their sight is that of all the parcels of time regard but the present and of all things but the face and appearance men that only mind earthly things of so low and base a spirit that their Souls are but as salt to them and of so brutish a temper that such a Transmigration as Pythagoras fansied a punishment to bad men would with them pass for a happiness and with the Devils they would make it their desire that they might be suffered hereafter to enter into Hogs Such men dare not openly deny an Immortality and yet they will not believe it or if they do 't is so faintly that their lives wholly confute their judgments 'T is strange to see how many there are that having nothing but frost in their veins and earth in their face do yet so much doat on that life which they have now scarce any part in whose faith reaches no farther than their senses and yet scarce retain they those senses whose frame should lift them up above the Earth and their affections carry them wholly to it They are unwilling to leave the World though they see they cannot keep it in their weak and enfeebled bodies they carry strong desires to it being dead to every thing but to the pleasures thereof which yet they cannot now enjoy because they cannot taste and do then covet most when they are just leaving them Than which as there cannot be a greater folly so let us take heed how we imitate it learn to look off from these temporal things which are seen to those eternal which are not seen get such a perspective of faith as may draw Heaven nearer to us shew us those glories which Christ has prepared for us and already taken possession of in his own flesh that so ours may rest in hope and one day inherit His kingdom And now since Christ has given us an assurance of Immortality let us endeavour to lay the foundation of a happy one in this life to work it out even in this world this common shop of change work it out of that in which it is not out of riches by not trusting in and well using them out of the pleasures of this world by loathing and forsaking them out of the flesh by crucifying it with the lusts and affections thereof and out of the world it self by overcoming it Lastly and above all let us labour to secure this blessed Immortality which lies before us by such good works as may follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of Eternity Else we may be so eternal as to wish we were mortal wish against our interest that in this life only we had hope make our selves who now fear death to dread immortality too hope that there were no eternal joys and tremble at the thoughts even of that everlasting bliss which our ill lives should give us no just ground to hope for But if while we enjoy this life we make lasting provisions for the next by good works then do we truly hope in Christ and then the seeds of Vertue and Piety well cultivated here shall hereafter yield us the happy fruits of a glorious Immortality which he grant us who hath brought life and immortality to light through his Gospel Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON ON ROM XII 1 I beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service SAint Paul being from a Jew converted to a Christian hath taken great pains not only to prove the reasonableness of his doing so but that Judaism it self was to be Christned the legal Washings to be at last baptized That whole Oeconomy to be done away that it might be made complete and to be destroyed that it might be perfected And it was well that it was to be so For the Law could not justifie because its performances were but low its Promises but near and its strength weak The Law then could not justifie had it been observed but being broken it could condemn so that our Saviour to upbraid the Jews refers them not only to himself but to Moses in whom they did trust And indeed 't is as visible that the Jews did break their Law as that they did boast of it They were equally zealous in observing and industrious in transgressing it Instead of Religion they had brought themselves to be a Sect humorsome and peevish arrogant and censorious All the world was to be of their way and yet themselves not of it so that they were as I may so say Idolaters of the true God whose Circumcision was uncircumcised As if that fact of Moses when he brought the Law had been the Type of the future observance of it when at the time of bringing the Tables he brake them But not to upbraid the Jews with their failings let us see what use there is to be made of them while they perform the letter let us obey the meaning while their Sabbaths are lazy let ours be holy They wrote the Law on their Garments let us write them on our Hearts They boasted of it let us doe it While they sacrifice their Beasts let us offer up to God the more precious bloud of his own Lamb and with that bloud our selves For we Christians as well as the Jews have an Altar says St. Paul and are Priests too a royal Priesthood says St. Peter Aaron and his Successors offered up Bulls and Rams unreasonable Creatures that were first slain and then offered But we our Bodies and those such living Sacrifices as make up a reasonable Service No Calves here to be presented but those of our lips For a Lamb and a Dove meekness and innocence and for a Goat our Iusts must be sacrificed No death here but of inbred corruptions no slaughter but of the old man whose death enlivens our Sacrifice and so fits it for an Everliving God and makes it Holy and so becoming a Holy God And if we crown our Sacrifices with such flowers they must needs send forth a sweet and acceptable odour to God and pass with Him not only for a Sacrifice but which is more be heightned to a reasonable Service And this our Gratitude calls for and our Interest We owe it to God as to our Creator who made our Bodies and as to our Redeemer who hath purchased them We owe it to our selves too if we will be happy in the enjoyment of God who as He is not a God of the dead but of the living will have a living Body for a Sacrifice and not a Carkass And this in all respects is so reasonable that it may well be matter of wonder why our Apostle should spend so much passionate Rhetorick to persuade us to give up that unto God which 't is our highest advantage He should vouchsafe to accept But then
thereof and yet all this still dull and flat till he quickens it with an active Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he wrought in Christ when he raised him up from the dead An act proper to God the Father who is entitled to it ver 33. and by St. Paul too Gal. 1. 1. Yet so as that he has communicated this Power to his own Son Joh. 10. 17 18. and 5. 21 26. As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickneth them even so the Son quickneth whom he will who had a Power to lay down his life and to take it again to dissolve the Temple of his Body and in three days to raise it up so that Christ here did as much rise as was raised up and this the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Luke imports a Verb of an active signification implying a Power in himself to rise and in that respect a certain argument of his being the co-essential and con-substantial Son of God as the Apostle concludes him hence to be Rom. 1. 4. in spight of all those his adversaries who by denying him this Power prove themselves worse enemies to him than the Jews were who robb'd him of his Life whereas these of his Divinity also as far as in them lyes III. The principal and sole Agent then in this great Work was God the Father and the Son And such an Agent was necessary since the task was so difficult the knot which Death had tied being so hard required no less than a God to unloose it Now by Death here is meant not only a seperation of Soul and Body though that be the most natural import of the word but all those sad things that preceded as so many Prologues to his last Tragedy styled Propassiones All those ingredients in the bitter cup he drank of Such as were Christ's natural apprehensions of the terrors of Death the curse of the Law the load of our Sins upon him and a lively sense of God's wrath due to those Sins which put him into an Agony and made him sweat great drops of bloud and to close up all the bitter pangs of that cruel death he underwent to satisfie God's Justice All which are compar'd here to the Pangs of a Woman in travail from which God at last freed him by raising him up to a life uncapable of pain or sorrow making him forget his former Sufferings as a Woman does her Pains when delivered of her Child Joh. 16. 21. This is implied in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But because to loose the Pains seems a hard expression and unloosing properly denoting the untying of some knot and so supposing some chain or cord wherewith Christ was bound and which God dissolved which the following word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to make good some conceive it better to interpret the word Pains by Bonds as the Syriack does calling them Funes Sepulchri those adamantina mortis vincula in the Poet And the rather because the Psalmist promiscuously useth these words Psal. 116. 3. The snares of Death compassed me round about and the pains of Hell gat hold upon me Both of them signifie no more but the power of death those Shackles and Manacles which the Angel of the Covenant struck off from himself and then from us which could no more hold him than the withy bands could Sampson herein a Type of Christ being but as Flax and Tow to him who was the Power of God and though he might suffer himself to be entangled yet could not possibly be holden of them And that 1. In respect of the Truth of God's Word viz. those many Predictions and Types of Christ's Resurrection which else must have been voided The Predictions are many and clear relating to this point That of Esay 53. 8. That Christ should be taken from his prison That of Hosea 6. 2. After two days will he revive us and in the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight see Esay 26. 19. But most expresly that of the Prophet David Psal. 16. 