3.3 Thou hadst a whores forehead thou refusedst to be ashamed they were not ashamed neither could they blush I answer 1 By distinguishing of shame which is sometimes taken for the inward affection and irksome passion of a sinner that hath cast any foule staine upon his conscience sometimes for the outward expression by dejection in the countenance faultring in the speech a cloud in the eye and flushing in the forehead and cheekes No sinner is without shame in the first sense though many by custome in sinne grow senselesse thereof and consequently shamelesse in the latter sense and in the end they come to that height of impudencie that they blush for it if they blush and are ashamed of their shamefacednesse pudet non esse impudentem But this hardinesse doth them no good at all for they doe but stop the mouth of the wound that it bleed not outwardly it bleedeth inwardly the faster and much more dangerously 2 A sinner may be considered either before or after his regeneration before his regeneration he committeth many sinnes whereof he is not then ashamed either because he accounteth them no sins or not such sinnes as may any wayes trench upon his reputation For though the dim light of corrupt nature discovereth some workes of darkenesse yet not all nor any in the right hiew As a man that is in the water feeleth not the weight of it so the sinner whilest he is in the state of corruption feeleth not the weight of sinne For he accounteth great sinnes small and small none at all but when he is out of that state then he feeleth the smallest sinne unrepented of as heavie as a talent of lead able to drowne his soule in eternall perdition as it followeth For the end For the end of these things is death That is the end of all these things By end here the Apostle meaneth not the finall cause moving the sinner but the finall effect of sinne for the sinner propoundeth to himselfe a divers end either gaine which the covetous man shooteth at or glorie which the ambitious or pleasure which the voluptuous but they misse their marke and in stead of gaine which the covetous man promised himselfe in his sinfull course of life in his returne by weeping crosse he findeth irrecoverable losses for what fruit had yee in stead of glorie and honour which the ambitious aimeth at shame and infamie whereof yee are now ashamed in stead of a pleasant temporall life which the voluptuous shot at a painefull and eternall death For the end of these things Is death Is death That is death temporall which is the sinners earnest as it were and death eternall which is his full hire and wages death corporall which is the separation of the soule from the body is hastened by sinne death spirituall which is the separation of the soule from God is sinne and death eternall in Scripture termed the second death which is the tormenting of body and soule for ever in the lake of fire and brimstone is the full reward of sinne and this death is here principally meant as may be gathered from the words ensuing my text but the gift of God is eternall life for that death which is opposed to eternall life can be no other than eternall death Obser The meaning of the text being thus cleared the speciall points of observation are easily discerned the first is That the smart of the wound of conscience for sinnes past is a speciall meanes through grace to keepe us from sinne to come Upon this the Apostle worketh in the words of my text What fruit had yee in those things whereof ye are now ashamed The burnt child doth not more dread the fire nor the scholar severely corrected beware the fault for which he smarted nor the Pilot keep off from the rock at which he formerly dashed his bark and hazzarded his life and goods nor the intemperate gallant tormented with an extreme fit of a burning feaver forbeare the pouring in of wine and strong drinkes which were the oyle that kindled and maintained the flame within his bowels than he that hath felt the sting of sinne in his conscience and beene formerly confounded with the shame thereof dreadeth and flieth and seeketh by all meanes to shunne those sinnes which have left so sad a remembrance behind them As some parts of our bodies are more sensible than others the sinewie parts more than the fleshly yet all that have life in them have some sense of paine so some consciences are more tender that feele the least pricke of sin some harder and more stupid and benummed like the u Solin c. 29. Matres Ursorum diebus primis 14. in â—omnum ita concidunt ut ne vulneribus pridem excitati queant Numidian Beares which scarce feele stripes or wounds yet all that have any life of grace in them or use of reason have some touch of conscience at some times which marreth all their mirth and overcasteth their faire weather with clouds of griefe powring downe showres of teares I know the wicked seeke to dissemble it like the man in Plutarch who having a foxe under his cloake never quatched though the beast bit through his sides and devoured his bowels The * Pro. 14.13 foole saith Solomon maketh a mocke of sinne but the heart knoweth the bitternesse of his soule for even in laughing the heart is sorrowfull and the end of that mirth is mourning I speake not of a melancholy dumpe but of an habituall and constant pensivenesse arising from the sting of sinne left in the soule No tongue can sufficiently expresse it onely the heart that feeleth it can conceive the nature of this griefe and smart of this paine which the lash of conscience imprinteth x Juven sat 13. Mens habet attonitos surdo verbere caedit Occulto quatiente animum tortore flagello Yet some sense wee may have of it by the similitudes whereby it is expressed It is called a y Act. 2.37 pricking of the heart and lest that wee should imagine it to bee as it were a pricke with a small pinne or needle it is called a wound in the heart My z Psal 109.22 heart was wounded within me O what paine must a wound in the heart needs be where the least prick is death Yet farther that wee might not thinke this wound might bee drawne together it is called the cutting asunder of the heart * Joel 2.13 Rent your hearts and not your garments yet farther that wee might not thinke any part of the heart to remaine entire it is called the a Psal 51.17 breaking of it into small pieces and b Psal 22.14 melting these also and can there bee any sorrow like unto this sorrow which pricketh the heart nay woundeth it being pricked nay rents it being wounded nay breaketh it being rent nay melteth it being broken This pricking wounding renting breaking melting the heart is nothing else
a threefold inconvenience of sinfull courses because they who pursue them reape no fruit from them sustaine much losse by them come to an evill end through them for the End The end is taken 1 Either physically 2 Or morally Either for the finall cause or for the finall effect Death is not the finall cause of sin but the finall effect for no man sinneth for death but dieth for sinne Others distinguish of ends which are 1 Intermediate as wealth honour or pleasure 2 Ultimate as happinesse Death say they is not the intermediate end but profit or delight but it is alwayes the ultimate end of sinne unrepented of A third sort make a difference betweene the end 1 Peccantis of the sinner that is the end which the sinner intendeth 2 Peccati of sinne that is the end to which sinne tendeth this distinction seemeth to mee coincident with the first Death say they is not the end of the sinner but of the sinne not the end which the sinner propoundeth to himselfe but the end which his sinne bringeth him unto Withall they acutely observe that the Apostle saith not the end of those men is death but the end Of those things By those things hee understandeth the state of the unregenerate or those sinnes which were rife among the Romanes and are reckoned up chap. 1. which may bee reduced to three heads 1 Impiety against God 2 Iniquity against their neighbours 3 Impurity against their owne body and soule yea and against nature also 1 Impiety with this hee brandeth them vers 21. 2 Iniquity with this hee chargeth them vers 29. 3 Impurity with this hee shameth them vers 24 27. Of those things the end is Death The second death say some for he that hath no part in the first resurrection hath his portion in the second death A double death saith Saint Ambrose à morte enim ad mortem transitur for a sinner from one death passeth to another Others more fully thus The end of those things is death 1 Of your estate by ruine of your fortunes 2 Of your good name by tainting your reputation 3 Of your body by separation from the soule 4 Of your soule by separation from God The most naturall interpretation and most agreeable to this place is That by continuing in a sinfull course all our life wee incurre the sentence penalty and torment of eternall death for that death is meant here which is opposed to eternall life Verse 23. which can bee no other than eternall Yea but is sinne in generall so strong a poyson that the least quantity of it bringeth death and that eternall are all sinnes mortall that is in their owne nature deserving eternall death It seemeth so for hee speaketh indefinitely and without any limitation and as before hee implyed all sinne to bee unfruitfull and shamefull so also now to bee deadly What fruit had ye in those things that is in any of those things whereof ye are now ashamed Now it is certain that the regenerate are ashamed of all sins therefore in like manner it followeth that the end of all sinnes is death For the Apostle here compareth the state of sinne and state of grace in generall and as hee exhorteth to all good workes so hee endevoureth to beat downe all sinne as unfruitfull shamefull and deadly See what will ensue hereupon first that there are no veniall sinnes secondly no pardons for them in purgatory thirdly no fee for pardons If all sinnes are mortall and which all Papists will they nill they must confesse no man is free from all sinne for t Jam. 3. ◠in many things wee offend all saith Saint James and u 1 Joh. 1.10 if we say that we have no sin wee deceive our selves saith Saint John what will become of their Romish doctrines concerning the possibility of fulfilling the law the merit of congruity or condignity and works of supererogation Si nulla peccata venialia nulla venalia if no sinnes are veniall then no sale to bee made of sinnes no utterance of pardons no use of the Church treasury no gold to bee got by the Monks new found Alchymy Yee will say this is but a flourish let us therefore come to the sharpe Mitte hebetes gladios pugnetur acutis The speech of Cornelius Celsus the Physitian is much commended by Bodine Nec aegrotorum morbi nec languentium vulnera dicendi luminibus curantur Soft words cure no wounds wee may say more truely soft words give no wounds and therefore are not for this service of truth against errour and heresie up in armes against her * Hom. Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hector truely told Paris that his golden harpe and purfled haire and beautifull painting would stand him in no stead in the x Sen. ep 51. In primo deficit pulvere ille unctus et nitidus field it is not the wrought scabbard but the strong blade nor the bright colour but the sharpe edge of it that helpeth in danger and hurteth the enemy In which regard I hold it fittest to handle schoole points scholastically in tearmes rather significant than elegant and labour more for force of argument than ornaments of speech First then after their plaine method I will explicate the state of the question next meet with the adversaries objections and last of all produce arguments for the truth and make them good against all contrary cavils and frivolous exceptions Sins may bee tearmed veniall or mortall two manner of wayes 1 Either comparatè in comparison of others 2 Or simplicitèr simply and in themselves and that three manner of wayes Either 1 Ex naturâsuâ of their owne nature 2 Ex gratiâ by favour or indulgence 3 Ex eventu in the issue or event Wee deny not but that sinnes may bee tearmed veniall comparatè that is more veniall than others and if not deserving favour and pardon yet lesse deserving punishment than others Secondly veniall ex eventu or in the issue wee acknowledge all the sinnes of the Elect to bee and some sinnes of the Reprobate also or veniall ex gratiâ that is by Gods favour and clemency all the question is whether any sinne of the Elect or Reprobate bee veniall ex suâ naturâ that is such as in its owne nature deserveth not the punishment of death but either no punishment at all or at least temporary onely The reformed Churches generally resolve that all sinnes in their owne nature are mortall the y Bellar. de amis grat stat pec c. 9. Qui dixerit fatue reus erit gehennae ignis ex his tale conficitur argumentum manifestum convitium facit reum gehennae ignis non item subita iracundia c. Romanists will have very many to be veniall Their allegations are chiefly these the first out of Matthew 5.22 Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment and whosoever shall say to his brother Racha shall bee in
but very soone fals from it For though no man take it from him death will quite strip him of it But the gifts of God are not such or like to the gifts of Princes For neither man nor time nor circumstances of actions nor reason of state nor the Divell himselfe nay nor death can deprive him of them or put him by them You see how the smoaking flaxe being blowne kindles the heat of our zeale and enflameth us on the purchasing the estate of grace by the price of Christs bloud Feele now I beseech you in the second place what warmth it yeeldeth to a benummed conscience and a soule frozen in the dregs of sinne That the bruised reed shall not bee broken nor smoaking flaxe be quenched is a doctrine of singular comfort and use yet must it be very discreetly handled and seasonably applyed to such and such onely as are heavie laden and bruised with the weight and sense of their sinne and through inward or outward affliction smoake for them and are as Arboreus speaketh extinctioni vicini neere to be utterly quenched through inundation of sorrow To tell a presumptuous sinner in the height of his pride and heat of his lust and top and top gallant of his vaine glory Rectus in Curiâ that he stands straight in the Court of heaven is in the state of grace and can never fall away from it or become a cast-away is to minister hot potions to a man in a burning fever which is the ready way to stifle him and as soone to rid him of his life as of his paine hot cordials and strong waters are to be given in a languishing fit and a cold sweat when the patient is in danger of swouning It is the part saith S. a Aug. de bono persev c. 22. Dolosi vel imperiti medici est etiam utile medicamentum sic alligare ut aut non prosit aut etiam obsit Austin of a deceitfull or unskilfull Physician or Chyrurgian to lay a wholsome salve or plaster so on that it doe no good nay rather that it doe hurt Having therefore made a most soveraign salve out of the words of my Text for the sores of a wounded conscience I am now to shew you how to use and when to apply it viz. in deliquio spiritus in a spirituall desertion or dereliction As wee sometimes feele in our bodies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deliquium animae a trance and utter failing of the vitall spirits so is there also in the soule of a faithfull Christian sometimes deliquium spiritus an utter fainting and failing in all the motions and operations of grace when God either to humble him that he be not proud of his favours or to make him more earnestly desire and highly esteeme the comforts of the Gospel withdraweth the spirit from him for a season during which time of spirituall desertion he lyeth as it were in a swoune feeling no motion of the spirit as it were the pulse-beating taking in no breath of life by hearing the Word nor letting it out by prayer and thanks-giving void of all sense of faith and life of hope ready every houre to give up the holy Ghost In this extremity we are to stay him with flagons comfort him with the apples in my Text and as his fit of despaire more more groweth on him in this sort and order to minister and give them unto him 1. When he lamenteth in the bitternesse of his soule after this manner There was a time when the face of God shined upon mee and I saw his blessing upon all that I set my hand unto but now he hath hid his face from mee and shut up his loving kindnesse in displeasure hee bloweth upon all the fruits of my labours and nothing prospereth with mee my estate decayes and my friends faile mee and afflictions and calamities come thicke upon me like a S. Bas de patientia conc 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Job 1.14 16 17 18. waves of the sea riding one on the neck of the other or like Jobs messengers one treading on the heeles of the other and the latter bringing still worse tidings than the former Apply thou this remedy Many * Psal 34.18 19. Matth 9.12 1 Tim. 1.15 are the troubles of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all he keepeth all his bones so that not one of them is broken 2. If hee goe on in his mournfull ditty saying I am farre from being righteous therefore this comfort belongeth not unto mee Apply thou this salve The whole need not the Physician but they that are sicke This is a faithfull saying and by all meanes worthy to bee received that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners Matth. 9.13 I am not come saith Christ to call the righteous but sinners to repentance 3. If hee reply Oh but I cannot repent for I am not able to master mine owne corruptions Vitiis meis impar sum I cannot shake off the sin that hangeth on so fast I am like one in the mudde who the more he struggleth with his feet to get out the deeper he sinketh and sticketh faster in the mire Apply this recipe Yet bee of good comfort because thou delightest in the Law of God touching the inward man thou strivest against all sinne and because thou canst not get the upper hand of some of thy bosome corruptions thy life is grievous unto thee Thou cryest with the holy Apostle Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver mee from this body of death Thou hungerest and thirstest after righteousnesse and Blessed are they which hunger and thirst for righteousnesse Matth. 5.6 for they shall be filled 4. If hee sinke deeper into the gulfe of desperation and say I feele no such hunger nor thirst in me Custome in sinne hath drawne a kall over my conscience and I am not now sensible of any incision Reach thy hand to him and support him with this comfort Bee of good cheare good brother for it is certaine thou hast some sense because thou art sensible of thy stupidity and mournest in thy prayers and art vexed for this thy dulnesse and blessed are they that mourne Matth. 5.4 for they shall be comforted 5. If he yet sinke deeper and lower crying Alas I cannot mourne my hard heart will not relent my flinty eyes will not yeeld a teare for my sins what hope then for me Answer him great as great as thy sorrow which is by so much the fuller because it hath no vent None grieveth more truly Hierom. Tom. 1. epist Mutus clinguis ne hoc quidem habens ut rogare possit hoc magis rogat quod rogare non potest than hee who grieveth because hee cannot grieve A man that is borne dumbe or hath his tongue cut out when hee maketh offer to speake moving his lips but is not able to bring forth a word beggeth
of the virgin conceived Christ quicke and accordingly brought him forth alive the wombe of the earth conceived him dead but brought him forth quicke uteri nova forma concepit mortuum parit vivum As we may behold the feature of a mans face either in the countenance it selfe or in a glasse set before it or in a picture drawne by it so wee may contemplate the resurrection either in the prophecies and types of the old law as in glasses or in the hystory of the new as it were in the face it selfe or in our spirituall resurrection from dead workes as in the picture A glasse sheweth the lineaments and proportion of a man but at a distance so wee may see Christ in the predictions visions and figures of the Old Testament as so many glasses but at a distance according to the words of that Seer c Num. 24.17 I shall see him but not neare So Hosea saw him insulting over death and hell and menacing them d Hos 13.14 O death I will bee thy death so Esay saw him risen from the dead and speaking to him sayd e Es 26.19 Thy dead shall live with my body shall they rise awake and sing ye that sit in dust So David in the Spirit saw the day of the resurrection and exceedingly rejoiced at it saying f Psal 16.9 my heart was glad my glory rejoyced my flesh also shall rest in hope For thou wilt not leave my soule in hell nor suffer thy holy One to see corruption So Adam saw him conquering death and triumphing over him that had the power of death to wit the Divell though more obscurely because at the farthest distance in the promise g Gen. 3.15 it shall breake thy head and thou shalt breake his heele the death and resurrection of Christ are mystically involved As the Poets fabled that Achilles after his Mother Thetis held him by the heele and dipt the rest of his body into the sea could bee hurt in no part but his heele so in a divine sense it may bee said of our Saviour that hee could be wounded by Sathan no where but in his heele that is in the lowest part of his humane nature his flesh This the serpent stung at his death but in his resurrection hee bruised the head thereof The Devill saith h Greg. Nyssen de resurrect ser 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nyssen in his sermon upon the resurrection going about to catch was caught for catching at the bait of Christs flesh hee was caught fast himselfe and wounded by the hooke of his divine nature Besides these predictions and promises wee have in the Old Testament the figure of our Lords resurrection in Adam a type in the scape goat a signe or embleme in Jonas and a vision in Ezekiel The figure may bee thus expounded As Adam rose out of his dead sleepe in which Eve was formed out of his ribbe so Christ after his slumber of death on the crosse in which his spouse the Church was formed out of his side as hath beene said awoke againe The type may bee thus exemplified as the scape-goate came neere to death being within the cast of a lot to it and yet avoiding it was presented alive to God to make an attonement so Christ who seemed to have beene conquered by death and swallowed up of the grave lying there three dayes and three nights yet escaped it and was presented on Easter day to his Father alive to make an attonement for all his brethren To the embleme of Jonas Christ himselfe giveth the word or Motto i Mat. 12.40 As Jonas was three dayes and three nights in the whales belly so shall the sonne of man be three dayes and three nights in the heart of the earth After three dayes Jonas came out of the bowels of the whale Christ out of the heart of the earth The vision of Ezekiel is so cleare that he that runneth may see in it a praeludium of the resurrection k Ezek 37.7 8 9 10. The Prophet saw in a valley a number of dry bones moving one to the other and suddenly they were tyed with sinewes and covered with flesh and the winde breathed into them the breath of life and they stood up like an army Wee have viewed the resurrection in the prophecies and figures of the Old Testament as so many severall glasses let us now contemplate it in the history of the New as it were in the face it selfe 1 Early in the morning while it was yet darke the Angel removed the stone that so Mary and the Apostles might looke into the sepulchre and unlesse the angell of the covenant remove the stone from our hearts wee can never looke into Christs sepulchre with an eye of faith nor undoubtedly beleeve the resurrection 2 Peter and John made hast to the sepulchre but they stayed not there Mary abideth there shee therefore seeth a vision of Angels the one standing at the head the other at the feet where Jesus had lyen either to signifie that the Angels of God attend as well on Christs feet the lowest members of his mysticall body as on his head that is the chiefest in the Church or that the angels smell a sweet savour from our workes of charity and therefore the one sate at the head the other at the feete where Mary had annointed our Lord. 3 A third Angell whereof mention is made in the Gospell of Saint l Mar. 16.5 Marke sitting on the right side appeared like a young man to signifie that in the resurrection our age shall bee renewed and our bodies shall bee in their full strenghth and vigor his rayment shined like lightning to represent the clarity and splendour of our bodies that after death shall be made conformable to Christs glorious body 4 Mary Magdalene hath the honour first to see our Saviour and to bee the first Preacher of the resurrection to the everlasting comfort of all true Penitents and as by the woman death came first so the first newes of life from death was brought by a woman 5 Till Christ called Mary by name shee knew him not but supposed him to have beene the Gardiner who indeed is the Planter of the celestiall Paradise neither can we know Christ till by a speciall and particular vocation hee make himselfe knowne to us 6 Christ appeared first to single witnesses as Mary apart and Peter apart and James apart then to double Cleophas and that other disciple afterwards to the eleven Apostles and last of all to more than 500. brethren at once If Maries testimony might bee excepted at because shee was but a woman what can they say to Saint Peter what to Saint James to whom Christ vouchsafed to shew himselfe in particular If they except against them as single witnesses what will they say to Cleophas and Saint Luke two contests of one and the selfe same apparition If their paucity be cavelled at what will they say to the
