his people purposely to be afflicted yet himself complains in their behalf That the persecutor laid the very heaviest yoke upon the ancient Esa 47.6 It is a lamentable thing to fall under a necessity of suffering in our age Basil Labore fracta instrumenta ad Deum ducis quorum nullus usus wouldest thou consecrate a Chalice to God that is broken no man would present a lame horse a disordered clock a torn book to the King Caro jumentum thy body is thy beast Aug. and wilt thou present that to God when it is lam'd and tir'd with excesse of wantonness when thy clock the whole course of thy time is disordered with passions and perturbations when thy book the history of thy life is torn 1000. sins of thine own torn out of thy memory wilt thou then present thy self thus defac'd and mangled to almighty God Basil Temperantia non est temperantia in senectute sed impotentia incontinentiae chastity is not chastity in an old man but a desability to be unchast and therefore thou dost not give God that which thou pretendest to give for thou hast no chastity to give him Senex bis puer but it is not bis juvenis an old man comes to the infirmities of childhood again but he comes not to the strength of youth again Do this then In diebus juventutis in thy best strength Electionum and when thy natural facuties are best able to concur with grace but do it In diebus electionum in the dayes when thou hast thy hearts desire for if thou have worn out this word in one sense that it be too late now to remember him in the dayes of youth that 's spent forgetfully yet as long as thou art able to make a new choise to chuse a new sin that when thy heats of youth are not overcome but burnt out then thy middle age chooses ambition and thy old age chooses covetousness as long as thou art able to make thy choice thou art able to make a better than this God testifies that power that he hath given thee I call heaven and earth to record this day Deut. 30.19 that I have set before you life and death choose life If this choice like you not Jos 24.15 If it seem evil unto you to serve the the Lord saith Josuah then choose ye this day whom ye will serve Here 's the election day bring that which ye would have Serm. 18. into comparison with that which ye should have that is all that this world keeps from you with that which God offers to you and what will ye choose to prefer before him for honor and favor and health and riches perchance you cannot have them though you choose them but can you have more of them than they have had to whom those very things have been occasions of ruin The Market is open till the bell ring till thy last bell ring the Church is open grace is to be had there but trust not upon that rule that men buy cheapest at the end of the market that heaven may be had for a breath at last when they that hear it cannot tel whether it be a sigh or a gasp a religious breathing and anhelation after the next life or natural breathing out and exhalation of this but find a spiritual good husbandry in that other rule that the prime of the market is to be had at first for howsoever in thine age there may be by Gods strong working Dies juventutis A day of youth in making thee then a new creature for as God is antiquissimus dierum so in his school no man is super-annated yet when age hath made a man impotent to sin this is not Dies electionum it is not a day of choice but remember God now when thou hast a choice that is a power to advance thy self or to oppress others by evil means now in die electionum in those thy happy and sun-shine dayes remember him Creatorem This is then the faculty that is excited the memory and this is the time now now whilest we have power of election The object is the Creator Remember the Creator First because the memory can go no farther then the creation and therefore we have no means to conceive or apprehend any thing of God before that When men therefore speak of decrees of reprobation decrees of condemnation before decrees of creation this is beyond the counsail of the holy Ghost here Memento creatoris Remember the Creator for this is to remember God a condemner before he was a creator This is to put a preface to Moses his Genesis not to be content with his in principio to know that in the beginning God created heaven and earth but we must remember what he did ante principium before any such beginning was Moses his in principio that beginning the creation we can remember but St. Johns in principio that beginning eternity we cannot we can remember Gods fiat in Moses but not Gods erat in St. John what God hath done for us is the object of our memory not what he did before we were and thou hast a good and perfect memory if it remember all that the holy Ghost proposes in the Bible and it determines in the memento Creatoris There begins the Bible and there begins the Creed I believe in God the Father maker of Heaven and Earth Jâ— 7.39 for when it is said The holy Ghost was not given because Jesus was not glorified it is not truly Non erat datus but non erat for non erat nobis antequam operaretur It is not said there the holy Ghost was not given but it is the holy Ghost was not for he is not that is he hath no being to us ward till he works in us which was first in the creation Remember the Creator then Serm. 19. because thou canst remember nothing backward beyond him and remember him so too that thou maist stick upon nothing on this side of him That so neither height Ro. 8. ult nor depth nor any other creature may separate thee from God not only not separate thee finally but not separate so as to stop upon the creature but to make the best of them thy way to the Creator We see ships in the river but all their use is gone if they go not to sea we see men fraighted with honor and riches but all their use is gone if their respect be not upon the honor and glory of the Creator and therefore sayes the Apostle Let them that suffer 1 Peâ— 4. ult commit their souls to God as to a faithful Creator that is He made them and therefore will have care of them This is the true contracting and the true extending of the memory to Remember the Creator and stay there because there is no prospect farther and to Remember the Creator and get thither because there is no safe footing upon the
