to his owne fleshly passions as some others take it judge not you so neither first judge not that ye be not judged that is as Saint Ambrose interprets it well enough Nolite â—udicare de judiciis Dei when you see Gods judgments fall upon a man when you see the tower of Silo fall upon a man doe not you judge that that man had sinned more then you when you see another borne blind doe not you thinke that he or his Father had sinned and that you onely are derived from a pure generation especially nâ—n maledic as surdo speake not evill of the deafe that heares not That is as Gregory interprets it if not literally yet appliably and usefully calumniate not him who is absent and cannot defend himselfe it is the devills office to be Accusator fratrum and though God doe not say in the law Non erit yet he says Non erit criminator it is not plainely there shall be no Informer for as we dispute and for the most part affirme in the Schoole that though we could we might destroy no intire species of those creatures which God made at first though it be a Tyger or a viper because this were to take away one link of Gods chaine out of the world so such vermine as Informers may not for some good use that there is of them be taken away though it be not non erit there shall be none yet it is at least by way of good counsaile to thee non eris thou shalt not be the man thou shalt not be the Informer and for resisting those that are we are bound not onely not to harme our neighbours house but to help him if casually his house fall on fire wee are bound where where wee have authority to stoppe the mouthes of other calumniators where wee have no authority yet since as the North wind driveth away raine an angry countenance driveth away a back-biting tongue at least deale so with a libeller with a calumniator for he that lookes pleasantly and hearkens willingly to one libell makes another occasions a second always remember Davids case when he thought that he had been giving judgment against another he was more severe more heavy then the law admitted The law was that he that had stoln the sheep should returne fourefold and Davids anger was kindled says the text and he said and he swore As the Lord liveth that man shall restore fourfold Et filius mortis and he shall surely dyes O judicis superfluentem justitiam O superabundant and overflowing Justice when we judge another in passion But this is judicium secundum carnem according to which Christ judges no man for Christ is love and that non cogitat malum love thinks no evill any way The charitable man neither meditates evill against another nor beleeves not easily any evill to be in another though it be told him Lastly Christ judges no man Ad internecionem he judges no man so in this world as to give a finall condemnation upon him here There is no error in any of his Judgments but there is an appeal from all his Judgments in this world There is a verdict against every man every man may find his case recorded and his sinne condemned in the law and in the Prophets there is a verdict but before Judgment God would have every man sav'd by his book by the apprehension and application of the gratious promises of the Gospell to his case and his conscience Christ judges no man so as that he should see no remedy but to curse God and die not so as that he should say his sinne is greater then God could forgive for God sent not his Sonne into the world to condemne the world but that the world through him might be saved Doe not thou then give malitious evidence against thy selfe doe not weaken the merit nor lessen the value of the bloud of thy Saviour as though thy sinne were greater then it Doth God desire thy bloud now when he hath abundantly satisfied his justice with the bloud of his Sonne for thee what hast thou done hast thou come hypocritically to this place upon collaterall reasons and not upon the direct service of God not for love of Information of Reformation of thy selfe If that be thy case yet if a man hear my words says Christ and beleeve not I judge him not he hath one that judgeth him says Christ and who is that The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him It shall but when It shall judge him says Christ at that last day for till the last day the day of his death no man is past recovery no man's salvation is impossible Hast thou gone farther then this Hast thou admitted scruples of diffidence and distrust in Gods mercy and so tasted of the lees of desperation It is true perpetrare flagitium est mors anima sed desper are est descensus ad inferos In every sinne the soule dies but in desperation it descends into hell but yet portae inferi non praevalebunt even the gates of this hell shall not prevaile against thee Assist thy selfe argue thine own case desperation it selfe may be without infidelity desperation aswell as hope is rooted in the desire of happinesse desperation proceeds out of a feare and a horror of sinne desperation may consist with faith thus farre that a man may have a true and faithfull opinion in the generall that there is a remission of sinne to be had in the Church and yet have a corrupt imagination in the particular that to him in this sinfull state that he is in this remission of sinnes shall not be applied so that the resolution of the Schoole is good Desperatio potest esse 〈◊〉 solo excessu boni desperation may proceed from an excesse of that which is good in it selfe from an excessive over fearing of Gods justice from an excessive over hating thine own sinnes Et virtute quis malè utitur Can any man make so ill use of so great virtues as the feare of God and the hare of sinne yes they may so froward a weed is sinne as that it can spring out of any roote and therefore if it have done so in thee and thou thereby have made thy case the harder yet know stil that Objectum speâ— est arduâ— et possibile the true object of hope is hard to come by but yet possible to come by and therefore as David said By my God have I leaped over a wall so by thy God maist thou breake through a wall through this wall of obduration which thou thy selfe hast begunne to build about thy selfe Feather thy wings againe which even the flames of hell have touched in these beginnings of desperation feather them againe with this text Neminem judicat Christ judges no man so as a desperate man judges himselfe doe not make thy selfe beleeve that thou hast sinned
which is a true joy but common to all Christians is that assurance which they have in their tribulations that God will give them the issue with the temptation not that they pretend not to feel that calamity so the Philosophers did but that it shall not swallow them this is naturall to a Christian he is not a Christian without this Thinke it not strange says the Apostle as though some strange thing were come unto you for we must accustome our selves to the expectation of tribulation but rejoyce says he and when his glory shall appeare yee shall be made glad and rejoyce He bids us rejoyce and yet all that he promises is but rejoycing at last he bids us rejoyce all the way though the consummate aud determinable joy come not till the end yet God hath set bounds to our tribulations as to the sea and they shall not overflow us But this perfect joy to speake of such degrees of perfection as may be had in this life this third joy the joy of this text is not a collaterall joy that stands by us in the tribulation and sustaines us but it is a fundamentall joy a radicall joy a viscerall a gremiall joy that arises out of the bosome and wombe and bowels of the tribulation it selfe It is not that I rejoyce though I be afflicted but I rejoyce because I am afflicted It is not because I shall not sink in my calamity and be buried in that valley but because my calamity raises me and makes my valley a hill and gives me an eminency and brings God and me nearer to one another then without that calamity I should have been when I can depart rejoycing and that therefore because I am worthy to suffer rebuke for the name of Christ as the Apostles did when I can feel that pattern proposed to my joy and to my tribulation which Christ gives Rejoyce and be glad for so persecuted they the Prophets when I can find that seale printed upon me by my tribulation If ye be railed on for the name of Christ blessed are ye for the spirit of God and of glory resteth on you that is that affliction fixes the holy Ghost upon me which in prosperity falls upon me but as Sun-beames Briefly if my soule have had that conference that discourse with God that he hath declared to me his purpose in all my calamities as he told Ananias that he had done to Paul he is a chosen vessell unto me for I will shew him how many things he must suffer for my sake If the light of Gods Spirit shew us the number the force the intent of our tribulations then is our soule come to that highest joy which she is capable of in this life when as cold and dead water when it comes to the fire hath a motion and dilatation and a bubling and a kind of dancing in the vessell so my soule that lay asleep in prosperity hath by this fire of Tribulation a motion a joy an exaltation This is the highest degree of suffering but this suffering hath this condition here that it be passio mea And this too that it be mea and not pro me but pro aliis that it be mine and no bodies else by my occasion That it be mine without any fault of mine that I be no cause that it fell upon me and that I be no occasion that it fall upon others And first it is not mine if I borrow it I can have no joy in the sufferings of Martyrs and other Saints of God by way of applying their sufferings to me by way of imitation and example I may by way of application and satisfaction I cannot borrowed sufferings are not my sufferings They are not mine neither if I steale them if I force them If my intemperate and scandalous zeal or pretence of zeal extort a chastisement from the State if I exasperate the Magistrate and draw an affliction upon my self this stoln suffering this forced suffering is not passio mea it is not mine if it should not be mine Natura cujusque rei est quam Deus indidit That onely is the nature of every thing which God hath imprinted in it That affliction onely is mine which God hath appointed for me and what he hath appointed we may see by his exclusions Let none of you suffer as a murtherer or as a thief or as an evill doer or as a busie-body in other mens matters and that reaches far I am not possessâ—r bonae fidei I come not to this