him Psal 81.11 as with David in a Dilatation and then in a Repletion God enlarged him and then he filled him He gave him a large and a comprehensive understanding and with it A publique heart And such as perchance in his way of education and in our narrow and contracted-times in which every man determines himselfe in himselfe and scarce looks farther it would be hard to finde many Examples of such largenesse You have I thinke a phrase of Driving a Trade And you have I know a practise of Driving away Trade by other use of money And you have lost a man that drove a great Trade the right way in making the best use of our home-commodity To fetch in Wine and Spice and Silke is but a drawing of Trade The right driving of trade is to vent our owne outward And yet for the drawing in of that which might justly seeme most behoofefull that is of Arts and Manufactures to be imployed upon our owne Commodity within the Kingdome he did his part diligently at least if not vehemently if not passionately This City is a great Theater and he Acted great and various parts in it And all well And when he went higher as he was often heard in Parliaments at Councell tables and in more private accesses to the late King of ever blessed memory as for that comprehension of those businesses which he pretended to understand no man doubts for no man lacks arguments and evidences of his ability therein So for his manner of expressing his intentions and digesting and uttering his purposes I have sometimes heard the greatest Master of Language and Judgement which these times or any other did or doe or shall give that good and great King of ours say of him That he never heard any man of his breeding handle businesses more rationally more pertinently more elegantly more perswasively And when his purpose was to do a grace to a Preacher of very good abilities and good note in his owne Chappell I have heard him say that his language and accent and manner of delivering himselfe was like this man This man hath God accompanied all his life and by performance thereof seemes to have made that Covenant with him which he made to Abraham Multiplicabote vehementer Gen. 17.2 I will multiply thee exceedingly He multiplied his estate so as was fit to endow many and great Children and he multiplied his Children so both in their number and in their quality as they were fit to receive a great Estate God was with him all the way In a Pillar of Fire in the brightnesse of prosperity and in the Pillar of Clouds too in many darke and sad and heavy crosses So great a Ship required a great Ballast So many blessings many crosses And he had them and sailed on his course the steadier for them The Cloud as well as the Fire was a Pillar to him His crosses as well as his blessings established his assurance in God And so in all the course of his life The Lord was here and therefore our Brother is not dead not dead in the evidences and testimonies of life for he whom the world hath just cause to celebrate for things done when he was alive is alive still in their celebration The Lord was here that is with him at his death too In morte He was served with the Processe here in the City but his cause was heard in the Country Here he sickned There he languished and dyed there In his sicknesse there those that assisted him are witnesses of his many expressings of a religious a constant heart towards God and of his pious joyning with them even in the holy declaration of kneeling then when they in favour of his weakenesse would disswade him from kneeling I must not defraud him of this testimony froÌây selfe that into this place where we are now met I have observed him to enter with much reverence compose himselfe in this place with much declaration of devotion And truly it is that reverence which those persons who are of the same ranke that he was in the City that reverence that they use in this place when they come hither is that that makes us who have now the administration of this Quire glad that our Predecessors but a very few yeares before our time and not before all our times neither admitted these Honourable and worshipfull Persons of this City to sit in this Quire so as they do upon Sundayes The Church receives an honour in it But the honour is more in their reverence then in their presence though in that too And they receive an honour and an ease in it and therefore they do piously towards God and prudently for themselves and gratefully towards us in giving us by their reverent comportment here so just occasion of continuing that honour and that ease to them here which to lesse reverend and unrespective persons we should be lesse willing to doe To returne to him in his sicknesse He had but one dayes labour and all the rest were Sabbaths one day in his sicknesse he converted to businesse Thus He called his family and friends together Thankfully he acknowledged Gods manifold blessings and his owne sins as penitently And then to those who were to have the disposing of his estate joyntly with his Children he recommended his servants and the poore and the Hospitals and the Prisons which according to his purpose have beene all taken into consideration And after this which was his Valediction to the world he seemed alwaies loath to returne to any worldly businesse His last Commandement to Wife and Children was Christs last commandement to his Spouse the Church in the Apostles To love one another He blest them and the Estate devolved upon them unto them And by Gods grace shall prove as true a Prophet to them in that blessing as he was to himselfe when in entring his last bed two dayes before his Death he said Help me off with my earthly habit let me go to my last bed Where in the second night after he said Little know ye what paine I feele this night yet I know I shall have joy in the morning And in that morning he dyed The forme in which he implored his Saviour was evermore towards his end this Christ Iesus which dyed on the Crosse forgive me my sins He have mercy upon me And his last and dying words were the repetition of the name of Jesus And when he had not strength to utter that name distinctly and perfectly they might heare it from within him as from a man a far off even then when his hollow and remote naming of Jesus was rather a certifying of them that he was with his Jesus then a prayer that he might come to him And so The Lord was here here with him in his Death and because the Lord was here our Brother is not dead not dead in the eyes and eares of God for as the blood of Abel
pleasure of God In which first part you have also had the qualification of the person that came this day to establish Redemption for us that in Him there was fulnesse infinite capacity and infinite infusion and all fulnesse defective in nothing impassible and yet passible perfit God and perfit man and this fulnesse dwelling in Him in Him as he is Head of the Church that is visible sensible meanes of salvation to every soule in his Church And so we passe to our second part from this Qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell to the Pacification it selfe for which it pleased the Father to doe all this that Peace might be made through the bloud of his Crosse In this Part St. Chrysostome hath made our steps our branches It is much sayes he 2 Part. that God would admit any peace magis per sanguinem more that for peace he should require effusion of bloud magis quod per ejus more that it must be His bloud his that was injured his that was to triumph Et adhuc magis quod per sanguinem Crucis ejus That it must be by the bloud of his Crosse his heart bloud his death and yet this was the case He made Peace through the bloud of his Crosse There was then a warre before and a heavy warre for the Lord of hosts was our enemy and what can all our musters come to Bellum ante if the Lord of Hosts of all Hosts have raised his forces against us There was a heavy war denounced in the Inimicitias ponam when God raised a warre betweene the Devill Gen. 3.15 and us For if we could consider God to stand neutrall in that warre and meddle with neither side yet we were in a desperate case to be put to fight against Powers and Principalities against the Devill How much more when God the Lord of Hosts is the Lord even of that Host too when God presses the Devill and makes the Devill his Soldier to fight his battles and directs his arrowes and his bullets and makes his approaches and his attempts effectuall upon us That which is fallen upon the Jews now Basil for their sinne against Christ that there is not in all the world a Soldier of their race not a Jew in the world that beares armes is true of all mankinde for their sin against God there is not a Soldier amongst them able to hurt his spirituall enemy or defend himselfe It is a strange warre where there are not two sides and yet that is our case for God uses the Devill against us and the Devill uses us against one another nay he uses every one of us against our selves so that God and the Devill and we are all in one Army and all for our destruction we have a warre and yet there is but one Army and we onely are the Countrey that is fed upon and wasted From God to the Devill we have not one friend and yet as though we lacked enemies we fight with one another in inhumane Duels Vbi morimur homicidae Ad milites Templa Ser. 1. ãâã as St. Bernard expresses it powerfully and elegantly that in those Duels and Combats he that is murdered dyes a murderer because he would have beene one Occisor laethaliter peccat occisus aeternaliter perit He that comes alive out of the field comes a dead man because he comes a deadly sinner and he that remaines dead in the field is gone into an everlasting death So that by this inhumane effusion of one anothers bloud we maintaine a warre against God himselfe and we provoke him to that which he expresses in Esay My sword shall be bathed in heaven Inebriabitur sanguine Esay 34.5 The sword of the Lord shall be made drunk with bloud Their land shall be soaked with bloud and their dust made fat with fatnesse The same quarrell which God hath against particular men and particular Nations for particular sinnes God hath against all Mankinde for Adams sin And there is the warre But what is the peace and how are we included in that That is our second and next disquisition That peace might be made A man must not presently think himselfe included in this peace Pax. because he feeles no effects of this warre If God draw none of his swords of warre or famine or pestilence upon thee no outward warre If God raise not a rebellion in thy selfe nor fight against thee with thine owne affections in colluctations betweene the flesh and the spirit The warre may last Gellius for all this Induciarum tempore bellum manet licet pugna cesset Though there be no blow striken the warre remaines in the time of Truce But thy case is not so good here is no Truce no cessation but a continuall preparation to a fiercer warre All this while that thou enjoyest this imaginary security the Enemy digges insensibly under ground all this while he undermines thee and will blow thee up at last more irrecoverably then if he had battered thee with outward calamities all that time So any State may be abused with a false peace present or with a fruitlesse expectation of a future peace But in this text there is true peace and peace already made present peace and and safe peace Bernard Pax non promissa sed missa sayes St. Bernard in his musicall and harmonious cadences not promised but already sent non dilata sed data not treated but concluded Non prophetata sed praesentata not prophesied but actually established There is the presentnesse thereof And then made by him who lacked nothing for the making of a safe peace Esay 9.6 For after his Names of Counsellor and of the Mighty God he is called for the consummation of all princeps pacis A Counsellor There is his wisdome A mighty God There is his Power and this Counsellor This Mighty God this wise and this powerfull Prince hath undertaken to make our peace But how that is next per sanguinem Peace being made by bloud Is effusion of bloud the way of peace Per sanguinem effusion of bloud may make them from whom bloud is so abundantly drawne glad of peace because they are thereby reduced to a weaknesse But in our warres such a weaknesse puts us farther off from peace and puts more fiercenesse in the Enemy But here mercy and truth are met together God would be true to his owne Justice bloud was forfeited and he would have bloud and God would be mercifull to us he would make us the stronger by drawing bloud and by drawing our best bloud Gen. 34. the bloud of Christ Jesus Simeon and Levi when they meditated their revenge for the rape committed upon their sister when they pretended peace yet they required a little bloud They would have the Sichemites circumcised but when they had opened a veyne they made them bleed to death when they were under
and he from a Rabbi of the Jews Aben Ezra takes this to be an adjuration of the Earth as Gregory does but not as Gregory does in the person of Christ but of Iob himselfe That Iob adjures the earth not to cover his blood that is not to cover the shedding of his blood not to conspire with the malice of his enemies so much as to deny him buriall when he was dead that they which trod him downe alive might not triumph over him after his death or conclude that God did certainly forsake him alive since he continued these declarations against him when he was dead And this also may have good use but yet it is too narrow and too shallow to bee the sense of this phrase this elegancy this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in the mouth of Iob. S. Chrysostome I think was the first that gave light to the sense of this place He saies that such men as are as they thinke over-punished have naturally a desire that the world knew their faults that so by comparing their faults with their punishments there might arise some pitty and commiseration of their state And surely this that Chrysostome sayes is true and naturall for if two men were to be executed together by one kinde of death the one for stealing a Sheep perchance in hunger the other for killing his Father certainly he that had but stollen the Sheep would be sorry the world should think their cases alike or that he had killed a Father too And in such an affection Iob sayes I am so far from being guilty of those things that are imputed to me that I would be content that all that ever I have done were knowne to all the world This light which S. Chrysost gave to this place shined not out I think till the Reformation for I have not observed any Author between Chrysostome and the Reformation that hath taken knowledge of this interpretation nor any of the Reformation as from him from Chrysostome But since our Authors of the Reformation have somewhat generally pursued that sense Calvin hath done so and so Tremellius and so Piscator and many many more now one Author of the Romane Church one as curious and diligent in interpreting obscure places of Scripture as any amongst them and then more bold and confident in departing from their vulgar and frivolous and impertinent interpretations of Scriptures then any amongst them the Capuchin Bolduc hath also pursued that sense That sense is that in this adjuration or imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood Blood is not literally bodily blood but spirituall blood the blood of the soule exhausted by many and hainous sins such as they insimulated Iob of For in this signification is that word Blood often taken in the Scriptures When God sayes when you stretch forth your hands Esay 1.15 Psal 51.14 they are full of blood there blood is all manner of rapine of oppression of concussion of violence When David prayes to be delivered from blood-guiltinesse it is not intended onely of an actuall shedding of blood for it is in the Originall à sanguinibus in the plurall other crimes then the actuall shedding of blood are bloody crimes Ezech 7.23 Therefore sayes one Prophet the land is full of bloody crimes And another blood toucheth blood Hosea 4.2 whom the Chalde Paraprase expresses aright Aggregant peccata peccatis blood toucheth blood when sin induces sin Which place of Hosea S. Gregory interprets too then blood touches blood cum ante oculos Dei adjunctis peccatis cruentatur anima Then God sees a soule in her blood when she wounds and wounds her selfe againe with variation of divers or iteration of the same sins This then being thus established that blood in this Text is the blood of the soule exhausted by sin for every sin is an incision of the soule a Lancination a Phlebotomy a letting of the soule blood and then a delight in sin is a going with open veines into a warme bath and bleeding to death This will be the force of Iobs Admiration or Imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood I am content to stand as naked now as I shall doe at the day of Judgement when all men shall see all mens actions I desire no disguise I deny I excuse I extenuate nothing that ever I did I would mine enemies knew my worst that they might study some other reason of Gods thus proceeding with me then those hainous sinnes which from these afflictions they will necessarily conclude against me But had Iob been able to have stood out this triall Was Iob so innocent as that he need not care though all the world knew all Perchance there may have been some excesse some inordinatenesse in his manner of his expressing it we cannot excuse the vehemence of some holy men in such expressions We cannot say that there was no excesse in Moses his Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy booke or that there was no excesse in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he wished to be accursed to be separated from Christ for his brethren But for Iob we shall not need this excuse for either we may restraine his words to those sins which they imputed to him and then they have but the nature of that protestation which David made so often to God Iudge me O Lord according to my righteousnesse according to mine innocency according to the cleannesse of my hands which was not spoken by David simply but respectively not of all his sins but of those which Saul pursued him for Or if we enlarge Iobs words generally to all his sins we must consider them to be spoken after his repentance and reconciliation to God thereupon If they knew may Iob have said how it stood between God and my soule how earnestly I have repented how fully he hath forgiven they would never say these afflictions proceeded from those sins And truly so may I so may every soule say that is rectified refreshed restored re-established by the seales of Gods pardon and his mercy so the world would take knowledge of the consequences of my sins as well as of the sins themselves and read my leafes on both sides and heare the second part of my story as well as the first so the world would look upon my temporall calamities the bodily sicknesses and the penuriousnesse of my fortune contracted by my sins and upon my spirituall calamities dejections of spirit sadnesse of heart declinations towards a diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God and then when the world sees me in this agony and bloody sweat in this agony and bloody sweat would also see the Angels of heaven ministring comforts unto me so they would consider me in my Peccavi and God in his Transtulit Me in my earnest Confessions God in his powerfull Absolutions Me drawne out of one Sea of blood the blood of mine owne soule and cast into another Sea the
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
know and of those whom we did know how few did we care much for In Heaven we shall have Communion of Joy and Glory with all Aug. alwaies Vbi non intrat inimicus nec amicus exit Where never any man shall come in that loves us not nor go from us that does Beloved I thinke you could be content to heare I could be content to speake of this Resurrection our glorious state by the low way of the grave till God by that gate of earth let us in at the other of precious Stones And blessed and holy is he who in a rectified conscience desires that resurrection now But we shall not depart far from this consideration by departing into our last branch or conclusion That this first Resurrection may also be understood to be the first riser Christ Jesus and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in that first Resurrection This first Resurrection is then without any detorting 4 Part. any violence very appliable to Christ himself who was Primitiae dormientium in that that action That he rosc again he is become sayes the Apostle the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 Hier. in Mat. 27.52 He did rise and rise first others rose with him none before him for S. Hierome taking the words as he finds them in that Euangelist makes this note That though the graves were opened at the instant of Christs death death was overcome the City opened the gates yet the bodies did not rise till after Christs Resurrection For for such Resurrections as are spoken of That women received their dead raised to life again Heb. 11.35 and such as are recorded in the old and new Testament they were all unperfect and temporary resurrections such as S. Hierome sayes of them all Resurgebant iterum morituri They were but reprieved not pardoned Hier. They had a Resurrection to life but yet a Resurrection to another death Christ is the first Resurrection others were raised but he only rose they by a forraine and extrinsique he by his owne power But we call him not the first in that respect onely for so he was not onely the first but the onely he alone arose by his owne power but with relation to all our future Resurrections he is the first Resurrection First If Christ be not raised your faith is in vaine 1 Cor. 15.17 saies the Apostle You have a vaine faith if you beleeve in a dead man He might be true Man though he remained in death but it concernes you to beleeve that he was the Son of God too And he was declared to be the Son of God Rom. 11.4 by the Resurrection from the dead That was the declaration of himselfe his Justification he was justified by the Spirit when he was proved to be God by raising himselfe But thus our Justification is also in his Resurrection For He was raised from the dead for our Iustification how for ours Rom. 4. ult That we should be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection What is that that he hath told us before Our Resurrection in Christ is that we should walke in newnesse of life Rom. 6.4 So that then Christ is the first Resurrection first Efficiently the onely cause of his owne Resurrection First Meritoriously the onely cause of our Resurrection first Exemplarily the onely patterne how we should rise and how we should walke when we are up and therefore Blessed and happy are we if we referre all our resurrections to this first Resurrection Christ Jesus For as Iob said of Comforters so miserable Resurrections are they all without him If therefore thou need and seeke this first Resurrection in the first acceptation a Resurrection from persecutions and calamities as they oppresse thee here have thy recourse to him to Christ Remember that at the death of Christ there were earthquakes the whole earth trembled There were rendings of the Temple Schismes Convulsions distractions in the Church will be But then the graves opened in the midst of those commotions Then when thou thinkest thy selfe swallowed and buried in affliction as the Angell did his Christ Jesus shall remove thy grave stone and give thee a resurrection but if thou thinke to remove it by thine owne wit thine owne power or the favour of potent Friends Digitus Dei non est hic The hand of God is not in all this and the stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and thou shalt have no part in this first Resurrection If thou need and seek this first resurrection in the second acceptation from the fearfull death of hainous sin have thy recourse to him to Christ Jesus remember the waight of the sins that lay upon him All thy sins and all thy Fathers and all thy childrens sins all those sins that did induce the first flood and shall induce the last fire upon this world All those sins which that we might take example by them to scape them are recorded and which lest we should take example by them to imitate them are left unrecorded all sins of all ages all sexes all places al times all callings sins heavy in their substance sins aggravated by their circumstances all kinds of sins and all particular sins of every kind were upon him upon Christ Jesus and yet he raised his holy Head his royall Head though under thornes yet crowned with those thornes and triumphed in this first Resurrection and his body was not left in the Grave nor his soule in Hell Christs first tongue was a tongue that might be heard He spoke to the Shepheards by Angels His second tongue was a Star a tongue which might be seene He spoke to the Wisemen of the East by that Hearken after him these two waies As he speakes to thine eare and to thy soul by it in the preaching of his Word as he speakes to thine eye and so to thy soule by that in the exhibiting of his Sacraments And thou shalt have thy part in this first Resurrection But if thou thinke to overcome this death this sense of sin by diversions by worldly delights by mirth and musique and society or by good works with a confidence of merit in them or with a relation to God himselfe but not as God hath manifested himselfe to thee not in Christ Jesus The stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and then hast thou no part in this first Resurrection If thou desire this first Resurrection in the third acceptation as S. Paul did To be dissolved and to be with Christ go Christs way to that also He desired that glory that thou doest and he could have laid down his soul when he would but he staid his houre sayes the Gospel He could have ascended immediatly immediatly in time yet he staid to descend into hell first and he could have ascended immediatly of himself by going up yet he staid till he was taken up Thou hast
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâson hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
First then 1 Part. for that Blessednesse which we need not be afraid nor abstaine from calling the Recompence the Reward the Retribution of the faithfull for as we consider Death to grow out of Disobedience and Life out of Obedience to the Law as properly as Death is the wages of sin Life is the wages of Righteousnesse If I be asked what it is wherein this Recompence this Reward this Retribution consists if I must be put to my Speciall Plea I must say it is in that of the Apostle Omnia cooperantur in bonum That nothing can befall the faithfull that does not conduce to his good and advance his happinesse For he shall not onely find S. Pauls Mori lucrum That he shall be the better for dying if he must dye but he shall find S. Augustines Vtile cadere He shall be the better for sinning if he have sinned So the better as that by a repentance after that sin hee shall find himselfe established in a neerer and safer distance with God then he was in that security which he had before that sin But the Title and the Plea of the faithfull to this Recompence extends farther then so It is not onely that nothing how evill soever in the nature thereof shall be evill to them but that all that is Good is theirs properly theirs Psal 34.9 theirs peculiarly There is no want to them that fear the Lord sayes David The young Lions doe lack and suffer hunger but they that seeke the Lord shall not want any good thing The Infidel hath no pretence upon the next world none at all No nor so cleare a Title to any thing in this world but that we dispute in the Schoole whether Infidels have any true dominion any true proprietie in any thing which they possesse here And whether there be not an inherent right in the Christians to plant Christianity in any part of the Dominions of the Infidels and consequently to despoile them even of their possession if they oppose such Plantations so established and such propagations of the Christian Religion For though we may not begin at the dispossessing and displanting of the native and naturall Inhabitant for so we proceed but as men against men and upon such equall termes we have no right to take any mens possessions from them yet when pursuing that Right which resides in the Christian we have established such a Plantation if they supplant that we may supplant them say our Schooles and our Casuists For in that case we proceed not as men against men not by Gods Common Law which is equall to all men that is the Law of Nature but we proceed by his higher Law by his Prerogative as Christians against Infidels and then it is God that proceeds against them by men and not those men of themselves to serve their owne Ambitions or their other secular ends 1 Cor. 3.20 All things are yours saies the Apostle By what Right You are Christs saies he And Christ is Gods Thus is a Title convayed to us All things are Gods God hath put all things under Christs feete And he under ours as we are Christians And then as the generall profession of Christ entitles us to a generall Title of the world for the World belongs to the Faithfull and Christians as Christians and no more are Fideles Faithfull in respect of Infidels so those Christians that come to that more particular more active more operative faith which the Apostle speaks of in all this Chapter come also to a more particular reward and recompence and retribution at Gods hands God does not onely give them the naturall blessings of this World to which they have an inherent right as they are generall Christians but as they are thus faithfull Christians he gives them supernaturall blessings he enlarges himselfe even to Miracles in their behalfe Which is a second consideration First God opens himselfe in nature and temporall blessings to the generall Christian but to the Faithfull in Grace exalted even to the height of Miracle In this we consider first That there is nothing dearer to God then a Miracle Miracula There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once Nay the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles then the extraordinary which we admire most if they were done but once The standing still of the Sun for Iosuahs use was not in it selfe so wonderfull a thing as that so vast and immense a body as the Sun should run so many miles in a minute The motion of the Sun were a greater wonder then the standing still if all were to begin againe And onely the daily doing takes off the admiration But then God having as it were concluded himself in a course of nature and written downe in the booke of Creatures Thus and thus all things shall be carried though he glorifie himselfe sometimes in doing a miracle yet there is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world and a tacite reprehension of them who require or who need miracles Therefore hath God reserved to himselfe the power of Miracles as a Prerogative For the devill does no miracles the devill and his instruments doe but hasten Nature or hinder nature antedate Nature or postdate Nature bring things sooner to passe or retarde them And howsoever they pretend to oppose nature yet still it is but upon nature and but by naturall meanes that they worke onely God shakes the whole frame of Nature in pieces and in a miracle proceeds so as if there were no Creation yet accomplished no course of Nature yet established Facit mirabilia magnasolus saies David Psal 136.4 There are Mirabilia parva some lesser wonders that the devill and his Instruments Pharaohs Sorcerers can do But when it comes to Mirabilia magna Great wonders so great as that they amount to the nature of a Miracle Facit solus God and God onely does them And amongst these and amongst the greatest of these is the raising of the Dead and therefore we make it a particular consideration the extraordinary Joy in that case when Women received their dead raised to life againe Wee know the dishonour and the infamy that lay upon barrennesse among the Jews Mortui how wives deplored and lamented that When God is pleased to take away that impediment of barrennesse and to give children we know the misery and desolation of orbity when Parents are deprived of those children by death And by the measure of that sorrow which follows barrennesse or orbitie we may proportion that joy which accompanies Gods miraculous blessings when Women receive their dead naised to life againe In all the secular and prophane Writers in the world in the whole bodie of Story you shall not finde such an expressing of the misery of a famine as that of the Holy
Reddiderunt not Acceperunt By faith They that is the Prophets restored the dead not By faith They that is the mothers received their dead But God forbid that naturall affections even in an exaltation and vehement expressing thereof should be thought to destroy faith God forbid that I should conclude an extermination of faith in Moses Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Book or in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he desired to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should or in Iob or in Ieremy or in Ionas when they expostulate and chide with God himself out of a wearinesse of their lives or in the Lord of Life himself Christ Jesus when he came to an Vt quid dereliquisti To an apprehension that God had forsaken him upon the Crosse God that could restore her cold childe could keep his childe her faith alive in those hot embers of Passion So God did But he did it thus The childe was taken from the mothers warm and soft bosome and carried to the Prophets hard and cold bed Beloved we die in our delicacies and revive not but in afflictions In abundancies the blow of death meets us and the breath of life in misery and tribulation God puts himself to the cost of one of his greatest Miracles for her Faith He raises her childe to life And then he makes up his own work he continues with that childe and makes him a good man There are men whom even Miracles will not improve but this childe we will not dispute it Proââm in Ionam but accept it from S. Ierome who relates it became a Prophet It was that very Ionas whom God imployed to Ninive in which Service he gave some signes whose Son he was and how much of his mothers passion he inherited in his vehement expostulations with God Be this then our doctrinall instruction for this first example the Widow of Zareptha first that God thinks nothing too deare for his faithfull Children not his great Treasure not his Miracles And then God preserves this faith of theirs in contemplation of which only he bestows this Treasure this Miracle in the midst of the stormes of naturall affections and the tempest of distempered passions and then lastly that he proceeds and goes on in his own goodnesse Here he makes a Carkasse a Man and then that man a Prophet Every day he makes a dead soul a soul again and then that soul a Saint The other example in this point is that Shunamite 2 Reg. 4. whose dead son Elisha restored to life In the beginning of that Chapter you heare of another Widow A certaine woman of the wives of the sons of the Prophets cryed unto Elisha Thy servant my husband is dead And truly a Widow of one of the sons of the Prophets a Church-mans Widow was like enough to be poore enough And yet the Prophet doth not turne upon that way either to restore her dead husband or to provide her another husband but onely enquires how she was left and finding her in poore estate and in debt provides her meanes to pay her debts and to bring up her children and to that purpose procures a miracle from God in the abundant increase of her oyle but he troubles not God for her old or for a new husband But our example to which the Apostle in our Text referres himselfe is not this Widow in the beginning but that Mother in the body of the Chapter who having by Elisha's prayers obtained a Son of God after she was past hope and that Son being dead in her lap in her also as in the former example we may consider how Passion and Faith may consist together She asks her husband leave V. 22. That she might run to the Prophet her zeale her passionate zeale hastned her she would run but not without her husbands leave As S. Ierome forbids a Lady to suffer her daughter to goe to what Churches she would so may there be indiscretion at least to suffer wives to goe to what meetings though holy Convocations they will she does not harbour in her house a person dangerous to the Publike State or to her husbands private state nor a person likely to solicite her chastity though in a Prophets name We may finde women that may have occasion of going to Confession for something that their Confessors may have done to them In this womans case there was no disguise She would faine goe and run but not without her husbands knowledge and allowance Her husband asks her Why she would goe to the Prophet then being neither Sabbath V. 23. nor new Moone He acknowledges that God is likelier to conferre blessings upon Sabbaths and new Moones upon some dayes rather then other That all dayes are not alike with God then when he by his ordinance hath put a difference between them And he acknowledges too that though the Sabbath be the principall of those dayes which God hath seposed for his especiall working yet there are new Moones too there are other Holy-dayes for holy Convocations and for his Divine and Publique Worship besides the Sabbath But this was neither Sabbath nor new Moone neither Sunday nor Holy-day Why would she goe upon that day Beloved though for publique meetings in publique places the Sabbaths and Holy-dayes be the proper dayes yet for conference and counsell and other assistances from the Prophets and Ministers of God all times are seasonable all dayes are Sabbaths She goes to the Prophet she presses with so much passion and so much faith too and so good successe for she had her dead son restored unto her that as from the other so from this example arises this That in a heart absolutely surrendred to God vehement expostulation with God and yet full submission to God and a quiet acquiescence in God A storme of affections in nature and yet a setled calme and a fast anchorage in grace a suspition and a jealousie and yet an assurance and a confidence in God may well consist together In the same instant that Christ said Si possibile he said Veruntamen too though he desired that that cup might passe yet he desired not that his desire should be satisfied In the same instant that the Martyrs under the Altar say Vsque quò Domine How long Lord before thou execute judgement they see that he does execute judgement every day in their behalfe All jealousie in God does not destroy our assurance in him nor all diffidence our confidence nor all feare our faith These women had these naturall weaknesses that is this strength of affections and passions and yet by this faith these women received their dead raised to life againe But yet which is a last consideration Foeminile and our conclusion of this part this being thus put onely in women in the weaker sexe that they desired that they rejoyced in this resuscitation of the dead may well intimate thus much unto us that
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâan Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
love to Christ is Devotion There is a love that will make one kisse the case of a picture though it be shut There is a love that will melt ones bowels if he do but passe over or passe by the grave of his dead friend But their end was not onely to see the Sepulchre but to see whether the Sepulchre were in such state as that they might come to their end which was To embalme their Masters body But this was done before and done to their knowledge for that all the Euangelists testifie Luke 23.55 particularly S. Luke The women followed and beheld the Sepulchre and how the body was laid How that is how abundantly it was embalmed by Nicodemus How that is how decently and orderly it was wound and bound up according to the manner of the Jews funerals What then intended these women to doe more then was done already That cannot be well admitted Theophy Gen. 50.1 which Theophylact saies That as Iacobs body was embalmed forty dayes in Egypt so they intended to re-embalme our Saviours body formerly embalmed by Nicodemus For that was onely done upon such bodies as were exenterated and embowelled and then filled up and plastered about with spices and gums to preserve them from putrifaction when they were to be carried into remote parts But of these re-embalmings and post-unctions after the body had beene laid in the Sepulchre I know not who may have read of them I have not Neither seemes it to have beene possible in this case not possible for these women to have come to the body of Chrrist For if that be the true winding sheet of Christ which is kept in Savoy it appeares that that sheet stuck so close to his body as that it did and does still retaine the dimensions of his body and the impressions and signatures of every wound that he had received in his body So that it would have beene no easie matter for those women to have pulled off that sheet if it had had no other glue no other gumme but his owne precious blood to hold it Chiffletius de Linters Sepulchr cap. 25. But if as their more wary Authors say Christs body were carried loose in that sheet which is shewed in Savoy from the Crosse to the Sepulchre and then taken out of that sheet and embalmed by Nicodemus and wrapped up in other linnen upon those spices and gummes which he bestowed upon it and then buried according to the manner of the jews whose manner it was to swathe the bodies of the dead Iohn 11.44 just as we swathe the bodies of children all over for so Lazarus came out bound hand and foote with grave-cloathes how could it fall into the imagination of these women that they could come to embalme the body of Christ so swathed so wound so bound up as that body was for certainly it was the body and not the grave-cloathes that they meant to embalme Truly I have often wondred that amongst our very many Expositors of the Gospels which I can pronounce of some scores no one hath touched upon this doubt They all make good use of their piety and devout officiousnesse towards their dead Master but of the impossibility of comming to that body and of the irregularity and impertinency of undertaking that and proceeding so far in that which could not possibly be done I find no mention Chrysolog What shal be said of this That may be said which Chrysologus saies though not of this for of this none saies any thing Saeva passionis procella turbaverat That a bitter storme of passion and consternation had so disordered them as that no faculty of theirs performed the right function Calvin And that which Calvin saies of the same case which Chrysologus intends Prae fervore caecutiebant Vehemence and earnestnesse had discomposed them amazed them amuzed them so as that they discerned nothing clearely did nothing orderly This these and some other Authors say of some other inconsiderations in these Women particularly of the removing of the stone of the Sepulchre For they had prepared their gumms and they were come upon their way before they ever thought of that Marke 16.3 Then they stop and say to one another Who shall roll us away the stone from the doore of the Sepulchre we never thought of that So also did they fall under the rebuke and increpation of the Angell for another supine inconsideration Luke 24.5 Mat 16.16 Acts 3.15 Iohn 5.26 Iohn 1.4 Iohn 6.35 Iohn 11.25 Quid quaeritis vivum Why seeke yee the living amongst the dead Why him who is The Son of the living God Why him who is The Prince of life Why him Who hath life in himselfe Why him who is Life it selfe Why him who is The Bread of life to us Why him who is this life and the next too I am the life and the Resurrection Why him who by his death hath made you a path of life Psal 16.11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life Why seek ye the living among the dead What makes you think of arming him with your gummes against putrifaction who had told you before that he was not subject to putrifaction but would rise again So also in such another inconsideratioÌ we may deprehend one of these womeÌ Mary Magdalen wheÌ the Angel had told her at the Sepulchre He is not here for he is risin as he said yet when she came to Peter she said nothing of the Resurrection John 20.2 never thought of that but poured her self out in that lamentation Tulerunt DominuÌ They have taken away the Lord out of the Sepulchre we know not where they have laid him Wheras if she had coÌsidered it advisedly she must necessarily have knowen from the Angels words that no man had taken away the Lord that no man had laid him any where else but that by his own power he was risen again But as in this storm of passion they left Christs promise That he would rise unconsidered left the rolling of the stone froÌ the doore of the Sepulchre unconsidered so in this storm they also left unconsidered the impossibility of comming to Christs body to do that office Their devotion was awake their consideration was in a slumber But what though Did they therefore lose all benefit of their plous and devout intention That is another and our next Consideration As Luther sayes that if the marriage bed be kept undefiled that is Fructus bujus pietatis from strange persons and from such sins as are opposed against the very purpose of marriage God pardons Maritales ineptias some levities and half-wantonnesses in married folkes so Calvin sayes of our present case Deus non impat at Because these good women were transported with a zealous piety towards Christ God did not impure this in consideration unto them For though zeal without discretion produce ill effects yet not so ill as discretion without zeal worldly
