imports the Real Cause of the thing it self which is known But oftentimes the Cause only of our knowledge of it Again such Causal Particles do not alwayes import some Efficacious Causalitie but only Causam sine qua non some necessarie means or condition without which the prime and principal Cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended effect To give you Examples or instances of these Observations If a stranger coming into a Citie should say surely yonder Gentleman is the chief Magistrate because the sword is born before him No wise man would hence collect that the bearing of the sword before him is The Cause why he is the chief Magistrate For his lawful Election is The Cause of that and that is the Cause why the sword is born before him Yet may we not for this reason deny that the former speech doth necessarily import a Cause for the bearing of the sword before him is the true True Cause of his knowing him to be the chief magistrate And in as much as we oftentimes come to know the Cause by the Effect this word For or other Conjunction Causal doth oft-times point out the Effect rather then the Cause of the thing it self So it doth in the speech of our Saviour Luke 7. 45. Wherefore I say unto thee her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much However some Romanists whose delight it is to set Christian Charitie and faith at odds would hence collect that Charitie is the Cause of the forgiveness of sins yet their greatest Scholars acknowledge their error or oversight and ingenuously acknowledge their understanding being convinced by the evidence of truth that This womans Love was not the Cause why her sins were forgiven but that the Free forgiveness of her sins which were many was the True Cause why she loved so much however her extraordinary love being testified in such solemn sort was a true Cause or reason by which all that saw her might know both that her sins had been many and that she had an internal feeling or apprehension of their forgiveness And the true reason why the Pharisee did neither bear such love unto our Saviour nor exhibit the like signes of respect unto him was because he did not feel himself sick much lesse did he feel or apprehend the cure of his sickness as the woman did For if he had known either the measure of his own sins or that our Saviour was the Physician of his soul he would have given better Testification of his love and respect unto him then he did by a Complemental Invitation of him 12. To instance again If of two parties equally suspected of Felonie a man admitted to hear their examination or tryal should say This is the thief For Two competent witnesses have given evidence against him no man would hence infer that the evidence given in against him by two honest men was the Cause why he was a thief and yet was it the true Cause why he knew him to be the thief Every Revelation or authentick Declaration of any truth before unknown is the true Cause of our knowledge of it but not of the Truth it self for that is the Cause why the Declaration or our knowledge of it is true Now amongst such as professe Christ and call him Lord it is unknown to us who be the true heirs of this heavenly kingdom who be not but in the day of Final Judgement in which all shall be judged by their works the sheep shall be known from the goats and the first certain knowledge which we shall have of this difference shall be from The Declarative sentence of the Judge who cannot erre and his Declaration as you see shall be made according to their works The ones performance of the Good works here mentioned declared and testified by the Judge shall be the True Cause by which men and Angels shall know them to be heirs of the everlasting Kingdom the others Omission of the like works testified likewise by the same Judge shall be the true cause by which we shall know them to be altogether unworthy of Gods favour or mercy most worthy of everlasting death We shall then truly know that the one sort are crowned as Saint Cyprian saith according to Gods Grace and that the other are condemned according to Justice That the ones omission of Good Works is the true Cause of condemnation and that the others performance of Good works is not the Cause of their salvation but the Declaration only or a Testimonie that they are the Sons of God and that they did Good works by the secret Operation of the spirit of Grace in them And thus much if you observe it is implyed in the Reply or Answer of them that be saved to their Judge Lord When saw we thee an hungred c So farre they shall be from conceiting their works to be meritorious or worthie of eternal bliss that they shall be ready to disclaim them as not worthie of it ready to blame their sluggish backwardness or want of chearfulness to have done much better seeing what they did unto their poor brethren as now they perceive shall be so graciously accepted that Christ in his Throne of Majestie will acknowledge that he takes them as kindly as if they had been done unto himself The Case is the same as if a Gracious Prince of his own free motion and goodness should proclaim a general Pardon to a multitude of Rebels Thieves and Traytors so they would accept of it and make their peace with their honest neighbors whom they have wronged All of them in shew accept the Pardon but some of them in the Interim secretly practise treason or disturb the publick peace If at the general Assize or at their Arraignment the Judge upon certain notice of their several demeanors should say to the one sort I restore you to your former state and dignity Because since the Proclamation of your Pardon you have demeaned your selves as becomes Loyal Subjects and thankful men And to the other you I condemn to death Because you have abused your Soveraigns Clemency No man would ascribe the restauration of the one unto their good demeanor in the Interim betwixt the getting of their Pardon and their Arraignment but unto the Princes Clemencie Albeit the condemnation of the other were wholly to be ascribed unto their misdemeanors not unto any want of Clemencie in the Prince towards them The good demeanor of the one could but be at the most Causasine qua non A necessary Condition without which the Princes Clemencie in his Pardon exprest could not profit them And so we say of Good Works They are Causae sine quibus non necessary Conditions or means without which no man shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven but no Positive or meritorious Causes of our inheritance in it To conclude If any one should ask me Why all men that profess they beleive in Christ shall not be saved Albeit Christ
23. verses That this is our Apostles intent and meaning there can be no question All The difficultie is how either the Negative inferences or inconveniences which he presseth upon such as deny the Resurrection of the dead or the affirmative points which he chargeth these Corinthians and in them us undoubtedly to believe can be concludently gathered from the principles of our beleif 2. To begin with the Negative Inferences and in particular with the third Branch ver 15. Yea and We are found false witnesses of God c. Let us examine wherein did wherein could the falshood of this Testimonie consist Some perhaps would reply that We are not to say any thing of God though not benefitting his Majestie but that which is most true We are not indeed so far as we know or believe But albeit we fail in that we speak of him yet this is not enough to convince us of bearing false Testimony of Him To say or speak that of any which we take to be the Truth and to say it not with purpose to caluminate or slander but rather to his praise or commendations is not to bear false Testimonie of him much less against him albeit we be out of charitie mistaken in that which we say of him Admit then That the Apostle had been in some errour concerning the Resurrection when he first taught the Romans and these Corinthians That As Christ was raised from the dead to life immortal so we also in good time shall be raised to the same or like imortal life and that as he So we also should be raised by the immediate power of God his supposed mistake in the latter could not convince him of bearing false Testimonie on Gods behalf seeing that which he saith concerning the Resurrection of others besides Christ from the dead doth tend to Gods glory For to bear false Testimony of or against any Doth alwayes include some mater of imputation of aspersion or prejudice Whether we bear such testimony of God or of man What imputation or prejudice was it then to affirm that God had raised up Christ from the dead if there were no general Resurrection of others from the dead or wherein doth the falshood of the testimonie which our Apostle seeks to avert from himself punctually consist Did it consist in saying That he raised up Christ whom he did not raise up if so be the dead rise not The Apostle doth not suppose it as questionable much lesse simply deny it That God did raise up Christ from the dead but only deduceth his adversary to this inconvenience or absurditie that if the dead were not raised up then Christ was not raised and that he had born false witness of God in saying that he had raised up Christ So that The ground of the false Testimony lies in the denying of others Resurrection from the dead Yea to avouch that God did raise up Christ from the dead although the fact were true and unquestionable that God did raise him up were in our Apostles Divinitie to lay an imputation or slander on God if so be that such as beleive in Christ and die in Christ should not be raised up unto blisse and glory Better it were or at least less evil in our Apostles Judgement to deny that Christ was risen from the dead then granting This to deny The Resurrection of such as sleep in Christ For to grant the former and to deny the Latter were to cast an imputation of folly upon God and an aspersion of imposture upon the Son of God Christ Jesus our Lord. What imputation then is it unto God or how doth this Aspersion rise and fall upon Christ or his Apostle by granting that Christ was indeed raised up and yet denying that the dead shall be raised up again 3. It is a Maxim in Philosophie generally acknowledged if not first conceived by the heathens Deus et natura nihil frustra Faciunt God and nature work nothing in vain From this principle such of the heathens as knew not God such as denyed His providence or knew not how to distinguish him or it from nature held it an impietie or prophaness to slander nature either of Errour in her working or of folly in producing effects to no good end or purpose Some there were which did question whether Monsters as children which are born with two heads with more Toes or fingers then are usual c. were not Errata naturae errours imperfections or oversights of nature But they finally resolve that albeit such events might fall out by the errour or contrary to the intentions or indeavours of That particular nature wherein these misfigurations were found yet they were intended by a more General nature and intended by it to some good use and purpose As commonly prodigious births do portend somewhat whose knowledge is usefull and good for others Now the Heathens erred in ascribing that to general or universal Nature which was peculiar unto God who is the Author Moderator and guide of Nature whether general or particular And if by general or Universal nature they meant no other thing then we do by the guide and God of nature Mentem teneant Linguam corrigant their meaning was good but their expression of it much amiss This we know that God doth suffer or cause nature oft times to miscarry in her course or projects for ends best known to himself No man is born blind or deaf or dumb without some errour or defect in that particular nature whereof or by which his body is framed All these and the like effects are besides the intention or contrary to the endeavour of nature which alwayes aymes at the best Hence our Saviours Disciples as we read John 9. ver 2. When they saw a man which was blind from his birth asked of their master who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind They had not moved this Question unless by light of nature they had known that blindness from his birth was contrarie to the ordinarie and common course of nature though not contrarie but consonant to the Will of God in this particular For it is more then probable that they had read though then perhaps they did not actually remember who made the dumb or the deaf him that seeth or the blind Have not I the Lord Exod. 4. 11. God they likewise knew did for some good end or just cause either suffer or cause nature to miscarry in this man And they likewise knew sin to be a just cause of many miscarriages in the humane nature And hence they question Whether God had punished this man with blindness from the birth for his own or for his parents sins But they themselves did erre in collecting That extraordinarie blindness had befallen him either for some extraordinarie sins of his own or of his parents and this error our Saviour rectifies ver 3. Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents that is neither of them
were more extraordinarie sinners then others were who neither were blind themselves nor had children that were blind from the birth The true cause of this defect in natures work in framing this man the true reason why he was born blind as our Saviour expresseth in the next words was that the works of God should be made manifest in him So true it is which the heathens had observed Deus et natura nihil frustrà faciunt It was not in vain nor to no purpose that nature did not effect or accomplish her work in this poor man for by this means Gods works in him were more manifest to himself and others then if he had been born with Eagles eyes He was not only cured miraculously of his native blindness but the eyes of his understanding by this miraculous cure were opened and inlightned to see more for his souls health then the learned Scribes and Pharisees did in whom neither nature nor Art had been defective 4. Galen that great Physician and curious searcher into all the secrets of the humane nature had well observed That there is no part nor parcell in the whole body of man which hath not its proper use And from contemplation of this undoubted Truth he was inforced to acknowledge what otherwise he seemd to deny Divinum Opificem A Divine Artificer or worker even of the least and most contemptible parts of mans natural bodie And of This work of God though much defaced by our first parents sin he gave the like verdict that God himself did of all his works That every part of mans body was good exceeding good and admirably framed to its proper use or function The most artificial works of man of the most exquisit and most industrious Artificer will alwayes admit some errours and defects no work of man is good in its kind That is the best which hath the fewest faults or oversights or is adorned with the fewest impertinent or unuseful beautifications Whereas the works of nature even the defects of particular nature are useful and profitable for the setting forth of Gods glory and for procurement or advancement of the publick good Now if the ordinary works of nature which be likewise the works of God be never vain idle or impertinent but have a correspondent use or End to which without errour they serve Much more must the extraordinarie works of God be presupposed to have some special End or extraordinary use as proportionable to them as the end or use of ordinary works of nature are to the ordinary operations or indeavours of nature Now our Apostle supposeth That our Saviours Resurrection from the dead was an extraordinary work of God The most remarkable work of God that had been manifested to the world and by necessarie consequence it must have an effect or end most remarkably correspondent unto it and what was that The resurrection of such as live and die in Christ or rather the manifestation of Gods glory and unspeakable goodness in their Resurrection unto immortal glory and happiness 5. The former principle Deus nihil frustrà facit being thus far improved That all Gods special and admirable works tend to some special and admirable use and purpose both parts of our Apostles mutual inference as well the Negative If the dead rise not then is not Christ raised as the Affirmative If Christ be raised then shall the dead arise will appear to be as Firm and sound as the mutual Inference of the Cause from the Effect and of the Effect from the Cause or as firm and sound as the mutual Inference of the Final Cause by the Efficient and of the Efficient by the Final Albeit to speak properly and in the exact terms of the Schools The necessity of the Efficient Cause depends upon the necessity of the End The End makes the Efficient to be necessary The Efficient doth not make the End to be necessarie The immediate proper Effect of the Efficient is not the End or final Cause it self but Medium proximè destinatum ad finem some Mean immediately destinated to the end without which the End or scope at which Nature in her operations aimed cannot be obtained If one should ask why man and other terrestrial creatures have Lungs when as fishes as most men and more probably think have none The reason were good and the answer satisfactory to say That man and other like creatures stand in need of Respiration and so of Lungs to temperor cool their blood with whose excessive heat or distemper life otherwise would quickly be choaked The preservation then of life is the End or Final Cause why man and other like creatures have Lungs But why life should be preserved no Cause can be given in nature This is a Principle presupposed Howbeit of respiration or breathing without which the life of man cannot be preserved or continued the Lungs are the true and proper Efficient Cause This Mutual Inference is good Quicquid pulmones habet respirat Quicquid respirat pulmones habet Whatsoever creature hath lungs hath also the benefit of breath or respiration This is an Argument from the Cause And whatsoever hath the benefit of breathing or respiration hath lungs This is an Argument from the Effect And again Negatively Whatsoever hath no lungs hath no benefit of breath or respiration Whatsoever hath not the benefit of respiration hath no Lungs In St. Pauls Divinity The manifestation of Gods Glory and Goodness in the Redemption of man is the End or Final Cause of all the Articles which we believe concerning Christ as God and man of which even for this reason we are to seek no further Cause or reason But the manifestation of this His Goodness being presupposed as made necessary by His Omnipotent Will The Mutual Inference between the Son of Gods Incarnation or between the several parts of his Sacerdotal or Regal Function and the several parts of our Redemption will be as perspicuous and firm as any Inference included in the former or like Instances First Unless Gods Will and Pleasure had been set to manifest His Goodness in the Redemption of mankind the Son of God had not been Incarnate had not Died had not been Raised from the dead The manifestation of Gods Glory in our Redemption was the true Cause why the Son of God was to be incarnate His Incarnation was not the Cause why Gods Goodness was to be manifested or why His Will and pleasure was set to redeem us For This as we said is the Final Cause and can have no other Cause of its necessitie but rather imposeth a necessitie upon other Causes subordinate as upon Christs Incarnation Passion and Resurrection But however Christs Incarnation was not the Cause why Gods Glory and Goodness was to be manifested in our Redemption yet the actual manifestation of Gods Goodness in our Redemption and our Redemption it self is procured by the Incarnation and Sacerdotal function of Christ as by a true and proper Efficient
