him who perswaded him who was his counsellour He was all-sufficient and stood in need of nothing l. 4. c. 28. Non quasi indigens plasmavit Adam saith Irenaeus It was not out of any indigencie or defect in himself that he made Adam after his image He was all to himself before he made any thing nor could million of worlds have added to him What was it to him that there were Angels made Athenag Legat pro Christianis or Seraphim or Cherubim He gained not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle For there could be no accession nothing to heighten his perfection Did he make the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Athenagoras calleth it as an instrument to make him musick Did he clothe the lilies and dress up Nature in various colours to delight himself Or could he not reign without Man saith Mirandula God hath a most free and powerful and immutable will and therefore it was not necessary for him to work or to begin to work but when he would For he might both will and not will the creation of all things without any change of his will But it pleased him out of his goodness thus to break forth into action Sext. Emperic adv Mathemat pag. 327. Will you know the cause saith the Sceptick why he made world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was good Nihil ineptius saith one quà m cogitare Deum nihil agentem There is nothing more vain then to conceive that God could be idle or doing of nothing And were it not for his Goodness we could hardly conceive him ad extrà agentem working any thing out of himself who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all-sufficient and blessed for evermore infinitely happy though he had never created the heaven and the earth though there had neither been Angel nor Man to worship him But he did all these things because he was good Bonitas saith Tertullian Adv. Marcion l. 2. otium sui non patitur hinc censetur si agatur Goodness is an active and restless quality and it is not when it is idle It cannot contain it self in it self And by his Goodness God made Man made him for his glory and so to be partaker of his happiness placed him here on earth to raise him up to heaven made him a living soul ut in vita hac compararet vitam that in this short and transitory life he might fit himself for an abiding City Heb. 13.14 and in this moment work out Aeternity Thus of himself God is good nor can any evil proceed from him If he frown we first move him if he be angry we have provoked him if he come in a tempest we have raised it if he be a consuming fire we have kindled it Heb. 12.29 We force him to be what he would not be we make him Thunder who is all Light Tert. advers Marc. l. 2. c. 11. Bonitas ingenita severitas accidens Alteram sibi alteram rei Deus praestitit saith the Father God's Goodness is natural his Severity in respect of its act accidental For God may be severe and yet not punish For he striketh not till we provoke him His Justice and Severity are the same as everlasting as Himself though he never speak in his wrath nor draw his sword If there were no Hell yet were he just and if there were no Abrahams bosome yet were he good Luk. 16. If there were neither Angel nor Man he were still the Lord blessed for evermore In a word he had been just though he had never been angry he had been merciful though Man had not been miserable he had been the same God just and good and merciful Rom. 5.12 though Sin had not entred in by Adam and Death by Sin God is active in good and not in evil He cannot do what he doth detest and hate he cannot decree ordain or further that which is most contrary to him He doth not kill me before all time and then in time ask me why I will die He doth not condemn me first and then make a Law that I may break it He doth not blow out my candle and then punish me for being in the dark That the conviction of a sinner should be the onely end of his exhortations and expostulations cannot consist with that Goodness which God is who when he cometh to punish facit opus non suum saith the Prophet Isa 28.21 doth not his own work doth a strange work a strange act an act that is forced from him a work which he would not do And as God doth not will our Death so doth he not desire to mani-his glory in it which as our Death proceedeth from his secondary and occasioned will For God saith Aquinas Aqui 1. 2 2. q 132. art 1. ◠seeketh not the manifestation of his glory for his own but for our sakes His glory as his Wisdome and Justice and Power is with him alwayes as eternal as himself No quire of Angels can improve no raging Devil can diminish his glory which in the midst of all the Hallelujahs of Seraphim and Cherubim in the midst of all the blasphemies of Men and Devils is still the same And his first will is to see it in his Image in the conformity of our wills to his where it shineth in the perfection of beauty rather then where it is decayed and defaced in a damned Spirit rather in that Saint he would have made then in that Reprobate and cursed soul which he was forced to throw into the lowest pit And so to receive his glory is that which he would not have which he was willing to begin on earth and then have made it perfect and compleat in the highest heavens Tert. ibid. Exinde ad mortem sed antè ad vitam The sentence of death was pronounced against Man almost as soon as he was Man but he was first created to life We are punished for being evil but we were first commanded to be good God's first will is that we glorifie him in our bodies and in our souls 1 Cor. 6.20 But if we frustrate his loving expectation here then he rowseth himself up as a mighty man and will be avenged of us and work his glory out of that which dishonoured him Prov. 14.28 and write it with our blood In the multitude of the people is the glory of a king saith the wisest of Kings and more glory if they be obedient to his laws then if they rebel and rise up against him That Common-wealth is more glorious where every man filleth his place then where the prisons are filled with thieves and traytours and men of Belial And though the justice and wisdome of the King may be seen in these yet it is more resplendent in those on whom the Law hath more power then the Sword In heaven is the glory of God best seen and his delight is to see it in the Church of the first