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
it selfe retaine an Almighty power and an effectuall purpose to deliver his soule from death by a glorious a victorious and a Triumphant Resurrection So it is true Christ Josus dyed else none of us could live but yet hee dyed not so as is intended in this question Not by the necessity of any Law not by the violence of any Executioner not by the separation of his best soule if we may so call it the God-head nor by such a separation of his naturall and humane soule as that he would not or could not or did not resume it againe If then this question had beene asked of Angels at first Quis Angelus what Angel is that that stands and shall not fall though as many of those Angels as were disposed to that answer Erimus similes Altissimo We will be like God and stand of our selves without any dependance upon him did fall yet otherwise they might have answered the question fairly All we may stand if we will If this question had been asked of Adam in Paradise Quis homo though when he harkned to her who had harkned to that voyce Erit is sicut Dii You shall be as Gods he fell too yet otherwise he might have answered the question fairly so I may live and not dye if I will so if this question be asked of us now as the question implies the generall penalty as it considers us onely as the sons of Adam we have no other answer but that by Adam sin entred upon all and death by sin upon all as it implies the state of them onely whom Christ at his second comming shall finde upon earth wee have no other answer but a modest non liquet we are not sure whether we shall dye then or no wee are onely sure it shall be so as most conduces to our good and Gods glory but as the question implies us to be members of our Head Christ Jesus as it was a true answer in him it is true in every one of us adopted in him Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Death and life are in the power of the tongue sayes Solomon in another sense Prov. 18.21 and in this sense too If my tongue suggested by my heart and by my heart rooted in faith can say Non moriar non moriar If I can say and my conscience doe not tell me that I belye mine owne state if I can say That the blood of my Saviour runs in my veines That the breath of his Spirit quickens all my purposes that all my deaths have their Resurrection all my sins their remorses all my rebellions their reconciliations I will harken no more after this question as it is intended de morte naturali of a naturall death I know I must die that death what care I nor de morte spirituali the death of sin I know I doe and shall die so why despaire I but I will finde out another death mortem raptus 2 Cor. 12. a death of rapture Acts 9. Greg. and of extasie that death which S. Paul died more then once The death which S. Gregory speaks of Divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum animae The contemplation of God and heaven is a kinde of buriall and Sepulchre and rest of the soule and in this death of rapture and extasie in this death of the Contemplation of my interest in my Saviour I shall finde my self and all my sins enterred and entombed in his wounds and like a Lily in Paradise out of red earth I shall see my soule rise out of his blade in a candor and in an innocence contracted there acceptable in the sight of his Father Though I have been dead 1 Tim. 5.6 in the delight of sin so that that of S. Paul That a Widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth be true of my soule that so viduatur gratiâ mortuâ when Christ is dead not for the soule but in the soule that the soule hath no sense of Christ Viduatur anima the soul is a Widow and no Dowager she hath lost her husband and hath nothing from him Esay 28.15 yea though I have made a Covenant with death and have been at an agreement with hell and in a vain confidence have said to my self that when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to me yet God shall annull that covenant he shall bring that scourge that is some medicinall correction upon me and so give me a participation of all the stripes of his son he shall give me a sweat that is some horrour and religious feare and so give me a participation of his Agony he shall give me a diet perchance want and penury and so a participation of his fasting and if he draw blood if he kill me all this shall be but Mors raptus a death of rapture towards him into a heavenly and assured Contemplation that I have a part in all his passion yea such an intire interest in his whole passion as though all that he did or suffered had been done and suffered for my soul alone 2 Cor. 6.9 Quasi moriens ecce vivo some shew of death I shall have for I shall sin and some shew of death again for I shall have a dissolution of this Tabernacle Sed ecce vivo still the Lord of life will keep me alive and that with an Ecce Behold I live that is he will declare and manifest my blessed state to me I shall not sit in the shadow of death no nor I shall not sit in darknesse his gracious purpose shall evermore be upon me and I shall ever discerne that gracious purpose of his I shall not die nor I shall not doubt that I shall If I be dead within doores If I have sinned in my heart why Suscitavit in domo Mar. 9.23 Christ gave a Resurrection to the Rulers daughter within doores in the house If I be dead in the gate If I have sinned in the gates of my soule in mine Eies Luke 7.11 or Eares or Hands in actuall sins why Suscitavit in porta Christ gave a Resurrection to the young man at the gate of Naim If I be dead in the grave in customary and habituall sins why John 11. Suscitavit in Sepulchro Christ gave a Resurrection to Lazarus in the grave too If God give me mortem raptus a death of rapture of extasie of fervent Contemplation of Christ Jesus a Transfusion a Transplantation a Transmigration a Transmutation into him for good digestion brings alwaies assimilation certainly if I come to a true meditation upon Christ I come to a conformity with Christ this is principally that Pretiosa mors Sanctorum Psal 116.15 Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints by which they are dead and buryed and risen again in Christ Jesus pretious is that death by which we apply that pretious blood to our selves and grow strong
dereliction on Gods part he cals not upon him by this name not My Father but My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Mat. 27.37 But when he would incline him to mercy mercy to others mercy to enemies he comes in that name wherein he could be denied nothing Father Father forgive them they know not what they doe He is the Lord of Hosts Luke 23.24 There hee scatters us in thunder transports us in tempests enwraps us in confusion astonishes us with stupefaction and consternation The Lord of Hosts but yet the Father of mercies There he receives us into his own bowels fills our emptinesse with the blood of his own Son and incorporates us in him The Lord of Hosts but the Father of mercy Sometimes our naturall Fathers die before they can gather any state to leave us but he is the immortall Father and all things that are as soone as they were were his Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to waste and dissipate that state which was left them to be left us but this is the Father out of whose hands and possession nothing can be removed and who gives inestimably and yet remaines inexhaustible Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to need us and to live upon us but this is that Father whom we need every minute and requires nothing of us but that poore rent of Benedictus sit Blessed praised glorified be this Father This Father of mercies of mercies in the plurall David calls God Miserationum Psal 59.17 Numb 14.19 Psal 51.1 Misericordiam suam His mercy all at once God is the God of my mercy God is all ours and all mercy Pardon this people sayes Moses Secundùm magnitudinem misericordiae According to the greatnesse of thy mercy Pardon me sayes David Have mercy upon me Secùndum multitudinem misericordiarum According to the multitude of thy mercies His mercy in largenesse in number extends over all It was his mercy that we were made and it is his mercy that we are not consumed David calls his mercy Multiplicatam and Mirificatam Psal 17.7 Psal 31.22 It is manifold and it is marvellous miraculous Shew thy marvellous loving kindnesse and therefore David in severall places carries it Super judicium above his judgements Super Coelos above the heavens Super omnia opera above all his works And for the multitude of his mercies for we are now upon the consideration of the plurality thereof Pater miserationum Father of mercies put together that which David sayes Psal 89.50 Vbi misericordiae tuae antiquae Where are thy ancient mercies His mercy is as Ancient as the Ancient of dayes who is God himselfe And that which another Prophet sayes Omni mane His mercies are new every morning And put betweene these two betweene Gods former and his future mercies his present mercy in bringing thee this minute to the consideration of them and thou hast found Multiplicatam and Mirificatam manifold and wondrous mercy But carry thy thoughts upon these three Branches of his mercy and it will be enough First that upon Adams fall and all ours in him he himselfe would think of such a way of mercy as from Adam to that man whom Christ shall finde alive at the last day no man would ever have thought of that is that to shew mercy to his enemies he would deliver his owne his onely his beloved Son to shame to torments to death That hee would plant Germen Iehovae in semine mulieris The blossome the branch of God in the seed of the woman This mercy in that first promise of that Messias was such a mercy as not onely none could have undertaken but none could have imagined but God himselfe And in this promise we were conceived In visceribus Patris In the bowels of this Father of mercies In these bowels in the womb of this promise we lay foure thousand yeares The blood with which we were fed then was the blood of the Sacrifices and the quickning which we had there was an inanimation by the often refreshing of this promise of that Messias in the Prophets But in the fulnesse of time that infallible promise came to an actuall performance Christ came in the flesh and so Venimus ad partum In his birth we were borne and that was the second mercy in the promise in the performance he is Pater miserationum Father of mercies And then there is a third mercy as great That he having sent his Son and having re-assumed him into heaven againe he hath sent his Holy Spirit to governe his Church and so becomes a Father to us in that Adoption in the application of Christ to us by the Holy Ghost and this as that which is intended in the last word Deus totius Consolationis The God of all Comfort I may know that there is a Messias promised and yet be without comfort Consolatio in a fruitlesse expectation The Jews are so in their dispersion When the Jews will still post-date the commings of Christ when some of them say There was no certaine time of his comming designed by the Prophets And others There was a time but God for their sins prorogued it And others againe God kept his word the Messiah did come when it was promised he should come but for their sins he conceales himselfe from Manifestation when the Jews will postdate his first comming and the Papists will antidate his second comming in a comming that cannot become him That he comes even to his Saints in torment before he comes in glory That when he comes to them at their dissolution at their death he comes not to take them to Heaven but to cast them into one part of hell That the best comfort which a good man can have at his death is but Purgatory Miserable comforters are they all How faire a beame of the joyes of Heaven is true comfort in this life If I know the mercies of God exhibited to others and feele them not in my self I am not of Davids Church Psal 59.1 not of his Quire I cannot sing of the mercies of God I may see them and I may sigh to see the mercies of God determined in others and not extended to me but I cannot sing of the mercies of God if I find no mercy But when I come to that Psal 94.19 Consolationes tuae laetificaverunt In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soule then the true Comforter is descended upon me and the Holy Ghost hath over-shadowed me Mat. 5.4 and all that shall be borne of me and proceed from me shall be holy Blessed are they that mourne sayes Christ But the blessednesse is not in the mourning but because they shall be comforted Blessed am I in the sense of my sins and in the sorrow for them but blessed therefore because this sorrow leads me to my reconciliation to God and the consolation of his Spirit Whereas if I sinke in this sorrow in this dejection
God in Heaven sanctifying all their crosses in this World inanimating all their worldly blessings rayning downe his blood into their emptinesse and his balme into their wounds making their bed in all their sicknesse and preparing their seate where he stands soliciting their cause at the right hand of his Father And so the Minister hath the wings of an Eagle that every soule in the Congregation may see as much as hee sees that is a particular interest in all the mercies of God and the merits of Christ So then these Ministers of God have that double use of their Eagles wings first Vt volent ad escam Job 9.26 as it is in Iob that they may flie up to receive their own food their instructions at the mouth and word of God And then Vt ubi cadaver sit ibi statim adsit as it is in Iob also where the dead are Job 39.33 they also may be That where any lie Pro mortuis as S. Paul speaks for dead 1 Cor. 13.29 as good as dead ready to die upon their death-bed they may be ready to assist them and to minister spirituall Physick opportunely seasonably proportionably to their spirituall necessities That they may powre out upon such sick soules that name of Iesus which is Oleum effusum An oyle and a balme alwaies powring and alwaies spreading it selfe upon all greene wounds and upon all old sores That they may minister to one in his hot and pestilent presumptions an Opiat of Christs Tristis anima A remembrance that even Christ himself had a sad soule towards his death and a Quare dereliquisti some apprehension that God though his God had forsaken him And that therefore no man how righteous soever may presume or passe away without feare and trembling And then to minister to another in his Lethargies and Apoplexies and damps and inordinate dejections of spirit Christs cordials and restoratives in his Clarifica me Pater In an assurance that his Father though he have laid him downe here whether in an inglorious fortune or in a disconsolate bed of sicknesse will raise him in his time to everlasting glory So these Eagles are to have wings to flie Ad cadaver to the dead to those that are so dying a bodily death and also where any lie dead in the practise and custome of sinne to be industrious and earnest in calling them to life againe so as Christ did Lazarus by calling aloud Not aloud in the eares of other men so to expose a sinner to shame and confusion of face but aloud in his own eares to put home the judgments of God thereby to plough and harrow that stubborn heart which will not be kneaded nor otherwise reduced to an uprightnesse For these uses to raise themselves to heavenly contemplations and to make haste to them that need their assistance the Ministers of God have wings wings of great use especially now when there is Coluber in via A snake in every path a Seducer in every house When as the Devill is busie because he knows his time is short so his instruments are busie because they thinke their time is beginning againe therefore the Minister of God hath wings And then Sex alae their wings are numbred in our Text They have six wings For by the consent of most Expositors those whom S. Iohn presents in the figure of these foure Creatures here Esa 6.3 and those whom the Prophet Esay cals Seraphim are the same persons The same Office and the same Voice is attributed unto those Seraphim there as unto these foure Creatures here Those as well as these spend their time in celebrating the Trinity an in crying Holy Holy Holy The Holy Ghost sometimes presents the Ministers of the Gospel as Seraphim in glory that they might be knowne to be the Ministers and dispensers of the mysteries and secrets of God and to come A latere From his Councell his Cabinet his Bosome And then on the other side that you might know that the dispensation of these mysteries of your salvation is by the hand and means of men taken from amongst your selves and that therefore you are not to looke for Revelations nor Extasies nor Visions nor Transportations but to rest in Gods ordinary meanes he brings those persons down againe from that glorious representation as the Seraphim to creatures of an inferiour of an earthly nature For though it be by the sight and in the quality and capacity of those glorious Seraphim that the Minister of God receives his commission and instructions his orders and his faculties yet the execution of his commission and the pursuing of his instructions towards you and in your behalfe is in that nature and in that capacity as they have the courage of the Lyon the laboriousnesse of the Oxe the perspicuity of the Eagle and the affability of Man These winged persons then winged for their own sakes and winged for yours these Ministers of God thus designed by Esay as heavenly Seraphim to procure them reverence from you and by S. Iohn as earthly Creatures to teach you how neere to your selves God hath brought the meanes of your Salvation in his visible and sensible in his appliable and apprehensible Ordinances are in both places that of Esay and this in our Text said to have six wings And six to this use in Esay with two they cover their face with two their feete and with two they flie They cover their face Not all over for then neither the Prophet there nor the Euangelist here could have knowne them to have had these likenesses and these proportions The Ministers of God are not so covered so removed from us as that we have not meanes to know them We know them by their face that is by that declaration which the Church hath given of them to us in giving them their orders and their power over us and we know them by their voyce that is by their preaching of such doctrine as is agreeable to those Articles which we have suckt in from our infancy The Ministers face is not so covered with these wings as that the people have no meanes to know him For his calling is manifest and his doctrine is open to proofe and tryall But they are said to cover their face because they dare not looke confidently they cannot looke fully upon the majesty of the mysteries of God The Euangelists themselves and they that ground their doctrine upon them all which together as we have often said make up these foure persons whom Esay cals Seraphim and S. Iohn inferiour Creatures have not seene all that belongs to the nature and essence of God not all in the attributes and properties of God not all in the decrees and purposes of God no not all in the execution of those purposes and decrees we do not know all that God intends to do we do not know all that God intends in that which he hath done Our faces are covered from having seene
Eccles 12.1 There are spirituall Lethargies that make a man forget his name forget that he was a Christian and what belongs to that duty God knows what forgetfulnesse may possesse thee upon thy death-bed and freeze thee there God knows what rage what distemper what madnesse may scatter thee then And though in such cases God reckon with his servants according to that disposition which they use to have towards him before and not according to those declinations from him which they shew in such distempered sicknesses yet Gods mercy towards them can worke but so that he returnes to those times when those men did remember him before But if God can finde no such time that they never remembred him then he seales their former negligence with a present Lethargy they neglected God all their lives and now in death there is no remembrance of him nor there is no remembrance in him God shall forget him eternally and when he thinkes he is come to his Consummatum est The bell tolls and will ring out and there is an end of all in death by death he comes but to his Secula Seculorum to the beginning of that misery which shall never end This then which we have spoken arises out of that sense of these words which seems the most literall that is of a naturall death But as it is well noted by divers Expositors upon this Psalme this whole Psalme is intended of a spirituall agonie and combat of David wrastling with the apprehension of hell and of the indignation of God even in this world whilst he was alive here And therefore S. Augustine upon the last words of this verse in that Translation which he followed In inferno quis consitchitur tibi Not In the grave but In hell who shall confesse unto thee puts himselfe upon this In Inferne Dives confessus Domino oravit pro fratribus In hell Dives did confesse the name of the Lord and prayed there for his brethren in the world And therefore he understands not these words of a literall and naturall a bodily death a departing out of this world but he calls Peccatum Mortem and then Caecitatem animae Infernum He makes the easinesse of sinning to be Death and then blindnesse and obduration and remorslesnesse and impenitence to be this Hell And so also doth S. Ierome understand all that passionate deploring of Hezekias which seems literally to be spoken of naturall death of this spirituall death of the habit of sin and that he considered and lamented especially his danger of that death of a departing from God in this world rather then of a departing out of this world And truely many pieces and passages of Hezekias his lamentation there will fall naturally enough into that spirituall interpretation though perchance all will not though S. Ierome with a holy purpose drive them and draw them that way But whether that of Hezekias be of naturall or of a spirituall death we have another Author ancienter then S. Augustine and S. Ierome and so much esteemed by S. Iereme as that he translated some of his Works which is Didymus of Alexandria who sayes it is Impia opinio not an inconvenient or unnaturall but an impious and irreligious opinion to understand this verse of naturall death because sayes he The dead doe much more remember God then the living doe And he makes use of that place Deus non confunditur Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead for he hath prepared them a City And therefore reading these words of our Text according to that Translation which prevailed in the Easterne Church which was the Septuagint he argues thus he collects thus that all that David sayes here is onely this Non est in morte qui memor est Dei Not that he that is dead remembers not God but that he that remembers God is not dead not in an irreparable and irrecoverable state of death not under such a burthen of sin as devastates and exterminates the conscience and evacuates the whole power and work of grace but that if he can remember God confesse God though he be falne under the hand of a spirituall death by some sin yet he shall have his resurrection in this life for Non est in morte sayes Didymus He that remembers God is not dead in a perpetuall death And then this reason of Davids Prayer here Doe this and this for in death there is no remembrance of thee will have this force That God would returne to him in his effectuall grace That God would deliver his soule in dangerous tentations That God would save him in applying to him and imprinting in him a sober but yet confident assurance that the salvation of Christ Jesus belongs to him Because if God did not return to him but suffer him to wither in a long absence If God did not deliver him by taking hold of him when he was ready to fall into such sins as his sociablenesse his confidence his inconsideration his infirmity his curiosity brought him to the brinke of If God did not save him by a faithfull assurance of salvation after a sin committed and resented This absence this slipperinesse this pretermitting might bring him to such a deadly and such a hellish state in this world as that In death that is In that death he should have no remembrance of God In hell In the grave that is In that hell In that grave he should not confesse nor praise God at all There was his danger he should forget God utterly and God forget him eternally if God suffered him to proceed so far in sin that is Death and so far in an obduration and remorslesnesse in sin that is Hell The Death and the Hell of this world to which those Fathers refer this Text. In this lamentable state we will onely note the force and the emphasis of this Tui and Tibi in this verse no remembrance of Thee no praise to Thee For this is not spoken of God in generall but of that God to which David directs the last and principall part of his Prayer which is To save him It is to God as God is Jesus a Saviour and the wretchednesse of this state is that God shall not be remembred in that notion as he is Iesus a Saviour No man is so swallowed up in the death of sin nor in the grave of impenitence No man so dead and buried in the custome or senselesnesse of sin but that he remembers a God he confesses a God If an Atheist sweare the contrary beleeve him not His inward terrors his midnight startlings remember him of that and bring him to confessions of that But here is the depth and desperatenesse of this death and this grave habituall sin and impenitence in sin that he cannot remember he cannot confesse that God which should save him Christ Jesus his Redeemer he shall come he shall not chuse but come to remember a God that
same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
proofe of the Resurrection of the body and the answer was easie and obvious We doe not baptize living men in the name and in the behalfe of the dead for any other respect then for the salvation of their soules and what is that to the resurrection of the body So that this sense of Tertullians of Baptisme by a Proxy by an Atturney seemes not to be the sense of this place and yet because it savours of charity to the dead though it were an heretical custome Bellarmine prefers this interpretation of Tertullian before any other but his owne which we handled before Theodoret interprets this Baptisme for the dead to be a baptisme of Representation Theodoret. That in baptisme by being put under the water and raised up againe we represent the death and resurrection of Christ for the dead is for Christ for the testimony of Christ And therefore that baptizing by immersion by covering the party with water was so exactly observed in those times as it came to be thought that no man was well baptized except he had received it so by Immersion as by many Treatises and many Consultations amongst the Fathers by way of Letters and the Acts of some Councels we perceive And of this representation of the death of Christ in our Baptisme administred in that manner by Immersion S. Paul is thought by some to have spoken when he sayes Know ye not that all we that have been baptized into Iesus Christ Rom. 6.3 have been baptized into his death That is say they by that representation of his death in Immersion Neither is any thing more evident then that Theodoret was so far in the right that our baptisme and the rather in that forme of Immersion is a representation of the death and buriall and resurrection of Christ but yet to call this Baptisme therefore because it was a representation of Christ who was dead a Baptisme for the dead is a phrase somewhat more hard and unusuall then may be easily admitted in such a matter of faith as this is And besides that Baptisme which is this Representation is a Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized so But the Apostle in this place makes his argument from a particular kind of Baptisme which some did and some did not use Quid de illis sayes he what shall become of them and Quid illi what doe they meane that are baptized in this peculiar manner So that as not Tertullians baptisme by an Atturney so neither Theodorets baptisme by Representation seems to be the sense of this place S. Chrysostome much about the same time with Theodoret and long after them both Chrysost Theophylact. at least six hundred yeares Theophylact meet in a third sense That because at the taking of Baptisme they did usually rehearse the Creed which Creed concluded with those articles The resurrection of the body and life everlasting therefore this baptisme for the dead should onely signifie a baptisme for the hope of the Resurrection But since they rehearsed all the articles of the Christian beliefe as well as that at Baptisme it might as properly be said that they were baptized for Christ baptized for the holy Ghost baptized for the descent into hell as for the dead And besides that this was also a baptisme common to all all rehearsed the Articles of the Creed it was not such a peculiar baptisme as the Apostle hath respect to here in his Quid de illis and Quid illi what shall become of them and what doe they meane by this their Baptisme And therefore this seems not to be the sense That this Baptisme for the dead should onely be a profession of that article of the Resurrection of the dead though S. Chrysostome and Theophylact concur in or derive from or upon one other that interpretation To come lower and to a lower rank of witnesses from the Fathers to the Schoole Aquinas Aquinas hath another sense and certainly an usefull a devout and an appliable interpretation which is That Mortui here are peccata Those that are called Dead here are Dead works sins and so to be baptized for the dead is to be baptized for our sins for the washing away our sins in an acknowledgement That although we did contract a leprous sin even in our conception That we were subject to the wrath and indignation of God before we were able to conceive that there was a God That before our bones were hardned the canker and rust of Adams sin was in our bones That before we were a minute old we have a sin in us that is six thousand years old That though we be as blind after we come out of our mothers bellies as we were there Though we passe over our time without ever asking our owne consciences why we were sent hither Though our sins have hardned us against God and done a harder work then that in hardning God against us yet though we have turned God into a Rock there is water in that rock Num. 20. if we strike it if we solicite it affect it with our repentance As in the stone font in the Church there is water of Baptisme so in the Corner stone of the Church Christ Jesus whom we have hardned against us there is a tendernesse there is a Well of water springing up into everlasting life As we have changed this water into stone petrified Gods tendernesse towards us Psal 114.8 so convertit petram in stagna aquarum sayes David He hath turned that rock into a standing water water and water that stayes with us in his Church and the flint into a fountaine of waters that is sayes S. Augustine seipsum suam quandam duritiam liquefecit ad irrigandos fideles At the beames of his owne mercy God hath thawed that ice and dissolved that stone into which we had hardned him and he hath let in a River of Jordan into his Church the Sacrament of Baptisme in the present act and subsequent efficacy whereof we are washed from originall and from actuall sins All these sins are the fruits of death as they are opposed against the Lord of life and pro hisce mortuis baptizamur sayes Aquinas for the dead that is for these dead workes we are baptized And certainly for a second sense to exalt our devotion by I should prefer this before any other But the principall and literall sense of this place this cannot be because it is a figurative sense and though the figure be not in the word Baptisme where Bellarmine places it for Aquinas speaks literally of a Sacramentall Baptisme yet it is in the other word In mortuis Aquinas doth not speak literally but metaphorically of the Dead and that may as ill be admitted in a matter of faith of so great importance as the other And besides this seems to conclude nothing necessarily for the resurrection of the body that we are washed from our sins And lastly this is still a
we thought the Sunne had moved I need not that helpe that the Earth it selfe is in Motion to prove this That nothing upon Earth is permanent The Assertion will stand of it selfe till some man assigne me some instance something that a man may relie upon and find permanent Consider the greatest Bodies upon Earth The Monarchies Objects which one would thinke Destiny might stand and stare at but not shake Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth The haires of our head Objects which one would thinke Destiny would not observe or could not discerne And yet Destiny to speak to a naturall man And God to speake to a Christian is no more troubled to make a Monarchy ruinous then to make a haire gray Nay nothing needs be done to either by God or Destiny A Monarchy will ruine as a haire will grow gray of it selfe In the Elements themselves of which all sub-elementary things are composed there is no acquiescence but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another Ayre condensed becomes water a more solid body And Ayre rarified becomes fire a body more disputable and in-apparant It is so in the Conditions of men too A Merchant condensed kneaded and packed up in a great estate becomes a Lord And a Merchant rarified blown up by a perfidious Factor or by a riotous Sonne evaporates into ayre into nothing and is not seen And if there were any thing permanent and durable in this world yet we got nothing by it because howsoever that might last in it selfe yet we could not last to enjoy it If our goods were not amongst Moveables yet we our selves are if they could stay with us yet we cannot stay with them which is another Consideration in this part The world is a great Volume and man the Index of that Booke Corpus hominis Even in the body of man you may turne to the whole world This body is an Illustration of all Nature Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before in his Fiat lux and Fiat firmamentum and in all the rest said or done in all the six dayes Propose this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation thereof as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Nay not in a Metaphor or comparison of a Temple or any other similitudinary thing but as it was really and truly the very body of God in the person of Christ and yet this body must wither must decay must languish must perish When Goliah had armed and fortified this body And Iezabel had painted and perfumed this body And Dives had pampered and larded this body As God said to Ezekiel when he brought him to the dry bones Fili hominis Sonne of Man doest thou thinke these bones can live They said in their hearts to all the world Can these bodies die And they are dead Iezabels dust is not Ambar nor Goliahs dust Terra sigillata Medicinall nor does the Serpent whose meat they are both finde any better rellish in Dives dust then in Lazarus But as in our former part where our foundation was That in nothing no spirituall thing there was any perfectnesse which we illustrated in the weaknesses of Knowledge and Faith and Hope and Charity yet we concluded that for all those defects God accepted those their religious services So in this part where our foundation is That nothing in temporall things is permanent as we have illustrated that by the decay of that which is Gods noblest piece in Nature The body of man so we shall also conclude that with this goodnesse of God that for all this dissolution and putrefaction he affords this Body a Resurrection The Gentils Resurrectio and their Poets describe the sad state of Death so Nox una obeunda That it is one everlasting Night To them a Night But to a Christian it is Dies Mortis and Dies Resurrectionis The day of Death and The day of Resurrection We die in the light in the sight of Gods presence and we rise in the light in the sight of his very Essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so Dies visitationis still it is a Day though a Day of visitation and still we may discerne God to be in the action Gen. 2. The Lord of Life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt die the Death I doe the lesse feare or abhorre Death because I finde it in his mouth Even a malediction hath a sweetnesse in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a Resurrection upon every Death When Iezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher then that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall be infinitely multiplied upon every Body And as God shall know no man from his own Sonne so as not to see the very righteousnesse of his own Sonne upon that man So the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to looke upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himselfe So shall Goliahs armour and Dives fulnesse be doubled and redoubled upon us And every thing that we can call good shall first be infinitely exalted in the goodnesse and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and againe infinitely extended in the duration And since we are in an action of preparing this dead Brother of ours to that state for the Funerall is the Easter-eve The Buriall is the depositing of that man for the Resurrection As we have held you with Doctrine of Mortification by extending the Text from Martha to this occasion so shall we dismisse you with Consolation by a like occasionall inverting the Text from passion in Martha's mouth Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed to joy in ours Lord because thou wast here our Brother is not dead The Lord was with him in all these steps In vita with him in his life with him in his death He is with him in his funerals and he shall be with him in his Resurrection and therefore because the Lord was with him our Brother is not dead He was with him in the beginning of his life in this manifestation That though he were of Parents of a good of a great Estate yet his possibility and his expectation from them did not slacken his own industry which is a Canker that eats into nay that hath eat up many a family in this City that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done the Sonne does nothing for himselfe And truly it falls out too often that he that labours not for more does not keepe his own God imprinted in him an industrious disposition though such hopes from such parents might have excused some slacknesse and God prospered his industry so as that when his Fathers estate came to a distribution by death he needed it not God was with
