thou pass away uncharitably towards him thou raisest an everlasting Trophee for thine enemy and prepar'st him a greater triumph then he proposed to himself he meant to triumph over thy body and thy fortune and thou hast provided him a triumph over thy Soul too by thy uncharitableness and he may survive to repent and to be pardoned at Gods hands and thou who art departed in uncharitableness canst not he shall be saved that ruind thee unjustly and thou who wast unjustly ruind by him shalt perish irrecoverably And so we have done with all those peeces which constitute our first part Sis aliquid profess something Hoc age do seriously the duties of that profession and then Sis aliquis propose some good man in that profession for thine immitation as we have proposed Stephen for general duties falling upon all professions And we shall pass now to our other part which we must all play and play in earnest that conclusion in which we shall but begin our everlasting state our death When he had said this he fell asleep Second part Mors impti Here I shall only present to you two Pictures two pictures in little two pictures of dying men and every man is like one of these and may know himself by it he that dies in the Bath of a peaceable he that dies upon the wrack of a distracted conscience When the devil imprints in a man a mortuum me esse non curo I care not though I were dead it were but a candle blown out and there were an end of all where the Devil imprints that imagination God will imprint an Emori nolo a loathness to die and fearful apprehension at his transmigration As God expresses the bitterness of death in an ingemination morte morietur in a conduplication of deaths he shall die and die die twice over So aegrotando aegrotabit in sicknesse he shall be sick twice sick body-sick and soul-sick too sense-sick and conscience-sick together when as the sinnes of his body have cast sicknesses and death upon his Soule so the inordinate sadnesse of his Soule shall aggravate and actuate the sicknesse of his body His Physitian ministers and wonders it works not He imputes that to flegme and ministers against that and wonders again that it works not He goes over all the humors and all his Medicines and nothing works for there lies at his Patients heart a dampe that hinders the concurrence of all his faculties to the intention of the Physitian or the virtue of the Physick Loose not O blessed Apostle thy question upon this Man 1 Cor. 15.55 O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory for the sting of Death is in every limb of his body and his very body is a victorious grave upon his Soule And as his Carcas and his Coffin shall lie equally insensible in his grave so his Soule which is but a Carcas and his body which is but a Coffin of that Carcas shall be equally miserable upon his Death-bed And Satan's Commissions upon him shall not be signed by Succession as upon Job first against his goods and then his Servants and then his children and then himselfe but not at all upon his life but he shall apprehend all at once Ruine upon himselfe and all his ruine upon himselfe and all him even upon his life both his lives the life of this and the life of the next world too Yet a drop would redeeme a shoure and a Sigh now a Storme then Yet a teare from the eye would save the bleeding of the heart and a word from the mouth now a roaring or which may be worse a silence of consternation of stupefaction of obduration at that last houre Truly if the death of the wicked ended in Death yet to scape that manner of death were worthy a Religious life To see the house fall and yet be afraid to goe out of it To leave an injur'd world and meet an incensed God To see oppression and wrong in all thy professions and to foresee ruine and wastefulnesse in all thy Posterity and Lands gotten by one sin in the Father molder away by another in the Sonne To see true figures of horror and ly and fancy worse To begin to see thy sins but then and finde every sin at first sight in the proportion of a Gyant able to crush thee into despair To see the Blood of Christ imputed not to thee but to thy Sinnes To see Christ crucified and not crucifyed for thee but crucified by thee To heare this blood speake not better things then the blood of Abel but lowder for vengeance then the blood of Abel did This is his picture that hath been Nothing that hath done nothing that hath proposed no Stephen No Law to regulate No example to certifie his Conscience But to him that hath done this Death is but a Sleepe Many have wondred at that note of Saint Chrysostom's Mors Piorum That till Christ's time death was called death plainly literally death but after Christ death was called but sleepe for indeede in the old-Testament before Christ I thinke there is no one metaphor so often used as Sleepe for Death and that the Dead are said to Sleepe Therefore wee wonder sometimes that Saint Chrysostome should say so But this may be that which that holy Father intended in that Note that they in the old-Testament who are said to have slept in Death are such as then by Faith did apprehend and were fixed upon Christ such as were all the good men of the old-Testament and so there will not bee many instances against Saint Chrysostome's note That to those that die in Christ Death is but a Sleepe to all others Death is Death literally Death Now of this dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the Death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe must wee give you a Picture too These is not a minute left to do it not a minutes sand Is there a minutes patience Bee pleased to remember that those Pictures which are deliver'd in a minute from a print upon a paper had many dayes weeks Moneths time for the graving of those Pictures in the Copper So this Picture of that dying Man that dies in Christ that dies the death of the Righteous that embraces Death as a Sleepe was graving all his life All his publique actions were the lights and all his private the shadowes of this Picture And when this Picture comes to the Presse this Man to the streights and agonies of Death thus he lies thus he looks this he is His understanding and his will is all one faculty He understands Gods purpose upon him and he would not have God's purpose turned any other way hee sees God will dissolve him and he would faine be dissolved to be with Christ His understanding and his will is all one faculty His memory and his fore-sight ate fixt and concentred upon one object upon goodnesse Hee remembers that
of our Professors themselves who as she thinks come as near to her as they dare Because she hath gained of late upon many of the weaker sex women laden with sin and of weaker fortunes men laden with debts and of weaker consciences souls laden with scruples therefore she imagines that she hath seen the worst and is at an end of her change though this be but indeed a running an ebbing back of the main River but onely a giddy and circular Eddy in some shallow places of the stream which stream God be blessed runs on still currantly and constantly and purely and intemerately as before yet because her corrections are not multiplied because her absolute Ruine is not accelerated she hath some false conceptions of a general returning towards her and she fears up her self against all sense of Truth and all tenderness of Peace and because she hath rid out one storm in Luther and his successors therefore she fears not the Lord for any other Quia non habent Because she hath no changes now Habuerunt then They have had changes and Habebunt They shall have more and greater Impii non stabunt says David The wicked shall not stand In how low ground soever they stand and in how great torment soever they stand yet they shall not stand there but sink to worse and at last non stabunt in judicio They shall not stand in judgement but fall there from whence there is no rising Non stabunt They shall not stand though they think they shall they shall counterfeit the Seals of the Holy Ghost and delude themselves with imaginary certitudes of Salvation and illusory apprehensions of Decrees of Election nay non stabunt They shall not be able to think that they shall stand that which the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 10.12 Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall belongs onely to the godly onely they can think deliberately and upon just examination of the marks and evidences of the Elect that they shall stand God shall suffer the wicked to sink down not to a godly sense of their infirmity and holy remorse of the effects thereof but yet lower then that to a diffident jealousie to a desperate acknowledgement that they cannot stand in the sight of God they shall have no true rest at last they shall not stand nay they shall not have that half that false comfort by the way they shall not be able to flatter themselves by the way with that imagination that they shall stand Now both the ungodly and godly too must have Changes in matter of Fortune changes are common to them both and then in all of all conditions Mortalitas Mutabilitas says St. Augustine even this That we must die is a continual change The very same word 14.14 which is here kalaph is in Job also All the days of my appointed time till my changing come And because this word which we translate changing is there spoken in the person of a righteous man Symma some Translators have rendred that place Donec veniat sancta nativitas mea Till I be born again the change the death of such men is a better birth And so the Chaldee Paraphrasts the first Exposition of the Bible have express'd it Quousque rursus fiam Till I be made up again by death He does not stay to call the Resurrection a making up but this death this dissolution this change is a new creation this Divorce is a new Marriage this very Parting of the soul is an Infusion of a soul and a Transmigration thereof out of my bosome into the bosom of Abraham Bernard But yet though it is all this yet it is a change Maxima mutatio est Mutabilitatis in Immutabilitatem To be changed so as that we can never be changed more is the greatest change of all All must be changed so far as to die yea those who shall in some sort escape that death those whom the last day shall surprise upon earth though they shall not die yet they shall be changed Statutum est omnibus semel mori All men must die once Heb. 9.27 we live all under that Law But statutum nemini hic mori since the promise of a Messiah there is no Law no Decree by which any man must necessarily die twice a Temporal death and a Spiritual death too It is not the Man but the Sinner that dies the second death God sees sin in that man or else that man had never seen the second death So we shall all have one change besides those which we have all had good and bad must die but the men in this text shall have two But whatsoever changes are upon others in the world whatsoever upon themselvs whatsoever they have had whatsoever they are sure to have yet Quia non habent non timent Deum Because they have none now they fear not God And so we are come to our third and last Part. They fear not God This is such a state Part III. Non timent as if a man who had been a Schoolmaster all his life and taught others to read or had been a Critick all his life and ingeniosus in alienis over-witty in other mens Writings had read an Author better then that Author meant and should come to have use of his Reading to save his life at the Bar when he had his Book for some petty Felony and then should be stricken with the spirit of stupidity and not be able to read then Such is the state of the wisest of the learnedest of the mightiest in this world If they fear not God they have forgot their first letters they have forgot the basis and foundation of all Power the reason and the purpose of all Learning the life and the soul of all Counsel and Wisdom for The fear of God is the beginning of all They are all fallen into the danger of the Law they have all sinn'd they are offer'd their Book the merciful promises of God to repentant sinners in his Word and they cannot read they cannot apply them to their comfort There is Scripture but not translated not transferr'd to them there is Gospel but not preached to them there are Epistles but not superscribed to them It is an hereditary Sentence Psal 111.10 Prov. 1.7 Ecclus 1.16 and hath pass'd from David in his Psalms to Solomon in his Proverbs and then to him that glean'd after them both the Author of Ecclesiasticus The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom All three profess all that and more then that It is Blessedness it self says the father David Blessedness it self says the son Solomon and Plenitudo Sapientiae and Omnis Sapientia says the other The fulness of wisdom and the onely wisdom Job had said it before them all Ecce timor Domini 28. ipsa est sapientia The fear of the Lord is wisdom it self And the Prophet Esai said it after of Ezechias 33.6 There