the widdow These indeed are works of iniquity and deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven But is it a Work of iniquity not to work at all As not to give meat unto the hungry Not to give drink unto the thirstie Not to cloath the naked or lodge the harbourless Yes even these Omissions deserve Exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven Either by their connexion with sins of oppression because it is scarce possible that any which hear Christs promises should be barren of good Works unless they were too fruitful in the works of impietie and oppression or rather because as our Saviour elsewhere infers that Not to save mens lives when means and opportunitie is offered is to kill Not to feed the hungrie is a bloody sin Not to cloath the naked is as the sin of Oppression The Doing of some Good Works cannot excuse men for the Omission of others which be as necessary To prophesie in Christs name is a Gracious Work to cast out Divels is a Work of Greater Charity and comfort to the possessed then to visit the prisoners and yet such as have done these and many other wonderful Works shall not be admitted at the Last Day Besides the Goodness of the Works which we are bound to do there must be an Uniformitie in them Otherwise they are not done in Faith Now the same Faith and belief which inclines our hearts to works of one kind will incline them to the practise of every kind which we know or believe to be required at our hands by our Lord and Master That even the best Works of mercy or most beneficial unto others are not acceptable unto God unless they be done out of Faith obedience to our Masters Will is clear from our Apostles Verdict of Enoch Heb. 11. 5. Before his translation saith our Apostle he had this testimonie that he pleased God For so it is said Gen. 5. 24. that he walked with God the way by which he walked was his Good Works and Conversation but The Guide of this way and his works was his Faith So the Apostle infers without faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ver 6. As God is the Author of goodness yea goodness it self so we cannot come unto him by any other way then by doing good to others yet that which must make even our best Works pleasing to him must be our Belief in him and in his goodness and that he is A bountiful Rewarder of all that do good The good Works even of the Heathen and of such as knew neither him nor his Providence of such as in stead of him worshipped false gods were rewarded by him but with rewards and blessings only Temporal He was their Rewarder but not himself their Reward This was the Peculiar of Abraham his friend and of Abrahams children that is of all such as do the works of Abraham out of the Faith of Abraham that is out of a lively apprehension and true esteem of his goodness Unto all such he himself shall be merces magna nimis or valdè magna Their exceeding great Reward Unto men thus qualified and only unto them it shall be said Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world This Kingdom shall be a Kingdom of everlasting bliss and yet the greatest blessedness of this Kingdom shall consist in the fruition or enjoying of the presence of this Everlasting King who is goodness it self the participation of whose goodness is the very Life and Essence of that happiness which all desire but none shall attain besides such as do His Will by well doing To be separated for ever from his presence is the source of all the miserie which shall befall the damned or accursed But from this place of our Apostle Heb. 11. 6. The Romanist alwayes ready like the spider to suck poison from such flowers in this garden of God as naturally afford honey to such as seek God labours to infer as he doth out of the words of the text That the Everlasting Kingdom here promised is the just Reward of our good works and is as properly merited as everlasting death is by the Omission of the works here mentioned or by the Positive Works of inquitie So that I should here according to my proposed method proceed unto the third point That these good works how necessary soever they be are necessary only Tanquam via ad regnum non tanquam causa regnandi only as the Way and Means which lead unto this Kingdom not as the causes of its preparation for us or of our admission unto it But for the present I chuse rather to make some use or Application of what hath been said concerning the necessity of Good Works then to dispute of their Efficacie or Causality for attaining this Kingdom intending to touch that a little more in the next Chapter though with reference to what I have spoken in the 27. and 28. Chapters 6. You see that Good Works done in faith or which is all one a Working Faith are absolutely necessarie unto salvation But are they as necessary to Justification If they be how is it said by St. Austine and approved by the Articles of the Church of England Bona opera sequuntur hominem justificatum non praecedunt in homine justificando Good works follow Justification they do not go before it This Orthodoxal Truth only imports thus much That no man can do those works which are capable of the promises before he be inabled by God to do them and that this ability to do them is from the Gift of Justifying Faith Now every one that hath this Faith in his heart is said to be Justified that is absolved from the Guilt of sins past and freed from the Tyranny and Dominion of sin by receiving this pledge or earnest of Gods mercie and in this sense is Justification taken by St. James when he saith a man is justified by works that is He is not to be accounted the Son of faithful Abraham nor may he presume upon his own Actual Justification or estate in Grace until he be qualified and enabled to do the Works of Abraham In the same sense is Justification taken by St. John Rev. 22. 11 Qui justus est justificetur ad huc Let him that is righteous be righteous still or more justified And in this sort Children or Infants are said to be Justified by the Infusion of Faith The practise of Good Works is not required to their Justification before they come to the knowledge of good and evil But neither is the apprehension or actual Belief of Gods mercies in Christ required of them Though they be justified and saved for the Merits of Christ and through his blood as we are Yet is not the Rule for Application of these Merits the same in them and
hungred c. The Form of it is Causal and it necessarily imports some Cause as either the Cause of the Preparation of the Kingdom or of the righteous their Admission into it Otherwise the same form of speech ver 41. FOR I was an hungred and you gave me no meat should not import the true Cause why the wicked are sentenced to hell But the Protestants say they generally grant that this Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FOR ver 41. doth import that the true Cause why the wicked are condemned to hell is The Omission of these works and hence they inferre that the true Cause why the righteous are admitted into heaven is the performance of those Works which the wicked neglected and that our Saviour did note out this Cause unto us in the manner of his speech Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you FOR I was hungry and you gave me meat I was naked and ye cloathed me Hence saith Jansenius The righteous do merit eternal life by their Good works as the wicked do everlasting punishment by their bad works This is his Note upon the words and the only Ground or Reason of this Inference is Because the Form of our Saviours Speech is One and the same in both Sentences as well in the Sentence of Life as in the Sentence of Death But though the Phrase or manner of speech be the same will Jansenius therefore stand to the Inference or Observation which he makes upon them viz. That the Good works of the righteous are altogether as true Causes of inheriting the Kingdom of heaven as the bad works of the wicked or their Omission of good works are of their damnation to hell That this was his meaning any honest plain dealing man that should read him only upon those words of this Text would easily be perswaded howbeit in the Process or Sentence against the wicked ver 41. he expresly unsayes the most part of that which he here seems to say being thereto inforced by the Real circumstances of the Text. He ingeniously acknowledgeth what Origen and Chrysostom had observed before him That our Saviour saith unto those on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father but unto those on his left hand though he say Depart ye Cursed yet he saith not Ye cursed of my Father This implyes as Jansenius acknowledgeth That God the Father is the Author and Donour of everlasting bliss but every one that doth wickedly is the Author of his own Wo or cursed estate God then not our works is the Cause of our Bliss or Salvation Mens evil works not God is the Cause of damnation Again in the other Sentence of Condemnation our Saviour doth not say That the everlasting punishment is prepared for unrighteous men but for the Devil and his Angels What doth this in the Judgment of Jansenius imply First That the condemnation of men is not so to be ascribed unto the Ordinance of God as mens salvation is For God created no man to the end that he should perish but men by their Free-will or Wilfulness in sin do make themselves liable or obnoxious to those torments which principally were prepared for the Divel and his Angels For this Reason saith the same Jansenius Christ doth not say that the Kingdom unto which he cals the righteous was prepared for the Good Angels as the fire is prepared for the Divel and bad Angels lest we should hence collect that men might by Good works deserve or merit the societie of Good Angels after the same manner that they do merit the company or fellowship of evil Angels or Divels For as he adds The merits or Good Works of men do not depend only upon our Free will but they issue from the Grace and bountie of God And our Saviour as this Author concludes in saying That this Kingdom was prepared for the righteous since or from the foundation of the world and in saying hell was not prepared for wicked men but for the Divel and his Angels doth hereby give us to understand That the salvation of the righteous is to be ascribed unto the mercie of God and the condemnation of the unjust not unto God but unto their own iniquity 10. But doth not this plainly contradict his Former Assertion upon the Text when he saith Justi suis operibus merentur vitam aeternam sicut impijsuis operibus aeternum merentur supplicium That the righteous deserve eternal Life by their works as well or after the same manner that the wicked by their works deserve hell All that can be said for him or for his Acquital from contradicting himself is that he put no set Quantity to his First Proposition but leaves it Indefinite a fault common to the Romanists that they may have some excuse for their palpable Contradictions To say That Good Works deserve Heaven even as bad Works deserve Hell and to deny That the one deserves Heaven as well as the other deserves Hell seems to imply a Contradiction Yet if any man should press Janfenius too farre upon these Terms he hath this Evasion Non omnino similiter merentur The one doth not merit Heaven altogether by the same manner that the other doth merit Hell because mens Good Works or Merits do not depend only upon the Freedom of Will But this favourable construction being permitted or allowed him yet to say as he doth That the best works of men how much or how little soever they depend upon mans Free-will do in any sort either in whole or in part merit the Kingdom of Heaven this directly contradicts his former Assertion that Totum deputandum est misericordiae Dei That all is to be imputed to the Mercie of God Quod totum est a Deo non potest vel in parte ascribi meritis nostris That which is wholly from Gods mercie cannot so much as in part or at all be ascribed unto our merits For what is the Reason why the First Grace cannot in their doctrine be Merited is it not because it is wholly from the mercy of God now if this Kingdom of heaven or mans salvation be wholly from the mercy of God it can no more be Merited by any increase of Grace or Good Works then the First Grace it self can be Merited 11. But what shall we punctually answer to the Grammatical Inference drawn from the form of our Saviours speech Inherit the Kingdom c. FOR I was an hungred and you gave me c. The usual Answer is that this Conjunction or Illative For Because and the like do not alwayes denote the Cause of the thing it self but sometimes only the Consequence of what is spoken But seeing the Form of this speech is as Grammarians speak Causal to say that a Conjunction Causal doth not alwayes import some Cause were to deny Principles and affirm that the Grammar Rule were to be corrected But admitting that this Conjunction doth always import some Cause it will not hence follow that it alwayes
died for All albeit the Pardon General be proclaimed to all The best Cause or Reason I could render would be This Because All that profess they believe in Christ do not truly believe in Him For if they did They would be careful to maintain Good Works and glorifie God by being Fruitful in them The End of the Fifth Section The sixth SECTION A Transition of the Publishers WE have by Gods Good Blessing dispatched The main of this Book the Five first Sections so many Commentaries or Expositions of such Points or Articles of Christian Faith as are most proper by way of Dread and Terror to awake the Conscience and stirre the Affections To perswade men to reflect seriously upon all their Actions or Omissions Failings or Atchievements and to prepare themselves for that Account which must shortly be Rendred To God the Judge of All who will respect no Persons nor endure Pretences If these have their kindly perfect work They will Produce Judging our selves to prevent the Judgement of the Lord Repentance and Restitution of all things Circumspect walking for the Future and passing the Remnant of our Pilgrimage here in Fear To inrich the volume and to benefit the Reader I have thought good to annex this sixth Section which is A Collection of such Sermons of this Authors as I conceive likely to prove most effectual to the ends above mentioned and be most proper not only for this Place in the Body of His works but for these Times also which may perhaps be startled to see their present sins so flagrantly reproved many years ago by one who knew not any of their persons that commit them Our great Author had in his Eighth Book and third Chapter sadly complained of some that made this Great Rule of Charitie Equitie and Justice Do as you would be done unto This Law of nature and Precept of our Law-giver A nose of wax A verie Lesbian Leaden Rule He had more sadly complained in his Tenth Book Chapter 23. That not only the Practise of this Transcendent Rule was extinct amongst men But that the very Sense of it was if not utterly lost among the Learned Casuists or Expositors yet most shamefully decocted and Piteously shrunk up for want of improving and deducing it into several pipes and Branches of Good Life Lastly in the 29 Chapter of this Book amongst other useful things concerning this Rule He told us That God would Judge the world by it So then This next Discourse I mean the three Sermons upon this Text Comes not in unseasonably And I hope the next but One will follow this as sutably as a silver Thred can follow a needle of Gold And I shall endeavour to pick chuse and so place the rest that the Reader shall not deny their Consequencie to the five precedent Sections treating Of Christs Power to raise the Dead to judge the quick and dead and finally to sentence Both according to the things done in the Body be they Good or Bad. At which day God send this present sinful Generation and amongst them my Soul A Good deliverance and in order thereto a Timely unfeigned Repentance especially of their applauded and avowed transgressions This for Jesus sake who is our Ransom would be our Peace and shall be our Judge Amen The First Sermon upon this Text. CHAP. XXXII MATTH 7. 12. All things Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them For this is the Law and the Prophets Prov. xx 22. Say not thou I will recompence Evil Wait on the Lord and He shall save thee Prov. 24. 29. Say not I will do to him as he hath done to me I will render to the man according to his work The miserie of man of the wisest of men in their Pilgrimage to be wanderers too The short way to Happiness The pearl of the Ocean The Epitome Essence Spirits of the Law and Prophets Do as you would be done unto The Cohaerence The Method Christ advanceth This dictate of nature into an Evangelical Law Fortifies it and gives us proper motives to practise it Two grounds of Equitie in this Law 1. Actual equalitie of all men by nature 2. Possible equalitie of all men in Condition Exceptions against the Rule Answers to those Exceptions This Rule forbids not to wage or invoke Law so it be done with Charitie Whether nature alone bind us to do good to our enemies God has right to command us to love them Plato 's Good Communion The compendious way to do our selves most Good is to do as much good as we can to others The Application IT is whether you list to term it A follie or A Calamitie incident to all sorts of men that when they take a perfect Survey of all their former courses they find their wandrings and digressions far larger then their direct proceedings The more excellent the End is whereat we aim the greater commonly is our Error the more our By-paths from the right way that leads unto it Because The greatest Good is alwayes hardest to come by Thus such as hunt most eagerly after the knowledge of Best matters seeing the Best are worst to find after natures Glass is almost run out and most of their spirits spent whilst they look back upon their former labors like weary Passingers that have wandred up and down in unknown coasts without a Guide desirous to see the way they missed in a Map when they come to their Journeys end begin to discern what Toyl and pains they might have saved had they been acquainted with such good Rules directions at the first as now they know Nor have we so great cause to be ashamed of our folly as to bewail The common miserie of our nature seeing the wisest among the sons of men either for Civil knowledge or speculative learning Solomon himself had almost lost himself in this Maze never finding any other issue of his Tedious course but only this All is vanitie and vexition of Spirit Untill he had almost come to the End of his dayes Then he found out That short compendious way of godly Life Eccles 12. 13. Let us hear the End of all Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole dutie of man In this is contained all we seek 2. Had Solomon in his yonger dayes fixed his eyes upon this Rule which he hath left us as the Mariner doth his upon the Pole or other Celestial sign he might have arrived in half that Time at that Haven which He hardly reached in his old Age after continual danger of Shipwrack by his wandring to and Fro. But how-so-ever This fear of God and our observation of his Commandments be the Readiest the safest and the shortest Cut that Solomon knew unto that True Happiness which all men seek but most seek amiss yet these Commandments cannot be kept unless they be known And known they cannot be without good studie and industrie either in reading or
