may be equall as the Devill is a Spirit and a condemned soule a spirit yet that soule shall have a Body too to be tormented with it which the Devill shall not How little we know our selves which is the end of all knowledge But we hast to the next branch In the Resurrection we shall be like to the Angels of God in Heaven But in what lies this likenesse In how many other things soever this likenesse may ly yet in this Text and in our present purpose it lies onely in this Non nubent In the Resurrection they shall not mary But did Angels never mary or as good or at least as ill as mary How many of the ancients take those words That the sonnes of God saw the daughters of Men that they were faire and they tooke them wives of all which they chose to be intended of Angels They offer to tell us how many these maried Angels were Origen saies sixty or seventy They offer to tell us some of their names Aza was one of these maried Angels and Azael was another But then all those who doe understand these words The sonnes of God to be intended of Angels who being sent downe to protect Men fell in love with Women and maried them all I say agree that those Angels that did so never returned to God againe but fell with the first fallen under everlasting Condemnation So that still the Angels of God in Heaven those Angels to whom we shall be like in the Resurrection doe not mary not so much as in any such mistaking they doe not because they need not they need not because they need no second Eternity by the continuation of children for says S. Luke they cannot die Adams first immortality was but this Posse non mori that he needed not to have died he should not have died The Angels immortality and ours when we shall be like them in the Resurrection is Non posse mori that we cannot die for whosoever dies is Homicida sui sayes Tertullian he kills himselfe and sinne is his sword In heaven there shall no such sword be drawn we need not say that the Angels in heaven have that we when we shall be like them in the Resurrection shall so invest an immortality in our nature as that God could not inflict Death upon them or us there if we sinned But because no sinne shall enter there no Death shall enter there neither for Death is the wages of sinne Not that no sinne could enter there if we were left to our selves for in that place Angels did sinne And fatendum est Angelos natura mutabiles saies S. Augustine Howsoever Angels be changed in their Condition they retaine still the same nature and by nature they are mutable But that God hath added another prerogative by way of Confirmation to that state so as that that Grace which he gives us here which is that nothing shall put a necessity of sinning upon us or that we must needs sinne God multiplies upon us so there as that we can conceive no inclination to sinne Therein we shall be like the Angels that we cannot die And the nearer we come to that state in this life the liker we are to those Angels here Now beloved onely he that is Dead already cannot die He that in a holy mortification is Dead the Death of the righteous dead to sinne he lives shall we dare to say so yes we may he lives a blessed Death for such a Death is true life And by such a heavenly Death Death of the righteous Death to sinne he is in possession of a heavenly life here in an inchoation though the consummation and perfection be reserved for the next world which is our last circumstance and the Conclusion of all At the Resurrection we shall be like the Angels Till then we shall not and therefore must not looke for Angelicall perfections here but beare one anothers infirmities It is as yet but in Petition fiat voluntas Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And as long as there is an Earth it will be but in Petition His will will not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven when all is Heaven to his Saints all will be well but not all till then In the meane time remember all especially you whose Sacramentall that is Mysterious and significative union now is a Type of your union with God in as neare and as fast a band as that of Angels for you shall be as the Angels of God in Heaven That the office of the Angels in this world is to Assist and to supply Defects You are both of noble extraction there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with Honour you are both of religious Education there 's no defect in that you need not supply one another with fundamentall instructions Both have your parts in that testimony which S. Gregory gave of your Nation at Rome Angli Angeli you have a lovelinesse fit for one another But though I cannot Name no nor Thinke any thing wherein I should wish that Angelicall disposition of supporting or supplying defects yet when I consider that even he that said Ego pater unum sumus I and the Father are one yet had a time to say utquid dereliquisti My God my God why hast thou forsaken me I consider thereby that no two can be so made one in this world but that that unity may be though not Dissolved no nor Rent no nor Endangered yet shaked sometimes by domestique occasions by Matrimoniall encumbrances by perversnesse of servants by impertinencies of Children by private whisperings and calumnies of Strangers And therefore to speake not Prophetically that any such thing shall fall but Provisionally if any such thing should fall my love and my duty and my Text bids me tell you that perfect happinesse is to be staid for till you be as the Angels of God in heaven here it is a faire portion of that Angelicall happinesse if you be alwaies ready to support and supply one another in any such occasionall weaknesses The God of Heaven multiply the present joy of your parents by that way of making you joyfull parents also and recompense your obedience to parents by that way of giving you obedient Children too The God of heaven so joine you now as that you may be glad of one another all your life and when he who hath joined you shall separate you againe establish you with an assurance that he hath but borrowed one of you for a time to make both your joies the more perfect in the Resurrection The God of Heaven make you alwaies of one will and that will alwaies conformable to his conserve you in the sincere truth of his Religion feast you with the best feast Peace of conscience and carry you through the good opinion and love of his Saints in this world to the association of his Saints and Angels and one
his eye nothing else to distract his counsels nothing else done upon the face of the earth Take the earth now as it is replenished and take it either as it is torn and crumbled into raggs and shivers not a kingdome not a family not a man agreeing with himselfe Or take it in that concord which is in it as All the Kings of the earth set themselves and all the Rulers of the earth take counsell together against the Lord take it in this union or this division in this concord or this discord still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens discernes all looks at all laughs at all and hath them all in derision Earthly Judges have their distinctions and so their restrictions some things they cannot know what mortall man can know all Some things they cannot take knowledge of for they are bound to evidence But God hath Iudicium discretionis no mist no cloud no darknesse no disguise keeps him from discerning and judging all our actions and so he is a Judge too And he is so lastly as he hath Iudicium retributionis God knows what is evill he knows when that evill is done and he knows how to punish and recompense that evill for the office of a Judge who judges according to a law being not to contract or extend that law but to declare what was the true meaning of that Law-maker when hee made that law God hath this judgement in perfection because hee himself made that law by which he judges and therefore when he hath said Morte morieris If thou do this thou shalt die a double death where he hath said Stipendium peccati mors est every sin shall be rewarded with death If I sinne against the Lord who shall entreat for me Who shall give any other interpretation any modification any Non obstante upon his law in my behalf when he comes to judge me according to that law which himself hath made Who shall think to delude the Judge and say Surely this was not the meaning of the Law-giver when he who is the Judge was the Law-maker too And then as God is Judge in all these respects so is he a Judge in them all Sine Appellatione and Sine judiciis man cannot appeal from God God needs no evidence from man for for the Appeal first to whom should we appeal from the Soveraign 〈◊〉 Wrangle as long as ye will who is Chief Justice and which Court hath Juris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over another I know the Chief Justice and I know the Soveraign 〈…〉 the King of heaven and earth shall send his ministring Spirits his Angels to the 〈◊〉 and bowels of the Earth and to the bosome and bottome of the Sea and Earth must deliver Corpus cum causâ all the bodies of the dead and all their actions to receive a judgement in this Court when it will be but an erroneous and frivolous Appeal to call to the Hils to fall down upon us and the Mountains to cover and hide us from the wrathfull judgment of God He is a Judge then Sine appellatione without any Appeal from him he is so too Sine judiciis without needing any evidence from us Now if I be wary in my actions here incarnate Devils detractors and informers cannot accuse me If my sinne come not to action but lye onely in my heart the Devill himself who is the accuser of the brethren hath no evidence against me but God knows my heart doth not he that pondereth the heart understand it where it is not in that faint word which the vulgar Edition hath expressed it in inspector cordium That God sees the heart but the word is Tochen which signifies every where to weigh to number to search to examine as the word is used by Salomon again The Lord weigheth the spirits and it must be a ready hand and exact scales that shall weigh spirits So that though neither man nor Devill nay nor my self give evidence against me yea though I know nothing by my selfe I am not thereby justified why where is the farther danger In this which follows there in Saint Paul He that judges me is the Lord and the Lord hath meanes to know my heart better then my self And therefore as Saint Augustine makes use of those words Abyssus Abyssum invocat one depth cals upon another The infinite depth of my sins must call upon the more infinite depth of Gods mercy for if God who is Judge in all these respects judicio detestationis he knows and abhors evill and judicio discretionis he discerns every evill person and every evill action judicio retributionis he can and will recompense evill with evill And all these Sine Appellatione we cannot appeal from him Sine judiciis he needs no evidence from us If this judgement enter into judgement with me not onely not I but not the most righteous man no nor the Church whom he hath washed in his blood that she might be without spot or wrinckle shall appear righteous in his sight This being then thus that Iudgement is an unseparable character of God the Father being Fons Deitatis the root and spring of the whole Deity how is it said that the Father judgeth no man Not that we should conceive a wearinesse or retiring in the Father or a discharging of himself upon the shoulders and labours of another in the administration and judging of this world for as it is truly said that God rested the seventh day that is he rested from working in that kind from creating so it is true that Christ says here My Father worketh yet and I work and so as it is truly said here The Father judgeth no man it is truly sayd by Christ too of the Father I seek not mine own glory there is one that seeketh and judgeth still it is true that God hath Iudicium detestationis Thy eyes are pure eyes O Lord and cannot behold iniquity says the Prophet still it is true that hee hath Iudicium discretionis because they committed villany in Israel and I know it saith the Lord still it is true that he hath Iudicium retributionis The Lord killeth and maketh alive he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up still it is true that he hath all these sine appellatione for go to the Sea or Earth or Hell as David makes the distribution and God is there and he hath them sine judiciis for our witnesse is in heaven and our record is on high All this is undeniably true and besides this that great name of God by which he is first called in the Scriptures Elohim is not inconveniently deriv'd from Elah which is Iurare to swear God is able as a Judge to minister an oath unto us and to draw evidence from our own consciences against our selves so that then the Father he judges still but he judges as God and not as the Father In the three great judgements of God the