Bee Wise as serpents but ãâã as Dous LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE D R IN DIVINITIE LATE DEANE OF Y E CATHEDRALL CHVRCH OF S T PAVLES LONDON LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE Dr IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON in Ivie-lane and RICHARD MARRIOT in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleetstreet MDCXL TO HIS MOST SACRED MAIESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT BRITAINE FRANCE AND IRELAND Defender of the Faith c. Most dread and gracious Soveraigne IN this rumor of VVarre I am bold to present to your sacred Majestie the fruits of Peace first planted by the hand of your most Royal Father then ripened by the same gracious influence and since no lesse cherisht and protected by your Majesties especiall favour vouchsafed to the Author in so many indulgent testimonies of your good acceptance of his service VVhich grace from your Majestie as he was known to acknowledge with much comfort whilst he lived so will it give now some excuse to the presumption of this Dedication since those friends of his who think any thing of his worthy to out-live him could not preserve their piety to him without taking leave to inscribe the same with your Majesties sacred Name that so they may at once give so faire a hope of a long continuance both to these VVorks of his and to his gratitude of which they humbly desire this Book may last to be some Monument I shall not presume in this place to say much of these Sermons only this They who have been conversant in the VVorks of the holiest men of all times cannot but acknowledge in these the same spirit with which they writ reasonable Demonstrations every where in the subjects comprehensible by reason as for those things which cannot be comprehended by our reason alone they are no where made easier to faith then here and for the other part of our nature which consists in our Passions and in our Affections they are here raised and laid and governed and disposed in a manner according to the Will of the Author The Doctrine it selse which is taught here is Primitively Christian The Fathers are every where here consulted with reverence but Apostolicall Writings onely appealed to as the last Rule of Faith Lastly such is the conjuncture here of zeal and discretion that whilst it is the main scope of the Author in these Discourses that Glory be given to God this is accompanied every where with a scrupulous care and endeavour that Peace be likewise setled amongst men The leave and encouragement I have had for the publishing these Sermons from the Person most intrusted by your Majestie in the government of the Church and most highly dignified in it I think I ought in this place to mention for his honour that they who receive any benefit from hence may know in part to whom to acknowledge it and that this what ever it is is owing to him to whom they stand otherwise so deeply engaged for his providence and care next under your Majestie over the Truth and Peace and Dignity of the Church of England for which he will not want lasting acknowledgments amongst Wise and Good Men. And now having with all humblenesse commended these Sermons to your sacred Majestie from the memory of the Author your Servant from the nature and piety of the Work it self and lastly from the encouragement I have had to give it this light did I not feare to adde to my presumption I should in this place take leave to expresse the propriety betwixt your Majesties royall Vertues and the tribute of such an Offering and acknowledgement as this A Work of Devotion to the most exemplarily pious Prince a Work of moderated and discreet zeale to the Person of the most governed affections in the midst of the greatest power a Work of deep-sighted knowledge to the most discerning spirit a VVork of a strict doctrine to the most severe imposer upon himselfe and a VVork of a charitable doctrine to the most indulgent Master of others But I dare not enter into this Argument these excellencies requiring rather tacite veneration then admitting any possible equall expression and therefore with my prayer for your Majesties long and happy raigne over us I humbly aske pardon for this presumption of Your Majesties most humble and most dutifull Subject Jo DONNE THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Dr DONNE LATE DEANE OF St PAULS LONDON IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wootton Provost of Eaton Colledge lately deceased had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written It was a Work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and our Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youths that nothing but death could force the separation And though their bodies were divided that learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond the forgetfull grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of certaine particulars that concerned it Not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory would make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectified by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad newes and likewise that these Sermons were to be publisht without the Authors life which I thought was rare indignation or griefe I know not whether transported me so far that I re-viewed my forsaken Collections and resolved the world should see the best picture of the Author that my artlesse Pensil guided by the hand of Truth could present to it If I be demanded as once Pompeys poore Bondman was Plutarch whilest he was alone on the Sea shore gathering the pieces of an old Boat to burne the body of his dead Master What art thou that preparest the funeralls of Pompey the great Who I am that so officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question hath in it more of wonder then disdaine Wonder indeed the Reader may that I who professe my selfe artlesse should presume with my faint light to shew forth his life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented certaine I am it is much to the advantage of the beholder who shall see the Authors picture in a naturall dresse which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And though it may be my fortune to fall under some censures for this undertaking yet I am pleased in a beliefe I have that if the Authors glorious spirit which is now in heaven can have the leasure to look downe and see his meanest friend in the midst of his officious duty he will not disdaine my well meaning
this love-strife of desert and liberality they continued for the space of three yeares he constantly and faithfully preaching they liberally requiting him About which time the Emperour of Germany died and the Palsgrave was elected and crowned King of Bohemia the unhappy beginning of much trouble in those Kingdomes King Iames whose Motto Beati Pacifici did truly characterize his disposition endeavoured to compose the differences of that discomposed State and to that end sent the Earle of Carlile then Vicount Doncaster his Ambassadour to those unsetled Princes and by a speciall command from his Majestie D. Donne was appointed to attend the Embassage of the said Earle to the Prince of the Union For which the Earle that had long knowne and loved him was most glad So were many of the Doctors friends who feared his studies Gen. 47. and sadnesse for his wives death would as Iacob sayes make his dayes few and respecting his bodily health evill too At his going he left his friends of Lincolnes Inne and they him with many reluctations For though he could not say as S. Paul to his Ephesians Behold you to whom I have preacht the kingdome of God shall henceforth see my face no more yet he being in a Consumption questioned it and they feared it considering his troubled minde which with the helpe of his un-intermitted studies hastned the decayes of his weake body But God turned it to the best for this imployment did not onely divert him from those serious studies and sad thoughts but gave him a new and true occasion of joy to be an eye-witnesse of the health of his honoured Mistris the Queene of Bohemia in a forraigne Land who having formerly knowne him a Courtier was most glad to see him in a Canonicall habit and more glad to be an eare-witnesse of his most excellent and powerfull preaching Within fourteen moneths he returned to his friends of Lincolnes Inne with his sorrowes much moderated and his health improved About a yeare after his returne from Germany Dr Cary was made Bishop of Exeter and by his removall the Deanry of S. Pauls being vacant the King appointed Doctor Donne to waite on him at dinner the next day And his Majesty being set downe before he eat any meat said after his pleasant manner Doctor Donne I have invited you to dinner And though you sit not downe with me yet I will carve to you of a dish that I know you love you love London well I doe therefore make you Deane of Pauls take your meate home to your study say grace and much good may it doe you Immediately after he came to his Deanry he imployed workmen to repaire the Chappel belonging to his house Psal 132. Suffering as holy David once vowed his eyes and temples to take no rest untill he had first beautified the house of God The next quarter following when his Father in Law Sir George More who now admired and dearly loved him came to pay him the conditioned sum of twenty pound he denied to receive it And said to his Father Gen. 45. as good Iacob said when he beard Ioseph his sonne lived It is enough you have been kinde to me and carefull of mine I am I thanke my God provided for and will receive this money no longer And not long after freely gave up his bond of eight hundred pound Presently after he was setled in his Deanry the Vicarage of S. Dunstans in London fell to him by the death of Doctor White The advowson being formerly given to him by the right Honorable Richard Earle of Dorset a little before his death And confirmed to him by his Brother the right Honorable Edward Earle of Dorset that now lives By these and another Ecclesiasticall Endowment which fell to him about the same time he was inabled to be charitable to the poore and to make such provision for his Children that at his death they were not left scandalous to his profession and quality The next Parliament following he was chosen Prolocutor to the Convocation and about that time by the appointment of his Majesty his gracious Master did preach many occasionall Sermons All which he performed not onely with the approbation but to the admiration of the representative body of the Clergy of this Kingdome He was once and but once clouded with the Kings displeasure It was about this time occasioned by some malicious whisperer which assured the King Doctor Donne had preacht a Sermon that implied a dislike of his government particularly of his late Directions that the Evening Lectures on Sundaies should be turned into Catechizing expounding the Commandements Beliefe and Lords Prayer His Majesty was the more inclinable to beleeve this for that about the same time a person of the Nobility of great note in the Kingdome and favour with the King whom his Majesty knew Doctor Donne loved very much was discarded the Court and presently after committed to prison which begot many rumors in the multitude The King suffered not the Sunne to set till he had searcht out the truth of this report but sent presently for Doctor Donne and required his answer to the accusation which was so satisfactory That the King said he was glad he rested not under that suspition Doctor Donne protested his answer was faithfull and free from all Collusion And therefore begged of his Majesty that he might not rise being then kneeling before he had as in like cases he alwayes had from God some assurance that he stood cleere and faire in his Majesties opinion The King with his own hand did or offered to raise him from his knees and protested he was truly satisfied that he was an honest man and loved him Presently his Majesty called some Lords of his Councell into his Chamber and said with much earnestnesse My Doctor is an honest man And my Lords I was never more joyed in anything that I have done then in making him a Divine He was made Deane in the fiftieth yeare of his age And in the fifty fourth yeare a dangerous sicknesse seised him which turned to a spotted Feaver and ended in a Cough that inclined him to a Consumption But God as Iob thankfully acknowledgeth preserved his spirit keeping his intellectualls as cleere and perfect as when that sicknesse first seised his body And as his health increased so did his thankfulnesse testified in his booke of Devotions A book that may not unfitly be called A composition of holy Extasies occasioned and appliable to the Emergencies of that sicknesse which booke being Meditations in his sicknesse he writ on his sicke bed herein imitating the holy Patriarchs Gen. 12.7.8 Gen. 28.18 who were wont in that place to build their Altars where they had received their blessing This sicknesse brought him to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devoure him that he calls his recovery supernaturall But God restored his health and continued it untill the fifty-ninth yeare of his life And then in
August 1630. being with his daughter Mistris Harvy at Abrey-Hatch in Essex he fell into a Feaver which with the helpe of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as S. Paul of himselfe he dyes daily And he might say with Iob Job 30.15 Job 7.3 My welfare passeth away as a cloud The dayes of affliction have taken hold of me And weary nights are appointed for me This sicknesse continued long not onely weakning but wearing him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest And that thou judge it no impertinent digression before I speake of his death to looke backe with me upon some observations of his life which while a gentle slumber seises him may I hope fitly exercise thy Consideration His marriage was the remarkable error of his life which though he had a wit apt enough and very able to maintaine paradoxes And though his wives competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate a severe censure yet he never seemed to justifie and doubtlesse had repented it if God had not blest them with a mutuall and so cordiall an affection as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquet of fooles The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature with all her varieties had been made to exercise his great wit and high fancy And in those pieces which were carelesly scattered in his younger daies most of them being written before the twentieth yeare of his age it may appeare by his choice Metaphors that all the Arts joyned to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wisht they had been abortive or so short-liv'd that he had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so falne out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake it no not in his declining age witnessed then by many divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious composures yea even on his former sick bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy he then had in the assurance of Gods mercy to him A Hymne to God the Father VVIlt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And doe run still though still I doe deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin and made my sin their dore Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A yeare or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of feare that when I have spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But sweare by thy selfe that at my death thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I feare no more And on this which was his Death-bed writ another Hymne which bears this Title A Hymne to God my God in my sicknesse If these fall under the censure of a soule whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many devout and learned men have thought the soule of holy Prudentius was most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning with a new and spirituall Song justified by the examples of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his yeares payed his gratefull vowes to God in a royall hymne Esay 38. which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of our life in the Temple of my God The later part of his life was a continued studie Saturdaies onely excepted which he usually spent in visiting friends and resting himselfe under the weary burthen of his weeks Meditations And he gave himselfe this rest that thereby he might be refresht and inabled to doe the work of the day following not negligently but with courage and cheerfulnesse Nor was his age onely so industrious but in his most unsetled youth he was being in health never knowne to be in bed after foure of the clock in the morning nor usually out of his chamber till ten and imployed that time constantly if not more in his Studie Which if it seeme strange may gain beliefe by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remaine to testifie what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them analyzed with his owne hand He left sixscore Sermons also all writ with his owne hand A large and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatose wherein all the Lawes violated by that act are diligently survayed and judiciously censured A Treatise written in his youth which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many profest Scholars that labour to be thought learned Clerks and to know all things Nor were these onely found in his Studie but all businesses that past of any publique consequence in this or any of our neighbour Kingdoms he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of the Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the Copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his solutions and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himselfe He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his Will when no facultie of his soule was dampt or defective by sicknesse or he surprized by sudden apprehension of death But with mature deliberation expressing himselfe an impartiall Father by making his Childrens Portions equall a constant lover of his friends by particular Legacies discreetly chosen and fitly bequeathed them And full of charity to the poore and many others who by his long continued bounty might entitle themselves His almes-people For all these he made provision so largely as having six children might to some appeare more then proportionable to his estate The Reader may think the particulars tedious but I hope not impertinent that I present him with the beginning and conclusion of his last Will. IN the name of the blessed and glorious Trinitie Amen I Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus and the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good and perfect understanding praised be God therefore doe hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soule with my most humble thanks for
that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and of the resurrection of the other And for that constant and cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit established in me to live and die in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request assigned for that purpose c. And this my last Will and Testament made in the feare of God whose merit I humbly beg and constantly rely upon in Iesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I aske from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiours Written all with mine owne hand and my name subscribed to every Page being five in number Nor was his charity exprest onely at his death but in his life by a cheerfull and frequent visitation of friends whose minds were dejected or fortunes necessitous And he redeemed many out of Prison that lay for small debts or for their fees He was a continuall giver to poore Scholars both of this and forraigne Nations besides what he gave with his owne hand he usually sent a servant to all the Prisons in London to distribute his charity at all festivall times in the yeare He gave 100. l. at one time to a Gentleman that he had formerly knowne live plentifully and was then decayed in his estate He was a happy Reconciler of of differences in many Families of his friends and kindred who had such faith in his judgement and impartiality that he scarce ever advised them to any thing in vaine He was even to her death a most dutifull son to his Mother carefull to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having suckt in the Religion of the Romane Church with her mothers milk or presently after it spent her estate in forraigne Countries to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three moneths before him And to the end it may appeare how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deanry as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and Angels onely were witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then his expences then what was given to the poore and pious uses lastly what rested for him and for his he blest each yeares poore remainder with a thankfull Prayer which for that they discover a more then common devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his owne words 1624. So all is that remains of these two years 1625. So all is that remains of these two years Deo Opt. Max. benigno Largitori à me ab iis quibus haec à me reservantur gloria gratia in aeternum Amen 1626. So that this yeare God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae sunt super nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensa bonitate tua nobis elargiri dignatus sis in quorumcunque manus devenerint in tuam semper cedant gloriam Amen 1628. In fine horum sex annorum manet 1629. Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largiatur etiam ut quae largitus est sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse ita ut libert quibus quae supersunt supersunt grato animo ea accipiant beneficum Authorem recognoscant Amen But I returne from my digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend most of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from thence And having never during almost twenty yeares omitted his personall attendance on his Majestie in his monthly service Nor being ever left out of the number of Lent Preachers And in January following there being a generall report that he was dead that report occasioned this Letter to a familiar friend SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent feavers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of heaven And this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my Prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse And I doubt not but amongst his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my Prayers A man would be almost content to die if there were no other benefit in death to heare of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all For one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my selfe to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ungrounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might die in the Pulpit If not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out For as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to reade yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your son as I wish January 7. 1630. Your poore friend and servant in Christ Jesus Iohn Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and having in his sicknesse prepared for the employment as he had long thirsted for it So resolving his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came to London some few dayes before his day appointed Being come many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that taske And therefore perswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his dayes But he passionately denyed their requests saying He would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing a holy ambition to
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
addition of comelinesse His aspect was cheerfull and such as gave a silent testimony of a cleere knowing soule and of a conscience at peace with it selfe His melting eye shewed he had a soft heart full of noble pity of too brave a spirit to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others His fancie was un-imitable high equalled by his great wit both being made usefull by a commanding judgement His mind was liberall and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soule is now satisfied and employed in a continuall praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body which once was a Temple of the holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it re-inanimated Iz Wa IOHANNES DONNE SAC THEOL PROFESSOR POST VARIA STUDIA QVIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SPIR S ti MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS IACOBI ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS Aº SUI JESU 1614. ET SUAE AETATIS 42. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIAE INDUTUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS 1621. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus Nomen est ORIENS A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled by the Author in this BOOK SERM. I. COLOS. 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in earth or things in heaven page 1 SERM. II. ESAIAH 7.14 Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel pa. 11 SERM. III. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Sonne made of a woman made under the Law to redeeme them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons pa. 20 SERM. IV. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seene thy salvation pa. 29. SERM. V. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send pa. 39 SERM. VI. Lord who hath beleeved our report pa. 52 SERM. VII JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly pa. 62 SERM. VIII MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven pa. 77 SERM. IX ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues pa. 86 SERM. X. ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemie hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head pa. 96 SERM. XI MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee pa. 102 SERM. XII MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God pa. 112 SERM. XIII JOB 16. ver 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover thou not my bloud and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high pa. 127 SERM. XIV AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have ye to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light pa. 136 SERM. XV. 1 COR 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death pa. 144 SERM. XVI JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept pa. 153 SERM. XVII MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God pa. 163 SERM. XVIII ACTS 2.36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ pa. 175 SERM. XIX APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection pa. 183 SERM. XX. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of damnation pa. 192 SERM. XXI 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead pa. 120 SERM. XXII HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection pa. 213 SERM. XXIII 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a glasse darkly But then face to face Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne pa. 224 SERM. XXIV JOB 4.18 Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly pa. 233 SERM. XXV MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay pa. 242 SERM. XXVI 1 THES 4.17 Then we which are alive and remaine shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre and so shall we be ever with the Lord. pa. 254 SERM. XXVII PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death pa. 267 SERM. XXVIII XXIX JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you pa. 277. 286 SERM. XXX JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you pa. 294 SERM. XXXI GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters pa. 303 SERM. XXXII 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost p. 312 SERM. XXXIII ACTS 10.44 While Peter yet spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word pa. 321 SERM. XXXIV ROM 8.16 The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God pa. 332 SERM. XXXV MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men pa. 341 SERM. XXXVI XXXVII JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye beleeve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged pa. 351. 361 SERM. XXXVIII 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
not Christ meerly as the Son of God but the Son of Mary too And that generation the Holy Ghost hath told us was in the fulnesse of time When the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth c. In which words Divisio we have these three considerations First the time of Christs comming and that was the fulnesse of time And then the maner of his comming which is expressed in two degrees of humiliation one that he was made of a woman the other that he was made under the Law And then the third part is the purpose of his comming which also was twofold for first he came to redeem them who were under the Law All And secondly he came that we we the elect of God in him might receive adoption When the fulnesse of time was come c. For the full consideration of this fulnesse of time ãâã we shall first consider this fulnesse in respect of the Jews and then in respect of all Nations and lastly in respect of our selves The Jews might have seen the fulnesse of time the Gentiles did in some measure see it and we must if we will have any benefit by it see it too It is an observation of S. Cyril That none of the Saints of God nor such as were noted to be exemplarily religious and sanctified men did ever celebrate with any festivall solemnity their own birth-day Pharaoh celebrated his own Nativity ãâã 40.22 but who would make Pharaoh his example and besides he polluted that festivall with the bloud of one of his servants Herod celebrated his Nativity but who would think it an honor to be like Herod and besides he polluted that festivall with the blood of Iohn Baptist But the just contemplation of the miseries and calamities of this life into which our birth-day is the doore and the entrance is so far from giving any just occasion of a festivall as it hath often transported the best disposed Saints and servants of God to a distemper to a malediction and cursing of their birth-day ãâ¦ã Cursed be the day wherein I was born and let not that day wherein my mother bare me be blessed Let the day perish wherein I was born let that day be darknesse Job 3. and let not God regard it from above How much misery is presaged to us when we come so generally weeping into the world that perchance in the whole body of history we reade but of one childe Zoroaster that laughed at his birth What miserable revolutions and changes what downfals what break-necks and precipitations may we justly think our selves ordained to if we consider that in our comming into this world out of our mothers womb we doe not make account that a childe comes right except it come with the head forward and thereby prefigure that headlong falling into calamities which it must suffer after Though therefore the dayes of the Martyrs which are for our example celebrated in the Christian Church be ordinarily called natalitia Martyrum the birth-day of the Martyrs yet that is not intended of their birth in this world but of their birth in the next when by death their soules were new delivered of their prisons here and they newly born into the kingdome of heaven that day upon that reason the day of their death was called their birth-day and celebrated in the Church by that name Onely to Christ Jesus the fulnesse of time was at his birth not because he also had not a painfull life to passe through but because the work of our redemption was an intire work and all that Christ said or did or suffered concurred to our salvation as well his mothers swathing him in little clouts as Iosephs shrowding him in a funerall sheete as well his cold lying in the Manger as his cold dying upon the Crosse as well the puer natus as the consummatum est as well his birth as his death is said to have been the fulnesse of time First we consider it to have been so to the Jews for this was that fulnesse Indeic in which all the prophecies concerning the Messias were exactly fulfilled Dan. 2. Hagg. 2. Mich. 5. Esay 7. That he must come whilest the Monarchy of Rome flourished And before the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed That he must be born in Bethlem That he must be born of a Virgin His person his actions his passion so distinctly prophecyed so exactly accomplished as no word being left unfulfilled this must necessarily be a fulnesse of time So fully was the time of the Messias comming come that though some of the Jews say now that there is no certain time revealed in the Scriptures when the Messias shall come and others of them say that there was a time determined and revealed and that this time was the time but by reason of their great sins he did not come at his time yet when they examine their own supputations they are so convinced with that evidence that this was that fulnesse of time that now they expresse a kinde of conditionall acknowledgement of it by this barbarous and inhumane custome of theirs that they alwayes keep in readinesse the blood of some Christian with which they anoint the body of any that dyes amongst them with these words if Jesus Christ were the Messias then may the blood of this Christian availe thee to salvation So that by their doubt and their implyed consent in this action this was the fulnesse of time when Christ Jesus did come that the Messias should come It was so to the Jews and it was so to the Gentiles too Gontibus It filled those wise men which dwelt so far in the East that they followed the star from thence to Jerusalem Herod was so full of it that he filled the Countrey with streames of innocent bloud and lest he should spare that one innocent childe killed all The two Emperours of Rome Vespasian and Domitian were so full of it that in jealousie of a Messias to come then from that race they took speciall care for the destruction of all of the posterity of David All the whole people were so full of it that divers false-Messiahs Barcocab and Moses of Crete and others rose up and drew and deceived the people as if they had been the Messiah because that was ordinarily knowne and received to be the time of his comming And the Devill himself was so full of it as that in his Oracles he gave that answer That an Hebrew childe should be God over all gods and brought the Emperour to erect an Altar to this Messiah Christ Jesus though he knew not what he did This was the fulnesse that filled Jew and Gentile Kings and Philosophers strangers and inhabitants counterfaits and devils to the expectation of a Messiah and when comes this fulnesse of time to us that we feele this Messiah born in our selves In this fulnesse in this comming of our Saviour into us Nobis we should
at the Kings table certain portions of bread are made bread of Essay to passe over every dish whether for safety or for Majesty not only so civilly changed but changed supernaturally no nor Theophylacts transformatus est which seemes to be the word that goes farthest of all for this transforming cannot be intended of the outward form and fashion for that is not changed but be it of that internall form which is the very essence and nature of the bread so it is transformed so the bread hath received a new form a new essence a new nature because whereas the nature of bread is but to nourish the body the nature of this bread now is to nourish the soule And therefore Cum non dubitavit Dominus dicere hoc est corpus meum August cum signum daret corporis Since Christ forbore not to say This is my body when he gave the sign of his body why should we forbeare to say of that bread this is Christs body which is the Sacrament of his body You would have said at noone this light is the Sun and you will say now this light is the Candle That light was not the Sun this light is not the Candle but it is that portion of aire which the Sun did then and which the Candle doth now enlighten We say the Sacramentall bread is the body of Christ because God hath shed his Ordinance upon it and made it of another nature in the use though not in the substance Almost 600. years agoe the Romane Church made Berengarius sweare sensualiter tangitur frangitur teritur corpus Christs That the body of Christ was sensibly handled and broken and chewed They are ashamed of that now and have mollified it with many modifications and God knowes whether 100. yeares hence they will not bee as much ashamed of their Transubstantiation and see as much unnaturall absurdity in their Trent Canon or Lateran Canoââ âs they doe in Berengarius oath As they that deny the body of Christ to be in the Sacrament lose their footing in departing from their ground the expresse Scriptures so they that will assign a particular manner how that body is there have no footing no ground at all no Scripture to Anchor upon And so diving in a bottomlesse sea they poppe sometimes above water to take breath to appeare to say something and then snatch at a loose preposition that swims upon the face of the waters and so the Roman Church hath catched a Trans and others a Con and a Sub and an In and varied their poetry into a Transubstantiation and a Consubstantiation and the rest and rymed themselves beyond reason into absurdities and heresies and by a young figure of similiter cadens they are fallen alike into error though the errors that they are fallen into be not of a like nature nor danger We offer to goe no farther then according to his Word In the Sacrament our eyes see his salvation according to that so far as that hath manifested unto us and in that light wee depart in peace without scruple in our owne without offence to other mens consciences Having thus seene Simeon in these his Dimensions with these holy impressions 2 Part. these blessed characters upon him first 1 A man in a reverend age then 2 In a holy function and calling and with that 3 Righteous in the eyes of men and withall 4 Devout in the eyes of God 5 And made a Prophet upon himselfe by the holy Ghost 6 still wayting Gods time and his leasure 7 And in that desiring that his joy might be spread upon the whole Israel of God 8 Frequenting holy places the Temple 9 And that upon holy motions and there 10 seeing the salvation of the Lord that is Discerning the application of salvation in the Ordinances of the Church 11 And lastly contenting himselfe with so much therein as was according to his word and not inquiring farther then God had beene pleased to reveale and having reflected all these severall beames upon every worthy Receiver of the Sacrament the whole Quire of such worthy receivers may joyne with Simeon in this Antiphon Nunc Dimittis Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace c. S. Ambrose reades not this place as we doe Nunc dimittis but Nunc dimitte not Lord thou doest so but Lord doe so and so he gives it the forme of a prayer and implyes not only a patience and a contentednesse but a desire and an ambition that he might die at least such an indifferency and equanimity as Israel had when he had seen Ioseph Gen. 46.30 Now let me die since I have seen thy face after he had seen his face the next face that he desired to see was the face of God For howsoever there may bee some disorder some irregularity in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus that he desired to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should that may scarce be drawen into consequence or made a wish for us to imitate yet to S. Pauls Cupio dissolvi to an expresse and to a deliberate desire to be dissolved here and to be united to Christ in heaven still with a primary relation to the glory of God and a reservation of the will of God a godly a rectified and a well-disposed man may safely come And so I know not upon what grounds Nicephorus fayes Simeon did wish and had his wish he prayed that he might die and actually he did die then Neither can a man at any time be fitter to make and obtain this wish then when his eyes have seen his salvation in the Sacrament At least make this an argument of your having beene worthy receivers thereof that you are in Aequilibriâo in an evennesse in an indifferency in an equanimity whether ye die this night or no. For howsoever S. Ambrose seem to make it a direct prayer that he might die he intends but such an equanimity such an indifferency Quasi servus nonrefugit vitae obsequium quasi sapiem lucrum mortis amplectitur sayes that Father Simeon is so good a servant as that he is content to serve his old master still in his old place in this world but yet he is so good a husband too as that hee sees what a gainer he might be if he might be made free by death If thou desire not death that is the case of very few to doe so in a rectified conscience and without distemper if thou beest not equally disposed towards death that should be the case of all and yet we are far from condemning all that are not come to that equanimity yet if thou now feare death inordinately I should feare that thine eyes have not seen thy salvation to day who can feare the darknesse of death that hath had the light of this world and of the next too who can feare death this night that hath had the Lord of life in his hand to day It is a question of
not God And because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evill But now in the manifestation of Christ they saw evident changes changes and revolutions in the highest spheare they saw a new King and they heard strangers proclaime him forraigne Kings doe not send Ambassadors to congratulate but come in person to doe their homage and aske their audience in that style Where is he that is borne King of the Iews not an elective not an arbitrary not a conditionall a provisionall King but an hereditary a naturall King Borne King of the Iews They heare strangers proclaime him Mat. 2.2 and they proclaime him themselves in that act of Recognition in that acclamatory Hosanna in this Chapter Blessed is the King of Israel that commeth in the name of the Lord. v. 13. Mat. 2.3 They saw changes changes with which Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him And they saw sentence executed for as soone as Christ manifested himselfe Iohn Baptist saies Now Mat. 3.10 Mat. 3.12 now that Christ declares himselfe the axe is laid unto the roote of the tree and now saies he His fanne is in his hand and he will purge his floore And this sentence he executed this regall power he exercised not onely after that Recognition of his subjects in their Hosannaes in this chapter for upon that he did go into the Temple and cast out the buyers and sellers but some yeares before that at his first manifestation of himselfe and soone after Iohn Baptists Now Iohn 2.3 now is the axe laid to the roote of the Tree did Christ execute this sentence not onely to drive but to scourge them out that prophaned the Temple which was the second miracle that we ascribe to Christ Indeed all his miracles were so many acts not onely of his regall power over some men but of his absolute prerogative over the whole frame and body of nature Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles could argue to themselves otherwise then thus The winds and seas obey this man for when he suffers them the winds roare and when hee whispers a silence to them they are silenced The Devils and uncleane spirits obey him for when he suffers it they preach his glory and when he refuses honour from so dishonourable mouths they are silent Death it selfe obeyes him for when he will death withholds his hand from closing that mans eye that lyes upon his last gaspe and the last stroke of his bell and hee does not die and when he will death withdraws his hand from him who had beene foure daies in his possession and redelivers Lazarus to a new life This they saw and could they choose but say the wind and the sea the devill and uncleane spirits and death it selfe obeyes this man how shall we stand before this man this King this God yet for all this voice this loud voice of miracles for when S. Chrysostome sayes Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio Every good worke hath the voyce of a trumpet every miracle hath the voice of thunder for all this loud voice as it is said in the verse before the text Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they beleeved not on him it is faine to come to that Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report The first of those great names which were given to Christ Esay 9.6 in the Prophet Esay was Mirabilis The wonderfull The supernaturall man the man that workes miracles for of the Apostles it is said by them great miracles were wrought but God wrought those miracles by them Christ wrought his miracles himself And his Birth and his Life and Death and Refurrection and Ascension were all complicated and elemented of miracles If hee fasted himselfe he did that miraculously and it was with a miracle when he feasted others He healed many that were sick of divers diseases Mark 1.34 Mat. 9.35 and cast out many Devils saies S. Marke And S. Matthew carries it a great deale farther Hee went about all the Cities and villages healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people Therefore Christ makes that the evidence of his miracles the issue betweene them If these mighty works had beene done in Tyre and Sidon Mat. 11.21 Iohn 15.22 Tyre and Sidon would have repented And therefore he places their inexcusablenesse in that If I had not come and spoken to them they had had no sinne Nay if I had not spoken to them in this loud voyce the voyce of miracles they might have had some cloake for their finne but now they have none saies Christ in that place And beloved are not we inexcusable in that degree Have not wee seene changes and seene judgements executed and seene miraculous deliverances and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved these reports I would wee could but take aright a mis-taken translation and make that use that is offered us in others error The vulgar Edition the translation of the Roman Church reads that place in the 77. Psalme and 11. verse thus Nunc caepi saies David Now I have taken out my lesson the right way now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle Nunc caepi Now I have all that I need to have what is it This Haec mutatio dextrae Dei this is to take out my lesson aright to understand God truly and to know acknowledge that this change which I see is an act of the right hand of God and that it is a judgement and not an accident O beloved that wee would not be afraid of giving God too much glory not afraid of putting God into too much heart or of making God too imperious over us by acknowledging that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God and come from him But we are not onely subject to the Prophets increpation Quis credit that we doe not beleeve Gods warnings of future judgements but to the Euangelists increpation in the person of Christ Quis credidit we do not beleeve present judgements to be judgements An invincible navy hath beene sent against us and defeated and we sacrifice to a casuall storme for that wee say the winds delivered us A powder treason hath been plotted and discovered and we sacrifice to a casuall letter for that we say the letter delivered us A devouring plague hath raigned and gone out againe and we sacrifice to an early frost for that we say the cold weather delivered us Domestique encumbrances personall infirmities sadnesse of heart dejection of spirit oppresses us and then weares out and passes over and we sacrifice for that to wine and strong drinke to musique to Comedies to conversation and to all Iobs miserable comforters wee say it was but a melancholique fit and good company hath delivered us of it But when God himselfe saies There is
