of the Spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God 1 Cor. 2.4 5. Thirdly What we teach we must press home to the Conscience as an arrow to the mark It is not the pleasing volubility of a superficial tongue olt-times exorbitant that doth the work of the Lord or makes a good Preacher or found Christian it must be toucht with a coal from the Altar that it may infuse into the cold hearts oâ— men the true zeal of perfect godliness The Word of God well prest well applied is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword Heb 4.11 piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart It swims not in the brain as the Prophets axe did upon the water but enters into the conscience and the very bowels as I may so say of the soul What humane Eloquence hath such effectual operation Surely it tickles the ear but toucheth not the heart Men may be never the wiser I am sure never the better where tickling words are preferr'd before solid matter and where men endeavour to please the ear more than to edifie the soul or to comfort a distempered or distracted Conscience or to inform a misled one God never condemns but he first indicts and arraighs He never punisheth but he first forewarns He never rejects but he first respects He never sends misery but he first offers mercy He puts the way of life and the way of death before all take which they will for better or worse Such is Gods good will to man that seeing man cannot or will not come to him he vouchsaseth to come to man such is his goodness either in his Divine person as he did to Adam or in his Messengers bidding them turn to him that he might turn to them that they might have experience of Gods mercy not of his judgments that He wills not the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live Herein he useth not the extremity of the Law against man neither deals he as an unjust Judge first hang then examine the cause But he opens the case shews the cause sets their sins in order before their eyes and makes known the dangers they lie in by a Proclamation Cry aloud spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet Isa 58.1 and shew my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins Such therefore are only fit for Gods people who can cry aloud and spare not Spare not For 1. Love Or 2. Fear Spare not for love Not for love of any Open rebuke is better than secret love Pro. 27.5 Not for love of money or reward lest it be said to thee as Simon Peter said to Simon Magus Thy money perish with thee For he that hath my Word saith the Lord let him speak my Word faithfully Not adde not diminish not put false glosses thereon Cursed be such Revel ult Jer. 23.28 Spare not Spare not sin spare no sin cry against all When the Lord brought the Israelites into the land of Canaan he gave them charge not to leave a mothers son of them alive They did not so they spared them but God spared not them when they fell into their Idolatry So God will not spare to plague those Messengers of his that spare to cry against sin and to cut it from off the earth Woe be to them saith the Prophet that sow pillows under all elbows Ezek. 13.18 Who say peace peace when there is no peace Jer. 16.14 for there is no peace saith my God to the wicked These like Hananiah make the people to trust in a lye Jer. 28.15 causing them to erre But Gods true Prophets and Messengers are against all sin and sinners without sparing or excepting any For Gods Word is in them as it was in Jeremy His Word was in my heart as burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary of forbearing I could not stay cap. 20.9 It was Christs speech to the Pharisees concerning his Apostles If these should hold their peace or spare speaking the stones would cry out Therefore beloved Brethren cry aloud spare not cap. 62.1 Imitate that Angelical Doctor and Evangelical Prophet Isaiah For Zion's Jake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth And again I have set watchmen upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence Spare not for fear Fear not little flock Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee Jer. 1.8 Do they contend with thee do they condemn thee fear not spare not He is near that justifieth thee who will contend with thee Tua causa erit mea causa as the Emperor said to one so saith Christ to all his servants Causa ut sit magna magnus est actor author ejus neque enim nostra est saith Luther to Meloncthon Isa 50.8 Do they reproath thee do they revile thee Fear not spare not Be not dismaid at their reproachings or revilings Isa 51. Do they despise thee Fear not spare not He that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me saith our Saviour Luk. 10.16 Do they forbid thee beat thee do they seek to stone thee as they did Christ as they did Paul and the rest of the Apostles Fear not spare not but be like blind Bartis meus who the more the people charged him to hold his peace the more he cryed a great deal Mar. 10.48 Do they say they 'll kill thee Fear not spare not they may kill the body but cannot the soul Remember The righteous are bold as a Lion that turns not away at any Ministers as Luther said of Historians must have the hearts of Lions Thou shalt have thy reward Vincenti corona To him that overcometh will I give a crown Rev. 3. And they their punishment for Qui vos tangit pupillam oculi mei tangit He that toucheth you or any of mine toucheth the apple of mine eye Zach. 2.8 Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm Psal 105.15 Do they provoke me to anger saith the Lord Do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces They do they do Witness the Primitive times wherein such as envied or hindred the prosperity of Gods Church never prospered Pharaoh sunk in the Red sea like a stone Ahab Elias enemy was shot with an arrow and died Nebuchadnezzar grievously punished Antiochus Epiphanes died in most miserable torments Herod the Great Christ's enemy perished with a lousie disease Herod Antipas that put John Baptist to death overcome by
flax 3. Bountiful in Porrigendo giving all bread and breath and all things Elizabeth Yong Act. Mon. in the dayes of Queen Mary put in close prison for her Religion hearing that the Keeper was commanded to give her one day bread and another day water answered Sir if you take away my meat God I trust will take away my hunger It was B. Hooper's speech Nothing can hurt us that 's taken from us for Gods cause nor nothing can at length do us good that is preserved contrary to his will GOD is good 1. In himself none good but God 2. Towards others in his works of 1. Creation 2. Preservation 3. Redemption 4. Glorification Pareus coming out of his Study slipping many steps and receiving no harm thought on that promise He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy wayes Psal 91 11 12. They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone God rules by second causes Yet the creatures are instâ—umentum arbitrarium not necessarium Hence an argument against Atheists Let them but look and observe the dependance of causes and works of Providence And then according to the Poetical Allegory they will easily conclude and believe That the highest link of Natures chain must needs be tyed to the foot of Jupiters chair Multa sine voluntate Dei geruntur Orig. Hom. 3. in Genes nihil sine providentia Providentia namque est quâ procurat dispensat providet quae geruntur Voluntas verò est quà vult aliquid aut non vult hinc quid velit vel quid hominibus expediat indicat Si non indicet nec erit provisor hominis nec creditur curare mortalia Well spake a learned Divine We indeed pray to God Our Father in heaven Heaven is the throne of God but Heaven is not the prison of God Gods glory shines most in Heaven but God is never shut up in Heaven Therefore he that is every where Deut non minor est in minimis quà m in maximis can as well do all as any one thing Hence God acts in every thing that acts and there is not any motion in the creature but God is in it They who act against the revealed will of God are yet ordered by his secret will There is nothing done against the counsel and purpose of God though many things are done against the command and appointment of God The greatest confusions in the world are disposed of by the Lord and are the issues of his counsels That wherein we see no order receives order from the Lord. Hence many are as much puzzl'd to interpret what God doth as what he hath spoken In a word Gods Providence is punctual and particular extending even to the least and lightest circumstances of all our occurrences Deus sio curas universoâ— quasi singulos sic singulos quasi solos Aug. The Wheels Were full of eyes The eyes of the Lord are in every place Ezek. 1.18 Pro. 15.3 Mat. 10 2â—.30 beholding the evil and the good Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground Without your Father But the very hairs of your head are all numbred Humane or rather Christian Providence We are to frustrate the Mines made to blow us up by our own Countermines of Prevention and Diversion Sooner may one prevent than cure a deadly sickness and easilier keep out than thrust out our unwelcom guest True of Sin Aegriùs ejicitur quà m non admittitur hospes As they say in Schools of Art It is easier to oppose than answer So we find it true in Christianity It is easier and safer to obviate and meet danger in the way than to tarry till it come home to our doors There is ever more courage in the assailer and commonly better success A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself Pro. 22.3 but the simple pass on and are punished Original Sin ATque homines prodigia rerum maxima So said our Saviour to the people of the Jews Spuria soboles Ye are a bastardly brood because utterly degenerate from your forefathers faith and holiness The like also may be said of Mankind once made upright but they have sought out many inventions Once planted a noble Vine wholly a right seed but now turned into the degenerate plant of a strange Vine O man thy silver is become dross thy wine mixt with water As all those little ones that ever might have descended from Abel Omnes peccavimus in isto 〈◊〉 homine quid omnes cramus isle unus bomo Aug. In Adamo tanquam in radice totum genus humanum computruit Greg. their blood cryed in his so all that descended from Adam have sinned in him As good parents may beget bad children The parents of the Blind man could see Grace is not hereditary So bad parents may beget good children Dumb Zachariah begat a Cryer But how are they good Not by generation but regeneration Adam ate one soure grape and all his childrens teeth are set on edge Vitrà radicem nihil querere â—portet Chinks are not to be sought where a gate is set wide open By Adam sin entred into the world O durus casus Alas what did man lose what did he find Anselm de laâ—u hominà Original Sin is that old tenant that Peccatum inhabitans which Paul speaks of which like a leprosie hath bespread all the sons of Adam à capite ad calcem beginning when we have our being like the man that Valerius Maximus speaks of who had a Quart fever from the day of his birth to the hour of his death We may now say of Man Quantum mutatus ab illo Homo lasciviâ supcrat equum impudentiâ canem astu vulpem furore leonem Yea we may say of all men Numb 32.14 as Moses of Gad and Reuben Ye are risen up in your fathers stead an increase of sinful men In a word This sin like Pandora's box opened through her curiosity filled the world full of all manner of diseases Man that Was in honour Psal 49.20 Jer. 31.29 Rom. 5.12 Heb. 12.1 and understood not is become like the beasts that perish The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the childrens teeth are set on edge By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us Actual Sin Austin defines sin to be factum aut dictum aut concupitum contra legem Dei. Contra Faustum l. 22. cap. 27. Holy Anselm said He had rather be thrust into Hell without than go into Heaven with sin The reason may be rendred Hell would be no Hell without sin and Heaven could be no Heaven with sin Sin is called in Scripture a Work of darkness for divers
in terrâ Creator coeli creatus sub coelo being the Child of Mary sine quo pater nunquam fuit sine quo mater nunquam fuisset So that as David sang This is the day which the Lord hath made we may say This is the day wherein the Lord was made we will rejoyce and be glad in it This was that Holy that Stone cut out of the mountain without hands that Flower of the field growing without mans labour When the fulness of the time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman Gal. 4 4. Joh. 1.14 1 Tim. 3.16 And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us God was manifesi in the flesh Passion It was a great kindness which Abraham shewed unto Lot when he hazarded his own life and the lives of his family to recover him out of the hands of Chedarlaomer But not comparable to that kindness which our Kinsman the Lord Jesus shewed us when he gave his life to deliver us from the hand of our enemies Mortuum Caesarem quis metuat Sed morte Christi quid efficacius If Caesar he once dead who will â—ear Christ even when dead is terrible to his enemies Nothing more effectual than his death By suffering death he destroyed him who had the power of death When he was condemned of man he condemned sin that it should not condemn man Passus est ut infirmus operatus ut fortis Aug. He suffered as a weak man but wrought as a strong one As the Serpent without life erected in the wilderness overcame the living serpents that stung Israel So the Lord Jesus by suffering death slew that Serpent that living in us had stung us to death Sanguis ejus effunditur Patre ordinante filio volente Spiritu sancto dante Gorran Judâ tradente Judaea procurante Pilato judicante Gentili exequente The High Priest under the Law as he was a type of Christ in sundry respects so likewise in his death He who killed a man negligently fled to the City of refuge and stayed there until the death of the High Priest and then he was free Jesus Christ by his death frees us and sets us at liberty One saith Christ continued in his torment twenty hours at the least Others say Sedul Homâ— â— that he was so long on the Cross as Adam was in Paradise in pleasure Origen de morte magni Regis The Theeves fared better on their Crosses than Christ on his for they had no â—rrision no superscription no taunts no insultations they had nothing but pain to encounter but death to grapple with but he death and scorn Pro servis dominus moritur pro sontibus insons Pro aegroto medicus pro grege pastor obit Pro populo rex mactatur pro milite ductor Pro opere ipse opifex pro homine ipse Deus As Eve came out of Adams side sleeping so the Church is taken out of Christs side bleeding Vt effundatur sanguis Christi ne confundatur anima Christiani A flux of blood in the head is stanched by opening a vein in the foot But here to save all his members from bleeding to death blood must be drawn from the head Which of Christs senses was not a window to let in sorrow He sees the tears of his Mother hears the blasphemy of the multitude is put to death in a noisom place to his scent his touch felt the nails and his taste the gall a reed for reproach is put into his hand a diadem in scorn is set upon his head his head harrowed with thorns his face of whom it was said Thou art fairer than the children of men is all besmeared with the filthy spettle of the Jews those eyes clearer than the sun are darkned with the shadow of death those lips which spake as never man spake are now drenched in gall and vinegar Nam cum mortis aculcum non possit accipere natura deitatis noscendo tamen sâ—scepit de nobis quod pati posset pro nobis Leo. Serm. 8. de Pas Hoc primum tormentum magnum mysterium quod passibilis factus est Hillar de Trin. l. 10. Christi humilitas est nostra sublimitas Christi crux nostra victoria Christi patibulum noster triumphus Orig. Hom 8. L. 9. and those feet that trampled on the Powers of darkness are now nailed to the footstool of the Cross Though Christ were both God and Man yet he suffered not in his Divine but in his Humane nature which may be thus illustrated 1. A Man we know consisteth both of soul and body and yet when he is dead we do not understand it of his soul for that cannot die but his body only 2. Thus The Sun shines on a Tree the Carpenter cuts down the Tree but wounds not the Sun 3. Or as the two Goats mentioned Levit. 16. the one is slain but the other escapes so of Christ in his two natures God the Creator suffers in the flesh that the flesh of the creature should not suffer for ever God himself reconciled the world unto himself God himself became Mediator God himself redeemed Mankind with his own blood He who was offered assumes the flesh of the creature and becomes Reconciliator We may say of Christs bloody sweat what the Poet Lucan having his veins cut dying said Sanguis erant lachrymae quaecunque foramina novit Humor ab his largus manat cruor ora redundunt Et patulae nares sudor rubet omnia plenis Membra fluunt venis totum est pro vulnere corpus Englished by D.T. His blood were tears and what pores sweat did know Blood in great plenty did spring forth and flow Through 's mouth and nose his sweat was red each lim Swet with full veins all 's but one wound in him Read Isa 53. all along His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree 1 Pet. 2.14 that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed Is it nothing to you 1. am 1.12 all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger Descensio Christi ad Inferos Sepultura Christi est requies Christiani Ambros Buried our Saviour was 1. That none might doubt of his death 2. That our sins might be buried with him 3. That our graves might be prepared and perfumed for us as so many beds of roses or delicious dormitories Isa 57.2 If Christ did descend personally into Hell he must either descend in body or in soul Now his body could not go into hell for that was laid in the grave that very night by Joseph of Arimathea And for his soul that could not be in hell for Christ said to the Thief upon the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise And how could that be if his soul did then go
the ordinance of God for He did all things well Wherefore to shew that God keeps his word and that the truth of his promises is infallible He rose again from the dead In regard of us the end of his Rising is threefold Viz. 1. For our Example 2. For our Justification 3. For our Faith c. First for our Example tending to the information of us in the ways of righteousness in the paths of life That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life that the body of sin might be destroyed Resurectione Domini configuratur vita quae hic geritur and that henceforth we should not serve sin Rom. 6.4.6 The Resurrection of Christ from the dead should be a pattern for us wherein there is some effective vigor to raise us from the death of sin to a gracious life The power of effecting both is in God A Dâ—o est quod unima vivat per gratiam corpus per Animam That the soul lives by grace and the body by the soul comes from God Aquinas who is the Author of life And saith Ames Christ rising from death is tum demonstratio quam initiatio as well a demonstration as the initiation or beginning of our Rusurrection by whom we pass from death unto life Secondly for our Justification They are the express words of the Apostle He was raised again for our justification Rom. 4. ult For now that he hath gotten the victory over death by reviving he applies by the vertue thereof all the benefits of the Gospel unto us to the exceeding great consolation of our souls Lastly for the establishment of our faith concerning the obtaining of life everlasting For indeed if the Head be risen the members may be sure to rise too and if the Head receive life and glory doubtless the members which have their proper dependunce of him shall receive the like perfection for a glorified Head cannot be without a glorified body Now Christ is the head of the body the Church Col. 1.18 who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he may have the preheminence Of the fulness of whose glory in the day of our perfect redemption we shall all receive a full measure For a Conclusion Communi naturae lege moriuntur homines The sons of men composed of dust and ashes die by the common law of nature Eternity is proper to another world not to this to this Inconstancie The Son of the most High himself when he became the Son of man was subjected to Mortality He pleaded no Prerogative royal to be exempted from that end which God setled in the course of nature Our times upon the Earth may be said to be lasting but not everlasting though in the hands of God Heaven decreed a period to our Lives which we cannot prevent and to which Christ at the appointed houre did submit himself with all obedience not able to avoid it Necessity was laid upon him to pay the dubt to Nature which might serve for a payment of our debt to God yet not respectu peccuti Wâ—ems Protralcture of Gods image in man pag. 43. but respectis poenae this necessity was not in respect of sin He was a Lamb without blemish and without spot but in respect of that punishmenâ— which he did oblige himself to undergo for the sins of men Est illata necessiaâ— Adamò innata necessit as nobis assumpta necessitas in Christo Necessity of death was laid upon Adam for his sin necessity of death is imbred in us and by a voluntary assumption there was a necessity of death in Christ A man willingly gives his word for such a summe for his friend but when he hath willingly given it he must of necessity pay it So Christ willingly took this debt upon him and in the fulness of time when 't was exacted paid it down even his life to God and nature But albeit he thus parted from the world yet God hath raised him up Etiam animalula quaedam typâ— Resurrectionis sunt Lavat in Job 14.12 having loos'd the paines of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it So though the hand of fate by Natures unconfused order reduce us to our first principles yet shall we rise again by the mighty power of our eternal Maker The Judge of all the word hath appointed a day wherein to judge the world to which all must rise And as all must die and after death come to judgment so Christ was once offered to bear the â—ius of many and unto them that look for him shall be appear the second time without sin unto salvation THE BLESSED AMBASSADOR OR THE Best sent into the Basest GALATH. 4.6 And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father GODS love wherewith he hath embrac'd the sons of men in his onely Son is of such large extent as cannot be limited as cannot be measured the breadth and length and depth and height thereof Eph. 3.18 19. doth passe our knowledge Doth passe our finding out The length the breadth the depth of the earth the sea the heavens Mathematicians by their speculations do conjecture but the love of God the most ingenious and judicious cannot it so exceeds so much as conjecture much lesse perfectly know because infinite Would a man part with his only son and alone darling and he content he should die a most ignoble and ignominious death to ransome his servants his cantives his slaves rebels that would cut his throat I cannot be perswaded the world affords such a man such a Phenix there was but one in all the world Abraham found willing to slay his son to rip up his bowels that spruug out of his own when God commanded it Yet the Lord of heaven and earth whose mercies are over all his works sent his only Son to save sinners to dye that by his death we may live Though servants Cantives slaves rebels yet by his Son made Kings Priests Prophets sons and heirs of an eternal inheritance O the depth the height and length and breadth of Gods love He sent his Son forth from him to bring us to him he freely gave him to redeem us from the insulting power of Sathan from the captivity and dominion of sin from the oppressing tyranny of the world to bring us into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God This liberty this sonship is obtained by faith for to as many as beleeve in his name hath he given power to become the Sons of God All ye then that beleeve are no more servants but sons not sons of wrath but sons of God not sons by nature but sons by grace And because sons behold the Lords bounty is enâ—arged toward you the treasures of his graces are open for you the store-house of his riches is
Objectivè for he that was yesterday shadowed in the Law is to day shewed in the Gospel one Christ crucified being the center of the Bibles circumference Subjectivè the same in his Attributes Power and Authority being alwayes the Lord of his people and Shepherd of his Flock Effectivè the same in his goodness and grace for he who was yesterday the God of Salvation is to day and shall be for ever Jesus a Saviour Christ is our priviledged place where our souls cannot be arrested Themistocles being out of favour with Philip of Macedon took up in his arms his son Alexander beseeching him for his sake to accept him Let us take in the Arms of our faith the holy Child Jesus and beseech the Father for his sake to accept us Ignis crux bestiae confractio ossium membrorum divulsio Ignatius totius corporis contritio toto Tormenta Diaboli in me veniant dum Christo fruar John Lambert lifting up his hands and fingers flaming with fire Act. and Mon. cryed to the people None but Christ none but Christ Now am I drest like a true Souldier of Christ said Filmer Martyr by whose merits only I trust this day to enter into his joy I know that Messias cometh which is called Christ John 4.25 Isa 61.1 Psal 45.7 Acts 10.38 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek c. God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladness above thy fellows Him hath God anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ Phil. 3.7 That I may win him and be found in him And now let it be observed That although none may be called Jesuites of Jesus because there is no Saviour beside him yet we are called Christians of Christ because we are anointed as he was Christ hath a threefold Title to Christians souls 1. Jure Creationis by Right of Creation Gen. 2.7 2. Merito Redemptionis Bern. by Merit of Redemption 1 Cor. 6.20 3. Dono Patris by the Fathers Gift John 17.6 7 9. As the Needle of a Dyâ—l removed from his Point never leaveth his quivering motion till it settles it self in the just place it alwayes stands in so fares it with a Christian in this World nothing can so charm him but he will mind his Saviour all that put him out of the quest of Heaven are but disturbances though the profits pleasures c. of this life may shuffle him out of his usual course yet he wavers up and down in trouble like quick-silver and never is quiet till he return to his wonted life and motion towards happiness where he sets down his rest expecting the reality of a Crown of endless glory Quid qui Christo omnino non credit 1. Cypr. appellatur Christianus Pharisaei tibi magis congruit nomen A Christian commits no sin without horrible sacriledge sin committed by a Pagan is the Laws transgression to be punished by death but the same committed by a Christian is not only a sin but a sacrilegious sin of highest degree Belshazzars sins were fully heightned when he abused the holy vessels to have drunk intemporately for the honour of his Idols in any vessel was a fearful sin but to do it in vessels dedicated to the honour of the true God was a double sin But this sacriledge to thine who art a Christian is but small he abused but vessels of gold and silver but thou the Temple of God by thy sin and loose living That which by Baptism was marked and sealed to an holy use thou turnest to the service of Satan By Profession a Christian by Conversation a Satanist Judas-like thou kissest Christ with thy mouth and with thy hand betrayest him Christiani hominis est Agrippa operari charitatem loqui veritatem That good Christian Eusebius to all questions demanded of him answered He was a Christian to shew that in all places callings and things we ought to shew our selves Christians The Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch Acts 11.26 Phil. 2.5 1 John 2.6 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus We ought also to walk even as Christ walked Of the Personal Vnion AMong other Titles of our Blessed Saviour Unio importat conjunctionem aliquorum in aliquo uno Aquinas he is called Emmanuel well deserving that Name for he hath done what the same imports as being one by whom God would dwell with us united to our nature by Incarnation as well as to our persons by Reconciliation The Personal Union is wonderful and unsearchable the manner whereof is to be believed not discussed admired not pried into Personal it is yet not of persons Athanas of natures and yet not natural As a soul and body are one man so God and man are one person And as every Believer that is born of God remains the same entire person that he was before receiving nevertheless in him a Divine Nature which before he had not so Immanuel continuing the same perfect person which he had been from Eternity assumeth nevertheless a humane nature which before he had not to be born within his person for ever This is our Ladder of Ascension to God faith first layes hold upon Christ as a man and thereby as by a mean makes way to God and embraceth the Godhead which is of itself a consuming fire And whereas sin is a partition-wall of our own making denying us access God is now with us And in Christ we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him Christs humanity serves as a Skreen to save us from those everlasting burnings and as a Conduit to derive upon us from the Godhead all spiritual blessings in heavenly places Behold Matth. 1.23 a Virgin shall be with Child and shall bring forth a Son and they shall call his Name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us Of Christ the Mediatour THere is an old Covenant and a new the old Covenant was this Hoc sac vive Mediator est qai se medium interponit inter partes dissidentes alios aliis reconciliat Do this and live And cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the book of the Law to do them This was a sour Covenant The new Covenant is Crede in me vive Believe in Christ and live This a sweet Covenant Moses was the Mediatour of the Law by his hands the two Tables of the Law were transmitted to the people But Christ is the Mediatour of the Gospel the which he hath established with his own blood The Hereticks called Melchisideciani made Melchizedec our Mediatour Epiphan contr haeret l. 2. Tom. 1. Some Papists will have all the Angels and Saints in heaven to be our Mediatours together with Christ Their Champion freely confesseth that Christ is our Mediatour Aquin. p.
