Non sic in opere tuo domine non sic in commixtione tua not so in thy work O Lord not so in thy commixtion here the living and the dead dwell both together The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life Here then are the high consolations of a Christian against death briefly comprised and they are three That his death is neither total nor final but his life is perpetual His death is not total it is only of the body for the spirit lives it is not final for the spirit is not said only to live but that it is life and that in two respects first because it shall give life again unto the body and that secondly an everlasting life and therefore it is not barely the spirit shall live but in the abstract the spirit is life So you may perceive the reason why the Apostle varies his manner of speech he said not the body is death as he says the spirit is life neither saith he the spirit is alive as he said the body is dead but the body is dead and the spirit is life the body is dead and not death because it shall live again and the spirit is not alive but life because by the virtue of the spirit it is that it shall live and live for ever The spirit c. So our life is perpetuate our death but short and not total Amidst these comforts what hath death in it that shall greatly trouble or distress the faithful Soul why should it not stand erect in the midst of all the panick terrors thereof so long as there is begun in us a life which no death shall ever be able to extinguish Albeit death invade the natural and vital powers of our bodies and suppress them one after another yea though at the length he break in upon this lodging of clay and demolish it to the ground yet the inner Man and spiritual that dwells in the body shall escape with his life The Tabernacle is cast down that 's the most our enemy can do but he who dwells in it removes unto a better The dissolving of the body to him is but the breaking up of the prison wherein he hath been so long detained that he may thenceforth be delivered into a glorious liberty For as the Bird escapes out of the snare of the Fowler so the Soul in death mounts up and flies away wiâ— joy into the rest of her Maker The Apostle knew this well and therefore desired to be dissolved that he might be with Christ. As in the battle between our Saviour and Satan Satans head was bruised but he did no more than tread on our Saviours heel so shall it be in the conflict of all his members with Satan by the power of our Lord Jesus we shall be more than conquerors For the God of peace shall tread him under our feet Rom. xvi While he is there let him nibble about the feet it is no great matter yet 't is all he can do and let him do it Manducet terram meam dentem carni infigat let him bite the dust saith Ambrose it was his original curse let him eat that part of me which is earth let him bruise my body all this is still but to tread upon my heel my comfort is there is a seed of immortal life in my Soul which no power of the enemy is able to approach much less to overcome and extinguish for the spirit doth not only live but is life life eternal The spirit is life c. But yet that we may more fully understand to whom these consolations belong and what spirits they are that can live in death and injoy the comforts of life when their bodies can live no longer it is added because of righteousness The spirit is life because of righteousness or for righteousness sake The righteous then these are they to whom it belongs these only are the holy Spirits that shall revive in the midst of life and live in death as they died while they lived whilst the body lived they died unto sin and when the body dies they shall live unto God For as the life of the Soul is the comfort of the heart so the spirit of righteousness is the life of the Soul And therefore deceive not thy self in a matter of such moment in the business of thine everlasting welfare but be most assured that so far forth thou dost live as thou art sanctified and no farther As health is to the body so is holiness to the spirit A body without health falls out of one pain into another till it die and a Soul without holiness is polluted with one lust after another till it perish eternally As the Moon hath light more or less as it is in aspect with the Sun so the Soul enjoys life less or more as it is turned or averted to or from the Lord of life whose righteousness only can give life as this life peace and joy unto the Soul Miserable are those wicked ones that want both they are as St. Jude speaks bis mortui twice dead that is dead both in body and Soul Their Souls indeed do live and shall live eternally a natural life but there is a life of Grace as well as of Nature by the one the Soul lives for ever by the other it lives for ever in happiness This life they do not they shall not ever live and as for the natural the Spirit of God accounts that but a death whilst they live in the body he saith they are dead in sins and when they go out of the body though they live yet he calls their life and justly an eternal death Immortality seems to be added rather to their sorrow than to their Souls Since their Souls are only kept immortal that their punishment might be everlasting It is true that so long as Men enjoy this natural life in health of body and prosperity of fortune the loss that comes by want of the spiritual life is not so safely discerned no more than the defects of a ruinous house are known in time of fair weather but when the storm of affliction when the tempest of death shall come pouring down upon him then the decaies and breaches will manifest themselves How woful then must his condition needs be that hath now no other life but a natural and must now part with that and he knows not whither In this estate he cannot but die either uncertain of comfort or rather most certain of Condemnation And therefore it is not much to be marvelled they are so loth to think or so much as to hear of that final and fatal time O death how bitter is thy remembrance unto such saith the Wiseman How doth the only apprehension thereof even chill the blood in his veins kill the very marrow in his bones Belshazzar's doom is no sooner written upon the wall but the joints of his loins are loosed and his knees smite one against
the punishment and it is no less than all which a Sinner may receive the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense the loss of all good in the exclusion from Heaven and the suffering of all evil in the torments of Hell This exprest in Scripture by an unquenchable fire that by a gnawing and never dying worm Divines contending which is worst when either is insufferably bad but both joined together make a double death and destruction which none can conceive And therefore the Son of Syrach 23. 12. doth well term it a sin that is arrayed and apparelled with death there is a word saith he and it is clothed about with death God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob and that you may know what the word is which he means he presently infers use not thy mouth to intemperate swearing for there is the word the word of sin clothed about with death and I pray God it may not be found in the heritage of Jacob neither in our Jacob nor his heritage his Son or Subject neither himself nor any of his Kingdom And this were punishment enough it should seem were there no other yet this is not all for this general and universal destruction of the world to come is common to all sins and sinners but the special threat and commination in that precept against this sin seems to relate unto some special revenge that God will take of it even in the life of this world here before they depart unto the sorrows of another for neither in that or this shall they ever be held guiltless but receive a just reward and recompence in both Concerning this later what and how grievous it is you may read in the 23. of Eccles. before cited It is briefly thus and I beseech you mark it Vir multùm jurans a man that useth much swearing shall be filled with iniquity and a plague or curse shall never depart from his house How terrible and dreadful is this himself shall be filled with iniquity and the curse of God shall be upon his house nay which is worse Shall never depart from his house his Spirit will forsake the one that being given up unto a reprobate sense he may fill up the measure of his sins and fat himself against the day of slaughter be shall be filled with iniquity and his blessing will leave the other unto the waste and spoil of a consuming malediction until ruine eat it up and wholly root it out the curse shall never depart from his house Gods judgments for other sins are great yet they seem to extend themselves but to the third or fourth Generation at the farthest how deadly then is this iniquity and how heavy the revenge that staies not there but runs through all Generations Shall never depart from the house until the house it self depart and be no more A bitter curse indeed that wasts and spoils wheresoever it comes but utterly ruines the House where it remains nay leaves not so much as any ruines to remain neither Stone nor Timber for it eats up both as you may read in the Prophet Zechariah where you shall find the curse written in a Role a large curse as it should seem for the Role hath room enough for more curses than ever the Spirit of God hath registred for it was twenty Cubits long and ten Cubits broad a great and flying Role which when that Prophet beheld in a Vision the Angel which gave the interpretation said This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth according unto which the swearer shall be cut off for it shall enter into his house and remain in the midst of his house and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof Zech. 5. 4. A strange remaining wherein nothing not so much as Timber and Stone shall remain and a heavy malediction when a Man shall be emptied of all his goods and filled only with his own Sins He shall be filled with iniquity How many deaths and destructions do attend and inviron this accursed Sin the death of his estate and substance which shall be consumed the death of Sin or rather of Grace through Sin wherewith he shall be filled and the everlasting death of Body and Soul in a lake of burning brimstone wherein he shall be perpetually tormented So true is that of Syracides before mentioned but never enough repeated it is a word cloathed about with death and we can never enough repeat his prayer God grant it be not found in the heritage of Jacob. Consider these things now and then say It is a Custom and I cannot leave it shall it excuse the Malefactor if he say to the Judge I take no pleasure in Theft only my fingers have been inured to it from my youth and I cannot now forsake the habit and yet the Thief who notwithstanding hath his Curse written also in the other side of Zecharies flying Role may be the better excused of the two for though he take no pleasure yet there may be profit in the sin But the Custom whether without or upon pretence shall never excuse either till both forsake the Custom It is this only through which we shall be held guiltless and by which alone we may remove this Curse of God both from our selves and our houses And why can it not be done what should hinder that we may not forsake it where lies the labour or wherein doth the difficulty consist that it should be so invincible Why what saith Chrysostom Homil. 17. on Mat. Nunquid pecuniarum opus est impensa Nunquid aerumnis sudore perficitur is it a business that requires the expence of any great sums of our money or else of our spirits in sweat and painful labour to atchieve it Tantummodo Velle sufficit totum quod jubetur impletum est No such thing only will that is bend thy mind and thy will to it and the thing required is presently fulfilled As use hath bred a custom so disuse must destroy it and a contrary use beget a contrary Custom And sure the Will of man cannot think of a Custom so easy to be disused as this all others are deeply rooted in natural Affections and therefore hard to be plucked up but this hath no hold in Nature not one Appetite in the infirmity of man that gapes and waters after it it can neither quench the Thirst nor kill the Hunger of any desire whereunto our Corruption is subject but is only an external a naked and a bare Custom which only use hath begotten and doth still nourisn and disuse without any great difficulty can again starve and strangle Tantummodo velle sufficit only set thy will to it and the business is ended for as St. Austin hath it lib. 8. Conses In the ways of God Ire pervenire is nothing but Velle ire to walk is only to will and whosoever wills cannot but walk but then it
joyned too in man their subject the ywill make up that compleat fear which indeed is the full and compleat worship internal worship and service of God And therefore in the Scripture it is usually taken even for our whole Religion Piety and Adoration of the Divinity according to that of David O come hither and I will teach you the fear of the Lord that is the worship of the Lord. So Jonah unto the Mariners that enquired of him I am an Hebrew saith he and I fear the God of heaven and that made the Sea and the dry land So Jacob in like manner when he sware unto Laban he swore by the fear of his Father Isaac to wit by that God whom his Father Isaac feared that is worshiped and served Whence it is that what Moses terms fear Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God that the Septuagint and our Saviour himself renders by worship Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And therefore we shall not need to scruple much at the enquiry why the Text saith not Believe or Love or the like but rather Fear God and keep his Commndments for he that hath said Fear hath said all no word can go beyond this It includes both faith and hope and love and all yea something more than all Not the meanest of these fears the fear of punishment but implies faith and the fear of offence both faith and hope and love also but the reverential fear is love and something more than love even Veneration too as acknowledging the love to be not like that of ordinary friendships inter Pares between Companions but at a distance and such an infinite distance on Gods part as requires the lowest Reverence and Adoration from all that love him For though it hath pleased his goodness to make and stile us his friends yet I hope we do not cease to be his servants nor he to be our Lord every way our Supream and Soveraign Lord So indeed our Lips stile him at every word and by that stile and Title too he himself requires his fear at our hands if I be your Lord ubi Timor meus where is my fear Where indeed his fear of Reverence for he is Lord of Majesty and Glory Where the fear of offence for he is the Lord no less good than glorious and as terrible as either to his contemners where then the fear of his wrath And sure the question is pertinent enough and it is but right that he demands where it is or what may become of it It seems to be fled with Astraea to Heaven sure I am it may trouble a man to find it out any where upon earth His judgments are far off as David speaks even out of our sight at least they seem yet to be beheld with such security as a Man would think most Men were in a league with death and at a Covenant with Hell as the Prophet speaks so little fear is there of his revenge And sure they that fear not punishment will hardly be restrained by any filial the fear of offence Indeed it were something well if we did not offend with less trouble than any thing else And as for the other the fear of reverence and that principally in the holy place where his special presence hath made it especially due that is so far from regard as it seems to have gotten an ill name of late we are grown some of us into such a familiarity with God as the reverence of his Sanctuary or of him in it or any decency or dignity that may serve thereunto is suspected now a days for an out-work of Popery God grant we do not make it Idolatry too to reverence even God himself in his Temple Is not the question just then in these times also ubi timor meus where is his fear indeed where any of his fears sure they have all left this world and it seems left in it little but worldly fear behind them That indeed and that alone runs through the world and only prevails For her we duck like Die-dappers at every Pebble that is thrown at us by a powerful hand and yet can stand up sturdily like Capaneus upon the walls of Thebes against the Thunderbolts of the Almighty we are become as he said well Gyants yea even Gods against God but Slaves unto Men whose Bodies and Consciences are sometimes equally rotten The revenge of the Law and shame of the world is for the most part all our fear so we may avoid these save our goods from loss our names from disgrace our skin from hurt our bodies from death we can sin on merrily it little matters for him that can cast both body and soul into Hell fire This is the whole of most mens fears but fear not ye their fear neither be afraid but sanctify the Lord himself Is metus vester is pavor esto let him be your fear let him be your dread But what then is God only to be feared and nothing besides surely yes God and not any thing else if any thing shall stand in competition or opposition with God but yet under God and in subordination unto him we are to fear God and others too for Gods sake And all the people feared exceedingly God and his servant Moses So the Apostle fear to whom fear and honour to whom honour appertaineth and both sure appertain to all Superiors but eminently above all to him that is Supream Reverential fear for he hath a character of the Divinity upon him Fear obediential and filial fear too for he is Pater Patriae And fear of his wrath also for he is Gods Minister for vengeance And therefore fear the King for he carrieth not the sword in vain Yea and I must tell you fear the Church too and those in the Church that have power over us also another kind of power indeed but yet such as renders them Gods Ministers in like manner and your Ghostly Fathers and therefore will require in their degree obedience and reverence too yea and fear of their wrath also for they want it not for the wicked when occasions serve and therefore fear these too for they carry not the Keys in vain The Powers that are they are all of God and he that resisteth the power whether Temporal or Spiritual resisteth the ordinance of God and receiveth damnation unto himself It is true these are two distinct powers yet is it as true also they are not simply collateral but subordinate ever subordinate when the Prince is Christian as having though not all power in himself yet a Princely dominion over all Persons and that in all Causes whatsoever neither is more claimed and less cannot be denied For two Supremacies in a Kingdom are no less inconsistent than two Omnipotencies in the world And therefore the Apostle gives unto him universal subjection and conscientious too Let every one yea omnis anima let every soul