eleven Apostles or to more than five hundred brethren that saw him all at one time nay what to more than five millions of Confessors and Martyrs signing the truth of it with their blood and shewing the power of it as well by the wonders which they wrought in his name as the invincible patience wherewith they endured all sorts of torments and death it selfe for his name I might produce the testimony of Josephus the learned Jew and tell you of Paschasinus his holy Well that fils of his owne accord every Easter day and the annuall rising of certaine bodies of Martyrs in the sands of Egypt and likewise of a Phoenix in the dayes of Tyberius much about the time of our Lords resurrection rising out of her owne ashes m Lactant. in Poem Ipsa sibi proles suus pater suus haeres Nutrix ipsa sui semper alumna sibi Ipsa quidem sed non eadem quia ipsa nec ipsa Eternam vitam mortis adepta bono But because the authours of these relations and observations are not beyond exception I will rather conclude this point with an argument of Saint n De civit Dei l. 22. c. 5. Haec duo incredibilia scil resurrectionem nostri corporis rem â—am incredibilem mundum esse crediturum idem dominus antequam vel unum horuÌ„ fieret ambo futura esse praedixit unum duorum incredibilium jam factum videmus ut quod erat incredibile credeâ—et mundus curid quod reliquum est desperatur Austines to which our owne undoubted experience gives much strength The same Spirit of God saith hee which foretold the resurrection of Christ foretold also that the doctrine thereof should bee publickly professed and believed in the world and the one was altogether as unlikely as the other But the latter wee see in all ages since Christs death and at this day accomplished in the celebration of this feast why then should any man doubt of the former The Apostles saw the head living but not the mysticall body the Catholike Church of all places and ages We have read in the histories of all ages since Christ and at this day see the Catholike Church spread over the whole face of the earth which is Christs body how can wee then but believe the head to bee living which conveigheth life to all the members I have set before you the glasse of the resurrection in the figures of predictions of the Old Testament and the face it selfe in the history of the New may it please you now to cast a glance of your eye upon the Image or picture thereof in our rising from the death of sinne to the life of grace All Christs actions and passions as they are meritorious for us so they are some way exemplary unto us and as none can bee assured of the benefit of Christs birth unlesse hee bee borne againe by water and the Spirit nor of his death unlesse hee bee dead to sinne nor of his buriall unlesse hee have buried his old Adam so neither of his resurrection unlesse hee bee risen from dead workes and continually walketh in newnesse of life See you how the materiall colours in a glasse window when the sun-beames passe through it produce the like colours but lesse materiall and therefore called by the Philosophers intentionales spiritales on the next wall no otherwise doth the corporall resurrection of Christ produce in all true believers a representation thereof in their spirituall which Saint John calleth o Apoc. 20.5 the first resurrection Saint Paul p Heb. 6.1 repentance from dead workes Sinnes especially heinous and grievous proceeding from an evill habit are called dead workes and such sinners dead men because they are deprived of the life of God have no sense of true Religion they see not Gods workes they heare not his Word they savour not the things of God they feele no pricke of conscience they breath not out holy prayers to God nor move towards heaven in their desires but lye rotting in their owne filthinesse and corruption The causes which moved the Jewes so much to abhorre dead corpses ought to be more prevalent with us carefully to shunne and avoid those that are spiritually dead in sinnes and transgressions they were foure 1 Pollution 2 Horrour 3 Stench 4 Haunting with evill spirits 1 Pollution That which touched a dead corpse was by the law uncleane neither can any come nigh these men much lesse embrace them in their bosome without morall pollution and taking infection in their soules from them 2 Horrour Nothing so ghastly as the sight of a dead corpse the representation whereof oft-times in the Theater appalleth not onely the spectatours but also the actours and yet this sight is not so dreadfull to the carnall man as the sight of those that are spiritually dead I speake of foule notorious and scandalous offenders to them that feare God Saint John would not stay in the same bath with Cerinthus and certainely 't is a most fearefull thing to bee under the same roofe with blasphemous heretickes and profane persons who have no feare of God before their eyes 3 Stench The smell of a carkasse is not so offensive to the nostrils as the stench of gluttony drunkennesse and uncleannesse in which wicked men wallow is loathsome to God and all good men 4 Haunting with evil spirits We read in scriptures that the men that were possest of the divel came q Mat. 8.28 out of the tombs and graves and we find by dayly experience the like of these rather carkasses than men that the devill hankereth about them and entereth into their heart as he did into Judas filling them with all wickednesse and uncleannesse After they have exhausted their bodies with incontinency their estate with riotous living and have lost first their conscience and after their credit they fall into the deepest melancholy upon which Sathan works and puts them into desperate courses r Psal 73.19 O how suddenly doe they consume perish and come to a fearefull end Me thinkes I heare some say wee heard of places haunted by evill spirits in time of popery are there now any such not such as then were solitary houses ruined pallaces or Churches in which fearefull noyses are said to have beene heard and walking spirits to have beene met For at the thunder of the Gospell Sathan fell like lightning from heaven and hath left those his old holds but places of a contrary condition such where is the greatest concourse of people I meane profane Theaters disorderly Tavernes Ale-houses places of gaming and lewdnesse yea prisons also which were intended for the restraint of wickednesse and punishment of vice are made refuges of Malefactors and schooles of all impiety and wickednesse Quis custodes custodiet ipsos As in the hot sands of Africa where wilde beasts of divers sorts meet to drinke strange monsters are begotten which gave occasion to that proverbe Å¿ Eras
tender the life of your bodies and soules hearken to a word of exhortation Taste not the least drop of the poyson of sinne for though it put you not to so great torment and be not so present death yet deadly it is and without repentance and saving grace will kill your soules Destroy the Cockatrice in the shell breake the smallest seeds of sinne in your soule as the Emmet biteth the seeds which she layeth up for her selfe that they may not grow againe in the earth Parvulos Babylonis allidite ad petram in quâ serpentis vestigia non reperiuntur Dash the Babylonish babes against that rocke into which no serpent can enter I know not how it commeth to passe that as in nature we see the Adamant which nothing relenteth at the stroake of the hammer is dissolved with the warme bloud of a Goate the Elephant which no great beast dare encounter is killed by a small Mouse creeping in at his truncke and eating his braines and the Lions in Mesopotamia are so pestered with a kind of Gnat flying into their eyes that to be rid of the paine they sometimes teare them out with their clawes and sometimes drowne themselves so the strongest Christians are often over-taken with the least temptations and conquered with a reed nay with a bull-rush To forbeare more examples David was taken by a look only Peter affrighted by the speech of a Damsell Alipius was overthrowne by a shout in the Theater The breach of the Commandement in lesse things even because they are lesse and so might more easily be avoided maketh the disobedience the greater and all sinne is the more dangerous by how much the lesse it is feared Saint Austine maketh mention of certaine flies in Africa so small that they can scarce be discerned from moates in the ayre Quae tamen cum insederint corpori acerbissimo fodiunt aculeo which yet are armed with a most venemous sting those little sins that are so small that we can scarce discerne them to be sinnes are like those Cynifes Saint Austine speaketh of they pricke the conscience with a most venemous sting Now if the sting of these small Flies put the conscience to such paine and affect it with such anguish who will be able to endure the teeth of the Adder or the taile of the Scorpion If whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the Judgement and whosoever shall say unto his brother Racha shall be in danger of the Councell and whosoever shall say Thou foole shall be in danger of hell fire what punishment is he like to endure who beareth malice in his heart against his brother envieth his prosperity undermineth his estate woundeth his good name nay spilleth his bloud this is a crimson sinne and mortall in a double sense not onely because it slayeth the soule but also because it killeth the body If we shall give an account at the day of judgement for every idle word what answer shall we make for irreligious and blasphemous words for calumnious and detractious speeches for uncharitable and unchristian censures for false witnesse for oathes for perjury I am loth harder to rub on the sores and galls of your consciences and leave them raw therefore my conclusion shall be the application of a plaister unto them which will certainly heale them That which our Saviour after his resurrection promised to those that should beleeve on his Name that if they z Mar. 16.18 dranke any deadly thing it should not hurt them was performed according to the letter to the Disciples in the first ages but in the spirituall sense to all of us at this day If we have drunke any deadly poyson of sinne as who hath not yet through repentance and faith in Christs bloud it shall not hurt us The nature of poyson is to work upon the bloud and to venome that humour but contrariwise the bloud of our Saviour worketh upon the poyson of sinne and killeth the venemous malignity thereof Though the most veniall sins in mens esteeme are mortall in their owne nature yet the most mortall are made veniall by grace No sin mortall but to the reprobate and infidell no sinne veniall but to the elect and faithfull nay no sinne but mortall to the reprobate and infidell no sinne but veniall to the faithfull and penitent Nothing deadly to Gods chosen nay not death it selfe For the sting thereof is plucked out by Christ O death a 1 Cor. 15.57 where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Thanks be unto God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be unto thee O b Hieron epit Nepot Gratias tibi Christe Salvator nos tua agimus creatura quòd tam potentem adversarium dum occideris occidisti Saviour who hast given death his deaths wound by thy death Beloved Christians so many sins as we have committed so many deaths eternall wee have deserved from so many deaths Christ hath delivered us and therefore so many lives if we had them we owe unto him and shall we not willingly render him this one for which hee will give us immortality blisse and glory in heaven with himselfe Cui c. THE GALL OF ASPES OR THE PANGS OF THE SECOND DEATH THE XLV SERMON ROM 6.21 For the end of those things it death Right Honourable c. I Hope time hath not razed those characters out of your memory which I borrowed from time it selfe to imprint my observations upon this Text in your mind Sinne as yee have heard may be considered in a reference to a three-fold time 1. Past 2. Present 3. Future In relation to the first it is unfruitfull to the second shamefull to the third pernicious and deadly The unfruitfulnesse of sinne cannot but worke upon all that have regard to their estate in this world the shamefulnesse of sinne cannot but touch neere and affect deeply all that stand upon their reputation and good name but the deadlinesse or pernicious nature thereof cannot but prevaile with all to beware of it that tender their life here or immortality hereafter If sinne be unfruitfull have no fellowship with the workes of darknesse but reprove them rather If sinne be shamefull hate even the garments spotted by the flesh let not such things be named among you much lesse practised which cast a blurre upon your good name and fame among the Saints of God If sinne be pernicious and deadly flye from it as from a Serpent taste not the wine of Sodome nor presse the grapes of Gomorrah for their wine is the bloud of the Dragon a Job 20.14 and the gall of Aspes which we know is present death The end of those things That is all the pompe and vanity of this world the lusts of the flesh the lusts of the eye the pride of life all sinfull pleasures wherewith yee surfeit your senses shall have an end and this end is death and this death
shall have no end This is the last and most forcible argument of the three wherewith the Apostle laboureth with might and maine to beat downe sinne and put to flight even whole armies of temptations Yee may observe a perfect gradation in the arguments the first though strong and forcible drawne from the unfruitfulnesse of sinne is not so necessary and constraining as the second drawne from the shame and infamy thereof nor that as the third drawn from the wages thereof which is everlasting death As honour and glory is to be more set by than gaine and commodity life than honour immortality than life so shame and infamy is worse than losse and disadvantage death than shame hell than death The holy Apostle hath now made three offers unto us and put us to a three-fold choice First he laid before us the faire fruits of Paradise to bee gathered from the tree of life and corrupt rotten fruit from the forbidden tree that is invaluable treasures to be got and inestimable profit to be made by godlinesse and irrecoverable losses to be sustained by ungodly and sinfull courses of thriving Secondly he tendered unto you glory and honour to be purchased by the service of God as on the contrary shame and infamy by retaining upon Sathan and pursuing sinfull pleasures Now in the third place hee setteth before you life and death life by the gift of God and death for the hire of sinne Shall I need to exhort you in the words of b Deut. 30.19 Moses Chuse life how can ye doe otherwise Is the flesh appalled at the death of the body though the paine thereof endure but for a moment and shall not the spirit be much more affrighted at the death of the soule the pangs and paines whereof never have an end If there be any so retchlesse and carelesse of his estate that hee passeth not for great and irrecoverable dammages and losses so foolish that hee esteemes not of inestimable treasures if any be so infamous that he hath no credit to lose or so armed with proofe of impudency that hee can receive no wound from shame yet I am sure there is none that liveth who is not in some feare of death especially a tormenting death and that of the soule and that which striketh all dead everlasting Therefore it is as I conceive that the Apostle according to the precept of Rhetoricians c Cic. de orat l. 2. Puncta caeterorum argumentorum occulit coucheth as it were and hideth the points of other arguments but thrusteth out this putting upon it the signe and marke of a reason For. For the end of those things is death And this hee doth for good reason because this last argument is worth all the former and enforceth them all it not only sharpneth the point of them but draweth them up to the head at the sinner For therefore are lewd and wicked courses unprofitable therefore we may be ashamed of them because their end is so bad For the end Why doth the Apostle skip over the middle and come presently to the end why layeth hee the whole force of his argument upon the end 1. Because there is nothing in sinne upon which wee may build or have any assurance thereof but the end as there is nothing certaine of this our present life but the incertainty thereof Sin somtimes hath no middle as wee see in those fearfull examples of Corah Dathan and Abiram who had no sooner opened their mouths against Moses but the earth opened her mouth to swallow them up quicke of Achan who had no sooner devoured the accursed thing but it was drawne out of his belly with bowels heart and all of Herod who had no sooner heard the people cry The voice of God and not of man but hee felt himselfe a worme and no man of Zimri and Cozbi who had no sooner received the dart of lust in their heart than they felt a javelin in their bodies of Ananias and Sapphira who no sooner kept backe part of the price for which they sold their possessions but death seized upon them and they gave up the ghost and of many others whose deaths wounds yet bleed afresh in sacred and profane stories 2 Because there is nothing permanent of sinne but the end the duration if it have any is very short like to that of Jonahs gourd d Jonah 3.7 which rose up in a night and was eaten up with a worme in the morning 3 Because nothing is so much to bee regarded in any thing as the end for fines principia actionum the end setteth the efficient on worke and all is well that endeth well as wee say in the Proverbe e Deut. 32.29 O that they were wise saith God by Moses then they would consider their latter end If wee invert the speech it will bee as true O that men would consider their latter end and then they would be wise For assuredly he that in his serious contemplation beginneth at the end of sinne in his practise will end at the beginning To consider the end of sinne is to take a survey of all the miseries and calamities incident to intelligent natures of all the plagues that light upon the bodies and soules and estates of impenitent sinners in this life with a fearfull expectation of hellish torments then a violent separation of the soule from the body which is no sooner made but the soule is presented before the dreadfull Judge of quicke and dead arraigned condemned and immediately upon sentence haled and dragged by ugly fiends to the darke and lothsome dungeon of hell there in all extremity of paines and tortures without any ease or mitigation to continue till the generall day of the worlds doom when meeting again with the body her companion in all filthinesse iniquity and ungodlinesse they are both summoned to the last judgement where all their open and secret sinnes are laid open to the view of men and Angels to their inexpressible and astonishable confusion after conviction the sentence at which not the eares onely shall tingle the teeth chatter the knees smite one the other but the heart also melt the sentence I say of eternall damnation shall bee pronounced in their hearing f Mat. 25.41 Goe ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Divell and his Angels A most heavie sentence never to bee recalled and presently to bee put in execution the Devill with reviling and insultation carrying them with all their wicked friends and associates to the place of endlesse torments to endure the full wrath of God and the paines of everlasting fire O what will it bee to feele the second death which it is death to thinke or speake of who can read the description thereof in Saint g De vit contemp l. 3. c. 12. Fieri patriae coelestis extorrem mori vitae beatae morti vivere sempiternae in aeternum cum diabolo expelli ubi sit mors secunda damnatis
exilium vita supplicium non sentire in illo igne quod illuminat sentire quod cruciat inefficacis poenitentiae igne exuri consumentis conscientiae verme immortaliter rodi inundantis incendii terribiles crepitus pati barathri fumantis amarâ caligine oculos obscurari profundo gehennae fluctuantis mergi Prosper with dry eyes To bee banished for ever from our celestiall countrey to bee dead to all joy and happinesse and to live to eternall death for ever to bee cast out with the Divell thither where the second death serveth for a banishment to the damned and life for a torment there to feele in that unquenchable fire the torment of heat and not receive any comfort of light to bee cruciated with heart burning sorrow and uneffectuall repentance to bee gnawne with the immortall worme of conscience to frye perpetually in crackling flames to have their eyes put out with the smoake of the river of brimstone to be drowned floating in the bottome of hell The end c. Understanding by end the finall effect not the finall cause of sinne by those things all those things hee spake of before and by death that death which is opposed to eternall life each of these words Finis Horum Mors yeeldeth a most wholesome and fruitfull observation 1 That all sinfull courses and wayes have an end Finis 2 That all sins are mortall of which before Horum 3 That eternall death of body and soule in hell is the wages which the impenitent and obstinate sinner shall receive to the uttermost farthing Mors. That all sinfull pleasures and delights have an end no man can doubt for they cannot survive our life here our life often surviveth them and what is our life but h Pind. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fumi umbra the shadow of smoake or dreame of a shadow that is lesse than nothing Seneca out of his owne experience found honour to bee of the nature of glasse quae cum splendet frangitur which when it most glowes and glisteneth in the furnace suddenly cracketh and pleasure to bee like a sparke quae cum accenditur extinguitur which is quenched in the kindling And surely all comforts and contentments of worldly men are like bubbles of soap blowne by children out of a wallnut-shell into the ayre which flye a little while and by the reflection of the sun beams make a glorious shew but with a small puffe of winde are broken and dissolved to nothing But alas it is not so with the paine of sin as it is with the pleasure that is as lasting as the other is durelesse Leve momentaneum est quod delectat aeternum est quod cruciat The delight of sinne is for a moment but the torment remaineth for ever Who will be content to fast all the weeke for one good meales meat to lye in prison all the dayes of his life for one houres liberty and jollity These similitudes fall short and reach not home to the representing of the sinners folly who for swimming an houre in the bath of pleasure incurreth the danger of boyling for ever in a river of brimstone and torrent of fire Momentaneum est quod delectat aeternum est quod cruciat Those things whereof yee are ashamed have an end and how soone yee know not but the death which is the end of them hath no end and this wee know That wee may more fully understand what is meant by this end wee are to take notice of a double death The first commonly called death temporall The second which is death eternall h Aug. de Civ Dei l. 21. Prima mors animam nolentem pellit de corpore secunda mors animam nolentem tenet in corpore Idem de Civ Dei l. 13. Prima mors bonis bona est malis mala secunda ut nullorum bonorum est ita nulli bona The first death driveth the soule out of the body being unwilling to part with it the second death keepeth the soule against her will in the body the first death is the separation of the soule from the body the second death is the separation of body and soule from God and by how much God is more excellent than the soule by so much the second death is worse than the first The first death is good to good men because it endeth their sorrowes and beginneth their joyes but evill to evill men because it ends their joyes and beginneth their everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth the second at it belongeth to none that are good so it is good to none Both of these doubtlesse are due to sinne and shall bee paid at their day the sentence pronounced against Adam morte morieris by the reduplication of the word seemeth to imply as much as thou shalt dye againe and againe the first and second death the first death is as the earnest-penny the second as the whole hire both make up the wages of sinne the first is like the splitting of the ship and casting away all the goods and wares the latter as the burning both with unquenchable fire In this death which is the destruction of nature that Maxime of Philosophy holdeth not Omnis corruptio est in instanti for here is corruption in time nay which is more strange and to the reason of the naturall man involveth contradiction Corruptio aeterna mors immortalis an eternall corruption and an immortall death i Aug. loc sup Nemo hic propriè moriens seu in morte dicitur sed ante morté aut post mortem id est viventes aut mortui ibi è contrariò non erunt homines ante mortem aut post mortem sed sine fine morientes nunquam pejus erit homini in morte quam ubi erit mors ipsa sine morte In this life men cannot properly bee said to bee dying or in death but alive or dead for whilest the soule remaineth in the body wee are living and after the separation thereof wee are dead whereas they that are in hell cannot bee said properly to bee dead because they are most sensible of pain nor to be alive because they suffer the punishment of the second death but continually dying and never shall it be worse with man in death than where death it selfe is without death where life perpetually dyeth and death perpetually liveth Saint k Greg. l. 9. moral c. 45. Gregory sweetly quavereth upon this sad note Mors sine morte finis sine fine defectus fine defectu quia mors vivit finis incipit deficere nescit defectus The death of the damned is a deathlesse death an endlesse end and undefcizible defect for their death alwayes liveth and their end beginneth and their consumption lasteth And that this death is meant in my text either only or especially the correspondencie of this member to that which followeth but the gift of God is eternall life maketh it manifest Yet for further confirmation
serious lesson of the vanity of earthly delights worldly comforts we reade in many Texts of Scriptures heare in divers Sermons see in daily spectacles of men troubled in mind at their death yet we never thoroughly apprehend it till Gods rod hath imprinted it in our bodies and soules then finding by our wofull experience that earthly felicity is nothing but misery masked in gaudy shewes and that all the wealth of the world together with all carnall delights cannot ease a burthened conscience nor abate any whit of our paine we begin to distaste them all we grow out of love with this life and entertaine death in our most serious thoughts Here the eye of faith enlightened by divine revelation seeth beyond death the celestiall Paradise in it a chrystall ſ Apoc. 22.1 2. river of the water of life by it a tree of life which beares twelve sorts of fruits and besides these a heavenly City shining with t Apoc. 21.18 19. streets of gold and foundations of pearle and precious stones the sight wherof leaveth an unspeakable delight in the soule which sweetneth all temporall afflictions and stirreth up in us an unspeakable desire of those solid comforts and substantiall joyes u Ramus in orat Heliogabalus was wont to set before his parasites a banquet painted on cloth or carved in wood or cut in stone and whatsoever hee fed upon in truth they had drawne before them in pictures and images such are the joyes and delights which the Divell the World presenteth unto us false shadowie vaine The true are to be found no where but in heaven where those joyes are in substance which we have here but in shadowes x Aug. confes l. 2. c. 5. Fornicatur anima quae avertitur abs te quaerit extra te ea quae pura liquida non invenit nisi cùm redit ad te pure which we have here polluted full which we have here empty sincere which wee have here mixt perpetually flourishing which we have here continually fading to these substantiall full pure sincere everlasting joyes God bring us for his Son Jesus Christ his sake Cui c. THE NURTURE OF CHILDREN THE XLVII SERMON APOC. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten Right Honourable c. THat which Pliny writeth and experience confirmeth concerning hony-combes that the thinner and weaker hony runs out of them at the first but the thickest and best is pressed squeezed out of them at the last we find for the most part in handling Texts of holy Scripture compared by the Prophet a Psal 19.10 David to hony-combs the easier more vulgar observations flow out of them upon the lightest touch but we are to presse each phrase and circumstance before we can get out the thickest hony the choicest and most usefull doctrines of inspired wisedome The more we sucke these combes the more we may the hony proveth the sweeter the combe the moister and which is nothing lesse to be admired the spirituall taste is no way cloyed therewith Wherefore with your good liking and approbation I will presse again and againe these mellifluous combes in our Saviours lips dropping celestiall doctrine sweeter than hony to delight the most distempered taste and sharper than it to cleanse the most putrefied sore I rebuke and chasten there is the sharpnesse and as it were the searching vertue of hony As many as I love there is the sweetnesse Parallel Texts of Scripture like glasses set one against another cast a mutuall light such is this Text and that Deut. 8.5 Thou shalt also consider in thy heart that as a man chasteneth his sonne so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee and Job 5.17 Despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty and Prov. 3.11 12. My sonne despise not the chastening of the Lord neither bee weary of his correction for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a father doth the sonne in whom he delighteth and Hebr. 12.7 If yee endure chastening God dealeth with you as with sonnes for what sonne is he whom the father chasteneth not As a Musician often toucheth upon the sweetest note in his song Paven or Galliard so doth the holy Spirit upon this and therefore we ought more especially to listen to it For 1. It convinceth the Papists who over-value crosses and afflictions accounting the bearing of them satisfactions for sinnes For with a like pride whereby they cry up their actions to be meritorious they would improve their passions to be workes satisfactory by satisfactory intending such as make amends unto the justice of God wherein they as much over-reach as they supererogate or rather superarrogate in the former Satisfactions to our brethren for wrongs done unto them by restitution mulct or acknowledgement of our fault with asking forgivenesse for it we both teach and practise but they shall never be able to satisfie us in this point that any thing they can doe or suffer can satisfie God Neither can our actions satisfie his law nor our penall sufferings his justice none can satisfie for sinne but he that was without sinne nothing can recompence an infinite transgression but an infinite submission or to speake more properly the submission and passion of him that was infinite It cost more to redeem sinnes than the world is worth and therefore they must let that alone for him who f Esay 63.3 trod the wine-presse alone Before I noted the difference between chastisement and punishment in the one a compensation of wrong done to the person or law is intended in the other a testifying of love and a care of amendment of the party chastened Who would ever be so unreasonable as to thinke that a few stripes given by a tender-hearted father to the childe whom he most dearly affecteth were a satisfaction for the losse of a Diamond of great price yet our sufferings hold not such a proportion For what are our finite and momentary sufferings to the offence given to an infinite Majesty Nothing can be set in the other scale against it to weigh it downe but the manifold sufferings of an equall and infinite person the eternall Sonne of God Neither will it help our adversaries any whit to say that Christ satisfied for the eternall but not for the temporall punishment of our sinnes For this is all one as to say that our Redeemer laid downe a talent of gold for us yet not a brasse token or payd many millions of pounds yet not a piece The Apostle said hee gave himselfe a g 1 Tim. 2.6 ransome for all will they deny it to be a sufficient one or was there any defect in his good intention They have not rubbed their foreheads so hard as to affirme any such thing Well then let them tell us how that man is perfectly ransomed by another who is still kept in prison till he have discharged part of his ransome himselfe This very conceit that they merit by
