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
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
as all sin is a violating of God God being the God of mercy and the God of life because it deprives us of both those of mercy and of life in opposition to mercy Ephes 2.3 Rom. 5.12 it is called anger and wrath We are all by nature the children of wrath And in opposition to life it is called death Death enters by sin and death is gone over all men And as originall sin hath relation to our souls It is called that indeleble foulnesse and uncleannesse which God discovers in us all Jer. 2.22 Though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much sope yet thine iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord And which every man findes in himself as Iob did If I wash my self in Snow-water Job 9. and purge my hands never so cleane yet mine own clothes shall make me filthy As it hath relation to our bodies so it is not only called Lex carnis A law which the flesh cannot disobey And Lex in membris A law written and imprinted naturally in our bodies and inseparably inherent there but it is a law that hath got Posse comitatus All our strength and munition into her own hands all our powers and faculties to execute her purposes against us and as the Apostle expresses it fully Hath force in our members to bring forth fruits unto death Rom. 7.5 Consider our originall weaknesse as God lookes upon it so it is inexcusable sin consider it as our soules suffer by it so it is an indeleble foulnesse consider it as our bodies contribute to it and harbour it and retain it and so it is an unquenchable fire and a brand of hell it self It hath banished me out of my self It is no more I that do any thing but sin that dwelleth in me It doth not only dwell but reign in these mortall bodies not only reign but tyrannize and lead us captives under the law of sin which is in our members Ver. 23. So that we have utterly lost Bonum possibilitatis for as men we are out of all possibility not only of that victorious and triumphant gratulation and acclamation to our selves as for a delivery I thank God through Iesus Christ but we cannot come to that sense of our misery Ver. ult as to cry out in the Apostles words immediately preceding O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Now as this death hath invaded every part and faculty of man understanding and will and all for though originall sin seem to be contracted without our will yet Sicut omnium natura ita omnium voluntates fuere originaliter in Adam sayes S. Augustine As the whole nature of mankinde and so of every particular man was in Adam so also were the faculties and so the will of every particular man in him so this death hath invaded every particular man Death went over all men for as much as all men had sinned And therefore they that do blasphemously exempt some persons from sin they set them not above the Law but without the Law They out-law them in taking from them the benefit of the new Law the Gospel and of the author of that Law Christ Jesus who came a Physitian to the sick and was sent only to save sinners for them that are none it is well that they need no Redeemer for if they did they could have no part in ours for he came only to redeem sinners and they are none God brought his Son out of Aegypt not out of Goshen in Aegypt not out of a priviledged place in Aegypt but out of Aegypt God brought his Son Christ Jesus out of the Virgin Mary without sin but he brought not her so out of her mother If they might be beleeved that the blessed Virgin and Iohn Baptist and the Prophet Ieremy were without all sin they would goe about at last to make us beleeve that Ignatius were so too For us in the highest of our sanctification still let us presse with that Dimitte nobis debita nostra O Lord forgive us our trespasses and confesse that we needed forgivenesse even for the sins which we have not done Dimissa fateor quae mea sponte feci quae te duce non feci sayes S. Augustine I confesse I need thy mercy both for the sins which I have done and for those which if thy grace had not restrained me I should have done And therefore if another think he hath scaped those sins that I have committed August Non me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quoei praestitum ne aegrotaret Let him not despise me who am recovered since it is the same physitian who hath wrought upon us both though by a diverse method for he hath preserved him and he hath recovered me for for himselfe we say still with the same Father Perdiderat bonum possibilitatis As well he as I had lost all possibility of standing or rising after our fall This was our first branch Quid homo potest The universall impotency And our second is That this is In homine In man no man as man can make this profession That Iesus is the Lord and therefore we consider first wherein and how far man is disabled In every Age some men have attributed to the power of nature more then a naturall man can doe and yet no man doth so much as a naturall man might doe For the over-valuing of nature and her power there are impressions in the Fathers themselves which whether mis-understood by the Readers or by the Authors have led and prevailed much When Iustin Martyr sayes Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris That rectified reason did the same office in the Gentiles as faith did in the Christians when Clement sayes Philosophia per sese justi ficavit Graecos That the Gentiles to whom the Law and Gospell was not communicated were justified by their Philosophy when Chrysostome sayes Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was sufficient for the Gentiles if they did not worship false gods though they understood not the true when S. Augustine sayes Rectè facis nihil quaerere ampliùs quà m quod docet ratio He doth well that seeks no farther then his reason leads them these impressions in the Fathers have transported later men farther so far as that Andradius in the Romane Church saves all honest Philosophers that lived morally well without Christ And Tostatus takes all impediments out of their way That originall sin is absolutely remitted to them In prima bona operatione in charitate In their first good morall work that they do So that they are in an easier way then we who are but Christians for in the opinion of Tostatus himselfe and that whole Church we cannot be delivered from originall sin but by baptisme nothing lesse then a Sacrament would deliver us from originall sin and any good worke shall deliver any of the Gentiles
unto all men and then herein also is Gods mercy to man magnified that it is to man that is only to man Nothing can fall into this comparison Non Angelis but Angels and Angels shall not be forgiven We shall be like the Angels we shall participate of their glory which stand But the Angels shall never be like us never return to mercy after they are fallen They were Primogeniti Dei Gods first born and yet disinherited and disinherited without any power at least without purpose of revocation without annuities without pensions without any present supply without any future hope When the Angels were made and when they fell we dispute but when they shall return falls not into question Howsoever Origen vary in himselfe or howsoever he fell under that jealousie or misinterpretation that he thought the devill should be saved at last I am sure his books that are extant have pregnant and abundant testimony of their everlasting and irreparable condemnation To judge by our evidence the evidence of Scriptures for their sin and the evidence of our conscience for ours there is none of us that hath not sinned more then any of them at first and yet Christ hath not taken the nature of Angels but of man and redeemed us Iude 6. having reserved them in everlasting chaines under darknesse How long Vnto the judgement of the great day sayes that Apostle And is it but till then then to have an end Alas no It is not untill that day but unto that day not that that day shall end or ease their torments which they have but inflict accidentall torments which they have not yet That is an utter evacuation of that power of seducing which till that day come they shall have leave to exercise upon the sons of men To that are they reserved and we to that glory which they have lost and lost for ever and upon us is that prayer of the Apostle fallen effectually Ver. 2. Mercy and peace and love is multiplied unto us for sin and all sin blasphemy and blasphemy against the Son shall be that is is not nor was not but may be forgiven to men to all men to none but men And so we passe to our second part In this second part 2. Part. Divisio which seemes to present a banke even to this Sea this infinite Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus And an Horizon even to this heaven of heavens to the mercy of God we shall proceed thus First we shall inquire but modestly what that blasphemy which is commonly called The sin against the holy Ghost is And secondly how and wherein it is irremissible that it shall never be forgiven And then thirdly upon what places of Scripture it is grounded amongst which if this text do not constitute and establish that sin The sin against the holy Ghost yet we shall finde that that sin which is directly intended in this text is a branch of that sin The sin against the holy Ghost And therefore we shall take just occasion from thence to arme you with some instructions against those wayes which leade into that irrecoverable destruction into that irremissible sin for though the sin it self be not so evident yet the limmes of the sin and the wayes to the sin are plain enough S. Augustine sayes Quid. There is no question in the Scripture harder then this what this sin is And S. Ambrose gives some reason of the difficulty in this Sicut una divinitas una offensa As there is but one Godhead so there is no sin against God and all sin is so but it is against the whole Trinity and that is true but as there are certain attributes proper to every severall person of the Trinity so there are certaine sins more directly against the severall attributes and properties of those persons and in such a consideration against the persons themselves Of which there are divers sins against power and they are principally against the Father for to the Father we attribute power and divers sins against wisdome and wisdome we attribute to the Son and divers against goodnesse and love and these we attribute to the holy Ghost Of those against the holy Ghost considered in that attribute of goodnesse and of love the place to speak will be in our conclusion But for this particular sin The sin against the holy Ghost as hard as S. Augustine makes it and justly yet he sayes too Exercere nos voluit difficultate quaestionis non decipere falsitate sententiae God would exercise us with a hard question but he would not deceive us with a false opinion Quid sit quaeri voluit non negari God would have us modestly inquire what it is not peremptorily deny that there is any such sin It is for the most part agreed that it is a totall falling away from the Gospell of Christ Jesus formerly acknowledged and professed into a verball calumniating and a reall persecuting of that Gospel with a deliberate purpose to continue so to the end and actually to do so to persevere till then and then to passe away in that disposition It fals only upon the professors of the Gospell and it is totall and it is practicall and it is deliberate and it is finall Here we have that sin but by Gods grace that sinner no where It is therefore somewhat early somewhat forwardly pronounced though by a reverend man Certum reprobationis signum in spiritum blasphemia That it is an infallible assurance Calvin that that man is a Reprobate that blasphemes the holy Ghost For whatsoever is an infallible signe must be notorious to us If we must know another thing by that as a signe we must know that thing which is our signe in it selfe And can we know what this blaspheming of the holy Ghost is Did we ever heare any man say or see any man doe any thing against the holy Ghost of whom we might say upon that word or upon that action This man can never repent never be received to mercy And yet sayes he Tenendum est quod qui exciderint nunquam resurgent We are bound to hold that they who fall so shall never rise again I presume he grounded himselfe in that severe judgement of his upon such places as that to the Romanes Rom. 1.18 When they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate minde That that is the ordinary way of Gods justice to withdraw his Spirit from that man that blasphemes his Spirit but S. Paul blasphemed and S. Peter blasphemed and yet were not divorced from God S. Augustines rule is good not to judge of this sin and this sinner especially but à posteriori from his end from his departing out of this world Neither though I doe see an ill life sealed with an ill death dare I be too forward in this judgement He was not a Christian in profession but worse then he are
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
Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
sin no lesser covering serves then God in his Church It was the prayer against them Nehem. 4.5 August who hindered the building of the Temple Cover not their iniquity neither let their sin be put out in thy presence Our prayer is Peccata nostra non videat ut nos videat Lord looke not upon our sins that thou maist looke upon us And since amongst our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 Prov. 10.12 it is the effect of Love to cover Multitudinem peccatorum The multitude of sins yea to cover Vniversa delicta Lovè covereth all sins much more shall God who is Love it selfe cover our sins so as he covered the Egyptians in a red Sea in the application of his blood by visible meanes in his Church That therefore thou mayest be capable of this covering Psal 37.6 Commit thy wayes unto the Lord that is show unto him by way of confession what wrong wayes thou hast gone and inquire of him by prayer what wayes thou art to go and as it is in the same Psalme He shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgement as the noone day And so there shall be no guile found in thy spirit which might hinder this covering of thy sin which is the application of Christs merits in the Ordinances of his Church nor the Not imputing of thine iniquity which is our last consideration and the conclusion of all This not imputing Imputing is that serenity and acquiescence which a rectified conscience enjoyes when the Spirit of God beares witnesse with my spirit that thus reconciled to my God I am now guilty of nothing S. Bernard defines the Conscience thus Inseparabilis gloria vel confusio uniuscujusque pro qualitate depositi It is that inseparable glory or that inseparable confusion which every soule hath according to that which is deposited and laid up in it Now what is deposited and laid up in it Naturally hereditarily patrimonially Con-reatus sayes that Father from our first Parents a fellow-guiltinesse of their sin and they have left us sons and heires of the wrath and indignation of God and that is the treasure they have laid up for us Against this God hath provided Baptisme and Baptisme washes away that sin for as we doe nothing to our selves in Baptisme but are therein meerely passive so neither did we any thing our selves in Originall sin but therein are meerely passive too and so the remedy Baptisme is proportioned to the disease Originall sin But originall sin being thus washed away we make a new stocke we take in a new depositum a new treasure Actuall and habituall sins and therein much being done by our selves against God into the remedy there must enter something to be done by our selves and something by God And therefore we bring water to his wine true teares of repentance to his true blood in the Sacrament and so receive the seales of our reconciliation and having done that we may boldly say unto God Doe not condemne me Iob 10.2 shew me wherefore thou contendest with me When we have said as he doth I have sinned Iob 7.20 what shall I doe to thee And have done that that he hath ordained we may say also as he doth O thou preserver of men why dost thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity Why doest thou suffer me to faint and pant under this sad apprehension that all is not yet well betweene my soule and thee We are far from encouraging any man to antidate his pardon to presume his pardon to be passed before it is But when it is truly passed the seales of Reconciliation there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in that spirit nay it is the spirit of falshood and deceit it selfe that will not suffer us to injoy that pardon which God hath sealed to us but still maintaine jealousies and suspition between God and us My heart is not opener to God then the bowels of his mercy are to me And to accuse my selfe of sin after God hath pardoned me were as great a contempt of God as to presume of that pardon before he had granted it and so much a greater as it is directed against his greatest attribute his Mercy Si apud Deum deponas injuriam Tertul. ipse ultor erit Lay all the injuries that thou sufferest at Gods feet and hee will revenge them Si damnum ipse restituet Lay all thy losses there and he will repaire them Si dolorem ipse medicus Lay downe all thy diseases there and he shall heale thee Si mortem ipse resuscitator Dye in his armes and he shall breath a new life into thee Add wee to Tertullian Si peccata ipse sepeliet lay thy sins in his wounds and he shall bury them so deepe that onely they shall never have resurrection The Sun shall set and have a to morrows resurrection Herbs shall have a winter death and a springs resurrection Thy body shall have a long winters night and then a resurrection Onely thy sins buried in the wounds of thy Saviour shall never have resurrection And therefore take heed of that deceit in the spirit of that spirit of deceit that makes thee impute sins to thy selfe when God imputes them not But rejoyce in Gods generall forgiving of Transgressions That Christ hath dyed for all multiply thy joy in the covering of thy sin That Christ hath instituted a Church in which that generall pardon is made thine in particular And exalt thy joy in the not imputing of iniquity in that serenity that tranquillity that God shall receive thee at thy last houre in thy last Bath the sweat of death as lovingly as acceptably as innocently as he received thee from thy first Bath the laver of Regeneration the font in Baptisme Amen SERM. LVII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah ALL wayes of teaching are Rule and Example And though ordinarily the Rule be first placed yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples And when a Rule would be of hard digestion to weake understandinge Example concocts it and makes it easie for Example in matter of Doctrine is as Assimilation in matter of Nourishment The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction like something which we knew before as Assimilation makes that meat which we have received and digested like those parts which are in our bodies before David was the sweet singer of Israel shall we say Gods Precentor His sonne Solomon was the powerfull Preacher of Israel shall we say Gods Chaplain Both of them excellent abundantly super-abundantly excellent in both those wayes of Teaching Poet and Preacher proceed in these wayes in both Rule and Example the body and soule of Instruction So this Psalme is qualified in the Title
with an outward sanctity and call God to witnesse and testifie to the Congregation that we are saints when we are devils for this is a suborning of God and a drawing of God himselfe into a perjury We hide our sinnes in his house by hypocrisie all our lives and we hide them at our deaths perchance with an Hospitall And truely wee had need doe so when we have impoverished God in his children by our extorsions and wounded him and lam'd him in them by our oppressions wee had need provide God an Hospitall As men that rob houses thrust in a child at the window and he opens greater doores for them so lesser sins make way for greater De minimis non curat Lex The law is faine to passe over small faults but De minimis cur at lux That light of grace by which a sinner disposes himselfe to confession must discover every sinne and hide none suffer none to hide it selfe nor lie hidden under others When God speaks so much of Behemoth and Leviathan Iob 40. 41. the great land and seaoppressors he calls us to the consideration of the insupportablenesse of great sinnes but in the plaines of Egypt by haile and locusts and lice little and contemptible things hee calls us to the consideration of these vermine of the soule lesser and unconsidered sins David had not accomplished his work upon himselfe his reflected his preparatory Act till he had made both those steps notum feci non operui first I tooke knowledge of my sinfull condition and then I proceeded to a particular inquisition of my Conscience I tooke knowledge of my sinne and mine iniquity I have not hid and then he was fit to thinke of an accesse to God by confession Dixi confiteber c. This word Dixi meditando Dixi Amar I said is a word that implies first meditation deliberation considering and then upon such meditation a resolution too and execution after all When it is said of God dixit and dixit God said this and said that in the first Creation Cave ne cogites strepitum Basil Doe not thinke that God uttered any sound His speaking was inward his speaking was thinking So David uses this word in the person of another Dixit insipiens Psal 14.1 The foole hath said that is In corde said in his heart that is thought that there is no God There speaking is thinking and speaking is resolving too So Davids son Solomon uses the word 1 King 5.5 Behold I purpose to build a house unto the Lord where the word is I say I will doe it Speaking is determining and speaking is executing too Dixi custodiam I said I will take heed to my wayes Psal 39.1 that is I will proceed and goe forward in the paths of God And such a premeditation such a preconsideration doe all our approaches and accesses to God and all our acts in his service require God is the Rocke of our salvation God is no Occasionall God no Accidentall God neither will God be served by Occasion nor by Accident but by a constant Devotion Our communication with God must not be in Interjections that come in by chance nor our Devotions made up of Parentheses that might be left out They erre equally that make a God of Necessity and that make a God of Contingency They that with the Manichees make an ill God a God that forces men to doe all the ill that they doe And they that with the Epicures make an idle God an indifferent God that cares not what is done God is not Destiny Then there could be no reward nor punishment but God is not Fortune neither for then there were no Providence If God have given reason onely to Man it were strange that Man should exercise that reason in all his Morall and Civill actions and onely do the acts of Gods worship casually To go to Court to Westminster to the Exchange for ends and to come to Church by chance or for company or for some collaterall respects that have no relation to God Not to thinke of our Confession till the Priest have called upon us to say after him We have erred and straied from thy wayes like lost sheepe To come for Absolution Dan. 2.3 as Nebuchadnezzar came to Daniel for the interpretation of his Dreame who did not onely not understand his Dreame but not remember it Somnium ejus fugit ab eo He did not onely not know what his Dreame meant but hee did not know what his Dreame was Not to consider the nature of Confession and Absolution not to consider the nature of the sins we should confesse and be absolved of is a stupidity against Davids practise here Dixit He said he meditated he considered Gods service is no extemporall thing But then Dixit He resolved too for so the word signifies Consideration but Resolution upon it And then that he Resolved he Executed This is not only Davids dixit in corde Dixi statuendo Luke 15.12 where speaking is thinking nor only Solomons dixi adificabo I resolved how I might build but it is also the Prodigals Dixi revertar I said I will go to my Father A resolving and executing of that Resolution for that that execution crownes all How many thinke to come hither when they wake and are not ready when the houre comes And even this mornings omission is an abridgement or an essay of their whole lives They thinke to repent every day and are not ready when the bell tolls Cajetan It is well said of Gods speaking in the Creation It was Dictio practica diffinitiva Imperativa Ambrose It was an Actuall speaking a Definitive an Imperative speaking And Dicto absolvit negotium His saying he would doe it that is his meaning to doe it was the very doing of it Our Religious duties require meditations for God is no extemporall God Those produce determinations for God must not be held in suspence And they flow into executions for God is not an illusible God to be carried with promises or purposes onely And all those linkes of this religious Chaine Consideration Resolution Execution Thought Word and Practise are made out of this golden word Amar Dixi I said I will doe it And then Dixi confitebor I considered that my best way was to confesse and I resolved to doe so and I did it Dixi confitebor It is but a homely Metaphor Confitebor Origen but it is a wholesome and a usefull one Confessio vomitus Confession works as a vomit It shakes the frame and it breakes the bed of sin and it is an ease to the spirituall stomach to the conscience to be thereby disburdened It is an ease to the sinner to the patient but that that makes it absolutely necessary is that it is a glory to God for in all my spirituall actions Apprecations or Deprecations whether I pray for benefits or against calamities still my Alpha and Omega my first and
world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations It is a Sea Mundus Mare as it is subject to stormes and tempests Every man and every man is a world feels that And then it is never the shallower for the calmnesse The Sea is as deepe there is as much water in the Sea in a calme as in a storme we may be drowned in a calme and flattering fortune in prosperity as irrecoverably as in a wrought Sea in adversity So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it is bottomlesse to any line which we can sound it with and endlesse to any discovery that we can make of it The purposes of the world the wayes of the world exceed our consideration But yet we are sure the Sea hath a bottome and sure that it hath limits that it cannot overpasse The power of the greatest in the world the life of the happiest in the world cannot exceed those bounds which God hath placed for them So the world is a Sea It is a Sea as it hath ebbs and floods and no man knowes the true reason of those floods and those ebbs All men have changes and vicissitudes in their bodies they fall sick And in their estates they grow poore And in their minds they become sad at which changes sicknesse poverty sadnesse themselves wonder and the cause is wrapped up in the purpose and judgement of God onely and hid even from them that have them and so the world is a Sea It is a Sea as the Sea affords water enough for all the world to drinke but such water as will not quench the thirst The world affords conveniences enow to satisfie Nature but these encrease our thirst with drinking and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our abundance and though we sayle in a full Sea yet we lacke water So the world is a Sea It is a Sea if we consider the Inhabitants In the Sea the greater fish devoure the lesse and so doe the men of this world too And as fish when they mud themselves have no hands to make themselves cleane but the current of the waters must worke that So have the men of this world no means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which they have contracted in the world of themselves till a new flood waters of repentance drawne up and sanctified by the Holy Ghost worke that blessed effect in them All these wayes the world is a Sea but especially it is a Sea in this respect that the Sea is no place of habitation but a passage to our habitations So the Apostle expresses the world Here we have no continuing City but we seeke one to come we seeke it not here Heb. 13.14 but we seeke it whilest we are here els we shall never finde it Those are the two great works which we are to doe in this world first to know that this world is not our home and then to provide us another home whilest we are in this world Therefore the Prophet sayes Mic. 2.10 Luk. 12.19 Arise and depart for this is not your rest Worldly men that have no farther prospect promise themselves some rest in this world Soule thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares take thine ease eate drinke and be merry sayes the rich man but this is not your rest indeed no rest at least not yours You must depart depart by death before yee come to that rest but then you must arise before you depart for except yee have a resurrection to grace here before you depart you shall have no resurrection to glory in the life to come when you are departed Now Status navigantium in this Sea every ship that sayles must necessarily have some part of the ship under water Every man that lives in this world must necessarily have some of his life some of his thoughts some of his labours spent upon this world but that part of the ship by which he sayls is above water Those meditations and those endevours which must bring us to heaven are removed from this world and fixed entirely upon God And in this Sea are we made fishers of men Of men in generall not of rich men to profit by them nor of poore men to pierce them the more sharply because affliction hath opened a way into them Not of learned men to be over-glad of their approbation of our labours Nor of ignorant men to affect them with an astonishment or admiration of our gifts But we are fishers of men of all men of that which makes them men their soules And for this fishing in this Sea this Gospel is our net Eloquence is not our net Rete Euangelium Traditions of men are not our nets onely the Gospel is The Devill angles with hooks and bayts he deceives and he wounds in the catching for every sin hath his sting The Gospel of Christ Jesus is a net It hath leads and corks It hath leads that is the denouncing of Gods judgements and a power to sink down and lay flat any stubborne and rebellious heart And it hath corks that is the power of absolution and application of the mercies of God that swimme above all his works means to erect an humble and contrite spirit above all the waters of tribulation and affliction A net is Res nodosa Rete nodosum a knotty thing and so is the Scripture full of knots of scruple and perplexity and anxiety and vexation if thou wilt goe about to entangle thy selfe in those things which appertaine not to thy salvation but knots of a fast union and inseparable alliance of thy soule to God and to the fellowship of his Saints if thou take the Scriptures as they were intended for thee that is if thou beest content to rest in those places Rete diffusivum which are cleare and evident in things necessary A net is a large thing past thy fadoming if thou cast it from thee but if thou draw it to thee it will lie upon thine arme The Scriptures will be out of thy reach and out of thy use if thou cast and scatter them upon Reason upon Philosophy upon Morality to try how the Scriptures will fit all them and beleeve them but so far as they agree with thy reason But draw the Scripture to thine own heart and to thine own actions and thou shalt finde it made for that all the promises of the old Testament made and all accomplished in the new Testament for the salvation of thy soule hereafter and for thy consolation in the present application of them Now this that Christ promises here Non quia tanquam causa Rom. 6.23 is not here promised in the nature of wages due to our labour and our fishing There is no merit in all that we can doe The wages of sin is Death Death is due to sin the proper reward of sin but the Apostle does not say there That eternall life is the wages of any good
B. C Expostulation with God how without sin 44. B. We may not excuse the inordinatenesse of all Expostulations of good men in the Scripture 132. C Nor come neere that excesse which we finde in some of them 155. C Of that in the widdow of Zareptha 218. A Against Extortion 94. A Against Extremities in matters of opinion 42. A. B. c. In Religion 326. D F FAith against implicite Faith 178. C. 411. C Faith and Reason how contiguous they are 178. B Faith how it is assisted by Reason 429. A. 612. A Of the imperfection that is in our Faith 818. D Faith and Works 78. E. 368. A. 567. D. E Our Workes more ours than our Faith 79. C. D. E. c. The Faith of others how profitable to us 105. D And how not 106. E Men not to deceive themselves with thinking that if they have Faith once they shall have it ever or have enough 819. B. C Fall sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. B. C. 462. D Against impossibility of falling from grace received 240. B. C Of Fame and getting a good name the necessity of it 680. A Fathers of the power of life and death which they had over their owne children 388. A How Jesuites slight the authority of the Fathers of the Church 489. C How they are to be followed 490. C Feare of the Feare of God 386. B The difference between fearefullnesse and Feare 387. B Servile and Filial Feare both good 386. D The Feare of God a blessed disease 466. B It constitutes the best assurance 694. C Not only a Feare but even a terror of God may fall upon the best men 70. A Festivalls the reason of their Institution in the Church 298. B Of applying particular Scriptures to particular Festivalls 423. D Filiation the markes of our spirituall Filiation lesse subject to errour than of our Temporall 338. E Fasting but thrice mentioned by David and he thrice derided for it 535. C The commendation and use of it ibid. D. E Finding of God the severall times of it 597. A Of Finding that which was lost 711. E The passage of the Usher in S. Augustine that found a bag of money and would not take so much as the tithe of it 712. A Fishers of men the Apostles why so called 734. E Flatterers how men may flatter the best men the very Angels yea and God himselfe 332. B Foliantes an Order in the Roman Church who only feed on roots and leaves 731. C Following Christ how we are to Follow in beleeving and in doing 731. E Against Forespeaking the Counsels or Actions of the State 535. E Foretelling of death the passage of the Monks of S. sidorus Monastery about it 473. C Forme of publike Prayer used amongst the very Gentiles 89. A And they had a particular Officer who made Prayers and Collects for them upon emergent occasions ibid. Which were received every five years ibid. Fortune and God how they consist together 711. C Freewill the obliquities of it from whence 283. D The power of it in our conversion 309. A. B Funerals of the duties belonging to them 196. A. 198. B Of the severall manner of them among severall nations 198. D Christian Funerals an evidence of Gods presence 826. B Fulnesse how in Christ and how in others of the Saints 3. C Three Fulnesses in Christ above others 4. A How Full all of us are of originall sin 2. E How Full God is of mercy 12. C Of Fulnesse without satisfaction and of satisfaction without Fulnesse 807. A Abraham why Full of yeares and yet not so old as Methusalem ibid. D Severall Fulnesses ibid. E G GEntiles and their salvation how prone the Fathers were in beleeving of it 261. D. 763. C Of the power of naturall reason in them and what many of the Fathers thought of it 314. C Of their multiplicity of Gods 378. B. 484. D. 502. E They durst not call their Tutelar Gods by their names 608. A Gentlenesse meeknesse and mildenesse the power of it both upon man and God 409. E. 410. A. B Glad God whether he be Glad that he is God 812. B Glorified bodies their Endowments applyed to the soule after her first resurrection 189. A. B. C Gloria Patri after every Psalme how ancient 88. C Glory against our feare of giving God too much Glory 58. E No Glory to God in destroying man only for his pleasure 85. B Glory what it is 88. A The light of Glory in heaven what 231. A All things we doe must be to the Glory of God 636. E Of the disparity and degrees of Glory in the Kingdome of heaven 742. D. 743. A. B. C Gluttony the effects and miseries of it 579. D God not to be loved in consideration of the Temporall Blessings he bestoweth upon us but for himselfe 750. C. D Foure wayes of knowing him 229. B God how present even in hell 226. D. E Seeing of God before us in our actions how necessary 169. E How we see him in a glasse 226. B How we are enemies to God 65. B All his wayes are goodnesse 66. E Severall positions motions and transitions ascribed to him 67. C How omnipresent with the Ubiquetary and the Stancarist 67. E Why he makes some poor others rich 84. E Glories not in destroying man till he finde cause 85. B Proposeth his glory to himselfe as the end of all his works 87. C. D. E All our wealth and honour to be ascribed to him 95. B Whether his Essence shall be seene in heaven 120. D. 230. D No evill from him 168. C Not the Author of sinne 368. E To be reverenced as a Father 388. C Of the reason of many Gods amongst the Gentiles 484. D God hates not any man but as a finner 628. C. D His mercy to all men 679. A. B The numberlesse number of Gods Benefits unto man 765. A Our Goods what care to be taken they be well gotten 83. A. 95. E They are abusively called Goods 168. D Goodnesse speciall in God 167. E. 168. A. B Golden Crowns of the Saints how forged in the Roman Church 743. D Gospell whether yet preached over all the world 363. D Why it is called in Scripture the Kingdome of God 472. A How compared to a net 736. C Grace against irresistible Grace 456. B Grace and Nature how they cooperate 649. D No consummative Grace in this life 735. B Graduall Psalmes which and why they are so called 653. E Great men not alwayes good and why 166. A But when good the more acceptable and their ill the more pardonable ibid. B. C The true end of Greatnesse 321. B. C. D Great men how dangerously obnoxious to their own servants 551 A Gretzer the Jesuite how injurious to the power of Kings in matters of Religion 698. D H AGainst making too much Haste either in Temporall or Spirituall Riches 520. D Hatred how it may consist with Charity 100 A Health Spirituall Health to
Bee Wise as serpents but ãâã as Dous LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE D R IN DIVINITIE LATE DEANE OF Y E CATHEDRALL CHVRCH OF S T PAVLES LONDON LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE Dr IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON in Ivie-lane and RICHARD MARRIOT in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleetstreet MDCXL TO HIS MOST SACRED MAIESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT BRITAINE FRANCE AND IRELAND Defender of the Faith c. Most dread and gracious Soveraigne IN this rumor of VVarre I am bold to present to your sacred Majestie the fruits of Peace first planted by the hand of your most Royal Father then ripened by the same gracious influence and since no lesse cherisht and protected by your Majesties especiall favour vouchsafed to the Author in so many indulgent testimonies of your good acceptance of his service VVhich grace from your Majestie as he was known to acknowledge with much comfort whilst he lived so will it give now some excuse to the presumption of this Dedication since those friends of his who think any thing of his worthy to out-live him could not preserve their piety to him without taking leave to inscribe the same with your Majesties sacred Name that so they may at once give so faire a hope of a long continuance both to these VVorks of his and to his gratitude of which they humbly desire this Book may last to be some Monument I shall not presume in this place to say much of these Sermons only this They who have been conversant in the VVorks of the holiest men of all times cannot but acknowledge in these the same spirit with which they writ reasonable Demonstrations every where in the subjects comprehensible by reason as for those things which cannot be comprehended by our reason alone they are no where made easier to faith then here and for the other part of our nature which consists in our Passions and in our Affections they are here raised and laid and governed and disposed in a manner according to the Will of the Author The Doctrine it selse which is taught here is Primitively Christian The Fathers are every where here consulted with reverence but Apostolicall Writings onely appealed to as the last Rule of Faith Lastly such is the conjuncture here of zeal and discretion that whilst it is the main scope of the Author in these Discourses that Glory be given to God this is accompanied every where with a scrupulous care and endeavour that Peace be likewise setled amongst men The leave and encouragement I have had for the publishing these Sermons from the Person most intrusted by your Majestie in the government of the Church and most highly dignified in it I think I ought in this place to mention for his honour that they who receive any benefit from hence may know in part to whom to acknowledge it and that this what ever it is is owing to him to whom they stand otherwise so deeply engaged for his providence and care next under your Majestie over the Truth and Peace and Dignity of the Church of England for which he will not want lasting acknowledgments amongst Wise and Good Men. And now having with all humblenesse commended these Sermons to your sacred Majestie from the memory of the Author your Servant from the nature and piety of the Work it self and lastly from the encouragement I have had to give it this light did I not feare to adde to my presumption I should in this place take leave to expresse the propriety betwixt your Majesties royall Vertues and the tribute of such an Offering and acknowledgement as this A Work of Devotion to the most exemplarily pious Prince a Work of moderated and discreet zeale to the Person of the most governed affections in the midst of the greatest power a Work of deep-sighted knowledge to the most discerning spirit a VVork of a strict doctrine to the most severe imposer upon himselfe and a VVork of a charitable doctrine to the most indulgent Master of others But I dare not enter into this Argument these excellencies requiring rather tacite veneration then admitting any possible equall expression and therefore with my prayer for your Majesties long and happy raigne over us I humbly aske pardon for this presumption of Your Majesties most humble and most dutifull Subject Jo DONNE THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Dr DONNE LATE DEANE OF St PAULS LONDON IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wootton Provost of Eaton Colledge lately deceased had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written It was a Work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and our Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youths that nothing but death could force the separation And though their bodies were divided that learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond the forgetfull grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of certaine particulars that concerned it Not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory would make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectified by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad newes and likewise that these Sermons were to be publisht without the Authors life which I thought was rare indignation or griefe I know not whether transported me so far that I re-viewed my forsaken Collections and resolved the world should see the best picture of the Author that my artlesse Pensil guided by the hand of Truth could present to it If I be demanded as once Pompeys poore Bondman was Plutarch whilest he was alone on the Sea shore gathering the pieces of an old Boat to burne the body of his dead Master What art thou that preparest the funeralls of Pompey the great Who I am that so officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question hath in it more of wonder then disdaine Wonder indeed the Reader may that I who professe my selfe artlesse should presume with my faint light to shew forth his life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented certaine I am it is much to the advantage of the beholder who shall see the Authors picture in a naturall dresse which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And though it may be my fortune to fall under some censures for this undertaking yet I am pleased in a beliefe I have that if the Authors glorious spirit which is now in heaven can have the leasure to look downe and see his meanest friend in the midst of his officious duty he will not disdaine my well meaning
August 1630. being with his daughter Mistris Harvy at Abrey-Hatch in Essex he fell into a Feaver which with the helpe of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as S. Paul of himselfe he dyes daily And he might say with Iob Job 30.15 Job 7.3 My welfare passeth away as a cloud The dayes of affliction have taken hold of me And weary nights are appointed for me This sicknesse continued long not onely weakning but wearing him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest And that thou judge it no impertinent digression before I speake of his death to looke backe with me upon some observations of his life which while a gentle slumber seises him may I hope fitly exercise thy Consideration His marriage was the remarkable error of his life which though he had a wit apt enough and very able to maintaine paradoxes And though his wives competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate a severe censure yet he never seemed to justifie and doubtlesse had repented it if God had not blest them with a mutuall and so cordiall an affection as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquet of fooles The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature with all her varieties had been made to exercise his great wit and high fancy And in those pieces which were carelesly scattered in his younger daies most of them being written before the twentieth yeare of his age it may appeare by his choice Metaphors that all the Arts joyned to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wisht they had been abortive or so short-liv'd that he had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so falne out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake it no not in his declining age witnessed then by many divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious composures yea even on his former sick bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy he then had in the assurance of Gods mercy to him A Hymne to God the Father VVIlt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And doe run still though still I doe deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin and made my sin their dore Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A yeare or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of feare that when I have spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But sweare by thy selfe that at my death thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I feare no more And on this which was his Death-bed writ another Hymne which bears this Title A Hymne to God my God in my sicknesse If these fall under the censure of a soule whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many devout and learned men have thought the soule of holy Prudentius was most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning with a new and spirituall Song justified by the examples of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his yeares payed his gratefull vowes to God in a royall hymne Esay 38. which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of our life in the Temple of my God The later part of his life was a continued studie Saturdaies onely excepted which he usually spent in visiting friends and resting himselfe under the weary burthen of his weeks Meditations And he gave himselfe this rest that thereby he might be refresht and inabled to doe the work of the day following not negligently but with courage and cheerfulnesse Nor was his age onely so industrious but in his most unsetled youth he was being in health never knowne to be in bed after foure of the clock in the morning nor usually out of his chamber till ten and imployed that time constantly if not more in his Studie Which if it seeme strange may gain beliefe by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remaine to testifie what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them analyzed with his owne hand He left sixscore Sermons also all writ with his owne hand A large and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatose wherein all the Lawes violated by that act are diligently survayed and judiciously censured A Treatise written in his youth which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many profest Scholars that labour to be thought learned Clerks and to know all things Nor were these onely found in his Studie but all businesses that past of any publique consequence in this or any of our neighbour Kingdoms he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of the Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the Copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his solutions and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himselfe He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his Will when no facultie of his soule was dampt or defective by sicknesse or he surprized by sudden apprehension of death But with mature deliberation expressing himselfe an impartiall Father by making his Childrens Portions equall a constant lover of his friends by particular Legacies discreetly chosen and fitly bequeathed them And full of charity to the poore and many others who by his long continued bounty might entitle themselves His almes-people For all these he made provision so largely as having six children might to some appeare more then proportionable to his estate The Reader may think the particulars tedious but I hope not impertinent that I present him with the beginning and conclusion of his last Will. IN the name of the blessed and glorious Trinitie Amen I Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus and the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good and perfect understanding praised be God therefore doe hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soule with my most humble thanks for