of heaven our residence it is a madnesse to study the joys of the world The Kingdome of heaven is righteousnesse and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost says Saint Paul And this Kingdome of heaven is Intra nos says Christ it is in us and it is joy that is in us but every joy is not this Kingdome and therefore says the same Apostle Rejoyce in the Lord There is no other true joy none but that But yet says he there Rejoyce and again I say rejoiâ—e that is both again we say it again and again we call upon you to have this spirituall joy for without this joy ye have not the earnest of the Spirit And it is again rejoyce bring all the joys ye have to a second examination and see if you can rejoyce in them again Have you rejoyced all day in Feasts in Musickes in Conversations well at night you must be alone hand to hand with God Again I say rejoyce sleep not till you have tryed whether your joy will hold out there too Have you rejoyced in the contemplation of those temporall blessingsâ— which God hath given you 't is well for you may do so But yet again I say Rejoyce call that joy to an accompt and see whether you caâ—â— rejoyce again in such a use of those blessings as he that gave them to you requires of you Have you rejoyced in your zeal of Gods service that 's a true rejoycing in the Lord But yet still rejoyce again see that this joy be accompanyed with another joy that you have zeal with knowledge Rejoyce but rejoyce again refine your joy purge away all drosse and lees from your joy there is no false joy enters into heaven but yet no sadnesse neither There is a necessary sadnes in this life but even in this life necessary only so as Physick is necessary Tristitia data ut peccata deleamus It is Data a gift of God a sadnes and sorrow infused by him not assumed by our selves upon the crosses of this world And so it is physick and it is Morbi illius peccati it is proper and peculiar physick for that disease for sinne But as that Father pathetically enlarges that consideration Remedium lippitudinis non tâ—llit alios morbos water for fore eyes will not cure the tooth-ach sorrow and sadnesse which is prescribed for sinne will not cure should not be applyed to the other infirmities and diseases of our humane condition Pecunia mulctatus est says that Father still Doluit non emendavit A man hath a decree passed against him in a Court of Justice or lost a Ship by tempest and hee hath griev'd for this hath this revers'd the decree or repaired the shipwrack Filium amisit doluit non resuscitavit His Son his eldest Son his onely Son his towardly Son is dead and he hath grieved for this hath he raised his Son to life again Infirmatur ipse doluit abstulit morbum Himself is fallen into a consumption and languishes and grieves but doth it restore him Why no for sadnesse and sorrow is not the physick against decrees and shipwracks and consumptions and death But then Peccavit quis says he still deluit peccata delevit Hath any man sinned against his God and come to a true sorrow for that sinne peccata delevit he hath wash't away that sinne from his soule for sorrow is good for nothing else intended for nothing else but onely for our sinnes out of which sadnesse first arose And then considered so this sadnesse is not truly nor properly sadnesse because it is not so intirely There is health in the bitternesse of physique There is joy in the depth of this sadnesse Saint Basill inforces those words of the Apostle 2 Cor. 6. 10. Quasi tristes semper autem gandentes usefully to this point Tristitia nostra habet quasi gaudium non habet Our sorrow says he hath a limitation a modification it is but as it were sorrow and we cannot tell whether we may call it sorrow or no but our joy is perfect joy because it is rooted in an assurance Est in spe certa our hope of deliverance is in him that never deceived any for says he then our sadnesse passes away as a dreame Et qui insomnium judicat addit quasi quasi dicebam quasi equitabam quasi cogitabam he that tells his dreame tells it still in that phrase me thought I spoke me thought I went and me thought I thought so all the sorrow of Gods children is but a quasi tristes because it determines in joy and determines soon To end this because there is a difference inter delectationem gaudium between delight and joy for delight is in sensuall things and in beasts as well as in men but joy is grounded in reason and in reason rectified which is conscience therefore we are called to rejoyce againe to try whether our joy be true joy and not onely a delight and when it is found to be a true joy we say still rejoyce that is continue your spirituall joy till it meet the eternall joy in the kingdome of heaven and grow up into one joy but because sadnesse and sorrow have but one use and a determined and limited imployment onely for sin we doe not say be sorry and again be sorry but when you have been truly sorry for your sinnes when you have taken that spirituall physique beleeve your selfe to be well accept the seale of the holy Ghost for the remission of your sins in Christ Jesus and come to that health which that physique promises peace of conscience This joy then which Saint Paul found to be so essentiall so necessary for man he found that God placed within mans reach so neare him as that God afforded man this joy where he least looked for it even in affliction And of this joy in affliction we may observe three steps three degrees one is indeed but halfe a joy and that the Philosophers had A second is a true joy and that all Christians have but the third is an overflowing and aboundant joy to which the Apostle was come and to which by his example hee would rouse others that joy of which himselfe speaks againe I am filled with comfort and am exceeding joyfull in all our tribulations The first of these which we call a halfe joy is but an indolency and a forced unsensiblenesse of those miseries which were upon them a searing up a stupefaction is not of the senses yet of the affections That resolution which some morall men had against misery Non facies ut te dicam malam no misery should draw them to doe misery that honour as to call it misery And in respect of that extreme anguish which out of an over tendernesse ordinary men did suffer under the calamities of this life even this poore indolency and privation of griefe was a joy but yet but a halfe joy the second joy
heart Let a man be zealous and fervent in reprehension of sin and there flies out an arrow that gives him the wound of a Puritan Let a man be zealous of the house of God and say any thing by way of moderation for the repairing of the ruines of that house and making up the differences of the Church of God and there flies out an arrow that gives him the wound of a Papist One shoots East and another West but both these arrows meet in him that means well to defame him And this is the first misery in these arrows these tentations Quia alienae they are shot from others they are not in our own quiver not in our own government Another quality that tentations receive from the holy Ghosts Metaphore of arrows is Quia veloces because this captivity to sin comes so swiftly so impetuously upon us Consider it first in our making In the generation of our parents we were conceiv'd in sin that is they sinn'd in that action so we were conceiv'd in sinne in their sin And in our selves we were submitted to sin in that very act of generation because then we became in part the subject of Originall sin Yet there was no arrow shot into us then there was no sinne in that substance of which we were made for if there had been sin in that substance that substance might be damn'd though God should never infuse a soul into it and that cannot be said well then God whose goodnesse and wisdome will have that substance to become a Man he creates a soul for it or creates a soul in it I dispute not that he sends a light or hee kindles a light in that lanthorn and here 's no arrow shot neither here 's no sin in that soul that God creates for there God should create something that were evill and that cannot be said Here 's no arrow shot from the body no sin in the body alone None from the soul no sin in the soul alone And yet the union of this soul and body is so accompanied with Gods malediction for our first transgression that in the instant of that union of life as certainly as that body must die so certainly the whole Man must be guilty of Originall sin No man can tell me out of what Quiver yet here is an arrow comes so swiftly as that in the very first minute of our life in our quickning in our mothers womb wee become guilty of Adams sin done 6000 years before and subject to all those arrows Hunger Labour Grief Sicknesse and Death which have been shot after it This is the fearfull swiftnesse of this arrow that God himself cannot get before it In the first minute that my soul is infus'd the Image of God is imprinted in my soul so forward is God in my behalf and so early does he visit me But yet Originall sin is there as soon as that Image of God is there My soul is capable of God as soon as it is capable of sin and though sin doe not get the start of God God does not get the start of sin neither Powers that dwell so far asunder as Heaven and Hell God and the Devill meet in an instant in my soul in the minute of my quickning and the Image of God and the Image of Adam Originall sin enter into me at once in one and the same act So swift is this arrow Originall sin from which all arrows of subsequent tentations are shot as that God who comes to my first minute of life cannot come before death And then a third and last danger which we noted in our tentations as they are represented by the holy Ghost in this Metaphore of arrows is that they are vix visibiles hardly discernible 'T is true that tentations doe not light upon us as bullets that we cannot see them till we feel them An arrow comes not altogether so but an arrow comes so as that it is not discern'd except we consider which way it comes and watch it all the way An arrow that findes a man asleep does not wake him first and wound him after A tentation that findes a man negligent possesses him before be sees it In gravtssimis criminibus confinia virtutum ladunt This is it that undoes us that vertues and vices are contiguous and borderers upon one another and very often we can hardly tell to which action the name of vice and to which the name of vertue appertains Many times that which comes within an inch of a noble action fals under the infamy of an odious treason At many executions half the company will call a man an Heretique and half a Martyr How often an excesse makes a naturall affection an unnaturall disorder Vtinam aut sororem non amasset Hamon aut non vindicasset Absolon Hamon lov'd his sister Tamar but a little too well Absolon hated his brothers incest but a little too ill Though love be good and hate be good respectively yet says S. Ambrose I would neither that love nor that hate had gone so far The contract between Ionathan and David was If I say The arrow on this side of thee all is wel If I say The arrow is beyond thee thou art in an ill case If the arrow the tentation be yet on this side of thee if it have not lighted upon thee thou art well God hath directed thy face to it and thou may'st if thou wilt continue thy diligence watch it and avoid it But if the arrow be beyond thee and thou have cast it at thy back in a forgetfulnesse in a security of thy sin thy case is dangerous In all these respects are these arrows these infirmities deriv'd from the sin of Adam dangerous as they are alienae in the hand of others as they are veloces swift in seising us and as they are vix visibiles hardly discern'd to be such And these considerations fell within this first branch of this second part Thine arrows tentations as they are arrows stick fast in me These dangers are in them as they are sagittae arrows and would be so if they were but single arrows any one tentation would endanger us any one tribulation would encumber us but they are plurall arrows and many arrows A man is not safe because one arrow hath mist him nor though he be free from one sin In the execution of Achan all Israel threw stones at him and stoned him If Achan had had some brother or cousin amongst them that would have flung over or short or weakly what good had that done him when he must stand the mark for all the rest All Israel must stone him A little disposition towards some one vertue may keep thee from some one tentation Thou mayst think it pity to corrupt a chast soul and forbear soliciting her pity to oppresse a submitting wretch and forbear to vex him and yet practise and that with hunger and thirst other sins or
