the people there was none with me The Angels then knew not this not all this not all the particulars of this The mystery of Christs Incarnation for the Redemption of Man the Angels knew it in generall for it was commune quoddam principium it was the generall mark to which all their service as they were ministring spirits was directed But for particulars as amongst the Prophets some of the later understood more then the former I understand more then the ancients Psal 119.100 sayes David and the Apostles understood more then the Prophets even of those things which they had prophesied Ephes 3.6 this Mystery in other ages was not made known as it is now revealed unto the holy Apostles so the Angels are come to know some things of Christ since Christ came in another manner then before Ephes 3.10 And this may be that which S. Paul intends when he sayes that he was made a Minister of the Gospel To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdome of God And S. Peter also speaking of the administration of the Church 1 Pet. 1.12 expresses it so That the Angels desire to look into it Which is not onely that which S. Augustine sayes Aug. Innotuit a seculis per Ecclesiam Angelis That the Angels saw the mystery of the Christian Religion from before all beginnings and that by the Church Quia ipsa Ecclesia illis in Deo apparuit Because they saw in God the future Church from before all beginnings but even in the propagation and administration of the Church they see many things now which distinctly effectually experimentally as they do now they could not see before And so to this purpose Visus in nobis Christ is seen by the Angels in us and our conversation now Spectaculum sumus sayes the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.9 We are made a spectacle to men and angels The word is there Theatrum and so S. Hierom reads it Hierom. And therefore let us be careful to play those parts well which even the Angels desire to see well acted Let him that finds himself to be the honester man by thinking so think in the name of God that he hath a particular tutelar Angel that will do him no harm to think so And let him that thinks not so yet think that so far as conduces to the support of Gods children and to the joy of the Angels themselves and to the glory of God the Angels do see mens particular actions and then if thou wouldst not sollicite a womans chastity if her servant were by to testifie it nor calumniate an absent person in the Kings ear if his friends were by to testifie it if thou canst slumber in thy self that main consideration That the eye of God is always open and always upon thee yet have a little religious civility and holy respect even to those Angels that see thee That those Angels which see Christ Jesus now sate down in glory at the right hand of his Father all sweat wip'd from his Browes and all teares from his Eyes all his Stripes heal'd all his Blood stanch'd all his Wounds shut up and all his Beauty returned there when they look down hither to see the same Christ in thee may not see him scourged again wounded torn and mangled again in thy blasphemings nor crucified again in thy irreligious conversation Visus ab Angelis he was seen of the Angels in himself whilest he was here and he is seen in his Saints upon earth by Angels now and shall be so to the end of the world Which Saints he hath gathered from the Gentiles which is the next branch Praedicat Gentib Psal 85.10 Predicatus gentibus he was preached to the Gentiles Mercy and truth meet together says David every where in Gods proceedings they meet together but no where closer then in calling the Gentiles Jesus Christ was made a Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God Rom. 15.8 wherein consisted that truth to confirm the promises made unto the fathers says the Apostle there and that 's to the Jews but was Christ a Minister of the Circumcision onely for that onely for the truth No Truth and Mercy meet together as it followes there and that the Gentiles might glorifie God for his mercy The Jewes were a holy Nation Gal. 2.15 that was their addition Gens Sancta but the addition of the Gentiles was peccatores sinners we are Jewes by nature and not of the Gentiles sinners sayes S. Paul He that touch'd the Jewes touch'd the apple of Gods eye And for their sakes God rebuk'd Kings and said Touch not mine Anoynted but upon the Gentiles not onely dereliction but indignation and consternation and devastation and extermination every where interminated inflicted every where and every where multiplied The Jewes had all kinde of assurance and ties upon God both Law and Custome they both prescribed in God and God had bound himself to them by particular conveyance by a conveyance written in their flesh Isa 49. in Circumcision and the counterpane written in his flesh I have graven thy name in the palmes of my hands Eph. 2.12 But for the Gentiles they had none of this assurance When they were without Christ sayes the Apostle having no hope that is no covenant to ground a hope upon ye were without God in this world To contemplate God himself and not in Christ is to be without God And then for Christ to be preached to such as these to make this Sun to set at noon to the Jewes rise at midnight to the Antipodes to the Gentiles this was such an abundant such a superabundant mercy as might seem almost to be above the bargain above the contract between Christ and his Father more then was conditioned and decreed for the price of his Blood and the reward of his Death for when God said I will declare my decree That is what I intended to give him which is expressed thus Psal 2. I will set him my King upon my holy hill of Sion which seemes to concern the Jewes onely God addes then Postula a me petition to me make a new suit to me dabo tibi gentes I will give thee not onely the Jewes but the Gentiles for thine inheritatnce And therefore laetentur gentes Psal 97.1 sayes David Let the Gentiles rejoyce and we in them that Christ hath asked us at his Fathers hand and received us And Laetentur insulae sayes that Prophet too Let the Islands rejoyce and we in them that he hath raised us out of the Sea out of the ocean sea that over-flowed all the world with ignorance and out of the Mediterranean Sea that hath flowed into so many other lands the sea of Rome the sea of Superstition There was then a great mercy in that Predicatus gentibus Creditus Mundo that he was preached to the Gentiles
