disarm them he wil infatuate them he wil make them a prey to their enemies take away all true and all imaginary rest too Briefly it is the mark of all men even naturall men Rest for though Tertullian condemn that to call Quietis Magisterium Sapientiam The act of being and living at quiet wisdome therein seeming to exclude all wisdome that conduces not to rest as though there were no wisdome in action and in businesse Though in the person of Epicurus he condemn that and that saying Nemo alii nascitur moriturus sibi It is no reason that any Man should think himselfe born for others since he cannot live to himselfe or to labour for others since himselfe cannot enjoy rest yet Tertullian leaving the Epicures that placed felicity in a stupid and unsociable retiring sayes in his own person and in his own opinion almost as much Vnicum mihi negotium nec aliud curo quam ne curem All that I care for is that I might care for nothing and so even Tertullian in his Christian Philosophy places happinesse in rest Now he speaks not onely of the things of this world they must necessarily be car'd for in their proportion we must not decline the businesses of this life and the offices of society out of an aëry and imaginary affection of rest our principall rest is in the testimony of our Conscience and in doing that which we were sent to doe And to have a Rest and peace in a Conscience of having done that religiously and acceptably to God is our true Rest and this was the rest which the Jewes were to lose in this place the testimony of their consciences that they had perform'd their part their Conditions so that they might rely upon Gods promises of a perpetuall rest in the Land of Canaan and that rest they could not have not that peacefull testimony of their Consciences They could not have that rest no Rest not there not in Canaan which was the highest degree of the misery because they were confident in their term their state in that Land that it should be perpetuall and they were confident in the goodnesse of the Land that it should evermore give them all conveniencies in abundance conducing to all kind of rest for this Land God himself cals by the name of rest and of his rest I sware they should not enter into my rest So that rest was proper to this Land and this Land was proper to them For as St. Augustine notes well though God recover'd this Land for them and reestablish'd miraculously their possession yet they came but in their Remitter and in postliminio the inheritance of that Land was theirs before for Sem the son of Neah was in possession of this Land and the sons of Cham the Canaanites expel'd his race out of it and Abraham of the race of Sem was restor'd unto it again So that as the goodnesse of the Land promis'd rest so the goodnesse of the title promis'd them the Land and yet they might have no rest there They had a better title then that Those often oathes which God had sworne unto them that that land should be theirs forever was their evidence If then that land were Requies Domini the rest of the Lord that is the best and the safest Rest and that land were their land why should they not have that rest here when the Lord had sworne they should Why because he swore the contrary after but will God sweare contrary things why sâ—lus securus jurat qui falliâ—non potest says Saint Augustine onely he can sweare a thing safely that sees all circumstances and foresees all occurrances onely God can sweare safely because nothing can be hid from him God therefore that knew upon what conditions he had taken the first oath and knew againe how contemptuously those conditions were broken he takes knowledge that he had sworne he denies not that but he sweares againe and in his anger I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest Those Men says he which have seen my glory and my Miracles and have tempted me tenne times and not obeyed my voyce certainly they shall not see the land whereof I sware unto their fathers neither shall any that provoke me see it He pleads not Non est factum but he pleads conditions performed he denies not that he swore but he justifies himselfe that he had done as much as he promised for his promise was conditionall The Apostle seemes to assigne but one reason of their exclusion from this Land and from this rest and yet he expresses that one Reason so as that it hath two branches He sayes we see that they could not enter because of unbeleef and yet he asks the question To whom sware he that they should not enter into his Rest but unto them that obeyed not Vnbeleef is assigned for the cause and yet they were shut out for disobedience now if the Apostle make it all one whether want of faith or want of works exclude us from the Land of Rest let not us be too curious enquirers whether faith or works bring us thither for neither faith nor works bring us thither as a full cause but if we consider mediate causes so they may be both causes faith instrumentall works declaratory faith may be as evidence works as the scale of it but the cause is onely the free election of God Nor ever shall we come thither if we leave out either we shall meet as many Men in heaven that have lived without faith as without works This then was the case God had sworne to them an inheritance permanently there but upon condition of their obedience If they had not had a privity in the condition if they had not had a possibility to perform the condition their exclusion might haveseemed unjust and it had been so for though God might justly have forborne the promise yet he could not justly breake the promise if they had kept the conditions therefore he expressed the condition without any disguise at first If thy heart turne away â—â—prâ—nounce unto you this day that you shall surely perishâ— you shall not prolong your dayes in the land And then when those conditions were made and made knowne and made easie and accepted when they so rebelliously broke all conditions his first oath lay not in his way to stop him from the second As I live saith the Lord I will surely bring mine oath that they have broken and my covenant that they have despised upon their head shall they breake my covenant and he delivered says God there God confesses the oath and the covenant to be his covenant and his oath but the breach of the oath and covenant was theirs and not his He expresses his promise to them and his departing from them together in another Propher God says to the Propher Buy thee a girdle bury it in the ground
