from all eternity but in the fulness of time made like unto us But we viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis were miserable naked sinners enemies to God at such a distance from him and so far from the least participation of the Divine nature that we were fallen from our own integrity and first honor and facti similes made like indeed but if a Prophet and a King if David draw our picture similes jumentis quae pereunt Psal 49.20 Let our sorrow and shame interpret it like to the beast that perish But now by Christs assimilation to us we are made like unto God we are exalted by his humiliation raised by his descent magnified by his minoration we are become candidati Angelorum lifted up on high to a sacred emulation of the Angelical estate Yea with songs of triumph we remember it and it is the joy of this Feast we are fratres Domini the brethren of Christ With a mutual aspect Christs Humility looks upon the Exaltation of our nature and our Exaltation looks back again upon Christ and as a well-made picture looks upon him that looks upon it so Christ drawn forth in the similitude of our flesh looks upon us whilst we with joy and gratitude have our eyes set upon him Each answereth other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are parallels Christ made like unto Men and again Men made like unto him so like that they are his Brethren Christ made like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things which fill up the office of a Redeemer and Men made like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things which may be required at the hands of those who are redeemed His obedience lifted him up to the cross and ours must lift us after him and be carried on by his to the end of the world And as we find that Relatives are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a kind of convertency in these terms Christ and his Brethren Christ like unto his Brethren and these Brethren like unto Christ Christ is ours and we are Christs 1 Cor. 3.23 saith the Apostle and Christ is God's In the next place the Modification It behoved him carries our thoughts to those two common heads or places the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Convenience and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Necessity of it And these two in civil acts are one For what becomes us to do we must do and it is necessary we should do it What should be done is done Impossibilitas juris and it is impossible it should be otherwise say the Civilians because the Law supposeth obedience which is the complement and perfection of the law Now this Debuit again looks equally on both on Christ and on his Brethren If in all things it behoved Christ to be like unto his brethren which is the Benefit Heaven and Earth will conclude Men and Angels will infer That it behoveth us to be made like unto Christ which is the Duty My Text ye see is divided equally between these two terms Christ and his Brethren That which our devotion must contemplate in Christ is 1. his Divine 2. his Humane nature 3. the Union of them both First his Divine nature For we cannot but make a stand and enquire Who he was who ought to do this Secondly his Humane nature For we find him here flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones made like unto us in our flesh in our souls Da siquid ultrà est What can we say more Our Apostle tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all things And then thirdly will follow the Vnion exprest in the passive fieri in his assimilation and the assumption of our nature All these fill us with admiration but the last raiseth it yet higher and should raise our love to follow him in his obedience that it behoved him that the dispensation of so wonderful and catholick a benefit must be thus transacted tanquam ex officio as a matter of duty The end of all is the end of all our Salvation the end of our Creation of our Redemption of this Assimilation and the last end of all the Glory of God This sets an oportet upon Man as well as upon Christ and then his Brethren and He will dwell together in unity Only here is the difference Our obligation is the easier It is but this to be bound and obliged with Christ to set our hands to that bond which he hath sealed with his blood it is no heavy Debet to be like unto him and for his condescension so low to us to raise our selves neerer to him by a holy and diligent imitation of his obedience This will make up our last part and serve for application In the first place in an holy extasie we cry out with the Prophet Isa 63.1 Quis ille qui venit Who is he that cometh Quis ille qui similis Who is he that must be made like unto us Quis fecit is but a resultance from Quid factum est What is done and Who did it are of so neer relation that we can hardly abstract one from the other If one eye be leveld on the fact the other commonly is fixed on the hand that did it Magnis negotiis ut magnis Comoediis edecumati apponuntur actores saith the Orator Great burthens require great strength to bear them Matters of moment are not for men of weak abilities and slight performance nor every Actor for all parts To lead captivity captive to bring prisoners to glory to destroy Death to shut up the gates and mouth of Hell these are Magnalia wonderful things not within the sphere of common activity We see here many sons there were to be brought unto Glory v. 10. but in the way there stood Sin to intercept us the fear of Death to enthral us and the Devil ready to devour us And we what were we Rottenness our mother and worms our brethren lay us in the balance Psal 62.9 lighter then vanity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men fallen below the condition of Men lame and impotent not able to move one step in these wayes of glory living dead men Quis novus Hercules Who will now stand up for us who will be our Captain We may well demand Quis ille who he is Some Angel we may think sent from heaven or some great Prophet No. Inquest is made in this Epistle and neither the Angels nor Moses returned The Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in no wise Glorious creatures indeed they are celestial spirits but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ministring spirits o Nazianz. Orat 43 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 103.21 in all purity serving the God of purity saith Nazianzene not fit to intercede but ready at his beck with wings indeed but not with healing under them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but second lights too weak to enlighten so great a darkness Their light is their obedience and their fairest elogigium
narrow understandings could receive it would not add one hair to our stature and growth in grace That Christ is God and Man that the two Natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediatour is enough for thee to know and to raise thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ This is Christ and that is Christ Thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half-Christ a created Christ a phansied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poor and miserable comfort of conjecture in that which so far as it concerneth us is so plain easie to be known Do thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee doth thy wit and thy reason forsake thee and leave thee in thy search at a loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr Thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of all scruples and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and express word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen immense yet circumscribed Immortal yet dying the Lord of life yet crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his Love and call it thy Reverence Why should thoughts arise in thy heart His Power is not the less because his Mercy is great nor doth his infinite Love shadow or eclipse his Majesty For see he counteth it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any loss by being thus like us Our Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be so is the wonder and extasie of our joy That he would descend is mercy but that he must descend is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding terms words of duty Had the Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the Debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it behoved as much But to put a Debet upon the Son of God and make it a beseeming thing for him to become flesh to be made like unto us is as if one should set a Rubie in clay a Diamond in brass a Chrysolith in baser metall and say they are placed well there as if one should worry the lambs for the woolf or take the master by the throat for the debt of a Prodigal and with an Opertet say it should be so To give a gift and call it a Debt is not our usual language On earth it is not but in heaven it is the proper dialect fixed in capital letters on the Mercy-seat It is the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme SALVATOR NATVS A Saviour is born And if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship DEBET he must it behoveth him he is as deeply engaged as the party whose Surety he is And oh our numberless accounts that engaged God! Oh our prodigality that made him here come sub ratione debiti Adam had brought God in debt to death to Satan to his own Justice and God in Justice did ow us all to the Grave and to Hell Therefore if he will have us if he will bring his children unto glory he must pay down a price for us Heb. 2.14 he must take us out of his hands who hath the power of death if he will have his own inheritance he must purchase it And let us look on the aptness of the means and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men 1 Cor. 1.26 and this weakness of God is stronger than men and that the Debuit is right set For medio exsistente conjunguntur extrema If you will have extremes meet you must have a middle line to draw them together And behold here they meet and are made one The proprieties of either Nature being entire yet meet and concentre as it were in one Person Majesty putteth on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality By the one our Saviour dyeth for us by the other he â—â—seth again By the one he suffereth as Man by the other he conquereth as God by both he perfecteth and consummateth the great work of our Redemption This Debuit reacheth home to each part of the Text First to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessel when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit ought to repair and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life Qui fecit nos debuit reficere Our Creation and Salvation must be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheel Next we may set the debuit upon Christ's Person He is media Persona a middle Person the office therefore will best fit him even the office of Mediatour Further as he is the Son of God and the Image of his Father most proper it may seem for him to repair that Image which was defaced and well near lost in us We had not onely blemished God's Image but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coyn For righteousness there was sin for purity pollution for beauty deformity for rectitude perversness for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which God might know us Venit Filius ut iterum signet The Son cometh and with his blood reviveth the first character marketh us with his own signature imprinteth the graces of God upon us maketh us current money and that his Father may know us and not cast us off for refuse silver sheweth him his face Indeed the Father and the holy Ghost dignified the Flesh but took it not filled it with their Majesty but not with their Persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not Incarnate As three may weave a garment and but one wear it as Hugo And as in Musick saith St.