Death of his Bitter Passion of the Ransome of his Blood of the Sanctuary of his Wounds and yet his Life and Death and Passion and Blood and Wounds is oftner in their mouthes in execrations then in the mouth of the most religious man in his prayers They revile Christ Praetereuntes Origen as they pass along not onely as Origen sayes here Non incedentes recte blasphemant they did not go perversly crookedly Hierom. wilfully and so blaspheme nor as Hierome Non ambulantes in vero itinere Scripturarum blasphemant they did not misinterpret places of Scripture to maintaine their errours and so blaspheme but they blasphemed Praetereuntes out of negligent custome and habit they blaspheme Christ and never think of it that they may be damned obiter by the way collaterally occasionately damned Luke 23.24 But it was not onely they Praetereuntes but the people that stood and beheld reviled Christ too men that doe understand Christ even then when they dishonour him doe dishonour him to accompany some greater persons upon whom they depend in their errours The Priests who should have called the Passengers Thr. 1.12 with that Have ye no regard all ye that passe by the way the Scribes who should have applyed the ancient Prophesies to the present accomplishment of them in the death of Christ the Pharisees who should have supplied their imperfect fulfilling of the Law in that full satisfaction the death of Christ the Elders the Rulers the Souldiers are all noted to have reviled Christ they all concurre to the performance of that Prophesie in the person of Christ and yet they will not see that the Prophesie is performed in him Psal 22.7 Psal 69.26 All they that see me have me in derision they persecute him whom thou hast smitten and they adde unto the sorrowes of him whom thou hast wounded Our Fathers trusted in thee they trusted in thee Psal 22.4 and were delivered but I am a worm and no man a shame to men and the contempt of the people Pilate had lost his plot upon the people to mollifie them towards Christ he brought him out to them Flagellatum illusum scourged and scorned John 19.1 thinking that that would have reduced them But this Preacher leaves all the rest either to their farther obduration or their fitter time of repentance if God had ordained any such time for them he turns to this one whose disposition he knew to have been like his own and therefore hoped his conversion would be so too for nothing gives the faithfull servants of God a greater encouragement that their labors shall prosper upon others then a consideration of their own case an acknowledgement what God hath done for their souls When the fear of God had wrought upon himself then he comes to his fellow Nonne tu times fearest not thou First Times Nonne tu We have not that advantage over our auditory which he had over his to know that in every particular man there is some reason why he should be more afraid of Gods judgements then another man But every particular man who is acquainted with his own history may be such a Preacher to himself and ask himself Nonne tu hast not thou more reason to stand in fear of God then any other man for any thing that thou knowest Knowest thou any man so deeply indebted to God so far behind-hand with God so much in danger of his executions as thou art Thou knowest not his colluctations before he fell nor his Repentances since when thou hearest S. Paul say Quorum maximus hadst not thou need say Nonne tu Dost not thou fear who knowest more by thy self then S. Pauls History hath told thee of S. Paul for in all his History thou never seest any thing done by him against his conscience and is thy case as good as that But to this thief this thief presses this no farther but this what hope soever of future happiness in this life by the coming of a Messias those that stay in the world can expect what 's all that to thee who art going out of the world Quid mihi sayes that man who looked upon the Rainbow when he was ready to drown though God have promised not to drown the world what 's that to me if I must drown I must be bold to say to thee Quid tibi if God by his omnipotent power will uphold his Gospel in the world he owes thee no thanks if thou do nothing in thy calling towards the upholding of it Nonne tu Dost not thou feare that though that stand Gods judgement will fall upon thee for having put no hand to the staying of it Nonne tu times It had been unreasonable to have spoken to him of the love of God first now when those heavy judgements were upon him The Fear of God is alwayes the beginning of Wisdome most of all in calamity which is properly Vehiculum timoris the Chariot to convey and the Seal to imprint this feare in us Because I thought surely the feare of God is not in this place Gen. 20.9 therefore I said Sarah was my sister Where there is not the fear of God in great persons other men dare not proceed clearly with them but with disguises and Modifications they dare not attribute their prosperity and good success to the goodness of God but must attribute it to their wisdome they dare not attribute their crosses and ill successe to the justice of God but must attribute it to the weakness or falshood of servants and ministers where there is not this fear of God there is no directness Beloved there is love enough at all hands it is a loving age every where love enough in every corner such as it is but scarce any feare amongst us Great men are above fear no envy can reach them Miserable men are below fear no change can make them worse and for persons of middle rank and more publick feares of plagues of famines or such the abundant and over-flowing goodness of God hath so long accustomed us to miraculous deliverances that we feare nothing but thinke to have miracles in ordinary and neglect ordinary remedies Deum But what should this man fear now his Glass was run out his Bell was rung out he was a dead man condemned and judged and executed what should he fear In Rome as the Vestal Virgins which dyed were buried within the city because they dyed innocent so persons which were executed by Justice were buryed there too because they had satisfied the Law and thereby seemed to be restored to their innocence So that condemned persons might seem least of all to feare But yet Nonne times Deum fearest not thou God for all that Have not the laws of Men Witnesses Judges and Executioners all men brought fearfull things upon thee already and is it not a fearfull thing if all those real torments be but Types and Figures of those greater which God