suffering by a good title I cannot call it mine I may finde joy in it that is in the middest of it I may finde comfort in the mercy of Christ though I suffer as a malefactor But there is no joy in the suffering it self for it is not mine it is not I but my sinne my breach of the law my disobedience that suffers It is not mine again if it be not mine in particular mine and limited in me To those sufferings that fall upon me for my conscience or for the discharge of my duty there belongs a joy but when the whole Church is in persecution and by my occasion especially or at all woe unto them by whom the first offence comes this is no joyfull matter and therefore vae illis per quos scandalum they who by their ambition of preferment or indulgence to their present case or indifferency how things fall out or presumptuous confidence in Gods care for looking well enough to his own how little soever they doe give way to the beginnings of superstition in the times of persecution when persecutions come either they shall have no sufferings that is God shall suffer them to fall away and refuse their testimony in his cause or they shall have no joy in their sufferings because they shall see this persecution is not theirs it is not limited in them but induced by their prevarication upon the whole Church And lastly this suffering is not mine if I stretch it too far if I over-value it it is not mine A man forfeits his priviledge by exceeding it There is no joy belongs to my suffering if I place a merit in it Meum non est cujus nomine nulla mihi superest actiâ— says the Law That 's none of mine for which I can bring no action and what actioâ— can I bring against God for a reward of my merit Have I given him any thing of mine Quid habeo quod non accepi what have I that I received not from him Have I given him all his own how came I to abound then and see him starve in the streets in his distressed members Hath he changed his blessings unto me in single mony Hath he made me rich by half pence and farthings and yet have I done so much as that for him Have I suffered for his glory Am not I vas figuli a potters vessell and that Potters vessel and whose hand soever he
though they be never done without Reason yet their principall scope and marke is the glory of God and though they seeme but Morall or Civill or domestique yet they have a deeper tincture a heavenly nature a relation to God in them The light in our Text then is essentially and personally Christ himself from him flowes the supernaturall light of faith and grace here also intended and because this light of faith and grace flowing from that fountaine of light Christ Jesus works upon the light of nature and reason it may conduce to the raising of your devotions if we do without any long insisting upon the severall parts thereof present to you some of those many and divers lights which are in this world and admit an application to this light in our Text the essentiall light Christ Iesus and the supernaturall light faith and grace Of these lights we shall consider some few couples and the first payre Lux Essentiae and Lux Gloriae the light of the Essence of God and the light of the glory of his Saints And though the first of these be that essentiall light by which we shall see God face to face as he is and the effluence and emanation of beams from the face of God which make that place Heaven of which light it is said That God who onely hath Immortality dwels in luce inaccessibili in the light that none can attaine to yet by the light of faith and grace in sanctification we may come to such a participation of that light of Essence or such a reflection of it in this world that it shall be true of us which was said of those Ephesians You were once darknesse but now are light in the Lord he does not say enlightned nor lightsome but light it self light essentially for our conversation is in heaven And as God sayes of Ierusalem and his blessings here in this world Calceavit Ianthino I have shod thee with Badgers skinne some translate it which the Antients take for some precious stuffe that is I have enabled thee to tread upon all the most estimable things of this world for as the Church it self is presented so every true member of the Church is endowed Luna sub pedibus the Moone and all under the Moone is under our feet we tread upon this world even when we are trodden upon in it so the precieus promises of Christ make us partakers of the Divine Nature and the light of faith makes us the same Spirit with the Lord And this is our participation of the light of essence in this life The next is the light of glory This is that Glorification which we shall have at the last day of which glory we consider a great part to be in that Denudation that manifestation of all to all as in this world a great part of our inglorious servitude is in those disguises and palliations those colours and pretences of publique good with which men of power and authority apparell their oppressions of the poore In this are we the more miserable that we cannot see their ends that there is none of this denudation this laying open of ourselves to one another which shall accompany that state of glory where we shall see one anothers bodies and soules actions and thoughts And therefore as if this place were now that Tribunall of Christ Jesus and this that day of Judgement and denudation we must be here as we shall be there content to stand naked before him content that there be a discovery a revealing a manifestation of all our sinnes wrought upon us at least to our owne consciences though not to the congregation If we will have glory we must have this denudation We must not be glad when our sins scape the Preacher We must not say as though there were a comfort in that though he have hit such a mans Adultery and anothers Ambition and anothers extortion yet for all his diligence he hath missed my sinne for if thou wouldest faine have it mist thou wouldest faine hold it still And then why camest thou hither What camest thou for to Church or to the Sacrament Why doest thou delude God with this complementall visit to come to his house if thou bring not with thee a disposition to his honour and his service Camest thou onely to try whether God knew thy sinne and could tell thee of it by the Preacher Alas he knowes it infallibly And if he take no knowledge of his knowing it to thy conscience by the words of the Preacher thy state is the more desperate God sends us to preach forgivenesse of sinnes where wee finde no sinne we have no Commission to execute How shall we finde your sinnes In the old sacrifices of the law the Priest did not fetch the sacrifice from the herd but he received it from him that brought it and so sacrificed it for him Doe thou therefore prevent the Preacher Accuse thyselfe before he accuse thee offer up thy sinne thy selfe Bring it to the top of thy memory and thy conscience that he finding it there may sacrifice it for thee Tune the instrument and it is the fitter for his hand Remember thou thine own sins first and then every word that fals from the preachers lipsshall be a drop of the dew of heaven a dram of the balme of Gilead a portion of the bloud of thy Saviour to wash away that sinne so presented by thee to be so sacrificed by him for if thou onely of all the congregation finde that the preacher hath not touched thee nor hit thy sinnes know then that thou wast not in his Commission for the Remission of sinnes and be afraid that thy conscience is either gangrend and unsensible of all incisions and cauterizations that can be made by denouncing the Iudgements of God which is as far as the preacher can goe or that thy whole constitution thy complexion thy composition is sinne the preacher cannot hit thy particular sinne because thy whole life and the whole body of thy actions is one continuall sin As long as a man is alive if there appeare any offence in his breath the physician will assigne it to some one corrupt place his lungs or teeth or stomach and thereupon apply convenient remedy thereunto But if he be dead and putrefied no man askes from whence that ill aire and offence comes because it proceeds from thy whole carcasse So as long as there is in you a sense of your sinnes as long as we can touch the offended and wounded part and be felt by you you are not desperate though you be froward and impatient of our increpations But when you feele nothing whatsoever wee say your soule is in an Hectique fever where the distemper is not in any one humor but in the whole substance nay your soule it selfe is become a carcasse This then is our first couple of these lights by our Conversation in heaven here that is a
what ground he sayes or does or suffers that which he suffers and does and sayes Howsoever he pretend the honour of God in his testimony yet if the thing be materially false false in it self though true in his opinion or formally false true in it self but not known to be so to him that testifies it both ways he is an incompetent witnesse And this takes away the honour of having been witnesses for Christ and the consolation and style of Martyrs both from them who upon such evidence as can give no assurance that is traedi tions of men have grounded their faith in God and from them who take their light in corners and conventicles and not from the City set upon the top of a hill the Church of God Those Roman Priests who have given their lives those Separatists which have taken a voluntary banishment are not competent witnesses for the glory of God for a witnesse must know and qui testatur de scientia testetur de modo scientiae sayes the Law He that will prove any thing by his knowledge must prove how he came by that knowledge The Papist hath not the knowledge of his Doctrine from any Scripture the Separatist hath not the knowledge of his Discipline from any precedent any example in the primitive Church How farre then is that wretched and sinfull man from giving any testimony or glory to Christ in his life who never comes to the knowledge and consideration why he was sent into this life who is so farre from doing his errand that he knowes not what his errand was not whether he received any errand or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of ages delighted himself in himself and was sufficient in himself and yet at last did bestow six dayes labour for the creation and provision of man as though that God who when man was sowr'd in the lumpe poysoned in the fountaine withered in the roote