have read what S. Austine writeth touching these points to c Epist 105 lib. 1. ad simpl q. 2. Sixtus Prosper to Vincentius Falgentius to Monimus what the 4. Councels held at Arles Arausica Valentia Mentz decreed against or for Godescalcus what d Aquin. 1. q. 22. art 3. Aquinas Bonaventure Ariminensis Basolis Biel Banes Capreolus and Mediovillanus and the Dominicans resolve on the one side and what f Loc supr cit Potest dici dari reprobationis causam non quae producat reprobationem activè in Deo quia tum Deus esset passurus sed propter quam actio terminetur ad istud objectum c. Scotus Argentinensis Herveus Occham Cumel Molina e In 1. sent dist 41. and the Franciscans generally on the other side and lastly what the Remonstrants Contra-remonstrants in our age have published one against the other to the worlds view yet I professe I find many thorny difficulties which cannot be plucked out but with that strong hand of the Apostle O g Rom. 9.20 21. man who art thou that disputest with God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made mee thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour When all mankind in Adam lay in the snares of death in which they intangled themselves to have left all in that woefull plight had been justice without mercy to have plucked all out had been mercy without justice but to draw out some and leave others in that doome which all had deserved declareth both the divine attributes of justice and mercy justice eternally shining in the deserved flames of the damned and mercy in the undeserved crownes of the elect But why more are not ordained to be saved than to be damned why of children yet unborne one should bee loved and another hated why the Infidels child sometimes comes to baptisme and the seed of the faithfull dyeth without it why Christ wrought not those i Mat. 11.20 miracles in Tyrus and Sidon which he did in Capernaum sith he knew they would have brought those Heathens to repentance in sackcloth and ashes whereas they took no good effect with the Capernaits why St. k Act. 16.6 7. Paul was forbid to preach in some places where they found no opposition in the people and commanded to preach in other places where the people shewed themselves l Act. 13.46 unworthy the means of salvation why it is given to some to know the m Mat. 11.25 13.11 mysteries of Christs Kingdome and they are hid from others why God is n Rom. 10.20 found of some who seeke him not and not found of others who seek him with teares why some of most harmlesse and innocent carriage yet live and dye in those places where they never can heare of any tidings of the Gospel others who have given scope to their vicious desires and for many yeeres continued in a most abominable estate of life defiling their mouthes with blasphemy their hands with theft and murder their whole body with uncleannesse yet before their death have the Gospel preached unto them and their hearts opened to give heed unto it and they sealed to the day of redemption I professe with Saint o Amb. l. de vocat gent. c. 5. Cur illorum sit misertus non horum quae scientia potest comprehendere liberatur pars hominum parte pereunte si hoc voluntatis meritis velimus ascribere resistet innumerabilium causa populorum Ambrose Latet discretionis ratio non latet ipsa discretio this difference which God maketh of men is apparent but the reason thereof is not apparent I confesse with S. * Qui in factis Dei rationem non invenit in infirmitate suâ rationem invenit quare rationem non inveniat Gregory he that findeth not a reason of the actions of God finds a reason in his owne infirmity why he cannot find it I resolve with Saint p Aug. de verb. Dom. serm 20. Quaeras tu rationem ego expavescam altitudinem tu ratiocinare ego credam Aug. ep 105. ad Sixt. Cur illum potiùs quà m illum liberet aut non liberet scrutetur qui potest judiciorum ejus tam magnum profundum veruntamen caveat praecipitium Et l. ad Simpl. q. 2. Si quia praesciebat opera Esaui mala proptereà praedestinavit ut serviret minori proptereà scil quia praescivit ejus opera bona praedestinavit Jacob ut ei maâ—or serviret c. Austine Seeke thou a reason I will tremble at the depth of Gods councels dispute thou I will beleeve I see depth I find no bottome Doest thou O man looke for a reason of mee I am a man as well as thou therefore let us both give eare to him who saith O homo O man what art thou who standeth upon termes with thy Maker and holdeth out argument against him If ever that censure of the Poet fell justly upon any Nae q Terent. in Andria intelligendo faciunt ut nihil intelligant they understand themselves out of their wits it most deservedly lighteth on those in our age who cast all Gods workes in the mould of their owne braine and take upon them to yeeld a reason of his eternall counsels as if they had been his r Rom. 11.33 34. counsellers who search into the unsearchable judgements of God and will seem to find those wayes which are past finding out r Rom. 11.33 34. O the deph of the riches both of the wisedome and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out Who hath knowne the mind of the Lord or who hath been his counseller These men resemble those that unskilfully handle knots of wier strings who by taking the wrong end the more they labour to untwist them the more they tangle them and in the end are forced to cast them away as unserviceable for their instruments wherefore leaving their curious speculations upon my Text I come to a briefe application 1. Doth God take no pleasure in the death of the wicked that daily transgresse his Law grievously provoke his wrath ungraciously abuse his mercy and sleightly regard his judgements Doth hee use all good meanes to reclaime them and save them from wrath to come Is the life of every man so precious in his eyes Doth he esteem of it as a rich jewell engraven with his owne image how carefull then and chary ought we to be who are put in trust with it locked up in the casket of our body that we lose it not by carelesse negligence much lesse expose it for a prey to others by duels either sending or accepting challenges Doe we set such an invaluable jewell as is the life of our bodies and soules at so low a rate that we will put it to the hazzard as it were
perishing because they were not predestinated but therefore were not predestinated because they were foreknowne that they would be such by voluntary prevarication g Fulgent l. 1. ad Mon. Iniquos quos praescivit Deus hanc vitam in peccato terminaturos decrevit supplicio interminabili puniendos illos ad supplicium praedestinavit quos à se praescivit vitio malae voluntatis discessuros peccata hominum Deus praescivit quib sententiā praedestinatione dictavit Fulgentius Those unjust men whom God foresaw that they would end their life in sin hee decreed to punish in endlesse torments And againe hee predestinated them to punishment who he foresaw would depart from him by the fault of their evill will And againe God foresaw the sinnes of men against which hee pronounced a sentence in his decree of predestination And the Fathers in the Synode held at h Valent. can 2. Nec ipsos malos ideò perire quia boni esse non potuerunt sed quia boni esse noluerunt suoque vitio in massâ damnationis vel merito originali vel etiam actuali permanserunt Valentia The wicked perish not because they could not but because they would not bee good remaining in the masse of corruption by their owne fault originall or also actuall As likewise in the i Concil Arelat 3. Lucidi habetur confessio his verbis Profiteor aeternales flammas factis capitalibus praeparatas Synod at Arles 3. That hee no way desireth nor decreeth nor so much as permitteth the death of any of his Elect though before their calling to the knowledge of the truth and sometimes after also they so grievously transgresse his holy lawes that they may bee numbred at least for the time among the wicked For how farre soever they goe in the wayes of wickednesse they will turne at the last and if a sinner turne from his wayes even at the brinke of destruction and gate of hell hee shall live for Have I any desire at all that the wicked should die saith the Lord God and not that hee should Returne There are many turnings in the life of a Christian The first turning or conversion is by a sanctified phrase called regeneration whereby wee are mortified in the flesh but renewed in the spirit of our minde wee cast off the old man and put on the new All after conversions are but so many particular acts of repentance and returnes from those courses which wee ordinarily fall into and follow if Gods preventing grace stop not the motions of our corrupt nature This first conversion is as it were a generall purgation of all the peccant humors of our soul is of that force that it changeth and altereth our temper and complexion After this all other aversions from sinne and returnes to God are but like speciall purgations prescribed by the Physitian of our soules to bee taken upon speciall occasion for the curing of some particular malady In the first non agimus sed agimur wee worke not but are wrought upon being as the reformed Divines speake meer passive in the other acti agimus being wrought upon wee worke like the wheeles in the vision of Ezekiel being moved by the spirit we move to God-ward At our first conversion the Scripture compareth us to dead men that are not able to stirre any joint but in all later conversions after God hat breathed into us the spirit of regeneration to sicke or weake men lying upon their bed that are able to turne themselves with some helpe This distinction of conversions is not new coyned by us but beareth the stampe of ancient truth and is current in the Scriptures in which wheresoever the faithfull speake thus to God Turne us and wee shall bee turned they aime at the first conversion but where God thus speaketh to his people Turne yee unto mee or turne from your wicked wayes we are to understand such texts of later conversions From his wayes Not from the wayes of God and pathes of righteousnesse but his owne wayes that is such courses as hee hath taken beside and against the direction of Gods Spirit More particularly thus Have I not a desire that the ambitious should leave his inordinate pursuit of honour the covetous of gaine the voluptuous of pleasure and all of vanity and that they should turne to mee with their whole heart with a perfect hatred of their former wickednesse and full and constant purpose of amendment and so Live That is escape eternall death the due wages of sinne and attaine everlasting life the undue reward of righteousnesse If the feare of hellish torments cannot make a separation betweene us and our beloved sinnes nor hope of heavenly joyes winne us unto God it will bee to small purpose to goe about to scare any with temporall plagues threatened in Gods law against sinne or pricke them with the sting of conscience or confound them with shame or amplifie upon the losses of spirituall graces which can never bee recovered but by speedy and hearty repentance The Spye of nature in his booke of the length and shortnesse of life demonstrateth naturall heat and radicall moisture to bee the sole preservers and maintainers of life and the store of both in due proportion to bee the cause of longer life As life is compared in Scripture so it is resembled in sculpture to a light or lampe burning the fire which kindleth the flame of this lampe is naturall heat and the oyle which feedeth it is radicall moisture without flame there is no light without oyle to maintaine it no flame in like manner if either naturall heat or radicall moisture faile life cannot last and as in a lampe if by reason of the thicknesse of the weeke the flame be too great it oversoon sucketh up the oyle if the oyle be poured in in too great abundance it choaketh the light so in us if naturall heat or radicall moisture exceed measure or proportion the lampe of our life burneth dimly and in a short space is extinguished Answerable to the naturall life in the body is the spirituall life of grace in the soule for as that is preserved calido humido by heat and moisture so is this also by the heat of love or zeale of devotion and the moisture of penitent teares Teares are the oyle which feed this flame for when wee pricke deepe the tenderest veines in our heart with remembrance of our manifold and grievous transgressions whereby wee have dishonoured God our Father displeased Christ our Redeemer and grieved the Spirit of grace our Comforter when wee take kindly to heart how that the better God hath beene unto us the worse wee have proved unto him the more grace hath abounded the more sinne hath super abounded when our hearts melt with these considerations and our eyes resolve into showres of teares then we perceive that as salt water cast into fire increaseth the heat so the salt water of our teares inflameth our devotion
many jewells I make no doubt but that you will resolve with the Apostle to desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified Let Israel hope in the Lord saith the b Psal 130 7. Psalmist for with the Lord there is mecrcy and with him is plenteous redemption Plenteous for what store of bloud shed he in his agony in his crowning with thornes in his whipping in his nailing and lastly in the piercing of his side whereas one drop of his bloud in regard of the infinite dignity of his person might have served for the ransome of many worlds one drop of his bloud was more worth than all the precious things in the world As Pliny writeth of the herbe c Plin. l. 22. c. 15. Scorpius herba vâ—let adversus animal sui nominis Scorpius that it is a remedy against the poyson of a Scorpion so Christs death and crosse is a soveraigne remedy against all manner of deaths and crosses For all such crosses make a true beleever conformable to his Redeemers image and every conformity to him is a perfection and every such perfection shall adde a jewell to his crown of glory This death of Christ so precious so soveraigne we shew forth in shadow as it were and adumbration when either we discourse of the history of Christs passion or administer the Sacrament of his death but to the life when as Saint Francis is said to have had the print of Christs five wounds on his body so wee have the print of them in our soules when we expresse his death in our mortification when we tye our selves to our good behaviour and restraine our desires and affections as he was nailed to the crosse when we thirst after righteousnesse as he thirsted on the crosse for our salvation when we are pierced with godly sorrow as his soule was heavie unto death and when as his flesh so our carnall lusts are crucified when as hee commended his soule to his Father so we in our greatest extremities commit our soules to God as our faithfull Creatour Cui c. THE SIGNE AT THE HEART A Sermon preached on the first Sunday in Lent THE LXVII SERMON ACTS 2.37 Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and brethren What shall we do SInnes for repentance to worke upon and repentance for sinne take up in a manner our whole life Not onely the wicked in their endlesse mazes in the rode to hell but even the godly who endeavour to make the streightest steps they can to heaven Ambulant in circuitu walke in a kind of circuit From fasting to feasting and from feasting againe to fasting from Mount Gerizin to Mount Hebal and from Mount Hebal to Mount Gerizin from sinnes to repentance and from repentance backe againe though against their will to sin It is true that grace in the regenerate never quits the field but groweth more and more upon corrupt nature and in the end conquereth her yet so conquereth her as Lucullus and other Romane Captaines did a Cic. de leg Manil. Ita tamen superarunt ut ille pulsus superatusque regnaret Mithridates that nature still ruleth in the members and often putteth the mind to the worst alwaies to much trouble Wherfore as the Sea-mew that maketh her nest on the sea shore is forced daily to repaire it because every day the violent assault of the sea waves moulter away some part thereof so the regenerate and sanctified soule hath need to renew the inward man daily and repaire the conscience by repentance because every day nay almost every houre by the violent assaults of tentation and sinnes as they are termed of ordinary incursion some breach or other is made into it Now albeit private repentance hath no day set nor time prefixed to it but is alwayes in season yet now is the peculiar season of publike when the practice of the primitive and the sanction of the present Church calls us to watching and fasting to weeping and mourning to sackcloth and ashes to humiliation and contrition when in a manner the whole Christian world I except only some few Heteroclites accordeth with us in our groanes and consorteth with our sighes and keepeth stroake with us in the beating our breasts and setteth open the sluces to make a floud of teares and carry away the filth of the whole yeere past Abyssus abyssum invocet let this floud carry away the former deluge Verily such is the overflowing of iniquity and inundation of impurity in this last and worst age of the world that the most righteous among us can hardly keep up their head and hold out their hands above water to call to God for mercy for themselves others hath not then the Church of God great reason to oppose the Eves Embers Lent fasts as so many floud-gates if not quite to stay yet somewhat to stop the current of sin Anselme sometimes Archbishop of Canterbury whom the Church of Rome hath inserted into the Canon of Saints but he ranketh himselfe among the Apocrypha of sinners recounting with hearts griefe and sorrow the whole course of his life and finding the infancy of sinne in the sinnes of his infancy the youth and growth of sinne in the sinnes of his youth and the maturity and ripenesse of all sinne in the sinnes of his ripe and perfect age breaketh forth into this passionate speech Quid restat tibi O peccator nisi ut totâ vitâ deploret totam vitam What remaines for thee wretched man but that thou spend the remainder of thy whole life in bewailing thy whole life What should wee Beloved in a manner doe else considering that even when we pray against sin wee sin in praying when we have made holy vowes against sin our vowes by the breach of them turne into sinne after wee have repented of our sinnes we repent of our repentance and thereby increase our sinne In which consideration if all the time that is given us should be a b Hier. ep 7. In quadragesima abstinentiae vela pandenda sunt tota aurigae retinacula laxanda Lent of discipline if all weekes Embers if all daies of the weeke Ashwednesdayes how much more ought we to keep Lent in Lent now at least continually to call upon the name of God for our continuall blaspheming it Now to fast for our sinnes in feasting now to weep and mourne for our sinnes in laughing sporting and rioting in sinfull pleasures to this end our tender mother the Spouse of Christ debarreth us of all other delights that wee should make Gods statutes our delights for this cause shee subtracteth our bodily refection that wee may feast our soules therefore shee taketh away or diminisheth our portion in the comforts of this life that with holy David wee should take God for our c Psal 119.57 portion This is a time as the name importeth Lent of God to examine our
Jonas in like manner cries I am cast out of thy sight Jonah 2.4 there is smoak in the flaxe yet was not the flaxe quenched for he addeth immediatly yet I will looke againe to thy holy Temple If thou wilt thou canst Matth. 8.2 said one poore man in the Gospel Lord if thou canst said another Marke 9.22 both these were as the smoaking flaxe in my Text. For the former doubted of Gods power the latter of his will yet neither of both were quenched O miserable man that I am saith S. Paul in the person of a Christian travelling in his new birth who shall deliver me from this body of death here is a cloud of smoak Rom. 7.24.25 yet it is blown away in an instant and the flame breaketh out and blazeth into Gods praises Thankes be unto God who hath given us victory through Jesus Christ Man for a little smoake will quench the light but Christ every where cherisheth the least sparke of grace and bloweth it gently by his spirit till it breake forth into a flame To encourage us the more hee accepteth the will for the deed and a good assay for the performance If thou canst but shed a teare for thy sins he hath a bottle to put it in if thou steale a sigh in secret he hath an eare for it if thy faith be but as a graine of mustard seed it shall grow to a great tree Nathanael at the first had but a small ground to beleeve that Christ should bee the Messias but afterwards Christ made good his words unto him hee saw greater things to build his faith upon Because I said unto thee John 1.50 I saw thee under the fig-tree beleevest thou thou shalt see greater things than these Apollos at the first was but catechized in Johns Baptisme Act. 18.27.28 but afterwards Aquila and Priscilla expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly and hee helped them much which had beleeved through grace for hee mightily convicted the Jewes and that publikely shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Joseph of Arimathea richer in grace than wealth and a great dispreader of the Gospel and as many ancient Writers report the first planter of Christian Religion in this Island yet till Christs death had small courage to professe him but when the evening was come Mar. 15.42.43 which was the preparation that is the day before the Sabbath hee went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus Saint Augustine at the first was drawne to the Church by the lustre of Saint Ambrose his eloquence as himselfe a Aug. confess l. 5. c. 4. confesseth but afterwards he was much more taken with the strength of his proofe than the ornaments of his speech and God by his Spirit so blowed the sparke of divine knowledge in this smoaking flaxe that the Church of God never saw a cleerer lamp burning in it since it had him If we consider the smoaking flaxe in the second condition to wit after the lampe is blowne out the spirituall meaning is That those in whom there was ever any spark of saving grace shall never be quenched or that after the most fearfull blast of temptation there remaines yet some divine fire in the heart of every true beleever which Christ will never quench Christ will not quench the smoaking flaxe if there bee any sparke of divine fire in it yet if this sparke bee not blowne and the weeke enlightened againe it will dye in like manner if wee doe not according to the Apostles precept 2 Tim. 1.6 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stirre up the grace of God in us and use the utmost of our religious endeavours to kindle againe the lampe of faith in our soules that sparke of divine faith and saving grace which wee conceive that wee have will dye As it is not presumption but faith to bee confident in Gods promises when wee walke in his Ordinances so it is not faith but presumption to assure our selves of the end when wee neglect the meanes of our salvation Wee may no otherwise apprehend or apply unto our selves the gracious promises made to all true beleevers in the Gospel than they are propounded unto us which is not absolutely but upon conditions by us to bee performed through the helpe of divine grace namely to wash our selves Esa 1.16 17. to make us cleane to put away the evill of our doings from before Gods eyes to cease to doe evill to learne to doe well to seeke judgement to relieve the oppressed to judge the fatherlesse Dan. 4.27 Job 41. ◠Apoc. 3.19 Mat. 3.8 and to pleade for the widow to breake off our sinnes by righteousnesse and our iniquity by shewing mercy to the poore to abhorre our selves and repent in dust and ashes to remember from whence wee are fallen and doe our first workes to bee zealous and amend and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance To argue from a strong perswasion of our election and from thence to inferre immediately assurance of salvation is as Tertullian speaketh in another case aedificare in ruinam The safe way to build our selves in our most holy faith and surely fasten the anchor of our hope is to conclude from amendment of life repentance unto life from our hatred of sinne Gods love unto us from hunger and thirst after righteousnesse some measure of grace from godly sorrow and sonne-like feare and imitation of our heavenly Father the adoption of sonnes from continuall growth in grace perseverance to the end from the fruits of charity the life of our faith and from all a modest assurance of our election unto eternall life Not curiously to dispute the Scholasticall question concerning the absolute impossibilitie of the apostacy of any Saint and the amissibility of justifying faith which many learned Doctours of the Reformed Churches hold fitter to bee extermined than determined or at least confined to the Schooles than defined in the Pulpit that wherein all parties agree is sufficient to comfort the fainting spirits and strengthen the feeble knees of any relapsed Christian That God will never bee wanting to raise him if hee bee not wanting to himselfe But if when hee is returned with the Sow to his wallowing in the mire hee taketh delight therein and never striveth to plucke his feet out of it nor rise up out of the dirt if hee never cry for helpe nor so much as put forth the hand of his faith that Christ may take hold of it and by effectuall grace draw him out of the mudde hee will certainly putrifie in his sinnes Hee that heareth the Word of God preached and assenteth thereunto and is most firmly perswaded of Gods love to him for the present if through the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit or the suggestions of Sathan or by the wicked counsels and examples of others hee chargeth himselfe with any foule sinne either of impiety against God or iniquity against men or impurity
