delicate Garments the basenesse of the Winding-sheet for his former neatnesse nothing but putrefaction for his perfumes a stinking savour and for his savour it selfe deadnesse for his Servants and attendants the company of crawling worms at the best which will more really destroy him than when alive the most unfaithfull of his servants could How must he be tormented with extremity of griefe for that which shall befall his body But then to imagine the state of the Soul which has not hope in Christ for we are in Nature yet to think of that Incognita that new Region unknown to any living Wight whither it must now travel naked and unaccompanied save with the horror of his gnawing Conscience to labour to conceive those unconceivable woes of that other world and to comprehend that incomprehensible eternity of them 't is wonder he can live a moment to digest that indigestible thought 't is a wonder that the terror of it does not prevent the hand and sythe of his approaching death that it does not anticipate his fate and prove more quick to dead him more nimble than his disease to strike and slay his soul For one to be taken from his wealth pleasure honour friends wife children to leave these outward contentfull things makes death bitter to him 't is another death This O mors quà m amara est memoria tuis 't is the Wise-mans exclamation Ecclus. 41.1 O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions that hath nothing to vex him that hath prospepity in all things The separation that is made betwixt him and his world afflicts him but the separation betwixt him and himselfe his soul and his body is intollerable how loathly it leaves that old companion how loathly it goes out of that beloved dwelling St. Hierome writes the life of Hilarion a good Christian a devout and holy man one that feared God and in most of his life so little feared death that he desired nothing more than to be dissolved and to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 and yet when death began to seize upon him when he was now in his last agony his soul had a strong touch of this fear and was loath to go insomuch that he was fain to have recourse to his faith and by the help of it to encourage his fainting soul in his journey to Heaven Egredere go out my soul what fearest thou go out valiantly hast thou serv'd God these seventy years and dost thou now fear to leave thy body Beloved Eratenim eremita moriebaturoctoginta annos natus if this Holy man who had from ten years age dedicated his whole life to the service of God found yet the natural man so strong in him that he was put to his plunge in which he might have stuck had he not awaken'd his faith awake awake why sleepest thou O my faith and call'd that to his help how terrible must this dissolution needs appear to them who have liv'd in their sins and not yet cast off those sins by repentance who when they should grapple with death and conquer it by their faith in Christ alas they lie under the weight of their sins and cannot rise they struggle in vain that load oppresses them their sin 1 Cor. 15.56 which is the sting of death is fastned in their hearts and slayes them their death is a flaughter the worst death of all Mors peccatorum pessima Psal 34.21 Evil misfortune shall slay the ungodly Siccine separas amara mors may be their complaint in the bitternesse of their spirit they may well call it the darknesse of death as Agag did 1 Sam. 15.32 Beloved have you look'd enough upon death in his worst shape and can ye collect how terrible he must needs appear to the wicked over whom he hath full power since even to Gods holy servants out of a natural desire to preserve their being since even to Gods beloved Son when to shew himselfe truly man he was content to yield so sar to the sway of humane nature within himselfe he seem'd so odious that in the presence of some of his Apostles he did not let to discover his passion My soul is exceeding sorrowfull even unto death Matt. 26.38 Mat. 26.44 to pray to his Father thrice against it and but that the will of his Father was in the midst of his bowels and his obedience stronger than death he would have begg'd three times more that the Cup might have pass'd from him so odious that for the comfort of the Elect 't is one of the greatest blessings betroath'd to them in the New Jerusalem that there shall be no more death Rev. 21.4 Then now cheer up your thoughts again by faith in Christ and with that eye of faith behold death vanquisht by that Christ behold him trampled under those victorious feet so languishing so dead himselfe that he cannot hurt you he cannot scare you This is the second consideration of death Mors Porta Coeli that how evil soever it be in it selfe even the way to Hell yet by Gods goodnesse it is become a Portal to the