Asps is under their lips Rom. 3.13 There are six properties in a Serpent to be imitated 1. He being assailed will strive to defend his head so ought a Christian in all afflictions to strive to preserve his faith and hope in Christ Psal 58.5 2. To prevent charming or incantation he fast stops his ear of which Austin thus Quum caeperet incantatorem suum pati allidit unam aurem terrae caudâ obturat alteram That the Serpent when she beginneth to feel the Charmer clappeth one of her ears close to the ground and stoppeth the other with her tail Pliny speaks to this purpose and the like is affirmed by Hierom and Cassiadore So ought Christians to beware of the worlds allurements and Satans incantations but to hearken to the wise charmings of the Gospel 3. Swimming over a river he strives to hold up his head so ought Christians to take heed they be not drowned in the world 4. He shuns the society of man as his deadly enemy 1 Tim. 6 9. and chuseth rather to inhabit the Wilderness and even to haunt briars and brambles for his defence So ought the godly rather to seek peace and comfort in solitary retiredness than to be amongst their profest enemies yea chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God Heb. 11.25 than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season 5. The Serpent is vigilant sleeps little but less when he suspects danger So ought Christians Ephes 5.15 6. They once a year cast their coat and renew themselves So ought Christians to labour to be rid of old corruptions and to get new sanctified souls Ephes 4.22 23 24. for Gal. 6.15 There are also six properties in a Serpent to be shunned 1. He hath a very lofty spirit reaching not only at men but birds But let Christians take heed of pride and ambition 2. They embrace while they sting lying in the green grass and sweet flowers to destroy the passenger But let Christians avoid flattery which tickles a man to death 3. The Serpent is unthankful he will kill him that nourisheth him But let not Christians be guilty of that hateful sin of ingratitude which renders a man the Prodigie of nature 4. They are marvellous voracious killing more than they can eat But let Christians beware they turn not covetous engrossers Wo unto them that joyn house to house that lay field to field Isa 5.8 till there bo no place that they may be placed alone in the midst of the carth 5. Their hostility and murtherous mind they would kill all to set up their own kind Such is the depopulator that thinks he hath not room enough unless he could be rid of the Poor and make them harbourless But let Christians avoid this as they would the aforementioned woe 6. Their enmity to man whom they ought to reverence Malice saith Chrysostom turneth men into serpents The like are the Jesuites that deny allegiance to Kings c. But Christians are taught another Lesson Rom. 13. Be ye therefore wise as Serpents Mat. 10.16 and harmless as Doves Beasts The sixth day God made beasts over the wildest of whom once man had power and dominion till he rose up and rebelled against God they were subject unto him but man rebelling against God they rebelled against man so that now it is from Gods special Providence that they hurt us not Amongst other beasts that are famous in Scripture there is the Lyon Which is 1. A Noble and Kingly creature 2. Strong 3. Venterous and bold 4. But cruel and bloody 5. Libidinous It is said he is so fearless of any other creature that when he is fiercely pursued he will never once alter his gate though he dye for it No more will the righteous man his resolution against sin such is his Christian-courage Prov. 28.1 Elephant Called Behemoth that is Beasts in the Plural for his hugeness as if he were made up of many beasts So strong that he can bear a wooden Tower upon his back and upon that several men standing to fight therefrom He is the hugest of all earthly creatures saith Pliny Nine cubits high saith Elian of some But certainly the wonders of Gods glory do marvellously appear in him he being the Master-piece among all earthly irrational creatures in strength and understanding Of this Animal at large Job 40. Wild-Ass A most untameable and untractable creature To the Colt of this wild creature is a natural man compared by Zophar Job 11.12 for his extream rudeness and unruliness Fox To which Persins Adversaries of the Church are fitly compared 1. For their craft Astuam vapido servans sub pectore unlpem Vulpes pellem mutat non naturam The Fox may change his countenance Iâ—dor Etym. â—b 1â— 1 but not his condition 2. For their cruelty they do great burt among Lambs and fowls for lacking meat they fain themselves dead and so the birds hasting down as to a carcase volucres rapiunt devorant they seize upon the birds and devour them Conie I only conclude with her who what she wants in strength hath in wisdom Proverbs 30.26 Gandet in effossis habitare cuniculus antris she secures her self in the rocks and stony places It shall be our wisdom to work our selves into the Rock Christ Jesus where we shall be safe from Hellish Hunters The very beasts will teach us to know and own God from whom we receive so much good so many benefits And God said Gen. 1.24 25. Let the earth bring forth the living Creature after his kind Cattel and the Beast of the earth after his kind and it was so And God made the Beast of the earth after his kind and Cattel after their kind c. Ask now the Beasts and they shall teach thee Job 12.7 Isa 1.3 The Ox knoweth his owner and the Ass his masters Crib but Israel doth not know Paradise Terrestrial that most pleasant and fruitful Garden wherein Adam and Eve were placed in the Creation Which Eden was as is conceived in the upper part of Chaldea whereabout Babel was founded It was destroyed by the deluge Cecidit rosa mansit spena Herod l. 1. Plin. l. 6. c. 16. the place indeed remaineth but not the pleasantness of the place And yet that Countrey is very fruitful returning seed beyond credulity as Pliny and Herodotus report Herein grew the Tree of life so called per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 effecti or by a Sacramental signification of Christ who is so called Rev. 22.2 Also the Tree of knowledge of good and evil so called from the event God forewarning our first Parents that they should know by woful experience unless they abstained what was the worth of good by the want of it and what the presence of evil by the sense of it Multi etiam hodie propter arborem scientiae amittunt arborem vitae Aug. in terris manducant quod apud inferos digerunt Caelestial of
and Physician to their unavoidable ruine Exempla hujus Peccati Saul Judas Arrius item Julianus Apostata But it is indeed difficult to judge of this sin Sine rarishmis inspirationiâ—us Beâ— because now in this Age of the Church the spirit of discerning is not so distributed as of old Manasses for many years furiously persecuted the Word of God erected abominable Idols and shed much innocent blood in Jerusalem whereby this sin was incoated but not consummate because at last he came to have Repentance given him Take heed of three things principally 1. Of every beginning of evil of denying Christ though but through infirmity so far Peter was in a dangerous way and it was time for Christ to look at him Satan teacheth his children first to go and then to run 2. Of acting wilfully and willingly against the known Truth of the Gospel there are sins of frailty through impotency and of simplicity through ignorance but take heed of sins of malignity through envy this is Giant-like to war against God 3. Of continuing to sin against conscience A man may sin till it be as impossible for him to repent as to come out of Hell being once plunged there Most justly may it be said of the man committing this sin what once most unjustly by Paul Away with him from the earth its pity that such a one should live There is a sin unto death 1 John 5.16 All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven him Mat. 12.31 32. but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this World neither in the World to come Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins Psal 19 13. let them not have dominion over me then shall I be upright and I shall be innocent from the great transgression Sinners By one man sin entred into the World Non intelligendum hoc de exemplo imitationis sed de contagio propagationis Johan Polyand praefat ad Com. Nemo mundus à peccato coram te nèc infans cujus est unius diei vita super terram Aug. Imbecillitas enim infantilium innocens est non animus infantium God at the first created men with their faces as it were turned towards himself that is doing his Will But now they are like him whom a wicked spirit is said to have caught by the pate and wrested his neck about that his face stood behind his back Fixa mutari nescia nam quis Peccandi finem posuit sibi quando recepit Ejectum semel attritâ de fronte pudorem Quisuam hominum est quem tu contentum videris uno Flagitio The three sorts of dead raised by our Saviour aptly resemble saith Augustine three sorts of sinners viz. 1. A sinner is dead in the house like Jairu's Daughter when he doth imagine mischief in his mind 2. Perseverare in malo Diabolicum digni sunt perire cum illo quicunque in similitudine ejus permanent in peccaâ—o Bern. A sinner is carried out in the Coffin like the Widows son of Naim when he brings forth ungodliness both in word and in deed 3. But then is he stinking in the Grave like Lazarus if he sin habitually without any remorse drawing iniquity with cords of vanity and heaping up wrath against the day of wrath One said wittily That the angry man made himself the Judge and God the Executioner there is no sinner that doth not the like The Glutton makes God his Eater and himself his Guest and his belly his God especially in the new-found Feasts of this Age in which profuseness and profaness strive for the Tables end The lascivious man makes himself the lover and as Vives said of Mahomet God the Pandor The covetous man makes himself the Usurer and God the Broker The ambitious man makes God his state and honour his God Of every sinner God may say justly as once by the Prophet Servire me fecisti Isa 43.24 Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins yea with the Salvages of Calecutt they place Satan in the Throne and God on the Footstool If Zions Daughter converse with sinners she ties her self to the bondage of iniquity Deaths Garden brings forth no other flowers but death The Rose of pride buds forth vanity envies wormwood is but bitterness the fair lilly of luxuriousness is but sorrow and contrition the stinging Nettle of careful avarice is but dolouâ— and affliction There is the soul the Daughter of Deity like a Bond-slave led into captivity from danger to danger vice to vice sin to sin thought to thought from thought to consent from consent to delight from delight to custom from custom to hardness of heart from thence to an evil death and from an evil death to damnation We may say of every sinner as Salust said of Catiline Magnâ vi animi fecit sed ingenio malo pravóque Sinners resemble those Monsters that are half like men and half like beasts Sinners may think they see God to favour them but 't is but imaginary as we read of Brutus that he saw his own Angel They are like mad men who imagine many things which indeed are not Wickedness overthroweth the sinner Prov. 13.6 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times and his dayes be prolonged It shall not be well with him neither shall he prolong his dayes which are as a shadow Eccl 8.12 13. because he feareth not before God The sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed Isa 65.20 Guilt of sin The priviledge of greatness neither must nor will be any subterfuge for guiltiness Guilt of sin increaseth as sin is propagated therefore the sorrow of sin comes with much and daily addition For as he is an happy man who can be a beginner in good things having a share in all the good that follows the beginning even when he is gone So cannot he but be a most unhappy man who is a Ring-leader in evil for as it is easie to set fire on an house but not so easie to quench it so he hath begun mischief and all the sins and evils of that unhappy spark committed many Generations after him shall be upheaped on him to his greater condemnation Men may communicate in other mens sins divers wayes By counsel and advice when though another is the hand yet thou art the head and adviser Absalom committed the incest but by the counsel of Achitophel And the daughter of Herodias is the mouth that said Give me John Baptists head but it was by the counsel of her mother By commandment 1. Whether by word Doeg murdered the Priests of the Lord but it was Saul's fact who commanded him The high Priests servants struck Paul but their stroak was their Masters for he commanded it and Paul deals
with the Master for the injury And Ahab sets his Judges on work by a course of Law to condemn Naboth for his Vineyard but the Law sound him guilty for the Text saith Hast thou slain and got possession Or 2. By writing Naboth died by Jezabels letters and Vriah was slain by Davids which so nearly concerned him that by the Lords righteous sentence the Sword never departed from his house by which sentence it is observed good Josiah fell by the Sword many hundred years after By permission as Governours of Kingdoms Countries Cities Corporations Families Qui non pâ—ohibâ—i malum cum potest facit which hinder not the evil they may and ought Eli hindred not his sons from running into reproach and therefore he fell with them Pilate though he wash his hands never so often if he hinder not the death of Christ he remains guilty By provocation Gal. 5.26 Ahab was most wicked whom Jezabel provoked therefore take the Apostles Rule Provoke not one another neither to sin by perswasion nor to wrath by rash and scandâ—lous speeches nor to revenge to right thine own wrongs But rather provoke one another to love and to good works By consent and countenancing sinful actions Vitia alioâ—um si feras faeis tua Saul when Stephen was stoned kept the cloaths and this was a consent and communication Hitherto refer all participation in the action as receiving stoln goods silence and concealment connivance and too much indulgence c. It was a proud saying of Isidore the Monk Non habeo Domine quod mihi ignoscas Rom. 7. I have nothing Lord for thee to pardon When St. Paul himself that had been in the third heaven complains of his inward impurities O what need is here of a Saviour sith guilty culpable souls are such as cannot plead their own cause without an Advocate If I wash my self with snow-water Job 9 30 31. and make my hands never so clean yet shalt thou plunge me in the Ditch Psal 130.3 and mine own Cloaths shall abhor me If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand Every mouth must be stopped Rom. 3.19 and all the World must become guilty before God I know nothing by my self 1 Cor. 4.4 1 Tim. 5.22 yet am I not hereby justified Be not partaker of other mens sins Punishment of sin Sinners imagine not their last act will be Tragical Callecius in orbem Sapâ— latet molii coluber sâ—b graminis umbâ—â Mant. Culpa habet plus de ratione mali quà m paena Aquin. because their former Scenes have all been Comical the end is so far off that they see not those stabbing shames that await them in a killing ambush When Seneca asked the question Quid est homini inimissimum he answered alter homo Our enemies studies are the plots of our ruine but more truly in sin who slily makes us work our own overthrow when we know not of it and endure our own damage when we see it not Elementum in loco non ponderat saith the Philosopher and it is true of sin But how light soever it seemeth in the committing it will one day lie full heavy even as a Talent of lead Zeeh. 5.7 or as an huge Mountain Hebr. 12.1 When once we come to a sight and sense of it when Gods wrath and mans sin shall face one another Sin before it be committed is blandus amicus in committing dulce venenum But after committed Scorpio pungens like those Locusts that had effeminate faces but stings in their tails Rev. 9. Sin and punishment are knit together with Chains of Adamant Raâ—ò antecedentem seclest um deseruit pâ— de poena clauds Horace Flagitium flagellum sicut Acus filum Punishment follows sin even as the soul of Remus as is reported did his brother Romulus Where iniquity breaks-fast calamity will be sure to dine to sup where it dines and lodge where it sups Sin hath venome in it appear it never so fair as Pope Alexander poysoned the Turks brother in candid Suckets Sin is like those Lamiae certain shapes of Devils which taking on them the shew of beautiful women devoured children and young men allured unto them with sweet enticements A cerain Gentleman of Rome being infinitely in debt and yet sleeping securely When the was dead Augustus the Emperour sent to buy his bed saying it seemed to be a wonderful one Even so we may well wonder to see men sleep securely in sin when we consider that their damnation slumbreth not 2 Pet. 2.3 Though the Lord speak not instantly to every sinner as he did to Abimelech Gen. 20.3 Behold thou art but a dead man yet 't is true of every sin Cheys when it is finished it brings forth death So soon as Jonah entred into the Sea the storm rose to teach us that ubi peccatum ibi procella where there is sin especially committed with rebellion there will inevitably arise a storm of divine wrath When men will not hear then there is no remedy but they must feel For when God laies siege to the soul he hath both warning-pieces and murdering-pieces if the one will not reclaim sinners the other shall ruine them The sinner therefore is blinder than Balaam that walks on in an evil course and sees not the sword of Gods vengeance before him I have read in the History of Scotland that a Lady had a room hanged with curious Arras behind which were placed certain Cross-bows ready bent and charged and in the midst of the room there was a goodly brazen image resembling the King holding in the one hand a fair golden Apple set richly with Smaragds Jacincts Saphiers Topazes Rubies Turkasses and such like precious stones which the King viewing demanded whom the image did represent to whom she answered him and said she provided it as a gift for him and therefore desired him to accept it though not worthy so high a dignity wherein the King delighting removed the Apple the better to advise it whereupon the Cross-bows discharged so directly upon him that striking him through in sundry places he fell down stark dead and lay flat on the ground Even so the poor sinner is not aware Prov. 7.23 till a Dart strike through his liver It is storied that in the inmost part of Affrick are certain wild beasts having the countenance of a woman which in like manner are called Lamiae as before And my Author saith that they have their paps and all the rest of their breast so fair as any Painters wits can devise by which being uncovered they deceitfully allure men unto them and when they have taken them they do forthwith devour them So doth sin making a man cry out at last wo is me now Jer. 4 31. for my soul is wearied because of murderers It is best of all therefore not to sin and next to that to amend upon punishment Pliny makes mention of a
fountain near Monacris in Arcadia Nat. Hist l. 2. c. 103. of which whosoever drinks presently falls down dead the name of the fountain is Styx so called because it was of all men abhorred So should we be affected to the evil of sin as to a thing that brings present death Man drinks iniquity like water but every draught slayes the soul as the water of Styx the body As thou wouldest not drink poyson so beware of it The Poets have feigned a river to be in hell called by the same name Rom. 12.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sometime is taken for hell it self Art thou afraid of hell be also as much afraid of evil Pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis est pati Thinks the sinner a small punishment may serve for a great offence But if God do punish the punishment shall have the same proportion with the offence God proportions the punishment of man with his sin and that two manner of wayes 1. In the quality and manner of it 2. In the quantity or degree of it The justice of God is visible in both Adonibezek was and so have many others been punished in the same manner that he had sinned But all shall be punished in the same degree that they have sinned 〈◊〉 abyssus 〈◊〉 a invocat When the iniquity of the Amorite is full he shall have his fill of wrath When God is pressed with sin as a cart with sheaves then he layes on load in judgment If sin be great so shall the punishment of it be Gods judgments against sinners are feathered from themselves as a fowl shot with an arrow feathered from her own body Which is according to Julians Motto Propriis pennis perire grave est No sooner had man sinned but the earth was cursed for his sake It was never beautiful nor chearful since and lookes to be burnt up shortly with her workes But yet the Punishment of sin may come long after the comitting of sin The one is a seed-time the other a reaping-time betwixt which there is a distance of time Job 4.8 The seeds of sin may lye many years under the furrowes A man may commit a sin in his youth and not find the harvest of it till old age The strongest sinner shall not escape punishment There are no sons of Zerviah too hard for God God desires in a special manner to be dealing with these for they in the pride of their spirits think themselves a match for God though indeed their strength is but weaknesse and their wisdom foolishness hence like Pharoah they send defiance to Heaven and say who is the Lord When God sees the hearts of men swoln to this height of insolent madnesse he delights to shew himself and grapple with them that the pride of man may be abased and every one that is exalted may be laid low that he onely may be exalted and his name set up in that day Behold Numb 32.23 ye have sinned against the Lord and be sure your sin will find you out Evill shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him Psal 140.11 Evil pursueth sinners Pro. 13.21 The wicked is driven away in his wickednesse Cap. 14.32 Thine owne wickednesse shall correct thee Jer. 2.19 and thy back-slidings shall reprove thee know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of hosts Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee Cap. 4.18 this is thy wickednesse because it is bitter because it reacheth unto thine heart If thou doest not well Gen. 4.7 sin lieth at the door Supplicium imminet idâ— proximum et presentissinium saith Junius there Then when lust hath conceived Jam. 1.15 it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death What fruit had ye then in those things Rom. 6.21 Whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death For the wages of sin is death vâ—s 23. Free-will THere are a generation of men The Motto Mâ—hi solâ—d beo that will needs hammer out their own happiness like the Spider climbing by a thread of her owne weaving But Sub laudibus naturae latent inimicigratiae saith Aug. The friends of free-will are enemies to free-grace But whoever doth well weigh Auâ— observes our Saviour saith not pâ—rfâ—â—re but facere John 6.44 with cap. 15.5 and other places of Scripture must needs conclude that down goes the Dagon of free-will with all that vitreum acumen of all the Patrons thereof whether Pagans or Papagans Pelagians or Semipelagians c. Pareus in Revel 22.17 Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely glosseth thus He saith whosoever will he saith not that it is in the power of free-will but requires the will to receive it The will is ours but the will of receiving is not in us it is the gift of grace For what have we that are have not received 1 Cor. 4.7 Mind but the case of Paul Act. 9. and of Lydia cap. 16. and it will be clear that God comes into the heart while the doors of it are shut The Arminians and Papists as to that great and special truth which the Orthodox maintain against them will grant an irresistable work of light from God upon the understanding they will grant also a potent work upon the affections but this they will not yield that God makes the will to will that is so boweth and changeth the heart that it readily imbraceth what once it abhorred yet in all that are converted this power so efficacious must needs be acknowledged for will not experience witnesse that every mans will before converting grace came was as opposite to God and as averse to all holinesse as any natural mans in the world Simpliciter velle hominis est malè velle corruptae naturae Bern. bene velle supernaturalis gratiae Quem trahit Deus volentem trahit saith Chrysostom Vbi non est Spiritus Domini non est libertas arbitrii Aug. To which August Certum est nos velle cum volumus sed ille facit ut velimus qui operatur in nobis velle Therefore he addes Da Domine quod jubes jube quod vis Cyrus had this written upon his Tomb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I could do all things as Arrianus reports So could Paul too but it was through Christ strengthening him Phil. 4.13 To which the same Apostle addes elsewhere Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God 2 Cor. 3.5 No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him Joh. 6.44 For without me ye can do nothing Cap. 15.5 For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Phil. 2.13
covetous oppressors as Zacheus was to call us out of our oppression and make us new creatures in Christ Jesus Excellently saith a Divine of our time There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a seemliness appertaining to each calling so here We must walk nobly and comfortably as becometh the heirs of God and Co-heirs of Christ Scipio when a Harlot was offered him answered Vellem si non essem Imperator I would if I were not General of the Army Antigonus being invited to a place where a notable Harlot was to be present asked counsel of Menedemus what he should do He bade him only remember that he was a Kings son So let men remember their high and heavenly calling and do nothing unworthy of it Luther counsels men to answer all temptations of Satan with this only Christianus sum I am a Christian They were wont to say of Cowards in Rome There is nothing Roman in them Luth. in Gen. Of many Christians we may say There is nothing Christian in them It is not amiss before we be serviceable for the world to put Alexanders question to his followers that perswaded him to run at the Olympick games Do Kings use to run at the Olympicks Every believer is Gods first-born and so higher than the Kings of the earth Psal 89.27 He must therefore carry himself accordingly and not stain his high blood Many be called but few chosen God hath saved us and called us with an holy yea heavenly calling Mat. 20.16 2 Tim. 1.9 Heb. 3.1 Eph. 4.1 I beseech you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called Conviction It is said that Frogs will leave croaking if but a Light be hanged over the lake wherein they are A cleer discovery of the Truth is a powerful means to muzzle the mouths of Hereticks God smiteth the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips doth he slay the wicked By his word he telleth a man as he did the Samaritaness all that ever he did Yea the Word is a most curious Critick judging exactly and disclosing the words which he speaks in his very bed-chamber that is in the most secret retirements of his heart Conscience alone hath but a weak light and that light is partial but a serious application of the Word discovereth wickedness when our blind Consciences do not I was alive without the law once Rom. 7.5 but when the commandment came sin revived and I died Conversion This is the main end of the Gospels ministery to open mens eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Sathan unto God We our selves may challenge no more than S. Austin in his child Adeodatus Nihil agnosco meum nisi peccatum I own nothing in our Conversion but the faults and defects Bernard for a certain time after his conversion remained as it were deprived of his senses by the excessive consolations he had from God Cyprian confesseth to Donatus his friend that before his conversion he thought it was impossible for him to change his manners and to find such comfort as now he did in a Christian life Accipe quod sentitur antequam discitur And so he goes on Austin saith the like of himself And the Eunuch after conversion went on his way rejoycing Divines say The infallible evidence of conversion is when a man hath changed his first principles and his last ends Cyprian called Caecilius that converted him Novae vitae parentem And doubtless it 's an high honour to have any hand in such a work He which converteth a sinner from the error of his way Jam. 5.20 shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins I cannot here omit a passage of a very grave Divine Mr. Ley his Pattern of Piety 145. I have known saith he a person who neither by education or affection was disposed to Popery who having the ill hap when his Conscience was perplext to fall into the hands of a Popish Priest upon this reason because as the Priest suggested that Religion afforded more comfort because it had and exercised a power to pardon sin which our Ministers neither did nor durst assume unto themselves he became a Papist Job 33.24 But it is honour enough to Ministers and may be comfort enough to their hearers that God gives them commission to deliver a Penitent man from Hell not as the means for that is Christ alone but as instruments 1. To apply Christ crucified or rather risen again unto him 2. To pronounce his safety and salvation upon the due use of that means And this is the greatest honour that ever was done to any meer creature Angels had never such a commission They indeed are Ministers for the good of those that shall be heirs of salvation Heb. 1.14 But Ministers are called Saviours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obad. 21. Take heed unto thy self 1 Tim. 4.16 and unto the doctrine continue in them for in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee Regeneration There are two parts in this work of grace 1. The one is Qua regeneramur by which we are begotten 2. The other is Qua renascimur by which we are born again The one is Gods act purely the other implieth the manifestation of life in our selves A distinction that serveth to clear some controversies in Religion The Word of God is the instrument of our Regeneration being made prolifical and generative by the Spirit The Father is the original cause Jam. 1.18 The Son is the meritorious and effective And the Holy Ghost consummates and applies it 1 Pet. 1.3 through faith wrought and increased in us by the Word and Sacraments So that here is God the Father's will God the Son's merit and God the Spirit 's efficacy Tit. 3.5 6. By his overshadowing the soul is the new creature hatched and brought forth When the Donatists upbraided Austin with the impurity of his former life he answered How much more they blame my former fault by so much the more I praise and commend my Physitian Miratúrque novas frondes non sua poma saith the Poet Virg. Georg. 2◠speaking of a graffed tree So may Regenerate persons themselves and all that behold them wonder at the change which is wrought in them Every man by his first birth is still-born dead in sin by his new birth he becometh alive to God As the Father said of the Prodigal This my son was dead and is alive And surely what difference was between Lazary lying dead in the grave and Lazarus standing alive on his feet the same is between a natural and a regenerate man Yea look what alteration there is in the same Air by the arising of the Sun the like is in the same person by the infusion of holiness Paracelsus in his second book De vita longa saith that Lepra curatur per regenerationem Chymically it is to be