into this life I would not wish to have come into this world And now that God hath made this life a Bridge to Heaven it is but a giddy and a vertiginous thing to stand long gazing upon so narrow a bridge and over so deep and roaring waters and desperate whirlpools as this world abounds with So teach us to number our dayes saith David that we may apply our hearts unto wisedome Not to number them so as that we place our happinesse in the increase of their number What is this wisedome he tells us there He asked life of thee and thou gavest it him But was that this life It was Length of dayes for ever and ever the dayes of Heaven As houses that stand in two Shires trouble the execution of Justice the house of death that stands in two worlds may trouble a good mans resolution As death is a sordid Postern by which I must be thrown out of this world I would decline it But as death is the gate by which I must enter into Heaven would I never come to it certainly now now that Sinne hath made life so miserable if God should deny us death he multiplied our misery We are in this Text upon blessings appropriated to the Christian Church and so to these times And in theseTimes we have not so long life as the Patriarchs had before They were to multiply children for replenishing the world and to that purpose had long life We multiply sinnes and the children and off-spring of sinnes miseries and therefore may be glad to get from this generation of Vipers God gave his Children Manna and Quails in the Wildernesse where nothing else was to be had but when they came to the Land of Promise that Provision ceas'd God gave them long life in the times of Nature and long though shorter then before in the times of the Law because in nature especially but in the Law also it was hard to discern hard to attain the wayes to Heaven But the wayes to Heaven are made so manifest to us in the Gospel as that for that use we need not long life and that is all the use of our life here He that is ready for Heaven hath lived to a blessed age and to such an intendment a childe newly baptized may be elder then his Grandfather Therefore we receive long life for a blessing when God is pleased to give it though Christ entered it into no Petition of his Prayer that God would give it and so though we enter it into no Petition nor Prayer we receive it as a blessing too when God will afford us a deliverance a manumission an emancipation from the miseries of this life Truely I would not change that joy and consolation which I proposed to my hopes upon my Death-bed at my passage out of this world for all the joy that I have had in this world over again And so very a part of the Joy of Heaven is a joyfull transmigration from hence as that if there were no more reward no more recompence but that I would put my self to all that belongs to the duty of an honest Christian in the world onely for a joyfull a cheerfull passage out of it And farther we shall not exercise your patience or your devotion upon these three pieces which constitute our first part The Primogeniture of Gods Mercy which is first in all The specification of Gods Mercy long Life as it is a figure of and a way to eternity and then the association of Gods Mercy that Death as well as Life is a blessing to the Righteous So then we have brought our Sunne to his Meridianall height to a full Noon in which all shadows are removed for even the shadow of death death it self is a blessing and in the number of his Mercies But the Afternoon shadows break out upon us in our second part of the Text. And as afternoon shadowes do these in our Text do also they grow greater and greater upon us till they end in night in everlasting night The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed Now of shadowes it is appliably said Vmbrae non sunt tenebrae sed densior lux shadowes are not utter darknesse but a thicker light shadowes are thus much nearer to the nature of light then darknesse is that shadowes presume light which darknesse doth not shadowes could not be except there were light The first shadowes in this dark part of our Text have thus much light in them that it is but the sinner onely the sinner that is accursed The Object of Gods malediction is not man but sinfull man If God make a man sinne God curses the man but if sinne make God curse God curses but the sinne Non talem Deum tuum putes qualis nec tu debes esse Never propose to thy self such a God as thou wert not bound to imitate Thou mistakest God if thou make him to be any such thing or make him to do any such thing as thou in thy proportion shouldst not be or shouldst not do And shouldst thou curse any man that had never offended never transgrest never trespast thee Can God have done so Imagine God as the Poet saith Ludere in humanis to play but a game at Chesse with this world to sport himself with making little things great and great things nothing Imagine God to be but at play with us but a gamester yet will a gamester curse before he be in danger of losing any thing Will God curse man before man have sinned In the Law there are denuntiations of curses enjoyned and multiplied There is maledictus upon maledictus but it is maledictus homo cursed be the man He was not curst by God before he was a man nor curst by God because he was a man but if that man commit Idolatry Adultery Incest Beastiality Bribery Calumny as the sinnes are reckoned there there he meets a particular curse upon his particular sinne The book of Life is but names written in Heaven all the Book of Death that is is but that in the Prophet when names are written in the Earth But whose names are written in the Earth there They that depart from thee shall be written in the Earth They shall be when they depart from thee For saith he They have forsaken the Lord the Fountain of Living water They did not that because their names were written in the Earth but they were written there because they did that Our Saviour Christ came hither to do all his Fathers will and he returned cheerfully to his Father again as though he had done all when he had taken away the sinnes of the world by dying for all sinnes and all sinners But if there were an Hospitall of miserable men that lay under the reprobation and malediction of Gods decree and not for sinne the blood of that Lamb is not sprinkled upon the Postills of that doore Forgive me O Lord O Lord forgive
that thou art now and when thou shalt be nothing againe thou shalt be made better then thou art yet And Redderationem quâ factus es ego reddam rationem quâ fies Doe thou tell me how thou wast made then and I will tell thee how thou shalt be made hereafter And yet as Solomon sends us to creatures to creatures of a low rank station to Ants Spiders for instruction so Saint Gregory sends us to creatures to learne the Resurrection Lux quotidie moritur quotidie resurgit That glorious creature that first creature the light dyes every day and every day hath a resurrection In arbustis folia resurrectione erumpunt from the Cedar of Libanus to the Hyssop upon the wall every leafe dyes every yeare and every yeare hath a Resurrection Vbi in brevitate seminis tam immensa arbor latuit as he pursues that meditation If thou hadst seen the bodies of men rise our of the grave at Christs Resurrection could that be a stranger thing to thee then if thou hadst never seen nor hard not imagined it before to see an Oake that spreads so farre rise out of an Akorne Or if Churchyards did vent themselves every spring and that there were such a Resurrection of bodies every yeare when thou hadst seen as many Resurrections as years the Resurrection would be no stranger to thee then the spring is And thus this and many other good and reverend men and so the holy Ghost himselfe sends us to Reason and to the Creature for the doctrine of the Resurrection Saint Paul allowes him not the reason of a man that proceeds not so Thou fool says he that which thou sowest is not quickned except it dye but then it is It is truly harder to conceive a translation of the body into heaven then a Resurrection of the body from the earth Num in hominibus terra degenerat quae omnia regenerare consuevit Doe all kinds of earth regenerate and shall onely the Churchyard degenerate Is there a yearely Resurrection of every other thing and never of men Omnia pereunde servantur All other things are preserved and continued by dying Tu homo solus ad hoc morieris ut pereas And canst thou O man suspect of thy selfe that the end of thy dying is an end of thee Fall as low as thou canst corrupt and putresie as desperately as thou canst sis nihil thinke thy selfe nothing Ejus est nihilum ipsum cujus est totum even that nothing is as much in his power as the world which he made of nothing And as he called thee when thou wast not as if thou hadst been so will he call thee againe when thou art ignorant of that being which thou hast in the grave and give thee againe thy former and glorifie it with a better being The Iews then if they had no other helpes might have as naturall men may preparations a Priore and illustrations a Posteriore for the doctrine of the Resurrection The Iews had seen resuscitations from the dead in particular persons and they had seen miraculous cures done by their Prophets And Gregory Nyssen says well that those miraculous cures which Christ wrought with a Tolle grabatum and an Este sanus and no more they were praeludia resurrectionis halfe-resurrections prologues and inducements to the doctrine of the resurrection which shall be transacted with a Surgite mortui and no more So these naturall helps in the consideration of the creature are praeludia resurrectionis they are halfe-resurrections and these naturall resurrections carry us halfe way to the miraculous resurrection But certainely the Iews who had that which the Gentiles wanted The Scriptures had from them a generall though not an explicite knowledge of the resurrection That they had it we see by that practise of Iudas the Maccabee in gathering a contribution to send to Ierusalem which is therefore commended because he was therein mindefull of the Resurrection Neither doth Christ find any that opposed the doctrine of the Resurrection but those who though they were tolerated in the State because they were otherwise great persons were absolute Heretiques