power to desire more then have that desire so enlarged satisfied And the Libera nos we shall not pray to be delivered from evil for no evil culpae or poenae either of sin to deserve punishment or of punishment for our former sins shal offer at us where we shall see God face to face for we shall have such notions and apprehensions as shall enable us to see him and he shall afford such an imparting such a manifestation of himself as he shall be seen by us and where we shall be as inseparably united to our Saviour as his humanity and divinity are united together This unspeakable this unimaginable happiness is this Salvation and therefore let us be glad when this is brought neer us Prope And this is brought neerer neerer unto us as we come neerer neerer to our end As he that travails weary and late towards a great City is glad when he comes to a place of execution becaus he knows be that is neer the town so when thou comest to the gate of death glad of that for it is but one step from that to thy Jerusalem Christ hath brought us in some neerness to Salvation as he is vere Salvator mundi in that we know that this is indeed the Christ Jo. 4.42 the Saviour of the world and he hath brought it neerer than that Eph. 5.23 as he is Salvator corporis sui in that we know That Christ is the head of the Church and the Saviour of that body And neerer than that Esay 43.3 as he is Salvator tuus sanctus In that we know He is the Lord our God the holy One of Israel our Saviour But neerest of all in the Ecce Salvator tuus venit Esa 62.11 Behold thy Salvation commeth It is not only promised in the Prophets nor only writ in the Gospel nor only seal'd in the Sacraments nor only prepared in the visitations of the holy Ghost but Ecce behold it now when thou canst behold nothing else The sun is setting to thee and that for ever thy houses and furnitures thy gardens and orchards thy titles and offices thy wife and children are departing from thee and that for ever a cloud of faintnesse is come over thine eyes and a cloud of sorrow over all theirs when his hand that loves thee best hangs tremblingly over thee to close thine eyes Ecce Salvator tuus venit behold then a new light thy Saviours hand shall open thine eyes and in his light thou shalt see light and thus shalt see that though in the eyes of men thou lye upon that bed as a Statue on a Tomb yet in the eyes of God thou standest as a Colossus one foot in one another in another land one foot in the grave but the other in heaven one hand in the womb of the earth and the other in Abrahams bosome And then vere prope Salvation is truly neer thee and neerer than when thou believedst which is our last word Take this Belief in the largest extent Credidistis a patient assent to all foretold of Christ and of Salvation by the Prophets a historical assent to all that is written of Christ in the Gospel an humble and supple and applyable assent to the Ordinances of the Church a faithful application of all this to thine own soul a fruitful declaration of all that to the whole world in thy life yet all this though this be inestimable riches is but the earnest of the holy Ghost it is not the full payment it is but the first fruits it is not the harvest it is but a truce it is not an inviolable peace There remaineth a rest to the people of God Heb. 4.9 sayes the Apostle they were the people of God before and yet there remained a rest which they had not yet not that there is not a blessed degree of rest in the Credidi a happy assurance in the strength of faith here but yet there remaineth a rest better than that And therefore sayes that Apostle there Let us labor to enter into that rest as though we have rest in our consciences all the six dayes of the week if we do the works of our callings sincerely yet all that while we labor and there remains a Sabbath which we have not all the week so though we have peace and rest in the testimony of our faith and obedience in this life yet there remains a rest a Sabbath for which we must labor for the Apostle in that place adds the danger Labor to enter into that rest sayes he lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief v. 11. He speaks of the people of God and yet they might fall He speaks of such as bad believed and yet they might fall after the example of unbelief as far as they that never believed if they labored not to the last and set the seal of final perseverance to their former faith To conclude all with the force of the Apostles argument in urging the words of this text since God hath brought salvation nearer to you then to them that believed nearer to you in the Gospel when you have seen Christ come there to the Jews in the Prophets where they only read that he should come and nearer to you then where you believed either seminally potentially and imputatively at our baptism or actually and declaratorily in some parts of your life by having persisted therein thus far and since he is now bringing it nearer to you then when you believed at best because your end grows nearer Eccles 12. now whilst the evill daies come not nor the year approach wherein thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them before the grinders cease because they are few and they wax dark that look out at the windows before thou go to the house of thine age and the mourners go about in the streets prepare thy self by casting off thy sins and all that is gotten by thy sins for as the plague is got as soon in linings as in the outside of a garment salvation is lost as far by retaining ill gotten goods as by ill getting forget not thy past sins so far as not to repent them but remember not thy repented sins so far as to delight in remembring them or to doubt that God hath not fully forgiven them and whether God have brought this salvation near thee by sickness or by age or by general dangers put off the consideration of the incomodies of that age or that sickness and that danger and fill thy self with the consideration of the nearness of thy salvation which that age and sickness and danger minister to thee that so when the best Instrument and the best song shall meet together thy bell shall towl and thy soul shall hear that voice Ecce salvator behold thy Saviour cometh thou maist bear a part and chearfully make up that musick with a veni Domine Jesu Come Lord Jesu come quickly
Treason and Superstition in a corrupt Religion in every corner No man dares complain of others thefts because every man is felo de se not onely that himself hath stolne but that he hath stolne away himself Yea he is Homicida sui Tertul. a Murderer of himself Omnis peccator homicida Every sinner is a Murderer Quaeris quem Occiderit doth he plead Not guilty or doth he put me to prove whom he hath murdered Si quid ad Elogii ambitionem faciat non inimicum non extraneum sed seipsum It he think it an honor to him let him know it is not an enemy it is not a stranger that he hath murdered but himself and his own soul And such a Thief such a Murderer was this but not onely such but a publick Malefactor too and so execrable to men which is his first Indisposition Blaspemy He had also execrated God he had reviled Christ This Evangelist Saint Luke does not say so that both the Theeves reviled Christ but that acquits not this thiefe that Saint Luke does not say 't no more then it acquits them both that S. John does not say that either of them reviled Christ And then both the other Evangelists Saint Matthew and Saint Mark charge them both with it Mat. 27.4.3 Mar. 15.32 The same that is those reviling words which others had used the theeves that were crucified cast in his teeth And they also that were crucified with him reviled him Athanasius in his Sermon Contra omnes haereses Athanasius makes no doubt of it Duo Latrones altero execrante altero dicente quid execramur One Thief said to the other Why doe we revile Christ Origen so that de facto he imputes it to them both both did it Origen sayes Conveniens est inprimis ambos blasphemasse not onely that that is the most convenient Exposition but that it was the most convenient way to God for expressing Mercy and Justice too that both should have reviled him Origen admits a conveniency in it Chrysostome Chrysostome implyes a necessity Ne quis composito rem factam putaret lest the world should think it a plot and that this Thief had been well disposed and affected towards Christ before therefore sayes he first he declares himself to be his enemy in reviling him and then was suddainly reconciled unto him Hilarius Hilary raises and builds a great point of Divinity upon it that since both the Theeves of which one was elect to salvation did upbraid Christ with the ignominy of the Crosse Universis etiam fidelibus scandalum Crucis futurum ostendit This shews sayes he that even the faithfull and elect servants of God may be shak'd and scandalized and fall away for a time in the time of persecution He raises positive and literall Doctrine And Theophylact raises mystical and figurative Doctrine out of it Theophylact. Duo latrones figura Gentilium Judaeorum both Jewes and Gentiles did reproach Christ Sicut primo ambo latrones improperabant as at first both the Theeves that were crucified did Hierom. S. Hierome inclines to admit a figure in S. Matthews words and he saith that S. Matthew imputes that to both which was spoken by one But S. Hierom had no use of a figure here for himselfe sayes that Matthew which imputes this to both and Luke which imputes it to one differ not for saith he both reviled Christ at first and then one Visis miraculis credidit upon the evidence of Christs Miracles changed his mind and believed in him Onely S. Augustine is confident in it that this Thief never reviled Christ but thinks that that phrase of Matthew and of Mark Augustine who impute it to both is no more but as if one should say Rusticani insultant mean men base men do triumph over me which says he might be said if any one such person did so Now this might be true if it had been said Theeves and Malefactors reviled Christ But when it is expresly said The Theeves that were crucified I take it to be a way of deriving the greater comfort upon us and the greater glory upon Christ and the greater assurance upon the Prisoner to leave him to the mercy of God rather then to the wit of Man and rather to suffer Christ Jesus to pardon him being guilty then to dispute for his innocence For perchance we shall lack an example of a notorious Blasphemer and reviler of Christ to be effectually converted to salvation of which example considering how our times abound and overflow with this sin we stand much in need except this thief be our example that though he were execrable to men and execrated God yet Christ Jesus took him into those bowels which he had ripp'd up and into those wounds which he had opened wider by his execrations and had mercy upon him and buried him in them And this was his second Indisposition Now for the speed and powerfull working of this Grace Impetus to his Conversion we must not insist long upon it lest we be longer in expressing it then it was in doing We have no impression no direction of the time when his conversion was wrought None of the Evangelists mention when nor how it was done None but this Evangelist that it was done at all But he mentions it in the clearest and safest demonstration of all that is in the effects of his conversion his desire to convert others And therefore we may discerne Impetum Gratiae in impetu poenitentis the force the vehemence of Gods grace in the vehemence of his zeale Christ himself was silent when this thief reviled him and yet this thief comes presently to a zealous impatience he cannot hear his companion revile Christ had estated his Apostles in heaven he had given them Reversions of Judiciary places in heaven twelve Seats to judge the twelve Tribes and yet Facit fides innocentes Latrones facit perfidia Apostolos criminosos Ambr. he infuses so much faith into this thief as justifies him and leaves his Apostles so far to their infirmity as endangers them To the chief of these Apostles in some services to Peter himself Jo. 13.36 he sayes Whither I go thou canst not follow me now and to this thief he sayes Hodie mecum eris This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise So soon did he bring this thief Cui damnari ad tempus expedivit Ambros that had a good bargain of death that scap'd by being condemned and was the better and longer liv'd for being hang'd for he was thereby Collega Martyrii and particeps Regni Cyprian partaker of Christs Martyrdome and partner of his Kingdome he brought him so soon to that height of faith that even in that low state upon the Cross he prayed for a spiritual Kingdom whereas the Apostles themselves in that exaltation when Christ was ascending talk'd to him of a temporall Kingdome He came to
