is there comfort in that state why that is the state of hell it self Eternall dying and not dead But for this there is enough said by the Morall man that we may respite divine proofes for divine points anon for our severall Resurrections for this death is meerly naturall and it is enough that the morall man sayes Mors lex tributum officium mortalium First it is lex you were born under that law upon that condition to die Sencea so it is a rebellious thing not to be content to die it opposes the Law Then it is Tributum an imposition which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us and which she will take when and where se lift here a yong man there an old man herea happy there a miserable man And so itis a seditious thing not to be content to die it opposes the prerogative And lastly it is Officium men are to have rheir turnes to take their time and then to give way by death to successors and so it is Incivile inofficiosum not to be content to die it opposes the frame and form of government It comes equally to us all and makes us all equall when it comes The eshes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of that Oak to tell me how high or how large that was It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood nor what men it hurt when it fell The dust of great persons graves is speechlesse too it sayes nothing it distinguishes nothing As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the winde blow it thither and when a whirle-winde hath blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce This is the Patrician this is the noble flowre and this the yeomanly this the Plebeian bran Sois the death of Iesabel Ieabel was a Queen expressed They shall not say this is Iesabel not only not wonder that it is not pity that it should be but they shall not say they shall not know This is Iesabel It comes to all to all alike but not alike welcome to all To die too willingly out ofimpatience to wish or out of violence to hasten death or to die too unwillingly to murmure at Gods purpose reveled by age or by sicknesse are equall distempers and to harbour a disobedient loathnesse all the way or to entertain it at last argues but an irreligious ignorance An ignorance that death is in nature but Expiratio a breathing out and we do that every minute An ignorance that God himself took a day to rest in and a good mans grave is his Sabbath An ignorance that Abel the best of those whom we can compare with him was the first that dyed Howsoever whensoever all times are Gods times Vocantur obni ne diutiús vexentur á noxiis mali ne diutiús bonos persequantur God cals the good to take them from their dangers and God takes the bad to take them from their trumph And therefore neither grudge that thou goest nor that worse stay for God can make his profit of both Aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut utper allum bonus exerceatur God reprieves him to mend him or to make another better by his exercise and not to exult in the misery of another but to glorifie God in the wayes of his justice let him know Quantumcunque seró subitó ex hac óitatollitur qui finem praevidere nescivit How long soever he live how long soever he lie sick that man dies a sudden death who never thought of it If we consider death in S. Pauls Statutum est It is decréed that all men must die there death is indifferent If we consider it in his Mori lucrum that is an advantage to die there death is good and so much the vulgat Edition seemes to intimate when Deut. 30. 19 whereas we reade I have set before you life and death that reades it Vitam honum Life and that which is good If then death be at the worst indifferent and to the good good how is it Hostis an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ for that also is Vestigium quintum the fift and next step in this paraphrase First God did not make death saies the Wiseman And therefore S. Augustine makes a reasonable prayer to God Ne permittas Domine quod nonfecisti dominari Creatur ae quam fecisti Suffer not O Lord death whom thou didst not make to have dominion over me whom thou didst Whence then came death The same Wiseman hath shewed us the father Through envy of the devill came death into the world and a wiser then he the holy Ghost himselfe hath shewed us the Mother By sin came death into the world But yet if God have naturalized death taken death into the number of his servants and made Death his Commissioner to punish sin and he doe but that how is Death an enemy First he was an enemy in invading Christ who was not in his Commission because he had no sin and still he is an enemie because still he adheres to the enemy Death hangs upon the edge of every persecutors sword and upon the sting of every calumniators and accusers tongue In the Bull of Phalaris in the Bulls of Basan in the Buls of Babylon the shrewdest Buls of all in temporall in spirituall persecutions ever since God put an enmity between Man and the Serpent from the time of Cain who began in a murther to the time of Antichrist who proceeds in Massacres Death hath adhered to the enemy and so is an enemy Death hath a Commission Stipendium peccati mors est The reward of sin Death but where God gives a Supersedeas upon that Commission Vivo Ego nolo mortem As I live saith the Lord I would have no sinner dye not dye the second death yet Death proceeds to that execution And where as the enemy whom he adheres to Serpent himselfe hath power but In calcaneo upon the heele the lower the mortall part the body of man Death is come up into our windowes saith the Prophet into our best lights Jer. 9.21 our understandings and benights us there either with ignorance before sin or with senselesnesse after And a Sheriffe that should burne him who were condemned to be hanged were a murderer though that man must have dyed To come in by the doore by the way of sicknesse upon the body is but to come in at the window by the way of sin is not deaths Commission God opens not that window So then he is an enemy for they that adhere to the enemy are enemies And adhering is not only a present subministration of supply to the enemy for that death doth not but it is also a disposition to assist the enemy then when he shall
miser abilis casus saies he cui non sufficit una regeneratio Miserable man that I am and miserable condition that I am fallen into whom one regeneration will not serve So is it a miserable death that hath swallowed us whom one Resurrection will serve We need three but if we have not two we were as good be without one There is a Resurrection from worldly calamities a resurrection from sin and a resurrection from the grave First Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 Psal 41.8 from calamities for as dangers are called death Pharaoh cals the plague of Locusts a death Intreat the Lord your God that he may take from me this death onely And so S. Paul saies in his dangers I dye daily So is the deliverance from danger called a Resurrection It is the hope of the wicked upon the godly Now that he lieth he shall rise no more that is Now that he is dead in misery he shall have no resurrection in this world Now this resurrection God does not alwaies give to his servants neither is this resurrection the measure of Gods love of man whether he do raise him from worldly calamities or no. The second is the resurrection from sin Apec 20.5 and therefore this S. Iohn calls The first Resurrection as though the other whether we rise from worldly calamities or no were not to be reckoned Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurget saies S. Augustine Since we are sure there is a spirituall death of the soule let us make sure a spirituall resurrection too Audacter dicam saies S. Hierome I say confidently Cum omnia posset Deus suscitare Virginem post ruinam non potest Howsoever God can do all things he cannot restore a Virgin that is fallen from it to virginity againe He cannot do this in the body but God is a Spirit and hath reserved more power upon the spirit and soule then upon the body and therefore Audacter dicam I may say with the same assurance that S. Hierome does No soule hath so prostituted her selfe so multiplied her fornications but that God can make her a virgin againe and give her even the chastity of Christ himselfe Fulfill therefore that which Christ saies Iohn 5.25 The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God and they that heare shall live Be this that houre be this thy first Resurrection Blesse Gods present goodnesse for this now and attend Gods leasure for the other Resurrection hereafter 1 Cor. 15.20 He that is the first fruits of them that slept Christ Jesus is awake he dyes no more he sleepes no more Sacrificium pro te fuit sed à te accepit August quod pro te obtulit He offered a Sacrifice for thee but he had that from thee that he offered for thee Primitiae fuit sed tuae primitiae He was the first fruits but the first fruits of thy Corne Spera in te futurum quod praecess it in primitiis tuis Doubt not of having that in the whole Croppe which thou hast already in thy first fruits that is to have that in thy self which thou hast in thy Saviour And what glory soever thou hast had in this world Glory inherited from noble Ancestors Glory acquired by merit and service Glory purchased by money and observation what glory of beauty and proportion what glory of health and strength soever thou hast had in this house of clay The glory of the later house Hag. 2.9 shall be greater then of the former To this glory the God of this glory by glorious or inglorious waies such as may most advance his own glory bring us in his time for his Son Christ Jesus sake Amen SERMON XIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day in the Evening 1624. APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection IN the first book of the Scriptures that of Genesis there is danger in departing from the letter In this last book this of the Revelation there is as much danger in adhering too close to the letter The literall sense is alwayes to be preserved but the literall sense is not alwayes to be discerned for the literall sense is not alwayes that which the very Letter and Grammer of the place presents as where it is literally said That Christ is a Vine and literally That his flesh is bread and literally That the new Ierusalem is thus situated thus built thus furnished But the literall sense of every place is the principall intention of the Holy Ghost in that place And his principall intention in many places is to expresse things by allegories by figures so that in many places of Scripture a figurative sense is the literall sense and more in this book then in any other As then to depart from the literall sense that sense which the very letter presents in the book of Genesis is dangerous because if we do so there we have no history of the Creation of the world in any other place to stick to so to binde our selves to such a literall sense in this book will take from us the consolation of many spirituall happinesses and bury us in the carnall things of this world The first error of being too allegoricall in Genesis transported divers of the ancients beyond the certain evidence of truth and the second error of being too literall in this book fixed many very many very ancient very learned upon an evident falshood which was that because here is mention of a first Resurrection and of raigning with Christ a thousand years after that first Resurrection There should be to all the Saints of God a state of happinesse in this world after Christs comming for a thousand yeares In which happy state though some of them have limited themselves in spirituall things that they should enjoy a kinde of conversation with Christ and an impeccability and a quiet serving of God without any reluctations or cōcupiscences or persecutions yet others have dreamed on and enlarged their dreames to an enjoying of all these worldly happinesses which they being formerly persecuted did formerly want in this world and then should have them for a thousand yeares together in recompence And even this branch of that error of possessing the things of this world so long in this world did very many and very good and very great men whose names are in honour and justly in the Church of God in those first times stray into and flattered themselves with an imaginary intimation of some such thing in these words Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection Thus far then the text is literall Divisio That this Resurrection in the text is different from the generall Resurrection The first differs from the last And thus far it is figurative allegoricall mysticall that it is a spirituall Resurrection that is intended But wherein spirituall or of what spirituall Resurrection In
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
be well Christ said in his behalfe Verily I have not found so great faith no not in Israel When Christ makes so much of this single grain of Mustard-seed this little faith as to prefer it before all the faith of Israel surely faith went very low in Israel at that time Nay when Christ himself sayes speaking of his last comming after so many ages preaching of the Gospell When the Son of man comes shall he finde faith upon earth Luk. 18.8 any faith We have I say a blessed beam of comfort shining out of this text that it is no small number that is reserved for that Kingdome For whether the Apostle speak this of himself and the Thessalonians or of others he speaks not as of a few but that by Christs having preached the narrownesse of the way and the straitnesse of the gate our holy industry and endeavour is so much exalted which was Christs principall end in taking those Metaphors of narrow wayes and strait gates not to make any man suspect an impossibility of entring but to be the more industrious and endeavorous in seeking it that as he hath sent workmen in plenty abundant preaching so he shall return a plentifull harvest a glorious addition to his Kingdome both of those which slept in him before and of those which shall be then alive fit all together to be caught up in the clouds to meet him and be with him for ever for these two armies imply no small number Now of the condition of these men who shall be then alive and how being clothed in bodies of corruption they become capable of the glory of this text in our first distribution we proposed that for a particular consideration and the other branch of this second part and to that in that order we are come now I scarce know a place of Scripture more diversly read Immutabimur and consequently more variously interpreted then that place which should most enlighten us in this consideration presently under our hands which is that place to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15.51 Non omnes dormiemus We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed The Apostle professes there to deliver us a mystery Behold I shew you a mystery but Translators and Expositors have multiplyed mysticall clouds upon the words S. Chrysostome reads these words as we do Chrysost Non dormiemus We shall not all sleep but thereupon he argues and concludes that wee shall not all die The common reading of the ancients is contrary to that Omnes dormiemus sed non c. We shall all sleep but we shall not all be changed The vulgat Edition in the Romane Church differs from both and as much from the originall as from either Omnes resurgemus We shall all rise again but we shall not all be changed S. Hierome examines the two readings and then leaves the reader to his choice as a thing indifferent S. Augustine doth so too and concludes aquè Catholicos esse That they are as good Catholiques that reade it the one way as the other But howsoever that which S. Chrysostome collects upon his reading may not be maintained He reads as we do and without all doubt aright We shall not all sleep But what then Therefore shall we not all die To sleep there is to rest in the grave to continue in the state of the dead and so we shall not all sleep not continue in the state of the dead But yet Statutum est sayes the Apostle Heb. 9.27 as verily as Christ was once offered to beare our sinnes so verily is it appointed to every man once to die Rom. 5.12 And as verily as by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so verily death passed upon all men for that all men have sinned So the Apostle institutes the comparison so he constitutes the doctrine in those two places of Scripture As verily as Christ dyed for all all shall die As verily as every man sins every man shall die In that change then which we who are then alive shall receive for though we shall not all sleep we shall all be changed we shall have a present dissolution of body and soul and that is truly a death and a present redintegration of the same body and the same soul and that is truly a Resurrection we shall die and be alive again before another could consider that we were dead but yet this shall not be done in an absolute instant some succession of time though undiscernible there is It shall be done In raptu in a rapture but even in a rapture there is a motion a transition from one to another place It shall be done sayes he In ictuoculi In the twinkling of an eye But even in the twinkling of an eie there is a shutting of the eie-lids and an opening of them again Neither of these is done in an absolute instant but requires some succession of time The Apostle in the Resurrection in our text constitutes a Prius something to be done first and something after first those that were dead in Christ shall rise first and then Then when that is done after that not all at once we that are alive shall be wrought upon we shall be changed our change comes after their rising so in our change there is a Prius too first we shall be dissolved so we die and then we shall be re-compact so we rise again This is the difference they that sleep in the grave put off and depart with the very substance of the body it is no longer flesh but dust they that are changed at the last day put off and depart with only the qualities of the body as mortality and corruption It is still the same body without resolving into dust but the first step that it makes is into glory Now transfer this to the spirituall Resurrection of thy soul by grace here Here Grace works not that Resurrection upon thy soul in an absolute instant And therefore suspect not Gods gracious purpose upon thee if thou beest not presently throughly recovered God could have made all the world in one day and so have come sooner to his Sabbath his rest but he wrought more to give us an example of labour and of patience in attending his leasure in our second Creation this Resurrection from sin as we did in our first Creation when we were not made till the sixt day But remember too that the last Resurrection from death is to be transacted quickly speedily And in thy first thy spirituall Resurrection from sin make haste The last is to be done In raptu in a rapture Let this rapture in the first Resurrection be to teare thy self from that company and conversation that leads thee into tentation The last is to be done Inictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye Let that in thy first Resurrection be The shutting of thine eyes from looking upon things in things upon creatures in creatures