as they grant us and not to interpret this place of a temporal deliverance from Babylon but of the deliverance by the Messias And for the second which is the deliverance of the christians from the persecutions in the primitive times though the Christians did then with a holy cheerfulness suffer those persecutions when they could not avoid them without prevaricating and betraying the hour of Christ Jesus yet they did not wilfully thrust themselves into those dangers they did not provoke the Magistrate And the word which is here translated ye sold your selves vendictistis vos implies actionem spontaneam a free and voluntary action done by themselves and therefore cannot well be understood of the persecutions in the Primitive Church The third therefore as yet is the most usefull and most received so it is the most proper acceptation of the word that it is a deliverance from the bondage of sin to be wrought by Christ for as Saint Hierome says this Prophet Esay is rather an Evangelist than a Prophet because almost all that Christ did and said and suffered is foretold and prophetically antidated in his prophecy and almost all his prophecy hath some relation at least in a secondary sense of accommodation where it is not so primarily and literally to the words and actions and passions of Christ Following then this interpretation in general of the word that it is a deliverance from the wages of sin Death by Christ we may take in passing a short view of the miserable condition of man wherin he enwraped himself of the aboundant mercy of Christ Jesus in withdrawing him from that universal calamity by considering onely the sense and largeness and extention of those words in which the holy Ghost hath been pleased to express both these in this Text. For first the word in which our action is expressed which is Machar verdidistis ye have sold signifies in many places of Scripture dare proreatia a permutation an exchange of one thing for another and in other places it signifies Dedére upon any little attempt to forsake and abandon our defences and to suffer the enemy easily to prevail upon us so also it signifies Tradere not onely to forsake our selves but to concur actually to the delivering up of our selves and lastly it signifies Repellere to joyn with our enemies in beating back any that should come to our relief and rescue And then as we have so sold our selves for the substance of the Act as is expressed in that word Machar we have exchanged our selves at an undervalue and worse than that we have yeelded up our selves upon easie tentations and worse than that we have offered our selves exposed our selves invited the devil and tempted temptations and worse than that we have Rejected the succours and the supplies which have been offered us in the means and conduits and seals of his Graces As it stands thus with us for the matter so for the manner how we have done this that is expressed in that other word kinnan which signifies fecit as it is here Gratis for nought And in another place Frustra to no purpose for it is a void bargain because we had no title no interest in our selves when we sold our selves and it signifies temere rashly without consideration of our own value upon whom God had stamped his Image And then again it signifies Immerito undeservedly before God in whose jurisdiction we were by many titles had forsaken us or done any thing to make us forsake him So that our action in selling our selves for nothing hath this latitude That man whom God hath dignified so much as that in the Creation he imprinted his Image in him and in the Redemption he assumed not the Image but the very nature of man That man whom God still preserved as the Aple of his Eye and as he expresses himself often in the Prophets is content to reason and to dispute with man and to submit himself to any tryal whither he have not been a gracious God unto him That this man should thus abandon this God and exchange his soul for any thing in this world when as it can profit nothing to gain the whole world and loose our own soul and not exchange it but give it away thrust it off and be a devil to the devil to tempt the tempter himself to take it But then as the word aggravates our condemnation so it implies a consolation too for it is fructra That is unprovidently unthriftily inconsideratly vainly and that multiplies our fault but then it is invalidly and uneffectually too that is it is a void bargain and when our powerful Redeemer is pleased to come and claim his right and set on foot his title all this improvident bargain of ours is voided and reversed and not though but because we have sold our selves for nought we shall be redeemed without money For the other word in which the action of our Redeemer is expressed though it have somewhat different uses in the Scriptures yet it is evermore spoken of him Qui habet jus re dimendi no man by the Law could redeem a thing but he who had a title to that thing So the word is used where there are given Cities of refuge from the avengeâ— .. There the word is a redemptor from him that hath right to redeem his kinsmans blood to bring an Appeal and to prosecute for the death of his kinsman who was slaine So is the word used also where that Law is given c. If thy brother be impoverished he sell his possession then his redeemer c. That is he that is next to that land And so also when a man dyed without issue he who had the right and the obligation to raise seed to the dead man he was the redeemer I am thy kinsman saith Booz to Ruth but saith he Alius Redemptor magis propinquus Thou hast another Redeemer nearer in blood then I am How ill a bargain soever we made for our selves Christ Jesus hath not lost his right in us but is our Redeemer in all these acceptations of the world He is our sanctuary and refuge when we have commited spiritual murder upon our own Souls he preserves us and delivers us to the redemption ordained for us when we have sold our possessions our natural faculties He supplies us with grace and feeds us with his Word and cloaths us with his Sacraments and warms us with his Absolutions against all diffidence which had formerly frozen us up and in our barrenness he raises up seed unto our dead souls thoughts and works worthy of repentance All this thy Redeemer hath right to do when it pleases him to do it he does it sine argento without money when the now Casâ—ph signifies not onely money but Omne appeâ—ibile any thing that we can place our desires or cast our thougths upon This Redemption of ours is wrought by such means as the desire of man could never have fortuned upon
not Jesus till he began to submit himself to the Law for us which was first in his circumcision when he took the name of Jesus and began to shed some drops of blood for us The name of Jesus was no new name when he took it we find some of that name in the Scriptures and in Josephus we find one officer that was his enemy and another a great robber who lighted upon Josephus more then once of that name and yet the Prophet Esai saies of Christ St. Cyril 62.2 interprets those words of this particular man Jesus thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shal name And how was this a new name by which so many had been called before The newness was not in that that none other had had that name but that the Son of God had not that name till he began to execute the office of a Saviour Esa 4.2 â— He was called Germen Jehovae the bud of Jehova before and he was called the Counselor and the wonderful and the Prince of peace by the same Prophet But it is the observation of Origen and of Lactantius after and it appears in the text it self That Moses never cals Oshea the son of Nun Joshuah which is the very name of Jesus till he was made General Num. 13.17 to deliver and save his people so what names soever were attribu to the Son of God before the name of Jesus was a new name to him then when he began the work of salvation in his circumcision Take hold therefore of his name Emanuel as God is with us as there is a person fit to reconcile God and man and take hold of him as he is Christus a person sealed and anointed for that reconciliation But above all be sure of thy hold upon the name Jesus thy Saviour This was his name when he was carried to the Altar to circumcision and this was his name when he carried his Altar the Cross this was his stile there Jesus Nazarenus Jesus of Nazareth and in the virtue of that name he shall give thee a circumcised heart and circumcised lips in the course of thy life and in the virtue of that name he shall give thee a joyful consummatum est when thou comest to finish all upon thy last Altar thy death-bed Servare Now from this consideration of the person so far as arose out of his several names we pass to his action He was able to redeem man He was sent to redeem man He did redeem man How Servavit He came to save And here also is that word which as we said before is above expressing for the word which we content our selves with To save implies but a preserving from falling into ruine but we were absolutely fal'n before The word signifies salutem dare medici and it signifies salutem esse and Christ is truly both both the Physitian and the Physick 9. 