even amongst the Iews The Sadduces And Saint Paul when finding himselfe to bee oppressed in Judgement hee used his Christian wisedome and to draw a strong party to himselfe protested himselfe to bee of the sect of the Pharisees and that as they and all the rest in generall did he maintained the Resurrection he knew it would seem a strange injury and an oppression to be called in question for that that they all beleeved Though therefore our Saviour Christ who disputed then onely against the Sadduces argued for the doctrine of the Resurrection onely from that place of the Scripture which those Sadduces acknowledged to be Scripture for they denied all but the bookes of Moses and so insisted upon those words I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob yet certainely the Iews had established that doctrine upon other places too though to the Sadduces who accepted Moses onely Moses were the best evidence It is evident enough in that particular place of Daniel Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt And in Daniel that word many must not be restrained to lesse then all Daniel intends by that many that how many soever they are they shall all arise as Saint Paul does when he says By one mans disobedience many were made sinners that is All for death passed over all men for all have sinned And Christ doth but paraphrase that place of Daniel who says Multi many when he says Omnes all All that are in the grave shall heare his voyce and shall come forth They that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evill to the resurrection of damnation This then being thus far settled that the Iews understood the resurrection and more then that they beleeved it and therefore as they had light in nature they had assurance in Scripture come we now to that which was our last purpose in this first part whether in this text in these words of Iob though after my skin wormes destroy my body there be any such light of the Resurrection given It is true that in the new Testament where the doctrine of the resurrection is more evidently more liquidly delivered then in the old though it be delivered in the old too there is no place cited out of the book of Iob for the resurrection and so this is not But it is no marvaile both upon that reason which we noted before that they who were to be convinced were such as received onely the books of Moses and therefore all citations from this booke of Iob or any other had been impertinently and frivolously employed and because in the new Testament
say they so as that wee shall use them or so as that we might But this sight that Iob speaks of is onely the fruition of the presence of God in which consists eternall blessednesse Here in this world we see God per speculum says the Apostle by reflection upon a glasse we see a creature and from that there arises an assurance that there is a Creator we see him in aenigmate says he which is not ill rendred in the margin in a Riddle we see him in the Church but men have made it a riddle which is the Church we see him in the Sacrament but men have made it a riddle by what light and at what window Doe I see him at the window of bread and wine Is he in that or doe I see him by the window of faith and is he onely in that still it is in a riddle Doe I see him à Priore I see that I am elected and therefore I cannot sinne to death Or doe I see him à Posteriore because I see my selfe carefull not to sin to death therefore I am elected I shall see all problematicall things come to be dogmaticall I shall see all these rocks in Divinity come to bee smooth alleys I shall see Propheâ—ies untyed Riddles dissolved controversies reconciled but I shall never see that till I come to this sight which follows in out text Videbo Deum I shall see God No man ever saw God and liv'd and yet I shall not live till I see God and when I have seen him I shall never dye What have I ever seen in this world that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to me I have seen marble buildings and a chip a crust a plaster a face of marble hath pilld off and I see brick-bowels within I have seen beauty and a strong breath from another tels me that that complexion is from without not from a sound constitution within I have seen the state of Princes and all that is but ceremony and I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to define ceremony and tell me what it is and to include so various a thing as ceremony in so constant a thing as a Definition I see a great Officer and I see a man of mine own profession of great revenues and I see not the interest of the money that was paid for it I see not the pensions nor the Annuities that are charged upon that Office or that Church As he that fears God fears nothing else so he that sees God sees every thing else when we shall see God Sicuti est as he is we shall see all things Sicuti sunt as they are for that 's their Essence as they conduce to his glory We shall be no more deluded with outward appearances for when this sight which we intend here comes there will be no delusory thing to be seen All that we have made as though we saw in this world will be vanished and I shall see nothing but God and what is in him and him I shall see in carne in the flesh which is another degree of Exaltation in mine Exinanition I shall see him In carâ—e suâ in his flesh And this was one branch in Saint Augustines great wish That he might have seen Rome in her state That he might have heard S. Paul preach That he might have seen Christ in the flesh Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one thousand two hundred yeares in Christs glorifyed flesh but it is with the eyes of his understanding and in his soul. Our flesh even in the Resurrection cannot be a spectacle a perspective glasse to our soul. We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily eyes then glorifyed but that flesh though glorifyed cannot make us see God better nor clearer then the soul alone hath done all the time from our death to our resurrection But as an indulgent Father or as a tender mother when they go to see the King in any Solemnity or any other thing of observation and curiosity delights to carry their child which is flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone with them and though the child cannot comprehend it as well as they they are as glad that the child sees it as that they see it themselves such a gladnesse shall my soul have that this flesh which she will no longer call her prison nor her tempter but her friend her companion her wife that this flesh that is I in in the re-union and redintegration of both parts shall see God for then one principall clause in her rejoycing and acclamation shall be that this flesh is her flesh In carne meâ in my flesh I shall see God It was the flesh of every wanton object here that would allure it in the petulancy of mine eye It was the flesh of every Satyricall Libeller and defamer and calumniator of other men that would call upon it and tickle mine ear with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority And in the grave it is the flesh of the worm the possession is transfer'd to him But in heaven it is Caro mea My flesh my souls flesh my Saviours flesh As my meat is assimilated to my flesh and made one flesh with it as my soul is assimilated to my God and made partaker of the divine nature and Idem Spiritus the same Spirit with it so there my flesh shall be assimilated to the flesh of my Saviour and made the same flesh with him too Verbum caro factum ut caro resurgeret Therefore the Word was made flesh therefore God was made man that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right hand of God That 's spoken of the flesh of Christ and then to facilitate the passage for us Reformat ad immortalitatem suam participes sui those who are worthy receivers of his flesh here are the same flesh with him And God shall quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit is that dwelleth in you But this is not in consummation in full accomplishment till this resurrection when it shall be Caro mea my flesh so as that nothing can draw it from the allegiance of my God and Caro mea My flesh so as that nothing can devest me of it Here a bullet will aske a man where 's your arme and a Wolf wil ask a woman where 's your breast A sentence in the Star-chamber will aske him where 's your ear and a mouths close prison will aske him where 's your flesh A fever will aske him where 's your Red and a morphew will aske him where 's your white But when after all this when after my skinne worms shall destroy my body I shall see God I shall see him in my flesh which shall be mine as inseparably in the effect though not in the manner as the Hypostaticall union of God and man in Christ makes our nature and the God-head
necessity that the bloud of Christ Jesus should be shed To satisfie Christs own sitto that thirst which was upon him when he was upon the Crosse there was a necessity too that Christ should bleed to death On our part there was an absolute and a primary necessity God in his justice requiring a satisfaction nothing could redeem us by way of satisfaction but the bloud of his Sonne And though there were never act more voluntary more spontaneous then Christs dying for man nor freer from all coaction and necessity of that kind yet after Christ had submitted himselfe to that Decree and contract that passed between him and his Father that he by shedding his bloud should redeem Mankind there lay a necessity upon Christ himselfe to shed his bloud as himselfe says first to his Disciples that went with him to Emans Nonne opâ—rtuit ought not Christ to suffer all these things do ye not find by the prophets that he was bound to do it and then to his Apostles at Ierusalem Sic opertuit Thus it behoved Christ to suffer There was then an absolute necessity upon us an obedientiall necessity upon Christ that his bloud must be shed But to let him dye in a wantonnesse to let out all that precious liquor and taste no drop of it to draw out all that immaculate and unvaluable bloud and make no balsamum no antidote no plaister no fomentation in the application of that bloud to labour still under a burning fever of lust and ambition and presumption and finde no cooling julips there in the application of that bloud to labour under a cold damp of indevotion and under heartlesse desperation and find no warming Cordialls there to be still as farre under judgements and executions for finne as if there had been no Messias sent no ransome given no satisfiaction made not to apply this bloud thus shed for us by those meanes which God in his Church presents to us this puts Christ to his wofull Interjection to cast out this wo upon us which he had rather have left out wo be unto the world which though it begin in a vae dolentis a voice of condoling and lamenting yet it is also vae minantis a voice of threatning and intermination denoting the infallibility of Judgements and that 's our next consideration I thinke we find no words in Christs mouth so often as vae and Amen Each of them hath two significations as almost all Christs words and actions have consolation and commination For as this vae signifies as before a sorrow wo that is wo is me for this will fall upon you and signifies also a Judgment inevitable and infallible wo that is wo be unto you for this Judgement shall fall upon you so Amen is sometimes vox Asserentis and signifies verè verily Verily I say unto you when Christ would confirm and establish a beleefe in some doctrine or promise of his as when he says Amen Amen verily verily I say unto you he that beleeveth on me the works that I doe shall he doe also and greater works then these shall he doe so it is vox Asserentis a word of assertion and it is also vox Deserentis a word of desertion when God denounces an infallibility an unavoydablenesse an inevitablenesse in his judgements Amen dico verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no