is done sayes the Apostle So that here is the case if the naturall man say alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature if the Jew say alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets If the slack and historicall Christian say alas they are but generall things done for the whole world indifferently and not applyed to me which I reade in the Gospell to this naturall man to this Jew to this slack Christian we present an established Church a Church endowed with a power to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soule to spread the balme of his blood upon every bleeding heart A Church that makes this generall Christ particular to every Christian that makes the Saviour of the world thy Saviour and my Saviour that offers the originall sinner Baptisme for that and the actuall sinner the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that a Church that mollifies and entenders and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgements of God and then consolidates and establishes the diffident soule with the promises of his Gospell a Church in contemplation whereof God may say Quid potui Vineae what could I doe more for my people then I have done first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world and then to spread a Church over the whole world by which that death of his might be life to every soule This we preach this we propose according to that commission put into our hands Ite praedicate Goe and preach the Gospell to every creature and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report In this then the Apostle and this Text places the inflexible the incorrigible stiffenesse of mans disobedience in this he seales up his inexcusablenesse his irrecoverablenesse first that he is not afraid of future judgements because they are remote then that he does not beleeve present judgements to be judgements because he can make shift to call them by a milder name accidents and not judgements and can assigne some naturall or morall or casuall reason for them But especially in this that he does not beleeve a perpetuall presence of Christ in his Church he does not beleeve an Ordinance of meanes by which all burdens of bodily infirmities of crosses in fortune of dejection of spirit and of the primary cause of all these that is sin it selfe may be taken off or made easie unto him he does not beleeve a Church Now as in our former part we were bound to know Gods hand and then bound to reade it to acknowledge a judgement to be a judgement and then to consider what God intended in that judgement so here we are bound to know the true Church and then to know what the true Church proposes to us The true Church is that where the word is truely preached and the Sacraments duly administred But it is the Word the Word inspired by the holy Ghost not Apocryphall not Decretall not Traditionall not Additionall supplements and it is the Sacraments Sacraments instituted by Christ himself and not those super-numerary sacraments those posthume post-nati sacrameÌts that have been multiplyed after and then that which the true Church proposes is all that is truly necessary to salvation and nothing but that in that quality as necessary So that Problematical points of which either side may be true in which neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation those marginal interlineary notes that are not of the body of the text opinions raised out of singularity in some one man and then maintained out of partiality and affection to that man these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church nor lay obligations upon mens consciences They should not disturb the general peace they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another The Act then that God requires of us is to beleeve so the words carry it in all the three places The Object the next the nearest Object of this Belief is made the Church that is to beleeve that God hath established means for the application of Christs death to all in all Christian Congregations All things are possible to him that beleeveth Mar. 9 23. saith our Saviour In the Word and Sacraments there is Salvation to every soule that beleeves there is so As on the other side we have from the same mouth and the same pen He that beleeveth not is damned Faith then being the root of all Mar. 16.16 and God having vouchsafed to plant this root this faith here in his terrestriall paradise and not in heaven in the manifest ministery of the Gospell and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose for faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching which are things executed and transacted here in the Church be thou content with those meanes which God hath ordained and take thy faith in those meanes and beleeve it to be influxus suasorius that it is an influence from God but an influence that works in thee by way of perswasion and not of compulsion It convinces thee but it doth not constraine thee It is as S. Augustine sayes excellently Vocatio congrua it is the voice of God to thee but his voice then when thou art fit to heare and answer that voice not fitted by any exaltation of thine own naturall faculties before the coÌming of grace nor fitted by a good husbanding of Gods former grace so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace but fitted by his preventing his auxiliant his concomitant grace grace exhibited to thee at that time when he calls thee for so saies that Father Sic eum vocat quo modo seit ei congruere ut vocanteÌ non respuat God calls him then when he knows he wil not resist his calling But he doth not say then when he caÌnot resist that needs not be said But as there is podus glcriae as the Apostle speaks an eternall weight of glory which mans understanding cannot coÌprehend so there is Pondus gratiae a certain weight of grace that God layes upon that soule which shall be his under which that soule shall not easily bend it self any way from God This then is the summe of this whole Catechisme which these words in these three places doe constitute First that we be truely affected with Gods fore-warnings and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve that judgement to be denounced against my sin And then that we be duely affected with present changes and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve this judgement to come from thee and to be a letter of thy hand Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright for thy more publique glory and me for my particular reformation And then lastly to be sincerely and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church and to rest in them for the means of our salvation and to
swore by himselfe because he could propose no greater thing in himself no clearer notion of himself then life for his life is his eternity and his eternity is himselfe does therefore through all the Law and the Prophets still sweare in that form Vivo ego vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and as the Lord liveth still he sweares by his own life As that solemne Oath which is mentioned in Daniel is conceived in that form too He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven Dan. 12.7 and swore by him that liveth for ever that is by God and God in that notion as he is life All that the Queen and the Councell could wish and apprecate to the King was but that Life In sempiternum vive vive in aeternum O King live for ever God is life Dan. 5. and would not the death of any We are not sure that stones have not life stones may have life neither to speak humanely is it unreasonably thought by them that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soule and to be one intire living creature and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before the Sun 1 Tim. 5.6 because a fly hath life and the Sun hath not This is the worst that the Apostle sayes of the young wanton widow That if she live in pleasure she is dead whilst she lives So is that Magistrate that studies nothing but his own honour and dignity in his place dead in his place And that Priest that studies nothing but his owne ease and profit dead in his living And that Judge that dares not condemne a guilty person And which is the bolder transgression dares condemne the innocent deader upon the Bench then the Prisoner at the Barre God hath included all that is good Dcut. 30.15 in the name of Life and all that is ill in the name of Death when he sayes See I have set before thee Vitam Bonum Life and Good Mortem Malum Death and Evill This is the reward proposed to our faith Hab. 2.4 Iustus fide sua vivit To live by our faith And this is the reward proposed to our works Fac hoc vives to live by our works All is life And this fulnesse this consummation of happinesse Life and the life of life spirituall life and the exaltation of spirituall life eternall life is the end of Christs comming I came that they might have life And first Vt daret ut daret that he might give life bring life into the world that there might be life to be had that the world might be redeemed from that losse which S. Augustine sayes it was falne into Perdidimus possibilitatem boni That we had all lost all possibility of life For the heaven and the earth and all that the Poet would call Chaos was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters then Mankind was before the influence of Christs comming wrought upon it But now that God so loved the world as that he gave his Son now that the Son so loved the world as that he gave himselfe Psal 19.6 as David sayes of the Sun of the firmament the father of nature Nihit absconditum there is nothing hid from the heat thereof so we say of this Son of God the Father of the faithfull in a far higher sense then Abraham was called so Nihilabsconditum there is nothing hid from him no place no person excluded from the benefit of his comming The Son hath paid the Father hath received enough for all not in fingle money for the discharge of thy lesser debts thy idle words thy wanton thoughts thy unchast looks but in massie talents to discharge thy crying debts the clamors of those poore whom thou hast oppressed and thy thundring debts those blasphemies by which thou hast torne that Father that made thee that Sonne that redeemed thee that boly Ghost that would comfort thee 1 Reg. 5. There is enough given but then as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the Temple but there was something else to be done for the fitting and placing thereof so there is life enough brought into the world for all the world by the death of Christ but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons intended in this word in our Text ut haberent I came that they might have life There is Ayre enough in the world Vt haberent to give breath to every thing though every thing doe not breath If a tree or a stone doe not breathe it is not because it wants ayre but because it wants meanes to receive it or to returne it All egges are not hatched that the hen sits upon Matt. 23.37 neither could Christ himselfe get all the chickens that were hatched to come and to stay under his wings That man that is blinde or that will winke shall see no more sunne upon S. Barnabies day then upon S. Lucies no more in the summer then in the winter solstice Psal 130.7 And therefore as there is copiosa redemptio a plentifull redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ so as S. Paul found it in his particular conversion there is copiosa lux Acts 22.6 a great a powerfull light exhibited to us that we might see and lay hold of this life in the Ordinances of the Church in the Confessions and Absolutions and Services and Sermons and Sacraments of the Church Christ came ut daret that he might bring life into the world by his death and then he instituted his Church ut haberent that by the meanes thereof this life might be infused into us and infused so as the last word of our Text delivers it Abundantiùs I came that they might have life more abundantly Dignaris Domine AbuÌdantiùs August ut eis quibus debita dimittis te promissionibus tuis debitorem facias This O Lord is thine abundant proceeding First thou forgivest me my debt to thee and then thou makest thy selfe a debter to me by thy large promises and after all performest those promises more largely then thou madest them Indeed God can doe nothing scantly penuriously singly Even his maledictions to which God is ever loth to come his first commination was plurall it was death and death upon death Morte morieris Death may be plurall but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular Chajim which is the word for life hath no singular number This is the difference betweene Gods Mercy and his Judgements that sometimes his Judgements may be plurall complicated enwrapped in one another but his Mercies are alwayes so and cannot be otherwise he gives them abundantiùs more abundantly More abundantly then to whom Illis gentibus The naturall man hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule eternity is God himselfe man hath not
the Gospell above the law Not onely in that the blessings of God are presented in the Old Testament in the name of Milke and Hony and Oyle and Wine all temporall things and in the New Testament in the name of Joy and Glory things in a manner spirituall But that also in the Old Testament the best things are limited and measured unto them a Gomer of Manna and no more Mat. 25.21 Heb. 12.2 Iohn 15.11 Iohn 16.21 for the best man whereas for the joy of the Gospell we shall enter In Gandium Domini Into our Masters Ioy and be made partakers with Christ Jesus of that Ioy for which he endured the Crosse And here in this world Gaudium meum erit saies Christ My Ioy shall be in you in what measure Implebitar saies he Your Ioy shall be full How long for ever Nemo tollet your Ioy shall no man take from you And such as the Joy is such is the glory too Eph. 1.18 2 Cor. 4.17 1 Pet. 5.4 How precious Divitiae Gloria The Riches of the Glory of his Inheritance How much Pondus gloriae A waight of glory How long Immarcescibilis Corona A crowne of Glory that never fadeth We might I say take occasion of making this comparison betweene the Old and the New Testament out of this Text because this charity enjoyned here in this text to our enemy in that place from whence this text is taken in the Proverbs is but Lachem and Maiim Bread and Water But here in S. Paul it is in words of better signification feed him give him drinke But indeed the words at the narrowest as it is but bread and water signifie whatsoever is necessary for the reliefe of him that stands in need And if we be enjoyn'd so much to our enemy how inexcusable are those Datores cyminibiles as the Canonists call them that give Mint and Cummin for almes a roote that their Hogs will not a broth that their Dogs will not eate Remember in thy charity the times and the proportions of thy Saviour After his Death in the wound in his side he poured out water and bloud which represented both Sacraments and so was a bountifull Dole provide in thy life to doe good after thy death and it shall be welcome even in the eyes of God then But remember too that this dole at his death was not the first almes that he gave his water was his white mony and his blood was his gold and he poured out both together in his agony and severally in his weeping and being scourged for thee What proportion of reliefe is due to him that is thy brother in Nature thy brother in Nation thy brother in Religion if meate and drinke and in that whatsoever is necessary to his sustentation bee due to thine enemy But all this bountifull charity Si esurierit is Si esurierit si sitit If he be hungry if he be thirsty To the King who beares the care and the charge of the publique wee are bound to give Antequam esuriat Antequam sitias before he be overtaken with dangerous and dishonorable and lesse remediable necessities not onely substantiall wants upon which our safety depends but circumstantiall and ceremoniall wants upon which his Dignity and Majesty depends are alwaies to bee not onely supplied but prevented But our enemy must be in hunger and thirst that is reduced to the state as hee may not become our enemy againe by that which we give before wee are bound by this text to give any thing No doubt but the Church of Rome hungers still for the money of this land upon which they fed so luxuriantly heretofore and no doubt but those men whom they shall at any time animate will thirst for the blood of this land which they have sought before but this is not the hunger and the thirst of the enemy which we must feed The Commandement goes not so far as to feed that enemy that may thereby be a more powerfull enemy But yet thus far truly it does goe deny no office of civility of peace of commerce of charity to any onely therefore because hee hath beene heretofore an enemy There remaines nothing of those two branches which constitute our first part 2. Part. the person that is an enâââ reduced to a better disposition and the duty that is to relieve him with things necessary for that state And for the second part we must stop upon those steps laid downe at first of which the first was That God takes nothing for nothing he gives a Reward When God tooke that great proportion of Sheep and Oxen out of his subjects goods in the State of Israel for Sacrifice that proportion which would have kept divers Kings houses and would have victualed divers navies perchance no man could say I have this or this benefit for this or this Sacrifice but yet could any man say God hath taken a Sacrifice for nothing Where we have Peace and Justice and Protection can any man say he gives any thing for nothing When God saies If I were hungry I would not tell thee that 's not intended which Tertullian saies Psal 50.12 Scriptum est Deus non esuriet nec sitiet It is written God shall neither hunger nor thirst for first Tertullians memory failed him there is no such sentence in all the Scripture as he cites there And then God does hunger and thirst in this sense in the members of his mysticall body neither is that onely intended in that place of the Psalme though Cassiodore take it so That if God in his poore Saints were hungry he could provide them without telling thee but it is If I were hungry I need not tell thee for Psal 24.1 The earth is the Lords and the fulnesse thereof and they that dwell therein God does not alwaies binde himselfe to declare his hunger his thirst his pressing occasions to use the goods of his subjects but as the Lord gives so the Lord takes where and when he will But yet as God transfuses a measure of this Right and power of taking into them of whom he hath said you are Gods so he transfuses this goodnesse too which is in himselfe that he takes nothing for nothing He promises here a reward and a reward arising from the enemy which puts a greater encouragement upon us to doe it Super caput ejus In so doing thou shalt heape coales of fire on his head God is the Lord of Hosts and in this Text Ex Inimicis he makes the seate of the warre in the enemies Country and enriches his servants Ex manubiis out of the spoyle of the enemy In caput ejus It shall fall upon his head Though all men that go to the war goe not upon those just reasons deliberated before in themselves which are ãâã defence of a just cause the obedience to a lawfull Commandment yet of those that do goe without those conscientiense deliberations none goes therefore
inducunt colores saies Origen in the same place Thy sinnes cover the Image of God with other Images Images of Beauty of Honour of Pleasure so that sometimes thou dost not discerne the Image of God in thy soule but yet there it is sometimes thou fillest this Well with other waters with teares of hypocrisie to deceive or teares of lamentation for worldly crosses but yet such a Well such a power to assist thine owne salvation there is in thee Mulier drachmam invenit non extrinsecus sed in dome The Woman who had lost her peece of silver found it not without doores but within It was In domo mundata when her house was made cleane but it was within the house and within her owne house Make cleane thy house by the assistances which Christ affords thee in his Church and thou shalt never faile finding of that within thee which shall save thee Not that it growes in thee naturally or that thou canst produce it of thy selfe but that God hath bound himselfe by his holy Covenant to perfect his work in every man that works with him So then in repenting of former sins in breaking off the practise of those sins in restoring whatsoever was gotten by those sins in precluding all relapses by a diligent survay and examination of particular actions this is this cleannesse this purity of heart which constitutes our first branch of this part And the second is the Purchase what we get by it which is Blessednesse Blessed are the pure in heart In this Beatue we make two steps Blessednesse and the present possession of this Blessednesse Now to this purpose it is a good Rule that S. Bernard gives and a good way that he goes Cui quaeque res sapiunt prout sunt is sapiens est saies he He that tasts and apprehends all things in their proper and naturall tast he that takes all things aright as they are Is sapiens est nothing distasts him nothing alters him he is wise If he take the riches of this world to be in their nature indifferent neither good nor bad in themselves but to receive their denomination in their use If he take long life to be naturally an effect of a good constitution and temperament of the body and a good husbanding of that temper by temperance If he take sicknesse to be a declination and disorder thereof and so other calamities to be the declination of their power or their favour in whose protection hee trusted then he takes all these things prout sunt as they are in their right tast and Is sapiens est he that takes things so is morally wise But thus far S. Bernard does but tell us Quis sapiens who is wise but then Cui ipsa sapientia sapit prout est is beatus He that tasts this Wisdome it selfe aright he onely is Blessed Now to taste this morall Wisedome aright to make the right use of that is to direct all that knowledge upon heavenly things To understand the wretchednesse of this world is to be wise but to make this wisedome apprehend a happinesse in the next world that is to be blessed If I can digest the want of Riches the want of Health the want of Reputation out of this consideration that good men want these as well as bad this is morall Wisedome and a naturall man may be as wise herein as I. But if I can make this Wisedome carry me to a higher contemplation That God hath cast these wants upon me to draw me the more easily to him and to see that in all likelihood my disposition being considered more wealth more health more preferment would have retarded me and slackned my pace in his service then this Wisdome that is this use of this morall Wisdome hath made me blessed and to this Blessednesse a naturall man cannot come This Blessednesse then is Congeries bonorum A concurrence a confluence an accumulation of all that is Good And he that is Mundus corde pure of heart safe in a rectified conscience hath that Not that every thing that hath Aliquam rationem boni any tincture or name of Good in it as Riches and Health and Honour must necessarily fall upon every man that is good and pure of heart for for the most part such men want these more then any other men But because even those things which have in them Aliquam rationem mali some tincture and name of ill as sicknesse of body or vexation of spirit shall be good to them because they shall advance them in their way to God therefore are they blessed as Blessednesse is Congeries bonorum the accumulation of all that is good because nothing can put on the nature of ill to them And though Blessednesse seeme to be but an expectative a reversion reserved to the next life yet so blessed are they in this testimony of a rectified conscience which is this purity of heart as that they have this blessednesse in a present possession Blessed are the pure in heart they are now they are already Blessed The farthest that any of the Philosophers went in the discovery of Blessednesse Nunc. was but to come to that Nemo ante obitum to pronounce that no man could be called Blessed before his death not that they had found what kind of better Blessednesse they went to after their death but that still till death they were shure every man was subject to new miseries and interruptions of any thing which they could have called Blessednesse The Christian Philosophy goes farther It showes us a perfecter Blessednesse then they conceived for the next life and it imparts that Blessednesse to this life also The pure in heart are blessed already not onely comparatively that they are in a better way of Blessednesse then others are but actually in a present possession of it for this world and the next world are not to the pure in heart two houses but two roomes a Gallery to passe thorough and a Lodging to rest in in the same House which are both under one roofe Christ Jesus The Militant and the Triumphant are not two Churches but this the Porch and that the Chancell of the same Church which are under one Head Christ Jesus so the Joy and the sense of Salvation which the pure in heart have here is not a joy severed from the Joy of Heaven but a Joy that begins in us here and continues and accompanies us thither and there flowes on and dilates it selfe to an infinite expansion so as if you should touch one corne of powder in a traine and that traine should carry fire into a whole City from the beginning it was one and the same fire though the fulness of the glory therof be reserved to that which is expressed in the last branch Videbunt Deum They shall see God for as S. Bernard notes when the Church is highliest extolled for her Beauty yet it is but Pulcherrima inter mulieres The fairest amongst women that is
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrââ 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receââing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
is there comfort in that state why that is the state of hell it self Eternall dying and not dead But for this there is enough said by the Morall man that we may respite divine proofes for divine points anon for our severall Resurrections for this death is meerly naturall and it is enough that the morall man sayes Mors lex tributum officium mortalium First it is lex you were born under that law upon that condition to die Sencea so it is a rebellious thing not to be content to die it opposes the Law Then it is Tributum an imposition which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us and which she will take when and where se lift here a yong man there an old man herea happy there a miserable man And so itis a seditious thing not to be content to die it opposes the prerogative And lastly it is Officium men are to have rheir turnes to take their time and then to give way by death to successors and so it is Incivile inofficiosum not to be content to die it opposes the frame and form of government It comes equally to us all and makes us all equall when it comes The eshes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of that Oak to tell me how high or how large that was It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood nor what men it hurt when it fell The dust of great persons graves is speechlesse too it sayes nothing it distinguishes nothing As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the winde blow it thither and when a whirle-winde hath blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce This is the Patrician this is the noble flowre and this the yeomanly this the Plebeian bran Sois the death of Iesabel Ieabel was a Queen expressed They shall not say this is Iesabel not only not wonder that it is not pity that it should be but they shall not say they shall not know This is Iesabel It comes to all to all alike but not alike welcome to all To die too willingly out ofimpatience to wish or out of violence to hasten death or to die too unwillingly to murmure at Gods purpose reveled by age or by sicknesse are equall distempers and to harbour a disobedient loathnesse all the way or to entertain it at last argues but an irreligious ignorance An ignorance that death is in nature but Expiratio a breathing out and we do that every minute An ignorance that God himself took a day to rest in and a good mans grave is his Sabbath An ignorance that Abel the best of those whom we can compare with him was the first that dyed Howsoever whensoever all times are Gods times Vocantur obni ne diutiús vexentur á noxiis mali ne diutiús bonos persequantur God cals the good to take them from their dangers and God takes the bad to take them from their trumph And therefore neither grudge that thou goest nor that worse stay for God can make his profit of both Aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut utper allum bonus exerceatur God reprieves him to mend him or to make another better by his exercise and not to exult in the misery of another but to glorifie God in the wayes of his justice let him know Quantumcunque seró subitó ex hac óitatollitur qui finem praevidere nescivit How long soever he live how long soever he lie sick that man dies a sudden death who never thought of it If we consider death in S. Pauls Statutum est It is decréed that all men must die there death is indifferent If we consider it in his Mori lucrum that is an advantage to die there death is good and so much the vulgat Edition seemes to intimate when Deut. 30. 19 whereas we reade I have set before you life and death that reades it Vitam honum Life and that which is good If then death be at the worst indifferent and to the good good how is it Hostis an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ for that also is Vestigium quintum the fift and next step in this paraphrase First God did not make death saies the Wiseman And therefore S. Augustine makes a reasonable prayer to God Ne permittas Domine quod nonfecisti dominari Creatur ae quam fecisti Suffer not O Lord death whom thou didst not make to have dominion over me whom thou didst Whence then came death The same Wiseman hath shewed us the father Through envy of the devill came death into the world and a wiser then he the holy Ghost himselfe hath shewed us the Mother By sin came death into the world But yet if God have naturalized death taken death into the number of his servants and made Death his Commissioner to punish sin and he doe but that how is Death an enemy First he was an enemy in invading Christ who was not in his Commission because he had no sin and still he is an enemie because still he adheres to the enemy Death hangs upon the edge of every persecutors sword and upon the sting of every calumniators and accusers tongue In the Bull of Phalaris in the Bulls of Basan in the Buls of Babylon the shrewdest Buls of all in temporall in spirituall persecutions ever since God put an enmity between Man and the Serpent from the time of Cain who began in a murther to the time of Antichrist who proceeds in Massacres Death hath adhered to the enemy and so is an enemy Death hath a Commission Stipendium peccati mors est The reward of sin Death but where God gives a Supersedeas upon that Commission Vivo Ego nolo mortem As I live saith the Lord I would have no sinner dye not dye the second death yet Death proceeds to that execution And where as the enemy whom he adheres to Serpent himselfe hath power but In calcaneo upon the heele the lower the mortall part the body of man Death is come up into our windowes saith the Prophet into our best lights Jer. 9.21 our understandings and benights us there either with ignorance before sin or with senselesnesse after And a Sheriffe that should burne him who were condemned to be hanged were a murderer though that man must have dyed To come in by the doore by the way of sicknesse upon the body is but to come in at the window by the way of sin is not deaths Commission God opens not that window So then he is an enemy for they that adhere to the enemy are enemies And adhering is not only a present subministration of supply to the enemy for that death doth not but it is also a disposition to assist the enemy then when he shall
middle nature above the Philosophers and below the Scriptures the Apocryphall books and I know it is said there Comfort thy selfe for thou-shalt do him no good that is dead Ecclus. 38.6 Et teipsum pessimabis as the vulgat reads it thou shalt make thy self worse and worse in the worst degree But yet all this is but of inordinate lamentation for in the same place the same Wise man sayes My Son let thy tears fall down over the dead weep bitterly and make great moane as he is worthy When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatum est all was finished and their rage could do him no more harm when he had uttered his In manus tuas he had delivered and God had received his soul yet how did the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses and tremble in earth-quakes and dissolve and shed in pieces in the opening of the Temple Quia mortuus because he was dead Truly to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch that hand that hath governed the civill sword the sword of Justice at home and drawn and sheathed the forraigne sword the sword of war abroad to see that hand lie dead and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own wormes and then Quis homo what man though he be one of those men of whom God hath said Ye are gods yet Quis homo what man is there that lives and shall not see death To see the brain of a great and religious Counsellor and God blesse all from making all from calling any great that is not religious to see that brain that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell tables stormes in Parliaments tempests in popular commotions to see that brain produce nothing but swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse them To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted Heretiques Schismatiques all his life fall like one of them by death perchance be called one of them when he is dead To re-collect all to see great men made no men to be sure that they shall never come to us not to be sure that we shall know them when we come to them to see the Lieutenants and Images of God Kings the sinews of the State religious Counsellors the spirit of the Church zealous Prelates And then to see vulgar lgnorant wicked and facinorous men thrown all by one hand of death into one Cart into one common Tide-boate one Hospitall one Almeshouse one Prison the grave in whose dust no man can say This is the King this is the Slave this is the Bishop this is the Heretique this is the Counsellor this is the Foole even this miserable equality of so unequall persons by so foule a hand is the subject of this lamentation even Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead Iesus wept He wept even in that respect Quia non abhibita media Quia mortuus and he wept in this respect too Quia non adhibita media because those means which in appearance might have saved his life by his default were not used for when he came to the house one sister Martha sayes to him Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed and then the other sister Mary sayes so too Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed They all cry out that he who only only by comming might have saved his life would not come Our Saviour knew in himself that he abstained to better purpose and to the farther glory of God for when he heard of his death he said to his Disciples I am glad for your sakes that I was not there Christ had certain reserved purposes which conduced to a better establishing of their faith and to a better advancing of Gods Kingdome the working of that miracle But yet because others were able to say to him it was in you to have saved him and he did not even this Quia non adhibita media affected him and Iesus wept He wept Etsi quatriduanus Etsi quatriduanus though they said unto him He hath been foure dayes dead and stinkes Christ doth not say there is no such matter he doth not stink but though he do my friend shall not lack my help Good friends usefull friends though they may commit some errors and though for some misbehaviours they may stink in our nostrils must not be derelicted abandoned to themselves Many a son many a good heire findes an ill ayre from his Father his Fathers life stinkes in the nostrils of all the world and he heares every where exclamations upon his Fathers usury and extortion and oppression yet it becomes him by a betterlife and by all other means to rectifie and redeem his Fathers fame Quatriduanus est is no plea for my negligence in my family to say My son or my servant hath proceeded so far in ill courses that now it is to no purpose to go about to reform him because Quatriduanus est Quatriduanus est is no plea in my pastorall charge to say that seducers and practisers and perswaders and sollicitors for superstition enter so boldly into every family that now it is to no purpose to preach religious warinesse religious discretion religious constancy Quatriduanus est is no plea for my Usury for my Simony to say I do but as all the world doth and hath used to do a long time To preach there where reprehension of growing sin is acceptable is to preach in season where it is not acceptable it is out of season but yet we must preach in season and out of season too And when men are so refractary as that they forbeare to heare or heare and resist our preaching we must pray and where they dispise or forbid our praying we must lament them we must weep Quatriduanus erat Lazarus was far spent yet Iesus wept He wept Etsisuscitandus Though he knew that Lazarus were to be restored and raised to life again for as he meant to declare a great good will to him at last so he would utter some by the way he would do a great miracle for him as he was a mighty God but he would weep for him too as he was a good natured man Truly it is no very charitable disposition if I give all at my death to others if I keep all all my life to my self For how many families have we seen shaked ruined by this distemper that though the Father mean to alien nothing of the inheritance from the Son at his death yet because he affords him not a competent maintenance in his life he submits his Son to an encumbring of his fame with ignominious shiftings and an encumbring of the estare with irrecoverable debts I may mean to feast a man plentifully at Christmas and that man may starve before in Lent Great persons may think it in their power to give life to persons and actions by their benefits when they will and before that will be up and ready both
