middle nature above the Philosophers and below the Scriptures the Apocryphall books and I know it is said there Comfort thy selfe for thou-shalt do him no good that is dead Ecclus. 38.6 Et teipsum pessimabis as the vulgat reads it thou shalt make thy self worse and worse in the worst degree But yet all this is but of inordinate lamentation for in the same place the same Wise man sayes My Son let thy tears fall down over the dead weep bitterly and make great moane as he is worthy When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatum est all was finished and their rage could do him no more harm when he had uttered his In manus tuas he had delivered and God had received his soul yet how did the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses and tremble in earth-quakes and dissolve and shed in pieces in the opening of the Temple Quia mortuus because he was dead Truly to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch that hand that hath governed the civill sword the sword of Justice at home and drawn and sheathed the forraigne sword the sword of war abroad to see that hand lie dead and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own wormes and then Quis homo what man though he be one of those men of whom God hath said Ye are gods yet Quis homo what man is there that lives and shall not see death To see the brain of a great and religious Counsellor and God blesse all from making all from calling any great that is not religious to see that brain that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell tables stormes in Parliaments tempests in popular commotions to see that brain produce nothing but swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse them To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted Heretiques Schismatiques all his life fall like one of them by death perchance be called one of them when he is dead To re-collect all to see great men made no men to be sure that they shall never come to us not to be sure that we shall know them when we come to them to see the Lieutenants and Images of God Kings the sinews of the State religious Counsellors the spirit of the Church zealous Prelates And then to see vulgar lgnorant wicked and facinorous men thrown all by one hand of death into one Cart into one common Tide-boate one Hospitall one Almeshouse one Prison the grave in whose dust no man can say This is the King this is the Slave this is the Bishop this is the Heretique this is the Counsellor this is the Foole even this miserable equality of so unequall persons by so foule a hand is the subject of this lamentation even Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead Iesus wept He wept even in that respect Quia non abhibita media Quia mortuus and he wept in this respect too Quia non adhibita media because those means which in appearance might have saved his life by his default were not used for when he came to the house one sister Martha sayes to him Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed and then the other sister Mary sayes so too Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed They all cry out that he who only only by comming might have saved his life would not come Our Saviour knew in himself that he abstained to better purpose and to the farther glory of God for when he heard of his death he said to his Disciples I am glad for your sakes that I was not there Christ had certain reserved purposes which conduced to a better establishing of their faith and to a better advancing of Gods Kingdome the working of that miracle But yet because others were able to say to him it was in you to have saved him and he did not even this Quia non adhibita media affected him and Iesus wept He wept Etsi quatriduanus Etsi quatriduanus though they said unto him He hath been foure dayes dead and stinkes Christ doth not say there is no such matter he doth not stink but though he do my friend shall not lack my help Good friends usefull friends though they may commit some errors and though for some misbehaviours they may stink in our nostrils must not be derelicted abandoned to themselves Many a son many a good heire findes an ill ayre from his Father his Fathers life stinkes in the nostrils of all the world and he heares every where exclamations upon his Fathers usury and extortion and oppression yet it becomes him by a betterlife and by all other means to rectifie and redeem his Fathers fame Quatriduanus est is no plea for my negligence in my family to say My son or my servant hath proceeded so far in ill courses that now it is to no purpose to go about to reform him because Quatriduanus est Quatriduanus est is no plea in my pastorall charge to say that seducers and practisers and perswaders and sollicitors for superstition enter so boldly into every family that now it is to no purpose to preach religious warinesse religious discretion religious constancy Quatriduanus est is no plea for my Usury for my Simony to say I do but as all the world doth and hath used to do a long time To preach there where reprehension of growing sin is acceptable is to preach in season where it is not acceptable it is out of season but yet we must preach in season and out of season too And when men are so refractary as that they forbeare to heare or heare and resist our preaching we must pray and where they dispise or forbid our praying we must lament them we must weep Quatriduanus erat Lazarus was far spent yet Iesus wept He wept Etsisuscitandus Though he knew that Lazarus were to be restored and raised to life again for as he meant to declare a great good will to him at last so he would utter some by the way he would do a great miracle for him as he was a mighty God but he would weep for him too as he was a good natured man Truly it is no very charitable disposition if I give all at my death to others if I keep all all my life to my self For how many families have we seen shaked ruined by this distemper that though the Father mean to alien nothing of the inheritance from the Son at his death yet because he affords him not a competent maintenance in his life he submits his Son to an encumbring of his fame with ignominious shiftings and an encumbring of the estare with irrecoverable debts I may mean to feast a man plentifully at Christmas and that man may starve before in Lent Great persons may think it in their power to give life to persons and actions by their benefits when they will and before that will be up and ready both
Bee Wise as serpents but 〈◊〉 as Dous LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE D R IN DIVINITIE LATE DEANE OF Y E CATHEDRALL CHVRCH OF S T PAVLES LONDON LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE Dr IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON in Ivie-lane and RICHARD MARRIOT in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleetstreet MDCXL TO HIS MOST SACRED MAIESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT BRITAINE FRANCE AND IRELAND Defender of the Faith c. Most dread and gracious Soveraigne IN this rumor of VVarre I am bold to present to your sacred Majestie the fruits of Peace first planted by the hand of your most Royal Father then ripened by the same gracious influence and since no lesse cherisht and protected by your Majesties especiall favour vouchsafed to the Author in so many indulgent testimonies of your good acceptance of his service VVhich grace from your Majestie as he was known to acknowledge with much comfort whilst he lived so will it give now some excuse to the presumption of this Dedication since those friends of his who think any thing of his worthy to out-live him could not preserve their piety to him without taking leave to inscribe the same with your Majesties sacred Name that so they may at once give so faire a hope of a long continuance both to these VVorks of his and to his gratitude of which they humbly desire this Book may last to be some Monument I shall not presume in this place to say much of these Sermons only this They who have been conversant in the VVorks of the holiest men of all times cannot but acknowledge in these the same spirit with which they writ reasonable Demonstrations every where in the subjects comprehensible by reason as for those things which cannot be comprehended by our reason alone they are no where made easier to faith then here and for the other part of our nature which consists in our Passions and in our Affections they are here raised and laid and governed and disposed in a manner according to the Will of the Author The Doctrine it selse which is taught here is Primitively Christian The Fathers are every where here consulted with reverence but Apostolicall Writings onely appealed to as the last Rule of Faith Lastly such is the conjuncture here of zeal and discretion that whilst it is the main scope of the Author in these Discourses that Glory be given to God this is accompanied every where with a scrupulous care and endeavour that Peace be likewise setled amongst men The leave and encouragement I have had for the publishing these Sermons from the Person most intrusted by your Majestie in the government of the Church and most highly dignified in it I think I ought in this place to mention for his honour that they who receive any benefit from hence may know in part to whom to acknowledge it and that this what ever it is is owing to him to whom they stand otherwise so deeply engaged for his providence and care next under your Majestie over the Truth and Peace and Dignity of the Church of England for which he will not want lasting acknowledgments amongst Wise and Good Men. And now having with all humblenesse commended these Sermons to your sacred Majestie from the memory of the Author your Servant from the nature and piety of the Work it self and lastly from the encouragement I have had to give it this light did I not feare to adde to my presumption I should in this place take leave to expresse the propriety betwixt your Majesties royall Vertues and the tribute of such an Offering and acknowledgement as this A Work of Devotion to the most exemplarily pious Prince a Work of moderated and discreet zeale to the Person of the most governed affections in the midst of the greatest power a Work of deep-sighted knowledge to the most discerning spirit a VVork of a strict doctrine to the most severe imposer upon himselfe and a VVork of a charitable doctrine to the most indulgent Master of others But I dare not enter into this Argument these excellencies requiring rather tacite veneration then admitting any possible equall expression and therefore with my prayer for your Majesties long and happy raigne over us I humbly aske pardon for this presumption of Your Majesties most humble and most dutifull Subject Jo DONNE THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Dr DONNE LATE DEANE OF St PAULS LONDON IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wootton Provost of Eaton Colledge lately deceased had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written It was a Work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and our Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youths that nothing but death could force the separation And though their bodies were divided that learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond the forgetfull grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of certaine particulars that concerned it Not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory would make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectified by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad newes and likewise that these Sermons were to be publisht without the Authors life which I thought was rare indignation or griefe I know not whether transported me so far that I re-viewed my forsaken Collections and resolved the world should see the best picture of the Author that my artlesse Pensil guided by the hand of Truth could present to it If I be demanded as once Pompeys poore Bondman was Plutarch whilest he was alone on the Sea shore gathering the pieces of an old Boat to burne the body of his dead Master What art thou that preparest the funeralls of Pompey the great Who I am that so officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question hath in it more of wonder then disdaine Wonder indeed the Reader may that I who professe my selfe artlesse should presume with my faint light to shew forth his life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented certaine I am it is much to the advantage of the beholder who shall see the Authors picture in a naturall dresse which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And though it may be my fortune to fall under some censures for this undertaking yet I am pleased in a beliefe I have that if the Authors glorious spirit which is now in heaven can have the leasure to look downe and see his meanest friend in the midst of his officious duty he will not disdaine my well meaning
this love-strife of desert and liberality they continued for the space of three yeares he constantly and faithfully preaching they liberally requiting him About which time the Emperour of Germany died and the Palsgrave was elected and crowned King of Bohemia the unhappy beginning of much trouble in those Kingdomes King Iames whose Motto Beati Pacifici did truly characterize his disposition endeavoured to compose the differences of that discomposed State and to that end sent the Earle of Carlile then Vicount Doncaster his Ambassadour to those unsetled Princes and by a speciall command from his Majestie D. Donne was appointed to attend the Embassage of the said Earle to the Prince of the Union For which the Earle that had long knowne and loved him was most glad So were many of the Doctors friends who feared his studies Gen. 47. and sadnesse for his wives death would as Iacob sayes make his dayes few and respecting his bodily health evill too At his going he left his friends of Lincolnes Inne and they him with many reluctations For though he could not say as S. Paul to his Ephesians Behold you to whom I have preacht the kingdome of God shall henceforth see my face no more yet he being in a Consumption questioned it and they feared it considering his troubled minde which with the helpe of his un-intermitted studies hastned the decayes of his weake body But God turned it to the best for this imployment did not onely divert him from those serious studies and sad thoughts but gave him a new and true occasion of joy to be an eye-witnesse of the health of his honoured Mistris the Queene of Bohemia in a forraigne Land who having formerly knowne him a Courtier was most glad to see him in a Canonicall habit and more glad to be an eare-witnesse of his most excellent and powerfull preaching Within fourteen moneths he returned to his friends of Lincolnes Inne with his sorrowes much moderated and his health improved About a yeare after his returne from Germany Dr Cary was made Bishop of Exeter and by his removall the Deanry of S. Pauls being vacant the King appointed Doctor Donne to waite on him at dinner the next day And his Majesty being set downe before he eat any meat said after his pleasant manner Doctor Donne I have invited you to dinner And though you sit not downe with me yet I will carve to you of a dish that I know you love you love London well I doe therefore make you Deane of Pauls take your meate home to your study say grace and much good may it doe you Immediately after he came to his Deanry he imployed workmen to repaire the Chappel belonging to his house Psal 132. Suffering as holy David once vowed his eyes and temples to take no rest untill he had first beautified the house of God The next quarter following when his Father in Law Sir George More who now admired and dearly loved him came to pay him the conditioned sum of twenty pound he denied to receive it And said to his Father Gen. 45. as good Iacob said when he beard Ioseph his sonne lived It is enough you have been kinde to me and carefull of mine I am I thanke my God provided for and will receive this money no longer And not long after freely gave up his bond of eight hundred pound Presently after he was setled in his Deanry the Vicarage of