last motive Iosh 7.19 must be the glory of God Therefore Ioshuah sayes to Achan My Son give I pray thee glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him Now the glory of God arises not out of the Confessing but because every true Confessing is accompanied with a detestation of the sin as it hath separated me from God and a sense of my re-union and redintegration with God in the abjuration of my former sins for to tell my sin by way of a good tale or by boasting in it though it be a revealing a manifesting is not a Confession in every true confession God hath glory because he hath a straid soule re-united to his Kingdome And to advance this Glory David confesses Peccata sins which is our next Consideration I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First he resents his state All is not well Then he examines himselfe Peccata vera Thus and thus it stands with me Then he considers then he resolves then he executes He confesses so far we are gone and now he confesses sins For the Pharisees though he pretended a Confession was rather an exprobration how much God had beene beholden to him for his Sabbaths for his Almes for his Tithes for his Fasting David confesses sins first such things as were truly sins For as the element of Ayre that lyes betweene the Water and the Fire is sometimes condensed into water sometimes rarified into fire So lyes the conscience of man betweene two operations of the Devill sometimes he rarifies it evaporates it that it apprehends nothing feeles nothing to be sin sometimes he condenses it that every thing falls and sticks upon it in the nature and takes the waight of sin and he mis-interprets the indifferent actions of others and of his owne and destroyes all use of Christian liberty all conversation all recreation and out of a false feare of being undutifull to God is unjust to all the world and to his owne soule and consequently to God himselfe who of all notions would not be received in the notion of a Cruell or Tyrannicall God In an obdurate conscience that feeles no sin the Devill glories most but in the over-tender conscience he practises most That is his triumphant but this is his militant Church That is his Sabbath but this is his six dayes labour In the obdurate he hath induced a security in the scriptures which the Holy Ghost hath exprest in so many names as Sin Sin Wickednesse Iniquity Transgressions Offences Many many more And all this that thereby we might reflect upon our selves often and see if our particular actions fell not under some of those names But then lest this should over-intimidate us there are as many names given by the Holy Ghost to the Law of God Law Statutes Ordinances Covenants Testimony Precept and all the rest of which there is some one at least repeated in every verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalme that thereby we might still have a Rule to measure and try our actions by whether they be sins or no. For as the Apostle sayes He had not knowne sinne if he had not knowne the Law So there had beene no sin if there had beene no Law And therefore that soule that feeles it selfe oppressed under the burden of a Vow must have recourse to the Law of God and see whether that Vow fall under the Rule of that Law For as an over-tender conscience may call things sins that are not and so be afraid of things that never were so may it also of things that were but are not now of such sins as were truly sins and fearfull sins but are now dead dead by a true repentance and buried in the Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus and sealed up in that Monument under the seale of Reconciliation the blessed Sacrament and yet rise sometimes in this tender conscience in a suspition and jealousie that God hath not truly not fully forgiven them And as a Ghost which we thinke we see afrights us more then an army that we doe see So these apparitions of sins of things that are not against any Law of God and so are not sins or sins that are dead in a true repentance and so have no being at all by the Devils practise worke dangerously upon a distempered conscience for as God hath given the Soule an Imagination and a Fancy as well as an Understanding So the Devill imprints in the conscience a false Imagination as well as a fearefull sense of true sin David confesses sins sins that were truly sins But the more ordinary danger is Omniae in our not calling those things which are truly sins by that name For as sometimes when the Baptisme of a Child is deferred for State the Child dyes unbaptized So the sinner defers the Baptisme of his sin in his teares and in the blood of his Saviour offered in the blessed Sacrament till he dye namelesse namelesse in the booke of Life It is a Character that one of the ancientest Poets gives of a well-bred and well-governed Gentleman That he would not tell such lyes as were like truths not probable lyes nor such truths as were like lyes not wonderfull not incredible truths It is the constancy of a rectified Christian not to call his indifferent actions sins for that is to slander God as a cruell God nor to call sins indifferent actions for that is to undervalue God as a negligent God God doth not keepe the Conscience of man upon the wrack in a continuall torture and stretching But God doth not stupifie the conscience with an Opiate in an insensiblenesse of any sin The law of God is the balance and the Criterium By that try thine actions and then confesse David did so Peccata he confessed sinnes nothing that was not so as such neither omitted he any thing that was so And then they were Peccata sua His sins I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First Sua. Sua His sinnes that is à se perpetrata sins which he confesses to have been of his voluntary committing He might and did not avoyd them When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault The woman whom thou gavest me And the woman said Gen. 3.12 The Serpent deceived me God tooke this by way of Information to finde out the Principall but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his browes and every Eve brings forth her Children with as much paine in her travaile as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him If a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devill it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Iob finds some ground of a pious Expostulation with God in that My flesh is not brasse nor my strength stones And such as I am thou hast made me
sayes Trismegistus 1. Part. Cognoscetis He doth not say it is the infirmity of the soule or the impotency of the soule but the iniquity the wickednesse of the soule consists in this that we are ignorant of those wayes and those ends upon which we should direct and by which we should govern our purposes And if ignorance be the corruption and dissolution certainly knowledge is the redintegration and consolidation of the soule From this corruption from this ignorance God delivered his people at first in some measure by the Law that is he gave them thereby a way to get out of this ignorance he put them to Schoole Lex Paedagogus sayes the Apostle The Law was their School-master But in the state of the Gospell in the shedding of the beames of the streames of his grace in the blood of Christ Jesus we are graduats and have proceeded so far as to a manifestation of things already done and so our faith is brought in a great part to consist in matter of fact and that which was but matter of prophecy to them in the old Testament they knew not when it should be done to us in the New is matter of History and we know when it was done In the old times God led his people sometimes with clouds sometimes with fire some lights they had but some hidings some withdrawings of those lights too the mysteries of their salvation were not fully revealed unto them To us all is holy fire all is evident light all is in the Epiphany in the manifestation of Christ and in the presence of the Holy Ghost who is delivered over to us to remain with us Vsque ad consummationem Till the end of the world God hath buried hidden from us the body of Moses he hath removed that cloud that vaile the ceremony the letter of the Law Yea he hath hidden that which benighted us more and kept us in more ignorance of him our infinite sins which are clouds of witnesses to our Consciences he hath hidden them in the wounds of his Son our Saviour so that there remaines nothing but clearnesse evident clearnesse The Gospell being brought to us all in that Christ is actually and really come and Christ being brought to me in that he is appliable in the Church to every particular soule so that this Legacy that is given in this text is not only in a possibility and in a probability and in a verisimilitude but in an assurance and in an infallibility in a knowledge we know it is thus and thus We shall therefore consider this knowledge first as it is opposed to ignorance secondly as it is opposed to inconsideration and thirdly as it is opposed to conclealing to smothering First we must have it and then we must know that we have it and after that we must publish it and declare it so that others may know that we know it Now Ignorantia as there is a profitable a wholesome a learned ignorance which is a modest and a reverent abstinence from searching into those secrets which God hath not revealed in his word whereupon S. Augustine sayes usefully Libenter ignoremus quae ignorare nos vult Deus Let not us desire to know that which God hath no will to reveale So also there is an unprofitable an infectious indeed an ignorant knowledge which puffes and swels us up that of which the Prophet sayes Stultus factus est omnis homo à scientia Jer. 12. Every mans knowledge makes him a foole when it makes him undervalue and despise another And this is one strange