his people purposely to be afflicted yet himself complains in their behalf That the persecutor laid the very heaviest yoke upon the ancient Esa 47.6 It is a lamentable thing to fall under a necessity of suffering in our age Basil Labore fracta instrumenta ad Deum ducis quorum nullus usus wouldest thou consecrate a Chalice to God that is broken no man would present a lame horse a disordered clock a torn book to the King Caro jumentum thy body is thy beast Aug. and wilt thou present that to God when it is lam'd and tir'd with excesse of wantonness when thy clock the whole course of thy time is disordered with passions and perturbations when thy book the history of thy life is torn 1000. sins of thine own torn out of thy memory wilt thou then present thy self thus defac'd and mangled to almighty God Basil Temperantia non est temperantia in senectute sed impotentia incontinentiae chastity is not chastity in an old man but a desability to be unchast and therefore thou dost not give God that which thou pretendest to give for thou hast no chastity to give him Senex bis puer but it is not bis juvenis an old man comes to the infirmities of childhood again but he comes not to the strength of youth again Do this then In diebus juventutis in thy best strength Electionum and when thy natural facuties are best able to concur with grace but do it In diebus electionum in the dayes when thou hast thy hearts desire for if thou have worn out this word in one sense that it be too late now to remember him in the dayes of youth that 's spent forgetfully yet as long as thou art able to make a new choise to chuse a new sin that when thy heats of youth are not overcome but burnt out then thy middle age chooses ambition and thy old age chooses covetousness as long as thou art able to make thy choice thou art able to make a better than this God testifies that power that he hath given thee I call heaven and earth to record this day Deut. 30.19 that I have set before you life and death choose life If this choice like you not Jos 24.15 If it seem evil unto you to serve the the Lord saith Josuah then choose ye this day whom ye will serve Here 's the election day bring that which ye would have Serm. 18. into comparison with that which ye should have that is all that this world keeps from you with that which God offers to you and what will ye choose to prefer before him for honor and favor and health and riches perchance you cannot have them though you choose them but can you have more of them than they have had to whom those very things have been occasions of ruin The Market is open till the bell ring till thy last bell ring the Church is open grace is to be had there but trust not upon that rule that men buy cheapest at the end of the market that heaven may be had for a breath at last when they that hear it cannot tel whether it be a sigh or a gasp a religious breathing and anhelation after the next life or natural breathing out and exhalation of this but find a spiritual good husbandry in that other rule that the prime of the market is to be had at first for howsoever in thine age there may be by Gods strong working Dies juventutis A day of youth in making thee then a new creature for as God is antiquissimus dierum so in his school no man is super-annated yet when age hath made a man impotent to sin this is not Dies electionum it is not a day of choice but remember God now when thou hast a choice that is a power to advance thy self or to oppress others by evil means now in die electionum in those thy happy and sun-shine dayes remember him Creatorem This is then the faculty that is excited the memory and this is the time now now whilest we have power of election The object is the Creator Remember the Creator First because the memory can go no farther then the creation and therefore we have no means to conceive or apprehend any thing of God before that When men therefore speak of decrees of reprobation decrees of condemnation before decrees of creation this is beyond the counsail of the holy Ghost here Memento creatoris Remember the Creator for this is to remember God a condemner before he was a creator This is to put a preface to Moses his Genesis not to be content with his in principio to know that in the beginning God created heaven and earth but we must remember what he did ante principium before any such beginning was Moses his in principio that beginning the creation we can remember but St. Johns in principio that beginning eternity we cannot we can remember Gods fiat in Moses but not Gods erat in St. John what God hath done for us is the object of our memory not what he did before we were and thou hast a good and perfect memory if it remember all that the holy Ghost proposes in the Bible and it determines in the memento Creatoris There begins the Bible and there begins the Creed I believe in God the Father maker of Heaven and Earth Jâ— 7.39 for when it is said The holy Ghost was not given because Jesus was not glorified it is not truly Non erat datus but non erat for non erat nobis antequam operaretur It is not said there the holy Ghost was not given but it is the holy Ghost was not for he is not that is he hath no being to us ward till he works in us which was first in the creation Remember the Creator then Serm. 19. because thou canst remember nothing backward beyond him and remember him so too that thou maist stick upon nothing on this side of him That so neither height Ro. 8. ult nor depth nor any other creature may separate thee from God not only not separate thee finally but not separate so as to stop upon the creature but to make the best of them thy way to the Creator We see ships in the river but all their use is gone if they go not to sea we see men fraighted with honor and riches but all their use is gone if their respect be not upon the honor and glory of the Creator and therefore sayes the Apostle Let them that suffer 1 Peâ— 4. ult commit their souls to God as to a faithful Creator that is He made them and therefore will have care of them This is the true contracting and the true extending of the memory to Remember the Creator and stay there because there is no prospect farther and to Remember the Creator and get thither because there is no safe footing upon the