these four Afflictions the World or worldly cares sin and this body of sin and death And under any of these we may say and pray with David here Bring my Soul out of prison The first to take them in order are afflictions sorrows and distresses and that these imprison the Soul and are here specially meant and intended there is no question all agree tribulatio angustia are inseparable companions Tribulation and anguish upon every Soul that hath done evil saith the Apostle and Anguish is nothing else but the English of Angustia for streights and pressure there are in all tribulations Prosperity and Joy do dilate the spirits and draw forth the Soul but stricken with grief and sorrow like a prickt Snail she shrinks into her shell and is instantly straitned But yet of all the Prisons this is the most necessary It is the Bridewel of the world and without it we should quickly grow Bedlam and run mad in excess and wanton delights For all sins are frenzies and such sinners seldom recover their wits any where else The wild Prodigal whilst free and in prosperity runs on in his course and never perceives his own distraction till shut up here and well whipt a while redit ad se then he comes to himself and can say surgam ibo ad patrem I will arise and go unto my Father For tribulatio id habet proprium ut hominem revocet reducat ad se it is the very nature and property of affliction to call home and reduce Men again unto their senses Neither doth it only give them their wits but sets them on work affording them matter whereon they may exercise themselves and all the Christian virtues Faith Hope Patience Meekness Humility and the rest which otherwise would languish and vitiate if not exhale for want of imployment This Prison therefore is of excellent use But why then if it be so profitable should we pray to be freed of it why absolutely we do not but with limitation if God shall think it expedient for us who when the cure is perfected it may be will dismiss us or if he keep us there longer he will make us large recompence for it hereafter Our Saviours Prayer is our rule in this point because all afflictions are grievous for the present we may say with him if it be possible transeat calix ista let this cup pass but still with submission to his good pleasure not mine but thy will be done And thus much though not always exprest is ever reserved and understood whensoever in this case we shall say here with David Bring my Soul out of prison The second is the world or rather worldly cares that â—log and fetter the Souls of most Men nailing them fast unto the Earth that they cannot stir a foot nor move a thought towards Heaven and heavenly meditations This is a large prison wherein every one hath seen restraint more or less as they have learnt that high precept of the Apostle to use the world as if they used it not but satisfying nature only account the rest that belongs to pomp and superfluity nothing near at that high rate as they are bought and sold for in this Market of Fools quanti venduntur emuntur in nundinis stultorum These indeed have some freedom and though they are in a sort prisoners yet they are prisoners at large and have liberty as large as the Prison wherein they have elbow room enough not to be straitned But those miserable wretches that admiring the wealth and honour of the present world have inthralled and wrapt their Souls in terrene and base solitudes how close are they shut up and how miserable a servitude do they indure No Gally-slave can be tied in stronger chains than the Ambitious and Covetous Man like those condemned to the Mines he digs under earth and sweats for Ore all his life long and when he dies hath his mouth stopt only with a handful of gravel And here every one may freely pray and without any restriction at all Out of this Prison O Lord deliver my Soul The Third of these Prisons and worst of all is Sin the Third indeed it is in order but first in time that gives power and strength unto both the other Had not that in the beginning seised on our Souls and fast bound them to their hands they could never have touched us The world instead of a Prison had been a Paradise and the men in it subject neither to Cares nor afflictions But now being fast tyed by this we have a thousand Chains cast on us besides and are become prisoners almost to every thing else This therefore is the head and fountain of our misery and as the first so the worst straitest and closest prison of all other a common Jayl indeed rather than a Prison and the very hole of the Jayl wherein millions of men lie fast bound indeed in misery and Iron putrifying and stinking in their corruption like Lazarus in his Grave the very emblem both of the Prison and Prisoners And unless that Son of God who came down himself from Heaven to open this Prison and preach liberty unto the Captives unless he graciously call unto us yea cry aloud as in the Gospel he did even groaning in his Spirit to shew how difficult a thing it is to dissolve these bonds wherewith custom and habit hath tyed us as with cords unless he I say by the power of his holy voice cry unto us all as lie did unto him Lazare veni foras Lazarus come forth we shall all perish in our captivity for ever and never see light For this sink of sin wherein the longer we lie the deeper indeed we sink doth at length empty it self into Hell the bottomless Pit and Prison of everlasting sorrow But blessed be his name the barrs are smitten asunder and the doors thrown open by his death And he still calls unto us by the voice of his Ministers yea and Spirit too to come forth and unless we be enamoured of our own misery and like Beasts delight to lie in our own filth till we perish in that nethermost Gulf let us hearken unto his calls and rouse up our selves betimes answering his voice with another call of our own calling and crying with all our might and without ever ceasing all of us From this Prison good Lord deliver our Souls But yet call and cry as long and as loud as we can our Souls shall never be clearly freed either from this Prison of sin or those others of Cares and Sorrows so long as they are still inclosed in this of the corruptible body Which is the Fourth and last Prison of the Soul and here intended by David according to the exposition of many Fathers whose words I cannot now stand to recite And therefore Laurentius Justinianus said well of this Prayer Verba sunt peregrinationis suae miserias meditantis c they are the words saith he of one
meditating on the miseries of his peregrination on Earth and the joyes of the celestial Jerusalem above and as it were sighing in himself that he was detained so long from praising the name of God and singing hymns of thanksgiving and honour amidst all the company of the righteous there and congregation of the first-born both Saints and Angels he grieves at his absence and groans out the ferventness of his desire in this short Prayer Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may praise thy name A desire which he doth elsewhere often express As the Hart desireth the water-brooks so longeth my Soul after thee O God When shall I appear before the presence of the Lord Blessed be they that dwell in thy house they shall be always praising of thee from generation to generation and that he might be in the midst of them praising his name his desire in this Prayer is here Bring my Soul out of Prison c. And yet if we shall suppose he did not yet others may and no question but many do The Roman Catholicks report not without Joy that their holy St. Francis died with this very sentence in his mouth and this sence of it to be his mind which he had no sooner uttered but Anima à Corpore libera evolavit in coelum his Soul according to his request freed from his body flew away into Heaven And certainly whosoever hath but so much goodness as he can grieve to be detained from Heaven or desires to be freed from the molestations of sin upon Earth cannot but esteem of the body as a Prison which hinders him in both Nay the very Philosophers that knew neither of those respects out of moral regards could both perceive and acknowledge it for such Carcer sepulchrum Animae the Prison and Sepulcher of the Soul And so may we term them too only we must be careful we avoid the error of Origen That our Souls sinned in Heaven and are condemned to bodies but as to Gallies or Prisons where they are to do penance for former transgressions But as St. Austin doth well distinguish it is not the body in it self which was first built for a house of delight though sin committed in it but the corruption of it that makes it a Prison according to that in the Book of Wisdom Corpus corruptibile aggravat animam the corruptible bod◠presseth down the Soul and ceaseth not to fight against it with many noysome lusts in regard whereof the Apostle himself was inforced to cry out as even weary of his Prison quis liberabit who shall deliver me from this body of death why Thanks be unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ this is he that shall deliver us this is the Lord to whom David did and we all must pray that desire this benefit Bring my soul out of Prison O Lord. And yet though we may lawfully make this Prayer in this sence yet it must be as before with submission of our will unto his we must wait the Lords leisure with patience to whom only belong the issues of death and therefore not seek to break through the walls or throw our selves out at the windows but stay till he shall please to open the door and lead us forth in peace for it is Educ animam we may not thrust it out our selves but he must lead it forth or we shall but thrust it out of one prison into another infinitely worse Nay it seems by that word it should be no hasty desire that he himself should do it neither it doth not sound as if we would have him presently break down and demolish the building and so sweep us away in an instant that were Eripe animam pluck forth my Soul out of prison but it is Educ lead it forth and seems to import not so much an anticipation of our time as an humble Petition that when our time is come and this Tabernacle must needs be dissolved that then amidst all the conflicts and terrours of death he would be pleased to be with us to sustain and uphold us with his grace chean up and guide forth our Souls with his comforts for this is educere animam to lead the Soul out of Prison And happy thrice happy are those Souls that are thus led and conducted in this perillous time Every one indeed prays for it but every one shall not obtain it It is Educ animam meam and we must put an accent upon that meam on Davids Soul that faithful and penitent Soul indeed was and all others without fail shall be in their due time thus led and guided out of their Prisons in peace but those that have no part in his penitence they may say if they will but they shall have no part in his Prayer As they neglected God and all his ways in their life so God again will be as far from hearing or keeping them in their death but will rather laugh in their destruction and mock when their fear cometh as it is in the first of Proverbs And then on the otherside how miserable thrice miserable shall he be that must part with his Soul at a venture without any comfort to sustain it or light of grace to lead it through the fearful passages of death Look on him and you shall then see when after all his mirth and revels you shall find him at the last laid on his groaning pillow on the bed of languishing as David speaks O consider well how woful and disconsolate his estate must needs be when after all his former pleasures being worn out with his body the Soul begins to loath the ruinous house of age and sickness when it may not stay and yet knows not whither to go at what time those sad and severe cogitations formerly beaten from him through youth and felicity return to afflict and pay him home for all his vain and wanton delights yea peradventure when the terrours of God shall fight against him and the Arrows of the Almighty stick within him the venom whereof drinks up the spirit as it is in Job In this misery of his wounded in body through sickness and distressed in conscience through sin what shall lead him forth with comfort since God refuseth to do it shall his wife his sons or his friends his honours offices or wealth why the very thought of these and whatsoever else he hath that is good doth but double his afflicton since now he must part with them for ever and may well therefore say unto them as Job did unto his three friends miserable comforters are ye all what then shall he comfort himself as some of the servants of God have done by looking back on the ways of his life why nothing can possibly torment him more he now sees that he hath but wearied himself in the ways of Iniquity and perceives though too late what before he refused to believe that such paths lead down unto the Chambers of death Since then he can