S. Dunstans in London fell to him by the death of Doctor White The advowson being formerly given to him by the right Honorable Richard Earle of Dorset a little before his death And confirmed to him by his Brother the right Honorable Edward Earle of Dorset that now lives By these and another Ecclesiasticall Endowment which fell to him about the same time he was inabled to be charitable to the poore and to make such provision for his Children that at his death they were not left scandalous to his profession and quality The next Parliament following he was chosen Prolocutor to the Convocation and about that time by the appointment of his Majesty his gracious Master did preach many occasionall Sermons All which he performed not onely with the approbation but to the admiration of the representative body of the Clergy of this Kingdome He was once and but once clouded with the Kings displeasure It was about this time occasioned by some malicious whisperer which assured the King Doctor Donne had preacht a Sermon that implied a dislike of his government particularly of his late Directions that the Evening Lectures on Sundaies should be turned into Catechizing expounding the Commandements Beliefe and Lords Prayer His Majesty was the more inclinable to beleeve this for that about the same time a person of the Nobility of great note in the Kingdome and favour with the King whom his Majesty knew Doctor Donne loved very much was discarded the Court and presently after committed to prison which begot many rumors in the multitude The King suffered not the Sunne to set till he had searcht out the truth of this report but sent presently for Doctor Donne and required his answer to the accusation which was so satisfactory That the King said he was glad he rested not under that suspition Doctor Donne protested his answer was faithfull and free from all Collusion And therefore begged of his Majesty that he might not rise being then kneeling before he had as in like cases he alwayes had from God some assurance that he stood cleere and faire in his Majesties opinion The King with his own hand did or offered to raise him from his knees and protested he was truly satisfied that he was an honest man and loved him Presently his Majesty called some Lords of his Councell into his Chamber and said with much earnestnesse My Doctor is an honest man And my Lords I was never more joyed in anything that I have done then in making him a Divine He was made Deane in the fiftieth yeare of his age And in the fifty fourth yeare a dangerous sicknesse seised him which turned to a spotted Feaver and ended in a Cough that inclined him to a Consumption But God as Iob thankfully acknowledgeth preserved his spirit keeping his intellectualls as cleere and perfect as when that sicknesse first seised his body And as his health increased so did his thankfulnesse testified in his booke of Devotions A book that may not unfitly be called A composition of holy Extasies occasioned and appliable to the Emergencies of that sicknesse which booke being Meditations in his sicknesse he writ on his sicke bed herein imitating the holy Patriarchs Gen. 12.7.8 Gen. 28.18 who were wont in that place to build their Altars where they had received their blessing This sicknesse brought him to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devoure him that he calls his recovery supernaturall But God restored his health and continued it untill the fifty-ninth yeare of his life And then in
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
swore by himselfe because he could propose no greater thing in himself no clearer notion of himself then life for his life is his eternity and his eternity is himselfe does therefore through all the Law and the Prophets still sweare in that form Vivo ego vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and as the Lord liveth still he sweares by his own life As that solemne Oath which is mentioned in Daniel is conceived in that form too He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven Dan. 12.7 and swore by him that liveth for ever that is by God and God in that notion as he is life All that the Queen and the Councell could wish and apprecate to the King was but that Life In sempiternum vive vive in aeternum O King live for ever God is life Dan. 5. and would not the death of any We are not sure that stones have not life stones may have life neither to speak humanely is it unreasonably thought by them that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soule and to be one intire living creature and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before the Sun 1 Tim. 5.6 because a fly hath life and the Sun hath not This is the worst that the Apostle sayes of the young wanton widow That if she live in pleasure she is dead whilst she lives So is that Magistrate that studies nothing but his own honour and dignity in his place dead in his place And that Priest that studies nothing but his owne ease and profit dead in his living And that Judge that dares not condemne a guilty person And which is the bolder transgression dares condemne the innocent deader upon the Bench then the Prisoner at the Barre God hath included all that is good Dcut. 30.15 in the name of Life and all that is ill in the name of Death when he sayes See I have set before thee Vitam Bonum Life and Good Mortem Malum Death and Evill This is the reward proposed to our faith Hab. 2.4 Iustus fide sua vivit To live by our faith And this is the reward proposed to our works Fac hoc vives to live by our works All is life And this fulnesse this consummation of happinesse Life and the life of life spirituall life and the exaltation of spirituall life eternall life is the end of Christs comming I came that they might have life And first Vt daret ut daret that he might give life bring life into the world that there might be life to be had that the world might be redeemed from that losse which S. Augustine sayes it was falne into Perdidimus possibilitatem boni That we had all lost all possibility of life For the heaven and the earth and all that the Poet would call Chaos was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters then Mankind was before the influence of Christs comming wrought upon it But now that God so loved the world as that he gave his Son now that the Son so loved the world as that he gave himselfe Psal 19.6 as David sayes of the Sun of the firmament the father of nature Nihit absconditum there is nothing hid from the heat thereof so we say of this Son of God the Father of the faithfull in a far higher sense then Abraham was called so Nihilabsconditum there is nothing hid from him no place no person excluded from the benefit of his comming The Son hath paid the Father hath received enough for all not in fingle money for the discharge of thy lesser debts thy idle words thy wanton thoughts thy unchast looks but in massie talents to discharge thy crying debts the clamors of those poore whom thou hast oppressed and thy thundring debts those blasphemies by which thou hast torne that Father that made thee that Sonne that redeemed thee that boly Ghost that would comfort thee 1 Reg. 5. There is enough given but then as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the Temple but there was something else to be done for the fitting and placing thereof so there is life enough brought into the world for all the world by the death of Christ but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons intended in this word in our Text ut haberent I came that they might have life There is Ayre enough in the world Vt haberent to give breath to every thing though every thing doe not breath If a tree or a stone doe not breathe it is not because it wants ayre but because it wants meanes to receive it or to returne it All egges are not hatched that the hen sits upon Matt. 23.37 neither could Christ himselfe get all the chickens that were hatched to come and to stay under his wings That man that is blinde or that will winke shall see no more sunne upon S. Barnabies day then upon S. Lucies no more in the summer then in the winter solstice Psal 130.7 And therefore as there is copiosa redemptio a plentifull redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ so as S. Paul found it in his particular conversion there is copiosa lux Acts 22.6 a great a powerfull light exhibited to us that we might see and lay hold of this life in the Ordinances of the Church in the Confessions and Absolutions and Services and Sermons and Sacraments of the Church Christ came ut daret that he might bring life into the world by his death and then he instituted his Church ut haberent that by the meanes thereof this life might be infused into us and infused so as the last word of our Text delivers it Abundantiùs I came that they might have life more abundantly Dignaris Domine Abūdantiùs August ut eis quibus debita dimittis te promissionibus tuis debitorem facias This O Lord is thine abundant proceeding First thou forgivest me my debt to thee and then thou makest thy selfe a debter to me by thy large promises and after all performest those promises more largely then thou madest them Indeed God can doe nothing scantly penuriously singly Even his maledictions to which God is ever loth to come his first commination was plurall it was death and death upon death Morte morieris Death may be plurall but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular Chajim which is the word for life hath no singular number This is the difference betweene Gods Mercy and his Judgements that sometimes his Judgements may be plurall complicated enwrapped in one another but his Mercies are alwayes so and cannot be otherwise he gives them abundantiùs more abundantly More abundantly then to whom Illis gentibus The naturall man hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule eternity is God himselfe man hath not
ordained that upon this day the Church should burne no Oyle but Balsamum in her Lamps so let us ever celebrate this day with a thankfull acknowledgment that Christ who is unctus Domini The Anointed of the Lord hath anointed us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes and given us life more abundantly then others in making us partakers of these meanes of salvation in his Church But I bring it closer then so now and here within these wals and at this houre comes Christ unto you in the offer of this abundance and with what penuriousnesse penuriousnesse of devotion penuriousnesse of reverence do you meet him here Deus stetit saies David Psal 82.1 God standeth in the Congregation does God stand there and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele I would speake so as the congregation should not know whom I meane but so as that they whom it concernes might know I meane them I would speake for I must say that there come some persons to this Church and persons of example to many that come with them of whom excepting some few who must therefore have their praise from us as no doubt they have their thanks and blessings from God I never saw Master nor servant kneele at his comming into this Church or at any part of divine service David had such a zeale to Gods service as that he was content to be thought a foole for his humility towards the Arke S. Paul was content to be thought mad so was our blessed Saviour himselfe not onely by his enemies but by his owne friends and kinsfolke John 10.20 Mar. 3.21 Indeed the roote of that word Tehillim which is the name of the Psalmes and of all cheerefull and hearty service of God is Halal and Halal is Insanire To fall mad And if humility in the service of God here be madnesse I would more of us were more out of our wits then we are I would all our Churches were to that purpose Bedlams S. Hieroms rule is not onely frequenter orandum to come often to prayers but Flexo corpore orandum to declare an inward humiliation by an outward As our comming to Church is a testification a profession of our religion to testifie our fall in Adam the Church appoints us to fall upon our knees and to testifie our Resurrection in Christ Jesus Just Mar. the Church hath appointed certaine times to stand But no man is so left to his liberty as never to kneele Genuflexio est peccatorum kneeling is the sinners posture if thou come hither in the quality of a sinner and if thou do not so what doest thou here the whole need not the Physitian put thy selfe into the posture of a sinner kneele We are very far from enjoyning any one constant forme to be alwaies observed by all men we onely direct you by that good rule of S. Bernard Habe reverentiam Deo ut quod pluris est ei tribuas Doe but remember with what reverence thou camest into thy Masters presence when thou wast a servant with what reverence thou camest to the Councell table or to the Kings presence if thou have beene called occasionally to those high places and Quod plur is est such reverence as thou gavest to them there be content to afford to God here That Sacrifice that struggled at the Altar the Ancients would not accept for a Sacrifice But Caesar would not forbeare a sacrifice for struggling but sacrificed it for all that He that struggles and murmures at this instruction this increpation is the lesse fit for a sacrifice to God for that But the zeale that I bear to Gods house puts so much of Caesars courage into mee as for all that struggling to say now and to repeat as often as I see that irreverence continued to the most impatient struggler Deus stetit God stands in the Congregation and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele Venite saies David Let us come hither let us be here what to doe Venite adoremus Ps 95.6 Let us come and worship How will not the heart serve no Adoremus procidamus Let us fall downe and kneele before the Lord our Maker Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification and as without this without holinesse no man shall see God though he pore whole nights upon the Bible so without that without humility no man shall heare God speake to his soule though hee heare three two-houres Sermons every day But if God bring thee to that humiliation of soule and body here hee will emprove and advance thy sanctification abundantiùs more abundantly and when he hath brought it to the best perfection that this life is capable of he will provide another abundantiùs another maner of abundance in the life to come which is the last beating of the pulse of this text the last panting of the breath thereof our anhelation and panting after the joyes and glory and eternity of the kingdome of Heaven of which though for the most part I use to dismisse you with saying something yet it is alwaies little that I can say thereof at this time but this that if all the joyes of all the Martyrs from Abel t◠him that groanes now in the Inquisition were condensed into one body of joy and certainly the joyes that the Martyrs felt at their deaths would make up a far greater body then their sorrowes would doe for though it bee said of our great Martyr or great Witnesse Apoc. 1.5 as S. Iohn calls Christ Jesus to whom all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs witnesses that testifie his testimony Non dolor sicut dolor ejus there was never sorrow like unto his sorrow Lam. 3.12 Heb. 12.2 it is also true Non gaudium sicut gaudium ejus There was never joy like unto that joy which was set before him when he endured the crosse If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs which would no doubt be such a joy as would worke a liquefaction a melting of my bowels yet I shall have it abundantiùs a joy more abundant then even this superlative joy in the world to come What a dimme vespers of a glorious festivall what a poore halfe-holyday is Methusalems nine hundred yeares to eternity what a poore account hath that man made that saies this land hath beene in my name and in my Ancestors from the Conquest what a yesterday is that not six hundred yeares If I could beleeve the transmigration of soules and thinke that my soule had beene successively in some creature or other since the Creation what a yesterday is that not six thousand yeares What a yesterday for the past what a to morrow for the future is any terme that can be comprehendred in Cyphar or Counters But as how abundant a life soever any man hath in this world for temporall abundances I have life more abundantly then hee if I have the spirituall life of grace so what measure soever I have of this spirituall life of
