parts of this text and to all that the Holy Ghost is to do upon the world for howsoever he may rebuke the world of sin he cannot be said to rebuke it of righteousnesse and of judgement according to S. Augustines later interpretation of these words for in one place of his workes he takes this word Reproofe in the harder sense for rebuke but in another in the milder we have and must pursue the second signification of the word That the Holy Ghost shall reprove the world of sin of righteousnesse of judgement by convincing the world by making the world confesse and acknowledge all that that the Holy Ghost intends in all these And this manifestation and this conviction in these three will be our parts In the first of which That the Holy Ghost shall Reprove that is convince the world of sin we shall first looke how all the world is under sin and then whether the Holy Ghost being come have convinced all the world made all the world see that it is so and in these two inquisitions we shall determine that first branch For the first for of the other two we shall reach you the boughes anon 1 Part. Mundus sub peccato when you come to gather the fruit and lay open the particulars then when we come to handle them That all the world is under sin and knowes it not for this Reproofe Elenchus is sayes the Philosopher Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem An argument against him that is of a contrary opinion we condole first the misery of this Ignorance for August Quid miserius misero non miser ante seipsum What misery can be so great as to be ignorant insensible of our owne misery Every act done in such an ignorance as we might overcome is a new sin And it is not onely a new practise from the Devill but it is a new punishment from God August Iussisti Domine sic est ut poena sit sibi omnis inordinatus animus Every sinner is an Executioner upon himselfe and he is so by Gods appointment who punishes former sins with future This then is the miserable state of the world It might know and does not that it is wholly under an inundation a deluge of sin For sin is a transgression of some Law which he that sins may know himselfe to be bound by For if any man could be exempt from all Law he were impeccable he could not sin And if he could not possibly have any knowledge of the Law it were no Law to him Now under the transgression of what Law lyes all the World Lex Humana For the positive Laws of the States in which we live a man may keepe them according to the intention of them that made those Laws which is all that is required in any humane Law to keepe it if not according to the letter yet according to the intention of the Law-maker Nay it is not onely possible Seneca but easie to do so Angusta innocentia ad legem bonum esse sayes the morall mans holy Ghost Seneca It is but a narrow and a shallow honesty to be no honester then the Law forces him to be Thus then in violating the Laws of the State all the World is not under sin If we passe from Laws meerely humane Ceremonialia though in truth scarce any just Law is so meerely humane for God that commands obedience to humane Laws hath a hand in the making of them to those ceremoniall and judiciall Laws which the Jews received immediately from God in which respect they may be called divine Laws though they were but locall and but temporary which were in such a number as that though penall Laws in some States be so many and so heavy as that they serve onely for snares and springes upon the people yet they are no where equall to the ceremoniall and judiciall Laws Psal â— 6 which lay upon the Jews yet even for these Laws S. Paul sayes of himselfe That touching that righteousnesse which is in the Law he was blamelesse Thus therefore in violating ceremoniall or judiciall Laws all the World is not under sin both because all the World was not bound by that Law and some in the World did keepe it But in two other respects it is Lex Naturae first That there is a Law of Nature that passes through all the World a Law in the heart and of the breach of this no man can be alwayes ignorant As every man hath a devill in himselfe Chrysost Spontaneum Daemonem A Devill of his owne making some particular sin that transports him so every man hath a kinde of God in himselfe such a conscience as sometimes reproves him Carry we this consideration a little higher and we may see herein some verification at least some usefull application of Origens extreme error Origen He thought that at last after infinite revolutions as all other substances should be even the Devill himselfe should be as it were sucked and swallowed into God and there should remaine nothing at last as there was nothing else at first but onely God not by an annihilation of the Creature that any thing should come to nothing but by this absorption by a transmigration of all Creatures into God that God should be all and all should be God So in our case That which is the sinners devill becomes his God That very sin which hath possessed him by the excesse of that sin or by some losse or paine or shame following that sin occasions that reproofe and remorse that withdraws him from that sin So all the world is under sin because they have a Law in themselves and a light in themselves And it is so in a second respect Originale peecatum Esay 1.4 Wisd 2.23 That all being derived from Adam Adams sin is derived upon all Onely that one man that was not naturally deduced from Adam Christ Jesus was guilty of no sin All others are subject to that malediction Vae genti peccatrici Wo to this sinfull World God made man Inexterminabilem sayes the Wiseman undisseisible unexpellible such as he could not be thrust out of his Immortality whether he would or no August for that was mans first immortality Posse non mori That he needed not have dyed When man killed himselfe and threw upon all his posterity the morte morieris that we must dye and that Death is Stipendium peccati The wages of sin and that Anima quae peccaverit Ezech. 18.4 ipsa morietur that That soule and onely that soule that sins shall dye Since we see the punishment fall upon all we are sure the fault cleaves to all too all do dye therefore all do sin And though this Originall sin that over-flowes us all may in some sense be called peccatum involuntarium a sin without any elicite act of the Will for so it must needs be in Children and so properly no sin yet as
if we consider those who are in heaven and have been so from the first minute of their creation Angels why have they or how have they any reconciliation How needed they any and then how is this of Christ applyed unto them They needed a confirmation for the Angels were created in blessednesse but not in perfect blessednesse They might fall they did fall To those that fell can appertaine no reconciliation no more then to those that die in their sins for Quod homini mors Angelis casus August The fall of the Angels wrought upon them as the death of a man does upon him They are both equally incapable of change to better But to those Angels that stood their standing being of grace and their confirmation being not one transient act in God done at once but a continuall succession and emanation of daily grace belongs this reconciliation by Christ because all matter of grace and where any deficiency is to be supplyed whether by way of reparation as in man or by way of confirmation as in Angels proceeds from the Crosse from the Merits of Christ They are so reconciled then as that they are extra lapsus periculum out of the danger of falling but yet this stability this infallibility is not yet indelibly imprinted in their natures yet the Angels might fall if this reconciler did not sustain them for if those words reperit in Angelis iniquitatem that God found folly Job 4.18 weaknesse infirmity in his Angels be to be understood of the good Angels that stand confirmed as procul dubio de diabolo intelligi non potest Calvin without all doubt they cannot be understood of the ill Angels the best service of the best Angels devested of that successive grace that supports them if God should exacta rigorous account of it could not be acceptable in the sight of God So the Angels have a pacification and a reconciliation lest they should fall Thus things in heaven are reconciled to God by Christ and things on earth too In terra First the creature as S. Paul speakes that is other creatures then men For at the generall resurrection which is rooted in the resurrection of Christ and so hath relation to him the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption Rom. 8.21 into the glorious liberty of the children of God for which the whole creation groanes and travailes in paine yet This deliverance then from this bondage the whole creature hath by Christ and that is their reconciliation And then are we reconciled by the blood of his Crosse when having crucified our selves by a true repentance we receive the seale of reconciliation in his blood in the Sacrament But the most proper and most litterall sense of these words is that all things in heaven and earth be reconciled to God that is to his glory to a fitter disposition to glorifie him by being reconciled to another in Christ that in him as head of the Church they in heaven and we upon earth be united together as one body in the Communion of Saints For this text hath a conformity and a harmony with that to the Ephesians and in sense as well as in words is the same Ephes 1.10 That God might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him where the word which we translate to gather doth properly signifie recapitulare to bring all things to their first head to Gods first purpose which was that Angels and men united in Christ Jesus might glorifie him eternally in the Kingdome of heaven Then are things in heaven restored and reconciled sayes S. Augustine Cum quod ex Angelis lapsum est ex hominibus redditur when good men have repaired the ruine of the bad Angels and filled their places And then are things on earth restored and reconciled Cum praedestinati à corruptionis vetustate renovantur when Gods elect children are delivered from the corruptions of this world to which even they are subject here Gregor Cum humiliati homines redeunt unde Apostatae superbiendo ceciderunt when men by humility are exalted to those places from which Angels fell by pride then are all things in heaven and earth reconciled in Christ The blood of the sacrifices was brought by the high priest Tostat in Levit 16. in sanctum sanctorum into the place of greatest holinesse but it was brought but once in festo expiationis in the feast of expiation but in the other parts of the Temple it was sprinkled every day The blood of the Crosse of Christ Jesus hath had his effect in sancto sanctorum even in the highest heavens in supplying their places that fell in confirming them that stood and in uniting us and them in himselfe as Head of all In the other parts of the Temple it is to be sprinkled daily Here in the militant Church upon earth there is still a reconciliation to be made not only toward one another in the band of charity but in our selves In our selves we may finde things in heaven and things on earth to reconcile There is a heavenly zeale but if it be not reconciled to discretion there is a heavenly purity but if it be not reconciled to the bearing of one anothers infirmities there is a heavenly liberty but if it be not reconciled to a care for the prevention of scandall All things in our heaven and our earth are not reconciled in Christ In a word till the flesh and the spirit be reconciled this reconciliation is not accomplished For neither spirit nor flesh must be destroyed in us a spirituall man is not all spirit he is a man still But then is flesh and spirit reconciled in Christ when in all the faculties of the soule and all the organs of the body we glorifie him in this world for then in the next world wee shall be glorified by him and with him in soule and in body too where we shall bee thoroughly reconciled to one another no suits no controversies and thoroughly to the Angels Mat. 22.30 Luc. 20.36 when we shall not only be sieut Angeli as the Angels in some one property but aequales Angelis equall to the Angels in all for Non erunt duae societates Angelorum hominum Men and Angels shall not make two companies sed omnium beatitudo erit uni adhaerere Deo August this shall be the blessednesse of them both to be united in one head Christ Jesus And these reconcilings are reconcilings enow for these are all that are in heaven and earth If you will reconcile things in heaven and earth with things in hell that is a reconciling out of this Text. If you will mingle the service of God and the service of this world there is no reconciling of God and Mammon in this Text. If you will mingle a true religion and a false religion there is no reconciling of God and
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
is there comfort in that state why that is the state of hell it self Eternall dying and not dead But for this there is enough said by the Morall man that we may respite divine proofes for divine points anon for our severall Resurrections for this death is meerly naturall and it is enough that the morall man sayes Mors lex tributum officium mortalium First it is lex you were born under that law upon that condition to die Sencea so it is a rebellious thing not to be content to die it opposes the Law Then it is Tributum an imposition which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us and which she will take when and where se lift here a yong man there an old man herea happy there a miserable man And so itis a seditious thing not to be content to die it opposes the prerogative And lastly it is Officium men are to have rheir turnes to take their time and then to give way by death to successors and so it is Incivile inofficiosum not to be content to die it opposes the frame and form of government It comes equally to us all and makes us all equall when it comes The eshes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of that Oak to tell me how high or how large that was It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood nor what men it hurt when it fell The dust of great persons graves is speechlesse too it sayes nothing it distinguishes nothing As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the winde blow it thither and when a whirle-winde hath blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce This is the Patrician this is the noble flowre and this the yeomanly this the Plebeian bran Sois the death of Iesabel Ieabel was a Queen expressed They shall not say this is Iesabel not only not wonder that it is not pity that it should be but they shall not say they shall not know This is Iesabel It comes to all to all alike but not alike welcome to all To die too willingly out ofimpatience to wish or out of violence to hasten death or to die too unwillingly to murmure at Gods purpose reveled by age or by sicknesse are equall distempers and to harbour a disobedient loathnesse all the way or to entertain it at last argues but an irreligious ignorance An ignorance that death is in nature but Expiratio a breathing out and we do that every minute An ignorance that God himself took a day to rest in and a good mans grave is his Sabbath An ignorance that Abel the best of those whom we can compare with him was the first that dyed Howsoever whensoever all times are Gods times Vocantur obni ne diutiús vexentur á noxiis mali ne diutiús bonos persequantur God cals the good to take them from their dangers and God takes the bad to take them from their trumph And therefore neither grudge that thou goest nor that worse stay for God can make his profit of both Aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut utper allum bonus exerceatur God reprieves him to mend him or to make another better by his exercise and not to exult in the misery of another but to glorifie God in the wayes of his justice let him know Quantumcunque seró subitó ex hac óitatollitur qui finem praevidere nescivit How long soever he live how long soever he lie sick that man dies a sudden death who never thought of it If we consider death in S. Pauls Statutum est It is decréed that all men must die there death is indifferent If we consider it in his Mori lucrum that is an advantage to die there death is good and so much the vulgat Edition seemes to intimate when Deut. 30. 19 whereas we reade I have set before you life and death that reades it Vitam honum Life and that which is good If then death be at the worst indifferent and to the good good how is it Hostis an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ for that also is Vestigium quintum the fift and next step in this paraphrase First God did not make death saies the Wiseman And therefore S. Augustine makes a reasonable prayer to God Ne permittas Domine quod nonfecisti dominari Creatur ae quam fecisti Suffer not O Lord death whom thou didst not make to have dominion over me whom thou didst Whence then came death The same Wiseman hath shewed us the father Through envy of the devill came death into the world and a wiser then he the holy Ghost himselfe hath shewed us the Mother By sin came death into the world But yet if God have naturalized death taken death into the number of his servants and made Death his Commissioner to punish sin and he doe but that how is Death an enemy First he was an enemy in invading Christ who was not in his Commission because he had no sin and still he is an enemie because still he adheres to the enemy Death hangs upon the edge of every persecutors sword and upon the sting of every calumniators and accusers tongue In the Bull of Phalaris in the Bulls of Basan in the Buls of Babylon the shrewdest Buls of all in temporall in spirituall persecutions ever since God put an enmity between Man and the Serpent from the time of Cain who began in a murther to the time of Antichrist who proceeds in Massacres Death hath adhered to the enemy and so is an enemy Death hath a Commission Stipendium peccati mors est The reward of sin Death but where God gives a Supersedeas upon that Commission Vivo Ego nolo mortem As I live saith the Lord I would have no sinner dye not dye the second death yet Death proceeds to that execution And where as the enemy whom he adheres to Serpent himselfe hath power but In calcaneo upon the heele the lower the mortall part the body of man Death is come up into our windowes saith the Prophet into our best lights Jer. 9.21 our understandings and benights us there either with ignorance before sin or with senselesnesse after And a Sheriffe that should burne him who were condemned to be hanged were a murderer though that man must have dyed To come in by the doore by the way of sicknesse upon the body is but to come in at the window by the way of sin is not deaths Commission God opens not that window So then he is an enemy for they that adhere to the enemy are enemies And adhering is not only a present subministration of supply to the enemy for that death doth not but it is also a disposition to assist the enemy then when he shall
from sin Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator Grego No man falls lower then he that falls into a course of sin Sin is a fall It is not onely a deviation a turning out of the way upon the right or the left hand but it is a sinking a falling In the other case of going out of the way a man may stand upon the way and inquire and then proceed in the way if he be right or to the way if he be wrong But when he is fallen and lies still he proceeds no farther inquires no farther To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion stops and retards a man in the way to mistake some points in the truth of religion puts a man for that time in a wrong way But to fall into a course of sin this makes him unsensible of any end that he hath to goe to of any way that he hath to goe by God hath not removed man not with-drawne man from this Earth he hath not given him the Aire to flie in as to Birds nor Spheares to move in as to Sun and Moone he hath left him upon the Earth and not onely to tread upon it as in contempt or in meere Dominion but to walk upon it in the discharge of the duties of his calling and so to be conversant with the Earth is not a falling But as when man was nothing but earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the earth his mouth kissed the earth his hands embraced the earth his eyes respected the earth And then God breathed the breath of life into him and that raised him so farre from the earth as that onely one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it And yet man so raised by God by sin fell lower to the earth againe then before from the face of the earth to the womb to the bowels to the grave So God finding the whole man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Originall sin yet erects us by a new breath of life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower then before we were raised from Originall into Actuall into Habituall sins So low as that we think not that we need know not that there is a resurrection and that is the wonderfull that is the fearfull fall Though those words Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo Lucifer Esay 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels yet it is evident that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man It deserves wonder more then pity that man whom God had raised to so Noble a heighth in him should fall so low from him Man was borne to love he was made in the love of God but then man falls in love when he growes in love with the creature he falls in love As we are bid to honour the Physitian and to use the Physitian but yet it is said in the same Chapter Ecclus. 38.1 V. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hands of the Physitian It is a blessing to use him it is a curse to rely upon him so it is a blessing to glorifie God in the right use of his creatures but to grow in love with them is a fall For we love nothing that is so good as our selves Beauty Riches Honour is not so good as man Man capable of grace here of glory hereafter Nay as those things which we love in their nature are worse then we which love them so in our loving them we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are by over-loving the beauty of the body we corrupt the soule by overloving honour and riches we deflect and detort these things which are not in their nature ill to ill uses and make them serve our ill purposes Man falls as a fall of waters that throwes downe and corrupts all that it embraces Nay beloved when a man hath used those wings which God hath given him and raised himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge and religious practise Acts 29.9 as Eutichus out of a desire to hear Paul preach was got up into a Chamber and up into a window of that Chamber and yet falling asleep fell downe dead so we may fall into a security of our present state into a pride of our knowledge or of our purity and so fall lower then they who never came to our heighth So much need have we of a resurrection So sin is a fall and every man is affraid of falling even from his temporall station Mâ—rs Clem. Alex. more affraid of falling then of not beeing raised And Qui peccat quatenus peccat fit seipso deterior In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before In every sin he is dishonoured he is not so good a man as he was impoverished he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had Infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisedome of the feare of God as he had disarmed he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that he had and deformed he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before In every sin we become prodigals but in the habit of sin we become bankrupts affraid to come to an account A fall is a fearfull thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a resurrection is as great a work as the very Creation it selfe It is death in semine in the roote it produces it brings forth death It is death in arbore in the body in it selfe death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spirituall death and this death produces more sin Obduration Impenitence and the like Be pleased to returne and cast one halfe thought upon each of these Sin is the roote of death Death by sin entred and death passed upon all men for all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 It is death because we shall dye for it But it is death in it selfe We are dead already dead in it Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead was spoken to a whole Church Apoc. 3.1 It is not evidence enough to prove that thou art alive to say I saw thee at a Sermon that spirit that knowes thy spirit he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon melted by a Sermon mended by a Sermon he knows whether thou be alive or no. That which had wont to be said That dead men walked in Churches is too true Men walk out a Sermon or walk out after a Sermon as ill as they walked in they have a name that they live Iohn 5.25 and are dead But the houre is come and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God That is at
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ— Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â—0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
First then 1 Part. for that Blessednesse which we need not be afraid nor abstaine from calling the Recompence the Reward the Retribution of the faithfull for as we consider Death to grow out of Disobedience and Life out of Obedience to the Law as properly as Death is the wages of sin Life is the wages of Righteousnesse If I be asked what it is wherein this Recompence this Reward this Retribution consists if I must be put to my Speciall Plea I must say it is in that of the Apostle Omnia cooperantur in bonum That nothing can befall the faithfull that does not conduce to his good and advance his happinesse For he shall not onely find S. Pauls Mori lucrum That he shall be the better for dying if he must dye but he shall find S. Augustines Vtile cadere He shall be the better for sinning if he have sinned So the better as that by a repentance after that sin hee shall find himselfe established in a neerer and safer distance with God then he was in that security which he had before that sin But the Title and the Plea of the faithfull to this Recompence extends farther then so It is not onely that nothing how evill soever in the nature thereof shall be evill to them but that all that is Good is theirs properly theirs Psal 34.9 theirs peculiarly There is no want to them that fear the Lord sayes David The young Lions doe lack and suffer hunger but they that seeke the Lord shall not want any good thing The Infidel hath no pretence upon the next world none at all No nor so cleare a Title to any thing in this world but that we dispute in the Schoole whether Infidels have any true dominion any true proprietie in any thing which they possesse here And whether there be not an inherent right in the Christians to plant Christianity in any part of the Dominions of the Infidels and consequently to despoile them even of their possession if they oppose such Plantations so established and such propagations of the Christian Religion For though we may not begin at the dispossessing and displanting of the native and naturall Inhabitant for so we proceed but as men against men and upon such equall termes we have no right to take any mens possessions from them yet when pursuing that Right which resides in the Christian we have established such a Plantation if they supplant that we may supplant them say our Schooles and our Casuists For in that case we proceed not as men against men not by Gods Common Law which is equall to all men that is the Law of Nature but we proceed by his higher Law by his Prerogative as Christians against Infidels and then it is God that proceeds against them by men and not those men of themselves to serve their owne Ambitions or their other secular ends 1 Cor. 3.20 All things are yours saies the Apostle By what Right You are Christs saies he And Christ is Gods Thus is a Title convayed to us All things are Gods God hath put all things under Christs feete And he under ours as we are Christians And then as the generall profession of Christ entitles us to a generall Title of the world for the World belongs to the Faithfull and Christians as Christians and no more are Fideles Faithfull in respect of Infidels so those Christians that come to that more particular more active more operative faith which the Apostle speaks of in all this Chapter come also to a more particular reward and recompence and retribution at Gods hands God does not onely give them the naturall blessings of this World to which they have an inherent right as they are generall Christians but as they are thus faithfull Christians he gives them supernaturall blessings he enlarges himselfe even to Miracles in their behalfe Which is a second consideration First God opens himselfe in nature and temporall blessings to the generall Christian but to the Faithfull in Grace exalted even to the height of Miracle In this we consider first That there is nothing dearer to God then a Miracle Miracula There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once Nay the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles then the extraordinary which we admire most if they were done but once The standing still of the Sun for Iosuahs use was not in it selfe so wonderfull a thing as that so vast and immense a body as the Sun should run so many miles in a minute The motion of the Sun were a greater wonder then the standing still if all were to begin againe And onely the daily doing takes off the admiration But then God having as it were concluded himself in a course of nature and written downe in the booke of Creatures Thus and thus all things shall be carried though he glorifie himselfe sometimes in doing a miracle yet there is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world and a tacite reprehension of them who require or who need miracles Therefore hath God reserved to himselfe the power of Miracles as a Prerogative For the devill does no miracles the devill and his instruments doe but hasten Nature or hinder nature antedate Nature or postdate Nature bring things sooner to passe or retarde them And howsoever they pretend to oppose nature yet still it is but upon nature and but by naturall meanes that they worke onely God shakes the whole frame of Nature in pieces and in a miracle proceeds so as if there were no Creation yet accomplished no course of Nature yet established Facit mirabilia magnasolus saies David Psal 136.4 There are Mirabilia parva some lesser wonders that the devill and his Instruments Pharaohs Sorcerers can do But when it comes to Mirabilia magna Great wonders so great as that they amount to the nature of a Miracle Facit solus God and God onely does them And amongst these and amongst the greatest of these is the raising of the Dead and therefore we make it a particular consideration the extraordinary Joy in that case when Women received their dead raised to life againe Wee know the dishonour and the infamy that lay upon barrennesse among the Jews Mortui how wives deplored and lamented that When God is pleased to take away that impediment of barrennesse and to give children we know the misery and desolation of orbity when Parents are deprived of those children by death And by the measure of that sorrow which follows barrennesse or orbitie we may proportion that joy which accompanies Gods miraculous blessings when Women receive their dead naised to life againe In all the secular and prophane Writers in the world in the whole bodie of Story you shall not finde such an expressing of the misery of a famine as that of the Holy
be well Christ said in his behalfe Verily I have not found so great faith no not in Israel When Christ makes so much of this single grain of Mustard-seed this little faith as to prefer it before all the faith of Israel surely faith went very low in Israel at that time Nay when Christ himself sayes speaking of his last comming after so many ages preaching of the Gospell When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth Luk. 18.8 any faith We have I say a blessed beam of comfort shining out of this text that it is no small number that is reserved for that Kingdome For whether the Apostle speak this of himself and the Thessalonians or of others he speaks not as of a few but that by Christs having preached the narrownesse of the way and the straitnesse of the gate our holy industry and endeavour is so much exalted which was Christs principall end in taking those Metaphors of narrow wayes and strait gates not to make any man suspect an impossibility of entring but to be the more industrious and endeavorous in seeking it that as he hath sent workmen in plenty abundant preaching so he shall return a plentifull harvest a glorious addition to his Kingdome both of those which slept in him before and of those which shall be then alive fit all together to be caught up in the clouds to meet him and be with him for ever for these two armies imply no small number Now of the condition of these men who shall be then alive and how being clothed in bodies of corruption they become capable of the glory of this text in our first distribution we proposed that for a particular consideration and the other branch of this second part and to that in that order we are come now I scarce know a place of Scripture more diversly read Immutabimur and consequently more variously interpreted then that place which should most enlighten us in this consideration presently under our hands which is that place to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15.51 Non omnes dormiemus We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed The Apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery Behold I shew you a mystery but Translators and Expositors have multiplyed mysticall clouds upon the words S. Chrysostome reads these words as we do Chrysost Non dormiemus We shall not all sleep but thereupon he argues and concludes that wee shall not all die The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that Omnes dormiemus sed non c. We shall all sleep but we shall not all be changed The vulgat Edition in the Romane Church differs from both and as much from the originall as from either Omnes resurgemus We shall all rise again but we shall not all be changed S. Hierome examines the two readings and then leaves the reader to his choice as a thing indifferent S. Augustine doth so too and concludes aquè Catholicos esse That they are as good Catholiques that reade it the one way as the other But howsoever that which S. Chrysostome collects upon his reading may not be maintained He reads as we do and without all doubt aright We shall not all sleep But what then Therefore shall we not all die To sleep there is to rest in the grave to continue in the state of the dead and so we shall not all sleep not continue in the state of the dead But yet Statutum est sayes the Apostle Heb. 9.27 as verily as Christ was once offered to beare our sinnes so verily is it appointed to every man once to die Rom. 5.12 And as verily as by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so verily death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned So the Apostle institutes the comparison so he constitutes the doctrine in those two places of Scripture As verily as Christ dyed for all all shall die As verily as every man sins every man shall die In that change then which we who are then alive shall receive for though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul and that is truly a death and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul and that is truly a Resurrection we shall die and be alive again before another could consider that we were dead but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant some succession of time though undiscernible there is It shall be done In raptu in a rapture but even in a rapture there is a motion a transition from one to another place It shall be done sayes he In ictuoculi In the twinkling of an eye But even in the twinkling of an eie there is a shutting of the eie-lids and an opening of them again Neither of these is done in an absolute instant but requires some succession of time The Apostle in the Resurrection in our text constitutes a Prius something to be done first and something after first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first and then Then when that is done after that not all at once we that are alive shall be wrought upon we shall be changed our change comes after their rising so in our change there is a Prius too first we shall be dissolved so we die and then we shall be re-compact so we rise again This is the difference they that sleep in the grave put off and depart with the very substance of the body it is no longer flesh but dust they that are changed at the last day put off and depart with only the qualities of the body as mortality and corruption It is still the same body without resolving into dust but the first step that it makes is into glory Now transfer this to the spirituall Resurrection of thy soul by grace here Here Grace works not that Resurrection upon thy soul in an absolute instant And therefore suspect not Gods gracious purpose upon thee if thou beest not presently throughly recovered God could have made all the world in one day and so have come sooner to his Sabbath his rest but he wrought more to give us an example of labour and of patience in attending his leasure in our second Creation this Resurrection from sin as we did in our first Creation when we were not made till the sixt day But remember too that the last Resurrection from death is to be transacted quickly speedily And in thy first thy spirituall Resurrection from sin make haste The last is to be done In raptu in a rapture Let this rapture in the first Resurrection be to teare thy self from that company and conversation that leads thee into tentation The last is to be done Inictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye Let that in thy first Resurrection be The shutting of thine eyes from looking upon things in things upon creatures in creatures
all knowledge in heaven is experimentall As all knowledge in this world is causall we know a thing if we know the cause thereof so the knowledge in heaven is effectuall experimentall we know it because we have found it to be so The endowments of the blessed those which the School calls Dotes beatorum are ordinarily delivered to be these three Visio Dilectio Fruitio The sight of God the love of God and the fruition the injoying the possessing of God Now as no man can know what it is to see God in heaven but by an experimentall and actuall seeing of him there nor what it is to love God there but by such an actuall and experimentall love of him nor what it is to enjoy and possesse God but by an actuall enjoying and an experimentall possessing of him So can no man tell what the eternity and everlastingnesse of all these is till he have passed through that eternity and that everlastingnesse and that he can never doe for if it could be passed through then it were not eternity How barren a thing is Arithmetique and yet Arithmetique will tell you how many single graines of sand will fill this hollow Vault to the Firmament How empty a thing is Rhetorique and yet Rherorique will make absent and remote things present to your understanding How weak a thing is Poetry and yet Poetry is a counterfait Creation and makes things that are not as though they were How infirme how impotent are all assistances if they be put to expresse this Eternity The best help that I can assigne you is to use well Aeternum vestrum your owne Eternity as S. Gregory calls our whole course of this life Aeternum nostrum our Eternity Aequum est ut qui in aeterno suo peccaverit in aeterno Dei puniatur sayes he It is but justice that he that hath sinned out his owne Eternity should suffer out Gods Eternity So if you suffer out your owne Eternity in submitting your selves to God in the whole course of your life in surrendring your will intirely to his and glorifying of him in a constant patience under all your tribulations It is a righteous thing with God sayes our Apostle in his other Epistle to these Thessalonians To recompence tribulation to them that trouble you 2 Thess 1.6 and to you that are troubled rest with us sayes hee there with us who shall be caught up in the Clouds to meete the Lord in the Ayre and so shall be with the Lord for ever Amen SERMON XXVII Preached to the LL. upon Easter-day at the Communion The KING being then dangerously sick at New-Market PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death AT first God gave the judgement of death upon man when he should transgresse absolutely Morte morieris Thou shalt surely dye The woman in her Dialogue with the Serpent she mollifies it Ne fortè moriamur perchance if we eate we may die and then the Devill is as peremptory on the other side Nequaquam moriemini do what you will surely you shall not die And now God in this Text comes to his reply Quis est homo shall they not die Give me but one instance but one exception to this rule What man is hee that liveth and shall not see death Let no man no woman no devill offer a Ne fortè perchance we may dye much lesse a Nequaquam surely we shall not dye except he be provided of an answer to this question except he can give an instance against this generall except he can produce that mans name and history that hath lived and shall not see death Wee are all conceived in close Prison in our Mothers wombes we are close Prisoners all when we are borne we are borne but to the liberty of the house Prisoners still though within larger walls and then all our life is but a going out to the place of Execution to death Now was there ever any man seen to sleep in the Cart between New-gate and Tyborne between the Prison and the place of Execution does any man sleep And we sleep all the way from the womb to the grave we are never throughly awake but passe on with such dreames and imaginations as these I may live as well as another and why should I dye rather then another but awake and tell me sayes this Text Quis homo who is that other that thou talkest of What man is he that liveth and shall not see death In these words we shall first for our generall humiliation consider the unanswerablenesse of this question There is no man that lives and shall not see death Secondly we shall see how that modification of Eve may stand fortè moriemur how there may be a probable answer made to this question that it is like enough that there are some men that live and shall not see death And thirdly we shall finde that truly spoken which the Devill spake deceitfully then we shall finde the Nequaquam verified we shall finde a direct and full answer to this question we shall finde a man that lives and shall not see death our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus of whom both S. Augustine and S. Hierome doe take this question to be principally asked and this Text to be principally intended Aske me this question then of all the sons of men generally guilty of originall sin Quis homo and I am speechlesse I can make no answer Aske me this question of those men which shall be alive upon earth at the last day when Christ comes to judgement Quis homo and I can make a probable answer forte moriemur perchance they shall die It is a problematicall matter and we say nothing too peremptorily Aske me this question without relation to originall sin Quis homo and then I will answer directly fully confidently Ecce homo there was a man that lived and was not subject to death by the law neither did he actually die so but that he fulfilled the rest of this verse Eruit animam de inferno by his owne power he delivered his soule from the hand of the grave From the first this lesson rises Generall doctrines must be generally delivered All men must die From the second this lesson Collaterall an unrevealed doctrines must be soberly delivered How we shall be changed at the last day we know not so clearly From the third this lesson arises Conditionall Doctrines must be conditionally delivered If we be dead with him we shall be raised with him First then 1. Part. Quis homo for the generality Those other degrees of punishment which God inflicted upon Adam and Eve and in them upon us were as absolutely and illimitedly pronounced as this of death and yet we see they are many wayes extended or contracted To man it was said In sudore vultus In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eate thy bread and how many men never sweat till they sweat with eating To the woman it