Children of Grace by which the soul passeth out of the miseries of this life into the joyes of Heaven even the dead are blessed that die in the Lord. God made not Death Wisdome 1.13 through the envy of the Divel it came into the world Wisd 2.24 't is he that was the Murderer from the beginning Joh. 8.44 Murderer of our bodies and of our souls too death of both is his work 't is he that has the power of death Heb. 2.14 and if only the body di'd he would soon disown the name and disvalue all the power he had Now wherefore came Christ into the world wherefore was he manifested in the flesh why for this purpose sayes S. John ut dissolvat opera that he might destroy the works of the Divel 1 John 3.8 He took part of our flesh and blood why that he might die without that he could not die the Godhead is immortal and why die but that through his death he might destroy him that had the power of death the Divel Heb. 2.14 So truly might he say of himselfe John 10.10 I am come that they might have life This was it which was prophecyed so long since Hos 13.14 O mors ero mors tua O death I will be thy death thy plagues O grave I will be thy destruction the Prophecy is not yet fulfill'd if we read that place as the Vulgar Edition hath it I will be thy death Death shall be destroyd indeed but not yet 't is the last enemy 1 Cor. 15.26 that must be destroyd but if we read it as we have well translated it O death I will be thy plagues 't is every day fulfill'd in that glorious victory with which so many of the Saints of God at their dissolution do triumph over it Christ does not take away
thy trust thy hope in the Lord Let none by their impatience to bear a lesse misery rid themselves into a greater whoever he be that can speak with that Emphasis I am the man that have seen affliction Lam. 3.1 and does therefore with Job abandon the day of his birth Job 3.3 and importune for the hour of death would this man have death be good unto him and save him O then let him apply the counsel of the 26. verse as a remedy against the complaint of the first It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Well Non omnes post obitum the last part remains yet to be handled no man can obtain true blessednesse till he leaves this world that we have done with nor then all men but morientes in Domino they who so cease to live as that they die in the Lord these are they who are blessed Beza renders it propter Dominum who die for the Lord who in their fervent love to him lay down their life for his sake as his Son did for theirs and lose it or rather give it or rather yet sell it in his quarrel and for the defence of his truth true this but not all for thus to expound it ties this promised blessednesse onely upon the Martyrs of God those valiant and faithfull Servants of his as if his many many promises to the faithfull became void if they were not valiant too or though valiant if they had not a cruel occasion to trie their valour who patiently underwent the torments of a violent death at the hands of persecutors for the witnesse-bearing to the truth of his Gospel These no doubt are blessed in Heaven He that loses his life for my sake shall finde it Matth. 10.39 blessed with a double crown both as they regarded the glory of God and the good of their Christian brethren by their example of constancy the bloud of the Martyrs having ever been the seed of the Church and that which is fire to their flesh and bones water to the Gospel to make it slourish a good confession witnessed before the wicked Tyrants of the world doth good service to God and his truth so it fell out in that martyrdome of S. Paul which he suffered in his life time for they are Martyrs too which for Gods cause stoutly endure any kind of misery besides death and yet to humour some rigid Interpreters who will not be brought to allow of a living Martyr let us for once call every affliction a death too not onely by the example of Pharaoh who persecuted the Church of God Take away this death Exod. 10.17 but especially by that of S. Paul who in this afflicted sense suffered many yea dayly deaths for the Church he was in deaths often 2 Cor. 11.23 he did die dayly 1 Cor. 15.31 The things which bappened unto him in his persecution at Rome they fell out unto the furtherance of the Gospel insomuch that many of the brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much imboldned to speak the word without fear Phil. 1.12 14. This is it that has made many of Gods righteous servants not sparing of themselves that Christ might be magnified in their bodies whether it be by life or by death by life I say and S. Paul sayes so too as well as by death v. 20. and that they might be blessed after this life and death as those Martyrs the Apostle speaks of Heb. 11.35 who were tortured and