to the law of all Nations most inhumanely insolently and barbarously useth mee employed as a publike minister of state for our whole Nation But all this in vaine these wrongs fell right upon them It was just with God that they who in disdaine of his Sonne cryed out Wee have no King but Caesar should finde no favour at Caesars hands and much lesse at Gods before whom they preferred Caesar Baron annal Noluerunt florem nacti sunt Florum praesidem They would none of the flower of Jesse they cast him away therefore God in justice after the former troubles sent them by Nero's appointment Deputy Florus 5 The Pharisces envie at the peoples crying Hosanna to Christ punished who robbed their Church treasury to raise a rebellion after put them to the sword for this rebellion received money of them to save them from spoile and spoiled them the more for it insomuch that the Scribes and Pharisees and chiefe Rulers who rebuked the people for bringing in Christ to Jerusalem with branches of palmes and happy acclamations of Hosanna to the sonne of David Hosanna in the highest are now forced to bring out all the treasures of the Temple and Priestly ornaments by them as it were to adjure the people and beseech them even with teares to march out of Jerusalem in seemliest order and with expressions of joy to meet and greet the Romane souldiers who requited their salutations with scornes and their gifts with pillaging them Note here the Jewes envie at Christs triumphant riding into Jerusalem punished 6. I beseech you observe the circumstances of time persons and place and you shall perceive that divine Justice did not onely make even reckonings with them in every particular of our Saviours sufferings but also kept the precise day and place of payment Galilee wherein Christ first preached and wrought so many miracles first of all suffers for her unbeliefe and is laid waste by Vespasian The infinite slaughter at Jerusalem began with the high Priest Ananus his death whom the Zelots slew in the Temple Sanguine foedantem quas ipse sacraverat aras A lamentable sight saith Josephus to see the chiefe Priest a little before clad with sacred and glorious vestments richly embroidered with gold and precious stones lye naked in the streets wallowing in dirt mud and bloud to behold that body which had been annointed with holy oyle to bee torne with dogges and devoured by ravenous and uncleane fowle to looke upâ—â— the Altar in the Temple polluted with the bloud of him who before had hallowed it with the bloud of beasts But so it was most agreeable to divine Justice that that order though never so sacred should first and most dreadfully rue our Lords death whose envie was first and malice deepest in the effusion of his most innocent bloud Who can but take notice of that which the Histories of those times written by Jewes as well as Christians offer to all readers observation viz. That the Jewes who escaped out of Jerusalem and fell into their enemies quarter because they were thought to devoure downe their money and jewels that the Romane souldiers might not finde them about them were in great numbers after they were slaine ripped 7 Their giving money to Judas to betray him repaid and bowelled and that besides those Jewes crucified by Flaccus whose death a Philo in legat Alii die festo mortuos de crucibus detraxerunt at hic non mortuos de crucibus sed vivos in crucem sustulit Philo so much bewailed because the execution was done upon them at their great Feasts without any regard to the solemnity of the day there were so many in this last siege of Jerusalem 8 Their crucifying him repaid with advantage crucified on the walls every day that there wanted in the end crosses for mens bodies and spaces for crosses Note here their price of bloud given to Judas to betray his Master as also their crucifying the Lord of glory was repaid with advantage Crucified they are in their persons for some of them that conspired Christs death might live till this time or in their children and nephewes by hundreds who cryed to Pilate when hee would have freed Christ Away with him away with him Crucifie him crucifie him Their bloud is shed for money who gave money to betray innocent bloud and shortly after thirty of them are sold for a piece of silver who bought his life at thirty pieces of silver As wee have compared persons and actions or rather passions so let us now parallel times and places Titus began to besiege Jerusalem as Caesar Baronius exactly calculateth upon the day in which our Saviour suffered hee surveyed the City on Mount 9 Their contempt of Christs teares Olivet whence our Saviour before viewing it wept over it And now the Jewes have their wish against their wills their 10 and their cursing revenged Matth. 27.25 owne curse is returned to their bosome viz. His bloud bee upon us and our children For so indeed it was in such a manner and measure as never before was heard or seene Besides those that fled out of the City which were either crucified upon the walls or slaine by the gates when Titus made a breach into the City hee saw all their streets paved in a manner with carkeises and caemented with bloud yea their channels ran with gore so full that the best meanes they could think of or use to quench the fire of the Temple was the bloud of the slaine And now Jerusalem which had been so free in 11 Their stoning Gods Prophets and spilling innocent bloud repaid casting stones at the Prophets and killing them that were sent unto her to exhort them to repentance unto life and shewed before of the comming of the Just One of whom these later Jewes had been the betrayers and murderers hath not one stone left upon another in her Acts 7.52 but is made even with the dust nay nothing but dust Sutton de Tiber. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dirt leavened with bloud the just temper of that Tyrants complexion in whose reigne the Lord of glory was crucified What other conclusion are wee to inferre upon these sad premisses but this that it is a most fearfull thing to provoke the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Who shall bee able to stand before him in the great day of his wrath from whose face the heaven and the earth fled away 1 Pet. 2.7 Mat. 21.42 44. and their place could no where be found The stone which the builders refused is now become the head of the corner Take heed how yee stumble on it or lift at it Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but upon whomsoever it shall fall it shall grinde him to powder Vid. mag de burg sub finem Cent. prim Baron annal tom 1. as it did Herod and Pilate and Annas and Caiaphas and all that were
about it or if musicall termes sound sweeter in your eares here is 1 Planus cantus or the ground Christ 2 Discantus or the division is become the first fruits of them that slept The notes in the descant must answer those in the planus cantus so they doe here The first fruits to Christ Is become to is risen Them that slept to the dead The ditty hath three parts or sentences 1 The doctrine of resurrection is certaine for Christ is risen 2 The prerogative of Christ is singular is become the first fruits 3 The condition of the dead is happy they are them that slept and rest now from their labours Now seemeth here to have more of the Conjunction than of the Adverbe and to bee rather a particle of connexion than a note of time For Christ was not newly risen when Saint Paul wrote this Epistle but many yeeres before The proper and precise Now of Christs resurrection when hee might have beene said to bee now or new risen was the third day after his passion being the first day of the weeke Whence I observe the agreement of the time with the truth not in substance onely but in circumstance also The types were the Paschall Lambe and the first fruits Now as Christ our passover was slayne the very day in which the Paschall Lambe was to bee killed so hee being also the first fruits ver 23. rose againe the very day in which the first fruits were by the law to bee offered Saint r Bern serm in domin Pasch Bernard a little varieth the note yet maketh good harmony On the sixth day on which hee made man hee redeemed him the next day being the Jewish sabbath hee kept his sabbath rest in the grave the third day which was the first of the weeke-dayes he appeared The first fruits of them that slept Of which day I neede say no more to kindle your devotions and stirre up your religious affections than ſ Serm. de resur Maximus Taurinensis hath long ago in his meditations piously ejaculated A blessed day first discovering unto us the light not of this world but of the world to come farre happier than that day in which man first saw the light of the sunne For on that day man was made to travell on this day to rest on that day hee was sentenced to death on this day freed from feare of death on that day the sunne arose upon the just and unjust this day the sunne of righteousnesse rose onely upon the just illius diei splendor etiam sepulchra illuminat that day shined only upon the living this also upon the dead as it is written Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Christ u l. 4. divin instit Lactantius interpreteth the King Unctus nomen est imperii anointed is the name of soveraigne majesty Saint * Tract 2. in Johan Christus sacramenti nomen est quomodo si dicatur sacerdos Austine expoundeth it a Priest others a Prophet for Prophets were also anointed Saint Bernard alluding to this name maketh Christ a tender Chirurgian curing our wounds non ustione sed unctione not by lancing or searing but by anointing and plastering The Heathen in Tertullians time expounded it x Tertul in apologet bonum benignum good and bountifull ne sic quidem malè and not amisse saith hee if wee regard the sense and application of that attribute to our Saviour For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 kinde and gracious and profitable to man because y Phil. 1.21 in life and death advantage but amisse if wee respect the derivation For Christ is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ungo and answereth to the Hebrew Messias of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to anoint and peculiarly it designeth the Sonne of God and Saviour of the world For albeit others were anointed besides Christ and called the Lords anointed yet Christ alone was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Christ 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In verity 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 After a singular manner 1 In verity or truth for all Kings Priests that were anointed before him were but types of him and that in part how holy soever they were hee is the onely true Christ anointed and appointed by God to save lost man 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 According to excellency or after a singular manner he is the Christ 1 Others were anointed by men he immediatly by God z Psal 45.7 God even thy God hath anointed thee 2 They with a lesse measure of graces he with a greater incomparably greater with oyle of gladnesse above thy fellowes 3 They to beare one office or two at the most he to beare three Melchisedech was a King and a Priest but no Prophet Samuel a Prophet and a Priest but no King David a King and a Prophet but no Priest Christ was all three a Priestly King as Melchisedeck a Kingly Prophet as David and a Propheticall Priest as Samuel I conceive the Apostle here made choice of this name Christ above others because it best fitted his purpose and implyed some cause of his resurrection For as anointing or embalming dead corpses keeps them from putrefying so Christ by the divine unction was preserved from corrupting in the grave because there was no corruption in his soule his body could not corrupt or at least God would not suffer it as the Prophet speaketh * Psal 16.10 thou wilt not suffer thy holy One to see corruption Now if his body must not bee left nor corrupt in the grave because it was a Act. 2.24 impossible for him to be held with the sorrowes of death he must undoubtedly have risen againe as it followeth Is risen In the originall it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 raysed viz. by the right hand of his Father elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee is risen of himselfe neither is there yet any contradiction For the Father and the Sonne are one in nature and consequently the power of the Father who is God is the power of the Sonne who is one God with him Id resurgit quod prius cecidit that is properly said to bee raised or rise againe which before fell and that is the body which is therefore called in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in latine cadaver a cado Christs resurrection then or resuscitation from the dead must bee the enliving his dead corps and lifting it up and bringing it up out of the darke sepulchre into the light which is a kinde of second birth and not unlike to his first For as that was his proceeding out of the Virgins wombe so this was out of a Virgin tombe the difference was onely in this as b Petrus Chrysolog serm pasch de resur ser 14. Chrysologus acutely hath observed the wombe
see thy selfe in heaven with one eye than to see thy selfe in hell with both better hoppe into life with one legge than runne to eternall death with both better without a right hand to bee set with the sheepe at Gods right hand than having a right hand to bee set at Gods left hand and afterwards with both thine hands bee bound to bee cast into hell fire c ver 44.46.48 where the worme never dyeth and the fire is not quenched and againe and a third time where the worme never dyeth and the fire is not quenched At the mention whereof it being the burthen of his dolefull Sonnet our Saviour perceiving the eares of his auditors to tingle in the words of my text hee yeeldeth a reason of that his so smart and biting admonition saying For every one shall be salted c. and withall hee sheweth them a meanes to escape that unquenchable fire which they so much dreaded and to kill the immortall worme which even now began to bite them The meanes to escape the one is to bee salted here with fire and the meanes to kill the other is to be salted here with salt for salt preserveth from that putrefaction which breedeth that worme He who now is salted with the fire of zeale or heart-burning sorrow for his sinnes shall never hereafter bee salted with the fire of hell this fire will keepe out that as d Ovid. Met. l. 2. Saevis compescuit ignibus ignes Jupiters fire drove out Phaetons and hee who macerateth here his fleshly members with the salt of Gods uncorrupt word and the cleansing grace of his spirit shall never putrefie in his sinnes nor feele the torment of the never dying worme The Philosophers make three partitions as it were in the soule of man the first they call the reasonable or seate of judgement the second the irascible or seat of affections the third the concupiscible or the seat of desires and lusts In the reasonable part they who knew nothing of the fall of man and originall corruption find little amisse but in the concupiscible they note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something like superfluous moisture inclining to luxury in the irascible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something like cold or rawnesse enclining to feare behold in my text a remedy for both fire for the one and salt for the other And that wee may not lose a sparke of this holy fire or a graine of this salt so soveraigne let us in a more exact division observe 1 Two kindes of seasoning 1 With fire 2 With salt 2 Two sorts of things to bee seasoned 1 Men without limitation Every 2 Sacrifices without exception All. God e Gen. 4.4 had respect unto Abel and his sacrifice first to Abel and then to his offering hee accepteth not the man for his sacrifice but the sacrifice for the mans sake First therefore of men and their salting with fire and after of sacrifices and their salting with salt Every one shall bee salted with fire Saint f Hieron in hunc locum Mire dictum est c. ille verè victima domini est qui corpus animam a vitus emundando Deo per amorem consecratur nec sale aspergitur sed igne consumitur quando non peccati tantum contagio pellitur sed praesentis vitae delectatio tollitur futurae conversationi totā mente suspiratur Jerome was much taken with this speech of our Saviour it is saith he an admirable saying That which is seasoned with salt is preserved from corruption of vermine that which is salted with fire loseth some of the substance with both the sacrifices of the old Law were seasoned such a sacrifice in the Gospell is hee who cleansing his body and soule from vice by love consecrateth himselfe to God who then it not onely sprinkled with salt but also consumed with fire when not onely the contagion of sinne is driven away but also all delight of this present life is taken away and wee sigh with our whole soule after our future conversation which shall bee with God and his Angels in heaven It is newes to heare of salting of men especially with fire an uncouth expression yet used by our Saviour to strike a deeper impression into the mindes of his hearers and verily the Metaphor is not so hard and strained as the duty required is harsh and difficult to our nature It went much against flesh and blood to heare of plucking out an eye or cutting off an hand or foot yet that is nothing in comparison to salting with fire salt draweth out the corrupt blood and superfluous moisture out of flesh but fire taketh away much of the substance thereof if not all For the fattest and best parts of all sacrifices were devoured by the flame of such things as were offered to God by fire If such a salting bee requisite wee must then not onely part with an eye or a hand or a foot but even with heart and head and whole body to be burned for the testimony of the Gospell if so the case stand that either we must leave our body behind us or wee leave Christ Such a salting is here prescribed by our high Priest as draweth out not onely corrupt moisture but consumeth much of the flesh also yea sometimes all that is not onely bereaveth us of superfluous vanities and sinfull pleasures but even of our chiefe comforts of life it selfe our friends our estates our honours yea sometimes our very bodies So hot is this fire so quicke is this salt Those that are redeemed by Christs blood must thinke nothing too deare for him who paid so deare for them rather than forfeit their faith and renounce the truth they must willingly lay all at stake for his sake who pawned not onely his humane body and soule but after a sort his divine person also to satisfie the justice of God for us Every one How farre this Every one extends and what this salting with fire signifieth the best Interpreters ancient and latter are not fully agreed Some restraine every one to the reprobate only and by fire understand hell-fire others to the elect onely and by fire understand the fire of Gods spirit or grace burning out as it were and consuming our naturall corruptions They who stand for the former interpretation conceive that Christ in these words yeeldeth a reason why hee said that hell-fire shall never bee quenched Ver. 48. for every one that is say they of the damned in hell shall bee salted with that fire the fire shall be to their bodies as salt is to flesh which keepeth it from putrefying O cruell mercy of hellish flames O saving destruction O preservation worse than perdition O fire eternally devouring and yet preserving its owne fuell O punishment bringing continuall torments to the damned and continuing their bodies and soules in it It is worse than death to be kept alive to eternall pains it is
must all appeare before his tribunall which is so certaine a thing to come to passe that Saint y Apoc. 20.12 13. John in a vision saw it as present And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the bookes were opened and they were judged according to the things wrote in those bookes Now for the terrour of that day I tremble almost to rehearse how it is described in holy Scriptures by S. z Apoc. 20.11 John I saw a great white throne and him that sate on it from whose face the earth and heaven fled away and by Saint * 1 Pet. 4.17 Peter The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it begin there what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel and if the righteous shall scarce bee saved where shall the ungodly and sinner appeare It is hard to say whether the antecedents are more direfull or the concomitants more dolefull or the consequents more dreadfull The antecedents are formidable The a Mat. 24.29 Sunne shall be darkened and the Moone shall be turned into bloud and the starres shall fall from the skies and the powers of heaven shall bee shâ—â—â—â— b Luk. 21.25 26. In the earth shall be distresse of Nations and perplexity and the sea and tâ—â— waters shall roare and mens hearts shall faile them for feare and for looking after those things that are comming on the earth The concomitants are lamentable Behold he c Apoc. 1.7 commeth in the clouds and all eyes shall see him and all kindreds of the earth shall mourne before him And yet the consequeâ—â— are more fearfull than either the antecedants or concomitants For the bookes of all mens consciences shall be spread abroad and every man shall answer for all the d Eccles 12.14 workes that he hath done nay for every e Mat. 12.36 word he hath spoken nay for every thought purpose and intent of the heart For when the Lord commeth he will bring to light the f 1 Cor. 4.5 hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart Having set up a faire light I will now take away some blockes and râ—â—â— that lye in the way of my discourse The first is that God executeth judgement in this world and therefore Salvianus hath written a booke Deâ—â—â—â—â— senti Dei judicio of Gods providence over his Church and present judgement Doth hee not open his treasures to the righteous and poure downe the vialls of his wrath upon the wicked in this life Doth not Saint Paul affirme that those that beleeve are g Rom. 5.1 justified already And Saint John that those that beleeve not are condemned h John 3.18 already What place then remaines for a future tryall Secondly immediately upon our death our soule is carried either by good Angels into Abrahams bosome or by evill into the dungeon of hell what then need they come to the generall assizes who have received their doome at the quarter sessions Thirdly if all mens consciences shall bee ripped up and all their secret sinnes be discovered in the face of the Sunne at the day of judgement that day cannot be but dreadfull to the most righteous man on earth yet Christ saith to his Disciples i Luke 21.28 When these things come to passe lift you up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh and they in this regard long for his second comming and pray continually Come Lord k Apoc. 22.20 Jesu come quickly The first rubbe is thus removed though Gods judgements overtake some yet not all in this life For the afflictions of the godly and the prosperity of the wicked were a great eye-sore to l Psal 73.12 David and m Jerem. 5.28 Jeremy Moreover God hath rewards both temporall and eternall the former he dispenceth in this life the later in that which is to come Hee that beleeveth is justified already before God and in the sense of his owne conscience for he hath peace with God And in like manner hee that beleeveth not is condemned already in Gods decree and hee hath received also the sentence of condemnation within himselfe as a fellon is hanged in the law and may know what his sentence shall be before it bee executed or pronounced against him This hindreth not but that the publike sentence shall passe upon both at the last day for eternall salvation or damnation The second is thus removed Immediately upon death every soule knoweth what shee is to trust to but this it not knowne to the world Besides the body must bee rewarded or punished as well as the soule therefore partly to cleare the justice of God in the sight of men and Angels partly to render to the body and soule that have been partners in evill and good their entire recompence after the private session at our death God hath appointed a publike assizes at the day of judgement The third rubbe is thus taken away The day of judgement is both terrible and comfortable to the godly terrible in the beginning comfortable in the end terrible in the accusation by Sathan comfortable in the defence by Christ our Advocate terrible in the examination but comfortable in the sentence Yea but their sores are laid open and they are fowle their debts are exhibited and they are very many their rents in their conscience are shewed and they are great It is true their sores are laid open but annointed with Balsamum their debts are exhibited but with a faire acquittance signed with Christs bloud their rents in their conscience are seene but mended and filled up with jewels of grace It is farre otherwise with the wicked their sores appeare without any salve their debts appeare but no acquittance their rent in their conscience appeareth and remaineth as wide as ever it was being never made up or mended by repentance therefore they cry n Apoc. 6.16 to the mountaines fall on us and to the hills cover us from the presence of the Lord and from the wrath of the Lambe This point of doctrine is not more evident in the proofe than profitable in the use which is threefold 1. To comfort the innocent 2. To terrifie the secure 3. To instruct all First to comfort the innocent For many that have walked sincerely before God have been censured for hypocrites many innocents have been falsly condemned many just men have suffered for righteousnesse sake and many faithfull Christians have been adjudged to mercilesse flames for their most holy profession To all these the day of judgement will bee the brightest day that ever shone on them For then their innocency shall break out as the light and their righteous dealing as the noone day then they shall have the hand of their false accusers and judge their Judges then they shall see him for whom they have stood all their life time and strived even to bloud Every losse they have sustained for his