the people there was none with me The Angels then knew not this not all this not all the particulars of this The mystery of Christs Incarnation for the Redemption of Man the Angels knew it in generall for it was commune quoddam principium it was the generall mark to which all their service as they were ministring spirits was directed But for particulars as amongst the Prophets some of the later understood more then the former I understand more then the ancients Psal 119.100 sayes David and the Apostles understood more then the Prophets even of those things which they had prophesied Ephes 3.6 this Mystery in other ages was not made known as it is now revealed unto the holy Apostles so the Angels are come to know some things of Christ since Christ came in another manner then before Ephes 3.10 And this may be that which S. Paul intends when he sayes that he was made a Minister of the Gospel To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdome of God And S. Peter also speaking of the administration of the Church 1 Pet. 1.12 expresses it so That the Angels desire to look into it Which is not onely that which S. Augustine sayes Aug. Innotuit a seculis per Ecclesiam Angelis That the Angels saw the mystery of the Christian Religion from before all beginnings and that by the Church Quia ipsa Ecclesia illis in Deo apparuit Because they saw in God the future Church from before all beginnings but even in the propagation and administration of the Church they see many things now which distinctly effectually experimentally as they do now they could not see before And so to this purpose Visus in nobis Christ is seen by the Angels in us and our conversation now Spectaculum sumus sayes the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.9 We are made a spectacle to men and angels The word is there Theatrum and so S. Hierom reads it Hierom. And therefore let us be careful to play those parts well which even the Angels desire to see well acted Let him that finds himself to be the honester man by thinking so think in the name of God that he hath a particular tutelar Angel that will do him no harm to think so And let him that thinks not so yet think that so far as conduces to the support of Gods children and to the joy of the Angels themselves and to the glory of God the Angels do see mens particular actions and then if thou wouldst not sollicite a womans chastity if her servant were by to testifie it nor calumniate an absent person in the Kings ear if his friends were by to testifie it if thou canst slumber in thy self that main consideration That the eye of God is always open and always upon thee yet have a little religious civility and holy respect even to those Angels that see thee That those Angels which see Christ Jesus now sate down in glory at the right hand of his Father all sweat wip'd from his Browes and all teares from his Eyes all his Stripes heal'd all his Blood stanch'd all his Wounds shut up and all his Beauty returned there when they look down hither to see the same Christ in thee may not see him scourged again wounded torn and mangled again in thy blasphemings nor crucified again in thy irreligious conversation Visus ab Angelis he was seen of the Angels in himself whilest he was here and he is seen in his Saints upon earth by Angels now and shall be so to the end of the world Which Saints he hath gathered from the Gentiles which is the next branch Praedicat Gentib Psal 85.10 Predicatus gentibus he was preached to the Gentiles Mercy and truth meet together says David every where in Gods proceedings they meet together but no where closer then in calling the Gentiles Jesus Christ was made a Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God Rom. 15.8 wherein consisted that truth to confirm the promises made unto the fathers says the Apostle there and that 's to the Jews but was Christ a Minister of the Circumcision onely for that onely for the truth No Truth and Mercy meet together as it followes there and that the Gentiles might glorifie God for his mercy The Jewes were a holy Nation Gal. 2.15 that was their addition Gens Sancta but the addition of the Gentiles was peccatores sinners we are Jewes by nature and not of the Gentiles sinners sayes S. Paul He that touch'd the Jewes touch'd the apple of Gods eye And for their sakes God rebuk'd Kings and said Touch not mine Anoynted but upon the Gentiles not onely dereliction but indignation and consternation and devastation and extermination every where interminated inflicted every where and every where multiplied The Jewes had all kinde of assurance and ties upon God both Law and Custome they both prescribed in God and God had bound himself to them by particular conveyance by a conveyance written in their flesh Isa 49. in Circumcision and the counterpane written in his flesh I have graven thy name in the palmes of my hands Eph. 2.12 But for the Gentiles they had none of this assurance When they were without Christ sayes the Apostle having no hope that is no covenant to ground a hope upon ye were without God in this world To contemplate God himself and not in Christ is to be without God And then for Christ to be preached to such as these to make this Sun to set at noon to the Jewes rise at midnight to the Antipodes to the Gentiles this was such an abundant such a superabundant mercy as might seem almost to be above the bargain above the contract between Christ and his Father more then was conditioned and decreed for the price of his Blood and the reward of his Death for when God said I will declare my decree That is what I intended to give him which is expressed thus Psal 2. I will set him my King upon my holy hill of Sion which seemes to concern the Jewes onely God addes then Postula a me petition to me make a new suit to me dabo tibi gentes I will give thee not onely the Jewes but the Gentiles for thine inheritatnce And therefore laetentur gentes Psal 97.1 sayes David Let the Gentiles rejoyce and we in them that Christ hath asked us at his Fathers hand and received us And Laetentur insulae sayes that Prophet too Let the Islands rejoyce and we in them that he hath raised us out of the Sea out of the ocean sea that over-flowed all the world with ignorance and out of the Mediterranean Sea that hath flowed into so many other lands the sea of Rome the sea of Superstition There was then a great mercy in that Predicatus gentibus Creditus Mundo that he was preached to the Gentiles
as they grant us and not to interpret this place of a temporal deliverance from Babylon but of the deliverance by the Messias And for the second which is the deliverance of the christians from the persecutions in the primitive times though the Christians did then with a holy cheerfulness suffer those persecutions when they could not avoid them without prevaricating and betraying the hour of Christ Jesus yet they did not wilfully thrust themselves into those dangers they did not provoke the Magistrate And the word which is here translated ye sold your selves vendictistis vos implies actionem spontaneam a free and voluntary action done by themselves and therefore cannot well be understood of the persecutions in the Primitive Church The third therefore as yet is the most usefull and most received so it is the most proper acceptation of the word that it is a deliverance from the bondage of sin to be wrought by Christ for as Saint Hierome says this Prophet Esay is rather an Evangelist than a Prophet because almost all that Christ did and said and suffered is foretold and prophetically antidated in his prophecy and almost all his prophecy hath some relation at least in a secondary sense of accommodation where it is not so primarily and literally to the words and actions and passions of Christ Following then this interpretation in general of the word that it is a deliverance from the wages of sin Death by Christ we may take in passing a short view of the miserable condition of man wherin he enwraped himself of the aboundant mercy of Christ Jesus in withdrawing him from that universal calamity by considering onely the sense and largeness and extention of those words in which the holy Ghost hath been pleased to express both these in this Text. For first the word in which our action is expressed which is Machar verdidistis ye have sold signifies in many places of Scripture dare proreatia a permutation an exchange of one thing for another and in other places it signifies Dedére upon any little attempt to forsake and abandon our defences and to suffer the enemy easily to prevail upon us so also it signifies Tradere not onely to forsake our selves but to concur actually to the delivering up of our selves and lastly it signifies Repellere to joyn with our enemies in beating back any that should come to our relief and rescue And then as we have so sold our selves for the substance of the Act as is expressed in that word Machar we have exchanged our selves at an undervalue and worse than that we have yeelded up our selves upon easie tentations and worse than that we have offered our selves exposed our selves invited the devil and tempted temptations and worse than that we have Rejected the succours and the supplies which have been offered us in the means and conduits and seals of his Graces As it stands thus with us for the matter so for the manner how we have done this that is expressed in that other word kinnan which signifies fecit as it is here Gratis for nought And in another place Frustra to no purpose for it is a void bargain because we had no title no interest in our selves when we sold our selves and it signifies temere rashly without