we finde the face of God clouded from us let our souls refuse comfort till we have recovered his favour which is better then life do we find our selves upon our sound repentance received to grace and favour of the Almighty and that he is well pleased with our persons and with our poor obediences and that he smiles upon us in Heaven courage dear Brethren in spight of all the frowns and menaces of the World we are safe and shall be happy here is comfort for us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 with that chosen vessel we are troubled on every side yet not distressed â—e are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken 2. Cor. 4.8 cast down but not destroyed for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish 16. yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us 18. a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory to the full possession whereof the God that hath ordained us graciously bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one glorious God be given all praise honour glory and dominion now and for evermore A Second SERMON In prosecution of the same Text PREACHT AT St. GREGORIES CHURCH IN NORWICH July 21. 1644. By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption WE have done with the Dehortation it self and therein with the Act forbidden Grieve not and with the title of the Subject the Holy Spirit of God We descend to the inforcement of the Dehortation by the great merit of the Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption Those that are great and good we would not willingly offend though meer strangers to us but if they be besides our great friends and liberal Benefactors men that have deserved highly of us we justly hold it a foul shame and abominable ingratitude wilfully to do ought that might affront them It is therefore added for a strong disswasive from Grieving the Spirit of God that by him we are sealed to the day of redemption All the world shall in vain strive to do for us what our great Friend in Heaven hath done our loathness therefore to grieve him must be according to the depth of our obligation to him Cast your eyes then a little upon the wonderful Benefit here specified and see First what this day of Redemption is Secondly what is the sealing of us to this day and Thirdly why the sealing of us to this day should be a sufficient motive to withhold us from grieving the Holy Spirit of God These three must be the limits of my Speech and your Atrention Redemption signifies as much as a Ransome A Ransome implies a Captivity or Servitude There is a threefold Captivity from which we are freed Of Sin of Misery of Death For the first We are sold under sin saith our Apostle No Slave in Argier is more truly sold in the Market under a Turkish Pyrate then we are naturally sold under the Tyranny of sin by whom we are bound hand and foot and can stir neither of them towards God and dungeon'd up in the darkness of our ignorance without any Glimpse of the vision of God For the second the very name of Captivity implyes Misery enough what outward evil is incident into a man which bondage doth not bring with it Wo is me there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a Nation nor so woful a Captivity as this of brethren to brethren Complaints there are good store on both sides of restraint want ill-lodging hard and scant diet Irons insultations scornes and extremities of ill usage of all kindes and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours the best whereof is vanity and the worst infinite vexations But Thirdly if some men have been so externally happy as to avoid some of these miseries for all men smart not alike yet never man did or can avoid the third which is obnoxiousness to death By the offence of one saith the Apostle judgment came upon all men to condemnation Rom. 5.18 Sin hath raigned unto death Ps 21. It is more then an Ordinance a statute law in Heaven Statutum est c. It is enacted to all men once to dye Heb. 9.27 This then is our bondage or captivity now comes our redemption from all these at once when upon our happy dissolution we are freed from sin from misery from death and enter into the possession of glory thus our Saviour Lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh thus saith St. Paul The creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 It is the same condition of the members of Christ which was of the head that they overcome death by dying when therefore the bands of death are loosed and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death and danger of the second and therein from all the capacity not only of the rule and power of sin but of the life and in-dwelling of it and from all the miseries both bodily and spirituall that attend it and when in the same instant our soul takes possession of that glory which shall once in the consociation of it's glorious partner the body be perfectly consummated Then and not till then is the day of our redemption Is there any of us therefore that complaines of his sad and hard condition here in the world paines of body grief of mind agonies of soul crosses in estate discontentments in his families suffering in his good name let him bethink himself where he is this is the time of his captivity and what other can be expected in this case Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty bondage Can the slave think to be as free as his Patron Ease rest liberty must be lookt for elsewhere but whiles we are here we must make no account of other then these varieties of misery our redemption shall free us from them all But now perhaps some of you are ready to say of the Redemption as they did of the Resurrection that it is past already and so indeed it is one way in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man but so that it must be taken out by and applied to every soul inparticular if we will have the benefit redound to us It is his Redemption before it is now only our Redemption when it is brought home to us Oh then the dear and happy day of this our finall redemption wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrowes paines cares fears
perfect Mediator betwixt God and man To proclaime the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn in Zion to give unto them beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning the garment of praise for the spirit of heavinesse Esa 61.2.3 So as all Gods faithfull ones may cheerfully expect the performance of that cordiall promise which the God of truth hath made to his Israel Their soul shall be as a watred Garden and they shall not sorrow any more at all then shall the Virgin rejoyce in the dance both young men and old together for I will turne their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoyce from their sorrow Jerem. â—1 12 13. But if the justice of God have been so highly provoked by the sinnes of a particular Nation as that there is no remedy but the threatned judgments must proceed against them remember what charge Ezekiel tells you was given to the man clothed in linnen that had the writers inkhorne by his side The Lord said unto him go through the midst of the City through the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon the forheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof Ezek. 9.3 4. Lo these marked Jewes owe their life to their tears if they had not wept for their fellowes they had bled with their fellowes If their sighs could not save their people from slaughter yet they have saved themselves their charitable mourning is recompensed with their own preservation Oh then my brethren as we desire the joyes of another World and as we tender our own comfort and safty in this let us not be sparing of our tears let them flow freely out for our own sins first and then for the sins of our people let not our mourning be perfunctory and fashionable but serious hearty and zealous so as that we may furrow our cheekes with our teares Let our devotions that accompany our mourning be fervent and importunate as those that would offer a kind of holy force to Heaven wrestling with the Angel of the covenant for a blessing Let our amendment which should be the effect of our mourning be really conspicuous to the eyes both of God and men And finally that our mourning may be constant and effectuall let us resolve to make it our business and for that purpose let us solemnly vow to set apart some time of each day for this sad but needfull task and which is the main of all since the publique is most concerned in this duty Oh that the trumpet might be blown in Zion fasts sanctified solemn assemblies called that the Ministers of the Lord as the chief mourners might weep aloud in Gods sanctuary Joel 2. â—5 and say Spare thy people O Lord and give not thine heritage to reproach wherefore should the enemies of thy Church say among the people where is their God This were the way to reconcile our offended God to divert his dreadfull judgments to restore us to the blessings of peace and to cause the voice of joy and gladness to be once again heard in our land ON EASTER-DAY AT HIGHAM 1648. 1 COR. 5.7 For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us Therefore let us keep the feast THe feast that is the passover of the Jewes then expiring or the Christians Easter then succeeding indeed I know not whether both be not alluded to for this Epistle is conceived to have been written by the Apostle some 24. Years after our Saviours passion ere which time it is more then probable that the feast of Christs resurrection was solemnly celebrated by the Christian Church this I am sure of that no record in all history mentions the time when it began to be kept and therefore it is most likely according to Augustines received rule to be deduced from the observation of the Apostles There were ancient and eager quarrels betwixt the Eastern and Western Churches about the day whereon it should be kept but whether it should be kept or no there was never yet any question since Christianity look't forth into the World and as that Pasche so this Easter is justly the feast for the eminency of it above the rest for if we do with joy and thankfulnesse according to the Angels message solemnize the day wherein the Son of God our blessed Redeemer being born entred the life of humane nature how much more should we celebrate that day wherein having conquered all the powers of death and Hell he was as it were born again to the life of a glorious immortality But to leave the time and come to the Text. This for that leads it in is both a relative and an illative referring to what he had said in the foregoing words and inferring a necessary consequence of the one clause upon the other Purge out the old leaven for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us The whole Text is Allegoricall alluding to the charge and duty of Gods ancient people the Jewes in the observation of their