performe that sacred Work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himselfe not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Doe these bones live Ezek. 37.3 Or can that soule organise that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its center and measure out an houre of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot Yet after some faint pauses in his zealous Prayer his strong desires inabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his pre conceived Meditations which were of dying The Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from death Many that saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text Prophetically chosen and that D. Donne had preacht his owne Funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had inabled him to performe this desired duty he hastned to his house out of which he never moved untill like S. Stephen Acts 8. He was carried by devout men to his grave And the next day after his Sermon his spirits being much spent and he indisposed to discourse a friend asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed after this manner I am not sad I am in a serious contemplation of the mercies of my God to me And now I plainly see it was his hand that prevented me from all temporall employment And I see it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive untill I entred into the Ministery in which I have now lived almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been enabled to requite most of those friends that shewed me kindnesse when my fortunes were low And as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have been usefull and comfortable to my good Father in Law Sir George More whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise by many temporall crosses I have maintained my owne Mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her former times to bring to a great decay in her very old age I have quieted the consciences of many that groaned under the burthen of a wounded spirit whose Prayers I hope are availeable for me I cannot plead innocencie of life especially of my youth but I am to be judged by a mercifull God who hath given me even at this time some testimonies by his holy Spirit that I am of the number of his Elect. I am ful of joy and shall die in peace Upon Munday following he took his last leave of his beloved Studie and being hourely sensible of his decay retired himselfe into his bed-chamber and that week sent at severall times for many of his most considerable friends of whom he tooke a solemne and deliberate Farewell commending to their considerations some sentences particularly usefull for the regulation of their lives and dismist them as * Gen. 49. Iacob did his sons with a spirituall benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any worldly businesse undone that concerned them or himselfe it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mixe his thoughts with any thing that concerned the world Nor ever did Now he had nothing to doe but die To doe which he stood in need of no more time for he had long studied it and to such a perfection that in a former sicknesse he called God to witnesse Devot Prayer 23. he was that minute prepared to deliver his soule into his hands if that minute God would accept of his dissolution In that sicknesse he begged of his God the God of constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever And his patient expectation to have his immortall soule disrobed from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his prayers were then heard and his petition granted He lay fifteene dayes earnestly expecting his hourely change And in the last houre of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soule having I verily beleeve some revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not die And after those words closed many periods of his faint breath with these words Thy kingdome come Thy will be done His speech which had long been his faithfull servant remained with him till his last minute and then forsook him not to serve another master but died before him for that it was uselesse to him who now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to doe in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechlesse he did as S. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Sonne of God standing at the right hand of his Father And being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soule ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his owne eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required no alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the life thus memorable thus exemplary was the death of this most excellent man He was buried in S. Pauls Church in that place which he had appointed for that use some yeares before his death and by which he passed daily to his devotions But not buried privately though he desired it For besides an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and eminency who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his Funerall by a voluntary and very sad attendance of his body to the grave To which after his buriall some mournfull friends repaired And as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achillis Plutarch so they strewed his with curious and costly flowers Which course they who were never yet knowne continued each morning and evening for divers dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were againe by the Masons art levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of buriall undistinguishable to common view Nor was this though not usuall all the honour done to his reverend ashes for by some good body who t is like thought his memory ought to be perpetuated there was 100. marks sent to his two faithfull friends * D. Henry King D. Mountfort and Executors the person that sent it not yet known they look not for a reward on earth towards the making of a Monument for him which I think is as lively a representation as in dead marble can be made of him HE was of stature moderately tall of a straight and equally proportioned body to which all his words and actions gave an unexpressible
the sorenesse of Circumcision they slew them all Gods justice required bloud but that bloud is not spilt but poured from that head to our hearts into the veines and wounds of our owne soules There was bloud shed but no bloud lost Before the Law was thorowly established when Moses came downe from God and deprehended the people in that Idolatry to the Calfe before he would present himselfe as a Mediator betweene God and them Exod. 32.28 32. for that sinne he prepares a sacrifice of bloud in the execution of three thousand of those Idolaters and after that he came to his vehement prayer in their behalfe And in the strength of the Law Heb. 9 22. all things were purged with bloud and without bloud there is no remission Whether we place the reason of this in Gods Justice which required bloud or whether we place it in the conveniency that bloud being ordinarily received to be sedes animae the seat and residence of the soule The soule for which that expiation was to be could not be better represented nor purified then in the state and seat of the soule in bloud or whether we shut up our selves in an humble sobriety to inquire into the reasons of Gods actions thus we see it was no peace no remission but in bloud Nor is that so strange as that which followes in the next place per sanguinem ejus by his bloud Before Per sanguinem ejus Psal 50.10 under the Law it was in sanguine hircorum vitulorum In the bloud of Goats and Bullocks here it is in sanguine ejus in his bloud Not his as he claims all the beasts of the forrest all the cattle upon a thousand hils and all the fowles of the mountaines to be his not his as he sayes of Gold and Silver The Silver is mine and the Gold is mine Hag. 2.8 not his as he is Lord and proprietary of all by Creation so all bloud is his no nor his as the bloud of all the Martyrs was his bloud which is a neare relation and consanguinity but his so as it was the precious bloud of his body the seat of his soule the matter of his spirits the knot of his life This bloud he shed for me and I have bloud to shed for him too though he call me not to the tryall nor to the glory of Martyrdome Sanguis animae meae voluntas mea The bloud of my soule is my will Bern. Scindatur vena ferro compunctionis open a veine with that knife remorce compunction ut si non sensus certe consensus peccati effluat That though thou canst not bleed out all motions to sinne thou maist all consent thereunto Noli esse nimium justus noli sapere plus quam oportet St. Bernard makes this use of those Counsels Be not righteous overmuch nor be not overwise Ecces 7.16 Cui putas venae parcendum si justitia sapientia egent minutione what veine maist thou spare if thou must open those two veines righteousnesse and wisedome If they may be superfluously abundant if thou must bleed out some of thy Righteousnesse and some of thy wisedome cui venae parcendum at what veine must thou not bleed Tostat in Levit fo 45. D. Now in all sacrifices where bloud was to be offerd the fat was to be offerd to If thou wilt sacrifice the bloud of thy soule as St. Bernard cals the will sacrifice the fat too If thou give over thy purpose of continuing in thy sin give over the memory of it and give over all that thou possessest unjustly and corruptly got by that sinne else thou keepest the fat from God though thou give him the bloud If God had given over at his second daies work we had had no sunne no seasons If at his fift we had had no beeing If at the sixt no Sabbath but by proceeding to the seventh we are all and we have all Naaman 2 Reg. 5.14 who was out of the covenant yet by washing in Jordan seven times was cured of his leprosie seaven times did it even in him but lesse did not Tostat in Levit 4. q. 16. The Priest in the Law used a seven-fold sprinkling of bloud upon the Altar and we observe a seven-fold shedding of bloud in Christ In his Circumcision and in his Agony in his fulfilling of that Prophesie gen as vellicantibus I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off the haire and in his scourging Esay 50.6 in his crowning and in his nayling and lastly in the piercing of his side These seven channels hath the bloud of thy Saviour found Poure out the bloud of thy soule sacrifice thy stubborne and rebellious will seaven times too seaven times that is every day and seaven times every day for so often a just man falleth And then Prov. 24.16 how low must that man lie at last if he fall so often and never rise upon any fall and therefore raise thy self as often and as soone as thou fallest Iericho would not fall Jos 6. but by being compassed seaven dayes and seaven times in one day Compasse thy selfe comprehend thy selfe seaven times many times and thou shalt have thy losse of bloud supplied with better bloud with a true sense of that peace which he hath already made and made by bloud and by his owne bloud and by the bloud of his Crosse which is the last branch of this second part Greater love hath no man then to lay downe his life for his friend yet he that said so Crux Joh. 15.13 did more then so more then lay downe his life for he exposed it to violences and torments and all that for his enemies But doth not the necessity diminish the love where a testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the testator Heb. 9.16 was there then a necessity in Christs dying simply a necessity of coaction there was not such as is in the death of other men naturall or violent by the hand of Justice There was nothing more arbitrary more voluntary more spontaneous then all that Christ did for man And if you could consider a time before the contract between the Father and him had passed for the redemption of man by his death we might say that then there was no necessity upon Christ that he must dye But because that contract was from all eternity Luc. 24.26 supposing that contract that this peace was to be made by his death there entred the oportuit pati That Christ ought to suffer all these things and to enter into his glory And so as for his death so for the manner of his death by the Crosse it was not of absolute necessity and yet it was not by casualty neither not because he was to suffer in that Nation which did ordinarily punish such Malefactors such as he was accused to be seditious persons with that manner of death but all this proceeded ex
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
fornications and goes very farre in carnall And yet for all this we are capable of this Conception Christ may be borne in us for all this As God said unto the Prophet Take thee a wife of fornications and children of fornications so is Christ Jesus content to take our soules though too often mothers of fornications As long as we are united and incorporated in his beloved Spouse the Church conforme our selves to her grow up in her hearken to his word in her feed upon his Sacraments in her acknowledge a seale of reconciliation by the absolution of the Minister in her so long how unclean soever we have bin if wee abhorre and forsake our uncleannesse now wee participate of the chastity of that Spouse of his the Church and in her are made capable of this conception of Christ Jesus and so it is as true this houre of us as it was when the Apostle spoke these words This is the fulnesse of time when God sent his Son c. Now you remember Sub lege that in this second part the manner of Christs comming we proposed two degrees of humiliation One which we have handled in a double respect as he is made filius mulieris non Dei the son of a woman and not the Son of God the other as he is filius mulieris non Virginis The son of a woman and not called the son of a Virgin The second remaines that he was sub lege under the law now this phrase to be under the law is not alwayes so narrowly limited in the Scriptures as to signifie onely the law of Moses for so onely the Jews were under the law and so Christs comming for them who were under the law his Death and Merits should belong onely to the Jews But St. Augustine observes that when Christ sent the message of his birth to the wise men in the East by a starre and to the shepheards about Bethlem by an Angel In pastoribus Iudaei in magis Gentes vocatae The Jews had their calling in that manifestation to the shepheards and the Gentiles in that to the wise men in the East But besides that Christ did submit himselfe to all the waight even of the Ceremoniall law of Moses he was under a heavyer law then that under that lex decreti the contract and covenant with God the Father under that oportuit pati This he ought to suffer before he could enter into glory So that his being under the law may be accounted not a part of his Humiliation as his being made of a woman was but rather the whole history and frame of his humiliation All that concernes his obedience even to that law which the Father had laid upon him for the life and death of Christ from the Ave Maria to the consummatum est from his comming into this World in his Conception to his transmigration upon the Crosse was all under this law heavier then any law that any man is under the law of the contract and covenant between the Father and him Though therefore we may think judging by the law of reason that since Christ came to gather a Church and to draw the world to him it would more have advanced that purpose of his to have been borne at Rome where the seat of the Empire and the confluence of all Nations was then in Iury and if he would offer the Gospel first to the Jews better to have been borne at Ierusalem where all the outward publique solemne worship of the Jews was then at obscure Bethlem and in Bethlem in some better place then in an Inne in a Stable in a Manger though we may think thus in the law of reason yet non cogitationes meae cogitationes vestrae sayes God in the Prophet Esay 55. My thoughts are not your thoughts nor my lawes your lawes for I am sub lege decreti under another manner of law then falls within your reading under an obedience to that covenant which hath passed betweene my Father and me and by those Degrees and no other way was my humiliation for your Redemption to be expressed Though we may thinke in the law of Reason that his work of propagating the Gospel would have gone better forward if he had taken for his Apostles some Tullies or Hortensii or Senecaes great and perswading Orators in stead of his Peter and Iohn and Matthew and those Fishermen and tent-makers and toll-gatherers Though we might think in reason and in piety too that when he would humble himselfe to take our salvation into his care it had beene enough to have beene under the law of Moses to live innocently and righteously without shedding of his bloud If he would shed bloud it might have beene enough to have done so in the Circumcision and scourging without dying If he would die it might have been enough to have dyed some lesse accursed and lesse ignominious death then the death of the Crosse though we might reasonably enough and piously enough think thus yet non cogitationes vestrae cogitationes meae sayes the Lord your way is not my way your law is not my law for Christ was sub lege decreti and thus as he did and no other way it became him to fulfill all righteousnesse that is all that Decree of God which he had accepted and acknowledged as Righteous He was so much under Moses law as he would be so much under that law as that he suffered that law to be wrested against him and to bee pretended to be broken by him and to be endited and condemned by that law The Jews pressed that law non sines veneficuÌ vivere Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Exod. 22. when they attributed all his glorious miracles to the power of the devil and the Romans were incensed against him for treason and sedition as though he aliened and withdrew the people from Caesar But he was under a heavyer law then Jews or Romanes the Law of his Father and his owne eternall Decree so farre as that he came to that sense of the waight thereof Eli Eli My God My God why hast thou forsaken me and was never delivered from the burden of this law till he pleaded the performance of all conditions between his Father and him and delivered up all the evidence thereof in those words In manus tuas Into thy hands O Lord I give my spirit and so presented both the righteousnesse of his soule which had fulfilled the law and the soule it selfe which was under the law He dyed in Execution and so discharged all And so we have done with our second part The manner of his comming We are come now in our Order to our third part The purpose of Christs comming 3. Part. and in that we consider two objects that Christ had and two subjects to work upon two kindes of work and two kindes of persons First to Redeeme and then to Adopt Those are his works his objects And then To redeeme
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
not God And because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore their hearts are fully set in them to do evill But now in the manifestation of Christ they saw evident changes changes and revolutions in the highest spheare they saw a new King and they heard strangers proclaime him forraigne Kings doe not send Ambassadors to congratulate but come in person to doe their homage and aske their audience in that style Where is he that is borne King of the Iews not an elective not an arbitrary not a conditionall a provisionall King but an hereditary a naturall King Borne King of the Iews They heare strangers proclaime him Mat. 2.2 and they proclaime him themselves in that act of Recognition in that acclamatory Hosanna in this Chapter Blessed is the King of Israel that commeth in the name of the Lord. v. 13. Mat. 2.3 They saw changes changes with which Herod was troubled and all Jerusalem with him And they saw sentence executed for as soone as Christ manifested himselfe Iohn Baptist saies Now Mat. 3.10 Mat. 3.12 now that Christ declares himselfe the axe is laid unto the roote of the tree and now saies he His fanne is in his hand and he will purge his floore And this sentence he executed this regall power he exercised not onely after that Recognition of his subjects in their Hosannaes in this chapter for upon that he did go into the Temple and cast out the buyers and sellers but some yeares before that at his first manifestation of himselfe and soone after Iohn Baptists Now Iohn 2.3 now is the axe laid to the roote of the Tree did Christ execute this sentence not onely to drive but to scourge them out that prophaned the Temple which was the second miracle that we ascribe to Christ Indeed all his miracles were so many acts not onely of his regall power over some men but of his absolute prerogative over the whole frame and body of nature Nor can we conceive how the beholders of those miracles could argue to themselves otherwise then thus The winds and seas obey this man for when he suffers them the winds roare and when hee whispers a silence to them they are silenced The Devils and uncleane spirits obey him for when he suffers it they preach his glory and when he refuses honour from so dishonourable mouths they are silent Death it selfe obeyes him for when he will death withholds his hand from closing that mans eye that lyes upon his last gaspe and the last stroke of his bell and hee does not die and when he will death withdraws his hand from him who had beene foure daies in his possession and redelivers Lazarus to a new life This they saw and could they choose but say the wind and the sea the devill and uncleane spirits and death it selfe obeyes this man how shall we stand before this man this King this God yet for all this voice this loud voice of miracles for when S. Chrysostome sayes Omni tuba clarior per opera demonstratio Every good worke hath the voyce of a trumpet every miracle hath the voice of thunder for all this loud voice as it is said in the verse before the text Though he had done so many miracles before them yet they beleeved not on him it is faine to come to that Quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report The first of those great names which were given to Christ Esay 9.6 in the Prophet Esay was Mirabilis The wonderfull The supernaturall man the man that workes miracles for of the Apostles it is said by them great miracles were wrought but God wrought those miracles by them Christ wrought his miracles himself And his Birth and his Life and Death and Refurrection and Ascension were all complicated and elemented of miracles If hee fasted himselfe he did that miraculously and it was with a miracle when he feasted others He healed many that were sick of divers diseases Mark 1.34 Mat. 9.35 and cast out many Devils saies S. Marke And S. Matthew carries it a great deale farther Hee went about all the Cities and villages healing every sicknesse and every disease among the people Therefore Christ makes that the evidence of his miracles the issue betweene them If these mighty works had beene done in Tyre and Sidon Mat. 11.21 Iohn 15.22 Tyre and Sidon would have repented And therefore he places their inexcusablenesse in that If I had not come and spoken to them they had had no sinne Nay if I had not spoken to them in this loud voyce the voyce of miracles they might have had some cloake for their finne but now they have none saies Christ in that place And beloved are not we inexcusable in that degree Have not wee seene changes and seene judgements executed and seene miraculous deliverances and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved these reports I would wee could but take aright a mis-taken translation and make that use that is offered us in others error The vulgar Edition the translation of the Roman Church reads that place in the 77. Psalme and 11. verse thus Nunc caepi saies David Now I have taken out my lesson the right way now I have laid hold upon God by the right handle Nunc caepi Now I have all that I need to have what is it This Haec mutatio dextrae Dei this is to take out my lesson aright to understand God truly and to know acknowledge that this change which I see is an act of the right hand of God and that it is a judgement and not an accident O beloved that wee would not be afraid of giving God too much glory not afraid of putting God into too much heart or of making God too imperious over us by acknowledging that Haec mutatio dextrae Dei that all our changes are acts of the right hand of God and come from him But we are not onely subject to the Prophets increpation Quis credit that we doe not beleeve Gods warnings of future judgements but to the Euangelists increpation in the person of Christ Quis credidit we do not beleeve present judgements to be judgements An invincible navy hath beene sent against us and defeated and we sacrifice to a casuall storme for that wee say the winds delivered us A powder treason hath been plotted and discovered and we sacrifice to a casuall letter for that we say the letter delivered us A devouring plague hath raigned and gone out againe and we sacrifice to an early frost for that we say the cold weather delivered us Domestique encumbrances personall infirmities sadnesse of heart dejection of spirit oppresses us and then weares out and passes over and we sacrifice for that to wine and strong drinke to musique to Comedies to conversation and to all Iobs miserable comforters wee say it was but a melancholique fit and good company hath delivered us of it But when God himselfe saies There is
swore by himselfe because he could propose no greater thing in himself no clearer notion of himself then life for his life is his eternity and his eternity is himselfe does therefore through all the Law and the Prophets still sweare in that form Vivo ego vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and as the Lord liveth still he sweares by his own life As that solemne Oath which is mentioned in Daniel is conceived in that form too He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven Dan. 12.7 and swore by him that liveth for ever that is by God and God in that notion as he is life All that the Queen and the Councell could wish and apprecate to the King was but that Life In sempiternum vive vive in aeternum O King live for ever God is life Dan. 5. and would not the death of any We are not sure that stones have not life stones may have life neither to speak humanely is it unreasonably thought by them that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soule and to be one intire living creature and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before the Sun 1 Tim. 5.6 because a fly hath life and the Sun hath not This is the worst that the Apostle sayes of the young wanton widow That if she live in pleasure she is dead whilst she lives So is that Magistrate that studies nothing but his own honour and dignity in his place dead in his place And that Priest that studies nothing but his owne ease and profit dead in his living And that Judge that dares not condemne a guilty person And which is the bolder transgression dares condemne the innocent deader upon the Bench then the Prisoner at the Barre God hath included all that is good Dcut. 30.15 in the name of Life and all that is ill in the name of Death when he sayes See I have set before thee Vitam Bonum Life and Good Mortem Malum Death and Evill This is the reward proposed to our faith Hab. 2.4 Iustus fide sua vivit To live by our faith And this is the reward proposed to our works Fac hoc vives to live by our works All is life And this fulnesse this consummation of happinesse Life and the life of life spirituall life and the exaltation of spirituall life eternall life is the end of Christs comming I came that they might have life And first Vt daret ut daret that he might give life bring life into the world that there might be life to be had that the world might be redeemed from that losse which S. Augustine sayes it was falne into Perdidimus possibilitatem boni That we had all lost all possibility of life For the heaven and the earth and all that the Poet would call Chaos was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters then Mankind was before the influence of Christs comming wrought upon it But now that God so loved the world as that he gave his Son now that the Son so loved the world as that he gave himselfe Psal 19.6 as David sayes of the Sun of the firmament the father of nature Nihit absconditum there is nothing hid from the heat thereof so we say of this Son of God the Father of the faithfull in a far higher sense then Abraham was called so Nihilabsconditum there is nothing hid from him no place no person excluded from the benefit of his comming The Son hath paid the Father hath received enough for all not in fingle money for the discharge of thy lesser debts thy idle words thy wanton thoughts thy unchast looks but in massie talents to discharge thy crying debts the clamors of those poore whom thou hast oppressed and thy thundring debts those blasphemies by which thou hast torne that Father that made thee that Sonne that redeemed thee that boly Ghost that would comfort thee 1 Reg. 5. There is enough given but then as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the Temple but there was something else to be done for the fitting and placing thereof so there is life enough brought into the world for all the world by the death of Christ but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons intended in this word in our Text ut haberent I came that they might have life There is Ayre enough in the world Vt haberent to give breath to every thing though every thing doe not breath If a tree or a stone doe not breathe it is not because it wants ayre but because it wants meanes to receive it or to returne it All egges are not hatched that the hen sits upon Matt. 23.37 neither could Christ himselfe get all the chickens that were hatched to come and to stay under his wings That man that is blinde or that will winke shall see no more sunne upon S. Barnabies day then upon S. Lucies no more in the summer then in the winter solstice Psal 130.7 And therefore as there is copiosa redemptio a plentifull redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ so as S. Paul found it in his particular conversion there is copiosa lux Acts 22.6 a great a powerfull light exhibited to us that we might see and lay hold of this life in the Ordinances of the Church in the Confessions and Absolutions and Services and Sermons and Sacraments of the Church Christ came ut daret that he might bring life into the world by his death and then he instituted his Church ut haberent that by the meanes thereof this life might be infused into us and infused so as the last word of our Text delivers it Abundantiùs I came that they might have life more abundantly Dignaris Domine AbuÌdantiùs August ut eis quibus debita dimittis te promissionibus tuis debitorem facias This O Lord is thine abundant proceeding First thou forgivest me my debt to thee and then thou makest thy selfe a debter to me by thy large promises and after all performest those promises more largely then thou madest them Indeed God can doe nothing scantly penuriously singly Even his maledictions to which God is ever loth to come his first commination was plurall it was death and death upon death Morte morieris Death may be plurall but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular Chajim which is the word for life hath no singular number This is the difference betweene Gods Mercy and his Judgements that sometimes his Judgements may be plurall complicated enwrapped in one another but his Mercies are alwayes so and cannot be otherwise he gives them abundantiùs more abundantly More abundantly then to whom Illis gentibus The naturall man hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule eternity is God himselfe man hath not
gainefull workes those workes thou maist not doe upon the Sabbath But those workes in the vertue of the precept of this text thou must doe in the sight of men those that are hard for thee to doe David would not consecrate nor offer unto God 2. Sam. 24.24 that which cost him nothing first he would buy Araunahs threshing floare at a valuable price and then he would dedicate it to God To give old cloathes past wearing to the poore is not so good a worke as to make new for them Mar. 12.42 To give a little of your superfluities not so acceptable as the widows gift that gave all To give a poore soule a farthing at that doore where you give a Player a shilling is not equall dealing Amos 8.6 for this is to give God quisquilias frumenti The refuse of the wheat But doe thou some such things as are truly works in our sense such as are against the nature and ordinary practice of worldly men to doe some things by which they may see that thou dost prefer God before honour and wife and children and hadst rather build and endow some place for Gods service then poure out money to multiply titles of honour upon thy selfe or enlarge joyntures and portions to an unnecessary and unmeasurable proportion when there is enough done before Let men see that that thou doest Opera Bona. to be a worke qualified with some difficulty in the doing and then those workes to be good workes Videant opera bona that they may see your good works They are not good works how magnificent soever if they be not directed to good ends A superstitious end or a seditious end vitiates the best worke Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given to build and endow Seminaries and schooles and Colledges in forraine parts but that hath a superstitious end Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given at home for the maintenance of such refractary persons as by opposing the government and discipline of the Church have drawne upon themselves silencings and suspensions and deprivations but that hath a seditious end But give so as in a rectified conscience and not a distempered zeale a rectified conscience is that that hath the restimony and approbation of most good men in a succession of times and not to rely occasionally upon one or a few men of the separation for the present give so as thou maist sincerely say God gave me this to give thus and so it is a good worke So it must be A worke something of some importance and a good worke not depraved with an ill end and then your worke Vt videant opera vestra That they may see your good works They are not your works if that that you give be not your owne Nor is it your own Opera bona vâstra if it were ill gotten at first How long soever it have beene possessed or how often soever it have beene transformed from money to ware from ware to land from land to office from office to honour the money the ware the land the office the honour is none of thine if in thy knowlege it were ill gotten at first Zacheus in S. Luke Luke 19.8 gives halfe his goods to the poore but it is halfe of his his owne for there might be goods in his house which were none of his Therefore in the same instrument he passes that scrutiny If I have taken any thing unjustly I restore him foure-fold First let that that was ill gotten be deducted and restored and then of the rest which is truly thine owne give cheerefully When Moses saies that our yeares are three score and ten Psal 90.20 if we deduct from that terme all the houres of our unnecessary sleep of superfluous sittings at feasts of curiosity in dressing of largenesse in recreations of plotting and compassing of vanities or sinnes scarce any man of chreescore and ten would be ten years old when he dyes If we should deale so with worldly mens estates defalse unjust gettings it would abridge and attenuate many a swelling Inventory Till this defalcation this scrutiny be made that you know what 's your owne what 's other mens as your Tombe shall be but a monument of your rotten bones how much gold or marble soever be bestowed upon it so that Hospitall that free-schoole that Colledge that you shall build and endow will bee but a monument of your bribery your extortion your oppression and God who will not be in debt though he owe you nothing that built it may be pleased to give the reward of all that to them from whom that which was spent upon it was unjustly taken for Prov. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous saies Solomon The sinner may doe pious works and the righteous may be rewarded for them the world may thinke of one founder and God knowes another That which is enjoyn'd in the name of light here is works not trifles and good works made good by the good ends they are directed to and then your workes done out of that which is truly your owne and by seeing this light men will be mov'd to glorifie your Father which is in Heaven which is the true end of all that men may see them but see them therefore To glorisie your Father which is in Heaven He does not say that by seeing your good works Patrem non Filios men shall glorifie your sonnes upon earth And yet truly even that part of the reward and retribution is worth a great deale of your cost and your almes that God shall establish your posterity in the world and in the good opinion of good men As you have your estates you have your children from God too As it is Davids recognition Dominus pars haereditatis meae Psal 16.5 Gen. 4.1 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance so the Possedi virum à Domino was Eves Recognition upon the birth of her first son Cain I have gotten I possesse a man from the Lord. Now that that man that thou possessest from the Lord thy son may possesse that land that thou possessest from the Lord it behooves thee to be righteous for so by that righteousnesse thou becomest a foundation for posterity Prov. 10.25 Prov. 13.9 Prov. 14.23 The righteous is an everlasting foundation his light his good workes shall be a chearefull light unto him for The light of the righteous reioyceth him They shall be so in this life and He shall have hope in his death saith Solomon that is hope for himself in another world hope of his posterity in this world for saies he He leaveth an inheritance to his childrens children that is an inheritance Prov. 23.22 out of which hee hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountifull part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from
omnibus if it were not for this Therefore for that carries our consideration over the whole Epistle This Epistle particularizing all duties which appertaine ad pietatem erga Deum to our religious worship of God ad charitatem erga proximum to charitable offices towards one another and ad sanctimoniam propriam to a sanctification and holinesse of life in our selves You have seen a list of your debts sayes the Apostle and that men deeply endebted are loath to doe you have seen what you owe God what you owe your selves and what you owe the world Reddite ergo omnibus debita be therefore behinde hand with none of these but render unto all their dues For our debts here are not restrained to those that are mentioned in the following part of this verse Tribute and Custome and Feare and Honour but it is the knot that ties up all and this Text in this verse is the same that begins the next verse also Reddite debita omnibus Render to all men their dues and Nemini quicquam debeas Owe nothing to any man is all one It is farther then many use to come to know what they owe since I have brought you so far sayes our Apostle Render to all men their dues It is one degree of thrift Divisio but for the most part it comes late to bring our debts into as few hands as we can Our debt here we cannot bring into fewer then these three to God to our Neighbour to our selves Consider our debts to God to be our sins and so we dare not come to a reckoning with him but we discharge our selves intirely upon our surety our Saviour Christ Jesus but yet of that debt we must pay an acknowledgement an interest as it were of praise for all that we have and of prayer for all that we would have and these are our debts to God Consider our debts to man and our creditors are persons above us and persons below us superiours and inferiours and to superiours who are the persons of whom this Text or this verse is most literally intended we are debtors first in matter of substance expressed here in those words Tribute and Custome and in matter of ceremony expressed here in those words Feare and Honour And to our inferiours we are debtors for counsell to direct them and for reliefe in compassion of their sufferings And then to come to our third sort of creditors to our selves we owe our selves some debts which are to be tendred at noone which are to be paid in our best strength and prosperity in the course of our lives and some which are to be tendred at night at our Sun-set at our deaths Reddite ergo omnibus Render therefore to all their dues For your first debt to God we bring you to Church this is no place to arrest in but yet the Spirit of God calls upon you for those debts praise him in his holy place and pray to him in his house which is the house of prayer For your debts of the second kinde to other men for those to superiours we send you to Court for those to inferiours we send you to Hospitals and prisons and though Courts and prisons be ill paying places yet pay you your debts of substance and of ceremony of tribute and of honour at Court and your debt of counsell and relief to those that need them in the darkest corners And for you third kinde of debts debts to your selves make eaven with your selves all the way in your lives lest your payment prove too heavy and you break and your hearts breake when you come to see that you cannot doe that upon your death-bed Reddite omnibus Render to all to God to man to your selves their dues To begin then with our beginning our debts to God 1 Part. Deo if we take that definition of of debts which arises out of the sound of the word Debere est de alio habere a man owes all that which he hath received of another we are debtors of all that we have and all that we are to God our well being and our very being is from him If we take that definition of debt Debere est Iure aliquo teneri ad dandum aut faciendum aliquid To owe is to be bound by some Law to give something or to doe something to some person The Law of Nature in our hearts the Law of the Creature in our eyes the Law of the Word in our eares provokes us to give and to doe something to that God who hath given and done all to us and more then giving or doing hath suffered so much for us What then is the paiment which we are to make First Glory Praise For in all his works Laus God still proposed to himselfe his Glory Those men who will needs be of Gods Cabinet Counsell and pronounce what God did first what was his first Decree and the first clause in that Decree those men who will needs know and then publish Gods secrets And by the way that which sometimes it may concerne us to know yet it may be a Libell to publish it Those mysteries which for the opposing and countermining stubborne and perverse Heresies it may concerne us in Councels and Synods and other fit places to argue and to cleare it may be an injury to God and against his Crowne and Dignity in breaking the peace of the Church to publish and divulge to every popular auditory and every itching eare and thereby perplexe the consciences of weak men or offer contentious men that which is their food and delight disputation These men I say though they differ in their order whether Gods Decree of Reprobation and Salvation were before his Decree of Creation for some place it before and some after yet all on all sides agree in this That Gods first purpose was his owne glory that was his first Decree by what degrees soever he proceeded to the execution of that Decree And so in the great and incomprehensible work of our Salvation when that was uttered in the mouth of Angels to the Shepheards that Ambassage began with a Gloria in excelsis There was Peace upon earth and there was good will towards men but first there was Glory to God on high And though to correct Hereticall and Schismaticall men amongst whom some would expresse themselves in Gods service in one manner and some in another to the endangering of Doctrine and to the confusion of Order and thereupon some would say in the Church-Service Gloria Patri in Filio per Spiritum Sanctum Glory be to the Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost And some Gloria Patri per Filium Glory be to the Father by the Son And some Gloria Patri Filio per Spiritum Sanctum Glory be to the Father and the Son by the Holy Ghost Though to prevent the danger of these divers formes of service the Church came to determine all in that one Glory
by S. Antonies leave nor by putting a caveat or prae-non-obstante in his monopoly of preserving hoggs I know not where to finde S. Petronilla when I have an ague nor S. Apollonia when I have the tooth-ache nor S. Liberius when I have the stone I know not whether they can heare me in Heaven or no Our Adversaries will not say that all Saints in Heaven heare all that is said on earth I know not whether they be in Heaven or no our Adversaries will not say that the Pope may not erre in a matter of fact and so may canonize a Traytor for a Saint I know not whether those Saints were ever upon earth or no our Adversaries will not say that all their Legends were really historically true but that many of them are holy but yet symbolicall inventions to figure out not what was truly done before but what wee should endeavour to doe now I know my Redeemer liveth and I know where he is and no man knowes where he is not He is our Creditor to him we must pray But for what we may finde in some respects a better modell of prayer in heathen and unchristian Rome then in superstitious Rome There wee finde their prayer to have beene Aut innocentiam des nobis aut maturam poenitentiam preserve us O Lord in an innocencie or afford us a speedy repentance And as we finde that there was in that State a publique Officer Conditor precum that made their Collects and prayers for publique use so wee finde in their prayers that which may make us asham'd At first for many yeares their prayer was Vt res populi Romani ampliores facerent that their Gods would enlarge their State after that it was Vt res perpetuò incolumes servarent that their Gods would preserve and establish them in that State And after Vota nuncupata si res eo stetissent statu They vowed their service and their sacrifice to God upon condition that he should keepe them alwaies in that State and not otherwise So far therefore they may be our example that they contented themselves with a competency but not that they made themselves Judges of that competency We come to Gods house to pay a debt and our debt is to confesse that we can have from none but him nor desire from him any more then he is pleased to give We come now to our second sort of Creditors 2 Part. to whom wee are commanded to render their dues to men And of them to our Superiors first and then to our Inferiors For that with which the Apostle enters into this Chapter Omnis anima Let every soule be subject to the higher powers S. Chrysostome applies Ad Prophetam Euangelistam though he were a Prophet or an Euangelist S. Bernard Ad Episcopum Archiepiscopum though a Bishop or Archbishop for though they be as spirituall meteors betweene Heaven and earth and stand betweene God and us yet they are subject to that jurisdiction which God hath given man over man though they were in an extraordinary calling the Prophets were so yet they were subject to an ordinary jurisdiction And Theophylact and Theodoret both apply it ad Monachum Fratrem to Monks and Friers though they seeme to be gone out of the world yet to this entendment of being subject to higher powers they are all within the world no Cloyster no Cathedrall Church no profession no dignity is a sanctuary a priviledged place from the payment of this debt Here is a Quo warranto to be brought against all and what exception can bee pleaded to this Omnis anima let every soule be subject The Anabaptist would not pay this debt hee acknowledges no Magistrate and yet Iohn Baptist did who submitted himselfe to Herod The Jesuit will not pay this debt he acknowledges no secular Magistrate and yet Christ Jesus did who submitted himselfe to Pilate Nemo secularior Pilato cui adstitit Dominus judicandus saies S. Bernard there was never a more secular Judge then Pilate and yet the Lord of life was judg'd to death by him We cannot enlarge this consideration to all our Creditors in these debts Princeps not to all Superiors naturall as Parents and civill as Magistrates and Ecclesiasticall as Prelates and that which is mixt of all matrimoniall from the wife to the husband and therefore we contract it to the roote of all the Soveraigne And to him we consider first a Reall Realis and substantiall and then a circumstantiall and ceremoniall debt The substantiall debt is paid in a faithfull in a ready and chearfull paying of those debts those Tributes and Customes as the Apostle cals them here which belong to the King and he that makes no conscience in defrauding the publique he that withholds part of this debt whensoever he can he would pay that which he payes in counterfait money if he durst hee that deceives because he sees he can scape with that deceit he would coyne too if he saw too that he could scape for that coyning A principall reason that makes coyning and adulterating of money capitall in all states is not so much because hee that coynes usurpes the Princes authority for every coyner is not a pretender to the Crowne nor because he diminishes the Princes majesty for what is the Prince the worse in that his face is stamped by another in base mettall then when that is done by himselfe or when his face is graved in any stone that is not precious as because he that coynes injuries the publique and no man injuries the publique more then he who defrauds him who is Gods steward for the publique the King In matter of cloathes and apparell God wrought a miracle in private mens cases in continuing and enlarging the children of Israels cloathes in the wildernesse In matter of meat he wrought a miracle in private mens behalfe too in feeding so many with so few loafes and fishes and so he did for drinke too in a miraculous providing of wine at the Marriage for meat and drink and cloathes are things necessary for every man But because money is not so if these other things may otherwise be had as some nations have lived by permutation of commodities without money therefore God never wrought a miracle in matter of money in any private mans case But because money is the most necessary of all to the publique to the Prince therefore he wrought a miracle for that and for that onely then when that money was to be employed upon tribute to Caesar Mat. 17.27 no miracle in matter of money but for tribute As it is a signe of subjection to see a man stand bare headed so it may be a declination towards a worse condition to see a State bare headed to see the Prince the Head kept bare by being either defrauded of that which is ordinarily due to him or denied that which becomes also due in the payment though it were extraordinarily given