Conscientiâ scrupulosâ when the conscience hath received any single scruple or suspicion to the contrary and so too in conscientiâ opinante in a conscience that hath conceived but an opinion which is far from a debated and deliberate determination yea in conscientiâ errante though the conscience be in an error yet it is sin to do aright against the conscience but then as it is a sin to do against the conscience labouring under any of these infirmities so is it a greater sin not to labour to recover the conscience and devest it of those scruples by their advise whom God hath indued with knowledg and power for that purpose For as it is in civill Iudicature God refers causes to them and according to their reports Gods ordinary way is to decree the cause to loose where they loose to binde where they binde Their imperfections or their corruptions God knowes how to punish in them but thou shalt have the recompense of thy humility and thy obedience to his ordinance in hearkning to them whom he hath set over thee for the rectifying of thy conscience Neither is this to erect a parochiall popacy to make every minister a Pope in his own parish or to re-enthrall you to a necessity of communicating all your sinnes or all your doubtfull actions to him God forbid God of his goodnesse hath delivered us from that bondage and butchery of the conscience which our Fathers suffered from Rome and Anathema and Anathema Maran-atha cursed be he till the Lord comes and cursed when the Lord comes that should go about to bring us in a relapse in an eddy in a whirlepoole into that disconsolate estate or into any of the pestilent errors of that Church But since you think it no diminution to you to consult with a Physician for the state of your body or with a Lawyer for your Lands since you are not borne nor grown good Physicians and good Lawyers why should you think your selves born or grown so good Divines that you need no counsell in doubtfull cases from other men And therefore as for the Law that governs us that is the Scripture we go the way that Christ did to receive the testimony of man both for the body that Scriptures there are and for the limbs of that body that these books make up those Scriptures and for the soule of this body that this is the sense of the holy Ghost in that place so for our Iudge which is the conscience let that be directed before hand by their advise whom God hath set over us and setled and quieted in us by their testimony who are the witnesses of our conversation And so we have done with our Problematicall part we have asked and answered both these questions Why this light requires any testimony and that is because exhalations and damps and vapours arise first from our ignorance then from our incredulity after from our negligence in practising and lastly from our slipperinesse in relapsing and therefore we need more and more attestations and remembrances of this light and the other question Why after so many other testimonies from himself from his Father from the Angell from the Star from the Magi from Simeon from Anna from many many very many more he required this testimony of Iohn and that is because all those other witnesses had testified long before and because God in all matters belonging to Religion here or to salvation hereafter refers us to man but to man sent and ordained by God for our direction that we may do well and to the testimony of good men that we have done well And so we passe to our dogmaticall part what his testimony was what Iohn Baptist and his successors in preaching and preparing the ways of Christ are sent to do he was sent to beare witnesse of that light Princes which send Ambassadors use to give them a Commission containing the generall scope of the businesse committed to them and then Instructions for the fittest way to bring that businesse to effect And upon due contemplation of both these his Commission and his Instructions arises the use of the Ambassadors judgement and discretion in making his Commission and his Instructions which do not always agree in all points but are often various and perplext serve most advantagiously towards the ends of his negotiation Iohn Baptist had both therefore they minister three considerations unto us first his Commission what that was and then his Instructions what they were and lastly the execution how he proceeded therein His Commission was drawn up and written in Esa◠and recorded and entred into Gods Rolls by the Evangelists It was To prepare the way of the Lord to make streight his paths that therefore every valley should be exalted every mountaine made law and all this he was to cry out to make them inexcusable who contemne the outward Ministery and relie upon private inspirations This Commission lasts during Gods pleasure and Gods pleasure is that it should last to the end of the world Therefore are we also joyned in Commission with Iohn and we cry out still to you to all those purposes First that you prepare the way of the Lord. But when we bid you do so we do not meane that this preparing or pre-disposing of your selves is in your selves that you can prevent Gods preventing grace or mellow or supple or fit your selves for the entrance of that grace by any naturall faculty in your selves When we speak of a co-operation a joint working with the grace of God or of a post-operation an after working upon the virtue of a former grace this co-operation this post-operation must be mollified with a good concurrent cause with that grace So there is a good sense of co-operation and post-operation but praeoperation that we should work before God work upon us can admit no good interpretation I could as soon beleeve that I had a being before God was as that I had a will to good before God moved it But then God having made his way into you by his preventing grace prepare that way not your way but his way sayes our Commission that is that way that he hath made in you prepare that by forbearing and avoiding to cast new hinderances in that way In sadnesse and dejections of spirit seek not your comfort in drinke in musique in comedies in conversation for this is but a preparing a way of your owne To prepare the Lords way is to look and consider what way the Lord hath taken in the like cases in the like distresses with other servants of his and to prepare that way in thy self and to assure thy selfe that God hath but practised upon others that he might be perfect when he comes to thee and that he intends to thee in these thy tribulations all that he hath promised to all all that he hath already performed to any one Prepare his way apply that way in which he hath gone
fruitfull Land but then he who is the Spirit of the Lord he who is the breath of our nostrills Incubat aquis as it is said there in the Creation he moves upon the waters by his royall and warlike Navy at Sea in which he hath expressed a speciall and particular care And by the breath and influence of his providence throughout the Land he preserves he applies he makes usefull those blessings unto us If this breath that is this power be at any time sourd in the passage and contract an il savor by the pipes that convay it so as that his good intentions are ill executed by inferiour Ministers this must not be imputed to him That breath that comes from the East the bed and the garden of spices when it is breathed out there is a persume but by passing over the beds of Serpents and puâ—refied Lakes it may be a breath of poyson in the West Princes purpose some things for ease to the people and as such they are sometimes presented to them and if they prove grievances they tooke their putrefaction in the way that is their corruption from corrupt executors of good and wholesome intentions The thing was good in the roote and the ill cannot be removed in an instant But then we carry not this word Ruach Spirit so high though since God hath said that Kings are Gods the Attribute of the Holy Ghost and his Office which is to apply to man the goodnesse of God belongs to Kings also for God gives but they apply all blessings to us But here we take the