glory unto him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for evermore Who now shall mourn who shall weep for such a Soul none can sorrow for her unless they envy her happiness foelix illa anima imitationem desiderat nâ—n planctum that blessed Soul is no subject of grief but a pattern for imitation And therefore if any weep in her death they must be tears of joy not of sorrow and if they be of sorrow they must not be for her but for our selves and our own loss This indeed is great and invaluable and when you think on it weep a Gods name Quis natum in funere matris flere vetat he were barbarous that would forbid it you yet you shall not have all to your selves we 'll bear you company for she was a publick loss Such a Wife such a Mother such a Friend such a Mistriss such a Neighbour such and so good a Woman and so great an example of Virtue cannot should not go to the grave with dry eyes in whose loss so many have interest I would praise her if I could to make you weep more but she is beyond my commendations A Woman of her Wisdom and Judgment of her Wit and discourse so free and liberal and yet so prudent and provident withal for she was so in her self though misfortunes befel her so sweet so kind so mild so loving and respective to all and withal so charitable to the poor a Chirurgeon to the hurt and a Physician to the sick she eat not her morsels alone and their loins were warmed with her wooll as Job speaks such a Woman so well born and bred and of such a strain beyond ordinary as she seemed with the blood to inherit too the virtues of all her Ancestors so upright and clear and innocent in her whole course that the eye of envy nay were all the malice of the world infused into one eye it could not find any just stain to fasten on her such a one so every way compleat surely no Man unless he had her own or the wit and tongue of an Angel can sufficiently commend neither can we if we regard our own loss sufficiently bewail But the truth is she is not lost non amissa sed praemissa sent before she is lost she is not And therefore you whom it most concerns though you mourn mourn not as those without hope It is but a short separation and the time will come when you shall see her again though not with these earthly affections Pay the due tribute unto nature but then shut up the sluces for graces sake And the God of all grace give you comfort the Holy Ghost the Comforter himself replenish your heart with consolations And the blood of Jesus Christ wash us all from all our sins and strengthen us with the power of his might that we may so live whilst we remain here in this Prison of the Body that when it shall be dissolved we may obtain mercy from him to lead forth our Souls To lead them with his grace and then as he hath done to this blessed Saint receive them unto glory There with her and all the company of righteous spirits that are gone before us to sing praise and honour unto his holy name for evermore To this God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost c. Laus Deo in aeternum THE Second FUNERAL SERMON FOR THE DAUGHTER SERMON XIII Upon ROM viii 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of Sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness MAN of all Gods Creatures is the strangest compounded the most marvellous mixture that ever was a very fardel of contrarieties wonderfully united and wrapt up in one bundle Heaven and Earth light and darkness Christ and Belial may seem to dwell together and man the house of their habitation what can be more directly opposite than Flesh and Spirit Life and Death Sin and Righteousness and lo all of them united here in one verse nay in one man For the Text is but the Anatomy of man and must therefore be composed of and divided into the same parts man himself is As his body is composed of contrary Elements heat and cold fire and water So his person is composed of contrary Natures Corporal and Spiritual Body and Soul His Natures again of contrary qualities Life and Death the Body is dead the Soul lives and lastly these qualities issuing from contrary causes sin and righteousness death from sin and life from righteousness The Body c. And though the sin by which the body dies is our own yet that we may know that the righteousness whereby the Soul lives is not of our selves but received from our Saviour there is a caution given in the entrance of the verse If Christ be in you So then here are three couples a Body and a Soul Sin and Righteousness Life and Death The body with her two attendants sin and death the Soul with her two endowments righteousness and life The former is universal and common to all the Sons of Adam according to the flesh the latter particular and proper only to the Children of the second Adam begotten by the Spirit If Christ c. I begin with the first part which is a meditation of death and our chief Christian comforts against death But yet before the Apostle brings in his consolations he premises a conditon If Christ be in you To teach us that the comforts of God belong not indifferently to all men He that is a stranger from Christ hath nothing to do with them What hast thou to do to take my Covenant into thy mouth so long as thou hatest to be reformed saith God in the Psalm I. When our Saviour commanded his Disciples to proclaim peace unto every house they came to he foretold them it should rest only on the Sons of peace He forbad them in like manner to give those things which were holy unto doggs or to cast pearls before Swine This stands a perpetual Law to all his messengers that they presume not to proclaim peace to the impenitent and unbelieving but as Jehu said unto Jehoram's horsman what hast thou to do with peace so are we to tell the wicked who walk on still in their sins that they have nothing to do with the peace or promises or priviledges of the Gospel If Christ be in you c. Secondly if we compare the verse immediately precedent or that which is subsequent with this between both you shall easily perceive after what manner Christ dwells in his Children Sometimes we are said to be in Christ and sometimes Christ is said again to be in us and both in effect come to one we are in Christ by faith and Christ is in us by his Spirit For so it follows If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies It is
not then a Carnal presence but a Spiritual that doth link and associate unto Christ. To make up our union with him it is not needful that his humane nature should be drawn down from Heaven or that his body should be every where present on Earth as the Ubiquitaries affirm or that the Bread in the Sacrament should be transubstantiate into his body as the Papists imagin His dwelling in us is by his Spirit and his union with us is spiritual So himself in the same place where he speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood doth interpret himself the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak are spirit and life And his Spirit it is not his body that shall give life unto the Spirit when the body shall perish If Christ c. This touch shall suffice for the condition I proceed to the substance of the Text. The Body is dead It contains as I said an admonition of our frailty corruption and death and comforts against death It is but the body that is dead the Spirit is life First of our corruption and frailry The body is dead That we all tend unto death we all know but the Apostle's speech is more remarkable he says not the body is subject to death but by a more significant phrase of speech he presseth it homer The body is dead There is a difference between a mortal body and a dead body Adams body before the fall was mortal in some sort that is subject to a possibility of dying but now after the fall our bodies are so mortal as they are subject to a necessity of dying yea if we'll here with the Apostle esteem of death by the beginning and seisure of it they are dead already The forerunners and harbingers of death dolours infirmities and heavy diseases have seised already on our bodies and marked them out as lodgings which shortly must be the habitation of their Master But how near this manner of speech draws unto true propriety they best conceive who best understand how that malediction of God and curse of the Law The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death was fulfilled If God spared not the Angels when they waxed proud will he spare thee who art but a putrifying worm Ille intumuit in coelo erga in sterquilinio he was puft up in Heaven and therefore was cast down from the place of his habitation and if I wax proud lying on a dunghil shall I not be cast down into Hell So often therefore as corrupt nature stirreth up the heart to pride because of youth and health beauty and strength and the like perfections of the body let this consideration humble thee that though these are fair and beauti ful flowers yet they cannot but suddenly wither because the root from whence they sprung is corrupt and rotten and even dead already Neither is it more available to the cutting down of arrogance and pride than to teach us Temperance and sobriety What availeth it to pamper that Carcase of thine with excess of delicate feeding which is possessed by death already If Men took the tenth part of that care to present their spirit holy and without blame unto the Lord which they take to make their bodies fair and beautiful in the eyes of Men they might in short time make a greater improvement in Religion and Virtue than they have done But herein is their folly they make fat the flesh with precious things which within few days the worms shall devour but never care to beautify the Soul with holy and virtuous actions which shortly is to be presented to God Let us therefore refrain from the immoderate cherishing this proud and dead flesh meats are ordained for the belly and the belly for meats but God will destroy them both 1 Cor. vi 13. I might inlarge this point almost infinitely for the benefit of this consideration is not confined unto Humility Sobriety and Temperance or any particular virtues but it 's universal restraining from all evil and inciting powerfully unto all virtue and goodness Nihil sic revocat bominem à peccato quà m frequens mortis meditatio saith St. Aug. nothing can so recall a Man from his evil ways as the frequent meditation of death especially if he consider as the certainty of death so the uncertain time of his death and the unchangeable estate of everlasting misery if he die in his sins Would to God we were wise thoroughly to apprehend and apply this unto our own Souls It is strange that there is nothing so well known nothing of greater benefit and yet nothing so little regarded What a Prodigy is it that sinful Men should carry about their death in their bosoms and in every vein of their Bodies and yet scarce admit a thought of their mortality into their minds but live here as if they verily thought they should never die If we had no Religion yet reason would teach us that our strength is not the strength of stones and yet them even the drops of water weareth nor our sinews of Brass and Iron as Job speaks and yet these the rust and canker consumeth but a vapour but a smoak which the Sun soon drieth or the wind driveth away It was wittily said of Epictetus the Philosopher who going forth one day and seeing a Woman weeping that had broken her Pitcher and the next day meeting another Woman that had lost her Son Heri vidi fragilem frangi hodie video mortalem mori Yesterday saith he I saw a brittle thing broken and to day I see a mortal Man die And what difference of frailty between these two surely none unless Man be the frailer of the two For as St. Austin hath it Take the brittlest veslel of earth or glass and keep it safe from outward violence and it may last many thousand of years but take a Man of the most pure complexion of the strongest constitution and keep him as safe as thou canst he hath that within his own bowels and bones that will bring him to his end Nay I hear some say saith the same Father that such a one hath the Plague or the Pleurisie and therefore sure he will die but we may rather say such a one liveth and therefore sure he will die for diverse have had these Diseases and did not die of them but never any Man lived that did not die The Consumption of the Liver is the messenger of Death the Consumption of the Lungs the Minister of Death the Consumption of the marrow and moisture the very Mother of Death and yet many have had these Diseases and not died of them But there is another kind of Consumption which could never yet be cured it is the Consumption of the days the common Disease of all Mankind David saw it and spake of it when he said my days are consumed like smoke Psal. cii yea the Philosopher saw it and could say of it quicquid praeteritum est temporis mors
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together
another How did that one word of the Witch strike Saul thorough and thorough leaving him tumbling on the earth in a swoon To morrow by this time thou and thy sons shall be with me so bitter indeed is the remembrance even of bodily death unto those that have no spiritual life in their Souls But what misery may we think will there be in the enduring and suffering of that whose only expectation is so fearful Sad and fearful is the departure of the wicked though it outwardly appear not in all the comforts of my Text belong not to them as their Spirits were dead whilest they lived so they shall not live when they die Where there is no righteousness there can be no life For the Spirit c. No the righteous the righteous that is the faithful and penitent Souls these are they who as they have the true spiritual life in present so in death they shall have the true comforts of the blessed life which is to come for however God at other times brings trouble heaviness and afflictions on his best servants yet at that hour he never fails to assist them and in the midst of death to make the life of their Souls appear more clearly for righteousness sake He may seem to absent himself from them and to hide his counâ—◠〈◊〉 but then in that day of need in that last and fearful time which most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts he will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance to shine into that region of darkness and by the gracious beams thereof to chear up his people lighting and guiding their feet through that obscure Valley and shadow of death into the blessed ways of immortality and peace Believe not me look upon the holy men of God a little and see it perfomed with your Eyes Behold the Patriarch Jacob the Father of the Patriarchs he who wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arme of the Almighty continually afflicting him But see how contrary it fell out in the end when all the clouds of affliction being blown over a calm of contentment follows and he is gathered unto his Fathers in peace but first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself in his bed calls his Sons about him tells them of things to come great things to come for many generations and with an inspired Spirit ready to expire gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a prophetical so high and Heavenly a strain and stile as if an Angel had sate on his lip and I doubt not but many Angels sate waiting in that door of the body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to receive and convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua that valiant Captain who having spent his life in travail and more than Herculean labours warring against Gyants and the Sons of Aâ—ak yet at last you may see him sitting down in peace and dividing the spoil among the Children of Jacob And in the end death drawing near see how he summons the Tribes of Israel together and in a sweet Oration recounts unto them all the mercies of God which had followed them from Terab the Father of Abraham that dwelt beyond the flood to Cheusem that had now gotten possession of the promised land within Jordan And being full of the spirit and spiritual life with such power of speech he exhorts them to the fear and service of this merciful God that the whole Congregation as if they had had but one heart and one Soul and both throughly affected joyntly cry out God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay he is our God and we will serve him Josh the last After this manner from the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the hearts of others this great Worthy and worthy Servant of the Lord lived in his death and dyed in peace See holy Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Ox or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or opprest or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he in the publick assembly and all the people bare witness unto him saith the Text. Hoc ducit ad fâ—nus sepulturam this is it that accompanies him to his Grave and layes him in his rotten Sepulcher The like blessed savour of rest did this peace of conscience send forth in the blessed Apostle S. Paul who in that wonderful confidence was bold to deliver up his Soul in the breath of the same words as it were his Saviour had done before him a Consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day words worthy of a Soul so near its Heaven Lastly view the Protomartyr Steven blessed with peace in the midst of a cruel death for all torments are easy if they have answerable comforts The obstinate Jews threw the stones of death at him but he filled with the Holy Ghost looks stedfastly into Heaven where he beholds his Saviour standing at the right hand of God to whom now dying he speaks as he had done before to his Father in manus tuas into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Such have been the blessed ends of these holy men of God and of many others famous in their Generations and such it shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though peradventure it is not manifest in all Their bodies are buried in the Earth but they have left a name behind them and a memory sweeter than the perfume made by the art of the Apothecary as was spoken of the good King Josiah And what is there now that can more deeply affect an honest and a good heart what can a religious mind either so much desire unto it self or behold with so great joy in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the depth of death depart full of the comforts of immortality and life But it may be far off examples will be left too far off respects for likely those that are nearest do affect us better if so you want them not neither two among the rest more remarkable you have had of late The one not long since the other now before your eyes The Mother and the Daughter of both whom I may truly say in the words of my Text their bodies were dead while they lived and their Souls lived in the death of their bodies for righteousness sake A