hast nothing of thine own Hoc est nec ingratum esse nec superbum therein thou art neither unthankful to God nor proud of thy self As he that hath no other good parts but money and locks up that or employs it so as that his money feeds upon the Commonwealth and does not feed it that it lies gnawing and sucking blood by Usury and does not make blood by stirring and walking in Merchandize is an unprofitable member in State so he that hath good parts and smothers them in a retired and useless life is inexcusable in the same measure When therefore men retire themselves into Cloysters and Monasteries when they will not be content with St. Pauls diminution to be changed from Saul to Paulus which is little but will go lower then that little by being called minorites less then little and lower then that minims least of all and yet finde an order less then that as they have done nullani nothing at all Exore suo out of their own mouths they shall be judged and that which they have made themselves here God shal make them in the world to come nullanos nothing at all Paulum sepultae distatinertiae celata virtus It is all one as if he had no grace of lips if he never have the grace to open his lips to bury himself alive is as much wrong to the State as if he kill himself Every man hath a Politick life as well as a natural life and he may no more take himself away from the world then he may make himself away out of the world For he that dies so by withdrawing himself from his calling from the labours of mutual society in this life that man kills himself and God calls him not Morte morietur He shall die a double death an Allegorical death here in his retiring from his own hand and a real death from the hand of God hereafter In this case that Vae soli Wo be unto him that is alone hath the heaviest weight with it when a man lives so alone as that he respects no body but himself his own ease and his own ends For to sum up all concerning this part the Subject as our principal duty is Pureness of heart towards God and to love that intirely earnestly so the next is the Grace of lips Ability to serve the Publick which though we be bound not to love it with a pride we are bound not to smother with a retiring And then for these endowments for being Religious and serviceable to the State The King shall be our friend Which is our second general part to which in our order proposed we are now come As it is frequent and ordinary in the Scriptures when the Holy Ghost would express a superlative Rev nota superlativi the highest degree of any thing to express it by adding the name of God to it as when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep as that David could take his Spear and pot of water from under his head It is called Tardemath Jehovah sopor Domini The sleep of the Lord The greatest sleep that could possess a man and so in many other places fortitudo Domini and timor Domini signifie the greatest strength and the greatest fear that could fall upon a man so also doth the Holy Ghost often descend from God to Gods Lieutenant and as to express superlatives he does sometimes use the name of God so doth he also sometimes use the name of King For Reges sunt summi Regis defluxus says that Author who is so antient that no man can tell when he was Trismegistus God is the Sun and Kings are Beams and emanations and influences that flow from him Such is the manner of the Holy Ghost expressing himself in Esai Tyrus shall be forgotten seventy years Esay 23.15 according to the years of one King that is during the time of any one mans life how happy and fortunate soever And so also the miserable and wretched estate of the wicked is likewise expressed Job 18.14 His hope shall be rooted out of his dwelling and shall drive him to the King of fears that is to the greatest despair ad Regem interituum says the Vulgar to the greatest destruction that can be conceived So that in this first sence Amicitia Regis the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is a superlative friendship a spreading a delating an universal friendship He that is thus qualified all the world shall love him Rex qui fortunatus So also by the name of King both in the Scriptures and in Josephus and in many more prophane and secular Authors are often designed such persons as were not truly of the rank and quality of Kings but persons that lived in plentiful and abundant fortunes and had all the temporal happinesses of this life were called Kings And in this sence the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is utilis amicitia all such frinds as may do him good God promises that to men thus endow'd and qualified belongs the love and assistance that men of plentiful fortunes can give great Persons great in Estate great in Power and Authority shall confer their favours upon such men and not upon such as only serve to swell a train always for ostentation sometimes for sedition much less shall they confer their favours upon sycophants and buffoons least of all upon the servants of their vices and voluptuousness but they whom God hath made Kings in that sence Masters of abundant fortunes shall do good to them only who have this pureness of heart and grace of lips Rex Ipse But if these words be not only intended of the King literally That he shall do good to men thus endowed and qualified but extended to all men in their proportion that all that are able should do good to such persons yet this Text is principally intended of the King himself and therefore is so expressed singularly and emphatically The King shall be his friend As God hath appointed it for a particular dignity to his Spouse the Church That Kings shall be their foster-fathers Esa 49.23 and Queens their nurses so God hath designed it for a particular happiness of religious and capable men that they may stand before the King and hear his wisdom as the Queen of Sheba observed of the servants of Solomon 1 Reg 10. 9. and pronounced them happy for that This then is a happiness belonging to this pureness and this grace that the King shall not only nor absolutely rely upon the information of others and take such a measure and such a character of men as the good or bad affections of others will present unto him but he shall take an immediate knowledge of them himself he shall observe their love to this pureness of heart and their grace of lips and so become their friend Unto which of the Angels said
God and live in his fear to be mercinarij per laborem to be the workmen of God and labour in his Vineyard to be filij per lavacrum to be the sons of God and preserve that Inheritance which was sealed to us at first in Baptism and last of all Amici per virtutem by the good use of his gifts the King of Kings shall be our friend That which he said to his Apostles his Spirit shall say to our spirit here and seal it to us for a Covenant of Salt an everlasting John 15.14 an irrevocable Covenant Henceforth call I you not servants but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father have I made known unto you And the fruition of this friendship which neither slackens in all our life nor ends at our death the Lord of Life for the death of his most innocent Son afford to us all Amen A Serm. 25. SERMON Preached at the SPITTLE Vpon Easter-Munday 1662. SERMON XXV 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ THe first Book of the Bible begins with the beginning In principio says Moses in Genesis In the beginning God created heaven and earth and can there be any thing prius principio before the beginning Before this beginning there is The last Book of the Bible in the order as they were written the Gospel of St. John begins with the same word too In principio says St. John In the beginning was the Word and here Novissimum primum the last beginning is the first St. John's beginning before Moses Moses speaking but of the Creature and St. John of the Creator and of the Creator before he took that name before he came to the act of Creation as the Word was with God and was God from all Eternity Our present Text is an Epitome of both those beginnings of the first beginning the Creation when God commanded light to shine out of darkness and of the other beginning which is indeed the first of Him in whose face we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God Christ Jesus The first Book of the Bible is a Revelation and so is the last in the order as they stand a Revelation too To declare a production of all things out of nothing which is Moses his work that when I do not know and care not whether I know or no what so contemptible a Creature as an Ant is made of but yet would fain know what so vast and so considerable a thing as an Elephant is made of I care not for a mustard seed but I would fain know what a Cedar is made of I can leave out the consideration of the whole Earth but would be glad to know what the Heavens and the glorious bodies in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars are made of I shall have but one answer from Moses for all that all my Elephants and Cedars and the Heavens that I consider were made of nothing that a Cloud is as nobly born as the Sun in the Heavens and a begger as nobly as the King upon Earth if we consider the great Grand-father of them all to be nothing to produce light of darkness thus is a Revelation a Manifestation of that which till then was not this Moses does St. John's is a Revelation too a Manifestation of that state which shall be and be for ever after all those which were produced of nothing shall be return'd and ressolv'd to nothing again the glorious state of the everlasting Jerusalem the Kingdom of Heaven Now this Text is a Revelation of both these Revelations the first state that which Moses reveals was too dark for man to see for it was nothing The other that which St. John reveals is too bright too dazling for man to look upon for it is no one limited determined Object but all at once glory and the seat and fountain of all glory the face of Christ Jesus The Holy Ghost hath shewed us both these severally in Moses and in St. John and both together in St. Paul in this Text where as the Sun stands in the midst of the Heavens and shews us both the Creatures that are below it upon Earth and the Creatures that are above it the Stars in Heaven so St. Paul as he is made an Apostle of the Gentiles stands in the midst of this Text God hath shin'd in our hearts Ours as we are Apostolical Ministers of the Gospel and he shows us the greatness of God in the Creation which was before when God commanded light out of darkness and the goodness of God which shall be hereafter when he shall give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus So that this Text giving light by which we see light commanded by God out of darkness and the Object which we are to see the knowledge of the glory of God and this Object being brought within a convenient distance to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ And a fit and well-disposed Medium being illumin'd through which we may see it God having shin'd in our hearts established a Ministry of the Gospel for that purpose if you bring but eyes to that which this Text brings Light and Object and Distance and Means then as St. Basil said of the Book of Psalms upon an impossible supposition If all the other Books of Scripture could perish there were enough in that one for the catechising of all that did believe and for the convincing of all that did not so if all the other Writings of St. Paul could perish this Text were enough to carry us through the body of Divinity from the Cradle of the world in the Creation when God commanded light out of darkness to the Grave and beyond the Grave of the world to the last Dissolution and beyond it when we shall have fully the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Now whilst I am to speak of all this this which is Omne scibile all and more then can fall within the comprehension of a natural man for it is the beginning of this world and it is the way to the next and it is the next world it self I comfort my self at my first setting out with that of St. Gregory Purgatas aures hominum gratiam nancisci nonne Dei donum est I take it for one of Gods great blessings to me if he have given me now an Auditory Purgatae auris of such spiritual and circumcised Ears as come not to hear that Wisdom of Words which may make the Cross of Christ of none effect much less such itching Ears as come to hear popular and seditious Calumnies and Scandals and Reproaches cast upon the present State and Government For a man may make a Sermon a Satyr he
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
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
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
of our Professors themselves who as she thinks come as near to her as they dare Because she hath gained of late upon many of the weaker sex women laden with sin and of weaker fortunes men laden with debts and of weaker consciences souls laden with scruples therefore she imagines that she hath seen the worst and is at an end of her change though this be but indeed a running an ebbing back of the main River but onely a giddy and circular Eddy in some shallow places of the stream which stream God be blessed runs on still currantly and constantly and purely and intemerately as before yet because her corrections are not multiplied because her absolute Ruine is not accelerated she hath some false conceptions of a general returning towards her and she fears up her self against all sense of Truth and all tenderness of Peace and because she hath rid out one storm in Luther and his successors therefore she fears not the Lord for any other Quia non habent Because she hath no changes now Habuerunt then They have had changes and Habebunt They shall have more and greater Impii non stabunt says David The wicked shall not stand In how low ground soever they stand and in how great torment soever they stand yet they shall not stand there but sink to worse and at last non stabunt in judicio They shall not stand in judgement but fall there from whence there is no rising Non stabunt They shall not stand though they think they shall they shall counterfeit the Seals of the Holy Ghost and delude themselves with imaginary certitudes of Salvation and illusory apprehensions of Decrees of Election nay non stabunt They shall not be able to think that they shall stand that which the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 10.12 Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall belongs onely to the godly onely they can think deliberately and upon just examination of the marks and evidences of the Elect that they shall stand God shall suffer the wicked to sink down not to a godly sense of their infirmity and holy remorse of the effects thereof but yet lower then that to a diffident jealousie to a desperate acknowledgement that they cannot stand in the sight of God they shall have no true rest at last they shall not stand nay they shall not have that half that false comfort by the way they shall not be able to flatter themselves by the way with that imagination that they shall stand Now both the ungodly and godly too must have Changes in matter of Fortune changes are common to them both and then in all of all conditions Mortalitas Mutabilitas says St. Augustine even this That we must die is a continual change The very same word 14.14 which