say Why didst thou this Had Marcion Photinus and Arius well weighed the force and priviledge of Love their needless I may say their bold and irreverent fear would have soon vanished nor would they have denied Christ to be the Son of God because God delivered him up for us but would have seen as great glory in his Humility as in his Glory and would have faln down and worship God and Man even this crucified Lord of life Christ Jesus Love will do any thing for those whom she looketh and stayeth upon If you ask a coat she giveth the cloak also Matth. 5.40 If you desire her to go a mile she will go with you twain and is never weary though she passes through places of horror and danger If you be in the most loathsome dungeon in the valley and shadow of death she forsaketh you not but will go along with you Must the Son of God be delivered Love sendeth him down Charitas de coelo demisit Christum It was Love that bowed the heavens when he descended Must he suffer Love nayleth him to the Cross and no power could do it but Love Must he be sacrificed Love calleth it a Baptisme Luke 12.50 and is straitned till the Sacrifice be slain Must he dye Must the Son of God dye Love calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his perfection So though he be the Son of God Hebr. 2.10 though we were his enemies yet Love reconcileth all these seeming contradictions resolveth every doubt tuneth these jarring strings and out of this discord maketh that melody which delighteth both Men and Angels and God himself even that melody whereof our love should be the resultance He loved us and then the conclusion doth sweetly and naturally follow He spared not his own Son but delivered him up And so from the Person we pass to the Delivery it self II. HE DELIVERED AND SPARED HIM NOT The oeconomy and glorious dispensation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is here termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delivery And delivered he was First into the Virgins womb That was a strange descent and even then at his birth began his passion De patient Nasci se patitur saith Tertullian He suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb took of Man what was proper and natural to him to be born and die Here he was drawn out and fitted made an object for the malice of men and the rage of the Devil to work on Here he was made a mark for his enemies to shoot at Here he got a back for the whip flesh to be ploughed a face to be spit upon a body to be nayled to the cross and an heart to be pierced Here he was built up as a Temple to be beat down again with axes and hammers with misery and affliction A strange delivery this was of the Son of God into the womb of a mortal yet God thus delivered him But further being born what was his whole life but Delivery from sorrow to sorrow and from misery to misery from poverty to shame from derision to malice from malice to death This was the pomp and ceremony with which he was brought to his cross Psal 27.12 and from thence to his grave Deliver me not over to the will of my enemies saith David Behold Christ's friends were his enemies What creature was there to whom he was not delivered Delivered he was to the Angels Psal 91.11 to keep him you will say in all his wayes But what need had he of an Angel's assistance whose wisdome reached over all Luke 22.43 What needed he an Angel's tongue to comfort him who was Lord of the Angels and who with his voice could have destroyed the Universe What need had he who could turn stones into bread yea work bread out of nothing as he did in the multiplying of the loaves to receive Almes from the hand of his Minister Luke 1.51 He was delivered to Joseph and Mary to whom he was subject and obedient Delivered he was to an Occupation and Trade For as Justine Martyr saith he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ploughs and yokes He was delivered from Annas to Caiaphas from Caiaphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herode from Herode to Pilate again and from Pilate to the Jews to do with him what they pleased He was delivered to all the creatures to Heat and to Cold to the Thorns which gored him to the Whip which made long furrows in his flesh to the Nayls which fastned him to the Spear which pierced him to the Cross which racked him to the Grave which swallowed him He was delivered to the Devil himself and to the power of darkness There was no creature from the highest to the lowest to which he was not delivered He was delivered in his body and in his soul in every part of his body even in those which seemed free from pain His Tongue which his enemies cruelty toucht not for though he was man yet had he nothing of the impatience of man complained of thirst John 19.28 he said I thirst He was delivered up to a quick and lively sense of pain Many times extremity of pain taketh pain away and it is lost in it self but Christ's pain did quicken his sense The more he endured the more sensible he was the more he suffered the more feeling he had His last gasp was breathed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 27.50 Matth. 27.18 with a strong loud voyce Delivered he was to Envy which delivered him to Treachery which betrayed him to Malice which laid on sure strokes to Pride which scorned him to Contempt which spate upon him to all those furious Passions which turn Men into Devils And From such a Delivery we all cry Good Lord deliver us But thus was our blessed Saviour delivered not onely to Men but to the Passions of men to the wild and brutish Passions of his enemies yea to the rage of Devils Further yet he was delivered not only to their Passions but to his own also which as Man he carryed about with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soul is troubled saith he He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an agony John 12.27 Luke 22.44 quae sentitur prùs quà m dicitur which none can tell what it is but he that hath felt it and none ever felt such an agony but he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.37 he is grievously vexed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His soul was very sorrowful Matth. 26.38 These several expressions the Evangelists give us Trouble Vexation Agony Heaviness and Sorrow in his soul These were the bitter ingredients which filled up his cup so full that he made it his prayer to have it taken out of his hand Mark 14 36. The consideration of which hath induced some to conceive that sense of pain had so weakned his intellectual faculties that he forgat himself Non fuit haec meditata Christi oratio
esse debet ager quà m agricola The farm must not be too great for the husbandman but what he may be well able to manure and dress And the reason is good Quia si fundus praevaleat colliditur dominus Because if he prevail not if he cannot manage it he must needs be at great loss And it is so in the speculations and works of the mind Those inquiries are most fruitful and yield a more plentiful increase which we are able to bring unto the end which is truly to resolve our selves Thus it is as a little plot of ground well tilled will yield a fairer crop and harvest then many acres which we cannot husband for the Understanding doth not more foully miscarry when it is deceived with false appearances and sophismes then when it looketh upon and would apprehend unnecessary and unprofitable objects and such as are set out of sight Res frugi est sapientia Spiritual Wisdome is a frugal and thrifty thing sparing of her time which she doth not wantonly wast to purchase all knowledge whatsoever but that which may adorn and beautifie the mind which was made to receive Virtue and Wisdome and God himself To know that which profiteth not is next to ignorance But to be ambitious of impertinent speculations carrieth with it the reproch of folly Hom. 29. adv calumn 8. Trin. What is it then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh to seek with such diligence for that which is past finding out And first the knowledge of the hour of Christ's coming is most impertinent Acts 1.7 Psal 31.15 and concerneth us not It is not for us to know the times As our dayes so the times are in God's hand and he disposeth and dispenseth them as it pleaseth him fitteth a time to every thing which all the wisdome of the world cannot do Thou wouldst know when he would take the yoke from off thy neck It is not for thee to know That which concerneth thee is to possess thy soul with patience which will make thy yoke easie Thou wouldst know when he will break the teeth of the ungodly and wrest the sword out of the hand of them that delight in blood It is not for thee to know Thy task is to learn to suffer and rejoyce and to make a blessing of persecution Thou wouldst know when the world shall be dissolved Why shouldst thou desire to know it Thy labour must be to dissolve the body of sin and set an end and period to thy transgressions Thou wouldst know what hour this Lord will come It is not for thee to know but to work in this thy hour and be ready and prepared for his coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The present the present time that is thine and thou must fill it up with thy obedience That which is to come of what aspect so ever it be thou must onely look upon and consider as an help and advantage to thee in thy work The Lord will come speaketh no more to me then this To labour and sweat in his vineyard till he come All the daies of my appointed time will I wait Job 14.14 saith Job There is a time and an appointed time and appointed by a God of eternity and I do not study to calculate or find out the last minute of it but I will wait which is but a syllable but of a large and spreading signification and taketh in the whole duty of man For what is the life of a Christian but expectation of and waiting for the coming of the Lord David indeed desireth to know his end and the measure of his dayes Psal 39.4 but he doth not mean so to calculate them as Arithmeticians do to know a certain and determined number of them so to number them as to tell them at his fingers ends and say This will be the last but himself interpreteth himself and hath well explained his own meaning in the last words Let me know the measure of my dayes that I may know how frail I am know not exactly how many but how few they be let me so measure them that I may know and consider that they are but few that in this little time I may strive forward and make a way to eternity This was the Arithmetick he desired to have skill in It may seem a paradox but there is much truth in it few men are so fully resolved of their mortality as to know their dayes are few We can say indeed that we are but shadows but the dreams of shadows but bubbles but vapours that we began to die before we were born and in the womb did move and strive forward towards the gates of Death and we think it no disparagement because we speak to men of the same mold who will say the same of themselves and lay to heart as little as we But should we pass over Methusalem's age a thousand times yet when we were drawing even towards our end we should be ready to conceive a possibility of a longer race and hope like the Sun to run the same compass again And though we die every day yet we are not so fully confirmed in this that we shall ever die Egregia res est condiscere mortem saith Seneca The best art is the knowledge of our frailty and he must needs live well who hath well learnt to die And egregia res est condiscere adventum Domini Ep. 26. It is a most useful thing to have learnt and well digested the coming of the Lord. For we cannot take out this as we should but we must be also perfect in those lessons which may make us fit to meet him when he cometh The hour of his coming is lockt up in the treasury of his Wisdome and he hath left us no key to open it that we might not so much as hope to find it and so mispend our thoughts in that which they cannot lay hold on and which should be fastened on the other to advance and promote our duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fix that well which is present here lay out all thy store all the powers of thy soul Whilest it is time whilest it is day whilest it is thy day make ready for his coming For secondly though it be in the future tense VENIET he will come though it lie hid as it were in the womb of Time and we know not when it will be brought to birth yet at this distance it looketh upon us and hath force enough in it self to work that fear and caution in us which the knowledge of the very hour peradventure might not do We say we believe it and that is enough And some have given Faith the preeminence above Knowledge and count the evidence we have by Faith clearer and more convincing then that we have by Demonstration But if it were not yet even that which is but probable in other things doth prevail with us and is as it were principium motus the