and incurable effect of this opinion of wit and knowledge that whereas every man murmurs and sayes to himself such a man hath more land then I more money then I more custome more practise then I when perchance in truth it is not so yet every man thinks that he hath more wit more knowledge then all the world beside when God knows it is very far from being so When the Prophet in that place cals this confident beleever in his own wisdome Foole he hath therein fastned upon him a name of the greatest reproach to man which the Holy Ghost in the mouth of a Prophet could choose As it appeares best in those gradations which Christ makes Mat. 5.22 where Whosoever is angry is made culpable of judgement whosoever sayes Racha that is expresses his anger in any contumelious speech is subject to a Councell but whosoever shall say Foole shall be worthy to be punished in hell fire For by calling him Foole sayes S. Chrysostome there he takes from him that understanding by which he is a man and so sayes he despoiles him of all interest in the creature in this life and all interest in God in the life to come It is the deepest indignation the highest abomination that Iob in his anguish conceived Iob 19. Stulti despiciebant me They that are but fooles themselves despised me And after that again They are the children of fooles and yet I am their song and their talk And in that comparison which God himself instituted and proposed in Deuteronomie They have moved me to jealousie Deut. 30. with that which is not God and I will move them to jealousie with those who are no people I will provoke them to anger with a foolish Nation God intimates so much That a Foole is no more a man then an Idoll is a God Now this foolishnesse which we speak of against which God gives us this Legacy of knowledge is not that bluntnesse that dulnesse that narrownesse of understanding which is opposed to sharpnesse of wit or readinesse of expressing and delivering any matter for very many very devout and godly men lack that sharpnesse and that readinesse and yet have a good portion of spirituall wisdome and knowledge Neither is this foolishnesse that weaknesse or inability to amasse and gather together particulars as they have fallen out in former times and in our times and thereby to judge of future occurrences by former precedents which is the wisdome of States-men and of civill contemplation to build up a body of knowledge from reading stories or observing actions for this wisdome Solomon cals vanity and vexation Nor is this foolishnesse that precipitation that over-earnestnesse that animosity that heat which some men have and which is opposed to discretion for sometimes zeale it self hath such a heat and such a precipitation in it and yet that zeale may not be absolutely condemned but may be sometimes of some use The dull man the weak man the hasty man is not this foole Prov. 28. but as the Wiseman who knew best hath told us The foole is he that trusteth in his own heart And therefore against this foolishnesse of trusting in our own hearts of confiding and relying upon our own plots and devices and from sacrificing to our own nets as the Prophet Habakkuk speaks from this attributing of all to our own industry from this
Malediction not physick but poyson As it is in another Psalme Increpasti periit Thou hast rebuked them and they perished Psal 9.6 In these cases there is a working of the holy Ghost and that as the holy Ghost is a Comforter for it is a comfort to them for whose deliverances God executes these judgements upon others that they are executed but we consider a rebuke a reproofe that ministers comfort even to them upon whom it fals and so in that sense we shall see that this Comforter reproves the world in all those significations of the world which wee named before As the world is the whole frame of the world God hath put into it a reproofe Mundus magnus a rebuke lest it should seem eternall which is a sensible decay and age in the whole frame of the world and every piece thereof The seasons of the yeare irregular and distempered the Sun fainter and languishing men lesse in stature and shorter-lived No addition but only every yeare new sorts new species of wormes and flies and sicknesses which argue more and more putrefaction of which they are engendred And the Angels of heaven which did so familiarly converse with men in the beginning of the world though they may not be doubted to perform to us still their ministeriall assistances yet they seem so far to have deserted this world as that they do not appeare to us as they did to those our Fathers S. Cyprian observed this in his time when writing to Demetrianus Cyprian who imputed all those calamities which afflicted the world then to the impiety of the Christians who would not joyne with them in the worship of their gods Cyprian went no farther for the cause of these calamities but Ad senescentem mundum To the age and impotency of the whole world And therefore sayes he Imputent senes Christianis quòd minùs valeant in senectutem Old men were best accuse Christians that they are more sickly in their age then they were in their youth Is the fault in our religion or in their decay Canos in pueris videmus nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit à senectute We see gray haires in children and we do not die old and yet we are borne old Lest the world as the world signifies the whole frame of the world should glorifie it selfe or flatter and abuse us with an opinion of eternity we may admit usefully though we do not conclude peremptorily this observation to be true that there is a reproofe a rebuke born in it a sensible decay and mortality of the whole world But is this a reproofe agreeable to our Text A reproofe that carries comfort with it Consolatio Rom. 8.19 Comfort to the world it selfe that it is not eternall Truly it is As S. Paul hath most pathetically expressed it The creature that is the world is in anearnest expectation The creature waiteth The whole creation groaneth and travelleth in pain Therefore the creature that is the world receives a perfect comfort in being delivered at last and an inchoative comfort in knowing now that it shall be delivered From what From subjection to vanity Ver. 20. 21. from the bondage of corruption That whereas the world is now subject to mutability and corruption at the Resurrection it shall no longer be so but in that measure and in that degree which it is capable of Ver. 21. It shall enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God that is be as free from corruption or change in that state wherein it shall be glorified Esay 30.26 2 Pet. 3.13 as the Saints shall be in the glory of their state for The light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold And there shall be new heavens and new earth Which is a state that this world could not attaine to if it were eternally to last in that condition in which it is now a condition subject to vanity impotency corruption and therefore there is a comfort in this reproofe even to this world That it is not eternall This world is the happier for that As the world Mundus homines Mat. 18.7 in a second sense signifies all the men of the world so it is Wo unto the world because of offences There is a reproofe born in every man which reproofe is an uncontrollable sense and an unresistible remorse and chiding of himselfe inwardly when he is about to sin and a horrour of the Majesty of God whom when he is alone he is forced and forced by himselfe to feare and to beleeve though he would fain make the world beleeve that he did not beleeve in God but lived at peace and subsisted of himselfe without being beholding to God For as in nature heavy things will ascend and light descend rather then admit a vacuity so in religion the devill will get into Gods roome rather then the heart of man shall be without the opinion of God There is no Atheist They that oppose the true do yet worship a false god and hee that sayes there is no God doth for all that set up some God to himselfe Every man hath this reproofe borne in him that he doth ill that he offends a God that he breaks a law when he sins Consolatio And this reproofe is a reproofe within our Text for it hath this comfort with it That howsoever some men labour to overcome the naturall tendernesse of the conscience and so triumph over their own ruine and rejoyce when they can sleep and wake again without any noise in their conscience or sense of sin yet in truth this candle cannot be blowne out this remorse cannot be overcome But were it not a greater comfort to me if I could overcome it No. For though this remorse which is but a naturall impression and common to all men be not grace yet this remorse which is the naturall reproofe of the soule is that that grace works upon Grace doth not ordinarily work upon the stifnesse of the soule upon the silence upon the frowardnesse upon the aversnesse of the soule but when the soule is soupled and mellowed and feels this reproofe this remorse in it self that reproofe that remorse becomes as the matter and grace enters as the form that becomes the body and grace becomes the soule and that is the comfort of this naturall reproofe of the world that is of every man First that it will not be quenched in it selfe and then that ordinarily it induces a nobler light then it selfe which is effectuall and true Repentance As the world in a third sense Mundus mali Heb. 11.7 2 Pet. 2.5 signifies only the wicked world so it is Noah in preparing an Ark condemned the world And so God spared not the old world That world the world of the wicked suffer many reproofes many rebukes in their hearts which they will not discover because they
