Bee Wise as serpents but 〈◊〉 as Dous LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE D R IN DIVINITIE LATE DEANE OF Y E CATHEDRALL CHVRCH OF S T PAVLES LONDON LXXX SERMONS PREACHED BY THAT LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE IOHN DONNE Dr IN DIVINITY Late Deane of the Cathedrall Church of S. PAULS London LONDON Printed for RICHARD ROYSTON in Ivie-lane and RICHARD MARRIOT in S. Dunstans Church-yard in Fleetstreet MDCXL TO HIS MOST SACRED MAIESTIE CHARLES BY THE GRACE OF GOD KING OF GREAT BRITAINE FRANCE AND IRELAND Defender of the Faith c. Most dread and gracious Soveraigne IN this rumor of VVarre I am bold to present to your sacred Majestie the fruits of Peace first planted by the hand of your most Royal Father then ripened by the same gracious influence and since no lesse cherisht and protected by your Majesties especiall favour vouchsafed to the Author in so many indulgent testimonies of your good acceptance of his service VVhich grace from your Majestie as he was known to acknowledge with much comfort whilst he lived so will it give now some excuse to the presumption of this Dedication since those friends of his who think any thing of his worthy to out-live him could not preserve their piety to him without taking leave to inscribe the same with your Majesties sacred Name that so they may at once give so faire a hope of a long continuance both to these VVorks of his and to his gratitude of which they humbly desire this Book may last to be some Monument I shall not presume in this place to say much of these Sermons only this They who have been conversant in the VVorks of the holiest men of all times cannot but acknowledge in these the same spirit with which they writ reasonable Demonstrations every where in the subjects comprehensible by reason as for those things which cannot be comprehended by our reason alone they are no where made easier to faith then here and for the other part of our nature which consists in our Passions and in our Affections they are here raised and laid and governed and disposed in a manner according to the Will of the Author The Doctrine it selse which is taught here is Primitively Christian The Fathers are every where here consulted with reverence but Apostolicall Writings onely appealed to as the last Rule of Faith Lastly such is the conjuncture here of zeal and discretion that whilst it is the main scope of the Author in these Discourses that Glory be given to God this is accompanied every where with a scrupulous care and endeavour that Peace be likewise setled amongst men The leave and encouragement I have had for the publishing these Sermons from the Person most intrusted by your Majestie in the government of the Church and most highly dignified in it I think I ought in this place to mention for his honour that they who receive any benefit from hence may know in part to whom to acknowledge it and that this what ever it is is owing to him to whom they stand otherwise so deeply engaged for his providence and care next under your Majestie over the Truth and Peace and Dignity of the Church of England for which he will not want lasting acknowledgments amongst Wise and Good Men. And now having with all humblenesse commended these Sermons to your sacred Majestie from the memory of the Author your Servant from the nature and piety of the Work it self and lastly from the encouragement I have had to give it this light did I not feare to adde to my presumption I should in this place take leave to expresse the propriety betwixt your Majesties royall Vertues and the tribute of such an Offering and acknowledgement as this A Work of Devotion to the most exemplarily pious Prince a Work of moderated and discreet zeale to the Person of the most governed affections in the midst of the greatest power a Work of deep-sighted knowledge to the most discerning spirit a VVork of a strict doctrine to the most severe imposer upon himselfe and a VVork of a charitable doctrine to the most indulgent Master of others But I dare not enter into this Argument these excellencies requiring rather tacite veneration then admitting any possible equall expression and therefore with my prayer for your Majesties long and happy raigne over us I humbly aske pardon for this presumption of Your Majesties most humble and most dutifull Subject Jo DONNE THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Dr DONNE LATE DEANE OF St PAULS LONDON IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wootton Provost of Eaton Colledge lately deceased had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written It was a Work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and our Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youths that nothing but death could force the separation And though their bodies were divided that learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond the forgetfull grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of certaine particulars that concerned it Not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory would make my diligence usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectified by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad newes and likewise that these Sermons were to be publisht without the Authors life which I thought was