Body and his Bloud and S. Paul calleth it the Bread and the Cup Nor is S. Paul contrary to Christ but determineth and reconcileth all in the end both of Christ's suffering and our receiving in the words of my Text As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come In which words the Death of the Lord of life is presented to us and we called to look up upon him whom our sins have pierced through to behold him wounded for our transgressions ex cujus latere aqua sanguis Isa 53.5 utriusque lavacri paratura manavit as Tertullian out of whose side came water and bloud to wash and purge us which make the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper And the effect of both is our Obedience in life and conversation that we should serve him with the whole heart who hath bought us at so dear a price that we should wash off all our spots and stains and foul pollutions in the laver of this Water and the laver of this Bloud And therefore as he offered himself for us on the Cross so he offereth himself to us in the Sacrament his Body in the Bread and his Bloud in the Cup that we may eat and drink and feed upon him and taste how gracious he is Which is the sum and complement and blessed effect of the duty here in the Text to shew the Lord's death till he come For he that sheweth it not manducans non manducat eating doth not as Ambrose doth eat the Bread but not feed on Christ But he that fully acquitteth himself in this shall be fed to eternal life Let us then take the words asunder And there we find What we are to do and How long we are to do it the Duty and the Continuation of it the Duty We must shew forth Christ's death the Continuation of it We must do it till he come again to judgment In the Duty we consider first an Object what it is we must shew the death of the Lord Secondly an Act what it is to shew and declare it The death of the Lord a sad but comfortable a bloudy but saving spectacle And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew a word of as large a compass as Christianity it self And the duration and continuation of it till he come that is to the end of the world Of these in their order The object is in nature first and first to be handled the death of the Lord. And this is most proper for us to consider For by his stripes we are healed and by his death we live And in this he hath not onely expressed his Love but made himself an example that we may take it out and so shew forth his death First it is his Love which joyned these two words together Death and the Lord which are farther removed then Heaven is from the Earth For can the Lord of life die Yes Amor de coelo demisit Dominum That Love which brought him down from his throne to his footstool that united the Godhead and Manhood in one Person hath also made these two terms Death and the Lord compatible and fastned the Son of God to the Cross hath exprest it self not onely in Beneficence but also in Patience not onely in Power but also in Humility and is most lively and visible in his Death the true authentick instrument of his Love He that is our Steward to provide for us who supplieth us out of his rich treasur◠who ripeneth the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and the fleece of the flock will also empty himself and pour forth his bloud He who giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls will give up his ghost to give us breath and life And here his love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth the rayes of comfort on his lost creature This Lord cometh not naked but clothed with blessings cometh not empty but with the rich treasuries of heaven cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with troops of promises and blessings Bonitas foecunda sui Goodness is fruitful and generative of it self gaineth by spending it self swelleth by overflowing and is increased by profusion When she poureth forth her self and breatheth forth that sweet exhalation she conveyeth it not poor and naked and solitary but with a troop and authority with ornament and pomp For Love bringeth with it whatsoever Goodness can imagine munera officia gifts and offices doth not onely give us the Lord but giveth us his sufferings his passion his death not onely his death but the virtue and power of it to raise us from the lethargy and death of Sin that we may be quick and active to shew and express it in our selves Olim morbo nunc remedio laboramus The remedy is so wonderful it confoundeth the patient and maketh health it self appear but fabulous Shall the Lord of Life die why may not Man whose breath is in his nostrils be immortal Yes he shall and for this reason Because it pleased the Lord of Life to die We need not adopt one in his place or substitute a creature a phantasm as did Arius and Marcion in his office For he took our sins and he will take the office himself Isa 63.3 he will tread the wine press alone and will admit none with him Nor doth this Humility impair his Majesty but rather exalt it Though he die yet he is the Lord still The Father will tell us that they who denied this for fear were worse then those who denied it out of stomach and the pretense of his honour is more dangerous then perversness For this is to confine and limit this Lord to shorten his hand palos terminales figere to set up bounds and limits against his infinite Love and absolute Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shape and frame him out to their own phansie and indeed to blaspheme him with reverence to take from him his heavenly power and put into his hand a sceptre of reed His Love and his Will quiet all jealousies and answer all arguments whatsoeever It was his will to die and he that resteth in God's Will doth best acknowledge his Majesty For all even Majesty it self doth vail to his Will and is commanded by it What the Lord of life equal to the Father by whom all things were made shall he die Yes quia voluit because he would For as at the Creation he might have made Man as he made other creatures by his Word alone yet would not but wrought him out of the clay and fashioned him with his own hands so in the great work of our Redemption he did not send an Angel one of the Seraphim or Cherubim or any finite creature which he might have done
