same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
Dominc Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be all glory given They would have made him King He would not and Judge to divide the Inheritance and he would not He sent the Holy Ghost And yet he saies I will pray the Father to send him So the Holy Ghost was sent by them both Father and Son But not so as that he was subject to a joynt command of both or to a diverse command of either or that he came unwillingly or had not a hand even in his owne sending But howsoever he were perfect God and had alwales an absolute power in himselfe and had ever a desire to assist the salvation of man yet he submitted himselfe to the Order of the Decree He disordered nothing prevented nothing anticipated nothing but staid till all that which lay upon Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension was executed and then in the due and appointed time issued his Mission It is a blessed Termination Mission It determines and ends many words in our Language Missio as Permission Commission Remission and others which may afford good instruction that as the Holy Ghost did for his so we may be content to stay Gods leasure for all those Missions A consideration which I presume S. Bernard who evermore embraced all occasions of exalting devotion from the melodious fall of words would not have let passe Nor S. Augustine for all his holy and reverend gravity would have thought Nimis juvenile Too light a consideration to have insisted upon And therefore I may have leave to stay your meditations a little upon this Termination these Missions You may have a Permission Many things are with some circumstances Permitted Permissio Mat. 19.8 which yet in discretion are better forborne Moses permitted divorces but that was for the hardnesse of their hearts and Christ withdrew that Permission S. Paul saies he had a Permission Liberty to forbeare working with his owne hands 1 Cor. 9.6 and so to live upon the Church but yet he did not What Permission soever thou have by which thou maist lawfully ease thy selfe yet forbeare till thou see that the glory of God and the good of other men may be more advanced by the use then by the forbearance of that indulgence and that Permission and afford not thy selfe all the liberty that is afforded thee but in such cases The Holy Ghost staid so for his Mission so stay thou for the exercise of thy Permission Thou maist have a Commission too In that of the Peace Commissio in that for Ecclesiasticall causes thou maist have part But be not hasty in the execution of these Commissions Come to an Inquisition upon another man so as thou wouldst wish God to enquire into thee Satan had a Commission upon Iob but he procured it so indirectly on his part by false suggestions against him and executed it so uncharitably as that he was as guilty of wrong and oppression as if he had had no Commission Thou canst not assist in the execution of those Commissions of which thou art till thou have taken the oathes of Supremacie and of Allegeance to thy Soveraigne Do it not till thou have sworne all that to thy Super-soveraigne to thy God That in all thy proceedings his glory and his will and not thine owne passion or their purposes upon whom thou dependest shall be thy rule The holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Commission till it be sealed over againe in thine owne bosome sealed on one side with a cleerenesse of understanding and on the other with a rectitude of conscience that thou know what thou shouldst doe and doe that There is also a Remission Remissio a Remission of sins It is an Article of Faith therefore beleeve it Beleeve it originally and meritoriously in Christ and beleeve it instrumentally and ministerially in the power constituted by Christ in the Church But beleeve it not too hastily in the execution and in the application thereof to thine owne case A transitory sin a sin that spent a few minutes in the doing thereof was by the penitentiall Canons which were the rule of the Primitive Church punished with many yeares penance And doest thou thinke to have Remission of thy seventy yeares sins for one sigh one groane then when that sigh and that groane may be more in contemplation of the torment due to that sin then for the sin it selfe Nay more that thou canst sinne that sin no longer then for that sin Hast thou sought thy Remission at the Church that is August in Gods Ordinances established in the Church In qua remittuntur extra quam non remittuntur peccata In which Ordinances there is an Infallibility of Remission upon true repentance and in a contempt or neglect of which Ordinances all Repentance is illusory and all Remission but imaginary Hieron For Quodammodo ante diem Iudicii judicant God refers causes to the Church to be prepared and mature there before the great Hearing and so hath given the Church a Power to judge before the day of Judgement And therefore August Nemo sibi dicat occultè ago apud Deum ago Let no man say I repent in secret God sees that I repent It was scarce in secret that thou didst sin and wilt thou repent but in secret At least let us know thy repentance by the amendment of thy life and wee shall not much presse the knowing of it any other way Onely remember that the holy Ghost staid for his Mission Presume not thou of thy Remission till thou have done not onely something towards it that might induce it from God that is Repentance but something by it that may testifie it to man that is amendment of life There is a Manumission also Manumission an emancipation an enfranchisement from the tyranny from the thraldome of sin That which some Saints of God particularly S. Paul have importuned at Gods hand so vehemently so impatiently as he did to be delivered from the messenger of Satan and from the provocations of the flesh exprest with that passion O wretched man that I am Rom. 7.22 who shall deliver me from the body of this death He comes immediately there to a thanksgiving I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord But his thanksgiving was not for a Manumission hee had not received a deliverance from the power and oppresssion of tentation But he had here as he had every where an intimation from the Spirit of God of that Gratia mea sufficit That God would be as watchfull over him with his grace as the Devill could be with his tentations And if thou come to no farther Manumission then this in this life that is to be delivered though not from tentations by his power yet in tentations by his grace or by his mercy after tentations have prevailed upon thee attend Gods leasure for thy farther Manumission for the holy Ghost staid for his
the face of the whole Church of God even to the end of the world for so long these Records are to last he proposes himselfe for an Exemplary sinner for a sinfull Example and for a subject of Gods Indignation whilst he remained so When I kept silence and yet roared Thy hand lay heavy upon me and my moysture was turned into the drought of Summer And so we are come to our third Part He teaches by Example He proposes himselfe for the Example and of himselfe he confesses those particulars which constitute our Text. Three things he confesses in this Example 3 Part. First that it was he himselfe that was in doloso spiritu that had deceit in his spirit Quia tacuit because he held his tongue he disguised his sins he did not confesse them And yet in the midst of this silence of his God brought him Ad Rugitum to voyces of Roaring of Exclamation To a sense of paine or shame or losse so farre he had a voyce But still he was in silence for any matter of repentance Secondly he confesses a lamentable effect of this silence and this roaring Inveteraverunt ossa His bones were consumed waxen old and his moisture dried up and then he takes knowledge of the cause of all this calamity the waight of Gods heavy hand upon him And to this Confession he sets to that seale which is intended in the last word Selah First then David confesses his silence therefore it was a fault And he confesses it Silentium as an instance as an example of his being In doloso spiritu That there was deceit in his spirit as long as he was silent he thought to delude God to deceive God and this was the greatest fault If I be afraid of Gods power because I consider that he can destroy a sinner yet I have his will for my Buckler I remember that he would not the death of a sinner If I be afraid that his will may be otherwise bent for what can I tell whether it may not be his will to glorifie himselfe in surprizing me in my sins I have his Word for my Buckler Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus God does nothing but that his Mercy is supereminent in that work whatsoever But if I think to scape his knowledge by hiding my sins from him by my silence I am In doloso spiritu if I think to deceive God I deceive my selfe and there is no truth in me When we are to deale with fooles we must or we must not answer Christi Prov. 26.4.5 as they may receive profit or inconvenience by our answer or our silence Answer not a foole according to his foolishnesse lest thou be like him But yet in the next verse Answer a foole according to his foolishnesse lest he be wise in his own conceit But answer God alwaies Though he speak in the foolishnesse of preaching as himselfe calls it yet he speaks wisedome that is Peace to thy soule We are sure that there is a good silence for we have a Rule for it from Christ whose Actions are more then Examples for his Actions are Rules His patience wrought so that he would not speak his afflictions wrought so that he could not He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter and he was dumb Esay 59. Psal 22.15 There he would not speake My strength is dried up like a potsheard and my tongue cleaveth to my jawes and thou hast brought me into the dust of death sayes David in the Person of Christ and here he could not speak Here is a good silence in our Rule So is there also in Examples derived from that Rule Reverentiae Hab. 2. ult There is Silentium reverentiae A silence of reverence for respect of the presence The Lord is in his holy Temple let all the world keep silence before him When the Lord is working in his Temple in his Ordinances and Institutions let not the wisdome of all the world dispute why God instituted those Ordinances the foolishnesse of preaching or the simplicity of Sacraments in his Church Let not the wisedome of private men dispute why those whom God hath accepted as the representation of the Church those of whom Christ sayes Dic Ecclesiae Tell the Church have ordained these or these Ceremonies for Decency and Uniformity and advancing of Gods glory and mens Devotion in the Church Let all the earth be silent In Sacramentis The whole Church may change no Sacraments nor Articles of faith and let particular men be silent In Sacramentalibus in those things which the Church hath ordained for the better conveying and imprinting and advancing of those fundamentall mysteries for this silence of reverence which is an acquiescence in those things which God hath ordained immediately as Sacraments or Ministerially as other Rituall things in the Church David would not have complained of nor repented And to this may well be referred Silentium subjectionis Subjectionis 1 Cor. 14.34 1 Tim. 2.11 That silence which is a recognition a testimony of subjection Let the women keep silence in the Church for they ought to be subject And Let the women learne in silence with all subjection As farre as any just Commandement either expresly or tacitly reaches in injoyning silence we are bound to be silent In Morall seales of secrets not to discover those things which others upon confidence or for our counsell have trusted us withall In charitable seales not to discover those sins of others which are come to our particular knowledge but not by a judiciall way In religious seales not to discover those things which are delivered us in Confession except in cases excepted in that Canon In secrets delivered under these seales of Nature of Law of Ecclesiasticall Canons we are bound to be silent for this is Silentium subjectionis An evidence of our subjection to Superiours But since God hath made man with that distinctive property that he can speak and no other creature since God made the first man able to speak as soone as he was in the world since in the order of the Nazarites instituted in the old Testament though they forbore wine and outward care of their comelinesse in cutting their haire and otherwise yet they bound not themselves to any silence since in the other sects which grew up amongst the Jews Pharisees and Sadduces and Esseans amongst all their superfluous and superstitious austerities there was no inhibition of speaking and Communication since in the twilight between the Old and New Testament Luk. 1.20 that dumbnesse which was cast upon Zacharic was inflicted for a punishment upon him because hee beleeved not that that the Angel had said unto him we may be bold to say That if not that silence which is enjoyned in the Romane Church yet that silence which is practised amongst them for the concealing of Treasons and those silences which are imposed upon some of their Orders That the Carthusians may never speake
the present This verse is especially an exultation for mercies past and yet the two last clauses are delivered in the future Thou shalt preserve me Thou shalt compasse me And the first is delivered without any limitation at all The present word Thou art is but inserted by our Translators In the Originall it is onely Tu refugium Thou my hiding place There is no fuisti nor es nor eris That he was or is or will be so but it is an expressing of a perpetuall and everlasting mercy for his mercy endureth for ever First then Ecclesia this is an acknowledgement of the Church contemplating her selfe in her low estate for the word Sether implies Tu absconsio Though I were in the darke it was thou that didst overshadow me Though I were in danger it was thou that didst hide mo from them This the Church hath had occasion to say more then once Once in the Primitive plantation thereof and againe in her Reformation At both times God shewed mercy to her that way in hiding her First then God hid the Primitive Church from the eye of envy Primitiva by keeping her poore and from the eye of jealousie and suspition by keeping her in an humble devotion towards him But yet even her poverty and her humility hid her not so but that persecution found her out and raged so against her as that those Emperours which raised the ten Persecutions against the Church seeme to have laboured to have gone beyond God in the ten Plagues of Egypt and to have done more at Rome then he did there All the power of the Roman world was bent against Christians more home-Christians slaine then forraine enemies All the criminall justice of the world bent upon them All other mens crimes even Neroes burning of Rome imputed to the Christians All the wit of the world bent against them All their Epigrammatists Satyrists having their wits exalted with rage with wine with rewards to multiply libels and calumnies and defamations upon the Christians All the Mechaniques of that world bent against them All the Enginiers employed to invent racks and tortures for the Christians Truly if I were to work upon Heathen men Westerne Americans or Easterne Chineses for their conversion to Christ I should scarce adventure to propose to them the histories of the Martyrs of the Primitive Church because to men that had no taste of Religion before they would rather seeme fables then truths and I should as soone be beleeved That a Virgin had a Son or in any maine Article of our Religion as that man could inflict or that man could beare such things as we are sure the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did Then God hid the Church He hid her in a great part in the Wildernesse in Ermitages and such retirings singlely one by one and after in penurious and obscure Monasteries many of these single Ermits gathering themselves together into one house when those Monasteries were both Schooles of learning and shops of Manufactures they taught and wrought in them August Nemo cuiquam onerosus No man was a burden to any others no man fed upon anothers labours nor drunke the sweat of anothers brow But Operabantur manibus ea quibus corpus pasci possit à Deo mens impediri non possit They laboured in such manufactures as might sustaine their bodies and not withdraw their minds from the service of God So God hid the Church not that the persecution did not finde and lop off many a great and top bough but he hid the roote and prevented the extirpation of that Tree which his owne right hand had planted Tu absconsio Reformata Thou art my hiding place sayes the Primitive Church and so may the Reformed Church say too For when the Roman Church had made this Latibulum this hiding place this refuge from Persecution Ermitages and Monasteries to be the most conspicuous the most glorious the most eminent the richest and most abundant places of the World when they had drawne these at first remote corners in the Wildernesse first into the skirts and suburbs then into the body and heart of every great City when for revenew and possession they will confesse that some one Monastery of the Benedictan had ten thousand of our pounds of yearely rent when they were come for their huge opulency to that height that they were formidable to those States that harboured them and for their numbers other Orders holding proportion with that one to reckon out of one Order fifty two Popes two hundred Cardinals seven thousand Archbishops and Bishops and almost three hundred Emperours and Kings and their children and fifty thousand declared and approved Saints when they were come to that over-valuation of their Religious Orders as to say That a Monke a Fryer merited more in his very sleep or meales then any secular man though a Church-man too did in his best works That to enter into any Order of Religion was a second Baptisme and wrought as much as the first Their revenew their number their dignity being come to this And then their viciousnesse their sensuality their bestiality to as great a height and exaltation as that yet in the midst of all these Tu absconsio mea may the Reformed Church say The Lord was their hiding place that mourned for this when they could not helpe and at all times and by all meanes that God afforded them endeavoured to advancea Reformation And though God exposed them as a wood to be felled to a slaughter of twenty of forty of sixty thousand in a day yet Ille absconsio He hath beene our hiding place He hath kept the roote alive all the way And though it hath beene with a cloud yet he hath covered us God came unto Moses though he came In caligine Nubis In a thick Cloud Exod. 19.9 when the glory of the Lord is said to have filled the Tabernacle even that glory was a Cloud Exod. 40.34 And so it was in the second place of his worship too in Solomons Temple 2 Chro. 5.13 that was filled with a Cloud S. Chrysostome when he considered that Christ ascended in a Cloud a Acts 1. Chrysost And that he shall returne againe in a Cloud b Mat. 24. Paternum Currum deligere voluit The Son would make use of his Fathers Chariot and shew mercy nay shew glory in a Cloud as his Father had done often The Primitive Church the Reformed Church must not complaine of having beene kept under Clouds for Ille absconsio God hath made those Clouds their hiding place and wrapped up the seed and the roote safe in that Cloud Though the Church were trodden upon like a worme of the earth yet still she might heare God in that Cloud Noli timere vermis Iacob Be not afraid thou worme of Iacob for I will keepe thee Esay 41.14 saith the Lord thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel God
Bee Wise as serpents but ãâã as Dous LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE D R IN DIVINITIE LATE DEANE OF Y E CATHEDRALL CHVRCH OF S T PAVLES LONDON LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE Dr IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON in Ivie-lane and RICHARD MARRIOT in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleetstreet MDCXL TO HIS MOST SACRED MAIESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT BRITAINE FRANCE AND IRELAND Defender of the Faith c. Most dread and gracious Soveraigne IN this rumor of VVarre I am bold to present to your sacred Majestie the fruits of Peace first planted by the hand of your most Royal Father then ripened by the same gracious influence and since no lesse cherisht and protected by your Majesties especiall favour vouchsafed to the Author in so many indulgent testimonies of your good acceptance of his service VVhich grace from your Majestie as he was known to acknowledge with much comfort whilst he lived so will it give now some excuse to the presumption of this Dedication since those friends of his who think any thing of his worthy to out-live him could not preserve their piety to him without taking leave to inscribe the same with your Majesties sacred Name that so they may at once give so faire a hope of a long continuance both to these VVorks of his and to his gratitude of which they humbly desire this Book may last to be some Monument I shall not presume in this place to say much of these Sermons only this They who have been conversant in the VVorks of the holiest men of all times cannot but acknowledge in these the same spirit with which they writ reasonable Demonstrations every where in the subjects comprehensible by reason as for those things which cannot be comprehended by our reason alone they are no where made easier to faith then here and for the other part of our nature which consists in our Passions and in our Affections they are here raised and laid and governed and disposed in a manner according to the Will of the Author The Doctrine it selse which is taught here is Primitively Christian The Fathers are every where here consulted with reverence but Apostolicall Writings onely appealed to as the last Rule of Faith Lastly such is the conjuncture here of zeal and discretion that whilst it is the main scope of the Author in these Discourses that Glory be given to God this is accompanied every where with a scrupulous care and endeavour that Peace be likewise setled amongst men The leave and encouragement I have had for the publishing these Sermons from the Person most intrusted by your Majestie in the government of the Church and most highly dignified in it I think I ought in this place to mention for his honour that they who receive any benefit from hence may know in part to whom to acknowledge it and that this what ever it is is owing to him to whom they stand otherwise so deeply engaged for his providence and care next under your Majestie over the Truth and Peace and Dignity of the Church of England for which he will not want lasting acknowledgments amongst Wise and Good Men. And now having with all humblenesse commended these Sermons to your sacred Majestie from the memory of the Author your Servant from the nature and piety of the Work it self and lastly from the encouragement I have had to give it this light did I not feare to adde to my presumption I should in this place take leave to expresse the propriety betwixt your Majesties royall Vertues and the tribute of such an Offering and acknowledgement as this A Work of Devotion to the most exemplarily pious Prince a Work of moderated and discreet zeale to the Person of the most governed affections in the midst of the greatest power a Work of deep-sighted knowledge to the most discerning spirit a VVork of a strict doctrine to the most severe imposer upon himselfe and a VVork of a charitable doctrine to the most indulgent Master of others But I dare not enter into this Argument these excellencies requiring rather tacite veneration then admitting any possible equall expression and therefore with my prayer for your Majesties long and happy raigne over us I humbly aske pardon for this presumption of Your Majesties most humble and most dutifull Subject Jo DONNE THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Dr DONNE LATE DEANE OF St PAULS LONDON IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wootton Provost of Eaton Colledge lately deceased had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written It was a Work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and our Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youths that nothing but death could force the separation And though their bodies were divided that learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond the forgetfull grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of certaine particulars that concerned it Not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory would make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectified by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad newes and likewise that these Sermons were to be publisht without the Authors life which I thought was rare indignation or griefe I know not whether transported me so far that I re-viewed my forsaken Collections and resolved the world should see the best picture of the Author that my artlesse Pensil guided by the hand of Truth could present to it If I be demanded as once Pompeys poore Bondman was Plutarch whilest he was alone on the Sea shore gathering the pieces of an old Boat to burne the body of his dead Master What art thou that preparest the funeralls of Pompey the great Who I am that so officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question hath in it more of wonder then disdaine Wonder indeed the Reader may that I who professe my selfe artlesse should presume with my faint light to shew forth his life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented certaine I am it is much to the advantage of the beholder who shall see the Authors picture in a naturall dresse which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And though it may be my fortune to fall under some censures for this undertaking yet I am pleased in a beliefe I have that if the Authors glorious spirit which is now in heaven can have the leasure to look downe and see his meanest friend in the midst of his officious duty he will not disdaine my well meaning
the eldest almost in all vulgar languages the name of a Lord or magistrate hath no other derivation then so an Elder Senior noster is a word that passes freely through the authors of the middle age for our Lord or our King and the same derivation hath the name of Priest in a holy language Presbyter an Elder So evermore in the course of the Scripture all counsell and all government is placed in the Elders and all the service of God is expressed so even in heaven too by the foure and twenty Elders Apoc. 4.9 Thy Creator will be remembred in the dayes of thy youth but God hath had longer experience of that man and longer conversation with that man who is come to a holy age That wise King who could carry nothing to a higher pitch in any comparison then to a Crowne saies Age is a crowne of glory Prov. 16.31 when it is found in the wayes of the righteous but in the waies of righteousnesse no blessing is a blessing and in the waies of righteousnesse wealth may be a crowne of our labours and health may be a crowne of our temperance but age is the crowne of glory of reverence âhat crowne the crowne of reverence the Lord the righteous Judge hath reserved to that day the day of our age because our age is the seale of our constancy and perseverance In this blessed age Simeon was thus dignified admitted to this Epiphany this manifestation of Christ And to be admitted to thy Epiphany and manifestation of Christ in the Sacrament thou must put off the yong man and put on the old God to whose Table thou art called is represented as Antiquus Dierum the ancient of Daies and his Guests must be of mortified affections He must be crucified to the world that will receive him that was crucified for the world the lusts of youth the voluptuousnesse of youth the revengefulnesse of youth must have a holy damp and a religious stupidity shed upon them that come thither Nay it is not enough to bee suddenly old to have sad and mortified thoughts then no nor to be suddenly dead to renounce the world then that houre that morning but quatriduani sitis you should have been dead three daies as Lazarus you should have passed an Examination an accusation a condemnation of your selves divers daies before ye came to that Table God was most glorified in the raising of Lazarus when he was long dead and putrified God is most glorified in giving a resurrection to him that hath been longest dead that is longest in the Contemplation of his owne sinfull and spirituall putrefaction For he that stinks most in his owne by true contrition is the best perfume to Gods nostrils and a conscience troubled in it selfe is Odor quietis as Noahs sacrifice was a savor of rest to God This assistance we have to the exaltation of our devotion from that circumstance that Simeon was an old man Sacerdos we have another from another that he was a Priest and in that notion and capacity the better fitted for this Epiphany this Christmas this Manifestation of Christ We have not this neither in the letter of the story no nor so constantly in Tradition that he was a Priest as that he was an old man But it is rooted in Antiquity too In Athanasius in St. Cyrill in Epiphanius in others who argue and inferre it fairly and conveniently out of some Priestly acts which Simeon seemes to have done in the Temple as the taking of Christ in his armes which belongs to the Priest and the blessing of God which is the Thanks-giving to God in the behalfe of the congregation and then the blessing of the people in the behalfe of God which are acts peculiar to the Priest Accepting him in that quality a Priest we consider that as the King takes it worse in his houshold servants then in his Subjects at large if they goe not his wayes so they who dwell in Gods house whose livelihood growes out of the revenue of his Church and whose service lies within the walls of his Church are most inexcusable if they have not a continuall Epiphany a continuall Manifestation of Christ All men should looke towards God but the Priest should never looke off from God And at the Sacrament every man is a Priest I had rather that were not said which yet a very Reverend Divine sayes That this Simeon might be aliquis plebeius homo Calvin some ordinary common man that was in the Temple at that time when Christ was brought He who is of another sub-division Chemnicius though in the reformed Church too collects piously that God chose extraordinary men to give testimony of his Sonne Nicodemus a great Magistrate Gamaliel a great Doctor Iairus a Ruler in the Synagogue and this Simeon in probability pregnant enough a Priest But was that any great Addition to him if hee were so For holinesse certainly it was But for outward dignity and respect it was so too Josephus amongst them In omni Natione certum aliquod Nobilitatis argumentum Every Nation hath some particular way of ennobling and some particular evidence and declaration of Nobility Armes for a great part is that in Spaine and Merchandize in some States in Italy and learning in France where besides the very many preferments by the Church in which some other Nation may be equall to them there are more preferments by other wayes of learning especially of Judicature then in any other Nation All Nations sayes Iosephus had some peculiar way and amongst the Jews sayes he Priesthood was that way A Priest was even for civill priviledges a Gentleman Therefore hath the Apostle not knighted nor ennobled but crowned every good soule with that style Regale Sacerdotium That they are a Royall Priesthood To be Royall without Priesthood seemed not to him Dignity enough Consider then that to come to the Communion Table is to take Orders Every man should come to that Altar as holy as the Priest Erasmus for there he is a Priest And Sacer dotem nemo agit qui libenter aliud est quam Sacerdos No man is truly a Priest which is any thing else besides a Priest that is that entangles himselfe in any other businesse so as that that hinders his function in his Priesthood No man comes to the Sacrament well that is sorry hee is there that is whom the penalty of the law or observation of neighbours or any collaterall respect brings thither There thou art a Priest though thou beest but a lay-man at home And then no man that hath taken Orders can deprive himselfe or devest his Orders when he will Thou art bound to continue in the same holinesse after in which thou presentest thy selfe at that Table As the sailes of a ship when they are spread and swolne and the way that the ship makes shewes me the winde where it is though the winde it selfe be an invisible thing so thy
Hast thou found me out O mine enemy when an unrepented sinne comes to thy memory then be not thou sorry that thou remembrest it then nor doe not say I would this sin had not troubled me now I would I had not remembred it till to morrow For in that action first in Thesi for the Rule thou art a Preacher to thy selfe 1 Cor. 11.20 and thou hast thy Text in St. Paul He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himselfe And then in Hypothesi for the application to the particular case thou art a Prophet to thy selfe Thou that knowest in thy selfe what thou doest then canst say to thy selfe what thou shalt suffer after if thou doe ill There are more Elements in the making up of this man many more He waited saies his story Expectavit He gave God his leisure Simeon had informed himselfe out of Daniel and the other Prophets that the time of the Messias comming was neare As Daniel had informed himselfe out of Ieremy and the other Prophets that the time of the Deliverance from Babylon was neare Both waited patiently and yet both prayed for the accelerating of that which they waited for Daniel for the Deliverance Simeon for the Epiphany Those consist well enough patiently to attend Gods time and yet earnestly to solicite the hastning of that time for that time is Gods time to which our prayers have brought God as that price was Gods price for Sodome to which Abrahams solicitation brought God Esay 45.9 and not the first fifty That Prophet that sayes Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker that is that presses God before his time saies also for all that Oh that thou wouldest rent the heavens Esay 64.1 and come downe When thou commest to this seale of thy peace the Sacrament pray that God will give thee that light that may direct and establish thee in necessary and fundamentall things that is the light of faith to see that the Body and Bloud of Christ is applied to thee in that action But for the manner how the Body and Bloud of Christ is there wait his leisure if he have not yet manifested that to thee Grieve not at that wonder not at that presse not for that for hee hath not manifested that not the way not the manner of his presence in the Sacrament to the Church A peremptory prejudice upon other mens opinions that no opinion but thine can be true in the doctrine of the Sacrament and an un charitable condemning of other men or other Churches that may be of another perswasion then thou art in the matter of the Sacrament may frustrate and disappoint thee of all that benefit which thou mightst have by an humble receiving thereof if thou wouldest excercise thy faith onely here and leave thy passion at home and referre thy reason and disputation to the Schoole He waited saies the story And he waited for the consolation of Israel Israel It is not an appropriating of hopes or possessions of those hopes to himselfe but a charitable desire of a communication of this consolation upon all the Israel of God Therefore is the Sacrament a Communion Therefore is the Church which is built of us 1. Pet. 2.5 Gregor Built of lively stones And in such buildings as stones doe Vnusquisque portat alterum portatur ab altero Every stone is supported by another and supports another As thou wouldest be well interpreted by others interpret others well and as when thou commest to heaven the joy and the glory of every soule shall bee thy glory and thy joy so when thou commest to the porch of the Triumphant Church the doore of heaven the Communion table desire that that joy which thou feelest in thy soule then may then be communicated to every communicant there To this purpose to testifie his devotion to the communion of Saints Templum Simeon came into the Temple saies the story to doe a holy worke in a holy place When we say that God is no accepter of persons we doe not meane but that they which are within his Covenant and they that have preserved the seales of his grace are more acceptable to him then they which are not or have not When we say that God is not tied to places we must not meane but that God is otherwise present and workes otherwise in places consecrated to his service then in every prophane place When I pray in my chamber I build a Temple there that houre And that minute when I cast out a prayer in the street I build a Temple there And when my soule prayes without any voyce my very body is then a Temple And God who knowes what I am doing in these actions erecting these Temples he comes to them and prospers and blesses my devotions and shall not I come to his Temple where he is alwaies resident My chamber were no Temple my body were no Temple except God came to it but whether I come hither or no this will be Gods Temple I may lose by my absence He gaines nothing by my comming He that hath a cause to be heard will not goe to Smithfield nor he that hath cattaile to buy or sell to Westminster He that hath bargaines to make or newes to tell should not come to doe that at Church nor he that hath prayers to make walke in the fields for his devotions If I have a great friend though in cases of necessity as sicknesse or other restraints hee will vouchsafe to visit me yet I must make my fuits to him at home at his owne house In cases of necessity Christ in the Sacrament vouchsafes to come home to me And the Court is where the King is his blessings are with his Ordinances wheresoever But the place to which he hath invited me is his house Hee that made the great Supper in the Gospel called in new guests but he sent out no meat to them who had been invited and might have come and came not Chamber-prayers single or with your family Chamber-Sermons Sermons read over there and Chamber-Sacraments administred in necessity there are blessed assistants and supplements they are as the almes at the gate but the feast is within they are as a cock of water without but the Cistern is within habenti dabitur he that hath a handfull of devotion at home shall have his devotion multiplyed to a Gomer here for when he is become a part of the Congregation he is joynt-tenant with them and the devotion of all the Congregation and the blessings upon all the Congregation are his blessings and his devotions He came to a holy place and he came by a holy motion by the Spirit In Spiritu saies his Evidence without holinesse no man shall see God not so well without holinesse of the place but not there neither if he trust onely to the holinesse of the place and bring no holinesse with him Betweene that fearefull occasion
the places of the earth Divisie doe the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge and the tree of life In this Paradise the Scripture every word is both those Trees there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God That Germen Iehovae as the Prophet Esay calls Christ that Off-spring of Jehova that Bud that Blossome that fruit of God himselfe the Son of God the Messiah the Redeemer Christ Jesus growes upon every tree in this Paradise the Scripture for Christ was the occasion before and is the consummation after 1 Iohn 5.13 of all Scripture This have I written sayes S. Iohn and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost in all that they have written This have we written that ye may know that ye have eternall life Knowledge and life growes upon every tree in this Paradise upon every word in this Booke because upon every Tree here upon every word grows Christ himselfe in some relation From this Branch this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send we shall not so much stand to gather here and there an Apple that is to consider some particular words of the Text it selfe as endeavour to shake the whole tree that is the Context and coherence and dependance of the words for since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire and negotiation Gods employing of Moses and Moses presenting his excuses to God and Gods taking of all those excuses determines in our Text in our Text is the whole story virtually and radically implyed And therefore by just occasion thereof we shall consider first That though for the ordinary duties of our callings arising out of the evidence of expresse Scriptures we are allowed no haesitation no disputation whether we will doe them or no but they require a present and an exact execution thereof yet in extraordinary cases and in such actions as are not laid upon us by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture such as was Moses case here to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in such cases not onely some haesitation some deliberation some consultation in our selves but some expostulation with God himselfe may be excusable in us We shall therefore see that Moses did excuse himself four wayes And how God was pleased to joyn issue with him in all foure and to cast him and overcome him in them all And when we come to consider his fift which is rather a Diversion upon another then an Excuse in himselfe and yet is that which is most literally in our Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himselfe The sending of Christ we shall see that God would not have been pressed for that but as it followes immediately and is also a bough of this tree that is grows out of this Text God was angry But yet as we shall see in the due place it was but such an anger as ended in an Instruction rather then in an Increpation and in an Encouragement rather then in a Desertion for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the worke by joyning his brother Aaron in commission with him So then wee have shak'd the tree that is resolv'd and analyz'd the Context of all which the Text it selfe is the root and the seale And as we have presented to your sight we shall farther offer to your tast and digestion and rumination these particular fruits First that ordinary Duties require a present execution Secondly that in Extraordinary God allowes a Deliberation and requires not an implicite a blind obedience And in a third place wee shall give you those foure circumstances that accompanied or constituted Moses deliberation and Gods removing of those foure impediments And in a fourth âoome that Consultation or Diversion The sending of Christ And in that How God was affected with it He was angry angry that Moses would offer to looke into those things which he had lockt up in his secret counsels such as that sending of Christ which he intended But yet not angry so as that he left Moses unsatisfied or un-accommodated for the maine businesse but setled him in a holy and chearfull readinesse to obey his commandement And through all these particulars we shall passe with as much clearnesse as the waight and as much shortnesse as the number will permit First then our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition Ordinary Duties Ordinary Duties arising out of the Evidence of Gods Word require a present Execution There are Duties that binde us semper and Adsemper as our Casuists speak we are Alwayes bound to doe them and bound to doe them Alwayes that is Alwayes to produce Actus elicitos Determinate acts Successive and Consecutive acts conformable to those Duties whereas in some other Duties we are onely bound to an Habituall disposition to doe them in such and such necessary cases And those Actions of the later sort fall in Genere Deliberativo we may consider Circumstances before we fall under a necessity of doing them that is of doing them Then or doing them Thus Of which kind even those great duties of Praying and Fasting are for we are alwayes bound to Pray and alwayes bound to Fast but not bound to fast alwayes nor alwayes to pray But for Actions of the first kind such as are the worshipping of God and the not worshipping of Images such as are the sanctifying of Gods Sabbaths and the not blaspheming of his Name which arise out of cleare and evident commands of God they admit no Deliberation but require a present Execution Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of his Father a posture that denotes first a readinesse to survay and take knowledge of our distresses and then a readinesse to proceed and come forth to our assistance so in our Liturgie in our Service in the Congregation we stand up at the profession of the Creed at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith thereby to declare to God and his Church our readinesse to stand to and our readinesse to proceed in that Profession The commendation which is given of Andrew and Peter for obeying Christs call Mark 1.18 lyes not so much in the Reliquerunt retia that they left their nets as in the Protinus reliquerunt that forthwith immediately without farther deliberation they left their nets the meanes of their livelyhood and followed Christ The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach Esay 61.1 sayes the Prophet Esay To preach what Acceptabilem annum to preach the acceptable yeare of the Lord. All the yeare long the Lord stands with his armes open to embrace you and all the yeare long we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 Psal 95.8 But yet God would
faine reduce it to a narrower compasse of time Hâdie si vocem ejus audieritis that you would heare his voyce to day and not harden your hearts to day And to a narrower compasse then that Dabitur in illa hora sayes Christ Luk. 12.12 The holy Ghost shall teach you in that houre In this houre the holy Ghost offers himselfe unto you And to a narrower compasse then an houre Beati qui nunc esuritis qui nunc fletis Luk. 6.21 Blessed are ye that hunger now and that mourn now that put not off years nor dayes nor hours but come to a sense of your sins and of the meanes of reconciliation to God now this minute And therefore when ye reade Iusta pondera just weights and Just balances Levit. 19.36 and just measures a just Hin and a just Ephah shall ye have I am the Lord your God Do not you say so I will hereafter I will come to just weights and measures and to deale uprightly in the world as soon as I have made a fortune established a state raised a competency for wife and children but yet I must doe as other men doe Levit. 23. when you reade Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day and by the way remember that God hath called his other holy dayes and holy convocations Sabbaths too remember that you celebrate his Sabbaths by your presence here doe not you say so I will if I can rise time enough if I can dine soon enough when you reade sweare not at all doe not you say Matt. 5.34 no more I would but that I live amongst men that will not beleeve me without swearing and laugh at me if I did not sweare for duties of this kinde permanent and constant duties arising out of the evidence of Gods word such as just and true dealing with men such as keeping Gods Sabbaths such as not blaspheming his name have no latitude about them no conditions in them they have no circumstance but are all substance no apparell but are all body no body but are all soule no matter but are all forme They are not in Genere deliberativo they admit no deliberation but require an immediate and an exact execution But then for extraordinary things things that have not their evidence in the word of God formerly revealed unto us whether we consider matters of Doctrine Extraordinary and new opinions or matter of Practise and new commands from what depth of learning soever that new opinion seeme to us to rise or from heighth of Power soever that new-Command seeme to fall it is still in genere deliberativo still we are allowed nay still wee are commanded to deliberate Melch. Canus to doubt to consider before we execute As a good Author in the Roman Church sayes Perniciosius est Ecclesiae It is more dangerous to the Church to accept an Apocryphall book for Canonicall then to reject a Canonicall booke for Apocryphall so may it be more dangerous to doe some things which to a distempered man may seeme to be commanded by God then to forbeare some things which are truely commanded by him God had rather that himselfe should be suspected then that a false god should be admitted The easinesse of admitting Revelations and Visions and Apparitions of spirits and Purgatory souls in the Roman Church And then the overbending and super-exaltation of zeale and the captivity to the private spirit which some have fallen into that have not beene content to consist in moderate and middle wayes in the Reformed Church this easinesse of admitting imaginary apparitions of spirits in the Papist and this easinesse of submitting to the private spirit in the Schismatike hath produced effects equally mischievous Melancholy being made the seat of Religion on the one side Basil by the Papist and Phrenzy on the other side by the Schismatick Multi prae studio immoderato intendi in contrarium aberrarunt à medio was the observation and the complaint of that Father in his time and his prophecy of ours That many times an over-vehement bending into some way of our owne choosing does not onely withdraw us from the left hand way the way of superstition and Idolatry from which wee should all draw but from the middle way too in which we should stand and walk And then Leo. the danger is thus great facile in omnia flagitia impulit quos religione decepit diabolus As God doth the devill also doth make Zeal and Religion his instrument And in other tentations the devill is but a serpent but in this when he makes zeale and religion his instrument he is a Lyon As long as the devill doth but say Doe this or thou wilt live a foole and dye a begger Doe this or thou canst not live in this world the devill is but a devill he playes but a devils part a lyer a seducer But when the devill comes to say Doe this or thou canst not live in the next world thou canst not be saved here the devill pretends to be God here he acts Gods part and so prevails the more powerfully upon us And then when men are so mis-transported either in opinions or in actions with this private spirit and inordinate zeale Quibus non potest auferre fidem aufert charitatem sayes the same Father Though the devill hath not quenched faith in that man himselfe yet he hath quenched that mans charity towards other men Though that man might be saved in that opinion which he holds because perchance that opinion destroyes no fundamentall point yet his salvation is shrewdly shaked and endangered in his uncharitable thinking that no body can be saved that thinks otherwise And as it works thus to an uncharitablenesse in private so doth it to turbulency and sedition in the publique Of which Eusebius we have a pregnant and an aplyable example in the life of Constantine the Emperour In his time there arose some new questions and new opinions in some points of Religion the Emperor writ alike to both parties thus De rebus ejusmodi nec omnino rogetis nec rogati respondeatis Doe you move no questions in such things your selves and if any other doe yet be not you too forward to write so much as against them What questions doth he meane That is expressed Quas nulla lex Canonve Ecclesiasticus necessario praescribit Such questions as are not evidently declared and more then evidently declared necessarily enjoyned by some law some rule some Canon of the Church Disturbe not the peace of the Church upon Inferences and Consequences but deale onely upon those things which are evidently declared in the Articles and necessarily enjoyned by the Church And yet though that Emperor declared himselfe on neither side nor did any act in favour of either side yet because he did not declare himselfe on their side those promovers of these new opinions Eo pervenere sayes that Author ut imagines Imperatoris violarint They
to a not being that which it was before onely the name of God is I am In which name God gave Moses and does give us who are also his Embassadors so much knowledge of himselfe as that we may tell you though not what God is yet that God is God in the notification of this name sends us sufficiently instructed to establish you in the assurance of an everlasting and an ever-ready God but not to scatter you with unnecessary speculations and impertinencies concerning this God He is no fit messenger between God and his Church that knowes not Gods name that is how God hath notified and manifested himselfe to man God hath manifested himselfe to man in Christ and manifested Christ in the Scriptures and manifested the Scriptures in the Church the name of God is the notification of God how God will be called by man and that is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and how God will be called upon by man that is that all our prayers to God be directed in and through and by and for Christ Jesus If we know the name of God Qui sum I am that is beleeve Christ Jesus whom we worship to have been from all eternity to be God and then for more particular points beleeve those Doctrines quae sunt which are that is Quae sunt ubique semper as Lyrinensis sayes which have been alwayes beleeved and alwayes beleeved to have been necessary to be beleeved as articles of Faith through the whole Catholique Church if we know the name of God thus we have our Commission and our qualification in that Gospell Goe and teach all Nations Mat. 28.19 and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost that is the name of God to a Christian the Trinity And least that Commission so delivered in the generall and fundamentall manner professing the Trinity should not seem enough it is repeated and paraphrased in the verse following Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you First there is a Teaching good life it self is but a commentary an exposition upon our preaching that which is first laid upon us is preaching and then teach them to observe that is to practise breed them not in an opinion that such a faith as is without workes is enough and teach them to observe All For for matter of practice He that breakes one Law is guilty of all and he that thinkes to serve God by way of compensation that is to recompense God by doing one duty for the omission of another sins even in that in which he thinkes he serves God and for matter of beleefe he that beleeves not all solvit Iesum as S. Iohn speakes he takes Jesus in peeces and after the Jews have crucified him he dissects him and makes him an Anatomy We must therefore teach all but then it is but all which Christ hath commanded us additionall and traditionall doctrines of the Papist speculative and dazling riddling and entangling perplexities of the Schoole passionate and uncharitable wranglings of Controverters these fall not in Moses Commission nor ours who participate of his we are to deliver to you by the Ordinance of God Preaching The name of God that is how God hath manifested himself to man and how God will be called upon by man That God is your God in Christ if you receive Christ in the Scriptures applyed in the Church And farther we carry not our consideration upon this second excuse of Moses in which as in the former he considered his insufficiency in the generall he considers it in this that he had not studied he had not acquired he had not sought the knowledge of those Mysteries which appertained to that calling implyed in that that he did not know Gods name His third excuse which induces a great discouragement Non eloquens arises out of a defect in nature whereas the former is rather of art and study and consideration and to be naturally defective in those faculties which are essentiall and necessary to that work which is under our hand is a great discouragement Lamenesse is not alwayes an insupportable calamity but for Mephibosheth to have been hindred by lamenesse then when he should have received favour from the King and setled his inheritance this was a heavy affliction Lownesse of stature is no insupportable thing but when Zacheus came with such a desire to see Christ then to be disappointed by reason of his lownesse this might affect him It is not alwayes insupportable to lack the assistance of a servant or a friend But when the Angel hath troubled the water and made it medicinall for him that is first put in and no more then to have lyen many yeares in expectation and still to lack a servant or a friend to do that office this is a misery And this was Moses case God will send him upon a service that consisted much in perswasion and good speech and he sayes O my Lord I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant Ver. 10. Where we see there is some degree of eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Messages There are not so eloquent Bookes in the world as the Scriptures neither should a man come to any kinde of handling of them with uncircumcised lips as Moses speaks or with an extemporall and irreverent or over-homely and vulgar language Prov. 16.1 The preparation of the heart is of the Lord sayes Solomon but it is not only that The preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. To conceive good things for the glory of God and to expresse them to the edification of Gods people is a double blessing of God Therefore does Hester form and institute her prayer to God so Ester 14.12 Give me boldnesse O Lord of all power but she extends her prayer farther And give me eloquent speech in my mouth And the want of this in a naturall defect and unreadinesse of speech discouraged Moses And when God recompenses and supplyes this defect in Moses he does it but thus I will be with thy mouth and I will teach thee what thou shalt say Still it is Moses that must say it still Moses mouth that must utter it Beloved it is the generall Ordinance of God of whom as we have received mercy we have received the Ministery and it is the particular grace of God that inanimates our labours and makes them effectuall upon you All that is not of our planting nor watring but of God that gives the increase But yet we must labour to get and labour to improve such learning and such language and such other abilities as may best become that service for the naturall want of one of these retarded Moses from a present acceptation of Gods imployment And so truly should put any man that puts himself or puts his son upon this profession upon that consideration whether he
send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send tasts of most vehemence and as it may seem of some passion in Moses He sayes first Quis ego I am not worthy of this employment That 's true but thou art able to qualifie me for it and that objection is taken away Quod nomen I know not thy name how thou wilt be called and how thou wilt be called upon by men I have not studied that But thou hast revealed unto me the knowledge of fundamentall doctrines necessary for salvation and that objection is removed Non facundus I am not eloquent not of ready speech defective in those naturall faculties But the spirit of eloquence and the irresistiblenesse of perswasion is in that mouth in which thou speakest and that excuse is taken away too Non credent I know their stubbornnesse to whom I goe they will not beleeve me But thou hast put the power of Miracles into my hands as well as knowledge into my heart God makes sometimes a plaine and simple mans good life as powerfull as the eloquentest Sermon All this I acknowledge sayes Moses But yet O Lord when thou shalt have done all this in me and in them made me worthy by thy power taught me thy Name by thy grace infused a perswasibility into them and a perswasivenesse into me by thy Spirit yet there is One who is to be sent One whom I know thou wilt send One whom pursuing thine owne Decree thou shouldst send One whose shooe-latchet I shall not be worthy to untie then when thou shalt have multiplyed all these qualifications upon me and therefore O my Lord send I pray thee by his hand send him send Christ now So then with the ancient Fathers with Iustin Martyr with S. Basil with Tertullian with more many very many more we may safely take this to be a supplication That God would be pleased to hasten the comming of the Messias Of our later writers Calvin departs from the Ancients herein so farre as to say nimis coacta it seemes somewhat a forced somewhat an unnaturall sense to interpret these words of the comming of Christ but he proceeds no farther But another of the same sub-division is as he uses to be more assured more confident and he saies Piscator est omnimoda praecisa recusatio It is an absolute refusall in Moses to obey the commandement of God And that truly needed not to have beene said Now when wee consider the exposition in the Roman Church Tostat when their great Bishop I mean their great writing Bishop departs from the Ancients does not understand these words of the comming of Christ Pererius a Jesuit is so bold with that Bishop their order forbids them to be Bishops but not to be Controllers over Bishops as to tell him levis objectio that he departs from a good foundation Eugubinus the Fathers and that upon a light reason And when another Author in that Church proceeds farther to so much vehemence so much violence as to say that it is not only an incommodious but a superstitious sense to interpret these words of the comming of Christ Peterius Cornelius two Jesuits correct him almost in the same words for in the waies of contumely and defamation they agree well and say audacter obstrepit he does but sawcily bark and kick against the ancient Fathers quibus ipse saies Pererius to whom himselfe is not to be compared neither for learning in himselfe nor for place and dignity in the Church nor for sanctity and holinesse of life in the world They may bee as bold with one another as they please Indeed they are so used to uncharitable phrases towards all others as sometimes they cannot spare one another For our part wee lay no such imputations upon any of our later men that accept not that sense of these words but yet we cannot doubt of leave to accompany the Fathers in that Exposition that these words O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send are a petition and not a reluctation against God And that not as Lyra takes them Lyra takes them to be a petition and not a reluctation but a petition of Moses that hee would send Aaron That if he would send any he should send a man of better parts and abilities then himselfe and this is a rare modesty when a man is named for any place to become suter for another to that place Moses was the meekest man upon earth but this was not his meaning here Nor as Rabbi Solomon takes it hee takes it for a Petition and no reluctation but a Petition that God would send Iosuah For sayes that Rabbi Moses had had a Revelation that Iosuah and not he should be the man that should bring that People into the Land of Promise and therefore since Iosuah was to have the honour of the action Moses would have laid the burden upon him too but this makes Moses a more fashionall a more particular a more selfe-considering man for his owne estimation then he was But with the Ancients and later devout men wee piously beleeve Moses in these words to have extended his Devotion towards his Nation and the whole world together Ferus as farre as one of them hath extended the Exposition quid prodest ex Egypto exire in peccatis manere saies he what shall they bee the better for comming out of the pressures of Egypt if they must remaine still under the oppression of a sinfull conscience And that must be their case if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ to their succour Quid Pharaonem essugere non Diabolum saies he what shall they get in being delivered from Pharaoh if they be not delivered from the Devill Intrare in terram promissam non in coelum What preferment is it to dwell in a good Land and to bee banished out of heaven And this will be their case if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ for their deliverance He carries it from them to God himselfe Quid unum populum è servitute temporali liberare totum genus humanum relinquere sub potestate Diaboli What glory will it bee to thee O God who studiest thine owne glory to deliver one Nation from a temporall bondage and leave all Mankinde under everlasting condemnation And that must be the case of all if thou send but a Moses and not a Christ Moses may by thine abundant goodnesse doe some good but there is one one appointed to be sent that will doe all which Moses should doe better then Moses and infinitely more then Moses can doe or of himselfe so much as wish to bee done and therefore send him send him now to doe all together And so these words are a Petition and no Reluctation though some men have taken them so and a Petition for the sending of Christ and no Aaron no Iosuah no other man
say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve this report I beleeve that I cannot be saved without beleeving nor beleeve without hearing And therefore whatsoever thou hast decreed to thy selfe above in heaven give me a holy assiduity of indevor and peace of conscience in the execution of thy Decrees here And let thy Spirit beare witnesse with my spirit that I am of the number of thine elect because I love the beauty of thy house because I captivate mine understanding to thine Ordinances because I subdue my wil to obey thine because I find thy Son Christ Jesus made mine in the preaching of thy word and my selfe made his in the administration of his Sacraments And keep me ever in the armes and bosome of that Church which without any tincture any mixture any leaven of superstition or Idolatry affords me all that is necessary to salvation and obtrudes nothing enforces nothing to be beleeved by any Determination or Article of hers that is not so And be this enough for the Explication and Application and Complication of these words in all these three places SERMON VII Preached upon Christmas day JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly THe Church celebrates this day the Birth of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever And though it fall amongst the shortest dayes in the yeere yet of all the Festivals in the yeere it is the longest It is a day that consists of twelve dayes A day not measured by the naturall and ordinary motion of the Sun but by a supernaturall and extraordinary Star which appeared to the Wisemen of the East this day and brought them to Christ at Bethlem upon Twelfe day That day Twelfe day the Church now calls the Epiphany The ancient Church called this day Christmas day the Epiphany Both dayes together and all the dayes betweene This day when Christ was manifested to the Jews in the Shepheards by the Angels and Twelfe day when Christ was manifested to the Gentiles in those Wisemen of the East make up the Epiphany that is the manifestation of God to man And as this day is in such a respect a longer day then others so if we make longer houres in this day then in other dayes if I extend this Sermon if you extend your Devotion or your Patience beyond the ordinary time it is but a due and a just celebration of the Day and some accommodation to the Text for I am come as he in whose Name and Power I came came and he tels you that He came that you might have life and might have it more abundantly God who vouchsafed to be made Man for man for man vouchsafes also to doe all the offices of man toward man Mal. 2.10 He is our Father for he made us Of what Of clay So God is Figulus Esay 45.9 Rom. 9.21 Gen. 1.27 Gen. 3.21 Gen. 1.29 so in the Prophet so in the Apostle God is our Potter God stamped his Image upon us and so God is Statuarius our Minter our Statuary God clothed us and so is vestiarius he hath opened his wardrobe unto us God gave us all the fruits of the earth to eate and so is oeconomus our Steward God poures his oyle and his wine into our wounds Luke 10. 1 Cor. 3.6 Acts 20.32 Psal 127.1 Mat. 4.19 and so is Medicus and Vicinus that Physitian that Neighbour that Samaritan intended in the Parable God plants us and waters and weeds us and gives the increase and so God is Hortulanus our Gardiner God builds us up into a Church and so God is Architectus our Architect our Builder God watches the City when it is built and so God is Speculator our Sentinell God fishes for men for all his Iohns and his Andrews and his Peters are but the nets that he fishes withall God is the fisher of men And here in this Chapter God in Christ is our Shepheard The book of Iob is a representation of God in a Tragique-Comedy lamentable beginnings comfortably ended The book of the Canticles is a representation of God in Christ as a Bridegroom in a Marriage-song in an Epithalamion God in Christ is represented to us in divers formes in divers places and this Chapter is his Pastorall The Lord is our Shepheard and so called in more places then by any other name and in this Chapter exhibits some of the offices of a good Shepheard Be pleased to taste a few of them First he sayes The good Shepheard comes in at the doore Joh. 10.1 the right way If he come in at the window that is alwayes clamber after preferment If he come in at vaults and cellars that is by clandestin and secret contracts with his Patron he comes not the right way When he is in the right way Ver. 3. His sheep heare his voyce first there is a voyce He is heard Ignorance doth not silence him nor lazinesse nor abundance of preferment nor indiscreet and distempered zeale does not silence him for to induce or occasion a silencing upon our selves is as ill as the ignorant or the lazie silence There is a voyce and sayes that Text is is his voyce not alwayes another in his roome for as it is added in the next verse The sheep know his voyce which they could not doe if they heard it not often V. 4. if they were not used to it And then for the best testimony and consummation of all he sayes The good Shepheard gives his life for his sheep Every good Shepheard gives his life V. 11. that is spends his life weares out his life for his sheep of which this may be one good argument That there are not so many crazie so many sickly men men that so soon grow old in any profession as in ours But in this Christ is our Shepheard in a more peculiar and more incommunicable way that he is Pastor humani generis esca first Maxinus that he feeds not one Parish nor one Diocesse but humanum genus all Mankinde the whole world and then feeds us so as that he is both our Pastor and our Pasture he feeds us and feeds us with himselfe for His flesh is meat indeed and his bloud is drink indeed Joh. 6. Lro. And therefore Honor telebratur totius gregis per annua festa pastoris As often as wecome to celebrate the comming of this Shepheard in giving that honour we receive an honour because that is a declaration that we are the sheepe of that pasture and the body of that head And so much being not impertinently said for the connexion of the words and their complication with the day passe we now to the more particular distribution and explication thereof I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly In these words our parts will be three for first we must consider the Persons Divisie The Shepheard and the
he alone for the salvation of all men as it is expresly said for this word in our Text they hath no limitation I came I alone that they all they might be the better Some of the ancient Fathers delivering the mercies of God so Illis omnibus as the articles of our Church enjoyne them to bee delivered that is generally as they are delivered in the Scriptures have delivered them so over-generally that they have seemed loth to thinke the devill himselfe excluded from all benefit of Christs comming Some of the later Authors in the Roman Church who as pious as they pretend to be towards the Fathers are apter to discover the nakednesse of the Fathers then we are have noted in Iustin Martyr and in Epiphanius and in Clement of Alexandria and in Oecumenius and Oecumenius is no single Father but Pater patratus a manifold Father a complicated father a Father that collected Fathers and even in S. Ierome himselfe and S. Ambrose too some inclinations towards that opinion that the devill retaining still his faculty of free will is therefore capable of repentance and so of benefit by this comming of Christ And those Authors of the Roman Church that modifie the matter and excuse the Fathers herein excuse them no other way but this that though that opinion and doctrine of those Fathers bee not true in it selfe yet it was never condemned by any Councell nor by any ancient Father So very far did very many goe in enlarging the mercies of God in Christ to all But waiving this over-large extention and profusion thereof and directing it upon a more possible and a more credible object that is Man S. Cyril of Alexandria speaking of the possibility of the salvation of all men saies by way of objection to himselfe Omnes non credunt How can all be saved since all doe not beleeve but saies he Because actually they do not beleeve is it therefore impossible they should beleeve And for actuall beleefe saies he though all doe not yet so many doe utfacilè qui pereant superent that by Gods goodnesse more are saved then lost saies that Father of tender and large bowels Moses S. Cyril And howsoever he may seeme too tender and too large herein yet it is a good peece of counsaile which that Rabbi whom I named before gives Ne redarguas ca falsitatis de quorum contrariis nulla est demonstratio Be not aptto call any opinion false or hereticall or damnable the contrary whereof cannot be evidently proved And for this particular the generall possibility of salvation all agree that the merit of Christ Jesus is sufficient for all Whether this all-sufficiency grow ex intrinseca ratione formali out of the very nature of the merit the dignity of the person being considered or grow ex pacto acceptatione out of the acceptation of the Father and the contract betweene him and the Son for that let the Thomists and the Scotists in the Roman Church wrangle All agree that there is enough done for all And would God receive enough for all and then exclude some of himselfe without any relation any consideration of sinne God forbid Man is called by divers names names of lownesse enough in the Scriptures But by the name of Enosh Enosh that signifies meere misery Man is never called in the Scriptures till after the fall of Adam Onely sinne after and not any ill purpose in God before made man miserable The manner of expressing the mercy of God in the frame and course of Scriptures expresses evermore the largenesse of that mercy Very often in the Scriptures you shall finde the person suddenly changed and when God shall have said in the beginning of a sentence I will shew mercy unto them them as though he spoke of others presently in the same sentence he will say my loving kindnesse will I not draw from thee not from thee not from them not from any that so whensoever thou hearest of Gods mercy proposed to them to others thou mightest beleeve that mercy to bee meant to thee and whensoever they others heare that mercy proposed to thee they might beleeve it to be meant to them And so much may to good purpose be observed out of some other parts of this Chapter in another translation In the third verse it is said His sheepe heare his voice In the Arabique tranflation it is Oves audit His sheepe in the plurall does heare in the singular God is a plurall God and offers himselfe to all collectively God is a singular God and offers himselfe to every man distributively So also is it said there Nominibus suo He cals his sheepe by their names It is names in the plurall and theirs in the singular whatsoever God proposes to any he intends to all In which contemplation S. Augustine breaks out into that holy exclamation O bone omnipotens qui sic cur as unumquemque nostrûm tanquam solum cures sic omnes tamquam singulos O good and mighty God who art as loving to every man as to all mankind and meanest as well to all mankind as to any man Be pleased to make your use of this note for the better imprinting of this largenesse of Gods mercy Moses desires of God Exod. 33.13 V. 18. V. 19. that he would shew him Vias suas His waies his proceedings his dealings with men that which he calls after Gloriam suam His glory how he glorifies himselfe upon man God promises him in the next verse that he will shew him Omne bonum All his goodnesse Exod. 346. God hath no way towards man but goodnesse God glorifies himselfe in nothing upon man but in his owne goodnesse And therefore when God comes to the performance of this promise in the next Chapter he showes him his way and his glory and his goodnesse in shewing him that he is a mercifull God a gracious God a long-suffering God a God that forgives sins and iniquities and as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen attributes thirteen denotations of God specified in that place and of all those thirteen there is but one that tasts of judgement That he will punish the sins of Fathers upon Children All the other twelve are meerly wholly mercy such a proportion hath his mercy above his justice such a proportion as that there is no cause in him if all men be not partakers of it Shall we say sayes S. Cyril Melius agriculturam non exerceri si quae nocent tolli non possunt It were better there were no tillage then that weeds should grow Melius non creasse better that God had made no men then that so many should be damned God made none to be damned And therefore though some would expunge out of our Litany that Rogation that Petition That thou wouldst have mercy upon all men as though it were contrary to Gods purpose to have mercy upon all men yet S. Augustine enlarges his charity too far Libera nos Domine
that not eternity but the Image of eternity that is Immortality a post eternity there is in the soule of man And then man is all soule in Moses expression For hee does not say that man had Gen. 2.7 but that man was a living soule So that the naturall man hath life more abundantly then any other creature howsoever Oakes and Crowes and Harts may bee said to out-live him because he hath a life after this life But Christ came to give life more abundantly then this That he did when he came to the Jews in promises in Types and Figures and Sacrifices Illis Iudaeis He gave life more abundantly to the Jew then to the Gentile because he gave him better meanes to preserve that life better meanes to illustrate that Image of God in his soule that is to make his Immortality Immortall happinesse for otherwise our Immortality were our greatest curse better meanes to conforme himselfe to God by having a particular Law for the direction of all his actions which the Gentiles had not For therein especially consisted the abundant favour of God to the Jews as it is expressed by Moses Vnto what Nation are their gods come so neare unto them as the Lord our God is come unto us And in what consisted this nearnesse In this What Nation hath Lawes and Statutes so righteous as we have God gave man life more abundantly then other creatures because he gave him Immortality God gave the Jews life more abundantly then other men by giving them a Law to make their Immortality Immortall happinesse and yet there is a further abundantiùs Christ came to give us us Christians life more abundantly then Gentile or Jew Iustin Martyr denies that ever any understood the true God till Christ came Illis Christianis He goes upon the same ground that S. Paul does Whilst you were without Christ you were without God that is without such an evidence such a manifestation such an assurance of God as faith requires or as produces faith For the Ceremoniall Lawes of the Jewes cast as many shadowes as it did lights and burdened them in easing them Whereas the Christian Religion is as Greg. Nazianz. sayes Simplex nuda nisi pravè in artem difficilimam converteretur It is a plaine an easie a perspicuous truth but that the perverse and uncharitable wranglings of passionate and froward men have made Religion a hard an intricate and a perplexed art so that now that Religion which carnall and worldly men have by an ill life discredited and made hard to be beleeved the passion and perversnesse of Schoole-men by Controversies hath made hard to bee understood Whereas the Christian Religion is of it selfe Iugumsuave a sweet and an easie yoak and verbum abbreviatum an abridgement and a contracted doctrine for where the Jews had all abridged in decem verba as Moses calls the ten Commandements ten words the Christian hath all abridged in duo verba into two words love God love thy neighbour So Christ hath given us us Christians life abundantiùs more abundantly then to the Gen tile or to the Jew but there is a farther abundance yet all this is but abundantiùs illis more abundantly then to others but Christ hath given us life abundantiùs ipsis more abundantly then to our selves That is in the Christian Church Abundantiùs ipsis he hath given us meanes to be better to day then yesterday and to morrow then to day That grace which God offers us in the Church does not onely fill that capacity which we have but give us a greater capacity then we had And it is an abuse of Gods grace not to emprove it or not to procure such farther grace as that present grace makes us capable of As it is an improvident and dangerous thing to spend upon the stock so is it to rely upon that portion of grace which I thinke I had in my election or that measure of Sanctification which I came to in my last sicknesse Christ gives us life abundantiùs illis better meanes of eternall life then to Gentile or Jew and abundantiùs ipsis better that is nearer assurance in our growth of grace and encrease of Sanctification every day then in the consideration of any thing done by God in our behalfe heretofore Now with these abundances in which we exceed illos and ipsos Ecclesta others and our selves Christ comes to us in this that he hath constituted and established a Church and therefore wee consider his abundant proceeding in that work From this day in which the first stone of that building the Church was laid for though the foundations of the Church were laid in Eternity yet that was under ground the first stone above ground that is the manifestation of Gods purpose to the world was laid this day in Christs birth from this day the Incarnation of Christ for of all those names by which the ancients designe this day Christmas day Athanasius calling it the Substantiation of Christ Tertullian the Incorporation of Christ Damascen the Humanation of Christ Of all those fifty names which are collected out of the Fathers for this day most concurre in that name The Incarnation of Christ from this day God proceeded so abundantly in enlarging his Church as that within two hundred yeares Tertullian was able to say Ipsa hospitalia aegrorum The very hospitals of the Christians are more and more sumptuously built and more richly endowed then the very Temples of the Idols or then the Palaces of Idolatrous Princes And still abundantiùs not to compare onely with Idolaters but with the Jews themselves and with them in that wherein they magnified themselves most their Temple That Church which Iustinian the Emperour built at Constantinople and dedicated to Sophia to the wisedome of God and the wisedome of God is Christ Christ is the Power of God and the Wisedome of God 1 Cor. 1.24 is found by them who have written that story in bignesse and in beauty to have exceeded Solomons Temple Though in that there were employed for many yeares thirty thousand Carpenters and forty thousand Masons and other endowments of rich vessell being proportionable to it more then twenty thousand Bowls and Goblets of gold and silver yet Iustinians Church at Constantinople exceeded that Unto the riches of this wisedome of God Christ Jesus flowed all the treasure of the World and upon this Wisedome of God Christ Jesus waited all the wisedome of the World For at that time when Christ came into the world was learning at that heighth as that accounting from Cicero and Virgil two great Masters in two great kindes to the two Plinies which may shut up one age we may reckon in that one state under whose government Christ was born Rome Psal 118.24 seaven or eight score Authors more then ever they had before or after This is the day which the Lord hath made we will rejoyce and be glad in it And as Constantine
safely that which is the only true root of all that is faith yet when he comes to Judgement in the next life all his proceeding is grounded upon workes and he judges us by our fruits So then God gives us faith immediatly from himselfe and out of that faith he produces good works instrumentally by us so as that those works are otherwise ours then that faith is And this the propriety lux vestra let your light shine which we proposed for the second branch in this first part that God vouchsafes to afford us an interest in the working of our salvation And then our third branch is the emanation of this light from us to others Coram hominibus let your light shine before men There was a particular Holy-day amongst the heathen Luceat Emanatio that bore the name of this day Accensio luminum Candlemas day A superstitious multiplying of Lamps and Torches in Divine Service Lactant. This superstition Lactantius reproves elegantly and bitterly Num mentis suae compos putandus est can we think that man in his wits that offers to God the Father and Fountaine the Author and Giver of all light a Candle for an Oblation for a Sacrifice for a New-yeares gift Solem contempletur sayes he Let that man but consider seriously the Sun and he will see that that God who could spare him so glorious a light as the Sun Tertul. needs not his Candle And therefore sayes Tertullian reprehending the same superstition Lucernis diem non infringimus we doe not cut off we doe not shorten our dayes by setting up lights at noone nor induce nor force nor make night before it comes I would not be understood to condemne all use of candles by day in Divine Service nor all Churches that have or doe use them For so I might condemne even the Primitive Church in her pure and innocent estate And therefore that which Lactantius almost three hundred yeares after Christ sayes of those Lights and that which Tertullian almost a hundred yeares before Lactantius sayes in reprehension thereof must necessarily be understood of the abuse and imitation of the Gentiles therein for that the thing it selfe was in use before eyther of their times I thinke admits little question About Lactantius time fell the Eliberitan Councell and then the use and the abuse was evident For in the thirty fourth Canon of that Councell it is forbidden to set up Candles in the Church-yard And the reason that is added declares the abuse Non sunt enim inquietandi spiritus sidelium That the soules of the Saints departed should not be troubled Now the setting up of lights could not trouble them but these lights were accompanied with superstitious Invocations with magicall Incantations and with howlings and ejulations which they had learnt from the Gentiles and with these the soules of the dead were in those times thought to be affected and disquieted It is in this Ceremony of lights as it is in other Ceremonies They may be good in their Institution and grow ill in their practise So did many things which the Christian Church received from the Gentiles in a harmlesse innocency degenerate after into as pestilent superstition there as amongst the Gentiles themselves For ceremonies which were received but for the instruction and edification of the weaker sort of people were made reall parts of the service of God and meritorious sacrifices To those ceremonies which were received as signa commonefacientia helps to excite and awaken devotion was attributed an operation and an effectuall power even to the ceremony it selfe and they were not practised as they should significativè but effectivè not as things which should signifie to the people higher mysteries but as things as powerfull and effectuall in themselves as the greatest Mysteries of all the Sacraments themselves So lights were received in the Primitive Church to signifie to the people that God the Father of lights was otherwise present in that place then in any other and then men came to offer lights by way of sacrifice to God And so that which was providently intended for man who indeed needed such helps was turned upon God as though he were to be supplied by us But what then Because things good in their institution may be depraved in their practise Ergonè nihil ceremoniarum rudioribus dabitur Calv. Instit l. 4. c. 10. § 14. ad juvandam eorum imperitiam Shall therefore the people be denyed all ceremonies for the assistance of their weaknesse Id ego non dico I say not so sayes he Omnino illis utile esse sentio hoc genus adminiculi I think these kinds of helps to be very behoovefull for them Tantum hîc contendo all that I strive for is but Moderation and that Moderation he places very discreetly in this That these ceremonies may be few in number That they may be easie for observation That they may be clearely understood in their signification wee must not therefore be hasty in condemning particular ceremonies For in so doing in this ceremony of lights we may condemne the Primitive Church that did use them and wee condemne a great and Noble part of the reformed Church which doth use them at this day These superstitious lights are not the lights we call for here sic luceat let your light shine out but lux vestra your light the light of good works let that shine out Truly this carrying and diffusing of light to others is so blessed a thing as that though Lucifer whose name signifies the carrying of light be now an odious name an infamous name applyed onely to the Devill yet a great Bishop in the Primitive Church abstained not from that name forbore not that name Lucifer Talaritanus that he might carry about him in his name a remembrancer ferre lucem to carry light to others he was content with that name Lucifer God had made light the first day and yet he made many lights after One light of thine shines out in our eyes thy profession of Christ let us see more lights works worthy of that profession God calls the Sun and the Moone too Gen. 1.16 Great lights because though there be greater in the Firmament they appeare greatest to us those works of ours are greatest in the sight of God that are greatest in the sight of men that are most beneficiall most exemplary and conduce most to the promoving of others to glorifie God To such rich men as produce no light at all August no works that of S. Angustine is appliable cimices sunt they are as these wormes or flies the cimices qui vivi mordent mortui foetent They bite and suck a man whilst they live and they stink pestilently and offend so when they are dead The actions of such rich men are mischievous whilst they live and their memory odious when they are dead But all rich men are not such to be absolutely without all light But then they may have light
whole parishes whom thou hast depopulated thy soule may goe confidently home too if thou bribe God then with an Hospitall or a Fellowship in a Colledge or a Legacy to any pious use in apparance and in the eye of the world Pay thy selfe therefore this debt that is make up thine account all the way for when that voyce comes Luk. 16.2 Redde rationem Give up an account of thy Stewardship it is not goe home now and make up thy account perfect but now now deliver up thine account if it be perfect it is well if it be not here is no longer day for Iam non poteris villicare now thou canst be no lenger Steward Esay 38.1 now thou hast no more to doe with thy selfe Here the voyce is not in the word to Ezekiah Dispone domui put thy house in order for morieris thou shalt die For there God had a gracious purpose to give him a longer terme but here it is foole this night repetunt not they shall but they doe fetch away thy soule and then what is become of that To morrow which thou hadst imagined and promised to thy selfe for the paiment of this debt of this repentance Be just therefore to thy selfe all the way pay thy selfe and take acquittances of thy selfe all the way which is onely done under the seale and in the testimony of a rectified conscience Let thine owne conscience be thine evidence and thy Rolls and not the opinion of others Non tutum planè sed stultum ibi thesaurum tuum recondere ubi non vales resumere cum volueris sayes Saint Bernard It is not providently done to lock thy treasure in a chest of which thou hast no key and to which thou hast no accesse Si ponis in os meum jam non in tua sed mea potestate est ut te laudare vel tibi derogare possim If thou build thy reputation upon my report it is now in my power not in thine whether thou shalt be good or bad honourable or infamous Sanum vas inconcussum conscientia a good conscience is a sweet vessell and a strong Quicquid in ea reposueris servabit vivo defuncto restituet Whatsoever thou laiest up in that shall serve thee all thy life and after and that shall be thine acquittance and discharge atthy last paiment in manustuas when thou returnest thy spirit into his hands that gave it And then reddidisti debita omnibus thou shalt have rendred to all their dues when thou hast given the King Honour the poore almes thy selfe peace and God thy soule SERMON X. Preached upon Candlemas Day ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coales of fire on his head IT falls out I know not how but I take it from the instinct of the Holy Ghost and from the Propheticall spirit residing in the Church of God that those Scriptures which are appointed to be read in the Church all these dayes for I take no other this Terme doe evermore afford and offer us Texts that direct us to patience as though these times had especial need of those instructions And truly so they have for though God have so farre spared us as yet as to give us no exercise of patience in any afflictions inflicted upon our selves yet as the heart akes if the head doe nay if the foote ake the heart akes too so all that professe the name of Christ Jesus aright making up but one body we are but dead members of that body if we be not affected with the distempers of the most remote parts thereof That man sayes but faintly that he is heart-whole that is macerated with the Gout or lacerated with the Stone It is not a heart but a stone growne into that forme that feeles no paine till the paine seize the very substance thereof How much and how often S. Paul delights himselfe with that sociable syllable Syn Con Conregnare and Convificare and Consedere of Raigning together 2 Tim. 2.12 Eph. 2.1 6. and living and quickning together As much also doth God delight in it from us when we expresse it in a Conformity and Compunction and Compassion and Condolency and as it is but a little before the Text in weeping with them that weepe Our patience therefore being actually exercised in the miseries of our brethren round about us and probably threatned in the aimes and plots of our adversaries upon us though I hunt not after them yet I decline not such Texts as may direct our thoughts upon duties of that kinde This Text does so for the circle of this Epistle of S. Paul this precious ring being made of that golden Doctrine That Justification is by faith and being enameled with that beautifull Doctrine of good works too in which enameled Ring as a precious stone in the midst thereof there is set the glorious Doctrine of our Election by Gods eternall Predestination our Text falls in that part which concernes obedience holy life good works which when both the Doctrines that of Justification by faith and that of Predestination have suffered controversie hath been by all sides embraced and accepted that there is no faith which the Angels in heaven or the Church upon earth or our own consciences can take knowledge of without good works Of which good works and the degrees of obedience of patience it is a great one and a hard one that is enjoyned in this Text for whereas S. Augustine observes sixe degrees sixe steps in our behaviour towards our enemies whereof the first is nolle laedere to be loth to hurt any man by way of provocation not to begin And a second nolle amplius quam laesus laedere That if another provoke him yet what power soever he have he would returne no more upon his enemy then his enemy had cast upon him he would not exceed in his revenge And a third velle minus not to doe so much as he suffered but in a lesse proportion onely to shew some sense of the injury And then another is nolle laedere licet laesus to returne no revenge at all though he have been provoked by an injury And a higher then that par atum se exhibere ut amplius laedatur to turne the other cheeke when he is smitten and open himselfe to farther injuries That which is in this Text is the sixt step and the highest of all laedenti benefacere to doe good to him of whom we have received evill If thine enemy hunger to feed him if he thirst to give him drinke for in so c. The Text is a building of stone and that bound in with barres of Iron Divisio fundamentall Doctrine in point of manners in it selfe and yet buttressed and established with reasons too therefore and for Therefore feed thine enemy For in so doing thou shalt heape coales This therefore confirmes the precedent Doctrine and this For confirmes
Consistory but that the Pope for a certain time inhibites them to give voice And let Aquinas present his arguments to the contrary That those spirits have no naturall power to know thoughts we seek no farther but that Christ Jesus himselfe thought it argument enough to convince the Scribes and Pharisees and prove himselfe God by knowing their thoughts Eadem Majestate potentia sayes S. Hierome Since you see I proceed as God in knowing your thoughts why beleeve you not that I may forgive his sins as God too And then in the last act he joynes both together he satisfies the patient Dat sanitatem and he satisfies the beholders too he gives him his first desire bodily health He bids him take up his bed and walk and he doth it and he shewes them that he is God by doing that which as it appears in the Story was harder in their opinion then remission of sins which was to cure and recover a diseased man only by his word without any naturall or second means And therefore since all the world shakes in a palsie of wars and rumors of wars since we are sure that Christs Vicar in this case will come to his Dimitmittuntur peccata to send his Buls and Indulgences and Crociatars for the maintenance of his part in that cause let us also who are to do the duties of private men to obey and not to direct by presenting our diseased and paralytique souls to Christ Jesus now when he in the Ministery of his unworthiest servant is preaching unto you by untiling the house by removing all disguises and palliations of our former sins by true confession and hearty detestation let us endeavour to bring him to his Dimittuntur peccata to forgive us all those sins which are the true causes of all our palsies and slacknesses in his service and so without limiting him or his great Vicegerents and Lieutenants the way or the time to beg of him that he will imprint in them such counsels and such resolutions as his wisdome knows best to conduce to his glory and the maintenance of his Gospell Amen SERMON XII Preached upon Candlemas day MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God THe Church which is the Daughter of God and Spouse of Christ celebrates this day the Purification of the blessed Virgin the Mother of God And she celebrates this day by the name vulgarly of Candlemas day It is dies luminarium the day of lights The Church took the occasion of doing so from the Gentiles At this time of the yeare about the beginning of February they celebrated the feast of Februus which is their Pluto And because that was the God of darknesse they solemnized it with a multiplicity of Lights The Church of God in the outward and ceremoniall part of his worship did not disdain the ceremonies of the Gentiles Men who are so severe as to condemne and to remove from the Church whatsoever was in use amongst the Gentiles before may before they are aware become Surveyors and Controllers upon Christ himself in the institution of his greatest seales for Baptisme which is the Sacrament of purification by washing in water and the very Sacrament of the Supper it self religious eating and drinking in the Temple were in use amongst the Gentiles too It is a perverse way rather to abolish Things and Names for vehement zeale will work upon Names as well as Things because they have been abused then to reduce them to their right use We dealt in the reformation of Religion as Christ did in the institution thereof He found ceremonies amongst the Gentiles and he took them in not because he found them there but because the Gentiles had received them from the Jews as they had their washings and their religious meetings to eat and drink in the Temple from the Jews Passeover Christ borrowed nothing of the Gentiles but he took his own where he found it Those ceremonies which himself had instituted in the first Church of the Jews and the Gentiles had purloined and prophaned and corrupted after he returned to a good use againe And so did we in the Reformation in some ceremonies which had been of use in the Primitive Church and depraved and corrupted in the Romane For the solemnizing of this Day Candlemas-day when the Church did admit Candles into the Church as the Gentiles did it was not upon the reason of the Gentiles who worshipped therein the God of darknesse Februus Pluto but because he who was the light of the world was this day presented and brought into the Temple the Church admitted lights The Church would signifie that as we are to walk in the light so we are to receive our light from the Church and to receive Christ and our knowledge of him so as Christ hath notified himself to us So it is a day of purification to us and a day of lights and so our Text fits the Day Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God In these words we shall consider first Divisie Qui sint who they are that are brought into consideration that are put into the balance and they are mundi corde such as are pure of heart And secondly Quid sint what they come to be and it is Beati blessed are the pure in heart And lastly Vnde from whence this blessednesse accrews and arises unto them and in what it consists and that is Videbunt Deum blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Gen. 6.5 Ask me wherein these men differ from other men and it is in this main difference Mundi corde that whereas every imagination of the thought of mans heart is only evill continually They are pure of heart Ask me what they get by that They get this main purchase Beati That which all the books of all the Philosophers could never teach them so much as what it was that is true Blessednesse That their pocket book their Manuall their bosome book their conscience doth not only shew them but give them not only declare it to them but possesse them of it Ask me how long this Blessednesse shall last because all those Blessednesses which Philosophers have imagined as honour and health and profit and pleasure and the like have evaporated and vanished away this shall last for ever Videbunt Deum they shall see God and they shall no more see an end of their seeing God then an end of his being God Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God These then are our three parts first the Price mundities cordis cleannesse and cleannesse of heart Secondly the Purchase Beati Blessednesse and present possession of blessednesse Blessed are they And then thirdly the Habendum the term Everlastingnesse because it consists in the enjoying of him who is everlasting They shall see God These arise out of the Text but from whence arises the Text it selfe The Text it self is a piece of a Sermon of
kneeling they must not But this I presume that particular Synod did not declare by way of Doctrine to binde other Churches but enjoyned a Discipline for their owne Now for the danger of scandalizing others all that come to Church and are of our profession in Religion are sufficiently catechized and informed of the reason of our kneeling and that we are therein farre from the Adoration of the Romane Practise It is a complaint often made and often to be repeated that one of the greatest illusions and impostures of the Romane Church is That the Book-Doctrine of their learned men and the ordinary practice of their people agree not They know the people doe commit Idolatry in their manner of adoring the Bread in the Sacrament and they never preach against this error of the people nor tell them wherein that Idolatry lies It is true that in their Bookes of Controversies which the people could not understand if they might reade them nor may reade them if they could understand them in those bookes they proceed upon safer grounds There they say that when a man adores the Sacrament he must be sure that he carry not his thoughts upon any thing that he sees not onely not upon Bread and Wine for that they must not beleeve to be there whatsoever they see or taste but not upon those species and apparences of Bread and Wine which they seem to see but he must carry all his thoughts upon the person of Christ who is there though he see him not for otherwise say they if he should adore that which he sees he should commit Idolatry Now if the people were acquainted with this Doctrine and could possibly observe it the danger were not so great in that Adoration of the Sacrament Much lesse is there in our kneeling who as we acknowledge that God is present every where yet otherwise present to us when we throw our selves downe before him in devotion and prayer in our Chamber then he is in the Market or in the street and otherwise in the Congregation at Publike prayer then at private prayer in our Chamber so weacknowledge that he is otherwise present at the Sacrament then at any other act of Divine Service That which Christs Example left indifferent the Authority of that Church in which God hath given thee thy station may make necessary to thee Though not absolutely necessary and Ratione medii that none can be saved that doe not kneele at the Sacrament therefore because they doe not kneele yet necessary Ratione praecepti as it is enjoyned by lawfull authority and to resist lawfull authority is a disobedience that may endanger any mans salvation Now from this Sermon 2. Part. which gave us our Text we passe to the Text which must give us our Sermon the particular Branches of the Text it selfe which we proposed at first for our second part And there our first is Qui sint who they be that are brought into consideration Mundi corde those that are pure of heart first pure and then pure of heart In the purest times of the Primitive Church there crept in false opinions of purity we finde two sorts of Puritanes then The Catharists and the Cathari the Catharists were purifying Puritanes and the Cathari were purified Puritanes The first thought no creatures pure for mans use till they were sanctified by them and thereupon they induced certain charmes and formes of Purification too detestable to be named amongst Christians And then the Cathari the purified Puritanes thought no men pure but themselves and themselves so pure as that they left out that petition out of the Lords prayer Dimitte nobis forgive us our trespasses for they thought they had trespassed in nothing They have a third state of Puritanes above these in the Romane Church where they say that a man come to such a state of purity in this life as that he shall be abstracted not onely a passionibus from all inordinatenesse of affections and passions but a phantasmatibus from apprehending any thing by those lazy degrees of the senses and the phantasie and discourse and reading and meditation and conversation but they shall come to such a familiarity with God as that they shall know all by immediate Revelation They meane and indeed some of them say that a man come to that purity in this life as that in this life hee shall bee in possession of that very Beatificall vision which is the state of glory in heaven In which purity they say also that a man may not onely be empty of all sin but he may be too full of Gods presence over-fraighted with his grace so farre that as they make Philip Nerius the Founder of their last Order their example they shall be put to that exclamation Recede à me Domine O Lord depart farther from me and withdraw some of this grace which thou pourest upon me And then besides these three imaginary and illusory purities The Catharists that think no things pure The Cathari that think no men pure but themselves and the Super-cathari in the Romane Church that think these men as pure as the Saints who are in possession of the sight of God in heaven there is a true purity which will not serve our turns which is a partiall purity that purenesse that cleannesse that innocency to which David so often referres himself in his religious and humble expostulations with God Iudge me and deale with me according to my righteousnesse and mine innocency and cleannesse of heart and hands saies David that is as I am innocent and guiltlesse in that particular which Saul imputes to me and persecutes me for For this purenesse which is this marke of the Saints of God is not partiall but universall it is not a fig-leafe that covers one spot of nakednesse but an intire garment a cleannesse in all our actions We say sometimes and not altogether improperly that a man walks cleane if in a foule way he contract but a few spots of dirt but yet this is not an absolute cleannesse A house is not cleane except Cobwebs be swept downe A man is not cleane except he remove the lightest and slightest occasions of provocation It is the speech of the greatest to the greatest of Christ to the Church Capite vulpeculas Take us the little Foxes for they devoure the Vine It is not a cropping a pilling a retarding of the growth of the Vine that is threatned but a devouring though but from little Foxes It is not so desperate a state to have thy soule attempted by that Lion that seekes whom he may devoure for then in great and apparant sinnes thou wilt be occasioned to call upon the Lion of the tribe of Juda to thine assistance as it is to have thy soule eaten up by vermin by the custome and habit of small sinnes God punished the Egyptians with little things with Hailestones and Froggs and Grashoppers and Pharaohs Conjurers that counterfaited all Moses greater workes failed in the