rare indignation or griefe I know not whether transported me so far that I re-viewed my forsaken Collections and resolved the world should see the best picture of the Author that my artlesse Pensil guided by the hand of Truth could present to it If I be demanded as once Pompeys poore Bondman was Plutarch whilest he was alone on the Sea shore gathering the pieces of an old Boat to burne the body of his dead Master What art thou that preparest the funeralls of Pompey the great Who I am that so officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question hath in it more of wonder then disdaine Wonder indeed the Reader may that I who professe my selfe artlesse should presume with my faint light to shew forth his life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented certaine I am it is much to the advantage of the beholder who shall see the Authors picture in a naturall dresse which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And though it may be my fortune to fall under some censures for this undertaking yet I am pleased in a beliefe I have that if the Authors glorious spirit which is now in heaven can have the leasure to look downe and see his meanest friend in the midst of his officious duty he will not disdaine my well meaning
sacrifice to his memory For whilst his conversation made me and many others happy below I know his humility and gentleness was eminent And I have heard Divines say those vertues that are but sparks on earth become great and glorious flames in heaven He was borne in LONDON of good and vertuous Parents And though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly seeme sufficient to dignifie both himselfe and posteritie yet Reader be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that have and deserve great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended from the Family of the famous Sir Thomas More sometimes Lord Chancellor of England and also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left behind him the vast Statutes of the Lawes of this Kingdome most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him till he was nine yeares of age he was then sent to the Universitie of Oxford having at that time a command of the French and Latine Tongues when others can scarce speak their owne There he remained in Hart Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors in severall Sciences to instruct him till time made him capable and his learning exprest in many publique Exercises declared him fit to receive his first Degree in the Schooles which he forbore by advise from his friends who being of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath alwayes tendred and taken at those times About the fourteenth yeare of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both soiles he staid till his seventeenth yeare All which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no Degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About his seventeenth yeare he was removed to London and entred into Lincolnes Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of wit learning and improvement in that profession which never served him for any use but onely for ornament His Father died before his admission into that Society and being a Merchant left him his Portion in money which was 3000. li. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him there also Tutors in severall Sciences as the Mathematicks and others to attend and instruct him But with these Arts they were advised to instill certaine particular principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors though secretly profest themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides their opportunity the example of his most deare and pious Parents which was a powerfull perswasion and did work upon him as he professeth in his PREFACE to his Pseudo-Martyr He was now entred into the nineteenth yeare of his age and being unresolved in his Religion though his youth and strength promised him a long life yet he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples which concerned that And therefore waving the Law and betrothing himselfe to no art or profession that might justly denominate him he began to survey the body of Divinity controverted between the Reformed and Roman Church Preface to Pseudo-Martyr And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his owne words So he calls the same Spirit to witness to his Protestation that in that search and disquisition he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himselfe by the safest way of frequent Prayers and indifferent affection to both parties And indeed Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had seen her Being to undertake this search he beleeved the learned Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore undertook the examination of his reasons The cause was waighty and wilfull delaies had been inexcusable towards God and his own conscience he therfore proceeded with all moderate haste And before he entred into the twentieth yeare of his age did shew the Deane of Gloucester all the Cardinalls Works marked with many waighty Observations under his own hand which Works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most deare friend About the twentieth yeare of his age he