passover who upon no lesse pain then cutting off from the Congregation of Israel must admit of no leavened bread to be eaten or found in their houses during the whole seven dayes of this celebrity as you may see Exod. 12.17.18 c. As therefore the ceremoniall passover would admit of no materiall leaven So the spirituall passover may not abide any leaven of wickednesse Purge therefore out the old leaven For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us The first work then that we have to do is to cast back our eyes to the ground of this institution and to enquire why no leaven might consist with the Jewish passover And we shall find that there was not the same reason of the first observation of this ceremony and of the following The first was Necessity Devotion was the ground of the rest Necessity first for in that suddain departure which they were put upon there could be no leasure to leaven their dough as you may see Exod. 12.39 Devotion afterward in a gratefull recognition both of their own servile condition and of the gracious providence of God In the former they were called to look back upon their old Egyptian servitude by their unleavned bread for this was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread of affliction as we turn it or the bread of the poor as the word signifies which they must now eat to put them in mind of their hard and poor condition in Egypt under their evill task masters all their lives after as Deut. 16.3 to the same purpose it was that they must eat the Lamb not with sowre herbes as it had wont to be turned for a sharp kind of sowrenesse in sawces is esteemed pleasing and tastfull but with bitter herbes yea as the word is in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum amaritudinibus with bitternesses In the latter they were minded of a
warfares to God should not intangle himself with this world it is a sufficient and just conviction of those who would divide themselves betwixt God and the World and bestow any main part of their time upon secular affairs but it hath no operation at all upon this tenet which we have in hand that a man dedicate to God may not so much as when he is required cast a glance of his eye or some minutes of time or some motions of his tongue upon the publick business of his King and Countrey Those that expect this from us may as well and upon the same reason hold that a minister must have no family at all or if he have one must not care for it yea that he must have no body to tend but be all Spirit My Lords we are men of the same composition with others and our breeding hath been accordingly we cannot have lived in the World but we have seen it and observed it too and our long experience and conversation both in Men and in books cannot but have put something into us for the good of others and now having a double capacity qua cives qua Ecclesiastici as members of the common wealth as Ministers and Governours of the Church we are ready to do our best service in both one of them is no way incompatible with the other yea the subjects of them both are so united with the Church and Commonwealth that they cannot be severed yea so as that not the one is in the other but one is the other is both so as the services which we do upon these occasions to the Comonwealth are inseparable from our good offices to the Church so as upon this ground there is no reason of our exclusion If ye say that our sitting in Parliament takes up much time which we might have imployed in our studies or pulpits consider I beseech you that whiles you have a Parliament we must have a convocation and that our attendance upon that will call for the same expense of time which we afford to this service so as herein we have neither got nor lost But I fear it is not on some hands the tender regard of the full scope to our calling that is so much here stood upon as the conceit of too much honour that is done us in taking up the room of Peers and voting in this high Court for surely those that are averse from our votes yet could be content we should have place upon the wool-sacks and could alow us ears but not tongues If this be the matter I beseech your Lordships to consider that this honour is not done to us but our profession which what ever we be in our several persons can not easily be capable of too much respect from your Lordships Non tibi sed Isidi as he said of old Neither is this any new grace that is put upon our calling which if it were now to begin might perhaps be justly grudged to our unworthyness but it is an antient right and inheritance inherent in our station No less ancient then these walls wherein we sit yea more before ever there were Parliaments in the Magna Consilia of the Kingdome we had our places and as for my predecessors ever since the Conquerours time I can show your Lordships a just catalogue of them that have sat before me here and truely though I have just cause to be mean in mine own eyes yet why or wherein there should be more unworthiness in me then the rest that I should be stript of that priviledg which they so long injoyed though there were no law to hold me here I cannot see or confesse What respects of honour have been put upon the prime Clergy of old both by Pagans and Jewes and Christians and what are still both within Christendom and vvithout I shall not need to urge it is enough to say this of ours is not meerly arbitrary but stands so firmely established by law and custome that I hope it neither will nor can be removed except you will shake those foundations which I believe you desire to hold firme and inviolable Shortly then my Lords the church craves no new honour from you and justly hopes you will not be guilty of pulling down the old as you are the eldest sons and next under his Majesty the honourable patrons of the Church so she expects and beseeches you to receive her into your tenderest care so to order her affairs that ye leave her to posterity in no worse case then you found her It is a true word of Damasus Uti vilescit nomen episcopi omnis statua perturbatur Ecclesiae If this be suffered the misery will be the Churches the dishonour blurre of the act in future ages will be yours To shut up therefore let us be taken off from all ordinary trade of secular imployments and if you please abridge us of intermeddling with matters of common justice but leave us possessed of those places and priviledges in Parliament which our predecessors have so long and peaceably injoyed ANTHEMES FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF EXCETER LOrd what am I A worm dust vapor nothing What is my life A dream a daily dying What is my flesh My souls uneasie clothing What is my time A minute ever flying My time my flesh my life and I What are we Lord but vanity Where am I Lord downe in a vale of death What is my trade sin my dear God offending My sport sin too my stay a puffe of breath What end of sin hells horrour never ending My way my trade sport stay and place help up to make up my dolefull case Lord what art thou pure life power beauty bliss Where dwell'st thou up above in perfect light What is thy time eternity it is What state attendance of each glorious sp'rit Thy self thy place thy dayes thy state Pass all the thoughts of powers create How shall I reach thee Lord Oh soar above Ambitious soul but which way should I flie Thou Lord art way and end what wings have I Aspiring thoughts of faith of hope of love Oh let these wings that way alone Present me to thy blissfull throne ANTHEME FOR Christmas Day IMmortall babe who this dear day Didst change thine Heaven for our clay And didst with flesh thy Godhead vail Eternal Son of God All-hail Shine happy star ye Angels sing Glory on high to Heavens King Run Shepherds leave your nightly watch See Heaven come down to Bethleems cratch Worship ye Sages of the East The King of Gods in meanness drest O blessed maid smile and adore The God thy womb and armes have bore Star Angels Shepherds and wise sages Thou Virgin glory of all ages Restored frame of Heaven and Earth Joy in your dear Redeemers Birth LEave O my soul this baser World below O leave this dolefull dungeon of wo And soare aloft to that supernal rest That maketh all the Saints and Angels blest Lo there the God-heads radiant throne Like to ten thousand Suns in one Lo there thy Saviour dear in glory dight Ador'd of all the powers of Heavens bright Lo where that head that bled with thorny wound Shines ever with celestial honor crownd That hand that held the scornfull reed Makes all the fiends infernall dread That back and side that ran with bloody streams Daunt Angels eyes with their majestick beames Those feet once fastened to the cursed tree Trample on death and hell in glorious glee Those lips once drench't with gall do make With their dread doom the world to quake Behold those joyes thou never canst behold Those precious gates of pearl those Streets of gold Those streams of Life those trees of Paradise That never can be seen by mortal eyes And when thou seest this state divine Think that it is or shall be thine See there the happy troups of purest sprights That live above in endless true delights And see where once thy self shalt ranged be And look and long for immortalitie And now before-hand help to sing Allelujahs to Heavens King FINIS BOOKS printed for and to be sold by John Crook at the Sign of the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard ANnales veteris novi Testamenti Aviro Reverend Jacob Usserio Archiepisco Armachano Folio The Annals of the Old and New Testament with the Synchronismus of Heathen story to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans by James Usher D.D. Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland Folio The Antiquities of Warwikcshire illustrated beautified with Maps prospects and pourtractures by William Dugdale Folio Hymens Preludia or Loves Master piece being the 9th and 10th parts of Cleopatra Folio The History of this Iâ—on Age wherein is set down the Original of all the wars and commotions that have happened from the year of God 1500. Illustrated with the figures of the most Renowned persons of this Time Folio The History of the great and renowned Monarchy of China Fol. The holy History containing excellent observations on the Remarkable passages of the old Testament written Originally in French by N. Caussin S.I. and now rendred into English by a Person of Honour 4. Ejusdem de textus hebraici Veteris Testamenti variantibus Lectionibus ad Lodovicum Capellum Epistola Quarto Usserii de 70. Interpretum versione syntagma Quarto Montagues Miscellanea Spiritualâ—ia 4. second part A Treatise of Gavelkind both name and thing shewing the true Etymology and derivation of the one the nature antiquity and Original of the other by William Sonner Quarto The Holy Life of Mounsier de Renty a late noble man of France 8. Certain discourses viz. of Babylon the present See of Rome of laying on of hands of the old forme of words in Ordination of a set forme of prayer being the judgment of the Late Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland by N. Bernard D. D. Octavo The Character of England with reflections upon Gallus Castratus 12. The French Gardiner instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees with directions to dry and conserve them in their natural An accomplished peice illustrated with sculpture By whom also all manner of Books are to be sold brought from beyond the Seas