consideration of our own value upon whom God had stamped his Image And then again it signifies Immerito undeservedly before God in whose jurisdiction we were by many titles had forsaken us or done any thing to make us forsake him So that our action in selling our selves for nothing hath this latitude That man whom God hath dignified so much as that in the Creation he imprinted his Image in him and in the Redemption he assumed not the Image but the very nature of man That man whom God still preserved as the Aple of his Eye and as he expresses himself often in the Prophets is content to reason and to dispute with man and to submit himself to any tryal whither he have not been a gracious God unto him That this man should thus abandon this God and exchange his soul for any thing in this world when as it can profit nothing to gain the whole world and loose our own soul and not exchange it but give it away thrust it off and be a devil to the devil to tempt the tempter himself to take it But then as the word aggravates our condemnation so it implies a consolation too for it is fructra That is unprovidently unthriftily inconsideratly vainly and that multiplies our fault but then it is invalidly and uneffectually too that is it is a void bargain and when our powerful Redeemer is pleased to come and claim his right and set on foot his title all this improvident bargain of ours is voided and reversed and not though but because we have sold our selves for nought we shall be redeemed without money For the other word in which the action of our Redeemer is expressed though it have somewhat different uses in the Scriptures yet it is evermore spoken of him Qui habet jus re dimendi no man by the Law could redeem a thing but he who had a title to that thing So the word is used where there are given Cities of refuge from the avengeâ— .. There the word is a redemptor from him that hath right to redeem his kinsmans blood to bring an Appeal and to prosecute for the death of his kinsman who was slaine So is the word used also where that Law is given c. If thy brother be impoverished he sell his possession then his redeemer c. That is he that is next to that land And so also when a man dyed without issue he who had the right and the obligation to raise seed to the dead man he was the redeemer I am thy kinsman saith Booz to Ruth but saith he Alius Redemptor magis propinquus Thou hast another Redeemer nearer in blood then I am How ill a bargain soever we made for our selves Christ Jesus hath not lost his right in us but is our Redeemer in all these acceptations of the world He is our sanctuary and refuge when we have commited spiritual murder upon our own Souls he preserves us and delivers us to the redemption ordained for us when we have sold our possessions our natural faculties He supplies us with grace and feeds us with his Word and cloaths us with his Sacraments and warms us with his Absolutions against all diffidence which had formerly frozen us up and in our barrenness he raises up seed unto our dead souls thoughts and works worthy of repentance All this thy Redeemer hath right to do when it pleases him to do it he does it sine argento without money when the now Casâ—ph signifies not onely money but Omne appeâ—ibile any thing that we can place our desires or cast our thougths upon This Redemption of ours is wrought by such means as the desire of man could never have fortuned upon
You would not go into a Medicinal Bath without some preparatives presume not upon that Bath the blood of Christ Jesus in the Sacrament then without preparatives neither Neither say to your selves we shall have preparatives enough warnings enough many more Sermons before it come to that and so it is too soon yet you are not sure you shall have more not sure you shall have all this not sure you shall be affected with any If you be when you are remember that as in that good Custome in these Cities you hear cheerful street musick in the winter mornings but yet there was a sad and doleful bel-man that wak'd you and call'd upon you two or three hours before that musick came so for all that blessed musick which the servants of God shall present to you in this place it may be of use that a poor bell-man wak'd you before and though but by his noyse prepared you for their musick And for this early office I take Christs earliest witness his Proto-Martyr his first witness St. Stephen and in him that which especially made him his witness and our example his his death and our preparation to death what he suffered what he did what he said so far as is knit up in those words When he had said this he fell a sleep Divisio From which example I humbly offer to you these two general considerations first that every man is bound to do something before he dye and then to that man who hath done those things which the duties of his calling bind him to death is but a sleep In the first we shall stop upon each of those steps first there is a sis aliquid every man is bound to be something to take some calling upon him Secondly there is a hoc age every man is bound to do seriously and scedulously and sincerely the duties of that calling And Thirdly there is a sis aliquis the better to performe those duties every man shall do well to propose to himself some person some pattern some example whom he will follow and imitate in that calling In which third branch of this first part we shall have just occasion to consider some particulars in him who is here propos'd for our Example St. Stephen and in these three sis aliquid be something profess something and then hoc age do truly the duties of that profession and lastly sis aliquis propose some good man in that profession to to follow and in the things intended in this text propose St. Stephen we shall determine our first part And in the other we shall see that to them that do not this that do not settle their consciences so death is a bloody conflict and no victory at last a tempestuous sea and do harbor at last a slippery heighth and no footing a desperate fall and no bottom But then to them that have done it their pill is gilded and the body of the pill hony too mors lucrum death is a gain a treasure and this treasure brought some in a calm too they do not only go to heaven by death but heaven comes to them in death their very manner of dying is an inchoative act of their glorified state therefore it is not call'd a dying but asseeping which one metaphor intimates two blessings that because it is a sleep it gives a present rest and because it is a sleep it promises a future waking in the resurrection First part Sis aliquid First Then for our first branch of our first part we begin with our beginning our birth man is born to trouble so we read it to trouble The original is a little milder then so yet there it is Man is born unto labor Job 5 7. God never meant less then labor to any man Put us upon that which we esteem the honorablest of labors the duties of martial discipline yet where it is said that man is appointed to a warfare upon earth it is seconded with that His dayes are like the dayes of an hireling 7.1 How honorable soever his station be he must do his daies labor in the day the duties of the place in the place How far is he from doing so that never so much as considers why he was sent into this world who is so sar from having done his errand here that he knows not considers not what his errand was nay knows not considers not whether he had any errand hither or no. But as though that God who for infinite millions of millions of generations before any creation any world contented himself with himself satisfied delighted himself with himself in heaven without any creatures yet at last did bestow six daies labor upon the Creation accommodation of man as though that God who when man was sour'd in the whole lump poysoned in the fountain perished at the chore withered in the root in the fall of Adam would them in that dejection that exainantion that evacuation of the dignity of man and not in his sormer better estate engage his own Son his only his beloved Son to become man by a temporary life and then to become no man by a violent and yet a voluntary death as though that God who he was pleased to come to a creation might yet have left thee where thou wast before amongst privations a nothing or if he would have made thee something a creature yet he might have shut thee up in the closs prison of a bare being and no more without life or sense as he hath done earth and stones or if he would have given thee life and sense he might have left thee a toad without the comeliness of shape without that reasonable and immortal Soul which makes thee a man or if he had made thee a man yet he might have lost thee upon the common amongst the Heathen and not have taken thee into his inclosures by giving the a particular form of religion or if he would have given thee a religion He might have left thee a Jew or if he would have given thee Christianity He might have left thee a Papist as though this God who had done so much more for thee by breeding thee in a true Church had done all this for nothing thou pussest through this world as a flash as a lightning or which no man knows the beginning or the ending as an ignis fatuus in the air which does not only not give light for any use but does not so much as portend or signifie any thing and thou passest out of the world as a hand passes out of a bason or a body out of a bath where the water may be the fouler for thy having washed in it else the water retains no impression of thy hand or body so the world may be the worse for thy having liv'd in it else the world retains no marks of thy having been there When God plac'd Adam in the world God enjoyned Adam to fill the world to subdue