in the loins of Adam would then ingage his Sonne his beloved Sonne his onely Sonne to be man by a temporary life and to be no man by a violent and a shamefull death as though that God who when he was pleased to come to a creation might have left out thee amongst privations amongst nothings or might have shut thee up in the close prison of a bare being and no more as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life might have left thee a Toad or if he would have given thee a humane soule might have left thee a heathen without any knowledge of God or if he had afforded thee a Religion might have left thee a Iew or though he had made thee a Christian might have left thee a Papist as though that God that hath done so much more in breeding thee in his true Church had done all this for nothing thou passest thorough this world like a flash like a lightning whose beginning or end no body knowes like an Ignis fatuus in the aire which does not onely not give light for any use but not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as thy hand passes out of a basin of water which may bee somewhat the fouler for thy washing in it but retaines no other impression of thy having been there and so does the world for thy life in it When God placed Adam in the world he bad him fill it and subdue it and rule it and when he placed him in paradise he bad him dresse and keepe paradise and when he sent his children into the over-flowing Laud of promise he bad them fight and destroy the Idolaters to every body some task some errand for his glory And thou comest from him into this world as though he had said nothing unto thee but Go and do as you see cause Go and do as you see other men do Thou knowest not that is considerest not what thou wast sent to doe what thou shouldest have done but thou knowest much lesse what thou hast done The light of nature hath taught thee to hide thy sinnes from other men and thou hast been so diligent in that as that thou hast hid them from thy self and canst not finde them in thine owne conscience if at any time the Spirit of God would burne them up or the blood of Christ Jesus wash them out thou canst not finde them out so as that a Sermon or Sacrament can work upon them Perchance thou canst tell when was the first time or where was the first place that thou didst commit such or such a sinne but as a man can remember when he began to spell but not when he began to reade perfectly when he began to joyne his letters but not when he began to write perfectly so thou remembrest when thou wentest timorously and bashfully about sinne at first and now perchance art ashamed of that shamefastnesse and sorry thou beganst no sooner Poore bankrupt that hast sinned out thy soule so profusely so lavishly that thou darest not cast up thine accounts thou darest not aske thy selfe whether thou have any soule left how farre art thou from giving any testimony to Christ that darest not testifie to thy selfe nor heare thy conscience take knowledge of thy transgressions but haddest rather sleepe out thy daies or drinke out thy daies then leave one minute for compunction to lay hold on and doest not sinne alwaies for the love of that sinne but for feare of a holy sorrow if thou shouldest not fill up thy time with that sinne God cannot be mocked saith the Apostle nor God cannot be blinded He seeth all the way and at thy last gaspe he will make thee see too through the multiplying Glasse the Spectacle of Desperation Canst thou hope that that God that seeth this darke Earth through all the vaults and arches of the severall spheares of Heaven that seeth thy body through all thy stone walls and seeth thy soul through that which is darker then all those thy corrupt flesh canst thou hope that that God can be blinded with drawing a curtain between thy sinne and him when he is all eye canst thou hope to put out that eye with putting out a candle when he hath planted legions of Angels about thee canst thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence if thou have corrupted or silenced or sent away a servant O bestow as much labour as thou hast done to finde corners for sin to finde out those sinnes in those corners where thou hast hid them As Princes giveâ— pardons by their own hands but send Judges to execute Justice come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy sinnes and stay not till his Justice come to thee when he makes inquisition for blood and doe not think that if thou feel now at this presentâ— a little tendernesse in thy heart a little melting in thy bowels a little dew in thine eyes that if thou beest come to know that thou art a
my selfe as that in that body so glorifyed by God I also shall glorify him So very a body so perfectly a body shall we have there as that Mahomet and his followers could not consist in those heavenly functions of the body in glorifying God but mis-imagine a feasting and banqueting and all carnall pleasures of the body in heaven too But there Christ stoppes A Resurrection there shall be but in the Resurrection we shall not mary c. They shall not mary because they shall have none of the uses of mariage not as mariage is physicke against inordinate affections for every soule shall be a Consort in itselfe and never out of tune not as mariage is ordained for mutuall helpe of one another for God himself shall be intirely in every soul And what can that soul lack that hath all God Not as mariage is a second and a suppletory eternity in the continuation and propagation of Children for they shall have the first Eternity individuall eternity in themselves Therefore does S. Luke assigne that reason why they shall not mary Because they cannot dy Because they have an eternity in themselves they need not supply any defect by a propagation of children But yet though Christ exclude that of which there is clearely no use in Heaven Mariage because they need no physick no mutuall help no supply of children yet he excludes not our knowing or our loving of one another upon former knowledge in this world in the next Christ does not say expressely we shall yet neither does he say that we shall not know one another there Neither can we say we shall not because we know not how we should Adam who was asleep when Eve was made and neither saw nor felt any thing that God had done knew Eve upon the very first sight to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh By what light knew he this And in the transfiguration of Christ Peter and James and John knew Moses and Elias and by what light knew they them whom they had never seen Nor can we or they or any be imagined to have any degree of knowledge of persons or actions though but occasionally and transeuntly in this life which we shall not have inherently and permanently in the next In the Types of the generall Resurrection which were particular Resuscitations of the dead in this world the Dead were restored to the knowledge of their friends when Christ raised the sonne of the widow of Naim he delivered him to his Mother when Peter raised Tabitha he called the Saints and the Widows and presented her alive unto them So God saies to Abraham Ibis ad patres thou shalt goe to thy fathers he should know that they were his fathers so to Moses Iungeris populis tuis Thou shalt dy and be gathered to thy people as Aaron thy brother dyed and was gathered to his people Iohn Baptist had a knowledge of Christ though they were both in their mothers wombes and Dives of Lazarus though in Hell and it is not easily told by what light these saw these Whatsoever conduces to Gods glory or our happinesse we shall certainly know in heaven And he that in a rectifyed conscience beleeves that it does so may piously beleeve that he shall know them there In things of this nature where no direct place of Scripture binds up thy faith beleeve so as most exalts thine own Devotion yet with this Caution too not to condemn uncharitably and peremptorily those that beleeve otherwise A Resurrection there shall be In the Resurrection there shall be no Mariage because it conduces to no end but if it conduce to Gods glory and my happinesse as it may piously be beleeved it does to know them there whom I knew here I shall know them Now from this In the Resurrection they mary not flows this also Till the Resurrection they doe they may they shall mary Nay in Gods first purpose and institution They must For God said It is not good that the man should be alone Every man is a naturall body every congregation is a politik body The whole world is a Catholik an universall body For the sustentation and aliment of the naturall body Man God hath given Meat for the Politik for societies God hath given Industry and severall callings and for the Catholik body for the sustentation and reparation of the world God hath given Mariage They that scatter themselves in various lusts commit wast and shall undergoe at last a heavy condemnation upon that Action of wast in their souls as they shal feel it before in their bodies which they have wasted They that mary not do not keep the world in reparation And the common law the law of nature and the generall law of God bindes man in generall to that reparation of the world to Mariage for Continency is Privilegtum a Privilege that is Privata lex when it is given it becomes a law too for he to whom God gives the gift of Continency is bound by it it is Privata lex a Law an Obligation upon that particular man And then Privilegium is Privatio Legis it is a dispensation upon that Law which without that privilege and dispensation would binde him so that all those who have not this privilege this dispensation this continency by immediate gift from God or other medicinall Disciplines and Mortifications which Disciplines and Mortifications every state and condition of life is not bound to exercise because such Mortifications as would overcome their Concupiscences would also overcome all their naturall strength and make them unable to doe the works of their callings all such are bound by the generall law to mary For from Nature and her Law we have that voice ut gignamus geniti Man is borne into the world that others might be born from him And from Gods generall Law we have that voice Crescite Multiplicamini Therefore God plac'd man here that he might repair and furnish the world He is gone at Common Law that maries not Not but that he may have reliefe but it is onely in Conscience and by way of Equity and as in Chancery that is If in a rectified Conscience he know that he should be the lesse disposed to religious Offices for mariage he does well to abstaine otherwise he must remember that the world is one Body and Mariage the aliment that the world is one Building and Mariage the Reparation Therefore the Emperor Augustus did not onely encrease the rewards and privileges which former Laws had given to maried persons but he laid particular penalties upon them that liv'd unmaryed And though that State seem to have countenanced single life because they afforded dignities to certaine Vestall Virgins yet the number of those Vestals was small not above six and then the dignities and privileges which those Vestals had were no other but that they were made equall in the state to maryed