13. But how is it ministred we see his method is in St. Matth. veni vocare I came to call his way is a voice now vocat non cogit God doth but call us he does not constrain us He does not drive us into a pound He cals us as Birds do their young and he would gather us as a Hen doth her Chickins It is true there is a Trahit but there is no cogit no man comes to me saies Christ except the Father draw him But Joh 6 44. non inviti trahimur non inviti credimus saies St. Augustine God draws no man against his will no man believes in God against his will non adhibitus violentia sed voluntas exitatur saies the same Father God only excites and exalts our will but he does not force it He makes use of that of the Poet Trahit sua quemque voluptas our carnal desires draw us but this drawing is not a constraining for then we should not be commanded to resist them nor to fight against them for no man will bid me do so against a Cannon bullet that comes with an inevitable and irresistible violence now August habet sensus suas voluptates animus deseritur a suis shall our carnal affections draw us though they do not force us and shall not Grace do the same office too shall we still trust to such a power or such a measure of that Grace at last as that we shall not be able to resist but shall convert us whether we will or no and never concur willingly with Gods present grace Draw me and I will run after thee saies the Spouse Cant. 1.4 she was called before now she awakens and she does not say draw me and so I shall be screwd up unto thee and lay all upon the force of grace but draw me and I will run she promises an application and concurrence on her part So then venit salvare is venit vocare He came to save by calling us as an eloquent and a perswasive man draws his Auditory but yet imprints no necessity upon the faculty of the will so works Gods calling of us in his word God expresses it fully in the Prophet Hose 11.3 I sought Ephraim to go we are not able to go to rise to move without him But how did he teach him I took them by their arms God made use of their faculties which faculties are the limbs of the Soul so he enlightned their understanding and he rectified their will but still their underding and their will I draw them saies God their But how and with what With cords of man saies he and with bands of love with the cords of man the voice of the Minister and the power which Gods Ordinance hath infused into that and with the band of love that is of the Gospel so proposed unto us and as it is added there I took off the yoke from their jaws and I laid meat before them God takes off our yoke the weight of our sins and the indisposition of our natural infirmities and he laies meat before us the Word and the Sacraments in his Church So that his venit salvare is venit solvere solvere that is to pay our debt in his death and solvere that is to unty our bands and by his grace to make our natural faculties formerly bound up in a corrupt inhability to do so now able to concurre with him and cooperate to good actions He prepared and he prescribed this physick for man August when he was upon earth etiam cum occideretur medicus erat then when he died he became our physitian medici sanguinem fundunt ille de ipso sanguine medicamenta facit other Physitians draw our blood He makes physick of blood and of his own blood So he came to save in preparing and prescribing and he came to save in applying when by the preaching of his word Joseph who is in the well and Jeremy who is in the Dungeon do as much as they can for
exaltation That as man needed God and God would suffer for man so God should need man and man should suffer for God that after Gods general Commission fac hoc vives do this and thou shalt live I should receive and execute a new Commission Patere hoc vives abundantius suffer this and you shall have life and life more abundantly Joh. 10.10 as our Saviour speaks in the Gospel that when I shall ask my soul Davids question Psal 116.12 Quid retribuam what shall I render to the Lord I shall not rest in Davids answer Accipiam Calicem I will take the cup of salvation in applying his blood to my soul but proceed to an Effundam Calicem I will give God a Cup a cup of my blood that whereas to me the meanest of Gods servants it is honor enough to be believed for Gods sake God should be believed for my sake and his Gospel the better accepted because the feal of my blood is set to it that that dew which should water his plants the plants of his Paradise his Church should drop from my veines and that sea that red sea which should carry up his bark his Ark to the heavenly Jerusalem should flow from me This is that that poures joy even into my gladness and glory even into mine honor and peace even into my security that exaltes and improves every good thing Colos 1 24. Phil 2.17 every blessing that was in me before and makes even my creation glorious and my redemption precious and puts a farther value upon things inestimable before that I shall fulfil the sufferings of Christ in my flesh and that I shall be offerd up for his Church 1 Pet. 2.21 though not for the purchasing of it yet for the fencing of it though not by way of satisfaction as he was but by way of example and imitation as he was too Whether that be absolutely true or no which an Author of much curiosity in the Roman Church saies Pâ—rrecta in legem Not itio ultima that Inter tot millia millium amongst so many thousand thousands of Martyrs in the Primitive Church it cannot be said that ever one lack'd burial I know not whence he raises that certainly no Martyr ever lack'd a grave in the wounds of his Saviour no nor a tomb a monument a memorial in this life in that sense wherein our Saviour speaks in the Gospel That no man shall leave house Mar. 10.30 or Brother or wife for him but he shall receive an hundred fold in this life Christ does not mean he shall have a hundred houses or a hundred wives or a hundred Brethren but that that comfort which he lost in losing those things shall be multiplied to him in that proportion even in this life In which words of our Saviour as we see the dignity and reward of Martyrdome so we see the extent and latitude and compass of Martyrdome too that not only loss of life but loss of that which we love in this life not only the suffering of death but the suffering of Crosses in our life contracts the Name and entitles us to the reward of Martyrdome All Martyrdome is not a Smithfeild Martyrdome to burn for religion To suffer injuries and upon advantages offerd not to revenge those injuries is a Court Martyrdome To resist outward tentations from power and inward tentations from affections in matter of Judicature between party and party is a Westminster Martyrdome To seem no richer then they are not to make their states better when they make their private bargains with one another and to seem so rich as they are and not to make their states worse when they are call'd upon to contribute to publick services this is an Exchange-Martyrdome And there is a Chamber-Martyrdome a Bosome-Martyrdome too Habet pudicitia servata Martyrium suum Hierome Chastity is a dayly Martyrdome and so all fighting of the Lords battails all victory over the Lords Enemies in our own bowels all chearful bearing of Gods Crosses and all watchful crossing of our own immoderate desires is a Martyrdome acceptable to God and a true copy of our pattern Stephen so it be inanimated with that which was even the life and soul and price of all Stephens actions and passions that is fervent charity which is the last contemplation in which we propose him for your Example that as he you also may be just paymasters in discharging the debt which you owe the world in the signification of your Names and early Disciples and appliers of your selves to Christ Jesus and humble servants of his without inordinate ambition of high places and constant Martyrs 1 Cor. 15.31 in dying every day as the Apostles speaks and charitable intercessors and Advocates and Mediators to God even for your heaviest Enemies We have a story in the Ecclesiastical story of Nicephorus and Sapricius formerly great friends and after as great Enemies Charitas Nicephorus relented first and sued often for reconciliation to Sapricius but was still refused he was refused even upon that day when Sapricius being led out to execution as a Martyr for the Christian religion Nicephorus upon the way put himself in his way and upon his knees beg'd a reconciliation and obtained it not The effect of his uncharitableness was this Sapricius when he came to the stake recanted and renounced the christian religion and lost the crown of Martyrdome and Nicephorus who came forth upon another ocasion professed Christ and was receiv'd to the Coronation of Martyrdome Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing saies the Apostle but if I have not charity I shall not be admitted to that Sacrifice to give my body to be burnt St. Augustine seems to have delighted himself with that saying for he saies it more then once Si Stephanus non orasset if St. Stephen had not praid for Saul the Church had had no Paul and may we not justly add to that If Stephen had not praid for Saul Heaven had had no Stephen or Stephen had had no Heaven suffering it self is but a stubborness and a rigid and stupid standing under an affliction it is not a humiliation a bending under Gods hand if it be not done in charity Stephen had a pattern and he is a pattern Christ was his and he is our Example ut hoc dicam tibi at te primo audivi saies St. Augustine in Stephen's person to Christ Lord thou taughtest me this prayer upon the cross receive it now from me as the Father receiv'd it from thee then He prayed for his enemies as for himself and thus much more earnestly for them then for himself that he prayed for himself standing and kneeling for them Stephen was the Plantiff and when he comes to his Nolo prosequi and to release what hath the Judg to say to the Defendant If a potent adversary oppress thee to ruine to death if