is here kalaph is in Job also All the days of my appointed time till my changing come And because this word which we translate changing is there spoken in the person of a righteous man Symma some Translators have rendred that place Donec veniat sancta nativitas mea Till I be born again the change the death of such men is a better birth And so the Chaldee Paraphrasts the first Exposition of the Bible have express'd it Quousque rursus fiam Till I be made up again by death He does not stay to call the Resurrection a making up but this death this dissolution this change is a new creation this Divorce is a new Marriage this very Parting of the soul is an Infusion of a soul and a Transmigration thereof out of my bosome into the bosom of Abraham Bernard But yet though it is all this yet it is a change Maxima mutatio est Mutabilitatis in Immutabilitatem To be changed so as that we can never be changed more is the greatest change of all All must be changed so far as to die yea those who shall in some sort escape that death those whom the last day shall surprise upon earth though they shall not die yet they shall be changed Statutum est omnibus semel mori All men must die once Heb. 9.27 we live all under that Law But statutum nemini hic mori since the promise of a Messiah there is no Law no Decree by which any man must necessarily die twice a Temporal death and a Spiritual death too It is not the Man but the Sinner that dies the second death God sees sin in that man or else that man had never seen the second death So we shall all have one change besides those which we have all had good and bad must die but the men in this text shall have two But whatsoever changes are upon others in the world whatsoever upon themselvs whatsoever they have had whatsoever they are sure to have yet Quia non habent non timent Deum Because they have none now they fear not God And so we are come to our third and last Part. They fear not God This is such a state Part III. Non timent as if a man who had been a Schoolmaster all his life and taught others to read or had been a Critick all his life and ingeniosus in alienis over-witty in other mens Writings had read an Author better then that Author meant and should come to have use of his Reading to save his life at the Bar when he had his Book for some petty Felony and then should be stricken with the spirit of stupidity and not be able to read then Such is the state of the wisest of the learnedest of the mightiest in this world If they fear not God they have forgot their first letters they have forgot the basis and foundation of all Power the reason and the purpose of all Learning the life and the soul of all Counsel and Wisdom for The fear of God is the beginning of all They are all fallen into the danger of the Law they have all sinn'd they are offer'd their Book the merciful promises of God to repentant sinners in his Word and they cannot read they cannot apply them to their comfort There is Scripture but not translated not transferr'd to them there is Gospel but not preached to them there are Epistles but not superscribed to them It is an hereditary Sentence Psal 111.10 Prov. 1.7 Ecclus 1.16 and hath pass'd from David in his Psalms to Solomon in his Proverbs and then to him that glean'd after them both the Author of Ecclesiasticus The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom All three profess all that and more then that It is Blessedness it self says the father David Blessedness it self says the son Solomon and Plenitudo Sapientiae and Omnis Sapientia says the other The fulness of wisdom and the onely wisdom Job had said it before them all Ecce timor Domini 28. ipsa est sapientia The fear of the Lord is wisdom it self And the Prophet Esai said it after of Ezechias 33.6 There
those faculties by the help of the Law And he calls it Suam their righteousness because they thought none had it but they And upon this Pelagian righteousness it thought Nature sufficient without Grace or upon this righteousness of the Cathari the Puritans in the Primitive Church that thought the Grace which they had received sufficient and that upon that stock they were safe and become impeccable and therefore left out of the Lords Prayer that Petition Dimitte nobis Forgive us our trespasses upon this Pelagian righteousness and this Puritan righteousness Christ does not work He left out the righteous not that there were any such but such as thought themselves so and he took in sinners not all effectually that were simply so but such as the sense of their sins and the miserable state that that occasioned brought to an acknowledgement that they were so Non Justos sed peccatores Peccatores Here then enters our Affirmative our Inclusive Who are called peccatores for here no man asks the Question of the former Branch there we asked Whether there were any righteous and we found none here we ask not whether there were any sinners for we can finde no others no not one He came to call sinners and only sinners that is only in that capacity in that contemplation as they were sinners for of that vain and frivolous opinion that got in and got hold in the later School That Christ had come in the flesh though Adam had stood in his innocence That though Man had nor needed Christ as a Redeemer yet he would have come to have given to man the greatest Dignity that Nature might possibly receive which was to be united to the Divine Nature of this Opinion one of those Jesuites whom we named before Maldonat who oftentimes making his use of whole sentences of Calvins says in the end This is a good Exposition but that he is an Heretick that makes it He says also of this Opinion That Christ had come though Adam had stood this is an ill Opinion but that they are Catholicks that have said it He came for sinners for sinners onely else he had not come and then he came for all kind of sinners Mat. 21.31 for upon those words of our Saviours to the High Priests and Pharisees Publicans and Harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you good Expositors note that in those two Notations Publicans and Harlots many sorts of sinners are implyed in the name of Publicans all such as by their very profession and calling are led into tentations and occasions of sin to which some Callings are naturally more exposed then other such as can hardly be exercised without sin and then in the Name of Harlots and prostitute Women such as cannot at all be exercised without sin whose very profession is sin and yet for these for the worst of these for all these there is a voice gone out Christ is come to call sinners onely sinners all sinners Comes he then thus for sinners What an advantage had S. Paul then to be of this Quorum and the first of them Quorum Ego Maximus That when Christ came to save sinners he should be the greatest sinner the first in that Election If we should live to see that acted Mat. 24.41 which Christ speaks of at the last day Two in the field the one taken the other left should we not wonder to see him that were left lay hold upon him that were taken and offer to go to Heaven before him therefore because he had killed more men in the field or robbed more men upon the High-way or supplanted more in the Court or oppressed