It was a custom amongst the Persians Plùs quali animo astimatur quà m quid datur Aelianus None might come to their King or Prince without gifts Syneta a poor husbandman meeting in the field Artaxerxes King of Persia presented unto him an handful of water out of the next river and was rewarded by the King with a Persian garment a Cup of gold and a thousand Darices of silver But what had man wherewith to move God to be favourable to him When Alexander gave a whole City to one of his servants and he out of modesty denied it his speech was He did not dispute what was fit for him to receive but what did beseem him to give The like may be said of Christ the great gift of God and effect of his love and favour to mankind Bernard once preaching upon the Incarnation and Nativity of our Saviour Christ said The shortness of the time constrained him to shorten his Sermon And let none quoth he wonder if my words be short seeing on this day God the Father hath abbreviated his own Word for whereas it filled heaven and earth as the Prophet speaks it was on this day so short that it was laid in a manger Christ easeth us of a threefold burthen 1. Affliction 2. The Law 3. Sin Which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear x Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift 2 Cor. 9.15 But there are also other gifts of God which are mainly of two sorts Dona 1. Aedificantia 2. Sanctificantia The former wicked men may enjoy the Saints have only the latter Paracelsus called the vertue of the Weapon-salve Donum Dei so are the Graces rather of his Spirit There is in Grace 1. Vita originalis habitualis which is from death of sin 2. Vita actualis renovata which is quickning from deadness Again Grace is 1. Inchoata incompleta 2. Perfecta completa consummata Philosophers and Divines say Justa aâ—eudo sumus justi There is an Esse naturale by union of soul and body And an Esse spirituale by union of the soul and Christ The habits of the former Vertues are got by frequent acts but Grace by Divine infusion Grace coming into the soul of man Pembl vind Grat. pag. 7. like Light into the air which before dark is in all parts at once illuminated or as Heat into cold water that spreads it self through the whole substance or as the Soul into the body of Lazarus or the Shunamites child not by degrees but all at once infused and giving life to every part So is our New man born at once though he grow by degrees that is the soul in conversion is at once re-invested with the Image of God in all its faculties so that though the actions of Grace do not presently appear in each one yet the habit the seed the root of all Divine virtues is firmly reimplanted in them and by the strength of this grace given they are constantly disposed to all sanctified operations Well said the Roman Theodosius That living men die is usual and natural But that dead men live again by repentance and grace is the mighty work of God alone Gregory the Great seeing the Merchants of Rome setting forth many beautiful British Boyes to sale sighed and said Alas for grief that such fair faces should be under the power of the Prince of darkness and such beautiful bodies should have their souls void of grace The body is better than food the soul than the body grace than the soul and only Christ than grace Whoso carries this Moli or Herb-of-grace Vlysses-like frustrates all charms Without grace Trees excell us in length of life Beasts in strength and Devils in knowledge Martial reports of a Fly that by a drop of Amber falling upon it grew in such request that a great sum of money was bidden for it so grace makes us esteemed of God Act. Mon. William Tims convented before Bishop Bonner Tims said the Bishop thou hast a good fresh spirit it were well if thou hadst learning to thy spirit Yea my Lord said Tims and it were well also that as you be learned men so ye had a good spirit to your learning A sinner wants grace Non quia Deus non dat sed quia homo non accipit Whereupon it follows in a Schoolmans inference That Gods not giving is not the cause of a sinners not receiving but rather his not receiving is the cause of Gods not giving Which made Ambrose count a sinner worse than a serpent Serpens aliis infundit venenum injustus sibi If thou begin 1 To hate and fly sin 2 If thou feelest thou art displeased with thine infirmities and corruptions 3 If having offended God thou feelest a grief and sorrow for it 4 If thou desirest to abstain from all appearance of evil 5. If thou avoidest the occasion 6 If thou travailest to use thy endeavour 7. If thou prayest to God to give the grace These are so many testimonies and pledges of Grace and the Spirits ruling within thee Furthermore if there be any life in the body at the heart it will beat at the mouth it will breath at the pulse it will be felt So where there is the life of Grace in any Bish Andrews it will appear to himselfe by his good thoughts and holy desires which he hath in his heart and it will appear to others by the gracious words that proceed from his lips and from the good works that proceed from his hands And if it cannot be perceived by any or all these waies then certainly there is no life of Grace in a man It is a good thing that the heart be established with Grace Heb. 13.9 Corruption Corruptio in Physicis opponitur generationi Ames Sicut igitur in generatione forma perfectio rei in generatur Sic in corruptione eadem forma et perfectio de perditur Forma autem et perfectio hominis quae moralis est et spiritualis consistit in conformitate debità ad imaginem voluntatem Dei ad quam in creatione primâ fuimus generati invocatione sumus regenerati Mutatio igitur ab isthâc perfectione ad peccati deformitatem et confusionem rectè ac propriè dicitur corruptio We must distinguish saith Bernard inter morbum mentis et morsum Serpentis inter malum innatum malum seminatum Sathans suggestions and our own corruptions We must with the man in the Gospel cast off our cloak and run after Christ and if we approach to heaven with Moses take off our shoes viz our filthy lusts because the lighter the swifter But this must be in the strength of God Austin striving against corruptions in his own strength heard a voyce In te stas et non stas This Corruption of nature hath a regency and dominion in wicked men and a residency and dwelling in the best and will have Being like a
fretting leprosie in our cottages of clay though the walls be well scraped yet it will never utterly out till the house be demolished O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7.24 Vertue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quâ—si 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amabilis Some think it is derived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à Marte vel bello quia in bello maxime opus est virtute vel quia in bello precipuè virtutis vis conconspiciatur Some derive it à verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tollo quia attollit mentem ad summa ardua virtus bellica Others à verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifyeth to make a free choice of some excellent thing upon mature deliberation Virtus à viro à vi ut alii alii vero dicunt quasi viri status Non est virtus virtuti contraria Senec. There is magnitudo 1. Molis et 2. Virtutis Splendidior virtutis usus erga alium quà m erga seipsum Eximia vertus est impios rapit in admirationem ei amorem sui Erasm in vit Origenis The Poets pictured vertue with a vermilian blush and as it is truly said that Rubor est virtutis color so it may be said that paupertas est virtutis fortuna Yet wise men honour vertue even in their enemies as King Philip in Demosthenes Vertus laudatuâ— in hoste when as he said If any Athenian living in Athens doth say that he preferreth me before his countrey him verily would I buy with much money but not think him worthy my friendship But if any for his countrey-sake shall hate me him will I oppugne as a castle a strong wall or a bulwarke and yet admire his vertue and reckon the City happy in having such a man The very Heathens made their passage to the Temple of honour thorow the Temple of vertue to shew that as glory is the end so vertue is the meanes The way to be famous is first to do worthily Ruth 4.11 Adde to your faith 2 Pet. 1.5 Phil. 4.8 vertue Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things Vice Vitium ut est negatiè habitus privative opponitur habitui ut est habitus vel act us malus opponitur habitui bono contrariè There is saith one a certain list of vices committed in all ages and declaimed against by all Authors which will last as long as humane nature or digested into common places may serve for any Theme and never be out of date untill Doomesday Uice at best is but a diseased harlot all whose commendations is that she is painted Uices road is paved with ice inviting by the eye but tripping up the heele to the hazard of a wound or drowning One vice doth blemish many vertues Yet no vertue but beset with vices or extreames on both hands And this is evident not onely in morall vertues but also in naturall habits whether they be outward or inward For all the severall jemmes in vertue vice hath counterfeit stones wherewith she gulls the ignorant It is said of Mahomet the great Turk Hist fol. 433. that he had many lovely vertues but these good parts were in him obscured with most horrible and notorious vices In so much that craft covetousnes and dissimulation were in him accounted for tollerable faults in comparison of his greater vices Heliogabulus was generally hated for his insatiable lust and least pitied in that ebb of his frailty his miserable death when men use most to be pitied being attended at his funeralls with military reproaches Here go we to bury a dog of distempered lusts Sejanus was shaken with an unexpected end and made miserable in his best fortunes interred with dry eyes but who will pity the fall of ambition Herostratus memorable for nothing but villany purchased by his fame an infamous end Bloody Perillus expert in the invention of cruel projects punished with the torture of his invention And frequently it comes to pass the fleering Parasite circumvents himself with his own policy Naaman 2 Kings 4.1 Captaine of the host of the King of Syria was a great man with his Master and honourable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria He was also a mighty man in valour but he was a leper Repentance Publicanus percussit pectus Innocent 3. p. l. 2. c. 13. De sacr Alt. Myst in percussione tria not anda jctus sonus tactus per quae signantur illa tria quae sunt in vera paenitentia necessaria viz. 1. Cordis contritio 2. Oris confessio 3. Operis satisfactio Nam sicut tribus modis peccamus scil Corde cogitando ore loquendo opere perpetrando ita tribus modis paenitere debemus scil Corde per dolorem ore per pudorem opere per laborem Yea four things are required in true repentance 1. Contrition 2. Confession 3. Satisfaction in case of oppression 4. Faith For without all our repentance is but Judas-like for he had contrition in that he repented himselfe when he saw Jesus condemned and he confessed his sin in that he said I have sinned in betraying the innocent blood And he made satisfaction and restitution so soon as he could in bringing again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests Furthermore Vbi metus nullus emandatio inde nulla ubi emandatio nulla Eertul ibi paenitentia necessariovana For well said Luther Optima paenitentia est nova vita 'T is not many but some reigning sin that undoeth us as there is more matter of one chain that is fast than of many if loosned and of one leak open in the ship than of many stopped Therefore as in India by reason of scarcity of iron they keep Prisoners in golden chaines so some Sathan keeps in chaines of iron and others as it were in chaines of gold Tribunal judicis eterni securus aspiciet quisquis reatus sui conscius Greg. dignâ eum nunc paenitentiâ placare contendit Bradford being at the stake casting up his countenance to heaven said Act. Mon. O England England repent thee of thy sins repent thee of thy sins c. Aut paenitendum aut pereundum The Hart if wounded will make use of meanes to get the arrow out the swallow if blinded of her feathers to restore her sight Tertul. And shall not man use the ordained meanes to be cured of the wound of sin and sting of death Quem paenitet peccásse penè est innocens Senec. Trag. If we have filled Gods bag with our sins we had need to fill his bottle with our teares Pigeat sanè peccare rursus sed rursus paenitere non pigeat Tertul. pigeat iterum periclitare sed non iterum liberari
Quia exercitiis stultitiae delectatur Pro. 10.23 5. Quia stultitiam suam spargere aliis communicare amat Pro. 12.23.13.16 6. Quia contemnit opponit sese mediis instructionis Pro. 15.5 7. Mediis illis quae maximè faciunt ad sapientiam abutitur Pro. 26.9 8. Omnes suas facultates applicat ad nequitiam exercendam manifestandam Pro. 6.12.13.14 Thus Sin and Folly are more than like one another for they are the same He is a fool who hath not wisdom to direct himself but he is the fool who will not follow the counsel and direction of the wise He is a fool that hath no knowledge and he is a fool who makes no use of the knowledge which he hath A fool is not able to judge of the nature of things and therefore he is angry with every thing that hits not his nature or his humour Hence Solomon Eccl. 7.9 Be not hasty in thy Spirit to be angry for anger resteth in the bosom of fools They that are emptiest of understanding are fullest of will and usually so full that we call them wilful And surely those men are more foolish than others inasmuch as they think themselves wiser than all Stustorum plena sunt omnia Wisdom like the Rayl flyes alone but foolishness Partridge-like by covies Mr. Adams There is the 1. Sad fool 2. Glad fool 3. Haughty fool 4. Naughty fool The sad fool that 's the envious man an enemy to all Gods favours if they fall from him he dies languishing The glad foll or rather mad fooll the dissolute man ready with a jest to put goodnesse out of fashion he dies laughing The haughty fool the ambitious man ever climbing towers though he never looks how to get down he forsakes peace at home to seek war abroad The naughty fool the coveteous man the very fool of all losing his friend time body soul and yet having no pleasure for it Jer. 17.11 He wasts him self to preserve his meanes Christ calls him fool which might best do it Luk. 12.20 As for the Atheistical fool he is that meer animal that hath no more than a reasonable soul and for little other purpose than as salt to keep his body from putrefying When an heire is impleaded for an Ideot the Judge commands an apple or a counter with a peece of gold to be set before him to try which he will take if he takes the apple or the counter and leaves the gold he is then cast for a fool and unable to mannage his estate for he knows not the value of things or how to make a true election Wicked men are thus foolish and more for when which is infinitely more sottish Heaven and hell life and death are set before them they chuse hell rather than heaven and death rather than life They take the mean transitory trifling things of the world before the favour of God Pardon of sin a part in Jesus Christ and an inheritance among the Saints in light Fools make a mock at sin Prov. 14.9 Shame shall be the promotion of fools Cap. 3.35 Sèe then that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wìse Eph. 5.15 Sincerity It is the bottome grace especially commending us to God It is conceived not to be so properly a distinct grace as the perfection of every grace It s the filling up of all our duties without this they are as empty sounds A sincere man is like a Chrystal-Glass with a light in the midst which appeareth through every part thereof so as that truth within breaketh out in every parcel of his life There is in his obedience to God 1. An universality 2. Uniformity 3 Ubiquity He hath respect unto all Gods Commandments so far as he knows them without prejudice or partiality and is the same at home as abroad in the closet as in the Congregation His faith is unfained his love cordial his wisdom undissembled his repentance a renting of the heart he truly aims at pleasing God and not at by-respects Christ is said to be girt about the paps with a golden girdle Rev. 1.13 So the Angels are brought in girded there Cap. 15.6 to signifie the best estate of their Pastours coming nearest then in sincerity to Christ In the first age of the Church they wore their girdle about their middle but the more spiritual they became their girdle went the more upward To this the Apostle may seem to allude Eph. 6.14 And truely here as one saith well if ever unbelt unblest he is a loose man that wants this girdle of sincerity There is a devilish proverb passeth amongst men That plain dealing is a Jewel but he that useth it shall die a beggar But the contrary may be asserted that it is both a means formally enabling to outward happinesse and also a special qualification that hath in a peculiar manner the promises annexed to it Pro. 14.11 Cap. 11.3.2 Chro. 16.9 And whereas it may be said that it often falls out that uprightness is oppressed This is easily answered if we consider 1. That many of the outward calamities that befal godly persons are not simply evils as the world judgeth but rather markes of special honour God puts upon them Jobs body was full of ulcers but his heart was pure and those tribulations he grapled with were onely probatory to trie his strength to draw out his graces and increase his glory 2. We must not limit God to every moment of time when he will honour and cleer his people The world at first was a confused Chaos but at the end of six dayes it was a curious work So God hath his time and we should not desire God should break off his work before he hath made an end of it Jam. 5.11 And David calls upon us to mark the upright man Psal 33.37 The beginning may be trouble but the end is peace Qualis Majorisreatus minoris infamia es tali◠appare For secret sins 1. They are as visible to God as the most open 2. As damnable to the soul 3. And what they want in number they have in nature and frequently in delight Encouragements to sincerity 1. It s the onely perfection we attain here Deut. 30.6 2. It makes us acceptable to God Eph. 6. ult 3. Where it is God passeth by many infirmities 2 Chro. 30.19 4. It is the best policy Psal 101.1 Pro. 11.3 5. It brings wonderful comfort and support under all afflictions and temptations 2 King 20.3 2 Cor. 1.12 That sincerity is most opposed by Satan is plain Job 2.3 As if the Holy Ghost would intimate this unto us that Satan pulled more at that than at his estate Satan did not care at all to pull Jobs Oxen c. from him but to pull his grace and sincerity from him As this gotten and improved is the joy of Angels so could it be stoln away or destroyed it would be the joy of Devils Sinceritas quasi sine carâ pure honey without the wax
theft John 8.4 whiles the child of a stranger carries away the goods or lands of the family Besides this sin strikes at the very sinew heart and life of the marriage-knot and dissolves it Clytemnestra Agamemnons wife was a notable Adulteresse But nothing like Messalina who said Se inter diem noctem viginti quinque passam concubitus Adulteri sunt ulcera reipublicae The wide womb of the earth can never find a grave to hide their shame Nebuchadnezzar rosted in the fire Zedekiah and Ahab two false Prophets of Judah because they committed Adultery with their neighbours wives Jer. 29.22 23. The Egyptians used to cut off the nose of the Adulteresse the Prophet alluâ—es to this Ezek 23.25 The Athenians Lacedemonians and Romans were very severe against this sin as Plutarch reporteth The old French and Saxons also as Tacitus tels us The Law of God was strict this way and where men have failed to punish God hath done it remarkably In Anno 1583. in London two Citizens committing Adultery on the Lords day were struck dead with fire from heaven in the very act of uncleannesse their bodies being left dead in the place half burnt up sending out a most loathsome savour for a spectacle of Gods controversie against Adultery and Sabbath-breaking God did it effectually on Charles 2. King of Navar who was much addicted to this sin which so wasted his spirits that in his old age he fell into a Lethargy To comfort his benumbed joynts he was bound and sewed up in a sheet sleeped in boiling Aquavitae The Surgeon having made an end of sewing him and wanting a knife to cut off his thread took a wax candle that stood lighted by him But the flame running down by the thread caught hold on the sheet which according to the nature of the Aquavitae burned with that vehemencie that the miserable King ended his dayes in the fire Master Cleaver reports of one that he knew who had committed the act of uncleannesse and in the horror of conscience he hang'd himself But before he wrote in a paper and left in a place to this effect Indeed I acknowledge it sâ—id he to be utterly unlawful for a man to kill himself But I am bound to act the Magistrates part because the punishment of this sin is death This act was not to be justified but it shews what a controversie God hath with Adulterers and what a deep gash that sin makes in the conscience Adultery is 1. Mental 2. Actual What need therefore with Job to make a Covenant with our eyes Lusting is oft the fruit of looking as in Joseph's Mistresse who set her eye upon Joseph and David who saw Bathsheba bathing Lust is quick sighted Sampsons eyes were the first offenders that betrayed him to lust therefore are they first pulled out For this is an heinous crime yea it is an iniquity to be punished by the Judges Job 31.11 Heb. 23.4 Adulterers God will judge 3. Incest In a strict acceptation it signifieth that kind of naughtinesse which is committed between two near of kin Take heed of intemperance Lot in a drunken pang forgets he is father and does that that heaven and earth are afterwards ashamed of Est Venus in venis ignis in igne furit The text saith he neither perceived when either of them lay down Gen. 19.33 nor when they arose Indeed drunkennesse drowns both the understanding sense and conscience for surely he would never have done that abominable act if he had not been overcome with wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which might make him forget what was become of his wife and so cause him not to doubt but that she was in his bed Yet it is observed there is a tittle extraordinary in the Hebrew to note that it is a thing incredible Ne nos abeamus in securitatem Coire quempiam necientem Cajetan and Pererius conclude it possible and give reasons for it Calvin saith best that it was not so much his wine as a spirit of slumber sent upon him from God for a scourge of his intemperance Luther adds that we may watch against security It is well observed by our Divines Gen. 19.8 that Lot offended against the chastity of both his daughters in offering them up unto the Sodomites and they now conspire against his chastity so is he punished in the same kind wherein he offended which was just as from God though evil in them God permits him to fall most horribly in the solitary mountain whom the wickednesse of Sodom could not overcome It is ordinary with the Pope to dispence with incestuous marriage Instance in Philip 3. Sands in his Survey of Spain of whom it is said that he might call the Arch-Duke Albert both Brother Cousin Nephew and Son for all this was he unto him either by blood or affinity Being Uncle to himself Cousin-German to his Father Husband to his Sister and Father to his Wife And all by Papal dispensation God suffers such commixtions to take effect whiles he makes more lawful conjunctions fruitless for the greater shame of the fact Abhorr'd filthiness 1 Cor. 5.1 not so much as to be named without detestation 4. Sodomy This soul sin is so called from the men of Sodom It is an abuse of either sex against nature Such may be men in shape but are worse than beasts in their lusts Two ways a thing may be said to be against the nature of man 1. In regard of the constitutive difference of man which is Reason and so all sin is against nature 2. In regard of the Genus of man which is Animal a living creature Now the sin here spoken of is also against mans nature in this last respect For such filthiness is not sound amongst the beasts for God hath ordained that the male and female should couple together and not the female and female nor male and male But in this horrible manner did the Sodomites Romans and other of the Gentiles It is a sin saith Aristotle that is repugnant not only to nature in her greatest depravation but which fighteth with the nature of beasts But it is cleer that when God for sakes men they are ready to do things which the very beasts abhor At this day in the Levant Blunts Voyage Sodomy is held no sin The Turkish Basha's have many wives but which is far more abominable more Catamites This is a sin so against nature that Children natures end and Posterity are utterly lost by it God gave them up to vile affections Rom. 1.26 27. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly Adde unto these that of Moses Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death Exod. 22.19 Father Latimer B. of Worcester gave Henry the 8. a
that the Rabbins say If the Heavens were parchment and the Sea ink it would not serve to write down the praises of it Eutychides drew his Gally neer where the Persians had entrenched themselves Sir W. R. and spake to the Ionians a people camped amongst them more for fear than favor and bid them remember liberty The like did Themistocles to the Eubaans which much prevailâ—d to make them either dissert or mutiny Christian liberty consists in Deliverance from evil in respect of the Law 's 1. Breach for There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus He was made a curse to deliver us from the curse 2. Bond which obligeth us in our own persons to very perfect righteousness to attain everlasting salvation Non â—stis sub lege sed sub gratiâ according to the tenor of the Law Do this and live But now we may with the Publican and Prodigal condemn our selves and appeal from the bar of Gods justice to the Court of his mercy Freedom in good in respect either of the 1. Creator having free access to God in the blood of Jesus Christ hath an easie yoke the service of God is not a bondage but a freedom 2. Creatures in that all things are pure to the pure For the dominion of the creatures lost by Adam was restored again by Christ All are yours you Christ's and Christ God's In maximâ— libertate minima licentia Therefore let us not be worse because we should be better Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Gal. 5.1 13. and be not intangled again in the yoke of bondage For brethren ye have been called unto liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another Scandal Scandalum est rei non bonae sed malâ— exemplum Tertul. Aquin. adificans ad delictum Est dictum aut factum minùs rectum prabens occasionem ruinae A Scandal or Offence properly Scandalum est quo quis impellitar in ruinam evertitur Cameron is a stone or block or rub in the way whereat a man stumbles and either hinders or hurts himself In borrowed sense it is any offence cause or occasion given or taken whereby a man hurteth or hindereth himself or others in matter of Religion and Salvation whether by word or deed There is Scandalum Datum Acceptum 1. Offence is given By wicked and false Doctrine corrupt and false Opinions c. Thus were the Sorcerers a slumbling-block to Pharaoh and the false Prophets to Ahab Yea and good men are apt by untryed counsels to give offence as Peter to Christ Mat. 16.23 2. By wicked and bad example of life So were Eli's sons scandalous And thus good men by improvidence may give great offence as David by his soul sins made the enemies to blaspheme 2 Sam. 12.14 3. By discouraging with threats reproaches or oppositions the good way of God Thus Saul wasted the Church 1. Offence is taken sometimes from evil things as when men provoke themselves to liberty in sin by examples of good men in the Scripture as Noah David Peter c. Whereas these should rather put us upon watchfulness and fear 2. Sometimes from good things Bonares neminem scandalizaâ— nisi malam mentem Tertul. Even the best things a man may turn to his bane And thus was the word out of Christs own mouth to the Jews and Pharisees Mat. 15.12 Joh. 6.60 Nay unto some Christ himself is a rock of offence and a stone to stumble at 1 Pet. 2.8 3. Sometimes men take offence ungiven from the inevitable occurrences of Gods providence all which he turns to the good of his Church And thus many cast themselves back by the Heresies in the Church by the dissentions in opinions by persecution and oppression of the ungodly by the paucity and contempt of such as cleave unto Christ by the prosperity of wicked men by the use or not using Christian liberty Sicut ubicunque fuerit triticum necesse est ut inveniatur illic zizania sic ubicunque fuerit bonum Dei illic erit scandalum inimici Chrys in Mat. 6 Hom. 33. Sicut necesse est ignem calere nivem frigere ita est necesse ut iniquitas mundi erroribus plena scandala pariat c. Hieron in Mat. 18.7 What is there spoken is Necessitate consequentiae because of the wickedness of men it will certainly be so And God justly permitteth the same for causes to him best known But yet by what follows it appears that Gods permission neither forceth mans will nor excuseth any evil act Peccare non tantum in se perditionis habet Hom. 25. in Epist ad Rom. quantum quod reliqui ad peccandum inducuntur saith Chrysostom To sin hath not so much perdition in it as to induce others to sin To shew in the glass of the Word the hatefulness of this evil To give offence or take it 1. It 's against the rule of Christian charity in a most high kind The former wounds thy brother the latter thy self not in body but in soul and conscience 2. Thou sinnest against Christ 1. Cor. 8.12 It is not only to destroy a member but to reach at the head so strait is the union betwixt Christ and his members Mat. 25.45 Nay it 's an high sin against the blood of Christ and vertue of his death Rom. 14.15 3. A sin it is that pulls most severe woes upon the sinner The Serpent was more punished than Eve Eve than Adam Jesabel than Ahab and Jeroboam than Israel Adde what a dreadful curse also it is to be given up to admit strong delusions and to be carried away against the care of a mans own salvation by any occasion whatsoever A plague inflicted on the limbs of Antichrist 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. But especially if they gather offence from that which should be the occasion of their holiness and happiness as Christ and his Word Give none offence neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles 1 Cor. 10.32 nor to the Church of God Constancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is but almost done is not done saith Basil Et non quaruntur in Christianis initia sed finis saith Hierom. Temporary flashings are but like Conduits running with wine at a Coronation Or like a Land-flood that seems to be a great Sea but comes to nothing Tutius recurrere quà m malè ourrere was an Emperors symbol Better run back than run amiss But to run well till a man sweats and then to sit down and take cold may cause a consumption It was excellently resolved by a Martyr The Heavens shall sooner fall than I will deny my dear Lord. And another Though ye may pluck my heart out of my bowels yet shall you never pluck the truth out of my heart Hierom of Prague said Make the fire in my sight for had I feared it I had never come hither Castalia Rupea
Relique but God had sent instead of it one of the very coales with which St. Lawrence was broiled to death It were well if such deceivers were served in their kinde as one Verconius was in the time of Alexander Severus who pretending that by his familiarity with Alexander he could prefer peoples petitions and so got their money Fumo pereat qui fumum vendidit Reusn was upon his being convicted before the Emperour adjudged to be hanged up in a chimney and so perish with smoke for that he sold smoke to the people Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving 2 Tim. 3.13 and being deceived Miracles True Miracles do as far exceed naturals as naturals do artificials Miracula quae sunt à Deo multis nobis distinguuntur à fiâ—tis miraculis damonum A Miracle is ever above beside or against nature and second causes such as whereof there can be no natural reason possibly rendred no though it be hid from us Therefore the Devil himself he may juggle and cast a mist but he cannot do a true Miracle Miracles are called Signa quia significant Prodigia quòd porrò dicant Some call them Praedicidia because they do praedicere aliquid mali But there are also Miracles of mercy The Gospel at the beginning was adorned with many Miracles Because 1. It seemed strange to the world a new Doctrine 2. It seemed repugnant to the Law of Moses instituted by God 3. It could not be proved and confirmed by natural Reasons But now since the famous Miracles of Christs Resurrection Ascention into heaven of the sending of the holy Ghost the spreading of the Gospel over all the world we must not still curiously gape after Miracles Those wherewith God honoured the Gospel at the first were sufficient for the confirmation of it to all posterity The rich man in hell would fain have had a Miracle for the saving of his brethren Lazarus must be sent from the dead to them but it was answered him they have Moses and the Prophets Qui adhuc prodigia ut credat inquirit magnum est ipse Prodigium that is enough if we will not believe for the preaching of the Word all the Miracles in the world will not save us He that now requireth Miracles for the confirmation of his faith is himself a great Miracle saith Austin Manna ceased when they came into Canaan as if it would say ye need no Miracles now ye have means Yet the Gospel at this day hath many Miracles There were seven Miracles at Christs death but the conversion of the thief was the greatest in it all the rest were included though they be not observed men are metamorphosed and changed by it Of proud they become humble of Devils Saints Men are raised from the death of sinne by it they that were blind in the knowledge of Christ are come to a clear sight in matters of Religion they that were lame and could not walk in the way to the kingdome of heaven are made to run cheerfully in it They that were dumb and could not speak for Christ are made to speak wisely and boldly in his quarrel There be counterfeit Miracles Miâ—anda non miracula 1. Sometimes they seem to be that which they are not as blood in the Papists breaden god a meer cousenage 2. They may be wrought by a natural cause which men see not nor can comprehend At best Miracles make not a man just or righteous but famous Fulgen. As Mahomets iron chest hanging aloft by loadstones The Lamp in Venus Temple burning continually by the stone Asbestus which was found in Arcadia 3. If they be to confirm falshood Whereas a true Miracle is effected by the power of God exceedeth the bounds of Nature and is for the confirmation of the Truth Let us then take heed of curiositie or enquiries farther than Gods Word An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign Mat. 1â— 39 Errour Errours in Theologie and Philosophie crept in for that men of sublime wit sought truth in their own little world and not in the great and common world saith Heraclitus Novelties in Divinity are to be avoided that of Tertullian being true Primum quodque verissimum As glasses cannot strengthen one another but may easily break one another and bubbles in the water deface one another So false holds and errours may destroy one the other but they can in no wise establish one the other Errour is fruitful Usque quáque fidei venâ—na non cessant spargere Aug. and ever declining from bad to worse Witnesse Pharisees Hierom deriveth their Pedigree from Pharez mentioned Mat. 1. But he is deceived It being most like they took their name either of Pharash to expound Or as some will of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expandere concerning which in the next page they being Interpreters of the Law or of Pharesh to separate they being highly conceited of themselves and apt to say unto others stand farther off for I am holier than thou Josephus saith they seemed to outstrip all others both in height of holinesse and depth of learning They went very far in works of Piety for they made long prayers in works of Charity for they gave much almes in works of Equity for they tithed mint anise and cummin And in works of courtesie for they invited Christ often In a word they were the most exact and accurate sect of that religion as St. Paul who once was one of them beareth them witnesse But though these persons did seem t' have taken up their seats in heaven aforehand yet wrong ends being propounded and these things rested in their best works were but beautiful abominations and their practice a smooth way to Hell These did make broad their Phylacteries c. which were ribands of blew silk Or as some say scrowles of Parchment Vanissimi profectò Pharsaei illi qui cum ipsi non servarent in Cordè mandata at membranulas decalogi complicantes quasi coronam capiti facientes Phylacterium ex suà proprietate custoditorium est Bod. upon which the Law being first wrought or written they bound it upon their garments The summe is God had commanded them to bind the Law to their hand and before their eyes wherein as Hierom and Theophylact well interpret it he meant the meditation and practice of his Law They saith a learned Author like to the foolish Patient which when the Physician bids him take the prescript eats up the paper If they could get a list of Parchment upon their left arme next their heart and another scrole to tye upon their forehead or if these be denied a red thread in their hand thought they might say with King Saul Blessed be thou of the Lord I have done the commandment of the Lord. Thus they went about as it were clothed with the Word of God but his Word was far from their hearts neither did it appear in their