keepes it from dying then that it cannot dye We magnifie God in an humble and faithfull acknowledgment of the immortality of our soules but if we aske quid homo what is there in the nature of Man that should keepe him from death even in that point the question is not easily answered It is every mans case then every man dyes Videbit and though it may perchance be but a meere Hebraisme to say that every man shall see death perchance it amounts to no more but to that phrase Gustare mortem To taste death yet thus much may be implied in it too That as every man must dye so every man may see that he must dye as it cannot be avoided so it may be understood A beast dyes but he does not see death S. Basil sayes he saw an Oxe weepe for the death of his yoke-fellow Basil orat de Morte but S. Basil might mistake the occasion of that Oxes teares Many men dye too and yet doe not see death The approaches of death amaze them and stupifie them they feele no colluctation with Powers and Principalities upon their death bed that is true they feele no terrors in their consciences no apprehensions of Judgement upon their death bed that is true and this we call going away like a Lambe But the Lambe of God had a sorrowfull sense of death His soule was heavy unto death and he had an apprehension that his Father had forsaken him And in this text the Chalde Paraphrase expresses it thus Videbit Angelum mortis he shall see a Messenger a forerunner a power of Death an executioner of Death he shall see something with horror though not such as shall shake his morall or his Christian constancy So that this Videbunt They shall see implies also a Viderunt they have seene that is they have used to see death to observe a death in the decay of themselves and of every creature and of the whole World Almost fourteene hundred yeares agoe Cyprian ad Demetrianum S. Cyprian writing against Demetrianus who imputed all the warres and deaths and unseasonablenesses of that time to the contempt and irreligion of the Christians that they were the cause of all those ils because they would not worship their Gods Cyprian imputes all those distempers to the age of the whole World Canos videmus in pueris saies hee Wee see Children borne gray-headed Capilli deficiunt antequam crescant Their haire is changed before it be growne Nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit asenectute Wee doe not dye with age but wee are borne old Many of us have seene Death in our particular selves in many of those steps in which the morall Man expresses it Seneca Wee have seene Mortem infantiae pueritiam The death of infancy in youth and Pueritiae adolescentiam and the death of youth in our middle age And at last we shall see Mortem senectutis mortem ipsam the death of age in death it selfe But yet after that a step farther then that Morall man went Mortem mortis in morte Iesu We shall see the death of Death it self in the death of Christ As we could not be cloathed at first in Paradise till some Creatures were dead for we were cloathed in beasts skins so we cannot be cloathed in Heaven but in his garment who dyed for us This Videbunt this future sight of Death implies a viderunt they have seene they have studied Death in every Booke in every Creature and it implies a Vident they doe presently see death in every object They see the houre-glasse running to the death of the houre They see the death of some prophane thoughts in themselves by the entrance of some Religious thought of compunction and conversion to God and then they see the death of that Religious thought by an inundation of new prophane thoughts that overflow those As Christ sayes that as often as wee eate the Sacramentall Bread we should remember his Death so as often as we eate ordinary bread we may remember our death Bern. Aug. for even hunger and thirst are diseases they are Mors quotidiana a daily death and if they lasted long would kill us In every object and subject we all have and doe and shall see death not to our comfort as an end of misery not onely as such a misery in it selfe as the Philosopher takes it to be Mors omnium miseriarum That Death is the death of all miserie because it destroyes and dissolves our beeing Prov. 16.14 but as it is Stipendium peccati The reward of sin That as Solomon sayes Indignatio Regis nuncius mortis The wrath of the King is as a messenger of Death so Mors nuncius indignationis Regis We see in Death a testimony that our Heavenly King is angry for but for his indignation against our sinnes we should not dye And this death as it is Malum ill for if ye weigh it in the Philosophers balance it is an annihilation of our present beeing and if ye weigh it in the Divine Balance it is a seale of Gods anger against sin so this death is generall of this this question there is no answer Quis homo What man c. We passe then from the Morte moriemini 2 Part. to the fortè moriemini from the generality and the unescapablenesse of death from this question as it admits no answer to the Fortè moriemini perchance we shall dye that is to the question as it may admit a probable answer Of which we said at first that in such questions nothing becomes a Christian better then sobriety to make a true difference betweene problematicall and dogmaticall points betweene upper buildings and foundations betweene collaterall doctrines and Doctrines in the right line Aug. for fundamentall things Sine haesitatione credantur They must be beleeved without disputing there is no more to be done for them but beleeving for things that are not so we are to weigh them in two balances in the balance of Analogy and in the balance of scandall we must hold them so as may be analogall proportionable agreeable to the Articles of our Faith and we must hold them so as our brother be not justly offended nor scandalized by them wee must weigh them with faith for our own strength and we must weigh them with charity for others weaknesse Certainly nothing endangers a Church more then to draw indifferent things to be necessary I meane of a primary necessity of a necessity to be beleeved De fide not a secondary necessity a necessity to be performed and practised for obedience Without doubt the Roman Church repents now and sees now that she should better have preserved her selfe if they had not denied so many particular things which were indifferently and problematically disputed before to bee had necessarily De fide in the Councell of Trent Taking then this Text for a probleme Quis homo What man lives and shall not
it selfe retaine an Almighty power and an effectuall purpose to deliver his soule from death by a glorious a victorious and a Triumphant Resurrection So it is true Christ Josus dyed else none of us could live but yet hee dyed not so as is intended in this question Not by the necessity of any Law not by the violence of any Executioner not by the separation of his best soule if we may so call it the God-head nor by such a separation of his naturall and humane soule as that he would not or could not or did not resume it againe If then this question had beene asked of Angels at first Quis Angelus what Angel is that that stands and shall not fall though as many of those Angels as were disposed to that answer Erimus similes Altissimo We will be like God and stand of our selves without any dependance upon him did fall yet otherwise they might have answered the question fairly All we may stand if we will If this question had been asked of Adam in Paradise Quis homo though when he harkned to her who had harkned to that voyce Erit is sicut Dii You shall be as Gods he fell too yet otherwise he might have answered the question fairly so I may live and not dye if I will so if this question be asked of us now as the question implies the generall penalty as it considers us onely as the sons of Adam we have no other answer but that by Adam sin entred upon all and death by sin upon all as it implies the state of them onely whom Christ at his second comming shall finde upon earth wee have no other answer but a modest non liquet we are not sure whether we shall dye then or no wee are onely sure it shall be so as most conduces to our good and Gods glory but as the question implies us to be members of our Head Christ Jesus as it was a true answer in him it is true in every one of us adopted in him Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Death and life are in the power of the tongue sayes Solomon in another sense Prov. 18.21 and in this sense too If my tongue suggested by my heart and by my heart rooted in faith can say Non moriar non moriar If I can say and my conscience doe not tell me that I belye mine owne state if I can say That the blood of my Saviour runs in my veines That the breath of his Spirit quickens all my purposes that all my deaths have their Resurrection all my sins their remorses all my rebellions their reconciliations I will harken no more after this question as it is intended de morte naturali of a naturall death I know I must die that death what care I nor de morte spirituali the death of sin I know I doe and shall die so why despaire I but I will finde out another death mortem raptus 2 Cor. 12. a death of rapture Acts 9. Greg. and of extasie that death which S. Paul died more then once The death which S. Gregory speaks of Divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum animae The contemplation of God and heaven is a kinde of buriall and Sepulchre and rest of the soule and in this death of rapture and extasie in this death of the Contemplation of my interest in my Saviour I shall finde my self and all my sins enterred and entombed in his wounds and like a Lily in Paradise out of red earth I shall see my soule rise out of his blade in a candor and in an innocence contracted there acceptable in the sight of his Father Though I have been dead 1 Tim. 5.6 in the delight of sin so that that of S. Paul That a Widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth be true of my soule that so viduatur gratiâ mortuâ when Christ is dead not for the soule but in the soule that the soule hath no sense of Christ Viduatur anima the soul is a Widow and no Dowager she hath lost her husband and hath nothing from him Esay 28.15 yea though I have made a Covenant with death and have been at an agreement with hell and in a vain confidence have said to my self that when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to me yet God shall annull that covenant he shall bring that scourge that is some medicinall correction upon me and so give me a participation of all the stripes of his son he shall give me a sweat that is some horrour and religious feare and so give me a participation of his Agony he shall give me a diet perchance want and penury and so a participation of his fasting and if he draw blood if he kill me all this shall be but Mors raptus a death of rapture towards him into a heavenly and assured Contemplation that I have a part in all his passion yea such an intire interest in his whole passion as though all that he did or suffered had been done and suffered for my soul alone 2 Cor. 6.9 Quasi moriens ecce vivo some shew of death I shall have for I shall sin and some shew of death again for I shall have a dissolution of this Tabernacle Sed ecce vivo still the Lord of life will keep me alive and that with an Ecce Behold I live that is he will declare and manifest my blessed state to me I shall not sit in the shadow of death no nor I shall not sit in darknesse his gracious purpose shall evermore be upon me and I shall ever discerne that gracious purpose of his I shall not die nor I shall not doubt that I shall If I be dead within doores If I have sinned in my heart why Suscitavit in domo Mar. 9.23 Christ gave a Resurrection to the Rulers daughter within doores in the house If I be dead in the gate If I have sinned in the gates of my soule in mine Eies Luke 7.11 or Eares or Hands in actuall sins why Suscitavit in porta Christ gave a Resurrection to the young man at the gate of Naim If I be dead in the grave in customary and habituall sins why John 11. Suscitavit in Sepulchro Christ gave a Resurrection to Lazarus in the grave too If God give me mortem raptus a death of rapture of extasie of fervent Contemplation of Christ Jesus a Transfusion a Transplantation a Transmigration a Transmutation into him for good digestion brings alwaies assimilation certainly if I come to a true meditation upon Christ I come to a conformity with Christ this is principally that Pretiosa mors Sanctorum Psal 116.15 Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints by which they are dead and buryed and risen again in Christ Jesus pretious is that death by which we apply that pretious blood to our selves and grow strong
by emission of beames from within And yet no man doubts whether he see or no. The holy Ghost shall tell you when he tels you the most that ever he shall tell you in that behalf That the Son is in the Father but he will not tell you how Our second portion in this Legacy of knowledge Incarnatio is That we are in Christ And this is the mystery of the Incarnation For since the devill had so surprized us all as to take mankinde all in one lump in a corner in Adams loynes and poysoned us all there in the fountain in the roote Christ to deliver us as intirely took all mankinde upon him and so took every one of us and the nature and the infirmities and the sins and the punishment of every singular man So that the same pretence which the devill hath against every one of us you are mine for you sinned in Adam we have also for our discharge we are delivered for we paid our debt in Christ Jesus In all his tentations send him to look upon the Records of that processe of Christs passion and he shall finde there the names of all the faithfull recorded That such a day that day when Christ dyed I and you and all that shall be saved suffered dyed and were crucified and in Christ Jesus satisfied God the Father for those infinite sins which we had committed And now Second death which is damnation hath no more title to any of the true members of his mysticall body then corruption upon naturall or violent death could have upon the members of his naturall body The assurance of this grows from the third part of this knowledge Redemptio That Christ is in us for that is such a knowledge of Christs generall Redemption of mankinde as that it is also an application of it to us in particular For for his Incarnation by which we are in him Cyril that may have given a dignity to our humane nature But Quae beneficiorum magnitudo fuisset erganos si hominem solummodo quem assumpserat salvaret What great benefit how ever the dignity had been great to all mankinde had mankinde had if Christ had saved no more then that one person whom he assumed The largenesse and bounty of Christ is to give us of his best treasure knowledge and to give us most at last To know Christ in me For to know that he is in his Father this may serve me to convince another that denies the Trinity To know that we are in Christ so as that he took our nature this may shew me an honour done to us more then the Angels But what gets a lame wretch at the poole how soveraign soever the water be if no body put him in What gets a naked beggar by knowing that a dead man hath left much to pious uses if the Executors take no knowledge of him What get I by my knowledge of Christ in the Father and of us in Christ so if I finde not Christ in me How then is Christ in us Here the question De modo How it is is lawfull for he hath revealed it to us It is by our obedience to his inspiration and by our reverent use of those visible meanes which he hath ordained in his Church his Word and Sacraments As our flesh is in him by his participation thereof so his flesh is in us by our communication thereof And so is his divinity in us by making us partakers of his divine nature and by making us one spirit with himself which he doth at this Pentecost that is whensoever the holy Ghost visits us with his effectuall grace for this is an union in which Christ in his purpose hath married himself to our souls inseparably and Sine solutione vinculi Without any intention of divorce on his part But if we will separate him à mensa toro If either we take the bed of licentiousnesse or the board of voluptuousnesse or if when we eat or drink or sleep or wake we do not all to the glory of God if we separate he will divorce If then we be thus come to this knowledge let us make Ex scientia conscientiam Enlarge science into conscience for Conscientia est Syllogismus practicus Conscience is a Syllogisme that comes to a conclusion Then only hath a man true knowledge when he can conclude in his own conscience that his practise and conversation hath expressed it Who will beleeve that we know there is a ditch and know the danger of falling into it and drowning in it if he see us run headlong towards it and fall into it and continue in it Who can beleeve that he that separates himself from Christ by continuing in his sin hath any knowledge or sense or evidence or testimony of Christs being in him As Christ proceeds by enlarging thy knowledge and making thee wiser and wiser so enlarge thy testimony of it by growing better and better and let him that is holy bee more holy If thou have passed over the first heats of the day the wantonnesses of youth and the second heat the fire of ambition if these be quenched in thee by preventing venting grace or by repenting grace be more and more holy for thine age will meet another sin of covetousnesse or of indevotion that needs as much resistance God staid not in any lesse degree of knowledge towards thee then in bringing himselfe to thee Doe not thou stay by the way neither not in the consideration of God alone for that Coeli enarrant all creatures declare it stay not at the Trinity Every comming to Church nay thy first being brought to Church at thy Baptisme is and was a profession of that stay not at the Incarnation That the Devill knowes and testifies But come to know that Christ is in thee and expresse that knowledge in a sanctified life For though he be in us all in the work of his Redemption so as that he hath poured out balme enough in his blood to spread over all mankinde yet onely he can enjoy the chearfulnesse of this unction and the inseparablenesse of this union who as S. Augustine pursues this contemplation Habet in memoria servat in vita who alwayes remembers that he stands in the presence of Christ and behaves himselfe worthy of that glorious presence Qui habet in Sermonibus servat in operibus That hath Christ alwaies at his tongues end and alwaies at his fingers ends that loves to discourse of him and to act his discourses Que habet audiendo servat faciendo That heares Gods will here in his house and does his will at home in his owne house Qui habet faciendo servat perseverando who having done well from the beginning persevers in well doing to the end he and he onely shall finde Christ in him SERMON XXXI Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1629. GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters THe
Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations It is a Sea Mundus Mare as it is subject to stormes and tempests Every man and every man is a world feels that And then it is never the shallower for the calmnesse The Sea is as deepe there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as in a storme we may be drowned in a calme and flattering fortune in prosperity as irrecoverably as in a wrought Sea in adversity So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it is bottomlesse to any line which we can sound it with and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it The purposes of the world the wayes of the world exceed our consideration But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse The power of the greatest in the world the life of the happiest in the world cannot exceed those bounds which God hath placed for them So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it hath ebbs and floods and no man knowes the true reason of those floods and those ebbs All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies they fall sick And in their estates they grow poore And in their minds they become sad at which changes sicknesse poverty sadnesse themselves wonder and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgement of God onely and hid even from them that have them and so the world is a Sea It is a Sea as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drinke but such water as will not quench the thirst The world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature but these encrease our thirst with drinking and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our abundance and though we sayle in a full Sea yet we lacke water So the world is a Sea It is a Sea if we consider the Inhabitants In the Sea the greater fish devoure the lesse and so doe the men of this world too And as fish when they mud themselves have no hands to make themselves cleane but the current of the waters must worke that So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which they have contracted in the world of themselves till a new flood waters of repentance drawne up and sanctified by the Holy Ghost worke that blessed effect in them All these wayes the world is a Sea but especially it is a Sea in this respect that the Sea is no place of habitation but a passage to our habitations So the Apostle expresses the world Here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come we seeke it not here Heb. 13.14 but we seeke it whilest we are here els we shall never finde it Those are the two great works which we are to doe in this world first to know that this world is not our home and then to provide us another home whilest we are in this world Therefore the Prophet sayes Mic. 2.10 Luk. 12.19 Arise and depart for this is not your rest Worldly men that have no farther prospect promise themselves some rest in this world Soule thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares take thine ease eate drinke and be merry sayes the rich man but this is not your rest indeed no rest at least not yours You must depart depart by death before yee come to that rest but then you must arise before you depart for except yee have a resurrection to grace here before you depart you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come when you are departed Now Status navigantium in this Sea every ship that sayles must necessarily have some part of the ship under water Every man that lives in this world must necessarily have some of his life some of his thoughts some of his labours spent upon this world but that part of the ship by which he sayls is above water Those meditations and those endevours which must bring us to heaven are removed from this world and fixed entirely upon God And in this Sea are we made fishers of men Of men in generall not of rich men to profit by them nor of poore men to pierce them the more sharply because affliction hath opened a way into them Not of learned men to be over-glad of their approbation of our labours Nor of ignorant men to affect them with an astonishment or admiration of our gifts But we are fishers of men of all men of that which makes them men their soules And for this fishing in this Sea this Gospel is our net Eloquence is not our net Rete Euangelium Traditions of men are not our nets onely the Gospel is The Devill angles with hooks and bayts he deceives and he wounds in the catching for every sin hath his sting The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net It hath leads and corks It hath leads that is the denouncing of Gods judgements and a power to sink down and lay flat any stubborne and rebellious heart And it hath corks that is the power of absolution and application of the mercies of God that swimme above all his works means to erect an humble and contrite spirit above all the waters of tribulation and affliction A net is Res nodosa Rete nodosum a knotty thing and so is the Scripture full of knots of scruple and perplexity and anxiety and vexation if thou wilt goe about to entangle thy selfe in those things which appertaine not to thy salvation but knots of a fast union and inseparable alliance of thy soule to God and to the fellowship of his Saints if thou take the Scriptures as they were intended for thee that is if thou beest content to rest in those places Rete diffusivum which are cleare and evident in things necessary A net is a large thing past thy fadoming if thou cast it from thee but if thou draw it to thee it will lie upon thine arme The Scriptures will be out of thy reach and out of thy use if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason upon Philosophy upon Morality to try how the Scriptures will fit all them and beleeve them but so far as they agree with thy reason But draw the Scripture to thine own heart and to thine own actions and thou shalt finde it made for that all the promises of the old Testament made and all accomplished in the new Testament for the salvation of thy soule hereafter and for thy consolation in the present application of them Now this that Christ promises here Non quia tanquam causa Rom. 6.23 is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labour and our fishing There is no merit in all that we can doe The wages of sin is Death Death is due to sin the proper reward of sin but the Apostle does not say there That eternall life is the wages of any good
that assurance which his blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the salvation of the one and of the resurrection of the other And for that constant and cheerfull resolution which the same Spirit established in me to live and die in the Religion now professed in the Church of England In expectation of that Resurrection I desire my body may be buried in the most private manner that may be in that place of S. Pauls Church London that the now Residentiaries have at my request assigned for that purpose c. And this my last Will and Testament made in the feare of God whose merit I humbly beg and constantly rely upon in Iesus Christ and in perfect love and charity with all the world whose pardon I aske from the lowest of my servants to the highest of my Superiours Written all with mine owne hand and my name subscribed to every Page being five in number Nor was his charity exprest onely at his death but in his life by a cheerfull and frequent visitation of friends whose minds were dejected or fortunes necessitous And he redeemed many out of Prison that lay for small debts or for their fees He was a continuall giver to poore Scholars both of this and forraigne Nations besides what he gave with his owne hand he usually sent a servant to all the Prisons in London to distribute his charity at all festivall times in the yeare He gave 100. l. at one time to a Gentleman that he had formerly knowne live plentifully and was then decayed in his estate He was a happy Reconciler of of differences in many Families of his friends and kindred who had such faith in his judgement and impartiality that he scarce ever advised them to any thing in vaine He was even to her death a most dutifull son to his Mother carefull to provide for her supportation of which she had been destitute but that God raised him up to prevent her necessities who having suckt in the Religion of the Romane Church with her mothers milk or presently after it spent her estate in forraigne Countries to enjoy a liberty in it and died in his house but three moneths before him And to the end it may appeare how just a Steward he was of his Lord and Masters Revenue I have thought fit to let the Reader know that after his entrance into his Deanry as he numbred his yeares and at the foot of a private account to which God and Angels onely were witnesses with him computed first his Revenue then his expences then what was given to the poore and pious uses lastly what rested for him and for his he blest each yeares poore remainder with a thankfull Prayer which for that they discover a more then common devotion the Reader shall partake some of them in his owne words 1624. So all is that remains of these two years 1625. So all is that remains of these two years Deo Opt. Max. benigno Largitori à me ab iis quibus haec à me reservantur gloria gratia in aeternum Amen 1626. So that this yeare God hath blessed me and mine with Multiplicatae sunt super nos misericordiae tuae Domine Da Domine ut quae ex immensa bonitate tua nobis elargiri dignatus sis in quorumcunque manus devenerint in tuam semper cedant gloriam Amen 1628. In fine horum sex annorum manet 1629. Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino Largiatur etiam ut quae largitus est sua iterum fiant bono eorum usu ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse ita ut libert quibus quae supersunt supersunt grato animo ea accipiant beneficum Authorem recognoscant Amen But I returne from my digression We left the Author sick in Essex where he was forced to spend most of that Winter by reason of his disability to remove from thence And having never during almost twenty yeares omitted his personall attendance on his Majestie in his monthly service Nor being ever left out of the number of Lent Preachers And in January following there being a generall report that he was dead that report occasioned this Letter to a familiar friend SIR THis advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent feavers that I am so much the oftner at the gates of heaven And this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my Prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse And I doubt not but amongst his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my Prayers A man would be almost content to die if there were no other benefit in death to heare of so much sorrow and so much good testimony from good men as I God be blessed for it did upon the report of my death Yet I perceive it went not through all For one writ to me that some and he said of my friends conceived I was not so ill as I pretended but withdrew my selfe to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ungrounded interpretation for I have alwayes been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might die in the Pulpit If not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is die the sooner by occasion of those labours Sir I hope to see you presently after Candlemas about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court except my Lord Chamberlaine beleeve me to be dead and leave me out For as long as I live and am not speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leasure to write then you to reade yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your son as I wish January 7. 1630. Your poore friend and servant in Christ Jesus Iohn Donne Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and having in his sicknesse prepared for the employment as he had long thirsted for it So resolving his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came to London some few dayes before his day appointed Being come many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that taske And therefore perswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his dayes But he passionately denyed their requests saying He would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would now withdraw it in his last employment professing a holy ambition to
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
pleasure of God In which first part you have also had the qualification of the person that came this day to establish Redemption for us that in Him there was fulnesse infinite capacity and infinite infusion and all fulnesse defective in nothing impassible and yet passible perfit God and perfit man and this fulnesse dwelling in Him in Him as he is Head of the Church that is visible sensible meanes of salvation to every soule in his Church And so we passe to our second part from this Qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell to the Pacification it selfe for which it pleased the Father to doe all this that Peace might be made through the bloud of his Crosse In this Part St. Chrysostome hath made our steps our branches It is much sayes he 2 Part. that God would admit any peace magis per sanguinem more that for peace he should require effusion of bloud magis quod per ejus more that it must be His bloud his that was injured his that was to triumph Et adhuc magis quod per sanguinem Crucis ejus That it must be by the bloud of his Crosse his heart bloud his death and yet this was the case He made Peace through the bloud of his Crosse There was then a warre before and a heavy warre for the Lord of hosts was our enemy and what can all our musters come to Bellum ante if the Lord of Hosts of all Hosts have raised his forces against us There was a heavy war denounced in the Inimicitias ponam when God raised a warre betweene the Devill Gen. 3.15 and us For if we could consider God to stand neutrall in that warre and meddle with neither side yet we were in a desperate case to be put to fight against Powers and Principalities against the Devill How much more when God the Lord of Hosts is the Lord even of that Host too when God presses the Devill and makes the Devill his Soldier to fight his battles and directs his arrowes and his bullets and makes his approaches and his attempts effectuall upon us That which is fallen upon the Jews now Basil for their sinne against Christ that there is not in all the world a Soldier of their race not a Jew in the world that beares armes is true of all mankinde for their sin against God there is not a Soldier amongst them able to hurt his spirituall enemy or defend himselfe It is a strange warre where there are not two sides and yet that is our case for God uses the Devill against us and the Devill uses us against one another nay he uses every one of us against our selves so that God and the Devill and we are all in one Army and all for our destruction we have a warre and yet there is but one Army and we onely are the Countrey that is fed upon and wasted From God to the Devill we have not one friend and yet as though we lacked enemies we fight with one another in inhumane Duels Vbi morimur homicidae Ad milites Templa Ser. 1. 〈◊〉 as St. Bernard expresses it powerfully and elegantly that in those Duels and Combats he that is murdered dyes a murderer because he would have beene one Occisor laethaliter peccat occisus aeternaliter perit He that comes alive out of the field comes a dead man because he comes a deadly sinner and he that remaines dead in the field is gone into an everlasting death So that by this inhumane effusion of one anothers bloud we maintaine a warre against God himselfe and we provoke him to that which he expresses in Esay My sword shall be bathed in heaven Inebriabitur sanguine Esay 34.5 The sword of the Lord shall be made drunk with bloud Their land shall be soaked with bloud and their dust made fat with fatnesse The same quarrell which God hath against particular men and particular Nations for particular sinnes God hath against all Mankinde for Adams sin And there is the warre But what is the peace and how are we included in that That is our second and next disquisition That peace might be made A man must not presently think himselfe included in this peace Pax. because he feeles no effects of this warre If God draw none of his swords of warre or famine or pestilence upon thee no outward warre If God raise not a rebellion in thy selfe nor fight against thee with thine owne affections in colluctations betweene the flesh and the spirit The warre may last Gellius for all this Induciarum tempore bellum manet licet pugna cesset Though there be no blow striken the warre remaines in the time of Truce But thy case is not so good here is no Truce no cessation but a continuall preparation to a fiercer warre All this while that thou enjoyest this imaginary security the Enemy digges insensibly under ground all this while he undermines thee and will blow thee up at last more irrecoverably then if he had battered thee with outward calamities all that time So any State may be abused with a false peace present or with a fruitlesse expectation of a future peace But in this text there is true peace and peace already made present peace and and safe peace Bernard Pax non promissa sed missa sayes St. Bernard in his musicall and harmonious cadences not promised but already sent non dilata sed data not treated but concluded Non prophetata sed praesentata not prophesied but actually established There is the presentnesse thereof And then made by him who lacked nothing for the making of a safe peace Esay 9.6 For after his Names of Counsellor and of the Mighty God he is called for the consummation of all princeps pacis A Counsellor There is his wisdome A mighty God There is his Power and this Counsellor This Mighty God this wise and this powerfull Prince hath undertaken to make our peace But how that is next per sanguinem Peace being made by bloud Is effusion of bloud the way of peace Per sanguinem effusion of bloud may make them from whom bloud is so abundantly drawne glad of peace because they are thereby reduced to a weaknesse But in our warres such a weaknesse puts us farther off from peace and puts more fiercenesse in the Enemy But here mercy and truth are met together God would be true to his owne Justice bloud was forfeited and he would have bloud and God would be mercifull to us he would make us the stronger by drawing bloud and by drawing our best bloud Gen. 34. the bloud of Christ Jesus Simeon and Levi when they meditated their revenge for the rape committed upon their sister when they pretended peace yet they required a little bloud They would have the Sichemites circumcised but when they had opened a veyne they made them bleed to death when they were under