by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. SERMON XX. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed THere is not a more comprehensive a more embracing word in all Religion then the first word of this Text Now for the word before that For is but a word of connexion and rather appertains to that which was said before the Text then to the Text it self The Text begins with that important and considerable particle Now Now is salvation nearer c. This present word Now denotes an Advent a new coming or a new operation otherwise then it was before And therefore doth the Church appropriate this Scripture to the celebration of the Advent before the Feast of the Birth of our Saviour It is an extensive word Now for though we dispute whether this Now that is whether an instant be any part of time or no yet in truth it is all time for whatsoever is past was and whatsoever is future shall be an instant and did and shall fall within this Now. We consider in the Church four Advents or Comings of Christ of every one of which we may say Now now it is otherwise then before For first there is verbum in carne the word came in the flesh in the Incarnation and then there is caro in verbo he that is made flesh comes in the word that is Christ comes in the preaching thereof and he comes again in carne saluta when at our dissolution and transmigration at our death he comes by his spirit and testifies to our spirit that we die the Children of God And lastly he comes in carne reddita when he shall come at the Resurrection to redeliver our bodies to our souls and to deliver everlasting glory to both The Ancients for the most part understand the word of our Text of Christs first coming in the flesh to us in this world the latter Exposition understand them rather of his coming in glory But the Apostle could not properly use this present word Now with relation to that which is not now that is to future glory otherwise then as that future glory hath a preparation and an inchoation in present grace for so even the future glory of heaven hath a Now now the elect Children of God have by his powerfull grace a present possession of glory So then it will not be impertinent to suffer this flowing and extensive word Now to spread it self into all three for the whole duty of Christianity consists in these three things first in pietate erga Deum in religion towards God in which the Apostle had enlarged himself from the beginning to the twelfth chapter of his Epistle And secondly in charitate erga proximum in our mutual duties of society towards our Equals and Inferiors and of Subjection towards our Superiours in which that twelfth chapter and this to the eitghth verse is especially conversant And then thirdly in sanctimonia propria in the works of sanctification and holiness in our selves And this Text the Apostle presents as a forcible reason to induce us to that to those works of sanctification because Now our salvation is nearer us then when we believed Take then this now the first way of the coming Christ in person in the flesh into this world and then the Apostle of directs himself principally to the Jews converted to the faith of Christ and he tels them That their salvation is nearer them now now they had seen him come then when they did only believe that he would come Take the words the second way of his coming in grace into our hearts and so the Apostle directs himself to all Christians now now that you have bin bred in the Christian Church now that you are grown from Grace to grace from faith to faith now that God by his spirit strengthens and confirms you now is your salvation nearer then when ye believed that is when you began to believe either by the faith of your Parents or the faith of the Church or the faith of your Sureties at your Baptism or when you began to have some notions and impressions and apprehensions of faith in your self when you came to some degrees of understanding and discretion Take the word of Christs coming to us at the hour of death or of his coming to us at the day of Judgment for those two are all one to our present purpose because God never reverses any particular judgement given at a mans death at the day of the general Judgment take the word so this is the Apostles argument you have believed and you have lived accordingly and that faith and that good life hath brought salvation nearer you that is given you a fair and modest infallibility of salvation in the nature of reversion but now now that you are come to the approches of death which shall make your reversion a possession Now is salvation nearer you then when you believed Summarily the Text is a reason why we ought to proceed in good and holy wayes and it works in all the three acceptations of the word for whether salvation be said to be near us because we are Christians and so have advantage of the Jews or near us because we have made some proficiency in holiness sanctimony or near us because we are near our end and thereby near a possession of our endless joy and glory Still from all these acceptations of the word arise religious provocations to perseverance in holiness of life and therefore we shall pursue the words in all three acceptations In all three acceptations we must consider three termes in the Text First Quid salus what this Salvation is that is intended here Part. 1. and then Quid prope what this Distance this nearness is and lastly Quid credere what Belief this is So then taking the words first the first way as spoken by the Apostles to the Jews newly converted to the Christian Faith salvation is the outward means of salvation which are more and more manifest to the Christians then they were to the Jews And then the second Term Nearness salvation is nearer is in this That salvation to the Christian is in things present or past in things already done and of which we are experimentally sure but to the Jews it was of future things of which howsoever they might assure themselves that they would be yet they had no assurance when And therefore in the third place their Believing was but a confident expectation and faithfull assenting to their Prophets quando credidistis when you believed that is when you did only believe and saw nothing First then the first Terme in the first acceptation Salvation Salus is the outward means of salvation Outward and visible means of knowing God God hath given to all Nations in the book of Creatures from the first leaf of that book the firmament above to
own or their parents or the Churches we have no ground to deny that Salvation is neer and present to all children rightly baptized but for those who have made sure their Salvation by a good use of Gods graces after we have another fair peece of evidence that Salvation is neerer them It is so to if this believing be refer'd to our first elements and beginnings of faith A man believes the history of Christ because it is matter of fact and a story probable and well testified A man may believe the Christian Religion or the Reformed Religion for his ease either because he cannot or will not debate controversies and reconcile differences or because he sees it best for order and quiet and civll ends which he hath in that state where he lives These be kinds of faith and morall assents and somtimes when a man is come thus far to a historical and a moral faith God super-infuses true faith for howsoever he wrought by reason and natural faculties and moral and civil wayes yet it was God that wrought from the beginning and produced this faith though but historical or moral And then if God do exalt this moral or historical faith farther then so to believe not only the History but the Gospel not only that such a Christ lived and did those miracles and dyed but that he was the Son of God and dyed for the redemption of the world this brings Salvation neerer him than when he believed but then when this grace comes to appropriate Christ to him and more than that to annunciate Christ by him when it makes him as John Baptist was a burning and a shining lamp That Christ is shewed to him and by him to others in a holy life Then is Salvation neerer him than when he believed either as it is credidit primum when he began to believe but had some scruples or credidit tantum that he laid all upon faith but had no care of works To end this this neerness of Salvation is that union with God which may be had in this life It is the peace of conscience the undoubting trust and assurance of Salvation This assurance so far as they will confess it may be had the Roman Church places in faith and so far well but then In fide formata and so far well enough too In those works which declare and testifie that faith for though this good work do nothing toward my Salvation it does much towards this neerness that is towards my assurance of this Salvation but herein they lead us out of the way that they call these works the soul the form of faith for though a good tree cannot be without good fruits yet it were a strange manner of speech to call that good fruit the life or the soul or the form of that tree so is it to call works which are the fruits of faith the life or soul or form of faith for that is proper to grace only which infuses faith They would acknowledge this neerness of salvation this assurance in good works but say they man cannot be sure that their works is good and therefore they can have no such assurance They who undertook the reformation of Religion in our Fathers dayes observing that there was no peace without this assurance expressed this assurance thus That when a man is sure that he believes aright that he hath no scruples of God no diffidence in God and uses all endeavors to continue it and to express it in his life as long as he continues so he is sure of Salvation and farther they went not And then there arose men which would reform the Reformers and refine Salvation and bring it into a lesse room They would take away the condition if you hold fast if you express it and so came up roundly and presently to that If ever you did believe if ever you had faith you are safe for ever and upon that assurance you may rest Now I make no doubt but that both these sought the truth that truth which concerns us peace and assurance and I dispute not their resolutions now only I say for these words which we have in hand now there is a conditional assurance implyed in them for when it is said now now that you are in this state Salvation is neer you thus much is pugnantly intimated that if you were not in this state Salvation were farther removed from you howsoever you pretend to believe Now this hath brought us to our third and last sense and acceptation of these words as they are spoken of Christs last comming 3 Part. his comming in glory which is to us at our deaths and that judgment which we receive then And in this acceptation of the word these three terms Salvation Neerness and Believing are thus to be understood Salvation is Salvation perfected consummated Salvation which was brought neer baptism neerer in outward holyness must be brought neerer than that And this prope this neerness is that now being neer death you are neer the last seal of your perseverance and so the credidistis the believing amounts to this though you have believed and liv'd accordingly believed with the belief of a Jew believed all the Prophets and with the beliefe of a Christian believed all the Gospel believed with a seminal belief of your own or an actuall belief of others at your baptism with a historical belief and with an Evangelical belief too with a belief in your root in the heart and a belief in the fruits expressed in a good life too yet there is a continuance and a perseverance that must crown all this and because that cannot be discern'd till thine end then only is it safely pronounced Now is Salvation neerer you than when you believed Salus Here then Salvation is eternall Salvation not the outward seals of the Church upon the person not visible Sacraments nor the outward seal of the person to the Church visible works nor the inward seal of the Spirit assurance here but fruition possession of glory in the Kingdome of Heaven where we shall be infinitely rich and that without labor in getting or care in keeping or fear in loosing and fully wise and that without ignorance of necessary or study of unnecessary knowledge where we shal not measure our portion by acres for all heaven shall be all ours nor our term by yeers for it is life and everlasting life nor our assurance by precedent for we shal be safer then the Angels themselves were in the creation where our exaltation shal be to have a crown of righteousness and our possession of that crown shal be even the throwing it down at the feet of the Lamb where we shal leav off all those petitions of Adveniat regnum thy Kingdom come for it shal be come in abundant power and the da nobis hodiè give us this day our dayly bread for we shal have all that which we can desire now and shall have a