resolved to travell And the Earle of Essex going to Cales and after the Iland voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and saw the expeditions of those happy and unhappy imployments But he returned not into England till he had staid a convenient time first in Italy and then in Spaine where he made many usefull Observations of those Countries their Lawes and Government and returned into England perfect in their Languages Not long after his returne that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdome the Lord Elsmore Lord Keeper of the great Seale and after Chancellor of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting both his person and condition received him to be his chiefe Secretarie supposing it might be an Introduction to some more waighty imployment in the State for which his Lordship often protested he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship account him so much to be his servant as to forget hee had beene his friend and to testifie it hee used him alwayes with much curtesie appointing him a place at his owne Table unto which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment with much love and approbation being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends for the space of five yeares In which time he I dare not say unfortunately fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman who lived in that Family Neece to the Lady Elsmore Daughter to Sir George More Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some immation of their increasing love and the better to prevent it did remove his Daughter to his owne house but too late by reason of some faithfull promises interchangeably past and inviolably to be kept between them Their love a passion which of all other Mankind is least able to command and wherein most errors are committed was in them so powerfull that they resolved and did marry without the approbation of those friends that might justly claime an interest in the advising and disposing of them Being married the newes was in favour to M. Donne and with his allowance by the Right Honourable Henry then Earle of Northumberland secretly and certainly intimated to Sir George More to whom it was so immeasurably unwelcome that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration should
exceed theirs of love and error he ingaged his sister the Lady Elsmore to joyn with him to procure her Lord to discharge M. Donne the place he held under his Lordship And although Sir George were remembred that Errors might be over-punisht and therefore was desired to forbeare till second considerations had cleered some scruples yet he was restlesse untill his suit was granted and the punishment executed The Lord Chancellor then at M. Donnes dismission protesting he thought him a Secretary fitter for a King then a Subject But this physick of M. Donnes dismission was not strong enough to purge out all Sir George his choler who was not satisfied till M. Donne and his Compupill in Cambridge that married him M. Samuel Brooke who was after D. in D. and Master of Trinity Colledge in that University and his brother M. Christopher Brook of Lincolns Inne who gave M. Donne his Wife and witnessed the Mariage were all committed to severall Prisons M. Donne was first inlarged who neither gave rest to his body his braine nor any friend in whom he might hope to have any interest untill he had procured the inlargement of his two imprisoned friends He was now at liberty but his dayes were still cloudie and being past this trouble others did still multiply for his Wife to her extreame sorrow was detained from him Genes 29. And though with Iacob he endured not a hard service for her yet he lost a good one and was forced to get possession of her by a long suit in Law which proved very chargeable and more troublesome It was not long but that Time and M. Donnes behaviour which when it would intice had a strange kind of irresistible art had so dispassioned his Father in Law That as the world had approved his Daughters choice so he also could not choose but see a more then ordinary merit in his new Sonne which melted him into so much remorse that he secretly laboured his sons restauration into his place using his owne and his sisters power but with no successe The Lord Chancellor replying That although he was unfainedly sorry for what he had done yet it stood not with his credit to discharge and re-admit servants at the request of passionate Petitioners Within a short time Sir George appeared to be so far reconciled as to wish their happinesse or say so And being asked for his paternal blessing did not deny it but refused to contribute any meanes that might conduce to their livelyhood M. Donnes Portion was the greatest part spent in many and chargeable travels the rest disburst in some few Books and deare bought experience he out of all imployment that might yeeld a support for himselfe and Wife who had been curiously and plentifully educated his nature generous and he accustomed to confer not to receive curtesies These and other considerations but chiefly that his deare Wife was to bear a part in his sufferings surrounded him with many and sad thoughts and some apparent apprehensions of want But his sorrow was lessened and his wants prevented by the seasonable curtesies