shall learne what to call it That so we may goe the Apostles way to his end That being made free from sinne Rom. 6.22 and become servants to God wee may have our fruit unto holinesse and then the End life everlasting SERMONS Preached in LENT SERMON XIII Preached in Lent To the KING April 20. 1630. JOB 16. v. 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high IObs friends as in civility we are faine to call them because they came upon a civill pretence to visit him and to comfort him had now done speaking It was long before they would have done Andivi frequenter talia saies Iob to them v. 2. I have often heard such things as you say they are not new to me and therefore Onerosi consolatores Miserable comforters troublesome comforters are ye all old and new But Numquid finem habebunt verba ventosa saies he Shall your windy words your empty your aery v. 3. your frothy words have any end Now they have an end Eliphas ends his charge in the last and in this Chapter Iob begins to answer for himselfe But how By a middle way Iob does not justifie himselfe but yet he does not prevaricate he does not betray his Innocence neither For there may be a pusillanimity even towards God A man may over-clog his owne conscience and belie himselfe in his confessions out of a distempered jealousie and suspition of Gods purposes upon him Iob does not so Many men have troubled themselves more how the soule comes into man then how it goes out They wrangle whether it comes in by Infusion from God or by Propagation from parents and never consider whether it shall returne to Him that made it or to him that marr'd it to Him that gave it or to him that corrupted it So many of our Expositors upon this Booke of Iob have spent themselves upon the Person and the Place and the Time who Iob was when Iob was where Iob was and whether there were ever any such person as Iob or no and have passed over too slightly the senses and doctrines of the Booke S. Gregory hath to good use given us many Morals as he cals them upon this Booke but truly not many Literals for for the most part he bends all the sufferings of Iob figuratively mystically upon Christ Origen who except S. Gregory hath written most of this Booke and yet gone but a little way into the booke neither doth never pretend much literalnesse in his expositions so that we are not to looke for that at Origens hands We must not therefore refuse the assistance of later men in the exposition of this Text Not for any Injustice in my hands c. In this Chapter and before this text we have Iobs Anatomy Iobs Sceleton the ruins to which he was reduced In the eighth verse he takes knowledge That God had filled him with leannesse and wrinckles and that those wrinckles and that leannesse were witnesses against him and That they that hated him had torne him in peeces in the ninth verse In the eleventh verse That God had delivered him over to the ungodly and That God himselfe had shaked him in peeces and set him up as a marke to shoote at in the twelfe verse That God had cleft his reins and poured out his gall upon the ground in the thirteenth verse and in the fourteenth That he broke him breach after breach and run over him as a Gyant and at last in the sixteenth verse That foulenesse was upon his face and the shadow of death upon his eye-lids Now let me aske in Iobs behalfe Gods question to Ezekiel Putasnè vivent ossaista Doest thou belceve that these bones can live Ezek. 37.2 Can this Anatomy this Sceleton these ruines this rubbidge of Iob speake It can it does in this Text Not for any Injustice in my hands c. And in these words it delivers us first The confidence of a godly man Doe God what he will say ye what ye will That because I am more afflicted then other men therefore I am guilty of more hainous sins then other men yet I know that whatsoever Gods end be in this proceeding It is not for any Injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure Secondly it delivers us that kinde of infirme anguish and indignation that halfedistemper that expostulation with God which sometimes comes to an excesse even in good and godly men O earth cover not thou my blood and let my cry have no place I desire not that any thing should be concealed or disguised let all that ever I have done be written in my forehead and read by all men And then thirdly and lastly it delivers us the foundation of his confidence and the recovery from this his infirmity and from his excesse in the manner of expressing it if he have beene over-bold therein My Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high God is his Witnesse that that which they charge him with is false That that which he saies in his owne discharge in that sense that he saies it is true And in these three Iobs Protestation Not guilty Iobs Manifest I would all the world knew all Iobs Establishment and consolidation My Witnesse is in Heaven in these three branches and in some fruits which in passing we shall gather from them we shall determine all that appertaines to these words I remember S. Gregory 1. Part. in handling one text professes that he will endevour to handle it so Vt ejus altitudo non sic fieret nescientibus cognita ut esset scientibus onerosa So as that the weakest understanding might comprehend the highest points and the highest understanding not be weary to heare ordinary doctrines so delivered Indeed it is a good art to deliver deepe points in a holy plainnesse and plaine points in a holy delightfulnesse for many times one part of our auditory understands us not when we have done and so they are weary and another part understands us before we begun and so they are weary To day my humble petition must be That you will be content to heare plaine things plainly delivered Of which be this the first That Iob found himselfe under the oppression and calumny of that mis-interpretation that Kings themselves and States and Churches have not escaped The towre of Siloe fell and slew them Luk. 13.4 therefore they were the greater sinners in Jerusalem this man prospers not in the world Therefore he proceeds not in the feare of God the heire wastes the estate therefore the estate was ill gotten are hasty conclusions in private affaires Treasures are empty therefore there are unnecessary wastes Discontented persons murmure therefore things are ill carried our neigbours prosper by Action therefore we perish by not appearing are hastie conclusions in
trina immer sio that threefold dipping which was used in the Primitive Church in baptisme And in this baptisme thou takest a new Christian name thou who wast but a Christian art now a regenerate Christian and as Naaman the Leper came cleaner out of Jordan then he was before his leprosie for his flesh came as the flesh of a child so there shall be better evidence in this baptisme of thy repentance then in thy first baptisme better in thy self for then thou hadst no sense of thy own estate in this thou hast And thou shalt have better evidence from others too for howsoever some others will dispute whether all children which dye after Baptisme be certainly saved or no it never fell into doubt or disputation whether all that die truely repentant be saved or no. Weep these teares truly and God shall performe to thee first that promise which he makes in Esay The Lord shall wipe all teares from thy face Esay 25. all that are fallen by any occasion of calamity here in the militant Church and he shall performe that promise which he makes in the Revelation Revel 7.17 The Lord shall wipe all teares from thine eyes that is dry up the fountaine of teares remove all occasion of teares hereafter in the triumphant Church SERMON XVII Preached at VVhite-hall March 4. 1624. MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God THat which God commanded by his Word to be done at some times that we should humble our soules by fasting the same God tommands by his Church to be done now In the Scriptures you have Praeceptum The thing it self What In the Church you have the Nunt The time When. The Scriptures are Gods Voyce The Church is his Eccho a redoubling a repeating of some particular syllables and accents of the same voice And as we harken with some earnestnesse and some admiration at an Eccho when perchance we doe not understand the voice that occasioned that Eccho so doe the obedient children of God apply themselves to the Eccho of his Church when perchance otherwise they would lesse understand the voice of God in his Scriptures if that voice were not so redoubled unto them This fasting then thus enjoyned by God for the generall in his Word and thus limited to this Time for the particular in his Church is indeed but a continuation of a great Feast Where the first course that which we begin to serve in now is Manna food of Angels plentifull frequent preaching but the second course is the very body and blood of Christ Jesus shed for us and given to us in that blessed Sacrament of which himselfe makes us worthy receivers at that time Now as the end of all bodily eating is Assimilation that after all other concoctions that meat may be made Idem corpus the same body that I am so the end of all spirituall eating is Assimilation too That after all Hearing and all Receiving I may be made Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that my God is for though it be good to Heare good to Receive good to Meditate yet if we speake effectually and consummatively why call we these good there is nothing good but One that is Assimilation to God In which perfect and consummative sense Christ saies to this Man in this Text Why callest thou me good there is none good but one that is God The words are part of a Dialogue of a Conference betweene Christ Divisio and a man who proposed a question to him to whom Christ makes an answer by way of another question Why callest thou me good c. In the words and by occasion of them we consider the Text the Context and the Pretext Not as three equall parts of the Building but the Context as the situation and Prospect of the house The Pretext as the Accesse and entrance to the house And then the Text it selfe as the House it selfe as the body of the building In a word In the Text the Words In the Context the Occasion of the words In the Pretext the Pretence the purpose the disposition of him who gave the occasion We begin with the Context 1 Part. Context the situation the prospect how it stands how it is butted how it is bounded to what it relates with what it is connected And in that we are no farther curious but onely to note this that the Text stands in that Story where a man comes to Christ inquires the way to Heaven beleeves himselfe to be in that way already and when he heares of nothing but keeping the Commandements beleeves himselfe to be fargone in that way But when he is told also that there belongs to it a departing with his Riches his beloved Riches he breakes off the conference he separates himselfe from Christ for saies the Story This Man had great possessions And to this purpose to separate us from Christ the poorest amongst us hath great possessions He corners of the streets as well as he that sits upon carpets in the Region of perfumes he that is ground and trod to durt with obloquie and contempt as well as he that is built up every day a story and story higher with additions of Honour Every man hath some such possessions as possesse him some such affections as weigh downe Christ Jesus and separate him from Him rather then from those affections those possessions Scarce any sinner but comes sometimes to Christ in the language of the man in this Text Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternall life And if Christ would go no farther with such men but to say to the Adulterer Do not thou give thy money to usury no more to the penurious Usurer but Do not thou wast thy selfe in superfluous and expensive feasting If Christ would proceed no farther but to say to the needy person that had no money Do not thou buy preferment or to the ambitious person that soares up after all Do not thou forsake thy selfe deject thy selfe undervalue thy selfe In all these cases the Adulterer and the Usurer The needy and the ambitious man would all say with the man in the Text All these things have we done from our youth But when Christ proceeds to a Vade vende to depart with their possessions that which they possesse that which possesses them this changes the case There are some sins so rooted so riveted in men so incorporated so consubstantiated in the soule by habituall custome as that those sins have contracted the nature of Ancient possessions As men call Manners by their names so sins have taken names from men and from places Simon Magus gave the name to a sin and so did gehazi and Sodom did so There are sins that run in Names in Families in Blood Hereditary sins entailed sins and men do almost prove their Gentry by those sins and are scarce beleeved to be rightly borne if
the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
Ghost in the Lamentations That women eate Palmares silios We translate it Lament 2.20 Their children of a span long that is that they procured abortions and untimely births of those children which were in their bodies that they might have so much flesh to eate As that is proposed for the greatest misery that ever was women to destroy their children so so is this for the highest accumulation of Joy to have dead children brought to life againe When we heare S. Augustine in his Confessions lament so passionately the death of his Son and insist so affectionately upon the Pregnancie and Forwardnesse of that Son though that Son if he had lived must have lived a continuall evidence and monument of his sin for for all his Son S. Augustine was no married man yet what may we thinke S. Augustine would have given though it had been to have beene cut out of his own life to have had that Son restored to life again Measure it but by the Joy which we have in recovering a sick child from the hands and jawes and gates of death Measure it but by that delight which we have when we see our Garden recovered froÌ the death of Winter Mens curiosities have carried them to unlawfull desires of communication with the Dead as in Sauls case towards Samuel But if with a good conscience and without that horror which is likely to accompanie such a communication with the Dead a man might have the conversation of a friend that had been dead and had seene the other World As Dives thought no Preacher so powerfull to worke upon his Brethren as one sent from the Dead so certainly all the Travailers in the World if we could heare them all all the Libraries in the world if we could read them all could not tell us so much as that friend returned from the dead which had seene the other World But wayving that consideration because as we know not what kind of remembrance of this world God leaves us in the next when he translates us thither so neither do we know what kinde of remembrance of that world God would leave in that man whom he should re-translate into this we fixe onely upon the examples entended in our Text who these joyfull Women were that receiv'd their Dead raised to life againe which is our second Branch of this first part for with those three considerations which constituted our first Branch we have done That God gives us this World as we are generall Christians And as we are Faithfull Christians Miracles And the greatest of Miracles The raising of the Dead In the second Branch Mulieres we have two Considerations first what kind of Women these were and then who they were first their Qualities and then their Persons We have occasion to stop upon the first because Aquinas in his Exposition of this Text tels us there are some Expositors who take this word Women in this place to be entended not of Mothers but of Wives And then because the Apostle saies here that Women received their dead that is say they Wives received their dead Husbands raised to life again and received them as Husbands that is cohabited with them as Husbands therefore they conclude saies Aquinas that Death it selfe does not dissolve the band of Marriage and consequently that all other Marriages all super-inductions even after Death are unlawfull Let me say but one word of the Word and a word or two of the Matter it selfe and I shall passe to the other Consideration The Women whom the Apostle proposes for his examples The word Vxores Women taken alone signifies the whole sex women in generall When it is contracted to a particular signification in any Author it followes the circumstances and the coherence of that place in that Author and by those a man shall easily discerne of what kinde of Women that word is entended in that place In this place the Apostle works upon his Brethren the Hebrews by such examples as were within their owne knowledge and their owne stories throughout all this Chapter And in those stories of theirs we have no example of any Wife that had her dead Husband restored to her but of Mothers that had their Children raised to life we have So that this word Women must signifie here Mothers and not Wives as Aquinas Expositors mis-imagined And for the matter it selfe Nuptiae iteratae that is second or oftner-iterated Marriages the dis-approving of them entred very soone into some Hereticks in the Primitive Church For the eighth Canon of that great Councell of Nice which is one of the indubitable Canons forbids by name Catharos The Puritanes of those Times to be received by the Church except they would be content to receive the Sacrament with persons that had beene twice married which before they would not doe It entred soone into some Hereticks and it entred soone and went far in some holy and reverent Men and some Assemblies that had and had justly the name and forme of Councels For in the Councell of Neo-Caesarea which was before the Nicen Councell in the seventh Canon there are somewhat shrewd aspersions laid upon second Mariages And certainly the Roman Church cannot be denyed to come too neere this dis-approving of second Mariages For though they will not speak plaine they love not that because they get more by keeping things in suspence yet plainly they forbid the Benediction at second Mariages Valeat quantnm valere potest Let them doe as well as they can with their second Marriage Let them marrie De bene esse At all adventures but they will affoord no Blessing to a second as to a first Marriage And though they will not shut the Church doores against all such yet they will shut up all Church functions against all such No such Person as hath married twice or married once one that hath married twice can be received to the dignity of Orders in their Church And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in this point yet it was not as in the Romane Church to lay snares and spread nets for gain and profit and to forbid only therefore that they might have market for their Dispensations neither was it to fixe and appropriate sanctity only in Ecclesiasticall persons who only must not marry twice but out of a tender sense and earnest love to Continency and out of a holy indignation that men tumbled and wallowed so licentiously so promiscuously so indifferently so inconsiderately in all wayes of incontinency those blessed Fathers admitted in themselves a super-zealous an over-vehement animosity in this point But yet S. Ierome himselfe though he remember with a holy scorn Ep. ad Agers chiam that when he was at Rome in the assistance of Pope Damasus as his word is Cum juvarem he saw a man that had buried twenty wives marry a wife that buried twenty two husbands Apolog. ad Pamnach yet for the matter and
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâan Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
to the Church by one Sermon still our Christnings were equall to our burials at least Therefore when Christ saies to the Church Luke 12.32 Feare not little flock it was not Quia de magnominuitur sed quia de pusillo crescit saies Chrysologus Not because it should fall from great to little but rise from little to great Such care had Christ of the growth thereof and then such care of the establishment and power thereof as that the first time that ever he names the Church Mat. 16.18 he invests it with an assurance of perpetuity Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against it Therein is denoted the strength and stability of the Church in it selfe and then the power and authority of the Church upon others in those often directions Dic Ecclesiae complaine to the Church and consult with the Church and then Audi Ecclesiam Harken to the Church be judged by the Church heare not them that heare not the Church And then Ejice de Ecclesia let them that disobey the Church be cast out of the Church In all which we are forbidden private Conventicles private Spirits private Opinions For as S. Augustine saies well Psal 49. and he cites it from another whom he names not Quidam dixit If a wall stand single not joyned to any other wall he that makes a doore through the wall and passes through that doore Adhuc foris est for all this is without still Nam domus nonest One wall makes not a house One opinion makes not Catholique Doctrine one man makes not a Church for this knowledge of God the Church is our Academy there we must be bred and there we may be bred all our lives and yet learne nothing Therefore as we must be there so there we must use the meanes And the meanes in the Church are the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church The most powerfull meanes is the Scripture Medium Institutie But the Scripture in the Church Not that we are discouraged from reading the Scripture at home God forbid we should think any Christian family to be out of the Church At home the holy Ghost is with thee in the reading of the Scriptures But there he is with thee as a Remembrancer The Holy Ghost shall bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you saies our Saviour Here Iohn 14.26 in the Church he is with thee as a Doctor to teach thee First learne at Church and then meditate at home Receive the seed by hearing the Scriptures interpreted here and water it by returning to those places at home When Christ bids you Search the Scriptures he meanes you should go to them who have a warrant to search A warrant in their Calling To know which are Scriptures To know what the holy Ghost saies in the Scriptures apply thy selfe to the Church Not that the Church is a Judge above the Scriptures for the power and the Commission which the Church hath it hath from the Scriptures but the Church is a Judge above thee which are the Scriptures and what is the sense of the Holy Ghost in them So then thy meanes are the Scriptures That is thy evidence but then this evidence must be sealed to thee in the Sacraments and delivered to thee in Preaching and so sealed and delivered to thee in the presence of competent witnesses the Congregation When S. Paul was carried up In raptu 2 Cor. 12.4 in an extasie into Paradise that which he gained by this powerfull way of teaching is not expressed in a Vidit but an Audivit It is not said that he saw but that he heard unspeakeable things The eye is the devils doore before the eare for though he doe enter at the eare by wanton discourse yet he was at the eye be fore we see before we talke dangerously But the eare is the Holy Ghosts first doore He assists us with Rituall and Ceremoniall things which we see in the Church but Ceremonies have their right use when their right use hath first beene taught by preaching Therefore to hearing does the Apostle apply faith And as the Church is our Academy and our Medium the Ordinances of the Church so the light by which we see this that is know God so as to make him our God is faith and that is our other Consideration in this part Those Heretiques against whom S. Chrysostome and others of the Fathers writ Lumen fides The Anomaei were inexcusable in this that they said They were able to know God in this life as well as God knew himselfe But in this more especially lay their impiety that they said They were able to doe all this by the light of Nature without Faith By the light of Nature in the Theatre of the World by the Medium of Creatures we see God but to know God by beleeving not only Him but in Him is only in the Academy of the Church only through the Medium of the Ordinances there and only by the light of Faith The Schooledoes ordinarily designe foure wayes of knowing God and they make the first of these foure waies to be by faith but then by faith they meane no more but an assent that there is a God which is but that which in our former Considerations we called The seeing of God and which indeed needs not faith for the light of Nature will serve for that to see God so They make their second way Contemplation that is An union of God in this life which is truly the same thing that we meane by Faith for we do not call an assent to the Gospell faith but faith is the application of the Gospell to our selves not an assent that Christ dyed but an assurance that Christ dyed for all Their third way of knowing God is by Apparition as when God appeared to the Patriarchs and others in fire in Angels or otherwise And their fourth way is per apertam visionem by his cleare manifestation of himself in heaven Their first way by assenting only and their third way of apparition are weak and uncertain wayes The other two present Faith and future Vision are safe wayes but admit this difference That that of future Vision is gratiae consummantis such a knowledge of God as when it is once had can never be lost nor diminished But knowledge by faith in this world is Gratiae communis it is an effect and fruit of that Grace which God shed upon the whole communion of Saints that is upon all those who in this Academy the Church do embrace the Medium that is the Ordinances of the Church And this knowledge of God by this faith may be diminished and encreased for it is but In aenigmate sayes our Text darkly obscurely Clearly in respect of the naturall man but yet but obscurely in respect of that knowledge of God which we shall have in heaven for sayes the Apostle As long as we
walk by faith and not by sight we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5.6 Faith is a blessed presence but compared with heavenly vision it is but an absence though it create and constitute in us a possibility a probability a kinde of certainty of salvation yet that faith which the best Christian hath is not so far beyond that sight of God which the naturall man hath as that sight of God which I shall have in heaven is above that faith which we have now in the highest exaltation Therefore there belongs a consideration to that which is added by our Apostle here That the knowledge which I have of God here even by faith through the ordinances of the Church is but a knowledge in part Now I know in part That which we call in part the Syriack translates Modicum ex multis Ex parte Though we know by faith yet for all that faith it is but a little of a great deale that we know yet because though faith be good evidence yet faith is but the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 And there is better evidence of them when they are seen For if we consider the object we cannot beleeve so much of God nor of our happinesse in him as we shall see then For when it is said that the heart comprehends it not certainly faith comprehends it not neither And if we consider the manner faith it self is but darknesse in respect of the vision of God in heaven For those words of the Prophet I will search Ierusalem with Candles are spoken of the times of the Christian Church Zeph. 1.12 and of the best men in the Christian Church yet they shall be searched with Candles some darknesse shall be found in them To the Galatians well instructed and well established Gal. 4.9 the Apostle sayes Now after ye have knowen God or rather are knowen of God The best knowledge that we have of God here even by faith is rather that he knows us then that we know him And in this Text it is in his own person that the Apostle puts the instance Now I I an Apostle taught by Christ himselfe know but in part And therefore as S. Augustine saith Sunt quasi cunabula charitatis Dei quibus diligimus proximum The love which we beare to our neighbour is but as the Infancy but as the Cradle of that love which we beare to God so that sight of God which we have In speculo in the Glasse that is in nature is but Cunabula fidei but the infancy but the cradle of that knowledge which we have in faith and yet that knowledge which we have in faith is but Cunabula visionis the infancy and cradle of that knowledge which we shall have when we come to see God face to face Faith is infinitely above nature infinitely above works even above those works which faith it self produces as parents are to children the tree to the fruit But yet faith is as much below vision and seeing God face to face And therefore though we ascribe willingly to faith more then we can expresse yet let no man think himself so infallibly safe because he finds that he beleeves in God as he shall be when he sees God The faithfullest man in the Church must say Domine adauge Lord increase my faith He that is least in the kingdome of heaven shal never be put to that All the world is but Speculum a glasse in which we see God The Church it self and that which the Ordinance of the Church begets in us faith it self is but aenigma a dark representation of God to us till we come to that state To see God face to face and to know as also we are knowen Now Calum Sphaera as for the sight of God here our Theatre was the world our Medium and glasse was the creature and our light was reason And then for our knowledge of God here our Academy was the Church our Medium the Ordinances of the Church and our Light the light of faith so we consider the same Termes first for the sight of God and then for the knowledge of God in the next life First the Sphear the place where we shall see him is heaven He that asks me what heaven is meanes not to heare me but to silence me He knows I cannot tell him When I meet him there I shall be able to tell him and then he will be as able to tell me yet then we shall be but able to tell one another This this that we enjoy is heaven but the tongues of Angels the tongues of glorified Saints shall not be able to expresse what that heaven is for even in heaven our faculties shall be finite Heaven is not a place that was created for all place that was created shall be dissolved God did not plant a Paradise for himself and remove to that as he planted a Paradise for Adam and removed him to that But God is still where he was before the world was made And in that place where there are more Suns then there are Stars in the Firmament for all the Saints are Suns And more light in another Sun The Sun of righteousnesse the Son of Glory the Son of God then in all them in that illustration that emanation that effusion of beams of glory which began not to shine 6000. yeares ago but 6000. millions of millions ago had been 6000. millions of millions before that in those eternall in those uncreated heavens shall we see God This is our Spheare Medium Revelatio sui and that which we are fain to call our place and then our Medium our way to see him is Patefactio sui Gods laying himself open his manifestation his revelation his evisceration and embowelling of himselfe to us there Doth God never afford this patefaction this manifestation of himself in his Essence to any in this life We cannot answer yea nor no without offending a great part in the Schoole so many affirm so many deny that God hath been seen in his Essence in this life There are that say That it is fere de fide little lesse then an article of faith that it hath been done And Aquinas denies it so absolutely as that his Followers interpret him de absoluta potentia That God by his absolute power cannot make a man remaining a mortall man and under the definition of a mortall man capable of seeing his Essence as we may truly say that God cannot make a beast remaining in that nature capable of grace or glory S. Augustine speaking of discourses that passed between his mother and him not long before her death sayes Perambulavimus cuncta mortalia ipsum coelum We talked our selves above this earth and above all the heavens Venimus in mentes nostras transcendimus eas We came to the consideration of our owne mindes and our owne soules and we got above our own soules that is to
thirteenth Homily upon S. Luke And as evident that S. Hierom himselfe upon the first verse of the sixt Chapter of Micheas thought and taught That those good Angels whom God appoints for the tuition of certaine men and certaine places in this world shall give an account at the day of Judgement of the execution of their office whether the men committed to them have not fallen sometimes by their fault and their dereliction for so does he and not he only understand that place That we shall judge the Angels 1 Cor. 6.3 As also those words in the beginning of the Revelation which S. Iohn is commanded by Christ to write to the Angels of certaine Churches that Father S. Hierom interprets not only of figurative and Metaphoricall Angels the Bishops of those Churches but literally of the Angels of Heaven So then Calvin is from any singularity in that That the good Angels considered in themselves may be defective but because he may be singular in interpreting this Text of good Angels as for ought I have observed he is this singularity of his may be a just reason of suspending our assent but not a just reason presently to condemne his exposition The Church must beas just to him as it was to S. Augustine that is to examine his grounds And truly his ground is faire his ground is firme It is this that though this seeme to derogato from the honour of Angels that being confirmed they should be subject to weaknesse yet saies he we must not pervert nor force any place of Scripture for the honour of the Angels For indeed the perverting and forcing of Scriptures for the over-honouring of Saints hath induced a chain of Heresies in the Romane Church And that this is a forcing of Scripture to understand this Text of fallen Angels Calvin argues rationally That those Angels which are spoken of here are called the servants of God And devils are but his slaves not his servants They execute his will but against their will Good Angels are the servants of God Nor shall we easily finde that Title The servant of God applyed to ill persons in the Scriptures Therefore as he notes usefully God doth not charge Angels in this Text with rebellion or obstination or any haynous crime but only with folly weaknesse infirmity from which in all degrees none but God himself can be free Though therefore there be no such necessity of accepting this exposition as should produce that confident asseveration which he comes to Dubium non est It can admit no doubt but this place must be thus understood for by his favour it may admit a doubt yet neither is there any such newnesse in it because it is grounded upon Truth and all Truth is ancient but that it may very well be received And therefore as the sense that is most fit to advance his purpose that speakes it which is one principall thing to be considered in every place as the sense that most conduces to Eliphaz his end and to prove that which he intends to Iob without laying obligation upon any to think so or imputation upon any that doth not think so we accept this interpretation of these words that they are spoken of Angels which was our first and of good Angels which was our second disquifition and now proceed to our third what their confirmation is and how it works if for all that God put no trust in those servants but charged those Angels with folly That Moses did speak nothing of the fall or of the confirmation of Angels Confirmatiâ may justly seem a convenient reason to think that he meant to speak nothing of the creation of Angels neither If Moses had intended to have told us of the creation of Angels he would have told us of their fall and confirmation too as having told us so particularly of the making of man he tells us as particularly of the fall of man and the restitution of man by the promise of a Messiah in Paradise And therefore that the Angels are wrapped up in that word of Moses The Heavens and that they were made when the heavens were made or that they are wrapped up in that word of Moses The Light and that they were made when Light was made is all but conjecturall cloudy Neither doth any article of that Creed which we call the Apostles direct us upon any consideration of Angels That they were created long before this world all the Greek Fathers of the Eastern Church did constandy think And in the Westerne Church amongst the Latine Fathers S. Ierome himself was so cleare in it as to say Sex millia nostri orbis nondum implentur anni Our world is not yet six thousand yeares old Et quantas aternitates quantas saeculorum origines sayes that Father what infinite revolutions of ages what infinite eternities did the Powers and Principalities and Thrones and Angels of God serve God in before Theodoret that thinkes not so thinks it not against any article of Faith to think that it was so Aquinas that thinkes not so will not call it an errour to think so out of a reverence to Athanasius and Nazianzen who did think so for that is an indelible character which S. Ierome hath imprinted printed upon those two Fathers That no man ever durst impute errour to Athanasius or Nazianzen Therefore S. Augustine sayes moderately and with that discreet and charitable temper which becomes every man in matters that are not fundamentall Vt volet unusquisq accipiat I forbid no man sayes he either opinion That the Angels were made before the world or with it Dum non Deo coaeternos de vera foelicitate securos non ambigat Only this I forbid him that he do not beleeve the Angels to be coeternall with God For if they were never made but subsist of themselves then they are God If they be not creatures they are Creators And then this I forbid him too sayes he That he do not think the Angels now in any danger of falling So that S. Augustine makes this matter of faith That the Angels cannot fall Nor hath S. Augustine any adversary in that point we only inquire how they acquired this Infallibility and assurance in their station For if they were made so long before this world and fell when this world was made since they that had stood so long fell then why may not they that stand yet fall now They are supported and established by a confirmation sayes the Schoole And that is our present and ordinary answer and it is enough But how or when was this confirmation sealed upon them or how doth it work in them if God doe not yet trust these servants but charge these Angels with folly That the Angels were created Viatores Viatores and not Beati in a possibility of everlasting blessednesse but not in actuall possession of it admits no doubt because some of them did actually fall Of whom S. Augustine sayes
judgements did God shew Adam Iudicia pessimorum spirituum sayes he the better to containe Adam in his duty God declared to him the judgement that he had executed upon those disobedient Angels So that as Adam if he had made a right use of Gods grace had been immortall in his body and yet not immortall then by nature as our bodies in the state of glory in the resurrection shall be immortall and yet not immortall then by nature so no Angell after this Confirmation that is the mediation of Christ applied to him shall fall For Quis Catholicus ignorat Aug. nullum novum Diabolum ex bonis Angelis futurum Who can pretend to be a Catholique and beleeve that ever there shall be any new Devill from amongst the good Angels And yet by the way many of the Ancient Fathers thought that those words That the sons of God saw the daughters of men to be faire and fell in love with them were meant of good Angels who fell in love with those women that were committed to their charge and that they sinned in so doing and that they never returned to heaven but fell to the first fallen Angels So that those Fathers have more then implied a possibility of falling into sin and punishment for sin in the good Angels But this none sayes now nor with any probability ever did It is enough that they stand confirmed confirmed by the grace of God in Christ Jesus so that now being in possession of the sight of God and the light of Gâry their understanding is perfectly illustrated so that they can apprehend nothing erroneously and therefore their will is perfectly rectified so that they can desire nothing irregularly and therefore they cannot sin and therefore they cannot die for all sin is from the perversenesse of the will and all disorder in the will from errour in the understanding In heaven they are and we by our assimilation to them shall be free from both and impeccable and impassible by the continuall grace of God Though if they or we were left to our selves even there God could put no trust in his servants nor leave his Angels uncharged with folly And so we have done with the pieces which constitute our first part De quibus of whom these words are spoken First that they were spoken of Angels rejecting that single Capuccin who only denies it and then of good Angels accepting Calvins interpretation because though he be singular in applying this Text to that Doctrine yet in the Doctrine it self he hath authority enough and faire reasons for the Text it selfe and lastly how that which we call Confirmation in those Angels accrewes to them and how it works in them And so we passe to our second Part what is inferred upon these premisses what concluded upon these propositions what by our assimilation to Angels reflects upon us And here 2. Part. Testis Eliphaz because the matter is of much consideration we proposed first to be considered the waight and validity of the testimony in the person of him that gives it for many times the credit of the restimony depends much upon the credit of the witnesse And here it is not Iob himself it is but Eliphaz Eliphaz the Temanite an Alien a stranger to the Covenant and Church of God But surely no greater a stranger then those secular Poets whose sentences S. Paul cites not only in his Epistles but in his Sermons too Certainly not so great a stranger as the Devill and yet in how many places of Scripture are words spoken by the Devill himself inserted into the Scriptures and thereby so farre made the word of God as that the word of God the Bible were not perfect norintire to us if we had not those words of those Poets those words of the Devill himself in it How can I doubt but that God can draw good out of ill and make even some sin of mine some occasion of my salvation when the God of truth can make the word of the father of lies his word There is but one place in all this Book of Iob cited in the New Testament Job 5.13 that is He taketh the wise in their owne craft and those words are not spoken by Iob himself but by this very friend of Iob this Eliphaz that speaks in our Text 1 Cor. 3.19 and yet they are cited in the phrase and manner in which holy Scripture is ordinarily cited It is written sayes the Apostle there and so the Holy Ghost that spoke in S. Paul hath canonized the words spoken by Eliphaz But besides the credit which these words have Visio à posteriori that they are after inserted into the word of God which is another manner of credit and authentiquenesse then that which the Canonists speak of that when any sentence of a Father is cited and inserted into a Decretall Epistle of a Pope or any part of the Canon Law that sentence is thereby made authenticall and canonicall these words have their credit à priori for before be spake them to Iob he received them in a vision from God I had a vision in the night Ver. 12. sayes he and feare and trembling came upon me and a spirit stood before me and I heard this voyce Neither is there any necessity no nor reason to charge Eliphaz with a false relation or counterfaiting a revelation from God which he had not had as some Expositors have done For howsoever in some argumentations and applyings of things to Iobs particular case we may finde some errors in Eliphaz in modo probandi in the manner of his proceeding yet we shall not finde him to proceed upon false grounds and therefore we beleeve Eliphaz to have received this that he sayes from God in a vision and for the instruction of a man more in Gods favour then himself of Iob. Balaam had the reputation of a great Wizard and yet God made his Asse wiser then he and able to instruct and catechize him Generally we are to receive our instructions from Gods established Ordinances from his ordinary meanes afforded to us in his Church And where those meanes sufficient in themselves are duly exhibited to us we are not to hearken after revelations nor to beleeve every thing that may have some such apparance to be a revelation But yet we are not so to conclude God in his Law as that he should have no Prerogative nor so to binde him up in his Ordinances as that he never can or never does work by an extraordinary way of revelation Neither must the profusion of miracles the prodigality and prostitution of miracles in the Romane Church where miracles for every naturall disease may be had at some Shrine or miracle-shop better cheap then a Medicine a Drugge a Simple at an Apothecaries bring us to deny or distrust all miracles done by God upon extraordinary causes and to important purposes Eliphaz was a prophane person and yet received a Vision from
straite may say to those gates Psal 24.7 Elevamini portae aeternales Be ye lifted up ye eternall gates and be ye enlarged that as the King of glory himself is entred into you for the farther glory of the King of glory not only that hundred and foure and forty thousand of the Tribes of the children of Israel but that multitude which is spoken or in that place which no man can number of all Nations and Kindreds Apoc. 7.19 and People and friends may enter with that acclamation Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever And unto this City of the living God Heb. 12.22 23 24. the heavenly Ierusalem and to the innumerable company of Angels to the generall assembly and Church of the first bâân which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then that of Abel Blessed God bring us all for thy Sons sake and by the operation of thy Spirit Amen SERMON XXV Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1630. MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay THese are words spoken by an Angel of heaven to certain devout Women who not yet considering the Resurrection of Christ came with a pious intention to do an office of respect and civill honour to the body of their Master which they meant to embalme in the Monument where they thought to finde it How great a compasse God went in this act of the Resurrection Here was God the God of life dead in a grave And here was man a dead man risen out of the grave Here are Angels of heaven imployed in so low an office as to catechize Women and Women imployed in so high an office as to catechize the Apostles I chose this verse out of the body of the Story of the Resurrection because in this verse the act of Christs rising which we celebrate this day is expresly mentioned Surrexit enim for he is risen Which word stands as a Candle that shews it self and all about it and will minister occasion of illustrating your understanding of establishing your faith of exalting your devotion in some other things about the Resurrection then fall literally within the words of this verse For from this verse we must necessarily reflect both upon the persons they to whom and they by whom the words were spoken and upon the occasion given I shall not therefore now stand to divide the words into their parts and branches at my first entring into them but handle them as I shall meet them again anon springing out and growing up from the body of the Story for the Context is our Text and the whole Resurrection is the work of the day though it be virtually implicitely contracted into this verse He is not here for he is risen as he said Come and see the place where the Lord lay Our first consideration is upon the persons Mulieres and those we finde to be Angelicall women and Euangelicall Angels Angels made Euangelists to preach the Gospell of the Resurrection Mal. 3.1 Apoc. 1.20 and Women made Angels so as Iohn Baptist is called an Angel and so as the seven Bishops are called Angels that is Instructers of the Church And to recompence that observation that never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman here are good women made Angels that is Messengers publishers of the greatest mysteries of our Religion For howsoever some men out of a petulancy and wantonnesse of wit and out of the extravagancy of Paradoxes and such singularities have called the faculties and abilities of women in question even in the roote thereof in the reasonable and immortall soul yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create a doubt almost an assurance in the negative whether S. Ambroses Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul be truly his or no that in that book there is a doubt made whether the woman were created according to Gods Image Therefore because that doubt is made in that book the book it self is suspected not to have had so great so grave so constant an author as S. Ambrose was No author of gravity of piety of conversation in the Scriptures could admit that doubt whether woman were created in the Image of God that is in possession of a reasonable and an immortall soul The faculties and abilities of the soul appeare best in affaires of State and in Ecclesiasticall affaires in matter of government and in matter of religion and in neither of these are we without examples of able women For for State affaires and matter of government our age hath given us such a Queen as scarce any former King hath equalled And in the Venetian Story I remember that certain Matrons of that City were sent by Commission in quality of Ambassadours to an Empresse with whom that State had occasion to treate And in the Stories of the Eastern parts of the World it is said to be in ordinary practise to send women for Ambassadours And then in matters of Religion women have evermore had a great hand though sometimes on the left as well as on the right hand Sometimes their abundant wealth sometimes their personall affections to some Church-men sometimes their irregular and indiscreet zeale hath made them great assistants of great Heretiques as S. Hierome tels us of Helena to Simon Magus Hieror and so was Lucilia to Donatus so another to Mahomet and others to others But so have they been also great instruments for the advancing of true Religion as S. Paul testifies in their behalf at Thessolonica Of the chiefe women not a few Great and Many For Acts 17.4 many times women have the proxies of greater persons then themselves in their bosomes many times women have voices where they should have none many times the voices of great men in the greatest of Civill or Ecclesiasticall Assemblies have been in the power and disposition of women Hence is it that in the old Epistles of the Bishops of Rome when they needed the Court as at first they needed Courts as much as they brought Courts to need them at last we finde as many letters of those Popes to the Emperours Wives and the Emperours Mothers and Sisters and women of other names and interests in the Emperours favours and affections as to the Emperours themselves S. Hierome writ many letters to divers holy Ladies for the most part all of one stocke and kindred and a stock and kindred so religious as that I remember the good old man saies That if Iupiter were their Cousin of their kindred he beleeves Iupiter would be a Christian he would leave being such a God as he was to be their fellow-servant to the true God Now if women were brought up according to S.
