have heard of others in our own and no doubt many there have been of whom we never heard Phil. 1.27 whose conversation was such as became the Gospel of Christ and yet they have felt that hell within themselves which they could not discover to others but by gastly looks out-cryes deep grones and loud complaints to them who were neer them that Hell it self could not be worse nor had more torments then they felt And these may seem to have been breathed forth not from a broken but a perishing heart to be the very dialect of Despair And indeed so they are For Despair in the worst acception cannot sink us lower then hell But yet we cannot we may not be of their opinion and think what they said that they are cast out of Gods sight No God seeth them looketh upon them with an eye full of compassion and most times sendeth an Angel to them in their agony Luke 22.43 as he did unto Christ a message of comfort to rowse them up But if their tenderness yet raise doubts and draw the cloud still over them we have reason to think and who dareth say the contrary that the hand of Mercy may even through this cloud receive them to that Sabbath and rest which remaineth for the people of God Hebr. 4.9 I speak of men who were severe to themselves watchful in their warfare full of good works and constant in them and yet many times when they were even at the gates of heaven and near unto happiness felt sore terrours and affrightments These being full of Charity could not be quite destitute of Hope although their own sad apprehensions and the breathings of a tender conscience made the operation of it less sensible Their Hope was not like Aaron's rod cut off dryed up and utterly dead but rather like a tree in winter in which there is life and faculty yet the absence of the Sun and the cold benumming it suffereth no force of life to work But when the Sun draweth near and yieldeth its warmth and influence it will bud again and blossom and bring forth leaf and fruit The case then of every man that despaireth is not desperate But we must consider Despair in its Causes which produce and work it If it be exhaled and drawn up out of our corrupt works and a polluted conscience the steam of it is poysonous and deleterial the very smoke of the bottomless pit But if it proceed from the distemper of the body which seiseth upon one as well as another or from weakness of judgement which befalleth many who may be weak and yet pious or from an excessive solicitude and tenderness of soul which is not so common we cannot think it can have that force and malignity as to pull him back who is now striving to enter in at the narrow gate or to cut him off from salvation who hath wrought it out with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 At the day of judgment the question will be not what was our opinion and conceit of our selves but what our conversation was not what we thought of our estate but what we did to raise it not of our phansied application of the promises but whether we have performed the condition For then the promises will apply themselves God hath promised and he will make it good We shall not be asked what we thought but what we did For how many have thought themselves sure who never came to the knowledge of their errour till it was too late how many have called themselves Saints who have now their portion with hypocrites how many have phansied themselves into heaven whose wilfull disobedience carried them another way On the other side how many have believed and yet doubted how many have been sincere in
wrote no more but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herode to Cassius Thou art mad So God may seem to send to his people GOD by his Prophet to the Israelites You are mad Therefore do my people run on in their evill wayes because they have no understanding Isa 5.13 For now look upon Death and that affrighteth us Look upon God and he exhorteth us Reflect upon our selves and we are an Israel a Church of God There is no cause of dying but not turning no cause of destruction but impenitency If we will not die we shall not die and if we will turn we cannot die at all If we die God passeth sentence upon us and condemneth us but killeth us not but perditio tua ex te Israel our destruction cometh from our selves It is not God it is not Death it self that killeth us but we die because we will Now by this touch and short descant on the words so much truth is conveyed unto us as may acquit and discharge God as no way accessory to our death And to make our passage clear and plain we will proceed by these steps or degrees and draw out these three Conclusions 1. That God is not willing we should die 2. That he is so far from willing our death that he hath plenteously afforded sufficient means of life and salvation which will bring in the third and last That if we die our death is voluntary that no other reason can be given of our death but our own will And the due consideration of these three may serve to awake our Shame as Death did our Fear which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 20. as Nazianzene speaketh another help and furtherance to work out our salvation And that God is not willing we should die is plain enough first from the Obtestation or Expostulation it self secondly from the Nature of God who thus expostulateth For 1. Why will ye die is the voice of a friend not of an enemy He that asks me why I will die by his very question assureth me he intendeth not to destroy me God is not as man Numb 23.19 that he should lie What he worketh he worketh in the clear and open day His fire is kindled to enflame us his water floweth to purge and cleanse us his oyl is powred forth to supple us His commands are not snares nor his precepts accusations He stampeth not the Devil's face upon his coyn He willeth not what he made not Wisd 1.13 and he made not Death saith the Wise man He wisheth he desireth we should live he is angry and sorry if we die He looketh down upon us and calleth after us he exhorteth and rebuketh and even weepeth over us Luk. 19.41 as our Saviour did over Jerusalem And if we die we cannot think that he that is Life it self should kill us If we must die why doth he yet complain why doth he expostulate For if the Decree be come forth if we be lost already why doth he yet call after us How can a desire or command breathe in those coasts which the power of an absolute will hath laid waste already If he hath decreed we should die he cannot desire we should live but rather the contrary that his Decree be not void and of no effect Otherwise to pass sentence and irrevocable sentence of death and then bid us live is to look for liberty and freedome in Necessity for a sufficient effect from an unsufficient cause to command and desire that which himself had made impossible to ask a dead man why he doth not live and to speak to a carcass and bid it walk Indeed by some this Why will ye die is made but sancta simulatio a kind of holy dissimulation so that God with them setteth up Man as a mark and then sticketh his deadly arrows in his sides and after asketh him why he will die And Why may he not saith one with the same liberty damn a soul as a hunter killeth a deer A bloody instance As if an immortal soul which Christ set at a greater rate then the world itself nay then his own most pretious blood were in his sight of no more value then a beast and God were a mighty Nimrod and did destroy mens souls for delight and pleasure Thus though they dare not call God the Authour of sin for who is so sinful that could hear that and not anathematize it yet others and those no children in understanding think it a conclusion that will naturally and necessarily follow upon such bloody premisses And they are more encouraged by those ill-boding words which have dropt from their quills For say some Vocat ut induret He calleth them to no other end but that he may harden them He hardeneth them that he may destroy them He exhorteth them to turn that they may not turn He asketh them why they will die that they may run on in their evil wayes even upon Death it self When they break his command they fulfil his will and it is his pleasure they should sin it is his pleasure they should die And when he calleth upon them not to sin when he asketh them why they will die he doth but dissemble for they are dead already horribili decreto by that horrible antecedaneous decree of Reprobation And now tell me If we admit of this what is become of the Expostulation what use is there of the Obtestation