letting out that line he that hath fixed his harping Iron in the Whale endangers himselfe and his boate God hath made us fishers of Men and when we have struck a Whale touch'd the conscience of any person which thought himselfe above rebuke and increpation it struggles and strives and as much as it can endevours to draw fishers and boate the Man and his fortune into contempt and danger But if God tye a sicknesse or any other calamity to the end of the line that will winde up this Whale againe to the boate bring back this rebellious sinner better advised to the mouth of the Minister for more counsaile and to a better souplenesse and inclinablenesse to conforme himselfe to that which he shall after receive from him onely calamity makes way for a rebuke to enter There was such a tendernesse amongst the orators which were used to speake in the presence of the people to the Romane Emperors which was a way of Civill preaching that they durst not tell them then their duties nor instruct them what they should doe any other way then by saying that they had done so before They had no way to make the Prince wise and just and temperate but by a false praising him for his former acts of wisedome and justice and temperance which he had never done and that served to make the people beleeve that the Princes were so and it served to teach the Prince that he ought to be so And so though this were an expresse and a direct flattery yet it was a collaterall increpation too And on the other side our later times have seen another art another invention another workmanship that when a great person hath so abused the favour of his Prince that he hath growne subject to great and weighty increpations his owne friends have made Libells against him thereby to lay some light aspersions upon him that the Prince might thinke that this comming with the malice of a Libell was the worst that could be said of him and so as the first way to the Emperors though it were a direct flattery yet it was a collater all Increpation too so this way though it were a direct increpation yet it was a collater all flattery too If I should say of such a congregation as this with acclamations and showes of much joy Blessed company holy congregation in which there is no pride at all no vanity at all no prevarication at all I could be thought in that but to convey an increpation and a rebuke mannerly in a wish that it were so altogether If I should say of such a congregation as this with exclamations and show of much bitternesse that they were sometimes somewhat too worldly in their owne businesse sometimes somewhat too remisse in the businesses of the next world and adde no more to it this were but as a plot and a faint libelling a publishing of small sinnes to keep greater from being talk'd of slight increpations are but as whisperings and work no farther but to bring men to say Tush no body hears it no body heeds it we are never the worse nor never the worse thought of for all that he says And loud and bitter increpations are as a trumpet and work no otherwise but to bring them to say Since he hath published all to the world already since all the world knowes of it the shame is past and we may goe forward in our ways againe Is there then no way to convey an increpation profitably David could find no way Vidi praevaricatores tabescebam says he I saw the transgressors but I languished and consumed away with griefe because they would not keep the law he could not mend them and so impaired himselfe with his compassion but God hath provided a way here to convey to imprint this increpation this rebuke sweetly and succesfully that is by way of counsaile by bidding them arise he chides them them for falling by presenting the exaltation and exultation of a peacefull conscience he brings them to a foresight to what miserable distractions and distortions of the soule a habite of sinne will bring them to If you will take knowledge of Gods fearfull judgements no other way but by hearing his mercies preached his Mercie is new every morning and his dew falls every evening and morning and evening we will preach his mercies unto you If you will beleeve a hell no other way but by hearing the joyes of heaven presented to you you shall heare enough of that we will receive you in the morning and dismisse you in the evening in a religious assurance in a present inchoation of the joyes of heaven It is Gods way and we are willing to pursue it to shew you that you are Enemies to Christ we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to him to shew you that you are faln we pray you to arise and si audieritis if you hear us so if any way any means convey this rebuke this sense into you Si audieritis lucrati sumus fratrem If you hear we have gain'd a brother and that 's the richest gain that we can get if you may get salvation by us Gods rebukes and increpations then are sweet and gentle to the binding up not to the scattering of a Conscience And the particular Rebuke in this place conveyed by way of counsail is That they were faln and worse could not be said how mild and easie soever the word be The ruin of the Angels in heaven the ruin of Adam in Paradise is still call'd by that word it is but the fall of Angels and the fall of Adam and yet this fall of Adam cost the bloud of Christ and this bloud of Christ did not rectifie the Angels after their fall Inter objectos objectissimus peccator amongst them that are faln he fals lowest that continues in sin for sayes the same Father Man is a king in his Creation he hath that Commission Subjicite dominamini the world and himselfe which is a lesse world but a greater dominion are within his Jurisdiction and then servilly he submits himselfe and all to that Qua nihil magis barbarum then which nothing is more tyrannous more barbarous All persons have naturally all Nations ever had a detestation of falling into their hands who were more barbarous more uncivill then themselves peccato nihil magis barbarum sayes that Father sin doth not govern us by a rule by a Law but tyrannically impetuously and tempestuously It hath been said of Rome Romae regulariter malè agitur There a man may know the price of a sin before he doe it and he knowes what his dispensation will cost whether he be able to sin at that rate whether he have wherewithall that if not he may take a cheap sin Thou canst never say that of thy soule Intus regulariter malè agitur Thou canst never promise thy selfe to sin safely and so to elude the Law
for the Law is in thy heart nor to sin wisely and so to escape witnesses for the testimony is in thy Conscience nor to sin providently and thriftily and cheaply and compound for the penalty and stall the fine for thy soule that is the price is indivisible and perishes entirely and eternally at one payment and yet ten thousand thousand times over and over Thou canst not say Thou wilt sin that sin and no more or so far in that sin and no farther If thou fall from an high place thou maist fall through thick clouds and through moist clouds but yet through nothing that can sustain thee but thou fall'st to the earth If thou fall from the grace of God thou maist passe through dark Clouds oppression of heart and through moist Clouds some compunction some remorsefull tears but yet of thy selfe thou hast nothing to take hold of till thou come to that bottome which will embrace thee cruelly to the bottomlesse bottome of Hell it selfe Our dignity and our greatest height is in our interest in God and in the world and in our selves and we fall from all either non utendâ— or abutendo either by neglecting God or by over-valuing the world our greatest â—all of all is into Idolatry and yet Idolatry is an ordinary fall for tot habemus Deas recentes quot habemus vitia As many habituall sins as we embrace so many Idols we worship If all sins could not be call'd so Idols yet for those sins which possesse us most ordinarily and most strongly we have good warrant to call them so which sins are Licentiousnesse in our youth and Covâ—tousnesse in our age and voluptuousnesse in our middle time For for Licentiousnesse Idolatry and that are so often call'd by one anothers names in the Scriptures as many times we cannot tell when the Propehts mean spirituall Adultery and when Carnall when they mean Idolatry and when Fornication For Covetousnesse that is expresly called Idolatry by the Apostle and so is voluptuousnesse too in those men whose belly is their God We fall then into that desperate precipitation of Idolatry by 〈◊〉 when by fornication we profane the temple of the Holy Ghost and make even his temple our bodies a Stewes And we fall into Idolatry by Covetousnesse when we come to be tam putidi minutÃque animi of so narrow and contracted a soule and of so sick and dead and buried and putrefied a soule as to lock up our soule in a Cabinet where we lock up our money to ty our soul in the corner of a handkerchiefe where we ty our money to imprison our soule in the imprisonment of those things Quae te ad gloriam â—â—bvecturâ—e the dispensation and distribution whereof would carry thy soul to eternall glory And when by our voluptuousnesse we raise the prices of necessary things Et eorum vulnera qui à Deo flagris caeduntur adangemus and thereby scourge them with deeper lashes of famine whom God hath scourged with poverty before we fall into Idolatry by voluptuousnesse Numismatis inscriptiones inspicuis non Christi in sratre thou takest a pleasure to look upon the figures and Images of Kings in their severall coyns and thou despisest thine own Image in thy poore brother and Gods Image in thy ruinous and defaced soule and in his Temple thy body demolished by thy Licentiousnesse and by all these Idolatries This is the fall when we fall so farre into those