when wee cannot stay it from passing away wee passe away with it To mourne passionately for the love of this world which is decrepit and upon the deathbed or imoderately for the death of any that is passed out of this world is not the right use of teares That hath good use which Chrysologus notes that when Christ was told of Lazarus death he said he was glad when he came to raise him to life then hee wept for though his Disciples gained by it they were confirmed by a Miracle though the family gained by it they had their Lazarus againe yet Lazarus himselfe lost by it by being re-imprisoned re-committed re-submitted to the manifold incommodities of this world When our Saviour Christ forbad the women to weepe for him it was becausethere was nothing in him for teares to worke upon no sin Ordinem flendi docuit saies S. Bernard Christ did not absolutely forbid teares but regulate and order their teares that they might weepe in the right place first for sin David wept for Absolon He might imagine that he died in sin he wept not for the Child by Bathsheba he could not suspect so much danger in that Exitus aquarum saies David Rivers of waters ran downe from mine eyes why Quia illi Because they who are they not other men Psal 119.136 as it is ordinarily taken but Quia illi Because mine owne eyes so Hilary and Ambrose and August take it have not kept thy Lawes As the calamities of others so the sins of others may but our owne sins must be the object of our sorrow Thou shalt offer to me saies God Exod. 22.19 the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors as our Translation hath it The word in the Originall ginall is Vedingnacha lachrymarum and of thy teares Thy first teares must be to God for sin The second and third may be to nature and civility and such secular offices But Liquore ad lippitudinem apto quisquamne ad pedes lavandos abutetur It is S. Chrysostomes exclamation and admiration will and wash his feet in water for sore eyes will any man embalme the Carcasse of the world which he treads under foote with those teares which should embalme his soule Did Ioseph of Arimathea bestow any of his perfumes though he brought a superfluous quantity a hundred pound waight for one body yet did he bestow any upon the body of either of the Thieves Teares are true sorrow that you heard before True sorrow is for sin that you have heard now All that remaines is how this sorrow works what is does The Fathers have infinitely delighted themselves in this descant the blessed effect of holy teares Quid operantur He amongst them that reemembers us that in the old Law all Sacrifices were washed he meanes That our best sacrifice even prayer it selfe receives an improvement a dignity by being washed in teares He that remembers us that if any roome of out house be on fire we run for water meanes that in all tentations we should have recourse to teares He that tels us that money being put into a bason is seene at a farther distance if there be water in the bason then if it be emptie meanes also that our most pretious devotions receive an addition a multiplication by holy teares S. Bernard meanes all that they all meane in that Cor lachrymas nesciens durum impurum A hard heart is a foule heart Would you shut up the devill in his owne channell his channell of brimstone and make that worse S. hierom tels the way Plus tua lachryma c. Thy teares torment him more then the fires of hell will you needs have holy water truly true teares are the holiest water Mend eza in 1. Sam. And for Purgatory it is liberally confessed by a Jesuit Non minùs efficax c. One teare will doe thee as much good as all the flames of Purgatory We have said more then once that man is a spunge And in Codice scripta all our sins are written in Gods Booke saies S. ChrysOstome If there I can fill my spunge with teares and so wipe out all my sins out of that Book it is a blessed use of the Spunge I might stand upon this the manifold benefits of godly teares long so long as till you wept and wept for sin and that might be very long I contract all to this one which is all To how many blessednesses must these teares this godly sorrow reach by the way when as it reaches to the very extreme to that which is opposed to it to Joy for godlie sorrow is Joy Iob 10.20 The words in Iob are in the Vulgat Dimitte meut plang am dolorem meum Lord spare me a while that I may lament my lamentable estate and so ordinarily the Expositors that follow that Translation make their use of them But yet it is in the Originall Lord spare me a while that I may take comfort That which one cals lamenting the other calls rejoycing To conceive true sorrow and true joy are things not onely contiguous but continuall they doe not onely touch and follow one another in a certaine succession Joy assuredly after sorrow but they consist together they are all one Joy and Sorrow My teares have beene my meat day and night Psal 42.3 saies David not that he had no other meate but that none relisht so well Mendoza It is a Grammaticall note of a Jesuit I doe not tell you it is true I have almost tole you that it is not true by telling you whose it is but that it is but a Grammaticall note That when it is said Tempus cantus The time offinging is come it might as well be rendred out of the Hebrew Cant. 2.12 Tempus plorationis The time of weeping is come 2 Sam. 22.50 And when it is said Nomini tuo cantabo Lord I will sing unto thy Name it might be as well rendred out of the Hebrew Plorabo I will weepe I will sacrifice my teares unto thy Name So equall so indifferent a thing is it when we come to godly sorrow whether we call it sorrow or joy weeping or singing To end all to weep for sin is not a damp of melancholy to sigh for sin is not a vapour of the spleene but as Monicaes Confessor said still unto her in the behalfe of her Son S. Augustine filius istarum lachrymarum the son of these teares cnnot perish so wash thy selfe in these three examplar bathes of Christs teares in his humane teares and be tenderly affected with humane accidents in his Propheticall teares and avert as much as in thee lieth the calamities imminent upon others but especially in his pontificall teares teares for sin and I am thy Confessor non ego sed Dominus not I but the spirit of God himself is thy Confessor and he absolves thee filius istarum lachrymarum the soule bathed in these teares cannot perish for this is
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
for they shall have a composition still and every compounded thing may perish but they shal be so assured and with such a preservation as they shall alwaies know they shall never dye S. Augustine saies well Aug. Assit motio absit fatigatio assit potestas vescendi absit necessitas esuriendi They have in their nature a mortality and yet be immortall a possibility and an impossibility of dying with those two divers relations one to nature the other to preservation will consist together So in this soule that hath this first Resurrection from sin by grace a conscience of her owne infirmity that she may relapse and yet a testimony of the powerfulnesse of Gods Spirit that easily she shall not relapse may consist well together But the last seale of this holy confidence is reserved for that which is the third acceptation of this first Resurrection not from persecutions in this world nor from sin in this world but from all possibility of falling back into sin in the world to come and to this have divers Expositors referred these words this first resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection Now a Resurrection of the soule seemes an improper an impertinent an improbable 3 Part. an impossible forme of speech for Resurrection implies death and the soule does not dye in her passage to Heaven And therefore Damascen makes account De ortho sid l. 4. c. ult that he hath sufficiently proved the Resurrection of the body which seems so incredible if he could prove any Resurrection if there be any Resurrection at all saies he it must be of the body for the soule cannot dye therefore not rise Yet have not those Fathers nor those Expositors who have in this text acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule mistaken nor miscalled the matter Take Damascens owne definition of Resurrection Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio A Resurrection is a second rising to that state from which any thing is formerly fallen Now though by death the soule do not fall into any such state as that it can complaine for what can that lack which God fils yet by death the soule fals from that for which it was infused and poured into man at first that is to be the forme of that body the King of that Kingdome and therefore when in the generall Resurrection the soule returnes to that state for which it was created and to which it hath had an affection and a desire even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of Heaven then when the soule returnes to her office to make up the man because the whole man hath therefore the soule hath a Resurrection not from death but from a deprivation of her former state that state which she was made for and is ever enclined to But that is the last Resurrection and so the soule hath part even in that last Resurrection But we are in hand with the first Resurrection of the soule and that is when that soule which was at first breath'd from God and hath long suffered a banishment a close imprisonment in this body returnes to God againe The returning of the soule to him from whom it proceeded at first is a Resurrection of the soule Here then especially I feele the straitnesse of time two considerations open themselves together of such a largenesse as all the time from Moses his In principio when time began to the Angels Affidavit in this booke That shall say and sweare that time shall be no more were too narrow to contemplate these two Hemispheares of Man this Evening and Morning of Mans everlasting day The miseries of man in this banishment in this emprisonment in this grave of the soule the body And the glory and exaltation of that soule in her Resurrection to Heaven That soule which being borne free is made a slave to this body by comming to it It must act but what this body will give it leave to act according to the Organs which this body affords it and if the body be lame in any limme the soule must be lame in her operation in that limme too It must doe but what the body will have it doe and then it must suffer whatsoever that body puts it to or whatsoever any others will put that body to If the body oppresse it selfe with Melancholy the soule must be sad and if other men oppresse the body with injury the soule must be sad too Consider it is too immense a thing to consider it reflect but one thought but upon this one thing in the soule here and hereafter In her grave the body and in her Resurrection in Heaven That is the knowledge of the soule Here saies S. Augustine when the soule considers the things of this world Non veritate certior sed consuetudine securior She rests upon such things as she is not sure are true but such as she sees are ordinarily received and accepted for truths so that the end of her knowledge is not Truth but opinion and the way not Inquisition but ease But saies he when she proceeds in this life to search into heavenly things Verberatur luce veritatis The beames of that light are too strong for her and they sink her and cast her downe Et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum non electione sed fatigatione convertitur and so she returnes to her owne darknesse because she is most familiar and best acquainted with it Non electione not because she loves ignorance but because she is weary of the trouble of seeking out the truth and so swallowes even any Religion to escape the paine of debating and disputing and in this lazinesse she sleeps out her lease her terme of life in this death in this grave in this body But then in her Resurrection her measure is enlarged and filled at once There she reads without spelling and knowes without thinking and concludes without arguing she is at the end of her race without running In her triumph without fighting In her Haven without sayling A free-man without any prentiship at full yeares without any wardship and a Doctor without any proceeding She knowes truly and easily and immediately and entirely and everlastingly Nothing left out at first nothing worne out at last that conduces to her happinesse What a death is this life what a resurrection is this death For though this world be a sea yet which is most strange our Harbour is larger then the sea Heaven infinitely larger then this world For though that be not true which Origen is said to say That at last all shall be saved nor that evident which Cyril of Alexandria saies That without doubt the number of them that are saved is far greater then of them that perish yet surely the number of them with whom we shall have communion in Heaven is greater then ever lived at once upon the face of the earth And of those who lived in our time how few did we
houre is comming and now is because there are no other meanes to be hereafter instituted for the attaining of a happy Resurrection then those that now are established in the Church especially at a mans death may we very properly say Nunc est Now is the Resurrection come to him not onely because the last Judgement is involved in the first for that Judgment which passeth upon every man at his death stands for ever without Repeal or Appeal or Error but because after the death of the Body there is no more to be done with the Body till the Resurrection for as we say of an Arrow that it is over shot it is gone it is beyond the mark though it be not come to the mark yet because there is no more to be done to it till it be so we may say that he that is come to death is come to his Resurrection because he hath not another step to make another foot to goe another minute to count till he be at the Resurrection The Resurrection then being the Coronation of man his Death and lying downe in the grave is his enthroning his sitting downe in that chayre where he is to receive that Crown As then the Martyrs under the Altar though in heaven yet doe cry out for the Resurrection so let us in this miserable life submit our selves cheerfully to the hand of God in death since till that death we cannot have this Resurrection and the first thing that we shall doe after this death is to rise againe To the child that is now borne we may say Hora venit The day of his Resurrection is comming To him that is old we may say The hour is come but to him that is dead The minute is come because to him there are no more minutes till it doe come Miremini hoc Omnes Marvail at this at the descent of Gods love He loves the Body of Man And Miremini hoc Mervaile at his speed He makes haste to expresse this love Hora venit And then Miremini hoc Marvaile at the Generality it reaches to all all that are in the Grave All that are in the graves shall heare his voice c. God hath made the Body as a House for the soule till he call her out and he hath made the Grave as a House for the body till he call it up The misery and poore estate that Christ submitted himselfe unto for man Mat 8.20 was not determined in that That foxes had holes but he no where to lay his head while he lived but he had no grave that he could claime when he was dead It is some discontinuance of the Communion of Saints if I may not be buried with the Saints of God Every man that hath not devested Humanity hath a desire to have his bones lie at rest and we cannot provide for that so well any way as to bury them in Consecrated places which are in common entendment safest from prophane violences Even that respect that his bones might lye at rest seems to have mov'd one Prophet 1 King 13.31 to enjoyne his Sons to bury him in the Sepulcher where the other Prophet was buried He knew that Iosiah would burne the bones of all the other graves upon the Altar of Bethel as was prophecied and he presum'd that he would spare the bones of that Prophet and so his bones should be safe if they were mingled with the other Deut. 34.6 God expressed his love to Moses in that particular That he buried him And to deliver and remove him from the violence of any that lov'd him not and so might dishonor his memory and from the superstition of any that over-lov'd him and so might over-honour his memory God buried him in secret In more then one place doth David complaine That there was none to bury Gods Saints And the Dignity that is promised here in the Text is appropriated to them who are in the graves who are buried But then was that generall Is it simply plainly literally of them and them onely who are in graves who are buried Shall none enjoy a Resurrection that have not enjoy'd a Grave Still I say it is a comfort to a dying man it is an honour to his memory it is a discharge of a duty in his friends it is a piece of the Communion of Saints to have a consecrated grave But the word here is In monumentis All that are in Monuments that is in Receptacles of Bodies of what kind soever they be wheresoever the hand of God layes up a dead Body Psal 34.20 that place is the Receptacle so the monument so the grave of that Body God keeps all the bones of the righteous so that none of them are broken Though they be trod to dust in our sight they are intire in his because he can bid them be whole againe in an instant Some Nations burnt their dead there the fire is the grave some drowned their dead there the sea is the grave and some hung them up upon trees and there the ayre is their grave Some Nations eat their dead themselves and some maintained dogs to eat the dead Herod Strabo and as they called those dogs Canes Sepulchrales Sepulchrall dogs so those men were sepulchrall men those men and those dogs were graves Death and hell shall deliver up their dead Apâc 20.13 sayes S. Iohn That is the whole state and mansion of the dead shall be emptied The state of the dead is their grave and upon all that are in this state shall the testimony of Gods love to the body of man fall And that is the Generality All that are in the grave c. Our next step is Audient The Instrument the Means by which this first so speedy and then so generall love of God to man to man in his lowest part his body is accomplished unto him These All these All these that are in graves in all these kinds of graves shall heare his voice and that is the Meanes First whose voice That is expressed immediately before The Son of man In the other Resurrection in that of the dead soule ver 25. there it is said The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God In this which is the Resurrection to Judgement it is The Son of man The former Resurrection that of a sinner to repentance by preaching is wrought by a plaine and ordinary meanes here in the Church where you doe but heare a man in a Pew read prayers and pronounce Absolution and a man in a Pulpit preach a Sermon and a man at a Table consecrate and administer a Sacrament And because all this though it be the power of life and the meanes of your spirituall resurrection is wrought by the Ministery of man who might be contemptible in your eye therefore the whole worke is referred to God and not the son of man but the Son of God is said to do it In this Resurrection of the
is impossible to separate the consideration of the Resurrection from the consideration of the Judgement and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other Sive comedoâsive bibo saies S. Hierom Whether I eate or drink still me thinks I heare this sound Surgite mortui venite ad Iudicium Arise you dead and come to Judgement When it cals me up from death I am glad when it cals me to Judgement that impaires my joy Can I thinke that God will not take a strict account or can I be without feare if I thinke he will Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere non requiret is excellently said by S. Bernard If I can put off all feare of that Judgement I have put off all imagination that any such Judgement shall be But when I begin this feare in this life here I end this feare in my death and passe away cheerefully But the wicked begin this feare when the Trumpet sounds to the Resurrection and then shall never end it but as a man condemned to be halfe hang'd and then quartered hath a fearfull addition in his quartering after and yet had no ease in his hanging before so they that have done ill when they have had their hanging when they have suffered in soule the torments of Hell from the day of their death to the day of Judgement shall come to that day with feare as to an addition to that which yet was insinite before And therefore the vulgat Edition hath rendred this well Procedent They shall proceed they shall go farther and farther in torment But this is not the object of our speculation Conâlusio the subject of our meditation now we proposed this Text for the Contemplation of Gods love to man and therefore we rather comfort our selves with that branch and refresh our selves with the shadow of that That they who have done good shall come forth unto the Resurrection of life Alas the others shall live as long as they Lucifer is as immortall as Michael and Iudas as immortall as S. Peter August But Vita damnatorum mors est That which we call immortality in the damned is but a continuall dying howsoever it must be called life it hath all the qualities of death saving the ease and the end which death hath and damnation hath not They must come forth they that have done evill must do so too Neither can stay in their house their grave for their house though that house should be the sea shall be burnt downe all the world dissolv'd with fire But then They who have done evill shall passe from that fire into a farther heat without light They who have done good into a farther light without heat But fix upon the Conditions and performe them They must have done Good To have knowne Good to have beleeved it to have intended it nay to have preached it to others will not serve They must have done good They must be rooted in faith and then bring forth fruit and fruit in season and then is the season of doing good when another needs that good at thy hands God gives the evening raine but he gave the morning rain before A good man gives at his death but he gives in his life time too To them belongs this Resurrection of the body to life upon which since our Text inclines us to marvell rather then to discourse I will not venture to say with David Narrabo omnia mirabilia tua I will shew all thy wondrous works Psal 9.2 Psal 105.5 Psal 119 18. an Angels tongue could not shew them but I will say with him Mementote mirabilium Remember the marvellous works he hath done And by that God will open your eyes that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do Remember with thankfulnesse the severall resurrections that he hath given you from superstition and ignorance in which you in your Fathers lay dead from sin and a love of sin in which you in the dayes of your youth lay dead from sadnesse and dejection of spirit in which you in your worldly crosses or spirituall tentations lay dead And assure your self that that God that loves to perfect his own works when you shall lye dead in your graves will give you that Resurrection to life which he hath promised to all them that do good and will extend to all them who having done evill do yet truly repent the evill they have done SERMON XXI The first Sermon upon this Text Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead O Dit Dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem sayes Origen God hates that man that thinks any of his Holy dayes last but one day That is that never thinks of a Resurrection but upon Easter-day I have therefore proposed words unto you which will not be determined this day That so when at any other time we return to the handling of then we may also return to the meditation of the Resurrection To which we may best give a beginning this day in which we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Aâd in his one Resurrection all those severall kinds of Resurrections which appertain unto us because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good Expositors and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Romane Church who have detorted and deflected them to the maintenance of their Purgatory yet all agree that these words are an argument for the Resurrection and therefore proper to this day And yet this day we shall not so much inquire wherein and in what sense the words are an argument of the Resurrection as enjoy the assurance that they are so not so much distribute the Text into an explication of the particular words which is as the Mintage and Coyning of gold into severall lesser pieces as to lay up the whole wedge and ingot of Gold all at once in you that is the precious assurance of your glorious Resurrection In establishing whereof we shall this day make but this short passage Divisio by these two steps Glory in the end And Grace in the way The Glory of our bodies in the last Resurrection then And the Grace upon our souls in their present Resurrection now For as we do not dig for gold meerly and only for treasure but to dispense and issue it also for present provision and use not only for the future but for the present too So we doe not gather the doctrine of the Resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the Triumphant but also for the consolation which thereby our soules may receive in the Militant Church And therefore as in our first part which will be By what meanes the knowledge and assurance of the Resurrection of the body
God and for the instruction of Iob himselfe What was it we see ver 17. Shall mortall man be more just then God Quid. shall a man be more pure then his Maker Why Did this Doctrine need this solemnity this preparation that Eliphaz gives it v. 8. That it was a thing told him in secret and such a secret that he was able to comprehend but a little at once of it Is there any such incomprehensiblenesse any such difficulty in this Doctrine That no mortall man is more just then God no man more pure then his Maker but that the shallowest capacity may receive it and the shortest memory retaine it Needs this a Revelation an extraordinary conveyance For the generall knowledge it does not Every man will say he knowes mortall man cannot be more just then God nor any man purer then his Maker But for the particular consideration it does Every justifying a sin is a making mortall man more just then God when I come to say With what justice can God punish a nights or an houres sin with everlasting torments Every murmuring at Gods corrections is a making man purer then God when I come to say Does not God depart farther from the purity of his nature when he is an angry and a vindicative God then I from mine when I am an amorous or wanton man We that are but mortall men must not think sayes Eliphaz to make our selves purer then our Maker for they who in their nature are much purer then we the Angels are farre short of that for God put no trust in those servants and those Angells he charged with folly So then though Eliphaz his premisses reach to the Angels and their state his inference and his last purpose fals upon us who by Gods goodnesse become capable of succession into the place of the Angels that are fallen and of an association and assimilation to those Angels that stand And our assimilation is this That as they have in their station we also shall have in ours a faithfull certitude that we shall never fall out of the armes and bosome of our gracious God But then there arises to us a sweeter rellish in considering this stability this perpetuity this infallibility to consist in the continuall succession and supply of grace then in any one act which God hath done for them or us I conceive a more effectual delight when I consider God to have so wrought the confirmation of Angels that he hath taken them into a state of glory and a fruition of his sight and to perpetuate that state unto them perpetually superinfuses upon them more and more beames of that glory then if I should consider God to have confirmed them with such a measure of grace at once as that he could not withdraw or they could forfeit that grace For as there is no doubt made by the Fathers nor by the Schoole but that that light which the Apostles saw at the Transfiguration of Christ was that very light of glory which they see now in Heaven and yet they lost the sight of that light againe so is there no violation of any Article of our Faith if we concurre in opinion with them who say That S. Paul in his extasie in his rapture into the third heaven did see that very light of glory which constitutes the Beatificall Vision and yet did lose that light againe Truly to me this consideration That as his mercy is new every morning so his grace is renewed to me every minute That it is not by yesterdaies grace that I live now but that I have Panem quotidianum and Panem horarium My daily bread my hourely bread in a continuall succession of his grace That the eye of God is open upon me though I winke at his light and watches over me though I sleep That God makes these returnes to my soule and so studies me in every change this consideration infuses a sweeter verdure and imprints a more cheerefull tincture upon my soule then any taste of any one Act done at once can minister unto me God made the Angels all of one naturall condition in nature all alike and God gave them all such grace as that thereby they might have stood and to them that used that grace aright he gave a farther a continuall succession of grace and that is their Confirmation Not that they cannot but that they shall not fall not that they are safe in themselves but by Gods preservation safe for otherwise He puts no trust in those Servants and those Angels he charges with folly This is our case too ours that are under the blessed Election and good purpose of God upon us if we do not fall from him it is not of our selves for left to our selves we should For Iohn 5. so S. Augustine interprets those words of our Saviour Pater operatur My Father worketh still God hath not accomplished his worke upon us in one Act though an Election but he works in our Vocation and he works in our Justification and in our Sanctification he works still And if God himselfe be not so come to his Sabbath and his rest in us but that he works upon us still for all that Election shall any man thinke to have such a Sabbath such a rest in that Election as shall slacken our endeavour to make sure our Salvation and not worke as God works to his ends in us Hence then we banish all self-subsistence all attributing of any power to any faculty of our own either by preoperation in any naturall or morall disposing of our selves before Gods preventing grace dispose us or by such a cooperation as should put God and man in Commission together or make grace and nature Collegues in the worke or that God should do one halfe and man the other or any such post-operation That I should thinke to proceed in the waies of godlinesse by vertue of Gods former grace without imploring and obtaining more in a continuall succession of his concomitant grace for every particular action In Christ I can do all things I need no more but him without Christ I can doe nothing not onely not have him but not know that I need him for I am not better then those Angels of whom it is said He put no trust in those Servants and those Angels hee charged with folly And as we banish from hence all self-subsistence all opinion of standing by our selves so doe we also all impeccability and all impossibility of falling in our selves or in any thing that God hath already done for us if he should discontinue his future grace and leave us to our former stock They that were raised from death to life againe Dorcas Lazarus and the rest were subject to sin in that new life which was given them They that are quickned by the soule of the soule Election it selfe are subject to sin for all that God sees the sins of the Elect and sees their sins to be sins and in his
be well Christ said in his behalfe Verily I have not found so great faith no not in Israel When Christ makes so much of this single grain of Mustard-seed this little faith as to prefer it before all the faith of Israel surely faith went very low in Israel at that time Nay when Christ himself sayes speaking of his last comming after so many ages preaching of the Gospell When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth Luk. 18.8 any faith We have I say a blessed beam of comfort shining out of this text that it is no small number that is reserved for that Kingdome For whether the Apostle speak this of himself and the Thessalonians or of others he speaks not as of a few but that by Christs having preached the narrownesse of the way and the straitnesse of the gate our holy industry and endeavour is so much exalted which was Christs principall end in taking those Metaphors of narrow wayes and strait gates not to make any man suspect an impossibility of entring but to be the more industrious and endeavorous in seeking it that as he hath sent workmen in plenty abundant preaching so he shall return a plentifull harvest a glorious addition to his Kingdome both of those which slept in him before and of those which shall be then alive fit all together to be caught up in the clouds to meet him and be with him for ever for these two armies imply no small number Now of the condition of these men who shall be then alive and how being clothed in bodies of corruption they become capable of the glory of this text in our first distribution we proposed that for a particular consideration and the other branch of this second part and to that in that order we are come now I scarce know a place of Scripture more diversly read Immutabimur and consequently more variously interpreted then that place which should most enlighten us in this consideration presently under our hands which is that place to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15.51 Non omnes dormiemus We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed The Apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery Behold I shew you a mystery but Translators and Expositors have multiplyed mysticall clouds upon the words S. Chrysostome reads these words as we do Chrysost Non dormiemus We shall not all sleep but thereupon he argues and concludes that wee shall not all die The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that Omnes dormiemus sed non c. We shall all sleep but we shall not all be changed The vulgat Edition in the Romane Church differs from both and as much from the originall as from either Omnes resurgemus We shall all rise again but we shall not all be changed S. Hierome examines the two readings and then leaves the reader to his choice as a thing indifferent S. Augustine doth so too and concludes aquè Catholicos esse That they are as good Catholiques that reade it the one way as the other But howsoever that which S. Chrysostome collects upon his reading may not be maintained He reads as we do and without all doubt aright We shall not all sleep But what then Therefore shall we not all die To sleep there is to rest in the grave to continue in the state of the dead and so we shall not all sleep not continue in the state of the dead But yet Statutum est sayes the Apostle Heb. 9.27 as verily as Christ was once offered to beare our sinnes so verily is it appointed to every man once to die Rom. 5.12 And as verily as by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so verily death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned So the Apostle institutes the comparison so he constitutes the doctrine in those two places of Scripture As verily as Christ dyed for all all shall die As verily as every man sins every man shall die In that change then which we who are then alive shall receive for though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul and that is truly a death and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul and that is truly a Resurrection we shall die and be alive again before another could consider that we were dead but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant some succession of time though undiscernible there is It shall be done In raptu in a rapture but even in a rapture there is a motion a transition from one to another place It shall be done sayes he In ictuoculi In the twinkling of an eye But even in the twinkling of an eie there is a shutting of the eie-lids and an opening of them again Neither of these is done in an absolute instant but requires some succession of time The Apostle in the Resurrection in our text constitutes a Prius something to be done first and something after first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first and then Then when that is done after that not all at once we that are alive shall be wrought upon we shall be changed our change comes after their rising so in our change there is a Prius too first we shall be dissolved so we die and then we shall be re-compact so we rise again This is the difference they that sleep in the grave put off and depart with the very substance of the body it is no longer flesh but dust they that are changed at the last day put off and depart with only the qualities of the body as mortality and corruption It is still the same body without resolving into dust but the first step that it makes is into glory Now transfer this to the spirituall Resurrection of thy soul by grace here Here Grace works not that Resurrection upon thy soul in an absolute instant And therefore suspect not Gods gracious purpose upon thee if thou beest not presently throughly recovered God could have made all the world in one day and so have come sooner to his Sabbath his rest but he wrought more to give us an example of labour and of patience in attending his leasure in our second Creation this Resurrection from sin as we did in our first Creation when we were not made till the sixt day But remember too that the last Resurrection from death is to be transacted quickly speedily And in thy first thy spirituall Resurrection from sin make haste The last is to be done In raptu in a rapture Let this rapture in the first Resurrection be to teare thy self from that company and conversation that leads thee into tentation The last is to be done Inictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye Let that in thy first Resurrection be The shutting of thine eyes from looking upon things in things upon creatures in creatures
upon beauty in that face that misleads thee or upon honour in that place that possesses thee And let the opening of thine eyes be to look upon God in every object to represent to thy self the beauty of his holinesse and the honour of his service in every action And in this rapture and in this twinkling of an eye will thy Resurrection soon though not suddenly speedily though not instantly be accomplished And if God take thee out of the world before thou think it throughly accomplished yet he shall call thine inchoation consummation thine endeavour performance and thy desire effect For all Gods works are intire and done in him at once and perfect as soon as begun And this spirituall Resurrection is his work and therefore quickned even in the Conception and borne even in the quickning and grown up even in the birth that is perfected in the eyes of God as soone as it is seriously intended in our heart And farther we carry not your consideration upon those two Branches which constitute our second Part That some shall be alive at Christs comming That they that are alive shall receive such a change as shall be a true death and a true Resurrection And so shall be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Aire and so be with the Lord for ever which are the Circumstances of our third and last Part. In this last part we proposed it for the first Consideration 3 Part. Resurrectio justorum that the Apostle determines the Consideration of the Resurrection in those two Them and Us They that slept in Christ and We that expect the comming of Christ Of any Resurrection of the wicked here is no mention Not that there is not one but that the resurrection of the wicked conduced not to the Apostles purpose which was to minister comfort in the losse of the dead because they were to come again and to meet the Lord and to be with him for ever whereas in the Resurrection of the wicked who are only to rise that they may fall lower there is no argument of comfort And therefore our Saviour Christ determines his Commission in that This is the Fathers will that sent me John 6.39 that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day This was his not losing if it were raised again but he hath only them in charge to raise at the last day whom the Father had given him given him so as that they were to be with him for ever for others he never mentions And upon this much very much depends For Chiliasts this forbearing to mention the resurrection of the wicked with the righteous gave occasion to many in the Primitive Church to imagine a two-fold a former and a later Resurrection which was furthered by their mistaking of those words in S. Iohn Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection which words being intended of the Resurrection from sin by grace in this life the Chiliasts the Millenarians interpreted of this Resurrection in our Text That at Christs comming the righteous should rise and live a thousand yeares as S. Iohn sayes in all temporall abundances with Christ here in recompence of those temporall calamities and oppressions which here they had suffered and then after those thousand yeares so spent with Christ in temporall abundances should follow the resurrection of the wicked and then the wicked and the righteous should be disposed and distributed and setled in those Mansions in which they should remain for ever And of this errour as very many of the Fathers persisted in it to the end S. Augustine himself had a touch and a tincture at beginning And this errour S. Hierome also though truly I think S. Hierome was never touched with it himselfe out of a reverence to those many and great men that were Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius and the rest would never call an Heresie nor an Errour nor by any sharper name then an opinion which is no word of heavy detestation And as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels Pagani enlarged themselves in this distribution and apportioning the mercy of God that it consisted best with the nature of his mercy that as his Saints had suffered temporall calamities in this world in this world they should be recompenced with temporall abundances so did they inlarge this mercy farther and carry it even to the Gentiles to the Pagans that had no knowledge of Christ in any established Church You shall not finde a Trumegistus a Numa Pompilius a Plato a Socrates for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father or some Ancient and Reverend Author an Advocate In which liberality of Gods mercy those tender Fathers proceed partly upon that rule That in Trismegistus and in the rest they finde evident impressions and testimonies that they knew the Son of God and knew the Trinity and then say they why should not these good men beleeving a Trinity be saved and partly they goe upon that rule which goes through so many of the Fathers Facienti quod in se est That to that man who does as much as he can by the light of nature God never denies grace and then say they why should not these men that doe so be saved And upon this ground S. Dionyse the Areopagite sayes That from the beginning of the world God hath called some men of all Nations and of all sorts by the ministry of Angels though not by the ministry of the Church To me to whom God hath revealed his Son in a Gospel by a Church there can be no way of salvation but by applying that Son of God by that Gospel in that Church Nor is there any other foundation for any nor other name by which any can be saved but the name of Jesus But how this foundation is presented and how this name of Jesus is notified to them amongst whom there is no Gospel preached no Church established I am not curious in inquiring I know God can be as mercifull as those tender Fathers present him to be and I would be as charitable as they are And therefore humbly imbracing that manifestation of his Son which he hath afforded me I leave God to his unsearchable waies of working upon others without farther inquisition Neither did those tender Fathers then Angeli lopsi in Coelis much lesse the School after consist in carying this overflowing and inexhaustible mercy of God upon his Saints after their Resurrection in temporall abundances nor upon the Gentiles who had no solemne nor cleare knowledge of Christ Psal 138.2 Psal 17.7 which is Magnificare misericordiam to magnifie to extend to stretch the mercy of God but Mirificant misericordiam as David also speaks they stretch this mercy miraculously for they carry this mercy even to hell it self For first for the Angels that fell in heaven from the time that they
