the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
for they shall have a composition still and every compounded thing may perish but they shal be so assured and with such a preservation as they shall alwaies know they shall never dye S. Augustine saies well Aug. Assit motio absit fatigatio assit potestas vescendi absit necessitas esuriendi They have in their nature a mortality and yet be immortall a possibility and an impossibility of dying with those two divers relations one to nature the other to preservation will consist together So in this soule that hath this first Resurrection from sin by grace a conscience of her owne infirmity that she may relapse and yet a testimony of the powerfulnesse of Gods Spirit that easily she shall not relapse may consist well together But the last seale of this holy confidence is reserved for that which is the third acceptation of this first Resurrection not from persecutions in this world nor from sin in this world but from all possibility of falling back into sin in the world to come and to this have divers Expositors referred these words this first resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection Now a Resurrection of the soule seemes an improper an impertinent an improbable 3 Part. an impossible forme of speech for Resurrection implies death and the soule does not dye in her passage to Heaven And therefore Damascen makes account De ortho sid l. 4. c. ult that he hath sufficiently proved the Resurrection of the body which seems so incredible if he could prove any Resurrection if there be any Resurrection at all saies he it must be of the body for the soule cannot dye therefore not rise Yet have not those Fathers nor those Expositors who have in this text acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule mistaken nor miscalled the matter Take Damascens owne definition of Resurrection Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio A Resurrection is a second rising to that state from which any thing is formerly fallen Now though by death the soule do not fall into any such state as that it can complaine for what can that lack which God fils yet by death the soule fals from that for which it was infused and poured into man at first that is to be the forme of that body the King of that Kingdome and therefore when in the generall Resurrection the soule returnes to that state for which it was created and to which it hath had an affection and a desire even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of Heaven then when the soule returnes to her office to make up the man because the whole man hath therefore the soule hath a Resurrection not from death but from a deprivation of her former state that state which she was made for and is ever enclined to But that is the last Resurrection and so the soule hath part even in that last Resurrection But we are in hand with the first Resurrection of the soule and that is when that soule which was at first breath'd from God and hath long suffered a banishment a close imprisonment in this body returnes to God againe The returning of the soule to him from whom it proceeded at first is a Resurrection of the soule Here then especially I feele the straitnesse of time two considerations open themselves together of such a largenesse as all the time from Moses his In principio when time began to the Angels Affidavit in this booke That shall say and sweare that time shall be no more were too narrow to contemplate these two Hemispheares of Man this Evening and Morning of Mans everlasting day The miseries of man in this banishment in this emprisonment in this grave of the soule the body And the glory and exaltation of that soule in her Resurrection to Heaven That soule which being borne free is made a slave to this body by comming to it It must act but what this body will give it leave to act according to the Organs which this body affords it and if the body be lame in any limme the soule must be lame in her operation in that limme too It must doe but what the body will have it doe and then it must suffer whatsoever that body puts it to or whatsoever any others will put that body to If the body oppresse it selfe with Melancholy the soule must be sad and if other men oppresse the body with injury the soule must be sad too Consider it is too immense a thing to consider it reflect but one thought but upon this one thing in the soule here and hereafter In her grave the body and in her Resurrection in Heaven That is the knowledge of the soule Here saies S. Augustine when the soule considers the things of this world Non veritate certior sed consuetudine securior She rests upon such things as she is not sure are true but such as she sees are ordinarily received and accepted for truths so that the end of her knowledge is not Truth but opinion and the way not Inquisition but ease But saies he when she proceeds in this life to search into heavenly things Verberatur luce veritatis The beames of that light are too strong for her and they sink her and cast her downe Et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum non electione sed fatigatione convertitur and so she returnes to her owne darknesse because she is most familiar and best acquainted with it Non electione not because she loves ignorance but because she is weary of the trouble of seeking out the truth and so swallowes even any Religion to escape the paine of debating and disputing and in this lazinesse she sleeps out her lease her terme of life in this death in this grave in this body But then in her Resurrection her measure is enlarged and filled at once There she reads without spelling and knowes without thinking and concludes without arguing she is at the end of her race without running In her triumph without fighting In her Haven without sayling A free-man without any prentiship at full yeares without any wardship and a Doctor without any proceeding She knowes truly and easily and immediately and entirely and everlastingly Nothing left out at first nothing worne out at last that conduces to her happinesse What a death is this life what a resurrection is this death For though this world be a sea yet which is most strange our Harbour is larger then the sea Heaven infinitely larger then this world For though that be not true which Origen is said to say That at last all shall be saved nor that evident which Cyril of Alexandria saies That without doubt the number of them that are saved is far greater then of them that perish yet surely the number of them with whom we shall have communion in Heaven is greater then ever lived at once upon the face of the earth And of those who lived in our time how few did we
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâson hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
thought he could not speake more bitterly to that Tyran then to tell him As for thee thou shalt have no Resurrection unto life And so the Mother establisht her selfe too To her Sons she saies I gave you not life in my wombe Ver. 22. but doubtlesse the Creator that did will of his mercy give you life againe The soule needed not life againe for the soule never dyed the body that dyed Ver. 29. did Therefore her hope was in a Resurrection And to her youngest Son she said Be worthy of thy Brethren Take thy death that I may receive thee againe in mercy with thy Brethren All their establishment all their expectation all their issue was That they might obtaine a better Resurrection Now what was this that they qualified and dignified by that addition The better Resurrection Is it called better in that it is better then this life and determined in that comparison and degree of betternesse and no more Is it better then those honours and preferments which that King offered them and determined in that comparison and no more Or better then other men shall have at the last day for all men shall have a Resurrection and determined in that Or as S. Chrysostome takes it is it but a better Resurrection then that in the former part of this Text where dead children are restored to their mothers alive again Is it but a better Resurrection in some of these senses Surely better in a higher sense then any of these It is a supereminent degree of glory a larger measure of glory then every man who in a generall happinesse is made partaker of the Resurrection of the righteous is made partaker of Beloved There is nothing so little in heaven as that we can expresse it But if wee could tell you the fulnesse of a soul there what that fulnesse is the infinitenesse of that glory there how far that infinitenesse goes the Eternity of that happinesse there how long that happinesse lasts if we could make you know all this yet this Better Resurrection is a heaping even of that Fulnesse and an enlarging even of that Infinitenesse and an extention even of that eternity of happinesse For all these this Fulnesse this Infinitenesse this Eternity are in all the Resurrections of the Righteous and this is a better Resurrection We may almost say it is something more then Heaven for all that have any Resurrection to life have all heaven And something more then God for all that have any Resurrection to life have all God and yet these shall have a better Resurrection Amorous soule ambitious soule covetous soule voluptuous soule what wouldest thou have in heaven What doth thy holy amorousnesse thy holy covetousnesse thy holy ambition and voluptuousnesse most carry thy desire upon Call it what thou wilt think it what thou canst think it something that thou canst not think and all this thou shalt have if thou have any Resurrection unto life and yet there is a Better Resurrection When I consider what I was in my parents loynes a substance unworthy of a word unworthy of a thought when I consider what I am now a Volume of diseases bound up together a dry cynder if I look for naturall for radicall moisture and yet a Spunge a bottle of overflowing Rheumes if I consider accidentall an aged childe a gray-headed Infant and but the ghost of mine own youth When I consider what I shall be at last by the hand of death in my grave first but Putrifaction and then not so much as Putrifaction I shall not be able to send forth so much as an ill ayre not any ayre at all but shall be all insipid tastlesse savourlesse dust for a while all wormes and after a while not so much as wormes sordid senslesse namelesse dust When I consider the past and present and suture state of this body in this world I am able to conceive able to expresse the worst that can befall it in nature and the worst that can be inflicted upon it by man of fortune But the least degree of glory that God hath prepared for that body in heaven I am not able to expresse not able to conceive That man comes with a Barly corn in his hand to measure the compasse of the Firmament and when will he have done that work by that way he comes with a grain of dust in his scales to weigh the whole body of the world and when will he have done that work that way that bids his heart imagine or his language declare or his wit compare the least degree of the glory of any good mans Resurrection And yet there is a Better Resurrection A Better Resurrection reserved for them and appropriated to them That fulfill the sufferings of Christ in their flesh by Martyrdome and so become witnesses to that Conveyance which he hath sealed with his blood by shedding their blood and glorifie him upon earth as far as it is possible for man by the same way that he hath glorified them in heaven and are admitted to such a conformity with Christ as that if we may have leave to expresse it so they have dyed for one another Neither is this Martyrdome and so this Better Resurrection appropriated to a reall and actuall and absolute dying for Christ but every suffering of ours by which suffering he may be glorified is a degree of Martyrdome and so a degree of improving and bettering our Resurrection For as S. Ierome sayes That chastity is a perpetuall Martyrdome So every war maintained by us against our own desires is a Martyrdome too In a word to do good for Gods glory brings us to a Good but to suffer for his glory brings us to a Better Resurrection And to suffer patiently brings us to a Good but to suffer chearefully and more then that thankfully brings us to a Better Resurrection If all the torments of all the afflicted men from Abel to that soul that groanes in the Inquisition or that gaspes upon his death-bed at this minute were upon one man at once all that had no proportion to the least torment of hell nay if all the torments which all the damned in hell have suffered from Cain to this minute were at once upon one soul so as that soul for all that might know that those torments should have an end though after a thousand millions of millions of Generations all that would have no proportion to any of the torments of hell because the extention of those torments and their everlastingnesse hath more of the nature of torment and of the nature of hell in it then the intensnesse and the vehemency thereof can have So if all the joyes of all the men that have had all their hearts desires were con-centred in one heart all that would not be as a spark in his Chimney to the generall conflagration of the whole world in respect of the least joy that that soule is made partaker of that departs from this
be well Christ said in his behalfe Verily I have not found so great faith no not in Israel When Christ makes so much of this single grain of Mustard-seed this little faith as to prefer it before all the faith of Israel surely faith went very low in Israel at that time Nay when Christ himself sayes speaking of his last comming after so many ages preaching of the Gospell When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth Luk. 18.8 any faith We have I say a blessed beam of comfort shining out of this text that it is no small number that is reserved for that Kingdome For whether the Apostle speak this of himself and the Thessalonians or of others he speaks not as of a few but that by Christs having preached the narrownesse of the way and the straitnesse of the gate our holy industry and endeavour is so much exalted which was Christs principall end in taking those Metaphors of narrow wayes and strait gates not to make any man suspect an impossibility of entring but to be the more industrious and endeavorous in seeking it that as he hath sent workmen in plenty abundant preaching so he shall return a plentifull harvest a glorious addition to his Kingdome both of those which slept in him before and of those which shall be then alive fit all together to be caught up in the clouds to meet him and be with him for ever for these two armies imply no small number Now of the condition of these men who shall be then alive and how being clothed in bodies of corruption they become capable of the glory of this text in our first distribution we proposed that for a particular consideration and the other branch of this second part and to that in that order we are come now I scarce know a place of Scripture more diversly read Immutabimur and consequently more variously interpreted then that place which should most enlighten us in this consideration presently under our hands which is that place to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15.51 Non omnes dormiemus We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed The Apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery Behold I shew you a mystery but Translators and Expositors have multiplyed mysticall clouds upon the words S. Chrysostome reads these words as we do Chrysost Non dormiemus We shall not all sleep but thereupon he argues and concludes that wee shall not all die The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that Omnes dormiemus sed non c. We shall all sleep but we shall not all be changed The vulgat Edition in the Romane Church differs from both and as much from the originall as from either Omnes resurgemus We shall all rise again but we shall not all be changed S. Hierome examines the two readings and then leaves the reader to his choice as a thing indifferent S. Augustine doth so too and concludes aquè Catholicos esse That they are as good Catholiques that reade it the one way as the other But howsoever that which S. Chrysostome collects upon his reading may not be maintained He reads as we do and without all doubt aright We shall not all sleep But what then Therefore shall we not all die To sleep there is to rest in the grave to continue in the state of the dead and so we shall not all sleep not continue in the state of the dead But yet Statutum est sayes the Apostle Heb. 9.27 as verily as Christ was once offered to beare our sinnes so verily is it appointed to every man once to die Rom. 5.12 And as verily as by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so verily death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned So the Apostle institutes the comparison so he constitutes the doctrine in those two places of Scripture As verily as Christ dyed for all all shall die As verily as every man sins every man shall die In that change then which we who are then alive shall receive for though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul and that is truly a death and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul and that is truly a Resurrection we shall die and be alive again before another could consider that we were dead but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant some succession of time though undiscernible there is It shall be done In raptu in a rapture but even in a rapture there is a motion a transition from one to another place It shall be done sayes he In ictuoculi In the twinkling of an eye But even in the twinkling of an eie there is a shutting of the eie-lids and an opening of them again Neither of these is done in an absolute instant but requires some succession of time The Apostle in the Resurrection in our text constitutes a Prius something to be done first and something after first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first and then Then when that is done after that not all at once we that are alive shall be wrought upon we shall be changed our change comes after their rising so in our change there is a Prius too first we shall be dissolved so we die and then we shall be re-compact so we rise again This is the difference they that sleep in the grave put off and depart with the very substance of the body it is no longer flesh but dust they that are changed at the last day put off and depart with only the qualities of the body as mortality and corruption It is still the same body without resolving into dust but the first step that it makes is into glory Now transfer this to the spirituall Resurrection of thy soul by grace here Here Grace works not that Resurrection upon thy soul in an absolute instant And therefore suspect not Gods gracious purpose upon thee if thou beest not presently throughly recovered God could have made all the world in one day and so have come sooner to his Sabbath his rest but he wrought more to give us an example of labour and of patience in attending his leasure in our second Creation this Resurrection from sin as we did in our first Creation when we were not made till the sixt day But remember too that the last Resurrection from death is to be transacted quickly speedily And in thy first thy spirituall Resurrection from sin make haste The last is to be done In raptu in a rapture Let this rapture in the first Resurrection be to teare thy self from that company and conversation that leads thee into tentation The last is to be done Inictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye Let that in thy first Resurrection be The shutting of thine eyes from looking upon things in things upon creatures in creatures
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
we thought the Sunne had moved I need not that helpe that the Earth it selfe is in Motion to prove this That nothing upon Earth is permanent The Assertion will stand of it selfe till some man assigne me some instance something that a man may relie upon and find permanent Consider the greatest Bodies upon Earth The Monarchies Objects which one would thinke Destiny might stand and stare at but not shake Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth The haires of our head Objects which one would thinke Destiny would not observe or could not discerne And yet Destiny to speak to a naturall man And God to speake to a Christian is no more troubled to make a Monarchy ruinous then to make a haire gray Nay nothing needs be done to either by God or Destiny A Monarchy will ruine as a haire will grow gray of it selfe In the Elements themselves of which all sub-elementary things are composed there is no acquiescence but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another Ayre condensed becomes water a more solid body And Ayre rarified becomes fire a body more disputable and in-apparant It is so in the Conditions of men too A Merchant condensed kneaded and packed up in a great estate becomes a Lord And a Merchant rarified blown up by a perfidious Factor or by a riotous Sonne evaporates into ayre into nothing and is not seen And if there were any thing permanent and durable in this world yet we got nothing by it because howsoever that might last in it selfe yet we could not last to enjoy it If our goods were not amongst Moveables yet we our selves are if they could stay with us yet we cannot stay with them which is another Consideration in this part The world is a great Volume and man the Index of that Booke Corpus hominis Even in the body of man you may turne to the whole world This body is an Illustration of all Nature Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before in his Fiat lux and Fiat firmamentum and in all the rest said or done in all the six dayes Propose this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation thereof as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Nay not in a Metaphor or comparison of a Temple or any other similitudinary thing but as it was really and truly the very body of God in the person of Christ and yet this body must wither must decay must languish must perish When Goliah had armed and fortified this body And Iezabel had painted and perfumed this body And Dives had pampered and larded this body As God said to Ezekiel when he brought him to the dry bones Fili hominis Sonne of Man doest thou thinke these bones can live They said in their hearts to all the world Can these bodies die And they are dead Iezabels dust is not Ambar nor Goliahs dust Terra sigillata Medicinall nor does the Serpent whose meat they are both finde any better rellish in Dives dust then in Lazarus But as in our former part where our foundation was That in nothing no spirituall thing there was any perfectnesse which we illustrated in the weaknesses of Knowledge and Faith and Hope and Charity yet we concluded that for all those defects God accepted those their religious services So in this part where our foundation is That nothing in temporall things is permanent as we have illustrated that by the decay of that which is Gods noblest piece in Nature The body of man so we shall also conclude that with this goodnesse of God that for all this dissolution and putrefaction he affords this Body a Resurrection The Gentils Resurrectio and their Poets describe the sad state of Death so Nox una obeunda That it is one everlasting Night To them a Night But to a Christian it is Dies Mortis and Dies Resurrectionis The day of Death and The day of Resurrection We die in the light in the sight of Gods presence and we rise in the light in the sight of his very Essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so Dies visitationis still it is a Day though a Day of visitation and still we may discerne God to be in the action Gen. 2. The Lord of Life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt die the Death I doe the lesse feare or abhorre Death because I finde it in his mouth Even a malediction hath a sweetnesse in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a Resurrection upon every Death When Iezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher then that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall be infinitely multiplied upon every Body And as God shall know no man from his own Sonne so as not to see the very righteousnesse of his own Sonne upon that man So the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to looke upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himselfe So shall Goliahs armour and Dives fulnesse be doubled and redoubled upon us And every thing that we can call good shall first be infinitely exalted in the goodnesse and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and againe infinitely extended in the duration And since we are in an action of preparing this dead Brother of ours to that state for the Funerall is the Easter-eve The Buriall is the depositing of that man for the Resurrection As we have held you with Doctrine of Mortification by extending the Text from Martha to this occasion so shall we dismisse you with Consolation by a like occasionall inverting the Text from passion in Martha's mouth Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed to joy in ours Lord because thou wast here our Brother is not dead The Lord was with him in all these steps In vita with him in his life with him in his death He is with him in his funerals and he shall be with him in his Resurrection and therefore because the Lord was with him our Brother is not dead He was with him in the beginning of his life in this manifestation That though he were of Parents of a good of a great Estate yet his possibility and his expectation from them did not slacken his own industry which is a Canker that eats into nay that hath eat up many a family in this City that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done the Sonne does nothing for himselfe And truly it falls out too often that he that labours not for more does not keepe his own God imprinted in him an industrious disposition though such hopes from such parents might have excused some slacknesse and God prospered his industry so as that when his Fathers estate came to a distribution by death he needed it not God was with
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
is there comfort in that state why that is the state of hell it self Eternall dying and not dead But for this there is enough said by the Morall man that we may respite divine proofes for divine points anon for our severall Resurrections for this death is meerly naturall and it is enough that the morall man sayes Mors lex tributum officium mortalium First it is lex you were born under that law upon that condition to die Sencea so it is a rebellious thing not to be content to die it opposes the Law Then it is Tributum an imposition which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us and which she will take when and where se lift here a yong man there an old man herea happy there a miserable man And so itis a seditious thing not to be content to die it opposes the prerogative And lastly it is Officium men are to have rheir turnes to take their time and then to give way by death to successors and so it is Incivile inofficiosum not to be content to die it opposes the frame and form of government It comes equally to us all and makes us all equall when it comes The eshes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of that Oak to tell me how high or how large that was It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood nor what men it hurt when it fell The dust of great persons graves is speechlesse too it sayes nothing it distinguishes nothing As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the winde blow it thither and when a whirle-winde hath blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce This is the Patrician this is the noble flowre and this the yeomanly this the Plebeian bran Sois the death of Iesabel Ieabel was a Queen expressed They shall not say this is Iesabel not only not wonder that it is not pity that it should be but they shall not say they shall not know This is Iesabel It comes to all to all alike but not alike welcome to all To die too willingly out ofimpatience to wish or out of violence to hasten death or to die too unwillingly to murmure at Gods purpose reveled by age or by sicknesse are equall distempers and to harbour a disobedient loathnesse all the way or to entertain it at last argues but an irreligious ignorance An ignorance that death is in nature but Expiratio a breathing out and we do that every minute An ignorance that God himself took a day to rest in and a good mans grave is his Sabbath An ignorance that Abel the best of those whom we can compare with him was the first that dyed Howsoever whensoever all times are Gods times Vocantur obni ne diutiús vexentur á noxiis mali ne diutiús bonos persequantur God cals the good to take them from their dangers and God takes the bad to take them from their trumph And therefore neither grudge that thou goest nor that worse stay for God can make his profit of both Aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut utper allum bonus exerceatur God reprieves him to mend him or to make another better by his exercise and not to exult in the misery of another but to glorifie God in the wayes of his justice let him know Quantumcunque seró subitó ex hac óitatollitur qui finem praevidere nescivit How long soever he live how long soever he lie sick that man dies a sudden death who never thought of it If we consider death in S. Pauls Statutum est It is decréed that all men must die there death is indifferent If we consider it in his Mori lucrum that is an advantage to die there death is good and so much the vulgat Edition seemes to intimate when Deut. 30. 19 whereas we reade I have set before you life and death that reades it Vitam honum Life and that which is good If then death be at the worst indifferent and to the good good how is it Hostis an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ for that also is Vestigium quintum the fift and next step in this paraphrase First God did not make death saies the Wiseman And therefore S. Augustine makes a reasonable prayer to God Ne permittas Domine quod nonfecisti dominari Creatur ae quam fecisti Suffer not O Lord death whom thou didst not make to have dominion over me whom thou didst Whence then came death The same Wiseman hath shewed us the father Through envy of the devill came death into the world and a wiser then he the holy Ghost himselfe hath shewed us the Mother By sin came death into the world But yet if God have naturalized death taken death into the number of his servants and made Death his Commissioner to punish sin and he doe but that how is Death an enemy First he was an enemy in invading Christ who was not in his Commission because he had no sin and still he is an enemie because still he adheres to the enemy Death hangs upon the edge of every persecutors sword and upon the sting of every calumniators and accusers tongue In the Bull of Phalaris in the Bulls of Basan in the Buls of Babylon the shrewdest Buls of all in temporall in spirituall persecutions ever since God put an enmity between Man and the Serpent from the time of Cain who began in a murther to the time of Antichrist who proceeds in Massacres Death hath adhered to the enemy and so is an enemy Death hath a Commission Stipendium peccati mors est The reward of sin Death but where God gives a Supersedeas upon that Commission Vivo Ego nolo mortem As I live saith the Lord I would have no sinner dye not dye the second death yet Death proceeds to that execution And where as the enemy whom he adheres to Serpent himselfe hath power but In calcaneo upon the heele the lower the mortall part the body of man Death is come up into our windowes saith the Prophet into our best lights Jer. 9.21 our understandings and benights us there either with ignorance before sin or with senselesnesse after And a Sheriffe that should burne him who were condemned to be hanged were a murderer though that man must have dyed To come in by the doore by the way of sicknesse upon the body is but to come in at the window by the way of sin is not deaths Commission God opens not that window So then he is an enemy for they that adhere to the enemy are enemies And adhering is not only a present subministration of supply to the enemy for that death doth not but it is also a disposition to assist the enemy then when he shall
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
incorruptionem sicut anima per fidem Because our bodie shall be regenerated by glory there as our soules are by faith here Therefore Tertul. cals the Resurrection Exemplum spei nostrae The Originall out of which we copy out our hope and Clavem sepulchroruÌ nostrorum How hard soever my grave be locked yet with that key with the application of the Resurrection of Christ Jesus it will open And they are all names which expresse this well which Tertullian gives Christ Vadem obsidem fidejussorem resurrectionis nostrae That he is the pledge the hostage the surety of our Resurrection So doth that also which is said in the Schoole Sicut Adam forma morientium Theoph. it a Christus forma resurgentium Without Adam there had beene no such thing as death without Christ no such thing as a Resurrection But ascendit ille effractor as the Prophet speaks The breaker is gone up before and they have passed through the gate that is assuredly Mich. 2.13 infallibly they shall passe But what needs all this heat all this animosity all this vehemence about the Resurrection May not man be happy enough in heaven though his body never come thither upon what will ye ground the Resurrection upon the Omnipotence of God Asylum haereticorum est Omnipotentia Dei which was well said and often repeated amongst the Ancients The Omnipotence of God hath alwaies been the Sanctuary of Heretiques that is alwaies their refuge in all their incredible doctrines God is able to do it can do it You confesse the Resurrection is a miracle And miracles are not to be multiplied nor imagined without necessity and what necessity of bodies in Heaven Beloved we make the ground and foundation of the Resurrection to be not meerely the Omnipotency of God for God will not doe all that he can doe but the ground is Omnipotens voluntas Dei revelata The Almighty will of God revealed by him to us And therefore Christ joynes both these together Erratis Ye erre Mat. 22.29 not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God that is not considering the power of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures for there is our foundation of this Doctrine we know out of the Omnipotence of God it may be and we know out of the Scriptures it must be That works upon our faith this upon our reason That it is man that must be saved man that must be damned and to constitute a man there must be a body as well as a soule Nay the Immortality of the soule will not so well lie in proofe without a resuming of the body For upon those words of the Apostle If there were no Resurrection we were the miserablest of all men the Schoole reasons reasonably Naturally the soule and body are united when they are separated by Death it is contrary to nature which nature still affects this union and consequently the soule is the lesse perfect for this separation and it is not likely that the perfect naturall state of the soule which is to be united to the body should last but three or foure score yeares and in most much lesse and the unperfect state that in the separation should last eternally for ever so that either the body must be beleeved to live againe or the soule beleeved to die Never therefore dispute against thine own happinesse never say God asks the heart that is the soule and therefore rewards the soule or punishes the soule and hath no respect to the body Nec auferamus cogitationes a collegio carnis saies Tertullian Never go about to separate the thoughts of the heart from the colledge from the fellowship of the body Siquidem in carne cum carne per carnem agitur quicquid ab anima agitur All that the soule does it does in and with and by the body And therefore saies he also Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur The body is washed in baptisme but it is that the soule might be made cleane Caro ungitur ut anima consecretur In all unctions whether that which was then in use in Baptisme or that which was in use at our transmigration and passage out of this world the body was anointed that the soule might be consecrated Caro signatur saies Tertullian still ut anima muniatur The body is signed with the Crosse that the soule might be armed against tentations And againe Caro de Corpore Christi vescitur ut anima de Deo saginetur My body received the body of Christ that my soule might partake of his merits He extends it into many particulars and summes up all thus Non possunt in mercede separari quae opera conjungunt These two Body and Soule cannot be separated for ever which whilst they are together concurre in all that either of them doe Never thinke it presumption saies S. Gregory Sperare in te quod in se exhibuit Deus homo To hope for that in thy selfe which God admitted when he tooke thy nature upon him And God hath made it saies he more easie then so for thee to beleeve it because not onely Christ himselfe but such men as thou art did rise at the Resurrection of Christ And therefore when our bodies are dissolved and liquefied in the Sea putrified in the earth resolv'd to ashes in the fire macerated in the ayre Velut in vasa sua transfunditur caro nostra Tertul. make account that all the world is Gods cabinet and water and earth and fire and ayre are the proper boxes in which God laies up our bodies for the Resurrection Curiously to dispute against our owne Resurrection is seditiously to dispute against the dominion of Jesus who is not made Lord by the Resurrection if he have no subjects to follow him in the same way Wee beleeve him to be Lord therefore let us beleeve his and our Resurrection This blessed day Ille Iohn 2.19 Iohn 10.17 which we celebrate now he rose he rose so as none before did none after ever shall rise He rose others are but raised Destroy this Temple saies he and I will raise it I without imploying any other Architect I lay downe my life saies he the Jewes could not have killed him when he was alive If he were alive here now the Jesuits could not kill him here now except his being made Christ and Lord an anointed King have made him more open to them I have a power to lay it downe saies he and I have a power to take it up againe This day Nos Iohn 2.3 we celebrate his Resurrection this day let us celebrate our owne Our own not our one Resurrection for we need many Upon those words of our Saviour to Nicodemus Oportet denuo nasci speaking of the necessity of Baptisme Non solum denuo sed tertiò nasci oportet saies S. Bernard He must be born againe and againe againe by baptisme for Originall sin and for actuall sin againe by repentance Infoelix homo ego
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or coÌcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
from sin Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator Grego No man falls lower then he that falls into a course of sin Sin is a fall It is not onely a deviation a turning out of the way upon the right or the left hand but it is a sinking a falling In the other case of going out of the way a man may stand upon the way and inquire and then proceed in the way if he be right or to the way if he be wrong But when he is fallen and lies still he proceeds no farther inquires no farther To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion stops and retards a man in the way to mistake some points in the truth of religion puts a man for that time in a wrong way But to fall into a course of sin this makes him unsensible of any end that he hath to goe to of any way that he hath to goe by God hath not removed man not with-drawne man from this Earth he hath not given him the Aire to flie in as to Birds nor Spheares to move in as to Sun and Moone he hath left him upon the Earth and not onely to tread upon it as in contempt or in meere Dominion but to walk upon it in the discharge of the duties of his calling and so to be conversant with the Earth is not a falling But as when man was nothing but earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the earth his mouth kissed the earth his hands embraced the earth his eyes respected the earth And then God breathed the breath of life into him and that raised him so farre from the earth as that onely one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it And yet man so raised by God by sin fell lower to the earth againe then before from the face of the earth to the womb to the bowels to the grave So God finding the whole man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Originall sin yet erects us by a new breath of life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower then before we were raised from Originall into Actuall into Habituall sins So low as that we think not that we need know not that there is a resurrection and that is the wonderfull that is the fearfull fall Though those words Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo Lucifer Esay 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels yet it is evident that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man It deserves wonder more then pity that man whom God had raised to so Noble a heighth in him should fall so low from him Man was borne to love he was made in the love of God but then man falls in love when he growes in love with the creature he falls in love As we are bid to honour the Physitian and to use the Physitian but yet it is said in the same Chapter Ecclus. 38.1 V. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hands of the Physitian It is a blessing to use him it is a curse to rely upon him so it is a blessing to glorifie God in the right use of his creatures but to grow in love with them is a fall For we love nothing that is so good as our selves Beauty Riches Honour is not so good as man Man capable of grace here of glory hereafter Nay as those things which we love in their nature are worse then we which love them so in our loving them we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are by over-loving the beauty of the body we corrupt the soule by overloving honour and riches we deflect and detort these things which are not in their nature ill to ill uses and make them serve our ill purposes Man falls as a fall of waters that throwes downe and corrupts all that it embraces Nay beloved when a man hath used those wings which God hath given him and raised himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge and religious practise Acts 29.9 as Eutichus out of a desire to hear Paul preach was got up into a Chamber and up into a window of that Chamber and yet falling asleep fell downe dead so we may fall into a security of our present state into a pride of our knowledge or of our purity and so fall lower then they who never came to our heighth So much need have we of a resurrection So sin is a fall and every man is affraid of falling even from his temporall station Mârs Clem. Alex. more affraid of falling then of not beeing raised And Qui peccat quatenus peccat fit seipso deterior In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before In every sin he is dishonoured he is not so good a man as he was impoverished he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had Infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisedome of the feare of God as he had disarmed he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that he had and deformed he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before In every sin we become prodigals but in the habit of sin we become bankrupts affraid to come to an account A fall is a fearfull thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a resurrection is as great a work as the very Creation it selfe It is death in semine in the roote it produces it brings forth death It is death in arbore in the body in it selfe death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spirituall death and this death produces more sin Obduration Impenitence and the like Be pleased to returne and cast one halfe thought upon each of these Sin is the roote of death Death by sin entred and death passed upon all men for all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 It is death because we shall dye for it But it is death in it selfe We are dead already dead in it Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead was spoken to a whole Church Apoc. 3.1 It is not evidence enough to prove that thou art alive to say I saw thee at a Sermon that spirit that knowes thy spirit he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon melted by a Sermon mended by a Sermon he knows whether thou be alive or no. That which had wont to be said That dead men walked in Churches is too true Men walk out a Sermon or walk out after a Sermon as ill as they walked in they have a name that they live Iohn 5.25 and are dead But the houre is come and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God That is at
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