sins which have naturally a tyranny in them and that that sinne becomes an Idoll to us which fall of ours God intimates unto us and rebukes us for by so mild a way as to bid us rise from it Now when God bids us rise as the Apostle sayes Be not deceived Non irridetur Deus God cannot be mocked by any man so we may boldly say Be not afraid Non irridet Deus God mocks no man God comes not to a miserable bedrid man as a man would come in scorn to a prisoner and bid him shake off his fetters or to a man in a Consumption and bid him grow strong when God bids us arise he tels us we are able to rise God bad Moses goe to Pharaoh Moses said he was Incircumcisus labiis heavy and slow of tongue but he did not deny but he had a tongue God bade him goe and I will be with thy mouth sayes he He does not say I will be thy mouth but thou hast a mouth and I will be with thy Mouth It was Gods presence that made that mouth serviceable and usefull but it was Moses mouth Moses had a mouth of his own we have faculties and powers of our own to be employed in Gods service So when God employed Ieremy the Prophet sayes O Lord God behold I cannot speak for I am a child but God replies say not thou I am a child for whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speake When God bids thee rise from thy sin say not thou it is too late or that thou art bedrid in the custome of thy sin and so canst not rise when he bids thee rise he enables thee to rise and thou maist rise by the power of that will which onely his mercy and his grace hath created in thee for as God conveyes a rebuke in that counsaile Surgite arise so he conveyes a power in it too when he bids thee rise he enables thee to rise That which we are to doe then is to rise to leave our bed our sleep of Sin Saint Augustine takes knowledge of three wayes by which he escaped sins first occasionis substractione and that 's the safest way not to come within distance of a tentation secondly resistendi data virtute That the love and the fear of God imprinted in him made him strong enough for the sin Can I love God and love this person thus thus that my love to it should draw away my love from God Can I feare God and fear any Man who can have power but over my body so as for feare of him to renounce my God or the truth or my Religion Or affectionis sanitate that his affections had by a good diet by a continuall feeding upon the Contemplation of God such a degree of health and good temper as that some sins he did naturally detest and though he had not wanted opportunity and had wanted particular grace yet he had been safe enough from them But for this help this detestation of some particular sins that will not hold out We have seen men infinitely prodigall grow infinitely Covetous at last For the other way the assistance of particular grace that we must not presume upon for he that opens himselfe to a tentation upon presumption of grace to preserve him forfaits by that even that grace which he had And therefore there is no safe way but occasionis substractio the forbearing of those places and that Conversation which ministers occasion of tentation to
another that plotted to betray thee And therefore if you can heare a good Organ at Church and have the musique of a domestique peace at home peace in thy walls peace in thy bosome never hearken after the musique of sphears never hunt after the knowledge of higher secrets then appertaine to thee But since Christ hath made you Regale Sacerdotium Kings and Priests in your proportion Take heed what you hear in derogation of either the State or the Church In declaring ill affections towards others the Holy Ghost hath imprinted these steps First he begins at home in Nature He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely be put to death and then as families grow out into Cities the Holy Ghost goes out of the house into the consideration of the State and says Thou shalt not curse the Ruler of the people no Magistrate And from thence he comes to the highest upon earth for in Samuel it comes to a cursing of the Lords Anointed and from thence to the highest in heaven Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sinne and as though both those grew out of one another The cursing of the King and the cursing of God the Prophet Esai hath joyned them together They shall be hungry says he indigent poor penurious and they shall fret be transported with ungodly passion and they shall curse their King and their God If they doe one they will doe the other The Devil remembers from what height he is fallen and therefore still clambers upward and still directs all our sinnes in his end upon God Our end in a sin may be pleasure or profit or satisfaction of affections or passions but the Devils end in all is that God may be violated and dishonoured in that sinne And therefore by casting in ill conceptions and distasts first against Parents and Masters at home and then against subordinate Magistrates abroad and so against the Supreme upon earth He brings us to ill conceptions and distasts against God himself first to thinke it liberty to bee under no Governour and then liberty to be under no God when as onely those two services of a gracious God and of a good King are perfect freedome Therefore the wise King Solomon meets with this distemper in the root at first ebullition in the heart Curse not the King no not in thy thought for that Thought hath a tongue and hath spoken and sayd Amen in the eares of God That which thy heart hath said though the Law have not though the Jury have not though the Peers have not God hath heard thee say The word which Solomon uses there is Iadung and that our Translators have in the margin called Conscience Curse not the King no not in thy conscience Doe not thou pronounce that whatsoever thou dislikest cannot consist with a good conscience never make thy private conscience the rule of publique actions for to constitute a Rectitude or an Obliquity in any publique action there enter more circumstances then can have fallen in thy knowledge But the word that Selomon takes there Iadâ—ng signifies properly all waies of acquiring knowledge and Hearing is one of them and therefore Take heed what you heare Come not so neare evill speaking as to delight to heare them that delight to speake evill of Superiours A man may have a good breath in himself and yet be deadly infected if he stand in an ill ayre a man may stand in a cloud in a mist in a fogge of blasphemers till in the sight of God himself shall be dissolved into a blasphemous wretch and in that cloud in that mist God shall not know him that endured the hearing from him that adventured the speaking of those blasphemies The ear in such cases is as the clift in the wall that receives the voice and then the Echo is below in the heart for the most part the heart affords a returne and an inclination to those things that are willingly received at the ear The Echo returnes the last syllables The heart concludes with his conclusions whom we have been willing to hearken unto We make Satyrs and we looke that the world should call that wit when God knowes that that is in a great part self-guiltinesse and we doe but reprehend those things which we our selves have done we cry out upon the illnesse of the times and we make the times ill so the calumniator whispers those things which are true no where but in himselfe But thy greater danger is that mischievous purpose which we spake of before to endanger thee by hearing and to entangle thee in that Dilemma of which an ingenuous man abhors one part as much as a conscientious man does the other That thou must be a Delinquent or an Accuser a Traitour or an Informour God hath imprinted in thee characters of a better office and of more dignity of a Royall Priesthood as you have sparks of Royaltie in your soules Take heed what you hear of State-government as you have sparks of holy fire and Priesthood in your soules Take heed what you heare of Church-government which is the other consideration The Church is the spouse of Christ Noble husbands do not easily admit defamations of their wives Very religious Kings may have had wives that may have retained some tincture some impressions of errour which they may have sucked in their infancy from another Church and yet would be loth those wives should be publikely traduced to be Heretiques or passionately proclaimed to be Idolaters for all that A Church may lacke something of exact perfection and yet that Church should not be said to be a supporter of Antichrist or a limme of the beast or a thirster after the cup of Babylon for all that From extream to extream from east to west the Angels themselves cannot come but by passing the middle way between from that extream impurity in which Antichrist had damped the Church of God to that intemerate purity in which Christ had constituted his Church the most Angelicall Reformers cannot come but by touching yea and stepping upon some things in the way He that is come to any end remembers when he was not at the middle way he was not there as soon as he set out It is the posture reserved for heaven to sit down at the right hand of God Here our consolation is that God reaches out his hand to the receiving of those who come towards him And nearer to him and to the institutions of his Christ can no Church no not of the Reformation be said to have come then ours does It is an ill nature in any man to be rather apt to conceive jealousies and to suspect his Mothers honour or his sisters chastity then a strange womans It is an irreverent unthankfulnesse to think worse of that Church which hath bred us and fed us and led us thus far towards God then of a forein Church though Reformed too and in a good degree How often
that this place of Saint Pauls to the Corinthians is one of these places of which Saint Peter saith Quaedam difficilia There are some things in Saint Paul hard to be understood Saint Augustines meaning is that the difficulty is in the next words how any man should build hay or stubble upon so good a foundation as Christ how any man that pretendeth to live in Christ should live ill for in the other there can be no difficulty how Christ Jesus to a Christian should be the onely foundation And therefore to place salvation or damnation in such an absolute Decree of God as should have no relation to the fall of man or reparation in a Redeemer this is to remove this stone out of the foundation for a Christian may be well content to beginne at Christ If any man therefore have laid any other foundation to his Faith or any other foundation to his Actions possession of great places alliance in great Families strong parties in Courts obligation upon dependants acclamations of people if he have laid any other foundations for pleasure and contentment care of health and complexion appliablenesse in conversation delightfulnesse in discourses cheerefulnesse in disportings interchanging of secrets and such other small wares of Courts and Cities as these are whosoever hath laid such foundations as these must proceed as that Generall did who when he received a besieged Towne to mercy upon condition that in signe of subjection they should suffer him to take off one row of stones from their walls he tooke away the lowest row the foundation and so ruined and demolished the whole walls of the Citie So must he that hath these false foundations that is these habits divest the habite roote out the lowest stone that is the generall and radicall inclination to these disorders For he shall never be able to watch and resist every particular temptation if he trust onely to his Morall Constancy No nor if he place Christ for the roofe to cover all his sinnes when he hath done them his mercy worketh by way of pardon after not by way of Non obstante and priviledge to doe a sinne before hand but before hand we must have the foundation in our eye when we undertake any particular Action in the beginning we must looke how that will suite with the foundation with Christ for there is his first place to be Lapis fundamentalis And then after we have considered him first in the foundation as we are all Christians he growes to be Lapis Angularis the Corner stone to unite those Christians which seem to be of divers ways divers aspects divers professions together as wee consider him in the foundation there he is the root of faith As we consider him in the Corner there hee is the root of charity In Esay hee is both together A sure foundation and a Corner stone as he was in the place of Esay Lapis probatus I will lay in Sion a tryed stone and in the Psalm Lapis reprobatus a stone that the builders refused In this consideration he is Lapis approbatus a stone approved by all sides that unites all things together Consider first what divers things he unites in his own person That he should be the sonne of a woman and yet no sonne of man That the sonne of a woman should be the sonne of God that mans sinfull nature and innocency should meet together a man that should not sinne that Gods nature and mortality should meet together a God that must die Briefly that he should doe and suffer so many things impossible as man impossible as God Thus hee was a Corner stone that brought together natures naturally incompatible Thus he was Lapis Angularis a Corner stone in his Person Consider him in his Offices as a Redeemer as a Mediatour and so hee hath united God to man yea rebellious man to jealous God Hee is such a Corner stone as hath united heaven and earth Jerusalem and Babylon together Thus in his Person and thus in his Offices Consider him in his power and hee is such a Corner stone as that hee is the God of Peace and Love and Union and Concord Such a Corner stone as is able to unite and reconcile as it did in Abrahams house a Wife and a Concubine in one bed a covetous Father and a wastfull Sonne in one family a severe Magistrate and a licentious people in one City an absolute Prince and a jealous People in one Kingdome Law and Conscience in one Government Scripture and tradition in one Church If we would but make Christ Jesus and his peace the life and soule of all our actions and all our purposes if we would mingle that sweetnesse and supplenesse which he loves and which he is in all our undertakings if in all controversies booke controversies and sword controversies we would fit them to him and see how neere they would meet in him that is how neere we might come to be friends and yet both sides be good Christians then wee placed this stone in his second right place who as hee is a Corner stone reconciling God and man in his owne Person and a Corner stone in reconciling God and mankinde in his Office so hee desires to bee a Corner stone in reconciling man and man and setling peace among our selves not for worldly ends but for this respect that wee might all meet in him to love one another not because wee made a stronger party by that love not because wee made a sweeter conversation by that love but because wee met closer in the bosome of Christ Jesus where wee must at last either rest altogether eternally or bee altogether eternally throwne out or bee eternally separated and divorced from one another Having then received Christ for the foundation stone wee beleeve aright and for the Corner stone we interpret charitably the opinions and actions of other men The next is that hee bee Lapis Iacob a stone of rest and security to our selves When Iacob was in his journey hee tooke a stone and that stone was his pillow upon that hee slept all night c. resting upon that stone hee saw the Ladder that reached from heaven to earth it is much to have this egresse and regresse to God to have a sense of being gone from him and a desire and meanes of returning to him when wee doe fall into particular sinnes it is well if wee can take hold of the first step of this Ladder with that hand of David Domine respice in Testamentum O Lord consider thy Covenant if wee can remember God of his Covenant to his people and to their seed it is well it is more if wee can clamber a step higher on this ladder to a Domine labia mea aperies if we come to open our lips in a true confession of our wretched condition and of those sinnes by which we have forfeited our interest in that Covenant it is more and
it should be Unto you that beleeve saith Saint Peter it is a precious stone but unto the disobedient a stone to stumble at for if a man walke in a gallery where windowes and tables and statues are all of marble yet if he walke in the darke or blindfold or carelesly he may breake his face as dangerously against that rich stone as if it were but brick So though a man walke in the true Church of God in that Jerusalem which is described in the Revelation the foundation the gates the walls all precious stone yet if a man bring a mis-belief a mis-conceipt that all this religion is but a part of civill government and order if a man be scandalized at that humility that patience that poverty that lowlinesse of spirit which the Christian Religion inclines us unto if he will say Si Rex Israel If Christ will be King let him come downe from the Crosse and then we will beleeve in him let him deliver his Church from all crosses first of doctrine and then of persecution and then we will beleeve him to be King if we will say Nolumus hunc regnare we will admit Christ but we will not admit him to reign over us to be King if he will be content with a Consulship with a Collegueship that he the world may joyn in the government that we may give the week to the world and the Sabbath to him that we may give the day of the Sabbath to him and the night to our licentiousnesse that of the day we may give the forenoon to him and the afternoon to our pleasures if this will serve Christ we are content to admit him but Nolumus regnare we will none of that absolute power that whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we doe we must be troubled to thinke on him and respect his glory in every thing If he will say Praecepit Angelis God hath given us in charge to his Angels and therefore we need not to look to our own ways He hath locked us up safely and lodged us softly under an eternall election and therefore we are sure of salvation if he will walke thus blindely violently wilfully negligently in the true Church though he walke amongst the Saphires and Pearls and Chrysolytes which are mentioned there that is in the outward communion and fellowship of Gods Saints yet he may bruise and break and batter himselfe as much against these stones as against the stone Gods of the heathen or the stone Idols of the Papists for first the place of this falling upon this stone is the true Church Qui jacet in terra he that is already upon the ground in no Church can fall no lower till he fall to hell but he whom God hath brought into his true Church if he come to a confident security that he is safe enough in these outward acts of Religion he falls though it be upon this stone he erreth though in the true Church This is the place then the true Church the falling it selfe as farre as will fall into our time of consideration now is a falling into some particular sinne but not such as quenches our faith wee fall so as we may rise againe Saint Hierome expresseth it so Qui cadit tamen credit he that falls but yet beleeves that fals and hath a sense of his fall reservatur per paenitentiam ad salutem that man is reserved by Gods purpose to come by repentance to salvation for this man that fals there fals not so desperately as that he feeles nothing between hell and him nothing to stop at nothing to check him by the way Cadit super he falls upon some thing nor he falls not upon flowers to wallow and tumble in his sinne nor upon feathers to rest and sleep in his sinne nor into a cooling river to disport and refresh and strengthen himself in his sinne but he falls upon a stone where he may receive a bruise a pain upon his fall a remorse of that sinne he is fallen into And in this fall our infirmitie appears three wayes The first is Impingere in lapidem To stumble for though he be upon the right stone in the true Religion and have light enough yet Impingimus meredie as the Prophet saith even at noon we stumble we have much more light by Christ being come then the Jewes had but we are sorry we have it when Christ hath said to us for our better understanding of the Law He that looketh and lusteth hath committed Adultery He that coveteth hath stollen He that is angry hath murdered we stumble at this and we are scandalized with it and we thinke that other Religions are gentler and that Christ hath dealt hardly with us and we had rather Christ had not said so we had rather he had left us to our libertie and discretion to looke and court and to give a way to our passions as we should finde it most conduce to our ease and to our ends And this is Impingere to stumble not to goe on in an equall and even pace not to doe the will of God cheerefully And a second degree is calcitrare to kick to spurre at this stone that is to bring some particular sinne and some particular Law into comparison To debate thus if I doe not this now I shall never have such a time if I slip this I shall never have the like opportunitie if I will be a foole now I shall be a begger all my life and for the Law of God that is against it there is but a little evill for a great deale of good and there is a great deale of time to recover and repent that little evill Now to remove a stone which was a landmarke and to hide and cover that stone was all one fault in the Law to hide the will of God from our owne Consciences with excuses and extenuatious this is calcitrare as much as we can to spurn the stone the landmarke out of the way but the fulnesse and accomplishment of this is in the third word of the Text Cadere to fall he falls as a piece of money falls into a river we heare it fall and we see it sink and by and by we see it deeper and at last we see it not at all So no man falleth at first into any sinne but he heares his own fall There is a tendernesse in every Conscience at the beginning at the entrance into a sinne and he discerneth a while the degrees of sinking too but at last he is out of his owne sight till he meete this stone this stone is Christ that is till he meete some hard reprehension some hard passage of a Sermon some hard judgement in a Prophet some crosse in the World some thing from the mouth or some thing from the hand of God that breaks him He falls upon the stone and is broken So that to be broken upon this stone is to come to this sense