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrâ—â— 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receâ—â—ing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
from sin Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator Grego No man falls lower then he that falls into a course of sin Sin is a fall It is not onely a deviation a turning out of the way upon the right or the left hand but it is a sinking a falling In the other case of going out of the way a man may stand upon the way and inquire and then proceed in the way if he be right or to the way if he be wrong But when he is fallen and lies still he proceeds no farther inquires no farther To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion stops and retards a man in the way to mistake some points in the truth of religion puts a man for that time in a wrong way But to fall into a course of sin this makes him unsensible of any end that he hath to goe to of any way that he hath to goe by God hath not removed man not with-drawne man from this Earth he hath not given him the Aire to flie in as to Birds nor Spheares to move in as to Sun and Moone he hath left him upon the Earth and not onely to tread upon it as in contempt or in meere Dominion but to walk upon it in the discharge of the duties of his calling and so to be conversant with the Earth is not a falling But as when man was nothing but earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the earth his mouth kissed the earth his hands embraced the earth his eyes respected the earth And then God breathed the breath of life into him and that raised him so farre from the earth as that onely one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it And yet man so raised by God by sin fell lower to the earth againe then before from the face of the earth to the womb to the bowels to the grave So God finding the whole man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Originall sin yet erects us by a new breath of life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower then before we were raised from Originall into Actuall into Habituall sins So low as that we think not that we need know not that there is a resurrection and that is the wonderfull that is the fearfull fall Though those words Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo Lucifer Esay 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels yet it is evident that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man It deserves wonder more then pity that man whom God had raised to so Noble a heighth in him should fall so low from him Man was borne to love he was made in the love of God but then man falls in love when he growes in love with the creature he falls in love As we are bid to honour the Physitian and to use the Physitian but yet it is said in the same Chapter Ecclus. 38.1 V. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hands of the Physitian It is a blessing to use him it is a curse to rely upon him so it is a blessing to glorifie God in the right use of his creatures but to grow in love with them is a fall For we love nothing that is so good as our selves Beauty Riches Honour is not so good as man Man capable of grace here of glory hereafter Nay as those things which we love in their nature are worse then we which love them so in our loving them we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are by over-loving the beauty of the body we corrupt the soule by overloving honour and riches we deflect and detort these things which are not in their nature ill to ill uses and make them serve our ill purposes Man falls as a fall of waters that throwes downe and corrupts all that it embraces Nay beloved when a man hath used those wings which God hath given him and raised himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge and religious practise Acts 29.9 as Eutichus out of a desire to hear Paul preach was got up into a Chamber and up into a window of that Chamber and yet falling asleep fell downe dead so we may fall into a security of our present state into a pride of our knowledge or of our purity and so fall lower then they who never came to our heighth So much need have we of a resurrection So sin is a fall and every man is affraid of falling even from his temporall station Mâ—rs Clem. Alex. more affraid of falling then of not beeing raised And Qui peccat quatenus peccat fit seipso deterior In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before In every sin he is dishonoured he is not so good a man as he was impoverished he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had Infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisedome of the feare of God as he had disarmed he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that he had and deformed he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before In every sin we become prodigals but in the habit of sin we become bankrupts affraid to come to an account A fall is a fearfull thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a resurrection is as great a work as the very Creation it selfe It is death in semine in the roote it produces it brings forth death It is death in arbore in the body in it selfe death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spirituall death and this death produces more sin Obduration Impenitence and the like Be pleased to returne and cast one halfe thought upon each of these Sin is the roote of death Death by sin entred and death passed upon all men for all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 It is death because we shall dye for it But it is death in it selfe We are dead already dead in it Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead was spoken to a whole Church Apoc. 3.1 It is not evidence enough to prove that thou art alive to say I saw thee at a Sermon that spirit that knowes thy spirit he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon melted by a Sermon mended by a Sermon he knows whether thou be alive or no. That which had wont to be said That dead men walked in Churches is too true Men walk out a Sermon or walk out after a Sermon as ill as they walked in they have a name that they live Iohn 5.25 and are dead But the houre is come and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God That is at
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ— Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â—0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
then Christ is not raised As sure as the head is V. 16. so sure the body is raised And then another Topique from whence he produces arguments is the absurd consequences and illations that would follow if there were no resurrection Of that kinde one is Nos miserrimi If in this life onely we have hops in Christ V. 19. we are of all men the most miserable Why because in this life we suffer persecution for this profession And another is Edamus bibamus Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye V. 32. What needs this abstinence and this severe denying our selves the conveniencies of this life if all end in this life And lastly in the same kinde followes this Text Si omnino mortui non excitentur If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead And by all these wayes doth the Apostle convay this knowledge of the Resurrection But would all these wayes serve Resurrectio mysterium would all this satisfie that Inquisition which wee have brought how this assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us Would any of these reasons or would all these reasons convince a man who were not at all prepossessed and preoccupated with a beliefe of the resurrection with an assurance thereof The resurrection was alwaies a mystery in it selfe Sacrum secretum a holy secret and above the search of reason For there are secrets and mysteries of two kindes as the Schoole presents them some things are so Quia quaedam interposita Because though the thing be near enough unto me yet somthing is interposed between me and it and so I cannot see it And somethings are so Quia longè seposita because they are at so remote a distance as that though nothing be interposed yet my sight cannot extend to them In the first sense the Sacraments are mysteries because though the grace therein bee neare mee yet there is Velamen interpositum there is visible figure a sensible signe and seale between me and that grace which is exhibited to me in the Sacrament In the second sense the resurrection is a mystery because it is so farre removed as that it concernes our state and condition in the next world For man sleepeth and riseth not Job 14.12 hee shall not wake againe nor be raised from his sleep till the heavens be no more that is not till the dissolution of all So then the knowledge of the resurrection in it selfe is a mystery Resurrectio Christs mysterium removed out of the Spheare and latitude of reason And to consider this remotenesse farther though the knowledge of Christ Resurrection be nearer us then our owne for first we know his because from his we argue and conclude our owne as the Apostle institutes his argument If the dead rise not Christ is not risen yet even the Resurrection of Christ V. 16. was so far from being cleare and obvious to the best and the best illumined understandings as that though Christ himselfe had spoken often of his Resurrection to his Disciples and Apostles yet they did not clearly throughly scarce at all understand his Resurrection When Christ said to the Jews promiscuously Solvite Templum hoc Destroy this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it I wonder not that they blinded with their own malice discerned no resurrection in that saying but applied it to that Temple which was forty sixe yeares in building For till the resurrection was really accomplished and actually performed the Apostles themselves understood not the Resurrection Then when Christ was risen from the dead and that those two great Apostles Peter and Iohn had been at the Sepulchre and received from thence so much evidence as convinced them and prevailed upon them then and not till then they began to understand the resurrection for John 22.9 till then sayes the Text expresly there they knew not the Scriptures that he must rise from the dead And truly Etiam post Resurrectionem if we take a holy liberty as piously we may to consider Christs bodily actions after his resurrection they were not such as without admitting any opposition might induce a necessity of confessing a resurrection For though he exhibited himself to their eyes to be seene and to their eares to be heard and to their fingers to be felt though he eate with them and did many other actions of a living body yet as the Angels in the old Testament did the like actions in those bodies which they had assumed so might Christ have done all these in such a body though that which was buried in the Sepulchre had had no resurrection It is true that Christ confirmed his Resurrection Multis argumentis as the vulgat reads that place Acts 1.3 with many infallible tokens sayes our former Translation with many infallible proofes sayes our later But still all these arguments and tokens and proofes wrought by way of confirmation something was otherwise imprinted in them and established by a former apprehension of faith and these arguments and tokens and proofes confirmed it For the reasons for the resurrection doe not convince a naturall man at all neither doe they so convince a Christian but that there is more left to his faith and he beleeves something beyond and above his reason The resurrection in it self Resurrectio nostra mysterium Christs Resurrection though it be clearer then ours Christs Resurrection even after it was actually accomplished was still a mystery out of the compasse of reason And then as it was above our reason so howsoever it be out proofe and our patterne for our resurrection yet it is above our imitation For our resurrection shall not be like his Omnes alii suscitati Christus solus resurrexit sayes S. Bernard All we shall be raised from the dead onely Christ arose from the dead We shall be raised by a power working upon us he rose by a power inherent and resident in himselfe And yet though in this respect our resurrection be more open to the proofe of reason then the resurrection of Christ for that which hath least miracle in it is most open to reason and therefore a naturall man would easilier beleeve that God might raise a dead man then that a dead man should be God and so able to raise himselfe which was Christs case for the God-head of Christ was as much united to his dead body in the grave as it was to his soule in Paradise or to his whole person consisting of body and soule before or after his death and resurrection Though in this respect I say our resurrection be more open to reason because it hath lesse of the miracle in it yet when we come to assigne reasons even for our resurrection as we see Athanagoras hath undertaken with a great deale of wit and learning and confidence in his Apology for the Christians to the Emperour within 155. yeares after Christ and the Schoole-men make account that
Reddiderunt not Acceperunt By faith They that is the Prophets restored the dead not By faith They that is the mothers received their dead But God forbid that naturall affections even in an exaltation and vehement expressing thereof should be thought to destroy faith God forbid that I should conclude an extermination of faith in Moses Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Book or in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he desired to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should or in Iob or in Ieremy or in Ionas when they expostulate and chide with God himself out of a wearinesse of their lives or in the Lord of Life himself Christ Jesus when he came to an Vt quid dereliquisti To an apprehension that God had forsaken him upon the Crosse God that could restore her cold childe could keep his childe her faith alive in those hot embers of Passion So God did But he did it thus The childe was taken from the mothers warm and soft bosome and carried to the Prophets hard and cold bed Beloved we die in our delicacies and revive not but in afflictions In abundancies the blow of death meets us and the breath of life in misery and tribulation God puts himself to the cost of one of his greatest Miracles for her Faith He raises her childe to life And then he makes up his own work he continues with that childe and makes him a good man There are men whom even Miracles will not improve but this childe we will not dispute it Proâ—â—m in Ionam but accept it from S. Ierome who relates it became a Prophet It was that very Ionas whom God imployed to Ninive in which Service he gave some signes whose Son he was and how much of his mothers passion he inherited in his vehement expostulations with God Be this then our doctrinall instruction for this first example the Widow of Zareptha first that God thinks nothing too deare for his faithfull Children not his great Treasure not his Miracles And then God preserves this faith of theirs in contemplation of which only he bestows this Treasure this Miracle in the midst of the stormes of naturall affections and the tempest of distempered passions and then lastly that he proceeds and goes on in his own goodnesse Here he makes a Carkasse a Man and then that man a Prophet Every day he makes a dead soul a soul again and then that soul a Saint The other example in this point is that Shunamite 2 Reg. 4. whose dead son Elisha restored to life In the beginning of that Chapter you heare of another Widow A certaine woman of the wives of the sons of the Prophets cryed unto Elisha Thy servant my husband is dead And truly a Widow of one of the sons of the Prophets a Church-mans Widow was like enough to be poore enough And yet the Prophet doth not turne upon that way either to restore her dead husband or to provide her another husband but onely enquires how she was left and finding her in poore estate and in debt provides her meanes to pay her debts and to bring up her children and to that purpose procures a miracle from God in the abundant increase of her oyle but he troubles not God for her old or for a new husband But our example to which the Apostle in our Text referres himselfe is not this Widow in the beginning but that Mother in the body of the Chapter who having by Elisha's prayers obtained a Son of God after she was past hope and that Son being dead in her lap in her also as in the former example we may consider how Passion and Faith may consist together She asks her husband leave V. 22. That she might run to the Prophet her zeale her passionate zeale hastned her she would run but not without her husbands leave As S. Ierome forbids a Lady to suffer her daughter to goe to what Churches she would so may there be indiscretion at least to suffer wives to goe to what meetings though holy Convocations they will she does not harbour in her house a person dangerous to the Publike State or to her husbands private state nor a person likely to solicite her chastity though in a Prophets name We may finde women that may have occasion of going to Confession for something that their Confessors may have done to them In this womans case there was no disguise She would faine goe and run but not without her husbands knowledge and allowance Her husband asks her Why she would goe to the Prophet then being neither Sabbath V. 23. nor new Moone He acknowledges that God is likelier to conferre blessings upon Sabbaths and new Moones upon some dayes rather then other That all dayes are not alike with God then when he by his ordinance hath put a difference between them And he acknowledges too that though the Sabbath be the principall of those dayes which God hath seposed for his especiall working yet there are new Moones too there are other Holy-dayes for holy Convocations and for his Divine and Publique Worship besides the Sabbath But this was neither Sabbath nor new Moone neither Sunday nor Holy-day Why would she goe upon that day Beloved though for publique meetings in publique places the Sabbaths and Holy-dayes be the proper dayes yet for conference and counsell and other assistances from the Prophets and Ministers of God all times are seasonable all dayes are Sabbaths She goes to the Prophet she presses with so much passion and so much faith too and so good successe for she had her dead son restored unto her that as from the other so from this example arises this That in a heart absolutely surrendred to God vehement expostulation with God and yet full submission to God and a quiet acquiescence in God A storme of affections in nature and yet a setled calme and a fast anchorage in grace a suspition and a jealousie and yet an assurance and a confidence in God may well consist together In the same instant that Christ said Si possibile he said Veruntamen too though he desired that that cup might passe yet he desired not that his desire should be satisfied In the same instant that the Martyrs under the Altar say Vsque quò Domine How long Lord before thou execute judgement they see that he does execute judgement every day in their behalfe All jealousie in God does not destroy our assurance in him nor all diffidence our confidence nor all feare our faith These women had these naturall weaknesses that is this strength of affections and passions and yet by this faith these women received their dead raised to life againe But yet which is a last consideration Foeminile and our conclusion of this part this being thus put onely in women in the weaker sexe that they desired that they rejoyced in this resuscitation of the dead may well intimate thus much unto us that
and is implyed in this name Children of God Heires of heaven which is not a Gavel-kinde every son every man alike but it is an universall primogeniture every man full so full as that every man hath all in such measure as that there is nothing in heaven which any man in heaven wants Heires of the joyes of heaven Joy in a continuall dilatation of thy heart to receive augmentation of that which is infinite in the accumulation of essentiall and accidentall joy Joy in a continuall melting of indissoluble bowels in joyfull and yet compassionate beholding thy Saviour Rejoycing at thy being there and almost lamenting in a kinde of affection which we can call by no name that thou couldst not come thither but by those wounds which are still wounds though wounds glorified Heires of the joy and heires of the glory of heaven where if thou look down and see Kings fighting for Crownes thou canst look off as easily as from boyes at stool-ball for points here And from Kings triumphing after victories as easily as a Philosopher from a Pageant of children here Where thou shalt not be subject to any other title of Dominion in others but Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews nor ambitious of any other title in thy selfe but that which thou possessest To be the childe of God Heires of joy heires of glory and heires of the eternity of heaven Where in the possession of this joy and this glory The Angels which were there almost 6000. yeares before thee and so prescribe and those soules which shall come at Christs last comming and so enter but then shall not survive thee but they and thou and all shall live as long as he that gives you all that life as God himselfe Heires to heaven and co-heires with Christ There is much to be said of that circumstance but who shall say it I that should say it have said ill of it already in calling it a Circumstance To be co-heires with Christ is that Essentiall salvation it selfe and to that he intitled us when after his Resurrection he said of us John 20.17 Goe tell my brethren that I am gone When he was but borne of a woman and submitted to the law when in his minority he was but a Carpenter and at full age but a Preacher when they accused him in generall that he was a Malefactor or else they would not have delivered him John 18.30 but they knew not the name of his fault when a fault of secular cognizance was objected to him that he moved sedition that he denied tribute And then a fault of Ecclesiasticall cognizance that he spoke against the Law and against the Temple when Barrabas a seditious murderer was preferred before him and saved and yet two theeves left to accompany him in his torment and death in these diminutions of Christ there was no great honour no great cause why any man should have any great desire to be of his kindred to be brother or co-heire to his Crosse But if to be his brethren when he had begun his triumph in his Resurrection were a high dignity what is it to be co-heires with him in heaven after his Ascension But these are inexpressible unconceivable things bring it backe to that which is nearest us to those seales and marks which wee have in this life That by a holy a sanctified passage through this life and out of this life from our first seale in Baptisme to our last seale upon our death-bed The Spirit may beare witnesse to our spirit that we are the children of God Amen SERM. XXXV Preached upon Whitsunday MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men AS when a Merchant hath a faire and large a deep and open Sea into that Harbour to which hee is bound with his Merchandize it were an impertinent thing for him to sound and search for lands and rocks and clifts which threaten irreparable shipwrack so we being bound to the heavenly City the new Jerusalem by the spacious and bottomelesse Sea the blood of Christ Jesus having that large Sea opened unto us in the beginning of this Text All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men It may seeme an impertinent diversion to turne into that little Creek nay upon that desperate and irrecoverable rock The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven to men But there must be Discoverers as well as Merchants for the security of Merchants who by storme and tempest or other accidents may be cast upon those sands and rocks if they be not knowne they must be knowne So though we faile on with a merry gale and full sailes with the breath of the holy Ghost in the first Part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men yet we shall not leave out the discovery of that fearfull and ruinating rock too But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men I would divide the Text and fewer Parts then two we cannot make and this Text hath scarce two Parts The whole Text is a conveiance it is true but there is a little Proviso at the end The whole Text is a rule it is true but there is an exception at the end The whole text is a Royall Palace it is true but there is a Sewar a Vault behinde it Christ had said all that of himselfe he would have said when he said the first part All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men But the iniquity of the Pharisees extorted thus much more But the blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men The first part is the sentence the proposition and the sense is perfect in that All manner of sin c. The last part is but a Parenthesis which Christ had rather might have been left out but the Pharisees and their perversenesse inserted But the blasphemy c. But since it deserves and requires our consideration as well that the mercy of God can have any stop any rub determine any where as that it can extend and spread it selfe so farre as it doth in this text let us make them two parts And in the first consider with comfort the largenesse the expansion of Gods mercy that there is but one sin that it reacheth not to And in the second let us consider with feare and trembling that there is one sin so swelling so high as that even the mercy of God does not reach to it And in the first we shall proceed thus in the magnifying Gods mercy first in the first terme Sin we shall see that sin is even a wound a violence upon God and then Omne peccatum Every sin is so and nothing is so various so divers as sin and even that sin that amounts to Blasphemy a sin not onely conceived in the thought but expressed in
unto all men and then herein also is Gods mercy to man magnified that it is to man that is only to man Nothing can fall into this comparison Non Angelis but Angels and Angels shall not be forgiven We shall be like the Angels we shall participate of their glory which stand But the Angels shall never be like us never return to mercy after they are fallen They were Primogeniti Dei Gods first born and yet disinherited and disinherited without any power at least without purpose of revocation without annuities without pensions without any present supply without any future hope When the Angels were made and when they fell we dispute but when they shall return falls not into question Howsoever Origen vary in himselfe or howsoever he fell under that jealousie or misinterpretation that he thought the devill should be saved at last I am sure his books that are extant have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting and irreparable condemnation To judge by our evidence the evidence of Scriptures for their sin and the evidence of our conscience for ours there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels but of man and redeemed us Iude 6. having reserved them in everlasting chaines under darknesse How long Vnto the judgement of the great day sayes that Apostle And is it but till then then to have an end Alas no It is not untill that day but unto that day not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have but inflict accidentall torments which they have not yet That is an utter evacuation of that power of seducing which till that day come they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men To that are they reserved and we to that glory which they have lost and lost for ever and upon us is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually Ver. 2. Mercy and peace and love is multiplied unto us for sin and all sin blasphemy and blasphemy against the Son shall be that is is not nor was not but may be forgiven to men to all men to none but men And so we passe to our second part In this second part 2. Part. Divisio which seemes to present a banke even to this Sea this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens to the mercy of God we shall proceed thus First we shall inquire but modestly what that blasphemy which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost is And secondly how and wherein it is irremissible that it shall never be forgiven And then thirdly upon what places of Scripture it is grounded amongst which if this text do not constitute and establish that sin The sin against the holy Ghost yet we shall finde that that sin which is directly intended in this text is a branch of that sin The sin against the holy Ghost And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence to arme you with some instructions against those wayes which leade into that irrecoverable destruction into that irremissible sin for though the sin it self be not so evident yet the limmes of the sin and the wayes to the sin are plain enough S. Augustine sayes Quid. There is no question in the Scripture harder then this what this sin is And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this Sicut una divinitas una offensa As there is but one Godhead so there is no sin against God and all sin is so but it is against the whole Trinity and that is true but as there are certain attributes proper to every severall person of the Trinity so there are certaine sins more directly against the severall attributes and properties of those persons and in such a consideration against the persons themselves Of which there are divers sins against power and they are principally against the Father for to the Father we attribute power and divers sins against wisdome and wisdome we attribute to the Son and divers against goodnesse and love and these we attribute to the holy Ghost Of those against the holy Ghost considered in that attribute of goodnesse and of love the place to speak will be in our conclusion But for this particular sin The sin against the holy Ghost as hard as S. Augustine makes it and justly yet he sayes too Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis non decipere falsitate sententiae God would exercise us with a hard question but he would not deceive us with a false opinion Quid sit quaeri voluit non negari God would have us modestly inquire what it is not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin It is for the most part agreed that it is a totall falling away from the Gospell of Christ Jesus formerly acknowledged and professed into a verball calumniating and a reall persecuting of that Gospel with a deliberate purpose to continue so to the end and actually to do so to persevere till then and then to passe away in that disposition It fals only upon the professors of the Gospell and it is totall and it is practicall and it is deliberate and it is finall Here we have that sin but by Gods grace that sinner no where It is therefore somewhat early somewhat forwardly pronounced though by a reverend man Certum reprobationis signum in spiritum blasphemia That it is an infallible assurance Calvin that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost For whatsoever is an infallible signe must be notorious to us If we must know another thing by that as a signe we must know that thing which is our signe in it selfe And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is Did we ever heare any man say or see any man doe any thing against the holy Ghost of whom we might say upon that word or upon that action This man can never repent never be received to mercy And yet sayes he Tenendum est quod qui exciderint nunquam resurgent We are bound to hold that they who fall so shall never rise again I presume he grounded himselfe in that severe judgement of his upon such places as that to the Romanes Rom. 1.18 When they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate minde That that is the ordinary way of Gods justice to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit but S. Paul blasphemed and S. Peter blasphemed and yet were not divorced from God S. Augustines rule is good not to judge of this sin and this sinner especially but à posteriori from his end from his departing out of this world Neither though I doe see an ill life sealed with an ill death dare I be too forward in this judgement He was not a Christian in profession but worse then he are
called Christians that said Qui pius est summè Philosophatur The charitable man is the great Philosopher Trismeg and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee and hope that he hath done so upon another It is a moderation to be imbraced that Peter Martyr leads us to The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits we have not And therefore though by way of definition we may say This is that sin yet by way of demonstration let us say of no man This is that sinner I may say of no man This sin in thee is irremissible Now in considering this word Irremissible That it cannot be forgiven wee finde it to be a word rather usurped by the Schoole then expressed in the Scriptures Irremissibilitas for in all those three Euangelists where this fearfull denunciation is interminated still it is in a phrase of somewhat more mildnesse then so It is It shall not be forgiven It is not it cannot be forgiven It is an irremission it is not an irremissiblenesse Absolutely there is not an impossibility and irremissiblenesse on Gods part but yet some kinde of impossibility there is on his part and on ours too For if he could forgive this sin he would or else his power were above his mercy and his mercy is above all his works But God can doe nothing that implies contradiction and God having declared by what meanes onely his mercy and forgivenesse shall be conveyed to man God should contradict himselfe if he should give forgivenesse to them who will fully exclude those meanes of mercy And therefore it were not boldly nor irreverently said That God could not give grace to a beast nor mercy to the Devill because either they are naturally destitute or have wilfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace and mercy When we consider that God the Father whom as the roote of all we consider principally in the Creation created man in a possibility and ability to persist in that goodnesse in which he created him And consider that God the Son came and wrought a reconciliation for man to God and so brought in a treasure in the nature thereof a sufficient ransome for all the world but then a man knowes not this or beleeves not this otherwise then Historically Morally Civilly and so evacuates and shakes off God the Son And then consider that the holy Ghost comes and presents meanes of applying all this and making the generall satisfaction of Christ reach and spread it selfe upon my soule in particular in the preaching of the Word in the seales of the Sacraments in the absolution of the Church and I preclude the wayes and shut up my selfe against the holy Ghost and so evacuate him and shake him off when I have resisted Father Son and holy Ghost is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me If I blaspheme that is deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost my sin is irremissible therefore because there is no body left to forgive it nor way left wherein forgivenesse should work upon me So farre it is irremissible on Gods part and on mine too And then take it there in that state of irremissiblenesse and consider seriously the fearefulnesse of it Mat. 5.22 I have been angry and then as Christ tells me I have been in danger of a judgement but in judgement I may have counsell I may be heard I have said Racha expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Councell but a Councell does but consult what punishment is fit to be inflicted and so long there is hope of mitigation and commutation of penance But I have said fatue I have called my brother foole and so am in danger of hell fire August Chrysost In the first there is Ira an inward commotion an irregular distemper In the second there is Ira vox In the first it is but Ira carnis non animi It is but my passion it is not I that am angry but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it selfe but in the third there is Ira vox vituperatio A distemper within a declaration to evill example without and an injury and defamation to a third person and this exalts the offence to the height But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost in all the other cases there is danger danger of judgement danger of a Councell danger of hell but here is irremissiblenesse hell it selfe and no avoiding of hell no cooling in hell no deliverance from hell Irremissible Those hands that reached to the ends of the world in creating it span the world in preserving it and stretched over all in redeeming it those hands have I manacled that they cannot open unto me That tendernesse that is affected to all have I damped retarded that pronenesse stupified that alacrity confounded that voyce diverted those eyes that are naturally disposed to all And all this Irremissibly for ever not though he would but because he will not shew mercy not though I would but because I cannot ask mercy And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin from which there is no returning no redemption We are come now In quibus Script in our order to our third and last Branch of this last Part That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost is not a dreame of the Schoole-men though they have spoken many things frivolously of it but grounded in evident places of Scriptures Amongst which we looke especially how farre this Text conduces to that Doctrine There are two places ordinarily cited which seeme directly to concerne this sin and two others which to me seeme not to doe so Those of the first kinde are both in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Heb. 6.4 There the Apostle sayes For those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost If they fall away it is impossible to renew them by repentance Now if finall impenitence had been added there could have been no question but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost And because the Apostle speaks of such a totall falling away as precludes all way of repentance it includes finall impenitence and so makes up that sin The other place from which it rises most pregnantly Heb. 10.29 is Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace Ver. 26. As he had said before If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation But yet though from these places there arises evidence that such a sin there is as naturally shuts out
repentance and so is thereby irremissible yet there arise no markes by which I can say This man is such a sinner not though hee himselfe would sweare to me that he were so now and that he would continue so till death The other places that doe not so directly concerne this sin and yet are sometimes used in this affaire 1 Iohn 5.16 are one in S. Iohn and this text another That in S. Iohn is There is a sin unto death I doe not say that he shall pray for it It is true that the Master of the Sentences and from him many of the Schoole and many of our later Interpreters too doe understand this of the sin against the Holy Ghost because we are almost forbidden to pray for it but yet we are not absolutely forbidden in that we are not bidden And if we were forbidden when God sayes to Ieremy Pray not thou for this people neither lift up cry Ier. 7.16 nor prayer for them neither make intercession to me for I will not heare thee And againe Ier. 11.14 Pray not for them for I will not heare them Not them though they should come to pray for themselves God forbid that we should therefore say that all that people had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost And for this particular place of S. Iohn that answer may suffice which very good Divines have given Pray not for them is indeed pray not with them admit them to no part in the publique prayers of the Congregation but if they sin a sin unto death a notorious an inexcusable sin let them be persons excommunicated to thee For the words in this text which seeme to many appliable to that great sin it is not cleare it is not much probable that they can be so applied Take the words invested in their circumstance in the context and coherence and it will appeare evident Christ speaks this to the Pharisees upon occasion of that which they had said to him and of him before and he carries it intends it no farther That appeares by the first word of out text Propterea Therefore I say unto you Therefore that is Because you have used such words unto me And S. Marke makes it more cleare He said this to them because they said Marke 3.30 He had an uncleane spirit because they said he did his Miracles by the power of the Devill Now this was certainely a sin against the Holy Ghost so far as that it was distinguished from the sins against the Son of Man But it was not the sin against the Holy Ghost for Christ being a mixt person God and Man did some things in which his Divinity had nothing to doe but were onely actions of a meere naturall man and when they slandered him in these they blasphemed the Son of Man Some things he did in the power of his God head in which his humanity contributed nothing as all his Miracles and when they attributed these works to the Devill they blasphemed the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Augustine sayes That Christ in this place did not so much accuse the Pharisees that they had already incurred the sin of the Holy Ghost they might at last fall into The sin that impenitible and therfore irremissible sin But that sin this could not be because the Pharisees had not embraced the Gospel before and so this could not be a falling from the Gospel in them Neither does it appeare to have continued to a finall impenitence so far from it as that S. Chrysost makes no doubt but that some of these Pharisees did repent upon Christs admonition Now beloved since we see by this collation of places that it is not safe to say of any man he is this sinner nor very constantly agreed upon what is this sin but yet we are sure that such a sin there is that captivates even God himself and takes from him the exercise of his mercy and casts a dumnesse a speechlesnesse upon the Church it selfe that she may not pray for such a sinner and since we see that Christ with so much earnestnesse rebukes the Pharisees for this sin in the text because it was a limbe of that sin and conduced to it let us use all religious diligence to keep our selves in a safe distance from it To which purpose be pleased to cast a particular but short and transitory glaunce upon some such sins as therefore because they conduce to that are sometimes called sins against the holy Ghost Sins against Power that is the Fathers Attribute sins of infirmity are easily forgiven sins against Wisdome that is the Sons Attribute sins of Ignorance are easily forgiven but sins against Goodnesse that is the Holy Ghosts Attribute sins of an hard and ill nature are hardly forgiven Not at all when it comes to be The sin not easily when they are Those sins those that conduce to it and are branches of it For branches the Schoolemen have named three couples which they have called sins against the Holy Ghost because naturally they shut out those meanes by which the Holy Ghost might work upon us The first couple is presumption and desperation for presumption takes away the feare of God and desperation the love of God And then they name Impenitence and hardnesse of heart for Impenitence removes all sorrow for sins past and hardnesse of heart all tendernesse towards future tentations And lastly they name The resisting of a truth acknowledged before and the envying of other men who have made better use of Gods grace then we have done for this resisting of a Truth is a shutting up of our selves against it and this envying of others is a sorrow that that Truth should prevaile upon them And truly to reflect a very little upon these three couples again To presume upon God that God cannot damne me eternally in the next world for a few half-houres in this what is a fornication or what is an Idolatay to God what is a jest or a ballad or a libel to a King Or to despaire that God will not save me how well soever I live after a sin what is a teare what is a sigh what is a prayer to God what is a petition to a King To be impenitent senslesse of sins past I past yesterday in riot and yesternight in wantonnesse and yet I heare of some place some office some good fortune fallen to me to day To be hardned against future sins shall I forbeare some company because that company leads me into tentation Why that very tentation wil lead me to preferment To forsake the truth formerly professed because the times are changed and wiser men then I change with them To envy and hate another another State another Church another man because they stand out in defence of the truth for if they would change I might have the better colour the better excuse of changing too al these are shrewd and slippery approaches towards the sin against the Holy Ghost and therefore
he had meant to doe you good he would never have gone thus farre in heaping of evills upon you Upon what doest thou ground this upon thy selfe Because thou shouldest not deal thus with any man whom thou mean'st well to How poore how narrow how impious a measure of God is this that he must doe as thou wouldest doe if thou wert God! God hath not made a week without a Sabbath no tentation without an issue God inflicts no calamity no cloud no eclipse without light to see ease in it if the patient will look upon that which God hath done to him in other cases or to that which God hath done to others at other times Saul fell to the ground but he fell no lower God brings us to humiliation but not to desperation He fell Caecus Iohn 9.39 he fell to the ground And he fell blinde for so it is evident in the story Christ had said to the Pharisees I came into the world that they which see might be made blinde And the Pharisees ask him Have you been able to doe so upon us Are we blinde Here Christ gives them an example a reall a literall an actuall example Saul a Pharisee is made blinde He that will fill a vessell with wine must take out the water He that will fill a covetous mans hand with gold must take out the silver that was there before sayes S. Chrysostome Christ who is about to infuse new light into Saul withdrawes that light that was in him before That light by which Saul thought he saw all before and thought himselfe a competent Judge which was the onely true Religion and that all others were to be persecuted Ier. 51.17 even to death that were not of his way Stultus factus est omnis homo à scientia sayes God in the Prophet Every man that trusts in his owne wit is a foole 1 Cor. 3.18 But let him become a foole that he may be wise sayes the Apostle Let him be so in his own eyes and God will give him better eyes better light better understanding Saul was struck blinde but it was a blindnesse contracted from light It was a light that struck him blinde as you see in his story This blindnesse which we speak of which is a sober and temperate abstinence from the immoderate study and curious knowledges of this world this holy simplicity of the soule is not a darknesse a dimnesse a stupidity in the understanding contracted by living in a corner it is not an idle retiring into a Monastery or into a Village or a Country solitude it is not a lazy affectation of ignorance not darknesse but a greater light must make us blinde The sight and the Contemplation of God and our present benefits by him and our future interest in him must make us blinde to the world so as that we look upon no face no pleasure no knowledge with such an Affection such an Ambition such a Devotion as upon God and the wayes to him Saul had such a blindnesse as came from light we must affect no other simplicity then arises from the knowledge of God and his Religion And then Saul had such a blindnesse as that he fell with it There are birds that when their eyes are cieled still soare up and up till they have spent all their strength Men blinded with the lights of this world soare still into higher places or higher knowledges or higher opinions but the light of heaven humbles us and layes flat that soule which the leaven of this world had puffed and swelled up That powerfull light felled Saul but after he was fallen his owne sight was restored to him againe Ananias saies to him Brother Saul receive thy sight To those men who imploy their naturall faculties to the glory of God and their owne and others edification God shall afford an exaltation of those naturall faculties In those who use their learning or their wealth or their power well God shall increase that power and that wealth and that learning even in this world You have seene Sauls sicknesse 3 Part. and the exaltation of the disease Then when he breathed threatnings and slaughter Then when he went in his triumph And you have seen his death The death of the righteous His humiliation He fell to the earth And there remaines yet his Resurrection The Angel of the great Counsell Christ Jesus with the Trumpet of his owne mouth rayses him with that Saul Saul why persecutest thou mee First Vox he affords him a call A voyce Saul could not see Therefore he deales not upon him by visions He gives a voyce and a voyce that he might heare God speaks often when we doe not heare He heard it and heard it saying Not a voyce only but a distinct and intelligible voyce and saying unto him that is appliable to himselfe and then that that the voyce said to him was Saul Saul why persecutest thou me We are unequall enemies Thou seest I am too hard for thee Curtu me why wilt thou thou in this weakenesse oppose me And then we might be good friends Thou seest I offer parly I offer treaty Cur tu me Why wilt thou oppose me me that declare such a disposition to be reconciled unto thee In this so great a disadvantage on thy part why wilt thou stirre at all In this so great a peaceablenesse on my part why wilt thou stirre against me Cur tu me Why persecutest thou me First then God speakes For beloved we are to consider God not as he is in himselfe but as he works upon us The first thing that we can consider in our way to God is his Word Our Regeneration is by his Word that is by faith which comes by hearing The seed is the word of God sayes Christ himselfe Even the seed of faith Luke 8.11 Carry it higher the Creation was by the word of God Dixit facta sunt God spoke and all things were made Carry it to the highest of all to Eternity the eternall Generation the eternall Production the eternall Procession of the second Person in the Trinity was so much by the Word as that he is the Word Verbum caro It was that Word that was made Flesh So that God who cannot enter into bands to us hath given us security enough He hath given us his Word His written Word his Scriptures His Essentiall Word his Son Our Principall and Radicall and Fundamentall security is his Essentiall Word his Son Christ Jesus But how many millions of generations was this Word in heaven and never spoke The Word Christ himself hath been as long as God hath been But the uttering of this Word speaking hath been but since the Creation Peter sayes to Christ To whom shall we goe Thou hast the words of eternall life It is not onely Iohn 6.68 Thou art the word of eternall life Christ is so But thou hast it Thou hast it where we may come to thee for it
shall look first how S. Paul contracted this knowledge how he knew it And secondly that the knowledge of it did not disquiet him not disorder him he takes knowledge of it with a confidence and a cheerfulnesse When he sayes I know it he seemes to say I am glad of it or at least not troubled with it And lastly that S. Paul continues here that way and method which he alwayes uses That is to proceed by the understanding to the affections and so to the conscience of those that hear him by such means of perswasion as are most appliable to them to whom he then speaks And therefore knowing the power and efficacy of a dying a departing mans words he makes that impression in them Observe recollect remember practise that which I have delivered unto you for I know that all yee shall see my face no more And so we shall bring up that circle which was begun in heaven in our last exercise upon this occasion in this place when Christ said from thence Saul Saul why persecutest thou me up into heaven againe in that Euge bone serve which Christ hath said since unto him Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy And our Apostle whom in our former Exercise for example of our humiliation we found faln to the Earth in this to the assistance of our Exaltation in his we shall find and leave upon the last step of Iacobs ladder that is entring into Heaven by the gate of death First then in our first Part our first Branch is 1 Part. That there is a Transivi as acceptable to God as a Requievi That God was served in S. Paul by applying his labours to many places as well as if he had resided and bestowed himselfe intirely upon any one When Christ manifested himselfe at first unto him trembling and astonished he said Act. 9.6 Lord what wilt thou have me to doe And when Christ had told him That in Damascus from Ananias he should receive his Instructions which were Ver. 15. That he should beare his name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel After this commission was exhibited by Ananias and accepted by S. Paul that Propheticall Scripture laid hold upon him by way of acclamation Psal 19.6 Exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam He rejoyced as a strong man to run a race 1 Cor. 15.10 Rom. 15.19 He laboured more abundantly then they all He carried the Gospel from Ierusalem to Illyricum That is as S. Hierome survayes it à mari rubro ad oceanum from the Red Sea a Sea within land to the Ocean without from all within to all without the Covenant Gentiles as well as Jews Deficiente eum prius terra quà m studio praedicandi He found an end of the world but he found no end of his zeale but preached as long as he found any to preach to And as he exceeded in Action so did he in Passion too He joynes both together 2 Cor. 11.23 In labours more abundant There was his continuall preaching In stripes above measure And then In prisons more frequent In deaths often Who dyes more then once Yet he dyes often How often Death that is every other mans everlasting fast and fils him his mouth with earth was S. Pauls Panis quotidianus His daily bread I protest sayes he by your rejoycing which I have in Christ I die daily Though therefore we cannot give S. Paul a greater name then an Apostle except there be some extraordinary height of Apostleship enwrapped in that which he sayes of himselfe Gal. 1.1 Paul an Apostle not of men neither by men but by Iesus Christ That in that place he glory in a holy exultation that he was made an Apostle by Jesus Christ then when Jesus Christ was nothing but Jesus Christ then when he was glorified in heaven and not a mortall man upon earth as he was when he made his other Apostles And that in his being an Apostle there entred no such act of men as did in the election of Matthias to that office though Matthias were made after the Ascension as well as he in whose election those men presented God two names and God directed that lot upon him and so Matthias was reckoned amongst the eleven Apostles Though we need not procure to him Acts 1. ult nor imagine for him any other name then an Apostle yet S. Paul was otherwise an universall soule to the whole Church then many of the other Apostles were and had a larger liberty to communicate himselfe to all places then any of them had That is it which S. Chrysostome intends when he extends S. Pauls dignity Angelis diversae Gentes commissae To particular Angels particular Nations are committed sed nullus Angelorum sayes that Father No Angel governed his particular Nation better then S. Paul did the whole Church S. Chrysostome carryes it so high Isidore modifies it thus He brings it from the Angels of heaven to the Angels of the Church Indeed the Archangels of the Church the Apostles themselves And he sayes Apostolorum quisque regionem nactus unicam Every Apostle was designed to some particular and certaine compasse and did but that in that which S. Paul did in the whole world But S. Chrysostome and Isidore both take their ground for that which they say from that which S. Paul sayes of himselfe Besides these things which are without 2 Cor. 11.28 that which commeth upon me daily The care of all the Churches for sayes he who is weak and I am not weak That is who lacks any thing but I am ready to doe it for him who suffers any thing but I have compassion for him We receive by faire Tradition and we entertaine with a faire credulity the other Apostles to have been Bishops and thereby to have had a more certaine center to which naturally that is by the nature of their office they were to encline Not that nothing may excuse a Bishops absence from his Sea for naturall things even naturally doe depart from those places to which they are naturally designed and naturally affected for the conservation of the whole frame and course of nature for in such cases water will ascend and ayre will descend which motion is done naturally though it be a motion from that place to which they are naturally affected And so may Bishops from their particular Churches Cyprian for Episcopus in Ecclesia Ecclesia in Episcopo Every Bishop hath a superintendency and a residence in the whole Church and the whole Church a residence and a confidence in him Therefore it is that in some Decretall and some Synodall Letters Bishops are called Monarchae Monarchs not onely with relation to one Diocesse but to the whole Church not onely Regall but Imperiall Monarchs The Church of Rome makes Bishops every day of Diocesses to which they know those Bishops can never come Not onely in the Dominions of Princes
ends but since we see no such ends nor use of this we are at our liberty to doubt of the thing it selfe God told Simeon that he should not die till he had seen Christ but he did not tell him that he should die as soone as he had seen him But so much as was told him was enough to make him content to die when he had seen him and to come to his Nunc dimittis to that chearfulnesse as to sing his owne Requiem God accustomed S. Paul no doubt to such notifications from him and such apprehensions in himselfe of death as because it was not new it could not be terrible When S. Paul was able to make that protestation I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I die dayly 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 11.23 And againe I am in prisons oft and often in deaths I die often No Executioner could have told him you must die to morrow but he could have said Alas I died yesterday and yesterday was twelve-month and seaven yeare and every yeare and month and weeke and day and houre before that There is nothing so neare Immortality as to die daily for not to feele death is Immortality and onely hee shall never feele death that is exercised in the continuall Meditation thereof Continuall Mortification is Immortality As Cordials lose their vertue and become no Cordials if they be taken every day so poysons do their venome too If a man use himselfe to them in small proportions at first he may grow to take any quantity He that takes a dram of Death to day may take an ounce to morrow and a pound after He that begins with that mortification of denying himselfe his delights which is a dram of Death shall be able to suffer the tribulations of this world which is a greater measure of death and then Death it selfe not onely patiently but cheerefully And to such a man death is not a dissolution but a redintegration not a divorce of body and soule but a sending of both divers wayes the soule upward to Heaven the body downeward to the earth to an indissoluble marriage to him who for the salvation of both assumed both our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Psal 2.17 Therefore does S. Paul say of himselfe If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I joy and rejoyce with you all that is It is a just occasion of our common joy on your part and on mine too And therefore does S. Augustine say in his behalfe whatsoever can be threatned him Si potest vivere tolerabile est Whatsoever does not take away life may be endured for if it could not be endured it would take away life and Si non potest vivere sayes he If it doe take away life what shall he feele when hee is dead He adds the reason of all Opus cum fine merces sine fine Death hath an end but their reward that dye for Christ and their peace that dye in Christ hath no end Therefore was not S. Paul afraid of melancholique apprehensions by drawing his death into contemplation and into discourse he was not afraid to thinke nor to talke of his death But then S. Paul had another end in doing so here which is our last consideration To make the deeper impression in them to whom he preached then by telling them that he knew they should see his face no more This that S. Paul sayes Moriturus he sayes to the Ephesians but not at Ephesus He was departed from thence the yeare before for upon the newes that Claudius the Emperour who persecuted the Christians was dead he purposed to goe by Jerusalem to Rome In that peregrination and visitation of his his way fell out after to be by Miletus a place not far from Ephesus Ver. 22. He was bound in the Spirit as he sayes here to go to Ierusalem and therefore he could not visit them at Ephesus A man may have such obligations even for the service of God upon him as that it shall not be in his power to doe that service which he may owe and desire to pay in some particular Church It was in part S. Pauls case Vers 17. But yet he did what he could from Miletus he sent to Ephesus to call the Elders of that Church thither And then he preached this short but powerfull Sermon And as his manner ever was though still without prevaricating or forbearing to denounce the judgements of God upon them in cases necessary to make those whom he preached or writ to as benevolent and well-affected to him as he could for he was Omnia omnibus Made all things to all men to which purpose it is that he speakes and poures out himselfe Gal 4.14 with such a loving thankfulnesse to the Galatians Ye received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Iesus himselfe pursuing I say this manner of a mutuall endearing and a reciprocall embowelling of himselfe in the Congregation and the Congregation in him as certainely if we consider all unions the naturall union of Parents and children the matrimoniall union of Husband and Wife no union is so spirituall nor so neare to that by which we are made Idem spiritus cum Domino The same Spirit with the Lord as when a good Pastor and a good flock meete and are united in holy affections to one another to unite himselfe to his Ephesians inseparably even after his separation to be still present with them in his everlasting absence and to live with them even after death to make the deeper impressions of all his past and present instructions he speaks to them as a dying man I know you shall see my face no more Why did he so S. Paul did not dye in eleven yeares after this But he dyed to them for bodily presence now They were to see him no more As the day of my death is the day of Judgement to me so this day of his departing was the day of his death to them And for himselfe from this time when he gave this judgement of death upon himselfe all the rest of his life was but a leading far off to the place of execution For first very soone after this Agabus gave him notice of manifold afflictions in that Girdle which we spake of before There he was bound and emprisoned at Jerusalem from thence sent bound to Caesarea practised upon to be killed by the way forced to appeale to Caesar upon that Appeale sent prisoner to Rome ship-wracked upon the way at Malta Emprisoned under guard though not close prisoner two yeares after his comming thither and though dismissed and so enabled to visit some Churches yet laid hold upon againe by Nero and executed So that as it was literally true that the Ephesians never saw his face after this valediction so he may be said to have dyed then in such a sense as himselfe sayes to the Corinthians 1 Cor.