lives Sadduces Never a barrel better herring These were a brutish sect and sort of the Jews that held monstrous opinions some of them are set down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Erasm Adag Act. 23.8 divers others more grosse may be read of in Josephus Amongst other they held that all the reward that righteous men are to look for is here in this world The occasion is said to be this when Antigonus taught R. Nathan that we must not serve God for wages his scholars understood him as if he had utterly denied all future rewards or recompence attending a godly life And thence framed their heresie denying the Resurrection world to come c. Herodians They were such as were of Herods Religion as one would say of the Kings Religion because they followed the Decrees and examples of the Emperors Some will have it they were a sect of people who said Sic Tertul. Epiphan Chrysost Theophylact. Hieron uno ore affirmant Herod was the Messias because by the Decree of the Roman Senate when the Scepter departed from Judah he was declared King Nicolaitans They were a sect of Hereticks which sprung up about fifty years after Christ Many think they arose of Nicolas one of the seven Deacons Perhaps of some other Nicolas or at most that under that name they vented their damnable and poisonful doctrine These held all bodily lusts lawful a promiscuous use of women and with their bodily whoredom they maintained spiritual In a word they taught and practised such beastly filthiness Aug. as is not to be named Rev. 2.14 15. Pelagians From a Monk of Bangor Morgan by name Hence Aug. Quid eo Pelago vult mergi Pelagius unde per petram liberatus est Petrus who travelling beyond sea to spread his heresie called himself Pelagius by a Greek word of the same signification because it sounded better in the ears of forraign Nations Vbiquitarians This fiction began about the time of Berengarius was fostered and furthered by Gerson Chancellor of Paris But this being cast out of France Luther brought back into the Churches of Germany c. But well said that good woman who being asked by the Bishops Dost thou believe that the body of Christ is really and substantially in the Sacrament Act. and Mon. I believe said she that that is a real and substantiallie Arminians The followers of Arminius maintaining a propitiation made or a sacrifice offered by Christ for all And leaving the death of Christ in the hand of mans free-will assisted onely by general grace to make it effectual to himself or not Antinomians Istebius Agricola was the first who with his followers held unsound opinions That the Law and works belong onely to Rome That St. Peter understood not Christian liberty Sentiunt Christianis non ampliùs lege Dei morali opus esse nec Decalogum in Ecclesiâ Christianá praedicandum quia fideles sunt per spiritum renati when he wrote Make your calling and election sure That good works were Perniciosa ad salutem c. with such trash All which he afterwards condemned and recanted in a publick Auditory but relapsed after Luthers death into the same error He hath at this day many followers holding the like and other strange opinions That God is never displeased with his people though they fall into adultery or the like sin no not with a fatherly displeasure That God never chastiseth his people for any sin no not with a fatherly chastisement That God seeth no sin in his Elect that the very being of sin is abolished out of Gods sight that they cannot sin and if they do it is not they but sin that dwelleth in them which was once an answer of a female Antinomian Mr. â—ey his light for smoke when demanded by her Mistresse how stollen linnens and other things came into her chest although at first stifly denied Millenaries They are not content to affirm that after the fall of Antichrist the Jews all have a glorious conversion and the whole Church such an happy Halcion as never before But also that the Martyrs shall then have their first resurrection and shall with Christ raigne upon earth a thousand years in all worldly delights Homo Ingenii pertenuis c. which seems an addition to the text they ground it upon Rev. 20.4 Or at least such an earthly raign cannot be inferred This is as ancient as Corinthus the heretick and Papias Scholar to Saint John a man much reverenced for opinion of his holinesse but saith Eusebius not oppressed with wit Anabaptists Quo hominum genere Rhenan in Ep. ante opera Origen nihil inanius nihil pestilentius nihil exitialius hic orbis vidit unquam One of late saith Anabaptists play the Devils part in accusing their own children and disputing them out of the Church and Covenant of Christ affirming them to be no disciples no servants of God nor holy when God saith the contrary 1 Cor. 7.14 Ranters Speaking great swelling words of vanity they assure through the lusts of the flesh Joh. Manl. loc com 322. 490. As the Arrians Negunt fiâ—ium de essentiâ patris genitum coaeternum ceaequalem secundum personam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Patri And many moe through much wantonnesse those that were clean for a little or a while as some read escaped from them who live in errour Heâ—serus and Monetarius corrupted many matrons whom they had drawn to their side David George a ring-leader amongst them was so far from accounting adulteries fornication incest c. to be sins that he did recommend them to his most perfect scholars as acts of grace and mortification And are not our Ranters as they call themselves come up to him and gone beyond him in their most prodigious opinions and practices I might be infinite but enough of that which is worse than nothing I being as weary of mentioning them as Rebecca was of conversing with the daughters of Heth. All these can conspire against the truth though they cannot consent among themselves Dr. Featly But as mettal upon mettal is no good Heraldry so error upon error is no good Divinity Errors are best discerned when most incurable Ye therefore 2 Pet. 3.17 beloved seeing ye know these things before beware lest ye also being led away with the errour of the wicked fall from your own stedfastnesse Heresie The best of men may erre from the truth James 5.19 what Saint is recorded in the Word of God whose failings and errours are not recorded Tho Elect may be sometimes led aside Haereticum hominem faciunt haec tria conjuncta Error evictio conâ—â—acta yet not totally nor finally and very hardly into grosse errours Mat. 24.24 Heresie saith one Est impugnare Dei veritati cum perseverantiâ Another there must be in it Error in ratione pertinatio in voluntate Best of all thus An errour strictly and properly taken is
hath seen 2. External an outward way of walking That speech of God to Abraham takes in both Gen. 17.1 Walk before me and be thou perfect Thus if we speak metaphorically that 's not onely a way which we tread with our feet but that 's also a way which we tread with our actions A right course of life is a right way Go here saith God it is a way of holinesse go there it is the way of justice Come hither this is the way of truth Thus God beckens and invites man into his way And surely there 's no safety out of Gods way many have died in Christs way but no man ever perished in it God knoweth the way that I take Job 23.10 Quality Worth is valued by the quality not by the greatnesse of a thing Pro. 30.25 26. Some feeble creatures have a notable forecast And others what they want in strength they have in wisedome The least measure of true faith if exerted and exercised will bring a man to heaven though he have not this or that faith to rely upon God without failing without feeling as resolving that neverthelesse God will hear him in that very thing that he prayes for Verily I say unto you if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed Mat. 17.20 ye shall Experience The requisites for a City or Incorporation are One to judge a law to rule power to defend wisedome to order and riches to communicate Man the City of God at his creation had these will for the King reason for the law free-will for power for wisedome knowledge for riches obedience and cogitations for Inhabitants But man triumphed gloriously in a chariot of glasse which was broken with an Apple And now man is deceived by Satan infected with sin banished from Paradise sweating in labour living in sorrow continuing in warre and fearful of death I have read of a monster having a head like a man teeth like a Lion wings like an Eagle tail and nails like a Dragon and breathed fire like a Devil The wicked man hath reason for his head presumption for his wings stiffnesse in wickednesse for his teeth temptation for his nails and envy for his breath Some sparks of the Deity were created in man in the beginning which he striving to blow into a flame blew them out And now what gets man in the Devils service but death what comfort in his conscience but horrours eyes flaming nostrils fuming eares glowing hands burning and heart trembling As the body of Cerberus supports three heads so the stem of sin sends forth three armes The concupiscence of flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life Delilah deceives Sumpson and the Philistines pull out his eyes Delilah is the flesh the Philistines bind him when reason yeilds to sensuality and pull out his eyes when sin perswades him to iniquity Fas est ab hoste doceri Lay thine hand upon him Job 41.8 remember the battel do no more Aeconomical Order Natura AS Galaton painted Homer vomiting Reliquos verò Poems â—a quae ipsâ—â—â—muisset haurientes To signifie saith Aelian that he was the first Poet and all the other as well Greek as Latine but his Apes In like manner Moses is called Oceanus Theologus from whom all other Writers as Armes are derived Aristotle was called Vltimus conatus naturk Nature the common mother breedeth divers effects according to the constitution of each body Many times by events and accidents divers deformities and blemishes appear which by nature were not decreed to be There is greatest cold in the bosome of the earth when the Sun with greatest vehemency shines on it to heat it even so our corrupt nature doth never shew it self more rebellious and stubborn than when the Law of God begins to rectifie it as an unruly and untamed horse the more he is spurred forward the faster he runs backward Rom. 7. so the perverse nature of man is so far from being reformed by the Law that by the contrary sin that was dead without the Law is revived by the Law and takes occasion to obey its concupiscence When we speak of sins against nature our meaning is against the light of nature not against the corruption of nature Naturally Homo est inversus Decalogus whole evil is in man and whole man in evil And there is never a better of us Therefore Christ came to dissolve the old frame and to drive out the Prince of darknesse who hath there entrencht himself We were by nature the children of wrath Eph. 2.3 even as others Marriage It is called In scripturis 〈◊〉 conjugalis 〈◊〉 tur Conjugium à conjungendo i.e. à jugo communi qâ—o vir 〈◊〉 simul in unam carnem veluti in unum hóminem junguntur Matrimoniam quasimatrem monens nam à matre dictum est Conubium numero plurali Nuptiae à nubendâ— i. e. tegends vel obtegendo quia sicut coelum interdum nubibus obtegitur sic untiquitus virgines dum ad vires dactbantur Gâ—dw Antiâ— belamine tegebantur idque ad testandum 1. Pudorâ—m verecundiâ—m 2. Subjectionem obedientiam sen alterius potestatem in se Some honour marriage too much as the Papists that make a Sacrament of it Sacramentum hoc magnum est Ephes 5.32 yet the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if every mystery should be a Sacrament there should not be seven but seventy Sacraments and more Neither doth he speak of marriage but of the conjunction of Christ and his Church in that place A number there be also that have exceedingly disgraced it So Epiphanius recordeth oâ— him Marâ—â—on called Matrimony Inventionem diaboli Saturnius and Basilides blushed not to affirme that Nubere generare were à Satana And Hierom with Tertullian wrest some sentences of St. Paul to the disgrace of marriage But let them all say what they will The very first work God did after the very first creation was his marrying of man to woman and one of the first Miracles Christ wrought was in honour of marriage Here Bellurmine also toyes with a triple distinction such as that in his Treatise for Purgatory where Peter Martyr non-plust him A great scholar but were he as great as his great-Grandfather that came to our Saviour with scriptum est his greatnesse were nothing because it is against God who onely is great without quantity Great is Diana of the Ephesians yet nothing because an Idol Before marriage let us begin with God as Abrahams servant did Dos non Deus makes such marriages Forma bonum fragile est 〈◊〉 Res est forma fugaâ— Senec. send me good speed this day And make a Christian choice let not red angels and ruddy cheeks be the loadstones though the one is not wholly to be contemned and the other is an ornament much to be commended But rather grace and vertue remembring what the wise man saith Prov. 31.30 Favour is deceitful
constrained to fell one of his sons into perpetual bondage that he might thereby save the rest from a present famine who calling all his dear children unto him and beholding them as Olive-branches round about his table could not resolve which he might best spare His eldest son was the strength of his youth even he that called him his father and therefore not willing to part with him his youngest boy was his nest-chick whom he dearly beloved A third resembled his progenitors having his fathers bill and his mothers eye and for the rest one was more loving and another more diligent a third more manly c. Therefore he could not afford to part with any Like as a Father pitieth his children Psal 103.13 Mother The Greeks commonly called their children 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latine Chari 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 darlings and so they are especially to mothers which usually are most tender of them There is an Ocean of love in a parents heart a fathomlesse depth of desire after the childs welfare in the mothers especially I was my fathers son Prov. 4.3 tender and onely beloved in the sight of my mother Widow It is a calamitous name The word by which a widow is expressed in the Hebrew as well as her condition calls for help and pity It comes from a root that signifies either 1. To bind indeed the widow may be so called both because she is as it were bound about with afflictions and sorrows As also by the rule of contrary speaking bound that is she is not at all bound but free and loosed from her husband 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 7.1 2 3. 1 Cor. 7.39 Or 2. To be silent death having cut off her head she hath lost her tongue and hath none to speak for her When the Apostle saith of the widow indeed that she is desolate he seemeth to allude to the Greek word for a widow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desolor destituo which comes of a verb that signifies to be desolate and deprived So the Latine Vidua à viduando God therefore pleads for such as his Clients and takes special care for them The Pharisees are doomed to a deeper damnation for devouring their houses Mat. 23.14 And Magistrates charged to plead for them Isa 1.17 And all sorts to make much of them and communicate to them Deut. 24.19 20 21. Plead for the widow Isa 1.17 Fatherless These two desolate names are often found alone but oftener as one in Scripture the widow who is dis-joyned from her husband and the fatherlesse who are bereaved of their parents Per viduam Pupillum omne genus miserorum hominum significatur Pined are commonly joyned together And in a large sense these two names signifie any that are in distresse and need out charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tenebrae orphans are as it were darkling We are orphans and fatherlesse saith the Church Lam. 5.3 And we are all Orphans said Queen Elizabeth in her speech to the children of Christs Hospital let me have your prayers and you shall have my protection Judge the fatherlesse Isa 1.17 Infant As a tree by the roots is fastned to the earth and by the fibrae the little strings upon them draws nourishment from the earth so is it with an infant in the womb the Navel fastens it to the mother and by the veine and arteries in the Navel it fetcheth in nourishment and spirits Hence Plutarch likens the Navel to the roap and Anchor which stayes the Infant in that harbour of the mothers womb and when it is cut the Infant goes from harbour to the sea and stormes of the world Hence some make the Infants tears a presage of sorrows as if he wept to think upon what a shore of trouble he is landed or rather into what a sea of stormes he is lanching when he comes into the world such storms as he shall never be fully quit of till he is harboured in his grave Infants are not innocents Infantes non sunt insontes but estranged from the womb they go astray as soon as they be born Psal 58.3 The first sheet wherein they are covered is woven of sin and shame Vt uâ—tlea statim urit cancri retrecedunt â—â—hiuus asper ell Ezek. 16. Infants have sin though unable to act itâ— as Pauls viper stiffe with cold might be handled without harm yet was no lesse venemous But no sooner can they do any thing but they are evil-doing as young nettles will sting young crab-fish go backward and as the young urching is rough Therefore an Infant as soon as he liveth hath in him the seeds of death Not onely is man acting sin but nature infected with sin the subject of and subjected to the power of death Rom. 5.14 Sin is the â—eed of death and the principle of corruption God doth Infants no wrong when they die their death is of themselves for they have the seed of death in them The Macedonians being to conflict with the Grecians took their young King in his cradle and brought him into the field thinking either they could not be beaten their Soveraign being present or that none would be so inhumane as to hurt an helplesse infant Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not Luke 18.16 for of such is the kingdome of God Birth The first woman was in a sense born of a man Mulier dicitur virago quia de viro sumpta from which she receives her name but since all men are born of a woman That is the formation and production of man is from the woman in her the body of man is framed by the mighty power of God and all the pieces of it put together and in her man receives his life and quickning Hence it was that Adam who at first called his wife woman because she was taken out of man calls her afterwards Eve because she was the mother of all living And upon this ground some Nations have made a Law that all descents should be reckoned by the mother because the mother gives the greatest contribution towards the birâ—h and bringing forth of man Plut. de clar Mulâ—er cap. 9. Apud Lycios siquis percontetur quà familiâ ortus c. A matribus genus suum repetere solebant quod plurima substantia quâ constamus materna sit The birth of man speaks two things his 1. Frailty 2. Faultinesse For he is born of a woman the weaker vessel who both breedeth beareth and bringeth forth in sorrow a weak sorry man And is ante partum onerosa in partu dolorosa post partum laboriosa every way calamitous neither is the child in a better condition And as that which is weak cannot produce that which is strong so neither can that which impure send forth that which is clean An Heathen could say cum primum nascimur in omni continuo
safe in any place without Gods protection In 1. Field Witnesse Abosolom and Saul In 2. House Witnesse Pharaoh In 3. Bed Witnesse Ishbosheth In 4. Chamber Witnesse Jezabel In 5. Church Witnesse Senacherib Joab God snatcht Lot out of Sodom David out of many waters Tutus sub umbrâ leonis Paul out of the mouth of the lyon Jonah out of the belly of hell c. Cur timeat hominem homo in sinu dei positus He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee Job 5.19 Affliction Water properly is that element cold and moist contrary to fire Psal 42.7 Fluctus fluctum trudit But frequently signifies amongst many other things afflictions and troubles which threaten dangers as waters threaten drowning Often in the Psalms and elsewhere it is so used And I conceive that ever after Noah's flood that dismall destruction great and grievous afflictions were set forth by the rushing in of waters and overwhelming therewith Afflictions are that Sea that all the true Israelites in their journey to the everlasting Canaan must go through But yet these rivers of Marah are sweetned they are to the godly pleasant and they going through the vale of misery use it for a Well whereout they draw living water Psal 84.6 There are light crosses which will take an easy repulse Others yet stronger that shake the house sides but break not in upon us Others veliement which by force make way to the heart Others violent that lift the mind off the hinges or rend the barres of it in peices Others furious that tear up the very foundations from the bottome leaving no monument behind them but ruine Anton. Pius The wisest and most resolute moralist that ever was looked pale when he should taste of his hemlocke Christ went to Jerusalem the vision of peace by Bethany the house of grief so must we to heaven God useth to lay the foundation low when he will build high afflict much when he will destinate to some excellent end As in the creation first there was darknesse then light Or as Jacob first God makes him halt and then the place becomes a Peniel Therefore take knowledge of the low deeps into which Gods Children are brought That soul that feels it self hand-fasted to Christ though it meet with a prosperous estate in this world it easily swells not and if it meet with the adverse things of the world it easily quails not for it hath the word of Christ and Spirit of Christ residing in it Whereby you shall behold their faith victorious their hope lively their peace passing all understanding their joy unspeakable and glorious their speech alwayes gracious their prayer full of fervour their lives full of beauty and their end full of honour Apollonius writes of certain people that could see nothing in the day but all in the night In mirabil Histor Many Christians are so blinded with the sun-shine of prosperity that they see nothing belonging to their good but in the winter night of adversity they can discern all things Christians are never more exposed to sins and snares than in prosperity Though winter have fewer flowers yet also fewer weeds And fishes are sooner taken in a glistering pool than in a troubled Fen. Besides while the wind is down we cannot discern the wheat from the chaffe but when it blows then the chaffe flies away only the wheat remains Witnesse that masculine resolution of him Ful gentius who in the midst of his sufferings used to say Plura pro Christo tolleranda Here we live in the valley of Achor from Achan that was troubled that day wherein he was stoned Lorin Cap. 2. Prolcgom in Eccles Josh 7. Petrus Tenorius Archbishop of Toledo having a long time considered the weighty reasons on each side whether King Solomon were damned or saved and not knowing how to resolve the houbt in the end caused him to be painted on the walls of his Chappel as one that was half in heaven and half in hell The darker the foil the lighter the Diamonds Fealty A child of God in respect of his manifold afflictions he meets with here seems many times to himself and others to be in hell But having also tasted the first-fruits of the Spirit and the consolations that accrue unto him thereby he seems to be half in heaven Our light affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Hurt It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt saith Laban to Jacob Gen. 31. though indeed it never was farther than given him from above Rideo dicebat Caligula consulibus quòd uno nutu meo jugulare vos possim Vxori tam bona cervix simul ac jussero demctur And Caesar told Metellus that he could as easily take away his life as bid it be done But these were but bravado's for that 's a royalty which belongs to God only to whom belong the issues of death Wicked men do not only pull manifold miseries upon themselves but are many wayes mischievous to others and have much to answer for their other mens sins How many are undone by their murders adulteries robberies false testimonies blasphemies and other rotten speeches to the corrupting of good manners What hurt is done daily by the Divels factors to mens souls bodies lives estates Besides that they betray the land wherein they live into the hand of divine justice whiles they do wickedly with both hands greedily When Christ gave his Disciples a commission to preach the Gospel he promised that they should take up Serpents and if they drank any deadly thing it should not hurt them No more shall the deadly poyson of sin hurt those that have drunk it if they belong to God Provided that they cast it up again quickly by confession and meddle no more with such a mischief Foolish and hurtful lusts drown men in destruction and perdition 1 Tim. 6.9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ita demorgunt ut in aqua summitate rursus non ebulliant Loss What tell you me of goods in heaven say many let me have my goods on earth A bird in the hand is better than two in a bush The Grecians comprehend both life and goods in one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew perhaps men had as lief lose their lives as their goods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fronte nubila Mat. 19.22 He came hastily but went away heavily This is an hard thing it made the young man go sorrowful away that Christ should require that which he was unwilling to perform If heaven be to be had upon no other terms Christ may keep it to himself Many now adayes must have Religion to be another Diana to the Crafts-masters however are resolved to suffer nothing Jeroboamo gravior jactura regionis quà m religionis The King of Navarre told Beza that in the cause of Religion
that he might the sooner be out of his pain but he half in choler replied that he would not lose the least step of his gate for all the whipping in Paris That which in Christians deserves greatest commendations is an unmoved patience in suffering adversities accompanied with a setled resolution of over-coming themâ— Bishop Hooper seeing a Pardon lying by him to be given him if he would recant Act. Mon. cried to them that stood by If you love my soul away with it His answer to Master Kingston advisinghim to save his life by recanting is worth noting Life indeed is sweet and death bitter But alas consider that the death to come is more bitter and the life to come more sweet Therefore for the desire and love I have to the one and the fear and terror I have of the other I do not so much regard this death nor esteeme this life but have setled my self through the strength of Gods Spirit patienly to passe through the torments and extremities of the fire now prepared for me rather than to deny Gods Word and Truth 'T was resolutely spoken of Bishop Ridley to Latimer at the stake Be of good comfort brother for God will either asswage the fury of the fire or else strengthen us to abide it Newes being brought to John Philpot of his burning the next day he answered undauntedly I am ready God grant me strength a joyful resurrection I might adde abundantly Who puts to Sea for a long Voyage and at a great charge must resolve to hold on his course against all winds and weather or accidents that may offer to stop him So we in Christianity must wrestle with all difficulties rather than quit the enterprise Being once embarqued on we must with a Caesarean confidence and a Spartan resolution to go on with the sword or fall on the sword I am ready not to be bound only Acts 21.13 but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus Vox verè Christianorum Martyrdom We must expect persecutions here for how should God wipe away tears from our eyes in heaven if on earth we shed no tears How can Heaven be a place of rest if on earth we find it How could we desire to be at home if in our journey we did find no grief How could we so often call upon God and talk with him if our enemy did sleep all the day long How could we elsewhere be made like unto Christ in joy if in sorrow we sob'd not with him If we will have joy and felicity we must needs feel sorrow and misery If we will go to heaven we must sail by hell If we will embrace Christ in his robes we must not think scorn of him in his rags If we will siâ— at table with Christ in his Kingdom we must first abide with him in his temptations If we drink of his cup of glory forsake not his cup of ignominy Can the head-corner-stone be rejected and the other more base stones in Gods building be in this world set by We are of his living stones be content then to be hewen thereby to be fitted to be joyned to your fellows that suffer We are Gods corn fear not therefore the flail the fan miln-stone nor Oven We are all Christs lambs look to be fleeced and slain Ignatius qui Apostolorum temporibus proximus fuit Quid hoc mali est cujus reus gaudet cujus accusatio votum est cujus poena feli citas Tertul. cum ex Syriâ usque Romam ad bestias duceretur inter alia scribebat O salutares bestiae quae preparantur mihi quando venient quando emittentur quando eis frui licebit carnibus meis De eodem scribit Irenaeus Frumentum Christi sum dentius bestiaerum molor ut mundus Dei panis inveniar King Henry the fourth deposer of King Richard the second was the first of all English Kings that began the unmerciful burning of Christs Saints for standing against the Pope And William Sawtree was the first of all them in Wickliff's time that was burned he suffered Anno Dom. 1400. saith Fox Bishop Hooper in a Letter to Mistris Warcope Dear sister take heed you shall in your journey towards heaven meet with many a monstrous beast Paul fought with some at Ephesus If there be any way saith Bradford to heaven on horse-back 't is Persecution Should we look for fire to quench our thirst Even as soon shall Christs true servants find peace in Antichrists regiment It was likewise his saying At God sent for Elijah in a fiery chariot so sendeth he for me for by fire my dross must be purified that I may be fine gold in his sight Queen Anne wife to King Henry the 8. led to the Tower to be beheaded said The King was constant in his course of advancing her For from a Private Gentlewoman to a Marchioness then to a Queen and when he could no higher then to a Martyr Cansa non poena Martyrem facit ait Cyprian Nam ut dixit Gregor Cum Christo crucem periturus latro suscepit sed quum reatus proprius tenuit pro crucifixo non absolvit Aug. Diverso fine fato Bucholc It is one thing to suffer as a Martyr and another thing to suffer as a Malefactor Ibi erat Christus ubi latrones Similis poena dissimilis causa Sampson died with the Philistins by the fall of the same house but for another end and by a different destiny Martyrdom is the lowest subjection that can be to God but the highest honour It brings death in the one hand and life in the other for while it kills the body it crowns the soul When one said to a certain Martyr Take heed 't is a hard matter to burn Indeed said he it is for him that hath his soul linked to his body as a Thiefs foot is in a pair of fetters And they loved not their lives unto the death Revel 12.11 Spiritual Warfare Our life is compared to a warfare The chief Captain General on the one side is the Mighty Lion of the Tribe of Judah the Prince of Peace the Conqueror of death hell and sin The grand Captain on our enemies part is the great red Dragon the old crafty Serpent the Governor of Darkness The Lieutenants of the fields are Fleshly Sensuality against Spiritual Reason The Serjeants of the Band are the cursed children of Darkness against the faithful children of Light The common souldiers are the Law of our Members warring against the Law of our Mind the effects of the Flesh against the fruits of the Spirit Sathans souldiers handle such like arms as these The Breast-plate of Injury the Girdle of Falshood the Shoos of Discord the Shield of Insidelity the Helmet of Mistrust the piercing Darts of Cruelty the Canon-shot of spightful Reproachâ—s the Arrows of lying Slanders the Sword of the Flesh c. On the contrary Scripture shews us the