the sorenesse of Circumcision they slew them all Gods justice required bloud but that bloud is not spilt but poured from that head to our hearts into the veines and wounds of our owne soules There was bloud shed but no bloud lost Before the Law was thorowly established when Moses came downe from God and deprehended the people in that Idolatry to the Calfe before he would present himselfe as a Mediator betweene God and them Exod. 32.28 32. for that sinne he prepares a sacrifice of bloud in the execution of three thousand of those Idolaters and after that he came to his vehement prayer in their behalfe And in the strength of the Law Heb. 9 22. all things were purged with bloud and without bloud there is no remission Whether we place the reason of this in Gods Justice which required bloud or whether we place it in the conveniency that bloud being ordinarily received to be sedes animae the seat and residence of the soule The soule for which that expiation was to be could not be better represented nor purified then in the state and seat of the soule in bloud or whether we shut up our selves in an humble sobriety to inquire into the reasons of Gods actions thus we see it was no peace no remission but in bloud Nor is that so strange as that which followes in the next place per sanguinem ejus by his bloud Before Per sanguinem ejus Psal 50.10 under the Law it was in sanguine hircorum vitulorum In the bloud of Goats and Bullocks here it is in sanguine ejus in his bloud Not his as he claims all the beasts of the forrest all the cattle upon a thousand hils and all the fowles of the mountaines to be his not his as he sayes of Gold and Silver The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine Hag. 2.8 not his as he is Lord and proprietary of all by Creation so all bloud is his no nor his as the bloud of all the Martyrs was his bloud which is a neare relation and consanguinity but his so as it was the precious bloud of his body the seat of his soule the matter of his spirits the knot of his life This bloud he shed for me and I have bloud to shed for him too though he call me not to the tryall nor to the glory of Martyrdome Sanguis animae meae voluntas mea The bloud of my soule is my will Bern. Scindatur vena ferro compunctionis open a veine with that knife remorce compunction ut si non sensus certe consensus peccati effluat That though thou canst not bleed out all motions to sinne thou maist all consent thereunto Noli esse nimium justus noli sapere plus quam oportet St. Bernard makes this use of those Counsels Be not righteous overmuch nor be not overwise Ecces 7.16 Cui putas venae parcendum si justitia sapientia egent minutione what veine maist thou spare if thou must open those two veines righteousnesse and wisedome If they may be superfluously abundant if thou must bleed out some of thy Righteousnesse and some of thy wisedome cui venae parcendum at what veine must thou not bleed Tostat in Levit fo 45. D. Now in all sacrifices where bloud was to be offerd the fat was to be offerd to If thou wilt sacrifice the bloud of thy soule as St. Bernard cals the will sacrifice the fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in thy sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and corruptly got by that sinne else thou keepest the fat from God though thou give him the bloud If God had given over at his second daies work we had had no sunne no seasons If at his fift we had had no beeing If at the sixt no Sabbath but by proceeding to the seventh we are all and we have all Naaman 2 Reg. 5.14 who was out of the covenant yet by washing in Jordan seven times was cured of his leprosie seaven times did it even in him but lesse did not Tostat in Levit 4. q. 16. The Priest in the Law used a seven-fold sprinkling of bloud upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of bloud in Christ In his Circumcision and in his Agony in his fulfilling of that Prophesie gen as vellicantibus I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off the haire and in his scourging Esay 50.6 in his crowning and in his nayling and lastly in the piercing of his side These seven channels hath the bloud of thy Saviour found Poure out the bloud of thy soule sacrifice thy stubborne and rebellious will seaven times too seaven times that is every day and seaven times every day for so often a just man falleth And then Prov. 24.16 how low must that man lie at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soone as thou fallest Iericho would not fall Jos 6. but by being compassed seaven dayes and seaven times in one day Compasse thy selfe comprehend thy selfe seaven times many times and thou shalt have thy losse of bloud supplied with better bloud with a true sense of that peace which he hath already made and made by bloud and by his owne bloud and by the bloud of his Crosse which is the last branch of this second part Greater love hath no man then to lay downe his life for his friend yet he that said so Crux Joh. 15.13 did more then so more then lay downe his life for he exposed it to violences and torments and all that for his enemies But doth not the necessity diminish the love where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator Heb. 9.16 was there then a necessity in Christs dying simply a necessity of coaction there was not such as is in the death of other men naturall or violent by the hand of Justice There was nothing more arbitrary more voluntary more spontaneous then all that Christ did for man And if you could consider a time before the contract between the Father and him had passed for the redemption of man by his death we might say that then there was no necessity upon Christ that he must dye But because that contract was from all eternity Luc. 24.26 supposing that contract that this peace was to be made by his death there entred the oportuit pati That Christ ought to suffer all these things and to enter into his glory And so as for his death so for the manner of his death by the Crosse it was not of absolute necessity and yet it was not by casualty neither not because he was to suffer in that Nation which did ordinarily punish such Malefactors such as he was accused to be seditious persons with that manner of death but all this proceeded ex
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
not Christ meerly as the Son of God but the Son of Mary too And that generation the Holy Ghost hath told us was in the fulnesse of time When the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth c. In which words Divisio we have these three considerations First the time of Christs comming and that was the fulnesse of time And then the maner of his comming which is expressed in two degrees of humiliation one that he was made of a woman the other that he was made under the Law And then the third part is the purpose of his comming which also was twofold for first he came to redeem them who were under the Law All And secondly he came that we we the elect of God in him might receive adoption When the fulnesse of time was come c. For the full consideration of this fulnesse of time 〈◊〉 we shall first consider this fulnesse in respect of the Jews and then in respect of all Nations and lastly in respect of our selves The Jews might have seen the fulnesse of time the Gentiles did in some measure see it and we must if we will have any benefit by it see it too It is an observation of S. Cyril That none of the Saints of God nor such as were noted to be exemplarily religious and sanctified men did ever celebrate with any festivall solemnity their own birth-day Pharaoh celebrated his own Nativity 〈◊〉 40.22 but who would make Pharaoh his example and besides he polluted that festivall with the bloud of one of his servants Herod celebrated his Nativity but who would think it an honor to be like Herod and besides he polluted that festivall with the blood of Iohn Baptist But the just contemplation of the miseries and calamities of this life into which our birth-day is the doore and the entrance is so far from giving any just occasion of a festivall as it hath often transported the best disposed Saints and servants of God to a distemper to a malediction and cursing of their birth-day 〈…〉 Cursed be the day wherein I was born and let not that day wherein my mother bare me be blessed Let the day perish wherein I was born let that day be darknesse Job 3. and let not God regard it from above How much misery is presaged to us when we come so generally weeping into the world that perchance in the whole body of history we reade but of one childe Zoroaster that laughed at his birth What miserable revolutions and changes what downfals what break-necks and precipitations may we justly think our selves ordained to if we consider that in our comming into this world out of our mothers womb we doe not make account that a childe comes right except it come with the head forward and thereby prefigure that headlong falling into calamities which it must suffer after Though therefore the dayes of the Martyrs which are for our example celebrated in the Christian Church be ordinarily called natalitia Martyrum the birth-day of the Martyrs yet that is not intended of their birth in this world but of their birth in the next when by death their soules were new delivered of their prisons here and they newly born into the kingdome of heaven that day upon that reason the day of their death was called their birth-day and celebrated in the Church by that name Onely to Christ Jesus the fulnesse of time was at his birth not because he also had not a painfull life to passe through but because the work of our redemption was an intire work and all that Christ said or did or suffered concurred to our salvation as well his mothers swathing him in little clouts as Iosephs shrowding him in a funerall sheete as well his cold lying in the Manger as his cold dying upon the Crosse as well the puer natus as the consummatum est as well his birth as his death is said to have been the fulnesse of time First we consider it to have been so to the Jews for this was that fulnesse Indeic in which all the prophecies concerning the Messias were exactly fulfilled Dan. 2. Hagg. 2. Mich. 5. Esay 7. That he must come whilest the Monarchy of Rome flourished And before the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed That he must be born in Bethlem That he must be born of a Virgin His person his actions his passion so distinctly prophecyed so exactly accomplished as no word being left unfulfilled this must necessarily be a fulnesse of time So fully was the time of the Messias comming come that though some of the Jews say now that there is no certain time revealed in the Scriptures when the Messias shall come and others of them say that there was a time determined and revealed and that this time was the time but by reason of their great sins he did not come at his time yet when they examine their own supputations they are so convinced with that evidence that this was that fulnesse of time that now they expresse a kinde of conditionall acknowledgement of it by this barbarous and inhumane custome of theirs that they alwayes keep in readinesse the blood of some Christian with which they anoint the body of any that dyes amongst them with these words if Jesus Christ were the Messias then may the blood of this Christian availe thee to salvation So that by their doubt and their implyed consent in this action this was the fulnesse of time when Christ Jesus did come that the Messias should come It was so to the Jews and it was so to the Gentiles too Gontibus It filled those wise men which dwelt so far in the East that they followed the star from thence to Jerusalem Herod was so full of it that he filled the Countrey with streames of innocent bloud and lest he should spare that one innocent childe killed all The two Emperours of Rome Vespasian and Domitian were so full of it that in jealousie of a Messias to come then from that race they took speciall care for the destruction of all of the posterity of David All the whole people were so full of it that divers false-Messiahs Barcocab and Moses of Crete and others rose up and drew and deceived the people as if they had been the Messiah because that was ordinarily knowne and received to be the time of his comming And the Devill himself was so full of it as that in his Oracles he gave that answer That an Hebrew childe should be God over all gods and brought the Emperour to erect an Altar to this Messiah Christ Jesus though he knew not what he did This was the fulnesse that filled Jew and Gentile Kings and Philosophers strangers and inhabitants counterfaits and devils to the expectation of a Messiah and when comes this fulnesse of time to us that we feele this Messiah born in our selves In this fulnesse in this comming of our Saviour into us Nobis we should
fornications and goes very farre in carnall And yet for all this we are capable of this Conception Christ may be borne in us for all this As God said unto the Prophet Take thee a wife of fornications and children of fornications so is Christ Jesus content to take our soules though too often mothers of fornications As long as we are united and incorporated in his beloved Spouse the Church conforme our selves to her grow up in her hearken to his word in her feed upon his Sacraments in her acknowledge a seale of reconciliation by the absolution of the Minister in her so long how unclean soever we have bin if wee abhorre and forsake our uncleannesse now wee participate of the chastity of that Spouse of his the Church and in her are made capable of this conception of Christ Jesus and so it is as true this houre of us as it was when the Apostle spoke these words This is the fulnesse of time when God sent his Son c. Now you remember Sub lege that in this second part the manner of Christs comming we proposed two degrees of humiliation One which we have handled in a double respect as he is made filius mulieris non Dei the son of a woman and not the Son of God the other as he is filius mulieris non Virginis The son of a woman and not called the son of a Virgin The second remaines that he was sub lege under the law now this phrase to be under the law is not alwayes so narrowly limited in the Scriptures as to signifie onely the law of Moses for so onely the Jews were under the law and so Christs comming for them who were under the law his Death and Merits should belong onely to the Jews But St. Augustine observes that when Christ sent the message of his birth to the wise men in the East by a starre and to the shepheards about Bethlem by an Angel In pastoribus Iudaei in magis Gentes vocatae The Jews had their calling in that manifestation to the shepheards and the Gentiles in that to the wise men in the East But besides that Christ did submit himselfe to all the waight even of the Ceremoniall law of Moses he was under a heavyer law then that under that lex decreti the contract and covenant with God the Father under that oportuit pati This he ought to suffer before he could enter into glory So that his being under the law may be accounted not a part of his Humiliation as his being made of a woman was but rather the whole history and frame of his humiliation All that concernes his obedience even to that law which the Father had laid upon him for the life and death of Christ from the Ave Maria to the consummatum est from his comming into this World in his Conception to his transmigration upon the Crosse was all under this law heavier then any law that any man is under the law of the contract and covenant between the Father and him Though therefore we may think judging by the law of reason that since Christ came to gather a Church and to draw the world to him it would more have advanced that purpose of his to have been borne at Rome where the seat of the Empire and the confluence of all Nations was then in Iury and if he would offer the Gospel first to the Jews better to have been borne at Ierusalem where all the outward publique solemne worship of the Jews was then at obscure Bethlem and in Bethlem in some better place then in an Inne in a Stable in a Manger though we may think thus in the law of reason yet non cogitationes meae cogitationes vestrae sayes God in the Prophet Esay 55. My thoughts are not your thoughts nor my lawes your lawes for I am sub lege decreti under another manner of law then falls within your reading under an obedience to that covenant which hath passed betweene my Father and me and by those Degrees and no other way was my humiliation for your Redemption to be expressed Though we may thinke in the law of Reason that his work of propagating the Gospel would have gone better forward if he had taken for his Apostles some Tullies or Hortensii or Senecaes great and perswading Orators in stead of his Peter and Iohn and Matthew and those Fishermen and tent-makers and toll-gatherers Though we might think in reason and in piety too that when he would humble himselfe to take our salvation into his care it had beene enough to have beene under the law of Moses to live innocently and righteously without shedding of his bloud If he would shed bloud it might have beene enough to have done so in the Circumcision and scourging without dying If he would die it might have been enough to have dyed some lesse accursed and lesse ignominious death then the death of the Crosse though we might reasonably enough and piously enough think thus yet non cogitationes vestrae cogitationes meae sayes the Lord your way is not my way your law is not my law for Christ was sub lege decreti and thus as he did and no other way it became him to fulfill all righteousnesse that is all that Decree of God which he had accepted and acknowledged as Righteous He was so much under Moses law as he would be so much under that law as that he suffered that law to be wrested against him and to bee pretended to be broken by him and to be endited and condemned by that law The Jews pressed that law non sines veneficū vivere Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Exod. 22. when they attributed all his glorious miracles to the power of the devil and the Romans were incensed against him for treason and sedition as though he aliened and withdrew the people from Caesar But he was under a heavyer law then Jews or Romanes the Law of his Father and his owne eternall Decree so farre as that he came to that sense of the waight thereof Eli Eli My God My God why hast thou forsaken me and was never delivered from the burden of this law till he pleaded the performance of all conditions between his Father and him and delivered up all the evidence thereof in those words In manus tuas Into thy hands O Lord I give my spirit and so presented both the righteousnesse of his soule which had fulfilled the law and the soule it selfe which was under the law He dyed in Execution and so discharged all And so we have done with our second part The manner of his comming We are come now in our Order to our third part The purpose of Christs comming 3. Part. and in that we consider two objects that Christ had and two subjects to work upon two kindes of work and two kindes of persons First to Redeeme and then to Adopt Those are his works his objects And then To redeeme
those that were under the law that is all but to Adopt those whom he had chosen us And those are the persons the subjects that he works upon by his comming First then to begin with the persons those of the first kinde Sub lege those that were under the Law for them as we told you before the law must not be so narrowly restrained here as to be intended onely of Moses Law for Christs purpose was not onely upon the Jews for else Naaman the Syrian by whom God fought great battailes 2 Reg. 5. before he was cured of his leprosie and who when he was cured was so zealous of the worship of the true God that he would needs carry holy earth to make Altars of from the place where the Prophet dwelt And else Iob who though he were of the land of Hus hath good testimony of being an upright and just man and one that feared God And else the Widow of Sarepta 1. Reg. 17. whose meale and oyle God preserved unwasted and whose dead sonne God raised againe at the prayer of Eliah All these and all others whom the searching Spirit of God seales to his service in all the corners of the earth because they are strangers in the land of Israel should not be under the Law and so should have no profit by Christs being made under the Law if the Law should be understood onely of the Law of Moses And therefore to be under the Law signifies here thus much To be a debter to the law of nature to have a testimony in our hearts and consciences that there lyes a law upon us which we have no power in our selves to performe that to those lawes To love God with all our powers and to love our neighbour as our selves and to doe as we would be done to we finde our selves naturally bound and yet wee finde our selves naturally unable to performe them and so to need the assistance of another which must be Christ Jesus to performe them for us And so all men Jews and Gentiles are under the Law because naturally they feele a law upon them which they breake And therefore wheresoever our power becomes defective in the performance of this law if our will be not defective too if we come not to say God hath given us an impossible Law and therefore it is lost labour to goe about to performe it or God hath given us another to performe this Law for us and therefore nothing is required at our hands If we abstaine from these quarrels to the law and these murmurings at our owne infirmity wee shall finde that the fulnesse of time is this day come this day Christ is come to all that are under the Law that is to all mankinde to all because all are unable to performe that Law which they all see by the light of nature to lye upon them These then be the persons of the first kinde Redemit All all the world Dilexit mundum God so loved the world that he gave his Son for it for all the world And accordingly venit salvare mundum the obedience of the Son was as large as the love of the Father Hee came to save all the world and he did save all the world God would have all men and Christ did save all men It is therefore fearefully and scarce allowably said that Christ did contrary to his Fathers will when he called those to grace of whom he knew his Fathers pleasure to bee that they should have no grace It is fearefully and dangerously said Absurdum non esse Deum interdum falsa loqui falsum loquenti credendum that it is not absurd to say that is that it may truly be said that God does sometimes speake untruly and that we are bound to beleeve God when he does so for if we consider the soveraigne balme of our soules the blood of Christ Jesus there is enough for all the world if we consider the application of this physick by the Ministers of Christ Jesus in the Church hee hath given us that spreading Commission To goe and preach to every creature we are bid to offer to apply to minister this to all the world Christ hath excommunicated no Nation no shire no house no man Hee gives none of his Ministers leave to say to any man thou art not Redeemed he gives no wounded nor afflicted conscience leave to say to it selfe I am not Redeemed There may be meat enough brought into the house for all the house though some be so weake as they cannot which is the case of the Gentiles some so stubborne as they will not eate which is the case of the carnall man though in the Christian Church He came to all There are the persons and to Redeeme all there is his errand but how to Redeeme S. Hierome saies Gentes non Redimuntur sed emuntur The Gentiles saies hee are not properly Christs by way of Redeeming but by an absolute purchase To which purpose those words are also applied which the Apostle saies to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price S. Hieroms meaning therein is that if we compare the Jews and the Gentiles though God permitted the Jews in punishment of their rebellions to bee captivated by the devill in Idolatries yet the Jews were but as in a mortgage for they had beene Gods peculiar people before But the Gentiles were as the devils inheritance for God had never claimed them nor owned them for his and therefore God sayes to Christ Ps 2.8 Postula à me Aske of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance as though they were not his yet or not his by that title as the Jews were So that in S. Hieromes construction the Jewes which were Gods people before were properly Redeemed the Gentiles to whom God made no title before are rather bought then redeemed But Nullum tempus occurrit Regi against the King of Kings there runnes no prescription no man can devest his Allegeance to his Prince and say he will be subject no longer And therefore since the Gentiles were his by his first title of Creation for it is he that hath made us and not we our selves nor the devill neither when all we by our generall revolt and prevarication as we were all collectively in Adams loynes came to be under that law morte morieris Thou shalt dye the death when Christ came in the fulnesse of time and delivered us from the sharpest and heaviest clause of that Law which is the second death then he Redeemed us properly because though not by the same title of Covenant as the Jews were yet we were his and sold over to his enemy These then were the persons All none can say that he did not need him none can say that he may not have him And this was his first worke to Redeeme to vindicate them from the usurper to deliver them from the intruder to emancipate them
not God And because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evill But now in the manifestation of Christ they saw evident changes changes and revolutions in the highest spheare they saw a new King and they heard strangers proclaime him forraigne Kings doe not send Ambassadors to congratulate but come in person to doe their homage and aske their audience in that style Where is he that is borne King of the Iews not an elective not an arbitrary not a conditionall a provisionall King but an hereditary a naturall King Borne King of the Iews They heare strangers proclaime him Mat. 2.2 and they proclaime him themselves in that act of Recognition in that acclamatory Hosanna in this Chapter Blessed is the King of Israel that commeth in the name of the Lord. v. 13. Mat. 2.3 They saw changes changes with which Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him And they saw sentence executed for as soone as Christ manifested himselfe Iohn Baptist saies Now Mat. 3.10 Mat. 3.12 now that Christ declares himselfe the axe is laid unto the roote of the tree and now saies he His fanne is in his hand and he will purge his floore And this sentence he executed this regall power he exercised not onely after that Recognition of his subjects in their Hosannaes in this chapter for upon that he did go into the Temple and cast out the buyers and sellers but some yeares before that at his first manifestation of himselfe and soone after Iohn Baptists Now Iohn 2.3 now is the axe laid to the roote of the Tree did Christ execute this sentence not onely to drive but to scourge them out that prophaned the Temple which was the second miracle that we ascribe to Christ Indeed all his miracles were so many acts not onely of his regall power over some men but of his absolute prerogative over the whole frame and body of nature Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles could argue to themselves otherwise then thus The winds and seas obey this man for when he suffers them the winds roare and when hee whispers a silence to them they are silenced The Devils and uncleane spirits obey him for when he suffers it they preach his glory and when he refuses honour from so dishonourable mouths they are silent Death it selfe obeyes him for when he will death withholds his hand from closing that mans eye that lyes upon his last gaspe and the last stroke of his bell and hee does not die and when he will death withdraws his hand from him who had beene foure daies in his possession and redelivers Lazarus to a new life This they saw and could they choose but say the wind and the sea the devill and uncleane spirits and death it selfe obeyes this man how shall we stand before this man this King this God yet for all this voice this loud voice of miracles for when S. Chrysostome sayes Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio Every good worke hath the voyce of a trumpet every miracle hath the voice of thunder for all this loud voice as it is said in the verse before the text Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they beleeved not on him it is faine to come to that Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report The first of those great names which were given to Christ Esay 9.6 in the Prophet Esay was Mirabilis The wonderfull The supernaturall man the man that workes miracles for of the Apostles it is said by them great miracles were wrought but God wrought those miracles by them Christ wrought his miracles himself And his Birth and his Life and Death and Refurrection and Ascension were all complicated and elemented of miracles If hee fasted himselfe he did that miraculously and it was with a miracle when he feasted others He healed many that were sick of divers diseases Mark 1.34 Mat. 9.35 and cast out many Devils saies S. Marke And S. Matthew carries it a great deale farther Hee went about all the Cities and villages healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people Therefore Christ makes that the evidence of his miracles the issue betweene them If these mighty works had beene done in Tyre and Sidon Mat. 11.21 Iohn 15.22 Tyre and Sidon would have repented And therefore he places their inexcusablenesse in that If I had not come and spoken to them they had had no sinne Nay if I had not spoken to them in this loud voyce the voyce of miracles they might have had some cloake for their finne but now they have none saies Christ in that place And beloved are not we inexcusable in that degree Have not wee seene changes and seene judgements executed and seene miraculous deliverances and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved these reports I would wee could but take aright a mis-taken translation and make that use that is offered us in others error The vulgar Edition the translation of the Roman Church reads that place in the 77. Psalme and 11. verse thus Nunc caepi saies David Now I have taken out my lesson the right way now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle Nunc caepi Now I have all that I need to have what is it This Haec mutatio dextrae Dei this is to take out my lesson aright to understand God truly and to know acknowledge that this change which I see is an act of the right hand of God and that it is a judgement and not an accident O beloved that wee would not be afraid of giving God too much glory not afraid of putting God into too much heart or of making God too imperious over us by acknowledging that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God and come from him But we are not onely subject to the Prophets increpation Quis credit that we doe not beleeve Gods warnings of future judgements but to the Euangelists increpation in the person of Christ Quis credidit we do not beleeve present judgements to be judgements An invincible navy hath beene sent against us and defeated and we sacrifice to a casuall storme for that wee say the winds delivered us A powder treason hath been plotted and discovered and we sacrifice to a casuall letter for that we say the letter delivered us A devouring plague hath raigned and gone out againe and we sacrifice to an early frost for that we say the cold weather delivered us Domestique encumbrances personall infirmities sadnesse of heart dejection of spirit oppresses us and then weares out and passes over and we sacrifice for that to wine and strong drinke to musique to Comedies to conversation and to all Iobs miserable comforters wee say it was but a melancholique fit and good company hath delivered us of it But when God himselfe saies There is
is done sayes the Apostle So that here is the case if the naturall man say alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature if the Jew say alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets If the slack and historicall Christian say alas they are but generall things done for the whole world indifferently and not applyed to me which I reade in the Gospell to this naturall man to this Jew to this slack Christian we present an established Church a Church endowed with a power to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soule to spread the balme of his blood upon every bleeding heart A Church that makes this generall Christ particular to every Christian that makes the Saviour of the world thy Saviour and my Saviour that offers the originall sinner Baptisme for that and the actuall sinner the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that a Church that mollifies and entenders and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgements of God and then consolidates and establishes the diffident soule with the promises of his Gospell a Church in contemplation whereof God may say Quid potui Vineae what could I doe more for my people then I have done first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world and then to spread a Church over the whole world by which that death of his might be life to every soule This we preach this we propose according to that commission put into our hands Ite praedicate Goe and preach the Gospell to every creature and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report In this then the Apostle and this Text places the inflexible the incorrigible stiffenesse of mans disobedience in this he seales up his inexcusablenesse his irrecoverablenesse first that he is not afraid of future judgements because they are remote then that he does not beleeve present judgements to be judgements because he can make shift to call them by a milder name accidents and not judgements and can assigne some naturall or morall or casuall reason for them But especially in this that he does not beleeve a perpetuall presence of Christ in his Church he does not beleeve an Ordinance of meanes by which all burdens of bodily infirmities of crosses in fortune of dejection of spirit and of the primary cause of all these that is sin it selfe may be taken off or made easie unto him he does not beleeve a Church Now as in our former part we were bound to know Gods hand and then bound to reade it to acknowledge a judgement to be a judgement and then to consider what God intended in that judgement so here we are bound to know the true Church and then to know what the true Church proposes to us The true Church is that where the word is truely preached and the Sacraments duly administred But it is the Word the Word inspired by the holy Ghost not Apocryphall not Decretall not Traditionall not Additionall supplements and it is the Sacraments Sacraments instituted by Christ himself and not those super-numerary sacraments those posthume post-nati sacramēts that have been multiplyed after and then that which the true Church proposes is all that is truly necessary to salvation and nothing but that in that quality as necessary So that Problematical points of which either side may be true in which neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation those marginal interlineary notes that are not of the body of the text opinions raised out of singularity in some one man and then maintained out of partiality and affection to that man these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church nor lay obligations upon mens consciences They should not disturb the general peace they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another The Act then that God requires of us is to beleeve so the words carry it in all the three places The Object the next the nearest Object of this Belief is made the Church that is to beleeve that God hath established means for the application of Christs death to all in all Christian Congregations All things are possible to him that beleeveth Mar. 9 23. saith our Saviour In the Word and Sacraments there is Salvation to every soule that beleeves there is so As on the other side we have from the same mouth and the same pen He that beleeveth not is damned Faith then being the root of all Mar. 16.16 and God having vouchsafed to plant this root this faith here in his terrestriall paradise and not in heaven in the manifest ministery of the Gospell and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose for faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching which are things executed and transacted here in the Church be thou content with those meanes which God hath ordained and take thy faith in those meanes and beleeve it to be influxus suasorius that it is an influence from God but an influence that works in thee by way of perswasion and not of compulsion It convinces thee but it doth not constraine thee It is as S. Augustine sayes excellently Vocatio congrua it is the voice of God to thee but his voice then when thou art fit to heare and answer that voice not fitted by any exaltation of thine own naturall faculties before the cōming of grace nor fitted by a good husbanding of Gods former grace so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace but fitted by his preventing his auxiliant his concomitant grace grace exhibited to thee at that time when he calls thee for so saies that Father Sic eum vocat quo modo seit ei congruere ut vocantē non respuat God calls him then when he knows he wil not resist his calling But he doth not say then when he cānot resist that needs not be said But as there is podus glcriae as the Apostle speaks an eternall weight of glory which mans understanding cannot cōprehend so there is Pondus gratiae a certain weight of grace that God layes upon that soule which shall be his under which that soule shall not easily bend it self any way from God This then is the summe of this whole Catechisme which these words in these three places doe constitute First that we be truely affected with Gods fore-warnings and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve that judgement to be denounced against my sin And then that we be duely affected with present changes and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve this judgement to come from thee and to be a letter of thy hand Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright for thy more publique glory and me for my particular reformation And then lastly to be sincerely and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church and to rest in them for the means of our salvation and to
disproportion betweene us Illis qui nihil Esay 40.15 and so the first exaltation of his mercy towards us Man is sayes the Prophet Esay Quasi stilla situlae As a drop upon the bucket Man is not all that not so much as that as a drop upon the bucket but quasi something some little thing towards it and what is a drop upon the bucket to a river to a sea to the waters above the firmament Man to God Man is sayes the same Prophet in the same place Quasi momenntum staterae we translate it As small dust upon the balance Man is not all that not that small graine of dust but quasi some little thing towards it And what can a graine of dust work in governing the balance What is man that God should be mindfull of him Vanity seemes to be the lightest thing that the Holy Ghost could name and when he had named that he sayes and sayes and sayes often very very often All is vanity But when he comes to waigh man with vanity it selfe he findes man lighter then vanity Take sayes he Ps 62.9 great men and meane men altogether and altogether they are lighter then vanity When that great Apostle sayes of himselfe that he was in nothing behinde the very chiefest of the Apostles 2 Cor. 12.11 and yet for all that sayes he was nothing who can think himselfe any thing for being a Giant in proportion a Magistrate in power a Rabbi in learning an Oracle in Counsell Let man be something how poore and inconsiderable a ragge of this world L. 1. de rerum generatione is man Man whom Paracelsus would have undertaken to have made in a Limbeck in a Furnace Man who if they were altogether all the men that ever were and are and shall be would not have the power of one Angel in them all whereas all the Angels who in the Schoole are conceived to be more in number then not onely all the Species but all the individualls of this lower world have not in them all the power of one finger of Gods hand Man of whom when David had said as the lowest diminution that he could put upon him I am a worme and no man He might have gone lower Ps 22.6 and said I am a man and no worm for man is so much lesse then a worm as that wormes of his own production shall feed upon his dead body in the grave and an immortall worm gnaw his conscience in the torments of hell And then if that which God and God in the counsaile and concurrence and cooperation of the whole Trinity hath made thee Man be nothing canst thou be proud of that or think that any thing which the King hath made thee a Lord or which thy wife hath made thee Rich or which thy riches have made thee an Officer As Iob sayes of impertinent comforters miserable comforters so I say of these Creations miserable creations are they all Only as thou maist be a new creature in Christ Jesus thou maist be something for that 's a nobler and a harder creation then the first when God had a clod of red earth in his hand to make me in Adam he had more towards his end then when he hath me an unregenerate and rebellious soule to make a new creature in Christ Jesus And yet Ille illis to this man comes this God God that is infinitely more then all to man that is infinitely lesse then nothing which was our first disproportion and the first exaltation of his mercy and the next is Ille illis Illis qui hostes that this God came to this man then when this man was a professed enemy to this God Si contrarium Deo quaeras nihilest saies S. Augustine If thou aske me what is contrary to God I cannot say that any thing is so for whatsoever is any thing hath a beeing Illis qui Hostes and whatsoever hath so hath in that very beeing some affinity with God some assimilation to God so that nothing is contrary to God If thou aske mee Quis hostis who is an enemy to GOD I cannot say that of any thing in this World but man That viper that flew at Saint Paul was not therein an enemy to GOD Acts 28. that viper did not direct it selfe upon S. Paul as S. Paul was a usefull and a necessary instrument of Christ But S. Paul himselfe was a direct enemy to Christ himselfe Tu me thou persecutest me saies Christ himselfe unto him And if we be not all enemies to God in such a direct opposition as that we sinne therefore because that sinne violates the majesty of God and yet truly every habituall and deliberated sinne amounts to almost as much because in every such sinne we seeme to try conclusions whether God can see a sinne or be affected with a sinne or can or cares to punish a sinne as though we doubted whether God were a present God or a pure God or a powerfull God and so consequently whether there be any God or no If we be not all enemies to God in this kind yet in adhering to the enemy we are enemies In our prevarications and easie betrayings and surrendring of our selves to the enemy of his kingdom satan we are his enemies For small wages and ill paid pensions we serve him and lest any man should flatter and delude himselfe in saying I have my wages and my reward before hand my pleasures in this life the punishment if ever not till the next The Apostle destroyes that dreame with that question of confusion What fruit had you then in those things Rom 6.21 of which you are now ashamed Certainly sin is not a gainfull way without doubt more men are impoverished and beggered by sinful courses then enriched what fruit had they says the Apostle and sin cannot be the way of honour for we dare not avow our sins but are ashamed of them when they are done fruitlesness unprofitableness before shame and dishonor after and yet for these we are enemies to God and yet for all this God comes to us Ille illis the Lord of Hosts to naked and disarmed man the God of peace to this enemy of God Some men will continue kinde where they finde a thankfull reciver Luke 6.35 but God is kinde to the unthankfull sayes Christ himselfe There may be found a man that will dye for his friend sayes he but God dyed for his enemies Then when ye were enemies you were reconciled to God by the death of his Son To come so in-gloriously he that is infinitely more then all to him that is infinitely lesse then nothing that was our first disproportion and the first axaltatation of his mercy to come shall we venture to say so so selfe proditoriously as to betray himselfe and deliver himselfe to his enemies that was our second is equalled at least in a third ille illis he to them that is unus omnibus 2 Cor. 5.14