Godly men respects their former good works p. 3568. 29. Three points 1. Eternal Life the most free gift of God both in respect of the Donor and of the Donee 2. Yet doth not the sovereign Freenesse of the Gift exclude all Qualifications in the Donees rather requires better in them then in others which exclude it or themselves from it Whether the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for All or for a certain number 3. The first Qualification for grace is to become as little children A parallel of the conditions of Infants and of Christians truly humble and meek p. 3578 30. Matth. 25. 34. Then shall the King say to them on his Right hand c. Two General Heads of the Discourse 1 A Sentence 2. The execution thereof Controversies about the sentence Three conclusions in order to the decisions of those Controversies 1. The Sentence of life is awarded Secundum Opera not excluding faith 2. Good Works are necessary to salvation Necessitate Praecepti Medii And to Justification too as some say Quoad praesentiam non quoad Efficientiam The third handled in the next Chapter Good Works though necessary are not Causes of but the Way to the Kingdom Damnation awarded for Omissions Saint Augustines saying Bona Opera sequuntur Justificatum c. expounded Saint James 2. 10. He that keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one point c. expounded Why Christ in the final Doome instances only in Works of Charity not of Piety and Sanctity An Exhortation to do good to the poor and miserable and the rather because some of those duties may be done by the meanest of men p. 3587 31. Jansenius his Observation and Disputation about Merit examined and convinced of Contradiction to it self and to the truth The Definition of Merit The state of the Question concerning Merit Increase of Grace no more meritable then the first Grace A Promise made Ex Mero Motu sine Ratione dati accepti cannot found a Title to Merits Such are all Gods Promises Issues of meer Grace Mercie and Bountie The Romanists of Kin to the Pharisee yet indeed more to be blamed then He. The Objection from the Causal Particle FOR made and answered SECT VI. CHAP. 32. Matth. 7. 12. Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. The misery of man of the wisest of men in their pilprimage to be Wanderers too The short way to Happiness The Pearl of the Ocean The Epitome Essence spirits of the Law and the Prophets Do as you would be done unto The Coherence the Method Christ advanceth This Dictate of Nature into an Evangelical Law Fortifies it and gives us proper Motives to practise it Two grounds of Equity in this Law 1. Actual Equality of all men by Nature 2. Possible Equality of all men in condition Exceptions against the Rule Answers to those Exceptions This Rule forbids not to invoke or wage Law so it be done with charity Whether Nature alone bind us to do good to our enemies God has right to command us to love them Plato's good communion The Compendious way to do our selves most good is to do as much good as we can to others The Application 33. Matth. 7. 12. The second General according to the Method proposed Chap. 32. Sect. 5. handled This Precept Do as ye would be done to more then equivalent to that Love thy neighbour as thy self for by good Analogy it is applicable to all the Duties of the first Table which we owe to God for our very being and all his other Blessings in all kinds bestowed on us Our desires to receive good things from God ought to be the measure of our Readiness to return obedience to his will and all other duties of dependance upon his Grace and Goodness God in giving Isaac did what Abraham desired and Abraham in offering Isaac did what God desired Two Objections made and answered 1. That this Rule may seem to establish the old Pythagorean Error of Retaliation and the new one of Parity in Estates 2. That the Magistrate in punishing offendors it seems in some Cases must of necessity either violate this Rule or some other p. 3628 34. The Impediments that obstruct the Practice of this Duty of Doing to others as we would have done to our selves are chiefly two 1 Hopes and Desires of attaining better estates then we at present have 2. Fears of falling into Worse Two readie wayes to the Dutie 1. To wean our souls into an indifferencie or vindicate them into a libertie in respect of all Objects 2 To keep in mind alwayes a perfect character of our owne afflictions and releases or comforts Two Inconveniencies arising from accersite greatness or prosperity 1. It makes men defective in performing the Affirmative part of this Duty 2. It makes them perform some part of the Affirmative with the violation of the Negative part thereof A Fallacy discovered An useful general Rule 3640 35. Jer. 45. 2 3 4 5. Thus saith the Lord unto thee O Baruch c. Little and Great termes of Relation Two Doctrines One Corollary Times and Occasions after the nature of things otherwise lawful Good men should take the help of the Anti-peristasis of bad times to make themselves better Sympathie with others in misery enjoyned in Scripture practised by Heathens Argia and Portia The Corollary proved by Instance and that made the Application of the former Doctrin 3648 36. On Jer. 45. latter part of ver 5. Thy life will I give thee for a prey The second Doctrin handled first in Thesi touching the Natural essence of Life in general 2. In Hypothesi Of the Donative of Life to Baruch as the case then stood That men be not of the same opinion about the Price of life when they be in Heat Action and Prosperity which they be of in dejection of Spirit and Adversity proved by Instances Petrus Strozius Alvares de Sande Gods wrath sharpens the Instruments and increases the terror of death Life was a Blessing to Baruch though it be shewed him all those evils from sight of which God took away good King Josiah in favour to him Baruch as a man did sympathize with the miseries of his people As a Faithful man and a Prophet of the Lord he conformed to the just will of God The Application 3663 37. On Rom. 2. 1. Therefore thou art inexcusable O man c. From what Premises the Apostles Conclusion is inferred The limitation of the Conclusion to the securing the Lawful Magistrate exercising Judicature according to his Commission and in matters belonging to his cognizance David and Abab judging persons by the Prophets Art feigned did really condemn themselves The sense of the Major Proposition improved by vertue of the Grammar Rule concerning Hebrew Participles and by Exposition of the phrase How the later Jewes judging the deeds of their forefathers did condemne themselves 3678 38. Second Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. 3690 39. Third Sermon on Rom. 2. 1. A Romish
become a better man by this practise by which he doth utterly cease to be a man if his hopes had been terminated with this mortal life or if he had not remained capable of reward or punishment after death That very thing was even by the verdict of the Heathen highly magnified in Regulus a wise States-man and good Patriot which in a bruit Beast of what kinde soever would have been accounted and that justly more then unreasonableness a very madness For no beast unless it be altogether mad will evidently expose it self to death That which exempts Regulus his witting exposing of himself to a more cruel death then any sober man could finde in his heart to put a dumb beast unto from censure of Folly was The managing of his undertakings by Resolution and Reason And all the reason that he had thus to resolve was That he hoped not utterly to perish as beasts do although certain he was to die Beasts which run upon their own deaths are therefore accounted mad because by death they utterly cease from being what they were For them to desire death is to desire their utter destruction which they could not desire but seek by all means possible to avoid unless they had first put of all common sense wherein the height of their madness consists Regulus was therefore accounted manly resolute and resolutely wise for that in choosing rather to die then to live with stain of perjury or taint his soul with breach of oath he did not desire his own destruction but the continuation of his well-being or bettering his own or his Countries estate And this his desire or resolution which supposeth another sentence after this life ended the Heathens which so highly magnified his resolution did subscribe unto as good and fit to be imitated by all honest men and true Patriots albeit perhaps most of them were unwilling to be his seconds in like attempts when the matter came to the tryal 6. Nor did the Romans onely commend this Resolution in Regulus whose Memory for well deserving of that Commonweal they had in perpetual Reverence But other Heathens which did detest the very name of Christians and eagerly sought the extirpation of Christs Church on earth did as much admire and commend the like in Christian Bishops Two memorable stories very apposite to this purpose come to my minde the one related by St. Gregory Nazianzen the other by St. Austin Nazianzens story is of Bishop Marcus Arethusus who was sentenced to a cruel death and torture by Julian the Emperor unless he would at his own cost and charges build up an Idol Temple which he had caused to be pulled down After that his persecutors had brought the damages required at his hands so low that if he would be content to give but an Angel or some small piece of Gold currant in those times to the re-edifying of the Temple which he had destroyed he should live yet he persevered so constantly in his former Resolution which was not to give so much as a peny by way of Contribution for building up any house of Iniquity that his Persecutors were ashamed to take life from him Saint Augustine in his Tract against Lying tells us of Bishop Firmus who being pressed to bewray another Christian Brother whose death or Turning the Heathens earnestly sought having strong presumptions that This good Bishop knew where he was after many torments and threats of more with great constancy refused All the words that they could wrest from him were these Mentiri non possum I cannot lie and yet he must haue lyed if he had denyed that he knew where the Party was whose life they sought But as I cannot lie so I cannot become a Traytor or Bewrayer of my Brother do what you will or can unto me This constant Resolution as Saint Austine testifies did so turn the edge of his Persecutors malice into admiration and reverence of his integrity that they dismist him with honor Howbeit there had been no wit or praise-worthiness in the practise unless the Practiser had expected some beter Sentence after Death to which he did thus constantly expose himself then the applause of these Heathens which he could not hope for which he did not expect And the heathens in commending and admiring his constancy and integrity did though faintly or unwittingly yet necessarily subscribe unto the truth of his hopes or belief of a Iudgment after death as also unto that Oracle of God delivered by his Apostle that seeing Christ hath laid down his life for us we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren 1 Iohn 3. 16. At least we ought to expose our selves to bodily death rather then suffer them to be put upon the hazard of death eternal As it is likely this Good Bishop feared lest he should hazard this poor Christian soul whose death or Turning the Heathens sought being not so certain of his Resolution as of his own but doubtful whether he would not deny Christ or renounce the Christian Faith rather then suffer such tortures as he now felt or expose himself to such a violent and cruel death as they threatned him with 7. Again The most wise and learned among the heathen Philosophers did place Felicity or true happiness in the constant practise of Virtue as in Temperance Justice Wisdom c. The Stoicks were so wedded to this Opinion that they held virtue to be a sufficient recompence to it self at what rate soever it was purchased or maintained though with the loss of life and limbs with the most exquisite and lingring tortures that our senses are capable of They esteemed Regulus more happy even in the middest of his torments then his persecutors were or could be in the height of their mirth and prosperity or in the perfect fruition of their health or best contentments of their senses or understandings Yea so far they went that they judged Regulus to perpetual happiness albeit he had been perpetually or everlastingly so tormented as for a time he was But This 〈…〉 as was formerly intimated then any good Christian is bound to believe 〈…〉 we are bound to believe the contrary For so St. Paul who was more virtuously constant then Regulus was in his profession more then virtuously Religiously constant in all the wayes of Godliness tels us 1 Cor. 15. 19. That if in this life only we had hope that is were quite without hopes of a better life then this present is we Christians such good Christians as he himself was were of all men the most miserable The Heathen then the Stoicks especially did well and wisely in acknowledging Felicity to consist in Virtue in acknowleding Virtue to be a full recompence to it self in respect of any temporary evil or punishment that could be opposed unto it They wisely resolved in holding them more happy which did suffer torments for a good Cause then they which made it a part of their pleasure or happiness
felicity or in his application of those good Lessons which Nature did suggest unto him he found himself tyed by bond of Conscience to observe the Law of Nature The Original of his positive error was an ignorance or blindness common to him and most Heathen in some degree or other in not being able to discern the corruption of nature from Nature her self or to distinguish between the suggestions or intimations of Nature as it sometimes was and universally might have continued and the particular suggestions or longings of Nature as it was corrupted or tainted in himself or others more or less in all It was a Principle of his Doctrine as Seneca tells us That Nature which he profest to follow as his guide did abhor all vice or wickedness It seems he held those courses or habits of life onely vicious which we Christians account unnatural or prodigious vices as Tyranny Cruelty or excessive Luxury And such vices as these the most Heathens whom corruption of Nature did lead blindfold into many grievous sins and cast such a mist before their eyes as made unlawful pleasures appear unto them as parts of true happiness did by the light of Nature detest as contrary to the unapprehended Remnants or Reliques of Gods Image yet inherent in them though mingled with Corruption or much defaced with the Image of Satan But from what Grounds of Nature or Experiments did this Author or first Founder of the Sect of Epicures collect that Nature did detest all wickedness Thus he did reason and collect Quia sceleratis etiam inter tuta timor est Because he saw such as had polluted their Consciences with wicked and prodigious practises to live in fear even whilest they seemed to have safety her self for their guard against all external Occurrences whose probable assaults or annoyances humane Policy could possibly forecast And none more subject to this slavish fear which their Consciences did inwardly suggest then such as for their greatness and confidence in Tyranny and Cruelty were most terrible to others What was it then which these men did so much fear No other men nor any revenge that man could attempt upon them What then The company of themselves or solitary conference with their own Consciences Yet no mans conscience can make his heart afraid unless the conscience it self be first affrighted What is it then which the consciences of supream earthly Judges or Monarchs absolute by right of Conquest can so much fear in the height of their temporal security The Censure doubtless or check of some superior Judge If this fear had been vain or but a speculative Phansie it could not have been uinversal or general in all or most wicked men specially in such as were by nature terrible and stout and wary withal to prevent all probabilities of danger from men Yet was this check of Conscience or this unknown Doom or Censure which Conscience whilest it checkt the hearts of wicked men did so much fear so universal and constant that Epicurus a man of no scrupulous Conscience did observe it to be implanted by nature in all and upon this observation did ground his former general Principle That nature her self did abhor or detest wickedness The suggestion then or intimation of a future Judgement was natural but the apprehension or construction which Epicurus made of these suggestions was but such as ordinary men make of representations in natural Dreams before they be throughly awaked or before they consult the Philosopher or Physician The Christian Truth which nature in these Heathens being in respect of any supernatural use or end of her own suggestions altogether dumb did seek by these signs or intimations to express was that Lesson which the Author of nature great Physician of our souls hath expresly taught us Fear not them which after they have killed the body can do no more but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into Hell fire yea I say unto you fear him Matth. 10. 28. Luke 12. 4. 14. As the wicked amongst the Heathens could not by any earthly Guard or greatness exempt themselves from that Dread or Fear which their corrupt Consciences did internally suggest So that confident Boldness which the integrity of conscience doth naturally suggest unto every man in his laudable actions was sometimes represented by the more civil and sober sort of Heathens after a manner more magnificent and in a measure more ample then it usually is by most Christians Their expressions or conceipts of such confidence as integrity of conscience doth arm men withal did as far exceed our ordinary apprehensions of it as the representations of natural Causes working within us which are made unto us in sleep or dreams do our waking apprehensions of the like workings or suggestions of nature Si Fractus illabatur orbis saith Horace a profest Disciple of Epicurus Carm. Lib. 3. Ode 3. impavidum ferient ruinae Albeit the Heavens should rend assunder above his head and this inferior world break in pieces about his ears yet a man of an intire and sound conscience would stand unmoved unaffrighted like a pillar of brass or marble when the roof which it supporteth were blown away or fallen from it This Hyperbolical expression of that Confidence which integrity of Conscience in some measure always affords was in this Heathen if he had been put upon the tryal but as the representation of a mans bodily estate made in a Dream whose true cause is unknown unto the Dreamer As in men that dream so in this Heathen Poet the apprehension of that which Nature did truly and really suggest is most full and lively but full and lively in both without Judgement without true use or right application That Confidence then is the companion of a good Conscience is a truth implanted by Nature and freely acknowledged by the oppugners of Divine Providence But from what original or fountain this truth should issue or to what comfortable Use it might serve were points which Nature could not distinctly teach or points at least which the meer natural man without help of Scriptures or instructions from those Heavenly Physicians of the soul whom God hath appointed Interpreters of this Book of life could not learn But we Christians know and believe that when the Heavens shall be gathered as a Scroul when the Elements shall melt with heat and when the earth shall be removed out of his place that even in the midst of these terrible spectacles such as have their Consciences purified by Faith shall lift up their heads for joy as knowing these and the like to be undoubted Prognosticks or fore-running signs of their Redemption drawing nigh unto them A Crisis rather a kinde of First-fruits of this Holy Confidence was most remarkably attested to have been in the Primitive Christians So Antoninus the Emperor as in our 1. Book chap. 24. out of Eusebius his 4. Book of Hist Eccles chap. 13. we did