committed their first sin to the time that they were cast down into hell they whom we call the more subtile part of the Schoole say That In illa moââ la during that space between their falling into their sin and their expulsion from heaven the Angels might have repented and been restored for so long say they those Angels were but in statu viatorum in the state and condition of persons as yet upon their way as all men are as long as they are alive and not In termino in their last and determined station And that which is so often cited out of Damascen concerning the fall of Angels Quod hominibus mors est Angelis casus That as death works upon man and concludes him and makes him impenitible for ever so works the fall upon the Angels and concludes them for ever too they interpret to have been intended by Damascen not of the Angels fall in heaven but their fall from heaven for till then they were not say they Intermino in their last state and so not impenitible Apoc. 12.7 And those Ancients which expound that battle in heaven between Michael and the Dragon and their severall Angels to have been fought at that time after their fall and between Lucifers rebellion and his expulsion as the Ancients abound much in that sense of that place argue rationally That that battle what kinde of battle soever it were must necessarily have spent some time They conceive it to have been a battle of Disputation of Argumentation of Perswasion and that those good Angels which are so glad of our Conversion would have been infinitely glad to have reduced their rebellious brethren to their obedience And during that time which could not be a sudden instant they were not Inadeptivi gratiae Hiesolom incapable of repentance and of mercy S. Cyril comes towards it comes neare it nay if it be well observed goes beyond it Of Gods longanimity and patience toward man sayes he we have in part spoken Quanta ille Angelis condonaverit nescimus how great transgressions he hath forgiven in the Angels we know not only this we know sayes he Solus qui peccdre non possit Iesus est There is none impeccable none that cannot sin Man nor Angel but only Christ Jesus Nay after the expulsion of the Angels Angels lapsi in Infernum not onely after their fall in Heaven but their fall from Heaven many of the Ancients seeme loath to exclude all wayes of Gods mercy even from hell it selfe De statu moti sed non irremediabiliter moti saies Origen The Angels are fallen fallen even into hell but not so irrecoverably fallen Vt Institutionibus bonorum Angelorum non possint restitui But that by the counsaile and labour of the good Angels they may be restored againe Origen is thought to be single singular in this doctrine Eph. 3.10 but he is not Even S. Ambrose interpreting that place That S. Paul saies He was made a Minister of the Gospel Vt innotesceret to the intent that the wisdome of God might by the Church be made knowne to Powers and Principalities interprets it of fallen Angels That they the fallen Angels might receive benefit by the preaching of the Gospell in the Church Prudentius saies not so but this he does say That upon this day when our blessed Saviour arose from hell Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae And Suppliciis mitibus Nee forvent solito flumina sulphure Some relaxation some ease in their torments at some time some very good men have imagined even in hell And more then that they have not absolutely cryed downe for so much it deserves that fable of Traian That after that Emperour had beene some time in hell yet upon the prayers of Pope Gregory he was removed to Heaven ãâ¦ã Nay more then that for that was but of one man But an Author of our age and much esteemed in the Roman Church delivers as his owne opinion and thinks he hath the subtiler part of the Schoole on his side That that which is so often said from hell there is no redemption is only to be understood of them whom God sends to hell as to their last place to them certainely there is no redemption But saies he God may send soules of the heathen who had not the benefit of any Christian Church and yet were good morall men to burne out certaine errors or ignorances or sins in hell and then remove them to Heaven for for so long time they are but Viatores they are but in their way and not concluded Beloved that we might have something in the balance to weigh downe the curelty and the petulancy and the pertinacy of those men who in these later times have so attenuated the mercy of God as that they have almost brought it to nothing for there is no mercy where there is no misery and they place all mercy to have beene given at once and that before man was fallen into misery by sin or before man was made and have pronounced that God never meant to shew mercy to all them nor but to a very few of them to whom he pretended to offer it that we might have something in the balance to weigh against these unmercifull men I have staid thus long upon these over-mercifull men that have carried mercy upon the Saints of God in temporall abundances after the Resurrection and upon the Heathen who never heard Gospell preached and upon the Angels fallen in Heaven and upon those Angels fallen from Heaven into hell and upon the soules of men there not onely in the ease of their torments but in their translation from thence to Heaven That so our later men might see that the Ancients thought God so far from beginning at Hate That God should first for his glory hate some and then make them that he might execute his hate upon them as that they thought god implacable inexorable irreconciliable to none therfore to these unmercifull have we opposed these overmercifull men But yet to them wee must say Numquid Deus indiget mendacio vestro Iob 13.7 ut pro eo Ioquamini dolos Shall wee lye for God or speake deceitfully for him deceive your soules with over-extending his mercy wee may derive mercy from hell though wee carry not mercy to hell Gehenna non solum eorum qui puniendi causa facta Origen sed eorum qui salvandi Hell was not onely made for their sakes who were to suffer in it but for theirs who were to be warned by it and so there is mercy in hell Cooperatur regno saies S. Chrysostome elegantly Hell hath a co-operation with Heaven Chrysost It works upon us in the advancement of our Salvation as well as Heaven Nec saevitiaeres est sed misericordiae Hell is not a monument of Gods cruelty but of his mercy Et nisi fuisset intentata gehenna in gehennam omnes cecidissemus If we were not told of hell we
all knowledge in heaven is experimentall As all knowledge in this world is causall we know a thing if we know the cause thereof so the knowledge in heaven is effectuall experimentall we know it because we have found it to be so The endowments of the blessed those which the School calls Dotes beatorum are ordinarily delivered to be these three Visio Dilectio Fruitio The sight of God the love of God and the fruition the injoying the possessing of God Now as no man can know what it is to see God in heaven but by an experimentall and actuall seeing of him there nor what it is to love God there but by such an actuall and experimentall love of him nor what it is to enjoy and possesse God but by an actuall enjoying and an experimentall possessing of him So can no man tell what the eternity and everlastingnesse of all these is till he have passed through that eternity and that everlastingnesse and that he can never doe for if it could be passed through then it were not eternity How barren a thing is Arithmetique and yet Arithmetique will tell you how many single graines of sand will fill this hollow Vault to the Firmament How empty a thing is Rhetorique and yet Rherorique will make absent and remote things present to your understanding How weak a thing is Poetry and yet Poetry is a counterfait Creation and makes things that are not as though they were How infirme how impotent are all assistances if they be put to expresse this Eternity The best help that I can assigne you is to use well Aeternum vestrum your owne Eternity as S. Gregory calls our whole course of this life Aeternum nostrum our Eternity Aequum est ut qui in aeterno suo peccaverit in aeterno Dei puniatur sayes he It is but justice that he that hath sinned out his owne Eternity should suffer out Gods Eternity So if you suffer out your owne Eternity in submitting your selves to God in the whole course of your life in surrendring your will intirely to his and glorifying of him in a constant patience under all your tribulations It is a righteous thing with God sayes our Apostle in his other Epistle to these Thessalonians To recompence tribulation to them that trouble you 2 Thess 1.6 and to you that are troubled rest with us sayes hee there with us who shall be caught up in the Clouds to meete the Lord in the Ayre and so shall be with the Lord for ever Amen SERMON XXVII Preached to the LL. upon Easter-day at the Communion The KING being then dangerously sick at New-Market PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death AT first God gave the judgement of death upon man when he should transgresse absolutely Morte morieris Thou shalt surely dye The woman in her Dialogue with the Serpent she mollifies it Ne fortè moriamur perchance if we eate we may die and then the Devill is as peremptory on the other side Nequaquam moriemini do what you will surely you shall not die And now God in this Text comes to his reply Quis est homo shall they not die Give me but one instance but one exception to this rule What man is hee that liveth and shall not see death Let no man no woman no devill offer a Ne fortè perchance we may dye much lesse a Nequaquam surely we shall not dye except he be provided of an answer to this question except he can give an instance against this generall except he can produce that mans name and history that hath lived and shall not see death Wee are all conceived in close Prison in our Mothers wombes we are close Prisoners all when we are borne we are borne but to the liberty of the house Prisoners still though within larger walls and then all our life is but a going out to the place of Execution to death Now was there ever any man seen to sleep in the Cart between New-gate and Tyborne between the Prison and the place of Execution does any man sleep And we sleep all the way from the womb to the grave we are never throughly awake but passe on with such dreames and imaginations as these I may live as well as another and why should I dye rather then another but awake and tell me sayes this Text Quis homo who is that other that thou talkest of What man is he that liveth and shall not see death In these words we shall first for our generall humiliation consider the unanswerablenesse of this question There is no man that lives and shall not see death Secondly we shall see how that modification of Eve may stand fortè moriemur how there may be a probable answer made to this question that it is like enough that there are some men that live and shall not see death And thirdly we shall finde that truly spoken which the Devill spake deceitfully then we shall finde the Nequaquam verified we shall finde a direct and full answer to this question we shall finde a man that lives and shall not see death our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus of whom both S. Augustine and S. Hierome doe take this question to be principally asked and this Text to be principally intended Aske me this question then of all the sons of men generally guilty of originall sin Quis homo and I am speechlesse I can make no answer Aske me this question of those men which shall be alive upon earth at the last day when Christ comes to judgement Quis homo and I can make a probable answer forte moriemur perchance they shall die It is a problematicall matter and we say nothing too peremptorily Aske me this question without relation to originall sin Quis homo and then I will answer directly fully confidently Ecce homo there was a man that lived and was not subject to death by the law neither did he actually die so but that he fulfilled the rest of this verse Eruit animam de inferno by his owne power he delivered his soule from the hand of the grave From the first this lesson rises Generall doctrines must be generally delivered All men must die From the second this lesson Collaterall an unrevealed doctrines must be soberly delivered How we shall be changed at the last day we know not so clearly From the third this lesson arises Conditionall Doctrines must be conditionally delivered If we be dead with him we shall be raised with him First then 1. Part. Quis homo for the generality Those other degrees of punishment which God inflicted upon Adam and Eve and in them upon us were as absolutely and illimitedly pronounced as this of death and yet we see they are many wayes extended or contracted To man it was said In sudore vultus In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eate thy bread and how many men never sweat till they sweat with eating To the woman it
was said Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee and how many women have no desire to their husbands how many over-rule them Hunger and thirst and wearinesse and sicknesse are denounced upon all and yet if you ask me Quis homo What is that man that hungers and thirsts not that labours not that sickens not I can tell you of many that never felt any of these but contract the question to that one of death Quis homo What man is he that shall not taste death And I know none Whether we consider the Summer Solstice when the day is sixteen houres and the night but eight or the Winter Solstice when the night is sixteen houres and the day but eight still all is but twenty foure houres and still the evening and morning make but a day The Patriarchs in the old Testament had their Summer day long lives we are in the Winter short lived but Quis homo Which of them or us come not to our night in death If we consider violent deaths casuall deaths it is almost a scornfull thing to see with what wantonnesse and sportfulnesse death playes with us We have seen a man Canon proofe in the time of War and slain with his own Pistoll in the time of peace We have seen a man recovered after his drowning and live to hang himselfe But for that one kinde of death which is generall though nothing be in truth more against nature then dissolution and corruption which is death we are come to call that death naturall death then which indeed nothing is more unnaturall The generality makes it naturall Moses sayes that Mans age is seventy Psal 90.10 and eighty is labour and pain and yet himselfe was more then eighty and in a good state and habitude when he said so No length no strength enables us to answer this Quis homo What man c. Take a flat Map a Globe in plano and here is East and there is West as far asunder as two points can be put but reduce this flat Map to roundnesse which is the true form and then East and West touch one another and are all one So consider mans life aright to be a Circle Pulvis es in pulverem reverâeris Dust thou art and to dust thou must return Nudus egressus Job 1. Nudus revertar Naked I came and naked I must go In this the circle the two points meet the womb and the grave are but one point they make but one station there is but a step from that to this This brought in that custome amongst the Greek Emperours that ever at the day of their Coronation they were presented with severall sorts of Marble that they might then bespeak their Tombe And this brought in that Custome into the Primitive Church that they called the Martyrs dayes wherein they suffered Natalitia Martyrum their birth dayes birth and death is all one Their death was a birth to them into another life into the glory of God It ended one Circle and created another for immortality and eternity is a Circle too not a Circle where two points meet but a Circle made at once This life is a Circle made with a Compasse that passes from point to point That life is a Circle stamped with a print an endlesse and perfect Circle as soone as it begins Of this Circle the Mathematician is our great and good God The other Circle we make up our selves we bring the Cradle and Grave together by a course of nature Every man does Mi Gheber sayes the Originall It is not Ishe which is the first name of man in the Scriptures and signifies nothing but a sound a voyce a word a Musicall ayre dyes and evaporates what wonder if man that is but Ishe a sound dye too It is not Adam which is another name of man and signifies nothing but red earth Let it be earth red with blood with that murder which we have done upon our selves let it be earth red with blushing so the word is used in the Originall with a conscience of our own infirmity what wonder if man that is but Adam guilty of this self-murder in himself guilty of this in-borne frailty in himself dye too It is not Enos which is also a third name of man and signifies nothing but a wretched and miserable creature what wonder if man that is but earth that is a burden to his Neighbours to his friends to his kindred to himselfe to whom all others and to whom himself desires death what wonder if he dye But this question is framed upon none of these names Not Ishe not Adam not Enos but it is Mi Gheber Quis vir which is the word alwayes signifying a man accomplished in all excellencies a man accompanied with all advantages fame and good opinion justly conceived keepes him from being Ishe a meere sound standing onely upon popular acclamation Innocency and integrity keepes him from being Adam red earth from bleeding or blushing at any thing hee hath done That holy and Religious Art of Arts which S. Paul professed That he knew how to want and how to abound keepes him from being Enos miserable or wretched in any fortune Hee is Gheber a great Man and a good Man a happy Man and a holy Man and yet Mi Gheber Quis homo this man must see death And therefore we will carry this question a little higher from Quis homo to Quis deorum Which of the gods have not seene death Aske it of those who are Gods by participation of Gods power of those of whom God saies Ego dixi dii est is and God answers for them and of them and to them You shall dye like men Aske it of those gods who are gods by imputation whom Creatures have created whom Men have made gods the gods of the Heathen and do we not know where all these gods dyed Sometimes divers places dispute who hath their tombes but do not they deny their godhead in confessing their tombes doe they not all answer that they cannot answer this text Mi Gheber Quis homo What man Quis deorum What god of mans making hath not seen death As Iustin martyr asks that question Why should I pray to Apollo or Esculapius for health Qui apud Chironem medicinam didicerunt when I know who taught them all that they knew so why should I looke for Immortality from such or such a god whose grave I finde for a witnesse that he himselfe is dead Nay carry this question higher then so from this Quis homo to quid homo what is there in the nature and essence of Man free from death The whole man is not for the dissolution of body and soule is death The body is not I shall as soone finde an immortall Rose an eternall Flower as an immortall body And for the Immortality of the Soule It is safelier said to be immortall by preservation then immortall by nature That God
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
tastlesse things Compare the Prophets with the Son and even the promises of God 2 King 4.34 in them are faint and dilute things Elishaes staffe in the hand of Gehazi his servant would not recover the Shunamites dead child but when Elisha himselfe came and put his mouth upon the childs mouth that did In the mouth of Christs former servants there was a preparation but effect and consummation in his owne mouth In the Old Testament at first God kissed man and so breathed the breath of life and made him a man In the New Testament Christ kissed man he breathed the breath of everlasting life the holy Ghost into his Apostles and so made the man a blessed man Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 As in death there is a transmigration of the soule so in this spirituall love and this expressing of it by this kisse there is a transfusion of the soule too And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Platoes where he sayes he knew one so extremely passionate Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo much more is it true in this heavenly union expressed in this kisse as S. Ambrose delivers it Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo et transfunditur spiritus osculantis In this kisse where Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other In this person where the Divine and the humane nature have kissed each other Psal 85.10 In this Christian Church where Grace and Sacraments visible and invisible meanes of salvation have kissed each other Love is as strong as death my soule is united to my Saviour now in my life as in death and I am already made one spirit with him and whatsoever death can doe this kisse this union can doe that is give me a present an immediate possession of the kingdome of heaven And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdome are as well within the kingdome as a garden so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life I am still in the kingdome of heaven In the Old Testament it was but a contract but per verba de futuro Sponsabo I will marry thee Hos 2.19 Mat. 9.15 but now that Christ is come the Bride-groome is with us for ever and the children of the Bride-chamber cannot mourne Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part Exhortatic The perswasion to come to this holy kisse though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse since God invites us to it by so many good uses thereof in his Word It is an imputation laid upon Nero That Neque adveniens neqùe profisciscens That whether comming or going he never kissed any And Christ himselfe imputes it to Simon as a neglect of him That when he came into his house he did not kisse him Luke 7.45 August This then was in use first among kinsfolks In illa simplicitate antiquorum propinqui propinquos osculabantur In those innocent and harmlesse times persons neare in bloud did kisse one another And in that right and not onely as a stranger Iacob kissed Rachel Gen. 29.12 and told her how near of kin he was to her There is no person so neare of kin to thee as Christ Jesus Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee and thy brother as he took thy nature Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee and as he dyed to give thee possession of that inheritance He that is Nutritius thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house in the Christian Church and thy Twin-brother so like thee as that his Father and thine in him shall not know you from one another but mingle your conditions so as that he shall find thy sins in him and his righteousnesse in thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as thy kinsman This kisse was also in use as Symbolum subjectionis A recognition of soveraignty or power Pharaoh sayes to Ioseph Thou shalt be over my house Gen. 41.40 and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled there the Originall is All my people shall kisse thy face This is the Lord Paramount the Soveraigne Lord of all The Lord Jesus Iesus Phil. 2.10 Mat. 28.18 at whose name every knee must bow in heaven in earth and in hell Iesus into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given Iesus who hath opened a way to our Appeal from all powers upon earth Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Iesus Mat. 10.28 who is the Lion and the Lambe too powerfull upon others accessible unto thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as he is thy Soveraigne It was in use likewise In discessu friends parting kissed Gen. 31.15 Act. 20.37 Laban rose up early in the morning and kissed his sons and his daughters and departed And at Pauls departing they fell on his neck and wept and kissed him When thou departest to thy worldly businesses to thy six dayes labour kisse him take leave of him and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand and though thou worke for thy family and for thy posterity yet thou workest in his vineyard and dost his worke They kissed too In reditu Esau ran to meet his brother and fell on his neck and kissed him Gen. 33.4 When thou returnest to his house after thy six dayes labour to celebrate his Sabbath kisse him there and be able to give him some good account from Sabbath to Sabbath from week to week of thy stewardship and thou wilt never be bankrupt They kissed in reconciliation David kissed Absalon 2 Sam. 14.33 If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well Restore to man who is damnified therein Confesse to God who hath suffered in that sin Reconcile thy selfe to him and kisse him in the Sacrament in the seale of Reconciliation They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods I have sayes God 2 King 19 18. seaven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal and mouths that have not kissed him Let every one of us kisse the true God in keeping his knees from bowing to a false his lips from assenting his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship And as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae Rom. 16.16 which was another use thereof Salute one another with a holy kisse upon which custome Iustin Martyr sayes Osculum ante Eucharistiam before the Communion the Congregation kissed to testifie their unity in faith in him to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united as well as Spiritually And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis Because they ended their publique Prayers with that seale of unity and concord Let every Congregation kisse him so at every meeting to seale to him a new band a new vow that they will never break in departing from any part of his
Reformation when in no long time the number of them that had forsaken Rome was as great as of them that staid with her Now to give way to this ascent of this Angel in thy selfe make the way smooth and make thy soule souple finde thou a growth of the Gospel in thy faith and let us finde it in thy life It is not in thy power to say to this Angel as Ioshua said to the Sun Siste Iosh 10.12 stand still It will not stand still If thou finde it not ascending it descends If thy comforts in the Gospel of Christ Jesus grow not they decay If thou profit not by the Gospel thou losest by it If thou live not by it nothing can redeeme thee thou dyest by it Wee speake of going up and downe a staire it is all one staire of going to and from the City it is all one way of comming in and going out of a house it is all one doore So is there a savour of life unto life and a savour of death unto death in the Gospel but it is all one Gospel If this Angel of the East have appeared unto thee the light of the Gospel have shined upon thee and it have not ascended in thee if it have not made thee wiser and wiser and better and better too thou hast stopped that light vexed grieved quenched that Spirit for the naturall progresse of this Angel of the East is to ascend the naturall motion and working of the Gospel is to make thee more and more confident in Gods deliverance lesse and lesse subject to rely upon the weake helps and miserable comforts of this world To this purpose this Angel ascends that is proceeds in the manifestation of his Power and of his readinesse to succour us Of his Power in this That he hath the seales of the living God I saw an Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God which is our next Consideration Of the living God The gods of the Nations are all dead gods Sigillum Dei viventis either such Gods as never had life stones and gold and silver or such gods at best as were never gods till they were dead for men that had benefited the world in any publique and generall invention or otherwise were made gods after their deaths which was a miserable deification a miserable godhead that grew out of corruption a miserable eternity that begun at all but especially that begun in death and they were not gods till they dyed But our Angel had the Seale of the living God that is Power to give life to others Now if we seeke for this seale in the naturall Angels they have it not for this Seale is some visible thing whereby we are assisted to salvation and the Angels have no such They are made keepers of this seale sometimes but permanently they have it not This Seale of comfort was put into an Angels hand Ezek. 9.4 when he was to set a marke upon the foreheads of all them that mourned He had a visible thing Inke to marke them withall But it was not said to him Vade signa omnes Creaturas Go and set this marke upon every Creature as it was to the Minister of the Gospel Go and preach to every Creature Marke 16.15 If wee seeke this seale in the great Angel the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus It is true he hath it for Omnis potestas dâta All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth and Omne judicium Mat. 28.18 Iohn 5.22 The Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Christ as the Son of man executes a Judgement and hath a Power which he hath not but by gift by Commission by vertue of this Seale from his Father But because it is not onely so in him That he hath the Seale of the living God but He is this Seale himselfe Colos 1.15 Heb. 1.3 Iohn 6.27 Hee is the Image of the invisible God He is the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse Image of his Person It is not onely his Commission that is sealed but his Nature He himselfe is sealed Him hath God the Father sealed since I say naturall Angels though they have sometimes this seale they have it not alwaies they have not a Commission from God to apply his mercies to man by any ordinary and visible meanes since the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus hath it but hath it so as that he is it too the third sort of Angels the Church-Angels the Ministers of the Gospell are they who most properly can be said to have this Seale by a fixed and permanent possession and a power to apply it to particular men in all emergent necessities according to the institution of that living God whose seale it is Now the great power which is given by God in giving this seale to these Angels hath a lively representation such as a shadow can give in the history of Ioseph Pharaoh sayes to him Thou shalt be over my house and over all the land of Egypt Gen. 41.40 steward of the Kings house and steward of the Kingdome And at thy word shall all my people be armed Constable and Marshall too and to invest him in all these and more Pharaoh gave him his ring his seale not his seale onely to those severall patents to himselfe but the keeping of that seale for the good of others This temporall seale of Pharoh was a representation of the seale of the living God But there is a more expresse type of it in Exodus Thou shalt grave sayes God to Moses upon a plate of pure gold Lxod. 28.36 as Signets are graved Holinesse to the Lord and it shall be upon the forehead of Aaron What to do That the people may be accepted of him There must be a holinesse to the Lord and that presented by Aaron the Priest to God that the people may be acceptable to the Lord So that this seale of the living God in these Angels of our text is The Sacraments of the New Testament and the Absolution of sinnes by which when Gods people come to a Holinesse to the Lord in a true repentance and that that holinesse that is that repentance is made knowne to Aaron to the Priest and he presents it to the Lord that Priest his Minister seals to them in those his Ordinances Gods acceptation of this degree of holinesse he seals this Reconciliation between God and his people And a contract of future concurrence with his subsequent grace This is the power given by God to this ascending Angel and we extend that no farther but hasten to his haste his readinesse to succour us in which we proposed for the first consideration That this Angel of light manifested and discovered to us who our enemies were He cryed out to them who were ready to do mischiefe with a loud voyce so that we might heare him and know them Though in all Court-cases it be
any subject a falling for for our bodies we say a man is falne sick And for his state falne poore And for his mind falne mad And for his conscience falne desperate we are borne low and yet we fall every way lower so universall is our falling sicknesse Sin it selfe is but a falling The irremediable sin of the Angels The undeterminable sinne of Adam is called but so The fall of Adam The fall of Angels And therefore the effectuall visitation of the holy Ghost to man is called a falling too we are fallen so low as that when the holy Ghost is pleased to fetch us againe and to infuse his grace he is still said to fall upon us But the fall which we consider in the Text is not a figurative falling not into a decay of estate nor decay of health nor a spirituall falling into sin a decay of grace but it is a medicinall falling a falling under Gods hand but such a falling under his hand as that he takes not off his hand from him that is falne but throwes him downe therefore that he may raise him To this posture he brings Paul now when he was to re-inanimate him with his spirit rather to pre-inanimate him for indeed no man hath a soule till he have grace Christ who in his humane nature hath received from the Father all Judgement and power and dominion over this world hath received all this upon that condition that he shall governe in this manner Psal 2.8 Aske of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance sayes the Father How is he to use them when he hath them Thus Thou shalt breake them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potters vessell Now God meant well to the Nations in this bruising and breaking of them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformarion for Christ askes the Nations for an Inheritance not for a triumph therefore it is intended of his way of governing them and his way is to bruise and beat them that is first to cast them downe before he can raise them up first to breake them before he can make them in his fashion August Novit Dominus vulnerare ad amorem The Lord and onely the Lord knowes how to wound us out of love more then that how to wound us into love more then all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound it selfe with the very affliction that he inflicts upon us The Lord knowes how to strike us so as that we shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kisse that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit sayes the same Father No man kills his enemy therefore that his enemy might have a better life in heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end Therefore he brings us to death that by that gate he might lead us into life everlasting And he hath not discovered but made that Northerne passage to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity and tribulation to Paradise to the heavenly Jerusalem There are fruits that ripen not but by frost There are natures there are scarce any other that dispose not themselves to God but by affliction And as Nature lookes for the season for ripening and does not all before so Grace lookes for the assent of the soule and does not perfect the whole worke till that come It is Nature that brings the season and it is Grace that brings the assent but till the season for the fruit till the assent of the soule come all is not done Therefore God begun in this way with Saul and in this way he led him all his life Tot pertulit mortes quot vixit dies He dyed as many deaths as he lived dayes Chrysost for so himselfe sayes Quotidie morior I die daily God gave him sucke in blood and his owne blood was his daily drink He catechized him with calamities at first and calamities were his daily Sermons and meditations after and to authorize the hands of others upon him and to accustome him to submit himself to the hands of others without murmuring Christ himself strikes the first blow and with that Cecidit he fell which was our first consideration in his humiliation and then Cecidit in terram He fell to the ground which is our next I take no farther occasion from this Circumstance but to arme you with consolation In terram how low soever God be pleased to cast you Though it be to the earth yet he does not so much cast you downe in doing that as bring you home Death is not a banishing of you out of this world but it is a visitation of your kindred that lie in the earth neither are any nearer of kin to you then the earth it selfe and the wormes of the earth You heap earth upon your soules and encumber them with more and more flesh by a superfluous and luxuriant diet You adde earth to earth in new purchases and measure not by Acres but by Manors nor by Manors but by Shires And there is a little Quillet a little Close worth all these A quiet Grave And therefore when thou readest That God makes thy bed in thy sicknesse rejoyce in this not onely that he makes that bed where thou dost lie but that bed where thou shalt lie That that God that made the whole earth is now making thy bed in the earth a quiet grave where thou shalt sleep in peace till the Angels Trumpet wake thee at the Resurrection to that Judgement where thy peace shall be made before thou commest and writ and sealed in the blood of the Lamb. Saul falls to the earth So farre But he falls no lower God brings his servants to a great lownesse here but he brings upon no man a perverse sense or a distrustfull suspition of falling lower hereafter His hand strikes us to the earth by way of humiliation But it is not his hand that strikes us into hell by way of desperation Will you tell me that you have observed and studied Gods way upon you all your life and out of that can conclude what God meanes to doe with you after this life That God took away your Parents in your infancy and left you Orphanes then That he hath crossed you in all your labours in your calling ever since That he hath opened you to dishonours and calumnies and mis-interpretations in things well intended by you That he hath multiplied ficknesses upon you and given you thereby an assurance of a miserable and a short life of few and evill dayes nay That he hath suffered you to fall into sins that you your selves have hated To continue in sins that you your selves have been weary of To relapse into sins that you your selves have repented And will you conclude out of this that God had no good purpose upon you that if ever
ends but since we see no such ends nor use of this we are at our liberty to doubt of the thing it selfe God told Simeon that he should not die till he had seen Christ but he did not tell him that he should die as soone as he had seen him But so much as was told him was enough to make him content to die when he had seen him and to come to his Nunc dimittis to that chearfulnesse as to sing his owne Requiem God accustomed S. Paul no doubt to such notifications from him and such apprehensions in himselfe of death as because it was not new it could not be terrible When S. Paul was able to make that protestation I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I die dayly 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 11.23 And againe I am in prisons oft and often in deaths I die often No Executioner could have told him you must die to morrow but he could have said Alas I died yesterday and yesterday was twelve-month and seaven yeare and every yeare and month and weeke and day and houre before that There is nothing so neare Immortality as to die daily for not to feele death is Immortality and onely hee shall never feele death that is exercised in the continuall Meditation thereof Continuall Mortification is Immortality As Cordials lose their vertue and become no Cordials if they be taken every day so poysons do their venome too If a man use himselfe to them in small proportions at first he may grow to take any quantity He that takes a dram of Death to day may take an ounce to morrow and a pound after He that begins with that mortification of denying himselfe his delights which is a dram of Death shall be able to suffer the tribulations of this world which is a greater measure of death and then Death it selfe not onely patiently but cheerefully And to such a man death is not a dissolution but a redintegration not a divorce of body and soule but a sending of both divers wayes the soule upward to Heaven the body downeward to the earth to an indissoluble marriage to him who for the salvation of both assumed both our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Psal 2.17 Therefore does S. Paul say of himselfe If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I joy and rejoyce with you all that is It is a just occasion of our common joy on your part and on mine too And therefore does S. Augustine say in his behalfe whatsoever can be threatned him Si potest vivere tolerabile est Whatsoever does not take away life may be endured for if it could not be endured it would take away life and Si non potest vivere sayes he If it doe take away life what shall he feele when hee is dead He adds the reason of all Opus cum fine merces sine fine Death hath an end but their reward that dye for Christ and their peace that dye in Christ hath no end Therefore was not S. Paul afraid of melancholique apprehensions by drawing his death into contemplation and into discourse he was not afraid to thinke nor to talke of his death But then S. Paul had another end in doing so here which is our last consideration To make the deeper impression in them to whom he preached then by telling them that he knew they should see his face no more This that S. Paul sayes Moriturus he sayes to the Ephesians but not at Ephesus He was departed from thence the yeare before for upon the newes that Claudius the Emperour who persecuted the Christians was dead he purposed to goe by Jerusalem to Rome In that peregrination and visitation of his his way fell out after to be by Miletus a place not far from Ephesus Ver. 22. He was bound in the Spirit as he sayes here to go to Ierusalem and therefore he could not visit them at Ephesus A man may have such obligations even for the service of God upon him as that it shall not be in his power to doe that service which he may owe and desire to pay in some particular Church It was in part S. Pauls case Vers 17. But yet he did what he could from Miletus he sent to Ephesus to call the Elders of that Church thither And then he preached this short but powerfull Sermon And as his manner ever was though still without prevaricating or forbearing to denounce the judgements of God upon them in cases necessary to make those whom he preached or writ to as benevolent and well-affected to him as he could for he was Omnia omnibus Made all things to all men to which purpose it is that he speakes and poures out himselfe Gal 4.14 with such a loving thankfulnesse to the Galatians Ye received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Iesus himselfe pursuing I say this manner of a mutuall endearing and a reciprocall embowelling of himselfe in the Congregation and the Congregation in him as certainely if we consider all unions the naturall union of Parents and children the matrimoniall union of Husband and Wife no union is so spirituall nor so neare to that by which we are made Idem spiritus cum Domino The same Spirit with the Lord as when a good Pastor and a good flock meete and are united in holy affections to one another to unite himselfe to his Ephesians inseparably even after his separation to be still present with them in his everlasting absence and to live with them even after death to make the deeper impressions of all his past and present instructions he speaks to them as a dying man I know you shall see my face no more Why did he so S. Paul did not dye in eleven yeares after this But he dyed to them for bodily presence now They were to see him no more As the day of my death is the day of Judgement to me so this day of his departing was the day of his death to them And for himselfe from this time when he gave this judgement of death upon himselfe all the rest of his life was but a leading far off to the place of execution For first very soone after this Agabus gave him notice of manifold afflictions in that Girdle which we spake of before There he was bound and emprisoned at Jerusalem from thence sent bound to Caesarea practised upon to be killed by the way forced to appeale to Caesar upon that Appeale sent prisoner to Rome ship-wracked upon the way at Malta Emprisoned under guard though not close prisoner two yeares after his comming thither and though dismissed and so enabled to visit some Churches yet laid hold upon againe by Nero and executed So that as it was literally true that the Ephesians never saw his face after this valediction so he may be said to have dyed then in such a sense as himselfe sayes to the Corinthians 1 Cor.