the Gospell above the law Not onely in that the blessings of God are presented in the Old Testament in the name of Milke and Hony and Oyle and Wine all temporall things and in the New Testament in the name of Joy and Glory things in a manner spirituall But that also in the Old Testament the best things are limited and measured unto them a Gomer of Manna and no more Mat. 25.21 Heb. 12.2 Iohn 15.11 Iohn 16.21 for the best man whereas for the joy of the Gospell we shall enter In Gandium Domini Into our Masters Ioy and be made partakers with Christ Jesus of that Ioy for which he endured the Crosse And here in this world Gaudium meum erit saies Christ My Ioy shall be in you in what measure Implebitar saies he Your Ioy shall be full How long for ever Nemo tollet your Ioy shall no man take from you And such as the Joy is such is the glory too Eph. 1.18 2 Cor. 4.17 1 Pet. 5.4 How precious Divitiae Gloria The Riches of the Glory of his Inheritance How much Pondus gloriae A waight of glory How long Immarcescibilis Corona A crowne of Glory that never fadeth We might I say take occasion of making this comparison betweene the Old and the New Testament out of this Text because this charity enjoyned here in this text to our enemy in that place from whence this text is taken in the Proverbs is but Lachem and Maiim Bread and Water But here in S. Paul it is in words of better signification feed him give him drinke But indeed the words at the narrowest as it is but bread and water signifie whatsoever is necessary for the reliefe of him that stands in need And if we be enjoyn'd so much to our enemy how inexcusable are those Datores cyminibiles as the Canonists call them that give Mint and Cummin for almes a roote that their Hogs will not a broth that their Dogs will not eate Remember in thy charity the times and the proportions of thy Saviour After his Death in the wound in his side he poured out water and bloud which represented both Sacraments and so was a bountifull Dole provide in thy life to doe good after thy death and it shall be welcome even in the eyes of God then But remember too that this dole at his death was not the first almes that he gave his water was his white mony and his blood was his gold and he poured out both together in his agony and severally in his weeping and being scourged for thee What proportion of reliefe is due to him that is thy brother in Nature thy brother in Nation thy brother in Religion if meate and drinke and in that whatsoever is necessary to his sustentation bee due to thine enemy But all this bountifull charity Si esurierit is Si esurierit si sitit If he be hungry if he be thirsty To the King who beares the care and the charge of the publique wee are bound to give Antequam esuriat Antequam sitias before he be overtaken with dangerous and dishonorable and lesse remediable necessities not onely substantiall wants upon which our safety depends but circumstantiall and ceremoniall wants upon which his Dignity and Majesty depends are alwaies to bee not onely supplied but prevented But our enemy must be in hunger and thirst that is reduced to the state as hee may not become our enemy againe by that which we give before wee are bound by this text to give any thing No doubt but the Church of Rome hungers still for the money of this land upon which they fed so luxuriantly heretofore and no doubt but those men whom they shall at any time animate will thirst for the blood of this land which they have sought before but this is not the hunger and the thirst of the enemy which we must feed The Commandement goes not so far as to feed that enemy that may thereby be a more powerfull enemy But yet thus far truly it does goe deny no office of civility of peace of commerce of charity to any onely therefore because hee hath beene heretofore an enemy There remaines nothing of those two branches which constitute our first part 2. Part. the person that is an enâââ reduced to a better disposition and the duty that is to relieve him with things necessary for that state And for the second part we must stop upon those steps laid downe at first of which the first was That God takes nothing for nothing he gives a Reward When God tooke that great proportion of Sheep and Oxen out of his subjects goods in the State of Israel for Sacrifice that proportion which would have kept divers Kings houses and would have victualed divers navies perchance no man could say I have this or this benefit for this or this Sacrifice but yet could any man say God hath taken a Sacrifice for nothing Where we have Peace and Justice and Protection can any man say he gives any thing for nothing When God saies If I were hungry I would not tell thee that 's not intended which Tertullian saies Psal 50.12 Scriptum est Deus non esuriet nec sitiet It is written God shall neither hunger nor thirst for first Tertullians memory failed him there is no such sentence in all the Scripture as he cites there And then God does hunger and thirst in this sense in the members of his mysticall body neither is that onely intended in that place of the Psalme though Cassiodore take it so That if God in his poore Saints were hungry he could provide them without telling thee but it is If I were hungry I need not tell thee for Psal 24.1 The earth is the Lords and the fulnesse thereof and they that dwell therein God does not alwaies binde himselfe to declare his hunger his thirst his pressing occasions to use the goods of his subjects but as the Lord gives so the Lord takes where and when he will But yet as God transfuses a measure of this Right and power of taking into them of whom he hath said you are Gods so he transfuses this goodnesse too which is in himselfe that he takes nothing for nothing He promises here a reward and a reward arising from the enemy which puts a greater encouragement upon us to doe it Super caput ejus In so doing thou shalt heape coales of fire on his head God is the Lord of Hosts and in this Text Ex Inimicis he makes the seate of the warre in the enemies Country and enriches his servants Ex manubiis out of the spoyle of the enemy In caput ejus It shall fall upon his head Though all men that go to the war goe not upon those just reasons deliberated before in themselves which are ãâã defence of a just cause the obedience to a lawfull Commandment yet of those that do goe without those conscientiense deliberations none goes therefore
which every one well considered as the petitions of Abraham did upon God may justly be thought to have gained more and more upon his Auditory First this paralytique man in our Text who is Sarcinasibi over-loaded with himself he cannot stand under his own burden he is cadaver animatum It is true he hath a soule but a soule in a sack it hath no Lims no Organs to move this Paralytique this living dead man this dead and buryed man buryed in himselfe is instantly cured and recovered But the Palsie was a sudden sicknesse what could he doe upon an inveterate disease He cured the woman that had had the bloudy issue twelve yeares V. 20. by onely touching the hem of his garment After he extends his miraculous power to two at once he cures two blinde men V. 27. But all these though not by such meanes meerely yet in nature and in art might be possible Palsies and Issues and Blindnesses have been cured but he went farther then ever art pretended to goe V. 24. He raised the Rulers Daughter to life then when he was laughed to scorne for going about to doe it And lastly to shew his Power as over sicknesse and over death so over hell it selfe he cast out the Devill out of the dumb man in some such extraordinary manner as that the multitude marvailed V. 33. and said It was never so seene in Israel This then was his way and this must be ours and it must be your way too Christ preached and he wrought great works and he preached againe It is not enough in us to preach and in you to heare except both doe and practice that which is said and heard Neither may we though we have done all this give over for every day produces new tentations and therefore needs new assistances And so we passe from these more remote to that which is our second Branch of this first part the immediate occasion of Christs doing this miracle When Iesus saw their faith Here then the occasion of all that ensued was faith for without faith Fides Heb. 11.6 it is impossible to please God Where you may be pleased to admit some use of this note for it is not a meere Grammaticall curiosity to note it that it is not said in those words of S. Paul It is impossible to please God or impossible to please him which is with relation to God as our Translation hath it but it is meerely simply onely impossible to please and no more impossible to please any worth pleasing but if we take away our faith in God God will take away the protection of Angels the favour of Princes the obedience of children the respect of servants the assistance of friends the society of neighbours God shall make us unpleasing to all without faith it is impossible to please any but such as we shall repent to have made our selves pleasing companions unto When our Saviour Christ perfected the Apostles Commission and set his last seale to it after his Resurrection he never modifies never mollifies their instructions with any milder phrase then this He that beleeveth not shall be damned It is not that he shall be in danger of a Councell Mark 16.16 no nor in danger of hell fire It is not that it were better a Mill-stone were tyed about his neck and he cast into the Sea It is not that it will goe hard with him at the last day It is not that it shall be easier to Tyre and Sidon then to him For he is not bound to beleeve but that Tyre and Sidon and he too may doe well enough Here is no modification no mollification no reservation roundly and irrevocably Christ Jesus himselfe after his Resurrection sayes Qui non crediderit he that beleeveth not shall be damned If the Judge must come to a sentence of condemnation upon any person of great quality in the Kingdome that Judge must not say Your Lordship must passe out of this world nor your Lordship must be beheaded but he must tell them plainly You must be carryed to the place of execution and there hanged Christ Jesus hath given us the Commission and the sentence there Goe into all the world preach the Gospell to every creature And then the sentence followes upon those that will not receive it He that beleeveth not shall be damned These men then who prevailed so farre upon Christ brought faith though not an explicite faith of all those articles which we who from the beginning have been Catechized in all those points are bound to have yet a constant assurance that Christ could and that he would relieve this distressed person in which assurance there was enwrapped an implicite faith even of the Messias that could remove all occasions of sicknesse even sin it selfe There was faith in the case but in whom Whose faith was it Illorum that Christ had respect to To whom hath that Illorum in the Text their faith reference There can be no question but that it hath reference to those foure friends that brought this sick man in his bed to Christ For else it could not have been spoken in the plurall and called their faith And certainly S. Ambrose does not inconveniently make that particular an argument of Gods greatnesse and goodnesse of his magnificence and munificence Magnus Dominus qui aliorum meritis aliis ignostit This is the large and plentifull mercy of God that for one mans sake he forgives another This Ioash acknowledged in the person of Elisha when Elisha was sick the King came downe to him and wept over his face 2 Reg. 13.14 and said O my Father my Father the Chariot of Israel and the horse men thereof Here were all the forces of Israel mustred upon one sick bed the whole strength of Israel consisted in the goodnesse of that one man The Angel said to Paul when they were in an evident and imminent danger of shipwrack Act. 27.24 God hath given thee all them that sayle with thee He spared them not for their owne sakes but for Pauls God gave those passengers to Paul so as he had given Paul himselfe before to Stephen Si Stephanus non sic orasset Paulum hodiè Ecclesia non haberet sayes S. Augustine If Paul had not been enwrapped in those prayers which Stephen made for his persecutors the Church had lost the benefit of all Pauls labours and if God had not given Paul the lives of all those passengers in that Ship they had all perished For the righteousnesse of a few if those few could have been found God would have spared the whole City of Sodome Gen. 18. And when Gods fury was kindled upon the Cities of that Country God remembred Abraham Gen. 19.29 sayes that story and he delivered Lot And when he delivered Jerusalem from Sennacherib he takes his servant David by the hand he puts his servant David into Commission with himselfe and he sayes I will defend this
vae habitantibus terram Apoc. 8.13 a woe of desolation upon the whole world for God loves this world as the worke of his owne hands as the subject of his providence as the Scene of his glory as the Garden-plot that is watered by the Blood of his Son Since the Woe in this Text is not Esaies wo Vae genti peccatrici Esay 1.4 an increpation and commination upon our whole Nation for God hath not come so neare to any Nation and dealt so well with any Nation as with ours Since the Woe in this Text is not Ezekiels Woe Ezek. 24â Vae Civitati sanguinum an imputation of injustice or oppression and consequently of a malediction laid upon the whole City for God hath carried his woes upon other Cities Vae Chorasin vae Bethsaida God hath laid his heavy hand of warre and other calamities upon other Cities that this City might see her selfe and her calamities long before in that glasse and so avoid them Since the Woe in this Text is not the Prophets other woe Ezek. 44.6 Ios 24.15 Vae domui not a woe upon any family for when any man in his family comes to Ioshua's protestation Ego domus mea As for me and my house we will serve the Lord the Lord comes to his protestation In mille generationes Esay 28.1 I will shew mercy to thee and thy house for a thousand generations Since the Woe in this Text is not Esaies woe againe Vae Coronae for the same Prophet tels us of what affection they are that they are Idolaters persons inclin'd to an idolatrous and superstitious Religion and fret themselves Esay 8 2â and curse the King and their God we know that the Prophets Vae Coronae in that place is Vae Coronae superbiae and the crowne and heighth of Pride is in him who hath set himselfe above all that is called God Christian Princes know that if their Crownes were but so as they seeme all gold they should bee but so much the heavier for being all gold but they are but Crownes of thornes gilded specious cares glorious troubles and therefore no subject of pride To contract this since the Woe in this Text is no State woe nor Church woe for it is not Ezechiels Vae Pastoribus insipientibus which cannot feed their flock Ezek. 23.3 Ier. 23.1 nor Ieremies Vae Pastoribus disperdentibus Woe unto those lazie Shepheards which doe not feed their flock but suffer them to scatter Snce the Woe in this Text is not a woe upon the whole World nor upon the whole Nation nor upon the whole City nor upon any whole Family nor upon any whole ranke or calling of men when I have asked with Solomon Cui vae to whom belongs this woe I must answer with S. Paul Vae mihi Prov. 23.19 1 Cor. 9.16 woe unto me if I doe not tell them to whom it belongs And therefore since in spirituall things especially charity begins with it selfe I shall transferre this Vae from my selfe by laying it upon them whom your owne conscience shall find it to belong unto Vae desiderantibus diem Domini Woe be unto them that desire the day of the Lord c. But yet if these words can be narrow in respect of persons it is strange for in respect of the sins that they are directed upon they have a great compasse they reach from that high fin of Presumption and contempt and deriding the day of the Lord the judgements of God and they passe through the sin of Hypocrisie when we make shift to make the world and to make our selves beleeve that we are in good case towards God and would be glad that the day of the Lord the day of judgement would come now and then they come downe to the deepest sin the sin of Desperation of an unnaturall valuing of this life when overwhelmed with the burden of other sins or with Gods punishment for them men grow to a murmuring wearinesse of this life and to an impatient desire and perchance to a practise of their owne ends In the first acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of his Judgements and afflictions in this life In the second the day of the Lord is the day of the generall judgement And in the third the day of the Lord is that Crepusculum that twilight betweene the two lives or rather that Meridies noctis as the Poet cals it that noone of night the houre of our death and transmigration out of this world And if any desire any of these daies of the Lord out of any of these indispositions out of presumption out of hypocrisie out of desperation he fals within the compasse of this Text and from him we cannot take off this Vae desiderantibus First then the Prophet directs himself most literally upon the first sin of Presumption They were come to say 1 Part. that in truth whatsoever the Prophet declaimed in the streets there was no such thing as Dies Domini any purpose in God to bring such heavy judgements upon them to the Prophets themselves they were come to say You your selves live parched and macerated in a starved and penurious fortune and therefore you cry out that all we must die of famine too you your selves have not a foot of land a mong all the Tribes therfore you cry out that all the Tribes must be carried into another Land in Captivity That which you call the Day of the Lord is come upon you beggery and nakednesse and hunger contempt and affliction and imprisonment is come upon you and therefore you will needs extend this day upon the whole State but desideramus we would fain see any such thing come to passe we would fain see God goe about to do any such thing as that the State should not be wise enough to prevent him To see a Prophet neglected because he will not flatter to see him despised below because he is neglected above to see him injured insulted upon and really damnified because he is despised All this is dies mundi and not dies Domini it is the ordinary course of the world and no extraordinary day of the Lord but that there should be such a stupor and consternation of minde and conscience as you talk of and that that should be so expressed in the countenance Lam. 4.7 that they which had been purer then snow whiter then milk redder then Rubies smoother then Saphirs should not only be as in other cases pale with a sudden feare but blacker in face then a coale as the Prophet sayes there that they should not be able to set a good face upon their miseries nor disguise them with a confident countenance that there should be such a consternation of countenance and conscience and then such an excommunication of Church and State as that the whole body of the children of Israel should be without King Hos 3.4 without Sacrifice without Ephod without
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
in the warfare Mat. 26.38 so we have our example in our great Generall Christ Jesus Who though his soul were heavy and heavy unto death though he had a baptisme to be baptised with coarctabatur he was straightned and in paine till it were accomplished and though he had power to lay down his soul Iohn 10.18 and take it up againe and no man else could take it from him yet he sought it out to the last houre and till his houre came he would not prevent it nor lay downe his soule Vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire any other end of Gods correction but what he hath ordained and appointed for ut quid vobis what shall you get by choosing your owne wayes Tenebrae non lux They shall passe out of this world in this inward darknesse of melancholy and dejection of spirit into the outward darknesse which is an everlasting exclusion from the Father of lights and from the Kingdome of joy their case is well expressed in the next verse to our Text they shall flie from a Lyon and a Beare shall meet them they shall leane on a wall and a Serpent shall bite them they shall end this life by a miserable and hasty death and out of that death shall grow an immortall life in torments which no wearinesse nor desire nor practice can ever bring to an end And here in this acceptation of these words this vae falls directly upon them who colouring and apparelling treason in martyrdome expose their lives to the danger of the Law Scribanius embrace death these of whom one of their own society saith that the Scevolaes the Caves the Porciaes the Cleopatraes of the old time were nothing to the Jesuites for saith he they could dye once but they lacked courage ad multas mortes perchance hee meanes that after those men were once in danger of the Law and forfeited their lives by one comming they could come again and again as often as the plentifull mercy of their King would send them away Rapiunt mortem spontanea irruptione sayes he to their glory they are voluntary and violent pursuers of their own death and as he expresses it Crederes morbo adesos Baron Martyrââ 29. Decemb you would think that the desire of death is a disease in them A graver man then he mistakes their case and cause of death as much you are saith he incouraging those of our Nation to the pursuit of death in sacris septis ad martyrium saginati fed up and fatned here for martyrdome Sacramento sanguinem spospondistis they have taken an oath that they will be hanged but that he in whom as his great patterne God himselfe mercy is above all his works out of his abundant sweetnesse makes them perjured when they have so Tworne and vowed their owne ruine But those that send them give not the lives of these men so freely so cheaply as they pretend But as in dry Pumps men poure in a little water that they may pump up more so they are content to drop in a little blood of imaginary but traiterous Martyrs that by that at last they may draw up at last the royall blood of Princes and the loyall blood of Subjects vae desiderantibus woe to them that are made thus ambitious of their owne ruine ut quid vobis Tenebrae non lux you are kept in darknesse in this world and sent into darknesse from heaven into the next and so your ambition ad multas mortes shall be satisfied you dye more then one death morte moriemini this death delivers you to another from which you shall never be delivered We have now past through these three acceptations of these words Conclusion which have falne into the contemplation and meditation of the Ancients in their Expositions of this Text as this dark day of the Lord signifies his judgements upon Atheisticall scorners in this world as it signifies his last irrevocable and irremediable judgements upon hypocriticall relyers upon their own righteousnesse in the next world and between both as it signifies their uncomfortable passage out of this life who bring their death inordinately upon themselves and we shall shut up all with one signification more of the Lords day That that is the Lords day of which the whole Lent is the Vigil and the Eve All this time of mortification and our often meeting in this place to heare of our mortality and our immortality which are the two reall Texts and Subjects of all our Sermons All this time is the Eve of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ That is the Lords day when all our mortification and dejection of spirit and humbling of our soules shall be abundantly exalted in his resurrection and when all our fasts and abstinence shall be abundantly recompenced in the participation of his body his bloud in the Sacrament Gods Chancery is alwayes open and his seale works alwaies at all times remission of sins may be sealed to a penitent soule in the Sacrament That clause which the Chancellors had in their Patents under the Romane Emperours Vt praerogativamgerat conscientiae nostrae is in our commission too for God hath put his conscience into his Church whose sins are remitted there are remitted in heaven at all times but yet dies Domini the Lords resurrection is as the full Terme a more generall application of this seale of reconciliation But vae desiderantibus woe unto them that desire that day only because they would have these dayes of preaching and prayer and fasting and trouble some preparation past and gone Vae desiderantibus woe unto them who desire that day onely that by receââing the Sacrament day that they might delude the world as though they were not of a contrary religion in their heart vae desiderantibus woe unto them who present themselves that day without such a preparation as becomes so fearful and mystesious an action upon any carnall or collaterall respects Before that day of the Lord comes comes the day of his crucifying before you come to that day if you come not to a crucifying of your selves to the world and the world to you ut quid vobis what shall you get by that day you shall prophane that day and the Author of it as to make that day of Christs triumph the triumph of Satan and to make even that body and bloud of Christ Jesus Vehiculum Satanae his Chariot to enter into you as he did into Iudas That day of the Lord will be darknesse and not light and that darknesse will be that you shall not discerne the Lords body you shall scatter all your thoughts upon wrangling and controversies de modo how the Lords body can be there and you shall not discerne by the effects nor in your owne conscience that the Lords body is there at all But you shall take it to be onely an obedience to civill or Ecclesiasticall
middle nature above the Philosophers and below the Scriptures the Apocryphall books and I know it is said there Comfort thy selfe for thou-shalt do him no good that is dead Ecclus. 38.6 Et teipsum pessimabis as the vulgat reads it thou shalt make thy self worse and worse in the worst degree But yet all this is but of inordinate lamentation for in the same place the same Wise man sayes My Son let thy tears fall down over the dead weep bitterly and make great moane as he is worthy When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatum est all was finished and their rage could do him no more harm when he had uttered his In manus tuas he had delivered and God had received his soul yet how did the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses and tremble in earth-quakes and dissolve and shed in pieces in the opening of the Temple Quia mortuus because he was dead Truly to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch that hand that hath governed the civill sword the sword of Justice at home and drawn and sheathed the forraigne sword the sword of war abroad to see that hand lie dead and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own wormes and then Quis homo what man though he be one of those men of whom God hath said Ye are gods yet Quis homo what man is there that lives and shall not see death To see the brain of a great and religious Counsellor and God blesse all from making all from calling any great that is not religious to see that brain that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell tables stormes in Parliaments tempests in popular commotions to see that brain produce nothing but swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse them To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted Heretiques Schismatiques all his life fall like one of them by death perchance be called one of them when he is dead To re-collect all to see great men made no men to be sure that they shall never come to us not to be sure that we shall know them when we come to them to see the Lieutenants and Images of God Kings the sinews of the State religious Counsellors the spirit of the Church zealous Prelates And then to see vulgar lgnorant wicked and facinorous men thrown all by one hand of death into one Cart into one common Tide-boate one Hospitall one Almeshouse one Prison the grave in whose dust no man can say This is the King this is the Slave this is the Bishop this is the Heretique this is the Counsellor this is the Foole even this miserable equality of so unequall persons by so foule a hand is the subject of this lamentation even Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead Iesus wept He wept even in that respect Quia non abhibita media Quia mortuus and he wept in this respect too Quia non adhibita media because those means which in appearance might have saved his life by his default were not used for when he came to the house one sister Martha sayes to him Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed and then the other sister Mary sayes so too Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed They all cry out that he who only only by comming might have saved his life would not come Our Saviour knew in himself that he abstained to better purpose and to the farther glory of God for when he heard of his death he said to his Disciples I am glad for your sakes that I was not there Christ had certain reserved purposes which conduced to a better establishing of their faith and to a better advancing of Gods Kingdome the working of that miracle But yet because others were able to say to him it was in you to have saved him and he did not even this Quia non adhibita media affected him and Iesus wept He wept Etsi quatriduanus Etsi quatriduanus though they said unto him He hath been foure dayes dead and stinkes Christ doth not say there is no such matter he doth not stink but though he do my friend shall not lack my help Good friends usefull friends though they may commit some errors and though for some misbehaviours they may stink in our nostrils must not be derelicted abandoned to themselves Many a son many a good heire findes an ill ayre from his Father his Fathers life stinkes in the nostrils of all the world and he heares every where exclamations upon his Fathers usury and extortion and oppression yet it becomes him by a betterlife and by all other means to rectifie and redeem his Fathers fame Quatriduanus est is no plea for my negligence in my family to say My son or my servant hath proceeded so far in ill courses that now it is to no purpose to go about to reform him because Quatriduanus est Quatriduanus est is no plea in my pastorall charge to say that seducers and practisers and perswaders and sollicitors for superstition enter so boldly into every family that now it is to no purpose to preach religious warinesse religious discretion religious constancy Quatriduanus est is no plea for my Usury for my Simony to say I do but as all the world doth and hath used to do a long time To preach there where reprehension of growing sin is acceptable is to preach in season where it is not acceptable it is out of season but yet we must preach in season and out of season too And when men are so refractary as that they forbeare to heare or heare and resist our preaching we must pray and where they dispise or forbid our praying we must lament them we must weep Quatriduanus erat Lazarus was far spent yet Iesus wept He wept Etsisuscitandus Though he knew that Lazarus were to be restored and raised to life again for as he meant to declare a great good will to him at last so he would utter some by the way he would do a great miracle for him as he was a mighty God but he would weep for him too as he was a good natured man Truly it is no very charitable disposition if I give all at my death to others if I keep all all my life to my self For how many families have we seen shaked ruined by this distemper that though the Father mean to alien nothing of the inheritance from the Son at his death yet because he affords him not a competent maintenance in his life he submits his Son to an encumbring of his fame with ignominious shiftings and an encumbring of the estare with irrecoverable debts I may mean to feast a man plentifully at Christmas and that man may starve before in Lent Great persons may think it in their power to give life to persons and actions by their benefits when they will and before that will be up and ready both
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 â0 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
for they shall have a composition still and every compounded thing may perish but they shal be so assured and with such a preservation as they shall alwaies know they shall never dye S. Augustine saies well Aug. Assit motio absit fatigatio assit potestas vescendi absit necessitas esuriendi They have in their nature a mortality and yet be immortall a possibility and an impossibility of dying with those two divers relations one to nature the other to preservation will consist together So in this soule that hath this first Resurrection from sin by grace a conscience of her owne infirmity that she may relapse and yet a testimony of the powerfulnesse of Gods Spirit that easily she shall not relapse may consist well together But the last seale of this holy confidence is reserved for that which is the third acceptation of this first Resurrection not from persecutions in this world nor from sin in this world but from all possibility of falling back into sin in the world to come and to this have divers Expositors referred these words this first resurrection Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection Now a Resurrection of the soule seemes an improper an impertinent an improbable 3 Part. an impossible forme of speech for Resurrection implies death and the soule does not dye in her passage to Heaven And therefore Damascen makes account De ortho sid l. 4. c. ult that he hath sufficiently proved the Resurrection of the body which seems so incredible if he could prove any Resurrection if there be any Resurrection at all saies he it must be of the body for the soule cannot dye therefore not rise Yet have not those Fathers nor those Expositors who have in this text acknowledged a Resurrection of the soule mistaken nor miscalled the matter Take Damascens owne definition of Resurrection Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit secunda surrectio A Resurrection is a second rising to that state from which any thing is formerly fallen Now though by death the soule do not fall into any such state as that it can complaine for what can that lack which God fils yet by death the soule fals from that for which it was infused and poured into man at first that is to be the forme of that body the King of that Kingdome and therefore when in the generall Resurrection the soule returnes to that state for which it was created and to which it hath had an affection and a desire even in the fulnesse of the Joyes of Heaven then when the soule returnes to her office to make up the man because the whole man hath therefore the soule hath a Resurrection not from death but from a deprivation of her former state that state which she was made for and is ever enclined to But that is the last Resurrection and so the soule hath part even in that last Resurrection But we are in hand with the first Resurrection of the soule and that is when that soule which was at first breath'd from God and hath long suffered a banishment a close imprisonment in this body returnes to God againe The returning of the soule to him from whom it proceeded at first is a Resurrection of the soule Here then especially I feele the straitnesse of time two considerations open themselves together of such a largenesse as all the time from Moses his In principio when time began to the Angels Affidavit in this booke That shall say and sweare that time shall be no more were too narrow to contemplate these two Hemispheares of Man this Evening and Morning of Mans everlasting day The miseries of man in this banishment in this emprisonment in this grave of the soule the body And the glory and exaltation of that soule in her Resurrection to Heaven That soule which being borne free is made a slave to this body by comming to it It must act but what this body will give it leave to act according to the Organs which this body affords it and if the body be lame in any limme the soule must be lame in her operation in that limme too It must doe but what the body will have it doe and then it must suffer whatsoever that body puts it to or whatsoever any others will put that body to If the body oppresse it selfe with Melancholy the soule must be sad and if other men oppresse the body with injury the soule must be sad too Consider it is too immense a thing to consider it reflect but one thought but upon this one thing in the soule here and hereafter In her grave the body and in her Resurrection in Heaven That is the knowledge of the soule Here saies S. Augustine when the soule considers the things of this world Non veritate certior sed consuetudine securior She rests upon such things as she is not sure are true but such as she sees are ordinarily received and accepted for truths so that the end of her knowledge is not Truth but opinion and the way not Inquisition but ease But saies he when she proceeds in this life to search into heavenly things Verberatur luce veritatis The beames of that light are too strong for her and they sink her and cast her downe Et ad familiaritatem tenebrarum suarum non electione sed fatigatione convertitur and so she returnes to her owne darknesse because she is most familiar and best acquainted with it Non electione not because she loves ignorance but because she is weary of the trouble of seeking out the truth and so swallowes even any Religion to escape the paine of debating and disputing and in this lazinesse she sleeps out her lease her terme of life in this death in this grave in this body But then in her Resurrection her measure is enlarged and filled at once There she reads without spelling and knowes without thinking and concludes without arguing she is at the end of her race without running In her triumph without fighting In her Haven without sayling A free-man without any prentiship at full yeares without any wardship and a Doctor without any proceeding She knowes truly and easily and immediately and entirely and everlastingly Nothing left out at first nothing worne out at last that conduces to her happinesse What a death is this life what a resurrection is this death For though this world be a sea yet which is most strange our Harbour is larger then the sea Heaven infinitely larger then this world For though that be not true which Origen is said to say That at last all shall be saved nor that evident which Cyril of Alexandria saies That without doubt the number of them that are saved is far greater then of them that perish yet surely the number of them with whom we shall have communion in Heaven is greater then ever lived at once upon the face of the earth And of those who lived in our time how few did we
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
no such power of thine own soul and life not for the time not for the means of comming to this first Resurrection by death Stay therefore patiently stay chearfully Gods leasure till he call but not so over-chearfully as to be loath to go when he cals Reliefe in persecution by power reconciliation in sin by grace dissolution and transmigration to heaven by death are all within this first Resurrection But that which is before them all is Christ Jesus And therefore as all that the naturall man promises himself without God is impious so all that we promise our selves though by God without Christ is frivolous God who hath spoken to us by his Son works upon us by his Son too He was our Creation he was our Redemption he is our Resurrection And that man trades in the world without money and goes out of the world without recommendation that leaves out Christ Jesus To be a good Morall man and refer all to the law of Nature in our hearts is but Diluculum The dawning of the day To be a godly man and refer all to God is but Crepusculum A twylight But the Meridionall brightnesse the glorious noon and heighth is to be a Christian to pretend to no spirituall no temporall blessing but for and by and through and in our only Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus for he is this first Resurrection and Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this first Resurrection SERMON XX. Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1625. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth They that have done good unto the Resurrection of Life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of Damnation AS the Sun works diversly according to the diverse disposition of the subject for the Sun melts wax and it hardens clay so do the good actions of good men upon good men they work a vertuous emulation a noble and a holy desire to imitate upon bad men they work a vicious and impotent envy a desire to disgrace and calumniate And the more the good is that is done and the more it works upon good men the more it disaffects the bad for so the Pharisees expresse their rancor and malignity against Christ Jâân 11.48 in this Gospel If we let him thus alone all men will beleeve in him And that they foresaw would destroy them in their reputation And therefore they enlarged their malice beyond Christ himselfe to him upon whom Christ had wrought a Miracle John 12.10 to Lazarus They consulted to put him to death because by reason of him many beleeved in Iesus Our Text leads us to another example of this impotency in envious men Christ in this Chapter had by his only word cured a man that had been eight and thirty yeares infirm and he had done this work upon the Sabbath They envyed the work in the substance but they quarrell the circumstance And they envy Christ but they turn upon the man who was more obnoxious to them and they tell him John 5. ââ That it was not lawfull for him to carry his bed that day He discharges himself upon Christ I dispute not with you concerning the Law This satisfies me He that made me whole Veâ â bad me take up my bed and walk Thereupon they put him to finde out Jesus And when he could not finde Jesus Jesus found him and in his behalf offers himself to the Pharisees Then they direct themselves upon him and as the Gospell sayes They sought to slay him because he had done this upon the Sabbath And V. 16. as the patient had discharged himself upon Christ Christ discharges himself upon his Father doth it displease you that I work upon the Sabbath be angry with God be angry with the Father for the Father works when I work V. 17. V. 18. And then this they take worse then his working of Miracles or his working upon the Sabbath That he would say that God was his Father And therfore in the averring of that that so important point That God was his Father Christ grows into a holy vehemence and earnestnesse and he repeats his usuall oath Verily verily three severall times First ver 19. That whatsoever the Father doth He the Son doth also And then ver 24. He that beleeveth on me and him that sent me hath life everlasting And then again ver 25. The houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the voice of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live At this that the dead should live they marvelled But because he knew that they were men more affected with things concerning the body then spirituall things as in another story when they wondered that he would pretend to forgive sins because he knew that they thought it a greater matter to bid that man that had the Palsie take up his bed and walk then to forgive him his sins therefore he took that way which was hardest in their opinion he did bid him take up his bed and walk So here when they wondred at his speaking of a spirituall Resurrection to heare him say that at his preaching the dead that is men spiritually dead in their sins should rise again to them who more respected the body and did lesse beleeve a reall Resurrection of the body then a figurative Resurrection of the soul he proceeds to that which was in their apprehension the more difficult Marvell not at this sayes he here in our Text not at that spirituall Resurrection by preaching for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves c. and so he establishes the Resurrection of the body That then which Christ affirmes and avows is That he is the Son of God Divisio and that is the first thing that ever was done in Heaven The eternall generation of the Son that by which he proves this to these men is That by him there shall be a resurrection of the body and that is the last thing that shall be done in Heaven for after that there is nothing but an even continuance in equall glory Before that saies he that is before the resurrection of the body there shall be another resurrection a spirituall resurrection of the soule from sin but that shall be by ordinary meanes by Preaching and Sacraments and it shall be accomplished every day but fix not upon that determin not your thoughts upon that marvaile not at that make that no cause of extraordinary wonder but make it ordinary to you feele it and finde the effect thereof in your soules as often as you heare as often as you receive and thereby provide for another resurrection For the houre is comming in which all that are in their graves c. Where we must necessarily make thus many steps though but short ones First the dignity of
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 Apâc 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