cared not to be delivered that they might obtain a better resurrection But we must not restrain this blessednesse to those only who thus die for the Lord since the Lord bestows this crown of blisse upon them also who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Text who die in the Lord. If we will know what this is Mori in Domino to die in the Lord and who they be that so do we must first understand what it is to be in the Lord while we live for even then this happinesse begins in us when we begin to be in Christ There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8.1 If no condemnation then no wrath of God if not that then Grace and Love and Favour and consequently salvation and eternal life Man is no indifferent thing to his Maker if he does not hate he loves nay the very earth upon which Man is God does either blesse it with encrease or curse it with barrennesse and the Lord of the earth under the Lord of Heaven Man much more and no lesse than this is the effect of Gods love to Mankinde God so loved the World John 3.16 So how even to everlasting life v. the same Now what it is thus uncondemnedly to be in Christ we have it explained John 3.18 He that believes on him is not condemned so in the verse before Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish 16. Not be condemned not perish what them he shall have life everlasting that 's the effect of Gods love that 's the consequent of Gods not condeming So then to be in Christ is to be in the love of God and faith of Christ to cleave unto him and rely upon him then are we by his Holy Spirit ingrafted into him made his members spiritually joyn'd unto him and live in him There is a general conjunction which all men living have with the Son of God in that he took upon him our humane nature not the flesh of man but of mankinde Forasmuch as the Children are partakers of flesh and bloud he also himselfe likewise took part of the same Heb. 2.14 But this conjunction which is so general with all men does not therefore make all men to be in him we are thus conjoyned with him as I may say only in regard of the matter and to say sooth all this notwithstanding there is a great disjunction betwixt him and us and the nature of men as of men does much differ from that nature which the Son of God took upon him that Humane Nature of his now with him in Heaven is of it selfe immortal without spot or stain free from all sin adorned with all holinesse and purity and the fulnesse of all excellent graces ours is impure and unholy and wofully subject to corruption because miserably defiled with sin we are conceived in sin Psa 51.5 saies holy David we are by nature the sons of wrath saies S. Paul Ephes 2.3 our natural our first birth in the flesh separates us from him keeps us out of him but our second our spiritual birth our regeneration when we are born again Joh. 3.5 of water and the spirit when we are indued with the spirit of Christ to believe in him to live according to the direction of his Holy Spirit then is our nature so repaired so renewed that we come near to his nature we are thereby conformed to the image of the Son of God
FOUR SERMONS PREACH'D By the Right Reverend FATHER in GOD JOHN TOWERS D. D. L. Bishop of Peterburgh 1. At the Funerall of the Right Honorable William Earl of Northampton 2. At the Baptism of the Right Honorable James Earl of Northampton 3. Before King JAMES in Defence of The Material Church 4. Before K. CHARLES at White-Hall in time of Lent He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches Rev. 2.7 London Printed for Thomas Rooks and are to be sold at the sign of the Lamb at the East end of S. Pauls near the School 1660. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES Earl of NORTHAMPTON And to his Excellent Lady ISABELLA The Right Honorable Countess of NORTHAMPTON Right Honorable my singular good Lord IT is now more than time that these holy Sermons should come to light into the light of this World to be themselves a Light to the World after so many years since the departure of the Reverend and Religious Author of them into the light of God When they first come abroad whom ought they earlier to greet than your noble Lordship that his Posthume Papers might crave protection from the same Family which gave Patronage to his living Person From the service of the Earldom he went up to wait upon the Throne and yet did never forget Your Castle-Ashby after his arrive to the Kings White-Hall though he was found to have merit enough to entitle his attendance upon the two best Peers in Chaplainry to your Grandfather who deserved to be in respect of the Earldom though there was a deserv'd and much more ancient rise of the noble name of the Comptons Ortus Domus suae a fairer commendation than which the quickest best-tongu'd