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and âetestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
then when he was in his displeasure if God have turned to him when he was turned from him and stroakt him with the same hand that struck him God will much more perfect his own worke and grant his prayer after if God would endure to looke upon him in his deformitie he will delight to looke upon him then when he hath shed the light and the lovelinesse of his owne countenance upon him It is the Apostles argument as well as Davids If when we were enemies Rom. 5.10 we were reconeiled to God by the death of his Sonne much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life When David found that God had heard his Supplications the voyce of his suffering of his punishment he was sure he would heare his Prayer the voyce of his thankfulnesse too And this was Davids second reason Oratio for his alacrity and confidence that God would never be weary of hearing he had heard him and he would heare him still he had heard the Supplication and he would heare his Prayer for this word which signifies Prayer here is derived from Palal which signifies properly Separare As his Supplication was acceptable which proceeded à Suppliciis from a sense of his afflictions so this Prayer which came Post separationem after he had separated and divorced himselfe from his former company after his Discedite his discharging of all the workers of iniquitie must necessarily be better accepted at Gods hand He that heares a Suppliant that is a man in misery and does some small matter for the present ease of that man and proceeds no farther Ipsum quod dedit perit That which he gave is lost it is drowned by that floud of misery that overflows and surrounds that wretched man he is not the better to morrow for to dayes almes Et vitam producit ad miseriam that very almes prolongs his miserable life still without to dayes almes he should not have had a to morrow to be miserable in Now Christ onely is the Samaritane which perfected his cure upon the wounded man He saw him Luk. 10.33 sayes the text so did the rest that passed by him but He had compassion on him so he might and yet actually have done him no good but He went to him so he might too and then out of a delicatenesse or fastidiousnesse have gone from him againe but to contract he bound up his wounds he powred in oyle and wine he put him upon his own beast he brought him to an Inne made provision for him gave the Host money before-hand gave him charge to have a care of him and which is the perfection of all the greatest testimony of our Samaritans love to us he promised to come againe and at that comming he does not say He will pay but He will recompence which is a more abundant expressing of his bountie Christ loves not but in the way of marriage if he begin to love thee Hosea 2.19 he tells thee Sponsabo te mihi I will marry thee unto me and Sponsabo in aeternum I will marry thee for ever For it is a marriage that prevents all mistakings and excludes all impediments I will marry thee in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies and in faithfulnesse many and great assurances And as it is added Seminabo te mihi which is a strange expressing of Gods love to us I will sow thee unto me in the carth when I have taken thee into my husbandry thou shalt increase and multiply Seminabo te and all that thou doest produce shall be directed upon me Seminabo te mihi I will sowe thee to my selfe therefore thy soule may be bold to joyne with David in that thankfull confidence He hath heard my supplication and therefore He will heare my prayer He lookt upon me in the dust of the earth much more will he doe so having now laid me upon Carpets he lookt upon me in my sores sores of mine enemies malice and sores of mine own sinnes much more will he doe so now when he hath imprinted in me the wounds of his own Sonne for those that were so many wounds upon him are so many starres upon me He lookt upon me may David say when I followed the Ewes great with young much more will he doe so now now when by his directions I lead out his people great with enterprizes and victories against his enemies First David comes to that holy noblenesse he dares cast off ill instruments and is not afraid of conspiracy he dares divorce himselfe from dangerous company and is not afraid of melancholy he dares love God and is not afraid of that jealousie that he is too religious to be imployed too tender conscienced to be put upon businesse he dares reprehend them that are under his charge and is not afraid of a recrimination he dares observe a Sabbath he dares startle at a blasphemy he dares forbeare countenancing a prophane or a scurrill jest with his praise he dares be an honest man which holy confidence constituted our first part Depart from mee all yee workers of iniquity And then he grounds this confidence upon an undeceivable Rocke upon Gods seale God hath heard me therefore God will heare mee And when God heares God speaks too and when God speaks God does too and therefore I may safely proceede as I doe which was our second Consideration And then the third which remains is that upon this he returnes to the consideration what that was that he had done he had either imprecated or denounced at least heavy judgements upon his enemies and he finds it avowable and justifiable to have done so and therefore persists in it Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly All cleane beasts had both these marks they divided the hoofe 3 Part. and they chewed the cud All good resolutions which passe our prayer must have these two marks too they must divide the hoofe they must make a double impression they must be directed upon Gods glory and upon our good and they must passe a rumination a chawing of the cud a second examination whether that prayer were so conditioned or no. We pray sometimes out of sudden and indigested apprehensions we pray sometimes out of custome and communion with others we pray sometimes out of a present sense of paine or imminent danger and this prayer may divide the hoofe It may looke towards Gods glory and towards our good but it does not chew the cud too that is if I have not considered not examined whether it doe so or no it is not a prayer that God will call a sacrifice You see Christ brought his own Prayer Si possibile If it be possible c. through such a rumination Veruntamen yet not my will c. As many a man sweares and if he be surprized and askt what did you say he does not remember his owne oath not what he
any other then God Christ Jesus was willing to give us a Rule for Prayer but if hee had intended that his Rule should have beene deflected and declined to Saints he would have taught us to say Frater noster qui es in Coelis and not only Pater noster to pray to our Brethren which are there too and not onely to our Father which is in Heaven If any man have tasted at Court what it is to be ever welcome to the King himselfe and what it is to speake to another to speake for him he will blesse that happinesse of having an immediate accesse to God himselfe in his prayers They that come so low downe the streame as wee said before to London Bridge they will go lower and lower to Gravesend too They that come to Saints they will come to the Images and Reliques of Saints too They come to a brackish water betweene salt and fresh and they come at last to be swallowed up in that sea which hath no limit no bottome that is to direct all their devotions to such Saints as have no certainty not onely not in their ability we know not what those Saints can doe but not in their history we know not that such as they pray to are Saints nay we know not whether they ever were at all So that this may be Idolatry in the strictest acceptation of the word Idol Idolum nihil est let that be true which they say and in their sense Our Images are not Idols for an Idol is nothing represents nothing but our Images are the Images of Men that once were upon the earth But that is not throughout true for they worship Images of those who never were Christophers and other symbolicall and emblematicall Saints which never lived here but were and are yet nothing But let them be true Saints how will they make it appeare to us that those Saints can heare us What surety can we have of it Let us rather pray to him who we are sure can heare that is first and then sure he can give that we pray for that is next The prayer here is forgivenesse of sins And can Saints give that The Hosannaes Qui dant and the Allelujahs and the Gloria in Excelsis Glory in heaven peace upon earth good will amongst men these are good and cheerfull Notes in which the Quire of heaven are exercised Cherubims and Seraphims Prophets and Apostles Saints and Angels blesse God and benefit men by these But the Remittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee is too high a note for any creature in earth or heaven to reach to except where it is set by Gods own hand as it is by his Commission to his Minister in his Church and there onely in the absolution given by his Ordinance to every penitent sinner We see that phrase Dimittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee was a suspicious word even in the mouth of Christ himselfe amongst the Scribes that would not beleeve his Divinity when Christ said to him that had the Palsie My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee the Scribes cryed out he blasphemed It strikes any man to heare of forgivenesse of sins from any but God It was not a harder thing to say Fiat lux then to say Dimittuntur peccata Not harder to bring light out of darknesse by Creation then to bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse by Conversion for who can doe that Iob 14. And therefore when the King of Aram sent Naaman to the King of Israel to take order for the curing of his bodily Leprosie the King of Israel rent his Clothes and said Am I a God 2 King 5.7 to kill and to give life The power even of temporall life and death is proper to God for as Witches thinke sometimes that they kill when they doe not and are therefore as culpable as if they did So a tyrannous persecutor so a passionate Judge so a perjured witnesse so a revengefull quarreller thinks he takes away the life of his enemy and is guilty of that murder in the eye of God though the blow be truly from God whose judgements are ever just though not ever declared Let them never say that they aske not these things temporall or spirituall at the hands of those Saints for expresly literally as the words stand and sound they do aske even those very things and if the Church have any other meaning in those prayers the mischiefe is that they never teach the people by Preaching what that their reserved meaning is but leave them to the very letter of the prayer to aske those things which if they could heare yet the Saints could not give And when the prayer is made aright directed to God himselfe yet here in our Text it is limited Propter hoc For this this that was spoken of before every one that is godly shall pray unto thee Now what is this This for that is our third Consideration Si à quo petenda sed non quae petenda petis If thou come to the right Market Propter boc August but buy unwholesome hearbs there If thou come to the Apothecaries shop and aske for nothing but poysons If thou come to God in thy prayer and aske onely temporall blessings which are blessings onely in their use and may be and are ordinarily snares and encumbrances then is this direction of Davids Propter hoc for this shall he pray transgressed For This as appeares in the words immediately before the Text is The forgivenesse of the punishment and of the iniquity of our sinne which is so inexpressible a comfort to that soule that hath wrastled with the indignation of God and is now refreshed and released as whosoever should goe about to describe it should diminish it He hath it not that thinks he can utter it It is a blessed comfort to find my soule in that state as when I last received the Sacrament with a good conscience If I enjoy that peace now that is the peace of a religious and of a wise conscience for there is a wisedome of the conscience not to run into infinite scruples and doubts but Imponere finem litibus to levy a fine in bar of all scruples and diffidences and to rest in the peace and assurednesse of remission of sinnes after due means for the obtaining thereof and therefore if I be as well now as when I received this is a blessed degree of blessednesse But yet there is one cloud in this case Ab occultis my secret sins which even mine own narrowest inquisition extends not to If I consider my selfe to be as well as I was at my Baptisme when I brought no actuall sin and had the hand of Christ to wash away the foulnesse of Originall sin can I pray for a better state then that Even in that there was a cloud too and a cloud that hath thunder and lightning in it that Fomes peccati that fuell and
been defiled But yet for all these Waters other Waters soaked in and corrupted them earely for for Baptisme the Disciples of Simon Magus annulled Christs Baptisme and baptized in Simons name and his Disciple Menander annulled the Baptisme of Christ and Simon and baptized in his owne name And then for the other Water Repentance the Heretiques drained up that shrewdly when they took away all benefit of repentance for sins committed after Baptisme David denies not nay David assures us that collectively the whole Church shall be beaten upon with waters Water multiplied Aquae multae Many waters so the vulgat reades this Multae that wee Translate here Great waters So multiplied Heresies The excellency of the Christian Religion is that it is Verbum abbreviatum A contracted Religion All the Credenda all that is to be beleeved reduced to twelve Articles of the Creed All the Speranda all that is to be hoped for prayed for expressed in seaven Petitions in the Lords Prayer All the Agenda all that is to be done in it comprised in ten Commandements in the Decalogue And then our blessed Saviour though he would take away none of the burden for it is an easie yoke and a light burden yet he was pleased to binde it in a lesse roome and a more portable forme when he re-abridged that Abridgement and recontracts this contracted Doctrine in those two Love God and Love thy Neighbour And then the Devill hath opposed this Abridgement by Multiplication by many waters many heresies for it is easie to observe that in every Article of the Creed there have been at least a dozen Heresies And in those Articles which were most credible most evident most sensible most of all Many more Heresies upon the Humanity of Christ then about his Divinity And then as in matters of Faith so for matter of Manners there was scarce any thing so foule and so obscene which was not taught by some Heretiques to be religious and necessary Things which cannot be excused things which may not be named made by the Gnostiques essentiall and necessary in the Consecration of the Sacrament And then when these waters of death were in a good part dryed up these grosse errors in Faith and Manners were reasonably well overcome Then came in those waters of Traditional Doctrines in the Romane Church which are so many as that they overflow even the water of life the Scriptures themselves and suppresse and surround them Therefore does David in this text call these many waters Diluvium Diluvium A flood of great waters many and violent For this word Shatach Inundans signifies Vehemence Eagernesse and is elegantly applied to the fiercenesse of a horse in Battel Equus inundans in Bellum A horse that overflowes the Battell that rushes into the Battell Jer. 8.6 Esay 15.9 Therefore speaks the Prophet of waters full of blood What Seas of blood did the old Persecutions what Seas have later times poured out when in the Romane Church their owne Authors will boast of sixty thousand slaine in a day of them that attempted a Reformation in the times of the Waldenses Surely sayes our Prophet These waters shall be Heresies there shall be Omnis sanctus And no man may look for such a Church as shall have no water Evermore there will be some things raw and unconcocted in every Church Evermore some waters of trouble and dissention and a man is not to forsake a Church in which he hath received his Baptisme for that But waiving this generall and collective application of these waters to the Church and to take it as the letter of the Text invites us Omnis sanctus surely every godly man shall finde these waters many waters floods of many waters for affliction is our daily bread for we cannot live in this world a spirituall life without some kinde of affliction for as with long fasting we lose our stomachs so by being long unexercised in tribulation we come to lose our patience and to a murmuring when it falls upon us For that last Petition of the Lords Prayer Liberanos à malo Deliver us from evill may as some interpret it suppose that this Evill that is Malum poenae Affliction will certainly fall upon us and then we doe not so much pray to be delivered from it as to be delivered in it not that afflictions may not come but that they may not overcome when they come that they may not be ineffectuall upon us For it was Durus sermo A harder and an angryer speech then it seemes when God said to his people Esay 1.4 Why should yee bee smitten any more Why should I keep you at Schoole any longer Why should I prepare Physick or study your recovery by corrections any farther When God was wearied with their afflictions and they were not this was a heavy case He afflicted them forty yeares together in the Wildernesse and yet he saies Forty yeares long was I grieved with this generation He never saies They were grieved but he was with their stupidity They murmured but they sorrowed not to any amendment So they perverted this word Non approximabunt They shall not come nigh thee they shall not affect thee That they must doe we must be sensible of Gods corrections but yet there is a good sense and a plentifull comfort in this word of our Text. To the godly man non approximabunt the floods of great waters though waters though floods though great floods they shall not come nigh him and that is our last word and finall conclusion Consider the Church of God collectively Non approximabunt and the Saints of God distributively in which Babylon you will in the Chaldean Babylon or in the Italian Babylon and these waters doe come nigh us touch and touch to the quicke to the heart But yet as David intends here 2 Cor. 4.7 they touch not us they come not nigh us for wee have treasures in earth-then vessels They may touch the vessels but not the Treasure And this is literally expressed in the Text it selfe non approximabunt eum not that they shall not come neare his house or his lands or his children or his friends or his body but non eum they shall not come nigh him For for the Church the peace of the Church the plenty of the Church the ceremonies of the Church they are sua but not illa they are hers but they are not she And these things riches ceremonies they may be washed off with onetide and cast on with another discontinued in one Age and re-assumed in another devested in one Church and invested in another and yet the Churches she in her fundamentall Doctrines never touched And so for us a wave may wash away as much as Iob lost and yet not come nigh us for if a Heathen could say Vix ea nostra voco That outward things were scarce worthy to bee called Ours shall a Christian call them not onely His
to splendor He hath preserved this Church from perplexities If they say we are perplexed with differences of opinions amongst our selves let this satisfie them that we doe agree all in all fundamentall things And that in things much nearer the foundation then those in which our differences lie they differ amongst themselves with more acrimony and bitternesse then we doe If they thinke to perplex us with the Fathers we are ready to joyne that issue with them where the Fathers speak unanimously dogmatically in matters of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers If they thinke to perplex us with Councels we will goe as farre as they in the old ones and as farre as they for meeting in new Councels if they may be fully that is Royally Imperially called and equally proceeded in and the Resolutions grow and gathered there upon debatements upon the place and not brought thither upon commandment from Rome If there be no way but Force and Armes if they will admit no triall but that God bee blessed that keepes us from the necessity but God bee blessed also that he preserves us from perplexity or not being able to defend his cause if he call us to that triall And therefore let them never call it a Perplexity in us let them never say that we know not what to doe when we acknowledge the Church of Rome to be truly a Church for the Pest-house is a house and theirs is such a Church But the Pest-house is not the best ayre to live in nor the Romane Church the best Church to die in Thou hast preserved me from perplexities may the Primitive Church say and so may the Reformed too and so also may every particular soule say which is a Consideration that from the beginning we proposed for every Part and are now come to it in this When we were upon this consideration in our former Part Anima we shewed you that no over-tender or timorous soule might hide it selfe in a retired life from the offices of society but though every particular age bring a new sin with it every complexion a new sin every occupation a new sin every friend a new sin that must be loved for his sake yet Para te foro Thou art bound to come abroad and trust upon Gods hiding thee there from tentations and so assure thy self that he will preserve thee from perplexities Now wee consider in the Schoole Perplexities which are such onely by mis-understanding and Perplexities which are such in the true nature of the thing Those of the first kinde perplexities in a mis-understanding should fall upon no man perplexities of the second kinde in the nature of the thing it selfe can fall upon no man Of the first kinde this is an example A man sweares to conceale all his friends secrets and he tells him of a treasonable purpose against the State Either way he must offend Against his oath if he reaveale it or against his Allegeance if he doe not This is no perplexity for in a right understanding he must know that such an Oath bindes not Of the second kinde there was an example in Origen who must by the commandement of the Persecutor either offer sacrifice to an Idol or prostitute his body to an adominable abuse with another man Which should he doe Neither God gives a man an issue in such cases by death August Et vitam potiùs finire dèbet quà m maculare He is bound to give his life rather then to staine his life This timorous soule then feares where no feare is He would hide himselfe he is loath to come into the world because he thinks hee must needs sin Hee needs not Is there a necessity laid upon him that he must die as rich as the richest of his profession and that he cannot doe without sin That he must leave his wife such a Joynture and his children such Portions and all that he cannot doe without sin First all that he may doe without sin We have seene in all Professions honest men die as rich Mark 10.29 as dishonest If thou do not he that hath said There is no man that hath left wife or children for my sake but shall have a hundred fold here and everlasting life which is a blessed Codicil to a Will that was abundant before will also say There is no man that hath left wife and children poore for my sake but I will enlarge my providence upon them even in this life and my glory in the next And this was our second Part considered in the Church and in our selves Thou shalt preserve c. There remaines yet a third Part 3. Part. that as God hides us from tentations that they reach us not or preserves us from intricacies and perplexities so that they hurt us not so if they doe yet he compasses us with a joyfull Deliverance as our former or with songs of Deliverance as this Translation hath it that is imprints in us a holy certitude a faire assurance that he will never forsake us And this voyce we may heare from the Church first and then from every particular soule for to both as we have told you all the way doe all the parts of this Psalme appertaine As it is an exaltation of Gods indignation Compasse Lament 3.5 when he is said to Compasse by way of siege so Jerusalem complaines He hath builded against me he hath compassed me with gall and travell he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out So God threatens I will camp against thee round about Esay 39.3 and I will lay siege against thee for this intimates such a displeasure of God as that he does not onely leave us succourlesse joylesse comfortlesse in our selves but cuts off those supplies which might relieve us He compasses us he besieges us hee camps round about us that no reliefe can enter so when his love and mercy is expressed in this phrase that he compasses us it signifies both an intire mercy that no enemy shall break in in any part whilst he doth compasse us and a permanent and durable mercy that as no force of the enemy so no wearinesse in himselfe shall make him discontinue his watches or his guard over us but that he will compasse us still Thy faithfulnesse is round about thee sayes David to God that is our first comfort Psal 89.8 that God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse that is is never unmindfull of his owne promises and purposes And then He is round about our habitations Psal 78.28 God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse and then he compasses us with himselfe That as Satan told God one day after another Circuivi terram perambulavieam Job 1.8 I have compassed the earth and walked it round Job 2.2 but could never say that he had broke into Iobs quarter for hee found the impossibility in that The Lord had made a hedge about him Where note that Gods first
care is of the man and the soule is the man first a hedge about him and then about his house and about all that he had on every side Job 1.10 So day after day we shall finde arguments to establish our hearts in hope that the Lord hath compassed us and nothing shall breake in so as to take us from him but God shall say to us as to his former people Leva in circuitu oculos tuos Lift up thine eyes round about Esay 49.18 and behold which is one great comfort that he enables us to see and to know our enemies to discerne a tentation to be a tentation Omnes isti congregati sunt All these gather themselves together and come to thee which is another assistance that when we see our enemies multiply and that there is none that fighteth for us but onely thou O God we make a more present recourse to him But Vivo ego dicit Dominus As I live saith the Lord Velut ornamento vestieris thou shalt surely cloathe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a Bride doth which is the fulnesse of the mercy That as in another place he promises his children Panis vester sunt your enemies shall be your Bread Numb 14.9 you shall feed upon your enemies So here hee makes our enemies even our spirituall enemies our Cloathes and more then that our Jewels our Ornaments wee shall bee the stronger the warmer the richer by tribulations and tentations having overcome them as we shall if the Lord compasse us if he continue his watchfulnesse over us And that David sayes here first in the Churches behalfe God from the beginning carried a wall about his Church in that assurance Primitiva Mat. 16.18 Portae inferi The gates of hell shall not prevaile against it The Gentiles the Philosophers that were without the Church found a party Traitors Conspirators within The Heretiques and all these led and maintained by potent Princes that persecuted the Church The gates of hell were all opened and issued all her forces but Non praevaluerunt they never prevailed The Arians were sometimes more then the true Christians in all the world The Martyrians a sect that affected the name of Martyrdome could name more Martyrs then the true Church could but Evanuerunt yet they vanished The Emperours of Rome persecuted the Bishops of Rome to death yet when we looke upon the reckoning the Emperors died faster then Bishops Thou hast compassed me sayes the Primitive Church and so sayes the Reformed too Princes that hated one another have joyned in leagues against the Religion Reformata Princes that needed their Subjects have spent their Subjects by thousands in Massacres to extinguish the Religion Personall Assasinates Clandestine plots by poyson by fire by water have been multiplied against Princes that favour the Religion Inquisitions Confiscations Banishments Dishonours have overflowne them that professe the true Religion and yet the Lord compassing his Church she enjoyes a holy certainty arising out of these testimonies of his care that she shall never be forsaken And this may every good soule have too God comes to us without any purpose of departing from us againe Anima For the Spirit of life that God breated into man that departs from man in death but when God had assumed the nature of man the God-head never parted from that nature no not in death When Christ lay dead in the grave the God-head remained united to that body and that soule which were dis-united in themselves God was so united to man as that he was with man when man was not man in the state of death So when the Spirit of God hath invested compassed thy soule and made it his by those testimonies that Spirit establishes it in a kinde of assurance that he will never leave it Old Rome had as every City amongst the Heathen had certaine gods which they called their Tutelar gods gods that were affected to the preservation of that place But they durst never call upon those gods by their proper names for feare of losing them lest if their names should bee knowne by their enemies their enemies should winne away their gods from them by bestowing more cost or more devotion towards them then they themselves used So also is it said of them that when they had brought to Rome a forraigne god which they had taken in a conquered place Victory they cut the wings of their new god Victory lest he should flie from them againe This was a misery that they were not sure of their gods when they had them We are If he once come to us he never goes from us out of any variablenesse in himselfe but in us onely That promise reaches to the whole Church Esay 30.20 and to every particular soule Thy Teachers shall not bee removed into a corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers which in the Originall as is appliably to our present purpose noted by Rabbi Moses is Non erunt Doctores tui alati Thy Teachers shall have no wings They shall never flie from thee and so the great Translation reads it Non avolabunt As their great god Victory could not flie from Rome so after this victory which God hath given his Church in the Reformation none of her Teachers should flie to or towards Rome Every way that God comes to us he comes with a purpose to stay and would imprint in us an assurance that he doth so and that Impression is this Compassing of thy soule with songs of deliverance in the signification and use of which word we shall in one word conclude all God hath given us this certitude Songs this faire assurance of his perpetuall residence with us in a word of a double signification The word is Ranan which signifies Joy exultation singing Lament 2.14 Psal 17.1 But it hath another sense too Arise Cry out in the night And Attend unto my cry which are voyces far from singing This God meanes therein That though he give us that comfort to sit and sing of our Deliverance yet hee would not have us fall asleepe with that musique but as when we contemplate his everlasting goodnesse wee celebrate that with a constant Joy so when we looke upon our owne weaknesse and unworthinesse we cry out Wretched men that wee are who shall deliver us from this body of death For though we have the Spirit of life in us we have a body of death upon us How loving soever my soule be it will not stay in a diseased body How loving soever the Spirit of life be it will not stay in a diseased soule My soule is loath to goe from my body but sicknesse and paine will drive it out so will sinne the Spirit of life from my soule God compasses us with Songs of Deliverance we are sure he would not leave us But he compasses us with Cries too we are afraid we are sure that we
and that dejection of spirit which the Adversary by temporall afflictions would induce upon me is an act of his Power So this Metaphor The shadow of his wings which in this place expresses no more then consolation and refreshing in misery and not a powerfull deliverance out of it is so often in the Scriptures made a denotation of Power too as that we can doubt of no act of power if we have this shadow of his wings For in this Metaphor of Wings doth the Holy Ghost expresse the Maritime power the power of some Nations at Sea in Navies Woe to the land shadowing with wings that is Esay 18.1 that hovers over the world and intimidates it with her sailes and ships In this Metaphor doth God remember his people of his powerfull deliverance of them Exod. 19.14 You have seene what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you to my selfe In this Metaphor doth God threaten his and their enemies what hee can doe Ezek. 1.24 The noise of the wings of his Cherubims are as the noise of great waters and of an Army So also what hee will doe Hee shall spread his wings over Bozrah Ier. 49.22 and at that day shall the hearts of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs So that if I have the shadow of his wings I have the earnest of the power of them too If I have refreshing and respiration from them I am able to say as those three Confessors did to Nebuchadnezzar My God is able to deliver me I am sure he hath power And my God will deliver me Dan. 3.17 when it conduces to his glory I know he will But if he doe not bee it knowne unto thee O King we will not servethy Gods Be it knowne unto thee O Satan how long soever God deferre my deliverance I will not seeke false comforts the miserable comforts of this world I will not for I need not for I can subsist under this shadow of these Wings though I have no more The Mercy-seat it selfe was covered with the Cherubims Wings Exod. 25.20 and who would have more then Mercy and a Mercy-seat that is established resident Mercy permanent and perpetuall Mercy present and familiar Mercy a Mercy-seat Our Saviour Christ intends as much as would have served their turne if they had laid hold upon it when hee sayes That hee would have gathered Ierusalem Matt. 23.37 as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings And though the other Prophets doe as ye have heard mingle the signification of Power and actuall deliverance in this Metaphor of Wings yet our Prophet whom wee have now in especiall consideration David never doth so but in every place where hee uses this Metaphor of Wings which are in five or sixe severall Psalmes still hee rests and determines in that sense which is his meaning here That though God doe not actually deliver us nor actually destroy our enemies yet if hee refresh us in the shadow of his Wings if he maintaine our subsistence which is a religious Constancy in him this should not onely establish our patience for that is but halfe the worke but it should also produce a joy and rise to an exultation which is our last circumstance Therefore in the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice I would always raise your hearts and dilate your hearts to a holy Joy Gaudium to a joy in the Holy Ghost There may be a just feare that men doe not grieve enough for their sinnes but there may bee a just jealousie and suspition too that they may fall into inordinate griefe and diffidence of Gods mercy And God hath reserved us to such times as being the later times give us even the dregs and lees of misery to drinke For God hath not onely let loose into the world a new spirituall disease which is an equality and an indifferency which religion our children or our servants or our companions professe I would not keepe company with a man that thought me a knave or a traitor with him that thought I loved not my Prince or were a faithlesse man not to be beleeved I would not associate my selfe And yet I will make him my bosome companion that thinks I doe not love God that thinks I cannot be saved but God hath accompanied and complicated almost all our bodily diseases of these times with an extraordinary sadnesse a predominant melancholy a faintnesse of heart a chearlesnesse a joylesnesse of spirit and therefore I returne often to this endeavor of raising your hearts dilating your hearts with a holy Joy Joy in the holy Ghost for Vnder the shadow of his wings you may you should rejoyce If you looke upon this world in a Map you find two Hemisphears two half worlds If you crush heaven into a Map you may find two Hemisphears too two half heavens Halfe will be Joy and halfe will be Glory for in these two the joy of heaven and the glory of heaven is all heaven often represented unto us And as of those two Hemisphears of the world the first hath been knowne long before but the other that of America which is the richer in treasure God reserved for later Discoveries So though he reserve that Hemisphear of heaven which is the Glory thereof to the Resurrection yet the other Hemisphear the Joy of heaven God opens to our Discovery and delivers for our habitation even whilst we dwell in this world As God hath cast upon the unrepentant sinner two deaths a temporall and a spirituall death so hath he breathed into us two lives Gen. 2.17 for so as the word for death is doubled Morte morieris Thou shalt die the death so is the word for life expressed in the plurall Chaiim vitarum God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives of divers lives Though our naturall life were no life but rather a continuall dying yet we have two lives besides that an eternall life reserved for heaven but yet a heavenly life too a spirituall life even in this world And as God doth thus inflict two deaths and infuse two lives so doth he also passe two Judgements upon man or rather repeats the same Judgement twice For that which Christ shall say to thy soule then at the last Judgement Matt. 25.23 Enter into thy Masters joy Hee sayes to thy conscience now Enter into thy Masters joy The everlastingnesse of the joy is the blessednesse of the next life but the entring the inchoation is afforded here For that which Christ shall say then to us Verse 24. Venite benedicti Come ye blessed are words intended to persons that are comming that are upon the way though not at home Here in this world he bids us Come Luk. 15.10 there in the next he shall bid us Welcome The Angels of heaven have joy in thy conversion and canst thou bee without that joy in thy selfe
to the Evidence that arises from us and not according to those Records that are hid in himselfe Our actions and his Records agree we doe those things which he hath Decreed but onely our doing them and not his Decreeing them hath the nature of evidence God does not Reward nor Condemne out of his Decrees but out of our actions God sent downe his Commissioners the Angels to Sodome to inquire Gen. 18.17 Gen. 3.9 and to informe him how things went God goes down himselfe to inquire and informe himselfe how it stood with Adam and Eve Not that God was ever ignorant of any thing concerning us but that God would prevent that dangerous imagination in every man That God should first meane to destroy him and then to make him that he might destroy him without having any evidence against him For God made man Ad imaginem suam To his owne Image If he had made him under an inevitable and irresistible necessity of damnation he had made him Ad Imaginem Diabolicam to the Image of the Devill and not to his own God goes not out as a Fowler that for his pleasure and recreation or for his commodity or commendation would kill and therefore seeks out game that he may kill it It is not God that seeks whom he may devoure 1 Pet. 5.8 But God sees the Vulture tearing his Chickens or other birds picking his Corne or pecking his fruit and then when they are in that mischievous action God takes his bowe and shoots them for that When God condemns a man he proposes not that man to himselfe as he meant to make him and as he did make him but as by his sinnes he hath made himselfe At the first Creation God looked upon nothing there was nothing But ever since there have been Creatures God hath looked upon the Creature and as Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the name of a Saint or a Devill in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shall come to the sight of the Booke of life and the Records of heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that killed his brother Nor Iudas name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God does not begin with a morte moriendum some body must die and therefore I will make some body to kill But God came to a morte morieris yet thou art alive and mayest live but if thou wilt rebell thou must die God did not call up feavers and pestilence and consumptions and fire Levit. 26.16 and famine and warre and then make man that he might throw him into their mouths but when man threw downe himselfe God let him fall into their mouths Had I never sinned in wantonnesse I should never have had consumption nor feaver if I had not sinned in Riot nor death if I had not transgressed against the Lord of life If God be pleased to looke upon me at the last day as I am renewed in Christ I am safe But if God should looke upon me as he made me in Adam I could not be un-acceptable in his sight except he looked farther and saw me in mine own or in Adams sin I would never wish my selfe better then God wished me at first no nor then God wishes me now as manifold a sinner as he sees me now if yet I would conforme my will to his God looks upon persons persons so conditioned as they were which was our first branch in this first part and our second is That he delights to propose to himselfe Persons that are capable of his rewards for he mentions no others in this place All that are upright in heart The first thing that Moses names to have been made Insistit in bonis was Heaven In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth And infinite millions of generations before this Heaven was made there was a Heaven an eternall emanation of beams of glory from the presence of God But Moses tells us of no Hell made at the Creation And before the Creation such a Hell as there was a Heaven there could not be for the presence of God made Heaven and God was equally present every where And they who have multiplied Hells unto us and made more Hells then God hath made more by their two Limboes one for Fathers another for Children and one Purgatory have yet made their new Hells more of the nature of Heaven then of Hell For in one of their Limboes that of the Fathers and in their Purgatory there is in them who are there an infallible assurance of Heaven They that are there are infallibly assured to come to Heaven And an assurance of salvation will hardly consist with Hell He that is sure to come to Heaven can hardly be said to be in Hell God was loath and late in making places of torment He is loath to speake of Judgements or of those that extort Judgements from him How plentifully how abundantly is the word Beatus Blessed multiplied in the Booke of Psalmes Blessed and Blessed in every Psalme in every Verse The Booke seems to be made out of that word Blessed And the foundation raysed upon that word Blessed for it is the first word of the Booke But in all the Booke there is not one Vae not one woe so denounced Not one woe upon any soule in that Booke And when this Vae this woe is denounced in some other of the Prophets it is very often Vox dolentis and not Increpantis That Vae that woe is a voyce of compassion in him that speaks it and not of destruction to them to whom it is spoken God Jerem. 9.1 in the person of Ieremy weeps in contemplation of the calamities threatned Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountaine of teares that I might weepe day and night for the slaine of the Daughter of my people It is God that was their Father and it is God their God that slew them but yet that God their Father weepes over the slaughter So in the person of Esay Esay 16.9 God weeps againe I will bewaile thee with weeping and I will water thee with teares And without putting on the person of any man God himselfe avowes his sighing Esay 1.24 when he comes to name Judgements Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge me of mine enemies And he sighs when he comes but to name their sinnes Heu abominationes Ezek. 16.11 Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel As though God had contracted an Irregularity by having to doe in a cause of blood He sighs he weeps when he must draw blood from them God delights to institute his discourses and to take and to make his Examples from men that stand in state of grace and are
world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations It is a Sea Mundus Mare as it is subject to stormes and tempests Every man and every man is a world feels that And then it is never the shallower for the calmnesse The Sea is as deepe there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as in a storme we may be drowned in a calme and flattering fortune in prosperity as irrecoverably as in a wrought Sea in adversity So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it is bottomlesse to any line which we can sound it with and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it The purposes of the world the wayes of the world exceed our consideration But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse The power of the greatest in the world the life of the happiest in the world cannot exceed those bounds which God hath placed for them So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it hath ebbs and floods and no man knowes the true reason of those floods and those ebbs All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies they fall sick And in their estates they grow poore And in their minds they become sad at which changes sicknesse poverty sadnesse themselves wonder and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgement of God onely and hid even from them that have them and so the world is a Sea It is a Sea as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drinke but such water as will not quench the thirst The world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature but these encrease our thirst with drinking and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our abundance and though we sayle in a full Sea yet we lacke water So the world is a Sea It is a Sea if we consider the Inhabitants In the Sea the greater fish devoure the lesse and so doe the men of this world too And as fish when they mud themselves have no hands to make themselves cleane but the current of the waters must worke that So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which they have contracted in the world of themselves till a new flood waters of repentance drawne up and sanctified by the Holy Ghost worke that blessed effect in them All these wayes the world is a Sea but especially it is a Sea in this respect that the Sea is no place of habitation but a passage to our habitations So the Apostle expresses the world Here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come we seeke it not here Heb. 13.14 but we seeke it whilest we are here els we shall never finde it Those are the two great works which we are to doe in this world first to know that this world is not our home and then to provide us another home whilest we are in this world Therefore the Prophet sayes Mic. 2.10 Luk. 12.19 Arise and depart for this is not your rest Worldly men that have no farther prospect promise themselves some rest in this world Soule thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares take thine ease eate drinke and be merry sayes the rich man but this is not your rest indeed no rest at least not yours You must depart depart by death before yee come to that rest but then you must arise before you depart for except yee have a resurrection to grace here before you depart you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come when you are departed Now Status navigantium in this Sea every ship that sayles must necessarily have some part of the ship under water Every man that lives in this world must necessarily have some of his life some of his thoughts some of his labours spent upon this world but that part of the ship by which he sayls is above water Those meditations and those endevours which must bring us to heaven are removed from this world and fixed entirely upon God And in this Sea are we made fishers of men Of men in generall not of rich men to profit by them nor of poore men to pierce them the more sharply because affliction hath opened a way into them Not of learned men to be over-glad of their approbation of our labours Nor of ignorant men to affect them with an astonishment or admiration of our gifts But we are fishers of men of all men of that which makes them men their soules And for this fishing in this Sea this Gospel is our net Eloquence is not our net Rete Euangelium Traditions of men are not our nets onely the Gospel is The Devill angles with hooks and bayts he deceives and he wounds in the catching for every sin hath his sting The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net It hath leads and corks It hath leads that is the denouncing of Gods judgements and a power to sink down and lay flat any stubborne and rebellious heart And it hath corks that is the power of absolution and application of the mercies of God that swimme above all his works means to erect an humble and contrite spirit above all the waters of tribulation and affliction A net is Res nodosa Rete nodosum a knotty thing and so is the Scripture full of knots of scruple and perplexity and anxiety and vexation if thou wilt goe about to entangle thy selfe in those things which appertaine not to thy salvation but knots of a fast union and inseparable alliance of thy soule to God and to the fellowship of his Saints if thou take the Scriptures as they were intended for thee that is if thou beest content to rest in those places Rete diffusivum which are cleare and evident in things necessary A net is a large thing past thy fadoming if thou cast it from thee but if thou draw it to thee it will lie upon thine arme The Scriptures will be out of thy reach and out of thy use if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason upon Philosophy upon Morality to try how the Scriptures will fit all them and beleeve them but so far as they agree with thy reason But draw the Scripture to thine own heart and to thine own actions and thou shalt finde it made for that all the promises of the old Testament made and all accomplished in the new Testament for the salvation of thy soule hereafter and for thy consolation in the present application of them Now this that Christ promises here Non quia tanquam causa Rom. 6.23 is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labour and our fishing There is no merit in all that we can doe The wages of sin is Death Death is due to sin the proper reward of sin but the Apostle does not say there That eternall life is the wages of any good