then Christ is not raised As sure as the head is V. 16. so sure the body is raised And then another Topique from whence he produces arguments is the absurd consequences and illations that would follow if there were no resurrection Of that kinde one is Nos miserrimi If in this life onely we have hops in Christ V. 19. we are of all men the most miserable Why because in this life we suffer persecution for this profession And another is Edamus bibamus Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye V. 32. What needs this abstinence and this severe denying our selves the conveniencies of this life if all end in this life And lastly in the same kinde followes this Text Si omnino mortui non excitentur If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead And by all these wayes doth the Apostle convay this knowledge of the Resurrection But would all these wayes serve Resurrectio mysterium would all this satisfie that Inquisition which wee have brought how this assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us Would any of these reasons or would all these reasons convince a man who were not at all prepossessed and preoccupated with a beliefe of the resurrection with an assurance thereof The resurrection was alwaies a mystery in it selfe Sacrum secretum a holy secret and above the search of reason For there are secrets and mysteries of two kindes as the Schoole presents them some things are so Quia quaedam interposita Because though the thing be near enough unto me yet somthing is interposed between me and it and so I cannot see it And somethings are so Quia longè seposita because they are at so remote a distance as that though nothing be interposed yet my sight cannot extend to them In the first sense the Sacraments are mysteries because though the grace therein bee neare mee yet there is Velamen interpositum there is visible figure a sensible signe and seale between me and that grace which is exhibited to me in the Sacrament In the second sense the resurrection is a mystery because it is so farre removed as that it concernes our state and condition in the next world For man sleepeth and riseth not Job 14.12 hee shall not wake againe nor be raised from his sleep till the heavens be no more that is not till the dissolution of all So then the knowledge of the resurrection in it selfe is a mystery Resurrectio Christs mysterium removed out of the Spheare and latitude of reason And to consider this remotenesse farther though the knowledge of Christ Resurrection be nearer us then our owne for first we know his because from his we argue and conclude our owne as the Apostle institutes his argument If the dead rise not Christ is not risen yet even the Resurrection of Christ V. 16. was so far from being cleare and obvious to the best and the best illumined understandings as that though Christ himselfe had spoken often of his Resurrection to his Disciples and Apostles yet they did not clearly throughly scarce at all understand his Resurrection When Christ said to the Jews promiscuously Solvite Templum hoc Destroy this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it I wonder not that they blinded with their own malice discerned no resurrection in that saying but applied it to that Temple which was forty sixe yeares in building For till the resurrection was really accomplished and actually performed the Apostles themselves understood not the Resurrection Then when Christ was risen from the dead and that those two great Apostles Peter and Iohn had been at the Sepulchre and received from thence so much evidence as convinced them and prevailed upon them then and not till then they began to understand the resurrection for John 22.9 till then sayes the Text expresly there they knew not the Scriptures that he must rise from the dead And truly Etiam post Resurrectionem if we take a holy liberty as piously we may to consider Christs bodily actions after his resurrection they were not such as without admitting any opposition might induce a necessity of confessing a resurrection For though he exhibited himself to their eyes to be seene and to their eares to be heard and to their fingers to be felt though he eate with them and did many other actions of a living body yet as the Angels in the old Testament did the like actions in those bodies which they had assumed so might Christ have done all these in such a body though that which was buried in the Sepulchre had had no resurrection It is true that Christ confirmed his Resurrection Multis argumentis as the vulgat reads that place Acts 1.3 with many infallible tokens sayes our former Translation with many infallible proofes sayes our later But still all these arguments and tokens and proofes wrought by way of confirmation something was otherwise imprinted in them and established by a former apprehension of faith and these arguments and tokens and proofes confirmed it For the reasons for the resurrection doe not convince a naturall man at all neither doe they so convince a Christian but that there is more left to his faith and he beleeves something beyond and above his reason The resurrection in it self Resurrectio nostra mysterium Christs Resurrection though it be clearer then ours Christs Resurrection even after it was actually accomplished was still a mystery out of the compasse of reason And then as it was above our reason so howsoever it be out proofe and our patterne for our resurrection yet it is above our imitation For our resurrection shall not be like his Omnes alii suscitati Christus solus resurrexit sayes S. Bernard All we shall be raised from the dead onely Christ arose from the dead We shall be raised by a power working upon us he rose by a power inherent and resident in himselfe And yet though in this respect our resurrection be more open to the proofe of reason then the resurrection of Christ for that which hath least miracle in it is most open to reason and therefore a naturall man would easilier beleeve that God might raise a dead man then that a dead man should be God and so able to raise himselfe which was Christs case for the God-head of Christ was as much united to his dead body in the grave as it was to his soule in Paradise or to his whole person consisting of body and soule before or after his death and resurrection Though in this respect I say our resurrection be more open to reason because it hath lesse of the miracle in it yet when we come to assigne reasons even for our resurrection as we see Athanagoras hath undertaken with a great deale of wit and learning and confidence in his Apology for the Christians to the Emperour within 155. yeares after Christ and the Schoole-men make account that
they have brought it nearer to the understanding nay even to the very sense by producing some such things as even in nature doe not only resemble but as they apprehend evict a resurrection yet when all is done and all the reasons of Athenogaras and the Schoole and of S. Paul himselfe are waighed they determine all in this that they are faire and pregnant and convenient illustrations of that which was beleeved before and that they have force and power to encline to an assent and to create and beget such a probability as a discreet and sad and constant man might rest in and submit to But yet we shall finde also that though no man may speak a word or conceive a thought against the resurrection because for the matter we are absolutely and expresly concluded by the Scriptures yet a man may speak probably and dangerously against any particulur argument that is produced for the resurrection We beleeve it immediately intirely cheafully undisputably because we see it expresly delivered by the Holy Ghost And we embrace thankfully that sweetnesse and that fulnesse of that blessed Spirit that as he laies an obligation upon our faith by delivering the article positively to us so he is also pleased to accompany that Article with reasons and arguments proportionable to our reason and understanding for though those reasons do not so conclude us as that nothing might be said to the contrary or nothing doubted after yet the Holy Ghost having first begotten the faith of this Article Per ea augescit fides pinguescit as Luther speaks in another case By those reasons and arguments and illustrations that faith is nourished and maintained in a good habitude and constitution And of that kind are all the reasons brought by S. Paul here Argumentae Apostols The matter is positively delivered by him and so apprehended by us and his reasons as we said before issue out of two Topiques Be pleased to looke upon both The first is our patterne Christ Jesus He is risen therefore we shall In which though I have a faire illustration and consolation in that The Head is risen therefore the Body shall yet this reaches not to make my Resurrection like his for I shall not rise as he did And then from his other Topique his reasons rise thus If there be no Resurrection we that suffer thus much for the prefession of Christ are the miserablest men in the world Why so have not all Philosophers had Scholars and all Heretiques Disciples and all great Men flatterers and every private man affections And hath there not been as much suffered by occasion of these as S. Paul argues upon here and yet no imagination no expectation of a resurrection Leave out the consideration of Philosophers many of which suffered more then the Turks doe and yet the Turks suffer infinitely more in their Mortifications then the Papists doe Leave out the Heretiques which were so hungry of suffering that if they could not provoke others to kill them they would kill themselves Leave out the pressures of our own affections and concupiscencies and yet the covetous man is in a continuall starving and the licentious man in a continuall Consumption Take onely into your consideration the miserable vexation of the flatterer and humourer and dependant upon great persons that their time is not their owne nor their words their owne their joyes are not their owne nay their sorrowes are not their owne they might not smile if they would nor they may not sigh when they would they must doe all according to anothers mind and yet they must not know his minde consider this and you cannot say but that there is as much suffered in the world as this upon which S. Paul argues by them who place not their consolation nor their retribution in the hope of a resurrection He argues farther Edamus bibamus If there be no resurrection let us dissolve our selves into the pleasures of this world and enjoy them Why so too Have we not stories full of exemplar men that might be our patterns for sobriety and continency and denying themselves the sweetnesses of this life and yet never placed Consolation nor Retribution upon a Resurrection Would not S. Pauls own Pondus gloriae That there is an exceeding waight of eternall glory attending our afflictions serve our turne though that were determined in the salvation of the soule though there were no resurrection of the body It is strongly and wisely said by Aquinas Derogant fidei Christianae rationes non cogentes To offer reasons for any Article of faith which will not convince a man therein derogates from the dignity of that Article Therefore we must consider S. Pauls reasons as they were intended to Christians that had received the Article of the Resurrection into their faith before And then as God gave Adam a body immediately from himself but then maintained and nourished that body by other meanes so the holy Ghost by S. Paul gives the article of the Resurrection to our faith positively and then enables us to declare to our own consciences and to other mens understandings that we beleeve no impossible thing in beleeving the Resurrection for as it is the candle that lights me but yet I take a lanthorne to defend that candle from the wind so my faith assures me of the Resurrection but these reasons and illustrations assist that faith And so we have done with our first part How this assurance accrues unto us and passe in order to the other The consolation which we have from this resurrection of the body not onely in it selfe but as it gives us a sense of the spirituall resurrection of our soules from sinne by Grace We are assured then of a Resurrection and we see how that assurance growes 2. Part. But of what Of all Body and soule too For Quod cadit resurgit sayes S. Hierome All that is falne receives a resurrection and that is suppositum sayes the Schoole that is The person the whole man not taken in pieces soule alone or body alone but both For as Damascen expresses the same that S. Hierome intends Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit iterata surrectio The Resurrection is a new rising of that which fell and Man fell A man is not saved a sinner is not redeemed I am not received into heaven if my body be left out The soule and the body concurred to the making of a sinner and body and soule must concur to the making of a Saint So it is in the last Resurrection so it is in the first which we consider now by Grace from sin And therefore we receive into comparison Triplicem casum a threefold fall and a threefold resurrection as in the naturall and bodily death so in the spirituall death of the soule also For first in naturall death there is Casus in separationem The man the person falls into a separation a divorce of body and soul and the resurrection from
this fall is by Re-union the soule and body are re-united at the last day A second fall in naturall death is Casus in dissolutionem The dead body falls by putrifaction into a dissolution into atoms and graines of dust and the resurrection from this fall is by Re-efformation God shall re-compact and re-compile those atoms and graines of dust into that Body which was before And then a third fall in naturall death is Casus in Dispersionem This man being falne into a divorce of body and soule this body being falne into a dissolution of dust this dust falls into a dispersion and is scattered unsensibly undiscernibly upon the face of the earth and the resurrection from this death is by way of Re-collection God shall recall and re-collect all these Atoms and grains of dust and re-compact that body and re-unite that soule and so that resurrection is accomplished And these three falls Into a Divorce into a Separation into a Dispersion And these three Resurrections By Re-union by Re-efformation by Re-collecting we shall also finde in our present state The spirituall death of the soule by sinne First then Casus in separationem the first fall in the spirituall death is the divorce of body and soule That whereas God hath made the body to be the Organ of the soule and the soule to be the breath of that Organ and bound them to a mutuall relation to one another Man sometimes withdrawes the soule from the body by neglecting the duties of this life for imaginary speculations and oftner withdrawes the body from the soule which should be subject to the soule but does maintain a war and should be a wife to the soule and does stand out in a divorce Now the Resurrection Resurrectie a casu in separationem from this first fall into a Divorce is seriously and wisely that is both piously and civilly to consider that Man is not a soule alone but a body too That man is not placed in this world onely for speculation He is not sent into this world to live out of it but to live in it Adam was not put into Paradise onely in that Paradise to contemplate the future Paradise but to dresse and to keep the present God did not breathe a soule towards him but into him Not in an obsession but a possession Not to travaile for knowledge abroad but to direct him by counsell at home Not for extasies but for an inherence for when it was come to that in S. Paul we see it is called a rapture he was not in his proper station nor his proper motion He was transported into the third heaven but as long as we are in our dwelling upon earth though we must love God with all our soule yet it is not with our soule alone Our body also must testifie and expresse our love not onely in a reverentiall humiliation thereof in the dispositions and postures and motions and actions of the body when we present our selves at Gods Service in his house but in the discharge of our bodily duties and the sociable offices of our callings towards one another Not to run away from that Service of God by hiding our selves in a superstitious Monastery or in a secular Monastery in our owne house by an unprofitable retirednesse and absenting our selves from the necessary businesses of this world Not to avoid a Calling by taking none Not to make void a Calling by neglecting the due offices thereof In a word To understand and to performe in the best measure we can the duties of the body and of the soule this is the resurrection from the first fall The fall into a divorce of body and soule And for the advancing of this knowledge and the facilitating of this performance of these duties be pleased a little to stop upon the consideration of both both of Spirituall and Divine and then of secular and sociable duties so far as concerns this subject in hand First for the duties of the soule Officium animae God was never out of Christs sight He was alwaies with him alwaies within him alwaies he himself yet Christ at some times applyed himself in a nearer distance and stricter way of prayer to God then at other times Christs whole life was a continuall abstinence a perpetuall sobriety yet Christ proposed and proportioned a certaine time and a certaine number of dayes for a particular fast upon particular occasion This is the harmony this is the resurrection of a Christian in this respect That his soule be alwayes so fixed upon God as that he doe nothing but with relation to his glory principally and habitually That he think of God at all times but that besides that he sepose some times to think of nothing but God That he pray continually so far as to say nothing to wish nothing that he would not be content God should heare but that besides that he sepose certaine fixed times for private prayer in his chamber and for publique prayer in the Congregation For though it be no where expresly written that Christ did pray in the Congregation or in company yet all that Christ did is not written and it is written that he went often into the Temples and into the Synagogues and it is written that even the Pharisee and the Publican that went to those places went thither to pray But howsoever Christ was never so alone but that if he were not in the Church the Church was in him All Christians were in him as all Men were in Adam This then is our first Resurrection for the duty that belongs to the soule Officium corporis That the soule doe at all times think upon God and at some times think upon nothing but him And for that which in this respect belongs to the body That we neither enlarge and pamper it so nor so adorne and paint it as though the soule required a spacious and specious palace to dwell in Of that excesse Porphyrie who loved not Christ nor Christians said well out of meer Morality That this enormous fatning and enlarging our bodies by excessive diet was but a shoveling of more and more fat earth upon our soules to bury them deeper Dum corpus augemus mortaliores efficimur sayes he The more we grow the more mortall we make our selves and the greater sacrifice we provide for death when we gather so much flesh with that elegancy speaks he speaking out of Nature and with this simplicity and homelinesse speaks S. Hierom speaking out of Grace Qui Christum desiderat illo pane vescitur de quà m preciesis cibis stercus conficiat non quaerit He that can rellish Christ and feed upon that Bread of life will not be so diligent to make precious dung and curious excrements to spend his purse or his wit in that which being taken into him must passe by so ignoble a way from him The flesh that God hath given us is affliction enough but the flesh that
the devill gives us is affliction upon affliction and to that there belongs a woe Per tenuitatem assimilamur Deo saies the same Author The attenuation the slendernesse the deliverance of the body from the encumbrance of much flesh gives us some assimilation some conformity to God and his Angels The lesse flesh we carry the liker we are to them who have none That is still the lesse flesh of our owne making for for that flesh which God and his instrument Nature hath given us in what measure or proportion soever that does not oppresse us to this purpose neither shall that be laid to our charge but the flesh that we have built up by curious diet by meats of provocation and witty sawces or by a slothfull and drowsie negligence of the works of our calling All flesh is sinfull flesh sinfull so as that it is the mother of sin it occasions sin naturall flesh is so But this artificiall flesh of our owne making is sinfull so as that it is also the daughter of sin It is indeed the punishment of former sins and the occasion of future The soule then requires not so large so vast a house of sinfull flesh to dwell in Macerationes corporis But yet on the other side we may not by inordinate abstinencies by indiscreet fastings by inhumane flagellations by unnaturall macerations and such Disciplines as God doth not command nor authorize so wither and shrinke and contract the body as though the soule were sent into it as into a prison or into fetters and manacles to wring and pinch and torture it Nihil interest saies S. Hierome It is all one whether thou kill thy selfe at one blow or be long in doing it if thou do it All one whether thou fall upon thine own sword or sterve thy selfe with such a fasting as thou discernest to induce that effect for saies he Descendit a dignitate viri not as insaniae incurrit He departs from that dignity which God hath imprinted in man in giving him the use and the dominion over his creatures and he gives the world just occasion to thinke him mad And as Tertullian adds Respuit datorem qui datum deserit He that does not use a benefit reproaches the Benefactor and he is ungratefull to God that does not accept at his hands the use of his blessings Therefore is it accepted as a good interpretation which is made of Christs determining his fast in forty daies Ne sui homicida videretur Lest if he continued it longer he might have seemed to have killed himselfe by being the author of his owne death And so do they interpret aright his Esuriit That then he began to be hungry that he began to languish to faint to finde a detriment in his body for else a fasting when a man is not hungry is no fasting but then he gave over fasting when he found the state of his body empaired by fasting And therefore those mad doctrines so S. Hierom cals them Notas insaniae habent yea those devilish doctrines so S. Paul cals them that forbid certaine meats and that make un-commanded macerations of the body meritorious that upon a supposititious story of an Ermit that lived 22. yeares Abbasll sperg without eating any thing at all And upon an impertinent example of their S. Francis that kept three Lents in the yeare which they extoll and magnifie in S. Francis and S. Hierom condemned and detested in the Montanists who did so too have built up those Carthusian Rules That though it appeare that that and nothing but that would save the patients life yet he may not eat flesh that is a Carthusian And have brought into estimation those Apocryphall and bastardly Canons which they father upon the Apostles That a man must rather sterve then receive food from the hand of a person excommunicate or otherwise detected of any mortall sin And that all that can be done with the almes of such a person is that it be spent in wood and coales and other fuell that so as the subtile philosophy of their Canon is it may be burnt and consumed by fire for to save a mans life it must not be spent upon meat or drink or such sustentation These Doctrines are not the Doctrines of this Resurrection by which man considered in Composito as he consists of soule and body by a sober and temperate life makes his body obsequious and serviceable to his soule but yet leaves his soule a body to worke in and an Organ to praise God upon both in a devout humiliation of his body in Gods service and in a bodily performance of the duties of some calling for this is our first Resurrection A casu separationis from having falne into a separation of body and soule for they must serve God joyntly together because God having joyned them man may not separate them but as God shall re-unite them at the last Resurrection so must we in our Resurrections in this life And farther we extend not this Resurrection from this separation this divorce The second fall of man in naturall death Casus in dissolutionem is Casus in dissolutionem The man being fallen into a divorce of soule and body the body fals by putrefaction into a dissolution of dust and the Resurrection from this fall is a re-efformation when God shall recompact that dust into that body This fall and this resurrection we have in our spirituall death too for we fall into daily customes and continuall habits of those sins and we become not onely as that Lazarus in the parable to have sores upon us but as that Lazarus in the Gospell that was dead Domine jam faetemus quatriduani sumus Lord we stinke in thy nostrils and we have beene buried foure dayes All the foure changes of our life Infancy Youth Middle Age and Old have beene spent and worne out in a continuall and uninterrupted course of sin In which we shall best consider our fall and best prepare our Resurrection by looking from whence we are fallen and by what steps and they are three First Nardus nostra Cant. 1.12 Perdidimus nardum nostraÌ We have lost the sweet savour of our own Spikenard for so the Spouse saies Nardus mea dedit odorem suum My Spikenard hath given forth her sweet savour There was a time when we had a Spikenard and a sweet savour of our own when our own Naturall faculties in that state as God infused them in Adam had a power to apprehend and lay hold upon the graces of God Man hath a reasonable soule capable of Gods grace so hath no creature but man man hath naturall faculties which may be employed by God in his service so hath no creature but man Onely man was made so as that he might be better whereas all other creatures were but to consist in that degree of goodnesse in which they entred Miserable fall Only man was made to mend and only man does grow
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâan Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
his Sermon at Antioch Now what is written in that Psalme which S. Paul cites there to our present purpose This Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But is not this Hodie genui This this dayes begetting intended rather of the eternall filiation generation of the Son of God then of this daies work the Resurrection Those words of that Psalm may well admit that interpretation Hilar. and so many have taken them But with S. Hilary most of the ancients have applied them to the Resurrection as the application of S. Paul himself directly binds us to do That the Hodie genui This dayes generation is this dayes manifestation that Christ was the Son of God Calvin Calvin enlarges it farther That every declaration of the Son by the Father is a generation of the Son So his baptisme and the voice then so his Transfiguration and the voice then Mat. 3.17 Mat. 17.3 were each of them a Hodie genui a generation of the Son that day But especially sayes Calvin do those words of the Psalm belong to this day because the Resurrection was the most evident actuall declaration that Christ was the Son of God Rom. 1.4 for He was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection from the dead saies the Apostle expresly But how wherein was he declared There were others that were raised from the dead by Prophets in the old Testament by Christ and his Apostles in the new and yet not thereby declared to be such Sons of God Essentiall Sons no nor any Sons of God not Sons by adoption for we are not sure that all those that were miraculously raised from the dead were effectually saved at last Therefore the comfort in our case is in that word of the Angel Surrexit He is risen For so all our Translators and Expositors do constantly carry it not in a Suscitatus as all the rest are That he was raised but in this Surrexit He is risen risen of himself For so he testifies of himself Destroy this Temple and in three dayes Ego suscitabo I will raise it up again John 2.19 Not that the Father should but that he would so also Ego pono and Ego sumo sayes Christ I lay down and I take again my soul Not that it is given or taken by another John 10.17 Nyssen And therefore Gregory Nyssen suspects that for the infirmity of the then hearers the Apostles thought it scarce safe to expresse it often in that phrase He rose or He raised himself and therefore for the most part return to the Suscitatus est that He was raised lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that that a dead man had raised himself of his own power And therefore the Angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women in a full measure when he opens himselfe in that word Surrexit He is risen risen of himselfe This then is one piece of our evidence and the foundation of all Nos that we cannot be deceived because he in whom we trust is by this his own rising declared to be the Son of God And another and a powerfull comfort is this Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 4.14 That he being risen for our justification we are also risen in him He that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up also by the same Iesus He shall there is our assurance but that is not all for there is a con-resuscitavit Ephes 2.6 He hath quickned us together and raised us together and made us to sit together in heavenly places not together with one another but together with Christ There is our comfort collected from this surrexit He is risen equivalent to the discomfort of the non est hîc he is not here That this his rising declares him to be the Son of God who therefore can and will and to be that Jesus an actuall Redeemer and therefore hath already raised us To what To that renovation to that new creation which is so excellently expressed by Severianus as makes us sorry we have no more of his Mutatur ordorerum Severianus The whole frame and course of nature is changed Sepulchrum non mortuum sed mortem devorat The grave now since Christs Resurrection and ours in him does not bury the dead man but death himself My Bell tolls for death and my Bell rings out for death and not for me that dye for I live even in death but death dies in me and hath no more power over me I was crucified with Christ upon Friday saies Chrysologus Et hodiè resurgo Chrysologus to day I rose with him again Et gloria resurrection is sepelivit injuriam morientis The ingloriousnesse of having been buried in the dust is recompenced in the glory I rise to Liber inter mortuos that which David sayes and by S. Augustines application of Christ Psal 88.5 August is true of me too Christ was and I am Liber inter mortuos free amongst the dead undetainable in the state of death For sayes S. Peter It was not possible he should be holden of it Acts 2.24 Not possible for Christ because of the prediction of so many Prophets whose words had an infallibility in them not possible especially because of the Union of the Divine Nature Not possible for me neither because God hath afforded me the marks of his Election and thereby made me partaker of the Divine Nature too 2 Pet. 1.4 But yet these things might perchance not fall into the consideration of these women They did not but they might they should have done for as the Angell tels them here Christ had told them of this before Sicut dixit he is risen as he said Even the Angell himself referres himself to the word Sicut dixit Sicut dixit The Angell himself desires not to be beleeved but as he grounds himself upon the word sicut dixit Let therefore no Angell of the Church not that super-Arch-angell of the Romane Church proceed upon an ipse dixit upon his own pectorall word and determination for the Angell here referres us to the sicut dixit the former word God will be content that we doubt and suspend our assent to any revelation if it doe not concerne some duty delivered in Scripture before And to any miracle if it doe not conduce to the proofe of some thing commanded in Scripture before Sicut dixit is an Angelicall issue As he said But how often soever Christ had spoken of this Resurrection to others Vobie these women might be ignorant of it For all that is said even by Christ himself is not said to all nor is all written for all that is written by the Holy Ghost No man must suspect that he knowes not enough for salvation if he understand not all places of Scripture But yet these women could not well be ignorant of this because being Disciples and followers of Christ though Christ had
things as are problematicall if thou love the peace of Sion be not too inquisitive to know nor too vehement when thou thinkest thou doest know it Come then to ask this question 3. Part. not problematically as it is contracted to them that shall live in the last dayes nor peremptorily of man as he is subject to originall sin but at large so as the question may include Christ himself and then to that Quis homo What man is he We answer directly here is the man that shall not see death And of him principally August and literally S. Augustine as we said before takes this question to be framed Vt quaeras dictum non ut desperes saith he this question is moved to move thee to seek out and to have thy recourse to that man which is the Lord of Life not to make thee despaire that there is no such man in whose self and in whom for all us there is Redemption from death For sayes he this question is an exception to that which was said before the text which is Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain Consider it better sayes the Holy Ghost here and it will not prove so Man is not made in vain at first though he do die now for Perditio tua ex te This death proceeds from man himself and Quare moriemini domus Israel Why will ye die ô house of Israel God made not death âap 1.13 neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living The Wise man sayes it and the true God sweares it As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner God did not create man in vain then though he die not in vain for since he will needs die God receives glory even by his death in the execution of his justice not in vaine neither because though he be dead God hath provided him a Redeemer from death in his mercy Man is not created in vain at all nor all men so neare vanity as to die for here is one man God and Man Christ Jesus which liveth and shall not see death And conformable to S. Augustines purpose ãâã speakes S. Hierome too Scio quòd nullus homo carneus evadet sed novi Deum sub velamento carnis latentem I know there is no man but shall die but I know where there is a God clothed in mans flesh and that person cannot die But did not Christ die then Shall we joyne with any of those Heretiques which brought Christ upon the stage to play a part and say he was born or lived or dyed In phantasmate In apparance only and representation God forbid so all men were created in vain indeed if we had not a regeneration in his true death Where is the contract between him and his Father that Oportuit pati All this Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory Is that contract void and of none effect Must he not die Where is the ratification of that contract in all the Prophets ãâã 53.4.9 Where is Esays Verè languores nostros tulit Surely he hath born our sorrows and he made his grave with the wicked in his death Is the ratification of the Prophets cancelled Shall he not must he not die Where is the consummation and the testification of all this Where is the Gospell Consummatum est And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost Is that fabulous Did he not die How stands the validity of that contract Christ must die the dignity of those Prophecies Christ will die the truth of the Gospell Christ did die with this answer to this question Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Very well For though Christ Jesus did truly die so as was contracted so as was prophecied so as was related yet hee did not die so as was intended in this question so as other naturall men do die For first Christ dyed because he would dye other men admitted to the dignity of Martyrdome are willing to dye but they dye by the torments of the Executioners they cannot bid their soules goe out and say now I will dye And this was Christs case ãâã 10.15 It was not only I lay down my life for my sheep but he sayes also No man can take away my soule And I have power to lay it down And De facto he did lay it down he did dye before the torments could have extorted his soule from him Many crucified men lived many dayes upon the Crosse The thieves were alive long after Christ was dead and therefore Pilate wondred that he was already dead His soule did not leave his body by force ãâ¦ã but because he would and when he would and how he would Thus far then first this is an answer to this question Quis homo Christ did not die naturally nor violently as all others doe but only voluntarily Again the penalty of death appertaining only to them who were derived from Adam by carnall and sinfull generation Christ Jesus being conceived miraculously of a Virgin by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost was not subject to the Law of death and therefore in his person it is a true answer to this Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he need not see death he hath not incurred Gods displeasure he is not involved in a general rebellion and therfore is not involved in the generall mortality not included in the generall penalty He needed not have dyed by the rigour of any Law all we must he could not dye by the malice or force of any Executioner all we must at least by natures generall Executioners Age and Sicknesse And then when out of his own pleasure and to advance our salvation he would dye yet he dyed so as that though there were a dis-union of body and soule which is truly death yet there remained a Nobler and faster union then that of body and soule the Hypostaticall Union of the God-head not onely to his soule but to his body too so that even in his death both parts were still not onely inhabited by but united to the Godhead it selfe and in respect of that inseparable Union we may answer to this question Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he shall see no separation of that which is incomparably and incomprehensibly a better soul then his soule the God-head shall not be separated from his body But that which is indeed the most direct and literall answer to this question is That whereas the death in this Text is intended of such a death as hath Dominion over us and from which we have no power to raise our selves we may truly and fully answer to his Quis homo here is a man that shall never see death so but that he shall even in the jawes and teeth of death and in the bowels and wombe of the grave and in the sink and furnace of hell
it selfe retaine an Almighty power and an effectuall purpose to deliver his soule from death by a glorious a victorious and a Triumphant Resurrection So it is true Christ Josus dyed else none of us could live but yet hee dyed not so as is intended in this question Not by the necessity of any Law not by the violence of any Executioner not by the separation of his best soule if we may so call it the God-head nor by such a separation of his naturall and humane soule as that he would not or could not or did not resume it againe If then this question had beene asked of Angels at first Quis Angelus what Angel is that that stands and shall not fall though as many of those Angels as were disposed to that answer Erimus similes Altissimo We will be like God and stand of our selves without any dependance upon him did fall yet otherwise they might have answered the question fairly All we may stand if we will If this question had been asked of Adam in Paradise Quis homo though when he harkned to her who had harkned to that voyce Erit is sicut Dii You shall be as Gods he fell too yet otherwise he might have answered the question fairly so I may live and not dye if I will so if this question be asked of us now as the question implies the generall penalty as it considers us onely as the sons of Adam we have no other answer but that by Adam sin entred upon all and death by sin upon all as it implies the state of them onely whom Christ at his second comming shall finde upon earth wee have no other answer but a modest non liquet we are not sure whether we shall dye then or no wee are onely sure it shall be so as most conduces to our good and Gods glory but as the question implies us to be members of our Head Christ Jesus as it was a true answer in him it is true in every one of us adopted in him Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Death and life are in the power of the tongue sayes Solomon in another sense Prov. 18.21 and in this sense too If my tongue suggested by my heart and by my heart rooted in faith can say Non moriar non moriar If I can say and my conscience doe not tell me that I belye mine owne state if I can say That the blood of my Saviour runs in my veines That the breath of his Spirit quickens all my purposes that all my deaths have their Resurrection all my sins their remorses all my rebellions their reconciliations I will harken no more after this question as it is intended de morte naturali of a naturall death I know I must die that death what care I nor de morte spirituali the death of sin I know I doe and shall die so why despaire I but I will finde out another death mortem raptus 2 Cor. 12. a death of rapture Acts 9. Greg. and of extasie that death which S. Paul died more then once The death which S. Gregory speaks of Divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum animae The contemplation of God and heaven is a kinde of buriall and Sepulchre and rest of the soule and in this death of rapture and extasie in this death of the Contemplation of my interest in my Saviour I shall finde my self and all my sins enterred and entombed in his wounds and like a Lily in Paradise out of red earth I shall see my soule rise out of his blade in a candor and in an innocence contracted there acceptable in the sight of his Father Though I have been dead 1 Tim. 5.6 in the delight of sin so that that of S. Paul That a Widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth be true of my soule that so viduatur gratiâ mortuâ when Christ is dead not for the soule but in the soule that the soule hath no sense of Christ Viduatur anima the soul is a Widow and no Dowager she hath lost her husband and hath nothing from him Esay 28.15 yea though I have made a Covenant with death and have been at an agreement with hell and in a vain confidence have said to my self that when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to me yet God shall annull that covenant he shall bring that scourge that is some medicinall correction upon me and so give me a participation of all the stripes of his son he shall give me a sweat that is some horrour and religious feare and so give me a participation of his Agony he shall give me a diet perchance want and penury and so a participation of his fasting and if he draw blood if he kill me all this shall be but Mors raptus a death of rapture towards him into a heavenly and assured Contemplation that I have a part in all his passion yea such an intire interest in his whole passion as though all that he did or suffered had been done and suffered for my soul alone 2 Cor. 6.9 Quasi moriens ecce vivo some shew of death I shall have for I shall sin and some shew of death again for I shall have a dissolution of this Tabernacle Sed ecce vivo still the Lord of life will keep me alive and that with an Ecce Behold I live that is he will declare and manifest my blessed state to me I shall not sit in the shadow of death no nor I shall not sit in darknesse his gracious purpose shall evermore be upon me and I shall ever discerne that gracious purpose of his I shall not die nor I shall not doubt that I shall If I be dead within doores If I have sinned in my heart why Suscitavit in domo Mar. 9.23 Christ gave a Resurrection to the Rulers daughter within doores in the house If I be dead in the gate If I have sinned in the gates of my soule in mine Eies Luke 7.11 or Eares or Hands in actuall sins why Suscitavit in porta Christ gave a Resurrection to the young man at the gate of Naim If I be dead in the grave in customary and habituall sins why John 11. Suscitavit in Sepulchro Christ gave a Resurrection to Lazarus in the grave too If God give me mortem raptus a death of rapture of extasie of fervent Contemplation of Christ Jesus a Transfusion a Transplantation a Transmigration a Transmutation into him for good digestion brings alwaies assimilation certainly if I come to a true meditation upon Christ I come to a conformity with Christ this is principally that Pretiosa mors Sanctorum Psal 116.15 Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints by which they are dead and buryed and risen again in Christ Jesus pretious is that death by which we apply that pretious blood to our selves and grow strong