that this conversion is rightly called Transubstantiation So that in fine the unitie whereof the children of that Church do so much brag is not an unity of faith or belief but an unity of faction or conspiracy for their own gain such as may be between the Jews the Turks the Heathens and the Arian hereticks which denied the Divinity of Christ to rob or spoil the Orthodoxal or true Catholick Christians 13. Most men have often read All almost have often heard of a Twofold Resurrection The one from death in sin unto newness of life The other from bodily death unto glory and immortality The second Resurrection is the End of our whole life here on earth the first Resurrection from death in sin to newness of life is the mean most necessary for attaining this joyful and happy End Now as the second Resurrection from bodily death unto glory is the End of the first Resurrection from sin to newness of life So is the first Resurrection the End of the blessed Sacrament or solemn commemoration of Christs death till he come to Judgment And although the Omnipotent Power of God by which all things were created of nothing be the most prime and powerful Cause of the second Resurrection yet of our Resurrection unto that Glory and Immortality whereof Christ is now possest Christ as man is not only the Idaeal or Exemplarie but the immediate Efficient or working Cause also Howbeit the power of his Efficiency or working as man be derived from the Omnipotent Power of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily But unto the real participation of this All-powerful Influence from Christs humanity by which the dead shall be quickned by which these mortal bodies shall be cloathed with glory and immortality the bodily or local presence of Christ is not required by the Romish Church It doth not hold it necessary that all or any body which shall be quickened or raised to Glorie shall first swallow Christs Body or be touched by it Of Angelical ministerie or service for gathering the dispersed reliques of mens bodies which have been dissolved by death some use there shall be in the last day as some Romanists with divers Antients think but no use at all of any Mass-Priest to make Christs Body to be locally present unto all that shall be quickened by it There shall be no need then of Transubstantiating Sacramental bread into Christs Body or wine into his bloud for giving life unto those that have been long dead or for effecting that change which shall be wrought in the living Now if by the meer virtual presence of Christs Body and Blood the men which have been long dead shall be restored to perfect life immortalitie shall not the souls of all which receive him in the Sacrament by Faith and true repentance be raised to Newness of life by the same virtual presence without any local touch of His Body but only by that sweet Influence which daily issueth from this Sun of righteousness now placed at the Right hand of God as in its proper Sphere This manner of Christs presence of his real presence in the Sacrament to wit by powerful Influence from his Humanitie our Church did never deny nor doth God the Father or Christ the Son deny this Real Influence of life unto any that hunger and thirst after it in the Sacrament CHAP. XIV 1 COR. 15. 36 c. But some will say How are the dead raised up and With what body do they come Thou Fool That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die c. That this Argument drawn from Seed sown is a Concludent Proof of the Resurrection of The Bodie THe Questions are Two First How the dead shall be raised The second With what bodies shall they come forth The former imports thus much How is it possible that the Dead shall be raised Or it being admitted that it is possible for the dead in some sort or manner to arise to life the next branch of the same Question is in what particular manner they shall de Facto arise as whether by Gods Creative Power by which he made all things of nothing or by his Conservative Power by which he preserveth all things that are in their proper Being or advanceth them to an higher estate or better Tenure of Being The second Question or Quaerie is With what kind of bodies shall the dead arise Whether with the self same bodies wherein they died Or if not every way the same what alteration or change shall be wrought in them Unto Both these Questions our Apostle vouchsafeth but this one Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Fool that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die But this Answer may seem in the first place to break the Rule of Christian Charity For many of these Corinthians though in this point of the Resurrection erroneous and ignorant were yet Christian though weak brethren and the Law is general he that shall say unto his brother THOU FOOL shall be guilty of Hell fire Matth. 5. 22. The Rule indeed is General if this or the like opprobrious speech be hatched out of malice leavened wrath or invetered hatred But this sentence they do not incur out of whose mouthes these or the like speeches issue by way of just reproof or instruction as from a Master to his Scholers or from a Lord to his Servants in points wherein they err and are to be corrected or instructed by him In these cases or upon these occasions their censure passeth rather upon the folly then upon the persons of them whom they so chastise correct or seek to instruct And it is not altogether impertinent which some have noted upon that place That our Apostles censure doth not aim at any particular or determinate person but it is indefinitely directed to all those which seriously make the former questions either concerning the Possibilitie of mens arising from the dead or the particular Manner how this Resurrection should be wrought or with what bodies they should come forth But many such as will confess his reason or Argument to be free from breach of Christian Charitie or good manners will question the Logical strength or pertinence of it The strength or efficacy of it is questionable upon These points As first How the dayly experiment of seed-corn which first dies and is quickned again can inferr the Fundamental conclusion by our Apostle intended to wit the Resurrection of mens bodies which have been dead and rotten for many hundred years and their Reliques dispersed into so many several Elements or places that if the seed-corn which men sow were but dispersed into half so many places the husband-man should in vain expect an increase or his seed again Secondly admitting this yearly experiment of the seed dying and reviving were of force sufficient to inforce our belief of the former conclusion that the bodies of men dead may be raised to life again yet the
manner or ground of his inference would be impertinent if not contradictory to the principal conclusion intended by him which we are bound explicitly to believe For it is not enough to believe that the bodies of men which are committed to the grave shall not utterly perish but be quickned again as the corn which is covered with the ground but we are bound further to believe That every man shall arise with his own body with the same very body wherein he lived that he may receive his doom according to that which he hath done in the body whether it be good or bad This conclusion is not included in the Apostles inference or Experiment drawn from the corn which groweth out of the putrified seed for he expressly affirmes in the ver 37. that the body which springeth out of the ground is not the same seed that is sown 2. In Answer to the former difficultie some good Commentators there be which grant that our Apostles instance in the seed which first dies and is afterwards quickned is not a Concludent proof or forcible Reason but rather a similitude or Exemplification and it is the property or character of similitudes or examples illustrant non docent they may illustrate the truth taught they do not teach or confirm it Tertullian with other of the Fathers have diverse illustrations or exmeplifications of the Resurrection in the course of nature out of all which it would be hard to extract a full Concludent proof Lux quotidie interfect a resplendet The light dayly vanisheth and recovers brightnesse again darknesse goes and comes by an interparallel course to the removall of light Sidera defuncta reviviscunt The stars dayly set or fall and rise again The seeds of vegetables do not fructifie untill themselves be dissolved and corrupted All things sublunary are preserved by perishing their reformation or renewing supposeth a defacing Many of these and like observations taken out of the book of Nature may serve as Emblemes or devices for emblazoning or setting forth our hopes or belief of the Resurrection But concludent proofs they cannot be unlesse we grant that the Book of nature hath by Gods appointment Types or silent Prophecies of Divine mysteries as well as hath the book of Grace But shall we say or believe that the Apostles inference in this place is only Emblematical or Allegorical or rather a Physical or Metaphysical Concludent Proof Aproof not only against such as acknowledge the truth of the Old Testament or written word of God but a proof so far as it concerns the possibility of a Resurrection contained in the Book of nature His conclusion he supposeth might by observant Readers be extracted out of the Instance or Experiment which he brings For unlesse out of the Instance given in the Corn which first dies and afterwards is quickened the Possibilitie of the Resurrection of such a Resurrection as he taught might concludently be proved they which doubted of or denyed this truth had not incurr'd the censure of folly they had not deserved the Title or name of fools But not to be able to read that which was legible in their own books that is in the works of nature was a childish folly a folly which in men of years and discretion could not proceed but from insufferable incogitancy or negligence If we examine the Apostles inference according to the Rules of true Philosophie which never dissents from true Divinitie his Instances are concludent his Argument is an Argument of proportion a majore ad minus from the greater to the lesse All the difficultie is in framing or setting the Termes of it aright 3. All the exceptions which are taken against his proof are reducible to this one general Head That he argues or makes his inference from the works of nature unto a work supernatural or from the generation of vegetables ordinary in the course of nature unto the Resurrection of our bodies which can be no work of nature no generation but a work as supernatural as Creation But they which thus Object should consider that those works which we term works of Nature as generation of vegetables the increase of the earth the fruit of trees and the like are not in our Apostles Philosophie any way opposite to the works of God or to works miraculous and supernatural This Proposition is in his Divinitie and in true Philosophie most certain Whatsoever nature works God doth work the same and he works the same immediatly though not by himself alone for nature worketh with him though immediatly by him But the former Proposition is not convertible that is we cannot say that God works nothing without the Co-agencie of nature as we say that nature worketh nothing without the co-operation or Power of God Nature worketh nothing cannot possibly work without the power and direction of God God worketh many things since the world was made by him or nature created by him without the association or co-operation of nature or any causes naturall And the works which he worketh by himself alone either without the association or interposition of causes naturall or contrary to the ordinary course of nature are properly called works miraculous or supernaturall and Miraculous they are called not because they alwayes argue a greater or more immediate exercise of Gods Power then is contained in the works of nature but in that they are unusuall and without the compasse of ordinary Observation Sometimes those works which are truly miraculous may less participate of the Almighty Power then the usual works of nature do It was a true miracle that the Sun should stand still in the vale of Aialon but not therefore a Miracle in that it did argue a greater manifestation of Gods Power then is dayly manifested in the course of nature or works of other creatures But a great Miracle only in that it was so rare and unusual The dayly motion of the Sun about the earth if we search into the true and prime causes of it includes a greater measure or more branches of the Almighty Ceators Power then the standing still of the Sun did in the dayes of Joshua or the going back of it did in the dayes of Hezekiah For in our Apostles Divinitie Act. 17. 28. We live and move and have our being in God that is all things that are have their being in him and from him their being is but a participation of his infinite being The life of all things living is but a participation or shadow of his Life The Motion of all things that move is but the participation of his Power so that when the Sun did cease to move or stand still in the dayes of Joshua it was partaker only of his Power sustentative or of that power by which he supporteth all things It ceased to move only by meer substraction or cessation of his motive Power by whose vertue or influence it dayly like a Gyant-runs his course Thus dayly to run
its course it could not without a positive force or power communicated unto it from The Creator in whom as the Apostle speakes it moves But it ceased for a while to move without any positive force or power to inhibit or restrain its course But as we said by meer substraction of that power by which it moves So long as it continues its course it both moves and hath its Being in God and it is partaker of two branches of His Almighty Power But when it stood still it onely had its Being in him The influence of the other branch of Power was intercepted Now the Argument drawn from those works which we call The works of nature unto works miraculous or supernatural would in this case hold a majore He that dayly makes the Sun to compasse the world is able to stay its course when he pleaseth 4. A miracle likewise it was and a great one too that The three Children should be untouched in the midst of the flaming furnace yet neither was there a greater nor more immediate positive effect of Gods Power in the restraint of that fire then then was in the sustaining other Fire which at other times devoured the bodies of his Saints The Holy Martyrs who loved not their lives unto the death but gave them up for the Testimonie of the Lord Jesus For Without the co-operation or concurse of Gods Power the fire could not have touched their bodies Wherein then did the Miracle Recorded in Daniel and experienced in the three children properly consist Not so much if at all in fencing their bodies from the violence of the flame by imposition or infusion of any new created qualitie into their bodies as in substracting or withdrawing his ordinary Co-operation from the fire whose natural propertie is to consume or devour bodies combustible such as the bodies of the three Children by nature were The only cause why the fire did not burn them was the substraction or withdrawing of Gods Co-operative Power without whose strength or assistance the hottest furnace that Art or experience can devise cannot exercise the most natural operation of fire For as the substance of the fire cannot subsist or have any place in the Fabrick of this universe unless it be supported by Gods Power sustentative So neither whilst it subsists or hath actual being amongst Gods creatures can it work or move without the assistance of Gods co-operative or all-working Power In Him both these Powers are one both as he is are infinite But as communicated unto his creatures they are not altogether one but two participated branches of his infinite Power And in the burning of the Martyrs or in other destructions made by fire both branches as well of his sustentative as of his co-operative power are manifested Whereas in the preserving of the three Children from the violence of the flaming furnace the one branch only to wit His Power sustentative was communicated to the fire the other branch to wit the participation of his co-operative or working Power was for the time being lop't off from the body or substance of the fire Now this withdrawing of his co-operative Power from the fire was a true document or proof that he is the God and guide of nature That without him the fire even whilst it is for nature and substance most compleat cannot perform the proper work or exercise of its nature The necessary consequence of which Proof or experiment is this That he is the Author or fountain as well of all the works or exercises of natural causes as of natural bodies or substances themselves And if we consider his Power not in it self but as communicated to his Creatures or natural Agents it is and ought to be acknowledged greater in those works which we call works of nature and of which we have dayly experience then it was in either of these two Miracles before mentioned Both of them were for this Reason only Miraculous in that they were most unusual and without the circuit of any experiment or observation in the course of nature before the times wherein they hapned 5. To raise Mens Bodies out of the Grave or out of the Elements into which they have been dissolved is far more unusual then to raise up Corn out of putrified seed and in this respect the Resurrection which we hope for must be acknowledged a work more Miraculous and wonderful then the yearly springing of Corn of fruits of herbs or grass But may we say in this Case as in the former that the Power of God is no less but rather greater in these ordinary works of nature as in causing herbs fruit or corn to sprout or fructifie with advantage of increase then it shall be in the Resurrection of the dead which is a work not of Nature but miraculous and supernatural a work in which natural Causes shall not be entertained nor imployed by God No there shall be a manifestation of greater Power then either of Gods Sustentative Power by which all things that were created are still preserved or of His Co-operative Power without whose participation nothing which is so preserved can work at all or perform the exercises of its proper nature The Power indeed by which He Preserveth all things is the self same Power by which He Made all things out of nothing The Preservation of things that are is but a continuation or proroguing of the first Creation As all things are made of Nothing so would they instantly return into Nothing were they not continually supported and preserved by the self same Power by which they begun to Be when they were not Creation and preservation differ onely in sensu connotativo only in relation not in substance Creation includes a Negation of Being before For all things that are took their beginning by Creation Conservation supposeth a beginning of things that are and includes a Negation of their returning into nothing These Two Negations being abstracted or sequestred the Creation of all things and their Conservation are as truly and properly the same Power or work of one and the same party as the way from Athens to Thebes and from Thebes to Athens is the same But if the Continuation of things that are be a Creation or if the self same Almighty Power be still manifested in the preservation of things temporal that was manifested in the first Creation what greater power can be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily manifested and ought to be acknowledged in the preservation and daily increase of herbs of fruits of corn sown and springing out of the earth Or if any greater power shall be manifested in the Resurrection from the dead then is daily experienced in these works of nature how shall we justifie our Apostles Argument in this place to be an Argument of proportion or an Argument as we said before from the greater to the lesse or an Argument à pari from The like Case or Instance The Argument