meanes come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing so this Amen signifies Fiat this shall certainly be thus done And this seale this Amen as Amen is Fiat is always set to his vae as his vae is vox minantis whensoever God threatens any Judgement he meanes to execute that Judgement as farre as he threatens it God threatens nothing in terrorem onely onely to frighten us every vae hath his Amen every Judgement denounced a purpose of execution This then is our wofull case every man may find upon record in the Scriptures a vae denounced upon that sinne which he knows to be his sinne and if there be a vae there is an Amen too if God have said it shall it shall be executed so that this is not an execution of a few condemned persons but a Massacre of all It is not a Decimation as in a rebellion to spare nine and hang the tenth but it is a washing a sweeping away of all every man may find a Judgement upon record against him It doth not acquit him that he hath not committed an adultery and yet is he sure of that He may have done that in a looke in a letter in a word in a wish It doth not acquit him that he hath not done a murder and yet is he sure of that He may have killed a man in not defending him from the oppression of another if he have power in his hand and he may have killed in not relieving if he have a plentifull fortune He may have killed in not reprehending him who was under his charge wheÌ„ he saw him kil himself in the sinful ways of death As they that write of Poysons and of those creatures that naturally maligne and would destroy man do name the Flea as well as the Viper because the Flea sucks as much bloud as he can so that man is a murderer that stabs as deep as he can though it be but with his tongue with his pen with his frowne for a man may kill with a frowne in withdrawing his countenance from that man that lives upon so low a pasture as his countenance nay he may kill with a smile with a good looke if he afford that good looke with a purpose to delude him And beloved how many dye of this disease how many dye laughing dye of a tickling how many are overjoyed with the good looks and with the familiarity of greater persons then themselves and led on by hopes of getting more wa st that they have An adultery a murder may be done in a dreame if that dreame were an effect of a murderous or an adulterous thought conceived before The Apostle says I know nothing by my selfe yet am I not thereby justified we sinne some sinnes that all the world sees and yet we see not but then how many more which none in the world sees but our selves Scarce any man scapes all degrees of any sinne scarce any man some great degree of some great sinne no man escapes so but that he may find upon record in the Scriptures a vae and an Amen a Judgment denounced and an execution sealed against him And if that be our case where is there any roome for this milder signification of these two words vae and Amen which we spoke of before as they are words of Consolation If because God hath said Stipendium peccati mors est the wages of sinne is death because I have sinned I must dye what can I doe in a Prayer can I flatter God what can I doe in an Almes Can I bribe God or frustrate his
work for advancing thy state remember thy naturall death but especially when thou art in a sinfull worke for satisfying thy lusts remember thy spirituall death Be afraid of this death and thou wilt never feare the other Thou wilt rather sigh with David My soule hath too long dwelt with him that hateth peace Thou wilt be glad when a bodily death may deliver thee from all farther danger of a spirituall death And thou wilt be ashamed of that imputation which is layd upon worldly men by St. Cyprian Ad nostros navigamus ventos contrarios optamus we pretend to be sayling homewards and yet we desire to have the winde against us we are travelling to the heavenly Ierusalem and yet we are loath to come thither Here then is the use of our hope before death that this life shall be a gallery into a better roome and deliver us over to a better Country for if in this life onely we have hope in Christ we are of all men the most miserable Secondly in the agony of death when the Sessions are come and that as a prisoner may looke from that Tower and see the Judge that must condemne him to morrow come in to night so we lye upon our death-bed and apprehend a present judgement to be given upon us when if we will not pleade to the Indictment if we will stand mute and have nothing to say to God we are condemned already condemned in our silence and if we do plead we have no plea but guilty nothing to say but to confesse all the Indictment against our selves when the flesh is too weake as that it can performe no office and yet would faine stay here when the soule is laden with more sins then she can bear and yet would faine contract more in this agony there is this use of our hope that as God shall then when our bodily eares are deaf whisper to our soules and say Memento homo Remember consider man that thou art but dust and art now returning into dust so we in our hearts when our bodily tongues are speechlesse may then say to God as it is in Iob Memento quaeso Remember thou also I beseech thee O God that it is thou that hast made me as clay and that it is thou that bringest me to that state againe and therefore come thou and looke to thine owne worke come and let thy servant depart in peace in having seen his salvation My hope before death is that this life is the way my hope at death is that my death shall be a doore into a better state Lastly the use of our hope is after death that God by his promise hath made himself my debter till he restore my body to me againe in the resurrection My body hath sinned and he hath not redeemed a sinner he hath not saved a sinner except he have redeemed and saved my body as well as my soule To those soules that lye under the Altar and solicite God for the resurrection in the Revelation God sayes That they should rest for a little season untill their fellow-servants and their brethren that should be killed even as they were were fulfilled All that while while that number is fulfilling is our hopes exercised after our death And therefore the bodies of the Saints of God which have been Temples of the Holy Ghost when the soule is gone out of them are not to be neglected as a sheath that had lost the knife as a shell that had spent the kernell but as the Godhead did not depart from the dead body of Christ Jesus then when that body lay dead in the grave so the power of God and the merit of Christ Jesus doth not depart from the body of man but his blood lives in our ashes and shall in his appointed time awaken this body againe to an everlasting glory Since therefore Iob had and we have this assurance before we dye when we dye after we are dead it is upon good reason that he did and we do trust in God though he should kill us when he doth kill us after he hath killed us Especially since it is Ille He who is spoken of before he that kills and gives life he that wounds and makes whole againe God executes by what way it pleases him condemned persons cannot chuse the manner of their death whether God kill by sicknesse by age by the hand of the law by the malice of man si ille as long as we can see that it is he he that is Shaddai Vastator Restaurator the destroyer and the repairer howsoever he kill yet he gives life too howsoever he wound yet he heales too howsoever he lock us into our graves now yet he hath the keys of hell and death and shall in his time extend that voyce to us all Lazare veni for as come forth of your putrefaction to incorruptible glory Amen SERMON XXXI Preached at Hanworth to my Lord of Carlile and his company being the Earles of Northumberland and Buckingham c. Aug. 25. 1622. JOE 36. 25. Every man may see it man may behold it afar off THe words are the words of Elihu Elihu was one of Iobs friends and a meer naturall man a man not captivated not fettered not enthralled in any particular forme of Religion as the Iewes were a man not macerated with the feare of God not infatuated with any preconceptions which Nurses or Godfathers or Parents or Church or State had infused into him not dejected not suppled not matured not entendred with crosses in this world and so made apt to receive any impressions or follow any opinions of other men a meer naturall man and in the meer use of meer naturall reason this man sayes of God in his works Every man may see it Man may behold it afar off It is the word of a naturall man and the holy Ghost having canonized it sanctified it by inserting it into the booke of God it is the word of God too Saint Paul cites sometimes the words of secular Poets and approves them and then the words of those Poets become the word of God Elihu speakes a naturall man and God speakes in canonizing his words and therefore when we speake to godly men we are sure to be believed for God sayes it if we were to speake to naturall men onely we might be believed for Elihu a naturall man and wise in his generation sayes it that for God in his works Every man may see it man may behold it afar off Be pleased to admit and charge your memories with this distribution of the words Let the parts be but two so you will be pleased to stoop and gather or at least to open your hands to receive some more I must not say flowers for things of sweetnesse and of delight grow not in my ground but simples rather and medicinall herbs of which as there enter many into good cordials so in this supreme cordiall of bringing
midnight not to see where we all see him in the Congregation and to see him with terror in the Suburbs of despaire in the solitary chamber Man may sayes Scotus man must he cannot chuse sayes Thomas man hath seen God sayes the holy Ghost Man that is every man and that 's our last branch in this first part The inexcusablenesse goes over man over all men Because they would not see invisible things in visible they are inexcusable all Death passed upon all men for all have sinned All sinners all dead Is Gods right hand shorter then his left his mercy shrunk and his justice stretched no certainly certainly every man may see him Man cannot hide himselfe from God God does not hide himselfe from man not from any man Col-Adam Omnis home even in that low name that lowest acceptation of man as he is but derived from earth as he is but earth he may see God We have divers names for man in Hebrew at least foure This that makes him but earth Adam is the meanest and yet Col-Adam Every man may see God David cals us to the contemplation of the heavens Coeli enarrant and Iob to the contemplation of the firmament of the Pleiades and Orion and Arcturus and the ordinances of heaven but it is not onely the Mathematician that sees God Demini terra the earth is the Lords and all that dwell therein all in all corners of the earth may see him David tels us They that go down to the sea in ships they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep but it is not onely the Mariner the discoverer that discovers God but he that puts his hand to the plough and looks not back may see God there Let him be filius terra the sonne of the earth without noble extraction without knowne place of uncertaine parents even Melchisedeck was so Let him be filius percussionis the sonne of affliction a man that hath inward heavy sentences and heavy executions of the law Let him be filius mortis the sonne of death as Saul said to Ionathan of David a man designed to dye nay let him be filius Belial the sonne of iniquity and of everlasting perdition there is no lownesse no naturall no spirituall dejection so low but that that low man may see God Let him be filius terrae the sonne of the earth and of no body else let him be Dominus terrae Lord of the earth busied upon the earth and nothing else let him be hospes terrae a guest a tenant an inmate of the earth halfe of him in the earth and the rest no where else