Anthemes first single voices answering one the other and after the whole Quire joyning in one as it were tracing the same musicall steps hath not nature drawne with her pensill a perfect grasse green in the Emrald a skie colour in the Saphir the glowing of fire in the Carbuncle the sanguine complexion in the Ruby and the twinckling of the starres in the Diamond and all these together in the Opall which hath in it the lustre and beautifull colours of all these precious stones c Plin. nat hist l. 37 c 6. In Opale est Carbunculi tenuior ignis Amethysti fulgens purpura Smaragdi virens mare c. incredibili misturâ lucentes Such is this feast of all holy ones it is the Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Kalendars pandect as it were a constellation not of many but of all the starres in the skie in it as in the Opall shine the beautifull colours and resplendency of all those precious stones which are laid in the d Apoc. 21.19 foundation and shine in the gates and walls of the heavenly Jerusalem Upon it we celebrate the chastity of all Virgins the simplicity of all Innocents the zeale and courage of all Confessours the patience of all Martyrs the holinesse of all Saints Upon this day the Church militant religiously complementeth with the Church triumphant and all Saints on earth keep the feast and expresse the joy and acknowledge the happinesse and celebrate the memory and imbrace the love and set forth the vertues of all Saints in heaven Which are principally three shadowed by the allegory in my Text 1. Patience in tribulation They came out 2. Purity in conversation And washed their garments 3. Faith in Christs death and passion Made them white in c. The better to distinguish them you may if you please terme them three markes 1. A blacke or blewish marke made with the stroake or flaile Tribulation 2. A white made by washing their garments and whiting them 3. A red by dying them in the bloud of the Lambe 1. First of the blacke or blew marke They came out of great tribulation The beloved Apostle and divine Evangelist Saint John who lay in the bosome of our Saviour and pryed into the very secrets of his heart in the time of his exile in Pathmos had a glimpse of his and our country that is above and was there present in spirit at a solemne investiture or installation of many millions of Gods Saints into their state of glory and order of dignity about the Lambe in his celestiall court The rite and ceremony of it was thus The twelve e Ver. 5 6 7 8. Tribes of Israel were called in order and of every Tribe twelve thousand were sealed in the forehead by an Angel keeper of the broad Seale of the living God Ver. 2. After this signature Loe a great multitude which no man can number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lambe and they had long white robes put upon them and palmes given them in their hands in token of victory and they marched on in triumph singing with a loud voice Salvation from or to our God that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe at which words all the Angels that stood round about the Throne and the Elders and the foure living creatures full of eyes fell before the Throne on their faces and worshipped God saying Amen Praise and glory and wisedome and thankes and honour and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever Amen This glorious representation of the triumphant Church so overcame and tooke away the senses of the ravished Apostle that though he desired nothing more than to learne who they were that he had seen thus honourably installed yet he had not the power to aske the question of any that assisted in the action till one of the Elders rose from his seate to entertaine him and demanded that of him which hee knew the Apostle knew not but most of all desired to know and would have enquired after if his heart had served him viz. who they were and whence they came that were admitted into the order of the white robe in Heaven The answer of which question when the Apostle had modestly put from himselfe to the Elder saying Lord thou knowest the Elder courteously resolveth it and informeth him particularly concerning them saying These are they that are come out of great tribulation c. Thou mightest perhaps have thought that these who are so richly arrayed and highly advanced in Heaven had been some great Monarchs Emperours or Potentates upon earth that had conquered the better part of the world before them paving the way with the bodies and cementing it with the bloud of the slâ—ine and in token thereof bare these palmes of victories in their hands Nothing lesse they are poore miserable forlorne people that are newly come some out of houses of bondage some out of the gallies some out of prisons some out of dungeons some out of mynes some out of dens and caves of the earth all out of great tribulation They who weare now long white robes mourned formerly in blacke they who now beare palmes in their hands carried their crosses in this world they who shout and sing here sighed and mourned under the heavie burdens of manifold afflictions all the dayes of their pilgrimage on earth they whom thou seest the Lambe leading to the f Ver. 17. living fountaines of waters dranke before deep of the waters of Marah and full cups of teares in the extreme heate of bloudy persecutions and in consideration of the great tribulation which they have patiently endured for the love of their Redeemer he bestoweth upon them these glorious robes whited in his own bloud and hee taketh them neere to himselfe that they may stand before him for evermore g Mat. 5 11 12. Blessed thrice blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for great is their reward in heaven The heavier their crosse is the weightier their crowne shall bee their present sorrowes shall free them from all future sorrowes their troubles here shall save them from all trouble hereafter their temporall paines through his merits for whom they suffer shall acquit them from eternall torments and the death of their body through faith in his bloud shall redeeme them from death of body and soule and exempt them from all danger miserie and feare Which priviledges the spirit sealeth unto them in the verses following They h Rev. 7.15.16.17 are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple and he that sitteth on the Throne shall dwell among them They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more neither shall the Sun light on them nor any heat For the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall feed them and shall lead them into living fountaines of waters and God shall wipe away all
the flames of fire are the conquerers c Pareus in Apoc Corporaliter victi sunt spiritualitèr vicerunt dum in verá Christi fide ad mortem us◠perstiterunt Paraeus expoundeth this riddle The servants of Christ who seale the truth with their blood are in their bodies mastered but in their soules undaunted and much more unconquered whilest notwithstanding all the tortures and torments which the malice of man or devill can put them to they persist in the profession of the true faith unto death For this is the d 1 Joh. 5.4 victory of the world even our faith In that famous battell at Leuctrum where the Thebans got a signall victory but their Captaine Epaminondas his deaths wound Plutarch writeth of him that he demanded whether his buckler had beene taken by the enemy and when hee understood that it was safe and that they had not laid hands on it hee died most willingly and cheerefully Such is the resolution of a valiant souldier of Christ Jesus when hee is wounded even unto death hee hath an eye to his shield of faith and finding that out of the enemies danger his soule marcheth out of this world singing Saint Pauls triumphant ditty e 2 Tim. 4.7.8 I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth is layd up for me a crowne of righteousnesse To cleare the summe which I have beene all this while in casting Christian victory is a prerogative of the regenerate purchased unto them by Christs death and resurrection whereby in all conflicts and temptations they hold out to the end and in the end overcome on earth and after triumph in heaven First it is a prerogative of the regenerate for none but those that are f 1 Joh. 5.4 borne of God overcome the world Secondly this prerogative is purchased unto them by Christ and therefore the Apostle ascribeth the glory of it to his grace g 1 Cor. 15.57 Thankes bee unto God who giveth us victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thirdly this victory is not in one kinde of fight but in all whether Satan the world or the Devill assault us whether they lay at our understanding by sophisticall arguments or at our will by sinfull perswasions or at our senses by unlawfull delights whether our profession bee oppugned by heresie or our unity by schisme or our zeale by worldly policy or our temperance by abundance or our confidence in God by wants or our constancy by persecution or our watchfulnesse by carnall security or our perseverance by continuall batteries of temptations in all wee are more than conquerours through him that loved us h Rom. 8.35.36.37 What or who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perill or sword as it is written For thy sake wee are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter Nay in all these things we are more than conquerours c. Obser 6 None can overcome who fighteth not valiantly none can fight valiantly unlesse they be trained up in Martiall affaires and provided of good and fit armour both for offence and defence this spirituall armour is got by instant and constant prayer and reading and meditating on Gods word and wee put it on by due application of what wee read and heare and wee use it by the exercise of those divine vertues above mentioned from whence the severall pieces of our armour take their names Moreover that a man may conquer his enemie three things are most requisite 1 Exasperation 2 Courage 3 Constancy Exasperation setteth him on Courage giveth him strength and Constancy holdeth out to the end Exasperation is necessary because anger as Aristotle teacheth is the goad or spurre of fortitude neither indeed can any man maintaine a hot fight in cold blood And this is the cause why wee are so often put to the worst in our spirituall conflicts because wee fight like her in the Poet Tanquam quae vincere nollet wee fight not in earnest against our corruptions but either in shew onely dallying or faintly without any earnest desire of revenge Saint i Aug. confess l. 8. c. 7. In exordio adolescentiae petieram chastitatem sed timebam ne me nimis citò audiret citò sanaret à morbo concupiscentiae quem malebam expleri quam extingui Austine before his thorough conversion prayed against fleshly lusts but as he confesseth with great anguish sorrow of heart for his insincerity so aukwardly against his will that secretly hee desired that his lust should rather be accomplished than extinguished As it was then with him so it is with too many that take upon them the profession of Christians and would thinke it foule scorne to bee taken for other than true converts When the voluptuous person offereth a formall prayer to God to extinguish the impure flame of lust rising out of the cindars of originall sinne Satan setteth before his fancy the picture of his beautifull Mistresse and as the Calor ambiens or outward heat in a body disposed to putrefaction draweth out the naturall heat so this impure heat of lust draweth out all the spirituall heat of devotion and so his faint prayer against sinne is turned into sinne In like manner while the covetous man prayeth against that base affection in his soule which ever desireth that wherewith it is never k Aristophan in Plut. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sen. ep 15. Si quid in his esset solidi aliquando implerent nunc haurientium sitim concitant Horat. carm l. 2. od 2. Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops nec sitim pellit nisi causa morbi fugerit venis aquosus albocorpore languor satisfied Mammon representeth unto him the rising up of his heapes and swelling of his bagges by his use-mony whereby his heart is tickled and so his prayer also turneth into sinne Thus all sinners that are not brought to a perfect hatred and detestation of their bosome sinne even whilest they pray against the forbidden fruit hold it under their tongue and their carnall delights suffocate their godly sorrow Spirituall courage is most necessary that is confidence in God and in the power of his might This confidence is the immediate effect of a lively faith which S. John calleth l 1 Joh. 5 4. the victory of the world When Christ bad Peter come to him walking on the sea upon the rising of a storme Peters faith began to faile and no sooner his heart sanke in his body but his feete also sanke in the water even so when any storme of persecution ariseth for the word when wee see our selves encompassed on every side with dangers and terrours and our faith faileth wee presently sinke in despaire if Christ stretch not out his hand presently to support us and establish our heart in his promises 3 Thirdly constant perseverance is most needfull for though all vertues runne in
of your superiours a crowne of thornes to his head every neglect of charity to his members new nailes to wound his hands and feet every blasphemous word a new spitting on his face every oath a speare to pierce his heart But what moved him to become our surety and sacrifice No reason can be given but his will Oblatus est quia voluit He was offered because hee would hee would because hee loved us and to the end hee might the better undergoe his office because it became us to have such an high Priest that had feeling of our wants and infirmities he became man The man The Hebrewes have foure severall words for a man Adam Enosh Ish Geber Adam signifying red earth Enosh a man of sorrow Ish a man of a noble spirit Geber a strong man wee have found a man here in all these senses Adam earth as wee Enosh a man of sorrowes Ish a man of a noble spirit to encounter all the powers of darkenesse Geber a strong man stronger than hee in the q Mat. 12.29 Gospell which first possessed the house Behold the man saith Pilat but a man of sorrow saith Esay nay a worme and no man saith David nay lesse resisting than a worme for a worme if it bee trod upon will turne againe but this man went like a lambe to the slaughter or if hee may rightly be termed a worme certainely a silke-worme spinning us a precious web of righteousnesse out of his owne bowels yet this worme and no man is Ish one of noble spirit and Geber a valiant man yea such an one as is Gods fellow My fellow For in him the Godhead dwelleth bodily and in him all the Saints are compleat he is the brightnesse of his Fathers glory and the engraven forme of his person ipse paterni Pectoris effigies lumenque a lumine vero Semper cum patre semper de patre semper in patre semper apud patrem semper quod pater saith Fulgentius ex ipso cum ipso hoc quod ipse saith Saint Austine who being in the forme of God thought it not r Phil. 2.6 robberie to bee equall with God and therefore God calleth him here his fellow Such a one i◠became him to be that was to encounter principalities to come upon the strong man whereby is meant the Divell and binde him and spoile his goods to grapple with the great King of feare Death to say to hell and the grave Effata to swallow up the swallower of all things to destroy destruction and to lead captivitie captive and to returne with glory from thence unde negant quenquam redire Againe my fellow yet a man creator matris creatus ex matre saith Saint Austine ipsum sanguinem quem pro matre obtulit ante de sanguine matris accepit saith Emissenus Hee that was the brightnesse of his Father and such a brightnesse as no man could behold and live hath now a traverse drawne over his glorie the word is made flesh sepositâ non depositâ majestate saith Emissenus naturam suscipiendo nostram non amittendo suam saith Saint Austine ad terrena descendit coelestia non deseruit hic affuit inde non defuit and so be became Emmanuel God with us perfect God and perfect man man to receive supplications from man God to deliver them to God man to suffer for man God to satisfie God Apparuit medius saith Saint Austine inter mortales peccatores immortalem justum mortalis justus mortalis cum hominibus justus cum Deo ne vel in utroque similis longè esset à Deo aut in utroque dissimilis longè esset ab hominibus To conclude this point Gods fellow to offer an infinite sacrifice for all mankinde and a man that he might be himselfe the sacrifice killed by the sword which is now awaked to smite him 1 Smite the Shepheard Hachharogneh hacke him hew him butcher him Now are the reines let loose to all the powers of darkenesse now is the sword flying about the Shepheards eares now have they power to hurrie him from Annas to Caiaphas from Caiaphas to Pilat from Pilat to Herod from Herod againe to Pilat and so to Calvarie and in every passage appears a sword that might cleave asunder a heart of Adamant yet the Lord of hostes saith still 2 Smite him Now hath Judas power to betray him the Priests to convent him the standers by to buffet him the officers to whip him the people to deride him Pilat to condemne him and in every act appeares a sword that might cleave in sunder a heart of rocke yet the Lord of hostes saith still 3 Smite him Now the thornes have power to goare him the whip to lash him the nailes to fasten him the speare to pierce him the Crosse to extend him the grave to swallow him and in every one appeares a sword that might cleave in sunder a heart of steele yet the Lord of hostes saith still 4 Smite him Let no part bee free from torment not his head from pricking nor his face from spitting nor his flesh from whipping nor his pallat from vinegar nor his hands and feet from piercing nor his heart from the speare yet still the Lord of hostes saith 5 Smite him The torment of his body was but the body of his torment the soule of his torment was his soules torment Now his soule is troubled saith John nay exceeding sorrowfull saith Marke nay heavie unto death saith Matthew all the streames of bloud that issued from him on the Crosse were nothing to his drops in the garden those were forced with outward violence these were drained out with inward sorrow Sure saith one he was neare some fornace that melted him Here was a blow that if he had not beene Gods fellow would have strucke him downe to hell yet the Lord of hostes saith 6 Smite him The sense of paine is not so grievous as the want of comfort Here all comfort is with-held the people deride him and preferre a murderer before him of his owne people and servants one betrayeth him another denies him all forsake him all this is nothing in comparison For friends are but earthly comforts but that his Father from heaven should forsake him here is the sword that cleaveth his heart and maketh up the full measure of the blow In the very heat of his passion hee tooke no notice of any other torment but this onely that his God had forsaken him It is wonderfull that never any Martyr brake forth into the like speech notwithstanding all their exquisite torments but the reason is assigned by St. Austine Martyres non eripuit nunquid deseruit By this time I know you expect the fulnesse of the blow vox faucibus haeret it is death the ignominious death of the Crosse Vexed he was before his death tortured in his death wounded after his death hic salus patitur fortitudo infirmatur vita moritur Now the Angels stand amazed at the
1. Lightsome knowledge 2. Perfect holinesse 3. In regard of the rule that God gave him over all creatures So St. Basil expoundeth those words Let us make man after our image adding imperiale animal es O homo quid servis affectibus to whom Chrysostome Athanasius Aquinas and all the Schoole-men assent And let this suffice to bee spoken of the man in the third place followeth Put him into the Garden of Eden 3. What he did with him Of this Garden two questions are disputed on by Divines 1. Whether this Garden were a reall place in the earth 2. Whether Paradise yet remaine To the first I answer that questionlesse Paradise was a true and reall Garden as S. Jerome and Chrysostome affirme against Origen Origines sic allegorizat ut historiae tollit veritatem non licet nobis ita nugari simpliciorum auribus imponere dicendo nullum fuisse in terris hor tum quem vocant Paradisum and Bellarmine proves it sufficiently against the fancy of Franciscus Georgius To the second I answer That the place of the earth remaineth in substance though it is not now a Paradise or hortus deliciarum for the beauty of it is gone The curse of the whole earth to beare thornes and thistles is come upon it As for the Paradise mentioned in Saint d Luk. 23.43 Luke and in the e Apoc. 2.7 Apocalypse it was celestiall and Saint f 2 Cor. 12.4 Paul maketh it plaine where having said hee was rapt up into the third heaven by and by hee nameth the place Paradise Upon which words Saint Ambrose thus commenteth Paradisum intelligit coelestem de quo Dominus dixit latroni hodiè mecum eris in Paradiso You have heard where the Lord placed him it remaineth that we enquire in the fourth place 4. To what end God placed him there To dresse and keepe the garden God had not yet cursed the earth neither were the wholsome hearbes degenerated into weeds Every plant and hearbe brought forth fruit according to their kind God that made them good could have preserved them in that state of goodnesse but man had need of some imployment and therefore God injoyned him to dresse this garden of pleasure in this place to make use of his gifts and by his reason and industry to modell it into some delightfull forme yet was his labour without all pain nay it was full of pleasure But why is it added to keepe it Surely saith St. Austine no invading neighbour was feared to put him out of possession nor thiefe to rob him of his choicest plants but God would have him therefore to keepe it to himselfe ne inde projiciatur This is wittily inferred by him but it seemes the naturall meaning of the place is this that he should not onely dresse it as at the first but with continuall care keepe it God would not have man idle no not in Paradise Thus briefly of his dressing and keeping now we are to consider in the fift place 5. Gods large permission That he might eat of every tree in the Garden Behold Gods bounty there was not onely the delicacy of all fruits but variety and Adam was not limited to some few he might eat of every tree neither was he for a short time to have enjoyed this if he had harkened to the command of his Lord. For in the midst grew the tree of life of which he might eat at his pleasure the other trees saith S. f Lib. 13. è Civit Dei Austine were given to him to satisfie his hunger and thirst but this to give vigour to him and keep him from infirmity age and death yet this grant was not so generall but that it had annexed unto it a restraint which we are to consider of in the sixt place 6. His restraint From the tâ—ee of knowledge It was not so called as g Antiq. â—udaâ—â— l. 3. c. 9. Josephus dreamed because it had a vertue in it to sharpen the understanding that man might know God the better For it was as the other trees of the Garden without sense or knowledge but it was intituled so in a double respect 1. Because joyned to the commandement it was an outward sign shewing what was good viz. what God commanded and what was evill viz. what God forbad 2. In respect of the event As the waters of Meribah or strife were so called because Israel there contended so was this tree called the tree of knowledge of good and evill because hereby Adam knew experimentally what good there was in obeying and what evill in disobeying what good in innocency and what evill in iniquity what good within the bounds of Paradise and what evill in the accursed world St. h Serm. 14. de verâ— Dom. Austine thus openeth the matter Doe not touch this tree Why What is this tree If it be good why should I not touch it If it be evill what maketh it in Paradise Doubtlesse it was good why then may be not touch it That father answereth sweetly quia obedientem te volo non contradicentem serve prius audi domini jussum tunc jubentis disce consilium God like a good Physician shewed Adam what was hurtfull Adam like an intemperate patient would not refraine it 7. Hiâ— punishment if he restraine it not In the day that thou eatest thou shalt dye The same day thou forsakest mee in thy disobedience I will forsake thee in my justice thou shalt dye first the death of the body and after the death of the soule if thou beleeve not in the promised seed and not thou onely in thy person but all thy children stand and fall in thee they stand in thy obedience and in thy disobedience they fall and in the truth of this let all confesse to the glorie of God Iniquum est ut bene sit desertori boni it was sinne in Adam to forsake his Maker it was justice in God to punish him that in this manner had forsaken him Thus much for the opening of the Text. Let us now apply it to this honourable assembly 1 This Garden of Eden may well be compared to our mother the Church 2 This man to our spirituall and temporall Rulers 3 This placing man in Paradise to their calling that is of God 4 This dressing and keeping it to their labours in their charge 5 The eating of every tree to their reward 6 Their restraint from the tree of knowledg to that which is forbidden them 7 This threatned death to the punishment of all transgressours 1 Touching our Church and her resemblances to Paradise 1 As Paradise was separated from other parts of the earth so this Land the Poet calleth us Toto divisos orbe Britannos 2 As Paradise was beautified with the lights of nature so our Church with gifts of grace above nature 3 As Paradise was beset with faire trees that hare pleasant fruits so our Church with many Pastours whose lives are
have delivered up those blasphemous Heretickes into the hands of the Magistrate who beareth not the sword of justice in vaine 9 Ninthly if these pious resolutions of the ancient Fathers and noble acts of religious Princes serve not as matches to kindle the zeale of godly Magistrates against the enemies of our Religion the heathen shall one day rise up against them the ancient Romans who had this law written among the rest l Leg. 12. tab Deos privatos nemo habeat Let no man have a private Religion to himselfe the Athenians who banished Protagoras for that atheisticall speech of his de diis Sintne an non sint nil habeo dicere I can say nothing concerning the gods whether there are any or not and put Socrates to death m Plato in apolog Socr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he made question of the truth of that Religion which the State professed In a word all nations of the world shall condemn them of whom n Seneca sent Violatarum religionum apud diversas gentes diversa statuitur poena apud omnes aliquo Seneca writeth truly that for the profaning violating or corrupting the worship of God there are divers punishments appointed in divers places but in all Countries some or other And not without cause for if it be a scandall to a State to suffer theeves murtherers to go unpunished are Hereticks to be set free who rob men of that pearle of truth which the rich merchant man sold all that he had to buy who are guilty of spirituall homicide wherewith St. o Tract 11. in Johan Videtis qualia faciant quâ—lia patiuntur occidunt animas affliguntur in corpore sempiternas mortes faciunt temporales se perpeti conqueruntur Austine directly chargeth them You see what these miscreants doe and what they suffer and have they thinke you any just cause to complaine of the punishments that are inflicted on them They kill the soules of men and smart for it in their bodies by their damnable doctrine they bring men to eternall death and yet grudge that they suffer a temporall Doe not all wise men account Religion to bee the foundation which beareth up the whole frame and fabricke of State And is it possible a building should stand upon two foundations Religion is the soule which animateth the great body of the Common-wealth and will it not prove a monster if it be informed with divers soules The Church and Common-wealth have but one centre any new motion therefore in the one must needs make a commotion in the other In which regard Mecoenas advised Augustus to punish severely all Innovators in matter of Religion p Non solum deorum causâ sed quia nova quaedam numina hi tales inducentes multos impellunt ad rerum mutationem not only out of a regard of pietie but also for reason of State What mutinies what heart-burnings what jealousies what bloudy frayes and massacres may there be feared where Religion setteth an edge upon discontent And all that dye in these quarrels pretend to the Crowne of Martyrdome I forbeare multiplicity of examples in this kind our neighbour Countries have bin for many yeeres the stages whereon these tragedies for Religion have been acted and God alone knowes what the catastrophe will be There was never so great mischiefe done at Rome by fire as when it took the Temple of Vesta and mingled it selfe with the sacred flame q Ovi fast l. 6. Ardebant sancti sceleratis ignibus ignes Et mista est flammae flamma prophana piae Even so if the wild-fire of contention mixe it selfe with the sacred fire of zeale and both burne within the bowels of the same Church it is not a river of bloud that is like to quench the direfull flame Therefore r Ep. 166. Julianus reddidit Basilicas haereticis quando templa Demonus eo modo putans Christianum nomen posse petire de teâ—â—â—s si unitati Ecclesiae de qua lapsus fuerat invideret sacrilegâ—s diâ—â—â—nsiones liberas esse pâ—rmitteret Julian the Apostata as S. Austine reports having a desire to set all Christendome in a combustion cast a fire-ball of contention among them by proclaiming liberty to all Heretickes and Schismatickes to set abroach their damnable doctrines hoping thereby utterly to extinguish the name of Christians But to come neere to our Adversaries and turne their owne ordnance upon them Did Queene Mary in her short reigne exempt the servants of God of any age or sexe from the mercilesse flames of the fire Doe not Bellarmine Allan Parsons Pammelius Maldonat and generally all Jesuits set their wits upon the rack and stretch and torture them to maintaine the rackes and tortures of Popish Inquisition Of what hard metall then are their foreheads made who dare supplicate for a toleration in a Protestant state able to suppresse them Why should they not be contented with their owne measure though all the world knoweth the sweet benignity and clemency of our gracious Soveraign abates them more than the halfe Here me thinkes I heare the soules of the slaine under the Altar cry How long Lord holy just dost not thou revenge the bloud of thy servants spilt as water upon the ground by the Whore of Babylon which to this day out-braveth thy Spouse having dyed her garments scarlet red in the goare of thy Saints and Martyrs of thy Son Jesus Christ Righteous Lord wee have been made a spectacle of misery to Angels and men wee have been killed all the day long and accounted as sheep for the slaughter wee have been spoiled of all our goods banished our native soile we have been hewen asunder wee have been slaine with a sword we have been whipt scourged cast into dungeons with serpents burnt at a stake to ashes some of us digg'd out of our graves and martyred after our death and she that hath thus cruelly butchered thy servants sits as Queene arrayed in purple and scarlet and fine linnen and carouseth healths to the Kings and Princes of the earth in a cup of gold and after shee hath made them drunke with the wine of her abominations she committeth spirituall filthinesse with them in the face of the Sun Cupio me patres conscripti clementem non dissolutum videri saith the wise Oratour I wish that mercy to which all vertues as Seneca observeth willingly give the place and yeeld the garland may be still the prime gemme in our Soveraignes Crowne I plead for mercy which must be our best plea at Christs Tribunall but I desire it to bee well thought upon whether it be mercy or not rather cruelty to spare those who spare not your sonnes and daughters but daily entice them and by their agents conveigh them over beyond the Sea to sacrifice not their bodies but their soules their faith their religion to the Moloch of Rome * Plin. nat hist l. 8 c. 22. Arcades scribunt ex