waters if God give not increase all is but frivolousnesse but foolishnesse And therefore boldly confidently uncontroulably we may proceed to the propositions of our Text which constitute our second part Man any man every man all men collectively distributively considered so comparatiuely with God or privatively without God is but a lie but vanity lesse then vanity To make our best use of the words 2 Part. Surely as our translation exhibits them we make our entrance with this word of confidence and infallibility which onely becomes the holy Ghost in his asseverations and in which he establishes the propositions following Surely surely men of low degree and as surely men of high and surely still all men together are lighter then vanity Men deliver their assertions otherwise modified and under other qualifications They obtrude to us miraculous doctrines of Transubstantiation and the like upon a possibility onely It may be done say they It is possible God can doe it But that is far from the assurednesse of the Holy Ghost Surely it is so Chrysoft for Asylum hareticorum est omnipotentia Dei is excellently said and by more then one of the Fathers The omnipotence of God is the Sanctuary of Heretiques Thither they fly to countenance any such error This God can doe why should you not beleeve it Men proceed in their asseverations farther then so from this possibility to a probability It will abide argument it hath been disputed in the Schoole and therefore is probable why should not you beleeve it And so they offer us the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sinne But this probability reaches not to this assurednesse of our text surely They will goe farther then this probability to a verisimilitude it is more then meerly possible more then fairly probable it is likely to be so some of the ancient Fathers have thought so and then why should not you beleeve it and so they offer us prayer for the dead Farther then this verisimilitude they goe too They goe to a Piè creditur It may be piously beleeved and it is fit to beleeve it because it may assist and exalt devotion to thinke so And then why should you not beleeve it And so they offer us the worship of Images and Reliques 〈◊〉 But still all this comes short of our assurednesse Surely undoubtedly undisputably it is so And when the Romane Church would needs counter â—it the language of the Holy Ghost and pronounce this surenesse upon so many new Articles in the Councell of Trent it hath not prospered well with them for we all know they have repented that forwardnesse since and wished they had not determined so many particulars to be matter of faitâ—â— because after such a determination by a Councell they have bound themselves not to recede from those doctrines how unmaintenable soever they be in themselves or how inconvenient soever they fall out to be to them And therefore we see that in all the solicitations that can be used even by Princes to whom they are most affected they will not come now to pronounce so surely to determine so positively upon divers points that rest yet in perplexity amongst them Which hath raysed so many commotions in the kingdome of Spaine and put more then one of their later Kings to send divers Ambassages to Rome to solicite a cleare declaration in that point but could never nor can yet attaine it that is The immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sinne So also for the obligation that the lawes of secular Magistrates lay upon the Conscience so also for the Concurrence of Grace and Free-will and divers others in which they will not be drawne to this Surely to determine and declare of either side for indeed that is the language of the Holy Ghost It hath been observed amongst Philosophers that Plato speaks probably and Aristotle positively Platoes way is It may be thus and Aristotles It must be thus The like hath been noted amongst Divines between Calvin and Melanchton Calvin will say Videtur It seemes to be thus Melanchton It can be no otherwise but thus But the best men are but Problematicall Onely the Holy Ghost is Dogmaticall Onely he subscribes this surely and onely he seales with Infallibility Our dealings are appointed to be in yea yea 2 Cor. 1.20 Rev. 3.14 and nay nay and no farther But all the promises of God are yea and Amen that is surely verily for that is his Name These things saith The Amen He that is Amen And it is not I hope an impertinent note That that Euangelist S. Iohn who considers the Divinity of Christ more then the other Euangelists doe does evermore constantly without any change double that which was Christs ordinary asseveration Amen As oft as the other Euangelists mention it in Christs mouth still they expresse it with one Amen verily I say S. Iohn alwayes Amen Amen verily verily it is thus and thus The nearer we come to the consideration of God the farther we are removed from all contingencies and all inclination to Error and the more is this Amen verily surely multiplied and established unto us It is in doctrines and opinions as it is in designes and purposes Goe to sayes the Prophet by way of reprehension Goe to you that say we will goe to such a City and trade thus and thus there c. So goe to you that pronounce upon every invention and Tradition of your own a Quicunque vult salvus esse Whosoever will be saved must beleeve this and clogge every problematicall proposition with an Anathema Cursed be he Excommunicated he that thinks the contrary to this Goe to you that make matters of faith of the passions of men So also goe to you that proceed and continue in your sinnes and say Surely I shall have time enough to repent hereafter Goe to you that in a spirituall and irreligious melancholy and diffidence in Gods mercy say Surely the Lord hath locked up his mercy from me surely I shall never see that Sunne more never receive never feele beame of his mercy more but passe through this darknesse into a worse This word surely in such cases in such senses is not your mothers tongue not the language of the Christian Church She teaches you to condition all in Christ In him you are enabled to doe all things and without him nothing But absolutely unconditionally this surely is appropriated to the propositions to the assertions of God himselfe And some of those follow in this text Now that which the Holy Ghost presents here upon this assurednesse Comparatio Divitis Pauperis is That men of low degree are vanity and that men of high degree are a lie These are both sure and alike sure It is true that it constitutes a Probleme that it admits a Discourse it will abide a debatement whether men of high degree or of low degree be worst whether riches or poverty both considered
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 Ecclesiā 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
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
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
those that were under the law that is all but to Adopt those whom he had chosen us And those are the persons the subjects that he works upon by his comming First then to begin with the persons those of the first kinde Sub lege those that were under the Law for them as we told you before the law must not be so narrowly restrained here as to be intended onely of Moses Law for Christs purpose was not onely upon the Jews for else Naaman the Syrian by whom God fought great battailes 2 Reg. 5. before he was cured of his leprosie and who when he was cured was so zealous of the worship of the true God that he would needs carry holy earth to make Altars of from the place where the Prophet dwelt And else Iob who though he were of the land of Hus hath good testimony of being an upright and just man and one that feared God And else the Widow of Sarepta 1. Reg. 17. whose meale and oyle God preserved unwasted and whose dead sonne God raised againe at the prayer of Eliah All these and all others whom the searching Spirit of God seales to his service in all the corners of the earth because they are strangers in the land of Israel should not be under the Law and so should have no profit by Christs being made under the Law if the Law should be understood onely of the Law of Moses And therefore to be under the Law signifies here thus much To be a debter to the law of nature to have a testimony in our hearts and consciences that there lyes a law upon us which we have no power in our selves to performe that to those lawes To love God with all our powers and to love our neighbour as our selves and to doe as we would be done to we finde our selves naturally bound and yet wee finde our selves naturally unable to performe them and so to need the assistance of another which must be Christ Jesus to performe them for us And so all men Jews and Gentiles are under the Law because naturally they feele a law upon them which they breake And therefore wheresoever our power becomes defective in the performance of this law if our will be not defective too if we come not to say God hath given us an impossible Law and therefore it is lost labour to goe about to performe it or God hath given us another to performe this Law for us and therefore nothing is required at our hands If we abstaine from these quarrels to the law and these murmurings at our owne infirmity wee shall finde that the fulnesse of time is this day come this day Christ is come to all that are under the Law that is to all mankinde to all because all are unable to performe that Law which they all see by the light of nature to lye upon them These then be the persons of the first kinde Redemit All all the world Dilexit mundum God so loved the world that he gave his Son for it for all the world And accordingly venit salvare mundum the obedience of the Son was as large as the love of the Father Hee came to save all the world and he did save all the world God would have all men and Christ did save all men It is therefore fearefully and scarce allowably