this poore man this worldly man this dying man may see God To end this you can place the spheare in no position in no station in which the earth can eclipse the Sun you can place this clod of earth man in no ignorance in no melancholy in no oppression in no sinne but that he may but that he does see God The Marrigold opens to the Sunne though it have no tongue to say so the Atheist does see God though he have not grace to confesse it We have past through our first part and the three branches of that The object God in his works and the faculty that apprehends seeing that is knowing and the person indued with the faculty every man even Adam In our second part which is a tacite answer to a likely objection Is not God in the highest heaven afar off yes but man may see afar off we have the same three branches too and yet not the same the same object God but in another manifestation then in his worke in glory the same faculty seeing but with other manner of eyes glorified eyes the same person man but not man as he is Adam a meere naturall and earthly man but man as he is Enosh who by having tasted Gods corrections or by having considered the miseries of this world is prepared for the joy and glory of the next And in this part we will begin with the person man Man may behold it afar off How different are the wayes of God from the ways of man the eyes of God from the eyes of man and the wayes and eyes of a godly man from the eyes and wayes of a man of this world We looke still upon high persons and after high places and from those heights we thinke we see far but he that will see this object must lye low it is best discerned in the dark in a heavy and a calamitous fortune The naturall way is upward I can better know a man upon the top of a steeple then if he were halfe that depth in a well but yet for higher objects I can better see the stars of heaven in the bottome of a well then if I stood upon the highest steeple upon earth If I twist a cable of infinite fadomes in length if there be no ship to ride by it nor anchor to hold by it what use is there of it If Mannor thrust Mannor and title flow into title and bags powre out into chests if I have no anchor faith in Christ if I have not a ship to carry to a haven a soule to save what 's my long cable to me If I adde number to number a span a mile long if at the end of all that long line of numbers there be nothing that notes pounds or crownes or shillings what 's that long number but so many millions of millions of nothing If my span of life become a mile of life my penny a pound my pint a gallon my acre a sheere yet if there be nothing of the next world at the end so much peace of conscience so much joy so much glory still all is but nothing multiplied and that is still nothing at all 'T is the end that qualifies all and what kinde of man I shall be at my end upon my death-bed what trembling hands and what lost legs what deafe eares and what gummy eyes I shall have then I know and the nearer I come to that disposition in my life the more mortified I am the better I am disposed to see this object future glory God made the Sun and Moon and Stars glorious lights for man to see by but mans infirmity requires spectacles and affliction does that office Gods meaning was that by the sun-shine of prosperity and by the beames of honour and temporall blessings a man should see farre into him but I know not how he is come to need spectacles scarse any man sees much in this matter till affliction shew it him God made the ballance even riches may show God and poverty may show God let the two Testaments the old and the new be the ballance and so they are even the blessednesse of the old Testament runs all upon temporall blessings and worldly riches Blessed in the city and in the field blessed in the fruit of thy cattell and
his eternall generation in the bosome of his Father had now cast a cloud of a temporary and earthly generation in the wombe of his mother that man who as he entred into the wombe of his first mother the blessed Virgin by a supernaturall way by the overshadowing of the holy Ghost so he vouchsafed to enter into the wombe of her whom he had accepted for his second mother the earth by an unnaturall way not by a naturall but by a violent and bitter death that man so torne and mangled wounded with thornes oppressed with scornes and contumelies Pilite presents and exhibits so Ecce homo Behold the man But in all this depression of his in all his exinanition and evacuation yet he had a Crown on yet he had a purple garment on the emblems the Characters of majesty were always upon him And these two considerations the miseries that exhaust and evacuate and annihilate man in this life and yet those sparkes and seeds of morality that lie in the bosome that still he is a man the affilictions that depresse and smother that suffocate and strangle their spirits in thier bosomes and yet that unsmotherable that unquenchable Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father that still he is a Christian these Thornes and yet these Crownes these contumelies and yet this Purple are the two parts of this text I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath For here is an Ecce behold Ieremy presents a map a manifestation of as great affliction as the rod of Gods wrath could infflict But yet it is Ecce homo Behold the man I am the man he is not demolished he is not incinerated so not so annihilated but that he is still a man God preserves his children from departing from the dignity of men and from the soveraigne dignity of Christian men in the deluge and inundation of all afflictions And these two things so considerable in that Ecce homo in the exhibiting of Christ that then when he was under those scornes and Crosses he had his Crownes his purples ensignes of majesty upon him may well be parts of this text for when we come to consider who is the person of whom Ieremy says I am the man we finde many of the ancient Expositors take these words prophetically of Christ himself and that Christ himselfe who says Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow says here also I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath But because there are some other passages in the Chapter that are not conveniently appliable to Christ it is not likely that Christ would say of himself That his Father shut out his prayer even then when he cryed and shouted not likely that Christ would say of himselfe That his Father was to him as a Beare in the way and as a Lion in secret places not likely that Christ would say of himselfe That his Father had removed his soul far from peace therfore this chapter and this person cannot be so well understood of Christ. Others therefore have understood if of Ierusalem it selfe but then it would not be expressed in that Sex it would not be said of Ierusalem I am the man Others understand if of any particular man that had his part in that calamity in that captivity that the affliction was so universall upon all of that nation of what condition soever that every man might justly say Ego vir I am the man that have seen affliction But then all this chapter must be figurative and still where we can it becomes it behooves us to maintain a literall sense and interpretation of all Scriptures And that we shall best do in this place if we understand these words literally of Iermy himselfe that the Minister of God the Preacher of God the Prophet of God Ieremy himself was the man the Preacher is the text Ego vir I am the man As the Ministers of God are most exposed to private contumelies so should they be most affected with publique calamities soonest come to say with the Apostle Quis infirmatur who is weake and I am not weake too who is offended and I am not affected with it when the people of God are distressed with sicknesse with dearth with any publique calamity the Minister is the first man that should be compassionate that should be compassionate and sensible of it In these words then I am the man c. these are our two parts first the Burden and then the Ease first the waight and then the Alleviation first the Discomfort and then the Refreshing the sea of afflictions that overflow and surround us all and then our emergency and lifting up our head above that sea In the first we shall consider first the Generality of afflictions and that first in their own nature And then secondly in that name of man upon whom they fall here Gheber Ego vir I am the man which is that name of man by which the strongest the powerfullest of men are denoted in the Scriptures They the strongest the mightiest they that thought themselves safest and sorrow-proofe are afflicted And lastly in the person upon whom these afflictions are fastned here Ieremy the Prophet of whom literally we understand this place The dearliest beloved of God and those of whose service God may have use in his Church they are subject to be retarded in their service by these afflictions Nothing makes a man so great amongst men nothing makes a man so necessary to God as that he can escape afflictions And when we shall have thus considered the generality thereof these three wayes In the nature of affliction it selfe In the signification of that name of exaltation Gheber And in the person of Ieremy we shall passe to the consideration of the vehemency and intensnesse thereof in those circumstances that are laid down in our Text First that these afflictions are Ejus His The Lords And then they are in virga in his rod And again In virga irae in the rod of his wrath And in these two branches the extent and the weight of afflictions and in these few circumstances that illustrate both we shall determine our first part the burden the discomfort When we shall come at last to our last part of comfort we shall finde that also to grow out into 2 branches for first Vidit he saw his affliction I am the Man that hath seen affliction Affliction did not blinde him not stupefie him affliction did not make him unsensible of affliction which is a frequent but a desperate condition vidit he saw it that is first And then Ego vir I am the man that saw it he maintained the dignity of his station still he played the man still he survived to glorifie God and to be an example to other men of patience under Gods corrections and of thankfulnesse in Gods deliverance In which last part