and as the Å¿ Pro. 14.18 But the path of the just is aâ— the shining light that shineth more and more untill the perâ—ect day light of the Sun shineth more and more till it be perfect day as the branches of the true vine bearing fruit in Christ are purged and pruned by the Father that they may bring forth more fruit Å¿ John 15.2 Herein the supernaturall motions of the Spirit resemble all naturall motions which as the Philosopher teacheth us are velociores in fine quam in principio swifter in the end than in the beginning Of all the proper markes of the elect children of God this is the most certaine and therefore St. t Phil. 3.13 14. Paul instanceth in it onely This one thing I doe forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before I presse towards the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus And St. u 2 Pet. 3.18 Peter closeth with it as the upshot of all Ye therefore beloved beware lest ye fall from your own stedfastnesse but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ It is not so in the spiritual as in the corporall augmentation for the body groweth according to all dimensions but to a certain age but the soule may must grow in spiritual graces till the houre of death and the reason of the difference is because the aetas consistentiae of our body is in this life but of our soul in the life to come Here the body arriveth to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 highest pitch of perfection but the soule arriveth not to hers til we come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to the x Heb. 12.23 Church of the first borne and to the spirits of just men made perfect O that our blessed Redeemer had here made an end of his letter and sealed up all the Angels praises with this sweet close what an admirable president should we have had of a perfect Pastour what joy should have beene in the presence of the Angels for the unspotted integrity and absolute perfection of this Angell But because as St. y Ep. ad â—ust Apud Deum nihil tantum suave placet nisi quod habet in se aliquid mordacis veritatis Jerome acutely observeth that there was no use of hony in the sacrifices of the old law because nothing pleaseth God which is onely sweet and hath not in it somewhat of biting truth therefore after the sweet insinuation I know c. there followeth a sharpe reprehension there is a Notwithstanding that standeth in this Angels light and obscureth the lustre of all his former vertues Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee Origen handling those word z Cant. 1.5 Nigra sum sed formosa I am blacke but comely draweth the face and lineaments of Christs Spouse if I may so speake with a blacke coale a Orig. in Cant. hom 1. Quaerimus quomodo nigra sine candore sit pulchra poenitentiam egit a peccatis speciem ei largita est conversio nigra est propter antiqua peccata sed propter poenitentiam habet aliquid quasi Aethiopici decoris How saith he can she be faire that is all blacke I answer she hath repented her of her sinnes and her repentance hath given her beautie but such as may be in a Negro or Blackmoore Philosophie teacheth that there is no pure metall to be found in the Mines of the earth nor unmixed element in the world What speak I of the earth the starres of the skie are not cleane nor the Angels of heaven pure in Gods eyes Job 25.5 Behold even to the moone and it shineth not yea the starres are not pure in his sight how much lesse sinfull man whose conception is lust and birth shame and life frailty and death corruption After St. Austine had blazoned his mothers vertues as Christ doth here the Angels he presently dasheth them all through with a blacke line b Aug. confes l. 9. c. 13. Attamen vae laudibili vitae hominum si remotâ miserecordiâ discutias eum Woe be to the most righteous upon earth if God deale with them in strict justice c Aug. l. 10. c. 28. Contendunt laetitiae meae flendae cum laetandis moeroribus ex qua parte stet victoria nescio hei mihi Domine miserere mei Contendunt moerores mei mali cum gaudiis bonis ex qua parte stet victoria nescio hei mihi Domine miserere mei Ecce vulnera mea non obscondo medicus es aeger sum misericors es miser sum As for me saith that humble Saint I confesse my sinnes to thy glory but my owne shame my sinfull delights contend with my godly sorrowes and on whether side standeth the victorie I know not woe is me Lord have mercy upon me Againe my ungodly sorrowes contend with my holy joyes and on which side standeth the victorie I know not woe is me Lord have mercy on me Behold I hide not my wounds thou art a Physician I am sicke thou art a Surgeon I am thy Patient thou art pitifull I am in miserie If the light be darknesse how great is the darknesse If our righteousnesse be as menstruous clouts Esay 64.6 what are our monstrous sinnes Yet the Prophet saith not that the covers of our sinnes but the robes of our righteousnesse are as filthy rags Whereupon b Origen in ep ad Rom. c. 3. Quis vel super justitia â—uá gloriabitur cum audiat Deum per Prophetam dicentem quia omnis iustitia vestra sicut pannus menstruatae Origen groundeth that question which may gravell all those that build upon the sinking sands of their owne merits Who dare brag of his righteousnesse when he heareth God saying by his Prophet All our righteousnesse is as filthy rags Surely Pope Gregorie was no Papist at least in this point for he prizeth the best endeavours of grace in us at a lower rate than Luther or Calvin they say our purest coyne is allayed with some quantity of baser metall he that it is no better than drosse c Greg. mor. l. 9. c. 11. Omnis humana iustitia injustitia esse convincituâ— si districtâ— judicetur All humane justice saith he examined according to Gods strict justice is injustice Therefore if we say or thinke God hath nothing against us he hath much against us for so saying or thinking For d Psal 19.12 who knoweth how oft he offendeth O cleanse thou us all from our secret faults Had we arrived to the perfection of this Angel in my text and could exhibite letters testimoniall signed by our Saviour such as this Angel of Thyatira might yet were it not safe to capitulate with God notwithstanding all our vertues and graces he hath somewhat against us either for sinnes of omission or sinnes of commission or at least sinnes of permission I
after what order our Popist Priests are made whether after the order of Aaron or Melchizedek If after the order of Aaron then are they to offer bloudie sacrifices and performe other carnall rites long agoe abrogated if after the order of Melchizedek then they are very happie For then they are to be Kings and Priests then they are not to succeed any other nor any other them then as hath beene shewed they are singular everlasting and royall Priests We may put a like interrogatorie to many of our Brownists or Anabaptisticall Teachers who run before they are sent and answer before they are called being like wandering starres fixed in no certaine course or wilde corne growing where they were not sowne or like unserviceable pieces of Ordnance which flie off before they are discharged If men though endowed with gifts might discharge a Pastorall function or doe the worke of an Evangelist without a lawfull mission St. Pauls question had beene to little purpose u Rom. 10.15 How shall they preach unlesse they be sent What calling have these men ordinarie or extraordinarie If ordinarie where are their orders if extraordinarie where are their miracles If Christ himselfe would not take upon him the Priesthood till he was called thereunto as Aaron what intolerable presumption is it in these not to take but to make their owne commission and to call men by the Gospell without a calling according to the Gospell It is not more unnaturall for a man to beget himselfe than to ordaine himselfe a Priest But because these men will not be ordered by reason I leave them to authority and come to the Sixth observation which is the Prerogative of Christ Obs 6. who was ordained a Priest of Melchizedeks order whereby he was qualified to beare both offices Kingly and Priestly For that Christ alone may execute both charges besides the faire evidence of this Scripture Uzziahs judgement maketh it a ruled case who presuming to burne incense to the Lord incensed the wrath of God against himselfe A rare and singular judgement and worthy perpetuall memorie he who not content to sway the royall Scepter would lay hold on the Censer and discharge both offices was for ever discharged of both and even then when he tooke upon him to cleanse the people was smitten with a foule and unclean x 2 Chr. 26.20 disease So dangerous a thing is it even for Soveraigne Princes the Lords Annointed to encroach upon the Church and assume unto themselves and usurpe Christs prerogative Whereof the Bishops of Roane and Rhemes were bold to bid their Sovereigne Lewis the then French King beware informing him Quod solus Christus fieri potuit Rex Sacerdos that it was the prerogative of Christ alone to beare both offices And Pope y Causab l. de libert Eccles Gratian. dist 96. cum ad verum Nicolas himselfe concurreth with them in judgement When the truth that was Christ saith he was once come after that neither did the Emperour take upon him the Bishops right nor the Bishop usurp the Emperours because the same Mediatour of God and man the man Christ Jesus distinguisheth the offices of each power assigning unto them proper actions to the end that the Bishop which is a souldier of Christ should not wholly intangle himselfe in worldly affaires and againe the Prince which is occupied in earthly matters should not be ruler of divine things viz. the preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments To make a medley saith z Syn. â—p Synesius of spirituall and temporall power is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is great difference between the Scepter and the Censer the Chaire of Moses and the Throne of David the tongue of the Minister and the hand of the Magistrate the materiall sword that killeth and the spirituall that quickeneth To the King saith St. a De verb. Esa Chrysostome are the bodies of men committed to the Priest their soules the King pardoneth civill offences and crimes the Priest remitteth the guilt of sinne in the conscience the King compelleth the Priest exhorteth the Kings weapons are outward and materiall the Priests inward and spirituall A like distinction St. b Hieron ad Heliod Rex nolentibus praeest Episcopus volentibus c. Jerome maketh betweene them The King ruleth men though unwilling the Bishop can doe good upon none but those that are willing the King holdeth his subjects in awe with feare and terrour the Priest is appointed for the service of his flocke the King mastereth their bodies with death the Priest preserveth their soules to life But the farthest of any St. c Bern. de consid ad Eugen. Reges gentium dominanturâ—â—s vos non sic aude ergo usurpare aut Dominus Apostolatum aut Apostolicus Dominatum Bernard presseth this point and toucheth Pope Eugenius to the quicke It is the voice of the Lord Kings of the Nations rule over them c. But it shall not be so with you goe to then usurp if thou dare either an Apostleship if thou art a Lord or Lordlike dominion if thou art an Apostle thou art expressely forbid both if thou wilt have both thou shalt lose both But why doe I prosecute this point Doth it concerne any now adayes Doth any one man beare both these offices I answer affirmatively the High-priest at Rome doth For he compasseth his Mitre with a triple Crown and as if he bare this name written upon his thigh King of Kings and Lord of Lords challengeth to himselfe a power to depose Kings and dispose of their Kingdomes Doth any one desire to know who is that man of sinne spoken of by the d 2 Thes 2.3 Apostle who opposeth and exalteth himselfe above all that is called God Let him learne of the Prophet who are called gods Dixi dii estis e Psal 82.6 I have said ye are gods and it will be no matter of great difficultie to point at him who accounteth that hee doth Kings a great honour when he admitteth them to kisse his feet hold his stirrop serve him at table and performe other baser offices prescribed in their booke of ceremonies I can tell you who it was that made the Emperour Henrie the fourth with his Queene and young Prince in extreme frost and snow to waite his leisure three dayes barefooted and in woollen apparell at the gates of Canusium it was Gregory the seventh otherwise called Hildebrand I can shew you who set the Imperiall Crowne upon the head of Henrie the sixt not with his hand but with his foot and with the same foot kicked it off againe saying I have power to make Emperours and unmake them at my pleasure it was Pope Coelestine I can bring good proofe who it was that would not make peace with Frederick the first till in the presence of all the people at the doore of St. Markes Church in Venice the Prince had cast his body flâ—t on the ground and the Pope
Court of justice in which the lesser flyes are strangled but the greater easily breake through them And bee the lawes of any Commonwealth or Kingdome never so exact yet Seneca his observation will bee true Angusta est justitia ad legem justum esse it is but narrow and scanty justice which extendeth no further than mans law A man may be ill enough and yet keepe out of the danger of the lawes of men which are many wayes imperfect and defective but the law of God is no way subject to this imputation it is perfect and as the Prophet David speaketh c Psal 119.96 exceeding broad it reacheth to all the actions words and imaginations of all the sonnes of Adam not a by syllable can passe not a thought stray not a desire swerve from the right way but it falleth within the danger and is lyable to the penalties annexed to it which are most certaine and most grievous 1 Externall in the world 2 Internall in the conscience 3 Eternall in hell The arguments that are hence drawne to deterre men from sinne and wickednesse are of a stronger metall and have another manner of edge than reason can set upon them d Heb. 4 12. For the word of God is quick and powerfull sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart The Hyperbolicall commendation which the e Cic. de orat l. 1. Fremant licet omnes dicam quod sentio bibliothecas omnes Philosophorum unus mihi videtur duodecim tabularum libellus si quis legum fontes capita viderit autoritatis pondere utilitatis ubertate superare Orator giveth of the Romane lawes published in twelve Tables of right belongeth to this member of the Apostles exhortation it hath more weight of reason and forcible arguments of perswasion to holinesse of life and detestation of vice in it than all the discourses of morall Philosophers extant in the world Hence we learn that their losses who trade with Satan are inestimable and irrecoverable that wicked and ungodly courses and means to gain thrive by not onely deprive us of the comfortable fruition of all earthly but also of the possession of all heavenly blessings that even small offences when they come to light are sufficient to cover the sinner with shame and confusion that all the filthinesse that lyeth in the skirts of the soule shall be discovered in the face of the sun before men Angels that not only outward acts but inward motions and intentions not only loud crying sins but also still and quiet that lye asleep as it were in the lap of our conscience not only hainous crimes and transgressions of an high nature but also those seeming good actions that have any secret filthinesse or staine in them if it bee not washed away with the teares of our repentance and blood of our Redeemer shall bee brought into judgement against us and wee for them condemned to death both of body and soule in hell No tragicall vociferation nor the howling and shricking of damned ghosts can sufficiently expresse the horrour and torments of that endlesse death which is the end of sinne What sinne hath proved for the time past yee have heard wee are at this present to consider what it is for the present it hath beene unfruitfull what fruit had yee it is shamefull whereof ye are now ashamed Shame is defined by f L. 2. Rhet. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristotle Agriefe and trouble of minde arising from such evils as seeme to tend to our infamy and disgrace somewhat more fully it may bee described A checke of conscience condemning us for some intention speech or action whereby wee have defiled our conscience before God or stained our credits before men This affection is in all men even in those that are shamelesse and impudent who are not so called because they are without this irkesome passion but because they shew no signe thereof in their countenance nor effects in their lives As impossible it is that in the conscience of a sinner g Rom. 2.15 thoughts should not arise accusing him as that there should bee a fire kindled and no sparks flye up To pollute the conscience with foule sin and not to be ashamed is all one as to prick the tenderest part of the body and to feele no paine h Suet. in Tib. Tiberius who let loose the raines to all licentiousnesse yet when hee gave himselfe to his impure pleasures caused all the pictures to bee removed out of the roome and Alexander Phereus that cruell tyrant when hee beheld a bloody Tragedy in the Theater and therein the ugly and monstrous image of his barbarous cruelty drawne to the life was so confounded therewith that hee could no longer dissemble his terrour of minde nor expect the end of that dismall Scene Now how deepe an impression shame and infamy make in the soule wee may perceive by those who preferred death before it i Xen. l. 7. Cyr. Paed. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Panthea solemnly wished that shee might bee buried alive rather than constrained to staine her blood and good name by keeping company with any how great soever hee were contrary to her vow to her dearest Abradatus And k Ovid. Epist Phillis Demophoonti Phillis having lost her honour voweth to make amends for it by her voluntary death Stat necis electu tenerum pensare pudorem Which Lucretia also practised flying out of the world to shun the shame thereof and spilling her blood which the tyrant had a little before stayned and Europa thought one death too light a revenge for wronged chastity Levis una mors est Virginum culpae If shame and infamy were not the sharpest corrasives to a guilty conscience the Prophet David would not so oft use these and the like imprecations against the enemies of God Let them be confounded and perish that are l Psal 71.11 83.17 against my soule and let them bee counfounded and vexed evermore let them bee put to shame and perish let mine adversaries bee clothed with shame and let them cover themselves with their owne confusion as with a cloake Yea but if shame and confusion are the very gall and wormewood of Gods vengeance against the wicked most bitter to the taste of the soule what construction are wee to make of those words of the Prophet m Ezek. 36.32 O yee house of Israel bee ashamed and confounded for your owne wayes doth the Prophet here give them counsell to pull down Gods vengeance upon themselves Nothing lesse To cleare this point therefore wee must distinguish of shame which is taken 1 Sometimes for a vertuous habit and disposition of the minde consisting in a mediocrity betweene two extremes impudency in the defect reproved in the Jewes by the Prophet n Jer. 8.12
the unquenchable fire in such sort that it hath no power upon any of the members of his mysticall body and by his temporall death hath delivered all that are his from eternall Shall wee not then eternally sing his praises who hath saved us from everlasting weeping and mourning in the valley of Hinnom Shall any waters of affliction quench in us the love of him who for us quenched unquenchable fire Shall not the benefit of our delivery from everlasting death ever live in our memory Shall any thing sever us from him who for our sakes after a sort was severed from his Father when he cryed k Mat. 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forsaken mee Shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or the sword No I am perswaded I may goe on with the Apostle and say l Rom. 8 38 39. Neither life nor death nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. To whom c. FERULA PATERNA THE XLVI SERMON REV. 3.19 As many as I love I rebuke and chasten Right Honourable c. HOw unwilling the author of life and Saviour of all men especially beleevers is to pronounce and execute the sentence of death and destruction against any if the teares which hee shed over Jerusalem and groanes and lamentations which hee powreth out when he powreth forth the vials of his vengeance testifie not abundantly yet his soft pace and orderly proceeding by degrees in the course hee taketh against obstinate and impenitent sinners is enough to silence all murmuring complaints wrongfully charging his justice and raise up all dejected spirits dolefully imploring his mercy For hee ever first sitteth upon his throne of grace and reacheth out his golden Scepter to all that cast themselves downe before him and if they have a hand of faith to lay hold on it hee raiseth them up before hee taketh hold of his iron rod and hee shaketh it too before hee striketh with it and hee striketh lightly before hee breaketh in pieces and shivers the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction So true is that which hee speaketh of himselfe by the Prophet Hosea a Hos 13.9 O Israel thou hast destroyed thy selfe but in mee is thy helpe and the Prophet of him b Psal 25.10 All the pathes of the Lord are mercy and truth in which he walketh thus step by step First when wee begin to stray from him hee calleth us backe and reclaymeth us from our soule and dangerous wayes by friendly counsels and passionate perswasions by increase of temporall and promise of eternall blessings as we may read in the tenour of all the Prophets commissions 2 If these kinde offers be refused with contempt and greater benefits repayed with greater unthankfulnesse he changeth his note but not his affections he exprobrates to us our unthankfulnesse that it might not prove a barre of his bounty c Hos 11 3 4. I taught Ephraim to goe taking them by their armes and they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man with bands of love and I was to them as they that take off the yoake from their jawes and d Isa 5.2 My Beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitfull hill and hee fenced it and hee gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest Vine and built a tower in the midst of it and also made a wine-presse therein and hee looked that it should bring forth grapes and it brought forth wild grapes 3 If exprobrations and sharpe reproofes will not serve the turne he falls to threatning and menacing fearefull punishments but to this end onely that hee may not inflict what hee threateneth as wee see in Niniveh's case e Jonah 3.4 Yet forty dayes saith the Prophet and Niniveh shall bee overthrowne yet Niniveh was not overthrown f Vers 10. because the Ninivites repented of their workes and turned from their evill wayes God repented of the evill he had said that hee would doe unto them and he did it not 4 If neither promises of mercies nor threats of judgements neither kind entreaties nor sharpe rebukes can worke upon the hard heartednesse of obstinate sinners hee useth yet another meanes to bring them home hee taketh away their goods that they may come to him for them hee pincheth them with famine that hee may starve their wanton lusts he striketh their flesh with a smart rod that it may awake their soules out of a dead sleepe of security and this for the most part is the last knocke at their hearts at which if they open not and receive Christ by unfained repentance and a lively faith the gates of mercy are for ever locked up against them According to this method Christ here proceedeth with the Angel of Laodicea First g V. 15. hee friendly saluteth him next h V. 16. Ver. 17. Ver. 18. hee sharply reproveth him then hee fearfully threatneth him lastly he severely chastiseth him and all in love as you heare in this verse As many as I love I rebuke and chasten Which hath this coherence with the former wherein Christ taxed two vices in this Angel luke warmnesse and spirituall pride against these hee prescribeth two remedies zeale vers 19. and spirituall providence I counsell thee to buy of mee gold tryed in the fire that thou maist bee rich and white rayment that thou maist bee clothed and that the shame of thy nakednesse doe not appeare and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou maist see But here because the Angel of Laodicea might reply Alas to what end is all this what prescribe you unto memedicinal potions who am to be spewed out of Gods mouth what can your counsell doe me good my doome is already past and my heart within mee is like melted waxe Christ opportunely in the words of my text solveth this objection and giveth him a cordial to keep him from fainting Be not too much discouraged at my sharp rebukes nor faint under my fatherly chastisements for I use no other discipline towards thee than towards my dearest children whom I love most entirely yet rebuke most sharply to break them of their ill qualities I chasten those and those onely and all those whom I love and I chasten oftenest whom I love best wherefore faint not but be zealous neither despaire but amend and thou shalt finde my affection as much enlarged and the treasurie of my bounty as open unto thee as ever heretofore Behold then in the words of this Scripture 1 A rule of direction to those that are set in high places of authority 2 A staffe of comfort to those who are fallen into the depth of griefe and misery To the former the Spirit speaketh in the words of my text on this wise Ye Masters of servants Tutors of Scholars