said that Christ did contrary to his Fathers will when he called those to grace of whom he knew his Fathers pleasure to bee that they should have no grace It is fearefully and dangerously said Absurdum non esse Deum interdum falsa loqui falsum loquenti credendum that it is not absurd to say that is that it may truly be said that God does sometimes speake untruly and that we are bound to beleeve God when he does so for if we consider the soveraigne balme of our soules the blood of Christ Jesus there is enough for all the world if we consider the application of this physick by the Ministers of Christ Jesus in the Church hee hath given us that spreading Commission To goe and preach to every creature we are bid to offer to apply to minister this to all the world Christ hath excommunicated no Nation no shire no house no man Hee gives none of his Ministers leave to say to any man thou art not Redeemed he gives no wounded nor afflicted conscience leave to say to it selfe I am not Redeemed There may be meat enough brought into the house for all the house though some be so weake as they cannot which is the case of the Gentiles some so stubborne as they will not eate which is the case of the carnall man though in the Christian Church He came to all There are the persons and to Redeeme all there is his errand but how to Redeeme S. Hierome saies Gentes non Redimuntur sed emuntur The Gentiles saies hee are not properly Christs by way of Redeeming but by an absolute purchase To which purpose those words are also applied which the Apostle saies to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price S. Hieroms meaning therein is that if we compare the Jews and the Gentiles though God permitted the Jews in punishment of their rebellions to bee captivated by the devill in Idolatries yet the Jews were but as in a mortgage for they had beene Gods peculiar people before But the Gentiles were as the devils inheritance for God had never claimed them nor owned them for his and therefore God sayes to Christ Ps 2.8 Postula à me Aske of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance as though they were not his yet or not his by that title as the Jews were So that in S. Hieromes construction the Jewes which were Gods people before were properly Redeemed the Gentiles to whom God made no title before are rather bought then redeemed But Nullum tempus occurrit Regi against the King of Kings there runnes no prescription no man can devest his Allegeance to his Prince and say he will be subject no longer And therefore since the Gentiles were his by his first title of Creation for it is he that hath made us and not we our selves nor the devill neither when all we by our generall revolt and prevarication as we were all collectively in Adams loynes came to be under that law morte morieris Thou shalt dye the death when Christ came in the fulnesse of time and delivered us from the sharpest and heaviest clause of that Law which is the second death then he Redeemed us properly because though not by the same title of Covenant as the Jews were yet we were his and sold over to his enemy These then were the persons All none can say that he did not need him none can say that he may not have him And this was his first worke to Redeeme to vindicate them from the usurper to deliver them from the intruder to emancipate them
no evill done in the City but I doe it we may be bold to say there is no good done in the world but hee does it The very calamities are from him the deliverance from those calamities much more All comes from Gods hand and from his hand by way of hand-writing by way of letter and instruction to us And therefore to ascribe things wholy to nature to fortune to power to second causes this is to mistake the hand not to know Gods hand But to acknowledge it to be Gods hand and not to read it to say that it is Gods doing and not to consider what God intends in it is as much a slighting of God as the other Now in every such letter in every judgement God writes to the King but it becomes not me to open the Kings letter nor to prescribe the King his interpretation of that judgement In every such letter in every judgement God writes to the State but I will not open their letter nor prescribe them their interpretation of that judgement God who of his goodnesse hath vouchsafed to write unto them in these letters of his abundant goodnesse interprets himselfe to their religious hearts But then in every such letter in every judgement God writes to me too and that letter I will open and read that letter I will take knowledge that it is Gods hand to me and I will study the will of God to me in that letter and I will write back again to my God and return him an answer in the amendment of my life and give him my reformation for his information Else I am fallen lower then under the Prophets increpation non credidi I have not beleeved comminations of future judgements under Christs increpation too non credidi I doe not beleeve judgements to be judgements or which is as dangerous an ignorance not to be instructive judgements medicinall and catechisticall judgements to me And this may well be the explication at least the application and accommodation of these words Lord who hath beleeved our report in those places the Prophet Esay and the Euangelist S. Iohn There remaines only the third place where we have these words in the Apostle S. Paul and in them there doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ Rom. 10.16 as in Esay nor a history of a present Christ as in S. Iohn but we consider an application of all prophecy and history all that was foretold of Christ all that was done and suffered by Christ in this that there is a Church instituted by Christ endowed with meanes of reconciling us to God what judgements soever our sins have drawen God to threaten against us or to inflict upon us and yet for all these offers of all these helps the Minister is put to this sad expostulation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report Here then the Apostles expostulation with God and increpation upon the people may usefully be conceived to be thus carried from the light and notification of God 3. Part. which we have in nature to a clearer light which we have in the Law and Prophets and then a clearer then that in the Gospell and a clearer at least a nearer then that in the Church First then even the naturall man is inexcusable sayes this Apostle if he doe not see the invisible God in the visible creature inexcusable if he doe not reade the law written in his own heart But then Quis credidit auditui suo who hath beleeved his own report who does reade the Law written in his own heart who does come home to Church to himself or hearken to the motions of his own spirit what he should doe or what will become of him if he doe still as he hath done or who reades the history of his own conscience what he hath done and the judgements that belong to those former actions Therefore we have a clearer light then this Firmiorem propheticum sermonem sayes S. Peter We have a more sure word of the Prophets that is 2 Pet. 1.19 as S. Augustine reades that place clariorem a more manifest a more evident declaration in the Prophets then in nature of the will of God towards man and his rewarding the obedient and rejecting the disobedient to that will But then Quis credidit auditui prophetico who hath beleeved the report of the Prophet so far as to be so moved and affected with a prophecy as to suspect himselfe and apply that prophecy to himselfe and to say this judgement of his belongs to this sin of mine Therefore we have a clearer light then this God Heb. 1.1 who at sundry times and in divers manners spake to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last dayes spoke to us by his Son sayes the Apostle He spake personally and he spake aloud in the declaration of Miracles But Quis credidit auditui filii who beleeved even his report did they not call his preaching sedition and call his Miracles conjuring Therefore we have a clearer that is a nearer light then the written Gospell that is the Church For the principall intention in Christs Miracles even in the purpose of God was but thereby to create and constitute and establish an assurance that he that did those Miracles was the right man the true Messias that Son of God who was made man for the redemption and ransome of the whole world But then that which was to give them their best assistance that that was to supply all by that way to apply this generall redemption to every particular soule that was the establishing of a Church of a visible and constant and permanent meanes of salvation by his Ordinances there usque ad consummationem till the end of the world And this is done sayes this Apostle here Christ is come and gone and come again Born and dead and risen again Ascended and sate at the right hand of his Father in our nature and descended again in his Spirit the Holy Ghost that Holy Ghost hath sent us us the Apostles we have made Bishops they have made Priests and Deacons and so that body that family that houshold of the faithfull Ver. 14. by their Ministery is made up 'T is true sayes the Apostle here Men cannot be saved without calling upon God nor call upon him acceptably without Faith nor beleeve truly without Hearing nor heare profitably without Preaching nor preach avowably and with a blessing without sending All this is true sayes our Apostle in this place but all this is done such a sending such a preaching such a hearing is established For Ver. 19. I ask but this sayes he Have they not heard Yes verily their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the end of the world And for my selfe sayes he I have strived to preach the Gospell Rom. 15.20 where Christ was not named that is to carry the Church farther then the rest had carried it and now all