forward in the wayes of righteousness till we are brought to that place of rest where there is no evil to turn from but all shall turn to our salvation Thus much of the Exhortation Turn ye turn ye The next is the Reason or Expostulation For why will ye die O house of Israel The Twentieth SERMON PART V. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye die O house of Israel WHY will ye die is an Obtestation or Expostulation I called it a Reason and good reason I should do so For the moriemini is a good reason That we may not die a good reason to make us turn But being tendered to us by way of expostulation it is another reason putteth life and efficacy into it and maketh it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason invincible and unanswerable The Israelite though now in his evil wayes dareth not say he will die and therefore must lay his hand upon his mouth and turn God who is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from all passion being to deal with Man subject to passion seemeth to put on Passion Exprimit in se ut exprimat de te saith S. Augustine He expresseth a kind of anger that thou mayest abhorre thy self for sin He seemeth sorrowful that thou mayest be melted into tears He putteth on a kind of wonder that thou mayest have confusion of face Will ye die why will ye die It moveth him much that Israel his chosen people should die that his house that he built upon a strong foundation and strengthened and supported on every side should even whilest he shined upon it sink and swerve and fall to ruine that the signature on his right hand should be defaced that the apple of his eye should be thus toucht This is enough to put God himself into passion to make him cry out and complain QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die O house of Israel Certainly the manner of speach maketh it evident that moved he was So it is Affections are commotions saith the Philosopher and many times make us speak what otherwise we would not Figura dictionis the tenour of our speach varieth with our mind and our very action and gesture and voice put on the shape of our affections The language here is sharp and violent not per rectam orationem by way of a plain and positive declaration of our mind but by a sudden and well-prest interrogation It is quick and round and leaveth a mark and imputation behind it He saith not The wayes ye walk in are evil turn from them If ye turn not ye run upon your death but QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die The question putteth it out of all question that God was either angry or sorrowful or struck with admiration The language of a quiet mind is as quiet as the mind This is sudden and vehement the very dialect of one in passion What coast soever the wind came from the storm is raised the tempest is high QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die is the voice of anger and sorrow the breathings and noise of a troubled mind Indeed all those attributes of Gods Will which we call affections from some likeness and analogy they bear with ours his Goodness and Love his Anger and Hatred his Fear and Grief may seem to meet here in this Obtestation His Love speaketh for he would not have us die His Anger speaketh for he is angry with us because we will not live He hateth Death and therefore would destroy it His Hope speaketh Isa 3◠1◠for he doth expect and wait that he may be gratious And he is even jealous of men that they will yet run on in their evil wayes and then he speaketh in his Fear and is brought to his Nè fortè I will not do this lest they sin Exod. 33.3 and I consume them in the way He is brought lower yet even to a kind of Despair QVID FACIENDVM What should I do to my vineyard Isa 5.4 which I have not done He loveth us even when we are his enemies that we may be his friends He is afraid of our ruine when we run boldly toward it He is troubled at our folly when we pride our selves and triumph in it He serveth with our sins and is wearied with our iniquities Isa 43.24 when we run at large and feel them not He is sorry for our transgressions when we leap and rejoyce in them He would be our God and we will not be his people He would have us live and we will die Good God! what an horrid spectacle is an Israelite a Christian in viis malis that runneth on in his evil wayes God cometh not near him but in a tempest at the very first sight of him he is in passion beginneth to ask questions is at his QVARE Why will ye do this And we cannot easily discern whether it be Quare exprobantis an upbraiding question or Quare indignantis an angry question or Quare dolentis a question raised and forced out by grief or Quare admirantis a question of one amazed at such extremity of folly or Quare accusantis whether it be not the form of a Bill of accusation and he draw articles against them Indeed this last includeth all For by way of upbraiding in grief and anger full of astonishment seeing such strange contempt he proceedeth against them ex formula formally and legally as we use in our Courts of Justice So that here as Rhetoricians will tell us Interrogatio pro accusatione est this Question is a plain Indictment And the arguments to convince them are drawn 1. Ab Inutili from the danger of the way Ducit ad mortem It leadeth unto death 2. Ab absurdo from the incongruity and absurdity which apparently followeth if they turn not That any should be willing to die is a great folly but nothing more absurd then that Israel should that the house of Israel should fall to pieces and ruine it self So then for the Convertimini or Repentance a reason we find but for the Moriemini for Death none at all nay many reasons there are we should not die First Gods Goodness who calleth after us warneth us of the danger qui minatur mortem nè inferat who threatneth death that we may not die Secondly He hath made us an house built us together on a sure foundation that we may mutually support each other from ruine and destruction Thirdly Death as the Philosopher calleth it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most terrible thing that can shew it self to flesh and blood able to fright any man from those wayes which lead unto it So that the conclusion which can follow hence can be no other then this If we die it will be in nobis ipsis in our selves and we shall be found guilty of our own destruction and the onely murderers of our own souls We have here a large field to walk over but we must
of Charity Eph. 4.16 which is the coupling and uniting virtue as Prosper calleth it Eph. 4.5 13. by the unity of faith by their agreement in holiness having one faith one baptisme one Lord. And at last every string being toucht in its right place begetteth Harmony which is delightful both to heaven and earth For when I name the Church I do not mean the stones and building some indeed would bring it down to this to stand for nothing but the walls but I suppose a subordination of parts which was never yet questioned in the Church but by those who would make it as invisible as their Charity not the Foot to see and the Eye to walk and the Tongue to hear and the Ear to speak not all Apostles not all Prophets not all Teachers but 1 Cor. 12.29 1 Cor. 15.23 Naz. Or. 26. as the Apostle saith it shall be at the resurrection every man in his own order For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Order is our security and safeguard In a rout every man is a child of death every throat open to the knife but when an army is drawn out by art and skill all hands are active for the victory Inequality indeed of persons is the ground of disunion and discord but Order draweth and worketh advantage out of Inequality it self When every man keepeth his station the common Souldier hath hi◠interest in the victory as the well as the Commander And when we walk orderly every man in his own place we walk hand in hand to heaven and happiness together For further yet in the Church of God there is not onely a Union and an Order but also as it is in our Creed a Communion of parts The glorious Angels as ministring Spirits are sent to guard us and no doubt do many and great services for us though we perceive it not The blessed Saints departed though we may not pray for them yet may pray for us though we hear it not And though the Church be scattered in its members through all the parts of the world yet their hearts meet in the same God Every man prayeth for himself and every man prayeth for every man Quod est omnium est singulorum That which is all mens is every mans and that which is every mans belongeth unto the whole For though we cannot speak in those high terms of the Church as the Church of Rome doth of her self yet we cannot but bless God and count it a great favour and privilege that we are filii Ecclesiae as the Father speaketh children of the Church and think our selves in a place of safety and advantage where we may find protection against Death it self We cannot speak loud with the Cardinal Bellarm. praefat ad Controv. Si Catholicus quisquam labitur in peccatum If a Catholick fall into a sin suppose it Theft or Adultery yet in that Church he walketh not in darkness but may see many helps to salvation by which he may soon quit himself out of the snare of the Devil Maternus ei non deest affectus She is still a Mother even to such Children Her shops of spiritual comfort lie open Isa 55.1 there you may buy wine and milk Indulgences and absolution but not without money or money-worth Be you as sick as you will and as oft as you will there is Physick there are cordials to refresh and restore you I dare not promise so much in the House of Israel in the Church of Christ for I had rather make the Church a school of Virtue then a sanctuary for offenders and wanton sinners We dare not give it that strength to carry up our Prayers to the Saints in heaven or to convey their Merits to us on earth We cannot work and temper it to that heat to draw up the blood of Martyrs or the works of supererogating Christians who have been such profitable servants that they did more in the service of God then they should into a common Treasury and then showre them down in Pardons and Indulgences But yet though we cannot find this power there which is a power to do nothing yet we may find strength enough in the Church to keep us from the Moriemini to save us from Death Though I cannot suffer for my brother Gal. 6.2 yet I may bear for him even bear my brothers burden Though I cannot merit for him yet I may work for him Though I cannot die for him I may pray for him Though there be no good in my death nor profit in my dust Psal 30.9 yet there may be in the memory of my good counsel my advise Consult c. de Relig. 5. my example which are verae sanctorum reliquiae saith Cassander the best and truest reliques of the Saints And though my death cannot satisfie for him yet it may catechize him and teach him how to die nay teach him how to overcome Death that he shall not die for ever And by this Communion it is that we work Miracles that in turning the Covetous turning his bowels in him we recover a dry hand and a narrow heart in teaching the Ignorant we give sight to the blind in setling the inconstant and wavering mind we cure the palsie We can well allow of such Miracles as these in the Church but not of lies For as there is an invisible union of the Saints with God so is there of Christians amongst themselves Which union though the eye of flesh cannot behold it yet it must appear and shine and be resplendent in those duties and offices which do attend this union which are so many hands by which we lift up one another to happiness As the Head infuseth life and vigour into the whole body so must the members also anoynt each other with this oyl of gladness Each member must be active and industrious to express that virtue without which it cannot be one Let no man seek his own but every man anothers wealth saith the Apostle Not seek his own 1 Cor. 10.24 what more natural to man or who is nearer to him then he himself but yet he must not seek his own but as it may bring advantage to and promote the good of others not press forward to the mark but with his hand stretcht forth to carry on others along with him not go to heaven but saving some with fear and pulling others out of the fire Jud. 23. and gathering up as many as his wisdome and care and zeal toward God and man can take up with him in the way And this is necessary even in humane societies and those politick bodies which men build up to themselves for their peace and security Turpis est pars quae toti suo non convenit That is a most unnecessary superfluous part or member for which the whole is not the better Vt in sermone literae saith Augustine as letters in a word or sentence so Men are elementa civitatis the principles and
