shall feare the Lord and his goodnesse in the later dayes And beyond this land there is no more Sea beyond this mercy no more Judgement for with this mercy the Chapter ends Consider our text then as a whole Globe as an intire Spheare and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe our two parts of this text will bee First that no perversnesse of ours no rebellion no disobedience puts God beyond his mercy nor extinguishes his love still hee calls Israel rebellious Israel his Children nay his owne anger his owne Judgements then when hee is in the exercise thereof in the execution thereof puts him not beyond his mercy extinguishes not his love hee hides not his face from them then hee leaves them not then in the darke hee accompanies their calamity with a light hee makes that time though cloudy though overcast yet a day unto them the Children of Israel shall abide many days in this case But then as no disobedience removes God from himself for he is love and mercy so no interest of ours in God doth so priviledge us but that hee will execute his Judgements upon his Children too even the Children of Israel shall fall into these Calamities And from this first part wee shall passe to the second from these generall considerations That no punishments should make us desperate that no favours should make us secure we shall passe to the particular commination and judgements upon the children of Israel in this text without King without Prince c. In our first part we stop first upon this declaration of his mercy in this fatherly appellation Children the children of Israel He does not call them children of Israel as though hee disavowed them and put them off to another Father but therefore because they are the Children of Israel they are his Children for hee had maried Israel and maried her to himselfe for ever Many of us are Fathers and from God here may learne tendernesse towards children All of us are children of some parents and therefore should hearken after the name of Father which is nomen pietatis potestatis a name that argues their power over us and our piety towards them and so concernes many of us in a double capacity as we are children and parents too but all of us in one capacity as we are children derived from other parents God is the Father of man otherwise then he is of other creatures He is the Father of all Creatures so Philo calls all Creatures sorâ—res suas his sisters but then all those sisters of man all those daughters of God are not alike maried God hath placed his Creatures in divers rankes and in divers conditions neither must any man thinke that he hath not done the duty of a Father if he have not placed all his Sonnes or not matched all his daughters in a condition equall to himselfe or not equall to one another God hath placed creatures in the heavens and creatures in the earth and creatures in the sea and yet all these creatures are his children and when he looked upon them all in their divers stations he saw omnia valde bora that all was very well And that Father that imploies one Sonne in learning another to husbandry another to Merchandise pursues Gods example in disposing his children his creatures diversly and all well Such creatures as the Raine though it may seem but an imperfect and ignoble creature fallen from the wombe of a cloud have God for their Father God is the Father of the Raine And such creatures as light have but God for their Father God is Pater lâ—minum the Father of lights Whether we take lights there to be the Angels created with the light some take it so or to be the severall lights set up in the heavens Sun and Moon and Stars some take it so or to be the light of Grace in infusion by the Spirit or the light of the Church in manifestation by the word for all these acceptations have convenient Authors and worthy to be followed God is the Father of lights of all lights but so he is of raine and clouds too And God is the Father of glory as Saint Paul styles him of all glory whether of those beames of glory which he sheds upon us here in the blessings and preferments of this life or that waight of glory which he reserves for us in the life to come From that inglorious drop of raine that falls into the dust and rises no more to those glorious Saints who shall rise from the dust and fall no more but as they arise at once to the fulnesse of Essentiall joy so arise daily in accidentiall joyes all are the children of God and all alike of kin to us And therefore let us not measure our avowing or our countenancing of our kindred by their measure of honour or place or riches in the world but let us looke how fast they grow in the root that is in the same worship of the same God who is ours and their Father too He is nearest of kin to me that is of the same religion with me as they are creatures they are of kin to me by the Father but as they are of the same Church and religion by Father and mother too Philo calls all creatures his sisters but all men are his brothers God is the Father of man in a stronger and more peculiar and more masculine sense then of other Creatures Filius particeps con-dominus cum patre as the law calls the Sonne the partner of the Father and fellow-Lord joint-Lord with the Father of all the possession that is to descend so God hath made man his partner and fellow-Lord of all his other creatures in Moses his Dominamini when he gives man a power to rule over them and in Davids Omnia subjecisti when he imprints there a naturall disposition in the creature to the obedience of man So high so very high a filiation hath God given man as that having another Sonne by another filiation a higher filiation then this by an eternall generation yet he was content that that Sonne should become this Sonne that the Sonne of God should become the Sonne of Man God is the Father of all of man otherwise then of all the rest but then of the children of Israel otherwise then of all other men For he bought them and is not be thy Father that hath bought thee says God by Moses Not to speake of that purchase which he made by the death of his Sonne for that belongs to all the world he bought the Jews in particular at such a price such silver and such gold such temporall and such spirituall benefits such a Land and such a Church such a Law and such a Religion as certainly he might have had all the world at that price If God would have manifested himselfe poured out himselfe to the Nations as hee did to
in families are therein truly learned fathers of the Church A good father at home is a S â—ugustin and a S. Ambrose in himself and such a Thomas may have governed a 〈◊〉 as shall by way of example teach children and childrens children more to this purpose then any Thomas Aquinas can Since therefore these noble persons have so good a glasse to dresse themselves in the usefull as the powerfull example of Parents I shall the lesse need to apply my selfe to them for their particular instructions but may have leave to extend my selfe upon considerations more general and such as may be applyable to all who have or shall embrace that honourable state or shall any way assist at the solemnizing thereof that they may all make this union of Mariage a Type or a remembrancer of their union with God in Heaven That as our Genesis is our Exodus our proceeding into the world is a step out of the world so every Gospell may be a Revelation unto us All good tydings which is the name of Gospel all that ministers any joy to us here may reveal and manifest to us an Interest in the joy and glory of heaven and that our admission to a Mariage here may be our invitation to the Mariage Supper of the Lamb there where in the Resurrection we shall neither mary nor be given in mariage but shall be as the Angels of God in heaven These words our blessed Saviour spake to the Sadduces who not believing the Resurrection of the Dead put him a Case that one woman hath had seven husbands and then whose wife of those seven should she be in the Resurrection they would needs suppose and prefume that there could be no Resurrection of the body but that there must be to all purposes a Bodily use of the Body too and then the question had been pertinent whose wife of the seven shall she be But Christ shews them their errour in the weaknesse of the foundation she shall be none of their wives for In the Resurrection they neither mary c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. The words give us this latitude when Christ sayes In the Resurrection they mary not c. from thence flowes out this concession this proposition too Till the Resurrection they shall mary and be given in mariage no inhibition to be laid upon persons no imputation no aspersion upon the state of mariage And when Christ saies Then they are as the Angels of God in heaven from this flowes this concession this proposition also Till then we must not look for this Angelicall state but as in all other states and conditions of life so in all mariages there will be some encumbrances betwixt all maried persons there will arise some unkindnesses some mis-interpretations or some too quick interpretations may sometimes sprinkle a little sournesse and spread a little a thin a dilute and washy cloud upon them Then they mary not till then they may then their state shall be perfect as the Angels till then it shall not These are our branches and the fruits that grow upon them we shall pull in passing and present them as we gather them First then Christ establishes a Resurrection A Resurrection there shall be for that makes up Gods circle The Body of Man was the first point that the foot of Gods Compasse was upon First he created the body of Adam and then he carries his Compasse round and shuts up where he began he ends with the Body of man againe in the glorification thereof in the Resurrection God is Alpha and Omega first and last And his Alpha and Omega his first and last work is the Body of man too Of the Immortality of the soule there is not an expresse article of the Creed for that last article of The life everlasting is rather de proemio poena what the soule shall suffer or what the soule shall enjoy being presumed to be Immortall then that it is said to be Immortall in that article That article may and does presuppose an Immortality but it does not constitute an Immortality in our soule for there would be a life everlasting in heaven and we were bound to beleeve it as we were bound to beleeve a God in heaven though our soules were not immortall There are so many evidences of the immortality of the soule even to a naturall mans reason that it required not an Article of the Creed to fix this notion of the Immortality of the soule But the Resurrection of the Body is discernible by no other light but that of Faith nor could be fixed by any lesse assurance then an Article of the Creed Where be all the splinters of that Bone which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the Ayre Where be all the Atoms of that flesh which a Corrasive hath eat away or a Consumption hath breath'd and exhal'd away from our arms and other Limbs In what wrinkle in what furrow in what bowel of the earth ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since In what corner in what ventricle of the sea lies all the jelly of a Body drowned in the generall flood What cohaerence what sympathy what dependence maintaines any relation any correspondence between that arm that was lost in Europe and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia scores of yeers between One humour of our dead body produces worms and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour and then all dies and all dries and molders into dust and that dust is blowen into the River that puddled water tumbled into the sea and that ebs and flows in infinite revolutions and still still God knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies in what part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies and sibilat populum suum as his Prophet speaks in another case he whispers he hisses he beckens for the 〈◊〉 of his Saints and in the twinckling of an eye that body that was fcattered over all the elements is sate down at the right hand of God in a glorious resurrection A Dâ—opsie hath extended me to an enormous corpulency and unwieldinesse a Consumption hath attenuated me to a feeble macilency and leannesse and God raises me a body such as it should have been if these infirmities had not interven'd and deformed it David could goe no further in his book of Psalms but to that Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord ye saies he ye that have breath praise ye the Lord and that ends the book But that my Dead body should come to praise the Lord this is that New Song which I shall learne and sing in heaven when not onely my soule shall magnify the Lord and my Spirit rejoyce in God my Saviour but I shall have mine old eies and eares and tongue and knees and receive such glory in my body
Christ which is Baptistrisum the font the Sea into which God flings all their sinnes who rightly and effectually receive that Sacrament These fountaines of waters then in the text are the waters of baptisime and if we should take them also in that sense that waters signifie tribulations and afflictions it is true too that in baptisme that is in the profession of Christ we are delivered over to many tribulations The rule is generall Castigat omnes he chastiseth all The example the precedent is peremptory Opertuit pati Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory but howsoever waters be affictions they are waters of life too says the text Though baptisme imprint a crosse upon us that we should not be ashamed of Christ crosse that we should not be afraid of our owne crosses yet by all these waters by all these Crosse ways we goe directly to the eternall life the kingdome of heaven for they are lively fountaines fountaines of life And this is intended and promised in the last words Absterget omnem Lachrymam God shall wipe all teares from our eyes God shall give us a joyfull apprehension of heaven here in his Church in this life But is this a way to wipe teares from the childes face to sprinkle water upon it Is this a wiping away to powre more on It is the powerfull and wonderfull way of his working for as his red bloud makes our red soules white that his rednesse gives our rednesse a candor so his water his baptisime and the powerfull effect thereof shall dry up and wipe away Omnem â—achrymam all teares from our Eyes howsoever occasioned This water shall dry them up Christ had many occassion of teares we have more some of our owne which he had not we must weep because we are not so good as we should be we cannot performe the law We must weepe because we are not so good as we could be our free will is lost but yet every Man findes he might be better if he would but the sharpest and saltest and smartest occasion of our teares is from this that we must not be so good as we would be that the prosanenesse of the Libertine the reproachfull slanders the contumelious scandalls the seornfull names that the wicked lay upon those who in their measure desire to expresse their zeale to Gods glory makes us afraid to professe our selves so religious as we could find in our hearts to be and could truly be if we might Christ went often in contemplation of others foreseeing the calamities of Ierualem he wept over the City comming to the grave of Lazarus he wept with them but in his owne Agony in the garden it is not said that he weps If we could stop the stood of teares in our afflictions yet there belongs an excessive griefe to this that the ungodly disposion of other Men is slacking of our godlinesse of our sanctification too Christ Jesus for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse we for the joy of this promise that God will wipe all teares from our eyes must suffer all this whether they be teares of Compunction or teares of Compassion teares for our selves or teares for others whether they be Magdalens teares or Peters teares teares for sinnes of infirmity of the flesh or teares for weaknesse of our faith whether they be teares for thy parents because they are improvident towards thee or teares for thy children because they are disobedient to thee whether they be teares for Church because our Sermons or our Censures pinch you or teares for the State that penall laws pecuniary or bloudy lie heavy upon you Deus absterget omneni lachryman here 's your comfort that as he hath promised inestimable blessings to them that are sealed and washed in him so he hath given you security that these blessings belong to you for if you find that he hath govened you bred you in his visible Church and led you to his fountaine of the water of lifein baptisme you may be sure that he will in his due time wipe all teares from your eyes establish the kingdome of heaven upon you in this life in a holy and modest infallibility SERMON V. Preached at a Christning EPHES. 5. 25 26 27. Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and gave himselfe for it that he might sanctisie it and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word That he might make it unto himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle on any such thing but that it should be holy and without blame ALmighty God ever loved unity but he never loved singularity God was always alone in heaven there were no other Gods but he but he was never singular there was never any time when there were not three persons in heaven Pater ego unum summi The father and I are one says Christ one in Esseuct and one in Consent our substance is the same and our will is the same but yet Tecum fui ab initio says Christ in the person of Wisdome I was with thee disposing all things at the Creation As then God seemes to have been eternally delighted with this eternall generation with persons that had ever a relation to one another Father and Sonne so when he came to the Creation of this lower world he came presently to those three relations of which the whole frame of this world consists of which because the principall foundation and preservation of all States that are to continue is power the first relation was between Prince and Subject when God said to Man Subjecite dominamini subdue and govern all Creatures The second relation was between husband and wife when Adam said This now is house of my bone and flesh of my flesh And the third relation was between parents and children when Eve said that she had obtained a Man by the Lord that by the plentifull favour of God she had conceived and borne a sonne from that time to the dissolution of that frame from that beginning to the end of the world these three relations of Master and Servant Mans and Wife Father and Children have been and ever shall be the materialls and the elements of all society of families and of Cities and of Kingdomes And therefore it is a large and a subtill philosophy which S. Paul professes in this place to shew all the qualities and properties of these several Elements that is all the duties of these severall callings but in this text he handles onely the mutuall duties of the second couple Man and Wife and in that consideration shall we determine this exercise because a great part of that concernes the education of Children which especially occasions our meeting now The generall duty that goes through all these three relations is expressed Subditi estate invicevs Submit your selves to one another in the feare of God for God hath given no Master such imperiousnesse