why doth he yet ask Why will ye die I called it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason unanswerable But if this phansie this interpretation take place it is no reason at all Why will ye die The answer is ready and what other answer can a poor praecondemned soul make Domine Deus tu nôsti Lord God thou knowest Thou condemnedst us before thou madest us Thou didst destroy us before we were And if we die even so good Lord For it is thy good pleasure Fato volvimur It is our destiny Or rather Est Deus in nobis Not a Stoical Fate but thy right hand and thy strong irresistable arm hath destroyed us And so the Expostulation is answered and the Quare moriemini is nothing else but Mortui estis Why will ye die that is the Text The Gloss is Ye are dead already But in the second place that this Expostulation is true and hearty may be seen in the very nature of God who is Truth it self who hath but one property and quality saith Trismegistus and that is Goodness Therefore he cannot bid us live when he intendeth to kill us Consider God before Man had fallen from him by sin and disobedience and we shall see nothing but the works of Goodness and Love Psal 8.3 The heavens were the works of his fingers He created Angels and Men He spake the word and all was done Hom. in Famem siccitatem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil What necessity was there that he should thus break forth into action Who compelled
see the pit opening her mouth and even speaking to them to fly and save themselves from destruction I may appeal to your eye and tender you that which your observation must needs have taken up before both at home in your selves and abroad in others for he that doth but open his eyes and look into the world will soon conceive it as a common stage where every man treadeth his measures for approbation and applause where every man acteth his part walketh as a Parasite to himself and all men one to another that is do the same which the Israelites did after the molten calf slay every man his brother Exod. 32 27. and every man his companion and every man his neighbour every man being a ready executioner in this kind and every man ready and willing to die We will therefore in the next place search this evil humour this desire of being pleased And we shall be the willinger to be purged of it if either we consider the causes from which it proceedeth or the bitter effects which it produceth And first it hath no better original then Defect then a wilfull and negligent Fayling in those duties to which Nature and Religion have obliged us a Leanness and Emptiness of the soul which not willing to fill it self with Righteousness filleth it self with air with false counsels and false attestations with miserable comforts In time of necessity when we have nothing to eat Luke 15.16 Prov. 28.1 we fall to with the Prodigal and fill our belly with husks The wicked flie when none pursueth fly from themselves to others and from others to themselves chide themselves and flatter themselves are troubled and soon at rest fly to the Rule which condemneth them to absolve them and suborn one Text to infringe and overthrow another as he that hath no good Title is bold on a false one Citò nobis placemus It is a thing soon done and requireth no labour nor study to be pleased We desire it as sick men do health as prisoners do liberty as men on the rack do ease For a troubled spirit is an ill disease not to have our will is the worst imprisonment and to condemn a mans self in that which he alloweth and maketh his choice Rom. 14.22 is to put himself upon the rack We may see it in our civil affairs and matters of lesser allay When any thing lyeth upon us as a burden how willing are we to cast it off how do we strive to pluck the sting out of every serpent that may bite us how do we study to work out the venom out of the worst of evils When we are poor we dream of riches and make up that which is not with that which may be Prov. 23.5 When we have no house to hide our hâ—â—ds we build a palace in the air When we are sick this thought turneth our bed That we may recover and if the Physician cannot heal us yet his very name is to us as a promise of health We are unwilling to suffer but we are willing nay desirous to be eased Basil telleth us of young men that when they are alone or in some solitary place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 feign unto themselves strange Chimeras suppose themselves Lords of countreys and favourites of Kings and which is yet more though they know all this to be but phansie and a lye yet please themselves in it as if it were true indeed We all are like Aristotle's young man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of hope Rhetor. l. 2. c. 14. and when there is no door of hope left we make one And so it falleth out in the managing of our spiritual estate we do as the Apostle exhorteth though not to this end cast away every thing that presseth down but so cast it away as to leave it heavier then before prefer a momentary ease which we beg or borrow or force from things without us before that peace which nothing can bring in but that grief and serious repentance which we put off with hands and words as a thing irksome and unpleasing For could we be sick we might be well did not we love our disease we might shake it off But we are sick and will be so There is something wanting and a supply is our shame being an argument of that defect which we are unwilling to acknowledge A Physician doth but upbraid us and Truth doth but rob us of our content and therefore we please our selves in our disease as in health it self and had rather languish and dye then be told we are sick And this in the second place proceedeth even from the force and power of Conscience within us which if we will not hearken to as a friend will turn Fury and pursue and lash us and if we will not obey her dictates will make us feel her whip This is our Judge and our Executioner She whippeth the Sluggard stoneth the Adulterer hangeth and quartereth the Traytour bloweth upon the Misers store and maketh the lips of the Harlot bite like a cockatrice Psal 139.7 Whither shall they go from her spirit and power whither shall they flie from her presence The Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they flie from themselves Aristot. l. 9. Eth. c. 4. yet carry themselves about with them whithersoever they go Now every thing that is oppressed doth naturally desire ease and so do we but finding it a laborious thing to quiet the Conscience and that it cannot be done but by yielding and bowing our backs to her whip by running from our selves and from those sins which pleased our Sense but enraged our Conscience we seek out many inventions and advance our sins against her till they prevail and even put her to silence For in evil men the worst part doth the office of the better corrupteth the records mitigateth the sentence pronounceth life in death The Sensual part is their Conscience their God It biddeth them do this and they do it and when it is done it is a ready Advocate to plead for it and defend it It conceiveth and bringeth forth the Monster and then giveth it what name it please It was a crying sin it hath now lost its voice It was Uncleanness it is now Frailty It was Treason it is now the love of our Countrey It was Perjury It is now Prudence Riches commend Covetousness Honour Treason Pleasure Wantonness That which begetteth Sin nurseth it up till it grow up to strength to oppose it self to Conscience and degrade and put her from her office and bring in a thousand sory excuses to take her place in the midst of which she cannot be heard not heard against Riches whose Sophistry is preferred before her Demonstrations not heard against Beauty which bewitcheth us and makes us fools not heard against Honour which lifteth us up so high that we cannot hear her not heard against Power which is the greatest Parasite in the world and