out of their bellies For which cause also the Hebrews called them Oboth or bottles because the bellies of those women that were thus made use of by the Devil were swelled as big as bottles In the year of Grace 1536. a certain Damsel at Frankfort in Germany being possessed with a Devil and stark mad swallowed down pieces of money with much gnashing of her teeth which monies were presently wrung out of her hands and kept by divers Bucholc Chr. Luther's advice being requested it was this To pray hard for her Vrbanus Regius in a Sermon of his at Wittenberg made mention of a certain Maid possessed by the Devil and when she should have been prayed for in the Congregation the Devil made as if he had been departed out of her But before the next publike meeting Satan returned and drove the Maid into a deep water where she presently perished Melanchton tells a story of an Aunt of his that had her hand burnt to a coal by the Devil appearing to her in the likeness of her deceased husband And Pareus relates an example of a Bakers daughter in their countrey possest and pent up in a Cave she had digg'd as in a grave to her dying day Much like unto that poor creature mentioned Mat. 8.28 It is to be feared the Devil that was cast out of the Demoniacks bodies is got into many mens hearts oft casting them into the fire of Lust and water of Drunkenuess Athanasius had a conceit that the Devil may be driven out of a body by repeating the 68. Psalm Possessed with Devils Mat. 4.24 and lunatick Sorrow Secundum Deum 2 Cor. 7.10 Mundum 2 Cor. 7.10 For the first Sin bred sorrow and sorrow being right destroyeth sin as the worm that breeds in the wood eats into it and devours it So that of this sorrow according to God we may say as the Romans did of Pompey the Great Plut. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is the fair and happy daughter of an ugly and odious mother But the sorrow of the world is that which carnal men conceive Act. Mon. fol. 1901. either for the want or loss of good or for the sense or fear of evil Thus Queen Mary who died as some supposed by her much sighing before her death of thought and sorrow either for the departure of King Philip or the loss of Calice or both Thus Nabal sorrowed To these may be added a third An hellish sorrow a desperate grief for sin Virtus nolentium nulla est as was that of Judas Fained or forced grief is nothing worth He grieved and yet miscarried It was squeezed out of him as verjuice out of crabs But Peter went forth to weep bitterly Gods people are commanded to afflict themselves with voluntary sorrow Some shadow of it we have in Epaminondas the Theban General who the next day after the Victory and Triumph went drooping and hanging down his head And being asked why he did so He answered Blur. Yesterday I found my self too much tickled with vainglory therefore I correst my self for it to day But we have a better example in holy David whose heart smote him and made him smart inwardly saith the text 2 Sam. 24.10 after he had numbred the people The soundness and sincerity of sorrow is shewed by the secrecy of it Ille dolet verâ— qui sine teste dolet He grieves with a witness that grieves without a witness Zech. 12.12 Sorrow is a breaker It breaks no bones but it breaks the heart Worldly sorrow breaks the heart to death Godly sorrow breaks the heart to life Sorrow shortneth the spirit of man that is Sorrow over-acted weakens the whole man and leaves him unable to put himself forth in action Joy is the dilatation or widening of the heart much joy makes the spirit free to act So sorrow is a straitner of it it makes a man narrow-hearted and narrow-handed it stops him in his actings or stays him from acting We commonly say Sorrow is dry 'T is so because it is a drier A broken spirit drieth the bones Pro. 17.22 Aristotle in his book of Long and short Life assignes Grief for a chief cause of death All immoderations saith Hippocrates are great enemies to health We have heard of some whose hearts being filled with vexing cares Quia spiritus tristis exiceat â—ssa have filled their heads with gray hairs in a very short time As some have an art to ripen fruits before nature ripens them so the Lord hath a power to hasten old age before nature makes us old Many troubles in one year may make a man as old as many years Grief is like Lead to the soul heavy and cold It sinks downward and carries the soul with it Mans Mind is like the stone Tyrrhenus which so long as it is whole swimmeth but being once broke sinketh David was decrepit with much grief at seventy years of age Jacob attained not to the days of the years of the life of his fathers as being a man of many sorrows And this some think was the reason our Saviour Christ at little past thirty was reckoned to be towards fifty Lam. 3.1 Joh. 8.57 He was the man that had seen affliction Mention is made of a German Captain at the Siege of Buda Anno 1541. Turk Hist. who seeing the dead body of his unfortunate but valiant Son presented to him a sudden and inward grief did so surprise him and strike to his heart that after he had stood a while speechless with his eyes set in his head he suddenly fell down dead The Casuists and Schoolmen affirm sorrow for sin to be the greatest of all sorrows In 1. Conatu 2. Extensione 3. Appreciatione 4. Intensione Though other Mourning coming down hill having Nature to work with it and nothing to hinder it make more noise Mine eye is consumed because of grief Psal 6.7 Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop Prov. 12.25 When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me c. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am in trouble Mine eye is consumed with grief Psal 42.4 yea my soul and my belly For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing My strength faileth because of mine iniquity and my bones are consumed Psal 31.9 10. Desire It is a passion which we have to attain to a good thing which we enjoy not Est voluntarius affectus ut res quae bona existimatur deâ—st vel existat vel possideatur that we may imagine is fitting for us There is a threefold desire 1. Natural 2. Reasonable 3. Spiritual And every one of these by their order are subordinate to another and there is no repugnancie amongst them In Fevers we desire to drink and yet we will not And so in Apoplexies to sleep and yet we will not A mans hand is gangren'd a Chyrurgeon comes to cut it off The
natural desire shrinks and pulls back the hand because Nature seeks the preservation of it self But the reasonable desire saith rather than the whole body shall be consumed he will command the Chyrurgeon to cut off the hand Here is no repugnancie betwixt the natural and reasonable desire but a subordination Again A Martyr is carried to the stake to be burnt the natural desire shrinks but yet it submits it self to the spiritual desire which cometh on and saith Rather than dishonor God go to the fire and be burnt The Schoolmen say Nam pereunte uno desiderio suceedit alterum that Desires are not actually infinite because Nature tends always to some finite thing for no man desireth infinite meat Yet his desires are infinite by succession because these bodily things which we desire are not permanent Thus one desire being gone another comes in place of it It is better to moderate Desire at the first than afterwards to prescribe it a measure Let Desire be conversant about right objects He that pants after the dust of the earth shall always be indigent crying continually with the two daughters of the Horse-leech Give give But he that truly desires after Righteousness shall be satisfied Whosoever shall drink of this water John 4.13 14. shall thirst again But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst Desertion It 's said of the Lioness that she seems to leave her young ones till they have almost killed themselves with roaring and howling but at last gasp she relieves them whereby they become the more couragious And Mothers use to leave their children or turn their backs upon them till they mourn and make moan after them Even so the Lord withdraws sometimes from his people and goes from them that with the Prodigal they may come to themselves and seems to forget them that they may remember themselves In Christs desertion there was not Divulsio unionis but Suspensio visionis He cried not out of Men or Devils why they did so and so unto him But My God my God why hast thou for saken me Oh! that came neer his heart In such a forlorne condition as this a poor Soul for regaining of his God can do no more than 1. Bewail the want of Gods gracious presence As Reuben for Joseph Heu quid agam I cannot find my God and I whither shall I go 2. Cry after him in fervent prayer As Elisha after Elijah My father my father Return O Lord how long and let it repent thee concerning thy servant 3. Wait his leisure if he please to hold off longer Sustaining himself with cordial places of Scripture Isa 50.10 cap. 64.4 cap. 30.18 In which estate should he be taken away by death his condition is like to be comfortable because the Spirit of Truth saith Blessed are all they that wait for him Epiphanius telleth of a bird Charadius But what joy at the breaking forth of the Sun after an Eclipse that being brought into the room where a man lieth sick if he look with a steady and fixed eye upon the sick man he recovereth Certainly in Gods favour is life but Aversio vultus Dei the turning away of Gods pleased countenance is the cause of all sorrow and sadness When he hideth his face Job 34.29 who then can behold him Thou didst hide thy face and I was troubled Psal 30.7 Calamity It was an easie thing said Bishop Hooper to hold with Christ Calamitaâ— virtutis occasio est whiles the Prince and the World held with him but now the World hateth him it is the true trial who be his Let us not then run away when it is most time to fight Remember none are crowned but they that fight manfully You must now turn all your cogitations from the peril you see and mark the felicity that followeth the peril either victory of your enemies in this world or else a surrender for ever of your right in the inheritance to come He calls the World the Miln and Kitchin Idem to grind and boil the flesh of Gods people in till they atchieve their perfection in the World to come The World saith one is not a Paradise but a Purgatory to the Saints It may be compared to the straits of Magellan which is said to be a place of that nature Heyl. Geogr. that which way soever a man bend his course he shall be sure to have the wind against him They may not here dream of a delicacy In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer Joh. 16.33 I have overcome the world Quatuor Novissima Mors. DEath Judgment Heaven and Hell are the Quatuor Novissima Discrimen inter beatos post resurrectionem primos parentes in statu innocentiae homines in statunaturae lapsae in quo nunc sumus est Quòd beati nunquam mori poterunt primi parentes poterant nunquam meri hemines in statu nature lapsae non possunt non mori The decree is out Fortâ—sse in omnibus si mè rebus bumanis sâ—d non in morte locum habet Bellarm. Resistitur ignibus undis serro resistitur regibus imperiâ—s venit una mâ—rs quis eiresistit Aug. Non torquate genus non te sacundia non te restituet pietas Horat. l. 4. Lex universa jubet nâ—sâ—i mori Senec. All must die Belshazzar's Emblem is upon every wall Mene mene tekel upharsin Yea this impress is upon all flesh Numeravit appendit divisit God hath numbred thy days he hath laid thee on the ballance and thou art found wanting thy Kingdom is divided Say Princes say Pesants say all Corruption thou art my father Worms ye are my sisters Grave thou are my bed Sheet thou art my shrine Earth thou art my cover Green grass thou art my carpet Death demand thy due and thou Gatheringhost-Dan come last and sweep all away Epictetus went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her Pitcher of earth that was broken and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead and thereupon said Heri vidi fragilem frangi hodie vidi mortalem mori Life is but a sleep a shadow a bubble a vapour and as a tale that is told Aristotle spake these words at his death I rejoyce that I go out of the World which is compounded of contraries Because each of the four Elements is contrary to other therefore how can this Body compounded of them long endure Plato treating of the Souls of men could say The merciful Father made them soluble and mortal bands meaning indeed they should not always be held with the miseries of this life Death reigned from Adam to Moses And though Death shall not reign yet it shall live fight and prevail from Moses to the end of the world for then and not till then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written Death is swallowed
and Charon the ferry-man of hell And Aetua which they fancied to be hell Saxum ingens volvunt alii And hell it self to be a continual rowling of stones upon dead bodies with many other fancies Inque tuo sedisti Sisyphe saxo Ovid. Metam l. 10. But to let them passe such a woful place there must needs be 1. That so the wicked may receive proportionable punishment both in soul and body That of Jerom was not true Infernum nihil esse nisi conscientiae horr orem to the sins they committed here upon earth 2. Therefore of necessity there must be an hell to keep men to all eternity that by their everlasting torments Gods justice might be satisfied which otherwise it could not be 2 Thes 1.5 3. The very tetrors of conscience that are in wicked men at least when they are dying declare there is a hell a place of torment provided for them There are many words in Scripture by which hell is exprest 1. Sheol 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the grave 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we lye buried there in a second death 2. Abaddon all are there in a perishing state 3. Tsalmaveth or the shadow of death death never triumphs so much in its strength as it doth in hell It s the strength and power of death 4 Etachtithrets signifying both the lowest and most inferior earth whence hell is called the bottomlesse pit And also it imports fear vexation and trembling hell is a land of trembling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a land of fear 5. Bor shachath that is the pit of corruption though the wicked shall be raised immortal yet filthinesse shall be upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 6. Erets Nesciah the land of forgetfulnesse God will remember them no more to do them any good but to their torment and confusion he will remember them for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. Erets choscec a land of darknesse Darknesse was their choyce in this life and it shall be their curse in the next 8. Gehinnom whence the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the valley of Hinnom in which the Idolatrous Israelites did sacrifice their children with horrible cruelty There are other terms which set out Hell this place of the damned As Unquenchable sire Dicitur stagnum quia ut lapis mari ita animae illue immerguatur Anselm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Kings 23.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 3.17 A Furnace of sire Matth. 13.42 A Lake of fire Rev. 19.20 Eternal fire Jude 7. Utter darknesse Matth. 22.13 The blacknesse of darknesse Jude 13. Chains of darknesse 2 Pet. 2.4 Damnation Mat. 23.33 A place of torment Luke 16.28 Wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 A Prison 1 Pet. 3.19 Tophet Isa 30.33 A bottomlesse pit Rev. 9.1 The second death Rev. 2.11 Destruction Matth. 7.14 Everlasting punishment Matth. 25 46. Corruption Gal. 6.8 So that Hell is a place of torment ordained by God for Devils and reprobate sinners wherein by his justice they are deprived of his favour and confined to everlasting punishment both in soul and body If any ask whether Hell were created of God I answer Consider Hell as a place simply And it is very probable that Angels falling hell making was both together it was created at first by God when he distinguished all places but as it is Hell a place of torment it was not so by creation Satan and mans sin brought that name and use unto it And thus Tophet may be said to be prepared of old as a punishment for sin and a place for justice to be inflicted upon sin committed against God For the locality of Hell all agree in this that there is such a place only where that place of the damned should be Omnia entia sinita necesse est in aliquo ubi there are variety of opinions about it Gregory Nyssen and his followers hold it is in the air groundlesly grounding on Ephes 2.2 and cap. 6.12 Isidore but nothing probable will have it under the Globe of the earth A third confutable enough in the valley of Jehoshaphat from Joel 3.12 A fourth opinion owned of many learned men but without foundation from the Word is that Hell is in the very center of the earth Others with Keckerman that Hell is in the bottome of the Sea this they build upon that phrase Matth. 8.29 Luke 8.31 Aug. lib. 2. Retract c. 24. This indeed seems to carry some show of reason but cannot be the sense of the place Those that write with most sobriety say only in general Gehennam esse locum subterranenm The truth is Scripture doth not relate the very particular place where Hell is and perhaps it is concealed to prevent curiosity in many to keep faith in use and exercise as also to rouze men from security and to make them fearful of sin in every place yet there is warrant enough for the belief of two things in general 1. That there is such a place as Hell that is a place distinct from Heaven 2. That this place wherever it is it must be below Heaven Prov. 15.24 Luke 8.13 Rev. 14.11 Job 11.8 Deut. 32.22 Psal 55.15 If any should aske any farther I answer in anothers words Vbi sit sentient qui curiosiùs quaerunt where it is they shall find one day who over-curiously enquire At least I may say as Socrates did I was never there my self nor spoke with any that came from thence Let us labour more to avoid Hell than endeavour to find out the place where it is else Hell where-ever it is will find us out Though we know not the place for certain yet we may certainly know this that sin is the very high road to Hell and the direct way thither Prov. 7.26 And let us take heed of sin in every place seeing we know not where the particular place of Hell is Hell follows sin at the heels If we sin against God God knows how near Hell we are A guilty and galled conscience joyned with a profane wicked life is the lively picture of Hell it selfe Gebenuâ nihil grovius sed ejus meâ—â— nibil uâ—â—lius Hell is called by the Latins Infernus ab inferendo from the Devils continually carrying in souls to that place of torment I conclude with Chrysostom There is nothing more grievous than Hell but nothing more profitable than the fear of it Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared Isa 30.33 he hath made it deep and large the pile thereof is fire and much wood the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it Hells Torments We silly fishes see one another jerked out of the pond of life by the hand of death but we see not the frying-pan and the fire that they are cast into that die in their sins and refuse to be reformed Cast they are into utter darknesse Vtinam ubique
de Gebennâ dissereretur non enim sinet in Gehennam incidere Gebennae meminisse Oh that men knew more of it and did believe in any measure that eternity of extremity that is there to he endured Oh that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Oh that they would be forewarned to flie from this wrath to come He that doth but hear of Hell saith Nyssen is without any farther labour or study taken off from sinful pleasures But if a man had but once a glimpse of it it were enough saith Bellarm. to make him not only turn Christian and sober but Anchorite and Monke to live after the strictest rule that can be But alas we cannot get men to think of it till they be plunged headlong into it Esse aliquos manes c. Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum are lavantur Juvenal No though one should come from the dead to testifie unto them they would not be perswaded Luke 16.31 What the torments of the damned in Hell are Non mihi si centum linguae si ferrea vox non Omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possum is a Quaere may make any heart tremble If a man had the tongue of men and Angels he is not able to unfold the extreme misery of a tormented soul To say something the torments of the damned they are twofold Viz. 1. Privative or 2. Positive Either punishment of losse or punishment of sense as the Schoolmen call it For the first great is their losse they lose and are deprived of 1. The favourable presence of God which is more than a thousand worlds 2. The company of Saints and Angels for ever Matth. 22.13 cap. 25.41 3. Heaven the place of blessednesse Luke 16.20 4. All pity from God and Christ and the Saints of God Prov. 1.16 Psal 52.8 Rev. 14.10 Nec Creator nec creatura ulla erga damnatos afficientur sympathia 5. All hope of recovery And for the second Consider but 1. The variety of the torments ten thousand wayes 2. Universality to afflict both body and soul in all the parts and powers thereof 3. Extremity lying under the guilt of sin but an hour or two made the Son of God sweat drops of blood 4. The society with whom tormented Devils and damned souls 5 The continuance of these torments without intermission Rev. 20.10 6. The quality of the place a prison of darknesse c. 7. The cruelty of the tormentors Mat. 18.34 8. The eternity of all this These make the torments of Hell to be dismal indeed That the torments of Hell are eternal Scripture speaks it Matth. 18.8 Jude 7. Matth. 25.6 2 Thes 1 9. Dan. 12.2 And Reason confirmes it Because Quamdin calum erit caelum inferi erunt inseri quadiu caelum beablt sanctos tamdiu improbostorquebunt inferi 1. The justice of God which they have wronged can never be satisfied 2. Wicked will sin to all eternity Sin is like oyl and Gods wrath like fire Rev. 14.11 cap. 16.9 11 21. 3. The godly shall be in everlasting joy and their torments shall last as long for their condition shall be quite contrary to one another 4. Every thing that is conducible to the torments of the damned is eternal 1. God that damns them Isa 33.14 Rom. 16.26 2. The fire that torments them Isa 30.33 cap. 66.24 3. The Prison that receives them Jude 6. 4. The worm that gnaws them Mark 9.44 5. The sentence passed against them Adde hereunto the body and soul that is the subject of torments is eternal Rev. 9.6 Concerning the punishment of sense Paena damni poenalier est quà m poena sensus Aquin. and punishment of losse many dispute which of these is the greatest and most determine that the punishment of losse is greater than that of sense This losse is a great punishment in this life not to enjoy God by saith in Ordinances promises and dispensations Cain complains chiefly of this Gen. 4.14 But how woful to be excluded the presence of his glory If any ask why eternal punishment in hell can be just for sin committed in time I answer Peecare si velis tu in aeterno tuo punire aequam est te Deum in aeterno suo True it is the whole time of a mans life in which sin is committed is but a short time a nothing to eternity yet this is a rational demonstration of the justice of God in awarding eternal punishment for sin committed in time because if they could have lived to eternity they would have done evil to eternity Did not the grave stop such a man his heart would never stop him from sin Wicked men do evil as they can and as long as they can Seeing then there is a principle in man to sin eternally it is but just with God if he punish him eternally O quà m diuturna immensa est aeternitas Vbi mors semper vivit finis semper incipit spe sublata sola manet aterna desperatio Drexel A child with a spoon may sooner empty the Sea than the damned accomplish their misery A river of brimstone is not consumed by burning There is punishment without pity misery without mercy sorrow without succor crying without compassion mischief without measure torment without end and past imagination The torments in hell are all the same 1. Ratione durationis 2. Ratione privationis 3. Ratione expectationis Yet this is certain that one shall endure more pain and torment than another By Scripture Mat. 10.15 cap. 11.22 Luke 12.47 48. Mat. 23.14 15. And Reason Because 1. Some men commit greater sins upon earth Aug. than others do John 19.11 cap. 15.22 Mat. 7.4 cap. 23.24 Tantò gravior singulis poena quantò gravius quisque peccavit 2. There are degrees of glory in heaven As those that are most eminent in grace shall have the greatest degrees of glory in heaven So those that are most vile in sin shall have most torments and punishments in hell 2 Cor. 5.10 Pleasure hath bought complexion and hath painted her face a damask Rose in a field of Lilies but her end like the whorish woman is bitter as wormwood Whereunto shall I liken her lovers they are like to thieves that go through a fair flowred meadow to the Gallows they are like to rivers that run fresh and sweet or fishes sporting but fall into the salt Sea Or like to travellers laid along to sleep under the shade but awaking find themselves scorched with the heat of the removed Sun When they have ended and lavish't all at last comes conscience and calls for a reckoning then comes death with a napkin on his sleeve and his trenclier-knife in his hand and with his voyder takes all away If the wrath of God once smoke against you he will set all your sins in order before your eyes that though you turn your back yet like furies they shall haunt you and like
of them but to offer up an Expiatory sacrifice for the wrong God received and a sufficient price for the impetration of our sins remission To this end another Priesthood as was necessary was ordained in mercy by the effectual execution whereof sin committed should be expiated and an access made for transgressors unto the Throne of grace And this is the Priesthood only of Jesus Christ the Righteous who knew no sin and in whose mouth was found no guile Being holy harmless undefiled and separate from sinners Before this high Calling should be actually executed by Christ in person it was the will of our Heavenly Father 1. That men should be apprehensive of the want thereof by the conviction of conscience of the multitude of sins and gravance of them 2. That the minds of men should be throughly toucht with a longing for it are it came to the real performance yet so as that in the interposing time their hopes might be supported against despair that might spring out of the remorse of conscience for their sins which would not be taken away but by that High-Priest which taketh away the sins of the world Hereupon a Typical Priesthood was instituted for a time till the fulness of time called the time of reformation Heb. 9.10 determin'd by the most prudent Dispenser of times and seasons should come Men of infirmities and subject unto sin were then by the Law of a carnal precept appointed to offer up for the sons of men innocent beasts in whose death by the effusion of their blood wherein consisted their life they did contemplate their own merit These creatures did not any thing worthy death as was rightly conceived neither could these Sacrifices cleanse the Sacrificers from sin to perfection as pertaining to the conscience This was understood wherefore then they could not but conclude that being they did offer such they did but give to God under their hands and seals an acknowledgment of their errors and a confession of a due debt Yet seeing God was the Author of the institution of them and accepted them at their hands as sacrifices of a sweet smelling favour they conceived a lively hope of grace and pardon framing with themselves the like discourse to that of Samson's mother Judg. 13.23 If the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not receive a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands Heb. 10.1 Bona gratia gloria These Figures then being but the shadows of good things to come not the very image of the things did bear up their hopes and in some measure establish their confidence in him by whom they expected good things to come This is the ground of the Apostles reasoning Heb. 9.13 If the blood of bulls and goats sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh there 's the shadow how much more see the substance shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God Here then I am to intreat of my Saviour's Priesthood whereby eternal Redemption is obtained that they who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance A Subject challenging most reverent devotion and care Now that I may not rove from the Apostle's intended scope Three things should be handled 1. Of him as he is a Priest befitting us Such an High-Priest became us 2. Of his personal qualities related in the concrete Who is holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners 3. Of his dignity to which he is advanced Made higher than the heavens How deep are all men in the guilt of sin all men enlightned with the knowledge of the truth easily perceive who when brought to the acknowledgment of this cannot be so ignorant as not to know the depth of their misery The depth of their misery without the successful Mediation of the Son of God is their abiding under the wrath of God which cometh upon the children of disobedience For the removal whereof the Supreme Moderator that dwelleth in the Heavens ruling all things hath anointed his Son High-Priest to deal in things concerning men To whom as he gave the nations for his inheritance Psal 2. Psal 110. and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession so hath he confirmed him to be an High-Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec From whom by an heavenly decree he expected the full discharge of the Priestly function imposed upon him Sacerdos q. Sacer dux the intent and purpose whereof was to bring men to God And this being the act of Mercy according to the good pleasure of his will willing to pass by offences his Justice whose rigor is inflexible ever loving righteousness and haring iniquity steps in to claim satisfaction This must have been given for the sins of the sons of men before they could have vouchsafed them any perfect hope of a gracious reconcilement To join therefore Mercy and Justice together whereby to end the difference the Divine Wisdom concluded That the punishment due to sin should be converted into an Expiatory sacrifice and this should appease and quiet the one and make an easie way and entrance for the other At quarendum Sacrificium But such a one was to be sought for and such a one too as might be Sacerdes Sacrificium both Priest and Sacrifice Here was a work fit only for the scrutiny of the Sacred Trinity infinitely surpassing the imagination of Man though never so vast All the Creatures could neither afford the one nor the other An Angel could not be Priest Man must to plead the cause of men with God Neither could the Sacrifice for man be an Angel because it was not meet that the death of an Angel should be the expiation of a crime perpetrated by man Nay further might it be so we should I believe be hardly induced to believe that an Angelical oblation offered by that Spiritual nature would profit us The nature that offended ought in all equity to purge away the offence and to suffer for it Among Men therefore must the search be made but there was little hope to find out one that could that would sufficiently effectually undergo so great a task All were sinners terrified with the horrid guilt of their accusing consciences and held captive in the chains of sin under the tyranny of the Prince of darkness None of these durst approach to present an offering unto God who is pure Light neither were any of them able were any willing to sustain or endure the severe countenance of an angry God before whom he was to appear Yet a Man must have done the deed if ever the deed were done Hereupon it was agreed upon that the Son of God God over all blessed for ever should be made the Son of man to be made the Saviour of man the worlds Creator should become one of the creatures of the world to redeem the rest fram'd after the similitude of sinful