then other men The souldiers likewise came to him and said What shall we doe This his working upon all sorts of men the blessing that accompanied his labours was a subsequent argument of his Mission that he was sent by God God himself argues against them that were not sent so They were not sent for they have done no good I have not sent those Prophets saith the Lord yet they ran I have not spoken to them and yet they prophecied but if they had stood in my counsell then they should have turned the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions This note God layes upon them to whom he affords this vocation of his internall Spirit that though others which come without any calling may gather men in corners and in Conventicles and work upon their affections and passions to singularity to schisme to sedition and though others which come with an outward and ordinary calling onely may advance their own Fortunes and increate their estimation and draw their Auditory to an outward reverence of their Persons and to a delight in hearing them rather then other men yet those onely who have a true inward Calling from the Spirit shall turn the people from their evill wayes and from the wickednesse of their inventions To such mens planting and watering God gives an increase when as others which come to declame and not to preach and to vent their own gifts or the purposes of great men for their gifts have onely a proportionable reward winde for winde Acclamation for Declamation popular praise for popular eloquence for if they doe not truly beleeve themselves why should they looke that others should believe them Qui loquitur ad cor loquatur ex corde he that will speake to the heart of another must finde that that he saith in his own heart first Whether the Mission of the Church of Rome of Priests and Jesuites hither be sufficient to satisfie their consciences who are so sent and sent in intendment of the Law to inevitable losse of life here hath been laboriously enough debated and safely enough concluded that such a Mission cannot satisfie a rectified conscience What are they sent for To defend the Immunities of the Church that is to take away the inherent right of the Crown the supremacy of the King What seconds them what assures them That which is their generall Tenent that into what place so ever the Pope may send Priests he may send Armies for the security of those Priests and as another expresses it in all Cases where the Pope may injoyne any thing he may lawfully proceed by way of Warre against any that hinder the execution thereof That these Missions from the Bishop of Rome are unlawfull is safely enough concluded A priori in the very nature of the commandement and Mission For it is to a place in which he that sends hath no power for it is into the Dominions of another absolute King and it is of Persons in whom he hath no interest for they are the subjects of another Prince and my neighbours setting his mark upon my sheep doth not make my sheep his Now beloved if that which they cannot make lawfull A priori in the Nature of the thing you will make lawfull in their behalf A posteriori in the effect and working thereof that is if when these men are thus sent hither you will run after them to their Masses though you pretend it be but to meet company and to see who comes and to hear a Church-Comedy if though you abstain your self you will lend them a wife or a childe or a servant to be present there A posteriori by this effect by this their working upon you you justifie their unjust Mission and make them thinke their sending and coming lawfull So also to return to our former consideration If you depart not from your evill wayes and from the wickednesse of your own inventions If for all our preaching you proceed in your sinnes you will make us afraid that our Mission our Calling is not warrantable for thereby you take away that consolation which is one seale of our Mission when we see a good effect of our preaching in your lives It lyes much in you to convince them and to establish us by that way which is Gods own way of arguing à posteriori by the effect by our working upon you If you say God is God we are sent if you say Baal is God you justifie their sending Missus est Iohn Baptist was sent it appeared by the effect of his preaching but it appeares too by a divers and manifold citation which he had received upon some of which there may be good use to insist a little First he was cited called before he was at all and called againe before he was borne called a third time out of the desert into the world and called lastly out of this world into the next and by all these callings these citations these missions he was a competent witnesse His first citation was before he was any thing before his conception Out of the dead embers of Zacharies aged loins and Elizabeths double obstacle age and barrennesse when it was almost as great a worke as a creation to produce a childe out of the corners and inwardest bowels of all possibility and with so many degrees of improbability as that Zachary who is said to have been just before God and to have walked in all his commandments without reproofe and had without doubt often considered the like promise of such a childe made and performed to Abraham was yet incredulous of it and asked how he should know it Out of this nothing or nothing naturally disposed to be such a thing a childe did God excite and cite this Io. Baptist to beare witnesse of this light and so made the sonne of him who for his incredulity was strooke with dumbnesse all voyce And beloved such a citation as this when thou wast meerly nothing hast thou had too to beare witnesse of this light that is to do something for the glory of God When thy free will is as impotent and as dead as Zacharies loins when thou art under Elizabeths double obstacle of age and barrennesse barrennesse in good works age in ill then when thou thinkest not of God then when thou art walking for ayre or sitting at a feast or slumbring in a bed God opens these doors he rings a bell he showes thee an example in the concourse of people hither and here he sets up a man to present the prayer of the Congregation to him and to deliver his messages to them and whether curiosity or custome or company or a loathnesse to incurre the penalties of Lawes or the censures and observations of neighbours bring thee hither though thou hadst nothing to do with God in comming hither God hath something to do with thee now thou art here even this is a citation a
and may make thee doubt whether thou have it or no every day that is as often as thou canst heare more and more witnesses of this light and bless that God who for thy sake would submit himselfe to these Testimonia ab homine these Testimonies from men and being all light himselfe and having so many other Testimonies would yet require the Testimony of Man of Iohn which is our other branch of this first part Christ who is still the light of our Text That light the essentiall light had testimony enough without Iohn First he bore witness of himselfe And though he say of himself If I beare witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true yet that he might say either out of a legall and proverbiall opinion of theirs that ordinarily they thought That a witness testifying for himself was not to be beleeved whatsoever he said Or as Man which they then took him to be he might speake it of himselfe out of his own opinion that in Iudicature it is a good rule that a man should not be beleeved in his own case But after this and after he had done enough to make them see that he was more then man by multiplying of miracles then he said though I beare witnesse of my selfe my witnesse is true So the onely infallibility and unreproachable evidence of our election is in the inward word of God when his Spirit beares witnesse with our Spirit that we are the Sonnes of God for if the Spirit the Spirit of truth say he is in us he is in us But yet the Spirit of God is content to submit himselfe to an ordinary triall to be tried by God and the Countrey he allowes us to doubt and to be afraid of our regeneration except we have the testimony of sanctification Christ bound them not to his own testimony till it had the seale of workes of miracles nor must we build upon any testimony in our selves till other men that see our life testifie for us to the world He had also the testimony of his Father the Father himselfe which hath sent me beareth witnesse of me But where should they see the Father or heare the Father speak That was all which Philip asked at his hands Lord show us the Father and it sufficeth us He had the testimony of an Angel who came to the shepheards so as no where in all the Scriptures there is such an Apparition expressed the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them but where might a man talke with this Angel and know more of him As Saint Augustine says of Moses Scripsit abiit he hath written a little of the Creation and he is gone Si hîc esset tenerem rogarem if Moses were here says he I would hold him fast till I had got him to give me an exposition of that which he writ For beloved we must have such witnesses as we may consult farther with I can see no more by an Angel then by lightning A star testified of him at his birth But what was that star was it any of those stars that remaine yet Gregory Nissen thinkes it was and that it onely then changed the naturall course and motion for that service But almost all the other Fathers thinke that it was a light but then created and that it had onely the forme of a star and no more and some few that it was the holy Ghost in that forme And if it were one of the fixed stars and remaine yet yet it is not now in that office it testifies nothing of Christ now The wise men of the East testified of him too But what were they or who or how many or from whence were they for all these circumstances have put Antiquity it selfe into more distractions and more earnest disputations then circumstances should doe Simeon testified of him who had a revelation from the holy Ghost that he should not see death till he had seen Christ. And so did the Prophetess Anna who served God with fasting and prayer day and night Omnis sexus aetas both sexes and all ages testified of him and he gives examples of all as it was easie for him to doe Now after all these testimonies from himselfe from the Father from the Angel from the star from the wise men from Simeon from Anna from all what needed the testimony of Iohn All those witnesses had been thirty years before Iohn was cited for a witnesse to come from the wildernesse and preach And in thirty years by reason of his obscure and retired life in his father Iosephs house all those personall testimonies of Christ might be forgotten and for the most part those witnesses onely testified that he was borne that he was come into the world but for all their testimony he might have been gone out of the world long Before this he might have perished in the generall flood in that flood of innocent blood in which Herod drowned all the young children of that Countrey When therefore Christ came forth to preach when he came to call Apostles when he came to settle a Church to establish meanes for our ordinary salvation by which he is the light of our text the Essentiall light shining out in his Church by the supernaturall light of faith and grace then he admitted then he required Testimonium ab homine testimony from man And so for our conformity to him in using and applying those meanes which convay this light to us in the Church we must doe so too we must have the seale of faith and of the Spirit but this must be in the testimony of men still there must be that done by us which must make men testifie for us Every Christian is a state a common-wealth to himselfe and in him the Scripture is his law and the conscience is his Iudge And though the Scripture be inspired from God and the conscience be illumined and rectified by the holy Ghost immediately yet both the Scriptures and the Conscience admit humane arguments First the Scriptures doe in all these three respects first that there are certaine Scriptures that are the revealed will of God Secondly that these books which we call Canonicall are those Scriptures And lastly that this and this is the true sense and meaning of such and such a place of Scripture First that there is a manifestation of the will of God in certain Scriptures if we who have not power to infuse Faith into men for that is the work of the Holy Ghost onely but must deal upon the reason of men and satisfie that if we might not proceed per testimonia ab homine by humane Arguments and argue and infer thus That if God will save man for worshipping him and damne him for not worshipping him so as he will be worshipped certainly God hath revealed to man how he will be worshipped and
quia innumeris curis distraheris Busie man belongeth it not to thee to study the Scriptures because thou art oppressed with worldly businesse Imòmagis tuum est saith he therefore thou hadst the more need to study the Scriptures Illi non tam egent c. They that are not disquieted nor disordered in their passions with the cares of this world doe not so much need that supply from the Scriptures as you that are doe It is an Authour that lived in the obedience of the Romane Church that saith the Councell of Nice did decree That every man should have the Bible in his house But another Authour in that Church saith now Consilium Chrysostomi Ecclesiae nunc non arridet The Church doth not now like Chrysostomes counsell for this generall reading of the Scriptures Quia etsi ille locutus ad plebem plebs tunc non erat haeretica Though Saint Chrysostome spoke that to the people the people in his time were not an Hereticall people And are the people in the Roman Church now an Hereticall people If not why may not they pursue Saint Chrystomes counsel and reade the Scriptures Because they are dark It is true in some places they are dark purposely left so by the Holy Ghost ne semel lectas fastidiremus lest we should think we had done when we had read them once so saith S. Gregory too In plain places fami occurrit he presents meat for every stomach In hard and dark places fastidia detergit he sharpens the appetite Margarita est undique perforari potest the Scripture is a Pearl and might be bored through every where Not every where by thy self there may be many places which thou of thy self canst not understand not every where by any other man no not by them who have warrant to search Commission from God by their calling to interpret the Scriptures not every where by the whole Church God hath reserved the understanding of some places of Scripture till the time come for the fulfilling of those Prophecies as many places of the Old Testament were not understood till Christ came in whom they were fulfilled If therefore thou wilt needs know whether when Saint Paul took his information of the behaviour of the Corinthians from those of Chloe whether this Chloe were a woman or a place the Fathers cannot satisfie thee the latter Writers cannot satisfie thee there is not Testimonium ab homine no such humane Arguments as can determine thee or give thee an Acquittance the greatest pillars whom God hath raised in his Church cannot give a satisfaction to thy curiosity But if the Doctrine of the place will satisfie thee which Doctrine is that S. Paul did not give credit to light rumors against the Corinthians nor to clandestine whisperers but tells them who accused them and yet as well as he loved them he did not stop his eares against competent witnesses for he tells them they stood accused and by whom then thou maist bore this pearle thorough and make it fit for thy use and wearing in knowing so much of Saint Pauls purpose therein as concerns thy edification though thou never know whether Chloe were a Woman or a Place Tantum veritati obstrepit adulter sensus quam corruptor stylus a false interpretation may doe thee as much harme as a false translation a false Commentary as a false copy And therefore forbearing to make any interpretation at all upon dark places of Scripture especially those whose understanding depends upon the future fulfilling of prophecies in places that are clear evident thou maist be thine own interpreter In places that are more obscure goe to those men whom God hath set over thee and either they shall give thee that sense of the place which shall satisfie thee by having the sense thereof or that must satisfie you that there is enough for your salvation though that remaine uninterpreted And let this Testimonium ab homine this testimony of man establish thee for the Scripture that there is a Scripture a certaine book that is the word and the revealed will of God That these books which we receive for Canonicall make up that book And then that this and this is the true sense of every place which the holy Ghost hath opened to the present understanding of his Church We said before that a Christian being a Common-wealth to himselfe the Scripture was his law and for that law that Scripture he was to have Testimonium ab homine the testimony of man And then his Conscience is his Iudge and for that he is to have the same testimony too Thou must not rest upon the testimony and suggestions of thine owne conscience Nec illud de trivio paratum habere thou must not rest in that vulgar saying sufficit mihi c. As long as mine owne Conscience stands right I care not what all the world say Thou must care what the world says and study to have the approbation and testimony of good men Every man is enough defamed in the generall depravation of our whole natureÌ„ Adam hath cast an infamy upon us all And when a man is defamed it is not enough that he purge himselfe by oath but he must have compurgators too other men must sweare that they beleeve he sweares a truth Thine owne conscience is not enough but thou must â—atisfie the world and have Testimonium ab homine good men must thinke thee good A conscience that admits no search from others is cauterizata burnt with a hot Iron not cured but seared not at peace but stupefied And when in the verse immediately before our text it is said That Iohn came to beare witnesse of that light it is added that through him that is through that man through Iohn not through it through that light that through him all men beleeve For though it be efficiently the operation of the light it selfe that is Christ himselfe that all men beleeve yet the holy Ghost directs us to that that is nearest us to this testimony of man that instrumentally ministerially works this beliefe in men If then for thy faith thou must have testimonium ab homine the testimony of men and maist not beleeve as no man but thy selfe beleeves much more for thy manners and conversation Thinke it not enough to satisfie thy self but satisfie good men nay weake men nay malicious men till it come so far as that for the desire of satisfying man thou leave God unsatisfied endeavour to satisfie all God must waigh down all thy selfe and others but as long as thy selfe onely art in one balance and other men in the other let this preponderate let the opinion of other men waigh downe thine owne opinion of thy selfe 'T is true but many men flatter themselves too far with this truth that it is a sin to do any thing in Conscientiâ dubiâ when a man doubts whether he may doe it or no and in