tears but the tender hearts of Gods children are ever lightly attended with weeping-eyes neither can they want tears whilst even other men abound with sins though themselves were free And if good men spend their tears upon wicked wretches how much more ought those wicked ones to bestow tears upon themselves it is their danger and Misery that Gods children are affected withall whilst themselves are insensible of both Wo is me could their eyes be but opened that they might see their own wofull condition they could not love themselves so ill as not to bewail it could they see the frownes of an angry God bent upon them could they see the flames of Hell ready to receive them they could not but dissolve into tears of blood Oh pitty your own souls at last ye obdured sinners be ye feelingly apprehensive of your fearfull danger the eminent danger of an eternal damnation and weep day and night before that God whom ye have provoked wash away your sins with the streams of penitence The fire of hell can have no power where it findes these soveraigne waters Blessed are they that weep now for they shall laugh Luc. 6.21 We have not yet done with St. Pauls tears See I beseech you who were the objects of this sorrow of his the false teachers of the Philippians the rivals and adversaries of the Apostles Ministry whether the Simonians that is the Disciples of Simon Magus as some have thought or rather the Judaizing Christians whom before he calls Dogs and the Concision men that were not more for Christ then for Moses men not more false in opinion then foule in conversation rebrobate persons spightful enemies to him and the gospel yet even these are the men whom St. Paul bedewes with his many tears So far should Gods charitable Children be from desiring or rejoycing in the destruction of those who professe hostility against them though even leud and ungodly persons as that they should make this the matter of their just sorrow and mourning St. Paul had a deeper insight into the state of these men then we can have into any of those goodliest men who fall into our notice and enmity for he saw them as it were in Hell already he lookt upon them as vessels of wrath for he addes whose end is perdition yet he entertaines the thoughts of their sinfull miscarriages with tears Every man can mourn for the danger or loss or fall of a good man of a friend but to be thus deeply affected with either the sins or judgments of wicked persons is incident to none but a tender and charitable heart Gods children are of the diet of their heavenly Father who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 Tim. 2.4 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked shall dye saith the Lord God and not that that he should returne from his wayes and live Ezec. 18.23 And to be sure he binds it with an oath As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turne from his wayes and live turne ye turne ye from your evill wayes for why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezec. 33.11 Those that sport in the sins and rejoyce in the perdition of their brethren let them see of what spirit they are But I have dwelt longer then I meant in the Apostles fidelity in his warning and the frequence and passion of it Turne your eyes now I beseech you to a loathsome object the wickedness of these false teachers of the Philippians described by their number motion quality issue Their number many their motion walk their quality enemies to the crosse of Christ their issue destruction We begin with their Number Mark I beseech you the inference The charge of the Apostle in the words immediatly preceeding is that the Philippians should mark those who walked holily as they had the Apostles for examples and now he addes For many walk inordinately see then from hence that the rarity of conscionable men should make them more observed more valued If there be but one Lot in Sodom he is more worth then all the souls of that populous and fruitfull Pentapolis If there be but some sprinkling of Wheat in a chaffe heap we winnow it out and think it worth our labour to do so some graines or if but scruples of precious mettals are sifted out of the rubbish of the oare and dust It is excellent that our Apostle hath in this Epistle the 2. Chapter v. 15. That ye may be blamless in the midst of a froward and perverse generation among whom ye shine as lights in the world Mark if there be but light held forth in a dark night how do the birds come flying about it how do the eyes of men though afarr off fix upon it when as all the space betwixt us and it which is all wrapped up in darkness is unregarded such are and such should be good men amongst a world of wicked ones so much more eminent and esteemed by how much the fewer they are Paucity is wont to carry contempt with it See say the Philistims when they saw Jonathan and his Armour-bearer come towards them how the Israelites creep out of their holes and proud Benhadad when he heard of some few of Israel coming forth against him can say Take them alive whether they come for peace or whether for war take them alive 1 King 20.18 What is an handful of gainsayers upon any occasion We are apt to think that the stream should bear down all before it Do any of the Rulers believe in him that 's argument enough But it must not be so with Christians here one is worthy to be more then a thousand if he be a man that orders his conversation aright that goes upon the sure grounds of infallible truth though there be none other in the world besides him that followes after righteousness that man is worthy of our mark of our imitation if there be but one Noah in an age all flesh having corrupted their wayes it is better to follow him into the Ark then to perish withall the world of unbelievers Here are these Many opposed to Us Paul and Timothy It is not for us to stand upon the fear of an imputation of singularity we may not do as the most but as the best It was a desperate resolution of Rabbodus the barbarous and ignorant Duke of Prisons that he would go to Hell because he heard the most went that way Our Saviours argument is quite contrary Enter in at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in thereat Matth. 7.13 And St. Pauls argument here to the same purpose Many walk inordinately therefore be ye followers of us We have an old saying that Cases that rarely happen are neglected of Law-givers The newes of a few Enemies is entertained with
out and adored for the true crosse of Christ yet the bulk is nothing to the vertue ascribed to it The very wood which is a shame to speak is by them Sainted and deifyed who knowes not that stale hymne and unreasonable rime of Ara crucis lampas lucis sola salus hominum Nobis pronum fac patronum quem tulisti dominum Wherein the very tree is made a mediator to him whom it bore as very a Saviour as he that dy'd upon it And who knowes not that by these Bigots an active vertue is attributed not only to the very wood of the cross but to the Airie and transient form and representation of it A vertue of sanctifying the creature of expelling Divells of healing diseases conceits crossely superstitious which the Church of England ever abhorred never either practised or countenanced whose cross was only commemorative and commonitive never pretended to be any way efficacious and therefore as far different from the Romish cross as the fatall tree of Christ from that of Judas Away then with this gross and sinfull foppery of our Romanists which proves them not the friends but the flatterers of the Cross flatterers up to the very pitch of Idolatry and can there be a worse enemy then a flatterer Fie on this fawning and crouching hostility to the crosse of Christ such friendship to the altar is a defiance to the sacrifice For these Philippian Pseudapostles Two wayes were they enemies to the Cross of Christ in their doctrines in their practise In Doctrine whiles they joyned circumcision and other legalities with the cross of Christ so by a pretended partnership detracting from the vertue and power of Christs death Thus they were enemies to Christs death as this In practise following a loose and voluptuous course pampering themselves and shifting off persecution for the Gospell Thus they were enemies to the cross of Christ as theirs Truth hath ever one face There are still two sorts of enemies to the cross The erroneous the licentious The erroneous in judgment that will be inter-commoning with Christ in the vertue and efficacy of his passion The licentious in life that despise and annihilate it In the first how palpable enemies are they to the cross of Christ that hold Christs satisfaction upon the cross imperfect without ours Thus the Romish Doctors profess to do Their Cardinall passes a flat non expiat upon it boldly Temporalem poenam totam nisi propria satisfactione cooperante non expiat lib. 4. de paenit c. 14. § Neque vero Our penall works saith Suarez are properly a payment for the punishment of our sin And which of the Tridentine faction sayes otherwise What foul Hypocrisie is this to creep and crouch to the very image of the cross and in the mean time to frustrate the vertue of it Away with these hollow and hostile complements how happy were it for them if the crosse of Christ might have lesse of theâ—r knees and more of their hearts without which all their adorations are but mockery certainly the partnership of legall observations was never more enemy to Christs cross then that of humane satisfactions For us God forbid that we should rejoyce in any thing but in the cross of Christ with St. Paul Our profession roundly is The cross is our full redemption let them that show more say so much else for all their ducking and cringeing they shall never quit themselves of this just charge that they are the enemies of the crosse of Christ The licentious secondly are enemies to the cross of Christ and those of two sorts whether carnall revolters or loose-livers The first in shifting off persecution by conforming themselves to the present world they will do any thing rather then suffer caring more for a whole skin then a sound soul Meere slaves of the season whose poesie is that of Optatus Omnia pro tempore nihil pro veritate All for the time nothing for the Truth Either ditty will serve Hosanna or Crucifige Such was that infamous Ecebotius such was Spira such those in the primitive times that with Marcellinus would cast grains