it selfe retaine an Almighty power and an effectuall purpose to deliver his soule from death by a glorious a victorious and a Triumphant Resurrection So it is true Christ Josus dyed else none of us could live but yet hee dyed not so as is intended in this question Not by the necessity of any Law not by the violence of any Executioner not by the separation of his best soule if we may so call it the God-head nor by such a separation of his naturall and humane soule as that he would not or could not or did not resume it againe If then this question had beene asked of Angels at first Quis Angelus what Angel is that that stands and shall not fall though as many of those Angels as were disposed to that answer Erimus similes Altissimo We will be like God and stand of our selves without any dependance upon him did fall yet otherwise they might have answered the question fairly All we may stand if we will If this question had been asked of Adam in Paradise Quis homo though when he harkned to her who had harkned to that voyce Erit is sicut Dii You shall be as Gods he fell too yet otherwise he might have answered the question fairly so I may live and not dye if I will so if this question be asked of us now as the question implies the generall penalty as it considers us onely as the sons of Adam we have no other answer but that by Adam sin entred upon all and death by sin upon all as it implies the state of them onely whom Christ at his second comming shall finde upon earth wee have no other answer but a modest non liquet we are not sure whether we shall dye then or no wee are onely sure it shall be so as most conduces to our good and Gods glory but as the question implies us to be members of our Head Christ Jesus as it was a true answer in him it is true in every one of us adopted in him Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Death and life are in the power of the tongue sayes Solomon in another sense Prov. 18.21 and in this sense too If my tongue suggested by my heart and by my heart rooted in faith can say Non moriar non moriar If I can say and my conscience doe not tell me that I belye mine owne state if I can say That the blood of my Saviour runs in my veines That the breath of his Spirit quickens all my purposes that all my deaths have their Resurrection all my sins their remorses all my rebellions their reconciliations I will harken no more after this question as it is intended de morte naturali of a naturall death I know I must die that death what care I nor de morte spirituali the death of sin I know I doe and shall die so why despaire I but I will finde out another death mortem raptus 2 Cor. 12. a death of rapture Acts 9. Greg. and of extasie that death which S. Paul died more then once The death which S. Gregory speaks of Divina contemplatio quoddam sepulchrum animae The contemplation of God and heaven is a kinde of buriall and Sepulchre and rest of the soule and in this death of rapture and extasie in this death of the Contemplation of my interest in my Saviour I shall finde my self and all my sins enterred and entombed in his wounds and like a Lily in Paradise out of red earth I shall see my soule rise out of his blade in a candor and in an innocence contracted there acceptable in the sight of his Father Though I have been dead 1 Tim. 5.6 in the delight of sin so that that of S. Paul That a Widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth be true of my soule that so viduatur gratiâ mortuâ when Christ is dead not for the soule but in the soule that the soule hath no sense of Christ Viduatur anima the soul is a Widow and no Dowager she hath lost her husband and hath nothing from him Esay 28.15 yea though I have made a Covenant with death and have been at an agreement with hell and in a vain confidence have said to my self that when the overflowing scourge shall passe through it shall not come to me yet God shall annull that covenant he shall bring that scourge that is some medicinall correction upon me and so give me a participation of all the stripes of his son he shall give me a sweat that is some horrour and religious feare and so give me a participation of his Agony he shall give me a diet perchance want and penury and so a participation of his fasting and if he draw blood if he kill me all this shall be but Mors raptus a death of rapture towards him into a heavenly and assured Contemplation that I have a part in all his passion yea such an intire interest in his whole passion as though all that he did or suffered had been done and suffered for my soul alone 2 Cor. 6.9 Quasi moriens ecce vivo some shew of death I shall have for I shall sin and some shew of death again for I shall have a dissolution of this Tabernacle Sed ecce vivo still the Lord of life will keep me alive and that with an Ecce Behold I live that is he will declare and manifest my blessed state to me I shall not sit in the shadow of death no nor I shall not sit in darknesse his gracious purpose shall evermore be upon me and I shall ever discerne that gracious purpose of his I shall not die nor I shall not doubt that I shall If I be dead within doores If I have sinned in my heart why Suscitavit in domo Mar. 9.23 Christ gave a Resurrection to the Rulers daughter within doores in the house If I be dead in the gate If I have sinned in the gates of my soule in mine Eies Luke 7.11 or Eares or Hands in actuall sins why Suscitavit in porta Christ gave a Resurrection to the young man at the gate of Naim If I be dead in the grave in customary and habituall sins why John 11. Suscitavit in Sepulchro Christ gave a Resurrection to Lazarus in the grave too If God give me mortem raptus a death of rapture of extasie of fervent Contemplation of Christ Jesus a Transfusion a Transplantation a Transmigration a Transmutation into him for good digestion brings alwaies assimilation certainly if I come to a true meditation upon Christ I come to a conformity with Christ this is principally that Pretiosa mors Sanctorum Psal 116.15 Pretious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints by which they are dead and buryed and risen again in Christ Jesus pretious is that death by which we apply that pretious blood to our selves and grow strong
Eccles 12.1 There are spirituall Lethargies that make a man forget his name forget that he was a Christian and what belongs to that duty God knows what forgetfulnesse may possesse thee upon thy death-bed and freeze thee there God knows what rage what distemper what madnesse may scatter thee then And though in such cases God reckon with his servants according to that disposition which they use to have towards him before and not according to those declinations from him which they shew in such distempered sicknesses yet Gods mercy towards them can worke but so that he returnes to those times when those men did remember him before But if God can finde no such time that they never remembred him then he seales their former negligence with a present Lethargy they neglected God all their lives and now in death there is no remembrance of him nor there is no remembrance in him God shall forget him eternally and when he thinkes he is come to his Consummatum est The bell tolls and will ring out and there is an end of all in death by death he comes but to his Secula Seculorum to the beginning of that misery which shall never end This then which we have spoken arises out of that sense of these words which seems the most literall that is of a naturall death But as it is well noted by divers Expositors upon this Psalme this whole Psalme is intended of a spirituall agonie and combat of David wrastling with the apprehension of hell and of the indignation of God even in this world whilst he was alive here And therefore S. Augustine upon the last words of this verse in that Translation which he followed In inferno quis consitchitur tibi Not In the grave but In hell who shall confesse unto thee puts himselfe upon this In Inferne Dives confessus Domino oravit pro fratribus In hell Dives did confesse the name of the Lord and prayed there for his brethren in the world And therefore he understands not these words of a literall and naturall a bodily death a departing out of this world but he calls Peccatum Mortem and then Caecitatem animae Infernum He makes the easinesse of sinning to be Death and then blindnesse and obduration and remorslesnesse and impenitence to be this Hell And so also doth S. Ierome understand all that passionate deploring of Hezekias which seems literally to be spoken of naturall death of this spirituall death of the habit of sin and that he considered and lamented especially his danger of that death of a departing from God in this world rather then of a departing out of this world And truely many pieces and passages of Hezekias his lamentation there will fall naturally enough into that spirituall interpretation though perchance all will not though S. Ierome with a holy purpose drive them and draw them that way But whether that of Hezekias be of naturall or of a spirituall death we have another Author ancienter then S. Augustine and S. Ierome and so much esteemed by S. Iereme as that he translated some of his Works which is Didymus of Alexandria who sayes it is Impia opinio not an inconvenient or unnaturall but an impious and irreligious opinion to understand this verse of naturall death because sayes he The dead doe much more remember God then the living doe And he makes use of that place Deus non confunditur Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead for he hath prepared them a City And therefore reading these words of our Text according to that Translation which prevailed in the Easterne Church which was the Septuagint he argues thus he collects thus that all that David sayes here is onely this Non est in morte qui memor est Dei Not that he that is dead remembers not God but that he that remembers God is not dead not in an irreparable and irrecoverable state of death not under such a burthen of sin as devastates and exterminates the conscience and evacuates the whole power and work of grace but that if he can remember God confesse God though he be falne under the hand of a spirituall death by some sin yet he shall have his resurrection in this life for Non est in morte sayes Didymus He that remembers God is not dead in a perpetuall death And then this reason of Davids Prayer here Doe this and this for in death there is no remembrance of thee will have this force That God would returne to him in his effectuall grace That God would deliver his soule in dangerous tentations That God would save him in applying to him and imprinting in him a sober but yet confident assurance that the salvation of Christ Jesus belongs to him Because if God did not return to him but suffer him to wither in a long absence If God did not deliver him by taking hold of him when he was ready to fall into such sins as his sociablenesse his confidence his inconsideration his infirmity his curiosity brought him to the brinke of If God did not save him by a faithfull assurance of salvation after a sin committed and resented This absence this slipperinesse this pretermitting might bring him to such a deadly and such a hellish state in this world as that In death that is In that death he should have no remembrance of God In hell In the grave that is In that hell In that grave he should not confesse nor praise God at all There was his danger he should forget God utterly and God forget him eternally if God suffered him to proceed so far in sin that is Death and so far in an obduration and remorslesnesse in sin that is Hell The Death and the Hell of this world to which those Fathers refer this Text. In this lamentable state we will onely note the force and the emphasis of this Tui and Tibi in this verse no remembrance of Thee no praise to Thee For this is not spoken of God in generall but of that God to which David directs the last and principall part of his Prayer which is To save him It is to God as God is Jesus a Saviour and the wretchednesse of this state is that God shall not be remembred in that notion as he is Iesus a Saviour No man is so swallowed up in the death of sin nor in the grave of impenitence No man so dead and buried in the custome or senselesnesse of sin but that he remembers a God he confesses a God If an Atheist sweare the contrary beleeve him not His inward terrors his midnight startlings remember him of that and bring him to confessions of that But here is the depth and desperatenesse of this death and this grave habituall sin and impenitence in sin that he cannot remember he cannot confesse that God which should save him Christ Jesus his Redeemer he shall come he shall not chuse but come to remember a God that
consternation a question that should strike him that should answer it dumb as Christs question Amice quomodo intrasti Friend how camest in hither did him to whom that was said which Origen askes in this case When wilt thou dare to goe out of this world if thou darest not goe now when Christ Jesus hath taken thee by the hand to leade thee out This then is truly to depart in peace In pace by the Gospell of peace to the God of peace My body is my prison and I would be so obedient to the Law as not to break prison I would not hasten my death by starving or macerating this body But if this prison be burnt down by continuall feavers or blowen down with continuall vapours would any man be so in love with that ground upon which that prison stood as to desire rather to stay there then to go home Our prisons are fallen our bodies are dead to many former uses Our palate dead in a tastlesnesse Our stomach dead in an indigestiblenesse our feete dead in a lamenesse and our invention in a dulnesse and our memory in a forgetfulnesse and yet as a man that should love the ground where his prison stood we love this clay that was a body in the dayes of our youth and but our prison then when it was at best wee abhorre the graves of our bodies and the body which in the best vigour thereof Gen. 40. was but the grave of the soule we over-love Pharaohs Butler and his Baker went both out of prison in a day and in both cases Ioseph in the interpretation of their dreames calls that their very discharge out of prison a lifting up of their heads a kinde of preferment Death raises every man alike so far as that it delivers every man from his prison from the incumbrances of this body both Baker and Butler were delivered of their prison but they passed into divers states after one to the restitution of his place the other to an ignominious execution Of thy prison thou shalt be delivered whether thou wilt or no thou must die Foole this night thy soule may be taken from thee and then what thou shalt be to morrow prophecy upon thy selfe by that which thou hast done to day If thou didst depart from that Table in peace thou canst depart from this world in peace And the peace of that Table is to come to it in pace desiderii with a contented minde and with an enjoying of those temporall blessings which thou hast without macerating thy self without usurping upon others without murmuring at God And to be at that Table in pace cogitationum in the peace of the Church without the spirit of contradiction or inquisition without uncharitablenesse towards others without curiosity in thy selfe And then to come from that Table in pace domestica with a bosome peace in thine own Conscience in that seale of thy reconciliation in that Sacrament that so riding at that Anchor and in that calme whether God enlarge thy voyage by enlarging thy life or put thee into the harbour by the breath by the breathlesnesse of Death either way East or West thou maist depart in peace according to his word that is as he shall be pleased to manifest his pleasure upon thee SERMON V. Preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day 1627. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send IT hath been suspitiously doubted more then that freely disputed more then that too absolutely denied that Christ was born the five and twentieth of December that this is Christmas-day yet for all these doubts and disputations and denials we forbeare not with the whole Church of God constantly and confidently to celebrate this for his Day It hath been doubted and disputed and denied too that this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send hath any relation to the sending of the Messiah to the comming of Christ to Christmas-day yet we forbeare not to wait upon the ancient Fathers and as they said to say that Moses having received a commandement from God to undertake that great employment of delivering the children of Israel from the oppressions of Pharaoh in Aegypt and having excused himselfe by some other modest and pious pretences at last when God pressed the imployment still upon him he determines all in this O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send or as it is in our Margin when thou shouldest send It is a work next to the great work of the redemption of the whole world to redeem Israel out of Aegypt And therefore doe both workes at once put both into one hand and mitte quem missurus es send him whom I know thou wilt send him whom pursuing thine own decree thou shouldest send send Christ send him now to redeem Israel from Aegypt These words then though some have made that interpretation of them and truly not without a faire apparance and probability and verisimilitude doe not necessarily imply a slacknesse in Moses zeale that he desired not affectionately and earnestly the deliverance of his Nation from the pressures of Aegypt nor doe they imply any diffidence or distrust that God could not or would not endow him with faculties fit for that imployment But as a thoughtfull man a pensive a considerative man that stands still for a while with his eyes fixed upon the ground before his feete when he casts up his head hath presently instantly the Sun or the heavens for his object he sees not a tree nor a house nor a steeple by the way but as soon as his eye is departed from the earth where it was long fixed the next thing he sees is the Sun or the heavens so when Moses had fixed himselfe long upon the consideration of his own insufficiency for this service when he tooke his eye from that low peece of ground Himselfe considered as he was then he fell upon no tree no house no steeple no such consideration as this God may endow me improve me exalt me enable me qualifie me with faculties fit for this service but his first object was that which presented an infallibility with it Christ Jesus himselfe the Messias himselfe and the first petition that he offers to God is this O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send For me as I am I am altogether unfit when thou shalt be pleased to work upon me thou wilt finde me but stone hard to receive thy holy impressions and then but snow easie to melt and lose those holy formes again There must be labour laid and perchance labour lost upon me but put the businesse into a safe had and under an infallible instrument and Mitte quem missurus es send him whom I know thou wilt send him whom pursuing thine own decree thou shouldest send send him send Christ now As much as Paradise exceeded all
never be inhabited from generation to generation neither shall Shepheards be there Not onely no Merchant nor Husbandman but no depopulator none but Owles and Ostriches and Satyres Indeed God knowes what Ochim and Ziim words which truly we cannot translate In a word 2 Sam. 24.13 the horror of War is best discerned in the company he keeps in his associates And when the Prophet God brought War into the presence of David there came with him Famine and Pestilence And when Famine entred we see the effects It brought Mothers to eat their Children of a span long that is as some Expositors take it to take medicines to procure abortions to cast their Children that they might have Children to eate And when War 's other companion the Pestilence entred we see the effects of that too In lesse then half the time that it was threatned for it devoured threescore and ten thousand of Davids men and yet for all the vehemence the violence the impetuousnesse of this Pestilence David chose this Pestilence rather then a War Militia and Malitia are words of so neare a sound as that the vulgat Edition takes them as one For where the Prophet speaking of the miseries that Hierusalem had suffered sayes Finita militia ejus Esay 42.2 Let her warfare be at an end they reade Finita malitia ejus Let her misery be at an end War and Misery is all one thing But is there any of this in heaven Even the Saints in heaven lack something of the consummation of their happinesse Quia hostis because they have an enemy And that is our third and next step Michael and his Angels fought against the devill and his Angels though that war ended in victory Vest 3. Quia Hostis yet taking that war as divers Expositors doe for the fall of Angels that Kingdome lost so many inhabitants as that all the soules of all that shall be saved shall but fill up the places of them that fell and so make that Kingdome but as well as it was before that war So ill effects accompany even the most victorious war There is no war in heaven yet all is not well because there is an enemy for that enemy would kindle a war again but that he remembers how ill he sped last time he did so It is not an enemy that invades neither but only detaines he detaines the bodies of the Saints which are in heaven and therefore is an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ He that detaines the soules of men in Superstition he that detaines the hearts and allegeance of Subjects in an haesitation a vacillation an irresolution where they shall fix them whether upon their Soveraign or a forraigne power he is in the notion and acceptation of enemy in this Text an enemy though no hostile act be done It is not a war it is but an enemy not an invading but a detaining enemy and then this enemy is but one enemy and yet he troubles and retards the consummation of that Kingdome Antichrist alone is enemy enough but never carry this consideration beyond thy self As long as there remaines in thee one sin or the sinfull gain of that one sin so long there is one enemy and where there is one enemy there is no peace Gardners that husband their ground to the best advantage sow all their seeds in such order one under another that their Garden is alwayes full of that which is then in season If thou sin with that providence with that seasonablenesse that all thy spring thy youth be spent in wantonnesse all thy Summer thy middle-age in ambition and the wayes of preferment and thy Autumne thy Winter in indevotion and covetousnesse though thou have no farther taste of licentiousnesse in thy middle-age thou hast thy satiety in that sin nor of ambition in thy last yeares thou hast accumulated titles of honour yet all the way thou hast had one enemy and therefore never any perfect peace But who is this one enemy in this Text As long as we put it off and as loath as we are to look this enemy in the face yet we must though it be Death And this is Vestigium quartum The fourth and next step in this paraphrase Surge descende in domum figuli sayes the Prophet Ieremy that is Mors. Jer. 18.2 say the Expositors to the consideration of thy Mortality It is Surge descende Arise and go down A descent with an ascension Our grave is upward and our heart is upon Iacobs Ladder in the way and nearer to heaven Our daily Funerals are some Emblemes of that for though we be laid down in the earth after yet we are lifted up upon mens shoulders before We rise in the descent to death and so we do in the descent to the contemplation of it In all the Potters house is there one vessell made of better stuffe then clay There is his matter And of all formes a Circle is the perfectest and art thou loath to make up that Circle with returning to the earth again Thou must though thou be loath Fortasse sayes S. Augustine That word of contingency of casualty Perchance In omnibus ferme rebus praeterquam in morte locum habet It hath roome in all humane actions excepting death He makes his example thus such a man is married where he would or at least where he must where his parents or his Gardian will have him shall he have Children Fortasse sayes he They are a yong couple perchance they shall And shall those Children be sons Fortasse they are of a strong constitution perchance they shall And shall those sons live to be men Fortasse they are from healthy parents perchance they shall And when they have lived to be men shall they be good men Such as good men may be glad they may live Fortasse still They are of vertuous parents it may be they shall But when they are come to that Morientur shall those good men die here sayes that Father the Fortasse vanishes here it is omnino certè sine dubitatione infallibly inevitably irrecoverably they must die Doth not man die even in his birth The breaking of prison is death and what is our birth but a breaking of prison Assoon as we were clothed by God our very apparell was an Embleme of death In the skins of dead beasts he covered the skins of dying men Assoon as God set us on work our very occupation was an Embleme of death It was to digge the earth not to digge pitfals for other men but graves for our selves Hath any man here forgot to day that yesterday is dead And the Bell tolls for to day and will ring out anon and for as much of every one of us as appertaines to this day Quotidiè morimur tamen nos esse aeternos putamus sayes S. Hierome We die every day and we die all the day long and because we are notabsolutely dead we call that an eternity an eternity of dying And
be strong enough to make benefit of that assistance And so death adheres when sin and Satan have weakned body and minde death enters upon both And in that respect he is Vltimus hostis the last enemy and that is Sextum vestigium our sixth and next step in this paraphrase Death is the last and in that respect the worst enemy In an enemy Novisssnsâ—s hostis that appeares at first when we are or may be provided against him there is some of that which we call Honour but in the enemie that reserves himselfe unto the last and attends our weake estate there is more danger Keepe it where I intend it in that which is my spheare the Conscience If mine enemie meet me betimes in my youth in an object of tentation so Iosephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife yet if I doe not adhere to this enemy dwell upon a delightfull meditation of that sin if I doe not fuell and foment that sin assist and encourage that sin by high diet wanton discourse other provocation I shall have reason on my side and I shall have grace on my side and I shall have the History of thousand that have perished by that sin on my side Even Spittles will give me souldiers to fight for me by their miserable example against taht sin nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman whom I sollicite will assist me But when I lye under the hands of that enemie that hath reserved himselfe to the last to my last bed then when I shall be able to stir no limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or a Palsie shall shake them when everlasting darknesse shal have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine eyes and the everlasting gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth and the everlasting worme in the present gnawing of the Agonies of my body and anguishes of my minde when the last enemie shall watch my remedilsse body and my desconsolate soule there there where not the Physitian in his way perchance not the Priist in hi shall be able to give any assistance And when he hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage my death-bed shall shift the Scene and throw me from that bed into the grave and there triumph over me God knowes how many generations till the Redeemer my Redeemer the Redeemer of all me body aswell as soule come againe As death is Novissimus hostis the enemy which watches me at my last weaknesse and shall hold me when I shall be no more till that Angel come Who shall say and sweare that time shall be no more in that consideration in that apprehension he is the powerfullest the fearefulest enemy and yet evern there this enemy Abolebitur he shall be destroyed which is Septimum vestigium our seventh and last step in this paraphrase This destruction this abolition of this last enemy is by the Resurrection Abolebieur for the Text is part of an argument for the Resurrection And truly it is a faire intimation and testimony of an everlasting end in that state of the Resurrection that no time shall end it that we have it presented to us in all the parts of time in the past in the present and in the future We had a Resurrection in prophecy we have a Resurrection in the present working of Gods Sprit we shall have a Resurrection in the finall consummation The Prophet speaks in the furture He will swallow up death in victory there it is Abolebit Esay 25.8 All the Erangelists speak historically of matter of fact in them it is Abolevit And here in this Apostle it is in the present Aboletur now he is destroyed And this exhibites unto us a threefold occasion of advancing our devotion in considering a threefold Resurrection First a Resurrection from dejections and calamities in this world a Temporary Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection from sin a Spirituall Resurrection and then a Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection A calamitate When the Prophets speak of a Resurrection in the old Testament 1. A calamitate for the most part their principall intention is upon a temporall restitution from calamities that oppresse them then Neither doth Calvin carry those emphaticall words which are so often cited for a proofe of the last Resurrection Job 19.25 That he knows his Redeemer lives that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth that though his body be destroyed yet in his flesh and with his eyes he shall see God to any higher sense then so that how low soeve he bee brought to what desperate state soever he be reducedin the eyes of the world yet he assures himself of a Resurrection a reparation a restitution to his former bodily health and worldly fortune which he had before And such a Resurrection we all know Iob had In that famous and most considerable propheticall vision which God exhibited to Ezekiel where God set the Prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the severall joynts to knit again tyes them with their old sinews and ligaments clothes them in their old flest wraps them in their old skin and cals life into them again Gods principall intention in that vision was thereby to give them an assurance of a Resurrection from their present calamity not but that there is also good evidence of the last Resurrection in that vision too Thus far God argues with them áre nota from that which they knew before the finall Resurrection he assures them that which they knew not till then a present Resurrection from those pressures Remember by this vision that which you all know already that at last I shall re-unite the dead and dry bones of all men in a generall Resurrection And them if you remember if you consider if you look upon that can you doubt but that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present desperation and give you a Resurrection to your former temporall happinesse And this truly arises pregnantly necessarily out of the Prophets answer God asks him there Son of man cna these bones live And he answers Domine tu nósti O Lord God thou knowest The Prophet answers according to Gods intention in the question If that had been for their living in the last Resurrection Ezekiel would have answered God as Martha answered Christ John 11.24 when he said Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again I know that he shall rise again at the Resurrection at the last day but when the question was whether men so macerated so seattered in this world could have a Resurrection to their former temprorall happinesse here that puts the Prophet to his Domine tu nósti It is in thy breast to proposeit itis in thy hand to execute it whether thou do it or do it not thy name be glorisied It fals not within our conjecture which way it shall please thee to take for this Resurrection Domine tu nósti Thou
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ— Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â—0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