Hieromes instructions in those letters that by seaven yeares of age they should be able to say the Psalmes without book That as they grew in yeares they should proceed in the knowledge of Scriptures That they should love the Service of God at Church but not sine Matre not goe to Church when they would but when their Mother could goe with them Nec quaererent celebritatem Ecclesiarum They should not alwaies goe to the greatest Churches and where the most famous Preachers drew most company If women have submitted themselves to as good an education as men God forbid their sexe should prejudice them for being examples to others Their sexe no nor their sins neither for it is S. Hieromes note That of all those women that are named in Christs pedegree in the Gospell there is not one his onely Blessed Virgin-Mother excepted upon whom there is not some suspitious note of incontinency Of such women did Christ vouchsafe to come He came of woman so as that he came of nothing but woman of woman and not of man Neither doe we reade of any woman in the Gospel that assisted the persecutors of Christ or furthered his afflictions Even Pilats wife disswaded it Woman as well as man was made after the Image of God in the Creation and in the Resurrection when we shall rise such as we were here her sexe shall not diminish her glory Of which she receives one faire beame and inchoation in this Text that the purpose of God is even by the ministery of Angel s communicated to women But what women for their preparation their disposition is in this Text too such women as were not only devout but sedulous diligent constant perseverant in their devotion To such women God communicated himself which is another Consideration in these persons As our Saviour Christ was pleased that one of these women should be celebrated by name for another act upon him Mary Magdalen Maria. and that wheresoever his Gospell was preached her act should be remembred so the rest with her are worthy to be known and celebrated by their names Therfore we consider Quae and quales first who they were and then what they were their names first and then their conditions Bodin de repub l. 6. c. 4. There is an Historicall relation and observation That though there be divers Kingdomes in Europe in which the Crowns may fall upon women yet for some ages they did not and when they did it was much at one time and all upon women of one name Mary It was so with us in England and in Scotland it was so so in Denmark and in Hungary it was so too all foure Maries Though regularly women should not preach yet when these Legati à latere these Angels from heaven did give Orders to women and made them Apostles to the Apostles the Commission was to women of that name Mary for though our Expositors dispute whether the Blessed Virgin Mary were there then when this passed at the Sepulchre yet of Mary Magdalen and Mary the Mother of Iames there can be no doubt Indeed it is a Noble and a Comprehensive name Mary It is the name of woman in generall Gen. 2.23 For when Adam sayes of Eve She shall be called Woman in the Arabique Translation there is this name She shall be called Mary and the Arabique is perchance a dialect of the Hebrew But in pure and Originall Hebrew the word signifies Exaltation and whatsoever is best in the kinde thereof This is the name of that sister of Aaron Exod. 15.20 and Moses that with her Quire of women assisted at that Eucharisticall sacrifice that Triumphant song of Thanksgiving upon the destruction the subversion the submersion of Aegypt in the Red Sea Her name was Miriam and Miriam and Mary is the same name in women as Iosuah and Iesus is the same name to men The word denotes Greatnesse not only in Power but in Wisdome and Learning too and so signifies often Prophets and Doctors and so falls fitliest upon these blessed women who in that sense were all made Maries Messengers Apostles to the Apostles in which sense even those women were made Maries that is Messengers of the Resurrection who no doubt had other names of their own There was amongst them the wife of Chusa a great man in Herods Court Luke 8.3 24.10 his Steward and her name was Ioanna Ioane So that here was truly a Pope Ioane a woman of that name above the greatest men in the Church For the dignity of the Papacy they venture to say that whosoever was S. Peters Successor in the Bishoprick of Rome was above any of the Apostles that over-lived Peter as S. Iohn did Here was a woman a Pope Ioane Superiour to S. Peter himself and able to teach him But though we found just reason to celebrate these women by name we meant not to stay upon that circumstance we shut it up with this prayer That that blessing which God gave to these Maries which was to know more of Christ then their former teachers knew he will also be pleased to give to the greatest of that name amongst us That she may know more of Christ then her first teachers knew And we passe on from the Names to the Conditions of these women And first we consider their sedulity sedulity that admits no intermission no interruption no discontinuance Saeduls no tepidity no indifferency in religious offices Consider we therefore their sedulity if we can I say if we can because if a man should sit down at a Bee-hive or at an Ant-hill and determine to watch such an Ant or such a Bee in the working thereof he would finde that Bee or that Ant so sedulous so serious so various so concurrent with others so contributary to others as that he would quickly lose his marks and his sight of that Ant or that Bee So if we fixe our consideration upon these devout women and the sedulity of their devotion so as the severall Euangelists present it unto us we may easily lose our sight and hardly know which was which or at what time she or she came to the Sepulchre They came in the end of the Sabbath as it begun to dawne Mat. 28.1 towards the first day of the week sayes S. Mathew They came very early in the morning upon the first day of the week Mark 16.1 Luke 24.1 John 20.1 the Sun being then risen sayes S. Mark They prepared their Spices and rested the Sabbath and came early the next day sayes S. Luke They came the first day when it was yet dark sayes S. Iohn From Friday Evening till Sunday morning they were sedulous Athânas busie upon this service so sedulous as that Athanasius thinks these women came foure severall times to the Sepulchre and that the foure Euangelists have relation to their foure commings Hierome and S. Hierome argues upon this seeming variety in the Euangelists thus Non
keepes it from dying then that it cannot dye We magnifie God in an humble and faithfull acknowledgment of the immortality of our soules but if we aske quid homo what is there in the nature of Man that should keepe him from death even in that point the question is not easily answered It is every mans case then every man dyes Videbit and though it may perchance be but a meere Hebraisme to say that every man shall see death perchance it amounts to no more but to that phrase Gustare mortem To taste death yet thus much may be implied in it too That as every man must dye so every man may see that he must dye as it cannot be avoided so it may be understood A beast dyes but he does not see death S. Basil sayes he saw an Oxe weepe for the death of his yoke-fellow Basil orat de Morte but S. Basil might mistake the occasion of that Oxes teares Many men dye too and yet doe not see death The approaches of death amaze them and stupifie them they feele no colluctation with Powers and Principalities upon their death bed that is true they feele no terrors in their consciences no apprehensions of Judgement upon their death bed that is true and this we call going away like a Lambe But the Lambe of God had a sorrowfull sense of death His soule was heavy unto death and he had an apprehension that his Father had forsaken him And in this text the Chalde Paraphrase expresses it thus Videbit Angelum mortis he shall see a Messenger a forerunner a power of Death an executioner of Death he shall see something with horror though not such as shall shake his morall or his Christian constancy So that this Videbunt They shall see implies also a Viderunt they have seene that is they have used to see death to observe a death in the decay of themselves and of every creature and of the whole World Almost fourteene hundred yeares agoe Cyprian ad Demetrianum S. Cyprian writing against Demetrianus who imputed all the warres and deaths and unseasonablenesses of that time to the contempt and irreligion of the Christians that they were the cause of all those ils because they would not worship their Gods Cyprian imputes all those distempers to the age of the whole World Canos videmus in pueris saies hee Wee see Children borne gray-headed Capilli deficiunt antequam crescant Their haire is changed before it be growne Nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit asenectute Wee doe not dye with age but wee are borne old Many of us have seene Death in our particular selves in many of those steps in which the morall Man expresses it Seneca Wee have seene Mortem infantiae pueritiam The death of infancy in youth and Pueritiae adolescentiam and the death of youth in our middle age And at last we shall see Mortem senectutis mortem ipsam the death of age in death it selfe But yet after that a step farther then that Morall man went Mortem mortis in morte Iesu We shall see the death of Death it self in the death of Christ As we could not be cloathed at first in Paradise till some Creatures were dead for we were cloathed in beasts skins so we cannot be cloathed in Heaven but in his garment who dyed for us This Videbunt this future sight of Death implies a viderunt they have seene they have studied Death in every Booke in every Creature and it implies a Vident they doe presently see death in every object They see the houre-glasse running to the death of the houre They see the death of some prophane thoughts in themselves by the entrance of some Religious thought of compunction and conversion to God and then they see the death of that Religious thought by an inundation of new prophane thoughts that overflow those As Christ sayes that as often as wee eate the Sacramentall Bread we should remember his Death so as often as we eate ordinary bread we may remember our death Bern. Aug. for even hunger and thirst are diseases they are Mors quotidiana a daily death and if they lasted long would kill us In every object and subject we all have and doe and shall see death not to our comfort as an end of misery not onely as such a misery in it selfe as the Philosopher takes it to be Mors omnium miseriarum That Death is the death of all miserie because it destroyes and dissolves our beeing Prov. 16.14 but as it is Stipendium peccati The reward of sin That as Solomon sayes Indignatio Regis nuncius mortis The wrath of the King is as a messenger of Death so Mors nuncius indignationis Regis We see in Death a testimony that our Heavenly King is angry for but for his indignation against our sinnes we should not dye And this death as it is Malum ill for if ye weigh it in the Philosophers balance it is an annihilation of our present beeing and if ye weigh it in the Divine Balance it is a seale of Gods anger against sin so this death is generall of this this question there is no answer Quis homo What man c. We passe then from the Morte moriemini 2 Part. to the fortè moriemini from the generality and the unescapablenesse of death from this question as it admits no answer to the Fortè moriemini perchance we shall dye that is to the question as it may admit a probable answer Of which we said at first that in such questions nothing becomes a Christian better then sobriety to make a true difference betweene problematicall and dogmaticall points betweene upper buildings and foundations betweene collaterall doctrines and Doctrines in the right line Aug. for fundamentall things Sine haesitatione credantur They must be beleeved without disputing there is no more to be done for them but beleeving for things that are not so we are to weigh them in two balances in the balance of Analogy and in the balance of scandall we must hold them so as may be analogall proportionable agreeable to the Articles of our Faith and we must hold them so as our brother be not justly offended nor scandalized by them wee must weigh them with faith for our own strength and we must weigh them with charity for others weaknesse Certainly nothing endangers a Church more then to draw indifferent things to be necessary I meane of a primary necessity of a necessity to be beleeved De fide not a secondary necessity a necessity to be performed and practised for obedience Without doubt the Roman Church repents now and sees now that she should better have preserved her selfe if they had not denied so many particular things which were indifferently and problematically disputed before to bee had necessarily De fide in the Councell of Trent Taking then this Text for a probleme Quis homo What man lives and shall not
answered not safely affirmed Truly I had rather put my salvation upon some of those ancient Creeds which want some of the Articles of our Creed as the Nicene Creed doth and so doth Athanasius then upon the Trent Creed that hath as many more Articles as ours hath The office of the Holy Ghost himself the Spirit of all comfort is but to bring those things to remembrance which Christ taught and no more They are many too many for many revolutions of an houre-glasse Spiritus Sanctus Therefore wee proposed at first That when we should come to this Branch for the proper celebration of the day we would only touch some things which the Holy Ghost had taught of himself that so we might detect and detest such things as some ancient and some later Heretiques had said of the Holy Ghost Now those things which the ancient Heretiques have said are sufficiently gain-said by the ancient Fathers The Montanists said the Holy Ghost was in Christ and in the Apostles but in a farre higher exaltation in Montanus then in either but Tertullian opposed that Manes was more insolent then the Montanist for he avowed himselfe to be the Holy Ghost and S. Augustine overthrew that Hierarchas was more modest then so and did but say That Melchisedech was the Holy Ghost and S. Cyprian would not indure that The Arrians said the Holy Ghost was but Creatura Creaturae made by the Son which Son himselfe was but made in time and not eternally begotten by the Father but Liberius and many of the Fathers opposed that as a whole generall Councell did Macedonius when he refreshed many Errours formerly condemned concerning the Holy Ghost and few of these have had any Resurrection any repulullation or appeared again in these later daies But in these later times two new Herefies have arisen concerning the Holy Ghost About foure hundred yeares since Euangelium Spiritus Sancti came out that famous infamous Booke in the Roman Church which they called Euangelium Spiritus Sancti The Gospel of the Holy Ghost in which was pretended That as God the Father had had his time in the government of the Church in the Law And God the Son his time in the Gospel so the Holy Ghost was to have his time and his time was to begin within fifty yeares after the publishing of that Gospel and to last to the end of the world and therefore it was called Euangelium aeternum The everlasting Gospel By this Gospel the Gospel of Christ was absolutely abrogated and the power of governing the Church according to the Gospel of Christ utterly evacuated for it was therein taught that onely the literall sense of the Gospel had been committed to them who had thus long governed in the name of the Church but the spirituall and mysticall sense was reserved to the Holy Ghost and that now the Holy Ghost would set that on foot And so which was the principall intention in that plot they would have brought all Doctrine and all Discipline all Government into the Cloyster into their religious Orders and overthrown the Hierarchy of the Church of Bishops and Priests and Deacons and Cathedrall and Collegiate Churches and brought all into Monasteries He that first opposed this Book was Waldo hee that gave the name to that great Body that great power of Men who attempted the Reformation of the Church and were called the Waldenses who were especially defamed and especially persecuted for this that they put themselves in the gap and made themselves a Bank against this torrent this inundation this impetuousnesse this multiplicy of Fryars and Monks that surrounded the world in those times And when this Book could not be dissembled and being full of blasphemy against Christ was necessarily brought into agitation yet all that was done by them who had the government of the Church in their hands then was but this That this Book this Gospel of the Holy Ghost should be suppressed and smothered but without any noyse or discredit and the Booke which was writ against it should be solemnly publiquely infamously burnt And so they kindled a Warre in Heaven greater then that in the Revelation Rev. 12.7 where Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and his Angels For here they brought God the Son into the field against God the Holy Ghost and made the Holy Ghost devest dethrone disseise and dispossesse the Sonne of his Government Now when they could not advance that Heresie Scrinium pectoris when they could not bring the Holy Ghost to that greatnesse when they could not make him King to their purposes that is King over Christ They are come to an Heresie cleane contrary to that Heresie that is to imprison the Holy Ghost And since they could not make him King over Christ himselfe they have made him a Prisoner and a flave to Christs Vicar and shut him up there In scrinio pectoris as they call it in that close imprisonment in the breast and bosome of one man that Bishop And so the Holy Ghost is no longer a Dove a Dove in the Ark a Dove with an Olive-Branch a Messenger of peace but now the Holy Ghost is in a Bull in Buls worse then Phalaris his Bull Buls of Excommunication Buls of Rebellion and Deposition and Assassinates of Christian Princes The Holy Ghost is no longer Omni-present Psal 139.7 as in Davids time Whither shall I goefrom thy Spirit but he is onely there whither he shall be sent from Rome in a Cloak-bagge and upon a Post-horse as it was often complained in the Councell of Trent The Holy Ghost is no longer Omniscient to know all at once 1 Cor. 2.10 .. as in S. Pauls time when the Spirit of God searched all things yea the deep things of God but as a Sea-Captaine receives a Ticket to be opened when he comes to such a height and thereby to direct his future course so the Holy Ghost is appointed to aske the Popes Nuntio his Legate what he shall declare to be truth So the Holy Ghost was sent into this Kingdome by Leo the tenth with his Legate that brought the Bull of Declaration for Hcnry the eights Divorce but the Holy Ghost might not know of it that is not take knowledge of it not declare it to be a Divorce till some other conditions were performed by the King which being never performed the Holy Ghost remained in the case of a new created Cardinall Ore clauso he had novoyce and so the Divorce though past all debatements and all consents and all determinations at Rome was no Divorce because he that sent the Holy Ghost from Rome forbad him to publish and declare it So that the style of the Court is altered from the Apostles time Acts 15.28 Then it was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us First to the Holy Ghost before others and when it is brought to others it is to us
ignorance that all blessings spirituall and temporall too proceed from God and from God only and from God manifested in Christ and from Christ explicated in the Scriptures and from the Scriptures applyed in the Church which is the summe of all religion God hath given us this Legacy of knowledge Cognoscetis At that day you shall know as knowledge is opposed to ignorance As it is opposed to inconsideration Inconsideratio it is a great work that it doth too for as God hath made himself like man in many things in taking upon him in Scriptures our lineaments and proportion our affections and passions our apparell and garments so hath God made himself like man in this also that as man doth so he also takes it worse to be neglected then to be really injured Some of our sins do not offend God so much as our inconsideration a stupid passing him over as though that we did that which we had that which we were appertained not to him had no emanation from him no dependance upon him As God sayes in the Prophet of lame and blemished and unperfect Sacrifices Offer it unto any of your Princes and see if they will accept it at your hands So I say to them that passe their lives thus inconsiderately Offer that to any of your Princes any of your Superiours Dares an officer that receives instructions from his Prince when he leaves his commandements unperformed say I never thought of it Dares a Subject a Servant a Son say so Now beloved this knowledge as it is opposed to inconsideration is in this that God by breeding us in the visible Church multiplies unto us so many helps and assistances in the word preached in the Sacraments in other Sacramentall and Rituall and Ceremoniall things which are auxiliary subsidiary reliefes and refreshings to our consideration as that it is almost impossible to fall into this inconsideration Here God shewes this inconsiderate man his book of creatures which he may run and reade that is he may go forward in his vocation and yet see that every creature calls him to a consideration of God Every Ant that he sees askes him Where had I this providence and industry Every flowre that he sees asks him Where had I this beauty this fragrancy this medicinall vertue in me Every creature calls him to consider what great things God hath done in little subjects But God opens to him also here in his Church his Booke of Scriptures and in that Book every word cries out to him every mercifull promise cries to him Why am I here to meet thee to wait upon thee to performe Gods purpose towards thee if thou never consider me never apply me to thy selfe Every judgement of his anger cryes out Why am I here if thou respect me not if thou make not thy profit of performing those conditions which are annexed to those judgements and which thou mightest performe if thou wouldest consider it Yea here God opens another book to him his manuall his bosome his pocket book his Vade Mecum the Abridgement of all Nature and all Law his owne heart and conscience And this booke though he shut it up and clasp it never so hard yet it will sometimes burst open of it selfe though he interline it with other studies and knowledges yet the Text it selfe in the book it selfe the testimonies of the conscience will shine through and appeare Though he load it and choak it with Commentaries and questions that is perplexe it with Circumstances and Disputations yet the matter it selfe which is imprinted there will present it selfe yea though he teare some leaves out of the Book that is wilfully yea studiously forget some sins that he hath done and discontinue the reading of this book the survay and consideration of his conscience for some time yet he cannot lose he cannot cast away this book that is so in him as that it is himselfe and evermore calls upon him to deliver him from this inconsideration by this open and plentifull Library which he carries about him Consider beloved the great danger of this inconsideration by remembring That even that onely perfect man Christ Jesus who had that great way of making him a perfect man as that he was perfect God too even in that act of deepest devotion in his prayer in the garden by permitting himselfe out of that humane infirmity which he was pleased to admit in himselfe though farre from sin to passe one petition in that prayer without a debated and considered will in his Transeat Calix If it be possible let this Cup passe hee was put to a re-consideration and to correct his Prayer Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine bee done And if then our best acts of praying and hearing need such an exact consideration consider the richnesse and benefit of this Legacy knowledge as this knowledge is opposed to inconsideration It is also opposed to concealing and smothering Occultatio It must be published to the benefit of others Paulùm sepultae distat inertiae celata virtus sayes the Poet Vertue that is never produced into action is scarce worthy of that name For that is it which the Apostle in his Epistle to that Church which was in Philemons house Philem. 6. doth so much praise God for That the fellowship of thy faith may be made fruitfull and that whatsoever good thing is in you through Iesus Christ may be knowne That according to the nature of goodnesse and to the roote of goodnesse God himselfe this knowledge of God may be communicated and transfused and shed and spred and derived and digested upon others And therefore certainly as the Philosopher said of civill actions Etiam simulare Philosophiam Philosophia est That it was some degree of wisedome to be able to seeme wise so though it be no degree of religion to seeme religious yet even that may be a way of reducing others and perchance themselves when a man makes a publique an outward shew of being religious by comming ordinarily to Church and doing those outward duties though this be hypocrisie in him yet sometimes other men receive profit by his example and are religious in earnest and sometimes Appropinquat nescit as S. Augustine confesses that it was his case when he came out of curiosity and not out of devotion to heare S. Ambrose preach what respect soever brought that man hither yet when God findes him here in his house he takes hold of his conscience and shewes himselfe to him though he came not to see him And if God doe thus produce good out of the hypocrite and work good in him much more will he provide a plentifull harvest by their labours who having received this knowledge from God assist their weaker brethren both by the Example of their lives and the comfort of their Doctrine This knowledge then 2. Part. In die which to work the intended effect in us is thus opposed to ignorance and to inconsideration and to
vehementi Spiritu semper habet diem Pentecostes He that-loves the exercise of prayer so earnestly as that in prayer he feeles this vehemence of the Holy Ghost that man dwels in an everlasting Whitsunday for so he does he hath it alwayes that ever had it aright Oditeos Deus qui unam putant diem festum Domini God hates that man saies Origen also that celebrates any Holy-day of his but one day that never thinks of the Incarnation of Christ but upon Christmas-day nor upon his Passion and Resurrection but upon Easter and Good-friday If you deale so with your soules as with your bodies and as you cloath your selves with your best habits to day but returne againe to your ordinary apparell to morrow so for this day or this houre you devest the thought of your sins but returne after to your vomit you have not celebrated this day of Pentecost you have not beene truly in this place for your hearts have beene visiting your profits or pleasures you have not beene here with one accord you have not truly and sincerely joyned with the Communion of Saints Christ hath sent no Comforter to you this day neither will he send any till you be better prepared for him But if you have brought your sins hither in your memory and leave them here in the blood of your Saviour alwaies flowing in his Church and ready to receive them if you be come to that heavenly knowledge that there is no comfort but in him and in him abundant consolation then you are this day capable of this great Legacy this knowledge which is all the Christian Religion That Christ is in the Father and you in him and he in you We are now come to our third part Our portion in this Legacy 3 Part. the measure of the knowledge of these mysteries which we are to receive of which S. Chrysostome sayes well Scientiae magnum argumentum est nolle omnia scire It is a good argument that that man knowes much who desires not to know all In pursuing true knowledge he is gone a good way that knowes where to give over When that great Manichean Felix would needs prove to S. Augustine that Manes was the holy Ghost because it was said that the holy Ghost should teach all truths and that Manes did so because he taught many things that they were ignorant of before concerning the frame and motion and nature of the heavens and their stars S. Augustine answered Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Mathematicos The Holy Ghost makes us Christians not Mathematicians If any man thinke by having his station at Court that it is enough for him to have studied that one booke and that if in that booke The knowledge of the Court he be come to an apprehension by what meanes and persons businesses are likeliest to be carried If he by his foresight have provided perspective glasses to see objects a far off and can make Almanacks for next yeare and tell how matters will fall out then and thinke that so he hath received his portion as much knowledge as he needs Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Politicos He must remember that the Holy Ghost makes Christians and not Politians So if a man have a good foundation of a fortune from his Parents and thinke that all his study must be to proceed in that and still to adde a Cyphar more to his accounts to make tens hundreds and hundreds thousands Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Arithmeticos The Holy Ghost makes Christians and not such Arithmeticians If men who desire a change in Religion and yet thinke it a great wisdome to disguise that desire and to temporise lest they should be made lesse able to effect their purposes if they should manifest themselves but yet hope to see that transmutation of Religion from that copper which they esteeme ours to be to that gold which perchance for the venality thereof they esteeme theirs If others who are also working in the fire though not in the fire of envy and of powder yet in the fire of an indiscreet zeale and though they pretend not to change the substance of the metall the body of our Religion yet they labour to blow away much of the ceremony and circumstances which are Vehicula and Adminicula if not Habitacula Religionis They are though not the very fuell yet the bellowes of Religion If these men I say of either kinde They who call all differing from themselves Error and all error damnable or they who as Tertullian expresses their humour and indisposition prophetically Qui vocant prostrationem Disciplinae simplicitatem which call the abolishing and extermination of all Discipline and Ceremony purenesse and holinesse If they thinke they have received their portion of this legacie their measure of true knowledge in labouring onely to accuse and reforme and refine others Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Chymistas The holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Alchymists To contract this If a man know wayes enow to disguise all his sins If no Exchequer take hold of his usurious contracts no High Commission of his licentiousnesse no Star-chamber of his misdemeanors If he will not to sleepe till he can hold up his eyes no longer for feare his sins should meet him in his bed and vexe his conscience there If he will not come to the Sacrament but at that time of the yeare when Laws compel him or good company invite him or other civill respects and reasons provoke him If he have avoydances to hide his sins from others and from himself too by such disguisings This is all but Deceptio visus a blinding of his owne internall eyes and Spirtus sanctus facit Christianos non Circulatores The Holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Jugglers This knowledge then which we speake of is to know the end and the way Heaven and Christ The Kingdome to which he is gone and the meanes which he hath taught us to follow Now in all our wayes in all our journies a moderate pace brings a man most surely to his journies end and so doth a sober knowledge in matters of Divinity and in the mysteries of Religion And therefore the Fathers say that this comming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles this day though it were a vehement comming did not give them all kinde of knowledge a knowledge of particular Arts and Sciences But he gave them knowledge enough for their present worke and withall a faithfull confidence that if at any time they should have to doe with learned Heathens with Philosophers the Holy Ghost would either instantly furnish them with such knowledge as they had not before as wee see in many relations in the Ecclesiasticall Story That men spoke upon the sudden in divers cases otherwise then in any reason their education could promise or afford or else he would blunt the sharpnesse of the Adversaries weapons and cast a damp upon their understandings as wee
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
meditation he had Though in such a person as S. Peter so filled with all gifts necessary for his function and to such persons as Cornelius was who needed but Catechizing in the rudiments of the Gospell much preparation needed not The case was often of the same sort after in the Primitive Church The persons were very able and the people very ignorant and therefore it is easie to observe a far greater frequency of Preaching amongst the Ancient Fathers then ordinarily men that love ease will apprehend We see evidently in S. Augustines hundred forty fourth Sermon De Tempore And in S. Ambroses forty fourth Sermon De sancto Latrone And in S. Bernards twelve Sermons upon one Psalme that all these blessed and Reverend Fathers preached more then one day divers dayes together without intermission And we may see in S. Basils second Homilie upon the six dayes worke that he preached in the after-noone And so by occasion of his often preaching it seemes by his second Homilie De Baptismo that he preached sometimes extemporally But of all this the reason is as evident as the fact The Preachers were able to say much The people were capable but of little And where it was not so the Clergy often assisted themselves with one anothers labours as S. Cyrils Sermons were studied without book and preached over againe to their severall Congregations by almost all the Bishops of the Easterne Church Sometimes we may see Texts extended to very many Sermons and sometimes Texts taken of that extent and largenesse as onely a paraphrase upon the Text would make the Sermon for we may see by S. Augustines tenth Sermon De verbis Apostoli that they tooke sometimes the Epistle and Gospell of the day and the Psalme before the Sermon for their text But in these our times when the curiosity allow it a better name for truly God be blessed for it it deserves a better name when the capacity of the people requires matter of more labour as there is not the same necessity so there is not the same possibility of that assiduous and that sudden preaching No man will think that we have abler Preachers then the Primitive Church had no man will doubt but that we have learneder and more capable auditories and congregations then their were The Apostles were not negligent when they mended their nets A preacher is not negligent if he prepare for another Sermon after he hath made one nor a hearer is not negligent if he meditate upon one Sermon though he heare not another within three houres after S. Peters Sermon was not extemporall neither if it had his person and the quality of the hearers being compared with our times had that been any precedent or patterne for our times to do the like But yet Beloved since our times are such as are overtaken with another necessity that our adversaries dare come Cum locutus est As soon as the Preacher hath done and meet the people comming out of the Church and deride the Preacher and offer an answer to any thing that hath been said since they are come to come to Church with us and Dum locutus est Then when the Preacher is speaking to say to him that sits next him That is false that is heretical since they are come to joyn with us at the Communion so that it is hard to finde out the Iudas and if you do finde him he dares answer Your Minister is no Priest and so your Bread and Wine no Sacrament and therefore I care not how much of it I take since they are come to boast that with all our assiduity of preaching we cannot keep men from them since it is thus as we were alwayes bound by Christs example To gather you as a hen gathers her chickens to call you often to this assembling of your selves so are we now much more bound to hide and cover you as a hen doth her chickens and because there is a Kite hovering in every corner a seducer lurking in every company to defend and arme you with more and more instructions against their insinuations And if they deride us for often preaching and call us fooles for that as David said He would be more vile he would Dance more So let us be more fooles in this foolishnesse of preaching and preach more If they think us mad since we are mad for our soules as the Apostle speakes let us be more mad Let him that hath preached once do it twice and him that hath preached twice do it thrice But yet not this by comming to a negligent and extemporall manner of preaching but we will bee content to take so many hours from our rest that we with you may rest the safelyer in Abrahams bosome and so many more houres from our meat that we with you may the more surely eat and drink with the Lamb in the kingdome of heaven Christ hath undertaken that his word shall not passe away but he hath not undertaken that it shall not passe from us There is a Ne exeas munaum served upon the world The Gospell cannot goe nor be driven out of the world till the end of the world but there is not a Ne exeas regnum The Gospell may go out of this or any Kingdome if they flacken in the doing of those things which God hath ordained for the meanes of keeping it that is a zealous and yet a discreet a sober and yet a learned assiduity in preaching Thus far then we have been justly carried in consideration of this circumstance in the manner of his preaching his preparation In descending to the next which is the matter of his Sermon we see much of that in his Text. S. Peter tooke his Text here Res. ver 34. out of Deuteronomy of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons Where Deut. 10.17 because the words are not precisely the same in Deuteronomy as they are in this Text we finde just occasion to note That neither Christ in his preaching nor the holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures of the new Testament were so curious as our times in citing Chapters and Verses or such distinctions no nor in citing the very very words of the places Heb. 4.4 There is a sentence cited thus indefinitely It is written in a certaine place without more particular note And to passe over many conducing to that purpose if we consider that one place in the Prophet Esay Make the heart of this people fat Esay 6.20 make their eyes heavy and shut them lest they see with their eyes and heare with their eares and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed and consider the same place as it is cited six severall times in the new Testament we shall see that they stood not upon such exact quotations and citing of the very words But to that purpose for which S. Peter had taken that text he follows his text Now Beloved I doe not goe about to
an emphaticall denotation for to this purpose Ille and Ipse is all one And then you know the Emphasis of that Ipse Ipse conteret He or It shall bruise the Serpents head denotes the Messias though there be no Messias named This Ipse is so emphaticall a denotation as that the Church of Rome and the Church of God strives for it for they will needs reade it Ipsa and so refer our salvation in the bruising of the Serpents head to the Virgin Mary we refer it according to the truth of the doctrine and of the letter to Christ himselfe and therefore reade it Ipse He. If there were no more but that in David Psal 100.3 Rom. 8.16 It is He that hath made us every man would conclude that that He is God And if S. Paul had said Ipse alone and not Ipse spiritus That He and not He the Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit every spirit would have understood this to be the holy Spirit the holy Ghost If in our text there had been no more but such a denotation of a person that should speak to the hearts of all the world that that I lle that He would proceed thus we must necessarily have seen an Almighty power in that denotation But because that denotation might have carried terrour in it being taken alone therefore we are not left to that but have a relation to a former name and specification of the holy Ghost The Comforter For the establishment of Christs divinity Esay 9.6 Christ is called The mighty God for his relation to us he hath divers names As we were all In massa damnata Forfeited lost he is Redemptor Esay 59.20 A Redeemer for that that is past The Redeemer shall come to Sion sayes the Prophet Job 19.2 and so Iob saw His Redeemer one that should redeem him from those miseries that oppressed him As Christ was pleased to provide for the future so he is Salvator Mat. 1.21 A Saviour Therefore the Angel gave him that name Iesus For he shall save his people from their sins So because to this purpose Christ consists of two natures God and man he is called our Mediator 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Iesus Because he presents those merits which are his as ours and in our behalfe he is called an Advocate 1 John 2.1 Rom. 2.6 Acts 10.42 1 Cor. 12.3 If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous And because every man is to expect according to his actions he is called the Judge We testifie that it is he that is ordained of God to bee the Iudge of quick and dead Now for Christs first name which is the roote of all which is The mighty God No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And there is our first comfort in knowing that Christ is God for he were an Intruder for that which is past no Redeemer he were a weak Saviour for the future an insufficient Mediator a silenced Advocate and a Judge that might be misinformed if he were not God And though he were God he might be all these to my discomfort if there were not a holy Ghost to make all these offices comfortable unto me To be a Redeemer and not a Saviour is but to pay my debts and leave me nothing to live on To be a Mediator a person capable by his composition of two natures to intercede between God and man and not to be my Advocate is but to be a good Counsellor but not of counsell with me To be a Judge of quick and dead and to proceed out of outward evidence and not out of his bosome mercy is but an acceleration of my conviction I were better lie in Prison still then appeare at that Assize better lye in the dust of the grave for ever then come to that judgement But as there is Mens in anima There is a minde in the soule and every man hath a soule but every man hath not a minde that is a Consideration an Actuation an Application of the faculties of the soule to particulars so there is Spiritus in Spiritu a Holy Ghost in all the holy offices of Christ which offices being in a great part directed upon the whole world are made comfortable to me by being by this holy Spirit turned upon me and appropriated to me for so even that name of Christ which might most make me afraid ãâã The name of Judge becomes a comfort to me To this purpose does S. Baesil call the holy Ghost Verbum Dei quia interpres filii The Son of God is the word of God because he manifests the Father and the Holy Ghost is the word of God because he applies the Son Esay 62.11 Christ comes with that loud Proclamation Ecce auditum fecit Behold the Lord hath proclaimed it to the end of the world Ecce Salvator and Ecce Merces Behold his Salvation Behold thy Reward This is his publication in the manifest Ordinances of the Church And then the Holy Ghost whispers to thy soule as thou standest in the Congregation in that voyce that he promises Sibilabo populum meum I will hisse Zach. 10.8 I will whisper to my people by soft and inward inspirations Christ came to tell us all That to as many as received him he gave power to become the Sons of God Iohn 1.12 The Holy Ghost comes to tell thee that thou art one of them The Holy Ghost is therefore Legatus and Legatum Christi He is Christs Ambassadour sent unto us and he is his Legacy bequeathed unto us by his Will his Will made of force by his death and proved by his Ascension Now when those dayes were come that the Bridegroome was to bee taken from them Christ Jesus to be removed from their personall sight and conversation and therefore even the children of the mariage Chamber were to mourne and fast Mat. 9.15 Cant. when that Church that mourned and lamented his absence when she was but his Spouse must necessarily mourn now in a more vehement manner when she was to be in some sense his Widow when that Shepheard was not onely to be smitten and so the flock dispersed Mat. 26.21 this was done in his passion but he was to be taken away in his Ascension what a powerfull Comforter had that need to be that should be able to recompence the absence of Christ Jesus himselfe and to infuse comfort into his Orphans the children of his mariage Chamber into his Widow the desolate and disconsolate Church into his flock his amazed his distressed and as we may properly enough say in this case his beheaded Apostles and Disciples Quantus ergo Deus qui dat Deum Aug. Lesse then God could not minister this comfort How great a God is he that sends a God to comfort us and how powerfull a Comforter hee who
of mercy to the poore and breaking off his sinnes And after all this hee had a yeares space to consider himselfe Dan 26. before the judgement was executed upon him But now beloved Voluntas perversa all that we have said or can be said to this purpose conduces but to this That though this reproof which the Holy Ghost leads us to be rather in convincing the understanding by argument and other perswasions then by extending our power to the destruction of the person yet this hath a modification how it must be and a determination where it must end for there are cases in which we may we must go farther For for the understanding we know how to worke upon that we know what arguments have prevayled upon us with what arguments we have prevailed upon others and those we can use so far Vt nihil habeant contra si non assentiantur That though they will not be of our minde yet they shall have nothing to say against it So far we can go upon that faculty the understanding But the will of man is so irregular so unlimited a thing as that no man hath a bridle upon anothers will no man can undertake nor promise for that no Creature hath that faculty but man yet no man understands that faculty It hath beene the exercise of a thousand wits it hath beene the subject yea the knot and perplexity of a thousand disputations to find out what it is that determines that concludes the will of man so as that it assents thereunto For if that were absolutely true which some have said and yet perchance that is as far as any have gone that Vltimus actus intellectus est voluntas That the last act of the Understanding is the Will then all our labour were still to worke upon the Understanding and when that were rectified the Will must follow But it is not so As we feele in our selves that we doe many sins which our understanding and the soule of our understanding our conscience tels us we should not doe so we see many others persist in errors after manifest convincing after all reproofe which can be directed upon the understanding When therefore those errors which are to be reproved are in that faculty which is not subject to this reproofe by argument in a perverted will because this wilfull stubbornnesse is alwaies accompanied with pride with singularity with faction with schisme with sedition we must remember the way which the Holy Ghost hath directed us in Eccles 10.16 If the iron be blunt we must either put to more strength or whet the edge Now when the fault is in the perversenesse of the will we can put to no more strength no argument serves to overcome that And therefore the holy Ghost hath admitted another way To whet the iron Gal. 5.12 And in that way does the Apostle say Vtinam abscindantur I would they were even cut off which trouble you There is an incorrigibility in which when the reproofe cannot lead the will it must draw blood which is where pretences of Religion are made and Treasons and Rebellions and Invasions and Massacres of people and Assasinates of Princes practised And this is a reproofe which as we shall see of the rest in the following branches is from the Holy Ghost in his function in this text as he is a Comforter This therefore is our comfort That our Church was never negligent in reproving the Adversary but hath from time to time strenuously and confidently maintained her truths against all oppositions to the satisfying of any understanding though not to the reducing of some perverse wils So Gregor de Valentia professes of our arguments I confesse these reasons would conclude my understanding Nisi didicissem captivare intellectum meum ad intellectum Ecclesiae But that I have learnt to captivate my understanding to the understanding of the Church and say what they will to beleeve as the Church of Rome beleeves which is Maldonats profession too upon divers of Calvins arguments This argument would prevaile upon me but that he was an Heretique that found it So that here is our comfort we have gone so far in this way of Reproofe Vt nihil habeant contra etsi nobiscum non sentiant This is our comfort that as some of the greatest Divines in forraine parts so also in our Church at home some of the greatest Prelates who have beene traduced to favour Rome have written the most solidly and effectually against the heresies of Rome of any other But it must be a comfort upon them that are reproved And this is their comfort that the State never drew drop of blood for Religion But then this is our comfort still that where their perversnesse shall endanger either Church or State both the State and Church may by the holy Ghosts direction and will return to those means which God allows them for their preservation that is To whet the edge of the Iron in execution of the laws And so we passe from our second consideration The Action Reproofe to the subject of Reproofe The world He shall reprove the world It is no wonder that this word Mundus should have a larger signification then other words for it containes all embraces comprehends all But there is no word in Scripture Mundus that hath not only not so large but so diverse a signification for it signifies things contrary to one another It signifies commonly and primarily the whole frame of the world and more particularly all mankinde and oftentimes only wicked men and sometimes only good men As Dilexit mundum God loved the world John 3.16 John 4.42 Rom. 11.15 And Hic est verè salvator mundi This is the Christ the Saviour of the world And Reconciliatio mundi The casting away of the Iews is the reconciliation of the world The Jews were a part of the world but not of this world Now in every sense the world may well be said to bee subject to the reproofe of God as reproof is a rebuke for He rebuked the winde Luk. 8.14 Psal 106.17 Gen. 3.17 Psal 105.14 and it was quiet And He rebuked the red Sea and it was dryed up He rebuked the earth bitterly in that Maledicta terra for Adams punishment Cursed be the ground for thy sake And for the noblest part of earth man and the noblest part of men Kings He rebuked even Kings for their sakes and said Touch not mine anointed But this is not the rebuke of our Text for ours is a rebuke of comfort even to them that are rebuked Whereas the angry rebuke of God carries heavy effects with it Increpat fugiunt Esay 17.13 God shall rebuke them and they shall flie far off He shall chide them out of his presence and they shall never return to it Increpasti superbos maledicti isti Thou hast rebuked the proud Psal 119.21 and thy rebuke hath wrought upon them as a
thought or said or done any thing offensive to him It is therefore onely in the third sense of this word as it is Verbum Ecclesiasticum A word which S. Paul and the other Scriptures and the Church and Ecclesiasticall Writers have used to expresse our Righteousnesse our Justification by And that is onely by the way of pardon and remission of sins sealed to us in the blood of Christ Jesus that what kinde of sinners soever we were before yet that is applied to us Such and such you were before But ye are justified by the name of the Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6 11. Now the reproofe of the World the convincing of the World the bringing of the World to the knowledg that as they are all sub peccato under sin by the sin of another so there is a righteousnesse of another that must prevaile for all their Pardons this reproof this convincing this instruction of the World is thus wrought That the whole World consisting of Jews and Gentiles when the Holy Ghost had done enough for the convincing of both these enough for the overthrowing of all arguments which could either be brought by the Jew for the righteousnesse of the Law or by the Gentile for the righteousnesse of Works all which is abundantly done by the Holy Ghost in the Epistles of S. Paul and other Scriptures when the Holy Ghost had possessed the Church of God of these all-sufficient Scriptures Then the promise of Christ was performed and then though all the world were not presently converted yet it was presently convinced by the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost had provided in those Scriptures of which he is the Author that nothing could be said in the Worlds behalfe for any other Righteousnesse then by way of pardon in the blood of Christ Thus much the Holy Ghost tels us And if we will search after more then hee is pleased to tell us that is to rack the Holy Ghost to over-labour him to examine him upon such Intergatories as belongs not to us to minister unto him Curious men are not content to know That our debt is paid by Christ but they will know farther whether Christ have paid it with his owne hands or given us money to pay it our selves whether his Righteousness before it do us any good be not first made ours by Imputation or by Inhesion They must know whose money and then what money Gold or Silver whether his active obedience in fulfilling the Law or his passive obedience in shedding his blood But all the Commission of the Holy Ghost here is To reprove the World of righteousnesse To convince all Sects in the World that shall constitute any other righteousnesse then a free pardon by the incorruptible and invaluable and inexhaustible blood of Christ Jesus By that pardon his Righteousnesse is ours How it is made so or by what name we shall call our title or estate or interest in his Righteousnesse let us not enquire The termes of satisfaction in Christ of acceptation in the Father of imputation to us or inhesion in us are all pious and religious phrases and something they expresse but yet none of these Satisfaction Acceptation Imputation Inhesion will reach home to satisfie them that will needs inquire Quo modo by what meanes Christs Righteousnesse is made ours This is as far as we need go Ad eundem modum justi sumus coram Deo quo cor am eo Christus fuit peccator So as God made Christ sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we are made the righteousnesse of God in him so but how was that He that can finde no comfort in this Doctrine till he finde How Christ was made sin and we righteousnesse till he can expresse Quo modo robs himself of a great deale of peacefull refreshing which his conscience might receive in tasting the thing it selfe in a holy and humble simplicity without vexing his owne or other mens consciences or troubling the peace of the Church with impertinent and inextricable curiosities Those questions are not so impertinent but they are in a great part unnecessary which are moved about the cause of our righteousnesse our justification Alas let us be content that God is the cause and seeke no other We must never slacken that protestation That good works are no cause of our justification But we must alwaies keepe up a right signification of that word Cause For Faith it selfe is no cause no such cause as that I can merit Heaven by faith What doe I merit of the King by beleeving that he is the undoubted Heire to all his Dominions or by beleeving that he governes well if I live not in obedience to his Laws If it were possible to beleeve aright and yet live ill my faith should doe me no good The best faith is not worth Heaven The value of it grows Ex pacto That God hath made that Covenant that Contract Crede vives onely beleeve and thou shalt be safe Faith is but one of those things which in severall senses are said to justifie us It is truly saîd of God Deus solus justificat God only justifies us Efficienter nothing can effect it nothing can worke towards it but onely the meere goodnesse of God And it is truly said of Christ Christus solus justificat Christ onely justifies us Materialiter nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransome for our sins but the obedience of Christ It is also truly said Sola fides justificat Onely faith justifies us Instrumentaliter nothing apprehends nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee but thy faith And lastly it is as truly said Sola opera justificant Onely our works justifie us Declaratoriè Only thy good life can assure thy conscience and the World that thou art justified As the efficient justification the gracious purpose of God had done us no good without the materiall satisfaction the death of Christ had followed And as that materiall satisfaction the death of Christ would do me no good without the instrumentall justification the apprehension by faith so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification by which all is pleaded and established God enters not into our materiall justification that is onely Christs Christ enters not into our instrumentall justification that is onely faiths Faith enters not into our declaratory justification for faith is secret and declaration belongs to workes Neither of these can be said to justifie us alone so as that we may take the chaine in pieces and thinke to be justified by any one link thereof by God without Christ by Christ without faith or by faith without works And yet every one of these justifies us alone so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that meanes by which any of these are said to justifie us Consider we then our selves as men fallen downe into a darke and deepe pit and justification as a chaine consisting of
