one sinner how much more when a world of sinners is perfectly ransomed from death and restored to Salvation Certainly if but one or two appeared all rejoyced all triumphed Neither could they but be herein sensible of their own happy advantage who by thy mediation are confirmed in their glorious estate since thou by the blood of thy Cross and power of thy Resurrection hast reconciled things not in earth onely but in Heaven But above all other the Love of thee their God and Saviour must needs heighten their joy and make thy Glory theirs It is their perpetual work to praise thee how much more now when such an occasion was offered as never had been since the world began never could be after when thou the God of Spirits hadst vanquished all the spiritual powers of darkness when thou the Lord of Life hadst conquered death for thee and all thine so as they may now boldly insult over their last enemy O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Certainly if Heaven can be capable of an increase of joy and felicity never had those Blessed Spirits so great a cause of triumph and gratulation as in this day of thy glorious Resurrection How much more O dear Jesu should we men whose flesh thou didst assume unite revive for whose sake and in whose stead thou didst vouchsafe to suffer and die whose arrerages thou payedst in death and acquittedst in thy Resurrection whose Souls are discharged whose Bodies shall be raised by the power of thy rising how much more should we think we have cause to be over-joyed with the happy memory of this great work of thy Divine Power and unconceiveable Mercy Lo now how weak soever I am in my self yet in the confidence of this victorious Resurrection of my Saviour I dare boldly challenge and defie you O all ye adverse Powers Doe the worst ye can to my Soul in despight of you it shall be safe Is it Sin that threats me Behold this Resurrection of my Redeemer publishes my discharge My Surety was arrested and cast into the prison of his Grave had not the utmost farthing of mine arrerages been paid he could not have come forth He is come forth the Summe is fully satisfied What danger can there be of a discharged Debt Is it the Wrath of God Wherefore is that but for sin If my sin be defraied that quarrel is at an end and if my Saviour suffered it for me how can I fear to suffer it in my self That infinite Justice hates to be twice paid He is risen therefore he hath satisfied Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen Is it Death it self Lo my Saviour that overcame death by dying hath triumph'd over him in his Resurrection How can I now fear a conquered enemy What harm is there in the Serpent but for his sting The sting of death is sin that is pulled out by my powerful Redeemer it cannot now hurt me it may refresh me to carry this cool Snake in my bosome O then my dear Saviour I bless thee for thy Death but I bless thee more for thy Resurrection That was a work of wonderful Humility of infinite Mercy this was a work of infinite Power In that was humane Weakness in this Divine Omnipotence In that thou didst die for our sins in this thou didst rise again for our Justification And now how am I conformable to thee if when thou art risen I lie still in the grave of my Corruptions How am I a lim of thy body if whiles thou hast that perfect dominion over death death hath dominion over me if whiles thou art alive and glorious I lie rotting in the dust of death I know the locomotive faculty is in the Head by the power of the Resurrection of thee our Head all we thy Members cannot but be raised As the earth cannot hold my body from thee in the day of the Second Resurrection so cannot sin withhold my Soul from thee in the First How am I thine if I be not risen and if I be risen with thee why do I not seek the things above where thou sittest at the right hand of God The Vault or Cave which Joseph had hewn out of the rock was large capable of no less then ten persons upon the mouth of it Eastward was that great stone rolled within it at the right hand in the North part of the Cave was hewn out a receptacle for the body three handfuls high from the pavement and a stone was accordingly fitted for the cover of that Grave Into this Cave the good Women finding the stone rolled away descended to seek the body of Christ and in it saw the Angels This was the Goal to which Peter and John ran finding the spoils of death the grave cloaths wrapped up and the napkin that was about the head folded up together and laid in a place by it self and as they came in haste so they return'd with wonder I marvel not at your speed O ye blessed Disciples if upon the report of the Women ye ran yea flew upon the wings of zeal to see what was become of your Master Ye had wont to walk familiarly together in the attendance of your Lord now society is forgotten and as for a wager each tries the speed of his legs and with neglect of other vies who shall be first at the Tomb. Who would not but have tried masteries with you in this case and have made light touches of the earth to have held paces with you Your desire was equal but John is the yonger his lims are more nimble his breath more free he first looks into the Sepulcher but Peter goes down first O happy competition who shall be more zealous in the enquiry after Christ Ye saw enough to amaze you not enough to settle your Faith How well might you have thought Our Master is not subduced but risen Had he been taken away by others hands this fine linen had not been left behinde Had he not himself risen from this bed of earth he had not thus wrapped up his night-cloaths and laid them sorted by themselves What can we doubt when he foretold us he would rise O Blessed Jesu how wilt thou pardon our errours how should we pardon and pity the errours of each other in lesser occasions whenas yet thy prime and dearest Disciples after so much Divine instruction knew not the Scriptures that thou must rise again from the dead They went away more astonished then confident more full of wonder as yet then of belief There is more strength of zeal where it takes in the weaker Sex Those holy Women as they came first so they staid last especially devout Mary Magdalene stands still at the mouth of the Cave weeping Well might those tears have been spared if her Knowledge had been answerable to her Affection her Faith to her Fervour Withall as our eye will be where we love she stoops and looks down
What an happiness is it that without all offence of Necromancy I may here call up any of the antient Worthies of Learning whether humane or divine and confer with them of all my doubts that I can at pleasure summon whole Synods of Reverend Fathers and acute Doctors from all the Coasts of the Earth to give their well-studied judgments in all points of question which I propose Neither can I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent Masters but I must learn somewhat It is a wantonness to complain of choice No Law bindes us to read all but the more we can take in and digest the better-liking must the Mindes needs be Blessed be God that hath set up so many clear Lamps in his Church now none but the wilfully blinde can plead darkness And blessed be the memory of those his faithfull Servants that have left their blood their spirits their lives in these precious papers and have willingly wasted themselves into these during Monuments to give light unto others LXXII Upon the red Crosse on a Door OH sign fearfully significant This sicknesse is a Crosse indeed and that a bloody one both the form and colour import Death The Israelites doors whose lintels were besprinkled with blood were passed over by the destroying Angel here the destroying Angel hath smitten and hath left this mark of his deadly blow We are wont to fight chearfully under this Ensign abroad and be victorious why should we tremble at it at home O God there thou fightest for us here against us under that we have fought for thee but under this because our sins have fought against thee we are fought against by thy Judgments Yet Lord it is thy Crosse though an heavy one It is ours by merit thine by imposition O Lord sanctifie thine Affliction and remove thy Vengeance LXXIII Upon the change of Weather I Know not whether it be worse that the Heavens look upon us alwaies with one face or ever varying For as continual change of Weather causes uncertainty of Health so a permanent setledness of one Season causeth a certainty of distemper perpetual Moisture dissolves us perpetual Heat evaporates or inflames us Cold stupifies us Drought obstructs and withers us Neither is it otherwise in the state of the Minde If our thoughts should be alwaies volatile changing inconstant we should never attain to any good habit of the Soul whether in matter of Judgment or Disposition but if they should be alwaies fixed we should run into the danger of some desperate extremity To be ever thinking would make us mad to be ever thinking of our Crosses or Sins would make us heartlesly dejected to be ever thinking of Pleasures and Contentments would melt us into a loose wantonness to be ever doubting and fearing were an Hellish servitude to be ever bold and confident were a dangerous presumption but the interchanges of these in a due moderation keep the Soul in health O God howsoever these Variations be necessary for my Spiritual condition let me have no weather but Sun-shine from thee Do thou lift up the light of thy countenance upon me and stablish me ever with thy free spirit LXXIV Upon the sight of a Marriage WHat a comfortable and feeling resemblance is here of Christ and his Church I regard not the Persons I regard the Institution Neither the Husband nor the Wife are now any more their own they have either of them given over themselves to other not onely the Wife which is the weaker vessel hath yielded over her self to the stronger protection and participation of an abler head but the Husband hath resigned his right in himself over to his feebler consort so as now her weaknesse is his his strength is hers Yea their very flesh hath altered property hers is his his is hers Yea their very Soul and spirit may no more be severed in respect of mutuall affection then from their own severall bodies It is thus O Saviour with thee and thy Church We are not our own but thine who hast married us to thy self in truth and righteousnesse What powers what indowments have we but from and in thee And as our holy boldness dares interesse our selves in thy Graces so thy wonderfully-compassionate mercy vouchsafes to interesse thy self in our Infirmities thy poor Church suffers on Earth thou feelest in Heaven and as complaining of our stripes canst say Why persecutest thou me Thou again art not so thine own as that thou art not also ours thy Sufferings thy Merits thy Obedience thy Life Death Resurrection Ascension Intercession Glory yea thy blessed Humanity yea thy glorious Deity by virtue of our right of our Union are so ours as that we would not give our part in thee for ten thousand Worlds O gracious Saviour as thou canst not but love and cherish this poor and unworthy Soul of mine which thou hast mercifully espoused to thy self so give me Grace to honour and obey thee and forsaking all the base and sinfull rivalty of the World to hold me only unto thee whiles I live here that I may perfectly enjoy thee hereafter LXXV Upon the sight of a Snake I Know not what horrour we finde in our selves at the fight of a Serpent Other creatures are more loathsome and some no lesse deadly then it yet there is none at which our blood riseth so much as at this Whence should this be but out of an instinct of our old enmity We were stung in Paradise and cannot but feel it But here is our weaknesse it was not the body of the Serpent that could have hurt us without the suggestion of sin and yet we love the sin whiles we hate the Serpent Every day are we wounded with the sting of that old Serpent and complain not and so much more deadly is that sting by how much it is lesse felt There is a sting of Guilt and there is a sting of Remorse there is mortall venome in the first whereof we are the least sensible there is lesse danger in the second The Israelites found themselves stung by those fiery Serpents in the Desart and the sense of their pain sent them to seek for Cure The World is our Desart and as the sting of Death is Sin so the sting of Sin is Death I do not more wish to finde ease then pain if I complain enough I cannot fail of cure O thou which art the true brazen Serpent lifted up in this wildernesse raise up mine eyes to thee and fasten them upon thee thy Mercy shall make my Soul whole my wound soveraign LXXVI Upon the Ruines of an Abby IT is not so easie to say what it was that built up these walls as what it was that pulled them down even the wickednesse of the Possessours Every stone hath a tongue to accuse the Superstition Hypocrisie Idlenesse Luxury of the late owners Methinks I see it written all along in Capitall letters upon these heaps A fruitfull Land maketh he barren for the iniquity of
of darknesse Heaven is high and hard to reach Hell is steep and slipperie our Flesh is earthy and impotent Satan strong rancorous Sin subtle the World alluring all these yet God is the God of our Salvation Let those infernal Lions roar and ramp upon us let the gates of Hell doe their worst let the World be a cheater our Flesh a traitor the Devil a tyrant Faithfull is he that hath promised who will also doe it God is the God of our Salvation How much more then in these outward temporal occasions when we have to doe with an arm of flesh Do the enemies of the Church rage and snuffe and breath nothing but threats and death Make sure of our God he shall be sure to make them lick our dust Great Benhadad of the Syrians shall come with his hempen collar to the King of Israel The very windes and waves shall undertake those Mahumetan or Marian powers that shall rise up against the inheritance of the God of Salvation Salvation is rateable according to the danger from which we are delivered Since Death therefore is the utmost of all terribles needs must it be the highest improvement of Salvation that to our God belong the issues from death Death hath here a double latitude of kinde of extent The kinde is either temporal or eternal the extent reaches not only to the last compleat act of dissolution but to all the passages that lead towards it Thus the issues from death belong to our God whether by way of preservation or by way of rescue How gladly do I meet in my Text with the dear and sweet name of our Jesus who conquered Death by dying and triumphed over Hell by suffering and carries the keyes both of death and hell Revel 1. 18 He is the God the Author and Finisher of our Salvation to whom belong the issues from death Look first at the temporary he keeps it from us he fetches us from it It is true there is a Statutum est upon it die we must Death knocks equally at the hatch of a Cottage and gate of a Palace but our times are in God's hand the Lord of life hath set us our period whose Omnipotence so contrives all events that neither enemy nor casualty nor disease can prevent his hour Were death suffered to run loose and wild what boot were it to live now it is tether'd up short by that Almighty hand what can we fear If envy repine and villany plot against Sacred Soveraignty God hath well proved upon all the Poisons and Pistols and Poniards and Gun-powders of the two late memorable successions that to him alone belong the issues from death Goe on then blessed Soveraign goe on couragiously in the waies of your God the invisible guard of Heaven shall secure your Royal head the God of our Salvation shall make you a third