time to seek him in the clouds of affliction and heavinesse of heart Experience teacheth us that if we be reading any book in the evening if the twilight surprise us and it growes dark yet we can reade longer in that book which we were in before then if we took a new book of another subject into our hands If we have been accustomed to the contemplation of God in the Sun-shine of prosperity we shall see him better in the night of misery then if we began but then Vae desiderantibus If you seem to desire that day of the Lord because you doe not beleeve that that day will come or because you beleeve that when that day comes it will be time enough to rectifie your selves then Vi quod vobis this day shall be good for nothing to either of you for to both you it shall be darknesse and not light The dayes which God made for man were darknesse and then light still the evening and the morning made up the day The day which the Lord shall bring upon secure and carnall men is darknesse without light judgements without any beames of mercy shine through them such judgements as if we will consider the vehemency of them we shall finde them expressed in such an extraordinary heighth as scarce anywhere else in Iercmy Men shall ask one of another if they be in labour whether they travell with childe Ier. 3◠7 Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loines as a woman in travell Alas because that day is great and none is like it This is the unexpected and unconsidered strangenesse of that day if we consider the vehemency and if we consider the suddennesse the speed of bringing that day upon secure man That is intimated very sufficiently in another story of the same Prophet that when he had said to the Prophet Hananiah Jer 28.16 That he should die within a year when God saith his judgements shall come shortly if then we consider the vehemency or the nearnesse of the day of the Lord the day of his visitation we shall be glad to say with that Prophet Ier. 17.16 As for me I have not desired that wofull day thou knowest that is I have neither doubted but that there shall be such a day nor I have not put off my repentance to that day for what can that do good to either of those dispositions when to them it shall be darknesse and not light Now this Woe of this Prophet thus denounced against contemptuous scorners of the day of the Lord 2 Part. as that day signifies afflictions in this life have had no subject to work upon this congregation as by Gods grace there is none of that distemper here it is a piece of a Sermon well lost and God be blessed that it hath had no use that no body needed it But as the Woe is denounced in the second acceptation against Hypocrites so it is a chain-shot and in every congregation takes whole rankes and here Dies Domini is the last day of Judgement and the desire in the Text is not as before a denying that any such day should be but it is an hypocriticall pretence that we have so well performed our duties as that we should be glad if that day would come and then the darknesse of the Text is everlasting condemnation For this day of the Lord then the last day of judgement consider only or reflect only upon these three circumstances First there is Lex violata a law given to thee and broken by thee Secondly there is Testis prolatus Evidence produced against thee and confessed by thee And then there is Sententia lata A judgement given against thee and executed upon thee For the Law first when that Law is To love God with all thy power not to scatter thy love upon any other creature when the Law is not to do not to covet any ill wilt thou say this Law doth not concern me because it is impossible in it self for this coveting this first concupiscence is not in a mans own power Why this Law was possible to man when it was given to man for it was naturally imprinted in the heart of man when man was in his state of innocency and then it was possible and the impossibility that is grown into it since is by mans own fault Man by breaking the Law hath made the Law impossible and himself inexcusable wilt thou say with that man in the Gospell Omnia haec à juventute I have kept all this Law from my youth From thy youth remember thy youth well and what Law thou keptst then and thou wilt finde it to be another Law Lex in membris A Law of the flesh warring against the Law of the minde nay thou wilt finde that thou didst never maintain a war against that Law of the flesh but wast glad that thou camest to the obedience of that Law so soon and art sorry thou canst follow that Law no longer This is the Law and wilt thou put this to triall Wilt thou say who can prove it Who comes in to give evidence against me All those whom thy sollicitations have overcome and who have overcome thy sollicitations good and bad friends and enemies Wives and Mistresses persons most incompatible and contrary here shall joyne together and be of the Jury If S. Pauls case were so far thy case as that thou wert in righteousnesse unblameable no man no woman able to testifie against thee yet when the records of all thoughts shall be laid open and a retired and obscure man shall appeare to have been as ambitious in his Cloister as a pretending man at the Court and a retired woman in her chamber appeare to be as licentious as a prostitute woman in the Stews when the heart shall be laid open and this laid open too that some sins of the heart are the greatest sins of all as Infidelity the greatest sin of all is rooted in the heart and sin produced to action is but a dilatation of that sin and all dilatation is some degree of extenuation The body sometimes grows weary of acting some sin but the heart never grows weary of contriving of sin When this shall be that Law and this the Evidence what can be the Sentence but that Itemaledicti Go ye accursed into ever lasting fire where it is not as in the form of our judgement here You shall be carried to the place of execution but Ite Goe our own consciences shall be our executioners and precipitate us into that condemnation It is not a Captivity of Babylon for 70. yeares and yet 70. yeares is the time of mans life and why might not so many yeares punishment expiate so many yeares sinfull pleasure but it is 70. millions of millions of generations for they shall live so long in hell as God himself in heaven It is not an imprisonment during the Kings pleasure but during the Kings displeasure whom nothing can please
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
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
consider the two termes in which it is expressed what this is which is translated Transgression and then what this Forgiving imports The Originall word is Pashang and that signifies sin in all extensions The highest the deepest the waightiest sin It is a malicious and a forcible opposition to God It is when this Herod and this Pilat this Body and this soule of ours are made friends and agreed that they may concurre to the Crucifying of Christ When not onely the members of our bodies but the faculties of our soul our will and understanding are bent upon sin when we doe not only sin strongly and hungerly and thirstily which appertain to the body but we sin rationally we finde reasons and those reasons even in Gods long patience why we should sin We sin wittily we invent new sins and we thinke it an ignorant a dull and an unsociable thing not to sin yea we sin wisely and make our sin our way to preferment Then is this word used by the Holy Ghost when he expresses both the vehemence and the waight and the largenesse and the continuance all extensions all dimensions of the sins of Damascus Amos 1.3 Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for foure I will not turne to it because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of Iron So then we consider sin here not as a staine such as Originall sin may be nor as a wound such as every actuall sin may be but as a burden a complication a packing up of many sins in an habituall practise thereof This is that waight that sunke the whole world under water in the first floud and shall presse downe the fire it selfe to consume it a second time It is a waight that stupifies and benums him that beares it August so as that the sinner feeles not the oppression of his owne sins Et quid miserius miscro non miserante seipsum What misery can be greater then when a miserable man hath not sense to commiserate his owne misery Our first errors are out of Levity and S. Augustin hath taught us a proper ballast and waight for that Amor Dei pondus animae The love of God would carry us evenly and steadily if we would embarke that But as in great tradings they come to ballast with Merchandise ballast and fraight is al one so in this habituall sinner all is sin plots and preparations before the act gladnesse and glory in the act sometimes disguises sometimes justifications after the act make up one body one fraight of sin So then Transgression in this place in the naturall signification of the word is a waight a burden and carrying it as the word requires to the greatest extension it is the sin of the whole World And that sinne is forgiven which is the second Terme The Prophet does not say here Forgiven Blessed is that man that hath no transgression for that were to say Blessed is that man that is no man All people all Nations did ever in Nature acknowledge not onely a guiltinesse of sin but some meanes of reconciliation to their Gods in the Remission of sins for they had all some formall and Ceremoniall Sacrifices and Expiations and Lustrations by which they thought their sins to be purged and washed away Whosoever acknowledges a God acknowledges a Remission of sins and whosoever acknowledges a Remission of sins acknowledges a God And therefore in