are circumcised with them which are not circumcised If we circumcise in part leave some sinnes and cleave to others we shall be in the sight of God altogether uncircumcised Adam was not the lesse naked in Gods sight for his Figge-leafe halfe-repentances are no repentances either we are in a privation or in a habit covered over with righteousnesse or naked When therefore the Lord and his Spirit cals thee to this spirituall Circumcision remember that Abraham did not say when he was call'd Lord I have followed thy voyce in leaving my Country Lord I have built thee an Altar what needs more demonstration of my obedience Say not thou Lord I have built an Hospitall Lord I have fed the poore at Christmas Lord I have made peace amongst thy people at home I have endowed an Almes-house but persevere in doing good still for God takes not the Tree where it growes but where it fals for the most part the death of a man is such as his life was but certainly the life of a man that is his everlasting life is such as his death is Againe Abraham did not say of this that it was a Commandement in a flight and frivolous and uncivill matter doe not thou say that it is an impertinent thing in this spirituall Circumcision to watch thy eating and drinking and all such indifferent actions and to see that all they be done to the glory of God for as the Apostle saies That the foolishnesse of God is wiser then the wisdome of man so we may piously say that the levity of God is graver then the gravity of all the Philosophers and Doctors of the world as we may see in all his Ceremontall Lawes where the matter seemes very light in many places but yet the signification very important and therefore apply this Circumcision even in thy least and most familiar action So also Abraham was not diverted from obeying God by the inconvenience of having all his family diseas'd at once he did not say I am content to circumcise my Sonne but would spare my Servants yet for necessary uses doe not thou say thou art content to circumcise thine eldest Sonne to abate somewhat of that sinne which thou beganst with in thy youth but wouldst faine spare some serviceable and profitable sinnes for a time and circumcise them hereafter To pursue this example Abraham did not say Cras Domine Lord I will doe all this to morrow but as the Commandement was given in that phrase of expedition Circumcidendo circumcides In Circumcising thou shalt circumcise which denoted a diligent and a present dispatch so Abraham did dispatch it diligently and presently that day Doe not thou say Cras Domine to morrow some other day in the day of mine age or of my Death or of affliction and tribulation I will circumcise all for age and sicknesse and tâ—ibulations are Circumcisions of themselves a Feaver circumcises thee then or an Apoplexy and not thy Devotion and incapacity of sinning is not sanctification If any man put off his Repentance till death Fateor non negamus quod petit saies Saint Augustine I dare not deny that man whatsoever God may be pleased to grant him Sed non presumimus quod bene erit I dare not presume to say that that man died well Non presumo non vas fallo non presumo saies that Father with some vehemency I dare not warrant him let me not deceive you with saying that I dare for I dare not And Beloved that is but a suspicious state in any man in which another Christian hath just reason to doubt of his salvation as Saint Augustine doth shrewdly doubt of these late Repenters Sicut ejus damnatio inoerta it a remissio dubia As I am not sure he is damned so I am not sure he is saved no more sure of one then of the other It is true we have the example of the Crucified Thiefe but it is but a hard case when a Thiefe must guide us and be our Example we suspect wills that are made of temporall goods in that state at the last gaspe and shall we think a Man to be compos mentis of a perfect understanding for the bequeathing of his Soule at his last gaspe non presumo non nos fallo non presumo I should deceive you if I should say it I dare not say it sayes that Father Come therefore to this Circumcision betimes come to it this Day come this Minute This Day thy Savior was Circumcised in the flesh for thee this Day Circumcise thy heart to him and all thy senses and all thy affections It is not an utter destroying of thy senses and of thy affections that is enjoyned thee but as when a Man had taken a beautifull Woman captive in the warres he was not bound to kill her but he must shave her head and pare her nailes and change her garments before he might marry her so captivate subdue change thy affections and that 's the Destruction which makes up this Circumcision change thy choler into Zeale change thy amorousnesse into devotion change thy wastfulnesse into Almes to the poore and then thou hast circumcised thy affections and mayest retaine them and mayest confidently say with the Apostle we are the Circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoyce in Christ Iesus and have no confidence in the flesh Doe this to day as God this day gives thee a New yeare and hath not surpriz'd thee nor taken thee away in the sinnes of last yeare as he gives thee a new yeare doe thou give him a New-years-gift Cor novum a new and a Circumcised heart and Canticum novum a new Song a delight to magnifie his name and speak of his glory and declare his wondrous works to the Sonnes of men and be assured that whether I or any other of the same Ministry shall speake to you from this place this day twelve month and shall aske your consciences then whether those things which you heard now have brought you to this Circumcision and made you better this yeare than you were the last and find you under the same uncircumcision still be assured that God will not God cannot be mocked but as he wil receive us with an Euge bone serve Well done my good and faithfull Servant so he will say to you Perditio tua ex te Your destruction is from your selves Enough hath been done for you by me enough hath been said to you by my Servants Quare moriemini Why will you die ô house of Israel And after a long despising of his graces he will come to a finall separation you shall come to say Nolumus hunc regnare we will not have Christ Jesus to reigne over us and Christ Jesus shall come to say Nescio vos I know you not nor whence you are Hodie si vocem ejus If you wil heare his voice this day Hodie eritis This day you shall be with him in Paradise and dwell in
sheds such blessings upon us is to break that branch of this Commandement Gaudete semper Rejoyce evermore for he does not rejoyce in bonis temporalibus So is it also as not to seek them before so not to use them when we have them When in a feare of growing poore makes us think God to be poor too that if we spend this God can give us no more when for feare of lacking at our end we lack all the way when we abound and yet will pay no debts not to our own bellies our own backs our own respect and the decency that belongs to our rank these men so sordid so penurious suspitious of Gods Providence breake this branch of this Commandement too because they doe not rejoyce in bonis temporalibus And as the not-seeker and the not-user so the abuser of these temporall blessings is in the same transgression Hee that thinkes all the world as one Jewell and himselfe the Cabinet that all was made for him and hee for none forgets his owne office his Stewardship by which he is enabled and bound to the necessities of others to collect hee that seeks not hee that denies all to himself hee that denies all but himself break this branch for they doe not rejoyce in bonis temporalibus This we must doe but in bonis spiritualibus in the spirituall good things of this world much more we call those the spirituall good things of this world which advance our devotion here and consequently our salvation hereafter The rituall and ceremoniall the outward worship of God the places the times the manner of meetings which are in the disposition of Christian Princes and by their favours of those Churches which are in their government and not to rejoyce in the peacefull exercise of those spirituall helps not to be glad of them is a transgression Now the Prophet expresses this rejoycing thus Venite exultemus let us come and rejoyce We must doe both And therefore they who out of a thraldome to another Church abstaine from these places of these exercises that doe not come or if they doe come doe not rejoyce but though they be here brought by necessity of law or of observation yet had rather they were in another Chappell or that another kinde of service then in this and they also who abstain out of imaginary defects in this church think they cannot perform Davids De profundis they cannot call upon God out of the depth except it be in a Conventicle in a cellar nor acknowledge Solomons Excelsis Excelsior that God is higher then the highest except it be in a Conventicle in a garret when they are here wink at the ornaments stop their ears at the musique of the Church in which manner she hath always expressed her rejoycing in those helps of devotion or if there bee a third sort who abstain because they may not be here at so much case and so much liberty as at their own houses all these are under this transgression Are they in the Kings house at so much liberty as in their own and is not this the King of Kings house Or have they seene the King in his owne house use that liberty to cover himselfe in his ordinary manner of covering at any part of Divine Service Every Preacher will look and justly to have the Congregation uncovered at the reading of his Text and is not the reading of the Lesson at time of Prayer the same Word of the same God to be received with the same reverence The service of God is one entire thing and though we celebrate some parts with more or with lesse reverence some kneeling some standing yet if we afford it no reverence we make that no patr of Gods service And therefore I must humbly intreat them who make this Quire the place of their Devotion to testifie their devotion by more outward reverence there wee know our parts in this place and we doe them why any stranger should think himself more priviledged in this part of Gods House then we I know not I presume no man will mis-interpret this that I say here now nor if this may not prevaile mis-interpret the service of our Officers if their continuing in that unreverent manner give our Officers occasion to warn them of that personally in the place whensoever they see them stray into that uncomely negligence They should not blame me now they must not blame them then when they call upon them for this reverence in this Quire neither truly can there be any greater injustice then when they who will not do their duties blame others for doing theirs But that we are bound to a thankfull rejoycing in all that falls well to us In bonis admits lesse doubt and therefore requires lesse proof But the semper of our Text extends farther Gandete in malis we doe not rejoyce always except we rejoyce in evill days in all our crosses and calamities Now if we be not affected with Gods judgements if we conceive not a sorrow for them or the cause of them our sins God is angry will he be angry too if we be not glad of them if we doe not rejoyce in them Can this sorrow and this joy consist together very well The School in the mouth of Aquinas gives instances If an Innocent man be condemned Simul placet ejus justitia displices afflictio I congratulate his innocency and I condole his death both at once So Displicet mihi quod peccavi placet quod displicet I am very sorry that I have sinned but yet I am glad that I am sorry So that Ipsatristitia materia gaudii Some sorrow is so far from excluding joy as that naturally it produces it S. Augustine hath sealed it with this advice Semper doleat poenitens Let him who hath sinned always lament But then where is the Gaudete semper he tels us too Semper gaudeat de dolore Let him always rejoyce that God hath opened him a way to mercy by sorrow Lacrymae Seminium quoddam sunt foenus quibus increscit gaudium Sorrow is our Seminary from whence we are transplanted into a larger Orchard into the dilatation of the heart Joy sorrow says he Seminium est foenus est It is our interest our use And if we have sorrow upon sorrow it is use upon use it doubles the principall which is joy the sooner Cordae cum distenduntur it is S. Augustines musicall comparison when the strings of an instrument are set up the musicall sound is the clearer if a mans sinew be stretcht upon the rack his joy is not the lesse perfect Not that a man must seek out occasion of sorrow provoke the Magistrate by seditious intemperance and call it zeal or macerate the body with fastings or mangle it with whippings and call that merit Non ut quaerant materiam quam non habent sed at inveniant cam quam nescientes habent