Orator could not invent for himself and in Tutorage to your Father whose fall was so valiant that he chose to pay a magnanimous Death rather than to owe a bestowed Life though from thence the same merit carried him on to do yearly homage to the two choicest Kings James the wise and Charles the Religious yet he had also humble Gratitude enough to confesse aloud it was Northampton's Arm more than his own hand and Pen that rais'd him My good Lord you see already your just Title to the whole But you have still a more peculiar Interest in these selected four One of them was Preach'd at that Parish which was all your Ancestors and the Authors Nine parts yours and the Tithes his and Tither of duty it ought to return Another at your owne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second the Baptismall Birth of your Noble selfe A third at the third Birth of the most munificent your Fathers Father when he had pass'd over the life of Nature and the life of Grace and was receiv'd up into the life of Glory A fourth is added to expiate the delay in payment of the three former Nay my most noble Lord all this will not suffice that you should have title to these Composures from your Progenitors from your selfe from the Author unlesse I humbly acknowledge the right you have in my Transcription too from the claim which your Honour may lay to my very selfe also your interest in me your jurisdiction over me your purchase of me Your Honor had interest in me before I was so happy as to see your Lordship or so wise as to know my felf even whilst I was yet in Lumbis for sure our Birth is not so wholly wretched as to have nothing else entail'd upon us at our coming into the world besides original sin we are even born with respects and duties and devotions to originall Benefactors too Your jurisdiction over me shall never be disown'd by me whilst I have breath Dum spiritus hos regit Artus in that since I had breath your Lordship was the first Master I ever had Master and Father too by your purchase of me in that I did eat of your Lordships bread when by the common calamities of the Times and the deserv'd ones of my own I had no bread of my own to eat but went abroad to Preach the Gospel like the Gospels first Disciples without Pâ—rse or Scrip. Luk. 22.35 And now my most excellently voriuous and meek Lady is not your right the same with my Noble Lords and has not your owne goodnesse bought a like interest in me I have nothing to return to either of your Honors but my prayers that You both may enjoy the whole benefit of this which is a dedication upon design that as you are regenerate by Baptism the discourse of one of these Homilies you may so love to serve God in his own House the subject of another that when your Bodies are interr'd in the Church the matter of a third your souls may be convey'd to that place which Christ is gone up to prepare for you the subject-matter of a fourth there to enjoy honour and bliss eternall 'T is really the Prayer of My Noble Lord and my Religious Lady Your Honors most Faithfull most obliged Servant William Towers A SERMON Preached at the FVNERALS of the Right Honorable WILLIAM EARL of Northampton Rev. 14.13 Beati Mortui qui in Domino moriuntur Blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord. FOR the Authority of this Book of the Revelation of S. John Occasio Operis I should not need to plead but that for the honorable memory of the Person of Honour whose Body we now interr and because of the morenesse of Time since his death it will mis-become such an obliged Chaplain of such a bountifull Patron not to take pains somewhat more than ordinary and to exceed the hour in this last Publick Service which he performs for the most liberal of Masters to the meanest of Gods Houshold Servants Let this short Apology bear me out in my prolixnesse after since by his own example I desire to do much of good at his Death to those who are come hither to remember him and to mourn their own losse though in his blessednesse the businesse of whose Life was to do all good to all The joynt consent of the Ancient and Modern Church Authoritus Libri hath with an easie refutation of some weak objections to the contrary and with a constant and unanimous submission of their Faith and Obedience to the Contents of it by the direction of the Holy Spirit received this Book into and by the special Providence of the same Spirit preserved it in the Canon of the Scripture That the blessed Apostle and Evangelist S. John was the Author of it by writing we doubt not and that being the Apostle of Christ he wrote this as he did his Gospels and Epistles being inspir'd by the Holy Ghost to remain in the Church of Christ as Apostolical Scripture for confirmation whereof Vers 1. He cals it also in the beginning The Revelation of Jesus Christ and tels us that God gave it unto him and that he sent and signifi'd it by his Angel