a determined purpose to doe some good works and yet this light not shine out No man can more properly be said to hide his light under a bushell which because Christ sayes in the verse before our Text no man does certainly no man should doe then he who hath disposed some part of his estate to pious uses but hides it in his will and locks up that will in his cabinet For in this case though there be light yet it does not shine out Your gold and your silver is cankered sayes S. Iames and the rust of them shall be a witnesse James 5.3 and shall eate your flesh as it were fire He does not say the gold and the silver it self as reproving the ill getting of it but the rust the hiding the concealing thereof shall be this witnesse against thee this executioner upon thee That man dyes in an ill state of whose faith we have had no evidence till after his death his executors meet and open his Will and then publish some Legacies to pious uses And we had no evidence before if he had done no good before For shew me thy faith without thy works James 2.18 sayes the Apostle and he proposes it as an impossible thing impossible to shew it impossible to have it And therefore as good works are our owne so are they never so properly our owne as when they are done with our owne hands for this is the true shining of our light the emanation from us upon others And so have you the three peeces which constitute our first part the precept Let your light shine before men The light it selfe not the light of nature nor of Baptisme nor of Adoption but the light of good works And then the Appropriation of this light how these workes are ours though the goodnesse thereof be onely from God And lastly the emanation of this light upon others which cannot well be said to be an emanation of our light of light from us except it be whilst we are we that is alive And so we passe to those many particulars which frame our second part the reason and the end of this That men may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven In this end our beginning is ut videant that men may see it The apparitions in old times were evermore accompanied with lights but they were private lights 2. Part. Vt videant such an old woman or such a child saw a light but non videbant homines it did not shine out so that men might see this light We have a story delivered by a very pious man Cantiprat l. 1. c. 9. and of the truth whereof he seemes to be very well assured that one Conradus a devout Priest had such an illustration such an irradiation such a coruscation such a light at the tops of those fingers which he used in the consecration of the Sacrament as that by that light of his fingers ends he could have reade in the night as well as by so many Candles But this was but a private light non viderunt homines It did not shine out Epist 205. ad Cyrill Jerosolym so that men might see it Blessed S. Augustine reports if that Epistle be S. Augustines that when himselfe was writing to S. Hierome to know his opinion of the measure and quality of the Joy and Glory of Heaven suddenly in his Chamber there appeared ineffabile lumen sayes he an unspeakable an unexpressible light nostr is invisum temporibus such a light as our times never saw and out of that light issued this voyce Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art writing who this houre dyed at Bethlem and am come from thence to thee c. But this was but a private light and whatsoever S. Augustine saw who was not easily deceived nor would deceive others non videbant homines this light did not shine so as that men might see it Here in our Text there is a light required that men may see Those lights of their apparitions we cannot see There is a light of ours which our adversaries may see and will not which is truly the light of this Text the light of good works Though our zeale to good works shine out assiduously day by day in our Sermons and shine out powerfully in the Homilies of our Church composed expresly to that purpose and shine out actually in our many sumptuous buildings and rich endowments in which works we of this Kingdome in this last Century since the Reformation of Religion have perhaps exceeded our Fathers in any one hundred of yeares whilst they lived under the Romane perswasion yet still they cry out we are enemies of this light and abhorre good works As I have heard them in some obscure places abroad Preach that here in England we had not onely no true Church no true Priesthood no true Sacraments but that we have no materiall Churches no holy Convocations no observing of Sundayes or Holy dayes no places to serve God in so I have heard them Preach that we doe not onely not advance but that we cry downe and discredit and disswade and discountenance the doctrine of good works It is enough to say to them as the Angel said to the Devill Increpet te Dominus The Lord rebuke thee Iude 9. And the Lord does rebuke them in enabling us to proceed in these pious works which with so notorious falshood they deny And we doe rebuke them Heb. 10.24 the best and most powerfull way in that as the Apostle sayes we consider one another consider the necessities of others and provoke one another to love and good workes But then if this be Gods end in our good works ut videant homines that men may see them Mat. 6.1 why is Christ so earnest in this very sermon as to say Take heed you do not your almes before men to be seene of them Is there no contradiction in these far from it The intent of both precepts together make up this doctrine That we doe them not therefore not to that end that men may see them So far we must come that men must see them but we must not rest there for it is but Sic luceat Let your light shine out so it is not let it shine out therefore Our doing of good workes must have a farther end then the knowledge of men as we shall see towards our end anon Men must see them then Opera and see them to be workes Vt videant opera That they may see your works which is a word that implies difficulty and paine and labour and is accompanied with some loathnesse with some colluctation Doe such workes for Gods sake as are hard for thee to doe In such a word does God deliver his Commandement of the Sabbath not that word which in that language signifies ordinary and eafie works but servile and laborious workes toylesome and
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrâ—â— 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receâ—â—ing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
never be inhabited from generation to generation neither shall Shepheards be there Not onely no Merchant nor Husbandman but no depopulator none but Owles and Ostriches and Satyres Indeed God knowes what Ochim and Ziim words which truly we cannot translate In a word 2 Sam. 24.13 the horror of War is best discerned in the company he keeps in his associates And when the Prophet God brought War into the presence of David there came with him Famine and Pestilence And when Famine entred we see the effects It brought Mothers to eat their Children of a span long that is as some Expositors take it to take medicines to procure abortions to cast their Children that they might have Children to eate And when War 's other companion the Pestilence entred we see the effects of that too In lesse then half the time that it was threatned for it devoured threescore and ten thousand of Davids men and yet for all the vehemence the violence the impetuousnesse of this Pestilence David chose this Pestilence rather then a War Militia and Malitia are words of so neare a sound as that the vulgat Edition takes them as one For where the Prophet speaking of the miseries that Hierusalem had suffered sayes Finita militia ejus Esay 42.2 Let her warfare be at an end they reade Finita malitia ejus Let her misery be at an end War and Misery is all one thing But is there any of this in heaven Even the Saints in heaven lack something of the consummation of their happinesse Quia hostis because they have an enemy And that is our third and next step Michael and his Angels fought against the devill and his Angels though that war ended in victory Vest 3. Quia Hostis yet taking that war as divers Expositors doe for the fall of Angels that Kingdome lost so many inhabitants as that all the soules of all that shall be saved shall but fill up the places of them that fell and so make that Kingdome but as well as it was before that war So ill effects accompany even the most victorious war There is no war in heaven yet all is not well because there is an enemy for that enemy would kindle a war again but that he remembers how ill he sped last time he did so It is not an enemy that invades neither but only detaines he detaines the bodies of the Saints which are in heaven and therefore is an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ He that detaines the soules of men in Superstition he that detaines the hearts and allegeance of Subjects in an haesitation a vacillation an irresolution where they shall fix them whether upon their Soveraign or a forraigne power he is in the notion and acceptation of enemy in this Text an enemy though no hostile act be done It is not a war it is but an enemy not an invading but a detaining enemy and then this enemy is but one enemy and yet he troubles and retards the consummation of that Kingdome Antichrist alone is enemy enough but never carry this consideration beyond thy self As long as there remaines in thee one sin or the sinfull gain of that one sin so long there is one enemy and where there is one enemy there is no peace Gardners that husband their ground to the best advantage sow all their seeds in such order one under another that their Garden is alwayes full of that which is then in season If thou sin with that providence with that seasonablenesse that all thy spring thy youth be spent in wantonnesse all thy Summer thy middle-age in ambition and the wayes of preferment and thy Autumne thy Winter in indevotion and covetousnesse though thou have no farther taste of licentiousnesse in thy middle-age thou hast thy satiety in that sin nor of ambition in thy last yeares thou hast accumulated titles of honour yet all the way thou hast had one enemy and therefore never any perfect peace But who is this one enemy in this Text As long as we put it off and as loath as we are to look this enemy in the face yet we must though it be Death And this is Vestigium quartum The fourth and next step in this paraphrase Surge descende in domum figuli sayes the Prophet Ieremy that is Mors. Jer. 18.2 say the Expositors to the consideration of thy Mortality It is Surge descende Arise and go down A descent with an ascension Our grave is upward and our heart is upon Iacobs Ladder in the way and nearer to heaven Our daily Funerals are some Emblemes of that for though we be laid down in the earth after yet we are lifted up upon mens shoulders before We rise in the descent to death and so we do in the descent to the contemplation of it In all the Potters house is there one vessell made of better stuffe then clay There is his matter And of all formes a Circle is the perfectest and art thou loath to make up that Circle with returning to the earth again Thou must though thou be loath Fortasse sayes S. Augustine That word of contingency of casualty Perchance In omnibus ferme rebus praeterquam in morte locum habet It hath roome in all humane actions excepting death He makes his example thus such a man is married where he would or at least where he must where his parents or his Gardian will have him shall he have Children Fortasse sayes he They are a yong couple perchance they shall And shall those Children be sons Fortasse they are of a strong constitution perchance they shall And shall those sons live to be men Fortasse they are from healthy parents perchance they shall And when they have lived to be men shall they be good men Such as good men may be glad they may live Fortasse still They are of vertuous parents it may be they shall But when they are come to that Morientur shall those good men die here sayes that Father the Fortasse vanishes here it is omnino certè sine dubitatione infallibly inevitably irrecoverably they must die Doth not man die even in his birth The breaking of prison is death and what is our birth but a breaking of prison Assoon as we were clothed by God our very apparell was an Embleme of death In the skins of dead beasts he covered the skins of dying men Assoon as God set us on work our very occupation was an Embleme of death It was to digge the earth not to digge pitfals for other men but graves for our selves Hath any man here forgot to day that yesterday is dead And the Bell tolls for to day and will ring out anon and for as much of every one of us as appertaines to this day Quotidiè morimur tamen nos esse aeternos putamus sayes S. Hierome We die every day and we die all the day long and because we are notabsolutely dead we call that an eternity an eternity of dying And
the figurative exposition of those places of Scripture which require that way oft to be figuratively expounded that Expositor is not to be blamed who not destroying the literall sense proposes such a figurative sense as may exalt our devotion and advance our edification And as no one of those Expositors did ill in proposing one such sense so neither do those Expositors ill who with those limitations that it destroy not the literall sense that it violate not the analogy of faith that it advance devotion do propose another and another such sense So doth that preacher well also who to the same end and within the same limit makes his use of both of all those expositions because all may stand and it is not evident in such figurative speeches which is the literall that is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost Of these words of this first Resurrection which is not the last of the body but a spirituall Resurrection there are three expositions authorized by persons of good note in the Church Alcazar First that this first Resurrection is a Resurrection from that low estate to which persecution had brought the Church and so it belongs to this whole State and Church August nostri and Blessed are we who have our part in this first Resurrection Secondly that it is a Resurrection from the death of sin of actuall and habituall sin so it belongs to every particular penitent soul and Blessed art thou blessed am I if we have part in this first Resurrection And then thirdly because after this Resurrection it is said That we shall raign with Christ a thousand yeares Ribera which is a certain for an uncertain a limited for a long time it hath also been taken for the state of the soul in heaven after it is parted from the body by death for though the soul cannot be said properly to have a Resurrection because properly it cannot die yet to be thus delivered from the danger of a second death by future sin to be removed from the distance and latitude and possibility of tentations in this world is by very good Expositors called a Resurrection and so it belongs to all them who are departed in the Lord Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And then the occasion of the day which we celebrate now being the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus invites me to propose a fourth sense or rather use of the words not indeed as an exposition of the words but as a convenient exaltation of our devotion which is that this first Resurrection should be the first fruits of the dead The first Rising is the first Riser Christ Jesus for as Christ sayes of himself that He is the Resurrection so he is the first Resurrection the root of the Resurrection He upon whom our Resurrection all ours all our kindes of Resurrections are founded and so it belongs to State and Church and particular persons alive and dead Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection And these foure considerations of the words A Resurrection from persecution by deliverance a Resurrection from sin by grace a Resurrection from tentation to sin by the way of death to the glory of heaven and all these in the first Resurrection in him that is the roote of all in Christ Jesus These foure steps these foure passages these foure transitions will be our quarter Clock for this houres exercise First then 1. Part. From persecution we consider this first Resurrection to be a Resurrection from a persecution for religion for the profession of the Gospell to a forward glorious passage of the Gospell And so a learned Expositor in the Romane Church carries the exposition of this whole place though not indeed the ordinary way yet truly not incommodiously not improperly upon that deliverance which God afforded his Church from those great persecutions which had otherwise supplanted her in her first planting in the primitive times Then sayes he and in part well towards the letter of the place The devill was chained for a thousand yeares and then we began to raign with Christ for a thousand yeares reckoning the time from that time when God destroyed Idolatry more fully and gave peace and rest and free exercise of the Christian religion under the Christian Emperours till Antichrist in the height of his rage shall come and let this thousand yeares prisoner Satan loose and so interrupt our thousand yeares raign with Christ with new persecutions In that persecution was the death of the Church in the eye of the world In that deliverance by Christian Emperours was the Resurrection of the Church And in Gods protecting her ever since is the chaining up of the devill and our raigning with Christ for those thousand yeares And truly beloved if we consider the low the very low estate of Christians in those persecutions tryed ten times in the fire ten severall and distinct persecutions in which ten persecutions God may seem to have had a minde to deale eavenly with the world and to lay as much upon his people whom he would try then as he had laid upon others for his people before and so to equall the ten plagues of Aegypt in ten persecutions in the primitive Church if we consider that low that very low estate we may justly call their deliverance a Resurrection For as God said to Jerusalem I found thee in thy blood and washed thee so Christ Jesus found the Church the Christian Church in her blood and washed her and wiped her washed her in his own blood which washes white and wiped her with the garments of his own righteousnesse that she might be acceptable in the sight of God and then wiped all teares from her eyes took away all occasions of complaint and lamentation that she might be glorious in the eyes of man and chearefull in her own such was her Resurrection We wonder and justly at the effusion at the pouring out of blood in the sacrifices of the old Law that that little countrey scarce bigger then some three of our Shires should spend more cattle in some few dayes sacrifice at some solemnities and every yeare in the sacrifices of the whole yeare then perchance this kingdome could give to any use Seas of blood and yet but brooks tuns of blood and yet but basons compared with the sacrifices the sacrifices of the blood of men in the persecutions of the Primitive Church For every Oxe of the Jew the Christian spent a man and for every Sheep and Lamb a Mother and her childe and for every heard of cattle sometimes a towne of Inhabitants sometimes a Legion of Souldiers all martyred at once so that they did not stand to fill their Martyrologies with names but with numbers they had not roome to say such a day such a Bishop such a day such a Generall but the day of 500. the day of 5000. Martyrs and the martyrdome of
Text which is a Resurrection to Judgement and to an account with God that God whom we have displeased exasperated violated wounded in the whole course of our life lest we should be terrified and dejected at the presence of that God the whole worke is referred to the Son of Man which hath himselfe formerly felt all our infirmities and hath had as sad a soule at the approach of death as bitter a Cup in the forme of Death as heavy a feare of Gods forsaking him in the agony of death as we can have And for sin it self I would not I do not extenuate my sin but let me have fallen not seven times a day but seventy seven times a minute yet what are my sins to all those sins that were upon Christ The sins of all men and all women and all children the sins of all Nations all the East and West and all the North and South the sins of all times and ages of Nature of Law of Grace the sins of all natures sins of the body and sins of the mind the sins of all growth and all extentions thoughts and words and acts and habits and delight and glory and contempt and the very sin of boasting nay of our belying our selves in sin All these sins past present and future were at once upon Christ and in that depth of sin mine are but a drop to his Ocean In that treasure of sin mine are but single money to his Talent And therefore that I might come with a holy reverence to his Ordinance in this place though it be but in the Ministery of man that first Resurrection is attributed to the Son of God to give a dignity to that Ministery of man which otherwise might have beene under-valued that thereby we might have a consolation and a cheerefulnesse towards it It is He that is the Son of God and the Son of man Christ which remembers us alfo that all that belongs to the expressing of the Law of God to man must be received by us who professe our selves Christians in and by and for and through Christ We use to ascribe the Creation to the Father but the Father created by the Word and his Word is his Son Christ When he prepared the Heavens I was there saies Christ Prov. 8.27 of himselfe in the person of Wisdome and when he appointed the foundations of the earth then was I by him as one brought up with him It is not as one brought in to him or brought in by him but with him one as old that is as eternall as much God as he We use to ascribe Sanctification to the Holy Ghost But the Holy Ghost sanctifies in the Church And the Church was purchased by the blood of Christ and Christ remaines Head of the Church usque in consummationem till the end of the world I looke upon every blessing that God affords me and I consider whether it be temporall or spirituall and that distinguishes the metall the temporall is my silver and the spirituall is my Gold but then I looke againe upon the Inscription Cujus Imago whose Image whose inscription it beares and whose Name and except I have it in and for and by Christ Jesus Temporall and Spirituall things too are but imaginary but illusory shadows for God convayes himselfe to us no other way but in Christ The benefit then in our Text the Resurrection is by him but it is limited thus Christum It is by hearing him They that are in their Graves shall heare c. So it is in the other Resurrection too the spirituall resurrection v. 25. There they must heare him that will live In both resurrections That in the Church now by Grace And that in the Grave hereafter by Power it is said They shall heare him They shall which seemes to imply a necessity though not a coaction But that necessity not of equall force not equally irresistible in both In the Grave They shall Though they be dead and senslesse as the dust for they are dust it selfe though they bring no concurrence no cooperation They shall heare that is They shall not chuse but heare In the other resurrection which is in the Church by Grace in Gods Ordinance They shall heare too that is There shall be a voice uttered so as that they may heare if they will but not whether they will or no as in the other cafe in the grave Therefore when God expresses his gathering of his Church in this world it is Sibilabo congregabo I will hisse or chirpe for them Zecha 10.8 and so gather them He whispers in the voyce of the Spirit and he speaks a little louder in the voice of a man Let the man be a Boanerges a Son of thunder never so powerfull a speaker yet no thunder is heard over all the world Mat. 24.31 But for the voyce that shall be heard at the Resurrection He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet A great sound such as may be made by a Trumpet such as an Angell all his Angels can make in a Trumpet and more then all that 1 Thes 4.16 The Lord himselfe shall descend from Heaven and that with a shout and with the voice of an Archangel that is saies S. Ambrose of Christ himselfe And in the Trumpet of God that is also Christ himselfe So then you have the Person Christ The meanes A Voyce And the powerfulnesse of that voyce in the Name of an Archangell which is named but once more in all the Scriptures And therefore let no man that hath an holy anhelation and panting after the Resurrection suspect that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voyce that will be heard he must rise Let no man who because he hath made his course of life like a beast would therefore be content his state in death might be like a beast too hope that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voice that must be heard And all that heare shall come forth they that have done good c. He shall come forth Procedent even he that hath done ill and would not shall come forth You may have seene morall men you may have seen impious men go in confidently enough not afrighted with death not terrified with a grave but when you shall see them come forth againe you shall see them in another complexion That man that dyed so with that confidence thought death his end It ends his seventy yeares but it begins his seventy millions of generations of torments even to his body and he never thought of that Indeed Iudicii nisi qui vitae aeternae praedestinatus est non potest reminisci saies S. Ambrose No man can no man dares thinke upon the last Judgement but he that can thinke upon it with comfort he that is predestinated to eternall life Even the best are sometimes shaked with the consideration of the Resurrection because it
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâ—son hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
Reddiderunt not Acceperunt By faith They that is the Prophets restored the dead not By faith They that is the mothers received their dead But God forbid that naturall affections even in an exaltation and vehement expressing thereof should be thought to destroy faith God forbid that I should conclude an extermination of faith in Moses Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Book or in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he desired to be separated from Christ rather then his brethren should or in Iob or in Ieremy or in Ionas when they expostulate and chide with God himself out of a wearinesse of their lives or in the Lord of Life himself Christ Jesus when he came to an Vt quid dereliquisti To an apprehension that God had forsaken him upon the Crosse God that could restore her cold childe could keep his childe her faith alive in those hot embers of Passion So God did But he did it thus The childe was taken from the mothers warm and soft bosome and carried to the Prophets hard and cold bed Beloved we die in our delicacies and revive not but in afflictions In abundancies the blow of death meets us and the breath of life in misery and tribulation God puts himself to the cost of one of his greatest Miracles for her Faith He raises her childe to life And then he makes up his own work he continues with that childe and makes him a good man There are men whom even Miracles will not improve but this childe we will not dispute it Proâ—â—m in Ionam but accept it from S. Ierome who relates it became a Prophet It was that very Ionas whom God imployed to Ninive in which Service he gave some signes whose Son he was and how much of his mothers passion he inherited in his vehement expostulations with God Be this then our doctrinall instruction for this first example the Widow of Zareptha first that God thinks nothing too deare for his faithfull Children not his great Treasure not his Miracles And then God preserves this faith of theirs in contemplation of which only he bestows this Treasure this Miracle in the midst of the stormes of naturall affections and the tempest of distempered passions and then lastly that he proceeds and goes on in his own goodnesse Here he makes a Carkasse a Man and then that man a Prophet Every day he makes a dead soul a soul again and then that soul a Saint The other example in this point is that Shunamite 2 Reg. 4. whose dead son Elisha restored to life In the beginning of that Chapter you heare of another Widow A certaine woman of the wives of the sons of the Prophets cryed unto Elisha Thy servant my husband is dead And truly a Widow of one of the sons of the Prophets a Church-mans Widow was like enough to be poore enough And yet the Prophet doth not turne upon that way either to restore her dead husband or to provide her another husband but onely enquires how she was left and finding her in poore estate and in debt provides her meanes to pay her debts and to bring up her children and to that purpose procures a miracle from God in the abundant increase of her oyle but he troubles not God for her old or for a new husband But our example to which the Apostle in our Text referres himselfe is not this Widow in the beginning but that Mother in the body of the Chapter who having by Elisha's prayers obtained a Son of God after she was past hope and that Son being dead in her lap in her also as in the former example we may consider how Passion and Faith may consist together She asks her husband leave V. 22. That she might run to the Prophet her zeale her passionate zeale hastned her she would run but not without her husbands leave As S. Ierome forbids a Lady to suffer her daughter to goe to what Churches she would so may there be indiscretion at least to suffer wives to goe to what meetings though holy Convocations they will she does not harbour in her house a person dangerous to the Publike State or to her husbands private state nor a person likely to solicite her chastity though in a Prophets name We may finde women that may have occasion of going to Confession for something that their Confessors may have done to them In this womans case there was no disguise She would faine goe and run but not without her husbands knowledge and allowance Her husband asks her Why she would goe to the Prophet then being neither Sabbath V. 23. nor new Moone He acknowledges that God is likelier to conferre blessings upon Sabbaths and new Moones upon some dayes rather then other That all dayes are not alike with God then when he by his ordinance hath put a difference between them And he acknowledges too that though the Sabbath be the principall of those dayes which God hath seposed for his especiall working yet there are new Moones too there are other Holy-dayes for holy Convocations and for his Divine and Publique Worship besides the Sabbath But this was neither Sabbath nor new Moone neither Sunday nor Holy-day Why would she goe upon that day Beloved though for publique meetings in publique places the Sabbaths and Holy-dayes be the proper dayes yet for conference and counsell and other assistances from the Prophets and Ministers of God all times are seasonable all dayes are Sabbaths She goes to the Prophet she presses with so much passion and so much faith too and so good successe for she had her dead son restored unto her that as from the other so from this example arises this That in a heart absolutely surrendred to God vehement expostulation with God and yet full submission to God and a quiet acquiescence in God A storme of affections in nature and yet a setled calme and a fast anchorage in grace a suspition and a jealousie and yet an assurance and a confidence in God may well consist together In the same instant that Christ said Si possibile he said Veruntamen too though he desired that that cup might passe yet he desired not that his desire should be satisfied In the same instant that the Martyrs under the Altar say Vsque quò Domine How long Lord before thou execute judgement they see that he does execute judgement every day in their behalfe All jealousie in God does not destroy our assurance in him nor all diffidence our confidence nor all feare our faith These women had these naturall weaknesses that is this strength of affections and passions and yet by this faith these women received their dead raised to life againe But yet which is a last consideration Foeminile and our conclusion of this part this being thus put onely in women in the weaker sexe that they desired that they rejoyced in this resuscitation of the dead may well intimate thus much unto us that
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâ—an Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
thought he could not speake more bitterly to that Tyran then to tell him As for thee thou shalt have no Resurrection unto life And so the Mother establisht her selfe too To her Sons she saies I gave you not life in my wombe Ver. 22. but doubtlesse the Creator that did will of his mercy give you life againe The soule needed not life againe for the soule never dyed the body that dyed Ver. 29. did Therefore her hope was in a Resurrection And to her youngest Son she said Be worthy of thy Brethren Take thy death that I may receive thee againe in mercy with thy Brethren All their establishment all their expectation all their issue was That they might obtaine a better Resurrection Now what was this that they qualified and dignified by that addition The better Resurrection Is it called better in that it is better then this life and determined in that comparison and degree of betternesse and no more Is it better then those honours and preferments which that King offered them and determined in that comparison and no more Or better then other men shall have at the last day for all men shall have a Resurrection and determined in that Or as S. Chrysostome takes it is it but a better Resurrection then that in the former part of this Text where dead children are restored to their mothers alive again Is it but a better Resurrection in some of these senses Surely better in a higher sense then any of these It is a supereminent degree of glory a larger measure of glory then every man who in a generall happinesse is made partaker of the Resurrection of the righteous is made partaker of Beloved There is nothing so little in heaven as that we can expresse it But if wee could tell you the fulnesse of a soul there what that fulnesse is the infinitenesse of that glory there how far that infinitenesse goes the Eternity of that happinesse there how long that happinesse lasts if we could make you know all this yet this Better Resurrection is a heaping even of that Fulnesse and an enlarging even of that Infinitenesse and an extention even of that eternity of happinesse For all these this Fulnesse this Infinitenesse this Eternity are in all the Resurrections of the Righteous and this is a better Resurrection We may almost say it is something more then Heaven for all that have any Resurrection to life have all heaven And something more then God for all that have any Resurrection to life have all God and yet these shall have a better Resurrection Amorous soule ambitious soule covetous soule voluptuous soule what wouldest thou have in heaven What doth thy holy amorousnesse thy holy covetousnesse thy holy ambition and voluptuousnesse most carry thy desire upon Call it what thou wilt think it what thou canst think it something that thou canst not think and all this thou shalt have if thou have any Resurrection unto life and yet there is a Better Resurrection When I consider what I was in my parents loynes a substance unworthy of a word unworthy of a thought when I consider what I am now a Volume of diseases bound up together a dry cynder if I look for naturall for radicall moisture and yet a Spunge a bottle of overflowing Rheumes if I consider accidentall an aged childe a gray-headed Infant and but the ghost of mine own youth When I consider what I shall be at last by the hand of death in my grave first but Putrifaction and then not so much as Putrifaction I shall not be able to send forth so much as an ill ayre not any ayre at all but shall be all insipid tastlesse savourlesse dust for a while all wormes and after a while not so much as wormes sordid senslesse namelesse dust When I consider the past and present and suture state of this body in this world I am able to conceive able to expresse the worst that can befall it in nature and the worst that can be inflicted upon it by man of fortune But the least degree of glory that God hath prepared for that body in heaven I am not able to expresse not able to conceive That man comes with a Barly corn in his hand to measure the compasse of the Firmament and when will he have done that work by that way he comes with a grain of dust in his scales to weigh the whole body of the world and when will he have done that work that way that bids his heart imagine or his language declare or his wit compare the least degree of the glory of any good mans Resurrection And yet there is a Better Resurrection A Better Resurrection reserved for them and appropriated to them That fulfill the sufferings of Christ in their flesh by Martyrdome and so become witnesses to that Conveyance which he hath sealed with his blood by shedding their blood and glorifie him upon earth as far as it is possible for man by the same way that he hath glorified them in heaven and are admitted to such a conformity with Christ as that if we may have leave to expresse it so they have dyed for one another Neither is this Martyrdome and so this Better Resurrection appropriated to a reall and actuall and absolute dying for Christ but every suffering of ours by which suffering he may be glorified is a degree of Martyrdome and so a degree of improving and bettering our Resurrection For as S. Ierome sayes That chastity is a perpetuall Martyrdome So every war maintained by us against our own desires is a Martyrdome too In a word to do good for Gods glory brings us to a Good but to suffer for his glory brings us to a Better Resurrection And to suffer patiently brings us to a Good but to suffer chearefully and more then that thankfully brings us to a Better Resurrection If all the torments of all the afflicted men from Abel to that soul that groanes in the Inquisition or that gaspes upon his death-bed at this minute were upon one man at once all that had no proportion to the least torment of hell nay if all the torments which all the damned in hell have suffered from Cain to this minute were at once upon one soul so as that soul for all that might know that those torments should have an end though after a thousand millions of millions of Generations all that would have no proportion to any of the torments of hell because the extention of those torments and their everlastingnesse hath more of the nature of torment and of the nature of hell in it then the intensnesse and the vehemency thereof can have So if all the joyes of all the men that have had all their hearts desires were con-centred in one heart all that would not be as a spark in his Chimney to the generall conflagration of the whole world in respect of the least joy that that soule is made partaker of that departs from this
his Sermon at Antioch Now what is written in that Psalme which S. Paul cites there to our present purpose This Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But is not this Hodie genui This this dayes begetting intended rather of the eternall filiation generation of the Son of God then of this daies work the Resurrection Those words of that Psalm may well admit that interpretation Hilar. and so many have taken them But with S. Hilary most of the ancients have applied them to the Resurrection as the application of S. Paul himself directly binds us to do That the Hodie genui This dayes generation is this dayes manifestation that Christ was the Son of God Calvin Calvin enlarges it farther That every declaration of the Son by the Father is a generation of the Son So his baptisme and the voice then so his Transfiguration and the voice then Mat. 3.17 Mat. 17.3 were each of them a Hodie genui a generation of the Son that day But especially sayes Calvin do those words of the Psalm belong to this day because the Resurrection was the most evident actuall declaration that Christ was the Son of God Rom. 1.4 for He was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection from the dead saies the Apostle expresly But how wherein was he declared There were others that were raised from the dead by Prophets in the old Testament by Christ and his Apostles in the new and yet not thereby declared to be such Sons of God Essentiall Sons no nor any Sons of God not Sons by adoption for we are not sure that all those that were miraculously raised from the dead were effectually saved at last Therefore the comfort in our case is in that word of the Angel Surrexit He is risen For so all our Translators and Expositors do constantly carry it not in a Suscitatus as all the rest are That he was raised but in this Surrexit He is risen risen of himself For so he testifies of himself Destroy this Temple and in three dayes Ego suscitabo I will raise it up again John 2.19 Not that the Father should but that he would so also Ego pono and Ego sumo sayes Christ I lay down and I take again my soul Not that it is given or taken by another John 10.17 Nyssen And therefore Gregory Nyssen suspects that for the infirmity of the then hearers the Apostles thought it scarce safe to expresse it often in that phrase He rose or He raised himself and therefore for the most part return to the Suscitatus est that He was raised lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that that a dead man had raised himself of his own power And therefore the Angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women in a full measure when he opens himselfe in that word Surrexit He is risen risen of himselfe This then is one piece of our evidence and the foundation of all Nos that we cannot be deceived because he in whom we trust is by this his own rising declared to be the Son of God And another and a powerfull comfort is this Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 4.14 That he being risen for our justification we are also risen in him He that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up also by the same Iesus He shall there is our assurance but that is not all for there is a con-resuscitavit Ephes 2.6 He hath quickned us together and raised us together and made us to sit together in heavenly places not together with one another but together with Christ There is our comfort collected from this surrexit He is risen equivalent to the discomfort of the non est hîc he is not here That this his rising declares him to be the Son of God who therefore can and will and to be that Jesus an actuall Redeemer and therefore hath already raised us To what To that renovation to that new creation which is so excellently expressed by Severianus as makes us sorry we have no more of his Mutatur ordorerum Severianus The whole frame and course of nature is changed Sepulchrum non mortuum sed mortem devorat The grave now since Christs Resurrection and ours in him does not bury the dead man but death himself My Bell tolls for death and my Bell rings out for death and not for me that dye for I live even in death but death dies in me and hath no more power over me I was crucified with Christ upon Friday saies Chrysologus Et hodiè resurgo Chrysologus to day I rose with him again Et gloria resurrection is sepelivit injuriam morientis The ingloriousnesse of having been buried in the dust is recompenced in the glory I rise to Liber inter mortuos that which David sayes and by S. Augustines application of Christ Psal 88.5 August is true of me too Christ was and I am Liber inter mortuos free amongst the dead undetainable in the state of death For sayes S. Peter It was not possible he should be holden of it Acts 2.24 Not possible for Christ because of the prediction of so many Prophets whose words had an infallibility in them not possible especially because of the Union of the Divine Nature Not possible for me neither because God hath afforded me the marks of his Election and thereby made me partaker of the Divine Nature too 2 Pet. 1.4 But yet these things might perchance not fall into the consideration of these women They did not but they might they should have done for as the Angell tels them here Christ had told them of this before Sicut dixit he is risen as he said Even the Angell himself referres himself to the word Sicut dixit Sicut dixit The Angell himself desires not to be beleeved but as he grounds himself upon the word sicut dixit Let therefore no Angell of the Church not that super-Arch-angell of the Romane Church proceed upon an ipse dixit upon his own pectorall word and determination for the Angell here referres us to the sicut dixit the former word God will be content that we doubt and suspend our assent to any revelation if it doe not concerne some duty delivered in Scripture before And to any miracle if it doe not conduce to the proofe of some thing commanded in Scripture before Sicut dixit is an Angelicall issue As he said But how often soever Christ had spoken of this Resurrection to others Vobie these women might be ignorant of it For all that is said even by Christ himself is not said to all nor is all written for all that is written by the Holy Ghost No man must suspect that he knowes not enough for salvation if he understand not all places of Scripture But yet these women could not well be ignorant of this because being Disciples and followers of Christ though Christ had