is impossible to separate the consideration of the Resurrection from the consideration of the Judgement and the terrors of that may abate the joy of the other Sive comedoâsive bibo saies S. Hierom Whether I eate or drink still me thinks I heare this sound Surgite mortui venite ad Iudicium Arise you dead and come to Judgement When it cals me up from death I am glad when it cals me to Judgement that impaires my joy Can I thinke that God will not take a strict account or can I be without feare if I thinke he will Non expavescere requisiturum est dicere non requiret is excellently said by S. Bernard If I can put off all feare of that Judgement I have put off all imagination that any such Judgement shall be But when I begin this feare in this life here I end this feare in my death and passe away cheerefully But the wicked begin this feare when the Trumpet sounds to the Resurrection and then shall never end it but as a man condemned to be halfe hang'd and then quartered hath a fearfull addition in his quartering after and yet had no ease in his hanging before so they that have done ill when they have had their hanging when they have suffered in soule the torments of Hell from the day of their death to the day of Judgement shall come to that day with feare as to an addition to that which yet was insinite before And therefore the vulgat Edition hath rendred this well Procedent They shall proceed they shall go farther and farther in torment But this is not the object of our speculation Conâlusio the subject of our meditation now we proposed this Text for the Contemplation of Gods love to man and therefore we rather comfort our selves with that branch and refresh our selves with the shadow of that That they who have done good shall come forth unto the Resurrection of life Alas the others shall live as long as they Lucifer is as immortall as Michael and Iudas as immortall as S. Peter August But Vita damnatorum mors est That which we call immortality in the damned is but a continuall dying howsoever it must be called life it hath all the qualities of death saving the ease and the end which death hath and damnation hath not They must come forth they that have done evill must do so too Neither can stay in their house their grave for their house though that house should be the sea shall be burnt downe all the world dissolv'd with fire But then They who have done evill shall passe from that fire into a farther heat without light They who have done good into a farther light without heat But fix upon the Conditions and performe them They must have done Good To have knowne Good to have beleeved it to have intended it nay to have preached it to others will not serve They must have done good They must be rooted in faith and then bring forth fruit and fruit in season and then is the season of doing good when another needs that good at thy hands God gives the evening raine but he gave the morning rain before A good man gives at his death but he gives in his life time too To them belongs this Resurrection of the body to life upon which since our Text inclines us to marvell rather then to discourse I will not venture to say with David Narrabo omnia mirabilia tua I will shew all thy wondrous works Psal 9.2 Psal 105.5 Psal 119 18. an Angels tongue could not shew them but I will say with him Mementote mirabilium Remember the marvellous works he hath done And by that God will open your eyes that you may behold the wondrous things that he will do Remember with thankfulnesse the severall resurrections that he hath given you from superstition and ignorance in which you in your Fathers lay dead from sin and a love of sin in which you in the dayes of your youth lay dead from sadnesse and dejection of spirit in which you in your worldly crosses or spirituall tentations lay dead And assure your self that that God that loves to perfect his own works when you shall lye dead in your graves will give you that Resurrection to life which he hath promised to all them that do good and will extend to all them who having done evill do yet truly repent the evill they have done SERMON XXI The first Sermon upon this Text Preached at S. Pauls in the Evening upon Easter-day 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead O Dit Dominus qui festum Domini unum putat diem sayes Origen God hates that man that thinks any of his Holy dayes last but one day That is that never thinks of a Resurrection but upon Easter-day I have therefore proposed words unto you which will not be determined this day That so when at any other time we return to the handling of then we may also return to the meditation of the Resurrection To which we may best give a beginning this day in which we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Aâd in his one Resurrection all those severall kinds of Resurrections which appertain unto us because howsoever these words have received divers good expositions from divers good Expositors and received one perverse exposition from our adversaries in the Romane Church who have detorted and deflected them to the maintenance of their Purgatory yet all agree that these words are an argument for the Resurrection and therefore proper to this day And yet this day we shall not so much inquire wherein and in what sense the words are an argument of the Resurrection as enjoy the assurance that they are so not so much distribute the Text into an explication of the particular words which is as the Mintage and Coyning of gold into severall lesser pieces as to lay up the whole wedge and ingot of Gold all at once in you that is the precious assurance of your glorious Resurrection In establishing whereof we shall this day make but this short passage Divisio by these two steps Glory in the end And Grace in the way The Glory of our bodies in the last Resurrection then And the Grace upon our souls in their present Resurrection now For as we do not dig for gold meerly and only for treasure but to dispense and issue it also for present provision and use not only for the future but for the present too So we doe not gather the doctrine of the Resurrection only for that dignity which the body shall receive in the Triumphant but also for the consolation which thereby our soules may receive in the Militant Church And therefore as in our first part which will be By what meanes the knowledge and assurance of the Resurrection of the body
the devill gives us is affliction upon affliction and to that there belongs a woe Per tenuitatem assimilamur Deo saies the same Author The attenuation the slendernesse the deliverance of the body from the encumbrance of much flesh gives us some assimilation some conformity to God and his Angels The lesse flesh we carry the liker we are to them who have none That is still the lesse flesh of our owne making for for that flesh which God and his instrument Nature hath given us in what measure or proportion soever that does not oppresse us to this purpose neither shall that be laid to our charge but the flesh that we have built up by curious diet by meats of provocation and witty sawces or by a slothfull and drowsie negligence of the works of our calling All flesh is sinfull flesh sinfull so as that it is the mother of sin it occasions sin naturall flesh is so But this artificiall flesh of our owne making is sinfull so as that it is also the daughter of sin It is indeed the punishment of former sins and the occasion of future The soule then requires not so large so vast a house of sinfull flesh to dwell in Macerationes corporis But yet on the other side we may not by inordinate abstinencies by indiscreet fastings by inhumane flagellations by unnaturall macerations and such Disciplines as God doth not command nor authorize so wither and shrinke and contract the body as though the soule were sent into it as into a prison or into fetters and manacles to wring and pinch and torture it Nihil interest saies S. Hierome It is all one whether thou kill thy selfe at one blow or be long in doing it if thou do it All one whether thou fall upon thine own sword or sterve thy selfe with such a fasting as thou discernest to induce that effect for saies he Descendit a dignitate viri not as insaniae incurrit He departs from that dignity which God hath imprinted in man in giving him the use and the dominion over his creatures and he gives the world just occasion to thinke him mad And as Tertullian adds Respuit datorem qui datum deserit He that does not use a benefit reproaches the Benefactor and he is ungratefull to God that does not accept at his hands the use of his blessings Therefore is it accepted as a good interpretation which is made of Christs determining his fast in forty daies Ne sui homicida videretur Lest if he continued it longer he might have seemed to have killed himselfe by being the author of his owne death And so do they interpret aright his Esuriit That then he began to be hungry that he began to languish to faint to finde a detriment in his body for else a fasting when a man is not hungry is no fasting but then he gave over fasting when he found the state of his body empaired by fasting And therefore those mad doctrines so S. Hierom cals them Notas insaniae habent yea those devilish doctrines so S. Paul cals them that forbid certaine meats and that make un-commanded macerations of the body meritorious that upon a supposititious story of an Ermit that lived 22. yeares Abbasll sperg without eating any thing at all And upon an impertinent example of their S. Francis that kept three Lents in the yeare which they extoll and magnifie in S. Francis and S. Hierom condemned and detested in the Montanists who did so too have built up those Carthusian Rules That though it appeare that that and nothing but that would save the patients life yet he may not eat flesh that is a Carthusian And have brought into estimation those Apocryphall and bastardly Canons which they father upon the Apostles That a man must rather sterve then receive food from the hand of a person excommunicate or otherwise detected of any mortall sin And that all that can be done with the almes of such a person is that it be spent in wood and coales and other fuell that so as the subtile philosophy of their Canon is it may be burnt and consumed by fire for to save a mans life it must not be spent upon meat or drink or such sustentation These Doctrines are not the Doctrines of this Resurrection by which man considered in Composito as he consists of soule and body by a sober and temperate life makes his body obsequious and serviceable to his soule but yet leaves his soule a body to worke in and an Organ to praise God upon both in a devout humiliation of his body in Gods service and in a bodily performance of the duties of some calling for this is our first Resurrection A casu separationis from having falne into a separation of body and soule for they must serve God joyntly together because God having joyned them man may not separate them but as God shall re-unite them at the last Resurrection so must we in our Resurrections in this life And farther we extend not this Resurrection from this separation this divorce The second fall of man in naturall death Casus in dissolutionem is Casus in dissolutionem The man being fallen into a divorce of soule and body the body fals by putrefaction into a dissolution of dust and the Resurrection from this fall is a re-efformation when God shall recompact that dust into that body This fall and this resurrection we have in our spirituall death too for we fall into daily customes and continuall habits of those sins and we become not onely as that Lazarus in the parable to have sores upon us but as that Lazarus in the Gospell that was dead Domine jam faetemus quatriduani sumus Lord we stinke in thy nostrils and we have beene buried foure dayes All the foure changes of our life Infancy Youth Middle Age and Old have beene spent and worne out in a continuall and uninterrupted course of sin In which we shall best consider our fall and best prepare our Resurrection by looking from whence we are fallen and by what steps and they are three First Nardus nostra Cant. 1.12 Perdidimus nardum nostraÌ We have lost the sweet savour of our own Spikenard for so the Spouse saies Nardus mea dedit odorem suum My Spikenard hath given forth her sweet savour There was a time when we had a Spikenard and a sweet savour of our own when our own Naturall faculties in that state as God infused them in Adam had a power to apprehend and lay hold upon the graces of God Man hath a reasonable soule capable of Gods grace so hath no creature but man man hath naturall faculties which may be employed by God in his service so hath no creature but man Onely man was made so as that he might be better whereas all other creatures were but to consist in that degree of goodnesse in which they entred Miserable fall Only man was made to mend and only man does grow
First then 1 Part. for that Blessednesse which we need not be afraid nor abstaine from calling the Recompence the Reward the Retribution of the faithfull for as we consider Death to grow out of Disobedience and Life out of Obedience to the Law as properly as Death is the wages of sin Life is the wages of Righteousnesse If I be asked what it is wherein this Recompence this Reward this Retribution consists if I must be put to my Speciall Plea I must say it is in that of the Apostle Omnia cooperantur in bonum That nothing can befall the faithfull that does not conduce to his good and advance his happinesse For he shall not onely find S. Pauls Mori lucrum That he shall be the better for dying if he must dye but he shall find S. Augustines Vtile cadere He shall be the better for sinning if he have sinned So the better as that by a repentance after that sin hee shall find himselfe established in a neerer and safer distance with God then he was in that security which he had before that sin But the Title and the Plea of the faithfull to this Recompence extends farther then so It is not onely that nothing how evill soever in the nature thereof shall be evill to them but that all that is Good is theirs properly theirs Psal 34.9 theirs peculiarly There is no want to them that fear the Lord sayes David The young Lions doe lack and suffer hunger but they that seeke the Lord shall not want any good thing The Infidel hath no pretence upon the next world none at all No nor so cleare a Title to any thing in this world but that we dispute in the Schoole whether Infidels have any true dominion any true proprietie in any thing which they possesse here And whether there be not an inherent right in the Christians to plant Christianity in any part of the Dominions of the Infidels and consequently to despoile them even of their possession if they oppose such Plantations so established and such propagations of the Christian Religion For though we may not begin at the dispossessing and displanting of the native and naturall Inhabitant for so we proceed but as men against men and upon such equall termes we have no right to take any mens possessions from them yet when pursuing that Right which resides in the Christian we have established such a Plantation if they supplant that we may supplant them say our Schooles and our Casuists For in that case we proceed not as men against men not by Gods Common Law which is equall to all men that is the Law of Nature but we proceed by his higher Law by his Prerogative as Christians against Infidels and then it is God that proceeds against them by men and not those men of themselves to serve their owne Ambitions or their other secular ends 1 Cor. 3.20 All things are yours saies the Apostle By what Right You are Christs saies he And Christ is Gods Thus is a Title convayed to us All things are Gods God hath put all things under Christs feete And he under ours as we are Christians And then as the generall profession of Christ entitles us to a generall Title of the world for the World belongs to the Faithfull and Christians as Christians and no more are Fideles Faithfull in respect of Infidels so those Christians that come to that more particular more active more operative faith which the Apostle speaks of in all this Chapter come also to a more particular reward and recompence and retribution at Gods hands God does not onely give them the naturall blessings of this World to which they have an inherent right as they are generall Christians but as they are thus faithfull Christians he gives them supernaturall blessings he enlarges himselfe even to Miracles in their behalfe Which is a second consideration First God opens himselfe in nature and temporall blessings to the generall Christian but to the Faithfull in Grace exalted even to the height of Miracle In this we consider first That there is nothing dearer to God then a Miracle Miracula There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once Nay the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles then the extraordinary which we admire most if they were done but once The standing still of the Sun for Iosuahs use was not in it selfe so wonderfull a thing as that so vast and immense a body as the Sun should run so many miles in a minute The motion of the Sun were a greater wonder then the standing still if all were to begin againe And onely the daily doing takes off the admiration But then God having as it were concluded himself in a course of nature and written downe in the booke of Creatures Thus and thus all things shall be carried though he glorifie himselfe sometimes in doing a miracle yet there is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world and a tacite reprehension of them who require or who need miracles Therefore hath God reserved to himselfe the power of Miracles as a Prerogative For the devill does no miracles the devill and his instruments doe but hasten Nature or hinder nature antedate Nature or postdate Nature bring things sooner to passe or retarde them And howsoever they pretend to oppose nature yet still it is but upon nature and but by naturall meanes that they worke onely God shakes the whole frame of Nature in pieces and in a miracle proceeds so as if there were no Creation yet accomplished no course of Nature yet established Facit mirabilia magnasolus saies David Psal 136.4 There are Mirabilia parva some lesser wonders that the devill and his Instruments Pharaohs Sorcerers can do But when it comes to Mirabilia magna Great wonders so great as that they amount to the nature of a Miracle Facit solus God and God onely does them And amongst these and amongst the greatest of these is the raising of the Dead and therefore we make it a particular consideration the extraordinary Joy in that case when Women received their dead raised to life againe Wee know the dishonour and the infamy that lay upon barrennesse among the Jews Mortui how wives deplored and lamented that When God is pleased to take away that impediment of barrennesse and to give children we know the misery and desolation of orbity when Parents are deprived of those children by death And by the measure of that sorrow which follows barrennesse or orbitie we may proportion that joy which accompanies Gods miraculous blessings when Women receive their dead naised to life againe In all the secular and prophane Writers in the world in the whole bodie of Story you shall not finde such an expressing of the misery of a famine as that of the Holy
Ghost in the Lamentations That women eate Palmares silios We translate it Lament 2.20 Their children of a span long that is that they procured abortions and untimely births of those children which were in their bodies that they might have so much flesh to eate As that is proposed for the greatest misery that ever was women to destroy their children so so is this for the highest accumulation of Joy to have dead children brought to life againe When we heare S. Augustine in his Confessions lament so passionately the death of his Son and insist so affectionately upon the Pregnancie and Forwardnesse of that Son though that Son if he had lived must have lived a continuall evidence and monument of his sin for for all his Son S. Augustine was no married man yet what may we thinke S. Augustine would have given though it had been to have beene cut out of his own life to have had that Son restored to life again Measure it but by the Joy which we have in recovering a sick child from the hands and jawes and gates of death Measure it but by that delight which we have when we see our Garden recovered froÌ the death of Winter Mens curiosities have carried them to unlawfull desires of communication with the Dead as in Sauls case towards Samuel But if with a good conscience and without that horror which is likely to accompanie such a communication with the Dead a man might have the conversation of a friend that had been dead and had seene the other World As Dives thought no Preacher so powerfull to worke upon his Brethren as one sent from the Dead so certainly all the Travailers in the World if we could heare them all all the Libraries in the world if we could read them all could not tell us so much as that friend returned from the dead which had seene the other World But wayving that consideration because as we know not what kind of remembrance of this world God leaves us in the next when he translates us thither so neither do we know what kinde of remembrance of that world God would leave in that man whom he should re-translate into this we fixe onely upon the examples entended in our Text who these joyfull Women were that receiv'd their Dead raised to life againe which is our second Branch of this first part for with those three considerations which constituted our first Branch we have done That God gives us this World as we are generall Christians And as we are Faithfull Christians Miracles And the greatest of Miracles The raising of the Dead In the second Branch Mulieres we have two Considerations first what kind of Women these were and then who they were first their Qualities and then their Persons We have occasion to stop upon the first because Aquinas in his Exposition of this Text tels us there are some Expositors who take this word Women in this place to be entended not of Mothers but of Wives And then because the Apostle saies here that Women received their dead that is say they Wives received their dead Husbands raised to life again and received them as Husbands that is cohabited with them as Husbands therefore they conclude saies Aquinas that Death it selfe does not dissolve the band of Marriage and consequently that all other Marriages all super-inductions even after Death are unlawfull Let me say but one word of the Word and a word or two of the Matter it selfe and I shall passe to the other Consideration The Women whom the Apostle proposes for his examples The word Vxores Women taken alone signifies the whole sex women in generall When it is contracted to a particular signification in any Author it followes the circumstances and the coherence of that place in that Author and by those a man shall easily discerne of what kinde of Women that word is entended in that place In this place the Apostle works upon his Brethren the Hebrews by such examples as were within their owne knowledge and their owne stories throughout all this Chapter And in those stories of theirs we have no example of any Wife that had her dead Husband restored to her but of Mothers that had their Children raised to life we have So that this word Women must signifie here Mothers and not Wives as Aquinas Expositors mis-imagined And for the matter it selfe Nuptiae iteratae that is second or oftner-iterated Marriages the dis-approving of them entred very soone into some Hereticks in the Primitive Church For the eighth Canon of that great Councell of Nice which is one of the indubitable Canons forbids by name Catharos The Puritanes of those Times to be received by the Church except they would be content to receive the Sacrament with persons that had beene twice married which before they would not doe It entred soone into some Hereticks and it entred soone and went far in some holy and reverent Men and some Assemblies that had and had justly the name and forme of Councels For in the Councell of Neo-Caesarea which was before the Nicen Councell in the seventh Canon there are somewhat shrewd aspersions laid upon second Mariages And certainly the Roman Church cannot be denyed to come too neere this dis-approving of second Mariages For though they will not speak plaine they love not that because they get more by keeping things in suspence yet plainly they forbid the Benediction at second Mariages Valeat quantnm valere potest Let them doe as well as they can with their second Marriage Let them marrie De bene esse At all adventures but they will affoord no Blessing to a second as to a first Marriage And though they will not shut the Church doores against all such yet they will shut up all Church functions against all such No such Person as hath married twice or married once one that hath married twice can be received to the dignity of Orders in their Church And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in this point yet it was not as in the Romane Church to lay snares and spread nets for gain and profit and to forbid only therefore that they might have market for their Dispensations neither was it to fixe and appropriate sanctity only in Ecclesiasticall persons who only must not marry twice but out of a tender sense and earnest love to Continency and out of a holy indignation that men tumbled and wallowed so licentiously so promiscuously so indifferently so inconsiderately in all wayes of incontinency those blessed Fathers admitted in themselves a super-zealous an over-vehement animosity in this point But yet S. Ierome himselfe though he remember with a holy scorn Ep. ad Agers chiam that when he was at Rome in the assistance of Pope Damasus as his word is Cum juvarem he saw a man that had buried twenty wives marry a wife that buried twenty two husbands Apolog. ad Pamnach yet for the matter and
our virility our holy manhood our true and religious strength consists in the assurance that though death have divided us and though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world yet we do live together already in a holy Communion of Saints and shal live together for ever hereafter in a glorious Resurrection of bodies Little know we how little a way a soule hath to goe to heaven when it departs from the body Whether it must passe locally through Moone and Sun and Firmament and if all that must be done all that may be done in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt in or whether that soule finde new light in the same roome and be not carried into any other but that the glory of heaven be diffused over all I know not I dispute not I inquire not Without disputing or inquiring I know that when Christ sayes That God is not the God of the dead he saies that to assure me that those whom I call dead are alive And when the Apostle tels me That God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead Heb. 11.16 he tels me that to assure me That Gods servants lose nothing by dying He was but a Heathen that said Menander Thraces If God love a man Iuvenis tollitur He takes him young out of this world And they were but Heathens that observed that custome To put on mourning when their sons were born and to feast and triumph when they dyed But thus much we may learne from these Heathens That if the dead and we be not upon one floore nor under one story yet we are under one roofe We think not a friend lost because he is gone into another roome nor because he is gone into another Land And into another world no man is gone for that Heaven which God created and this world is all one world If I had fixt a Son in Court or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune I were satisfied for that son and that daughter Shall I not be so when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to himselfe and maried himselfe to that daughter for ever I spend none of my Faith I exercise none of my Hope in this that I shall have my dead raised to life againe This is the faith that sustaines me when I lose by the death of others or when I suffer by living in misery my selfe That the dead and we are now all in one Church and at the resurrection shall be all in one Quire But that is the resurrection which belongs to our other part That resurrection which wee have handled though it were a resurrection from death yet it was to death too for those that were raised again died again But the Resurrection which we are to speak of is forever They that rise then shall see death no more for it is sayes our Text A better Resurrection That which we did in the other part 2 Part. in the last branch thereof in this part we shall doe in the first First we shall consider the examples from which the Apostle deduceth this encouragement and faithfull constancy upon those Hebrewes to whom he directs this Epistle Though as he sayes in the beginning of the next Chapter he were compassed about with a Cloud of witnesses and so might have proposed examples from the Authenticke Scriptures and the Histories of the Bible yet we accept that direction which our Translators have given us in the Marginall Concordance of their Translation That the Apostle in this Text intends and so referres to that Story which is 2 Maccab. 7.7 To that Story also doth Aquinas referre this place But Aquinas may have had a minde to doe that service to the Romane Church to make the Apostle cite an Apocryphall Story though the Apostle meant it not It may be so in Aquinas He might have such a minde such a meaning But surely Beza had no such meaning Calvin had no such minde and yet both Calvin and Beza referre this Text to that Story Though it be said sayes Calvin that Ieremy was stoned to death and Esay sawed to death Non dubito quin illas persecutiones designet quae sub Antiocho I doubt not sayes he but that the Apostle intends those persecutions which the Maccabees suffered under Antiochus So then there may be good use made of an Apocryphall Booke It alwayes was and alwayes will be impossible for our adversaries of the Romane Church to establish that which they have so long endeavoured that is to make the Apocryphall Bookes equall to the Canonicall It is true that before there was any occasion of jealousie or suspition that there would be new Articles of faith coyned and those new Articles authorized and countenanced out of the Apocryphall Books the blessed Fathers in the Primitive Church afforded honourable names and made faire and noble mention of those Books So they have called them Sacred and more then that Divine and more then that too Canonicall Books and more then all that by the generall name of Scripture and Holy Writ But the Holy Ghost who fore-saw the danger though those blessed Fathers themselves did not hath shed and dropt even in their writings many evidences to prove in what sense they called those Books by those names and in what distance they alwayes held them from those Bookes which are purely and positively and to all purposes and in all senses Sacred and Divine and Canonicall and simply Scripture and simply Holy Writ Of this there is no doubt in the Fathers before S. Augustine For all they proposed these Bookes as Canones morum non sidei Canonicall that is Regular for applying our manners and conversation to the Articles of Faith but not Canonicall for the establishing those Articles Canonicall for edification but not for foundation And even in the later Roman Church we have a good Author that gives us a good rule Cajeâan Ne turberis Novitie Let no young Student be troubled when he heares these Bookes by some of the Fathers called Canonicall for they are so saies he in their sense Regulares ad aedificationem Good Canons good Rules for matter of manners and conversation And this distinction saies that Author will serve to rectifie not onely what the Fathers afore S. Augustine for they speake cleerely enough but what S. Augustine himselfe and some Councels have said of this matter But yet this difference gives no occasion to an elimination to an extermination of these Books which we call Apocryphall And therefore when in a late forraine Synod that Nation where that Synod was gathered would needs dispute whether the Apocryphall Bookes should not be utterly left out of the Bible And not effecting that yet determined that those Bookes should be removed from their old place where they had ever stood that is after the Bookes of the Old Testament Exteri se excusari petierunt Sessio 10. say the Acts of that Synod Those that
thought he could not speake more bitterly to that Tyran then to tell him As for thee thou shalt have no Resurrection unto life And so the Mother establisht her selfe too To her Sons she saies I gave you not life in my wombe Ver. 22. but doubtlesse the Creator that did will of his mercy give you life againe The soule needed not life againe for the soule never dyed the body that dyed Ver. 29. did Therefore her hope was in a Resurrection And to her youngest Son she said Be worthy of thy Brethren Take thy death that I may receive thee againe in mercy with thy Brethren All their establishment all their expectation all their issue was That they might obtaine a better Resurrection Now what was this that they qualified and dignified by that addition The better Resurrection Is it called better in that it is better then this life and determined in that comparison and degree of betternesse and no more Is it better then those honours and preferments which that King offered them and determined in that comparison and no more Or better then other men shall have at the last day for all men shall have a Resurrection and determined in that Or as S. Chrysostome takes it is it but a better Resurrection then that in the former part of this Text where dead children are restored to their mothers alive again Is it but a better Resurrection in some of these senses Surely better in a higher sense then any of these It is a supereminent degree of glory a larger measure of glory then every man who in a generall happinesse is made partaker of the Resurrection of the righteous is made partaker of Beloved There is nothing so little in heaven as that we can expresse it But if wee could tell you the fulnesse of a soul there what that fulnesse is the infinitenesse of that glory there how far that infinitenesse goes the Eternity of that happinesse there how long that happinesse lasts if we could make you know all this yet this Better Resurrection is a heaping even of that Fulnesse and an enlarging even of that Infinitenesse and an extention even of that eternity of happinesse For all these this Fulnesse this Infinitenesse this Eternity are in all the Resurrections of the Righteous and this is a better Resurrection We may almost say it is something more then Heaven for all that have any Resurrection to life have all heaven And something more then God for all that have any Resurrection to life have all God and yet these shall have a better Resurrection Amorous soule ambitious soule covetous soule voluptuous soule what wouldest thou have in heaven What doth thy holy amorousnesse thy holy covetousnesse thy holy ambition and voluptuousnesse most carry thy desire upon Call it what thou wilt think it what thou canst think it something that thou canst not think and all this thou shalt have if thou have any Resurrection unto life and yet there is a Better Resurrection When I consider what I was in my parents loynes a substance unworthy of a word unworthy of a thought when I consider what I am now a Volume of diseases bound up together a dry cynder if I look for naturall for radicall moisture and yet a Spunge a bottle of overflowing Rheumes if I consider accidentall an aged childe a gray-headed Infant and but the ghost of mine own youth When I consider what I shall be at last by the hand of death in my grave first but Putrifaction and then not so much as Putrifaction I shall not be able to send forth so much as an ill ayre not any ayre at all but shall be all insipid tastlesse savourlesse dust for a while all wormes and after a while not so much as wormes sordid senslesse namelesse dust When I consider the past and present and suture state of this body in this world I am able to conceive able to expresse the worst that can befall it in nature and the worst that can be inflicted upon it by man of fortune But the least degree of glory that God hath prepared for that body in heaven I am not able to expresse not able to conceive That man comes with a Barly corn in his hand to measure the compasse of the Firmament and when will he have done that work by that way he comes with a grain of dust in his scales to weigh the whole body of the world and when will he have done that work that way that bids his heart imagine or his language declare or his wit compare the least degree of the glory of any good mans Resurrection And yet there is a Better Resurrection A Better Resurrection reserved for them and appropriated to them That fulfill the sufferings of Christ in their flesh by Martyrdome and so become witnesses to that Conveyance which he hath sealed with his blood by shedding their blood and glorifie him upon earth as far as it is possible for man by the same way that he hath glorified them in heaven and are admitted to such a conformity with Christ as that if we may have leave to expresse it so they have dyed for one another Neither is this Martyrdome and so this Better Resurrection appropriated to a reall and actuall and absolute dying for Christ but every suffering of ours by which suffering he may be glorified is a degree of Martyrdome and so a degree of improving and bettering our Resurrection For as S. Ierome sayes That chastity is a perpetuall Martyrdome So every war maintained by us against our own desires is a Martyrdome too In a word to do good for Gods glory brings us to a Good but to suffer for his glory brings us to a Better Resurrection And to suffer patiently brings us to a Good but to suffer chearefully and more then that thankfully brings us to a Better Resurrection If all the torments of all the afflicted men from Abel to that soul that groanes in the Inquisition or that gaspes upon his death-bed at this minute were upon one man at once all that had no proportion to the least torment of hell nay if all the torments which all the damned in hell have suffered from Cain to this minute were at once upon one soul so as that soul for all that might know that those torments should have an end though after a thousand millions of millions of Generations all that would have no proportion to any of the torments of hell because the extention of those torments and their everlastingnesse hath more of the nature of torment and of the nature of hell in it then the intensnesse and the vehemency thereof can have So if all the joyes of all the men that have had all their hearts desires were con-centred in one heart all that would not be as a spark in his Chimney to the generall conflagration of the whole world in respect of the least joy that that soule is made partaker of that departs from this
love to Christ is Devotion There is a love that will make one kisse the case of a picture though it be shut There is a love that will melt ones bowels if he do but passe over or passe by the grave of his dead friend But their end was not onely to see the Sepulchre but to see whether the Sepulchre were in such state as that they might come to their end which was To embalme their Masters body But this was done before and done to their knowledge for that all the Euangelists testifie Luke 23.55 particularly S. Luke The women followed and beheld the Sepulchre and how the body was laid How that is how abundantly it was embalmed by Nicodemus How that is how decently and orderly it was wound and bound up according to the manner of the Jews funerals What then intended these women to doe more then was done already That cannot be well admitted Theophy Gen. 50.1 which Theophylact saies That as Iacobs body was embalmed forty dayes in Egypt so they intended to re-embalme our Saviours body formerly embalmed by Nicodemus For that was onely done upon such bodies as were exenterated and embowelled and then filled up and plastered about with spices and gums to preserve them from putrifaction when they were to be carried into remote parts But of these re-embalmings and post-unctions after the body had beene laid in the Sepulchre I know not who may have read of them I have not Neither seemes it to have beene possible in this case not possible for these women to have come to the body of Chrrist For if that be the true winding sheet of Christ which is kept in Savoy it appeares that that sheet stuck so close to his body as that it did and does still retaine the dimensions of his body and the impressions and signatures of every wound that he had received in his body So that it would have beene no easie matter for those women to have pulled off that sheet if it had had no other glue no other gumme but his owne precious blood to hold it Chiffletius de Linters Sepulchr cap. 25. But if as their more wary Authors say Christs body were carried loose in that sheet which is shewed in Savoy from the Crosse to the Sepulchre and then taken out of that sheet and embalmed by Nicodemus and wrapped up in other linnen upon those spices and gummes which he bestowed upon it and then buried according to the manner of the jews whose manner it was to swathe the bodies of the dead Iohn 11.44 just as we swathe the bodies of children all over for so Lazarus came out bound hand and foote with grave-cloathes how could it fall into the imagination of these women that they could come to embalme the body of Christ so swathed so wound so bound up as that body was for certainly it was the body and not the grave-cloathes that they meant to embalme Truly I have often wondred that amongst our very many Expositors of the Gospels which I can pronounce of some scores no one hath touched upon this doubt They all make good use of their piety and devout officiousnesse towards their dead Master but of the impossibility of comming to that body and of the irregularity and impertinency of undertaking that and proceeding so far in that which could not possibly be done I find no mention Chrysolog What shal be said of this That may be said which Chrysologus saies though not of this for of this none saies any thing Saeva passionis procella turbaverat That a bitter storme of passion and consternation had so disordered them as that no faculty of theirs performed the right function Calvin And that which Calvin saies of the same case which Chrysologus intends Prae fervore caecutiebant Vehemence and earnestnesse had discomposed them amazed them amuzed them so as that they discerned nothing clearely did nothing orderly This these and some other Authors say of some other inconsiderations in these Women particularly of the removing of the stone of the Sepulchre For they had prepared their gumms and they were come upon their way before they ever thought of that Marke 16.3 Then they stop and say to one another Who shall roll us away the stone from the doore of the Sepulchre we never thought of that So also did they fall under the rebuke and increpation of the Angell for another supine inconsideration Luke 24.5 Mat 16.16 Acts 3.15 Iohn 5.26 Iohn 1.4 Iohn 6.35 Iohn 11.25 Quid quaeritis vivum Why seeke yee the living amongst the dead Why him who is The Son of the living God Why him who is The Prince of life Why him Who hath life in himselfe Why him who is Life it selfe Why him who is The Bread of life to us Why him who is this life and the next too I am the life and the Resurrection Why him who by his death hath made you a path of life Psal 16.11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life Why seek ye the living among the dead What makes you think of arming him with your gummes against putrifaction who had told you before that he was not subject to putrifaction but would rise again So also in such another inconsideratioÌ we may deprehend one of these womeÌ Mary Magdalen wheÌ the Angel had told her at the Sepulchre He is not here for he is risin as he said yet when she came to Peter she said nothing of the Resurrection John 20.2 never thought of that but poured her self out in that lamentation Tulerunt DominuÌ They have taken away the Lord out of the Sepulchre we know not where they have laid him Wheras if she had coÌsidered it advisedly she must necessarily have knowen from the Angels words that no man had taken away the Lord that no man had laid him any where else but that by his own power he was risen again But as in this storm of passion they left Christs promise That he would rise unconsidered left the rolling of the stone froÌ the doore of the Sepulchre unconsidered so in this storm they also left unconsidered the impossibility of comming to Christs body to do that office Their devotion was awake their consideration was in a slumber But what though Did they therefore lose all benefit of their plous and devout intention That is another and our next Consideration As Luther sayes that if the marriage bed be kept undefiled that is Fructus bujus pietatis from strange persons and from such sins as are opposed against the very purpose of marriage God pardons Maritales ineptias some levities and half-wantonnesses in married folkes so Calvin sayes of our present case Deus non impat at Because these good women were transported with a zealous piety towards Christ God did not impure this in consideration unto them For though zeal without discretion produce ill effects yet not so ill as discretion without zeal worldly
Congregation will I blesse the Lord But yet I finde the highest exaltations and the noblest elevations of my devotion Psal 35.18 when I give thanks in the great Congregation and praise him among much people for so me thinks I come nearer and nearer to the Communion of Saints in Heaven Apoc. 21.22 Where it is therefore said that there is no Temple I saw no Temple in Heaven because all Heaven is a Temple And because the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe who fill all Heaven are Obviam Domino as S. Iohn sayes there the Temple thereof So far towards that as into the Ayre this text carries us Obviam Domino To meet the Lord. The Lord requires no more not so much at our hands as he does for us When he is come from the right hand of his Father in heaven into the ayre to meet us he is come farther then we are to go from the grave to meet him But we have met the Lord in many a lower place in many unclean actions have we met the Lord in our owne hearts and said to our selves Surely the Lord is here and sees us Gen. â9 9 and with Ioseph How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against my God and yet have proceeded gone forward in the accomplishment of that sin But there it was Obviam Iesu Obviam Christo We met a Iesus We met a Christ a God of mercy who forgave us those sins Here in our text it is Obviam Domino We must meet the Lord He invests here no other name but that He hath laid aside his Christ and his Iesus names of Mercy and Redemption and Salvation and comes only in the name of power The Lord The Judge of quick and dead In which Judgement he shews no mercy All his mercy is exercised in this life and he that hath not received his portion of that mercy before his death shall never receive any There he judges only by our workes Whom hast thou fed whom hast thou clothed Then in judgement we meet the Lord the Lord of power and the last time that ever we shall meet a Iesus a Christ a God of mercy is upon our death-bed but there we shall meet him so as that when we meet him in another name The Lord in the ayre yet by the benefit of the former mercy received from Iesus We shall be with the Lord for ever First Erimus We shall Bee we shall have a Beeing Erimus There is nothing more contrary to God and his proceedings then annihilation to Bee nothing Do nothing Think nothing It is not so high a step to raise the poore out of the dust Psal 113.7 and to lift the needy from the dunghill and set him with Princes To make a King of a Beggar is not so much as to make a Worm of nothing Whatsoever God hath made thee since yet his greatest work upon thee was that he made thee and howsoever he extend his bounty in preferring thee yet his greatest largenesse is in preserving thee in thy Beeing And therefore his own name of Majesty is Jehovah which denotes his Essence his Beeing And it is usefully moved and safely resolved in the School that the devill himself cannot deliberately wish himselfe nothing Suddenly a man may wish himself nothing because that seemes to deliver him from the sense of his present misery but deliberately he cannot because whatsoever a man wishes must be something better then he hath yet and whatsoever is better is not nothing Nihil contrarium Deo August There is nothing truly contrary to God To do nothing is contrary to his working but contrary to his nature contrary to his Essence there is nothing For whatsoever is any thing even in that Beeing and therefore because it is hath a conformity to God and an affinity with God who is Beeing Essence it self In him we have our Beeing sayes the Apostle Act. 17.28 But here it is more then so not only In illo but Cum illo not only In him but With him not only in his Providence but in his Presence The Hypocrite hath a Beeing and in God but it is not with God Cum illc Esay 29.13 Qua cor longe With his lips he honours God but removes his heart far from him And God sends him after his heart that he may keep him at that distance as S. Gregory reads and interprets that place of Esay Redite praevaricatores ad cor Return O sinners follow your own heart Esay 46.8 and then I am sure you and I shall never meet Our Saviour Christ delivers this distance plainly Discedite à me Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Mat. 25.42 Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing worse then the fire the intensnesse of that fire the ayre of that brimstone the anguish of that worm the discord of that howling and gnashing of teeth is no comparable no considerable part of the torment in respect of the privation of the sight of God the banishment from the presence of God an absolute hopelesnesse an utter impossibility of ever comming to that which sustaines the miserable in this world that though I see no Sun here I shall see the Son of God there The Hypocrite shall not do so we shall Bee and Bee with him and Bee with him for ever which is the last thing that doth fall under ours or can fall under any consideration Of S. Hierome S. Augustine sayes Quae Hicronymus neseivit Semper nullus hominum unquam seivit That that S. Hierome knew not no man ever knew And S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to S. Augustine in magnifying of S. Hierome That when a Catholique Priest disputed with an Heretique and cited a passage of S. Hierome and the Heretique said Hierome lyed instantly he was struck dumb yet of this last and everlasting joy and glory of heaven in the fruition of God S. Hierome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was devested of his mortall body dead for as soon as he dyed at Bethlem he came instantly to Hippo S. Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet he said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to poure the whole Sea into a thimble or to take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is easier then to comprehend the joy and the glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then this Semper in our text the Eternity thereof That we shall be with him for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingnesse is not only incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally and