10 11. That his flesh should rest in hope and that God would not suffer his Holy One to see Corruption which Prophecy could not be apply'd to David himself as St. Peter here in the Verses immediately following tells his Auditors because he did see Corruption but only to Christ who did not and who did rise the third day according to the Scriptures Luk. 18. 33. As for those Types too which shadow forth Christ's Resurrection they are many and exactly representative of it As Adam's awaking from sleep a Type of the second Adam's from death Sarah's conceiving when old Isaac's being sacrificed and yet living Gen. 22. 12. An express figure of Christ's Resurrection Heb. 11. 14 17 Joseph's being taken out of the Pit and lifted up out of the Dungeon as Jeremy was too and Daniel out of the Den of the Lions Dan. 6. 23. And more clearly by Christ's own application Jonah's being taken out of the belly of the Whale Mat. 12. 40. All which Types would be meer shadows without their substance and insignificant Types if they had wanted their Anti-types and should not exactly have answer'd them which they could not doe if Christ could have been holden by the pains or cords of death 2. Not possible by reason of that indissoluble tye of Christ's Personal Union so strait that Christ's Body even in the Grave was inseparably united to the Deity which drew it to it For although Death could dissolve his Natural yet not his Personal Union and therefore necessary it was that his Body and Soul should be re-united that so he might become a perfect Man which could not be without his rising 3. Not possible in respect of God's immutable Decree so determining it which being still of force nothing could render ineffectual God had anointed his Son from all Eternity as to be a Prophet and a Priest so a King to accomplish the work of Man's Redemption none of which Offices could be fully executed but upon supposition of his rising from the dead 1. The preaching of the Gospel was to follow that Luk. 24. 47. 2. As was also the preaching of Repentance and Remission of sins through his bloud the Expiation whereof as well as our Justification the not imputing our Sins to us was an effect of his Resurrection Rom. 4. 25. Who was delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Justification God having declared by raising his Son from the dead that he had accepted of his Death as of a sufficient ransome for our Sins For if Christ had remained still under the power of Death his satisfaction could not have been perfect neither could he have applied the Vertue thereof to us And in like manner was Christ's Resurrection our Justification For Christ being our true pledge after he had satisfied for us by his Death returning unto Life gives us a clear Evidence and affords us a
that pull'd out by thy powerfull Redeemer how can it now hurt thee It may possibly hiss at but it cannot bite thee Look upon the Serpent lifted up for thee on the Cross and this Serpent's sting if it has any to wound it can have none to kill thee If thy Saviour has not quite destroy'd this thine enemy at least he has brought it under and made it subject like the Gibeonites if not banished 't is enslaved and made now instrumental to Christ's Kingdom Loose thou then the bands of thine iniquity and those of death which Christ has broken shall no more be able to hold thee than they could doe him Death in its most affrighting shapes to thee is but a scare-crow 't is but the shadow of death while God is with thee Nay 't is but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a going out a departing in peace to a Holy Simeon 'T was no more between God and Moses but go up and dye as 't was said to another Prophet up and eat Ever since our Lord has swallow'd death up in victory our Tombs become Death's Graves more than ours Sepulchrum non jam mortuum sed mortem devorat says a Father Our Bodies are not lost in the Earth but laid up to be improved like Porcellane-dishes which the ground does not consume but refine In the Transfiguration that body of Moses which was hid in the valley of Moab appeared glorious in the Mount of Tabor And though we appear now like Aaron's dry rod yet that dry rod shall at last bud and bring forth fruit unto glory The Israelites garments indeed in the Wilderness waxed not worse for wearing but though our Bodies which are the garments of our Souls doe so and are rent and torn by afflictions and death yet God can and will mend them Nay when these Temples of the Holy Ghost we carry about us are dissolved he will so build them up that as it was said of the first and second Jewish Temples Haggai 2. 