and turns into good blood all the benefits formerly exhibited to us in particular and exhibited to the whole Church of God present that which belongs to the understanding to that faculty and the understanding is not presently setled in it present any of the prophecies made in the captivity and a Jews understanding takes them for deliverances from Babylon and a Christians understanding takes them for deliverances from sin and death by the Messias Christ Jesus present any of the prophecies of the Revelation concerning Antichrist and a Papist will understand it of a single and momentane and transitory man that must last but three yeer and a half and a Protestant may understand it of a succession of men that have lasted so 1000. yeers already present but the name of Bishop or of elder out of the Acts of the Apostle or their Epistles and other men will take it for a name of equality and parity and we for a name and office of distinction in the Hierarchy of Gods Church Thus it is in the understanding that 's often perplexed consider the other faculty the will of man by those bitternesses which have passed between the Jesuits and the Dominicans amongst other things belonging to the will whether the same proportion of grace offered to men alike disposed must necessarily work alike upon both their wills And amongst persons neerer to us whether that proportion of grace which doth convert a man might not have been resisted by perversness of his will By all these difficulties we way see how untractable and untameable a faculty the wil of man is But come not with matter of law but matter of fact Let God make his wonderful works to be had in remembrance Psal 111.4 present the history of Gods protection of his children from the beginning in the ark in both captivities in infinite dangers present this to the memory and howsoever the understanding be beclouded or the will perverted yet both Jew and Christian Papist and Protestant Puritan and Protestant are affected with a thankfull acknowledgment of his former mercies and benefits this issue of that faculty of their memory is alike in them all And therefore God in giving the law works upon no other faculty but this Exod. 20. I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt He only presents to their memory what he had done for them And so in delivering the Gospel in one principal seal thereof the sacrament of his body he recommended it only to their memory Do this in remembrance of me This is the faculty that God desires to work upon And therefore if thine understanding cannot reconcile differences in all Churches if thy will cannot submit it self to the ordinances of thine own Church go to thine own memory for as St. Bernard calls that the stomach of the soul we may be bold to call it the Gallery of the soul hang'd with so many and so lively pictures of the goodness and mercies of thy God to thee as that every one of them shall be a catachism to thee to instruct thee in all thy duties to him for those mercies And as a well made and well plac'd picture looks alwayes upon him that looks upon it so shall thy God look upon thee whose memory is thus contemplating him and shine upon thine understanding and rectifie thy will too If thy memory cannot comprehend his mercy at large shewed to his whole Church as it is almost an incomprehensible thing that in so few yeers he made us of the Reformation equall even in number to our adversaries of the Roman Church If thy memory have not held that picture of our general deliverance from the Navy if that mercy be written in the water and in the sands where it was perform'd and not in thy heart if thou remember not our deliverance from that artificiall Hell the Vault in which though his instruments failed of their plot they did not blow us up yet the Devil goes forward with his plot if ever he can blow out if he can get that deliverance to be forgotten If these be too large pictures for thy gallery for thy memory yet every man hath a pocket picture about him Emanuel a bosome book and if he will turn over but one leaf and remember what God hath done for him even since yesterday he shall find even by that little branch a navigable river to sail into that great and endless Sea of Gods mercies towards him from the beginning of his being Nunc. Do but remember but remember now Of his own wil begat he us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 that we should be as the first fruits of his creatures That as we consecrate all his creatures to him in a sober and religious use of them so as the first fruits of all we should principally consecrate our selves to his service betimes Now there were three payments of first fruits appointed by God to the Jews The first was Primitiae Spicarum of their Ears of Corn and this was early about Easter The second was Primitiae panum of Loaves of Bread after their corn was converted to that use and this though it were not so soon yet it was early too about Whitsontide The third was Primitiae frugum of all their Fruits and Revenues but this was very late in Autumn at the fall of the leaf in the end of the yeer The two first of these which were offered early were offered partly to God and partly to Man to the Priest but in the last which came late God had no part He had his part in the corn and in the loaves but none in the latter fruits Offer thy self to God first as Primitias spicarum whether thou glean in the world or bind up whole sheaves whether thy increase be by little and little or apace And offer thy self as primitias panum when thou hast kneaded up riches and honor and favour in a setled and established fortune offer at thy Easter whensoever thou hast any resurrection any sense of raising thy soul from the shadow of death offer at thy Pentecost when the holy Ghost visits thee and descends upon thee in a fiery tongue and melts thy bowels by the power of his word for if thou defer thy offering til thy fal til thy winter til thy death howsoever they may be thy first fruits because they be the first that ever thou gavest yet they are such as are not acceptable to God God hath no portion in them if they be not offered til then offer thy self now for that 's an easie request yea offer to thy self now that 's more easie Viximus mundo vivamus reliquum nobis ipsis Thus long we have served the world Basil let us serve our selves the rest of our time that is the best part of our selves our souls Expectas ut febris te vocet ad poenitentiam Hadst thou rather a sickness should bring thee to God than a
by the King to wait upon my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany First Sermon as we went out June 16. 1619. SERMON XX. Rom. 13.11 For now is our Salvation nearer then when we believed THere is not a more comprehensive a more embracing word in all Religion then the first word of this Text Now for the word before that For is but a word of connexion and rather appertains to that which was said before the Text then to the Text it self The Text begins with that important and considerable particle Now Now is salvation nearer c. This present word Now denotes an Advent a new coming or a new operation otherwise then it was before And therefore doth the Church appropriate this Scripture to the celebration of the Advent before the Feast of the Birth of our Saviour It is an extensive word Now for though we dispute whether this Now that is whether an instant be any part of time or no yet in truth it is all time for whatsoever is past was and whatsoever is future shall be an instant and did and shall fall within this Now. We consider in the Church four Advents or Comings of Christ of every one of which we may say Now now it is otherwise then before For first there is verbum in carne the word came in the flesh in the Incarnation and then there is caro in verbo he that is made flesh comes in the word that is Christ comes in the preaching thereof and he comes again in carne saluta when at our dissolution and transmigration at our death he comes by his spirit and testifies to our spirit that we die the Children of God And lastly he comes in carne reddita when he shall come at the Resurrection to redeliver our bodies to our souls and to deliver everlasting glory to both The Ancients for the most part understand the word of our Text of Christs first coming in the flesh to us in this world the latter Exposition understand them rather of his coming in glory But the Apostle could not properly use this present word Now with relation to that which is not now that is to future glory otherwise then as that future glory hath a preparation and an inchoation in present grace for so even the future glory of heaven hath a Now now the elect Children of God have by his powerfull grace a present possession of glory So then it will not be impertinent to suffer this flowing and extensive word Now to spread it self into all three for the whole duty of Christianity consists in these three things first in pietate erga Deum in religion towards God in which the Apostle had enlarged himself from the beginning to the twelfth chapter of his Epistle And secondly in charitate erga proximum in our mutual duties of society towards our Equals and Inferiors and of Subjection towards our Superiours in which that twelfth chapter and this to the eitghth verse is especially conversant And then thirdly in sanctimonia propria in the works of sanctification and holiness in our selves And this Text the Apostle presents as a forcible reason to induce us to that to those works of sanctification because Now our salvation is nearer us then when we believed Take then this now the first way of the coming Christ in person in the flesh into this world and then the Apostle of directs himself principally to the Jews converted to the faith of Christ and he tels them That their salvation is nearer them now now they had seen him come then when they did only believe that he would come Take the words the second way of his coming in grace into our hearts and so the Apostle directs himself to all Christians now now that you have bin bred in the Christian Church now that you are grown from Grace to grace from faith to faith now that God by his spirit strengthens and confirms you now is your salvation nearer then when ye believed that is when you began to believe either by the faith of your Parents or the faith of the Church or the faith of your Sureties at your Baptism or when you began to have some notions and impressions and apprehensions of faith in your self when you came to some degrees of understanding and discretion Take the word of Christs coming to us at the hour of death or of his coming to us at the day of Judgment for those two are all one to our present purpose because God never reverses any particular judgement given at a mans death at the day of the general Judgment take the word so this is the Apostles argument you have believed and you have lived accordingly and that faith and that good life hath brought salvation nearer you that is given you a fair and modest infallibility of salvation in the nature of reversion but now now that you are come to the approches of death which shall make your reversion a possession Now is salvation nearer you then when you believed Summarily the Text is a reason why we ought to proceed in good and holy wayes and it works in all the three acceptations of the word for whether salvation be said to be near us because we are Christians and so have advantage of the Jews or near us because we have made some proficiency in holiness sanctimony or near us because we are near our end and thereby near a possession of our endless joy and glory Still from all these acceptations of the word arise religious provocations to perseverance in holiness of life and therefore we shall pursue the words in all three acceptations In all three acceptations we must consider three termes in the Text First Quid salus what this Salvation is that is intended here Part. 1. and then Quid prope what this Distance this nearness is and lastly Quid credere what Belief this is So then taking the words first the first way as spoken by the Apostles to the Jews newly converted to the Christian Faith salvation is the outward means of salvation which are more and more manifest to the Christians then they were to the Jews And then the second Term Nearness salvation is nearer is in this That salvation to the Christian is in things present or past in things already done and of which we are experimentally sure but to the Jews it was of future things of which howsoever they might assure themselves that they would be yet they had no assurance when And therefore in the third place their Believing was but a confident expectation and faithfull assenting to their Prophets quando credidistis when you believed that is when you did only believe and saw nothing First then the first Terme in the first acceptation Salvation Salus is the outward means of salvation Outward and visible means of knowing God God hath given to all Nations in the book of Creatures from the first leaf of that book the firmament above to