word literally as it is in the Text Ruach spirit is the Breath that we breathe the Life that we live The King is that Breath that Life and therefore that belongs to him First our Breath that is serme our speech belongs to him Be faithfull unto him and speake good of his Name is commanded by David of God To Gods Anointed we are not faithfull if we doe not speake good of his Name First there is an internall speech in the heart and God lookes to that the foole hath said in his heart there is no God though he say it but in his heart yet he is a foole for as wise as a Politician would thinke him for saying it in his heart and comming no further yet even that is an overt act with God for God seeth the heart It is the foole that saith in his heart there is no God and it is the foole that saith in his heart I would there were no King That enormous that infamous Tragedy of the Levites Concubins and her murder of which it is said there There was no such thing seen nor done before and many things are done which are never seen with that emphaticall addition Consider of it advise and say your minde hath this addition too In those dayes there was no King in Israel If there had beene any King but a Zedekiah it could not have been so Curse not the King not in thy thoughts for they are sinnes that tread upon the heels of one another and that induce one another to conceive ill of Gods Lievtenant and of God himselfe for so the Prophet joyneth them They shall fret themselves and curse their King and their God He that beginneth with the one will proceed to the other Thus then he is our Breath our Breath is his our speech must be contained not expressed in his dishonour not in misinterpretations of his Actions jealousies have often made women ill incredulitie suspiciousnesse jealousie in the Subject hath wrought ill effects upon Princes otherwise not ill We must not speake ill but our duty is not accomplished in that abstinence we must speake well And in those things which will not admit a good interpretation we must be apt to remove the perversenesse and obliquity of the act from him who is the first mover to those who are inferiour instruments In these divers opinions which are ventilated in the Schoole how God concurreth to the working of second and subordinate causes that opinion is I think the most antient that denies that God workes in the second cause but hath onely communicated to it a power of working and rest himselfe This is not true God does work in every Organ and in every particular action but yet though he doe work in all yet hee is no cause of the obliquity of the perversenesse of any action Now earthly Princes are not equall to God They doe not so much as work in particular actions of instruments many times they communicate power to others and rest wholly themselves and then the power is from them but the perversenesse of the action is not God does work in ill actions and yet is not guilty but Princes doe not so much as worke therein and so may bee excusable at least for any cooperation in the evill of the action though not for countenancing and authorising an evill instrument but that is another case They are our breath then Our breath is theirs in good interpretations of their actions and it is theirs especially in our prayers to Almighty God for them The Apostle exhorts us to pray for whom first for all men in generall but in the first particular that hee descends to for Kings And both Theodoret and Theophylact make that the onely reason why the Apostle did not name Kings first Vt non videatur adulari lest hee should seeme to flatter Kings Whether mankinde it selfe or Kings by whom mankinde is happy here be to be preferred in prayer you see both Theodoret and Theophylact make it a probleme And those prayers there enjoyned were for Infidel Kings and for persecuting Kings for even such Kings were the breath of their nostrils their breath their speech their prayers were due to them But then beloved a man may convey a Satir into a Prayer a man may make a prayer a Libell If the intention of the prayer be not so much to incline God to give those graces to the King as to tell the world that the King wants those graces it is a Libell We say sometimes in scorn to a man God help you and God send you wit and therein though it have the sound of a prayer wee call him foole So wee have seen of late some in obscure Conventicles institute certain prayers That God would keep the King and the Prince in the true Religion The prayer is always good always usefull but when that prayer is accompanied with circumstances as though the King and the Prince were declining from that Religion then even the prayer it selfe is libellous and seditious Saint Paul in that former place apparels a Subjects prayer well when hee sayes Let prayers bee given with thanks Let our prayers bee for continuance of the blessings which wee have and let our acknowledgement of present blessings bee an inducement for future pray and praise together pray thankfully pray not suspiciously for beloved in the bowels of Christ
bed that he in the name of the dead man might answer to all the questions usually asked in administring of Baptisme But this was a corrupt effect of pure and sincere doctrine which doctrine is That Baptisme is so necessary as that God hath placed no other ordinary scale nor conveyance of his graces in his Church to them that have not received that then buptisme And they who doe not provide duly for the Baptisme of their children if their children die have a heavier accompt to make to God for that child then if they had not provided a Nurse and suffered the child to starve God can preserve the child without Milke and he can save the child without a sacrament but as that mother that throwes out and forsakes her child in the field or wood is guilty before God of the Temporall murder of that child though the child die not so are those parents of a spirituall murder if their children by their fault die unbaptized though God preserve that child out of his abundant and miraculous mercy from spirituall destruction When the custome of the Christian Church was to baptize but twice in the year at Easter and Whiâ—sontide for the greater solemnity of that action yea when that ill custome was grown as it was even in the Primitive Church that upon an opinion that all sins were absolutely forgiven in Baptisme Men did defer their Baptisme till their death-bed as we see the Ecclesiasticall histories full of such examples even in some of the Christian Emperors and according to this ill custome we see Tertullian chides away young children for comming so soon to Baptisme quid festinat innocens aetas ad remâ—ssionem peccatorum why should this child that as yet hath done no sinne make such hast to be washed from sinnce which opinion had got so much strength that Saint Basil was faine to oppose it in the Easterne Church and both the Gregories Nazianzen and Nissen and Saint Ambrose in the Western yet in the height of both their customes of seldome baptizing and of late baptizing the case of insants that might be in danger of dying without baptisme was ever excepted So that none of those old customes though some of them were extreamly ill went ever so farre as to an opinion that it were all one whether the child were baptized