know and of those whom we did know how few did we care much for In Heaven we shall have Communion of Joy and Glory with all Aug. alwaies Vbi non intrat inimicus nec amicus exit Where never any man shall come in that loves us not nor go from us that does Beloved I thinke you could be content to heare I could be content to speake of this Resurrection our glorious state by the low way of the grave till God by that gate of earth let us in at the other of precious Stones And blessed and holy is he who in a rectified conscience desires that resurrection now But we shall not depart far from this consideration by departing into our last branch or conclusion That this first Resurrection may also be understood to be the first riser Christ Jesus and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in that first Resurrection This first Resurrection is then without any detorting 4 Part. any violence very appliable to Christ himself who was Primitiae dormientium in that that action That he rosc again he is become sayes the Apostle the first fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15.20 Hier. in Mat. 27.52 He did rise and rise first others rose with him none before him for S. Hierome taking the words as he finds them in that Euangelist makes this note That though the graves were opened at the instant of Christs death death was overcome the City opened the gates yet the bodies did not rise till after Christs Resurrection For for such Resurrections as are spoken of That women received their dead raised to life again Heb. 11.35 and such as are recorded in the old and new Testament they were all unperfect and temporary resurrections such as S. Hierome sayes of them all Resurgebant iterum morituri They were but reprieved not pardoned Hier. They had a Resurrection to life but yet a Resurrection to another death Christ is the first Resurrection others were raised but he only rose they by a forraine and extrinsique he by his owne power But we call him not the first in that respect onely for so he was not onely the first but the onely he alone arose by his owne power but with relation to all our future Resurrections he is the first Resurrection First If Christ be not raised your faith is in vaine 1 Cor. 15.17 saies the Apostle You have a vaine faith if you beleeve in a dead man He might be true Man though he remained in death but it concernes you to beleeve that he was the Son of God too And he was declared to be the Son of God Rom. 11.4 by the Resurrection from the dead That was the declaration of himselfe his Justification he was justified by the Spirit when he was proved to be God by raising himselfe But thus our Justification is also in his Resurrection For He was raised from the dead for our Iustification how for ours Rom. 4. ult That we should be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection What is that that he hath told us before Our Resurrection in Christ is that we should walke in newnesse of life Rom. 6.4 So that then Christ is the first Resurrection first Efficiently the onely cause of his owne Resurrection First Meritoriously the onely cause of our Resurrection first Exemplarily the onely patterne how we should rise and how we should walke when we are up and therefore Blessed and happy are we if we referre all our resurrections to this first Resurrection Christ Jesus For as Iob said of Comforters so miserable Resurrections are they all without him If therefore thou need and seeke this first Resurrection in the first acceptation a Resurrection from persecutions and calamities as they oppresse thee here have thy recourse to him to Christ Remember that at the death of Christ there were earthquakes the whole earth trembled There were rendings of the Temple Schismes Convulsions distractions in the Church will be But then the graves opened in the midst of those commotions Then when thou thinkest thy selfe swallowed and buried in affliction as the Angell did his Christ Jesus shall remove thy grave stone and give thee a resurrection but if thou thinke to remove it by thine owne wit thine owne power or the favour of potent Friends Digitus Dei non est hic The hand of God is not in all this and the stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and thou shalt have no part in this first Resurrection If thou need and seek this first resurrection in the second acceptation from the fearfull death of hainous sin have thy recourse to him to Christ Jesus remember the waight of the sins that lay upon him All thy sins and all thy Fathers and all thy childrens sins all those sins that did induce the first flood and shall induce the last fire upon this world All those sins which that we might take example by them to scape them are recorded and which lest we should take example by them to imitate them are left unrecorded all sins of all ages all sexes all places al times all callings sins heavy in their substance sins aggravated by their circumstances all kinds of sins and all particular sins of every kind were upon him upon Christ Jesus and yet he raised his holy Head his royall Head though under thornes yet crowned with those thornes and triumphed in this first Resurrection and his body was not left in the Grave nor his soule in Hell Christs first tongue was a tongue that might be heard He spoke to the Shepheards by Angels His second tongue was a Star a tongue which might be seene He spoke to the Wisemen of the East by that Hearken after him these two waies As he speakes to thine eare and to thy soul by it in the preaching of his Word as he speakes to thine eye and so to thy soule by that in the exhibiting of his Sacraments And thou shalt have thy part in this first Resurrection But if thou thinke to overcome this death this sense of sin by diversions by worldly delights by mirth and musique and society or by good works with a confidence of merit in them or with a relation to God himselfe but not as God hath manifested himselfe to thee not in Christ Jesus The stone shall lye still upon thee till thou putrifie into desperation and then hast thou no part in this first Resurrection If thou desire this first Resurrection in the third acceptation as S. Paul did To be dissolved and to be with Christ go Christs way to that also He desired that glory that thou doest and he could have laid down his soul when he would but he staid his houre sayes the Gospel He could have ascended immediatly immediatly in time yet he staid to descend into hell first and he could have ascended immediatly of himself by going up yet he staid till he was taken up Thou hast
houre is comming and now is because there are no other meanes to be hereafter instituted for the attaining of a happy Resurrection then those that now are established in the Church especially at a mans death may we very properly say Nunc est Now is the Resurrection come to him not onely because the last Judgement is involved in the first for that Judgment which passeth upon every man at his death stands for ever without Repeal or Appeal or Error but because after the death of the Body there is no more to be done with the Body till the Resurrection for as we say of an Arrow that it is over shot it is gone it is beyond the mark though it be not come to the mark yet because there is no more to be done to it till it be so we may say that he that is come to death is come to his Resurrection because he hath not another step to make another foot to goe another minute to count till he be at the Resurrection The Resurrection then being the Coronation of man his Death and lying downe in the grave is his enthroning his sitting downe in that chayre where he is to receive that Crown As then the Martyrs under the Altar though in heaven yet doe cry out for the Resurrection so let us in this miserable life submit our selves cheerfully to the hand of God in death since till that death we cannot have this Resurrection and the first thing that we shall doe after this death is to rise againe To the child that is now borne we may say Hora venit The day of his Resurrection is comming To him that is old we may say The hour is come but to him that is dead The minute is come because to him there are no more minutes till it doe come Miremini hoc Omnes Marvail at this at the descent of Gods love He loves the Body of Man And Miremini hoc Mervaile at his speed He makes haste to expresse this love Hora venit And then Miremini hoc Marvaile at the Generality it reaches to all all that are in the Grave All that are in the graves shall heare his voice c. God hath made the Body as a House for the soule till he call her out and he hath made the Grave as a House for the body till he call it up The misery and poore estate that Christ submitted himselfe unto for man Mat 8.20 was not determined in that That foxes had holes but he no where to lay his head while he lived but he had no grave that he could claime when he was dead It is some discontinuance of the Communion of Saints if I may not be buried with the Saints of God Every man that hath not devested Humanity hath a desire to have his bones lie at rest and we cannot provide for that so well any way as to bury them in Consecrated places which are in common entendment safest from prophane violences Even that respect that his bones might lye at rest seems to have mov'd one Prophet 1 King 13.31 to enjoyne his Sons to bury him in the Sepulcher where the other Prophet was buried He knew that Iosiah would burne the bones of all the other graves upon the Altar of Bethel as was prophecied and he presum'd that he would spare the bones of that Prophet and so his bones should be safe if they were mingled with the other Deut. 34.6 God expressed his love to Moses in that particular That he buried him And to deliver and remove him from the violence of any that lov'd him not and so might dishonor his memory and from the superstition of any that over-lov'd him and so might over-honour his memory God buried him in secret In more then one place doth David complaine That there was none to bury Gods Saints And the Dignity that is promised here in the Text is appropriated to them who are in the graves who are buried But then was that generall Is it simply plainly literally of them and them onely who are in graves who are buried Shall none enjoy a Resurrection that have not enjoy'd a Grave Still I say it is a comfort to a dying man it is an honour to his memory it is a discharge of a duty in his friends it is a piece of the Communion of Saints to have a consecrated grave But the word here is In monumentis All that are in Monuments that is in Receptacles of Bodies of what kind soever they be wheresoever the hand of God layes up a dead Body Psal 34.20 that place is the Receptacle so the monument so the grave of that Body God keeps all the bones of the righteous so that none of them are broken Though they be trod to dust in our sight they are intire in his because he can bid them be whole againe in an instant Some Nations burnt their dead there the fire is the grave some drowned their dead there the sea is the grave and some hung them up upon trees and there the ayre is their grave Some Nations eat their dead themselves and some maintained dogs to eat the dead Herod Strabo and as they called those dogs Canes Sepulchrales Sepulchrall dogs so those men were sepulchrall men those men and those dogs were graves Death and hell shall deliver up their dead Apâ—c 20.13 sayes S. Iohn That is the whole state and mansion of the dead shall be emptied The state of the dead is their grave and upon all that are in this state shall the testimony of Gods love to the body of man fall And that is the Generality All that are in the grave c. Our next step is Audient The Instrument the Means by which this first so speedy and then so generall love of God to man to man in his lowest part his body is accomplished unto him These All these All these that are in graves in all these kinds of graves shall heare his voice and that is the Meanes First whose voice That is expressed immediately before The Son of man In the other Resurrection in that of the dead soule ver 25. there it is said The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God In this which is the Resurrection to Judgement it is The Son of man The former Resurrection that of a sinner to repentance by preaching is wrought by a plaine and ordinary meanes here in the Church where you doe but heare a man in a Pew read prayers and pronounce Absolution and a man in a Pulpit preach a Sermon and a man at a Table consecrate and administer a Sacrament And because all this though it be the power of life and the meanes of your spirituall resurrection is wrought by the Ministery of man who might be contemptible in your eye therefore the whole worke is referred to God and not the son of man but the Son of God is said to do it In this Resurrection of the
Text which is a Resurrection to Judgement and to an account with God that God whom we have displeased exasperated violated wounded in the whole course of our life lest we should be terrified and dejected at the presence of that God the whole worke is referred to the Son of Man which hath himselfe formerly felt all our infirmities and hath had as sad a soule at the approach of death as bitter a Cup in the forme of Death as heavy a feare of Gods forsaking him in the agony of death as we can have And for sin it self I would not I do not extenuate my sin but let me have fallen not seven times a day but seventy seven times a minute yet what are my sins to all those sins that were upon Christ The sins of all men and all women and all children the sins of all Nations all the East and West and all the North and South the sins of all times and ages of Nature of Law of Grace the sins of all natures sins of the body and sins of the mind the sins of all growth and all extentions thoughts and words and acts and habits and delight and glory and contempt and the very sin of boasting nay of our belying our selves in sin All these sins past present and future were at once upon Christ and in that depth of sin mine are but a drop to his Ocean In that treasure of sin mine are but single money to his Talent And therefore that I might come with a holy reverence to his Ordinance in this place though it be but in the Ministery of man that first Resurrection is attributed to the Son of God to give a dignity to that Ministery of man which otherwise might have beene under-valued that thereby we might have a consolation and a cheerefulnesse towards it It is He that is the Son of God and the Son of man Christ which remembers us alfo that all that belongs to the expressing of the Law of God to man must be received by us who professe our selves Christians in and by and for and through Christ We use to ascribe the Creation to the Father but the Father created by the Word and his Word is his Son Christ When he prepared the Heavens I was there saies Christ Prov. 8.27 of himselfe in the person of Wisdome and when he appointed the foundations of the earth then was I by him as one brought up with him It is not as one brought in to him or brought in by him but with him one as old that is as eternall as much God as he We use to ascribe Sanctification to the Holy Ghost But the Holy Ghost sanctifies in the Church And the Church was purchased by the blood of Christ and Christ remaines Head of the Church usque in consummationem till the end of the world I looke upon every blessing that God affords me and I consider whether it be temporall or spirituall and that distinguishes the metall the temporall is my silver and the spirituall is my Gold but then I looke againe upon the Inscription Cujus Imago whose Image whose inscription it beares and whose Name and except I have it in and for and by Christ Jesus Temporall and Spirituall things too are but imaginary but illusory shadows for God convayes himselfe to us no other way but in Christ The benefit then in our Text the Resurrection is by him but it is limited thus Christum It is by hearing him They that are in their Graves shall heare c. So it is in the other Resurrection too the spirituall resurrection v. 25. There they must heare him that will live In both resurrections That in the Church now by Grace And that in the Grave hereafter by Power it is said They shall heare him They shall which seemes to imply a necessity though not a coaction But that necessity not of equall force not equally irresistible in both In the Grave They shall Though they be dead and senslesse as the dust for they are dust it selfe though they bring no concurrence no cooperation They shall heare that is They shall not chuse but heare In the other resurrection which is in the Church by Grace in Gods Ordinance They shall heare too that is There shall be a voice uttered so as that they may heare if they will but not whether they will or no as in the other cafe in the grave Therefore when God expresses his gathering of his Church in this world it is Sibilabo congregabo I will hisse or chirpe for them Zecha 10.8 and so gather them He whispers in the voyce of the Spirit and he speaks a little louder in the voice of a man Let the man be a Boanerges a Son of thunder never so powerfull a speaker yet no thunder is heard over all the world Mat. 24.31 But for the voyce that shall be heard at the Resurrection He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet A great sound such as may be made by a Trumpet such as an Angell all his Angels can make in a Trumpet and more then all that 1 Thes 4.16 The Lord himselfe shall descend from Heaven and that with a shout and with the voice of an Archangel that is saies S. Ambrose of Christ himselfe And in the Trumpet of God that is also Christ himselfe So then you have the Person Christ The meanes A Voyce And the powerfulnesse of that voyce in the Name of an Archangell which is named but once more in all the Scriptures And therefore let no man that hath an holy anhelation and panting after the Resurrection suspect that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voyce that will be heard he must rise Let no man who because he hath made his course of life like a beast would therefore be content his state in death might be like a beast too hope that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voice that must be heard And all that heare shall come forth they that have done good c. He shall come forth Procedent even he that hath done ill and would not shall come forth You may have seene morall men you may have seen impious men go in confidently enough not afrighted with death not terrified with a grave but when you shall see them come forth againe you shall see them in another complexion That man that dyed so with that confidence thought death his end It ends his seventy yeares but it begins his seventy millions of generations of torments even to his body and he never thought of that Indeed Iudicii nisi qui vitae aeternae praedestinatus est non potest reminisci saies S. Ambrose No man can no man dares thinke upon the last Judgement but he that can thinke upon it with comfort he that is predestinated to eternall life Even the best are sometimes shaked with the consideration of the Resurrection because it
accrues to us we shall see that though it be presented by Reason before and illustrated by Reason after yet the roote and foundation thereof is in Faith though Reason may chafe the wax yet Faith imprints the seale for the Resurrection is not a conclusion out of naturall Reason but it is an article of supernaturall Faith and though you assent to me now speaking of the Resurrection yet that is not out of my Logick nor out of my Rhetorique but out of that Character and Ordinance which God hath imprinted in me in the power and efficacy whereof I speak unto you as often as I speak out of this place As I say we determine our first part in this How the assurance of this Resurrection accrues to us so when we descend to our second part That is the consolation which we receive whilest we are In via here upon our way in this world out of the contemplation of that Resurrection to glory which we shall have In patria at home in heaven and how these two Resurrections are arguments and evidences of one another we shall look upon some correspondencies and resemblances between naturall death and spirituall death by sin and between the glorious Resurrection of the body and the gracious Resurrection of the soule that so having brought bodily death and bodily Resurrection and spirituall death and spirituall Resurrection by their comparison into your consideration you may anon depart somewhat the better edified in both and so enjoy your present Resurrection of the soule by Grace with more certainty and expect the future Resurrection of the body to glory with the more alacrity and chearfulnesse Though therefore we may hereafter take just occasion of entring into a war 1. Part. in vindicating and redeeming these words seased and seduced by our adversaries to testifie for their Purgatory yet this day being a day of peace and reconciliation with God and man we begin with peace with that wherein all agree That these words Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead must necessarily receive such an Exposition as must be an argument for the Resurrection This baptisme pro mortuis for dead must be such a baptisme as must prove that the Resurrection For that the Apostle repeats twice in these few words Else sayes he that is if there be no Resurrection why are men thus baptized And again if the dead rise not why are men thus baptized Indeed the whole Chapter is a continuall argument for the Resurrection from the beginning thereof to the 35. ver he handles the An sit whether there be a Resurrection or no For if that be denyed or doubted in the roote in the person of Christ whether he be risen or no the whole frame of our religion fals and every man will be apt and justly apt to ask that question which the Indian King asked when he had been catechized so far in the articles of our Christian religion as to come to the suffered and crucified and dead and buried impatient of proceeding any farther and so losing the consolation of the Resurrection he asked only Is your God dead and buried then let me return to the worship of the Sun for I am sure the Sun will not die If Christ be dead and buried that is continue in the state of death and of the grave without a Resurrection where shall a Christian look for life Therefore the Apostle handles and establishes that first that assurance A Resurrection there is From thence he raises and pursues a second question De modo But some man will say sayes he How are the dead raised up and with what body come they forth And in these questions De modo there is more exercise of reason and of discourse for many times The matter is matter of faith when the manner is not so but considerable and triable by reason Many times for the matter we are all bound and bound upon salvation to think alike But for the manner we may think diversly without forfeiture of salvation or impeachment of discretion For he is not presently an indiscreet man that differs in opinion from another man that is discreet in things that fall under opinion Absit superstito Geâ—son hoc est superflua religio sayes a moderate man of the Romane Church This is truly superstition to bring more under the necessity of being beleeved then God hath brought in his Scriptures superfluous religion sayes he is superstition Remove that and then as he addes there Contradictoria quorum utrumque probabile credi possunt Where two contrary opinions are both probable they may be embraced and beleeved by two men and those two be both learned and discreet and pious and zealous men And this consideration should keep men from that precipitation of imprinting the odious and scandalous names of Sects or Sectaries upon other men who may differ from them and from others with them in some opinions Probability leads me in my assent and I think thus Let me allow another man his probability too and let him think his way in things that are not fundamentall They that do not beleeve alike in all circumstances of the manner of the Resurrection may all by Gods goodnesse meet there and have their parts in the glory thereof if their own uncharitablenesse do not hinder them And he that may have been in the right opinion may sooner misse heaven then he that was in the wrong if he come uncharitably to condemne or contemne the other for in such cases humility and love of peace may in the sight of God excuse and recompence many errours and mistakings And after these of the Matter of the Manner of the Resurrection the Apostle proceeds to a third question of their state and condition whom Christ shall finde alive upon Earth at his second comming and of them he sayes onely this Ecce mysterium vobis dico Behold I tell you a mystery a secret we shall not all sleep that is not dye so as that we shall rest any time in the grave but we shall all be changed that is receive such an immutation as that we shall have a sudden dissolution of body and soul which is a true death and a sudden re-union of body and soule which is a true resurrection in an instant in the twinkling of an eye Thus carefull and thus particular is the Apostle that the knowledge of the resurrection might be derived unto us Now of these three questions which he raises and pursues first whether there be a Resurrection then what manner of Resurrection and then what kinde of Resu rrection they shall have that live to the day of Judgement our Text enters into the first For for the first That a resurrection there is the Apostle opens severall Topiques to prove it One is from our Head and Patterne and Example Christ Jesus For so he argues first If the dead be not raised
then Christ is not raised As sure as the head is V. 16. so sure the body is raised And then another Topique from whence he produces arguments is the absurd consequences and illations that would follow if there were no resurrection Of that kinde one is Nos miserrimi If in this life onely we have hops in Christ V. 19. we are of all men the most miserable Why because in this life we suffer persecution for this profession And another is Edamus bibamus Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye V. 32. What needs this abstinence and this severe denying our selves the conveniencies of this life if all end in this life And lastly in the same kinde followes this Text Si omnino mortui non excitentur If the dead rise not at all why are they baptized for dead And by all these wayes doth the Apostle convay this knowledge of the Resurrection But would all these wayes serve Resurrectio mysterium would all this satisfie that Inquisition which wee have brought how this assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us Would any of these reasons or would all these reasons convince a man who were not at all prepossessed and preoccupated with a beliefe of the resurrection with an assurance thereof The resurrection was alwaies a mystery in it selfe Sacrum secretum a holy secret and above the search of reason For there are secrets and mysteries of two kindes as the Schoole presents them some things are so Quia quaedam interposita Because though the thing be near enough unto me yet somthing is interposed between me and it and so I cannot see it And somethings are so Quia longè seposita because they are at so remote a distance as that though nothing be interposed yet my sight cannot extend to them In the first sense the Sacraments are mysteries because though the grace therein bee neare mee yet there is Velamen interpositum there is visible figure a sensible signe and seale between me and that grace which is exhibited to me in the Sacrament In the second sense the resurrection is a mystery because it is so farre removed as that it concernes our state and condition in the next world For man sleepeth and riseth not Job 14.12 hee shall not wake againe nor be raised from his sleep till the heavens be no more that is not till the dissolution of all So then the knowledge of the resurrection in it selfe is a mystery Resurrectio Christs mysterium removed out of the Spheare and latitude of reason And to consider this remotenesse farther though the knowledge of Christ Resurrection be nearer us then our owne for first we know his because from his we argue and conclude our owne as the Apostle institutes his argument If the dead rise not Christ is not risen yet even the Resurrection of Christ V. 16. was so far from being cleare and obvious to the best and the best illumined understandings as that though Christ himselfe had spoken often of his Resurrection to his Disciples and Apostles yet they did not clearly throughly scarce at all understand his Resurrection When Christ said to the Jews promiscuously Solvite Templum hoc Destroy this Temple and in three dayes I will raise it I wonder not that they blinded with their own malice discerned no resurrection in that saying but applied it to that Temple which was forty sixe yeares in building For till the resurrection was really accomplished and actually performed the Apostles themselves understood not the Resurrection Then when Christ was risen from the dead and that those two great Apostles Peter and Iohn had been at the Sepulchre and received from thence so much evidence as convinced them and prevailed upon them then and not till then they began to understand the resurrection for John 22.9 till then sayes the Text expresly there they knew not the Scriptures that he must rise from the dead And truly Etiam post Resurrectionem if we take a holy liberty as piously we may to consider Christs bodily actions after his resurrection they were not such as without admitting any opposition might induce a necessity of confessing a resurrection For though he exhibited himself to their eyes to be seene and to their eares to be heard and to their fingers to be felt though he eate with them and did many other actions of a living body yet as the Angels in the old Testament did the like actions in those bodies which they had assumed so might Christ have done all these in such a body though that which was buried in the Sepulchre had had no resurrection It is true that Christ confirmed his Resurrection Multis argumentis as the vulgat reads that place Acts 1.3 with many infallible tokens sayes our former Translation with many infallible proofes sayes our later But still all these arguments and tokens and proofes wrought by way of confirmation something was otherwise imprinted in them and established by a former apprehension of faith and these arguments and tokens and proofes confirmed it For the reasons for the resurrection doe not convince a naturall man at all neither doe they so convince a Christian but that there is more left to his faith and he beleeves something beyond and above his reason The resurrection in it self Resurrectio nostra mysterium Christs Resurrection though it be clearer then ours Christs Resurrection even after it was actually accomplished was still a mystery out of the compasse of reason And then as it was above our reason so howsoever it be out proofe and our patterne for our resurrection yet it is above our imitation For our resurrection shall not be like his Omnes alii suscitati Christus solus resurrexit sayes S. Bernard All we shall be raised from the dead onely Christ arose from the dead We shall be raised by a power working upon us he rose by a power inherent and resident in himselfe And yet though in this respect our resurrection be more open to the proofe of reason then the resurrection of Christ for that which hath least miracle in it is most open to reason and therefore a naturall man would easilier beleeve that God might raise a dead man then that a dead man should be God and so able to raise himselfe which was Christs case for the God-head of Christ was as much united to his dead body in the grave as it was to his soule in Paradise or to his whole person consisting of body and soule before or after his death and resurrection Though in this respect I say our resurrection be more open to reason because it hath lesse of the miracle in it yet when we come to assigne reasons even for our resurrection as we see Athanagoras hath undertaken with a great deale of wit and learning and confidence in his Apology for the Christians to the Emperour within 155. yeares after Christ and the Schoole-men make account that
his Sermon at Antioch Now what is written in that Psalme which S. Paul cites there to our present purpose This Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But is not this Hodie genui This this dayes begetting intended rather of the eternall filiation generation of the Son of God then of this daies work the Resurrection Those words of that Psalm may well admit that interpretation Hilar. and so many have taken them But with S. Hilary most of the ancients have applied them to the Resurrection as the application of S. Paul himself directly binds us to do That the Hodie genui This dayes generation is this dayes manifestation that Christ was the Son of God Calvin Calvin enlarges it farther That every declaration of the Son by the Father is a generation of the Son So his baptisme and the voice then so his Transfiguration and the voice then Mat. 3.17 Mat. 17.3 were each of them a Hodie genui a generation of the Son that day But especially sayes Calvin do those words of the Psalm belong to this day because the Resurrection was the most evident actuall declaration that Christ was the Son of God Rom. 1.4 for He was declared to be the Son of God by the Resurrection from the dead saies the Apostle expresly But how wherein was he declared There were others that were raised from the dead by Prophets in the old Testament by Christ and his Apostles in the new and yet not thereby declared to be such Sons of God Essentiall Sons no nor any Sons of God not Sons by adoption for we are not sure that all those that were miraculously raised from the dead were effectually saved at last Therefore the comfort in our case is in that word of the Angel Surrexit He is risen For so all our Translators and Expositors do constantly carry it not in a Suscitatus as all the rest are That he was raised but in this Surrexit He is risen risen of himself For so he testifies of himself Destroy this Temple and in three dayes Ego suscitabo I will raise it up again John 2.19 Not that the Father should but that he would so also Ego pono and Ego sumo sayes Christ I lay down and I take again my soul Not that it is given or taken by another John 10.17 Nyssen And therefore Gregory Nyssen suspects that for the infirmity of the then hearers the Apostles thought it scarce safe to expresse it often in that phrase He rose or He raised himself and therefore for the most part return to the Suscitatus est that He was raised lest weak hearers might be scandalized with that that a dead man had raised himself of his own power And therefore the Angel in this place enlarges the comfort to these devout women in a full measure when he opens himselfe in that word Surrexit He is risen risen of himselfe This then is one piece of our evidence and the foundation of all Nos that we cannot be deceived because he in whom we trust is by this his own rising declared to be the Son of God And another and a powerfull comfort is this Rom. 4.25 2 Cor. 4.14 That he being risen for our justification we are also risen in him He that raised the Lord Iesus shall raise us up also by the same Iesus He shall there is our assurance but that is not all for there is a con-resuscitavit Ephes 2.6 He hath quickned us together and raised us together and made us to sit together in heavenly places not together with one another but together with Christ There is our comfort collected from this surrexit He is risen equivalent to the discomfort of the non est hîc he is not here That this his rising declares him to be the Son of God who therefore can and will and to be that Jesus an actuall Redeemer and therefore hath already raised us To what To that renovation to that new creation which is so excellently expressed by Severianus as makes us sorry we have no more of his Mutatur ordorerum Severianus The whole frame and course of nature is changed Sepulchrum non mortuum sed mortem devorat The grave now since Christs Resurrection and ours in him does not bury the dead man but death himself My Bell tolls for death and my Bell rings out for death and not for me that dye for I live even in death but death dies in me and hath no more power over me I was crucified with Christ upon Friday saies Chrysologus Et hodiè resurgo Chrysologus to day I rose with him again Et gloria resurrection is sepelivit injuriam morientis The ingloriousnesse of having been buried in the dust is recompenced in the glory I rise to Liber inter mortuos that which David sayes and by S. Augustines application of Christ Psal 88.5 August is true of me too Christ was and I am Liber inter mortuos free amongst the dead undetainable in the state of death For sayes S. Peter It was not possible he should be holden of it Acts 2.24 Not possible for Christ because of the prediction of so many Prophets whose words had an infallibility in them not possible especially because of the Union of the Divine Nature Not possible for me neither because God hath afforded me the marks of his Election and thereby made me partaker of the Divine Nature too 2 Pet. 1.4 But yet these things might perchance not fall into the consideration of these women They did not but they might they should have done for as the Angell tels them here Christ had told them of this before Sicut dixit he is risen as he said Even the Angell himself referres himself to the word Sicut dixit Sicut dixit The Angell himself desires not to be beleeved but as he grounds himself upon the word sicut dixit Let therefore no Angell of the Church not that super-Arch-angell of the Romane Church proceed upon an ipse dixit upon his own pectorall word and determination for the Angell here referres us to the sicut dixit the former word God will be content that we doubt and suspend our assent to any revelation if it doe not concerne some duty delivered in Scripture before And to any miracle if it doe not conduce to the proofe of some thing commanded in Scripture before Sicut dixit is an Angelicall issue As he said But how often soever Christ had spoken of this Resurrection to others Vobie these women might be ignorant of it For all that is said even by Christ himself is not said to all nor is all written for all that is written by the Holy Ghost No man must suspect that he knowes not enough for salvation if he understand not all places of Scripture But yet these women could not well be ignorant of this because being Disciples and followers of Christ though Christ had
was said Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee and how many women have no desire to their husbands how many over-rule them Hunger and thirst and wearinesse and sicknesse are denounced upon all and yet if you ask me Quis homo What is that man that hungers and thirsts not that labours not that sickens not I can tell you of many that never felt any of these but contract the question to that one of death Quis homo What man is he that shall not taste death And I know none Whether we consider the Summer Solstice when the day is sixteen houres and the night but eight or the Winter Solstice when the night is sixteen houres and the day but eight still all is but twenty foure houres and still the evening and morning make but a day The Patriarchs in the old Testament had their Summer day long lives we are in the Winter short lived but Quis homo Which of them or us come not to our night in death If we consider violent deaths casuall deaths it is almost a scornfull thing to see with what wantonnesse and sportfulnesse death playes with us We have seen a man Canon proofe in the time of War and slain with his own Pistoll in the time of peace We have seen a man recovered after his drowning and live to hang himselfe But for that one kinde of death which is generall though nothing be in truth more against nature then dissolution and corruption which is death we are come to call that death naturall death then which indeed nothing is more unnaturall The generality makes it naturall Moses sayes that Mans age is seventy Psal 90.10 and eighty is labour and pain and yet himselfe was more then eighty and in a good state and habitude when he said so No length no strength enables us to answer this Quis homo What man c. Take a flat Map a Globe in plano and here is East and there is West as far asunder as two points can be put but reduce this flat Map to roundnesse which is the true form and then East and West touch one another and are all one So consider mans life aright to be a Circle Pulvis es in pulverem reverâ—eris Dust thou art and to dust thou must return Nudus egressus Job 1. Nudus revertar Naked I came and naked I must go In this the circle the two points meet the womb and the grave are but one point they make but one station there is but a step from that to this This brought in that custome amongst the Greek Emperours that ever at the day of their Coronation they were presented with severall sorts of Marble that they might then bespeak their Tombe And this brought in that Custome into the Primitive Church that they called the Martyrs dayes wherein they suffered Natalitia Martyrum their birth dayes birth and death is all one Their death was a birth to them into another life into the glory of God It ended one Circle and created another for immortality and eternity is a Circle too not a Circle where two points meet but a Circle made at once This life is a Circle made with a Compasse that passes from point to point That life is a Circle stamped with a print an endlesse and perfect Circle as soone as it begins Of this Circle the Mathematician is our great and good God The other Circle we make up our selves we bring the Cradle and Grave together by a course of nature Every man does Mi Gheber sayes the Originall It is not Ishe which is the first name of man in the Scriptures and signifies nothing but a sound a voyce a word a Musicall ayre dyes and evaporates what wonder if man that is but Ishe a sound dye too It is not Adam which is another name of man and signifies nothing but red earth Let it be earth red with blood with that murder which we have done upon our selves let it be earth red with blushing so the word is used in the Originall with a conscience of our own infirmity what wonder if man that is but Adam guilty of this self-murder in himself guilty of this in-borne frailty in himself dye too It is not Enos which is also a third name of man and signifies nothing but a wretched and miserable creature what wonder if man that is but earth that is a burden to his Neighbours to his friends to his kindred to himselfe to whom all others and to whom himself desires death what wonder if he dye But this question is framed upon none of these names Not Ishe not Adam not Enos but it is Mi Gheber Quis vir which is the word alwayes signifying a man accomplished in all excellencies a man accompanied with all advantages fame and good opinion justly conceived keepes him from being Ishe a meere sound standing onely upon popular acclamation Innocency and integrity keepes him from being Adam red earth from bleeding or blushing at any thing hee hath done That holy and Religious Art of Arts which S. Paul professed That he knew how to want and how to abound keepes him from being Enos miserable or wretched in any fortune Hee is Gheber a great Man and a good Man a happy Man and a holy Man and yet Mi Gheber Quis homo this man must see death And therefore we will carry this question a little higher from Quis homo to Quis deorum Which of the gods have not seene death Aske it of those who are Gods by participation of Gods power of those of whom God saies Ego dixi dii est is and God answers for them and of them and to them You shall dye like men Aske it of those gods who are gods by imputation whom Creatures have created whom Men have made gods the gods of the Heathen and do we not know where all these gods dyed Sometimes divers places dispute who hath their tombes but do not they deny their godhead in confessing their tombes doe they not all answer that they cannot answer this text Mi Gheber Quis homo What man Quis deorum What god of mans making hath not seen death As Iustin martyr asks that question Why should I pray to Apollo or Esculapius for health Qui apud Chironem medicinam didicerunt when I know who taught them all that they knew so why should I looke for Immortality from such or such a god whose grave I finde for a witnesse that he himselfe is dead Nay carry this question higher then so from this Quis homo to quid homo what is there in the nature and essence of Man free from death The whole man is not for the dissolution of body and soule is death The body is not I shall as soone finde an immortall Rose an eternall Flower as an immortall body And for the Immortality of the Soule It is safelier said to be immortall by preservation then immortall by nature That God
see Death we answer It may be that those Men whom Christ shal find upon the earth alive at his returne to Judge the World shall dye then and it may be they shall but be changed and not dye That Christ shall judge quick and dead is a fundamentall thing we heare it in S. Peters Sermon Acts 10.42 to Cornelius and his company and we say it every day in the Creed Hee shall judge the quick and the dead But though we doe not take the quick and the dead August Chrys as Augustine and Chrysostome doe for the Righteous which lived in faith and the unrighteous which were dead in sinne Though wee doe not take the quick and the dead as Ruffinus and others doe for the soule and the body He shall judge the soule which was alwaies alive and he shall the body which was dead for a time though we take the words as becomes us best literally yet the letter does not conclude but that they whom Christ shall finde alive upon earth shall have a present and sudden dissolution and a present and sudden re-union of body and soul again Saint Paul sayes Behold I shew you a mystery Therefore it is not a cleare case and presently 1 Cor. 15.51 and peremptorily determined but what is it We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed But whether this sleeping be spoke of death it self and exclude that that we shall not die or whether this sleep be spoke of a rest in the grave and exclude that we shall not be buried and remain in death that may be a mystery still S. Paul sayes too 1 Thes 4.17 The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre But whether that may not still be true that S. Augustine sayes that there shall be Mors in raptu August An instant and sudden dis-union and re-union of body and soul which is death who can tell So on the other side when it is said to him in whom all we were to Adam Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 1 Cor. 15.22 Rom. 5.12 and into dust thou shalt return when it is said In Adam all die when it is said Death passed upon all men for all have sinned Why may not all those sentences of Scripture which imply a necessity of dying admit that restriction Nisi dies judicii natur ae cursum immutet Pet. Mar. We shall all die except those in whom the comming of Christ shall change the course of Nature Consider the Scriptures then and we shall be absolutely concluded neither way Consider Authority and we shall finde the Fatherrs for the most part one way and the Schoole for the most part another Take later men and all those in the Romane Church Then Cajetan thinks that they shall not die and Catharin is so peremptory Cajetan Catharinus that they shall as that he sayes of the other opinion Falsam esse confidenter asserimus contra Scripturas sat is manifestas omnino sine ratione It is false and against Scriptures and reason saith he Take later men and all those in the reformed Church Calvin and Calvin sayes Quia aboletur prior natura censetur species mortis sed non migrabit anima à corpore S. Paul calls it death because it is a destruction of the former Beeing but it is not truly death saith Calvin and Luther saith Luther That S. Pauls purpose in that place is only to shew the suddennesse of Christs comming to Judgement Non autem inficiatur omnes morituros nam dormire est sepeliri But S. Paul doth not deny but that all shall die for that sleeping which he speaks of is buriall and all shall die though all shall not be buried saith Luther Take then that which is certain It is certain a judgement thou must passe If thy close and cautelous proceeding have saved thee from all informations in the Exchequer thy clearnesse of thy title from all Courts at Common Law thy moderation from the Chancery and Star-Chamber If heighth of thy place and Authority have saved thee even from the tongues of men so that ill men dare not slander thy actions nor good men dare not discover thy actions no not to thy self All those judgements and all the judgements of the world are but interlocutory judgements There is a finall judgement In judicantes judicatos against Prisoners and Judges too where all shal be judged again Datum est omne judicium All judgement is given to the Son of man John 5. and upon all the sons of men must his judgement passe A judgement is certain and the uncertainty of this judgement is certain too perchance God will put off thy judgement thou shalt not die yet but who knows whether God in his mercy do put off this judgement till these good motions which his blessed Spirit inspires into thee now may take roote and receive growth and bring forth fruit or whether he put it off for a heavier judgement to let thee see by thy departing from these good motions and returning to thy former sins after a remorse conceived against those sins that thou art inexcusable even to thy self and thy condemnation is just even to thine own conscience So perchance God will bring this judgement upon thee now now thou maist die but whether God will bring that judgement upon thee now in mercy whilest his Graces in his Ordinance of preaching work some tendernesse in thee and gives thee some preparation some fitnesse some courage to say Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly come now or whether he will come now in judgement because all this can work no tendernesse in thee who can tell Thou hearest the word of God preached as thou hearest an Oration with some gladnesse in thy self if thou canst heare him and never be moved by his Oratory thou thinkest it a degree of wisdome to be above perswasion and when thou art told that he that feares God feares nothing else thou thinkest thy self more valiant then so if thou feare not God neither Whether or why God defers or hastens the judgement we know not This is certain this all S. Pauls places collineate to this all the Fathers and all the Schoole all the Cajetans and all the Catharins all the Luthers and all the Calvins agree in A judgement must be and it must be In ictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye and Fur in nocte A thiefe in the night Make the question Quis homo What man is he that liveth and shall not passe this judgement or what man is he that liveth and knowes when this judgement shall be So it is a Nemo scit A question without an answer but ask it as in the text Quis homo Who liveth and shall not die so it is a problematicall matter and in such
things as are problematicall if thou love the peace of Sion be not too inquisitive to know nor too vehement when thou thinkest thou doest know it Come then to ask this question 3. Part. not problematically as it is contracted to them that shall live in the last dayes nor peremptorily of man as he is subject to originall sin but at large so as the question may include Christ himself and then to that Quis homo What man is he We answer directly here is the man that shall not see death And of him principally August and literally S. Augustine as we said before takes this question to be framed Vt quaeras dictum non ut desperes saith he this question is moved to move thee to seek out and to have thy recourse to that man which is the Lord of Life not to make thee despaire that there is no such man in whose self and in whom for all us there is Redemption from death For sayes he this question is an exception to that which was said before the text which is Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain Consider it better sayes the Holy Ghost here and it will not prove so Man is not made in vain at first though he do die now for Perditio tua ex te This death proceeds from man himself and Quare moriemini domus Israel Why will ye die ô house of Israel God made not death â—ap 1.13 neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living The Wise man sayes it and the true God sweares it As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner God did not create man in vain then though he die not in vain for since he will needs die God receives glory even by his death in the execution of his justice not in vaine neither because though he be dead God hath provided him a Redeemer from death in his mercy Man is not created in vain at all nor all men so neare vanity as to die for here is one man God and Man Christ Jesus which liveth and shall not see death And conformable to S. Augustines purpose 〈◊〉 speakes S. Hierome too Scio quòd nullus homo carneus evadet sed novi Deum sub velamento carnis latentem I know there is no man but shall die but I know where there is a God clothed in mans flesh and that person cannot die But did not Christ die then Shall we joyne with any of those Heretiques which brought Christ upon the stage to play a part and say he was born or lived or dyed In phantasmate In apparance only and representation God forbid so all men were created in vain indeed if we had not a regeneration in his true death Where is the contract between him and his Father that Oportuit pati All this Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory Is that contract void and of none effect Must he not die Where is the ratification of that contract in all the Prophets 〈◊〉 53.4.9 Where is Esays Verè languores nostros tulit Surely he hath born our sorrows and he made his grave with the wicked in his death Is the ratification of the Prophets cancelled Shall he not must he not die Where is the consummation and the testification of all this Where is the Gospell Consummatum est And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost Is that fabulous Did he not die How stands the validity of that contract Christ must die the dignity of those Prophecies Christ will die the truth of the Gospell Christ did die with this answer to this question Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Very well For though Christ Jesus did truly die so as was contracted so as was prophecied so as was related yet hee did not die so as was intended in this question so as other naturall men do die For first Christ dyed because he would dye other men admitted to the dignity of Martyrdome are willing to dye but they dye by the torments of the Executioners they cannot bid their soules goe out and say now I will dye And this was Christs case 〈◊〉 10.15 It was not only I lay down my life for my sheep but he sayes also No man can take away my soule And I have power to lay it down And De facto he did lay it down he did dye before the torments could have extorted his soule from him Many crucified men lived many dayes upon the Crosse The thieves were alive long after Christ was dead and therefore Pilate wondred that he was already dead His soule did not leave his body by force 〈…〉 but because he would and when he would and how he would Thus far then first this is an answer to this question Quis homo Christ did not die naturally nor violently as all others doe but only voluntarily Again the penalty of death appertaining only to them who were derived from Adam by carnall and sinfull generation Christ Jesus being conceived miraculously of a Virgin by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost was not subject to the Law of death and therefore in his person it is a true answer to this Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he need not see death he hath not incurred Gods displeasure he is not involved in a general rebellion and therfore is not involved in the generall mortality not included in the generall penalty He needed not have dyed by the rigour of any Law all we must he could not dye by the malice or force of any Executioner all we must at least by natures generall Executioners Age and Sicknesse And then when out of his own pleasure and to advance our salvation he would dye yet he dyed so as that though there were a dis-union of body and soule which is truly death yet there remained a Nobler and faster union then that of body and soule the Hypostaticall Union of the God-head not onely to his soule but to his body too so that even in his death both parts were still not onely inhabited by but united to the Godhead it selfe and in respect of that inseparable Union we may answer to this question Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he shall see no separation of that which is incomparably and incomprehensibly a better soul then his soule the God-head shall not be separated from his body But that which is indeed the most direct and literall answer to this question is That whereas the death in this Text is intended of such a death as hath Dominion over us and from which we have no power to raise our selves we may truly and fully answer to his Quis homo here is a man that shall never see death so but that he shall even in the jawes and teeth of death and in the bowels and wombe of the grave and in the sink and furnace of hell
This is my beloved Son this day have I begotten him And with such Copies it seemes both Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus met for they reade these words so and interpret them accordingly But these words are misplaced and mis-transferred out of the second Psalme where they are And as they change the words and in stead of In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased reade This day have I begotten thee S. Cyprian addes other words to the end of these which are Hunc audite Heare him Which words when these words were repeated at the Transfiguration were spoken but here at the Baptisme they were not what Copy soever misled S. Cyprian or whether it were the failing of his own memory But S. Chrysostome gives an expresse reason why those words were spoken at the Transfiguration and not here Because saies he Here was onely a purpose of a Manifestation of the Trinity so farre as to declare their persons who they were and no more At the Trans-figuration where Moses and Elias appeared with Christ there God had a purpose to preferre the Gospel above the Law and the Prophets and therefore in that place he addes that Hunc audite Heare him who first fulfills all the Law and the Prophets and then preaches the Gospel He was so well pleased in him as that he was content to give all them that received him Eph. 1.6 power to become the Sons of God too as the Apostle sayes By his grace he hath made us accepted in his beloved Beloved That you may be so Come up from your Baptisme as it is said that Christ did Rise and ascend to that growth which your Baptisme prepared you to And the heavens shall open as then even Cataractae coeli All the windowes of heaven shall open and raine downe blessings of all kindes in abundance And the Holy Ghost shall descend upon you as a Dove in his peacefull comming in your simple and sincere receiving him And he shall rest upon you to effect and accomplish his purposes in you If he rebuke you as Christ when he promises the Holy Ghost though he call him a Comforter John 16.7 sayes That he shall rebuke the world of divers things yet he shall dwell upon you as a Dove Quae si mordet osculando mordet sayes S. Augustine If the Dove bite it bites with kissing if the Holy Ghost rebuke he rebukes with comforting And so baptized and so pursuing the contract of your Baptisme and so crowned with the residence of his blessed Spirit in your holy conversation hee shall breathe a soule into your soule by that voyce of eternall life You are my beloved Sonnes in whom I am well pleased SERM. XLIV Preached at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday 1627. REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them sixe wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come THese words are part of that Scripture which our Church hath appointed to be read for the Epistle of this day This day which besides that it is the Lords day the Sabbath day is also especially consecrated to the memory and honour of the whole Trinity The Feast of the Nativity of Christ Christmas day which S. Chrysostome calls Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitane festivall of the Church is intended principally to the honour of the Father who was glorified in that humiliation of that Son that day because in that was laid the foundation and first stone of that house and Kingdome in which God intended to glorifie himselfe in this world that is the Christian Church The Feast of Easter is intended principally to the honour of the Son himselfe who upon that day began to lift up his head above all those waters which had surrounded him and to shake off the chaines of death and the grave and hell in a glorious Reserrection And then the Feast of Pentecost was appropriated to the honour of the Holy Ghost who by a personall falling upon the Apostles that day inabled them to propagate this Glory of the Father and this death and Resurrection of the Son to the ends of the world to the ends in Extention to all places to the ends in Duration to all times Now as S. Augustine sayes Nullus eorum extra quemlibet eorum est Every Person of the Trinity is so in every other person as that you cannot think of a Father as a Father but that there falls a Son into the same thought nor think of a person that proceeds from others but that they from whom he whom ye think of proceeds falls into the same thought as every person is in every person And as these three persons are contracted in their essence into one God-head so the Church hath also contracted the honour belonging to them in this kinde of Worship to one day in which the Father and Son and Holy Ghost as they are severally in those three severall dayes might bee celebrated joyntly and altogether It was long before the Church did institute a particular Festivall to this purpose For before they made account that that verse which was upon so many occasions repeated in the Liturgy and Church Service Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost had a convenient sufficiency in it to keep men in a continuall remembrance of the Trinity But when by that extreame inundation and increase of Arians these notions of distinct Persons in the Trinity came to be obliterated and discontinued the Church began to refresh her selfe in admitting into to the formes of Common Prayer some more particular notifications and remembrances of the Trnity And at last though it were very long first for this Festivall of this Trinity-Sunday was not instituted above foure hundred yeares since they came to ordaine this day Which day our Church according to that peacefull wisedome wherewithall the God of Peace of Unity and Concord had inspired her did in the Reformation retaine and continue out of her generall religious tendernesse and holy loathnesse to innovate any thing in those matters which might bee safely and without superstition continued and entertained For our Church in the Reformation proposed not that for her end how shee might goe from Rome but how she might come to the Truth nor to cast away all such things as Rome had depraved but to purge away those depravations and conserve the things themselves so restored to their first good use For this day then were these words appointed by our Church Divisic And therefore we are sure that in the notion and apprehension and construction of our Church these words appertaine to the Trinity In them therefore we shall consider first what these foure creatures were which are notified and designed to us in the names and figures of foure Beasts And then what these foure creatures did Their Persons and their Action will be our two
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and â—etestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
in the next Psalme but one he that thought to sleepe out the night come to weepe out the night When the Saints of God have that security which S. Hierome speaks of Vt sanctis ipse somnus sit oratio They sleepe securely for their very sleepe is a glorifying of God who giveth his beloved sleepe yet David could have none of this Euseb But why not he Noctem letiferam nocte compensat First for the place the sinne came in at those windowes at his eyes and came in in fire in lust And it must goe out at those windowes too and goe out in water in the water of repentant teares And then for the time as the night defiled his soule so the sinne must be expiated and the soule washed in the night too And this may be some Embleme some usefull intimation how hastily Repentance follows sinne Davids sinne is placed but in the beginning of the night in the Evening In the evening he rose and walked upon the Terase and saw Bathsheba and in the next part of time in the night he falls a weeping no more between the sweetnesse of sinne and the bitternesse of repentance then between evening and night no morning to either of them till the Sunne of grace arise and shine out and proceed to a Meridionall height and make the repentance upon circumstance to be a repentance upon the substance and bring it to be a repentance for the sinne it selfe which at first was but a repentance upon some calamity that that sinne induced He wept then Omni nocte and wept in the night in a time when he could neither receive rest in himselfe which all men had nor receive praise from others which all men affect And he wept Omni nocte which is not onely Omnibus noctibus sometime every night but it is Tota nocte cleane through the night And he wept in that abundance as hath put the Holy Ghost to that Hyperbole in Davids pen to expresse it Liquefecit stratum natare fecit stratum Hieron it drowned his bed surrounded his bed it dissolved it macerated it melted his bed with that brine Well Qui rigat stratum he that washes his bed so with repentant teares Non potest in cogitationem ejus libidinum pompa subrepere Tentations take hold of us sometimes after our teares after our repentance but seldome or never in the act of our repentance and in the very shedding of our teares At least Libidinum pompa The victory the triumph of lust breaks not in upon us in a bed so dissolved so surrounded so macerated with such teares Thy bed is a figure of thy grave Such as thy grave receives thee at death it shall deliver thee up to Judgement at last Such as thy bed receives thee at night it shall deliver thee in the morning If thou sleepe without calling thy selfe to an account thou wilt wake so and walke so and proceed so without ever calling thy selfe to an account till Christ Jesus call thee in the Clouds It is not intended that thou shouldest afflict thy selfe so grievously as some over-doing Penitents to put chips and shels and splints and flints and nayles and rowels of spurres in thy bed to wound and macerate thy body so The inventions of men are not intended here But here is a precept of God implied in this precedent and practise of David That as long as the sense of a former sinne or the inclination to a future oppresses thee thou must not close thine eyes thou must not take thy rest till as God married thy body and soule together in the Creation and shall at last crowne thy body and soule together in the Resurrection so they may also rest together here that as thy body rests in thy bed thy soule may rest in the peace of thy Conscience and that thou never say to thy head Rest upon this pillow till thou canst say to thy soule Rest in this repentance in this peace Now as this sorrow of Davids continued day and night Oculus in the day for the better edification of men and in the night for his better capitulation with God so there is a farther continuation thereof without any wearinesse expressed in the next clause Turbatus à furore oculus meus as the Vulgat reads it and Mine eye is dimmed for despight or indignation as our former or as this last Translation hath it Mine eye is consumed because of griefe and to speake neerest to the Originall Erosus est oculus Mine eye is eaten out with Indignation A word or two shall be inough of each of these words these three Termes What the eye which is the subject what this consuming or dimming which is the effect and what this Griefe or Indignation which is the affection imports and offers to our application First Oculus the Eye is ordinarily taken in the Scriptures Pro aspectu for the whole face the looks the countenance the ayre of a man and this ayre and looks and countenance declares the whole habitude and constitution of the man As he looks so he is So that the Eye here is the whole person and so this griefe had wrought upon the whole frame and constitution of David and decayed that though he place it in the eye yet it had growne over all the body Since thou wast not able to say to thy sinne The sinne shall come to mine eyes but no farther I will looke but not lust I will see but not covet thou must not say My repentance shall come to mine eyes and no farther I will shed a few teares and no more but with this Prophet David and with the Apostle S. Paul thou must beat downe thy body to that particular purpose and in that proportion as thou findest the rebellions thereof to require Thou couldest not stop the sin at thine eyes stop not thy repentance there neither but pursue it in wholesome mortification through all those parts in which the sinne hath advanced his dominion over thee and that is our use of the first word the Eye the whole frame For the second word which in our Translations is in one dimmed Turbatus Reuchlin in the other consumed and in the Vulgat troubled a great Master in the Originall renders it well elegantly and naturally out of the Originall Verminavit Tineavit which is such a deformitie as wormes make in wood or in books If Davids sorrow for his sinnes brought him to this deformitie what sorrow doe they owe to their sinnes who being come to a deformitie by their own licentiousnesse and intemperance disguise all that by unnaturall helpes to the drawing in of others and the continuation of their former sinnes The sinne it selfe was the Devils act in thee But in the deformity and debility though it follow upon the sinne God hath a hand And they that smother and suppresse these by paintings and pamperings unnaturall helps to unlawfull ends doe not deliver themselves of the plague but