of incense into the Idols fire to shun the fire of a Tyrants futy such as will bow their knees to a breaden God for fear of an inquisitors flie and kiss the toe of a living Idol rather then hazard a suspicion the world is full of such shufflers Do ye ask how we know I do not send you to the Spanish trade or Italian travails or Spa-waters The tentative Edict of Constantius descryed many false hearts And the late relaxation of penall laws for religion discovered many a turn-coat God keep our great men upright if they should swerve it is to be feared the truth would find but a few friends Blessed be God the times professe to patronize true religion If the winde should turn how many with that noted time-server would be ready to say Cantemus domino c. let us sing unto the Lord a new song There is no Church lightly without his wethercock For us my beloved we know not what we are reserved for let us sit down and count what it may cost us and as those who would carry some great weight upon a wager will be every day heaving at it to inure themselves to the burden before they come to their utmost tryall so let us do to the cross of Christ let us be every day lifting at it in our thoughts that when the time comes we may comfortably go away with it It was a good purpose of Peter though I should dye with thee I will not deny thee but it was a better grounded resolution of St. Paul I am ready not to be bound only but also to dye for the name of the Lord Jesus Act. 21.13 Let us in an humble confidence of Gods mercy in upholding us fix upon the same holy determination not counting our life dear unto us so as we may finish our course with joy Thus we shall not be more friends to the crosse of Christ then the crosse will be to us for if we suffer with him we shall also reign with him Besides carnall revolters loose livers powre shame upon the crosse Christs crosse is our redemption Redemption is from sin and death whiles therefore we do wilfully sin we do what in us lies frustrate the cross and make a mock of our redemption every true Christian is with St. Paul crucified together with Christ 2. Galat. 20. his sins are fastned upon that tree of shame and curse with his Saviour the mis-living Christian therefore crucifies Christ again each of his willing sins is a plain despight to his Redeemer The false tongue of a professour gives in evidence against the Son of God the hypocrite condemns Christ and washes his hands the proud man strips him and robes him with purple the distrustfull plats thornes for the head of his Saviour the drunkard gives him vineger and gall to drink the oppressor drives nailes into his hands
free man neither hath any man free-will to good but he Be ambitious of this happy condition O all ye noble and generous spirits and do not think ye live till ye have attained to this true liberty The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free So from the liberty we descend to the perogative Christs liberation Here is the glorious prerogative of the Son of God to be the deliverer or redeemer of his people They could not free themselves the Angels of heaven might pitty could not redeem them yea alas who could or who did redeem those of their rank which of lightsome celestiall spirits are become foul Devils Only Christ could free us whose ransome was infinite only Christ did free us whose love is infinite and how hath he wrought our liberty By force by purchase By force in that he hath conquer'd him whose captives we were by purchase in that he hath pay'd the full price of our ransom to that supream hand whereto we were forfeited I have heard Lawers say there are in civill Corporations three wayes of freedom by Birth by Service by Redemption By Birth as St. Paul was free of Rome by Service as Apprentises upon expiration of their years by Redemption as the the Centurion with a great sum purchased I this freedom Two of these are barred from all utter possibility in our spiritual freedom for by Birth we are the sons of wrath by service we are naturally the vassals of Satan It is only the precious redemption of the Son of God that hath freed us Whereas freedom then hath respect to bondage there are seven Egyptian Masters from whose slavery Christ hath freed us Sin an accusing Conscience danger of Gods wrath tyranny of Satan the curse of the Law Mosaicall Ceremenies humane Ordinances see our servitude to and our freedom from all these by the powerfull liberation of Christ 1. It was a true word of that Pythagorean Quot vitia tot domini sin is an hard master A master Yea a tyrant let not sin reign in your mortall bodies Rom. 6 14. and so the sinner is not only servus corruptitiae a drudge of corruptions 2 Pet. 2.19 but a very slave sold under sin Rom. 7.14 So necessitated to evill by his own inward corruption that he cannot but grind in this Mill he cannot but row in this Gally For as posse peccare is the condition of the greatest Saint upon earth and Non posse peccare is the condition of the least Saint above so non posse non peccare is the condition of the least sinful unregenerate as the prisoner may shift his feet but not his fetters or as the snail cannot but leave a slime track behind it which way soever it goes Here is our bondage where is our liberty Ubi spriritus domini ibi libertas where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.7 Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I thank my God through Jesus Christ So then Christ hath freed us from the bondage of sin An accusing conscience is a true task-master of Egypt it will be sure to whip us for what we have done for what we have not done Horrour of sin like a sleeping Mastive lyes at our door Gen. 4.7 when it awakes it will fly on our throat No closer doth the shaddow follow the body then the revenge of self-accusation followes sin walk Eastward in the morning the shadow starts behind thee soon after it is upon thy left side at noon it is under thy feet lye down it coucheth under thee towards even it leaps before thee thou canst not be rid of it whiles thou hast a body and the Sun light no more can thy soul quit the conscience of evil This is to thee instead of an Hell of Fiends that shall ever be shaking fire brands at thee ever torturing thee with affrights of more paines then thy nature can comprehend Soeva conturbata conscientia Wisd 17.11 If thou look to the punishment of loss it shall say as Lysimachus did how much felicity have I lost for how little pleasure If to the punishment of sense it shall say to thee as the Tyrant dream'd his heart said to him out of the boiling caldron 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the cause of all this misery Here is our bondage where is the liberty Having our hearts sprinkled from an evill Conscience Heb. 10.22 Sprinkled with what Even with the blood of Jesus vers 19. This this only is it that can free us It is with the unquiet heart as with the troubled Sea of Tiberias the Winds rise the Waters swell the billowes roar the ship is tossed Heaven and Earth threat to meet Christ doth but speak the word all is calme so Christ hath freed us Secondly from the bondage of an accusing conscience The conscience is but Gods Bayliff It is the displeasure of the Lord of Heaven and Earth that is the utmost of all terribles the fear of Gods wrath is that strong winde that stirrs these billowes from the bottom set aside the danger of divine displeasure and the clamoâ—rs of conscience were harmless this alone makes an Hell in the bosome The aversion of Gods face is confusion the least bending of his brow is perdition Ps 2. ult but his totus aestus his whole fury as Ps 78.38 is the utter absorption of the creature excandescentia ejus funditur sicut ignis His wrath is poured out like fire the rocks are rent before it Nahum 1.6 whence there is nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fearfull expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries Heb. 10.27 Here is the bondage where is the liberty Being just fyed by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then Christ hath freed us thridly from the bondage of the wrath of God As every wicked man is a Tyrant according to the Philosophers position and every Tirant is a Devil among men so the Devil is the Arch-tyrant of the creatures he makes all his Subjects errand vassals yea chained slaves 2 Tim. 2. ult That they may recover themselves from the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will lo here is will snares captivity perfect tyranny Nahash the Ammonite was a notable Tyrant he would have the right eyes of the Israelites put out as an eminent mark of servitude so doth this infernal Nahash blind the right eye of our understanding yea with the spightful Philistim he puts out both the eyes of our apprehension and judgment that he may gyre us about in the Mill of unprofitable wickednesse and cruelly insult upon our remedilesse misery And when he hath done the fairest end is death yea death without end Oh the impotency of earthly tyranny to this the greatest blood-suckers could but kill and livor post fata as the old word is but here is an homicida ab initio and a fine
it with all joy and thankfulnesse And if Moses by conferring with God but 40 Dayes and Nights in the delivery of the law had a glorious brightnesse in his face Oh let us that more then fourty years have had conversation with God in his Gospell shine with the resplendent beames of heavenly knowledg And if the joyes of heaven are described by Light surely the more lightsome our soules are here the nearer they come to their blessednesse Light is sown from the righteous saith the Psalmist Lo here is the seed-time of Light above is the harvest If the Light of saving knowledg be sown in our hearts here we shall be sure to reap the crop of heavenly glory hereafter And this is the first quality of Light with the reflection of it upon us The next followes which is purity Of all the visible Creatures that God hath made none is so pure and simple as the light it discovers all the foulnesse of the most earthly recrements it mixeth with none of them neither is possibly capable of the least corruption some of the best Interpreters therefore have taken this metaphor of Light to implie the purity and perfect goodness of God In whom as there is an infinite clearnesse of understanding so also an infinite rectitude of will in so much as his will is the rule of all right neither doth he will ought because it is good but therefore it is good because he wills it Goodnesse hath no lesse brightnesse in it then truth and wickedness as it is never without errour so it is no lesse dark then it Justly therefore is God all light in that he is all pure and good and the reflection of this quality upon us must be our holiness For this is the will of God even our sanctification The more holy then we are the more we conform to him that is Light The way of the just is as the shining Light that