add as many as heavy degrees to his Judgements First God turns their Rivers into blood Pharaoh sits that proces and more many more and then in this bloody massacre of all their first-born God brings blood out of the channels of their Rivers into their chambers into all their Chambers not only to cut off their children from without Jer. 9.21 and the young men from the streets as the Prophet speaks but as he says also there Death came in at their windows and entred into their Palaces Matt. 26.13 As Christ says of Mary Magdalens devotion That wheresoever his Gospel should be preached in the world there should also this which this woman had done be told for a memorial of her So we may say of mans obduration Wheresoever the Book of God shall be read Pharaoh shall be an example that God will have his ends let man be possest with the spirit of contradiction as furiously with the spirit of rebellion as ragefully as he will Fremuerunt Gentes says David in the beginning of the second Psalm The Heathen rage and they break their sleep to contrive mischief And within three verses more we finde The Lord sits still in heaven and laughs and hath them in derision The building of the Tower of Babel did not put God to build another Tower to confront it God did nothing and brought all their labours and their councels to nothing Dan. 2.34 God took no hammer in hand to demolish and cast down Nebuchadnezzars Image but a stone that was cut out without hands smote the image and broke it in pieces Si inceperit if God once set his work on foot 1 Sam. 3.12 If I begin I will also make an end says God to Samuel if he have not begun si juraverit if the Lord have sworn it it shall be those whom the Lord swore should not enter into his Rest never entred into his Rest If he have not sworn si locutus fuerit that 's security enough the security that the Prophet Esay gives through all his Prophecy os Domini thus and thus it must be for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it if he have not gone so far si cogitaverit if he have purposed it Isai 19.12 2 Chro. 25.16 Lam. 2.17 as that word is used in Esay if he have determined it as the word is used in the Chronicles if he have devised such a course as the word is in Jeremy God will accomplish his work if he have begun it his oath and word if he have said or sworn it his purpose and determination if he have intended it nothing shall frustrate or evacuate his purpose he will atchieve his ends though there be never a soul that doth not sigh never a heart that doth not ake never a vein that doth not bleed never a house in which there is not one dead In the building of the material Temple there was no hammer nor tool of noise used In the fitting and laying of us the living stones of the mystical Temple God would use no hammer no iron no occasion of noise or lamentation but there are dispositions which will not be rectified without the hammer and are not malleable neither not fit to be rectified by the hammer till a hot fire of vehement affliction have mollified them Thespesius they say was a man desperately vicious irrecoverably wicked his friends asked the Oracle whether ever he would mend The Oracle answered he would when he was dead he died of a sodain fall at least to the eyes and in the understanding of the world he died but he recovered and came to life again and then reported such fearful visions which he had seen in the other world upon the souls of some of his companions and of his own father as that out of the apprehension of those terrors in his extasie in his second life he justified the Oracle and after he had been dead lived well Many such stories are in the Legends but I take this at the fountain where they take most of theirs that is out of Plutarch for Plutarch and Virgil are two principal Evangelists of the Legendaries The Moral of them all is That God will imprint a knowledge of his Majesty and a terror of his Judgements though the heart be Iron Exod. 12. Vers 33. He would bring the Egyptians to say with trembling We are dead men though they would not be brought to say it till there was not a house in which there was not one dead But as in a River that is swelled though the water do bring down sand and stones and logs yet the water is there still and the purpose of Nature is to vent that water not to pour down that sand or those stones so though God be put to mingle his Judgements with his mercies yet his mercy is there still and his purpose is ever in those judgments to manifest his mercy Where the Channel is stopped by those Sands and Stones and Logs the Water will finde another Channel where the heart is hardned by Gods corrections and thereby made incapable of his mercy as in some dispositions even Gods corrections do work such obstructions and obdurations as in Pharaohs case it was yet the water will find a Channel the mercy of God will flow out and shew it self to others though not to him his mercy will take effect somewhere as in Pharaohs case it did upon the Children of Israel And yet God would not shew mercy to them but so as that at the same time they also might see his judgments and thereby be brought to say God hath a Treasury of both Mercy and Justice and God might have changed the persons and made the Egyptians the objects of his Mercies and us of his Justice The first act of Gods mercy towards me when I see him execute a judgment upon another is to confess that that judgment belonged to me and thereby to come to a holy fear being under the same condemnation as the one Thief said to the other upon their several crosses Fearest not thou being under the same condemnation At this time God delivered his Children out of Egypt then was fulness of mercy but God let them see his power and his powerful indignation upon others for their instruction God brought them out there was fulness of mercy towards them but he brought them out in the night God would mingle some shadow some signification of his judgments in his mercies of adversity in prosperity of night in day of death in life The persecuting Angel entred into none of their houses God let them live but God though he let them live would not let them be ignorant that he could have thrown death in at their windows too For they came not into a house where there was not one dead We stay no longer upon this first survey of the first house Part. 1. Domus Nostra That in Egypt The next is our own house our habitation
Primitive Church they fix'd certain times for giving Orders and making Ministers they appointed Fasts at those times when they fix'd certain times for solemn Baptism as they did Easter and Whitsontide they appointed Fasts then too and so they did in their solemn and publick Penances So also when Christians encreased in number and that therefore besides the Sabbath-day they us'd to call them to Church and to give the Sacrament upon other days too as soon as Wednesday and Friday were appointed for that purpose for the Sacrament they were appointed to be fasted too And therefore when St. Cyril says Cyril Vis tibi ostendam quale jejunare debes jejunium Jejuna ab omni peccato Shall I tell you what Fast God looks for at your hands Fast from sin yet this is not all the Fasting that he exacts though it be indeed the effect and accomplishment of all but he adds Non ideo hoc dicimus We say not this says he because we would give liberty Habemus enim quadragesimum quartum sextum Hebdomadae diem quibus solemniter jejunamus We have a fixed Lent to fast in and we have Wednesdays and Fridays fixt to fast in In all times Gods people had fixed and limited Fasts besides these Fasts which were enjoyned upon emergent dangers as this of Ester In which there is a harder circumstance then this That it was a Fast limited to certain days for it is Jejunate pro me Fast you for me And these words may seem to give some colour some countenance to the Doctrine of the Roman Church That the merits of one man may be applyed to another which Doctrine is the foundation of Indulgences and the fuel of Purgatory In which they go so far as to say That one may fee an Attorney to satisfie God for him he may procure another man to Fast Grether or do other works of mortification for him And he that does so for his Client Sanguinem pro sanguine Christo reddit He pays Christ his blood again and gives him as much as he receiv'd from him and more Deum sibi debitorem efficit he brings God into his debt and may turn that dept upon whom he will and God must wipe off so much of the other mans score to whom he intends it They go beyond this too That satisfaction may be made to God even by our selves after our death As they say when they had brought Maximilian the Emperor to that mortification that he commanded upon his death-bed that his body should be whipped after he was dead that purpose of his though it were not executed was a satisfaction of the Justice of God And as error can finde no place to stop at they go yet farther when they extend this power of satisfaction even to Hell it self by authorizing those fables That a dead man which appeared and said he was damned was by this flagellation by his friends whipping of himself in his behalf brought to repentance in hell and so to faith in hell and so to salvation in hell But in the words of Esther here is no intimation of this Heresie when Queen Esther appoints others to fast for her she knew she could no more be the better for their fasting then she could be the leaner or in the better health for it but because she was to have benefit by the subsequent act by their prayers she provokes them to that by which their prayers might be the more acceptable and effectual that is to fasting And so because the whole action was for her and her good success in that enterprize they are in that sense properly said to have fasted for her So that this Jejunate super me as the word is Gnalai super me in my behalf is no more but Orate pro me Hier. Pray for me and so Saint Hierom translates these words Orate pro me Pray for me And therefore since Prayers is the way which God hath given us to batter Heaven whether facta manu Deum oramus Tertul. vim gratum ei facimus whether we besiege God with our prayers in these publick Congregations or whether we wrastle with him hand to hand in our Chambers in the battel of a troubled Conscience let us live soberly and moderately and in Bello and in Duello here in the Congregation and at home in our private Colluctations we shall be the likelier to prevail with God for though we receive assistance from the prayer of others that must not make us lazie in our own behalfs which is Esthers last preparation she bids all the people fast for her that is for the good success of her good purposes but not the people alone she and her own maids will fast likewise Qui fecit te sine te non salvabit te sine te Ego Ancill is a saying of Saint Augustine never too often repeated and God and his Church are of one minde for the Church that did Baptize thee