kisse before he kissed his Master and so betrayed him Homo sum inter homines vivo sayes S. Augustine I am but a man my selfe and I look but for men to live amongst Nec mihi arrogare audeo meliorem domum meam quam Arca Noah I cannot hope to have my house clearer than Noahs Arke and there in eight there was one ill nor then Iacobs house and there the Sonne went up to the Fathers bed nor then Davids and there the brother forced the sister nor then Christs and there Iudas betrayed his Master and with a kisse which alone does so aggravate the fact as that for the atrocity and hainousnesse thereof three of the Evangelists remember that circumstance That he betrayed him with a kisse and as though it might seeme impossible incredible to man that it could be so S. Iohn pretermits that circumstance That it was done with a kisse In Ioabs treachery in Iudas treason is the kisse defamed and in the carnall and licentious abuse of it it is every day depraved They mistake the matter much that thinke all adultery is below the girdle A man darrs out an adultery with his eye in a wanton look and he wraps up adultery with his fingers in a wanton letter and he breaths in an adultery with his lips in a wanton kisse But though this act of love be so defamed both wayes by treachery by licentiousnes yet God chooses this Metaphore he bids us kisse the Sonne It is a true and an usefull Rule That ill men have been Types of Christ Hieron Ep. 131. G. Sanctius 2 Sam. 11. n. 29. and ill actions figures of good Much more may things not ill in themselves though deflected and detorted to ill be restored to good againe and therfore doth God in more then this one place expect our love in a kisse for if we be truly in love with him it will be a holy and an acceptable Metaphore unto us els it will have a carnall and a fastidious taste Frustra ad legendum amoris carmen qui non amat accedit Bernar. He that comes to read Solomons Love song and loves not him upon whom that Song is directed will rather endanger then profit himselfe by that reading Non capit ignitum eloquium frigidum pectus Idem A heart frozen and congealed with the love of this world is not capable not sensible of the fires of the holy Ghost Idem Graecè loquentes non intelligit qui Graecè non novit lingua amoris ei qui non amat barbara As Greek it selfe is barbarous to him that understands not Greek so is the language of love and the kisse which the holy Ghost speaks of here to him that alwayes groveleth and holds his face upon the earth Treachery often but licentiousnesse more hath depraved this seale of love and yet Vt nos ad amplexus sacri amoris accendat Gregor usque ad turpis amoris nostri verba se inclinat God stoops even to the words of our foule and unchast love that thereby he might raise us to the heavenly love of himselfe Idem and his Son Cavendum ne machina quae ponitur ut levet ipsa aggrevet Take thou heed that that ladder or that engine which God hath given to raise thee doe not load thee oppresse thee cast thee downe Take heed lest those phrases of love and kisses which should raise thee to him do not bury thee in the memory and contemplation of sinfull love Idem and of licentious kisses Palea tegit frumentum palea jumentorum frumentum hominum There is corne under the chaffe and though the chaffe and straw be for cattell there is corne for men too There is a heavenly love under these ordinary phrases the ordinary phrase belongs to ordinary men the heavenly love and the spirituall kisse to them who affect an union to God and him whom he sent his Son Christ Jesus S. Paul abhors not good and applyable sentences because some secular Poets had said them before nor hath the Christian Church abhorred the Temples of the Gentiles because they were profaned before with idolatrous sacrifices I do not conceive how that Jesuit Serarius should conceive any such great joy In Jos 6. q. 40. as he sayes he did when he came to a Church-porch and saw an old statue of Iupiter and another of Hercules holding two basins of holy water when Iupiter and Hercules were made to doe Christians such services the Jesuit is over-joyed His Iupiter and his Hercules might well enough have been spared in the Christian Church but why some such things as have beene abused in the Roman Church may not be preserved in or reduced to their right use here I conceive not as well as in a proportion this outward testimony of inward love though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse is exacted at our hands by God himselfe towards his Son Kisse the Son lest he be angry For all Ioabs and Iudas treason Propinquitas and carnall lovers licentiousnesse kisse thou the Sonne and be glad that the Sonne hath brought thee in the Christian Church within that distance as that thou mayest kisse him The nearest that the Synagogue or that the Spouse of Christ not yet married came to Cant. 11.1 was Osculetur me Let him kisse me with the kisses of his mouth It was but a kissing of his hand when he reached them out their spirituall food by others It was a mariage but a mariage by a proxie The personall mariage the consummation of the mariage was in the comming of Christ in establishing a reall presence of himselfe in the Church Praecepta Dei oscula sunt sayes Gregory In every thing that God sayes to us he kisses us Sed per Prophetas Ministros alieno ore nos osculatur He kissed us by another mans mouth when he spoke by the mouth of the Prophets but now that he speaks by his owne Son Exod. 6.12 it is by himselfe Even his servant Moses himself was of uncircumcised lips and with the uncircumcised there was no mariage Even his servant Esay was of uncleane lips Esay 6.5 Jer. 1.6 and with the uncleane there was no mariage Even his servant Ieremie was oris infantilis he was a child and could not speake and with children in infancie there is no mariage But in Christ God hath abundantly performed that supply promised to Moses there Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet Christ himselfe shall come and speake to thee and returne and speak for thee In Christ the Seraphim hath brought that live coale from the Altar and touched Esayes lips and so spoken lively and clearly to our soules In Christ God hath done that which he said to Ieremy Feare not I am with thee for in this Immanuel God and man Christ Jesus God is with us In Eschines mouth when he repeated them they say even Demosthenes Orations were flat and
Solomon do for the most part hold in Christ Christ is for the most part the Wisdome of that book And for that book which is called altogether The book of Wisdome Isidore sayes that a Rabbi of the Jews told him That that book was heretofore in the Canonicall Scripture and so received by the Jews till after Christs Crucifying when they observed what evident testimonies there were in that book for Christ they removed it from the Canon This I know is not true but I remember it therefore because all assists us to consider Wisdome in Christ as that does also That the greatest Temple of the Christians in Constantinople was dedicated in that name Sophia to Wisdome by implication to Christ And in some apparitions where the Son of God is said to have appeared he cals himself by that name Sapientiam Dei He is Wisdome therefore because he reveales the Will of the Father to us and therefore is no man wise but he that knowes the Father in him Isidore makes this difference Inter sapientem prudentem that the first The wise man attends the next world the last The prudent man but this world But wisdome even heavenly wisdome does not exclude that prudence though the principall or rather the ordinary object thereof be this world And therefore sins against the second Person are sins against Wisdome in either extreame either in affected and grosse ignorance or in overrefined and sublimed curiosity As we place this Ignorance in Practicall things of this world so it is Stupidity and as we place it in Doctrinall things of the next world so Ignorance is Implicite Beliefe And Curiosity as we place it upon Practical things is Craft and upon Doctrinal things Subtilty And this Stupidity and this Implicite faith and then this Craft and this Subtilty are sins directed against the Son who is true and onely Wisdome First then A stupid and negligent passage through this world as though thou wert no part of it without embarking thy selfe in any calling To crosse Gods purpose so much Stupiditas as that whereas he produced every thing out of nothing to be something thou wilt go so far back towards nothing againe as to be good for nothing that when as our Lawes call a Calling an Addition thou wilt have no Addition And when as S. Augustine saies Musca Soli praeferenda quia vivit A Fly is a nobler Creature then the Sun in this respect because a Fly hath life in it selfe and the Sun hath none so any Artificer is a better part of a State then any retired or contemplative man that embraces no Calling These chippings of the world these fragmentary and incoherent men trespasse against the Son against the second Person as he is Wisdome And so doe they in doctrinall things that swallow any particular religion upon an implicite faith When Christ declared a very forward knowledge in the Temple at twelve yeares with the Doctors yet he was there Audiens interrogans He heard what they would say and he moved questions to heare what they could say for Ejusdem scientiae est scire quid interroges quidve respondeas Luke 2.46 Origen It is a testimony of as much knowledge to aske a pertinent question as to give a pertinent answer But never to have beene able to give answer never to have asked question in matter of Religion this is such an Implicitenesse and indifferency as transgresses against the Son of God who is Wisdome It is so too in the other extreame Curiosity And this in Practicall things is Craft Curiositas in Doctrinall Subtilty Craft is properly and narrowly To go towards good ends by ill wayes And though this be not so ill as when neither ends nor wayes be good yet this is ill too The Civilians use to say of the Canonists and Casuists That they consider nothing but Crassam aequitatem fat Equity downe-right Truths things obvious and apprehensible by every naturall man and to doe but so to be but honest men and no more they thinke a diminution To stay within the limits of a profession within the limits of precedents within the limits of time is to over-active men contemptible nothing is wisdome till it be exalted to Craft and got above other men And so it is with some with many in Doctrinall things too To rest in Positive Divinity and Articles confessed by all Churches To be content with Salvation at last and raise no estimation no emulation no opinion of singularity by the way only to edifie an Auditory and not to amaze them onely to bring them to an assent and to a practise and not to an admiration This is but home-spun Divinity but Country-learning but Catechisticall doctrine Let me know say these high-flying men what God meant to doe with man before ever God meant to make man I care not for that Law that Moses hath written That every man can read That he might have received from God in one day Let me know the Cabal that which passed betweene God and him in all the rest of the forty dayes I care not for Gods revealed Will his Acts of Parliament his publique Proclamations Let me know his Cabinet Counsailes his bosome his pocket dispatches Is there not another kinde of Predestination then that which is revealed in Scriptures which seemes to be onely of those that beleeve in Christ May not a man be saved though he doe not and may not a man bee damned though he doe performe those Conditions which seeme to make sure his salvation in the Scriptures Beloved our Countrey man Holkot upon the booke of Wisdome sayes well of this Wisdome which we must seeke in the Booke of God After he hath magnified it in his harmonious manner which was the style of that time after he had said Cujus authore nihil sublimius That the Author of the Scripture was the highest Author for that was God Cujus tenore nihil solidius That the assurance of the Scripture was the safest foundation for it was a Rock Cujus valore nihil locupletius That the riches of the Scripture was the best treasure for it defrayed us in the next World After he had pursued his way of Elegancy and called it Munimentum Majestatis That Majesty and Soveraignty it selfe was established by the Scriptures and Fundamentum firmitatis That all true constancy was built upon that and Complementum potestatis That the exercise of all power was to be directed by that he reserves the force of all to the last and contracts all to that Emolumentum proprietatis The profit which I have in appropriating the power and the wisdome of the Scriptures to my selfe All wisdome is nothing to me if it be not mine and I have title to nothing that is not conveyed to me by God in his Scriptures and in the wisdome manifested to me there I rest I looke upon Gods Decrees in the execution of those Decrees and I try whether I be within that Decree
the manner of the eternall generation of the Sonne or of the eternall proceeding of the Holy Ghost or the manner of the presence of Christ in the Sacrament The Ministers of God are so far open-faced towards you as that you may know them and try them by due meanes to be such and so far open-faced towards God as that they have seene in him and received from him all things necessary for the salvation of your soules But yet their faces are covered too somethings concerning God they have not seene themselves nor should goe about to reveale or teach to you And it is not onely their faces that are covered but their feet too Their covered faces are especially directed to God denoting their modesty in forbearing unrevealed mysteries Their covered feet are especially directed to you They should not be curious in searching into all Gods actions nor you in searching into all theirs Their waies their actions their lives their conversations should not be too curiously searched too narrowly pryed into too severely interpreted by private men as they are but such because in so doing the danger and the detriment is thus far likely to fall upon your selves that when the infirmities of the Minister and your infirmities that is their faults and your uncharitable censures of their faults meet together that may produce this ill effect that personall matters may be cast upon the ministeriall function and so the faults of a Minister be imputed to the Ministery and by such a prejudice and conceit of one mans ill life you may lose the taste and comfort of his and perchance of others good Doctrine too All that is covered shall be made manifest sayes Christ You shall know all their faults and you shal know them then when it shall most confound them and least indanger you when it shall aggravate their torment and do you no harme that is at the day of Judgement In the meane time because it might hurt you to know their faults God hath covered their feet so far as that he would not have your looking upon their feet divert you from depending upon their mouths as long as by his permission they sit in Moses chaire and execute Gods Commission If they imploy their middle wings which were ordained for them to flie withall if they do their duties in breaking the bread of life and dispensing the Word and Sacraments and assisting the sicke in body and sicke in soule though God have in part covered their faces that is not imparted to them such gifts or such an open sight into deep points as perchance you desire yet he hath covered their feet too he hath for your sakes removed their faults from your survey as you are but private men Take the benefit of their two middle wings their willingnesse to assist you with their labours and in their other foure wings be not too curious too censorious too severe either their face-wings that is the depth of their learning or their feet-wings that is the holinesse of their lives They have six wings to these severall purposes Singuli senas and singuli senas sayes our Text every one of them hath six wings For for the first couple the face-wings howsoever some of the Ministers of God have gifts above their fellowes howsoever they have gained the names of Doctores Seraphici and Doctores illuminati with which titles they abound in the Roman Church yet their faces are in part covered they must not think they see all understand all The learnedst of all hath defects even in matter of learning And for the second couple the feet-wings howsoever some may make shift for the reputation of being more pure more sanctified then their fellowes yet the best of them all need a covering for their feet too All their steps all their actions will not endure examination But for the last couple however there may be some intimation given of a great degree of perfection in matter of knowledge and in matter of manners for in those creatures which are mentioned in the first of Ezek. which also signifie the Ministers of God there are but foure wings spoken of so that there are no face-wings they have an abundant measure of learning and knowledge And the Cherubim which may also signifie the same persons have but two wings no covering upon face or feet to denote that some may be without any remarkable exception in their doctrine and in their manners too yet for the last couple the two middle wings by which they fly and addresse themselves to every particular soule that needs their spirituall assistance the Ministers of God are never in any figure but represented Better they wanted face-wings and feet-wings discretion to cover either their insufficiency in knowledge or their infirmity in manners then that they should want their middle-wings that is a disposition to apply themselves to their flock and to be alwayes ready to distribute the promises of God and the seals of his promises the Word and Sacraments amongst them And this may be conveniently intended in their wings Now as they were Alati Oculi they were Oculati in our Text They have eyes as well as wings They fly but they know whither they fly In the doctrine of Implicite Obedience in the Roman Church To beleeve as the Church beleeves or as that Confessor which understands not what the Church beleeves makes you beleeve the Church beleeves In their doctrine of that which they call Blind Obedience that is to pursue and execute any commandement of any superiour without any consideration In both these there are wings enow but there are no eyes They fly from hence to Rome and Roman Jurisdictions and they fly over hither againe after Statutes after Proclamations after Banishments iterated upon them So that here are wings enow but they lack those eyes by which they should discerne betweene Religion and Rebellion betweene a Traytor and a Martyr And to take our consideration from them and reflect upon our selves They that fly high at matter of mysterie and leave out matter of edification They that fly over Sea for plat-formes of discipline and leave out that Church that bred them They that fly close to the service of great mens affections and purposes and doe the work of God coldly and faintly They may be Alati but they are not Oculati They may fly high and fly fast and fly far and fly close in the wayes of preferment but they see not their end Not onely not the end that they shall come to but not the end that they are put upon not onely not their owne ends but not their ends whose instruments they are Those birds whose eyes are cieled and sowed up fly highest but they are made a prey God exposes not his servants to such dangers He gives them wings that is meanes to doe their office but eyes too that is discretion and religious wisdome how to doe it And this is that which they seeme
years after the Donation of the Emperour Constantine by which the Bishops of Rome pretend all that to be theirs surely they could not finde this Patent this Record this Donation of Constantine then when Boniface begd this Temple in Rome this Pantheon of the Emperour And this Temple formerly the Temple of all their gods that Bishop consecrated to the honour of all the Martyrs of all the Saints of that kinde But after him another Bishop of the same sea enlarged the consecration and accompanied it with this festivall which we celebrate to day in honour of the Trinity and Angels and Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors and Saints and all the elect children of God So that it is truly a festivall grounded upon that Article of the Creed The Communion of Saints and unites in our devout contemplation The Head of the Church God himselfe and those two noble constitutive parts thereof The Triumphant and the Militant And accordingly hath the Church applied this part of Scripture to be read for the Epistle of this day to shew that All-Saints day hath relation to all Saints both living and dead for those servants of God which are here in this text sealed in their foreheads are such without all question as receive that Seale here here in the militant Church And therefore as these words so this festivall in their intendiment that applied these words to this festivall is also of Saints upon Earth This day being then the day of the Communion of Saints and this Scripture being received for the Epistle of this universall day that exposition will best befit it which makes it most universall And therefore with very good authority such as the expositions of this booke of the Revelation can receive of which booke no man will undertake to the Church that he hath found the certaine and the literall sense as yet nor is sure to do it Irenaeus till the prophecies of this booke be accomplished for prophetiae ingenium ut in obscuro delitescat donec impleatur It is the nature of prophecy to be secret till it be fulfilled Dan. 12.4 And therefore Daniel was bid to shut up the words and to seale the booke even to the time of the end that is to the end of the prophecy with good authority I say we take that number of the servants of God which are said to be sealed in the fourth verse of this Chapter which is one hundred forty foure thousand and that multitude which none could number of all Nations which are mentioned in the ninth verse to be intended of one and the same company both these expressions denote the same persons In the fourth verse of the fourteenth Chapter this number of one hundred forty foure thousand is applied to Virgins but is intended of all Gods Saints for every holy soule is a virgin And then this name of Israel which is mentioned in the fourth verse of this Chapter That there were so many sealed of the house of Israel is often in Scriptures applied to spirituall Israelites to Beleevers for every faithfull soule is an Israelite so that this number of one hundred forty foure thousand Virgins and one hundred forty foure thousand Israelites which is not a certaine number but a number expressing a numberlesse multitude this number and that numberlesse multitude spoken of after of all Nations which none could number is all one and both making up the great and glorious body of all Saints import and present thus much in generall That howsoever God inflict great and heavy calamities in this world to the shaking of the best morall and Christianly constancies and consciences yet all his Saints being eternally knowne by him shall be sealed by him that is so assured of his assistance by a good using of those helps which he shall afford them in the Christian Church intended in this sealing on the forehead that those afflictions shall never separate them from him nor frustrate his determination nor disappoint his gracious purpose upon them all them this multitude which no man could number To come then to the words themselves Divisio we see the safety and protection of the Saints of God and his children in the person and proceeding of our Protector in that it is in the hands of an Angel I saw another Angel And an Angel of that place that came from the East The East that is the fountaine of all light and glory I saw another Angel come from the East And as the Word doth naturally signifie and is so rendred in this last Translation Ascending from the East that is growing and encreasing in strength After that we shall consider our assurance in the commission and power of this Angel He had the seaele of the living God And then in the execution of this Commission In which we shall see first who our enemies were They were also Angels This Angel cryed to other Angels able to do much by nature because Angels Then we shall see their number they were foure Angels made stronger by joyning This Angel cryed to those foure Angels And besides their malignant nature and united concord two shrewd disadvantages mischievous and many They had a power a particular an extraordinary power given them at that time to do hurt foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt And to do generall universall hurt power to hurt the Earth and the Sea After all this we shall see this Protector against these enemies and their Commission execute his first by declaring and publishing it He cryed with a loud voyce And then lastly what his Commission was It was to stay those foure Angels for all their Commission from hurting the Earth and the Sea and the Trees But yet this is not for ever It is but till the servants of God were sealed in the forehead that is till God had afforded them such helpes as that by a good use of them they might subsist which if they did not for all their sealing in the forehead this Angel will deliver them over to the other foure destroying Angels Of which sealing that is conferring of Grace and helps against those spirituall enemies there is a pregnant intimation that it is done by the benefit of the Church in the power of the Church which is no singular person in that upon the sudden the person and the number is varied in our text and this Angel which when he is said to ascend from the East and to cry with a loud voyce is still a singular Angel one Angel yet when he comes to the act of sealing in the forehead to the dispensing of Sacraments and sacramentall assistances he does that as a plurall person he represents more the whole Church and therefore sayes here Stay hurt nothing Till we we have sealed the servants of our our God in their foreheads And by all these steps must we passe through this garden of flowers this orchard of fruits this abundant Text. First then Man being compassed with
stronger hand then this not in these Ministeriall and Missive Angels onely but in his that sends them yea in his that made them Col. 1.16 17. By whom and for whom they and the Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers and all things were created and in whom they consist For as the name of Angel is attributed to Christ Mal. 3.1 Angelus Testamenti The Angel of the Covenant And many of those miraculous passages in the deliverances of Israel out of Egypt which were done by the second Person of the Trinity by Christ in Exodus are by Moses there and in the abridgement of that story Acts 7. by Stephen after attributed to Angels So in this Text this Angel which doth so much for Gods Saints is not inconveniently by many Expositors taken to be our Saviour Christ himselfe And will any man doubt of performance of conditions in him Will any man looke for better security then him who puts two and two such into the band Christ and Iesus An anointed King able an actuall Saviour willing to discharge not his but our debt He is a double Person God and Man He ingages a double pawn the old and the new Testament the Law and the Gospel and you may be bold to trust him that hath paid so well before since you see a performance of the Prophesies of the old Testament in the free and glorious preaching of the Gospel trust also in a performance of the promises of the Gospel in timely deliverances in this life and an infallible and eternall reposednesse in the life to come Hee tooke our nature that he might know our infirmities experimentally He brought down a better nature that he might recover us restore us powerfully effectually and that hee might be sure to accomplish his work he brought more to our reparation then to our first building The God-head wrought as much in our Redemption as in our Creation and the Man-hood more for it began but then And to take from us all doubt of his power or of his will in our deliverance he hath taken the surest way of giving satisfaction Esay 53.4 He hath payed beforehand Verè tulit He hath truly born all our infirmities He hath already And with his stripes are we healed we that are here now are healed by his stripes received sixteen hundred yeares since Apoc. 13.8 Nay he was Occisus ab origine The Lamb slaine from the beginning of the world That day that the frame of the world was fully set up in the making of man That day that the fairest piece of that frame fell down again in the fall of Adam That day that God repaired this ruine again in the promise of a Messias all which we take ordinarily to have fallen in one day the sixt day that day in that promise was this Lamb slain and all the debts not only of our fore-fathers and ours but of the last man that shall be found alive at the last day were then payed so long before-hand This security then Angelus Ecclesiae for our deliverance and protection we have in this Angel in our Text I saw an Angel as this Angel is Christ but yet we have also another security more immediate and more appliable to us As men that lend money in the course of the world have a desire to have a servant in the band with the Master not that they hope for the money from him but that they know better how to call upon him and how to take hold of him so besides this generall assistance of Angels and besides this all-sufficiency of the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus we have for our security in this Text I saw an Angel the servants of Christ too This Angel is the Minister of his Word the Administrer of his Sacraments the Mediator betweene Christ and Man He is this Angel as S. Iohn so often in the Revelation and the Holy Ghost in other places of Scripture styles them This Angel is indeed the whole frame and Hierarchy of the Christian Church For though this Angel be called in this text The Angel in the singular yet to make use of one note by Anticipation now though in our distribution of the Branches we reserved it to the end because it fits properly our present consideration though this Angel be named in the singular and so may seeme to be restrained to Christ alone yet we see the Office when it comes to execution after is diffused and there are more in the Commission for those phrases that Wee Wee may seale the servants of Our Our God have a plurality in them a consent a harmony and imply a Congregation and doe better agree with the Ministery of the Church then with the Person of Christ alone So then to let go none of our assistants our sureties our safety is in the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus radically fundamentally meritoriously It is in the ministery of the Angels of heaven invisibly but it is in the Church of God and in the power of his Ministers there manifestly sensibly discernibly Mal. 2.7 They should seek the Law at the Priests mouth They should and therefore they are to blame that do not but fly to private expositions But why should they Quia angelus domini exercituum as it follows there Because the Priest is the Angel of the Lord of Hosts Yea the Gospell which they preach is above all messages which an Angel can bring of himselfe Gal. 1.8 If an Angel from heaven preach otherwise unto you then we have preached let him be accursed The ministery of celestiall Angels is inferiour to the ministery of the Ecclesiasticall The Gospel which belongs to us is truly Euangelium the good Ministery of good Angels the best ministery of the best Angels for though we compare not with those Angels in nature we compare with them in office though our offices tend to the same end to draw you to God yet they differ in the way and though the service of those Angels enlighten your understanding and assist your belief too yet in the ministery of these Angels in the Church there is a blessed fulfilling and verification of those words Now is salvation nearer Rom. 13.11 then when we beleeved You beleeve because those celestiall Angels have wrought invisibly upon you and disperst your clouds and removed impediments You beleeve because the great Angel Christ Jesus hath left his history his action and passion written for you and that is a historicall faith But yet salvation is nearer to you in having all this applied to you by them who are like you men and there where you know how to fetch it the Church That as you beleeve by reading the Gospels at home that Christ died for the world So you may beleeve by hearing here that he dyed for you This is Gods plenteous Redemption Quòd linguam meam assumsit in opus suum Bernar. That having so great a work
man who is not onely finite and determined in a compasse but narrow in his compasse not onely not bottomlesse but shallow in his comprehensions to this naturall this smite and narrow and shallow man no burden is so insupportable no consideration so inextrieable no secret so inscrutable no conception so incredible as to conceive One infinite God that should do all things alone without any more Gods That that power that establishes counsails that things may be carried in a constancy and yet permits Contingencies that things shall fall out casually That the God of Certainty and the God of Contingency should be all one God That that God that settles peace should yet make warres and in the day of battaile should be both upon that side that does and that side that is overcome That the conquered God and the victorious God should be both one God That that God who is all goodnesse in himselfe should yet have his hand in every ill action this the naturall man cannot digest not comprehend And therefore the naturall man eases himselfe and thinkes he cases God by diuiding the burden and laying his particular necessities upon particular Gods Hence came those enormous multiplications of Gods Hesiods thirty thousand Gods and three hundred Iupiters Hence came it that they brought their children into the world under one God and then put them to nurse and then to schoole and then to occupations and professions under other severall Gods Hence came their Vagitanus a God that must take care that children doe not burst with crying and their Fabulanus a God that must take care that children doe not stammer in speaking Hence came their Statelinus and their Potinus a God that must teach them to goe and a God that must teach them to drinke So far as that they came to make Febrem Deam To erect Temples and Altars to diseases to age to death it selfe and so all those punishments which our true God laid upon man for sin all our infirmities they made Gods So far is the naturall man from denying God as that he thus multiplies them But yet never did these naturall men the Gentiles ascribe so much to their Gods except some very few of them as they of the Romane perswasion may seeme to doe to their Saints For they limited their devotions and sacrifices and supplications in some certaine and determined things and those for the most part in this world but in the Romane Church they all aske all of all for they aske even things pertaining to the next world And as they make their Saints verier Gods then the Gentils doe theirs in asking greater things at their hands so have they more of them For if there be not yet more Saints celebrated by Name then will make up Hesiods thirty thousand yet they have more in this respect that of Hesiods thirty thousand one Nation worshiped one another another thousand In the Romane Church all worship all And howsoever it be for the number yet saith one we may live to see the number of Hesiods thirty thousand equalled and exceeded for if the Jesuit who have got two of their Order into the Consistory they have had two Cardinalls and two of their Order into heaven they have had two Saints Canonized if they could get one of their Order into the Chayre one Pope As we reade of one Generall that knighted his whole Army at once so such a Pope may Canonize his whole Order and then Hesiods thirty thousand would be literally fulfilled And that as we have done in the multiplication of their gods so in their superstition to their created gods we may also observe a congruity a conformity a concurrence between the Heathen and the Romane Religion As the Heathen east such an intimidation such an infatuation not onely upon the people but upon the Princes too as that in the Story of the Aegyptian Kings we finde that whensoever any of their Priests signified unto any of their Kings that it was the pleasure of his God that he should leave that kingdome and come up to him that King did alwayes without any contradiction any hesitation kill himselfe so are they come so neare to this in the Romane Church as that though they cannot infatuate such Princes as they are weary of to kill themselves yet when they are weary of Princes they can infatuate other men to those assassinats of which our neighbour kingdome hath felt the blow more then once and we the offer and the plotting more then many times That that I drive to in this consideration is this That since man is naturally apt to multiply Gods to himselfe we doe with all Christian diligence shut up our selves in the beliefe and worship of our one and onely God without admitting any more Mediators or Intercessors or Advocates in any of those Modifications or Distinctions with which the later men have painted and disguized the Religion of Rome to make them the more passable and without making any one step towards meeting them in their superstitious errors but adhere intirely to our onely Advocate and Mediator and Intercessor Christ Jesus for he does no more need an Assistant in any of those offices then in his office of Redeemer or Saviour and therefore as they require no fellow Redeemer no fellow-Saviour so neither let us admit any fellow-Advocate fellow-Mediator fellow-Intercessor in heaven For why may not that reason hold all the yeare which they assigne in the Romane Church for their forbearance of prayers to any Saint upon certaine dayes Upon Good-Fryday and Easter-day and Whit sunday say they we must not pray to any Saint no not to the blessed Virgin Quia Christus Spiritus Sanctus sunt tune temporis supremi unici Advocati Because upon those dayes Christ and the Holy Ghost are our principall nay upon those dayes our onely Advocares Garantus in Rubr. Missal par 1. Tit. 9. §. 8. And are Christ and the Holy Ghost out of office a weeke after Easter or after Whitsontide Since man is naturally apt to multiply Gods let us be Christianly diligent to conclude our selves in One. And then since man is also naturally apt to stray into a superstitious worship of God let us be Christianly diligent to preclude all waies that may lead us into that tentation or incline us towards superstition In which I doe not intend that we should decline all such things as had been superstitiously abused in a superstitious Church But in all such things as being in their own nature indifferent are by a just commandment of lawfull authority become more then indifferent necessary to us though not Necessitate medii yet Necessitate praecepti for though salvation consist not in Ceremonies Obedience doth and salvation consists much in Obedience That in all such things we alwayes informe our selves of the right use of those things in their first institution of their abuse with which they have been depraved in the Roman Church and of the good use which
holinesse of life and fast and pray and submit my selfe to discreet and medicinall mortifications for the subduing of my body any man will say this is Papisticall Papists doe this it is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and brethren I am a Papist that is I will fast and pray as much as any Papist and enable my selfe for the service of my God as seriously as sedulously as laboriously as any Papist So if when I startle and am affected at a blasphemous oath as at a wound upon my Saviour if when I avoyd the conversation of those men that prophane the Lords day any other will say to me This is Puritanicall Puritans do this It is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and Brethren I am a Puritan that is I wil endeavour to be pure as my Father in heaven is pure as far as any Puritan Now of these Pharisees who were by these means so popular Sadducaei the numbers were very great The Sadduces who also were of an exemplary holinesse in some things but in many and important things of different opinions even in matter of Religion from all other men were not so many in number but they were men of better quality and place in the State then for the most part the Pharisees were And as they were more potent and able to do more mischiefe so had they more declared themselves to be bent against the Apostles then the Pharisees had done In the fourth Chapter of this Booke Ver. 1. The Priests and the Sadduces no mention of Pharisees came upon Peter and Iohn being grieved that they preached thorough Iesus the resurrection of the dead And so againe Act. 5.17 The high Priest rose up and all they that were with him which is sayes that Text expresly the sect of the Sadduces and were filled with indignation And some collect out of a place in Eusebius that this Ananias who was high Priest at this time and had declared his ill affection to S. Paul as you heard before was a Sadduce But I thinke those words of Eusebius will not beare at least not enforce that nor be well applied to this Ananias Howsoever S. Paul had just cause to come to this protestation I am a Pharisee and in so doing he can be obnoxious to nothing if he be as safe in his other protestation all is well for the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question consider we that It is true that he was not at this time called in question Resurrectio Act. 21.23 directly and expresly for the Resurrection you may see where he was apprehended that it was for teaching against that people and against that law and against that Temple So that he was endited upon pretense of sedition and prophanation of the Temple And therefore when S. Paul sayes here I am called in question for preaching the Resurrection he means this If I had not preached the Resurrection I should never have been called in question nor should be if I would forbeare preaching the Resurrection No man persecutes me no man appeares against me but onely they that deny the Resurrection The Sadduces did deny it The Pharisees did beleeve it and therefore this was a likely and a lawfull way to divide them and to gaine time with such a purpose so far as David had when he prayed O Lord Psal 55.9 divide their tongues For it is not alwayes unlawfull to sowe discord and to kindle dissention amongst men for men may agree too well to ill purposes So have yee then seen That though it be not safe to conclude S. Paul or any holy man did this therefore I may do it which was our first part yet in this which S. Paul did here there was nothing that may not be justified in him and imitated by us which was our second part Remains onely the third which is the accommodation of this to our present times and the appropriation thereof to our selves and making it our own case The world is full of Sadduces and Pharisees and the true Church of God arraigned by both The Sadduces were the greater men the Pharisees were the greater number 3 Part. Sadducaei so they are still The Sadduces denied the Resurrection and Angels and Spirits So they do still For those Sadduces whom we consider now in this part are meere carnall men men that have not onely no Spirit of God in them but no soule no spirit of their owne meere Atheists And this Carnality this Atheisme this Sadducisme is seene in some Countries to prevaile most upon great persons the Sadduces were great persons upon persons that abound in the possessions and offices and honours of this world for they that have most of this world for the most part think least of the next These are our present Sadduces Pharisaei and then the Pharisee hath his name from Pharas which is Division Separation But Calvin derives the name not inconveniently from Pharash which is Exposition Explication We embrace both extractions and acceptations of the word both Separation and Exposition for the Pharisee whom we consider now in this part is he that is separated from us there it is Pharas separation and separated by following private Expositions there it is Pharash Exposition with a contempt of all Antiquity and not only an undervaluation but a detestation of all opinions but his owne and his whom he hath set up for his Idol And as the Sadduce our great and worldly man is all carnall all body and beleeves no spirit so our Pharisee is so superspirituall as that he beleeves that is considers no body He imagines such a Purification such an Angelification such a Deification in this life as though the heavenly Jerusalem were descended already or that God had given man but that one commandement Love God above all and not a second too Love thy neighbour as thy selfe Our Sadduces will have all body our Pharisees all soule and God hath made us of both and given us offices proper to each Now of both these Duplex Sadducaus the present Sadduce the carnall Atheist and the present Pharisee the Separatist that overvalues himself and bids us stand farther off there are two kinds For for the Atheist there is Davids Atheist and S. Pauls Atheist Davids that ascribes all to nature Psal 14.2 and sayes in his heart There is no God That will call no sudden death nor extraordinary punishment upon any enormous sinner a judgement of God nor any such deliverance of his servants a miracle from God but all is Nature or all is Accident and would have been so though there had been no God This is Natures Sadduce Davids Atheist And then S. Pauls Atheist is he who though he doe beleeve in God yet doth not beleeve God in
postulationes Sanae When thou art established in favour thou maist make any suit when thou art possest of God by one prayer thou mayst offer more This is an encouragement which that Father S. Bernard gives in observing the diverse degrees of praying That though servandae humilitatis gratia divina pietas ordinavit To make his humility the more profitable to him God imprints in an humble and penitent sinner this apprehension Vt quanto plus profecit eo minus se reputet profecisse That the more he is in Gods favour the more he feares he is not so or the more he fears to lose that favour because it is a part and a symptome of the working of the grace of God to make him see his owne unworthinesse the more manifestly the more sensibly yet it is a religious insinuation and a circumvention that God loves when a sinner husbands his graces so well as to grow rich under him and to make his thanks for one blessing a reason and an occasion of another so to gather upon God by a rolling Trench and by a winding staire as Abraham gained upon God in the behalfe of Sodome for this is an act of the wisedome of the Serpent which our Saviour recommends unto us in such a Serpentine line as the Artists call it to get up to God and get into God by such degrees as David does here from his Miserere to a Sana from a gracious looke to a perfect recovery Luke 10. from the act of the Levite that looked upon the wounded man to the act of the Samaritane that undertooke his cure from desiring God to visit him as a friend as Abraham was called the friend of God to study him as a Physitian Iames 2.23 Esay 55.1 Esay 53.4 Because the Prophet Esay makes a Proclamation in Christs name Ho every one that thirsteth c. And because the same Prophet sayes of him Verè portavit He hath truly born upon himselfe and therefore taken away from us all our diseases Tertullian sayes elegantly that Esay presents Christ Praedicatorem Medicatorem as a Preacher and as a Physitian Indeed he is a Physitian both wayes in his Word and in his Power and therefore in that notion onely as a Physitian David presents him here Now Physitians say That man hath in his Constitution in his Complexion a naturall vertue which they call Balsamum suum his owne Balsamum by which any wound which a man could receive in his body would cure it selfe if it could be kept cleane from the anoiances of the aire and all extrinsique encumbrances Something that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body there is in the soule of man too The soule hath Nardum suam Cant. 1.12 her Spikenard as the Spouse sayes Nardus meadedit odorem suum Basil she had a spikenard a perfume a fragrancy a sweet savour in her selfe For Virtutes germaniùs attingunt animam quà m corpus sanitas Vertuous inclinations and a disposition to morall goodnesse is more naturall to the soule of man and nearer of kin to the soule of man then health is to the body And then if we consider bodily health Nulla oratio nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odiisse sayes that Father There needs no Art there needs no outward Eloquence to perswade a man to be loath to be sick Ita in anima inest naturalis citra doctrinam mali evitatio sayes he So the soule hath a naturall and untaught hatred and detestation of that which is evill The Church at thy Baptisme doth not require Sureties at thy hands for this Thy Sureties undertake to the Church in thy behalfe That thou shalt forsake the flesh the world and the devill That thou shalt beleeve all the Articles of our Religion That thou shalt keepe all the Commandements of God But for this knowledge and detestation of evill they are not put to undertake them then neither doth the Church Catechize thee in that after for the summe of all those duties which concerne the detestation of evill consists in that unwritten law of thy conscience which thou knowest naturally Scis quod boni proximo faciendum sayes that Father Naturally thou knowest what good thou art bound to doe to another man Idem enim est quod ab aliis tute tibi fieri velis for it is but asking thy selfe What thou wouldest that that other man should do unto thee Non ignoras quid sit ipsum malum Thou canst not be ignorant what evill thou shouldest abstaine from offering to another Est enim quod ab alio fieri nolis It is but the same which thou thinkest another should not put upon thee So that the soule of man hath in it Balsamum suum Nardum suam A medicinall Balsamum a fragrant Spikenard in her selfe a naturall disposition to Morall goodnesse as the body hath to health But therein lyes the souls disadvantage that whereas the causes that hinder the cure of a bodily wound are extrinsique offences of the Ayre and putrefaction from thence the causes in the wounds of the soule are intrinsique so as no other man can apply physick to them Nay they are hereditary and there was no time early inough for our selves to apply any thing by way of prevention for the wounds were as soone as we were and sooner Here was a new soule but an old sore a yong childe but an inveterate disease As S. Augustin cannot conceive any interim any distance between the creating of the soule and the infusing of the soule into the body but eases himselfe upon that Creando infundit and infundendo creat The Creation is the Infusion and the Infusion is the Creation so we cannot conceive any Interim any distance betweene the infusing and the sickning betweene the comming and the sinning of the soule So that there was no meanes of prevention I could not so much as wish that I might be no sinner for I could not wish that I might be no Child Neither is there any meanes of separation now our concupiscencies dwell in us and prescribe in us and will gnaw upon us as wormes till they deliver our bodies to the wormes of the grave and our consciences to the worme that never dyes From the dangerous effects then of this sicknesse David desires to be healed and by God himselfe Sana me Domine O Lord heale me for that physick that Man gives is all but drugs of the earth Morall and Civill counsailes rather to cover then recover rather to disguise then to avoid They put a clove in the mouth but they do not mend the lungs To cover his nakednesse Adam tooke but fig-leaves Esay 38.11 but to recover Ezechias God tooke figs themselves Man deales upon leaves that cover and shadow God upon fruitfull and effectuall meanes 2 King 20.7 that cure and nourish And then God tooke a lumpe of figs God is liberall of his graces and gives not over a
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and âetestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