own or their parents or the Churches we have no ground to deny that Salvation is neer and present to all children rightly baptized but for those who have made sure their Salvation by a good use of Gods graces after we have another fair peece of evidence that Salvation is neerer them It is so to if this believing be refer'd to our first elements and beginnings of faith A man believes the history of Christ because it is matter of fact and a story probable and well testified A man may believe the Christian Religion or the Reformed Religion for his ease either because he cannot or will not debate controversies and reconcile differences or because he sees it best for order and quiet and civll ends which he hath in that state where he lives These be kinds of faith and morall assents and somtimes when a man is come thus far to a historical and a moral faith God super-infuses true faith for howsoever he wrought by reason and natural faculties and moral and civil wayes yet it was God that wrought from the beginning and produced this faith though but historical or moral And then if God do exalt this moral or historical faith farther then so to believe not only the History but the Gospel not only that such a Christ lived and did those miracles and dyed but that he was the Son of God and dyed for the redemption of the world this brings Salvation neerer him than when he believed but then when this grace comes to appropriate Christ to him and more than that to annunciate Christ by him when it makes him as John Baptist was a burning and a shining lamp That Christ is shewed to him and by him to others in a holy life Then is Salvation neerer him than when he believed either as it is credidit primum when he began to believe but had some scruples or credidit tantum that he laid all upon faith but had no care of works To end this this neerness of Salvation is that union with God which may be had in this life It is the peace of conscience the undoubting trust and assurance of Salvation This assurance so far as they will confess it may be had the Roman Church places in faith and so far well but then In fide formata and so far well enough too In those works which declare and testifie that faith for though this good work do nothing toward my Salvation it does much towards this neerness that is towards my assurance of this Salvation but herein they lead us out of the way that they call these works the soul the form of faith for though a good tree cannot be without good fruits yet it were a strange manner of speech to call that good fruit the life or the soul or the form of that tree so is it to call works which are the fruits of faith the life or soul or form of faith for that is proper to grace only which infuses faith They would acknowledge this neerness of salvation this assurance in good works but say they man cannot be sure that their works is good and therefore they can have no such assurance They who undertook the reformation of Religion in our Fathers dayes observing that there was no peace without this assurance expressed this assurance thus That when a man is sure that he believes aright that he hath no scruples of God no diffidence in God and uses all endeavors to continue it and to express it in his life as long as he continues so he is sure of Salvation and farther they went not And then there arose men which would reform the Reformers and refine Salvation and bring it into a lesse room They would take away the condition if you hold fast if you express it and so came up roundly and presently to that If ever you did believe if ever you had faith you are safe for ever and upon that assurance you may rest Now I make no doubt but that both these sought the truth that truth which concerns us peace and assurance and I dispute not their resolutions now only I say for these words which we have in hand now there is a conditional assurance implyed in them for when it is said now now that you are in this state Salvation is neer you thus much is pugnantly intimated that if you were not in this state Salvation were farther removed from you howsoever you pretend to believe Now this hath brought us to our third and last sense and acceptation of these words as they are spoken of Christs last comming 3 Part. his comming in glory which is to us at our deaths and that judgment which we receive then And in this acceptation of the word these three terms Salvation Neerness and Believing are thus to be understood Salvation is Salvation perfected consummated Salvation which was brought neer baptism neerer in outward holyness must be brought neerer than that And this prope this neerness is that now being neer death you are neer the last seal of your perseverance and so the credidistis the believing amounts to this though you have believed and liv'd accordingly believed with the belief of a Jew believed all the Prophets and with the beliefe of a Christian believed all the Gospel believed with a seminal belief of your own or an actuall belief of others at your baptism with a historical belief and with an Evangelical belief too with a belief in your root in the heart and a belief in the fruits expressed in a good life too yet there is a continuance and a perseverance that must crown all this and because that cannot be discern'd till thine end then only is it safely pronounced Now is Salvation neerer you than when you believed Salus Here then Salvation is eternall Salvation not the outward seals of the Church upon the person not visible Sacraments nor the outward seal of the person to the Church visible works nor the inward seal of the Spirit assurance here but fruition possession of glory in the Kingdome of Heaven where we shall be infinitely rich and that without labor in getting or care in keeping or fear in loosing and fully wise and that without ignorance of necessary or study of unnecessary knowledge where we shal not measure our portion by acres for all heaven shall be all ours nor our term by yeers for it is life and everlasting life nor our assurance by precedent for we shal be safer then the Angels themselves were in the creation where our exaltation shal be to have a crown of righteousness and our possession of that crown shal be even the throwing it down at the feet of the Lamb where we shal leav off all those petitions of Adveniat regnum thy Kingdom come for it shal be come in abundant power and the da nobis hodiè give us this day our dayly bread for we shal have all that which we can desire now and shall have a
after Egyptian Onions again It is not enough that the State and the Church hath destroyed Idolatry so far as we said before still there are weeds still there are seeds And therefore Cave Take heed But yet it is but Take heed It is not take thought Afflict not thy self deject not thy self with ominous presages and prophetical melancholy thy God will overthrow this Religion and destroy this work which his right hand hath been a hundred years in repairing and scatter his corn which his right hand hath been a hundred years in purifying Come not to say It was but the passion and animosity of Luther It was but the ambition and singularity of Calvin that induc'd this Religion and now that that is spent the Religion melts like snow Take no such thought be not afraid that the truth of God shall or can perish It is not Take thought but it is much less Take arms Men may have false conceptions of preparations and ways laid towards a re-entry of Idolatry and men may have just and true reasons of or religious indignation to see so bad and so insolent uses made of those favours which are offered to persons of that profession but yet our inhibition is no further here but to take heed not to take arms not to come by violence not to slackness of Allegiance and Obedience It is but Take heed and but Take heed to thy self Pretend not thou who art but a private man to be an Overseer of the Publick or a Controller of him who by way of coaction is accountable to God only and neither to any great Officer at home nor to the whole body of the people there nor to any neighbour-Prince or State abroad Idolatry is destroyed but yet there is danger not to make thee take thought to suspect Gods Power or his Will to sustain his Cause not to take arms as if the Lord of Hosts needed Rebels but to take heed to watch plots of circumvention and to heed to thy self that is to all under thy charge for thy danger is not evident It is a snare Laqueus which is our last stop and step in this first part There is danger though the Idolaters be thus destroyed There is use of diligence if there be danger and the more if this danger be a snare Take heed that the Idolater do not kindle a Rebellion take heed that the Idolater do not sollicite an Invasion take heed of publick and general dangers These be Caveats for Princes but take heed of a snake take heed of a snare this appertains to every private man Psal 11.6 God studied plagues for Egypt 69.21 and they were strange plagues but that 's as great as any at least which David speaks of Pluet laqueos Upon the wicked God shall rain snares And after Mensa laqueus Their table shall become a snare before them And if God punish our negligence of his former favours so far as to rain snares even at our tables that almost at every table that we can come to we shall meet some that would ensnare us Is not this Caveat necessary in these times Take heed that thou be not snared David thought he had carried his complaint to the highest 64.65 when he said of his Enemies They commune of laying snares privily But now they do not plot privily but avow their mischiefs and speak so as we dare scarce confess that we heard them And that 's a shrewd snare when they dare speak more then we dare hear Will a man have taken up a snare from the earth Amos 3.5 and have taken nothing saith the Prophet Since they have laid their snares they will take some and thou mayest be one And therefore take heed of their snares There is a snare laid for thy son a perswasion to send him to foreign Universities they will say Not to change his Religion For Religion let him do as he shall see cause but there he shall be better taught and better bred then at home There is a share laid for thy servants what need they come to Church they have nothing to lose who will indite them who will persecute them And yet in due time such servants may do the Cause as much good as the Masters There is a snare laid for thy wife Her Religion say they doth not hinder her husbands preferment why should she refuse to apply her self to them We have used to speak proverbially of a Curtain Sermon as of a shrewd thing but a Curtain Mass a Curtain Requiem a snare in thy bed a snake in thy bosome is somewhat worse I know not what name we may give to such a womans husband but I am sure such a wife hath committed adultery Spiritual Adultery and that with her husbands knowledge call him what you will There is a snare for thy servant for thy son for thy wife and for thy fame too and how far soever thou wert from it they will have the world believe thou diedst a Papist If thy declination be towards profit if thy byas turn that way there is a snare in the likeness of