upon me and there is a law of sin and a law in my flesh which after the water of Baptism taken and the water of penitent teares given after the blood of Jesus Christ taken and mine own blood given that is a holy readiness at that time when I am made partaker of Christs death to die for Christ throwes me back by relapses into those repented sins This put the Apostle to that passionate exclamation O wretched man that I am And yet he found a deliverance even from the body of this death through Jesus Christ his Lord that is a free an open recourse and access to him in all oppressions of heart in all dejections of spirit Now when this Chyrographum this bond of Adams hand Original sin is cancell'd upon the Cross of Christ And this Pactum this band of mine hand actual sins washed away in the blood of Christ and this Lex in membris this disposition to relapse into repented sins which as a tide that does certainly come every day does come every day in one form or other is beaten back as a tide by a bank by a continual opposing the merits and the example of Christ Jesus and the practise of his fasting and such other medicinall disciplines as I find to prevaile against such relapses when by this blessed means the whole Law against which I am a trespasser is evacuated will God condemn me for all this and not by a Law When I have pleaded Christ and Christ and Christ Baptism and Blood and Teares will God condemn me an oblique way when he cannot by a direct way by a secret purpose when he hath no law to condemn me by Sad and disconsolate distorted and distracted soul if it be well said in the School Absurdum est disputare ex manuscriptis it is an unjust thing in Controversies and Disputations to press arguments out of Manuscripts that cannot be seen by every man it were ill said in thy conscience that God will proceed against thee ex manuscripto or condemn thee upon any thing which thou never saw'st any unrevealed purpose of his Suspicious soul ill-presaging soul Is there something else besides the day of Judgement that the Son of Man does not know Disquiet soul Does he not know the proceeding of that Judgement wherein himself is to be the Judge But that when he hath died for thy sins and so fulfilled the Law in thy behalfe thou maist be condemned without respect of that Law and upon something that shall have had no consideration no relation to any such breach of any such Law in thee Intricated intangled conscience Christ tells thee of a Judgement because thou didst not do the works of Mercy not feed not cloath the poor for those were enjoyned thee by a Law But he never tells thee of any Judgement therefore because thy name was written in a dark book of Death never unclasped never opened unto thee in thy life He sayes unto thee lovingly and indulgently Fear not for it is Gods good pleasure to give you the Kingdome But he never sayes to the wickedest in the world Live in fear dye in anxiety in suspition and suspension for his displeasure a displeasure conceived against you before you were sinners before you were men hath thrown you out of that Kingdome into utter darkness There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus the reason is added because the Law of the Spirit of Life hath made them free from the Law of Sin and of Death All upon all sides is still referred to Law And where there is no law against thee as there is not to him that is in Christ and he is in Christ who hath endeavoured the keeping or repented the breaking of the Law God will never proceed to execution by any secret purpose never notified never manifested Suspicious jealous scattered soule recollect thy self and give thy self that redintegration that acquiescence which the Spirit of God in the means of the Church offers thee study the Mystery of godlinesse which is without all controversie that is endeavour to keep repent the not keeping of the Law and thou art safe for that that you shall be judged by is a Law But then this Law is called here a Law of Liberty and whether that denotation that it is called a Law of Liberty import an ease to us or a heavier weight upon us is our last disquisition and conclusion of all So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the Law of Liberty Lex libertatis That the Apostle here by the Law of Liberty meanes the Gospel 1.25 was never doubted He had called the Gospel so before this place Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein shall be blessed in his deed that is blessed in doing so blessed in conforming himself to the Gospel But why does he call it so a Law of Liberty Not because men naturally affecting liberty might be drawn to an affection of the Gospel by proposing it in that specious name of Liberty though it were not so The Holy Ghost calls the Gospel a Pearle and a Treasure and a Kingdom and Joy and Glory not to allure men with false names but because men love these and the Gospel is truly all these a Pearle and a Treasure and a Kingdome and Joy and Glory And it is truly a Law of Liberty But of what kind and in what respect Not such a Liberty as they have established in the Roman Church where Ecclesiastical Liberty must exempt Ecclesiastical persons from participating all burdens of the State and from being Traitors though they commit treason because they are Subjects to no secular Prince nor the liberty of the Anabaptists that overthrowes Magistracy and consequently all subjection both Ecclesiastical and Laick for when upon those words Be ye not servants of men 1 Cor. 7.23 S. Chrysostome sayes this is Christian liberty Nec aliis nec sibi servire neither to be subjects to others nor to our selves that 's spoken with modification with relation to our first Allegeance our Allegeance to God not to be so subject to others or to our selves as that either for their sakes or our owne we depart from any necessary declaration of our service to God Deo First then the Gospel is a Law of Liberty in respect of the Author of the Gospel of God himself because it leaves God at his liberty Not at liberty to judge against his Gospel where he hath manifested it for a Law for he hath laid a holy necessity upon himself to judge according to that Law where he hath published that law But at liberty so as that it consists onely in his good pleasure to what Nation he will publish the Gospel or in what Nation he will continue the Gospel or upon what persons he will make this Gospel effectuall So Oecumenius who is no single witness nor speaks not alone but compiles the former Fathers places this