by a sinister and unnecessary conceit of our own weakness rob and deprive our selves of that strength which might have defended us from Sin and Death which now is voluntary because we cannot derive it from any other fountain then our own Wills For Last of all be the blemishes in the Understanding and Will which we are said to receive by Adam's fall what they may be either by certain knowledge or conjecture yet we shall not die unless we will And if such we were all yet now we are washed now we are sanctified 1 Cor. 6.11 now we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his disease but returneth to give thanks The Blind man who is cured doth not run into the ditch and impute it to his former blindness but rejoyceth that he can now see the light and walketh by the light he seeth And we cannot without foul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we recovered again in Christ and that improved and exalted many degrees For Not as the offense Rom. 5.15 19â— so is also the free gift saith the Apostle For as by the offense of one many were made sinners that is were under the wrath of God and so considered as if they had themselves committed that sin so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous made so not onely by imputation That we would have and nothing else have sin removed and be sinners still but made so that is supplyed with all helps and with all strength that is necessary and sufficient to forward and perfect those duties of piety which are required at the hands of a justified person For do we not magnifie the Gospel from the abundance of light and grace which it affordeth Do we not count the last Adam stronger then the first 2 Cor. 10.4.5 Is not he able to cast down all the strong holds all the towring imaginations which Flesh and Blood though tainted in the womb can set up against him And therefore if we be truly what we profess our selves Christians this Weakness cannot hurt us and if it hurt us it is because we are not Christians To conclude If in Adam we were all lost in Christ we are come home and brought nearer to heaven Et post Jesum Christum when we have given up our names unto Christ and profess our selves members of that mystical Body whereof he is the Head all our complaints of Weakness and disabilitie to move in our several places is vain and unprofitable and injurious to the Gospel of Christ Rom. 1.16 which is the power of God unto salvation And a gross and dangerous errour it is when we run on and please our selves in our evil wayes to complain of our hereditary infirmities and the weakness and imperfection of nature For God may yet breathe his complaints and expostulations against every son of Adam that will not turn Though you are weak though you have received a bruise by the fall of your first Parents yet in me is your strength and then Hos 13.9 Why will ye die O house of Israel We must now remove those other pretenses of Flesh and Blood But in our next and last Part. The Three and Twentieth SERMON PART VIII EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye Turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye die O house of Israel WE are told and can tell our selves that Sin is a burden and he that lieth under â— burden seeketh Ease Nor doth he alwaies ask counsel of his Reason to choose that which is made and fitted to remove it but oftentimes through the importunate irksomness of his pain he layeth hold on that which is next and that 's the best though it leave him under the same load and pressure and all his art and contrivance hath gained no more then this that he thinketh it lighter then it was when it is the same but with a large addition of weight And thus we sin but cannot perswade our selves we were willing to sin we run upon our death and yet it is that which both our eye and our will abhorreth We die for 1. we were born weak 2. we want means to avoid death 3. we want light to see our wayes 4. we walk on in them but we walk in pain and though we make no stop yet we have many a check We would not and yet we will go on we condemn our selves for what we do and do it And last of all we seek death but we mean life we do those things whose end is death but to a good end and so make our way to heaven through hell it self intend well and do those things which can have no other wages but death These are pillows which we sew under our own elbows Original weakness Want of grace Ignorance of our wayes the Reluctancy of our Conscience which we call Involuntariness And if these be not soft and easie enough to sleep on we bring in a good meaning and a good intention to stuff and fill them up And on these we sleep securely Judg. 16. as Samson did in the lap of Delilah till our strength go from us and we grow weak indeed fit for nothing but to grind in his prison and to do him service who put out our eyes able to die and perish but not able to live strong to do evil but faint and feeble and lost to that which is good For as we have sought for ease from the beginning of the world so have we also from the Beginning of the Gospel Mark 1.1 as S. Mark hath it As we have brought in the first Adam infecting and poysoning us so we would find some deficiency in the second as if that Grace which he plenteously spreadeth in our hearts had not virtue enough to expel the venome and purge it out As we pretend want of strength so we pretend want of help and succour the want of that Grace which we might have which we have but will not use And there is nothing more common in the world even in their mouthes who know not what it is What mention we the Many What talke we of those who like those narrow-mouthed vessels receive but little because it is powred out too fast and many times have as little feeling of what they receive as those earthen vessels to which we compared them Grace it is in every mans mouth the sound of it hath gone through the earth and they hear it and eccho it back again to one another They talk and discourse of it and yet all are not saved by that Grace they talk of Ebrius ad phialam mendicus ad januam August The Drunkard speaketh of it in his cups and by the Grace of God he will drink no more and yet drinketh drunk till there be no appearance in him either of Grace or Nature either of the Christian or the Man The Beggar he maketh it
as we please and bulge but swell our sayls and bear forward boldly till at last we are carried upon that rock which sinketh us for ever And therefore to conclude this a good Intention cannot pull out the sting from Death nor the guilt from Sin but if we sin though it be with an honest mind we sin voluntarily In brief though we know it not to be a sin though from the tribunal of Conscience we check our selves before we commit it though we do evil but intend good though we see it not though we approve it not though we intend it not as evil yet evil it is and a voluntary evil and without repentance hath no better wages then death and this Expostulation may be put up to us QVARE MORIEMINI Why will ye die For we cannot say but they are willing to die who make such hast to the pit of ruine and in their swift and eager pursuit of Death do but cast back a faint look toward the land of the living We must now draw towards a conclusion and conclude and shut up all even Death it self in the Will of man We cannot lay it upon any natural Weakness nor upon the Want of grace and assistance We cannot plead Ignorance nor the Distaste and Reluctancy of our mind Nor can a good Intention name that Will good which is sixt on evil nor the Means which we use commend and secure that end which is the work of Sin and hath Death waiting upon it If we die we can find no other answer to this question Why will ye die but that which is not worth the putting up It is quia volumus because we will die Take all the Weakness or Corruption of our nature look upon that inexhaustible fountain of Grace but as we think dryed up take the darkness of our Understanding the cloud is from the Will Nolumus intelligere We will not understand Take all those sad symptomes and prognosticks of death a wandring unruly phansy it is the Will whiffeth it about Turbulent Passions the tempest is from the Will Etiam quod invitus facere videor si facio voluntate facio even that which I do with some reluctancy if I do it I do it willingly All provocations and incitements imaginable being supposed no Love no Fear no Anger not the Devil himself can determin the Will or force us into action and if we die it is quia volumus because we will die If Death be the conclusion that which inferreth it is the Will of man which brought Sin and Death into the world And this may seem strange that any should be willing to die Ask the profanest person living that hath sold himself to wickedness and so is even bound over to Death and he will tell you he is willing to be saved Heaven is his wish and eternal happiness his desire As for Death the remembrance of it is bitter unto him Death Eccl. 41.1 if you do but name it he trembleth The Glutton is greedy after meat but loatheth a disease The wanton seeketh out pleasures but not those evils they carry with them under their wing The Revenger would wash his feet in the bloud of his enemy but not be drowned in it The Thief would steal but would not grind in the prison But the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot. Eth. 2.1 The beginning of all these is in the Will He that will be intemperate will surfet he that will be wanton will be weak he that taketh the sword will perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 he that will spoil will be spoiled and he that will sin will die Every mans death is a voluntary act not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Strom. 2. out of any natural appetite to perish but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his own choice who did chuse it though not in se not in it self which is so terrible but in causis as the Schools speak in its causes in those sins in which it is bound up and from which it cannot be severed Sin carrieth Death in its womb and if we sin we are condemned and dead already We may see it smile upon us in some alluring pleasure we may see it glitter in a piece of gold or woo us in the rayes of Beauty but every smile every resplendeney every raie is a dart and striketh us through Why will we dye Why The holy Ghost is high and full in the expressing it We love Death and Love saith the Father Prov. 8.36 is vehemens voluntas a vehement and an active will It is said to have wings and to flie to its object but it needeth them not for it is ever with it The Covetous is kneaded in with the world they are but one lump It is his God one in him and he in it The Wanton calleth his strumpet his Soul and when she departeth from him he is dead The Ambitious feedeth on Honour as it is said Chamelions do on air a disgrace killeth him Amamus mortem we love Death which implyeth a kind of union and connaturality and complacency in Death Again exsultamus rebus pessimis Prov. 2.14 we rejoyce and delight in evil Ecstasin patimur so some render it we are transported beyond our selves we talk of it we dream of it we sweat for it we fight for it we travel for it we triumph in it we have a kind of traunce and transformation we have a jubile in sin and we are carried delicately and with triumph to our death Isa 28.15 Nay further yet we are said to make a covenant with Death We joyn with it and help it to destroy our selves As Jehoshaphat said to Ahab 1 Kings 22.4 I am as thou art and my people as thy people we have the same friends and the same enemies we love that that upholdeth its dominion and we fight against that that would destroy it We strengthen and harden our selves against the light of Nature and the light of Grace against Gods whispers and against his loud calls against his exhortations and obtestations and expostulations which are strength enough to discern Death and pull him from his pale horse And all these will make it a Volumus at least not a Velleity as to good but an absolute vehement Will After we have weighed the circumstances pondered the danger considered and consulted we give sentence on Death's side and though we are unwilling to think so yet we are willing to die To love Death to rejoyce in Death to make a covenant with Death will make the Volumus full To the question Why will ye die no other answer can be given but We will For if we should ask further Yea but why will ye here we are at a stand horrour and amazement and confusion shut up our mouth in silence as Matth. 22.12 when the Guest was questioned how he came thither the Text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 capistratus est he
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