joyned to the element or to the Action then there is a true Sacrament are ill understood by two sorts of Menâ— first by them that say that it is not verbum Deprecatorium nor verbum Conciâ—natâ—riuâ— not the word of Prayer nor the word of preaching but verbum Consecratorium and verbum Sacramentale that very phrase and forme of words by which the water is sanctified and enabled of it selfe to cleanse our Soules and secondly these words are ill understood by them who had rather their children dyed unbaptized then have them baptized without a Sermon whereas the use of preaching at baptisme is to raise the whole Congregation to a consideration what they promised by others in their baptisme and to raise the Father and the Sureties to a consideration what they undertake for the childe whom they present then to be baptized for therefore says Saint Augustine Acoedaâ— verbum there is a necessity of the word Non quâ—a dicitur sed quia creditur not because the word is prâ—ached but because it is beleeved and That Beleese faith belongs not at all to the incapacity of the child but to the disposition of the rest A Sermon is usefull for the congregation not necessary for the child and the accomplishment of the Sacrament From hence then arises a convenience little lesse then necessary in a kind that this administration of the Sacrament be accompanied with preaching but yet they that would evict an absolute necessity of it out of these words force them too much for here the direct meaning of the Apostle is That the Church is cleansed by water through the word when the promises of God expressed in his word are sealed to us by this Sacrament of Baptisme for so Saint Augustine answers himselfe in that objection which he makes to himselfe Cum per Baptisâ—â—â— fundati sint quare sermoni tribuit radicem He answers In Sermone intelligendus Baptismusâ— Quia sine Sermone non perficitur It is rooted it is grounded in the word and therefore true Baptisme though it be administred without the word that is without the word preached yet it is never without the word because the whole Sacrament and the power thereof is rooted in the word in the Gospell And therefore since this Sacrament belongs to the Church as it is said here that Christ doth cleanse his Church by Baptisme as it is argued with a strong probability That because the Apostles did baptize whole families therefore they did baptize some children so we argue with an invincible certainty that because this Sacrament belongs generally to the Church as the initiatory Sacrament it belongs to children who are a part and for the most part the most innocent part of the Church To conclude As all those Virgins which were beautifull were brought into Susan Ad domum mulierum to be anointed and persumed and prepared there for Assuerus delight and pleasure though Assuerus tooke not delight and pleasure in them all so we admit all those children which are within the Covenant made by God to the elect and their seed In domum Sanctorum into the houshold of the faithfull into the communion of Saints whom he chooseth for his Mariage day that is for that Church which he will settle upon himselfe in heaven we know not but we know that he hath not promised to take any into that glory but those upon whom he hath first shed these fainter beames of glory and sanctification exhibited in this Sacrament Neither hath he threatned to exclude any but for sinne after And therefore when this blessed child derived from faithfull parents and presented by sureties within the obedience of the Church shall have been so cleansed by the washing of water through the word it is presently sealed to the possession of that part of Christs purchase for which he gave himselfe which are the meanes of preparing his Church in this life with a faithfull assurance I may say of it and to it Iam mundus es Now you are cleanâ— through the word which Christ hath spoken unto you The Seale of the promises of his Gospell hath sanctified and cleansed you but yet Mandatus mundandus says Saint Augustine upon that place It is so sanctified by the Sacrament here that it may be farther sanctified by the growth of his graces and be at last a member of that glorious Church which he shall settle upon himselfe without spot or wrinkle which was the principall and final purpose of that great love of his whereby he gave himselfe for us and made that love first a patterne of Mens loves to their wives here and then a meanes to bring Man and wife and child to the kingdome of heaven Amen SERMON VI. Preached at a Christning 1 JOHN 5. 7 8. For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which beare record in the Earth The Spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one IN great and enormous offences we find that the law in a well governed State expressed the punishment upon such a delinquent in that form in that curse Igni aqua interdicitor let him have no use of fire and water that is no use of any thing necessary for the sustentation of life Beloved such is the miserable condition of wretched Man as that we come all into the world under the burden of that curse Aqua igni interdicimâ—r we have nothing to doe naturally with the spirituall water of life with the fiery beames of the holy Ghost till he that hath wrought our restitution from this banishment restore us to this water by powring out his owne bloud and to this lively fire by laying himselfe a cold and bloudlesse carcasse in the bowels of the Earth till he who haptized none with waâ—er direct his Church to doe that office towards us and he without whom none was baptized with fire perfect that Ministeriall worke of his Church with the effectuall seales of his grace for this is his testimony the witnesse of his love Yea that law in cases of such great offences expressed it selfe in another Malediction upon such offenders appliable also to us Intestabiles sunte let them be Intestable Now this was a sentence a Condemnation so pregnant so full of so many heavy afflictions as that he who by the law was made intestable was all these ways intestable First he was able to make no Testament of his owne he had lost all his interest in his owne estate and in his owne will Secondly he could receive no profit by any testament of any other Man he had lost all the effects of the love and good disposition of other Men to him Thirdly he was Intestable so as that he could not testifie he should not be beleeved in the behalfe of another and lastly the testimony of another could doe him no good no Man could be admitted to
of his word or in scantler measure not to be always a Christian but then when thou hast use of being one or in a different fashion to be singular and Schisâ—aticall in thy opinion for this is one but an ill manner of putting on of Christ as a garment The second and the good way is to put on his righteousnesse and his innocency by imitation and conforming our selves to him Now when we goe about earnestly to make our selves Temples and Altars and to dedicate our selves to God we must change our clothes As when God bad Iacob to goe up to Bethel to make an Altar he commanded all his family to change their clothes In which work we have two things to doe first we must put off those clothes which we had and appeare naked before God without presenting any thing of our owne for when the Spirit of God came upon Saul and that he prophecyed his first act was to strip himselfe naked And then sâ—condly we come to our transfiguration and to have those garments of Christ communicated to us which were as white as the light and we shall be admitted into that little number of which it is said Thou hast a few Namees in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walke with â—e in white And from this which is Induere vestem from this putting on Christ as a garment we shall grow up to that perfection as that we shall Inâ—â—ere personam put on hiâ— his person That is we shall so appeare before the Father as that he shall take us for his owne Christ we shall beare his name and person and we shall every one be so accepted as if every one of us were all Mankind yea as if we were he himselfe He shall find in all our bodies his woundes in all our mindes his 〈◊〉 in all our hearts and actions his obedience And as he shall doe this by impâ—tation so really in all our Agonies he shall send his Angels to minister unto us as he did to Eliâ—s In all our tentations he shall furnish us with his Scriptures to confoâ—â—d the Tempter as be in person did in his tentation and in our heaviest tribulation which may exâ—â—â—â— from us the voice of diffidence My God My God why hast 〈◊〉 forsaken me He shall give us the assurance to say In manus tuas câ— Into thy â—ands O Lord have I coâ—â—â—â—nded my spirit and there I am safe He shall use us in all things as his sonne and we shall find restored in us the Image of the whole Trinity imprinted at our creation for by this Regeneration we are adopted by the Father in the bloud of the Sonne by the sanctification of the holy Ghost Now this putting on of Christ whereby we stand in his place at Gods Tribunall implies as I said both our Election and our sanctification both the eternall purpose of God upon us and his execution of that purpose in us And because by the first by our Election we are members of Christ in Gods purpose before baptisme and the second which is sanctification is expressed after baptisme in our lives and conversation therefore Baptisme intervenes and comes between both as a seale of the first of Election and as an instrument and conduit of the second Sanctification Now Abscendita Dominâ— Dea nostro quae manifesta suâ—s nobis let no Man be too curiously busie to search what God does in his hedchamber we have all enough to answer for that which we have done in our bedchamber For Gods eternall decree himselfe is master of those Rolls but out of those Rolls he doth exemplifie those decrees in the Sacrament of baptisme by which Copy and exemplification of his invisible and unsearchable decree we plead to the Church that we are Gods children we plead to our owne consciences that we have the Spirit of adoption and we plead to God himselfe the obligation of his own promise that we have a right to this garment Christ Iesus and to those graces which must sanctifie us for from thence comes the reason of this text for all yeâ— that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. As we cannot see the Essence of God but must see him in his glasses in his Images in his Creatures so we cannot see the decrees of God but must see them in their duplicats in their exemplification in the sacraments As it would doe him no good that were condemned of treason that a Bedchamber man should come to the Judge and swear he saw the king signe the prisoners pardon except he had it to pleade so what assurance soever what priâ—y marke soever those men which pretend to be so well acquainted and so familiar with the decrees of God to give thee to know that thou art elect to eternall salvation yea if an Angel from heaven comedowne and tell thee that he saw thy name in the booke of life if thou have not this Exemplification of the decree this seale this Sacrament if thou beest not baptized never delude thy selfe with those imaginary assurances This Baptisme then is so necessary that first as Baptisme in a large acceptation signifies our dying and buriall with Christ and all the acts of our regeneration so in that large sense our whole life is a baptisme But the very sacrament of Baptismeâ— the actuall administration and receiving thereof was held so necessary that even for legall and Civill uses as in the law that child that dyed without circumcision had no interest in the family no participation of the honor nor name thereof So that we see in the reckning of the Genealogy and pedegree of David that first sonne of his which he had by Bathshebae which dyed without circumcision is never mentioned nor toucht upon So also since the time of Mâ—ses law in the Imperiall law by which law a posthume child borne after the fathers death is equall with the rest in division of the state yet if that child dye before he be baptized no person which should derive a right from him as the mother might if he dyed can have any title by him because he is not considered to have been at all if he dye unbaptized And if the State will not beleeve him to be a full Man shall the Church beleeve him to be a full Christian before baptisme Yea the apprehension of the necessity of this Sacrament was so common and so generall even in the beginning of the Christian Church that out of an excessive advancing of that trnth they came also to a falshoodâ— to an error That even they that dyed without baptisme might have the benefit of baptisme if another were baptized in their name after their deathâ— And so out of a mistaking of those words Else what shall they doe Qui baptizantur pro mortuis which is that are ready to dye when they are baptized the Marcionites induc'd a custome to lay one under the dead bodyes
that thou hast not received he asks that question of a man that which is received is received as man For as Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrell at some few words of Calvins though he confesse the matter to be true and as he cals it there Catholique says Essentiam genitam negamus we confesse that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation the relation the filiation he hath from his Father he hath the name of Son but he hath not this execution of this judgement by that relation by that filiation still as the Son of God he hath the capacity as the Sonne of man he hath the execution And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits perchance too narrowly to the very flesh to the humanity Ipsa not Ipsae â—rit Iudex quae sub Iudice stetit and ipsa judicabit quae judicatae est where he places not this Judgement upon the mixt person which is the safest way of God and man but upon man alone God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousnesse But by whom By that man whom he hath ordained God will judge still but still in Christ and therefore says S. Augustine upon those words Arise O Lord and judge the earth Cui Deo dicitur surge nisi ei qui dormivit What God doth David call upon to arise but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave as though he should say says August Dormivisti judicatus à terra surge judâ—ca terram So that to collect all though judgement be such a character of God as he cannot devest yet the Father hath committed such a Judgement to the Sonne as none but he can execute And what is that Omne judicium all judgement that is omne imperium omnem potestatem It is presented in the name of Judgement but it involves all It is literally and particularly Judgement in S. Iohn The Father hath given him authority to execute judgement It is extended unto power in Saint Matthew All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth And it is enlarg'd as far farther as can be expressed or conceived in another place of Saint Matthew All things are deliver'd to me of my Father Now all things our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either per carnem or at least in carne whatsoever the Father does the Sonne does too In carne because now there is an unseparable union betwixt God and the humane nature The Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of Children and the Sonne creates them with him The Father concurs with all second causes as the first moving cause of all naturall things and all this the Sonne does too but all this in carne Though he be in our humane flesh he is not the lesse able to doe the acts belonging to the Godhead but per carnem by the flesh instrumentally visibly he executes judgement because he is the Son of man God hath been so indulgent to man as that there should be no judgement given upon man but man should give it Christ then having all Judgment we refresh to your memory those three Judgements which we toucht upon before first the Judgement of our Election severing of vessels of honour and dishonor next the Judgement of our Justification here severing of friends from enemies and then the Judgment of our Glorification severing sheep from goats and for the first of our Election As if I were under the condemnation of the Law for some capitall offence and going to execution and the Kings mercy expressed in a sealed pardon were presented me I should not stand to enquire what mov'd the King to doe it what hee said to any body else what any body else said to him what hee saw in mee or what hee look't for at my hands but embrace that mercy cheerfully and thankfully and attribute it onely to his abundant goodnesse So when I consider my selfe to have been let fall into this world in massa Damnata under the generall condemnation of mankind and yet by the working of Gods Spirit I find at first a desire and after a modest assurance that I am delivered from that condemnation I enquire not what God did in his bed-chamber in his cabinet counsell in his eternall decree I know that hee hath made Iudicium electionis in Christ Jesus And therefore that I may know whether I doe not deceive my selfe in presuming my self to be of that number I come down and examine my selfe whether I can truly tell my conscience that Christ Jesus dyed for mee which I cannot doe if I have not a desire and an endevour to conform my self to him And if I do that there I finde my Predestination I am a Christian and I will not offer to goe before my Master Christ Jesus I cannot be sav'd before there was a Saviour In Christ Jesus is Omne judicium all judgement and therefore the judgment of Election the first separation of vessels of honour and dishonour in Election and Reprobation was in Christ Jesus Much more evidently is the second judgement of our Justification by means ordain'd in the Christian Church the Judgement of Christ it is the Gospel of Christ which is preacht to you there There is no name given under heaven whereby you should be saved there are no other means wherby salvation should be applyed in his name given but those which he hath instituted in his Church So that when I come to the second â—udgement to try whether I stand justifyed in the sight of Christ or no I come for that Judgement to Christ in his Church Doe I remember what I contracted with Christ Jesus when I took the name of a Christian at my entrance into his Church by Baptism Doe I find I have endevoured to perform those Conditions Doe I find a remorse when I have not performed them Doe I feele the remission of those sinnes applyed to me when I hear the gracious promises of the Gospel shed upon repentant sinners by the mouth of his Minister Have I a true and solid consolation without shift or disguise or flattering of my conscience when I receive the seal of his pardon in the Sacrament Beloved not in any morall integrity not in keeping the conscience of an honest man in generall but in using well the meanes ordain'd by Christ in the Christian Church am I justified And therefore this Judgement of Justification is his too And then the third and last judgement which is the judgment of Glorification that 's easily agreed by all to appertain unto Christ Idem Iesus The same Iesus that ascended shall come to judgement Videbunt quem pupugerant Every eye shall see him and they also which pierc't him Then the Son of man shall come in glory and he as man shall give the judgement for things done or omitted towards him as man for not feeding for not clothing for
say they so as that wee shall use them or so as that we might But this sight that Iob speaks of is onely the fruition of the presence of God in which consists eternall blessednesse Here in this world we see God per speculum says the Apostle by reflection upon a glasse we see a creature and from that there arises an assurance that there is a Creator we see him in aenigmate says he which is not ill rendred in the margin in a Riddle we see him in the Church but men have made it a riddle which is the Church we see him in the Sacrament but men have made it a riddle by what light and at what window Doe I see him at the window of bread and wine Is he in that or doe I see him by the window of faith and is he onely in that still it is in a riddle Doe I see him à Priore I see that I am elected and therefore I cannot sinne to death Or doe I see him à Posteriore because I see my selfe carefull not to sin to death therefore I am elected I shall see all problematicall things come to be dogmaticall I shall see all these rocks in Divinity come to bee smooth alleys I shall see Propheâ—ies untyed Riddles dissolved controversies reconciled but I shall never see that till I come to this sight which follows in out text Videbo Deum I shall see God No man ever saw God and liv'd and yet I shall not live till I see God and when I have seen him I shall never dye What have I ever seen in this world that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to me I have seen marble buildings and a chip a crust a plaster a face of marble hath pilld off and I see brick-bowels within I have seen beauty and a strong breath from another tels me that that complexion is from without not from a sound constitution within I have seen the state of Princes and all that is but ceremony and I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to define ceremony and tell me what it is and to include so various a thing as ceremony in so constant a thing as a Definition I see a great Officer and I see a man of mine own profession of great revenues and I see not the interest of the money that was paid for it I see not the pensions nor the Annuities that are charged upon that Office or that Church As he that fears God fears nothing else so he that sees God sees every thing else when we shall see God Sicuti est as he is we shall see all things Sicuti sunt as they are for that 's their Essence as they conduce to his glory We shall be no more deluded with outward appearances for when this sight which we intend here comes there will be no delusory thing to be seen All that we have made as though we saw in this world will be vanished and I shall see nothing but God and what is in him and him I shall see in carne in the flesh which is another degree of Exaltation in mine Exinanition I shall see him In carâ—e suâ in his flesh And this was one branch in Saint Augustines great wish That he might have seen Rome in her state That he might have heard S. Paul preach That he might have seen Christ in the flesh Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one thousand two hundred yeares in Christs glorifyed flesh but it is with the eyes of his understanding and in his soul. Our flesh even in the Resurrection cannot be a spectacle a perspective glasse to our soul. We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily eyes then glorifyed but that flesh though glorifyed cannot make us see God better nor clearer then the soul alone hath done all the time from our death to our resurrection But as an indulgent Father or as a tender mother when they go to see the King in any Solemnity or any other thing of observation and curiosity delights to carry their child which is flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone with them and though the child cannot comprehend it as well as they they are as glad that the child sees it as that they see it themselves such a gladnesse shall my soul have that this flesh which she will no longer call her prison nor her tempter but her friend her companion her wife that this flesh that is I in in the re-union and redintegration of both parts shall see God for then one principall clause in her rejoycing and acclamation shall be that this flesh is her flesh In carne meâ in my flesh I shall see God It was the flesh of every wanton object here that would allure it in the petulancy of mine eye It was the flesh of every Satyricall Libeller and defamer and calumniator of other men that would call upon it and tickle mine ear with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority And in the grave it is the flesh of the worm the possession is transfer'd to him But in heaven it is Caro mea My flesh my souls flesh my Saviours flesh As my meat is assimilated to my flesh and made one flesh with it as my soul is assimilated to my God and made partaker of the divine nature and Idem Spiritus the same Spirit with it so there my flesh shall be assimilated to the flesh of my Saviour and made the same flesh with him too Verbum caro factum ut caro resurgeret Therefore the Word was made flesh therefore God was made man that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right hand of God That 's spoken of the flesh of Christ and then to facilitate the passage for us Reformat ad immortalitatem suam participes sui those who are worthy receivers of his flesh here are the same flesh with him And God shall quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit is that dwelleth in you But this is not in consummation in full accomplishment till this resurrection when it shall be Caro mea my flesh so as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God and Caro mea My flesh so as that nothing can devest me of it Here a bullet will aske a man where 's your arme and a Wolf wil ask a woman where 's your breast A sentence in the Star-chamber will aske him where 's your ear and a mouths close prison will aske him where 's your flesh A fever will aske him where 's your Red and a morphew will aske him where 's your white But when after all this when after my skinne worms shall destroy my body I shall see God I shall see him in my flesh which shall be mine as inseparably in the effect though not in the manner as the Hypostaticall union of God and man in Christ makes our nature and the God-head