he hath reserved by his parsimony and frugallity There is somtimes a greater reverence in us towards our ancient inheritance towards those goods which are devolved upon us by succession There is another affection expressed towards those things which dying friends have left us for they preserve their memories another towards Jewells or other Testimonies of an acceptation of our services from the Prince but still we love those things most which we have got with our own labour and industrey When a man comes to say with Jacob Gen. 32.10 with my staffe came I over Iordan now have I gotten two bands with this staffe came I to London with this staffe came I to Court and now am thus and thus increased a man loves those addisions which his owne Industry hath made to his fortune There are some ungratefull Natures that love other men the worse for having bound them by benefits and good turns to them but that were a new ingratitude not to be thankful to our selves not to love those things which we our selves have compassed We have our reason to do so in our great example Christ Jesus who loves us most as we are his purchase as he hath bought us with his bloud And therefore though he hath expressed a love too to the Angels in their confirmation yet he cannot be said to love the Angels as he doth us because his death hath wrought nothing upon them which were fallen before and for us so he came principally to save sinners the whole body and band of Angels are not his purchase as all mankind is This affection is in worldly men too they love their own gettings and those shall perish They have given their pleasant things for meat Chron. 1.11 to refresh their souls whatsoever they placed their heart upon whatsoever they delighted in most whatsoever they were loath to part withal it shall perish and the measure of their love to it and the desire of it shall be the measure of Gods judgement upon it that which they love most shall perish first In occupatione Those riches then those best beloved riches shall perish and that saith the text by evil travail which is a word that in the original signifies both Occupationem Negotiationem labour and Travail and afflictionem vexationem affliction and vexation They shall perish in occupatione then when thou art labouring and travailing in thy calling then when thou art harkening after a purchase and a bargain then when thy neighbors can impute no negligence thou wast not negligent in gathering nay no vice to thee thou wast not dissolute in scattering then when thou risest early lyest down late and eatest the bread of sorrow then shalt thou find not onely that that prospers not which thou goest about and pretendest to but that that which thou haddest before decaies and molders away If we consider well in what abundance God satisfied the children of Israel with Quails and how that ended we shall see example enough of this You shall eat saith God Num. 11.19 not one nor two daies nor five nor ten nor twenty but a whole moneth until it come out at your nostrils and be loathsome unto you here was the promise and it was performed for the plenty ver 31. that quailes fell a daies journey round about the Camp and they were two cubits thick upon the earth The people fell to their labour and they arose and gathered all that day and all that night and all the next day saith the Text 32. and he that gathered least gathered ten Gomers full But as the promise was performed in the plenty so it was in the course too whilest the flesh was yet between theïr teeth before it was chewed even the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people and he smote them with an exceeding great plague ver 33. Even whilest your money is under your fingers whilest it is in your purposes determined and digested for such and such a purpose whilest you have put it in a ship in Merchandice to win more to it whilest you have sow'd it in the land of borrowers to multiply and grow upon Mortgages and usury even when you are in the mid'st of your travail stormes at Sea theeves at land enviers at court informations at Westminster whilest the meat is in your mouthes shall cast the wrath of God upon your riches and they shall perish In occupatione then when you travail to increase them The Children of Israel are said in that place onely to have wept to Moses out of a lust and a grief for want of flesh God punished not that weeping it is a tenderness a disposition that God loves but a weeping for worldly things and things not necessary to them for Manna might have served them a weeping for not having or for loosing such things of this world is alwaies accompanied with a murmuring God shall cause thy riches to perish in thy travail not because he denies thee riches nor because he would not have thee travail but because an inordinate love an overstudious and an intemperate and overlaborious pursuite of riches is alwaies accompanied with a diffidence in Gods providence and a confidence in our own riches To give the wicked a better sense of this God proceeds often the same way with the righteous too but with the wicked because they do with the righteous least they should trust in their own riches We see in Iobs case It was not onely his Sons and daughters who were banquetting nor onely his asses and sheep and camels that were feeding that were destroyed but upon his Oxen that were ploughing upon his servants which were doing rheir particular duties the Sabaeans came and destruction in their sword His Oxen and his servants perished in occupatione in their labour in their travail when they were doing that which they should do And if God do thus to his children to humble them before-hand that they do not sacrifice to their own nets not trust in their own industry nor in their own riches how much more vehemently shall his judgments burn upon them whose purpose in gathering Riches was pricipally that they might stand of themselves and not need God There are beasts that labour not but yet furnish us with their wool alive and with their flesh when they are dead as sheep there are men that desire riches and though they do no other good they are content to keep good houses and that their Heire should do so when they are dead There are beasts that labour and are meat at their death but yield no other help in their life and these are Oxen there are men that labour to be rich and do no good with it till their death There are beasts that onely labour and yield nothing else in life nor death as horses and there are some that do neither but onely prey upon others as Lyons and others such we need not apply particularly there are all bestial