esse Caesar sed tunc maximè occidi videretur that they conceived it not as a thing done and past as if he were killed already but as if he were now under the parricides hands Certainly no blot can be great enough for injuries nor are they truly and sincerely forgiven till we are willing till we study to forget them Nemo diu tutus periculo proximus There is no long safety to be expected where danger is at hand Therefore we must in this as in all other duties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 follow God as the Pythagoreans counselled For if we measure our selves by our selves if we raise not the SICUT as high as our Father of whom we beg mercy we shall fail of the condition and so bring upon our selves an uncapability of pardon But to forgive freely and voluntarily to forgive sincerely and fully to take off not onely our anger from injuries but to drive them out of our memory is Divino more ignoscere to forgive as God And indeed in the next place this maketh us like unto God and investeth us with his power by which we overcome all injuries whatsoever and scatter them as dust before the wind By this we break the cedars of Libanon in pieces the tallest enemies we have by this we â—ill the raging of the sea and the madness of the people Fot who would 〈◊〉 forgive a bedlam by this we pour coals of fire upon our most obdurate enemies and melt and thaw them by this we work miracles And indeed Mercy is a great miracle For Beloved that power which we use in resistance and revenge is not power but weakness Vera magnitudo est non posse nocere verior nolle The true power by which a Christian prevaileth is seen in this not to be able to do hurt the greatest power not to be willing And if we will make a truce with our Passions and a while consult with Reason we shall soon discover that the desire to shew our power in revenge of an injury hath its beginning from extreme weakness Omnis ex infirmitate feritas saith Seneca All fierceness and desire of revenge is from infirmity and proceedeth from that womanish and brutish part of man nay from those vices which make us worse then the beasts that perish Chap. 4.1 From whence come wars and fightings saith S. James from whence contentions and strifes come they not from hence even from your lusts which war in your members from Pride Covetousness Luxury Ambition and Self-love In urbe luxuria creatur saith Tully ex luxuria exsisttat avaritia necesse est ex avaritia erumpat audacia unde omnia scelera gignuntur In the city Luxury is begot and that calleth in Covetousness as a necessary supply to feed and nourish it Covetousness bringeth in Audacious and impudent behaviour and this filleth all with Bloud and Oppression Ambition giveth the stab for a lye Covetousness layeth hold on the throat for a peny Luxury will wade to pleasure though it be through bloud and Self-love maketh every look a frown every frown a blow and every blow death And this is extreme weakness and infirmity We may think indeed we have done wonders when we have laid our brother at our feet when we have put him in fetters and ript up his bowels and made him pay his debt with his bloud but in all this our glory is our shame For in this contention we never triumph till we yield When we are weak then are we strong when we suffer disgrace then are we honourable and we overcome not when we resist but when we dye By this an enemy is a friend By this saith the Father the Mother in the Macchabees priùs viscera carnifici quam verba impendit gave the executioner her bowels but not a word This restoreth what was stoln from me bringeth back what the robber taketh keepeth my name when it is most defiled as a precious ointment and maketh the day of death better then the day of my birth In a word this Deus averruncus chaseth away all evil whatsoever cancelleth all debts is a severe act and the onely antidote against Malice which cannot be overcome saith the Apostle but with good and sheweth from whence it hath its original by manifesting it self in a full and plenary forgiveness of all injury and oppression and contumely of all that cometh under the name of debt I may now seem perhaps to have stretched this Condition too far For we are very willing that God should enlarge his mercy but that ours be drawn into as narrow a compass as may be We would clip our wings to cover but a few but call upon him to spread his wings to cover all offences And therefore it is safer to stretch the condition then to contract and confine it because we are so ready transilire lineas to leap over the bounds which are set us and so take line and liberty to exact some debts and at last break loose upon all and when our revenge hath its full swinge say we seek but our own I had rather therefore tell you what you may not do then what you may And if you shall ask me whether it be not lawful in some cases to fetch back and exact your own I shall say as St. Augustine do of Time If you ask me once I can tell you but if you ask me again I can give you no answer For I fear such a question proceedeth from an evil disposition which would fain break its bounds For can Charity ask how far she may molest a brother and be Charity Would Mercy which should run like a river and overflow to refresh every dry place seek out inventions to divert or dam up her self Shall we strive to make the condition easier which in respect of the promise would be very easie though it were much harder then it is But yet by this I neither strike the sword out of the Magistrate's hand nor make the Laws of men void and of no effect For the Condition here is put in respect of injuries For though it be far better I should lose my coat then revenge my self because by the law of equity no man can be judge in his own cause yet let the Magistrate restore my coat to me and the act is not revenge but justice Justice saith Plutarch accompanieth God himself and breatheth revenge against those who break his Law which men also by the light of nature use against one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are citizens and members of a body politick This SICUT therefore this Condition is laid down to order and compose our minds to the pardon of those wrongs which are offered to our private persons but it bindeth not the Judge who is a publick person and standeth in the midst as it were between two opposite sides to draw them together and make them one again to use his power not onely rescindendo peccatori to cut of the wicked
so much Truth as will keep them out of prison so much Liberality as to give a mite or a cup of cold water so much Religion as to go to Church so much Patience as not to strike first so much Charity as to undo their brethren but to undo them by Law as to kill a man and be innocent The Historian observeth that Nero's mother did use all means to alienate his mind from the study of Philosophie quòd imperaturo esset contraria because it might give a check to his power and stint him in things conducible to his State though not just and honest because it commendeth many virtues propter quas Reges laudari non solent as Tully speaketh which are not so agreeable with the Majesty of Kings as Frugality Mercy Patience Humility and the like and withall delivereth many precepts which fall cross with those actions and proceedings which Princes cannot let slip without danger to their Crown and Dignity The same opinion which Nero's mother had of Philosophie in respect of Kings most Christians have of the precepts of Christ in respect of themselves They thwart their dispositions cross their delights coop them up and confine them that they cannot flie at pleasure to the throat of their brother that they cannot stoop at every prey nor have their full swindge in the wayes of the world commanding love where they think they have reason to loath sheathing their sword when their Honour lieth at the stake driving them from the tribunal when their cloak is taken from them enjoyning patience when the enemy insulteth and therefore they are unwilling to study them or if they do it is not to put them in practice but to coin distinctions and limitations and restrictions that so they may be the more easie As Pliny speaketh of Arellius the painter that he did Deas pingere sed dilectarum imagine paint the Goddesses but to the likeness and proportion of his own Mistresses so do we deal with Christ's precepts paint and colour them over that they may resemble those courses which we most affect and so we bring in God to plead for Baal and make the Spirit an advocate for the Flesh that they may comply with our Ambition and help us to climb with our Covetousness and help us to dig in the mines with our Anger and help it to manage a sword So by the labour of the brain and the trick of an unsanctified wit we may forgive all debts and yet exact some we may go to law for our coat though we are bound to give him who took it away our cloak also we can perform that command Lend looking for nothing again and yet at pleasure for a hundred pence for a trespass for a word take our brother by the throat we can love him and