or no. I speake not this as though the state of children that died without baptisme were desperate God forbid for who shall shorten the Arme of the Lord God is able to raine downe Manna and Quailes into the soules of these children though negligent parents turne them out into the wildernesse and put God to that extraordinary work They may have Manna and Quailes but they have not the Milke and Hony of the Land of promise They may have salvation from God but they have not those graces so sealed and so testified to them as God hath promised they should be in his Sacraments When God in spirituall offences makes Inquisition of bloud he proceeds not as Man proceeds for we till there appear a Man to be dead never inquire who killed him but in the spirituall Murder of an unbaptized child though there be no child spiritually dead though Gods mercy have preserved the child from that yet God imputes this as such a murder to them who endangered the child as farre as they could by neglecting his ordinance of baptisme This is then the necessity of this Sacrament not absolutely necessary but necessary by Gods ordinary institution and as it is always necessary so is it always certaine whosoever is baptized according to Christs institution receives the Sacrament of baptisme and the truth is always infallibly annexed with the signe Nec fieri potest visio hominis ut non sit Sacramentum quod figurat Though the wicked may feele no working by the Sacrament yet the Sacrament doth offer and present grace as well to the unworthy as to the worthy Receiver Nec fallaciter promittit The wicked may be a cause that the Sacrament shall doe them no good but that the Sacrament become no Sacrament or that God should be false in his promises and offer no grace where he pretends to offer it this the wicked cannot doe baptisme doth truly and without collusion offer grace to all and nothing but baptisme by an ordinary institution and as an ordinary meanes doth so for when baptisme is called a figure yet both that figure is said there to save us The figure that now saveth us baptisme and it is a figure of the Arke it hath relation to it to that Arke which did save the world when it is called a figure So it may be a figure but if we speake of reall salvation by it baptisme is more then a figure Now as our putting on of Christ was double by faith and by sanctification so by this Sacrament also we are baptized in Nomen Christi into the Name of Christ and in mortem Christi into the death of Christ we are not therefore baptized into his Name because names are imposed upon us in our baptisme for that was not always permanently accustomed in the Christian Church to give a name at baptisme To men who were of years and well known in the world already by their nameâ— if they were converted to the Christian faith the Church did not use to give new names at their baptisme neither to Children alwayes but sometimes as an indifferent thing they left them to the custome of that country or of that family from which they were derived When Saint Augustine sayes that he came to Milan to S. Ambrose at that time quâ— dari nomina oportuit when Names were to be given it is true that he speaks of a time when Baptisme was to be administred but that phrase of Giving of Names was not a receiving of Names at Baptisme for neither Ambrose nor Augustine received any new name at their Baptisme but it was a giving up of their Names a Registring a Matriculating of their Names in the book of the profession of the Christian Religion and a publique declaration of that profession To be baptized therefore into the name of Christ is to be translated into his Family by this spirituall adoption in which adoption when it was legall as they that were adopted had also the name of the family into which they were adopted as of octavius Octavianus and the rest so are we so baptized into his name that we are of Christus Christiani and therefore to become truly Christians to live Christianly this is truly to be baptized into his name No other name is given under heaven whereby we can be saved nor must any other name accompany the name of God in our Baptisme When therefore they teach in the Romane Church that it is a good Baptisme which is administred in this forme I baptize thee in the name of the Father and Sonne and holy Ghost and the virgin Mary if he which baptizes so
of rising as some exaltation of his power that he is to Judge And that place in the beginning of that Psalme many of the antients read in the future Dijudicabit God shall judge the Gods because the frame of the Psalme seems to referre it to the last Judgment Turtullian reads it Dijudicavit as a thing past God hath judged in all times and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present Dijudicat Collect all and Judgment is so essentiall to God as that it is coeternall with him he hath he doth and he will judge the world and the Judges of the world other Judges die likemen weakely and they fall that 's worse ignominiously and they fall like Princes that 's worst fearfully and yet scornfully and when they are dead and faln they rise no more to execute Judgment but have Judgment executed upon them the Lord dyes not nor he falls not and if he seem to slumber the Martyrs under the Altar awake him with their Vsque quo Domine how long O Lord before thou execute Iudgment And he will arise and Judge the world for Judgment is his God putteth downe one and setteth up another says David where hath he that power Why God is the Judge not a Judge but the Judge and in that right he putteth downe one and setteth up another Now for this Judgment which we place in God we must consider in God three notions three apprehensions three kinds of Judgment First God hath Iudicium detestationis God doth naturally know and therefore naturally detest evill for no man in the extreamest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far as to love or approve evill at the same time that he knows and acknowledges it to be evill But we are so blind in the knowledge of evill that we needed that great supplement and assistance of the law it self to make us know what was evill Moses magnifies and justly the law Non appropinquâ—vit says Moses God came not so neare to any nation as to the Iews Non taliter fecit God dealt not so well with any nation as with the Iews and wherein because he had given them a law and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law to be That by the law is the knowledge of sinne for though by the law of nature written in our hearts there be some condemnation of some sinnes yet to know that every sinne was Treason against God to know that every sinne hath the reward of death and eternall death annexed to it this knowledge we have onely by the law Now if man will pretend to be a Judge what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand for some things are sinne to one nation which are not to another as where the just authority of the lawfull Magistrate changes the nature of the thing and makes a thing naturally indifferent necessary to them who are under his obedience some things are sinnes at one time which are not at another as all the ceremoniall law created new sinnes which were not sinnes before the law was given nor since it expir'd some things are sinnes