a Curse from sudden death good Lord deliver us when we have not made our selves acquainted with it and digested in our thoughts the worst that it can do then is it true indeed that S. Paul hath fore-warn'd us 1 Thess 5.2 that the day of the Lord commeth as a Thief in the night Then as the Fishes that are taken in an evil Net and as the Birds Eccles 9.12 that are caught in a snare so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them First therefore we consider how bitter how fearfull and terrible a thing death is in it selfe to all mankinde and how grievous it continues to the Natural man Secondly How the bitterness of it is taken away by Christ to the Faithfull and that to them it is made a way to blessednesse How unpleasing death is in it selfe Part. 1 to mans Nature appears Mors terribilis in that it is so contrary to Nature that it destroys our being in Nature which every thing that hath a being does by an instinct of Nature labour to preserve but those things that have life especially and so a sence and knowledge of their being nothing is so irrecoverably hurtfull to them as death which takes away their being the very Beast trembles at it But Man above all who is indued with understanding to know more than by a sensitive knowledge the benefit of his Being how does he even by Nature shrink at the fear of it Behold Saul the King of Israel the stout and valiant man so train'd up and exercised in war who had slain many men and been so conversant with the face of death in its cruellest and most ugly shapes yet when it came to concern himselfe when he heard from that spirit which the Witch of Endor had raisd in the likenesse of Samuel that to morrow he and his Sons should be with him his courage fail'd him and his heart fainted he was so stricken with a sudden fear of amazement that half-dead already with the news of death he fell all along on the earth 1 Sam. 28.20 I even the best of meer men Gods holy Servant David by the dictate of Nature apprehended this fear and fled from Saul 1 Sam. 26.13 and Eliah feared and fled from the threats of Jezabel 1 King 19. and those holy men those hundred Prophets of the Lord together thrust themselves into Caves for fear of her raging 1 Kings 18. I beyond all these our Saviour Christ himselfe that holy one Gods Righteous Servant Is 53.11 that had done no wickednesse 1 Pet. 2.22 nor was there any deceit in his mouth he as he was Man yielding to the power to the very weakest of humane nature in himselfe did not free himself from this fear of death I speak not of his quitting his place and departing by ship into a desart upon the beheading of John Matth. 14. but when the treason of Judas grew close upon him when he was at hand that betrayed him then did he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.37 The word is two significant for our English phrase it signifies such a deadly griefe and astonishment with fear as makes all the spirits faint within being utterly forsaken of help now do the sorrowes of the grave compasse him the snares of death overtake him Ps 116.3.18.4 and the flouds of wickednesse make him afraid Beloved if he suffered the force of Nature to prevail so far to be so strong in him what can the strongest of weak men hope to meet with in his encounter with death if left to himselfe and that help which Humane Nature can afford him but faintnesse of heart and dejectednesse of spirit and a trembling of his best bloud through every joynt 'T is a strong and violent breach of one of the goodliest Frames of Nature for I speak still of the Natural man when the Soul is inforc'd from the body we hear not without a secret compassion the forsaken Oxe bemoaning his owne losse with his lowing when his Fellow that had long drawn with him in the same yoke is haled from him to the slaughter The Turtle does more upon the losse of her Mate mourns in solitarinesse and pines away When two friends who have converst together in amity for some years space are now to be parted and removed into several places far distant where they shall no more enjoy the pleasure of each others familiarity I speak it feelingly and I even weep it he whose remove we now grieve though I alwayes reverenc'd him as my Lord yet he vouchsaf'd even to love me as his Friend what sadnesse is this to them and how pensively do they brook it Think when a man and wife who have spent much time together in that near tie of love and mutual society shall at last be parted by that violent necessity and unkind stroke of death what a heart-breaking it must be to the Husband to have the wife of his bosome whom his soul lov'd so tenderly to be rent from his side by that Iron-hand of dissolution now