15. That some men were baptized Pro mortuis for dead that is as good as dead past all hope of recovery So he dyed then Now beloved who hath seene a Father or a friend or a neighbour or a malefactor dye Luke 16.30 and hath not beene affected with his dying words Nay Father Abraham sayes Dives that will not serve That they have Moses and the Prophets Sermons will not serve their turnes But if one went to them from the Dead they would repent And the nearest to this is if one speake to them that is going to the dead If he had beene a minute in Heaven thou wouldst beleeve him and wilt thou not beleeve him a minute before Did not Iacob observe the Angels ascending as well as descending upon that ladder Trust a good soule going to God as well as comming from God And then as our Casuists say That whatsoever a man is bound to do In articulo mortis at the point of death by way of Confession or otherwise he is bound to doe when he comes to the Sacrament or when he undertakes any action of danger because then he should prepare himselfe as if he were dying so when you come to heare us here who are come from God heare us with such an affection as if we were going to God as if you heard us upon our death-beds The Pulpit is more then our death-bed for we are bound to the same truth and sincerity here as if we were upon our death-bed and then Gods Ordinance is more expresly executed here then there He that mingles falshood with his last dying words deceives the world inexcusably because he speakes in the person of an honest man but he that mingles false informations in his preaching does so much more because he speaks in the person of God himselfe They to whom S. Paul spake there are said all to have wept and to have fallen on Pauls necke and to have kissed him But it is added they sorrowed most of all for those words That they should see his face no more When any of those men to whom for their holy calling and their religious paines in their calling you owe and pay a reverence are taken from you by death or otherwise there is a godly sorrow due to that and in a great proportion In the death of one Elisha King Ioash apprehended a ruine of all He wept over his face 2 King 13.14 and said O my father my father the Charet of Israel and the horsemen thereof He lost the solicitude of a father he lost the power and strength of the Kingdome in the losse of one such Prophet But when you have so sorrowed for men upon whom your devotion hath put and justly put such a valuation remember that a greater losse then the losse of a thousand such men may fall upon you Consider the difference betweene the Candle and the Candlestick betweene the Preacher of the Gospel and the Gospel it selfe betweene a religious man and Religion it selfe The removing of the Candlestick and the withdrawing of the Gospel and the prophaning of Religion is infinitely a greaten losse then if hundreds of the present labourers should be taken away from us Mat. 8.12.21.43 Apoc. 2.5 The children of the kingdome may be cast into utter darknesse and That kingdome may be given to others which shall bring forth the fruits thereof and The Lord may come and come quickly and remove our Candlestick out of his place pray we that in our dayes he may not And truly where God threatens to doe so in the Revelation it is upon a Church of which God himselfe gives good testimony The Church of Ephesus of her Labours that is Preaching Ver. 2. of her Patience that is suffering of her Impatience her not suffering the evill that is her integrity and impartiality without connivence or toleration And of her not fainting that is perseverance and of her having the Nicolaitans that is sincerity in the truth Ver. 6. and a holy animosity against all false Doctrines And yet sayes he I have something to say against thee When thou hast testified their assiduity in Preaching their constancy in suffering their sincerity in beleeving their integrity in professing their perseverance in continuing their zeale in hating of all error in others when thou thy selfe hast given this evidence in their behalfe canst thou Lord Jesu have any thing to say against them what then shall we we that faile in all these look to heare from thee what was their crime Because they had left their first love Left the fulnesse of their former zeale to Gods cause Now if our case be so much worse then theirs as that we are not onely guilty of all those sins of which Christ discharges them and have not onely left our first love but in a manner lost all our love all our zeale to his glory and be come to a luke warmnesse in his service and a generall neglect of the meanes of grace how justly may we feare not onely that he will come and come quickly but that he may possibly be upon his way already to remove our Candlestick and withdraw the Gospel from us And if it be a sad thing to you to heare a Paul a holy man say You shall see my face no more on this side the Ite maledicti Go ye accursed into hell fire there cannot be so sad a voyce as to heare Christ Jesus say You shall see my face no more Facies Dei est qua Deus nobis innotescit sayes S. Augustin That is the face of God to us by which God manifests himselfe to us God manifests himselfe to us in the Word and in the Sacraments If we see not them in their true lines and colours the Word and Sacraments sincerely and religiously preached and administred we doe not see them but masks upon them And if we do not see them we do not see the face of Christ And I could as well stand under his Nescio vos which he said to the negligent Virgins I know you not or his Nescivi vos which he said to those that boast of their works Mat. 7.22 I never knew you as under this fearfull thunder from his mouth You shall see my face no more I will absolutely withdraw or I will suffer prophanenesse to enter into those meanes of your salvation Word and Sacraments which I have so long continued in their sincerity towards you and you have so long abused Blessed God say not so to us yet yet let the tree grow another yeare before thou cut it downe And as thou hast digged about it by bringing judgements upon our neighbours so water it with thy former raine the dew of thy grace and with thy later raine the teares of our contrition that we may still seethy face here and hereafter here in thy kingdome of Grace hereafter in thy kingdome of Glory which thou hast purchased for us with the inestimable price of thine
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and â—etestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
concionibus 1 Cor. 1.21 and what you give him in that Exercise Because God cals Preaching foolishnesse you take God at his word and you thinke Preaching a thing under you Hence is it that you take so much liberty in censuring and comparing Preacher and Preacher nay Sermon and Sermon from the same Preacher as though we preached for wagers and as though coine were to be valued from the inscription meerely and the image and the person and not for the metall You measure all by persons 1 〈◊〉 4. â—â— and yet Non erubescit is faciem Sacerdotis You respect not the person of the Priest you give not so much reverence to Gods Ordinance as he does In no Church of Christendome but ours doth the Preacher preach uncovered And for all this good and humble and reverend example fit to be continued by us cannot we keepe you uncovered till the Text be read All the Sermon is not Gods word but all the Sermon is Gods Ordinance and the Text is certainely his word There is no salvation but by faith nor faith but by hearing nor bearing but by preaching and they that thinke meanliest of the Keyes of the Church and speake faintliest of the Absolution of the Church will yet allow That those Keyes lock and unlock in Preaching That Absolution is conferred or with held in Preaching That the proposing of the promises of the Gospel in preaching is that binding and loosing on earth which bindes and looses in heaven And then though Christ have bid us Preach the Gospel to every creature Mar. 16.15 yet in his own great Sermon in the Mount he hath forbidden us to give holy things to dogs Mat. 7.6 or to cast pearle before swine lest they trample them and turne and rend us So that if all those manifold and fearfull judgements which swell in every Chapter and blow in every verse and thunder in every line of every Booke of the Bible fall upon all them that come hither as well if they turne and rend that is Calumniate us the person of the Preacher as if they trample upon the pearles that is undervalue the Doctrine and the Ordinance it selfe If his terrible Judgements fall upon every uncharitable mis-interpretation of that which is said here and upon every irreverence in this place and in this action Confesse that though he be the God of your salvation and doe answer you yet by terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you And confesse it also as in manners and in prayers and in preaching so in the holy and blessed Sacrament This Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Luther calls safely In Sacramento Venerabile adorabile for certainly whatsoever that is which we see that which we receive is to be adored for we receive Christ He is Res Sacramenti The forme the Essence the substance the soule of the Sacrament And Sacramentum sine re Sacramenti mors ost Bernar. To take the body and not the soule the bread and not Christ is death But he that feels Christ in the receiving of the Sacrament and will not bend his knee would scarce bend his knee if he saw him The first of that royall Family Alvarez de Auxil Epist ad Phil. 3. which thinks it selfe the greatest in Christendome at this day The House of Austrich had the first marks of their Greatnesse The Empire brought into that House for a particular reverence done to the holy and blessed Sacrament What the bread and wine is or what becomes of it Damasc Damascen thinks impertinent to be inquired He thinks he hath said enough and so may we doe Migrat in substantiam animae There is the true Transubstantiation that when I have received it worthily it becomes my very soule that is My soule growes up into a better state and habitude by it and I have the more soule for it the more sanctified the more deified soule by that Sacrament Now this Sacrament which as it is ministred to us is but a Sacrament but as it is offered to God is a Sacrifice too is a fearfull a terrible thing If the sacrifices of the Law the blood of Goats and Rammes were so how fearfull how terrible how reverentiall a thing is the blood of this immaculate Lambe the Sonne of God And though God doe so abound in goodnesse towards us Vt possint injuriata Sacramenta prodesse reversis Cyprian as S. Cyprian excellently expresses it That that Sacrament which we have injured and abused received unworthily or irreverently at one time may yet benefit us and be the savour and seale of life unto us at another yet when you heare that terrible Thunder break upon you That the unworthy receiver eats and drinks his own damnation 1 Cor. 11.27 That he makes Christ Jesus who is the propitiation of all the world his damnation And then That not to have come to a severe examination of the Conscience before and to a sincere detestation of the sin and to a formed and fixed and deliberate and determinate resolution against that sin at the receiving of the Sacrament which alas how few doe Is there one that does it There is scorce one That this makes a man an unworthy receiver of the Sacrament That thus we make a mock of the Sonne of God Heb. 10.29 thus we tread the blood of the Covenant under foot and despite the Spirit of grace And that for this at the last day we shall be ranked with Iudas and not onely with Iudas as a negligent despiser but with Iudas as an actuall betrayer of the blood of Christ Jesus Consider well with what fearfull Conditions even this scale of your reconciliation is accompanied and though you may not doubt but that God the God of your salvation does answer you yet you must confesse too That it is by terrible things that he does it And as it is so in matter of manners and so in our prayers and so in our preaching and so in the Sacrament so is it also at the houre of our Death which is as far as we can pursue this Meditation for after Death we can aske nothing at Gods hands and therefore God makes us no answer And therefore with that Conclusion of all we shall conclude all That by terrible things the God of our salvation answers us at the houre of our death Though death be but a sleepe In morte yet it is a sleepe that an Earth-quake cannot wake And yet there is a Trumpet that will when that hand of God that gathered dust to make these bodies shall crumble these bodies into dust againe when that soule that evaporated it selfe in unnecessary disputations in this world shall make such fearfull and distempered conclusions as to see God onely by absence never to see him face to face And to know God onely by ignorance never to know him sicuti est as he is for he is All mercy And to
and as the Carthusians in a proud humility despise all other Orders that eat flesh so doe the Fueillans the Carthusians that eat fish There is a pride in such humility That Order of Friers that called themselves Ignorantes Ignorant men that pretended to know nothing sunk as low as they thought it possible into an humble name and appellation And yet the Minorits Minorits that are lesse then any think they are gone lower and then the Minimes Minimes that are lesse then all lower then they And when one would have thought that there had not been a lower step then that another Sect went beyond all beyond the Ignorants and the Minorits and the Minimes and all and called themselves Nullanos Nothings But yet even these Diminutives the Minorits and Minimes and Nullans as little as lesse as least as very nothing as they professe themselves lie under this disease which is opposed in the Sequere me follow come after in our Text For no sort nor condition of men in the world are more contentious more quarrelsome more vehement for place and precedency then these Orders of Friers are there where it may appeare that is in their publique Processions as we finde by those often troubles which the Superiours of the severall Orders and Bishops in their severall Dioces and some of those Councels which they call Generall have been put to for the ranking and marshalling of these contentious and wrangling men Which makes me remember the words in which the eighteenth of Queene Elizabeths Injunctions is conceived That to take away fond Curtesie that is needlesse Complement and to take away challenging of places which it seemes were frequent and troublesome then To take away fond curtesie and challenging of places Processions themselves were taken away because in those Processions these Orders of Friers that pretended to follow and come after all the world did thus passionately and with so much scandalous animosity pursue the love of place and precedency Therefore is our humility here limited Sequere me follow me follow Christ How is that done Consider it in Doctrinall things first and then in Morall Sequendus in Doctrina First how we are to follow Christ in beleeving and then how in doing in practising First in Doctrinall things There must have gone some body before else it is no following Take heed therefore of going on with thine owne inventions thine owne imaginations for this is no following Take heed of accompanying the beginners of Heresies and Schismes for these are no followings where none have gone before Nay there have not gone enow before to make it a path to follow in except it have had a long continuance and beene much trodden in And therfore to follow Christ doctrinally is to embrace those Doctrins in which his Church hath walked from the beginning and not to vexe thy selfe with new points not necessary to salvation That is the right way and then thou art well entred but that is not all thou must walke in the right way to the end that is to the end of thy life So that to professe the whole Gospel and nothing but Gospel for Gospel and professe this to thy death for no respect no dependance upon any great person to slacken in any fundamentall point of thy Religion nor to bee shaken with hopes or feares in thine age when thou wouldst faine live at ease and therefore thinkest it necessary to do as thy supporters doe To persevere to the end in the whole Gospel this is to follow Christ in Doctrinall things In practicall things Sequendus in vitae Iam. 5.11 things that belong to action wee must also follow Christ in the right way and to the end They are both way and end laid together Sufferentiam Iob audiistis finem Domini vidistis You have heard of the patience of Iob and you bave seen the end of the Lord and you must goe Iobs way to Christs end Iob hath beaten a path for us to shew us all the way A path that affliction walked in and seemed to delight in it in bringing the Sabaean upon his Oxen the Chaldean upon his Camels the fire upon his Sheep destruction upon his Servants and at last ruine upon his Children One affliction makes not a path iterated continued calamities doe and such a path Iob hath shewed us not onely patience but cheerfulnesse more thankfulnesse for our afflictions because they were multiplied And then wee must set before our eyes as the way of Iob so the end of the Lord Now the end of the Lord was the crosse So that to follow him to the end is not onely to beare afflictions though to death but it is to bring our crosses to the Crosse of Christ How is that progresse made for it is a royall progresse Matt. 16.24 not a pilgrimage to follow Christ to his Crosse Our Saviour saith Hee that will follow me let him take up his crosse and follow me You see foure stages foure resting baiting places in this progresse It must bee a crosse And it must be my crosse And then it must be taken up by me And with this crosse of mine thus taken up by me I must follow Christ that is carry my crosse to his First it must bee a Crosse Crux Gal. 6.14 Tollat crucem for every man hath afflictions but every man hath not crosse Onely those afflictions are crosses whereby the world is crucified to us and we to the world The afflictions of the wicked exasperate them enrage them stone and pave them obdurate and petrifie them but they doe not crucifie them The afflictions of the godly crucifie them And when I am come to that conformity with my Saviour Col. 1.24 as to fulfill his sufferings in my flesh as I am when I glorifie him in a Christian constancy and cheerfulnesse in my afflictions then I am crucified with him carried up to his Crosse 2 King 4.34 And as Elisha in raysing the Shunamits dead child put his mouth upon the childs mouth his eyes and his hands upon the hands and eyes of the child so when my crosses have carried mee up to my Saviours Crosse I put my hands into his hands and hang upon his nailes I put mine eyes upon his and wash off all my former unchast looks and receive a soveraigne tincture and a lively verdure and a new life into my dead teares from his teares I put my mouth upon his mouth and it is I that say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and it is I that recover againe and say Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit Thus my afflictions are truly a crosse when those afflictions doe truely crucifie me and souple me and mellow me and knead me and roll me out to a conformity with Christ It must be this Crosse and then it must be my crosse that I must take up Tollat suam Other mens crosses are not my crosses Crux mea no man
119.136 Rivers of waters ran 161. E. 135.7 He causeth the vapours 264. B. 136.4 Facit mirabilia magna 215. C. 139.21 Doe not I hate them 99. C. 145.15 The eyes of all wait 684. D. 146.3 Put not your trust in Princes 483. A. PROVERBS 11.13 The fruit of the righteous 84. A. 12.23 A wise man concealeth 565. C. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner c. 83. C. 14.23 He shall have hope 83. D. 17.6 The glory of children 84. A. 25.16 Fill not thy selfe with honey 63. E. ECCLES 10.10 If the iron be blunt we must 356. C. 10.20 Those that have wings 92. D. 38.9 Myson in thy sicknesse c. 110. C. CANTICLES 1.8 O thou fairest among women 119. E. 2.15 Take us the little Foxes for they devoure the Vine 117. A. 782. B. 4.12 My Sister my Spouse is a garden en closed 515. C. 8.6 Set me as a seal on thy heart 456. D. ESAY 7.13 Is it a small thing to weary men 15. A. 9.6 A childe is given to us a Son is borne to us 86. C. 9.6 Counsellor The mighty God 6. B. 14.12 How art thou faln from heaven 187. B. 18.1 Wo to the land shadowing with wings 671. B. 27.7 Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him 505. D. 36.21 They held their peace and 410. B. 38.2 Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and prayed 251. D. 40.15 As a drop upon the Bucket 64. D. 40.31 They that waite upon the Lord shall renew their strength 637. C. 53.10 It pleased the Lord to bruise him but 181. A. 55.8 My thoughts are not your 25. B. 58.11 Thou shalt be a spring of water 660. D. 60.1 Arise shine for thy light is come 188. E. JEREMIAH 1.10 Behold I have this day 734. B. 5.1 Run to and fro through the streets of 422. A. 18.2 Arise and goe downe 147. B. LAMENTATIONS 1.2 She weepeth continually in the night 540. A. 2.19 Poure out thy heart like water 591. D. 2.10 Women eat their children of a span long 146. D. 215. D. 4.8 My skin cleaves to my bones 519. B. EZECHIEL 9.4 Set a mark upon the foreheads 537. E. 16.29 Thou hast multiplied thy fornications c. 24. C. 44.2 This gate shall be shut c. 22. E. HOSEA 14.2 Take unto you words and turn 578. C. MICAH 2.13 The breaker is gone up before 181. B. HABAKKUK 2.4 The just shall live c. 79. C. 2.18 What good can an Idol or c 117. D. HAGGAI 2.9 The glory of the later house c. 30. D. ECCLUS 7.36 Remember the end and 371. B. 38.1 Honour a Physitian with 187. B. 38.15 He that sinneth before his 187. B. MATTHEVV 1.25 Till she brought forth her Son 22. E. 5.48 Be yee perfect as your Father in heaven is 823. A. 5.23 If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and 33. C. 7.19 He taught them as one 690. E. 9.2 My sonne be of good cheare 343. C. 10.39 He that finds his life 150. C. 16.24 He that will follow me let 732. C. 16.28 There be some standing here 259. A. 19.28 In the regeneration 181. A. 20.23 It is not mine to give 761. E. 21.44 He that falls upon this stone 665. B. 24.20 Pray that your flight be not in the Winter 580. B. 28.19 Goe and teach all Nations 47. B. MARKE 9.24 Lord I beleeve 669. C. LUKE 1.28 Blessed art thou amongst women 18. C. 4.23 Physitian heale thy selfe 420. B. 4.32 They were astonished at his 691. A. 7.29 The Pharisees and Lawyers rejected 366. D. 12.32 Feare not little flock for c. 45. C. 228. B. JOHN 1.3 4. All things were made by him 667. E. 1.16 Grace for grace 310. E. 1.9 He was that light c. 78. B. 345. C. 1.16 Of his fulnesse have all we received and grace for grace 4. C. 2.4 Woman what have I to doe with thee 23. D. 5.25 Verily verily I say unto you the houre 150. E. 5.17 My Father worketh 240. A. 5.39 Search the Scriptures 339. B. 8.11 Sin no more 110. A. 9.10 I am the doore 752. D. 10.3 His sheep heare his voice 66. D. 10.11 The good shepheard giveth his life for the sheepe 63. A. 19.29 They put it upon Hyssop 646. A. 20.16 Touch me not for 821. D. ACTS 1.22 There was a necessity of one 180. C. 17.11 The Bereans searched the c. 472. E. 20.22 I goe bound in the Spirit 473. C. ROMANS 6.21 What fruit had yee then 65. D. 8.15 Whereby we cry Abba Father 27. D. 8.21 The creature it selfe also shall be delivered from the bondage c. 9. D. 8.23 Our selves have the first fruits 293. B. 1 CORINTHIANS 1.20 God hath made the wisedome of this world foolishnesse 180. B. 6.3 We shall judge the Angels 235. A. 6.20 Yee are bought with a price 26. D. 10.13 No tentation shall befall us but 789. B. 15.8 As of one borne out of due 460. D. 15.3 Christ dyed for our sins 397. B. 15.28 God shall be all in all 231. B. 15.29 For the dead 56. D. 2 CORINTHIANS 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves 118. A. 12.7 A thorne in the flesh the messenger of Satan 526. E. 527. A. 12.9 My grace is sufficient for thee 527. D. EPHESIANS 1.10 That God might gather in one 9. D. 2.12 Without Christ without God 71. C. 3.19 That they are filled with all the 4. C. 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest 188. E. 11.6 Without faith it is impossible 105. A. PHILIPPIANS 4.8 If there be any vertue 681. A. COLOSSIANS 3.5 Mortifie your members 151. B. 1 THESSALONIANS 4.7 God hath not called us to c. 117. E. 5.25 I pray God your spirit 335. E. 1 TIM 2.1 I exhort you that supplications and prayers c. 510. D. TITUS 2.14 Christ gave himselfe for us 77. C. HEBREVVES 4.12 The Word of God pierces c. 335. D. 517. B. 4.12 A two edged sword 139. B. 11.35 Others were tortured c. 150. C. 13.22 I beseech you brethren suffer 610. D. JAMES 1.17 The Father of lights 385. B. 5.3 Your gold and your silver c. 81. B. 5.11 You have seene the end c. 399. A. 1 PETER 2.5 Built of lively stones 35. A. 2 PETER 1.19 We have also a more sure word of prophecie 59. E. 1 JOHN 3.2 Now we are the sonnes of God 120. C. 5.16 There is a sin unto death 348. E. REVELATION 3.14 Thus saith Amen 53. A. 12.4 The Dragons taile drew the 240. E. 12.7 Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon 146. E. 17.2 The great Whore sitteth upon 310. B. 22.11 He that is holy 594. D. ⧠The Table of such Authors as are either cited illustrated or refelled in this BOOKE A ABulensis 7. A. B. 50. A. 314. D. 763. C. Aerius 781. B. Alcazar 184. B. Alvarez 693. C. Alexander Alensis 379. D. 603. C. Alcoranum 379. C. 744. C. Ambrosius 18. A. 24. A. 38. A. 88. A. 105. D. 106. A. 110. E. 262. D.