more in the City to make the multiplicity of his sins his title to Heaven Or two women grinding at the Mill one taken the other left to see her that was left offer to precede the other into Heaven therefore because she had prostituted her self to more men then the other had done Is this S. Pauls Quorum his Dignity his Prudency I must be saved because I am the greatest sinner God forbid God forbid we should presume upon salvation because we are sinners or sin therefore that we may be surer of salvation S. Pauls title to Heaven was not that he was primus peccator but primus Confessor that he first accused himself came to a sense of his miserable estate for that implies that which is our last word and the effect of Christs calling That whomsoever he calls or how or whensoever it is ad Resipiscentiam Non ad satisfactionem to repentance It is not ad satisfactionem Christ does not come to call us to make satisfaction to the justice of God he call'd us to a heavy to an impossible account if he call'd us to that If the death of Christ Jesus himself be but a satisfaction for the punishment for my sins for nothing less then that could have made that satisfaction what can a temporary Purgatory of days or hours do towards a satisfaction And if the torments of Purgatory it self sustain'd by my self be nothing towards a satisfaction what can an Evenings fast or an Ave Marie from my Executor or my Assignee after I am dead do towards such a satisfaction Canst thou satisfie the justice of God for all that blood which thou hast drawn from his Son in thy blasphemous Oaths and Execrations or for all that blood of his which thou hast spilt upon the ground upon the Dunghil in thy unworthy receiving the Sacrament Canst thou satisfie his justice for having made his Blessings the occasions and the instruments of thy sins or for the Dilapidations of his Temple in having destroyed thine own body by thine incontinency and making that the same flesh with a Harlot If he will contend with thee Job 9.9 thou canst not answer him one of a thousand Nay a thousand men could not answer one sin of one man It is not then Ad satisfactionem but it is not Ad gloriam neither Non ad Gloriam Christ does not call us to an immediate possession of glory without doing any thing between Our Glorification was in his intention as soon as our Election in God who sees all things at once both entred at once but in the Execution of his Decrees here God carries us by steps he calls us to Repentance The Farmers of this imaginary satisfaction they that fell it at their own price in their Indulgencies have done well to leave out this Repentance both in this text in S. Matthew and where the same is related by S. Mark In both places they tell us that Christ came to call sinners but they do not tell us to what as though it might be enough to call them to their market to buy their Indulgencies The Holy Ghost tells us it is to repentance Are ye to learn now what that is He that cannot define Repentance he that cannot spell it may have it and he that hath
by saying by speaking the making of Man was in in sermone in a consultation In this first Creation thus presented there is a shadow a representation of our second Creation our Regeneration in Christ and of the saving knowledge of God for first there is in Man a knowledge of God sine sermone without his word in the book of Creatures Non sunt loquelae sayes David Psal 19. They have no language they have no speech and yet they declare the glory of God The correspondence and relation of all parts of Nature to one Author the consinuity and dependance of every piece and joynt of this frame of the world the admirable order the immutable succession the lively and certain generation and birth of effects from their Parents the causes in all these though there be no sound no voice yet we may even see that it is an excellent song an admirable piece of musick and harmony and that God does as it were play upon this Organ in his administration and providence by naturall means and instruments and so there is some kind of creation in us some knowledge of God imprinted sine sermone without any relation to his word But this is a Creation as of heaven and earth which were dark and empty and without form till the Spirit of God moved and till God spoke Till there came the Spirit the breath of Gods mouth the word of God it is but a faint twilight it is but an uncertain glimmering which we have of God in the Creature But in sermone in his word when we come to him in his Scriptures we finde better and nobler Creatures produced in us clearer notions of God and more evident manifestations of his power and of his goodness towards us for if we consider him in his first word sicut locutus ab initio as he spoke from the beginning in the Old Testament from thence we cannot only see but feel and apply a Dixit fiat lux that God hath said let there be light and that there is a light produced in us by which we see that this world was not made by chance for then it could not consist in this order and regularity and we see that it was not eternall for if it were eternall as God and so no Creature then it must be God too we see it had a beginning a beginning of nothing and all from God So we find in our self a fiat lux that there is such a light produced And there we may find a fiat firmamentum that there is a kind of firmament produced in us a knowledge of a difference between Heaven and Earth and that there is in our constitutions an earthly part a body and a heavenly part a soul and an understanding as a firmament to separate distinguish and discern between these So also may we find a congregenter aquae that God hath said Let there be a sea a gathering a confluence of all such means as are necessary for the attaining of salvation that is that God from the beginning settled and established a Church in which he was alwayes carefull to minister to man means of eternall happiness The Church is that Sea and into that Sea we launched the water of Baptism To contract this sine sermone till God spake in his Creatures only we have but a faint and uncertain and generall knowledge of God in sermone when God comes to speak at first in the Old Testament though he come to more particulars yet it was in dark speeches and in vails and to them who understood best and saw clearest into Gods word still it was but de futuro by way of promise and of a future thing But when God comes to his last work to make Man to make up Man that is to make Man a Christian by the Gospel when he comes not to a fiat homo Let there be a Man as he proceeded in the rest but to a faciamus hominem Let us make Man Then he calls his Sonne to him and sends him into the world to suffer death the death of the Crosse for our salvation And he calls the Holy Ghost to him and sends him to teach us all truth and apply that which Christ suffered for our souls to our souls God leaves the Nations the Gentiles under the non locutus est he speaks not at all to them but in the speechless creatures He leaves the Jewes under the locutus est under the killing letter of the Law and their stubborn perverting thereof And he comes to us sicut locutus est in manifesting to us that our Messias Christ Jesus is come and