afflictionis Verse 16. Studied and premeditated plots and practises swallowe mee possesse me intirely In all these dayes I shall not onely have a Zoar to flie to if I can get out of Sodom joy if I can overcome my sorrow There shall not be a Goshen bordering upon my Egypt joy if I can passe beyond or besides my sorrow but I shall have a Goshen in my Egypt nay my very Egypt shall be my Goshen I shall not onely have joy though I have sorrow but therefore my very sorrow shall be the occasion of joy I shall not onely have a Sabbath after my six dayes labor but Omnibus diebus a Sabbath shall enlighten every day and inanimate every minute of every day And as my soule is as well in my foot as in my hand though all the waight and oppression lie upon the foot and all action upon the hand so these beames of joy shall appeare as well in my pillar of cloud as in theirs of fire in my adversity as well as in their prosperity And when their Sun shall set at Noone mine shall rise at midnight they shall have damps in their glory and I joyfull exaltions in my dejections And to end with the end of all In die mortis In the day of my death and that which is beyond the end of all and without end in it selfe The day of Judgement If I have the testimony of a rectified conscience that I have accustomed my selfe to that accesse to God by prayer and such prayer as though it have had a body of supplication and desire of future things yet the soule and spirit of that prayer that is my principall intention in that prayer hath been praise and thanksgiving If I be involved in S. Chrysostoms Patent Orantes non natura sed dispensatione Angeli fiunt That those who pray so that is pray by way of praise which is the most proper office of Angels as they shall be better then Angels in the next world for they shall be glorifying spirits as the Angels are but they shall also be glorified bodies which the Angels shall never bee so in this world they they shall be as Angels because they are employed in the office of Angels to pray by way of praise If as S. Basil reads those words of that Psalme not spiritus meus but respiratio mea laudet Dominum Not onely my spirit but my very breath not my heart onely but my tongue and my hands bee accustomed to glorifie God In die mortis in the day of my death when a mist of sorrow and of sighes shall fill my chamber and a cloude exhaled and condensed from teares shall bee the curtaines of my bed when those that love me shall be sorry to see mee die and the devill himselfe that hates me sorry to see me die so in the favour of God And In die Iudicii In the day of Judgement when as all Time shall cease so all measures shall cease The joy and the sorrow that shall be then shall be eternall no end and infinite no measure no limitation when every circumstance of sinne shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner and the very substance of my sinne shall bee washed away in the blood of my Saviour when I shall see them who sinned for my sake perish eternally because they proceeded in that sinne and I my selfe who occasioned their sin received into glory because God upon my prayer and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy early that is before my transmigration In omnibus diebus In all these dayes the dayes of youth and the wantonnesses of that the dayes of age and the tastlesnesse of that the dayes of mirth and the sportfulnesse of that and of inordinate melancholy and the disconsolatenesse of that the days of such miseries as astonish us with their suddennesse and of such as aggravate their owne waight with a heavy expectation In the day of Death which pieces up that circle and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces but is one equall everlastingnesse the day of Judgement Either I shall rejoyce be able to declare my faith and zeale to the assistance of others or at least be glad in mine owne heart in a firme hope of mine owne salvation And therefore beloved as they whom lighter affections carry to Shewes and Masks and Comedies As you your selves whom better dispositions bring to these Exercises conceive some contentment and some kinde of Joy in that you are well and commodiously placed they to see the Shew you to heare the Sermon when the time comes though your greater Joy bee reserved to the comming of that time So though the fulnesse of Joy be reserved to the last times in heaven yet rejoyce and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the meane time and that you sit but in expectation of the fulnesse of those future Joyes Returne to God with a joyfull thankfulnesse that he hath placed you in a Church which withholds nothing from you that is necessary to salvation whereas in another Church they lack a great part of the Word and halfe the Sacrament And which obtrudes nothing to you that is not necessary to salvation whereas in another Church the Additionall things exceed the Fundamentall the Occasionall the Originall the Collaterall the Direct And the Traditions of men the Commandements of God Maintaine and hold up this holy alacrity this religious cheerfulnesse For inordinate sadnesse is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulnesse and the departing from Joy in this world is a departing with one piece of our Evidence for the Joyes of the world to come SERM. LXXX Preached at the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight Alderman of London December 12. 1626. JOH 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died GOd made the first Marriage and man made the first Divorce God married the Body and Soule in the Creation and man divorced the Body and Soule by death through sinne in his fall God doth not admit not justifie not authorize such Super-inductions upon such Divorces as some have imagined That the soule departing from one body should become the soule of another body in a perpetuall revolution and transmigration of soules through bodies which hath been the giddinesse of some Philosophers to think Or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evill spirit that that spirit might at his will and to his purposes informe and inanimate that dead body God allowes no such Super-inductions no such second Marriages upon such divorces by death no such disposition of soule or body after their dissolution by death But because God hath made the band of Marriage indissoluble but by death farther then man can die this divorce cannot fall upon man As farre as man is immortall man is a married man still still in possession of a soule and a body too And man is for ever immortall in both Immortall in
to the Office of a Prophet 54. D. The promises of God in the Prophets how different from those in the Gospel 40. E. A This a seditious inference the Prophets did thus and thus in the Law therefore the Ministers of the Gospel should doe so likewise and why 734. A Psalmes The Booke of Psalmes the dignity and vertue of it 653. D. E They are the Manna of the Church 663. B Such forbid to bee made Priests that were not perfect in the Psalmes 813. B Singing of the Psalmes how generall and commendable in S. Hieromes times ibid. B. C Purgatorie none in the old Testament and why 783. E How derived from Poets and Philosophers to Fathers 784. A. B. C How suspitiously and doubtfully the Fathers speak of it bid specially S Augustine 786. E Bellarmine refuted about it 792.793 Q QVestions arising taken away by Silencing of both parties 42. D Against curiosity in seeking after them 57. D There is alwaies Divinity enough to save a soule that was never called into Question 745. A How peevish some Romish Authors doe detoât the Scripture when they fall upon any Question or Controversie though otherwise they content themselves with the true meaning and sense of the same words 790. E. 791. A Quomodo to Question how God doth this or that dangerous 301. E. 367. C R REason not to be enquired after in all points of Faith 23. B Reasons not convincing never to be proffered for to prove Articles of Faith 205. D God useth to accompany those Duties which hee commands with Reasons to enduce us to the performance of them 593. A Reconciliation how little amongst the Papists 10. D All Nations under heaven have acknowledged some meanes of Reconciliation to their offended gods in the remission of their sinnes 564. C Religion against such as damnifie Religion by their outward profession more than if they did forsake it 757. D Every Religion had her mysteries her Reservations and in-intelligiblenesse which were not easily understood of all men 690. D And therefore Religion not to be made too homely and course a thing ibid. C Christian Religion an easie yoke a short and contracted burden 71. D All points of Religion not to bee divulged to the people 87. D Defects in Religion safer than superfluities 291. A Of peaceable conversation with men of divers Religions 310. C Wee charged to have but a negative Religion 636. A Religion how farre we may proceed in the outward declaration of our Religion 814. A Resurrection of three sorts 149. E Of that from persecution 185. B. C. D Of that from Sinne 186. D. E. c Of that from Death 189. D How a Resurrection of the soule being the soule cannot die 189. D Christ how the First Resurrection 191. B Our Resurrection a mystery 204. C Resurrection All Religions amongst the Heathens had some Impressions of it 800. E Retrospection or looking upon time past the best rule to judge of the future 668. D Reverence how much due to men of old Age 31. D What Required in Gods House 43. D Revelations wee are not to hearken after them 238 E Nor yet to binde God from them 239. A Rewards against bribery or receiving of Rewards 389. E God first proposes to himselfe persons to be Rewarded or condemned before he thinks of their condemnation or their Reward 674. B. 675. B. C Riches the cause of lesse sinne than poverty 658. D Especially considered in the highest degree and in the lowest that is abundant Riches and extreme beggerly poverty 659. D Against the perverse desire of Riches 728. C Riches S. Chrysostome calls the parents of absurdities and why 729. A The Remane Church a true Church as the Pest house is a house 606. A. 621. C Rome the Church of Rome the better for reformamation 621. B They doe charge us that we have but a negative Religion 636. A Why they so much under-value the Scripture and yet endevour to bring bookes of other Authors into that ranke as the Macchabees and such like 738. E Rome it selfe how it hath beene handled ever by Catholikes in their bloody warres 779. A Almost all the Controversies between Rome and the Christian world are matters of profit 791. A Rule and Example the two onely wayes of Teaching 571. E. 668. B The onely Rule of doctrine the Scripture and Word of God 738. E S THe Sabbath a Ceremoniall Law 92. C Sacrament how effectually Christ is present in it 19. C Of preparing our selves to the worthy receiving of it 32. A. c 33. A. c Against Superstition and Prophanesse too in the comming to it 34. A Of Christs reall presence in it 36. D. 37. B. C That which we receive in the Sacrament to bee Adored 693. B Against unworthy receiving of it 693. D. E Of both extremes about Chrsts presence in the Sacrament 821. E Saints against praying to them 90. D. 378. D. 595. A. 744. A. 757. B The Saints in heaven pray for us 106. B Why they must not pray to Saints in the Church of Rome upon good Friday Easter and Whitsunday 485. D Whether they enjoy degrees of Glory in heaven 742. E Salvation of the generall possibility of Salvation for all men 66. B. 330. A. B. 742. B. C. D. Not to be ascribed to our Workes 107. D Nor to our Faith ibid. E More that are Saved than that are damned 241. A. 259. C The impossibility of Salvation to any man before hee was a man a discomfortable doctrine 278. B Of that certaintie of Salvation which is taught of some in the Roman Church and how farre we are from it 339. D. E. 340. A. 608. C Salvation offered to all men and in earnest 742. A. B Saviour the name of Saviour attributed to others beside Christ 528. D Scriptures the most eloquent Books that are 47. E 556. E. 557. C foure Elements of the right exposition and sense of Scripture 305. B Moderation in reading of them 323. C Scripures the only rule of Doctrine 738. E Secrecy in Confession commended but in case of disloyaltie 92. E. 575. E Seeing of God in our Actions how necessary 169. E Against Selfe-Subsistence or standing of our selves 240. A. B Against Selfe-Love 156. A Sermons how loth the Fathers were to lacke company at them 48. C Of preaching the same Sermons twice 114. C 250. C The danger of hearing Sermons without practising 455. C. D Sighing for sinne the benefit of it 537. D Sight the noblest of the sences and all the sences 225. B Signe of the Crosse wherefore used in the Primative times 538. A And why by us in baptisme ibid. Signes how they may be sought after and how not 15. B. C. D Shame for sinne a good signe 557. D To be voice-proofe not afraid nor Ashamed of what the World sayes of a Man an ill signe of a Spirituall obduration in sinne 589. A Silence the severall sorts of it Silence of Reverence 575. C Silence of subjection ibid. D
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
consternation a question that should strike him that should answer it dumb as Christs question Amice quomodo intrasti Friend how camest in hither did him to whom that was said which Origen askes in this case When wilt thou dare to goe out of this world if thou darest not goe now when Christ Jesus hath taken thee by the hand to leade thee out This then is truly to depart in peace In pace by the Gospell of peace to the God of peace My body is my prison and I would be so obedient to the Law as not to break prison I would not hasten my death by starving or macerating this body But if this prison be burnt down by continuall feavers or blowen down with continuall vapours would any man be so in love with that ground upon which that prison stood as to desire rather to stay there then to go home Our prisons are fallen our bodies are dead to many former uses Our palate dead in a tastlesnesse Our stomach dead in an indigestiblenesse our feete dead in a lamenesse and our invention in a dulnesse and our memory in a forgetfulnesse and yet as a man that should love the ground where his prison stood we love this clay that was a body in the dayes of our youth and but our prison then when it was at best wee abhorre the graves of our bodies and the body which in the best vigour thereof Gen. 40. was but the grave of the soule we over-love Pharaohs Butler and his Baker went both out of prison in a day and in both cases Ioseph in the interpretation of their dreames calls that their very discharge out of prison a lifting up of their heads a kinde of preferment Death raises every man alike so far as that it delivers every man from his prison from the incumbrances of this body both Baker and Butler were delivered of their prison but they passed into divers states after one to the restitution of his place the other to an ignominious execution Of thy prison thou shalt be delivered whether thou wilt or no thou must die Foole this night thy soule may be taken from thee and then what thou shalt be to morrow prophecy upon thy selfe by that which thou hast done to day If thou didst depart from that Table in peace thou canst depart from this world in peace And the peace of that Table is to come to it in pace desiderii with a contented minde and with an enjoying of those temporall blessings which thou hast without macerating thy self without usurping upon others without murmuring at God And to be at that Table in pace cogitationum in the peace of the Church without the spirit of contradiction or inquisition without uncharitablenesse towards others without curiosity in thy selfe And then to come from that Table in pace domestica with a bosome peace in thine own Conscience in that seale of thy reconciliation in that Sacrament that so riding at that Anchor and in that calme whether God enlarge thy voyage by enlarging thy life or put thee into the harbour by the breath by the breathlesnesse of Death either way East or West thou maist depart in peace according to his word that is as he shall be pleased to manifest his pleasure upon thee SERMON V. Preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day 1627. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send IT hath been suspitiously doubted more then that freely disputed more then that too absolutely denied that Christ was born the five and twentieth of December that this is Christmas-day yet for all these doubts and disputations and denials we forbeare not with the whole Church of God constantly and confidently to celebrate this for his Day It hath been doubted and disputed and denied too that this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah to the comming of Christ to Christmas-day yet we forbeare not to wait upon the ancient Fathers and as they said to say that Moses having received a commandement from God to undertake that great employment of delivering the children of Israel from the oppressions of Pharaoh in Aegypt and having excused himselfe by some other modest and pious pretences at last when God pressed the imployment still upon him he determines all in this O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send or as it is in our Margin when thou shouldest send It is a work next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world to redeem Israel out of Aegypt And therefore doe both workes at once put both into one hand and mitte quem missurus es send him whom I know thou wilt send him whom pursuing thine own decree thou shouldest send send Christ send him now to redeem Israel from Aegypt These words then though some have made that interpretation of them and truly not without a faire apparance and probability and verisimilitude doe not necessarily imply a slacknesse in Moses zeale that he desired not affectionately and earnestly the deliverance of his Nation from the pressures of Aegypt nor doe they imply any diffidence or distrust that God could not or would not endow him with faculties fit for that imployment But as a thoughtfull man a pensive a considerative man that stands still for a while with his eyes fixed upon the ground before his feete when he casts up his head hath presently instantly the Sun or the heavens for his object he sees not a tree nor a house nor a steeple by the way but as soon as his eye is departed from the earth where it was long fixed the next thing he sees is the Sun or the heavens so when Moses had fixed himselfe long upon the consideration of his own insufficiency for this service when he tooke his eye from that low peece of ground Himselfe considered as he was then he fell upon no tree no house no steeple no such consideration as this God may endow me improve me exalt me enable me qualifie me with faculties fit for this service but his first object was that which presented an infallibility with it Christ Jesus himselfe the Messias himselfe and the first petition that he offers to God is this O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send For me as I am I am altogether unfit when thou shalt be pleased to work upon me thou wilt finde me but stone hard to receive thy holy impressions and then but snow easie to melt and lose those holy formes again There must be labour laid and perchance labour lost upon me but put the businesse into a safe had and under an infallible instrument and Mitte quem missurus es send him whom I know thou wilt send him whom pursuing thine own decree thou shouldest send send him send Christ now As much as Paradise exceeded all
not God And because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evill But now in the manifestation of Christ they saw evident changes changes and revolutions in the highest spheare they saw a new King and they heard strangers proclaime him forraigne Kings doe not send Ambassadors to congratulate but come in person to doe their homage and aske their audience in that style Where is he that is borne King of the Iews not an elective not an arbitrary not a conditionall a provisionall King but an hereditary a naturall King Borne King of the Iews They heare strangers proclaime him Mat. 2.2 and they proclaime him themselves in that act of Recognition in that acclamatory Hosanna in this Chapter Blessed is the King of Israel that commeth in the name of the Lord. v. 13. Mat. 2.3 They saw changes changes with which Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him And they saw sentence executed for as soone as Christ manifested himselfe Iohn Baptist saies Now Mat. 3.10 Mat. 3.12 now that Christ declares himselfe the axe is laid unto the roote of the tree and now saies he His fanne is in his hand and he will purge his floore And this sentence he executed this regall power he exercised not onely after that Recognition of his subjects in their Hosannaes in this chapter for upon that he did go into the Temple and cast out the buyers and sellers but some yeares before that at his first manifestation of himselfe and soone after Iohn Baptists Now Iohn 2.3 now is the axe laid to the roote of the Tree did Christ execute this sentence not onely to drive but to scourge them out that prophaned the Temple which was the second miracle that we ascribe to Christ Indeed all his miracles were so many acts not onely of his regall power over some men but of his absolute prerogative over the whole frame and body of nature Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles could argue to themselves otherwise then thus The winds and seas obey this man for when he suffers them the winds roare and when hee whispers a silence to them they are silenced The Devils and uncleane spirits obey him for when he suffers it they preach his glory and when he refuses honour from so dishonourable mouths they are silent Death it selfe obeyes him for when he will death withholds his hand from closing that mans eye that lyes upon his last gaspe and the last stroke of his bell and hee does not die and when he will death withdraws his hand from him who had beene foure daies in his possession and redelivers Lazarus to a new life This they saw and could they choose but say the wind and the sea the devill and uncleane spirits and death it selfe obeyes this man how shall we stand before this man this King this God yet for all this voice this loud voice of miracles for when S. Chrysostome sayes Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio Every good worke hath the voyce of a trumpet every miracle hath the voice of thunder for all this loud voice as it is said in the verse before the text Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they beleeved not on him it is faine to come to that Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report The first of those great names which were given to Christ Esay 9.6 in the Prophet Esay was Mirabilis The wonderfull The supernaturall man the man that workes miracles for of the Apostles it is said by them great miracles were wrought but God wrought those miracles by them Christ wrought his miracles himself And his Birth and his Life and Death and Refurrection and Ascension were all complicated and elemented of miracles If hee fasted himselfe he did that miraculously and it was with a miracle when he feasted others He healed many that were sick of divers diseases Mark 1.34 Mat. 9.35 and cast out many Devils saies S. Marke And S. Matthew carries it a great deale farther Hee went about all the Cities and villages healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people Therefore Christ makes that the evidence of his miracles the issue betweene them If these mighty works had beene done in Tyre and Sidon Mat. 11.21 Iohn 15.22 Tyre and Sidon would have repented And therefore he places their inexcusablenesse in that If I had not come and spoken to them they had had no sinne Nay if I had not spoken to them in this loud voyce the voyce of miracles they might have had some cloake for their finne but now they have none saies Christ in that place And beloved are not we inexcusable in that degree Have not wee seene changes and seene judgements executed and seene miraculous deliverances and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved these reports I would wee could but take aright a mis-taken translation and make that use that is offered us in others error The vulgar Edition the translation of the Roman Church reads that place in the 77. Psalme and 11. verse thus Nunc caepi saies David Now I have taken out my lesson the right way now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle Nunc caepi Now I have all that I need to have what is it This Haec mutatio dextrae Dei this is to take out my lesson aright to understand God truly and to know acknowledge that this change which I see is an act of the right hand of God and that it is a judgement and not an accident O beloved that wee would not be afraid of giving God too much glory not afraid of putting God into too much heart or of making God too imperious over us by acknowledging that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God and come from him But we are not onely subject to the Prophets increpation Quis credit that we doe not beleeve Gods warnings of future judgements but to the Euangelists increpation in the person of Christ Quis credidit we do not beleeve present judgements to be judgements An invincible navy hath beene sent against us and defeated and we sacrifice to a casuall storme for that wee say the winds delivered us A powder treason hath been plotted and discovered and we sacrifice to a casuall letter for that we say the letter delivered us A devouring plague hath raigned and gone out againe and we sacrifice to an early frost for that we say the cold weather delivered us Domestique encumbrances personall infirmities sadnesse of heart dejection of spirit oppresses us and then weares out and passes over and we sacrifice for that to wine and strong drinke to musique to Comedies to conversation and to all Iobs miserable comforters wee say it was but a melancholique fit and good company hath delivered us of it But when God himselfe saies There is
ordained that upon this day the Church should burne no Oyle but Balsamum in her Lamps so let us ever celebrate this day with a thankfull acknowledgment that Christ who is unctus Domini The Anointed of the Lord hath anointed us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes and given us life more abundantly then others in making us partakers of these meanes of salvation in his Church But I bring it closer then so now and here within these wals and at this houre comes Christ unto you in the offer of this abundance and with what penuriousnesse penuriousnesse of devotion penuriousnesse of reverence do you meet him here Deus stetit saies David Psal 82.1 God standeth in the Congregation does God stand there and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele I would speake so as the congregation should not know whom I meane but so as that they whom it concernes might know I meane them I would speake for I must say that there come some persons to this Church and persons of example to many that come with them of whom excepting some few who must therefore have their praise from us as no doubt they have their thanks and blessings from God I never saw Master nor servant kneele at his comming into this Church or at any part of divine service David had such a zeale to Gods service as that he was content to be thought a foole for his humility towards the Arke S. Paul was content to be thought mad so was our blessed Saviour himselfe not onely by his enemies but by his owne friends and kinsfolke John 10.20 Mar. 3.21 Indeed the roote of that word Tehillim which is the name of the Psalmes and of all cheerefull and hearty service of God is Halal and Halal is Insanire To fall mad And if humility in the service of God here be madnesse I would more of us were more out of our wits then we are I would all our Churches were to that purpose Bedlams S. Hieroms rule is not onely frequenter orandum to come often to prayers but Flexo corpore orandum to declare an inward humiliation by an outward As our comming to Church is a testification a profession of our religion to testifie our fall in Adam the Church appoints us to fall upon our knees and to testifie our Resurrection in Christ Jesus Just Mar. the Church hath appointed certaine times to stand But no man is so left to his liberty as never to kneele Genuflexio est peccatorum kneeling is the sinners posture if thou come hither in the quality of a sinner and if thou do not so what doest thou here the whole need not the Physitian put thy selfe into the posture of a sinner kneele We are very far from enjoyning any one constant forme to be alwaies observed by all men we onely direct you by that good rule of S. Bernard Habe reverentiam Deo ut quod pluris est ei tribuas Doe but remember with what reverence thou camest into thy Masters presence when thou wast a servant with what reverence thou camest to the Councell table or to the Kings presence if thou have beene called occasionally to those high places and Quod plur is est such reverence as thou gavest to them there be content to afford to God here That Sacrifice that struggled at the Altar the Ancients would not accept for a Sacrifice But Caesar would not forbeare a sacrifice for struggling but sacrificed it for all that He that struggles and murmures at this instruction this increpation is the lesse fit for a sacrifice to God for that But the zeale that I bear to Gods house puts so much of Caesars courage into mee as for all that struggling to say now and to repeat as often as I see that irreverence continued to the most impatient struggler Deus stetit God stands in the Congregation and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele Venite saies David Let us come hither let us be here what to doe Venite adoremus Ps 95.6 Let us come and worship How will not the heart serve no Adoremus procidamus Let us fall downe and kneele before the Lord our Maker Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification and as without this without holinesse no man shall see God though he pore whole nights upon the Bible so without that without humility no man shall heare God speake to his soule though hee heare three two-houres Sermons every day But if God bring thee to that humiliation of soule and body here hee will emprove and advance thy sanctification abundantiùs more abundantly and when he hath brought it to the best perfection that this life is capable of he will provide another abundantiùs another maner of abundance in the life to come which is the last beating of the pulse of this text the last panting of the breath thereof our anhelation and panting after the joyes and glory and eternity of the kingdome of Heaven of which though for the most part I use to dismisse you with saying something yet it is alwaies little that I can say thereof at this time but this that if all the joyes of all the Martyrs from Abel tâ him that groanes now in the Inquisition were condensed into one body of joy and certainly the joyes that the Martyrs felt at their deaths would make up a far greater body then their sorrowes would doe for though it bee said of our great Martyr or great Witnesse Apoc. 1.5 as S. Iohn calls Christ Jesus to whom all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs witnesses that testifie his testimony Non dolor sicut dolor ejus there was never sorrow like unto his sorrow Lam. 3.12 Heb. 12.2 it is also true Non gaudium sicut gaudium ejus There was never joy like unto that joy which was set before him when he endured the crosse If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs which would no doubt be such a joy as would worke a liquefaction a melting of my bowels yet I shall have it abundantiùs a joy more abundant then even this superlative joy in the world to come What a dimme vespers of a glorious festivall what a poore halfe-holyday is Methusalems nine hundred yeares to eternity what a poore account hath that man made that saies this land hath beene in my name and in my Ancestors from the Conquest what a yesterday is that not six hundred yeares If I could beleeve the transmigration of soules and thinke that my soule had beene successively in some creature or other since the Creation what a yesterday is that not six thousand yeares What a yesterday for the past what a to morrow for the future is any terme that can be comprehendred in Cyphar or Counters But as how abundant a life soever any man hath in this world for temporall abundances I have life more abundantly then hee if I have the spirituall life of grace so what measure soever I have of this spirituall life of
be strong enough to make benefit of that assistance And so death adheres when sin and Satan have weakned body and minde death enters upon both And in that respect he is Vltimus hostis the last enemy and that is Sextum vestigium our sixth and next step in this paraphrase Death is the last and in that respect the worst enemy In an enemy Novisssnsâs hostis that appeares at first when we are or may be provided against him there is some of that which we call Honour but in the enemie that reserves himselfe unto the last and attends our weake estate there is more danger Keepe it where I intend it in that which is my spheare the Conscience If mine enemie meet me betimes in my youth in an object of tentation so Iosephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife yet if I doe not adhere to this enemy dwell upon a delightfull meditation of that sin if I doe not fuell and foment that sin assist and encourage that sin by high diet wanton discourse other provocation I shall have reason on my side and I shall have grace on my side and I shall have the History of thousand that have perished by that sin on my side Even Spittles will give me souldiers to fight for me by their miserable example against taht sin nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman whom I sollicite will assist me But when I lye under the hands of that enemie that hath reserved himselfe to the last to my last bed then when I shall be able to stir no limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or a Palsie shall shake them when everlasting darknesse shal have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine eyes and the everlasting gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth and the everlasting worme in the present gnawing of the Agonies of my body and anguishes of my minde when the last enemie shall watch my remedilsse body and my desconsolate soule there there where not the Physitian in his way perchance not the Priist in hi shall be able to give any assistance And when he hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage my death-bed shall shift the Scene and throw me from that bed into the grave and there triumph over me God knowes how many generations till the Redeemer my Redeemer the Redeemer of all me body aswell as soule come againe As death is Novissimus hostis the enemy which watches me at my last weaknesse and shall hold me when I shall be no more till that Angel come Who shall say and sweare that time shall be no more in that consideration in that apprehension he is the powerfullest the fearefulest enemy and yet evern there this enemy Abolebitur he shall be destroyed which is Septimum vestigium our seventh and last step in this paraphrase This destruction this abolition of this last enemy is by the Resurrection Abolebieur for the Text is part of an argument for the Resurrection And truly it is a faire intimation and testimony of an everlasting end in that state of the Resurrection that no time shall end it that we have it presented to us in all the parts of time in the past in the present and in the future We had a Resurrection in prophecy we have a Resurrection in the present working of Gods Sprit we shall have a Resurrection in the finall consummation The Prophet speaks in the furture He will swallow up death in victory there it is Abolebit Esay 25.8 All the Erangelists speak historically of matter of fact in them it is Abolevit And here in this Apostle it is in the present Aboletur now he is destroyed And this exhibites unto us a threefold occasion of advancing our devotion in considering a threefold Resurrection First a Resurrection from dejections and calamities in this world a Temporary Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection from sin a Spirituall Resurrection and then a Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection A calamitate When the Prophets speak of a Resurrection in the old Testament 1. A calamitate for the most part their principall intention is upon a temporall restitution from calamities that oppresse them then Neither doth Calvin carry those emphaticall words which are so often cited for a proofe of the last Resurrection Job 19.25 That he knows his Redeemer lives that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth that though his body be destroyed yet in his flesh and with his eyes he shall see God to any higher sense then so that how low soeve he bee brought to what desperate state soever he be reducedin the eyes of the world yet he assures himself of a Resurrection a reparation a restitution to his former bodily health and worldly fortune which he had before And such a Resurrection we all know Iob had In that famous and most considerable propheticall vision which God exhibited to Ezekiel where God set the Prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the severall joynts to knit again tyes them with their old sinews and ligaments clothes them in their old flest wraps them in their old skin and cals life into them again Gods principall intention in that vision was thereby to give them an assurance of a Resurrection from their present calamity not but that there is also good evidence of the last Resurrection in that vision too Thus far God argues with them áre nota from that which they knew before the finall Resurrection he assures them that which they knew not till then a present Resurrection from those pressures Remember by this vision that which you all know already that at last I shall re-unite the dead and dry bones of all men in a generall Resurrection And them if you remember if you consider if you look upon that can you doubt but that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present desperation and give you a Resurrection to your former temporall happinesse And this truly arises pregnantly necessarily out of the Prophets answer God asks him there Son of man cna these bones live And he answers Domine tu nósti O Lord God thou knowest The Prophet answers according to Gods intention in the question If that had been for their living in the last Resurrection Ezekiel would have answered God as Martha answered Christ John 11.24 when he said Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again I know that he shall rise again at the Resurrection at the last day but when the question was whether men so macerated so seattered in this world could have a Resurrection to their former temprorall happinesse here that puts the Prophet to his Domine tu nósti It is in thy breast to proposeit itis in thy hand to execute it whether thou do it or do it not thy name be glorisied It fals not within our conjecture which way it shall please thee to take for this Resurrection Domine tu nósti Thou
Resurrection and in the Ascension And so that which is the last step of our first stage That that Iesus is made Lord as well as he is made Christ enters us upon our second stage The meanes by which we are to know and prove all this to our selves Therefore sayes the Text let all know it wherefore why because God hath raised him after you had crucified him Because God hath loosed the bands of death Ver. 23 24 25 26 27. because it was impossible that he should be holden by death Because Davids prophecy of a deliverance from the grave is fulfilled in him Therefore let all know this to be thus So that the Resurrection of Christ is argument enough to prove that Christ is made Lord of all And if he be Lord he hath Subjects that do as he does And so his Resurrection is become an argument and an assurance of our Resurrection too and that is as far as we shall go in our second part That first Christs Resurrection is proofe enough to us of his Dominion if he be risen he is Lord and then his Dominion is proofe enough to us of our Resurrection if he be Lord Lord of us we shall rise too And when we have paced and passed through all these steps we shall in some measure have solemnized this day of the Resurrection of Christ and in some measure have made it the day of our Resurrection too First then 1. Part. Domus Israel the Apostle applies himself to his Auditory in a faire in a gentle manner he gives them their Titles Domus Israel The house of Israel We have a word now denizened and brought into familiar use amongst us Complement and for the most part in an ill sense so it is when the heart of the speaker doth not answer his tongue but God forbid but a true heart and a faire tongue might very well consist together As vertue it self receives an addition by being in a faire body so do good intentions of the heart by being expressed in faire language That man aggravates his condemnation that gives me good words and meanes ill but he gives me a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet he gives me precious wine and in a clean glasse that intends well and expresses his good intentions well too If I beleeve a faire speaker I have comfort a little while though he deceive me but a froward and peremptory refuser unsaddles me at first I remember a vulgar Spanish Author who writes the Iosephina the life of Ioseph the husband of the blessed Virgin Mary who moving that question why that Virgin is never called by any style of Majesty or Honour in the Scriptures he sayes That if after the declaring of her to be the Mother of God he had added any other Title the Holy Ghost had not been a good Courtier as his very word is nor exercised in good language and he thinks that had been a defect in the Holy Ghost in himself He meanes surely the same that Epiphanius doth That in naming the Saints of God and especially the blessed Virgin we should alwayes give them the best Titles that are applyable to them Epiphan Haeres 78. Quis unquam ausus saies he proferre nomen Mariae non statim addidit virgo Who ever durst utter the name of that Mary without that addition of incomparable honour The Virgin Mary That Spanish Author need not be suspitious of the Holy Ghost in that kinde that he is no good Courtier so for in all the books of the world you shall never reade so civill language nor so faire expressions of themselves to one another as in the Bible When Abraham shall call himself dust and ashes and indeed if the Son of God were a worme and no man what was Abraham If God shall call this Abraham this Dust this Worme of the dust The friend of God and all friendship implyes a parity an equality in something when David shall call himself a flea and a dead dog even in respect of Saul and God shall call David A man according to his own heart when God shall call us The Apple of his own eye The Seale upon his own right hand who would go farther for an Example or farther then that example for a Rule of faire accesses of civill approaches of sweet and honourable entrances into the affections of them with whom they were to deale Especially is this manner necessary in men of our profession Not to break a bruised reed nor to quench smoaking flaxe not to avert any from a will to heare by any frowardnesse any morosity any defrauding them of their due praise and due titles but to accompany this blessed Apostle in this way of his discreet and religious insinuation to call them Men of Iudea ver 14. and Men of Israel ver 22. and Men and Brethren ver 29. and here Domus Israel the ancientest house the honourablest house the lastingest house in the world The house of Israel He takes from them nothing that is due Accusat tamen that would but exasperate He is civill but his civility doth not amount to a flattery as though the cause of God needed them or God must be beholding to them or God must pay for it or smart for it if they were not pleased And therefore though he do give them their titles Apertè illis imputat crucifixionem Christi sayes S. Chrysostome Plainly and without disguise he imputes and puts home to them the crucifying of Christ how honourably soever they were descended he layes that murder close to their Consciences You you house of Israel have crucified the Lord Iesus There is a great deale of difference between Shimeis vociferations against David 2 Sam. 16.5 Thou man of blood thou man of Belial And Nathans proceeding with David and yet Nathan forbore not to tell him 2 Sam. 12.7 Thou art the man Thou hast despised the Lord Thou hast killed Vriah Thou hast taken his wife It is one thing to sow pillows under the elbows of Kings flatterers do so another thing to pull the chaire from under the King and popular and seditious men do so Where Inferiours insult over their Superiours we tell them Christi Domini they are the Lords anointed and the Lord hath said Touch not mine anointed And when such Superiours insult over the Lord himselfe and think themselves Gods without limitation as the God of heaven is when they doe so we must tell them they doe so Etsi Christi Domini though you be the Lords anointed yet you crucifie the anointed Lord for this was S. Peters method though his successor will not be bound by it When he hath carried the matter thus evenly betweene them I doe not deny Omnes but you are the House of Israel you cannot deny but you have crucified the Lord Jesus you are heires of a great deale of honour but you are guilty of a shrewd fault too stand or fall to your Master
of all And if there should be no other bodies in heaven then his yet yet now he is Lord of all as he is Head of the Church Aske of me sayes his Father and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance Psal 2.8 and the utter most parts of the Earth for thy possession And as it is added ver 6. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion So he hath made him Lord Head of the Jews and of the Gentiles too of Sion and of the Nations also Hee hath consecrated his person raised his humane nature to the glorious region of blessed Spirits to Heaven and he hath dignified him with an office made him Lord Head of the Church not only of Jews and Gentiles upon earth but of the Militant and Triumphant Church too Our two generall parts were Scientia 2. Part. modus what we must all know and by what we must know it Our knowledge is this Exaltation of Jesus and our meanes is implied in the first word of the Text Therefore Therefore Therefore because he is raised from the Dead for to that Resurrection expressed in three or foure severall phrases before the Text is this Text and this Exaltation referred Christ was delivered for our sins raised for our justification and upon that depends all Christs descending into hell and his Resurrection in our Creed make but one Article and in our Creed we beleeve them both alike Quis nisi Infidelis negaverit apud inferos fuisse Christum saies S. Augustine Who but an Infidell will deny Christs descending into hell And if he beleeve that to be a limme of the article of the Resurrection His descent into hell must rather be an inchoation of his triumph then a consummation of his Exinanition The first step of his Exaltation there rather then the last step of his Passion upon the Crosse But the Declaration the Manifestation that which admits no disputation was his Resurrection Factus id est declaratus per Resurrectionem saies S. Cyrill He was made Christ and Lord that is declared evidently to be so 1 Cor. 1.20 by his Resurrection As there is the like phrase in S. Paul God hath made the wisdome of this world foolishnesse that is declared it to be so And therefore it is imputed to be a crucifying of the Lord Jesus againe Heb. 6.6 Non credere eum post mortem immortalem Not to beleeve that now after his having overcome death in his Resurrection he is in an immortall and in a glorious state in heaven For when the Apostle argues thus 1 Cor. 15.14 If Christ be not risen then is our preaching in vaine and your faith in vaine he implies the contrary too If you beleeve the Resurrection we have preached to good purpose Mortuum esse Christum August pagani credunt resurrexisse propria fides Christianorum The Heathen confesse Christs death To beleeve his Resurrection is the proper character of a Christian for the first stone of the Christian faith was laid in this article of the Resurrection In the Resurrection onely was the first promise performed Ipse conteret He shall bruise the Serpents head for in this he triumphed over Death and Hell And the last stone of our faith is laid in the same article too that is the day of Judgement of a day of Judgement God hath given an assurance unto all men saies S. Paul at Athens In that he hath raised Christ Iesus from the dead Acts 17.31 In this Christ makes up his circle in this he is truly Alpha and Omega His comming in Paradise in a promise his comming to Judgement in the clouds are tied together in the Resurrection And therefore all the Gospell all our preaching is contracted to that one text To beare witnesse of the Resurrection onely for that Acts 1.22 was there need of a new Apostle There was a necessity of one to be chosen in Iudas roome to be a witnesse of the Resurrection Non ait caeterorum sed tantùm Resurrectionis saies S. Chrysostome He does not say to beare witnesse of the other articles but onely of the Resurrection he charges him with no more instructions he needs no more in his Commission but to preach the Resurrection Athan. for in that Trophaeum de morte excitavit indubitatum reddidit corruptionem deletam Here is a retreat from the whole warfare here is a Trophee erected upon the last enemy The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death and here is the death of that enemy in the Resurrection And therefore to all those who importuned him for a signe Christ still turnes upon the Resurrection Iohn 2.38 Mat. 12.38 The Jewes pressed him in generall Quod signum What signe showest thou unto us and he answers Destroy this Temple this body and in three dayes I will raise it In another place the Scribes and the Pharisees joyne Master we would see a signe from thee and he tels them There shall be no signe but the signe of the Prophet Ionas who was a type of the Resurrection And then the Pharisees and Sadduces joyn now they were bitter enemies to one another but as Tertullian saies Semper inter duos latrones crucifixus Christus It was alwaies Christs case to be crucified betweene two Thieves So these though enemies joyne in this vexation They aske a signe as the rest and as to the rest Christ gives that answer of Ionas So that Christ himselfe determines all summes up all in this one Article the Resurrection Now Nos if the Resurrection of this Jesus have made him not onely Christ Anointed and consecrated in Heaven in his owne person but made him Lord then he hath Subjects upon whom that dominion and that power works and so we have assurance of a resurrection in him too That he is made Lord of us by his Resurrection is rooted in prophecie It pleased the Lord to bruise him saies the Prophet Esay But he shall see his seed Esay 53.10 and he shall prolong his daies that is he shall see those that are regenerate in him live with him forever It is rooted in prophecy and it spreads forth in the Gospell To this end saies the Apostle Christ died and rose that he might be Lord of the dead and of the living Now Rom. 14.9 Gregor what kinde of Lord if he had no subjects Cum videmus caput super aquas when the head is above water will any imagine the body to be drowned What a perverse consideration were it to imagine a live head and dead members Or consider our bodies in our selves and Our bodies are Temples of the Holy Ghost and shall the Temples of the holy Ghost lye for ever for ever buried in their rubbidge They shall not for the day of Judgement is the day of Regeneration as it is called in the Gospell Mat. 19.28 August Quia caro nostra ita generabitur per
