their sight and their hearing and had the rest of their sences the lame whom he cured did onely want the use of their feet and had the rest of their limbs the Lepers whom he cleansed did onely want their health and had the use of their limbs and sences but they which vvere dead had none of them all but vvere deprived of them altogether and so his raysing of such as vvere dead was a greater work then any of the former Therefore whensoever he raised the dead the people did greatly admire and honour him when he cured two blind men Mat. 9.31 Math. 9 They spread â—abroad his fame throughout all the land When he raised to life the Widowes sonne in Naim Luke 7.16 Luke 7. All that were present praised God and said A great Prophet is risen up amongst us and God hatâ— visited his people And vvhen he raised Lazarus from the dead John 11. it is said there that many of the Jewes that saw what Jesus did John 11. â—5 believed in him While a man is alive though he be never so much diseased or so dangerously sick yet vve send for Physitians and use other means because there is some hope that he may recover but when he is once dead there is no more hope and therefore we trouble our selves no further so when the Rulers daughter was sick he came unto Christ and besought him for her My little daughter saith he lyeth at the point of death but I pray thee come and lay thy hands on her and she shall live Mark 5.23 Mark 5.35 But his daughter dying before Christ came to her some brought the Ruler word Thy daughter is dead why troublest thou the Master any further as thinking it in vain when his daughter was dead to seek for help because the Physitian is not sought to for the dead but for the living But Christ that was as well able to revive the dead as to heale the sick raised diverse in the Gospel from death to life whereof some are not named but onely mentioned ingenerall as here it is said that the dead were raised up without specifying in particular who they were some are mentioned in particular as the Rulers daughter whom he restored to life when she was newly dead Marke 5. Mark 5.42 Luke 7.15 Joh. 11.17 The Widowes Son that was carried forth to be buried Luke 7. and Lazarus that had been foure dayes dead and was laid in his grave John 11. If Christ then were able to raise the dead while he lived here in the form of a servant we may well he assured that being in glory at the right hand of his Father he is both able to raise our souls from the death of sinne to the life of grace and to raise our bodies when they lie dead in their graves to the life of glory Indeed the raising of the body being dead see us a thing incredible unto flesh and blood And therefore when St. Paul Acts 17. did preach to the Athenians about the resurrection they were so far from believing that the dead should rise that they counted him a babler and laughed him to scorne But as Christ here raised some from death to life so at the â—â—st day he will raise all Act. 7.60 the one being as easie to him as the other Therefore our bodies when they die are said in the Scripture to â—all a sleep because Christ can as easily raise our bodies being dead as one man can wake another when he is faln a sleep If many be fallen asleep in a Chamber together yet one voice you know is able to waken them all and so the voice of Christ at the last day shâ—ll raise all that are dead in the whole world together The houâ—e shall come saith our Saviour John 5. John 5.28 in the which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Sonne of Man and they shall come forth that have done good unto the resurection of life and they that have done evill unto the refurrection of condemnation 1 Cor. 15.42 And therefore the buriall of our bodies is fitly resembled by St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. to the sowing of seed because as the seed being sowen in the ground doth afterwards revive and spring up againe so our bodies after they are dead and buried shall be revived and quickned Qui tibi grana seminum mortua et putrefacta vivificat August de ver Apost Sermo 34. per quae in hoe saeculâ— vivas multo magis te ipsum resuscitabit ut in aeternum vivas He saith St. Augustine that quickens for thee the graines of Corne when they are dead and rotten whereby thou mayst live upon the earth for a time much more will he raise thy self hereafter that thou mayst live for ever in Heaven For he hath not onely redeemed our souls but likewise our bodies and therefore will not suffer them to perish in their graves but will quicken them again that both our bodies and souls may live with him And thus much concerning his raysing the dead The last thing which is here mentioned is that the poore had the Gospel preached unto them It is the saying of the Prophet Esay Chap. 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath annointed me to preach good tydings unto the poore he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted to proclaime liberty to the Captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound Which words Christ expounding Luke 4. when he preached in Nazareth he applies them to himself This day saith he Luke 4.21 is this Scripture fulfilled in your eares to shew that he was annointed of God to preach the Gospel unto the poor Now by the poor to whom he preached the Gospel they are understood who are said by our Saviour Math. 5.3 to be poor in spirit For there are two sorts of poverty the one outward vvhen a man hath not means to maintain himself but wants outward necessaries the other inward vvhen a man is destitute of spirituall graces And thus every one of us all are poor but some do not see their poverty and want as the Laâ—diceans Revel 3.17 that thought themselves rich and increased with goods when they were poor and naked Some see their poverty and find in themselves a want of grace and therefore do hunger and thirst after it and these are the poore to whom Christ is said here to have preached the Gospel Therefore in the place which I named before the Prophet shews to what poor the Gospel should be preached by naming presently the broken hearted And Esay 66.2 The Lord promiseth to have respect unto him that is poore and of a contrite Spirit the latter of these explaining the former that they are the poor whom God respects who are humbled with the sight of their spirituall wants and bewaile nothing more then their want of grace Such were they to whom Christ here
men are living there is great difference among thent some are of high place some of mean condition some wise some simple some rich some poore some of one complextion some of another but being laid in their graves and consumed to ashes Agamemnon cannot be known from Thersites the rich glutton in the Gospel cannot be known from Lazarus but all are so like that we can see no difference Respice sepulchra saith St. Augustine et discerne si potes Jrum a Rege fortem a debili pulorum a deformi Look into mens Sepulchers and distinguish if thou canst between the King and the beggar the strong and the weak the faire and the deformed Therefore we read of Diogenes the Philosopher that when Alexander the Great as he was passing by saw him looking very wisly into Tombs and Sepulchres and demanded of him what he was looking for Diogenes answered That he was looking for the bones of King Philip Alexanders Father who had been the terrour of all Greece and that he could not distinguish them from other mens bones nor finde any difference To note unto Alexander that even he notwithstanding all his pomp and bravery after all his conquests must in the end be laid in the dust and then there would be no difference between him and others We see then briefly how man is like the grasse and the flowers of the field and wherein this resemblance between them consists That they are like for their beginning like for their continuance and like for their end But that which the Prophet David here specially intends is the second of these that they are like for their short continuance For he saith That the dayes of man are as grasse not reckoning our life-time by years or by moneths but only by dayes to signifie how soon our life passes even as the grasse and the flower which doth not continue from one year to another but as it comes up soon so it soon withers And he saith That man slourisheth as the flower of the field Sient slos agri non horti As the flower of the field not as the flower of the garden for garden-flowers ye know are more carefully lookt to the Gardiner keeps them standing as long as he can because they make a faire shew and are a grace to the gardens but for field-flowers they are subject ye know to many more dangers they lie open to passengers that pull them up and to the beasts that either crop them or tread them under foot and if they escape all dangers yet the time they flourish is very short they come up later then the grasse and yet stand no longer for when the grasse is cut down they are cut down together Here then in that we are resembled to grasse and the flowers of the field we may observe from hence two things The certainty of our death and the shortnesse of our life First The certainty of our death That we shall as certainly die as we are sure that the grasse and flowers of the field shall fade and wither Death indeed is uncertain in some respects as in respect of the time in respect of the place and in respect of the mâ—â—â—ner thereof because we do not know either when or where or how we shall die Death is uncertain in regard of the time for we do not know when death will arrest us whether by day or by night whether in the morning at noon or in the evering whether at the cock-crowing or in the dawning For when we lie down we do not know whether we shall rise again and when we are risen we do not know whether we shall lie down again Death is uncertain in regard of the place because we do not know where death will arrest us whether when we are in company or when we are alone whether in the Field or in the Town whether abroad or at home for when we go forth we do not know whether we shall return again and when we are returned we do not know whether we shall go forth again And death is uncertain in regard of the manner because we do not know how death will arrest us whether we shall die a naturall or a violent death whether a painfull or an easie death whether a lingring or a sudden death In these respects death is uncertain yet nothing again more certain then death For though we know not as I said either where or when or how we shall die yet we know for certain that either here or else-where either sooner or later either by one means or other we are sure to die Therefore David propounds this question What man is he that lives and shall not see death Psal 89.48 because death is common to all men and no man by his greatnesse strength or wisdome or any other means can avoid the same And this the Heathen knew very well and therefore though they worshipt the Sunne the Moon and all the Host of heaven though they offered sacrifice to stocks to stones to men to divels and to all manner of creatures whom they worshipt as Gods yet among all their sacrifices there was never any that offeted sacrifice to death as knowing that death will never be appeased and therefore that their sacrifices should have been to no purpose Contra omnia aliquid inveniri potest contra mortem nihil One remedy or other may be found against every thing but no remedy can possibly be found against death Galen Hipocrates and other skilfull Physicians have found out many remedies against the most diseases and have prescribed many rules how to preserve our health and to keep us from sicknesse but how to preserve and keep us from death there was never any that could invent any remedy And though Paracelsus had such considence in his knowledge that he professed himselfe able to keep a man by physick in so perfect a temperature that he should never die of any disease whatfoever yet he could not prescribe any physick against death For though we diet our bodies and use all preservatives to keep us from sioknesse and though we live all our life time without any disease yet either casnality or age will bring us to our graves Therefore the grave is called by Job Job 30.23 the house appointed for all the living I know saith Job that thou Wilt bring me to death and to the house appointed for all the living it is appointed and therefore cannot be avoided it is appointed for all the living and therefore none are exempted but all that live upon the face of the earth are subject unto it In severall Kingdoms there are severall Lawes whereunto they are not bound in other Kingdoms Now in the whole world there are three Kingdoms where the Laws concerning death are divers In heaven they have a Law that they shall live for ever and never die Mat. 19.17 Therefore heaven is called by the name of life If saith our Saviour thou wilt enter into life
that is into heaven keep the Commandements And heaven is called Psal 25. the land of the living I should saith David have utterly fainted but that I believe verily to see the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living that is in heaven for there they live eternally and never die In hell there is a quite contrary law that they die eternally Therefore it is said of the wicked Psal 49. They lie in hell like sheep and death gnawes upon them because there they suffer the second death which is everlasting And here upon earth there is a third law between them both Heb. 9.27 That every one living shall once suffer death Therefore saith the Apostle Heb. 9. It is appointed unto all men that they shall once dye not live here for ever as they do in heaven nor die for ever as they do in hell but once they must die and this is a law which all that live on the face of the earth are subject unto God hath given great priviledges to many of his servants and hath miraculously preserved them from many dangers Exed 34.28 1 King 19.8 Dan. 3.25 Mat. 14.29 Josh 10.12.13 some he hath preserved without any nourishment for many weeks together as Moses and Elius some he hath preserved in the midst of fire as the three children in the furnace some he hath inabled to walk upon the waters as Peter did some he hath inabled to stay the course of the Sun as Joshuah did but to stay and hinder the course of death and to free men from the same this is a priviledge which God never gave to any of his servants Therefore even they that lived before the deluge though some of them lived seven hundred years some eight hundred some nine hundred years and upwards yet they died in the end nature delaying more and more in them till it were quite spent as a candle being lighted wastes by little and little till it quite goes out Seeing then it is certain that we shall die this may therefore teach us to fit and prepare our selves against the coming of death by frequent meditation and remembrance thereof The oftner a man bethinks him of death the better he will be prepared for it as a man that foresees and expects a storm he will provide himself the better against it come And herein the Heathen themselves may be patterns unto us who though they knew not God nor the punishment of sin in the world to come yet knowing they should die they used many strange and memorable devises to put them in mind of their mortality Ortelius writes of a Countrey in the World where the people do use the bones of dead men in stead of their coin which being continually before their eyes they cannot but continually remember their ends Plutarch writes of Ptolomie the King of Egypt That alwayes when he made any sumptuous feast among the rest of his dishes the skull and bones of a dead man were brought in a platter and set before him and one was appointed to say thus unto him Plutarch in Conviv Sept. Sapientum Behold O King and consider with thy selfe this president of death that he whose skull and bones thou now seest was once like thy selfe and the time will come when thou shalt be like unto him and thy skull and bones shall be brought hereafter to the Kings table as now his are to thint Isodore writes That it was a custome in Constantinople that alwayes at the time of the Emperours Coronation among other Solemnities this was one A free Mason presented the Emperour with divers sorts of marble and asked him of which of them he should make his Tomb that so he might remember even then when he was in the height of his glory that he was but mortall Dion writes of Severus a Roman Emperour That while he lived he caused his Hearse to be made and was often wont to go in into it adding these words Thou O Herse as small as thou art must contain him whom now the whole world is searce able to contain If these who were Heathen were so mindfull of their ends what should we that are Christians We know that God hath made the end of our life the manner of our death and the place thereof to be unknown and uncertain that we might alwayes have it in expectation So saith Saint Augustine Latet ultimus dies ut observentur omnes dies Augustine Hom. 13. The last day of our lives is hidden from us that that day might be expected all the dayes of our lives And indeed the reason why we are not prepared for the comming of death is because we seldom or never think of dying for who of us almost have any thought thereof till either sicknesse or age the two Serjeants of death do come to arrest us or if at any other time we bethink us thereof it is only then when we hear the Bell to ring out for any or when we see some of our neighbours to lie upon their death-bed and past recovery Then it may be we think of our ends and that it is high time for us to prepare our selves for death that we may be in a readinesse against God shall call us But these meditations are but for a fit and they presently vanish I have seen somtimes when a Fowler coming to a Tree where there were store of birds and hath killed any one of them all the rest have immediately flown away but presently after forgetting the danger wherein they were before they have all of them returned to the same Tree And do not we resemble these silly birds when death comes to our houses and takes away any one of us we are all amazed and we presently think that the next course may be ours and therefore that it behooves us to reform our lives but presently after when the remembrance of death is out of our minds we return again to our former courses But he that will be provided against the coming of death must alwayes have death in his remembrance Tota vita sapientis debet esse meditatio mortis The whole life saith Gregory of a wise man ought to be a meditation of death That as the birth of sin was the death of man so the meditation of death may be the death of sin And as David here by comparing us to grasse and the flowers of the field implyeth thereby the certainty of our death that we shall as certainly die as we are sure that these shall fade and wither So he implyeth hereby the shortnesse of our life that we shall not live long but shall die soon as the grasse and flowers do fade and decay in a short time Theodorus Gaza tels us of a father that had twelve sons and each of those brethren had thirty children yet every one of them expired soon The father expired within the compasse of a year never a one of his sons but expired in a moneth and