all his joyes leave him and he refuseth to be comforted because she is not And then think withall what a sad divorce this muct needs prove betwixt the soul and the body who have liv'd long together in a strict neernesse of affection as greater cannot be when the soul must leave the body his so dear Consort to which he gave life and form'd a better being when he must be forc'd to take into his consideration the miserable condition that then attends either of them first for the body that it must after a few hours be shut up in a dark and loathsome Grave and be made food for Worms and Toads that body which now lives and breathes and sees and speaks and hears and stretches it selfe upon a bed of Down presently to be laid forth upon the cold earth blinde and deafe and dumb without sence without speech without life that body which was so lately cherish'd with such variety of food whose belly and palate was courted and serv'd with the riches of Sea and Land which was cloathed with Silks and Purple and was lodg'd in a Couch of Ivory deck'd with Coverings of Tapestry with carved works about it and fine linnen upon it and perfumed with Myrrh Aloes and Cinnamon and was defended from heat and cold and the least unpleasing Ayre with a thousand divis'd curiosities which liv'd in stately Palaces of magnificent structure and costly furniture that delicate body to be so soon clapt up with a Habeas Corpus into so narrow a Prison into a loathsom stinking Grave of dead Carkasses full of bones and rottennesse noysomnesse and Vermine and it more noysom than they What a thought of horrour must this be to the afflicted soul in behalf of the body when he contemplates that sad change Instead of his lofty Palace the homliness of a Sepulchre of his soft bed the harshnesse of the earth of his
and am come into the World Again I leave the World and go unto my Father John 16.28 What means he by the first I came from my Father into the World why I tooke upon me this humane body subject to hunger and thirst and cold and heat and troubles and sorrows and smart and death such as the rest of mens bodies in this world which are abased under the yoak and burden of mortality and corruption what means he by the last I leave the world and go to my Father Not that he leaves this humane body which he had once taken and remaines onely that which before he was God with the Father but I cast off all ensigns all badges and tokens of mortality and corruptibility I will still weare this humane body but now by me made a glorified body which shall still live but free from the bondage of worldly griefes of worldly necessities in rest in tranquility in joy in glory These are the words saies Christ to his Disciples after his resurrection when his Body was glorified These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you Luke 24.46 What thinke we of this while I was with you Was not Christ now with them when he spake thus unto them while I was with you while I was as you are in the world subject to those miseries which the world imposeth and in need of those supplies which the world affordeth now I am not with you I am with the Father I live now even in respect of my body that same life which the father lives free from all trouble from all change and thus may Christ truly be said to go unto the Father And why should this then breed so much grief to his Disciples why should their hearts be so fill'd with sorrow for this what should need our Saviours non turbetur cor vestrum any counsel or comfort where there is seeming so little cause of discontent one would think they should rejoyce rather and so Christ tells them plainly If ye lov'd me ye would rejoyce because I said I goe unto the Father v. 28. but poor souls they were so wounded with the vado 't should seem they minded not the rest so heart-stricken with the sad news of his going from them that they ne're thought of to whom their love was such to him that they would not go from him to any Domine ad quem ibimus when Jesus asked them will ye also go away Jo. 6.68 Lord to whom shall we go and their weaknesse did haply expect a reciprocal affection in Christ suitable to their ignorant desires Lord to whom shal we go from thee Lord to whom wilt thou go from us And in truth beloved let not the strongest amongst us blame this distraction in their opprest hearts 't is a word from Christs mouth I go enough to fetch blood not sighs alone from the greatest heart of the best resolved Christian Behold thy King cometh Mat. 21.5 O Hosanna for that Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest Mat. 21.9 his comming was the expectation of Israel I and expectatio gentium Gen. 49. the expectation of the world Ver. 10. Veniat dilectus Cant. 4.6 let my Beloved come into his Garden and veni dilecte mi 7.11 