shineth more and more as contrarily sins are the works of darkness the mover of them is the Prince of darknesse the agents of them are the Sons of darknesse and their trade is walking in darknesse as it followes in my text and the end of them is utter darkness Whiles he sayes then Be Holy as I am Holy he doth as good as say Be ye Light as I am Light Ye were darkness but now it is Gods own phrase Lux estis ye are Light in the Lord saith St. Paul to his Ephesians justly therefore doth it follow walk as children of the Light In right wayes with straight stepps And surely if God be Light and we darkness what interest can we claim in him For what communion is there betwixt Light and darkness Oh the comfortable and happy condicion then of those that are in God they are still in Light Truly the light is sweet saith wise Salomon and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun As on the contrary it is a wofull and disconsolate estate to live in any sin this is no other then to be dungeon'd up in a perpetuall darknesse The Egyptians were even weary of themselves for a three dayes darknesse how irksome had it been to have lived alwayes so I have read a book of one Haitonus a monk of the order of the Praemonstratenses a Cozen as he saies of the then King of Armenia written some 340 Years agoe set forth by one Nic. Salcon and dedicated to Pope Clement the 5th where with much confidence he affirmes that in the Country of Georgia there was a certain province called Hamâ—en of three daies journey about so palpably dark continually as that no man could see his hand in it that the inhabitants of the borders of it might hear many times in the woods the noise of men crying of horses neighing of cocks crowing but no man durst venture to go unto it because he could not find the way out again which he saies with much earnestnesse that he saw Neque Credidissem saith he nisi propriis oculis perspexissem reporting it to have been a miraculous judgment upon some Persian persecutors of the Christians in that place I list not to inquire into the likelyhood of the story it might be some temporary judgment as that was upon Egypt for the time and now long since vanished but imagine ye the truth of that which he dares with so deep protestations avow and conceive the condicion of all wilfull sinners who live shut up in a region of thick darkness whence they can no more get out then they can be capable of any comfort within and when they have wearied themselves in those wretched mazes of vanity they are shut up in the utter darknesse of the dreadfull pit of eternall Death Oh then that willing sinners be they never so gay and glorious could but apprehend the misery and horrour of their own estate in this behalf certainly it were enough to make them either maz'd or penitent For what is darknesse but a privation of Light Now God is Light And sin deprives us of Gods presence and shuts us out from the face of God and if in his presence be the fulnesse of joy then in his absence is the fulnesse of sorrow and torment neither have the Schools determined amiss that the pain of loss is more horrible then the pain of sense so as that darknesse which our sin causeth in the alienation and absence of the Lighr of Gods countenance is without his great mercy the beginning of an utter exclusion from the beatificall face of God and of that utter darknesse of hell For us as we professe our selves the Children of the Light so let us walk in the Light And what Light is that Thy law is a Light to my feet saith holy David Lo this is the Light wherein we must walk that so walking in the Light of his law we may happily enjoy the light of his countenance Ps 36.10 and may come at the last to the light of his glory so in his Light we shall see Light This of the second quality of the Light and the reflection of it The third and last followes It is this which Learned Estius thinks to be mainly driven at in this place That God is therefore Light because he is the Fountain and cause of Light to all Creatures that do enjoy it and indeed what Light is there which is not from him Naturall Morall Divine For the naturall It was he that said Fiat Lux Let there be Light in the first day It was he that recollected that diffused Light into the body of the Sun in the fourth day that goodly Globe of Light receives from him those beames of Light which it communicates to the Moon Stars Skie and this other inferiour World What Light of intellectuall or morall vertue ever shined in the heart of any man but from him The Spirit of man is the Candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly Prov. 20.27 What Light
purpose let no Antinomian stop the floodgates of our eyes let no Popish Doctor prevail to the abatement of this holy sorrow those men out of a profession of much outward rigour and austerity do under hand by their doctrine slacken the reines of true penitence to their clients Contritio una vel remissa c. One easie contrition is able to blot out any sin if never so haynous saith their learned Cardinall Toleth and their Jesuite Maldonate to the same effect Ad perfectionem Poenitentiae c. To the perfection of penitence is required onely a sleight kind of inward sorrow wherein I cannot better resemble them then to timorous or indulgent Chirurgians that think to pleasure the patient in not searching the wound to the bottom for which kindnesse they shall receive little thank at the last for the wound hereupon festers within and must cost double time and pain in the cure whereas those solid Divines that experimentally know what belongs to the healing of a sinning Soul go thorough stitch to work Insomuch as Cardinall Bellarmine taxeth it as too much Rigour in Luther Calvin and Chemnitius that they require Magnam animi concussionem a great concussion of soul and a sharp and vehement contrition of the penitent For us let us not be niggardly of our sorrow but in these cases go mourning all the day long See how the Spirit of God expresses Zachar. 12.10 They shall Mourne as one that Mourneth for his onely Son and shall be in bitternesse as one that is in bitterness for his first Born This is a Repentance never to be repented of Blessed are they that thus mourne for they shall be comforted This aversion is punishment enough alone and if it should be totall and finall as it is not to Gods own Children it were the worst peece of Hell for the punishment of losse is justly defined worse then that of sense but withall it is attended as there is good cause with sensible demonstrations of Gods anger and the smart of the offender My wounds stink and are corrupted because of my foolishness saith the Psalmist Psal 38.5 I am weary of my groaning Psal 6.6 And if the most righteous cannot avoid this sore hand of the Almighty where shall willfull sinners appear These effects of Gods displeasure then are such as are worth trembling at It is true as that wise Pagan said a speech worthy to be written in Letters of Gold and that which I doubt not shall be in the day of Judgment laid in the dish of many Millions of professed Christians si Omnes Deos hominesque celare possimus nihil avare nihil injuste nihil libidinose nihil incontinenter faciendum That if we could hide our actions from God and men yet we may do nothing covetously nothing unjustly nothing lustfully nothing incontinently Who would not be ashamed to hear this fall from an Heathen when he sees how many Christians live but it is most true A good man dare not sin though there were no Hell but that holy and wise God that knowes how sturdy and headstrong natures he hath to do withall findes it necessary to let men feel that he hath store of Thunderbolts for sinners that he hath Magazins of Judgments and after all an Hell of torments for the rebellious and indeed we cannot but yield it most just that it should be so If but an equall do grieve and vex us we are ready to give him his own with advantage and if an inferiour we fall upon him with hand and tongue and are apt to crush him to nothing and even that worm when he is troden on will be turning again how can we or why should we think that the great and holy God will be vexed by us and pocket up all our indignities If a Gnat or Flea do but sting thee thou wilt kill it and thinkest it good justice yet there is some proportion betwixt these Creatures and thee but what art thou silly nothing to the Infinite We men have devised varieties of punishments for those that offend our laws Artaxerxes his decree mentions four sorts Death Banishmentt Confiscation Imprisonment Ezra 7.26 And which perhaps you will wonder at commits the managing of justice in the execution of them all to Ezra the Priest the Romans as Tully tells us had eight severall kindes of punishments for their delinquents Forfeiture Bonds Stripes Retaliation Shame Exile Servitude and Death God hath all these double over and a thousand others for the First which is Forfeiture here is the Forfeiture of no lesse then all Take from him the pound saith the Master concerning the unfaithfull servant Luc. 19.24 for the Second Bonds here are the most dreadfull Bonds that can be even everlasting chaines of darkness Jude 6. for Stripes here are many Stripes for the knowing and not doing servant Luc. 12.47 for Retaliation it is here just and home it is just with God to render tribulation to those that trouble you 2 Thess 1.6 for Shame here is confusion of face Daâ— 9.8 for Exile here is an everlasting Banishment from the presence of God Matth. 25.41 for Servitude here is the most odious Bondage sold under sin Rom. 7.14 for Death here is a double death a temporal and eternal these and more then can be expressed are the consequents of Gods displeasure If thou lovest thy self therefore take heed above all things of grieving thy God with thy sins and if thou hast done so hasten thy reconciliation agree with thine adversary in the way else tribulation and anguish upon every soul that doth evill thy grieving of him shall end in weeping and wayling and gnashing for our God is a consuming fire And here now that I may turn your thoughts a little aside from a personall to a nationall grieving of Gods Spirit I am faln upon the grounds of those heavy judgments under which we have lyen thus long groaning and gasping to the pitty and astonishment of our late envying neighbourhood even the destroying and devouring sword alas my Beloved we have grieved our good God by our havnous sins of all sorts and now we do justly feel the heavy effects of his displeasure we have warred against Heaven with our iniquities and now it is just with God to raise up war against us in our own Bowells It was the Motto that was wont to be written upon the Scotish coine as the embleme of their Thistle Nemo me impune Lacesset None shall scape free that provokes me Surely it is a word that well fits the Omnipotent and eternal justice and power of Heavens we have provoked that to wrath and therefore could not hope to avoid a fearfull judgment wo is me we have made our selves enemies to God by our rebellious sins therefore thus saith the Lord the Lord of Hoasts the Mighty one of Israel Ah I will ease me of my adversaries and avenge me of mine Enemies Esa 1.24 Three things there are that aggravate the deep unkindnesse that