destroy him be very charitable and yet wash our feet in his bloud I confess these precepts of our Saviour do not consistere in puncto are not to be read in that narrow compass they lie but have their certain latitude but this giveth us no authority to stretch the curtain till we tear it to pieces and because they will admit a mitigated sense to smother them quite with those glosses which flesh and bloud are ready to suggest and since they may be drawn to countenance us in our necessity to draw them farther yet to favour and uphold us in our lust and wantonness since they may be made something more then they appear to distinguish and limit to pare and file them till they be nothing And therefore that we may conclude this it will concern every man first to take heed unto his wayes nec nimis credere affectui suo qui nunc est not to be over-credulous and trust to that affection and temper of mind which he first putteth on when he impleadeth his brother For it may be but Uncharitableness wrapt up in a warrantable thought as a piece of carrion in a fair napkin It may begin in a still voice but this wind may rise Though his first intent be to recover his own his second may be to endamage his brother and this may end at last in a cloud of bloud in a firm resolution to ruine him Though he begin legally he may be led by degrees to unwarranted and unlawful courses which will make it at last a sin to recover his own And again to be very wary quo animo quibus consiliis with what mind with what advice he bringeth his brother to the bar Necessitas humanae fragilitatis patrocinium Necessity is a good plea but where Necessity enforceth not nay where it doth seem to enforce I may say as S. Paul doth of Marriage He that impleadeth his brother may do well but he that impleadeth him not doth better And I cannot but commend to you that resolution of S. Hierom Mihi etiam vera accusatio adversùs fratrem displicet Nec reprehendo alios sed dico quid ipse non facerem It is irksome and troublesome to me to bring or hear any accusation though never so true against a brother I pass no censure upon those who do but I openly profess what my self would not do Before I leave this point let me tell you that we must not think the worse of Mercy because it is tendered to us upon conditions or that it is less free because it bringeth with it these engagements Non est vim admovere aliquid cum certâ conditione promittere saith the Oratour To promise with condition is not to offer violence or to entangle him to whom the promise is made Nihil mansuetius hâc conditione saith the Father There is nothing more mild and gentle then this Condition where God putteth all the power into our own hands maketh us our own judges and giveth us a kind of commission either to condemn or pardon our selves For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Remission begetteth Remission Secundùm nostram sententiam judicabimur The Judge shall pass no other sentence at the last day then that which we have subscribed to already with hands lifted up in this Prayer And we may observe that this Petition hath this one thing proper and peculiar to it which none of the rest have that it is put up upon condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As we forgive saith S. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we forgive saith S. Luke S. Mathew's SICUT doth express a kind of likeness and proportion between that forgiveness which we desire of God and that which we grant to our brother And S. Luke's SIQUIDEM is tendered for the cause or in the manner of a cause which emboldneth us to put up this Petition Not as the efficient and impulsive cause which will necessarily produce its effects but as that which by Logicians is called causa sine quâ non as without which Pardon is impossible or quae removet prohibens which removeth all hindrances and obstacles and maketh
is somewhat without that hath either flattered our sense or complied with our reason The effect doth in some sort demonstrate the cause And the cause of Joy is the union and presence of some good And as the cause is such is the effect as the object is such is the joy If our joy spring from the earth it is of the same nature earthy muddy gross unclean Eccl The Wise-man calleth it madness But if it be from heaven and those things which are above it is bright serene and clear What is it then that maketh David so glad that he thus committeth his joy to a Song and publisheth it to the world The next words tell us Something that he heard the voice of a company earnest in expectation and loud in expression hasting and even flying to the service of God and to the place where his honour dwelleth They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Now if ye look upon the object so divine and consider David a man after God's own heart ye cannot wonder to find him awakening his harp and viol and tuning his instrument of ten strings to hear him chanting his Laetatus sum and to see him even transported and ravished with joy So now you have the parts of the Text 1. David's Delight 2. the Object or Reason of it In the Object there are circumstances enough to raise his joy to the highest note First a Company either a Tribe or many of or all the people They said unto me So in another place he speaketh of walking to the house of God in company Psal 55.14 A glorious sight a representation of heaven it self of all the Angels crying aloud the Seraphim to the Cherubim and the Cherubim echoing back again to the Seraphim Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth Secondly their Resolution to serve the Lord dixerunt they said it And to say in Scripture is to Resolve We will go is either a Lie or Resolution Thirdly their Agreement and joynt Consent We This is as a Circle and taketh in all within its compass If there be any dissenting unwilling person he is not within this Circumference he is none of the We. A Turk a Jew and a Christian cannot say We will serve the Lord and the Schismatick or Separatist shutteth himself out of the house â—f the Lord. We is a bond of peace keepeth us at unity and maketh many as one Fourthly their Chearfulness and Alacrity They speak like men going out of a dungeon into the light as those who had been long absent from what they loved and were now approching unto it and in fair hope to enjoy what they most earnestly desired We will go We will make haste and delay no longer Ipsa festinatio tarda est Speed it self is but slow-paced We cannot be there soon enough Fifthly and lastly the Place where they will serve God not one of their own chusing not the Groves or Hills or High-places no Oratory which malice or pride or faction had erected but a place appointed and set apart by God himself Servient Domino in domo sua They will serve the Lord in his own house They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Thus much the Object affordeth us enough to fill such an heart as David's with joy Now let us look upon the Psalmist in his garment of joy And we may observe First the nature of his Joy It was as refined as spiritual as heavenly as its object What they said was holy language and his Joy was true and solid the breathing and work of the Spirit of truth Secondly the Publication of it He could not contein himself Psal 39.3 but his heart being hot within him he spake with his tongue and not content with that he conveyed his speech into a song He said it he sung it he committed it to song that the people being met together at Jerusalem might sing it in the house Lord. I was glad when they said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. These are the Parts and of these we shall speak in order We begin with the Object for in nature that is first We cannot tell what a mans Joy is till we see what raised it The Object therefore of David's joy must be first handled Therein the first circumstance is That there were many a Company that resolved to go into the house of the Lord. v. 4. The tribes go up saith the Psalmist even the tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel that is the people of Israel go up according to the covenant made with Israel Psal â—8 11 And The Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it He speaketh as if there were some virtue in Number And so his son Solomon Two and if two Eccles 4.9 then certainly many are better then one Yet such an imputation lieth upon the Many that peradventure I might well have omitted this circumstance Non tam bene cum rebus humanis agitur ut plures sint meliores The world was never yet so happy that the most should be best 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called saith St. Paul And Many are called saith Christ but few are chosen Matth. 