Come my Beloved let us go forth into the field 't is rogans eum ut veniret Luke 7.3 the Centurion sent the Elder to him beseeching him that they would come the most comfortable word that ever flew to the ears of any Christian ecce venio behold I come quickly then Rev. 22.12 Vers 20. merces mea mecum there is a reward to be lookt for even so come Lord Jesus hast thee unto us O Lord come though thou comest to visit our offences with thy rod Psa 89.32 Psa 23.4 and our sins with scourges Thy rod and thy staff shall comfort us come though thou comest to chasten us to rebuke us onely rebuke us not in thine anger Psa 6.1 neither chasten us in thy heavy displeasure onely in anger in displeasure come not Lord that 's a coming against us not to us but excepting that come any way this word venio of Christ I come to his servants should be as welcome as his venite will be at the last day Mat. 25.34 come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome but go from us spoken to Christ what man in his right wits can be so cruel to himself as to send such a word from his heart to his lips who but the besotted earthly-minded Gergesenes can beseech him to depart out of their coasts yes the Devils can too and they are both as two rare examples recorded together in the same passage of story at the latter end of the eighth chapter of St. Matthew they can cry quid nobis tibi Jesu what have we to doe with thee Jesus thou Son of God Indeed I read it once from St Peter in his weakness in the beginning of his conversion Depart from me Vers 8. Lord for I am a sinful man Lu. 5. But the Lord knew it was a speech of modest humility in him when upon the first sight of his sins he apprehended Christ as an angry Judge according to the desert of them and was therefore so desirous afterward to redeem that fault when he knew him better with his loathnesse to leave him with his readiness to go with him both into prison and to death Lu. 22.13 our discede to Christ now our putting him from us should be as irksome to every of his servants as his discedite shall be at the last day to his enemies Matt. 25.41 depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire And as our discede to him cannot be spoken but with horror so his vado alone to us his going from us cannot be heard but with extremity of grief and therefore in one place where 't is set down alone it has a vae with it to the Author of it Filius hominis vadit ve autem Matt. 24.26 the Son of Man goeth but woe to that wretch woe to that man saith Christ by whom he is betrayed and therefore too in so many other places where himself must give notice of it to his Disciples he knew it would be so heavy news to them if alone deliver'd yet he seldome throughout all the Gospels utters the word without another word of comfort to poyze with it in the ballance vado I go Jo. 14.12 that dejects them but presently ad patrem I goe to the Father that to raise them up again si abiero if I depart Jo. 16.7 there 's the weight of grief but presently mittam eum I will send the Comforter unto you there 's the ease of consolation i th' next verse to my Text if I go that confounds them with sorrow but presently I will come again and receive you unto my self that to chear them with unspeakable joy
the Earth A Dominion a Kingdome at the first in the beginning and a large one too but not permanent he held it but a while Man being in honour had no understanding Psal 49.12 to hold what God had given him to abide by it he was soon dispossest by his early sin soon vanquish'd out of this Dominion And therefore well was it with him that God had prepared another a better for him this place this Kingdome Paratum à Constitutione mundi from which he could not fall But how will this hold Paratum and Vado parare why as S. Austin Tract 68. in Jo. quotes that saying from the Prophet Deus fecit quae futura sunt 'T is no unusual phrase in holy Scripture when they speake of Gods actions which are infinite eternall as himselfe to whom all things are continually present which are and which were and which are to come Creavi faciam illud Isa 46.11 So Tremelius translates it as well as the Vulgat edition I have created and I will make it just as in these two Texts I have prepared a place for you and I will prepare it There is the like expression in the end of the two and twentieth Psalm The Heaven shall declare his righteousnesse unto a People that shall be borne whom the Lord hath made He hath already made them and yet they shall be borne in their succession to the end of the World as David does acknowledge of himselfe Psal 139. that before he was borne All his members were written in Gods Book when as yet there was none of them So this place was prepared as Christ is said to be slain ab origine mundi from the foundation