the first day preserved but here was a new creation out of that which Philosophers properly term The mater that is the common mother of generation or corruption And thus God at the last day shall command not the earth only but the Sea also with the other Elements to give up their dead Rev. 20. 13. Lastly they extended this similitude too far which hence imagined that as the corn often dies and is often quickned and dies again So by the doctrine of Christians there should be a death after the Resurrection and a Resurrection after death or such a continual vicissitude between life and death as is between light and darkness This objection is punctually resolved by Tertullian in the 48. Chapt. of his Apologie The sum of his answer is That so it might be if the Omnipotent Creator had so appointed for he is able to work this continual interchange or vicissitude of life and death as well in mens bodies as in the bodies of corn sown or reaped or as he doth the perpetual vicissitude of light and darkness in the two Hemispheres of the world but he hath revealed his Will to the contrary And the reason is not the same but rather contrary in Gods crop or harvest as it is in the crops or harvests of mortal men As men in this life are mortal so is their food or nutriment and for this reason their nutriment must be supplied by continual sowing and reaping But God is immortal and so shall the crop of his harvest be Our Resurrection from the dead is his general crop or harvest and this needs to be no more then One because our bodies being once raised up to life again shall never die but enjoy immortalitie in his presence Heaven is his Granary and what is gathered into it cannot perish or consume 10. The general use of this Doctrine is punctually made to our hands by our Apostle in the last verse of this Chapt. Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. And more particulary 1 Thessal 4. 13. c. I would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them which are a sleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope c. The Apostle there doth not forbid all mourning for the dead but the manner of mourning only that they mourn not as they which have no hope no expectation of any Resurrection after death Nature will teach us as it did these Thessalonians to mourn for the death of our friends and kindred And our belief of this Article will give us the true mean and prescribe the due manner or measure of mourning Our sorrow though natural and just yet if it be truly Christian and seasoned with Grace will still be mingled with comfort and supported by hope To be either impatient towards God or immoderatly dejected for the death of our dearest friends whose bodies God hath in mercy committed to the custody of the earth of the sea or other Elements is but A Symptome of heathenish ignorance or infidelity of this Article A Barbarism in Christianitie If we of this Land should live amongst Barbarians whom we had taught to make bread of Corn and accustomed to the tast of this bread as unknown to their forefathers as Manna at first appearance was to the Israelites but not acquainted them with the mystery of sowing and reaping they would be as ready in their hunger or scarcitie of bread to stone us as the Israelites were to stone Moses in their thirst if they should see us offer to bury that corn in the earth with which their bowels might be comforted yet if they were but so far capable of reason as to be perswaded or we so capable of trust or credit with them as to perswade them that there were no possibilitie left either to have bread without supply of corn or for corn to increase and multiply unless it did first die and putrifie in the ground hope of a more plentiful crop or harvest would naturally incline them to brook the present scarcity w th patience and to be thankfull towards such as would so carefully provide for them Now besides that the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God the committing of their bodies to the grave is but as a solemn preparation of seed for a future crop or harvest If in these premisses we do rely and trust in God our sorrow and heaviness for the dead though it may endure for a while will be swallowed up in comfort our mournfull tears and weeping will be still accompanied with praises and thanksgiving unto him that hath so well provided for them that live in his fear and die in his favour 11. But as this Doctrine administreth plentie of comfort in respect of friends deceased so it should move us to make choice of such only for our dearest friends as we see inclined to live in the fear of the Lord. Or if we have prevented our selves and this advice in making such choice yet let us never be prevented by others for making the main and principal end of our friendship or delight in any mans company to be this A serious study and endevour to prepare others and to be prepared by them to live and die in the Lord. As there is no greater comfort in this life then a faithfull and hearty friend So can no greater grief befall a man at the hour of death then to have had a friend trusty and hearty in other offices and services but negligent and backward in cherishing the seeds of faith of love or fear of the Lord or other provision of our way-fare towards the life to come No practise of the most malicious or most inveterate or most provoked foe can breed half so much danger to any man as the affectionate intentions of a carnal friend always officious to entertain him with pleasant impertinences which will draw his mind from the fear and love of God and either divert or effeminat his cogitations from resolute pitching upon the means and hopes of a joyfull Resurrection to everlasting life Even to minds and affections already sweetned with sure hope of that life to come what grief must it needs breed in this life if he be a loving husband to think he shall be by death eternally divorced from the companie of his dearest consort Or if he be an affectionate friend to consider that the league of mutual amitie in this life never interrupted but secured from danger of impairment whilst their pilgramage lasts here on earth should be everlastingly dissolved after the one hath taken up his lodging in the dust that all former dearest kindness should not only be forgotten but be further estranged from performance of any common courtesie then any Christian in this life can be in regard of any Jew or Turk or any Jew or