double providence of the Almighty One that God was pleased to fetch them out of Egypt in an happy suddainnesse even when they had no leasure to make up their bach The other that he sustained them with this unleavened dough till he sent them Manna in the Wildernesse The one was the bread of the poor the other the bread of Angels As therefore he would have a pot of Manna kept in the Ark for a Monument of that miraculous food wherewith he fed them in the desert so he thought good to ordain this observation of unleavened bread for a perpetuall memoriall of their provision preceding it And this was not onely a charge but a sanction under the severe penalty whether of excommunication or death or both both for the authority of the Commander and for the weight of the institution whereby God meant both to rub up their memory of a temporall benefit past and to quicken their faith in a greater spirituall favour of their future Redemption from sin and death by the blood of that true paschall lamb which should be sacrificed for them This is the ground of this institution Now let us if you please inquire a little into the ground of this alâ—usion to the leaven the nature and signification of this implyed comparison here mentioned and we shall easily find that leaven hath first a diffusive faculty so it is taken both in the good part and the evill in good Mat. 1â— 33. so the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavned Lo these same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were more then a bushel of our measure and one morsel of leaven seasons it all In evill so here immediately before my Text in an ordinary Jewish proverb A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Secondly it hath in it self a displeasing sowerness in which regard it is an ill construction attributed both to false doctrine and to evill manners To false doctrine Mat. 16.6 Take heed saith our Saviour of the leaven of the Pharises To ill manners so in the next words ye have the leaven of malice and wickedness So then here the very inference offers us these two necessary heads of our discourse 1. That sin or the sinner for it may be taken of either or both is spirituall leaven 2. That this leaven must be purged out because Christ is our passover and sacrificed for us For the first sin hath the true qualities of leaven both in respect of the offensive sowreness and of the diffusion In the former nothing can be so distastfull unto God as sin Indeed nothing can displease but it as nothing is so sweet and pleasing to him as the obedience of his faithfull ones If any edible thing could be more offensive to the palate Sin would be likened to it As indeed it is still resembled by whatsoever may be most abhorring to all the senses To the sight so it is compared to filth Esa 4.4 Psal 14.3 to beastly excrements 2 Pet. 2.22 to spots and blemishes 2. Pet. 2.13 to menstruous and polluted blood Ezec. 16.6 To the smell so to a corrupted ointment to the stench of a dead carcass what should I instance in the rest How should it be other then highly offensive to the Majesty of God when it is professedly opposite to divine justice since all sin is the transgression of the royall law even the conscience which is Gods taster finds it abominably loathsome how much more that God who is greater then the conscience who so abhors it that as we are wont to do to the potsherd which hath held poysonous liquor he throwes away and breaks the very vessel wherein it was as he that findes an hair or a coal in the daintiest bit spits it out all Did God find sin in his Angels he tumbles them down out of Heaven Doth he find sin in our first parents he hurles them out of Paradise Yea did he find our sins laid upon the blessed Son of his love of his nature he spares him not awhit but laies load upon him till he roars out in the anguish of his Soul Lo he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisements of our peace were upon him and by his stripes we are healed Esa 53.5 And to whom should we rather conform our selves then to the most holy God what diet should we affect but his who is the rule of all perfection How then should we utterly abhorr every evill way how should we hate our sins with a perfect hatred And surely the more ill savour and loathlinesse we can find in our bosom sins the nearer we come to the purity of that holy one of Israel our blessed Redeemer whose stile it is Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness Ps 45.7 Oh then be we perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purge your hearts ye double minded What shall we say then to the disposition of those men that can find no savour in any thing but their sins No morsell goes down sweetly merrily with them but this wo is me how do they chear themselves with the hope of injoying their sinfull pleasures how do they recreate themselves with the memory of their fore-passed filthiness how do they glory in that licentious liberty which they indulge unto themselves how do they even when they are grown old and past beastly action tickle themselves with the wanton remembrances of their younger bestialities yea so hath the delight in sin most wofully besotted them that they respect not friends estate children health body soul in comparison of the bewitching contentment they find in their sins Oh poor miserable souls Oh the wretchedest of all creatures not men but beasts let me not seem either unmannerly or uncharitable to speak from the mouth of Gods Spirit you know the word Canis ad vomitum The dog to his vomit The swine to it's mire And if they will needs be dogs how can they look for any other but dogs intertainment Foris Canes without shall be dogs Revel 22.15 But for us dear Christians let me take up that obtestation of the Psalmist Oh all ye that love the Lord hate the thing which is sin Psal 97.10 let us hate even the garment spotted with the flesh yea let us hate our selves that we can hate our sins no more And if at any time through the frailty of our wretched nature and the violence of tentation we be drawn into a sinfull action yet let us take heed of being leavened with wickedness Purge out the old leaven for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us Now as sin is leaven in respect of the sowring quality of it so also in respect of the diffusive It began with one Angel and infected Legions It began with one Woman it infected all the Generation of Mankind let it take hold of one faculty it infecteth the whole
soul and body let it seize upon one person in a family it corrupts the whole house from thence it spreads over the neighbourhood and taints whole Towns Cities Regions as it is with certain contagious diseases that have not been bounded with mountaines or Seas It is very pregnant which St. Paul speaks of Hymeneus and Philetus whose word saith he will eat as doth a canker or a gangrene 2 Tim. 2.17 ye see how a gangrene even from the least toe soon strikes the heart and the canker from a scarce sensible begining consumes the gummes eats through the cheek eats down the nose and will admit of no limits but deformity and death thus it is with sin whether intellectuall or morall Arianisme began in a family spread over the World And Antinomianisme began in one Minister of this diocesse and how much it is spread I had rather lament then speak I doubt not but many of you who hear me this day have had lamentable proofs of this truth let there be but a drunkard or a swearer in a family how soon hath this scabbed sheep tainted the whole flock Grace and Godliness is not so easily propagated sin hath the advantage of the proclivity of our wicked nature It hath the wind and tyde both with it goodness hath both against it health doth not use to be taken from others but sickness doth Since your wickednesse is of so spreading a nature how carefull should we be to prevent and resist the very first beginnings of sin It is a 1000. times more easy to keep the flood-gates shut then to drain the lower grounds when they are once over-flown 2ly How shy and weary should we be of joyning societies with the infectious whether in opinion or in manners A man that is an heretick reject saith St. Paul Tit. 3.10 If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetuous or a railer or an idolater or a drunkard with such a one eat not 1 Cor. 5.11 withdraw your selves from the tents of these men c. into their secret c. 3ly How much doth it concern all publick persons whether ecclesiastical or civil to improve their authority to the utmost for the timely preventing of the spreading of vice and for the severe censure and expurgation of those whom the Psalmist as the original word signifies calls leavened persons Ps 71.4 The palpable neglect whereof hath been a shamefull eyesore to the conscientious beholders a soul blemish to the Gospel and a just scandal upon the Church And though another mans sin cannot infect me unlesse I do partake with him in it yet a true Lot will vex his righteous soul with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites and even others sins may help to draw down judgments upon the community wherein they live good reason that all care should be taken for purging out the old leaven that so the old leaven being purged out the whole lump may be holy So much of the first point that sin is leaven the second followes that this leaven must be purged out if we would have any interest in Christ our passover which is sacrificed for us The inference you see doth necessarily imply so much In vain should any Jew talk of keeping a passover to God if he would eat the Lambe with Leavened bread in vain should any Christian talk of applying Christ to his soul whiles his heart willingly retains the leaven of any known sin Certainly this is a common and a dangerous cozenage whereby millions of souls cheat themselves into hell they fondly think they may hold fair quarter with Christ and yet give secret intertainment to their sins Demas thinks he may embrace the present world and yet need not leave his hold of Christ Ananias and Sapphira will closely harbour an hypocriticall sacriledg and yet will be as good professors as the best A Simon Magus will be baptized Christian yet a sorcerer still and many a one still thinks he may drink and swear and debauch and profane Gods ordinances and rob Gods house and resist lawfull authority and lie and plunder or slander his neighbour and yet hold good termes with a forward profession Yea there are those that will be countenancing their sins with their christianity as if they were priviledged to sin because they are in