should all fall into hell and so there is mercy in hell And therefore saies the same Father Out of an unspeakeable wisdome and Fatherly care as Fathers will speak loudest to their Children and looke angerliest and make the greatest rods when they intend not the severest correction Christus saepius gehennam comminatus est quam regnum pollicitus Christ in his Gospell hath oftner threatned us with hell then promised us Heaven We are bound to praise God saies he as much for driving Adam out of Paradise as for placing him there Et agere gratias tam progehenna quam pro regno And to give him thanks as well for hell as for Heaven For whether he cauterise or foment whether he draw blood or apply Cordials he is the same Physitian and seekes but one end our spirituall health by his divers wayes For us who by this notification of hell escape hell Psal 118.17 We shall not dye but live that is not dye so but that we shall live againe Therefore is death called a sleepe Lazarus sleepeth saies Christ And Coemiteria are Dormitoria Iohn 11.11 Churchyards are our beds And in those beds and in all other beds of death for the dead have their beds in the Sea too and sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof the voyce of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God shall awake them that slept in Christ before and they and we shall be united in one body for as our Apostle sayes here Heb. 11.39 We shall not prevent them so he sayes also That they shall not be made perfect without us Though we live to see Christ we shall not prevent them though they have attended Christ five thousand yeares in the grave they shall not prevent us but united in one body Rapiemur They and we shall be caught c. Rapiemur We shall be caught up This is a true Rapture Rapiemur in which we doe nothing our selves Our last act towards Christ is as our first In the first act of our Conversion we do nothing nothing in this last act our Resurrection but Rapimur we are caught In everything the more there is left to our selves the worse it is done that that God does intirely is intirely good S. Paul had a Rapture too He was caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. 12.4 but whether in the body or out of the body he cannot tell We can tell that this Rapture of ours shall be in body and soule in the whole man Man is but a vapour but a glorious and a blessed vapour when he is attracted and caught up by this Sun the Son of Man the Son of God O what a blessed alleviation possesses that man and to what a blessed levity if without levity we may so speake to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come that comes newly from Confession and with the seale of Absolution upon him Then when nothing troubles his conscience then when he hath disburdened his soule of all that lay heavy upon it then when if his Confessor should unjustly reveale it to any other yet God will never speake of it more to his conscience not upbraid him with it not reproach him for it what a blessed alleviation what a holy cheerefulnesse of spirit is that man come to How much more in the endowments which we shall receive in the Rapture of this text where we do not onely devest all sins past as in Confession but all possibility of future sins and put on not onely incorruption but incorruptiblenesse not onely impeccancy but impeccability And to be invested with this endowment Rapiemur Wee shall be caught up and Rapiemur in Nubibus Wee shall be caught up in the Clouds We take a Sar to be the thickest In Nubibus and so the impurest and ignoblest part of that sphear and yet by the illustration of the Sun it becomes a glorious star Clouds are but the beds and wombs of distempered and malignant impressions of vapours and exhalations and the furnaces of Lightnings and of Thunder yet by the presence of Christ and his employment these clouds are made glorious Chariots to bring him and his Saints together Psal 135.7 Those Vapours and Clouds which David speaks of S. Augustin interprets of the Ministers of the Church that they are those Clouds Those Ministers may have clouds in their understanding and knowledge some may be lesse learned then others and clouds in their elocution utterance some may have an unacceptable deliverance and clouds in their aspect and countenance some may have an unpleasing presence and clouds in their respect and maintenance some may be oppressed in their fortunes but still they are such clouds as are sent by Christ to bring thee up to him And as the Children of Israel received direction and benefit Exod. 13.21 as well by the Pillar of Cloud as by the Pillar of Fire so do the Children of God in the Church as well by Preachers of inferiour gifts as by higher In Nubibus Christ does not come in a Chariot and send Carts for us Acts 1.11 He comes as he went This same Iesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seene him goe into Heaven say the Angels at his Ascension Luk. 24.50 In what manner did they see him go He was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight So he went so he shall returne so we shall be taken up In the Clouds to meete him in the Ayre The Transfiguration of Christ was not acted upon so high a Scene In aëra as this our accesse to Christ shall be That hill was not so high nor so neare to the Heaven of Heavens as this region of the ayre shall be Nor was the Transfiguration so eminent a manifestation of the glory of Christ as this his comming in the ayre to Judgement shall be And yet Peter that saw but that Mat. 17.14 desired no more but thought it happinesse enough to be there and there to fixe their Tabernacles But in this our meeting of Christ in the ayre we shall see more then they saw in the Transfiguration and yet be but in the way of seeing more then we see in the ayre then we shall be presently well and yet improving The Kings presence makes a Village the Court but he that hath service to do at Court would be glad to finde it in a lodgeable and convenient place I can build a Church in my bosome I can serve God in my heart and never cloath my prayer in words God is often said to heare and answer in the Scriptures when they to whom he speaks have said nothing I can build a Church at my beds side when I prostrate my selfe in humble prayer there I do so I can praise God cheerefully in my Chappell cheerefully in my parish Church as David saies Psal 26.12 In Ecclesiis plurally In the Congregations In every
see Death we answer It may be that those Men whom Christ shal find upon the earth alive at his returne to Judge the World shall dye then and it may be they shall but be changed and not dye That Christ shall judge quick and dead is a fundamentall thing we heare it in S. Peters Sermon Acts 10.42 to Cornelius and his company and we say it every day in the Creed Hee shall judge the quick and the dead But though we doe not take the quick and the dead August Chrys as Augustine and Chrysostome doe for the Righteous which lived in faith and the unrighteous which were dead in sinne Though wee doe not take the quick and the dead as Ruffinus and others doe for the soule and the body He shall judge the soule which was alwaies alive and he shall the body which was dead for a time though we take the words as becomes us best literally yet the letter does not conclude but that they whom Christ shall finde alive upon earth shall have a present and sudden dissolution and a present and sudden re-union of body and soul again Saint Paul sayes Behold I shew you a mystery Therefore it is not a cleare case and presently 1 Cor. 15.51 and peremptorily determined but what is it We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed But whether this sleeping be spoke of death it self and exclude that that we shall not die or whether this sleep be spoke of a rest in the grave and exclude that we shall not be buried and remain in death that may be a mystery still S. Paul sayes too 1 Thes 4.17 The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre But whether that may not still be true that S. Augustine sayes that there shall be Mors in raptu August An instant and sudden dis-union and re-union of body and soul which is death who can tell So on the other side when it is said to him in whom all we were to Adam Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 1 Cor. 15.22 Rom. 5.12 and into dust thou shalt return when it is said In Adam all die when it is said Death passed upon all men for all have sinned Why may not all those sentences of Scripture which imply a necessity of dying admit that restriction Nisi dies judicii natur ae cursum immutet Pet. Mar. We shall all die except those in whom the comming of Christ shall change the course of Nature Consider the Scriptures then and we shall be absolutely concluded neither way Consider Authority and we shall finde the Fatherrs for the most part one way and the Schoole for the most part another Take later men and all those in the Romane Church Then Cajetan thinks that they shall not die and Catharin is so peremptory Cajetan Catharinus that they shall as that he sayes of the other opinion Falsam esse confidenter asserimus contra Scripturas sat is manifestas omnino sine ratione It is false and against Scriptures and reason saith he Take later men and all those in the reformed Church Calvin and Calvin sayes Quia aboletur prior natura censetur species mortis sed non migrabit anima à corpore S. Paul calls it death because it is a destruction of the former Beeing but it is not truly death saith Calvin and Luther saith Luther That S. Pauls purpose in that place is only to shew the suddennesse of Christs comming to Judgement Non autem inficiatur omnes morituros nam dormire est sepeliri But S. Paul doth not deny but that all shall die for that sleeping which he speaks of is buriall and all shall die though all shall not be buried saith Luther Take then that which is certain It is certain a judgement thou must passe If thy close and cautelous proceeding have saved thee from all informations in the Exchequer thy clearnesse of thy title from all Courts at Common Law thy moderation from the Chancery and Star-Chamber If heighth of thy place and Authority have saved thee even from the tongues of men so that ill men dare not slander thy actions nor good men dare not discover thy actions no not to thy self All those judgements and all the judgements of the world are but interlocutory judgements There is a finall judgement In judicantes judicatos against Prisoners and Judges too where all shal be judged again Datum est omne judicium All judgement is given to the Son of man John 5. and upon all the sons of men must his judgement passe A judgement is certain and the uncertainty of this judgement is certain too perchance God will put off thy judgement thou shalt not die yet but who knows whether God in his mercy do put off this judgement till these good motions which his blessed Spirit inspires into thee now may take roote and receive growth and bring forth fruit or whether he put it off for a heavier judgement to let thee see by thy departing from these good motions and returning to thy former sins after a remorse conceived against those sins that thou art inexcusable even to thy self and thy condemnation is just even to thine own conscience So perchance God will bring this judgement upon thee now now thou maist die but whether God will bring that judgement upon thee now in mercy whilest his Graces in his Ordinance of preaching work some tendernesse in thee and gives thee some preparation some fitnesse some courage to say Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly come now or whether he will come now in judgement because all this can work no tendernesse in thee who can tell Thou hearest the word of God preached as thou hearest an Oration with some gladnesse in thy self if thou canst heare him and never be moved by his Oratory thou thinkest it a degree of wisdome to be above perswasion and when thou art told that he that feares God feares nothing else thou thinkest thy self more valiant then so if thou feare not God neither Whether or why God defers or hastens the judgement we know not This is certain this all S. Pauls places collineate to this all the Fathers and all the Schoole all the Cajetans and all the Catharins all the Luthers and all the Calvins agree in A judgement must be and it must be In ictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye and Fur in nocte A thiefe in the night Make the question Quis homo What man is he that liveth and shall not passe this judgement or what man is he that liveth and knowes when this judgement shall be So it is a Nemo scit A question without an answer but ask it as in the text Quis homo Who liveth and shall not die so it is a problematicall matter and in such
things as are problematicall if thou love the peace of Sion be not too inquisitive to know nor too vehement when thou thinkest thou doest know it Come then to ask this question 3. Part. not problematically as it is contracted to them that shall live in the last dayes nor peremptorily of man as he is subject to originall sin but at large so as the question may include Christ himself and then to that Quis homo What man is he We answer directly here is the man that shall not see death And of him principally August and literally S. Augustine as we said before takes this question to be framed Vt quaeras dictum non ut desperes saith he this question is moved to move thee to seek out and to have thy recourse to that man which is the Lord of Life not to make thee despaire that there is no such man in whose self and in whom for all us there is Redemption from death For sayes he this question is an exception to that which was said before the text which is Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain Consider it better sayes the Holy Ghost here and it will not prove so Man is not made in vain at first though he do die now for Perditio tua ex te This death proceeds from man himself and Quare moriemini domus Israel Why will ye die ô house of Israel God made not death â—ap 1.13 neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living The Wise man sayes it and the true God sweares it As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner God did not create man in vain then though he die not in vain for since he will needs die God receives glory even by his death in the execution of his justice not in vaine neither because though he be dead God hath provided him a Redeemer from death in his mercy Man is not created in vain at all nor all men so neare vanity as to die for here is one man God and Man Christ Jesus which liveth and shall not see death And conformable to S. Augustines purpose 〈◊〉 speakes S. Hierome too Scio quòd nullus homo carneus evadet sed novi Deum sub velamento carnis latentem I know there is no man but shall die but I know where there is a God clothed in mans flesh and that person cannot die But did not Christ die then Shall we joyne with any of those Heretiques which brought Christ upon the stage to play a part and say he was born or lived or dyed In phantasmate In apparance only and representation God forbid so all men were created in vain indeed if we had not a regeneration in his true death Where is the contract between him and his Father that Oportuit pati All this Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory Is that contract void and of none effect Must he not die Where is the ratification of that contract in all the Prophets 〈◊〉 53.4.9 Where is Esays Verè languores nostros tulit Surely he hath born our sorrows and he made his grave with the wicked in his death Is the ratification of the Prophets cancelled Shall he not must he not die Where is the consummation and the testification of all this Where is the Gospell Consummatum est And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost Is that fabulous Did he not die How stands the validity of that contract Christ must die the dignity of those Prophecies Christ will die the truth of the Gospell Christ did die with this answer to this question Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Very well For though Christ Jesus did truly die so as was contracted so as was prophecied so as was related yet hee did not die so as was intended in this question so as other naturall men do die For first Christ dyed because he would dye other men admitted to the dignity of Martyrdome are willing to dye but they dye by the torments of the Executioners they cannot bid their soules goe out and say now I will dye And this was Christs case 〈◊〉 10.15 It was not only I lay down my life for my sheep but he sayes also No man can take away my soule And I have power to lay it down And De facto he did lay it down he did dye before the torments could have extorted his soule from him Many crucified men lived many dayes upon the Crosse The thieves were alive long after Christ was dead and therefore Pilate wondred that he was already dead His soule did not leave his body by force 〈…〉 but because he would and when he would and how he would Thus far then first this is an answer to this question Quis homo Christ did not die naturally nor violently as all others doe but only voluntarily Again the penalty of death appertaining only to them who were derived from Adam by carnall and sinfull generation Christ Jesus being conceived miraculously of a Virgin by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost was not subject to the Law of death and therefore in his person it is a true answer to this Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he need not see death he hath not incurred Gods displeasure he is not involved in a general rebellion and therfore is not involved in the generall mortality not included in the generall penalty He needed not have dyed by the rigour of any Law all we must he could not dye by the malice or force of any Executioner all we must at least by natures generall Executioners Age and Sicknesse And then when out of his own pleasure and to advance our salvation he would dye yet he dyed so as that though there were a dis-union of body and soule which is truly death yet there remained a Nobler and faster union then that of body and soule the Hypostaticall Union of the God-head not onely to his soule but to his body too so that even in his death both parts were still not onely inhabited by but united to the Godhead it selfe and in respect of that inseparable Union we may answer to this question Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he shall see no separation of that which is incomparably and incomprehensibly a better soul then his soule the God-head shall not be separated from his body But that which is indeed the most direct and literall answer to this question is That whereas the death in this Text is intended of such a death as hath Dominion over us and from which we have no power to raise our selves we may truly and fully answer to his Quis homo here is a man that shall never see death so but that he shall even in the jawes and teeth of death and in the bowels and wombe of the grave and in the sink and furnace of hell
concealing which were the pieces that constitute our first Part in the second Part which is the time when this Legacy accrues to us is to be given us In die illo at that day At that day shall yee know c. It is the illumination the illustration of our hearts and therefore well referred to the Day The word it selfe affords cheerefulnesse For when God inflicted that great plague to kill all the first-borne in Aegypt Exod. 12. Luke 20. that was done at Midnight And when God would intimate both deaths at once spirituall and temporall he sayes O foole this night they will fetch away thy soule Against all supply of knowledge he cals him foole and against all sense of comfort in the day he threatens night It was In die Illo and In die illo in the day and at a certaine day and at a short day For after Christ had made his Will at this supper given strength to his Will by his death and proved his Will by his Resurrection and left the Church possest of his estate by his Ascension within ten dayes after that he poured out this Legacy of knowledge For though some take this day mentioned in the Text Calvin to be Tanqnam unius diei tenor à dato Spiritu ad Resurrectionem from the first giving of the Holy Ghost to the Resurrection And others take this day Osiand to bee from his Resurrection to the end of his second Conversation upon earth till his Ascension and S. Augustine referre it Ad perfectam visionem in Coelis to the perfect fruition of the sight of God in Heaven yet the most usefull and best followed acceptation is This Day of the comming of the Holy Ghost That day we celebrate this day and we can never finde the Christian Church so farre as we can judge by the evidence of Story to have been without this festivall day The reason of all Festivals in the Church was and is Ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio August Lest after many ages involved and wrapped up in one another Gods particular benefits should bee involved and wrapped up in unthankfulnesse And the benefits received this day were such as should never be forgotten for without this day all the rest had been evacuated and uneffectuall If the Apostles by the comming of the Holy Ghost had not been established in an infallibility in themselves and in an ability to deale with all Nations by the benefit of tongues the benefit of Christs passion had not been derived upon all Nations And therefore to This day and to Easter-day all publike Baptismes in the Primitive Church were reserved None were baptized except in cases of necessity but upon one of these two dayes for as there is an Exaltation a Resurrection given us in Baptisme represented by Easter so there belongs to us a confirmation an establishing of grace and the increase thereof represented in Pentecost in the comming of the Holy Ghost As the Jews had an Easter in the memory of their deliverance from Aegypt and a Pentecost in the memory of the Law given at Mout Sinai So at Easter we celebrate the memory of that glorious Passeover when Christ passed from the grave and hell in his Resurrection and at this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate his giving of the Law to all Nations and his investing and possessing himselfe of his Kingdome the Church for this is Festum Adoptionis as S. Chrysostome cals it The cheerefull feast of our Adoption in which the Holy Ghost convaying the Son of God to us enables us to be the Sons of God and to cry Abba Father This then is that day Acts 2. when the Apostles being with one accord and in one place that is in one faith and in one profession of that faith not onely without Heresie but without Schisme too the Holy Ghost as a mighty winde filled them all and gave them utterance As a winde to note a powerfull working And he filled them to note the abundance And he gave them utterance to inferre that which we spoke of before The Communication of that knowledge which they had received to others This was that Spirit whom it concerned the Apostles so much to have as that Christ himselfe must goe from them to send him to them If I goe not away sayes Christ the Comforter will not come to you How great a comfort must this necessarily be which must so abundantly recompence the losse of such a comfort as the presence of Christ was This is that Spirit who though hee were to be sent by the Father and sent by the Son yet he comes not as a Messenger from a Superiour for hee was alwaies equall to Father and Son But the Father sent him and the Son sent him as a tree sends forth blossomes and as those blossomes send forth a sweet smell and as the Sun sends forth beames by an emanation from it selfe He is Spiritus quem nemo interpretari potest sayes S. Chrysostome hee hath him not that doth not see he hath him nor is any man without him who in a rectified conscience thinks he hath him Illo Prophetae illustrantur Illo idiotae condiuntur sayes the same Father The Prophets as high as their calling was saw nothing without this Spirit and with this Spirit a simple man understands the Prophets And therefore doth S. Basil attribute that to the Holy Ghost which seemes to be peculiar to the Son he cals him Verbum Dei because sayes he Spiritus interpres Filii sicut Filius Patris As the Son hath revealed to us the will of the Father and so is the Word of God to us so the Holy Ghost applies the promises and the merits of the Son to us and so is the Word of God to us too and enables us to come to God in that voyce of his blessed Servant S. Augustine O Deus secretissime patentissime Though nothing be more mysterious then the knowledge of God in the Trinity yet nothing is more manifest unto us then by the light of this person the Holy Ghost so much of both the other Persons as is necessary for our Salvation is Now it is not onely to the Apostles that the Holy Ghost is descended this day but as S. Chrysostom saies of the Annunciation Non ad unam tantùm animam It is not onely to one Person that the Angel said then The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and overshadow thee but sayes he that Holy Ghost hath said Super omnem Ioel 2. I will poure out my selfe upon all men so I say of this day This day if you be all in this place concentred united here in one Faith and one Religion If you be of one accord that is in perfect charity The Holy Ghost shall fill you all according to your measure and his purpose and give you utterance in your lives and conversations Qui ita vacat orationibus Origen ut dignus fiat illo
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
the annointing Oyle and powre it upon his head The Mitre as you may see there was upon his head then but then there was a Crowne upon the Mitre There is a power above the Priest the regall power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest 1 Sam. 10.1 24. But Unction was the Consecration of Kings too Samuel saluted Saul with a kisse and all the people shouted and sayd God save the King but Is it not sayes Samuel because the Lord hath annointed thee to be captaine over his inheritance Kings were above Priests and in extraordinary cases God raysed Prophets above Kings for there is no ordinary power above them But Unction was the Consecration of these Prophets too Elisha was annointed to be Prophet in Elias roome and such a Prophet as should have use of the Sword 1 Reg. 19.16 17. Him that scapes the Sword of Hazael Hazael was King of Syria shall the Sword of Iehu slay and him that scapes the Sword of Iehu Iehu was King of Israel shall the Sword of Elisha slay In all these in Priests who were above the people in Kings who in matter of Government were above the Priests in Prophets who in those limited cases expressed by God and for that time wherein God gave them that extraordinary employment were above Kings The Unction imprinted their Consecration they were all Christs and in them all thereby was that Nuncupatio potestatis which Lactantius mentions Unction Annointing was an addition and title of honour Psal 109. Psal 2.6 Deut. 18. Much more in our Christ who alone was all three A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek A King set upon the holy hill of Sion And a Prophet The Lord thy God will rayse up a Prophet unto him shall yee harken And besides all this threefold Unction Humanitas uncta Divinitate He had all the unctions that all the other had and this which none other had In him the Humanity was Consecrated anointed with the Divinity it selfe So then Nazian Cyrill Psal 95.7 unio unctio The hypostaticall union of the Godhead to the humane nature is his Conception made him Christ for oleo laetitia perfusus in unione Then in that union of the two natures did God annoint him with the oyle of gladnes above his fellows There was an addition something gained something to be glad of and to him as he was God The Lord so nothing could be added If he were glad above his fellows it was in that respect wherein he had fellows and as God as The Lord he had none so that still as he was made Man he became this Christ In which his being made Man if we should not consider the last and principall purpose which was to redeem man if we leave out his part yet it were object inough for our wonder and subject inough for our praise and thankesgiving to consider the dignity that the nature of man received in that union wherin this Lord was thus made this Christ for the Godhead did not swallow up the manhood but man that nature remained still The greater kingdom did not swallow the lesse but the lesse had that great addition which it had not before and retained the dignities and priviledges which it had before too Damasc Christus est nomen personae non naturae The name of Christ denotes one person but not one nature neither is Christ so composed of those two natures as a man is composed of Elements for man is thereby made a third thing and is not now any of those Elements you cannot call mans body fire or ayre or earth or water though all foure be in his composition But Christ is so made of God and Man as that he is Man still for all the glory of the Deity and God still for all the infirmity of the manhood Idem Divinum miraculis lucet humanum contumeliis afficitur In this one Christ both appear The Godhead bursts out as the Sun out of a cloud and shines forth gloriously in miracles even the raysing of the dead and the humane nature is submitted to contempt and to torment even to the admitting of death in his own bosome sed tamen ipsius sunt tum miraculae Idem tum supplicia but still both he that rayses the dead and he that dyes himself is one Christ his is the glory of the Miracles and the contempt and torment is his too This is that mysterious person who is singularis and yet not individuus singularis There never was never shall be any such but we cannot call him Individuall Idem as every other particular man is because Christitatis non est Genus there is no genus nor species of Christs it is not a name which so as the name belongs to our Christ that is by being annointed with the divine nature can be communicated to any other as the name of Man may to every Individuall Man Christ is not that Spectrum that Damascene speaks of nor that Electrum that Tertullian speakes of not Spectrum so as that the two natures should but imaginarily be united and only to amaze and astonish us that we could not tell what to call it what to make of it a spectre an apparition a phantasma for he was a Reall person Neither was he Tertullians Electrum a third metall made of two other metals but a person so made of God and Man as that in that person God and Man are in their natures still distinguished He is Germen Davidis Iere. 23.5 Isa 4.2 in one Prophet The branch the Off-spring of David And he is Germen Iehovae The Branch the Off-spring of God of the Lord in another When this Germen Davidis the Sonne of Man would do miracles then he was Germen Iehovae he reflected to that stock into which the Humanity was engrafted to his Godhead And when this Germen Iehovae the Son of God would indure humane miseries he reflected to that stock to that humanity in which he had invested and incorporated himself This person 1 Cor. 15.3 Tertul. this Christ dyed for our sins says S. Paul but says he He dyed according to the Scriptures Non sine onere pronunciat Christum mortuum The Apostle thought it a hard a heavy an incredible thing to say that this person this Christ this Man and God was dead And therefore Vt duritiam molliret scandalum auditoris everteret That he might mollifie the hardnes of that saying and defend the hearer from being scandalized with that saying Adjecit secundùm scripturas He adds this Christ is dead according to the Scriptures If the Scriptures had not told us that Christ should die and told us againe that Christ did die it were hard to conceive how this person in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily should be submitted to death But therein principally is he Christus as he was capable of dying As he was Verbum naturale and innatum
for thee Martyrium and his blessed Servants the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did so for him and thee for his glory for thy example Can there be any ill any losse in giving thy life for him Is it not a part of the reward it selfe the honour to suffer for him Muk 10.30 When Christ sayes Whosoever loses any thing for my sake and the Gospels he shall have a hundred fold in houses and lands with persecutions wee need not limit that clause of the Promise with persecutions to be That in the midst of persecutions God will give us temporall blessings but that in the midst of temporall blessings God will give us persecutions that it shall be a part of his mercy to be delivered from the danger of being puffed up by those temporall abundances by having a mixture of adversity and persecutions and then Tertul. what ill what losse is there in laying downe this life for him Quid hoc mali est quod martyrialis mali non habet timorem pudorem tergiversationem poenitentiam deplorationem What kinde of evill is this which when it came to the highest Ad malum martyriale to martyrdome to death did neither imprint in our holy predecessors in the Primitive Church Timorem any feare that it would come not Tergiversationem any recanting lest it should come nor Pudorem any shame when it was come nor Poenitentiam any repentance that they would suffer it to come nor Deplorationem any lamentation by their heires and Executors because they lost all when it was come Quid mali What kinde of evill can I call this in laying down my life for this Lord of life Cujus reus gaudet Idem when those Martyrs called that guiltinesse a joy Cujus accusatio votum and the accusation a satisfaction Cujus poena foelicitas and the suffering perfect happinesse Love thy neighbour as thy selfe is the farthest of that Commandement but love God above thy selfe for indeed in doing so thou dost but love thy selfe still Remember that thy soule is thy selfe and as if that be lost nothing is gained so if that be gained nothing is lost whatsoever become of this life Love him then Dominus as he is presented to thee here Love the Lord love Christ love Iesus If when thou lookest upon him as the Lord thou findest frowns and wrinkles in his face apprehensions of him as of a Judge and occasions of feare doe not run away from him in that apprehension look upon him in that angle in that line awhile and that feare shall bring thee to love and as he is Lord thou shalt see him in the beauty and lovelinesse of his creatures in the order and succession of causes and effects and in that harmony and musique of the peace between him and thy foule As he is the Lord thou wilt feare him but no man feares God truly but that that feare ends in love Love him as he is the Lord Christus that would have nothing perish that he hath made And love him as he is Christ that hath made himselfe man too that thou mightest not perish Love him as the Lord that could shew mercy and love him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen Returne againe and againe to that mysterious person Christ And let me tell you that though the Fathers never forbore to call the blessed Virgin Mary Deiparam the Mother of God yet in Damascens time they would not admit that name Christiparam that she was the Mother of Christ Not that there is any reason to deny her that name now but because then that great Heretique Nestorius to avoid that name in which the rest agreed Deiparam for he thought not Christ to be God invented a new name Christiparam Though it be true in it self that that blessed Virgin is Christipara yet because it was the invention of an Heretique and a fundamentall Heretique who though he thought Christ to be anointed by the Holy Ghost above his fellowes yet did not beleeve him to be God Damascen and his Age refused that addition to the blessed Virgin So reverently were they affected so jealously were they enamoured of that name Christ the name which implyed his Unction his Commission the Decree by which he was made a Person able to redeeme thy soule And in that contemplation say with Andrew to his brother Peter Invenimus Messiam I have found the Messias I could finde no meanes of salvation in my selfe nay no such meanes to direct God upon by my prayer or by a wish as hee hath taken but God himselfe hath found a way a Messias His Son shall bee made man And Inveni Messiam I have found him and found that he who by his Inearnation was made able to save me so he was Christ by his actuall passion hath saved me and so I love him as Iesus Christ loved Stephen all the way Iesus for all the way Stephen was disposed to Christs glory but in the agony of death death suffered for him Christ expressed his love most in opening the windowes Acts 7.56 the curtaines of heaven it selfe to see Stephen dye and to shew himselfe to Stephen I love my Saviour as he is The Lord He that studies my salvation And as Christ made a person able to work my salvation but when I see him in the third notion Iesus accomplishing my salvation by an actuall death I see those hands stretched out that stretched out the heavens and those feet racked to which they that racked them are foot-stooles I heare him from whom his nearest friends fled pray for his enemies and him whom his Father forsooke not forsake his brethren I see him that cloathes this body with his creatures or else it would wither and cloathes this soule with his Righteousnesse or else it would perish hang naked upon the Crosse And him that hath him that is the Fountaine of the water of life cry out He thirsts when that voyce overtakes me in my crosse wayes in the world Is it nothing to you all you that passe by Lament 1.12 Behold and see if there by any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger When I conceit when I contemplate my Saviour thus I love the Lord and there is a reverent adoration in that love I love Christ and there is a mysterious admiration in that love but I love Iesus and there is a tender compassion in that love and I am content to suffer with him and to suffer for him rather then see any diminution of his glory by my prevarication And he that loves not thus that loves not the Lord God and God manifested in Christ Anathema Maranatha which is our next and our last Part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the Apostle by way of Imprecation 3 Part. Imprecatio that he wished it so or pronounced by way