shall damne him but not a saving God a Iesus Beloved in the bowels of that Jesus not onely the riches and honours and pleasures of this world and the favour of Princes are as Iob speaks Onerosi consolatores Miserable comforters are they all all this world but even of God himselfe be it spoken with piety and reverence and far from misconstruction we may say Onerosa consolatio It is but a miserable comfort which we can have in God himselfe It is but a faint remembrance which we retaine of God himselfe It is but a lame confession which we make to God himselfe Si non Tui Si non Tibi If we remember not Thee If we confesse not Thee our onely Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus It is not halfe our worke to be godly men to confesse a God in generall we must be Christians too to confesse God so as God hath manifested himselfe to us I to whom God hath manifested himselfe in the Christian Church am as much an Atheist if I deny Christ as if I deny God And I deny Christ as much if I deny him in the truth of his Worship in my Religion as if I denyed him in his Person And therefore Si non Tui Si non Tibi If I doe not remember Thee If I doe not professe Thee in thy Truth I am falne into this Death and buried in this Grave which David deprecates in this Text For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. SERM. LIV. Preached to the KING at White-hall upon the occasion of the Fast April 5. 1628. PSAL. 6.6 7. I am weary with my groaning All the night make I my bed to swin I water my couch with my teares Mine eye is consumed because of griefe It waxeth old because of all mine-enemies THis is Davids humiliation and comming after his repentance and reconciliation Davids penance And yet here is no Fast It is true No Fast named David had had experience that as the wisest actions of Kings of Kings as Kings over Subjects so the devoutest actions of Kings of Kings as humble Subjects to the King of Kings the God of Heaven had been misinterpreted Of sighing and groaning and weeping and languishing as in this Text David speaks often very very often in the Psalmes and they let him sigh and groane and weepe and languish they neglect his Passion and are not affected with that but that is all they afflict him no farther But when he comes to fasting they deride him they reproach him Cares God whether you eat or fast But thrice in all the Psalmes does David speake of his fasting and in all three places it was mis-interpreted and reproachfully mis-interpreted I humbled my soule with fasting Psal 35.13 and my prayer returned into mine own bosome He did this as he sayes there for others that needed it and they would not thanke him for it but reproached him When I wept and chastned my soule with fasting Psal 69.10 Psal 109.24 that was to my reproach So also my bones are weake through fasting and I became a reproach unto them And therefore no wonder that David does not so often mention and publish his fasting as his other mortifications No wonder that in all his seaven penetentiall Psalmes which are the Churches Tropicks for mortification and humiliation there is no mention of his fasting But for his practise though he speak not so much of it in the Psalmes in his history where others not himselfe speake of him we know that when he mourned and prayed for his sick childe he fasted too And we doubt not 2 Sam. 2.15 but that when he was thus wearied I am weary with my groaning All the night make I my bed to swim I water my Couch with my teares Mine eye is consumed because of griefe It waxeth old because of all mine enemies he fasted too He fasted oftner then he tells us of it As S. Hierome sayes Iejunium non perfecta virtus sed caeterarum virtutum fundamentum Hieron If we must not call fasting as fasting is but a bodily abstinence a religious act an act of Gods worship yet it is a Basis and a foundation upon which other religious acts and acts of Gods worship are the better advanced It is so at all times but it is so especially when it is enjoyned by Soveraigne authority and upon manifest occasion as now to us Semper virtutis Cibus Iejunium fuit It is elegantly and usefully said At all times Leo. Religion feeds upon fasting and feasts upon fasting and grows the stronger for fasting But Quod pium est agere non indictum impium est negligere praedicatum Idem It is a godly thing to fast uncommanded but to neglect it being commanded is an ungodly an impious a refractary perversnesse sayes the same Father But then another carries it to a higher expression Desperationis genus est tunc manducare cum abstinere debeas Maximus de jejunio Ninevitarum Not to fast when the times require it and when Authority enjoynes it or not to beleeve that God will be affected and moved with that fasting and be the better enclined for it is desperationis genus a despairing of the State a despairing of the Church a despairing of the grace of God to both or of his mercy upon both And truly there cannot be a more disloyall affection then that desper are rem publicam to forespeak great Councels to be witch great actions to despaire of good ends in things well intended And in our distresses where can we hope but in God and how shall we have accesse to God but in humiliation We doubt not therefore but that this act of humiliation his fasting was spread over Davids other acts in this Text and that as a sinner in his private person and as a King in his publique and exemplar office he fasted also though he sayes not so when he said he was wearied I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my teares mine eye is consumed because of griefe It waxeth old because of all mine enemies But though this fasting and these other penall acts of humiliation be the body that carries and declares yet the soule that inanimates and quickens all is prayer and therefore this whole Psalme is a prayer And the prayer is partly Deprecatory In some things David desires that God would forbeare him as v. 1. Correct me not for if thou correct me others will trample upon me Rebuke me not for if thou rebuke me others will calumniate me And partly Postulatory that some things God would give him as Health and Deliverance and that which is all Salvation in the other verses Both parts of the prayer are as all prayer must be grounded upon reasons and the reasons are from divers rootes some from the consideration of himselfe and they argue his humiliation some from the contemplation of God and they testifie
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
all timorousnesse that my Transgressions are not forgiven or my sins not covered In the first Act we consider God the Father to have wrought He proposed he decreed he accepted too a sacrifice for all mankind in the death of Christ In the second The Covering of sinnes we consider God the Sonne to worke Incubare Ecclesiae He sits upon his Church as a Hen upon her Eggs He covers all our sinnes whom he hath gathered into that body with spreading himselfe and his merits upon us all there In this third The not Imputing of Iniquity we consider God the Holy Ghost to worke and as the Spirit of Consolation to blow away all scruples all diffidences and to establish an assurance in the Conscience The Lord imputes not that is the Spirit of the Lord The Lord the Spirit The Holy Ghost suffers not me to impute to my selfe those sinnes which I have truly repented The over-tendernesse of a bruised and a faint conscience may impute sinne to it selfe when it is discharged And a seared and obdurate Conscience may impute none when it abounds If the Holy Ghost work he rectifies both and if God doe inflict punishments according to the signification of this word Gnavah after our Repentance and the seals of our Reconciliation yet he suffers us not to impute those sinnes to our selves or to repute those corrections punishments as though he had not forgiven them or as though he came to an execution after a pardon but that they are laid upon us medicinally and by way of prevention and precaution against his future displeasure This is that Pax Conscientiae The peace of Conscience when there is not one sword drawne This is that Serenitas Conscientiae The Meridionall brightnesse of the Conscience when there is not one Cloud in our sky I shall not hope that Originall sin shall not be imputed but feare that Actuall sin may not hope that my dumbe sins shall not but my crying sins may not hope that my apparant sins which have therefore induced in me a particular sense of them shall not but my secret sins sins that I am not able to returne and represent to mine owne memory may for this Non Imputabit hath no limitation God shall suffer the Conscience thus rectified to terrifie it selfe with nothing which is also farther extended in the Originall where it is not Non Imputat but Non Imputabit Though after all this we doe fall into the same or other sins yet we shall know our way and evermore have our Consolation in this That as God hath forgiven our transgression in taking the sins of all mankinde upon himselfe for he hath redeemed us and left out Angels And as he hath covered our sin that is provided us the Word and Sacraments and cast off the Jews and left out the Heathen So he will never Impute mine Iniquity never suffer it to terrifie my Conscience Not now when his Judgements denounced by his Minister call me to him here Nor hereafter when the last bell shall call me to him into the grave Nor at last when the Angels Trumpets shall call me to him from the dust in the Resurrection But that as all mankinde hath a Blessednesse in Christs taking our sins which was the first Article in this Catechisme And all the Christian Church a Blessednesse in covering our sins which was the second So I may finde this Blessednesse in this worke of the Holy Ghost not to Impute that is not to suspect that God imputes any repented sin unto me or reserves any thing to lay to my charge at the last day which I have prayed may be and therefore hoped hath been forgiven before But then after these three parts which we have now in our Order proposed at first passed through That David applies himselfe to us in the most convenient way by the way of Catechisme and instruction in fundamentall things And then that he lays for his foundation of all Beatitude Blessednesse Happinesse which cannot be had in the consummation and perfection thereof but in the next world But yet in the third place gives us an inchoation an earnest an evidence of this future and consummate Blessednesse in bringing us faithfully to beleeve That Christ dyed sufficiently for all the world That Christ offers the application of all this to all the Christian Church That the Holy Ghost seals an assurance thereof to every particular Conscience well rectified After all this done thus largely on Gods part there remains something to be done on ours that may make all this effectuall upon us Vt non sit dolus in spiritu That there be no guile in our spirit which is our fourth part and Conclusion of all Of all these fruits of this Blessednesse there is no other root but the goodnesse of God himselfe but yet they grow in no other ground then in that man 4. Part. Dolus In cujus spiritu non est dolus The Comment and interpretation of S. Paul Rom. 4.5 hath made the sense and meaning of this place cleare To him that worketh the reward is of debt but to him that beleeveth and worketh not his faith is counted for righteousnesse Even as David describeth the blessednesse of Man sayes the Apostle there and so proceeds with the very words of this Text. Doth the Apostle then in this Text exclude the Co-operation of Man Differs this proposition That the man in whom God imprints these beames of Blessednesse must be without guile in his spirit from those other propositions Si vis ingredi Mat. 19.17 If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements And Maledictus qui non Cursed is he that performes not all Grows not the Blessednesse of this Text from the same roote as the Blessednesse in the 119. Psal ver 1. Blessed are they who walke in the way of the Lord Or doth Saint Paul take David to speake of any other Blessednesse in our Text then himselfe speaks of If through the Spirit yee mortifie the deeds of the body yee shall live Rom. 8.13 Doth S. Paul require nothing nothing out of this Text to be done by man Surely he does And these propositions are truly all one Tantùm credideris Onely beleeve and you shall be saved And Fac hoc vives Doe this and you shall be saved As it is truly all one purpose to say If you live you may walke and to say If you stretch out your legges you may walke To say Eat of this Tree and you shall recover and to say Eat of this fruit and you shall recover is all one To attribute an action to the next Cause or to the Cause of that Cause is to this purpose all one And therefore as God gave a Reformation to his Church in prospering that Doctrine That Justification was by faith onely so God give an unity to his Church in this Doctrine That no man is justified that works not for without works how much soever he magnifie his faith
been defiled But yet for all these Waters other Waters soaked in and corrupted them earely for for Baptisme the Disciples of Simon Magus annulled Christs Baptisme and baptized in Simons name and his Disciple Menander annulled the Baptisme of Christ and Simon and baptized in his owne name And then for the other Water Repentance the Heretiques drained up that shrewdly when they took away all benefit of repentance for sins committed after Baptisme David denies not nay David assures us that collectively the whole Church shall be beaten upon with waters Water multiplied Aquae multae Many waters so the vulgat reades this Multae that wee Translate here Great waters So multiplied Heresies The excellency of the Christian Religion is that it is Verbum abbreviatum A contracted Religion All the Credenda all that is to be beleeved reduced to twelve Articles of the Creed All the Speranda all that is to be hoped for prayed for expressed in seaven Petitions in the Lords Prayer All the Agenda all that is to be done in it comprised in ten Commandements in the Decalogue And then our blessed Saviour though he would take away none of the burden for it is an easie yoke and a light burden yet he was pleased to binde it in a lesse roome and a more portable forme when he re-abridged that Abridgement and recontracts this contracted Doctrine in those two Love God and Love thy Neighbour And then the Devill hath opposed this Abridgement by Multiplication by many waters many heresies for it is easie to observe that in every Article of the Creed there have been at least a dozen Heresies And in those Articles which were most credible most evident most sensible most of all Many more Heresies upon the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity And then as in matters of Faith so for matter of Manners there was scarce any thing so foule and so obscene which was not taught by some Heretiques to be religious and necessary Things which cannot be excused things which may not be named made by the Gnostiques essentiall and necessary in the Consecration of the Sacrament And then when these waters of death were in a good part dryed up these grosse errors in Faith and Manners were reasonably well overcome Then came in those waters of Traditional Doctrines in the Romane Church which are so many as that they overflow even the water of life the Scriptures themselves and suppresse and surround them Therefore does David in this text call these many waters Diluvium Diluvium A flood of great waters many and violent For this word Shatach Inundans signifies Vehemence Eagernesse and is elegantly applied to the fiercenesse of a horse in Battel Equus inundans in Bellum A horse that overflowes the Battell that rushes into the Battell Jer. 8.6 Esay 15.9 Therefore speaks the Prophet of waters full of blood What Seas of blood did the old Persecutions what Seas have later times poured out when in the Romane Church their owne Authors will boast of sixty thousand slaine in a day of them that attempted a Reformation in the times of the Waldenses Surely sayes our Prophet These waters shall be Heresies there shall be Omnis sanctus And no man may look for such a Church as shall have no water Evermore there will be some things raw and unconcocted in every Church Evermore some waters of trouble and dissention and a man is not to forsake a Church in which he hath received his Baptisme for that But waiving this generall and collective application of these waters to the Church and to take it as the letter of the Text invites us Omnis sanctus surely every godly man shall finde these waters many waters floods of many waters for affliction is our daily bread for we cannot live in this world a spirituall life without some kinde of affliction for as with long fasting we lose our stomachs so by being long unexercised in tribulation we come to lose our patience and to a murmuring when it falls upon us For that last Petition of the Lords Prayer Liberanos à malo Deliver us from evill may as some interpret it suppose that this Evill that is Malum poenae Affliction will certainly fall upon us and then we doe not so much pray to be delivered from it as to be delivered in it not that afflictions may not come but that they may not overcome when they come that they may not be ineffectuall upon us For it was Durus sermo A harder and an angryer speech then it seemes when God said to his people Esay 1.4 Why should yee bee smitten any more Why should I keep you at Schoole any longer Why should I prepare Physick or study your recovery by corrections any farther When God was wearied with their afflictions and they were not this was a heavy case He afflicted them forty yeares together in the Wildernesse and yet he saies Forty yeares long was I grieved with this generation He never saies They were grieved but he was with their stupidity They murmured but they sorrowed not to any amendment So they perverted this word Non approximabunt They shall not come nigh thee they shall not affect thee That they must doe we must be sensible of Gods corrections but yet there is a good sense and a plentifull comfort in this word of our Text. To the godly man non approximabunt the floods of great waters though waters though floods though great floods they shall not come nigh him and that is our last word and finall conclusion Consider the Church of God collectively Non approximabunt and the Saints of God distributively in which Babylon you will in the Chaldean Babylon or in the Italian Babylon and these waters doe come nigh us touch and touch to the quicke to the heart But yet as David intends here 2 Cor. 4.7 they touch not us they come not nigh us for wee have treasures in earth-then vessels They may touch the vessels but not the Treasure And this is literally expressed in the Text it selfe non approximabunt eum not that they shall not come neare his house or his lands or his children or his friends or his body but non eum they shall not come nigh him For for the Church the peace of the Church the plenty of the Church the ceremonies of the Church they are sua but not illa they are hers but they are not she And these things riches ceremonies they may be washed off with onetide and cast on with another discontinued in one Age and re-assumed in another devested in one Church and invested in another and yet the Churches she in her fundamentall Doctrines never touched And so for us a wave may wash away as much as Iob lost and yet not come nigh us for if a Heathen could say Vix ea nostra voco That outward things were scarce worthy to bee called Ours shall a Christian call them not onely His
that should worke their torment as he suspended the rage of the Lyons for Daniel and the heat of the fire in the furnace for the others Sometimes by imprinting a holy stupefaction and unsensiblenesse in the person that suffers So S. Laurence was not onely patient but merry and facetious when he lay broyling upon the fire and so we reade of many other Martyrs that they have beene lesse moved lesse affected with their torments then their Executioners or their Persecutors have beene That which troubled others never troubled them Or els the phrase must have this sense That though they be troubled with their troubles though God submit them so far to the common condition of men that they be sensible of them yet he shall preserve them from that trouble so as that it shall never overthrow them never sinke them into a dejection of spirit or diffidence in his mercy They shall finde stormes but a stout and strong ship under foote They shall feele Thunder and lightning but garlands of triumphant bayes shall preserve them They shall be trodden into the earth with scornes and contempts but yet as seed is buried to multiply to more So far this word of our Translators assist our devotion Thou shalt preserve me from trouble Thou shalt make me unsensible of it or thou shalt make me victorious in it But the Originall word Tzur hath a more peculiar sense Perplexity It signifies a straite a narrownesse a difficulty 2 Sam. 1.26 a distresse I am distressed for thee my brother Ionathan sayes David in this word when he lamented his irremediable his irrecoverable death So is it also Esa 21.3 Pangs have taken hold of me as the pangs of a woman that travaileth And so the word growes to signifie Psal 89.43 Aciem gladii Thou hast turned the edge of the sword and to signifie the top and precipice of a rock Psal 78.15 He clave the rocks in the wildernesse So that the word expresses Angustiam narrownesse pressure precipitation inextricablenesse in a word that will best fit us Perplexity and The Lord shall preserve me from perplexity And this may the Church and this may every good soule comfort it selfe in Thou shalt preserve me from perplexity Consider it first in the Church and then in our selves and first in the Primitive Ecclesia Primitiva and then in the reformed Church When God had brought his Church ex abscondito from his hiding place from poverty and contempt and solitarinesse and glorified it in the eyes of the world by many royall endowments and possessions with which Princes then become Christians and other great persons piously and graciously invested her though these were tentations to aspire to greater yet God preserved her from perplexities of all kinds from perplexing of Princes with her claims that they might not marry nor make leagues nor levy Armies but by her permission The Church called nothing her own but that which God had called His and given her that is Tithes All the rest shee acknowledged to have received from the bounty of pious benefactors This was her plea The Lord is my rock and my fortresse and my deliverer my strength my buckler Psal 18.2 and my high tower In all this Inventory in all this Armory and furniture of the Church there is never a sword Rocks and fortresses and bucklers and Towers but no sword no materiall sword in the Churches hand Arma nostra preces fletus Ambrose The Church fought with nothing but prayers and teares And as God delivered her from these perplexities from perplexing the affayres of Princes with her interest in their government so he delivered her from any perplexities in her own government No usurpation no offer of any Prince that attempted to invade or violate the true right of the Church no practise of any Heretiques how subtile how potent soever though they equalled though they exceeded the Church in number and in power as at some times the Arians did ever brought the Church to a perplexitie or to an apprehension of any necessitie of yeelding to sacrilegious Princes or to irreligious Heretiques in any point to procure their peace or to enjoy their rest but still they kept the dignitie of Priesthood intire and still they kept the truth of the Christian Religion intire no perplexity how they should subsist if they were so stiffe ever brought them to goe lesse to any prevarications or modifications either in matter of Religion towards Heretiques or in the execution of their religious function towards facrilegious usurpers So God preserved the Primitive Church from perplexitie shee was ever thankfull and submisse towards her benefactors shee was ever erect and constant against usurpers And this preservation from perplexity we consider in the reformed Church also When the fulnesse of time was come Ecclesia Reformata and that Church which lay in the bowels of the putative Church the specious Church the Romane Church that is those soules which groaned and panted after a Reformation were enabled by God to effect it when the Iniquity of Babylon was come to that height That whereas at first they tooke of Almes afterwards Monachi emunt Nobiles vendunt Monkes bought and Lords sold Hieron Ep. ad Demetr nay Monasteries bought and the Crowne sold when they went so far as to forgea Donation of Constantin by which they laid hold upon a great temporall state and after that so much farther as to renounce the Donation of Constantin by which for a long time the Roman Church claimed all their temporall state S. Peters patrimony and so at last came to say That all the states of all Christian Princes are held of the Church and really may be and actually are forfeited to her and may at her pleasure be re-assumed by her when for the art and science of Divinity it selfe they had buried it in the darknesse of the Schoole and wrapped up that that should save our soules in those perplexed and inextricable clouds of Schoole-divinitie and their Schoole-divinitie subject to such changes as that a Jesuit professes that in the compasse but of thirty yeares Tanner in Aquin p. 1. ad Lector since Gregory de Valentia writ Verè dici possit novam quodammodo Theologiam prognatam esse We may truly say that we have a new art of Divinity risen amongst us The Divinity of these times sayes he is not in our Church the same that it was thirty yeares since since all parts of the Christian Church were so incensed both with their heresie and their tyranny as that the Greeke Church which generally they would make the world beleeve is absolutely as they are is by some of their own Authors confessed to be more averse from them Stenartius Ep. Dedic ante Calecam and more bitter against them then Luther or Calvin since upon all these provocations God was pleased to bring this Church the Reformed Church not onely to light but
a considerable thing and hath in part the nature of materials for God to worke upon That Instruction which is the subject of the whole Psalem is that saving Doctrine That there is no blessednesse but in the remission of sinnes That David establishes for his foundation in the first verse and would say nothing till he had said that But then though this remission of sinnes which onely constitutes Blessednesse proceed meerely from the goodnesse of God yet that goodnesse of God as it excites primarily so it works still upon that act of man penitent confession Notum feci I acknowledged my sinne and Dixi confitebor I prepared my selfe to confesse my sinne ver 5. and thou forgavest all This then S. Hierome delivers to be the Instruction of the Psalme Hominem Hieron non propriis meritis sed Dei gratia posse salvari si confiteatur admissa That man of himselfe is irrecoverable But yet there is a way opened to salvation in Christ Jesus But this way is onely open to them who enter by Confession And though S. Hierome and S. Augustin differ often in the exposition of the Psalmes yet here they speake almost the same words The Instruction of this Psalme is Intelligentia qua intelligitur non meritis operum August sed gratia Dei hominem liberari confitentem sua peccata That no man is saved by his owne merits That any man may bee saved by the mercy of God in the merits of Christ That no man attaines this mercy but by confession of his sinnes And that that rule In ore duorum aut trium may have the largest fulnesse adde wee a third witnesse Intellectus est Gregor This is the Instruction that David promises Nemo ante fidem Let no man presume of merits before faith But in all this they all three agree Every man must know that hee may bee saved And that by his owne merits hee cannot And lastly that the merits of Christ are applied to no man that doth nothing for himselfe Quid est Intellectus August saith he againe What is this understanding It is saith he no more but this Vt non jactes opera ante fidem Never to take confidence in works otherwise then as they are rooted in faith For as hee enlarges this Meditation if thou shouldst see a man pull at an Oare till his eye-strings and sinews and muscles broke and thou shouldst aske him whither he rowed If thou shouldst see a man runne himselfe out of breath and shouldst aske him whither hee ranne If thou shouldst see him dig till his backe broke and shouldst aske him what he sought And any of these should answer thee they could not tell wouldst not thou thinke them mad So are all Disciplines all Mortifications all whippings all starvings all works of Piety and of Charity madnesse if they have any other root then faith any other title or dignity then effects and fruits of a preceding reconciliation to God Multi pagani saith he Idem There are many Infidels that refuse to bee made Christians because they are so good already Sibi sufficiunt de sua bona vita They are the worse for being so good and they thinke they need no faith but are rich enough in their morall honesty And there are Christians that are the worse for thinking and beleeving that it is enough to Beleeve It is not faith to beleeve in grosse that I shall be saved but I must beleeve that I shall be saved by him that died for me If I consider that I cannot chuse but love him too And if I love him I shall doe his will Ama operaberis Idem whomsoever thou lovest thou wilt doe what thou canst to please him Da mihi vacantem amorem I would bee glad to see an idle love that that man that loved any thing in this world should not labour to compasse that that he loved But purga amorem saith hee I doe not forbid thee loving it is a noble affection but purge and purifie thy love Aquam fluentem in cloacam converte in hortum Turne that water which hath served thy stables and sewers before into thy gardens Turne those teares which thou hast spent upon thy love or thy losses upon thy sinnes and the displeasure of thy God and Quales impetus habebas ad mundum habebis ad Creatorem mundi Those passions which transported thee upon the creature will establish thee upon the Creator The Instruction then of the whole Psalme is peace with God in the merits of Christ declared in a holy life which being the summe of all our Christian profession is farre beyond this Vnderstanding in our Text They have no understanding but yet upon this Understanding God raises that great building and therefore wee take this faculty The Vnderstanding into a more particular consideration Here is the danger He that at ripe yeares hath no understanding hath no grace A little understanding may have much grace but he that hath none of the former can have none of this God therefore brings us to the consideration not of the greatest but of the first thing not of his superedifications but of his foundations our understanding our reason For though Animalis homo The naturall man perceiveth not the things that be of the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.14 yet let him bee what man he will Naturall or Supernaturall hee must bee a man that must probare spiritum prove and discerne the spirit let him have as much more as you will it is requisite hee have so much reason and understanding as to perceive the maine points of Religion not that he must necessarily have a naturall explicite reason for every Article of faith but it were fit he had reason to prove that those Articles need not reason to prove them If I beleeve upon the Authority of my Teacher or of the Church or of the Scripture very expedient it were to have reason to prove to my selfe that these Authorities are certaine and irrefragable And therefore Caeteris animalibus se ignorare natura est homini vitium If a Horse or a Mule understand not it selfe it is never the worse Horse nor Mule for it is borne with that ignorance But if man having opportunities both in respect of his parts and calling to be better instructed either by a negligent and lazy and implicite relying upon the opinion of others doe but lay himselfe downe as a leafe upon the water to be carried along with the tide or by a wilfull drowsinesse and security in his sins have given over the debatement the discussing the understanding of the maine of his beliefe and of his life if either he keepe not his understanding awake or over-watch it if he doe nothing with it or employ it too busily too fervently too eagerly upon the world I would it were true of them Facti sicut you are like the Horse and the Mule but Vtinam essetis I would
which part as it is the furnace of breath they place the seat of pride and opposition against the Truth making their use of that which is said of Saul Acts 9. That he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord. And by this interpretation Davids disease that he must be purged of should be pride But except as the Schoolemen when they have tyred themselves in seeking out the name of the sin of the Angels are content at last for their ease to call it Pride both because they thought they need goe no farther for where pride is other sins will certainly accompany it and because they extended the name of Pride to all refusals and resistances of the will of God and so pride in effect includes all sin Except I say the Fathers take Pride in so large a sense as that they would not prescribe Hyssop to purge Davids lungs for his disease lay not properly there They must have purged his liver the seate of blood the seat of concupiscence They must have purged his whole substance for the distemper was gone over all And to this rectifying of his blood by the application of better blood and David relation in this place All the sacrifices of Expiation of sin in the old Law were done by blood and that blood was sprinckled upon the people by an instrument made of a certain plant which because the word in Hebrew is Ezob for the nearnesse of the sound and for the indifferency of the matter for it imports us nothing to know of what plant that Aspergillum that Blood-sprinckler was made the Interpreters have ever used in all languages to call this word Hyssop And though we know no proper word for Hyssop in Hebrew for when they finde not a word in the Bible the Hebrew Rabbins will acknowledge no Hebrew word for any thing yet the other languages deduced from the Hebrew Syriaque and Arabique have clearly another word for Hyssop Zus And the Hebrew Rabbins think this word of our text Ezob to signifie any of three or foure plants rather then our Hyssop But be the plant what it will the forme and the use of that Blood-sprinkler is manifest Exod. 12. Levit. 14. In the institution of the Passeover Take a bunch of Hyssop and dip it in blood In the cleansing of the Leper there was to be the blood of a sparrow and then Cedar wood and scarlet lace and Hyssop And about that Cedar stick they bound this Hyssop with this lace and so made this instrument to sprinkle blood And so the name of the Hyssop because it did the principall office was after given to the whole Instrument all the sprinkler was called an Hyssop As we see when they reached up a sponge of vinegar to Christ upon the Crosse Ioh. 19.29 They put it sayes the text upon Hyssop that is upon an Hyssop not upon an Hyssop stalke as the old translation had it for no Hyssop hath such a stalke but they called such sticks of Cedar as ordinarily served for the sprinkling of blood Hyssops And whether this were such a Cedar stick or some other such thing Mat. 27.48 fit to reach up that spunge to Christ we cannot say For S. Matthew calls that that S. Iohn calls an Hyssop a Reed This then was Davids petition here first That hee might have the blood of Christ Jesus applied and sprinkled upon him David thought of no election hee looked for no sanctification but in the blood of Christ Jesus And then he desired this blood to be applied to him by that Hyssope by that Blood-sprinkler which was ordained by God for the use of the Church Home-infusions and inward inspirations of grace are powerfull seales of Gods love but all this is but the Privy seale David desired to bring it to the Great seale the publike Ordinance of the Church In a case of necessity God gave his children Manna and Quailes Iosh 5. In cases of necessity God allowes Sermons and Sacraments at home But as soone as ever they came to the Land of promise the same day both Manna and Quailes ceased God hath given us a free and publike passage of his Word and Sacraments the diet and the ordinary food of our souls and he purges us with that Hyssope with the application of his promises with the absolution of our sins with a redintegration into his mysticall body by the seales of reconciliation And this reconciliation to God by the blood of Christ applied in the Ordinances of the Church is that which David begs for his cleansing and is the last circumstance of this branch Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane This Cleansing then implies that Cleansing which wee commonly call the enwrapping in the Covenant the breeding in the visible Church when God takes a Nation out of the Common and encloses it empailes it for his more peculiar use when God withdrawes us from the impossibility under which the Gentiles sterve who heare not Christ preached to live within the sound of his voyce and within the reach of our spirituall food the Word and Sacraments It is that state which the holy Ghost so elegantly expresses and enlarges Ezek. 16. That God found Jerusalem Her father an Amorite and her mother an Hittite none of the seed of the faithfull in her that he found her in Canaan not so much as in a place of true profession that he found her in her blood and her navell uncut still incorporated in her former stock And The time was a time of love sayes God and I covered thy nakednesse and sware unto thee and entred into a covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Will you say this could not be the subject of Davids petition this could not bee the cleansing that he begged at Gods hand to bee brought into that Covenant to bee a member of that Church for hee was in possession of that before Beloved how many are borne in this Covenant and baptized and catechized in it and yet fall away How many have taught and wrought and thought in their owne conscience that they did well in defence of the Covenant and yet fell away And from how many places which gave light to others hath God removed the Candlestick and left themselves in darknesse Psal 84.8 Though David say A day in thy Courts is better then a thousand then a thousand any where else yet he expresses his desire That hee might continue in that happinesse all the dayes of his life It is as fearefull a thing to be removed from the meanes of salvation as never to have had them This then is Cleansing To be continued in the distance and working of the meanes of cleansing that he may alwayes grow under the dew and breath in the ayre of Gods grace exhibited in his Ordinance Amongst the Jewes there were many uncleannesses which did not amount to sin They reckon in the Ceremoniall law at least fifty kinds of
of man do not become the servants and instruments of that Grace Let all that we all seeke be who may glorifie God most and we shall agree in this That as the Pelagian wounds the glory of God deepely in making Naturall faculties joynt-Commissioners with Grace so do they diminish the glory of God too if any deny naturall faculties to be the subordinate servants and instruments of Grace for as Grace could not worke upon man to Salvation if man had not a faculty of will to worke upon because without that will man were not man so is this Salvation wrought in the will by conforming this will of man to the will of God not by extinguishing the will it selfe by any force or constraint that God imprints in it by his Grace God saves no man without or against his will Glory be to God on high and on earth Peace and Good will towards men And to this God of Glory the Father and this God of Peace and reconciliation the Son and this God of Good will and love amongst men the Holy Ghost be ascribed all praise c. PREBEND SERMONS Preached at St. PAULS The first of the Prebend of Cheswicks five Psalmes which five are appointed for that Prebend as there are five other for every other of our thirty Prebendaries SERM. LXV Preached at S. Pauls May 8. 1625. PSAL. 62.9 Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie To bee laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity WE consider the dignity of the Booke of Psalmes either in the whole body together or in the particular limmes and distribution thereof Of the whole Body Basil it may be enough to tell you that which S. Basil saith That if all the other bookes of Scripture could perish there remained enough in the booke of Psalmes for the supply of all And therefore he cals it Amuletum ad profligandum daemonem Any Psalme is Exorcisme enough to expell any Devill Charme enough to remove any tentation Enchantment enough to ease nay to sweeten any tribulation It is abundantly enough that our Saviour Christ himselfe cites the Psalmes not onely as Canonicall Scripture but as a particular and entire and noble limme of that Body All must be fulfilled of me saith he which is written in the Law Luk. 24.44 in the Prophets and in the Psalmes The Law alone was the Sadduces Scripture they received no more The Law and the Prophets were especially the Scribes Scripture they interpreted that The Christians Scripture in the Old Testament is especially the Psalmes For except the Prophecy of Esay be admitted into the comparison no booke of the Old Testament is so like a Gospel so particular in all things concerning Christ as the Psalmes So hath the Booke of Psalmes an especiall dignity in the intire Body all together It hath so also in divers distributions thereof into parts For even amongst the Jewes themselves those fifteen Psalmes which follow immediatly and successively after the 119. Psalme were especially distinguished and dignified by the name of Graduall Psalmes Whether because they were sung upon the Degrees and staires ascending to the Altar Or because hee that read them in the Temple ascended into a higher and more eminent place to reade them Or because the word Graduall implies a degree of excellency in the Psalmes themselves I dispute not But a difference those fifteen Psalmes ever had above the rest in the Jewish and in the Christian Church too So also hath there beene a particular dignity ascribed to those seven Psalmes which we have ever called the Penitentiall Psalmes Of which S. Augustine had so much respect August as that he commanded them to be written in a great Letter and hung about the curtaines of his Death-bed within that hee might give up the ghost in contemplation and meditation of those seven Psalmes And it hath beene traditionally received and recommended by good Authors that that Hymne Matt. 26.30 which Christ and his Apostles are said to have sung after the Institution and celebration of the Sacrament was a Hymne composed of those six Psalmes which we call the Allelujah Psalmes immediatly preceding the hundred and nineteenth So then in the whole Body and in some particular limmes of the Body the Church of God hath had an especiall consideration of the booke of Psalmes This Church in which we all stand now and in which my selfe by particular obligation serve hath done so too In this Church by ancient Constitutions it is ordained That the whole booke of Psalmes should every day day by day bee rehearsed by us who make the Body of this Church in the eares of Almighty God And therefore every Prebendary of this Church is by those Constitutions bound every day to praise God in those five Psalmes which are appointed for his Prebend And of those five Psalmes which belong to mee this out of which I have read you this Text is the first And by Gods grace upon like occasions I shall here handle some part of every one of the other foure Psalmes for some testimony that those my five Psalmes returne often into my meditation which I also assure my selfe of the rest of my brethren who are under the same obligation in this Church For this whole Psalme Psalmus integer which is under our present consideration as Athanasius amongst all the Fathers was most curious and most particular and exquisite in observing the purpose and use of every particular Psalm for to that purpose he goes through them all in this maner If thou wilt encourage men to a love and pursuit of goodnesse say the first Psalme and 31. and 140 c. If thou wilt convince the Jewes say the second Psalme If thou wilt praise God for things past say this and this And this and this if thou wilt pray for future things so for this Psalme which we have in hand he observes in it a summary abridgement of all For of this Psalme he sayes in generall Adversus insidiantes Against all attempts upon thy body thy state thy soule thy fame tentations tribulations machinations defamations say this Psalme As he saith before that in the booke of Psalmes every man may discerne motus animi sui his owne finfull inclinations expressed and arme himselfe against himselfe so in this Psalme he may arme himselfe against all other adversaries of any kinde And therefore as the same Father entitles one Sermon of his Contr a omnes haereses A Sermon for the convincing of all Heresies in which short Sermon he meddles not much with particular heresies but onely establishes the truth of Christs Person in both natures which is indeed enough against all Heresies and in which that is the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father God of God this Father Athanasius hath enlarged himselfe more then the rest insomuch that those heretiques which grow so fast in these our dayes The Socinians who deny the Godhead of Christ
spirituall calamities being in our absence from Gods Church where onely the outward meanes of happinesse are ministred unto us certainely there is much tendernesse and deliberation to be used before the Church doores be shut against any man If I would not direct a prayer to God to excommunicate any man from the Triumphant Church which were to damne him I would not oyle the key I would not make the way too slippery for excommunications in the Militant Church For that is to endanger him I know how distastfull a sin to God contumacy and contempt and disobedience to Order and Authority is And I know and all men that choose not ignorance may know that our Excommunications though calumniators impute them to small things because many times the first complaint is of some small matter never issue but upon contumacies contempts disobediences to the Church But they are reall contumacies not interpretative apparant contumacies not presumptive that excommunicate a man in Heaven And much circumspection is required and I am far from doubting it exercised in those cases upon earth for though every Excommunication upon earth be not sealed in Heaven though it damne not the man yet it dammes up that mans way by shutting him out of that Church through which he must goe to the other which being so great a danger let every man take heed of Excommunicating himselfe The imperswasible Recusant does so The negligent Libertin does so The fantastique Separatist does so The halfe-present man he whose body is here and minde away does so And he whose body is but halfe here his limbes are here upon a cushion but his eyes his eares are not here does so All these are are selfe-Excommunicators and keepe themselves from hence Onely he enjoyes that blessing the want whereof David deplores that is here intirely and is glad he is here and glad to finde this kinde of service here that he does and wishes no other And so we have done with our first Part Davids aspect his present condition and his danger of falling into spirituall miseries because his persecution and banishment amounted to an Excommunication to an excluding of him from the service of God in the Church And we passe in our Order proposed at first to the second his retrospect the Consideration what God had done for him before Because thou hast beene my helpe Through this second part we shall passe by these three steps First 2 Part. That it behoves us in all our purposes and actions to propose to our selves a copy to write by a patterne to worke by a rule or an example to proceed by Because it hath beene thus heretofore sayes David I will resolve upon this course for the future And secondly That the copy the patterne the precedent which we are to propose to our selves is The observation of Gods former wayes and proceedings upon us Because God hath already gone this way this way I will awaite his going still And then thirdly and lastly in this second part The way that God had formerly gone with David which was That he had been his helpe Because thou hast beene my helpe First then from the meanest artificer through the wisest Philosopher to God himselfe Ideae all that is well done or wisely undertaken is undertaken and done according to pre-conceptions fore-imaginations designes and patterns proposed to our selves beforehand A Carpenter builds not a house but that he first sets up a frame in his owne minde what kinde of house he will build The little great Philosopher Epictetus would undertake no action but he would first propose to himselfe what Socrates or Plato what a wise man would do in that case and according to that he would proceed Of God himselfe it is safely resolved in the Schoole that he never did any thing in any part of time of which he had not an eternall pre-conception an eternall Idea in himselfe before Of which Ideaes that is pre-conceptions pre-determinations in God S. Augustine pronounces Tanta vis in Ideis constituitur There is so much truth August and so much power in these Ideaes as that without acknowledging them no man can acknowledge God for he does not allow God Counsaile and Wisdome and deliberation in his Actions but sets God on worke before he have thought what he will doe And therefore he and others of the Fathers read that place Ioh. 1.3 4. which we read otherwise Quod factum est in ipso vita erat that is in all their Expositions whatsoever is made in time was alive in God before it was made that is in that eternall Idea and patterne which was in him So also doe divers of those Fathers read those words to the Hebrews Heb. 11.3 which we read The things that are seene are not made of things that doe appeare Ex invisibilibus visibilia facta sunt Things formerly invisible were made visible that is we see them not till now till they are made but they had an invisible being in that Idea in that pre-notion in that purpose of God before for ever before Of all things in Heaven and earth but of himselfe God had an Idea a patterne in himselfe before he made it And therefore let him be our patterne for that to worke after patternes To propose to our selves Rules and Examples for all our actions and the more the more immediately the more directly our actions concerne the service of God If I aske God by what Idea he made me God produces his Faciamus hominem ad Imaginem nostram That there was a concurrence of the whole Trinity to make me in Adam according to that Image which they were and according to that Idea which they had pre-determined If I pretend to serve God and he aske me for my Idea How I meane to serve him shall I bee able to produce none If he aske me an Idea of my Religion and my opinions shall I not be able to say It is that which thy word and thy Catholique Church hath imprinted in me If he aske me an Idea of my prayers shall I not be able to say It is that which my particular necessities that which the forme prescribed by thy Son that which the care and piety of the Church in conceiving fit prayers hath imprinted in me If he aske me an Idea of my Sermons shall I not be able to say It is that which the Analogy of Faith the edification of the Congregation the zeale of thy worke the meditations of my heart have imprinted in me But if I come to pray or to preach without this kind of Idea if I come to extemporall prayer and extemporall preaching I shall come to an extemporall faith and extemporall religion and then I must looke for an extemporall Heaven a Heaven to be made for me for to that Heaven which belongs to the Catholique Church I shall never come except I go by the way of the Catholique Church by former Idea's former examples former
temporall blessings to men upon whom he hath not set his heart And then in the 27. Verse he sayes Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee If he had onely found it in the Liturgy and in the manner of the Service of that Church to which hee came with an ill will and against his heart he would not have prayed that prayer nay he would not have come to that Church Psal 35.11 40.10 For though David place a great joy in that That he can come to praise God in the Congregation and in the great Congregation And though David seeme even to determine Gods presence in the Church for he multiplies that expostulation that adprecation many times When shall I come in conspectum tuum into thy presence And Restore me O Lord conspectui tuo to thy presence Hee was not right not in the right way if he came not to Church yet there is a case in which David glories in though as hee saith there In corde meo abscondi eloquium tuum Psal 119.11 Thy word have I hidden locked up in my heart Though in another in many other places he rejoyce in that I have not hid thy righteousnesse in my heart Psal 40.10 I have not concealed thy truth from the great Congregation yet here he glories in his Abscondi I have hid it Which as both S. Hilary and S. Ambrose referre it to a discreet and seasonable suppressing of the mysteries of Religion and not to cast pearles before swine may also inferre this Instruction That a man were better serve God at home though not in so right a way if he thinke it right then to come hither against his heart and conscience Not but that there is better meanes of receiving good here then at home in private prayer though made the right way But his end in comming is not to make this meanes his way to that good And therefore his very being here though hee be thereby in the right way because it comes not from an upright heart as it is a greater danger to us who are deluded by their hypocriticall conformity so is it a greater sinne to them who come so against their conscience David prayes thus Psal 119.19 Incola sum ne abscondas I am a stranger hide not thy commandements from mee Let me not be a stranger at Church at thy Service And so it behooves us to pray too That those Doores and those Books may alwayes bee open unto us But yet I will say with David too Abscondam eloquium where I am a stranger and in a place of strange and superstitious worship I will hide my religion so farre as not to communicate with others in a service against my heart It is not safe for us to trust our selves at a superstitious Service though curiosity or company or dependency upon others draw us thither neither is it safe to trust all that come hither if their hearts be not here For the Retribution of our Text that is Thanks and Praise belongs onely to them who are Right and Right of heart and to them it is made due and infallible by this promise from God and made universall Omnes All the upright in heart shall glory How often God admits into his owne Name Omnes this addition of Universality Omne All as though he would be knowne by that especially He is Omnipotent There he can doe All He is Omniscient There he can know All Hee is Omnipresent There he can direct All. Neither doth God extend himselfe to all that he may gather from all but that he may gather all and all might meet in him and enjoy him So God is all Center as that hee looks to all and so all circumference as that hee embraces all The Sunne works upon things that he sees not as Mynes in the wombe of the earth and so works the lesse perfectly God sees all and works upon all and desires perfection in all There is no one word so often in the Bible as this Omne All. Neither hath God spread the word more liberally upon all the lines of this Booke then he hath his gracious purposes upon all the soules of men And therefore to withdraw Gods generall goodnesse out of his generall propositions That he would have all repent That he came to save all is to contract and abridge God himselfe in his most extensive Attribute or Denotation that is his Mercy And as there is a curse laid upon them that take away any part any proposition out of this Booke so may there be a curse or an ill affection and countenance and suspicion from God that presses any of his generall propositions to a narrower and lesse gracious sense then God meant in it It were as easily beleeved that God lookes towards no man as that there should be any man in whom he sees that is considers no sin that he lookes not towards I could as easily doubt of the universall providence of God as of the universall mercy of God if man continued not in rebellion and in opposition If I can say by way of confession and accusing my selfe Lord my wayes have not beene right nor my heart right there is yet mercy for mee But to them who have studied and accustomed themselves to this uprightnesse of heart there is mercy in that exaltation mercy in the nature of a Reward of a Retribution And this Retribution expressed here in this word Glory constitutes our second Part All the upright in heart shall Glory This Retribution is expressed in the Originall in the word Halal And Halal 2 Part. Laus to those Translators that made up our Booke of Common Prayer presented the signification of Gladnesse for so it is there They shall be glad So it did to the Translators that came after for there it is They shall rejoyce And to our last Translators it seemed to signifie Glory They shall Glory say they But the first Translation of all into our Language which was long before any of these three cals it Praise and puts it in the Passive All men of rightfull heart shall be praised He followed S. Hierom who reads it so and interprets it so in the Passive Laudabuntur They shall be praised And so truly Iithhalelu in the Original beares it nay requires it which is not of a praise that they shall give to God but of a praise that they shall receive for having served God with an upright heart not that they shall praise God in doing so but that godly men shall praise them for having done so All this will grow naturally out of the roote for the roote of this word is Lucere Splendere To shine out in the eyes of men and to create in them a holy and a reverentiall admiration as it was Iohn Baptists praise That he was A burning and a shining Lampe Properly it is by a good and a holy exemplary life to occasion others to set