in a man now which will not be sinnes in the same man to morrow as when a man hath contracted a just scruple against any particular action it is a sinne to doe it during the scruple and it may be sinne in him to omit it when he hath devested the scruple onely God hath Iudicium detestationis he knows and therefore detests evill and therefore flatter not thy self with a Tush God sees it not or Tush God cares not Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I breake his Sabbath here Doth it wound his body or draw his bloud there that I swear by his body and bloud here Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there that I sollicit the chastity of a woman here Are his Martyrs withdrawn from their Allegeance or retarded in their service to him there because I dare not defend his cause nor speake for him nor fight for him here Beloved it is a degree of superstition and an effect of an undiscreet zeale perchance to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary and so to imprint the nature and sting of sin where naturally it is not so certainly it a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things meerely indifferent and to forget that even in eating and drinking waking and sleeping the glory of God is intermingled as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God there could be nothing contingent or casuall for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing yet it is certain to God so if we considered duly wherein the glory of God might be promov'd in every action of ours there could scarce by any action so indifferent but that the glory of God would turne the scale and make it necessary to me at that time but then private interests and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God and so I lose that Iudicium detestationis which onely God hath absolutely and perfectly to know and therefore to detest evill and so he is a Judge And as he is a Judge so Iudicat rem he judges the nature of the thing he is so too as he hath Iudicium discretionis and so Iudicat personam he knows what is evill and he discernes when thou committest that evill Here you are fain to supply defects of laws that things done in one County may be tryed in another And that in offences of high nature transmarine offences may be inquir'd and tryed here But as the Prophet says Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or meted 〈◊〉 the heavens with a span who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a scale So I say who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes or limited the territories and Jurisdictions there that God should not have Iudicium discretionis the power of discerning all actions in all places When there was no more to be seen or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise for from the beginning Deliciae ejus esse cum filiis hominum Gods delight was to be with the sons of men and man was only there shal we not deminish God nor speak too vulgarly of him to say that he hovered like a Falcon over Paradise and that from that height of heaven the piercing eye of God saw so little a thing as the forbidden fruit and what became of that and the reaching â—are of God heard the hissing of the Serpent and the whispering of the woman and what was concluded upon that Shall we think it little to have seen to have things done in Paradise when there was nothing else to divert
well Articulus resurrectionis propria Ecclesiaevox It is the Christian Church that hath delivered to us the article of the resurrection Nature says it not Philosophy says it not it is the language and the Idiotisme of the Church of God that the resurrection is to be beleeved as an article of faith For though articles of faith be not facta Ecclesiae they are dicta Ecclesiae though the Church doe not make articles yet she declares them In the Creation the way was Dixit facta sunt God spake and so things were made In the Gospell the way is Fecit dicta sunt God makes articles of faith and the Church utters them presents them That 's manifestè verum evidently undeniably true that Nature and Philosophy say nothing of articles of faith But even in Nature and in Philosophy there is some preparation A priore and much illustration A posteriore of the Resurrection For first we know by naturall reason that it is no such thing as God cannot doe It implies no contradiction in it selfe as that new article of Transubstantiation does It implies no defectivenesse in God as that new article The necessity of a perpetuall Vicar upon earth does For things contradictory in themselves which necessarily imply a falshood things arguing a defectivenesse in God which implies necessarily a derogation to his nature to his naturall goodnesse to that which we may justly call even the God of God that which makes him God to us his mercy such things God himselfe cannot doe not things which make him an unmercifull a cruell a precondemning God But excepting onely such things God who is that Quod cum dicitur non potest dici whom if you name you cannot give him halfe his name for if you call him God he hath not his Christen name for he is Christ as well as God a Saviour as well as a Creator Quod cum astimatur non potest aestimari If you value God weigh God you cannot give him halfe his weight for you can put nothing into the balance to weight him withall but all this world and there is no single sand in the sea no single dust upon the earth no single atome in the ayre that is not likelyer to weigh down all the world then all the world is to coâ—â—â—pose pose God What is the whole world to a soule says Christ but what are all the soules of the world to God What is man that God should be mindefull of him that God should ever thinke of him and not forget that there is such a thing such a nothing Quod cum definitur ipsa definitione crescit says the same Father If you limit God with any definition hee growes larger by that definition for even by that definition you discerne presently that he is something else then that definition comprehends That God Quem omnia nesciunt metuendo sciunt whom no man knows perfectly yet every man knows so well as to stand in feare of him this incomprehensible God I say that works and who shall let it can raise our bodies again from the dead because to doe so implies no derogation to himselfe no contradiction to his word Our reason tells us he can doe it doth our reason tell us as much of his will that he will doe it Our reason tells us that he will doe whatsoever is most convenient for the Creature whom because he hath made him he loves and for his owne glory Now this dignity afforded to the dead body of man cannot be conceived but as a great addition to him Nor can it be such a diminution to God to take man into heaven as it was for God to descend and to take mans nature upon him upon Earth A King does not diminish himselfe so much by taking an inferior person into his bosome at Court as he should doe by going to live with that person in the Countrey or City and this God did in the incarnation of his Sonne It cannot be thought inconvenient it cannot be thought hard Our reason tells us that in all Gods works in all his materiall works still his latter works are easier then his former The Creation which was the first and was a meer production