a Chain of a Jewel a Pension If it be society and conversation there may be a snare in meeting more good company at Masses then at thy Parish Church If it be levity and affectation of new things there may be a snare of things so new in that Religion as that this Kingdom never saw them yet not then when this Kingdom was of that Religion For we had received the Reformation before the Council of Trent and before the growth of the Jesuits And if we should turn to them now we should be worse then we were before we receiv'd the Reformation and the Council of Trent and the Jesuits have made that Religion worse then it was Rom. 8.38 as St. Bernard says upon St. Pauls words Neither height nor depth nor life nor death shall separate us Minime tamen dicit nec nos ipsi The Apostle doth not say that we our selves and our own concupisences shall not separate us from God So though Excommunications have not Invasions have not Powder-Plots have not yet God knows what those snares may work upon us In laqueo suo comprehendantur Psal 9.16 says David Now laqueus is a snare as their malice intends it for us and laqueus is a halter as our Laws intend it for them and in laqueo suo as it 's theirs let them be taken Our good and great God in his power and mercy hath destroyed Idolatry but in his wisdom he hath left exercise for our diligence in some danger and that danger is a snare and therefore Take heed thou be not snared And so we have done with the first part Our second part consists of two branches 2. Part. of two ways of falling into this danger First by following them and then by inquiring into their Religion For the first the Original word which we translate following is Achareihem and it is
scandal as we see in that vehement expostulation and unlikelihood of an ill love between him and Paula Nulla alia me Romae edomare potuit Was Rome so barren so weak so ill furnished with instruments of tentation that nothing in Rome it self could shake my constancy or retard my austerity Nisi lugens jejuna squallida fletibus caecata but a sad fasting ill drest woman blinde with weeping Et quam manducantem nunquam vidi A woman whom as familiar and domestick as I was in her house I could never see eat bit of meat But all this would not quench the fire the scandal grew he found it even amongst his brethren Homines Christiani dicunt he could not say that onely the enemies of the faith or his enemies but they that loved Religion well and him well talked dangerously and suspiciously of it and yet St. Jerome could not dispose himself to forbear that conversation He overcame the sense of it with a par pari refertur I says he am even with them Invicem insanire videmur they think me mad and I think them mad But this is not always a safe nor a charitable way when he might so easily have cured both madnesses But he perseveres in it with that resolution Saluta Paulam velit nolit mundus in Christo meam Remember me to my Paula let the world say what it will in Christ my Paula Thus he proceeds if excusably in his own behalf that is the best certainly not exemplarily not to be followed by others in cases of so great scandal For there goes not onely a great deal of innocency which we acknowledge doubtlesly to have been between that blessed couple but there must go a great deal of necessity too that is That Paula could not have been reduced by any other means to the service of God or continued in it but by following St. Jerome to Jerusalem to justifie such a conversation as became so scandalous And howsoever in some cases excuses might be found what good Mariner would anchor under a Rock and lie in danger of beating upon that What Fish would chuse his food upon a Hook What Mouse at a Trap What man would mingle Sugar and Rats-bane together and then trust his cunning to sever them again Why should any man chuse such company such conversation as may minister tentation to him or scandal to others Augustine St. Augustine apprehended this danger tenderly when he gave his reason why he would not have his Mother in the house with him Because says he though there be no danger of scandal in the person of my Mother all those women that serve my Mother and that accompany my Mother and that visit my Mother all they are not Mothers to me and a lawful conversation may come to an unlawful love quickly We see how this love wrought when it was scattered upon many women and therefore could not be so dangerously vehement upon any one in Solomon whose wife turned away his heart 1 King 11.4 Augustine so that his heart was not perfect with God Nec errore putavit Idolis serviendum Solomon never came to think deliberately that Idolatry was lawful sed blanditiis foemineis ad illa sacrificia compulsus his appliableness to women brought him to that sacriledge Thus it wrought even when it was scattered upon many in Solomon and we see how it wrought when it was collected and contracted upon one object in Samson Judg. 16.6 Because she was importunate upon him says the Text and vexed him with her words continually his soul was pained unto the death Yea if we go as high as is possible to Adam himself we see both St. Augustine and St. Jerome express his case thus Adam non tanquam verum loquenti credidit Adam did not believe Eve nor was not overcome by her reasons when she provoked him to eat the Apple Sed sociali necessitudini paruit he was affected with that near interest which was between them And ne contristaretur delicias suas lest by refusing he should put her whom he delighted in to a desperate sadness and sense of her sin he eat for company And as the first and the middle times did so without doubt our own times too if we search but our selves at home do minister examples of this in a proportion which neither St. Jerome nor Solomon nor Samson nor Adam avoided that an over-tender indulgence towards such women that for other respects they were bound to love inclined them to do such things as otherwise they would not have done Natural and civil obligations induced conversation and conversation tentation or if not that really yet scandal That that we drive to in all this is this that if we may not exceed in this love which is natural and commanded much less in any other So that there is nothing in this world left for this noble and operative affection Love to work upon but this pureness of heart Love it therefore that thou mayst seek it love it that thou mayest have it love it that thou mayest love it for as we said before it is a part of this pureness to love it Some of the ancient Fathers out of their love to it have put so high a price and estimation upon it that they hardly afforded any grace any pardon to those that sinned after they had once received this pureness in Baptism So that with them the heart could never be clean again after it was once foul'd a second time Our new Romane Chymists Maldâ—n on the other side they that can transubstantiate bread into God they can change any foulness into cleaness easily They require no more after sin but quendam tenuem dolorem internum A little slight inward sorrow and that 's enough For they have provided an easier way then Contrition for that which they have induc'd and call Attrition is not an affection qui habet pro sine Deum That hath proposed God for the mark that it is directed too Nec qui indiget divina gratia but it is such an affection as may be had without any concurrence or assistance of grace and is onely Dolor naturalis Zambran ex timore servili a natural sorrow proceeding onely out of a servile fear of torment And yet a Confession made with this Attrition and no more is enough for salvation say they and he that hath made a confession with such a disposition as this This that hath no reference to God This that hath no strength from his grace This that hath no motive from the fear of God shall never need to repent any farther for his sins Displiceri de peccato Cajâ—tan sed non super omni displicibili This is Attrition to be displeased with our sins but not more with our sins then with any thing else Intendere vitare peccatum sed non super omne vitabile To have a purpose to leave a sin but not the sin rather then any thing
the Scriptures For God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd c. The 26 Sermon Serm. 26. Psa 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death BUildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain them support them and of their buttresses that comprehend them embrace them and of their contignations that knit and unite them The foundation suffers them not to sink the buttresses suffer them not to swerve the contignation and knitting suffer them not to cleave The body of our building is in the former part of this verse it is this He that is our God is the God of salvation ad salutes of salvations in the plural so it is in the original the God that gives us spiritual and temporal salvation too But of this building the foundation the buttresses the contignation are in this part of the verse which constitutes our text and in the three diverse acceptations of the words amongst our expositors Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death For first the foundation of this building that our God is the God of all salvations is laid in this That unto this God the Lord belongs the issues of death that is it is his power to give us an issue and deliverance even then when we are brought to the jaws and teeth of death and to the lips of that whirl-pool the grave and so in this acceptation this exitus mortis this issue of death is liberatio a morie a deliverance from death this is the most obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words and that upon which our translation laies hold The issues from death And then Secondly the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building that He that is our God is the God of salvation are thus raised Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death that is the disposition and manner of our death what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have out of this world whether prepared or sodain whether violent or natural whether in our perfect senses or shak'd and disordered by sickness there is no condemnation to be argued out of that no judgment to be made upon that for howsoever they dye precious in his sight is the death of his Saints and with him are the issues of death the way of our departing out of this life are in his hands and so in this sense of the words this Exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio in morte a deliverance in death not that God will deliver us from dying but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death of what kind soever our passage be and this sense and acceptation of the words the natural frame contexture doth well and pregnantly administer unto us And then lastly the contignation and knitting of this building that he that is our God is the God of all salvation consists in this Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death that is that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures in one and being God having also come into this world in our flesh he could have no other means to save us he could have no other issue out of this world nor return to his former glory but by death And so in this sense this exitus