this first place David does not mention God at all he does not say Blessed is he whose transgression the Lord hath forgiven for he presumes it to be an impossible tentation to take hold of any man that there can be any Remission of sin from any other person or by any other meanes then from and by God himselfe and therefore Remission of sins includes an Act of God But what kinde of Act is more particularly designed in the Originall word which is Nasa then our word forgiving reaches to for the word does not onely signifie Auferre but ferre not onely to take away sin by way of pardon but to take the sin upon himselfe and so to beare the sin and the punishment of the sin in his owne person And so Christ is the Lambe of God Qui tollit not onely that takes away Esay 53.4 but that takes upon himselfe the sins of the world Tulit portavit Surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes Those griefes those sorrowes which we should he hath borne and carried in his owne person So that as it is all one never to have come in debt and to have discharged the debt So the whole world all mankinde considered in Christ is as innocent as if Adam had never sinned And so this is the first beame of Blessednesse that shines upon my soule That I beleeve that the justice of God is fully satisfied in the death of Christ and that there is enough given and accepted in the treasure of his blood for the Remission of all Transgressions And then the second beame of this Blessednesse is in The covering of sins Now to benefit our selves by this part of Davids Catechisme Sinne. we must as we did before consider the two termes of which this part of this Blessednesse consists sin and covering Sin in this place is not so heavy a word as Transgression was in the former for that was sin in all extensions sinne in all formes all sin of all men of all times of all places the sin of all the world upon the shoulders of the Saviour of the world In this place the word is Catah and by the derivation thereof from Nata which is to Decline to step aside or to be withdrawne and Kut which is filum a thread or a line that which we call sin here signifies Transilire lineam To depart or by any tentation to be withdrawne from the direct duties and the exact straightnesse which is required of us in this world for the attaining of the next So that the word imports sins of infirmity such sins as doe fall upon Gods best servants such sins as rather induce a cofession of our weaknesse and an acknowledgement of our continuall need of pardon for some thing passed and strength against future invasions then that induce any devastation or obduration of the conscience which Transgression in the former branch implied For so this word Catah hath that signification as in many other places there where it is said Iudg â—â— 16 That there were seven hundred left-handed Benjamits which would sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile that is not misse the marke a haires breadth And therefore when this word Catah sin is used in Scripture to expresse any weighty hainous enormous sin it hath an addition Peccatum magnum peccaverunt sayes Moses Exod. 32.31 when the people were become Idolaters These people have sinned a great sin otherwise it signifies such sin as destroyes not the foundation such as in the nature
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
yet this is still limited by the law of God so far as God hath instituted this power by his Gospel in his Church and far from inducing amongst us that torture of the Conscience that usurpation of Gods power that spying into the counsails of Princes supplanting of their purposes with which the Church of Rome hath been deeply charged And this usefull and un-mis-interpretable Confession which we speake of Adversum me is the more recommended to us in that with which David shuts up his Act as out of S. Hierome and out of our former translation we intimated unto you that he doth all this Adversum se I will confesse my sinnes unto the Lord against my selfe The more I finde Confession or any religious practise to be against my selfe and repugnant to mine owne nature the farther I will goe in it For still the Adversum me is Cum Deo The more I say against my selfe the more I vilifie my selfe the more I glorifie my God As S. Chry sostome sayes every man is Spontaneus Satan a Satan to himselfe as Satan is a Tempter every man can tempt himselfe so I will be Spontaneus Satan as Satan is an Accuser an Adversary I will accuse my selfe I consider often that passionate humiliation of S. Peter Exi à me Domine He fell at Iesus knees saying Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord Luk. 5.8 And I am often ready to say so and more Depart from me O Lord for I am sinfull inough to infect thee As I may persecute thee in thy Children so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances Depart in withdrawing thy word from me for I am corrupt inough to make even thy saving Gospel the savor of death unto death Depart in withholding thy Sacrament for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh and to make the balme of thy blood poyson to my soule Depart in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and rebellion into their nature And if I be too foule for God himselfe to come neare me for his Ordinances to worke upon me I am no companion for my selfe I must not be alone with my selfe for I am as apt to take as to give infection I am a reciprocall plague passively and actively contagious I breath corruption and breath it upon my selfe and I am the Babylon that I must goe out of Gen. 32.10 Mat. 8.8 or I perish I am not onely under Iacobs Non dignus Not worthy the least of all thy mercies nor onely under the Centurions Non dignus I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe That thy Spirit should ever speake to my spirit which was the forme of words in which every Communicant received the Sacrament in the Primitive Church Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roofe Nor onely under the Prodigals Non dignus Luke 15.21 Not worthy to be called thy sonne neither in the filiation of Adoption for I have deserved to be dis-inherited nor in the filiation of Creation for I have deserved to be annihilated Mark 1.7 But Non dignus procumbere I am not worthy to stoop down to fall down to kneele before thee in thy Minister the Almoner of thy Mercy the Treasurer of thine Absolutions So farre doe I confesse Adversum me against my selfe as that I confesse I am not worthy to confesse nor to be admitted to any accesse any approach to thee much lesse to an act so neare Reconciliation to thee as an accusation of my selfe or so neare thy acquitting as a self-condemning Be this the issue in all Controversies whensoever any new opinions distract us Be that still thought best that is most Adversum nos most against our selves That that most layes flat the nature of man so it take it not quite away and blast all vertuous indeavours That that most exalts the Grace and Glory of God be that the Truth And so have you the whole mystery of Davids Confession in both his Acts preparatory in resenting his sinfull condition in generall and survaying his conscience in particular And then his Deliberation his Resolution his Execution his Confession Confession of true sins and of them onely and of all them of his sins and all this to the Lord and all that against himselfe That which was proposed for the second Part must fall into the compasse of a Conclusion and a short one that is Gods Act Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin This is a wide doore 2 Part. and would let out Armies of Instructions to you but we will shut up this doore with these two leaves thereof The fulnesse of Gods Mercy He forgives the sin and the punishment And the seasonablenesse the acceleration of his mercy in this expression in our text that Davids is but Actus inchoatus He sayes he will confesse And Gods is Actus consummatus Thou forgavest Thou hadst already forgiven the iniquity and punishment of my sin These will be the two leaves of this doore and let the hand that shuts them be this And this Particle of Connection which we have in the text I said And thou didst For though this Remission of sin be not presented here as an effect upon that cause of Davids Confession It is not delivered in a Quia and an Ergo Because David did this God did that for mans wil leads not the will of God as a cause who does all his acts of mercy for his mercies sake yet though it be not an effect as from a cause yet it is at least as a consequent from an occasion so assured so infallible as let any man confesse as David did and he shall be sure to be forgiven as David was For though this forgivenesse be a flower of mercy yet the roote growes in the Justice of God If wee acknowledge our sin 1 John 1.9 he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sin It growes out of his faithfulnesse as he hath vouchsafed to binde himselfe by a promise And out of his Justice as he hath received a full satisfaction for all our sins So that this Hand this And in our Text is as a ligament as a sinew to connect and knit together that glorious body of Gods preventing grace and his subsequent grace if our Confession come between and tie the knot God that moved us to that act will perfect all Here enters the fulnesse of his mercy Plenitudo Rev. 3 20. at one leafe of this doore well expressed at our doore in that Ecce sto pulso Behold I stand at the doore and knock for first he comes here is no mention of our calling of him before He comes of himselfe And then he suffers not us to be ignorant of his comming he comes so as that he manifests himself Ecce Behold And then he expects not that we should wake with that light and look out of our selves but he knocks