a City or the Martyrdome of an Army This was not a red Sea such as the Jews passed a Sinus a Creek an Arm an Inlet a gut of a Sea but a red Ocean that overflowed and surrounded all parts and from the depth of this Sea God raised them and such was their Resurrection Such as that they which suffered lay and bled with more ease then the executioner stood and sweat and embraced the fire more fervently then he blew it and many times had this triumph in their death that even the executioner himself was in the act of execution converted to Christ and executed with them such was their Resurrection When the State of the Jews was in that depression in that conculcation in that consternation in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision in the field of dry bones so Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man dost thou think these bones can live that these men can ever be re-collected to make up a Nation The Prophet saith Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest which is not only thou knowest whether they can or no but thou knowest clearly they can thou canst make them up of bones again for thou madest those bones of earth before If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first and as he said to the Prophet Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man so he had said to them Filii Dei as you are the Sons of God illumined by his face do you think that this clod of red earth can make a man a man that shall be equall to you in one of his parts in his soul and yet then shall have such another part as that he whom all you worship my essentiall Son shall assume and invest that part himself can that man made of that body and that soul be made of this clod of earth Those Angels would have said Domine tu scis Lord thou must needs know how to make as good creatures as us of earth who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth of nothing before To induce to facilitate these apprehensions there were some precedents some such thing had been done before But when the Church was newly conceived and then lay like the egge of a Dove and a Gyants foot over it like a worm like an ant and hill upon hill whelmed upon it nay like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques when as she bled in her Cradle in those children whom Herod slew so she bled upon her crutches in those decrepit men whom former persecutions and tortures had creepled before when East and West joyned hands to crush her and hands and brains joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her in this wane of the Moon God gave her an instant fulnesse in this exinanition instant glory in this grave an instant Resurrection But beloved the expressing the pressing of their depressions does but chafe the Wax the Printing of the seale is the reducing to your memory your own case and not that point in your case as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire and prisons that was the least part of your persecution for it is a cheap purchase of heaven if we may have it for dying Mat. 13.44 To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is is not so hard as not to know it To part with all for the great Pearle not so hard a bargaine as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had we could not say heaven was kept from us when we might have it for a Fagot and when even our enemies helpt us to it but your greater affliction was as you were long before in an insensiblenesse you thought your selves well enough and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance and of superstition when you in your Fathers were so farre from expecting a resurrection as that you did not know your low estate or that you needed a Resurrection And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it a reformation of it Now who have their parts in this first resurrection or upon what conditions have you it We see in the fourth verse They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus that is that are ready to be so when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony In the meane time as it followes there They that have not worshipped the Beast that is not applied the Honour and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign to any forraign State nor the Honor due to God that is infallibility to another Prelate That have not worshipped the Beast nor his Image sayes the Text that is that have not been transported with vain imaginations of his power and his growth upon us here which hath been so diligently Painted and Printed and Preached and set out in the promises and practises of his Instruments to delude slack and easie persons And then as it is added there That have not received his mark upon their foreheads That is not declared themselves Romanists apparently nor in their hands sayes the Text that is which have not under-hand sold their secret endeavours though not their publique profession to the advancement of his cause These men who are ready to be beheaded for Christ and have not worshipped the Beast nor the Image of the Beast nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands these have their parts in this first resurrection These are blessed and holy sayes our Text Blessed because they have meanes to be holy in this resurrection For the Lamb hath unclasped the book the Scriptures are open which way to holinesse our Fathers lacked And then our blessednesse is that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ Now since this first resurrection since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ but 100. yeares But if we persist in a good use of it our posterity shall adde the Cypher and make that 100. 1000. even to the time when Christ Jesus shall come againe and as he hath given us the first so shall give us the last resurrection and to that come Lord Jesus come quickly and till that continue this This is the first resurrection 2 Part. Apeccato in the first acceptation a resurrection from persecution and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell And in a second it is a resurrection from sin and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person Aug. So S. Augustine takes this place and with him many of the Fathers and with them many of the sons of the Fathers better sons of the Fathers then the Romane Church will confesse them to be or then they are themselves The Expositors of the Reformed Church They for the most part with S. Augustine take this first resurrection to be a resurrection
know and of those whom we did know how few did we care much for In Heaven we shall have Communion of Joy and Glory with all Aug. alwaies Vbi non intrat inimicus nec amicus exit Where never any man shall come in that loves us not nor go from us that does Beloved I thinke you could be content to heare I could be content to speake of this Resurrection our glorious state by the low way of the grave till God by that gate of earth let us in at the other of precious Stones And blessed and holy is he who in a rectified conscience desires that resurrection now But we shall not depart far from this consideration by departing into our last branch or conclusion That this first Resurrection may also be understood to be the first riser Christ Jesus and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in that first Resurrection This first Resurrection is then without any detorting 4 Part. any violence very appliable to Christ himself who was Primitiae dormientium in that that action That he rosc again he is become sayes the Apostle the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 Hier. in Mat. 27.52 He did rise and rise first others rose with him none before him for S. Hierome taking the words as he finds them in that Euangelist makes this note That though the graves were opened at the instant of Christs death death was overcome the City opened the gates yet the bodies did not rise till after Christs Resurrection For for such Resurrections as are spoken of That women received their dead raised to life again Heb. 11.35 and such as are recorded in the old and new Testament they were all unperfect and temporary resurrections such as S. Hierome sayes of them all Resurgebant iterum morituri They were but reprieved not pardoned Hier. They had a Resurrection to life but yet a Resurrection to another death Christ is the first Resurrection others were raised but he only rose they by a forraine and extrinsique he by his owne power But we call him not the first in that respect onely for so he was not onely the first but the onely he alone arose by his owne power but with relation to all our future Resurrections he is the first Resurrection First If Christ be not raised your faith is in vaine 1 Cor. 15.17 saies the Apostle You have a vaine faith if you beleeve in a dead man He might be true Man though he remained in death but it concernes you to beleeve that he was the Son of God too And he was declared to be the Son of God Rom. 11.4 by the Resurrection from the dead That was the declaration of himselfe his Justification he was justified by the Spirit when he was proved to be God by raising himselfe But thus our Justification is also in his Resurrection For He was raised from the dead for our Iustification how for ours Rom. 4. ult That we should be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection What is that that he hath told us before Our Resurrection in Christ is that we should walke in newnesse of life Rom. 6.4 So that then Christ is the first Resurrection first Efficiently the onely cause of his owne Resurrection First Meritoriously the onely cause of our Resurrection first Exemplarily the onely patterne how we should rise and how we should walke when we are up and therefore Blessed and happy are we if we referre all our resurrections to this first Resurrection Christ Jesus For as Iob said of Comforters so miserable Resurrections are they all without him If therefore thou need and seeke this first Resurrection in the first acceptation a Resurrection from persecutions and calamities as they oppresse thee here have thy recourse to him to Christ Remember that at the death of Christ there were earthquakes the whole earth trembled There were rendings of the Temple Schismes Convulsions distractions in the Church will be But then the graves opened in the midst of those commotions Then when thou thinkest thy selfe swallowed and buried in affliction as the Angell did his Christ Jesus shall remove thy grave stone and give thee a resurrection but if thou thinke to remove it by thine owne wit thine owne power or the favour of potent Friends Digitus Dei non est hic The hand of God is not in all this and the stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and thou shalt have no part in this first Resurrection If thou need and seek this first resurrection in the second acceptation from the fearfull death of hainous sin have thy recourse to him to Christ Jesus remember the waight of the sins that lay upon him All thy sins and all thy Fathers and all thy childrens sins all those sins that did induce the first flood and shall induce the last fire upon this world All those sins which that we might take example by them to scape them are recorded and which lest we should take example by them to imitate them are left unrecorded all sins of all ages all sexes all places al times all callings sins heavy in their substance sins aggravated by their circumstances all kinds of sins and all particular sins of every kind were upon him upon Christ Jesus and yet he raised his holy Head his royall Head though under thornes yet crowned with those thornes and triumphed in this first Resurrection and his body was not left in the Grave nor his soule in Hell Christs first tongue was a tongue that might be heard He spoke to the Shepheards by Angels His second tongue was a Star a tongue which might be seene He spoke to the Wisemen of the East by that Hearken after him these two waies As he speakes to thine eare and to thy soul by it in the preaching of his Word as he speakes to thine eye and so to thy soule by that in the exhibiting of his Sacraments And thou shalt have thy part in this first Resurrection But if thou thinke to overcome this death this sense of sin by diversions by worldly delights by mirth and musique and society or by good works with a confidence of merit in them or with a relation to God himselfe but not as God hath manifested himselfe to thee not in Christ Jesus The stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and then hast thou no part in this first Resurrection If thou desire this first Resurrection in the third acceptation as S. Paul did To be dissolved and to be with Christ go Christs way to that also He desired that glory that thou doest and he could have laid down his soul when he would but he staid his houre sayes the Gospel He could have ascended immediatly immediatly in time yet he staid to descend into hell first and he could have ascended immediatly of himself by going up yet he staid till he was taken up Thou hast
no such power of thine own soul and life not for the time not for the means of comming to this first Resurrection by death Stay therefore patiently stay chearfully Gods leasure till he call but not so over-chearfully as to be loath to go when he cals Reliefe in persecution by power reconciliation in sin by grace dissolution and transmigration to heaven by death are all within this first Resurrection But that which is before them all is Christ Jesus And therefore as all that the naturall man promises himself without God is impious so all that we promise our selves though by God without Christ is frivolous God who hath spoken to us by his Son works upon us by his Son too He was our Creation he was our Redemption he is our Resurrection And that man trades in the world without money and goes out of the world without recommendation that leaves out Christ Jesus To be a good Morall man and refer all to the law of Nature in our hearts is but Diluculum The dawning of the day To be a godly man and refer all to God is but Crepusculum A twylight But the Meridionall brightnesse the glorious noon and heighth is to be a Christian to pretend to no spirituall no temporall blessing but for and by and through and in our only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus for he is this first Resurrection and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection SERMON XX. Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1625. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth They that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of Damnation AS the Sun works diversly according to the diverse disposition of the subject for the Sun melts wax and it hardens clay so do the good actions of good men upon good men they work a vertuous emulation a noble and a holy desire to imitate upon bad men they work a vicious and impotent envy a desire to disgrace and calumniate And the more the good is that is done and the more it works upon good men the more it disaffects the bad for so the Pharisees expresse their rancor and malignity against Christ Jâân 11.48 in this Gospel If we let him thus alone all men will beleeve in him And that they foresaw would destroy them in their reputation And therefore they enlarged their malice beyond Christ himselfe to him upon whom Christ had wrought a Miracle John 12.10 to Lazarus They consulted to put him to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus Our Text leads us to another example of this impotency in envious men Christ in this Chapter had by his only word cured a man that had been eight and thirty yeares infirm and he had done this work upon the Sabbath They envyed the work in the substance but they quarrell the circumstance And they envy Christ but they turn upon the man who was more obnoxious to them and they tell him John 5. ââ That it was not lawfull for him to carry his bed that day He discharges himself upon Christ I dispute not with you concerning the Law This satisfies me He that made me whole Veâ â bad me take up my bed and walk Thereupon they put him to finde out Jesus And when he could not finde Jesus Jesus found him and in his behalf offers himself to the Pharisees Then they direct themselves upon him and as the Gospell sayes They sought to slay him because he had done this upon the Sabbath And V. 16. as the patient had discharged himself upon Christ Christ discharges himself upon his Father doth it displease you that I work upon the Sabbath be angry with God be angry with the Father for the Father works when I work V. 17. V. 18. And then this they take worse then his working of Miracles or his working upon the Sabbath That he would say that God was his Father And therfore in the averring of that that so important point That God was his Father Christ grows into a holy vehemence and earnestnesse and he repeats his usuall oath Verily verily three severall times First ver 19. That whatsoever the Father doth He the Son doth also And then ver 24. He that beleeveth on me and him that sent me hath life everlasting And then again ver 25. The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voice of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live At this that the dead should live they marvelled But because he knew that they were men more affected with things concerning the body then spirituall things as in another story when they wondered that he would pretend to forgive sins because he knew that they thought it a greater matter to bid that man that had the Palsie take up his bed and walk then to forgive him his sins therefore he took that way which was hardest in their opinion he did bid him take up his bed and walk So here when they wondred at his speaking of a spirituall Resurrection to heare him say that at his preaching the dead that is men spiritually dead in their sins should rise again to them who more respected the body and did lesse beleeve a reall Resurrection of the body then a figurative Resurrection of the soul he proceeds to that which was in their apprehension the more difficult Marvell not at this sayes he here in our Text not at that spirituall Resurrection by preaching for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves c. and so he establishes the Resurrection of the body That then which Christ affirmes and avows is That he is the Son of God Divisio and that is the first thing that ever was done in Heaven The eternall generation of the Son that by which he proves this to these men is That by him there shall be a resurrection of the body and that is the last thing that shall be done in Heaven for after that there is nothing but an even continuance in equall glory Before that saies he that is before the resurrection of the body there shall be another resurrection a spirituall resurrection of the soule from sin but that shall be by ordinary meanes by Preaching and Sacraments and it shall be accomplished every day but fix not upon that determin not your thoughts upon that marvaile not at that make that no cause of extraordinary wonder but make it ordinary to you feele it and finde the effect thereof in your soules as often as you heare as often as you receive and thereby provide for another resurrection For the houre is comming in which all that are in their graves c. Where we must necessarily make thus many steps though but short ones First the dignity of
houre is comming and now is because there are no other meanes to be hereafter instituted for the attaining of a happy Resurrection then those that now are established in the Church especially at a mans death may we very properly say Nunc est Now is the Resurrection come to him not onely because the last Judgement is involved in the first for that Judgment which passeth upon every man at his death stands for ever without Repeal or Appeal or Error but because after the death of the Body there is no more to be done with the Body till the Resurrection for as we say of an Arrow that it is over shot it is gone it is beyond the mark though it be not come to the mark yet because there is no more to be done to it till it be so we may say that he that is come to death is come to his Resurrection because he hath not another step to make another foot to goe another minute to count till he be at the Resurrection The Resurrection then being the Coronation of man his Death and lying downe in the grave is his enthroning his sitting downe in that chayre where he is to receive that Crown As then the Martyrs under the Altar though in heaven yet doe cry out for the Resurrection so let us in this miserable life submit our selves cheerfully to the hand of God in death since till that death we cannot have this Resurrection and the first thing that we shall doe after this death is to rise againe To the child that is now borne we may say Hora venit The day of his Resurrection is comming To him that is old we may say The hour is come but to him that is dead The minute is come because to him there are no more minutes till it doe come Miremini hoc Omnes Marvail at this at the descent of Gods love He loves the Body of Man And Miremini hoc Mervaile at his speed He makes haste to expresse this love Hora venit And then Miremini hoc Marvaile at the Generality it reaches to all all that are in the Grave All that are in the graves shall heare his voice c. God hath made the Body as a House for the soule till he call her out and he hath made the Grave as a House for the body till he call it up The misery and poore estate that Christ submitted himselfe unto for man Mat 8.20 was not determined in that That foxes had holes but he no where to lay his head while he lived but he had no grave that he could claime when he was dead It is some discontinuance of the Communion of Saints if I may not be buried with the Saints of God Every man that hath not devested Humanity hath a desire to have his bones lie at rest and we cannot provide for that so well any way as to bury them in Consecrated places which are in common entendment safest from prophane violences Even that respect that his bones might lye at rest seems to have mov'd one Prophet 1 King 13.31 to enjoyne his Sons to bury him in the Sepulcher where the other Prophet was buried He knew that Iosiah would burne the bones of all the other graves upon the Altar of Bethel as was prophecied and he presum'd that he would spare the bones of that Prophet and so his bones should be safe if they were mingled with the other Deut. 34.6 God expressed his love to Moses in that particular That he buried him And to deliver and remove him from the violence of any that lov'd him not and so might dishonor his memory and from the superstition of any that over-lov'd him and so might over-honour his memory God buried him in secret In more then one place doth David complaine That there was none to bury Gods Saints And the Dignity that is promised here in the Text is appropriated to them who are in the graves who are buried But then was that generall Is it simply plainly literally of them and them onely who are in graves who are buried Shall none enjoy a Resurrection that have not enjoy'd a Grave Still I say it is a comfort to a dying man it is an honour to his memory it is a discharge of a duty in his friends it is a piece of the Communion of Saints to have a consecrated grave But the word here is In monumentis All that are in Monuments that is in Receptacles of Bodies of what kind soever they be wheresoever the hand of God layes up a dead Body Psal 34.20 that place is the Receptacle so the monument so the grave of that Body God keeps all the bones of the righteous so that none of them are broken Though they be trod to dust in our sight they are intire in his because he can bid them be whole againe in an instant Some Nations burnt their dead there the fire is the grave some drowned their dead there the sea is the grave and some hung them up upon trees and there the ayre is their grave Some Nations eat their dead themselves and some maintained dogs to eat the dead Herod Strabo and as they called those dogs Canes Sepulchrales Sepulchrall dogs so those men were sepulchrall men those men and those dogs were graves Death and hell shall deliver up their dead Apâc 20.13 sayes S. Iohn That is the whole state and mansion of the dead shall be emptied The state of the dead is their grave and upon all that are in this state shall the testimony of Gods love to the body of man fall And that is the Generality All that are in the grave c. Our next step is Audient The Instrument the Means by which this first so speedy and then so generall love of God to man to man in his lowest part his body is accomplished unto him These All these All these that are in graves in all these kinds of graves shall heare his voice and that is the Meanes First whose voice That is expressed immediately before The Son of man In the other Resurrection in that of the dead soule ver 25. there it is said The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God In this which is the Resurrection to Judgement it is The Son of man The former Resurrection that of a sinner to repentance by preaching is wrought by a plaine and ordinary meanes here in the Church where you doe but heare a man in a Pew read prayers and pronounce Absolution and a man in a Pulpit preach a Sermon and a man at a Table consecrate and administer a Sacrament And because all this though it be the power of life and the meanes of your spirituall resurrection is wrought by the Ministery of man who might be contemptible in your eye therefore the whole worke is referred to God and not the son of man but the Son of God is said to do it In this Resurrection of the
is impossible to separate the consideration of the Resurrection from the consideration of the Judgement and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other Sive comedoâsive bibo saies S. Hierom Whether I eate or drink still me thinks I heare this sound Surgite mortui venite ad Iudicium Arise you dead and come to Judgement When it cals me up from death I am glad when it cals me to Judgement that impaires my joy Can I thinke that God will not take a strict account or can I be without feare if I thinke he will Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere non requiret is excellently said by S. Bernard If I can put off all feare of that Judgement I have put off all imagination that any such Judgement shall be But when I begin this feare in this life here I end this feare in my death and passe away cheerefully But the wicked begin this feare when the Trumpet sounds to the Resurrection and then shall never end it but as a man condemned to be halfe hang'd and then quartered hath a fearfull addition in his quartering after and yet had no ease in his hanging before so they that have done ill when they have had their hanging when they have suffered in soule the torments of Hell from the day of their death to the day of Judgement shall come to that day with feare as to an addition to that which yet was insinite before And therefore the vulgat Edition hath rendred this well Procedent They shall proceed they shall go farther and farther in torment But this is not the object of our speculation Conâlusio the subject of our meditation now we proposed this Text for the Contemplation of Gods love to man and therefore we rather comfort our selves with that branch and refresh our selves with the shadow of that That they who have done good shall come forth unto the Resurrection of life Alas the others shall live as long as they Lucifer is as immortall as Michael and Iudas as immortall as S. Peter August But Vita damnatorum mors est That which we call immortality in the damned is but a continuall dying howsoever it must be called life it hath all the qualities of death saving the ease and the end which death hath and damnation hath not They must come forth they that have done evill must do so too Neither can stay in their house their grave for their house though that house should be the sea shall be burnt downe all the world dissolv'd with fire But then They who have done evill shall passe from that fire into a farther heat without light They who have done good into a farther light without heat But fix upon the Conditions and performe them They must have done Good To have knowne Good to have beleeved it to have intended it nay to have preached it to others will not serve They must have done good They must be rooted in faith and then bring forth fruit and fruit in season and then is the season of doing good when another needs that good at thy hands God gives the evening raine but he gave the morning rain before A good man gives at his death but he gives in his life time too To them belongs this Resurrection of the body to life upon which since our Text inclines us to marvell rather then to discourse I will not venture to say with David Narrabo omnia mirabilia tua I will shew all thy wondrous works Psal 9.2 Psal 105.5 Psal 119 18. an Angels tongue could not shew them but I will say with him Mementote mirabilium Remember the marvellous works he hath done And by that God will open your eyes that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do Remember with thankfulnesse the severall resurrections that he hath given you from superstition and ignorance in which you in your Fathers lay dead from sin and a love of sin in which you in the dayes of your youth lay dead from sadnesse and dejection of spirit in which you in your worldly crosses or spirituall tentations lay dead And assure your self that that God that loves to perfect his own works when you shall lye dead in your graves will give you that Resurrection to life which he hath promised to all them that do good and will extend to all them who having done evill do yet truly repent the evill they have done SERMON XXI The first Sermon upon this Text Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead O Dit Dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem sayes Origen God hates that man that thinks any of his Holy dayes last but one day That is that never thinks of a Resurrection but upon Easter-day I have therefore proposed words unto you which will not be determined this day That so when at any other time we return to the handling of then we may also return to the meditation of the Resurrection To which we may best give a beginning this day in which we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Aâd in his one Resurrection all those severall kinds of Resurrections which appertain unto us because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good Expositors and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Romane Church who have detorted and deflected them to the maintenance of their Purgatory yet all agree that these words are an argument for the Resurrection and therefore proper to this day And yet this day we shall not so much inquire wherein and in what sense the words are an argument of the Resurrection as enjoy the assurance that they are so not so much distribute the Text into an explication of the particular words which is as the Mintage and Coyning of gold into severall lesser pieces as to lay up the whole wedge and ingot of Gold all at once in you that is the precious assurance of your glorious Resurrection In establishing whereof we shall this day make but this short passage Divisio by these two steps Glory in the end And Grace in the way The Glory of our bodies in the last Resurrection then And the Grace upon our souls in their present Resurrection now For as we do not dig for gold meerly and only for treasure but to dispense and issue it also for present provision and use not only for the future but for the present too So we doe not gather the doctrine of the Resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the Triumphant but also for the consolation which thereby our soules may receive in the Militant Church And therefore as in our first part which will be By what meanes the knowledge and assurance of the Resurrection of the body
were baptized were such as understood their case persons of discretion such as had spent many months many times many yeares in studying and in practising the Christian religion and then were baptized and if these men say those Fathers fell after this it was impossible to be renewed that way impossible that they should have a second baptisme And it is scarce mannerly scarce safe to depart from so many as meet in this interpretation of this impossibility for they all intend that which S. Chrysostome expresses most plainly Dixit impossibile ut in desperationem induceret The Apostle sayes it is impossible that he might bring us before hand into a kinde of desperation A desperation of this kinde That there was absolutely no hope of a possibility of renewing as they were renewed before that is by baptisme But because at this time when the Apostle writ that questioÌ which troubled the Church so much after in S. Cyprians time of Rebaptization was not moved at all neither doth it appeare nor is it likely that any that fell so put his hopes upon renewing by a second baptisme there is something else in this Impossibility then so And that in one word is That the falling intended here is not a falling à nardo nostra from the savour of our own Spikenard the good use of our owne faculties lost in Originall sin nor a falling Ab unguento Domini that though the perfume an Incense of the name of Christ and the offer of his merits be shed upon us here that doth not restrain us from falling into some sins But this falling is as it is expressed a falling away away from Christ in all his Ordinances an undervaluing a despising of those meanes which he hath established for the renewing of a broken soule which is the making a mock of the Son of God and the treading the blood of the Covenant under foot When Christ hath ordained but one way for the renewing of a soul The conveyance of his merits in preaching the word and the sealing thereof in applying the Sacraments to that man that is fallen so as to refuse that as it is impossible to live if a man refuse to eat Impossible to recover if a man refuse Physick so it is Impossible for him to be renewed because God hath notified to us but one way and he refuses that So this is a true Impossibility and yet limited too for though it be impossible to us by any meanes imparted to us or to our dispensing and stewardship yet shall any thing be impossible to God God forbid For even from this death and this depth there is a Resurrection As from the losse of our Spikenard Rosurrectio our naturall faculties in originall sin we have a resurrection in baptisine And from the losse of the oyntment of the Lord the offer of his Graces in these meetings and the falling into some actuall sins for all that assistance we have a resurrection in the other Sacrament So when we have lost the savour of the field those degrees of goodnesse and holinesse which we had and had declared before when we are falleÌ from all present sense of the means of a resurrection yet there may be a resurrection wrapped up in the good purposes of God upon that man which unlesse he will himselfe shall not be frustrated not evacuated not disappointed Though he have foetorem pro Odore Esay 3.24 as the Prophet speaks That in stead of the sweet savour which his former holy life exhaled and breathed up he be come now to stink in the sight of the Church and howsoever God may have a good savour from his own work from those holy purposes which he hath upon him which lie in Gods bosome yet from his present sins and from the present testimony and evidence that the Church gives against him as a present sinner he must necessarily stink in the nostrils of God too yet as in the Resurrection of the body it shall come when we shall not know of it So when this poore dead put rified soule hath no sense of it and perchance little or no disposition towards it the efficacy of Gods purpose shall break out and work in him a resurrection And this S. Chrysostome takes to be intended in that which is said in the same place to the Hebrews That that earth which drinketh in the rain Heb. 6. and bringeth forth nothing but Bryers is Maledicto proxima nearest to be accursed That man is nearest to be a Reprobate But yet sayes he Vides quantam habet consolationem We apprehend a blessed consolation in this That it is said neare a curse neare reprobation and no worse for Qui propè est procul esse potcrit sayes he That soule which is but neare destruction may weather that mischiefe and grow to be far from it and out of danger of it It is true this man hath lost his paratum cor meum he cannot say his heart is prepared Psal 57.7 that he hath lost in originall sin This man hath lost his Confirmatum cor meum Psal 112.7 he cannot say his heart is est ablished that hath been offered him in these exercises but it hath not prevailed upon him He hath lost his variis odoribus delectatum cor Prov. 27.9 the delight which his heart heretofore had in the savour of the field in those good actions in which formerly he exercised himself and now is falne from But yet there may be cor novum Psal 51.10 a new heart a heart which is yet in Gods bosome and shall be transplanted into his A dupliâate an exemplification of Gods secret purpose to be manifested and revealed by the Spirit of God in his good time upon him And this may work Chrâsost In insigni vehementi mutatione in such an evidence and demonstration of it self as he shall know it to be that because it shall not work as a Circumcision but as an Excision not as a lopping off but as a rooting up not by mending him but by making him a new creature He shall not grow lesse riotous then before for so a sentence in the Star-Chamber or any other Criminall Court for a riot might be a resurrection to him nor lesse voluptuous for so poverty in his Fortune or insipidnesse and tastlesnesse in his palate might be a resurrection to him Nor lesse licentious for so age or sicknesse nor lesse quarrelsome for so blowes and oppression might be a resurrection to him But when in a rectified understanding he can but apprehend that such a resurrection there may be nay there is for him it shall grow up to a holy confidence established by the sensible effects thereof that he shall not onely discontinue his former acts and devest his former habits of sin but produce acts and build up habits contrary to his former habits and former acts for this is the resurrection from this second fall In dissolutionem into the dissolution
never spoken of the Resurrection to them they were likely to have heard of it from them to whom Christ had spoken of it It was Cleophas his question to Christ though he knew him not then to be so when they went together to Emaus Art thou onely a stranger in Ierusalem that is hast thou been at Jerusalem and is this Luke 24.16 The death of Christ strange to thee So may we say to any that professes Christianity Art thou in the Christian Church and is this The Resurrection of Christ strange to thee Are there any amongst us that thrust to Fore-noones and After-noones Sermons that pant after high and un-understandable Doctrines of the secret purposes of God and know not this the fundamentall points of Doctrine Even these womens ignorance though they were in the number of the Disciples of Christ makes us affraid that some such there may be and therefore blessed be they that have set on foote that blessed way of Catechizing that after great professions we may not be ignorant of small things These things these women might have learnt of others who were to instruct them Luke 24. ââ But for their better assurance the Angell tells them here that Christ himself had told them of this before Remember sayes he how Christ spoke to you whilst he was with you in Galile We observe that Christ spoke to his Disciples of his Resurrection five times in the Gospell Now these women could not be present at any of the five but one which was the third Mat. 17.22 And before that it is evident that they had applied themselves to Christ and ministred unto him The Angell then remembers them what Christ said to them there Luke 24.6 It was this The Sonne of man must be delivered into the hands of sinfull men and Crucified and the third day rise againe And they remembred his words sayes the Text there Then they remembred them when they heard of them again but not till then Which gives me just occasion to note first the perverse tendernesse and the supercilious and fastidious delicacy of those men that can abide no repetitions nor indure to heare any thing which they have heard before when as even these things which Christ himself had preached to these women in Galile had been lost if this Angel had not preached them over again to them at Jerusalem Remember how he spake to you sayes he to them And why shouldst thou be loath to heare those things which thou hast heard before when till thou heardst them again thou didst not know that is not consider that ever thou hadst heard them So have we here also just occasion to note their impertinent curiosity who though the sense be never so well observed call every thing a salfification if the place be not rightly cyphard or the word exactly cited and magnifie one another for great Text men though they understand no Text because they cite Book and Chapter and Verse and Words aright whereas in this place the Angel referres the women to Christs words and they remember that Christ spake those words and yet if we compare the places Mat. 17.22 Luke 24.6 that where Christ speaks the words and that where the Angell repeats them though the sense be intirely the same yet the words are not altogether so Thus the Angell erects them in the consternation Remember what was promised that in three dayes he would rise The third day is come and he is risen as he said and that your senses may be exercised as well as your faith Come and see the place where the Lord lay Even the Angell calls Christ Lord Dominus Angeli Heb. 1.6 and his Lord for the Lord and the Angell calls him so is Lord of all of men and Angels When God brings his Soninto the world sayes the Apostle he sayes let all the Angels of God worship him And when God caries his Son out of the world by the way of the Crosse they have just cause to worship him too Colâââ 1.20 for By the blood of his Crosse are all things reconciled to God both things in earth and things in heaven Men and Angels Therefore did an Angel minister to Christ before he was Luke 1. Mat. 1. Luke 2. Mat. 4. Luke 22. Acts 1.10 in the Annunciation to his blessed Mother that he should be And an Angel to his imaginary Father Ioseph before he was born And a Quire of Angels to the Shepheards at his birth An Angel after his tentation And in his Agony and Bloody-sweat more Angels Angels at his last step at his Ascension and here at his Resurrection Angels minister unto him The Angels of heaven acknowledged Christ to be their Lord. In the beginning some of the Angels would be Similes Altissimo like to the most High But what a transcendent what a super-diabolicall what a prae-Luciferian pride is his that will be supra Altissimum 2 Thes 2.4 superiour to God That not only exalteth himselfe above all that is called God Kings are called Gods and this Arch-Monarch exalts himselfe above all Kings but above God literally and in that wherein God hath especially manifested himself to be God to us that is in prescribing us a Law how he will be obeyed for in dispensing with this Law and adding to and withdrawing from this law he exalts himself above God as our Law-giver And as it is also said there He exalteth himself and opposeth himselfe against God There is no trusting of such neighbours as are got above us in power This man of sin hath made himselfe superiour to God and then an enemy to God for God is Truth and he opposes him in that for he is heresie and falshood and God is Love and he opposes him in that for he is envy and hatred and malice and sedition and invasion and rebellion The Angell confesses Christ to be The Lord his Lord Dominus mortuus and he confesses him to be so then when he lay dead in the grave Come seethe place where the Lord lay A West Indian King having beene well wrought upon for his Conversion to the Christian Religion and having digested the former Articles when he came to that He was crucified dead and buried had no longer patience but said If your God be dead and buried leave me to my old god the Sunne for the Sunne will not dye But if he would have proceeded to the Article of the Resurrection hee should have seene that even then when hee lay dead hee was GOD still Then when hee was no Man hee was GOD still Nay then when hee was no man hee was God and Man in this true sense That though the body and soule were divorced from one another and that during that divorce he were no man for it is the union of body and soule that makes a man yet the Godhead was not divided from either of these constitutive parts of man body or soule Psal 22.7 1