20.16 It was the Many that resisted the holy Ghost that stoned the Prophets that persecuted the Apostles It is the Many that now divide the Church that disturbe and shake the common-wealth that work that desolation on the earth What security nay what religion can there be when our estates and our lives when Truth it self must be held by Votes must rise or fall by most voices Christus violentiâ suffragiorum in crucem datus saith Tertullian This is it which layeth the cross upon us which nailed the Son of God himself to the Cross I did not well to mention it For indeed it is the errour not of the Church of Rome alone but of all others also to judge of the Church by the multitude of Professours as the Turk doth of an army by its number nec aestimare sed numerare not to weigh and consider what the professours are but to number them And they have made Multitude a note of the true Church As if to shew you the Sun-rising I should point to the West or where there are but a few cry out Behold a troup cometh Matth 7 14. Luk. 13.23.24 Our Saviour saith there are few that shall be saved But say they if ye will know the true Church indeed behold the multitudes and nations behold the many that joyn with her that fall down and worship her Every faction striveth to improve it self Every Heretick would gain what proselytes he can Every Church would stretch forth the curtains of her habitation All would confirm themselves in their errour by the multitude of those who are taken in it Cùm error singulorum
So there is nothing in the Church to drive any out of it nothing in the We to divide it Whatsoever things are true â—it 4.8 whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise these make a company a congregation at unity within it self these make many one and carry them together to the house of God with joy and triumph We must then seek for the cause of dis-union abroad For Religion can no more make it then the Sun when it shineth can produce darkness Light and darkness may assoon meet in one as true Religion and Division No Inimicus homo the envious man the Devil doth this It is Covetousness and Pride and Malice and Envy the fruitless fruits of the evil Spirit that have torn the seamless coat of Christ yea that have divided his body that have set up the partition-wall and made of one many 1. Aemulatio mater schismatum saith Tertullian Envy is the mother of division An evil eye which striketh and hurteth when others are in glory which when it cannot behold its own good delighteth in others evil Arius will break forth and trouble all if Alexander be in the chair before him 2. Covetousness that would not onely depopulate but gather in the whole world unto it self Etiam avaritia quaerit unitatem saith S. Augustine Even Covetousness is a great lover of unity would swallow all into it self And then where were the WE It is the observation of Aristotle that that friendship which is enterteined for pleasure is subject but to few quarrels that which is for vertue and honesty to none but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all complaints and quarrels arise from that which is grounded upon profit While they are assistant to one anothers designs so long they have but one purse but one soul but when they come short and fail then they flie asunder and keep distance and look back upon one another as enemies They are one to day and to morrow they are divided Quòd unum velimus duo sumus We therefore disagree because we are so like we are not one and the same because we love one and the same thing Quod vinculm amoris esse debebat seditionis odii causa idem velle That which should draw and knit us together divideth and separateth us namely having the same desires the same mind the same will Covetousness neither careth for union nor community And this is it which raiseth seditions in the Common-wealth and maketh rents in the Church This sent that swarm of Flies and Locusts the Novations the Puritanes of those times disciples of Novatus who would be stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure But saith Nazianzene as pure as he was he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very covetous A disease which may seem to have cleaved to his sect and followers throughout all generations to this day Consider of it judge and give sentence 3. Ambition looketh not back leaveth all behind will be on the top of the ladder Pride lifteth up the nose as the Psalmist speaketh keepeth distance and her word is a Isa 65.5 Go from me for I am holier then thou b Rev. 18.7 I sit as a queen c Isa 47.8 I am and none else besides me The proud man loveth to be alone and would have no companion but would be learned alone beautiful alone rich alone strong alone religious alone d Luk. 18.11 I am not as other men I am not as this Publicane was the Manifesto of a Pharisee and he was proud To conclude These vices which distract us in our selves can never make nor keep us at one with others No it is Humility and Patience and Contempt of the world and the Love of Christ which alone knit this love-knot e Eâ—h 2.14 15. break down the partition wall and make them one cause f Psal 133.1 brethren to dwel together in unity draw them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagint have it to the same thing to have the same faith the same purpose the same mind the same wealth the same wit the same understanding or to be as assistant to one another as if they were the same in a word which make them one in Christ as g Joh. 10.30 Christ and the Father are one that they be of the same quire and sing the same song with the people of Israel IBIMUS Let us or We will go into the house of the Lord. I have been carried away ye see as with a stream but the waters were pleasant Bonum jucundum saith the Psalmist Psal 133.1 Good and pleasant it is for brethren to go together There is but one stage more and we shall be at the journeys end even at the Temple-gates but one circumstance to consider and we shall lead you in and that is 4. Their alacrity and chearfulness in going I told you their long absence rendred the object more glorious For what we love and want we love the more and desire the more earnestly When Hezekiah having been sick unto death had a longer lease of life granted him Isa 38.1 22. he asketh the question What is the sign not that I shall live but that I shall go up to the house of the Lord Love is on the wing chearful to meet its object yea it reacheth it at a distance and is united to it while it is afar off But when it draweth near and a probable hope leadeth us towards it then is Loves triumph and jubilee Love saith one is a Sophister and a Philosopher witty and subtile to compass its own ends a Magician able to conjure down all difficulties and oppositions that lie in its way How doth the Covetous hast to be rich the Ambitious fly to the pinnacle of State the Glutton run to a banquet When the fool had filled his barns he sung a Requiem to his soul When Haman was advanced by the King Luk. 12.19 Esth 5.10 11. he sent and called for his friend and Zerish his wife and told them of his glory We read of one who hired a horse from the cirk to ride to a feast Love is alwayes in hast delighting it self in thoughts of hope and carried on them as on the wings of the wind Thus it is in sensual Love and thus it is also in spiritual When we have once tasted the good word of God Hebr 6.5 and the powers of the world to come when our hearts are possessed with love of God's glory when our minds are truly principled when as the Apostle speaketh Colos 2.6 7. we have received Christ Jesus the Lord and are rooted and built up in him Lord what an heaven is virtue what glory is there in obedience what beauty in holiness what a holy place is a Church how do we faint and pant not onely after religion