for the Super-soveraigne in that Church their transcendent and hyperbolicall supreme Head they will pretend to deduce out of the Scriptures But because the Scriptures are constant and limited and determined there can be no more Scriptures And they should be shrewdly prejudiced and shrewdly disadvantaged if all emergent cases arising in the Christian world must be judged by a Law which others may know before-hand as well as they Therefore being wise in their own generation they choose rather to lay up their Rule in a Cupboard then upon a Shelfe rather in Scrinio pectoris in the breast and bosome of one man then upon every deske in a study where every man may lay or whence every man may take a Bible Therefore have so many sad and sober men amongst them repented that in the Councell of Trent they came to a finall resolution in so many particulars because how incommodious soever some of those particulars may prove to them yet they are bound to some necessity of a defence or to some aspersion if they forsake such things as have been solemnly resolved in that manner Therefore it was a prudent and discreet abstinence in them to forbeare the determination of some things which have then and since falne into agitation amongst them Be pleased to take one in the Councell and one after for all Long time it had and then it did and still it doth perplex the Consciences of penitents that come to Confession and the understandings of Confessors who are to give Absolution how far the secular Lawes of temporall Princes binde the Conscience of the Subject and when and in what cases he is bound to confesse it as a sin who hath violated and transgressed any of those Lawes And herein sayes an Author of theirs who hath written learnedly De legibus Carbo of the hand and obligation of Lawes The Pope was solicited and supplicated from the Councell in which it was debated that he would be pleased to come to a Determination but because he saw it was more advantage to him to hold it undetermined that so he might serve others turnes and his own especially it remains undetermined and no Confessor is able to un-entangle the Conscience of his penitent yet So also in another point of as great consequence at least for the peace of the Church if not for the profit which is those differences which have arisen between the Jesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the Grace of God and the free will of man Though both sides have come to that vehemence that violence that virulency as to call one anothers opinion hereticall which is a word that cuts deepe and should not be passionately used yet he will not be brought to a decision to a determination in the point but onely forbids both sides to write at all in that point and in that inhibition of his we see how he suffers himselfe to be deluded for still they write with protestation that they write not to advance either opinion but onely to prepare the way against such time as the Pope shall be pleased to take off that inhibition and restore them to their liberty of writing for this way hath one of their last Authors Arriba taken to vent himselfe In a word if they should submit themselves to try all points and cases of Conscience by Scripture that were to governe by a knowne and constant Law but as they have imagined a Monarchy in their Church so have they a prerogative in their Monarchy a secret judgement in one breast however he who gives them all their power make this protestation Si quo minus If it were not thus and thus I would have told you so So then this proposition in our Text falls first upon them who doe not beleeve All things to be contained in the Scriptures And it falls also upon them who doe not beleeve All persons to be intended in the Scriptures who seeme to be concerned therein The first sort dishonor God in his Scriptures in that kinde That there is not enough in the Scriptures for any mans salvation And the other in this kinde That that that is is not intended as it is pretended not in that largenesse and generality as it is proposed but that God hath set a little Diamond in a great deale of gold a narrow purpose in large promises and thereupon they impute to God in their manner of expressing themselves Dolos bonos and Fraudes pias holy deceits holy falshoods holy illusions and circumventions and over-good husbands of Gods large and bountifull Grace contract his generall promises I dispute not but I am glad to heare the Apostle say Rom. 5.14 That as all were dead so one dyed for all and to put the force of his argument there in that That except we can say That one dyed for all we cannot say that all were dead I argue not but I am glad to heare another Apostle say 1 Joh. 2.2 That Christ is the propitiation for the sinnes of all the world for if any man had been left out how should I have come in I am not exercised nor would I exercise these Auditories with curiosities but I heare the Apostle say Rom. 14.11 1 Cor. 8.11 Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ dyed And I heare him say Through thy knowledge may thy weake brother perish for whom Christ dyed and me thinks he meanes That though they might be destroyed though they might perish yet Christ dyed for them Onely to deliver God from all aspersions and to defend particular Consciences from being scandalized with dangerous phrases and in a pious detestation of those impious Doli and Fraudes holy deceits holy falshoods I onely say God forbid that when our Saviour Christ called the Pharisee hypocrite that Pharisee should have been able to recriminate that upon Christ and to have said So are you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not God forbid that when Christ had made that the mark of a true Israelite in the person of Nathaniel In quo non est dolus In whom there is no deceit Joh. 1.47 any man should have been able to have said to Christ Then Nathaniel is a better Israelite then you for you pretend to offer salvation where you meane it not Psal 35.3 David hath joyned those two words together The words of their mouth are Iniquity and Deceit If there be Deceit there is Iniquity too Our Saviour hath joyned all these together Mar. 7.22 Adulteries Murders Blasphemies and Deceit where there is Deceit all mischiefe is justly presumed The Apostle S. Paul discharges himselfe of nothing with more earnestnesse then that 2 Cor. 12.16 Acts 13.10 Have I deceived you have I circumvented you with fraud Neither doth he charge him whom he calls The childe of the Devill Elymas the sorcerer farther then so O plene omni dolo That he was full of all Deceit And therefore they that
thereof does not wholly extinguish Grace nor grieve the Spirit of God in us And such sinnes God covers saies David here Now what is his way of covering these sins As Sin in this notion is not so deepe a wound upon God as Transgression in the other Covering so Covering here extends not so far as Forgiving did there There forgiving was a taking away of sin by taking that way That Christ should beare all our sins it was a suffering a dying it was a penall part and a part of Gods justice executed upon his one and onely Son here it is a part of Gods mercy in spreading and applying the merits and satisfaction of Christ upon all them whom God by the Holy Ghost hath gathered in the profession of Christ and so called to the apprehending and embracing of this mantle this garment this covering the righteousnesse of Christ in the Christian Christ In which Church and by his visible Ordinances therein the Word and Sacraments God covers hides conceales even from the inquisition of his owne justice those smaller sins which his servants commit and does not turne them out of his service for those sins So the word the word is Casah which we translate Covering is used Prov. 12.23 A wise man concealeth knowledge that is Does not pretend to know so much as indeed he does So our mercifull God when he sees us under this mantle this covering Christ spread upon his Church conceales his knowledge of our sins and suffers them not to reflect upon our consciences in a consternation thereof So then as the Forgiving was Auferre ferendo a taking away of sin by taking all sin upon his owne person So this Covering is Tegere attingendo To cover sin by comming to it by applying himselfe to our sinfull consciences in the meanes instituted by him in his Church for they have in that language another word Sacac which signifies Tegere obumbrando To cover by overshadowing by refreshing This is Tegere obumbrando To cover by shadowing when I defend mine eye from the offence of the Sun by interposing my hand betweene the Sun and mine eye at this distance a far off But Tegere attingendo is when thus I lay my hand upon mine eye and cover it close by that touching In the knowledge that Christ hath taken all the sins of all the world upon himselfe that there is enough done for the salvation of all mankinde I have a shadowing a refreshing But because I can have no testimony that this generall redemption belongs to me who am still a sinner except there passe some act betweene God and me some seale some investiture some acquittance of my debts my sins therefore this second beame of Davids Blessednesse in this his Catechisme shines upon me in this That God hath not onely sowed and planted herbs and Simples in the world medicinall for all diseases of the world but God hath gathered and prepared those Simples and presented them so prepared to me for my recovery from my disease God hath not onely received a full satisfaction for all sinne in Christ but Christ in his Ordinances in his Church offers me an application of all that for my selfe and covers my sin from the eye of his Father not onely obumbrando as hee hath spread himselfe as a Cloud refreshing the whole World in the value of the satisfaction but Attingendo by comming to me by spreading himself