come according to the promise of God and the foretelling of all his Prophets for that is our safe anchorage in all storms that our Gospel is in sermone that all things are done so as God had foretold they should be done that we have infallible marks given us before by which we may try all that is done after All the word of God then conduces to the Gospel the Old Testament is a preparation and a poedagogie to the New All the word belongs to the Gospell and all the Gospell is in the word nothing is to be obtruded to our faith as necessary to salvation except it be rooted in the Word And as the locutus est that is the promises that God hath made to us in the Old Testament and the sicut locutus est that is the accomplishing of those promises to us in the New-Testament are thus applyable to us so is this especially Quod adhuc loquitur that God continues his speech and speaks to us every day still we must hear Evangelium in sermone the Gospel in the Word in the Word so as we may hear it that is the Word preached for howsoever it be Gospel in it self it is not Gospel to us if it be not preached in the Congregation neither though it be preached to the Congregation is it Gospel to me except I find it work upon my understanding and my faith and my conscience A man may believe that there shall be a Redeemer and he may give an Historicall assent that there hath been a Redeemer that that Redeemer is come he may have heard utrumque sermonem both Gods wayes of speaking both his voices both his languages his promises in the Old Testament his performances in the New Testament and yet not hear him speak to his own soul Ferme Apostoli plus laborarunt says S. Chrys It cost the Apostles and their Successors the preachers of the Gospell more paines and more labour ut persuaderent hominibus dona Dei iis indulta To perswade men that this mercy of God and these merits of Christ Jesus were intended to them and directed upon them in particular then to perswade them that such things were done they can beleeve the promise and the performance in the generall but they cannot finde the application thereof in particular the voice that is neerest us we least
thy fellow pupils under Gamaliel men whom thou hast accompanied heretofore in other waies think thy present fear of God but a childishness and pusilanimity and thy present zeal to his service but an infatuation and a melancholy and thy present application of thy self to God in prayer but an argument of thy Court-dispaire and of thy falling from former hopes there yet come thou early if it be early yet and if it be not early come apace to Christ Jesus how learned soever thou art thou art yet to learn thy first letters if thou know not that Christ Jesus is Alpha and Omega he in whom thou must begin and determine every purpose Thou hast studied thy self but into a dark and damnable ignorance if thou have labored for much learning only to prove that thou canst not be sav'd only to dispute against the person and the Gospel of Christ Jesus But propose to thine imitation Stephen who though enriched with great parts and formerly accustomed to the conversation of others of a different perswasion applied himself early to Christ as a Disciple v. 5. more then in that general application in a particular function and office as a Deacon as is expressed in the former Chapter Diaconus The Roman Church that delights in irresolutions and gains and makes profit in holding things in suspence holds up this question undetermind whether that office and function which Stephen too of Deacon be so è sacris a part of holy Orders as that it is a Sacrament or any part of the Sacrament of Orders Durand a man great in matter of Ceremony Cajetan a man great in matter of substance do both deny it and divers many very many besides them and they are let alone and their Church saies nothing against them or in determination of the opinion But yet howsoever the stronger opinion even in that Church lead the other way and the form of giving that office by imposition of hands and the many and great capacities that they receive that they receive it carry it to a great heighth yet the use that we make of it here shall be but this that even Stephen who might have been inter Doctores Doctor as Chrysologus saies of him a Doctor to teach Doctors and inter Apostolos Apostolus an Apostole to lead Apostles contented himself with a lower degree in the service of Christ in his Church the service of a Deacon which very name signifies service and ministation It is a diminution of regal dignity that the Roman Church accounts the greatest Kings but as Deacons and assigns them that rank and place in all their Ecclesiastical Solemnities in their Ceremonials But Constantine knew his own place without their marshalling In the midst of Bishops and Bishops met in Council he cals himself Bishop and Bishop of Bishops and the greatest Bishop of this land St. Dunstâ—n in his time professed his Master the King to be Pastor Pastorum a Shepheard of Shepheards It is a name due to the King for it signifies inspection and superintendency as the name of Priest is also given to secular Magistrates that had no part in Ecclesiastical function in the Scriptures particularly in Putipher Gen. 41.45 and to divers others in divers other places But yet though that name of super-intendancy be due unto him let him who is crown'd in his office as Stephen was in his name accept this name and office of ministration of Deacon since the holy Ghost himself hath given him that name The Minister of God for good Rom. 13.4 ther 's the word of ministration the name Diaconos imprinted upon the King and since our Super-Supream Ordinary our Super-Soveraign head of the Church Christ Jesus himself cals himself by that name The Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister Mar. 10.45 ther 's this word of ministration the office the name of Deacon imprinted upon Christ himself And though in our interest in him who is also a King and a Priest we are all regale Sacerdotium 1 Pet. 2.9 Kings and Priests too yet let us accept the name and execute the office of Deacon of ministration especially upon our selves for as every man is a world in himself so every man is a Church in himself too and in the ancient Church it was a part of the Deacons office to call out to the Church to the Congregation Nequis contra aliquem nequis in Hipocrisi let no man come hither to Church indeed no whether for every place because God is present in every place is a Church either in uncharitableness towards others or in Hypocrisie in dissimulation in himself Bring alwaies a charitable opinion towards other men and sincere affections in thy self and thou hast done the right office of a Deacon upon the right subject thou hadst ministred to thine own Soul But then the height of Stephens exemplariness which is the consideration that we pursue in this branch of this first part is not so much in his active as in his passive part not so much in that he did as in that he suffered not as he answered discharged the duties of his name so we have proposed him to you nor as he was an early Disciple and came to Christ betimes we have proposed him so too nor as he made his ambition only to serve Christ and not to serve