never a one of their children but expired in a day Though this be spoken of the Year which hath twelve months and every month thirty dayes yet their expiring so soone may well put us in mind of ours seeing the shortness of our life is such that we are not sure we shall live a year no not a month nay though we be now wel for ought we know yet for ought we know we may be dead before to morrow How many have we known that have been well and lively in one houre and yet dead the next how many are there in this Land that were alive this morning and dead before noon Nay how many are there in the World that are now alive and since thou hast read these words are now alive are now dead who no doubt made reckoning as many now do that they should have lived a long time But the Scripture teacheth us to make another account by joyning together as many times it doth the day of our birth and the day of our death Eccles 3.2 without making any mention of the time of our life as if our lifetime were so short that it were not worth the naming So Solomon Eccles. 7. Eccles 7.1 Job 14.2 The day of death is better then the day of mans birth So Job Man that is borne of a Woman is of few dayes and full of trouble he comes up like a flower and is cut down Upon which words Bernard saith thus In ipso statim introitu de exitu quoque admonemur In the very beginning and entrance into life we are put in mind of the end of our life as if there were no distance between them both And hence it is that we are often in the Scripture compared to those things which are of the shortest abode and continuance So our bodies are compared to vessells of earth we have 2 Cor. 4.7 saith the Apostle this treasure in earthen Vessells He compares them not to Vessells of brasse or Iron which will last long but to earthen Vessells which are soone broken In the Potters shop there are Vessels ye know of divers sorts some lesse some greater some made for one use and some for another but all so brittle that a little force will break any of them to peeces And such is the frailty of our mortall bodies some are stronger and more durable then other but yet none so strong but that a little sickness will soone pull him down and bring him to nothing Nay earthen Vessells howsoever they be brittle yet if we let them alone if we set them up safe and keep them from falling they will continue the same for a longtime but such is our frailty that we never continue in one stay but though we look never so carefully to our selves though we avoid all occasions of coming into danger yet before it be long even age will consume us So we are compared by St. James to a vapour that appeares for a while and presently vanishes so by Job to a Weavers shuttle that makes no stay in the Webbe but passeth in a trice from one side to the other So to a Garment that is soon worne out to a tale that is soone told to a span which is soone measured and here to the grasse and flowers of the field which are soone withered The field we see hath variety of flowers but none of them all do continue long but come up and are cut down and others grow up in their roome So it is likewise with the owners of those fields they are soon gone and others succeed them There is not any field that hath had such variety of flowers in it as owners of it the same field which thou holdest hath been held by thousands before thee who held it for a while one after another and lest it to thee as thou must leave it to others after thee and thou dost not know whether thy self or the flowers which spring up in thy field shall be gone soonest for thy dayes are but as grasse and as the flowers of the field so thou flourishest If you aske why God hath made our life so short the answer is that it is his goodness and mercy towards us to shorten our dayes For though Theophrastus the Philosopher complained at the time of his death that nature had given to Harts and Ravens a long time of life but a short time to man who could better have imployed the benefit of time yet indeed it is his mercy towards us that we live not so long because he saw that a short life would be better for us in divers respects First That we might the sooner be freed from the miseries of this life Gen. 47.9 Few and evill saith Jacob have the dayes of the years of my life been If the dayes of our life be evill it is well they be few for for if they were more they would be more evill Man saith Job that is borne of a Woman Job 14.1 is of few dayes and full of trouble So full of trouble that one of the wisest among the Heathen could say Nemo vitam acciperet si dare turscientibus Seneca If life were not given us before we had knowledge of it there is no man but would refuse it Herod Tap. Therefore the Tracians as Herodotus writes were wont according to the Custome of their Country to mourne and lament when their Children were borne reckoning up the calamities which they were to undergoe through the whole course of their lives but when they died they followed them to their graves with mirth and rejoycing because they were freed from a World of miseries Our bodies are subject to labour and weariness to sickness and paine and a thousand Diseases our soules besides the grief and sorrow which they are subject unto they are continually assaulted with strong temptations and alwayes in danger of many powerfull enemies for we wrestle not saith St. Paul Ephes 6.12 against flesh and blood but against Principalities and powers and the Prince of darkness from all which we are not freed till this life be ended and therefore God in mercy hath shortned our life that we might the sooner be freed from the miseries thereof and that in the mean time we might have this comfort that though our life be miserable yet withall it is short Secondly God hath shortned our life that we may the sooner come into his presence and inherit the Kingdom he hath prepared for us Ye know when Absolon lived in exile and was kept for a time from the sight of his Father it grieved him so much that he wisht rather to die if he had deserved it 2 Sam. 13.32 then to be kept any longer from his Fathers presence God knowes how his Children while they live here in this World the place of their banishment do long to be with him saying with David Psal 42.2 Phil. 1.23 when shall I come to appear before the
presence of God and desiring with Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ and therefore God in mercy hath shortned our dayes that we may the sooner come into his heavenly Kingdom and injoy his presence And lastly God hath shortned our dayes that we may be the lesse carefull for the things of this life considering we shall injoy them so short a time If a man be to travell into a farre Country he will be the more carefull to provide the more and to proportion his provision to the length of his journey but if his journey be short he will provide the lesse and the nearer he comes to his journies end the lesse carefull he is what provision he hath God knowes if we were to live long in this World we would be the more carefull for the things of this life and would think we could never provide enough and therefore he hath made our life to be short that we might be the lesse carefull to provide for it To draw then to a conclusion of all we have briefly heard why we are here resembled to the grasse and flowers of the field and from thence both of the certainty of our death and the shortness of our life and the reasons why God hath made our life so short all which may serve to teach us two lessons 1. Vse 1 Not to make account that we shall live long as many of us do but that we shall soon die That we shall die we all know but the most of us deceive our selves in this that we put off the day of our death stil further from us vvhen we are young we think we shal live til we come to be old when we come to be old we think we may live longer and so we put off the time of our death still further and further And hence it is that we are so carefull for the things of this life as if this World were the place where we should live for ever We read of Alexander that to shew his affection to a certain Philosopher he willed him to aske what he would of him and he would give it him The Philosopher desired him to give him the fee-simple of his life that he might be free from death O saith Alexander if I could do this I would do it for my self why then it seemes saith the Philosopher that you are mortall True saith Alexander Indeed saith the Philosopher that you are mortall I do not doubt yet I greatly doubt whether you think that you are mortall and shall ever die because you live so as if you thought you were immortall and should never die The like may be said to many of us for though we cannot deny but must needes acknowledge that we shall surely die yet man live so they seek so greedily after worldly goods they so pamper their bodies and are so sumptuons in their buildings as if they were immortall and should never die The Patriarcks though they lived so many years yet they lived in Tents and in poor Cabins but we that live not the half of their dayes do build our houses so faire and so durable as if we meant here to set up our rest and that we should never depart from hence which argues that though we know we shall die Theatr. Histor ex Guid. yet we think we shall live a long time whereas we should daily look to die Like Messodanus a holy old man who being invited by his friend to dinner for the morrow after Why saith he do you invite me to morrow to dinner I have not looked to live till to morrow this many a year For we no sooner begin to live but we begin to die and look how many dayes of our life are past so much of our life is already cut off and the lesse is remaining as the more of an Houre-glasse is already run out the lesse it hath to runne And secondly seeing we shall so soone die it may therefore teach us so to live as that death when it comes may be welcome and not fearfull unto us and that is by preparing our selves against the coming of death by a godly life For this is the comfort which a man can find when he lieth on his Death-bed that he shall enter into a better life when this life is ended and this comfort he cannot have at his death unless he have lived a godly life Death to the wicked may well be fearfull because as it is in it own nature it is the wages of sinne and imposed as a curse and punishment upon man for his transgression but by virtue of Christs death to the godly it is otherwise ceasing to be a curse unto them nay of a curse it is made a blessing even a passage out of a miserable life into the Kingdom of Heaven It was Sampsons Riddle Judg. 14.14 out of the eater came meat and out of the strong came sweetness Which was meant of the honie which was found in the Lyon which Sampson had slain for so the Philistins ye know expounded it what is sweeter say they then hony and what is stronger then a Lyon and it may not unfitly be applyed to death for what is stronger then death that subdues the strongest yet after that Christ had vanquisht death as he did for the godly out of the strong came sweetness for vvhat can be more svveet or pleasant unto us then the passage out of a miserable life into eternall happiness And such is death to the godly and therefore if we would find this comfort at the time of our death we must prepare our selves against the coming thereof by a godly Life FINIS The Sixth SERMON JAMES 4.7 Resist the Devill and he will flie from you IN the beginning of this verse we are exhorted to submit our selves unto God and the reason thereof is given by the Apostle in the words immediately going before because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble Now because we cannot submit our selves unto God unless we be carefull to resist the Devill who labours by all meanes to withdraw us from godliness therefore the Apostle addes in these words which I have read unto you Resist the Devill and he will flie from you Division The words consist of these two parts An exhortation to resist the Devill and a motive or reason because he will flie from us if we resist him For as God is overcome by our yielding unto him and therefore we must submit our selves unto God so on the contrary we must resist the Devill because he is overcome and will flie away from us if we resist him In the exhortatiō we may observe two things First the person vvhom vve must resist Secondly The manner how vve must resist him And first for the person it is the Devill vvhose name vvhich is here given him doth signifie an accuser And indeed his name is not given him for nought but as Abigail said of Nabal Nabal is his
they that suffer persecution for righteousnesse sake it is not their suffering but their suffering for righteousnesse that makes them blessed Therefore the Apostles did not simply rejoyce in their sufferings Acts 5.41 but that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christs sake This was that which made Saint Paul so willing to suffer that being fore-told by Agabus Acts 21. That at Jerusalem he should be in bonds and be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles and being therefore intreated by the brethren that Acts 21.13 he would not go to Jerusalem What mean ye saith he to weep and to break my heart for I am ready not onely to be bound but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus And this was that which here imboldened Steven because it was for the Testimony of Christ that he suffered Martyrdome And so leaving the first point the person that was martyr'd I come to the second the kind of his Martyrdome and that was stoning They stoned Steven Our Saviour ye know fore-told his Disciples of the great persecution which they were to suffer Luke 9.23 Mat. 10.22 Mat. 10.16 Mat. 10.17 Mat. 23.34 That if any man would be his Disciple he must take up his Crosse every day and follow him that they should be hated of all men for his names sake that he sent them as sheep among wolves that they would be brought before the Councels and be scourged in their Synagogues that some of them should be slaine some stoned and some crucified All which not long after began to be accomplished To begin with the Apostles whom Christ vouchsafes the name of his friends John 15.15 John 15.7 Revel 1.9 John 21.17 Saint John the Disciple that Christ loved was condemned to banishment by the Emperor Domitian was banished into the Isle of Pathmos where he wrote the Book of the Revelation Saint Peter the Disciple that loved Christ was condemned by Nero to be crucified and was hanged on the Crosse as Saint Jerome writes with his head down-wards affirming himselfe unworthy to be crucified in the same manner that his Lord was Saint Andrew Peters brother was likewise crucified imbracing the Crosse saith Bernard and saying Per te me recipiat qui per te me redemit Let him receive me by thee who by thee redeemed me and hanging on the Crosse three dayes before he died converted many in the mean time to Christ Saint James the elder the Son of Zebedec and Saint Johns brother was killed with the sword and the person as Clemens Alexandrinus writes that had accused him when he saw him condemned was so moved therewith that he profest himself to be a Christian and having asked forgivenesse of Saint James was beheaded with him Saint James the younger the son of Alpheus and Bishop of Jerusalem because he would not deny Christ to be the Son of God was thrown down headlong from the battlements of the Temple and being still alive though both his thighes were broke his braines were dashed out as Egesippus writes with a Fullers club Saint Thomas who would not believe that Christ was risen from the dead except he might put his hand into the wound which the launce had made was afterwards in India as some Authours report thrust through with a launce because he would not worship the image of the Sun which was worshipt by them Saint Paul was beheaded in Rome by Nero on the same day as some do write that Peter was crucified and so that may not unfitly be applied to them which David said of Saul and Ionathan They were lovely in their lives and in their deaths they were not devided 2 Sam. 1.23 I might further instance in the rest of the Apostles and in the bloudy persecutions which afterwards followed wherein there was made such havock of the Church that if Ievemie or David had lived in those dayes there had been matter for the one to have made new Lamentations and for the other to sit weeping by the walls of Babylon when he remembred Sion Thus in these was verefied what our Saviour fore-told concerning the persecution which they were to suffer and the first of them all which brake as it were the ice and led the way to the rest was Steven here who was stoned to death A kind of death which was appointed by God for idolaters blasphemers and malefactors that others seeing what punishment they suffered might be kept from committing the like sins for fear of undergoing the like punishment So we see Deut. 13. That the idolater that inticed the people to serve other gods Deut. 13.10.11 was by Gods commandement to be stoned to deat that all Israel might hear and fear and the like might not be done any more in Israel So he that blasphemed the Name of the Lord Levit. 24.23 Levit. 24. was stoned to death by the whole Congregation as God commanded I might instance in others So that stoning was a punishment appointed by God for wicked persons yet Steven that was a holy man was here stoned Here then we may observe from the kind of his Martyrdome which was stoning That we are not to judge of a man by the kind of his death because sometimes the godly die the same kind of death that the wicked do 1. King 16. Ahab ye know was a most wicked King that served Baul and polluted the worships and service of God so that it is said of him that he did more to provoke the Lord to anger then all the Kings of Israel that were before him Josiah on the contrary was a most religious King that brought Iudah and Ierusalem from their idolatry and restored Gods service so that it is said of him That like unto him there was no King before him 2. King 23. that turned to the Lord with all his heart neither after him arose there any like him Yet these two brethren that were so unlike in their lives were alike in their deaths both were slain in the warres by the hands of their enemies The like may be said of Ionathan and Saul a good Son of a bad Father yet both of them slain in the field together So seditious Sheba that conspired against David died the same kind of death that Iohn the Baptist did for they were both beheaded and Steven here dyed the same kind of death that Achan did for they were both stoned Doct. In a vvord There is hardly any death that can be names but some of the godly have been put thereunto as well as the wicked And therefore vve are not to judge of any by the kind of his death that he died vvell or ill because that kind of death vvhich befalls one may befall an other We commonly judge the vvorse of a man if his death be sudden and count sudden death a fearfull thing as indeed it is especially if it be a violent death vvithall It vvas a fearfull kind a death which Charles