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
thou beatest them down as a whirlwind carrieth them to heaven but driveth thee back to the pit of destruction Thou makest them the off scouring of the world which will quickly loath vertue in such a dress but thou makest them glorious in the sight of God Thou wreakest thy wrath upon them but treasurest up wrath for thy self Thou spoilest them that is makest them richer thou disgracest them that is makest them more honourable thou tormentest them that is increaseth their joy thou sendest them into their graves that is into heaven An eye of flesh cannot discern this but the eye of faith glorieth in the Martyr and pitieth the murtherer For when he looketh upon those he hath oppressed and pleaseth himself in it So so thus would I have it he doth but subscribe to the sentence which is already past against him and in effect triumpheth in his own damnation Nor can this help him although sometimes it doth comfort him That God hath delivered them into his hand and so make power an argument of justice and good success a sign and mark of a predestinate Saint For God may deliver the soul of his turtle-doves into the hand of the wicked and yet they be as wicked as before Psal 71.11 You know who they were that cryed God hath forsaken him God may deliver the Jews into captivity and yet the Heathen be aliens still He doth not onely deliver up Sihon King of the Amorites and Og King of Basan but his own people into his enemies hands For it is one thing what God is willing to permit another what he is willing should be done He permitteth all the murthers and massacres and tragedies that have been acted in the world but his permitting them is no Plaudite no approbation of them He permitteth all the sin that hath or shall be committed from Adam the first man to him that shall stand last upon earth and yet that conclusion standeth firm The wages of sin is death Rom. 8.32 He delivered up his Son for us all and yet his bloud was upon those Jews that spilt it Neither is good success or ill success an argument of God's favour or dislike Lazarus was not in Abraham's bosome onely because he was poor nor Dives in hell for that he was rich Josiah did not fall to hell when he fell in battel nor was Pharaoh-Necho a Saint because he slew him But yet I should sooner suspect prosperity then adversity because it hath slain so many fools Blessed are they that are persecuted the words are plain But where do we read Blessed are they that prosper in their wayes Go and prosper and that shall be a sign to thee that thou art highly beloved Let this either in terms or by deduction be produced out of Scripture and I will straight subscribe to a conclusion which may canonize Infidels and Turks Cain and Nimrod and those brethren in evil Judas and the Jews and the Devil himself who too often prevaileth in his wiles and enterprizes and leadeth us captive according to his will Then that of Christ will be true in this sense also That Publicans and sinners harlots and men of Belial shall enter the kingdom of heaven and the children of the kingdom the poor unfortunate children shall be shut out I am weary of this argument And I hope there is none amongst us which will nourish such a serpent in his bosom which may at first flatter him shew him an apple something that is fair to look upon but at last sting him to death an opinion which may drive him upon any pricks on those sins which the righteous do tremble to think of an opinion which may waste and consume a soul and make it like to the souls of the beasts that perish I had rather turn my speech to them that suffer and so conclude and exhort them to humility and patience under the cross For Patience is one of the fairest branches of Righteousness the proper effect of Faith Rom. 5.3 for which we suffer all things and by which we suffer nothing which maketh tribulation joyful the cross a crown and persecution a blessing Adam brought in Labour and Abel Patience Sin invented the one and Righteousness the other Phil. 4.13 And by the virtue of it S. Paul professeth he could do and suffer all things And this the omnipotency of Patience is demonstratively true For if the eye of our faith were as clear as the reward is glorious we should not be either dazled with the smile and beauty of a flattering nor dismayed with the terrour of a black temptation but pleasure would be vanity and persecution a crown For what is this span of misery to bliss without end Persecution strippeth thee and Persecution clotheth thee Persecution beateth at the door of life to let out thy soul and it openeth the gates of heaven to place it there It is that violence which taketh the Kingdom of heaven He that is persecuted for righteousness beleaguereth Heaven undermineth it payeth down a price for it his sufferings Which though they be but momentany and too light yet are accepted as full weight To sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give saith Christ Vendit Matth. 20.23 non intuitu consanguinitatis dat He doth not give it saith Augustine for relation and kindreds sake but he selleth it Coelum venale Deúsque see Heaven is set at a price and the price is thy bloud As there is a covenant so there is a contract a bargain between God and man and the covenant is a contract My son saith God give me thy heart Give me a contrite heart a bleeding heart a broken heart and thou shalt have for grief joy for labour rest for dishonour glory for ignominy honour for death life and for poverty a Kingdom For Persecution which is but momentany advanceth to a Kingdom which shall have no end The Thirteenth SERMON PHILIPP III. 10 11. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead THat I may know him carrieth but an imperfect sense and sendeth us back to that which goeth before Where we shall find our blessed Apostle at his holy Arithmetick at a strict computation ad digitos calculos cogentem casting up his accounts as it were at his fingers ends He beginneth with Circumcision ver 2. proceedeth to the Law ver 5. riseth up to the Righteousness which is in the Law ver 6. He taketh in his Stock his Tribe his Sect his Zele his unblameable Course of life And that his Audite may be exact ver 8. he bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things These be the Particulars But what is the Sum Circumcision the Law Zele Righteousness All things a large account and which is strange the sum is Nothing And will Nothing make a sum