last of all by Antichrist and his adherents Yee see by this Epitomy of her story the reason of her complaints n Cant. 1.6 Regard mee not because I am blacke for the sunne hath looked upon mee the sonnes of my mother were angry against mee o Cant. 5.7 The watchmen that went about the City found me they smote mee and wounded mee and tooke away my vaile from me Stay me with flaggons and comfort me with apples for I am sick for love Hereby also you may give a fit motto to those emblemes in holy Scripture A lilly among thornes A dove whose note is mourning A vine spoyled by little foxes and partly rooted out by the wild bore of the forrest A woman great with childe and a fiery dragon pursuing her According to which patternes Saint Jerome frameth his p Rubus ardens est figura ecclesiae quae flammis persecutionum non consumitur sed viret magis Hier. in verb. Exod. 3.2 A bush burning yet not consuming and as fitly Saint Gregory draweth her with Christs crosse in her hand with her challenge there unto Ecclesia haeres crucis The Church is an inheretrix of the crosse And it appeareth by all records hitherto that she hath possessed it and if wee examine the matter well wee shall finde that Christ had nothing else to leave her at his death For goods and lands upon earth hee never had q Mat. 8.20 The foxes saith hee have holes and the birds nests but the sonne of man hath not where to lay his head His soule hee bequeathed to his father his body was begged by Joseph of Arimathea his garments the souldiers tooke for their fee and cast lots upon his vestments onely the crosse together with the nailes and gall and vinegar bestowed upon him at his death hee left her as a Heriot For these withall the appurtenances scourges cryes sighes groanes stripes and wounds hee bequeathed to her by his life time in those words r Joh. 16.33 Mat. 10.17 18. 24.9 10 11. Joh. 16.10 In the world yee shall have troubles they shall persecute you in their Synagogues and scourge you and yee shall bee hated of all men for my names sake insomuch that they that kill you shall thinke they doe God good service Yee shall weepe and mourne but the world shall rejoice Upon which words Å¿ Lib. de spectac c. 28. Vicibus res disposita est lugeamus ergò dum ethnici gaudeÌ„t ut cum lugere coeperint gaudeamus ne paritèr nunc gaudentes cum quoque paritèr lugeamus delicatus es Christiane si in seculo voluptatem concupiscis imò niâ—iâ—is stultus si hoc existimas voluptatem Tertullian inferreth God hath disposed of joyes and sorrowes by turnes let us mourne when worldlings rejoice that when they mourne wee may rejoice Thou art too dainty and choice O Christian if besides the joyes of heaven laid up for thee thou lookest for a liberall portion of delights and pleasures in this world nay thou art too foolish if thou countest there is any true pleasure in such things wherein they place their happinesse I need not presse many texts of Scripture which yeeld this sharp juice as t Psal 34.19 Many are the troubles of the righteous u 2 Tim. 3.12 All that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution * 1 Pet. 4.17 Judgment begins at the house of God this verse alone which I now handle is sufficient to cleare Christs afflicted members from all note of heresie and imputation of reprobates For if afflictions are chastisements of Gods children and tokens of his love I rebuke and chasten as many as I love then are they not necessarily judgements for sinne messengers of wrath much lesse proper markes of heretickes and reprobates The kingdome of heaven is not necessarily annexed to earthly crownes nor is eternall glory any way an appendant to worldly pompe To conclude affluence of temporall blessings is no note of the true because store of afflictions is no note of the false Church Which truth is so apparent that many Papists of note have expresly delivered it in their annotations upon holy Scripture as u Stap. in verb Joh. In mundo pressuras habebitis Stapleton the Rhemists and x Mald. in Mat. 5. Facit solem orire supâ—r bonos malos unde perspicuum est hominum aut nationum prosperos successus nullum signum aut testimonium esse verioris aut purioris religionis Maldonate God causeth his Sunne to rise upon the just and upon the unjust whence saith the Jesuite it is evident that the prosperity of men or nations is no certaine signe or argument of the truth or purity of religion which they professe Howbeit as Praxiteles drew Venus after the picture of Cratina his Mistresse and all the Painters of Thebes after the similitude of Phryne a beautifull strumpet so Bellarmine being to paint and limme Christs Spouse took his notes from his own Mistresse the Romane Phryne the whore of Babylon and mother of fornications Looke upon the picture of that strumpet drawne to the life by Saint John Apoc. 17. and let your eyes bee Judges I saw saith hee a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast vers 3. full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten hornes vers 4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour and decked with gold and pretious stones and pearles what is this but Bellarmine his note of temporall felicity having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations of which it seemeth the Cardinall dranke deepe when he tooke the pencill in his hand to pourtray the true Church else hee could not be so out in his draught nor so utterly forget not only what others but himselfe also had formerly set downe in this point For in his solution of an objection of Martin Luther who stood in the opposite extreme affirming afflictions to bee an inseparable note of the Church hee confesseth freely that the Church in the beginning and in the end was in great straights and for this purpose to shew that persecutions though they eclipse the glory of the Church yet can never utterly extinguish it hee alledges such remarkable passages out of the ancient Fathers as these y Justin Mart. in apolog Persecution is but the pruning of Christs vine and z Tertul. in Apologet the blood of Martyrs is as seed and * Leo Ser. 1. de Pet. Paul the graines that fall one by one and dye in the earth rise up againe in great numbers If the Church runne into superfluous stemmes without the pruning knife of afflictions if the blood of martyrs turneth into seed to generate new Martyrs if the Church in her nonage had many sore conflicts and shall have greater in her old age certainly abundance ease pleasure and glory which make up temporall felicity are no notes of her for a L. 1. de
did his best to incline his will that way yet he could not keep it to that bent but that it slacked and bowed another way as Christs words imply Ducent te quo nolis They shall d John 21.18 lead thee whither thou wouldest not He saith not they shall draw thee but they shall lead thee Peter therefore was in some sort willing to goe with them that led him to the crosse yet hee somewhat shrinked at it though the spirit was strong in him yet the flesh was weake Who ever did or suffered more for the Gospel than Saint Paul yet he professeth that in regard of the law of sinne in his members the e Rom. 7.19 good which he would doe he did not and the evill which he would not doe that he did And being thus crossed in all his godly desires and endeavours hee cryeth out O * Rom. 7.24 wretched man that I am who shall deliver mee from this body of death Yee see now the root of bitternesse set so deep in our hearts that it cannot be pluck't up till wee are transplanted there is no hope in this life to purge out this matter of continuall diseases it is so mingled with our radicall moisture the balsamum of our lives only wee may abate it by subtracting nourishment from it and allay the force of it by strengthening nature against it by prayers godly instructions and continuall exercises of religious duties A neerer cause of our so great distemper in afflictions wee owe to the delights of our prosperity which as the pleasures of Capua did Hannibals souldiers so weaken our mindes and make us so choice and tender that we cannot beare the weight of our owne armour much lesse the stroakes of an enraged enemy The f Hieron ad Heliod Corpus assuetum tunicis loricae onus non fert caput opertum linteo galeam recusat mollem otio manum durus exasperat capulus body used to soft raiment cannot beare the weight of an helmet the head wrapped in silke night-caps cannot endure an iron head-piece the hard hilt hurteth the soft hand It was wisely observed by the g Senec. sent Res adversae non frangunt quos prosperae non corruperunt Heathen Sage that none are broken with adversity but such as were weakened before and made crazie by ease and prosperity Sound trees are not blowne downe with the wind but the rootes rather fastened thereby but corrupt trees eaten with wormes engendered of superfluous moisture are therefore throwne downe by the least blast because they had no strength to resist Why do losses of goods so vexe us but because we trusted in uncertaine riches Why is disgrace a Courtiers hell but because he deemed the favour of the Prince places of honourable employment his heaven We are therefore astonished at our fall because sometimes with David in the height of our worldly felicity we said Wee shall never bee h Psal 30.6 moved If when we had the world at will we had used the things of this life as if wee used them not now in the change of our estate our not using them would be all one as if we used them The best meanes to asswage the paines of affliction when it shall befall us will be in the time of our wealth to abate the pleasures of prosperity if we sawce all our earthly joyes with godly sorrow all our worldly sorrow shall be mixed with much spirituall joy and comfort Let us not over-greedily seeke nor highly esteem nor immoderately take nor intemperately joy in the delights and comforts which wealth and prosperity afford and the rod of Gods afflicting hand shall fall but lightly upon us Let us not so fill our hearts with temporary pleasures but that wee leave some place for these and the like sad and sober thoughts What are riches honours pleasures and all the contentments of this life that because I enjoy them for the present I should take so much upon mee The Divell offereth them the wicked have them Gods dearest children often want them therefore they are not eagerly to be sought They are not good but in their use nor things but for a moment nor ours but upon trust therefore not greatly to be esteemed They without store of grace in our selves and good counsels from others strengthen the flesh weaken the spirit nourish carnall lusts choake all good motions cloy our bodily and wholly stupifie our ghostly senses cast us into a dead sleep of security but awake Gods judgements against us therefore they are sparingly to be tasted not greedily to be devoured These and the like meditations are not only good preservatives in prosperity but also lenitives in adversity as they helpe us to digest and i Pind. od 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concoct felicity so they strengthen us to beare misery All that wee now possesse and the world so much doteth upon what are they in their nature and condition but things indifferent therefore wee ought to bee indifferently affected to them and the contrary they are transitory what strange thing then is it if they passe from us they are farre inferiour to the immortall spirit that quickneth our bodies therefore cannot the want of them deprive it of happinesse they are not our inheritance for ever nor our donatives or legacies for life but talents for a while committed to us to employ them to our Masters best advantage therefore the restoring them back is no mulct but a surrender no losse but a discharge The more of this sort wee are trusted with the more liable we are to an account how then are wee hurt or endammaged by the diminution of that which lessens our accounts Finally they are often effects of Gods wrath and their effects usually are sensuality security and stupidity against which afflictions are a speciall remedy To extract then the quintessence of the herbes and flowers of Paradise and make of them a cordiall to comfort us in worldly losses Nothing is absolutely good but God all other things respectively only temporall blessings as they proceed from his love and may be imployed to his glory in this respect only to be desired and loved If then wee affect God in them and enjoy them in God and it be made apparent unto us that afflictions and losses are sometimes more certaine tokens of Gods love and that they minister unto us more matter and greater occasion of testifying our love to him and meanes of setting forth his glory we should be rather glad than sorrowfull when God seeth it best for us to exchange the former for the latter Yea but the forlorne Christian out of all heart because in his conceit out of Gods favour will reply Shew mee that the countenance of God is not changed towards mee nor his affections estranged from mee and it sufficeth surely kissings and embracings not blowes and stroakes are love complements how may I be perswaded that God layeth his heavie crosse upon mee in
and reluctancy nay rather they for Christs sake desired them and rejoyced in them Something then it was above all the torments man can devise much lesse beare that our Saviour felt in his agony and expressed by his bloudy sweat and strong cries Whilest our Saviour was in this wofull plight what doe his Disciples Doe they condole him pray with him arme themselves to defend him Nay in this feare and perplexity of their Master they fall fast asleep at the first after in his greatest danger forsake him only Judas commeth neere him and saluteth him with a kisse O that perfidious treachery should touch those lips in which there was no guile that he should be m Cyp. de bon patient Insultantium sputamina exciperet qui sputo suo caeci oculos paulò ante formastet coronaretur spinis qui Martyres floribus coronat aeternis palmis in faciem verberaretur qui palmas veras vincentibus tribuit spoliaretur veste terrenâ qui indumento immortalitatis caeteros vestit cibaretur felle qui cibum coelestem dedit potaretur aceto qui poculum salutare propinavit spit upon who cured the eyes of the blind with spittle that his face should be smitten with palmes of the hand who putteth palmes into the hands of all that overcome that he should be crowned with thornes who crownes Martyrs with never withering flowers that he should be stripped of his earthly garments who arraies us with celestiall robes that hee should be fed with gall who feeds us with bread from heaven that vinegar should be given to him for drinke who prepareth for us the cup of salvation But before we goe out of the garden we will gather some flowers As the first sinne was committed in a garden so the first satisfaction was made in a garden in that garden there was an evill Angel tempting in this garden a good Angel comforting Adams sentence in that garden was that hee should get his living with the sweat of his browes and in this the second Adam procureth life unto us by the sweat of his whole body Adam was driven out of that garden by an Angel brandishing a fiery blade and our Saviour is fetched out of this with swords and staves and brought into the high Priests palace where he is most injuriously dealt withall they cannot hold their hands off him whilest he is examined before the Judge but contrary to all law and good maners they smite him with staves at his arraignment Yea but they were but rude souldiers or fawning servants Is there any more justice in the high Priest or the Councell who not only take willingly any allegation against him but also seeke out for false witnesses and when they find none that were contests yet they condemne him and that for no ordinary crime but for blasphemy in the highest degree Neither were the Judges more unjust than the people mad against him Away with him say they away with him Crucifie him crucifie him Why what evil hath he done Spare Barabbas not him What save a murderer and murder a Saviour O ye people of Judea and inhabitants of Jerusalem what so enrageth you against him He hath cleansed your lepers he hath cured your blind he hath opened your deafe eares he hath loosened your tongue-tyed he hath healed your sicke he hath raised your dead he hath preached unto you the Gospel of the Kingdome and the glad tidings of salvation and is he not therefore worthy to live He inviteth you to grace Come unto mee all ye that are heavie laden unto glory Come ye blessed of my Father and therefore away with him away with him With these out cries Pilate is overborne as if clamours of the promiscuous rout were to be taken for depositions of sworne witnesses and hee pronounceth the unjustest sentence that ever was given that Jesus was guilty of death After the sentence execution immediately ensueth he is stript starke naked before the multitude what would not an ingenuous man rather endure than this shame his flesh is torne with whips and scourges appointed for slaves so cruelly that Pilate himselfe moved at so lamentable a spectacle sheweth him to the people with an ecce homo either to move them to pity or to satisfie their bloud-thirsty appetite As for the insolencies and indignities offered unto him by the souldiers they are so odious and intolerable that I cannot with patience relate them and therefore I passe with our Saviour to Mount Calvarie where foure great nailes were driven into the most tender and sinewy parts of his body wherewith after he was fastened to the crosse his crosse was set up in the midst betwixt two theeves the Mediatour of God and man now hangeth in the middle betwixt heaven and earth I need not amplifie upon the death of the crosse a death for the torment most grievous most infamous amongst men and n Deut. 21.23 accursed of God himselfe Any one may conceive what a torment it must needs be when the whole weight of the body hangeth upon the wounds in the hands feet But there were foure circumstances which very much aggravated his passion 1. The nature of his complexion for being made of Virgins flesh and thereby of the purest and exactest temper hee could not but be more sensible of excruciating torments than any other 2. The place and time the place Jerusalem the Metropolis of all Judea the time at Easter when there was a concourse of people from all parts of Palestine besides an infinite multitude of strangers that came to see that great solemnity 3. The sight of his mother and dearest Disciple in their sight to be put to so infamous and cruell a death what a corrasive must it needs be This was the sword that pierced his mothers heart and how thinke wee it affected him his compassion was no lesse griefe to him than his passion 4. The insolency of his adversaries now flocking about his crosse and by their deriding scoffes and taunts powring sharpest vinegar into his wounds To endure that which man never did nor could to be put to all extremiy of tortures and torments and not to be bemoaned nay to be mocked at and reviled Others he hath saved himselfe he cannot save Thou that destroyedst the Temple and buildedst it up againe in three dayes come downe from the crosse and we will beleeve thee O this is an hyperbole of misery There are yet foure considerations which put as it were a spirituall crosse upon his materiall and more tortured his soule than the other his body 1. His unconceivable griefe for the obstinacy of the Jewish nation 2. The apprehension of the destruction of the City and Temple with a desolation of the whole Country to ensue shortly after his death 3. The guilt of the sins of the whole world 4. The sense of the full wrath of his Father for the sinnes of mankind which he tooke upon himselfe And now ye have the full dosis
the more humble the more grace because they more desire it and are more capable thereof For the more empty the vessel is the more liquor it receiveth in like maner the more empty wee are in our owne conceits the more heavenly grace God z Mat. 11.25 infuseth into us To him therefore let our soules continually gaspe as a thirsty land let us pray to him for humility that wee may have grace and more grace that wee may be continually more humble Lord who hast taught us that because thy Son our Saviour being in the forme of God humbled himselfe and in his humility became obedient and in his obedience suffered death even the most ignominious painfull and accursed death of the crosse thou hast exalted him highly above the grave in his resurrection the earth in his ascension above the starres of heaven in his session establish our faith in his estate both of humiliation and exaltation and grant that his humility may be our instruction his obedience our rule his passion our satisfaction his resurrection our justification his ascension our improvement of sanctification and his session at thy right hand our glorification Amen Deo Patri Filio Sp. S. sit laus c. LOWLINES EXALTED OR Gloria Crocodilus THE LIII SERMON PHIL. 2.9 Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him Right Honourable c. WEe are come to keep holy the solemnest feast the Church ever appointed to recount thankfully the greatest benefit mankinde ever received to celebrate joyfully the happiest day time ever brought forth and if the rising of the sun upon the earth make a naturall day in the Calendar of the world shall not much more the rising of the Sun of righteousnesse out of the grave with his glorious beams describe a festivall day in the Calendar of the Church If the rest of God from the works of creation was a just cause of sanctifying a perpetuall Sabbath to the memory thereof may not the rest of our Lord from the works of redemption more painefull to him more beneficiall to us challenge the like prerogative of a day to be hallowed and consecrated unto it shall we not keep it as a Sabbath on earth which hath procured for us an everlasting Sabbath in heaven The holy Apostles and their Successors who followed the true light of the world so near that they could not misse their way thought it so meet and requisite that upon this ground they changed the seventh day from the creation appointed by God himselfe for a a Ignat. epist ad Magnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanas Homil. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aug. de verb. Apost ser 25. Domini resuscitatio consecravit nobis diem Dominicum Vide Homil. Eccl. Of the time of prayer Hooker Eccles polit l. 5. sect 70. p. 196. The morall Law requiring a sevent part throughout the age of the world to be that way employed though with us the day be charged in regard of a new revolution begun by our Saviour Christ yet the same proportion of time continueth which was before because in a reference to the benefit of creation and now much more of renovation thereunto added by him which was the Prince of the world to come wee are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which Gods immutable decree doth exact for ever Sabbath and fixed the Christian Sabbath upon the first day of the weeke to eternize the memory of our Lords resurrection This day is the first borne of the Church feasts the Prototypon and samplar Lords day if I may so speak from whence all the other throughout the yeere were drawne as patternes this is as the Sunne it selfe they are as the Parelii the Philosophers speake of images and representations of that glorious light in bright clouds like so many glasses set about the body thereof With what solemnity then the highest Christian feast is to be celebrated with what religion the christian Sabbath of sabbaths is to be kept with what affection the accomplishment of our redemption the glorification of our bodies the consummation of our happinesse the triumph of our Lord over death and hell and ours in him and for him is to be recounted with what preparation holy reverence the Sacrament of our Lords body and bloud which seales unto us these inestimable benefits is to be received with that solemnity that religion that affection that preparation that elevation of our minds we are to offer this morning sacrifice Wherefore I must intreat you to endeavour to raise your thoughts and affections above their ordinary levell that they fall not short of this high day which as it representeth the raising and exaltation of the worlds Redeemer so it selfe is raised and exalted above all other Christian feasts Were our devotion key cold and quite dead yet mee thinkes that the raising of our Lord from the dead should revive it and put new life and heat into it as it drew the bodies of many Saints out of the graves to accompany our Lord into the holy City After the Sun had bin in the eclipse for three houres when the fountaine of light began againe to be opened and the beames like streames run as before how lightsome on the sudden was the world how beautifull being as it were new gilt with those precious raies how joyfull and cheerfull were the countenances of all men The Sunne of righteousnesse had been in a totall eclipse not for three houres but three whole dayes and nights and then there was nothing but darknesse of sorâ—ow over the face of the whole Church but now hee appeares in greater glory than ever before now he shineth in his full strength What joy must this needs be to all that before sate in darknesse and in the shadow of death In the deadest time of the yeere we celebrated joyfully the birth of our Lord out of the wombe of the Virgin and shall we not this Spring as much rejoyce at his second birth and springing out of the wombe of the earth Then he was borne in humility and swadled in clouts now he is borne in majesty and clothed with robes of glory then he was borne to obey now to rule then to dye now to live for ever then to be nailed on the crosse at the right hand of a theefe now to be settled on a throne at the right hand of his Father As Cookes serve in sweet meats with sowre sawces Musicians in their songs insert discords to give rellish as it were to their concords and b Cic. de orat l. 3. Habeat summa illa laus umbram recessum ut id quod illuminatum est magis extare atque eminere videatur Rhetoricians set off their figures by solaecismes or plaine sentences in like manner the Apostle to extoll our Saviours exaltation the higher depresseth his humiliation the lower he expresseth his passion in the darkest colours to make the glory of his resurrection appear the brighter
sonne when it is ripe which he permitted to grow in the father without applying any such remedy outwardly unto it yet this is most certaine that he never visiteth the sinne of the father upon the children if the children tread not in the wicked steps of their father Thus much the words that follow in the second Commandement imply unto the n Exod. 20.5 third and fourth generation of them that hate mee He often sheweth mercy to the sonne for the fathers sake but never executeth justice upon any but for their owne sinnes The sinne of the sonne growes the more unpardonable because he would not take example by his father but abused the long-suffering of God which should have called him to repentance The Latine Proverb Aemilius fecit plectitur Rutilius Aemilius committeth the trespasse and Rutilius was merced for it hath no place in Gods proceedings neither is there any ground of the Poets commination o Hor. l. 3. od 6. lib. 1. od 28. Negligis immeritis nocituram postmodo te natis fraudem committer◠fo rs debita jura vicesque superbae te maneant ipsum Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane For God is so far from inflicting punishment upon one for the sins of another that he inflicteth no punishment upon any for his own sinne or sins be they never so many and grievous if he turne from his wicked wayes and cry for mercy in time for God desireth not the death of a sinner but of sinne he would not that we should dye in our sinnes but our sinnes in us If we spare not our sinnes but slay them with the sword of the Spirit God will spare us This is the effect of the Prophets answer the summe of this chapter and the contents of this verse in which more particularly we are to observe 1. The person I. 2. The action or affection desire 3. The object death 4. The subject the wicked 1. The person soveraigne God 2. The action or affection amiable delight 3. The object dreadfull deprivation of life 4. The subject guilty the wicked The words are uttered by a figurative interrogation in which there is more evidence and efficacy more life and convincing force For it is as if he had said Know ye not that I have no such desire or thinke ye that I have any desire or dare it enter into your thoughts that I take any pleasure at all in the death of a sinner When the interrogation is figurative the rule is that if the question be affirmative the answer to it must be negative but if the question be negative the answer must be affirmative For example Who is like unto the Lord the meaning is none is like unto the Lord. Whom have I in heaven but thee that is I have none in heaven but thee On the other side when the question is negative the answer must be affirmative as Are not the Angels ministring spirits that is the Angels are ministring spirits and Shall the Son of man find faith that is the Son of man shall not find faith Here then apply the rule and shape a negative answer to the first member being affirmative thus I have no desire that a sinner should dye and an affirmative answer to the negative member thus I have a desire that the wicked should returne and live and ye have the true meaning and naturall exposition of this verse Have I any desire that the wicked should dye 1. God is not said properly to have any thing 2. if he may be said to have any thing yet not desires 3. if he may be said to have a desire of any thing yet not of death 4. if he desire the death of any yet not of the wicked in his sinne Have I As the habits of the body are not the body so neither the habits of the soule are the soule it selfe Now whatsoever is in God is God for he is a simple act and his qualities or attributes are not re ipsâ distinct from his essence and therefore he cannot be said properly to have any thing but to be all things Any desire Desires as Plato defineth them are vela animi the sailes of the mind which move it no other wayes than the saile doth a ship Desire of honour is the saile which moveth the ambitious of pleasure is the saile which moveth the voluptuous of gaine is the saile which moveth the covetous Others define them spurres of the soule to prick us on forwards to such things as are most agreeable to our naturall inclination and deliberate purposes Hence it appeares that properly there can be no desires in God because desire is of something we want but God wanteth nothing Desires are meanes to stirre us up but God is immoveable as he is immutable If then he be said to desire any thing the speech is borrowed and to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in such sort as may agree with the nature of God and it importeth no more than God liketh or approveth such things That the wicked should dye A sinner may be said to dye two manner of wayes either as a sinner or as a man as a sinner he dyeth when his sinne dyeth in him and he liveth as a man he dyeth either when his body is severed from his soule which is the first death or when both body and soule are for ever severed from God which is the second death God desireth the death of a sinner in the first sense but no way in the latter he desireth that sinne should dye in us but neither that we should dye the first death in sin nor dye the second death for sinne He is the author of life p Job 7.20 preserver of mankind He is the q 1 Tim. 4.10 Saviour of all especially them that beleeve Hee would not that any should r 2 Pet. 3.9 perish but all should come to repentance If he should desire the death of a sinner as he should gain-say his owne word so he should desire against his owne nature For beeing is the nature of God Sum qui sum I am that I am but death is the not beeing of the creature No more than light can be the cause of darknesse can God who is life be the cause of death If he should desire the death of a sinner he should destroy his principall attributes of wisedome goodnesse and mercy Of wisdome for what wisedome can it be to marre his chiefest worke Of goodnesse for how can it stand with goodnesse to desire that which is in it selfe evill Of mercy for how can it stand with mercy to desire or take pleasure in the misery of his creature Doth he desire the death of man who gave man warning of it at the first and meanes to escape it if he would and after that by his voluntary transgression he was liable to the censure of death provided him a Redeemer to ransome him from death calleth all men by the Gospel to