as they grant us and not to interpret this place of a temporal deliverance from Babylon but of the deliverance by the Messias And for the second which is the deliverance of the christians from the persecutions in the primitive times though the Christians did then with a holy cheerfulness suffer those persecutions when they could not avoid them without prevaricating and betraying the hour of Christ Jesus yet they did not wilfully thrust themselves into those dangers they did not provoke the Magistrate And the word which is here translated ye sold your selves vendictistis vos implies actionem spontaneam a free and voluntary action done by themselves and therefore cannot well be understood of the persecutions in the Primitive Church The third therefore as yet is the most usefull and most received so it is the most proper acceptation of the word that it is a deliverance from the bondage of sin to be wrought by Christ for as Saint Hierome says this Prophet Esay is rather an Evangelist than a Prophet because almost all that Christ did and said and suffered is foretold and prophetically antidated in his prophecy and almost all his prophecy hath some relation at least in a secondary sense of accommodation where it is not so primarily and literally to the words and actions and passions of Christ Following then this interpretation in general of the word that it is a deliverance from the wages of sin Death by Christ we may take in passing a short view of the miserable condition of man wherin he enwraped himself of the aboundant mercy of Christ Jesus in withdrawing him from that universal calamity by considering onely the sense and largeness and extention of those words in which the holy Ghost hath been pleased to express both these in this Text. For first the word in which our action is expressed which is Machar verdidistis ye have sold signifies in many places of Scripture dare proreatia a permutation an exchange of one thing for another and in other places it signifies Dedére upon any little attempt to forsake and abandon our defences and to suffer the enemy easily to prevail upon us so also it signifies Tradere not onely to forsake our selves but to concur actually to the delivering up of our selves and lastly it signifies Repellere to joyn with our enemies in beating back any that should come to our relief and rescue And then as we have so sold our selves for the substance of the Act as is expressed in that word Machar we have exchanged our selves at an undervalue and worse than that we have yeelded up our selves upon easie tentations and worse than that we have offered our selves exposed our selves invited the devil and tempted temptations and worse than that we have Rejected the succours and the supplies which have been offered us in the means and conduits and seals of his Graces As it stands thus with us for the matter so for the manner how we have done this that is expressed in that other word kinnan which signifies fecit as it is here Gratis for nought And in another place Frustra to no purpose for it is a void bargain because we had no title no interest in our selves when we sold our selves and it signifies temere rashly without consideration of our own value upon whom God had stamped his Image And then again it signifies Immerito undeservedly before God in whose jurisdiction we were by many titles had forsaken us or done any thing to make us forsake him So that our action in selling our selves for nothing hath this latitude That man whom God hath dignified so much as that in the Creation he imprinted his Image in him and in the Redemption he assumed not the Image but the very nature of man That man whom God still preserved as the Aple of his Eye and as he expresses himself often in the Prophets is content to reason and to dispute with man and to submit himself to any tryal whither he have not been a gracious God unto him That this man should thus abandon this God and exchange his soul for any thing in this world when as it can profit nothing to gain the whole world and loose our own soul and not exchange it but give it away thrust it off and be a devil to the devil to tempt the tempter himself to take it But then as the word aggravates our condemnation so it implies a consolation too for it is fructra That is unprovidently unthriftily inconsideratly vainly and that multiplies our fault but then it is invalidly and uneffectually too that is it is a void bargain and when our powerful Redeemer is pleased to come and claim his right and set on foot his title all this improvident bargain of ours is voided and reversed and not though but because we have sold our selves for nought we shall be redeemed without money For the other word in which the action of our Redeemer is expressed though it have somewhat different uses in the Scriptures yet it is evermore spoken of him Qui habet jus re dimendi no man by the Law could redeem a thing but he who had a title to that thing So the word is used where there are given Cities of refuge from the avengeâ— .. There the word is a redemptor from him that hath right to redeem his kinsmans blood to bring an Appeal and to prosecute for the death of his kinsman who was slaine So is the word used also where that Law is given c. If thy brother be impoverished he sell his possession then his redeemer c. That is he that is next to that land And so also when a man dyed without issue he who had the right and the obligation to raise seed to the dead man he was the redeemer I am thy kinsman saith Booz to Ruth but saith he Alius Redemptor magis propinquus Thou hast another Redeemer nearer in blood then I am How ill a bargain soever we made for our selves Christ Jesus hath not lost his right in us but is our Redeemer in all these acceptations of the world He is our sanctuary and refuge when we have commited spiritual murder upon our own Souls he preserves us and delivers us to the redemption ordained for us when we have sold our possessions our natural faculties He supplies us with grace and feeds us with his Word and cloaths us with his Sacraments and warms us with his Absolutions against all diffidence which had formerly frozen us up and in our barrenness he raises up seed unto our dead souls thoughts and works worthy of repentance All this thy Redeemer hath right to do when it pleases him to do it he does it sine argento without money when the now Casâ—ph signifies not onely money but Omne appeâ—ibile any thing that we can place our desires or cast our thougths upon This Redemption of ours is wrought by such means as the desire of man could never have fortuned upon