it is fitting that we refer the particular manner how our bodies shall be intirely restored unto God himself We will not dispute whether the Resurrection of every man in his own body shall be wrought de facto by recollecting of the dust into which men are turned or of the same material parts which every man had when he died or whether it shall be wrought by Creation of some new matter or only by preparing some other Elementary matter prae-existent and working it into the same individual temper or constitution into which our bodily food or nutriment was wrought whilst we lived It sufficeth to have shewed that every man may arise with his own body by any of the former wayes or partly by one partly by another Lastly the Recollection of the same material fragments or reliques into which our bodies are dissolved is no more necessary by the Principles of nature or true Philosophie unto the constitution of the same bodies at the day of the Resurrection which before have been then the recollection or regresse of the same matter or nutriment whereof our blood or flesh was made or by which our life was preserved in childhood is unto the continuance or constitution of the same life flesh or blood in old age The life of every man in old age is the same the body the same the flesh the same the blood the same which it was it childhood albeit the blood or greatest part of our bodies in childhood was made of one kind of nutriment and the blood which we have in mature or old age be made of another much different nutriment Yea albeit we alter our food or diet every year yet our bodies remain still the same every finger the same whilst it continues in the body and whilst this bodily life continues For albeit the nutriment be of divers kinds yet nature or the digestive facultie works all into one temper and this temper continues the same in divers portions of the matter which is continually fluent and the same only by Equivalencie Now if nature by Gods appointment and co-operation can work divers kinds of food or nutriment into the same form or constitution it will be no improbable supposall to say that The God of nature can work any part of the Element of water of ayre or of earth any fragment or relique of Adams body into the same individual form or mould wherein the bodily life of the man that shall be last dead before Christs coming to Judgement did consist Yet will it be no hard thing for God to make Adam the self same body wherein he died out of the reliques of this mans body To work this mutual exchange between the material parts of several mens bodies without any hinderance or impeachment to the numerical Identity of any mans body or without any prejudice to this truth That every man shall arise with his own body which we Christians believe is impossible to nature or to any natural causes they can be no Agents in this work yet it is no wayes impossible for it implyeth no contradiction for nature thus to be wrought and fashioned by the Creator and preserver of mankind In avouching thus much we say no more then some I take it meer Philosophers have delivered in other Termes Quicquid potest prima causa per secundam idem potest per se sola Whatsoever the first cause doth by the instrumental Agencie or service of second causes the same he may do by his sole Power without the service of any instrumental or second cause Now God by the heart by the Liver and by the digestive facultie as by causes instrumental or secondary doth change the substance of herbs of fruits of fish of roots into the very substance of mans body without dissolving the unitie of his bodily life and therefore if it please him may change the material parts of one man into another mans body or substance without the help or instrumental service of the nutritive or digestive faculty or any other instrumental cause All this he may do immediatly by His sole Power But whether it be His Will so to do or no at the last day be it ever reserved with all reverence and submission to his infinite wisdom alone 9. One scruple more there is wherewith ingenuous minds and well affected may be sometimes touched The doubt may be framed Thus. Although it be most true and evident from the Book of nature that the natural or digestive faculty of man doth preserve the unitie of bodily life entire by diversitie of mater or nutriment yet the living body so preserved is one and the same by continuation of existence or duration His dayes whilst natural life continues are not cut off by death he doth not for a moment cease to be what he was But when we speak of Resurrection from death when we say the dead shall arise with their own bodies here is a manifest interruption of bodily life or of mans duration in bodily life His body ceaseth to be a living body as it was And therefore if he must live again in the body the body to which his soul shall be united at his Resurrection may be called his own body because it shall be inhabited or possessed with his immortal soul but how shall it be The same body which he formerly had seeing the existence or duration of him or of his soul in the body is divided by death and division destroyeth unitie This leaf or paper is one yet if we divide it in the middle it is no more one but two papers The question then comes to this short and perspicuous issue Whether the uninterrupted continuance of duration or existence or unitie of time wherewith the duration of mans life is measured be as necessary to the Unitie or Identity of his bodily Nature or Being as Unitie or Continuation of Quantitie is unto the Unitie of Bodies divisible or quantitative The determination or Judgment is easie The Book of Nature being Judge it is evident That Unitie of Time or continuation of mans life without interruption is but Accidental to the unitie of bodily nature or being It is a circumstance only no such part of the Essence or nature as continuation or unitie of quantitie is of the unitie of bodies divisible for time and quantitie are by nature divisible whereas the nature of man or other things that exist in time is indivisible It is true Division makes a pluralitie in things that are by nature divisible but not in natures indivisible Every thing that is divisible though it be unum actu yet it is plura in potentiâ In that it may be divided it is not purely simply or altogether one but may be made two or more And whilst it remains one it is one by conjunction of parts The entire substance of any natural bodie as it is divisible or subject to dimension cannot be contained under one part of quantitie but part of it is
to be our Redeemer No Act or work of God no not the first work of Creation was of more free Gift or bounty as the Romanists grant or less merited either de Condigno or de Congruo by any work of ours then the work of our Redemption So that the word Merit how often soever it be used by the Antient Latine Fathers carries no weight to sway us to any conceipt of True Worth in our Works for the purchasing of eternal life 3 But what if the Holy Ghost speak thus in Formal or Equivalent Terms as that Eternal life is the wages or stipend of our Works or that our Works are worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven or of the life to come Shall we not subscribe unto him Yes we will if the Romish Church can prove unto us that He thus spake or meant Now that he thus speaks or means they endeavor thus to prove First from all those places of Scripture in which Eternal life is said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Merces that is a reward or stipend Now our Saviour himself thus speaketh Matth. 5. 11 12. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your Reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you From this and the like places they labor to infer that the patience of Martyrs is meritorious of Eternal Life To this and the like places the Answer is easie The Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the Latin Merces imply no more in the Language of the Holy Ghost then our English word Reward And hence the fruit or issue of our paines so it be grateful to men though no way deserved is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So our Saviour saith that the very Hypocrites which do all their works to be seen of men if they gain applause have their Reward Yet no man will say that a dissembler or hypocrite doth deserve or merit this Reward but rather punishment And Rewards we know are sometimes given freely out of meer bountie and liberalitie as well as by way of desert or merit Yea it is not properly a Reward unlesse it be a Gratuitie or Largesse That which a man works for upon Covenant or that which he receives by way of hire is not a Reward but a just Pay or Stipend and though it be most true that God renders to every one according to all his wayes yet in proprietie of speech he is said to reward none but those whom he remembers in mercie and bountie For so it is said Heb. 11. 5. He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him not so of such as seek him not for them he punisheth and no branch of punishment is any branch of Reward This then we learn from our Apostle That the first thing to be believed in all ages is this That there is a God The second That this God is a Rewarder of those that seek him This truly infers That His Reward is worth the seeking after whether it be bestowed upon us in this or in the life to come but it doth not infer that our seeking after it is meritorious or worthy of the least of his Rewards And though Eternal Life be the Best and Last Reward of such as seek God yet it is not the Only Reward that he bestowes on them that seek him yea he bestowes Eternal Life or the Life of Glorie upon none upon whom he doth not first bestow the Reward of Grace The Kingdom of Grace is but the Entrance into the Kingdom of Glorie And when we teach new Converts to pray in the first Place for The Kingdom of Grace and to pray for it as the Reward or Gift of God Yea and the Romanists themselves do grant that no man can merit the Kingdom of Grace which is properly the Reward of such as seek God so that all their Arguments which they draw from this Topick that Eternal Life is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Merces and may therefore be merited by us are altogether groundless All of them conclude Aut nihil aut nimium either nothing at all or a great deal too much As That the First Grace may be merited which they themselves deny 4. Their next chief Topick is that Our works or endeavors are said to be worthy of Eternal Life and that in Canonical Scriptures To this purpose Cardinal Bellarmine citeth that of our Saviour Luke 10. 7. Dignus est operarius mercede sua The Laborer is worthy of his hire But I am perswaded that he took this upon trust from some idle or ignorant Scholler whom he had imployed to rake testimonies for his present purpose If his leisure had served him to look upon the Circumstances of the Text with his own eyes he might clearly have seen that our Saviour there speaks not of Eternal Life or of the Reward or Gift of God but of that Hire which is due unto the Preachers of the Gospel from such as are instructed in the Gospel The other Testimonies alledged by him are more Pertinent though not Concludent And they are in number Three The First is Luke 20. 35. But they that shall be accounted Worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage The second is 2 Thess 1. 4. We our selves saith he glory in you in the Churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure which is a manifest token of the righteous Judgment of God that ye may be counted Worthy of the Kingdom of God For which ye also suffer The third is Revel 3 4. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are Worthy This last Testimony affords them A new Topick or Frame of Arguments which they draw from this and the like places wherein The works or righteousness of the Saints are assigned as True Causes Why they enter into the Kingdom of heaven So our Saviour saith in the Final Sentence Math. 25. 34. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world FOR I was an hungry and ye gave me meat I was thirstie and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me This is as much saith Bellarmine as if he had said Ye are Therefore blessed of my Father ye shall Therefore enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Because ye have done these and the like good Works out of your Love and Charitie towards me Now if these works be The Cause Why they enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven and if those of Sardis were to walk with him in white robes Because they were Worthie The Controversie may seem Concluded That Good Works are meritorious of heavenly Ioyes or of Eternal Life 5. To the latter Objections or frame of Arguments drawn from these and the like places For I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Calvin makes Answer That these and the like particles Quia Etenim For or Because do not alwayes import or denote The true Cause of things but sometimes only the Order or connexion betwixt them But However this may be True it is not so Punctuall but that Bellarmine and others take their advantage from it as having the Authoritie of the Grammer Rule against it For the particles used in all the places alleged by them are Conjunctions not Copulative or Connexive but Causal And it may seem harsh to say That some conjunction causal doth not import a causalitie It is true Yet sometimes they import no cause at all of the thing it self but onely of our knowledge of it Oft-times again they import no Efficacious causalitie of the thing it self but only Causam sine qua non that is some necessary means or condition without which the Prime and Principal cause doth not produce its Effect To give you examples or Instances of both these observations If there should come into This or the like Corporation A stranger who knowes not any Magistrate by sight he would say surely this is the chief Magistrate Because all others give place unto him because the Ensignes of Authoritie are carried before him Here the word Because must necessarily denote A true cause but not the cause why he is the chief Magistrate for that is only his true and just Election What cause doth it then denote The cause of his knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate Thus when we come to the knowledge of the cause by the Effect The effect is the cause of our knowledge of the cause As others giving place unto him or the carrying of the Ensignes of Authority before him is not the cause why this or that man is the chief Magistrate for the time being but rather his being the chief Magistrate is the cause why all others give him place and why the Ensignes of Authoritie are born before him Yet these and the like Effects are the true cause or reason of a strangers knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate And by this Rule we are to interpret that saying of our Saviour many sins are forgiven her for she loved much In which speech it may not be denied but that the Particle For imports A true cause yet no cause of the thing it self to wit of her love For this were utterly to reverse or thwart our Saviours meaning which was no other then this That the forgivenesse of her sins was the cause of her love so was not her Love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins which by our adversaries confession being of Free Grace and of the First Grace which was bestowed upon her could not be merited or deserved Howbeit the manner of expressing of her loue by washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hairs was The true cause of every understanding or Observant mans knowledge that many sins were forgiven her and unlesse she had an apprehension of her manifold sins thus freely forgiven her she could not have loved him so much or made such expression of her Love 6. Sometimes again this Particle For or the like causal speech imports only a subordinate or instrumental cause or A necessary means or condition required without which the Positive the Principal and only efficacious cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended Effect To put the case home in this present business Suppose a great and potent Prince out of his own meer motion and free grace should proclaim a pardon to an Army of Traytors and Rebels which had in Justice deserved death if a man should ask What is the cause or reason why the Law doth not proceed against them no other cause could be assigned besides the gracious favour of the Prince But if one should further ask Why the pardon being freely promised to all the principal malefactors it may be are pardoned or restored to their blood or advanced to dignities whereas others which were included in the same pardon are exiled or put to death The speech would be proper and in its kinde Truly causal if we should say the one part submitted themselves and craved allowance of their pardon whereas the other stood out and rejected it For it is to be presumed that no Prince being able to quell his rebellious adversaries will suffer any to enjoy the benefit of a General Pardon how freely soever it be granted unlesse they submit themselves unto it and crave the benefit of it with such humility as becomes malefactors or men obnoxious Much lesse will he restore any to blood or advance them to dignities whom he knowes or suspects still to continue ill affected or disloyal in heart So then the not-submission or continuance in rebellion is The true and Positive Cause why the one sort enjoy no benefit of the General Pardon but are more severely dealt withall for rejecting the princes Grace then they should have been dealt withall if no Pardon had been granted The humble submission of the other and their penitence for their former misdeeds is Causa sine qua non that is a necessarie means or Condition without which the Prince how gracious soever would not suffer them to enjoy the benefit of their Pardon would not restore them to their blood would not advance them to greater dignities This is the very Case of Adam and all his sons All of us were Traytors and Rebels against the Great God and King of Heaven who is better able to quell the whole host of mankinde than any Prince his meanest Rebellious subjects yet it pleased him to pardon us more freely then any earthly Magistrate can do a malefactor If then the reason be demanded Why any of mankinde are saved Why they are restored unto their blood and advanced to greater dignitie then Adam in Paradise enjoyed no other true cause can be assigned of these Effects besides The meer grace and mercy of the Almighty Judge But if it be further demanded Why some of mankinde enjoy the benefit of this Pardon and inherit Eternal Life Why others are sentenced to everlasting death When as the free Pardon with its benefits were seriously and sincerely tendred to all The Answer is Orthodoxal and True Because some in true humilitie accepted of the Pardon and craved allowance of it whereas others rejected it and sleighted such Proclamations or significations of it as the God of mercy and compassion had given out not to this or that man only but To all the World So that the Omission of those good works which our Saviour mentions in the