against nature when something in the course of nature resists that worke then that worke is a miracle But in the Creation there was no reluctation no resistance no nature nothing to resist But to doe great works by small meanes to bring men to heaven by Preaching in the Church this is a miracle When Christ intended a miraculous feeding of a great multitude he askt Quot panes habetis Mark 6.38 First hee would know how many loaves they had and when hee found that they had some though they were but five he multiplied them to a sufficiency for five thousand persons This Psalme is one of my five loaves which I bring One of those five Psalms which by the Institution of our Ancestors in this Church are made mine appropriated especially to my daily meditation as there are five other Psalmes to every other person of our Church And by so poore meanes as this my speaking his Blessing upon his Ordinance may multiply to the advancement and furtherance of all your salvations He multiplies now farther then in those loaves not onely to feed you all as he did all that multitude but to feed you all three meales In this Psalme and especially in this Text God satisfies you with this threefold knowledge First what he hath done for man in the light and law of nature Then how much more he had done for his chosen people the Jewes in affording them a law And lastly what he had reserved for man after in the establishing of the Christian Church The first in this Metaphore and miracle of feeding works as a break-fast for though there bee not a full meale there is something to stay the stomach in the light of nature The second that which God did for the Jewes in their Law and Sacrifices and Types and Ceremonies is as that Dinner which was spoken of in the Gospel which was plentifully prepared but prepared for some certaine guests that were bidden and no more Better meanes then were in nature they had in the law but yet onely appropriated to them that were bidden to that Nation and no more But in the third meale Gods plentifull refection in the Christian Church and meanes of salvation there first Christ comes in the visitation of his Spirit Revel 3.20 Behold I come and knock and will sup with him Hee sups with us in the private visitation of his Spirit And then as it is added there hee invites us to sup with him hee calls us home to his house and there makes us partakers of his blessed Sacraments And by those meanes we are brought at last to that blessednesse Revel 19.9 which he proclaimes Blessed are all they which are called to the marriage Supper of the Lambe in the Kingdome of heaven For all these three meales wee say Grace in this Text By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation for all these wayes of comming to the knowledge and worship of God we blesse God in this Text Thou art the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea The consideration of the meanes of salvation afforded by God to the Jewes in their law inanimates the whole Psalme and is transfused thorow every part thereof and so it falls upon this Verse too as it doth upon all the rest And then for that that God had done before in nature and for all is in the later part of this Verse Who art the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea And lastly that that hee hath reserved for the Christian Church God hath centred and embowelled in the wombe and bosome of the Text in that compellation O God of our salvation for there the word salvation is rooted in Iashang which Iashang is the very Name of Iesus the foundation and the whole building of the Christian Church So then our three parts will bee these What God hath done in Nature what in the Law what in the Gospel And when in our Order wee shall come to that last part which is that that we drive all to The advantage which wee have in the Gospel above Nature and the Law wee shall then propose and stop upon the Holy Ghosts manner of expressing it in this place By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation But first look we a little into the other two Nature and Law First then 1 Part. Natura the last words settle us upon our first consideration What God hath done for man in Nature Hee is the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea that is of all the world all places all persons in the world All at all times every where have Declarations enow of his power Demonstrations enow of his Goodnesse to confide in him to rely upon him The Holy Ghost seemes to have delighted in the Metaphore of Building I know no figurative speech so often iterated in the Scriptures Phil. 3.20 Heb. 3.6 Psal 147.2 as the name of a House Heaven and Earth are called by that name and wee who being upon earth have our conversation in heaven are called so too Christ hath a House which House wee are And as God builds his House The Lord builds up lerusalem saith David so hee furnishes it he plants Vineyards Gardens and Orchards about it Ioh. 14.6 Matt. 7.13 Ioh. 10.7 He layes out a way to it Christ is the way He opens a gate into it Christ is the gate And when hee hath done all this built his house furnished it planted about it made it accessible and opened the gate then hee keepes house as well as builds a house he feeds us and feasts us in his house as well as he lodges us and places us in it And as Christ professes what his owne Diet was Ioh. 4.34 what he fed upon My meat is to doe the will of my Father so our meat is to know the will of the Father Every man even in nature hath that appetite that desire to know God And therefore if God have made any man and not given him meanes to know him Psal 145.15 he is but a good Builder he is no good House-keeper He gives him lodging but he gives him no meat But the eyes of all wait upon thee and thou givest them their meat in due season All not onely we wait upon God and he gives them Their meat though not our meat The Word and the Sacramenss yet Their meat such as they are able to digest and endue Even in nature He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea That is his daily bread which even the naturall man begs at Gods hand and God affords it him The most precious and costly dishes are alwaies reserved for the last services but yet
edification to consider in some particulars in the Christian Church And first consider we it in our manners and conversation Christ sayes In moribus Iohn 15.14 Mat. 22.12 Henceforth I call you not servants but friends But howsoever Christ called him friend that was come to the feast without the wedding garment he cast him out because he made no difference of that place from another First then remember by what terrible things God answers thee in the Christian Church when he comes to that round and peremptory issue Marke 16.16 Qui non credider it damnabitur He that beleeves not every Article of the Christian faith with so stedfast a belief as that he would dye for it Damnabitur no modification no mollification no going lesse He shal be damned Consider too the nature of ExcoÌmunication That it teares a man from the body of Christ Jesus That that man withers that is torne off and Christ himselfe is wounded in it Consider the insupportable penances that were laid upon sinners by those penitentiall Canons that went through the Church in those Primitive times when for many sins which we passe through now without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins men were not admitted to the Communion all their lives no nor easily upon their death-beds Consider how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of Predestination may bring thee to thinke that God is bound to thee and thou not bound to him That thou maiest renounce him and he must embrace thee and so make thee too familiar with God and too homely with Religion upon presumption of a Decree Consider that when thou preparest any uncleane action in any sinfull nakednesse God is not onely present with thee in that roome then but then tels thee That at the day of Judgement thou must stand in his presence and in the presence of all the World not onely naked but in that foule and sinfull and uncleane action of nakednesse which thou committedst then Consider all this and confesse that for matter of manners and conversation The God of thy Salvation answers thee by terrible things And so it is also if we consider Prayer in the Church God House is the house of Prayer In oratione It is his Court of Requests There he receives petitions there he gives Order upon them And you come to God in his House as though you came to keepe him company to sit downe and talke with him halfe an houre or you come as Ambassadors covered in his presence as though ye came from as great a Prince as he You meet below and there make your bargaines for biting for devouring Usury and then you come up hither to prayers and so make God your Broker You rob and spoile and eat his people as bread by Extortion and bribery and deceitfull waights and measures and deluding oathes in buying and selling and then come hither and so make God your Receiver and his house a den of Thieves His house is Sanctum Sanctorum The holiest of holies and you make it onely Sanctuarium It should be a place sanctified by your devotions and you make it onely a Sanctuary to priviledge Malefactors A place that may redeeme you from the ill opinion of men who must in charity be bound to thinke well of you because they see you here Offer this to one of your Princes as God argues in the Prophet and see if he will suffer his house to be prophaned by such uncivill abuses Psal 47.3 And Terribilis Rex The Lord most high is terrible and a great King over all the earth Psal 96.4 and Terribilis super omnes Deos More terrible then all other Gods Let thy Master be thy god or thy Mistresse thy god thy Belly be thy god or thy Back be thy god thy fields be thy god or thy chests be thy god Terribilis super omnes Deos The Lord is terrible above all gods Psal 95.3 Deut. 28.58 A great God and a great King above all gods You come and call upon him by his name here But MagnuÌ terribile Glorious and fearefull is the name of the Lord thy God And as if the Son of God were but the Son of some Lord that had beene your Schoole-fellow in your youth and so you continued a boldnesse to him ever after so because you have beene brought up with Christ from your cradle and catechized in his name Psal 111.4 his name becomes lesse reverend unto you And Sanctum terribile Holy and reverend Holy and terrible should his name be Consider the resolution that God hath taken upon the Hypocrite and his prayer What is the hope of the Hypocrite Iob 27.8 Hos 7.14 when God taketh away his soule Will God heare his cry They have not cryed unto me with their hearts when they have howled upon their beds Consider that error in the matter of our prayer frustrates the prayer and makes it ineffectuall Zebedees Sons would have beene placed at the right hand Mat. 20.21 and at the left hand of Christ and were not heard Error in the manner may frustrate our prayer and make it ineffectuall too Iam. 4.3 Ye ask and are not heard because ye ask amisse It is amisse if it be not referred to his will Luke 5.12 Iam. 1.6 Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean It is amisse if it be not asked in faith Let not him that wavereth thinke he shall receive any thing of the Lord. It is amisse if prayer be discontinued 1 Thes 5.17 Luke 22.44 Esay 1.15 intermitted done by fits Pray incessantly And it is so too if it be not vehement for Christ was in an Agony in his prayer and his sweat was as great drops of blood Of prayers without these conditions God sayes When you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes when you make many prayers I will not heare you Their prayer shall not only be ineffectuall Prov. 28.9 Psal 129.7 but even their prayer shall be an abomination And not only an abomination to God but destruction upon themselves for Their prayer shall be turned to sin And when they shall not be heard for themselves no body else shall be heard for them Though these three men Ezek. 14.14 Noah Iob Daniel stood for them they should not deliver theÌ Though the whole Congregation consisted of Saints they shall not be heard for him nay they shall be forbidden to pray for him forbidden to mentioÌ or mean him in their prayers as Ieremy was When God leaves you no way of reconciliation but prayer and then layes these heavy and terrible conditions upon prayer Confesse that though he be the God of your salvation and do answer you yet By terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you And consider this againe as in manners and in prayer so in his other Ordinance of Preaching Thinke with your selves what God lookes for from you In
all the glory ascribed And then that which fals within this commandement this Consideration is Opera ejus The works of God How terrible art thou in thy works It is not Decreta ejus Arcana ejus The secrets of his State the wayes of his government unrevealed Decrees but those things in which he hath manifested himselfe to man Opera his works Consider his works and consider them so as this commandement enjoynes that is How terrible God is in them Determine not your Consideration upon the worke it self for so you may think too lightly of it That it is but some naturall Accident or some imposture and false Miracle or illusion Or you may thinke of it with an amazement with a stupidity with a consternation when you consider not from whom the worke comes consider God in the worke And God so as that though he be terrible in that worke yet he is so terrible but so as the word of this Text expresses this terriblenesse which word is Norah and Norah is but Reverendus it is a terror of Reverence not a terror of Confusion that the Consideration of God in his works should possesse us withall And in those plaine and smooth paths wee shall walke through the first part The historicall part what God hath formerly done Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works from thence we descend to the other The Propheticall part what upon our performance of this duty God will surely do in our behalfe he will subdue those enemies which because they are ours are his In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Where we shall see first That even God himselfe hath enemies no man therefore can be free from them And then we shall see whom God cals enemies here Those who are enemies to his cause and to his friends All those if we will speake Davids language the Holy Ghosts language we must call Gods enemies And these enemies nothing can mollifie nothing can reduce but Power faire meanes and perswasion will not worke upon them Preaching Disputing will not doe it It must be Power and greatnesse of power and greatnesse of Gods Power The Law is Power and it is Gods Power All just Laws are from God One Act of this Power an occasionall executing of Laws at some few times against the enemies of Gods truth will not serve there must be a constant continuation of the execution thereof nor will that serve if that be done onely for worldly respects to raise money and not rather to draw them who are under those Laws to the right worship of God in the truth of his Religion And yet all that even all this This power this great power his power shall worke upon these his and our enemies is but this They shall submit themselves sayes the text but how Mentientur tibi as it is in the Originall and as you finde it in the Margin They shall dissemble they shall lie they shall yeeld a fained obedience they shall make as though they were good Subjects but not be so And yet even this Though their submission be but dissembled but counterfaited David puts amongst Gods blessings to a State and to a Church It is some blessing when Gods enemies dare not appeare and justifie themselves and their Cause as it is a heavy discouragement when they dare do that Though God doe not so far consummate their happinesse as that their enemies shall be truly reconciled or throughly rooted out yet he shall afford them so much happinesse as that they shall doe them no harme And Beloved this distribution of the text which I have given you is rather a Paraphrase then a Division and therefore the rest will rather be a Repetition then a Dilatation And I shall onely give some such note and marke upon every particular branch as may returne them and fix them in your memories and not enlarge my selfe far in any of them for I know the time will not admit it First then we remember you in the first branch of the first part that David 1 Part. Rex gubernat EcclesiaÌ in that Capacity as King institutes those Orders which the Church is to observe in the publique service of God For the King is King of men not of bodies onely but of soules too And of Christian men of us not onely as we worship one God but as we are to expresse that worship in the outward acts of Religion in the Church God hath called himselfe King and he hath called Kings Gods And when we looke upon the actions of Kings we determine not our selves in that person but in God working in that person As it is not I that doe any good 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God in me So it is not the King that commands but the power of God in the King For as in a Commission from the King the King himselfe workes in his Commissioners and their just Act is the Kings Act So in the Kings lawfull working upon his Subjects God works the Kings acts are Gods acts That abstinence therefore and that forbearance which the Roman Church hath used from declaring whether the Laws of secular Magistrates do bind the Conscience or no that is whether a man sin in breaking a Temporall Law or no for though it have beene disputed in their books and though the Bishop of that Church were supplicated in the Trent Councell to declare it yet he would never be brought to it that abstinence I say of theirs though it give them one great advantage yet it gives us another For by keeping it still undetermined and undecided how far the Laws of temporall Princes doe binde us they keepe up that power which is so profitable to them that is To divide Kings and Subjects and maintaine jealousies betweene them because if the breach of any Law constitute a sin then enters the jurisdiction of Rome for that is the ground of their indirect power over Princes In ordine ad spiritualia that in any action which may conduce to sin they may meddle and direct and constraine temporall Princes That is their advantage in their forbearing to declare this doctrine And then our advantage is That this enervates and weakens nay destroyes and annibilates that ordinary argument That there must be alwayes a Visible Church in which every man may have cleare resolution and infallible satisfaction in all scruples that arise in him and that the Roman Church is that Seat and Throne of Infallibility For how does the Roman Church give any man infallible satisfaction whether these or these things grounded upon the temporall Laws of secular Princes be sins or no when as that Church hath not nor will not come to a determination in that point How shall they come to the Sacrament how shall they go out of the world with a cleare conscience when many things lye upon them which they know not nor can be informed
it and so our former Translation had it I tooke my solace in the compasse of the Earth But since Christs adversary Satan does so too Job 1.7 Satan came from compassing the Earth to and fro and from walking in it since the Scribes and Pharisees doe more then so They compasse Land and Sea to make one of their own profession the mercy of Christ is not lesse active not lesse industrious then the malice of his adversaries He preaches in populous Cities he preaches in the desart wildernesse he preaches in the tempestuous Sea and as his Power shall collect the severall dusts and atomes and Elements of our scattered bodies at the Resurrection as materialls members of his Triumphant Church so he collects the materialls the living stone and timber for his Militant Church from all places from Cities from Desarts and here in this Text from the Sea Iesus walking by the Sea c. In these words we shall onely pursue a twofold consideration of the persons whom Christ called here to his Apostleship Divisio Peter and Andrew What their present what their future function was what they were what they were to be They were fishermen they were to be fishers of men But from these two considerations of these persons arise many Circumstances in and about their calling and their preferment for their chearfull following For first in the first we shall survay the place The Sea of Galile And their education and conversation upon that Sea by which they were naturally lesse fit for this Church-service At this Sea he found them casting their Nets of which act of theirs there is an emphaticall reason expressed in the text For they were fishers which intimates both these notes That they did it because they were fishers It became them it behoved them it concerned them to follow their trade And then they did it as they were fishers If they had not been fishers they would not have done it they might not have usurped upon anothers Calling They cast their Nets into the Sea for they were fishers And then in a nearer consideration of these persons we finde that they were two that were called Christ provided at first against singularity He called not one alone And then they were two Brethren persons likely to agree He provided at first against schisme And then they were two such as were nothing of kinne to him whereas the second payre of brethren whom he called Iames and Iohn were his kinsmen He provided at first against partiality and that kinde of Simony which prefers for affection These men thus conditioned naturally thus disposed at this place and at this time our blessed Saviour calls And then we note their readinesse they obeyed the call they did all they were bid They were bid follow and they followed and followed presently And they did somewhat more then seemes expresly to have been required for They left their Nets and followed him And all these substantiall circumstances invest our first part these persons in their first estate For those that belong to the second part Their preferment upon this obedience Follow me and I will make you fishers of men it would be an impertinent thing to open them now because I doe easily foresee that this day we shall not come to that part In our first part Andreas The consideration of these persons then though in this Text Peter be first named yet we are to note that this was not the first time of their meeting when Christ and they met first which was when Iohn Baptist made that declaration upon Christs walking by him Joh. 1.35 Behold the Lamb of God Peter was not the first that applied himselfe to Christ nor that was invited by Christs presenting himselfe to him to doe it Peter was not there Peter was not the second for Andrew and another who were then Iohn Baptists Disciples and saw Christ declared by him were presently affected with a desire to follow Christ and to converse with him and to that purpose presse him with that question Magister ubi habitas They professe that they had chosen him for their Master and they desire to know where he dwelt that they might waite upon him and receive their instructions from him And in Andrews thus early applying himselfe to Christ we are also to note both the fecundity of true Religion for as soone as he had found Christ he sought his brother Peter Et duxit ad Iesum he made his brother as happy as himselfe he led him to Jesus And that other Disciple which came to Christ as soone as Andrew did yet because he is not noted to have brought any others but himselfe is not named in the Gospel And we are to observe also the unsearchable wisdome of God in his proceedings that he would have Peter whom he had purposed to be his principall Apostle to be led to him by another of inferior dignity in his determination And therefore Conversus converte Thinke not thy selfe well enough preached unto except thou finde a desire that thy life and conversation may preach to others And Edoctus disce thinke not that thou knowest any thing except thou desire to learne more neither grudge to learne of him whom thou thinkest lesse learned then thy selfe The blessing is in Gods Calling and Ordinance not in the good parts of the man Andrew drew Peter The lesser in Gods purpose for the building of the Church brought in the greater Therefore doth the Church celebrate the memory of S. Andrew first of any Saint in the yeare and after they have been altogether united in that one festivall of All-Saints S. Andrew is the first that hath a particular day Bernar. He was Primogenitus Testamenti novi The first Christian the first begotten of the new Testament for Iohn Baptist who may seeme to have the birthright before him had his conception in the old Testament in the wombe of those prophecies of Malachy Mal. 3.1 Esa 40.3 and of Esay of his comming and of his office and so cannot be so intirely referred to the new Testament as S. Andrew is Because therefore our adversaries of the Romane heresie distill and racke every passage of Scripture that may drop any thing for the advantage of S. Peter and the allmightines of his Successor I refuse not the occasion offered from this text compared with that other Ioh. 1. to say That if that first comming to Christ were but as they use to say Ad notitiam familiaritatem and this in our Text Ad Apostolatum That they that came there came but to an acquaintance and conversation with Christ but here in this text to the Apostleship yet to that conversation which was no small happinesse Andrew came clearly before Peter and to this Apostleship here Peter did not come before Andrew they came together These two then our Saviour found Mare Galilaeum as he walked by the Sea of Galile No solitude no tempest no bleaknesse
they had cast their nets often and caught nothing nor because it was uncertaine how the Market would goe when they had catched A man must not be an ill Prophet upon his own labours nor bewitch them with a suspition that they will not prosper It is the slothfull man that sayes A Lion in the way A Lion in the street Cast thou thy net into the Sea Prov. 26.13 and God shall drive fish into thy net undertake a lawfull Calling and clogge not thy calling with murmuring nor with an ill conscience and God shall give thee increase and worship in it They cast their nets into the Sea for they were fishers it was their Calling and they were bound to labour in that And then this For hath another aspect lookes another way too 2. Quia piscatores and implies another Instruction They cast their nets into the Sea for they were fishers that is if they had not beene fishers they would not have done it Intrusion into other mens callings is an unjust usurpation and if it take away their profit it is a theft If it be but a censuring of them in their calling yet it is a calumny because it is not in the right way if it be extrajudiciall To lay an aspersion upon any man who is not under our charge though that which we say of him be true yet it is a calumny and a degree of libelling if it be not done judiciarily and where it may receive redresse and remedy And yet how forward are men that are not fishers in that Sea to censure State Councels and Judiciary proceedings Every man is an Absolom to say to every man Your cause is good 2 Sam. 15.3 but the King hath appointed none to heare it Money brings them in favour brings them in it is not the King or if it must be said to be the King yet it is the affection of the King and not his judgement the King misled not rightly informed say our seditious Absoloms and Ver. 4. Oh that I were made Iudge in the land that every man might come unto me and I would doe him justice is the charme that Absolom hath taught every man They cast their nets into a deeper Sea then this and where they are much lesse fishers into the secret Councels of God It is well provided by your Lawes that Divines and Ecclesiasticall persons may not take farmes nor buy nor sell for returne in Markets I would it were as well provided that buyers and sellers and farmers might not be Divines nor censure them I speake not of censuring our lives please your selves with that till God bee pleased to mend us by that thought that way of whispering calumny be not the right way to that amendment But I speak of censuring our Doctrines and of appointing our doctrines when men are weary of hearing any other thing then Election and Reprobation and whom and when and how and why God hath chosen or cast away We have liberty enough by your Law to hold enough for the maintenance of our bodies and states you have liberty enough by our Law to know enough for the salvation of your soules If you will search farther into Gods eternall Decrees and unrevealed Councels you should not cast your nets into that Sea for you are not fishers there Andrew and Peter cast their nets for they were fishers therefore they were bound to do it And againe for they were fishers if they had not been so they would not have done so These persons then thus disposed Duo simul unfit of themselves made fit by him and found by him at their labour labour in a lawfull Calling and in their owne Calling our Saviour Christ cals to him And he called them by couples by paires two together So he called his Creatures into the world at the first Creation by paires So he called them into the Arke for the reparation of the world by paires two and two God loves not singularity The very name of Church implies company It is Concio Congregatio Coetus It is a Congregation a Meeting an assembly It is not any one man neither can the Church be preserved in one man And therefore it hath beene dangerously said though they confesse it to have beene said by many of their greatest Divines in the Roman Church that during the time that our blessed Saviour lay dead in the grave there was no faith left upon the earth but onely in the Virgin Mary for then there was no Church God hath manifested his will in two Testaments and though he have abridged and contracted the doctrine of both in a narrow roome yet he hath digested it into two Commandements Love God love thy neighbour There is but one Church that is true but one but that one Church cannot be in any one man There is but one Baptisme that is also true but one But no man can Baptize himselfe there must be Sacerdos competens as our old Canons speake a person to receive and a Priest to give Baptisme There is but one faith in the remission of sins that is true too but one But no man can absolve himselfe There must be a Priest and a penitent God cals no man so but that he cals him to the knowledge that he hath called more then him to that Church or else it is an illusory and imaginary calling and a dreame Take heed therefore of being seduced to that Church that is in one man In scrinio pectoris where all infallibility and assured resolution is in the breast of one man who as their owne Authors say is not bound to aske the counsell of others before nor to follow their counsell after And since the Church cannot be in one in an unity take heed of bringing it too neare that unity to a paucity to a few to a separation to a Conventicle The Church loves the name of Catholique and it is a glorious and an harmonious name Love thou those things wherein she is Catholique and wherein she is harmonious that is Lyrinen Quod ubique quod semper Those universall and fundamentall doctrines which in all Christian ages and in all Christian Churches have beene agreed by all to be necessary to salvation and then thou art a true Catholique Otherwise that is without relation to this Catholique and universall doctrine to call a particular Church Catholique that she should be Catholique that is universall in dominion but not in doctrine is such a solecisme as to speak of a white blacknesse or a great littlenesse A particular Church to be universall implies such a contradiction Christ loves not singularity Duo fratres he called not one alone He loves not schisme neither between them whom he cals therefore he cals persons likely to agree two brethren He saw two brethren Peter and Andrew c. So he began to build the Synagogues to establish that first government in Moses and Aaron brethren So he begins to
and yet on Sundayes when they come to Church and appeare in company will mend both their faces as well as their clothes Not solitude but company is the scene of pride And therefore I know not what to call that practise of the Nunnes in Spaine who though they never see man yet will paint So early so primary a sin is Pride as that it grew instantly from her Gen. 2.18 whom God intended for a Helper because he saw that it was not good for man to be alone God sees that it is not good for man to be without health without wealth without power and jurisdiction and magistracy and we grow proud of our helpers proud of our health and strength proud of our wealth and riches proud of our office and authority over others So early so primary a sin is pride as that out of every mercy and blessing which God affords us and His mercies are new every morning we gather Pride wee are not the more thankfull for them and yet we are the prouder of them Nay we gather Pride not onely out of those things which mend and improve us Gods blessings and mercies but out of those actions of our own that destroy and ruine us we gather pride sins overthrow us demolish us destroy and ruine us and yet we are proud of our sinnes How many men have we heard boast of their sinnes and as S. Augustine confesses of himselfe belie themselves and boast of more sinnes then ever they committed Out of every thing out of nothing sin grows Therefore was this commandment in our text Sequere Follow come after well placed first for we are come to see even children strive for place and precedency and mothers are ready to goe to the Heralds to know how Cradles shall be ranked which Cradle shall have the highest place Nay even in the wombe Gen. 25.26 there was contention for precedency Iacob tooke hold of his brother Esaus heele and would have been borne before him And as our pride begins in our Cradle Superbia in monumentis it continues in our graves and Monuments It was a good while in the primitive Church before any were buried in the Church The best contented themselves with the Churchyards After a holy ambition may we call it so a holy Pride brought them ad Limina to the Church-threshold to the Church-doore because some great Martyrs were buried in the Porches and devout men desired to lie neare them 1 King 13.31 as one Prophet did to lie neare another Lay my bones besides his bones But now persons whom the Devill kept from Church all their lives Separatists Libertines that never came to any Church And persons whom the Devill brought to Church all their lives for such as come meerly out of the obligation of the Law and to redeem that vexation or out of custome or company or curiosity or a perverse and sinister affection to the particular Preacher though they come to Gods house come upon the Devils invitation Such as one Devill that is worldly respect brought to Church in their lives another Devill that is Pride and vain-glory brings to Church after their deaths in an affectation of high places and sumptuous Monuments in the Church And such as have given nothing at all to any pious uses or have determined their almes and their dole which they have given in that one day of their funerall and no farther have given large annuities perpetuities for new painting their tombes and for new flags and scutcheons every certaine number of yeares O the earlinesse O the latenesse how early a Spring and no Autumne how fast a growth and no declination of this branch of this sin Pride against which this first word of ours Sequere Follow come after is opposed this love of place and precedency it rocks us in our Cradles it lies down with us in our graves There are diseases proper to certaine things Rots to sheepe Murrain to cattell There are diseases proper to certaine places as the Sweat was to us There are diseases proper to certaine times as the plague is in divers parts of the Eastern Countryes where they know assuredly when it will begin and end But for this infectious disease of precedency and love of place it is run over all places as well Cloysters as Courts And over all men as well spirituall as temporall And over all times as well the Apostles as ours The Apostles disputed often who should be greatest Maâ 19.28 and it was not enough to them that Christ assured them that they should sit upon the twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes Matt. 19.28 it was not enough for the sonnes of Zebedee to be put into that Commission but their friends must solicite the office to place them high in that Commission their Mother must move that one may sit at Christs right hand and the other at his left in the execution of that Commission Because this sin of pride is so early and primary a sin is this Commandment of Humility first enjoyned and because this sin appeares most generally in this love of place and precedency the Commandment is expressed in that word Sequere Follow Come after But then even this Humility is limited for it is Sequere me follow me which was proposed for our second Consideration Sequere me There may be a pride in Humility Sequere me and an over-weaning of our selves in attributing too much to our owne judgement in following some leaders for so we may be so humble as to goe after some man and yet so proud as to goe before the Church because that man may be a Schismatike Therefore Christ proposes a safe guide himself Sequere me follow me It is a dangerous thing when Christ sayes Vade post me Get thee behind me for that is accompanied with a shrewd name of increpation Satan Get thee behind me Satan Christ speaks it but twice in the Gospell once to Peter who because he then did the part of an Adversary Christ calls Satan and once to Satan himselfe Matt. 16 23. Matt. 4.10 because he pursued his tentations upon him for there is a going behind Christ which is a casting out of his presence without any future following and that is a fearefull station a fearefull retrogradation But when Christs sayes not Vade retro Get thee behind me see my face no more but Sequere me follow me he meanes to look back upon us Luk. 22.63 so the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter wept bitterly and all was well when hee bids us follow him he directs us in a good way and by a good guide The Carthusian Friers thought they descended into as low pastures as they could goe when they renounced all flesh and bound themselves to feed on fish onely and yet another Order followes them in their superstitious singularity and goes beyond them Foliantes the Fueillans they eat neither flesh nor fish nothing but leafes and rootes
hath suffered more then himselfe needed That is a poore treasure which they boast of in the Romane Church that they have in their Exchequer all the works of supererogation of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church that suffered so much more then was necessary for their owne salvation and those superabundant crosses and merits they can apply to me If the treasure of the blood of Christ Jesus be not sufficient Lord what addition can I find to match them to piece out them And if it be sufficient of it selfe what addition need I seek Other mens crosses are not mine other mens merits cannot save me Nor is any crosse mine owne which is not mine by a good title If I be not Possessor bonae fidei If I came not well by that crosse 1 Cor. 4.7 And Quid habeo quod non accepi is a question that reaches even to my crosses what have I that I have not received not a crosse And from whose hands can I receive any good thing but from the hands of God So that that onely is my crosse which the hand of God hath laid upon me Alas that crosse of present bodily weaknesse which the former wantonnesses of my youth have brought upon me is not my crosse That crosse of poverty which the wastfulnesse of youth hath brought upon me is not my crosse for these weaknesse upon wantonnesse want upon wastfulnesse are Natures crosses not Gods and they would fall naturally though there were which is an impossible supposition no God Except God therefore take these crosses in the way as they fall into his hands and sanctifie them so and then lay them upon me they are not my crosses but if God doe this they are And then this crosse thus prepared I must take up Tollat Forraine crosses other mens merits are not mine spontaneous and voluntary crosses Tollat contracted by mine owne sins are not mine neither are devious and remote and unnecessary crosses my crosses Since I am bound to take up my crosse there must be a crosse that is mine to take up that is a crosse prepared for me by God and laid in my way which is tentations or tribulations in my calling and I must not go out of my way to seeke a crosse for so it is not mine nor laid for my taking up I am not bound to hunt after a persecution nor to stand it and not flye nor to affront a plague and not remove nor to open my selfe to an injury and not defend I am not bound to starve my selfe by inordinate fasting nor to teare my flesh by inhumane whippings and flagellations I am bound to take up my Crosse and that is onely mine which the hand of God hath laid for me that is in the way of my Calling tentations and tribulations incident to that If it be mine that is laid for me by the hand of God and taken up by me that is Sequatur me voluntarily embraced then Sequatur sayes Christ I am bound to follow him with that crosse that is to carry my crosse to his crosse And if at any time I faint under this crosse in the way let this comfort me that even Christ himselfe was eased by Simon of Cyrene in the carrying of his Crosse and in all such cases Mat. 27.32 I must flye to the assistance of the prayers of the Church and of good men that God since it is his burden will make it lighter since it is his yoake easier and since it is his Crosse more supportable and give me the issue with the tentation When all is done with this crosse thus laid for me and taken up by me I must follow Christ Christ to his end his end is his Crosse that is I must bring my crosse to his lay downe my crosse at the foote of his Confesse that there is no dignity no merit in mine but as it receives an impression a sanctification from his For if I could dye a thousand times for Christ this were nothing if Christ had not dyed for me before And this is truly to follow Christ both in the way and to the end as well in doctrinall things as in practicall And this is all that lay upon these two Peter and Andrew Follow me Remaines yet to be considered what they shall get by this which is our last Consideration They shall be fishers and what shall they catch men They shall be fishers of men Piscatores hominum And then for that the world must be their Sea and their net must be the Gospel And here in so vast a sea and with so small a net there was no great appearance of much gaine And in this function whatsoever they should catch they should catch little for themselves The Apostleship as it was the fruitfullest so it was the barrennest vocation They were to catch all the world there is their fecundity but the Apostles were to have no Successors as Apostles there is their barrennesse The Apostleship was not intended for a function to raise houses and families The function ended in their persons after the first there were no more Apostles And therefore it is an usurpation an imposture an illusion it is a forgery when the Bishop of Rome will proceed by Apostolicall authority and with Apostolicall dignity and Apostolicall jurisdiction If he be S. Peters Successor in the Bishopricke of Rome he may proceed with Episcopall authority in his Dioces If he be for though we doe not deny that S. Peter was at Rome and Bishop of Rome though we receive it with an historicall faith induced by the consent of Ancient writers yet when they will constitute matter of faith out of matter of fact and because S. Peter was de facto Bishop of Rome therefore we must beleeve as an Article of faith such an infallibility in that Church as that no Successor of S. Peters can ever erre when they stretch it to matter of faith then for matter of faith we require Scriptures and then we are confident and justly confident that though historically we do beleeve it yet out of Scriptures which is a necessary proofe in Articles of faith they can never prove that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome or ever at Rome So then if the present Bishop of Rome be S. Peters Successor as Bishop of Rome he hath Episcopall jurisdiction there but he is not S. Peters Successor in his Apostleship and onely that Apostleship was a jurisdiction over all the world But the Apostleship was an extraordinary office instituted by Christ for a certaine time and to certaine purposes and not to continue in ordinary use As also the office of the Prophet was in the Old Testament an extraordinary Office and was not transferred then nor does not remaine now in the ordinary office of the Minister And therefore they argue impertinently and collect and infer sometimes seditiously that say The Prophet proceeded thus and thus therefore the Minister may and must proceed so too The Prophets
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
which is a Crowne of gold without any intimation of any such lesser crownes growing out of themselves This then is their new Alchymy that whereas old Alchymists pretend to make gold of courser Metals these will make it of Nothing Out of a supposititious word which is not in the Text they have hammered and beat out these Aureolas these lesser crownes And these Aureolaes they ascribe onely to three sorts of persons to Virgins to Martyrs to Doctors Are then all the other Saints without Crowns They must make shift with that beame which they have from the Crowne of Christ for for these additionall crownes proceeding from themselves they have none And yet say they there are Saints which have some additions growing out of themselves though not Aureolas little crownes and those they call Fructus peculiar fruits growing out of themselves And for these fruits they distraine upon that place of Matthew where Christ saith Matt. 13.6 That some brought forth fruit a hundred fold some sixty and some thirty And the greater measure they ascribe to Virgins the sixty to Widowes and the thirty to Maried persons but onely such maried persons as have lived continently in mariage So then to make this Riddle of theirs as plaine as the matter will admit They place salvation it selfe Blessednesse it selfe if a man will be content with that in that union with God which is common to all the Saints But then they conceive certaine Dotes as they call them certaine dispositions in this life by which some have made themselves fitter to be united to God in a nearer distance then an ordinary Saint And these Dotes these endowments and dispositions here produce those Aureolas and those Fructus those lesser crownes and those measures of fruits which are a particular Joy not that they are united to God for so every Saint is but that they had those Dotes those dispositions to take that particular way of being united to God The way of Virginity the way of Martydome and the way of Preaching for by this they become Sancti Majores as they call them Saints in favor Saints in office and fitter to receive our petitions and mediate between God and us then those whom they call Mediocres and Inferiores Saints of a middle forme or of an inferiour ranke Yet these are so farre provided for by them too that wee must pray also to these Inferiour Saints either because I may have had a more particular interest in this life in that Saint then in a greater and so the readinesse and the assiduity of that Saint may recompence his want of power Or else Ad tollendum fastidium lest a great Saint should grow weary of me if I trouble him every day and for every trifle in heaven And some other such reasons it pleases them to assigne why though some Saints have more power with God then others yet we are bound to pray to all And thus they play with Divinity as though after they had troubled all States with politicall Divinity with their Bulls and Breves of Rebus sic stantibus That as long as things stood thus this should be Catholique Doctrine and otherwise when otherwise And in this politicall Divinity Machiavel is their Pope And after they had perplexed understandings with Philosophicall Divinity in the Schoole and in that Divinity Aristotle is their Pope They thought themselves in courtesie or conscience bound to recreate the world with Poeticall Divinity with such a Heaven and such a Hell as would stand in their Verses and in this Divinity Virgill is their Pope And so as Melancthon said when he furthered the Edition of the Alcoran that hee would have it printed Vt videamus quale poema sit That the world might see what a piece of Poetry the Alcoran was So I have stopped upon this point that you might see what a piece of Poetry they have made of this Problematicall point of Divinity The disparity and degrees of Glory in the Saints in Heaven Be this then thus settled Non liquet ex Scripturis In the matter The difference of degrees of Glory we will not differ In the manner we would not differ so as to induce a Schisme if they would handle such points Problematically and no farther But when upon matter of fact they will induce matter of faith when they will extend Problematicall Divinity to Dogmaticall when they will argue and conclude thus It may be thus therefore it must be thus A man may be saved though he beleeve this therefore he cannot be saved except hee beleeve this when in this point in hand out of our acknowledgement of these degrees of Glory in the Saints they will establish the Doctrine of Merits and of Invocation of Saints then wee must necessarily call them to the Rule of all Doctrines the Scriptures When they tell us Historically and upon a Historicall Obligation and for a Historicall certitude that Peter was at Rome and that hee was Bishop of Rome we are not so froward as to deny them that But when upon his Historicall and personall being at Rome they will build that mother Article of an universall Supremacy over all the Church then we must necessarily call them to the Rule to the Scriptures and to require them to prove both his being there and his being Bishop there by the Scriptures and either of these would trouble them As it would trouble them in our present case to assigne evident places of Scripture for these degrees of Glory in the Saints of Heaven For though we be far from denying the Consentaneum est That it is reasonable it should be and likely it is so and farre from denying the Piè creditur That it may advance Devotion and exalt Industry to beleeve that it is so Though we acknowledge a possibility a probability a very similitude a very truth and thus farre a necessary truth that our endevours may flagge and slacken except we doe embrace that helpe that there are degrees of Glory in Heaven yet if wee shall presse for places of Scriptures so evident as must constitute an Article of faith there are perchance none to be found to which very learned and very reverend Expositors have not given convenient Interpretations without inducing any such necessity At least Minus ex hee Taxtu however other places of Scripture may seeme to contribute more this proposition of our text In my Fathers house are many mansions though it have beene applyed to the proofe of that hath no inclination no inclinablenesse that way For in this text our Saviour applies himselfe to his Disciples in that wherein they needed comfort That Christ would go away That they might not goe too That Peter had got a Non-obstante He might and they might not and Christ gives them that comfort that all might In my Fathers house are many mansions 1 Tim. 3.16 When the Apostle presents a great part of our Christian Religion together so as that he cals