thou pass away uncharitably towards him thou raisest an everlasting Trophee for thine enemy and prepar'st him a greater triumph then he proposed to himself he meant to triumph over thy body and thy fortune and thou hast provided him a triumph over thy Soul too by thy uncharitableness and he may survive to repent and to be pardoned at Gods hands and thou who art departed in uncharitableness canst not he shall be saved that ruind thee unjustly and thou who wast unjustly ruind by him shalt perish irrecoverably And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part Sis aliquid profess something Hoc age do seriously the duties of that profession and then Sis aliquis propose some good man in that profession for thine immitation as we have proposed Stephen for general duties falling upon all professions And we shall pass now to our other part which we must all play and play in earnest that conclusion in which we shall but begin our everlasting state our death When he had said this he fell asleep Second part Mors impti Here I shall only present to you two Pictures two pictures in little two pictures of dying men and every man is like one of these and may know himself by it he that dies in the Bath of a peaceable he that dies upon the wrack of a distracted conscience When the devil imprints in a man a mortuum me esse non curo I care not though I were dead it were but a candle blown out and there were an end of all where the Devil imprints that imagination God will imprint an Emori nolo a loathness to die and fearful apprehension at his transmigration As God expresses the bitterness of death in an ingemination morte morietur in a conduplication of deaths he shall die and die die twice over So aegrotando aegrotabit in sicknesse he shall be sick twice sick body-sick and soul-sick too sense-sick and conscience-sick together when as the sinnes of his body have cast sicknesses and death upon his Soule so the inordinate sadnesse of his Soule shall aggravate and actuate the sicknesse of his body His Physitian ministers and wonders it works not He imputes that to flegme and ministers against that and wonders again that it works not He goes over all the humors and all his Medicines and nothing works for there lies at his Patients heart a dampe that hinders the concurrence of all his faculties to the intention of the Physitian or the virtue of the Physick Loose not O blessed Apostle thy question upon this Man 1 Cor. 15.55 O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory for the sting of Death is in every limb of his body and his very body is a victorious grave upon his Soule And as his Carcas and his Coffin shall lie equally insensible in his grave so his Soule which is but a Carcas and his body which is but a Coffin of that Carcas shall be equally miserable upon his Death-bed And Satan's Commissions upon him shall not be signed by Succession as upon Job first against his goods and then his Servants and then his children and then himselfe but not at all upon his life but he shall apprehend all at once Ruine upon himselfe and all his ruine upon himselfe and all him even upon his life both his lives the life of this and the life of the next world too Yet a drop would redeeme a shoure and a Sigh now a Storme then Yet a teare from the eye would save the bleeding of the heart and a word from the mouth now a roaring or which may be worse a silence of consternation of stupefaction of obduration at that last houre Truly if the death of the wicked ended in Death yet to scape that manner of death were worthy a Religious life To see the house fall and yet be afraid to goe out of it To leave an injur'd world and meet an incensed God To see oppression and wrong in all thy professions and to foresee ruine and wastefulnesse in all thy Posterity and Lands gotten by one sin in the Father molder away by another in the Sonne To see true figures of horror and ly and fancy worse To begin to see thy sins but then and finde every sin at first sight in the proportion of a Gyant able to crush thee into despair To see the Blood of Christ imputed not to thee but to thy Sinnes To see Christ crucified and not crucifyed for thee but crucified by thee To heare this blood speake not better things then the blood of Abel but lowder for vengeance then the blood of Abel did This is his picture that hath been Nothing that hath done nothing that hath proposed no Stephen No Law to regulate No example to certifie his Conscience But to him that hath done this Death is but a Sleepe Many have wondred at that note of Saint Chrysostom's Mors Piorum That till Christ's time death was called death plainly literally death but after Christ death was called but sleepe for indeede in the old-Testament before Christ I thinke there is no one metaphor so often used as Sleepe for Death and that the Dead are said to Sleepe Therefore wee wonder sometimes that Saint Chrysostome should say so But this may be that which that holy Father intended in that Note that they in the old-Testament who are said to have slept in Death are such as then by Faith did apprehend and were fixed upon Christ such as were all the good men of the old-Testament and so there will not bee many instances against Saint Chrysostome's note That to those that die in Christ Death is but a Sleepe to all others Death is Death literally Death Now of this dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the Death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe must wee give you a Picture too These is not a minute left to do it not a minutes sand Is there a minutes patience Bee pleased to remember that those Pictures which are deliver'd in a minute from a print upon a paper had many dayes weeks Moneths time for the graving of those Pictures in the Copper So this Picture of that dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe was graving all his life All his publique actions were the lights and all his private the shadowes of this Picture And when this Picture comes to the Presse this Man to the streights and agonies of Death thus he lies thus he looks this he is His understanding and his will is all one faculty He understands Gods purpose upon him and he would not have God's purpose turned any other way hee sees God will dissolve him and he would faine be dissolved to be with Christ His understanding and his will is all one faculty His memory and his fore-sight ate fixt and concentred upon one object upon goodnesse Hee remembers that