9. the glory of our latter houses shall be greater than that of the former Diruta stante Major Troja fuit God will bless us as he did Job more at our latter end than at our beginning and Exalt us as he did Christ by our Sufferings If with him we drink of the brook in the way tast of his Cup he will lift up our heads too We shall be like him as now He is A golden Head and Members of Clay suit not well together This is our great comfort that Christ is risen for if the Head be above water the Body is safe Joseph is alive said Jacob and that news revived the drooping Patriarch So when we hear that Christ our elder Brother the first-begotten from the dead is alive too let us take courage go and find him out seek him not in the Grave He is not there he is risen and why should we seek the living among the dead but in Heaven where he now is and set our affections on things above and not on things below It befits us not to lye in our Beds of ease and pleasure to lye sleeping there when Christ is up such a spiritual Lethargy does not suit with a Resurrection How are we conformable to Him if when He is risen up we remain still in the Grave of our Corruptions How are we Limbs of his Body if while He hath perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over us if while he is alive and glorious we lye rotting in the dust of death O let us then rouse our selves up this day with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Let this be our Resurrection-day too and that it may be so let it be our Passion-day also as it is our Lord's For as he rose this day for us so does he now this day dye for us too And although St. Paul tells us Rom. 6. 9. That Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more and that death hath no more dominion over him or to speak in the Language of the Text that he be not holden of it yet in regard of the constant vertue and benefit of his Death and Passion he may be said to dye daily for us who receive him worthily in the Blessed Sacrament Let me then bespeak you in the words of St. Thomas utter'd upon another occasion Joh. 11. 16. Let us also go and dye with him Dye with him unto sin that we may live unto God through him Rom. 6. 9 10. Let us feed on him by Faith flock like true Eagles to his Holy Carcass and eat thereof that we may live This is the way to be raised to glory Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath Eternal life is even now in possession of it and I will raise him up at the last day says Christ himself Joh. 6. 54. The very touch of the Prophet Elias's bones Ecclesiasticus 48. 5. could raise up a dead Man to a Temporal and shall not the sense and application of Christ crucified be able to quicken us who are dead in trespasses and sins to a spiritual and immortal Life O let us then be planted with him in the likeness of his Death that we may be also in the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6. 5. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the Sheep through the bloud of the Everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to doe his Will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ To whom with the Father c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on Whit-sunday JOHN XVI 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you WE find the Disciples here in a very sad and disconsolate Condition Christ had told them that He was going his way to Him that sent Him V. 5. and thereupon Sorrow had filled their hearts V. 6. And no marvel for they were to be separated from one who hitherto had been their only comfort and support Had we been under the same circumstances we should no doubt have equally resented that loss They had had the happy advantage of beholding his glorious Miracles wrought by his All-powerfull Voice in the cure of Diseases in the confusion of Devils and the raising of the Dead They had heard those his ravishing Discourses which forc'd his most implacable Enemies in spight of all their prejudice against Him to confess That never Man spake as He did They had been Eye-witnesses of that Eminent Holiness that pure and unspotted Innocence which gave beauty and lustre to all his actions and of that glory too which discovered Him to be the only Son of God full of Grace and Truth And now unless we can suppose them void of all natural affection and
their wrecks And to this purpose like another Aeolus he lets fly his boisterous Winds his Seminary Priests and Jesuits Alas He is the principal Author of our disturbances These but the Instruments who like so many Puppets dance by the motion of his hand 'T is no marvel if these his sworn Vassals his Janizaries in continual pay should advance the Interest and fight for the Cause of their great Lord and General wherein themselves are so much concern'd Nor do they boggle at any thing that may promote it be it never so impious while the good of the Catholick Cause as the Pharisaical Gold did their Altar shall sanctifie all their lewdest practices 'T is no marvel I say that such men should doe any thing who are members of such a Church whose tender mercies are cruelty whose piety butchery religion faction devotion sedition zeal fire and martyrs traytors Surely such Cannibals as daily devour their God will make no bones to swallow up whole States or which is worse to blow them up This was their attempt this day and this is still their design no doubt 'T is no Fable this but a History Habemus confitentes reos What need we any farther Witnesses than the Parties themselves All Garnet's tricks and equivocations at last fail'd him when being put to it he could not deny but that he had a head and hand in it confessing withall that his principal motive to this villany was an Excommunication thundred out against Queen Elizabeth by Pius Q. and