then evident that it is one thing to say that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us another that faith is imputed for righteousness or which is the very same our sins are not imputed unto us Which two Imputation of faith for righteousness and Not-imputation of sin make up that which we call the Justification of a sinner For therefore are our sins blotted out by the hand of God because we believe in Christ and Christ in God 1 Cor. 1.30 That place where we are told that Christ of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification is not such a pillar of Christ's Imputed righteousness in that sense which they take it as they phansied when they first set it up For the sense of the Apostle is plain and can be no more then this That Christ by the will of God was the onely cause of our righteousness and justification and that for his sake God will justifie and absolve us from all our sins and will reckon or account us holy and just and wise not that he who hath loved the error of his life is wise or he that hath been unjust is righteous in that wherein he was unjust or he that was impure in that he was impure is holy because Christ was so but because God will for Christ's sake accept receive and embrace us as if we were so Unless we shall say that as we are wise with Christ and holy and righteous so with Christ also we do redeem our selves For he who is said to be our righteousness is said also to be our redemption in the next words I would not once have thought this worth so much as a salute by the way but because I see many understand not what they speak so confidently and many more and those the worst are too ready to misapply it are will be every thing in Christ when they are not in him and well content he should fight it out in his own gore then they though they fall under the enemy in him may be styled conquerours Why should not we content our selves with the language of the Holy Ghost That certainly is enough to quiet any troubled conscience unless you will say it is not enough for a sinner to be forgiven not enough to be justified not enough to be made heir of the kingdom of heaven But yet I am not so out of love with the phrase as utterly to cast it out but wish rather that it might either be laid aside or not so grosly misapplied as it is many times by those presumptuous sinners who die in their sins If any eye can pierce further into the letter and find more then Imputation of faith for righteousness and Not imputation of sins for Christ's righteousness sake let him follow it as he please to the glory but not to the dishonour of Christ let him attribute what he will unto Christ so that by his unseasonable piety he lose not his Saviour so that he neglect not his own soul because Christ was innocent nor take no care to bring so much as a mite into the Treasury because Christ hath flung in that talent which at the great day of accounts shall be reckoned as his So that men be wary of those dangerous consequences which may issue from such a conceit quisque abundet sensu suo let every man think and speak as he please and add this Imputation of Christ's righteousness to this which I am sure is enough and which is all we find in Scripture Forgiveness and Not-imputation of sins and the Imputation of faith for righteousness I pass then to this Righteousness the Righteousness of Faith which indeed is properly called Evangelical Righteousness because Christ who was the publisher of the Gospel was also authour and finisher of our Faith And here we may sit down and not move any further and call all eyes to behold it and say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is it Nec curiositate opus est post Jesum Christum When Christ hath spoken and told us what it is our curiosity need not make any further search The Righteousness of faith is that which justifieth a sinner Rom. 1.17 For the just shall live by faith or as some render it the just by faith shall live Mar. 9.23 If thou canst believe saith our Saviour and Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ Acts 16.31 and thou shalt be saved and thy houshould saith S. Paul to the Gaoler Isa 55.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to these waters yea come buy wine and milk without money or money-worth I doubt not but every man is ready to come every man is ready to say I believe Lord help my unbelief But here it fareth with many men as it doth with those who first hear of some great place fallen unto them but afterwards find it is as painful as great The later part of the news sowreth and deadeth the joy of the former and the trouble taketh off the glory and dignity Believe and be saved is a messuage of joy but Believe and repent or Repent and believe is a bitter pill But we must joyn them together nor is it possible to separate them they both must meet and kiss each other in that Righteousness which is the way to the Kingdom of God It is true Faith is imputed for righteousness but it is imputed to those who forsake all unrighteousness Faith justifieth a sinner but a repentant sinner It must be vera fides quae hoc quod verbis dicit moribus non contradicit a faith which leaveth not our manners and actions as so many contradictions to that which we profess Faith is the cause and original of good actions and naturally will produce them and if we hinder not its casuality in this respect it will have its proper effect which is to Justifie a sinner This effect I say is proper to Faith alone and it hath this royal prerogative by the ordinance of God but it hath not this operation but in subjecto capaci in a subject which is capable of it In a word it is the Righteousness of a sinner but not of a sinner who continueth in his sin It is a soveraign medicine but will not cure his wounds who resolveth to bleed to death For to conceive otherwise were to entitle God to all the uncleanness and sins of our life past to make him a lover of iniquity and the justifier not of the sinner but of our sins Christ was the Lamb of God which took away our sins John 1.29 And he took them away not onely by a plaister but also by a purge not onely by forgiveness but also by restraint of sin He suffered those unknown pains that we should be forgiven and sin no more not that we should sin again and be forgiven He fulfilled the Law but not to the end that we should take the more heart break it at pleasure and adde rebâ—â—lion to rebellion because
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but some of them some of the rout or if of higher place none of the best For the last when we have more neerly lookt upon it and brought it to the touch and tryal we shall find it to be but a lye coyned out of the Devils mint bearing his image and superscription even the stamp and character of Malice Envy and Ignorance Of these in their order We are to speak first of a Miracle and that briefly In every Miracle as Aquinas saith there are two things Quod fit and Propter quod fit the thing done which must transcend the course of Nature and the End which is also supernatural Indeed in respect of the power of God there is no miracle at all it being as easie for him to make one man speak all languages on the sudden as by degrees to teach him one but in his Divine goodness he was pleased to work wonders not for shew but for our instruction And as he had born witness to his Son by power and great miracles so doth he here to the Holy ghost now visibly descending upon his Apostles to no other end but this to consecrate his Church to seal the Gospel and so to fulfil that as Christ had fulfilled the Law This was the end of this miraculous operation The holy Ghost comes in a mighty wind to rattle their hearts together he comes in fire to enflame their breasts and in cloven tongues to cleave their hearts asunder He teacheth one man to speak all kind of tongues that Christ might become the language of the whole world Now in the next place let us view the persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others What enterteinment finds the miracle what welcome hath the holy Ghost No other then what befalls all unusual and extraordinary events Every man lays hold of it and shapes it in such a form as he please To some you see it is a matter of wonder to others of mirth And this the Father calleth Judaicum opprobrium a reproch cleaving fast to the Jew So was it here to them and it may be laid to many among us this day as a just imputation not to consider mirabilia Dei the wonderful things of God Some render it separata Dei those works of his which are set apart to this very purpose to elevate our thoughts if not to beget yet to confirm our faith at least to work a disposition to it We should account it a strange stupidity in any one to be more affected at the sight of the Sun then of a small candle or taper and to esteem the great palace of Heaven but as a fornace But when God stretcheth forth his Hands to produce effects which follow not the force of secundary causes to make Nature excell her self to improve her operations beyond