final sentence is the true cause why the wicked are excluded from all benefit of it The performance of the same works as feeding of the hungry visitation of the sick c. is the Instrumental cause or means subordinate to the Principal cause why Christs sheep are suffered or admitted to enjoy the benefit of the same free Pardon but no cause at all why the Pardon was proclaimed or why the Kingdom of Heaven was prepared for them For that was prepared for them from the Foundation of the world before they had any Actual Being before they could merit any thing at the hands of men much lesse at the hand of God either de Congruo or de Condigno For all merit supposeth some precedent work and every work or operation presupposeth Actual Being 7. But how freely soever the General pardon be issued out or the Kingdom of Heaven be either promised or really bestowed and it is as freely bestowd or given as it is promised the free gift or bestowing of it is so far from excluding all Qualifications in the parties on whom it is freely bestowed that it necessarily requires a sincere performance of those good duties which are specified in the Final sentence Come ye blessed of my Father for I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Now if to suffer stub born malefactors to enjoy the benefit of a gracious Pardon cannot stand with the Majestie of an earthly Prince much lesse can it stand with the infinite Majestie of the Eternal Judge to permit impenitent sinners to enjoy the benefit and the full redemption purchased by Christ or to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven Both because no unclean thing can enter there and because as the Redemption is a Redemption from the service of sin to the service of righteousness so the Pardon is only a Pardon to such as repent and forsake the Sin Pardoned This answer to their later Topick or Frame of Arguments for our Admission into Eternal Life drawn from the Causal Form of speech will bring forth a punctual Answer to the other General Head or Root of Arguments taken from those places of Scripture wherein is said that We are accounted worthy of Eternal Life For in all the places alledged by them This Phrase or form of speech To be worthy includes no more then then to be so qualified as we shall not be accounted Unworthy of Gods mercy or free Pardon through Jesus Christ All that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven must be such as Deus dignabitur that is such as God shall vouchsafe or deign to accept in mercy or not accompt altogether Unworthy of his Free Pardon purchased by the merits of Christ or of the benefits of it which are alwayes actually bestowed not only For Christs merits but in Christ and through Christ that is as freely bestowed without any merits of ours as they were first promised The Greek writers especially their Ecclesiastick writers who most accurately follow the true sense and Character of the New Testament which was first written in Greek accurately distinguish betwixt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this purpose there is an Ecclesiastick Canon in the Greek Church which commends the ingenuity of such as shall acknowledge themselves be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as we say not worthy of the dignities whereto they are preferred But if any man should say he were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Unworthy of such preferment the Canon takes it as a presumption that he is not to be admitted unto it or as a part of Conviction that he deserves to be deprived of it Now to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the language of the Holy Ghost is somewhat more then to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to be in no wise worthy of the preferment which he seekes for or enjoyes This is the phrase which Paul and Barnabas use unto the stubborn Jews Acts 13. 46. But seeing you put the word of God from you and Judge your selves to be Unworthy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of eternal life Lo we turn unto the Gentiles These Jews then to whom they spake were unworthy that is altogether Uncapable of Eternal Life whereof the Gentiles were in this sense thus far Worthy that they were not altogether Uncapable of that free mercy and Pardon which was first tendred to the Jews And this exclusion of the Jews and admission of the Gentiles unto everlasting life or unto the means or pledges of it was but the accomplishment of our Saviours Parable Matth. 22. ver 8. Then saith He to his servants the wedding is ready but they which were bidden were not Worthy And it is worth your nothing that in Two of Cardinal Bellarmines forecited Allegations the One Luke 20. ver 25. The Other 2 Thess 1. 4. is said not such as are Worthy but such as shall be or are accompted Worthy of everlasting life that is such as shall be so accompted or accepted not for their own sake or for their merits but so accompted and accepted for and through the merits of Christ or for his imputed righteousness for to say That Christs righteousness is imputed to us is all one as to say his righteousnesse shall go upon our accompt or that we shall not be uncapable of his Merits For the word to Impute is as much in strict propriety of speech as to be admitted upon an accompt Thus much of the Objections made by the Romish Church and of the Answers unto them which was the First General proposed 8. The Second was The Confirmation of the Doctrine joyntly maintained by all reformed Churches which for the present we shall confirm from One place of Scripture only besides the Words of the Text Rom. 6. 23. and that is Rom. 8 18. I reckon saith the Apostle or I give it up as upon an account that the sufferings of this present time are Not Worthy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us If any Works of men Regenerate were Meritorious or Worthy of Eternal Life These by our adversaries confession should be the sufferings of Holy Martyrs specially of such Glorious Martyrs as St. Paul was Yet These he saith are not Worthy to be compared unto or are of no Worth in respect of the glory that shall be revealed in us But if the precious names of those in Sardis that is the Saints there were to walk with God Because they were Worthy how shall the sufferings of St Paul or of St. Peter be held Unworthy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in no wise Worthy or most unworthy of the glory which was to be revealed in them For this includes as much if not somewhat more then to walk with Christ The Answer is ready The Sufferings of the Saints were not Unworthy in respect of Gods Free Grace or Mercie not Unworthy of enjoying the benefit of his
cruel for out of this compassionate affection towards dumb creatures they will be ready to kill a Christian man if he chance to wrong or harm them It is a good thing then to be zealous of good works but unless this zeal be uniform that is unless it proportionably if not equally respect good works of every kind partial or deformed zeal will bring forth compleat Hypocrisie 10. But it is an easie matter to tell men that their zeal must be uniform and unpartial the point wherein satisfaction will be desired is this How this uniformity of zeal in good works must be wrought and planted in men This men must learn from that fundamental Rule of our Saviour Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you so do to them for this the Law and the Prophets All of Us desire or wish that not this or that man only but that every man should deal justly friendly and kindly with us should think or speak well of us whilst we do or intend well should Judge charitably of us when they know nothing to the contrary and censure us charitably if we chance to do amisse The Rule of practise then in brief is this that we make payment by the same measure by which we borrow that is do good as occasions or abilities serve to every man as he is a man or our fellow creature though in more abundant measure unto such as are our Christian brethren and of the same Church and Religion To be charitable in word indeed in thought towards all even towards such as deserve punishment or censure Another branch of the same Rule is this If any have really shewed themselves kind unto us to do unto them as they have done If any have dealt rigidly or unkindly with us not to do as they have done but as we desired they should have done unto us for our desires to be well dealt withall are just but so were not their dealings with us And why should we make other mens unjust dealing with us rather then our own just desires of being friendly dealt withall the Rule of our future actions or dealings with the same men For God will judge us by the former Rule the Tenour whereof is this not to do as we have been done unto specially if we have been unjustly dealt withall but to do to every man as we desire they should have done unto us The same Rule may be yet further extended thus we must do to every man not only as we desire that every man should do to us but as we desire that God should do to us or for us So when we pray that God would forgive us our trespasses we must be ready to forgive them that have trespassed against us If we desire that God would relieve us in distress comfort us in sorrow or succour us in need we must be ready to relieve our neighbors in their distress to succour and comfort them as we are able in time of need not thus in some good measure qualified we do not pray in faith our prayers are not truly religious For as St. James tels us Chap. 1. verse the last Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherlesse and widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted of the world CHAP. XXX MATTH 25. 34 c. 41. c. Then shall the King say unto them on his Right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world FOR I was an hungred and you gave me meat c. Then shall he say also to them on the left hand Depart from me ye cursed FOR I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirstie and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger sick and in prison c. Two General Heads of the Discourse 1. A Sentence 2. The Execution thereof Controversies about the Sentence Three Conclusions in order to the Decision of those Controversies 1. The Sentence of Life is awarded Secundum Opera not excluding Faith 2. Good works are necessary to Salvation necessitate praecepti Medij And to Iustification too as some say quoad praesentiam non quoad efficientiam The Third Handled in the next Chapter Good works though necessarie are not Causes of but the Way to the Kingdom Damnation awarded for Omissions St. Augustines saying Bona Opera sequuntur Justificatum c. expounded St. James 2. 10. He that keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one Point c. expounded Why Christ in the final Doom instances only in works of Charitie not of pietie and sanctitie An Exhortation to do good to the poor and miserable and the rather because some of those Duties may be done by the meanest of men 1. THis portion of Scripture is divided by our Saviour himself into These two Generals the first A Sentence which for the matter is Two-fold Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you verse 34. c. And again ver 41. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But many Sentences are given which are not put in Execution Yet this being the Final Sentence that shall be given upon all men and upon all their works there is no question but it shall be put in Execution If reason grounded upon Scripture be not sufficient to inforce our belief as well concerning the Execution of the Sentence as the Equitie thereof we have an Expresse Testimonie of the Judge himself for the certaintie of this Execution ver 46. And these to wit the Goats which were placed on his left hand that is all workers of iniquitie or fruitless hearers of the word of life shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal The Sentence it self hath by the perversness of mans will or by the curiositie of some wits been made the matter of many controversies especially in latter times Of which we shall deliver our Opinion as it shall fall out in the prosecution of the Positive Truth which we are bound to believe The Positive Truthes which I would commend unto the Readers meditation are Three The First That Life everlasting shall be awarded Secundum opera or that all men shall receive their final doom according to their works The second which will necessarily follow upon this That good Works are necessarie to salvation or to the inheritance of this Kingdom here promised The third That good works are necessarie to our admission into this kingdom Non tanqnam Causa regnandi sed quia Via ad regnum not as meritorious Causes for which this kingdom is by right due to us or to any but as the necessarie Way or path by which all such as seek to enter into this Kingdom must passe To begin with the First Point That the Final reward or retribution shall be Secundum opera according to mens works
hearing the word Life The life of man is short And The Text of the Law wherein the precepts are contained is long The Commentaries of the Prophets and sacred Histories necessarie for the Exposition thereof are voluminous and large The true sence or meaning of either in some points not easie to be found out unless we be well instructed how to seek it so as what the Jesuite saith absolutely but falsly of all Scripture is Comparatively true of This advice of Solomons It is a plain and easie way a light of mans life after it be once well learned but it is hard to Learn without a good Guide to directs us Wherefore behold a greater then Solomon Christ Jesus himself directs us in One and that a very short Line unto that Point whereunto the large discourses both of The Law and the Prophets do as it were by the Circumference Lead us Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye unto them for this is the Law and the Prophets that is The Summe of the Law and the Prophets is contained in this short Rule 3. Because our Saviour gives it we may believe it that this is the best Epitome that ever was given of any so large a Work Or rather not an Epitome of the Law and the Prophets but the whole Substance or Essence of the Law and the Prophets Herein all their particular Admonitions are contained as Branches in their Root Out of the practise of this Principle or Precept all the Righteousness which the Law and the Prophets do teach will sooner spring and flourish much better then if we should turn over all the Learned Comments that have been written upon them without the practise of this Compendious Rule This Abridgement is a Document of His Art that could draw a Camel through the eye of a Needle that spake as never man spake Sure then if any place of Scripture besides those which contain the very Foundation of Christian Faith as Christs Incarnation Passion or Resurrection be more necessary to be learned then other then is this most necessary and most worthy the Practise Seeing all Doctrines of good Life of honest and upright Conversation are derived hence as particular Conclusions in Arts and Sciences from their Causes and Principles 4. For any Coherence of these words with any precedent or consequent we need not be sollicitous It sufficeth to know They are a principal part of our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount in which He delivered the true meaning of the Fundamental Parts of the Law purging the Text from the corrupt Glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees Every Sentence therein is a Maxim of Life and as it were an intire compleat Body of it self not a limb or member of any other particular Discourse Every full Sentence of it This Main Rule especially may be anatomized by it self without unripping any other adjoyning For which Reason some Learned have thought that St. Matthew was not curious to relate every sentence in that Rank and Order as it came from our Saviours Mouth but set them down as any one would do all the memorable good sentences he could call to mind of a good Discourse read or heard placing that perhaps first which was spoke last or that last which was spoke in the middest Yet if as in Description of Shires men usually annex some parts of the Bordering Countries any desire to have the Particular words or Speeches of our Saviour whereunto this Illative Therefore is to be referred he must look back unto the fifth Chapter of this Gospel verse 42. Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow turn thou not away For so St. Luke who is more observant of our Saviours method in this Sermon then St. Matthew in the sixth Chapter of his Gospel verse 30 31. Couples these two Sentences together which St. Matthew had set so farre asunder And immediately after the words of the Text he inferres by Arguments that Duty of loving our Enemies which he had set down the precept for before verse the 27. though St. Matthew place both Duty and Arguments immediately after the Sentence before cited viz. Give to him that asketh c. So that this Precept Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you c. as is most probable came in between the matter of that 42 and 43 verse of that fifth Chapter And yet it might be repeated again in the latter end of that Sermon by our Saviour At least for some special Use or Reason placed there by St. Matthew because being the Foundation or Principle whence all other Duties of Good Life are derived it seems the Evangelist would intimate thus much unto us That of all our Saviours Sermon which contained the very Quintessence of the Law this was the sum And for this Reason he adds that Testimonie concerning the Excellencie of this Rule which St. Luke omits namely That in it is contained the Law and the Prophets 5. The Method which I purpose by Gods Assistance to observe is This. First To set down the Truth and Equitie of the Rule it self Whatsoever ye would that men c. with the Grounds or Motives to the practise thereof Secondly To shew in what sense or how farre the Observation of it is The Fulfilling of the Law and the Prophets Doctrine with such Exceptions as may be brought against it Thirdly Of the meanes and method of putting this Rule in practise It was A Saying of the Father of Physiicans Natura est Medica let Physicians do what they can Nature must effect the Cure The Physician may either strengthen Nature when it is Feeble or ease it from the oppression of Humors But Nature must work the Cure This is in proportion true for matters of Moralitie or Good Life Natura est optima Magistra All that the best Teachers can perform in natural or moral Knowledge is but to help or cherish those natural Notions or Seeds of Truth and Goodness which are ingrafted in our Souls Art doth not infuse or pour in but rather ripen and draw out that which lay hid before And it is the skill of every instructor to apply himself to every mans nature and to begin with such Truths as every one can easily assent unto as soon as he hears them albeit without help of a Teacher he could not have found them out himself And yet the more easily we assent to any Truth the lesse we perceive how we were moved thereto and the lesse we perceive it the more ready we are to imagin that we did more then half move our selves or that we could have found out that by our selves which we have learned of others Whereas in truth there is nothing more hard then to speak to the purpose and yet so in matters of Morality and Good Life as every man of ordinary capacitie shall think upon the hearing of it that he could have invented or said the like Ut sibi