and frequently iterated purified not the conscience did not abolish trespasses merited not celestial blessings But the Word of the Oath after the Law Heb. 10.14 did constitute Christ for ever a Priest to purifie the conscience to abolish trespasses to merit celestial blessings For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified As one therefore said to David Thou art worth ten thousand of us so we may say of Christ our High-Priest because God did swear Thou art worth ten thousand worlds of the other And such an High-Priest became us Thus much for the manner of Christs taking the holy order of Priesthood which was by Covenant by Oath both binders His executing of this place is in the next place to be considered which as the former deserves our most reverend regard Fidelity and assiduity both commend the undertakers of a weighty matter and both are met in Christ for the important work of our Redemption by grace All his force was ever bent that way to ruine our adversaries and raise us In the administration of his Priestly office he practised it offerendo intercedendo by Sacrisicing by Interceding which were the two things that held most of that Order in continual imployment He stood our friend without the least flinching usque ad aras to the very death when we stood in opposition to God to him to our selves Before he presented himself an Oblation to the Father of Spirits he prepared himself for it by a most submissive humiliation a most sincere obedience by most zealous supplications and a most exquisite sense of humane infirmities all which out-stretch the limits of all thoughts of man He suffered the brightness of that glory which he had with the Father before the world was for a time to suffer an eclipse He was without form and comeliness and when men saw him Isa 53.2 there was no beauty that they should desire him His entertainment in the world was but discourteous and poor At his first entrance he was laid in a manger and after though he was Lord of Heaven and earth yet had be not whereon to lay his head Necessity forc'd him to fly and oft to hide himself because his hour was not yet come to save his life Uncivil language slanderous reports extream indignities were heapt upon him These were the several stiles wherewith the wicked world was pleased to honour him A Samaritan a Glutton a Wine-bibber a Seducer a Traitor a Friend to Publicans sinners a Devil at least one possest of a Devil yet all this made him not tread one step awry from the hallowed paths of a filial obedience for notwithstanding he was a Son Heb. 5.8 Schola crucis schola lucis yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered He suffered the first part of his Passion in a Garden for sin where sin was first committed where he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he was raised up by the unresisted power of his Almighty working Soon after was he betrayed apprehended bound and forsaken Betrayed to expiate our treason in Adam Apprehended to restore us Captives unto liberty bound to dissolve the chains of our sins Forsaken to perform the work of satisfaction and redemption all alone by himself He was arraigned condemned whipped and crowned with thorns Arraigned by Jew and Gentile He stood there for both their sakes to exempt them from the Tribunal of the Judge of all the world Condemned to justifie us in the sight of God by his incomparable innocence Whipped to deliver us from the spiritual corporal and eternal scourge which we deserved Crowned with thorns to 1. Signifie his pacification of God for our ambition in Adam 2. His meriting for us an eternal crown 3. His collecting a Kingly people out of the most thorny and burtful nations which as a crown should compass God about in serving and honoring of him 4. His bearing of our thorny cares that we might quietly repose our trust in him He was clothed with a Purple garment and in his hand was there put a Reed both intimating he was a King though both done in derision Isa 63. The first shews he was that Warriour forespoken by the Prophet Who is this that comes from Edom with red garments The other that he was he that should break the Serpents head For 't is the observation of some learned that a Reed is most mortal to a Serpent and therewith were men used to kill them Besides that by it as by a Pen he did obliterate the hand-writing in the Lords Debt-book that was against us He suffered in Golgotha and naked too in Golgotha a place of dead mens bones where malefactors suffered to raise up the banner of righteousness and salvation even in the place of death and condemnation But he suffered there naked too to satisfie for our first parents transgression who were spoiled of the garment of Innocency and perhaps to shew how we should enter into Heaven as Adam into Paradise naked in body but clad in soul with innocency with immortality In a word 't was to expiate our shameful nakedness to which our first sin exposed us And this is the naked truth of the Truth This done all was not done for which Christ came into the world for 't was but preambulatory to a greater work ensuing what was hitherto done for hereby was he compleatly sitted to give himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Eph. 5.2 There did therefore succeed this 1. The offering up of his Body by the effusion of his precious Blood upon the high Altar of the Cross where he suffered the loss of his life the price of our Redemption without blood there being no remission Heb. 9.22 View him there and he is just as the Prophet did describe him Isa 53. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Here he was lifted up to answer the elevation of the Sacrifices of the Old Law all types of him Isaac represented him in umbra in the shadow when the substance followed even in this point so did the Brasen Serpent they are the words of our Saviour As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness There it was Vide vive here Crede vive even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Joh. 3.14 He was lifted up in the air that he might overcome the Prince of the air and the Spiritual wickednesses in high places triumphing over them in it He was lifted up in the air to hang on a tree that as death by a tree entred into the world so on a tree it should be destroyed and life brought back again and besides that he might bear the curse of the Law Col. 2.15 being made a curse for us
according as the Apostle writes Gal. 3.13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree Being thus lifted up in the very gall of bitterness there was given him gall and vinegar to drink his last that so the second Adam might bear the punishment of the first Adams offence in tasting the juice of the forbidden fruit Neither did the malice of men fix it self here till they fixed both his hands and his feet to the Cross with nails which assures us of the blotting out of the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us both of the dissolution of all Ceremonial pactions and of the full cancelling of the Bond Moral for so much as concerns the forfeiting that lay upon us This did not satiate their cursed humours Col. 2.14 but a spear must be thrust through his side that we might find an open passage to the Heavenly Jerusalem for our selves cleansed with his blood that cleanseth from all sin and washt away with the water of Regeneration flowing from him as from a bottomless Fountain of eternal life Thus was our Saviour roughly handled in his last gasp till he gave up the ghost Therefore did he come That mundus ex mundo that he might minister and give his life a ransom for many Mat. 20.28 A ransom for all 1 Tim. 2.6 To be a Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world 1 Joh. 2.2 even of them that deny him who bought them and bring justly on themselves swift destruction 2 Pet. 2.1 And such an High-Priest became us When this Oblation was finish'd 2. He made another of the same Body revived and raised from death but sprinkled with his blood This he did in the Heavens in the glorious presence of the Divine Majesty to be a perpetual remembrance and token of the payment of our Ransom of the impetration of our Redemption For Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is to say not of this building neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood he entred in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Heb. 9.11 12. So that he offered up himself first here below after above The first being done ceased For in that he died he died once to sin Rom. 6.10 The second is perpetuated Because he continueth for ever he hath an unchangeable Priesthood Heb. 7.24 He accomplish'd the first ut Agnus mactandus as a Lamb to be slain This he doth always at Agnus mactatus as a Lamb slain but quickned again by the Spirit That was consummated in the state of his Humiliation this continueth in the state of his Exaltation both prosecuted in the height of his love for the glory of God and the benefit of man For the first He was sanctified with the unction of the Spirit For the last He was consecrated by his manifold passions anointed with his own blood So that upon Earth he provided himself by the first to do the last in the Heavens being made higher than the Heavens And certainly such an High-Priest became us As this our High-Priest made himself an Offering for sin 1 Tim. 2.5 so made he also and ever makes intercession for transgressors Isa 53.12 If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous 1 Joh. 2.2 S. Paul calleth him the Mediator betwixt God and man who speaks a good word for us that we might be where he is and as he is free from condemnation Rom. 3.34 Tam recens mâ—bâ— nuâ—c Christus est acsi â—âc borâ fudiffet sanguinem Luth. For saith he Who shall condemn It is Christ which is dead yea or rather which is risen again who is also at the right hand of God making intercession for us and to that end ever liveth Hence will he never fail to do it in all ages because consecrated to iâ— for evermore All accusations are here hereby nonsuited and removed which either men or devils may make against us But lest some should vainly surmise that Christ intercedes for all promiscuously To prevent all such misconception remember what he saith I pray not for the world Joh. 27.9 but for them which thou hast given me Unbelievers and disobedient are excluded from the benefit of his Intercession as well as the merits of his Passion only the Elect faithful that are constant to the death and continue to the end shall be partakers of both And this is the second part of his Priesthood practised by him in the execution of it which is not done in the anguish of his soul or humbly bending of the knee or kissing of the hand as if he were prostrate at the feet of his Father but in confidence of his blood-shed which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel which he presents to his Fathers aspect as a never to be forgotten spectacle of a cursed death voluntarily suffered for the sins of men upon the value and worth whereof depends the whole efficacie of his function by which we have admittance to the Throne of grace and entrance into the place of the blessed Heb. 10.19 Hence Gods favour is established upon us and he not provoked against us Gods compassion is vouchsafed us in the times of distress the Devils power is restrained that he cannot hurt us our faith kept that it may not fail us our sins forgiven he pleading for us protection granted us against the worlds hatred our supplications and suits obtained our imperfections by degrees abolisht our hope of the heavenly glory within the vail made sure unto us needful blessings in the interim confer'd upon us for the Father alwayes heareth the Son and resteth well-pleased in him and through him in us I could wish the men of Rome would rest well pleased in him with whom the Father is well pleased would hear of no other meriting Intercessor but of him whom the Father heareth alwayes nor of any other Redeemer than of him only whom the Father appointed to bring us to him But such is their Sacrilegious bounty that in that office which is bestowed only on the Kings Son they most injuriously would employ the Kings servants A greater blurr cannot be put upon our Saviour to disparage him nor any thing sound more harsh in the ears of well-informed Christians they may not think they may put this off with honour with allowing him to be the only Mediatour of redemption but not of intercession their practice contradicts their speeches for they do not only beg the prayers of the Saints but their merits too to purge away their sins and supply their wants So they part the whole mediation betwixt God and man betwixt Christ and the Saints the Son of God and the sons of men But
received more in the second Adam than we lost in the first Where sin abounded grace did much more abound Rom 5.20 In Adam we lost our native innocency in Christ we receive absolute perfection and integrity in Adam we lost Paradise on earth in Christ we receive the Kingdom of heaven the true Paradise of God at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore How then can that infinite mercy repel us from him when we come unto him being now made partakers of his nature much rather being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5.10 And this is called the glory of his grace whereby we are made accepted in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace Eph. 1.6 7. Gods goodness appears in his justice worthy of admiration for the God of mercy as he was inclined so was he content to pardon sinners if it might stand with the unblemisht reputation of his exactest justice That therefore his justice might not suffer his mercy brought to passe the incarnation of his Son thereby to satisfy his justice and appease his wrath Rom. 3.25 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Him hath God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past hence he is said to dy for us that is in our stead which taketh away condemnation Cap. 8.34 and bringeth peace to undoubted salvation Cap 5.10 Here is plenary satisfaction to God for us and a peaceful reconciliation betwixt God and us Hence 't is said that he was made sin for us that is a sinner 2 Cor. 5.21 which cannot be but either interna pollutione by an inward infection which was impossible to him vel externâ reputatione by an outward repute and estimate which was no otherwise than by undergoing the punishment due to us which he hath done as was meet by which Gods justice is everlastingly immutably and fully satisfied and we perfectly saved Hence he is said to bear our iniquities Isa 53.4 which is not tollerantia patientiae the bearing of patience though he did bear them patiently but by bearing them he took them away behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world neither is it sola poestas auferendi peccata 1 Pet. 2.24 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely an authentick power or authority of taking away our sins but which is far more he actually bare our sins in his one body on the tree that is submitting himself to divine censure and justice did suffer the punishments of our offences by which we passe from death to life for by his stripes we are healed by his death we are saved Hence he is said to have paid for us the price of our Redemption we are bought with a price faith the Apostle whereby is intimated our captivity and subjection unto the just vengeance of the Almighty We were debters unto him and were broke like bankrupts upon the matter despoil'd of all good we had and disenabled to pay the price of our redemption which the Son of God undertaking saith of himself Mat. 20 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 2.6 that he came to give his life a ransome for many whereof the Apostle making use saith that Christ our Mediatour gave himself a ransome for all The Apostles All are those Many mentioned by the Evangelist Hence he is said to be an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Ephes 5.2 Such a one as hath wrought a perfect reconciliation and an eternal peace betwixt God and us his justice satisfied our sins pardoned our souls saved Such a one as all sacrifices before him were but his shadows and for any to be after him is but needless and most unlawful for he after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God and by that one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Thus to satisfie the justice of God and secure us Heb. 10.12.14 the Sonne of God is sent from God into the world and went stitch-through with the work of our redemption So that it is compleat and cannot admit the least exception nothing in it being defective nothing superfluous To close up this point admire the wonderful temper of Gods mercy and justice which no creature could find out before God did manifest it and none now it is made manifest can fully apprehend it In sending us a Saviour God was merciful that he might be just and just that he might be merciful For in his mercy he sent him he gave him to us in his justice he made him a curse he punished him with death for us which he triumphantly overcame he made him sin for us that knew no sinne to the end that through his mercy again we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him Cor. 5.22 Wherefore with holy David unto thee O God do we give thanks unto thee do we give thanks for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare Psal 75.1 The works of thy mercy the works of thy justice are exceeding wonderful in our reparation Thy Name thy nature is near unto us in thy Son Nomen i.c. Numâ—n who being the true IMMANVEL God with us hath wrought and accomplished our deliverance Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy Name give the glory Tibi gloria nobis lucrum let the glory be thine now the gain is ours Glory be to God on high Thus much concerning the first thing imported in this Glory which is a pious admiration of Gods infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness The second thing imported in this Glory is a religious honour due to God which is evermore the necessary consequent of pious admiration We honour our Benefactors the best we may as the benefit bestowed and the love of the Benefactor doth require and the greater the benefit the greater is the Benefactors love and the greater his love the greater honour is due to him from the receiver Great out of doubt is the Gift God sent to us freely confer'd upon us it is a Gift of an heavenly nature of the highest vaine his own only begotten Son him hath God given that aâ— many as believe in hiâ— should not perish but have everlasting life Seeing then that he graciously vouchsafed to honour us so highly so lovingly we cannot in modesty in honesty in piety but highly honour him again who is the highest Being then upon the point of honour I must fixe upon those two points wherein this honour doth consist which are 1. Obedience not fained but real 2. Divine worship or adoration of him First then because God hath sent a Saviour into the world to visit us his people from on high and to redeem us from below the nethermost hell we are to render all sincere obedience to him
that soul alone that hath Christ it hath the Spirit of Christ Happy that soul alone that hath the Spirit of Christ it hath God Happy that soul alone that hath God it hath all things The sins of true Believers and all their imperfections do like the Morning-dew at the Suns approach vanish away and dissolve into nothing by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness by whom we have access by faith into his grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the glory of God Here 's a remedy to stanch a bleeding heart here is rest for a troubled spirit here is a Cordial restorative for a Christian soul that aforetimes did surfeit with the luscious bewitching pleasures of a sinful life and after trembled at the killing fears of the pangs of Hell To say something more how our peace with God was wrought which is worthy of all observation Know the condition of the Obligation of the first Covenant was this Do this and thou shalt live the transgression whereof by necessary consequence must have brought death To reduce us then into grace with God again after our desertion Doing and Suffering was requisite the one serving to give us life the other to save from death both for expiation of our offences and satisfaction of the offended Justice Our peace then is made by Christ's 1. Doing 2. Suffering By Christ's doing For if by our ill doing we undid our peace our peace must be mâ—de up by well doing which we being unsufficient for Christ whose grace is abundantly sufficient for us performed in our stead His conversation iâ— the days of his flesh besides his unspotted and pure Conception was unblemished He came to fulfill all righteousness and did so In the volume of the book it is written of me Heb. 10.9 saith our Saviour Lo I come to do thy will O God I can quickly impannel a sufficient Jury out of the three Kingdoms the Kingdom of this World the Kingdom of Grace and the Kingdom of Glory some friends others foes by their just verdict given up already to justifie the Innocency of our Blessed Redeemer An Angel in the 9. of Daniel calls him The most Holy And the same Angel tells his Virgin Mother that That Holy thing which should be born of her should be called the Son of God The Prophet Isaiah by Divine inspiration saith That he did no sin neither was there guile found in his mouth S. Peter saith He was a Lamb without blemish and without spot The Apostle to the Hebrews describes him to be Holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners S. John insorms us that We have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous He is said by the Spouse in the Cantieles to be white and ruddy Ruddy in respect of his bloody Passion and whire in regard of his unstained Innocence Pilate though Christs enemy ingenuously professeth that he could find no fault in him Traiterous Judas when the fact was done confesseth that he did betray the innocent blood Habemus consitentem reum There was Herod's action in causing him to be arrayed in a gorgeous white robe as an implicite testimony of his innocence Pilate's wife bids her husband sitting on the seat of Judgment to have nothing to do with that Just man The Thief upon the Cross condemning himself and his fellow makes this his last and his best confession This man hath done nothing amiss The Centurion when he saw what fell out upon the death of Christ concluded with himself Verily this was the Son of God Luk. 4.34 or as S. Luke hath it Of a truth this was a just man The Devil too I know thee who thou art the Holy one of God For more evidence I can produce from heaven a cloud and innumerable company of witnesses as that Rev. 15.3 Part of the Saints heavenly song is Just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints Lastly take with us the sentence of the just Judge of all the world uttered from Heaven This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased I need to say no more in it 't is a plain case here 's a threefold cord Vox Dei vox populi vox populi Dei The voice of God the voice of the people the voice of the people of God Now for our comfort know thus much Christ's active righteousness was meritorious for our salvation for our peace wherefore Christ is said to be made to us of God righteousness and sanctification and that he knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him By Adam's fatal disobedience the peace was broken by Christs perfect and absolute obedience the peace is renewed As by the disobedience of one man the first Adam many were made sinners and so enemies to God so by the obedience of one man the Man Christ Jesus the second Adam many are made righteous and so reconciled to God Our peace then is made by Christs doing in fulfilling the Law in every point which in every point we did unrighteously violate He did work upon the Earth to work our peace in Heaven Which in like manner he did by suffering as well as doing Which I will by Divine assistance also briefly prosecute Were we not sinners Christ had no need to suffer Had he not now suffered we should not be saved because sinners All our deaths could not have wiped away one sin much less all our sins and therefore not made our peace Eternity of torments is satisfaction indeed to Gods Justice but then what hope of mercy of peace of life What we therefore could not do by suffering eternally Christ hath effected for us by a timely death Rom. 5.10 Act. 20.28 1 Joh. 1.7 We being sinners Christ died for us and being enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Hence he is said to have purchased his Church that is the peace of his Church with his own blood and his blood to cleanse us from all sin Divine Truth terms him The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world The sin of the world that takes away the world from God the removing where of out of the way makes way for grace and so for peace for a world of men Princeps vitae est interfectus ut nos ad vitam restitueret Dominus gloriae crucifixus est ut nos ad gloriam exaltaret The Prince of life was put to death to restore us from death of life The Lord of glory was ignominiously crucified to exalt us unto glory He was content to be for saken of his Father and to bear his indignation to make peace for us through the blood of his cross to reconcile us who were sometimes aliens and enemies in the body of his flesh through death to present us holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight Col. 1.21 22. Eph. 5.2 For this very purpose he became a Peace-offering for us Christ loved us and hath
number the mercies of God to me in particular saith he were to number the drops of water which are in the Ocean the sands on the shore the stars in the sky Mirrour of Martyrs This one act of his good will his Sons mission exceeds the capacity of a whole world of men to give it a due value He would not destroy us being his enemies when he might in justice destroy us but to save us inglorious miscreants sent his Son from glory and did as Abraham would have done with Isaac his onely and beloved darling offer him up to death to redeem us from it As King Solomon said to Abiathar the Priest Thou art worthy of death but I will not at this time put thee to death So said the Soveraign of Soveraigns to us His Son is destined to what we deserved to make us partakers of his deserts Salvator noster natus est nobis crucifixus mortuus est pro nobis ut morte suâ mortem nostram destrueret Aug. Man cap. 27. saith an uncertain Author Our Saviour is born to us crucified and dead for us that by his death lie might destroy our death for ever Wherefore the Lord Jesus upon the Cross giving the foil to our malicious enemies Sin Satan and Death Sin Satan and Death have lost the day to our endless comfort and the glorious manifestation of Gods good-will towards men I may not smother in thankless silence the blessed consequences of my Saviours life and death tendred for our restauration how happily they took effect with the Father in our behalf and accorded in every point of his decree with the good pleasure of his will For first there followed the imputation of Christs righteousness for the remission of our sins And then the Sanctification of us by his Spirit sent into our hearts for the suppressing of the dominion of sin in us Both which shew as speaks the Apostle the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness to us Ephes 2.7 through Christ Jesus First it pleased the Father that the fulness of the Spirit should dwell in him and that of his fulness we should all receive His righteousness then is made over unto us by the goodness of a righteous God whose purity as it admits no mixture of imperfection so neither without Christs perfection any justification of a sinner For none are justified but such to whom God imputes no sin and such are they only to whom God imputeth righteousness without works Which righteousness Rom. 4.6 7. being without our works and imputed must proceed not from our selves full of the soul stains of ugly sins but from another even from him alone in whom dwell all perfections Jesus Christ the righteous Thus and thus alone is God in his Son the Author and finisher of our salvation not imputing our sins unto us but reconciling us unto himself by the imputed righteousness of his Son by whom we have access unto the Father and are no more counted strangers forreiners and exiles but are reimpatriated and made fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God Whereupon it is that by the grace of God to use the Apostles speech we are what we are And if by the grace and good will of God then surely not of debt not of merit for grace excludeth both To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace Rom. 4.4 Cap. 11.6 but of debt And here I could wish with all my soul that this and other infallible Oracles of highest Truth could heat our adversaries from Humane Merits and bring them to the Divine Mercies from Free-will and Possibilities of Nature to the Grace and Good-will of God To merit Heaven by all we can do is a fetch beyond all power of Nature and to aver it a strain as of excessive pride so beyond all true Divinity Merits in us are no such props to our faith as Mercies in God The first grounded upon self-conceit and fond opinion the last upon the demonstration of the Spirit The first all of the Romish faction receive for Orthodoxal truth which we reject for false the last they reject for false which we embrace for truth That Italian-Priest who Achan-like troubles all Israel the festered Head of an infected Body hath so distempered the world with this plausible assertion as that all his Abettors from the most learned Dogmatist to the meanest Papist stand rather to their own strength for their Justification than fly to Gods mercy as having more confidence in their own abilities and pretended merits than in the alsufficiency of Christs Mediation and Redemption or at least as much Who whilst they stand thus affected what do they but detracting both from the Lord and from his Anointed ascribe the honour of the day and glory of our salvation as well to the Free-will of Man Saunders his Petition as Good-will of God But O my soul come not thou within their secrets neither be partaker of their defections Chuse rather than combine with them ever to pray with that zealous Martyr in this wise O my heavenly Father look upon me in the face of Christ or else I shall not be able to abide thy countenance such is my filthiness The best of us may confess with the leprous person We are unclean we are unclean and therefore without him no blessedness to be obtained by the best of us Joh. 14.6 No man cometh to the Father but by me saith Christ And no man cometh unto me saith Christ again except the Father draw him Thus betwixt the Father and the Son we are well provided for without whom who thinks to be saved Plaut Merca. doth take his mark amiss Vbicunque putant vivere runnt maximè as the Comedian speaks Where they think to live most happily they die most wretchedly Wherefore for us to repose any confidence in our own imperfect works or to seek a shelter under the Merits of Saints recorded in the Pope's Kalendar or wheresoever else is utterly to renounce the Merits of Christ and the good-will of God Neque enim qui habet virtutem amplius opus habet neque qui valet viribus Clem. Alex. eget instauratione saith Clement of Alexandria For he that is perfect needs not to be beholding to another neither needeth he any reparation his proper strength is already compleat They that are whole need not the Physician but they that are sick saith the Physician of souls Let then the swolne Pharisees of the Roman Court in humility of spirit learn here to check their insolent boasting of their natural goodness and meritorious actions referring all to the goodness of the Chiefest Good Let them march under Christs colours as the Captain of their salvation Let them set up their rest in him as the securest Sanctuary for distressed souls O worthy Elizeus how affectionate were thine Obsequies You may remember that he could neither be perswaded nor beguiled nor forced from Elijah when he