then this pactum this contract of mine own hand actual and habitual sin for of these one is wash'd out in water and the other in blood Ro. 7.20 in the two Sacraments But then there is Lex in membris saith the Apostle I find a law that when I would do good evil is present with me Sin assisted by me is now become a Tyrant over me and hath establish'd a government upon me and therefore is a law of sin and a law in my flesh which after the water of baptism taken and the water of penitent tears given after the blood of Christ Jesus taken and mine one blood given that is a holy readiness at that time when I am made partaker of Christs death to die for Christ throws me back by relapses into those repented sins This put the Apostle to that passionate exclamation O wretched man that I am and yet he found a deliverance even from the body of his death through Jesus Christ his Lord that is a free and open recourse and access to him in all oppressions of heart in all dejections of spirit Now when this Chirographum this band of Adams hand Original sin is cancell'd upon the Cross of Christ and this pactum this band of mine own hand actual sins wash'd away in the blood of Christ and this Lex in membris this disposition to relapse into repented sins which as a tide that does certainly come every day does come every day in one form or other is beaten back as a tide by a bank by a continual opposing the merits and the example of Christ Jesus and the practice of his fasting such other medicinal disciplines as I find to prevail against such relapses when by this blessed means the whole law against which I am a trespasser is evacuated will God condemn me for all this and not by a law when I have pleaded Christ Christ and Christ baptism and blood and tears will God condemn mean oblique way when he cannot by a direct way by a secret purpose when he hath no law to condemn me by Sad and discomposed distorted and distracted soul if it be well said in the School absurdum est disputare ex manuscriptis it is an unjust thing in controversies and disputations to press arguments out of manuscripts that cannot be seen by every man it were ill said in thy conscience that God will proceed against thee ex manuscriptis or condemn thee upon any thing which thou never sawst any unreveal'd purpose of his Suspicious soul ill-presaging soul is there something else besides the day of Judgment that the Son of man does not know disquiet soul does he not know the proceeding of that Judgment wherin himself is to be Judg but that when he hath died for thy sins and so fulfill'd the law in thy behalf thou maist be condemn'd without respect of that law and upon something that shall have had no consideration no relation to any such breach of any such law in thee Intricated entangled conscience Christ tels thee of a Judgment because thou didst not do the works of mercy not feed not cloth the poor for these were enjoyn'd thee by a law but he never tels thee of any Judgment therefore because thy name was written in a dark book of death never unclaps'd never opened unto thee in thy life He saies to the lovingly indulgently fear not for it is Gods good pleasure to give you the Kingdom but he never saies to the wickedest in the world live in fear dy in anxiety in suspition and suspension for his displeasure a displeasure conceiv'd against you before you were sinners before you were men hath thrown you out of that kingdom into utter darkness There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus The reason is added because the law of the Spirit of life hath made them free from the law of sin and of death All upon all sides is still refer'd to a law And where there is no law against thee as there is not to him that is in Christ and he is in Christ who hath endeavoured the keeping or repented the breaking of the law God wil never proceed to execution by any secret purpose ever notified never manifested Suspicious jealous scattered soul recollect thy self and give thy self that redintegration that acquiescence which the spirit of God in the means of the Church offers thee study the mysterie of godliness which is without all controversie that is endeavour to keep repent the not keeping of the law and thou art safe for that you shall be judged by is a law But then this law is called here a law of liberty and whether that denotation that it is called a law of liberty import an ease to us or heavier weight upon us is our last disquisition and conclusion of all So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty Lex libertatis That the Apostle here by the law of liberty means the Gospel was never doubted he had call'd the Gospel so before this place whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty 1.25 and continueth therein shal be blessed in his deed that is blessed in doing so blessed in conforming himself to the Gospel but why does he call it so A law of liberty not because men naturally affecting liberty might be drawn to an affection of the Gospel by proposing it in that specious name of liberty though it were not so The holy Ghost calls the Gospel a pearl and a treasure and a kingdome and joy and glory Not to allure men with false names but because men love these and the Gospel is truly all these a pearl and a treasure and a kingdome and joy and glory And it is truly a law of liberty but of what kind and in what respect not such a liberty as they have established in the Roman Church where Ecclesiastical liberty must exempt Ecclesiastical persons from participating all burdens of the State and from being traitors though they commit treason because they are Subjects to no secular Prince nor the liberty of the Anabaptist that overthrows Magistracy and consequently all subjection both Ecclesiastical Laick for when upon those words 1 Cor. 7.23 Be ye not servants of men St. Chrysostome sayes This is Christian liberty Nec aliis nec sibi servire neither to be subjects to others nor to our selves that 's spoken with modification an allegiance with relation to our first allegiance to God not to be so subject to others or to our selves as that either for their sakes or our own we depart from any necessary declaration of our service to God Deo First then the Gospel is a Law of Liberty in respect of the author of the Gospel of God himself because it leaves God at his liberty Not at liberty to judg against his Gospel where he hath manifested it for a law for he hath laid a holy necessity upon himself