him in a high place but only as a Deacon for in that line also we have proposed him to you But as he was a constant and chearful Martyr and laid down his life for Christ and in that qualification propose him to your selves and follow him as a Martyr Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea Martyr was so in love with Pamphilus the Martyr as a Martyr that he would needs take his name before he could get his addition and though he could not be call'd Martyr then yet he would be called Pamphilus and not Eusebius The name of Stephen hath enough in it to serve not only the vehementest affection but the highest ambition for there is a Coronation in the Name as we told you before And therefore in the Ecclesiastical story and Martyrologes of the Church there are I think more Martyrs of this name Stephen then of any other Name indeed they have all that Name for the Name is a Coronation And therefore the Kingdome of heaven which is express'd by many precious Metaphors in the Gospel is never call'd a Crown till after Stephens death till our Coronation was begun in his Martyrdome but after in the Epistles often and in the Revelation very often For to suffer for God man to suffer for God I to suffer for my Maker for my Redeemer is such a thing as no such thing excepting only Gods sufferings for man can fall into the consideration of man Gods suffering for man was the Nadir the lowest point of Gods humiliation mans suffering for God is the Zenith the highest point of mans
thou pass away uncharitably towards him thou raisest an everlasting Trophee for thine enemy and prepar'st him a greater triumph then he proposed to himself he meant to triumph over thy body and thy fortune and thou hast provided him a triumph over thy Soul too by thy uncharitableness and he may survive to repent and to be pardoned at Gods hands and thou who art departed in uncharitableness canst not he shall be saved that ruind thee unjustly and thou who wast unjustly ruind by him shalt perish irrecoverably And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part Sis aliquid profess something Hoc age do seriously the duties of that profession and then Sis aliquis propose some good man in that profession for thine immitation as we have proposed Stephen for general duties falling upon all professions And we shall pass now to our other part which we must all play and play in earnest that conclusion in which we shall but begin our everlasting state our death When he had said this he fell asleep Second part Mors impti Here I shall only present to you two Pictures two pictures in little two pictures of dying men and every man is like one of these and may know himself by it he that dies in the Bath of a peaceable he that dies upon the wrack of a distracted conscience When the devil imprints in a man a mortuum me esse non curo I care not though I were dead it were but a candle blown out and there were an end of all where the Devil imprints that imagination God will imprint an Emori nolo a loathness to die and fearful apprehension at his transmigration As God expresses the bitterness of death in an ingemination morte morietur in a conduplication of deaths he shall die and die die twice over So aegrotando aegrotabit in sicknesse he shall be sick twice sick body-sick and soul-sick too sense-sick and conscience-sick together when as the sinnes of his body have cast sicknesses and death upon his Soule so the inordinate sadnesse of his Soule shall aggravate and actuate the sicknesse of his body His Physitian ministers and wonders it works not He imputes that to flegme and ministers against that and wonders again that it works not He goes over all the humors and all his Medicines and nothing works for there lies at his Patients heart a dampe that hinders the concurrence of all his faculties to the intention of the Physitian or the virtue of the Physick Loose not O blessed Apostle thy question upon this Man 1 Cor. 15.55 O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory for the sting of Death is in every limb of his body and his very body is a victorious grave upon his Soule And as his Carcas and his Coffin shall lie equally insensible in his grave so his Soule which is but a Carcas and his body which is but a Coffin of that Carcas shall be equally miserable upon his Death-bed And Satan's Commissions upon him shall not be signed by Succession as upon Job first against his goods and then his Servants and then his children and then himselfe but not at all upon his life but he shall apprehend all at once Ruine upon himselfe and all his ruine upon himselfe and all him even upon his life both his lives the life of this and the life of the next world too Yet a drop would redeeme a shoure and a Sigh now a Storme then Yet a teare from the eye would save the bleeding of the heart and a word from the mouth now a roaring or which may be worse a silence of consternation of stupefaction of obduration at that last houre Truly if the death of the wicked ended in Death yet to scape that manner of death were worthy a Religious life To see the house fall and yet be afraid to goe out of it To leave an injur'd world and meet an incensed God To see oppression and wrong in all thy professions and to foresee ruine and wastefulnesse in all thy Posterity and Lands gotten by one sin in the Father molder away by another in the Sonne To see true figures of horror and ly and fancy worse To begin to see thy sins but then and finde every sin at first sight in the proportion of a Gyant able to crush thee into despair To see the Blood of Christ imputed not to thee but to thy Sinnes To see Christ crucified and not crucifyed for thee but crucified by thee To heare this blood speake not better things then the blood of Abel but lowder for vengeance then the blood of Abel did This is his picture that hath been Nothing that hath done nothing that hath proposed no Stephen No Law to regulate No example to certifie his Conscience But to him that hath done this Death is but a Sleepe Many have wondred at that note of Saint Chrysostom's Mors Piorum That till Christ's time death was called death plainly literally death but after Christ death was called but sleepe for indeede in the old-Testament before Christ I thinke there is no one metaphor so often used as Sleepe for Death and that the Dead are said to Sleepe Therefore wee wonder sometimes that Saint Chrysostome should say so But this may be that which that holy Father intended in that Note that they in the old-Testament who are said to have slept in Death are such as then by Faith did apprehend and were fixed upon Christ such as were all the good men of the old-Testament and so there will not bee many instances against Saint Chrysostome's note That to those that die in Christ Death is but a Sleepe to all others Death is Death literally Death Now of this dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the Death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe must wee give you a Picture too These is not a minute left to do it not a minutes sand Is there a minutes patience Bee pleased to remember that those Pictures which are deliver'd in a minute from a print upon a paper had many dayes weeks Moneths time for the graving of those Pictures in the Copper So this Picture of that dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe was graving all his life All his publique actions were the lights and all his private the shadowes of this Picture And when this Picture comes to the Presse this Man to the streights and agonies of Death thus he lies thus he looks this he is His understanding and his will is all one faculty He understands Gods purpose upon him and he would not have God's purpose turned any other way hee sees God will dissolve him and he would faine be dissolved to be with Christ His understanding and his will is all one faculty His memory and his fore-sight ate fixt and concentred upon one object upon goodnesse Hee remembers that