mortis the issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by death by the death of this God our Lord Christ Jesus and this is St. Augustines acceptation of the words and those many and great persons that have adhered to him In all these three lines then we shall look upon these words first as the God of power the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death and then as the God of mercy the glorious Son rescued us by taking upon himself the issue of death and then between these two as the God of comfort the holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed impressions before hand that what manner of death soever be ordained for us yet this exitus mortis shall be introitus in vitam our issue in death shall be an entrance into everlasting life And these three considerations our deliverance a morte in morte per mortem from death in death and by death will abundantly do all the offices of the foundation of the buttresses of the contignation of this our building that He that is our God is the God of all salvation because Unto this God the Lord belong the issues of death First Part. A mâ—â—e First then we consider this exitus mortis to be liberatio a morte that with God the Lord are the issues of death therefore in all our deaths and deadly calamities of this life we may justly hope of a good issue from him and all our periods and transitions in this life are so many passages from death to death Exitus a morte uteri Our very birth and entrance into this life is exitus a morte an issue from death for in our mothers womb we are dead so as that we do not know we live not so much as we do in our sleep neither is there any grave so close or so putrid a prison as the womb would be to us if we stai'd in it beyond our time or died there before our time In the grave the worms do not kil us We breed and feed and then kill those worms which we our selves produc'd In the womb the dead child kils the mother that conceiv'd it and is a murderer nay a Parricide even after it is dead And if we be not dead so in the womb so as that being dead we kill her that gave us our first life our life of vegetation yet we are dead so as Davids Idols are dead Psa 115.6 in the womb we have eyes and see not ears and hear not There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness all the while deprived of light and there in the womb we are taught cruelty by being fed with blood and may be damned though we be never born Of our very making in the womb David saies 139. 14. I am wonderfully and fearfully made and Such knowledg is too excellent for me for Even that is the Lords doing and it is wonderful in our eyes 118. 23. Ipse fecit nos It is he that hath made us and not we our selves no 200. 3. nor our Parents neither Thy hands have made me and fashioned me round about saies Job and 10. 8. as the original word is Thou hast taken pains about me and yet saies he Thou doest destroy me though I be the master-peice of the greatest Master man is so yet if thou do no more for me if thou leave me where thou mad'st me destruction will follow The womb which should be the house of life becomes death it self if God leave us there That which God threatens so often the shutting of the womb is not
evidences of adoption and spiritual filiation then and so long as I see these marks and live so I may safely comfort my self in a holy certitude a modest infallibility of my adoption Christ determins himself in that the purpose of God because the purpose of God was manifest to him S. Pet. S. Paul determine themselves in those two waies of knowing the purpose of God the word of God before the execution of the Decree in the fulness of time It was prophecied before said they it is perform'd now Christ is risen without seeing corruption Now this which is so singularly peculiar to him that his flesh should not see corruption at his second coming his coming to Judgment shall be extended to all that are then alive their flesh shall not see corruption because as the Apostle saies and saies as a secret as a mystery behold I shew you a mystery we shall not all sleep 1 Cor. 15.51 that is not continue in the state of the dead in the grave but we shall all be changed In an instant we shall have a dissolution and in the same instant a redintegration a recompacting of body and soul and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection but no sleeping no corruption But for us who dy now and sleep in the state of the dead we must all pass this posthume death this death after death nay this death after burial this dissolution after dissolution this death of corruption and putrefaction of virmiculation and incineration of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave When those bodies which have been the children of royal Parents and the Parents of royal Children must say with Job 17.14 to corruption thou art my Father to the worm thou art my Mother my Sister Miserable riddle when the same worm must be my mother my sister my self Miserable incest when I must be married to mine own mother and sister and be both Father and Mother to mine one mother and sister beget and bear that worm which is all that miserable penury when my mouth shall be silled with dust and the worm shall feed and feed sweetly upon me 24.20 When the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest a live tread upon him nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to Princes for they shall be equal but in dust 23.24 One dyeth at his full strength being wholly at ease and in quiet and another dies in the bitterness of his soul and never eats with pleasure but they ly down alike in the dust and the worm cover them 24.11 The worm covers them in Job and in Esai it covers them is spread under them the worm is spread under thee and the worm covers thee There is the mats and the carpet that lie under and there is the state and the canopy that hangs over the greatest of the Sons of men Even those bodies that were the Temples of the holy Ghost come to this dilapidation to ruine to rubbish to dust Even the Israel of the Lord and Jacob himself had no other specification Esa 41.14 no other denomination but that vermis Jacob thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthume death this death after burial that after God with whom are the issues of death hath delivered me from the death of the womb by bringing me into the world and from the manifold deaths of the world by laying me in the grave I must die again in an incineration of this flesh and in a dispersion of that dust that all that monarch that spread over many nations alive must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead and there but so long as the lead will last and that private and retired man that thought himself his own for ever and never came forth must in his dust of the grave be published and such are the revolutions of graves be mingled in his dust with the dust of every high way and of every dunghil and swallowed in every puddle and pond this is the most inglorious and contemptible villification the most deadly and peromptory nullification of man that we can consider God seems to have carried the declaration of his power to a great heighth when he sets the Prophet Ezechiel in the vally of dry bones 37. 1. and saies Son of man can these dry bones live as though it had been impossible and yet they did the Lord laid sinews upon them and flesh and breathed into them and they did live But in that case there were bones to be seen something visible of which it might be said can this this live but in this death of incineration and dispersion of dust we see nothing that we can call that mans If we say can this dust live perchance it cannot It may be the meer dust of the earth which never did live nor never shall it may be the dust of that mans worms which did live but shall no more it may be the dust of another man that concerns not him of whom it is asked This death of incineration and dispersion is to natural reason the most irrecoverable death of all and yet Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis unto God the Lord belong the issues of death and by recompacting this dust into the same body and re-inanimating the same body with the same soul be shall in a blessed and glorious Resurrection give me such an issue from this Death as shall never passe into any other death but establish me in a Life that shall last as long as the Lord of Life himself And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these words unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That though from the womb to the grave and in the grave it self we passe from Death to Death yet as Daniel speaks The Lord our God is able to deliver us and he will deliver us And so we passe to our second accomodation of these words Unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death That it belongs to God and not to Man to passe a Judgement upon us at our Death or to conclude a dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof Those Indications which Physitians receive Part. 2. Liberatio in morte and those praesagitions which they give for death or recovery in the Patient they receive and they give out of the grounds and rules of their Art But we have no such rule or art to ground a presagition of spiritual death and damnation upon any such Indication as we see in any dying man we see often enough to be sorry but not to despayr for the mercies of God work momentanely in minuts and many times insensibly to by-standers or any other then the party departing and we may be deceived both wayes we use to comfort our selves in the death of a friend if it be testifyed that he went away like