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
upon beauty in that face that misleads thee or upon honour in that place that possesses thee And let the opening of thine eyes be to look upon God in every object to represent to thy self the beauty of his holinesse and the honour of his service in every action And in this rapture and in this twinkling of an eye will thy Resurrection soon though not suddenly speedily though not instantly be accomplished And if God take thee out of the world before thou think it throughly accomplished yet he shall call thine inchoation consummation thine endeavour performance and thy desire effect For all Gods works are intire and done in him at once and perfect as soon as begun And this spirituall Resurrection is his work and therefore quickned even in the Conception and borne even in the quickning and grown up even in the birth that is perfected in the eyes of God as soone as it is seriously intended in our heart And farther we carry not your consideration upon those two Branches which constitute our second Part That some shall be alive at Christs comming That they that are alive shall receive such a change as shall be a true death and a true Resurrection And so shall be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Aire and so be with the Lord for ever which are the Circumstances of our third and last Part. In this last part we proposed it for the first Consideration 3 Part. Resurrectio justorum that the Apostle determines the Consideration of the Resurrection in those two Them and Us They that slept in Christ and We that expect the comming of Christ Of any Resurrection of the wicked here is no mention Not that there is not one but that the resurrection of the wicked conduced not to the Apostles purpose which was to minister comfort in the losse of the dead because they were to come again and to meet the Lord and to be with him for ever whereas in the Resurrection of the wicked who are only to rise that they may fall lower there is no argument of comfort And therefore our Saviour Christ determines his Commission in that This is the Fathers will that sent me John 6.39 that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day This was his not losing if it were raised again but he hath only them in charge to raise at the last day whom the Father had given him given him so as that they were to be with him for ever for others he never mentions And upon this much very much depends For Chiliasts this forbearing to mention the resurrection of the wicked with the righteous gave occasion to many in the Primitive Church to imagine a two-fold a former and a later Resurrection which was furthered by their mistaking of those words in S. Iohn Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection which words being intended of the Resurrection from sin by grace in this life the Chiliasts the Millenarians interpreted of this Resurrection in our Text That at Christs comming the righteous should rise and live a thousand yeares as S. Iohn sayes in all temporall abundances with Christ here in recompence of those temporall calamities and oppressions which here they had suffered and then after those thousand yeares so spent with Christ in temporall abundances should follow the resurrection of the wicked and then the wicked and the righteous should be disposed and distributed and setled in those Mansions in which they should remain for ever And of this errour as very many of the Fathers persisted in it to the end S. Augustine himself had a touch and a tincture at beginning And this errour S. Hierome also though truly I think S. Hierome was never touched with it himselfe out of a reverence to those many and great men that were Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius and the rest would never call an Heresie nor an Errour nor by any sharper name then an opinion which is no word of heavy detestation And as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels Pagani enlarged themselves in this distribution and apportioning the mercy of God that it consisted best with the nature of his mercy that as his Saints had suffered temporall calamities in this world in this world they should be recompenced with temporall abundances so did they inlarge this mercy farther and carry it even to the Gentiles to the Pagans that had no knowledge of Christ in any established Church You shall not finde a Trumegistus a Numa Pompilius a Plato a Socrates for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father or some Ancient and Reverend Author an Advocate In which liberality of Gods mercy those tender Fathers proceed partly upon that rule That in Trismegistus and in the rest they finde evident impressions and testimonies that they knew the Son of God and knew the Trinity and then say they why should not these good men beleeving a Trinity be saved and partly they goe upon that rule which goes through so many of the Fathers Facienti quod in se est That to that man who does as much as he can by the light of nature God never denies grace and then say they why should not these men that doe so be saved And upon this ground S. Dionyse the Areopagite sayes That from the beginning of the world God hath called some men of all Nations and of all sorts by the ministry of Angels though not by the ministry of the Church To me to whom God hath revealed his Son in a Gospel by a Church there can be no way of salvation but by applying that Son of God by that Gospel in that Church Nor is there any other foundation for any nor other name by which any can be saved but the name of Jesus But how this foundation is presented and how this name of Jesus is notified to them amongst whom there is no Gospel preached no Church established I am not curious in inquiring I know God can be as mercifull as those tender Fathers present him to be and I would be as charitable as they are And therefore humbly imbracing that manifestation of his Son which he hath afforded me I leave God to his unsearchable waies of working upon others without farther inquisition Neither did those tender Fathers then Angeli lopsi in Coelis much lesse the School after consist in carying this overflowing and inexhaustible mercy of God upon his Saints after their Resurrection in temporall abundances nor upon the Gentiles who had no solemne nor cleare knowledge of Christ Psal 138.2 Psal 17.7 which is Magnificare misericordiam to magnifie to extend to stretch the mercy of God but Mirificant misericordiam as David also speaks they stretch this mercy miraculously for they carry this mercy even to hell it self For first for the Angels that fell in heaven from the time that they
was said Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee and how many women have no desire to their husbands how many over-rule them Hunger and thirst and wearinesse and sicknesse are denounced upon all and yet if you ask me Quis homo What is that man that hungers and thirsts not that labours not that sickens not I can tell you of many that never felt any of these but contract the question to that one of death Quis homo What man is he that shall not taste death And I know none Whether we consider the Summer Solstice when the day is sixteen houres and the night but eight or the Winter Solstice when the night is sixteen houres and the day but eight still all is but twenty foure houres and still the evening and morning make but a day The Patriarchs in the old Testament had their Summer day long lives we are in the Winter short lived but Quis homo Which of them or us come not to our night in death If we consider violent deaths casuall deaths it is almost a scornfull thing to see with what wantonnesse and sportfulnesse death playes with us We have seen a man Canon proofe in the time of War and slain with his own Pistoll in the time of peace We have seen a man recovered after his drowning and live to hang himselfe But for that one kinde of death which is generall though nothing be in truth more against nature then dissolution and corruption which is death we are come to call that death naturall death then which indeed nothing is more unnaturall The generality makes it naturall Moses sayes that Mans age is seventy Psal 90.10 and eighty is labour and pain and yet himselfe was more then eighty and in a good state and habitude when he said so No length no strength enables us to answer this Quis homo What man c. Take a flat Map a Globe in plano and here is East and there is West as far asunder as two points can be put but reduce this flat Map to roundnesse which is the true form and then East and West touch one another and are all one So consider mans life aright to be a Circle Pulvis es in pulverem reverâeris Dust thou art and to dust thou must return Nudus egressus Job 1. Nudus revertar Naked I came and naked I must go In this the circle the two points meet the womb and the grave are but one point they make but one station there is but a step from that to this This brought in that custome amongst the Greek Emperours that ever at the day of their Coronation they were presented with severall sorts of Marble that they might then bespeak their Tombe And this brought in that Custome into the Primitive Church that they called the Martyrs dayes wherein they suffered Natalitia Martyrum their birth dayes birth and death is all one Their death was a birth to them into another life into the glory of God It ended one Circle and created another for immortality and eternity is a Circle too not a Circle where two points meet but a Circle made at once This life is a Circle made with a Compasse that passes from point to point That life is a Circle stamped with a print an endlesse and perfect Circle as soone as it begins Of this Circle the Mathematician is our great and good God The other Circle we make up our selves we bring the Cradle and Grave together by a course of nature Every man does Mi Gheber sayes the Originall It is not Ishe which is the first name of man in the Scriptures and signifies nothing but a sound a voyce a word a Musicall ayre dyes and evaporates what wonder if man that is but Ishe a sound dye too It is not Adam which is another name of man and signifies nothing but red earth Let it be earth red with blood with that murder which we have done upon our selves let it be earth red with blushing so the word is used in the Originall with a conscience of our own infirmity what wonder if man that is but Adam guilty of this self-murder in himself guilty of this in-borne frailty in himself dye too It is not Enos which is also a third name of man and signifies nothing but a wretched and miserable creature what wonder if man that is but earth that is a burden to his Neighbours to his friends to his kindred to himselfe to whom all others and to whom himself desires death what wonder if he dye But this question is framed upon none of these names Not Ishe not Adam not Enos but it is Mi Gheber Quis vir which is the word alwayes signifying a man accomplished in all excellencies a man accompanied with all advantages fame and good opinion justly conceived keepes him from being Ishe a meere sound standing onely upon popular acclamation Innocency and integrity keepes him from being Adam red earth from bleeding or blushing at any thing hee hath done That holy and Religious Art of Arts which S. Paul professed That he knew how to want and how to abound keepes him from being Enos miserable or wretched in any fortune Hee is Gheber a great Man and a good Man a happy Man and a holy Man and yet Mi Gheber Quis homo this man must see death And therefore we will carry this question a little higher from Quis homo to Quis deorum Which of the gods have not seene death Aske it of those who are Gods by participation of Gods power of those of whom God saies Ego dixi dii est is and God answers for them and of them and to them You shall dye like men Aske it of those gods who are gods by imputation whom Creatures have created whom Men have made gods the gods of the Heathen and do we not know where all these gods dyed Sometimes divers places dispute who hath their tombes but do not they deny their godhead in confessing their tombes doe they not all answer that they cannot answer this text Mi Gheber Quis homo What man Quis deorum What god of mans making hath not seen death As Iustin martyr asks that question Why should I pray to Apollo or Esculapius for health Qui apud Chironem medicinam didicerunt when I know who taught them all that they knew so why should I looke for Immortality from such or such a god whose grave I finde for a witnesse that he himselfe is dead Nay carry this question higher then so from this Quis homo to quid homo what is there in the nature and essence of Man free from death The whole man is not for the dissolution of body and soule is death The body is not I shall as soone finde an immortall Rose an eternall Flower as an immortall body And for the Immortality of the Soule It is safelier said to be immortall by preservation then immortall by nature That God
keepes it from dying then that it cannot dye We magnifie God in an humble and faithfull acknowledgment of the immortality of our soules but if we aske quid homo what is there in the nature of Man that should keepe him from death even in that point the question is not easily answered It is every mans case then every man dyes Videbit and though it may perchance be but a meere Hebraisme to say that every man shall see death perchance it amounts to no more but to that phrase Gustare mortem To taste death yet thus much may be implied in it too That as every man must dye so every man may see that he must dye as it cannot be avoided so it may be understood A beast dyes but he does not see death S. Basil sayes he saw an Oxe weepe for the death of his yoke-fellow Basil orat de Morte but S. Basil might mistake the occasion of that Oxes teares Many men dye too and yet doe not see death The approaches of death amaze them and stupifie them they feele no colluctation with Powers and Principalities upon their death bed that is true they feele no terrors in their consciences no apprehensions of Judgement upon their death bed that is true and this we call going away like a Lambe But the Lambe of God had a sorrowfull sense of death His soule was heavy unto death and he had an apprehension that his Father had forsaken him And in this text the Chalde Paraphrase expresses it thus Videbit Angelum mortis he shall see a Messenger a forerunner a power of Death an executioner of Death he shall see something with horror though not such as shall shake his morall or his Christian constancy So that this Videbunt They shall see implies also a Viderunt they have seene that is they have used to see death to observe a death in the decay of themselves and of every creature and of the whole World Almost fourteene hundred yeares agoe Cyprian ad Demetrianum S. Cyprian writing against Demetrianus who imputed all the warres and deaths and unseasonablenesses of that time to the contempt and irreligion of the Christians that they were the cause of all those ils because they would not worship their Gods Cyprian imputes all those distempers to the age of the whole World Canos videmus in pueris saies hee Wee see Children borne gray-headed Capilli deficiunt antequam crescant Their haire is changed before it be growne Nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit asenectute Wee doe not dye with age but wee are borne old Many of us have seene Death in our particular selves in many of those steps in which the morall Man expresses it Seneca Wee have seene Mortem infantiae pueritiam The death of infancy in youth and Pueritiae adolescentiam and the death of youth in our middle age And at last we shall see Mortem senectutis mortem ipsam the death of age in death it selfe But yet after that a step farther then that Morall man went Mortem mortis in morte Iesu We shall see the death of Death it self in the death of Christ As we could not be cloathed at first in Paradise till some Creatures were dead for we were cloathed in beasts skins so we cannot be cloathed in Heaven but in his garment who dyed for us This Videbunt this future sight of Death implies a viderunt they have seene they have studied Death in every Booke in every Creature and it implies a Vident they doe presently see death in every object They see the houre-glasse running to the death of the houre They see the death of some prophane thoughts in themselves by the entrance of some Religious thought of compunction and conversion to God and then they see the death of that Religious thought by an inundation of new prophane thoughts that overflow those As Christ sayes that as often as wee eate the Sacramentall Bread we should remember his Death so as often as we eate ordinary bread we may remember our death Bern. Aug. for even hunger and thirst are diseases they are Mors quotidiana a daily death and if they lasted long would kill us In every object and subject we all have and doe and shall see death not to our comfort as an end of misery not onely as such a misery in it selfe as the Philosopher takes it to be Mors omnium miseriarum That Death is the death of all miserie because it destroyes and dissolves our beeing Prov. 16.14 but as it is Stipendium peccati The reward of sin That as Solomon sayes Indignatio Regis nuncius mortis The wrath of the King is as a messenger of Death so Mors nuncius indignationis Regis We see in Death a testimony that our Heavenly King is angry for but for his indignation against our sinnes we should not dye And this death as it is Malum ill for if ye weigh it in the Philosophers balance it is an annihilation of our present beeing and if ye weigh it in the Divine Balance it is a seale of Gods anger against sin so this death is generall of this this question there is no answer Quis homo What man c. We passe then from the Morte moriemini 2 Part. to the fortè moriemini from the generality and the unescapablenesse of death from this question as it admits no answer to the Fortè moriemini perchance we shall dye that is to the question as it may admit a probable answer Of which we said at first that in such questions nothing becomes a Christian better then sobriety to make a true difference betweene problematicall and dogmaticall points betweene upper buildings and foundations betweene collaterall doctrines and Doctrines in the right line Aug. for fundamentall things Sine haesitatione credantur They must be beleeved without disputing there is no more to be done for them but beleeving for things that are not so we are to weigh them in two balances in the balance of Analogy and in the balance of scandall we must hold them so as may be analogall proportionable agreeable to the Articles of our Faith and we must hold them so as our brother be not justly offended nor scandalized by them wee must weigh them with faith for our own strength and we must weigh them with charity for others weaknesse Certainly nothing endangers a Church more then to draw indifferent things to be necessary I meane of a primary necessity of a necessity to be beleeved De fide not a secondary necessity a necessity to be performed and practised for obedience Without doubt the Roman Church repents now and sees now that she should better have preserved her selfe if they had not denied so many particular things which were indifferently and problematically disputed before to bee had necessarily De fide in the Councell of Trent Taking then this Text for a probleme Quis homo What man lives and shall not
see Death we answer It may be that those Men whom Christ shal find upon the earth alive at his returne to Judge the World shall dye then and it may be they shall but be changed and not dye That Christ shall judge quick and dead is a fundamentall thing we heare it in S. Peters Sermon Acts 10.42 to Cornelius and his company and we say it every day in the Creed Hee shall judge the quick and the dead But though we doe not take the quick and the dead August Chrys as Augustine and Chrysostome doe for the Righteous which lived in faith and the unrighteous which were dead in sinne Though wee doe not take the quick and the dead as Ruffinus and others doe for the soule and the body He shall judge the soule which was alwaies alive and he shall the body which was dead for a time though we take the words as becomes us best literally yet the letter does not conclude but that they whom Christ shall finde alive upon earth shall have a present and sudden dissolution and a present and sudden re-union of body and soul again Saint Paul sayes Behold I shew you a mystery Therefore it is not a cleare case and presently 1 Cor. 15.51 and peremptorily determined but what is it We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed But whether this sleeping be spoke of death it self and exclude that that we shall not die or whether this sleep be spoke of a rest in the grave and exclude that we shall not be buried and remain in death that may be a mystery still S. Paul sayes too 1 Thes 4.17 The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre But whether that may not still be true that S. Augustine sayes that there shall be Mors in raptu August An instant and sudden dis-union and re-union of body and soul which is death who can tell So on the other side when it is said to him in whom all we were to Adam Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 1 Cor. 15.22 Rom. 5.12 and into dust thou shalt return when it is said In Adam all die when it is said Death passed upon all men for all have sinned Why may not all those sentences of Scripture which imply a necessity of dying admit that restriction Nisi dies judicii natur ae cursum immutet Pet. Mar. We shall all die except those in whom the comming of Christ shall change the course of Nature Consider the Scriptures then and we shall be absolutely concluded neither way Consider Authority and we shall finde the Fatherrs for the most part one way and the Schoole for the most part another Take later men and all those in the Romane Church Then Cajetan thinks that they shall not die and Catharin is so peremptory Cajetan Catharinus that they shall as that he sayes of the other opinion Falsam esse confidenter asserimus contra Scripturas sat is manifestas omnino sine ratione It is false and against Scriptures and reason saith he Take later men and all those in the reformed Church Calvin and Calvin sayes Quia aboletur prior natura censetur species mortis sed non migrabit anima à corpore S. Paul calls it death because it is a destruction of the former Beeing but it is not truly death saith Calvin and Luther saith Luther That S. Pauls purpose in that place is only to shew the suddennesse of Christs comming to Judgement Non autem inficiatur omnes morituros nam dormire est sepeliri But S. Paul doth not deny but that all shall die for that sleeping which he speaks of is buriall and all shall die though all shall not be buried saith Luther Take then that which is certain It is certain a judgement thou must passe If thy close and cautelous proceeding have saved thee from all informations in the Exchequer thy clearnesse of thy title from all Courts at Common Law thy moderation from the Chancery and Star-Chamber If heighth of thy place and Authority have saved thee even from the tongues of men so that ill men dare not slander thy actions nor good men dare not discover thy actions no not to thy self All those judgements and all the judgements of the world are but interlocutory judgements There is a finall judgement In judicantes judicatos against Prisoners and Judges too where all shal be judged again Datum est omne judicium All judgement is given to the Son of man John 5. and upon all the sons of men must his judgement passe A judgement is certain and the uncertainty of this judgement is certain too perchance God will put off thy judgement thou shalt not die yet but who knows whether God in his mercy do put off this judgement till these good motions which his blessed Spirit inspires into thee now may take roote and receive growth and bring forth fruit or whether he put it off for a heavier judgement to let thee see by thy departing from these good motions and returning to thy former sins after a remorse conceived against those sins that thou art inexcusable even to thy self and thy condemnation is just even to thine own conscience So perchance God will bring this judgement upon thee now now thou maist die but whether God will bring that judgement upon thee now in mercy whilest his Graces in his Ordinance of preaching work some tendernesse in thee and gives thee some preparation some fitnesse some courage to say Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly come now or whether he will come now in judgement because all this can work no tendernesse in thee who can tell Thou hearest the word of God preached as thou hearest an Oration with some gladnesse in thy self if thou canst heare him and never be moved by his Oratory thou thinkest it a degree of wisdome to be above perswasion and when thou art told that he that feares God feares nothing else thou thinkest thy self more valiant then so if thou feare not God neither Whether or why God defers or hastens the judgement we know not This is certain this all S. Pauls places collineate to this all the Fathers and all the Schoole all the Cajetans and all the Catharins all the Luthers and all the Calvins agree in A judgement must be and it must be In ictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye and Fur in nocte A thiefe in the night Make the question Quis homo What man is he that liveth and shall not passe this judgement or what man is he that liveth and knowes when this judgement shall be So it is a Nemo scit A question without an answer but ask it as in the text Quis homo Who liveth and shall not die so it is a problematicall matter and in such
Dominc Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be all glory given They would have made him King He would not and Judge to divide the Inheritance and he would not He sent the Holy Ghost And yet he saies I will pray the Father to send him So the Holy Ghost was sent by them both Father and Son But not so as that he was subject to a joynt command of both or to a diverse command of either or that he came unwillingly or had not a hand even in his owne sending But howsoever he were perfect God and had alwales an absolute power in himselfe and had ever a desire to assist the salvation of man yet he submitted himselfe to the Order of the Decree He disordered nothing prevented nothing anticipated nothing but staid till all that which lay upon Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension was executed and then in the due and appointed time issued his Mission It is a blessed Termination Mission It determines and ends many words in our Language Missio as Permission Commission Remission and others which may afford good instruction that as the Holy Ghost did for his so we may be content to stay Gods leasure for all those Missions A consideration which I presume S. Bernard who evermore embraced all occasions of exalting devotion from the melodious fall of words would not have let passe Nor S. Augustine for all his holy and reverend gravity would have thought Nimis juvenile Too light a consideration to have insisted upon And therefore I may have leave to stay your meditations a little upon this Termination these Missions You may have a Permission Many things are with some circumstances Permitted Permissio Mat. 19.8 which yet in discretion are better forborne Moses permitted divorces but that was for the hardnesse of their hearts and Christ withdrew that Permission S. Paul saies he had a Permission Liberty to forbeare working with his owne hands 1 Cor. 9.6 and so to live upon the Church but yet he did not What Permission soever thou have by which thou maist lawfully ease thy selfe yet forbeare till thou see that the glory of God and the good of other men may be more advanced by the use then by the forbearance of that indulgence and that Permission and afford not thy selfe all the liberty that is afforded thee but in such cases The Holy Ghost staid so for his Mission so stay thou for the exercise of thy Permission Thou maist have a Commission too In that of the Peace Commissio in that for Ecclesiasticall causes thou maist have part But be not hasty in the execution of these Commissions Come to an Inquisition upon another man so as thou wouldst wish God to enquire into thee Satan had a Commission upon Iob but he procured it so indirectly on his part by false suggestions against him and executed it so uncharitably as that he was as guilty of wrong and oppression as if he had had no Commission Thou canst not assist in the execution of those Commissions of which thou art till thou have taken the oathes of Supremacie and of Allegeance to thy Soveraigne Do it not till thou have sworne all that to thy Super-soveraigne to thy God That in all thy proceedings his glory and his will and not thine owne passion or their purposes upon whom thou dependest shall be thy rule The holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Commission till it be sealed over againe in thine owne bosome sealed on one side with a cleerenesse of understanding and on the other with a rectitude of conscience that thou know what thou shouldst doe and doe that There is also a Remission Remissio a Remission of sins It is an Article of Faith therefore beleeve it Beleeve it originally and meritoriously in Christ and beleeve it instrumentally and ministerially in the power constituted by Christ in the Church But beleeve it not too hastily in the execution and in the application thereof to thine owne case A transitory sin a sin that spent a few minutes in the doing thereof was by the penitentiall Canons which were the rule of the Primitive Church punished with many yeares penance And doest thou thinke to have Remission of thy seventy yeares sins for one sigh one groane then when that sigh and that groane may be more in contemplation of the torment due to that sin then for the sin it selfe Nay more that thou canst sinne that sin no longer then for that sin Hast thou sought thy Remission at the Church that is August in Gods Ordinances established in the Church In qua remittuntur extra quam non remittuntur peccata In which Ordinances there is an Infallibility of Remission upon true repentance and in a contempt or neglect of which Ordinances all Repentance is illusory and all Remission but imaginary Hieron For Quodammodo ante diem Iudicii judicant God refers causes to the Church to be prepared and mature there before the great Hearing and so hath given the Church a Power to judge before the day of Judgement And therefore August Nemo sibi dicat occultè ago apud Deum ago Let no man say I repent in secret God sees that I repent It was scarce in secret that thou didst sin and wilt thou repent but in secret At least let us know thy repentance by the amendment of thy life and wee shall not much presse the knowing of it any other way Onely remember that the holy Ghost staid for his Mission Presume not thou of thy Remission till thou have done not onely something towards it that might induce it from God that is Repentance but something by it that may testifie it to man that is amendment of life There is a Manumission also Manumission an emancipation an enfranchisement from the tyranny from the thraldome of sin That which some Saints of God particularly S. Paul have importuned at Gods hand so vehemently so impatiently as he did to be delivered from the messenger of Satan and from the provocations of the flesh exprest with that passion O wretched man that I am Rom. 7.22 who shall deliver me from the body of this death He comes immediately there to a thanksgiving I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord But his thanksgiving was not for a Manumission hee had not received a deliverance from the power and oppresssion of tentation But he had here as he had every where an intimation from the Spirit of God of that Gratia mea sufficit That God would be as watchfull over him with his grace as the Devill could be with his tentations And if thou come to no farther Manumission then this in this life that is to be delivered though not from tentations by his power yet in tentations by his grace or by his mercy after tentations have prevailed upon thee attend Gods leasure for thy farther Manumission for the holy Ghost staid for his
dignity First The Father shall send you another Comforter Another then my selfe For Ver. 16. howsoever Christ were the Fountain of comfort yet there were many drammes many ounces many talents of discomfort mingled in that their Comforter was first to depart from them by death and being restored to them again by a Resurrection was to depart againe by another Transmigration by an Ascension And therefore the second mark by which Christ dignifies this Comforter is That he shall abide with us for ever And in the performance of that promise he is here with you now And therefore as we begun with those words of Esay which our Saviour applyed to himselfe The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me Esay 61.1 to binde up the broken hearted and to comfort all them that mourne So the Spirit of the Lord is upon all us of his Ministery in that Commandement of his in the same Prophet Consolamini Esay 40.1 consolamini Comfort ye comfort yee my people and speak comfortably unto Ierusalem Receive the Holy Ghost all ye that are the Israel of the Lord in that Doctrine of comfort that God is so farre from having hated any of you before he made you as that he hates none of you now not for the sins of your Parents not for the sins of your persons not for the sins of your youth not for your yester-dayes not for your yester-nights sins not for that highest provocation of all your unworthy receiving his Son this day Onely consider that Comfort presumes Sadnesse Sin does not make you incapable of comfort but insensiblenesse of sin does In great buildings the Turrets are high in the Aire but the Foundations are deep in the Earth The Comforts of the Holy Ghost work so as that only that soule is exalted which was dejected As in this place where you stand there bodies lie in the earth whose soules are in heaven so from this place you carry away so much of the true comfort of the Holy Ghost as you have true sorrow and sadnesse for your sins here Almighty God erect this building upon this Foundation Such a Comfort as may not be Presumption upon such a Sorrow as may not be Diffidence in him And to him alone but in three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour c. SERMON XXIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1628. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you WE Eipasse from the Person to his working we come from his comming to his operation from his Mission and Commission to his Executing thereof from the Consideration who he is to what he does His Specification his Character his Title Paracletus The Comforter passes through all Therefore our first comfort is Docebimur we shall be Taught He shall teach you As we consider our selves The Disciples of the Holy Ghost so it is a meere teaching for we in our selves are meerly ignorant But wen we consider the things we are to bee taught so it is but a remembring a refreshing of those things which Christ in the time of his conversation in this world had taught before He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you These two then The comfort in the Action we shall be Taught and the comfort in the Way and Manner we shall not be subject to new Doctrines but taught by remembring by establishing us in things formerly Fundamentally laid will be our two parts at this time And in each of these these our steps First in the first we shall consider the persons that is the Disciples who were to learne not onely they who were so when Christ spoke the words but we All who to the end of the world shall seek and receive knowledge from him Vos ye first Vos ignorantes you who are naturally ignorant and know nothing so as you should know it of your selves which is one Discomfort And yet Vos ye Vos appetentes you that by nature have a desire to know which is another Discomfort To have a desire and no meanes to performe it Vos docebimini ye ye that are ignorant and know nothing ye ye that are hungry of knowledge and have nothing to satisfie that hunger ye shall be fed ye shall be taught which is one comfort And then Ille docebit He shall teach you He who cannot onely infuse true and full knowledge in every capacity that he findes but dilate that capacity where he findes it yea create it where he findes none The Holy Ghost who is not onely A Comforter but The Comforter and not onely so but Comfort it selfe He shall teach you And in these we shall determine our first Part. In our second Part The Way and Manner of this Teaching By bringing to our remembrance all things whatsoever Christ had said unto us there is a great largenesse but yet there is a limitation of those things which we are to learne of the Holy Ghost for they are Omnia All things whatsoever Christ hath taught before But then Sola ea Only those things which Christ had taught before and not new Additaments in the name of the Holy Ghost Now this largenesse extending it self to the whole body of the Christian Religion for Christ taught all that all that being not reducible to that part of an houre which will be left for this exercise as fittest for the celebration of the day in which we arenow we shall binde our selves to that particular consideration what the Holy Ghost being come from the Father in Christs Name that is Pursuing Christs Doctrine hath taught us of Himselfe concerning Himselfe That so ye may first see some insolencies and injuries offered to the Holy Ghost by some ancient Heretiques and some of later times by the Church of Rome For truly it is hard to name or to imagine any one sin nearer to that emphaticall sin that superlative sin The sin against the Holy Ghost then some offers of Doctrines concerning the Holy Ghost that have been obtruded though not established and some that have beene absolutely established in that Church And when we shall have delivered the Holy Ghost out of their hands we shall also deliver him into yours so as that you may feele him to shed himselfe upon you all here and to accompany you all home with a holy peace and in a blessed calme in testifying to your soules that He that Comforter who is the holy Ghost whom the Father hath sent in his Sons name hath taught you all things that is awakened your memories to the consideration of all that is necessary to your present establishment And to these divers particulars which thus constitute our two generall parts in their order thus proposed we shall now proceed As when our Saviour Christ received that confession of
concealing which were the pieces that constitute our first Part in the second Part which is the time when this Legacy accrues to us is to be given us In die illo at that day At that day shall yee know c. It is the illumination the illustration of our hearts and therefore well referred to the Day The word it selfe affords cheerefulnesse For when God inflicted that great plague to kill all the first-borne in Aegypt Exod. 12. Luke 20. that was done at Midnight And when God would intimate both deaths at once spirituall and temporall he sayes O foole this night they will fetch away thy soule Against all supply of knowledge he cals him foole and against all sense of comfort in the day he threatens night It was In die Illo and In die illo in the day and at a certaine day and at a short day For after Christ had made his Will at this supper given strength to his Will by his death and proved his Will by his Resurrection and left the Church possest of his estate by his Ascension within ten dayes after that he poured out this Legacy of knowledge For though some take this day mentioned in the Text Calvin to be Tanqnam unius diei tenor à dato Spiritu ad Resurrectionem from the first giving of the Holy Ghost to the Resurrection And others take this day Osiand to bee from his Resurrection to the end of his second Conversation upon earth till his Ascension and S. Augustine referre it Ad perfectam visionem in Coelis to the perfect fruition of the sight of God in Heaven yet the most usefull and best followed acceptation is This Day of the comming of the Holy Ghost That day we celebrate this day and we can never finde the Christian Church so farre as we can judge by the evidence of Story to have been without this festivall day The reason of all Festivals in the Church was and is Ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio August Lest after many ages involved and wrapped up in one another Gods particular benefits should bee involved and wrapped up in unthankfulnesse And the benefits received this day were such as should never be forgotten for without this day all the rest had been evacuated and uneffectuall If the Apostles by the comming of the Holy Ghost had not been established in an infallibility in themselves and in an ability to deale with all Nations by the benefit of tongues the benefit of Christs passion had not been derived upon all Nations And therefore to This day and to Easter-day all publike Baptismes in the Primitive Church were reserved None were baptized except in cases of necessity but upon one of these two dayes for as there is an Exaltation a Resurrection given us in Baptisme represented by Easter so there belongs to us a confirmation an establishing of grace and the increase thereof represented in Pentecost in the comming of the Holy Ghost As the Jews had an Easter in the memory of their deliverance from Aegypt and a Pentecost in the memory of the Law given at Mout Sinai So at Easter we celebrate the memory of that glorious Passeover when Christ passed from the grave and hell in his Resurrection and at this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate his giving of the Law to all Nations and his investing and possessing himselfe of his Kingdome the Church for this is Festum Adoptionis as S. Chrysostome cals it The cheerefull feast of our Adoption in which the Holy Ghost convaying the Son of God to us enables us to be the Sons of God and to cry Abba Father This then is that day Acts 2. when the Apostles being with one accord and in one place that is in one faith and in one profession of that faith not onely without Heresie but without Schisme too the Holy Ghost as a mighty winde filled them all and gave them utterance As a winde to note a powerfull working And he filled them to note the abundance And he gave them utterance to inferre that which we spoke of before The Communication of that knowledge which they had received to others This was that Spirit whom it concerned the Apostles so much to have as that Christ himselfe must goe from them to send him to them If I goe not away sayes Christ the Comforter will not come to you How great a comfort must this necessarily be which must so abundantly recompence the losse of such a comfort as the presence of Christ was This is that Spirit who though hee were to be sent by the Father and sent by the Son yet he comes not as a Messenger from a Superiour for hee was alwaies equall to Father and Son But the Father sent him and the Son sent him as a tree sends forth blossomes and as those blossomes send forth a sweet smell and as the Sun sends forth beames by an emanation from it selfe He is Spiritus quem nemo interpretari potest sayes S. Chrysostome hee hath him not that doth not see he hath him nor is any man without him who in a rectified conscience thinks he hath him Illo Prophetae illustrantur Illo idiotae condiuntur sayes the same Father The Prophets as high as their calling was saw nothing without this Spirit and with this Spirit a simple man understands the Prophets And therefore doth S. Basil attribute that to the Holy Ghost which seemes to be peculiar to the Son he cals him Verbum Dei because sayes he Spiritus interpres Filii sicut Filius Patris As the Son hath revealed to us the will of the Father and so is the Word of God to us so the Holy Ghost applies the promises and the merits of the Son to us and so is the Word of God to us too and enables us to come to God in that voyce of his blessed Servant S. Augustine O Deus secretissime patentissime Though nothing be more mysterious then the knowledge of God in the Trinity yet nothing is more manifest unto us then by the light of this person the Holy Ghost so much of both the other Persons as is necessary for our Salvation is Now it is not onely to the Apostles that the Holy Ghost is descended this day but as S. Chrysostom saies of the Annunciation Non ad unam tantùm animam It is not onely to one Person that the Angel said then The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and overshadow thee but sayes he that Holy Ghost hath said Super omnem Ioel 2. I will poure out my selfe upon all men so I say of this day This day if you be all in this place concentred united here in one Faith and one Religion If you be of one accord that is in perfect charity The Holy Ghost shall fill you all according to your measure and his purpose and give you utterance in your lives and conversations Qui ita vacat orationibus Origen ut dignus fiat illo