an Oath There is one event of all sayes he but sayes he This is an evill that it is so But what kinde of evill An evill of vexation because the weake are sometimes scandalized that it is so and the glory of God seems for a time to be obscured when it is so because the good are not discerned from the evill But yet God who knowes best how to repayre his own honour suffers it nay appoints it to be so that just and unjust are wrapped up in the same Judgement The Corne is as much beaten in the threshing as the straw is The just are as much punished here as the unjust Because God of his infinite goodnesse hath elected me from the beginning therefore must he provide that I have another manner of birth or another manner of death then the Reprobate have Must he provide that I be borne into the world without originall sin of a Virgin as his Son was or that I go out of the world by being taken away as Enoch was or as Elias And though we have that one example of such a comming into the world and a few examples of such a going out of the world yet we have no example not in the Son of God himselfe of passing through this world without taking part of the miseries and calamities of the world common to just and unjust to the righteous and unrighteous If Abraham therefore should have intended onely temporall destruction his argument might have been defective for Ezekiel and Daniel and other just men were carried into Captivity as well as the unjust and yet God not unrighteous God does it and avowes it and professes that he will do it and do it justly Occidam in te justum injustum I will cut off the righteous and unrighteous together There is no man so righteous Ezek. 21.3 upon whom God might not justly inflict as heavy judgements in this world as upon the most unrighteous Though he have wrapped him up in the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus himselfe for the next world yet he may justly wrap him up in any common calamity falling upon the unrighteous here But the difference is onely in spirituall destruction Abraham might justly apprehend a feare that a sudden and unprepared death might endanger them for their future state And therefore he does not pray that they might be severed from that judgement because if they dyed with the unrighteous they dyed as the unrighteous if they passed the same way as they out of this world they therefore passed into the same state as they in the next world Abraham could not conclude so but because the best men do alwayes need all meanes of making them better Abraham prayes that God would not cut them off by a sudden destruction from a considering and contemplating the wayes of his proceeding and so a preparing themselves to a willing and to a thankfull embracing of any way which they should so discerne to be his way The wicked are suddenly destroyed and do not see what hand is upon them till that hand bury them in hell The godly may die as suddenly but yet he sees and knows it to be the hand of God and takes hold of that hand and by it is carried up to heaven Now if God be still just though he punish the just with the unjust in this life Sinon parcat much more may he be so though he do not spare the unjust for the righteous sake which is the principall drift of Abrahams expostulation or deprecation God can preserve still so as he did in Aegypt God hath the same Receipts and the same Antidotes which he had to repell the flames of burning furnaces to binde or stupifie the jawes of hungry Lyons to blunt the edge of Swords and overflowing Armyes as he had heretofore Iohn 8.59.18.6 Christ was invisible to his enemies when he would scape away And he was impregnable to his enemies when in his manifestation of himselfe I am he they fell downe before him And he was invulnerable and immortall to his enemies as long as he would be so for if he had not opened himselfe to their violence no man could have taken away his soule And where God sees such deliverances conduce more to his honour then our suffering does he will deliver us so in the times of persecution So that God hath another way and he had another answer for Abrahams petition he might have said There is no ill construction no hard conclusion to be made if I should take away the just with the unjust neither is there any necessity that I should spare the wicked for the righteous I can destroy Sodome and yet save the righteous I can destroy the righteous and yet make death an advantage to them which way soever I take I can do nothing unjustly But yet though God do not binde himselfe to spare the wicked for the righteons yet he descends to do so at Abrahams request The jaw-bone of an Asse in the hand of Samson Tainen id facit was a devouring sword The words of man in the mouth of a faithfull man of Abraham are a Canon against God himselfe and batter down all his severe and heavy purposes for Judgements Yet this comes not God knows out of the weight or force of our words but out of the easinesse of God God puts himselfe into the way of a shot he meets a weak prayer and is graciously pleased to be wounded by that God sets up a light that we direct the shot upon him he enlightens us with a knowledge how and when and what to pray for yea God charges and discharges the Canon himself upon himselfe He fils us with good and religious thoughts and appoints and leaves the Holy Ghost to discharge them upon him in prayer for it is the Holy Ghost himselfe that prayes in us Mauz zim whch is The God of forces is not the name of our God Dan. 11.38 but of an Idoll Our God is the God of peace and of sweetnesse spirituall peace spirituall honey to our souls His name is Deus optimus maximus He is both He is All Greatnesse but he is All Goodnesse first He comes to shew his Greatnesse at last but yet his Goodnesse begins his Name and can never be worne out in his Nature He made the whole world in six dayes but he was seaven in destroying one City Jericho God threatens Adam If thou eate that fruit in that day Morte morieris Thou shalt dye the death Here is a double Death interminated in one Day Now one of these Deaths is spirituall Death and Adam never dyed that Death And for the other Death the bodily Death which might have been executed that day Adam was reprieved above nine hundred yeares To lead all to our present purpose Gods descending to Abrahams petition to spare the wicked for a few just is first and principally to advance his mercy That sometimes in abundant mercy he does
God in Heaven sanctifying all their crosses in this World inanimating all their worldly blessings rayning downe his blood into their emptinesse and his balme into their wounds making their bed in all their sicknesse and preparing their seate where he stands soliciting their cause at the right hand of his Father And so the Minister hath the wings of an Eagle that every soule in the Congregation may see as much as hee sees that is a particular interest in all the mercies of God and the merits of Christ So then these Ministers of God have that double use of their Eagles wings first Vt volent ad escam Job 9.26 as it is in Iob that they may flie up to receive their own food their instructions at the mouth and word of God And then Vt ubi cadaver sit ibi statim adsit as it is in Iob also where the dead are Job 39.33 they also may be That where any lie Pro mortuis as S. Paul speaks for dead 1 Cor. 13.29 as good as dead ready to die upon their death-bed they may be ready to assist them and to minister spirituall Physick opportunely seasonably proportionably to their spirituall necessities That they may powre out upon such sick soules that name of Iesus which is Oleum effusum An oyle and a balme alwaies powring and alwaies spreading it selfe upon all greene wounds and upon all old sores That they may minister to one in his hot and pestilent presumptions an Opiat of Christs Tristis anima A remembrance that even Christ himself had a sad soule towards his death and a Quare dereliquisti some apprehension that God though his God had forsaken him And that therefore no man how righteous soever may presume or passe away without feare and trembling And then to minister to another in his Lethargies and Apoplexies and damps and inordinate dejections of spirit Christs cordials and restoratives in his Clarifica me Pater In an assurance that his Father though he have laid him downe here whether in an inglorious fortune or in a disconsolate bed of sicknesse will raise him in his time to everlasting glory So these Eagles are to have wings to flie Ad cadaver to the dead to those that are so dying a bodily death and also where any lie dead in the practise and custome of sinne to be industrious and earnest in calling them to life againe so as Christ did Lazarus by calling aloud Not aloud in the eares of other men so to expose a sinner to shame and confusion of face but aloud in his own eares to put home the judgments of God thereby to plough and harrow that stubborn heart which will not be kneaded nor otherwise reduced to an uprightnesse For these uses to raise themselves to heavenly contemplations and to make haste to them that need their assistance the Ministers of God have wings wings of great use especially now when there is Coluber in via A snake in every path a Seducer in every house When as the Devill is busie because he knows his time is short so his instruments are busie because they thinke their time is beginning againe therefore the Minister of God hath wings And then Sex alae their wings are numbred in our Text They have six wings For by the consent of most Expositors those whom S. Iohn presents in the figure of these foure Creatures here Esa 6.3 and those whom the Prophet Esay cals Seraphim are the same persons The same Office and the same Voice is attributed unto those Seraphim there as unto these foure Creatures here Those as well as these spend their time in celebrating the Trinity an in crying Holy Holy Holy The Holy Ghost sometimes presents the Ministers of the Gospel as Seraphim in glory that they might be knowne to be the Ministers and dispensers of the mysteries and secrets of God and to come A latere From his Councell his Cabinet his Bosome And then on the other side that you might know that the dispensation of these mysteries of your salvation is by the hand and means of men taken from amongst your selves and that therefore you are not to looke for Revelations nor Extasies nor Visions nor Transportations but to rest in Gods ordinary meanes he brings those persons down againe from that glorious representation as the Seraphim to creatures of an inferiour of an earthly nature For though it be by the sight and in the quality and capacity of those glorious Seraphim that the Minister of God receives his commission and instructions his orders and his faculties yet the execution of his commission and the pursuing of his instructions towards you and in your behalfe is in that nature and in that capacity as they have the courage of the Lyon the laboriousnesse of the Oxe the perspicuity of the Eagle and the affability of Man These winged persons then winged for their own sakes and winged for yours these Ministers of God thus designed by Esay as heavenly Seraphim to procure them reverence from you and by S. Iohn as earthly Creatures to teach you how neere to your selves God hath brought the meanes of your Salvation in his visible and sensible in his appliable and apprehensible Ordinances are in both places that of Esay and this in our Text said to have six wings And six to this use in Esay with two they cover their face with two their feete and with two they flie They cover their face Not all over for then neither the Prophet there nor the Euangelist here could have knowne them to have had these likenesses and these proportions The Ministers of God are not so covered so removed from us as that we have not meanes to know them We know them by their face that is by that declaration which the Church hath given of them to us in giving them their orders and their power over us and we know them by their voyce that is by their preaching of such doctrine as is agreeable to those Articles which we have suckt in from our infancy The Ministers face is not so covered with these wings as that the people have no meanes to know him For his calling is manifest and his doctrine is open to proofe and tryall But they are said to cover their face because they dare not looke confidently they cannot looke fully upon the majesty of the mysteries of God The Euangelists themselves and they that ground their doctrine upon them all which together as we have often said make up these foure persons whom Esay cals Seraphim and S. Iohn inferiour Creatures have not seene all that belongs to the nature and essence of God not all in the attributes and properties of God not all in the decrees and purposes of God no not all in the execution of those purposes and decrees we do not know all that God intends to do we do not know all that God intends in that which he hath done Our faces are covered from having seene
Christ to magnifie his mercy and his glory and to take away all occasion of absolute desperation did here under so many disadvantages call and draw S. Paul to him But we say no more of that of the danger of sinning by precedent Quid factus and presuming of mercy by example we passe from our first Consideration From what to the other To what Christ brought this persecutor this Saul He brought him to that remarkable height as that the Church celebrates the Conversion of no man but this Many bloody Executioners were converted to Christ even in the act of that bloody Execution Then when they tooke a delight in tearing the bowels of Christians they were received into the bowels of Christ Jesus and became Christians Man that road to Market and saw an Execution upon the way Men that opened a window to take ayre and saw an Execution in the street The Ecclesiasticall Story abounds with examples of occasionall Convertits and upon strange occasions but yet the Church celebrates no Conversion but this The Church doth not consider the Martyrs as borne till they die till the world see how they persevered to the end shee takes no knowledge of them Therefore shee cals the dayes of their deaths Natalitia their birth-dayes Then she makes account they are borne when they die But of S. Paul the Church makes her selfe assured the first minute and therefore celebrates his Conversion and none but his Here was a true Transubstantiation and a new Sacrament These few words Saul Saul why persecutest thou me are words of Consecration After these words Saul was no longer Saul but he was Christ Vivit in me Christus sayes he It is not I that live not I that do any thing but Christ in me It is but a little way that S. Chrysostome goes when he speaks of an inferior Transubstantiation of a change of affections and sayes Agnus ex Lupo that here is another manner of Lycanthropy then when a man is made a Wolfe for here a Wolfe is made a Lambe Ex lupo Agnus Ex vepribus racemus sayes that Father A bramble is made a vine Ex zizaniis frumentum Cockle and tares become wheat Ex pirata gubernator A Pirat becomes a safe Pilot Ex novissimo primus The lees are come to swim on the top and the last is growne first and ex abortivo perfectus He that was borne out of time hath not onely the perfection but the excellency of all his lineaments S. Chrysostome goes farther then this Ex blasphemo Os Christi lyraspiritus He that was the mouth of blasphemy is become the mouth of Christ He that was the instrument of Satan is now the organ of the Holy Ghost He goes very far when he sayes In Coelis homo in terris Angelus Being yet but upon earth he is an Angel and being yet but a man he is already in Heaven Yet S. Paul was another manner of Sacrament and had another manner of Transubstantiation then all this As he was made Idem spiritus cum Domino Gal. 6.17 The same spirit with the Lord so in his very body he had Stigmata the very marks of the Lord Jesus From such a lownesse raysed to such a height as that Origen sayes many did beleeve that S. Paul had been that Holy Ghost which Christ had promised to the world after his departing from it It is but a little way that S. Ierome hath carried his commendation neither when he cals him Rugitum leonis The roaring of a Lion if we consider in how little a forest the roaring of a Lion is determined but that he calls him Rugitum Leonis nostri The roaring of our Lion of the Lion of the Tribe of Iuda That as far as Christ is heard S. Paul is heard too Quem quoties lego Idem non verba mihi videor audire sed tonitrua Wheresoever I open S. Pauls Epistles I meet not words but thunder and universall thunder thunder that passes through all the world Theoder For Ejus excaecatio totius or bis illuminatio That that was done upon him wrought upon all the world he was struck blind and all the world saw the better for that So universall a Priest sayes S. Chrysostome who loves to be speaking of S. Paul as that he sacrificed not sheep and goats sed seipsum but himselfe and not onely that sed totum mundum He prepared the whole world as a sacrifice to God He built an Arke that is established a Church and to this day receives not eight but all into that Arke And whereas in Noahs Ark Quem corvum recepit corvum emisit If he came in a Raven he went out a Raven S. Paul in his Arke Ex milvis facit columbas as himself was so he transubstantiates all them and makes them Doves of Ravens Nay so overabsolutely did he sacrifice himselfe and his state in this world for this world as that he sacrificed his reversion his future state the glory and joy of heaven for his brethren and chose rather to be Anathema separated from Christ then they should I love thee sayes S. Chrysostome to Rome for many excellencies many greatnesses But I love thee so well sayes he therefore because S. Paul loved thee so well Qualem Rosam Roma Christo as he pursues this contemplation What a fragrant rose shall Rome present Christ with when he comes to Judgement in re-delivering to him the body of S. Paul And though he joyne them both together Iugati boves Ecclesiae That S. Peter and S. Paul were that yoak of oxen that ploughed the whole Church Though he say of both Quot carceres sanctificastis How many Prisons have you two consecrated and made Prisons Churches Quot catenas illustrastis How many fetters and chains of iron have you two changed into chaines of gold Yet we may observe a difference in S. Chrysostomes expressing of persons so equall to one another Quid Petro majus sayes he But Quid Paulo par fuit What can exceed Peter or what can equall Paul Still be all this far from occasioning any man to presume upon God because he afforded so abundant mercy to a Persecuter but still from this let every faint soule establish it selfe in a confidence in God God that would find nothing to except nothing to quarrell at in S. Paul will not lie heavy upon thy soule though thou must say as he did Quorum ego maximus That thou art a greater sinner then thou knowest any other man to be We are 2 Part. in our order proposed at first devolved now to our second Part from the person and in that what he was found A vehement persecuter And then what he was made A laborious Apostle To the Manner to his Humiliation Cecidit super terram He fell and he fell to the ground and he fell blind as by the history and context appeares We use to call every declination of any kind and in
any subject a falling for for our bodies we say a man is falne sick And for his state falne poore And for his mind falne mad And for his conscience falne desperate we are borne low and yet we fall every way lower so universall is our falling sicknesse Sin it selfe is but a falling The irremediable sin of the Angels The undeterminable sinne of Adam is called but so The fall of Adam The fall of Angels And therefore the effectuall visitation of the holy Ghost to man is called a falling too we are fallen so low as that when the holy Ghost is pleased to fetch us againe and to infuse his grace he is still said to fall upon us But the fall which we consider in the Text is not a figurative falling not into a decay of estate nor decay of health nor a spirituall falling into sin a decay of grace but it is a medicinall falling a falling under Gods hand but such a falling under his hand as that he takes not off his hand from him that is falne but throwes him downe therefore that he may raise him To this posture he brings Paul now when he was to re-inanimate him with his spirit rather to pre-inanimate him for indeed no man hath a soule till he have grace Christ who in his humane nature hath received from the Father all Judgement and power and dominion over this world hath received all this upon that condition that he shall governe in this manner Psal 2.8 Aske of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance sayes the Father How is he to use them when he hath them Thus Thou shalt breake them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potters vessell Now God meant well to the Nations in this bruising and breaking of them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformarion for Christ askes the Nations for an Inheritance not for a triumph therefore it is intended of his way of governing them and his way is to bruise and beat them that is first to cast them downe before he can raise them up first to breake them before he can make them in his fashion August Novit Dominus vulnerare ad amorem The Lord and onely the Lord knowes how to wound us out of love more then that how to wound us into love more then all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound it selfe with the very affliction that he inflicts upon us The Lord knowes how to strike us so as that we shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kisse that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit sayes the same Father No man kills his enemy therefore that his enemy might have a better life in heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end Therefore he brings us to death that by that gate he might lead us into life everlasting And he hath not discovered but made that Northerne passage to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity and tribulation to Paradise to the heavenly Jerusalem There are fruits that ripen not but by frost There are natures there are scarce any other that dispose not themselves to God but by affliction And as Nature lookes for the season for ripening and does not all before so Grace lookes for the assent of the soule and does not perfect the whole worke till that come It is Nature that brings the season and it is Grace that brings the assent but till the season for the fruit till the assent of the soule come all is not done Therefore God begun in this way with Saul and in this way he led him all his life Tot pertulit mortes quot vixit dies He dyed as many deaths as he lived dayes Chrysost for so himselfe sayes Quotidie morior I die daily God gave him sucke in blood and his owne blood was his daily drink He catechized him with calamities at first and calamities were his daily Sermons and meditations after and to authorize the hands of others upon him and to accustome him to submit himself to the hands of others without murmuring Christ himself strikes the first blow and with that Cecidit he fell which was our first consideration in his humiliation and then Cecidit in terram He fell to the ground which is our next I take no farther occasion from this Circumstance but to arme you with consolation In terram how low soever God be pleased to cast you Though it be to the earth yet he does not so much cast you downe in doing that as bring you home Death is not a banishing of you out of this world but it is a visitation of your kindred that lie in the earth neither are any nearer of kin to you then the earth it selfe and the wormes of the earth You heap earth upon your soules and encumber them with more and more flesh by a superfluous and luxuriant diet You adde earth to earth in new purchases and measure not by Acres but by Manors nor by Manors but by Shires And there is a little Quillet a little Close worth all these A quiet Grave And therefore when thou readest That God makes thy bed in thy sicknesse rejoyce in this not onely that he makes that bed where thou dost lie but that bed where thou shalt lie That that God that made the whole earth is now making thy bed in the earth a quiet grave where thou shalt sleep in peace till the Angels Trumpet wake thee at the Resurrection to that Judgement where thy peace shall be made before thou commest and writ and sealed in the blood of the Lamb. Saul falls to the earth So farre But he falls no lower God brings his servants to a great lownesse here but he brings upon no man a perverse sense or a distrustfull suspition of falling lower hereafter His hand strikes us to the earth by way of humiliation But it is not his hand that strikes us into hell by way of desperation Will you tell me that you have observed and studied Gods way upon you all your life and out of that can conclude what God meanes to doe with you after this life That God took away your Parents in your infancy and left you Orphanes then That he hath crossed you in all your labours in your calling ever since That he hath opened you to dishonours and calumnies and mis-interpretations in things well intended by you That he hath multiplied ficknesses upon you and given you thereby an assurance of a miserable and a short life of few and evill dayes nay That he hath suffered you to fall into sins that you your selves have hated To continue in sins that you your selves have been weary of To relapse into sins that you your selves have repented And will you conclude out of this that God had no good purpose upon you that if ever
shall look first how S. Paul contracted this knowledge how he knew it And secondly that the knowledge of it did not disquiet him not disorder him he takes knowledge of it with a confidence and a cheerfulnesse When he sayes I know it he seemes to say I am glad of it or at least not troubled with it And lastly that S. Paul continues here that way and method which he alwayes uses That is to proceed by the understanding to the affections and so to the conscience of those that hear him by such means of perswasion as are most appliable to them to whom he then speaks And therefore knowing the power and efficacy of a dying a departing mans words he makes that impression in them Observe recollect remember practise that which I have delivered unto you for I know that all yee shall see my face no more And so we shall bring up that circle which was begun in heaven in our last exercise upon this occasion in this place when Christ said from thence Saul Saul why persecutest thou me up into heaven againe in that Euge bone serve which Christ hath said since unto him Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy And our Apostle whom in our former Exercise for example of our humiliation we found faln to the Earth in this to the assistance of our Exaltation in his we shall find and leave upon the last step of Iacobs ladder that is entring into Heaven by the gate of death First then in our first Part our first Branch is 1 Part. That there is a Transivi as acceptable to God as a Requievi That God was served in S. Paul by applying his labours to many places as well as if he had resided and bestowed himselfe intirely upon any one When Christ manifested himselfe at first unto him trembling and astonished he said Act. 9.6 Lord what wilt thou have me to doe And when Christ had told him That in Damascus from Ananias he should receive his Instructions which were Ver. 15. That he should beare his name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel After this commission was exhibited by Ananias and accepted by S. Paul that Propheticall Scripture laid hold upon him by way of acclamation Psal 19.6 Exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam He rejoyced as a strong man to run a race 1 Cor. 15.10 Rom. 15.19 He laboured more abundantly then they all He carried the Gospel from Ierusalem to Illyricum That is as S. Hierome survayes it à mari rubro ad oceanum from the Red Sea a Sea within land to the Ocean without from all within to all without the Covenant Gentiles as well as Jews Deficiente eum prius terra quà m studio praedicandi He found an end of the world but he found no end of his zeale but preached as long as he found any to preach to And as he exceeded in Action so did he in Passion too He joynes both together 2 Cor. 11.23 In labours more abundant There was his continuall preaching In stripes above measure And then In prisons more frequent In deaths often Who dyes more then once Yet he dyes often How often Death that is every other mans everlasting fast and fils him his mouth with earth was S. Pauls Panis quotidianus His daily bread I protest sayes he by your rejoycing which I have in Christ I die daily Though therefore we cannot give S. Paul a greater name then an Apostle except there be some extraordinary height of Apostleship enwrapped in that which he sayes of himselfe Gal. 1.1 Paul an Apostle not of men neither by men but by Iesus Christ That in that place he glory in a holy exultation that he was made an Apostle by Jesus Christ then when Jesus Christ was nothing but Jesus Christ then when he was glorified in heaven and not a mortall man upon earth as he was when he made his other Apostles And that in his being an Apostle there entred no such act of men as did in the election of Matthias to that office though Matthias were made after the Ascension as well as he in whose election those men presented God two names and God directed that lot upon him and so Matthias was reckoned amongst the eleven Apostles Though we need not procure to him Acts 1. ult nor imagine for him any other name then an Apostle yet S. Paul was otherwise an universall soule to the whole Church then many of the other Apostles were and had a larger liberty to communicate himselfe to all places then any of them had That is it which S. Chrysostome intends when he extends S. Pauls dignity Angelis diversae Gentes commissae To particular Angels particular Nations are committed sed nullus Angelorum sayes that Father No Angel governed his particular Nation better then S. Paul did the whole Church S. Chrysostome carryes it so high Isidore modifies it thus He brings it from the Angels of heaven to the Angels of the Church Indeed the Archangels of the Church the Apostles themselves And he sayes Apostolorum quisque regionem nactus unicam Every Apostle was designed to some particular and certaine compasse and did but that in that which S. Paul did in the whole world But S. Chrysostome and Isidore both take their ground for that which they say from that which S. Paul sayes of himselfe Besides these things which are without 2 Cor. 11.28 that which commeth upon me daily The care of all the Churches for sayes he who is weak and I am not weak That is who lacks any thing but I am ready to doe it for him who suffers any thing but I have compassion for him We receive by faire Tradition and we entertaine with a faire credulity the other Apostles to have been Bishops and thereby to have had a more certaine center to which naturally that is by the nature of their office they were to encline Not that nothing may excuse a Bishops absence from his Sea for naturall things even naturally doe depart from those places to which they are naturally designed and naturally affected for the conservation of the whole frame and course of nature for in such cases water will ascend and ayre will descend which motion is done naturally though it be a motion from that place to which they are naturally affected And so may Bishops from their particular Churches Cyprian for Episcopus in Ecclesia Ecclesia in Episcopo Every Bishop hath a superintendency and a residence in the whole Church and the whole Church a residence and a confidence in him Therefore it is that in some Decretall and some Synodall Letters Bishops are called Monarchae Monarchs not onely with relation to one Diocesse but to the whole Church not onely Regall but Imperiall Monarchs The Church of Rome makes Bishops every day of Diocesses to which they know those Bishops can never come Not onely in the Dominions of Princes
and dignity and outward splendor The Church of God requires also besides unanimity in fundamentall Doctrines an equanimity and a mildnesse and a charity in handling problematicall points and also requires order and comelinesse in the outward face and habit thereof And so we preach a Kingdome So we preach a Kingdome as that we banish from thence all imaginary fatality and all decretory impossibility of concurrence and cooperation to our owne salvation And yet we banish all pride and confidence that any naturall faculties in us though quickned by former grace can lead us to salvation without a continuall succession of more and more grace And so we preach a Kingdome So as that we banish all spirituall treason in setting up new titles or making any thing equall to God or his Word And we banish all spirituall felony or robbery in despoyling the Church Psal 45.13 either of Discipline or of Possessions either of Order or of Ornaments Be the Kings Daughter all glorious within Yet all her glory is not within For Her cloathing is of wrought gold sayes that text Still may she glory in her internall glory in the sincerity and in the integrity of Doctrinall truths and glory too in her outward comelinesse and beauty So pray we and so preach we the Kingdome of God And so we have done with our first Part. Our second Part 2 Part. to which in our order we are now come is a passionate valediction Now I know that all you shall see my face no more where first we inquire how he knew it But why doe we inquire that They that heard him did not so They heard it and beleeved it Acts 17.10 and lamented it When S. Paul preached at Berea his story sayes that he was better beleeved there then at Thessalonica And the reason is given That there were Nobler persons there Persons of better quality of better natures and dispositions and of more ingenuity and so as it is added They received the word with all readinesse of minde Prejudices and disaffections and under-valuations of the abilities of the Preacher in the hearer disappoint the purpose of the Holy Ghost frustrate the labours of the man and injure and defraud the rest of the Congregation who would and would justly like that which is said if they were not mis-led and shaked by those hearers And so worke also such jealousies and suspitions that though his abilities be good yet his end upon his Auditory is not their edification but to work upon them to other purposes Though we require not an implicite faith in you that you beleeve because we say it yet we require a holy Noblenesse in you A religious good nature a conscientious ingenuity that you remember from whom we come from the King of heaven and in what quality as his Ambassadors And so be apt to beleeve that since we must returne to him that sent us and give him a relation of our negotiation we dare not transgresse our Commission The Bereans are praised for this That they searched the Scriptures daily whether those things that Paul said were so But this begun not at a jealousie or suspition in them that they doubted that that which he said was not so nor proceeded not to a gladnesse or to a desire that they might have taken him in a lie or might have found that that which he said was not so But they searched the Scriptures whether those things were so that so having formerly beleeved him when he preached they might establish that beliefe which they had received by that which was the infallible rocke and foundation of all The Scriptures They searched but they searched for confirmation and not upon suspition In our present case they to whom S. Paul said this doe not aske S. Paul how hee knew that they should see his face no more they beleeved as we doe that he had it by revelation from God and such knowledge is faith Tricubitalis er at coelum attingit sayes S. Chrysostome S. Paul was a man of low stature but foure foot and a halfe high sayes he and yet his head reached to the highest heaven and his eyes saw and his eares heard the counsels of God Scarce any Ambassadour can shew so many Letters of his Masters owne hand as S. Paul could produce Revelations His King came to him as often as other Kings write to their Ambassadours Acts 9.4 Gal. 1.1 Gal. 2. Acts 13. Acts 16. Acts 18. Acts 17. He had his first calling by Revelation He had his Commission his Apostle-ship by Revelation So hee was directed to Jerusalem And so to Rome to both by Revelation and so to Macedonia also So hee was confirmed and comforted in the night by Vision by Revelation And so he was assured of the lives of all them that suffered shipwrack with him at Malta All his Cate chismes in the beginning all his Dictats in his proceeding all his incouragements at his departing were all Revelation Every good man hath his conversation in heaven and heaven it self had a conversation in S. Paul And so even the book of the Acts of the Apostles is as it were a first Part of the book of Revelation Revelations to S. Paul as the other was to S. Iohn This is the way that Christ promised to take with him I will shew him Acts 9.16 Acts 20.11 how great things he must suffer for my sake And this way Christ pursued At Caesarea Agabus a Prophet came from Iudaea to Paul and took Pauls girdle and bound his own hands and feet and said Thus saith the Holy Ghost So shall the Iews binde the man that owes the girdle and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles This then was his case in our text for that revelation by Agabus his Prophesie of his suffering was after this he had a revelation that he should never be seen by them more but when or how or where he should dye he had not had a particular revelation then He sayes a little before our text Ver. 12. I goe bound in the Spirit to Ierusalem That is so bound by the Spirit that if I should not goe I should resist the Spirit But sayes he I know not the things that shall befall me there not at Jerusalem much lesse the last and bitterest things which were farther off the things that should befall him at Rome where he died But from the very first he knew enough of his death to shake any soule that were not sustained by the Spirit of God which is another Branch in this Part That no revelations no apprehensions of death removed him from his holy intrepidnesse and religious constancy We have a story in an Author of S. Hieromes time Palladius Non perterritus that in a Monastery of S. Isidors every Monk that dyed in that house was able and ever did tell all the society that at such a time he should die God does extraordinary things for extraordinary
ends but since we see no such ends nor use of this we are at our liberty to doubt of the thing it selfe God told Simeon that he should not die till he had seen Christ but he did not tell him that he should die as soone as he had seen him But so much as was told him was enough to make him content to die when he had seen him and to come to his Nunc dimittis to that chearfulnesse as to sing his owne Requiem God accustomed S. Paul no doubt to such notifications from him and such apprehensions in himselfe of death as because it was not new it could not be terrible When S. Paul was able to make that protestation I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I die dayly 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 11.23 And againe I am in prisons oft and often in deaths I die often No Executioner could have told him you must die to morrow but he could have said Alas I died yesterday and yesterday was twelve-month and seaven yeare and every yeare and month and weeke and day and houre before that There is nothing so neare Immortality as to die daily for not to feele death is Immortality and onely hee shall never feele death that is exercised in the continuall Meditation thereof Continuall Mortification is Immortality As Cordials lose their vertue and become no Cordials if they be taken every day so poysons do their venome too If a man use himselfe to them in small proportions at first he may grow to take any quantity He that takes a dram of Death to day may take an ounce to morrow and a pound after He that begins with that mortification of denying himselfe his delights which is a dram of Death shall be able to suffer the tribulations of this world which is a greater measure of death and then Death it selfe not onely patiently but cheerefully And to such a man death is not a dissolution but a redintegration not a divorce of body and soule but a sending of both divers wayes the soule upward to Heaven the body downeward to the earth to an indissoluble marriage to him who for the salvation of both assumed both our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Psal 2.17 Therefore does S. Paul say of himselfe If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I joy and rejoyce with you all that is It is a just occasion of our common joy on your part and on mine too And therefore does S. Augustine say in his behalfe whatsoever can be threatned him Si potest vivere tolerabile est Whatsoever does not take away life may be endured for if it could not be endured it would take away life and Si non potest vivere sayes he If it doe take away life what shall he feele when hee is dead He adds the reason of all Opus cum fine merces sine fine Death hath an end but their reward that dye for Christ and their peace that dye in Christ hath no end Therefore was not S. Paul afraid of melancholique apprehensions by drawing his death into contemplation and into discourse he was not afraid to thinke nor to talke of his death But then S. Paul had another end in doing so here which is our last consideration To make the deeper impression in them to whom he preached then by telling them that he knew they should see his face no more This that S. Paul sayes Moriturus he sayes to the Ephesians but not at Ephesus He was departed from thence the yeare before for upon the newes that Claudius the Emperour who persecuted the Christians was dead he purposed to goe by Jerusalem to Rome In that peregrination and visitation of his his way fell out after to be by Miletus a place not far from Ephesus Ver. 22. He was bound in the Spirit as he sayes here to go to Ierusalem and therefore he could not visit them at Ephesus A man may have such obligations even for the service of God upon him as that it shall not be in his power to doe that service which he may owe and desire to pay in some particular Church It was in part S. Pauls case Vers 17. But yet he did what he could from Miletus he sent to Ephesus to call the Elders of that Church thither And then he preached this short but powerfull Sermon And as his manner ever was though still without prevaricating or forbearing to denounce the judgements of God upon them in cases necessary to make those whom he preached or writ to as benevolent and well-affected to him as he could for he was Omnia omnibus Made all things to all men to which purpose it is that he speakes and poures out himselfe Gal 4.14 with such a loving thankfulnesse to the Galatians Ye received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Iesus himselfe pursuing I say this manner of a mutuall endearing and a reciprocall embowelling of himselfe in the Congregation and the Congregation in him as certainely if we consider all unions the naturall union of Parents and children the matrimoniall union of Husband and Wife no union is so spirituall nor so neare to that by which we are made Idem spiritus cum Domino The same Spirit with the Lord as when a good Pastor and a good flock meete and are united in holy affections to one another to unite himselfe to his Ephesians inseparably even after his separation to be still present with them in his everlasting absence and to live with them even after death to make the deeper impressions of all his past and present instructions he speaks to them as a dying man I know you shall see my face no more Why did he so S. Paul did not dye in eleven yeares after this But he dyed to them for bodily presence now They were to see him no more As the day of my death is the day of Judgement to me so this day of his departing was the day of his death to them And for himselfe from this time when he gave this judgement of death upon himselfe all the rest of his life was but a leading far off to the place of execution For first very soone after this Agabus gave him notice of manifold afflictions in that Girdle which we spake of before There he was bound and emprisoned at Jerusalem from thence sent bound to Caesarea practised upon to be killed by the way forced to appeale to Caesar upon that Appeale sent prisoner to Rome ship-wracked upon the way at Malta Emprisoned under guard though not close prisoner two yeares after his comming thither and though dismissed and so enabled to visit some Churches yet laid hold upon againe by Nero and executed So that as it was literally true that the Ephesians never saw his face after this valediction so he may be said to have dyed then in such a sense as himselfe sayes to the Corinthians 1 Cor.