arraign accuse and judge our selves for our former frequent neglect of our Vow in Baptism Secondly To request Absolution and pardon of God which no man humbly and seriously doth but he solemnly promiseth amendment of what is past Thirdly To implore the special aid or assistance of Gods Spirit for better performance of our Vow and of what we now promise And all this only for the merits of Christ and through the efficacy of his Body and Blood I will conclude with that of the Psalmist Vovete vota reddite Jehovae CHAP. XX. ROMANS 6. 21. 21. For the end of those things is Death 23. For the wages of sin is Death The first and second Death Both literally meant The wages of Sin Both described Both compared and shewed How and wherein the Second Death exceeds the First The greater deprivation of Good the worse and more unwelcom death is Every member of the Bodie every facultie of the Soul the Seat and Subject of the Second Death A Map and Scale The Surface and Soliditie of the Second Death Pain improved by inlarging the capacitie of the Patient and by intending or advancing the activitie of the Agent Three Dimensions of the second Death 1. Intensiveness 2. Duration 3. Un-intermitting Continuation of Torment Poena Damni Sensus Terms Co-incident Pains of the Damned Essential and Accidental Just to punish momentanie sin with pain eternal The reflection and revolution of thoughts upon the sinners folly The Worm of Conscience 1. DEath and life have the same Seat and Subject Nothing dieth unless it first live and Death in the General is An Extinction of life Death in Scripture is two Wayes taken First For bodily Death which is the First Death Secondly For the Death of both Body and Soul which is called the Second Death Both are here literally meant both are the wages of sin The former Death is common to all excepting such of the Godly as shall be found alive at Christs coming to Judgment they shall not die but be changed First then of bodily death and secondly of supernatural or the second death and wherein it exceedeth the first death The Opposition between Bodily Death and Bodily Life is meerly Privative such as is between light and darkness or between sight and blindness And this death must be distinguished according to the degrees of life of which it is the Privation Of life the degrees be three The First of meer Vegetables as of trees of plants of herbs or whatsoever is capable of growth or nourishment The Second is of Creatures indued with sense The third is the life of man who besides sense is endued with reason The reasonable life includes the sensitive as the sensitive doth the life vegetable Whatsoever bodily creature is endowed with reason is likewise endowed with sense But many things which are endowed with sense are uncapable of reason And again what Creature soever it be which is partaker of the life sensitive is partaker likewise of Vegetation of growth or nourishment But many things which are nourished and grow as trees herbs plants grass and corn are uncapable of the life sensitive and yet even these are said to die as they properly do when their nutriment fails But albeit the first beginning of mans life in the womb be only vegetative not sensible or reasonable yet no man dieth according to this kind of death only For such as fall into an Atrophie which is a kind of death or privation of the nutritive facultie yet are they not to be accounted as dead so long as they have the use of any sense no nor after they be deprived of all outward senses so long as their hearts do move or their lungs send out breath So that the bodily death of man includes a privation of sense and motion This difference again may be observed in the degrees of bodily death 2. Trees and vegetables alwayes die without pain so do not man and beast For that both of them are endowed with sense and motion both of them are capable of pain And pain if it be continued and extream drawes sensitive death after it Nor can this death approach or finde entrance into the seat of life but by pain And in as much as this kind of life is sweet death which is the deprivation of it is alwayes unpleasant and terrible unto man not only in respect of the pain which ushers it in but in respect of the loss of vitall sweetness which it brings with it The pains of dying may be as great in beasts as in man so is not the loss of that goodness which is conteined in life for reasonless creatures perceive it not A memorie they have of pains past a sense or feeling of pains present and a fear of death when it approacheth But no fore-thought or reckoning of what followes after death This is proper to the reasonable creature Now this Fore-thought of what may follow after makes death more bitter to man then it can be to reasonless creatures And amongst men the more or greater the contentments of life have been and the better they are provided for the continual supply of such contentments the more grievous is the conceipt or fore-thought of death natural unto them The summons of death are usually more unwelcome to a man in perfect health then to a crased body So it is to a man of wealth and credit more then to one of a forlorn estate or broken fortunes So saith Ecclesiasticus Chap. 41. 1. O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his Possessions unto the man that hath nothing to vex him and that hath prosperitie in all things yea unto him that is yet able to receive meat Yet is not the loss of life of sense or the foregoing of worldly contentments the only cause why men naturally fear death For though it deprive them of all these yet doth not the death of man consist in this deprivation The body loseth all these by the divorce which death makes betwixt it and the soul But seeing the substance of the soul still remains the greatest fear which can possess a natural man is the future doubtful estate of the soul after this dissolution Many which never hoped or expected any Re-union or second marriage between the soul and body after death had once divorced them had yet a true Notion that the soul did not die with the body and out of this conceipt some were more afraid of death then any brutish or reasonless creature can be Some other few became as desirous of it as Prisoners which hope to scape are of a Gaol deliverie and thought it a great freedom especially in their discontented melancholy passion to have the keyes of this mortal prison in their own keeping to be able to let their souls and life out at their pleasure But though it be universally true that the corruptible body during the time of this
free Pardon for all shall be excluded from it that are Unworthy of it But the grievous and most patient sufferings of the Apostles themselves are here adjudged by our Apostle to be altogether Unworthy of the Glory that shall be revealed in respect of Gods Justice Or if he should enter into Judgment with them after these three branches of Grace Faith Hope and Charity had fructified in them But have they no Answer to this Objection Yes Cardinal Bellarmine the only man which ever that Church had for traversing the Testimonie or verdict of Scriptures alleadged by our Writers hath Two in store or rather two branches of one and the same answer His answer in General is this That our Apostle in this place Rom. 8. 18. doth speak of the Substance of works done by just and holy men not of the absolute Proportion between them and the glory which shall be revealed If we respect the Substance of their works they are not equal for the one is momentany or temporal and the other eternal to the reward or gift of God which is eternal life or glory yet saith he there is a true or just Proportion between them 9. To put a Colour upon this Distinction he gives Instance First in the sufferings of our Saviour which were but temporary and no way comparable for duration of time with the everlasting pains of hell which without his sufferings we all should have suffered and yet his temporary sufferings did make a full and just satisfaction for the sins of men which deserved everlasting torments For what was wanting to the duration or continuance of his sufferings was supplyed by the dignity of his person which suffered them In like sort as he would have it the worth or dignitie of that charity from which the sufferings of Martyrs or other good works of just and holy men do proceed may make up that defect which they apparently have in respect of their short duration or continuance His Second Instance is that the pleasures or contentments of sin are in no wise comparable to the everlasting torments of hell which yet these momentary pleasures justly deserve for the contempt of God and his commandements and thus as he would have us believe the good works of Saints though but few and short may through the vertue of Grace or Charity as justly deserve eternal glory 10. But as his Answer in General is Sophistical so the Instances which he brings to prove it are most impertinent and if they be well scanned most pregnant for Us against him To the First we reply as all Divines agree That Christs sufferings though but temporary for duration and for quality not infinite did make a full satisfaction for the sins of mankind because the Person of the sufferer was truly and absolutely infinite his satisfaction or the value of his sufferings were truly infinite Non quia passus est infinita sed quia passus est infinitus Not because he suffered infinite pains but because He who suffered those grievous and unknown pains was truly infinite But neither the persons of the Saints which suffered martyrdom nor any pains which they suffered or good works which they did had any just Proportion to Infinity and therefore could not be Meritorious of eternal Glory which is for duration infinite either in respect of their persons or of their charity which questionless was much less then Christs love and charity towards us as man though this was not so absolutely Infinite as the love and charity of his Godhead So that this Instance is not only impertinent but altogether unadvised and the Reader may well wonder how such gross and somnolent incogitancie could possibly surprize so wary a man so great a Scholar as Cardinal Bellarmine was His Second Instance though it include no such gross incogitancie as the former nevertheless it is involved in an error too common not only to the Romanist but to many in reformed Churches For the pleasures of sin though but temporary deserve eternal death betwixt which and them in themselves considered there is no just proportion But the True Reason why they justly deserve this death is because men by continuing in sin and by following the pleasures of it do reject or put from them the promises of Eternal Life betwixt which and everlasting death there is a just proportion And when Life and Death everlasting are proposed unto us the One out of Mercie the other out of Justice it is most Just dealing with God to give such as chuse the pleasures of sin before the Fruits of Holiness the native issue of their choice But it could not have stood with the Justice of God to have punished our first Parents transgression with everlasting death unless out of his Free Bounty and liberality he had made them capable not of a temporal only but of an everlasting life But now that Adam hath sinned and made himself and his posterity subject unto everlasting death doth not this Original Sin or every Actual Sin which issueth from it deserve everlasting death Yes they do and would inevitably bring death upon all without intervention of Gods Mercy or Free Pardon made in Christ But this free Pardon being presupposed and being proclaimed unto the world it is not Sin Original or the Positive sins of men in themselves considered which bring everlasting death upon them but their wilful neglect or slighting of Gods mercy promised in Christ or of the means which God affords them for attaining this mercy which leaves them without Excuse or Apology or which makes up the full measure of their iniquity This is our Saviours Doctrine John 3. 17. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved From what original then doth the condemnation of the world proceed Our Saviour tels us ver 19. This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darknesse more then light because their deeds were evil It is not then the works of darkness in themselves considered but considered with mens love unto them or delight in them that doth induce a neglect or hate of light which brings condemnation upon the world Now if the works of darkness or pleasures of sin which are but momentany do not in themselves procure everlasting death albeit they proceed from Sin Original much lesse shall the good Works of Gods Saints albeit they proceed from Grace procure or deserve everlasting life For the Grace by which we do them is from God not from our selves but the evil works which we do are our own God hath no share in them So that the Height or Accomplishment of sin consists in the neglect or contempt of Eternal Life and the neglect hereof could not be so heynous if this life could be deserved by us or if it were awarded to us out of Justice not out of meer Mercie and Grace 11. This difference betwixt the Title
of Syria and he went away from Jerusalem But though the Chaldeans had burnt the House of God and the Palaces of Ierusalem with fire had destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof yet the Lord doth not utterly forsake his vineyard his Church the Quire of Saints still nestles in the branches that are transplanted whose off spring within seventy years is restored unto their native soyl Jerusalem repaired the Temple re-edified and the Land of Iudah sown with the seed of man and beast After this State thus raised again from Civil Death if posterity will not believe nor bring forth better fruits then heretofore their fathers have done neither would they believe though Moses and the Prophets were raised from the dead to exhort them to repentance For this reason after their return from Babylon and re-edification of the Temple God sends no more Prophets save such as they brought with them until the fulness of time or the Third Climacterical Period of this State wherein the disease being become more desperate he sent his only Son the Heir of all things as knowing that if he could not none ever after should be able to recover it This his Son was that Lord which by his peculiar presence had brought this vine out of Egypt but after he had planted it in Iudea and let it out unto these husbandmen went into a farre Country that is he appeared not unto them as he did to Moses to Joshuah c. until in the last dayes he descended from Heaven in the true form and substance of man to receive the fruits He looked at this time especially his vineyard should had brought forth grapes but it brought forth more wild grapes then before He looked for weighty matters of the Law and behold tithing of Mint Annise and Cummin He looked for judgment mercy and faith But behold covetousness extortion pride and cruelty grapes more bitter then the grapes of Sodom Sourness it self the very leaven of Hypocrisie yet upon the first denial of such fruits as he expected he departs not from them he accuseth them not unto his Father But as they had two or three fore-warnings more remarkable then ordinary in several Generations of their Ancestors so he expects a loyal Answer at more times of fruit then one or two presenting himself to them for three years and more together at every several Passover besides other anniversary solemnities And yet at last for constant delivery of that Embassage which he had from his father they caught him and condemned him in the vineyard but carry him out of it to be crucified in Mount Calvarie And thus at length Zachariah's Prophecie against Ioash and his wicked Princes and his Imprecation at his death are fulfilled in this wicked generation they formally forsook their God when they cried We have no King but Caesar and demanding Barabbas a murtherer the son of their father the Divle they destoyed Iesus the Son of God And the Lord hath utterly forsaken them not the Temple and City only but the Inhabitants but the whole race of the Jewish Nation and hath let forth His Vineyard to us Gentiles They were so rich by his bounty that they were ashamed to acknowledge so mean a man as Our Saviour for their Lord and Owner of the Land they inhabited And as the Prophet foretold they hid their faces from him And therefore as Moses testified against them in his dying Song The Lord hides his face from them Darkness did over-spread the Land of Iudah at his Passion and the light of his countenance since that time hath never shined upon that Nation They lost Gods extraordinary Illumination by Urim and Thummim as some hold at Zachariah's death as most agree at the destruction of Salomon's Temple but now are destitute of the light of Scripture without all knowledge of Gods Word since they rejected Him which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world In the very sun-shine of the Gospel they grope like blind men that cannot see a beaten way and must so continue throughout their generations unto the worlds end until they shall unfeignedly confess the iniquity of their fathers and that they have walked contrary unto me And that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies Lev. 26. 40 41. As the sins of those Jews which rejected the Light of the world and solemnly revolted from their King have been thus remarkably visited upon their children that will not confess their sins in so doing nor acknowledge him whom they rejected for their expected Redeemer So were the sins of that generation which slue Zachariah visited upon this which crucified our Saviour because they neither did truly confess them but rather revive and increase them nor finally admit of his Sacrifice which was appointed for the expiation of that Prodigious Fact as of all others wherewith the City and Temple had been polluted Unless God's mercy had warded off the stroke of his justice Ierusalem it self had been made an heap of stones when King Ioash stoned Zachariah to death So had the Temple it self wherein his guiltless blood lay uncovered been covered with Dust The whole Nations plagues in rigour of justice might have been much greater at that time then they have been since Now all the mercie or mitigation of Justice which former Generations found was through the Mediation of the Son of God And seeing these later have been more refractorie to this their Mediator himself then were their fathers to his Prophets seeing they have solemnly disavowed him and bid a defiance to his Embassadors Gods mercies which had daily shrowded Ierusalem from his wrath as the hen doth her young ones from the storm leave it and her children open to his justice For Resolution of the main Point or difficulty proposed The forsaking or putting the Son of God to death is for ought I can gather no direct and positive cause of all the miseries expressed or intimated in my Text Only such a Cause of Ierusalems destruction as the Pilots absence is of shipwrack a Cause of it only in this sense that her inhabitants by forsaking him have exempted themselves from his wonted protection and God's justice which had long watched his departure from the City and Temple as Sergeants do their egress which have taken Sanctuary now attatches them when there is none to become their Surety none to intercede for mitigation of Justice none to hinder why judgments heretofore alwayes abated and oft-times altogether deferred may not be executed upon them in full measure But that their Personal Offences against their Mediator should wholly or specially procure this woful doom or come at all into the Bill of their Indictment is in my Opinion no way probable The character of his own speeches as well in my Text or elsewhere altogether disclaims this Assertion as unconsonant to the form of wholsome doctrine But may we say that albeit his blood did not augment their