lives or consecrate our selves to his honor and service to offer our selves in sacrifice to him when he requires not only in remembrance of what he hath done for us which we would not for ten thousand lives but he had done but in respect of Future Hopes which it were better we had never been then they should not be accomplished We look he should in the last day acquit us from the accusations of Satan the great Accuser and in the mean time give Testimonie of us as his faithful servants to his Father The dutie which we owe to Him is in this life to be witnesses of the truth he taught to testifie unto the world that he hath appeared by our lives and conversations answerable to His by our readiness to suffer povertie exile disagrace or ignominious death for defence of His Lawes to fear him whether in life or death 12. To every thing we can desire of God there is A semblable Dutie to be performed by us without whose performance we cannot pray to Him in Faith To pray in Faith is to be so surely perswaded of Gods Benignitie as to be ready to render up all that he requires of us to abstain from those things which we know to be offensive to him especially from such as have any particular repugnance to that we seek If we expect God should provide for us as for his children we must honor and reverence Him as an Almighty and everlasting Father If we desire he should protect us we must fear him as our Greatest Lord. A son honoureth his Father and a servant his master If I then be a Father where is my Honor and if I be a master where is my fear saith the Lord of Hosts unto you Mal. 1. 6. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil offer it now unto thy Prince will he be content with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hostes and now I pray you pray before God that he may have mercy upon us This hath been by your means will he regard your persons saith the Lord of Hosts No! they did not pray in Faith For so to pray presupposeth a fidelitie in the discharge of duties appointed for their calling God for his part never changeth I am the Lord I change not Mal. 3. 6. As if he had said This is my nature and essence to be immutable And therefore Ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed For so they had been unless his mercies had continued the same But to do them that good they desired or to deal as graciously with them as he had done with their fathers he could not if with Reverence I may so speak because of their infidelitie or unbelief for which cause the Evangelist saith Christ could not work many miracles amongst His Countrymen Matth. 13. 58. From the dayes of your Fathers you are gone away from mine Ordinances and have not kept them Now there must needs have been a Change in God if he had dealt as bountifully with this back-sliding Generation as with their Godly Predecessors that had been sted fast in his Covenant But let them be as their fathers were and He will be to them as he was to their Fathers For he is no accepter of persons but rewardeth every one according to his works Wherefore he saith Return unto me and I will return unto you ver 7. But they were so far from returning that they would scarce acknowledge their sin For they said wherein shall we return They should have done unto their God accordingly as they desired he should do to them They desired the Lord should blesse them as Moses had spoken In the City and in the field in the fruit of their bodies and in the fruit of their grounds in the fruit of their cattel and in the increase of their kine and in the flocks of their sheep Deut. 28. 4. But God at this time had done to them in some fort as they had done to him They had robbed him in tithes and offrings ver 8. Therefore were they oursed with a curse ver 9. Notwithstanding if they would deal better with him he assures them he will deal better with them Bring ye all the Tithes into the Storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me herewith saith the Lord of Hostes if I will not open the windows of Heaven unto you and pour you out a Blessing without measure And I will rebuke the Devourer for your sakes and he shall not devour the fruit of your ground neither shall the Vine be barren in the field saith the Lord of Hosts And all Nations shall call you blessed saith the Lord of Hosts As he that had wrong'd his brother was the forwarder to repine against Moses so the words of such in this people as had most robbed and spoiled God were most stout against him They said It was in vain to serve God And what profit is it that we have kept his Commandments And that we have walked humbly before the Lord of Hosts Therefore they accounted the proud blessed even they that work wickednesse are set up and they that tempt God yea they are delivered It is not likely that they would thus speak with their mouthes for so they should have had no occasion to demand as they did V. 13. What have we spoken against thee But that they thought in their hearts That God did not respect them according to their deserts or that his Bounty had not been so great to them as to their Fathers If they said not they thought with Gideon Ah my Lord if the Lord be with us why then is all this come upon us and where be his miracles which our Fathers have told us and said did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of the Medianites He thought this Change was in God not in himself or in his Countrymen As most men at this day think that God is not as ready to hear our prayers as he was to hear the Israelites or the Fathers in the primitive Church When as the reason why he hears them not is because we are not so ready to do His will If we perform any obedience to his Laws it is for the most part such as those murmurers did we offer unto him either the vile or the lame or else but half that which is due and yet perswade our selves we deal bountifully with him too In Fine we do so much as serves to ground a Pharisaical conceit of our selves not so much or not so sincerely as may induce Our God who knows our hearts to think well of us We do not so to him as we desire he should do to us for we desire that he should bless us above the ordinary means of humane forecast or procurement but we adventure not any practice injoyned by him
outwardly and for fashion sake unless it be to persons of their own Rank whose evils and calamities they can apprehend as their own Secondly which is the worst of evils that can be imagined whilst they perform some Branches of the Affirmative Precept that is whilst they seek to pleasure others in their eagre desires of preferment or such things wherein they would be pleasured again they bring a necessity upon themselves of transgressing the Negative part of this Precept that is Of doing that to others which they would not have done unto themselves if they were in their Case I am perswaded That the miseries which fall upon the inferior sorts of men by the mutual desires of great men to do one to another as they would be done unto that is by pleasuring one another in their suites of honour preferment or inlarging their estates are more then all that God doth otherwise lay upon them in this life Many thousands whom God never cursed are by these meanes forced to seek their bread in stony places And is it possible that any man can perswade himself that if he were in such poor mens Cases he should be well pleased with their dealings who seek to enlarge their superfluities by the certain diminishing of other mens necessaries for life And yet who is he almost that thinks he doth not observe this Precept well enough if he be willing to do another man as good a Turn as he expects from him although he know not to whose harm it may redound If no determinate person for the present feel the smart they think Conscience hath no cause to cry As if God Almighty did not see as well what evil will hereafter insue as what is present and did not punish immoderate desires which necessarily bring on with them publick Calamities as well as outragious but private Facts 7. With this Fallacie A Dicto secundum quid ad Simpliciter we usually deceive our selves in the performance of this Dutie We think it sufficient to do as we have been done unto or if we do to some one or few as we expect from them or as we could desire to be done unto if their Case were ours Whereas we should examin it not from our affection to This or That man but by our Indifferencie of receiving and Returning good towards All. Oft-times to do one man good may be conjoyned with some others harm whom we have more reason to respect And here we may quickly mistake in the proposal of their Exigence as our own If you fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture which saith Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self ye do well saith St. James Chap. 2. 4. But if ye regard persons ye commit sin and are rebuked of the Law as Transgressors The Apostles Discourse in that place inferres as much as I have said And his meaning is that which our Saviour had taught in the Parable of the Samaritan That every man as man is our neighbor and therefore this Dutie of loving others as our selves and doing as we would be done unto was to be performed to all alike without respect of persons For that which we are to respect is the Exigence of their estate So much is Formally and Essentially included in the Dutie it self Not that we may not be more ready to do good to one man then to another for this we may do without respect of Persons Do good to all but especially to such as are of the Houshold of Faith The Object of this Dutie is man as man in his lawful desires Our love then or readiness of doing good must be increased according to the just exigencies of their desires where These are equal our desire of doing good may be augmented according to particular respects of nearness c. as To a Christian before a Turk to an English man before another For if we must love others as our selves we must be most ready to respect that in others which we in a Regular Way desire should be most respected in our selves Now next to eternal happiness life and the necessities thereof we most respect And if we stand in danger of losing the one or suffer want of the other we desire that those main Chances as we say may be secured before we begin to hunt after pleasures or superfluities If then we must Do to all men as we would be done unto without respect of persons that is excluding none we must first releive the necessities of such as want and tender the life of such as are in sickness or danger and then if occasion require we may require or deserve kindnesses in matters of innocuous pleasure as in feasting sporting furthering mens advancements or the like Otherwise to respect the pleasuring of a Dear Friend in these before the Releif of an Enemies necessities is preposterous and a breach of the Law Because it is to have respect of persons 8. The Rule is General in all Christian duties Our affections must be directed to the Adaequate Object as we term it and set not more upon one part then another but upon every essential part alike Or if any increase of affection or liking be to be made it should alwayes proceed from the increase of some Exigence essentialy included in the right Motive or Ground of our affection or from some Actual Intention of that Qualitie or Propertie in some part of the Object which is the Modus Considerandi or which is the allurement or Term of our desires or affections Otherwise setting our affections more upon one part than upon another for some Extrinsecal or Accidental Reasons not included as we say in modo Considerandi in the Formal Reason or property of the Object the observing of our duty in that part doth usually inforce a Defalcation or breach of it in some other just as uneven and irregular zeal to one or some few Commandments doth alwayes produce a dispensing with or neglect of the rest Ense Thyestaeo poenas exegit Orestes Orestes in seeking to Revenge his Fathers unnatural violent Death did no otherwise then he himself would have given the Son of his Body in charge if he had lyen upon his Death-bed But yet he ought this honour to his cruel and adulterous Mother to have let her die at least by some others Hands not to have imbrued his own in her blood not to have taken life from that body from which he received life The Poets Censure of his Fact is accute Mixtum cum pietate nefas dubitandaque Caedis Gloria maternae laudem cum crimine pensat A righteous man saith Solomon is merciful to his beast but the mercies of the wicked are cruel Pity upon dumb beasts is commanded in the Law especially to such as do man service And he that is merciful unto them upon a true respect in as much as they are partakers with us of Life and sense and communicate with us in our more general nature will be
entertained with battel invade the borders of any Nation In such a Case t is held a point of politick husbandry to waste the Country round about them least it might maintain their Armies But heretofore I have had and elsewhere shall have occasion to decypher all the symptoms of a dying State either set down by the Word of God or observed by the expert Anatomists of former dead bodies politick 14. My message unto you my Brethren the Sons of Levi is briefly this Add not Gods anger to our Countries Curse which at this day whether just or no is bitter and rife against us as if we were all or most of us like the companions of Jesus the son of Josedech persons Prodigious but in a worse sense then they were Persons that had procured her much and did yet portend her greater sorrow partly by our Dastardly silence in good causes but especially by our prophesying for Rewards and humoring the great Dispensers of those dignities on which our unsatiable desires are now unseasonably set It was a saying amongst the Ancient Romans Qui Beneficium accipit libertatem vendit It is thus far improved in true modern English He that will purchase preferments Ecclesiastick especially must adventure to lay his soul to pawn What remedie Only this to make a virtue of necessitie For so must every one do that means to live as a Christian ought Let us not look so much upon the sinister intentions of corrupt minds as upon the purpose of our God even in mens most wicked projects And who knowes whether The Lord by acquainting us with mens bad dealings in dispensing Ecclesiastical honour do not lay the same restraint upon us his children which he did upon Baruch Without all question he absolutely forbids us to seek afer great matters in this age in that he hath cut off all hopes of attaining them by means lawfull and honest And all this he doth for our good that using Baruchs freedom or Jeremies Resolution in our ambassage we may be partakers of their Priviledge in the Great day of visitation wherein such as in the mean time crush and keep us under by their greatness will be ready to give their wealth for our poverty and change their honor for our disgrace upon condition they might but enjoy life with such libertie and contentments as we do Or in Case they shorten our dayes by vexation or oppression yet faithfully discharging our duties whether we live or die we are the Lords And though they out live us an hundred years yet shall they be willing to give a thousand yea ten thousand lives if so many they had so they might be but like us for one hour in the day of death We need not search forain Chronicles nor look far back into ancient Annales The registers of our own memories and our fathers relations may afford examples of some sons of Levi men if we rightly value their admirable worth of place and fortunes mean in respect of our selves which after their death hastned perhaps by hard usage have fild both this and forrain Lands with their good name as with a perfume sweet and precious in the nostrils of God and man whilst those great lights of state so they seemed whilst parasitical breath did blaze their fame which had condemned them to privacie and obscuritie were suddenly put out but with an everlasting Stinch God grant their successors better successe that a precious well deserved fame may long survive them For our selves Beloved as we all consort in earnest desires and hearty prayers that the Lord would renew his Covenant made with Levi his Covenant of life and peace so let us joyn hearts in this meditation The only way to derive this blessing from this our father unto us his sons must be by arraying our selves with Phineas our eldest brothers integritie by putting on his zeal and courage to walk with the Lord our God in peace and equitie and to turn many away from iniquitie And now remember them O my God that defile their Priesthood and break the Covenant of the Priesthood and of Levi Smite them through their loyns that make a prey of his possessions and grinde their heads as thou didst Abimelechs with broken milstones from the wals or with the reliques from the ruinated houses yea grinde all their heads O Lord to powder that grinde the faces of his poor and needy children But peace be upon all such as walk according to this Rule here set to Baruch and upon all those that Love God To this God The Father The Son and the holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory now and ever Amen Imprimatur Ric. Baylie Vicecan Oxon. The Publisher To the Readers of these two last Sermons WHo may see That this great Author was not affraid Most aculâ—atly to reprove the sins of his own Time nor is The Advertiser ashamed to set his seal to the justnesse of them by a full and true Publishing his Reproofes Let the Lord be glorified though with our shame and justified when he speaketh Judgement And to Gods glory be it spoken This word hath prospered in the thing where unto God sent it in some of the Gentrie and Clergie Yet can it not be denied but there is still too great store of matter of Reproof in the same kinde Many whose estates are sore diminished have minds still set upon Great Things what ever they have lost they find pleasure Had The Author lived to this day I am perswaded he would have gone on with The Holy Bishops complaints Perdidere tot calamitatum utilitates Pacem et divitias priorum Temporum non habent Omnia aut ablata aut imminuta sunt sola tantum vitia creverunt nihil de Prosperitate pristina reliquum nisi peccata quae prosperitatem non esse fecerunt c. These are wracks indeed To Misse the Good which may be got by suffering evil is the worst of evils To lose that gain which should be gotten by losses is of losses the greatest But to grow worse with suffering evil is perdition it self Now if any one of Prosperous condition when he reads this shall triumph and bless himself in his heart saying We have not sinned in devouring these men I beg his Pardon and beseech him to read on if he saw our faults in the last he may perhaps see his own in the next And humbly desire leave to say 1. A man may punish sin and yet inter puniendum Commit a sin greater then that be punisheth 2. In these times and among the persons promising Reformation there hath been Greater seeking after great things and that with greater Inordination too then was in former Times Our Author complained that the Baruchs of his Time sought great things by the Art of Philip of Macedon Would God my Clergy Brethren so I do esteem such and none but such as were begotten to our mother by the R. R. Fathers of the Church had not used