all knowledge in heaven is experimentall As all knowledge in this world is causall we know a thing if we know the cause thereof so the knowledge in heaven is effectuall experimentall we know it because we have found it to be so The endowments of the blessed those which the School calls Dotes beatorum are ordinarily delivered to be these three Visio Dilectio Fruitio The sight of God the love of God and the fruition the injoying the possessing of God Now as no man can know what it is to see God in heaven but by an experimentall and actuall seeing of him there nor what it is to love God there but by such an actuall and experimentall love of him nor what it is to enjoy and possesse God but by an actuall enjoying and an experimentall possessing of him So can no man tell what the eternity and everlastingnesse of all these is till he have passed through that eternity and that everlastingnesse and that he can never doe for if it could be passed through then it were not eternity How barren a thing is Arithmetique and yet Arithmetique will tell you how many single graines of sand will fill this hollow Vault to the Firmament How empty a thing is Rhetorique and yet Rherorique will make absent and remote things present to your understanding How weak a thing is Poetry and yet Poetry is a counterfait Creation and makes things that are not as though they were How infirme how impotent are all assistances if they be put to expresse this Eternity The best help that I can assigne you is to use well Aeternum vestrum your owne Eternity as S. Gregory calls our whole course of this life Aeternum nostrum our Eternity Aequum est ut qui in aeterno suo peccaverit in aeterno Dei puniatur sayes he It is but justice that he that hath sinned out his owne Eternity should suffer out Gods Eternity So if you suffer out your owne Eternity in submitting your selves to God in the whole course of your life in surrendring your will intirely to his and glorifying of him in a constant patience under all your tribulations It is a righteous thing with God sayes our Apostle in his other Epistle to these Thessalonians To recompence tribulation to them that trouble you 2 Thess 1.6 and to you that are troubled rest with us sayes hee there with us who shall be caught up in the Clouds to meete the Lord in the Ayre and so shall be with the Lord for ever Amen SERMON XXVII Preached to the LL. upon Easter-day at the Communion The KING being then dangerously sick at New-Market PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death AT first God gave the judgement of death upon man when he should transgresse absolutely Morte morieris Thou shalt surely dye The woman in her Dialogue with the Serpent she mollifies it Ne fortè moriamur perchance if we eate we may die and then the Devill is as peremptory on the other side Nequaquam moriemini do what you will surely you shall not die And now God in this Text comes to his reply Quis est homo shall they not die Give me but one instance but one exception to this rule What man is hee that liveth and shall not see death Let no man no woman no devill offer a Ne fortè perchance we may dye much lesse a Nequaquam surely we shall not dye except he be provided of an answer to this question except he can give an instance against this generall except he can produce that mans name and history that hath lived and shall not see death Wee are all conceived in close Prison in our Mothers wombes we are close Prisoners all when we are borne we are borne but to the liberty of the house Prisoners still though within larger walls and then all our life is but a going out to the place of Execution to death Now was there ever any man seen to sleep in the Cart between New-gate and Tyborne between the Prison and the place of Execution does any man sleep And we sleep all the way from the womb to the grave we are never throughly awake but passe on with such dreames and imaginations as these I may live as well as another and why should I dye rather then another but awake and tell me sayes this Text Quis homo who is that other that thou talkest of What man is he that liveth and shall not see death In these words we shall first for our generall humiliation consider the unanswerablenesse of this question There is no man that lives and shall not see death Secondly we shall see how that modification of Eve may stand fortè moriemur how there may be a probable answer made to this question that it is like enough that there are some men that live and shall not see death And thirdly we shall finde that truly spoken which the Devill spake deceitfully then we shall finde the Nequaquam verified we shall finde a direct and full answer to this question we shall finde a man that lives and shall not see death our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus of whom both S. Augustine and S. Hierome doe take this question to be principally asked and this Text to be principally intended Aske me this question then of all the sons of men generally guilty of originall sin Quis homo and I am speechlesse I can make no answer Aske me this question of those men which shall be alive upon earth at the last day when Christ comes to judgement Quis homo and I can make a probable answer forte moriemur perchance they shall die It is a problematicall matter and we say nothing too peremptorily Aske me this question without relation to originall sin Quis homo and then I will answer directly fully confidently Ecce homo there was a man that lived and was not subject to death by the law neither did he actually die so but that he fulfilled the rest of this verse Eruit animam de inferno by his owne power he delivered his soule from the hand of the grave From the first this lesson rises Generall doctrines must be generally delivered All men must die From the second this lesson Collaterall an unrevealed doctrines must be soberly delivered How we shall be changed at the last day we know not so clearly From the third this lesson arises Conditionall Doctrines must be conditionally delivered If we be dead with him we shall be raised with him First then 1. Part. Quis homo for the generality Those other degrees of punishment which God inflicted upon Adam and Eve and in them upon us were as absolutely and illimitedly pronounced as this of death and yet we see they are many wayes extended or contracted To man it was said In sudore vultus In the sweat of thy browes thou shalt eate thy bread and how many men never sweat till they sweat with eating To the woman it
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 reverâeris 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
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 âap 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 ãâã 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 ãâã 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 ãâã 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 ãâ¦ã 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
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
enough by it to meet Davids question Quis homo what man with Christs answer Ego homo I am the man in whom whosoever abideth shall not see death SERMONS Preached upon WHITSUNDAY SERMON XXVIII Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1627. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you THis day is this Scripture fulfilled in your cares saith our Saviour Christ having read for his Text that place of Esay Esay 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me And that day which we celebrate now was another Scripture fulfilled in their eares and in their eyes too For all Christs promises are Scripture They have all the Infallibility of Scripture And Christ had promised that that Spirit which was upon him when he preached should also be shed upon all his Apostles And upon this day he performed that promise when Acts 2.1 They being all with one accord in one place there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty winde and filled the house and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sate upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost And this very particular day in which we now commemorate and celebrate that performance of Christs promise in that Mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles are all these Scriptures performed again in our eares and eyes and in our hearts For in all those Congregations that meet this day to this purpose every Preacher hath so much of this Vnction which Vnction is Christ upon him as that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him and hath anointed him to that service And every Congregation and every good person in the Congregation hath so much of the Apostle upon him as that he feeles This Spirit of the Lord this Holy Ghost as he is this cloven tongue that sets one stemme in his eare and the other in his heart one stemme in his faith and the other in his manners one stemme in his present obedience and another in his perseverance one to rectifie him in the errours of life another to establish him in the agonies of death For the Holy Ghost as he is a Cloven tongue opens as a Compasse that reaches over all our Map over all our World from our East to our West from our birth to our death from our cradle to our grave and directs us for all things to all persons in all places and at all times The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things c. The blessed Spirit of God then the Holy Ghost the third person in the Trinity Divisio and yet not Third so as that either Second or First Son or Father were one minute before him in that Co-eternity that enwraps them all alike this Holy Ghost is here designed by Christ in his Person and in his Operation Who he is and what he does From whence he comes and why he comes And these two Hee and His office will constitute our two parts in this text In the first of which which will be the exercise of this day we shall direct you upon these severall Considerations First that the Person designed for this Mission and true Consolation is the Holy Ghost You shall not be without comfort saies Christ But mistake not false comforts for true nor deceitfull comforters for faithfull It is the Holy Ghost or it is none His Comfort or no comfort Him the Father will send sais Christ in a second branch though the Holy Ghost be God equall to the Father and so have all Missions and Commissions in his owne hand yet he applies himselfe accommodates himselfe to order and he comes when he hath a Mission from the Father and this Father saies Christ which is a third branch in this part sends him in my name Though he have as good interest in the name of Adonai which is all our Powerfull name and in the name of Iehâvah which is all our Essentiall name as I or my Father have the holy Ghost is as much Adonai and as much Ichovah as we are yet he is sent in my Name that is to proceed in my way to perfect my worke and to accomplish that Redemption by way of Application which I had wrought by way of Satisfaction And then lastly that which qualifies him for this Mission for this Imployment is his Title and Addition in this Text That he is the Comforter Discomfortable doctrines of a primary impossibility of Salvation to any man And that impossibility originally rooted in God and in Gods hating of that man and hating of that man not onely before he was a sinfull man but before he was any man at all not onely before an actuall making but before any intention to make him in Gods minde That God cannot save that man because he meant to damne him before he meant to make him are not the way in which the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father in the Sons Name For they that sent him and he that comes intend all that is done in that capacity as he is a Comforter as he is the Comforter And this is the Person and this will be the extent of our first part It is the Holy Ghost No deceiving Spirit He though as high as the Highest respects order attends a Mission staies till he be sent And thirdly he comes in anothers name in anothers way to perfect anothers worke And he does all in the quality and denomination of a Comforter not establishing not countenancing any discomfortable Doctrines First then 1. Part. Spiritus sanctus the Person into whose hands this whole worke is here recommended is the Holy Ghost The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The manifestation of the mysterle of the Trinity was reserved for Christ Some intimations in the Old but the publication only in the New Testament Some irradiations in the Law but the illustration onely in the Gospell Some emanation of beames as of the Sun before it is got above the Horizon in the Prophets but the glorious proceeding thereof and the attaining to a Meridianall height only in the Euangelists And then the doctrine of the Trinity thus reserved for the time of the Gospell at that time was thus declared So God loved the World as that he sent his Son So the Son loved the World as that he would come into it and die for it So the Holy Ghost loved the World as that he would dwell in it and inable men in his Ministery and by his gifts to apply this mercy of the Father and this merit of the Son to particular souls and to whole Congregations The mercy of the Father that he would study such a way for the Redemption of our souls as the death of his only Son a way which
therefore proposed it to the Senate that so that honour which Jesus should have might bee derived from him And when the Senate had an inclination of themselves to have done Christ that honour but yet forbore it because the intimation came not from themselves but from the Emperour who still wrought and gained upon their priviledges neither of these though they meant collaterally and obliquely to doe Christ an honour neither of them did say Iesum Dominum that is professe Jesus so as is intended here for they had their owne ends and their own honors principally in Contemplation There is first an open profession of the tongue required And therefore the Holy Ghost descended in fiery tongues Et lingua propria Spiritui Sancto sayes S. Gregory The tongue is the fittest Instrument for the Holy Ghost to worke upon and to worke by Qui magnam habet cognationem cum Verbo sayes he The Son of God is the Word and the Holy Ghost proceeds from him And because that faith that unites us to God is expressed in the tongue howsoever the heart be the center in which the Holy Ghost rests the tongue is the Spheare in which he moves And therefore sayes S. Cyril as God set the Cherubim with a fiery sword to keep us out of Paradise so he hath set the Holy Ghost in fiery tongues to let us in againe As long as Iohn Baptist was unborne Zachary was dumbe when hee was borne Zachary spoke Christ is not borne in us we are not regenerate in him if we delight not to speake of his wondrous mercyes and infinite goodnesse to the sons of men as soone as he is borne in us his Spirit speakes in us and by us in which our first profession is Iesum esse That Jesus is That there is a Jesus This is to professe with Esay Iesus Esay 4.2 That he is Germen Iehovae The Bud of the Lord The Blossome of God himselfe for this Profession is a two-edged sword for it wounds the Arians on one side That Jesus is Jehovah because that is the name that signifies the very Essence of God And then it wounds the Jews on the other side because if Jesus be Germen Iehovae The Bud the Blossome the Off-spring of God then there is a plurality of Persons Father and Son in the God-head So that it is a Compendiary and Summary Abridgement and Catechisme of all our Religion to professe that Jesus is for that is a profession of his everlasting Essence that is his God-head It hath been denyed that he was such as he was pretended to be that is borne of a Virgin for the first Heretiques of all Gerinthus and Ebion who occasioned S. Iohns Gospel affirmed him to be a meere man made by ordinary generation between Ioseph and Mary It hath been denyed that he was such a man as those Heretiques allowed him to bee for Apelles his Heresie was That he made himselfe a Body out of the Elements as hee came downe from Heaven through them It hath been denyed that he had any Body at all Cerdon and Marcion said That he lived and dyed but in Phantasmate in apparance and onely in a forme and shape of a Body assumed but in truth no Body that did live or dye but did onely appeare and vanish It hath beene denyed that that Body which hee had though a true and a naturall Body did suffer for Basilides said That when he was led to Execution and that on the way the Crosse was laid upon Simon of Cyren Christ cast a mist before their eyes by which they tooke Simon for him and crucified Simon Christ having withdrawne himselfe invisibly from them as at other times he had done It hath been denyed though he had a true Body and suffered truly therein that he hath any Body now in Heaven or shall returne with any for hee that said hee made his Body of the Elements as hee came downe from Heaven sayes also that hee resolved that Body into those Elements againe at his returne It hath beene denyed That hee was That he is That he shall be but this Profession that Jesus is includes all for He of whom that is alwayes true Est He is He is Eternall and He that is Eternall is God This is therefore a Profession of the God-head of Christ Jesus Now Dominus A Lord. in the next as we professe him to be Dominus A Lord we professe him to be God and man we behold him as he is a mixt person and so made fit to be the Messias the Anointed high Priest King of that Church which he hath purchased with his blood And the anointed King of that Kingdome which he hath conquered with his Crosse As he is Germen Iehovae The off-spring of Jehovah so he must necessarily be Jehovah that is the name which is evermore translated The Lord So also as he is Jehovah which is the fountaine of all Essence and of all Beeing so he is Lord by his interest and his concurrence in our Creation It is a devoute exercise of the soule to consider how absolute a Lord he is by this Title of Creation If the King give a man a Creation by a new Title the King found before in that man some vertuous and fit disposition some preparation some object some subject of his favour The King gives Creations to men whom the Universities or other Societies had prepared They Created persons whom other lower Schooles had prepared At lowest he that deales upon him first finds a man begotten and prepared by Parents upon whom he may worke But remember thy Creator that called thee when thou wast not as though thou hadst beene and brought thee out of nothing which is a condition if we may call it a condition to be nothing not to be farther removed from Heaven then hell it selfe Who is the Lord of life and breathed this life into thee and sweares by that eternall life which he is that he would have this life of thine immortall As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner This Contemplation of Jesus as a Lord by Creating us is a devout and an humble Contemplation but to contemplate him as Lord by Redeeming us and breeding us in a Church where that Redemption is applied to us this is a devout and a glorious Contemplation As he is Lord over that which his Father gave him his Father gave him all power in Heaven and in earth and Omne Iudicium His Father put all Judgement into his hands all judiciary and all military power was his He was Lord Judge and Lord of Hosts As he is Lord over his owne purchase Quod acquisivit sanguine Acts 20.28 That Church which he purchased with his owne blood So he is more then the Heretiques of our time have made him That he was but sent as a principall Prophet to explaine the Law and make that cleare to us in a Gospel Or as a Priest to sacrifice
because the Son is the second and the holy Ghost the third person but the second was not before the third in time nor is above him in dignity There is processio corporalis such a bodily proceeding as that that which proceeds is utterly another thing then that from which it proceeds frogs proceed perchance of ayre and mise of dust and worms of carkasses and they resemble not that ayre that dust those carkasses that produced them There is also processio Metaphysica when thoughts proceed out of the minde but those thoughts remaine still in the mind within and have no separate subsistence in themselves And then there is processio Hyperphysica which is this which we seek and finde in our soules but not in our tongues a proceeding of the holy Ghost so from Father and Son as that he remaines a subsistence alone a distinct person of himselfe This is as far as the Schoole can reach Ortu qui relationis est non est à se Actu qui personae est per se subsistit Consider him in his proceeding so he must necessarily have a relation to another Consider him actually in his person so he subsists of himselfe And De modo for the manner of his proceeding we need we can say but this As the Son proceeds per modu intellectus so as the mind of man conceives a thought so the holy Ghost proceeds per modum voluntatis when the mind hath produced a thought that mind and that discourse and ratiocination produce a will first our understanding is setled and that understanding leads our will And nearer then this though God knows this be far off we cannot goe to the proceeding of the holy Ghost This then is The Spirit The third person in the Trinity but the first person in our Text Spiritus noster The other is our spirit The Spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit I told you before that amongst the manifold acceptations of the word spirit as it hath relation particularly to man it is either the soul it self or the vitall spirits the thin and active parts of the bloud or the superiour faculties of the soul in a regenerate man that is our spirit in this place So S. Paul distinguishes soul and spirit Heb. 4.12 The word of God pierces to the dividing asunder soule and spirit where The soule is that which inanimates the body and enables the organs of the senses to see and heare The spirit is that which enables the soule to see God and to heare his Gospel The samephrase hath the same use in another place 1 Thes 5.25 Calvin I pray God your spirit and soule and body may be preserved blamelesse Where it is not so absurdly said though a very great man call it an absurd exposition That the soule Anima is that qua animales homines as the Apostle calls them that by which men are men naturall men carnall men And the spirit is the spirit of Regeneration by which man is a new creature a spirituall man But that that Expositor himselfe hath said enough to our present purpose The soule is the seat of Affections The spirit is rectified Reason It is true this Reason is the Soveraigne these Affections are the Officers this Body is the Executioner Reason authorizes Affections command the Body executes And when we conceive in our mind desire in our heart performe in our body nothing that displeases God then have we had benefit of S. Pauls prayer That in body and soule and spirit we may be blamelesse In summe we need seek no farther for a word to expresse this spirit but that which is familiar to us The Conscience Rem 9.1 A rectified conscience is this spirit My conscience bearing me witnesse sayes the Apostle And so we have both the persons in this judiciall proceeding The Spirit is the holy Ghost Our spirit is our Conscience And now their office is to testifie to beare witnesse which is our second generall part The Spirit bears witnesse c. To be a witnesse 2 Part. is not an unworthy office for the holy Ghost himselfe Heretiques in their pestilent doctrines Tyrans in their bloody persecutions call God himselfe so often so far into question as that he needs strong and pregnant testimony to acquit him First against Heretiques we see the whole Scripture is but a Testament and Testamentum is Testatio ment is it is but an attestation a proofe what the will of God is And therefore when Tertullian deprehended himselfe to have slipped into another word and to have called the Bible Instrumentum he retracts and corrects himselfe thus Magìs usui est dicere Testamentum quà m Instrumentum It is more proper to call the Scripture a Testament then a Conveyance or Covenant All the Bible is Testament Attestation Declaration Proofe Apoc. 11.2 Evidence of the will of God to man And those two witnesses spoken of in the Revelation are very conveniently very probably interpreted to be the two Testaments And to the Scriptures Christ himselfe refers the Jews Iohn 5.39 Search them for they beare witnesse of me The word of God written by the holy Ghost is a witnesse and so the holy Ghost is a witnesse against Heretiques Against Tyrans and Persecuters the office of a witnesse is an honourable office too for that which we call more passionately and more gloriously Martyrdome is but Testimony A Martyr is nothing but a Witnesse He that pledges Christ in his own wine in his own cup in bloud He that washes away his sins in a second Baptisme and hath found a lawfull way of Re-baptizing even in bloud He that waters the Prophets ploughing and the Apostles sowing with bloud He that can be content to bleed as long as a Tyran can foame or an Executioner sweat He that is pickled nay embalmed in bloud salted with fire and preserved in his owne ashes He that to contract all nay to enlarge beyond all suffers in the Inquisition when his body is upon the rack when the rags are in his throat when the boots are upon his legs when the splinters are under his nailes if in those agonies he have the vigour to say I suffer this to shew what my Saviour suffered must yet make this difference He suffered as a Saviour I suffer but as a witnesse But yet to him that suffers as a Martyr as a witnesse a crowne is reserved It is a happy and a harmonious meeting in Stephens martyrdome Proto-martyr and Stephanus that the first Martyr for Christ should have a Crown in his name Such a blessed meeting there is in Ioash his Coronation Posuit super eum Diadema Testimonium 2 King 11.12 They put the Crowne upon his head and the Testimony that is The Law which testified That as he had the Crowne from God so he had it with a witnesse with an obligation that his Government his life and if need were his death should testifie his zeale to him
envy God that glory We reade of divers great actors in the first persecutions of the Christians who being fearefully tormented in body and soule at their deaths took care only that the Christians might not know what they suffered lest they should receive comfort and their God glory therein Certainly Herod would have been more affected if he had thought that we should have knowne how his pride was punished with those sudden wormes Acts 12.23 then with the punishment it selfe This is a self-reproofe even in this though he will not suffer it to break out to the edification of others there is some kinde of chiding himself for some thing mis-done But is there any comfort in this reproofe Consolatio Truly beloved I can hardly speak comfortably of such a man after he is dead that dyes in such a dis-affection loath that God should receive glory or his servants edification by these judgements But even with such a man if I assisted at his death-bed I would proceed with a hope to infuse comfort even from that dis-affection of his As long as I saw him in any acknowledgement though a negligent nay though a malignant a despitefull acknowledgement of God as long as I found him loath that God should receive glory even from that loathnesse from that reproofe from that acknowledgement That there is a God to whom glory is due I would hope to draw him to glorifie that God before his last gasp My zeale should last as long as his wives officiousnesse or his childrens or friends or servants obsequiousnesse or the solicitude of his Physitians should as long as there were breath they would minister some help as long as there were any sense of God I would hope to do some good And so much comfort may arise even out of this reproofe of the world as the world is only the wicked world In the last sense the world signifies the Saints the Elect the good men of the world Mundus sancti John 14.31 John 17.21 beleeving and persevering men Of those Christ sayes The world shall know that I love the Father And That the world may beleeve that thou hast sent me And this world that is the godliest of this world have many reproofes many corrections upon them That outwardly they are the prey of the wicked and inwardly have that Stimulum carnis which is the devils Solicitor and round about them they see nothing but profanation of his word mis-imployment of his works his creatures mis-constructions of his actions his judgements blasphemy of his name negligence and under-valuation of his Sacraments violation of his Sabbaths and holy convocations O what a bitter reproofe what a manifest evidence of the infirmity nay of the malignity of man is this if it be put home and throughly considered That even the goodnesse of man gets to no higher a degree but to have been the occasion of the greatest ill the greatest cruelty that ever was done the crucifying of the Lord of life The better a man is the more he concurred towards being the cause of Christs death which is a strange but a true and a pious consideration Dilexit mundum He loved the world and he came to save the world That is most especially and effectually those that should beleeve in him in the world and live according to that beliefe and die according to that life If there had been no such Christ had not died never been crucified So that impenitent men mis-beleeving men have not put Christ to death but it is we we whom he loves we that love him that have crucified him In what rank then of opposition against Christ shall we place our sins since even our faith and good works have been so farre the cause why Christ died that but for the salvation of such men Beleevers Workers Perseverers Christ had not died This then is the reproofe of the world that is of the Saints of God in the world Psal 84.10 that though I had rather be a doore-keeper in the house of my God I must dwell in the tents of wickednesse That though my zeale consume me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words Psal 119.138 I must stay amongst them that have forgotten thy words But this and all other reproofes that arise in the godly that we may still keep up that consideration that he that reproves us is The Comforter have this comfort in them that these faults that I indure in others God hath either pardoned in me or kept from me and that though this world be wicked yet when I shall come to the next world I shall finde Noah that had been drunk and Lot Gen. 9.21 Gen. 19.33 Numb 11.11 that had been incestuous and Moses that murmured at Gods proceedings and Iob and Ieremy and Ionas impatient even to imprecations against themselves Christs owne Disciples ambitious of worldly preferment his Apostles forsaking him his great Apostle forswearing him And Mary Magdalen that had been I know not what sinner and David that had been all I leave none so ill in this world but I may carry one that was or finde some that had been as ill as they in heaven and that blood of Christ Jesus which hath brought them thither is offered to them that are here who may be successors in their repentance as they are in their sins And so have you all intended for the Person the Comforter and the Action Reproofe and the Subject the World remaines only that for which there remaines but a little time the Time Cum venerit When the Comforter comes he will proceed thus We use to note three Advents three commings of Christ Cum venerit An Advent of Humiliation when he came in the flesh an Advent of glory when he shall come to judgement and between these an Advent of grace in his gracious working in us in this life and this middlemost Advent of Christ is the Advent of the Holy Ghost in this text when Christ works in us the Holy Ghost comes to us And so powerfull is his comming that whereas he that sent him Christ Jesus himself Came unto his own and his own received him not John 1.11 The Holy Ghost never comes to his owne but they receive him for onely by receiving him they are his owne for besides his title of Creation by which we are all his with the Father and the Son as there is a particular title accrewed to the Son by Redemption so is there to the Holy Ghost of certaine persons upon whom he sheds the comfort of his application The Holy Ghost picks out and chooses whom he will Spirat ubi vult perchance me that speake perchance him that heares perchance him that shut his eyes yester-night and opened them this morning in the guiltinesse of sin and repents it now perchance him that hath been in the meditation of an usurious contract of an ambitious supplantation of a licentious solicitation since he came hither into Gods
thought or said or done any thing offensive to him It is therefore onely in the third sense of this word as it is Verbum Ecclesiasticum A word which S. Paul and the other Scriptures and the Church and Ecclesiasticall Writers have used to expresse our Righteousnesse our Justification by And that is onely by the way of pardon and remission of sins sealed to us in the blood of Christ Jesus that what kinde of sinners soever we were before yet that is applied to us Such and such you were before But ye are justified by the name of the Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6 11. Now the reproofe of the World the convincing of the World the bringing of the World to the knowledg that as they are all sub peccato under sin by the sin of another so there is a righteousnesse of another that must prevaile for all their Pardons this reproof this convincing this instruction of the World is thus wrought That the whole World consisting of Jews and Gentiles when the Holy Ghost had done enough for the convincing of both these enough for the overthrowing of all arguments which could either be brought by the Jew for the righteousnesse of the Law or by the Gentile for the righteousnesse of Works all which is abundantly done by the Holy Ghost in the Epistles of S. Paul and other Scriptures when the Holy Ghost had possessed the Church of God of these all-sufficient Scriptures Then the promise of Christ was performed and then though all the world were not presently converted yet it was presently convinced by the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost had provided in those Scriptures of which he is the Author that nothing could be said in the Worlds behalfe for any other Righteousnesse then by way of pardon in the blood of Christ Thus much the Holy Ghost tels us And if we will search after more then hee is pleased to tell us that is to rack the Holy Ghost to over-labour him to examine him upon such Intergatories as belongs not to us to minister unto him Curious men are not content to know That our debt is paid by Christ but they will know farther whether Christ have paid it with his owne hands or given us money to pay it our selves whether his Righteousness before it do us any good be not first made ours by Imputation or by Inhesion They must know whose money and then what money Gold or Silver whether his active obedience in fulfilling the Law or his passive obedience in shedding his blood But all the Commission of the Holy Ghost here is To reprove the World of righteousnesse To convince all Sects in the World that shall constitute any other righteousnesse then a free pardon by the incorruptible and invaluable and inexhaustible blood of Christ Jesus By that pardon his Righteousnesse is ours How it is made so or by what name we shall call our title or estate or interest in his Righteousnesse let us not enquire The termes of satisfaction in Christ of acceptation in the Father of imputation to us or inhesion in us are all pious and religious phrases and something they expresse but yet none of these Satisfaction Acceptation Imputation Inhesion will reach home to satisfie them that will needs inquire Quo modo by what meanes Christs Righteousnesse is made ours This is as far as we need go Ad eundem modum justi sumus coram Deo quo cor am eo Christus fuit peccator So as God made Christ sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we are made the righteousnesse of God in him so but how was that He that can finde no comfort in this Doctrine till he finde How Christ was made sin and we righteousnesse till he can expresse Quo modo robs himself of a great deale of peacefull refreshing which his conscience might receive in tasting the thing it selfe in a holy and humble simplicity without vexing his owne or other mens consciences or troubling the peace of the Church with impertinent and inextricable curiosities Those questions are not so impertinent but they are in a great part unnecessary which are moved about the cause of our righteousnesse our justification Alas let us be content that God is the cause and seeke no other We must never slacken that protestation That good works are no cause of our justification But we must alwaies keepe up a right signification of that word Cause For Faith it selfe is no cause no such cause as that I can merit Heaven by faith What doe I merit of the King by beleeving that he is the undoubted Heire to all his Dominions or by beleeving that he governes well if I live not in obedience to his Laws If it were possible to beleeve aright and yet live ill my faith should doe me no good The best faith is not worth Heaven The value of it grows Ex pacto That God hath made that Covenant that Contract Crede vives onely beleeve and thou shalt be safe Faith is but one of those things which in severall senses are said to justifie us It is truly saîd of God Deus solus justificat God only justifies us Efficienter nothing can effect it nothing can worke towards it but onely the meere goodnesse of God And it is truly said of Christ Christus solus justificat Christ onely justifies us Materialiter nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransome for our sins but the obedience of Christ It is also truly said Sola fides justificat Onely faith justifies us Instrumentaliter nothing apprehends nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee but thy faith And lastly it is as truly said Sola opera justificant Onely our works justifie us Declaratoriè Only thy good life can assure thy conscience and the World that thou art justified As the efficient justification the gracious purpose of God had done us no good without the materiall satisfaction the death of Christ had followed And as that materiall satisfaction the death of Christ would do me no good without the instrumentall justification the apprehension by faith so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification by which all is pleaded and established God enters not into our materiall justification that is onely Christs Christ enters not into our instrumentall justification that is onely faiths Faith enters not into our declaratory justification for faith is secret and declaration belongs to workes Neither of these can be said to justifie us alone so as that we may take the chaine in pieces and thinke to be justified by any one link thereof by God without Christ by Christ without faith or by faith without works And yet every one of these justifies us alone so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that meanes by which any of these are said to justifie us Consider we then our selves as men fallen downe into a darke and deepe pit and justification as a chaine consisting of
then to make it for in the Creation there was no reluctation of the Creature for there was no Creature but to divert Nature out of her setled course is a conquest upon a resisting adversary and powerfull in a prescription The Recedat Mare Let the Sea go back and the Sistat Sol Let the Sun stand still met with some kinde of opposition in Nature but in the Fiat Mare and Fiat Sol Let there be a Sea and a Sun God met with no opposition no Nature August he met with nothing And therefore Interrogemus Miracula quid nobis de Christo loquantur Let us aske his Miracles and they will make us understand Christ Habent enim si intelligantur linguam suam If wee understand them that is If wee would understand them they speake loud enough and plaine enough In his Miraculous birth of a Virgin In his Miraculous disputation with Doctors at twelve yeares of age in his fasting in his invisibility in his walking upon the Sea in his re-assuming his body in the Resurrection Christ spoke in himselfe in the language of Miracles So also had they a loud and a plaine voyce in other men In his Miraculous curing the sick raising the dead dispossessing the Devill Christ spoke in other men in the language of Miracles And he did so also as in himselfe and in other men so in other things In the miraculous change of Water into Wine in the drying up of the Fig-tree In feeding five thousand with five loaves in shutting up the Sun in darknesse and opening the graves of the Dead to light in bringing plenty of Fish to the Net and in putting money into the mouth of a Fish at the Angle Christ spoke in all these Creatures in the language of Miracles So the Scriptures testifie of his Deity and so doe his Miracles and so doe those Conclusions which arise from thence though we consider but that one which is expressed in this part of the Text that he is the Lord If any love not the Lord c. We reason thus God gives not his glory to others Dominus and his glory is in his Essentiall Name and in his Attributes and to whomsoever he gives them because they cannot be given from God he who hath them is God Of these none is so peculiar to him as the name of Iehova the name which for reverence the Jews forbore to sound and in the room therof ever sounded Adonai and Adonai is Dominus the name of this Text The Lord Christ by being the Lord thus is Jehovah and if Jehovah God It is Tertullians observation Et ss Pater sit dicatur Dominus Filius sit dicatur Deus That though the Father be the Lord and be called the Lord and though the Son be God and be called God yet sayes he the manner of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament is to call the Father God and the Son the Lord. He is Lord with the Father as he was Con-creator his Collegue in the Creation But for that Dominion and Lordship which he hath by his Purchase by his Passion Calcavit solus I le trod the Wine-presse alone not onely no man but no Person of the Trinity redeemed us by suffering for us but he For the ordinary appellation of Lord in the New Testament which is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã it is but a name of Civility not onely no name implying Divine worship but not implying any distinction of ranke or degree amongst men Mary Magdalen speaks of Christ and speakes to the Gardiner as she thought and both in one and the same word it is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Dominus Lord to both when she sayes They have taken away my Lord meaning Christ Iohn 20.15 and when she saies to the Gardiner Sir if thou hast borne him hence it is the same word too But all that reaches not to the style of this Text The Lord for here The Lord is God 1 Cor. 12.3 And no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost All that was written in the Scriptures all that was established by Miracles all that is deduced by reason conduces to this determines in this That every tongue should confesse that Iesus Christ is the Lord in which essentiall name the name of his nature he is first proposed as the object of our love Now this Lord Lord for ever is become that which he was not for ever Christus otherwise then in a secondary consideration that is Christ which implies a person prepared and sitted and anointed to a peculiar Office in this World And can the Lord the ever-living Lord the Son of God the onely Son of God God himselfe have any preferment preferment by an Office in this World Was it a preferment to Dionysius who was before in that height over men to become a schoole-master over boyes Were it a preferment to the Kings Son to be made governour over a Bee-hive or over-seer over an Ant-hill And men nay Mankinde is no more not that not a Bee-hive not an Ant-hill compared to this Person who being the Lord would become Christ As he was the Lord we considered him as God and that there is a God naturall reason can comprehend As he is Christ we consider him God and Man and such a Person naturall reason not rooted in the Scriptures not illustrated by the Scriptures cannot comprehend Man will much easilier beleeve the Lord that is God then Christ that is God and Man in one Person Christ then is the style the title of his Office Non Nomen sed Appellatio Tertul. Christ is not his Name but his Addition Vnctus significatur sayes he unctus non magis nomen quam vestitus calceatus Christ signifies but anointed and anointed is no more a Name then apparelled or shod is a name So as hee was apparelled in our flesh and his apparell dyed red in his owne blood so as he was shod to tread the Wine-presse for us So he was Christ That it is Nomen Sacramenti as S. Aug. cals it A mystery is easily agreed to for all the mysteries of all the Religions in the World are but Milke in respect of this Bone but Catechismes in respect of this Schoole-point but Alphabets in respect of this hard Style God and Man in one person That it is Nomen Sacramenti as Augustine says is easie but that it is Nuncupatio potestatis as Lactantius cals it is somewhat strange that it is an office of power a title of honour for the Creator to become a Creature and the Lord of life the object of death nay the seat of death in whom death did sojourn three dayes can Lactantius call this a declaration of power is this Nuncupatio potestatis a title of honour Beloved he does and he may for it was so for it was an Annointing Exod. 29.7 Christas is unctus and unction was the Consecration of Priests Thou shalt take
for thee Martyrium and his blessed Servants the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did so for him and thee for his glory for thy example Can there be any ill any losse in giving thy life for him Is it not a part of the reward it selfe the honour to suffer for him Muk 10.30 When Christ sayes Whosoever loses any thing for my sake and the Gospels he shall have a hundred fold in houses and lands with persecutions wee need not limit that clause of the Promise with persecutions to be That in the midst of persecutions God will give us temporall blessings but that in the midst of temporall blessings God will give us persecutions that it shall be a part of his mercy to be delivered from the danger of being puffed up by those temporall abundances by having a mixture of adversity and persecutions and then Tertul. what ill what losse is there in laying downe this life for him Quid hoc mali est quod martyrialis mali non habet timorem pudorem tergiversationem poenitentiam deplorationem What kinde of evill is this which when it came to the highest Ad malum martyriale to martyrdome to death did neither imprint in our holy predecessors in the Primitive Church Timorem any feare that it would come not Tergiversationem any recanting lest it should come nor Pudorem any shame when it was come nor Poenitentiam any repentance that they would suffer it to come nor Deplorationem any lamentation by their heires and Executors because they lost all when it was come Quid mali What kinde of evill can I call this in laying down my life for this Lord of life Cujus reus gaudet Idem when those Martyrs called that guiltinesse a joy Cujus accusatio votum and the accusation a satisfaction Cujus poena foelicitas and the suffering perfect happinesse Love thy neighbour as thy selfe is the farthest of that Commandement but love God above thy selfe for indeed in doing so thou dost but love thy selfe still Remember that thy soule is thy selfe and as if that be lost nothing is gained so if that be gained nothing is lost whatsoever become of this life Love him then Dominus as he is presented to thee here Love the Lord love Christ love Iesus If when thou lookest upon him as the Lord thou findest frowns and wrinkles in his face apprehensions of him as of a Judge and occasions of feare doe not run away from him in that apprehension look upon him in that angle in that line awhile and that feare shall bring thee to love and as he is Lord thou shalt see him in the beauty and lovelinesse of his creatures in the order and succession of causes and effects and in that harmony and musique of the peace between him and thy foule As he is the Lord thou wilt feare him but no man feares God truly but that that feare ends in love Love him as he is the Lord Christus that would have nothing perish that he hath made And love him as he is Christ that hath made himselfe man too that thou mightest not perish Love him as the Lord that could shew mercy and love him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen Returne againe and againe to that mysterious person Christ And let me tell you that though the Fathers never forbore to call the blessed Virgin Mary Deiparam the Mother of God yet in Damascens time they would not admit that name Christiparam that she was the Mother of Christ Not that there is any reason to deny her that name now but because then that great Heretique Nestorius to avoid that name in which the rest agreed Deiparam for he thought not Christ to be God invented a new name Christiparam Though it be true in it self that that blessed Virgin is Christipara yet because it was the invention of an Heretique and a fundamentall Heretique who though he thought Christ to be anointed by the Holy Ghost above his fellowes yet did not beleeve him to be God Damascen and his Age refused that addition to the blessed Virgin So reverently were they affected so jealously were they enamoured of that name Christ the name which implyed his Unction his Commission the Decree by which he was made a Person able to redeeme thy soule And in that contemplation say with Andrew to his brother Peter Invenimus Messiam I have found the Messias I could finde no meanes of salvation in my selfe nay no such meanes to direct God upon by my prayer or by a wish as hee hath taken but God himselfe hath found a way a Messias His Son shall bee made man And Inveni Messiam I have found him and found that he who by his Inearnation was made able to save me so he was Christ by his actuall passion hath saved me and so I love him as Iesus Christ loved Stephen all the way Iesus for all the way Stephen was disposed to Christs glory but in the agony of death death suffered for him Christ expressed his love most in opening the windowes Acts 7.56 the curtaines of heaven it selfe to see Stephen dye and to shew himselfe to Stephen I love my Saviour as he is The Lord He that studies my salvation And as Christ made a person able to work my salvation but when I see him in the third notion Iesus accomplishing my salvation by an actuall death I see those hands stretched out that stretched out the heavens and those feet racked to which they that racked them are foot-stooles I heare him from whom his nearest friends fled pray for his enemies and him whom his Father forsooke not forsake his brethren I see him that cloathes this body with his creatures or else it would wither and cloathes this soule with his Righteousnesse or else it would perish hang naked upon the Crosse And him that hath him that is the Fountaine of the water of life cry out He thirsts when that voyce overtakes me in my crosse wayes in the world Is it nothing to you all you that passe by Lament 1.12 Behold and see if there by any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger When I conceit when I contemplate my Saviour thus I love the Lord and there is a reverent adoration in that love I love Christ and there is a mysterious admiration in that love but I love Iesus and there is a tender compassion in that love and I am content to suffer with him and to suffer for him rather then see any diminution of his glory by my prevarication And he that loves not thus that loves not the Lord God and God manifested in Christ Anathema Maranatha which is our next and our last Part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the Apostle by way of Imprecation 3 Part. Imprecatio that he wished it so or pronounced by way