21. verse I speak saith he ver 19. after the manner of men because of the infirmitie of the flesh for as ye have yeilded your members servants unto uncleanness and to iniquitie unto iniquitie even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness For when ye were the servants of sin ye were free to righteousness that is you did acknowledge no service due unto it The implication which he expresseth not is this Being now become the servants of righteousness do as little service unto sin as when you were its servants ye did to righteousness acknowledge none to it for none is due to it especially from you 10. But in the 21. verse if you mark his placing of the words well he puts the case home What fruit had ye then of those things whereof ye are now ashamed What fruit had ye then at that time when ye did them with greediness If the service of sin at any time were fruitful it is questionless then whilst it is a doing For this Dalilah hath the trick to wipe off all shame from her Lovers faces whilst sin is in the action or motion But our Apostle proves this service of sin to be fruitless even then because now when these motions were past it makes them ashamed Nor is the service of sin fruitless only because it bringeth forth shame but therefore more then shamefull full of danger and dread because the shame which it bringeth forth is alwayes the Harbinger or fore-runner of death For so the Apostles adds For the end of those things is death These are the best fruits of their service to sin and sin it self is more then fruitles because the best fruits which it seems to bring are poisonous But now these Romans are called unto the service of a far better master one from whom they have somewhat in re but much more in spe a bountiful earnest for the present of an invaluable recompence and future reward ver 22. But now being free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holines and the end everlasting life And finally he binds all his former Exhortations with this undoubted Assertion For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus you have seen The dutie whereunto we stand bound by our Baptisme And it is twofold 1. To forsake the Divel the world and the flesh and secondly to betake our selves to the service of God The motives to withdraw us from this service of sin are three The service of it first is fruitless 2. it is shamefull 3. it causeth death to wit a most shamefull bitter and endless death The motives to draw us unto the service of God are Two 1. The present fruit which it yieldeth viz. the peace of conscience or that righteousness which is the flour and Blossom unto Holiness 2. The Final Reward which is a most blessed life without end The First three Motives to withdraw us from the service of sin are as it were linked or mortized one into another The very Fruitlesness of Sins service shuts up into shame and the shame arresting or seazing upon the sinner is no other then the very Harbinger Fore-runner or Serjeant of Death CHAP. XVIII Rom. 6. 21. What Fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death c. Of the fruitlesnes of Sin Of the shame That follows and dogs sin as the shadow doth the Body What shame is Whence it ariseth and what Use may be made thereof Of Fame praise and Honour Satans Stales False shame and False Honour The Character of both in Greek and Latine Of Pudor which is alwayes malè Facti of Verecundia which may somtimes be de modo rectè Facti Perijt vir cui Pudor Perijt Erubuit salva res est 1. WE are here to speak somwhat to The First Point which was the fruitlesness of Sin of which more afterwards It was an Ancient saying of a good Writer praestat otiosum esse quam nihil agere it were better to sit still and do nothing then to busie and wearie our selves to no purpose A shame it is in it self but commonly the beginning of a far greater shame to spend our time without any fruit And if we could perswade a man that for the present he labours in vain that for the future he can expect nothing but wearisom trouble for his long pains it would be enough to make him if he have any wit ashamed of what he hath done more then enough unlesse he be impudent to make him give over what he hath begun Yea he is not a wise man that doth not forecast some probable hopes or gainfull issues of his labours before he begin them So our Saviour tels us Luke 14. 28. For which of you intending to build a Tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it Lest haply after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it all that behold it begin to mock him saying This man began to build and was not able to finish If want of forecast to go through with a work which in the beginning promised fruit be a shame or expose men to scorn or mockerie what is it to begin and continue those works whose accomplishing or finishing is more fruitless then the first beginning So that the service of sin is in this respect shamefull because it is Fruitless But if you observe our Apostle well he doth not infer that the works of sin are shamefull because they are Fruitless but that they are Fruitless because they are shamefull Shame and that A positive shame is the natural fruit or issue of all service to sin and not every kinde of positive shame but a shame accompanied or seconded with death That the Apostles Argument may have its full weight or sway upon our souls we are in the First place to examine What shame properly is Secondly What manner of death it is which is the wages of sin 2. Shame is a fear of some evil to ensue Or an impression of some evil present the fear of whose continuance is more greivous than any present smart But though all Shame be a Fear or sense of evil yet every fear or sense of evil doth not cause shame Men naturally fear the loss of goods but as our Saviour intimates Mat. 6. 25. most naturally the loss of their lives Yet if our goods be taken from us by violence we are not ashamed of it the Expectation or sufferance of this evil causeth only sorrow or grief to us it causeth Shame to him that doth it There is no man almost but feareth a violent and undeserved death yet if such a death be set before him it causeth only Sorrow or heaviness of heart a dejection of spirit no Shame or confusion of face Such as die guiltlesse are rather comforted then
seek to hide our souls from the view of others albeit we cannot discern the inward stain or filth of sin but are rather in love with her painted pleasures But when he shall appear that knew no sin in himself and yet knows all the secrets of mans heart it is no vail of flesh no die of nature no covering of the visage with bloud that will avail such as continue to do those things whereof they are or ought to be ashamed or which they are afraid that others should see or know They shall then desire the Hils for a vail and the Rocks and Mountains for a covering to their shame but in vain for perpetual darkness shall be their habitation and their present shame and confusion of face shall then appear to be the harbinger or fore-runner of death CHAP. XIX ROMANS 6. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed c. We are many wayes ingaged to serve God rather then to serve sin though sin could afford us as much fruit and reward as God doth But there is no proportion no ground of Comparison betwixt the fruits of sin and the Gift of God The Case stated betwixt the voluptuous sensual life and the life truly Christian Satans method And Gods method A Complaint of the neglect of Grace 1. THe Scope of our Apostles whole discourse in this Chapter is to deter us from the service of sin and by the help of Super-abounding Grace and Hope of an exceeding great Reward both to encourage and engage our best Endeavors unto the service of God His Motion or Argument was reasonable albeit sin or he that is the Author of sin were able to afford us as much fruit or as full a recompence as the service of God doth There is no man amongst us of this Church I presume but doth abhor the Heresie of the Manichees which was in part this that we were beholding to another God for our bodies then unto Him which made our souls Yet if their abominable doctrine were for disputation sake supposed as true We could not be by any right so ingaged unto the service of this imaginary god as unto the service of the True God which made our souls and doth purifie them by his Word and Sacraments For we are not debters to the flesh but unto the God of the Spirits of all Flesh we are Debtors indeed unto the only God which made both our bodies and souls and spirits He may challenge our service by double right First by the right of Creation which we had shamefully violated by alienating our Allegeance unto his Enemy Secondly by right of Redemption for he that made us all hath redeemed us all and if we continue servants unto sin we do not only violate that antient or former Bond which we owed unto him by right of Creation but that second Bond whereby we stand bound unto him by right of redemption And transgressors we should be and most unthankful wretches if we did not cheerfully and sincerely betake our selves unto his service albeit the reward or recompence which he hath promised and will perform were but equal to the fruits or pleasures of sin But the truth is that so far they are from all equalitie that there is No Proportion between them The wages of sin are lesse then nothing compared to the reward of righteousnesse which is more then all things else that can befal us For not to Be at all never to have had any Being were better then to suffer the death here meant So that death and life especially everlasting death and everlasting life cannot come into any Ballance That which is worse then nothing or not Being so is everlasting death cannot be compared with any thing that is Good much less with the perfection of goodness such is everlasting life which containeth all goodness whereof we can imagine our nature to be capable 2. The only Comparison then must be between the service of sin and the service of righteousness in respect of our present estate or during the time of this mortal life And so if you mark it our Apostle hath Two Motives to withdraw us from the service of sin and Two to draw us to the service of righteousness The first Motive to withdraw us from the service of sin is that it is fruitless and shameful for the present The First Motive again to sway us unto the service of righteousness is the present fruit which we have unto Holiness and between these two there may be some Comparison if we sequester them from the other two to wit from life and death everlasting To sequester the service of righteousness altogether from the hope of everlasting life or the service of sin altogether from the fear of everlasting death is a thing if not impossible yet not warrantable as was shewed before in the tenth Chapter For those things which God hath conjoyned man may not sever Yet we may so far sever them as God permitted them to be severed in the wiser Heathen The very Heathens felt a kind of Compunction or sting of conscience upon the commission of grossers sins which did suggest a kind of tacit fear but of what evil to come they expresly knew not They had again a kind of joy or Grateful Testimonie or congratulation of spirit or conscience upon the practise of things honest and comely And this joy did kindle a secret hope or incouragement to go forwards in those courses but it burst not out into a flame it wanted the light or guidance of divine truth For both this fear and this hope they had without any express hope of everlasting life or express fear of everlasting death However the wiser or more moderate sort of them did prefer the practise of vertue or such pietie as they knew before the wonted pleasures of this life Yet this their greatest Philosophers did not do without the Contradiction of such as were given over to bodily pleasures And this opposition of sensual men may seem to have some Ground of Reason even from the Rule of Faith it self if we had no more express hopes of everlasting life or more distinct fear of everlasting death then they had For shall we not think that the estate of Dives was much better then the estate of Lazarus in this life wherein Dives received pleasure and Lazarus pain Now pleasure is much better then pain And if such a life as Dives here led afforded pleasure how was it Fruitless specially in respect of Lazarus his life which was full of pain Indeed in respect of a life so charged with pain as Lazarus's was or with such vexations and dangers as the life of Saint Paul and other more eminent Saints of God in the primitive Church were That Saying of our Apostle is most true 1 Cor. 15. 19. If in this life onely we have hope in Christ then are we of all men most miserable His meaning is That if bodily
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
came to Elijah the Tishbite saying seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me for he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly because he humbleth himself before me I not will bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Such was that Message which Hulda the prophetesse delivered unto Josiahs messengers But to the King of Judah which sent you to enquire of The Lord thus shall ye say to him Thus saith the Lord God of Israel as touching the words which thou hast heard because thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the inhabitants thereof that they should become a desolation and a curse and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I also have heard thee saith the Lord Behold therefore I will gather thee unto thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace and thine eye shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place Yet did the arrowes of Israels and Judahs most inveterate enemies the arrowes of the Aramites and Aegyptians make violent entrance for death into both these Princes bodies long before the time by ordinary course of nature prefixed for dispossession of their souls How then should life be unto Baruch as a welcome Prey being to be fully charged with all these hard conditions and bitter grieviances whose release or avoidance made untimely bloody death become A kind of gracious Pardon unto Ahab and a grateful Boon or Booty to good Josias For what evil did the Lord either threaten or afterward bring upon Iosiahs posteritie or people which Baruchs eyes did not behold Nor did this lease of life and libertie here bequeathed unto him expire till long after Jerusalems glasse was quite run out till after her whitest Towers were covered with dust and all the cities of Judah and Benjamin laid wast till the King the Princes and nobles were led captives or slain and the remnant which War had left in Iudah as a gleaning after harvest disperst and sowen throughout the Land of Egypt never to be reapt but by the Sword which even there pursues them excepting a very small number that escaped Ierem. 44. 28. And what greater evil could Iosias's eyes have seen though he had lived as long as Baruch The Difficulty therefore seems unanswerable How life should be a more grateful prey unto Baruch then it might have been unto Josias 6. But here if we rightly distinguish the Times the Persons and Offices We may easily derive the violent shortning of good Josias his dayes and this lengthening of Baruch's to see the evil which Josias desired rather to be sightless then to see from one and the same loving kindness of the Lord. Josias we must consider was The Great Leader of Gods People and could not but wish their Fall should be under some other then himself It was a Donative more magnificent then the long reign of Augustus that being slain in warre he should go to his grave in peace For this included his peoples present safety whose extirpation had been till this time deferred for his sake though now at length he must be taken out of the way that the Messengers of Gods wrath which could forbear no longer may have a freer passage throughout the Land No marvel if after thirtie one years raign in prosperitie and peace he patiently suffered violent death being thus graced with greater honour then either Codrus the last King of Athens or the Roman Decius purchased by voluntary sacrificing themselves for their people Perhaps the plagues which these men feared might otherwise have been avoided Or it may be the fear it self was but some vain delusion of Satan alwayes delighted with such sacrifices But that Ierusalem and Iudah standing condemned before Iosias's birth were so long reprieved so well intreated for his sake we have the great Judges Sentence for our warrant And therefore the Word of The Lord which Huldah the Prophetess had sent must needs seem good to him It was a message more unwelcome then such a death as Iosias suffered which Isaias brought to his great Grand-father Hezekiah lately delivered from the Assyrian and miraculously restored to life but more forward to receive Presents from Berodash King of Babylon then to render praise and thanksgiving to his God according to the Reward bestowed upon him Behold the dayes come saith Isaias that all that is in thine house and that which thy Fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried unto Babylon nothing shall be left saith the Lord. And of thy sons which shall issue from thee which thou shalt beget shall they take away and they shall be Eunuchs in the Palace of the King of Babylon Doth he repine or mutter at this ungrateful Message No But with great submission replies Good is the Word of the Lord which Thou hast spoken And he said Is it not good if peace and truth be in my dayes Isaiah 39. 8. Shall we hence collect that this Good King was of that wicked Tyrants mind who as he had shortened her dayes from whom he had beginning of life so did he envie his Mother Nature should survive him wishing the world might be dissolved at his death and that Old Chaos might be his Tomb God forbid we should wrong the memory of so Gracious a Prince by the least suspicion of such ungracious thoughts Rather his heart did smite him for shewing his Treasury his Armory and other provision wherein he had gloried too much unto the King of Babels Messengers This sin he knew to be such as his Father Davids had been in numbring the Hosts of Israel The plagues now threatened by his God he could not but acknowledge to be most just and great therefore must his mercy toward him needs seem to be in that for his sake who had so ill requited this strange Delivery and Recovery he would yet deferre them But seeing the wickedness of Manasseh and the mighty encrease of this peoples iniquity from Hezekiah's death did earnestly sollicit the Day of Visitation the former adjourning of it must cost Iosiah dear And Gods Arrows being flesht in him No marvel if they return not empty from the blood of the slain or from the fat of the mighty Having begun with so good A King it might well be expected they would make an end of so naughty a people This was he of whom not the people only but the Prophet hath said Under his shadow we shall be safe As he was a shadow without question of that Great Shepheard which was to be smitten ere the flock were scattered upon the occasion of whose death his Disciples likewise said We trusted it had been he which should have redeemed Israel And for Josias to become the true shadow or the bloody
picture of that Great Shepheards death was a greater honour then if the shadow in the Dial of Ahaz had returned backward ten degrees in token of prolonging his dayes as long as Hezekiah's had been specially if we consider that the Saying fulfilled in the Great Prophet was verified in him Of them which thou gavest me have I lost none Though he were slain yet his Army returned home safe and he went to his grave in peace being buried in his own Sepulcher by his Servants 7. But alas Baruch lives in an Age super-annuated for any such Grace or Favour as Hezekiah or Iosias found in a City in which though Noah Iob and Daniel lived together yet as I live saith the Lord God they shall deliver neither son nor daughter they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness And shall not the Word of the Lord which Ieremy hath spoken unto Baruch be good For is it not good that when the Lord hath determined to send his four sore judgments upon Ierusalem the Sword and the Famine and the noysom Beast and the Pestilence to cut off from it man and beast yet his life shall be a prey not unto these but to himself Yes this is much better considering the season then if he had been sole heir to Hezekiah or Iosias Three or four of whose Successors all in their turns Kings of Judah he lived to see led bound in chains and their Nobles linkt in fetters of Iron For Baruch with reference unto these mens persons and present calamity to have such an ample safe Conduct as no Monarch living could have granted him License to travel whither he listed with full assurance of life was An Honour peculiar to Gods Saints A Reward wherein at this time my Prophet Ieremy and Ebedmelech which had received Ieremy in the name of a Prophet ministring bread and water c. unto his necessities were to be his only partners 8. But though they had liberty to travell whither they please will they be as careless passengers without all regard of their mothers sorrows wherewith the Lord had afflicted her in the day of his fierce anger Jeremie doubtless would have endured all the tortures cruel Babylon could have devised upon condition Jerusalem and Judah might still have dwelt in saftie The Galatians were not more affectionate towards Paul then Jeremy was to the meanest branch that sprang from good Josias willingly would he have pluckt out his own to have redeemed Zedekiah's eyes or to have prevented that lamentable Farewel which they were to take of sight the barbarous massacre of his dearest children And how then can this short prolongation of life be sweet to Jeremy the Aged or unto Baruch the Scribe being now to see such miserie fall upon their native Country King and people as they might justly wish their mothers wombs had been their graves rather then they should have been brought forth to behold it A thousand lives had been well spent upon condition such calamity had never been seen in Jury and yet the prorogation of Baruchs and Ieremies life though certain to see the execution of all the plagues here threatned these becoming now at length without any fault or negligence in them but rather by others neglect of their forewarnings altogether Fatal and inevitable is much better then a thousand years spent in mirth and jollity But would they not sorrow day and night for the slain of the daughter of their people The Book of the Lamentations will witness tears not sweet wine to have been the drink of him that wrote them And shall life though it have continuall sorrow for its sauce be sweet whose heart among us would not be sad even full of sorrow whose eyes would not overflow with tears at the Tragical representation of their disasters and calamities whose living persons we had alwayes honoured whose memory and never dying Fame we reverence And yet to minds deckt with more polite literature or mollified with the Muses songs the secret delight which in this Case ariseth from the Poets Art and contrivance much more from our Observation of the strange concurrence of real causes conspiring to work designes worthy of God whether for mercy or for vengeance is infinitely more sweet and pleasant then the profuse mirth of lascivious Comedies on any other positive delight whereof humane senses whether external on internal are capable And if with Reverence any may be thereto compared This secret placid delight which is thus accompanied with sighes and composed sadnesse most perfectly resembles the internal comfort of the spirit alwayes rejoycing in tribulation Such truly was the joy and comfort which Ieremy and Baruch found who had now been admitted spectators twentie years and more of a true unfained Tragedy whose Catastrophe was to contain the most doleful spectacle the great eye of the world since it first rolled in his sphere untill this time had ever beheld Had they lookt upon the several parts of this Tragedy the last Scene especially with natural eyes the gastly sight had doubtless inspired them with some desperate Romane Resolution to have acted the like crueltie upon themselves as the Babylonians had done upon their brethren to have set a full and Capital Period to all the woes which they had written against this people with their own blood spilt in the ruines of the Temple or mingled with the ashes of the Altar But now that The Lord hath enlightned their hearts to discern the sweet disposition of his all-seeing Providence still counterplotting the subtle Projects of man and making the Politicians which had accounted his Prophets silly fools unexperienced Idiots or raving Bedlames more curiously cunning then the spider to weave the net which he had ordained to spread upon them the more they sorrowed to see the desolation of their country the greater still was their solace in contemplating the justice power and wisdom of their God in accomplishing his indignation contrary to Prince and peoples expectation but agreeable to their predictions Finally as men compacted of flesh and blood they could not but sympathize with miserable men even their brethren their flesh and bones As faithfull men they could not but be in mind and affection conformable to The Lord their God by whose good spirit their hearts were toucht and their souls illuminated to fore-see the contrivance of his designes upon these his disobedient children which had so often refused the wayes of peace which he would have led them in but they would not follow 9. From this Double Aspect the One of Nature the other of Grace and this Twofold Sympathie thence arising the one with their Creator the other with their fellow-Creatures doth the Lord frame this Pathetical and forcible Charge vnto Baruch Behold that which I have built will I break down and that which I have planted will I pluck up even this whole Land and seekest thou great things for thy self Seek them not The Exegesis or Implication fully unfolded