but Himselfe so as if they be lost he is lost How long will a Medall a piece of Coine lie in the water before the stampe be washed off and yet how soone is the Image of God of his patience his longanimity defaced in us by every billow every affliction But for the Saints of God it shall not be so Surely it shall not They shall stand against the waters Psal 11 43. And the Sea shall see it and fly and Iordan shall be turned backe And the world shall say What ayled thee O Sea that thou fleddest O Iordan that thou turnedst back For they that know not the power of the Almighty though they envy yet shall wonder and stand amazed at the deliverance of the righteous Sto pulso sayes God of himselfe I stand at the doore and knocke Rev. 3.22 God will not breake open doores to give thee a blessing as well as he loves thee and as well as he loves it but will have thee open to him much more will he keepe Tentations at the doore They shall not breake in upon thee except thou open This then was that which David elsewhere apprehended with feare The sorrowes of the grave compassed me about Psal 1â— 5. and the snares of death overtooke mee Here they were neare him but no worse Psal 69 15. This is that that hee prayes deliverance from Let not the water flood drowne mee neither let the deepe swallow me up And this is that God assures us all that are his Isâ—y 43.2 When thou passest through the waters I will bee with thee and through the floods that they doe not overflow thee Maintaine therefore a holy patience in all Gods visitations Accept your waters though they come in teares for hee that sends them Christ Jesus had his flood his inundation in Blood and whatsoever thou sufferest from him thou sufferest for him and glorifiest him in that constancy Upon those words Tres sunt There are three that beare witnesse That Spirit and water and blood Bernard S. Bernard taking water there by way of allusion for affliction saith Though the Spirit were witnesse enough without water or blood yet Vix aut nunquam inveniri arbitror Spiritum sine aqua sanguine we lack one of the seales of the Spirit if we lack Gods corrections We consider three waters in our blessed Saviour He wept over Jerusalem Doe thou so over thy finfull soule He sweat in the garden Doe thou so too in eating thy bread in the sweat of thy browes in labouring fincerely in thy Calling And then hee sent water and blood out of his side Argust being dead which was fons utriusque Sacramenti the spring head of both Sacraments Doe thou also refresh in thy soule the dignity which thou receivedst in the first Sacrament of Baptisme and thereby come worthily to the participation of the second and therein the holy Ghost shall give thee the seale of that security which he tenders to thee in this Text Non approximabunt How great water floods soever come they shall not come nigh thee not nigh that which is Thou that is thy faith thy soule and though it may swallow that by which thou art a man thy life it shall not shake that by which thou art a Christian thy Religion Amen SERM. LX. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.7 Thou art my hiding place Thou shalt preserve mee from trouble Thou shalt compasse me about with songs of deliverance AS Rhetorique is said to bee a fist extended and displayed into an open Hand And Logique a Hand recollected and contracted into a fist So the Church of God may be said to be a soule dilated and diffused into many Congregations and a soule may be said to be the Church contracted and condensed into one bosome So not onely the Canticle of Solomon is taken indifferently by the ancient and later Expositors by some for an Epithalamion and marriage Song betweene Christ and his Church by others for the celebration of the same union between every Christian soule and him but also many other places of Scripture have received such an indifferent interpretation and are left in suspence whether they be to be understood of the Church in generall or of particular soules And of this nature and number is this Text Thou art my hiding place c. For S. Hierom takes these words and the whole Psalme to be spoken collectively others distributively He in the person of the Church Hieron They of every or at least of some particular soules To examine their reasons is unnecessary and would bee tedious It will aske lesse time and afford more profit to consider the words both wayes In them therefore considered twice over wee shall see a threefold state of the Christian Church and a threefold mercy exhibited by God to every Christian soule First we shall see the Church under the clouds in her low estate in her obscurity in her inglorious state of contempt and persecution and yet then supported by an assurance that God overshadowed her Tu absconsio Tu latibulum Thou art my hiding place And in that first part wee shall consider the state of a timorous soule a soule that for feare of tentations dares scarce looke into the world or embrace a profession Secondly we shall see the Church emancipated enfranchised unfettered unmanacled delivered from her obscure and inglorious state and brought to splendor and beauty and peace blessing God in that acknowledgement Thou shalt preserveme from trouble And in that part wee shall consider the state of that soule exalted to a holy confidence and assurance that though she come into the world and partake of the dangers thereof in opening herselfe to such tentations as do necessarily and inseparably accompany every calling yet the Lord will preserve her from trouble And thirdly and lastly we shall see a kinde of Triumphant state in the Church in this world a holy exultation God shall compasse her with songs of deliverance In which part we shall also see the blessed state of that soule which is come not to a presumptuous security but to modest certainty of continuing in the same state still And these will bee our three parts in these words as they receive a publike accommodation to the Church and a more particular application to our selves Wee enter into these considerations with this observation 1 Part. That as God himselfe is eternall and cannot bee considered in the distinction of times so hath that language in which God hath spoken in his written word the Hebrew the least consideration of Time of any other language Evermore in expressing the mercies of God to man it is an indifferent thing to the holy Ghost whether he speak in the present or in the future or in the time that is past what mercies soever he hath given us he will give us over againe And whatsoever he hath done and will doe hee is alwayes ready to doe at
care is of the man and the soule is the man first a hedge about him and then about his house and about all that he had on every side Job 1.10 So day after day we shall finde arguments to establish our hearts in hope that the Lord hath compassed us and nothing shall breake in so as to take us from him but God shall say to us as to his former people Leva in circuitu oculos tuos Lift up thine eyes round about Esay 49.18 and behold which is one great comfort that he enables us to see and to know our enemies to discerne a tentation to be a tentation Omnes isti congregati sunt All these gather themselves together and come to thee which is another assistance that when we see our enemies multiply and that there is none that fighteth for us but onely thou O God we make a more present recourse to him But Vivo ego dicit Dominus As I live saith the Lord Velut ornamento vestieris thou shalt surely cloathe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a Bride doth which is the fulnesse of the mercy That as in another place he promises his children Panis vester sunt your enemies shall be your Bread Numb 14.9 you shall feed upon your enemies So here hee makes our enemies even our spirituall enemies our Cloathes and more then that our Jewels our Ornaments wee shall bee the stronger the warmer the richer by tribulations and tentations having overcome them as we shall if the Lord compasse us if he continue his watchfulnesse over us And that David sayes here first in the Churches behalfe God from the beginning carried a wall about his Church in that assurance Primitiva Mat. 16.18 Portae inferi The gates of hell shall not prevaile against it The Gentiles the Philosophers that were without the Church found a party Traitors Conspirators within The Heretiques and all these led and maintained by potent Princes that persecuted the Church The gates of hell were all opened and issued all her forces but Non praevaluerunt they never prevailed The Arians were sometimes more then the true Christians in all the world The Martyrians a sect that affected the name of Martyrdome could name more Martyrs then the true Church could but Evanuerunt yet they vanished The Emperours of Rome persecuted the Bishops of Rome to death yet when we looke upon the reckoning the Emperors died faster then Bishops Thou hast compassed me sayes the Primitive Church and so sayes the Reformed too Princes that hated one another have joyned in leagues against the Religion Reformata Princes that needed their Subjects have spent their Subjects by thousands in Massacres to extinguish the Religion Personall Assasinates Clandestine plots by poyson by fire by water have been multiplied against Princes that favour the Religion Inquisitions Confiscations Banishments Dishonours have overflowne them that professe the true Religion and yet the Lord compassing his Church she enjoyes a holy certainty arising out of these testimonies of his care that she shall never be forsaken And this may every good soule have too God comes to us without any purpose of departing from us againe Anima For the Spirit of life that God breated into man that departs from man in death but when God had assumed the nature of man the God-head never parted from that nature no not in death When Christ lay dead in the grave the God-head remained united to that body and that soule which were dis-united in themselves God was so united to man as that he was with man when man was not man in the state of death So when the Spirit of God hath invested compassed thy soule and made it his by those testimonies that Spirit establishes it in a kinde of assurance that he will never leave it Old Rome had as every City amongst the Heathen had certaine gods which they called their Tutelar gods gods that were affected to the preservation of that place But they durst never call upon those gods by their proper names for feare of losing them lest if their names should bee knowne by their enemies their enemies should winne away their gods from them by bestowing more cost or more devotion towards them then they themselves used So also is it said of them that when they had brought to Rome a forraigne god which they had taken in a conquered place Victory they cut the wings of their new god Victory lest he should flie from them againe This was a misery that they were not sure of their gods when they had them We are If he once come to us he never goes from us out of any variablenesse in himselfe but in us onely That promise reaches to the whole Church Esay 30.20 and to every particular soule Thy Teachers shall not bee removed into a corner any more but thine eye shall see thy Teachers which in the Originall as is appliably to our present purpose noted by Rabbi Moses is Non erunt Doctores tui alati Thy Teachers shall have no wings They shall never flie from thee and so the great Translation reads it Non avolabunt As their great god Victory could not flie from Rome so after this victory which God hath given his Church in the Reformation none of her Teachers should flie to or towards Rome Every way that God comes to us he comes with a purpose to stay and would imprint in us an assurance that he doth so and that Impression is this Compassing of thy soule with songs of deliverance in the signification and use of which word we shall in one word conclude all God hath given us this certitude Songs this faire assurance of his perpetuall residence with us in a word of a double signification The word is Ranan which signifies Joy exultation singing Lament 2.14 Psal 17.1 But it hath another sense too Arise Cry out in the night And Attend unto my cry which are voyces far from singing This God meanes therein That though he give us that comfort to sit and sing of our Deliverance yet hee would not have us fall asleepe with that musique but as when we contemplate his everlasting goodnesse wee celebrate that with a constant Joy so when we looke upon our owne weaknesse and unworthinesse we cry out Wretched men that wee are who shall deliver us from this body of death For though we have the Spirit of life in us we have a body of death upon us How loving soever my soule be it will not stay in a diseased body How loving soever the Spirit of life be it will not stay in a diseased soule My soule is loath to goe from my body but sicknesse and paine will drive it out so will sinne the Spirit of life from my soule God compasses us with Songs of Deliverance we are sure he would not leave us But he compasses us with Cries too we are afraid we are sure that we
in thine honor wounds in thy conscience yet we may heare David reply Josh 24.16 Tu Domine As the people said to Ioshuah God forbid we should forsake the Lord we will serve the Lord And when Ioshuah said You cannot serve the Lord for he is a jealous God and if yee turne from him he will turne and doe you hurt and consame you after he hath done you good The people replyed Nay but we will serve the Lord so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations and purgings in fire we may heare David reply Nay but Lord doe Thou doe it do it how Thou wilt but doe Thou do it Thy corrosives are better then others somentations Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey Thy fires are but lukewarme fires nay they have nothing of fire in them but light to direct me in my way And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out as lanes that leade me to thy grave or Rivers or Channels that lead me to the sea of thy bloud Let me go upon Crouches so I go to Heaven Lay what waight thou wilt even upon my foule that that be heavy and heavy unto death so I may have a cheerfull transmigration then Domine Tu Lord doe thou doe it and I shall not wish it mended And then when we heare David say Domine Me Lord purge Me wash Me and returne foure times in this short Text to that personall appropriation of Gods worke upon himselfe Purge Me that I may be cleane wash Me that I may be whiter then snow if we heare God say as the language of his mercy is for the most part generall As the Sea is above the Earth so is the blood of my Son above all sin Congregations of three thousand and of five thousand were purged and washed converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter whole legions of Souldiers that consisted of thousands were purged in their owne blood and became Martyrs in one day There is enough done to worke upon all Examples enow given to guide all we may heare David reply Domine Me Nay but Lord I doe not heare Peter preach I live not in a time or in a place where Crownes of Martyrdome are distributed nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did Lord I know that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood and yet I know that if there had been but one some distressed and that soule distressed but with one sin thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soule Blessed be thy Name for having wrapped me up in thy generall Covenants and made me partaker of thy generall Ordinances but yet Lord looke more particularly upon me and appropriate thy selfe to me to me not onely as thy Creature as a man as a Christian but as I am I as I am this sinner that confesses now and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now And now Beloved we have said so much towards enough of the persons God and David The accesse of David to God and the appropriation of God to David as that we may well passe to our other generall part the petitions which David in his own and our behalfe makes to God Purge me with Hyssop and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow In this 2 Part. Purgabis the first is a great worke That which we translate Purge me And yet how soone David is come to it It is his first period The passage of a Spirit is very quick but it is not immediate Not from extreame to extreame but by passing the way between The Evill spirit passes not so no good soule was ever made very ill in an instant no nor so soone as some ill have been made good No man can give me Examples of men so soone perverted as I can of men converted It is not in the power of the Devill to doe so much harme as God can doe good Nay we may be bold to say it is not in the will not in the desire of the Devill to doe so much harme as God would doe good for illnesse is not in the nature of the Devill The Devill was naturally good made created good His first illnesse was but a defection from that goodnesse and his present illnesse is but a punishment for that defection but God is good goodnesse in his nature essentially eternally good and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God worke otherwise upon us then the tentations of the evill Spirit doe How soone and to what a height came David here He makes his Petition his first Petition with that confidence as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition for it is in the Originall Thou wilt purge me Thou wilt wash me Thou hadst a gracious will and purpose to doe it before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it Nay this word may well be translated not onely Thou wilt but by the other denotation of the future Thou shalt Thou shalt purge me Thou shalt wash me Lord I doe but remember thee of thy debt of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt to shew mercy to every penitent sinner And then as the word implies confidence and acceleration infallibility and expedition too That as soone as I can aske I am sure to be heard so does it imply a totality an intirenesse a fulnesse in the worke for the roote of the word is Peccare to sin for purging is a purging of peccant humors but in this Conjugation in that language it hath a privative signification and literally signifies Expeccabis and if in our language that were a word in use it might be translated Thou shalt un-sin me that is look upon me as a man that had never sinned as a man invested in the innocency of thy Sonne who knew no sin David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God then in the remission of sins Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation or that we are in Gods favour at that time when we sin nor returned to his favour before we repent our sin It is onely this expeccation this unsinning this taking away of sins formerly committed that restores me And that is not done with nothing David assignes proposes a meanes by which he looks for it Hyssop Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop The Fathers taking the words as they found them and fastning with a spirituall delight Hyssopo as their devout custome was their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop have found purgative vertues in that plant and made usefull and spirituall applications thereof for the purging of our soules from sin In this doe S. Ambrose and Augustine and Hierome agree that Hyssop hath vertue in it proper for the lungs in