an Army there is for many times they intimidate weake men when they shoote nothing but Paper when they are onely Paper-Armies and Pamphlet-Victories and no such in truth Illico scandalizatur yet with these forged rumours presently hee is scandalized and hee comes apace to those dangerous conclusions Non potens Deus for any thing I see God is not so powerfull a God as they make him for his enemies Armies prevaile against his Non sapiens Deus for any thing I see God does not take so wise courses for his glory of which hee talkes so much and pretends to bee so jealous for his enemies Counsels prevaile against his And hee comes at last to the Non est Deus to labour to over-rule his own Conscience and make himselfe bebeleeve or at least to wish though hee cannot beleeve it that there were no God Now to correct or to repair this weaknesse you see our Saviours physique here If thy foot thy hand thine eye scandalize thee offend thee abscinde projâ—ce erue projice Cut it off pull it out and then cast it away You see Christs method in his physique It determines not in a preparative that does but stirre the humours for every remorse and every compunction and every sense that a man hath that such and such company leades him into tentation does that it workes in the nature of such a preparative as stirres the humours affects the soul Christs physique determines not in a blood-letting no not in cutting off the gangren'd part for it is not onely Cut off and pull out but Cast away it is an absolute evacuation and purging out of the peccant humour It is not a halting with the foot nor a shifting with the hand it is not a winking with the eye but abscinde and erue Cut off pull out and after that Though hee bee the foot upon which thou standest thy Master thy Patron thy Benefactor Though hee be thy hand by which thou gettest thy living thy meanes the instrument of thy maintenance or preferment Though hee bee thine eye the man from whom thou receivest all thy Light and upon whose learning thou engagest thy Religion abscindatur projice if hee scandalize thee shake thee in thy Religion at the heart or in the ways of godlinesse in thine actions Cut him off that is cut off thy selfe from that conversation and cast him away returne no more within distance of that tentation for as sinne hath that quality of a worm that it gnawes it gnawes the conscience so hath it also that quality of a worm that if you cut it into pieces yet if those pieces come together again they will re-unite again sinne though discontinued will finde his old pieces if they keep not farre asunder And since it is said of God himself by David Cum perverso perverteris That God will grow froward with the froward and since God says of himselfe That with them that goe crookedly hee will goe crookedly too that the behaviour of other men are said to make impressions upon God himselfe cosider the slipperinesse of our corrupt nature how easily the vices of other men insinuate and infuse themselves into us and how much need wee have of all Christs physique abscinde erue projice Cut off pull out and cast away But to come to our last note Besides the woe arising from the strength of the scandall and the woe from the corruptnesse of our weak nature there is a woe upon our wilfulnesse upon our easinesse in being scandalized by an over-jealousie and suspicious mis-interpretations of the actions of other men And for this in the highest consideration as it hath relation to our Saviour himselfe and his Gospell it may be enough to consider that which himselfe says Blessed is hee whosoever shall not be offended in me But Quis homo What man is hee that is not offended in him and his Gospel Qui non crubescit aut timet what man is he that is not ashamed of the Gospel or afraid of it that does not desire that the religion that he professes were a religion of more liberty of less threatnings We see that though the Cross of Christ that is Christ crucified were daily represented to the Jews in their sacrifices preached to the in the succession of their Prophets yet this Crosse of Christ was Scandalum Iudais a scandal to the Jews It was as the Apostle says there Stultitia Gracis to the Gentiles that had no such preparation to the Gospel as the Jews had in their Law and Sacrifices the Gospel was meer foolishnes a religion unconformable to nature and to reason but even to the Jews themselves it was a scandal a stumbling block they grudged that that religion left them so narrow a way open to pleasure and to profit and that it referred all to a spirituall Kingdome whereas the Jews looked for a temporall Kingdome in their Messias And so truly Christ and his Gospel will be a scandal to all them that will needs set Christ a price at which hee shall sell his Gospel If Tithes or some some small matter in lieu of Tithes will serve his turn and now and then a groat to a Brief and sometimes an extraordinary contribution when extraordinary knowledge may bee taken of it if this will serve his turn hee shall have it But if it must come to a Non pacem that Christ profess hee comes not to settle peace but to kindle a warre if wee must maintain armies for his Gospel if it come to an Odisse vitam to hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and our owne lifes for his Gospel this is too high a price Nolumus hunc regnare now the Gospell growes a Tyran and wee will not be under a tyrannous government If hee will govern by his Law that hee be content with our coming to Church every Sunday and our receiving every Easter wee will live under his Law but if he come to exercise his Prerogative and presse us to extraordinary duties in watching all our particular actions and calling our selves to an account for words and thoughts then Christ and his Gospell become a scandall a stumbling block unto us and lye in our way and retard our ends our pleasures and our profits But if we can overcome this one scandall of the Gospell that we be not ashamed nor afraid of that that is well satisfied in the sufficiency of that Gospel for our salvation and then content to suffer for that Gospel if we can devest this scandall no other shall trouble us Great peace have they which love thy Law says David To love it is to prefer it before all things and great peace have they that doe so says he Wherein consists this peace In this Et non est illis scandalum Great peace have they that love thy Law for they have no scandals nothing shall offend them There shall no evill happen to the just says his son Solomon
him let us finde and lament all these numbers and all these weights of sin Here we are all born to a patrimony to an inheritance an inheritance a patrimony of sin and we are all good husbands and thrive too fast upon that stock upon the encrease of sin even to the treasuring up of sin and the wrath of God for sin How naked soever we came out of our mothers wombe otherwise thus we came all apparell'd apparell'd and invested in sin And we multiply this wardrobe with new habits habits of customary sins every day Every man hath an answer to that question of the Apostle What hast thou that thou hast not received from God Every man must say I have pride in my heart wantonnesse in mine eyes oppression in my hands and that I never receiv'd from God Our sins are our own and we have a covetousnesse of more a way to make other mens sins ours too by drawing them to a fellowship in our sins I must be beholden to the loyalty and honesty of my wife whether my children be mine own or no for he whose eye waiteth for the evening the adulterer may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to the protection of the Law whether my goods shall be mine or no A potent adversary a corrupt Judge may rob me of that propriety I must be beholden to my Physician whether my health and strength shal be mine or no A garment negligently left off a disorderly meal may rob me of that propriâ—ty But without asking any man leave my sins will be mine own When the presumptuous men say Our lips are our own and our tongues are our own the Lord threatens to cut off those lips and those tongues But except we doe come to say Our sins are our own God will never cut up that root in us God will never blot out the memory in himself of those sins Nothing can make them none of ours but the avowing of them the confessing of them to be ours Onely in this way I am a holy lier and in this the God of truth will reward my lie for if I say my sins are mine own they are none of mine but by that confessing and appropriating of those sins to my selfe they are made the sins of him who hath suffered enough for all my blessed Lord and Saviour Christ Iesâ—s Therefore that servant of God S. August confesses those sins which he never did to be his sins and to have been forgiven him Peccata mihi dimissa a fateâ—r quae med sponte feci quae te duce non feci Those sins which I have done and those which but for thy grace I should have done are all my sins Alas I may die here and die under an everlasting condemnation of fornication with that woman that lives and dies a Virgin and be damn'd for a murderer of that man that out-lives me and for a robbery and oppression where no man is damnified nor any penny lost The sin that I have done the sin that I would have done is my sin We must not therefore transfer our sins upon any other Wee must not think to discharge our selves upon a Peccata Patris To come to say My father thriv'd well in this course why should not I proceed in it My father was of this Religion why should not I continue in it How often is it said in the Scriptures of evill Kings he did evill in the sight of the Lord and walk'd in via Patris in the way of his father father in the singular It is never said plurally In via Patrum in the way of his fathers Gods blessings in this world are express'd so in the plurall thou gavest this land patribus to their fathers says Solomon in the dedication of the Temple And thou brought'st Patres our Fathers out of Egypt And again Be with us Lord as thou wast with our Fathers So in Ezekiel where your Fathers dwelt you their children shall dwell too and your children and their childrens children for ever His blessings upon his Saints his holy ones in this world are expressed so plurally and so is the transmigration of his Saints out of this world also Thou shalt sleep cum patribus with thy fathers says God to Moses And David slept cum patribus with his fathers And Iacob had that care of himselfe as of that in which consisted or in which was testified the blessing of God I will lie cum patribus with my fathers and be buried in their burying place says Iacob to his son Ioseph Good ways and good ends are in the plurall and have many examples else they are not good but sins are in the singular He walk'd in the way of his father is in an ill way But carry our manners or carry our Religion high enough and we shall finde a good rule in our fathers Stand in the way says God in Ieremy and ask for the old way which is the good way We must put off veterem hominem but not antiqâ—â—m Wee may put off that Religion which we think old because it is a little elder then our selves and not rely upon that it was the Religion of my Father But Antiquissimum dieâ—um Him whose name is He that is and was and is for ever and so involves and enwraps in himself all the Fathers him we must put on Be that our issue with our adversaries at Rome By the Fathers the Fathers in the plurall when those fathers unanimely deliver any thing dogmatically for matter of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers the Fathers in that plurall But by that 〈◊〉 Father who begers his children not upon the true mother the Church but upon the Court and so produces articles of faith according as State businesses and civill occasions invite him by that father we must refuse to be tried for to limit it in particular to my father we must say with Nehemiah Ege domus patris mei If I make my fathers house my Church my father my Bishop I and my fathers house have sinned says he and with Mordecai to Esther Thou and thy fathers house shall be destroyed They are not 〈◊〉 a patris I cannot excuse my sins upon the example of my father nor are they 〈◊〉 Tempâ—ris I cannot discharge my sins upon the Times and upon the present ill disposition that reigns in men now and doe ill because every body else does so To say there is a rot and therefore the sheep must perish Corruptions in Religion are crept in and work in every cornet and therefore Gods sheep simple souls must be content to admit the infection of this rot That there is a murrain and therefore cattell must die superstition practis'd in many places and therefore the strong servants of God must come to sacrifice their obedience to it or their bloud for it Then no such rot no such murrain no such corruption of times
And then lastly by way of condoling and of instructing we shall make it appear to our weak brethren that our departing from Rome can be no example no justification of their departing from us Our branches then from whence we are to gather our fruit being thus many it is time to lay hold upon the first which is Manebant Though these sheep were thus ill fed yet they did stay Optimis ovibus pedes breves The best sheep have-shortest leggs Their commendation is not to make hast in straying away He that hasteth with his feet sinneth that is from the station in which God hath placed him Si innumera bona fecerimus If we have abounded in good works and done God never so good service Non minores Poenas dabimus quà m qui Christi corpus proscindebant si integritatem Ecclesiarum discerpserimus we are as guilty in the eies of God as they that crucifyed the Lord of life himselfe if we violate his spouse or rent the intirenesse of his Church Vir quidam sanctus dixit says the same father of another Chrysostome of Cyprian A certaine holy man hath ventured to say Quod audaciùs sapere videtur attamen dixit That which perchance may seem bodily sayd but yet he sayd it what was it This peccatum istud nec martyrio deleri That this sin of schisme of renting the unity of the Church cannot be expiated no not by Martyrdome it self When God had made but a hedge about Iob yet that hedge was such a â—ence as the Devill could not break in when God hath carryed Murum aeneum a wall of brasse nay Murum igneum a wall of fire about his Church wilt thou break out through that wall that brasse that fire Paradise was not walled nor hedged and there were serpents in Paradise too yet Adam offered not to goe out of Paradise till God drove him out and God saw that he would have come in againe if the Cherubims and the flaming sword had not been placed by God to hinder him Charme the Charmer never so wisely as David speaks he cannot utter a sweeter nor a more powerfull charme â—hen that Ego te baptizo I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost And Nos admittimus we receive this child into the congregation of Christs slock There is a sweet and a powerfull charm in the Ego te absolvo I absolve thee from all thy sins But this blessed charm I may heare from another if I stray into another Church But the Ego te baptizo I can heare but once and to depart from that Church in which I have received my baptism and in which I have made my Contracts and my stipulations with God and pledged and engaged my sureties there deserve a mature consideration for I may mistake the reasons upon which I goe and I may finde after that there are more true errours in the Church I goe to then there were imaginary in that that I left Truly I have been sorry to see some persons converted from the Roman Church to ours because I have known that onely temporall respects have moved them and they have lived after rather in a nullity or indifferency to either religion then in a true and established zeale Of which kinde I cannot forbeare to report to you so much of the story of a French gentleman who though he were of good parts and learned yet were not worthy to be mentioned in this place but that he soar'd so high as to write against the learnedst King that any age hath produc'd our incomparable King Iames. This man who was turned from the Reformed to the Roman religion being asked halfe in jest Sir which is the best religion you must needs know that have been of both answered Certainely the religion I left the reformed religion must needs be the best religion for when I changed I had this religion the Romans religion for it and three hundred Crowns a year to boot which was a pension given him upon his conversion Neither truely doth any thing more loosen a mans footing nor slacken his hold upon that Church in which he was baptized nor open him more to an undervaluation of all Churches then when he gives himselfe leave to thinke irreverently slightly negligently of the Sacraments as of things at best indifferent and many times impertinent I should thinke I had no bowels if they had not earn'd and melted when I heard a Lady whose child of five or sixe daies being ready to die every minute she being mov'd often that the child might be christened answered That if it were Gods will that the child should live to the Sabbath that it might be baptized in the Congregation she should be content otherwise Gods will be done upon it for God needs no Sacrament With what sorrow with what holy indignation did I heare the Sonne of my friend who brought me to that place to minister the Sacrament to him then upon his death-bed and almost at his last gaspe when my service was offered him in that kinde answer his Father Father I thanke God I have not lived so in the sight of my God as that I need a Sacrament I name a few of these because our times abound with such persons as undervalue not onely all rituall and ceremoniall assistances of devotion which the wisdome and the piety of the Church hath induced but even the Sacraments themselves of Christs owne immediate institution and are alwaies open to solicitations to passe to another Church upon their own surmises of errours in their own Whereas there belongs much consideration and a well grounded assurance of fundamentall errours in one Church and that those errours are repayred and no other as great as those admitted in the other Church before upon any collaterall pretences we abandon that Church in which God hath sealed us to himselfe in Baptisme Our Fathers stayd in Rome Manebant They stayd and Edebant they eat that grasse and they drunke that water which was troden and troubled Alasse what should they have eaten what should they have drunke should a man strangle himselse rather then take in an ill ayre Or forbear a good table because his stomach cannot digest every dish We doe not call money base money till the Allay exceed the pure metall and if it doe so yet it may be currant and serve to many offices Those that are skilfull in that art know how to sever the base from the pure the good parts of the religion from the bad and those that are not will not cast it away for all the corrupt mixture It is true they had been better to have stayd at home and served God in private then to have communicated in a superstitious service Domum vestram Christi Ecclesian deputamus I shall never doubt to call your House the Church of Christ. But this was not permitted to our Fathers to
plurall too And againe in that declaration of his Justice in the confusion of the builders of Babel Descendamus confundamus Let us doe it And then lastly in that great worke of mingling mercy with justice which if we may so speake is Gods master-peece when he says Quis ex nobis who will goe for us and publish this In these places and these onely and not all these neither if we take it exactly according to the originall for in the Second the making of Eve though the Vulgat have it in the plurall it is indeed but singular in the Hebrew God speakes as a King in his royall plurall still And when it is but so Reverenter pensandum est says that Father it behoves us to hearken reverently to him for Kings are Images of God such Images of God as have eares and can heare and hands and can strike But I would aske no more premeditation at your hands when you come to speake to God in this place then if you sued to speake with the King no more fear of God here then if you went to the King under the conscience of a guiltinesse towards him and a knowledge that he knew it And that 's your case here Sinners and manifest sinners For even midnight is noone in the sight of God and when your candles are put out his Sunne shines still Nec quid absconditum à calcre ejus says David there is nothing hid from the heate thereof not onely no sinne hid from the light thereof from the sight of God but not from the heate therof not from the wrath indignation of God If God speak plurally onely in the Majesty of a soveraign Prince still Reverenter pensandum that calls for reverence What reverence There are nationall differences in outward worships and reverences Some worship Princes and Parents and Masters in one some in another fashion Children kneele to aske blessing of Parents in England but where else Servants attend not with the same reverence upon Masters in other nations as with us Accesses to their Princes are not with the same difficulty nor the same solemnity in France as in Turkey But this rule goes thorough all nations that in that disposition and posture and action of the body which in that place is esteemed most humble and reverend God is to be worshipped Doe so then here God is your Father aske blessing upon your knees pray in that posture God is your King worship him with that worship which is highest in our use and estimation We have no Grandees that stand covered to the King where there are such though they stand covered in the Kings presence they doe not speake to him for matters of Grace they doe not sue to him so ancient Canons make differences of Persons in the presence of God where and how these and these shall dispose of themselves in the Church dignity and age and infirmity will induce differences But for prayer there is no difference one humiliation is required of all As when the King comes in here howsoever they sate diversly before all returne to one manner of expressing their acknowledgement of his presence So at the Oremus Let us pray let us all fall down and worship and kneel before the Lord our maker So he speakes in our text not onely as the Lord our King intimating his providence and administration but as the Lord our maker and then a maker so as that he made us in a councell Faciamus Let us and that that he speakes as in councell is another argument for reverence For what interest or freedome soever I have by his favour with any Counseller of State yet I should surely use another manner of behaviour towards him at the Councell Table then at his owne Table So does there belong another manner of consideration to this plurality in God to this meeting in Councell to this intimation of a Trinity then to those other actions in which God is presented to us singly as one God for so he is presented to the naturall man as well as to us And here enters the necessity of this knowledge Oportet denuo nasci without a second birth no salvation And no second birth without Baptisme no Baptisme but in the name of Father Sonne and holy Ghost It was the entertainment of God himselfe his delight his contemplation for those infinite millions of generations when he was without a world without Creatures to joy in one another in the Trinity as Gregory Nazianz a Poet as well as a Father as most of the Fathers were expresses it ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to looke upon himselfe in the Sonne Numenque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens and to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and an equall glory It was Gods owne delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinity If I have a bar of Iron that bar in that forme will not naile a doore If a Sow of Lead that Lead in that forme will not stop a leake If a wedge of Gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coine my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinity That if I have been a prodigall Sonne I have a Father in heaven and can goe to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed Father and need the sustentation of mine own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will doe more for me then mine own of what good meanes or what good nature so ever they be can or will doe If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall beare witnesse to my spirit that I am the child of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memory and reproaching to my conscience the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of mine own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memory and sinfull delight of passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me againe yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me the God of all Comfort and Consolation God is the God of the whole world in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially and most applyably as he receives me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it selfe that is an occasion to humble me in the next words He makes but Man A man that is but Adam but Earth
it selfe and therefore his resolution stands unshak'd Etiamsi occiderit Though he dy for it yet he will trust in God In the first then The Resolution the purpose it selfe we shall consider Quem and Quid The Person and the Affection To whom Iob will beare so great and so reverent a respect and then what this respect is I will trust in him I would not stay you upon the first branch upon the person as upon a particular consideration though even that The person upon whom in all cases we are to rely be entertainement sufficient for the meditation of our whole life but that there arises an usefull observation out of that name by which Iob delivers that person to us in this place Iob says though He kill me yet he will trust in him but he tells us not in this verse who this He is And though we know by the frame and context that this is God yet we must have recourse to the third verse to see in what apprehension and what notion in what Character and what Contemplation in what name and what nature what Attribute and what Capacity Iob conceived and proposed God to himselfe when he fix'd his resolution so intirely to rely upon him for as God is a jealous God I am sure I have given him occasion of jealousy and suspicion I have multiplied my fornications and yet am not satisfied as the prophet speakes As God is a Consuming fire I have made my selfe fuell for the fire and I have brought the fires of lust and of ambition to kindle that fire As God visits the sinnes of fathers upon Children I know not what sinnes my fathers and grandfathers have layd up in the treasure of Gods indignation As God comes to my notion in these formes Horrendum it were a fearefull thing to flesh and bloud to deliver ones selfe over to him as he is a jealous God and a Consuming fire But in that third verse Iob sets before him that God whom he conceives to be Shaddai that is Omnipotens Allmighty I will speake to the Allmighty and I desire to dispute with God Now if we propose God to our selves in that name as he is Shaddai we shall find that word in so many significations in the scriptures as that no misery or calamity no prosperity or happinesse can fall upon us but we shall still see it of what kinde so ever it be descend from God in this acceptation as God is Shaddai For first this word signifies Dishoner as the Septuagint translate it in the Proverbs He that Dishonoreth his parents is a shamelesse child There 's this word Shaddai is the name of God and yet Shaddai signifies Dishonor In the prophet Esay it signifies Depredation a forcible and violent taking away of our goods vae praedanti says God in that place woe to thee that spoyledst and wast not spoyled Shaddai is the name of God and yet Shaddai is spoyle and violence and depredation In the prophet Ieremy the word is carried farther there it signifies Destruction and an utter Dâ—vastation Dâ—vastati sumus says he we unto us for we are Destroy'd The word is Shaddai and is Destruction though Shaddai be the name of God yea the word reaches to a more spirituall affection it extends to the understanding and error in that and to the Conscience and sinne in that for so the Septuagint makes use of this word in the Proverbs To deceive and to ly and in one place of the Psalmes they interpret the word of the Devil himselfe So that recollecting all these heavy significations of the word Dishonor and Disreputation force and Depredation Ruine and Devastation Error and Illusion the Devill and his Tentations are presented to us in the same word as the name and power of God is that when so ever any of these doe fall upon us in the same instant when we see and consider the name and quality of this calamity that falls we may see and consider the power and the purpose of God which inflicts that Calamity I cannot call the calamity by a name but in that name I name God I cannot feel an affliction but in that very affliction I feel the hand and if I will the medicinall hand of my God If therefore our Honour and Reputation decay all honor was a beame of him and if he have sucked that beame into himselfe let us follow it home let us labor to be honorable in him glorified in him and our honor is not extinguished in this world but growne too glorious for this world to comprehend If spoyle and Depredation come upon us that we be covered with wrath and persecuted slaine and not spared That those that fed delicately perish in the streets and they that were brought up in scarlet embrace the Dunghill and that the hands of pitifull women have sodden their owne children as the prophet complains in the Lamentations if there be such an irreparable Devastation upon us as that we be broken as an Earthern vessell in the breaking whereof there remaines not a sheard to fetch fire from the hearth nor water from the pit That our estate be ruined so as that there is nothing left not onely for future posterity but not for the present family yet still God and the calamity are together God does not send it but bring it he is there as soone as the calamity is there and calling that calamity by his owne name Shaddai he would make that very calamity a candle to thee by which thou mightst see him that if thou wert not so puffed up before as that thou forgotst to say Dominus dedit It was the Lord that gave all thou shouldst not be so dejected so rebellious now as not to say Dominus tulit It is the Lord that hath taken and committed to some better steward those treasures of his which he saw thou dost employ to thine owne danger Yea if those spirituall afflictions which reach to the understanding and are intimated and involved in this word in this name of God doe fall upon us That we call for our lovers and they deceive us as we told you the word did signifie deceit that is we come to see how much we mistooke the matter when we fell in love with wordly things as certainely once in our lives though it be but upon our Death beds we doe come to discover that deceit yea when the deceit is so spirituall as that it reaches not onely to the understanding but to the Conscience that that have been deceived either with security at one time or with anxieties and unnecessary scruples and impertinent perplexities at another if this spirituall deceit have gone so high as that wee came to thinke our selves to be amongst them of whom the prophet sayes Ah Lord God surely thou hast deceived thy people and Ierusalem that we come to suspect that God hath misled us in a false religion all this while and that there is
Other sheep have I which are not of this fold says Christ them also I must bring in I must it is expressed not onely as an act of his good will but of that eternall decree to which he had at the making thereof submitted himself I must bring them who are they Many shall come from the east and from the west and shall sit downe with Abraham Isacc and Iacob in the kingdom of heaven from the Eastern Church and from the WesterN Church too from the Greek Church and from the Latine too and by Gods grace from them that pray not in Latine too from every Church so it be truly and fundamentally a Church Many shall come How many a multitude that no man can number For the new Ierusalem in the Revelation which is heaven hath twelve gates three to every corner of the world so that no place can be a stranger or lacke accesse to it Nay it hath says that Text twelve foundations Other foundation can no man lay then that which is layd Christ Iesus But that first foundation-stone being kept though it be not hewed nor layd alike in every place though Christ be not preached nor presented in the same manner for outward Ceremonies or for problematicall opinions yet the foundation may remaine one though it be in such a sort varied and men may come in at any of the twelve gates and rest upon any of the twelve foundations for they are all gates and foundations of one and the same Ierusalem and they that enter are a multitude that no man can number If then there be this sociable this applyable nature in God this large and open entrance for man why does Christ call it a straite gate and a narrow way Not that it is strait in it self but that we think it so and indeed we make it so Christ is the gate and every wound of his admits the whole world The Church is the gate And in omnem terram says David she hath opened her mouth and her voice is gone over all the world His word is the gate And thy Commandement is exceeding broad says David too His word and his light reaches to all cases and all distresses Lata porta Diabolus saith Saint Chrysostome The Devill is a broad gate but he tells us how he came to be so Mon magnitudine potestatis extensus sed superbiae licentia dilatatus not that God put such a power into his hands at first as that we might not have resisted him but that he hath usurp'd upon us and we have given way to his usurpations so says that Father Angusta porta Christus Christ is a narrow gate but he tels us also wherein and in what respect Non parvitate potestatis exiguus sed humilitatis ratione collectus Christ is not a narrow gate so as that the greatest man may not come in but called narrow because he fits himselfe to the least child to the simplest soule that will come in not so strait as that all may not enter but so strait as that there can come in but one at once for he that will not forsake Father and Mother and wife and children for him cannot enter in Therefore we call the Devils way broad because men walke in that with all their equipage all their sumpters all their state all their sinnes and therefore we call Christs way strait because a man must strippe himselfe of all inordinate affections of all desires of ill getting and of all possessions that are ill gotten In a word it is not strait to a mans selfe but if a man will carry his sinfull company his sinfull affections with him and his sinfull possessions it is strait for then he hath made himselfe a Camel and to a Camel Heaven gate is as a needles eye But it is better comming into heaven with one eye then into hell with two Better comming into heaven without Master or Mistresse then into hell for over-humouring of either There The gates are not shut all day says the Prophet and there is no night there And here if we shut the doore yet Christ stands at the doore and knocks Be but content to open thy doore be but content to let him open it and he will enter and be but thou content to enter into his content to be led in by his preaching content to be drawn in by his benefits content to be forced in by his corrections and he will open his since thy God would have dyed for thee if there had been no man born but thou never imagine that he who lets in multitudes which no man can number of all Nations c. would ever shut out thee but labour to enter there ubi non intrat inimicus ubi non exit amicus where never any that hates thee shall get to thee nor any that loves thee part from thee We have but ended our first part The assurance which we have from Gods manner of proceeding that Religion is not a sullen but a cheerfull Philosophy and salvation not cast into a corner but displayed as the Sunne over all That which we called at first our second part must not be a Part admit it for a Conclusion It is that and beyond that It is beyond our Conclusion for it is our everlasting endowment in heaven and if I had kept minutes enough for it who should have given me words for it I will but paraphrase the words of the Text and so leave you in that which I hope is your gallery to heaven your own meditations The words are You shall stand before the Throne and before the Lamb clothed with white Fobes and palms in their hands First stabitis you shall stand which is not that you shall not sit for the Saints shall sit judg the world they shall sit at the right hand of Godâ— It is not that you shall not sit nor that you shall not lie for you shall lye in Abraham bosom But yet you shal stand that is you shall stand sure you shall never fall you shall stand but yet you shall but stand that is remaine in a continuall disposition and readinesse to serve God and to minister to him And therefore account no abundance no height no birth no place here to exempt you from standing and labouring in the service of God since even your glorious state in heaven is but a station but a standing in readinesse to doe his will and not a posture of idlenesse you shall stand that is stand sure but you shall but stand that is still be bound to the service of God Stabitis ante Thronum you shall stand and stand before the Throne Here in the militant Church you stand but you stand in the porch there in the triumphant you shall stand in Sancto sanctorum in the Quire and the Altar Here you stand but you stand upon Ice perchance in high and therefore in slippery places
Evangelists that that voice added Hear him for after that Declaration that he who was visibly and personally come amongst them was the Sonne of God there was no reason to doubt of mens willingnesse to hear him who went forth in person to preach unto them in this world As long as he was to stay with them it was not likely that they should need provocation to hear him therefore that was not added at his Baptisme and entrance into his personall ministery But when Christ came to his Transfiguration which was a manifestation of his glory in the next world and an intimation of the approaching of the time of his going away to the possession of that glory out of this world there that voyce from heaven sayes This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased heare him When he was gone out of this world men needed a more particular solicitation to heare him for how and where and in whom should they heare him when he was gone In the Church for the same testimony that God gave of Christ to authorize and justifie his preaching hath Christ given of the Church to justifie her power The holy Ghost fell upon Christ at his Baptism and the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles who were the representative Church at Whitsontide The holy Ghost tarried upon Christ then and the holy Ghost shall tarry with the Church usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And therefore as we have that institution from Christ Dic Ecclesiae when men are refractary and perverse to complaine to the Church so have they who are complained of to the Church that institution from Christ also Audi Ecclesiam Hearken to the voyce of God in the Church and they have from him that commination If you disobey them you disobey God in what fetters soever they binde you you shall rise bound in those fetters and as he who is excommunicated in one Diocese should not be received in another so let no man presume of a better state in the Triumphant Church then he holds in the Militant or hope for communion there that despises excommunication here That which the Scripture says God sayes says St. Augustine for the Scripture is his word and that which the Church says the Scriptures say for she is their word they speak in her they authorize her and she explicates them The Spirit of God inanimates the Scriptures and makes them his Scriptures the Church actuates the Scriptures and makes them our Scriptures Nihil salubrius says the same Father There is not so wholsome a thing no soule can live in so good an aire and in so good a diet Quà m ut Rationem praecedat authoritas Then still to submit a mans owne particular reason to the authority of the Church expressed in the Scriptures For certainly it is very truly as it is very usefully said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardnesse and an aptnesse to quarrell at the proceedings of the Church and to be delivered from the obligations and constitutions of the Church is ever accompanied with an ambitious pride that they might enjoy a licentious liberty It is not because the Church doth truly take too much power but because they would be under none it is an ambition to have all government in their own hands and to be absolute Emperors of themselves that makes them refractary But if they will pretend to believe in God they must believe in God so as God hath manifested himself to them they must believe in Christ so if they will pretend to heare Christ they must heare him there where he hath promised to speake they must heare him in the Church The first reason then in this Trinity the person that directs is the Church the Trumpet in which God sounds his Iudgements and the Organ in which he delivers his mercy And then the persons of the second place the persons to whom the Church speakes here are Filiae Sion The daughters of Sion her owne daughters We are not called Filii Ecclesiae sonnes of the Church The name of sonnes may imply more virility more manhood more sense of our owne strength then becomes them who professe an obedience to the Church Therefore as by a name importing more facility more supplenesse more application more tractablenesse she calls her children Daughters But then being a mother and having the dignity of a Parent upon her she does not proceed supplicatorily she does not pray them nor intreat them she does not say I would you would go forth and I would you would looke out but it is Egredimini videte imperatively authoritatively Do it you must do it So that she showes what in important and necessary cases the power of the Church is though her ordinary proceedings by us and our Ministery be To pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God In your baptisme your soules became daughters of the Church and they must continue so as long as they continue in you you cannot devest your allegiance to the Church though you would no more then you can to the State to whom you cannot say ◠will be no subject A father may dis-inherit his son upon reasons but even that dis-inherited childe cannot renounce his father That Church which conceived thee in the Covenant of God made to Christians and their seed and brought thee forth in baptisme and brought thee up in catechizing and preaching may yet for thy misdemeanor to God in her separate thee à Mensa Toro from bed and board from that sanctuary of the soule the Communion Table and from that Sanctuary of the body Christian buriall and even that Christian buriall gives a man a good rise a good helpe a good advantage even at the last resurrection to be laid down in expectation of the Resurrection in holy ground and in a place accustomed to Gods presence and to have been found worthy of that Communion of Saints in the very body is some earnest and some kinde of first-fruits of the joyfull resurrection which we attend God can call our dead bodies from the sea and from the fire and from the ayre for every element is his but consecrated ground is our element And therefore you daughters of Sion holy and religious souls for to them onely this indulgent mother speaks here hearken ever to her voice quarrell not your mothers honor nor her discretion Despise not her person nor her apparell Doe not say she is not the same woman she was heretofore nor that she is not so well dressed as she was then Dispute not her Doctrine Despise not her Discipline that as you sucked her breasts in your Baptism in the other Sacrament when you entred and whilst you stayd in this life so you may lie in her bosome when you goe out of it Hear her a good part of that which you are to hear from her is envolv'd inwrapped in that w ch we have propos'd