without thy asking will not fast for thee nor pray for thee without thou fast and pray for thy self As in spiritual things charity begins with ourselves and I am bound to wish my own salvation rather then any other mans so I am bound to trust to my making sure of my salvation by that which I do my self rather then by that which I procure others to do for me Domus Dei Domus orationis we have inestimable profit by the publick Prayers of the Church the House of God but as there is Deus Domus ejus so there must be Ego Domus mea I and my House will serve the Lord. Jos ult 15. I also and my Maids will fast likewise says Esther in her great enterprise for that which the Original expresses here by Gnalai for me the Chalde Paraphrase expresses by Gnimmi with me She was as well to fast as they It was a great confidence in that Priest that comforted Saint Augustines Mother Fieri non potest ut filius istarum lachrymarum pereat It is impossible that the son for whom so good a mother hath poured out so devout tears should perish at last it was a confidence which no man may take to himself to go to Heaven by that water the tears of other men but tu domus tua Do thou and thy house serve the Lord teach thine own eyes to weep thine own body to fulfil the sufferings of Christ thine own appetite to fast thine own heart and thine own tongue to pray Come and participate of the devotions of the Church but yet also in thy Chappel of ease in thine own Bed-chamber provide that thy self and thy servants all thy senses and all thy faculties may also fast and pray and so go with a religious confidence as Esther did about all thy other worldly businesses and undertakings This was her Preparation Her Devotion hath two branches 2. Part. she was to transgress a positive Law a Law of the State and she neglected
the Scriptures For God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd c. The 26 Sermon Serm. 26. Psa 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death BUildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain them support them and of their buttresses that comprehend them embrace them and of their contignations that knit and unite them The foundation suffers them not to sink the buttresses suffer them not to swerve the contignation and knitting suffer them not to cleave The body of our building is in the former part of this verse it is this He that is our God is the God of salvation ad salutes of salvations in the plural so it is in the original the God that gives us spiritual and temporal salvation too But of this building the foundation the buttresses the contignation are in this part of the verse which constitutes our text and in the three diverse acceptations of the words amongst our expositors Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death For first the foundation of this building that our God is the God of all salvations is laid in this That unto this God the Lord belongs the issues of death that is it is his power to give us an issue and deliverance even then when we are brought to the jaws and teeth of death and to the lips of that whirl-pool the grave and so in this acceptation this exitus mortis this issue of death is liberatio a morie a deliverance from death this is the most obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words and that upon which our translation laies hold The issues from death And then Secondly the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building that He that is our God is the God of salvation are thus raised Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death that is the disposition and manner of our death what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have out of this world whether prepared or sodain whether violent or natural whether in our perfect senses or shak'd and disordered by sickness there is no condemnation to be argued out of that no judgment to be made upon that for howsoever they dye precious in his sight is the death of his Saints and with him are the issues of death the way of our departing out of this life are in his hands and so in this sense of the words this Exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio in morte a deliverance in death not that God will deliver us from dying but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death of what kind soever our passage be and this sense and acceptation of the words the natural frame contexture doth well and pregnantly administer unto us And then lastly the contignation and knitting of this building that he that is our God is the God of all salvation consists in this Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death that is that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures in one and being God having also come into this world in our flesh he could have no other means to save us he could have no other issue out of this world nor return to his former glory but by death And so in this sense this exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by death by the death of this God our Lord Christ Jesus and this is St. Augustines acceptation of the words and those many and great persons that have adhered to him In all these three lines then we shall look upon these words first as the God of power the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death and then as the God of mercy the glorious Son rescued us by taking upon himself the issue of death and then between these two as the God of comfort the holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed impressions before hand that what manner of death soever be ordained for us yet this exitus mortis shall be introitus in vitam our issue in death shall be an entrance into everlasting life And these three considerations our deliverance a morte in morte per mortem from death in death and by death will abundantly do all the offices of the foundation of the buttresses of the contignation of this our building that He that is our God is the God of all salvation because Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death First Part. A mâ—â—e First then we consider this exitus mortis to be liberatio a morte that with God the Lord are the issues of death therefore in all our deaths and deadly calamities of this life we may justly hope of a good issue from him and all our periods and transitions in this life are so many passages from death to death Exitus a morte uteri Our very birth and entrance into this life is exitus a morte an issue from death for in our mothers womb we are dead so as that we do not know we live not so much as we do in our sleep neither is there any grave so close or so putrid a prison as the womb would be to us if we stai'd in it beyond our time or died there before our time In the grave the worms do not kil us We breed and feed and then kill those worms which we our selves produc'd In the womb the dead child kils the mother that conceiv'd it and is a murderer nay a Parricide even after it is dead And if we be not dead so in the womb so as that being dead we kill her that gave us our first life our life of vegetation yet we are dead so as Davids Idols are dead Psa 115.6 in the womb we have eyes and see not ears and hear not There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness all the while deprived of light and there in the womb we are taught cruelty by being fed with blood and may be damned though we be never born Of our very making in the womb David saies 139. 14. I am wonderfully and fearfully made and Such knowledg is too excellent for me for Even that is the Lords doing and it is wonderful in our eyes 118. 23. Ipse fecit nos It is he that hath made us and not we our selves no 200. 3. nor our Parents neither Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about saies Job and 10. 8. as the original word is Thou hast taken pains about me and yet saies he Thou doest destroy me though I be the master-peice of the greatest Master man is so yet if thou do no more for me if thou leave me where thou mad'st me destruction will follow The womb which should be the house of life becomes death it self if God leave us there That which God threatens so often the shutting of the womb is not
so heavy nor so discomfortable a curse in the first as in the latter shutting not in the shutting of barrenness as in the shutting of weakness Esa 37 3. when Children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness And in that vehement imprecation the Prophet expresses the highth of Gods anger Give them O Lord what wilt thou give them Osc 9 14. give them a mis-carrying womb Therefore as soon as we are men that is inanimated quickned in the womb though we cannot our selves our Parents have reason to say in our behalves Wretched man that he is who shall deliver him from this body of death for Ro. 7.24 even the womb is the body of death if there be no deliverer It must be he that said to Jeremy 1. 5. Before I formed thee I knew thee and before thou camest out of the womb I sanctified thee We are not sure that there was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in nor to pass by till God prescribed Noah that absolute forme of the Ark that word which the holy Ghost by Moses uses for the Ark is common to all kinds of boats Thebah and is the same word that Moses uses for the boat that he was exposed in that his mother laid him in an Ark of bullrushes Exo 2.3 But we are sure that Eve had no Midwife when she was delivered of Cain therefore she might well say Possedi virum a Domino Gen. 4.1 I have gotten a man from the Lord wholly intirely from the Lord it is the Lord that hath enabled me to conceive the Lord hath infus'd a quickning soul into that conception the Lord hath brought into the world that which himself had quickned without all this might Eve say my body had been but the house of death and Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of death But then this Exitus a morte is but Introitus in mortem this issue Exitus a moribus mundi this deliverance from that death the death of the womb is an entrance a delivering over to another death the manifold deaths of this world We have a winding sheet in our Mothers womb that grows with us from our conception and we come into the world wound up in that winding sheet for we come to seek a grave And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees so when the womb hath discharged us yet we are bound to it by cords of flesh by such a string as that we cannot go thence nor stay there We celebrate our own funeral with cries even at our birth as though our threescore and ten years of life were spent in our Mothers labor and our Circle made up in the first point thereof We beg one Baptism with another a sacrament of tears and we come into a world that lasts many ages but we last not In domo patris saies our blessed Saviour speaking of heaven multae mansiones Jo. 14.2 there are many and mansions divers and durable so that if a man cannot possess a martyrs house he hath shed no blood for Christ yet he may have a confessors he hath been ready to glorifie God in the shedding of his blood And if a woman cannot possess a virgins house she hath embrac'd the holy state of marriage yet she may have a matrons house she hath brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God In domo patris In my Fathers house in heaven there are many mansions but here upon earth Mat. 8 20. The Son of man hath not where to lay his head saies he himself No terram dedit filiis hominum How then hath God given this earth to the Sons of men He hath given them earth for their materials to be made of earth and he hath given them earth for their grave and sepulture to return and resolve to earth but not for their possession Heb. 13.14 Here we havh no continuing City nay no Cottage that continues nay no we no persons no bodies that continue Whatsoever moved St. Hierome to call the journies of the Israelites in the wilderness Exo. 17.1 Mansions the word the word is nasang signifies but a journie but a peregrination even the Israel of God hath no mansions Gen. 47 9. but journies pilgrimages in this life By that measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh The daies of the years of my pilgrimage And though the Apostle would not say morimer that whilst we are in the body we are dead yet he saies peregrinamur 2 Cor. 5 6. whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage and we are absent from the Lord. He might have said dead for this whole world is but an universal Church-yard but one common grave and the life and motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of buried bodies in their graves by an earthquake That which we call life is but Hebdomada mortium a week of deaths seaven daies seaven periods of our life spent in dying a dying seaven times over and ther 's an end Our birth dies in Infancy and our infancy dies in youth and youth and the rest die in age and age also dies and determines all Nor do all these youth out of infancy or age out of youth arise so as a Phenix out of the ashes of another Phenix formerly dead but as a wasp or a serpent out of carrion or as a snake out of dung our youth is worse then our infancy and our age worse then our youth our youth is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not and our age is sorry and angry that it cannot pursue those sins which our youth did And besides all the way so many deaths that is so many deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this life as that death it self would be an ease to them that suffer them Upon this sense does Job wish 10. 18. that God had not given him an issue from the first death from the womb Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb O that I had given up the Ghost and no eye had seen me I should have been as though I had not been And not only the impatient Israelites in their murmuring would to God we had died by the hands of the Lord Ex. 16.3 in the land of Egypt but Eliah himself when he fled from Jezabel and went for his life as that Text saies under the juniper tree requested that he might die and said It is enough now O Lord take away my life 1 Reg. 19.4 So Jonah justifies his impatience nay his anger towards God himself Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live And when God ask'd him dost thou well
evidences of adoption and spiritual filiation then and so long as I see these marks and live so I may safely comfort my self in a holy certitude a modest infallibility of my adoption Christ determins himself in that the purpose of God because the purpose of God was manifest to him S. Pet. S. Paul determine themselves in those two waies of knowing the purpose of God the word of God before the execution of the Decree in the fulness of time It was prophecied before said they it is perform'd now Christ is risen without seeing corruption Now this which is so singularly peculiar to him that his flesh should not see corruption at his second coming his coming to Judgment shall be extended to all that are then alive their flesh shall not see corruption because as the Apostle saies and saies as a secret as a mystery behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep 1 Cor. 15.51 that is not continue in the state of the dead in the grave but we shall all be changed In an instant we shall have a dissolution and in the same instant a redintegration a recompacting of body and soul and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection but no sleeping no corruption But for us who dy now and sleep in the state of the dead we must all pass this posthume death this death after death nay this death after burial this dissolution after dissolution this death of corruption and putrefaction of virmiculation and incineration of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave When those bodies which have been the children of royal Parents and the Parents of royal Children must say with Job 17.14 to corruption thou art my Father to the worm thou art my Mother my Sister Miserable riddle when the same worm must be my mother my sister my self Miserable incest when I must be married to mine own mother and sister and be both Father and Mother to mine one mother and sister beget and bear that worm which is all that miserable penury when my mouth shall be silled with dust and the worm shall feed and feed sweetly upon me 24.20 When the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest a live tread upon him nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to Princes for they shall be equal but in dust 23.24 One dyeth at his full strength being wholly at ease and in quiet and another dies in the bitterness of his soul and never eats with pleasure but they ly down alike in the dust and the worm cover them 24.11 The worm covers them in Job and in Esai it covers them is spread under them the worm is spread under thee and the worm covers thee There is the mats and the carpet that lie under and there is the state and the canopy that hangs over the greatest of the Sons of men Even those bodies that were the Temples of the holy Ghost come to this dilapidation to ruine to rubbish to dust Even the Israel of the Lord and Jacob himself had no other specification Esa 41.14 no other denomination but that vermis Jacob thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthume death this death after burial that after God with whom are the issues of death hath delivered me from the death of the womb by bringing me into the world and from the manifold deaths of the world by laying me in the grave I must die again in an incineration of this flesh and in a dispersion of that dust that all that monarch that spread over many nations alive must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead and there but so long as the lead will last and that private and retired man that thought himself his own for ever and never came forth must in his dust of the grave be published and such are the revolutions of graves be mingled in his dust with the dust of every high way and of every dunghil and swallowed in every puddle and pond this is the most inglorious and contemptible villification the most deadly and peromptory nullification of man that we can consider God seems to have carried the declaration of his power to a great heighth when he sets the Prophet Ezechiel in the vally of dry bones 37. 1. and saies Son of man can these dry bones live as though it had been impossible and yet they did the Lord laid sinews upon them and flesh and breathed into them and they did live But in that case there were bones to be seen something visible of which it might be said can this this live but in this death of incineration and dispersion of dust we see nothing that we can call that mans If we say can this dust live perchance it cannot It may be the meer dust of the earth which never did live nor never shall it may be the dust of that mans worms which did live but shall no more it may be the dust of another man that concerns not him of whom it is asked This death of incineration and dispersion is to natural reason the most irrecoverable death of all and yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis unto God the Lord belong the issues of death and by recompacting this dust into the same body and re-inanimating the same body with the same soul be shall in a blessed and glorious Resurrection give me such an issue from this Death as shall never passe into any other death but establish me in a Life that shall last as long as the Lord of Life himself And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these words unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That though from the womb to the grave and in the grave it self we passe from Death to Death yet as Daniel speaks The Lord our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us And so we passe to our second accomodation of these words Unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That it belongs to God and not to Man to passe a Judgement upon us at our Death or to conclude a dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof Those Indications which Physitians receive Part. 2. Liberatio in morte and those praesagitions which they give for death or recovery in the Patient they receive and they give out of the grounds and rules of their Art But we have no such rule or art to ground a presagition of spiritual death and damnation upon any such Indication as we see in any dying man we see often enough to be sorry but not to despayr for the mercies of God work momentanely in minuts and many times insensibly to by-standers or any other then the party departing and we may be deceived both wayes we use to comfort our selves in the death of a friend if it be testifyed that he went away like
Death of his Bitter Passion of the Ransome of his Blood of the Sanctuary of his Wounds and yet his Life and Death and Passion and Blood and Wounds is oftner in their mouthes in execrations then in the mouth of the most religious man in his prayers They revile Christ Praetereuntes Origen as they pass along not onely as Origen sayes here Non incedentes recte blasphemant they did not go perversly crookedly Hierom. wilfully and so blaspheme nor as Hierome Non ambulantes in vero itinere Scripturarum blasphemant they did not misinterpret places of Scripture to maintaine their errours and so blaspheme but they blasphemed Praetereuntes out of negligent custome and habit they blaspheme Christ and never think of it that they may be damned obiter by the way collaterally occasionately damned Luke 23.24 But it was not onely they Praetereuntes but the people that stood and beheld reviled Christ too men that doe understand Christ even then when they dishonour him doe dishonour him to accompany some greater persons upon whom they depend in their errours The Priests who should have called the Passengers Thr. 1.12 with that Have ye no regard all ye that passe by the way the Scribes who should have applyed the ancient Prophesies to the present accomplishment of them in the death of Christ the Pharisees who should have supplied their imperfect fulfilling of the Law in that full satisfaction the death of Christ the Elders the Rulers the Souldiers are all noted to have reviled Christ they all concurre to the performance of that Prophesie in the person of Christ and yet they will not see that the Prophesie is performed in him Psal 22.7 Psal 69.26 All they that see me have me in derision they persecute him whom thou hast