add as many as heavy degrees to his Judgements First God turns their Rivers into blood Pharaoh sits that proces and more many more and then in this bloody massacre of all their first-born God brings blood out of the channels of their Rivers into their chambers into all their Chambers not only to cut off their children from without Jer. 9.21 and the young men from the streets as the Prophet speaks but as he says also there Death came in at their windows and entred into their Palaces Matt. 26.13 As Christ says of Mary Magdalens devotion That wheresoever his Gospel should be preached in the world there should also this which this woman had done be told for a memorial of her So we may say of mans obduration Wheresoever the Book of God shall be read Pharaoh shall be an example that God will have his ends let man be possest with the spirit of contradiction as furiously with the spirit of rebellion as ragefully as he will Fremuerunt Gentes says David in the beginning of the second Psalm The Heathen rage and they break their sleep to contrive mischief And within three verses more we finde The Lord sits still in heaven and laughs and hath them in derision The building of the Tower of Babel did not put God to build another Tower to confront it God did nothing and brought all their labours and their councels to nothing Dan. 2.34 God took no hammer in hand to demolish and cast down Nebuchadnezzars Image but a stone that was cut out without hands smote the image and broke it in pieces Si inceperit if God once set his work on foot 1 Sam. 3.12 If I begin I will also make an end says God to Samuel if he have not begun si juraverit if the Lord have sworn it it shall be those whom the Lord swore should not enter into his Rest never entred into his Rest If he have not sworn si locutus fuerit that 's security enough the security that the Prophet Esay gives through all his Prophecy os Domini thus and thus it must be for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it if he have not gone so far si cogitaverit if he have purposed it Isai 19.12 2 Chro. 25.16 Lam. 2.17 as that word is used in Esay if he have determined it as the word is used in the Chronicles if he have devised such a course as the word is in Jeremy God will accomplish his work if he have begun it his oath and word if he have said or sworn it his purpose and determination if he have intended it nothing shall frustrate or evacuate his purpose he will atchieve his ends though there be never a soul that doth not sigh never a heart that doth not ake never a vein that doth not bleed never a house in which there is not one dead In the building of the material Temple there was no hammer nor tool of noise used In the fitting and laying of us the living stones of the mystical Temple God would use no hammer no iron no occasion of noise or lamentation but there are dispositions which will not be rectified without the hammer and are not malleable neither not fit to be rectified by the hammer till a hot fire of vehement affliction have mollified them Thespesius they say was a man desperately vicious irrecoverably wicked his friends asked the Oracle whether ever he would mend The Oracle answered he would when he was dead he died of a sodain fall at least to the eyes and in the understanding of the world he died but he recovered and came to life again and then reported such fearful visions which he had seen in the other world upon the souls of some of his companions and of his own father as that out of the apprehension of those terrors in his extasie in his second life he justified the Oracle and after he had been dead lived well Many such stories are in the Legends but I take this at the fountain where they take most of theirs that is out of Plutarch for Plutarch and Virgil are two principal Evangelists of the Legendaries The Moral of them all is That God will imprint a knowledge of his Majesty and a terror of his Judgements though the heart be Iron Exod. 12. Vers 33. He would bring the Egyptians to say with trembling We are dead men though they would not be brought to say it till there was not a house in which there was not one dead But as in a River that is swelled though the water do bring down sand and stones and logs yet the water is there still and the purpose of Nature is to vent that water not to pour down that sand or those stones so though God be put to mingle his Judgements with his mercies yet his mercy is there still and his purpose is ever in those judgments to manifest his mercy Where the Channel is stopped by those Sands and Stones and Logs the Water will finde another Channel where the heart is hardned by Gods corrections and thereby made incapable of his mercy as in some dispositions even Gods corrections do work such obstructions and obdurations as in Pharaohs case it was yet the water will find a Channel the mercy of God will flow out and shew it self to others though not to him his mercy will take effect somewhere as in Pharaohs case it did upon the Children of Israel And yet God would not shew mercy to them but so as that at the same time they also might see his judgments and thereby be brought to say God hath a Treasury of both Mercy and Justice and God might have changed the persons and made the Egyptians the objects of his Mercies and us of his Justice The first act of Gods mercy towards me when I see him execute a judgment upon another is to confess that that judgment belonged to me and thereby to come to a holy fear being under the same condemnation as the one Thief said to the other upon their several crosses Fearest not thou being under the same condemnation At this time God delivered his Children out of Egypt then was fulness of mercy but God let them see his power and his powerful indignation upon others for their instruction God brought them out there was fulness of mercy towards them but he brought them out in the night God would mingle some shadow some signification of his judgments in his mercies of adversity in prosperity of night in day of death in life The persecuting Angel entred into none of their houses God let them live but God though he let them live would not let them be ignorant that he could have thrown death in at their windows too For they came not into a house where there was not one dead We stay no longer upon this first survey of the first house Part. 1. Domus Nostra That in Egypt The next is our own house our habitation
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est