a Lamb that is but with any reluctation But God knows that may have been accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction and insensibility of his present state Our blessed Saviour admitted colluctations with Death and a sadnesse even in his Soul to death and an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body and expostulations with God and exclamations upon the Crosse He was a devout man who upon his death-bed or death-turse for he was an Hermit said Septuaginta annis domino servivisti mori times Hast thou serv'd a good Master threescore and ten yeeres Hilarion and now art thou loth to goe into his presence yet Hilarion was loath He was a devoure man an Hermite that said that day that he died Cogitate hodie coepisse servire Domino Barlaam hodie finiturum Consider this to be the first days service that ever thou didst thy Master to gloryfie him in a christianly and constant death and if thy first day be thy last day too how soone dost thou come to receive thy wages yet Barlaam could have beene content to have stayed longer for it Make no ill conclusion upon any man's lothnesse to die And then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors Christ himself hath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion for his own death had those impressions in it he was reputed he was executed as a Malefactor and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death did beleeve him to be so Of sodain deaths there are scarce examples to be found in the Scriptures upon good men for death in battail cannot be called sodain death But God governs not by examples but by rules and therefore make no ill conclusions upon sodain-Death nor upon distempers neyther though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and distrust in the mercies of God The Tree lies as it falls 'T is true but yet it is not the last stroke that fells the Tree nor the last word nor last gaspe that qualifies the Soule Still pray we for a peaceable life against violent deaths and for time of Repentance against sodaine Deaths and for sober and modest assurance against dâ—stemper'd and diffident Deaths but never make ill conclusâ—ion upon persons overtaken with such Deaths Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis To God the Lord belong the issues of Death and he received Samson who went out of this world in such a manner consider it actively consider it passively in his own death and in those whom he slew with himself as was subject to interpretation hard enough yet the holy-Ghost hath mov'd Saâ—nt Paul to celebrate Samson in his great Catalogue and so doth all the Church Heb. 11. Our Criticall day is not the very day of our death but the whole course of our life I thank him that prayes for me when my bell tolls but I thank him much more that Carechises me or preaches to me or instructs me how to live fac hoc vives There 's my security The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Doe this and thou shalt live But though I doe it yet I shall die too dy a bodily a naturall death but God never mentions never seems to consider that death the bodily the naturall death God doth not say Live well and thou shalt die well well that is an easy a quiet death but live well here and thou shalt live well for ever As the first part of a Sentence peeces well with the last and never respects never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between so doth a good life here flow into an eternall life without any consideration what manner of death we die But whether the gate of my prison be opened with an oyl'd key by a gentle and preparing sicknesse or the gate be hew'd down by a violent death or the gate be burnt down by a rageing and frantick feaver a gate into Heaven I shall have for from the Lord is the course of my life and with God the Lord are the issues of death And farther we carry not this second acceptation of the words as this issue of death is liberatio in morte God's care that the Soule be safe what agonie soever the body suffer in the houre of death but passe to our third and last Part as this issue of death is liberatio per mortem a deliverance by the death of another by the death of Christ Part. 3. Liberatio per mortem SufferentiaÌ„ Job audiâ—stis judistis fineÌ„ Domini saies S. Ja. 5.11 You have heard of the patience of Job saies he All this while you have done that for in every man calamitous miserable man a Job speaks Now see the end of the Lord saith that Apostle which is not that end which the Lord proposed to himself Salvation to us nor the end which he proposes to us conformity to him but See the end of the Lord saies he the end that the Lord himself came to Death and a painfull and a shamefull death But why did he die and why die so Quia Domini Domini sunt exitus Mortis as Saint Augustine interpreting this Text De Civit. Dei l. 17. c. 18. answers that question because to this God our Lord belong'd these issues of Death Quid apertius diceretur sayes he there what can be more obvious more manifest then this sense of these words In the former part of the verse it is said He that is our God is the God of Salvation Deus salvos faciendi so he reads it The God that must save us Who can that be saith he but Jesus For therefore that name was given him because he was to save us And to this Jesus saith he Mat. 1.21 this Saviour belongs the issues of Death Nec oportuit cum de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis Being come into this life in our mortall nature he could not goe out of it any other way then by Death Ideo dictum saith he therefore is it said To God the Lord belong the issues of Death Ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos facturum to shew that his way to save us was to die And from this Text doth Saint Isiodore prove that Christ was truly man which as many Sects of Hereticks denied as that he was truly God because to him though he were Dominus Dominus as the Text doubles it God the Lord yet to him to God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death Oportuit cum pati more cannot be said then Christ himself saith of himself These Luk. 24.26 things Christ ought to suffer He had no other way but by Death So then this part of our Sermon must necessarily be a Passion Sermon since all his life was a continuall Passion all our Lent may well be a continual good-Friday Christ's painfull Life took off none of the pains of his Death he felt not the lesse then for having felt so much before nor will
any thing that shall be said before lessen but rather enlarge your devotion to that which shall be said of his Passion at the time of the due solemnization thereof Christ bled not a drop the lesse at last for having bled at his Circumcision before nor will you shed a teare the lesse then if you shed some now And therefore be now content to consider with me how to this God the Lord belong'd the issues of Death That God the Lord The Lord of Life could die is a strange contemplation That the red-Sea could be dry Potuisse Mori Exod. 14.21 That the Sun could stand still Jos 10.12 That an Oven could be seven times heat and not burn That Lyons could be hungry and not bite is strange miraculously strange But super-miraculous That God could die But that God would die is an exaltation of that But even of that also it is a super-exaltation that God should die must die and non exitus saith Saint Augustin God the Lord had no issue but by death and oportuit pati saith Christ himself all this Christ ought to suffer was bound to suffer Psal 94.1 Voluisse Mori Deus ultionum Deus saith David God is the God of Revenges He would not passe over the sin of man unrevenged unpunished But then Deus ultionum libere egit sayes that place The God of Revenges works freely he punishes he spares whom he will and would he not spare himself He would not Dilectio fortis ut Mors Can. 8.6 Love is as strong as Death stronger it drew in Death that naturally was not welcome Si possibile saith Christ If it be possible let this Cup passe when his Love expressed in a former Decree with his Father had made it impossible Many waters quench not Love Christ tryed many He was baptized out of his Love v. 7. and his love determin'd not there He wept over Jerusalem out of his love and his love determined not there He mingled blood with water in his Agony and that determined not his love He wept pure blood all his blood at all his eyes at all his pores in his flagellations and thornes to the Lord our God belonged the issues of blood and these expressed but these did not quench his love Oportuisse Mori He would not spare nay he would not spare himself There was nothing more free more voluntary more spontaneous then the death of Christ 'T is true libere egit he died voluntarily But yet when we consider the contract that had passed between his Father and him there was an Oportuit a kinde of necessity upon him All this Christ ought to suffer And when shall we date this obligation this Oportuit this necessity when shall we say it begun Certainly this Decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was an eternall Decree and was there any thing before that that was eternall Infiâ—ite love eternall love be pleased to follow this home and to consider it seriously that what liberty soever we can conceive in Christ to dy or not to dy this necessity of dying this Decree is as eternall as that Liberty and yet how small a matter made he of this Necessity and this dying Gen. 3.15 His Father calls it but a Bruise and but a bruising of his heele The Serpent shall bruise his heele and yet that was that the Serpent should practise and compasse his death Himself calls it but a Baptism as though he were to be the better for it I have a Baptism to be baptized with Luk. 12.50 and he was in paine till it was accomplished and yet this Baptism was his death The holy-Ghost calls it Joy For the joy which was set before him he endured the Crosse which was not a joy of his reward after his passion Heb. 12.2 but a joy that filled him even in the middest of those torments and arose from them When Christ cals his passion Calicem a cup and no worse Can ye drink of my cup He speaks not odiously not with detestation of it indeed it was a cup salus mundo Mat. 20.22 A health to all the world and quid retribuem saies David Psal 116.12 What shall I render unto the Lord Answer you with David Accipiam Calicom I will take the cup of salvation Take that that cup of salvation his passion if not into your present imitation yet into your present contemplation and behold how that Lord who was God yet could die would die must die for your salvation That Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration both St. Matthew and St. Mark tel us but what they talked of Mat 17.3 Mat. 9.4 Luc. 9.31 only St. Luke Dicebant excessum ejus saies he they talked of his decease of his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem The word is of his Exodus the very word of our Text Exitus his issue by death Moses who in his Exodus had prefigured this issue of our Lord and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the red sea had foretold in that actual prophecy Christs passing of mankind through the sea of his blood and Elias whose Exodus and issue out of this world was a figure of Christs ascension had no doubt a great satisfaction in talking with our blessed Lord De excessu ejus of the full consummation of all this in his death which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem Our meditation of his death should be more viseral and affect us more because it is of a thing already done The ancient Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death they would not name death no not in their wils there they would not say Si mori contingat but Si quid humanitas contingat not if or when I die but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me To us that speak daily of the death of Christ He was crucified dead and buried can the memory or the mention of our death be irksome or bitter There are in these latter times amongst us that name death freely enough and the death of God but in blasphemous oaths and execrations Miserable men who shall therefore be said never to have named Jesus because they have named him too often and therefore hear Jesus say Nescive vos I never knew you because they made themselves too familiar with him Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death only in a holy and joyful sence of the benefit which they and all the world were to receive by it Discourses of religion should not be out of curiosity but edification And then they talked with Christ of his death at that time when he was at the greatest heighth of glory that ever he admitted in this world that is his transfiguration And we are afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death but nourish in them a vain imagination of immortallity and immutability But bonum est