that any one Divell should get possession of our hearts yet seven nay a legion may be cast out by fasting and prayer God forbid that any of us should be long sicke of any spirituall disease yet those that have been sicke unto death have been restored yea those that have been long dead have been raised God forbid that wee should forsake our heavenly Fathers house and in a strange countrey waste his goods and consume our portion yet after we have run riot and spent all the gifts of nature and goods of this life and lavished out our time the most precious treasure of all yet in the end if we come to our selves and looke homewards our heavenly Father will meet us and kill the fat calfe for uâ— Therefore if wee have grievously provoked Gods justice by presumption let us not more wrong his mercy by despaire but hope even above hope in him whose mercy is over all his workes Against the number and weight of all our sinnes let us lay the infinitenesse of Gods mercy and Christ his merits and the certainty of his promise confirmed by oath As I live I desire not the death of a sinner if hee returne he shall live Oh saith Saint a Bern. in Cant. Quis dabit capiti meo aquam oculis meis fontem lachrymarum ut praeveniam fletibus fletum stridorem dentium Bernard that mine eyes were springs of teares that by my weeping here I might prevent everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell What pitie is it that we should fret and grieve and disquiet our selves and others for the losse of a Jewell from our eare or a ring from our finger and should take no thought at all for the losse of the Jewels of Gods grace out of our soules We are overwhelmed as it were in a deluge of teares at the death of our friends who yet are alive to God though dead to this world but have we not a thousand times greater reason to open those floodgates of salt waters which nature hath set in our eyes for our selves who are dead to God though alive to the world St. b De laps Si quem de tuis chatis mortalitatis exitu perdidisses ingemisceres dolenter fleres facie incultâ veste mutatâ neglecto capillo vultu nubilo ore dejecto indicia moeroris ostenderes animam tuam miser perdidisti spiritualitèr mortuus es supervivere hic tibi ipse ambulans funus tuum portare caepisti non acritèr plangis non â—ugitèr ingemiscis Cyprian hath a sweet touch on this string If any of thy deare friends were taken away from thee by death thou wouldst sigh thou wouldst sob thou wouldst put on blacks thou wouldst hang doâ—ne thy head thou wouldst dis-figure thy face thou wouldst let thy haire hang carelesly about thine eares thou wouldst wring thy hands thou wouldst knock thy breast thou wouldst throw thy selfe downe upon the ground thou wouldst expresse sorrow in all her gestures and postures O wretched man that thou art thou hast lost thy soule thou art spiritually dead thou survivest thy selfe and carriest a dead corps about thee and dost thou not take on dost thou not fetch a deepe sigh hast thou not a compassionate teare for thy selfe wilt thou not be thy owne mourner especially considering that all thy weeping and howling for thy friend cannot fetch him backe againe or restore him to life whereas thy weeping for thy selfe in this vale of tears and seriously bewailing thy sinnes may and by Gods grace shall revive thy soule and recover all thy spirituall losses and that with advantage Experience teacheth us that the presentest remedie for a man that is stung in any part of his body by a Scorpion is to take the oile of Scorpions and therewith oft to annoint the place sinne is the Scorpion that stingeth our soules even to death if we apply nothing to it yet out of this Scorpion sinne it selfe and the sorrow for it an oile or water may be drawne of penitent teares wherewith if we annoint or wash our soules we shall kill the venome of sinne and allay the swelling of our conscience c Pind. od 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a most soveraigne water which will fetch a sinner againe to the life of grace though never so farre gone It is not Well water springing out of the bowels of the earth nor raine powred out of the clouds of passion but rather like a d Cyp de card Chris op De interioribus fontibus egrediuntur torrentes super omnes delicias lachrymis nectareis anima delectatuâ— non illos imbres procellosae tempestates deponunt ros matutinus est de coelestibus stillans quasi unctio spiritus mentem deliniens post affectio se abluit lachrymis baptizat dew falling from heaven which softeneth and moisteneth the heart and is dried up by the beames of the Sun of righteousnesse Have not I a desire that the wicked should turne from his wayes and live When a subject hath rebelled against his naturall Soveraigne or a servant grievously provoked his master or a sonne behaved himselfe ungraciously towards his father will the Prince sue to his subject or a master to his servant or a father to his sonne for a reconciliation Will not an equall that hath a quarrell with his equall hold it a great disgrace and disparagement to make any meanes that the quarrell may be taken up will he not keepe out at full distance and looke that the partie who as he conceiveth hath wronged him should make first towards him and seeke to him Yet such an affection God beareth to us that though we silly wormes of the earth swell and rise against him yet he seeketh to us he sendeth Embassadours to e 2 Cor. 5.19 20. treat of peace and intreate and beseech us to be reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himselfe not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be reconciled unto God Stand not out my deare brethren resigne the strong holds of your carnall imaginations and affections deliver up your members that they may serve as weapons of righteousnesse and yeeld your selves to his mercy and yee shall live Turne and live Should a prisoner led to execution heare the Judge or Sheriffe call to him and say Turne backe put in sureties for thy good behaviour hereafter and live would he not suddenly leap out of his fetters embrace the condition and thanke the Judge or Sheriffe upon his knees And what think ye if God should send a Prophet to preach a Sermon of repentance to the divels and damned ghosts in hell and say Knock off your bolts shake off your fetters and turne to the Lord and live would not hell be emptied and rid before
and occupation of the Sechemites but of the Hittites 3. Whether Hamor were the father or sonne of Sechem For in Genesis we reade that he was the father of Sechem but in the Acts many translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the son of Sechem 1. The first doubt may be thus cleared Joseph alone was buried in Sechem and rested there but the other Patriarchs were at the first buried at Sechem but afterwards removed from thence to Ephron and were buried all in Abrahams vault or cave thus Josephus S. Jerome are easily reconciled For though the bones of them all lay in Ephron yet at Sechem there might be some monument of them remaining as empty tombes with some inscription 2. The second difficulty is much more intricate and those who have stroven to get out of it have more intangled themselves and others in it Calvins answer is somewhat too peremptory that there is an errour in all our copies of the New Testament and ought to be corrected and though Beza goe about to excuse the matter by a semblance of some like misnomer in the Gospel yet this his observation unlesse he could produce some ancient copies wherein such mistakes were not to be found openeth a dangerous gap to Infidels and Heretickes who hereby will be apt to take occasion to question the infallible truth of the holy Writ Canus in going about to take out the blot maketh it bigger saying that Saint Luke erred not in relating Saint Stephens speech but that Saint Stephens memory failed him and that through errour or inadvertency hee confounded Jacobs purchase with Abrahams This answer commeth neere to blasphemy for no man doubteth but that Saint Stephen in his speech spake as hee was inspired by the holy Ghost Therefore Lyranus Lorinus and many others think to salve all by putting two names upon the same man whom they will have sometimes to be called Ephron sometimes Hamor but they bring no good proofe out of Scripture for it and though they could make Ephron and Hamor the same man yet they can never make the cave in the land of the Hittites and that in the land of the Sechemites to be one and the same parcell of ground With submission to more learned judgements quia hic Delio opus est natatore I take it that either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be rendred by joyned to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a comma at 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so the sense is That the Patriarchs were translated into Sechem by the Sechemites and laid in Abrahams sepulchre which he bought for mony or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be understood and then the meaning will be this That some of the Patriarchs were laid in Abrahams sepulchre some in the field that Jacob bought Thus then according to the originall wee may render this verse And they were carried over into Sechem and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought besides that which Jacob bought of Hamor that is Jacob dyed and our fathers and some of them were bestowed in Sechem in the cave which Jacob bought and some of them in that which Abraham bought 3. The third doubt is easily resolved For Hamor was the father of Sechem as we reade Genes 33.19 neither doth S. Stephen gain-say it for his words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Sechem which should have been translated the father of Sechem as Herodotus in Clio saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Thalia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mar. 15.40 and Saint Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adrastus of Mydas to wit the father of Mydas Cyrus of Cambyses that is the father of Cambyses Mary of James that is Mary the mother of James The mist being thus dispelled we may cleerly see our way and readily follow the Patriarchs in the funerall procession from Egypt first to Sechem and afterwards to Ephron And they were carried over c. This transportation offereth to our religious thoughts two acts 1. Of Piety 2. Of Charity both significative and mysticall For the carrying the Patriarchs bones from Egypt to Canaan shadoweth our removall after death from Egyptian darknesse to the inheritance of Saints in light and the laying them by the bones of Abraham may represent unto us how the soules of all the faithfull immediately after they were severed from their bodies are carried by Angels into the bosome of Abraham The first I call an act of piety or religion because the Patriarchs before their death by faith gave charge of their bones and their posterity executed their last Will in this point to professe their faith in Gods promise which was to give the land of Canaan to their seed for an inheritance and accordingly by their dead bodies they tooke a kind of reall possession thereof And they As by a Synecdoche the soule is put for the man Anima cujusque is est quisque so by the same figure the corpses of the Patriarchs are called the Patriarchs Poole elegantly called his dead body his depositum Scaliger his relique Saint Paul the tent-maker agreeable to his profession called it an earthly tabernacle And although indeed it bee but the casket which containes in it the precious ring our immortall spirit yet in regard of the union of it to the soule and because it concurreth with the soule to the physicall constitution of a man it may by a figure be called a man Yea but had the Patriarchs no priviledge but must they goe the way of all flesh They must for earth is in their composition and into the earth must be their resolution As the world is a circle so all things in the world in this are like a circle that they end where or as they began The vapours that are drawne up from the earth fall downe againe upon the earth in rain The fire that descended at the first from the region of fire in the g Pickolom Phys hollow of the Moone ascends up thither againe The waters that flow from the sea returne backe to the sea in like manner the soule of man which was infused by God returneth to God that gave it but the body which was made of red earth returneth to dust as it was We need not inquire of Scripture where reason speaketh so plaine nor interrogate reason where sense giveth daily testimony to the truth Every passing bell rings this lesson in our eares Omnis loculus locus est every coffin is a topicke to prove it every grave layes it open to us every speechlesse man on his death-bed cries out to us Memento mori quod tueris eris Were carried over into Sechem The life of man is a double pilgrimage 1. Of the outward man 2. Of the inward man The outward travelleth from the cradle to the coffin the inward from earth to heaven Of all creatures man only is properly a pilgrim on earth because he alone is borne and liveth all his time here out of his own country of all men the Patriarchs
Priest Christ Jesus entred after his death and there appeareth for us the curing of all bodily diseases by the word of Christ the healing of all spirituall maladies by his word preached Now if other miracles were significant and enunciative how much more this of tongues Verily he hath little sight of celestiall mysteries who cannot discerne divine eloquence in these tongues diversitie of languages in the cleaving of them and knowledge and zeale in the fire As S. John Baptist was so all the dispensers of Gods mysteries ought to z Bernard in verb. Christi Ille erat lucerna ardens lucens lucere vanum est ardere parum lucere ardere perfectum bee burning and shining lamps shining in knowledge burning in zeale There are three reasons assigned by learned Commentators why the Spirit manifested himselfe in the likenesse of fierie tongues 1. To shew his affinitie with the Word such as is between fire and light the Word is the true light that enlighteneth everie one that commeth into the world and here the Spirit descended in the likenesse of fire 2. To shew that as by the tongue wee taste all corporall meats drinks and medicinall potions so by the Spirit wee have a taste of all spirituall things 3. To teach us that as by the tongue wee speake so by the Spirit wee are enabled to utter magnalia Dei the wonderfull works of God and the mysteries of his kingdome It is not yee that a Matt. 10.20 speake saith our Saviour but the Spirit which speaketh in you which Spirit spake by the month of the Prophets that have beene since the world began Our mouthes and tongues are but like organ-pipes the breath which maketh them sound out Gods praises is the Spirit And those that have their spirituall senses exercised can distinguish betweene the sound of the golden bels of Aaron and of the tinckling b 1 Cor. 13.1 Cymball S. Paul speaketh of for sacred eloquence consisteth not in the enticing words of mans wisdome but in demonstration of the Spirit and power The fire by which these tongues were enlightened was not earthly but heavenly and therefore it is said As of fire Christ three severall times powred out his spirit upon his Apostles first c Vers 1.16 Matthew the tenth at their election and first mission the second is d Vers 22. John the twentieth when he breathed on them and said Receive yee the holy Ghost and thirdly in this place At the first they received the spirit of wisdome and knowledge at the second the spirit of power and authority at the third the spirit of zeale and courage As many proprieties as the naturall Philosophers observe in fire so many vertues the Divines will have us note in the Spirit given to the faithfull they are specially eight Illuminandi of enlightening 2. Inflammandi of heating 3. Purgandi of purifying 4. Absumendi of consuming 5. Liquefaciendi of melting 6. Penetrandi of piercing 7. Elevandi of lifting up or causing to ascend 8. Convertendi of turning For darknesse is dispelled cold expelled hardnesse mollified metall purified combustible matter consumed the pores of solid bodies penetrated smoake raised up and all fuell turned into flame or coale by fire 1. Of enlightening this Leo applyeth to the Spirit 2. Of enflaming this Gregory worketh upon 3. Of purifying this Nazianzen noteth 4. Of consuming this Chrysostome reckons upon 5. Of melting this Calvin buildeth upon 6. Of penetrating this S. Paul e 1 Cor. 2.10 The Spirit searcheth all things pointeth to 7. Of elevating this Dionysius toucheth upon 8. Of converting and this Origen and many of our later writers run upon 1. Fire enlighteneth the aire the Spirit the heart 2. Fire heateth the body the Spirit the soule 3. Fire purgeth out drosse the Spirit our sinnes 4. Fire consumeth the stubble the Spirit our lusts 5. Fire melteth metals the Spirit the hardest heart 6. Fire pierceth into the bones the Spirit into the inmost thoughts 7. Fire elevateth water and fumes the Spirit carrieth up our meditations with our penitent teares also to heaven 8. Fire turneth all things into its owne nature the Spirit converteth all sorts of men and of carnall maketh them spirituall These operations of the Spirit God grant wee may feele in our soules so shall we be worthy partakers of Christ his body and by him be sanctified in body and soule here and glorified in both hereafter To whom c. CHRIST HIS LASTING MONUMENT A Sermon preached on Maundy Thursday THE LXVI SERMON 1 CORINTH 11.26 As often as yee eate of this bread and drinke of this cup yee doe shew the Lords death till he come WHen our Saviour was lifted up from the earth to draw all to him and his armes were stretched out at full length to compasse in and embrace all true beleevers after he had bowed his head as it were to take leave of the world and so given up the ghost a souldier with a a John 19.34 speare pierced his side and forthwith came there out water and bloud Which was done to fulfill two prophecies the one of b Exod. 12.46 Moses A bone of him shall not be broken the other of c Zech. 12.10 Zechary They shall looke on him whom they pierced as also to institute two d Chrysost Cyrillus Theophilact in hunc locum Damascenus lib. 4. de fid c. 10. Aug. l. 2. de Symb. c. 6. tract 9. in Johan Sacraments the one in the water the other in the bloud that ran from him the one to wash away the filth of originall sinne the other to purge the guilt of all actuall The hole in Christs side is the source and spring of both these Wells of salvation in the Church which are continually filled with that which then issued out of our Lords side For albeit he dyed but once actu yet he dyeth continually virtute and although his bloud was shed but once really on the crosse yet it is shed figuratively and mystically both at the font and at the Lords board when the dispenser of the sacred mysteries powreth water on the childe or wine into the chalice and by consecrating the bread apart from the wine severeth the bloud of Christ from his body In relation to which lively representation of his sufferings the Apostle affirmeth that as oft as we eate of that bread and drinke of that cup wee shew the Lords death till he come In the Tabernacle there was sanctum sanctum sanctorum a holy place a place most holy so in the Church Calendar there is a holy time all the time of Lent and the most holy this weeke wherein our blessed Saviour made sixe steps to the Crosse and having in sixe dayes accomplished the workes of mans redemption as his Father in the like number of dayes had finished the workes of creation the seventh day kept his e Bernard in dic Pasch Feria sexta redemit hominem ipso
and crucifying the lusts of the flesh than in verbo or signo After these three wayes we must all shew forth the Lords death Till he come To wit either to each particular man at the houre of his death or to all men and the whole Church on earth at the day of judgement This Sacrament is called by the auncient Fathers viaticum morientium the dying mans provision for the long journey he is to take Every faithfull Christian therefore is to communicate as long as he is able and can worthily prepare himselfe even to the day of his dissolution and all congregations professing the Christian religion must continue the celebration of this holy Sacrament till the day of the worlds consummation As often The seldomer we come to the table of some men the welcomer we are but on the contrary wee are the better welcome the oftener wee come to the Lords Table with due preparation There are two reasons especially why wee ought oft to eate of this bread and drinke of this cup the first is drawne from God and his glory the second from our selves and our benefit The oftener we partake of these holy mysteries being qualified thereunto the more we illustrate Gods glory and confirme our faith If any demand further how oft ye ought to communicate I answer 1. In generall as oft as yee need it and are fit for it The x Cypr. ep 54. Quomodo provocamus eos in confessione nominis Christi sanguinem suum fundere si iis militaturis Christi sanguinem denegamus aut quomodo ad Martyrii poculum idoneos facimus si non eos prius ad bibendum in Ecclesiâ poculum jure communicationis admittimus Martyrs in the Primitive Church received every day because looking every houre to be called to signe the truth of their religion with their bloud they held it needfull by communicating to arme themselves against the feare of death Others in the time of peace received either daily or at least every Lords day The former Saint Austine neither liketh nor disliketh the latter he exhorteth all unto 2. I answer in particular out of Fabianus the Synod of Agatha and the Rubrick of our Communion booke that every one at least ought to communicate thrice a yeere at Christmas Easter and Whitsontide howbeit we are not so much to regard the season of the yeere as the disposition of our mind in going forward or drawing backe from this holy Table The sacrament is fit for us at all times but wee are not fit for it y Gratian. de consecrat distinct 2. Quotidié Eucharistiam dominicam accipere nec laudo nec vitupero omnibus tamen dominicis communicandum hortor Ibid. Qui in natali Domini Paschate Pentecoste non communicaverint catholici non credantur nec inter catholicos habeantur wherefore let every man examine his owne conscience how hee standeth in favour with God and peace with men how it is with him in his spirituall estate whether he groweth or decayeth in grace whether the Flesh get the hand of the Spirit or the Spirt of the Flesh whether our ghostly strength against all temptations be increased or diminished and accordingly as the Spirit of God shall incline our hearts let us either out of sense of our owne unworthinesse and reverence to this most holy ordinance forbeare or with due preparation and renewed faith and repentance approach to this Table either to receive a supply of those graces we want or an increase of those we have and when we come let us Eate of this bread and drinke of this cup. For as both eyes are requisite to the perfection of sight so both Elements to the perfection of the Sacrament This the Schooles roundly confesse Two things saith z Part. 3. q. 63. art 1. Ideò ad Sacramenti hujus integritatem duo concurrunt scilicet spiritualis cibus potus Et q. 80. art 12. Ex parte ipsius Sacramenti convenit quod utrumque sumatur corpus scilicet sanguis quia in utroque consistit perfectio Sacramenti Aquinas concurre to the integrity of the Sacrament viz. spirituall meate and drinke and againe It is requisite in regard of the Sacrament that we receive both kindes the body and the bloud because in both consisteth the perfection of the Sacrament And * Bonavent in 4. sent dist 11. part 2. art 1. Perfecta refectio non est in parte tantùm sed in utroque ideò non in uno tantùm perfectè signatur Christus ut reficiens sed in utroque Bonaventure A perfect refection or repast is not in bread only but in bread and drinke therefore Christ is not perfectly signified as feeding our soules in one kind but in both And a Soto in 12. distinct q. 1. art 12. Sacramentum non nisi in utrâque specie quantum ad integram signification em perficitur Soto The Sacrament as concerning the entire signification thereof is not perfect but in both kindes Doubtlesse if the Sacrament be a banquet or a supper there must be drinke in it as well as meate The Popish communion be it what it may be to the Laity cannot be a supper in which the Laity sup nothing neither can they fulfill the precept of the Apostle of shewing forth the Lords death for the effusion of the wine representeth the shedding of Christs bloud out of the veines and the parting of his soule from his body If we should grant unto our adversaries which they can never evict that the bloud of Christ might be received in the bread yet by such receiving Christs death by the effusion of his bloud for us could in no wise bee represented or shewen forth which the Apostle here teacheth to be the principall end of receiving this Sacrament As oft saith he as yee eate of this bread and drinke of this cup Yee shew forth Christs death In Christs death all Christianity is briefly summed for in it we may observe the justice of God satisfied the love of Christ manifested the power of Sathan vanquished the liberty of man from the slavery of sinne and death purchased all figures of the Old Testament verified all promises of the New ratified all prophecies fulfilled all debts discharged all things requisite for the redemption of mankind and to the worlds restoration accomplished Therein we have a patterne of obedience to the last breath of humility descending as low as hell of meeknesse putting up insufferable wrongs of patience enduring mercilesse torments compassion weeping and praying for bloudy persecuters constancy holding out to the end to which vertues of his person if ye lay the benefits of his passion redounding to his Church which hee hath comforted by his agony quit by his taking justified by his condemnation healed by his stripes cleansed by his bloud quickened by his death and crowned by his crosse if you take a full sight of all the vertues wherewith his crosse is beset as with so