by emission of beames from within And yet no man doubts whether he see or no. The holy Ghost shall tell you when he tels you the most that ever he shall tell you in that behalf That the Son is in the Father but he will not tell you how Our second portion in this Legacy of knowledge Incarnatio is That we are in Christ And this is the mystery of the Incarnation For since the devill had so surprized us all as to take mankinde all in one lump in a corner in Adams loynes and poysoned us all there in the fountain in the roote Christ to deliver us as intirely took all mankinde upon him and so took every one of us and the nature and the infirmities and the sins and the punishment of every singular man So that the same pretence which the devill hath against every one of us you are mine for you sinned in Adam we have also for our discharge we are delivered for we paid our debt in Christ Jesus In all his tentations send him to look upon the Records of that processe of Christs passion and he shall finde there the names of all the faithfull recorded That such a day that day when Christ dyed I and you and all that shall be saved suffered dyed and were crucified and in Christ Jesus satisfied God the Father for those infinite sins which we had committed And now Second death which is damnation hath no more title to any of the true members of his mysticall body then corruption upon naturall or violent death could have upon the members of his naturall body The assurance of this grows from the third part of this knowledge Redemptio That Christ is in us for that is such a knowledge of Christs generall Redemption of mankinde as that it is also an application of it to us in particular For for his Incarnation by which we are in him Cyril that may have given a dignity to our humane nature But Quae beneficiorum magnitudo fuisset erganos si hominem solummodo quem assumpserat salvaret What great benefit how ever the dignity had been great to all mankinde had mankinde had if Christ had saved no more then that one person whom he assumed The largenesse and bounty of Christ is to give us of his best treasure knowledge and to give us most at last To know Christ in me For to know that he is in his Father this may serve me to convince another that denies the Trinity To know that we are in Christ so as that he took our nature this may shew me an honour done to us more then the Angels But what gets a lame wretch at the poole how soveraign soever the water be if no body put him in What gets a naked beggar by knowing that a dead man hath left much to pious uses if the Executors take no knowledge of him What get I by my knowledge of Christ in the Father and of us in Christ so if I finde not Christ in me How then is Christ in us Here the question De modo How it is is lawfull for he hath revealed it to us It is by our obedience to his inspiration and by our reverent use of those visible meanes which he hath ordained in his Church his Word and Sacraments As our flesh is in him by his participation thereof so his flesh is in us by our communication thereof And so is his divinity in us by making us partakers of his divine nature and by making us one spirit with himself which he doth at this Pentecost that is whensoever the holy Ghost visits us with his effectuall grace for this is an union in which Christ in his purpose hath married himself to our souls inseparably and Sine solutione vinculi Without any intention of divorce on his part But if we will separate him à mensa toro If either we take the bed of licentiousnesse or the board of voluptuousnesse or if when we eat or drink or sleep or wake we do not all to the glory of God if we separate he will divorce If then we be thus come to this knowledge let us make Ex scientia conscientiam Enlarge science into conscience for Conscientia est Syllogismus practicus Conscience is a Syllogisme that comes to a conclusion Then only hath a man true knowledge when he can conclude in his own conscience that his practise and conversation hath expressed it Who will beleeve that we know there is a ditch and know the danger of falling into it and drowning in it if he see us run headlong towards it and fall into it and continue in it Who can beleeve that he that separates himself from Christ by continuing in his sin hath any knowledge or sense or evidence or testimony of Christs being in him As Christ proceeds by enlarging thy knowledge and making thee wiser and wiser so enlarge thy testimony of it by growing better and better and let him that is holy bee more holy If thou have passed over the first heats of the day the wantonnesses of youth and the second heat the fire of ambition if these be quenched in thee by preventing venting grace or by repenting grace be more and more holy for thine age will meet another sin of covetousnesse or of indevotion that needs as much resistance God staid not in any lesse degree of knowledge towards thee then in bringing himselfe to thee Doe not thou stay by the way neither not in the consideration of God alone for that Coeli enarrant all creatures declare it stay not at the Trinity Every comming to Church nay thy first being brought to Church at thy Baptisme is and was a profession of that stay not at the Incarnation That the Devill knowes and testifies But come to know that Christ is in thee and expresse that knowledge in a sanctified life For though he be in us all in the work of his Redemption so as that he hath poured out balme enough in his blood to spread over all mankinde yet onely he can enjoy the chearfulnesse of this unction and the inseparablenesse of this union who as S. Augustine pursues this contemplation Habet in memoria servat in vita who alwayes remembers that he stands in the presence of Christ and behaves himselfe worthy of that glorious presence Qui habet in Sermonibus servat in operibus That hath Christ alwaies at his tongues end and alwaies at his fingers ends that loves to discourse of him and to act his discourses Que habet audiendo servat faciendo That heares Gods will here in his house and does his will at home in his owne house Qui habet faciendo servat perseverando who having done well from the beginning persevers in well doing to the end he and he onely shall finde Christ in him SERMON XXXI Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1629. GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters THe
as all sin is a violating of God God being the God of mercy and the God of life because it deprives us of both those of mercy and of life in opposition to mercy Ephes 2.3 Rom. 5.12 it is called anger and wrath We are all by nature the children of wrath And in opposition to life it is called death Death enters by sin and death is gone over all men And as originall sin hath relation to our souls It is called that indeleble foulnesse and uncleannesse which God discovers in us all Jer. 2.22 Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much sope yet thine iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord And which every man findes in himself as Iob did If I wash my self in Snow-water Job 9. and purge my hands never so cleane yet mine own clothes shall make me filthy As it hath relation to our bodies so it is not only called Lex carnis A law which the flesh cannot disobey And Lex in membris A law written and imprinted naturally in our bodies and inseparably inherent there but it is a law that hath got Posse comitatus All our strength and munition into her own hands all our powers and faculties to execute her purposes against us and as the Apostle expresses it fully Hath force in our members to bring forth fruits unto death Rom. 7.5 Consider our originall weaknesse as God lookes upon it so it is inexcusable sin consider it as our soules suffer by it so it is an indeleble foulnesse consider it as our bodies contribute to it and harbour it and retain it and so it is an unquenchable fire and a brand of hell it self It hath banished me out of my self It is no more I that do any thing but sin that dwelleth in me It doth not only dwell but reign in these mortall bodies not only reign but tyrannize and lead us captives under the law of sin which is in our members Ver. 23. So that we have utterly lost Bonum possibilitatis for as men we are out of all possibility not only of that victorious and triumphant gratulation and acclamation to our selves as for a delivery I thank God through Iesus Christ but we cannot come to that sense of our misery Ver. ult as to cry out in the Apostles words immediately preceding O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Now as this death hath invaded every part and faculty of man understanding and will and all for though originall sin seem to be contracted without our will yet Sicut omnium natura ita omnium voluntates fuere originaliter in Adam sayes S. Augustine As the whole nature of mankinde and so of every particular man was in Adam so also were the faculties and so the will of every particular man in him so this death hath invaded every particular man Death went over all men for as much as all men had sinned And therefore they that do blasphemously exempt some persons from sin they set them not above the Law but without the Law They out-law them in taking from them the benefit of the new Law the Gospel and of the author of that Law Christ Jesus who came a Physitian to the sick and was sent only to save sinners for them that are none it is well that they need no Redeemer for if they did they could have no part in ours for he came only to redeem sinners and they are none God brought his Son out of Aegypt not out of Goshen in Aegypt not out of a priviledged place in Aegypt but out of Aegypt God brought his Son Christ Jesus out of the Virgin Mary without sin but he brought not her so out of her mother If they might be beleeved that the blessed Virgin and Iohn Baptist and the Prophet Ieremy were without all sin they would goe about at last to make us beleeve that Ignatius were so too For us in the highest of our sanctification still let us presse with that Dimitte nobis debita nostra O Lord forgive us our trespasses and confesse that we needed forgivenesse even for the sins which we have not done Dimissa fateor quae mea sponte feci quae te duce non feci sayes S. Augustine I confesse I need thy mercy both for the sins which I have done and for those which if thy grace had not restrained me I should have done And therefore if another think he hath scaped those sins that I have committed August Non me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quoei praestitum ne aegrotaret Let him not despise me who am recovered since it is the same physitian who hath wrought upon us both though by a diverse method for he hath preserved him and he hath recovered me for for himselfe we say still with the same Father Perdiderat bonum possibilitatis As well he as I had lost all possibility of standing or rising after our fall This was our first branch Quid homo potest The universall impotency And our second is That this is In homine In man no man as man can make this profession That Iesus is the Lord and therefore we consider first wherein and how far man is disabled In every Age some men have attributed to the power of nature more then a naturall man can doe and yet no man doth so much as a naturall man might doe For the over-valuing of nature and her power there are impressions in the Fathers themselves which whether mis-understood by the Readers or by the Authors have led and prevailed much When Iustin Martyr sayes Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris That rectified reason did the same office in the Gentiles as faith did in the Christians when Clement sayes Philosophia per sese justi ficavit Graecos That the Gentiles to whom the Law and Gospell was not communicated were justified by their Philosophy when Chrysostome sayes Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was sufficient for the Gentiles if they did not worship false gods though they understood not the true when S. Augustine sayes Rectè facis nihil quaerere ampliùs quà m quod docet ratio He doth well that seeks no farther then his reason leads them these impressions in the Fathers have transported later men farther so far as that Andradius in the Romane Church saves all honest Philosophers that lived morally well without Christ And Tostatus takes all impediments out of their way That originall sin is absolutely remitted to them In prima bona operatione in charitate In their first good morall work that they do So that they are in an easier way then we who are but Christians for in the opinion of Tostatus himselfe and that whole Church we cannot be delivered from originall sin but by baptisme nothing lesse then a Sacrament would deliver us from originall sin and any good worke shall deliver any of the Gentiles
falls that does not lie in those round drops in which it falls but diffuses and spreads and inlarges it selfe He fell upon all But then it was because all heard They came not to see a new action preaching not a new Preacher Peter nor to see one another at a Sermon He fell upon all that heard where also I think it will not be impertinent to make this note That Peter is said to have spoke these words but they on whom the holy Ghost fell are said to have heard The word It is not Many words long Sermons nor good words witty and eloquent Sermons that induce the holy Ghost for all these are words of men and howsoever the whole Sermon is the Ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God But when all the good gifts of men are modestly employ'd and humbly received as vehicuia Spiritus as S. Augustine calls them The chariots of the holy Ghost as meanes afforded by God to convey the word of life into us in Those words we heare The word and there the word and the Spirit goe together as in our case in the Text While Peter yet spake those words the holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard The word 1 Part. Tempus When we come then to consider in the first place the Time of this miracle we may easily see that verified in S. Peters proceeding which S. Ambrose sayes Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus sancti gratia The holy Ghost cannot goe a slow pace It is the devill in the serpent that creeps but the holy Ghost in the Dove flyes And then in the proceeding with the Centurion we may see that verified which Leo sayes Vbi Deus Magister quà m citò discitur Where God teaches how fast a godly man learnes Christ did almost all his miracles in an instant without dilatory circumstances Christ sayes to the man sick of the palsey Mark 2.11 Tolle grabatum Take up thy bed and walk and immediately he did so To the deafe man he sayes Mark 7.34 Ephphatha Be thine eares opened and instantly they were opened He sayes to the woman with the issue of bloud Mark 5.34 Esto sana à plagatua and she was not onely well immediately upon that but she was well before when she had but touched the hem of his garment Upon him who had lyen in his infirmity thirty eight yeares at the poole Christ makes a little stop but it was no longer then to try his disposition with that question John 5.5 Mark 8. Vis sanus fieri Christ was sure what his answer would be and as soone as he gives that answer immediately he recovered Where Christ seems to have stayed longest which was upon the blind man yet at his first touch that man saw men walke though not distinctly but at the second touch he saw perfectly As Christ proceeds in his miracles Chrysost so doth the holy Ghost in his powerfull instructions It is true Scientiae sunt profectus There is a growth in knowledge and we overcome ignorances by degrees and by succession of more and more light Christ himselfe grew in knowledge as well as in stature But this is in the way of experimentall knowledge by study by conversation by other acquisitions But when the holy Ghost takes a man into his schoole he deales not with him as a Painter which makes an eye and an eare and a lip and passes his pencill an hundred times over every muscle and every haire and so in many sittings makes up one man but he deales as a Printer that in one straine delivers a whole story We see that in this example of S. Peter S. Peter had conceived a doubt whether it were lawfull for him to preach the Gospell to any of the Gentiles because they were not within the Covenant This was the sanus fieri This very scruple was the voyce and question of God in him to come to a doubt and to a debatement in any religious duty is the voyce of God in our conscience Would you know the truth Doubt and then you will inquire And facile solutionem accipit anima quae prius dubitavit sayes S. Chrysost As no man resolves of any thing wisely firmely safely of which he never doubted never debated so neither doth God withdraw a resolution from any man that doubts with an humble purpose to settle his owne faith and not with a wrangling purpose to shake another mans Ver. 11. God rectifies Peters doubt immediately and he rectifies it fully he presents him a Book and a Commentary the Text and the Exposition He lets downe a sheet from heaven with all kinde of beasts and fowles and tels him that Nothing is uncleane and he tells him by the same spirit Ver. 19. that there were three men below to aske for him who were sent by God to apply that visible Parable and that God meant in saying Nothing was uncleane that the Gentiles generally and in particular this Centurion Cornelius were not incapable of the Gospell nor unfit for his Ministery And though Peter had beene very hungry and would faine have eaten as appeares in the tenth verse yet after he received this instruction we heare no more mention of his desire to eat but as his Master had said Cibus meus est My meat is to doe my Fathers will that sent me so his meat was to doe him good that sent for him and so he made haste to goe with those Messengers The time then was Cum locutus when Peter thus prepared by the Holy Ghost was to prepare others for the Holy Ghost and therefore it was Cum locutus When he spoke that is preached to them For Si adsit palatum fidei cui sapiat mel Dei saies S. Augustine To him who hath a spirituall taste no hony is so sweet as the word of God preached according to his Ordinance If a man taste a little of this honey at his rods end as Ionathan did 1 Sam. 14.27 though he thinke his eyes enlightned as Ionathan did he may be in Ionathans case I did but taste a little honey with my rod Et ecce morior and behold I dye If a man read the Scriptures a little superficially perfunctorily his eyes seeme straight-waies enlightned and he thinks he sees every thing that he had pre-conceived and fore-imagined in himselfe as cleare as the Sun in the Scriptures He can finde flesh in the Sacrament without bread because he findes Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and he will take no more of that hony no more of those places of Scripture where Christ saies Ego vitis and Ego porta that he is a Vine and that he is a Gate as literally as he seemes to say that that is his Body So also he can finde wormewood in this honey because he finds in this Scripture Stipendium peccati mors est that The reward of sin is death and he will take no
and is implyed in this name Children of God Heires of heaven which is not a Gavel-kinde every son every man alike but it is an universall primogeniture every man full so full as that every man hath all in such measure as that there is nothing in heaven which any man in heaven wants Heires of the joyes of heaven Joy in a continuall dilatation of thy heart to receive augmentation of that which is infinite in the accumulation of essentiall and accidentall joy Joy in a continuall melting of indissoluble bowels in joyfull and yet compassionate beholding thy Saviour Rejoycing at thy being there and almost lamenting in a kinde of affection which we can call by no name that thou couldst not come thither but by those wounds which are still wounds though wounds glorified Heires of the joy and heires of the glory of heaven where if thou look down and see Kings fighting for Crownes thou canst look off as easily as from boyes at stool-ball for points here And from Kings triumphing after victories as easily as a Philosopher from a Pageant of children here Where thou shalt not be subject to any other title of Dominion in others but Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews nor ambitious of any other title in thy selfe but that which thou possessest To be the childe of God Heires of joy heires of glory and heires of the eternity of heaven Where in the possession of this joy and this glory The Angels which were there almost 6000. yeares before thee and so prescribe and those soules which shall come at Christs last comming and so enter but then shall not survive thee but they and thou and all shall live as long as he that gives you all that life as God himselfe Heires to heaven and co-heires with Christ There is much to be said of that circumstance but who shall say it I that should say it have said ill of it already in calling it a Circumstance To be co-heires with Christ is that Essentiall salvation it selfe and to that he intitled us when after his Resurrection he said of us John 20.17 Goe tell my brethren that I am gone When he was but borne of a woman and submitted to the law when in his minority he was but a Carpenter and at full age but a Preacher when they accused him in generall that he was a Malefactor or else they would not have delivered him John 18.30 but they knew not the name of his fault when a fault of secular cognizance was objected to him that he moved sedition that he denied tribute And then a fault of Ecclesiasticall cognizance that he spoke against the Law and against the Temple when Barrabas a seditious murderer was preferred before him and saved and yet two theeves left to accompany him in his torment and death in these diminutions of Christ there was no great honour no great cause why any man should have any great desire to be of his kindred to be brother or co-heire to his Crosse But if to be his brethren when he had begun his triumph in his Resurrection were a high dignity what is it to be co-heires with him in heaven after his Ascension But these are inexpressible unconceivable things bring it backe to that which is nearest us to those seales and marks which wee have in this life That by a holy a sanctified passage through this life and out of this life from our first seale in Baptisme to our last seale upon our death-bed The Spirit may beare witnesse to our spirit that we are the children of God Amen SERM. XXXV Preached upon Whitsunday MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men AS when a Merchant hath a faire and large a deep and open Sea into that Harbour to which hee is bound with his Merchandize it were an impertinent thing for him to sound and search for lands and rocks and clifts which threaten irreparable shipwrack so we being bound to the heavenly City the new Jerusalem by the spacious and bottomelesse Sea the blood of Christ Jesus having that large Sea opened unto us in the beginning of this Text All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men It may seeme an impertinent diversion to turne into that little Creek nay upon that desperate and irrecoverable rock The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven to men But there must be Discoverers as well as Merchants for the security of Merchants who by storme and tempest or other accidents may be cast upon those sands and rocks if they be not knowne they must be knowne So though we faile on with a merry gale and full sailes with the breath of the holy Ghost in the first Part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men yet we shall not leave out the discovery of that fearfull and ruinating rock too But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men I would divide the Text and fewer Parts then two we cannot make and this Text hath scarce two Parts The whole Text is a conveiance it is true but there is a little Proviso at the end The whole Text is a rule it is true but there is an exception at the end The whole text is a Royall Palace it is true but there is a Sewar a Vault behinde it Christ had said all that of himselfe he would have said when he said the first part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men But the iniquity of the Pharisees extorted thus much more But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men The first part is the sentence the proposition and the sense is perfect in that All manner of sin c. The last part is but a Parenthesis which Christ had rather might have been left out but the Pharisees and their perversenesse inserted But the blasphemy c. But since it deserves and requires our consideration as well that the mercy of God can have any stop any rub determine any where as that it can extend and spread it selfe so farre as it doth in this text let us make them two parts And in the first consider with comfort the largenesse the expansion of Gods mercy that there is but one sin that it reacheth not to And in the second let us consider with feare and trembling that there is one sin so swelling so high as that even the mercy of God does not reach to it And in the first we shall proceed thus in the magnifying Gods mercy first in the first terme Sin we shall see that sin is even a wound a violence upon God and then Omne peccatum Every sin is so and nothing is so various so divers as sin and even that sin that amounts to Blasphemy a sin not onely conceived in the thought but expressed in
contumelious words and those contumelious and blasphemous words uttered against the Son for so it is expressed in the very next verse All this shall be forgiven But yet it is in futuro They shall be No mans sins are forgiven him then when he sins them but by repentance they shall be forgiven forgiven unto men that is first unto any man and then unto none but men for the sin of the Angels shall never be forgiven And these will be the Branches of the first Part. And in the second Part we shall looke as farre as this text occasions it upon that debated sin the sin against the holy Ghost and the irremissiblenesse of that of which Part we shall derive and raise the particular Branches anon when we come to handle them First then 1 Part. Peccatum for the first terme Sin we use to ask in the Schoole whether any action of mans can have rationem demeriti whether it can be said to offend God or to deserve ill of God for whatsoever does so must have some proportion with God With things which are inanimate things that have no will and so no good nor bad purpose as dust or the winde or such a man cannot properly be so offended as to say that they deserve ill of him With those things which have no use no command of their will as children and fooles and mad men it is so too And then there is no creature so poore so childish so impotent in respect of man as the best man is in respect of God How then can he sin that is offend that is deserve ill of him The question begun not in the Schoole Iob 35.6 It was asked before of Iob If thou sinnest what doest thou against him or if thy transgressions be multiplied what doest thou unto him Thy wickednesse may hurt a man as thou art but what is it to God for as Gregory sayes upon that place Humana impietas ci nocet quem pervertendo inquinat Our sins hurt them whom our example leads into tentation but our sins cannot draw God to be accessory to our sins or to make him sin with us Our sin cannot hurt him so nor hurt him directly any way not his person But his Subjects whom he hath taken into his protection it may His Law which he hath given for direction it may His Honour of which he is jealous which Honour consists much in our honouring of him it may Wherein is a Kings Person violated by coyning a false peny or counterfaiting a seale and yet this is Treason God cannot be robbed he cannot be damnified whatsoever is taken from him and there is a sacriledge in all unjust takings wheresoever it be laid he sees it and it is still in his possession and in his house and in his hands God cannot be robbed nor God cannot be violated he cannot be wounded for he hath no limmes But God is Vltimis fin is The end to which we all goe and his Law is the way to that end And transilire lineam to transgresse that Law to leave that way is a neglecting of him and even negligences and pretermissions and slightings are as great offences as actuall injuries So God is communis Pater the Father of all creatures and so the abuse of the creature reflects upon God as the injuries done to the children doe upon the Parents If then we can sin so against God as we can against the King and against the Law and against Propriety and against Parents wee have wayes enow of sinning against God Sin is not therefore so absolutely nothing as that it is in no consideration other then a privation onely Absentia recti and nothing at all in it selfe but not to enter farther into that inextricable point we rest in this that sin is Actus inordinatus It is not only an obliquity a privation but it is an action deprived of that rectitude which it should have It does not onely want that rectitude but it should have that rectitude and therefore hath a sinfull want We shall not dare to call sin meerly absolutely nothing if we consider either the punishment due to sin or the pardon of that punishment or the price of that pardon The punishment is everlasting why should I beleeve it to be so Os domini locutum The mouth of the Lord hath said it But why should it be so Gregor Iustum est ut qui in suo aeter no peccavit contra Deum in Dei aeterno puniatur It is but justice that he that sins in his eternity should be punished in Gods eternity Now to sin in our eternity is to sin as long as we live and if we could live eternally to desire to sin eternally God can cut off our eternity he can shorten our life If wee could cut off his eternity and quench hell our punishment were not eternall We consider sin to be Quoddam infinitum as it is an aversion from God who is infinite goodnesse it is an infinite thing and as it is a turning upon the Creature it is finite and determined for all pleasure taken in the creature is so and accordingly sin hath a finite and an infinite punishment That which we call Poenam sensus The torment which we feele is not infinite otherwise then by duration for that torment is not equall in all the damned and that which is infinite must necessarily be equall but that which we call Poenam damni The everlasting losse of the sight of the everliving God that is infinite and alike and equall in all the damned Sin is something then if we consider the punishment and so it is if we consider our deliverance from this punishment That which God could not pardon in the way of justice without satisfaction that for which nothing could be a satisfaction but the life of all men or of one man worth all the Sonne of God that that tore the Son out of the armes of his Father in the Quid dereliquisti when he cryed out why hast thou forsaken me That which imprinted in him who was anointed with the Oyle of gladnesse above his fellowes a deadly heavinesse in his Tristis anima when his soule was heavy unto death That which had power to open Heaven in his descent hither and to open hell in his descent thither to open the wombe of the Virgin in his Incarnation and the wombe of the Earth in his Resurrection that which could change the frame of Nature in Miracles and the God of Nature in becomming Man that that deserved that punishment that that needed that ransome say the Schoole men what they will of privations cannot be meerely absolutely nothing but the greatest thing that can be conceived and yet that shall be forgiven That and all that Sin and all sin And there is not so much of any thing in the world Omne as of sin Every vertue hath two extreames two vices opposed to it there is two to one But
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
This is my beloved Son this day have I begotten him And with such Copies it seemes both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus met for they reade these words so and interpret them accordingly But these words are misplaced and mis-transferred out of the second Psalme where they are And as they change the words and in stead of In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased reade This day have I begotten thee S. Cyprian addes other words to the end of these which are Hunc audite Heare him Which words when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration were spoken but here at the Baptisme they were not what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian or whether it were the failing of his own memory But S. Chrysostome gives an expresse reason why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration and not here Because saies he Here was onely a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity so farre as to declare their persons who they were and no more At the Trans-figuration where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ there God had a purpose to preferre the Gospel above the Law and the Prophets and therefore in that place he addes that Hunc audite Heare him who first fulfills all the Law and the Prophets and then preaches the Gospel He was so well pleased in him as that he was content to give all them that received him Eph. 1.6 power to become the Sons of God too as the Apostle sayes By his grace he hath made us accepted in his beloved Beloved That you may be so Come up from your Baptisme as it is said that Christ did Rise and ascend to that growth which your Baptisme prepared you to And the heavens shall open as then even Cataractae coeli All the windowes of heaven shall open and raine downe blessings of all kindes in abundance And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you as a Dove in his peacefull comming in your simple and sincere receiving him And he shall rest upon you to effect and accomplish his purposes in you If he rebuke you as Christ when he promises the Holy Ghost though he call him a Comforter John 16.7 sayes That he shall rebuke the world of divers things yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove Quae si mordet osculando mordet sayes S. Augustine If the Dove bite it bites with kissing if the Holy Ghost rebuke he rebukes with comforting And so baptized and so pursuing the contract of your Baptisme and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit in your holy conversation hee shall breathe a soule into your soule by that voyce of eternall life You are my beloved Sonnes in whom I am well pleased SERM. XLIV Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday 1627. REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them sixe wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come THese words are part of that Scripture which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day This day which besides that it is the Lords day the Sabbath day is also especially consecrated to the memory and honour of the whole Trinity The Feast of the Nativity of Christ Christmas day which S. Chrysostome calls Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitane festivall of the Church is intended principally to the honour of the Father who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son that day because in that was laid the foundation and first stone of that house and Kingdome in which God intended to glorifie himselfe in this world that is the Christian Church The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honour of the Son himselfe who upon that day began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him and to shake off the chaines of death and the grave and hell in a glorious Reserrection And then the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honour of the Holy Ghost who by a personall falling upon the Apostles that day inabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father and this death and Resurrection of the Son to the ends of the world to the ends in Extention to all places to the ends in Duration to all times Now as S. Augustine sayes Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person as that you cannot think of a Father as a Father but that there falls a Son into the same thought nor think of a person that proceeds from others but that they from whom he whom ye think of proceeds falls into the same thought as every person is in every person And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head so the Church hath also contracted the honour belonging to them in this kinde of Worship to one day in which the Father and Son and Holy Ghost as they are severally in those three severall dayes might bee celebrated joyntly and altogether It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festivall to this purpose For before they made account that that verse which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy and Church Service Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost had a convenient sufficiency in it to keep men in a continuall remembrance of the Trinity But when by that extreame inundation and increase of Arians these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity came to be obliterated and discontinued the Church began to refresh her selfe in admitting into to the formes of Common Prayer some more particular notifications and remembrances of the Trnity And at last though it were very long first for this Festivall of this Trinity-Sunday was not instituted above foure hundred yeares since they came to ordaine this day Which day our Church according to that peacefull wisedome wherewithall the God of Peace of Unity and Concord had inspired her did in the Reformation retaine and continue out of her generall religious tendernesse and holy loathnesse to innovate any thing in those matters which might bee safely and without superstition continued and entertained For our Church in the Reformation proposed not that for her end how shee might goe from Rome but how she might come to the Truth nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved but to purge away those depravations and conserve the things themselves so restored to their first good use For this day then were these words appointed by our Church Divisic And therefore we are sure that in the notion and apprehension and construction of our Church these words appertaine to the Trinity In them therefore we shall consider first what these foure creatures were which are notified and designed to us in the names and figures of foure Beasts And then what these foure creatures did Their Persons and their Action will be our two
he had meant to doe you good he would never have gone thus farre in heaping of evills upon you Upon what doest thou ground this upon thy selfe Because thou shouldest not deal thus with any man whom thou mean'st well to How poore how narrow how impious a measure of God is this that he must doe as thou wouldest doe if thou wert God! God hath not made a week without a Sabbath no tentation without an issue God inflicts no calamity no cloud no eclipse without light to see ease in it if the patient will look upon that which God hath done to him in other cases or to that which God hath done to others at other times Saul fell to the ground but he fell no lower God brings us to humiliation but not to desperation He fell Caecus Iohn 9.39 he fell to the ground And he fell blinde for so it is evident in the story Christ had said to the Pharisees I came into the world that they which see might be made blinde And the Pharisees ask him Have you been able to doe so upon us Are we blinde Here Christ gives them an example a reall a literall an actuall example Saul a Pharisee is made blinde He that will fill a vessell with wine must take out the water He that will fill a covetous mans hand with gold must take out the silver that was there before sayes S. Chrysostome Christ who is about to infuse new light into Saul withdrawes that light that was in him before That light by which Saul thought he saw all before and thought himselfe a competent Judge which was the onely true Religion and that all others were to be persecuted Ier. 51.17 even to death that were not of his way Stultus factus est omnis homo à scientia sayes God in the Prophet Every man that trusts in his owne wit is a foole 1 Cor. 3.18 But let him become a foole that he may be wise sayes the Apostle Let him be so in his own eyes and God will give him better eyes better light better understanding Saul was struck blinde but it was a blindnesse contracted from light It was a light that struck him blinde as you see in his story This blindnesse which we speak of which is a sober and temperate abstinence from the immoderate study and curious knowledges of this world this holy simplicity of the soule is not a darknesse a dimnesse a stupidity in the understanding contracted by living in a corner it is not an idle retiring into a Monastery or into a Village or a Country solitude it is not a lazy affectation of ignorance not darknesse but a greater light must make us blinde The sight and the Contemplation of God and our present benefits by him and our future interest in him must make us blinde to the world so as that we look upon no face no pleasure no knowledge with such an Affection such an Ambition such a Devotion as upon God and the wayes to him Saul had such a blindnesse as came from light we must affect no other simplicity then arises from the knowledge of God and his Religion And then Saul had such a blindnesse as that he fell with it There are birds that when their eyes are cieled still soare up and up till they have spent all their strength Men blinded with the lights of this world soare still into higher places or higher knowledges or higher opinions but the light of heaven humbles us and layes flat that soule which the leaven of this world had puffed and swelled up That powerfull light felled Saul but after he was fallen his owne sight was restored to him againe Ananias saies to him Brother Saul receive thy sight To those men who imploy their naturall faculties to the glory of God and their owne and others edification God shall afford an exaltation of those naturall faculties In those who use their learning or their wealth or their power well God shall increase that power and that wealth and that learning even in this world You have seene Sauls sicknesse 3 Part. and the exaltation of the disease Then when he breathed threatnings and slaughter Then when he went in his triumph And you have seen his death The death of the righteous His humiliation He fell to the earth And there remaines yet his Resurrection The Angel of the great Counsell Christ Jesus with the Trumpet of his owne mouth rayses him with that Saul Saul why persecutest thou mee First Vox he affords him a call A voyce Saul could not see Therefore he deales not upon him by visions He gives a voyce and a voyce that he might heare God speaks often when we doe not heare He heard it and heard it saying Not a voyce only but a distinct and intelligible voyce and saying unto him that is appliable to himselfe and then that that the voyce said to him was Saul Saul why persecutest thou me We are unequall enemies Thou seest I am too hard for thee Curtu me why wilt thou thou in this weakenesse oppose me And then we might be good friends Thou seest I offer parly I offer treaty Cur tu me Why wilt thou oppose me me that declare such a disposition to be reconciled unto thee In this so great a disadvantage on thy part why wilt thou stirre at all In this so great a peaceablenesse on my part why wilt thou stirre against me Cur tu me Why persecutest thou me First then God speakes For beloved we are to consider God not as he is in himselfe but as he works upon us The first thing that we can consider in our way to God is his Word Our Regeneration is by his Word that is by faith which comes by hearing The seed is the word of God sayes Christ himselfe Even the seed of faith Luke 8.11 Carry it higher the Creation was by the word of God Dixit facta sunt God spoke and all things were made Carry it to the highest of all to Eternity the eternall Generation the eternall Production the eternall Procession of the second Person in the Trinity was so much by the Word as that he is the Word Verbum caro It was that Word that was made Flesh So that God who cannot enter into bands to us hath given us security enough He hath given us his Word His written Word his Scriptures His Essentiall Word his Son Our Principall and Radicall and Fundamentall security is his Essentiall Word his Son Christ Jesus But how many millions of generations was this Word in heaven and never spoke The Word Christ himself hath been as long as God hath been But the uttering of this Word speaking hath been but since the Creation Peter sayes to Christ To whom shall we goe Thou hast the words of eternall life It is not onely Iohn 6.68 Thou art the word of eternall life Christ is so But thou hast it Thou hast it where we may come to thee for it