memorable and exemplary couple I may well join them in my speech they were so many ways joined in themselves They were joined in affinity and alliance they were joined in affection and love they were joined in the quality and nature of their Disease and would not be severed till death did it in the time of their sickness they were joined in the comforts of death and now they are joined in the glory of an everlasting life But the formers rites are passed yet they might not be now passed over I cannot but give her a touch she desired it from me and I am sure she deserved it For the latter here now in your sight I shall not speak much because I can hardly speak enough with her former times I have had no acquaintance and therefore can make no relation of it only I assure my self that she who was so patient and penitent in her sickness so devout and cheerful in her death could not but be well and religiously disposed in the course of her life But for the latter part of her days them I have known and in them been an eye-witness of the expression of more goodness than I have often seen or from a Woman of her quality could have expected The things of note which I especially observed in her and shall commend unto you are principally these her willingness to entertain death and her deadness unto the world and worldly affairs her joy in spiritual discourses and her frequency and fervency in devout prayer For the first if we consider the impediments it was much she should do it so cheerfully she was but young and entring upon the prime of her years She had small and tender Infants of her own that went near her she was well bestowed where she found both youth and love and means too wanted nothing nor was likely to want haec sunt quae faciunt homines invitos mori and these are the things that make Men unwilling to die could the Philosopher say Yet notwithstanding all these she gently submitted her self unto it she resolutely went forth to meet it and lest he should miss her she call'd it unto her Come gentle death and even held forth her arms to receive and embrace it For the second I was with her often yet never heard a word of worldly matter or secular affair so much as fall from her tongue Her heart was bent on Heaven which made it delight so much in heavenly contemplations they came down upon her as the Scripture speaks like rain into a fleece of wooll and as a shower upon a thirsty land With what an open and greedy ear did she suck in celestial comforts which she shortly after vented out again in devout supplications wherein the mercy of the Lord did not forsake her even to the last gasp And then at last when her hands forsook her tongue and her tongue had almost forsaken her heart yet her heart did still adhere unto God in uncessant prayer and therefore she intreated others to hold her fainting hands that her tongue failing they at least might testify that her Soul did commune with her Maker It calls to mind the story of Moses having Aaron and Hur to support his arms for whilst he prayed Amalek fled and Joshua conquered Sure I am whilst she did in like manner the true Joshua conquered all the spiritual Amalekites and enemies of her Soul who only could batter down the prison of her body that her spirit being loose and at liberty might freely clear the air and mount up to the desired place of everlasting rest where she now is and where may she still in peace remain till another day shall invest both Body and Soul with unspeakable glory Who can now mourn who can weep for such a Soul if ye do they must be tears of joy not of sorrow at least they must be for your selves not for her You may bewail your own loss you cannot grieve at her death unless you envy her happiness foelix iss a anima imitationem desiderat non planctum that happy Soul is no subject of sorrow but a pattern of imitation And therefore I now leave the dead and conclude to the living that their Spirits may live in death as hers hath shown them the example For this should be the chief endeavour this should be the principal care of a Christian in his whole life that when his life shall end yet the life of his Soul may not end with the death of his body It little matters how it fares with us in the rest of our time so it go well with us here when if wrath overtake us it shall eleave unto us for ever but if peace end our days our days afterwards of peace shall never end For as the tree falleth there it shall lie Wretched Men that can willingly think of any thing save this that infinitely concerns them above all things else that can wish with Balaam let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his but never endeavour themselves in the works of righteousness whereby they may procure it as if they might be like them in their death whom they refused to imitate in their actions But they may wish like Solomons fool till their tongue cleave to their gums for so long as they live the life of Balaam loving the wages of iniquity they shall never die the death of the righteous nor have their last end like his whom they are nothing like in conversation No if the Soul then live it must be as my Text hath it for righteousness sake Set thy self therefore to it seriously and speedily Wise Princes make many days preparation for a field that must be fought in one Beloved let us be wise too and lay up something every day for the last when we shall wrestle with death If we win that skirmish we have enough but where or when or how soon we shall be called to the conflict who can tell be not secure therefore and presume not on the last hour it may come suddenly upon thee flatter not thy self and thy sins and frame not delay unto thine own Soul Send not Religion before thee unto thine old age whither peradventure thou shalt never come or else come hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Give not thy youth and strength unto Satan and then when thou art low drawn and upon the lees think to present God with the dregs of thy life What a folly were it for thee to adventure thy surest thy everlasting weal or wo making or marring on so sandy and sinking a foundation how much better were it for thee to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil day come and thou say I have no delight herein that thy Creator may not forget thee in thine old age when strength faileth and Man returneth to his long home Sure in these great water-floods we shall hardly come nigh him and therefore let
which as St. John saith hath pain in it as curbing men in their desires and we may add imperfection too as not able to sanctify their Persons yet is it as the Son of Syrach speaks the beginning of wisdom and leads unto that which is perfect for by constant forbearance of evil though out of terrour men may come at length to love and delight in goodness and then every degree of such love casteth out a degree of that fear till perfect love at last casteth out all fear all that is painful but withal induceth another fear of another both name and nature Timor castus filialis a chast and filial fear the fear of offence not of punishment a fear not only good in it self but such as makes the subject good too wherein it resides And this fear hath two Eyes with the one it beholds God as the supream and Soveraign good not only in himself but of all those that adhere unto him and then loving him as such they cannot but withal fear to offend or lose that God and goodness which above all things they love But the other Eye fastens it self on God as no less great than good and contemplating as well as it may or as far as it dares the Sanctity Power and Immensity the infinite Majesty and glory of the divine Essence or Deity is strucken with admiration and adoration too of so great and inconceivable Excellence from whence it takes another denomination and is stiled Timor reverentialis a devout and reverential fear It is true that the time will come when even this filial fear shall lose one of these lights and be no whit the less comely and beautiful for that neither for as the filial fear throws out that which is servile so fruition will cast out the first part of that which is filial For being confirmed in goodness there is no room for the fear when there is no danger of offending or losing that God which we enjoy But this reverential fear is never thrown out by any thing else but is that fear whereof David spake The fear of the Lord is clean and endureth for ever It attends not on this life only but runs it self into immortality the fear of blessed Angels now and shall be the fear of all holy Saints as here so in that blessedness for ever hereafter And then indeed it will be the fulness of wisom and the Crown both of it and that fulness also But as on these several fears so are we to look on men too and their several conditions otherwise our discourse will not be so real as rational But yet though these fears abstractedly considered have their several forms whereby they are differenced and are in supream degrees some of them incompatible yet in the concrete as they subsist in their subjects they are not usually in this life so intense and pure but that though one be predominant they are all three mixed for the most part and compounded together Whence it is that holy men even the greatest Saints and Servants of God whose fear therefore filial and founded in love yet because liable through this body of death unto frailties and sometimes unto falls are now and then found to be sensible also of his wrath Even David himself whose Confidence otherwhiles can carry him through the valley of death without fear yet at other seasons is driven to cry out A Judiciis tuis timui I was afraid of thy judgments yea from my youth up thy terrours have I suffered with a troubled mind Holy Job though a perfect and upright man by the mouth of God himself yet not so perfect in all his ways and upright but that we may sometimes read these sad complaints The Arrows of the Almighty stick fast within me the venont whereof drink up my Spirits and Quid faciam cum surrexerit ad judicandum Deus And if it thus befal the green Trees how shall it fare with the dry If such Worthies so complain and cry out under the terrour of divine judgment how shall we that are worse dare to reject it as servile Certainly he that doth so doth withal take himself for perfect in love since perfect love alone it is that can cast out all fear that is painful Presuâ—mption indeed can do the like cast it out too for a time but will undoubtedly bring great fears upon them in the end And therefore for such as grow high through the favours of God and more consident than their behaviour under them can warrant the Scriptures want not corrosives to beat down the proud flesh and abate the presumptuous Spirit Be not high minded but fear yea work out your Salvation with fear and trembling also But on the other side where this fear and trembling hath taken hold and the humbled Soul steeping it self in the sense and sorrow of her sins comes to labour under its own grief in this Case there wants not Balm in Gilead neither Lenitives nor Cordials for the wounded Spirit Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Adoption that cryes Abha Pater and what is your Fathers will why fear not little Flock it is your Fathers will to give such for their sorrow now a Kingdom of joy hereafter to wit in sensu composito if they run not back again into those sins for which they are so sorrowful Thus the Scriptures are not contradictory only they suit divers fears with different properties and contrary dispositions with as opposite exhortations as is but just and reasonable To scatter the proud in their imaginations but to bind up and strengthen the broken-hearted Now as these fears more or less at one time or other pertain unto all but to our gries if not shame of Christianity are scarce truly to be found in any so are they all here in my Text not all generally only and in gross under the name of fear but with special intimations of all and each of them in several For first here is the worldly fear but forbidden as negatives are ever under their affirmatives Fear God not the world or worldly evils which press only the body but that God which can cast both Body and Soul into everlasting fire Secondly the very mention of duty in the first reason implies a superiority and that ever requires Reverence another of the Fears And when duties are performed formally on that manner because duties and such as in the breach whereof we know the God whom we love is offended it is the fear then of offence not of punishment and both these make up the entire filial fear But yet the fear of punishment is not left out neither as good in it self though materially servile for that is a motive too and as the least so the last of all For God will bring every work into judgment c. as it is in the next verse So they are all joyned here in the text and when they are
and all other the sordid Factors that truck and traffick between them truss't up on an instant in a third fardle and as nasty as any of the other All indeed and many more the like fit Faggots and Fuel for those devouring but not consuming flames Their time is come and thither they must to receive the just recompence of their ways for that is the end of Christs coming who now comes for general Retribution and due reward unto all Et tunc reddet unicuique c. And then shall he reward c. The Then here was omitted in the division but may not be so in our discourse for there seems to be an Emphasis a strong Accent on it on this particle of time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then he shall render unto every man according to his works And sure it is something well yet a comfortable hearing to those that have clear bosoms that yet there is a Then in store a time that will come at last when every one shall receive a reward according to his works Here on earth the Babel of confusion where all things are mixed and blended togetherâ— no mans works can well be discerned or judged of by the reward he receiveth The reward of the righteous sometimes happens to the wicked saith Solomon and the reward of the wicked is sometimes given to the righteous No man can know either good or evil by all that is before him Some rare examples indeed there now and then fall out when evil men are filled with their own devices and made to eat the fruits of their own planting As I have done saith Adonibezeck unto others so God hath requiâ—ed me and so he requites many more hangs them up sometimes like Haman on their own Gallows or buries them in the pit which themselves have digged This God sometimes doth that we may know his providence sleepeth not even for the present Yet this he doth but seldom saith St. Augustine that we may consider there is a day of judgement to come and the nearer that day approacheth the more rare and seldom are exhibited such remarkable examples The indignation of the Almighty that was wont in former Ages to follow notorious wickedness at the heels with as notable and exemplary revenge now in these latter times the day of final accounts draws nigh on seems to slacken the pace and come leisurely after at a distance God inhibiting as it were the inferiour Courts of his Justice upon earth against the approach of the great day of his general visitation in the Clouds In the mean time because it is mans day this he permits men for the most part unto themselves steers the line of his providence suffers them to run on at pleasure in their own courses and men thus permitted to themselves are oftentimes sure but ill Judges and worse rewarders of their brethren For the malevolent and malignant world prone to calumniate the noblest actions doth usually reward men not according to their works but it s own malignancy It is not judgment but fancy and faction that now adays gives a sutable censure on all mens ways and actions But it is little material for benefacere male audire Regium est That of the Poet is most true and will be ever virtutem praesentem odimus envy never fails to attend on present vertue urit enim fulgore suo and the more eminent it is the more it provokes unto envy but yet that which follows is true also sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi future times when it is gone will do it right and reward it with honour But however if they do not yet it is but fit that virtue should be put to the true Test and give proof of her sincerity Every man can easily pursue those attempts that are seconded with vulgar applause but to go on with courage though met in the face and followed at the heels with