a Lamb that is but with any reluctation But God knows that may have been accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction and insensibility of his present state Our blessed Saviour admitted colluctations with Death and a sadnesse even in his Soul to death and an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body and expostulations with God and exclamations upon the Crosse He was a devout man who upon his death-bed or death-turse for he was an Hermit said Septuaginta annis domino servivisti mori times Hast thou serv'd a good Master threescore and ten yeeres Hilarion and now art thou loth to goe into his presence yet Hilarion was loath He was a devoure man an Hermite that said that day that he died Cogitate hodie coepisse servire Domino Barlaam hodie finiturum Consider this to be the first days service that ever thou didst thy Master to gloryfie him in a christianly and constant death and if thy first day be thy last day too how soone dost thou come to receive thy wages yet Barlaam could have beene content to have stayed longer for it Make no ill conclusion upon any man's lothnesse to die And then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors Christ himself hath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion for his own death had those impressions in it he was reputed he was executed as a Malefactor and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death did beleeve him to be so Of sodain deaths there are scarce examples to be found in the Scriptures upon good men for death in battail cannot be called sodain death But God governs not by examples but by rules and therefore make no ill conclusions upon sodain-Death nor upon distempers neyther though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of God The Tree lies as it falls 'T is true but yet it is not the last stroke that fells the Tree nor the last word nor last gaspe that qualifies the Soule Still pray we for a peaceable life against violent deaths and for time of Repentance against sodaine Deaths and for sober and modest assurance against dâ—stemper'd and diffident Deaths but never make ill conclusâ—ion upon persons overtaken with such Deaths Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of Death and he received Samson who went out of this world in such a manner consider it actively consider it passively in his own death and in those whom he slew with himself as was subject to interpretation hard enough yet the holy-Ghost hath mov'd Saâ—nt Paul to celebrate Samson in his great Catalogue and so doth all the Church Heb. 11. Our Criticall day is not the very day of our death but the whole course of our life I thank him that prayes for me when my bell tolls but I thank him much more that Carechises me or preaches to me or instructs me how to live fac hoc vives There 's my security The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Doe this and thou shalt live But though I doe it yet I shall die too dy a bodily a naturall death but God never mentions never seems to consider that death the bodily the naturall death God doth not say Live well and thou shalt die well well that is an easy a quiet death but live well here and thou shalt live well for ever As the first part of a Sentence peeces well with the last and never respects never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between so doth a good life here flow into an eternall life without any consideration what manner of death we die But whether the gate of my prison be opened with an oyl'd key by a gentle and preparing sicknesse or the gate be hew'd down by a violent death or the gate be burnt down by a rageing and frantick feaver a gate into Heaven I shall have for from the Lord is the course of my life and with God the Lord are the issues of death And farther we carry not this second acceptation of the words as this issue of death is liberatio in morte God's care that the Soule be safe what agonie soever the body suffer in the houre of death but passe to our third and last Part as this issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by the death of another by the death of Christ Part. 3. Liberatio per mortem SufferentiaÌ„ Job audiâ—stis judistis fineÌ„ Domini saies S. Ja. 5.11 You have heard of the patience of Job saies he All this while you have done that for in every man calamitous miserable man a Job speaks Now see the end of the Lord saith that Apostle which is not that end which the Lord proposed to himself Salvation to us nor the end which he proposes to us conformity to him but See the end of the Lord saies he the end that the Lord himself came to Death and a painfull and a shamefull death But why did he die and why die so Quia Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis as Saint Augustine interpreting this Text De Civit. Dei l. 17. c. 18. answers that question because to this God our Lord belong'd these issues of Death Quid apertius diceretur sayes he there what can be more obvious more manifest then this sense of these words In the former part of the verse it is said He that is our God is the God of Salvation Deus salvos faciendi so he reads it The God that must save us Who can that be saith he but Jesus For therefore that name was given him because he was to save us And to this Jesus saith he Mat. 1.21 this Saviour belongs the issues of Death Nec oportuit cum de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis Being come into this life in our mortall nature he could not goe out of it any other way then by Death Ideo dictum saith he therefore is it said To God the Lord belong the issues of Death Ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos facturum to shew that his way to save us was to die And from this Text doth Saint Isiodore prove that Christ was truly man which as many Sects of Hereticks denied as that he was truly God because to him though he were Dominus Dominus as the Text doubles it God the Lord yet to him to God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death Oportuit cum pati more cannot be said then Christ himself saith of himself These Luk. 24.26 things Christ ought to suffer He had no other way but by Death So then this part of our Sermon must necessarily be a Passion Sermon since all his life was a continuall Passion all our Lent may well be a continual good-Friday Christ's painfull Life took off none of the pains of his Death he felt not the lesse then for having felt so much before nor will
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est