out of nothing was the hardest of all The specific ation of Creatures and the disposing of them into their severall kinds the making of that which was made something of nothing before a particular thing a beast afowle a fish a plant a man a Sun or Moon was not so hard as the first production out of nothing And then the conservation of all these in that order in which they are first created and then distinguished the Administration of these creatures by a constant working of second causes which naturally produce their effects is not so hard as that And so accordingly and in that proportion the last worke is easiest of all Distinction and specification easier then creation conservatioâ— and administration easier then that distinction and restitution by resurrection easiest of all Tertullian hath expressed it well Plus est fecisse quam refecisse dedisse quam reddidisse It is a harder work to make then to mend and to give thee that which was mine then to restore thee that which was thine Et institutio carnis quà m destitutio It is a lesse matter to recover a sicke man then to make a whole man Does this trouble thee says Iustin Martyr and Athenagor as proceeds in the same way of argumentation too in his Apology does this trouble thee Quòd homo à piscibus piscis ab homine comeditar that one man is devoured by a fish and then another man that eats the flesh of that fish eats and becomes the other man Id nec hominem resolvit in piscem nec piscem in hominem that first man did not become that fish that eate him nor that fish become that second man that eate it sed utriusque resolutio fit in elementa both that man and that fish are resolved into their owne elements of which they were made at first Howsoever it be if thine imagination could carry thee so low as to thinke not onely that thou wert become some other thing a fish or a dogge that had fed upon thee and so thou couldst not have thine owne body but therewithall must have his body too but that thou wert infinitely farther gone that thou wert anâ—â—ilated become nothing canst thou chuse but thinke God as perfect now at least as he was at first and can hee not as easily make thee up againe of nothing as he made thee of nothing at first Recogita quid fueris antequam esses Thinke over thy selfe what wast thou before thou wast any thing Meminisses utique si fuisses If thou hadst been any thing then surely thou wouldst remember it now Qui non eras factus es Cum iterum non eris fies Thou that wast once nothing wast made this
cannot inherit this Kingdome of God I cannot have it by purchase by mine own merits and good works It is neither my former good disposition nor Gods fore-sight of my future cooperation with him that is the cause of his giving mee his grace I cannot have this by Covenant or by the gift or bequeathing of another by works of Supererogation that a Martyr of the primitive Church should send mee a violl of his blood a splinter of his bone a Collop of his flesh wrapped up in a halfe sheet of paper in an imaginary six-penny Indulgence from Rome and bid mee receive grace and peace of Conscience in that I cannot have it by purchase I cannot have it by gift I cannot have it by Curtesie in the right of my wife That if I will let her live in the obedience of the Roman Church and let her bring up my children so for my selfe I may have leave to try a Court or a worldly fortune and bee secure in that that I have a Catholique wife or a Catholique child to pray and merit for mee I have no title to this Kingdome of God but Inheritance whence growes mine Inheritance Ex semine Dei because I am propagated of the seed of God I inherit this peace Whosoever is born of God doth not commit finne for his seed remaineth in him and hee cannot sinne because hee is born of God That is hee cannot desire to sinne Hee cannot antidate a sinne by delighting in the hope of a future sin and sin in a praefruition of his sinne before the act Hee cannot post-date a sinne delight in the memory of a pastsinne and sin it over againe in a post-fruition of that sinne Hee cannot boast himself of sinne much lesse bely himself in glorying in sinnes never done Hee cannot take sinnes dyet therefore that hee may bee able to sinne againe next Spring Hee cannot hunger and thirst and then digest and sleepe quietly after a sinne and to this purpose and in this sense Saint Bernard says Praedestinati non possunt peccare That the Elect cannot sinne And in this also That when the sinnes of the Elect are brought to tryall and to judgement there their sinnes are no sinnes not because they are none in themselves but because the blood of Jesus covering them they are none in the eyes of God I am Heir then as I am the Son of God born of the seed of God But what is that seed Verbum Dei the seed is the word of God Of his own will beg at he us says that Apostle with the word of truth And our Saviour himselfe speaks very clearly in expounding the Parable The seed is the word of God We have this Kingdome of God as we have an inheritance as we are Heirs we are Heirs as we are Sons we are Sons as we have the seed and the seed is the Word So that all ends in this We inherit not this Kingdome if we possesse not the preaching of the Word if we professe not the true â—ligion still for the word of this text which we translate to inherit for the most part in the translation of the Septuagint answers the Hebrew word Nachal and Nachal is Haereditas cum possessione not an inheritance in reversion but in possession Take us O Lord for thine inheritance says Moses Et possideas nos as Saint Hâ—erome translates that very place Inherit us and Possesse us Et erimus tibi whatsoever we are we will bee thine says the Septuagint You see then how much goes to the making up of this Inheritance of the Kingdome of God in this world First Vt habeamus verbum That we have this seed of God his word In the Roman Church they have it not not that that Church hath it not not that it is not there but they the people that have it not and then Vt possideamus That we possesse it or rather that it possesse us that we make the Word the onely rule of our faith and of our actions In the Roman Church they do not so they have not pure wheat but mestlin other things joyned with this good seed the word of God and lastly Vt simus Deo That we be his that we be so still that we doe not begin with God and give over but that this seed of God of which we are born may as Saint Peter says be incorruptible and abide for ever that wee may be his so entirely and so constantly as that we had rather have no beeing then for any time of suspension or for any part of his fundamentall truth be without it and this the Roman Church cannot be said to do that expunges and interlines articles of faith upon Reason of State and emergent occasions God hath made you one says the Prophet who bee the parties whom God hath maryed together and made One in that place you and your religion as our expositors interpret that place And why One says the Prophet there That God might have a godly seed says he that is a continuation a propagation a race a posterity of the same religion Therefore says he Let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth Let none divorce himself from that religion and that worship of God which God put into his