storms of reproaches and unsavory calumniations in this case non se subducere nimbo not to decline those showers run to every bush for shelter but to bear up manfully notwithstanding into the very eye of the wind and weather Hoc demum est pietas hoc quoque fortis amor this is virtue indeed true and approved love unto God and goodness removed utterly from the danger of those by-respects of Pride and vain-glory the cruel Widwifes of Egypt appointed by the infernal Pharaoh to stifle and smother the Children of the Israelites in the very day of their birth No matter therefore how it goes here with men that judge secundùm faciem according to appearance as St. John speaks or rather sometimes without any appearance at all That which is the stay and solid comfort of every man is within him in his own bosome where he is assured his work is with his God that judgeth righteous judgment and will have his time at last to make all things manifest and reveal the secrets of all hearts when smotherâ—d righteousness shall break forth as the light and just dealing as the noon day For as Solomon rightly he that ponders the heart doth consider it and he that keepeth thy Soul doth know it and he it is that shall reward every man according to his works In the mean time that of the Apostle is seasonable Patientes estote fraâ—res usque in adventum dominis be ye patient â—â—til the coming of the Lord for when he doth come then every mans works shall appear and then indeed he will reward every man according to his works But what is not the reward given until then not until the coming of the Lord A reward sure there is even in the present life but it lies secret in the Conscience a greater reward unto the separated Soul after death yet the fulness of reward I conceive though I contend with no man not until the day of resurrection In the mean time the departed Soul lives it doth not die to be raised again like the body as the Socinian would have it nor yet sleep out the time in a Tâ—ance as others affirm but this is certain the Soulâ— of the righteous are in the hand of God so saith the Wise man yea more they are thus far blessed that die in the Lord far they rest from their labours so saith the Spirit nay farther yet they are in refrigerio in a joyful freshing with Abraham so saith the Paâ—able of Laâ—â—â—â—â—â— yea in a Paradise of delight so saith Christ unto the good Thief upon the Cross. And therefore where-ever they are be the place what or where it will Abrahams bosom or Paradise or under the Altar there they are undoubtedly where the glory of Chirst shines unto then and on them with full assurance of the like glory shortly to be rewealed and wherre with themselves shall be indeâ—ssibly invested In the presentation and contemplation whereof miâ—abili quadam volupt ate afficiunt up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their affections saith Gregory Nazianzeâ— even 〈◊〉 with marvellous
delight which can be no less than a Paradise of pleasure unto them But yet that they now are already in that happy place or in the actual fruition of that full happiness and glory which shall hereafter give them the fulness of their reward this the Scriptures do not seem to teach nor the Eatheâ— to affirmâ— but a great consnt of both may he rather sound to the contrary Of those that departed this life before the coming of Christ our Lord in the flesh or his going away again and ascending into the highest Heavens 〈…〉 as the Apostle speaks unto the Hebrews that of the same Apostle may not be denied All these died and received not the promises but behold them a far off And that very beholding holding was their refreshing it seems in that place of rest where they lay after death as it were at anchor in a calm and quiet Harbour free from those winds and tempests wherewith they were beaten whilst they stood off at Sea in the painful Navigation of this life for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek and sinus in the Latine may import and so Theophylact doth expound Abrahams Bay as well as Abrahams Bosome But yet though at rest they as yet saith he received not the promises and he gives his reason for it too God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect Which reason too will serve for all others that died since the Ascension of our Saviour For as it was not convenient they should be made perfect without us so neither that we our selves should be made perfect without the rest of our brethren If any were so who sooner than the Souls of those Saints and Martyrs that refused not even death for Christ and his Gospel And yet even these are arrayed only in white Robes as Candidati and ready drest in their wedding apparrel for the marriage of the Lamb but are willed withal to rest a while until their fellow servants and the rest of their brethren to be slain likewise should be fulfilled also That so all might be perfected together and by three degrees according to the three estates of life death and judgment draw on unto the fulness of that perfection as having a good hopâ— in life infallible assurance in death and plenary possession at the resurrection In life here we walk by Faith we see not God In the estate after death we see him but afar off as the Apostle speaks but at the Resurrection face to face Here in this world we lie as cripples in Solomons Porch but cured by the name of Jesus death carrieth us into the body of the Temple where we are leaping for joy exulting and praising God but the day of Christ will draw the Veil lead us into the Holy of Holies where God himself dwells between the Cherubins Lastly now upon earth we are Militant Pugnatoâ—es wrestlers and warriours in death we are declared Victours and Conquerors but in the resurrection triumphant and crowned even with that Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the just Judge will give saith St. Paul in die illo in that day laid up indeed before as he there speaks but not before that day it seems to be given but then it shall for then he shall reward c. The like on the other side may well be conceived of the wicked their Souls asâ— soon as departed enter into sorrows and torments the worm that shall never die begins presently to feed upon them but drench'd it seems as yet they are not in that lake of fire which shall never be quenched and will be the fulness of their reward The Devils themselves are not yet there and therefore are bold to say unto our Saviour Art thou come to torment us aâ—te tempâ—â— before our time A set time sure there is appointed for that In the interim as the Crown is reserved for the Righteous so these and all their Adherents are reserved it seems unto that day which shall give them the full accomplishment of their sorrows So St. Jude Reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day This they all know and cannot without horrour think of it They believe therefore saith St. James and tremble And so likewise all other the Spirits lewd and diabolical people they understand their final and fearful doom already on which their condemning thoughts do perpetually feed not without infinite regret indignation and fury and so though locally seated in Hell yet as yet scalding there and burning only in the flames that arise from their own bosoms But when that great day shall once come and the Son of Man appear in his glory then shall that old Dragon the deceiver with all those apostate people whom he hath deceived and are not written in the Book of the Lamb be thrown into that Lake burning with fire and brimstone Yea death and Hell too shall be cast into that Lake Hell to shew that all they who are now there in custody shall then be thrown into that Lake as into the Center tower-ward and Dungeon of that fearful Prison And death too to signify their immortality there in a perpetual dying life and everlasting living death even for ever and ever And death and Hell were cast into that Lake of fire For now the time of full Retribution is come this is the great day of reward and there is no other To that then let us pass with my Text from the time to the reward it self Then he shall reward c. This word of Reward seems to stick in the Jaws of many men at least to come forth fumbling between their Teeth as if they did not very well like it But whether they like it or no so the Scriptures often speak and accordingly we must be content to receive them The truth is there are extreams in this point as in most others lyable unto dispute and controversy and Verity like Virtue lies in the golden mean between both For some are wholly and totally all for reward and no Grace unless it be a stock of Grace whereby they may condignly merit the reward Others again can away with no Reward at all but will have all of meer Grace when the truth consists in a mixture compounded of both neither totally grace nor meerly reward but merces gratiosa a gracious Reward And that not only in regard of the Grace first given but of the work too it self that is to be rewarded The former take Heaven to be as fully merited by the works of the Righteous as Hell is deserved by the sins of the wicked The latter suppose Heaven to be meerly a free gift and in the consequences of their Positions make Hell as free a Collation as the Kingdom of Heaven Both seem to be equally out and not much unequally to share both truth and errour between them For thus much I conceive is clear and
ambitions If the greater Peers among the people instead of being Gods and common Fathers unto their Country prove Wolves unto their brethren and like Pikes grow great and vast by eating up the Fry that is round about them donec Serpens serpentem devorans fiat Draco If instead of benign and benevolent Stars they shall be of a sowr and Saturnian Aspect only blasting whatsoever comes within the sphere of their activity or else but of a Mercurian concurring influence good with the good and bad with the bad not as justice but as affection and faction shall lead them then no marvel if mighty men come at length to be mightily tormented But if these Noble Persons shall be truly Noble indeed and as God hath termed them Gods and Fathers unto their Country If like Job they shall deliver the poor and such as have none to help from those that are too mighty for them break the jawes of the wicked and pluck the spoil out of their teeth until the blessing of them that are ready to perish come upon them for it If the Prince that is supream be not a disturber like Nimrod but rather as Solomon Princeps pacis a King of peace nourishing his people like David with a perfect and upright heart and ruling them prudently with all his power If his moderation be known unto all and his Piety unto God and goodness no less exemplary than his Virtue then undoubtedly both he and they and all such Mighty men in this great day shall be as mightily honoured when he that hath made you Rulers of his people set you here in the seats of Justice as on the throne of David shall then advance you higher take you up even upon his own throne in the Clouds as being in the number of those Saints that shall be Assessors there and with Christ as the Apostle tells us to judge the world whilst those mighty and glorious Monarchs that once so much troubled the earth and other Princes Great men and Favorites of the world shall now stand like poor worms beneath you at the Bar nudo latere palpitantes sententian◠aeternae mortis expectantes naked and quaking as St. Hierome speaks under the sentence of eternal death Where now are all their Dignities and Titles their Pomp and former Splendor how is it vanished Alas all these things accompany none any farther than the grave but their works these follow after unto judgment where according to their works they shall be now rewarded which is our last point And then be shall reward every man secundùm opera sua according to his works This as it is the latter part of my Text so is it the most substantial but withal the most troublesome for here we seem to meet with nothing but difficulties There are but three words in it And whether we look on the opera which is the main or the sua that adheres or the secundùm that hath reference unto both Objections we shall find and some of them difficult enough even in all three Set the Accent first upon the opera for that as I said is the main and we shall no sooner do it but the objection is instantly emergent for if Men shall be now judged with precise respect unto their works since none are so wicked but have some good deeds nor any so righteous but have many sins how should it come to pass that either any should escape Condemnation or if some do why should not all escape it for all are sinners But this knot may well be dissolved without any great labour For though works at that day shall be judged of as good or evil precisely according unto that Law which they have transgressed yet the men whose they are shall be sentenced for these works not according to the law but with reference and respect unto the conditions of the Gospel for God shall then judge the secrets of all hearts saith St. Paul secundùm evangelium meum according to my Gospel And according to the Gospel the same works are not always of the same condition with reference to reward and punishment but according to the repentance of the person or his falling from it do receive ever a new qualification The Schools therefore do accordingly distinguish of opera mortua and mortifera viva and mortificata and rediviva too of dead works and deadly of living and mortified and reviviscent also Works morally good but not done with any Pious or Spiritual intention they account dead works as lyable neither to reward nor punishment Works morally and mortally evil these are mortisera deadly Works that draw death and destruction after them works of Faith and Charity in the converted Soul these are opera viva living works and such as have title unto life everlasting but both these latter may be mortified and both after mortification revive again when the sinner repents him of his Sins all his former wickedness is forgotten and when the penitent man returns again to his Sins none of his former righteousness shall then be remembred And as men do ebb or flow in their true repentance so their sins or their good deeds do either revive or mortifie and the mortification of the one is the reviving ever of the other And for this reason saith our Saviour in the Revelation Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to render unto every man not as his works but in the singular as his work shall be For according unto this one work of repentance either his sin or his righteousness hath the predominance and shall be accordingly rewarded by him who will now reward every man in this sence according to his works But yet since this Judgment proceeds in mercy and according to the Gospel why are we not said to be rewarded according to our Faith rather than according to our works As though works where the Gospel is revealed were of any validity without Faith or Faith any way rewardable farther than it is operative and fruitful in works But besides this is a day of universal reckoning not confined within the precise latitude of that revelation every man without exception must now come to his account and what every one is bound to account for according to that and to that only he shall be sentenced New the Gospel of Christ hath not been revealed unto all but the notions of good and evil are implanted in Nature and men are to be judged of and accepted too according to what they have not according to what they have not as our Saviour speaketh And therefore the Faith of the Jew was not required of the Gentile neither yet the Faith of the Christian at the hands of the Jew The Law of Nature indeed binds all but positive Laws those only to whom they are given And thus much seems to be both Law and Gospel That no man give an account but for the Talents that were delivered him For God is no such