nature in the veins that inclosed it Albeit we may with good probability presume that Zachariah's blood if we consider the manner of his death might continue by Gods permission or appointment farre above the time that any Ordinary Experience can testifie More strange it is which Ecclesiastical Writers report of this Prophets body that being crushed with stones it should be found otherwise intire and uncorrupt in the dayes of Theodosius which was above a thousand years after his death Unless they had greater Occasion then I can conceive to lie I neither dare distrust this Report of theirs nor the other Tradition of the Jews by whose account the stain of His blood remained a greater part of two hundred years in the Temple However we may with good probability conclude that the true Reason why our Saviour mentioned Zachariah's death as one special Cause of Ierusalems last destruction was not because he was the last or one of the last of the Prophets that had been murthered by the Scribes and Pharisees Fore-elders but rather because his murther was the most foul Prodigious Fact that was committed in that Land and did from the very Commission of it portend Destruction to the Temple and the Consequents of it fore-shadowed the miseries which were afterwards to befal the Nation The truth of this Conclusion will better appear from Discussion of the third Point proposed 7. And this was Whether the blood of Zacharias and other Prophets or of our Saviour and others after him were more especially required of this Generation Or Whether this Generation and their posterity were so grievously plagued as we know they were for their own personal offences against the Person of the Son of God or for communicating with their fathers in shedding the blood of the Prophets and of other righteous men The modern Jews peremptorily deny Their long Exile and Calamitie to have been inflicted upon them as a just punishment for putting Christ to death because their Fathers did not in their judgment therein offend Divers Christian Writers as it usually fals out refuting this Error of theirs run into a Contrary ascribing the Greivousness of their memorable plagues unto their personal offences against our Saviour being otherwise free from the sins wherein their fathers grievously trespassed Maldonate the Iesuite is so farre addicted to this Opinion that he thinks our Saviour in my Text spake but according to Vulgar Language As if to a Malefactor which had escaped often but is afterward taken for some notorious murther which cannot be pardoned men would say he should now pay for all his villanies not that they mean he shall suffer several punishments for several offences or more greivous tortures then were due for his last fact alone but that he should have judgement without mercie and be punished as grievously as might be though for it only Thus much then and no more he thinks our Saviour would have signified That the Scribes and Pharisees should suffer such greivous calamities for murthering Him and his Apostles as they might well seem to be plagued for their Fathers cruelties Howbeit they were not at all punished for them but only for their own For saith he although neither they nor their Fathers had killed either Prophet Apostle or Disciple but Christ alone they had deserved greater plagues for killing him then are recorded by Iosephus This last Assertion I confess is no less true then Non-concludent for the Conclusion to be inferred was not what manner of Plagues they did deserve for putting our Saviour to death but whether these punishments were de Facto inflicted for putting him to death or for the murther of Zachariah and other Prophets whom not their fathers only but they had slain for so our Saviour layeth the Charge of Zachariah's blood unto them in particular whom YE slew between the Temple and the Altar 8. A good Auditor must be able not only to give a true Onus or Charge but withal to make right Allocations or Deductions otherwise he shall often over-reckon himself or wrong such as are to deal with him The like skill is required in making such Calculatory Arguments as Maldonate and many other good Christians use in aggravating the offences of this Present Generation of the Jews against Our Saviour Let them lay the Charge of the later Jews trespasses as deep as they list or can we shall be able to make the Deductions or Allocations much-what equal so that Computatis computandis the greatest part or fullest measure of the blood which came now to be required of this Generation must arise as the literal meaning of my Text imports from the righteous blood of Zacharias and other Prophets unjustly shed in former Ages and unrepented of by this present Generation They must lay their Charge from the Infinite Excess of Christs Dignitie in respect of other Prophets for His Person was in Majestie truly Infinite We are to make the Deduction from his Infinite Power and Facility to forgive offences against himself or his Person For questionless he did as farre exceed all the Prophets in Goodness in Mercie and loving kindness as he did in Majestie and Greatness And had Peculiar Power and Authority to forgive sins and remit those plagues which the Prophets had denounced against Jerusalem and her children Nor could the malice of his enemies against him be more available to procure then His prayers and tears for Jerusalems peace were to pacifie his Fathers wrath against it especially for their offences against his Person alone 9. The flagrant Expressions of his special Love unto Ierusalem not yet alienated from the worst sort of this present Generation if we compare them with this Threatning fore-warning in my Text and in the words before it will bear this sense or brook this Paraphrase However I see and know you more maliciously bent against me then Cain was against his brother Abel then your fore-fathers Prince or People were against Zachariah the son of Iehoiada or of Barachiah however you thirst more greedily and more irrelentingly after my blood then the chafed Hart doth after the brooks of water yet when-ever you have glutted your selves with the sight of it pouout upon the ground In-stead of covering it with dust cast not this foul aspersion or slander upon me or it as if either it or I did or shall sollicit vengeance against you for the cruel indignities which ye have done or shall do either to me or to my followers when I am dead The blood of my Apostles will not speak so bad And My blood shall speak much better things for you then the blood of Abel did for his brother Cain then the blood of Zachariah whom your Fathers slew betwixt the Altar and the Temple did for the then King and the Princes or people of Iudah For my Heavenly Father hath not sent me nor will I give any Commission to my Followers or Embassadors to curse but to bless you not to wound and
destroy but rather to save and heal you If your impenitencie and perverseness have moved me to speak severely or threaten you it is still for your good Severum medicum ager intemperans facit Your obdurate hearts have caused me oft-times the mildest Physician that ever took cure of the body or soul upon him to use tart speeches unto you yet shall it never provoke me to be cruel in my practice So farre am I from seeking your blood or harm that my blood which you have continually sought whensoever you shed it shall make an Attonement for you shall procure a Free and Gracious General Pardon for all your sins and for all the sins of your fore-fathers in shedding the Blood of Prophets sent unto them But when I have done all when all is done that could be done unto this Vineyard which my Father planted according to the Rules of Equity of mercy and benignity without wrong or prejudice to eternal Iustice Unless by sincere Repentance as well for your own sins as for the sins of your fore-fathers wherein you have been too deep part-takers with them you submit your selves unto my Fathers will and with all humility crave allowance of that most Free and Gracious Pardon which my blood shall purchase for you and for all the world besides The City of Abel's and of Zachariah's blood will at the last prevail against you the blood of both of them and of all the Prophets whom your fore-fathers have slain will be Required of this Generation in fuller measure then it was of those which slew them and this will be a burden too heavy for you to bear much heavier then the punishment of Cain albeit neither my blood nor the blood of any of mine Apostles or Disciples do come at all upon the Score or Reckoning wherewith Moses in whom ye trust and the Prophets whose Tombs and Sepulchres ye build and garnish will be ready to charge you in the day of your Account or Visitation For if the blood of Christ or of his Apostles had been Required at their hands which shed it me thinks this Emphatical Ingemination Verily I say unto you it shall be required c. should not be so needful and weighty as were all the words uttered by Him who spake as never man spake 10. But may we from any or all these Premisses conclude that This present Generation was not punished at all for putting our Saviour to death Or that his death or the indignities done unto His more then sacred Person at or before his death was no Cause at all of those Exemplary Punishments or unparalleld plagues which fell upon Ierusalem and Iudah upon this whole present generation God forbid The Question is not Whether our Saviours death was any Cause at all of the exemplary punishments but What manner of Cause it was or In what sense they may be said to be plagued for wronging him thus We answer that the indignities done unto Him at his death and at his arraignment were such Causes of the ensuing Woes and calamities which came upon this Generation as Absentia Nautae is naufragii The Case or Species facti is thus Suppose a skilful Navigator and experienced Pilot which had long governed some tall and goodly Ship with good success in many difficult voyages should at the length either by the greediness of the Owner be casheerd or inforced to leave his place and a storm upon his departure should arise and through want of good steerage or sounding should run them on ground or dash them against the rocks we may say without Solecisme that the Abandoning or Absence of the former Master or Pilot was the Cause of the shipwrack or the loss of men or goods although he neither were any Cause of raising the storm nor prayed against them as Zacharias did against his persecutors nor gave them any wrong directions before he left them Now the Son of God from the time of his peoples thraldom in Egypt but more especially from the time of their deliverance thence had been in Peculiar manner the King and Governor of the Iews in all their Consultations of Peace or Warre their only Pilot in all their storms And however throughout their several Generations they were often greivously punished yet were they alwayes punished Citra condignum much less then their iniquities had deserved Briefly by His wisdom he preserved them safe in such distresses as without his only skill would utterly have overwhelmed the State and Nation And by his Intercession prevented the Out-bursting or fall of that hideous storm which had been secretly and by degrees more insensible gathering against them then that Cloud which Eliah's servant saw rising out of the Sea even from the death of Zachariah the son of Iehoiada and other Prophets and righteous men whose blood their fore-fathers before and after his had shed But after this last Generation had both by express words and practice verified that saying of God to Samuel They have not cast off thee from being King over them but they have cast off Me. That other prophesie or sweetly mild fore-warning for which they took occasion to stone Zachariah to death in the Courts of the Lords House was exactly fulfilled in upon them This Prophecie or fore-warning we have 2 Chron. 24. verse 20. Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Commandements of the Lord that ye cannot prosper because ye have forsaken the Lord he hath also forsaken you This Prophesie with that other of Samuel was most exactly fulfilled Tam verbis quam factis male ominatis mala ominantibus when they solemnly protested before Pilate that they had no other King but Caesar From this time the hideous storms of Gods wrath and anger against them for their own sins and the sins of their fore-fathers did dayly encrease and at last were poured out in full measure upon them when they had no Prophet nor any man that understood any more no Signs or Tokens but such as were dismal no Pilot or skilful Governor to direct them no pious Priest to make Intercession for them For having thus solemnly abandoned The Son of God their King and Lord who had been their continual Sanctuary the destroying Angels who had long waited their Opportunity to put their Commission in Execution did Arrest their bodies delivering up some to the Famine some to the Sword others to the Fowls of the air and Beasts of the field and did seize upon their Land which God had given to their Fore-fathers for the use of others even for the most wicked of the Heathens first bestowing it upon the Romans afterward upon the Saracens and last of all upon the Barbarous Turk under whose heavy yoke the inheritance and some of the posterity of Iacob have long groaned and still must groan until they confess their own sins and the sins of their fore-fathers and return unto the Allegiance of their Gracious Lord and Sovereign whom their Fore-fathers this
Questions St. Pauls first Answer to both Questions An Objection against the Answer in point of Charitie The Answer to that Objection A second objection in point of sufficiencie The Answer to this objection Exceptions against the Proof The Exceptions answered Works truly miraculous may have a less share of Gods Power then usual works of nature See this Authors Sermons printed at Oxon. Anno 1637. pag. 39 40. The 2 d Difficultie urged Aquinas his Solution true but impertinent The Authors Solution of the former Difficultie The Corinthian Naturalists second Question The answer to this Question See Book 10. Fol. 3113. The general use of this Doctrine ☜ ☜ Christians should chuse such friends as have share in the First and hopes of the second Resurrection The Atheist's Exception The Naturalist his Demand See Book 10. Fol. 3113. The Naturalist's Objections framed into a Bodie See Chap. 13. §. 11. It is the very nature of the Matter not to be unum idem The Answer to the Naturalist his Objections * See the Epistle of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons to the Brethren of Asia and Phrygia in Euseb Hist 5. book 1. chap. ad finem There is much good moralitie to be learned from the contemplating the mixtures and separation of metals The Atheists wilie but not wise Objection against the possibilitie of a Resurrection by Recollection of Reliques The same Objection re-inforced The Atheists Objection answered It hath Two Loops First Loop The Second Loop of the Atheists Objection An Ocular Demonstration that the Atheists principles or supposals be False ☜ The scruple incident into an ingenuous minde Vide Glossam Hugonem in hunc Locum How S. Pauls inferences may be collected A Philosophical Maxim advanced and much improved ☞ ☜ See Chap. 4. §. 12. Christs death said to take away sin in a Twofold Sense The First The second Sense The Benefits punctually arising from Christs Death and from His Resurrection Had Christ only died and not risen again Though we had not come in Hell yet we had never come out of the Grave Two sorts of First fruits appointed by the Law ☞ See Paragraph the 7th How we may try our selves See Book 10. Chapt. 28. 30. The Model or Scope of the whole Chapter Of death to sin A natural and a civil death Death to sin is vowed by us in Baptism Meanes also of dying to sin received in baptisme Of baptismall Grace Difference betwixt the Elect and the Elect people of God ☞ In Baptism there is a mutual Astipulation or promise between God and man Ceremonies used at Baptism and the meaning thereof The Regiment of the Law of Grace Prospers Observation ☜ Of shame what it is and whence arising See Aristotle Rhet. l. 2. cap. 6 Ethic. Nic. lib. 4. cap. 15. Satan's Stales false honor and false shame Shame and Modesty ☞ ☜ Our service is due to God upon several Titles ☞ The service of sin and Righteousness compared in regard of this present Life See Chapter the tenth The emptiness and vanitie of sinful pleasures ☞ Gods Method and Satans practise ☞ Holiness bitter in the root or beginning but sweet in the Fruit. See A. Gellius lib. 16. cap. 1. ☞ Our fruitlesness in Holiness to be imputed only to our own ill use of the Talent of Grace given us Plin Epist lib. 10. Ep. 97. Three Heads of preparation to the holy Sacrament Of Bodily Death or the First Death ☜ Desire of death or self Homicide ☜ Of the second Death wherein it exceeds the First ☞ A double Reason of the vehemency of pain or torment in the second death ☞ The duration or Eternity of the second death and pains of it See M Mede on Pro. 21. 16 of the valley of Rephaim Poena damni Sensus Terms subordinate ☜ See Chap. 4 § 15 And Attrib 1 part p 219. 2 part p 27. See Chapt 4 § 12. Possibilitie repentance Worm of conscience Coel Rodigin lib. 8. cap. 2. lib. 25. cap. 1 The unsatisfaction of our desires in the Contentments of this present life See Book 10. Chap. 17. The hearts desire is True Happiness The Full satisfaction of all senses and Faculties in the Life to come Hippocrates See Book 10. Chap. 9 Accidental joyes The Beauteous Place The Holy Companie First in regard of the Place or Seat of the blessed ☜ In regard of the Company there The Eight Beatitudes Matth. 5. The first Beatitude Poor in Spirit ☜ Second Beatitude for Mourners The third Beatitude to the meek spirited ones See chapt 11. §. 7. The fourth Beatitude to Those that hunger and thirst after righteousness 5. Beatitude to the merciful See Master Medes notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon Psal 112. 6. 6. Beatitude to the Pure in heart 7. Beatitude to the Peace-makers Patience and resolution in suffering for righteousness Eternal life the strongest motive and obligation to all duty ☜ See Chapt. 10. Section 7. 1 Cor. 10. See Book 10. Chap. 21. The motives Satan uses to to withdraw us ☞ ☜ The Philosophical Precept Sustine et abstine imperfectly good Belief of this Article will work obedience Of reconciliation Active or Grammatically passive only reconciliation really passive See Book 10. Fol. 3267 and 3278. ☞ Infidels of two sorts Cardanus◠Two Roots of Errors ☞ Unbelief of this Article cause of unchristian careless life ☜ The Story of Biblis ☞ See the Chapt. 20. Motives from meditation of eternal death according to general or more particular tasts of it Parisiensis his storie ☜ ☞ A seasonable lesson collected out of Job 21. Isai 14. Ecclus. 19. Rev. 18. 5 6 7. Meditations of the second death to be fitted to several parts of the body of sin for the mortifying of it ☞ Aristotle ☞ See Chap. 10. § 9 10. ☜ Avoid here the presumptuous perswasion of certain salvation and the conceit of Absolute reprobation See Book 10. Chap. 37. 51. ☞ Purge our Braines of The Erroneous Opinion of the Irrespective Decree Meditations or a Tast of Eternal death here fits us better for a tast of eternal life hereafter The force which the Tast of experienced pleasures hath upon mens souls See Book 10. fol. 3181. The Tast or true rellish of eternal joys how gained The use of affliction to that purpose That Tast is the peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost to which the working of righteousness is necessary The work of righteousness universal obedience The use of affliction or chastisement to that purpose ☞ ☜ How the Peace of God passeth all understanding This was written thirtie years ago or more The Tumult and discord of Passions in a natural man See Book 10. Fol. 3056. See Hor. Serm. Lib. 2. Sat. 7. See Pers Sat. 5. Of joy in the Holy Ghost No man can truly enjoy himself until he be reconciled to God The Difference betwixt Joy and gladness True knowledge of God in Christ necessary to this joy A joy in the knowledge of any sort