tastlesse things Compare the Prophets with the Son and even the promises of God 2 King 4.34 in them are faint and dilute things Elishaes staffe in the hand of Gehazi his servant would not recover the Shunamites dead child but when Elisha himselfe came and put his mouth upon the childs mouth that did In the mouth of Christs former servants there was a preparation but effect and consummation in his owne mouth In the Old Testament at first God kissed man and so breathed the breath of life and made him a man In the New Testament Christ kissed man he breathed the breath of everlasting life the holy Ghost into his Apostles and so made the man a blessed man Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 As in death there is a transmigration of the soule so in this spirituall love and this expressing of it by this kisse there is a transfusion of the soule too And as we find in Gellius a Poëm of Platoes where he sayes he knew one so extremely passionate Vt parùm affuit quin moreretur in osculo much more is it true in this heavenly union expressed in this kisse as S. Ambrose delivers it Per osculum adhaeret anima Deo et transfunditur spiritus osculantis In this kisse where Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other In this person where the Divine and the humane nature have kissed each other Psal 85.10 In this Christian Church where Grace and Sacraments visible and invisible meanes of salvation have kissed each other Love is as strong as death my soule is united to my Saviour now in my life as in death and I am already made one spirit with him and whatsoever death can doe this kisse this union can doe that is give me a present an immediate possession of the kingdome of heaven And as the most mountainous parts of this kingdome are as well within the kingdome as a garden so in the midst of the calamities and incommodities of this life I am still in the kingdome of heaven In the Old Testament it was but a contract but per verba de futuro Sponsabo I will marry thee Hos 2.19 Mat. 9.15 but now that Christ is come the Bride-groome is with us for ever and the children of the Bride-chamber cannot mourne Now by this we are slid into our fourth and last branch of our first part Exhortatic The perswasion to come to this holy kisse though defamed by treachery though depraved by licentiousnesse since God invites us to it by so many good uses thereof in his Word It is an imputation laid upon Nero That Neque adveniens neqùe profisciscens That whether comming or going he never kissed any And Christ himselfe imputes it to Simon as a neglect of him That when he came into his house he did not kisse him Luke 7.45 August This then was in use first among kinsfolks In illa simplicitate antiquorum propinqui propinquos osculabantur In those innocent and harmlesse times persons neare in bloud did kisse one another And in that right and not onely as a stranger Iacob kissed Rachel Gen. 29.12 and told her how near of kin he was to her There is no person so neare of kin to thee as Christ Jesus Christ Jesus thy Father as he created thee and thy brother as he took thy nature Thy Father as he provided an inheritance for thee and thy brother as he divided this inheritance with thee and as he dyed to give thee possession of that inheritance He that is Nutritius thy Foster-father who hath nursed thee in his house in the Christian Church and thy Twin-brother so like thee as that his Father and thine in him shall not know you from one another but mingle your conditions so as that he shall find thy sins in him and his righteousnesse in thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as thy kinsman This kisse was also in use as Symbolum subjectionis A recognition of soveraignty or power Pharaoh sayes to Ioseph Thou shalt be over my house Gen. 41.40 and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled there the Originall is All my people shall kisse thy face This is the Lord Paramount the Soveraigne Lord of all The Lord Jesus Iesus Phil. 2.10 Mat. 28.18 at whose name every knee must bow in heaven in earth and in hell Iesus into whose hands all power in heaven and in earth is given Iesus who hath opened a way to our Appeal from all powers upon earth Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soule Iesus Mat. 10.28 who is the Lion and the Lambe too powerfull upon others accessible unto thee Osculamini Filium Kisse this Son as he is thy Soveraigne It was in use likewise In discessu friends parting kissed Gen. 31.15 Act. 20.37 Laban rose up early in the morning and kissed his sons and his daughters and departed And at Pauls departing they fell on his neck and wept and kissed him When thou departest to thy worldly businesses to thy six dayes labour kisse him take leave of him and remember that all that while thou art gone upon his errand and though thou worke for thy family and for thy posterity yet thou workest in his vineyard and dost his worke They kissed too In reditu Esau ran to meet his brother and fell on his neck and kissed him Gen. 33.4 When thou returnest to his house after thy six dayes labour to celebrate his Sabbath kisse him there and be able to give him some good account from Sabbath to Sabbath from week to week of thy stewardship and thou wilt never be bankrupt They kissed in reconciliation David kissed Absalon 2 Sam. 14.33 If thou have not discharged thy stewardship well Restore to man who is damnified therein Confesse to God who hath suffered in that sin Reconcile thy selfe to him and kisse him in the Sacrament in the seale of Reconciliation They kissed in a religious reverence even of false gods I have sayes God 2 King 19 18. seaven thousand knees that have not bowed unto Baal and mouths that have not kissed him Let every one of us kisse the true God in keeping his knees from bowing to a false his lips from assenting his hands from subscribing to an Idolatrous worship And as they kissed In Symbolum concordiae Rom. 16.16 which was another use thereof Salute one another with a holy kisse upon which custome Iustin Martyr sayes Osculum ante Eucharistiam before the Communion the Congregation kissed to testifie their unity in faith in him to whom they were then Sacramentally to be united as well as Spiritually And Tertullian calls it Osculum signaculum Orationis Because they ended their publique Prayers with that seale of unity and concord Let every Congregation kisse him so at every meeting to seale to him a new band a new vow that they will never break in departing from any part of his
Reformation when in no long time the number of them that had forsaken Rome was as great as of them that staid with her Now to give way to this ascent of this Angel in thy selfe make the way smooth and make thy soule souple finde thou a growth of the Gospel in thy faith and let us finde it in thy life It is not in thy power to say to this Angel as Ioshua said to the Sun Siste Iosh 10.12 stand still It will not stand still If thou finde it not ascending it descends If thy comforts in the Gospel of Christ Jesus grow not they decay If thou profit not by the Gospel thou losest by it If thou live not by it nothing can redeeme thee thou dyest by it Wee speake of going up and downe a staire it is all one staire of going to and from the City it is all one way of comming in and going out of a house it is all one doore So is there a savour of life unto life and a savour of death unto death in the Gospel but it is all one Gospel If this Angel of the East have appeared unto thee the light of the Gospel have shined upon thee and it have not ascended in thee if it have not made thee wiser and wiser and better and better too thou hast stopped that light vexed grieved quenched that Spirit for the naturall progresse of this Angel of the East is to ascend the naturall motion and working of the Gospel is to make thee more and more confident in Gods deliverance lesse and lesse subject to rely upon the weake helps and miserable comforts of this world To this purpose this Angel ascends that is proceeds in the manifestation of his Power and of his readinesse to succour us Of his Power in this That he hath the seales of the living God I saw an Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God which is our next Consideration Of the living God The gods of the Nations are all dead gods Sigillum Dei viventis either such Gods as never had life stones and gold and silver or such gods at best as were never gods till they were dead for men that had benefited the world in any publique and generall invention or otherwise were made gods after their deaths which was a miserable deification a miserable godhead that grew out of corruption a miserable eternity that begun at all but especially that begun in death and they were not gods till they dyed But our Angel had the Seale of the living God that is Power to give life to others Now if we seeke for this seale in the naturall Angels they have it not for this Seale is some visible thing whereby we are assisted to salvation and the Angels have no such They are made keepers of this seale sometimes but permanently they have it not This Seale of comfort was put into an Angels hand Ezek. 9.4 when he was to set a marke upon the foreheads of all them that mourned He had a visible thing Inke to marke them withall But it was not said to him Vade signa omnes Creaturas Go and set this marke upon every Creature as it was to the Minister of the Gospel Go and preach to every Creature Marke 16.15 If wee seeke this seale in the great Angel the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus It is true he hath it for Omnis potestas dâta All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth and Omne judicium Mat. 28.18 Iohn 5.22 The Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Christ as the Son of man executes a Judgement and hath a Power which he hath not but by gift by Commission by vertue of this Seale from his Father But because it is not onely so in him That he hath the Seale of the living God but He is this Seale himselfe Colos 1.15 Heb. 1.3 Iohn 6.27 Hee is the Image of the invisible God He is the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse Image of his Person It is not onely his Commission that is sealed but his Nature He himselfe is sealed Him hath God the Father sealed since I say naturall Angels though they have sometimes this seale they have it not alwaies they have not a Commission from God to apply his mercies to man by any ordinary and visible meanes since the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus hath it but hath it so as that he is it too the third sort of Angels the Church-Angels the Ministers of the Gospell are they who most properly can be said to have this Seale by a fixed and permanent possession and a power to apply it to particular men in all emergent necessities according to the institution of that living God whose seale it is Now the great power which is given by God in giving this seale to these Angels hath a lively representation such as a shadow can give in the history of Ioseph Pharaoh sayes to him Thou shalt be over my house and over all the land of Egypt Gen. 41.40 steward of the Kings house and steward of the Kingdome And at thy word shall all my people be armed Constable and Marshall too and to invest him in all these and more Pharaoh gave him his ring his seale not his seale onely to those severall patents to himselfe but the keeping of that seale for the good of others This temporall seale of Pharoh was a representation of the seale of the living God But there is a more expresse type of it in Exodus Thou shalt grave sayes God to Moses upon a plate of pure gold Lxod. 28.36 as Signets are graved Holinesse to the Lord and it shall be upon the forehead of Aaron What to do That the people may be accepted of him There must be a holinesse to the Lord and that presented by Aaron the Priest to God that the people may be acceptable to the Lord So that this seale of the living God in these Angels of our text is The Sacraments of the New Testament and the Absolution of sinnes by which when Gods people come to a Holinesse to the Lord in a true repentance and that that holinesse that is that repentance is made knowne to Aaron to the Priest and he presents it to the Lord that Priest his Minister seals to them in those his Ordinances Gods acceptation of this degree of holinesse he seals this Reconciliation between God and his people And a contract of future concurrence with his subsequent grace This is the power given by God to this ascending Angel and we extend that no farther but hasten to his haste his readinesse to succour us in which we proposed for the first consideration That this Angel of light manifested and discovered to us who our enemies were He cryed out to them who were ready to do mischiefe with a loud voyce so that we might heare him and know them Though in all Court-cases it be
any subject a falling for for our bodies we say a man is falne sick And for his state falne poore And for his mind falne mad And for his conscience falne desperate we are borne low and yet we fall every way lower so universall is our falling sicknesse Sin it selfe is but a falling The irremediable sin of the Angels The undeterminable sinne of Adam is called but so The fall of Adam The fall of Angels And therefore the effectuall visitation of the holy Ghost to man is called a falling too we are fallen so low as that when the holy Ghost is pleased to fetch us againe and to infuse his grace he is still said to fall upon us But the fall which we consider in the Text is not a figurative falling not into a decay of estate nor decay of health nor a spirituall falling into sin a decay of grace but it is a medicinall falling a falling under Gods hand but such a falling under his hand as that he takes not off his hand from him that is falne but throwes him downe therefore that he may raise him To this posture he brings Paul now when he was to re-inanimate him with his spirit rather to pre-inanimate him for indeed no man hath a soule till he have grace Christ who in his humane nature hath received from the Father all Judgement and power and dominion over this world hath received all this upon that condition that he shall governe in this manner Psal 2.8 Aske of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance sayes the Father How is he to use them when he hath them Thus Thou shalt breake them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potters vessell Now God meant well to the Nations in this bruising and breaking of them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformarion for Christ askes the Nations for an Inheritance not for a triumph therefore it is intended of his way of governing them and his way is to bruise and beat them that is first to cast them downe before he can raise them up first to breake them before he can make them in his fashion August Novit Dominus vulnerare ad amorem The Lord and onely the Lord knowes how to wound us out of love more then that how to wound us into love more then all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound it selfe with the very affliction that he inflicts upon us The Lord knowes how to strike us so as that we shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kisse that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit sayes the same Father No man kills his enemy therefore that his enemy might have a better life in heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end Therefore he brings us to death that by that gate he might lead us into life everlasting And he hath not discovered but made that Northerne passage to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity and tribulation to Paradise to the heavenly Jerusalem There are fruits that ripen not but by frost There are natures there are scarce any other that dispose not themselves to God but by affliction And as Nature lookes for the season for ripening and does not all before so Grace lookes for the assent of the soule and does not perfect the whole worke till that come It is Nature that brings the season and it is Grace that brings the assent but till the season for the fruit till the assent of the soule come all is not done Therefore God begun in this way with Saul and in this way he led him all his life Tot pertulit mortes quot vixit dies He dyed as many deaths as he lived dayes Chrysost for so himselfe sayes Quotidie morior I die daily God gave him sucke in blood and his owne blood was his daily drink He catechized him with calamities at first and calamities were his daily Sermons and meditations after and to authorize the hands of others upon him and to accustome him to submit himself to the hands of others without murmuring Christ himself strikes the first blow and with that Cecidit he fell which was our first consideration in his humiliation and then Cecidit in terram He fell to the ground which is our next I take no farther occasion from this Circumstance but to arme you with consolation In terram how low soever God be pleased to cast you Though it be to the earth yet he does not so much cast you downe in doing that as bring you home Death is not a banishing of you out of this world but it is a visitation of your kindred that lie in the earth neither are any nearer of kin to you then the earth it selfe and the wormes of the earth You heap earth upon your soules and encumber them with more and more flesh by a superfluous and luxuriant diet You adde earth to earth in new purchases and measure not by Acres but by Manors nor by Manors but by Shires And there is a little Quillet a little Close worth all these A quiet Grave And therefore when thou readest That God makes thy bed in thy sicknesse rejoyce in this not onely that he makes that bed where thou dost lie but that bed where thou shalt lie That that God that made the whole earth is now making thy bed in the earth a quiet grave where thou shalt sleep in peace till the Angels Trumpet wake thee at the Resurrection to that Judgement where thy peace shall be made before thou commest and writ and sealed in the blood of the Lamb. Saul falls to the earth So farre But he falls no lower God brings his servants to a great lownesse here but he brings upon no man a perverse sense or a distrustfull suspition of falling lower hereafter His hand strikes us to the earth by way of humiliation But it is not his hand that strikes us into hell by way of desperation Will you tell me that you have observed and studied Gods way upon you all your life and out of that can conclude what God meanes to doe with you after this life That God took away your Parents in your infancy and left you Orphanes then That he hath crossed you in all your labours in your calling ever since That he hath opened you to dishonours and calumnies and mis-interpretations in things well intended by you That he hath multiplied ficknesses upon you and given you thereby an assurance of a miserable and a short life of few and evill dayes nay That he hath suffered you to fall into sins that you your selves have hated To continue in sins that you your selves have been weary of To relapse into sins that you your selves have repented And will you conclude out of this that God had no good purpose upon you that if ever
can resolve thee scatter thee annihilate thee with a word and yet afford so many words so many houres conferences so many Sermons to reclaime thee why persecutest Thou Him Answer this question with Sauls answer to this question by another question Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me do Deliver thy selfe over to the will of God and God shall deliver thee over as he did Saul to Ananias provide thee by his Ministery in his Ordinance means to rectifie thee in all dejection of spirit light to cleare thee in all perplexities of conscience in the wayes of thy pilgrimage and more and more effectuall seals thereof at the houre of thy transmigration into his joy and thine eternall rest SERM. XLVII Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 27. Ian. 1627. ACT. 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more WHen S. Chrysostome calls Christmas day Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitan Holyday the principall festivall of the Church he is likely to intend onely those festivalls which were of the Churches later institution and means not to enwrap the Sabbath in that comparison As S. Augustine sayes of the Sacrament of Baptisme that it is Limen Ecclesiae The threshold over which we step into the Church so is Christmas day Limen festorum The threshold over which we step into the festivall celebration of some other of Christs actions and passions and victorious overcommings of all the Acts of his Passion such as his Resurrection and Ascension for but for Christmas day we could celebrate none of these dayes And so that day is Limen festorum The threshold over which we passe to the rest But the Sabbath is not onely Limen or Ianua Ecclesiae The doore by which we enter into the Church and into the consideration what the Church hath done but Limen mundi The doore by which we enter into the consideration of the World how and when the World was made of nothing at the Creation without which we had been so far from knowing that there had been a Church or that there had been a God as that we our selves had had no being at all And therefore as our very being is before all degrees of well-being so is the Sabbath which remembers us of our being before all other festivalls that present and refresh to us the memory of our well-being Especially to us to whom it is not onely a Sabbath as the Sabbath is a day of Rest in respect of the Creation but Dies Dominicus The Lords day in respect of the Redemption of the world because the consummation of that worke of Redemption for all that was to be done in this world which was the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus was accomplished upon that day Levit. 23. which is our Sabbath But yet as it did please God to accompany the Great day the Sabbath with other solemne dayes too The Passeover and Pentecost Trumpets and Tabernacles and others and to call those other dayes Sabbaths as well as the Sabbath it selfe so since he is pleased that in the Christian Church other dayes of Holy Convocations should also be instituted I make account that in some measure I do both offices both for observing those particular festivalls that fall in the weeke and also for the making of those particular festivalls to serve the Sabbath when upon the Sabbath ensuing or preceding such or such a festivall in the weeke I take occasion to speake of that festivall which fell into the compasse of that weeke for by this course that festivall is not pretermitted nor neglected the particular festivall is remembred And then as God receives honour in the honour of his Saints so the Sabbath hath an honour when the festivalls and commemorations of those Saints are reserved to waite upon the Sabbath Hence is it that as elsewhere I often do so that is Celebrate some festivall that fals in the weeke upon the Sabbath so in this place upon this very day I have done the like and returne now to do so againe that is to celebrate the memory of our Apostle S. Paul to day though there be a day past since his day was in the ordinary course to have been celebrated The last time that I did so I did it in handling those words And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me which was the very act of his Conversion A period and a passage which the Church celebrates in none but in S. Paul though many others were strangely converted too she celebrates none but his In the words chosen for this day And now behold I know c. wee shall reduce to your memories first His proceeding in the Church after he was called I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you And then the ease the reposednes the acquiescence that he had in that knowledge which God by his Spirit had given him of the approach of his dissolution and departure out of this life I know that all you shall see my face no more As those things which we see in a glasse for the most part must be behinde us so that that makes our transmigration in death comfortable unto us must be behinde us in the testimony of a good Conscience for things formerly done Now behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone c. In handling of which words our Method shall be this Our generall parts Divisio being as we have already intimated these two His way and his End His painfull course and his cheerfull finishing of his course His laborious battaile and his victorious triumph In the first I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you wee shall see first That there is a Transivi as well as a Requievi acceptable to God A discharge of a Duty as well in going from one place to another as in a perpetuall Residence upon one Transivi sayes our Apostle I have gone among you But then in a second consideration in that first part That that makes his going acceptable to God is because he goes to preach Transivi praedicans I have gone preaching And then lastly in that first part That that that makes his Preaching acceptable is that he preached the kingdome of God Transivi praedicans regnum Dei I have gone amongst you preaching the kingdome of God And in these three characters of S. Pauls Ministery first Labour and Assiduity And then Labour bestowed upon the right means Preaching And lastly Preaching to the right end to edification advancing the kingdome of God we shall determine our first part In our second part we passe from his Transition to his Transmigration from his going up and downe in the world to his departing out of the world And now behold I know that yee shall see my face no more In which we
ends but since we see no such ends nor use of this we are at our liberty to doubt of the thing it selfe God told Simeon that he should not die till he had seen Christ but he did not tell him that he should die as soone as he had seen him But so much as was told him was enough to make him content to die when he had seen him and to come to his Nunc dimittis to that chearfulnesse as to sing his owne Requiem God accustomed S. Paul no doubt to such notifications from him and such apprehensions in himselfe of death as because it was not new it could not be terrible When S. Paul was able to make that protestation I protest by your rejoycing which I have in Christ Iesus our Lord I die dayly 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 11.23 And againe I am in prisons oft and often in deaths I die often No Executioner could have told him you must die to morrow but he could have said Alas I died yesterday and yesterday was twelve-month and seaven yeare and every yeare and month and weeke and day and houre before that There is nothing so neare Immortality as to die daily for not to feele death is Immortality and onely hee shall never feele death that is exercised in the continuall Meditation thereof Continuall Mortification is Immortality As Cordials lose their vertue and become no Cordials if they be taken every day so poysons do their venome too If a man use himselfe to them in small proportions at first he may grow to take any quantity He that takes a dram of Death to day may take an ounce to morrow and a pound after He that begins with that mortification of denying himselfe his delights which is a dram of Death shall be able to suffer the tribulations of this world which is a greater measure of death and then Death it selfe not onely patiently but cheerefully And to such a man death is not a dissolution but a redintegration not a divorce of body and soule but a sending of both divers wayes the soule upward to Heaven the body downeward to the earth to an indissoluble marriage to him who for the salvation of both assumed both our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Psal 2.17 Therefore does S. Paul say of himselfe If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith I joy and rejoyce with you all that is It is a just occasion of our common joy on your part and on mine too And therefore does S. Augustine say in his behalfe whatsoever can be threatned him Si potest vivere tolerabile est Whatsoever does not take away life may be endured for if it could not be endured it would take away life and Si non potest vivere sayes he If it doe take away life what shall he feele when hee is dead He adds the reason of all Opus cum fine merces sine fine Death hath an end but their reward that dye for Christ and their peace that dye in Christ hath no end Therefore was not S. Paul afraid of melancholique apprehensions by drawing his death into contemplation and into discourse he was not afraid to thinke nor to talke of his death But then S. Paul had another end in doing so here which is our last consideration To make the deeper impression in them to whom he preached then by telling them that he knew they should see his face no more This that S. Paul sayes Moriturus he sayes to the Ephesians but not at Ephesus He was departed from thence the yeare before for upon the newes that Claudius the Emperour who persecuted the Christians was dead he purposed to goe by Jerusalem to Rome In that peregrination and visitation of his his way fell out after to be by Miletus a place not far from Ephesus Ver. 22. He was bound in the Spirit as he sayes here to go to Ierusalem and therefore he could not visit them at Ephesus A man may have such obligations even for the service of God upon him as that it shall not be in his power to doe that service which he may owe and desire to pay in some particular Church It was in part S. Pauls case Vers 17. But yet he did what he could from Miletus he sent to Ephesus to call the Elders of that Church thither And then he preached this short but powerfull Sermon And as his manner ever was though still without prevaricating or forbearing to denounce the judgements of God upon them in cases necessary to make those whom he preached or writ to as benevolent and well-affected to him as he could for he was Omnia omnibus Made all things to all men to which purpose it is that he speakes and poures out himselfe Gal 4.14 with such a loving thankfulnesse to the Galatians Ye received me as an Angel of God even as Christ Iesus himselfe pursuing I say this manner of a mutuall endearing and a reciprocall embowelling of himselfe in the Congregation and the Congregation in him as certainely if we consider all unions the naturall union of Parents and children the matrimoniall union of Husband and Wife no union is so spirituall nor so neare to that by which we are made Idem spiritus cum Domino The same Spirit with the Lord as when a good Pastor and a good flock meete and are united in holy affections to one another to unite himselfe to his Ephesians inseparably even after his separation to be still present with them in his everlasting absence and to live with them even after death to make the deeper impressions of all his past and present instructions he speaks to them as a dying man I know you shall see my face no more Why did he so S. Paul did not dye in eleven yeares after this But he dyed to them for bodily presence now They were to see him no more As the day of my death is the day of Judgement to me so this day of his departing was the day of his death to them And for himselfe from this time when he gave this judgement of death upon himselfe all the rest of his life was but a leading far off to the place of execution For first very soone after this Agabus gave him notice of manifold afflictions in that Girdle which we spake of before There he was bound and emprisoned at Jerusalem from thence sent bound to Caesarea practised upon to be killed by the way forced to appeale to Caesar upon that Appeale sent prisoner to Rome ship-wracked upon the way at Malta Emprisoned under guard though not close prisoner two yeares after his comming thither and though dismissed and so enabled to visit some Churches yet laid hold upon againe by Nero and executed So that as it was literally true that the Ephesians never saw his face after this valediction so he may be said to have dyed then in such a sense as himselfe sayes to the Corinthians 1 Cor.
troubling these Sadduces and these Pharisees I be content to let them agree and to divide my life between them so as that my presumption shall possesse all my youth and desperation mine age I have heard my sentence already The end of this man will be worse then his beginning How much soever God be incensed with me for my presumption at first he will be much more inexorable for my desperation at last And therefore interrupt the prescription of sin break off the correspondence of sin unjoynt the dependency of sin upon sin Bring every single sin as soon as thou committest it into the presence of thy God upon those two legs Confession and Detestation and thou shalt see that as though an intire Iland stand firme in the Sea yet a single clod of earth cast into the Sea is quickly washt into nothing so howsoever thine habituall and customary and concatenated sins sin enwrapped and complicated in sin sin entrenched and barricadoed in sin sin screwed up and riveted with sin may stand out and wrastle even with the mercies of God in the blood of Christ Jesus yet if thou bring every single sin into the sight of God it will be but as a clod of earth but as a graine of dust in the Ocean Keep thy sins then from mutuall intelligence That they doe not second one another induce occasion and then support and disguise one another and then neither shall the body of sin ever oppresse thee nor the exhalations and damps and vapors of thy sad soule hang between thee and the mercies of thy God But thou shalt live in the light and serenity of a peaceable conscience here and die in a faire possibility of a present melioration and improvement of that light All thy life thou shalt be preserved in an Orientall light an Easterne light a rising and a growing light the light of grace and at thy death thou shalt be super-illustrated with a Meridionall light a South light the light of glory And be this enough for the explication and application of these words and their complication with the day for the justifying of S. Pauls Stratagem in himselfe and the exemplifying and imitation thereof in us Amen That God that is the God of peace grant us his peace and one minde towards one another That God that is the Lord of Hosts maintaine in us that warre which himself hath proclaimed an enmity between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent between the truth of God and the inventions of men That we may fight his battels against his enemies without and fight his battels against our enemies within our own corrupt affections That we may be victorious here in our selves and over our selves and triumph with him hereafter in eternall glory SERMONS Preached upon the PENITENTIALL PSALMES SERM. L. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine Anger neither chasten me in thy het Displeasure GOD imputes but one thing to David but one sin The matter of Vriah the Hittite nor that neither but by way of exception not till he had first established an assurance that David stood well with him First he had said 1 King 25.5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he had commanded him all the dayes of his life Here was rectitude He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord no obliquity no departing into by-wayes upon collaterall respects Here was integrity to Gods service no serving of God and Mammon Hee turned not from any thing that God commanded him And here was perpetuity perseverance constancy All the dayes of his life And then and not till then God makes that one and but that one exception Except the matter of Vriah the Hittite When God was reconciled to him he would not so much as name that sin that had offended him And herein is the mercy of God in the merits of Christ a sea of mercie that as the Sea retaines no impression of the Ships that passe in it for Navies make no path in the Sea so when we put out into the boundlesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus by which onely wee have reconciliation to God there remaines no record against us for God hath cancelled that record which he kept and that which Satan kept God hath nailed to the Crosse of his Son That man which hath seene me at the sealing of my Pardon and the seale of my Reconciliation at the Sacrament many times since will yet in his passion or in his ill nature or in his uncharitablenesse object to me the fins of my youth whereas God himselfe if I have repented to day knowes not the sins that I did yesterday God hath rased the Record of my sin in Heaven it offends not him it grieves not his Saints nor Angels there and he hath rased the Record in hell it advances not their interest in me there nor their triumph over me And yet here the uncharitable man will know more and see more and remember more then my God or his devill remembers or knowes or sees He will see a path in the Sea he will see my sin when it is drowned in the blood of my Saviour After the Kings pardon perchance it will beare an action to call a man by that infamous name which that crime which is pardoned did justly cast upon him before the pardon After Gods reconciliation to David he would not name Davids sin in the particular But yet for all this though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sinnes when God hath so far exprest his love as to bring that sinner to that repentance and so to mercy yet that he may perfect his owne care he exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinall corrections as may inable him to stand upright for the future And to that purpose was no man evermore exercised then David David broke into anothers family he built upon anothers ground he planted in anothers Seminary and God broke into his family his ground his Seminary In no story can wee finde so much Domestick affliction such rapes and incests and murders and rebellions from their owne children as in Davids storie Under the heavy waight and oppression of some of those is David by all Expositors conceived to have conceived and uttered this Psalme Some take it to have beene occasioned by some of his temporall afflictions either his persecution from Saul or bodily sicknesse in himselfe of which traditionally the Rabbins speake much or Absoloms unnaturall rebellion Some others with whom wee finde more reason to joyne finde more reason to interpret it of a spirituall affliction that David in the apprehension and under the sense of the wrath and indignation of God came to this vehement exclamation or deprecation O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure In which words we shall consider
comprehends all his Attributes all his Power upon the world and all his benefits upon him The Gentiles were not able to consider God so not so entirely not altogether but broke God in pieces and changed God into single money and made a fragmentarie God of every Power and Attribute in God of every blessing from God nay of every malediction and judgement of God A clap of thunder made a Iupiter a tempest at sea made a Neptune an earthquake made a Pluto Feare came to be a God and a Fever came to be a God Every thing that they were in love with or afraid of came to be canonized and made a God amongst them David considered God as a center into which from which all lines flowed Neither as the Gentiles did nor as some ignorants of the Roman Church do that there must be a stormie god S. Nicholas and a plaguie god S. Rook and a sheepshearing god a swineherd god a god for every Parish a god for every occupation God forbid Acknowledg God to be the Author of thy Being find him so at the spring-head then thou shalt easily trace him by the branches to all that belongs to thy well-being The Lord of Hosts and the God of peace the God of the mountaines and the God of the valleyes the God of noone and of midnight of all times the God of East West of all places the God of Princes and of Subjects of all persons is all one and the same God and that which we intend when we say Iehovah is all Hee And therefore hath S. Bernard a patheticall and usefull meditation to this purpose Every thing in the world sayes he can say Creator meus es tu Lord thou hast made me All things that have life and growth can say Pastor meus es tu Lord thou hast fed me increast me All men can say Redemptor meus es tu Lord I was sold to death through originall sin by one Adam and thou hast redeemed me by another All that have falne by infirmity and risen againe by grace can say Susceptor meus es tu Lord I was falne but thou hast undertaken me and dost sustaine me But he that comes to God in the name of Iehovah he meanes all this and all other things in this one Petition Let me have a Being and then I am safe for In him we live and move and have our Being If we solicite God as the Lord of Hosts that he would deliver us from our enemies perchance he may see it fitter for us to be delivered to our enemies If we solicite him as Proprietarie of all the world as the beasts upon a thousand mountaines are his as all the gold and silver in the earth is his perchance he sees that poverty is fitter for us If we solicite him for health or long life he gives life but he kills too he heales but he wounds too and we may be ignorant which of these life or death sicknesse or health is for our advantage But solicite him as Iehovah for a Being that Being which flowes from his purpose that Being which he knowes fittest for us and then we follow his owne Instructions Fiat voluntas tua thy will be done upon us and we are safe Now that which Iehovah was to David Iesus is to us Iesus Man in generall hath relation to God as he is Iehovah Being We have relation to Christ as he is Iesus our Salvation Salvation is our Being Iesus is our Iehovah And therfore as David delights himself with that name Iehovah for he repeats it eight or nine times in this one short Psalm and though he ask things of a diverse nature at Gods hands though he suffer afflictions of a diverse nature from Gods hands yet still he retains that one name he speaks to God in no other name in all this Psalm but in the name of Iehovah So in the New Testament he which may be compared with David because he was under great sins and yet in great favour with God S. Paul he delights himself with that name of Iesus so much as that S. Ierome says QueÌ superfluè diligebat extraordinariè nominavit As he loved him excessively so he named him superabundantly It is the name that cost God most and therefore he loves it best it cost him his life to be a Iesus a Saviour The name of Christ which is Anointed he had by office he was anointed as King as Priest as Prophet All those names which he had in Isaiah The Counsellor The Wonderfull The Prince of Peace Esay 9. and the name of Iehovah it self which the Jews deny ever to be given to him and is evidently given to him in that place Christ had by nature But his name of Iesus a Saviour he had by purchase that purchase cost him his bloud And therefore as Iacob preferred his name of Israel Gen. 32.28 before his former name of Iacob because he had that name upon his wrastling with God and it cost him a lamenesse so is the name of Iesus so precious to him who bought it so dearly that not only every knee bows at the name of Iesus here but Jesus himself and the whole Trinity bow down towards us to give us all those things which we ask in that name For even of a devout use of that veryname do some of the Fathers interpret that OleuÌ effusum Nomen tuu That the name of Iesus should be spread as an ointment breathed as perfume diffused as a soul over all the petitions of our prayers As the Church concludes for the most part all her Collects so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus sake And so much does S. Paul abound in the use of this name as that he repeats it thrice in the superscription of one of his Letters the title of one of his Epistles his first to Timothy And with the same devotion S. August sayes even of the name Melius est mihi non esse quaÌ sine Iesu esse I were better have no being then be without Jesus Melius est non vivere quam vivere sine vita I were better have no life then any life without him For as David could finde no beeing without Iehovah a Christian findes no life without Iesus Both these names imply that which is in this Text in our Translation The Lord Dominus to whom only and intirely we appertaine his we are And therefore whether we take Dominus to be Do minas to threaten to afflict us or to be Do manus to succour and relieve us as some have pleased themselves with those obvious derivations as David did still we must make our recourse to him from whom as he is Iehovah Beeing or being our wel-beeing our eternall beeing our Creation Preservation and Salvation is derived all is from him Now when he hath his accesse to the Lord 2 Part. to this Lord the Lord that hath all and gives all
for so is it twice taken in one verse Psal 58.4 Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent so that this Hot displeasure is that poison of the soule obduration here and that extention of this obduration a finall impenitence in this life and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next to dye without any actuall penitence here and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter David therefore foresees that if God Rebuke in anger it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure 1 Sam. 2.25 For what should stop him For If a man sinne against the Lord who will plead for him sayes Eli Plead thou my cause sayes David It is onely the Lord that can be of counsell with him and plead for him and that Lord is both the Judge and angry too So Davids prayer hath this force Rebuke me not in anger for though I were able to stand under that yet thou wilt also Chasten mee in thine hot displeasure and that no soule can beare for as long as Gods anger lasts so long he is going on towards our utter destruction In that State it is not a State in that Exinanition in that annihilation of the soule it is not an annihilation the soule is not so happy as to come to nothing but in that misery which can no more receive a name then an end all Gods corrections are borne with grudging with murmuring with comparing our righteousnesse with others righteousnesse Job 7.20 In Iobs impatience Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi Why hast thou set me up as a marke against thee O Thou preserver of men Thou that preservest other men hast bent thy bow I. am 3.12 and made me a mark for thine arrowes sayes the Lamentation In that state we cannot cry to him that he might answer us If we doe cry and he answer we cannot heare Job 9.16 if we doe heare we cannot beleeve that it is he Cum invocantem exaudierit sayes Iob If I cry and he answer yet I doe not beleeve that he heard my voyce We had rather perish utterly Ver. 23. then stay his leisure in recovering us Si flagellat occidat semel sayes Iob in the Vulgat If God have a minde to destroy me let him doe it at one blow Et non de poenis rideat Let him not sport himselfe with my misery Whatsoever come after we would be content to be out of this world so we might but change our torment whether it be a temporall calamity that oppresses our state or body or a spirituall burthen a perplexity that sinks our understanding or a guiltinesse that depresses our conscience Vt in inferno protegas Job 14.13 as Iob also speaks O that thou wouldest hide me In inferno In the grave sayes the afflicted soule but in Inferno In hell it selfe sayes the dispairing soule rather then keepe me in this torment in this world This is the miserable condition or danger that David abhors and deprecates in this Text To be rebuked in anger without any purpose in God to amend him and to be chastned in his hot displeasure so as that we can finde no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel no conditions no power of revocation in the severe threatnings of the Law no difference between those torments which have attached us here and the everlasting torments of Hell it selfe That we have lost all our joy in this life and all our hope of the next That we would faine die though it were by our own hands and though that death doe but unlock us a doore to passe from one Hell into another This is Ira tua Domine faror tuus Thy anger O Lord and Thy hot displeasure For as long as it is but Ira patris the anger of my Father which hath dis-inherited me Gold is thine and silver is thine and thou canst provide me As long as it is but Ira Regis some mis-information to the King some mis-apprehension in the King Cor Regis in manu tua The Kings heart is in thy hand and thou canst rectifie it againe As long as it is but Furor febris The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever or Furor furoris The rage of madnesse it selfe thou wilt consider me and accept me and reckon with me according to those better times before those distempers overtooke me and overthrew me But when it comes to be Ira tua furor tuus Thy anger and Thy displeasure as David did so let every Christian finde comfort if he be able to say faithfully this Verse this Text O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure for as long as he can pray against it he is not yet so fallen under it but that he hath yet his part in all Gods blessings which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons and which we seale to every soule in the Sacrament of Reconcilation SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long THis whole Psalme is prayer And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory as in the first verse or Postulatory Something David would have forborne and something done And in that Postulatory part of Davids prayer which goes through six verses of this Psalme we consider the Petitions and the Inducements What David asks And why of both which there are some mingled in these two verses which constitute our Text. And therefore in them we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions and some of the Reasons For in the Prayer there are five petitions First Miserere Have mercy upon me Thinke of me looke graciously towards me prevent me with thy mercy And then Sana me O Lord heale me Thou didst create me in health but my parents begot me in sicknesse and I have complicated other sicknesses with that Actuall with Originall sin O Lord heale me give me physick for them And thirdly Convertere Returne O Lord Thou didst visit me in nature returne in grace Thou didst visit me in Baptisme returne in the other Sacrament Thou doest visit me now returne at the houre of my death And in a fourth petition Eripe O Lord deliver my soule Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me and thy benefits I make occasions of sinne In all conversation and even in my solitude I admit such tentations from others or I produce such tentations in my selfe as that whensoever thou art pleased to returne to me thou findest me at the brinke of some sinne and therefore Eripe me O Lord take hold of me and deliver me And lastly Salvum me fac O Lord save me Manifest thy good purpose upon me so that I may never be shaken or never overthrown in the faithfull hope of that salvation which thou hast preordained for me These are