delivered from this body of death Nor is it enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stoop and look into it as Peter and John did into our Saviours For quod ferè fit non fit A perfunctory and flight examination is none at all and that which is but almost done is not done No. Scelera propiùs admovet Thou must draw thy sin nearer and nearer unto thee that it may appear in its full horrour without its dress and paint that monster which it is that thou mayest revile and destroy it When the Patriarchs had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt for ten years space and above they saw it not to be a sin or at such a distance that it never troubled them but when affliction drew it nearer to them they then cried Guilty We are verily guilty said they of our bother's bloud How still and quiet are the most crying sins because we will not hearken to them and what a Nothing is the greatest sin because we will not look stedfastly upon it Nor is it enough to look upon it thy self with distaste as upon a loathsom and stinking carcase for Sin cannot but work some distaste if it be looked upon But thou must try it by all the killing circumstances which made it a sin and made it more sinful that Contrariety it beareth to God and his purity that huge Incongruity it carrieth to that image after which thou wert created that Opposition it standeth into a most just Law so fitted and proportioned to thee and that sting it hath nay that Sting it is for it is the very sting of Death And then if thou grone in the spirit and trouble thy selfe as thy Saviour did at Lazarus's tomb if thou cry loud unto the Lord and send up strong grones and supplications this Lazarus this dead sinner will come forth And this thou must do in every sin Find it out and so find out and deprehend thy self Not onely those grosser sins which are open as the Apostle speaketh and manifest to all men and carry shame in their very foreheads as Adultery Drunkenness Murther quae suâ se corpulentiâ produnt which betray themselves by their bulk and corpulency which are like those rocks that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eminent in sight above the waters But those sins also which are as rocks covered with waves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 close and invisible as Malice Revenge Ambition Love of the world Evil thoughts Loose desires which are of a closer and more retired nature and so much the more dangerous by how much they are the less sensible even all those speculative sins which are acted within the compass of the heart and which no man can see and as they are espied by none so neither can they be restrained by any but our selves Those grosser sins which commonly disturb and break the peace of that Commonwealth whereof we are a part outward Laws and the authority of those who are set over us may cut down as the Angel did the branches and the body of the Tree Dan. 4. but we may bind the stump and preserve it in our hearts For to grub up the root to rectifie the heart to take away speculative and secret sins which no other eye can search and find out but our own this every man after due examination must do himself every man must be his own Angel For In the next place to draw out the full compass of this Duty and so give it you in its utmost extent and latitude this Examination reacheth further then the word in its native signification can import For To Examine is but To weigh and ponder To bring thy self and thy actions to a trial To behold thy own shape To see what thou art and in what state and condition and in what relation towards thy God To open and spread thy conscience which S. Augustine calleth stolam animae the garment of the soul and observe what is loose and ravelled by negligence what is stained and defaced by luxury what is sindged by anger what is cut and mangled by envy what is sullied by covetousness This is a good and advantageous work But then this work must not end in it self but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 propose the true end and draw all up to it which is To purge the conscience To supply what is defective To repair what is defaced To beautifie what is slurred To complete what is imperfect which is to renew our selves in the inward man Finis specificat actionem It is the end that commendeth the action and giveth it its perfection Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to prove and examine here in the Text the Apostle ver 31. interpreteth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is here to examine is there to judge our selves Which includeth Repentance Revenge on our selves Tears and Fasting and Contrition and Humiliation all that severe discipline of Striving and Fighting with our selves of Denying our selves of Demollishing imaginations and of Crucifying our flesh that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great Circumcision of the heart all this we must pass through before we have brought our Trial and Examination to an end before we can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect fit to be received into the presence of God and admitted to his Table For what a vain work were it to examine a thief if we do not judge him to implead him and bring witnesses if after the bill is found we proceed not to sentence and condemn him Or wouldest thou find a thief lurking in a corner of thy house and not drive him out Canst thou see a sin rising up in thy soul ready to devour thee and not drown it with thy tears behold Oppression and not strike out its teeth Adultery and not stone it Deceit and Fraud and not put it to shame Hast thou found out the Devil in a garment of light and wilt thou still be a Pharisee Or again after a survey hast thou found thy soul run to ruine and decay and wilt not thou take pains to repair it a feeble Faith and not strengthen it A wavering Hope and not uphold and support it Or canst thou see thy Charity waxing cold and not stir it up and enliven it Shall thy House the Temple of the holy Ghost fall upon thee whilest thou standest and lookest on and at last art sunk and lost in the ruines This were like that unwise builder to begin and not be able to make an end or as the custom at feasts was at the beginning to bring forth good wine and when we have well tasted of it then that which is worse Which is to make the beginning nothing nay worse then nothing For it is the greatest folly in the world to discover an ambush and yet fall into it to see an enemy and not avoid him The sin groweth greater if we look upon it and not run from it If we behold its ugly threatning countenance and not bid defiance to it
it becometh that Basilisk which killeth us by being looked upon Our Examination then must be exact and accurate a Judgement of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and temper of our soul an impartial Weighing of all our deeds and actions till we have rectified what is amiss and improved and established all that is imperfect and failing We must try and examine our actions as the Levites did their sacrifices and not offer them up if there be any blemish on them that so we may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove to our selves Rom. 12.2 have a full sense and experience in our own souls what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God It is true we must first look into our selves and he is too much his own enemy that hath no mind to look upon himself But what is a look what is the motion and twinkling of an eye The labour of the eye is too little from a man on himself especially when he standeth in an indifferent aspect between two eternities the one of pain the other of bliss or when he is either declining towards the gates of hell or in a fair approch and forwardness to the holy Hill Then let him look and look again Juvat usque morari His eye cannot dwell long enough upon himself in either site and position Then he may look and hate himself with profit and advantage look upon himself declining and with violence pluck himself out of the fire look upon himself pressing forwards toward the mark and mend his pace crucifie himself and then Angelifie himself look and hate hate and tremble tremble and amend himself and by his true repentance seal up the scrutiny ratifie his examination Eph. 5.10 and so prove what is acceptable to the Lord and what will make him accepted when he cometh to his Table The Apostle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reacheth farther ye see then a bare Examination of our selves We may take a survey of our selves and yet remain our selves We may see the breaches Sin hath made and not make them up see a foul house and leave it unswept see the danger we are in and love it and perish in it Who is there almost that sinneth and seeth it not even when he will not see it Who almost sinneth and feeleth it not and yet will not feel it The bloud which the Murtherer sheddeth stareth in his face and crieth against him and yet he thirsteth for more bloud The Adulterer is whipped with the beauty that caught him and yet he neigheth still and his eye is full of the adulteress The rust of the gold and silver which is the Oppressour's God witnesseth against him and will eat out his flesh as fire yet he coveteth still and with the daughters of the Horsleach crieth Give Give How soon is a sin seen and how soon doth it vanish out of sight in a clear day What a force hath Health and Power and Profit and Prosperity to make the greatest sin invisible and remove it out of sight Profit persuadeth Power commandeth Prosperity flattereth and at this Musick Conscience falleth asleep or if she speaketh is no more heard then if she were dead indeed her checks and chidings are not regarded To escape a temporal disgrace we increase our shame and blush not To redeem our selves from a present judgement we adde those sins which fill up our measure full and fit us for eternity of torment Thus we may examine our selves and yet not know our selves see our sins and not see them We walk on delicately The rich Oppressour is just the cunning Politician honest a prosperous villain a Saint There is no man but at some time or other seeth his sins for Sin cannot hide its horrour till we veil it no man that doth not take some short survey of himself but then he taketh off his eye to look for refuge and sanctuary and becometh ten times more the child of the Devil then before This cometh far short of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 far short of Self examination Which is not fully accomplished and brought to its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and height till it end in amendment and newness of life The reason is plain There is nothing perfect and complete till it hath atteined its end Frustrà est quod rationem finis non ducit Every thing that hath its use from its end if it reach it not is unprofitable The Arts are then Liberal cùm liberos faciunt saith the Ppilosopher when they make men free and ingenuous Wit beareth the reproch of Folly if it make us not wise Riches will gather rust if we make not friends of them Grace it self will destroy us if we turn it into wantonness To see a Sin is to see nothing but Death if we forsake it not And to examine our selves is but to draw up a bill of accusation against our selves if we do not in this sense also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amend and approve our selves Then our Examination is exact when we have seen our pollution and purged it out when we have seen the leprosie of our souls and washed out every spot when we have seen a weak and decaying soul enfeebled with lust shaken with anger torn and distracted with the love of the world even sinking to the condition of a damned spirit seen it and trembled at it and then out of these ruines raised up a Temple to the holy Ghost This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to examine and approve our selves This is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our preparation to the Feast Thus we may approch the Lord's Table having ransacked the house and swept it having seen the plague of our heart and purged it out having seen every deformity of the old man and fled from it and made our selves new creatures For how shall we come to a feast of Love whilest we are in the gall of bitterness How can we come to the Supper of the Lamb with the teeth of Lions How can we be partakers of the Lord's Table and of the Table of Devils No it is not a day's a moneth 's a year's examination that will fit us for God's presence and make us welcome guests For what is it to make a discovery of the enemy and not conquer him What is it to see our sins and the horrour they carry with them and yet embrace them What is it to condemn them with our mouth and then justifie them in our mortal bodies I mean the actions of our life As Luther well said Optima poenitentia nova vita that the best and truest repentance consisteth in newness of life so is our Examination then complete when we have made good the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in its full extent and sense when we have tried and approved our selves when we have seen and judged and condemned our selves and then repaired in our selves that image of God and goodness which upon a strict survey we saw defaced and almost lost Let us