of such difficulty that if he withdraw the supporting assistance of his active Spirit from us we cannot hold out Do we preach 't is as the Spirits gives us utterance do we pray the Spirit helpeth our infirmities do we beleeve he increaseth our faith and helps our unbelief do we live the life of grace Christ liveth in us by his Spirit Are we constant in our profession and holy exercises of Religion that constancy cometh from above by the effectual working of the divine power In all these his grace is sufficient for us and in doing them his Spirit worketh with us Thus much concerning Gods good will towards men expressed in spiritual matters As for his good will in temporal it is as clear as the sun we need no demonstration But because the extraordinary favours of God may not slip out of our memories think upon our deliverance from that intended invasion in eighty eight how that part of the invaders became as weak as water and part were over whelmed in the depths of the sea alive like Pharaoh and his host Think upon that horrid work of darkness the Gunpowder plot how vain the conspiratours were in their imaginations The Lords stretched out arme overcame the one his all-seeing eye discovered the other See thy RegÃna Dierum and by his Providence were both brought to nothing Think upon the Stupendious works of Divine Providence in the wonderful safegarding and happy restoring of our gracious King to which I have abundantly spoken upon occasion Without doubt all these and infinite more are sensible tokens of Gods good will in Christ toward us Wherefore 1. We may with comfort confidently approach to the throne of grace where we may receive of the Father whatsoever we ask in his Sons name for for his sake he will deny us no good thing seeing that in him he beares good will toward us Thus much the occasion of this text may assure us of which is the incarnation and birth of our Saviour It being the foundation of all our joyes and all good things we enjoy By it God comforts Adam the seed of the woman shall break the serpents head Jacob is comforted by the vision of a ladder reaching from heaven to earth and the Angels ascending and descending by it the mystery whereof may be this The ladder is Christ the foot of it on earth noteth his humanity man of the substance of his mother born in the world the top reaching to heaven noteth his divinity Job 19.25 God of the substance of his Father begotten before all worlds perfect God and perfect man by which union of natures he hath joined earth and heaven together that is God and man The going up and down of Angels by the ladder sheweth how by Christ the service of Angels is purchased unto us all which accordeth with that in Joh. 1.51 Verily verily I say unto you faith our Saviour hereafter ye shall see the heaven open and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man Job again comforts himself in this that his Redeemer of his own flesh as the word signifieth liveth In the Old Testament they which sought to God came to the Ark or Propitiatory and there were they heard and received Gods blessing Now Christ God and man is instead thereof his Godhead being the fountain of all good things and his flesh or Manhood a pipe or conduit to conveigh the fame unto us Wherefore let us rejoyce in God our Saviour and comfort our selves in his good will towards men Moreover 2. We may the better bear temptations and afflictions and slight the assaults of the world That which in Spaniards deserveth the greatest commendations is an unmoved patience in suffering adversity accompanied with a settled resolution of overcoming them This if we attain unto in Christianity will shield us from despair and distrust for we may be well assured that God to his distressed servants is the neerest when he seemeth furthest then sweetest when he seemeth sowrest and then up in wrath to revenge our wrongs when the world doth think he hath forgot us For still he beares goad will towards us Lastly we must acknowledge Gods good will through Christ to be the sole cause of all our happiness It is a true Maxime in Divinity Publisht in Austins time Vniversa salus nostra Aug. Ned. Cap. 34. magna miserecordia tua Our safety on earth our salvation in heaven proceed from thy abundant mercies O Lord. Thus the Father the Son and the holy Ghost do all join together in one immutable resolution to prove their good will towards men The issue whereof cannot be but exceeding good For as Astronomers do well observe that when three of the superiour lights do meet in conjunction it bringeth forth some admirable effects So now seeing that these three infinite lights of the world three persons of the Deity are met together in one good-will towards men this benevolous aspect produceth this admirable effect that all true beleevers shall be hereby exalted into glory For which with thankful hearts we ought ever to pay the tribute of obedience And in assurance whereof to rest in Gods promises which can never faile In his name I end as I did begin To whom as the Angels did before us and duty ever binds us be rendred all honour and glory both now and for ever Amen The Necessity of CHRISTS PASSION AND Resurrection ACTS 17.3 Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead I Am induced by these words to relate the greatest wonder of the world wherein is comprehended the profoundest Mystery of our salvation That the Son of God should become the Son of man that the Lord of glory should come in the forme of an humble and dejected servant that the Sun of righteousnesse should be deprived of light and then that the sole Author of our life should be put to death Weigh but the reason and the wonder is the greater It was for our redemption all this was effected and can there be a greater wonder then that he that knew no sin would putting on mortality suffer unutterable tortures both in soul and body and be content to die to save those that knew nothing but sin certainly there cannot be a greater wonder The most professed enemy to sinners herein did become to sinners the most professed friend He is ready to save who might be more ready to destroy But mercy binds the hands of justice and justice is overcome of mercy The eternal wisdome beholding from above with the gracious eye of pay the forlorne estate of mankind after their apostasy and treacherous violation of the sacred Covenant contrived a project not to be contrived by the Art of man whereby our Redemption should be wrought and liberty obtained Gods love to us did exceed our sins Our sins are not so great are not so many but his love can cover them and his mercy pardon them And where men come
short of an invention how to scape his sury and obtain his favour how to satisfy his justice and redeem our lives from hell and death Behold before the foundation of the world was laid he resolved to send his own only Son begotten by an eternal generation who should quell the power of our afflicting enemies stop the mouth of the roaring lyon overcome the world sin death the grave and hell and lay open a plain passage into the Kingdom of heaven Which eternal resolution was in the fulness of time perfectly effected for God then sent forth his Son into the world to assume our nature that we might assume his grace to suffer for our sins what we should of merit suffer to be obedient to the cursed death of the crosse that we might escape the curse of God and not be subject to the second death And albeit hereby he made himself of no reputation who thought it no robbery to be equall with God yet by this meanes he did make way to be highly exalted to get a name which is above every name and to be glorified with the glory which he had with the Father Ne Jesum quidem aâ—ias gloriosum nisi videris crucisixum Luther to Melanchton before the world was This he himself in a conference with some of his Disciples after his resurrection wherein doubtless he did recapitulate his several sufferings certified to the world Ought not Christ to have suffered those things and to enter into his glory Luk. 24.26 This Scripture points at Christ considered in part of his twofold state 1. His state of humiliation quoad mortem as touching his death Christ's suffering or passion 2. His state of exaltation quoad resurrectionem as touching his resurrection In his humiliation we find him ignominiously crucified and made a curse for us In his exaltation gloriously raised that he might be supereminently glorified and our selves blest in him for ever In this he shall judge as in the former he was judged My pen is now conversant about the first part Wherefore assistance O my souls Saviour and Soveraign I intreat thee that in all humility of soul I may declare what for our salvation thy Majesty didst suffer in all humility And first of my Saviours humiliation in general Of all the works of God done for and to the children of men Some are Opera potentiae works of power Some opera pietatis works of mercy Some opera justitiae works of justice all righteous works Yet if we seriously fix our thoughts upon the humiliation of our alsufficient-Redeemer we shall find it to be a work of 1. Power 2. Mercy 3. Justice All these that otherwise are disperst in his several works are compacted and meet together in this one First then it is a work of power 1. In it self 2. Towards us In it self 't is a work of power God was made man but not sinful man which none could bring to passe but God that first made man without sin The Creator of all made himself a creature which none could do but the Creator of all Whereupon it was that at the conception of the Son of God in the Virgins womb Luk. 1.35 the holy Ghost came upon her and the power of the most high did overshadow her Hence saith one after God had made man he left nothing but to make himself man A dignity to which the Angels are not call'd wherewith our nature above all is blest Tom. 10. Pag. 595. It is Austins speech In creatione mundi homo factus est ad imaginem Dei in nativitate Christi ipse factus est ad imvginem hominis when the world was created man was made in the image of God when Christ was born God was made in the image of man Both which are to be refer'd to divine Omnipotencie For that God and man might be one in Covenant Lib. 2. Institut Ood used his power to make himself and man both one in person Non communicatione gratiae fed naturae veritate non consusione substantiae sed unitate personae saith Trelcatius not by communication of grace Epiphanius but by reality of nature not by an undistinct confusion of substance but by a personal unity So that as Epiphanius speaks Christ was homo in veritate natus Isa 7.14 Deus in veritate existens true God and true man in one and the same person which is implied by the Prophet calling him Immanuel that is God with us or God in our nature Luk. 1.35 Exprest by the Angel calling him the Son of God that should be born of the Virgin Mary And manifested by the Apostle averring him to come of the Fathers as concerning the flesh Rom. 9.5 and yet to be over all God blessed for ever This might seem exceeding strange yet it proves not more strange then true God and man who stood at an infinite distance are now everlastingly linkt together in one person according to the mighty working of his power Thus Christ's humiliation in being incarnate is a work of power in it self It is likewise a work of power towards us Since Adams rebellion we were all captives unto sin and Satan untill God incarnate did vindicate our liberty We were extremely weakened our spirits fail'd us until the Lords anointed the mighty God of Jacob did infuse into our hearts the strength of his Spirit His Incarnation made way for our salvation and his taking unto him our humanity makes us by faith to partake of his Divinity Anselme moves three questions Anselm Meditat c. 8. to which he gives one solid resolution the questions are these 1. What offence could man commit which the Son of God made man could not exprate 2. Who could be so much swell'd up with that uncharitable vice of pride which so great humility could not pull down 3 What dominion could death have over us which the death of the Son of God could not destroy for us The answer 's this Certainly if the iniquity of sinful man and the grace of my unspotted Lord were wigh'd in an even ballance the East is not so much distant from the West nor the lowest hell from the highest heaven as my Redeemers goodnesse in his humility doth exceed the wickednesse of a sinner To this I adde he hath shewn greater power in this act for our redemption than the malice of all the Devils in hell could put in practice for our confusion Thus Christ's humiliation is a work of power towards us And so much the rather he being after this sort humbled was once offered to bear the sins of many Again it is a work of mercy Deus propter hominem sactus est homo ut esset redemptor qui est Creator ut de suo ridimeretur homo saith Austin Aug. Manual c. 26. God for mans sake was made man that he might be our Redeemer who is our Creator and so we have of our own wherewith to be redeemed
nature he had made ours by grace And here we may be as bold as to conclude we are the sons of God because the natural Son of God assumed body of our body flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones that he might be the same with us and we the same with him Thus he became our Kinsman to whom of property by the old Law it did belong to redeem his brethren Which that he might effect he did conquer Death and who could do this but he who is our Life He did vanquish Sin and who could do this but Righteousness it self He did bring into his subjection the Forces of the world and the Powers that rule in the air and who could do this but he that is the Power of God And who is this Life this Righteousness this Power of God but Jesus Christ very God of very God and yet the Son of Man Christ was God and Man Man that sin might be punished in the nature offending yet Man without sin to fulfill that Righteousness which none of us sold under sin can fulfill He was Man that as by the disobedience of the first Adam sin entred into the world so by the obedience of him who is the second Adam righteousness should bring justification to life And as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous By the righteousness of his obedience Active and Passive Active in perfecting all the duties injoined by the Law Passive in suffering the wrath of God the punishment of our disobedience Thus our confusion is taken away and life and righteousness are restored unto us And he was God withal that the Justice of God might receive compleat satisfaction by a punishment that should be infinite or equal to infinite which none but God could give And therefore Christ is said as God to have purchased his Church with his own blood Act. 20. 1 Joh. 3.16 and to lay down his life for us And though his punishment was not so infinite but that it was finite yet it was only finite for time but was for value as it ought to be infinite Thus the Son of True God did bear the burden of his Fathers wrath in our nature which no other Nature ought to do but the soul that sinned which no other but God could do because God is a consuming fire and his wrath unquenchable by any creature Forasmuch as God alone could not die because not subject to passion nor Man alone overcome death because too weak It was requisite that our Redeemer who should die for our sins should be both that by the weakness of the one nature he might submit himself to the power of death thereby to undergo punishment due to sin and by the strength of the other he should by sustaining the Manhood make good his part against death and swallow it up in victory O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory But thanks be to God Sarcasmo conflat hostili derisione quâ mors ridenda propinatur saith one that hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ And thus much of the Person humbled which is Christ God and Man The next point to be discuss'd is Wherein his Humiliation did consist that is in general He suffered From the time of his nativity to the very hour of his death was he not free from suffering He was no sooner born but Herod sought his life He was subject to the infirmities of our nature sin excepted He was hungry and thirsty weary and faint sorrowful and discontented his poverty was extream though Lord of all and Possessor of heaven and earth he had not so much as whereon to lay his head Grievous was the temptation he suffered by Satans onset infinite were the injuries that were offered him by the cursed brats of Satan both in word and deed In word by false calumnies and forged accusations by contumelious detractions and cursed blasphemies In deed by framing of projects and laying of plots how to take away his life He was despised and rejected of men a man of sorrowes and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him Isa 53. He was despised and we esteemed him not surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrowes Yet we esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted His whole life was a perpetual passion He was never let alone until upon the Cross he gave himself a ransom for all and his enemies never ceased until they drew out his hearts blood which he for our redemption in his loving kindness was willing to part withall He had power in his own hand to lay down his life and he had power to assume it again For albeit his life lay at the stake yet could he were he so disposed command legions of Angels beside his own power which was alsufficient to deliver him either by putting his enemies to flight or by repressing their violence that either they would not or they should not hurt him or by utterly subverting them But being that he came into the world to the end to suffer to compass for us a world without all end he withdrew not his neck from the yoke but set himself forward to bear the iniquity of us all laid upon him Thus Christ was subject to passion but not according to his divine but humane nature For as he is God he is Actus purissimus and cannot suffer but yet he being God suffered in the nature assumed which was capable of suffering that is in his Manhood So that here we have the highest Person and the lowest Humiliation met together Wherefore in this suffering of our Lord there are three things according to Bernards observation specially noted Bernard Opus modus causa In opere patientia in modo humilitat in causa charitas commendatur Patientia singularis humilitas admirabilis sed charitas inestimabilis There are the work the manner of performing and the cause In the work which is suffering his patience is commended in the manner his humility in the cause his charity for charity moved him to suffer with patience and humility His patience is singular none like it his humility admirable none ever came never shall come near it his charity inestimable for it is incomparable All which may appear unto you by presenting to your view his special sufferings immediately preceding his death In these sufferings of our Saviour you may see the foulest act of Treason that ever was committed the greatest Cruelty that was ever heard of both hatcht in the pit of hell Judas his familiar friend comes and betrays him with a false-hearted complement a Kiss his love was only from the teeth outward deceit was in his heart and the poison of asps under his lips but no wonder the Devil was in him Peter his Disciple than whom none more forward in times past to confess him to be
the Christ the Son of God is most forward to deny him his former protestations were forgotten his present commodity only thought upon And when the rascal multitude came forth with swords and staves and brought him to the Council all his friends forsook him the Shepherd smitten the sheep were scattered Friends and foes Jews and Gentiles men and women high and low rich and poor Prince and people added something to his Passion to augment his woe The Kings of the earth took counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed The Elders of the people the chief Priests and the Scribes beat their brains together to take away his life They send him to Pilate Pilate sends him to Herod Herod sends him to Pilate again and Pilate sends him to his death Thus was he tossed from post to pillar In all these places he suffered in his good name by blasphemous speeches uttered against him in numbring him amongst transgressors placing him betwixt two thieves In his honor and glory by opprobrious terms and scandalous irrisions and mockings In his substance in that they took away his garment In his soul he suffered sorrow and anguish and great fear surprised his heart In his body he suffered wounds and stripes Insomuch that it may be said Was ever any sorrow like his sorrow Were you present to behold the whole passage of his Passion you might see his head compassed about with a crown of sharp thorns instead of a crown of pure gold you might see his glorious Visage which the very Angels admired contemptuously spitted upon and his cheeks smitten with the palms of their hands You might see his hands and feet fast nailed to the Cross which he himself did carry and his sides thrust thorow with a spear You might see his blood trickling down to the ground and himself through the pangs of death and apprehension of the Fathers wrath lighting upon him for our sins crying My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Hereupon saith Bernard O bone Jesu quid tibi est nos peccavimus tu luis opus sine exemplo gratia sine merito charitas sine imo O blessed Saviour what ails thee We sinned and thou by thy blood dost expiate our sins here is a work without example grace without merit and love beyond all measure He felt the wrath of God upon his soul he felt the hand of a sin revenging Judge taking vengeance for the sins of the world upon him then taking away the sin of the world Where you might see also no sense free from passion As for his Touch he was smitten and nails thrust through his flesh as for his Taste he drank unpleasant vinegar and gall as for his Smell he was in an infectuous place the place of dead mens skuls as for his Hearing he was vexed with the uproars and hideous blasphemies of those that blasphemed and derided him as for his Seeing he beheld with grief his Mother and the Disciple that loved him shedding tears for him and observed no noubt in the anguish of his spirit the madness of the actors of his death Hence proceeded that heavenly prayer Father forgive them they now not what they do This was the lamentable case he was in until he gave up his Ghost They gave him no rest no rest in his body nor in his soul until his soul departed Thus he suffered and thus in suffering he died died the most ignominious and cursed death 2 Cor. 5. ult God made him to be sin for us that knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God in him Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us for cursed it every one that hungeth on a tree Gal. 3.13 Nothing could appease the wrath of the Father but the death of his Son Who died First to satisfie the justice of God for the sin of mankind for he once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God 1 Pet. 3.18 being put to death in the flesh 2. To manifest the truth and reality of the nature assumed to wit his manhood that he was true man and no phantasme 3. That by his death he might free us from the fear of death Forasmuch then as we are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself took part of the same that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage 4. That by dying corporally for sin and unto sin he might give us an example of dying spiritually to sin for in that he died he died unto sin once Heb. 2.14 15. but in that he liveth he liveth unto God Likewise reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 6.10 11. Crux pendent is Cathedra docentis Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that we should follow is steps 1 Pet. 2.21.5 That by rising from the dead he might make known the power whereby he overcame death and give unto us a lively hope of our resurrection from the dead And thus much for the sufferings of Christ generally exprest and specially implied The next point is the necessity of the sufferings and death of Christ Christ must needs have suffered It was necessary that Christ should suffer and in suffering die Necessitate decreti by the necessity of Gods Decree and infallible prescience Truly Luke 22.22 the Son of man goeth as it was determined Which determination is more plainly exprest Acts 2.23 Him that is Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain In which respect it was inevitable And albeit he prayed Father if it be possible let this cup passe from me yet he submit shiâ— will to the will of his Father in saying yet not my will but thy will be done It was the eternal will of God and his unchangeable Decree that Christ should suffer for us it was foreordained before the foundation of the world 1 Pet. 1.20 And although his will was that that cup might passe over him that so his life might be prolonged yet consider this vitam appetit ut homo saith Theophilact Theophil in Luke 22.42 he desired life as he was man yet as an obedient child ever correspondent to his Fathers desire adds this withal not my will but thy will be done which is not seperate from my divine will saith the same Father It was necessary necessitate obligationis by the necessity of a promise whereby God was obliged and bound to see it actually performed Promises are a due debt Promissa cadunt in debitum That God promised this it is apparant by that speech of his the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head and
John 12.31 1 John 3.8 for this purpose the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil The works of the Devil are sin and death for by him came sin into the world and death by sin Again we are hereby freed from the punishment of sin which is death He did bear our griefs and carried our sorrows Isa 53. He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his striper we are healed He poured out â—is soul to death and bare the sin of many Now we are freed from the punishment of sin two wayes 1. Directly because his passion was a sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole world Wherefore Thomas-Aquin Exhibita satisfactionâ— sufficienti tollitur reatus paenae saith Aquinas upon the exhibition of a sufficient satisfaction the punishment is quite taken away So that God cannot punish that again in his servant that he hath already punisht in his Son 2. Indirectly Ambros super Beati immacalati in as much as the passion of Christ is the cause of the Redemption of sin which is the cause of punishment Ille suscepit mortis servitutem ut tibi tribueret aternae vitae libertatem Moreover by the sufferings of Christ our reconciliation with God is wrought and our peace is made with him for ever We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son Rom. 5.10 and that two wayes 1. By removing of sin whereby we were made his enemies Ephes 5.2 2. By offering up himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour Lastly hereby the gate of heaven is open for us We have boldness to enter into the holyest by the blood of Jesus Hebr. 10.19 for he went before us to prepare a place for us that where he is we might be also So that now he hath obtained for us eternal salvation By way of desert he hath deserved that by him we should be saved By way of satisfaction for the greatness of his love out of which he suffered for the dignity of his life which he laid down for us it was the life of God and man and for the generality and weight of sorrows and paines that he suffered for us hence he is a sufficient satisfaction called the Propitiation for our sins Heb. 9.26 Verse 15. At Paris ut vivat regnetque beatus cogi posse negat Hor. Epist 1. 1 Joh. 2.2 By way of sacrifice which was meritorious deserving life for whom he suffered death In the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself And by way of redemption for he was engaged for us and paid the utmost farthing for which end he was sent into the world God sent not his Son into the world to condemne the world but that the world through him might be saved Joh. 3.17 Saved from sin from the power of Satan from death Hence called our Redemption and we come to be at peace with God and in that peace we enter into heaven to be partakers of those joyes that are at Gods right hand for evermore Having waded thus farre I seale up this discourse with a pathetical conclusion in way of application O how far is the love of God extended to us miserable sinners He was provident before our fall to find out away whereby to be saved after we fell His Son must die to save us from death He must fall into the hands of sinners that we may not fall into the hands of Satan And if he have thus given us his Son how shall he not with him give unto us all things We may conclude for certain we shall want nothing for the furtherance of our salvation since that he with-held not his onely Son from us Let this love of God to us extract love from us to God As he bought us dear with the losse of his Son so must we think nothing too deare to part withal to gain our God We must be content to lose our life and all than to lose our God who is all in all for the gaining of life and all Seeing that Christ ought to have suffered for our sins we may well grieve that we should be the authors of his death and yet rejoyce that we have escaped Gods fearful vengeance by his sufferings Grieve then my beloved for your sins for which Christ died Royard in Postill and go and sin no more And let your soules magnify the Lord and rejoyce in God your Saviour Non gaudere ingratitudinis est non dolere crudelitatis saith Royard not to be glad for Gods mercy and Christ's love in redeeming us is a point of ingratitude not to grieve that we gave occasion of his death is a point of the greatest cruelty Let us then grieve together with him that we may reigne and rejoyce together with him Gods decree is unutterable he ordained that Christ should die and Christ did die He promist it and 't is fulfill'd He revealed it and 't is so come to passe He is as good as his word Heaven and earth shall passe away but not the least tittle of his word shall go unfulfilled What therefore soever God hath determined concerning any one shall certainly fall out so there is no avoidance What he hath denounced against sinners let them expect it for they shall surely have it Our God is a God of truth You may collect out of this discourse that Christ is a perfect and sufficient Redeemer Heb 10.14 on whom alone dependeth our salvation For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified As Moses said to the children of Israel the Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace So I may say that Christ onely fought for us we did nothing whereby to acquire a life that is endless Wherefore if we will be perfectly saved rely upon the Redeemer of Israel for he is onely the Captain of our salvation Look up as sometimes the Israelites on the brazen serpent upon him stretched out upon the crosse where he is ready to receive all that come unto him and beleeve in his name Caput Christi inclinatum ad osculandum cor apertum ad diligendum brachia extensa ad amplexandum totum corpus expositum ad redimendum August lib. de virginit he hath his head bended down to kisse you his heart opened to love and affect you his armes stretched forth to embrace you his whole body exposed to redeem you Consider of what great consequences these things are that Christ hath done for your soules weigh them in the ballance of your hearts Vt totus vobis figatur in corde qui totus pro vobis fixus fuit in cruce that he may be wholly fastned to you in your hearts who was wholly fastned for you on the crosse Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp bearing his reproach for here we have no continuing City Heb. 13.13 14 15. but we seek one to come by him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name who is the Author and finisher of our salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed all honour glory power and dominion in heaven and in earth by men and Angels both now and for ever world without end Amen The Necessity of CHRISTS PASSION AND Resurrection ACTS 17.3 Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead GLory which is the proper scope of a noble disposition and the intended end of honourable intents did Christ make to be the necessary consequence of his fore-running passion His life seem'd to the worlds eye inglorious in that he affected not popularity so did his death to those that knew not the mystery of our Redemption By general judgment he was reputed the most unhappy breathing he was rejected and despised of men Yet in this his rejected and contemptible condition was sowen his immortal happiness which indeed was sowen in weakness but was raised in power sowen in dishonor but raised in glory For as by the eternal constitution of the Almighty he ought to have been brought to the lowest degree of misery by suffering divers and fearful punishments so ought he not perpetually to abide in that state but at length to be elevated thence to the highest pitch of glory In order to which as Christ must needs have suffered so also must he rise again from the dead The point now by divine assistance to be discust is part of Christs exaltation a theame of an high nature And herein first of the person exalted Christ Christ was exalted according to both natures 1. In regard of his Godhead 2. In regard of his Manhood The exaltation of the Godhead of Christ was the manifestation of the Godhead in the Manhood mightily declaring therein that he was the Son of God Which manifestation was altogether active no way passive the effects produced by him having no other proper agent but God For who could overcome Satan death the world the grave but God And albeit the Divine nature be thus exalted yet it is without all manner of alteration For to speak properly in it self it cannot be made the subject of exaltation but as it is considered joined with the Manhood into the unity of one person For albeit Christ from the very time of the assumption of our nature whereby he was incarnate was both God and man and his Godhead all the time he liv'd dwelt in his Manhood yet from the hour of his Nativity unto the hour of giving up the Ghost and a while after the Godhead did little shew it self The glorious majesty of his Deity whiles he was in the for me and low state of a servant lay hid under the vaile of his flesh as the soul doth in the body when a man is sleeping And in the time of his passion the brightness of the glory of the sun of righteousnesse was obscured as the sun running in the height of heaven oftimes over clouded or eclipsed by a darker body thereby in 〈◊〉 humane nature to undergo the curse of the law and perfect the work of our redemption in subjecting himself to the death even the cursed death of the crosse But as soone as this work was finished and happily accomplished he began by degrees to make known the power of his Godhead in his Manhood And so to rise again Secondly Christ was exalted in regard of his Manhood which consisteth in these two things In depositione servilis suaâ—conditionis in laying down and quitting himself from all the infirmities that 〈◊〉 mans nature which he submitted himself unto except sin so long as he remained in the state of a servant he was subject to weariness to hunger to thirst to fear to death from all which in this state of exaltation he is perfectly delivered his natural body is a glorious body those wounds and stripes which in his body he suffered for our sins remain not in him as testimonies of that compleat conquest to be obtained over his and our enemies But are rather quite abolished because they were a part of that ignominious condition wherein our Saviour was upon the crosse whereof in his glorified state he is not to be partaker Yet if they still remain as some think they do they are no deformity to the glorious body of the Lord but are in him in some unspeakable and to us unknown manner glorified In susceptione donoxum in receiving such graces and qualities of glory as bring with them ornament beauty perfection happiness exceeding the or 〈◊〉 beauty perfection and happiness of any other creature in heaven or earth 〈◊〉 to his soul and body As for his soul look upon the intellectuall part you shall find a mind enrich with as much knowledge and understanding as well in respect of the act as the habit as a creature can possibly be capable of the measure of it being more than all men and Angels put together have Look upon his will and affections you shall find them furnished with the fulness of grace and compleatly adorned with the invaluable riches and incomparable gifts of Gods holy Spirit As for his body it is not now subject to dissolution from being natural it is become spiritual not by the destruction of the essence but by the alteration of the qualities Aquinas Est ejusdem naturae sed alterius gloriae said Thomas for God would not suffer his holy one to see corruption The nature and essential proprietles of a true body as length breadth thickness locality still remain in him the addition of glory and brightness not changing the nature of it so that it is free from all bodily imperfections and made bright and glorious a resemblance whereof was his transiguration on the mount Matth. 17. where his face did shine as the sun and his rayment was as white as the light the purity whereof is unblemished the agility whereof such as is indifferent to move upward or downward the brightness thereof cannot be obscured nor the strength thereof match't by any creature For by his power he shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body Hhil 3.21 according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself These gifts of glory in Christ's body are not infinite but bounded within limits because his humane nature being but a creature and therefore finite could not receive infinite graces and gifts of glory To make then infiniteness ubiquity and omnipotency incommunicable attributes of God attributes of Christ's glorified body is to destroy the nature of a body and say that the body of Christ is transformed into the Deity or Deified and that he is all