may hope for at Gods hand or pray for from him there is a knowledge imprinted in mans heart too for the Lords Prayer is an abridgement of all those and exemplifie also this in that Petition of the Lords Prayer which may seeme most removed from naturall reason That we must forgive those who have trespassed against us yet even in that every naturall man may see That there is no reason for him to looke for forgivenesse from God who can and may justly come to an immediate execution of us as soone as we have offended him if we will not forgive another man whom we cannot execute our selves but must implore the Law and the Magistrate to revenge our quarrell As it is in Agendis in all things which wee are bound to doe As it is in Petendis in all things which we may pray for so it is in Credendis all things that all men are bound to beleeve all men have meanes to know This then that God hath established meanes of salvation being Inter credenda one of those things which he is bound to beleeve for hee that beleeveth not this shall be damned Man hath thus much evidence of this in nature that by naturall reason we know that that God which must be worshipped hath surely declared how he will be worshipped and so we are led to seeke his revealed and manifested will and that is no where to bee found but in his Scriptures So that when all is done the Ten Commandements which is the sum of all that we are to doe The Lords Prayer which is the summe of all that we are to ask and the Apostles Creed which is the summe of all that wee are to beleeve are but declaratory not introductory things The same things are first written in mans heart though dimly and sub-obscurely and then the same things are extended shed in a brighter beame in every leafe of the Scripture And the same things are recollected againe into the Ten Commandements into the Lords Prayer and into the Apostles Creed that we might see them al together and so take better view and hold of them The knowledge which wee have in nature is the substance of all as all matter Heaven and earth were created at once in the beginning and then the further knowledge which we have in Scripture is as that light which God created after for as by that light men distinguished particular creatures so by this light of the Scripture wee discerne our particular duties And after this as in the Creation all the light was gathered into the body of the Sunne when that was made so all that is written in our hearts radically and diffused in the Scriptures more extensively is reamassed and reduced to the Ten Commandements the Lords Prayer and to the Creed The heart of man is hortus it is a garden a Paradise where all that is wholsome Cant. 4.12 and all that is delightfull growes but it is hortus conclusus a garden that we our selves have walled in It is fons a fountaine where all knowledge springs but fons signatus a fountaine that our corruption hath sealed up The heart is a booke legible enough and intelligible in it selfe but we have so interlined that booke with impertinent knowledge and so clasped up that booke for feare of reading our owne history our owne sins as that we are the greatest strangers and the least conversant with the examination of our owne hearts There is then Myrrhe in this garden but wee cannot smell it and therefore All thy garments smell of Myrrhe Psal 45.8 saith David that is Gods garments those Scriptures in which God hath apparelled and exhibited his will they breathe the Balme of the East the savour of life more discernably unto us But after that too there is fasciculus Myrrhae Cant. 1.13 a bundle of Myrrhe together fasciculus Agendorum a whole bundle of those things which we are bound to doe in the Ten Commandements fasciculus Petendorum a whole bundle of those things which wee are bound to pray for in the Lords Prayer and fasciculus Credendorum a whole bundle of those things which we are bound to beleeve in the Apostles Creed And in that last bundle of Myrrhe in that Creed is this particular Vt credamus hoc That wee beleeve this this that God hath established meanes of salvation here and He that beleeveth not this that such a Commission there is shall be damned In that bundle of Myrrhe then Vbi where lies this that must necessarily bee beleeved This Commission In that Article of that Creed Credo Ecclesiam Catholicam I beleeve the holy Catholique Church For till I come to that graine of Myrrhe to beleeve the Catholique Church I have not the savour of life Let me take in the first graine of this bundle of Myrrhe the first Article Credo in Deum Patrem I beleeve in God the Father by that I have a being I am a creature but so is a contemptible worme and so is a venemous spider as well as I so is a stinking weed and so is a stinging nettle as well as I so is the earth it selfe that we tread under our feet and so is the ambitious spirit which would have been as high as God and is lower then the lowest the devill himself is a creature as well as I I am but that by the first Artiele but a creature and I were better if I were not that if I were no creature considering how I have used my creation if there were no more Myrrhe in this bundle then that first graine no more to be got by beleeving but that I were a creature But take a great deale of this Myrrhe together consider more Articles That Christ is conceived and borne and crucified and dead and buried and risen and ascended there is some savour in this But yet if when we shall come to Iudgement I must carry into his presence a menstruous conscience and an ugly face in which his Image by which he should know me is utterly defaced all this Myrrhe of his Merits and his Mercies is but a savour of death unto death unto me since I that knew the horror of my owne guiltinesse must know too that whatsoever he be to others he is a just Judge and therefore a condemning Judge to me If I get farther then this in the Creed to the Credo in Spiritum Sanctum I beleeve in the Holy Ghost where shall I finde the Holy Ghost I lock my doore to my selfe and I throw my selfe downe in the presence of my God I devest my selfe of all worldly thoughts and I bend all my powers and faculties upon God as I think and suddenly I finde my selfe scattered melted fallen into vaine thoughts into no thoughts I am upon my knees and I talke and think nothing I deprehend my selfe in it and I goe about to mend it I gather new forces new purposes to try againe and doe better and I doe the
thunder a fearefull apprehension of Gods Judgements upon you And when you have had your contrition too that you have purged your soule in an humble confession and have let your soule blood with a true and sharpe remorse and compunction for all sinnes past and put that bleeding soule into a bath of repentant teares and into a bath of blood the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament and feele it faint and languish there and receive no assurance of remission of sinnes so as that it can levy no fine that can conclude God but still are afraid that God will still incumber you with yesterdayes sinnes againe to morrow If this be their way they doe not preach the Gospell because they doe not preach all the Gospell for the Gospell is repentance and remission of sinnes that is the necessity of repentance and then the assurednesse of remission goe together Thus farre then the Crediderit is carried Baptizate wee must beleeve that there is a way upon earth to salvation and that Preaching is that way that is the manner and the matter is the Gospell onely the Gospell and all the Gospell and then the seale is the administration of the Sacraments as we said at first of both Sacraments of the Sacrament of Baptisme there can be no question for that is literally and directly within the Commission Goe and Baptize and then Qui non crediderit Hee that beleeves not not onely he that beleeves not when it is done but he that beleeves not that this ought to be done shall bee damned wee doe not joyne Baptisme to faith tanquam dimidiam solatii causam as though Baptisme were equall to faith in the matter of salvation for salvation may bee had in divers cases by faith without Baptisme but in no case by Baptisme without faith neither doe wee say that in this Commission to the Apostles the administration of Baptisme is of equall obligation upon the Minister as preaching that he may be as well excusable if hee never preach as if hee never Baptize Wee know S. Peter commanded Cornelius and his family to be Baptized Acts 10. ult wee doe not know if hee Baptized any of them with his owne hand So S. Paul sayes of himselfe that Baptizing was not his principall function 1 Cor. 1.17 Christ sent not me to Baptize but to preach the Gospell saith he In such a sense as God said by Ieremy Jer. 7.22 I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them concerning burnt offerings but I said obey my voyce so S. Paul saith hee was not sent to Baptize God commanded our fathers obedience rather then sacrifice but yet sacrifice too and hee commands us preaching rather then Baptizing but yet Baptizing too For as that is true Hiero. In adultis in persons which are come to yeares of discretion which S. Hierome sayes Fieri non potest It is impossible to receive the Sacrament of Baptisme except the soule have received Sacramentum fidei the Sacrament of faith that is the Word preached except he have been instructed and chatechized before so there is a necessity of Baptisme after for any other ordinary meanes of salvation that God hath manifested to his Church and therefore Quos Deus conjunxit those things which God hath joyned in this Commission Ioh. 3.5 let no man separate Except a man bee borne againe of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Let no man reade that place disjunctively Of Water or the Spirit for there must bee both S. Peter himselfe knew not how to separate them Acts 2. Repent and bee baptized every one of you saith he for for any one that might have beene and was not Baptized S. Peter had not that seale to plead for his salvation The Sacrament of Baptisme then Eucharistia is within this Crediderit it must necessarily be beleeved to be necessary for salvation But is the other Sacrament of the Lords Supper so too Is that within this Commission Certainly it is or at least within the equity if not within the letter pregnantly implyed if not literally expressed For thus it stands they are commanded Matt. 28. ult 1 Cor. 11.23 To teach all things that Christ had commanded them And then S. Paul sayes I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you That the Lord Iesus tooke bread c. and so hee proceeds with the Institution of the Sacrament and then he addes that Christ said Doe this in remembrance of mee which is not onely remember me when you doe it but doe it that you may remember me As well the receiving of the Sacrament as the worthy receiving of it is upon commandment In the Primitive Church there was an erronious opinion of such an absolute necessity in taking this Sacrament as that they gave it to persons when they were dead a custome which was growne so common as that it needed a Canon of a Councell Carthag 3. c. 6. to restraine it But the giving of this Sacrament to children newly baptized was so generall even in pure times as that we see so great men as Cyprian and Augustine scarce lesse then vehement for the use of it Musculus and some learned men in the Reformed Church have not so far declined it but that they call it Catholicam consuetudinem a Catholique an universall custome of the Church But there is a farre greater strength both of naturall and spirituall faculties required for the receiving of this Sacrament of the Lords Supper then the other of Baptisme But for those who have those faculties that they are now or now should be able to discerne the Lords body and their owne soules besides that inestimable and inexpressible comfort which a worthy receiver receives as often as he receives that seale of his reconciliation to God since as Baptisme is Tessera Christianorum I know a Christian from a Turke by that Sacrament so this Sacrament is Tessera orthodoxoruÌ I know a Protestant from a Papist by this Sacrament it is a service to God and to his Church to come frequently to this Communion for truly not to shake or afright any tender conscience I scarce see how any man can satisfie himselfe that he hath said the Lords Prayer with a good conscience if at the same time he were not in such a disposition as that he might have received the Sacrament too for if he be in charity he might receive and if he be not he mocked Almighty God and deluded the Congregation in saying the Lords Prayer There remaines one branch of that part Docete servare Preach the Gospell Docete servare administer the Sacraments and teach them to practise and doe all this how comes matter of fact to be matter of faith Thus Qui non crediderit he that does not beleeve that he is bound to live aright is within the penalty of this text It is so with us and it is so
may easily make Purgatory of a Dreame and of Apparitions and imaginary visions of sick or melancholike men It may then be of use to insist upon the survey of this building of theirs Divisio in these three considerations First to looke upon the foundation upon what they raise it and that is Prayer for the Dead and that is the Grand-mother Error And then upon the Building it selfe Purgatory it selfe and that is the Mother And lastly upon the out-houses or the furniture of this Building and that is Indulgences which are the children the issue of this mother and not such children as draw their parents dry but support and maintaine their parents for but for these Indulgences their prayer for the Dead and their Purgatory would starve And starve they must all if they can draw their maintenance from no other place but this Why are these men baptized for the dead First then for the first of these three parts The foundation the Grand-mother 1 Part. Oratio pro mortuis Prayer for the Dead The most tender Mother the most officious Nurse cannot have a more particular care how a new-borne child shall be washed or swathed or fed when they consider every drop of water every clout every pin that belongs to it then God had of his Infant Church when he delivered it over to her foster-fathers her nursing-fathers her god-fathers Moses and Aaron and bound them by his instructions in every particular as he prescribed them How many directions he gave what they should eate what they should weare how often they should wash what they should doe in every religious in every civill action and yet never never any mention any intimation never any approach any inclination never any light no nor any shadow never any colour any colourablenesse of any command of prayer for the Dead In all the Law no precept for it And this might imply a weaknesse in Gods government in so particular a law no precept of so important a duty In all the History no example And this might imply ill luck at least in so large a story no Precedent of an Office so necessary In all the Gospell no promise annexed to it And this doth not imply but manifest a conclusion against it an exclusion of it There being then no precept no precedent no promise for it how came it into use and practise amongst the Jewes After the Jewes had been a long time conversant amongst the Gentiles Iudaei and that as fresh water approaching the Sea contracts a saltish a brackish tast so the Jewes received impressions of the customes of the Gentiles who were ever naturally enclined to this mis-devotion and left-handed piety of praying for the Dead In the faintnesse and languishing of their Religion when they were much declined from the exact observation thereof then in the time of the Maccabees entred that one example which hath raised such a dust and blinded so many eyes We have mention of many funeralls before that and after that of many too even in the time when Christ was upon the earth and yet never mention of prayer for the dead but in this one place of this booke I doe not say in this one story for in this story reported by Iosephus there is no mention of it but in this one booke That is true that I have read that after Christs time the Rabbins laid hold upon it and brought it into custome And that is true which I have seene that the Jewes at this day continue it in practise For when one dies for some certaine time after appointed by them his sonne or some other neere in blood or alliance comes to the Altar and there saith and doth some thing in the behalfe of his dead father or grandfather respectively But all this they have drawne into practise from this one place from this booke from which booke the same Rabbins draw a justification of a mans killing himselfe because in this booke they find an example of that in Razis 2 Macc. 14.37 The Rabbins tooke no better a ground for their prayer for the dead then for selfe-homicide onely matter of fact out of a Historicall booke which themselves did not beleeve to be Canonicall But how took this hold of Christians That which wrought upon the Jewes Christiani prevailed upon the new Christians too for the greatest part of them by much being Gentiles for few amongst the Jewes in comparison were converted to the Christian religion they which came from Gentilisme retained still many impressions of such things as they had been formerly accustomed unto And as the Fathers of the Church then out of an indulgence to these new Convertits did suffer and tolerate the practise of many things which these Gentiles brought with them as indeed a great part of the ceremonies of the Christian Church are of that nature and of such an admission Things which rather then avert their new Convertits from comming to them by an utter abolishing of all parts of their former religion and worship of their gods those blessed Fathers thought fitter to retaine and turne to some good use then altogether to take them away As in other things so also in this prayer for the dead to which they as Gentiles had been formerly accustomed the Fathers did not oppose it with any peremptory earnestnesse with any vehement diligence partly because the thing it selfe argued and testified a good and tender and pious affection and though God doe not ground his Decrees upon any disposition in mans nature yet in the execution of his Decrees God as hee works in his Church loves to work upon a good natur'd man and partly also because this practise being but a practise onely and no Dogmaticall constitution might be as it was in the first practise thereof without shaking any foundation or wounding any Article of the Christian Religion And lastly that wee may speake truth with that holy boldnesse which belongs to the truth because it was a long time before the Fathers came to a cleere understanding of the state of the soule departed out of this life for though they never doubted of the certaine performance of Gods promises That all that die in him do rest in him yet where and how this rest was communicated to them admitted more clouds then they could at all times dispell and scatter some arising from Philosophers some from Heretiques some from ignorance some from heat of Disputation So then Tertul. at first it was a weed that grew wild in the open field amongst the Gentiles Then because it bore a pretty flower the testimony of a good nature it was transplanted into some Gardens and so became a private opinion or at least a practise amongst some Christians And then it spred it selfe so far as that Tertullian and he first of any takes knowledge of it as of a custome of the Church And truly this of Tertullian is very early within little more then two hundred
baptized for the Dead As in the Old Testament there is no precept no precedent 2 Part no promise for prayer for the Dead So in the Old Testament they confesse there was no Purgatory no such place as could purifie a soule to that cleannesse as to deliver it up to Heaven For thither to Heaven no soule say they had accesse till after Christs ascension But as the first mention of prayer for the dead was in time of the Maccabees so much about the same time was the first stone of Purgatory laid and laid by the hands of Plato For Plato Tertul. Hareticorum Patriarchae Philosophi sayes Tertullian The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of Heretiques evermore they had recourse to them And then Plato being the Author of Purgatory we cannot deny but that the Greeke Church did acknowledge Purgatory that is that Greeke Church of which Plato is a Patriarch for for the Christian Greeke Church that never acknowledged Purgatory so as the Roman that is A place of torment from which our prayers here might deliver soules there But yet Platoes invention or his manner of expressing it Eusebius Anno 326. tooke such roote and such hold as that Eusebius when he comes to speake of Purgatory delivers it in the very words of Plato and makes Platoes words his words and Plato his Patriarch for the Greeke Church The Latin Church had Patriarchs too for this Doctrine though not Philosophers yet Poets for of that which Virgil sayes of Purgatory Virgil. Lactantius Anno 290. Lactantius sayes propemodum vera Virgil was very neere the truth Virgil was almost a Catholique but then later men say Haec prorsus vera This is absolutely true that Virgil sayes and Virgil is a perfect a downe-right Catholique for an upright Catholique in the point of Purgatory were hard to finde These then are the first Patriarchs of the Greek and Latin Church Philosophers and Poets And when it came farther to Christians it gained not much at first for the first mention of Purgatory amongst Christians hath this double ill lucke that first it is in a Booke which no side beleeves the Booke called Pastor whose Author is said to bee Hermes Hermes and he fancied to be S. Pauls Disciple And then that which is said of Purgatory in that Booke is put into an old womans mouth and so made an old wives tale she tels that she had a vision of stones fallen from a towre and then mended after they were fallen and laid in the building againe And this Towre must be the Church and these fallen stones must be soules in Purgatory and then they must be made fit to be placed in the uppermost part of the building in the Triumphant Church But to consider this plant in better grounds then Philosophers or Poets or old wives tales Clem. Alexan. or supposititious books amongst men of more waight and gravity Clement of Alexandria within little more then two hundred yeares after Christ spake doubtfully uncertainly suspiciously disputably of Purgatory And within twenty yeares after him Origen Origen who was evermore transported beyond the letter upon mysteries somewhat directly But yet when all is done Origens Purgatory is a purgatory that would do them no good for it would bring them in no money and they could be as well content that there were none as that it were nothing worth except they may have the letting and setting of Purgatory at their price they care not though it were pulled downe And Origens Purgatory is such a purgatory as the best men must come into it even Martyrs themselves that are re-baptized in their owne blood and will this purgatory serve their turnes And it is such a purgatory as the worst of all even the Devill himselfe may and shall get out of it And will this purgatory serve their turnes Neither is this an error peculiar to Origen That all soules must passe through Purgatory but common with others of the Fathers too Sive Paulus sive Petrus sayes Origen whether it be S. Paul or S. Peter Ambrose thither he must come And sive Petrus sive Iohannes sayes S. Ambrose whether it be the Disciple that loved Christ S. Peter or the Disciple whom Christ loved S. Iohn thither he must come And S. Hilary extends it farther he drawes in the blessed Virgin Mary her selfe into purgatory And that we may see cleerely that that Purgatory which the Fathers intended is not the Purgatory now erected in the Roman Church S. Ambrose consigns to his Purgatory even the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testaments Igne filii Levi igne Ezekiel igne Daniel The holiest generation the Sons of Levi and the greatest of the Prophets must passe through this fire And will such a purgatory serve their turnes as was kindled in the Old Testament Well Interrogant nos They are very loath to be put to their speciall plea very loath to answer what Purgatory of the Fathers they will stand to They would not be put to answer They chuse rather to interrogate us and they ask us Since the Fathers are so pregnant so frequent in the name of Purgatory one Purgatory or other will you beleeve none None upon the strength of that argument that the Fathers mention Purgatory except they will assigne us a Purgatory in which those Fathers agree and agree it to be matter of faith to beleeve it for from how many things which passe through the Fathers by way of opinion and of discourse are they in the Romane Church departed onely upon that That the Fathers said it but said it not Dogmatically but by way of discourse or opinion But then they aske us againe Since it is cleare that they did use prayer for the dead what could they meane by those prayers but a Purgatory a place of torment where those soules needed helpe and from whence those prayers might helpe them What could they meane els Certainly we cannot tell them what they meant If they should aske them who made those prayers they could hardly tell them If a man should have surprized S. Ambrose at his prayers and stood behinde him and heard him say Non dubitamus Ambrose etiam Angelorum testimoniis credimus Lord I cannot doubt it for thou by thine Angels hast revealed it unto me Fide ablutum aeterna voluptate perfrui That my dead Master the Emperour was baptized in his faith and is now in possession of all the joyes of heaven and yet have heard S. Ambrose say sometimes to God sometimes to his dead Master Si quid preces if my prayers may prevaile with thee O God and then Oblationibus vos frequentabo I will waite upon you daily with my Oblations I will accompany you daily with my Sacrifices And for what Vt des Domine requiem That thou O Lord wouldest afford rest and peace and salvation to that soule And if this man after all this should have asked S. Ambrose What he meant to pray
constancy in these two Fathers S. Hierome and S. Augustine shake the constancy of that Canon which binds to a following of an unanime consent for that cannot be found Bellarmine expedites himselfe herein that way which is indeed their most ordinary way amongst their Expositors which is where the Fathers differ to adhere to S. Augustine So he doth in this point though most of the Ancients of the Christian Church most of the Rabbins of the Jews most of the Writers in the Reformation take it to be Moses Psalme and that way runs the greatest streame and nearest to a concurrence And thus far I have stopped upon this consideration Whether this be Moses Psalme or no That when it appeares to be his Psalme and that we see that in the tenth verse of this Psalm mans life is limited to seventy years or at most to eighty and then remember that Moses himselfe then when he said so was above eighty and in a good habitude long after that we might hereby take occasion to consider that God does not so limit and measure himselfe in his blessings to his servants but that for their good and his glory he enlarges those measures God hath determined a day from Sun to Sun yet when God hath use of a longer day for his glory he commands the Sun to stand still till Ioshua have pursued his victory So God hath given the life of man into the hand of sicknesse and yet for all that deadly sicknesse God enlarges Hezekiah's years Moses was more then fourescore when he told us that our longest terme was fourescore If we require exactly an unanime consent that all agree in the Author of this Psalme we can get no farther then that the holy Ghost is the Author All agree the words to be Canonicall Scripture and so from the holy Ghost and we seek no farther The words are his and they offer us these considerations First That the whole Psalme being in the Title thereof called a Prayer A Prayer of Moses the man of God it puts us justly and pertinently upon the consideration of the many dignities and prerogatives of that part of our worship of God Prayer for there we shall see That though the whole Psal me be not a Prayer yet because there is a Prayer in the Psalme that denominates the whole Psalme the whole Psalme is a Prayer When the Psalm grows formally to be a Prayer our Text enters O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes And in that there will be two Parts more The Prayer it selfe O satisfie us early with thy mercy And the effect thereof That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes So that our Parts are three First Prayer Then this Prayer And lastly the benefit of all Prayer For the first which is Prayer in generall 1 Part. Prayer I will thrust no farther then the Text leads me in that is That Prayer is so essentiall a part of Gods worship as that all is called Prayer S. Hierome upon this Psalme sayes Difficillimum Psalmum aggredior I undertake the exposition of a very hard Psalme and yet sayes he I would proceed so in the exposition thereof ut interpretatio nostra aliena non egeat interpretatione That there should not need another Comment upon my Comment that when I pretend to interpret the Psalme they that heare me should not need another to interpret me which is a frequent infirmity amongst Expositors of Scriptures by writing or preaching either when men will raise doubts in places of Scripture which are plaine enough in themselves for this creates a jealousie that if the Scriptures be every where so difficult they cannot be our evidences and guides to salvation Or when men will insist too vehemently and curiously and tediously in proving of such things as no man denies for this also induces a suspition that that is not so absolutely so undeniably true that needs so much art and curiosity and vehemence to prove it I shall therefore avoid these errors and because I presume you are full of an acknowledgment of the duties and dignities of Prayer onely remember you of thus much of the method or elements of Prayer That whereas the whole Book of Psalms is called Sepher Tehillim that is Liber Laudationum The Book of Praise yet this Psalme and all that follow to the hundredth Psalme and divers others besides these which make up a faire limme of this body and a considerable part of the Book are called Prayers The Book is Praise the parts are Prayer The name changes not the nature Prayer and Praise is the same thing The name scarce changes the name Prayer and Praise is almost the same word As the duties agree in the heart and mouth of a man so the names agree in our eares and not onely in the language of our Translation but in the language of the holy Ghost himselfe for that which with us differs but so Prayer and Praise in the Originall differs no more then so Tehillim and Tephilloth And this concurrence of these two parts of our devotion Prayer and Praise that they accompany one another nay this co-incidence that they meet like two waters and make the streame of devotion the fuller nay more then that this identity that they doe not onely consist together but constitute one another is happily expressed in this part of the Prayer which is our Text for that which in the Originall language is expressed in the voice of Prayer O satisfie us c. in the first Translation that of the Septuagint is expressed in the voice of praise Saturasti Thou hast satisfied us The Original makes it a Prayer the Translation a Praise And not to compare Original with Translation but Translation with Translation and both from one man we have in S. Hieroms works two Translations of the Psalmes one in which he gives us the Psalmes alone another in which he gives them illustrated with his notes and Commentaries And in one of these Translations he reads this as a Prayer Reple nos O fill us early with thy mercie and in the other he reads it as a Praise Repleti sumus Thou hast filled us c. Nay not to compare Originall with Translation nor Translation with Translation but Originall with Originall the holy Ghost with himselfe In the Title of this Psalme and the Titles of the Psalms are Canonicall Scripture the holy Ghost calls this Psalme a Prayer and yet enters the Psalme in the very first verse thereof with praise and thanksgiving Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations And such is the constitution and frame of that Prayer of Prayers That which is the extraction of all prayers and draws into a summe all that is in all others That which is the infusion into all others sheds and showres whatsoever is acceptable to God in any other prayer That Prayer which our Saviour gave us for as he meant to
afflictionis Verse 16. Studied and premeditated plots and practises swallowe mee possesse me intirely In all these dayes I shall not onely have a Zoar to flie to if I can get out of Sodom joy if I can overcome my sorrow There shall not be a Goshen bordering upon my Egypt joy if I can passe beyond or besides my sorrow but I shall have a Goshen in my Egypt nay my very Egypt shall be my Goshen I shall not onely have joy though I have sorrow but therefore my very sorrow shall be the occasion of joy I shall not onely have a Sabbath after my six dayes labor but Omnibus diebus a Sabbath shall enlighten every day and inanimate every minute of every day And as my soule is as well in my foot as in my hand though all the waight and oppression lie upon the foot and all action upon the hand so these beames of joy shall appeare as well in my pillar of cloud as in theirs of fire in my adversity as well as in their prosperity And when their Sun shall set at Noone mine shall rise at midnight they shall have damps in their glory and I joyfull exaltions in my dejections And to end with the end of all In die mortis In the day of my death and that which is beyond the end of all and without end in it selfe The day of Judgement If I have the testimony of a rectified conscience that I have accustomed my selfe to that accesse to God by prayer and such prayer as though it have had a body of supplication and desire of future things yet the soule and spirit of that prayer that is my principall intention in that prayer hath been praise and thanksgiving If I be involved in S. Chrysostoms Patent Orantes non natura sed dispensatione Angeli fiunt That those who pray so that is pray by way of praise which is the most proper office of Angels as they shall be better then Angels in the next world for they shall be glorifying spirits as the Angels are but they shall also be glorified bodies which the Angels shall never bee so in this world they they shall be as Angels because they are employed in the office of Angels to pray by way of praise If as S. Basil reads those words of that Psalme not spiritus meus but respiratio mea laudet Dominum Not onely my spirit but my very breath not my heart onely but my tongue and my hands bee accustomed to glorifie God In die mortis in the day of my death when a mist of sorrow and of sighes shall fill my chamber and a cloude exhaled and condensed from teares shall bee the curtaines of my bed when those that love me shall be sorry to see mee die and the devill himselfe that hates me sorry to see me die so in the favour of God And In die Iudicii In the day of Judgement when as all Time shall cease so all measures shall cease The joy and the sorrow that shall be then shall be eternall no end and infinite no measure no limitation when every circumstance of sinne shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner and the very substance of my sinne shall bee washed away in the blood of my Saviour when I shall see them who sinned for my sake perish eternally because they proceeded in that sinne and I my selfe who occasioned their sin received into glory because God upon my prayer and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy early that is before my transmigration In omnibus diebus In all these dayes the dayes of youth and the wantonnesses of that the dayes of age and the tastlesnesse of that the dayes of mirth and the sportfulnesse of that and of inordinate melancholy and the disconsolatenesse of that the days of such miseries as astonish us with their suddennesse and of such as aggravate their owne waight with a heavy expectation In the day of Death which pieces up that circle and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces but is one equall everlastingnesse the day of Judgement Either I shall rejoyce be able to declare my faith and zeale to the assistance of others or at least be glad in mine owne heart in a firme hope of mine owne salvation And therefore beloved as they whom lighter affections carry to Shewes and Masks and Comedies As you your selves whom better dispositions bring to these Exercises conceive some contentment and some kinde of Joy in that you are well and commodiously placed they to see the Shew you to heare the Sermon when the time comes though your greater Joy bee reserved to the comming of that time So though the fulnesse of Joy be reserved to the last times in heaven yet rejoyce and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the meane time and that you sit but in expectation of the fulnesse of those future Joyes Returne to God with a joyfull thankfulnesse that he hath placed you in a Church which withholds nothing from you that is necessary to salvation whereas in another Church they lack a great part of the Word and halfe the Sacrament And which obtrudes nothing to you that is not necessary to salvation whereas in another Church the Additionall things exceed the Fundamentall the Occasionall the Originall the Collaterall the Direct And the Traditions of men the Commandements of God Maintaine and hold up this holy alacrity this religious cheerfulnesse For inordinate sadnesse is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulnesse and the departing from Joy in this world is a departing with one piece of our Evidence for the Joyes of the world to come SERM. LXXX Preached at the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight Alderman of London December 12. 1626. JOH 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died GOd made the first Marriage and man made the first Divorce God married the Body and Soule in the Creation and man divorced the Body and Soule by death through sinne in his fall God doth not admit not justifie not authorize such Super-inductions upon such Divorces as some have imagined That the soule departing from one body should become the soule of another body in a perpetuall revolution and transmigration of soules through bodies which hath been the giddinesse of some Philosophers to think Or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evill spirit that that spirit might at his will and to his purposes informe and inanimate that dead body God allowes no such Super-inductions no such second Marriages upon such divorces by death no such disposition of soule or body after their dissolution by death But because God hath made the band of Marriage indissoluble but by death farther then man can die this divorce cannot fall upon man As farre as man is immortall man is a married man still still in possession of a soule and a body too And man is for ever immortall in both Immortall in
Fundamentals every man is bound to have but not of the superstructure and superedification 807. B How Imperfect all our Knowledge is in Arts and Sciences 818. A Knowledge against over-much curiosity in attaining to it 63. E. 308. C. 319. A. B Whether wee shall Know one another in the next world 157. C Of sobriety in Knowledge 270. C. 701. A Knowing of our selves how hard a thing it is 563. C Knowing of God foure ordinary wayes of it in the Schooles 229. B L LAbour three-fold Labour in the Scripture 538. B Law and the Gospell of the severall state of either 284. E. 285. A Of the Law of Nature under which every man is 362. C How the Law is said to shew what is sinne 687. B Lawes of Temporall Princes whether or no they binde the conscience of the Subject wherefore never stated by the Pope or by any Councell 741. B Liberality and Bounty Civill and Spirituall what 759. E Liberality a vertue that begets a vertue ibid. The true body and true soule of Liberalitie what it is 760. C Life the excellencie of it 69. D. E. 70. A All that is good included in it 70. A Light the first creature 759. D Literae Formatae in the Primitive Church their Institution and use 415. A Lord whether God could be called the Lord before there were any creatures a disputable thing 757. A The Judgement of Tertullian and S. Augustine either way ibid. B Love the first Act of the Will 225. D How we may love the creatures 398. E 598. B Against the Love of the things of this world 187. C. 399. C Against loving of God for the Temporall blessings he bestowes upon us 750. C Loving our enemies six degrees observed in it 97. B Lust and Licentiousnesse the burdens that it makes men under goe 623. D Lying whether it be lawfull before one that is no competent Judge 491. B M Macchabees their torture and patience 221. E. 222. A. B. C. c. Man what Man is 64. D. E. 65. A. c. The dignitie and honour of Man 655. C. D Hee cannot deliberately wish himselfe an Angel for he should lose thereby ibid. E Of those helps and assistances which Man affords to Man 656. D. E. c. Man is called every creature in Scripture and why 770. C. D Mary the Crownes of England Scotland Denmark and Hungary much about one time fell upon women whose name was Mary 243. E It is a noble and a comprehensive name and why 244. A Marriage of second Marriages 216. D. E. c Masters of that esteeme and regard is to bee had to such as have taught us or have beene our Masters 288. E. 289. A why called Patres-familias 388. B Mediocrity of Estate the commendation of it 661. A. B. c. 685. D Orders in the Church of Rome from both extremes but not one from the Meane 661. B. What is a Mediocrity to one is not nor ought to be to another 714. C Memory the Holy Ghosts pulpit oftner than the Vnderstanding 290. B. C Of the sinfull Memory of past sins how dangerous it is 542. D Mercie of God how much above his judgements 12. B. 67. A. 71. A How full God is of it C Occasionall Mercies what and how many D The Devils capable of Mercy in the judgement of many Fathers 66. A. 262. D The proper difference betweene Mercy and Truth 530. D Against those that abridge the great volume of Gods Mercies 568. E Of severall Mercies and refreshments which are none of Gods 810. E. 811. A God can doe nothing but in Mercy 811. C Merits foreseene no cause of Graces in us 5. A Millenarii their errour what and how generall almost all the Fathers tainted with it 261. C Miracles against multiplying of them in the Roman Chuch 36. D Mirabilis or the man that workes Miracles the first of those great names given to Christ by the Prophet Esay 58. C Nothing dearer to God than a Miracle 215. A They are his owne Prerogative ibid. B It is more to change Nature by Miracles than to make Nature 394. E No man to ground his Faith upon a Miracle as it seemes to him 429. A How to judge of Miracles whether they bee true or false 429. B Dangerous putting of God to a Miracle in saving us 456. B What is properly a Miracle 683. D The Creation it selfe none ibid. Monuments not in Churches in the Primitive times 730 D Mortification outward Mortification and austerity a specious thing 492. E Mortification to be generall of all the parts and not of one onely 541. B Mosselim a kind of Doctors amongst the Jewes that taught the people by parables and obscure sayings 690. E The Multitude of their levity judgement and changing of opinions 482. B. D Against Murmuring at Gods blessings if they be not as great as we desire 576. C Mute against standing Mute at examinations 491. C Mysteries of two kinds in the Schooles 203. D Every Religion under heaven hath had her Mysteries and some things in-intelligible of all sorts of men 690. D N NAmes and Titles nothing puffeth men up more 734. D The Heathen never called their Tutelar Gods by their Names and why 608. A Of getting a good Name amongst men and against those that neglect it 680. A. E Of mens retaining those Names that are most acceptable 285. B Of the Name of Christian and when it was given and how 426. B Adam named all creatures but himselfe and why 563. B Natalitia Martyrum their dayes of suffering so called and why 268. C. 461. C Nativities three Nativities to every Christian and which they are 424. E Nature of that sight which wee have of God even by the light of Nature 227. B. 686. E Of that power which some of the Fathers attribute to Nature without Grace 314. C Men doe not halfe so much against sin as even by the power of Nature they are able to doe 315. B. C Of the testimony which a Naturall soule gives unto it selfe of it selfe 337. B Nature not equivalent to Grace 649 A Nature not our owne ibid. Nature and Grace how they co-operate ibid. D Neighbour-hood and evill Neighbour-hood and communicating with evill men 420. C Noctambulones men that walk in their sleep wake if they be called by their Names 467. A Nothing there is nothing more contrary to God than to be to doe or to thinke Nothing 265. B The Devill himselfe cannot wish himselfe deliberately to be nothing C An Order of Friars in the Roman Church that in humilitie called themselves Nullanos or Nothings 731. C Of the Numberlesse number of Gods benefits to Man 765. A O OCcasionall instruments of Gods glory what cold affections they meet with in the world amongst men disaffected to Gods cause 154. E Occasionall mercies offered what and how many 12. D Occasionall Convertites who 461. C God no Occasionall God and why 586. B Devotion no Occasionall thing and why 244. E A great
should all fall into hell and so there is mercy in hell And therefore saies the same Father Out of an unspeakeable wisdome and Fatherly care as Fathers will speak loudest to their Children and looke angerliest and make the greatest rods when they intend not the severest correction Christus saepius gehennam comminatus est quam regnum pollicitus Christ in his Gospell hath oftner threatned us with hell then promised us Heaven We are bound to praise God saies he as much for driving Adam out of Paradise as for placing him there Et agere gratias tam progehenna quam pro regno And to give him thanks as well for hell as for Heaven For whether he cauterise or foment whether he draw blood or apply Cordials he is the same Physitian and seekes but one end our spirituall health by his divers wayes For us who by this notification of hell escape hell Psal 118.17 We shall not dye but live that is not dye so but that we shall live againe Therefore is death called a sleepe Lazarus sleepeth saies Christ And Coemiteria are Dormitoria Iohn 11.11 Churchyards are our beds And in those beds and in all other beds of death for the dead have their beds in the Sea too and sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof the voyce of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God shall awake them that slept in Christ before and they and we shall be united in one body for as our Apostle sayes here Heb. 11.39 We shall not prevent them so he sayes also That they shall not be made perfect without us Though we live to see Christ we shall not prevent them though they have attended Christ five thousand yeares in the grave they shall not prevent us but united in one body Rapiemur They and we shall be caught c. Rapiemur We shall be caught up This is a true Rapture Rapiemur in which we doe nothing our selves Our last act towards Christ is as our first In the first act of our Conversion we do nothing nothing in this last act our Resurrection but Rapimur we are caught In everything the more there is left to our selves the worse it is done that that God does intirely is intirely good S. Paul had a Rapture too He was caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. 12.4 but whether in the body or out of the body he cannot tell We can tell that this Rapture of ours shall be in body and soule in the whole man Man is but a vapour but a glorious and a blessed vapour when he is attracted and caught up by this Sun the Son of Man the Son of God O what a blessed alleviation possesses that man and to what a blessed levity if without levity we may so speake to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come that comes newly from Confession and with the seale of Absolution upon him Then when nothing troubles his conscience then when he hath disburdened his soule of all that lay heavy upon it then when if his Confessor should unjustly reveale it to any other yet God will never speake of it more to his conscience not upbraid him with it not reproach him for it what a blessed alleviation what a holy cheerefulnesse of spirit is that man come to How much more in the endowments which we shall receive in the Rapture of this text where we do not onely devest all sins past as in Confession but all possibility of future sins and put on not onely incorruption but incorruptiblenesse not onely impeccancy but impeccability And to be invested with this endowment Rapiemur Wee shall be caught up and Rapiemur in Nubibus Wee shall be caught up in the Clouds We take a Sar to be the thickest In Nubibus and so the impurest and ignoblest part of that sphear and yet by the illustration of the Sun it becomes a glorious star Clouds are but the beds and wombs of distempered and malignant impressions of vapours and exhalations and the furnaces of Lightnings and of Thunder yet by the presence of Christ and his employment these clouds are made glorious Chariots to bring him and his Saints together Psal 135.7 Those Vapours and Clouds which David speaks of S. Augustin interprets of the Ministers of the Church that they are those Clouds Those Ministers may have clouds in their understanding and knowledge some may be lesse learned then others and clouds in their elocution utterance some may have an unacceptable deliverance and clouds in their aspect and countenance some may have an unpleasing presence and clouds in their respect and maintenance some may be oppressed in their fortunes but still they are such clouds as are sent by Christ to bring thee up to him And as the Children of Israel received direction and benefit Exod. 13.21 as well by the Pillar of Cloud as by the Pillar of Fire so do the Children of God in the Church as well by Preachers of inferiour gifts as by higher In Nubibus Christ does not come in a Chariot and send Carts for us Acts 1.11 He comes as he went This same Iesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seene him goe into Heaven say the Angels at his Ascension Luk. 24.50 In what manner did they see him go He was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight So he went so he shall returne so we shall be taken up In the Clouds to meete him in the Ayre The Transfiguration of Christ was not acted upon so high a Scene In aëra as this our accesse to Christ shall be That hill was not so high nor so neare to the Heaven of Heavens as this region of the ayre shall be Nor was the Transfiguration so eminent a manifestation of the glory of Christ as this his comming in the ayre to Judgement shall be And yet Peter that saw but that Mat. 17.14 desired no more but thought it happinesse enough to be there and there to fixe their Tabernacles But in this our meeting of Christ in the ayre we shall see more then they saw in the Transfiguration and yet be but in the way of seeing more then we see in the ayre then we shall be presently well and yet improving The Kings presence makes a Village the Court but he that hath service to do at Court would be glad to finde it in a lodgeable and convenient place I can build a Church in my bosome I can serve God in my heart and never cloath my prayer in words God is often said to heare and answer in the Scriptures when they to whom he speaks have said nothing I can build a Church at my beds side when I prostrate my selfe in humble prayer there I do so I can praise God cheerefully in my Chappell cheerefully in my parish Church as David saies Psal 26.12 In Ecclesiis plurally In the Congregations In every
Congregation will I blesse the Lord But yet I finde the highest exaltations and the noblest elevations of my devotion Psal 35.18 when I give thanks in the great Congregation and praise him among much people for so me thinks I come nearer and nearer to the Communion of Saints in Heaven Apoc. 21.22 Where it is therefore said that there is no Temple I saw no Temple in Heaven because all Heaven is a Temple And because the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe who fill all Heaven are Obviam Domino as S. Iohn sayes there the Temple thereof So far towards that as into the Ayre this text carries us Obviam Domino To meet the Lord. The Lord requires no more not so much at our hands as he does for us When he is come from the right hand of his Father in heaven into the ayre to meet us he is come farther then we are to go from the grave to meet him But we have met the Lord in many a lower place in many unclean actions have we met the Lord in our owne hearts and said to our selves Surely the Lord is here and sees us Gen. â9 9 and with Ioseph How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against my God and yet have proceeded gone forward in the accomplishment of that sin But there it was Obviam Iesu Obviam Christo We met a Iesus We met a Christ a God of mercy who forgave us those sins Here in our text it is Obviam Domino We must meet the Lord He invests here no other name but that He hath laid aside his Christ and his Iesus names of Mercy and Redemption and Salvation and comes only in the name of power The Lord The Judge of quick and dead In which Judgement he shews no mercy All his mercy is exercised in this life and he that hath not received his portion of that mercy before his death shall never receive any There he judges only by our workes Whom hast thou fed whom hast thou clothed Then in judgement we meet the Lord the Lord of power and the last time that ever we shall meet a Iesus a Christ a God of mercy is upon our death-bed but there we shall meet him so as that when we meet him in another name The Lord in the ayre yet by the benefit of the former mercy received from Iesus We shall be with the Lord for ever First Erimus We shall Bee we shall have a Beeing Erimus There is nothing more contrary to God and his proceedings then annihilation to Bee nothing Do nothing Think nothing It is not so high a step to raise the poore out of the dust Psal 113.7 and to lift the needy from the dunghill and set him with Princes To make a King of a Beggar is not so much as to make a Worm of nothing Whatsoever God hath made thee since yet his greatest work upon thee was that he made thee and howsoever he extend his bounty in preferring thee yet his greatest largenesse is in preserving thee in thy Beeing And therefore his own name of Majesty is Jehovah which denotes his Essence his Beeing And it is usefully moved and safely resolved in the School that the devill himself cannot deliberately wish himselfe nothing Suddenly a man may wish himself nothing because that seemes to deliver him from the sense of his present misery but deliberately he cannot because whatsoever a man wishes must be something better then he hath yet and whatsoever is better is not nothing Nihil contrarium Deo August There is nothing truly contrary to God To do nothing is contrary to his working but contrary to his nature contrary to his Essence there is nothing For whatsoever is any thing even in that Beeing and therefore because it is hath a conformity to God and an affinity with God who is Beeing Essence it self In him we have our Beeing sayes the Apostle Act. 17.28 But here it is more then so not only In illo but Cum illo not only In him but With him not only in his Providence but in his Presence The Hypocrite hath a Beeing and in God but it is not with God Cum illc Esay 29.13 Qua cor longe With his lips he honours God but removes his heart far from him And God sends him after his heart that he may keep him at that distance as S. Gregory reads and interprets that place of Esay Redite praevaricatores ad cor Return O sinners follow your own heart Esay 46.8 and then I am sure you and I shall never meet Our Saviour Christ delivers this distance plainly Discedite à me Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Mat. 25.42 Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing worse then the fire the intensnesse of that fire the ayre of that brimstone the anguish of that worm the discord of that howling and gnashing of teeth is no comparable no considerable part of the torment in respect of the privation of the sight of God the banishment from the presence of God an absolute hopelesnesse an utter impossibility of ever comming to that which sustaines the miserable in this world that though I see no Sun here I shall see the Son of God there The Hypocrite shall not do so we shall Bee and Bee with him and Bee with him for ever which is the last thing that doth fall under ours or can fall under any consideration Of S. Hierome S. Augustine sayes Quae Hicronymus neseivit Semper nullus hominum unquam seivit That that S. Hierome knew not no man ever knew And S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to S. Augustine in magnifying of S. Hierome That when a Catholique Priest disputed with an Heretique and cited a passage of S. Hierome and the Heretique said Hierome lyed instantly he was struck dumb yet of this last and everlasting joy and glory of heaven in the fruition of God S. Hierome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was devested of his mortall body dead for as soon as he dyed at Bethlem he came instantly to Hippo S. Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet he said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to poure the whole Sea into a thimble or to take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is easier then to comprehend the joy and the glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then this Semper in our text the Eternity thereof That we shall be with him for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingnesse is not only incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally and