formali denotat quid intrinseco malum Every Punishment is truely from a Sentence of condemnation And there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 And we are judged by the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World 1 Cor. 11.32 His judgements on the World are indeed the Sentence of a Judge condemnatory His judgement to the Righteous castigatory they are chastened as by a Father or cured as by a Medicine from a Physician Iob 36.9.10 Then he sheweth them their worke and their transgressions that they have exceeded He openeth also their care to discipline and commandeth that they returne from iniquity Augustine cap. 124. in Ev. Ioh. gives us three grounds of this Gods proceeding with them Ad demonstrationem debitae miserie vel ad emendationem labilis vitae vel ad exercitationem necessariae patientiae and the Righteous are to make one of these uses of them according to the quality and nature of the dispensation For if they be under Persecution from men for Christ and his Gospels sake which is properly to beare his Crosse then this is a tryall of our Faith and Christian Graces and because it conformes us to Christ Phil. 3.10 it carries its joy and comfort along with it he that thus suffers hath abundant matter of joy Acts 5.41 and yet ground of humility to us because it shewes That when we have done or suffered what we can we are but unprofitable servants it s a state we have deserved to passe though not from them under whose hand we passe if temptations or tryalls immediately sent by God then they have the same ends in respect of God inflicting them to humble us for our demerits and to demonstrate how far we are from deserving any thing from God and how insufficient in our selves to secure our selves Yet in respect of us they have not the same use for we the Patients are not herein as in the former to borrow our consolation from the temptation or tryall it selfe but from our deportment and demeanour under this tryall if by the Grace of God we can sanctifie him in our hearts and glorifie him in this behalfe by justifying God condemning our selves Psal 51.4 Dan. 9.7 Psal 39.9 blessing God Iob 1.21 submitting to him 1 Sam. 3.18 but if chastisements from God then they are evidences we have sinned against him and he is displeased with us and they are severities for our cure and amendment and from these we cannot derive any comfort but much ground of godly sorrow and all the comfort we can here depend on is in a continued subsequent and present holy use of them to this end of Reformation Heb. 12.11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous neverthelesse afterward it yeeldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousnesse unto them which are exercised thereby In summe then The wicked in their wicked enjoyments and fulnesse are not happy though visibly prosperous because there is a sentence of wrath and vengeance irreversibly decreed against them and the righteous in their saddest calamities though seemingly miserable yet really are not because they have strong inward consolations and great assurances of a Crowne of Glory And who will not adventure and endure for a Crowne especially when they have security that for the adventure and a little sufferings they may obtaine and having obtained it for ever enjoy it in a most peaceable possession Most excellently and truely Lactantius to this purpose lib. 6. cap. 22. Sicut ad verum malum per fallacia bona sic ad verum bonum per fallacia mala pervenitur Counterfeit good things are the harbingers and fore runners of reall evills and conceited evill things makes way for truely good And as this consideration affords plentifull matter to the righteous Patient of instruction and comfort Non si male nunc olim sic erit so it yeild great occasion of terrour to the thriving triumphing impenitent who is reserved onely and fatted for the day of slaughter For upon this supposition That judgement begins at the House of God the Apostle draws that to them sad dismall and terrible influence What shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel 1 Peter 4.17.18 a judgement so fearfull and terrible that he seems afraid clearly to expresse and yet by that Interrogation gives sufficient notice of it for this Interrogation is the same in effect with that Position of another Apostle Vengeaxce is mixe saith the Lord I will repay And it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.30.31 You see then here how forcible and prevalent examples especially of those we honour or ought to honour and that not onely of Christ himself whose example ought not onely to be an Argument to perswade which force other examples of holy men hath but it is a certain rule to direct which power the others absolutely and abstractedly hath not John 13.4 1 John 2.6 Hence that of Bernard Quid vobis cum virtutibus qui virtutem Christi ignoratis ubi num quaeso verae prudentiae nisi in Christi Doctrina ubi vera temperantia nisi in Christi vita ubi vera fortitude nisi in passione that is What have you to doe with vertuous conversation who know not the vertues of Christ For where I pray you can true wisedom and knowledge be found but in the Doctrine of Christ Where true temperance and moderation but in the life of Christ True valour and magnanimity but in the Passion and Death of Christ His Life and Death was not onely an Example but a Directory to us how to live godly and justly and soberly as the former sort of these others here prementioned in this praecision and how to die honourably and to suffer patiently as the second sort of these others did Let the Life then and Death of Christ be our Rule to direct us in every estate and condition and let Christs example and the examples also of others be as arguments and enducerments to encline and move us more forcibly and effectually to follow his directions and rules of holy living and dying and let us also be exemplary in our lives and conversations and by our exemplary living adorne the Gospel of Jesus Christ provoking one another unto good works that even others seeing our good works may glorifie God in the day of visitation that we be not onely burning lights having zeale within but shining also holding forth our light to others Especially this concerns Magistrates who have a civill relation to their inseriours To Pastors who have a spirituall affinity with and neernesse to their Flock And Parents who have a naturall tie to their Children our eivill spirituall and naturall Fathers as they are to be respectively honoured so they are to walk as worthy of honour And not onely in relation to their own welfare but to the good of those under their charge whereunto they powerfully administer by
the honestum that the tryall of your Faith might be precious c. 1 Pet. 1.7 The Apostles adjudged their sufferings honourable Acts 5.41 and therefore they rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his Name Add to this they consorm us to Christ our Head the Prince of sufferings who by his sufferings hath sanctified and enobled all ours but they are most of all of the utile they are infinitely profitable to prevent the greatest evills and to procure and secure the greatest good and if they be in some degree all these both joyous and honourable and profitable then also they must be eligible not simply and absolutely for so they are not because mala poenae evills for sin or the evills of punishment contrary to Nature but comparatively and upon supposition not as the matter of our first but second and sometimes better choyce when they are received as Medicines taken as tryalls of the most eminent graces of humility contentation meeknesse stedfastnesse and Faith and when managed to the use and exercise of these or when applyed as assurances of after felicities and thus even Death it selfe may be desired as a determination of humane imperfections and miseries as an Introduction to a new and more excellent life Thus Elias prayed that God would take away his life 1 Kings 19.4 not positively or peremptorily for he fled for it's safety but conditionally rather then Baal should seem to prevaile against God rather then he see the whole designe of Ahab and Jezabell acted with all sury and cruelty upon the Prophets of the Lord. And Saint Paul knew not what to chuse in that strait Life or Death yet his desire was rather to depart because thereby he should obtain to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 and we long to be cloathed c. 2 Cor. 5.4 and we are willing rather to be absent in the body and to be present with the Lord ver 8. And this was the case of Moses his choyce it was not through passion but with deliberation with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather the act was neither purely voluntary nor involuntary but mixt as Patients take bitter Pills and Potions rather then they will languish and consume suffer one part of the body to be Cauterized or amputated and cut off rather then the whole perish as Mariners in a Storme at Sea will rather lose their goods then lives and Moses did this the rather because he esteemed his and their sufferings the sufferings of Christ Q. But how were they the sufferings or reproch of Christ Was Christ then exhibited in the flesh Or could he suffer who had no flesh to suffer in Or could Pharaoh reproch him whom he knew not whose Person was without his reach and no way subject to his power A. Doubtlesse their sufferings here have the appellation of the reproch of Christ upon the same account that Saint Pauls reproches are stiled the afflictions of Christ Col. 1.24 for as Christ could not suffer personally before he assumed our Nature and took our flesh so neither was it possible for him to suffer after the Resurrection of his Flesh and that his Body was Glorified For on the Crosse his sufferings had their determination and period with that Consummatum est It is finished Iohn 19.30 And Saint Paul tells us Christ being raysed from the Dead dyeth no more death hath no more dominion over him Rom. 6.9 and if not Death then no penalties or miseries which are but either the Harbingers and Fore-runners or Attendants and Followers of Death So that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is all one Christ before his Incarnation and after his Glorification suffers and is reproched not in his Personall capacity as he was during his residence on Earth but in his politick capacity and in this consideration he was from all Eternity Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever and he suffers and did alwayes suffer when any part of his Body suffereth As therefore in Moses and his Hebrews Christ mysticall was reproched so in Saint Paul and the then Church of Christ he was mystically afflicted Christ ever did and now doth suffer in his Members he ever did and still doth count their afflictions his own God did so Isay 63.9 and still doth so witnesse that Voyce from Heaven Acts 9.4 Saul Saul why persecutest thou me uttered by Christ and ver 5. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest in his Members For he that toucheth them toucheth the Apple of his Eye Zach. 2.8 for he is the Head of his Body the Church and the Head is sensible of the sufferings of the Body nay the Church is expresly called Christ 1 Cor. 12.12 For as the Body is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ He saith not Ita Christi but Ita Christ us unum Christum appellans caput corpus Aug. de pecc mer. lib. 1. cap. 31. so is Christ so is the whole consisting of Head and Members the denomination is taken not from the subordinate Members of the Body but from the supreme the Head so is Christ that is Christ mististicall And that this is the genuine meaning of this place may be concluded from that we find expressed Gal. 3.16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the Promises made He saith not And to Seeds as of many but as of one And to thy Seed which is Christ And therefore this most significantly and comfortably doth denote and ascertain unto us that close union and conjunction betwixt Christ the Head and the Church his Bady and from thence results that sympathy and compassion of Christ in the sufferings and injuries of his people and servants Now that the beleeving Hebrews for otherwise this would not have been argumentative to them had also this perswasion there are besides the fore-mentioned two places in the Old Testament convincingly to demonstrate it That place where David in spirit called Christ Lord Psal 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord c. My Lord indeed fiducially and obedientially but not exclusively for it is plain he was Lord over the Collective Body the whole Israel of God a Ruling Lord over his People whereof David was but one though a Chiefe one And as David thus gives us an account of his Faith That he expected a Messias and beleeved that that Messias was the Head of the People the Lord of the aggregated of Israel so he assures us that that persuasion was a part of the Jewish Creed for that whole Israel esteemed and adjudged that all projects and defignes to prosecute and oppresse the Peoof God were conspiracies and associations against the Lord and against his Anoynted Psal 2.2 Moses therefore did chuse both Religiously and Prudently because he esteemed his and his Brethrens sufferings the reproch of Christ a choice not of Faction but Faith because of a state
so in an ordinary saving Faith a little if sound will receive a blessing to encrease and multiply a power to remove evill habits out of the soule contracted by evill Education or Example by naturall corruption or complyance with sinfull customes and plant and seed holinesse there which if it be diligently manured and managed all tares weeded out as they bud will fructifie to maturity We have a promise for it Mat. 25.29 Habenti dabitur to him that Husbands well even the least Talent he shall receive an addition and a plentifull one too for he shall have abundance upon every improvement shall receive more that he shall have over-plus a sufficient stock of grace to employ and turn his hand with and serve all his uses 3. Rahab a Cananite a stranger from the Covenant of Promise an Alien from the Common-wealth of Israel is now admitted and received into that Society and Communion and made partaker of the same Grace and Hope with Abraham and Sarah by her Faith She was one of the Primitiae Gentium an earnest of the after calling of the Gentiles that they should be no more strangers and forreiners but fellow Citizens Ephes 2.3 an exact discovery of that great Mistery of Christ that the Gentiles should he fellow heires and of the same Body c. And so it is expresly mentioned of this Rahab That she became an Israelite indeed Iosh 6.25 where she is said to dwell in Israel untill this day for she was Allied to the noblest descent and extraction being Married to Salmon who begat Boaz of Rachab Mat. 1.5 the Progenitors of David and of whom Christ came according to the Flesh So that here we may affirmatively conclude with Saint Peter Acts 10.34.35 Of a truth I perceive that God is no respector of persons But in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousnesse is accepted with him And with Saint Peter 1 Cor. 7.19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandements of God And Gal. 5.6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avayleth any thing nor uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by love 4. Rahab beleeved and therefore separated her self from the company and communion of her hardened fellow Citizens and joyned her self to the society of Gods people and yet she was none of those sensuall separatists spoken of by Saint Jude 19. who walked not with the Church of God but after their own ungodly lusts heaping to themselves Teachers choosing and carving for themselves without the Order of Gods Church and taking them on heaps either confusedly or unsatisfactorily when they have their own choice being never contented put off one to day and another to morrow and so if possible in infinitum and all this from a malignant humor an itching in the eare 2 Tim. 4.3 nor those Pharisaicall separatists who divide themselves from the Body of Christ either upon a vain supposition of Pride that they are holier and the rest prophaner and therefore Procul ô proeul ite come not neer them stand far from them or upon as bad of uncharitablenesse as if the Congregation were not holy and they good soules are afraid to receive infection from it as if the true service of the true God could be unholy and poysonous because some of the servants in that duty are false and wicked For how can their supposed ir-reall it matters not in this case but I will suppose it reall nakednesse touch and defile me when I abhor it for it self piety it and pray against it in them and I onely joyn and communicate with them in that which is confessedly good But she was an holy separatist who forsook the service of false Gods and betook her self to the Worship of the true God her Idolatrous Worship she exchanged for the true and divided not from the Cananites quasi homines as men but from their sins For doubtlesse she desired and wished their conversion and it is a most just and lawfull separation to depart from all iniquity and to keep themselves unspotted from the World James 1.27 Rev. 18.4 And I heard another Voyce from Heaven saying Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her Plagues 2 Cor. 6.14.15.16.17 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbeleevers for what fellowship hath righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse and what communion hath light with darknesse And what concord hath Christ with Belial or what part hath he that beleeveth with an Infidell And what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols for ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will rective you and such was her separation whereas dayly experience doth evidence That the other humerous separatists are the greatest manuonists designers plotters and contrivers for the World in the whole World and the greediest unsatiable pursuers of the things of the World devourers not onely of Widows Houses but of Kingdoms Inheritances holy things mixing and confounding all with most Heathenish Worldly Policies not considering that the love of this World is enmity with God 5. It was Rahab the Heathen the Gentile house-wife who was the Harlot Rahab the Beleever the Convert is joyned to an Israelite in chast and holy Wedlock Fornication is a Work of the Flesh a pollution of our Bodies Marriage is honourable in all Those may justly suspect their Faith and distrust their conversion who indulge and allow themselves in those unclean satisfactions of the Flesh and Heathenish pollutions Reade that one Law of God Deut. 23.17.18 There shall be no Whore of the Daughters of Israel nor a Sodomite of the Seâ—t of Israel Thou shalt not bring the hire of a Whore or the price of a Dog into the House of the Lord thy God for any Vow for even both these are an abomination unto the Lord thy God Consider what Saint Paul presseth 1 Cor. 6.15.16.17.18 Know ye not that your Bodies are the Members of Christ shall I then take the Members of Christ and make them the Member of an Harlot God forbid What know ye not that he which is joyned to an Harlot is one Body for two saith he shall be one Flesh But he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit c. And remember that direfull judgement Revel 21.8 But the fear full and unbeleeving and the abominable and murderers and whoremâ—ngers and sorcerers and Idolaters and all lyar shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death 6 Rahab beleeved and was saved True Faith is the saving grace Infidelity the damnable sin because Faith is alwayes attended with Obedience Infidelity is still followed with Impenitency Indeed Faith and Obedience like Hippocrates Twins