smitten and they adde unto the sorrowes of him whom thou hast wounded Our Fathers trusted in thee they trusted in thee Psal 22.4 and were delivered but I am a worm and no man a shame to men and the contempt of the people Pilate had lost his plot upon the people to mollifie them towards Christ he brought him out to them Flagellatum illusum scourged and scorned John 19.1 thinking that that would have reduced them But this Preacher leaves all the rest either to their farther obduration or their fitter time of repentance if God had ordained any such time for them he turns to this one whose disposition he knew to have been like his own and therefore hoped his conversion would be so too for nothing gives the faithfull servants of God a greater encouragement that their labors shall prosper upon others then a consideration of their own case an acknowledgement what God hath done for their souls When the fear of God had wrought upon himself then he comes to his fellow Nonne tu times fearest not thou First Times Nonne tu We have not that advantage over our auditory which he had over his to know that in every particular man there is some reason why he should be more afraid of Gods judgements then another man But every particular man who is acquainted with his own history may be such a Preacher to himself and ask himself Nonne tu hast not thou more reason to stand in fear of God then any other man for any thing that thou knowest Knowest thou any man so deeply indebted to God so far behind-hand with God so much in danger of his executions as thou art Thou knowest not his colluctations before he fell nor his Repentances since when thou hearest S. Paul say Quorum maximus hadst not thou need say Nonne tu Dost not thou fear who knowest more by thy self then S. Pauls History hath told thee of S. Paul for in all his History thou never seest any thing done by him against his conscience and is thy case as good as that But to this thief this thief presses this no farther but this what hope soever of future happiness in this life by the coming of a Messias those that stay in the world can expect what 's all that to thee who art going out of the world Quid mihi sayes that man who looked upon the Rainbow when he was ready to drown though God have promised not to drown the world what 's that to me if I must drown I must be bold to say to thee Quid tibi if God by his omnipotent power will uphold his Gospel in the world he owes thee no thanks if thou do nothing in thy calling towards the upholding of it Nonne tu Dost not thou feare that though that stand Gods judgement will fall upon thee for having put no hand to the staying of it Nonne tu times It had been unreasonable to have spoken to him of the love of God first now when those heavy judgements were upon him The Fear of God is alwayes the beginning of Wisdome most of all in calamity which is properly Vehiculum timoris the Chariot to convey and the Seal to imprint this feare in us Because I thought surely the feare of God is not in this place Gen. 20.9 therefore I said Sarah was my sister Where there is not the fear of God in great persons other men dare not proceed clearly with them but with disguises and Modifications they dare not attribute their prosperity and good success to the goodness of God but must attribute it to their wisdome they dare not attribute their crosses and ill successe to the justice of God but must attribute it to the weakness or falshood of servants and ministers where there is not this fear of God there is no directness Beloved there is love enough at all hands it is a loving age every where love enough in every corner such as it is but scarce any feare amongst us Great men are above fear no envy can reach them Miserable men are below fear no change can make them worse and for persons of middle rank and more publick feares of plagues of famines or such the abundant and over-flowing goodness of God hath so long accustomed us to miraculous deliverances that we feare nothing but thinke to have miracles in ordinary and neglect ordinary remedies Deum But what should this man fear now his Glass was run out his Bell was rung out he was a dead man condemned and judged and executed what should he fear In Rome as the Vestal Virgins which dyed were buried within the city because they dyed innocent so persons which were executed by Justice were buryed there too because they had satisfied the Law and thereby seemed to be restored to their innocence So that condemned persons might seem least of all to feare But yet Nonne times Deum fearest not thou God for all that Have not the laws of Men Witnesses Judges and Executioners all men brought fearfull things upon thee already and is it not a fearfull thing if all those real torments be but Types and Figures of those greater which God
will inflict upon thee after death How easily hath a cunning malefactor sometimes deluded and circumvented a mild Justice at home that lives neighbourly by him and is almost glad to be deceived in favour of life but how would this man be confounded if he came to be examined at the Council-table or by the King Omni severius quaestione a te interrogari was said by one of the Panegyricks to one of the Roman Emperours That it was worse then the rack to be examined by him When we come to stand naked before God without that apparel which he made for us without all righteousness and without that apparell which we made for our selves not a fig-leaf not an excuse to cover us if we think to deale upon his affections he hath none if we think to hide our sins he was with us when we did them and saw them we shall see then by his examination that he knowes them better then we our selves Tom. 10. in Append Ser. 49. And to this purpose to shew Gods particular judgement upon all men and all actions then it is that S. Augustine if that Sermon which is the 130. de Tempore be his for it is in the copies of Chrysostome too reads those words thus Nonne times Deum tuum fearest not thou thy God that if a man would go about to wrap up all in Gods generall providence all must be as God hath appointed it he might be brought to this particular consideration that he is Deus tuus not onely God of the world and God of mankinde but thy God so far thine as he shall be thy Judge In all senses and to all intendments that may make him the heavier to thee he is thy God he shall be thy God in his severe examinations as he is Scrutator Renum as he searches thy reines thy God in putting off all respect of persons in renouncing kindred Mater frater they are of kin to him that do his will and in renouncing acquaintance at the last day Nescio vos I know not whence you are and thy God in pronouncing judgement then Ite maledicti go ye accursed He shall be still Deus tuus thy God till it come to Jesus tuus till it come to the point of redemption and salvation he shall be thy God but not thy Redeemer thy Saviour And therefore it is well urged in this place by Saint Augustine Nonne times Deum tuum Fearest not thou thy God Especially this great calamity being actually upon thee now Condemnatio Saint Peter when he would have converted Agrippa and all the company he wishes they were all like him in all things Act. 26.29 Exceptis vinculis excepting his bands This new convert deals upon his fellow with that argument Quia in iisdem vinculis since thou art under the same condemnation thou shouldest have the same affections Now the general condemnation which is upon all mankind that they must dye this alone scarce frights any man scarce averts any man from his purposes He that should first put to Sea in a tempest he might easily think it were in the nature of the Sea to be rough always He that sees every Church-yard swell with the waves and billows of graves can think it no extraordinary thing to dye when he knows he set out in a storm and he was born into the world upon that condition to go out of it again But when Nathan would work upon David he puts him a particular case appliable to himself and when he had drawn from him an implicite condemnation of himself then he applies it When David had said As the Lord liveth 2 Sam. 12. the man that hath done this shall surely dye and Nathan upon that had said Thou art the man Then David came to his Peccavi coram Domino I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan to his Transtulit Dominus August The Lord hath taken away thy sin And so this preacher Qui clavis confixus non habuit sensum confixum who though he were crucified in body had his spirit and his charity at liberty he presses his fellow to this fear therefore because he is under a particular condemnation not because he must dye but because he must dye thus and every man may find some such particular condemnation in himself and in his own crosses if he will but read his own history in a true copy Eadem It is sub eadem the same condemnation If this identity be intended in comparison with Christs condemnation the comparison holds only in this judgment is given upon you both execution begun upon you both both equally ignominious equally miserable in the eye of the world why doest thou insult upon him revile him who art in as ill state as he thou seest him who though thou knowest it not hath other manner of assurances then thou canst have in Agonies in Feares in Complaints in Lamentations Why fearest not thou being under the same condemnation If this eadem condemnatio be intended in comparison of himself that speaks then the comparison holds only thus Thou hast no better a life then I thou art no farther from thy death then I and the consideration of my condemnation hath brought me to fear God why shouldst not thou feare being under the same condemnation especially there being no adjourning of the Court no putting off the Sizes no Reprieve for Execution Thou art now under the same condemnation the same Execution why shouldst thou not fear now why shouldst thou not go so far towards thy conversion this minute To end all it is all our cases we are all under the same condemnation what condemnation under the same as Adam the same as Cain the same as Sodom the same as Judas Quod cuiquam accidit omnis potest what sin soever God hath found in any he may finde in us either that we have falne into it by our misuse of his grace or should fall into it if he should withdraw his grace In those that are damned before we are damned in Effigie such as we are are damned and we might be but that he which was Medius inter personas divinas in his glory in heaven and Medius inter prophetas in his Transfiguration in Mount Thabor and Medius inter Latrones in his Humiliation in this text is Medius inter nos in the midst of the Christian Church in the midst of us in this Congregation takes into his own mouth now the words which he put into the thiefs mouth then and more Since I have been made a man and no man been born and died since I have descended and descended to the earth and below the earth since I have done and suffered so much to rescue you from this condemnation Nonne timetis will ye not fear the Lord but choose still to be under the same condemnation A Lent-SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL February 12. 1618. SERMON II. Serm. 2. Ezek. 33.32 And lo thou art unto