Israel words of great compassion and learn to condemn our selves and our own sins in the evil we suffer when it doth strike Thou hast destroyed thy self And to bless and adore God for all the good we either do or receive when in special mercy it doth not strike but in me is thy help O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but c. But Israel is a word that wants not ambiguities for all are not Israel that are of Israel There are Israelites of the seed and Israelites of the Faith of Abraham There are Sons of flesh and Sons of the promise and Israel is the Church of God the womb that conceives and bears both Duoe Gentes in utero It is Rebekahs womb in which Jacob and Esau and in them two mighty Nations do contend and strive It is the Net in the Gospel that contains things both good and bad The Fold that hath Sheep and Goats The Field that hath Tares and Wheat The Barn-floor that hath Wheat and Chaff So then to collect the sum and substance of those points which this Scripture doth especially present unto consideration Here are first two sorts of people the Good and the Bad Elect and Reprobate implied in Israel Secondly the two several Ends of those two sorts Life and Death Destruction and Salvation for the help here may be none other than help from destruction and that can be nothing else than Salvation and so some Translations render it And lastly the two several causes of those ends God and Man God of life Man of death God the cause of Salvation unto the Elect and the Reprobate the cause of destruction unto themselves whereby neither those that are saved may sacrifice unto their own Nets nor they which perish lay any blame on his decrees these being no less deprived of all excuse than those bereaved of all boasting O Israel thou hast c. That these words may have a true and litteral understanding of Calamities and Deliverances incident unto this present life that which immediately goes before in the precedent verse I will meet them as a Bear bereaved of her whelps c. will not suffer any Man to doubt But that they are only and principally meant of such and not of eternal destruction and Salvation in them that which follows will permit no man to believe I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death O death I will be thy plague O grave I will be thy destruction words that do not carry a sound of momentany affliction And therefore this illustrious promise or Prophecy or both by the Apostle to the Corinthians is repeated and worthily appropriated unto him who is the Saviour of Body and Soul and hath redeemed us from first and second both Corporal and Eternal death The more deservedly is Pâ—scator otherwise a Learned and Industrious Pastor to be blamed who in a late and negligent tract of Predestination having so ordered the state of Reprobation as he saw God thereby must needs become the first Author and Procurer of his Creatures endless destruction lest this place here Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self should cross his intent or hinder his building replies that it is meant of such destruction only as pertains unto the present World as if there were not one and the same cause of destruction in both nay as if it were more prejudicial unto God and his Justice to be the absolute cause of slight and short troubles here than of perpetual and everlasting sorrows in Hell hereafter It is strange he should rather seek an answer than acknowledge the truth of so excellent a sentence A sentence that is indeed the very line and level whereby himself and every one else must direct and square all his propositions that concern those eternal appointments and decrees of a just and merciful God It is the best if not the only Star and Card and Compass too on which the weak age of reason must continually fix it self whilst it Steers in this dangerous Navigation in this immense and bottomless Sea of Predestination in which Abyssus Abyssum invocat one Deep calls upon another Deep upon Deep and Rock upon Rock so thick that in seeking to avoid the one unless this Golden Rule be our direction we shall be sure to strike and split upon the other as many that have sailed before us have done whose Bark and burthen should never have perished had this notable Saying sate Pilot at the Helm by whose shipwrack we may learn wisdom to beware For some of the first and best Reformers of the Roman Superstition justly displeased at the Pelagian freedom of the Papist whereby Man is made the first mover unto his own good striving with all their might to bear up from this Charybdis fell foul upon Sylla on the other side and instead of Pelagian liberty brought in more than Manichean necessity whereby God is as far intitled unto Mans ill Both in extreams and both extreamly to be blamed the former being not able fully to say In thee is our Salvation unto God the latter Thou hast destroyed thy self unto Man Arminius of late an Acute Dutchman steps forth to reform these Reformers whose main Errour notwithstanding which he should have condemned especially he is found especially to imitate fleying where he should but sheer and flying from one extream to another when the truth lies between both For as they upon a worthy dislike of a conditional Election upon foreseen merits through heat or ignorance come to maintain an absolute Reprobation so he out of his as worthy dislike of this Iron and Adamantine decree of absolute Reprobation without demerits fell back again unto conditional Election In both both of them equally erring the truth lying equally distant from both so as it is not easie to judge Election upon good works being derogatory to the freeness of Gods mercy and Reprobation without evil unto the Truth of his Justice whether contains the greater impiety The one gives too much unto Man in the work of Salvation The other too much unto God in the means of damnation My Text convinceth both the former in the latter part and the latter in the former O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And as in Errours so are their portions not much unequal in Truth For Arminius election upon foresight and his Adversaries absolute reprobation are not more false than their absolute Election and his Reprobation upon foresight are as I conceive it apparently true which is not the least reason that they which are brethren and friends in all other points sweetly conspiring against the common Enemy should with such violent affections enter into this Civil War amongst themselves For there is no stronger nourishment unto mutual perswasion than when either side shall behold some demonstrative truths in his own and as gross and palpable errours in the others opinion It can hardly chuse but beget prejudice and
Belial God and Baal is most insufferable yea more than the clear rejection of him Utinamcalidus esses aut frigidus I would you were hot or cold saith the Lord to some in the Revelations As if since they were not throughly hot he had rather by much they were utterly cold than in that faint temper between both fit for nought but evomition as is there threatned for the indignation of God riseth at nothing so much as when Men neither so cold as to contemn Religion nor yet so hot as to forsake their sins present him with a cooler mixture of both Better therefore be a pure Gentile or a graceless sinner than a compounded and perfunctory Christian worse than either and harder to be cured his mediocrity being grown venerable unto the world and himself under the shew and title of calmness and moderation For which cause that may be verified of these our Saviour said of others Publicans and harlots shall sooner enter the kingdom of heaven If we mean to find entrance there it may not be by the formal and falsehearted seeking seek the Lord and you shall find him but if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul otherwise instead of finding a Kingdom we may chance to fall upon a curse Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently Seek ye therefore first with all Industry and with all speed too that it may be the first thing you seek every way first in time as well as in intention Death is uncertain and delays are dangerous whilst we take farther day unto our selves enlarging our time as the rich Fool did his Barns God oftentimes derides us as he did him Stulte hac nocte Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee And who in his own particular knows the length and date of this his day who can tell how many hours there are in it or how many of them are spent already How soon that now that henceforth of obstruction and blindness may come upon him and refusing to cleanse his Soul whilst the Spirit like that Angel in the Pool of Bethesda is moving the waters how suddenly he may fall under that fearful Sentence of the same Spirit in the Revelation He that is filthy let him be filthy still If that Fig-tree were cursed even before the time of fruit in comparison was come before the Gospel was throughly published may not those that have lived long under the bright beams and Sun-shine of it and still bring forth nought but leaves of shew and formality have just cause to fear every moment the approach and probation of that final and fatal doom Never fruit grow on thee more Whilst Men in their presumption are sporting themselves and grieving God with their sins God in his wrath in the mean while may be swearing they shall never enter into his rest Undoubtedly did the rays of true wisdom and divine pierce into the Soul had the heart any true impression of future things or of the vanity of the present did Men taste and relish the good gift of God and the powers of the world to come they would not permit any quiet to their Spirits or peace unto their Souls till their Souls had made and gained peace with their God and freed themselves from such uncertainties This is the Haven of our Rest and Heaven upon Earth and we that see it may well say unto our Souls better than he did say but saw it not O quid agis anima meâ— fortiter occupa portum what dost thou O my Soul the Port is before thee steer away before Sea and Wind manfully foul weather is behind thee make haste to escape the stormy Wind and Tempest And however there should chance not to be any for there may be room for misericordia Domini inter pontem fontem He hath not shut up life nor the gate of his mercy upon any yet it will concern wise men to fear the worst that is more likely and prevent it whilst they have time to work the work of the Lord whilst it is yet high day before that dreadful and terrible night approach wherein no man can work To defer it to the eleventh hour to the evening and twilight were a presumption too full of boldness especially since our Sun may set at noon and our light go out in the midst of our life For we are but dust as our Fathers were and the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with us Let us therefore laying aside all delays be resolute and vigilant attending speedily to open when it pleaseth him to knock when he calls instantly to answer Lo I come when he says seek ye my face to echo immediately thy face Lord will I seek So seeking his face in holiness here you may be sure to see it in glory hereafter In the mean time that God who hath added all things else plentifully unto you all abundantly unto one continue and multiply his favours unto all but principally and above all unto that one For since it is one of the last services your Majesty before your journey is to receive from this place I would not willingly leave it without one word of apprecation For though I may not bless yet I may pray God almighty whom you seek and serve hath blessed you ever hitherto and may his faithfulness and truth be your shield and protection ever hereafter He that went with Abraham in his Journey be with you in yours Let him lead you forth in peace and to the joy of all hearts return you again in safety May he carry you from Crown unto Crown from one Kingdome to another upon earth and having ministred all things else unto you according to your hearts desire here may he at last and let that be late minister an entrance unto you also abundantly into his own Kingdom this Kingdom of God Whereunto the same God of his infinite mercy vouchsafe to bring us all for and in the meritorious blood of his dearly beloved Son and our most blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen Laus Deo in aeternum A PREPARATION FOR THE Holy COMMUNION SERMON VIII Upon 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. THE holy but fearful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord as it is the highest and noblest Institution the Christian Religion hath so is it to be approached unto with the greatest reverence and regard For as it affords inestimable comfort to the worthy participant so not less danger and terrour to the unworthy Receiver He that takes it must know he takes a powerful medicine that will work one way or other either cure or kill prove wholsom Physick or deadly poyson As the patient is prepared so it works this way or that even either life or death For the blood which is received if it do not wash and cleanse it willâ— certainly stain
their Souls for ever which none of these Saviours could do And therefore a publick general and universal Saviour of whom all had need as being all sinners one much talked of and long expected the great and famous Saviour of all such a one was behind And now he is come this is he the Saviour which is Christ c. He of whom all Prophecies made mention and he the performance of them all of whom all the Types under the Law were shadows and he the substance of them all of whom all the Prophecies ran and he the fulfilling of them all he of whom all those inferiour Saviours were figures and forerunners and he the accomplishment of all that in them was wanting This is he Jacob's Shilo Esay's Emmanuel Jeremy's Branch Daniel's Messias Aggai's desideratus cunctis gentibus the desire of all the nations the desire of them then and now the joy of all nations Gaudium omni populo the joy of all people a Saviour which is Christ. And this this universality of joy is comprised in the very name for Christ signifies anointed and that is as much as S. John delivereth in other terms a Saviour sealed John vi 27. for by anointing Kings and Priests and Prophets in old time were deputed signed and sealed as it were to their several offices and received power and commission to execute those high functions So then a Saviour he is not as those others were raised up upon a sudden upon some occasion to serve the present and never heard of till they came but a Saviour in Gods forecounsel resolved on and given forth from the beginning promised and foretold and now anointed and sent with absolute commission and fulness of power to be a perfect and complete Saviour of all a Saviour which is Christ That is a Saviour ex officio whose office and very profession is to save that all may have right to repair unto him and find it at his hands not a Saviour incidently as it fell out but one ex professo anointed to that end and by vertue of his anointing appointed set forth and sent into the world of purpose to execute this function of a Saviour not to the Jews only as did the rest but to all the ends of the earth So runs his commission unto his Disciples ite in universum orbem go into the whole world and preach the Gospel omni Creaturae to every Creature so runs his own Proclamation venite ad me omnes come unto me and come all Matth. xi 28. and of them that do come I will cast none out Iohn vi 37. Servator omnium hominum the Saviour of all men 1. Tim. iv 4. and as the Samaritans said of him Servator mundi the Saviour of the world of Samaritans Jews and Gentiles of Kings and Shepherds and all And sure this is publick and universal joy gaudium omni populo joy unto all people indeed for whom there is now a saving office erected one anointed to that end a professed Saviour to whom all may resort None shall henceforth be to seek there is a name given under Heaven whereby we may be sure of Salvation and this is that name the name Christ A Saviour which is born c. Two of his Attributes then we have a Saviour which is Christ that is a Saviour and a publick Saviour but he must be a perpetual Saviour too otherwise our joy will not be full Though it be great though it be general though it be general to all people yet it will fade and perish it will not be gaudium quod erit joy which shall be lasting everlasting joy none can give that but an eternal and everlasting Saviour And he that will be such must be something more than Christ so therefore he is a great deal more Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. Not a Lord that is particular and hath reference to a private title whereof he is Lord Lord of this or that place or people and the like but the Lord which is absolute and universal without any addition you may put to it what you will Lord of Heaven and Earth of Men and Angels Dominus Christorum Dominus dominorum Lord paramount over all such was this Saviour and such it behoved him to be not only Christ that name will sort with Men yea it is his name as Man only for God cannot be anointed But he that would save the world must be more than Man and so more than Christ. Indeed Christ cannot save us he that must save us must be Christ the Lord and none but the Lord ego sum ego sum saith God himself and praeter me non est Servator it is I it is I who am the Saviour I am and besides me there is no Saviour none indeed no true Saviour but the Lord all other are short vana salus hominis Mans Salvation is vain saith the Psalmist any Salvation is vain if it be not the Lords though they be Christs as Kings and Princes are who are Gods anointed yet they cannot save Trust not in Kings and Princes for non est salus there is no salvation no no health nor help in them their breath departs and they return to the earth For though they are Christs yet they are but Christi Domini the Lord 's Christs and we shall never arrive at full and perfect Salvation till we come to Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. All the help and Salvation which those other Christs and Saviours can afford doth but concern the body that indeed they may sometimes kill or save at their pleasure but not one of them can quicken his own Soul much less give a ransome for anothers it cost more to redeem it than so and he must let that alone for ever let it alone for this Christ whose work it is Christ the Lord that only can save both Body and Soul his own and other Mens too Secondly those other Christs which are not the Lord as they save only the Body so can they save only from bodily and corporal enemies but we had need of a Saviour from ghostly adversaries from spiritual wickednesses in high places a Saviour that might wrastle with principalities and powers and triumph over them too and no Christ may do this but Christ the Lord the Lord of power and might only able to bind the strong Man in his own house and spoil him of his goods of power alone to destroy Abaddon the great destroyer of the bottomless pit Thirdly those other Christs as they save but from corporal enemies so but from worldly calamities from debts and arrests and prisons and the like penalties of their own Laws But who shall deliver us from sin and death and hell From sin the grand debt of mankind from death the universal Sergeant of all flesh and from Hell the everlasting prison of Body and Soul For these they can give no protection they are all subject unto them themselves
for breaking a higher law the eternal law of the Almighty which no other can satisfy for but a Christ as Almighty Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. Lastly all other Christs or Saviours whatsoever as they save but in few things and those only corporal and worldly so in them they save but for a little while which is but a reptieve rather than a saving for long they cannot save others that so quickly perish themselves Evermore they die they drop away still and leave their favourites and followers to seek but it is not a short rescue for a time but a permanent and perpetual Salvation that we expect for ever and for ever we might expect it at the hands of any other Christs and not find it because they cannot endure by reason of death Heb. vii 23. only this Christ because he is the Lord Dominus vitae the Lord of life indureth for ever hath an everlasting Kingdom wherein he dispenseth eternal Salvation which he purchased by his Priesthood The author of eternal Salvation to all that depend on him Heb. v. 9 and mark that well for none but the Lord can work eternal Salvation To save may agree unto men thus to save to none but Christ. To begin and to end to save Soul and Body from bodily and ghostly enemies from sin the offence and death the punishment from Hell the destruction and Satan the destroyer for a time and for ever Christ the Lord is all this and doth all this Now then we are right and never till now we have all his attributes a Saviour the word of benefit whereby he is to deliver us Christ his name of office whereby he is bound to undertake it the Lord his name of power whereby he is able to effect it Now our joy is full and never till now we have all the degrees of it whatsoever the Angel promised is here performed great joy he is a Saviour publick joy to all people a Saviour which is Christ perpetual joy joy which shall be even for ever and ever he is Christ the Lord the Lord who will not only free us from our misery and bring us to as good and better a condition as we forfeited and lost by our fall for else though we were saved we should not save by the match but that we may not be savers alone but gainers and great gainers by our Salvation estate us in all the bliss and happiness he is Lord of himself And Lord he is of life as I said Life then he will impart and he is Lord of glory 1 Cor. ii 8. and glory he will impart and he is Lord of joy Mat. xxv 21. Joy then he will impart life and glory and joy and make us Lord of them and of whatsoever is within the name and title of Lord even for ever and ever And then it will be perfect joy indeed when we shall enter into the joy of our Lord into that joy and life and glory and blessedness wherewith our Lord himself is eternally blessed Gaudium quod erit joy which shall be indeed and never cease to be everlasting for evermore So now we have all and never till now all his Attributes a Saviour Christ the Lord all our joy great publick and perpetual nay if you mark it we have yet more than this all his composition too two natures in one person his humanity in Christ his divinity in the Lord and but one Saviour of both one Saviour which is Christ the Lord and one person which is Man and God And just so it should be for of right none was to make satisfaction for Man but Man and in very deed none was able to give satisfaction to God but God So that being to satisfy God for Man he was to be God and Man and so he is A Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And so he became this day when though the Almighty God as this day he was born into the world in our nature and made Man The blessed birth of which thrice blessed person thus furnished in every point to save us throughly Body and Soul from sin and Satan the destroyers of both and that both here and for ever the blessed birth of this thrice blessed person for every word in his name is a several blessing is the very substance of this days solemnity of the Angels message and of our joy That which remains is but circumstance circumstance of persons time and place of the persons for whom of the time when and the place where yet not so light and trivial as may wholly be omitted the Angel the Holy Ghost would not leave them unmentioned and we may not pass them over untoucht yet we shall but touch them and so conclude but taking them in their order backward beginning with the place where where this Saviour was born In the City c. And where should the Son of David be born but in the City of David not in that City which David repaired and wherein he reigned that is Jerusalem a famous City indeed but in that City where David was born which is Bethlem a poor City a Village rather than a City And in this this little Town did this great Saviour this Christ the Lord vouchsafe to be born Indeed when he would die he would die at Jerusalem when he was to suffer shame and ignominy derision and disgrace and all manner of dishonour he would suffer it in the eye of the world in the great City but when he was to be born he would be born in Bethlem when he was to be glorified by Angels and receive gifts and worship from Kings and Princes he would receive it in an obscure and private place this little Village that so he might condemn the worlds pride at his first entrance into the world and teach men by his very birth the first point of Christianity to contemn honour and embrace contempt A doctrine which yet the particular place of his birth doth urge much more vehemently for it was not only in Bethlem a poor Town but in an Inn of Bethlem and a poor Inn so it seems for there was no room for them in it and not so only but in the poorest and basest part of the Inn in the Stable This was the Chamber of state for this great King instead of sweet odors perfumed with filth and hung with no other Arras but what was weaved by Spiders wherein he had only Littier for his Bed a Manger for his Cradle and an Oxe and an Ass for his attendants So low did he descend for our sakes by his own example utterly to cry down all the pomp and honour of the present life than which nothing is of more power to deprive us of the glory of the life to come What a deep humiliation hath he begun withal and how strange a disproportion is this between the titles of his person and places of his birth the Saviour Christ the Lord to be born in Bethlem in
season and who is so mad as to build and plant garnish and make great provision in an Inn in his passage and upon the way being to depart ere long peradventure the next morning For here we have no abiding place no permanent City but as strangers and pilgrims we look for one which hath a foundation And in such a Soul which is in it self as an Inn and esteems the world for no other and therefore void of all scraping and wretched desires the Son of God is ever most infallibly born and will as certainly bear it where are true riches and everlasting Now these three pleasure profit and pride that is the flesh the world and the Devil are the three heads whereunto all sins are reducible and as Christ cuts them all off in his birth so must we cut them off in our selves or he will never be born in us Carnal pleasure must depart he will be born of a Virgin Devilish pride abandoned he is born in a Stable worldly cares and covetous desires utterly discharged he is born in an Inn. And when the Soul is thus prepared by being truly cleansed from all these the time is at hand and then let him make hast and go up with confidence unto Bethlem for there he will be born that is the last and general place of his nativity born in Bethlem And Bethlem is domus panis so the name signifies the house of bread and never so truly as now when the bread of life was born in it And as then so will be still be born in Bethlem in the house of bread Of bread not corporal but spiritual and such as can nourish the Soul and what house think you is that surely Bethlem is nothing but Bethel the house of bread none other but the house of God Where Men eat Angels food and that bread of life is freely dispensed not only panis verbi but panis verbum the bread of the word but the bread which is the word the eternal word of God panis de Coelo bread from Heaven of which whosoever eateth shall never die And this is that house ecce and behold there is that heavenly bread indeed not so much bread as the body of thy Redeemer the bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Lords body the Communion sure of his body and blood too of himself and all that he did or suffered yea or purchased either For all are communicated in these the same Symbols of all and Conduits by which all are conveyed to us And therefore Christ Jesus himself is under this bread and comes down to thee as from Heaven in this shape that he might be at once both received in thy mouth and conceived in thy heart conceived and born live and inhabit therefor ever So justly was Bethlem the seat of his Nativity and therefore as Jacob said when he awoke out of sleep in that place where some suppose the Temple was afterwards built how fearful saith he is this place the Lord was in it and I was not aware this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven if he said so of the Temple the house of that bread how much more justly may we say of the bread of this house How fearful is this bread the Lord is in it and much more especially than in the Temple and wo unto them that are not aware of it that discern it not for they do but eat damnation to themselves because they discern not the Lords body Take heed therefore above all things unto thy self when thou comest to this fearful twice fearful place this double Temple the Temple of his worship and Temple of his Body and so that thou make thy approach with due regard and diligent preparation with that deep sorrow as becometh thy sins that low reverence as becometh thy Saviour And so in the end think on the night wherein he was to be born and betake thee to thy sweet and silent meditations consider the deep of Winter and embrace thine afflictions Look upon the days of peace and let go wrath view the Stable and down with thy pride see the Inn and contemn the World contemplate the Virgin and cleanse thy self from all pollutions of the flesh so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty and thy Virgin Soul come up safely into Bethlem and take of the bread of life freely and with it the blessed Lord of life himself who will make thy spirit another spiritual Bethlem or house for this living bread an habitation for this living Lord to be born and live in so long as thou livest and give thee everlasting life when thou canst live no longer Which God of his infinite mercy c. To whom c. Laus Deo in aeternum TWO FUNERAL SERMONS The FIRST for the MOTHER SERMON XII Upon PSAL. cxlii verse ult Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may give thanks unto thy Name which thing if thou wilt grant me then shall the Righteous resort unto my Company DO not marvel the Text may be fitter than you imagine or I could have made choice of for it is not I but another it was not taken but given me She that is now gone and at rest and may she rest for ever in peace she whose dissolved Tabernacle the prison of whose blessed Soul lies here before your eyes as a spectacle of mortality as a document of the frailty of our humane condition which I would if I might so wish it had this day appeared by some other example She this worthy and honoured Lady now glorious Saint in Heaven to whom we are at this time to perform our last office and Christian duty She it is who as she made it her frequent praise in her life so she desired it might be commended to your meditations in her death And you will anon perceive how justly when you shall see how well it sorted with the one and how fully it is now accomplished in the other But for this you must stay a little First therefore of her Theam then of her self Bring my Soul c. The whole Psalm is a prayer of Davids pursued by Saul and shut up in a Cave as appears by the Title but whether that of Adullam in the xxii of Samuel as Haimo and Remigius or else of the other of Engedi in the xxiv of the same book as Ambrose and Athanasius suppose is uncertain nor is it material to enquire In one of them it was and in this distress he flees unto the Lord for sucour in this whole Psalm the sum and substance of whose devout prayer you have in this last verse Bring my Soul c. This is the Historical truth and the literal sence of the Text which ariseth from thence is manifest Deliver my Soul out of Prison Espelunca out of this Cave and not so only not out of the Cave alone for so he might have fallen into the hands of Saul from whom it
neither comfort himself nor receive any from the rest of the world shall he for his last refuge as thousands of others have done cry Lord Lord be thou my help and comfort and bring my Soul out of Prison But alas unto what purpose and upon what acquaintance He that gave his Soul unto sin and Satan in his life time why should he think God in his death will embrace and entertain it No no Either give up thy Soul unto God when he calls for it in his word in the provocations of his love in the holy motions of his Spirit unto thine or else when thou wouldest give it he will none of it unless as an angry Judge to deliver it over to the tormentor And in these streights what remains but that he either take up the ditty of that dying Emperour heu quae nunc abibis in loca fearfully part with his Soul he knows not whither or else embrace the counsel of Jobs wife desperately curse God and die Either way he comes to his deserved end and he whose whole life was as the way of a snail not a step but leaving filth behind at the last dies like a Candles end in the Socket boyling and burning in the flame of his own distressed and distracted Soul till he go out in a suff and leave an ill savour behind him amongst all good people Such is oftentimes the fearful departure of those whom God for their former wicked lives shall refuse to lead out of their Prisons when they die No this favour belongs not unto them it is reserved for those faithful Souls that with holy David have throughly sorrowed for their sins for they only shall partake of Davids Prayer that imitate Davids repentance And these however he may seem to absent himself for a while and hide his countenance from them yet in that day of need in that last and Fearful time that most requires it they shall be sure of his comforts He will not fail then to discover his face and make the light of his countenance shine into that region of darkness and by the beams thereof chear up his people leading and lighting them through all the dark and winding Alleys of death until they arrive in the glorious Kingdom of immortality and peace Believe not me but behold the holy man of God and see it performed with your Eyes Look upon Jacob the Patriarch and Father of the Patriarchs he that wrestled not only that one time at the River Jabbock but all his life long with the arm of the Almighty continually afflicting him yet in the end all these storms are blown over and he is gathered unto his Fathers in a calm of content and peace But first mark how the Lord gave him strength before he went hence and was no more seen wherewith he collects his fainting Spirits raiseth himself up in his bed calls his Sons about him gives every one his several blessing and benediction in such a high and Prophetical strain as if an Angel had sate on his lips and I think many Angels sate waiting in that door of his body for the coming forth of his Soul which stayed not long after to convey it into the bosom of his Grand-father Abraham there to rest in everlasting peace Look upon Joshua the Captain of Israel after all his Wars and Battles past at length he sits him down and divides the spoil among the Tribes of Jacob and death drawing near see how he summons the whole people together and with such power of speech exhorts them to the fear and service of God which had dealt so mercifully with them that the whole Congregation as if it had but one heart and one tongue and both throughly affected joynt ly cry out unto him God forbid that we should forsake the Lord nay but we will serve him for he is our God Thus out of the flame of his own zeal having kindled a fire in the breast of others this great Worthy was led forth from his Prison in peace See Samuel the Judge of Israel going to his grave as to his bed and in him consider the power and vertue of a good Conscience arising from the memory of a well acted life Whose Oxe or whose Ass have I taken whom have I defrauded or at whose hands have I received a bribe saith he unto the Congregation as all bear him Record saith the Text hoc ducit ad funus sepulturam This is it which accompanies him to his grave and laies him in his rotten Sepulchre Lastly consider St. Paul and his marvellous confidence even before his death that made him bold to deliver up his Soul almost like his Saviour with a consummatum est I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me at that day words worthy of a Soul so near unto its Heaven such have been the blessed ends of these holy Men of God and many more famous in their generations and such it is and shall be in all others that faithfully serve him though it be not ever manifest in all And what is there now that can more deeply affect a good heart what can a religious mind so much desire unto it self or behold with so great delight in another as to see a devout and penitent Soul give a peaceful farewel unto Nature and in the midst of death depart full of comforts of immortality and life as those Souls only do whom God shall vouchsafe to lead out of their corruptible prisons with the sweet consolations of his spirit But peradventure far off examples will be left too far off respects Usually those that are nearest do affect us most if so this sad occasion will afford you a worthy one for I have done with her Text and must speak as I promised and you expect of her person that made choice of the Text and by this time you cannot but perceive how justly She delighted in prayer and praise while she lived and she left this behind her written with her own hand that it might testify so much for her even after her death and that by it she might in a sort lest her thankfulness being private should die with her self publickly praise the name of God amidst the company of the righteous the congregation of good men here on earth even then when she her self freed from her prison should be singing honour and glory with Saints and Angels in Heaven Yet this was not all the reason of her choice It sorted well with her condition whilst she was in the body and she knew it would be fully accomplished when she should be led out of it For she had her part of afflictions and they prest sore upon her too even straitned her Soul Her branches she saw were rent away branch after branch and to so loving a nature they could not but go off as limbs from her body What Bernard
said in the loss of his friend is most true in her case Her bowels were pluckt from her and she could not but feel the wound and therefore if for nought else but her sorrow and afflictions sake she might well pray educ animam c. But other troubles she had besides and distractions in the world that often called her meditations from Heaven where they delighted wholly to converse especially in her later time wherein she so inured her Soul unto blessed contemplation as she had almost freed her self from this prison ere she was freed from the body that indeed was still in the world but her mind and affections were usually with her Maker So that those earthy cares which hang at the heels of other mens Souls like talents of lead hung at hers only but as a line that usually gave her leave to soar aloft only humane necessity that held the end of it had power now and then to draw her down to the grief and sorrow of her heart I am a witness of her complaint and of her tears too that any worldly occasions though never so necessary should trouble and interrupt her spiritual devotions and therefore I am sure in this regard it was her frequent prayer Bring my Soul out of prison And besides afflictions and cares sins she had too no question for what Soul is without them but yet so few and so far from habit as I think no man can easily tell what they were Infirmities and omissions it may be though for my part I know them not yet this I know that her goodness esteemed them as the greatest sins and bewailed them with sorrow enough to suffice one that had murdered his Father or betrayed his Country never ceasing to send forth her fervent supplications in this behalf unto the last gasp Her tongue her hands her heart all prayed this prayer her tongue as long as it could move and when that failed her hand spake and when both were gone yet questionless her heart cried this cry deliver my soul out of this prison the prison of sin But yet until the body be severed from the Soul the Soul can never utterly be severed either from sin or care or sorrow of affliction And a body she had it is now you see a carkase but sometimes was a goodly frame a well built and comeâ—y maniâ—on and even cut out of an antient Quarry but unto her whose thoughts were on another habitation above as it was in it self by reason of the corruption whereunto it was subject so she esteem'd it but a prison unto her Soul and that did at last trouble her peace with pains and delay her from those joys that are pure and know no mixture of sorrow No marvel therefore if in the desire of these she could make that her prayer which others tremble to think on deliverance from her Prison But yet there needed no earnest Prayer for this death comes fast enough on of it self without hastning it more concerns us to die well and with the comforts of God in our bosomes that may shield us from our spiritual enemies that are then busiest and guide and conduct us through the dark valley of death that is terrible in it self And therefore in this respect I rather conceive she that was so careful of her Soul could not but make it her humblest and heartiest prayer that when the time should come the Lord of his mercy would be pleased to lead it out of Prison So fit was it every way and in many regards so good a choice did she make of her prayer whilst she lived and the Lord from his holy habitation heard her cry and at last accomplisht and fulfilled it all in her death Though before he pleased to lay sorrows enough upon her yet now in the midst of them all his comforts did refresh her Soul Now he comes to it in his dearest loving kindness and leads it forth indeed with his choicest consolations and graces to make her a full recompence for all her former afflictions How doth it now rejoice others about her even in the depth of their sorrow to see her full of the Spirit and out of the abundance of it sometimes pouring down blessings on her children and childrens children and every one his several blessings like Jacob sometimes stirring up and exhorting to the fear and service of the Lord with holy Joshuâ— sometimes again solacing her self in the sweet peace of a good Conscience as blessed Samuel and lastly sometimes venting out her strong hope and stedfast confidence with St. Paul but in the words of Job I know that my Redeemer liveth and I shall see him with these eyes as she often repeated But what may be said enough of her fervent praying she was ever pious and frequent in this holy exercise through the whole course of her life thrice a day at the least at morning at noon and at night besides her times of publick prayer so five times a day she prayed and I doubt not but instantly too But now when her prison began to ruine and death to appear within ken how assiduous is she now it is not Davids seven nor twice seven times a day that can suffice but she plies it as if she had meant to fulfil the Apostles precept pray continually I told you but now her heart tongue and hand prayed to the last gasp and I think that gasp was a prayer too when her understanding failed and she could neither hear nor see others yet others might see and perceive that she prayed So perfectly had she taught her tongue to pray that when her senses were locked up it could run of it self And if such a Soul as this be not whose shall ever be led forth with comfort and peace But yet before her leading forth being remembred of it she willingly made confession of her Faith acknowledging all the Articles of her Belief and adhering only unto the blood of Christ Jesus for her hope in these she had lived and in them she would die but die in charity too forgiving and desiring to be forgiven of the whole world as at other times she did not refuse to ask it even of her own Servants when she had but uttered a word with a little more earnestness than ordinary And this solemn profession made that she might farther yet fulfil all rights she gladly makes her Son her Father and receives his absolution And not long after the God of all mercies on whom she continually called answered her gently and opening the Prison eduxit animam led forth her blessed Soul full of gracious comforts unto everlasting glory for with this all the other prisons are utterly dissolved No more afflictions now nor sin nor death for ever all tears are wiped from her eyes and sorrow from her heart all pain from her Body and sin from her Soul which now in the highest Heavens compassed about with the righteous sings the songs of praise and honour and
and dy the Soul of the Receiver which must be made partaker or shall be made guilty either partaker of the vertue or guilty of the shedding thereof to his endless destruction that receives it unworthily The guilt you have in the precedent Verse He shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. The destruction in the subsequent he eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body The exhortation in my Text lies between both that it might be the more vehemently enforced and every man might know how much it behoveth him diligently to examine himself before he eat of that bread and drink of that Cup But let a man examine c. Wherein you see there are two general parts first a preparation then an admission unto the blessed Sacrament of the body and blood of our Saviour The Admission in the latter part Let him eat and the preparation in the former but first let a man examine c. Of the holy Sacrament it self and an admission unto it hereafter at this time only of the preparation that should go before it Wherein you may consider 1. The Act wherein it consists Examination and then the object of that Act himself Let a man c. But we shall run both together and out of both draw these points which we will commend to your observation 1. Because the end of examination is to prepare our selves we will shew the necessity of this preparation 2. That we may know wherein to examine our selves we will consider the quality and extent of that preparation which is necessary for the making and constituting of a worthy Receiver 3. We will shew that the best means to attain unto this due preparationâ— or qualification is the study and knowledge of our selves and our own ways 4. Because the heart of man is deceitful above all things and we are all apt to deceive our selves in judging of our selves that it is not a superficial view but a strict examination that must give the just and true knowledge of our selves 5. And lastly we will make and practise this examination in those points we have found necessary that after it they who are approved in their own Consciences may chearfully approach unto the sacred Mysteries and eat of that bread and drink of that Cup to their endless comfort and others that are not so as I think few are may first reform themselves lest they eat and drink as the Apostle here threatens damnation to themselves So these five The necessity of preparation and what the prepation is that is so necessary That the best means to attain it is the knowledge of our selves and the best way to come to this knowledge examination which examination because it is the chief point we will strictly make in the last place that according to it we may either approve or reform our selves before we presume to come to the dreadful Sacrament of the body and blood of our Lord These 5. I say we shall at this time as God shall inable prosecute in their order but plainly as desirous to leave you rather better than more learned And first of the first the necessity of preparation But let a man examine c. The end of examination is preparation for to examine and not to prepare our selves were but to see our own foulness and refuse to cleanse it to inquire into our Lords will and neglect it when we have done and that will only make us worthy of more stripes And therefore he that commands the one doth in the same words of necessity injoin the other And indeed holy and Divine Mysteries as in reason they require an holy and sanctified preparation so in Scripture hath it ever been prescribed and exacted at their hands that shall draw near unto them yea the very Heathen Priests would not enter upon their Superstitious Ceremonies to their false Gods without first proclaiming a procul este profani all profane and unhallowed persons be ye far away And it was the use in the Primitive Church for the Minister as it is in St. Basils Liturgy or the Deacon his Assistant as Chrysostom hath it To cry with a loud voice before the Communion Sancta Sanctis holy things pertain unto holy people And for this cause it was that the Lord gave such strict command in Law that no uncircumcised person should presume to eat of the Paschal Lamb nor yet any circumcised neither under four days preparation and sanctification of themselves With what reverence then and awful regard should we draw near unto the true Passover in the blessed Sacrament which succeeds in the room of that other and exceeds it too no less than the substance doth the shadow than the body and blood of the Son of God doth the flesh and blood of a Lamb taken from the flock To shew this our Saviour himself at his last supper ariseth from the Table takes the Bason and the Towel washes and wipes his Disciples feet before he would institute his blessed Sacrament or suffer them to be Communicants at it Now by the feet in holy Scripture are meant the affections of the heart for as by the feet the body walks so by the affections the Soul moves to whatsoever it desires They are the springs and Fountains of all her vital operations and as the Fountains are such are the streams if those be troubled these will be foul if they be cleansed the other will run clear And therefore these feet these affections of the heart being once washed the meditations of the head the words of the mouth and the actions of the hand which are but rivers flowing from the abundance of the heart and the hearts affections cannot but partake of the same purity For which reason when Peter who at the first was not willing to be washt at all afterwards was desirous to have all washt his head and his hands as well as his feet our Saviour replies he that is washed needeth not to wash save his feet only for then he is clean every whit Joh. xiii 10. The feet then the affections of the Soul on whose cleanness doth depend the purity of the whole man and all his actions these are they that our Saviour by this act of his own doth instruct us carefully to wash and cleanse before they tread a step towards his holy Table How can they there expect to be partakers of him who himself in that place told Peter that without this washing he could have no part in him They frustrate the end and benefit of the holy Sacrament they prostitute the blessed mysteries themselves they dishonour both them and the Majesty of that God who is present at and in them who presume with unwasht feet unhallowed affections to enter upon the sacred Symbols sanctified with the peculiar presence of the precious body and blood of the Son of the everliving God No marvel therefore if such profaners of this blood are held as guilty of the