narrow understandings could receive it would not add one hair to our stature and growth in grace That Christ is God and Man that the two Natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediatour is enough for thee to know and to raise thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ This is Christ and that is Christ Thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half-Christ a created Christ a phansied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poor and miserable comfort of conjecture in that which so far as it concerneth us is so plain easie to be known Do thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee doth thy wit and thy reason forsake thee and leave thee in thy search at a loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr Thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of all scruples and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and express word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen immense yet circumscribed Immortal yet dying the Lord of life yet crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his Love and call it thy Reverence Why should thoughts arise in thy heart His Power is not the less because his Mercy is great nor doth his infinite Love shadow or eclipse his Majesty For see he counteth it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any loss by being thus like us Our Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be so is the wonder and extasie of our joy That he would descend is mercy but that he must descend is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding terms words of duty Had the Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the Debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it behoved as much But to put a Debet upon the Son of God and make it a beseeming thing for him to become flesh to be made like unto us is as if one should set a Rubie in clay a Diamond in brass a Chrysolith in baser metall and say they are placed well there as if one should worry the lambs for the woolf or take the master by the throat for the debt of a Prodigal and with an Opertet say it should be so To give a gift and call it a Debt is not our usual language On earth it is not but in heaven it is the proper dialect fixed in capital letters on the Mercy-seat It is the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme SALVATOR NATVS A Saviour is born And if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship DEBET he must it behoveth him he is as deeply engaged as the party whose Surety he is And oh our numberless accounts that engaged God! Oh our prodigality that made him here come sub ratione debiti Adam had brought God in debt to death to Satan to his own Justice and God in Justice did ow us all to the Grave and to Hell Therefore if he will have us if he will bring his children unto glory he must pay down a price for us Heb. 2.14 he must take us out of his hands who hath the power of death if he will have his own inheritance he must purchase it And let us look on the aptness of the means and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men 1 Cor. 1.26 and this weakness of God is stronger than men and that the Debuit is right set For medio exsistente conjunguntur extrema If you will have extremes meet you must have a middle line to draw them together And behold here they meet and are made one The proprieties of either Nature being entire yet meet and concentre as it were in one Person Majesty putteth on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality By the one our Saviour dyeth for us by the other he â—â—seth again By the one he suffereth as Man by the other he conquereth as God by both he perfecteth and consummateth the great work of our Redemption This Debuit reacheth home to each part of the Text First to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessel when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit ought to repair and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life Qui fecit nos debuit reficere Our Creation and Salvation must be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheel Next we may set the debuit upon Christ's Person He is media Persona a middle Person the office therefore will best fit him even the office of Mediatour Further as he is the Son of God and the Image of his Father most proper it may seem for him to repair that Image which was defaced and well near lost in us We had not onely blemished God's Image but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coyn For righteousness there was sin for purity pollution for beauty deformity for rectitude perversness for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which God might know us Venit Filius ut iterum signet The Son cometh and with his blood reviveth the first character marketh us with his own signature imprinteth the graces of God upon us maketh us current money and that his Father may know us and not cast us off for refuse silver sheweth him his face Indeed the Father and the holy Ghost dignified the Flesh but took it not filled it with their Majesty but not with their Persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not Incarnate As three may weave a garment and but one wear it as Hugo And as in Musick saith St.