upon me as the Prophet did upon the dead Child Mouth to mouth Hand to hand In the mouth of his Minister he speaks to me In the hand of the Minister he delivers himselfe to me and so by these visible acts and seales of my Reconciliation Tegit attingendo He covers me by touching me He touches my conscience with a sense and remorse of my sins in his Word and he touches my soule with a faith of having received him and all the benefit of his Death in the Sacrament And so he covers sin that is keepes our sins of infirmity and all such sins as do not in their nature quench the light of his grace from comming into his Fathers presence or calling for vengeance there Forgiving of transgressions is the generall satisfaction for all the world and restoring the world to a possibility of salvation in the Death of Christ Covering of sin is the benefit of discharging and easing the conscience by those blessed helps which God hath afforded to those whom he hath gathered in the bosome and quickned in the wombe of the Christian Church And this is the second beame of Blessedness cast out by David here and then the third is The not imputing of iniquity Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity In this also Impute as in the two former we did we consider this Imputing and then this Iniquity in the roote and Original signification of the two words When in this place the Lord is said not to impute sinne it is meant That the Lord shall not suffer me to impute sinne to my selfe The word is Cashab and Cashab imports such a thinking such a surmising as may be subject to error and mistaking To that purpose we finde the word where Hannah was praying 1 Sam. 1.12 and Eli the Priest who saw her lips move and heard no prayer come from her thought she had been drunke Imputed drunkennesse unto her and said How long wilt thou be drunke put away thy wine So that this Imputing is such an Imputing of ours as may be erronious that is an Imputing from our selves in a diffidence and jealousie and suspition of Gods goodnesse towards us To which purpose we consider also that this word which we translate here Iniquity Gnavah is oftentimes in the Scripture used for punishment as well as for sinne and so indifferently for both as that if we will compare Translation with Translation and Exposition with Exposition it will be hard for us to say Gen. 4.13 whether Cain said Mine iniquity is greater then can be pardoned or My punishment is greater then I can beare and our last Translation which seems to have been most carefull of the Originall takes it rather so My punishment in the Text and lays the other My sinne aside in the Margin So then this Imputing being an Imputing which arises from our selves and so may be accompanied with error and mistaking that we Impute that to our selves which God doth not impute And this mis-imputing of Gods anger to our selves arising out of his punishments and his corrections inflicted upon us That because we have crosses in the world we cannot beleeve that we stand well in the sight of God or that the forgiving of Transgressions or Covering of sinnes appertains unto us we justly conceive that this not Imputing of Iniquity is that Serenitas Conscientiae That brightnesse that clearnesse that peace and tranquillity that calme and serenity that acquiescence and security of the Conscience in which I am delivered from all scruples and
by their Confessors whether they he sins or no And thus it is in divers other points besides this They pretend to give satisfaction and peace in all cases and pretend to be the onely true Church for that and yet leave the conscience in ignorance and in distemper and distresse and distraction in many particulars The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God The roote of all is Order and the orderer of all is the King And what the good Kings of Judah and the religious Kings of the Primitive Christian Church did every King may nay should do For both the Tables are committed to him as well the first that concernes our religious duties to God as the other that concernes our Civill duties to men So is the Arke where those Tables are kept and so is the Temple where that Arke is kept all committed to him and he oversees the manner of the religious service of God And therefore it is that in the Schooles we call Sedition and Rebellion Sacriledge for though the trespasse seeme to be directed but upon a man yet in that man whose office and consequently his person is sacred God is opposed and violated And it is impiously said of a Jesuit I may easily be beleeved of that Jesuit Gretzer if any other might be excepted Non est Regum etiam veram doctrinam confirmare The King hath nothing to doe with Religion neither doth it belong to him to establish any forme of Religion in his Kingdome though it bee the right Religion and though it be but by way of Confirmation This then David Omnibus persuadet David as a King takes to be in his care in his office To rectifie and settle Religion that is the outward worship of God And this he intimates this he conveyes by way of counsaile and perswasion to all the world he would faine have all agree in one service of God Ver. 1. Therefore he enters the Psalme so Iubilate omnes terrae Rejoyce all ye lands Ver. 4. and Adoret te omnis terrae All the earth shall worship thee and againe Venite audite omnes Ver. 16. Come and heare all ye that feare God For as S. Cyprian sayes of Bishops That every Bishop is an universall Bishop That is must take into his care and contemplation not onely his owne particular Dioces but the whole Catholique Church So every Christian King is a King of the whole Christian world that is must study and take into his care not onely his own kingdome but all others too For it is not onely the municipall law of that kingdome by which he is bound to see his own subjects in all cases righted but in the whole law of Nations every King hath an interest My soule may be King that is reside principally in my heart or in my braine but it neglects not the remoter parts of my body David maintains Religion at home but he assists as much as he can the establishing of that Religion abroad too David endevours that perswades that every where but he will be sure of it at home Suis imperat There he enjoyns it there he commands it Dicite sayes he Say that is This you shall say you shall serve God thus We cannot provide that there shall be no Wolves in the world but we have provided that there shall be no Wolves in this kingdome Idolatry will be but there needs be none amongst us Idolaters were round about the children of Israel in the land of promise They could not make all those Proselytes but yet they kept their own station When the Arian heresie had so surrounded the world as that Vniversa fere Orientalis Ecclesia Almost all the Eastern Church Nicephor Vinc. Lyra. And Cuncti pene Latini Episcopi aut vi aut fraude decepti Almost all the Bishops of the Westerne Church were deceived or threatned out of their Religion into Arianisme Insomuch Hilar. that S. Hilarie gives a note of an hundred and five Bishops of note noted with that heresie When that one Bishop who will needs be all alone the Bishop of Rome Liberius so far subscribed to that heresie Hieron De Roma pont l. 4. c. 9. as S. Hieroms expresse words are that Bellarmine himselfe does not onely not deny it but finds himselfe bound and finds it hard for him to prove That though Liberius did outwardly professe himselfe to be an Arian yet in his heart he was none yet for all this impetuousnesse of this flood of this heresie Athanasius as Bishop excommunicated the Arians in his Dioces And Constantine as Emperor banished them out of his Dominions Athanasius would have been glad if no other Church Constantine would have been glad if no other State would have received them When they could not prevaile so far yet they did that which was possible and most proper to them they preserved the true worship of the true God in their own Jurisdiction David could not have done that if he had not had a true zeale to Gods truth Ipse facit quod jubâ—â— in his own heart And therefore as we have an intimation of his desire to reduce the whole world and a testimony of his earnestnesse towards his own Subjects so we have an assurance that in his own particular he was constantly established in this truth He cals to all Come and see the works of God And more particularly to all his O blesse our God yee people but he proposes himselfe to their consideration too Ver. 5. Ver. 8. Ver. 16. Psal 145.3 I will declare what he hath done for my soule Great is the Lord and greatly to be feared sayes this religious King in another Psalme And that is a Proclamation a Remonstrance to all the world He addes One generation shall declare thy works to another Ver. 4. Ver. 6. And that is a propagation to the ends of the world But all this is rooted in that which is personall and follows after I will speake of the glorious honour of thy Majesly And that is a protestation for his own particular And to the same purpose is that which follows in the next verse Men shall speake of the might of thy terrible acts They shall that is They should and I would all men would sayes David But whether they doe or no I will declare thy greatnesse sayes he there I will not be defective in my particular And David was to be trusted with a pious endevour amongst his Neighbours and with a pious care over all his own subjects as long as he nourished and declared so pious a disposition in his own person And truly it is an injurious it is a disloyall suspition and jealousie it is an ungodly fascination of our own happinesse to doubt of good effects abroad and of a blessed assurance at home as long as the zeale of Gods truth remains so constantly in his heart and flowes out so declaratorily in his actions