which was last written this Gospell begin both with this word In the beginning But the last beginning was the first if Moses beginning doe onely denote the Creation which was not 6000. yeares since and Saint Iohns the Eternity of Christ which no Millions multiplied by Millions can calculate And then as his Eternitie so his distinction of Persons is also specified in this 1. verse when the Word that is Christ is said to have been apud Deum with God For therefore saith Saint Basil did the Holy Ghost rather choose to say apud Deum then in Deo with God then in God ne auferenda Hypostaseos occasionem daret lest he should give any occasion of denying the same Nature in divers Persons for it doth more clearly notifie a distinction of Persons to say he was with him then to say he was in him for the severall Attributes of God Mercy and Iustice and the rest are in God and yet they are not distinct Persons Lastly there is also expressed in this 1. verse Christs Equality with God in that it is said Verbum erat Deus and this Word was God As it was in the beginning and therefore Eternall and as it was with God and therefore a distinct Person so it was God and thereforre equall to the Father which phrase doth so vexe and anguish the Arians that being disfurnished of all other escapes they corrupted the place onely with a false interpunction and broke of the words where they admitted no such pause for they read it thus Verbum erat apud Deum so far well Et Deus erat There they made their point and then followed in another sentence Verbum hoc erat in principio c. The first part then of this Chapter and indeed of the whole Gospell is in that 1. verse the manifestation of his Divine Nature in his Eternitie in the distinction of Persons in the equalitie with the Father The second part of the Chapter layeth downe the Office of Christ his Propheticall his Priestly his Royall Office For the first the Office of a Prophet consisting in three severall exercises to manifest things past to foretell things to come and to expound thing present Christ declared himself to be a Prophet in all these three for for the first he was not onely a Verball but an Actuall manifester of former Prophecies for all the former Prophecies were accomplished in his Person and in his deeds and words in his actions and Passion For the second his foretelling of future things he foretold the state of the Church to the end of the world And for the third declaring of present things He told the Samaritan woman so exquisitely all her own History that she gave presently that attestation Sir I see that thou art a Prophet so his Propheticall Office is plainly laid down For his second Office his Priesthood that is expressed in the 36. verse Behold the Lambe of God for in this he was our Priest that he was our Sacrifice he was our Priest in that he offered himselfe for our sinnes Lastly his Royall Office was the most naturall to him of all the rest The Office of a Prophet was Naturall to none none was born a Prophet Those who are called the children of the Prophets and the sonnes of the Prophets are but the Prophets Disciples Though the Office of Priesthood by being annexed to one Tribe may in some sense be called Naturall yet in Christ it could not be so for he was not of that Tribe of Levi so that he had no interest in the legall Priesthood but was a Priest according to the Order of Melchisedec But his Title to be King was naturall by descent he was of the bloud Royall and the nearest in succession so that he and onely he had De Iure all the three unctions upon him David had two he was both a Prophet and a King he had those two capacities Melchisedec had two too he was both a King and a Priest he had two Onely Christ had all three both a Prophet and Priest and King In the third part of the Chapter which is the calling of foure of his Apostles we may observe that the first was called was not Peter but Andrew that there might be laid at first some interruption some stop to their zealous fury who will still force and heap up every action which any way concerns Saint Peter to the building up of his imaginary primacy which primacy they cared not though Peter wanted if they could convey that primacy to his Successor by any other Title for which Successours sake it is and not for Saint Peters own that they are so over diligent in advancing his prerogative But it was not Peter that was called but Andrew In Andrews present and earnest application of himself to Christ we may note and onely so divers particulars fit for use and imitation In his first question Master where dwellest thou there is not onely as Cyrill observes a reverent ascribing to him a power of instructing in that compellation Master but a desire to have more time afforded to hearken to his instructions Where dwellest thou that I may dwell with thee And as soon as ever he had taken in some good portion of knowledge himselfe he conceives presently a desire to communicate his happinesse with others and he seeks his brother Peter and tells him Invenimus Messiam we have found the Messias which is as Saint Chrysostome notes vox quaerentis In this that he rejoyces in the finding of him he testifies that he had sought him and that he had continued in the expectation of a Messias before Invenit Messiam he had found the Messias but saith the Text Duxit ad Iesum he brought his brother the glorious newes of having found a King the King of the Jewes but he led him to Iesus to a Saviour that so all kinds of happinesse temporall and spirituall might be intimated in this discovery of a King and of a Saviour What may not his servants hope for at his hands who is both those a King and a Saviour and hath worldly preferments and the Glory of Heaven in his power Now though the words of this Text He was not that light but was sent to beare witnesse of that light are placed in the first part of the Chapter that which concernes Christs Divine nature yet they belong and they have a respect to all three To his Divine nature to his Offices and to his Calling of his Apostles For first light denotes his Divine nature secondly the testimony that is given of him by Iohn Baptist of whom the words of our Text are spoken declares him to be the Messias and Messias which signifies anointed involves all his Offices are his three Offices are his three vocations and thirdly the Application of this testimony given by Iohn Baptist here by the Apostles and their Successors after intimates or brings to our memory this their first vocation in this Chapter So
sinner thou dost therefore presently know thy sinnes Thou wouldst have so much tendernes so much compassion if thou knewest that he that fits next thee were in this danger of Gods heavy indignation thou wouldst commiserate thy neighbours wretched condition so much But proceed with thy self further bring this dawning and breake of day to a full light and this little sparke to a perfect acknowledgement of thy sinnes Go home with this spark of Gods Spirit in you and there looke upon your Rentalls and know your oppressions and extorsions looke upon your shop-bookes and know your deceits and falsifications looke upon your ward-robes and know your excesses looke upon your childrens faces and know your fornications Till then till you come to this scrutiny this survey this sifting of the Conscience if we should cry peace peace yet there were no peace The Oratour said Imposuimus populo Oratores visi sumus we have cousened the people and they say we are excellent Oratours powerfull well spoken men We might flatter you and you would say we were sweet and smooth and comfortable Preachers and we might perish together But if you study your selves reade your own History if you get to the knowledge of your errand hither and the ill discharge of those duties here the sorrow and compunction which will grow from thence is a faire degree of Martyrdome for as Saint Hierome saith of Chastitie Habet pudicitia servata Martyrium suum Chastity preserved is a continuall Martyrdome so a true remorse if that Chastity have not been preserved and likewise a true remorse for every sinne is a fair degree of Martyrdome for Martyr is Testis the very name of Martyr signifieth a Witnesse and this Martyrdome this true remorse and sorrow and compunction for your sinnes becomes a witnesse to your selves of your reconciliation to God in the merits of Christ Jesus But we may carry this branch no further that Iohn Baptist being a competent witnesse therefore because he understood the matter hee testified before wee can bee competent witnesses to our owne Consciences of our Reconciliation to God wee must understand and therefore search into our particular sinnes not onely that wee are sinners but sinners in such and such kindes such times such places such persons for that Soule that is content to rest in generalls would but deceive it selfe Iohn Baptists other qualification was That as hee knew the matter about which hee was sent so hee had and justly a good estimation amongst them to whom hee was imployed If I have a prejudice against a Man and suspect his honestie I shall not bee much moved with his Testimony The Devill testified for Christ but if there were no other Testimony but his I should demurre upon the Gospell I should not die for that Faith Iohn Baptist was a credible person amongst them How was this credit acquired It seemeth Iohn Baptist did no Miracles Whether hee did or no is not a cleare Case for that which is said Iohn Baptist did no miracles is not said by the Evangelist himselfe Saint Iohn doeth not say that Iohn Baptist did no miracles but those that resorted to him at that place said that He doth no miracles for they had seene none If he did none that reason may be good enough ne aequalis Christo putaretur it was forborne in him that he might appeare to be inferiour to Christ. And if he did none yet there were miracles done by him The reformation of manners and bringing men to repentance is a miracle It is a lesse miracle to raise a man from a sick bed then to hold a man from a wanton bed a litentious bed lesse to overcome and quench his fever then to quench his lust Ioseph that refused his mistris was a greater miracle then Lazarus raised from the dead Of these resurrections we have divers examples Iosephs case I thinke is singular There were miracles done so by Iohn Baptist preaching to others and there were miracies done upon himself early for his springing in his mothers womb was a miracle and a miracle done for others Significatio rei à majoribus cognoscende non à minori cognitae The child catechized his elders in that which himselfe understood not that is the presence of his Saviour in the virgin then present Divinitus in infante non humanitus ab infante says the same Father it was not a joy and exultation in the child but an institution an instruction to the rest But miracle or no miracle is not our issue witnesses for Christ require not wonder but beliefe we pretend not miracles but propose Gods ordinary meanes we look not for Admiration but Assent And therefore forbeare you acclamations and expectations of wonderfull good preachers and admirable good Sermons It was enough for Iohn Baptist that even they confessed that all that he said was true Content thy selfe with truths evident truths fundamentall truths let matter of wonder and admiration alone He was a witnesse competent to them for his truth and integrity and he was so also for the outward holinesse of his life which for the present we consider onely in the strict and austere manner of living that he embraced For certainly he that uses no fasting no discipline no mortification exposes himselfe to many dangers in himselfe and to a cheape and vulgar estimation amongst others Caro mea jumentum meum says S. Augustine my body is the horse I ride iter ago in Ierusalem my businesse lies at Ierusalem thither I should ride De via conatur excutere my horse over pampered casts me upon the way or carries me out of the way non cohibebo jejunio says he must not that be my way to bring him to a gentler riding more command by lessening his proportions of provender S. Augustine meanes the same that S. Paul preached I beat down my body says he and bring it in subjection And as Paulinus reades that place Lividum reddo I make my body blacke and blue white and red were not Saint Pauls colours Saint Paul was at this time departed in outward profession from the sect of the Pharisees and from their ostentations of doing their disciplines in the sight and for the praise of man but yet being become a Christian he left not his austerity And it is possible for us to leave the leaven of the Papist the opinion of merit and supererogation and doing more then we are bound to doe in the ways of godlinesse and yet nourish our soules with that wholesome bread of taming our bodies Saint Paul had his Disciplines his mortifications he tells us so but he does not tell us what they were lest perchance a reverence to his person and example might binde mis-devout men to doe punctually as Saint Paul did The same Rule cannot serve all but the same Reason may The institution of friars under a certain Rule that all of them just at this time shall
calling by being personally here at these exercises of Religion thou art some kinde of witnesse of this light For in how many places of the world hath Christ yet never opened such doors for his ordinary service in all these 1600. yeers And in how many places hath he shut up these doors of his true worship within these three or foure yeers Quod citaris huc That thou art brought hither within distance of his voyce within reach of his food intra sphaeram Activitatis within the spheare and latitude of his ordinary working that is into his house into his Church this is a citation a calling answerable to Iohn Baptists first calling from his fathers dead loins and his mothers barren wombe and his second citation was before he was borne in his mothers wombe When Mary came to visit Elizabeth the childe sprang in her belly as soone as Maries voice sounded in her eares And though naturally upon excesse of joy in the mother the childe may spring in her yet the Evangelist meanes to tell an extraordinary and supernaturall thing and whether it were an anticipation of reason in the childe some of the Fathers think so though St. Augustine do not that the childe understood what he did or that this were a fulfilling of that prophecy That he should be filled with the holy Ghost from his mothers wombe all agree that this was an exciting of him to this attestation of his Saviours presence whether he had any sense of it or no. Exultatio significat sayes St. Augustine This springing declared that his mother whose forerunner that childe should be was come And so both Origen and St. Cyrill refer that commendation which our Saviour gives him Inter natos Mulierum Among those that were born of women there was not a greater Prophet that is none that prophecyed before he was borne but he And such a citation beloved thou mayest have in this place and at this time A man may upon the hearing of something that strikes him that affects him feel this springing this exultation this melting and colliquation of the inwardest bowels of his soule a new affection a new passion beyond the joy ordinarily conceived upon earthly happinesses which though no naturall Philosopher can call it by a name no Anatomist assigne the place where it lyes yet I doubt not through Christ jesus but that many of you who are here now feele it and understand it this minute Citaris huc thou wast cited to come hither whether by a collaterall and oblique and occasionall motion or otherwise hither God hath brought thee and Citaris hîc here thou art cited to come neerer to him Now both these citations were before Iohn Baptist was borne both these affections to come to this place and to be affected with a delight here may be before thy regeneration which is thy spirituall birth a man is not borne not borne againe because he is at Church nor because he likes the Sermon Iohn Baptist had and thou must have a third citation which was in him from the desert into the publique into the world from contemplation to practice This was that mission that citation which most properly belongs to this Text when the word came to the voyce The word of God came to Iohn in the wildernesse and he came into all the Countrey preaching the Baptisme of repentance To that we must come to practise For in this respect an Vniversity is but a wildernesse though we gather our learning there our private meditation is but a wildernesse though we contemplate God there nay our being here is but a wildernesse though we serve God here if our service end so if we do not proceed to action and glorifie God in the publique And therefore Citaris huc thou art cited hither here thou must be and Citaris hîc thou art cited here to lay hold upon that grace which God offers in his Ordinance and Citaris hinc thou art cited from hence to embrace a calling in the world He that undertakes no course no vocation he is no part no member no limbe of the body of this world no eye to give light to others no eare to receive profit by others If he think it enough to be excrementall nayles to scratch and gripe others by his lazy usury and extortion or excrementall hayre made onely for ornament or delight of others by his wit or mirth or delightfull conversation these men have not yet felt this third citation by which they are called to glorifie God and so to witnesse for him in such publique actions as Gods cause for the present requires and comports with their calling And then Iohn Baptist had a fourth citation to bear witnesse for Christ by laying down his life for the Truth and this was that that made him a witnesse in the highest sense a Martyr God hath not served this citation upon us nor doth he threaten us with any approches towards it in the feare of persecution for religion But remember that Iohn Baptists Martyrdome was not for the fundamentall rock the body of the Christian religion but for a morall truth for matter of manners A man may be bound to suffer much for a lesse matter then the utter overthrow of the whole frame and body of religion But leaving this consideration for what causes a man is bound to lay downe his life consider we now but this that a man lays downe his life for Christ and beares witnesse of him even in death when he prefers Christ before this world when he desires to be dissolved and be with him and obeyes cheerefully that citation by the hand of death whensoever it comes and that citation must certainly be served upon you all whether this night in your beds or this houre at the doore no man knowes You who were cited hither to heare and cited here to consider and cited hence to worke in a calling in the world must be cited from thence too from the face to the bosome of the earth from treading upon other mens to a lying downe in your owne graves And yet that is not your last citation there is fifth In the grave Iohn Baptist does and we must attend a fifth citation from the grave to a Iudgement The first citation hither to Church was served by Example of other men you saw them come and came The second citation here in the Church was served by the Preacher you heard him and beleeved The third from hence is served by the law and by the Magistrate they binde you to embrace a profession and a calling and you do so The fourth which is from thence from this to the next world is served by nature in death he touches you and you sinke This fifth to Iudgement shall be by an Angell by an Archangell by the Lord himself The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with
to others to thy self And then by our Commission we cry out to you to make streight his paths In which we do not require that you should absolutely rectifie all the deformities and crookednesse which that Tortuositas Serpentis the winding of the old Serpent hath brought you to for now the streame of our corrupt nature is accustomed to that crooked channell and we cannot divert that we cannot come to an absolute directnesse and streightnesse and profession in this life and in this place the holy Ghost speaks but of a way a path not of our rest in the end but of our labour in the way Our Commission then is not to those sinlesse men that think they have nothing for God to forgive But when we bid you make streight his paths as before we directed you to take knowledge what his wayes towards others had been so here we intend that you should observe which is the Lords path into you by what way he comes oftnest into you who are his Temple and do not lock that doore do not pervert do not crosse do not deface that path The ordinary way even of the holy Ghost for the conveying of faith and supernaturall graces is as the way of worldly knowledge is by the senses where his way is by the care by hearing his word preached do not thou crosse that way of his by an inordinate delight in hearing the eloquence of the preacher for so thou hearest the man and not God and goest thy way and not his God hath divers wayes into divers men into some he comes at noone in the sunshine of prosperity to some in the dark and heavy clouds of adversity Some he affects with the musick of the Church some with some particular Collect or Prayer some with some passage in a Sermon which takes no hold of him that stands next him Watch the way of the Spirit of God into thee that way which he makes his path in which he comes oftnest to thee and by which thou findest thy self most affected and best disposed towards him and pervert not that path foule not that way Make streight his paths that is keepe them streight and when thou observest which is his path in thee by what means especially he workes upon thee meet him in that path embrace him in those meanes and alwayes bring a facile a fusil a ductile a tractable soule to the offers of his grace in his way Our Commission reaches to the exalting of your valleys Let every valley be exalted In which we bid you not to raise your selves in this world to such a spirituall heighth as to have no regard to this world to your bodies to your fortunes to your families Man is not all soule but a body too and as God hath married them together in thee so hath he commanded them mutuall duties towards one another and God allowes us large uses of temporall blessings and of recreations too To exalt valleyes is not to draw up flesh to the heighth of spirit that cannot be that should not be done But it is to draw you so much towards it as to consider and consider with an application that the very Law which was but the schoolmaster to the Gospell was given upon a mountaine That Moses could not so much as see the Land of promise till he was brought up into a mountaine That the inchoation of Christ glory which was his transfiguration was upon a mountaine That his conversation with God in prayer That his returne to his eternall Kingdom by his ascension was so too from a mountaine even his exinanition his evacuation his lowest humiliation his crucifying was upon a mountaine and he calls even that humiliation an exaltation Si exaltatus If I be exalted lifted up sayes Christ signifying what death he should die Now if our depressions our afflictions be exaltations so they were to Christ so they are to every good Christian how far doth God allow us an exalting of our vallies in a considering with a spirituall boldnesse the heighth and dignity of mankind and to what glory God hath created us Certainly man may avoid as many sinnes by this exalting his vallies this considering the heighth and dignity of his nature as by the humblest meditations in the world For upon those words of Iob Manus tuae fecerunt me Saint Gregory says Misericordiae judicis dignitatem suae conditionis opponit Iob presents the dignity of his creation by the hand of God as an inducement why God should regard him It is not his valley but his mountaines that he brings into Gods sight not that dust which God took into his hands when he made him but that person which the hands of God had made of that dust Man is an abridgement of all the world and as some Abridgements are greater then some other authors so is one man of more dignity then all the earth And therefore exalt thy vallies raise thy selfe above the pleasures that this earth can promise And above the sorrowes it can threaten too A painter can hardly diminish or contract an Elephant into so little a forme but that that Elephant when it is at the least will still be greater then an Ant at the life and the greatest Sinne hath diminished man shrowdly and brought him into a narrower compasse but yet his naturall immortality his soule cannot dye and his spirituall possibility even to the last gaspe of spending that immortality in the kingdome of glory and living for ever with God for otherwise our immortality were the heaviest part of our curse exalt this valley this cold of earth to a noble heighth How ill husbands then of this dignity are we by sinne to forfeit it by submitting our selves to inferior things either to gold then which every worme because a worme hath life and gold hath none is in nature more estimable and more precious Or to that which is lesse then gold to Beauty for there went neither labour nor study nor cost to the making of that the Father cannot diet himselfe so nor the mother so as to be sure of a faire child but it is a thing that hapned by chance wheresoever it is and as there are Diamonds of divers waters so men enthrall themselves in one clime to a black in another to a white beauty To that which is lesse then gold or Beauty voice opinion fame honour we sell our selves And though the good opinion of good men by good ways be worth our study yet popular applause and the voice of inconsiderate men is too cheape a price to set our selves at And yet it is hardly got too for as a ship that lies in harbour within land sometimes needs most of the points of the Compasse to bring her forth so if a man surrender himselfe wholly to the opinion of other men and have not his Criterium his touchstone within him he will need both North and South all the points of the