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
Princes shall rule in judgement be to be understood of an Hezekias or a Iosias or any other good King which was to succeed and to induce vertuous times in the temporall State and government Or whether this were a prophecy of Christs time and of the exaltation of all vertues in the Christian Religion hath divided our Expositors in all those three Classes In all three though in all three some particular men are peremptory and vehement upon some one side absolutely excluding the other exposition as amongst our Authors in the Reformation one sayes Dubium non est It can admit no doubt Calvin but that this is to be understood of Hezekias and his reigne And yet another of the same side sayes too Heshusius Qui Rabbinos secuti They that adhere too much to the Jewish Rabbins and will needs interpret this prophecy of a temporall King obscure the purpose of the Holy Ghost and accommodate many things to a secular Prince which can hold in none but Christ himselfe yet I say though there be some peremptory there are in all the three Classes Ancients Romans Reformed moderate men that apply the prophecy both wayes and finde that it may very well subsist so That in a faire proportion all these blessings shall be in the reignes of those Hezekiasses and those Iosiasses those good Kings which God affords to his people But the multiplication the exaltation of all these blessings and vertues is with relation to the comming of Christ and the establishing of his Kingdome And this puts us if not to a necessity yet with conveniency to consider these words both wayes What this civill liberality is that is here made a blessing of a good Kings reigne And what this spirituall liberality is that is here made a testimony of Christs reigne and of his Gospel And therefore since we must passe twice thorough these words it is time to begin The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand From these two armes of this tree that is from the civill and from the spirituall accommodation of these words be pleased to gather and lay up these particular fruits In each of these you shall taste first what this Liberality thus recommended is And secondly what this devising and studying of liberall things is And againe how this man is said to stand by liberall things The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand And because in the course of this Prophecy in this Chapter we have the King named and then his Princes and after persons of lower quality and condition we shall consider these particulars This Liberality this Devising this Standing First in the first accommodation of the words In the King in his Princes or great persons the Magistrate and lastly in his people And in the second accommodation the spirituall sense we shall consider these three termes Liberality Devising Standing First in the King of Kings Christ Jesus And then in his Officers the Ministers of his Gospel And lastly in his people gathered by this Gospel In all which persons in both sorts Civill and Spirituall we shall see how the liberall man deviseth liberall things and how by liberall things he stands First then in our first part In the civill consideration of this vertue Liberality 1 Part. Liberality It is a communication of that which we have to other men and it is the best character of the best things that they are communicable diffusive Light was Gods first childe Light opened the wombe of the Chaos borne heire to the world and so does possesse the world and there is not so diffusive a thing nothing so communicative and self-giving as light is And then Gold is not onely valued above all things but is it selfe the value of all things The value of every thing is Thus much gold it is worth And no metall is so extensive as gold no metall enlarges it selfe to such an expansion such an attenuation as gold does nor spreads so much with so little substance Sight is the noblest and the powerfullest of our Senses All the rest Hearing onely excepted are determined in a very narrow distance And for Hearing Thunder is the farthest thing that we can heare and Thunder is but in the ayre but we see the host of Heaven the starres in the firmament All the good things that we can consider Light Sight Gold all are accompanied with a liberality of themselves and are so far good as they are dispensed and communicated to others for their goodnesse is in their use It is Virtus prolifica a generative a productive vertue a vertue that begets another vertue another vertue upon another man Thy liberality begets my gratitude and if there be an unthankfull barrennesse in me that thou have no children by me no thankfulnesse from me God shall raise thee the more children for my barrennesse Thy liberality shall be the more celebrated by all the world because I am unthankfull God hath given me a being and my liberall Benefactor hath given me such a better being as that without that even my first being had been but a paine and a burden unto me He that leaves treasure at his death left it in his life Then when he locked it up and forbad himselfe the use of it be left it He that locks up may be a good Jaylor but he that gives out is his Steward The saver may be Gods chest The giver is Gods right hand But the matter of our Liberality what we give is but the body of this vertue The soule of this Liberality that that inanimates it is the manner intended more in the next word He deviseth He studieth The liberall deviseth liberall things Here the Holy Ghosts word is Iagnatz Deviseth and Iagnatz carries evermore with it a denotation of Counsell and Deliberation and Conclusions upon premisses He Devises that is Considers what liberality is discourses with himselfe what liberall things are to be done And then upon this determines concludes that he will doe it and really actually does it Therefore in our first Translation the first since the Reformation we reade this Text thus The liberall man imagineth honest things Though the Translator have varied the word Liberall and Honest the Originall hath not It is the same word in both places Liberall man Liberall things but the Translator was pleased to let us see that if it be truly a liberall it is an honest action Therefore the liberall man must give that which is his own for els the receiver is but a receiver of stollen goods And the Curse of the oppressed may follow the gift not onely in his hands through which it passed but into his hands where it remains We have a convenient Embleme of Liberality in a Torch that wasts it selfe to enlighten others But for a Torch to set another mans house on fire to enlighten me were no good Embleme of Liberality But Liberality being made up of
years after Christ But as Tertullian shews us an early birth of it so he tells us enough to shew us that it should not have been long liv'd when he acknowledges that it had no ground in Scripture but was onely a custome popularly and vulgarly taken up But Tertullian speaks of more then Prayer he speaks of oblations and sacrifices for the dead It is true he does so but it is of oblations and sacrifices far from the propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for Tertullian makes a woman the Priest in his sacrifice Offert uxor sayes he annuis diebus dormitionis mariti The wife offers every yeare upon the day of her husbands death that is every yeare upon that day she gives a dole and almes to the poore as the custome was to doe in memory of dead friends This being then but such a custome and but so induc'd why did none oppose it Aerius Epiphanius Why it was not sufficiently opposed I have intimated some reasons before The affection of those that did it who were though mistaken in the way piously affected in the action And then the harmlesnesse in the thing it self at first And then partly a loathnesse in the Fathers to deter the Gentiles from becomming Christians And partly a cloud and darknesse of the state of the soule after death Yet some did oppose it But some not early enough and some not earnestly enough And some not with much successe because they were not otherwise Integrae famae They were not thought sound in all things and therefore they were beleeved in nothing which was Aerius his case who did oppose it but because Aerius did not come home to all truths he was not hearkned unto in opposing any error Otherwise at that time Epiphanius had a faire occasion offered to have opposed this growing custome and to have rectified the Church in a good measure therein about an hundred years after Tertullian For then Aerius opposed it directly but because he proceeded upon false grounds That since it was come to that That the most vicious man the most enormous sinner might be saved after his death by the prayers and devotions of another man there remained no more for a Christian to doe but to provide such men in his life to doe those offices for him after his death and so he might deliver himselfe from all the disciplines and mortifications and from the anguishes and remorses and vexations of conscience which the Christian Religion induces and requires Epiphanius discerning the advantage that Aerius had given by imputing things not throughly true he places his glory and his triumph onely in overthrowing Aerius his ill grounded arguments and takes the question it selfe and the danger of the Church no farther to heart then so And therefore when Aerius asks Can prayers for the dead be of any use Epiphanius sayes Yes they may be of use to awaken and exercise the piety and charity of the living and never speaks to that which was principally intended whether they could be of any use to the dead So when Aerius asks Is it not absurd to say That all sins may be remitted after death Epiphanius sayes No man in the Church ever said That all sins may be remitted after death and never cleares the maine whether any sin might And yet with all advantages and modifications Epiphanius lodges it at last but upon custome Nec enim praeceptum Patris sed institutum matris habemus sayes he For this which we doe we have no commandment from God our Father but onely an Institution implyed in this Custome from the Church our Mother But then it grew to a farther height from a wild flower in the field Chrysost and a garden flower in private grounds to be more generally planted and to be not onely suffered by many Fathers but cherished and watered by some and not above forty years after Epiphanius to be so far advanced by S. Chrysostome as that he assignes though no Scripture for it yet that which is nearest to Scripture That it was an Apostolicall Constitution And truly if it did clearly appeare to have been so A thing practised and prescribed to the Church by the Apostles the holy Ghost were as well to be beleeved in the Apostles mouthes as in their pens An Apostolicall Tradition that is truly so is good evidence But because those things doe hardly lie in proofe for that which hath been given for a good Rule of Apostolicall Traditions is very defective that is That whatsoever hath been generally in use in the Church of which no Author is known is to be accepted for an Apostolicall Tradition for so that Ablutio pedum The washing of one anothers feet after Christs example was in so generall use that it had almost gained the dignity of being a Sacrament And so was also the giving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud to children newly baptized and yet these though in so generall use and without any certaine Author are not Apostolicall Traditions Therefore we must apply S. Augustines words to S. Chrysostome Lege ex Lege ex Prophetis ex Psalmis ex Euangelio ex Apostolicis literis credemus Read us any thing out of the Law or Prophets or Psalmes or Gospel or Epistles and we will beleeve it And we must have leave to return S. Augustines words upon S. Augustine himselfe who hath much assisted this custome of praying for the dead Lege ex Lege c. Read it out of the Scriptures and we will beleeve it for S. Augustine does not pretend any other place of Scripture then this of the Maccabees and not disputing now what credit that Book had with S. Augustine certainly it fell not within this enumeration of his The Maccabees are neither Law nor Prophets nor Psalms nor Gospel nor Epistle Beloved it is a wanton thing for any Church in spirituall matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should be alwayes in her power to extinguish them when she would It is Christs counsell to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas Take us the little foxes for they destroy the Vine though they seeme but little and able to doe little harme yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become formall heretiques Capite sayes Christ Take them suffer them not to goe on but then it is Capite nobis Take us those foxes Take them for us The bargaine is betweene Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis Take them to your selves and make your selves Judges of such doctrinall matters as appertaine not to your cognizance Nor it is not Cape tibi Take him to thy selfe spy out a Recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoile him and for his Religion leave him as you found him Neither is it Cape sibi Take
his soule by Preservation and immortall in his body by Reparation in the Resurrection For though they be separated à Thoro Mensa from Bed and Board they are not divorced Though the soule be at the Table of the Lambe in Glory and the body but at the table of the Serpent in dust Though the soule be in lecto florido Cant. 1.16 in that bed which is alwayes green in an everlasting spring in Abrahams Bosome And the body but in that green-bed whose covering is but a yard and a halfe of Turfe and a Rugge of grasse and the sheet but a winding sheet yet they are not divorced they shall returne to one another againe in an inseparable re-union in the Resurrection To establish this assurance of a Resurrection in us God does sometimes in this life that which he hath promised for the next that is he gives a Resurrection to life after a bodily death here God hath made two Testaments two Wills And in both he hath declared his Power and his Will to give this new life after death in this world To the Widows sonne of Zarephtha 1. King 17. he bequeaths new life and to the Shunamites sonne he gives the same legacy 2 King 4. in the Old Testament In the New Testament to the widow of Naims sonne Luk. 7.8 he bequeaths new life And to Iairus daughter he gives the same legacy And out of the surplusage of his inexhaustible estate out of the overflowing of his Power he enables his Executors to doe as he did for Peter gives Dorcas this Resurrection too Act. 9.40 Divers examples hath he given us of the Resurrection of every particular man in particular Resurrections such as we have named And one of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ himselfe for in him we all rose for he was All in All Con-vivificavit Ephes 2.5 sayes the Apostle and Considere nos fecit God hath quickned us all us not onely S. Paul and his Ephesians but all and God hath raised us and God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus They that are not faln yet by any actuall sinne children newly baptized are risen already in him And they that are not dead yet nay not alive yet not yet borne have a Resurrection in him who was not onely the Lambe slaine from the beginning but from before all beginnings was risen too and all that shall ever have part in the second Resurrection are risen with him from that time Now next to that great Propheticall action that type of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ the most illustrious Evidence of the Resurrection of particular men is this Resuscitation of Lazarus whose sister Martha directed by faith and yet transported by passion seeks to entender and mollifie and supple him to impressions of mercy and compassion who was himselfe the Mold in which all mercy was cast nay the substance of which all mercy does consist Christ Jesus with this imperfect piece of Devotion which hath a tincture of Faith but is deeper dyed in Passion Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed This Text which you Heare Martha's single words Divisio complicated with this Text which you See The dead body of this our Brother makes up between them this body of Instruction for the soule first That there is nothing in this world perfect And then That such as it is there is nothing constant nothing permanent We consider the first That there is nothing perfect in the best things in spirituall things Even Martha's devotion and faith hath imperfections in it And we consider the other That nothing is permanent in temporall things Riches prosperously multiplied Children honorably bestowed Additions of Honor and Titles fairly acquired Places of Command and Government justly received and duly executed All testimonies all evidences of worldly happinesse have a Dissolution a Determination in the death of this and of every such Man There is nothing no spirituall thing perfect in this world Nothing no temporall thing permanent and durable And these two Considerations shall be our two parts And then these the branches from these two roots First in the first we shall see in generall The weaknesse of Mans best actions And secondly more particularly The weaknesses in Martha's Action And yet in a third place the easinesse the propensnesse the largenesse of Gods goodnesse towards us in the acceptation of our imperfect Sacrifices for Christ does not refuse nor discourage Martha though her action have these imperfections And in this largenesse of his Mercy which is the end of all we shall end this part And in our second That as in spirituall things nothing is perfect so in tempoporall things nothing is permanent we shall by the same three steps as in the former looke first upon the generall consideration the fluidnesse the transitorinesse of all such temporall things And then consider it more particularly in Gods Master-piece amongst mortall things the body of man That even that flowes into putrefaction And then lastly returne to that in which we determined the former part The largenesse of Gods goodnesse to us in affording even to mans body so dissolved into putrefaction an incorruptible and a glorious state So have you the frame set up and the roomes divided The two parts and the three branches of each And to the furnishing of them with meditations fit for this Occasion we passe now In entring upon the first branch of our first part 1. Part. In spiritualibus nihil perfectum Scientia That in spirituall things nothing is perfect we may well afford a kinde of spirituall nature to knowledge And how imperfect is all our knowledge What one thing doe we know perfectly Whether wee consider Arts or Sciences the servant knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Art and the Scholar knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Science Young men mend not their sight by using old mens Spectacles and yet we looke upon Nature but with Aristotles Spectacles and upon the body of man but with Galens and upon the frame of the world but with Ptolomies Spectacles Almost all knowledge is rather like a child that is embalmed to make Mummy then that is nursed to make a Man rather conserved in the stature of the first age then growne to be greater And if there be any addition to knowledge it is rather a new knowledge then a greater knowledge rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knowne at all before then an emproving an advancing a multiplying of former inceptions and by that meanes no knowledge comes to be perfect One Philosopher thinks he is dived to the bottome when he sayes he knows nothing but this That he knows nothing and yet another thinks that he hath expressed more knowledge then he in saying That he knows not so much as
proportion and the goodnesse of every particular mercy so is it an irreverent and inconsiderate thing not to take my particular wants into my thoughts and into my prayers that so I may take a holy knowledge that I have nothing nothing but from God and by prayer And as God is an accessible God as he is his owne Master of Requests and is ever open to receive thy Petions in how small a matter soever so is he an inexhaustible God he can give infinitely and an indefatigable God he cannot be pressed too much Therefore hath Christ given us a Parable of getting Bread at midnight by Importunity Luke 11.5.18.7 and not otherwise And another of a Iudge that heard the widows cause by Importunity and not otherwise And not a Parable Matt. 15.21 but a History and a History of his own of a woman of Canaan that overcame him in the behalfe of her daughter by Importunity when but by importunity she could not get so much as an answer as a deniall at his hands Pray personally rely not upon dead nor living Saints Thy Mother the Church prayes for thee but pray for thy selfe too Shee can open her bosome and put the breast to thy mouth but thou must draw and suck for thy selfe Pray personally and pray frequently David had may stationary times of the day and night too to pray in Pray frequently and pray fervently God took it not ill at Davids hands to be awaked and to be called up as though hee were asleepe at our prayers and to be called upon to pull his hand out of his bosome as though he were slack in relieving our necessities This was a weaknesse in those Sisters that they solicited not Christ in person still get as neare God as you can And that they declared not their case particularly It is not enough to pray nor to confesse in generall termes And that they pursued not their prayer earnestly thorowly It is not enough to have prayed once Christ does not onely excuse but enjoine Importunity And then a weaknesse there was in their Charity too Marthae charitas even towards their dead brother To lament a dead friend is naturall and civill and he is the deader of the two the verier carcasse that does not so But inordinate lamentation implies a suspition of a worse state in him that is gone And if I doe beleeve him to be in heaven deliberately advisedly to wish him here that is in heaven is an uncharitable desire For for me to say He is preferred by being where he is but I were better if he were againe where I am were such an indispofition as if the Princes servant should be loath to see his Master King because he should not hold the same place with him being King as he did when he was Prince Not to hope well of him that is gone is uncharitablenesse and at the same time when I beleeve him to be better to wish him worse is uncharitablenesse too And such weaknesses were in those holy and devout Sisters of Lazarus which establishes our Conclusion There is nothing in this world no not in spirituall things not in knowledge not in faith not in hope not in charity perfect But yet for all these imperfections Christ doth not refuse nor chide but cherish their piety which is also another circumstance in that Part. There is no forme of Building stronger then an Arch and yet an Arch hath declinations which even a flat-roofe hath not Non rejicit Christus The flat-roofe lies equall in all parts the Arch declines downwards in all parts and yet the Arch is a firme supporter Our Devotions doe not the lesse beare us upright in the sight of God because they have some declinations towards natural affections God doth easilier pardon some neglectings of his grace when it proceeds out of a tendernesse or may be excused out of good nature then any presuming upon his grace If a man doe depart in some actions from an exact obedience of Gods will upon infirmity or humane affections and not a contempt God passes it over often times For when our Saviour Christ sayes Be pure as your Father in heaven is pure that is a rule for our purity but not a measure of our purity It is that we should be pure so not that we should be so pure as our Father in heaven When we consider that weaknesse that went through the Apostles even to Christs Ascension that they looked for a temporall Kingdome and for preferment in that when we consider that weaknesse in the chiefe of them S. Peter at the Transfiguration when Mar. 9.6 as the Text sayes He knew not what to say when we consider the weaknesse of his action that for feare of death he renounced the Lord of Life and denied his Master when in this very story when Christ said that Lazarus was asleepe and that he would goe to awake him they could understand it so impertinently as that Christ should goe such a journey to come to the waking of a man asleep at that time when he spoke All these infirmities of theirs multiply this consolation upon us That though God look upon the Inscription he looks upon the metall too Though he look that his Image should be preserved in us he looks in what earthen vessels this Image is put and put by his own hand and though he hate us in our rebellions yet he pities us in our grievances though he would have us better he forsakes us not for every degree of illnesse There are three great dangers in this consideration of perfectnesse and purity First to distrust of Gods mercy if thou finde not this purity in thy selfe and this perfectnesse And then to presume upon God nay upon thine own right in an overvaluing of thine own purity and perfectnesse And againe to condemne others whom thou wilt needs thinke lesse pure or perfect then thy selfe Against this diffidence in God to thinke our selves so desperately impure as that God will not look upon us And this presumption in God to thinke our selves so pure as that God is bound to look upon us And this uncharitablenesse towards others to think none pure at all that are not pure our way Christ armes us by his Example He receives these sisters of Lazarus and accomplishes as much as they desired though there were weaknesses in their Faith in their Hope in their Charity expressed in that unperfect speech Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed for there is nothing not in spirituall things perfect This we have seen out of the Text we have Heard And now out of the Text which we See we shall see the rest That as in spirituall things there is nothing Perfect so in temporall there is nothing Permanent I need not call in new Philosophy that denies a settlednesse 2. Part. an acquiescence in the very body of the Earth but makes the Earth to move in that place where
speaks yet so doth the zeale of Gods Saints and their last prayers though we heare them not God continues still and they pray in Heaven as the Martyrs under the Altar even till the Resurrection He is with him now too In funere Here in his Funerals Buriall and Christian Buriall and Solemne Buriall are all evidences and testimonies of Gods presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of Solemne Buriall or Christian Buriall or any Buriall But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his favour and presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seale of all his blessings to Abraham Gen. 15. Gen. 46. Gen. 50. Esay 11.10 Matt. 26. That he should be buried in a good age God established Iacob with that promise That his Son Ioseph should have care of his Funerals And Ioseph does cause his servants The Physitians to embalme him when he was dead Of Christ it was Prophecied That he should have a glorious Buriall And therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured out the Oyntment upon him That she did it to Bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraine parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge to set downe our friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good manner as without vaine-gloriousnesse and wastfulnesse we may And in inclining them to whom that care belongs to expresse that care as they doe this day The Lord is with him even in this Funerall And because The Lord is here our brother is not dead Not dead in the memories and estimation of men And lastly In resurrectione that we may have God present in all his Manifestations Hee that was and is and is to come was with him in his life and death and is with him in this holy Solemnity and shall bee with him againe in the Resurrection Gen. 46.4 God sayes to Iacob I will goe downe with thee into Egypt and I will also surely bring thee up againe God goes downe with a good man into the Grave and will surely bring him up againe When The Angel promised to returne to Abraham and Sarah Gen. 18.10 for the assurance of the birth of Isaac according to the time of life that is in such time as by nature a woman may have a childe God will returne to us in the Grave according to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious Decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the meane time no more then the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darknesse But that which Moses said to the whole Congregation I say to you all both to you that heare me Deut. 4.4 and to him that does not All ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Even hee whom wee call dead is alive this day In the presence of God we lay him downe In the power of God he shall rise In the person of Christ he is risen already And so into the same hands that have received his soule we commend his body beseeching his blessed Spirit that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently of his good estate our faith may assure us of the same happinesse in our owne behalfe And that for all our sakes but especially for his own glory he will be pleased to hasten the consummation of all in that kingdome which that Son of God hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS ⧠The Table of such places of SCRIPTURE as are illustrated and expounded in this BOOKE GENESIS 1.16 TWo great lights c. 81. A. 2.7 Man was a living soul 71. A. 18.10 According to the time of life 826. D. 26.18 Isaac digged the wells of water which 118. B. 29.12 Iacob kissed Rachel 407. C. 41.45 Pharaoh called Iosephs name 529. A. 51.20 You thought evill against me 171. B. EXODUS 4.22 Israel is his sonne 56. E. 14.14 The Lord shall fight for you 577. D. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance 782. C. 33.13 Shew me now thy way 66. E. DEUTERONOMY 21.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God 8. A. 30.15 See I have set before thee life and death 70. A. 30.19 I have set before you life and death 148. D. JOSHUAH 10.12 Sunne stand thou still 700. A. JUDGES 2.5 They wept 539. B. RUTH 1.19 Call me not Naomi 479. B. 2 SAMUEL 14.14 We must needs die and are 311. A. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him 257. D. 2 KINGS 9.3 None shall say This is Iezebel 148. B. 11.12 They put the crowne 336. D. 20.7 Take a lump of figs 514. E. JOB 4.18 His Angels he charged with folly 9. C. 5.7 Man is borne unto travatle as 538. B. 7.1 Mans life is a warfare 142. A. 603 E. 8.16 Woe unto me poor rush for c. 141. B. 10.20 Lord spare me a while 162. C. 19.25 I know my Redeemer liveth c. 150. A. 19.26 In my flesh c. 122. A. 20.11 My bones are full of the sins 519. B. PSALMES 2.2 They imagine a vaine thing 433. D. 2.8 Aske of me and I will give thee c. 26. E. 462. E. 2. ult Kisse the Son lest he be angry 541. D. 3.7 Thou hast broken the teeth 516. D. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee 533. E. 15.2 Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle 117. E. 19.9 The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves 366. D. 22.6 I am a worme 18. A. 45. C. 65. A. 25.15 Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord 618. A. 37.5 CoÌmit thy wayes unto the Lord 686. B. 37.26 The righteous is mercifull 83. E. 45.7 God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladnesse 396. C. 50.12 If I were hungry 101. B 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they feare not God 57. D. 65.1 Praise waiteth for thee 64. A. 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit 585. A. 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which 394. D. 78.63 Their maidens were not given in marriage 679. C. 82.1 God standeth in the 72. D. 90.10 The dayes of our yeares c. 83. B. 101.1 I will sing of thy mercy and 12. A. 101.5 Him that hath a high looke 729. B. 102.5 My bones cleave to my flesh 519. B. 104.29 They die and they returne 255. D. 105.15 Touch not mine anointed 55. B. 106.20 They changed their glory 85. A. 111.10 A good understanding have 612. C. 113.5 He dwels in heaven 134. C. 119.57 The Lord is my portion 14. B.
came to that Synod from other places desire to be excused from assenting to the displacing of those Apocryphall Books For in that place as we see by Athanasius they prescribe For though they be not Canonicall saies he yet they are Ejusdem veteris Instrumenti libri Books that belong to the Old Testament that is at least to the elucidation and cleering of many places in the Old Testament And that the Ancient Fathers thought these Books worthy of their particular consideration must necessarily be more then evident to him that reads S. Chrysostomes Homilie or Leo his Sermon upon this very part of that Book of the Maccab to which the Apostle refers in this Text that is to that which the seven Brethren there suffered for a better Resurrection And if we take in the testimony of the Reformation divers great and learned men have interpreted these Books by their particular Commentaries Osyander hath done so and done it with a protestation that divers great Divines intreated him to do it Conrad Pellicanus hath done so too Who lest these Books should seeme to be undervalued in the name of Apocryphall saies that it is fitter to call them Libros Ecclesiasticos rather Ecclesiasticall then Apocryphall Books And of the first of these two books of the Maccab he saies freely Reverà Divini Spiritus instigatione No doubt but the holy Ghost moved some holy man to write this Book because saies he by it many places of they Prophets are the better understood and without that Booke which is a great addition of dignitie Ecclesiastica eruditio perfecta non fuisset The Church had not been so well enabled to give perfect instruction in the Ecclesiasticall Story Therefore he cals it Piissimum Catholicae Ecclesiae institutum A most holy Institution of the Catholike Church that those Books were read in the Church And if that Custome had been every where continued Non tot errores increvissent So many errors had not growne in the Reformed Church saies that Author And to descend to practise at this day we see that in many Churches of the Reformation their Preachers never forbeare to preach upon Texts taken out of the Apocryphall Books We discerne cleerely and as earnestly we detest the mischievous purposes of our Adversaries in magnifying these Apocryphall Books It is not principally that they would have these Books as good as Scriptures but because they would have Scriptures no better then these Books That so when it should appeare that these Books were weake books and the Scriptures no better then they their owne Traditions might be as good as either But as their impiety is inexcusable that thus over-value them so is their singularity too that depresse these books too farre of which the Apostle himselfe makes this use not to establish Articles of Faith but to establish the Hebrews in the Articles of Faith by examples deduced from this Booke The example then to which the Apostle leads them is that Story of a Mother and her seven Sons which in one day suffered death by exquisite torments rather then break that Law of their God which the King prest them to break though but a Ceremoniall Law Now as Leo saies in his Sermon upon their day for the Christian Church kept a day in memory of the Martyredome of these seven Maccabees though they were but Jewes Gravant audita nisi suscipiantur imitanda It is a paine to heare the good that others have done except we have some desire to imitate them in doing the like The Panegyricke said well Onerosum est succederebono Principi That King that comes after a good Predecessour hath a shrewd burthen upon him because all the World can compare him with the last King and all the world will looke that he should be as good a King as his immediate Predecessour whom they all remember was So Gravant audita It will trouble you to heare what these Maccabees which S. Paul speaks of suffered for the Law of their God but you are weary of it and would be glad we would give over talking of them except you have a desire to imitate them And if you have that you are glad to heare more and more of them and from this Apostle here you may For he makes two uses of their example First that though they were tortured they would not accept a deliverance And then that they put on that resolution That they might obtaine a better Resurrection What they suffered hath exercised all our Grammarians and all our Philologers and all our Antiquaries that have enquired into the Racks and Tortures of those times We translate it roundly They were tortured And S. Pauls word implies a torture of that kind that their bodies were extended and rackt as upon a drumme and then beaten with staves What the torture intended in that word was we know not But in the Story it selfe to which he refers in the Maccab you have all these divers tortures Cutting out of tongues and cutting off of hands and feete and macerating in hot Cauldrons and pulling off the skin of their heads with their haire And yet they would not accept a deliverance Ver. 24. Was it offered them Expresly it was The King promises and sweares to one of them that he would make him Rich and Happie and his Friend and trust him with his affaires if he would apply himselfe to his desires and yet he would not accept this deliverance This is that which S. August saies Sunt qui patienter moriuntur There may be many found that dye without any distemper without any impatience that suffer patiently enough But then Sunt qui patienter vivunt delectabiliter moriuntur There are others whose life exercises all their patience so that it is a paine to them though they indure it patiently to live But they could dye not only patiently but cheerefully They are not onely content if they must but glad if they may dye when they may dye so as that thereby They may obtaine a better Resurrection And this was the case of these Martyrs whom the Apostle here proposes to the imitation of the Hebrews They put all upon that issue A better Resurrection So the second Brother saies to the King Ver. 9. Thou like a Fury takest us out of this life but the King of the World shall raise us up who have dyed for his Law unto everlasting life Here lay his hope That that which dyed that which could dye his body should be raised againe So the third Brother proceeded Ver. 11. He held out his hands and said These I had from Heaven and for his Laws I despise them and from him I hope to receive them again There was his hope a restitution of the same hands in the Resurrection And so the fourth Brother Ver. 14. It is good being put to death by men to looke for hope from God Hope of what To be raised up againe by him There was his hope And he
thought he could not speake more bitterly to that Tyran then to tell him As for thee thou shalt have no Resurrection unto life And so the Mother establisht her selfe too To her Sons she saies I gave you not life in my wombe Ver. 22. but doubtlesse the Creator that did will of his mercy give you life againe The soule needed not life againe for the soule never dyed the body that dyed Ver. 29. did Therefore her hope was in a Resurrection And to her youngest Son she said Be worthy of thy Brethren Take thy death that I may receive thee againe in mercy with thy Brethren All their establishment all their expectation all their issue was That they might obtaine a better Resurrection Now what was this that they qualified and dignified by that addition The better Resurrection Is it called better in that it is better then this life and determined in that comparison and degree of betternesse and no more Is it better then those honours and preferments which that King offered them and determined in that comparison and no more Or better then other men shall have at the last day for all men shall have a Resurrection and determined in that Or as S. Chrysostome takes it is it but a better Resurrection then that in the former part of this Text where dead children are restored to their mothers alive again Is it but a better Resurrection in some of these senses Surely better in a higher sense then any of these It is a supereminent degree of glory a larger measure of glory then every man who in a generall happinesse is made partaker of the Resurrection of the righteous is made partaker of Beloved There is nothing so little in heaven as that we can expresse it But if wee could tell you the fulnesse of a soul there what that fulnesse is the infinitenesse of that glory there how far that infinitenesse goes the Eternity of that happinesse there how long that happinesse lasts if we could make you know all this yet this Better Resurrection is a heaping even of that Fulnesse and an enlarging even of that Infinitenesse and an extention even of that eternity of happinesse For all these this Fulnesse this Infinitenesse this Eternity are in all the Resurrections of the Righteous and this is a better Resurrection We may almost say it is something more then Heaven for all that have any Resurrection to life have all heaven And something more then God for all that have any Resurrection to life have all God and yet these shall have a better Resurrection Amorous soule ambitious soule covetous soule voluptuous soule what wouldest thou have in heaven What doth thy holy amorousnesse thy holy covetousnesse thy holy ambition and voluptuousnesse most carry thy desire upon Call it what thou wilt think it what thou canst think it something that thou canst not think and all this thou shalt have if thou have any Resurrection unto life and yet there is a Better Resurrection When I consider what I was in my parents loynes a substance unworthy of a word unworthy of a thought when I consider what I am now a Volume of diseases bound up together a dry cynder if I look for naturall for radicall moisture and yet a Spunge a bottle of overflowing Rheumes if I consider accidentall an aged childe a gray-headed Infant and but the ghost of mine own youth When I consider what I shall be at last by the hand of death in my grave first but Putrifaction and then not so much as Putrifaction I shall not be able to send forth so much as an ill ayre not any ayre at all but shall be all insipid tastlesse savourlesse dust for a while all wormes and after a while not so much as wormes sordid senslesse namelesse dust When I consider the past and present and suture state of this body in this world I am able to conceive able to expresse the worst that can befall it in nature and the worst that can be inflicted upon it by man of fortune But the least degree of glory that God hath prepared for that body in heaven I am not able to expresse not able to conceive That man comes with a Barly corn in his hand to measure the compasse of the Firmament and when will he have done that work by that way he comes with a grain of dust in his scales to weigh the whole body of the world and when will he have done that work that way that bids his heart imagine or his language declare or his wit compare the least degree of the glory of any good mans Resurrection And yet there is a Better Resurrection A Better Resurrection reserved for them and appropriated to them That fulfill the sufferings of Christ in their flesh by Martyrdome and so become witnesses to that Conveyance which he hath sealed with his blood by shedding their blood and glorifie him upon earth as far as it is possible for man by the same way that he hath glorified them in heaven and are admitted to such a conformity with Christ as that if we may have leave to expresse it so they have dyed for one another Neither is this Martyrdome and so this Better Resurrection appropriated to a reall and actuall and absolute dying for Christ but every suffering of ours by which suffering he may be glorified is a degree of Martyrdome and so a degree of improving and bettering our Resurrection For as S. Ierome sayes That chastity is a perpetuall Martyrdome So every war maintained by us against our own desires is a Martyrdome too In a word to do good for Gods glory brings us to a Good but to suffer for his glory brings us to a Better Resurrection And to suffer patiently brings us to a Good but to suffer chearefully and more then that thankfully brings us to a Better Resurrection If all the torments of all the afflicted men from Abel to that soul that groanes in the Inquisition or that gaspes upon his death-bed at this minute were upon one man at once all that had no proportion to the least torment of hell nay if all the torments which all the damned in hell have suffered from Cain to this minute were at once upon one soul so as that soul for all that might know that those torments should have an end though after a thousand millions of millions of Generations all that would have no proportion to any of the torments of hell because the extention of those torments and their everlastingnesse hath more of the nature of torment and of the nature of hell in it then the intensnesse and the vehemency thereof can have So if all the joyes of all the men that have had all their hearts desires were con-centred in one heart all that would not be as a spark in his Chimney to the generall conflagration of the whole world in respect of the least joy that that soule is made partaker of that departs from this