troubling these Sadduces and these Pharisees I be content to let them agree and to divide my life between them so as that my presumption shall possesse all my youth and desperation mine age I have heard my sentence already The end of this man will be worse then his beginning How much soever God be incensed with me for my presumption at first he will be much more inexorable for my desperation at last And therefore interrupt the prescription of sin break off the correspondence of sin unjoynt the dependency of sin upon sin Bring every single sin as soon as thou committest it into the presence of thy God upon those two legs Confession and Detestation and thou shalt see that as though an intire Iland stand firme in the Sea yet a single clod of earth cast into the Sea is quickly washt into nothing so howsoever thine habituall and customary and concatenated sins sin enwrapped and complicated in sin sin entrenched and barricadoed in sin sin screwed up and riveted with sin may stand out and wrastle even with the mercies of God in the blood of Christ Jesus yet if thou bring every single sin into the sight of God it will be but as a clod of earth but as a graine of dust in the Ocean Keep thy sins then from mutuall intelligence That they doe not second one another induce occasion and then support and disguise one another and then neither shall the body of sin ever oppresse thee nor the exhalations and damps and vapors of thy sad soule hang between thee and the mercies of thy God But thou shalt live in the light and serenity of a peaceable conscience here and die in a faire possibility of a present melioration and improvement of that light All thy life thou shalt be preserved in an Orientall light an Easterne light a rising and a growing light the light of grace and at thy death thou shalt be super-illustrated with a Meridionall light a South light the light of glory And be this enough for the explication and application of these words and their complication with the day for the justifying of S. Pauls Stratagem in himselfe and the exemplifying and imitation thereof in us Amen That God that is the God of peace grant us his peace and one minde towards one another That God that is the Lord of Hosts maintaine in us that warre which himself hath proclaimed an enmity between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent between the truth of God and the inventions of men That we may fight his battels against his enemies without and fight his battels against our enemies within our own corrupt affections That we may be victorious here in our selves and over our selves and triumph with him hereafter in eternall glory SERMONS Preached upon the PENITENTIALL PSALMES SERM. L. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine Anger neither chasten me in thy het Displeasure GOD imputes but one thing to David but one sin The matter of Vriah the Hittite nor that neither but by way of exception not till he had first established an assurance that David stood well with him First he had said 1 King 25.5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he had commanded him all the dayes of his life Here was rectitude He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord no obliquity no departing into by-wayes upon collaterall respects Here was integrity to Gods service no serving of God and Mammon Hee turned not from any thing that God commanded him And here was perpetuity perseverance constancy All the dayes of his life And then and not till then God makes that one and but that one exception Except the matter of Vriah the Hittite When God was reconciled to him he would not so much as name that sin that had offended him And herein is the mercy of God in the merits of Christ a sea of mercie that as the Sea retaines no impression of the Ships that passe in it for Navies make no path in the Sea so when we put out into the boundlesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus by which onely wee have reconciliation to God there remaines no record against us for God hath cancelled that record which he kept and that which Satan kept God hath nailed to the Crosse of his Son That man which hath seene me at the sealing of my Pardon and the seale of my Reconciliation at the Sacrament many times since will yet in his passion or in his ill nature or in his uncharitablenesse object to me the fins of my youth whereas God himselfe if I have repented to day knowes not the sins that I did yesterday God hath rased the Record of my sin in Heaven it offends not him it grieves not his Saints nor Angels there and he hath rased the Record in hell it advances not their interest in me there nor their triumph over me And yet here the uncharitable man will know more and see more and remember more then my God or his devill remembers or knowes or sees He will see a path in the Sea he will see my sin when it is drowned in the blood of my Saviour After the Kings pardon perchance it will beare an action to call a man by that infamous name which that crime which is pardoned did justly cast upon him before the pardon After Gods reconciliation to David he would not name Davids sin in the particular But yet for all this though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sinnes when God hath so far exprest his love as to bring that sinner to that repentance and so to mercy yet that he may perfect his owne care he exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinall corrections as may inable him to stand upright for the future And to that purpose was no man evermore exercised then David David broke into anothers family he built upon anothers ground he planted in anothers Seminary and God broke into his family his ground his Seminary In no story can wee finde so much Domestick affliction such rapes and incests and murders and rebellions from their owne children as in Davids storie Under the heavy waight and oppression of some of those is David by all Expositors conceived to have conceived and uttered this Psalme Some take it to have beene occasioned by some of his temporall afflictions either his persecution from Saul or bodily sicknesse in himselfe of which traditionally the Rabbins speake much or Absoloms unnaturall rebellion Some others with whom wee finde more reason to joyne finde more reason to interpret it of a spirituall affliction that David in the apprehension and under the sense of the wrath and indignation of God came to this vehement exclamation or deprecation O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure In which words we shall consider
for so is it twice taken in one verse Psal 58.4 Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent so that this Hot displeasure is that poison of the soule obduration here and that extention of this obduration a finall impenitence in this life and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next to dye without any actuall penitence here and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter David therefore foresees that if God Rebuke in anger it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure 1 Sam. 2.25 For what should stop him For If a man sinne against the Lord who will plead for him sayes Eli Plead thou my cause sayes David It is onely the Lord that can be of counsell with him and plead for him and that Lord is both the Judge and angry too So Davids prayer hath this force Rebuke me not in anger for though I were able to stand under that yet thou wilt also Chasten mee in thine hot displeasure and that no soule can beare for as long as Gods anger lasts so long he is going on towards our utter destruction In that State it is not a State in that Exinanition in that annihilation of the soule it is not an annihilation the soule is not so happy as to come to nothing but in that misery which can no more receive a name then an end all Gods corrections are borne with grudging with murmuring with comparing our righteousnesse with others righteousnesse Job 7.20 In Iobs impatience Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi Why hast thou set me up as a marke against thee O Thou preserver of men Thou that preservest other men hast bent thy bow I. am 3.12 and made me a mark for thine arrowes sayes the Lamentation In that state we cannot cry to him that he might answer us If we doe cry and he answer we cannot heare Job 9.16 if we doe heare we cannot beleeve that it is he Cum invocantem exaudierit sayes Iob If I cry and he answer yet I doe not beleeve that he heard my voyce We had rather perish utterly Ver. 23. then stay his leisure in recovering us Si flagellat occidat semel sayes Iob in the Vulgat If God have a minde to destroy me let him doe it at one blow Et non de poenis rideat Let him not sport himselfe with my misery Whatsoever come after we would be content to be out of this world so we might but change our torment whether it be a temporall calamity that oppresses our state or body or a spirituall burthen a perplexity that sinks our understanding or a guiltinesse that depresses our conscience Vt in inferno protegas Job 14.13 as Iob also speaks O that thou wouldest hide me In inferno In the grave sayes the afflicted soule but in Inferno In hell it selfe sayes the dispairing soule rather then keepe me in this torment in this world This is the miserable condition or danger that David abhors and deprecates in this Text To be rebuked in anger without any purpose in God to amend him and to be chastned in his hot displeasure so as that we can finde no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel no conditions no power of revocation in the severe threatnings of the Law no difference between those torments which have attached us here and the everlasting torments of Hell it selfe That we have lost all our joy in this life and all our hope of the next That we would faine die though it were by our own hands and though that death doe but unlock us a doore to passe from one Hell into another This is Ira tua Domine faror tuus Thy anger O Lord and Thy hot displeasure For as long as it is but Ira patris the anger of my Father which hath dis-inherited me Gold is thine and silver is thine and thou canst provide me As long as it is but Ira Regis some mis-information to the King some mis-apprehension in the King Cor Regis in manu tua The Kings heart is in thy hand and thou canst rectifie it againe As long as it is but Furor febris The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever or Furor furoris The rage of madnesse it selfe thou wilt consider me and accept me and reckon with me according to those better times before those distempers overtooke me and overthrew me But when it comes to be Ira tua furor tuus Thy anger and Thy displeasure as David did so let every Christian finde comfort if he be able to say faithfully this Verse this Text O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure for as long as he can pray against it he is not yet so fallen under it but that he hath yet his part in all Gods blessings which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons and which we seale to every soule in the Sacrament of Reconcilation SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long THis whole Psalme is prayer And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory as in the first verse or Postulatory Something David would have forborne and something done And in that Postulatory part of Davids prayer which goes through six verses of this Psalme we consider the Petitions and the Inducements What David asks And why of both which there are some mingled in these two verses which constitute our Text. And therefore in them we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions and some of the Reasons For in the Prayer there are five petitions First Miserere Have mercy upon me Thinke of me looke graciously towards me prevent me with thy mercy And then Sana me O Lord heale me Thou didst create me in health but my parents begot me in sicknesse and I have complicated other sicknesses with that Actuall with Originall sin O Lord heale me give me physick for them And thirdly Convertere Returne O Lord Thou didst visit me in nature returne in grace Thou didst visit me in Baptisme returne in the other Sacrament Thou doest visit me now returne at the houre of my death And in a fourth petition Eripe O Lord deliver my soule Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me and thy benefits I make occasions of sinne In all conversation and even in my solitude I admit such tentations from others or I produce such tentations in my selfe as that whensoever thou art pleased to returne to me thou findest me at the brinke of some sinne and therefore Eripe me O Lord take hold of me and deliver me And lastly Salvum me fac O Lord save me Manifest thy good purpose upon me so that I may never be shaken or never overthrown in the faithfull hope of that salvation which thou hast preordained for me These are
conformity to Angels But divers others of the Ancients have taken Soule and Spirit for different things even in the Intellectuall part of man somewhat obscurely I confesse and as some venture to say unnecessarily if not dangerously It troubled S. Hierome sometimes Ad Hedibiam l. 12. Epist 150 how to understand the word Spirit in man but he takes the easiest way he dispatches himselfe of it as fast as he could that is to speake of it onely as it was used in the Scriptures Famosa quaestio sayes he sed brevi sermone tractanda It is a question often disputed but may be shortly determined Idem spiritus hic ac in iis verbis Nolite extinguere spiritum When we heare of the Spirit in a Man in Scriptures we must understand it of the gifts of the Spirit for so fully to the same purpose sayes S. Chrysostome Spiritus est charisma spiritus The Spirit is the working of the Spirit The gifts of the Spirit and so when we heare The Spirit was vexed The Spirit was quenched still it is to be understood The gifts of the Spirit And so as they restraine the signification of Spirit to those gifts onely though the word do indeed in many places require a larger extension so do many restraine this word in our text The Soule onely Ad sensum to the sensitive faculties of the soule that is onely to the paine and anguish that his body suffered But so far at least David had gone in that which he said before My bones are vexed Now Ingravescit morbus The disease festers beyond the bone even into the marrow it selfe His Bones were those best actions that he had produced and he saw in that Contemplation that for all that he had done he was still at best but an unprofitable servant if not a rebellious enemy But then when he considers his whole soule and all that ever it can do he sees all the rest will be no better The poyson he sees is in the fountaine the Canker in the roote the rancor the venom in the soule it selfe Corpus instrumentum anima ars ipsa sayes S. Basil The body and the senses are but the tooles and instruments that the soule works with But the soule is the art the science that directs those Instruments The faculties of the soule are the boughs that produce the fruits and the operations and particular acts of those faculties are the fruits but the soule is the roote of all And David sees that this art this science this soule can direct him or establish him in no good way That not onely the fruits his particular acts nor onely the boughs and armes his severall faculties but the roote it selfe the soule it selfe was infected His bones are shaken he dares not stand upon the good he hath done his soule is so too he cannot hope for any good he shall do He hath no merit for the past he hath no free-will for the future that is his case This troubles his bones Turbata this troubles his soule this vexes them both for the word is all one in both places as our last Translators have observed and rendred it aright not vexed in one place and troubled in the other as our former Translators had it But in both places it is Bahal and Bahal imports a vehemence both in the intensnesse of it and in the suddennesse and inevitablenesse of it And therefore it signifies often Praecipitantiam A headlong downfall and irrecoverablenesse And often Evanescentiam an utter vanishing away and annihilation David whom we alwayes consider in the Psalmes not onely to speake literally of those miseries which were actually upon himselfe but prophetically too of such measures and exaltations of those miseries as would certainly fall upon them as did not seeke their sanation their recovery from the God of all health looking into all his actions they are the fruits and into all his faculties they are the boughs and into the root of all the soule it selfe considering what he had done what he could do he sees that as yet he had done no good he sees he should never be able to doe any His bones are troubled He hath no comfort in that which is growne up and past And his soule is sore troubled for to the trouble of the soule there is added in the Text that particle Valde It is a sore trouble that falls upon the soule A troubled spirit who can beare because he hath no hope in the future He was no surer for that which was to come then for that which was past But he that is all considered in that case which he proposes he comes as the word signifies ad praecipitantiam That all his strength can scarce keepe him from precipitation into despaire And he comes as the word signifies too ad Evanescentiam to an evaporating and a vanishing of his soule that is even to a renouncing and a detestation of his immortality and to a willingnesse to a desire that he might die the death of other Creatures which perish altogether and goe out as a Candle This is the trouble the sore trouble of his soule who is brought to an apprehension of Gods indignation for not performing Conditions required at his hands and of his inability to performe them and is not come to the contemplation of his mercy in supply thereof There is Turbatio Timoris Mat. 2.3 Psal 107.27 A trouble out of feare of danger in this world Herods trouble When the Magi brought word of another King Herod was troubled and all Ierusalem with him There is Turbatio confusionis The Mariners trouble in a tempest Their soule melteth for trouble Luk. 10.41 Luk. 1.29 sayes David There is Turbatio occupationis Martha's trouble Martha thou art troubled about many things sayes Christ There is Turbatio admirationis The blessed Virgins trouble When she saw the Angel she was troubled at his saying To contract this John 11.33 There is Turbatio compassionis Christs own trouble When he saw Mary weepe for her brother Lazarus he groaned in the spirit and was troubled in himselfe But in all these troubles Herods feare The Mariners irresolution Martha's multiplicity of businesse The blessed Virgins sudden amazement Our Saviours compassionate sorrow as they are in us worldly troubles so the world administers some means to extemiate and alleviate these troubles for feares are overcome and stormes are appeased and businesses are ended and wonders are understood and sorrows weare out But in this trouble of the bones and the soule in so deepe and sensible impressions of the anger of God looking at once upon the pravity the obliquity the malignity of all that I have done of all that I shall doe Man hath but one step between that state and despaire to stop upon to turne to the Author of all temporall and all spirituall health the Lord of life with Davids prayer Psal 51.10 Cor mundum crea Create a cleane heart within me
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and â—etestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
may drive him from us Pray we therefore our Lord of everlasting goodnesse That he will be our Hiding-place That hee will protect us from tentations incident to our severall Callings That hee will preserve us from troubles preserve us from them or preserve us in them preserve us that they come not or preserve us that they overcome not And that hee will compasse us so as no enemy find overture unto us and compasse us with songs with a joyfull sense of our perseverance but yet with cries too with a solicitous feare that that multiplicity and hainousnesse of our sins may weary even the incessant and indefatigable Spirit of comfort himselfe and chase him from us SERM. LXI Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.8 I will Instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye THis verse more then any other in the Psalme answers the Title of the Psalme The title is Davids Instruction and here in the Text it is said I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt goe There are eleven Psalmes that have that Title Psalmes of Instruction The whole booke is Sepher Tehillim The booke of prayses and it is a good way of praysing God to receive Instruction Instruction how to praise him Therefore doth the holy Ghost returne so often to this Catechisticall way Instruction Institution as to propose so many Psalmes expresly under that Title purposely to that use In one of those The manner how Instruction should be given is expressed also Psal 45. Bernard It must be in a loving maner for the Title is Canticum Amorum A song of love for Instruction For Absque prudentia benevolentia non sunt perfecta consilia True Instruction is a making love to the Congregation and to every soule in it but it is but to the soule And so when S. Paul said He was mad for their sakes Insanivit Amatoriam insaniam sayes Theophylact S. Paul was mad for love of them to whom he writ his holy love-letters his Epistles And thereupon doe the Rabbins call this Psalme Leb David Cor Davidis The opening and powring out of Davids heart to them whom he instructs Wee have no way into your hearts but by sending our hearts The Poets counsell is Vt ameris ama If thou wouldst be truely loved doe thou love truely The holy Ghosts precept upon us is Vt credaris crede That if we would have you beleeve wee beleeve our selves It is not to our Eloquence that God promises a blessing but to our sincerity not to our tongue but to our heart All our hope of bringing you to love God is in a loving and hearty maner to propose Gods love to you The height of the Spouses love to Christ came but to that Cant. 2.5 I am sicke of love The love of Christ went farther To die for love Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 but nothing else is as strong as either and both Love and Death met in Christ How strong and powerfull upon you then should that Instruction be that comes to you from both these The Love and Death of Christ Jesus and such an Instruction doth this text exhibite I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye God so loved the world as that he sent his Sonne to die The Sonne being dead so loved the world as that he returned to that world againe and being ascended sent the holy Ghost to establish a Church and in that Church Vsque ad consummationem till the end of the world shall that holy Spirit execute this Catechisticall Office He shall instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe He shall guide thee with his eye Though then some later Expositors have doubted of the person who doth this Office Divisio To Instruct who this I in our Text is because the Hebrew word Le David is as well Davidis as Davidi An Instruction from David as an Instruction to David and so the Catechist may seeme to be David and no more yet since this Criticisme upon the word Le David argues but a possibility that it may and not a necessity that it must be so wee accompany S. Hierome and indeed the whole body of the Fathers in accepting this Instruction from God himselfe it is no other then God himselfe that sayes I will instruct thee c. No other then God himselfe can undertake so much as is promised in this text For here is first a rectifying of the understanding I will instruct thee and in the Originall there is somewhat more then our Translation reaches to It is there Intelligere faciam te I will moke thee understand Man can instruct God onely can make us understand And then it is Faciam te I will make Thee Thee understand The worke is the Lords The understanding is the mans for God does not worke in man as the Devill did in Idols and In Pythonissis and In Ventriloquis in possest persons who had no voluntary concurrence with the action of the Devill but were meerely Passive God works so in man as that he makes man worke too Faciam Te I will make Thee understand That that shall be done shall be done by mee but in Thee the Power that rectifies the act is Gods the Act is mans Faciam te sayes God I will make thee thee every particular person for that arises out of this singular and distributive word Thee which threatens no exception no exclusion I wil make every person to whom I present Instruction capable of that Instruction and if he receive it not it is onely his and not my fault And so this first part is an Instruction De credendis of such things as by Gods rectifying of our understanding we are bound to beleeve And then in a second part there followes a more particular Instructing Docebo I will teach thee And that In via In the way It is not onely De via To teach thee which is the way that thou maiest finde it but In via How to keepe the way when thou art in it He will teach thee not onely Vt gradiaris That thou maiest walke in it and not sleepe but Quo modo gradieris How thou mayest walke in it and not stray And so this second part is an Institution De agendis of those things which thine understanding being formerly rectified and deduced into a beliefe thou art bound to do And then in the last words of the text I will guide thee with mine eye there is a third part an establishment a confirmation by an incessant watchfulnesse in God He will consider consult upon us for so much the Originall word imports He will not leave us to Contingencies to Fortune no nor to his owne generall Providence by which all Creatures are universally in his protection and administration but he will ponder us
upon such a reliefe Many men are in as ill case as I why am I so sensible of it and they make shift to patch up a comfort of that kinde out of some chips of Poets and fragmentary sentences And they that cannot finde this reliefe ready made will make shift to make it when they are under the burden of a defamation of an ill name they will cast aspersions of the same crime upon as many as they can and thinke themselves the better if they can make others be thought as ill as they But all these are amongst Iobs miserable comforters It is a part of our joy in Heaven that every mans joy shall be my joy I shall have fulnesse of salvation in my selfe and I shall have as many salvations as there are soules saved But in hell there is no one feather towards such a Pillow no degree of ease in the communication of the torment Every soule shall murmure against God and curse God for damning every other soule as well as for damning his Though they would have them damned that are damned yet they shall reproach God for damning them And though they wish all the Saints in Heaven in hell yet they shall call it tyrannie in God to have sent a Cain or an Achitophel or a Iudas thither And as the person whom we consider in this text is an embryon of the Devill Genimina viperarum The spawne of the Devill a potentiall and as we said an inchoated Devill so is the torment this sorrow a Lucifer Such a Lucifer as hell can send out not a light of any light but a cloud of that darknesse As sure as this man The wicked shall be a Devill so sure this sorrow shall end not end but reach to hell Yet when all this is thus said said with a holy vehemence with a zealous animosity as indeed belongs to the denouncing of Gods judgements yet may wee not be askt where is there any such person or upon whom works there any such sorrow Is it alwaies true that the wicked make no good use of afflictions or is it alwaies true that they have them The first may admit a doubt for if God justifie the ungodly Rom. 8.5 God justifieth the ungodly then their affliction may be a way to prepare justification in them as well as in them whom we call godly And if Christ dyed for the ungodly Rom. 5.6 Christ dyed for the Vngodly they also may fulfill his sufferings in their flesh and their afflictions may produce good effects But for that they which are called ungodly in both those places are only such as were ungodly before Gods justification began to work upon them before Christs Death began to be applied to them but did not continue in their ungodlinesse after But these ungodly persons whom afflictions supple and mollifie no farther but to an intemperate and excruciating and exclamatory sorrow and continue ungodly still are such as never have good effect of affliction or sorrow But then have these alwaies affliction inflicted upon them one would doubt it by that in Iob The Tabernacles of robbers do prosper and they are in safety that provoke God Iob 12.6 Gods children are robbed and spoiled by the wicked and the wicked shew it in Gods face they hide not their Theft they maintaine publiquely their Wantonnesse and their Excesses with the spoile of the poore They have it and they will hold it and they bid God bring his action and recover how he can This the Prophet Ieremy saw and was affected and scandalized with it O Lord if I plead with thee thou art righteous Ier. 12.1 I know thou canst maintaine and make good that which thou hast done But yet saies hee Let me talke with thee of thy judgements wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are all they happy that deale very treacherously Why their wayes prosper in a just punishment of God for their former sins that they may have a larger and a broader way to destruction and they are happy in temporall happinesses that they may have more occasions of smarting If their wealth sticke not to their heires in a third generation call them not Rich If their prosperity cleave not to their soules call them not Happy He is a poor man whose wealth can be writ in an Inventorie That hath lockt all in such an iron Chest in such a Cabinet and hath sent up nothing to meet him in Heaven As all the wealth of the wicked is but counterfeit so is all the joy that they have in it counterfeit too And howsoever they disguise their sorrow yet if their torment be invisible to us it is the liker hell If we know not how they are afflicted it is the liker hell Their damnation sleepeth not nor they neither And when at midnight their owne consciences are a thousand witnesses to them it is but a poore ease that other men doe not know that they are those wicked persons and their sorrow the sorrow of this text that they are The wicked and their sorrowes many and great and eternall sorrowes But I would be glad to reserve as much time as I could for the other part The person and The portion that is in the other scale Mercy shall compasse c. In this part we will begin with the persons For when wee come to their portion 2 Part. with which we must end of that we shall be able to finde no end nay no beginning for it begins with Mercy Mercy shall compasse them and mercy is as much without beginning as eternall as God himselfe and it flowes on to joy and gladnesse and exultation and this joy shall no more see an end of it selfe then God himselfe shall see an end of himselfe Upon the persons we have three characters and in their portions wee have three waights Three degrees of goodnesse in their persons three degrees of greatnesse in their portions The persons first Trust in God and then They are Righteous and lastly They are upright in heart So also the reward is first Inward joy and then Outward declaration and lastly An exemplary working upon others And then all these are rooted in the roote of all that mercy shall compasse them First then They trust in God And that first Exclusivè They trust in him so Trust in God as that they trust in nothing else and Inclusivè too so as that they do actually and positively trust in God Some have bin so beaten out of all confidences in this world so evacuated of former power so devested of former favour so dispoiled of former treasures as that they are brought to trust in nothing else But then they trust not in God neither August Quia Deo non audent dare iniquitatem auferunt ei gubernationem Because they dare not say that God does any thing ill they come to say that God does nothing at all and to avoid the making of an unjust God they make
and that dejection of spirit which the Adversary by temporall afflictions would induce upon me is an act of his Power So this Metaphor The shadow of his wings which in this place expresses no more then consolation and refreshing in misery and not a powerfull deliverance out of it is so often in the Scriptures made a denotation of Power too as that we can doubt of no act of power if we have this shadow of his wings For in this Metaphor of Wings doth the Holy Ghost expresse the Maritime power the power of some Nations at Sea in Navies Woe to the land shadowing with wings that is Esay 18.1 that hovers over the world and intimidates it with her sailes and ships In this Metaphor doth God remember his people of his powerfull deliverance of them Exod. 19.14 You have seene what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you to my selfe In this Metaphor doth God threaten his and their enemies what hee can doe Ezek. 1.24 The noise of the wings of his Cherubims are as the noise of great waters and of an Army So also what hee will doe Hee shall spread his wings over Bozrah Ier. 49.22 and at that day shall the hearts of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs So that if I have the shadow of his wings I have the earnest of the power of them too If I have refreshing and respiration from them I am able to say as those three Confessors did to Nebuchadnezzar My God is able to deliver me I am sure he hath power And my God will deliver me Dan. 3.17 when it conduces to his glory I know he will But if he doe not bee it knowne unto thee O King we will not servethy Gods Be it knowne unto thee O Satan how long soever God deferre my deliverance I will not seeke false comforts the miserable comforts of this world I will not for I need not for I can subsist under this shadow of these Wings though I have no more The Mercy-seat it selfe was covered with the Cherubims Wings Exod. 25.20 and who would have more then Mercy and a Mercy-seat that is established resident Mercy permanent and perpetuall Mercy present and familiar Mercy a Mercy-seat Our Saviour Christ intends as much as would have served their turne if they had laid hold upon it when hee sayes That hee would have gathered Ierusalem Matt. 23.37 as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings And though the other Prophets doe as ye have heard mingle the signification of Power and actuall deliverance in this Metaphor of Wings yet our Prophet whom wee have now in especiall consideration David never doth so but in every place where hee uses this Metaphor of Wings which are in five or sixe severall Psalmes still hee rests and determines in that sense which is his meaning here That though God doe not actually deliver us nor actually destroy our enemies yet if hee refresh us in the shadow of his Wings if he maintaine our subsistence which is a religious Constancy in him this should not onely establish our patience for that is but halfe the worke but it should also produce a joy and rise to an exultation which is our last circumstance Therefore in the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice I would always raise your hearts and dilate your hearts to a holy Joy Gaudium to a joy in the Holy Ghost There may be a just feare that men doe not grieve enough for their sinnes but there may bee a just jealousie and suspition too that they may fall into inordinate griefe and diffidence of Gods mercy And God hath reserved us to such times as being the later times give us even the dregs and lees of misery to drinke For God hath not onely let loose into the world a new spirituall disease which is an equality and an indifferency which religion our children or our servants or our companions professe I would not keepe company with a man that thought me a knave or a traitor with him that thought I loved not my Prince or were a faithlesse man not to be beleeved I would not associate my selfe And yet I will make him my bosome companion that thinks I doe not love God that thinks I cannot be saved but God hath accompanied and complicated almost all our bodily diseases of these times with an extraordinary sadnesse a predominant melancholy a faintnesse of heart a chearlesnesse a joylesnesse of spirit and therefore I returne often to this endeavor of raising your hearts dilating your hearts with a holy Joy Joy in the holy Ghost for Vnder the shadow of his wings you may you should rejoyce If you looke upon this world in a Map you find two Hemisphears two half worlds If you crush heaven into a Map you may find two Hemisphears too two half heavens Halfe will be Joy and halfe will be Glory for in these two the joy of heaven and the glory of heaven is all heaven often represented unto us And as of those two Hemisphears of the world the first hath been knowne long before but the other that of America which is the richer in treasure God reserved for later Discoveries So though he reserve that Hemisphear of heaven which is the Glory thereof to the Resurrection yet the other Hemisphear the Joy of heaven God opens to our Discovery and delivers for our habitation even whilst we dwell in this world As God hath cast upon the unrepentant sinner two deaths a temporall and a spirituall death so hath he breathed into us two lives Gen. 2.17 for so as the word for death is doubled Morte morieris Thou shalt die the death so is the word for life expressed in the plurall Chaiim vitarum God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives of divers lives Though our naturall life were no life but rather a continuall dying yet we have two lives besides that an eternall life reserved for heaven but yet a heavenly life too a spirituall life even in this world And as God doth thus inflict two deaths and infuse two lives so doth he also passe two Judgements upon man or rather repeats the same Judgement twice For that which Christ shall say to thy soule then at the last Judgement Matt. 25.23 Enter into thy Masters joy Hee sayes to thy conscience now Enter into thy Masters joy The everlastingnesse of the joy is the blessednesse of the next life but the entring the inchoation is afforded here For that which Christ shall say then to us Verse 24. Venite benedicti Come ye blessed are words intended to persons that are comming that are upon the way though not at home Here in this world he bids us Come Luk. 15.10 there in the next he shall bid us Welcome The Angels of heaven have joy in thy conversion and canst thou bee without that joy in thy selfe