life more then our soul are unnatural and strangers to us and we unto them and we must turn our selves about and look towards something else which may meet and fill our desires which here find nothing to stay but every thing to enlarge them Here are Delights that vanish and then shew their foulest side here are Riches that make us poor and Honour that maketh us slaves here are nothing but phantasms and apparitions which will never fill us but feed the very hunger of our souls and increase it There in our country at our journeyes end there is fulness of joy which alone can satisfie this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and infinite appetite Psal 16.11 Therefore the Earth is but our stage to walk through Heaven is our proper place and country and to this we are bound Here we are but strangers Si velimus accolae si nolimus accolae If we will we may be strangers and if we will not but love to dwell and stay here yet we shall be strangers whether we will or no. And as we are so our abode here is that of strangers in another country as of those who are ever in their way and moving forwards never standing still but striving to go out of it whose whole motion and progress is a leaving it behind them When Adam was Lord of all the world he was but a stranger in it For God made him naked in Paradise and withall gave him no sense of his nakedness And the reason is given by S. Basil That Man might not be distracted and called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from meditation upon God that the care of his flesh might not steal away his mind from him that made him So that Adam was made a stranger when he was made the sole Emperour of the world But when he was fallen God clotheth him with skins ut illum veluti morte quadam indueret saith Proclus in Epiphanius that he might clothe him as it were with Death it self which was represented unto him in the skins of dead beasts that he might alwaies carry about with him the remembrance of it the most suitable garment that a stranger or pilgrime can wear A stranger cometh not to stay long in a place he is here as we say to day and gone to morrow so is Man Psal 9.25 4.2 Psal 90.9 He flyeth as a Post or rather as a shadow and continueth not at an end as soon as a tale that is told and not so long remembred There may be many errours in his way but there is none in his end Which way soever he travelleth wheresoever he pitcheth his tent his journeyes end is the Grave De Anim◠c. 50. Hoc stipulata est Dei vox hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur saith Tertullian This is the stipulation and bargain which God hath made with every soul By being born we made a promise and obliged our selves to dye We are bound in a sure obligation and received our souls upon condition to resign them pure and unspotted of the world James 1.27 Would you know when we pay this debt We begin with our first breath and are paying it till we breathe out our last Hoc quod loquor indè est Whilest I speak and you hear we are paying part of the sum and whether this be our last payment we cannot tell I am dying whilest I am speaking Every breath I fetch to preserve life is a part taken from my life I am in a manner entombed already and every place I breathe in is a grave for in every place I moulder and consume away in every place I draw nearer and nearer to putrefaction Suet. vit Claud Cas We may say as those mariners who were to fight and dye did as they said by Claudius the Emporour Morituri te salutant O Emperour dying men salute thee So we pass by and salute one another not so much as living but as dying men Whilest I say Good morrow I am nearer to my end and he to whom I wisht it is nearer to his One dying man blesseth and one dying man persecuteth another that is one Pilgrime robbeth another In what relation soever we stand either as Kings or Subjects Masters or Servants Fathers or Children we are all Morituri but dying men all but strangers and pilgrimes Comfort thou thy self then thou oppressed innocent It was a dying man that put the yoke about thy neck And why dost thou boast in mischief Psal 52.1 thou man of power In the midst of all thy triumphs and glories thou art but a dying man He that kisseth thy lips is but a dying man and he that striketh thee on the face is but a dying man The whole world is but a Colony every age new planted with dying men with pilgrimes and strangers This you will say is a common theme and argument and indeed so it is for what more common then Death And yet as common as it is I know no lessen so much forgotten as this For who almost considereth how he came into the world or how he shall go out of it Ask the wanton the Mammonist the Ambitious of their minute and they will call it Eternity Sol iste dies nos decipit c. The present the present time that deceiveth us and we draw that out to a lasting perpetuity which is past whilst we think on it Such a bewitching power hath the Love of the world to make our minute eternity and eternity nothing and the day of our death as hard and difficult to our faith as our resurrection For though day unto day uttereth knowledge though the Preacher open his mouth Psal 19.2 and the Grave open hers and we every day see so many pilgrimes falling in though they who have been dead long ago and they who now dye speak unto us yet we can hardly be induced to believe that we are strangers but embrace the world and rivet our selves into it as if we should never part we deny that which we cannot deny resolve on that which we cannot think will not be perswaded of that which we do believe or believe not that which we confess but place Immortality upon our mortal and so live as if we should never dye And can we who thus every day enlarge our thoughts and hopes Psal 90.10 and let them out at length beyond our threescore years and ten measuring out Lordships building of palaces anticipating pleasures and honours creating that which will never have a being and yet delighting in it as if we now had it in possession can vve vvho love the world as that friend from which we would never part but lose all others for it can we who would have this to be the world without end and have scarce one thought left to reach at that which is so and to come can we who love and admire and pride our selves in nothing more in nothing else say or think we are pilgrimes and