Sixtus V. which sticking still on King James as not repealed but rather confirmed by their Successors obliged him in Conscience to attempt the Murther of his Sovereign in obedience to the Pope his greater Lord. This Bill was produc'd in the indictment of the said Garnet and gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy So that the matter of fact being as clear as the confessions of the Contrivers and Instruments themselves could make it all the subtlety of Papists can never disprove or disguise it Here is no shift no starting-hole left them The Mine was contrived at Rome though 't was to be sprung here at Westminster The Pope himself laid the Train which his Ministers by his order were to give fire to And how near were they to doe it and we to be undone There wanted but a little light Match to have sent up a Church and State into the air Nor did our Enemies make any doubt but that they should have seen us flying there and which was their charity that our Fall thence should have been as low as Hell However lest the Plot should possibly fail as through God's infinite mercy it did of its intended effect they had a Declaration ready to indict the Protestants of that Treason For the Brat would have been too foul for the Pope to father though himself very well knew it was his own natural issue and all the world besides And indeed the very shape and complexion of this Monster shews it not to be of an English Extraction Nothing but the Pope and the Devil could lay such a Cockatrice's Egg nor any but a Jesuite hatch it Let them take it between them and let it remain an eternal blot upon them and their religion guilty of a design than which nothing yet ever lookt more like Hell the darkness and the flames of it being all in it I need not display the horror of it the very prospect thereof being ghastly beyond all expression Let your thoughts supply the defect of my rhetorick and tell you whether such fruits as these be the fruits of the Spirit of God or of his true Prophets Surely their Vine is the Vine of Sodom their Grapes are Grapes of Gall and their clusters bitter And yet how many are there that can relish no other but what an Italian soil produceth though they be as mortal as those of the forbiddentree Without doubt our English palats have been strangely corrupted of late days that we should be so bewitch'd and intoxicated with the cup of Rome's abominations as to suck out the very lees and dreggs thereof with such delight and pleasure I know the troubles of our late Wars have given the Romish Emissaries opportunity of beguiling many who discontented with their sufferings at home and pincht with necessity or offended with the many Sects which the licentiousness of the War had begot or couzened with the pretences of antiquity vanity glory and splendor of the Romish Church and perhaps allured by those pleasing doctrines and opinions whereby their Casuists gratifie Sinners have revolted from us and do still revolt Much talk there is of the increase of Popery and if true 't is not much to be wonder'd at for a Plague is infectious and a Gangreen spreading and evil as well as good communicative But surely Papists need not bragg much of their gain when they consider how and whom they get They are such as we can spare them men that had no religion till they found them one and whose noreligion was better than what they have gotten who living like Atheists that they may seem at least to be of some religion pretend to be Papists and being cast out by us were fit for them to receive These be their prey These their spoils I envy them not such Proselytes who add nothing to the repute of any side but number nor do we lose any thing but what would shame us our Church being but the purer for having such dreggs purg'd out Ancient Rome had at first wanted men to inhabit it if Romulus had not opened an Asylum and modern Rome would not be so much replenished if there were not a Sanctuary there for such Converts Let me bespeak such as St. Paul did his Galatians O ye foolish People who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth That having known God as ye have done ye should turn again to weak and beggarly Elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage Lick up your vomit and forsake the truth of God to follow lies and Jewish fables For what is Popery but one great one what are its new doctrines but old heresies patch'd and trick'd up and only so old as to be rotten Look into its practices too whether that which Tacitus says of Rome heathenish be not as true of Rome apostate That all shameless and heinous enormities ran into it as into a common sewer Christian Rome now if I may give it that name is no more like what once it was than Jesuits are like Apostles And yet these be the men ye doat on and if you can get any one of their Tribe into your houses you can say to your selves as Micah did Judg. 17. 13. Now I know the Lord will doe me good because I have a Priest Such a Priest indeed as his was who like a Serpent cherisht in your bosome will sting you to death Let me apply the old Proverb 'T is ill going in Procession where the