the sphere of her activity then not to put on wonder not to conclude that it is for some great end is not folly but infidelity the daughter of Malice and Envy and affected Ignorance Miracles are signs and if they signifie nothing it is evident that a stubborn heart and froward mind corrupt their dialect and will not understand the meaning of them And then what are miracles but trifles matter of scoff and derision Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God by miracles a jugler his sceptre a reed his crown of thorns a knee a mock a voice from heaven is but thunder to make the blind to see the lame to go and the deaf to hear a kind of witchcraft or sorcery To be baptized with the Spirit is to be full of drink and to speak divers languages to be drunken When Julian the Apostate had read a book presented unto him in defense of Christianity all the reply he made was this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have read understood and condemned it To which S. Basil most fitly and ingeniously replyed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have read it indeed but not understood it for had you understood it you would never have condemned it The same befalls men prepossessed and too far engaged in the world and with business no whit complyable with the operations of the Spirit They behold the great things of God and streight think they understand them and their censure is as sudden as their thought but the Fathers reply to that Apostate will reach home to them Did they timely understand them they could not possibly slight them They could not slight those doctrines of Universal Obedience Self-denial Necessity of good Works the Deadness nay the Danger of Faith without civil Honesty for the confirmation of which all miracles were wrought We need not now wonder to see wonders slighted For from this root spring all the errours of our life This doth what the Pope is said by some to do make Vertue vice and Vice vertue This makes fools prophets and Christ a deceiver This makes us neither see vertue in others nor the most visible and mountanious sin in our selves By this rule the innocent are murderers and murderers saints From hence it was that Christ appeared to some no more then the Carpenters son Some slighted his person as contemptible others his precepts as ridiculous his Gospel as foolishness his disciples as idiots To this day our behaviour is little better then mocking Our Lust which waits for the twilight mocks at his Omniscience Tush God seeth not Our Distrust argues against his Power The waters gushed out can he give bread also If the windows of Heaven should be opened can this be done Our Impatience questions his Truth That which he doth not yet we think he will never do He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most wise nay Wisdome it self yet how many think he will not make inquisition for bloud nor punish it with eternal fire and these frame their lives as if this were a very truth God is bountiful and hath nothing so proper to him as to be Good and Liberal to all yet some there be who have imputed all to Destiny and the Stars And those who acknowledge him to be the Giver of life have confined and impropriated his Goodness to a few His Mercy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 triumpheth over his Justice yet Novatian made every fall as low as Hell and what is Despair but a mocking of Gods Mercy The miracle of this Feast if you will admit S. Augustines conceit is still visible in the Church where every man speaks all the languages of the world in as much as he is a member of that Catholick Church where all languages are spoken and yet this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this scoffing and derision is the most usual figure in the Worlds Rhetorick and he that cannot answer an argument can break a jest The ground of all is infidelity the proper issue of obstinate and wilfull Ignorance which brought forth these men here not Isaacs you may be sure but yet children of laughter I will give you a reason of this from a heathen man Plato
with admiration then it speaketh nay it cryeth unto the Lord. When S. Paul was caught up into paradise and heard those unspeakable words which he could not utter his admiration supplyed that defect and was as the lifting up of his voice unto God For what is a Miracle if it be not wondered at Or is it fit a Miracle should pass by us as a shadow unregarded Is it fit that that which was done for us men and for our salvation should not move us so much as those common things which are done before our eyes every day that we should be little affected with that Gospel which was thus confirmed by signs and wonders that nothing should be wonderful in our eyes but that which is not worth a thought For what is that we wonder at Even that from which we should wean our affection we wonder at those things in the pursuit of which we our selves become monsters We wonder at Wealth and are as greedy as the Horseleach We wonder at Beauty and become worse then the beasts that perish We wonder at Honour and are those Chamelions that live on air We have mens persons in admiration Jude 16. and make our selves their Horse or Mule which they may ride at pleasure We wonder at Power and become stocks or stones and have no more motion of our own then they These appear to us in glory these dart their beams upon us and we are struck with admiration But mirabilia legis the wonderful things of the Law the wonderful things of the Gospel we scarce open our eyes to behold them and but faintly desire God to do it for us His wonderful counsel in sending his Son we do but talk of The mystery of our Redemption is hidden still God's eternal will that is our sanctification we scarce spare an hour to think on his precepts are not in so much esteem as the statutes of Omâ—i What a glorious spectacle is a clod of earth and what a Nothing is Heaven Behold these are the wonderful things of Christ To unite God and Man to tye them together by a new covenant to raise dust and ashes to heaven this is a great miracle indeed To draw so many nations and people to the obedience of faith to convert rich men by poor learned men by illiterate and by those whom they persecuted and put to death so that they brought in their riches and honours and usual delights and laid them down as it were at the feet of those poor instructers whom they counted as the off-scouring of the world To make not onely his Precepts but the Meekness the Patience the Silence the very Death of his Professors as so many Apostles and Messengers to win them to the faith this if we did truly consider and weigh as we should would busie and intend our thoughts and raise and improve them into that amazement and admiration which would joyn us to that innumerable company of just men and make us of the number of those who shall be saved Many things saith Hillary Christ hath done for the sons of men the blessed effect of which is open as the day though the cause be bid and where Nature comes short Faith steps forward and reacheth home In his quoque quae ignoro non nescio Even in those which my understanding is too narrow to receive I am not utterly ignorant but walk by faith and admire that vvhich my good Master doth and yet vvill not let me know It is no miracle no mystery at all vvhich deserveth not admiration Secondly by her lifting up her voice and blessing the womb that bare Christ vvhich vvas a kind of adoration for Admiration had not so shut up her devotion and love but that it vvas vocal and reverent vve are taught to magnifie our Saviour vvith the Tongue and Hand and Knee and every member vve have as David speaketh For these also have their voice and vve may confess Christ not onely vvith the tongue but vvith our adorations and genuflexions and those outward expressions vvhich are equivalent to it Auditur philosophus dum videtur Though he hold his peace yet the Philosophers very gesture is a lecture of morality Therefore where we read that Man was made a living soul Gen. 2.7 the Chaldee renders it factus est in spiritum loquentem He was made a speaking soul to speak the praises of his Maker with every faculty and part he hath For as God made both Body and Soul so he requires both the inward devotion of the one and the outward expressions of the other a Soul saith Isidore which may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by its operative devotion call down God from heaven and in her self frame the resemblance of his presence and a Body which may make that devotion and love visible to the very eye It is S. Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians 1 Thes 5. â—3 that God would sanctifie them wholly that the soul and body may be blameless in the day of the Lord that Holiness might be as an impression which from the soul might work upon the body and give force and motion to the whole man This is to sanctifie them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in part but all of them not to sprinkle but to baptize them with holiness Profanus and non integer are the same in Tertullian and it is profaneness not to give God all Athanasius makes the Soul as a Musician and the Body which consists of the Tongue and other members as a Harp or Lute which she may tune and touch till it yield a celestial harmony a song composed of divers parts of Spirit and Flesh of Soul and Body of every faculty of the soul and every part of the body must accord with the elevation of the soul Certainly a sweet note But then the lifting up of the voice mends it and makes it far more pleasant An ejaculation from the Soul yea and the sound thereof from the Tongue and Hands and Knees a holy Thought yea and a zealous and reverent depottment these make a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks perfect and complete Otherwise as the Poet spake of the beggar half wrotten and consumed he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an half-strung and half-tuned instrument Look back unto former and purer times and you shall see Devotion visible in every gesture in their Walking in their sitting in their Bowing in their Standing up you shall hear it in their Hymns and Psalms in their Hallelujahs and Amens which were saith Hierome as the voice of many waters or as a clap of thunder You shall hear the Priest blessing the people and the people echoing it back again unto the Priest the Priests praying and the people answering the Priests which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Antiphones or Responsals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand decently They did spake it and they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand with the
under the name of Perfection because it tendeth to it So there is the Perfection of a beginner for he is a perfect beginner and the Perfection of a proficient for he is a perfect proficicent And there is a higher degree of Perfection of those who are so spiritualized so familiar with the Law of Christ that they run the wayes of his commandments But there is none so perfect but he may be perfecter yet none so high but he may exalt himself yet further in the grace and favour of God And even the beginner who seemeth to follow Christ yet a far off by that serious and earnest desire he hath to come nearer may be brought so near unto him as to be his member For there be babes in Christ and there be strong men And Christ looketh favourably even upon those babes and will take them into his arms and embrace them For his mercy is a garment large enough to cover all to reach even from the top to the last round and step of that ladder which being reared on earth reacheth up to heaven and to carry on those who first set foot in the wayes of life with a desire to ascend higher For all these are within within the pale of his Church Without are dogs and sorcerers and they who love and make a lie who have no relish of heaven no savour of Christ's ointment no desire of those things which are above no taste of the powers of the world to come For where this desire is not where it is not serious Christ is quite departed out of those coasts For Christ did not build his Church as Plato formed his Commonwealth who made such Laws as no man could keep but he fitted his Laws to every man and requireth no more of any then what every one by the strength which he will give may exactly accomplish It is a precept of a high nature and which flâ—sh and bloud may well shrink at be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Mat. 5.48 This is a hard and iron speech and he must have the stomach of an Ostrich that can digest it Therefore the Church of Rome hath sauced it to make it easie of digestion and hath made it not a peremptory Precept but a Counsel or Advice left it to our free choice whether we will keep it or no. To neglect and pass it by will hazard aureolam non auream it is their own distinction not the crown of life but some brooch or top some degree of happiness there And this is a great errour either to adde to or to take off from that burthen which it hath pleased Christ our Lawgiver to lay upon us Seem this precept never so harsh this burthen never so heavy yet if we consult with that patience and strength wherewith it hath pleased Christ to endue us by his blessed Spirit we shall be able to bear it without any abatement or diminution For we may deal with it as Protagoras did with his burthen of sticks dispose of it in so good order and method as to bear it with ease and have no reason to complain of its weight It is not so hard as we at first suppose And that we may gather from the illative particle Therefore Which hath reference to the verses going before and enjoyneth a Love above the love of Publicans whose love was negotiatio a bargaining a trafficking love vvho payed love for love loved none but those who loved them and so raiseth our Love to the love of our heavenly Father as to the most perfect rule and then draweth it down to compass and bless even the worst enemies we have And so this Perfection here doth not signifie an exact performance of all the commandments but the observation of this one The Love of our neighbour and that not in respect of the manner of observing it but the act it self That we love not onely our friends but our enemies And this indeed is a glorious act worthy the Gospel of Christ For to love them that love us is but a kind of necessary and easie gratitude the first beginings and rudiments of Piety the dawning of Charity But when we have attained to this to love them that love us not that hate us that persecute us then our Charity kindled from the the Love of our Father shineth forth in perfection of beauty He that can doe this hath fulfilled the Law For he that can love him that hateth him will love God that loveth him will love him when he frowneth on him when he afflicteth him when as Job speaketh he killeth him For indeed he cannot doe one but he must doe both But then for the manner of that love there he must needs come short of the patern Dust and ashes cannot move with equal motion in this sphere of Charity with the God of Love That we may love our enemies is possible but that we love them with the same extension or intension of love as God loveth them is beyond our belief and conceit and so impossible to be reached by the best endeavours we have God may give us strength but he cannot give us his arme He may make us wise and strong and good but not as good and wise and strong as himself What cruelty is our Mercy to his What weakness in our Power to his Almightiness Hovv ignorant is our Knovvledge to his light If vve speak of Wisdom he alone is vvise if of Povver he onely can doe what he will in heaven and in earth If vve speak of Mercy his Mercy reacheth over all his works Man is a finite mortal creature and all his goodness and wisdom and mercy are as mortal and changeable as himself and if it do measure out his span and hold out to the end of it yet it will retain a tast and relish of the cask and vessel of flesh and mortality and corruption But yet the Law is perfect and required a perfect man cum Dei adjutorio in nostrâ potestate consistit saith Augustine often and it is in our power with the help of God's grace to be perfect Rom. 16.25 God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stablish us 1 Cor. 1.8 he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirm us he doth work in us to will and to do by giving us the sight of his glory and by his Spirit exciting and strengthening us He doeth it that giveth sufficient helps and advantages to do it The whole honour of every effect is due and returneth to the first Cause By this help we may be perfect as perfect as the prescript of the Gospel and the new covenant of Grace requireth For 1. God requireth nothing that is above our strength And certainly we can do what we can do we can do what by him we are enabled to do I can do all things saith S. Paul through Christ that strengtheneth me We may love him with all our mind with all our heart with all