the people there was none with me The Angels then knew not this not all this not all the particulars of this The mystery of Christs Incarnation for the Redemption of Man the Angels knew it in generall for it was commune quoddam principium it was the generall mark to which all their service as they were ministring spirits was directed But for particulars as amongst the Prophets some of the later understood more then the former I understand more then the ancients Psal 119.100 sayes David and the Apostles understood more then the Prophets even of those things which they had prophesied Ephes 3.6 this Mystery in other ages was not made known as it is now revealed unto the holy Apostles so the Angels are come to know some things of Christ since Christ came in another manner then before Ephes 3.10 And this may be that which S. Paul intends when he sayes that he was made a Minister of the Gospel To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdome of God And S. Peter also speaking of the administration of the Church 1 Pet. 1.12 expresses it so That the Angels desire to look into it Which is not onely that which S. Augustine sayes Aug. Innotuit a seculis per Ecclesiam Angelis That the Angels saw the mystery of the Christian Religion from before all beginnings and that by the Church Quia ipsa Ecclesia illis in Deo apparuit Because they saw in God the future Church from before all beginnings but even in the propagation and administration of the Church they see many things now which distinctly effectually experimentally as they do now they could not see before And so to this purpose Visus in nobis Christ is seen by the Angels in us and our conversation now Spectaculum sumus sayes the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.9 We are made a spectacle to men and angels The word is there Theatrum and so S. Hierom reads it Hierom. And therefore let us be careful to play those parts well which even the Angels desire to see well acted Let him that finds himself to be the honester man by thinking so think in the name of God that he hath a particular tutelar Angel that will do him no harm to think so And let him that thinks not so yet think that so far as conduces to the support of Gods children and to the joy of the Angels themselves and to the glory of God the Angels do see mens particular actions and then if thou wouldst not sollicite a womans chastity if her servant were by to testifie it nor calumniate an absent person in the Kings ear if his friends were by to testifie it if thou canst slumber in thy self that main consideration That the eye of God is always open and always upon thee yet have a little religious civility and holy respect even to those Angels that see thee That those Angels which see Christ Jesus now sate down in glory at the right hand of his Father all sweat wip'd from his Browes and all teares from his Eyes all his Stripes heal'd all his Blood stanch'd all his Wounds shut up and all his Beauty returned there when they look down hither to see the same Christ in thee may not see him scourged again wounded torn and mangled again in thy blasphemings nor crucified again in thy irreligious conversation Visus ab Angelis he was seen of the Angels in himself whilest he was here and he is seen in his Saints upon earth by Angels now and shall be so to the end of the world Which Saints he hath gathered from the Gentiles which is the next branch Praedicat Gentib Psal 85.10 Predicatus gentibus he was preached to the Gentiles Mercy and truth meet together says David every where in Gods proceedings they meet together but no where closer then in calling the Gentiles Jesus Christ was made a Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God Rom. 15.8 wherein consisted that truth to confirm the promises made unto the fathers says the Apostle there and that 's to the Jews but was Christ a Minister of the Circumcision onely for that onely for the truth No Truth and Mercy meet together as it followes there and that the Gentiles might glorifie God for his mercy The Jewes were a holy Nation Gal. 2.15 that was their addition Gens Sancta but the addition of the Gentiles was peccatores sinners we are Jewes by nature and not of the Gentiles sinners sayes S. Paul He that touch'd the Jewes touch'd the apple of Gods eye And for their sakes God rebuk'd Kings and said Touch not mine Anoynted but upon the Gentiles not onely dereliction but indignation and consternation and devastation and extermination every where interminated inflicted every where and every where multiplied The Jewes had all kinde of assurance and ties upon God both Law and Custome they both prescribed in God and God had bound himself to them by particular conveyance by a conveyance written in their flesh Isa 49. in Circumcision and the counterpane written in his flesh I have graven thy name in the palmes of my hands Eph. 2.12 But for the Gentiles they had none of this assurance When they were without Christ sayes the Apostle having no hope that is no covenant to ground a hope upon ye were without God in this world To contemplate God himself and not in Christ is to be without God And then for Christ to be preached to such as these to make this Sun to set at noon to the Jewes rise at midnight to the Antipodes to the Gentiles this was such an abundant such a superabundant mercy as might seem almost to be above the bargain above the contract between Christ and his Father more then was conditioned and decreed for the price of his Blood and the reward of his Death for when God said I will declare my decree That is what I intended to give him which is expressed thus Psal 2. I will set him my King upon my holy hill of Sion which seemes to concern the Jewes onely God addes then Postula a me petition to me make a new suit to me dabo tibi gentes I will give thee not onely the Jewes but the Gentiles for thine inheritatnce And therefore laetentur gentes Psal 97.1 sayes David Let the Gentiles rejoyce and we in them that Christ hath asked us at his Fathers hand and received us And Laetentur insulae sayes that Prophet too Let the Islands rejoyce and we in them that he hath raised us out of the Sea out of the ocean sea that over-flowed all the world with ignorance and out of the Mediterranean Sea that hath flowed into so many other lands the sea of Rome the sea of Superstition There was then a great mercy in that Predicatus gentibus Creditus Mundo that he was preached to the Gentiles
come now A Sermon Preached at St. Dunstans January 15. 1625. The First SERMON after Our Dispersion by the Sickness SERMON XXI Exod. 12.30 For there was not a house where there was not one dead GOd intended life and immortality for man and man by sin induc'd death upon himself at first When man had done so and that now man was condemned man must die yet yet God gave him though not an absolute pardon yet a long reprieve though not a new immortality yet a life of seven and eight hundred years upon earth And then misery by sin growing upon man and this long life which was enlarged in his favour being become a burden unto him God abridged and contracted his seven hundred to seventy and his eight hundred to eighty years the years of his life came to be threescore and ten and if misery do suffer him to exceed those even the exceeding it self is misery Death then is from our selves it is our own but the executioner is from God it is his he gives life no man can quicken his own soul but any man can forfeit his own soul And yet when he hath done so he may not be his own executioner for as God giveth life so he killeth says Moses there not as the cause of death for death is not his creature but because he employs what person he will and executes by what instrument it pleases him to chuse age or sickness or justice or malice or in our apprehension fortune In that History from whence we deduce this Text which was that great execution the sodain death of all the first-born of Egypt it is very large and yet we may usefully and to good purpose enlarge it if we take into our consideration spiritual death as well as bodily for so in our houses from whence we came hither if we left but a servant but a child in the cradle at home there is one dead in that house If we have no other house but this which we carry about us this house of clay this tabernacle of flesh this body yet if we consider the inmate the sojourner within this house Serm. 21. the state of our corrupt and putrified soul there is one dead in this house too And though we be met now in the House of God and our God be the God of Life yet even in this house of the God of Life and the ground enwrapped in the same consecration not only of every such house but let every mans length in the house be a house of every such space this Text will be verified There is not a house where there is not one dead God is abundant in his mercies to man and as though he did but learn to give by his giving as though he did but practise to make himself perfect in his own Art which Art is bountiful Mercy as though all his former blessings were but in the way of earnest and not of payment as though every benefit that he gave were a new obligation upon him and not an acquittance to him he delights to give where he hath given as though his former gifts were but his places of memory and marks set upon certain men to whom he was to give more It is not so good a plea in our prayers to God for temporal or for spiritual blessings to say Have mercy upon me now for I have loved thee heretofore as to say Have mercy upon me for thou hast loved me heretofore We answer a Beggar I gave you but yesterday but God therefore gives us to day because he gave us yesterday and therefore are all his blessings wrap'd up in that word Panis quotidianus Give us this day our daily bread Every day he gives and early every day his Manna falls before the Sun rises and his mercies are new every morning In this consideration of his abounding in all ways of mercy to us we consider justly how abundant he is in instructing us He writes his Law once in our hearts and then he repeats that Law and declares that Law again in his written Word in his Scriptures He writes his Law in stone-Tables once and then those Tables being broken he repeats that Law writes that Law again in other Tables He gives us his Law in Exodus and Leviticus and then he gives us a Deuteronomy a repetition of that Law another time in another Book And as he abounds so in instructing us in going the same way twice over towards us as he gives us the Law a second time so he gives us a second way of instructing us he accompanies he seconds his Law with examples In his Legal Books we have Rules in the Historical Examples to practise by And as he is every way abundant as he hath added Law to Nature and added Example to Law so he hath added Example to Example and by that Text which we have read to you here and by that Text which we have left at home our house and family and by that Text which we have brought hither our selves and by that Text which we finde here where we stand and sit and kneel upon the bodies of some of our dead friends or neighbors he gives to us he repeats to us a full a various a multiform a manifold Catechism and Institution to teach us that it is so absolutely true that there is not a house in which there is not one dead as that taking spiritual death into our consideration there is not a house in which there is one alive That therfore we may take in light at all these windows that God opens for us Divisio that we may lay hold upon God by all these handles which he puts out to us we shall make a brief survey of these four Houses of that in Egypt where the Text places it of that at home in which we dwell of this which is our selves where we always are or always should be within and of this in which we are met where God is in so many several Temples of his as are above and under ground So that this Sermon may be a general Funeral Sermon both for them that are dead in the flesh and for our selves that are dead in our sins for of all these four houses it is true and by useful accommodation applyable to all There is not a house where there is not one dead First then to survey the first House the House in Egypt Part 1. Pharaoh by drawing upon himself and his Land this last and heaviest plague of the ten the universal the sodain the midnight destruction of all all the first born of Egypt hath made himself a Monument and a History and a Pillar everlasting to the end of the world to the end of all place in the world and to the end of all time in the world by which all men may know that man how perverse soever cannot weary God that man cannot add to his Rebellions so many heavy circumstances but that God can
nobis esse hic as St. Peter said there It is good to dwell here in this consideration of his death and therefore transfer we our Tabernacle our devotion through some of these steps which God the Lord made to his issue of death that day Take in his whole day from the hour that Christ eat the passover upon Thursday to the hour in which he died the next day Make this present day Conformitas that day in thy devotion and consider what he did and remember what you have done Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament which was after the eating of the passover he proceeded to the act of humility to wash his Disciples feet even Peters who for a while resisted him In thy preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament hast thou with a sincere humilty sought a reconciliation with all the world even with those who have been averse from it and refused that reconciliation from thee If so and not else thou hast spent that first part of this his last day in a conformity with him After the sacrament he spent the time til night in prayer in preaching in Psalms Hast thou considered that a worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness after as wel as in a preparation before If so thou hast therein also conformed thy self to him so Christ spent his time till night At night he went into the garden to pray and he prayed prolixius He spent much time in prayer Luc. 22.24 How much because it is literally expressed that he praied there three several times and that returning to his Disciples after his first prayer and finding them asleep said could ye not watch with me one hour Mat. 26.40 it is collected that he spent three houres in prayer I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentst or how thou disposedst of thy self when it grew dark and after last night If that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thy self to God and a submission of thy will to his that it was spent in a conformity to him In that time and in those prayers was his agony and bloody sweat I will hope that thou didst pray but not every ordinary and customary prayer but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases puts thee into a corformity with him About midnight he was taken and bound with a kiss Art thou not too conformable to him in that Is not that too literally too exactly thy case At midnight to have been taken and bound with a kiss from thence he was carried back to Jerusalem first to Annas then to Caiphas and as late as it was there he was examined and buffeted and delivered over to the custody of those officers from whom he received all those irrâ—sions and violences the covering of his face the spitting upon his face the blasphemies of words and the smartness of blows which that Gospel mentions In which compass fell that Gallicinium that crowing of the Cock which called up Peter to his repentance How thou passedst all that time last night thou knowest If thou didst any thing then that needed Peters tears and hast not shed them let me be thy Cock do it now now thy Master in the unworthyest of his servants looks back upon thee Do it now Betimes in the morning as soon as it was day the Jews held a Councel in the high Priests house and agreed upon their evidence against him then carried him to Pilate who was to be his Judg. Didst thou accuse thy self when thou wak'dst this morning wast thou content to admit even fals accusations that is rather to suspect actions to have been sin which were not then to smother justifie such as were truly sins then thou spendst that hour in conformity to him Pilat found no evidence against him therefore to ease himself to pass a complement upon Herod Tetrarch of Galilee who was at that time at Jerusalem because Christ being a Galilean was of Herods jurisdiction Pilat sent him to Herod rather as a mad man then a malefactor Herod remanded him with scorns to Pilat to proceed against him this was about 8 of the Clock Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition this examination this agitation this cribration this pursuit of thy conscience to sift it to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy present sins from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board and from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins that 's time spent like thy Saviours Pilat would have sav'd Christ by using the priviledg of the day in his behalf because that day one prisoner was to be delivered but they chose Barrabas He would have sav'd him from death by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him scourging and crowning with thorns loading him with many scornful ignominious contumelies but this redeem'd him not they press'd a crucifying Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin by fasting by alms by disciplines mortifications in the way of satisfaction to the justice of God that will not serve that 's not the right way We press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee and that conforms thee to Christ Towards noon Pilat gave Judgment and they made such hast to execution as that by noon he was upon the Cross There now hangs that sacred body upon the cross re-baptiz'd in his own tears sweat and embalm'd in his own blood alive There are those bowels of compassion which are so conspicuous so manifested as that you may see them through his wounds There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light so as the Sun asham'd to survive them departed with his light too And there that Son of God who was never from us yet had now come a new way unto us in assuming our nature delivers that soul which was never out of his Fathers hands into his Fathers hands by a new way a voluntary emission thereof for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death so that considered in his own contract he must necessarily dy yet at no breach nor battery which they had made upon his sacred body issues his soul but emisit he gave up the Ghost as God breath'd a soul into the first Adam so this second Adam breath'd his soul into God into the hands of God There we leave you in that blessed dependancy to hang upon him that hangs upon the cross There bath in his tears there suck at his wounds lie down in peace in his grave till he vouchsafe you a Resurrection an ascension into that Kingdome which he hath purchas'd for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS