their Souls for ever which none of these Saviours could do And therefore a publick general and universal Saviour of whom all had need as being all sinners one much talked of and long expected the great and famous Saviour of all such a one was behind And now he is come this is he the Saviour which is Christ c. He of whom all Prophecies made mention and he the performance of them all of whom all the Types under the Law were shadows and he the substance of them all of whom all the Prophecies ran and he the fulfilling of them all he of whom all those inferiour Saviours were figures and forerunners and he the accomplishment of all that in them was wanting This is he Jacob's Shilo Esay's Emmanuel Jeremy's Branch Daniel's Messias Aggai's desideratus cunctis gentibus the desire of all the nations the desire of them then and now the joy of all nations Gaudium omni populo the joy of all people a Saviour which is Christ. And this this universality of joy is comprised in the very name for Christ signifies anointed and that is as much as S. John delivereth in other terms a Saviour sealed John vi 27. for by anointing Kings and Priests and Prophets in old time were deputed signed and sealed as it were to their several offices and received power and commission to execute those high functions So then a Saviour he is not as those others were raised up upon a sudden upon some occasion to serve the present and never heard of till they came but a Saviour in Gods forecounsel resolved on and given forth from the beginning promised and foretold and now anointed and sent with absolute commission and fulness of power to be a perfect and complete Saviour of all a Saviour which is Christ That is a Saviour ex officio whose office and very profession is to save that all may have right to repair unto him and find it at his hands not a Saviour incidently as it fell out but one ex professo anointed to that end and by vertue of his anointing appointed set forth and sent into the world of purpose to execute this function of a Saviour not to the Jews only as did the rest but to all the ends of the earth So runs his commission unto his Disciples ite in universum orbem go into the whole world and preach the Gospel omni Creaturae to every Creature so runs his own Proclamation venite ad me omnes come unto me and come all Matth. xi 28. and of them that do come I will cast none out Iohn vi 37. Servator omnium hominum the Saviour of all men 1. Tim. iv 4. and as the Samaritans said of him Servator mundi the Saviour of the world of Samaritans Jews and Gentiles of Kings and Shepherds and all And sure this is publick and universal joy gaudium omni populo joy unto all people indeed for whom there is now a saving office erected one anointed to that end a professed Saviour to whom all may resort None shall henceforth be to seek there is a name given under Heaven whereby we may be sure of Salvation and this is that name the name Christ A Saviour which is born c. Two of his Attributes then we have a Saviour which is Christ that is a Saviour and a publick Saviour but he must be a perpetual Saviour too otherwise our joy will not be full Though it be great though it be general though it be general to all people yet it will fade and perish it will not be gaudium quod erit joy which shall be lasting everlasting joy none can give that but an eternal and everlasting Saviour And he that will be such must be something more than Christ so therefore he is a great deal more Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. Not a Lord that is particular and hath reference to a private title whereof he is Lord Lord of this or that place or people and the like but the Lord which is absolute and universal without any addition you may put to it what you will Lord of Heaven and Earth of Men and Angels Dominus Christorum Dominus dominorum Lord paramount over all such was this Saviour and such it behoved him to be not only Christ that name will sort with Men yea it is his name as Man only for God cannot be anointed But he that would save the world must be more than Man and so more than Christ. Indeed Christ cannot save us he that must save us must be Christ the Lord and none but the Lord ego sum ego sum saith God himself and praeter me non est Servator it is I it is I who am the Saviour I am and besides me there is no Saviour none indeed no true Saviour but the Lord all other are short vana salus hominis Mans Salvation is vain saith the Psalmist any Salvation is vain if it be not the Lords though they be Christs as Kings and Princes are who are Gods anointed yet they cannot save Trust not in Kings and Princes for non est salus there is no salvation no no health nor help in them their breath departs and they return to the earth For though they are Christs yet they are but Christi Domini the Lord 's Christs and we shall never arrive at full and perfect Salvation till we come to Christus Dominus Christ the Lord. All the help and Salvation which those other Christs and Saviours can afford doth but concern the body that indeed they may sometimes kill or save at their pleasure but not one of them can quicken his own Soul much less give a ransome for anothers it cost more to redeem it than so and he must let that alone for ever let it alone for this Christ whose work it is Christ the Lord that only can save both Body and Soul his own and other Mens too Secondly those other Christs which are not the Lord as they save only the Body so can they save only from bodily and corporal enemies but we had need of a Saviour from ghostly adversaries from spiritual wickednesses in high places a Saviour that might wrastle with principalities and powers and triumph over them too and no Christ may do this but Christ the Lord the Lord of power and might only able to bind the strong Man in his own house and spoil him of his goods of power alone to destroy Abaddon the great destroyer of the bottomless pit Thirdly those other Christs as they save but from corporal enemies so but from worldly calamities from debts and arrests and prisons and the like penalties of their own Laws But who shall deliver us from sin and death and hell From sin the grand debt of mankind from death the universal Sergeant of all flesh and from Hell the everlasting prison of Body and Soul For these they can give no protection they are all subject unto them themselves
habet all our time that is past death hath seised on it and so much of our life is consumed Let me then warn you and stir up your meditations of your mortality in the words of Moses Deut. xxxii 29. O that men were wise then would they understand this then would they consider their latter end Sure we are unwise that we consider not the things past the evil we have committed the good we have omitted the benefits of God we have abused the time we have mispent and yet we grieve not because we think not yet whether we shall die More unwise are we not to consider the things present the deadness of our Body and uncertainty of our death the difficulty of Salvation and the small number of such as shall be saved and yet we shame not because we think we shall not yet die But most unwise are we that we consider not the things to come Death Judgment Hell all to come and yet we fear not because we think we shall never die But O that we were wise then should we understand then should we consider our latter end and considering it we should both prepare for it now and more cheerfully entertain it when it comes memorare novissims remember thy end saith the Wiseman in aeternum non peccabis and thou shalt never offend never do amiss Ecclus vii 36. So universal is the goodness of this consideration and therefore I have stayed the longer on it But now I pass from mortality to the cause of it from death to sin that first brought it into the world The body is dead because of sin Sin it is and only sin which is as the cause of all our dolours and calamities so of death it self that follows them without this there never had been there never could have been any death in the world Death were not death had it not a sting to kill but the sting of death is sin as the strength of sin is the law saith our Apostle The cursed apple of disobedience which our first Parents would needs eat sticks still in all our teeth it was poyson unto his nature and infected his blood and he hath derived the contagion to all his posterity who still continuing to feed on forbidden fruit as he did do perpetually strengthen the original Disease and draw death upon themselves more hastily and violently than either that sin procured or the prime corruption of nature for it doth inforce Hence then we may perceive first how foolish they are who living still in sin yet never consider that they are the Butchers and Murtherers of themselves according to that of the Psalmist The malice of the wicked shall slay themselves xxxiv 21 his own sin which he hath conceived brought forth and nourished shall be his destruction Every Man judgeth Saul miserable that died upon his own Sword but what better are other wretched Men whose sins and iniquities are the cruel instruments of death wherewith they slay themselves Souls and Bodies too Thus are they twice miserable first that they must die and secondly that they are guilty of their own death O the lamentable blindness of Men who albeit in their life they fear nothing more than death yet do they entertain nothing more willingly than sin which causeth their death In bodily diseases Men are content to abstain even from ordinary food when they are informed it will but nourish their sickness and this they do to eschew death only herein they are so ignorant that notwithstanding they abhor death yet they take pleasure in unrighteousness that brings it upon them And secondly which shall be the last use we will make of this point Since sin it is that did first bring and doth still hasten on death upon wicked Men what marvel is it if in these last and worst days the Lord strike the bodies of Men with sundry sorts of diseases and sundry kinds of death seeing Man by sundry sorts of sins doth not cease to provoke him unto anger He frameth his Judgments proportionable to our iniquities if ye walk stubbornly against me and will not obey me I will then bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins Levit. xxvi 25. He hath a famine to punish intemperance and the abuse of his creatures if the memory of our own corrupt and putrifying bodies cannot do it he hath a devouring sword to bring down the pride of our hearts If we have fiery and unclean affections he doth not need burning Fevers and loathsome diseases to punish them And now if the Lord after that he hath stricken us with such a dreadful pestilence shall renew his Plague amongst us or go on to finish that former destruction with the Sword of our enemies what shall we say but the despising of his former fatherly corrections or our stubborn walking against the Lord our God hath procured it justly unto our selves Quid mirum in poenas generis humani crescere ir am Dei cùm crescat quotidie quod puniatur what marvel that the wrath of God increase every day to punish Man when that doth daily increase which deserves that God should punish it But enough of this part it is now time to pass on to the second and most worthy part as of Man so of my Text from the Body to the Soul from the memory of death to the comforts against death for though the body be dead yet it is but the body the spirit which is the highest consolation of a Christian is yet alive Mans life it self But the spirit is life I cannot now stand to discourse of the excellent Nature of Mans Spirit and the wonderful union of it with flesh and blood for Man you see is no simple creature but compounded of both both a Body and a Spirit He is the abstract and brief compendium of all the creatures of God The world was corporeal the Angels spiritual and both were united in Man and made as it were into one creature A creature which hath being with the elements life with plants sense with beasts reason and spiritual existence with Angels that so the Almighty God first uniting all his creatures in Man and then uniting Man unto himself in the person of Christ might in some sort through Man communicate himself to all his creatures Worthily therefore did the Naturalists term him a little world and as worthily did St. Austin say of him that of all the miracles that were ever wrought amongst Men Man himself is the greatest miracle and that not only in regard of his two substances but especially in regard of their marvellous union that a mass of clay should be quickened by a spirit of life and both united into one person That as God himself hath diverse persons in one Nature so man hath diverse and those contrary natures in one person Commonly says Bernard the honourable agrees not with the ignoble the strong overgoes the weak the living and the dead dwell not together
Israel words of great compassion and learn to condemn our selves and our own sins in the evil we suffer when it doth strike Thou hast destroyed thy self And to bless and adore God for all the good we either do or receive when in special mercy it doth not strike but in me is thy help O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but c. But Israel is a word that wants not ambiguities for all are not Israel that are of Israel There are Israelites of the seed and Israelites of the Faith of Abraham There are Sons of flesh and Sons of the promise and Israel is the Church of God the womb that conceives and bears both Duoe Gentes in utero It is Rebekahs womb in which Jacob and Esau and in them two mighty Nations do contend and strive It is the Net in the Gospel that contains things both good and bad The Fold that hath Sheep and Goats The Field that hath Tares and Wheat The Barn-floor that hath Wheat and Chaff So then to collect the sum and substance of those points which this Scripture doth especially present unto consideration Here are first two sorts of people the Good and the Bad Elect and Reprobate implied in Israel Secondly the two several Ends of those two sorts Life and Death Destruction and Salvation for the help here may be none other than help from destruction and that can be nothing else than Salvation and so some Translations render it And lastly the two several causes of those ends God and Man God of life Man of death God the cause of Salvation unto the Elect and the Reprobate the cause of destruction unto themselves whereby neither those that are saved may sacrifice unto their own Nets nor they which perish lay any blame on his decrees these being no less deprived of all excuse than those bereaved of all boasting O Israel thou hast c. That these words may have a true and litteral understanding of Calamities and Deliverances incident unto this present life that which immediately goes before in the precedent verse I will meet them as a Bear bereaved of her whelps c. will not suffer any Man to doubt But that they are only and principally meant of such and not of eternal destruction and Salvation in them that which follows will permit no man to believe I will ransome them from the power of the grave I will redeem them from death O death I will be thy plague O grave I will be thy destruction words that do not carry a sound of momentany affliction And therefore this illustrious promise or Prophecy or both by the Apostle to the Corinthians is repeated and worthily appropriated unto him who is the Saviour of Body and Soul and hath redeemed us from first and second both Corporal and Eternal death The more deservedly is Pâ—scator otherwise a Learned and Industrious Pastor to be blamed who in a late and negligent tract of Predestination having so ordered the state of Reprobation as he saw God thereby must needs become the first Author and Procurer of his Creatures endless destruction lest this place here Oh Israel thou hast destroyed thy self should cross his intent or hinder his building replies that it is meant of such destruction only as pertains unto the present World as if there were not one and the same cause of destruction in both nay as if it were more prejudicial unto God and his Justice to be the absolute cause of slight and short troubles here than of perpetual and everlasting sorrows in Hell hereafter It is strange he should rather seek an answer than acknowledge the truth of so excellent a sentence A sentence that is indeed the very line and level whereby himself and every one else must direct and square all his propositions that concern those eternal appointments and decrees of a just and merciful God It is the best if not the only Star and Card and Compass too on which the weak age of reason must continually fix it self whilst it Steers in this dangerous Navigation in this immense and bottomless Sea of Predestination in which Abyssus Abyssum invocat one Deep calls upon another Deep upon Deep and Rock upon Rock so thick that in seeking to avoid the one unless this Golden Rule be our direction we shall be sure to strike and split upon the other as many that have sailed before us have done whose Bark and burthen should never have perished had this notable Saying sate Pilot at the Helm by whose shipwrack we may learn wisdom to beware For some of the first and best Reformers of the Roman Superstition justly displeased at the Pelagian freedom of the Papist whereby Man is made the first mover unto his own good striving with all their might to bear up from this Charybdis fell foul upon Sylla on the other side and instead of Pelagian liberty brought in more than Manichean necessity whereby God is as far intitled unto Mans ill Both in extreams and both extreamly to be blamed the former being not able fully to say In thee is our Salvation unto God the latter Thou hast destroyed thy self unto Man Arminius of late an Acute Dutchman steps forth to reform these Reformers whose main Errour notwithstanding which he should have condemned especially he is found especially to imitate fleying where he should but sheer and flying from one extream to another when the truth lies between both For as they upon a worthy dislike of a conditional Election upon foreseen merits through heat or ignorance come to maintain an absolute Reprobation so he out of his as worthy dislike of this Iron and Adamantine decree of absolute Reprobation without demerits fell back again unto conditional Election In both both of them equally erring the truth lying equally distant from both so as it is not easie to judge Election upon good works being derogatory to the freeness of Gods mercy and Reprobation without evil unto the Truth of his Justice whether contains the greater impiety The one gives too much unto Man in the work of Salvation The other too much unto God in the means of damnation My Text convinceth both the former in the latter part and the latter in the former O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And as in Errours so are their portions not much unequal in Truth For Arminius election upon foresight and his Adversaries absolute reprobation are not more false than their absolute Election and his Reprobation upon foresight are as I conceive it apparently true which is not the least reason that they which are brethren and friends in all other points sweetly conspiring against the common Enemy should with such violent affections enter into this Civil War amongst themselves For there is no stronger nourishment unto mutual perswasion than when either side shall behold some demonstrative truths in his own and as gross and palpable errours in the others opinion It can hardly chuse but beget prejudice and
joy 4. Great joy to all people all that are or ever shall be That shall be c. 5. And these all well ushered in witlr an Ecce of admiration and attention Behold These two the message and the magnifying of it are the main parts of this days celebrity and solemnity and therefore they are full and have many branches the other three the Audience their Comfort and the Angel Preacher that gives it are of less importance and so are but single points briefly delivered And the Angel said unto them Fear not But we must begin with these though the lesser as the Text doth and first with the Preacher or publisher of the Nativity an Angel dixit Angelus And the Angel said c. And right and fit it was that an Angel should say it he is an high and excellent creature and his ministry hath ever been justly used in high and excellent actions Now of all the actions and operations external of the divine power the best and the greatest the highest and most excellent the wisest and most wonderful is the Incarnation and birth of the Son of God The other eminent acts of goodness and power manifested either in his life or death resurrection or ascension they do all depend on this which is the ground and foundation of them all therefore questionless as it is the greatest benefit the world ever knew so is it the greatest work that God ever did wherein God is made man and man become God God and man becoming but one person Such a generation as this who shall declare it saith the Prophet Isaiah who shall preach and publish it indeed surely no creature in the world is absolutely fit yet since it must be done by some none so fit as an Angel the best of his Creatures to preach and proclaim the Nativity the best of his works The Angel said and he had no sooner said it but a multitude of Angels receive and applaud it with a hymn of glory Gloria in excelsis Glory be to God on high one Angel preaches and a Quire of Angels sing praises So the whole service of this day both Sermon and Anthem by Angels all So great is the day we now celebrate and the benefit we are now to treat of And it were to be wished it might still be preached by the tongue of that Angel which first published it But yet since it hath pleased God to impose it upon sinful men we must perform it as well as we may but still remembring you that though we do it 't is a theam in it self fitter for an Angel The Angel said illis unto them And what were they in the verses precedent you may see Shepherds they were watching over their Focks What a fall is here The best news the world ever heard the greatest mysterie God ever wrought fit to be uttered by no tonge but an Angel's the highest of his Creatures now in this state to be preached and published to none but Shepherds the lowest and meanest of the people what congruâ—ty is there in this The Custom of the world in case of News great and extraordinary especially tydings of Joy is to post with it to great and extraordinary persons Kings and Princes no mans ear may have a taste till theirs be first possessed with it And surely this if ever any was News fit for a King and the greatest King Why is it then delivered unto Shepherds why is it not sent to Caesar Augustus the Monarch of the Earth now sending forth his Edict for the description of the whole world why doth not the Angel hye him unto Cyrenius his President or to Herod his King of the Jews why goeth he not unto the high Priests to the Scribes and Pharisees that sate in Moses Chair or to some other of the Grandees and Magnificoes of the world why unto none of these why but because men have one Custom and God another they look to the great to the good men respect the high and mighty but God regards the humble and meek Especially in his divine Revelations I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes Luk. x. 21. This is his Custom not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God hath chosen the foolish the weak and the base things of the world to confound the wise and mighty 1 Cor. i. 26. No marvel therefore saith St. Ambrose if in the first publication of the grace of Christ God did rather respect innocence than power and the simplicity of Shepherds than the pride and imperiousness of Kings It was not amiss then that Shepherds they were mean Men Men of an humble Spirit of an innocent and contemplative life it was not amiss I say in this regard if but to shew the use of God whose manner it is ever to resist the proud and shew grace unto the humble but it agreed well too in other respects He that was now born was sent to the lost Sheep of the house of Israel and it was but right that Shepherds were made acquainted with that to shew spiritual Pastors their duty who first receive the Gospel that they may preach it to others and the flocks their obedience not to adhere to their own Revelations but to receive their doctrine ordinarily at the hands of their Teachers for to shew this the Gospel was first justly preached unto Shepherds Besides it was the birth of a Shepherd that he came to tell the Shepherd that was so long ago promised Behold I will raise you up a shepherd Ezek. xxxv 25. he is now born the chief shepherd 1 Pet. v. 4. the great shepherd Heb. xiii 20. the good shepherd that gave his life for his flock John x. II. It was but just then to tell Shepherds of the birth of a Shepherd and the news fitted them well rightly therefore dixit illis he said unto them But still said he not his errand presently they were not in case to receive it The appearing of the Messenger hath so frighted them that they are not capable of the message If he now tell it they may chance not to hear it or if hear not regard it And therefore before he go on with his news he doth first settle their minds for receiving it with a nolite timere fear not Afraid then they were and sure they might well fear It was in the depth of night and the Angel appeared suddenly and in great glory the glory of the Lord shined round about them They were but Shepherds no marvel if such fear at such and so unexpected a sight better men than they and other manner of persons have been troubled at the approach of an Angel though in the day time Zachary though a just person that walked in all the commandments of God without reproof though a Priest though in the Temple and ministring there The Virgin