glorious instance to all posterities that unto him belong the issues from death Thus God keeps death from us it is more comfort yet that he fetches us from it Even the best head must at last lie down in the dust and sleep in death Oh vain cracks of valour thou bragst thy self able to kill a man a worm hath done it a flie hath done it Every thing can finde the way down unto death none but the Omnipotent can finde the way up out of it He findes he makes these issues for all his As it was with our Head so it is with the Members Death might seize it cannot hold Gustavit non deglutivit It may nibble at us it shall not devour us Behold the only Soveraign Antidote against the sorrows the frights of death Who can fear to lay himself down and take a nap in the bed of death when his heart is assured that he shall awake glorious in the morning of his resurrection Certainly it is only our infidelity that makes death fearfull Rejoice not over me O my last enemy though I fall I shall rise again O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory Cast ye one glance of your eyes upon the second and eternal death the issues wherefrom belong to our God not by way of rescue as in the former but of preservation Ex inferno nulla redemptio is as true as if it were Canonical Father Abraham tells the damned Glutton in the Parable there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great gulf that bars all return Those black gates of Hell are barred without by the irreversible Decree of the Almighty Those bold Fabulists therefore whose impious Legends have devised Trajan fetcht thence by the prayers of Gregory and Falconella by Tecla's suspending the finall sentence upon a secundum praesentem injustitiam take a course to cast themselves into that pit whence they have presumptuously feigned the deliverance of others The rescue is not more hopelesse then the prevention is comfortable There is none of us but is naturally walking down to these chambers of death every sin is a pace thitherwards only the gracious hand of our God staies us In our selves in our sins we are already no better then brands of that Hell Blessed be the God of our Salvation that hath found happy issues from this death What issues Even those bloody issues that were made in the hands and feet and side of our Blessed Saviour that invaluably-precious blood of the Son of God is that whereby we are redeemed whereby we are justified whereby we are saved Oh that our Souls might have had leisure to dwell a while upon the meditation of those dreadfull torments we are freed from of that infinite goodnesse that hath freed us of that happy exchange of a glorious condition to which we are freed But the publick occasion of this day calls off my speech and invites me to the celebration of the sensible mercy of God in our late Temporal deliverance Wherein let me first blesse the God of our Salvation that hath put it into the heart of his chosen Servant to set up an Altar in this sacred threshing-floor and to offer up this daies Sacrifice to his name for the stay of our late mortal contagion How well it becomes our Gideon to be personally exemplary as in the beating of this Earthen pitcher in the first publick act of Humiliation so in the lighting of this Torch of publick joy and sounding the Trumpet of a thankfull jubilation and how well will it become us to follow so pious so gracious an example Come therefore all ye that fear the Lord and let us recount what he hath done for our Souls Come let us blesse the Lord the God of our Salvation that loadeth us daily with benefits the God to whom belong the issues of death Let us blesse him in his infinite Essence and Power blesse him in his unbounded and just Soveraignty blesse him in his marvellous Beneficence large continual undeserved blesse him in his Preservations blesse him in his Deliverances We may but touch at the two last How is
Drunkenness we must fly in the face of it with so much more fierceness as the eminence of the sin may make it more dangerously-exemplary quò grandius nomen eò grandius scandalum as Bernard Let the clearest water mix with the best earth it makes but mire If we be the true Sons of Thunder even the tallest Cedar-sins must be blasted with our Lightning and riven with our bolts Cato would not they say have a dumb souldier I am sure Christ will not Wo be to us if we preach not the Gospel yea wo be to us if we preach not the Law too if we do not lash the guilt of the Great with the scorpions of Judgement What stand we upon bulk if the Sin be an Elephant harnessed and carrying Castles upon his back we must with Eleazar creep under his belly and wound that vast enemy with the hazard of our own crushing It is the charge of God Cry aloud spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet and shew my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins Es 58. 1. The words are Emphatical whereof the first signifies a straining of the throat with crying and the next the trumpet implies a sound of war This same belluÌ„ cum vitiis war with sins must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uncapable of so much as a truce yea as a respiratió As that undaunted souldier therefore held first with his right hand and when that was cut off with his left and when both were cut off with his teeth so must we resolve to doe That which is the praise of the Mastives of our Nation must be ours to leave our life with our hold Profectò stabimus pugnabimus usque ad mortem We will stand and fight it out to the very death as Bernard speaks The manner of the Fight follows and that must needs vary according to the divers fashions of the onset For all beasts assail not alike one fights with his tusks another with his paws another with his horn another with his heel another with his sting one rampeth upon us another leaps in to us a third either rusheth us down or casts us upward a fourth galls us afarre a fifth wounds us unseen one kils by biting another by striking another by piercing another by envenoming According to these manifold changes of assaults must the expert champion dispose of himself To speak morally as these Men-beasts are either Beasts of Opinion or beasts of Practice and both of them maintain the fight either by close subtilty or by open violence so did S. Paul's opposition suit them so must ours whether for defence or for offence The beasts of Opinion were either Idolatrous Ethnicks or refractary Jews the one worshipping Diana for their Goddess the other refusing the true Messias for their Saviour The one he beats with the down-right blows of right Reason the other he hews with the two-edged sword of the Spirit the Word of God The beasts of Practice he smites through with the darts of the Law whereof Exod. 19. 13. If a beast touch the Mount he shall be shot through Their subtilty he declined by a wise evasion their violence he repelled with an irresistible force The particularities would be infinite neither do any of you exspect that I should turn the Pulpit into a Fence-school or a Paris-garden Onely let me reduce S. Paul's practice herein to some few useful rules as to express his beast-combat so to direct our own Whereof the first to begin with the beasts of Opinion was and shall be To fight still at the head When he comes to the Theatre of Ephesus he deals not with collateral matters of a secondary nature but flies upon the main heads of the highest contradiction whether one true God onely should be worshipped whether Christ should be acknowledged for the Messiah No doubt Ephesus was full of curious and nice scruples the wise Apostle waves all these and as some magnanimous Mastive that scorns to set upon every Curre that barks at him in the way he reserves himself for these Lions and Tigers of Errour Oh how happy were it for Christendome if we that profess to sit at S. Paul's feet as he at Gamaliel's could learn this wit of him It is true which Chromatius hath Non sunt parva quae Dei sunt None of Gods matters are slight but yet there is a difference and that would be observed The working brains of subtile man have been apt to mince Divinity into infinite Atomes of speculation and every one of those speculations breeds many questions and every question breeds troubles in the Church like as every corn of powder flies off and fires his fellow Hence are those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. foolish and unlearned disquisitions 2 Tim. 2. 23. that have set the whole Christian world together by the ears Ex utraque parte sunt qui pugnare cupiunt as Tully said of his time There are enough on both sides that would fight The main Fort of Religion is worth not our sweat but our blood thus must we strive pro aris so even Heresie shall be found as Chrysostome observes not more dangerous then profitable But if it be onely matter of rite or of unimporting consequence de venis capillaribus as he said Oh what â—adness is it in us to draw the world into sides and to pour out the souls of Gods people like water what is this but as if some generous Bandog should leave the Bear or Lion primae formae feram which he comes to bait and run after a Mouse Melanchthon cites and approves that saying of Dionysius of Corinth in Eusebius that Schisme is no less sin then idolatry And if the Fish be the better where the seas are most unquiet I am sure the Souls are worse where the Church is tumultuous I cannot skill of these Swans eggs that are never hatcht without thunder nor of that unnatural brood that eats through the dam to make passage into the light of reputation Oh for the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Justly did Agesilaus lament the state of Greece that had lost as many souldiers in domestick wars as might have made them Masters of the world Let me say Had all our swords and pens been happily bent against the common enemy of Christendome long agoe had that Mahumetan Moon waned to nothing and given way to the glorious Sun of the Gospel Our second rule must be When we do smite to strike home It is S. Paul's I so fight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as not beating the aire 1 Cor. 9. 26. Here is not a blow lost non verberat ictibus auras How doth he cut the throat of the Ephesian beast Idolatry whiles he argues They are not Gods that are made with hands All the Silver-smiths of Diana cannot hammer out a reply to this charge It is no flourishing when we come to this combat Weak proofs betray good causes Demonstrations must have