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A40891 XXX sermons lately preached at the parish church of Saint Mary Magdalen Milkstreet, London to which is annexed, A sermon preached at the funerall of George Whitmore, Knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City / by Anthony Farindon.; Sermons. Selections Farindon, Anthony, 1598-1658. 1647 (1647) Wing F434; ESTC R2168 760,336 744

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forsake him when he hung upon the Crosse did he not see the joy which was set before him Yes he did but not to comfort but rather torment him Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est ut gloria militaret in paenam saith Leo. By the counsell of the Godhead it was set down and determined that his Glory should adde to his Punishment that his Knowledge which was more clear than a Seraphins should increase his Grief his Glory his Shame his Happinesse his Misery that there should not onely be Vinegar in his Drink and Gall in his Honey and Mirrhe with his Spices but that his Drink should be Vinegar his Honey Gall and all his Spices as bitter as Mirrhe that his Flowers should be Thorns and his Triumph Shame This could sin do and can we love it This could the love and the wrath of God do his love to his Creature and his wrath against sin And what a delivery what a desertion is this which did not deprive him of strength but enfeeble him with strength which did not leave him in the dark but punish him with light what a strange delivery was that which delivered him up without comfort nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves what misery equall to that which makes Strength a Tormenter Knowledge a Vexation and makes Joy Glory a Persecution There now hangs his sacred Body on the Cross not so much afflicted with his passion as his Soul was wounded with compassion with compassion on his Mother with compassion on his Disciples with compassion on the Jewes who pierced him for whom he prayes Tantam patienteam nemo unquam perpetravit Tert. de Patientia when they mock him which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles with compassion on the Temple which was shortly to be levelled with the ground with compassion on all Mankind bearing the burden of all dropping his pity and his blood together upon them feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs the reproch of his Saints the wounds of every broken heart the poverty diseases afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not and to a sense of theirs who grone under them delivered up to all the miseries and sorrowes not onely which he then felt but which any men which all men have felt or shall feel to the time the Trump shall found and he shall come again in Glory The last delivery was of his soul which was indeed traditio an yielding it up a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Fathers hands praevento carnificis officio saith the Father he prevents the spear and the hand of the Executioner Tert. A pol. and gives up the Ghost What should I say or where should I end who can fathome this depth The Angels stand amazed the Heavens are hung with black the Earth opens her mouth and the Grave hers and yields up her dead the veyl of the Temple rends asunder the Earth trembles and the rocks are cleft but neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this wisdom and love no tongue neither of the living nor of the dead neither of men or Angels are able to express it The most powerfull Eloquence is the Threnody of a broken heart for there his death speaks it self and the vertue and power of it reflects back again upon him and reacheth him at the right hand of God where his wounds are open his merits vocal interceding for us to the end of the world We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of love with wonder and astonishment and I hope with grief and love Tradidit pro nobis For us sinners passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calvarie where the Son of God the Saviour of the World was nailed to the Crosse and being thus lifted up upon his Crosse he looketh down upon us to draw us after him Look then back upon him who looks upon us whom our sins have pierced and behold his blood trickling down upon us which is one ascent more and brings in the persons for whom he was delivered First for us Secondly for us all Now this pro nobis that he should be delivered for us is a contemplation full of delight and comfort but not so easie to digest for if we reflect upon our selves and there see nothing but confusion and horrour we shall soon ask our selves the question why for us why not for the lapsed Angels who fell from their estate as we did They glorious Spirits we vile Bodies they heavenly Spirits we of the earth earthly ready to sink to the earth from whence we came they immortall Spirits we as the Grasse withered before we grow yet he spared not his Son to spare us but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell and chained them up in everlasting darknesse 2 Pet. 2.4 We may think that this was munus honorarium that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us no it was munus eleemosynarium a gift bestowed upon us in meere compassion of our wants With them he deales in rigour and relents not with us in favour and mercy and seeks after us and layes hold on us when we were gone from him as far as sin and disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to doe so and in this we might rest but Divines will tell us that man was a ritter object of mercy than they quia levius est alienâ mente peccare quam propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptio● gens Daemonum evasit Tert. Apol. c. 22. wrought in them by themselves man had importunam arhorem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtill and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in Death by looking abroad but the Angels by reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own Beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity and the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco from some outward assoile than where it grows up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fall but the whole lump of mankind was leavend with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels Heb. 2.16 he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their Bonds and we must goe out of the world to find out the reason and seek