tentations to sin He shall eat up my dust so as that it shall fly into mine eys that is so work upon my carnall affections as that they shall not make me blinde nor unable to discern that it is he that works It is said of one kinde of Serpent that because they know by an instinct they have that their skin is good for the use of man for the falling sickness out of Envy they hide their skin when they cast it The Serpent is loth we should have any benefit by him but we have even his tentations arm us and the very falling exalts us when after a sin of infirmity we come to a true and scrutiny of our conscience So he hath nothing to eat but our dust and he eats up our dust so as that he contributes to our glory by his malice The Whale was Ionas Pilot The Crows were Elias caters The Lions were Daniels sentinels The Viper was Pauls advocate it pleaded for him brought the beholders in an instant from extreme to extreme from crying out that Paul was a murderer to cry that he was a god Though at any time the Serpent having brought me to a sin cry out Thou art a murderer that is bring me to a desperate sense of having murdred mine own soul yet in that darkness I shal see light by a present repentance effectual application of the merits of my Savior I shall make the Serpent see I am a God thus far a God that by my adhering to Christ I am made partaker of the Divine Nature For that which S. Chrysost. says of Baptism is true too in the second Baptism Repentance Deposui terram coelum indui then I may say to the Serpent Your meat is dust and I was dust but Deposui terram I have shak'd off my dust by true repentance for I have shak'd off my self and am a new creature and am not now meat for your Table Iam terra non sum sed sal says the same Father I am not now unsavoury dust but I am salt And Sal ex aqua vento says he Salt is made of water and winde I am made up of the water of Baptism of the water of Repentance of the water that accompanies the blood of Christ Jesus and of that winde that blows where it list and hath been pleased to blow upon me the Spirit of God the Holy Ghost and I am no longer meat for the Serpent for Dust must he eat all the days of his life I am a branch of that Vine Christ is the Vine and we are the branches I am a leafe of that Rose of Sharon and of that Lilly of the valleys I am a plant in the Orchard of Pomegranats and that Orchard of Pomegranats is the Church I am a drop of that dew that dew that lay upon the head of Christ. And this Vine and this Rose and Lilly and Pomegranats of Paradise and this Dew of heaven are not Dust And dust must thou eate all the dayes of thy life So then the Prophecy of Esay fulfils it self That when Christ shall reign powerfully over us The wolf and the lamb shall feed together Saul and Ananias shall meet in a house as S. Hierome expounds that and Ananias not be afraid of a Persecutor The Lion shall eate straw like the Bullock says that Prophet in that place Tradent se rusticitati Scripturarum says the same Father The strongest understandings shall content themselves with the homelinesse of the Scriptures and feed upon plain places and not study new dishes by subtilties and perplexities and then Dust shall be the Serpents meat says the Prophet there The power of Satan shall reach but to the body and touch a soul wrapt up in Christ. But then it is Totâ vitâ all his life His diet is impaired but it is not taken away He eats but dust but he shall not lack that as long as hee lives And how long lives the Serpent this Serpent The life of this Serpent is to seduce man to practise upon man to prevaile upon man as farre and as long as man is dust And therefore wee are not onely his dust whilst wee live all which time we serve in our carnall affections for him to feed upon but when we are dead we are his dust still Man was made in that state as that he should not resolve to dust but should have passed from this world to the next without corruption or resolution of the body That which God said to Adam Dust thou art belonged to all from the beginning he and all we were to be of dust in his best integrity but that which God adds there in terram revertêris dust thou art and to it thou shalt returne that the Serpent brought in that was induced upon man by him and his tentation So that when we are living dust here he eats us and when we are dead dust too in the grave he feeds upon us because it proceeds from him both that we die and that we are detained in the state of exinanition and ingloriousnesse in the dust of the earth and not translated immediately to the joyes of heaven as but for him we should have been But as though he do feed upon our living dust that is induce sicknesses and hunger and labour and cold and paine upon our bodies here God raises even that dust out of his hands and redeemes it from his jaws in affording us a deliverance or a â—â—â—â—itution from those bodily calamities here as he did abundantly to his servant and our example Iob so though he feed upon our dead dust and detain our bodies in the disconsolate state of the grave yet as the Godhead the divine nature did not depart from the body of Christ when it lay dead in the grave so neither doth the love and power of God depart from the body of a Christian though resolved to dust in the grave but in his due time shall recollect that dust and recompact that body and reunite that soul in everlasting joy and glory And till then the Serpent lives till the Judgement Satan hath power upon that part of man and that 's the Serpents life first to practise our death and then to hold us in the state of the dead Till then we attend with hope and with prayers Gods holy pleasure upon us and then begins the unchangeable state in our life in body and soul together then we beginne to live and then ends the Serpents life that is his earnest practise upon us in our life and his faint triumph in continuing over our dust That time the time of the generall Resurrection being not yet come the devills thought themselves wronged and complained that Christ came before the time to torment them and therefore Christ yeelded so much to their importunity as to give them leave to enter into the swine And therefore let not us murmur
nor over-mourne for that which as we have induced it upon our selves so God shall deliver us from at last that is both death and corruption after death and captivity in that comfortlesse state but for the resurection For so long we are to be dust and so long lasts the Serpents life Satans power over man dust must he eate all the days of his life In the meane time for our comfort in the way when this Serpent becomes a Lyon yet there is a Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah that is too strong for him so if he who is Serpens serpens humi the Serpent condemned to creep upon the ground doe transforme himselfe into a flying Serpent and attempt our nobler faculties there is Serpens exaltatus a Serpent lifted up in the wildernesse to recover all them that are stung and feel that they are stung with this Serpent this flying Serpent that is these high and continued sinnes The creeping Serpent the groveling Serpent is Craft the exalted Serpent the crucified Serpent is Wisdome All you worldly cares all your crafty bargaines all your subtill matches all your diggings into other means estates all your hedgings in of debts all your planting of children in great allyances all these diggings and hedgings and plantings savour of the earth and of the craft of that Serpent that creeps upon the earth But crucifie this craft of yours bring all your worldly subtilty under the Crosse of Christ Jesus husband your farmes so as you may give a good account to him presse your debts so as you would be pressed by him market and bargaine so as that you would give all to buy that field in which his treasure and his pearle is hid and then you have changed the Serpent from the Serpent of perdition creeping upon the earth to the Serpent of salvation exalted in the wildernesse Creeping wisedome that still looks downward is but craft Crucified wisedome that looks upward is truly wisedome Between you and that ground Serpent God hath kindled a war and the nearer you come to a peace with him the farther ye go from God and the more ye exaspetate the Lord of Hosts and you whet his sword against your own souls A truce with that Serpent is too near a peace to condition with your conscience for a time that you may continue in such a sin till you have paid for such a purchase married such a daughter bought such an annuity undermined and eaten out such an unthrift this truce though you mean to end it before you die is too near a peace with that Serpent between whom and you God hath kindled an everlasting war A cessation of Arms that is not to watch all his attempts and tentations not to examine all your particular actions A Treaty of Peace that is to dispute and debate in the behalf and favour of a sin to palliate to disguise to extenuate that sin this is too near a peace with this Serpent this creeping Serpent But in the other Serpent the crucified Serpent God hath reconciled to himself all things in heaven and earth and hell You have peace in the assistance of the Angels of heaven Peace in the contribution of the powerfull prayers and of the holy examples of the Saints upon earth peace in the victory and triumph over the power of hell peace from sins towards men peace of affections in your selves peace of conscience towards God From your childhood you have been called upon to hold your peace To be content is to hold your peace murmure not at God in any corrections of his and you doe hold this peace That creeping Serpent Satan is war and should be so The crucified Serpent Christ Jesus is peace and shall be so for ever The creeping Serpent eats our dust the strength of our bodies in sicknesses and our glory in the dust of the grave The crucified Serpent hath taken our flesh and our blood and given us his flesh and his blood for it And therefore as David when he was thought base for his holy freedome in dancing before the Ark said he would be more base so since we are all made of red earth let him that is red be more red Let him that is red with the blood of his own soul be red again in blushing for that rednesse and more red in the Communion of the blood of Christ Jesus whom we shall eat all the days of our life and be mystically and mysteriously and spiritually and Sacramentally united to him in this life and gloriously in the next In this state of dust and so in the territory of the Serpent the Tyrant of the dead lies this dead brother of ours and hath lien some years who occasions our meeting now and yearly upon this day and whose soul we doubt not is in the hands of God who is the God of the living And having gathered a good Gomer of Manna a good measure of temporall blessings in this life and derived a fair measure thereof upon them whom nature and law directed it upon and in whom we beseech God to blesse it hath also distributed something to the poor of this Parish yearly this day and something to a meeting for the conserving of neighbourly love and something for this exercise In which no doubt his intention was not so much to be yearly remembred himself as that his posterity and his neighbours might be yearly remembred to doe as he had done For this is truly to glorifie God in his Saints to sanctifie our selves in their examples To celebrate them is to imitate them For as it is probably conceived and agreeably to Gods Justice that they that write wanton books or make wanton pictures have additions of torment as often as other men are corrupted with their books or their pictures so may they who have left permanent examples of good works well be beleeved to receive additions of glory and joy when others are led by that to do the like And so they who are extracted and derived from him and they who dwelt about him may assist their own happiness and enlarge his by following his good example in good proportions Amen SERMON XLVIII Preached at St. Dunstans LAMENT 3. 1. I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath YOU remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus there was an Ecce homo a shewing an exhibiting of that man in whom we are all blessed Pilat presented him to the Jews so with that Ecce homo Behold the man That man upon whom the wormwood and the gall of all the ancient Prophecies and the venome and malignity of all the cruell instruments thereof was now poured out That man who was left as a tender plant and as a roote out of a dry ground without forme or beauty or comelinesse that wee should desire to see him as the Prophet Esay exhibits him That man who upon the brightnesse of