armes and which he embraced in his Baptism Except there be errour in fundamentall points such as make that Church no Church let no man depart from that Church and that religion in which he delivered himself to the service of God at first Wo be unto us if we deliver not over our religion to our posterity in the same sincerity and the same totality in which our Fathers have delivered it us for that that continuation is that that makes it an inheritance for to conclude this every man hath an inheritance in the Law and yet if he be hanged he is hanged by the Law in which hee had his inheritance so wee have our inheritance in the Word of God and yet if wee bee damned we are damned by that Word If thy heart turn away so as that thou worship other Gods I denounce unto you this day that you shall surely perish So then wee have an inheritance in this Kingdome if we preserve it and we incurre a forfeiture of it if wee have not this seed The Word the truth of Religion so as that we possesse it that is conform our selves to him whose Word it is by it and possesse it so as that we persevere in the true profession of it to our end for Perseverance as well as Possession enters into our title and inheritance to this Kingdome You see then what this Kingdome of God is It is when he comes and his welcome when he comes in his Sacraments and speaks in his Word when he speaks and is answered knocks and is received he knocks in his Ordinances and is received in our Obedience to them he knocks in his example and most holy
contrary defamations Heretofore that he persecuted their Religion when he did not now that he hath left his own Religion He is their breath they owe him their tongues and how foully do they speak and they owe him their lives and how prodigally do they give away their lives to others that they might take away His He is their breath as breath is the soule that is Accomptant for their soules and how have they raised themselves out of his Audit and withdrawne themselves from his Allegiance This they have done historically and to say prophetically what they would do first their Extenuation of this fact when they call it an enterprise of a few unfortunate Gentlemen And then their Exaltation of this fact when they make the principall person in it a Martyr this is prophecy enough that since they are not ashamed of the Originall they will not be afraid to copy it often and pursue the same practises to the same end Let it be Iosiah then let it be Zedekiah he was the Breath the life of his Subjects and that was the first attribute and he was The Anoynted of the Lord which is the other Vnction it self alwayes separated that which was anoynted from prophane and secular use unction was a religious distinction It had that signification in practise before any Law was given for it when Iacob had had that vision upon the stone which made him see that that place was the house of God and the gate of heaven then he tooke up that stone which he had stept upon and set it up for a pillar and anoynted it This was the practise in nature and then the precept in the Law was as for the Altar it self so for many other things belonging to the service of God in the Temple Thou shalt anoynt them to sanctifie them Thus it was for things and then if we consider persons we see the dignity that anoynting gave for it was given but to three sorts of persons to Kings to priests and to Prophets Kings and Priests had it to testifie their ordinary and permanent and indelible jurisdiction their power is laid on in Oyle And Prophets had it because they were extraordinarily raised to denounce and to execute Gods Judgements upon persons that were anoynted upon Priests and upon Kings too in those cases for which they were then particularly imployed Thus then it is anoynted things could not be touched but by anoynted persons and then anoynted persons could not be touched but by persons anoynted The Priest not directed but by the King The King as King not corrected but by the prophet And this was the State that they lamented so compassionately That their King thus anoynted thus exempted was taken prisoner saw his Sonnes slaine in his presence and then had his owne eyes pulled out was bound in chains and carried to Babell And lesse then this in himself and in his Sonne and in all was not intended this day against our not Zedekiah but Iosiah for death speaking in nature hath all particular miseries in it An anoynted King and many Kings anoynted there are not and he that is anoynted prae Consortibus suis above his fellow Kings for I think no other King of his Religion is anoynted The anoynted of the Lord who in this Text hath both those great names Meshiach Iehovahâ— Christus Domini as though he had been but the Bramble anoynted for King of the Trees and so made the fitter fuell for their â—ire as though as Davids lamentation is for Saul He had not been anoynted with Oyle This eye of God he by whom God looks upon us This hand of God he by whom God protects us This foote of God he by whom in his due time and Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord before that time come God shall tread downe his owne and our enemies was swallowed and devoured by them in their confidence of their owne plot and their infallible assurance of his perishing So it was historically And how it stands prophetically that is What such as they were would do for the future as long as they write not in Libels clandestinely and subreptitiously stollen out but avowed by publique Authority That our Priests are no Priests but the Priests of â—aal for so they write That the conspiracy of this day being against him who oppressed Religion was as just as that against Caesar who did but oppresse the State And that they write That those who were the actors herein are therefore saved because at their execution they submitted all to the Romane Church and were content if the Church condemned it then to repent the Fact for so they write also That the Religion of our present King is no better then the Religion of Ieroboam or of Numâ— Pompilius for so they write too that the last Queene though an Heretique yet because she was Anointed did cure that disease The Kings evill but because in scorne thereof the King refused to be anointed at his Coronation therefore hee cannot cure that disease and so non dicendus unctus Domini he is not to be called the Anointed of the Lord says that Author for all these are the words of one man and one who had no other provocation to say all this but onely the Kingsâ— Apology for the oath of Allegiance by retaining in their avowed books and by relying upon such Authors and Authorities as these which remaine for their future instruction we see their dispositions for the future and judge of them prophetically as well as historically Now the misery which is here lamented the declination of the kingdome in the person of the King is thus expressed He was taken in their pits taken and taken in pits and taken in their pits are so many staires so many descents so many gradations rather degradations in this calamity Let it bee Iosiah let it bee Zedekiah They were taken taken and never returned Let it bee our Iosiah and will it hold in that application Was hee taken Hee was plotted for but was hee Taken When hee himselfe takes publique knowledge that both at home and abroad those of the Romane persuasion assured themselves of some especiall worke for the advancement of their cause at that time when they had taken that assurance hee was so taken taken in that their assurance infallibly taken in their opinion so as this kingdome was taken in their opinion who thought their Navy invincible so this King was taken in their assurance who thought this plot infallible Hee was taken and in fovea in a pit says the Text If our first translation would serve the sorrow were the lesse for there it is he was taken in their net now a man that flattereth spreadeth a net and a Prince that discerns not a flatterer from a Counsellor is taken in a net but that 's not so desperate as in a pit In Iosiahs case it was a pit a Grave in Zedekiahs case it