we suffer our selves to be over-swayed by a more potent affection to something else we shall never doe what we know well enough and are otherwise enabled to Now to walk in Christ takes in all these Faculty Power Will Knowledge Love Then you see a Christian in his walk rejoycing as a mighty man to run his race when the Understanding is the Counsellor and points out This is the way walk in it and the will hath an eye to the hand and direction of the understanding bows it self and as a Queen drawes with in those inferior faculties the senses and Affections when it opens my eye to the wonders of Gods Law and shutts it up by covenant to the vanity of the world when it bounds my touch and tast with Touch not Tast not any forbidden thing when it makes the senses as windows to let in life not death Jer. 9.21 and as gates shut fast to the world and the Devill and lifting up their Heads to let the King of Glory in when it composeth and tuneth our Affections to such a Peace and Harmony setting our love to piety our anger to sinne our feare to Gods wrath our hope to things not seen our sorrow to what is done amisse and so frameth in us nunc modulos Temperantiae nunc carmen pietatis as Saint Ambrose speakes now the even measures of Temperance now a Psalm of piety now the Threnody of a broken heart even those Songs of Sion which the Angels in heaven and God himself delight in and all these are vitually included in this one word to walk in Christ and if any of these be wanting what proffers soever we make what fancies soever we entertaine what empty conceptions soever we foster yet flesh and blood cannot raise it self on these wings of wind nor can we be more said to walk then they who have been dead long agoe For so farre is the bare knowledge of the way from advancing us in our walke that it is a thing supposed and no where under the command as it is meerly speculative and ends in it self no more then to see or feele or heare and so essentiall is this motion of walking to a Christian that in the language of the Spirit wee are never truely said to know till wee walke and that made imperfect knowledge which receives those things which concern our peace no otherwise then the eye doth colours or the eare sounds never being once named or mentioned in the Scripture but with disgrace If any man say I know him and keep not his Commandements he is a lyar 1 Joh. 2.4 so that to define our walking by Knowledge and speculation is a kind of Heresy which rather deserves an Anathema and should be drove out of the Church with more zeal and earnestness then many though grosse yet silly impertinent errors which p●sse abroad about the world but under that name For 1. this speculative knowledge is but a naked assent and to more and hath nothing of the will and the understanding is not an arbitrary faculty but necessarily apprehends objects in that shape and form they represent themselves nor is it deceived even when it is deceived I mean in things which concern our walk for the bill and accusation against us is not that we doe not but that we will not understand nolumus intelligere ne cogamur facere saith Aug. we wilnot know our way for no other reason but because we are most unwilling to take the paines and walk in it And therefore in every Christian peripatetique there must be something of the Seraphin and something of the Cherubin there must be heat as well as light love as well as knowledge for love is active and will pace on Hugo de Sancto vict where Knowledge doth but stand at gaze Amor intrat ubi cognitio foris stat love is active and will make a battery and forcible entrance and take the Kingdom of heaven by violence whilst Speculation stands without and looks upon it as in a Map What talke we of knowledge and speculation It is but a look a cast of the mindes eye and no more and doth but place us as God did Moses once upon mount Nebo to see that spirituall Canaan which we shall never enjoy and then what comfort is it to know what Justification is and to want that hand of a quick and active faith which alone can lay hold on Christ to talke of Election and never make it sure to dispute of Paradice and have no title to it to speak of nothing more then Heaven and be an heire of Damnation And then what a fruitlesse mock-knowledge is that which sets God a walking whilst we sleep and dreame makes the Master of the Vineyard work and sweat and stands idle it self all the day long which hath a full view of what God hath done before all Time and no power at all to move us to do any thing in this our day when we are well seen in the Decrees of God and little move in our own Duties when we can follow God in all his ways and tell how he worketh in us and are afraid of that feare and trembling with which we should work out our Salvation can speak largely of the Power of Gods Grace and resist it of perseverance and fall more then seven times a day This knowledge I say is but a bare assent and so far from being enjoyn'd us that as the case now stands ignorance were the safer choice and rather then thus to know him we may say with the Apostle Let him that is ignorant 1 Cer. 14.38 be ignorant still For in the second place as we use it it workes in us at the most but a weake purpose ●f minde a faint velleity a forc'd involuntary approbation which we would shake off if we could as we do a friend which speaks what we would not hear and calls that poyson which is as Honey to our tast For who can see such sights and not in some degree be taken with them Who can look upon the Temple and not ask what Buildings are these who can see the way to life and not approve it but you know I may purpose to rise and yet fold my hands to sleep I may commend the way and not walke in it Nay how often do we pray Give us ever of this Bread of life and yet labour most for this bread that perisheth which we at once revile and embrace and speak evill of it because we love it when heaven is but as a Picture which we look upon and wonder and refuse and hath no better place of reception then that common Inne of all wild and loose imaginations the fancy Christ is the way it is in every mans Creed and if this would make us walkers what a multitude of Sectaries what a Herd of Epicures what an assembly of Atheists what a congregation of fools I had almost said what a Legion of Devills might goe under that