of their noble Kinsman Sir Francis Wally of Pirford who intreated them to a co-habitation with him where they remained with very much freedome to themselves and equall content to him for many yeares And as their charge increased she had yearly a child so did his love and bounty With him they continued till his death a little before which time Sir Francis was so happy as to make a perfect reconciliation betwixt that good man Sir George More and his forsaken sonne and daughter Sir George then giving Bond to pay M. Donne 800 l. at a certain day as a Portion with his wife and to pay him for their maintenance 20. l. quarterly as the Interest of it untill the said Portion were paid Most of those yeares that he lived with Sir Francis he studied the Civil and Canon Lawes In which he acquired such a perfection as was judged to hold some proportion with many who had made that study the imployment of their whole life Sir Francis being dead and that happy family dissolved M. Donne tooke a house at Micham neere unto Croydon in Surrey where his wife and family remained constantly and for himselfe having occasions to be often in London he tooke lodgings neere unto White-hall where he was frequently visited by men of greatest learning and judgement in this Kingdome his company being loved and much desired by many of the Nobility of this Nation who used him in their counsels of greatest considerations Nor did our owne Nobility onely favour him but his acquaintance and friendship was usually sought for by most Ambassadors of forraigne Nations and by many other strangers whose learning or employment occasioned their stay in this Kingdome He was much importuned by friends to make his residence in London which he could not doe having setled his dear wife and children at Micham whither he often retired himselfe and then studied incessantly some Points of Controversie But at last the perswasion of friends was so powerfull as to cause the removall of himselfe and family to London where that honourable Gentleman Sir Robert Drury assigned him a very convenient house rent-free next his own in Drury-lane and was also a daily cherisher of his studies and such a friend as sympathiz'd with him and his in their joy and sorrow Divers of the Nobility were watchfull and solicitous to the King for some preferment for him His Majesty had formerly both knowne and much valued him and had given him some hopes of a State employment being much pleased that M. Donne attended him especially at his meales where there was usually many deep discourses of Learning and often friendly disputes of Religion betwixt the King and those Divines whose places required their attendance on his Majestie Particularly the Right Reverend Bishop Montague then Deane of the Chappel who was the publisher of the eloquent and learned Works of his Majestie and the most learned Doctor Andrewes then his Majesties Almoner and at his death Bishop of Winchester About this time grew many disputes in England that concerned the Oath of Supremacy and Allegeance in which the King had appeared and ingaged himselfe by his publique writings now extant And his Majestie occasionally talking with M. Donne concerning many of those Arguments urged by the Romanists apprehended such a validity and cleerenesse in his answers that he commanded him to state the Points and bring his Reasons to him in writing to which he presently applyed himselfe and within sixe weeks brought them to his Majestie fairely written under his owne hand as they be now printed in his Pseudo-Martyr When the King had read and considered that Book he perswaded M. Donne to enter into the Ministery to which he appeared and was un-inclinable apprehending it such was his mistaking modesty too weighty for his abilities But from that time though many friends mediated with his Majestie to prefer him to some civil
it is truly all for our light is the light of good works and that light proceeds from all the other three and so is all those and then it goes beyond all three and so is none of them It proceeds from all for if we consider the first light the light of nature Ephes 2.10 in our creation We are sayes the Apostle his workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good works So that we were all made for that for good works even the naturall man by that first light Consider it in the second light in baptisme there we dye in Christ and are buried in Christ and rise in Christ and in him we are new creatures and with him we make a covenant in baptisme for holinesse of life which is the body of good works Consider the third that of faith and as every thing in nature is so faith is perfected by working Jam. 2.26 for faith is dead without breath without spirit if it be without workes So this light is in all those lights we are created we are baptized we are adopted for good works and it is beyond them all even that of faith for though faith have a preheminence because works grow out of it and so faith as the root is first yet works have the preheminence thus both that they include faith in them and that they dilate and diffuse and spread themselves more declaratorily then faith doth Therefore as our Saviour said to some that asked him John 6.28 What shall we do that we might work the work of God you see their minde was upon works something they were sure was to be done This is the work of God that ye beleeve in him whom he hath sent and so refers them to faith so to another that asks him What shall I do that I may have eternall life Mat. 19.16 all goe upon that that something there must be done works there must be Christ sayes Keepe the Commandements and so refers him to works He hath shewed thee O man what is good Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to shew mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This then is the light that lighteth every man that goes out of the world good works for their works follow them Their works they shall be theirs Apoc. 14.13 even after their death which is our second branch in this first part the propriety lux vestra let your light shine I cannot alwaies call the works that I do my works for sometimes God works them Proprietas vestra Esay 28.21 and sometimes the devill Sometimes God works his owne worke The Lord will do his worke his strange worke and bring to passe his act his strange act Sometimes he works my works Thou Lord hast wrought all our workes in us In us and in all things else Esay 26.12 1 Cor. 12.6 Ephes 1.11 Esay 43.13 Rom. 7.15 Operatur omnia in omnibus he worketh all in all And all this in all these Secundum consilium voluntatis suae After the counsaile of his owne will for I will worke and who shall let it But for all this his generall working his enemy works in us too That which I doe I allow not saies the Apostle nay I know it not for saies he what I hate that I doe And if I doe that I would not doe it is no more I that doe it but sin that dwelleth in me Yet ver 20. for all this diverse this contrary working as S. Augustine sayes of the faculty of the will Nihil tam nostrum quam voluntas there is nothing so much our owne as our will before we worke August so there is nothing so much our owne as our workes after they are done They stick to us they cleave to us whether as fomentations to nourish us or as corrasives to gnaw upon us that lyes in the nature of the worke but ours they are and upon us our works work Our good works are more ours then our faith is ôurs Our faith is ours as we have received it our worke is ours as we have done it Faith is ours as we are possessors of it the work ours as we are doers actors in it Faith is ours as our goods are ours works as our children are ours And therefore when the Prophet Habakkuk saies Fide sua Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith that particle His is a word of possession not a word of Acquisition That God hath infused that faith into him and so it is his not that he hath produced that faith in himselfe His faith must save him his own and not anothers not his parents faith though he be the son of holy parents not the Churches faith if he be of yeares though he be within the covenant but his own personall faith yet not his so as that it grew in him or was produced in him by him by any plantation Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 Heb. 10.36 or semination of his own And therefore S. Paul in citing that place of Habakkuk as he doth cite it three severall times in all those places leaves out that particle of propriety and acquisition his and still sayes The just shall live by faith and he sayes no more And when our blessed Saviour sayes to the woman with the bloody issue Fides tua Daughter Mar. 5.34 thy faith hath made thee whole it was said then when he had seen that woman come trembling and fall down at his feet he saw outward declarations of her faith he saw works And so in divers of those places where Christ repeats that fides tua thy faith we finde it added Iesus videns fidem Iesus seeing their faith With what eyes he looked upon them with his humane eyes not his divine he saw not that is considered not at that time their hearts but their outward declarations and proceeding as a good man would out of their good works concludes faith Velle nolle nostrum est to assent or to dis-assent is our own Hieron we may choose which we will doe Ipsumque quod nostrum est sine Dei miseratione nostrum non est But though this faculty be ours it is ours but because God hath imprinted it in us So that still to will as well as to doe to beleeve as well as to work is all from God but yet they are from God in a diverse manner and a diverse respect and certainly our works are more ours then our faith is and man concurres otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work then he doth in the reception and admission of faith Sed quae non fecimus ipsi sayes the Poet and he was Vates a Prophet in saying so Vix ea nostra voco nothing is ours but that which we have done our selves and all that is ours And though Christ refer us often to beliefe in this life because he would be sure to plant and fasten