die so was it necessary he should live again 1. In regard of Gods Decree Isa 53.10 revealed in his Word promising that He should see his seed that is the Just and that He would prolong his days Peter in his Sermon on the day of Pentecost averrs That David in the 16. Psalm spake of Christ's Rising by way of prediction the knowledge whereof came unto him by Divine infusion Act. 2.31 2. It was necessary for the instruction and settlement of our Faith we being naturally prone to infidelity And that 1. Concerning the Divinity of our Saviour Christ the glory and truth whereof had not been made sufficiently apparent had he not used his power in rising again But in that he is risen he hath mightily declared himself to be the Son of God i.e. Ex afflicto ejus statu as Gal. 4.14 very God of very God Who although he was crucified through weakness yet he liveth by the power of God 2 Cor. 13.4 If Christ be not risen saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 15. then our preaching is in vain and in vain our faith By his Resurrection therefore we obtain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fidei a full measure of faith in this that there is no place of doubting left us but that we firmly may believe that Jesus Christ is true God for whom to be held bound in the strict chains of a powerful death is a matter of the greatest impossibility Again it was necessary for the settlement of our Faith 2. Concerning the victory Christ hath gotten over death The weaker is overcome of the stronger so that if Christ had not risen he had been weaker than Death had not been a sufficient Redeemer we had been still in our sins we could not have been perswaded God had received perfect satisfaction But being that he is revived by the same Power that giveth life unto all Death hath no longer dominion over him Gods justice is satisfied and we remain no longer in our sins Wherefore we may well in the language of triumph proclaim O death where is thy sling O grave where is thy victory And we continuing the same note may adde by the vertue of a lively faith Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ 3. It was necessary for the comforting assistance of our Hope lest it should be converted into a Desperate humour Our propensity to Desperation is by woful experience too well known But inasmuch as our Saviour our Head Clarissima fidei confâ—ssio Brentius Brevis longa totaque aurea est haec Apologia saith another had a glorious Exit out of the grave and an absolute conquest over death it is forcible enough to make us hope that we his members united unto him by the indissoluble bond of the Spirit shall also rise again after death Upon this hope was that speech of Job grounded I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me Job 19. Were it not for Christ's Resurrection hope herein might have failed both him and us for his is the cause of ours therefore is he stiled Primitiae dormientium The first-fruits of them that sleep 4. It was necessary for the compleat and perfect consummation of our eternal happiness For in that he was humbled to sustain great evils by dying for our freedom from all evil so was he glorified by his Resurrection for our promotion to all â—ood He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification Rom. â— ult And as it is Heb. 7.25 He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them 5. It was necessary in regard of the compleat discharge of his office of Priesthood to which he was from all eternity anointed of the Father If he had not risen again he had not performed the full duty of that calling which required that he should make satisfaction for the sins of people which he did by offering up himself an Offering and a Sacrifice to God of a sweet smelling favour upon the Cross And further that calling required also that he should apply the vertue of this Sacrifice the merit of his death to every true Believer which could not be performed without his Resurrection So that as he died to satisfie the justice of God so was it requisite he should rise from death to make to us a particular application of the vertue of his Passion by his effectual Intercession unto his Father in heaven for us upon earth Whereupon comes the Apostles Quaere and Answer Rom. 8.34 Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Thus much of the Necessity of Christ's Resurrection The second point is concerning the Ends of his Resurrection which are divers Viz. 1. In regard of himself 2. In regard of the Law 3. In regard of us In regard of himself the end of his Rising was twofold 1. To declare that he himself that Holy and Just one whom the Jews had by wicked hands crucified and slain was the Prince of life Who at his pleasure as he could give life to others so unto himself Act. 3.15 though he were brought to the lowest step of an humbled state though death held him in its hands For if at his Crucifying the shaking of the earth the rising of some dead bodies the obscuration of the Sun not hap'ning within the compass of the course of nature because not at the usual time of the conjunction of those two Planets the Sun and Moon wrested a confession out of the spectators that He was the Son of God much more may his Resurrection evict thus much that He is the Prince of life who might lay down and take up his life when he pleased And 2. That having finished and perfected the great work of our Redemption he might reign thenceforth for ever in glory â—â—n 7.14 Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and whose Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed Albeit he seemed for a time to be deposed from his Royalty whilst he submitted himself to death yet it was but a short cessation that he might come off with the greater honour and so to enter into his greatest glory In regard of the Law the end of his Rising was to ratifie the truth of that Promise of life which was pass d unto man upon the performance of that Covenant passed betwixt God and man Do this and thou shalt live It could not be but that in equity Christ should live again being that he did fulfill exactly and precisely
exceeded the capacity of Nicoâ— Cum primum nascimur in omni continuo pravitate versamur Tully though a Master in Israel to become like him did not he mould out hearts anew and fill them with the invaluable riches of his mercy and the treasures of his graces we had been of all creatures the most miserable Sinful was our conception sinful was our birth and striful is all our life Nature makes us sons of wrath being deprived of the life of grace as soone as we are sons of nature Damnatus homo antequam natus Aug. there is none that doth good no not one All are sold under sin whence the Apostile upon his own experience averreth that in him that is in his flesh or natural estate dwelleth no good thing Rom. 7. We are born dead as soone as we come into the world alive spiritually dead naturally alive Now in whom no good thing dwelleth by nature they are by nature void of grace and who by nature are void of grace do not by nature participate of spiritual life whereof whosoever is not partaker is by nature spiritually dead and who by nature are spiritually dead are destitute of the Spirit of grace who is the sole Author of life and finisher of our salvation All saving graces and heavenly benedictions flow from him in whom the fulnesse of all graces dwells and all return to him again as rivers come from the sea and to the sea return Uâ—lesse therefore God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to sanctifie 〈◊〉 to cleanse us to put new spirit and life into us which is a work of the highest power to which nature can never actain we shall come short of performing the least act that may be any wayes advantageous for our falvation A dead manâ—s not in action hath no living motion neither is there in his power any possibility of regaining life a so is every one spiritually whose heart is not quickened and moved by the holy Ghost to whom it is alone possible to raise from the death of sinne whose property it is to infuse grace and make the hearts and souls of men beautified with the richest furniture and most precious 〈◊〉 of divine 〈…〉 Tomles for himself to dwell in And thus the passage is clear and open for another observation grounded on these words which is this That the heart of the child of God is the seat or dwelling place of the holy Ghost Of all things in man God desireth the heart of man My son give me thine heart for as naturally evil actions proceed from it so must all good being first set awork by the first mover unto all good the good Spirit of God It is in man by nature according to the dictates of natural Philosophy Primum vivens the first in man that lives and divine Philosophy informs us that it is so in grace too For the convernon of the whole man depends upon the conversion of the heart to God there new life is begun Nature gives it a vital faculty distributing to all parts the vital spirits whereby they are embled to work and so doth grace for in what good soever any part of the body is imployed the power of effecting it is derived from the heart which as it is called Principium vitae in the body of man so it is made by the grace of God the original of a holy life and the first subject of grace without which all our best services are but glittering sins for with the heart we beleeve and with the heart we work out our salvation The Chymicks compare the heart to the Sun call'd by them Cor mundi the Sun is in the midst of the great world this in the midst of the little world man The Sun is the sountain of heat in this wherewith all sublunary creatures are cherished and quickened so from the heart to apply things otherwise than they do wholly taken up with the sanctifying Spirit doth proceed such a heat and fervent zeal as that every part is made nimble in the execution of what God commands us It makes the feet swift in running to the house of prayer the hands pliable to minister to the necessities of the poor the tongue voluble in uttering the praises of Almighty God â— 1. 〈◊〉 the eares ready to hear with joy the Gospel of peace preached the eyes to be busied in looking up to heaven from whence cometh our salvation the whole man to be wholly taken up in heavenly contemplations of God and his works and holy exercises of devotion Hence the heart may challenge a principality over all the members of the body all are at its service and it exerciseth dominion over them all Arist in lib. de gederatione tanquam rex in regno as King in his Kingdom saith the Philosopher and it is ruled by the Spirit say Divines Naturalists raise a large discourse and ample dispute upon this Argument and as yet the controversie lies undetermined but this one principle of Divinity alotting the heart to the holy Ghost for his chief mansion in man doth end the controversie for in what part of man the holy Ghost doth principally reside and on what part of man mans conversion doth principally depend must of necessity be the principal part of man But to return more particularly to the rule hitherto amplified that the heart of man is the seat of the Spirit my discourse shall be limited 1. To the proof here of by Scripture 2. To a declaration of those circumstances whereby the being of the Spirit in our hearts may be discovered and by necessary consequence without all peradventure coucluded It is the general voice of the Scripture which is without exception that the Spirit dwelleth in the elect Rom. 8.9 Ye are not in the flesh but iâ— the spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you And in ver 11. it is thus written That if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you The Apostle in 1 Cor. 3.16 propounds this question the ignorance whereof is reputed grosse absurdity Know ye not that ye aâ—d the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you It is part of Pauls divine prayer for the Ephesians in Ephes 3.17 that Christ may dwell in their hearts by saith that is that Christ may possesse their hearts and the whole man by his Spirit working saving faith in them This dwelling is an admirable good expression of the being of the Spirit in us which is not in regard of substance which the heaven of heavens cannot contain being infinite much lesse can the body or soul of man bounded within strait limits comprize but in regard of a special operation out of the reach of a created power It carries with it an intimation of the holy Ghost abiding
in the salvation of penitent and beleeving soules the glory of his justice in the condemnation of obdurate and perverse malefactors As it is a perfect law so it is a law of liberty oppos'd to the Mosaical which is lex senvitutis a law of thraldome The liberty of this law in respect of our twofold condition is twofold 1. Gracious here in the life of grace wrought by Christ the Son of the everliving God if the Son make us free we are free indeed Joh. 8.36 Wherefore we have a free accesse at all times to call upon the Father of mercys imploring his powerful assistance in holy actions and invincible protection from all evil 2. Glorious in the life of glory called Vindicationis libertas the liberty of compleat redemption the creature being delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God Phrasis qulgatissima est Deum colere Non secus at que agri fertiles inprimis optimi sic Dei cultus fâ—uctus fert ad vitam aternam uberrimos Of this twofold liberty there are these parts 1. A liberty from sin our submission to the Gospel and faithful embracing of the promises of God in Christ frees us both from the raigning power of sin and from the condemning power For being made free from sin we become servants to God and have our fruit unto holiness and the and everlusting life Rom. 6.22 2. A liberty from the yoke of the ceremonial law and bondage of the morall From the yoke of the ceremonial law which was so ponderous as that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear but now by Christ and the law of faith it is blotted out quite abolished and taken out of the way And from the bondage of the moral law in these ensuing particulars 1. From the curse and consequently from the punishment of sin the transgression of the law Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us Gal. 3.13 Rom. 8.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Apostle certifies us that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 2. From the rigour and exaction of the law requiring of us for our justification perfect righteousness inherent in us and perfect obedience to be practis'd by us 3. From the terrour and coaction of the law which ingendereth servile fear in those who are under it and compelleth them through the horror of torment as bond-slaves by the whip or rack to the outward though unwilling performance of it But those that are under the law of grace are zealously addicted to good works and services of God which are over done by them with the free consent of a plous mind the original cause whereof is not any natural disposition but the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given unto us 4. from the instigation of the law for which reason saith Pareus on 1 Cor. 15.56 it hath got the name of the strength of sin whereby sin appears more sinfull which is not caused by any fault in the law in it self good and condemning sin but through the viciousness of our unregenerate nature that takes occasion from the sacred prohibitions of it to transgresse which irritation is accidentall not essentiall to the undefiled law of the righteous Lord. Another part of this liberty is a liberty from death which is twofold the first and the second They that are effectually in subjection to the Gospel the glad-tidings of peace are free from the first death as it is a punishment And from the second over them the second death shall have no power Tollitur morâ— non ne fiat sed ne obsit Aug. To them the nature of the first death is changed and made but transitus ad vitam a passage from death to life it is the end of sin and misery and the beginning of our unspeakable happiness the high-way from the vale of teares to the Kingdom of glory and Celestiall joyes the Period of a mortall life and the innitiation of a life immortal Last of all there is a liberty from Sathan and the world granted to the sons of God adopted in the Son of God the Son of God hath over come the strong man Not imperium Principis but Carnificis à Lapide and bound him as being stronger than he thorough death he destroyed him that had the power of death that is the Devil and delivereth them who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 Get thee behind us Satan as Christ said to Peter and let the wicked world follow thee which Christ hath over-come Joh. 16. ult And since O loving Saviour we live free men free from sin reigning condemning free from Satan and the world under the easy yoke of thy Evangelical Law and under the protection of thy wings We will with thy disciples follow thee whithersoever thou goest and run after thee whither thy good Spirit shall lead us Thus it is apparent how the Gospel of Christ is a perfect Law of liberty into which whoso looketh and continueth therein he being not a forgetfull hearer but a doer of the work shall be blessed in his deed From the bottome of the stairs or ladder we now go up the steps the first whereof is speculation whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty Joh. 5.39 Audite saeculares comparate vobis Biblia animae Pharmaca Chrysost Prono capite propenso collo accurate in trospieere 1 Pet. 1.12 It was a good advice blest be the mouth that gave it Search the Scriptures which is made good by the reasons rendred for in them ye think ye have eternal life and they are they which testify of me saith our Saviour hence this search must not be slight this speculation not vain this looking not perfunctory our Knowledge of Christ and eternal life depending on it This is intimated in the original word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying an exact and accurate prying into a thing as if one to find out somewhat difficult to find out should stand in this posture with his body or head bended towards the earth his eyes contracted and fixed upon some object as if he did intend to look it through and so to inform himself fully Thus when we attempt to look into the abstruse mysteries of divinity to acquaint our selves with the sacred Principles of Religion a superficial view is of no avail Profound matters require a serious and frequent meditation an indefatigable study hence the Apostle St Peter describing the desire of the Angels to know the hidden mysteries of salvation expresseth it by the same word the Angels desire to look narrowly into the things revealed to us by the Holy Ghost a work worthy their and our pains not to be posted over with a careless run but to be stuck close unto and prosecuted until finished and the mind in
imputed to them many were the spots and wrinkles of the Saints whilst here militant Sanctity imports among other things a cleansing from impurity whence Isidore Sancti quasi sanguine tincti Saints are so called because they are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanseth from all sin Who were antiently purified were sprinkled with the blood of the Sacrifice so now the Saints with the blood of the Son of God who gave himself for them to God an Offering and a Sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour the righteousness and merits of which Sacrifice are made theirs by assignment Assignata est homini aliena justitia quia caruit suâ Bernard saith Bernard The righteousness of another is allotted and assigned unto man because he lost his own conferr'd on him of God Since mans first apostacy and fall from God none could ever be perfect Saints in this world without the perfect rightcousness of Christ which perfects them alone to whom it is imputed who being in Christ Jesus are considered as one mystical person with him who is their Head from whom floweth all perfection by whom remission of sin is compassed and through whom freedom from condemnation eternally is obtained Thus Gods Saints are Saints by Imputation whom I believe in Christ to be no sinners and therefore not guilty of death but just and holy and lords over both sin and death and assured heirs of everlasting life The Saints of God are Saints by Renovation For to whom God sent forth his Son into the world to redeem them God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into their hearts to sanctifie them which Sanctity wrought by the Spirit of grace and Word of God is a quality or qualification newly created in their hearts whereby the Image of God which was lost by the fall of Adam is again restored and the corruption of sin by degrees abolished the working grace of the blessed Spirit never ceasing until by a transcendent operation it mould and frame them to righteousness and true holiness Hence they are called new creatures whose intentions and actions are conformed to the exact rule of hóliness Gods most holy Word and the unerring directions of his renewing Spirit Saints thus by Renovation have in them a twofold grace and righteousness Viz. 1. Inherent grace 2. Actual grace The inherent grace or righteousness of the Saints doth not originally arise out of the principles of Nature but of Gods free grace not of their own industrious acquisition but of Gods favorable infusion Hereby the tyranny of sin was and is suppressed in them and the violence of their natural corruption inclined to mischief by the predominancy of a more effectual grace habituated in them kept in order and subjection Hereby the ruines of our nature are repaired and we by the quickning power of the God of life therein graciously revived Hereby all Gods Saints are disposed and enabled to perform his injunctions and made acceptable in the Beloved without whom inherent grace or sanctity is neither permanent nor operative for in Christ and by Christ alone the Saints are what they are and do what good they do The actual righteousness of the Saints of God is that conformity which their actions proceeding from the habit of grace wrought in them by the Spirit of sanctification dwelling in their hearts have to Gods law This is moral yet the beginning the progression and the finishing of it proceeds from the Supreme Author of all good Nulli sunt conatus nostri ad bonum si non excitentur vani si non adjuventur We never bend our endeavours and forces to the performance of any good thing if not excited and all are but vain if not supported For who is sufficient for these things that God exacts if God enable not His grace is sufficient for us and without it we insufficient for them The Saints work out their salvation with fear and trembling but by the help of God that worketh in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure By the efficacy of his al sufficient working they exercise themselves unto godliness and apply their hearts to his service Hence they are called Vessels of honour and Temples of the Holy Ghost sequestred from all others for the service of the Lord and honour of his holy Name It is to honour and to serve him that the Saints are by Baptism admitted into the Church Nazianzen whence Nazianzen describes Baptism to be Pactum vitae purioris cum Deo A compact made by man with God to lead an undefiled life and not to walk in the way of sinners Sanctity I conceive to be like a Diametrical line in a Circle constituting two distinct Hemispheres of men differencing the good from the bad the Saints from the Wicked whereby we and all men who are the Saints of God now in being are advertised to eschew the society of Atheists Blasphemers Drunkards Adulterers Idolaters and all malefactors and to tread in the pure footsteps of the blessed Saints in their heavenly hemisphere composing our selves to keep within the Compass into which no Devil can have admittance We are men if Saints of another and a better world and must not fashion our selves according unto this It is reported of the people of Lorain Heyl. Geâ—gâ— That they participate of the French Complement and German Drinking I fear it may be reported of too many of us and that report too true That we participate of the French Complement and German Drinking of the Spaniards Oppression and Cruelty of the Italians Whoring of the Turks Atheism of the Jews Avarice of the Papists Superstition of Machiavels Perfidiousness and many others evil heapt up in the pack of mischief But these things become not Saints they stand in opposition to their conditions such men are Antipodes to the Godly walking contrary unto them Wherefore lay aside all uncleanness of the flesh let not the phantastick pleasures of this bewitching world besot your souls neither come you into the assembly of the wicked whom the world may stile but with a false glosse Men of renown Chrysost It is Chrysostom's speech on the 24. of Matthew Sanctorum est non inquirere mansiones ubi clariores sunt viri fed ubi fideliores nec gaudent ubi epulae sunt largae fed ubi storet sanctitas It is not the property of Saints to desire to dwell in those mansions where the more famous men of this world resort but where the more faithful dwell neither delight they to be where dainties are in abundance but where sanctity and holiness doth most flourish Like Moses that chose rather to live miserably with the opressed Israelites than deliciously in the Court of Pharach among swaggering Gallants Be ye thus minded as becometh Saints Set up your rest where Religion flourisheth where Piety is practised where good works performed where Grace reigneth and be ye as they holy and do as they do good otherwise God will
Revel 1. Hence the Angels of the seven Churches are called stars fixt in Christ's right hand tanquam in firmamento as in the firmament of heaven not unlike to that star that directed the three wise men unto Christ Mat. 2. Now when these stars these Pillars of fire by the light of grace which shined in them perceived the grace which was given unto Paul When James Cephas and John who seemed to be pillars perceived the grace that was given unto me And thus I come to the ground or hand of the union the fodder that knit them together grace perceived the grace that was given unto me Grace is either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Active or Passive The active is Gods love and free grace ready to grace us The Passive Gods graces Gods gifts whereby we are graced wherewith we are glorified graced here to be glorified hereafter The first is a branch or a blossom of his goodnesse that tree of life that tree of good The last the fruit sweet as honey in the heart as the little book in the Revelation was in Saint John's mouth By that active grace God decreed mans Election Rev. 10.20 ere any thing had a being and by that active grace he doth bestow in the dispensation of the fulnesse of times the riches of his mercy heaven upon earth By it God comes to man ere man can go to God He comes to man with his preventing grace inspiring him with religious thoughts breathing into him the true breath of life and ravishing him with the desire of things supernatural out of natures compasse and sphere of activity that thus man might come to him he comes to man by his preparing grace casting his understanding and will into a new mould that thence he may become a new man wise unto salvation obedient to the death He comes to man by his operating grace God first prepares then works he first makes man capable o◠his works then works on him works in him and works of wonder actually freeing from the tyranny of sin and renewing him in the inward man the understanding will affections He comes to man by his cooperating grace As by his operating grace he moves the will to will that which is good so by this cooperating grace he makes him able to effect what the will desires to work out salvation with fear and trembling He comes unto man by his consummating grace giving him power to be constant to the end till he come to the full period Eternal glory the height of his ambition Heaven Eph. 2.5 Ye are saved by grace Thus God begins by his grace by his grace he doth finish what he hath begun Now beloved this active grace of God distinguished by the diversities of its gracious acts works in man passive grace those heavenly characters of the Deity drawn by the finger of God Some of these are common to the Reprobate with the Elect some proper only to the elect some are saving graces of the Spirit some not Some of these are called gratin gratis data others gratia gratis data gratum faciens Vocation Christian doctrine Prudence in businesses Patience in labour Fortitude in dangers the gift of Prophecy the gift of Tongues the gift of Miracles and such like are gifts of grace but not saving graces of the Spirit neither are these of any moment except God gives the earnest of the Spirit in the heart 2 Cor. 1.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may use the Apostles phrase except they be seasoned with the grace of God I mean the saving graces which make a man acceptable in the sight of God Faith Hope Charity Faith justifies as the hand makes rich Hope maketh not ashamed Charity beareth all things 1 Cor. 13. believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things it never faileth But whether there be Prophecies they shall fail whether there be Tongues they shall cease whether there be Knowledge it shall vanish away Now all these together are like the sweet Incense in the spoons that were offered by the twelve Heads of Israel at the dedication of the Tabernacle Numb 7.86 Or like Noah's Sacrifice after the Deluge making a sweet favour in the nostrils of God Bernard S. Bernard makes mention of a threefold grace One whereby we are converted another whereby we are aided in fiery trials a third whereby after trial we are rewarded The first is initial whereby we are called the second beneficial whereby we are justified the last is final whereby we are glorified The first is Gods free grace the second is Christs merit the third the reward glory Of the first it is said Of his fulness have we all received Of the two last grace for grace as Bernard expounds it Munera gloriae aeterna merita temporalis militiae Which give me leave to interpret for my self Not for any merit of ours but for Christs merits for us The two first make way for the last the last cannot be obtained while the soul dwelleth in this prison of mortality but the two first with those I have spoken of already make up a perfect man in Jesus Christ in some measure in this life The original of these graces if we would know we must run to God Every good and perfect gift cometh from above Jam. 1. Non per naturam insita sed divinitus data they are transcendent they are given When Christ led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men He poured forth his Spirit saith Joel He gave he poured forth Ephes 1. Joel 2. that is active grace gifts unto men his Spirit that is gifts of his Spirit that is passive grace Grace is given of God by grace A blessed Giver a blessed gift The earth of our hearts brings not forth such branches of vertue but as the earth after Gods curse upon it thorns and thistles I will not here encounter with Papists concerning Free-will in both kinds of Gods graces but leave it to some other David who can better cut off Goliah's head as with the sword of the Spirit as with his own sword and beat them with their own weapons Only let me ask them one question What have we that we have not received 1 Cor. 4.7 And conclude this with that of the Psalmist Not unto us not unto us then O Lord but unto thy Name give the glory Thus we have had a sight of the riches of Gods mercy Now will I shew you the man to whom it was given by grace to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven that we may know who is he and we will call him blessed Therefore as Samuel said of King Saul I apply to our Saul here See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen It is Paul justified sanctified made gracious made glorious 1 Sam. 10. Once a Persecuter now as Saul once among the Prophets a Prophet so Saul now among the Apostles an Apostle by the