Christ Then which there can not be a more injurious and blasphemous fancy Certainly their sins are so much more abominable to God and men by how much more interest they challenge in a Christian profession yea if but a bare intertainment of a known sin it is enough to bar them out from any plea in Christ Vain fools now grosly do these men delude their own souls whiles they imagine they can please God with a leavened passover this is the way to make them and their sacrifices abominable to the Almighty It is to them that God speaks as in thunder and fire What doest thou taking my covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest to be reformed and hast cast my words behinde thee Psal 50.16 17. To them it is that he speaks by his Prophet Esay 66.3 He that killeth an ox as if he slew a man he that sacrificeth a Lambe as if he cut off a dogs-neck Shortly then my brethren since we are now addressing our selves to this Evangelical passover if ever we think to partake of this Heavenly feast with true comfort to our souls Let us see that we have clearly abandoned all the sowre leaven of our sins let us come with clear and untainted souls to this blessed feast and say and do with holy David I will wash my hands in innocency O Lord and so will I go to thine altar Ps 26.6 Thus long we have necessarily dwelt upon the inference and contexture of this scripture we now come to scan this divine proposition as it stands alone in it self wherein our meditation hath four heads to passe thorough 1. That Christ is a passover 2. Our Passover 3. Our Passover sacrificed 4. sacrificed for us To begin with the first The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we find is derived not from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to suffer as some of the Latine fathers out of their ignorance of Language have conceived but from the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a transition well turned by our language into Passe-over For here was a double passover to be celebrated 1. The Angel's passing over the houses of the Israelites when he smote all the first born of Egypt and 2ly Israels passing out of Egypt The word admits of many senses sometimes it is taken for the time of this solemnity Act. 12.4 sometimes for the sacrifices offered in this solemnity Deut. 16.4 sometimes for the representation of the act of Gods transition Exod. 12.11 Sometimes for the Lamb that was then to be offered and eaten 2 Chron. 35.11 They killed the passover and the Priests sprinkled the blood from their hands Thus is it taken
necessity the doom was in paradise upon mans disobedience morte morieris thou shalt dye the death Man sinned man must die The first Adam sinned and we in him the second Adam must by death expiate the sin Had not Christ dyed mankind must had not he dyed the first death we had all dyed both the first and second without shedding of blood there is no remission Heb. 9.22 Hereby therefore are we freed from the sence of the second death and the sting of the first to the unfailing comfort of our soules hereupon it is that our Saviour is so carefull to have his death and passion so fully represented to us in both his sacraments the water is his blood in the first Sacrament the Wine is his blood in the second In this he is sensiby crucify'd before our eyes the bread that is his body broken the wine his blood poured out And if these acts and objects do not carry our hearts to a lively apprehension of Christ our true passover we shall offer to him no other then the sacrifice of fools Lo here then a soveraign antidote against the first death and a preservative against the second the Lamb slain from the beginning of the World why should we be discomforted with the expectation of that death which Christ hath suffered why should we be dismayed with the fear of that death which our all-sufficient Redeemer hath fully expiated 2ly In the first institution of this passover The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled upon the posts and lintells of the doores of every Israelite so if ever we look for any benefit from Christ our Passover there must be a particular application of his blood to the believing soul even very Papists can say that unless our merits or holy actions be dyed or tinctured in the blood of Christ they can avail us nothing but this consideration will meet with us more seasonably upon the fourth head 3ly This passover must be roasted home not stewed not parboild So did the true paschall lamb undergo the flames of his Fathers wrath for our sins here was not a scorching and blistering but a vehement and full torrefaction It was an ardent heat that could fetch drops of blood from him in the garden but it was the hottest of flames that he felt upon the cross when he cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Oh who can without horrour and amazement hear so wosull a word fall from the mouth of the Son of God Had he not said My Father this strain had sunk us into utter despair but now in this very torment is comfort He knew he could not be forsaken of him of whom he saith I and my Father are one he could not be forsaken by a sublation of union though he seemed so by a substraction of vision as Leo well the sense of comfort was clouded for a while from his humanity his deity was ever glorious his faith firme and supplyed that strong consolation which his present sense failed of and therefore you soon hear him in a full concurrence of all Heavenly and victorious powers of a confident Saviour say Father into thy hands I commend my Spirit In the mean while even in the height of this suffering there is our ease for certainly the more the Son of God indured for us the more sure we are of an happy acquittance from the Tribunall of Heaven the justice of God never punished the same sin twise over By his stripes we are healed by his payment we are discharged by his torments we are assured of peace and glory Thus much of the preparation The eating of it followes in the appendances the manner the persons The appendances It must be eaten with unleavned bread and with sour or bitter herbs Of the unleavened bread we have spoken enough before For the herbs that nothing might be wanting the same God that appointed meat appointed the sauce too and that was a sallad of not pleasing but bitter herbs herein providing not so much for the palate of the body as of the soul to teach us that we may not hope to partake of Christ without sensible disrelishes of nature without outward afflictions without a true contrition of Spirit It is the condition that our Saviour makes with us in admitting us to the profession of Christianity he shall receive an 100. fold with persecutions those to boot that for his sake and the Gospells forsake all Mark 10.30 Sit down therefore O man and count what it will cost thee to be a true Christian through many tribulations c. Neither can we receive this evangelicall passover without a true contrition of soul for our sins past think not my beloved that there is nothing but jollity to be look't for at Gods table Ye may frolick it ye that feast with the World but if ye will sit with Christ and feed on him ye must eat him with bitter herbs here must be a sound compunction of heart after a due self examination for all our sins wherewith we have offended our good God Thou wouldst be eating the paschal lamb but with sugar-sops or some pleasing sauce it may not be so here must be a bitternesse of soul or no passover It is true that there is a kind of holy mixture of affections in all our holy services a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rejoyce in him with trembling saith the Psalmist It is and should be our joy that we have this lamb of God to be ours but it is our just sorrow to finde our own wretched unworthiness of so great a mercy Godly sorrow must make way for solid joy and comfort if there be any of you therefore that harbours in your breast a secret love of and complacency in your known and resolved sins procul O procul let him keep off from this holy Table let him bewail his sinfull mis-disposition and not dare to put forth his hand to this passover till he have gathered the bitter herbs of a sorrowful remorse for his hated offences And where should he gather these but in the low grounds of the Law there they grow plenteously lay the law then home to thy soul that shall show thee thy sins and thy judgment School thee Yea dear Christians how can any of us see the body of our blessed Saviour broken and his blood poured out and withall think and know that his own sins are guilty of this tort offered to the son of God the Lord of life and not feel his heart touched with a sad and passionate apprehension of his own vilenesse and an indignation at his own wickednesse that hath deserved and done this these are the bitter herbs wherewith if we shall eat this passover we shall finde it most wholesome and nourishable unto us to eternall life The manner of the eating of it followes in three particulars 1. The whole lamb must be eaten not a part of it 2. Not a bone of it must be broken 3. In
in us Implying that so doth our mouth and stomach receive the bread and wine as that in the mean time our souls receive the flesh and the blood of Christ now the soul is not capable of receiving flesh and blood but by the power of that grace of faith which appropriates it But that we may clearly apprehend how these Sacramental acts and objects are both distinguished and united so as there may be no danger of either separation or confusion that which followeth in the consecratory prayer is most evident Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christs holy institution in remembrance of his death and passion may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his disciples saying Take eat this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me What more can be said what come we to receive outwardly The Creatures of bread and wine To what use In remembrance of Christs death and passion what do we the whiles receive inwardly we are thereby made partakers of his most blessed body and blood by what means doth this come about By virtue of our Saviours holy institution still it is bread and wine in respect of the nature and essence of it but so that in the spiritual use of it it conveyes to the faithful receiver the body and blood of Christ bread and wine is offered to my eye and hand Christ is tendred to my soul Which yet is more fully if possibly it may be expressed in the form of words prescribed in the delivery of the bread and wine to the communicant The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body soul into everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thine heart by faith with thanksgiving c. No gloss in the world can make the words more full and perspicuous So do we in remembrance of Christs death take and eat the sacramental bread with our mouths as that our