gainefull workes those workes thou maist not doe upon the Sabbath But those workes in the vertue of the precept of this text thou must doe in the sight of men those that are hard for thee to doe David would not consecrate nor offer unto God 2. Sam. 24.24 that which cost him nothing first he would buy Araunahs threshing floare at a valuable price and then he would dedicate it to God To give old cloathes past wearing to the poore is not so good a worke as to make new for them Mar. 12.42 To give a little of your superfluities not so acceptable as the widows gift that gave all To give a poore soule a farthing at that doore where you give a Player a shilling is not equall dealing Amos 8.6 for this is to give God quisquilias frumenti The refuse of the wheat But doe thou some such things as are truly works in our sense such as are against the nature and ordinary practice of worldly men to doe some things by which they may see that thou dost prefer God before honour and wife and children and hadst rather build and endow some place for Gods service then poure out money to multiply titles of honour upon thy selfe or enlarge joyntures and portions to an unnecessary and unmeasurable proportion when there is enough done before Let men see that that thou doest Opera Bona. to be a worke qualified with some difficulty in the doing and then those workes to be good workes Videant opera bona that they may see your good works They are not good works how magnificent soever if they be not directed to good ends A superstitious end or a seditious end vitiates the best worke Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given to build and endow Seminaries and schooles and Colledges in forraine parts but that hath a superstitious end Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given at home for the maintenance of such refractary persons as by opposing the government and discipline of the Church have drawne upon themselves silencings and suspensions and deprivations but that hath a seditious end But give so as in a rectified conscience and not a distempered zeale a rectified conscience is that that hath the restimony and approbation of most good men in a succession of times and not to rely occasionally upon one or a few men of the separation for the present give so as thou maist sincerely say God gave me this to give thus and so it is a good worke So it must be A worke something of some importance and a good worke not depraved with an ill end and then your worke Vt videant opera vestra That they may see your good works They are not your works if that that you give be not your owne Nor is it your own Opera bona vâ—stra if it were ill gotten at first How long soever it have beene possessed or how often soever it have beene transformed from money to ware from ware to land from land to office from office to honour the money the ware the land the office the honour is none of thine if in thy knowlege it were ill gotten at first Zacheus in S. Luke Luke 19.8 gives halfe his goods to the poore but it is halfe of his his owne for there might be goods in his house which were none of his Therefore in the same instrument he passes that scrutiny If I have taken any thing unjustly I restore him foure-fold First let that that was ill gotten be deducted and restored and then of the rest which is truly thine owne give cheerefully When Moses saies that our yeares are three score and ten Psal 90.20 if we deduct from that terme all the houres of our unnecessary sleep of superfluous sittings at feasts of curiosity in dressing of largenesse in recreations of plotting and compassing of vanities or sinnes scarce any man of chreescore and ten would be ten years old when he dyes If we should deale so with worldly mens estates defalse unjust gettings it would abridge and attenuate many a swelling Inventory Till this defalcation this scrutiny be made that you know what 's your owne what 's other mens as your Tombe shall be but a monument of your rotten bones how much gold or marble soever be bestowed upon it so that Hospitall that free-schoole that Colledge that you shall build and endow will bee but a monument of your bribery your extortion your oppression and God who will not be in debt though he owe you nothing that built it may be pleased to give the reward of all that to them from whom that which was spent upon it was unjustly taken for Prov. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous saies Solomon The sinner may doe pious works and the righteous may be rewarded for them the world may thinke of one founder and God knowes another That which is enjoyn'd in the name of light here is works not trifles and good works made good by the good ends they are directed to and then your workes done out of that which is truly your owne and by seeing this light men will be mov'd to glorifie your Father which is in Heaven which is the true end of all that men may see them but see them therefore To glorisie your Father which is in Heaven He does not say that by seeing your good works Patrem non Filios men shall glorifie your sonnes upon earth And yet truly even that part of the reward and retribution is worth a great deale of your cost and your almes that God shall establish your posterity in the world and in the good opinion of good men As you have your estates you have your children from God too As it is Davids recognition Dominus pars haereditatis meae Psal 16.5 Gen. 4.1 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance so the Possedi virum à Domino was Eves Recognition upon the birth of her first son Cain I have gotten I possesse a man from the Lord. Now that that man that thou possessest from the Lord thy son may possesse that land that thou possessest from the Lord it behooves thee to be righteous for so by that righteousnesse thou becomest a foundation for posterity Prov. 10.25 Prov. 13.9 Prov. 14.23 The righteous is an everlasting foundation his light his good workes shall be a chearefull light unto him for The light of the righteous reioyceth him They shall be so in this life and He shall have hope in his death saith Solomon that is hope for himself in another world hope of his posterity in this world for saies he He leaveth an inheritance to his childrens children that is an inheritance Prov. 23.22 out of which hee hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountifull part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