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and âetestation 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
any other then God Christ Jesus was willing to give us a Rule for Prayer but if hee had intended that his Rule should have beene deflected and declined to Saints he would have taught us to say Frater noster qui es in Coelis and not only Pater noster to pray to our Brethren which are there too and not onely to our Father which is in Heaven If any man have tasted at Court what it is to be ever welcome to the King himselfe and what it is to speake to another to speake for him he will blesse that happinesse of having an immediate accesse to God himselfe in his prayers They that come so low downe the streame as wee said before to London Bridge they will go lower and lower to Gravesend too They that come to Saints they will come to the Images and Reliques of Saints too They come to a brackish water betweene salt and fresh and they come at last to be swallowed up in that sea which hath no limit no bottome that is to direct all their devotions to such Saints as have no certainty not onely not in their ability we know not what those Saints can doe but not in their history we know not that such as they pray to are Saints nay we know not whether they ever were at all So that this may be Idolatry in the strictest acceptation of the word Idol Idolum nihil est let that be true which they say and in their sense Our Images are not Idols for an Idol is nothing represents nothing but our Images are the Images of Men that once were upon the earth But that is not throughout true for they worship Images of those who never were Christophers and other symbolicall and emblematicall Saints which never lived here but were and are yet nothing But let them be true Saints how will they make it appeare to us that those Saints can heare us What surety can we have of it Let us rather pray to him who we are sure can heare that is first and then sure he can give that we pray for that is next The prayer here is forgivenesse of sins And can Saints give that The Hosannaes Qui dant and the Allelujahs and the Gloria in Excelsis Glory in heaven peace upon earth good will amongst men these are good and cheerfull Notes in which the Quire of heaven are exercised Cherubims and Seraphims Prophets and Apostles Saints and Angels blesse God and benefit men by these But the Remittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee is too high a note for any creature in earth or heaven to reach to except where it is set by Gods own hand as it is by his Commission to his Minister in his Church and there onely in the absolution given by his Ordinance to every penitent sinner We see that phrase Dimittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee was a suspicious word even in the mouth of Christ himselfe amongst the Scribes that would not beleeve his Divinity when Christ said to him that had the Palsie My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee the Scribes cryed out he blasphemed It strikes any man to heare of forgivenesse of sins from any but God It was not a harder thing to say Fiat lux then to say Dimittuntur peccata Not harder to bring light out of darknesse by Creation then to bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse by Conversion for who can doe that Iob 14. And therefore when the King of Aram sent Naaman to the King of Israel to take order for the curing of his bodily Leprosie the King of Israel rent his Clothes and said Am I a God 2 King 5.7 to kill and to give life The power even of temporall life and death is proper to God for as Witches thinke sometimes that they kill when they doe not and are therefore as culpable as if they did So a tyrannous persecutor so a passionate Judge so a perjured witnesse so a revengefull quarreller thinks he takes away the life of his enemy and is guilty of that murder in the eye of God though the blow be truly from God whose judgements are ever just though not ever declared Let them never say that they aske not these things temporall or spirituall at the hands of those Saints for expresly literally as the words stand and sound they do aske even those very things and if the Church have any other meaning in those prayers the mischiefe is that they never teach the people by Preaching what that their reserved meaning is but leave them to the very letter of the prayer to aske those things which if they could heare yet the Saints could not give And when the prayer is made aright directed to God himselfe yet here in our Text it is limited Propter hoc For this this that was spoken of before every one that is godly shall pray unto thee Now what is this This for that is our third Consideration Si à quo petenda sed non quae petenda petis If thou come to the right Market Propter boc August but buy unwholesome hearbs there If thou come to the Apothecaries shop and aske for nothing but poysons If thou come to God in thy prayer and aske onely temporall blessings which are blessings onely in their use and may be and are ordinarily snares and encumbrances then is this direction of Davids Propter hoc for this shall he pray transgressed For This as appeares in the words immediately before the Text is The forgivenesse of the punishment and of the iniquity of our sinne which is so inexpressible a comfort to that soule that hath wrastled with the indignation of God and is now refreshed and released as whosoever should goe about to describe it should diminish it He hath it not that thinks he can utter it It is a blessed comfort to find my soule in that state as when I last received the Sacrament with a good conscience If I enjoy that peace now that is the peace of a religious and of a wise conscience for there is a wisedome of the conscience not to run into infinite scruples and doubts but Imponere finem litibus to levy a fine in bar of all scruples and diffidences and to rest in the peace and assurednesse of remission of sinnes after due means for the obtaining thereof and therefore if I be as well now as when I received this is a blessed degree of blessednesse But yet there is one cloud in this case Ab occultis my secret sins which even mine own narrowest inquisition extends not to If I consider my selfe to be as well as I was at my Baptisme when I brought no actuall sin and had the hand of Christ to wash away the foulnesse of Originall sin can I pray for a better state then that Even in that there was a cloud too and a cloud that hath thunder and lightning in it that Fomes peccati that fuell and
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
uncleannesses from which if they neglected to cleanse themselves by those ceremonies which were appropriated to them then those uncleannesses became sins and they were put to their sacrifices before they could be discharged of them Many levities many omissions many acts of infirmity might be prevented by consideration before or cleansed by consideration now if we did truly value the present grace that is alwayes offered us in these the Ordinances of God What sin can I be guilty of that is without example of mercy in that Gospel which is preached to me here But if you will not accept it when God offers it you can never have it so good cheape because hereafter you shall have this present sin of refusing that offer of grace added to your burthen Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged any more til I have caused my fury to light upon thee But shall we be purged then Then when his fury in any calamity hath lighted upon us Is not this donec this untill such a donec as donec faciam Till I make thine cnemies thy footstoole Such a donec as the donec peperit shee was a Virgin Till shee brought forth her first sonne Is it not an everlasting donec That we shall not be purged till Gods Judgements fall upon us nor then neither Physicke may be ministred too late to worke and Judgements may fall too late to souple or entender the soule For as wee may die with that Physick in our stomach so may we be carried to the last Judgement with that former Judgement upon our shoulders And therefore our later Translation hath expressed it more fully Not that that fury shall light but shall rest upon us This cleansing therefore is that disposition which God by his grace infuses into us That we stand in the congregation and Communion of Saints capable of those mercies which God hath by his Ordinance annexed to these meetings That we may so feele at all times when we come hither such a working of his Hyssop such a benefit of his Ordinance as that we beleeve all our former sins to be so forgiven as that if God should translate us now this minute to another life this Dosis of this purging Hyssop received now had so wrought as that we should be assuredly translated into the Kingdome of heaven This cleansing applies to us those words of our Saviour My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee But yet there is a farther degree of cleanenesse expressed in Christs following words Goe and sin no more And that grace against relapses the gift of sanctification and perseverance is that that David askes in his other Petition Lava me Wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Here we proposed first the action Lava Wash me This is more then a sprinkling Lava A totall and intire washing More then being an ordinary partaker of the outward meanes The Word and Sacraments more then a temporary feeling of the benefit thereof in a present sense for it is a building up of habits of religious actions visible to others and it is a holy and firme confidence created in us by the Spirit of God that we shall keepe that building in reparation and goe forward with it to our lives end It is a washing like Naamans in Jordan to be iterated seaven times seaventy seaven times daily hourly all our life A washing begun in Baptisme pursued in sweat in the industry of a lawfull calling continued in teares for our deficiencies in the workes of our calling and perchance to bee consummated in blood at our deaths Not such a washing as the Washes have which are those sands that are overflowed with the Sea at every Tide and then lie dry but such a washing as the bottome of the Sea hath that is alwayes equally wet It is not a stillicidium a spout a showre a bucket powred out upon us when we come to Church a Sabbath-sanctification and no more but a water that enters into every office of our house and washes every action proceeding from every faculty of the soule And this is the washing A continuall succession of Grace working effectually to present Habits of religious acts and constituting a holy purpose of persevering in them that induces the Whitenesse the Candor the Dealbation that David begs here Lava Dealbabor The purging with Hyssope which we spoke of before Dealbabor which is the benefit which we have by being bred in a true Church delivers us from that rednesse which is in the earth of which wee are made from that guiltinesse which is by our naturall derivation from our Parents imprinted in us Baptisme doth much upon that but that that is not Red is not therefore White But this is our case Our first colour was white God made man righteous Our rednesse is from Adam and the more that rednesse is washed off 2 Cor. 7.1 the more we returne to our first whitenesse And this which is petitioned here is a washing of such perfection as cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit Those inquinamenta which are ordinary are first in the flesh Concupiscence and Carnality Gal. 5.19 and those other of which the Apostle sayes The works of the flesh are manifest And in the spirit they are Murmuring Diffidence in God and such others But besides these as an over-diligent cleansing of the Body and additionall beauty of the Body is inquinamentum carnis one of S. Pauls filthinesses upon the flesh so an over purifying of the spirit in an uncharitable undervaluing of other men and in a schismaticall departing from the unity of the Church is Inquinamentum spiritus False beauties are a foulnesse of the body false purity is a foulnesse of the spirit But the washing that wee seeke cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all foulnesse of flesh and spirit All waters will not cleanse us nor all fires dry us so as wee may be cleane smoaky fires will not doe that I will poure cleane water upon you Ezek. 36.25 and you shall be cleane The Sunne produces sweat upon us and it dries us too Zeale cleanses us but it must be zeale impermixt as the Sun not mingled with our smoaky sooty factious affections Some Grammarians have noted the word Washing here to be derived from a word that signifies a Lambe we must be washed in the blood of the Lambe and we must be brought to the whitenesse the candor the simplicity of the Lambe no man is pure that thinks no man pure but himselfe And this whitenesse which is Sanctification in our selves and charitable interpretation of other men is exalted here to that Superlative Super Nivem Wash me and I shall be whiter then Snow Though your sins be as Scarlet Super nivem Esay 1.18 they shall be as white as snow Esay was an Euangelicall Prophet a propheticall Euangelist and speaks still
and that dejection of spirit which the Adversary by temporall afflictions would induce upon me is an act of his Power So this Metaphor The shadow of his wings which in this place expresses no more then consolation and refreshing in misery and not a powerfull deliverance out of it is so often in the Scriptures made a denotation of Power too as that we can doubt of no act of power if we have this shadow of his wings For in this Metaphor of Wings doth the Holy Ghost expresse the Maritime power the power of some Nations at Sea in Navies Woe to the land shadowing with wings that is Esay 18.1 that hovers over the world and intimidates it with her sailes and ships In this Metaphor doth God remember his people of his powerfull deliverance of them Exod. 19.14 You have seene what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you to my selfe In this Metaphor doth God threaten his and their enemies what hee can doe Ezek. 1.24 The noise of the wings of his Cherubims are as the noise of great waters and of an Army So also what hee will doe Hee shall spread his wings over Bozrah Ier. 49.22 and at that day shall the hearts of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs So that if I have the shadow of his wings I have the earnest of the power of them too If I have refreshing and respiration from them I am able to say as those three Confessors did to Nebuchadnezzar My God is able to deliver me I am sure he hath power And my God will deliver me Dan. 3.17 when it conduces to his glory I know he will But if he doe not bee it knowne unto thee O King we will not servethy Gods Be it knowne unto thee O Satan how long soever God deferre my deliverance I will not seeke false comforts the miserable comforts of this world I will not for I need not for I can subsist under this shadow of these Wings though I have no more The Mercy-seat it selfe was covered with the Cherubims Wings Exod. 25.20 and who would have more then Mercy and a Mercy-seat that is established resident Mercy permanent and perpetuall Mercy present and familiar Mercy a Mercy-seat Our Saviour Christ intends as much as would have served their turne if they had laid hold upon it when hee sayes That hee would have gathered Ierusalem Matt. 23.37 as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings And though the other Prophets doe as ye have heard mingle the signification of Power and actuall deliverance in this Metaphor of Wings yet our Prophet whom wee have now in especiall consideration David never doth so but in every place where hee uses this Metaphor of Wings which are in five or sixe severall Psalmes still hee rests and determines in that sense which is his meaning here That though God doe not actually deliver us nor actually destroy our enemies yet if hee refresh us in the shadow of his Wings if he maintaine our subsistence which is a religious Constancy in him this should not onely establish our patience for that is but halfe the worke but it should also produce a joy and rise to an exultation which is our last circumstance Therefore in the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice I would always raise your hearts and dilate your hearts to a holy Joy Gaudium to a joy in the Holy Ghost There may be a just feare that men doe not grieve enough for their sinnes but there may bee a just jealousie and suspition too that they may fall into inordinate griefe and diffidence of Gods mercy And God hath reserved us to such times as being the later times give us even the dregs and lees of misery to drinke For God hath not onely let loose into the world a new spirituall disease which is an equality and an indifferency which religion our children or our servants or our companions professe I would not keepe company with a man that thought me a knave or a traitor with him that thought I loved not my Prince or were a faithlesse man not to be beleeved I would not associate my selfe And yet I will make him my bosome companion that thinks I doe not love God that thinks I cannot be saved but God hath accompanied and complicated almost all our bodily diseases of these times with an extraordinary sadnesse a predominant melancholy a faintnesse of heart a chearlesnesse a joylesnesse of spirit and therefore I returne often to this endeavor of raising your hearts dilating your hearts with a holy Joy Joy in the holy Ghost for Vnder the shadow of his wings you may you should rejoyce If you looke upon this world in a Map you find two Hemisphears two half worlds If you crush heaven into a Map you may find two Hemisphears too two half heavens Halfe will be Joy and halfe will be Glory for in these two the joy of heaven and the glory of heaven is all heaven often represented unto us And as of those two Hemisphears of the world the first hath been knowne long before but the other that of America which is the richer in treasure God reserved for later Discoveries So though he reserve that Hemisphear of heaven which is the Glory thereof to the Resurrection yet the other Hemisphear the Joy of heaven God opens to our Discovery and delivers for our habitation even whilst we dwell in this world As God hath cast upon the unrepentant sinner two deaths a temporall and a spirituall death so hath he breathed into us two lives Gen. 2.17 for so as the word for death is doubled Morte morieris Thou shalt die the death so is the word for life expressed in the plurall Chaiim vitarum God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives of divers lives Though our naturall life were no life but rather a continuall dying yet we have two lives besides that an eternall life reserved for heaven but yet a heavenly life too a spirituall life even in this world And as God doth thus inflict two deaths and infuse two lives so doth he also passe two Judgements upon man or rather repeats the same Judgement twice For that which Christ shall say to thy soule then at the last Judgement Matt. 25.23 Enter into thy Masters joy Hee sayes to thy conscience now Enter into thy Masters joy The everlastingnesse of the joy is the blessednesse of the next life but the entring the inchoation is afforded here For that which Christ shall say then to us Verse 24. Venite benedicti Come ye blessed are words intended to persons that are comming that are upon the way though not at home Here in this world he bids us Come Luk. 15.10 there in the next he shall bid us Welcome The Angels of heaven have joy in thy conversion and canst thou bee without that joy in thy selfe
possesse immortality and impossibility of dying onely in a continuall dying when as a Cabinet whose key were lost must be broken up and torne in pieces before the Jewell that was laid up in it can be taken out so thy body the Cabinet of thy soule must be shaked and shivered by violent sicknesse before that soule can goe out And when it is thus gone out must answer for all the imperfections of that body which body polluted it And yet though this soule be such a loser by that body it is not perfectly well nor fully satisfied till it be reunited to that body againe when thou remembrest Mat. 26.36 and oh never forget it that Christ himselfe was heavy in his soule unto Death Mat. 26.39 That Christ himselfe came to a Si possibile If it be possible let this Cup passe That he came to a Quare dereliquisti Mat. 27.46 a bitter sense of Gods dereliction and forsaking of him when thou considerest all this compose thy selfe for death but thinke it not a light matter to dye Death made the Lyon of Judah to roare and doe not thou thinke that that which we call going away like a Lambe doth more testifie a conformity with Christ then a strong sense and bitter agony and colluctation with death doth Christ gave us the Rule in the Example He taught us what we should doe by his doing it And he pre-admitted a fearfull apprehension of death A Lambe is a Hieroglyphique of Patience but not of stupidity And death was Christs Consummatum est All ended in death yet he had sense of death How much more doth a sad sense of our transmigration belong to us to whom death is no Consummatum est but an In principio our account and our everlasting state begins but then Apud te propitiatio Psal 130.4 ut timearis In this knot we tie up all With thee there is mercy that thou mightest be feared There is a holy feare that does not onely consist with an assurance of mercy Pro. 21.15 but induces constitutes that assurance Pavor operantibus iniquitatem sayes Solomon Pavor horror and servile feare jealousie and suspition of God diffidence and distrust in his mercy and a bosome-prophecy of self-destruction Destruction it selfe so we translate it be upon the workers of iniquity Pavor operantibus iniquitatem And yet sayes that wise King Pro. 28.14 Beatus qui semper Pavidus Blessed is that man that alwayes fears who though he alwayes hope and beleeve the good that God will shew him yet also feares the evills that God might justly multiply upon him Blessed is he that looks upon God with assurance but upon himselfe with feare For though God have given us light by which we may see him even in Nature for He is the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a far of upon the Sea Though God have given us a clearer light in the Law and experience of his providence upon his people throughout the Old Testament Though God have abundantly infinitely multiplied these lights and these helpes to us in the Christian Church where he is the God of salvation yet as he answers us by terrible things in that first acceptation of the words which I proposed to you that is Gives us assurances by miraculous testimonies in our behalfe that he will answer our patient expectation by terrible Judgements and Revenges upon our enemies In his Righteousnesse that is In his faithfulnesse according to his Promises and according to his performances of those Promises to his former people So in the words considered the other way In his Holinesse that is in his wayes of imprinting Holinesse in us He answers us by terrible things in all those particulars which we have presented unto you By infusing faith but with that terrible addition Damnabitur He that beleeveth not shall be damned He answers us by composing our manners and rectifying our life and conversation but with terrible additions of censures and Excommunications and tearings off from his own body which is a death to us and a wound to him He answers us by enabling us to speake to him in Prayer but with terrible additions for the matter for the manner for the measure of our Prayer which being neglected our very Prayer is turned to sin He answers us in Preaching but with that terrible commination that even his word may be the savor of death unto death He answers us in the Sacrament but with that terrible perplexity and distraction that he that seemes to be a Iohn or a Peter a Loving or a Beloved Disciple may be a Iudas and he that seems to have received the seale of his reconciliation may have eat and drunke his own Damnation And he answers us at the houre of death but with this terrible obligation That even then I make sure my salvation with feare and trembling That so we imagine not a God of wax whom we can melt and mold when and how we will That we make not the Church a Market That an over-homelines and familiarity with God in the acts of Religion bring us not to an irreverence nor indifferency of places But that as the Militant Church is the porch of the Triumphant so our reverence here may have some proportion to that reverence which is exhibited there Revel 4.10 where the Elders cast their Crownes before the Throne and continue in that holy and reverend acclamation Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power for as we may adde from this Text By terrible things O God of our salvation doest thou answer us in righteousnesse SERM. LXIX The fifth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee IT is well said so well as that more then one of the Fathers seeme to have delighted themselves in having said it Titulus Clavis The Title of the Psalme is the Key of the Psalme the Title opens the whole Psalme The Church of Rome will needs keepe the Key of heaven and the key to that Key the Scriptures wrapped up in that Translation which in no case must be departed from There the key of this Psalm the Title thereof hath one bar wrested that is made otherwise then he that made the Key the Holy Ghost intended it And another bat inserted that is one clause added which the Holy Ghost added not Where we reade in the Title Victori To the chiefe Musician they reade In finem A Psalme directed upon the end I think they meane upon the later times because it is in a great part a Propheticall Psame of the calling of the Gentiles But after this change they also adde Resurrectionis A Psalme concerning the Resurrection and that is not in the Hebrew nor any thing in the place thereof And after one Author
whole heart and a power above a whole power is a strange extension That therefore which was declared explicitely plainly directly by Christ to the young man in the Gospel Mat. 19.21 Vade vende sequere Goe and sell all and follow me was implicitely implied to these men in our text Leave your nets and follow me And though to doe so to leave all be not alwayes a precept a commandment to all men yet it was a precept a commandment to both these at that time to the young man in the Gospel for he was as expresly bid to sell away all as he was to follow Christ and to these men in the text because they could not performe that that was directly commanded except they performed that which was implied too except they left their nets they could not follow Christ When God commands us to follow him he gives us light how and in which way he will be followed And then when we understand which is his way that way is as much a commandment as the very end it selfe and not to follow him that way is as much a transgression as not to follow him at all If that young man in the Gospel who was bid sell all and give to the poore and then follow had followed but kept his interest in his land If he had devested himselfe of the land but let it fall or conveyed it to the next heire or other kinsmen If he had employed it to pious uses but not so as Christ commanded to the poore still he had been in a transgression The way when it is declared is as much a command as the end But then in this command which was implicitely and by necessary consequence laid upon Peter and Andrew to leave their nets because without doing so they could not forthwith follow Christ there is no example of forsaking a calling upon pretence of following Christ no example here of devesting ones selfe of all means of defending us from those manifold necessities which this life lays upon us upon pretence of following Christ It is not an absolute leaving of all worldly cares but a leaving them out of the first consideration Primùm quaerite regnum Dei so as our first businesse be to seeke the kingdome of God Mat. 8.14 For after this leaving of his nets for this time Peter continued owner of his house and Christ came to that house of his and found his mother in law sicke in that house and recovered her there Upon a like commandment upon such a Sequere Mat. 9.10 Follow me Matthew followed Christ too but after that following Christ went with Matthew to his house and sate at meat with him at home And for this very exercise of fishing though at that time when Christ said Follow me they left their nets yet they returned to that trade sometimes upon occasions in all likelihood in Christs life and after Christs death clearly they did returne to it for Christ after his Resurrection Joh. 21.1 found them fishing They did not therefore abandon and leave all care and all government of their own estate and dispose themselves to live after upon the sweat of others but transported with a holy alacrity in this present and chearfull following of Christ in respect of that then they neglected their nets and all things else Perfecta obedientia est sua imperfocta relinquere Not to be too diligent towards the world August is the diligence that God requires S. Augustine does not say sua relinquere but sua imperfecta relinquere That God requires we should leave the world but that we should leave it to second considerations That thou do not forbeare nor defer thy conversion to God and thy restitution to man till thou have purchased such a state bought such an office married and provided such and such children but imperfecta relinquere to leave these worldly things unperfected till thy repentance have restored thee to God and established thy reconciliation in him and then the world lyes open to thy honest endeavours Others take up all with their net and they sacrifice to their nets because by them their portion is fat Hab. 1.16 and their meat plenteous They are consident in their own learning their own wisedome their own practise and which is a strange Idolatry they sacrifice to themselves they attribute all to their own industry These men in our text were far from that they left their nets But still consider that they did but leave their nets they did not burne them And consider too that they left but nets those things which might entangle them and retard them in their following of Christ And such nets some such things as might hinder them in the service of God even these men so well disposed to follow Christ had about them And therefore let no man say Imitari vellem sed quod relinquam non habeo Gregor I would gladly doe as the Apostles did leave all to follow Christ but I have nothing to leave alas all things have left me and I have nothing to leave Even that murmuring at poverty is a net leave that Leave thy superfluous desire of having the riches of this world though thou mayest flatter thy selfe that thou desirest to have onely that thou mightest leave it that thou mightest employ it charitably yet it might prove a net and stick too close about thee to part with it Multa relinquitis si desideriis renunciatis Idem You leave your nets if you leave your over-earnest greedinesse of catching for when you doe so you doe not onely fish with a net that is lay hold upon all you can compasse but which is strange you fish for a net even that which you get proves a net to you and hinders you in the following of Christ and you are lesse disposed to follow him when you have got your ends then before He that hath least hath enough to waigh him down from heaven by an inordinate love of that little which he hath or in an inordinate and murmuring desire of more And he that hath most hath not too much to give for heaven Tantum valet regnum Dei quantum tu vales Idem Heaven is alwayes so much worth as thou art worth A poore man may have heaven for a penny that hath no greater store and God lookes that he to whom he hath given thousands should lay out thousands upon the purchase of heaven The market changes as the plenty of money changes Heaven costs a rich man more then a poore because he hath more to give But in this rich and poore are both equall that both must leave themselves without nets that is without those things which in their own Consciences they know retard the following of Christ Whatsoever hinders my present following that I cannot follow to day whatsoever may hinder my constant following that I cannot follow to morrow and all my life is a net and I am bound to
and yet on Sundayes when they come to Church and appeare in company will mend both their faces as well as their clothes Not solitude but company is the scene of pride And therefore I know not what to call that practise of the Nunnes in Spaine who though they never see man yet will paint So early so primary a sin is Pride as that it grew instantly from her Gen. 2.18 whom God intended for a Helper because he saw that it was not good for man to be alone God sees that it is not good for man to be without health without wealth without power and jurisdiction and magistracy and we grow proud of our helpers proud of our health and strength proud of our wealth and riches proud of our office and authority over others So early so primary a sin is pride as that out of every mercy and blessing which God affords us and His mercies are new every morning we gather Pride wee are not the more thankfull for them and yet we are the prouder of them Nay we gather Pride not onely out of those things which mend and improve us Gods blessings and mercies but out of those actions of our own that destroy and ruine us we gather pride sins overthrow us demolish us destroy and ruine us and yet we are proud of our sinnes How many men have we heard boast of their sinnes and as S. Augustine confesses of himselfe belie themselves and boast of more sinnes then ever they committed Out of every thing out of nothing sin grows Therefore was this commandment in our text Sequere Follow come after well placed first for we are come to see even children strive for place and precedency and mothers are ready to goe to the Heralds to know how Cradles shall be ranked which Cradle shall have the highest place Nay even in the wombe Gen. 25.26 there was contention for precedency Iacob tooke hold of his brother Esaus heele and would have been borne before him And as our pride begins in our Cradle Superbia in monumentis it continues in our graves and Monuments It was a good while in the primitive Church before any were buried in the Church The best contented themselves with the Churchyards After a holy ambition may we call it so a holy Pride brought them ad Limina to the Church-threshold to the Church-doore because some great Martyrs were buried in the Porches and devout men desired to lie neare them 1 King 13.31 as one Prophet did to lie neare another Lay my bones besides his bones But now persons whom the Devill kept from Church all their lives Separatists Libertines that never came to any Church And persons whom the Devill brought to Church all their lives for such as come meerly out of the obligation of the Law and to redeem that vexation or out of custome or company or curiosity or a perverse and sinister affection to the particular Preacher though they come to Gods house come upon the Devils invitation Such as one Devill that is worldly respect brought to Church in their lives another Devill that is Pride and vain-glory brings to Church after their deaths in an affectation of high places and sumptuous Monuments in the Church And such as have given nothing at all to any pious uses or have determined their almes and their dole which they have given in that one day of their funerall and no farther have given large annuities perpetuities for new painting their tombes and for new flags and scutcheons every certaine number of yeares O the earlinesse O the latenesse how early a Spring and no Autumne how fast a growth and no declination of this branch of this sin Pride against which this first word of ours Sequere Follow come after is opposed this love of place and precedency it rocks us in our Cradles it lies down with us in our graves There are diseases proper to certaine things Rots to sheepe Murrain to cattell There are diseases proper to certaine places as the Sweat was to us There are diseases proper to certaine times as the plague is in divers parts of the Eastern Countryes where they know assuredly when it will begin and end But for this infectious disease of precedency and love of place it is run over all places as well Cloysters as Courts And over all men as well spirituall as temporall And over all times as well the Apostles as ours The Apostles disputed often who should be greatest Maâ 19.28 and it was not enough to them that Christ assured them that they should sit upon the twelve thrones and judge the twelve Tribes Matt. 19.28 it was not enough for the sonnes of Zebedee to be put into that Commission but their friends must solicite the office to place them high in that Commission their Mother must move that one may sit at Christs right hand and the other at his left in the execution of that Commission Because this sin of pride is so early and primary a sin is this Commandment of Humility first enjoyned and because this sin appeares most generally in this love of place and precedency the Commandment is expressed in that word Sequere Follow Come after But then even this Humility is limited for it is Sequere me follow me which was proposed for our second Consideration Sequere me There may be a pride in Humility Sequere me and an over-weaning of our selves in attributing too much to our owne judgement in following some leaders for so we may be so humble as to goe after some man and yet so proud as to goe before the Church because that man may be a Schismatike Therefore Christ proposes a safe guide himself Sequere me follow me It is a dangerous thing when Christ sayes Vade post me Get thee behind me for that is accompanied with a shrewd name of increpation Satan Get thee behind me Satan Christ speaks it but twice in the Gospell once to Peter who because he then did the part of an Adversary Christ calls Satan and once to Satan himselfe Matt. 16 23. Matt. 4.10 because he pursued his tentations upon him for there is a going behind Christ which is a casting out of his presence without any future following and that is a fearefull station a fearefull retrogradation But when Christs sayes not Vade retro Get thee behind me see my face no more but Sequere me follow me he meanes to look back upon us Luk. 22.63 so the Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter wept bitterly and all was well when hee bids us follow him he directs us in a good way and by a good guide The Carthusian Friers thought they descended into as low pastures as they could goe when they renounced all flesh and bound themselves to feed on fish onely and yet another Order followes them in their superstitious singularity and goes beyond them Foliantes the Fueillans they eat neither flesh nor fish nothing but leafes and rootes
and as the Carthusians in a proud humility despise all other Orders that eat flesh so doe the Fueillans the Carthusians that eat fish There is a pride in such humility That Order of Friers that called themselves Ignorantes Ignorant men that pretended to know nothing sunk as low as they thought it possible into an humble name and appellation And yet the Minorits Minorits that are lesse then any think they are gone lower and then the Minimes Minimes that are lesse then all lower then they And when one would have thought that there had not been a lower step then that another Sect went beyond all beyond the Ignorants and the Minorits and the Minimes and all and called themselves Nullanos Nothings But yet even these Diminutives the Minorits and Minimes and Nullans as little as lesse as least as very nothing as they professe themselves lie under this disease which is opposed in the Sequere me follow come after in our Text For no sort nor condition of men in the world are more contentious more quarrelsome more vehement for place and precedency then these Orders of Friers are there where it may appeare that is in their publique Processions as we finde by those often troubles which the Superiours of the severall Orders and Bishops in their severall Dioces and some of those Councels which they call Generall have been put to for the ranking and marshalling of these contentious and wrangling men Which makes me remember the words in which the eighteenth of Queene Elizabeths Injunctions is conceived That to take away fond Curtesie that is needlesse Complement and to take away challenging of places which it seemes were frequent and troublesome then To take away fond curtesie and challenging of places Processions themselves were taken away because in those Processions these Orders of Friers that pretended to follow and come after all the world did thus passionately and with so much scandalous animosity pursue the love of place and precedency Therefore is our humility here limited Sequere me follow me follow Christ How is that done Consider it in Doctrinall things first and then in Morall Sequendus in Doctrina First how we are to follow Christ in beleeving and then how in doing in practising First in Doctrinall things There must have gone some body before else it is no following Take heed therefore of going on with thine owne inventions thine owne imaginations for this is no following Take heed of accompanying the beginners of Heresies and Schismes for these are no followings where none have gone before Nay there have not gone enow before to make it a path to follow in except it have had a long continuance and beene much trodden in And therfore to follow Christ doctrinally is to embrace those Doctrins in which his Church hath walked from the beginning and not to vexe thy selfe with new points not necessary to salvation That is the right way and then thou art well entred but that is not all thou must walke in the right way to the end that is to the end of thy life So that to professe the whole Gospel and nothing but Gospel for Gospel and professe this to thy death for no respect no dependance upon any great person to slacken in any fundamentall point of thy Religion nor to bee shaken with hopes or feares in thine age when thou wouldst faine live at ease and therefore thinkest it necessary to do as thy supporters doe To persevere to the end in the whole Gospel this is to follow Christ in Doctrinall things In practicall things Sequendus in vitae Iam. 5.11 things that belong to action wee must also follow Christ in the right way and to the end They are both way and end laid together Sufferentiam Iob audiistis finem Domini vidistis You have heard of the patience of Iob and you bave seen the end of the Lord and you must goe Iobs way to Christs end Iob hath beaten a path for us to shew us all the way A path that affliction walked in and seemed to delight in it in bringing the Sabaean upon his Oxen the Chaldean upon his Camels the fire upon his Sheep destruction upon his Servants and at last ruine upon his Children One affliction makes not a path iterated continued calamities doe and such a path Iob hath shewed us not onely patience but cheerfulnesse more thankfulnesse for our afflictions because they were multiplied And then wee must set before our eyes as the way of Iob so the end of the Lord Now the end of the Lord was the crosse So that to follow him to the end is not onely to beare afflictions though to death but it is to bring our crosses to the Crosse of Christ How is that progresse made for it is a royall progresse Matt. 16.24 not a pilgrimage to follow Christ to his Crosse Our Saviour saith Hee that will follow me let him take up his crosse and follow me You see foure stages foure resting baiting places in this progresse It must bee a crosse And it must be my crosse And then it must be taken up by me And with this crosse of mine thus taken up by me I must follow Christ that is carry my crosse to his First it must bee a Crosse Crux Gal. 6.14 Tollat crucem for every man hath afflictions but every man hath not crosse Onely those afflictions are crosses whereby the world is crucified to us and we to the world The afflictions of the wicked exasperate them enrage them stone and pave them obdurate and petrifie them but they doe not crucifie them The afflictions of the godly crucifie them And when I am come to that conformity with my Saviour Col. 1.24 as to fulfill his sufferings in my flesh as I am when I glorifie him in a Christian constancy and cheerfulnesse in my afflictions then I am crucified with him carried up to his Crosse 2 King 4.34 And as Elisha in raysing the Shunamits dead child put his mouth upon the childs mouth his eyes and his hands upon the hands and eyes of the child so when my crosses have carried mee up to my Saviours Crosse I put my hands into his hands and hang upon his nailes I put mine eyes upon his and wash off all my former unchast looks and receive a soveraigne tincture and a lively verdure and a new life into my dead teares from his teares I put my mouth upon his mouth and it is I that say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and it is I that recover againe and say Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit Thus my afflictions are truly a crosse when those afflictions doe truely crucifie me and souple me and mellow me and knead me and roll me out to a conformity with Christ It must be this Crosse and then it must be my crosse that I must take up Tollat suam Other mens crosses are not my crosses Crux mea no man
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