their own dayes might have found life but would not seek it so then in his day they shall seek death but shall not find it And as here it is called the day of the Lord Acts 2.20 so elsewhere it is called the great notable day of the Lord Joel 2.11 and the the great terrible day of the Lord because on that day more great terrible things shall come to passe then ever came to passe in the World before The Prophet Esay was shewed a vision which did so greatly astouish him that he saith his heart panted and fear came upon him Esay 21.3 that it made him to stoop when he heard of it and dismayed him when he saw it What was that vision which was able to affright so great a Prophet He saw the fall of Babylen how that mighty City the glory of Kingdoms as the Scripture calls it should be overthrown and all the stately buildings thereof should be brought to ruine But on this day which is here meÌ„tioned there shal be a matter which is far more fearfull not the desolation of one City or Kingdom but the finall overthrow and utter ruine of all the Kingdoms and buildings in the World together For on that day the very foundation of the earth shall be shaken so that all the buildings thereof from the least to the greatest shall be shivered asunder and quite overthrown Though our walls were as strong as the walls of Nineveh which as Authors write of them were made of that thicknesse that three Carts might go side-long together upon them though our Turrets were as high as the Spires of Egypt or the Tower of Babell whose top they would have made to have reacht up unto heaven though our houses were as sumptuous as the Pallace of Alcinous where the walls were of brasse the entries of silver and the gates of gold yet on this great day if they continued so long they should all be overthrown For what shall be able to stand on that day when there shall be earthquakes on the one side and fire on the other which shall overthrow and consume whatsoever is before them On that day there shall be so great an earthquake as Saint John tells us Revel Rev. 6.12.14 6. That all mountains and istands shall be moved out of their places On that day there shall be so great a fire all overthe World that Saint Peter tells us 2 Pet. 3.10 The heavens being on sire shall be dissolved the elements shall melt with fervent heat and the earth and all the works therein shall be burut up On that day there shall be the greatest number assembled together that ever were For then heaven and earth as it were shall meet together on the one side Christ and his Angels shall come from heaven thousand thousands shall attend upon him and ten thousand thousands shall minister unto him on the other side shall be Adam and Eve with their whole of-spring even all that have lived from the first to the last in all ages from one end of the world to the other in all Countries they shall all appear on that together Gen. 13.16 God promised Abraham the father of the faithfull that his seed should be as the starres of heaven Gen. 15.5 in number like the sand on the sea-shore which ye know is innumerable yet all these in comparison of that infinite multitude which shall be assembled together at the day of judgement are no more then an handfull For then all without exception both Jewes and Gentiles beleevers and infidels even every one in his own person shall appear on that day and not one shall be wanting Therefore saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 2 Cor. 5.10 We must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that which he hath done whether it be good or evill All and every one to shew the generality that none are excepted and we must appear to shew the necessity that it cannot he avoided When the King in the Gospell invited many to the marriage of his Sonne Luke 14. they pretended excuses for their not coming one saying that he had bought a piece of ground another that he had bought five yoke of oxen another that he had married a wife and could not come so that of those which were invited there were many wanting But no excuse shall be taken at the day of judgement but as all shall be summoned to appear on that day so none shall be absent There shall not any be permitted to appear by his Atturney but all must come in their own persons and none be suffered to put in sureties We see many times that such as are to come before earthly Judges do break out of prison and escape the judgement that should passe upon them but there can be no hope for any to escape at the day of judgement for indeed the whole World is as it were Gods prison-house every part whereof on that day shall bring forth their prisoners Rev. 20.13 The Sea saith Saint Iohn Revel 20. did yield up her dead that were therein and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them and they were judged every man according to his works Lastly On that day there shall a finall separation be made between the godly and the wicked While we live in this world the good and the bad the elect and the reprobate do live ye know promiscuously together And therefore the Church is compared in the Scripture sometime to a floor sometime to a field and sometime to a fold to a floore wherein is both come and chaffe to a field wherein is both wheat and cares and to a fold wherein are both sheep and goats Mat. 25.32 But on this great and notable day of the Lord they shall be distinguisht and an everlasting sepâ—ration shall be made between them For then Christ shall place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his lest the wheat and the corn shall be carried into his barn the chaffe and the tares shall be cast into the fire the godly shall be taken up into heaven the wicked thrown into hell And in these respects it is called the great and notable day of the Lord because so great and notable things shall come to passe on that day And thus much concerning the day it selfe The second thing to be considered is the coming of this day and therein two things are set down that it is certain this day will come For you your selves saith he know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes And that it is untertain when it will come It comes saith he as a thiefe in the night Whose coming is uncertain and not known when he comes And first concerning the certainty of the coming of this day Saint Peter tells us of some that make but a mock of Christs coming or
EIGHTEENE Choice and usefull SERMONS BY Benjamin Hinton B. D. Late MINISTER of HENDON And sometime fellow of TRINITY COLLEDGE IN CAMBRIDGE Contra rationem nemo sobrius senserit Contra Scripturam nemo Christianus senserit Contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit Imprimatur EDM CALAMY 1650. LONDON Printed by J. C. For Humphery Moseley at the Princes Armes in S. Pauls Church-yard and for R. Wodenothe at the Starre under S. Peters Church in Cornehill 1649. To the Right Worshipfull Master FRANCIS PHILIPS Auditor of LONDON Grace and Peace YOur love and kindnesse whereof I have had so long experience imboldens me to present these few Sermons unto you not as presuming of the worth of them but as desiring to testifie my thankfulnesse having so just occasion I am old and gray-headed wanting not much of seventy years yet not so old in years as I am in infirmities and in my age it pleased God to visite me through a fall whielâ— I took with an incurable lamenesse and through sicknesse which I had with great weaknesse both in my memory and voice whereby I have been much disabled to preach I was therefore the more willing with my pen to supply the defect of my tongue as Zachary wrote when he could not speake and made his pen to make known what his tongue could not Luke 1.63 And though many have done the like before me with far greater ability yet remembring that God at the making of the Tabernacle accepted as well the offerings of the poorer sort who brought thither but Goats-haire and Rams-skinnes as of those who were rich and offered blew silk and purple and scarlet I have offered these few mites into the treasury of the Church out of my want and penury when others offer talents out of their store and plenty And I doubt not of your favourable acceptance hereof as coming from him who will no longer desire your favour then he desires to remaine Your truely loving in the Lord BEN. HINTON Curteous Reader IT was the earnest desire of the Authour my Reverend Father that these Sermons might passe the Presse in his life for the furtherance of others passage to life eternall but being himself taken away by death before his purpose was effected I thought it my duty not to let his works die with him but to impart to others what GOD had imparted to him I desire that as they teach the word of Truth so they may be the word of life And although in these dayes Sermons are neglected by the most contemned by the worst and too little esteemed even by the best yet I doubt not but these will meete with some who will receive the Message for the Masters sake And as formerly the feet of those who brought glad tydings of the Gospel of peace were counted beautifull so will the Gospel it self I hope though plainly preached not be trod under feet but be acceptable and helpfull to augment their peace who indeed seek peace which shall be the prayers of him to the God of peace who is your Christian Friend WILLIAM HINTON The severall SERMONS I. ABrahams offring his Sonne Isaac GEN. 22.2 Take now thy Sonne thine onely Sonne Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee into the Land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt-offring upon one of the Mountains which I will tell thee of II. The good ground or hearer of the word MATTH 13.23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it which also beareth fruit and bringeth forth some an hundred fold some sixty some thirty III. Zacheus converted LUKE 19.8 Behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor c. IV. Gaining the world and losing the soule MATTH 16.26 For what is a Man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soule V. Man like the grasse and flowers of the field PSAL. 103 15. As for man his dayes are as grasse as a flowre of the field so he flourisheth VI. The Devil a coward if he be resisted JAMES 4.7 Resist the Devil and he will flee from you VII Gods best beloved most afflicted HEBR. 12.6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth VIII No peace to the wicked ESAY 57.21 There is no peace to the wicked saith my God IX God the Authour and protector of the Scripture 2 PETER 1.21 For the Prophesie came not in old time by the will of Man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost X. Christs miraculous Cures MATH 11.5 The blind receive their sight and the lame walk the Leapers are cleansed and the deaf heare the dead are raised up and the poore have the Gospel preached to them XI The Churches love to Christ CANTIC 3.1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soule loveth XII Both Poverty and Riches occasions of evil PROVERBS 30.8 Give me neither Poverty nor Riches XIII Gods pardoning great sinners a great comfort to others PSAL. 32.6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou maiest be found XIIII Steven Stoned ACTS 7.59.60 And they stoned Steven calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this sinne to their Charge XV. Lawfull and unlawfull swearing JEREM. 4.2 Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth in judgement and iâ—â—â—ghteousnesse XVI Jonas sent to Nineveh JONAH 3.1 c. And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time saying arise go to Nineveh that great City and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh XVII Hiding of sinne no small sinne PROVERBS 38.13 He that covereth his sinnes shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy XVIII Christs coming to judgement both certain and uncertain 1 THES 5.2 For you your selves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a Thief in the night THE FIRST SERMON GEN. 22.2 Take now thine onely Sonne Jsaac whom thou lovest and get thee into the Land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt-offring upon one of the Mountaines which I will tell thee of Paradisus Genesis in quo pullulant Patriarcharum virtutes Ambr. Epist 41. THis booke of Moses is resembled by St. Ambrose not unfitly unto Paradise Genesis saith he is a Paradise wherein spring forth the virtues of the Patriarchs For as in Paradise there were variety of trees which brought forth variety of excelent fruits both pleasant to behold and good to eate Gen. 2.9 So in this Paradise this book of Genesis are many worthy plants Gods Children and Servants whose fruits of Faith of Love and obedience are both delightfull for us to read and profitable to imitate Now of all these plants the chief are the Patriarchs of all the Patriarchs the most fruitfull is Abraham and of all the fruits which he
his mother Hagar But this howsoever it was a grief to Abraham yet it inflamed his affection the more towards Isaac For as when Eliah was taken away his spirit was doubled upon Elisha 2 Kings 2.9 10. so Jshmael being gone now Isaac is his Fathers only darling and now Abrahams affection is doubled upon him But when God sees this his deep-setled love he strikes him as it were with a thunder bolt from Heaven and commands him to kill this his onely Son A Commandement more cruell then the Lawes of Draco which were written in blood wherein every word stabs Abraham to the heart Take saith he thy Son thine onely Son even Isaac thine onely beloved Son Was it not enough O Lord saith Origen that thou dost command him to kill his Sonne but thou must adde for this further vexation his onely Sonne or was not this enough but thou must put him in mind how dearly he loves him and was not this yet enough but the more to kindle and inflame â—is affection thou must likewise name him The parting with a Sonne will move a Father very much His Sonne so great is a Fathers affection unto his Sonne when Jacob heard that his Sonne Joseph was dead he mourn'd and Iamented Gen. 37.34.35 he put on Sackcloth and would not be comforted yet Jacob ye know had many more Sonnes In Rama saith the Prophet there was a voice heard weeping mourning and great lamentation Jerem. 31.15 Rachell weeping for her Children and would not be comforted because they were not Yet Rachell was young and might have more Children 2 Sam. 18.33 when David heard that his Sonne Absolon was slain he wept and lamented very bitterly for him nay he wished that himself had died in his roome O Absolon Absolon my Sonne my Sonne I would to God saith he that I had died for thee my Sonne Absolon Yet Absolon was a graceless and rebellious Sonne one that rose up in Armes against his own Father and sought to deprive him both of life and Kingdom and yet because he was his Sonne David could not but love him so great is a Fathers affection unto his Sonne which no man indeed can sufficiently conceive but he that is a Father and hath a Sonne We read in the Ecclesiasticall Histories Sozomen lib. 7. cap. 24. That a certain Merchant in Theodosious time hearing that two of his Sonnes were taken prisoners at the day appointed that they should be executed he came in all haste to Thessalonica where his Sonnes were hearing the matter why his Sonnes were to suffer he first offered a great summe of money for his Sonnes Ransome and when that would not be taken he offered his own life and made sute that he himself might die in their roome They who had the charge of the Prisoners committed unto them made him this answer that his death could not possibly excuse them both because a set number were appointed to suffer but offered withall that if he would die for any one of them his death should be taken The Father presently accepted their offer and mourning and lamenting over both his Sonnes he would willingly have died for either of them but he knew not whether so great was this Fathers affection unto his Sonnes that though it were equally divided between them both yet he was willing to have saved either of their lives even with the losse of his own His onely Sonne But now if a Father have but one Sonne then all his care all his love all his affection is wholly set upon him and then it is the greatest grief in the world to lose him And therefore the Prophet Jeremy in the sixt of his Prophesie speaking of the great mourning which the Jewes should make when their most cruel enemies the Chaldeans and Assyrians should come to destroy them Jerem. 6.26 he knew not how to express the greatness of their sorrow but by the sorrow of a Father who having but one Sonne is to part with him make saith he lamentation and bitter mourning as for thine onely Son shewing thereby that there is no sorrow like the sorrow of a Father who having but one Son is to be deprived of him And therefore our Saviour John 3. to set forth Gods infinite love towards us John 3.16 he saith That God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son If a Father have many Sonnes Plutaâ—ch de multitud Amicorum his affection is divided among them all and therefore the lesse towards any one like a River which being cut into many Channels his current ye know must needes be the weaker If a Father have many Sons the losse of one cannot be so grievous unto him because he finds comfort in those which are left him but having but one if he loose him especially when he is old as Abraham was this must needes be an extraordiraly grief unto him And yet Abrahams case is far more grievous His beloved Sonne Many a Father though he have but one Son yet his grief is the lesse when he is taken away because while he lived he was a grief unto him But Abraham must loose not his Son onely and his onely Son but Isaac his onely joy and comfort Isaac his onely beloved Son And indeed there was never any Father that had the like cause to love his Sonne Parents do commonly love their Children either because they are their own flesh and blood or because they continue their name after them for so long as their Children and Posterity continue they seeme in a manner to live in them But besides these Abraham had many other causes and far more forcible to love his Sonne Abraham as we heard before out of the 15 of Gen. even longed as it were to have a Sonne after that God had promised him a Sonne many a year past before he had him In the mean time God to make him as it were amends for his long expectation had given him many comfortable promises concerning this Sonne as that his seed should be called in Isaac Gen. 17.19 that he would multiply his seed like the starres of Heaven that he would establish his Covenant with Isaac for an everlasting Covenant and with his seed after him And hath not Abraham then an extraordinary cause to love his Sonne But besides this Abraham was fully a hundred years old before he had him Sarah had been barren for a long time and if she had not been so yet by reason of her age she was past bearing so that God had wrought a double miracle in giving him a Sonne all which did more inflame his affection towards him and yet now all upon the suddain as if God had repented him of his former kindness he commands him to sacrifice this his onely Sonne what now might Abraham think with himself he might now suppose that God had but deluded him in all his promises and that God had given him many
that we dedicate it wholly to Gods service But I will passe this over and come to the fourth difficultie difficulty fourth The fourth difficultie in this Commandement is in regard of the place where he must sacrifice his Sonne namely in the land of Moriah upon one of the mountaines which God would shew him Morti destinatum citò occidere misericordia genus est It is a kinde of mercie if a man be condemned to die to dispatch him quickly and the reason is because the punishment is much augmented through the expectation of it the expectation of any evil being as ill or worse then the evil it selfe But God here the more as it may seeme to torment Abraham Commands him not onely to Sacrifice his Son but injoynes him a long and tedious journey before he must do it God might have appointed him First to go with his Son into the Land of Moriah and being come thither then he might have told him the cause of his coming But first he commands him to sacrifice his Son and then sends him to the place where he must perform the same and what is the Reason but onely this as Origen saith ut dum ambulat dum iter agit per totam viam cogitationibus discerpatur that all the while he is travelling with his Son he might ruminate upon that which he went about and be confounded in a manner with the remembrance of it Now concerning this place where Abraham was appointed to sacrifice his Sonne some of the Jewes report that Cain and Abel had offered their offrings upon the same Mountain St. Jerome writes that he had heard it for certain of some ancient Jewes that Isaac was offered in the very same place where afterwards our Saviour Christ was crucified St. Augustine addes that he had heard it reported that Christ was crucified in the very same place where Adam had been buried and therefore that it was called Calvaria locus the place of a dead mans skull quia caput humani generis ibi dicitur esse sepultum because the head of mankind lieth there buried The Saracens who will needes borrow their name from Sarah though they came of Hagar to make it more profitable that they sprang from Isaac they faine that the land of Moriah is a part of their Country and therefore when any stranger comes to their City of Mecha to see Mahomets Sepulcher hard by the City they do shew him the Mountain where on Abraham as they say did sacrifice his Sonne But the truth is that the Land of Moriah where Isaac was to be offered was the same which was afterward called Jerusalem as we may plainly gather out of the second of the Chronicles 2 Chron. 3. the third Chapter for there it is said in the first verse that Salomon built the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem in Mount Moriah So that the place where Isaac was to be offered was either the same or very near to the place where our Saviour was afterwards to be crucified And indeed it was not unfit that Isaac should be offred where our Saviour was to suffer because Isaac was a type and figure of our Saviour So saith St. Augustine Abraham quando filium suum obtulit typum habuit Dei Patris Isaac typum gessit Domini Salvatoris Abraham when he offered his Sonne represented God the Father Isaac when he was offered represented our Saviour the Son of God For many things which wore shadowed forth in Isaac were afterwards verefied in our Saviour Christ As the promises of God unto Abraham concerning his Son were often renewed and his birth foretold so were the promises and the birth of the Messias As Isaacs was named before he was borne so was also Christ As Isaacs Birth was strange and miraculous in regard that he was borne of Sarah that was barren so was also Christs being borne of a virgin As Isaac was Abrahams onely Son whom he so dearly loved so Christ was the onely begotten Son of God in whom alone he was wel pleased As Isaac was causeless to be put to death so was Christ being innocent As Isaac bore the wood wherewith he was to be sacrificed so Christ bore the Tree whereon he was to be crucified In a word as Isaac by yielding himself to be offred did testifie his obedience unto his Fathe and his Father his wonderful love unto God so Christ by submitting himself to the death declared his wonderfull obedience unto God and God his unspeakable love towards us And indeed beloved this is the most excellent use that can possibly be made of this whole History when we hear how Abraham did offer his Son we stand amazed at it we wonder how it was possible for a Father to do it And may we not much more admire the infinite love of God unto us in giving his onely begotten Son to be crucified for us When we hear how Isaac yielded himself to be bound and offered we cannot but wonder at his strange obedience and may we not much more wonder at the infinite obedience of our blessed Saviour who being equall with God yet humbled himself and became obedient â—ven to the death of the Crosse Abraham when he offered his Sonne unto God he did but restore unto God that which God had given him he might wel the rather be moved thereunto because God had been alwaies so gracious to him But when God gave his Son to be offered for us we were so far from having deserved any thing at his hands that we were his open and profest enemies Isaac when he yielded himself to be offered yet he yielded himself into his Fathers hands who was to present him for a sweet savour unto the Lord and so to put him to a kind of death which of all other might seene the most glorious But Christ when he yielded himself to be offered he yielded himself into the hands of his persecutors who he knew would not onely put him to the most ignominious death but for his further vexation even deride him in his torments When Abraham was to sacrifice his onely Sonne God was so moved with compassion and pitty that instead of his Sonne he provided a Ramme Indeed it was fitter that a Ram should dye if the death of a Ramme might ransome a Sonne But when Christ was to be offered the case was altered the Ramme was spared and the Sonne was sacrificed Nay the Sonne was therefore sacrificed that the Ram might be spared Read over all the Histories of Heathen Authours examine their writings search out all their antiquities and see if there were ever the like example of love For a man to die for his friend it is no small matter and but few have done it but if one should offer to dye for a stranger we would wonder at it O but for a man to dye for his enemy nay the Sonne of God to come down from Heaven even from his Fathers bosome to dye a most accursed death
for his enemy this is that love of God which passeth all understanding and can never be sufficiently exprest either by men or Angels And yet that we may in some measure conceive a little better of this infinite Love of God suppose with thy self that thou being a poor and a silly creature shouldst live under the Dominion of some mighty Emperour who had made this Law That whosoever should be found guilty of high Treason should be put to the most exquisite torments that could be imagined and that thou afterwards having received many favours from him shouldst give eare notwithstanding to some of his Nobility and willingly joyne with them in Treason against him And being both convicted of the same he should execute the utmost of his fury upon his Nobility but cast with himself how he might save thee And finding no other meanes for thy deliverance he should give his onely beloved son the sole Heir of his Kingdom to suffer the must shamefull and accursed death of all other for thy ransome who willingly taking the same upon him should never speak so much as one word in the behalf of his Nobility but onely plead and sue for thee that thou by his death mightst not onely be forgiven but likewise mightest be made Heir of his Fathers Kingdom What now wouldst thou think of his love unto thee How wouldst thou wonder at it How would thy soule be ravisht when thou thoughtest upon it Beloved such and farr greater is the love of God unto thee if thou canst apply it The Angels that were farre more glorious creatures made to attend upon God and to be in his presence yet God spared not them when they had but once and that onely in thought rebelled against him but as for thee though thou hadst often rebelled against him yet God hath given his onely begotten Sonne to dye in thy roome that thou mightest inherit the Kingdom of Heaven And this was that reall sacrifice which was here prefigured by Abrahams offâ—ing his onely Sonne And therefore when Abraham was come to the place appointed and had already stretcht forth his hand to have sacrificed his sonne God presently forbad him because onely the death of our blessed Saviour and not Isaacs death was a price sufficient for our redemption But â—et we are to remember that Abraham knew not but that his Sonne should die and therefore no doubt all the while that he was travelling to the Mountaine he was distracted between faith and affection between his love unto God and his love to his Sonne the one still pulling him backward and telling him what an unnaturall act he went about the other putting him forward because it was God that had commanded him to do it Doct. 4 Now whereas God here commands Abraham to go and sacrifice his Sonne in the land of Moriah which was as I told you distant from him three dayes journey We may learne from hence That while we are to performe any service to God no journey ought to seem tedious unto us For he that coÌ„mands Abraham to go so farre to sacrifice his Son he requires of us that we refuse no labour while we are about to perform that which God commands us But I will likewise passe this over and proceed to the last difficulty dif ∣ ficulty fifth The last difficulty in this commandement is in regard of the time when he must sacrifice his Sonne Take now thine onely Son namely now when he was old and his wife past Bearing and therefore hopelesse of having any other children now he must sacrifice his onely Sonne We read in Herodotus Herod Thalia that when Intaphernes one of the privy Councell of King Darius had offended the King the King commanded that both he and his whole family should be put to death but being moved with the complaints of his wife he both spared her and withall gave her the choice which of them all she would choose to deliver She having a while deliberated upon it resolved in the end to make choise for her brother and the King demanding why she sued not rather for her husband or children she made this answer that though her husband or children should dye yet she being young might marry again and so might have more but if her brother were put to death now that her parents were dead she was sure she should never have any other brother If God had given Abraham a child while himself and Sarah his wife had been young had then commanded him to have put him to death yet his losse had been the lesse in that he might have hoped to have had more children but they both being old when he was to sacrifice Isaac they could not hope for any other after him Fathers saith Philo when they come to be old of all their children they make most of their youngest Philo lib. de Abraham and he giveth this reason because being old they expect no more now nature being spent and decayed in them But Abraham as I told you before Joseph lib. 1. Antigen was a hundred yeare old and Sarah was ninety before Isaac was borne Isaac was now as JOSEPHUS writes five and twenty yeare old when he was to be offered and therefore they being struck so far in years might well imagine that as Isaac was their first so he was like to be their last that they should have between them So that Abrahams grief must needs be the greater in regard of the time when he was commanded to sacrifice his Sonne But to come more directly to the time it is said in the former verse that after these things God did prove Abraham and said unto him Take now thine onely Sonne namely after that God as we see in the former chapter had had notable experience of Abrahams obedience by calling out Jshmael his first begotten now he layes a new task upon him far more grievous then the former was Now saith he Take thine onely Son as though he should have said I have made heretofore some tryall of thine obedience in smaller matters I commanded thee to leave thy native Country and thou hast left it I bad thee to cast Jshmael out of dores with his mother and thou hast done it deest adbuc vnum yet there is one thing wanting now that thou hast done all this now thou must sacrifice thine onely Sonne We see then how many tryalls God layeth upon Abraham and how many difficulties are couched together in this one tryall to be deprived of his onely Sonne whom he so dearly loved himself to become his Sons executioner to put him to so violent and horrible a death to undertake so long a journey to perform the same and then to do it when himself wâ—â— so old and his wife past bearing The least of these tryalls was very hard to be overcome yet Abraham like a Gyant that rejoyceth to run his course rose up early in the morning went about it and having a
amendment they will be arraigned and condemned for theeves at the day of judgement For these by their unthriftiness do waste their Estate mispend their time loose their good name impoverish themselves and undoe their Children and so by this meanes do themselves more harme then any theese could do that should meete them in the high way and take their purse away from them These because they fall into want through their own fault are the lesse to be pittied And as these become poor through their own unthriftiness so others by idleness want of labouring in their particular Callings For want is alwayes attending upon idleness and where idleness goes before want followes after And therefore Solemon speakes of an idle man in this manner Prov. 24.30.31 I passed saith he by the field of the slothfull man and loe it was all over growen with thornes and nettles had covered the face thereof and the stone wall thereof was broken down and then he sheweth what his end was that poverty came upon him like an armed man For he that will be idle must needes be poor And this is the cause that there are such swarmes of beggers in every place who being well able to labour for their livings choose rather to live upon other mers labours and had rather live by begging then take any paines to get their living These are wicked Generation having this curse of God upon them to be vagabonds upon the earth and to wander up and down from place to place because they will not yield to the Ordinance of God In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eat thy bread The faithless Steward Gen. 3.19 Luke 16.3 Luke 16. though he could not digge yet he was ashmed to begge but these are more faithless in their Callings who are not ashamed to begge when they are able to digge or to take any other paines to get their livings Such the Apostle will not have to be relieved He that will not labour let him not eat 2 Thes 3.10 saith the Apostle For by giving unto these we both maintain them in their idlenesse and we disable our selves from giving to those that are not able to labour for their livings And as these become poor through their own fault So some become poor and fall into want through the hand of God As such as loose their goods by fire by theeves or any other meanes which they could not avoid or such as fall into decay through any infirmity as by lameness blindness sickness or age and so are not able to labour for their livings or such as have a great charge of Children so that howsoever they be able to labour yet their la our will not maintain both themselves and them These and the like are the poor whom the Scripture will have us to relieve and to such no doubt Zacheus here gave And thus much likewise for the persons to whom he gave his goods The last point to be considered is the time when he gave them his goods I give saith he he gives them presently without any delay he gives them not upon his Death-bed or when he lyeth a dying but he gives them now in the time of his health while he might have still injoyed them As there are many that deferre their repentance to the end of their life so there are many that deferre their liberality and almes-deedes to the poor till the day of their death But as the ones over-late repentance is seldome acceptable because they do but then leave their sins when they can sin no more so the others late giving to the poor is seldome available because they do but then give away their goods when they can keep them no longer And therefore it is the just judgement of God upon many who having attained great wealth and riches and doing no good therewith in their lives are so overtaken by death upon the suddain that they have no time to dispose of their goods at their ends which may teach us to do it in our life-time our selves and not to leave it to be done by others after us All Gods Commandements are given ye know in the second person to every one that every one might take them as spoken to himself and so might performe them in his own person We read of Trajan the Emperour that upon a time as he was going to warre a poor Widow met him and taking hold of his horse desired him before he went to do her justice The Emperour willed her to rest content for a time and he would not faile to do her justice when he returned home Oh saith the Widow but how if it happen that you never return why then saith the Emperour I will leave it to my Successor and he shall do thee justice in my roome your Successor saith she and why not you your self you are bound to do good in your own person and what is that to you if another discharge that which is your duty num te liberabit aliena justitia will another mans justice excuse you The Emperour was so moved with this speech of hers that before he went any further he in his own person did her justice And so may we say unto those who put off those duties which themselves ought to do to be done by others what is that to you if another discharge that which is your duty or if you leave it to your Heire to relieve the poor you are bound to relieve them as well as he and if he should leave it to his Heire as you have done what shall become of the poor in the mean time Zacheus did not thus but making his hands his executors and his eyes his overseers he gave his goods to the poor himself and did not leave it to be done by others And therefore if Zacheus as soone as he was converted was so fruitfull in good works it may be a shame for us if we that have professed Christianity so long do come behinde him in the works of mercy FINIS The Fourth SERMON MATH 16.26 For what is a man profited if he shall gaine the whole world and lose his own Soul HEre is mention in my text of gaining and losing and a comparison between them gaining the World the whole world a great gaine losing the Soul a mans own soul a farre greater losse For our Saviour comparing them both together shewes that howsoever the gaine be great yet the losse is greater and that he that should purchase the whole World with the losse of his own soul he should not gaine so much on the one side as he should lose on the other For what saith he is a man profited if he shall gaine the whole World and lose his own soul First therefore I will shew you what this gaine is Secondly what this losse is And then having compared them both together I will come to some Use to be made of it First then for the gaine The very name of gaine
with those by whose meanes he may lose it Now our soules as we have heard are of an invaluable price the riches pleasures and preferments of the World are as so many snares to intrap our soules So saith the Apostle They that will be rich 1 Tim. 6.9 fall into divers temptations and snares and into many foolish and hurtfull lusts which drown men in perdition and destruction And therefore if we regard the safety of our soules we must beware that we be not insnared with the love of these FINIS The Fifth SERMON PSALM 103.15 As for man his dayes are as grasse as the flower of the field so he flourisheth Praeface IT is the custome of Painters that when they would draw the Picture of Death they make a sceleton or bate Carcass of a man with a Sithe in his hands as if he were mowing or cutting down grass to signifie thereby the frailty of our nature that we are but as grass which is soone cut down and soone withers A similitude which is usual and ordinary in the Scripture wherein we are more often resembled to grasse and to the flower of the field then to any thing else The Prophet Esay was willed to cry All flesh is grasse and all the goodlines thereof as the flower of the field Esay 40.6 the grasse withers and the flower fades St. Peter hath the same similitude almost word for word All flesh is grasse and all the glory of man as the flower of grasse the grasse withers 1 Pet. 1.24 and the flower there-thereof falles away So Job saith of man that he comes forth as a flower Job 1â— 2 and is cut down St. James saith of him that he shall passe away as the flower James 1.10 of the grasse And not to alledge any more places David saith here that mans dayes are as grasse and as the flower of the field so he flowrishes Which similitude the Scripture the more often useth as being taken from those things which are daily in our way and continually before us that whereas we are so prone to forget our mortality the very grasse and flowers of the field might be our remembrancers that if wee stirre but out of doores and see how soone they come up and how soon they are gone they might put us in mind of our own condition In handling of which similitude I will first shew you briefly how man is very fitly resembled to the grasse and to the floures of the field and then come to some Uses that may be made of it Man therefore is fitly resembled to these in three respects In respect of their like beginning in respect of their like progresse and continuance and in respect of their like ending First In respect of the like beginning and Originall of them Ye know that the grasse and the flowers of the field do spring out of the earth the earth as their mother doth bear them in her womb and bring them forth For God said at the Creation Let the earth bring forth fruite Gen. 1.11 and the hearb yielding seed and so thorough that powerfull word of God the earth still brings them forth Though there be great difference between flowers that some are more beautifull then others are and make a fairer shew some have a more fragrant sent then others and some more variety of delightfull colours yet they are all alike in this that the earth is the place from whence they sprang had their beginning And in this regard man is resembled very fitly to grasse and to the floures of the field For he had likewise his beginning from the earth as the matter whereof he was first made Gen. 2.7 Gen. 18.27 Job 4.19 2 Cor. 4.7 The Lord God saith Moses formed man of the dust of the ground Therefore Abraham acknowledged that he was but dust and ashes Job saith that we dwell in houses of clay and that our foundation is in the dust and St. Paul calls our bodies earthen vessels And this is the condition not of some but of every one of us Though some do greatly differ from others and make a fairer shew then others do either in regard of their birth and parentage or for their place and office or for their wealth and riches their beauty wisdome wit or eloquence yet they are all alike in this that they had their originall from the earth and were made thereof And so for their beginning all men are but as grasse and the flowers of the field which spring from the earth Secondly They are alike fortheir progresse and continuance Ye know that the grasse and the flowers of the field are very tender when they first spring up and when they are come to their full growth and strength that they have taken deeper root and have a stronger stalk yet still they are so weak that the least blast of wind will shake them up and down and any little force will put them up and cause them to wither before their time or if they continue their full time yet their time is very short they flourish but a while and presently wither In the morning saith David Psa 90.6 speaking of the grasse in the 90. Psalme it is green and growth up but in the evening it is cut down dried up and withered And in this respect man is likewise very fitly resembled to the grasse and flowers of the field He is weak and tender while he is growing up and when he is come to his full growth and strength yet he is not so strong but the least fit of an Ague you know will shake him and any little sicknesse will soon pull him down and bring him to his end before his time And though he escape all sicknesse and diseases and all other casualties yet his time is but short age will come upon him before it be long and bring him to his end And so in regard of his progresse and continuance he is well likened to the grasse and flowers of the field Lastly they are alike in regard of their end Ye know when the grasse and the flowers of the field do die and wither they lose their beauty they lose their colour they lose their sent and they lose their name and at last are so dryed to dust and powder that they are all alike and cannot be known what flowers they were In our Gardens and Fields we see many flowers which while they are growing do greatly differ insomuch that we can very easily distinguish them and tell what every one of them are but after they are withered and dryed to dust they are also like that we cannot distinguish the one from the other And thus it is with us as soone as men die they lose their beauty they lose their pomp they lose their bravery they lose their very names and in the end are consumed to dust and ashes and have nothing left them whereby they may be known For the time that
postulat Our youth requires other kind of manners and it is needlesse for us to do thus till vve be grovvn in yeares For young men do commonly make account that they shall live long that God vvill allovv them more liberty vvhile they are young and vvill not require so much of them as of old men But they should rather consider that which experience may teach them that they vvho are young are as vvell subject to death as they who are ancient like glasse which is as brittle when it is newly made as when it is old and so though they be young yet they may die soone and therefore need alwayes to be in a readines against God shall call them They should consider that which reason may teach them that the longer it is before they seek God the longer it will be before they can find him as the further a man strayes out of his way the longer it will be before he can find the same And they should consider that which the Scripture teacheth them that young men as well as old shal be called to an account at the day of Judgement of all they have done And they should remember the precept which the Apostle gives here not in the future but in the present time Resist the Devill not resist him hereafter If God as they imagine regard not what they do in their youthfull daies what needed David to pray Psa 25.7 Eccles 12.1 Leuit. 5.7 Mar. 10.14 Remember not the sinnes of my youth or Solomon to say Remember thy Creator in the daies of thy youth Why did God in the old Law command that young Pigeons should be offered unto him Or Christ in the Gospel forbid that young children should be kept from him but to shew that our youth is to be consecrated to God and to be seasoned with Religion If they think it too soon to forsake their sinnes and to begin to serve God in their younger yeares God will think it too late when they come to be old to entertaine them to be his Servants and as they have spent the greatest part of their time in the Devills service so God will leave them to him whose work they have done to pay them their wages We our selves will be loth to take such a servant as is lame or old and so unfit or unable to do us service especially if he be one who while he was young and strong refused to serve us And do we think that God when we have refused to serve him in our younger years will be content to receive us when we are old and impotent to be his servants When we have served his enemie with the best of our daies will God be content to have the leavings Sardus de morib Gen. lib. 3 For if we serve him thus what do we else then as some of the Heathen were wont to do whose custome it was that when they had eaten the meat themselves they did sacrifice the bones unto their Gods Deut. 25. We are forbiden by God to have diverse measures a greater and a lesse because they that do thus are an abomination to the Lord. If God count it abominable for a man to have divers measures a greater for himself a lesse for his neighbour or a greater for his friend a lesse for a stranger How abhominable then must it needs be to God when we have divers measures for God and his enemies serving sinne and Sathan with the best and greatest part of our lives and alotting the least and the worst part unto Gods service And therefore it behoves us ever while we are young to resist and withstand the Devills temptations to renounce our pleasures and to betake our selves unto Gods service And thus much concerning the former part of these words Resist the Devill I come now to the reason which I will dispatch briefly Resist the Devill and he will see from you The Devill though he be fierce when he gives the first assault yet where he finds resistance he will break up the siege and fly like a coward Ye know when he tempted our Saviour Christ in the fourth chapter of St. Matthew though he gave the first blow yet he took the last and though he gave the on-set and set first upon him yet he was the first that sounded the retreate and was glad to leave him But it may be demanded Whether the Devill will flee if he be resisted Will he flee into Hell and be seen no more No that he will not but if he flee from tho godly he will be sure to take his pleasure of the wicked and he will make them pay for it If he cannot prevaile against our Saviour he will enter into Judas if he cannot have his will of men yet rather then faile he will enter into the Swine Math. 8.32 as a Hauke when she cannot speed of her prey she will sease upon carrion But though the Devill flee when we resist him yet we must not be secure for though he can not speed at the first assault yet he will come againe as when he took the foile in tempting our Saviour he departed from him as St. Luke saith Luke 4.13 Luke 20.40 but for a season He is not like the Sadduces Luke 20. who were so confounded with our Saviours answers that they never durst ask him any more questions but being overcome yet he will come againe like Pharaoh who though he were faine to let the Israelites go yet they were no sooner gone but he presently pursued them or like the Philistins Judges 16. who though they had often set upon Sampson and could not prevaile yet they would not give him over but still assaulted him For though the Devill do take the foile yet he will not quite give over but when he sees that he cannot prevaile one way he will try if he can prevaile another We see when God had given him leave to afflict Job to try whether he could draw him to impatientie and the Devill had taken away all his goods killed his servants and destroyed his children and could not in all this prevaile against him yet he would not leave him thus but got leave of God to assault him afresh and to afflict his whole body with sores and ulcers for he knows that our weaknes and infirmity is such that though he cannot prevaile one way yet another he may prevaile against us If he cannot prevaile against David to lay hands on Saul the Lords annointed yet he will try if he can tempt him to murder Vriah If he cannot draw the Pharisee to extortion adultery and the like Vices he will go another way to work and try if he can make him proud of his virtues And so though he be vanquisht in one temptation yet he will tempt us again therefore we are not to be secure but after that one temptation is past we must expect and prepare our selves for another yet this is our
the Lord Deut. 32. kill and make alive I wound I heal Therefore he wils us to call upon him in the time of trouble and he will deliver us Deut. 32.32 For howsoever by our sins we provoke him to afflict us yet if we call upon him for mercy and grace he hath an ear to hear us an eye to behold us a heart to pity us and an hand to help us And thus much concerning the first point the Agēt or party afflicting That it is God that chastens I come now to the second namely The Patient or party afflicted the beloved of God he chastens whom he loves Doct. God though he love whatsoever he hath made yet among all his creatures he loves man best and among men especially those who are of the houshold of faith which is his Church These he loves with an everlasting love he hath given his only Son for their redemption and hath adopted them in Christ Jesus to be his children And yet howsoever he loves them so dearly yet many times he doth afflict and chasten them for so we see here whom he loves he chastens The Doctrine that we may gather from hence is this That they who are in the love and favour of God are neverthelesse afflicted In the 11th of Saint John Behold Lord John 11.3 he whom thou lovest is sick Christ loved Lazarus and yet did not free and exempt him from sicknesse Dan. 9.23 Daniel was greatly beloved of God as the Angell Gabriel told him yet Daniel was cast into the Lions den The Virgine Mary was freely beloved of God as the same Gabriel told her Luke 1. yet a sword was to pierce through her heart Luke 1.28 Luke 2.35 1 Sam. 13.14 Job 1.1 as old Simeon prophesied David was a man according to Gods own heart yet David was often and many wayes afflicted Job was a just and an upright man yet Job was extraordinarily afflicted Saint Paul was a chosen vessel of God yet after he was converted his whole life was nothing but a continued affliction In a word Acts 9.15 all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles and all the beloved children of God even from the beginning of the world to this present time have suffered affliction Therefore Christ saith Revel 3. As many as I love Revel 3.19 I rebuke and chasten Read over the Scriptures and ye see examples hereof almost in every leafe Gen. 39.20 In one place ye shall see Joseph cast into the dungeon Dan. 3.20 in another the three children into a fiery furnace 1 King 22.27 here ye shall see Michea fed with the bread of affliction there David washing his couch with tears in one place ye shall see Steven stoned to death Psal 6.6 in another ye shall finde John the Baptist beheaded Acts 7.59 To be short as it was said of Rome heretofore Mark 6.27 that a man could not step into any part thereof but he should tread upon a Martyre so a man can hardly read any part of the Scripture but he shall light upon the affliction of the children of God either one or other affliction being common to every one of them and more common then any thing The floud that overspred the whole face of the earth in the days of Noah was common generall yet eight persons ye know were freed frō the flood Gen. 6.18 preserved in the Ark Death is more cómon general then the flood Gen. 5.24 seizing upon the whole of-spring of Adam and yet two persons Enoch and Elias have been freed from death a King 2.,11 and were taken up into heaven while they were living upon the earth Sin is more common and generall then death and yet one person even Christ and he alone was free from sin but affliction is more generall then any of them all which hath lighted upon all men without any exception for even Christ himself though he were free from sin Esay 53.3 yet he was vir dolorum as the Prophet Esay calls him a man of sorrows as being subject through the whole course of his life to much sorrow affliction For this is the condition of all Gods children that first they must wear a crown of thorns before they receive a crown of glory first they must suffer with Christ in this life before they reign with him in the life to come Therefore Christ wills us if we will be his disciples to take up his crosse every day Acts 14. and follow him And the Apostle tels us That through many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven Vse 1 The use to be made hereof is two-fold First Seeing Goddeth visit his own children with the rod of affliction then much lesse shall the wicked escape Gods judgements if God chasten the godly whom he loves and is loved of them much lesse will he spare his enemies those that hate him Prov. 11.31 Therefore Solomon Proverbs 1◠Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner And therefore Peter 1 Epist 4. Chapter If judgement saith he 1 Peter 4.17.18 first begin at us what shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel and if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear For if God chasten the one much lesse out of doubt will he spare the other You will say but it is ordinarily seen in the World that the wicked are not subject to the like afflictions that the godly are Their houses as Job in his 21. Chapt. Job 21.9 saith of the wicked are peaceable without fear and the rod of God is not upon them and as the Prophet David saith of the ungodly they prosper in all their wayes and flourish like a green bay-tree It is true indeed and cannot be denied that the godly many times do suffer in this World more crosses and afflictions then the wicked but therefore we must remember that the punishment of the wicked is kept and reserved till the World to come Lazarus was farre more afflicted in this life that lay full of sores at the rich mans gates and would have been glad of a morsell of bread then the rich man was that fared so sumptuously and lived in pleasure but therefore what saith Abraham to the rich man Sonne saith he Luke 15.25 remember that then in thy life-time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evill but now is he comforted and thou art tormented Whensoever therefore we see the godly to live in affliction and misery and the wicked in prosperity and hearts-ease yet it need not trouble us because there will come a time when the wicked shall be punisht and the godly comforted When the godly shall have all their teares wiped from their eyes Revel 7.17 and the wicked shall suffer Gods wrath and vengeance for if God afflict and chasten such as he loves much lesse
where the night continues divers monthes together and the Sun doth not shew himselfe all the while that the Inhabitants at the end of so long a night at such a time as the Sun is wont to appear and bring the day among them they get up to the top of their highest mountains as striving to have the first view of the Sun which as soon as they see they crie out for joy Behold the Sun the Sun appears and they put on their best apparell and feast one another So welcome is the light of the Sun among them when they have wanted it long For darknesse ye know is most uncomfortable therefore though God sent darknesse as a plague among the Egyptians Exod. 10.22.23 yet his people had light in all their dwellings And therefore as hell is shadowed forth in the Scripture by the name of darknesse to expresse the uncomfortablenesse and horrour of it Mat. 22.13 Colos 1.12 so heaven is illustrated by the name of light to expresse the great comfort we shall finde in it yet they which are in darknesse and have not the light of the Sun among them may have fire and candle and other helps to give them light and to take away darknesse but they who are blind are always in the dark and have no help against it So uncomfortable a thing it is to a man to want his sight In which regard whereas it is said of Abraham Gen. 25.8 That he gave up the Ghost and died a good old age and old man and full of years and was gathered unto his people It is only said of Isaac Gen. 35.29 That Isaac gave up the Ghost and died and was gathered unto his people being old and full of dayes It is not said of him as it is said of Abraham That he died in a good old age but this clause is omitted in the death of Isaac as Divines observe and they give this reason Because Isaac's old age by reason of his blindnesse could not be so good and comfortable unto him For they want many comforts which others have who do want their sight Therefore when our Saviour askt the blind man Luke 18 Luke 18.41 What he would have him to do for him he presently answered Lord that I may receive my sight as being more desirous to have his sight then any thing besides It is a grievous thing for a man to want his smelling or tasting or any of his sences or his hands or feet or any of his limbs but far more grievous to want his eyes because the eye is the guide of the whole body and directs every part and member of it without which the tongue knows not before whom it speaks the hand knows not what it is it takes the foot knows not whither it goes but the tongue will erre the hand will mistake and the foot will stumble vvhere there is not an eye to vvatch over all and to preserve them from danger Therefore God hath placed the eyes in the head vvhere they may look to the whole body because every part hath use of the sight to guid and direct it When therefore vve read That Christ cured the blind and gave them their sight vve may vvell imagine that it vvas a vvonderfull benefit that he did for them And therefore it â—â—â—fused dravv us to bethink our selves vvhat a blessing it is that God hath given us our sight vvhereby vve take comfort in the sight of the creatures in the sight of our parents and children and friends and vvhereby vve are freed from so many dangers Yet this is a blessing vvhich fevv do ever think of but find the benefit and comfort of it Carendo magis quam fruendo rather vvhen vve vvant then vvhen vve have it If vve vvanted our sight vvhat a benefit should vve lose vvhat a losse should vve have and vvhat vvould vve not give that vve might recover it And therefore vvhen vve hear hovv Christ cured the blind or vvhen vve see any that vvant their sight it should put us in mind vvhat a blessing it is that vve can see and therefore should be thankfull to God for it yet though it be grievous to vvant the sight and a great blessing to have the same yet it is far more grievous vvhen the mind is darkened and vvants the eyes of knovvledge and understanding For that vvhich the eye is to the body the same is the understanding unto the soule and vvhat blindnesse is to the one the same is ignorance to the other And therefore vvhen Christ did cure them outvvardly so vve may vvell think that he cured them invvardly as he took avvay their blindnesse and gave them their seeing so he took avvay their ignorance and enlightned them vvith knovvledge and understanding And this vvas a greater cure then the other Men commonly think that a man that is blind is far more miserable then he that is ignorant and that he on the contrary is in better condition that hath a sound and comely body then he whose mind is adorned and beautified with grace and virtue But as the soule is more excellent then the body so knowledge and understanding is more excellent then the sight because the sight doth onely give light to the body understanding to the soule They who want the eyes of their body yet they know they want them and therefore will carefully seek for help if they may be cured and if they cannot be cured yet they have this help that they may have one to lead and guide them But they who want the eyes of their mind do not know their blindnesse and therefore do not seek to have any help but think themselves well though they live in ignorance vvhereby the Devill leads them blind-fold to hell before they be aware 2 King 6.18.19 As the Army of the Syrians being struck with blindnesse were led into Samaria amongst the midst of their enemies and â—â—ew not where they were till they were come thither we may see then by that which I have spoken that it is a grievous thing to want the outward sight but far more grievous when the mind is darkened And therefore as the blind here came unto Christ to be cured of their blindness so we must likewise come unto him to remove our spiritual blindnesse from us because he is that day-spring from on high as Zacharie said that came to visit us to give light unto them that sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death Luke 1.78 and to guide our feete in the way of peace And thus much concerning the first cure which is here mentioned that the blind received their sight And so I come to the next that the lame walked As it is a great blessing to have the use of our eyes and to be able to see so it is a great blessing to have the use of our feete and to be able to go For God in framing the body of man hath so disposed of every
only is to be prayed unto that can hear our praiers he onely can hear them that knows our hearts and understands with what affection we pray unto him But suppose again that Saints and Angels could hear our prayers and did know our hearts and suppose that God had put it to our choise whether we would pray to him or to them have we not more reason to pray to him who is the fountaine of grace then unto them who are but vessels of grace Would they be so propitious as he is unto us Would they be so ready to hear our prayers As he commands us to pray unto him so he promiseth to gives us whatsoever we aske John 16.23 Whatsoever saith our Saviour John 16. ye shall aske the Father in my Name he will give it unto you And because of our selves we know not how to pray nor what to aske he gives us his Spirit to help our infirmitie and to teach us to pray He prepars our hearts as David saith Psal 10.17 and his eare hearkens thereunto And because we are not so ready to ask as he would have us he therfore many times prevents our asking is more ready to grant our requests then we are to make them So he promises Esay 65.24 Antequam clament ego exaudiam Before they call I will answer and while they are yet speaking I will hear So he dealt with David in this 32 Psalme who had no sooner said he would confesse his sinne but God forgave him Nay as he prevents our asking so many times he exceeds our desires and gives us more then we aske of him 1 King 3.13 So he dealt with Solomon when he begged of God that he would give him a wise and understanding heart God gave him both that which he did desire and told him besides I have also given thâ—e that which thou hast not asked both Riches and Honour And can we have greater incouragements then these to pray unto God who is so ready to grant our prayers And so there is great reason why we should pray onely to him And thus much likewise for the Object of prayer I now procced unto the last point The time when the godly shall come unto God by prayer nuncly 〈◊〉 time when he may be found But some man may say why is there time when God may not be found will God at any time absent himselfe and keep himselfe out of the way when men seek after him Indeed Bâ—â—als Priests 1 King 18. They sought and all to besought their God sâ—â—â— morning to noon but could not finde him Cry saith Eluck 〈◊〉 aloud unto your god for it may be he is talking with some body anâ— doth not mark you or it may be he is rid on of town and is in his journey or it may be he is taking a nap and â—â—ust be Wakened before he can hear you Thus the Prophet derided their counterset good but it is not so with the God of Jacob Psal 12â— 4 the Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps If David seek him David shall finde him nay David and every godly man shall find him whensoever they seek him Paul and Silas cannot pray at mid-night but the will hear them Acts 16.25 Mat. 18.20 Two or three cannot be gathered together in his name but he will be in the midst of them Nay he is so far from not being found that if thou offer thy selfe unto him with the Prodigall he will go forth to meet thee Luke 15.20 Luke 15.4.5 nay though thou be strayed away with the lost sheep he will go after to seek thee and never lin seeking untill he have found thee Why then saith David here In a time when thou mayest be found why is there a time when God may not be found The answer is That there is a time as the very words imply when God may not be found and therefore if we will find God we must come in a time while he may be found The time when God may not be found is two-fold Tempus impossibilitatis and tempus improbabilitatis the time when it is impossible to finde him and the time when it is unlikely to finde him The time when it is impossible to finde him is when this life is ended For after this life there is no time for grace no time for repentence no time for good works Therefore it is that Christ saith John 9.4 I must work the Works of him that sent me while it is day the night comes and then no man can work by day understanding the time of this life and by night death Hie amittitur vita aut reciperatur saith â—â—prian In this life the life to come is either lost or gotten He that defers the seeking thereof till this life be past he knocks with the foolish Virgins when the gates are shut and then it is to late he that seeks not for mercy till after this life he shall find none no not so much as a drop of cold water to coole his tongue For as the tree falls so it lies and as the day of our death doth leave us so shall the day of judgement find us The time when it is unlikely to find God is when he offers us grace and we reject the same when he calls us by his Word and we harden our hearts and when upon presumption of the mercy of God whensoever we repent we deferr our repentance to the end of our lives and so indeed do never truly repent And therefore the Counsell is very good Ecclesiasticus 5.7 Make no tarrying to turn unto the Lord and put it not off from day to day for suddenly shall the wrath of God break forth and in thy security thou shalt be destroyed And as there is a time when God may not be found so there is a time when he may be found this time is likewise twofold either more common and generall or more proper and speciall The common and generall time when God may be found is this whole life time from the beginning of our life till the end thereof And therefore if we must come unto God while he may be found and he may be found this whole life time then we cannot begin to soone to come unto him Therefore Solomon counsells us to remember our Creator in the dayes of our youth that so we may be seasoned with godlinesse and Religion in the beginning of our life The more speciall time when God may be found is when he cals us unto him by the preaching of the word for then he offers his grace unto us and knocks by his Spirit at the doore of our hearts that he may have entrance If we open unto him he will say to our souls here will I dwell for I have a delight herein but if we refuse to give him entrance if we harden our hearts when we hear his voice we know not when whether ever or never he will come againe
And therefore to conclude with the words of the Apostle Behold now is the accepted time now is the day of Salvation And therefore if thou wilt come unto him in the time accepted deferre not the time but come unto him while salvation is offered The time that is past is altogether irrevocable the time that is to come is altogether uncertaine onely the time present is the time accepted and therefore come now while he may be found FINIS The Fourteenth SERMON ACTS 7.59.60 And they stoned Steven calling upon God and saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit And he kneeled down and cryed with a loud voice Lord lay not this sinne to their charge Division TO passe over the Coherence of these words with the former we may observe in them these two things The great impiety of the Jewes in martyring Steven and Stevens great piety in his martyrdom Their impiety is set down briefly in the first words wherein is mentioned both the person that was martyr'd and that was Steven the kind of his martyrdom and that was stoning and by whom he was thus martyr'd namely by the Jewes They stoned Steven Stevens great piety in his martyrdom is set down more largely in the words following and herein is declared both his faith towards God and his charity towards men both which he shews by a double prayer which he makes first for himself He called upon God saying Lord Jesus receive my spirit then for his persecutors he kneeled down and cryed with a loud voice Lord lay not this sinne to their charge First then concerning the impiety of the Jewes the person that was martyred here was Steven who according to his name which in the Greek doth signifie a Crown was the first who after the Ascention of Christ 3. Sorts of Martyrs was crowned with martyrdom Now there are Martyrs of three sorts First Such as are Martyrs voluntate sed non opere in will and desire but not in act So Eusebius vvrites of Origen that while he vvas young he had such a desire to be a Martyr that his Mother was faine to hide all his apparel that she might keep him at home because otherwise he vvould have gone to his Father who vvas then in prison to have suffered martyrdom vvith him And so he was a Martyr in vvill and affection And it is very memorable vvhich Sotrates Theodoret and likevvise Sozomen in their Ecclesiastical Histories do report of a woman vvho so affected martyrdom that vvhen she understood that Valens the Emperour had sent Modestus the Governour of Edessa with a band of souldiers to kill all the Christians that were assembled there at St. Thomas Church she ran thither in all hast with a child of hers Modestus observing how fast she ran caused her to be called and asked her whether she was running She answered to the Church vvhere the Christians were assembled Why do you not know saith Modestus that the Emperour hath sent me thither to put them all to death I know it well saith the woman and therefore I make the more hast thither that I may dye with them But why saith he do you carry your child with you That he saith she may likewise be crowned vvith Martyrdom This answer of hers so moved Modestus that he returned back and diswaded the Emperour from the execution of it And these vvere Martyrs in vvill and affection but not in act Secondly There are others that are Martyres opere sed non voluntate Martyrs in act but not in vvill and affection Such were those innocent babes of Bethlehem that Herod slew vvhom St Augustine calls Primitias Martyrum the first fruits of Martyrs for these dyed for Christ that vvas to dye for them and vvere Witnesses unto him speaking vvith their bloud as Chrysostom saith that could not speak vvith their tongue and confessing and shewing forth his praise not in speaking but in dying And such a Martyr vvas that babe vvhereof we read in the book of Martyrs vvhich sprang out of his Mothers Wombe while she was burning at the stake and vvas by the Papists cast againe into the fire as thy brood of Heriticks A more horrible and impious act in them then it had been being committed by any other in regard of their doctrine because they hold it as an Article of their Faith that all Children are damned that dye without Baptisme and yet they vvilfully burned this innocent before he vvas Baptized and so as they thought did not onely cast his Body into the fire but his Soule into Hell though indeede this blessed Babe did not want Baptisme but vvas Baptized vvith the Holy Ghost and vvith fire and vvas no sooner borne but died a Martyr Martyr opere non voluntate a Martyr in act though not in vvill and desire Thirdly There are others that are Martyres voluntate et opere Martyrs both in Will and Act and such a Martyr vvas Steven vvho both in Will and Act did suffer Martyrdom Now because as St. Austin saith out of Cyprian Non paena sed causa facit Martyrem it is not the punishment vvhich a man doth suffer but the cause for vvhich he suffers that makes him a Martyr Let us see for what it vvas that Steven vvas here Martyred And this vvas as vve see verse 52. for the Testimony of Christ Which of the Prophets saith he have not your Fathers persecuted And they have slaine them which shewed before of the coming of the just One of whom you have been now the betrayers and murtherers He knevv that they hated Christ to the death and had therefore Crucified him He knevv that they had imprisoned his Disciples and strictly charged them to Preach no more in his Name He knevv that for Preaching in his Name he himself vvas here brought before the Councell and had false Witnesses suborned against him and so could not but knovv that his bearing vvitnesse to Christ must needs endanger him and yet vvith great boldnesse he bear vvitnesse to Christ and for this it vvas that he suffered Martyrdom Here then in Steven we may observe a difference betvven true and false Martyrs True Martyrs suffer in a good cause for the testimony of Christ and the defence of the truth but false Martyrs suffer in a bad cause for the defence of their errors Epipha contra Har. lib. 3. to 2. Har. 80. So Epiphanius writes of a sect called Martyriani vvho count themselves Martyrs though they suffred indeed for their vvorshiping of Idols So many have been registred for Martyrs and canonized for Saints in the Church of Rome that have suffered as Traitors and died for Treason But true Martyrs do suffer in a just cause and such onely can have comfort in their sufferings Mat. 10.39 He saith our Saviour that loseth his life for my sake shall finde it it is not enough to lose it unlesse it be lost for Christs sake otherwise there is no promise made of finding it Mat. 5.10 Blessed are
the King of Navarre died both for the suddennesse and violence of it who feeling great anguish in all his nerves was by the advice of his Physicians to be close wrapped in linnen cloth which had been well steeped in Aquavitae and the cloth to be sowed strait all about his body one having sowed it not having a knife ready to cut the thread took the candle to burn the thread in sunder and the thread flaming to the cloth took sudden hold of the same and the Aquavitae that the King in this flame was burnt to death before he could be helped by any And many come to such fearfull ends and yet we cannot judge of them by the kind of their death because even the godly whose death is precious in the eyes of the Lord howsoever they die do sometimes die a violent death and that suddenly So did old Eli that was a good man vvho hearing that the Arke of God was taken 2 Sam. 4.18 fell backward from his scate his neck brake and he dyed So Job's Children no doubt were holy persons having had godly education and their Fathers prayers laid up in Heaven for them yet While they were feasting together in their elder brothers house Job 1.19 the house on the sudden fell down and killed every one of them If therefore we judge of men by the kinde of their deaths we shall condemn the generation of the righteous and may bring on ourselves the like censure from others For we do not know by what kinde of death we shall glorifie God whether we shall die an easie or a painfull death whether a naturall or a violent death whether a lingring or a sudden death The times have been God grant the like times may never come again when there have been so great persecutions in the Church that the faithfull have been put to all manner of deaths whether God hath reserved us to the like times or no we do not know we know we have no promise to the contrary and therefore ought to prepare our selves for the like times that if they come we may constantly maintain the profession of Christ though it cost us our lives as here it did Steven And thus much likewise for the second point the kinde of his martyrdom And so I come to the third by whom he was thus martyred namely by the Iewes They stoned Steven Ye all know that the Iewes were the people whom God had chosen to himself above all other Nations Behold saith Moses Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens is the Lords Déut. 10.14 and the Earth and all that is therein notwithstanding he hath set his affection on thy Fathers to love them and hath also chosen their seed after them Even you saith he hath he chosen above all people For as for all other Nations God counted them strangers and left them to themselves and did not vouchsafe them his Statutes and Ordinances but suffered them to walk in their own wayes But as for the Iewes he first taught them himself and delivered them his Law from his own mouth and because they desired to be instructed rather by men like themselves and therefore spake to Moses Loquere tu nobiscum et audiemus c. Speak thon say they with us and we will hear Exe. 20.19 but let not God speak with us lest we dye God yielded to their request and first taught them by Moses afterwards by the Prophets Luke 19.26 of whom Abraham said to the rich-man They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them But the Iewes were so far from hearing these that Steven could here upbraid them Which of the Prophets have not your Fathers persecuted And Christ complaine of them O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee as here they did Steven Their sinne then is aggravated in regard of the persons by whom it was committed They were not the Gentiles or any Heathenish people that knew not God for then their sin had been the less but they were the Jewes Gods chosen people who commonly if they were offended with any upon every occasion were ready to stone them If they be offended with Moses Exod. 17.4 because they were thirsty and had no water to drink they are presently ready to stone him for it If they be offended with Caleb and Joshua Numb 14.10 for contradicting the spies that were sent into Candan and for giving a good report of the Land they are likewise ready to stone them for it And how often in the Gospel did they take up stones to have stoned our Saviour And here they stone Steven for bearing witnesse unto him And this vvas a greater sin in them being the people of God then if they had been heathen The heathen shall rise up in judgement against them for they reverenced their Priests though they were Idolaters The Marriners that were so tender-hearted to Jonas shall rise up against them for they hazarded their lives to save the Prophet though it were for his sinnes that they vvere in danger to perish but these mercilesse Iewes did stone him to death who sought to bring them to eternall life And therefore as the voice of Abels bloud did cry aloud in the eares of the Lord against Cain that shed it and was vox sanguinum a voice of blouds as the Scripture calls it as being not onely the voice of his bloud but of all the bloud that might have come of that bloud if it had not been shed So here the bloud of Steven did cry aloud against the Iewes that shed the same and the bloud of all those that might have come from him nay upon them was laid all the righteous blood that was shed before him Mat. 23.34 for so our Saviour told them Behold I send unto you Prophets and wise-men and Scribes and some of them you shall kill and Crucifie c. that upon you saith he may come all the righteous bloud shed upon the earth from the bloud of righteous Abel to the bloud of Zacharias Sonne of Barachias whom ye slew betweene the Temple and the Altar We read of Tomyris the Queen of the Scythians that because Cyrus the King of Persia had slain her son she gathered an Army and made War upon him and having vanquisht the Persians she took Cyrus and cutting off his head she cast it into a barrell that was filled with bloud thus insulting over it Thou that wast so thirsty and insatiable of bloud that thou slewest my son shalt now have thy fill till thou be glutted vvith it And thus the Jews vvho vvere so insatiable of the bloud of the Prophets had in the end their fill of bloud vvhen the bloud of all the righteous vvho had been slain from Abel to Zacharie vvas laid upon them And that may fitly be applied unto them vvhich the Angell saith Revel 16. Thou art righteous O Lord because thou hast judged thus
Rev. 16.5.6 for they have shed the bloud of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them bloud to drink for they are worthy And thus much for the persons by vvhom Steven vvas here martyred namely the Jews I come novv from their impiety in martyring Steven to Stevens great piety in his martyrdome vvhich he shevvs as I said in a double prayer vvhich he makes the one for himselfe the other for his persecutors Doct. And from hence we may observe before I come to his prayers in particular in that he called upon God while the Jews were stoning him The happy condition of a godly man that he is able to pray and call upon God in the greatest extremity that can befall him The wicked may rage and persecute the godly they may cast them in prison and lay bolts upon them they may bring them to the stake and burn or stone them but they cannot hinder them from praying unto God this comfort they can never take from them Paul and Silas may be scourged and imprisoned and put in the stocks Elias may be persecuted by Ahab and Iezabell till he be ready to famish Iob may have his body afflicted by the devill with sores and ulcers Sampson may have his eyes put out by the Philistins and Steven may here be stoned by the Iews yet God leaves them not destitute of this comfort that they are able to pray and call upon God in their greatest dangers Nay the greater extremity and danger they are in God inables them to pray with the more fervency unto him Hezekiah did never pray more fervently then when the sentence of death was pronounced against him and he lay a dying I beseech thee saith he O Lord remember now how I have walked before thee As if he had said now O Lord when I am ready to die and no other can succour me 2 King 20.3 now when Physick and art do faile me now when my strength is diminished and nature decayed now when thou hast pronounced the sentence of death against me now O Lord now now remember me But it is not so with the ungodly they call not upon God they are least able of all to pray in their greatest necessity Psal 14.4 1 Sam. 25.37 If they be in danger or hear any ill tidings their hearts like Nabals begin to die within them and become as stones For this is the priviledge of none but the godly and an infallible argument of Gods mercy towards them in that he inables them when they are in any perill to pray unto him Therefore David Psal 66. the last verse Blessed be God saith he that hath not turned away my prayer nor his mercy from me Upon which words Saint Augustine Quamdin Deus non tollit a te oration em tuam non amovebit a te misericordiam suam As long as God doth not take thy praying from thee he will not remove his mercy from thee because it is his mercy that inables thee to pray If therefore when thou art in any great danger thou canst call upon God for his help and assistance and canst say with the Disciples Mat. 8.25 Psal 6.2 Lord save us we perish if when thou liest sick and keepest thy bed thou canst pray with David Lord be mercifull unto me for I am weak Lord heale me for my bones are vexed If when thou art drawing toward thy end and art to leave the World thou canst willingly resigne thy soule unto God and pray as Steven did Lord Iesus receive my spirit Thou mayest well conceive great comfort therein because only the godly are inabled in their greatest extremity to call upon God as Steven here did But let us come to his prayer Lord Jesus receive my spirit He called upon God saying Lord Jesus which invicibly proves that Christ is God This the Arrians and some other Hereticks have blasphemously denied and this the Jews to this day will not be brought to acknowledge But the Scripture is not more plain in any thing then it is in this For besides that the Scripture gives him the Title and Name of God that he is Deus in carne manifestatus i Tim. 3.16 Rom. 9.5 John 14.1 John 14.14 Mat. 28.19 John 5.23 Luke 8.28.31 Mat. 8.26 Mat. 4.23 Mat. 10.1 God manifested in the flesh and Deus in saecula benedictus God blessed for ever And besides that we are taught in the Scripture to ascribe unto him divine honour that we must believe in him that we must pray unto him that we must be baptized in his Name and that we must honour him as we honour the Father The very works and miracles which he did do testifie of him and prove him to be God For if he were not God how did the devills stand in aw of him how did the windes and the seas obey him how did he cure all manner of diseases and inable his Disciples to do the like in his Name Did ever any man by his own power raise himself being dead Did ever any man since the beginning of the World as the blind man saith John 2.19 John 9.32 John 9. open the eyes of any that was born blind but these things we know were done by Christ and do prove him to be God If he were not God how did he pardon and forgive sins Mat. 9.2 Mat. 9.4 Colos 1.16 which is proper to God how did he know the thoughts of mens hearts which is proper to God and how is he said to have created the World which is the peculiar work of God And therefore Steven praying to the Lord Iesus is said here to call upon God He called upon God saying Lord Iesus receive my spirit The Papists do commonly at their death commend their souls to the Virgine Mary So did Father Garnet so did Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury two that are reputed for speciall Martyrs in the Church of Rome though they suffered for treason they commended their soules at the time of their death to the blessed Virgine And it is a common prayer among them Maria mater gratiae tu nos ab hoste protege hora mortis suscipe Mary the Mother of grace do thou defend us from the enemy and receive us at the hour of death But Steven here the first Martyr commended not his soule to the Virgine Mary when he died but to Christ that redeemed it Lord Iesus saith he receive my spirit And he joyns these two Lord Jesus together acknowledging Christ to be both both his Lord and his Saviour Some disjoyne these they will acknowledge Christ to be their Jesus they vvill say they look to be saved by him but they do not acknowledge him for their Lord they will not serve him Such are they who go on in their sins and follow the lusts of their own hearts and yet do look to be saved by grace But such do greatly deceive themselves For either Christ will be our Lord or he will be our Jesus
we must be content to yield him obedience and to live as becomes his servants or he will not save us And therefore only the godly that serve him in their life can with comfort commend their souls unto him at the time of their death and say as Steven did Lord Jesus receive my spirit He prayes not for his body but for his soule Though it were his body which was here in danger while the Jews were stoning him yet it is not his body but it is his soule that he prayes for as being more sensible of his future estate then of his present condition and not so much regarding this present life as the life to come Many in their life and at the time of their death are carefull for their bodies thinking of the great pain which their bodies are to suffer when death siezes upon them and taking care how they shall be able to overcome the same This care troubles many that are good Christians who are the more afraid of death for the pain thereof and imagine the pain to be greater then it is That death is painfull there is not any question Si nulla esset mortis amaritudo non magna esset martyrum fortitudo saith Augustine If there were no sharpnesse and pain in death it were no great fortitude in the Martyrs to suffer it But though death be painfull yet we must remember this for our comfort that it will be no more painfull to us then it hath been to the godly in all ages and therefore why should we be afraid to undergo that which all the godly have undergone before us Will not any man be content to be put to that whereunto the King puts his chiefe Favourites for he will think with himselfe if I be put to no more then the Kings Favourites are I shall fare well enough The godly ye know are Gods chiefe Favourites God loves and favours them above all others if therefore they have suffered the paine of death and have not been exempted by God from it we may well be the lesse carefull to undergo it and may assure our selves that though the paine were never so great yet Christ who hath redeemed both our soules and bodies will inable us to bear it and as Cyprian saith Qui semel pro nobis mortem vicit semper vincet in nobis He that once overcame death for us will alwayes overcome it in us And therefore whether we die for the Lord or in the Lord we may well lay the care of our bodies aside and may chearfully commend our soules unto Christ as Steven here did Lord Jesus receive my spirit Doct. I might hence observe the immortality of the soule That though the body do die yet the soule is immortall This is signified by those words of Solomon Eccles 12.7 That the body shall returne to the earth from Whence it was taken and the spirit shall returne unto God who gave it Mat. 10.28 and by that saying of our Saviour Fear not those that can kill the body but are not able to kill the soule But I will passe this over and come briefly to the prayer which he makes for his persecutours He kneeled down and cryed with a loud voice Lord lay not this sinne to their charge Where first observe the gesture he used he kneeled down when he prayed The Jews did commonly stand when they prayed Therefore Christ alluding to this their custome Mark 11. When ye stand saith he and pray if ye have ought against any man forgive him And the Jewes have a saying Sine stationibus non consisteret mundus that the world could not consist without standing that is without praying because they were wont to pray standing 1 Kings 19.4 1 Chro. 17.16 The Prophet Eliah when he fled from Iezabel he prayed sitting And we read the like of David that he sat and prayed Other kinde of gestures we use in our prayers which may be reduced unto these two heads such as we use in regard of our Hope or in regard of our Humiliation and Reverence In regard of our hope we lift up our eyes and we stretch forth our hands as expecting and requiring Gods help and assistance So David in the 121. Psalm I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help And Moses praying for the Isracletes Exod. 17. That they might prevale against Amaleck he stretched forth his hands For as Saint Austin saith Oculus erectus expectat manus extensa postulat The eyes being lift up expect help and the hands being stretcht forth do seeme to reuqire it In regard of our humiliation and reverence we uncover our heads we bow down our bodies and we kneele on our knees we uncover our heads which is Magnificentia depositio a laying aside of our greatnesse And thus Kings and Princes when they pray unto God do uncover their heads laying aside their state and acknowledging thereby that they are Gods Servants So we prostrate our selves and fall down on our knees as Steven here did in token of the reverence we owe unto God in offering our prayers And this gesture of kneeling we finde to have been often used by the faithfull and as the Magdeburgenses who wrote the Centuries affirme hath been the most ancient gesture in prayer and the most used by the Church in all ages Peter as we see in the 9. of the Asts and Paul in the 20. did pray kneeling so did the Prophet Daniel in his sixt Chapter Saint James the first Bishop of Jerusalem was so frequent in praying on his knees that he made his knees as hard as the hoofe of a Camel with continuall kneeling And the like did Asella as we read in St. Jerome It is true indeed that it is the heart and affection of him that prays and not the gesture of the body which God respects but withall this is true that he that makes no conscience of praying reverently doth never pray heartily and he that will not bend the knee unto God much lesse out of doubt will he bend the heart O come let us Worship and fall down saith the Psalmest and kneele before the Lord our maker Psal 95.6 Micah 6.6 Where withall shall I come saith the Prophet Micah in his sixt chapter before the Lord and bow my self before the high God To shew that he might not come into his presence but with great reverence And therefore this serves to reprove those that shew no signes of reverence unto God 2 Chr. 6.13 Luke 22 4â— when they come before him to offer up their prayers We see that Solomon when he consecrated the Temple 2 Chron. 6. he kneeled down and prayed and a greater then Solomon our blessed Saviour Luke 22. kneeled down when he prayed be for his passion If he therefore used such reverence in prayer should not we much more For shall mercy bend her knee and shall not misery Shall the Physician and shall not the Patient Shall
the upright for the end of that man is peace and in the next verse But the end of the wicked shall be cut off For God being the just Judge of the world it cannot be otherwise but that between the end of the godly and the end of the wicked there must needs be great difference Therefore when Abraham prayed for Sodom that it might be spared for the righteous sake that were therein Gen. 18.23.25 wilt thou saith he Gen. 18. destroy the righteous with the wicked that be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked and that the righteous should be as the wicked that be farre from thee shall not the judge of all the earth do right to shew that it cannot stand with the justice of God to respect them alike and to make no difference between the godly and the wicked We see many times that the wicked do flourish and prosper in the world and live in great credit and estimation the godly on the contrary are many times vilified and privily slander'd whereby their good name which is the godly mans Heire is much called into question but God who never failes to help them to right that do suffer wrong at one time or other brings the wicked to shame and makes the innocency of the godly known This is that which God promises Psal 37.6 Psal 37. He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement or just dealing as the noon-day the meaning is that though thy innocency and just dealing may be obscured and hidden for a time as the light in the night yet God will bring it forth like the light in the morning and make it more and more to appear like the Sun at noone whereby both thy innocencie and the falshood of those that unjustly accuse thee shall be openly known This we see by the example of Daniel who was cast by his accusers into the Lyons Den Dan. 6.16 Dan. 3.21 and by those who were cast into the fiery furnace yet God miraculously made known their innocency and brought those that accused them to shame and destruction It is very memorable which we find recorded to this purpose in the Ecclesiasticall Histories Three grace leâ—e Companions accused Narcissus a holy Bishop of an hainous crime and used fearfull imprecations against themselves if the thing were not true whereof they accused him The first wished that if it were not true he might be burnt The second that he might die of some grievous Disease And the third wisht that he might lose his sight And not long after God was reveng'd on every one of them in the same manner For the first had his house set a fire in the night where both himself and his houshold were burnt to death The second fell sick of a fearfull disease and died of it And the third seeing what 〈◊〉 befallen his Companions confessed how they had wrongfully accused the Bishop and with weeping and mourning lost his sight Whereupon the Bishop who had been deposed upon their accusation was restored unto his Bishoprick God having thus made his innocency known and brought them to shame that so falsly accused him And thus much for the former part of these words the description of an impenitent sinner who is described as you have heard both by his property that he covers his sinne and by his condition that he shall not prosper The penitent person is described by a double property he confesseth his sinnes and withall forsakes them and his condition is that he shall have mercy I will speak briefly of them in a word or two Those words of St. John 1 John 1.9 If we confesse our sinnes he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sinnes and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse are as it were a commentary upon my Text and the one place may serve well to explain the other St. John names onely our confessing our sinnes If saith he we confesse our sinnes implying under confessing our sinnes our forsaking of them because as St. Ambrose saith Confessio peccati est professio desinendi our confessing of sinne is a profession of leaving the same Solomon in my Text doth name them both who so confesses and forsakes his sins and so expresses what St. John implies And Solomon addes that he shall have mercy but what mercy he doth not shew St. John therefore shewes what this mercy is that God will forgive him his sinnes and will cleanse him from all unrighteousnesse which you know is the greatest mercy For if we consider how highly God is offended with sinners how deeply we are indebted unto God by our sinnes or the great benefit we reape by Gods forgiving us we cannot but see Gods infinite mercy in forgiving our sinnes upon so easie a condition and requiring no more of us for the forgivenesse of our sinnes but that we confesse them If a Creditor should require no more of his Debtor that were indebted in a great summe unto him but to acknowledge the debt he would freely forgive him would not every man magnifie the Creditors bounty in releasing his Debtor upon so easie a condition but thus deales God with us he requires no more of us but to confesse our sinnes and promises to forgive us If saith St. John we confesse our sinnes God is faithfull and just to forgive us our sinnes faithfull and just and so we need not make any doubt thereof because his faithfulnesse and justice are ingaged upon it But some may say it may seeme that seeing God is just he should rather punish us then forgive us our sinnes because his justice requires that we make him satisfaction and that he reward us according to our deserts We are therefore to remember that confession of our sinnes and faith in Christ for the pardon of them do alway go together so that we cannot truly confesse our sins but we must needes have an eye unto Christ for the forgivenesse of our sinnes God therefore cannot but forgive us our sinnes because he is just for otherwise he should be unjust to his Sonne who hath made satisfaction to God in our roome and by his active and passive obedience hath merited for us that our sinnes should be forgiven And herein appeares the admirable wisdome and goodnesse of God in so contriving the work of our redemption that his justice should plead for the forgivenesse of our sinnes which pleaded before for our condemnation For if ye aske why God should condemn us for our sinnes the Reason is because he is just and justice requires that having offended him we should make him satisfaction And yet if ye aske why he should forgive us our sinnes the reason is here given by St. John because he is just and justice requires that Christ having made satisfaction for us we should be forgiven And so we see what mercy it is which he shall have who confesseth his sinnes namely the
pardon and forgivenesse of them FINIS The Eighteenth SERMON 1 THES 5.2 For you your selves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night THe first coming of Christ may well put us in mind of his second coming his coming as a Lambe of his coming as a Lion his coming in humility of his coming in glory The day of his first coming ye know is past and yet so past as that we are still to call it to mind and must never forget it the day of his second coming is yet to come yet so to come as that it will come we know not how soone and we must alwayes expect it And therefore as it hath been a Custome in some Countries that when they kept a feast after other dishes a deaths head was brought in and set upon the Table before the guests to teach them while they were feasting to remember their ends So I thought it not unfit at the time of this feast which we celebrate in remembrance of Christs first coming to bring in as it were a deaths head among you by choosing such a Text as may put you in mind of his second coming at the day of judgement because that is a day which is alwayes to be expected whereof the Apostle in the words which I have read gives a double Reason First because it is certain that this day is coming For you your selves saith he know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes Secondly because it is uncertain when it will come For it so saith he comes as a thief in the night whose coming is uncertain and upon the sudden So that the points to be handled in these words are these the day it self and the coming of it and in the coming of it that it is certain that this day will come though when it wil come it is uncertain And first concerning the day it self The day of judgement is here called the day of the Lord sometimes in the Scripture the great notable day of the Lord. It is called the day of the Lord to put a difference between that day and all the dayes while we live in the world While we live in the World the dayes in the Scripture are called ours For though all dayes indeed be the Lords because he made them as the Prophet David saith Psal 74.16 The day is thine and the night is thine thou hast prepared the light and the Sunne yet in the Scripture they are said to be ours because they were made for our use Therefore God speaking of the time of mans life Gen. 6. His dayes saith he Gen. 6.3 shall be an hundred and twenty years Thus Job speaking of the prosperity of the wicked They spend saith he their dayes in welthinesse Job 21.13 Psal 90.12 Thus David speaking of the uncertainty of this life Psal 90. Teach us saith he to number our dayes Thus the dayes while we live in this world are called ours But the day of judgement is alwayes called Esay 13.7 Joel 2.1 2 Pet. 3.10 the day of the Lord. So Esay 13. Behold the day of the Lord comes So Joel The day of the Lord comes and is nigh at hand So St. Peter 2 Pet. 3. The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night Thus still it is called the day of the Lord because though all other dayes be ours yet this day he hath wholly reserved to himself to call us to an account of all our dayes To some of us he hath given ten thousand dayes to some twenty thousand to some thirty thousand and all the dayes from the beginning of the World to the end thereof he hath divided amongst us giving more unto some and sewer to others to himself he hath reserved but one day onely and the last of all yet such a day as wherein he will call us all to an account of all things that we have done in all our dayes At this day the Drunkard shall be called to an account of all the dayes he hath spent in drunkennesse At this day the idle person shall be called to an account of all the dayes he hath spent in idlenesse At this day the voluptuos liver shall be called to an account of all the dayes he hath spent in pleasure For this is the day which the Lord hath appointed for the examination of all our dayes The dayes which he hath given us are dayes of mercy wherein he offers grace unto all and invites them to repent this day is onely a day of judgement wherein he will execute his justice on those that are impenitent Therefore it is that the time of this life is called in the Scripture Esay 49.8 Dies salutis the day of salvation as Esay 49. I have heard thee saith God in the time accepted in the day of salvation have I succoured thee Which the Apostle expounds 2 Cor. 6. 2 Cor. 6.2 of the time of this life while grace is offered Behold saith he now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation But the day of judgement is called in the Scripture dies irae the day of wrath Zeph. 1.15 Zeph. 1.15 That day saith the Prophet is a day of wrath And Revel 6. The great day of the wrath of the Lord is come And therefore God who for the time of this lise is called by the Apostle the father of mercies yet after this life when he shall judge the World Psal 49.1.2 he is called by the Prophet David a God of revenge For be that is so mercifull to all in this life that he makes the Sun to shine and the rain to fall both on the good and the bad yet after this life at the day of judgement he will rain snares on the wicked fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall be their portion for ever to drink Psal 11.6 We see then the reason why it is called the day of the Lord because in that day he will call us all to an account of all our dayes that such as in their days have done their own will might therefore in his day suffor his will because they would not imbrace his mercy while he offered them grace in stead of mercy they might feel his justice His power had a day when he created the World all things therein and by speaking the word made them all of nothing His mercy had a day when he redeemed the world by giving his only Son to suffer death for man that had so highly offended him And his justice shall likewise have a day when he shall judge the World at which day he will appear so terrible to the wicked Revel 6.16 that when they see him they shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them and to the rocks to hide them from the presence of him that sits upon the Throne from the wrath of the Lamb. But all in vaine because as they in