and he reflecteth a blessing upon me Quod est omnium est singulorum That which is all mens is every mans and that which is every mans belongeth unto the whole Proprietas excommunicatio est saith Parisiensis Propriety is an excommunication When I appropriate my devotion to my self I do in a manner thrust my brother out of the Church nay I shut my self out of heaven I at once depose and exauctorate both my self and him Nay I cannot appropriate it for where it is it will spread It is my sorrow and thy sorrow my fear and thy fear my joy and thy joy Ye see here the Tribes go up to the house of the Lord with joy and this joy raiseth another or rather the same a joy of the same nature in David At the very apprehension of it he taketh down his harp from the wall and setteth his joy to a tune and committeth it to a song I was glad when they said c. And thus I am fallen upon 2. The second thing observable in the Psalmists joy the Publication thereof He setteth it to Musick he conveyeth it into a song and as the Chaldee Pharaphrast saith Adam did assoon as his sin was forgiven him he expresseth sabbatum suum his Sabbath his content and gladness in a Psalm that it might pass from generation to generation and never be forgotten but that this sacrifice of thanksgiving which himself here offereth might still upon the like occasion be offered by others unto the worlds end and that the people which should in after-ages be created might thus praise the Lord. Thus David hath passed over and entailed his joy to all posterity This is thanks and praise indeed when it floweth from an heart thus affected when it breaketh forth like light from the Sun and spreadeth it self like the heavens and declareth the glory of God Gratè ad nos beneficium pervenisse indicamus effusis affectibus saith Seneca Then a benefit meeteth with a greateful heart when it is ready to pour forth it self in joy and the affections not being able to contain themselves are seen and heard shine bright in the countenance and sound aloud in a song Certainly Gratitude is neither sullen nor silent Saul's evil melancholick Spirit cannot enter the heart of a David nor any heart in which the love of God's glory reigneth At the sight of any thing that may set it forth the pious soul is awaked and the melancholick and dumb spirit is cast out Psal 47.1 4. nor can it return whilest that love is in us When God hath chosen our inheritance for us then O clap your hands all ye people shout unto God with the voice of triumph To draw towards a conclusion By this rejoycing spirit of David's we may examine and judge of the temper of our own If we be of the same disposition with him no sight no object will delight us but that in which God is and in which his glory is seen We shall not make songs of other mens miseries nor keep holiday when they mourn We shall not like any thing either in our selves or others which dishonoureth God's name Prov. 2.14 In a word we shall not rejoyce to do evil nor take pleasure in the frowardness of the wicked But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our whole life will be one holiday one continued Sabbath and rest in good Of what spirit then are they who rejoyce not in their own miseries but in their sins who take great delight and complacency not onely in the calamities but also in the falls and miscarriages of others especially if they cast not in their lot and make one purse with them Prov. 1.14 who as Judas did carry their religion and their purse in the same hand whose religion is in their purse and openeth and shutteth with it who that they may triumph in the miseries rejoyce first in the defects whether seeming or real of their dissenting brethren Every man that looketh towards Jerusalem Luke 9.53 and will not stay with them at their Samaria must be cast out of doors Criminibus debent hortos praetoria campos They owe their wealth and possessions shall I say to other mens crimes no they owe them to their own For a great sin it is to delight in sin but to make that a crime which is not a sin is a greater What is it then to turn piety it self into sin To call an asseveration an oath is a fault at least And then what is it to call devotion superstition the house of God a sty and reverence idolatry Yet if these were sins why should my brothers ruine be my joy Why should I wish his fall delight in his fall follow him in his fall as the Romanes did their sword-players in the theatre with acclamation So so thus I would have it We cannot say this proceedeth from piety or is an effect of charity 1 Cor. 13.6 For Charity rejoyceth not in iniquity but rejoyceth in the truth Charity bindeth up wounds doth not make them wider And when people sin Charity maketh the head a fountain of tears but doth not fill the mouth with laughter Charity is no detractour no jester no Satyrist it thinketh no evil 1 Cor. 13.5 it is not suspicious It cannot behold a Synagogue of Satan in the Temple of the Lord nor Superstition in a wall nor Idolatry in reverence This evil humour indeed proceedeth from Love but it is the love of the world which defameth every thing for advantage laugheth at Churches that it may pull them down maketh men odious that it may make them poor and dealeth with them as the Heathen did with the first Christians putteth them into bears skins that it may bait them to death This certainly is not from David's but from an evil spirit Nor can it be truly termed Joy unless we should look for joy in hell and content in a place of torment Rejoycings and jubilees of this sort are like unto the howlings of devils In the Devil there cannot be joy My drunkenness cannot quench the flames he burneth in my evil conscience cannot kill that worm which gnaweth him my ignorance cannot lighten his darkness my loss of heaven cannot bring him back thither Should he conquer the whole world he would still be a slave But yet in the Devil though properly there be no joy there is quasi gaudium that which is like our joy in evil which we call Joy though it be not so And it is in him saith Aquinas not as a passion but as an act of his will When we do well that is done which he would not and that is his grief and when we sin we are led captive according to his will and that is his joy 2 Tim. 2.26 And such is the joy of malicious wicked men for whom it is not expedient nor profitable that those who are not of the same mind with them should be good and therefore against their will And to this
in evil as from Gods Grace in good proceed both the Will and the Deed. For when this Persuasion is wrought in us when by degrees we have lessened that honour and detestation of Sin which God hath imprinted in the mind of every man when we have often tasted those delights which are but for a season when this false inscription From hence is our gain hath blotted out the true one The wages of Sin is Death for we seldom take down this sop but the Devil enters when either Fear of inconvenience or Hope of gain hath made us afraid of the Truth and by degrees driven us into a false persuasion and at last prevailed with us to conclude against our own determinations and to approve what we condemn then every part of the body and faculty of the soul may be made a weapon of unrighteousness then we rejoyce like giants to run our race though the way we go be the way that leads unto Death Good Lord what a world of wickedness may be laid upon a poor thin and groundless Persuasion What a burden will Self-deceit bear What mountains and hills will wilfull Errour lie under and never feel them Hamor and Shechem must fall by the sword Gen. 34.26 and their whole city must be spoyled and what 's the ground Nothing but a mongrel Persuasion made up of Malice and Religion vers 31. Should he deal with our Sister as with an harlot Joseph must be sold and what 's the reason Behold the dreamer cometh Absalom would wrest his fathers sceptre out of his hand What puts him in arms Ambition and that which commends Ambition a thought that he could manage it better Oh that I might do justice King and Nobles and Senators all must perish together at one blow For should Hereticks live Holy things must be devoured For should Superstition flourish Such inconsequences and absurdities doth Self-deceit fall upon having no better props and pillars to uphold her then open Falshood or mistaken or misapplied Truth For as we cannot conclude well from false premisses so the premisses may be true and yet we may not conclude well For he that saith Thou shalt not commit adultery hath said also Thou shalt not kill He that condemns Heresie hath made Murder a crying sin He that forbids Superstition abhorreth Sacrilege All that we call Adulterers are not to be slain All that we term Hereticks are not to be blown up All that is or seems to be abused is not presently to be abolished For Adulterers may be punished though not by us Hereticks may be restrained though not by fire and things abused may be reserv'd and put to better uses And yet see upon what a Nothing this Self-deceit upholds it self For neither were they all adulterers that were slain by those brethren in evil nor were they Hereticks who were to be blown up nor is that Superstition which appears so to them whom the prince of this world hath blinded Oh what a fine subtle webb doth Self-deceit spin to catch it self What a Prophet is the Devil in Samuels mantle How do our own Lusts abuse us when the name or thought of Religion is taken in to make up the cheat How witty are we to our own damnation O Self-deceit from whence art thou come to cover the earth the very snare of the Devil but which we make our selves his golden fetters which we bear with delight and with which we walk pleasantly and say The bitterness of death is past and so we rejoyce in evil triumph in evil boast of evil call evil good and dream of paradise when we are falling into the bottomless pit Secondly this Self-deceit which our Apostle forbiddeth hath brought an evil report upon our Profession upon Christianity it self there having scarce been found any of any Religion who have so wilfully mistaken and deceived themselves in the rules of their Profession as Christians Christianity is a severe Religion and who more loose then Christians Christianity is an innocent Religion and full of simplicity and singleness and who more deceitful then Christians The very soul of Christianity is Charity and who more malitious then Christians The Spirit that taught Christianity came down in the shape of a Dove and who more vultures then Christians What an incongruity what a soloecism is this The best Religion and the worst men Men who have learnt an art to make a Promise overthrow a Precept and one precept supplant another sometimes wasting and consuming their Charity in their Zeal sometimes abating their Zeal with unseasonable Meekness now breaking the second Table to preserve the first and defying the image of God in detestation of Idolatry now losing Religion in Ceremony and anon crying down Ceremony when all their Religion is but a complement Invenit diabolus quomodo nos boni sectationibus perdat saith Tertullian By the deceit of the Devil we take a fall many times in the pursuit of that which is good and are very witty to our own damnation What evasions what distinctions do we find to delude the precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles As it hath been observed of those God-makers the Painters and Statuaries of the Heathen that they were wont to paint their Goddesses like their mistresses and did then think them most fair when they were most like that which they most loved so hath it been with many professors of Christian Religion they temper the precepts of it to their own phansie and liking they lay upon them glosses and interpretations as it were colours to make them look like unto that which they most love So that as Hilary observes quot voluntates tot fides there be as many Religions as there be Tempers and Dispositions of men as many Creeds as Humours We have annuas menstrnas fides We change our Religion with our Almanach nay with the Moon and the rules of Holiness are made to give attendance on those sick and loathsome humours which do pollute and defile it If I will set forth by the common compass of the world I may put in at shore when my vessel is sunk I may live an Atheist and dye a Saint I may be covetous disobedient merciless I may be factious rebellious and yet religious still a religious Nabal a religious Schismatick a religious Traytor I had almost said a religious Devil For this saith S. Paul the name of Christ is evil spoken of that worthy Name as S. James calleth it by those who by our conversation should be won to reverence that Name For this that blessed Name is blasphemed by which they might be saved Omnes in nobis rationes periclitantur that I may use Tertullians words though with some change We are in part guilty of the bloud of those deceived Jews and Pagans who now perishing in their errour might have been converted to the faith had not the Christian himself been an argument against the Gospel It might well move any man to wonder that well
welcome Come ye Blessed children of my Father receive the kingdome and Blessedness which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world The Five and Thirtieth SERMON COLOS. III. 1. If then you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God THe Resurrection of the dead is the prop and stay the very life and soul of a Christian Illam credentes sumus saith Tertullian By believing this we have our being and are that which we are and without this it were better for us not to be If there be no resurrection of the dead saith the Apostle then are we of all men most miserable Now much better were it for us not to be at all then to be miserable For let us take a general survay not as Solomon doth in the book of the Preacher of all the pleasures in the world but of all the virtues of a Christian onely deny the Resurrection of the dead and what are they else but extreme vanity and vexation of the spirit To cleanse our hearts and wash our hands in innocency to hold a strict watch over all our ways to deny unto our selves the joyes and pleasures of the world to pine our bodies with fasting to bestow our hours on devotion our goods on the poor and our bodies on the fire this and whatsoever else is so full of terrour to the outward man and so full of irksomness to the flesh what may it seem to be but a kind of madness if when this little span of our life be measured out there remain no crown no reward of it if after so many strivings with our selves so many agonies so many crucifyings of our selves so many pantings for life we must in the end breath out our last But beloved Christ is risen and our faith in his Resurrection is an infallible demonstration and a most certain pledge to us that we shall rise as he hath done Of which that we may the better assure our selves we must observe that as S. Paul tells us As we have born the image of the earthy so must we bear the image of the heavenly so on the contrary we must make an account that as we hope to bear the image of the heavenly so must we first bear the image of the earthy and if we will bear a part in the resurrection to glory which is a heavenly resurrection we must have our part in a resurrection to grace which is a resurrection here on earth S. John distinguishes for me in his Revelation Ch. 20.5.6 Blessed is he that hath his part in the first resurrection And he that hath none there shall bear at all no part in the second resurrection As it is with us in nature at the end of our dayes there is a death and after that a resurrection so is it with us in grace yet the days of sin can have an end in us there is a death For the Apostle tells us we are dead to sin and we are buried with him in Baptisme Then after this death to sin cometh the resurrection to newness of life Mors perire est resurgere restingui nisi mors mortem resurrectio resurrectionem antecedat To die is quite to perish to rise again worse then to have lien for ever rotting in the grave if this first death go not before a second death and this first resurrection before the second Secondly as in our life time we die and rise again with Christ so do we likewise in a manner ascend with him into heaven For to seek those things which are above is a kind of flight and ascension of the Soul into heavenly places And as God commanded Moses before he died to ascend up into the mountain Deut. 32.49 to see a far off and discover that good land which he had promised to the Jews So it it his pleasure that through holy conversation and newness of life we should raise our selves far above the rest of the world and in this life time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene speaks as it were from an exceeding high mountain discover and have some sight of that good land and of those good things which God hath laid up for those which are his Hebr. 6. So by the Apostle our regeneration and amendment of life that is our first resurrection is called a taste of the good spirit and word of God a relish and taste of the powers of the world to come Now of this first Resurrection doth our blessed Apostle speak in these words which I have read unto you If you be risen with Christ seek those things which are above Which speech though it go with an If and therefore seems to be conditional yet if we look neerer into it we shall find that indeed it is a peremptory and absolute command in effect as if he had said Rise with Christ and seek the things which are above Acts 12. And as the Angel said to Peter being in prison Arise up quickly at which words the chains fell off from Peters hands so God by his blessed Apostle comes to us who are in a stricter prison and commands us in the first words Arise quickly and in the next seek the things which are above and so makes as it were the chains fall off our hands and delivers us out of prison into the glorious liberty of the Saints of God For the things of this world and our love unto them are fetters to our feet and manacles to our hands holding us down groveling on the earth And except these chains fall off we can never Arise and follow the Angel as Peter did When Elias in a whirlwind went up to heaven the text tells us that his mantle fell from him And he that will go up into heaven with Elias 2 Kings 2. and seek the things that are above cannot go with his cloke thither he must be content to leave his mantle below forgo all things that are beneath and as S. Hierome speaks nudam crucem nudus sequi follow the naked cross naked and stript from all the glory and pomp of the world Now this part of Scripture which I have read is a part of the practice of our spiritual Logick for it teacheth us to frame an argument or reason by which we may conclude unto our selves that our first resurrection is past For if we seek the things which are above then are we risen with Christ if not we are in our graves still our souls are putrified and corrupt And again If we be risen with Christ then as Christ at his resurrection left in his grave the cloths wherein he was buried so these things of the world in which we lye as it were dead and buried at our resurrection to newness of life we must leave unto the world which was the grave in which we lay As it is in arched buildings all the stones do enterchangeably and mutually rest upon and hold
then our Conscience and seeth more of us then we do when we are most impartial to our selves and see most if we thus dally and trifle with Wisdome it self Mercy which tryumpheth over Justice will yield to Wisdome and if we cover our sins 1 Joh. 1.9 and not lay them open by Confession we shall find God just and faithful but not to forgive us our sins not to cleanse us from all unrighteousness We might here inlarge But we pass from the danger in respect of God to that in respect of our selves There is no one sin to which our Nature more strongly inclineth us then this of covering and excusing our sin So pleasing is excuse to our disposition so inseperable from Sin that cum ipso scelere nascitur soror filia it is both the daughter and sister of Sin We travel with Sin and Excuse as Thamar did with twins Excuse is not the first for Sin first maketh the breach and then calleth for Excuse but though it be not the first yet it followeth close at the Heels Now to give a reason for this First it is the very nature of Sin not onely to infect the soul but to bewitch it that it shall either not feel it or not be willing to evaporate and expel it It is compared to a Serpent and the poyson thereof is much like unto that of the Aspick which Cleopatra put to her arm It casteth us into a kind of sweet and pleasant slumber and killeth us without pain We are smitten and we feel it not we are stricken Prov. 23 35. and are not sick we are in the very mouth of Hell and yet secure It is called a burden and yet we feel it not nor doth it burden or lye heavy upon us But as it is with those who lye under the water they feel no weight though whole seas run over them fo is it with those who are overwhelmed and drowned in sin they feel no weight or if they do they soon relieve and ease themselves I say a burden it is and we are careful to cast it from us but not that way which God prescribeth but after a method forged and beaten out by our own irregular fancy we do not cast it away by loathing it and loathing our selves for it by resolving against it by fearing the return of it as we would the fall of a mountain upon our heads but we cast it upon our own Weakness and Infirmity which will not bear it upon God's Long-suffering and Mercy and presume to continue in it upon Christ Jesus and crucifie him again upon Excuse which is but sand and cannot bear that which pressed the Son of God himself to death Soli filii irae iram Dei non sentiunt They onely are insensible of the Anger of God who are the children of Wrath. Secondly though God hath set up a tribunal in our hearts and made every man a judge of his own actions yet there is no tribunal on earth so much corrupted and swayed from its power and jurisdiction as this No man is so partial a judge in another mans cause as in his own No man is so well pleased with any cheat as that which he putteth upon himself Though God hath placed a Conscience in us Exod. 28.30 as he put the Urim and the Thummim in the breast-plate of judgment by which he might give answer unto us what we are to do and what not to do what we have done well and what amiss as the High-priest by viewing his breast-plate saw whether the people might go up to War or not go up yet when we have once defiled our Conscience we care not much for looking upon it or if we do it giveth no certain answer but we lose the use of it in our slavery under sin as the Jews lost the use of their Urim and Thummim at the Captivity of Babylon as appeareth Ezr. 2.63 Neh. 7 65. The use of it I say which is to (a) Rom. 2.15 accuse to (b) 1 John 3.20 condemn to (c) Wisd 17.10 torment to make us have (d) Deut. 28.65 a trembling heart and (e) Levit. 26.36 a faint heart For it doth none of these offices neither accuse nor convince nor condemn nor afflict nor strike with fear At best it doth but shew the whip and then put it up again It changeth and altereth its complexion as our sins and hath as many names as there be evil dispositions in men Our conscience checketh us and we silence it Sin appeareth and we cover it Our conscience would speak more plainly if we did not teach it that broken and imperfect language to pronounce Sibboleth for Shibboleth to leave out some letter some aspiration some circumstance in sin Or rather to speak truth the Conscience cannot but speak out to the offender and tell him he hath broken the Law but as we will not hearken to Reason when she would restrain us from sin so we slight her when she checketh us for committing it We will neither give ear to her counsel and not sin nor yet hearken to her reproof when we have finned neither observe her as a Counseller nor as a Judge neither obey her as a friend nor as an enemy Hence it cometh to pass that at last in a manner it forgetteth its office and is negligent in its very property is a Conscience and yet knoweth nothing a Register yet recordeth nothing or if it do in so dark and obscure a character as is not legible a Glass and reflecteth nothing but a Saint for a man of Belial a Book of remembrance but containeth not our deceit and oppression and sacrilege but the number of Sermons we have heard the Fasts we have kept though for bloud the many good words we have spoke though from a hollow and unsanctified hart from our indignation against the world which hath nothing worse init then ourselves And this is the most miserable condition a sinner can fall into Rom. 1.18 This is saith St. Paul to hold the truth in unrighteousness by an habitual course of sin to depress and keep under the very principles of Goodness and Honesty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hold and have full possession of the Truth Luk. 19. but make no use of it to hide and bury it as the bad servant did his pound in a Napkin bury it in the loathsome sepulchre of a rotten and corrupt soul as if having a medicine about me I should chuse to take down poison having plenty starve my self to death having Honey and Manna lay it by till it stink and feed on Husks having a Conscience not keep it suborn my Counsellour to be my Parasite be endued with Reason and use it only to make me more unreasonable neglect and slight it when it bids me not do this and when I have done it paint and disguise it that I may not know the work of mine own hands nor see that sin which
unto death There is lex Factorum the Law of Works For they are not all Credenda in the Gospel all articles of Faith there be Agenda some things to be done Nor is the Decalogue shut out of the Gospel Nay the very articles of our Creed include a Law and in a manner bind us to some duty and though they run not in that imperial strain Do this and live yet they look towards it as towards their end Otherwise to believe them in our own vain and carnal sense vvere enough and the same faith vvould save us vvith vvhich the Devils are tormented No thy Faith to vvhich thou art also bound as by a Law is dead that is is not faith if it do not vvork by a Law Thou believest there is a God Thou art then bound to vvorship him Thou believest that Christ is thy Lord Thou art then obliged to do what he commandeth His Word must be thy Law and thou must fulfill it His Death is a Law and bindeth thee to mortification His Cross should be thy obedience his Resurrection thy righteousness and his Coming to judge the quick and the dead thy care and solicitude In a word in a Testament in a Covenant in the Angel's message in the Promises of the Gospel in every Article of thy Creed thou mayest find a Law Christ's Legacy his Will is a Law the Covenant bindeth thee the Good news obligeth thee the Promises engage thee and every Article of thy Creed hath a kind of commanding and legislative power over thee Either they bind to some duty or concern thee not at all For they are not proposed for speculation but for practice and that consequence vvhich thou mayest easily draw from every one must be to thee as a Law What though honey and milk be under his tongue and he sendeth embassadours to thee and they intreat and beseech thee in his stead and in his name Yet is all this in reference to his command and it proceedeth from the same Love which made his Law And even these beseechings are binding and aggravate our guilt if we melt not and bow to his Law Principum preces mandata sunt the very intreaties of Kings and Princes are as binding as Laws preces armatae intreaties that carry force and power with them that are sent to us as it were in arms to invade and conquer us And if we neither yield to the voice of Christ in his royal Law nor fall down and worship at his condescensions and loving parlies and earnest beseechings we increase our guilt and make sin sinful in the highest degree Nor need we thus boggle at the word or be afraid to see a Law in the Gospel if either we consider the Gospel it self or Christ our King and Lord or our selves who are his redeemed captives and owe him all service and allegeance For first the Gospel is not a dispensation to sin nor was a Saviour born to us that he should do and suffer all and we do what we list No the Gospel is the greatest and sharpest curb that was ever yet put into the mouth of Sin The grace of God saith S. Paul hath appeared unto all men teaching us that is commanding us Tit. 2.11 to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Libertas in Christo non fecit innocentiae injuriam saith the Father Our liberty in Christ was not brought in to beat down innocency before it but to uphold it rather and defend it against all those assaults which flesh and bloud our lusts and concupiscence are ready to make against it Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world He taketh away those sins that are past by remission and pardon but he setteth up a Law as a rampire and bulwork against Sin that it break not in and reign again in our mortal bodies There Christ is said to take away not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sin of the world that is the whole nature of Sin that it may have no subsistence or being in the world If the Gospel had nothing of Law in it there could be no sin under the Gospel For Sin is a transgression of a Law But flatter our selves as we please those are the greatest sins which we commit against the Gospel And it shall be easier in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah then for those Christians who turn the grace of God into wantonness who sport and revel it under the very wings of Mercy who think Mercy cannot make a Law but is busie onely to bestow Donatives and Indulgences who are then most licencious when they are most restrained For what greater curb can there be then when Justice and Wisdom and Love and Mercy all concur and joyn together to make a Law Secondly Christ is not onely our Redeemer but our King and Law-giver As he is the wonderful Counsellour Isa 9 6. Psal 2.6 so he came out of the loyns of Judah and is a Law-giver too Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion The government shall be upon his shoulder He crept not to this honour Isa 9.6 but this honour returned to him as to the true and lawful Lord With glory and honour did God crown him and set him over the works of his hands Heb. 2.7 As he crowned the first Adam with Understanding and freedom of Will so he crowned the second Adam with the full Knowledge of all things with a perfect Will and with a wonderful Power And as he gave to Adam Dominion over the beasts of the field so he gave to Christ Power over things in heaven and things on earth And he glorified not himself Heb. 5.5 but he who said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee he it was that laid the government upon his shoulder Not upon his shoulders For he was well able to bear it on one of them For in him the Godhead dwelleth bodily And with this power he was able to put down all other rule autority and power 1 Cor. â—5 24 to spoil principalities and powers and to shew them openly in triumph to spoil them by his death and to spoil them by his Laws due obedience to which shaketh the power of Hell it self For this as it pulleth out the sting of Death so also beateth down Satan under our feet This if it were universal would be the best exorcism that is and even chase the Devil out of the world which he maketh his Kingdom For to run the way of Christ's commandments is to overthrow him and bind him in chains is another hell in hell unto him Thirdly if we look upon our selves we shall find there is a necessity of Laws to guide and regulate us and to bring us to the End All other creatures are sent into the world with a sense and understanding of the end for which they come and so without particular direction and yet unerringly
vanity or the next business will drive it away and take its place Nor let us make a room for it in our Phansie For it is an easie matter to think we are free when we are in chains Who is so wicked that he is not ready to persuade himself he is just And that false persuasion too shall go for the dictate of the Holy Ghost Paganism it self cannot shew such monsters as many of them are who call themselves Saints But let us gird up our loins and be up and doing the work those works of piety which the Gospel injoyneth It is Obedience alone that tieth us to God and maketh us free denisons of that Jerusalem which is above In it the Beauty the Liberty the Royalty the Kingdom of a Christian is visible and manifest For by it we sacrifice not our Flesh but our Will unto God and so have one and the same will with him and if we have his will we have his power also and his wisdom to accompany it and to to fulfil all that we can desire or expect Servire Deo regnare est To serve God is to reign as Kings here and will bring us to reign with him for evermore Let us then stand fast in our obedience which is our liberty against all the wiles and invasions of the enemy all those temptations which will shew themselves in power and craft to remove us from our station In a calm to steer our course is not so difficult but when the tempest beateth hard upon us not to dash against the rock will commend our skill Every man is ready to build a tabernacle for Christ when he is in his glory but not to leave him at the Cross is the glory and crown of a Christian And first let us not dare a temptation as Pliny dared the vapour at Mount Vesuvius and died for it Let us not offer and betray our selves to the Enemy For he that affecteth and loveth danger is in the ready way to be swallowed up in that gulf Valiant men saith the Philosopher are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quiet and silent before the combat but in the trial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ready and active But audacious daring men are commonly loud and talkative before encounters but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flag and fail in them The first weigh the danger and resolve by degrees the other are peremptory and resolve suddenly and talk their resolution away It is one thing to talk of a tempest at sea another to discourse of it leaning against a wall It is one thing to dispute of pain another to feel it Grief and Anguish hath not such a sting in the Stoicks gallery as it hath on the rack For there Reason doth fight but with a shadow and a representation here with the substance it self And when things shew themselves naked as they are they stir up the affections When the Whip speaketh by its smart not by my phansie when the Fire is in my flesh not my understanding when temptations are visible and sensible then they enter the soul and the spirit then they easily shake that resolution which was so soon built and soon beat down that which was made up in haste Therefore let us not rashly thrust our selves upon them But in the second place let us arm and prepare our selves against them For Preparation is half the conquest It looketh upon them handleth and weigheth them before hand seeeth where their great strength lieth and goeth forth in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Christ and so maketh us more then conquerers before the sight And this is our Martyrdom in peace For the practice of a Christian in the calmest times must nothing differ in readiness and resolution from times of rage and fire As Josephus speaketh of the military exercises practised amongst the Romans that they differed from a true battel only in this that their battel was a bloudy exercise and their exercise a bloudless battel So our preparation should make us martyrs before we come to resist ad sanguinem to shed a drop of bloud To conclude as the Apostle exhorteth let us take unto us the whole armour of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand to stand against the horrour of a prison against the glittering of the sword against the terrour of death to stand as expert souldiers of Christ and not to forsake our place to stand as mount Sion which cannot be moved in a word to be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. For whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed The Seven and Fortieth SERMON PART VII JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed TO Persevere or continue in the Gospel and To be blessed for ever are the two stages of a Christian the one here on earth the other in heaven and there is scarce a moment but a last breath between them nothing but a mouldering and decaying wall this tabernacle of flesh which falleth down suddenly and then we pass and enter And that we may persevere and continue means are here prescribed first assiduous Meditation in this Law we must not be forgetful hearers of it but look into it as into a glass vers 23 24. yet not as a man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass and then goeth away and forgetteth himself not as a man who looketh carelesly casteth an eye and thinketh no more of it but rather as a woman who looketh into her glass with intention of mind with a kind of curiosity and care stayeth and dwelleth upon it fitteth her attire and ornaments to her by a kind of method setteth every hair in its proper place and accurately dresseth and adorneth her self by it And sure there is more care and exactness due to the soul then to the body Secondly that we may continue and persevere we must not only hear and remember but do the work For Piety is confirmed by Practice To these we may now add a third which hath so near a relation to Practice that it is even included in it and carrried along with it And it is To be such students in Christ's School as S. Paul was Acts 24.16 To study and exercise our selves to have alwayes a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men Not to triflle with our God or play the wanton with our Conscience Not to displease and wound her in one particular with a resolution to follow her in the rest Not to let our love of the world or fear of danger make that a truth which we formerly