scandall which Christ found in these Disciples of Iohn and which wee have noted in their progeny and off-spring but goe on to the fourth The way that Christ took to devest them thereof by calling them to the contemplation of his works Consider what you have seen done The blinde see The lame goe The deafe hear and then you will not endanger your blessednesse by being offended in me The evidence that Christ produces and presses is good works for if a man offer me the roote of a tree to taste I cannot say this is such a Pear or Apple or Plum but if I see the fruit I can If a man pretend Faith to me I must say to him with Saint Iames Can his Faith save him such a Faith as that the Apostle declares himself to mean A dead Faith as all Faith is that is inoperative and workes not But if I see his workes I proceed the right way in Judicature I judge secundum allegata probata according to my evidence And if any man will say those workes may be hypocriticall I may say of any witnesse He may be perjured but as long as I have no particular cause to think so it is good evidence to me as to hear that mans Oath so to see this mans workes Cum in Coelis sedentem in Crucem agere non possum Though I cannot crucifie Christ being now set at the right hand of his Father in Heaven yet there is Odium impietatis saith that Father A crucifying by ungodlinesse An ungodly life in them that professe Christ is a daily crucifying of Christ. Therefore here Christ refers to good works And there is more in this then so It is not onely good works but good works in the highest proportion The best works that he that doth them can doe Therefore in his own case he appeals to Miracles For if fasting were all or wearing of Camells haire all or to have done some good to some men by Baptizing them were all these Disciples and their Master might have had as much to plead as Christ. Therefore he calls them to the consideration of works of a higher nature of Miracles for God never subscribes nor testifies a forged Deed God never seals a falshood with a Miracle Therefore when the Jewes say of Christ He hath a Devill and is mad why heare ye him some of the other Jewes said These are not the words of one that hath a Devil But though by that it appear that some evidence some argument may be raised in a mans behalfe from his words from that he saith from his Preaching yet Christs friends who spoke in his favour doe not rest in that That those are not the words of one that hath a Devill but proceed to that Can the Devill open the eyes of the blinde He doth more then the Devill can doe They appeal to his works to his good workes to his great works to his Miracles But doth he put us to doe miracles no Though in truth those sumptuous and magnificent buildings and endowments which some have given for the sustentation of the poore are almost Miracles half Miracles in respect of those penurious proportions that Myut and Cumin and those half-ounces of broken bread which some as rich as they have dropped and crumbled out Truely he that doth as much as he can is almost a Miracle And when Christ appeals to his Miracles he calls us therein to the best works we can doe God will be loved with the whole heart and God will have that love declared with our whole substance I must not thinke I have done enough if I have built an Almes-house As long as I am able to doe more I have done nothing This Christ intimates in producing his greatest works Miracles which Miracles he closeth up with that as with the greatest Pauperes evangelizantur The poore have the Gospell preached unto them In this our Blessed Saviour doth not onely give an instruction to Iohns Disciples but therein also derives and conveyes a precept upon us upon us who as we have received mercy have received the Ministery and indeed upon all you whom he hath made Regale Sacerdotium A royall Priesthood and Reges Sacerdotes Kings and Priests unto your God and bound you therby as well as us to preach the Gospell to the poore you by an exemplar life and a Catechizing conversation as well as us by our words and meditations Now beloved there are Poore that are literally poore poore in estate and fortune and poore that are naturally poore poore in capacity and understanding and poore that are spiritually poore dejected in spirit and insensible of the comforts which the Holy Ghost offers unto them and to all these poore are we all bound to preach the Gospell First then for them which are literally poore poore in estate how much doe they want of this means of salvation Preaching which the rich have They cannot maintain Chaplains in their houses They cannot forbear the necessary labours of their calling to hear extraordinary Sermons They cannot have seats in Churches whensoever they come They must stay they must stand they must thrust they must overcome that difficulty which Saint Augustine makes an impossibility that is for any man to receive benefit by that Sermon that he hears with pain They must take pains to hear To these poore therefore the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell That Gospell The Lord knoweth thy povertie but thou art rich That Gospell Be content with such things as thou hast for the Lord hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee And that Gospell God hath chosen the poore of this world rich in faith heires of that Kingdome which he hath promised to them that love him And this is the Gospell of those poore literally poore poore in estate To those that are naturally poore poore in understanding the Lord and his Spirit hath sent me to preach the Gospell too That Gospell If any man lacke wisedome let him aske it of God Solomon himselfe had none till he asked it there And that Gospell where Iohn went bitterly because there was a Booke preseated but no man could open it It were a sad consideration if now when the Booke of God the Scripture is afforded to us we could not open that Booke not understand those Scriptures But there is the Gospell of those poore That Lambe which is spoken of there That Lambe which in the same place is called a Lion too That Lambe-Lion hath opened the Booke for us The humility of the Lambe gathereth the strength of the Lion come humbly to the reading and hearing of the Scriptures and thou shalt have strength of understanding The Scriptures were not written for a few nor are to be reserved for a few All they that were present at this LambLions opening of the Book that is All they that come with modesty and humility