hearts do feed upon the body of Christ by our faith And what is this feeding upon Christ but a comfortable application of Christ and his benefits to our souls Which is as the prayer next following expresses it Then do we feed on Christ when by the blessed merits and death of our blessed Saviour and through faith in his blood we do obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of his passion and are fulfilled with his grace and heavenly benediction Or if we desire a more ample commentary upon this sacramental repast and the nourishment thereby received the prayer ensuing offers it unto us in these words We most heartily thank thee for that thou hast vouchsafed to feed us which have duely received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards uâ— and that we be very members incorporate in thy mystical body which is the blessed company of all faithful people and be also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdome by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son This then is to feed upon Christ Lo the meat and manducation and nourishment are all spiritual whiles the elements be bodily and sensible which the allowed homilies of the Church also have laboured in most significant termes to set forth Thou must carefully search and know saith the first sermon concerning the sacrament Tome 2. what dignities are provided for thy soul whither thou art come not to feed thy senses and belly to corruption but thy inward man to immortality and life nor to consider the earthly creatures which thou seest but the heavenly graces which thy faith beholdeth For this table is not saith Chrysostome for chattering jayes but for Eagles who fly thither where the dead body lieth And afterwards to omit some other passages most pregnantly thus It is well known the meat we seek for in this supper is spiritual food the nourishment of our soul a Heavenly refection and not earthly an invisible meat and not bodily a ghostly substance and not carnal so that to think without faith we may enjoy the eating drinking thereof or that that is the fruition of it is but to dream a gross carnal feeding basely abjecting and binding our selves to the elements and creatures whereas by the advice of the council of Nice we ought to lift up our minds by faith and leaving these inferiour and earthly things there seek it where the son of righteousness ever shineth Take this lesson O thou that art desirous of this table of Emissenus a godly father That when thou goest to the reverend communion to be satisfyed with spiritual meats thou look up with faith upon the holy body and blood of thy God thou marvel with reverence thou touch it with the mind thou receive it with the hand of thy heart and thou take it fully with the inward Man Thus that homily in the voice of the Church of England Who now shall make doubt to say that in the Sacrament of the blessed Eucharist Christ is only present and received in a spiritual manner so as nothing is objected to our senses but the Elements nothing but Christ to our faith and therefore that it is requisite we should here walk with a wary and even foot as those that must tread in the midst betwixt profaneness and superstition not affixing a deity upon the Elements on the one side nor on the other sleighting them with a common regard not adoring the Creatures not basely esteeming their relation to that Son of God whom they do really exhibit to us Let us not then think it any boldness either to inquire or to determine of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and confidently to say that his body is locally in Heaven spiritually offered to and received by the faith of every worthy communicant upon Earth True it is that in our Saviours speech Joh. 6. to believe in Christ is to eat his flesh and to drink his blood even besides out of the act of this Eucharistical supper so as whosoever brings Christ home to his soul by the act of his faith makes a private meal of his Saviour but the holy Sacrament superadds a further degree of our interest in the participation of Christ for now over and above our spiritual eating of him we do here eat him Sacramentally also every simple act of our faith feeds on Christ but here by virtue of that necessary union which our Saviours institution hath made betwixt the signe and the thing signified the faithfull communicant doth partake of Christ in a
salvation and knowledg of the truth So Ambrose interprets that place of 1 Tim. 2 he would have all to be saved saith he if themselves will for he hath given his law to all excepts no man in respect of his law and will revealed from salvation The Dedarative Decree of salvation to be equally and indifferently proclaimed unto all men Act. Syno in Thes c. For the further allowing whereof the same Zanchius cites the testimonies of Luther Bucer and others Neither doth it much ablude from this that our English Divines at Dort call the Decree of God whereby he hath appointed in and by Christ to save those that repent believe and persevere Decretum annunciativum salutis omnibus ex aequo indiscriminatim promulgandum Sect. 3. Surely it is easy to observe that we are too fearful of some distinctions which carry in them a jealousy of former abuse and yet both may well be admitted in a good sence and serve for excellent purpose As that if we labour for our better understanding to explicate the one will of God by several notions of the antecedent and consequent will of God which Paulus Ferrius a reformed Schoolman approves by the suffrages of Zanchius Polanus and other Orthodox Divines to look at it a little running as that which gives no smal light to the business in hand As there is wont to be conceived a double knowledg of God the one of meer understanding whereby he forknowes al things that may be the other of vision or approbation whereby he foreknowes that which undoubtedly shall be so there is a double will to be conceived of God answerable to this double knowledg an Antecedent will which answers to the meer understanding whereby God wills every possible good without the consideration of the adjuncts appertaining to it A consequent will answering to the knowledg of approbation whereby all circumstances prepensed God doth simply will this or that particular event as simply good to be and which is there upon impossible not to be The one of these is a will of complacency the other of prosecution the one is as it were an optative will the other an absolute In the first of these God would have all to be saved because it is in a sort good in it self in that the nature of man is ordeinable to life and man hath by God common helps seriously offered for the attaining thereof neither can we think it other then pleasing to God that his creatures should both do well and fare well In the latter he willeth some of all to be saved as not finding it simply good all circumstances considered to extend this favour to all this appears in the effect for if God absolutely willed it it could not fail of being neither doth ought hinder but these two may stand well together a complacence in the blessedness of his creature and a will of his smart For both that which we will in one regard we may not will in another As we may wish a felon to live as a man to dye as a malefactor and besides the possibility of one opposite doth not hinder the Act of another as he that hath power to run perhaps doth sit or ly Learned Zanchius methinks gives at once a good satisfaction as to this doubt so to the ordinary exception whereat many have stumbled of the pretended mockage of Gods invitations De nat Dei 1.3 c. 4. where he means not as some have misconceived a serious effect In the parable of the Gospell saith he those which were first bidden to the marriage feast and came not were they therefore mocked by the King because he only signified unto them what would be acceptable unto him and what was their duty to perform and yet he did not command them to be compelled as he did the second guests to come to the wedding Surely no yet in the mean time there was not the same will of the King in the inviting of the first and of the second for in these second there was an absolute will of the King that they should without fail come and therefore he effectually caused them to come In the former he only signified and that fairly and ingenuously what would be pleasing to him Thus he The entertainment of this one distinction which hath the allowance of Orthodox and learned Authors to be free from any danger or inconvenience would mitigate this strife since it is that which the Opponents contend for which the Defendents may yield without any sensible prejudice As for the envy of that irrespective and absolute decree of reprobation wherewith the Defendents are charged it is well taken off if we distinguish as we must of a negative and positive reprobation The latter whereof which is a preordination to punishment is never without a respect and prevision of sin for although by his absolute power God might cast any Creature into everlasting torment without any just exception to be taken on our parts yet according to that sweet providence of his which disposeth all things in a fair order of proceeding he cannot be said to inflict or adjudge punishment to any soul but for sin since this is an act of vindicative justice which still supposeth an offence If this be yielded by the Defendents as it is wherein also they want not the voyces even of the Romish School what needs any further contention especially whiles the defendents plead even those that are most rigorous that upon the non-election of some damnation is not causally but only consecutively inferred Non causaliter sed consecutive Perk. de praedest Sure I am that by this which is mutually yielded on both parts all mouths are stopped from any pretence of calumniation against the justice of the Almighty and we are sufficiently convinced of the necessity of our care to avoid those sins which shall otherwise be rewarded with just damnation Let this be enough for the first Article less will serve of the rest Concerning the extent of Christs death the Belgick Opponents profess to rest willingly in those words of Musculus Omnium peccata tulit c. He hath born the sins of all Men if we consider his sacrifice according to the virtue of it in it self and think that no Man is excluded from this grace but he that refuses it So God loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life J. 3.6 But if we respect those which do so believe and are saved so he hath borne only the sins of many Thus he Neither will the Opponents yield any less What is this other then the explication of that usuall distinction which we have whether from St. Austin or his Scholar Prosper of the greatness of the Price and the propriety of the redemption That equall to all This perteining but to some That common word seems enough to the Belgick Opponents The price of Christs