Eccles 12.1 There are spirituall Lethargies that make a man forget his name forget that he was a Christian and what belongs to that duty God knows what forgetfulnesse may possesse thee upon thy death-bed and freeze thee there God knows what rage what distemper what madnesse may scatter thee then And though in such cases God reckon with his servants according to that disposition which they use to have towards him before and not according to those declinations from him which they shew in such distempered sicknesses yet Gods mercy towards them can worke but so that he returnes to those times when those men did remember him before But if God can finde no such time that they never remembred him then he seales their former negligence with a present Lethargy they neglected God all their lives and now in death there is no remembrance of him nor there is no remembrance in him God shall forget him eternally and when he thinkes he is come to his Consummatum est The bell tolls and will ring out and there is an end of all in death by death he comes but to his Secula Seculorum to the beginning of that misery which shall never end This then which we have spoken arises out of that sense of these words which seems the most literall that is of a naturall death But as it is well noted by divers Expositors upon this Psalme this whole Psalme is intended of a spirituall agonie and combat of David wrastling with the apprehension of hell and of the indignation of God even in this world whilst he was alive here And therefore S. Augustine upon the last words of this verse in that Translation which he followed In inferno quis consitchitur tibi Not In the grave but In hell who shall confesse unto thee puts himselfe upon this In Inferne Dives confessus Domino oravit pro fratribus In hell Dives did confesse the name of the Lord and prayed there for his brethren in the world And therefore he understands not these words of a literall and naturall a bodily death a departing out of this world but he calls Peccatum Mortem and then Caecitatem animae Infernum He makes the easinesse of sinning to be Death and then blindnesse and obduration and remorslesnesse and impenitence to be this Hell And so also doth S. Ierome understand all that passionate deploring of Hezekias which seems literally to be spoken of naturall death of this spirituall death of the habit of sin and that he considered and lamented especially his danger of that death of a departing from God in this world rather then of a departing out of this world And truely many pieces and passages of Hezekias his lamentation there will fall naturally enough into that spirituall interpretation though perchance all will not though S. Ierome with a holy purpose drive them and draw them that way But whether that of Hezekias be of naturall or of a spirituall death we have another Author ancienter then S. Augustine and S. Ierome and so much esteemed by S. Iereme as that he translated some of his Works which is Didymus of Alexandria who sayes it is Impia opinio not an inconvenient or unnaturall but an impious and irreligious opinion to understand this verse of naturall death because sayes he The dead doe much more remember God then the living doe And he makes use of that place Deus non confunditur Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead for he hath prepared them a City And therefore reading these words of our Text according to that Translation which prevailed in the Easterne Church which was the Septuagint he argues thus he collects thus that all that David sayes here is onely this Non est in morte qui memor est Dei Not that he that is dead remembers not God but that he that remembers God is not dead not in an irreparable and irrecoverable state of death not under such a burthen of sin as devastates and exterminates the conscience and evacuates the whole power and work of grace but that if he can remember God confesse God though he be falne under the hand of a spirituall death by some sin yet he shall have his resurrection in this life for Non est in morte sayes Didymus He that remembers God is not dead in a perpetuall death And then this reason of Davids Prayer here Doe this and this for in death there is no remembrance of thee will have this force That God would returne to him in his effectuall grace That God would deliver his soule in dangerous tentations That God would save him in applying to him and imprinting in him a sober but yet confident assurance that the salvation of Christ Jesus belongs to him Because if God did not return to him but suffer him to wither in a long absence If God did not deliver him by taking hold of him when he was ready to fall into such sins as his sociablenesse his confidence his inconsideration his infirmity his curiosity brought him to the brinke of If God did not save him by a faithfull assurance of salvation after a sin committed and resented This absence this slipperinesse this pretermitting might bring him to such a deadly and such a hellish state in this world as that In death that is In that death he should have no remembrance of God In hell In the grave that is In that hell In that grave he should not confesse nor praise God at all There was his danger he should forget God utterly and God forget him eternally if God suffered him to proceed so far in sin that is Death and so far in an obduration and remorslesnesse in sin that is Hell The Death and the Hell of this world to which those Fathers refer this Text. In this lamentable state we will onely note the force and the emphasis of this Tui and Tibi in this verse no remembrance of Thee no praise to Thee For this is not spoken of God in generall but of that God to which David directs the last and principall part of his Prayer which is To save him It is to God as God is Jesus a Saviour and the wretchednesse of this state is that God shall not be remembred in that notion as he is Iesus a Saviour No man is so swallowed up in the death of sin nor in the grave of impenitence No man so dead and buried in the custome or senselesnesse of sin but that he remembers a God he confesses a God If an Atheist sweare the contrary beleeve him not His inward terrors his midnight startlings remember him of that and bring him to confessions of that But here is the depth and desperatenesse of this death and this grave habituall sin and impenitence in sin that he cannot remember he cannot confesse that God which should save him Christ Jesus his Redeemer he shall come he shall not chuse but come to remember a God that
sin no lesser covering serves then God in his Church It was the prayer against them Nehem. 4.5 August who hindered the building of the Temple Cover not their iniquity neither let their sin be put out in thy presence Our prayer is Peccata nostra non videat ut nos videat Lord looke not upon our sins that thou maist looke upon us And since amongst our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 Prov. 10.12 it is the effect of Love to cover Multitudinem peccatorum The multitude of sins yea to cover Vniversa delicta Lovè covereth all sins much more shall God who is Love it selfe cover our sins so as he covered the Egyptians in a red Sea in the application of his blood by visible meanes in his Church That therefore thou mayest be capable of this covering Psal 37.6 Commit thy wayes unto the Lord that is show unto him by way of confession what wrong wayes thou hast gone and inquire of him by prayer what wayes thou art to go and as it is in the same Psalme He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement as the noone day And so there shall be no guile found in thy spirit which might hinder this covering of thy sin which is the application of Christs merits in the Ordinances of his Church nor the Not imputing of thine iniquity which is our last consideration and the conclusion of all This not imputing Imputing is that serenity and acquiescence which a rectified conscience enjoyes when the Spirit of God beares witnesse with my spirit that thus reconciled to my God I am now guilty of nothing S. Bernard defines the Conscience thus Inseparabilis gloria vel confusio uniuscujusque pro qualitate depositi It is that inseparable glory or that inseparable confusion which every soule hath according to that which is deposited and laid up in it Now what is deposited and laid up in it Naturally hereditarily patrimonially Con-reatus sayes that Father from our first Parents a fellow-guiltinesse of their sin and they have left us sons and heires of the wrath and indignation of God and that is the treasure they have laid up for us Against this God hath provided Baptisme and Baptisme washes away that sin for as we doe nothing to our selves in Baptisme but are therein meerely passive so neither did we any thing our selves in Originall sin but therein are meerely passive too and so the remedy Baptisme is proportioned to the disease Originall sin But originall sin being thus washed away we make a new stocke we take in a new depositum a new treasure Actuall and habituall sins and therein much being done by our selves against God into the remedy there must enter something to be done by our selves and something by God And therefore we bring water to his wine true teares of repentance to his true blood in the Sacrament and so receive the seales of our reconciliation and having done that we may boldly say unto God Doe not condemne me Iob 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me When we have said as he doth I have sinned Iob 7.20 what shall I doe to thee And have done that that he hath ordained we may say also as he doth O thou preserver of men why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity Why doest thou suffer me to faint and pant under this sad apprehension that all is not yet well betweene my soule and thee We are far from encouraging any man to antidate his pardon to presume his pardon to be passed before it is But when it is truly passed the seales of Reconciliation there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in that spirit nay it is the spirit of falshood and deceit it selfe that will not suffer us to injoy that pardon which God hath sealed to us but still maintaine jealousies and suspition between God and us My heart is not opener to God then the bowels of his mercy are to me And to accuse my selfe of sin after God hath pardoned me were as great a contempt of God as to presume of that pardon before he had granted it and so much a greater as it is directed against his greatest attribute his Mercy Si apud Deum deponas injuriam Tertul. ipse ultor erit Lay all the injuries that thou sufferest at Gods feet and hee will revenge them Si damnum ipse restituet Lay all thy losses there and he will repaire them Si dolorem ipse medicus Lay downe all thy diseases there and he shall heale thee Si mortem ipse resuscitator Dye in his armes and he shall breath a new life into thee Add wee to Tertullian Si peccata ipse sepeliet lay thy sins in his wounds and he shall bury them so deepe that onely they shall never have resurrection The Sun shall set and have a to morrows resurrection Herbs shall have a winter death and a springs resurrection Thy body shall have a long winters night and then a resurrection Onely thy sins buried in the wounds of thy Saviour shall never have resurrection And therefore take heed of that deceit in the spirit of that spirit of deceit that makes thee impute sins to thy selfe when God imputes them not But rejoyce in Gods generall forgiving of Transgressions That Christ hath dyed for all multiply thy joy in the covering of thy sin That Christ hath instituted a Church in which that generall pardon is made thine in particular And exalt thy joy in the not imputing of iniquity in that serenity that tranquillity that God shall receive thee at thy last houre in thy last Bath the sweat of death as lovingly as acceptably as innocently as he received thee from thy first Bath the laver of Regeneration the font in Baptisme Amen SERM. LVII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah ALL wayes of teaching are Rule and Example And though ordinarily the Rule be first placed yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples And when a Rule would be of hard digestion to weake understandinge Example concocts it and makes it easie for Example in matter of Doctrine is as Assimilation in matter of Nourishment The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction like something which we knew before as Assimilation makes that meat which we have received and digested like those parts which are in our bodies before David was the sweet singer of Israel shall we say Gods Precentor His sonne Solomon was the powerfull Preacher of Israel shall we say Gods Chaplain Both of them excellent abundantly super-abundantly excellent in both those wayes of Teaching Poet and Preacher proceed in these wayes in both Rule and Example the body and soule of Instruction So this Psalme is qualified in the Title
to splendor He hath preserved this Church from perplexities If they say we are perplexed with differences of opinions amongst our selves let this satisfie them that we doe agree all in all fundamentall things And that in things much nearer the foundation then those in which our differences lie they differ amongst themselves with more acrimony and bitternesse then we doe If they thinke to perplex us with the Fathers we are ready to joyne that issue with them where the Fathers speak unanimously dogmatically in matters of faith we are content to be tried by the Fathers If they thinke to perplex us with Councels we will goe as farre as they in the old ones and as farre as they for meeting in new Councels if they may be fully that is Royally Imperially called and equally proceeded in and the Resolutions grow and gathered there upon debatements upon the place and not brought thither upon commandment from Rome If there be no way but Force and Armes if they will admit no triall but that God bee blessed that keepes us from the necessity but God bee blessed also that he preserves us from perplexity or not being able to defend his cause if he call us to that triall And therefore let them never call it a Perplexity in us let them never say that we know not what to doe when we acknowledge the Church of Rome to be truly a Church for the Pest-house is a house and theirs is such a Church But the Pest-house is not the best ayre to live in nor the Romane Church the best Church to die in Thou hast preserved me from perplexities may the Primitive Church say and so may the Reformed too and so also may every particular soule say which is a Consideration that from the beginning we proposed for every Part and are now come to it in this When we were upon this consideration in our former Part Anima we shewed you that no over-tender or timorous soule might hide it selfe in a retired life from the offices of society but though every particular age bring a new sin with it every complexion a new sin every occupation a new sin every friend a new sin that must be loved for his sake yet Para te foro Thou art bound to come abroad and trust upon Gods hiding thee there from tentations and so assure thy self that he will preserve thee from perplexities Now wee consider in the Schoole Perplexities which are such onely by mis-understanding and Perplexities which are such in the true nature of the thing Those of the first kinde perplexities in a mis-understanding should fall upon no man perplexities of the second kinde in the nature of the thing it selfe can fall upon no man Of the first kinde this is an example A man sweares to conceale all his friends secrets and he tells him of a treasonable purpose against the State Either way he must offend Against his oath if he reaveale it or against his Allegeance if he doe not This is no perplexity for in a right understanding he must know that such an Oath bindes not Of the second kinde there was an example in Origen who must by the commandement of the Persecutor either offer sacrifice to an Idol or prostitute his body to an adominable abuse with another man Which should he doe Neither God gives a man an issue in such cases by death August Et vitam potiùs finire dèbet quà m maculare He is bound to give his life rather then to staine his life This timorous soule then feares where no feare is He would hide himselfe he is loath to come into the world because he thinks hee must needs sin Hee needs not Is there a necessity laid upon him that he must die as rich as the richest of his profession and that he cannot doe without sin That he must leave his wife such a Joynture and his children such Portions and all that he cannot doe without sin First all that he may doe without sin We have seene in all Professions honest men die as rich Mark 10.29 as dishonest If thou do not he that hath said There is no man that hath left wife or children for my sake but shall have a hundred fold here and everlasting life which is a blessed Codicil to a Will that was abundant before will also say There is no man that hath left wife and children poore for my sake but I will enlarge my providence upon them even in this life and my glory in the next And this was our second Part considered in the Church and in our selves Thou shalt preserve c. There remaines yet a third Part 3. Part. that as God hides us from tentations that they reach us not or preserves us from intricacies and perplexities so that they hurt us not so if they doe yet he compasses us with a joyfull Deliverance as our former or with songs of Deliverance as this Translation hath it that is imprints in us a holy certitude a faire assurance that he will never forsake us And this voyce we may heare from the Church first and then from every particular soule for to both as we have told you all the way doe all the parts of this Psalme appertaine As it is an exaltation of Gods indignation Compasse Lament 3.5 when he is said to Compasse by way of siege so Jerusalem complaines He hath builded against me he hath compassed me with gall and travell he hath hedged me about that I cannot get out So God threatens I will camp against thee round about Esay 39.3 and I will lay siege against thee for this intimates such a displeasure of God as that he does not onely leave us succourlesse joylesse comfortlesse in our selves but cuts off those supplies which might relieve us He compasses us he besieges us hee camps round about us that no reliefe can enter so when his love and mercy is expressed in this phrase that he compasses us it signifies both an intire mercy that no enemy shall break in in any part whilst he doth compasse us and a permanent and durable mercy that as no force of the enemy so no wearinesse in himselfe shall make him discontinue his watches or his guard over us but that he will compasse us still Thy faithfulnesse is round about thee sayes David to God that is our first comfort Psal 89.8 that God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse that is is never unmindfull of his owne promises and purposes And then He is round about our habitations Psal 78.28 God compasses himselfe with his owne faithfulnesse and then he compasses us with himselfe That as Satan told God one day after another Circuivi terram perambulavieam Job 1.8 I have compassed the earth and walked it round Job 2.2 but could never say that he had broke into Iobs quarter for hee found the impossibility in that The Lord had made a hedge about him Where note that Gods first
care is of the man and the soule is the man first a hedge about him and then about his house and about all that he had on every side Job 1.10 So day after day we shall finde arguments to establish our hearts in hope that the Lord hath compassed us and nothing shall breake in so as to take us from him but God shall say to us as to his former people Leva in circuitu oculos tuos Lift up thine eyes round about Esay 49.18 and behold which is one great comfort that he enables us to see and to know our enemies to discerne a tentation to be a tentation Omnes isti congregati sunt All these gather themselves together and come to thee which is another assistance that when we see our enemies multiply and that there is none that fighteth for us but onely thou O God we make a more present recourse to him But Vivo ego dicit Dominus As I live saith the Lord Velut ornamento vestieris thou shalt surely cloathe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a Bride doth which is the fulnesse of the mercy That as in another place he promises his children Panis vester sunt your enemies shall be your Bread Numb 14.9 you shall feed upon your enemies So here hee makes our enemies even our spirituall enemies our Cloathes and more then that our Jewels our Ornaments wee shall bee the stronger the warmer the richer by tribulations and tentations having overcome them as we shall if the Lord compasse us if he continue his watchfulnesse over us And that David sayes here first in the Churches behalfe God from the beginning carried a wall about his Church in that assurance Primitiva Mat. 16.18 Portae inferi The gates of hell shall not prevaile against it The Gentiles the Philosophers that were without the Church found a party Traitors Conspirators within The Heretiques and all these led and maintained by potent Princes that persecuted the Church The gates of hell were all opened and issued all her forces but Non praevaluerunt they never prevailed The Arians were sometimes more then the true Christians in all the world The Martyrians a sect that affected the name of Martyrdome could name more Martyrs then the true Church could but Evanuerunt yet they vanished The Emperours of Rome persecuted the Bishops of Rome to death yet when we looke upon the reckoning the Emperors died faster then Bishops Thou hast compassed me sayes the Primitive Church and so sayes the Reformed too Princes that hated one another have joyned in leagues against the Religion Reformata Princes that needed their Subjects have spent their Subjects by thousands in Massacres to extinguish the Religion Personall Assasinates Clandestine plots by poyson by fire by water have been multiplied against Princes that favour the Religion Inquisitions Confiscations Banishments Dishonours have overflowne them that professe the true Religion and yet the Lord compassing his Church she enjoyes a holy certainty arising out of these testimonies of his care that she shall never be forsaken And this may every good soule have too God comes to us without any purpose of departing from us againe Anima For the Spirit of life that God breated into man that departs from man in death but when God had assumed the nature of man the God-head never parted from that nature no not in death When Christ lay dead in the grave the God-head remained united to that body and that soule which were dis-united in themselves God was so united to man as that he was with man when man was not man in the state of death So when the Spirit of God hath invested compassed thy soule and made it his by those testimonies that Spirit establishes it in a kinde of assurance that he will never leave it Old Rome had as every City amongst the Heathen had certaine gods which they called their Tutelar gods gods that were affected to the preservation of that place But they durst never call upon those gods by their proper names for feare of losing them lest if their names should bee knowne by their enemies their enemies should winne away their gods from them by bestowing more cost or more devotion towards them then they themselves used So also is it said of them that when they had brought to Rome a forraigne god which they had taken in a conquered place Victory they cut the wings of their new god Victory lest he should flie from them againe This was a misery that they were not sure of their gods when they had them We are If he once come to us he never goes from us out of any variablenesse in himselfe but in us onely That promise reaches to the whole Church Esay 30.20 and to every particular soule Thy Teachers shall not bee removed into a corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers which in the Originall as is appliably to our present purpose noted by Rabbi Moses is Non erunt Doctores tui alati Thy Teachers shall have no wings They shall never flie from thee and so the great Translation reads it Non avolabunt As their great god Victory could not flie from Rome so after this victory which God hath given his Church in the Reformation none of her Teachers should flie to or towards Rome Every way that God comes to us he comes with a purpose to stay and would imprint in us an assurance that he doth so and that Impression is this Compassing of thy soule with songs of deliverance in the signification and use of which word we shall in one word conclude all God hath given us this certitude Songs this faire assurance of his perpetuall residence with us in a word of a double signification The word is Ranan which signifies Joy exultation singing Lament 2.14 Psal 17.1 But it hath another sense too Arise Cry out in the night And Attend unto my cry which are voyces far from singing This God meanes therein That though he give us that comfort to sit and sing of our Deliverance yet hee would not have us fall asleepe with that musique but as when we contemplate his everlasting goodnesse wee celebrate that with a constant Joy so when we looke upon our owne weaknesse and unworthinesse we cry out Wretched men that wee are who shall deliver us from this body of death For though we have the Spirit of life in us we have a body of death upon us How loving soever my soule be it will not stay in a diseased body How loving soever the Spirit of life be it will not stay in a diseased soule My soule is loath to goe from my body but sicknesse and paine will drive it out so will sinne the Spirit of life from my soule God compasses us with Songs of Deliverance we are sure he would not leave us But he compasses us with Cries too we are afraid we are sure that we
concionibus 1 Cor. 1.21 and what you give him in that Exercise Because God cals Preaching foolishnesse you take God at his word and you thinke Preaching a thing under you Hence is it that you take so much liberty in censuring and comparing Preacher and Preacher nay Sermon and Sermon from the same Preacher as though we preached for wagers and as though coine were to be valued from the inscription meerely and the image and the person and not for the metall You measure all by persons 1 ãâã 4. ââ and yet Non erubescit is faciem Sacerdotis You respect not the person of the Priest you give not so much reverence to Gods Ordinance as he does In no Church of Christendome but ours doth the Preacher preach uncovered And for all this good and humble and reverend example fit to be continued by us cannot we keepe you uncovered till the Text be read All the Sermon is not Gods word but all the Sermon is Gods Ordinance and the Text is certainely his word There is no salvation but by faith nor faith but by hearing nor bearing but by preaching and they that thinke meanliest of the Keyes of the Church and speake faintliest of the Absolution of the Church will yet allow That those Keyes lock and unlock in Preaching That Absolution is conferred or with held in Preaching That the proposing of the promises of the Gospel in preaching is that binding and loosing on earth which bindes and looses in heaven And then though Christ have bid us Preach the Gospel to every creature Mar. 16.15 yet in his own great Sermon in the Mount he hath forbidden us to give holy things to dogs Mat. 7.6 or to cast pearle before swine lest they trample them and turne and rend us So that if all those manifold and fearfull judgements which swell in every Chapter and blow in every verse and thunder in every line of every Booke of the Bible fall upon all them that come hither as well if they turne and rend that is Calumniate us the person of the Preacher as if they trample upon the pearles that is undervalue the Doctrine and the Ordinance it selfe If his terrible Judgements fall upon every uncharitable mis-interpretation of that which is said here and upon every irreverence in this place and in this action Confesse that though he be the God of your salvation and doe answer you yet by terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you And confesse it also as in manners and in prayers and in preaching so in the holy and blessed Sacrament This Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Luther calls safely In Sacramento Venerabile adorabile for certainly whatsoever that is which we see that which we receive is to be adored for we receive Christ He is Res Sacramenti The forme the Essence the substance the soule of the Sacrament And Sacramentum sine re Sacramenti mors ost Bernar. To take the body and not the soule the bread and not Christ is death But he that feels Christ in the receiving of the Sacrament and will not bend his knee would scarce bend his knee if he saw him The first of that royall Family Alvarez de Auxil Epist ad Phil. 3. which thinks it selfe the greatest in Christendome at this day The House of Austrich had the first marks of their Greatnesse The Empire brought into that House for a particular reverence done to the holy and blessed Sacrament What the bread and wine is or what becomes of it Damasc Damascen thinks impertinent to be inquired He thinks he hath said enough and so may we doe Migrat in substantiam animae There is the true Transubstantiation that when I have received it worthily it becomes my very soule that is My soule growes up into a better state and habitude by it and I have the more soule for it the more sanctified the more deified soule by that Sacrament Now this Sacrament which as it is ministred to us is but a Sacrament but as it is offered to God is a Sacrifice too is a fearfull a terrible thing If the sacrifices of the Law the blood of Goats and Rammes were so how fearfull how terrible how reverentiall a thing is the blood of this immaculate Lambe the Sonne of God And though God doe so abound in goodnesse towards us Vt possint injuriata Sacramenta prodesse reversis Cyprian as S. Cyprian excellently expresses it That that Sacrament which we have injured and abused received unworthily or irreverently at one time may yet benefit us and be the savour and seale of life unto us at another yet when you heare that terrible Thunder break upon you That the unworthy receiver eats and drinks his own damnation 1 Cor. 11.27 That he makes Christ Jesus who is the propitiation of all the world his damnation And then That not to have come to a severe examination of the Conscience before and to a sincere detestation of the sin and to a formed and fixed and deliberate and determinate resolution against that sin at the receiving of the Sacrament which alas how few doe Is there one that does it There is scorce one That this makes a man an unworthy receiver of the Sacrament That thus we make a mock of the Sonne of God Heb. 10.29 thus we tread the blood of the Covenant under foot and despite the Spirit of grace And that for this at the last day we shall be ranked with Iudas and not onely with Iudas as a negligent despiser but with Iudas as an actuall betrayer of the blood of Christ Jesus Consider well with what fearfull Conditions even this scale of your reconciliation is accompanied and though you may not doubt but that God the God of your salvation does answer you yet you must confesse too That it is by terrible things that he does it And as it is so in matter of manners and so in our prayers and so in our preaching and so in the Sacrament so is it also at the houre of our Death which is as far as we can pursue this Meditation for after Death we can aske nothing at Gods hands and therefore God makes us no answer And therefore with that Conclusion of all we shall conclude all That by terrible things the God of our salvation answers us at the houre of our death Though death be but a sleepe In morte yet it is a sleepe that an Earth-quake cannot wake And yet there is a Trumpet that will when that hand of God that gathered dust to make these bodies shall crumble these bodies into dust againe when that soule that evaporated it selfe in unnecessary disputations in this world shall make such fearfull and distempered conclusions as to see God onely by absence never to see him face to face And to know God onely by ignorance never to know him sicuti est as he is for he is All mercy And to
possesse immortality and impossibility of dying onely in a continuall dying when as a Cabinet whose key were lost must be broken up and torne in pieces before the Jewell that was laid up in it can be taken out so thy body the Cabinet of thy soule must be shaked and shivered by violent sicknesse before that soule can goe out And when it is thus gone out must answer for all the imperfections of that body which body polluted it And yet though this soule be such a loser by that body it is not perfectly well nor fully satisfied till it be reunited to that body againe when thou remembrest Mat. 26.36 and oh never forget it that Christ himselfe was heavy in his soule unto Death Mat. 26.39 That Christ himselfe came to a Si possibile If it be possible let this Cup passe That he came to a Quare dereliquisti Mat. 27.46 a bitter sense of Gods dereliction and forsaking of him when thou considerest all this compose thy selfe for death but thinke it not a light matter to dye Death made the Lyon of Judah to roare and doe not thou thinke that that which we call going away like a Lambe doth more testifie a conformity with Christ then a strong sense and bitter agony and colluctation with death doth Christ gave us the Rule in the Example He taught us what we should doe by his doing it And he pre-admitted a fearfull apprehension of death A Lambe is a Hieroglyphique of Patience but not of stupidity And death was Christs Consummatum est All ended in death yet he had sense of death How much more doth a sad sense of our transmigration belong to us to whom death is no Consummatum est but an In principio our account and our everlasting state begins but then Apud te propitiatio Psal 130.4 ut timearis In this knot we tie up all With thee there is mercy that thou mightest be feared There is a holy feare that does not onely consist with an assurance of mercy Pro. 21.15 but induces constitutes that assurance Pavor operantibus iniquitatem sayes Solomon Pavor horror and servile feare jealousie and suspition of God diffidence and distrust in his mercy and a bosome-prophecy of self-destruction Destruction it selfe so we translate it be upon the workers of iniquity Pavor operantibus iniquitatem And yet sayes that wise King Pro. 28.14 Beatus qui semper Pavidus Blessed is that man that alwayes fears who though he alwayes hope and beleeve the good that God will shew him yet also feares the evills that God might justly multiply upon him Blessed is he that looks upon God with assurance but upon himselfe with feare For though God have given us light by which we may see him even in Nature for He is the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a far of upon the Sea Though God have given us a clearer light in the Law and experience of his providence upon his people throughout the Old Testament Though God have abundantly infinitely multiplied these lights and these helpes to us in the Christian Church where he is the God of salvation yet as he answers us by terrible things in that first acceptation of the words which I proposed to you that is Gives us assurances by miraculous testimonies in our behalfe that he will answer our patient expectation by terrible Judgements and Revenges upon our enemies In his Righteousnesse that is In his faithfulnesse according to his Promises and according to his performances of those Promises to his former people So in the words considered the other way In his Holinesse that is in his wayes of imprinting Holinesse in us He answers us by terrible things in all those particulars which we have presented unto you By infusing faith but with that terrible addition Damnabitur He that beleeveth not shall be damned He answers us by composing our manners and rectifying our life and conversation but with terrible additions of censures and Excommunications and tearings off from his own body which is a death to us and a wound to him He answers us by enabling us to speake to him in Prayer but with terrible additions for the matter for the manner for the measure of our Prayer which being neglected our very Prayer is turned to sin He answers us in Preaching but with that terrible commination that even his word may be the savor of death unto death He answers us in the Sacrament but with that terrible perplexity and distraction that he that seemes to be a Iohn or a Peter a Loving or a Beloved Disciple may be a Iudas and he that seems to have received the seale of his reconciliation may have eat and drunke his own Damnation And he answers us at the houre of death but with this terrible obligation That even then I make sure my salvation with feare and trembling That so we imagine not a God of wax whom we can melt and mold when and how we will That we make not the Church a Market That an over-homelines and familiarity with God in the acts of Religion bring us not to an irreverence nor indifferency of places But that as the Militant Church is the porch of the Triumphant so our reverence here may have some proportion to that reverence which is exhibited there Revel 4.10 where the Elders cast their Crownes before the Throne and continue in that holy and reverend acclamation Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power for as we may adde from this Text By terrible things O God of our salvation doest thou answer us in righteousnesse SERM. LXIX The fifth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee IT is well said so well as that more then one of the Fathers seeme to have delighted themselves in having said it Titulus Clavis The Title of the Psalme is the Key of the Psalme the Title opens the whole Psalme The Church of Rome will needs keepe the Key of heaven and the key to that Key the Scriptures wrapped up in that Translation which in no case must be departed from There the key of this Psalm the Title thereof hath one bar wrested that is made otherwise then he that made the Key the Holy Ghost intended it And another bat inserted that is one clause added which the Holy Ghost added not Where we reade in the Title Victori To the chiefe Musician they reade In finem A Psalme directed upon the end I think they meane upon the later times because it is in a great part a Propheticall Psame of the calling of the Gentiles But after this change they also adde Resurrectionis A Psalme concerning the Resurrection and that is not in the Hebrew nor any thing in the place thereof And after one Author
whole heart and a power above a whole power is a strange extension That therefore which was declared explicitely plainly directly by Christ to the young man in the Gospel Mat. 19.21 Vade vende sequere Goe and sell all and follow me was implicitely implied to these men in our text Leave your nets and follow me And though to doe so to leave all be not alwayes a precept a commandment to all men yet it was a precept a commandment to both these at that time to the young man in the Gospel for he was as expresly bid to sell away all as he was to follow Christ and to these men in the text because they could not performe that that was directly commanded except they performed that which was implied too except they left their nets they could not follow Christ When God commands us to follow him he gives us light how and in which way he will be followed And then when we understand which is his way that way is as much a commandment as the very end it selfe and not to follow him that way is as much a transgression as not to follow him at all If that young man in the Gospel who was bid sell all and give to the poore and then follow had followed but kept his interest in his land If he had devested himselfe of the land but let it fall or conveyed it to the next heire or other kinsmen If he had employed it to pious uses but not so as Christ commanded to the poore still he had been in a transgression The way when it is declared is as much a command as the end But then in this command which was implicitely and by necessary consequence laid upon Peter and Andrew to leave their nets because without doing so they could not forthwith follow Christ there is no example of forsaking a calling upon pretence of following Christ no example here of devesting ones selfe of all means of defending us from those manifold necessities which this life lays upon us upon pretence of following Christ It is not an absolute leaving of all worldly cares but a leaving them out of the first consideration Primùm quaerite regnum Dei so as our first businesse be to seeke the kingdome of God Mat. 8.14 For after this leaving of his nets for this time Peter continued owner of his house and Christ came to that house of his and found his mother in law sicke in that house and recovered her there Upon a like commandment upon such a Sequere Mat. 9.10 Follow me Matthew followed Christ too but after that following Christ went with Matthew to his house and sate at meat with him at home And for this very exercise of fishing though at that time when Christ said Follow me they left their nets yet they returned to that trade sometimes upon occasions in all likelihood in Christs life and after Christs death clearly they did returne to it for Christ after his Resurrection Joh. 21.1 found them fishing They did not therefore abandon and leave all care and all government of their own estate and dispose themselves to live after upon the sweat of others but transported with a holy alacrity in this present and chearfull following of Christ in respect of that then they neglected their nets and all things else Perfecta obedientia est sua imperfocta relinquere Not to be too diligent towards the world August is the diligence that God requires S. Augustine does not say sua relinquere but sua imperfecta relinquere That God requires we should leave the world but that we should leave it to second considerations That thou do not forbeare nor defer thy conversion to God and thy restitution to man till thou have purchased such a state bought such an office married and provided such and such children but imperfecta relinquere to leave these worldly things unperfected till thy repentance have restored thee to God and established thy reconciliation in him and then the world lyes open to thy honest endeavours Others take up all with their net and they sacrifice to their nets because by them their portion is fat Hab. 1.16 and their meat plenteous They are consident in their own learning their own wisedome their own practise and which is a strange Idolatry they sacrifice to themselves they attribute all to their own industry These men in our text were far from that they left their nets But still consider that they did but leave their nets they did not burne them And consider too that they left but nets those things which might entangle them and retard them in their following of Christ And such nets some such things as might hinder them in the service of God even these men so well disposed to follow Christ had about them And therefore let no man say Imitari vellem sed quod relinquam non habeo Gregor I would gladly doe as the Apostles did leave all to follow Christ but I have nothing to leave alas all things have left me and I have nothing to leave Even that murmuring at poverty is a net leave that Leave thy superfluous desire of having the riches of this world though thou mayest flatter thy selfe that thou desirest to have onely that thou mightest leave it that thou mightest employ it charitably yet it might prove a net and stick too close about thee to part with it Multa relinquitis si desideriis renunciatis Idem You leave your nets if you leave your over-earnest greedinesse of catching for when you doe so you doe not onely fish with a net that is lay hold upon all you can compasse but which is strange you fish for a net even that which you get proves a net to you and hinders you in the following of Christ and you are lesse disposed to follow him when you have got your ends then before He that hath least hath enough to waigh him down from heaven by an inordinate love of that little which he hath or in an inordinate and murmuring desire of more And he that hath most hath not too much to give for heaven Tantum valet regnum Dei quantum tu vales Idem Heaven is alwayes so much worth as thou art worth A poore man may have heaven for a penny that hath no greater store and God lookes that he to whom he hath given thousands should lay out thousands upon the purchase of heaven The market changes as the plenty of money changes Heaven costs a rich man more then a poore because he hath more to give But in this rich and poore are both equall that both must leave themselves without nets that is without those things which in their own Consciences they know retard the following of Christ Whatsoever hinders my present following that I cannot follow to day whatsoever may hinder my constant following that I cannot follow to morrow and all my life is a net and I am bound to
world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations It is a Sea Mundus Mare as it is subject to stormes and tempests Every man and every man is a world feels that And then it is never the shallower for the calmnesse The Sea is as deepe there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as in a storme we may be drowned in a calme and flattering fortune in prosperity as irrecoverably as in a wrought Sea in adversity So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it is bottomlesse to any line which we can sound it with and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it The purposes of the world the wayes of the world exceed our consideration But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse The power of the greatest in the world the life of the happiest in the world cannot exceed those bounds which God hath placed for them So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it hath ebbs and floods and no man knowes the true reason of those floods and those ebbs All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies they fall sick And in their estates they grow poore And in their minds they become sad at which changes sicknesse poverty sadnesse themselves wonder and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgement of God onely and hid even from them that have them and so the world is a Sea It is a Sea as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drinke but such water as will not quench the thirst The world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature but these encrease our thirst with drinking and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our abundance and though we sayle in a full Sea yet we lacke water So the world is a Sea It is a Sea if we consider the Inhabitants In the Sea the greater fish devoure the lesse and so doe the men of this world too And as fish when they mud themselves have no hands to make themselves cleane but the current of the waters must worke that So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which they have contracted in the world of themselves till a new flood waters of repentance drawne up and sanctified by the Holy Ghost worke that blessed effect in them All these wayes the world is a Sea but especially it is a Sea in this respect that the Sea is no place of habitation but a passage to our habitations So the Apostle expresses the world Here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come we seeke it not here Heb. 13.14 but we seeke it whilest we are here els we shall never finde it Those are the two great works which we are to doe in this world first to know that this world is not our home and then to provide us another home whilest we are in this world Therefore the Prophet sayes Mic. 2.10 Luk. 12.19 Arise and depart for this is not your rest Worldly men that have no farther prospect promise themselves some rest in this world Soule thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares take thine ease eate drinke and be merry sayes the rich man but this is not your rest indeed no rest at least not yours You must depart depart by death before yee come to that rest but then you must arise before you depart for except yee have a resurrection to grace here before you depart you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come when you are departed Now Status navigantium in this Sea every ship that sayles must necessarily have some part of the ship under water Every man that lives in this world must necessarily have some of his life some of his thoughts some of his labours spent upon this world but that part of the ship by which he sayls is above water Those meditations and those endevours which must bring us to heaven are removed from this world and fixed entirely upon God And in this Sea are we made fishers of men Of men in generall not of rich men to profit by them nor of poore men to pierce them the more sharply because affliction hath opened a way into them Not of learned men to be over-glad of their approbation of our labours Nor of ignorant men to affect them with an astonishment or admiration of our gifts But we are fishers of men of all men of that which makes them men their soules And for this fishing in this Sea this Gospel is our net Eloquence is not our net Rete Euangelium Traditions of men are not our nets onely the Gospel is The Devill angles with hooks and bayts he deceives and he wounds in the catching for every sin hath his sting The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net It hath leads and corks It hath leads that is the denouncing of Gods judgements and a power to sink down and lay flat any stubborne and rebellious heart And it hath corks that is the power of absolution and application of the mercies of God that swimme above all his works means to erect an humble and contrite spirit above all the waters of tribulation and affliction A net is Res nodosa Rete nodosum a knotty thing and so is the Scripture full of knots of scruple and perplexity and anxiety and vexation if thou wilt goe about to entangle thy selfe in those things which appertaine not to thy salvation but knots of a fast union and inseparable alliance of thy soule to God and to the fellowship of his Saints if thou take the Scriptures as they were intended for thee that is if thou beest content to rest in those places Rete diffusivum which are cleare and evident in things necessary A net is a large thing past thy fadoming if thou cast it from thee but if thou draw it to thee it will lie upon thine arme The Scriptures will be out of thy reach and out of thy use if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason upon Philosophy upon Morality to try how the Scriptures will fit all them and beleeve them but so far as they agree with thy reason But draw the Scripture to thine own heart and to thine own actions and thou shalt finde it made for that all the promises of the old Testament made and all accomplished in the new Testament for the salvation of thy soule hereafter and for thy consolation in the present application of them Now this that Christ promises here Non quia tanquam causa Rom. 6.23 is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labour and our fishing There is no merit in all that we can doe The wages of sin is Death Death is due to sin the proper reward of sin but the Apostle does not say there That eternall life is the wages of any good