of the World and yet he was slain after that by the promise of God The Serpent shall bruise his heele Gen. 3.15 He was slain in the faith of the Father before his incarnation he was slain in the sacrifices of the Law which were this Lamb sacramentally he was slain in his severall members Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Act. 9.4 He was slain in Abel The death of innocent Abel sayes Lyra was a Figure of the death of this Lamb And yet after all this he was still to be slain upon the Crosse So this place was prepared before in Gods eternall preordination and yet Christ goes now to prepare it by his Death and anon by his Resurrection and after that by his Ascension into Heaven By his Death he purchaseth it and payes the great price of our Redemption and opens the gates of Heaven to us The High Priest went into the Sanctum Sanctorum not without blood and this High Priest of ours by his owne blood must enter into the Holy place and so obtain eternall redemption for us Hebr. 9.12 so having conquered Death by his Resurrection he then ascends to take possession of this Place for us He is Praecursor pro nobis Hebr. 6. The forerunner is for us entred even Jesus vers 20. Initiavit nobis viam Novam in the tenth of that Epistle That New that hitherto untrodden way hath he consecrated for us and is entred into Heaven it selfe now to appear in the presence of God for us Heb. 9.24 That 's the last particular Vobis for you God whatsoever he doth he doth it for some end a wise man is not lightly so little master of his actions but he still propounds to himself some end in every of them now because the end intended must still be the most perfect good and all meaner ends must conduce to that last end that best good and because God in himself is summum bonum the greatest good that can be and so could not possibly advance his actions to any end better than himself therefore for himself hath he done all things whatsoever he hath done universa propter semetipsum Prov. 16.4 All things were created by him and for him Col. 1.16 for himself chiefly but not for himself wholly the first thing that he did for us 't was for himselfe too for his owne glory his owne glory is that finis ultimus the maine the utmost the principal end of all his actions and should be of ours his Election and Predestination of us before the faundation of the world 't was ad laudem gloriae To the praise of the glory of his grace Eph. 1.12 But there is a subordinate end too by which his actions tend to the last end and that 's the benefit of that creature which he made after his own image the good of man as in the first creation whatsoever he made was for man and therefore he made the world and all the other creatures before he made man that they might be ready for his use so in that great work of re-creation of redemption all that he did was for man the very birth of his son to begin there for that the song of the heavenly hoast was Gloria in excelsis Deo Glory to God in the highest but not a minims rest in it before they come to Peace on earth and good will towards men Luke 2.14 there 's the Prophet's natus nobis he was born for us Isa 9.6 his whole life it was chiefly honoro patrem Jo. 8.49 I seek not my own glory v. 50. but I honour my Father upon the man born blind John 9. ver 4. He must work the works of him that sent him and 't was ver 3. That the works of God should be made manifest in him and Lazarus sickness Jo. 11. that he might die and be raised again by him 't was pro gloria Dei v. 4. for the glory of God but both these actions of his were for both their good too and so was all the rest of his life spent in that imployment the good of man that one verse Mat. 4.23 is a short true abstract of it all He went about teaching and preaching and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people there 's his vixit nobis he lived for us too come to his death he humbled himself and became obedient there was the glory of his Father in his obedience he humbled himself to death that death should have no more dominion over him Ro. 6.9 that that last enemy death might be destroyed 1 Cor. 15.26 that through death he might destroy death and him that had the power of death that is the Divel Heb. 2.14 that death might be swallowed up in victory ver 54. There 's his victory his glory but pro nobis too Christ died for us Rom. 5.8 by his death are we reconciled to God ver 10. there is his mortuus pro nobis his resurrection next Christ was raised up from the dead Rom. 6.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paraeus some translate it and they may well the word bears it home In or propter gloriam for the glory of the Father and propter nostrum justificationem Rom. 4.25 He was delivered for our offences and raised again for our