same thing againe I beleeve in the Holy Ghost but doe not finde him if I seeke him onely in private prayer But in Ecclesia when I goe to meet him in the Church when I seeke him where hee hath promised to bee found when I seeke him in the execution of that Commission which is proposed to our faith in this Text in his Ordinances and meanes of salvation in his Church instantly the savour of this Myrrhe is exalted and multiplied to me not a dew but a shower is powred out upon me and presently followes Communio Sanctorum The Communion of Saints the assistance of Militant and Triumphant Church in my behalfe And presently followes Remissio peceatorum The remission of sins the purifying of my conscience in that water which is his blood Baptisme and in that wine which is his blood the other Sacrament and presently followes Carnis resurrectio A resurrection of my body My body becomes no burthen to me my body is better now then my soule was before and even here I have Goshen in my Egypt incorruption in the midst of my dunghill spirit in the midst of my flesh heaven upon earth and presently followes Vita aeterna Life everlasting this life of my body shall not last ever nay the life of my soul in heaven is not such as it is at the first For that soule there even in heaven shall receive an addition and accesse of Joy and Glory in the resurrection of our bodies in the consummation When a winde brings the River to any low part of the banke instantly it overflowes the whole Meadow when that winde which blowes where he will The Holy Ghost leads an humble soule to the Article of the Church to lay hold upon God as God hath exhibited himselfe in his Ordinances instantly he is surrounded under the blood of Christ Jesus and all the benefits thereof The communion of Saints the remission of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are poured out upon him And therefore of this great worke which God hath done for man in applying himselfe to man in the Ordinances of his Church S. Augustine sayes Obscuriùs dixerunt Prophetae de Christo August quà m de Ecclesia The Prophets have not spoken so clearely of the person of Christ as they have of the Church of Christ Hieron for though S. Hierom interpret aright those words of Adam and Eve Erunt duo in carnem unam They two shall be one flesh to be applyable to the union which is betweene Christ and his Church Ephes 5. for so S. Paul himselfe applies them that Christ and his Church are all one as man and wife are all one yet the wife is or at least it had wont to be so easilier found at home then the husband wee can come to Christs Church but we cannot come to him The Church is a Hill and that is conspicuous naturally but the Church is such a Hill as may be seene every where August S. Augustine askes his Auditory in one of his Sermons doe any of you know the Hill Olympus and himselfe sayes in their behalfe none of you know it no more sayes he do those that dwell at Olympus know Giddabam vestram some Hill which was about them trouble not thy selfe to know the formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches neither of a Church in the lake nor a Church upon seven hils but since God hath planted thee in a Church where all things necessary for salvation are administred to thee and where no erronious doctrine even in the confession of our Adversaries is affirmed and held that is the Hill and that is the Catholique Church and there is this Commission in this text meanes of salvation sincerely executed So then such a Commission there is and it is in the Article of the Creed that is the ubi We are now come in our order to the third circumstantiall branch the Vnde Vnde from whence and when this Commission issued in which we consider that since we receive a deepe impression from the words which our friends spake at the time of their death much more would it worke upon us if they could come and speake to us after their death You know what Dives said Si quis ex mortuis Luke 16. If one from the dead might goe to my Brethren he might bring them to any thing Now Primitiae mortuorum The Lord of life and yet the first borne of the dead Christ Jesus returnes againe after his death to establish this Commission upon his Apostles It hath therefore all the formalities of a strong and valid Commission Christ gives it Ex mero motu meerely out of his owne goodnesse He foresaw no merit in us that moved him neither was he moved by any mans solicitations for could it ever have fallen into a mans heart to have prayed to the Father that his Son might take our Nature and dye and rise again and settle a course upon earth for our salvation if this had not first risen in the purpose of God himself Would any man ever have solicited or prayed him to proceed thus It was Ex mero motu out of his owne goodnesse and it was Ex certa scientia He was not deceived in his grant he knew what he did he knew this Commission should be executed in despight of all Heretiques and Tyrans that should oppose it And as it was out of his owne Will and with his owne knowledge so it was Ex plenitudine potestatis He exceeded not his Power for Christ made this Commission then Mat. 28.18 when as it is expressed in the other Euangelist he produced that evidence Data est mihi All power is given to me in Heaven and in earth where Christ speakes not of that Power which he had by his eternall generation though even that power were given him for he was Deus de Deo God of God nor he speakes not of that Power which was given him as Man which was great but all that he had in the first minute of his conception in the first union of the two Natures Divine and Humane together but that Power from which he derives this Commission is that which he had purchased by his blood and came to by conquest Ego vici mundum sayes Christ I have conquered the world and comming in by conquest I may establish what forme of Government I will and my will is to governe my Kingdome by this Commission and by these Commissioners to the Worlds end to establish these meanes upon earth for the salvation of the world And as it hath all these formalities of a due Commission made without suite made without error made without defect of power so had it this also that it was duely and authentically testified for though this Euangelist name but the eleven Apostles to have beene present and they in this case might be thought Testes domestici Witnesses that witnesse to their owne
torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presenââ Horrendum est sayes the Apostle It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Yet there was a case in which David found an ease to fall into the hands of God to scape the hands of men Horrendum est when Gods hand is bent to strike it is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands of the living God but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression beyond our imagination That God should let my soule fall out of his hand into a bottomlesse pit and roll an unremoveable stone upon it and leave it to that which it finds there and it shall finde that there which it never imagined till it came thither and never thinke more of that soule never have more to doe with it That of that providence of God that studies the life of every weed and worme and ant and spider and toad and viper there should never never any beame flow out upon me that that God who looked upon me when I was nothing and called me when I was not as though I had been out of the womb and depth of darknesse will not looke upon me now when though a miserable and a banished and a damned creature yet I am his creature still and contribute something to his glory even in my damnation that that God who hath often looked upon me in my foulest uncleannesse and when I had shut out the eye of the day the Sunne and the eye of the night the Taper and the eyes of all the world with curtaines and windowes and doores did yet see me and see me in mercy by making me see that he saw me and sometimes brought me to a present remorse and for that time to a forbearing of that sinne should so turne himselfe from me to his glorious Saints and Angels as that no Saint nor Angel nor Christ Jesus himselfe should ever pray him to looke towards me never remember him that such a soule there is that that God who hath so often said to my soule Quare morier is Why wilt thou die and so often sworne to my soule Vivit Dominus As the Lord liveth I would not have thee dye but live will nether let me dye nor let me live but dye an everlasting life and live an everlasting death that that God who when he could not get into me by standing and knocking by his ordinary meanes of entring by his Word his mercies hath applied his judgements and hath shaked the house this body with agues and palsies and set this house on fire with fevers and calentures and frighted the Master of the house my soule with horrors and heavy apprehensions and so made an entrance into me That that God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises upon me and leave me and cast me away as though I had cost him nothing that this God at last should let this soule goe away as a smoake as a vapour as a bubble and that then this soule cannot be a smoake a vapour nor a bubble but must lie in darknesse as long as the Lord of light is light it selfe and never sparke of that light reach to my soule What Tophet is not Paradise what Brimstone is not Amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally from the sight of God Especially to us for as the perpetuall losse of that is most heavy with which we have been best acquainted and to which wee have been most accustomed so shall this damnation which consists in the losse of the sight and presence of God be heavier to us then others because God hath so graciously and so evidently and so diversly appeared to us in his pillar of fire in the light of prosperity and in the pillar of the Cloud in hiding himselfe for a while from us we that have seene him in all the parts of this Commission in his Word in his Sacraments and in good example and not beleeved shall be further removed from his sight in the next world then they to whom he never appeared in this But Vincenti credenti to him that beleeves aright and overcomes all tentations to a wrong beliefe God shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse and fulnesse of joy and joy rooted in glory and glory established in eternity and this eternity is God To him that beleeves and overcomes God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and fruition Amen SERM. LXXVII Preached at S. PAULS May 21. 1626. 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead I Entred into the handling of these words upon Easter day for though the words have received divers Expositions good and pervers yet all agreed that the words were an argument for the Resurrection and that invited me to apply them to that Day At that Day I entred into them with Origens protestation Odit Dominus qui festum ejus unum putat diem God hates that man that thinks any holy-day of his lasts but one day that never thinks of the Resurrection but upon Easter day And therefore I engaged my selfe willingly according to the invitation and almost the necessity of the words which could not conveniently scarce possibly be determined in one day to returne againe and againe to the handling thereof For they are words of a great extent a great compasse The whole Circle of a Christian is designed and accomplished in them for here is first the first point in that Circle our Birth our spirituall birth that is Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized sayes the Text And then here is the point directly and diametrally opposed to that first point our Birth that is Death Why are these men thus baptized for the dead sayes the Text And then the Circle is carried up to the first point againe to our Birth in another Birth in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection So that if we consider the Militant and the Triumphant Church to be as they are all one House and under one roofe here is first Limen Ecclesiae as S. Augustine calls Baptisme The Threshold of the Church we are put over the Threshold into the Body of the Church by Baptisme and here we are remembred of Baptisme Why are these men thus baptized And then here is Chorus Ecclesiae The Quire the Chancell of the Church in which all the service of God is officiated and executed for we are made not onely hearers and spectators but actors in the service of God when we come to beare a part in the Hymnes and Anthems of the Saints by our Death and here we are
years after Christ But as Tertullian shews us an early birth of it so he tells us enough to shew us that it should not have been long liv'd when he acknowledges that it had no ground in Scripture but was onely a custome popularly and vulgarly taken up But Tertullian speaks of more then Prayer he speaks of oblations and sacrifices for the dead It is true he does so but it is of oblations and sacrifices far from the propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for Tertullian makes a woman the Priest in his sacrifice Offert uxor sayes he annuis diebus dormitionis mariti The wife offers every yeare upon the day of her husbands death that is every yeare upon that day she gives a dole and almes to the poore as the custome was to doe in memory of dead friends This being then but such a custome and but so induc'd why did none oppose it Aerius Epiphanius Why it was not sufficiently opposed I have intimated some reasons before The affection of those that did it who were though mistaken in the way piously affected in the action And then the harmlesnesse in the thing it self at first And then partly a loathnesse in the Fathers to deter the Gentiles from becomming Christians And partly a cloud and darknesse of the state of the soule after death Yet some did oppose it But some not early enough and some not earnestly enough And some not with much successe because they were not otherwise Integrae famae They were not thought sound in all things and therefore they were beleeved in nothing which was Aerius his case who did oppose it but because Aerius did not come home to all truths he was not hearkned unto in opposing any error Otherwise at that time Epiphanius had a faire occasion offered to have opposed this growing custome and to have rectified the Church in a good measure therein about an hundred years after Tertullian For then Aerius opposed it directly but because he proceeded upon false grounds That since it was come to that That the most vicious man the most enormous sinner might be saved after his death by the prayers and devotions of another man there remained no more for a Christian to doe but to provide such men in his life to doe those offices for him after his death and so he might deliver himselfe from all the disciplines and mortifications and from the anguishes and remorses and vexations of conscience which the Christian Religion induces and requires Epiphanius discerning the advantage that Aerius had given by imputing things not throughly true he places his glory and his triumph onely in overthrowing Aerius his ill grounded arguments and takes the question it selfe and the danger of the Church no farther to heart then so And therefore when Aerius asks Can prayers for the dead be of any use Epiphanius sayes Yes they may be of use to awaken and exercise the piety and charity of the living and never speaks to that which was principally intended whether they could be of any use to the dead So when Aerius asks Is it not absurd to say That all sins may be remitted after death Epiphanius sayes No man in the Church ever said That all sins may be remitted after death and never cleares the maine whether any sin might And yet with all advantages and modifications Epiphanius lodges it at last but upon custome Nec enim praeceptum Patris sed institutum matris habemus sayes he For this which we doe we have no commandment from God our Father but onely an Institution implyed in this Custome from the Church our Mother But then it grew to a farther height from a wild flower in the field Chrysost and a garden flower in private grounds to be more generally planted and to be not onely suffered by many Fathers but cherished and watered by some and not above forty years after Epiphanius to be so far advanced by S. Chrysostome as that he assignes though no Scripture for it yet that which is nearest to Scripture That it was an Apostolicall Constitution And truly if it did clearly appeare to have been so A thing practised and prescribed to the Church by the Apostles the holy Ghost were as well to be beleeved in the Apostles mouthes as in their pens An Apostolicall Tradition that is truly so is good evidence But because those things doe hardly lie in proofe for that which hath been given for a good Rule of Apostolicall Traditions is very defective that is That whatsoever hath been generally in use in the Church of which no Author is known is to be accepted for an Apostolicall Tradition for so that Ablutio pedum The washing of one anothers feet after Christs example was in so generall use that it had almost gained the dignity of being a Sacrament And so was also the giving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud to children newly baptized and yet these though in so generall use and without any certaine Author are not Apostolicall Traditions Therefore we must apply S. Augustines words to S. Chrysostome Lege ex Lege ex Prophetis ex Psalmis ex Euangelio ex Apostolicis literis credemus Read us any thing out of the Law or Prophets or Psalmes or Gospel or Epistles and we will beleeve it And we must have leave to return S. Augustines words upon S. Augustine himselfe who hath much assisted this custome of praying for the dead Lege ex Lege c. Read it out of the Scriptures and we will beleeve it for S. Augustine does not pretend any other place of Scripture then this of the Maccabees and not disputing now what credit that Book had with S. Augustine certainly it fell not within this enumeration of his The Maccabees are neither Law nor Prophets nor Psalms nor Gospel nor Epistle Beloved it is a wanton thing for any Church in spirituall matters to play with small errors to tolerate or wink at small abuses as though it should be alwayes in her power to extinguish them when she would It is Christs counsell to his Spouse that is the Church Capite vulpes parvulas Take us the little foxes for they destroy the Vine though they seeme but little and able to doe little harme yet they grow bigger and bigger every day and therefore stop errors before they become heresies and erroneous men before they become formall heretiques Capite sayes Christ Take them suffer them not to goe on but then it is Capite nobis Take us those foxes Take them for us The bargaine is betweene Christ and his Church For it is not Capite vobis Take them to your selves and make your selves Judges of such doctrinall matters as appertaine not to your cognizance Nor it is not Cape tibi Take him to thy selfe spy out a Recusant or a man otherwise not conformable and take him for thy labour beg him and spoile him and for his Religion leave him as you found him Neither is it Cape sibi Take
in thy seeking of him If the Angels bee come downe to destroy Sodome If Ionas bee come to proclaime destruction to Nineveh wilt thou make thy selfe beleeve that thou art a Citizen of Sodom an inhabitant of Nineveh and must necessarily be wrapped up in that destruction If David say Non sic impii non sic The wicked shall not stand in judgement wilt thou needs be one of them As a wise and a discreet man will never beleeve that he that writes a Satyr meanes him though he touch upon his vices so whatsoever the Prophets say of an aversion and obduration in God against sinners yet they meane not thee nor doe thou assume it in an inevitablenesse upon thy selfe The Angel of God the Spirit of God shall deale with thee as he did with Lot in Sodom He told Lot over-night Gen. 19.12 that he would burne the City and bad him prepare God shall give thee some grudgings before he exalt thy fever and warne thee to consider thy state and consult with thy spirituall Physitian The Angel called him up in the morning and then hastned him and when he prolonged sayes the Text The Angel caught him and carried him forth and set him without the City Because though there was no cooperation in Lot yet there was no resisting neither God was pleased to doe all So in this death of diffidence and sense of Gods fearefull judgements God opens thy grave now and now he calls to thee Lazare veni for as Come forth Lazarus and hee offers his hand to pull thee out now Iosh 1.6 Onely Comfortare esto robustus as God said to Ioshuah Bee strong and have a good courage and as God addes there Comfortare esto robustus valde Multiply thy courage and God shall multiply thy strength in all dejections have a cheerefull apprehension of thy resurrection and thou shalt have it nay thou hast it But this death of desperation or diffidence in Gods mercy by Gods mercy hath swallowed none of us but the death of sinne hath swallowed us all and for our owne customary sinnes we all need a resurrection And what is that Resurrectio à peccato cessatio à peccato Durand non est idem Every cessation from sin is not a resurrection from sinne A man may discontinue a sinne intermit the practise of a sin by infirmity of the body or by satiety in the sinne or by the absence of that person with whom he hath used to communicate in that sin Damasc But Resurrectio est secunda ejus quod interiit statio A Resurrection is such an abstinence from the practise of the sin as is grounded upon a repentance and a detestation of the sin and then it is a setling and an establishing of the soule in that state and disposition It is not a sudden and transitory remorse nor onely a reparation of that which was ruined and demolished but it is a building up of habits contrary to former habits and customes in actions contrary to that sin that we have been accustomed to Else it is but an Intermission not a Resurrection but a starting not a waking but an apparition not a living body but a cessation not a peace of conscience Now this Resurrection is begun and well advanced in Baptismate lachrymarum In the baptisme of true and repentant teares But Beloved as S. Paul in this place hath a relation Ad baptismum clinicorum to death-bed-baptists death-bed-Christians to them that defer their Baptisme to their death but he gives no allowance of it So this Baptisma clinicorum this repentance upon the death-bed is a dangerous delay Even of them I will say with S. Paul here If there were no Resurrection no need to rise from sin by repentance why are they then thus baptized pro mortuis why doe they repent when they are as good as dead and have no more to suffer in this world But if there be such a resurrection a necessity of such a Baptisme by repentance why come they no sooner to it For is any man sure to have it or sure to have a desire to it then It is never impertinent to repeat S. Augustines words in this case Etiam hac animadversione percutitur peccator ut moriens obliviscatur sui qui dum viveret oblitus est Dei God begins a dying mans condemnation at this That as he forgot God in his life so he shall forget himselfe at his death Compare thy temporall and thy spirituall state together and consider how they may both stand well at that day If thou have set thy state in order and made a Will before and have nothing to doe at last but to adde a Codicil this is soone dispatched at last But if thou leave all till then it may prove a heavy businesse So if thou have repented before and setled thy selfe in a religious course before and have nothing to doe then but to wrastle with the power of the disease and the agonies of death God shall fight for thee in that weake estate God shall imprint in thee a Cupio dissolvi S. Pauls not onely contentednesse but desire to be dissolved And God shall give thee a glorious Resurrection yea an Ascension into Heaven before thy death and thou shalt see thy selfe in possession of his eternall Kingdome before thy bodily eyes be shut Be therefore S. Cyprians Peripatetique and not his Clinique Christian A walking and not a bed-rid Christian That when thou hast walked with God as Henoch did thou maist be taken with God as Henoch was and so walke with the Lamb as the Saints doe in Jerusalem and follow him whithersoever hee goes That even thy death-bed may bee as Elias Chariot to carry thee to heaven And as the bed of the Spouse in the Canticles which was Lectus floridus a greene and flourishing bed where thou maist find by a faithfull apprehension that thy sicknesse hath crowned thee with a crowne of thornes by participation of the sufferings of thy Saviour and that thy patience hath crowned thee with that crowne of glory which the Lord the righteous Judge shall impart to thee that day SERM. LXXIX Preached at S. PAULS PSAL. 90.14 O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes THey have made a Rule in the Councel of Trent that no Scripture shall be expounded but according to the unanime consent of the Fathers But in this Book of the Psalms it would trouble them to give many examples of that Rule that is of an unanime consent of the Fathers in the interpretation thereof In this Psalme Bellarmine in his Exposition of the Psalms finds himselfe perplexed He sayes and sayes truly Hieronymus constanter affirmat Augustinus constanter negat S. Hierome doth confidently and constantly affirme and S. Augustine with as much confidence and constancy deny that this Psalme and all that follow to the hundredth Psalme are Moses Psalms and written by him And this diverse
his soule by Preservation and immortall in his body by Reparation in the Resurrection For though they be separated à Thoro Mensa from Bed and Board they are not divorced Though the soule be at the Table of the Lambe in Glory and the body but at the table of the Serpent in dust Though the soule be in lecto florido Cant. 1.16 in that bed which is alwayes green in an everlasting spring in Abrahams Bosome And the body but in that green-bed whose covering is but a yard and a halfe of Turfe and a Rugge of grasse and the sheet but a winding sheet yet they are not divorced they shall returne to one another againe in an inseparable re-union in the Resurrection To establish this assurance of a Resurrection in us God does sometimes in this life that which he hath promised for the next that is he gives a Resurrection to life after a bodily death here God hath made two Testaments two Wills And in both he hath declared his Power and his Will to give this new life after death in this world To the Widows sonne of Zarephtha 1. King 17. he bequeaths new life and to the Shunamites sonne he gives the same legacy 2 King 4. in the Old Testament In the New Testament to the widow of Naims sonne Luk. 7.8 he bequeaths new life And to Iairus daughter he gives the same legacy And out of the surplusage of his inexhaustible estate out of the overflowing of his Power he enables his Executors to doe as he did for Peter gives Dorcas this Resurrection too Act. 9.40 Divers examples hath he given us of the Resurrection of every particular man in particular Resurrections such as we have named And one of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ himselfe for in him we all rose for he was All in All Con-vivificavit Ephes 2.5 sayes the Apostle and Considere nos fecit God hath quickned us all us not onely S. Paul and his Ephesians but all and God hath raised us and God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Iesus They that are not faln yet by any actuall sinne children newly baptized are risen already in him And they that are not dead yet nay not alive yet not yet borne have a Resurrection in him who was not onely the Lambe slaine from the beginning but from before all beginnings was risen too and all that shall ever have part in the second Resurrection are risen with him from that time Now next to that great Propheticall action that type of the generall Resurrection in the Resurrection of Christ the most illustrious Evidence of the Resurrection of particular men is this Resuscitation of Lazarus whose sister Martha directed by faith and yet transported by passion seeks to entender and mollifie and supple him to impressions of mercy and compassion who was himselfe the Mold in which all mercy was cast nay the substance of which all mercy does consist Christ Jesus with this imperfect piece of Devotion which hath a tincture of Faith but is deeper dyed in Passion Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed This Text which you Heare Martha's single words Divisio complicated with this Text which you See The dead body of this our Brother makes up between them this body of Instruction for the soule first That there is nothing in this world perfect And then That such as it is there is nothing constant nothing permanent We consider the first That there is nothing perfect in the best things in spirituall things Even Martha's devotion and faith hath imperfections in it And we consider the other That nothing is permanent in temporall things Riches prosperously multiplied Children honorably bestowed Additions of Honor and Titles fairly acquired Places of Command and Government justly received and duly executed All testimonies all evidences of worldly happinesse have a Dissolution a Determination in the death of this and of every such Man There is nothing no spirituall thing perfect in this world Nothing no temporall thing permanent and durable And these two Considerations shall be our two parts And then these the branches from these two roots First in the first we shall see in generall The weaknesse of Mans best actions And secondly more particularly The weaknesses in Martha's Action And yet in a third place the easinesse the propensnesse the largenesse of Gods goodnesse towards us in the acceptation of our imperfect Sacrifices for Christ does not refuse nor discourage Martha though her action have these imperfections And in this largenesse of his Mercy which is the end of all we shall end this part And in our second That as in spirituall things nothing is perfect so in tempoporall things nothing is permanent we shall by the same three steps as in the former looke first upon the generall consideration the fluidnesse the transitorinesse of all such temporall things And then consider it more particularly in Gods Master-piece amongst mortall things the body of man That even that flowes into putrefaction And then lastly returne to that in which we determined the former part The largenesse of Gods goodnesse to us in affording even to mans body so dissolved into putrefaction an incorruptible and a glorious state So have you the frame set up and the roomes divided The two parts and the three branches of each And to the furnishing of them with meditations fit for this Occasion we passe now In entring upon the first branch of our first part 1. Part. In spiritualibus nihil perfectum Scientia That in spirituall things nothing is perfect we may well afford a kinde of spirituall nature to knowledge And how imperfect is all our knowledge What one thing doe we know perfectly Whether wee consider Arts or Sciences the servant knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Art and the Scholar knows but according to the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Science Young men mend not their sight by using old mens Spectacles and yet we looke upon Nature but with Aristotles Spectacles and upon the body of man but with Galens and upon the frame of the world but with Ptolomies Spectacles Almost all knowledge is rather like a child that is embalmed to make Mummy then that is nursed to make a Man rather conserved in the stature of the first age then growne to be greater And if there be any addition to knowledge it is rather a new knowledge then a greater knowledge rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something that was not knowne at all before then an emproving an advancing a multiplying of former inceptions and by that meanes no knowledge comes to be perfect One Philosopher thinks he is dived to the bottome when he sayes he knows nothing but this That he knows nothing and yet another thinks that he hath expressed more knowledge then he in saying That he knows not so much as
we thought the Sunne had moved I need not that helpe that the Earth it selfe is in Motion to prove this That nothing upon Earth is permanent The Assertion will stand of it selfe till some man assigne me some instance something that a man may relie upon and find permanent Consider the greatest Bodies upon Earth The Monarchies Objects which one would thinke Destiny might stand and stare at but not shake Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth The haires of our head Objects which one would thinke Destiny would not observe or could not discerne And yet Destiny to speak to a naturall man And God to speake to a Christian is no more troubled to make a Monarchy ruinous then to make a haire gray Nay nothing needs be done to either by God or Destiny A Monarchy will ruine as a haire will grow gray of it selfe In the Elements themselves of which all sub-elementary things are composed there is no acquiescence but a vicissitudinary transmutation into one another Ayre condensed becomes water a more solid body And Ayre rarified becomes fire a body more disputable and in-apparant It is so in the Conditions of men too A Merchant condensed kneaded and packed up in a great estate becomes a Lord And a Merchant rarified blown up by a perfidious Factor or by a riotous Sonne evaporates into ayre into nothing and is not seen And if there were any thing permanent and durable in this world yet we got nothing by it because howsoever that might last in it selfe yet we could not last to enjoy it If our goods were not amongst Moveables yet we our selves are if they could stay with us yet we cannot stay with them which is another Consideration in this part The world is a great Volume and man the Index of that Booke Corpus hominis Even in the body of man you may turne to the whole world This body is an Illustration of all Nature Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before in his Fiat lux and Fiat firmamentum and in all the rest said or done in all the six dayes Propose this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation thereof as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost Nay not in a Metaphor or comparison of a Temple or any other similitudinary thing but as it was really and truly the very body of God in the person of Christ and yet this body must wither must decay must languish must perish When Goliah had armed and fortified this body And Iezabel had painted and perfumed this body And Dives had pampered and larded this body As God said to Ezekiel when he brought him to the dry bones Fili hominis Sonne of Man doest thou thinke these bones can live They said in their hearts to all the world Can these bodies die And they are dead Iezabels dust is not Ambar nor Goliahs dust Terra sigillata Medicinall nor does the Serpent whose meat they are both finde any better rellish in Dives dust then in Lazarus But as in our former part where our foundation was That in nothing no spirituall thing there was any perfectnesse which we illustrated in the weaknesses of Knowledge and Faith and Hope and Charity yet we concluded that for all those defects God accepted those their religious services So in this part where our foundation is That nothing in temporall things is permanent as we have illustrated that by the decay of that which is Gods noblest piece in Nature The body of man so we shall also conclude that with this goodnesse of God that for all this dissolution and putrefaction he affords this Body a Resurrection The Gentils Resurrectio and their Poets describe the sad state of Death so Nox una obeunda That it is one everlasting Night To them a Night But to a Christian it is Dies Mortis and Dies Resurrectionis The day of Death and The day of Resurrection We die in the light in the sight of Gods presence and we rise in the light in the sight of his very Essence Nay Gods corrections and judgements upon us in this life are still expressed so Dies visitationis still it is a Day though a Day of visitation and still we may discerne God to be in the action Gen. 2. The Lord of Life was the first that named Death Morte morieris sayes God Thou shalt die the Death I doe the lesse feare or abhorre Death because I finde it in his mouth Even a malediction hath a sweetnesse in his mouth for there is a blessing wrapped up in it a mercy in every correction a Resurrection upon every Death When Iezabels beauty exalted to that height which it had by art or higher then that to that height which it had in her own opinion shall be infinitely multiplied upon every Body And as God shall know no man from his own Sonne so as not to see the very righteousnesse of his own Sonne upon that man So the Angels shall know no man from Christ so as not to desire to looke upon that mans face because the most deformed wretch that is there shall have the very beauty of Christ himselfe So shall Goliahs armour and Dives fulnesse be doubled and redoubled upon us And every thing that we can call good shall first be infinitely exalted in the goodnesse and then infinitely multiplied in the proportion and againe infinitely extended in the duration And since we are in an action of preparing this dead Brother of ours to that state for the Funerall is the Easter-eve The Buriall is the depositing of that man for the Resurrection As we have held you with Doctrine of Mortification by extending the Text from Martha to this occasion so shall we dismisse you with Consolation by a like occasionall inverting the Text from passion in Martha's mouth Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed to joy in ours Lord because thou wast here our Brother is not dead The Lord was with him in all these steps In vita with him in his life with him in his death He is with him in his funerals and he shall be with him in his Resurrection and therefore because the Lord was with him our Brother is not dead He was with him in the beginning of his life in this manifestation That though he were of Parents of a good of a great Estate yet his possibility and his expectation from them did not slacken his own industry which is a Canker that eats into nay that hath eat up many a family in this City that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done the Sonne does nothing for himselfe And truly it falls out too often that he that labours not for more does not keepe his own God imprinted in him an industrious disposition though such hopes from such parents might have excused some slacknesse and God prospered his industry so as that when his Fathers estate came to a distribution by death he needed it not God was with
him Psal 81.11 as with David in a Dilatation and then in a Repletion God enlarged him and then he filled him He gave him a large and a comprehensive understanding and with it A publique heart And such as perchance in his way of education and in our narrow and contracted-times in which every man determines himselfe in himselfe and scarce looks farther it would be hard to finde many Examples of such largenesse You have I thinke a phrase of Driving a Trade And you have I know a practise of Driving away Trade by other use of money And you have lost a man that drove a great Trade the right way in making the best use of our home-commodity To fetch in Wine and Spice and Silke is but a drawing of Trade The right driving of trade is to vent our owne outward And yet for the drawing in of that which might justly seeme most behoofefull that is of Arts and Manufactures to be imployed upon our owne Commodity within the Kingdome he did his part diligently at least if not vehemently if not passionately This City is a great Theater and he Acted great and various parts in it And all well And when he went higher as he was often heard in Parliaments at Councell tables and in more private accesses to the late King of ever blessed memory as for that comprehension of those businesses which he pretended to understand no man doubts for no man lacks arguments and evidences of his ability therein So for his manner of expressing his intentions and digesting and uttering his purposes I have sometimes heard the greatest Master of Language and Judgement which these times or any other did or doe or shall give that good and great King of ours say of him That he never heard any man of his breeding handle businesses more rationally more pertinently more elegantly more perswasively And when his purpose was to do a grace to a Preacher of very good abilities and good note in his owne Chappell I have heard him say that his language and accent and manner of delivering himselfe was like this man This man hath God accompanied all his life and by performance thereof seemes to have made that Covenant with him which he made to Abraham Multiplicabote vehementer Gen. 17.2 I will multiply thee exceedingly He multiplied his estate so as was fit to endow many and great Children and he multiplied his Children so both in their number and in their quality as they were fit to receive a great Estate God was with him all the way In a Pillar of Fire in the brightnesse of prosperity and in the Pillar of Clouds too in many darke and sad and heavy crosses So great a Ship required a great Ballast So many blessings many crosses And he had them and sailed on his course the steadier for them The Cloud as well as the Fire was a Pillar to him His crosses as well as his blessings established his assurance in God And so in all the course of his life The Lord was here and therefore our Brother is not dead not dead in the evidences and testimonies of life for he whom the world hath just cause to celebrate for things done when he was alive is alive still in their celebration The Lord was here that is with him at his death too In morte He was served with the Processe here in the City but his cause was heard in the Country Here he sickned There he languished and dyed there In his sicknesse there those that assisted him are witnesses of his many expressings of a religious a constant heart towards God and of his pious joyning with them even in the holy declaration of kneeling then when they in favour of his weakenesse would disswade him from kneeling I must not defraud him of this testimony froÌây selfe that into this place where we are now met I have observed him to enter with much reverence compose himselfe in this place with much declaration of devotion And truly it is that reverence which those persons who are of the same ranke that he was in the City that reverence that they use in this place when they come hither is that that makes us who have now the administration of this Quire glad that our Predecessors but a very few yeares before our time and not before all our times neither admitted these Honourable and worshipfull Persons of this City to sit in this Quire so as they do upon Sundayes The Church receives an honour in it But the honour is more in their reverence then in their presence though in that too And they receive an honour and an ease in it and therefore they do piously towards God and prudently for themselves and gratefully towards us in giving us by their reverent comportment here so just occasion of continuing that honour and that ease to them here which to lesse reverend and unrespective persons we should be lesse willing to doe To returne to him in his sicknesse He had but one dayes labour and all the rest were Sabbaths one day in his sicknesse he converted to businesse Thus He called his family and friends together Thankfully he acknowledged Gods manifold blessings and his owne sins as penitently And then to those who were to have the disposing of his estate joyntly with his Children he recommended his servants and the poore and the Hospitals and the Prisons which according to his purpose have beene all taken into consideration And after this which was his Valediction to the world he seemed alwaies loath to returne to any worldly businesse His last Commandement to Wife and Children was Christs last commandement to his Spouse the Church in the Apostles To love one another He blest them and the Estate devolved upon them unto them And by Gods grace shall prove as true a Prophet to them in that blessing as he was to himselfe when in entring his last bed two dayes before his Death he said Help me off with my earthly habit let me go to my last bed Where in the second night after he said Little know ye what paine I feele this night yet I know I shall have joy in the morning And in that morning he dyed The forme in which he implored his Saviour was evermore towards his end this Christ Iesus which dyed on the Crosse forgive me my sins He have mercy upon me And his last and dying words were the repetition of the name of Jesus And when he had not strength to utter that name distinctly and perfectly they might heare it from within him as from a man a far off even then when his hollow and remote naming of Jesus was rather a certifying of them that he was with his Jesus then a prayer that he might come to him And so The Lord was here here with him in his Death and because the Lord was here our Brother is not dead not dead in the eyes and eares of God for as the blood of Abel
speaks yet so doth the zeale of Gods Saints and their last prayers though we heare them not God continues still and they pray in Heaven as the Martyrs under the Altar even till the Resurrection He is with him now too In funere Here in his Funerals Buriall and Christian Buriall and Solemne Buriall are all evidences and testimonies of Gods presence God forbid we should conclude or argue an absence of God from the want of Solemne Buriall or Christian Buriall or any Buriall But neither must we deny it to be an evidence of his favour and presence where he is pleased to afford these So God makes that the seale of all his blessings to Abraham Gen. 15. Gen. 46. Gen. 50. Esay 11.10 Matt. 26. That he should be buried in a good age God established Iacob with that promise That his Son Ioseph should have care of his Funerals And Ioseph does cause his servants The Physitians to embalme him when he was dead Of Christ it was Prophecied That he should have a glorious Buriall And therefore Christ interprets well that profuse and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured out the Oyntment upon him That she did it to Bury him And so shall Ioseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals If we were to send a Son or a friend to take possession of any place in Court or forraine parts we would send him out in the best equipage Let us not grudge to set downe our friends in the Anti-chamber of Heaven the Grave in as good manner as without vaine-gloriousnesse and wastfulnesse we may And in inclining them to whom that care belongs to expresse that care as they doe this day The Lord is with him even in this Funerall And because The Lord is here our brother is not dead Not dead in the memories and estimation of men And lastly In resurrectione that we may have God present in all his Manifestations Hee that was and is and is to come was with him in his life and death and is with him in this holy Solemnity and shall bee with him againe in the Resurrection Gen. 46.4 God sayes to Iacob I will goe downe with thee into Egypt and I will also surely bring thee up againe God goes downe with a good man into the Grave and will surely bring him up againe When The Angel promised to returne to Abraham and Sarah Gen. 18.10 for the assurance of the birth of Isaac according to the time of life that is in such time as by nature a woman may have a childe God will returne to us in the Grave according to the time of life that is in such time as he by his gracious Decree hath fixed for the Resurrection And in the meane time no more then the God-head departed from the dead body of our Saviour in the grave doth his power and his presence depart from our dead bodies in that darknesse But that which Moses said to the whole Congregation I say to you all both to you that heare me Deut. 4.4 and to him that does not All ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Even hee whom wee call dead is alive this day In the presence of God we lay him downe In the power of God he shall rise In the person of Christ he is risen already And so into the same hands that have received his soule we commend his body beseeching his blessed Spirit that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently of his good estate our faith may assure us of the same happinesse in our owne behalfe And that for all our sakes but especially for his own glory he will be pleased to hasten the consummation of all in that kingdome which that Son of God hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood Amen FINIS ⧠The Table of such places of SCRIPTURE as are illustrated and expounded in this BOOKE GENESIS 1.16 TWo great lights c. 81. A. 2.7 Man was a living soul 71. A. 18.10 According to the time of life 826. D. 26.18 Isaac digged the wells of water which 118. B. 29.12 Iacob kissed Rachel 407. C. 41.45 Pharaoh called Iosephs name 529. A. 51.20 You thought evill against me 171. B. EXODUS 4.22 Israel is his sonne 56. E. 14.14 The Lord shall fight for you 577. D. 23.3 Thou shalt not countenance 782. C. 33.13 Shew me now thy way 66. E. DEUTERONOMY 21.23 He that is hanged is accursed of God 8. A. 30.15 See I have set before thee life and death 70. A. 30.19 I have set before you life and death 148. D. JOSHUAH 10.12 Sunne stand thou still 700. A. JUDGES 2.5 They wept 539. B. RUTH 1.19 Call me not Naomi 479. B. 2 SAMUEL 14.14 We must needs die and are 311. A. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him 257. D. 2 KINGS 9.3 None shall say This is Iezebel 148. B. 11.12 They put the crowne 336. D. 20.7 Take a lump of figs 514. E. JOB 4.18 His Angels he charged with folly 9. C. 5.7 Man is borne unto travatle as 538. B. 7.1 Mans life is a warfare 142. A. 603 E. 8.16 Woe unto me poor rush for c. 141. B. 10.20 Lord spare me a while 162. C. 19.25 I know my Redeemer liveth c. 150. A. 19.26 In my flesh c. 122. A. 20.11 My bones are full of the sins 519. B. PSALMES 2.2 They imagine a vaine thing 433. D. 2.8 Aske of me and I will give thee c. 26. E. 462. E. 2. ult Kisse the Son lest he be angry 541. D. 3.7 Thou hast broken the teeth 516. D. 6.5 In death there is no remembrance of thee 533. E. 15.2 Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle 117. E. 19.9 The judgements of the Lord justifie themselves 366. D. 22.6 I am a worme 18. A. 45. C. 65. A. 25.15 Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord 618. A. 37.5 CoÌmit thy wayes unto the Lord 686. B. 37.26 The righteous is mercifull 83. E. 45.7 God hath anointed thee with the oyle of gladnesse 396. C. 50.12 If I were hungry 101. B 55.19 Because they have no changes therefore they feare not God 57. D. 65.1 Praise waiteth for thee 64. A. 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit 585. A. 72.18 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel which 394. D. 78.63 Their maidens were not given in marriage 679. C. 82.1 God standeth in the 72. D. 90.10 The dayes of our yeares c. 83. B. 101.1 I will sing of thy mercy and 12. A. 101.5 Him that hath a high looke 729. B. 102.5 My bones cleave to my flesh 519. B. 104.29 They die and they returne 255. D. 105.15 Touch not mine anointed 55. B. 106.20 They changed their glory 85. A. 111.10 A good understanding have 612. C. 113.5 He dwels in heaven 134. C. 119.57 The Lord is my portion 14. B.