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presenââ Horrendum est sayes the Apostle It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Yet there was a case in which David found an ease to fall into the hands of God to scape the hands of men Horrendum est when Gods hand is bent to strike it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression beyond our imagination That God should let my soule fall out of his hand into a bottomlesse pit and roll an unremoveable stone upon it and leave it to that which it finds there and it shall finde that there which it never imagined till it came thither and never thinke more of that soule never have more to doe with it That of that providence of God that studies the life of every weed and worme and ant and spider and toad and viper there should never never any beame flow out upon me that that God who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me when I was not as though I had been out of the womb and depth of darknesse will not looke upon me now when though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his glory even in my damnation that that God who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleannesse and when I had shut out the eye of the day the Sunne and the eye of the night the Taper and the eyes of all the world with curtaines and windowes and doores did yet see me and see me in mercy by making me see that he saw me and sometimes brought me to a present remorse and for that time to a forbearing of that sinne should so turne himselfe from me to his glorious Saints and Angels as that no Saint nor Angel nor Christ Jesus himselfe should ever pray him to looke towards me never remember him that such a soule there is that that God who hath so often said to my soule Quare morier is Why wilt thou die and so often sworne to my soule Vivit Dominus As the Lord liveth I would not have thee dye but live will nether let me dye nor let me live but dye an everlasting life and live an everlasting death that that God who when he could not get into me by standing and knocking by his ordinary meanes of entring by his Word his mercies hath applied his judgements and hath shaked the house this body with agues and palsies and set this house on fire with fevers and calentures and frighted the Master of the house my soule with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made an entrance into me That that God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises upon me and leave me and cast me away as though I had cost him nothing that this God at last should let this soule goe away as a smoake as a vapour as a bubble and that then this soule cannot be a smoake a vapour nor a bubble but must lie in darknesse as long as the Lord of light is light it selfe and never sparke of that light reach to my soule What Tophet is not Paradise what Brimstone is not Amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally from the sight of God Especially to us for as the perpetuall losse of that is most heavy with which we have been best acquainted and to which wee have been most accustomed so shall this damnation which consists in the losse of the sight and presence of God be heavier to us then others because God hath so graciously and so evidently and so diversly appeared to us in his pillar of fire in the light of prosperity and in the pillar of the Cloud in hiding himselfe for a while from us we that have seene him in all the parts of this Commission in his Word in his Sacraments and in good example and not beleeved shall be further removed from his sight in the next world then they to whom he never appeared in this But Vincenti credenti to him that beleeves aright and overcomes all tentations to a wrong beliefe God shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse and fulnesse of joy and joy rooted in glory and glory established in eternity and this eternity is God To him that beleeves and overcomes God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and fruition Amen SERM. LXXVII Preached at S. PAULS May 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead I Entred into the handling of these words upon Easter day for though the words have received divers Expositions good and pervers yet all agreed that the words were an argument for the Resurrection and that invited me to apply them to that Day At that Day I entred into them with Origens protestation Odit Dominus qui festum ejus unum putat diem God hates that man that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day that never thinks of the Resurrection but upon Easter day And therefore I engaged my selfe willingly according to the invitation and almost the necessity of the words which could not conveniently scarce possibly be determined in one day to returne againe and againe to the handling thereof For they are words of a great extent a great compasse The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them for here is first the first point in that Circle our Birth our spirituall birth that is Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized sayes the Text And then here is the point directly and diametrally opposed to that first point our Birth that is Death Why are these men thus baptized for the dead sayes the Text And then the Circle is carried up to the first point againe to our Birth in another Birth in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church to be as they are all one House and under one roofe here is first Limen Ecclesiae as S. Augustine calls Baptisme The Threshold of the Church we are put over the Threshold into the Body of the Church by Baptisme and here we are remembred of Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae The Quire the Chancell of the Church in which all the service of God is officiated and executed for we are made not onely hearers and spectators but actors in the service of God when we come to beare a part in the Hymnes and Anthems of the Saints by our Death and here we are
remembred of Death Why are these men thus baptized for the Dead And then here is Sanctum Sanctorum The innermost part of the Church The Holy of Holyes that is the manifestation of all the mysterious salvation belonging to soule and body in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection Our first dayes worke in handling these words was to accept and then to apply that in which all agreed that these words were an argument for the Resurrection And we did both those offices we did accept it and so shew you how the assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us and what is the office of Reason and what is the office of Faith in that affayre And then we did apply it and so shew you divers resemblances and conformities between naturall Death and spirituall Death and between the Resurrection of the body to glory at last and the Resurrection of the soule by grace in the way and wherein they induced and assisted and illustrated one another And those two miles made up that Sabbath dayes journey When we shall returne to the handling of them the next day which will be the last we shall consider how these words have been misapplyed by our Adversaries of the Romane Church and then the severall Expositions which they have received from sound and Orthodoxall men that thence we may draw a conclusion and determination for our selves And in those two miles wee shall also make up that Sabbath Dayes journey when God shall be pleased to bring us to it This dayes Exercise shall be to consider that very point for the establishment whereof they have so detorted and mis-applyed these words which is their Purgatory That this Baptisme for the Dead must necessarily prove Purgatory and their Purgatory So then this Dayes Exercise will bee meerely Polemicall the handling of a Controversie which though it be not alwayes pertinent yet neither is it alwayes unseasonable There was a time but lately when he who was in his desire and intension the Peace-maker of all the Christian world as he had a desire to have slumbred all Field-drums so had he also to have slumbred all Pulpit-drums so far as to passe over all impertinent handling of Controversies meerly and professedly as Controversies though never by way of positive maintenance of Orthodoxall and fundamentall Truths That so there might be no slackning in the defence of the truth of our Religion and yet there might bee a discreet and temperate forbearing of personall and especially of Nationall exasperations And as this way had piety and peace in the worke it selfe so was it then occasionally exalted by a great necessity He who was then our hope and is now the breath of our nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord being then taken in their pits and in that great respect such exasperations the fitter to be forborne especially since that course might well bee held without any prevarication or cooling the zeale of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church But things standing now in another state and all peace both Ecclesiasticall and Civill with these men being by themselves removed and taken away and hee whom we feared returned in all kinde of safety safe in body and safe in soule too whom though their Church could not their Court hath chatechised in their religion that is brought him to a cleere understanding of their Ambition for Ambition is their Religion and S. Peters Ship must saile in their Fleets and with their winds or it must sink and the Catholique and Militant Church must march in their Armies though those Armies march against Rome it selfe as heretofore they have done to the sacking of that Towne to the holding of the Pope himselfe in so sordid a prison for sixe moneths as that some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague to the treading under foot Priests and Bishops and Cardinals to the dishonouring of Matrons and the ravishing of professed Virgins and committing such insolencies Catholiques upon Catholiques as they would call us Heretiques for beleeving them but that they are their owne Catholique Authors that have written them Things being now I say in this state with these men since wee heare that Drums beat in every field abroad it becomes us also to returne to the brasing and beating of our Drums in the Pulpit too that so as Adam did not onely dresse Paradise but keepe Paradise and as the children of God did not onely build but build with one hand and fight with another so wee also may employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting and subverting of error as well as upon the planting and watering of the Truth To which purpose I shall prepare this day for the vindicating and redeeming of these words from the Adversary which will bee the worke of the next day by handling to day that point for which they have misapplied them which is Purgatory and the mother and the off-spring of that for what can that generation of vipers suck from this Text which is not If there be no such Purgatory but If there be no such Resurrection why then are these men baptized for the dead Heaven and earth shall passe away saith Christ but my word shall not passe away Matt 24.35 But rather then Purgatory shall passe away his word must admit such an Interpretation as shall passe away and evacuate the intention and purpose of the Holy Ghost therein How much of the earth is passed away from them wee know who acknowledge the mercy and might and miracle of Gods working in withdrawing so many Kingdomes so many Nations of the earth in so short time from the obedience and superstition of Rome as that if Controversies had been to have been tried by number they would have found as many against them as with them so much of the earth is passed from them How much of heaven is passed from them that is how much lesse interest and claime to heaven they can have now when God hath afforded them so much light and they have resisted it then when they were in so great a part under invincible ignorance God onely who is the onely Judge in such causes knowes and he of his goodnesse enlarge their title to that place by their conversion towards it But how much soever of earth or heaven passe away they will not lose an acre an inch of Purgatory For as men are most delighted with things of their owne making their owne planting their owne purchasing their owne building so are these men therefore inamoured of Purgatory Men that can make Articles of faith of their owne Traditions And as men to elude the law against new Buildings first build sheds or stables and after erect houses there as upon old foundations so these men first put forth Traditions of their owne and then erect those Traditions into Articles of faith as ancient foundations of Religion Men that make God himselfe of a piece of bread
proofe of the Resurrection of the body and the answer was easie and obvious We doe not baptize living men in the name and in the behalfe of the dead for any other respect then for the salvation of their soules and what is that to the resurrection of the body So that this sense of Tertullians of Baptisme by a Proxy by an Atturney seemes not to be the sense of this place and yet because it savours of charity to the dead though it were an heretical custome Bellarmine prefers this interpretation of Tertullian before any other but his owne which we handled before Theodoret interprets this Baptisme for the dead to be a baptisme of Representation Theodoret. That in baptisme by being put under the water and raised up againe we represent the death and resurrection of Christ for the dead is for Christ for the testimony of Christ And therefore that baptizing by immersion by covering the party with water was so exactly observed in those times as it came to be thought that no man was well baptized except he had received it so by Immersion as by many Treatises and many Consultations amongst the Fathers by way of Letters and the Acts of some Councels we perceive And of this representation of the death of Christ in our Baptisme administred in that manner by Immersion S. Paul is thought by some to have spoken when he sayes Know ye not that all we that have been baptized into Iesus Christ Rom. 6.3 have been baptized into his death That is say they by that representation of his death in Immersion Neither is any thing more evident then that Theodoret was so far in the right that our baptisme and the rather in that forme of Immersion is a representation of the death and buriall and resurrection of Christ but yet to call this Baptisme therefore because it was a representation of Christ who was dead a Baptisme for the dead is a phrase somewhat more hard and unusuall then may be easily admitted in such a matter of faith as this is And besides that Baptisme which is this Representation is a Baptisme common to all all that are baptized are baptized so But the Apostle in this place makes his argument from a particular kind of Baptisme which some did and some did not use Quid de illis sayes he what shall become of them and Quid illi what doe they meane that are baptized in this peculiar manner So that as not Tertullians baptisme by an Atturney so neither Theodorets baptisme by Representation seems to be the sense of this place S. Chrysostome much about the same time with Theodoret and long after them both Chrysost Theophylact. at least six hundred yeares Theophylact meet in a third sense That because at the taking of Baptisme they did usually rehearse the Creed which Creed concluded with those articles The resurrection of the body and life everlasting therefore this baptisme for the dead should onely signifie a baptisme for the hope of the Resurrection But since they rehearsed all the articles of the Christian beliefe as well as that at Baptisme it might as properly be said that they were baptized for Christ baptized for the holy Ghost baptized for the descent into hell as for the dead And besides that this was also a baptisme common to all all rehearsed the Articles of the Creed it was not such a peculiar baptisme as the Apostle hath respect to here in his Quid de illis and Quid illi what shall become of them and what doe they meane by this their Baptisme And therefore this seems not to be the sense That this Baptisme for the dead should onely be a profession of that article of the Resurrection of the dead though S. Chrysostome and Theophylact concur in or derive from or upon one other that interpretation To come lower and to a lower rank of witnesses from the Fathers to the Schoole Aquinas Aquinas hath another sense and certainly an usefull a devout and an appliable interpretation which is That Mortui here are peccata Those that are called Dead here are Dead works sins and so to be baptized for the dead is to be baptized for our sins for the washing away our sins in an acknowledgement That although we did contract a leprous sin even in our conception That we were subject to the wrath and indignation of God before we were able to conceive that there was a God That before our bones were hardned the canker and rust of Adams sin was in our bones That before we were a minute old we have a sin in us that is six thousand years old That though we be as blind after we come out of our mothers bellies as we were there Though we passe over our time without ever asking our owne consciences why we were sent hither Though our sins have hardned us against God and done a harder work then that in hardning God against us yet though we have turned God into a Rock there is water in that rock Num. 20. if we strike it if we solicite it affect it with our repentance As in the stone font in the Church there is water of Baptisme so in the Corner stone of the Church Christ Jesus whom we have hardned against us there is a tendernesse there is a Well of water springing up into everlasting life As we have changed this water into stone petrified Gods tendernesse towards us Psal 114.8 so convertit petram in stagna aquarum sayes David He hath turned that rock into a standing water water and water that stayes with us in his Church and the flint into a fountaine of waters that is sayes S. Augustine seipsum suam quandam duritiam liquefecit ad irrigandos fideles At the beames of his owne mercy God hath thawed that ice and dissolved that stone into which we had hardned him and he hath let in a River of Jordan into his Church the Sacrament of Baptisme in the present act and subsequent efficacy whereof we are washed from originall and from actuall sins All these sins are the fruits of death as they are opposed against the Lord of life and pro hisce mortuis baptizamur sayes Aquinas for the dead that is for these dead workes we are baptized And certainly for a second sense to exalt our devotion by I should prefer this before any other But the principall and literall sense of this place this cannot be because it is a figurative sense and though the figure be not in the word Baptisme where Bellarmine places it for Aquinas speaks literally of a Sacramentall Baptisme yet it is in the other word In mortuis Aquinas doth not speak literally but metaphorically of the Dead and that may as ill be admitted in a matter of faith of so great importance as the other And besides this seems to conclude nothing necessarily for the resurrection of the body that we are washed from our sins And lastly this is still a
in thy seeking of him If the Angels bee come downe to destroy Sodome If Ionas bee come to proclaime destruction to Nineveh wilt thou make thy selfe beleeve that thou art a Citizen of Sodom an inhabitant of Nineveh and must necessarily be wrapped up in that destruction If David say Non sic impii non sic The wicked shall not stand in judgement wilt thou needs be one of them As a wise and a discreet man will never beleeve that he that writes a Satyr meanes him though he touch upon his vices so whatsoever the Prophets say of an aversion and obduration in God against sinners yet they meane not thee nor doe thou assume it in an inevitablenesse upon thy selfe The Angel of God the Spirit of God shall deale with thee as he did with Lot in Sodom He told Lot over-night Gen. 19.12 that he would burne the City and bad him prepare God shall give thee some grudgings before he exalt thy fever and warne thee to consider thy state and consult with thy spirituall Physitian The Angel called him up in the morning and then hastned him and when he prolonged sayes the Text The Angel caught him and carried him forth and set him without the City Because though there was no cooperation in Lot yet there was no resisting neither God was pleased to doe all So in this death of diffidence and sense of Gods fearefull judgements God opens thy grave now and now he calls to thee Lazare veni for as Come forth Lazarus and hee offers his hand to pull thee out now Iosh 1.6 Onely Comfortare esto robustus as God said to Ioshuah Bee strong and have a good courage and as God addes there Comfortare esto robustus valde Multiply thy courage and God shall multiply thy strength in all dejections have a cheerefull apprehension of thy resurrection and thou shalt have it nay thou hast it But this death of desperation or diffidence in Gods mercy by Gods mercy hath swallowed none of us but the death of sinne hath swallowed us all and for our owne customary sinnes we all need a resurrection And what is that Resurrectio à peccato cessatio à peccato Durand non est idem Every cessation from sin is not a resurrection from sinne A man may discontinue a sinne intermit the practise of a sin by infirmity of the body or by satiety in the sinne or by the absence of that person with whom he hath used to communicate in that sin Damasc But Resurrectio est secunda ejus quod interiit statio A Resurrection is such an abstinence from the practise of the sin as is grounded upon a repentance and a detestation of the sin and then it is a setling and an establishing of the soule in that state and disposition It is not a sudden and transitory remorse nor onely a reparation of that which was ruined and demolished but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits and customes in actions contrary to that sin that we have been accustomed to Else it is but an Intermission not a Resurrection but a starting not a waking but an apparition not a living body but a cessation not a peace of conscience Now this Resurrection is begun and well advanced in Baptismate lachrymarum In the baptisme of true and repentant teares But Beloved as S. Paul in this place hath a relation Ad baptismum clinicorum to death-bed-baptists death-bed-Christians to them that defer their Baptisme to their death but he gives no allowance of it So this Baptisma clinicorum this repentance upon the death-bed is a dangerous delay Even of them I will say with S. Paul here If there were no Resurrection no need to rise from sin by repentance why are they then thus baptized pro mortuis why doe they repent when they are as good as dead and have no more to suffer in this world But if there be such a resurrection a necessity of such a Baptisme by repentance why come they no sooner to it For is any man sure to have it or sure to have a desire to it then It is never impertinent to repeat S. Augustines words in this case Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator ut moriens obliviscatur sui qui dum viveret oblitus est Dei God begins a dying mans condemnation at this That as he forgot God in his life so he shall forget himselfe at his death Compare thy temporall and thy spirituall state together and consider how they may both stand well at that day If thou have set thy state in order and made a Will before and have nothing to doe at last but to adde a Codicil this is soone dispatched at last But if thou leave all till then it may prove a heavy businesse So if thou have repented before and setled thy selfe in a religious course before and have nothing to doe then but to wrastle with the power of the disease and the agonies of death God shall fight for thee in that weake estate God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi S. Pauls not onely contentednesse but desire to be dissolved And God shall give thee a glorious Resurrection yea an Ascension into Heaven before thy death and thou shalt see thy selfe in possession of his eternall Kingdome before thy bodily eyes be shut Be therefore S. Cyprians Peripatetique and not his Clinique Christian A walking and not a bed-rid Christian That when thou hast walked with God as Henoch did thou maist be taken with God as Henoch was and so walke with the Lamb as the Saints doe in Jerusalem and follow him whithersoever hee goes That even thy death-bed may bee as Elias Chariot to carry thee to heaven And as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles which was Lectus floridus a greene and flourishing bed where thou maist find by a faithfull apprehension that thy sicknesse hath crowned thee with a crowne of thornes by participation of the sufferings of thy Saviour and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that crowne of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day SERM. LXXIX Preached at S. PAULS PSAL. 90.14 O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes THey have made a Rule in the Councel of Trent that no Scripture shall be expounded but according to the unanime consent of the Fathers But in this Book of the Psalms it would trouble them to give many examples of that Rule that is of an unanime consent of the Fathers in the interpretation thereof In this Psalme Bellarmine in his Exposition of the Psalms finds himselfe perplexed He sayes and sayes truly Hieronymus constanter affirmat Augustinus constanter negat S. Hierome doth confidently and constantly affirme and S. Augustine with as much confidence and constancy deny that this Psalme and all that follow to the hundredth Psalme are Moses Psalms and written by him And this diverse
his soule by Preservation and immortall in his body by Reparation in the Resurrection For though they be separated à Thoro Mensa from Bed and Board they are not divorced Though the soule be at the Table of the Lambe in Glory and the body but at the table of the Serpent in dust Though the soule be in lecto florido Cant. 1.16 in that bed which is alwayes green in an everlasting spring in Abrahams Bosome And the body but in that green-bed whose covering is but a yard and a halfe of Turfe and a Rugge of grasse and the sheet but a winding sheet yet they are not divorced they shall returne to one another againe in an inseparable re-union in the Resurrection To establish this assurance of a Resurrection in us God does sometimes in this life that which he hath promised for the next that is he gives a Resurrection to life after a bodily death here God hath made two Testaments two Wills And in both he hath declared his Power and his Will to give this new life after death in this world To the Widows sonne of Zarephtha 1. King 17. he bequeaths new life and to the Shunamites sonne he gives the same legacy 2 King 4. in the Old Testament In the New Testament to the widow of Naims sonne Luk. 7.8 he bequeaths new life And to Iairus daughter he gives the same legacy And out of the surplusage of his inexhaustible estate out of the overflowing of his Power he enables his Executors to doe as he did for Peter gives Dorcas this Resurrection too Act. 9.40 Divers examples hath he given us of the Resurrection of every particular man in particular Resurrections such as we have named And one of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ himselfe for in him we all rose for he was All in All Con-vivificavit Ephes 2.5 sayes the Apostle and Considere nos fecit God hath quickned us all us not onely S. Paul and his Ephesians but all and God hath raised us and God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus They that are not faln yet by any actuall sinne children newly baptized are risen already in him And they that are not dead yet nay not alive yet not yet borne have a Resurrection in him who was not onely the Lambe slaine from the beginning but from before all beginnings was risen too and all that shall ever have part in the second Resurrection are risen with him from that time Now next to that great Propheticall action that type of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ the most illustrious Evidence of the Resurrection of particular men is this Resuscitation of Lazarus whose sister Martha directed by faith and yet transported by passion seeks to entender and mollifie and supple him to impressions of mercy and compassion who was himselfe the Mold in which all mercy was cast nay the substance of which all mercy does consist Christ Jesus with this imperfect piece of Devotion which hath a tincture of Faith but is deeper dyed in Passion Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed This Text which you Heare Martha's single words Divisio complicated with this Text which you See The dead body of this our Brother makes up between them this body of Instruction for the soule first That there is nothing in this world perfect And then That such as it is there is nothing constant nothing permanent We consider the first That there is nothing perfect in the best things in spirituall things Even Martha's devotion and faith hath imperfections in it And we consider the other That nothing is permanent in temporall things Riches prosperously multiplied Children honorably bestowed Additions of Honor and Titles fairly acquired Places of Command and Government justly received and duly executed All testimonies all evidences of worldly happinesse have a Dissolution a Determination in the death of this and of every such Man There is nothing no spirituall thing perfect in this world Nothing no temporall thing permanent and durable And these two Considerations shall be our two parts And then these the branches from these two roots First in the first we shall see in generall The weaknesse of Mans best actions And secondly more particularly The weaknesses in Martha's Action And yet in a third place the easinesse the propensnesse the largenesse of Gods goodnesse towards us in the acceptation of our imperfect Sacrifices for Christ does not refuse nor discourage Martha though her action have these imperfections And in this largenesse of his Mercy which is the end of all we shall end this part And in our second That as in spirituall things nothing is perfect so in tempoporall things nothing is permanent we shall by the same three steps as in the former looke first upon the generall consideration the fluidnesse the transitorinesse of all such temporall things And then consider it more particularly in Gods Master-piece amongst mortall things the body of man That even that flowes into putrefaction And then lastly returne to that in which we determined the former part The largenesse of Gods goodnesse to us in affording even to mans body so dissolved into putrefaction an incorruptible and a glorious state So have you the frame set up and the roomes divided The two parts and the three branches of each And to the furnishing of them with meditations fit for this Occasion we passe now In entring upon the first branch of our first part 1. Part. In spiritualibus nihil perfectum Scientia That in spirituall things nothing is perfect we may well afford a kinde of spirituall nature to knowledge And how imperfect is all our knowledge What one thing doe we know perfectly Whether wee consider Arts or Sciences the servant knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Art and the Scholar knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Science Young men mend not their sight by using old mens Spectacles and yet we looke upon Nature but with Aristotles Spectacles and upon the body of man but with Galens and upon the frame of the world but with Ptolomies Spectacles Almost all knowledge is rather like a child that is embalmed to make Mummy then that is nursed to make a Man rather conserved in the stature of the first age then growne to be greater And if there be any addition to knowledge it is rather a new knowledge then a greater knowledge rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knowne at all before then an emproving an advancing a multiplying of former inceptions and by that meanes no knowledge comes to be perfect One Philosopher thinks he is dived to the bottome when he sayes he knows nothing but this That he knows nothing and yet another thinks that he hath expressed more knowledge then he in saying That he knows not so much as
speaks yet so doth the zeale of Gods Saints and their last prayers though we heare them not God continues still and they pray in Heaven as the Martyrs under the Altar even till the Resurrection He is with him now too In funere Here in his Funerals Buriall and Christian Buriall and Solemne Buriall are all evidences and testimonies of Gods presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of Solemne Buriall or Christian Buriall or any Buriall But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his favour and presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seale of all his blessings to Abraham Gen. 15. Gen. 46. Gen. 50. Esay 11.10 Matt. 26. That he should be buried in a good age God established Iacob with that promise That his Son Ioseph should have care of his Funerals And Ioseph does cause his servants The Physitians to embalme him when he was dead Of Christ it was Prophecied That he should have a glorious Buriall And therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured out the Oyntment upon him That she did it to Bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraine parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge to set downe our friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good manner as without vaine-gloriousnesse and wastfulnesse we may And in inclining them to whom that care belongs to expresse that care as they doe this day The Lord is with him even in this Funerall And because The Lord is here our brother is not dead Not dead in the memories and estimation of men And lastly In resurrectione that we may have God present in all his Manifestations Hee that was and is and is to come was with him in his life and death and is with him in this holy Solemnity and shall bee with him againe in the Resurrection Gen. 46.4 God sayes to Iacob I will goe downe with thee into Egypt and I will also surely bring thee up againe God goes downe with a good man into the Grave and will surely bring him up againe When The Angel promised to returne to Abraham and Sarah Gen. 18.10 for the assurance of the birth of Isaac according to the time of life that is in such time as by nature a woman may have a childe God will returne to us in the Grave according to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious Decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the meane time no more then the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darknesse But that which Moses said to the whole Congregation I say to you all both to you that heare me Deut. 4.4 and to him that does not All ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Even hee whom wee call dead is alive this day In the presence of God we lay him downe In the power of God he shall rise In the person of Christ he is risen already And so into the same hands that have received his soule we commend his body beseeching his blessed Spirit that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently of his good estate our faith may assure us of the same happinesse in our owne behalfe And that for all our sakes but especially for his own glory he will be pleased to hasten the consummation of all in that kingdome which that Son of God hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS ⧠The Table of such places of SCRIPTURE as are illustrated and expounded in this BOOKE GENESIS 1.16 TWo great lights c. 81. A. 2.7 Man was a living soul 71. A. 18.10 According to the time of life 826. D. 26.18 Isaac digged the wells of water which 118. B. 29.12 Iacob kissed Rachel 407. C. 41.45 Pharaoh called Iosephs name 529. A. 51.20 You thought evill against me 171. B. EXODUS 4.22 Israel is his sonne 56. E. 14.14 The Lord shall fight for you 577. D. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance 782. C. 33.13 Shew me now thy way 66. E. DEUTERONOMY 21.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God 8. A. 30.15 See I have set before thee life and death 70. A. 30.19 I have set before you life and death 148. D. JOSHUAH 10.12 Sunne stand thou still 700. A. JUDGES 2.5 They wept 539. B. RUTH 1.19 Call me not Naomi 479. B. 2 SAMUEL 14.14 We must needs die and are 311. A. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him 257. D. 2 KINGS 9.3 None shall say This is Iezebel 148. B. 11.12 They put the crowne 336. D. 20.7 Take a lump of figs 514. E. JOB 4.18 His Angels he charged with folly 9. C. 5.7 Man is borne unto travatle as 538. B. 7.1 Mans life is a warfare 142. A. 603 E. 8.16 Woe unto me poor rush for c. 141. B. 10.20 Lord spare me a while 162. C. 19.25 I know my Redeemer liveth c. 150. A. 19.26 In my flesh c. 122. A. 20.11 My bones are full of the sins 519. B. PSALMES 2.2 They imagine a vaine thing 433. D. 2.8 Aske of me and I will give thee c. 26. E. 462. E. 2. ult Kisse the Son lest he be angry 541. D. 3.7 Thou hast broken the teeth 516. D. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee 533. E. 15.2 Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle 117. E. 19.9 The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves 366. D. 22.6 I am a worme 18. A. 45. C. 65. A. 25.15 Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord 618. A. 37.5 CoÌmit thy wayes unto the Lord 686. B. 37.26 The righteous is mercifull 83. E. 45.7 God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladnesse 396. C. 50.12 If I were hungry 101. B 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they feare not God 57. D. 65.1 Praise waiteth for thee 64. A. 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit 585. A. 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which 394. D. 78.63 Their maidens were not given in marriage 679. C. 82.1 God standeth in the 72. D. 90.10 The dayes of our yeares c. 83. B. 101.1 I will sing of thy mercy and 12. A. 101.5 Him that hath a high looke 729. B. 102.5 My bones cleave to my flesh 519. B. 104.29 They die and they returne 255. D. 105.15 Touch not mine anointed 55. B. 106.20 They changed their glory 85. A. 111.10 A good understanding have 612. C. 113.5 He dwels in heaven 134. C. 119.57 The Lord is my portion 14. B.
came to that Synod from other places desire to be excused from assenting to the displacing of those Apocryphall Books For in that place as we see by Athanasius they prescribe For though they be not Canonicall saies he yet they are Ejusdem veteris Instrumenti libri Books that belong to the Old Testament that is at least to the elucidation and cleering of many places in the Old Testament And that the Ancient Fathers thought these Books worthy of their particular consideration must necessarily be more then evident to him that reads S. Chrysostomes Homilie or Leo his Sermon upon this very part of that Book of the Maccab to which the Apostle refers in this Text that is to that which the seven Brethren there suffered for a better Resurrection And if we take in the testimony of the Reformation divers great and learned men have interpreted these Books by their particular Commentaries Osyander hath done so and done it with a protestation that divers great Divines intreated him to do it Conrad Pellicanus hath done so too Who lest these Books should seeme to be undervalued in the name of Apocryphall saies that it is fitter to call them Libros Ecclesiasticos rather Ecclesiasticall then Apocryphall Books And of the first of these two books of the Maccab he saies freely Reverà Divini Spiritus instigatione No doubt but the holy Ghost moved some holy man to write this Book because saies he by it many places of they Prophets are the better understood and without that Booke which is a great addition of dignitie Ecclesiastica eruditio perfecta non fuisset The Church had not been so well enabled to give perfect instruction in the Ecclesiasticall Story Therefore he cals it Piissimum Catholicae Ecclesiae institutum A most holy Institution of the Catholike Church that those Books were read in the Church And if that Custome had been every where continued Non tot errores increvissent So many errors had not growne in the Reformed Church saies that Author And to descend to practise at this day we see that in many Churches of the Reformation their Preachers never forbeare to preach upon Texts taken out of the Apocryphall Books We discerne cleerely and as earnestly we detest the mischievous purposes of our Adversaries in magnifying these Apocryphall Books It is not principally that they would have these Books as good as Scriptures but because they would have Scriptures no better then these Books That so when it should appeare that these Books were weake books and the Scriptures no better then they their owne Traditions might be as good as either But as their impiety is inexcusable that thus over-value them so is their singularity too that depresse these books too farre of which the Apostle himselfe makes this use not to establish Articles of Faith but to establish the Hebrews in the Articles of Faith by examples deduced from this Booke The example then to which the Apostle leads them is that Story of a Mother and her seven Sons which in one day suffered death by exquisite torments rather then break that Law of their God which the King prest them to break though but a Ceremoniall Law Now as Leo saies in his Sermon upon their day for the Christian Church kept a day in memory of the Martyredome of these seven Maccabees though they were but Jewes Gravant audita nisi suscipiantur imitanda It is a paine to heare the good that others have done except we have some desire to imitate them in doing the like The Panegyricke said well Onerosum est succederebono Principi That King that comes after a good Predecessour hath a shrewd burthen upon him because all the World can compare him with the last King and all the world will looke that he should be as good a King as his immediate Predecessour whom they all remember was So Gravant audita It will trouble you to heare what these Maccabees which S. Paul speaks of suffered for the Law of their God but you are weary of it and would be glad we would give over talking of them except you have a desire to imitate them And if you have that you are glad to heare more and more of them and from this Apostle here you may For he makes two uses of their example First that though they were tortured they would not accept a deliverance And then that they put on that resolution That they might obtaine a better Resurrection What they suffered hath exercised all our Grammarians and all our Philologers and all our Antiquaries that have enquired into the Racks and Tortures of those times We translate it roundly They were tortured And S. Pauls word implies a torture of that kind that their bodies were extended and rackt as upon a drumme and then beaten with staves What the torture intended in that word was we know not But in the Story it selfe to which he refers in the Maccab you have all these divers tortures Cutting out of tongues and cutting off of hands and feete and macerating in hot Cauldrons and pulling off the skin of their heads with their haire And yet they would not accept a deliverance Ver. 24. Was it offered them Expresly it was The King promises and sweares to one of them that he would make him Rich and Happie and his Friend and trust him with his affaires if he would apply himselfe to his desires and yet he would not accept this deliverance This is that which S. August saies Sunt qui patienter moriuntur There may be many found that dye without any distemper without any impatience that suffer patiently enough But then Sunt qui patienter vivunt delectabiliter moriuntur There are others whose life exercises all their patience so that it is a paine to them though they indure it patiently to live But they could dye not only patiently but cheerefully They are not onely content if they must but glad if they may dye when they may dye so as that thereby They may obtaine a better Resurrection And this was the case of these Martyrs whom the Apostle here proposes to the imitation of the Hebrews They put all upon that issue A better Resurrection So the second Brother saies to the King Ver. 9. Thou like a Fury takest us out of this life but the King of the World shall raise us up who have dyed for his Law unto everlasting life Here lay his hope That that which dyed that which could dye his body should be raised againe So the third Brother proceeded Ver. 11. He held out his hands and said These I had from Heaven and for his Laws I despise them and from him I hope to receive them again There was his hope a restitution of the same hands in the Resurrection And so the fourth Brother Ver. 14. It is good being put to death by men to looke for hope from God Hope of what To be raised up againe by him There was his hope And he