by a generall forbearance on all sides rather then victory by wrangling and uncharitablenesse And let our right hand forget her cunning let us never set pen to paper to write Let our tongue cleave to the roofe of our mouth let us never open our mouth to speake of those things in which Silence was an Act of Discretion and Charity before but now is also an Act of Obedience and of Allegiance and Loyaltie But that which David said to the Lord Psalme 65. 1. Let us also accommodate to the Lords anointed Tibi laus silentium our best sacrifice to both is to be silent in those things So then this is Concisio corporis that Concision of the body which you are to beware in Doctrinall things first non solvere Iesum not to dissolve not to break Jesus in pieces not to depart in any respect with any fundamentall Article of faith for that is a skin that covers the whole body an obligation that lies upon the whole Church and then for that particular Church in which you have your station first to conform your self to all that in which she had evidently declared herself and then not to impute to her not to call such articles hers as she never avowd And our next consideration is Concisio vestis the tearing of the garment matter of discipline and government To a Circumcision of the garment that is to a paâ—ing and taking away such Ceremonies as were superstitious or superfluous of an ill use or of no use our Church came in the beginning of the Reformation To a CircuÌ„cision we came but those Churches that came to a Concision of the garment to an absolute taking away of all ceremonies neither provided so safely for the Church it self in the substance thereof nor for the exaltation of Devotion in the Church Divide the law of the Iews into 2 halfs and the Ceremoniall will be the greater we cannot cal the Morall law the Iews law that was ours as wel as their peculiar to none but of that law w ch is peculiar to the Jews judicial Ceremonial the Ceremonial is far the greater part So great a care had God of those thing which though they be not of the revenue of Religion yet are of the subsidy of Religion and though they be not the soule of the Church yet are they those Spirits that unite soule and body together H's man did but shave the beards of Davids servants he did not cut off their heads He did not cut their clothes so as that he stripped them naked Yet for that that he did says that story he stanke in Davids sight which is a phrase of high indignation in that language and so much as that it cost him forty thousand of his horsemen in one battell And therefore as this Apostle enters this Caveat in another place If yee bite one another cavete take heed yee be not consumed of one another so cavete take heed of this concision of the garment lest if the garment be torne off the body wither and perish A shadow is nothing yet if the rising or falling Sunne shine out and there be no shadow I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither Ceremonies are nothing but where there are no Ceremonies order and uniformity and obedience and at last and quickely Religion it selfe will vanish And therefore videte concisionem beware of tearing the body or of tearing the garment which will induce the other and both will induce the third concisionem spiritus the tearing of thine owne spirit from that rest which it should receive in God for when thou hast lost thy hold of all those handles which God reaches out to thee in the Ministery of his Church and that thou hast no means to apply the promises of God in Christ to thy soule which are onely applied by Gods Ordinances in his Church when anything falls upon thee that overcomes thy morall constancy which morall constancy God knowes is soon spent if we have lost our recourse to God thou wilt soon sinke into an irrecoverable desperation which is the fearfullest concision of all and videte beware of this concision When God hath made himselfe one body with me by his assuming this nature and made me one spirit with himselfe and that by so high a way as making me partaker of the divine nature so that now in Christ Iesus he and I are one this were solutio Iesus a tearing in peeces a dissolving of Jesus in the worst kinde that could be imagined if I should teare my selfe from Jesus or by any jealousie or suspicion of his mercy or any horror in my own sinnes come to thinke my selfe to be none of his none of him Who ever comes into a Church to denounce an excommunication against himselfe And shall any sad soule come hither to gather arguments from our preaching to excommunicate it selfe or to pronounce an impossibility upon her owne salvation God did a new thing Says Moses a strange thing a thing never done before when the earth opened her mouth and Dathan and Abiram went downe quicke into the pit Wilt thou doe a stranger thing then that To teare open the jawes of Earth and Hell and cast thy self actually and really into it out of mis-imagination that God hath cast thee into it before Wilt thou force God to second thy irreligious melancholy and to condemne thee at last because thou hadst precondemned thy selfe and renounced his mercy Wilt thou say with Cain My sinne is greater then can be pardoned This is Concisio potestatis a cutting off the power of God and Treason against the Father whose Attribute is Power Wilt thou say God never meant to save me this is Concisio Sapientiae a cutting off the Wisdome of God to thinke that God intended himselfe glory in a kingdome and would not have that kingdome peopled and this is Treason against the Son whose Attribute is wisdoms Wilt thou say I shall never finde comfort in Praying in Preaching in Receiving This is Concisio consolationis the cutting off consolation and treason against the holy Ghost whose office is comfort No man violates the Power of the Father the Wisedome of the Sonne the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost so much as he who thinkes himselfe out of their reach or the latitude of their working Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted but why Because they were not If her children had been but gone for a time from her or but sicke with her Rachel would have been comforted but they were not Is that thy case Is not thy soule a soule still It may have gone from thee in sins of inconsideration it may be sicke within thee in sins of habit and custome but is not thy soul a soul still And hath God made any species larger then himself is there more soul then there is God more sin then mercy Truly Origen was more excusable more pardonable if he
the Iews all the world would have swarmed to his obedience and herded in his pale God was their fatherâ— and as S. Chrysostâ—me that he might be sure to draw in all degrees of tender affection cals him Their Mother too For Matris nutrire Patris erudire It was a Mothers part to give them suck and to feed them with temporall blessings It was a Fathers part to instruct them and to feed them with spirituall things and God did both abundantly Therefore doth God submit himself to the comparison of a Mother in the Prophet Esay Can a woman forget her sucking child But then he stays not in that inferiour in that infirmer sex but returns to a stronger love then that of a Mother yes says he she may forget yet will not I forget thee And therefore when David says Blesse the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits David expresses that which we translate in a generall word Benefits in this word Gamal which signifies Ablactationes forget not that God nursed thee as a Mother and then Ablactavit we and thee and provided thee stronger food out of the care of a father In one word all creatures are Gods children man is his sonne but then Israel is his first-born son for that is the addition which God gives Israel by Moses to Pharaoh Say unto Pharaoh Israel is my son even my first-born Why God adopted Israel into this siliation into this primogeniture before all the people of the world we can assign no reason but his love only But why he did not before this Text dis-inherit this adopted son is a higher degree and exercise of his love then the Adoption it self if we consider which is a usefull consideration their manifold provocations to such an exhaeredation and what God suffered at their hands The ordinary causes of Exhaeredation for which a man might dis-inherit his son are assigned and numbred in the law to be fourteen But divers of them grow out of one root Vndutifulnesse Inofficiousnesse towards the father and as by that reason they may be extended to more so they may be contracted to sewer to two These two Ingratitude and Irreligion Vnthankfulnesse and Idolatry were ever just causes of Exhaeredation of Dis-inheriting And with these two did the Jews more provoke Almighty God then any children any father Stop we a little our Consideration upon each of these He is not always ungratefull that does not recompense a benefit but he onely that would not though he could make and though the Benefactor needed a recompense When Furnius upon whom Augustus had multiplied benefits told him that in one thing he had damnified him in one thing he had undone him Effecisti at viverem moâ—erer ingratus You have done so much for me says he that I must live and die unthankfull that is without shewing my thankfulnesse by equivalent recompenses This which he cals unthankfulnesse was thankfulnesse enough There are men says the Morall man Qui quo plus debent magis odâ—rant that hate those men most who have laid most obligations upon them Leve as alienum debitorem facit grave inimicum for a little debt he will be content to look towards me but when it is great more then he can pay or as much as he thinks he can get from me then he would be glad to be rid of me Acknowledgement is a good degree of thankfulnesse But ingratitude at the highest and the Iews ingratitude was at the highest involves even a concealing and a denying of benefits and even a hating and injuring of Benefactors And so Res peremptoria ingratiâ—udo says Bernard significantly Ingratitude is a peremptory sin it does Perimere that is destroy not onely all vertues but it destroys that is overflows all other particular Vices no vice can get a name where ingratitude is it swallows all devours all becomes all Ingratum dicas omnia dixisti If you have called a man unthankfull you have called him by all the ill names that are for this complicated this manifold this pregnant vice Ingratitude the holy language the Hebrew lacks a word The nearest root that they can draw Ingratitude into is Caphar and Caphar is but Tegere to hide to conceal a benefit but to deny a benefit or to hate or injure a Benefactor they have not a word And therefore as S. Hierome found not the word in the Hebrew so in all Saint Hieromes translation of the Old Testament or in that which is reputed his the vulgat Edition you have not that Latine word Ingratus Curious sinners subtile self-damners they could not name Ingratitude and in all the steps of Ingratitude they exceeded all men all Nations From the Ingratitude of murmuring upon which God lays that woe Woe unto him that says to his father What begettest thou or to the woman What hast thou brought forth A dogge murmures not that he is not a Lion nor a blinde-worm without eyes that he is not a Basilisk to kill with his eyes Dust murmures not that it is not Amber nor a Dunghill that it is not a Mine nor an Angel that he is not of the Seraphim and every man would be something else then God hath made him from this murmuring for that which he hath not to another degree of Ingratitude The appropriation of that which he hath to himself Vti Datis tanquam Innatis as S. Bernard speaks in his musick To attribute to our selves that which we have received from God to think our selves as strong in Nature as in Grace and as safe in our own free-will as in the love of God as God says of Ierusalem That he had given her her beauty and then she plaid the harlot as if it had been her own by these steps of Ingratitude to the highest of all which is rather then to confesse her self beholden to God to change her God and so to â—lide from Ingratitude to Idolatry Ierusalem came and over-went all the Nations upon the earth Their Ingratitude induced Idolatry in an instant As soon as they came to that ungratefull murmuring As for Moses we cannot tell what is become of him they came presently to say to Aaron Vp and make us Gods that may goe before us which is an impotency a leprosie that derives it self farre spreads farre that as soon as our sins induce any worldly crosse any clamity upon us we come to think of another Church another Religion and conclude That that cannot be a good Church in which we have lived in Now against this impious levity of facility in changing our Religion God seemes to expresse the greatest indignation when he says They sacrificed unto gods whom they knew not to new gods Men amongst us that have been baptized and catechized in the truth and in the knowledge thereof fall into ignorant falshood and embrace a Religion which they understand not nor can understand because it lies in
the breast of one man and is therefore subject to alterations They sacrifice to gods whom they know not says God and those gods new gods too The more suspicious for their newnesse and as it is added there unto gods whom their fathers feared not Men that fall from us whose fathers were of that Religion put themselves into more bondage and slavery to the Court of Rome now then their fathers did to the Church of Rome then They sacrifice to gods whom they know not and whom their fathers feared not so much as they doe But they have corrupted themselves as God charges them farther They are fallen from us whom no example of their fathers led that way fathers have left their former superstition which they were born and bred in and the sonnes which were born and bred in the truth have embraced those superstitions Their spot is not the spot of children so it follows in the same place a weaknesse that might have that excuse that they proceeded out of a reverentiall respect to their fathers and followed their example for their fathers have stood and they are fallen Their spot is not the spot of children And because Kings are pictures of God when they trun upon new gods they turn to new pictures of God too and with a forein Religion invest a forein Allegiance Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians says God and from the Ammonites and from the Amorites and Philistims from a succession of enemies at times and from a league of enemies at once Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods says God there And therefore to that resolution God comes Therefore I will deliver you no more And yet how often did God deliver them after this Ingratitude Idolatry are just causes of Exhaeredation Israel abounded in both these and yet after all these in this Text he cals them Children The Children of Israel and therefore his children God is kinde even to the unthankfull saith christ himself and himself calls Jerusalem The holy City even when she was deâ—iled with many and manifold uncleannesses because she had been holy and had the outward help of holinesse remaining in her still Christ doth not disavow not disinherit those children which gave most just cause of exheredation much lesse doth he justify by his example finall and totall disinheriting of children occasioned by single and small faults in the children and grounded in the Parents upon sudden and passionate and intemperate and imaginary vowes They have vowed to doe it therefore they will doe it for so they put a pretext of Religion upon their impiety and make God accessary to that which he dislikes and upon colour of a vow doe that which is far from a service to God as the performance of every lawfull and discreet vow is God calls them his Children which is one and then though as a Father he correct them yet he shewes them his face in that correction which is another beam of his mercy He calls their calamity their affliction Not a night but a day many dayes shall the children of Israel suffer this We finde these two words often joyned together in the Scriptures Dies visitationis The day of visitation though as it is a visitation it be a sad a dark contemplation yet as it is a day it hath alwayes a cheerfulnesse in it If it were called a night I might be afraid that this night They I am not told who would fetch away my soul but being a day I have assurance that the Sunne the Sunne of Righteousnesse will arise to me At the light of thine Arrowes they went forward saith the Prophet Habakkuk Though they be Arrowes yet they are Torches too though they burn yet they give light too though God shoot his Arrowes at me even by them I shall have light enough to see that it is God that shoots As there is a heavy commination in that of Amos I will cause the Sunne to goe down at noone and I will darken the earth in clear day so is there a gracious promise and a constant practise in God That he will as he hath done command light of darknesse and inable thee to see a clear day by his presence in the darkest night of tribulation For truly such a sense I think belongs to those words in Hosea That when God had said The dayes of visitation are come the dayes of recompence are come God adds that as an aggravating of the calamitie yea woe also to them when I depart from them as though the oppression of the affliction the peremptorinesse of the affliction were not in the affliction it self hut in Gods departing from them when he afflicted them they should be visited but see no day in their visitations afflicted from God but see no light from him receive no consolation in him In this place we take it for the exaltation of your devotion as a particular beam of his mercy That though the Children of Israel were afflicted many dayes yet still he affords them the name of Children and still their darke and cloudy dayes were accompanied with the light and presence of God still they felt the Hand of God under them the Face of God upon them the Heart of God towards them Those then which have this filiation God doth not easily disinherit because they were his Children after unnaturall disobediencies he avowes them and continues that name to them But yet this must not imprint a security a presumption for even the children here are submitted to heavie and dangerous calamities when Christ himselfe saith The children of the kingdome shall be cast into utter darknesse who can promise himselfe a perpetuall or unconditioned station we have in the Scriptures two especiall Types of the Church Paradise and the Arke But in that Type the Arke we are principally instructed what the Church in generall shall doe and in that in Paradise what particular men in the Church should do For we doe not reade that in the Arke Noah or his company did waigh any anchor hoyst any saile ship any oare steare any rudder but the Arke by the providence of God who onely was Pilot rode safe upon the face of the waters The Church it selfe figured by the Arke cannot shipwrack though men sleep though the Devill wake The gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church But in the other Type of the Church where every man is instructed in his particular duty therein Paradise Adam himself was commanded to dresse Paradise and to keep Paradise And when he did not that which he was injoyned to doe in that place he forfeited his interest in it and his benefit by it Though we be born and bred in Gods house as Children Baptized and Catechized in the true Church if we slacken our holy industry in making fare our salvation we though Children of the Kingdome may becast out and all our former helps and our