possesse immortality and impossibility of dying onely in a continuall dying when as a Cabinet whose key were lost must be broken up and torne in pieces before the Jewell that was laid up in it can be taken out so thy body the Cabinet of thy soule must be shaked and shivered by violent sicknesse before that soule can goe out And when it is thus gone out must answer for all the imperfections of that body which body polluted it And yet though this soule be such a loser by that body it is not perfectly well nor fully satisfied till it be reunited to that body againe when thou remembrest Mat. 26.36 and oh never forget it that Christ himselfe was heavy in his soule unto Death Mat. 26.39 That Christ himselfe came to a Si possibile If it be possible let this Cup passe That he came to a Quare dereliquisti Mat. 27.46 a bitter sense of Gods dereliction and forsaking of him when thou considerest all this compose thy selfe for death but thinke it not a light matter to dye Death made the Lyon of Judah to roare and doe not thou thinke that that which we call going away like a Lambe doth more testifie a conformity with Christ then a strong sense and bitter agony and colluctation with death doth Christ gave us the Rule in the Example He taught us what we should doe by his doing it And he pre-admitted a fearfull apprehension of death A Lambe is a Hieroglyphique of Patience but not of stupidity And death was Christs Consummatum est All ended in death yet he had sense of death How much more doth a sad sense of our transmigration belong to us to whom death is no Consummatum est but an In principio our account and our everlasting state begins but then Apud te propitiatio Psal 130.4 ut timearis In this knot we tie up all With thee there is mercy that thou mightest be feared There is a holy feare that does not onely consist with an assurance of mercy Pro. 21.15 but induces constitutes that assurance Pavor operantibus iniquitatem sayes Solomon Pavor horror and servile feare jealousie and suspition of God diffidence and distrust in his mercy and a bosome-prophecy of self-destruction Destruction it selfe so we translate it be upon the workers of iniquity Pavor operantibus iniquitatem And yet sayes that wise King Pro. 28.14 Beatus qui semper Pavidus Blessed is that man that alwayes fears who though he alwayes hope and beleeve the good that God will shew him yet also feares the evills that God might justly multiply upon him Blessed is he that looks upon God with assurance but upon himselfe with feare For though God have given us light by which we may see him even in Nature for He is the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a far of upon the Sea Though God have given us a clearer light in the Law and experience of his providence upon his people throughout the Old Testament Though God have abundantly infinitely multiplied these lights and these helpes to us in the Christian Church where he is the God of salvation yet as he answers us by terrible things in that first acceptation of the words which I proposed to you that is Gives us assurances by miraculous testimonies in our behalfe that he will answer our patient expectation by terrible Judgements and Revenges upon our enemies In his Righteousnesse that is In his faithfulnesse according to his Promises and according to his performances of those Promises to his former people So in the words considered the other way In his Holinesse that is in his wayes of imprinting Holinesse in us He answers us by terrible things in all those particulars which we have presented unto you By infusing faith but with that terrible addition Damnabitur He that beleeveth not shall be damned He answers us by composing our manners and rectifying our life and conversation but with terrible additions of censures and Excommunications and tearings off from his own body which is a death to us and a wound to him He answers us by enabling us to speake to him in Prayer but with terrible additions for the matter for the manner for the measure of our Prayer which being neglected our very Prayer is turned to sin He answers us in Preaching but with that terrible commination that even his word may be the savor of death unto death He answers us in the Sacrament but with that terrible perplexity and distraction that he that seemes to be a Iohn or a Peter a Loving or a Beloved Disciple may be a Iudas and he that seems to have received the seale of his reconciliation may have eat and drunke his own Damnation And he answers us at the houre of death but with this terrible obligation That even then I make sure my salvation with feare and trembling That so we imagine not a God of wax whom we can melt and mold when and how we will That we make not the Church a Market That an over-homelines and familiarity with God in the acts of Religion bring us not to an irreverence nor indifferency of places But that as the Militant Church is the porch of the Triumphant so our reverence here may have some proportion to that reverence which is exhibited there Revel 4.10 where the Elders cast their Crownes before the Throne and continue in that holy and reverend acclamation Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power for as we may adde from this Text By terrible things O God of our salvation doest thou answer us in righteousnesse SERM. LXIX The fifth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee IT is well said so well as that more then one of the Fathers seeme to have delighted themselves in having said it Titulus Clavis The Title of the Psalme is the Key of the Psalme the Title opens the whole Psalme The Church of Rome will needs keepe the Key of heaven and the key to that Key the Scriptures wrapped up in that Translation which in no case must be departed from There the key of this Psalm the Title thereof hath one bar wrested that is made otherwise then he that made the Key the Holy Ghost intended it And another bat inserted that is one clause added which the Holy Ghost added not Where we reade in the Title Victori To the chiefe Musician they reade In finem A Psalme directed upon the end I think they meane upon the later times because it is in a great part a Propheticall Psame of the calling of the Gentiles But after this change they also adde Resurrectionis A Psalme concerning the Resurrection and that is not in the Hebrew nor any thing in the place thereof And after one Author
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presenâ—â— Horrendum est sayes the Apostle It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Yet there was a case in which David found an ease to fall into the hands of God to scape the hands of men Horrendum est when Gods hand is bent to strike it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression beyond our imagination That God should let my soule fall out of his hand into a bottomlesse pit and roll an unremoveable stone upon it and leave it to that which it finds there and it shall finde that there which it never imagined till it came thither and never thinke more of that soule never have more to doe with it That of that providence of God that studies the life of every weed and worme and ant and spider and toad and viper there should never never any beame flow out upon me that that God who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me when I was not as though I had been out of the womb and depth of darknesse will not looke upon me now when though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his glory even in my damnation that that God who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleannesse and when I had shut out the eye of the day the Sunne and the eye of the night the Taper and the eyes of all the world with curtaines and windowes and doores did yet see me and see me in mercy by making me see that he saw me and sometimes brought me to a present remorse and for that time to a forbearing of that sinne should so turne himselfe from me to his glorious Saints and Angels as that no Saint nor Angel nor Christ Jesus himselfe should ever pray him to looke towards me never remember him that such a soule there is that that God who hath so often said to my soule Quare morier is Why wilt thou die and so often sworne to my soule Vivit Dominus As the Lord liveth I would not have thee dye but live will nether let me dye nor let me live but dye an everlasting life and live an everlasting death that that God who when he could not get into me by standing and knocking by his ordinary meanes of entring by his Word his mercies hath applied his judgements and hath shaked the house this body with agues and palsies and set this house on fire with fevers and calentures and frighted the Master of the house my soule with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made an entrance into me That that God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises upon me and leave me and cast me away as though I had cost him nothing that this God at last should let this soule goe away as a smoake as a vapour as a bubble and that then this soule cannot be a smoake a vapour nor a bubble but must lie in darknesse as long as the Lord of light is light it selfe and never sparke of that light reach to my soule What Tophet is not Paradise what Brimstone is not Amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally from the sight of God Especially to us for as the perpetuall losse of that is most heavy with which we have been best acquainted and to which wee have been most accustomed so shall this damnation which consists in the losse of the sight and presence of God be heavier to us then others because God hath so graciously and so evidently and so diversly appeared to us in his pillar of fire in the light of prosperity and in the pillar of the Cloud in hiding himselfe for a while from us we that have seene him in all the parts of this Commission in his Word in his Sacraments and in good example and not beleeved shall be further removed from his sight in the next world then they to whom he never appeared in this But Vincenti credenti to him that beleeves aright and overcomes all tentations to a wrong beliefe God shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse and fulnesse of joy and joy rooted in glory and glory established in eternity and this eternity is God To him that beleeves and overcomes God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and fruition Amen SERM. LXXVII Preached at S. PAULS May 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead I Entred into the handling of these words upon Easter day for though the words have received divers Expositions good and pervers yet all agreed that the words were an argument for the Resurrection and that invited me to apply them to that Day At that Day I entred into them with Origens protestation Odit Dominus qui festum ejus unum putat diem God hates that man that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day that never thinks of the Resurrection but upon Easter day And therefore I engaged my selfe willingly according to the invitation and almost the necessity of the words which could not conveniently scarce possibly be determined in one day to returne againe and againe to the handling thereof For they are words of a great extent a great compasse The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them for here is first the first point in that Circle our Birth our spirituall birth that is Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized sayes the Text And then here is the point directly and diametrally opposed to that first point our Birth that is Death Why are these men thus baptized for the dead sayes the Text And then the Circle is carried up to the first point againe to our Birth in another Birth in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church to be as they are all one House and under one roofe here is first Limen Ecclesiae as S. Augustine calls Baptisme The Threshold of the Church we are put over the Threshold into the Body of the Church by Baptisme and here we are remembred of Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae The Quire the Chancell of the Church in which all the service of God is officiated and executed for we are made not onely hearers and spectators but actors in the service of God when we come to beare a part in the Hymnes and Anthems of the Saints by our Death and here we are
as well that because Christ is called Porta A Gate therefore when Samson is said to have carried a Gate Samson must be a Christopher and carry Christ And because Christ is a vine and a way and water and bread wheresoever any of these words are they must be intended of Christ not to stand upon the argument and inconsequence I say this word Baptisme hath not that signification which he would have it have here in any of those other places of Scripture which he cites to this purpose They are but two and may quickly be considered The first is when Christ askes the ambitious Apostles Mat. 20.20 Luk. 12.50 Are yee able to drinke of the Cup that I shall drinke of and to be baptized with the baptisme that I shall be baptized with The second is in S. Luke I must be baptized with a Baptisme and how am I grieved till it be ended In both which places Christ doth understand by this word Baptisme his Passion That is true And so ordinarily in the Christian Church as the dayes of the death of the Martyrs were called Natalitia Martyrum The Birth-dayes of the Martyrs so Martyrdome it selfe was called a Baptisme Baptisma sanguinis The Baptisme of Blood That is also true but what then was the Passion of Christ himselfe such an affliction as Bellarmine speakes of here and argues from in this place that is an affliction so inflicted upon himselfe and undertaken by himselfe as that then when he did beare it he might have forborne it and refused to beare it Though nothing were more voluntary then Christs submitting himselfe to that Decree of dying for man yet when that Decree was passed to which he had a privity nothing was more necessary nor unavoydable to any man then the Death of the Crosse was to Christ neither could he not onely not have saved us but not have been exalted in his humane nature himselfe if he had not dyed that death for all that was wrapped up in the Decree and from that grew out the propterea exaltatus and the oportuit pati That all those things Christ ought to suffer And therefore therefore because he did suffer all that he was exalted And will Bellarmine say that the Martyrdome of the Martyrs in the primitive Church was so voluntarily sustained as that they might have forsaken the cause of Christ and refused Martyrdome and yet have been saved and satisfied the purpose or the commandement of God upon them If from us Bellarmine will not heare it let him heare a man of his own profession not onely of his own Religion but so narrowly of his own profession as to have been a publique Reader of Divinity in a great University as well as he Estius And he sayes Sunt aliqui recentiores qui baptizari interpretantur affligi There are some sayes he not all nor the most and therefore it is not so manifest a place Sunt aliqui recentiores There are some of the later men sayes he not of the Fathers or Expositors in the primitive Church and therefore it is not so reverend and uncontrolable an opinion But onely some few later men there are sayes he that thinke that Baptisme in this place is to be understood of Affliction But sayes the same Doctor It is an Interpretation valde figurata rara wholly relying upon a figure and a figure very rarely used so rarely sayes he Vt non ab alio quam à Christo usurpetur That never any but Christ in the Scriptures called Affliction Baptisme So that it lacks thus much of being a manifest proofe for Purgatory as Bellarmine pretends That it is neither the common sense but of a few nor the ancient sense but of a few later men nor a sense obvious and ordinary and literall but figurative and that figure not communicated to others but onely applied by Christ and appropriated to his Passion which was not a passion so undergone as that then when he suffered it he might have refused it which is necessary for that Doctrine which Bellarmine would evict from it But because Bellarmine in whom perchance the Spirit of a Cardinall hath not overcome the Spirit of a Jesuit will admit no competition nor diversity of opinion except it be from one of his own Order we have Iustinian a man refined in that Order Iustinian a Jesuit as well as he an Italian and so hath his naturall and nationall refining as well as he and one whose books are dedicated to the Pope as well as his and so hath had an Oraculous refining by an allowance Oraculo vivae vocis by the breath of life the Oracle of truth the Popes approbation as well as he and thus much better That Iustinians never were but Bellarmines books have been threatned by the Inquisition And Iustinian never was but Bellarmine hath been put to his Retractations And he sayes onely this of this place Aliqui referunt ad corporis vexationes pro Mortuis Some men refer these words to bodily afflictions sustained by men alive for the Dead Et haec sententia multis vehementer probatur sayes he This interpretation hath much delighted and satisfied many men Sed potest dici sayes he By their leaves this may be said If S. Paul aske Why doe men afflict themselves in the behalfe of them that are dead it may be answered sayes he That if they doe so they are fools in doing so S. Paul intends certainly to prove the Resurrection by these words neither sayes he could the Resurrection of the body be proved by all S. Pauls argument if that were admitted to be the right sense of the place for what were all this to the Resurrection of the body which is S. Pauls scope and purpose in the place If men were baptized that is as Bellarmine would have it if they did suffer voluntarily and unnecessarily affliction for the Dead that is to deliver their soules out of Purgatory what would all this conduce to the proofe of the Resurrection of the body But that we may have a witnesse against him in all his capacities as wee have produced one as he is a Jesuit and another equall to him as he was publique Professor so to consider him as a Cardinall for as a Cardinall Bellarmine hath changed his opinion in some things that he held before he was hood-wincked with his Hat to consider him therefore so we have a witnesse against him in the Consistory Cardinall Cajetan Cajetan who finds no baptisme of teares nor penance in these words no application of any affliction sustained voluntarily by the living in the behalfe and contemplation of the dead but adhering to that which is truly the purpose of the Apostle to prove the resurrection of the body hee sayes In hoc quòd merguntur sub aqua mortuos gerunt When in Baptisme they are as it were buried under the water as the forme of Baptizing was then by Immersion of the whole body and not onely
afflictionis Verse 16. Studied and premeditated plots and practises swallowe mee possesse me intirely In all these dayes I shall not onely have a Zoar to flie to if I can get out of Sodom joy if I can overcome my sorrow There shall not be a Goshen bordering upon my Egypt joy if I can passe beyond or besides my sorrow but I shall have a Goshen in my Egypt nay my very Egypt shall be my Goshen I shall not onely have joy though I have sorrow but therefore my very sorrow shall be the occasion of joy I shall not onely have a Sabbath after my six dayes labor but Omnibus diebus a Sabbath shall enlighten every day and inanimate every minute of every day And as my soule is as well in my foot as in my hand though all the waight and oppression lie upon the foot and all action upon the hand so these beames of joy shall appeare as well in my pillar of cloud as in theirs of fire in my adversity as well as in their prosperity And when their Sun shall set at Noone mine shall rise at midnight they shall have damps in their glory and I joyfull exaltions in my dejections And to end with the end of all In die mortis In the day of my death and that which is beyond the end of all and without end in it selfe The day of Judgement If I have the testimony of a rectified conscience that I have accustomed my selfe to that accesse to God by prayer and such prayer as though it have had a body of supplication and desire of future things yet the soule and spirit of that prayer that is my principall intention in that prayer hath been praise and thanksgiving If I be involved in S. Chrysostoms Patent Orantes non natura sed dispensatione Angeli fiunt That those who pray so that is pray by way of praise which is the most proper office of Angels as they shall be better then Angels in the next world for they shall be glorifying spirits as the Angels are but they shall also be glorified bodies which the Angels shall never bee so in this world they they shall be as Angels because they are employed in the office of Angels to pray by way of praise If as S. Basil reads those words of that Psalme not spiritus meus but respiratio mea laudet Dominum Not onely my spirit but my very breath not my heart onely but my tongue and my hands bee accustomed to glorifie God In die mortis in the day of my death when a mist of sorrow and of sighes shall fill my chamber and a cloude exhaled and condensed from teares shall bee the curtaines of my bed when those that love me shall be sorry to see mee die and the devill himselfe that hates me sorry to see me die so in the favour of God And In die Iudicii In the day of Judgement when as all Time shall cease so all measures shall cease The joy and the sorrow that shall be then shall be eternall no end and infinite no measure no limitation when every circumstance of sinne shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner and the very substance of my sinne shall bee washed away in the blood of my Saviour when I shall see them who sinned for my sake perish eternally because they proceeded in that sinne and I my selfe who occasioned their sin received into glory because God upon my prayer and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy early that is before my transmigration In omnibus diebus In all these dayes the dayes of youth and the wantonnesses of that the dayes of age and the tastlesnesse of that the dayes of mirth and the sportfulnesse of that and of inordinate melancholy and the disconsolatenesse of that the days of such miseries as astonish us with their suddennesse and of such as aggravate their owne waight with a heavy expectation In the day of Death which pieces up that circle and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces but is one equall everlastingnesse the day of Judgement Either I shall rejoyce be able to declare my faith and zeale to the assistance of others or at least be glad in mine owne heart in a firme hope of mine owne salvation And therefore beloved as they whom lighter affections carry to Shewes and Masks and Comedies As you your selves whom better dispositions bring to these Exercises conceive some contentment and some kinde of Joy in that you are well and commodiously placed they to see the Shew you to heare the Sermon when the time comes though your greater Joy bee reserved to the comming of that time So though the fulnesse of Joy be reserved to the last times in heaven yet rejoyce and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the meane time and that you sit but in expectation of the fulnesse of those future Joyes Returne to God with a joyfull thankfulnesse that he hath placed you in a Church which withholds nothing from you that is necessary to salvation whereas in another Church they lack a great part of the Word and halfe the Sacrament And which obtrudes nothing to you that is not necessary to salvation whereas in another Church the Additionall things exceed the Fundamentall the Occasionall the Originall the Collaterall the Direct And the Traditions of men the Commandements of God Maintaine and hold up this holy alacrity this religious cheerfulnesse For inordinate sadnesse is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulnesse and the departing from Joy in this world is a departing with one piece of our Evidence for the Joyes of the world to come SERM. LXXX Preached at the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight Alderman of London December 12. 1626. JOH 11.21 Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not died GOd made the first Marriage and man made the first Divorce God married the Body and Soule in the Creation and man divorced the Body and Soule by death through sinne in his fall God doth not admit not justifie not authorize such Super-inductions upon such Divorces as some have imagined That the soule departing from one body should become the soule of another body in a perpetuall revolution and transmigration of soules through bodies which hath been the giddinesse of some Philosophers to think Or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evill spirit that that spirit might at his will and to his purposes informe and inanimate that dead body God allowes no such Super-inductions no such second Marriages upon such divorces by death no such disposition of soule or body after their dissolution by death But because God hath made the band of Marriage indissoluble but by death farther then man can die this divorce cannot fall upon man As farre as man is immortall man is a married man still still in possession of a soule and a body too And man is for ever immortall in both Immortall in
we thought the Sunne had moved I need not that helpe that the Earth it selfe is in Motion to prove this That nothing upon Earth is permanent The Assertion will stand of it selfe till some man assigne me some instance something that a man may relie upon and find permanent Consider the greatest Bodies upon Earth The Monarchies Objects which one would thinke Destiny might stand and stare at but not shake Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth The haires of our head Objects which one would thinke Destiny would not observe or could not discerne And yet Destiny to speak to a naturall man And God to speake to a Christian is no more troubled to make a Monarchy ruinous then to make a haire gray Nay nothing needs be done to either by God or Destiny A Monarchy will ruine as a haire will grow gray of it selfe In the Elements themselves of which all sub-elementary things are composed there is no acquiescence but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another Ayre condensed becomes water a more solid body And Ayre rarified becomes fire a body more disputable and in-apparant It is so in the Conditions of men too A Merchant condensed kneaded and packed up in a great estate becomes a Lord And a Merchant rarified blown up by a perfidious Factor or by a riotous Sonne evaporates into ayre into nothing and is not seen And if there were any thing permanent and durable in this world yet we got nothing by it because howsoever that might last in it selfe yet we could not last to enjoy it If our goods were not amongst Moveables yet we our selves are if they could stay with us yet we cannot stay with them which is another Consideration in this part The world is a great Volume and man the Index of that Booke Corpus hominis Even in the body of man you may turne to the whole world This body is an Illustration of all Nature Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before in his Fiat lux and Fiat firmamentum and in all the rest said or done in all the six dayes Propose this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation thereof as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Nay not in a Metaphor or comparison of a Temple or any other similitudinary thing but as it was really and truly the very body of God in the person of Christ and yet this body must wither must decay must languish must perish When Goliah had armed and fortified this body And Iezabel had painted and perfumed this body And Dives had pampered and larded this body As God said to Ezekiel when he brought him to the dry bones Fili hominis Sonne of Man doest thou thinke these bones can live They said in their hearts to all the world Can these bodies die And they are dead Iezabels dust is not Ambar nor Goliahs dust Terra sigillata Medicinall nor does the Serpent whose meat they are both finde any better rellish in Dives dust then in Lazarus But as in our former part where our foundation was That in nothing no spirituall thing there was any perfectnesse which we illustrated in the weaknesses of Knowledge and Faith and Hope and Charity yet we concluded that for all those defects God accepted those their religious services So in this part where our foundation is That nothing in temporall things is permanent as we have illustrated that by the decay of that which is Gods noblest piece in Nature The body of man so we shall also conclude that with this goodnesse of God that for all this dissolution and putrefaction he affords this Body a Resurrection The Gentils Resurrectio and their Poets describe the sad state of Death so Nox una obeunda That it is one everlasting Night To them a Night But to a Christian it is Dies Mortis and Dies Resurrectionis The day of Death and The day of Resurrection We die in the light in the sight of Gods presence and we rise in the light in the sight of his very Essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so Dies visitationis still it is a Day though a Day of visitation and still we may discerne God to be in the action Gen. 2. The Lord of Life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt die the Death I doe the lesse feare or abhorre Death because I finde it in his mouth Even a malediction hath a sweetnesse in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a Resurrection upon every Death When Iezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher then that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall be infinitely multiplied upon every Body And as God shall know no man from his own Sonne so as not to see the very righteousnesse of his own Sonne upon that man So the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to looke upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himselfe So shall Goliahs armour and Dives fulnesse be doubled and redoubled upon us And every thing that we can call good shall first be infinitely exalted in the goodnesse and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and againe infinitely extended in the duration And since we are in an action of preparing this dead Brother of ours to that state for the Funerall is the Easter-eve The Buriall is the depositing of that man for the Resurrection As we have held you with Doctrine of Mortification by extending the Text from Martha to this occasion so shall we dismisse you with Consolation by a like occasionall inverting the Text from passion in Martha's mouth Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed to joy in ours Lord because thou wast here our Brother is not dead The Lord was with him in all these steps In vita with him in his life with him in his death He is with him in his funerals and he shall be with him in his Resurrection and therefore because the Lord was with him our Brother is not dead He was with him in the beginning of his life in this manifestation That though he were of Parents of a good of a great Estate yet his possibility and his expectation from them did not slacken his own industry which is a Canker that eats into nay that hath eat up many a family in this City that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done the Sonne does nothing for himselfe And truly it falls out too often that he that labours not for more does not keepe his own God imprinted in him an industrious disposition though such hopes from such parents might have excused some slacknesse and God prospered his industry so as that when his Fathers estate came to a distribution by death he needed it not God was with
E Citation of Scripture the words much more the Chapter and verse not alwayes observed in it 250. C. 325. D Complements of their abuse and use 176. A. B. C. 412. D Comforts how easily we mistake false Comforts for true 279. E. 382. D. 383. A. B 501. A Of the true Comfort of the Holy Ghost 353. D Of that Comfort and consolation which the Minister of the Gospell is to preach to all people 746. A. B C Confession to the Priest in some cases usefull and necessary 558. A 568. A. 589. B. C How necessary to Confesse 569. D. 586. E Confidence true Confidence proceeds onely from true goodnesse 171. E Confirmation whether a Sacrament 329. C The use and benefit of it ibid. D. E Continency that trial not made as should be whether young people can Conteine from marriage 217. B C Contrition Confession and Satisfaction three parts of true Repentance 568. A Conventicles against their private opinions 228. C Against them 455. A They are no Bodies 756. D Consideration of our selves and our insufficiencies how necessary 44. D. 45. A. c. Constitutions No sins to be layd and fathered upon them 90. A Corporations how they have no soules 99. A Covering of sinnes what good and what bad 569. E It is good to cover them from giving other men examples 570. A Counsell not to be given unlesse we love those to whom we give it 93. C How many miscarry in that poynt ibid. D Craft and that cunning and Craft which men affect in their severall Callings 411. D Creatures how farre we may love the Creatures and how farre not 398. E Curiosity against the excesse of it in matter of Knowledge 63. E. 64. A. 411. E. 563. B. 701. A Conscience obdurate and over-tender the effects of either 587. B. C. D Curses and Imprecations whether we may use them 401. C. D. 555. E D DAmned the consummation of their torment wherein it consisteth in the opinion of the Schoole 344. B More shall be saved than damned 765. C Of the torments of the damned 776. B. C The absence of God the greatest torment of the damned ibid. D Day of Judgement the manner of proceeding in it 140. B Fearefull even to the best 200. B. C The certainty and uncertainty of it 271. D To be had ever in remembrance and why 371. B. 389. C. 392. A Death how it may be desired of us and how not 38. A. B. C. D. 148. B. C. 531. D. E Against the ambition of it in the pseudomartyrs 142. C The word Fortasse hath place in all things but Death 147. C. D It is a law a tribute and a duty and how 147. E. 148. A We not to grudge if we dy soon or others live longer ibid. B Death how an enemy to mankinde and how not ibid E God made it not but maketh use of it 188. B Of undergoing Death for Christ 400. A B Not a banishment to good men but a visitation of their friends 463. C Death why so terrible to the good men of former times 532. D The often contemplation of Death takes much from the feare of it 473. E Debts of our Debts to God 87. C To our neighbours 93. E To our superiors 91. C To our selves 94. D Deceit and Deceiving the mischiefe of it 742. B The law will not suppose it either in a father or a master ibid. 42. Decrees of God to be considered only by the Execution 330. C None absolute considering man before a Sinner 675. C. D. E Departing from sinne to be generall 552. A We are not to retaine any one 568. D Deprecating of afflictions whether or no lawfull 504. B. C. D. E Desperation the sin of it greater and worse than that of presumption 398. C Severall sects there have been but never any of Despayring men 346. A Against it 360. D E God brings his servants to humiliation often but never to Desperation 464. Destroying whether man may lawfully destroy any one hurtfull species in the world 527. B 620. C De viâ the name of such as were Christians in the former times that is men of that way according to S. Chrysostome 426. B Devils capable of mercy according to many of the Fathers 66. A The Devils quoting of Scripture 338. C Devotion a serious sedulous and impatient thing 244. E It is good to accompany our selves to a generall Devotion 512 D It must be constant 586. B And not taken up by chance ibid. C Disciplining and mortifying Acts after God hath forgiven us our sinnes commended 546. E They inferre neither Purgatory nor Indulgences nor Satisfaction 547. A They are sharp arrows from a sweet hand ib. The necessity of them to make our Repentance entire 568. B Discretion the mother and nurse of all vertues 577. B What Discretion is to be used in telling people of their sinnes ibid. Division the fore-runner of destruction 138. D. E Not alwayes unlawfull to sow Division amongst men when they agree too well to ill purposes 493. D Doubting the way to know the truth 322. D Duels the inhumanity and sinne of them 5. E Duties of our calling not to be disputed but executed 41. A Of our generall weaknesse and impotency in spirituall Duties 513. C E EArly seeking of God what it is 245. C. D God is an Early God 809. A. B And we to seeke him Early ibid. D. E Eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Word 47. D Enemies profit to be made of them 98. A We come too soone to the name and then carry it too farre 98. C God and Religion both have Enemies 375 D 703. C How we may and how we may not hate our Enemies ibid. D. E Our Enemies are Gods Enemies 704. A Errours in the way almost as dangerous as Errours in the end 639. A. D Of the Errours of the Fathers of the Church 490. A About administring the Sacrament to children about the state of the soule after death c. 739. E Not good for the Church to play with small Errours and tolerate them when shee may as easily redresse them 782. B Esay rather an Evangelist than a Prophet 54. B Evill none from God 168. C. D Nothing is naturally Evill 171. A Example in all our actions and purposes wee to propose unto our selves some patterne or Example 667. D. Examples what power they have in matter of instruction 572. D. 593. A What care is to be taken in making the inordinate acts of some Holy men in Scripture our Examples 155. C. D. 488. D. E. 489. A. 526. E How farre Example works above precept or command 165. B Of giving good Examples to others 420. C God follows his own Examples 522. E Of giving bad Examples unto other men 570. A. 573. E Excommunication the use of it amongst the Druides and the Jewes 402. A Much tendernesse to be used in excommunicating any from the Church 667. A How many men excommunicare themselves without any Church-censure ib. B. C. 418.
fainting with that After his weeping and dissolving with that After his consuming and withering with that foresees no rescue no escape Inveteravit he waxes old amongst his enemies Who were his enemies and what was this age that he speaks of It is of best use to pursue the spirituall sense of this Psalme and so his enemies were his sins And David found that he had not got the victory over any one enemy any one sin Anothers bloud did not extinguish the lustfull heat of his owne nor the murther of the husband the adultery with the wife Change of sin is not an overcomming of sin He that passes from sin to sin without repentance which was Davids case for a time still leaves an enemy behind him and though he have no present assault from his former enemie no tentation to any act of his former sin yet he is still in the midst of his enemies under condemnation of his past as well as of his present sins as unworthy a receiver of the Sacrament for the sins of his youth done forty yeares agoe if those sins were never repented though so long discontinued as for his ambition or covetousnesse or indevotion of this present day These are his enemies and then this is the age that growes upon him the age that David complaines of I am waxenold that is growne into habits of these sins There is an old age of our naturall condition We shall waxe old as doth a garment Psal 102.26 David would not complaine of that which all men desire To wish to be old and then grudge to be old when we are come to it cannot consist with morall constancy There is an old age expressed in that phrase The old man which the Apostle speaks of which is that naturall corruption and disposition to sin cast upon us by Adam Rom. 6.6 But that old man was crucified in Christ sayes the Apostle and was not so onely from that time when Christ was actually crucified one thousand six hundred yeares agoe but from that time that a second Adam was promised to the first in Paradise And so that Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world from the beginning delivered all them to whom the means ordained by God as Circumcision to them Baptisme to us were afforded and in that respect David was not under that old age but was become a new creature Nor as the Law was called the old Law which is another age also for to them who understood that Law aright the New Law the Gospel was enwrapped in the Old And so David as well as we might be said to serve God in the newnesse of spirit and not in the oldnesse of the Letter Rom. 7.6 so that this was not the age that opprest him The Age that oppresses the sinner is that when he is growne old in sin he is growne weak in strength and become lesse able to overcome that sin then then he was at beginning Blindnesse contracted by Age doth not deliver him from objects of tentations He sees them though he be blind Deafnesse doth not deliver him from discourses of tentation he heares them though he be deafe Nor lamenesse doth not deliver him from pursuit of tentation for in his owne memory he sees and heares and pursues all his former sinfull pleasures and every night every houre sins over all the sins of many yeares that are passed That which waxeth old is ready to vanish sayes the Apostle Heb. 8.13 If we would let them goe they would goe and whether we will or no they leave us for the ability of practise But Thesaurizamus we treasure them up in our memories Rom. 2.5 and we treasure up the wrath of God with them against the day of wrath And whereas one calling of our sins to our memories by way of confession would doe us good and serve our turnes this often calling them in a sinfull delight in the memory of them exceeds the sin it selfe when it was committed because it is more unnaturall now Ezek. 23.19 then it was then and frustrates the pardon of that sin when it was repented To end this branch and this part So humble was this holy Prophet and so apprehensive of his own debility and so far from an imaginary infallibility of falling no more as that after all his agonies and exercises and mortifications and prayer and sighs and weeping still he finds himselfe in the midst of enemies and of his old enemies for not onely tentations to new sins but even the memory of old though formerly repented arise against us arise in us and ruine us And so we passe from these pieces which constitute our first Part Quid factum what David upon the sense of his case did to the other Quid faciendum what by his example we are to doe and what is required of us after we have repented and God hath remitted the sin Out of this passage here in this Psalme and out of that history 2 Part. where Nathan sayes to David The Lord hath put away thy sin and yet sayes after 2. Sam. 12.13 The child that is borne to thee shall surely dye and out of that story where David repents earnestly his sin committed in the numbring of his people and sayes Now now that I have repented 2 Sam. 24.10 Now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly yet David was to indure one of those three Calamities of Famine Warre or Pestilence And out of some other such places as these some men have imagined a Doctrine that after our repentance and after God hath thereupon pardoned our sin yet he leaves the punishment belonging to that sin unpardoned though not all the punishment not the eternall yet say they there belongs a temporary punishment too and that God does not pardon but exacts and exacts in the nature of a punishment and more by way of satisfaction to his Justice Now Stipendium peccati mors est There is the punishment for sin The reward of sin is death If there remaine no death there remaines no punishment For the reward of sin is death And death complicated in it selfe death wrapped in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding sheet It is death aggravated by it selfe death waighed downe by death And what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his grave stone It is death multiplied by it selfe And what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death It is Morte morieris A Double death Eternall and Temporary Temporall and Spirituall death Now the Temporary the Naturall death God never takes away from us he never pardons that punishment because he never takes away that sin that occasioned it which is Originall sin To what Sanctification soever a man comes Originall sin lives to his last breath And therefore Heb 9.27 Statutum est That Decree stands