had something to work upon But God in the Creation had nothing at all He called us when we were not as though we had been Now here is this world we make our selves that is we make one another Kings make Iudges and Iudges make Officers Bishops make Parsons and Parsons make Curats But when wee consider our Creation It is he that hath made us and not we our selves we did not onely not doe any thing but we could not doe so much as wish any thing to be done towards our Creation till wee were created In the Application of that great worke The Redemption of mankinde that is in the conversion of a sinner and the first act of that conversion though the grace of God work all yet there is a faculty in man a will in man which is in no creature but man for that grace of God to worke upon But in the Creation there was nothing at all I honour my Physician upon the reasons that the Wise man assignes because he assists my health and my well-beeing But I honour not my Physician with the same honour as my Father who gave me my very Beeing I honour my God in all those notions in which he hath vouchsafed to manifest himselfe to me Every particular blessing of his is a Remembrancer but my Creation is a holy wonder and a mysterious amazement And therefore as David the Father wraps up all stubborn ignorance of God in that The fool hath said in his heart there is no God so Solomon the Son wraps up all knowledge of God in that Remember thy Creator still contemplate God in that notion as he made thee of nothing for upon that all his other additions depend And when thou comest to any post-Creations any after-makings in this world to be made rich made wise made great Praise thou the Lord blesse him and magnifie him for ever for those Additions and blesse him for having made thee capable of those Additions by something conferred upon thee before That he gave thee a patrimony from thy parents and thine industry working upon that made thee rich That he raised thee to Riches and the Eye of the State looking upon that made thee Honourable But still return to thy first making thy Creation as thou wast made of nothing nothing so low as that not sin it self not sin against the holy Ghost himselfe can cast thee so low again nothing can make thee nothing nothing that thou canst doe here nothing that thou canst suffer hereafter can reduce thee to nothing And in this notion this supreme and Majesticall notion does this oppressor of the poor reproach God He reproaches the Maker But then whose Maker for that is also another branch another Disquisition Here we accept willingly and entertain usefully their doubt that will not resolve whether our Gnoshehu in the Text be Factorē Ejus or Factorē Suum whether this oppressor of the poor be said here to reproach his Maker that is made poor or his own Maker Let them enjoy their doubt Be it either Be it both First let it be the poor Mans Maker And then does this oppressor consider that it is God that hath made that poor man or that hath made that man poor and will he oppresse him then If a man of those times had heard a song of Nero's making had been told that it was his as that Emperour delighted in compositions of that kind he would not he durst not have said that it was a harsh an untunable song If a man saw a Clock or a Picture of his Princes making as some Princes have delighted themselves with such manufactures hee would not he durst not say it was a disorderly Clock or a disproportioned picture Wise Fathers have foolish children and beautifull deformed yet we doe not oppresse nor despise those children if we loved their parents nor will we any poor man if we truly love that God that made him poor And if his poverty be not of Gods making but of the Devils induced by his riot and wastfulnesse howsoever the poverty may be the Devils still the Man is of Gods making Probris afficit factorem ejus He reproaches Him that made that man poore and Probris afficit factorem suum Hee reproaches that God who made him rich his owne Maker Now doth he consider that the Devill hath super-induced a half-lycantropy upon him The Devill hath made him half a wolfe so much a wolfe as that he would tear all that fall into his power And half a spider so much a spider as that hee would entangle all that come near him And half a Viper so much a Viper as that he would envenome all that any way provoke him Does hee consider that the Devill hath made him half a wolfe halfe a spider half a viper and doth hee not consider that that God that is his Maker could have made him a whole Wolfe a whole Spider a whole Viper and left him in that rank of ignoble and contemptible and mischievous creatures Does he not consider that that God that made him richer then others can make him a prey to others raise up enemies that shall bring him to confusion though he had no other crimes Therefore because he is so rich God can make his very riches the occasion of his ruine here and the occasion of his everlasting ruine hereafter by making those riches snares and occasions of sin God who hath made him could have left him unmade or made him what he would and he reproaches God as though God could have done nothing lesse for him then he hath done nor could not undone him now But before we depart from this branch consider we wherein this offender this oppressor sins so very hainously as to deserve so high an increpation as to be said to Reproach and to Reproach God and God in that supream Notion A Maker His Maker and his own Maker If his fault be but neglecting or oppressing a poor man why should it deserve all this In all these respects First The poor are immediately in Gods protection Rich and poore are in Gods administration in his government in his providence But the poor are immediately in his protection Tibi derelictus est pauper says David The poor commits himself unto thee They are Orphans Wards delivered over to his tuition to his protection Princes have a care of all their Allies but a more especiall care of those that are in their protection And the poor are such And therefore God more sensible in their behalfe And so hee that oppresses the poor Reproaches God God in his Orphans Again rich and poor are Images Pictures of God but as Clement of Alexandria says wittily and strongly The poor is Nuda Imago a naked picture of God a picture without any drapery any clothes about it And it is much a harder thing there is much more art showed in making a naked picture then in
dead without children as Tertullian expresses it in his particular elegancy Illiberis that is content to be his brother in that sense in that capacity to claime no children no spirituall children of his own begetting not to attribute to himself that holy generation of the Saints of God as though his learning or his wit or his labour had saved them but to content himselfe to have been the foster father and to have nursed those children whom the Spirit of God by over-shadowing the Church hath begot upon her for though it be with the word of truth in our preaching yet of his own will begot he us though by the word says the Apostle Saint Paul might say to the Corinthians Though you have tenne thousand instructors in Christ yet have yee not many fathers for in Christ Iesus I have begotten you through the Gospel And hee might say of his spirituall sonne Onesimus That he begot him in his bonds Those to whom he first of any presented the Gospel That had not heard of a Christ nor a holy Ghost before They into whom he infused a new religion new to them might well enough bee called his children and hee their father But we have no new doctrine to present no new opinion to infuse or miracles to amaze as in the Romane Church they are full of all these wee have no children to beget of our own Paul was not crucified for you nor were you baptized in the name of Paul sayes Paul himself as he sayes again who is Paul but a Minister by whom ye beleeved and that also not by him but as the Lord gave to every man Not as Paul preached to every man for he preached alike to every man but as the Lord gave to every man I have planted says he it is true but he that planteth is nothing says he also Only they that proceed as they proceed in the Romane Church Ex opere operato to tye the grace of God to the action of the man will venter to call Gods children their children in that sense My prayer shal be against that commination That God will not give us a miscarrying womb nor dry breasts that you may always suck pure milk from us and then not cast it up but digest it to your spirituall growth And I shall call upon God with a holy passion as vehement as Rachels to Iacob Da mihi liberos give me children or I die That God would give me children but his children that he by his Spirit may give you an inward regeneration as I by his ordinance shall present to you the outward means that so being begot by himselfe the father of life and of light you may be nursed and brought up in his service by me That so not attributing the work to any man but to Gods Ordinances you doe not tye the power of God nor the breath of life to any one mans lips as though there were no regeneration no begetting but by him but acknowledging the other to be but an instrument and the weakest to be that you may remember also That though a man can cut deeper with an Axe then with a knife with a heavy then with a lighter instrument yet God can pierce as far into a conscience by a plain as by an exquisite speaker Now this widow being thus maried This Church thus undertaken He must perform the duty of a husbands brother First it is a personall office he must doe it himself When Christ shall say at the Judgement I was naked and ye cloathed me not sick and ye visited me not it shall be no excuse to say When saw we thee naked when saw we thee sick for wee might have seen it wee should have seen it When we shall come to our accompt and see them whose salvation was committed to us perish because they were uninstructed and ignorant dare we say then we never saw them show their ignorance wee never heard of it That is the greatest part of our fault the heaviest weight upon our condemnation that we saw so little heard so little conversed so little amongst them because we were made watchmen and bound to see and bound to hear and bound to be heard not by others but by our selves My sheep may be saved by others but I save them not that are save so nor shall I my self be saved by their labour where mine was necessarily required The office is personall I must doe it and it is perpetuall I must perform it sayes the text goe through with it Lots wife looked backe and God never gave her leave to look forward again That man who hath put his hand to the plow and looks back Christ disables him for the kingdome of God The Galatians who had begun in the spirit and then relapsed before whose eyes Christ Iesus had been evidently set forth as the Apostle speaks fall under that reproach of the Apostle to bee called and called againe fooles and men bewitched If I beginne to preach amongst you and proceed not I shall fall under that heavy increpation from my God you beganne that you might for your owne glory shew that you were in some measure able to serve the Church and when you had done enough for your own glory you gave over my glory and the salvation of their souls to whom I sent you God hath set our eyes in our foreheads to look forward not backward not to be proud of that which we have done but diligent in that which we are to doe In the Creation if God had given over his worke the third or fift day where had man been If I give over my prayers due to the Church of God as long as God enables me to doe it service I lose my thanks nay I lose the testimony of mine own conscience for all My office is personall and it is perpetuall and then it is a duty He must perform the duty of a husbands brother unto her It is not of curtesie that we preach but it is a duty it is not a bounty given but it is a debt paid for though I preach the Gospel I have nothing to glory of for a necessity is laid upon me sayes Saint Paul himself It is true that as there is Vae si non Wo be unto mee if I doe not preach the Gospel so there is an Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull servant to them that doe But the Vae is of Iustice the Euge is of Mercy If doe it not I deserve condemnation from God but if I doe it I deserve not thanks from him Nay it is a debt not onely to God but to Gods people to you and indeed there is more due to you then you can claime or can take knowledge of For the people can claime but according to the laws of that State and the Canons of that Church in which God hath placed them such preaching as those Laws and
those Canons enjoyn is a debt which they can call for but the Pastor himself hath another Court another Barre in himselfe by which hee tries himselfe and must condemne himselfe if hee pay not this debt performe not this duty as often as himself knowes himselfe to bee fit and able to doe it It is a duty and it is the duty of an husbands brother Now the husband hath power and authority over the wife The head of the woman is the Man and when the office of this spirituall husband is particularly expressed thus Reprove Rebuke Exhort you see for one word of familiarity that is Exhort there are two of authority Reprove and Rebuke But yet all the authority of the husband secular or ecclesiasticall temporall or spirituall husband is grounded rooted in love for the Apostle seemes to delight himself in the repeating of that Commandement to the Ephesians and to the Colossians Husbands love your wives Moses extends himselfe no farther in expressing all the happinesses that Isaak and Rebecca enjoyed in one another but this shee become his wife and he loved her If shee had not beene his wife Moses would never have proposed that love for an example for so it is also betweene Elkanah and his wife Hannah 1 Sam. 1. 5. Vnto Hannah he gave a double portion for sayes the Text hee loved Hannah If the Pastor love there will bee a double labour if the People love there will bee double respect But being so hee thought hee said all when he said they loved one another For where the Congregation loves the Pastor hee will forbeare bitter reproofes and wounding increpations and where the Pastor loves his Congregation his Rebukes because they proceed our of love will bee acceptable and well interpreted by them It is a duty and personall and perpetuall a duty of a husband and lastly of a husband that is brother to the former husband In which last circumstance we have time to mark but this one note that the reason of that law which drew the brother to this mariage was the preservation of the temporall inheritance in that family Even in our spirituall mariages to widow Churches we must have a care to preserve the temporall rights of all persons That the Parish be not oppressed with heavy extortions nor the Pastor defrauded with unjust substraction nor the Patron damnified by usurpations nor the Ordinary neglected by disobediences but that people and Pastor and Patron and Ordinary continuing in possession of their severall rights love being the root of all the fruit of all may be peace love being the soul of all the body of all may be unity which the Lord of unity and concord grant to us all for his Sonne Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XLVI The second Sermon Preached by the Author after he came to St. Dunstanes 25 Apr. 1624. PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the fear of the Lord. THE Text does not call children simply literally but such men and women as are willing to come in the simplicity of children such children as Christ spoke of Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven Come ye children come such children Nor does the Text call such as come and would fain be gone again it is Come and Hearken not such as wish themselves away nor such as wish another man here but such as value Gods ordinance of Preaching though it be as the Apostle says but the foolishnesse of Preaching and such as consider the office and not the person how meane soever Come ye children And when ye are come Hearken And though it be but I Hearken unto me And I will teach you the feare of the Lord the most noble the most couragious the most magnanimous not affection but vertue in the world Come ye children Hearken unto me and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. To every Minister and Dispenser of the word of God and to every Congregation belong these words Divisio And therefore we will divide the Text between us To you one to us appertains the other part You must come and you must hearken we must teach and teach to edification There is the Meum Tuum your part and our part From each Part these branches flow out naturally In yours first the capacity as children Then the action you Come Then your Disposition here you hearken And lastly your submission to Gods Ordinance you hearken even unto me unto any Minister of his sending In our Part there is first a Teaching for else why should you come or hearken unto me or any It is a Teaching it is not onely a Praying And then there is a Catholique doctrine a circular doctrine that walks the round and goes the compasse of our whole lives from our first to our last childhood when age hath made us children again and it is the Art of Arts the root and fruit of all true wisdome The true feare of the Lord. Come ye children hearken unto mee and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. First then the word in which in the first branch of the first part your capacity is expressed filii pueri children is from the Originall which is Banim often accepted in three notions and so rendred Three ways men are called children out of that word Banâ—m in the Scriptures Either it is servi servants for they are filiâ— familiares as the Master is Pater familias Father of the family and that he is though there be no naturall children in the family the servants are children of the family and are very often in Scriptures called so Pueri children Or it is Alumni Nurse-children foster-children filii mâ—mmillares children of the breasts whether wee minister to them temporall or spirituall nourishment they are children Or else it is filii viscerales children of our bowels our naturall children And in all these three capacities as servants as sucking children as sons are you called upon in this appellation in this compellation children First as you are servants you are children for without distinction of age servants are called so frequently ordinarily in the Scriptures Pueri The Priest asks David before he would give him the holy bread An vasa puerorum sancta Whether those children speaking of Davids followers were clean from women Here were children that were able to get children Nay Davids Soldiers are often called so pueri children In the first of the Kings he takes a Muster recenset pueros Here were children that were able to kill men You are his children of what age soever as you are his servants and in that capacity he cals you You are unprofitable servants but it is not an unprofitable service to serve God He can get nothing by you but you can have nothing without him The Centurions servants came when he said Come and was their wages like yours Had
they their beeing their ever-lasting well-beeing for their service You will scarce receive a servant that is come from another man without testimony If you put your selves out of Gods service whither will ye goe In his service and his onely is perfect freedome And therefore as you love freedome and liberty bee his servants and call the freedome of the Gospel the best freedome and come to the Preaching of that He cals you children as you are servants filii familiares and he cals you children as you are Alumni nurse-children filii mammillares as he requires the humility and simplicity of little children in you For Cum simplicibus sermocinatio ejus as the vulgat reads that place Gods secret discourse is with the single heart The first that ever came to Christ so as he came to us in blood they that came to him so before he came so to us that died for him before he died for them were such sucking children those whom Herod slew As Christ thought himself bound to thank his Father for that way of proceeding I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast revealed these things unto babes so Christ himself pursues the same way Suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdome of heaven Of such not onely of those who were truly literally children children in age but of such as those Talium est regnum coelorum such as come in such a disposition in the humility in the simplicity in the singlenesse of heart as children do An habituall sinner is always in minority always an Infant an Infant to this purpose All his acts all the bands of an Infant are void all the outward religious actions even the band and contract of Baptism in an habituall sinner is void and ineffectuall He that is in the house and favour of God though he be a child a child to this purpose simple supple tractable single-hearted is as Adam was in the state of Innocency a man the first minute able to stand upright in the sight of God And out of one place of Esay our Expositors have drawn conveniently enough both these conclusions A child shall die 100 years old says the Prophet that is say some a sinner though he live 100 years yet he dies a child in ignorance And then say others and both truly He that comes willingly when God cals though he die a child in age he hath the wisdome of 100 years upon him There is not a graver thing then to be such a child to conform his will to the will of God Whether you consider temporall or spirituall things you are Gods children For for temporall if God should take off his hand withdraw his hand of sustentation all those things which assist us temporally would relapse to the first feeble and childish estate and come to their first nothing Armies would be but Hospitals without all strength Councell-tables but Bedlams without all sense and Schools and Universities but the wrangling of children if God and his Spirit did not inanimate our Schools and Armies and Councels His adoption makes us men therefore because it makes us his children But we are his children in this consideration especially as we are his spirituall children as he hath nursed us fed us with his word In which sense the Apostle speaks of those who had embraced the true Religion in the same words that the Prophet had spoken before Behold I and the children that God hath given me And in the same sense the same Prophet in the same place says of them who had fallen away from the true Religion They please themselves in the children of strangers In those men who have derived their Orders and their Doctrine from a forein Jurisdiction In that State where Adoptions were so frequent in old Rome a Plebeian could not adopt a Patrician a Yeoman could not adopt a Gentleman nor a young man could not adopt an old In the new Rome that endevours to adopt all in an imaginary filiation you that have the perfect freedome of Gods service be not adopted into the slavery and bondage of mens traditions you that are in possession of the ancient Religion of Christ and his Apostles be not adopted into a yonger Religion Religio à religando That is Religion that binds that binds that is necessary to salvation That which we affirm our adversaries deny not that which we professe they confesse was always necessary to salvation They will not say that all that they say now was always necessary That a man could not be saved without beleeving the Articles of the Councell of Trent a week before that Councell shut up You are his children as children are servants and If he be your Lord where is his fear you are his children as he hath nursed you with the milk of his word and if he be your Father so your foster Father where is his love But he is your Father otherwise you are not onely Filii familiares children because servants nor onely Filii mammillares children because noursed by him but you are also Filii viscerales children of his bowells For we are otherwise allied to Christ then we can be to any of his instruments though Angels of the Church Prophets or Apostles and yet his Apostle says of one whom he loved of Onesimus Receive him that is mine owne bowells my Sonne says he whom I have begotten in my hands How much more art thou bound to receive and refresh those bowells from which thou art derived Christ Iesus himselfe Receive him Refresh him Carry that which the wiseman hath said Miserere animae tuae bee mercifull to thine owne soule higher then so and Miserere salvatoris tui have mercy upon thine owne Saviour put on the bowells of mercy and put them on even towards Christ Iesus himselfe who needs thy mercy by beeing so tome and mangled and embowelled by blasphemous oaths and execrations For beloved it is not so absurd a prayer as it is conceived if Luther did say upon his death bed Oremus pro Domino nostro Iesu Christo Let us pray for out Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ. Had we not need pray for him If he complaine that Saul persecutes him had we not need pray for him It is a seditious affection in civill things to divide the King and the kingdome to pray to fight for the one and leave out the other is seditiously done If the kingdome of Christ need thy prayers and thy assistance Christ needs it If the Body need it the Head needs it If thou must pray for his Gospell thou must pray for him Nay thou canst not pray for thy selfe but thou must pray for him for thou art his bowells when thou in thy forefathers the first Christians in the Primitive Church wast persecuted Christ cryed out why persecutest thou me Christ made thy case his because thou wast of his
about striking the rock and wouldst not thou be glad to change sinnes with either of them Are not thy sinnes greater heavier sinnes And yet wouldest thou not be sorry to undergoe their punishments are not thy punishments lesse Hast thou found hony says the holy Ghost in Solomon and he says it promiscuously and universally to every body eate as much as is sufficient Every man may And then Ionathan found that hony and knew not that it was forbidden by Sauls proclamation and did but taste it and that in a case of extreme necessity and Ionathan must die Any man might eate enough He did but taste and he must die If the Angels if Adam if Balaam if Moses if Ionathan did if the Serpent in the text could consider this how much cheaper God hath made sinne to thee then to them might they not have colour in the eye of a naturall man to expostulate with God Might not Ananias and Saphira who onely withheld a little of that which but a little before was all their own and now must die for that have been excusable if they had said at the last gaspe How many direct Sacrileges hath God forborne in such and such and we must die Mighty not Eâ— and Onan after their uncleane act upon themselves onely for which they died have been excusable if they had said at the last gaspe How many direct adulteries how many unnaturall incests hath God forborne in such and such and we must die How many loads of miserable wretches maist thou have seen suffer at ordinary executions when thou mightest have said with David Lord I have done wickedly but these sheep what have they done What had this Serpent done The Serpent was more subtile then any other beast It is a dangerous thing to have a capacity to doe evill to be fit to be wrought upon is a dangerous thing How many men have been drawn into danger because they were too rich How many women into solicatation and tentation because they were too beautifull Content thy selfe with such a mediocrity in these things as may make thee fit to serve God and to assist thy neighbour in a calling and be not ambitious of extraordinary excellency in any kinde It is a dangerous thing to have a capacity to do evill God would do a great work and he used the simplicity of the Asse he made Balaams Asse speak But the Devill makes use of the subtilty of the craft of the Serpent The Serpent is his Instrument no more but so but so much he is his instrument And then says S. Chrysostome Pater noster execuratur gladium as a naturall father would so our heavenly father does hate that which was the instrument of the ruine of his children Wherein hath he expressed that hate not to binde our selves to Iosephus his opinion though some of the ancients in the Christian Church have seconded that opinion too that at that time the Serpent could goe upright and speak and understand and knew what he did and so concurred actually and willingly to the temptation and destruction of man though he were but anothers instrument he became odious to God Our bodies of themselves if they had no souls have no disposition to any evill yet these bodies which are but instruments must burn in hell The earth was accursed for mans sin though the earth had not been so much as an instrument of his sin Onely because it was after to conduce to the punishment of his children it was accursed God withdrew his love from it And in the law those beasts with which men committed bestiality were to be stoned as well as the men How poor a plea will it be to say at the last day I got nothing by such an extortion to mine own purse it was for my master I made no use of that woman whom I had corrupted it was for a friend Miserable instrument of sin that hadst not the profit nor the pleasure and must have the damnation As the Prophet cals them that help us towards heaven Saviours Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion so are all that concurre instrumentally to the damnation of others Devils And at the last day we shall see many sinners saved and their instruments perish Adam and Eve both God interrogated and gave them time to meditate and to deprecate To Adam he says Where art thou and who told thee that thou wast naked And to Eve What is this that thou hast done But to the Serpent no such breathing The first words is Quia fecisti no calling for evidence whether he had done it or no but Because thou hast done it thou art accursed Sin is Treason against God and in Treason there is no Accessory The instrument is the Principall We passe from that first Part the consideration of heavy Judgements upon faults in appearance but small derived from the punishment of the Serpent though but an Instrument Let no man set a low value upon any sin let no man think it a little matter to sin some one sin and no more or that one sin but once and no oftner or that once but a little way in that sin and no father or all this to do another a pleasure though he take none in it himself as though there were charity in the society of sin and that it were an Alms to help a man to the means of sinning The least sin cost the blood of the Son of God and the least sinner may lose the benefit of it if he presume of it No man may cast himself from a Pinnacle because an Angel may support him no man may kill himself because there is a Resurrection of the body nor wound his soul to death by sin because there may be a resurrection of that by grace Here is no roome for presumption upon God but as little for desperation in God for in the punishment of the Serpent we shall see that his Mercy and Justice are inseparable that as all the Attributes of God make up but one God Goodnesse and Wisdome and Power are but one God so Mercy and Justice make up but one act they doe not onely duly suceed and second one another they doe not onely accompany one another they are not onely together but they are all one As Manna though it tasted to one man like one thing to another like another for it tasted to every man like that that that man liked best yet still was the same Manna so for Gods corrections they have a different taste in different persons and howsoever the Serpent found nothing but Judgement yet we find mercy even in that Judgement The evening and the morning make up the day says Moses as soon as he had named evening comes in morning no interposing of the mention of a dark and sad night between As soon as I hear of a Judgement I apprehend Mercy no interposing of any dark or sad suspition or diffidence
laqueorum whether this shall prove such a shoure as shall nourish our soule spiritually in thankfulnesse to God and in charitable workes towards his needy Servants or whether it shall prove a shoure of snares to minister occasions of tentations so when he raines afflictions upon us it is much in our gathering whether it shall be Roris or Grandinis whether it shall be a shoure of fatning dew upon us or a shoure of Fgyptian haile-stones to batter us in peeces as a Potters Vessell that cannot be renewed Our murmuring makes a rod a staffe and a staffe a sword and that which God presented for physick poyson The double effect and operation of Gods Rod and Corrections is usefully and appliably expressed in the Prophet Zachary where God complaines That he had fed the sheep of slaughter that he had been carefull for them who would needs dye say he what he could Therefore he was forced to come to the Rod to correction So he does And I tooke unto me sayes he there two Staves the one I called Beauty the othâ—r Bands Two wayes of correction a milder and a more vehement When his milder way prevailed not Then said I I will not feed you I will take no more care of you That which dyeth let it dye sayes he and that which is to be cut off let it be cut off And I tooke my staffe of Beauty and cut it asunder that I might breake my Covenant which I had made with them Beloved God hath made no such Covenant with any State any Church any soule but that being provoked he is at liberty to break it But then upon this when the stubborne and the refractory the stiff-necked and the rebellious were cut off The poore of the sheep sayes God that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. It is not every mans case to mend by Gods corrections onely the poore of the sheep the broken hearted the contrite spirit the discerner of his owne poverty and infirmity could make that good use of affliction as to finde Gods hand and then Gods purpose in it For this Rod of God this Shebet can kill Affliction can harden as well as mollifie and entender the heart And there is so much the more danger that it should worke that effect that obduration because it is Virga Irae The rod of his wrath which is the other weight that aggravates our afflictions In all afflictions that fall upon us from other instruments there is Digitus Dei The finger of God leads their hand that afflicts us Though it be sicknesse by our intemperance though it be poverty by our wastfulnesse though it be oppression by the malice or by our exasperation of potent persons yet still the finger of God is in all these But in the afflictions which we speake of here such as fall upon us when we thinke our selves at peace with God and in state of grace it is not Digitus but Manus Dei the whole worke is his and man hath no part in it Whensoever he takes the Rod in hand there is a correction towards but yet it may be but his Rod of Beauty of his Correction not Destruction But if he take his Rod in anger the case is more dangerous for though there be properly no anger in God yet then is God said to do a thing in anger when he does it so as an angry man would do it Upon those words of David O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger Saint Augustine observes that David knew Gods rebukes and corrections were but for his amendment but yet In Ira corrigi noluit in Ira emendari noluit David was loth that God should go about to mend him in anger afraid to have any thing to do with God till his anger were over-passed Beloved to a true anger and wrath and indignation towards his children God never comes but he comes so neare it as that they cannot discerne whether it be anger or no. A Father takes a Rod and looks as angerly as though he would kill his childe but means nothing but good to him So God brings a soule to a sad sense of an angry countenance in God to a sad apprehension of an angry absence to a sad jealousie and suspition that God will never returne to it againe And this is a heavy affliction whilst it lasts Our Saviour Christ in that case came to expostulate it to dispute it with his Father Vt quid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Do but tell me why Foâ— if God be pleased to tell us why he is angry his anger is well allayd and we have a faire overture towards our restitution But in our infirmity wee get not easily so farre we apprehend God to be angry we cannot finde the cause and we sinke under the burden we leave the disease to concoct it self and we take no Physick And this is truly the highest extent and exaltation of affliction That in our afflictions we take God to be angryer then he is For then is God said to take his Rod in anger when he suffers us to thinke that he does so and when he suffers us to decline and sinke so low towards diffidence and desperation that we dare not looke towards him because we beleeve him to be so angry And so have you all those peeces which constitute both the branches of this first part The generality and extent of afflictions considered in the nature of the thing in the nature of the word this name of man Gheber and in the person of Ieremy the Prophet of God And then the intenseneâ—â—e and weight and vehemency of afflictions considered in these three particulars That they are His The Lords That they are from His Rod And from the Rod of his anger But to weigh down all these we have comforts ministred unto us in our Text which constitute our other part Of these the first is Vidi I have seen these afflictions for this is an act of particular grace and mercy when God enables us to see them for naturally this is the infirmity of our spirituall senses that when the eyes of our understanding should be enlightened our understanding is so darkened as that we can neither see prosperity nor adversity for in prosperity our light is too great and we are dazeled in adversity too little none at all and we are benighted we do not see our afflictions There is no doubt but that the literall sense of this phrase To see afflictions is to feele to suffer afflictions As when David sayes What man is he that liveth and shall not see death and when Christ sayes Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption to see death and to see corruption is to suffer them But then the literall sense being thus duly preserved That the children of God shall certainly see that is certainly suffer afflictions receive we also that sweet odour
25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off p. 271. Serm. XXXII APOC. 7 9. After this I beheld and loe a great multitude which no man could number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe clothed with white robes and Palmes in their hands p. 279. Serm. XXXIII CANT 3. 11. Go forth ye daughters of Sion and behold King Solomon with the Crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladnesse of his heart p. 288. Serm. XXXIIII LUKE 23. 34. Father forgive them for they know not what they doe p. 304. Serm. XXXV MAT. 21. 44. Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whosoever it shall fall it will grinde him to powder p. 311. Sermons preached at S. Pauls Sermon XXXVI JOH 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to beare witnesse of that Light p. 320. Serm. XXXVII A second Serm. on the same Text. p. 334. Serm. XXXVIII A third Ser. on the the same Text. p. 343. Serm. XXXIX PHIL. 3. 2. Beware of the Concision p. 356. Serm. XL. 2 COR. 5. 20. We pray yee in Christs stead Be ye reconciled to God p. 364. XLI HOSEA 3. 4. For the Children of Israel shall abide many dayes without a King and without a Prince and without a Sacrifice and without an Image and without an Ephod and without Teraphim p. 375. Serm. XLII PROV 14. 31. He that oppresseth the poor reprocheth his Maker but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the 〈◊〉 p. 385. Serm. XLIII LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits p. 396. Serm. XLIV MAT. 11. 6. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me p. 411. Sermons preached at S. Dunstans Serm. XLV DEUT. 25. 5. If brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no childe the Wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger her husbands brother shall goe in unto her and take her to him to wife and performe the duty of an husbands brother unto her p. 422. Serm. XLVI PSAL. 34. 11. Come ye children Hearken unto me I will teach you the feare of the Lord. p. 430. Ser. XLVII GEN. 3. 24. And dust shalt thou eate all the dayes of thy life p. 439. Ser. XLVIII LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath p. 445. Serm. XLIX GEN. 7. 24. Abraham himself was ninety nine yeeres old when the foreskin of his flesh was Circumcised p. 456. Serm. L. 1 THES 5. 16. Rejoyce evermore p. 466. A SERMON PREACHED At the Earl of Bridgewaters house in London at the mariage of his daughter the Lady Mary to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert of Castle-iland Novemb. 19. 1627. The Prayer before the Sermon O Eternall and most gracious God who hast promised to hearken to the prayers of thy people when they pray towards thy house though they be absent from it worke more effectually upon us who are personally met in this thy house in this place consecrated to thy worship Enable us O Lord so to see thee in all thy Glasses in all thy representations of thy selfe to us here as that hereafter we may see thee face to face and as thou art in thy self in thy kingdome of glory Of which Glasses wherein we may see thee Thee in thine Unity as thou art One God Thee in thy Plurality as thou art More Persons we receive this thy Institution of Mariage to be one In thy first work the Creation the last seale of thy whole work was a Mariage In thy Sonnes great work the Redemption the first seale of that whole work was a miracle at a Mariage In the work of thy blessed Spirit our Sanctification he refreshes to us that promise in one Prophet That thou wilt mary thy selfe to us for ever and more in another That thou hast maryed thy selfe unto us from the beginning Thou hast maryed Mercy and Iustice in thy selfe maryed God and Man in thy Sonne maryed Increpation and Consolation in the Holy Ghost mary in us also O Lord a Love and a Fear of thee And as thou hast maryed in us two natures mortall and immortall mary in us also the knowledge and the practise of all duties belonging to both conditions that so this world may be our Gallery to the next And mary in us the Spirit of Thankfulnesse for all thy benefits already bestowed upon us and the Spirit of prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them Continue and enlarge them O'God upon thine universall Church c. SERM. I. MATTH 22. 30. For in the Resurrection they neither mary nor are given in Mariage but are as the Angels of God in heaven OF all Commentaries upon the Scriptures Good Examples are the best and the livelyest and of all Examples those that are nearest and most present and most familiar unto us and our most familiar Examples are those of our owne families and in families the Masters of families the fathers of families are most conspicuous most appliable most considerable Now in exercises upon such occasions as this ordinarily the instruction is to bee directed especially upon those persons who especially give the occasion of the exercise that is upon the persons to bee united in holy wedlock for as that 's a difference betweene Sermons and Lectures that a Sermon intends Exhortation principally and Edification and a holy stirring of religious affections and then matters of Doctrine and points of Divinity occasionally secondarily as the words of the text may invite them But Lectures intend principally Doctrinall points and matter of Divinity and matter of Exhortation but occasionally and as in a second place so that 's a difference between Christening sermons and Mariage sermons that the first at Christnings are especially directed upon the Congregation and not upon the persons who are to be christened and these at mariages especially upon the parties that are to be united and upon the congregation but by reflexion When therefore to these persons of noble extraction I am to say something of the Duties and something of the Blessing of Mariage what God Commands and what God promises in that state in his Scriptures I lay open to them the best exposition the best Commentaries upon those Scriptures that is Example and the neerest example that is example in their own family when with the Prophet Esay I direct them To look upon the Rock from whence they are hewen to propose to themselves their own parents and to consider there the performance of the duties of mariage imposed by God in S. Paul and the blessings proposed by God in David Thy Wife shall be a fruitfull Vine by the sides of thy House The children like olive plants round about the table For to this purpose of edifying children by example such as are truly religious fathers