never be inhabited from generation to generation neither shall Shepheards be there Not onely no Merchant nor Husbandman but no depopulator none but Owles and Ostriches and Satyres Indeed God knowes what Ochim and Ziim words which truly we cannot translate In a word 2 Sam. 24.13 the horror of War is best discerned in the company he keeps in his associates And when the Prophet God brought War into the presence of David there came with him Famine and Pestilence And when Famine entred we see the effects It brought Mothers to eat their Children of a span long that is as some Expositors take it to take medicines to procure abortions to cast their Children that they might have Children to eate And when War 's other companion the Pestilence entred we see the effects of that too In lesse then half the time that it was threatned for it devoured threescore and ten thousand of Davids men and yet for all the vehemence the violence the impetuousnesse of this Pestilence David chose this Pestilence rather then a War Militia and Malitia are words of so neare a sound as that the vulgat Edition takes them as one For where the Prophet speaking of the miseries that Hierusalem had suffered sayes Finita militia ejus Esay 42.2 Let her warfare be at an end they reade Finita malitia ejus Let her misery be at an end War and Misery is all one thing But is there any of this in heaven Even the Saints in heaven lack something of the consummation of their happinesse Quia hostis because they have an enemy And that is our third and next step Michael and his Angels fought against the devill and his Angels though that war ended in victory Vest 3. Quia Hostis yet taking that war as divers Expositors doe for the fall of Angels that Kingdome lost so many inhabitants as that all the soules of all that shall be saved shall but fill up the places of them that fell and so make that Kingdome but as well as it was before that war So ill effects accompany even the most victorious war There is no war in heaven yet all is not well because there is an enemy for that enemy would kindle a war again but that he remembers how ill he sped last time he did so It is not an enemy that invades neither but only detaines he detaines the bodies of the Saints which are in heaven and therefore is an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ He that detaines the soules of men in Superstition he that detaines the hearts and allegeance of Subjects in an haesitation a vacillation an irresolution where they shall fix them whether upon their Soveraign or a forraigne power he is in the notion and acceptation of enemy in this Text an enemy though no hostile act be done It is not a war it is but an enemy not an invading but a detaining enemy and then this enemy is but one enemy and yet he troubles and retards the consummation of that Kingdome Antichrist alone is enemy enough but never carry this consideration beyond thy self As long as there remaines in thee one sin or the sinfull gain of that one sin so long there is one enemy and where there is one enemy there is no peace Gardners that husband their ground to the best advantage sow all their seeds in such order one under another that their Garden is alwayes full of that which is then in season If thou sin with that providence with that seasonablenesse that all thy spring thy youth be spent in wantonnesse all thy Summer thy middle-age in ambition and the wayes of preferment and thy Autumne thy Winter in indevotion and covetousnesse though thou have no farther taste of licentiousnesse in thy middle-age thou hast thy satiety in that sin nor of ambition in thy last yeares thou hast accumulated titles of honour yet all the way thou hast had one enemy and therefore never any perfect peace But who is this one enemy in this Text As long as we put it off and as loath as we are to look this enemy in the face yet we must though it be Death And this is Vestigium quartum The fourth and next step in this paraphrase Surge descende in domum figuli sayes the Prophet Ieremy that is Mors. Jer. 18.2 say the Expositors to the consideration of thy Mortality It is Surge descende Arise and go down A descent with an ascension Our grave is upward and our heart is upon Iacobs Ladder in the way and nearer to heaven Our daily Funerals are some Emblemes of that for though we be laid down in the earth after yet we are lifted up upon mens shoulders before We rise in the descent to death and so we do in the descent to the contemplation of it In all the Potters house is there one vessell made of better stuffe then clay There is his matter And of all formes a Circle is the perfectest and art thou loath to make up that Circle with returning to the earth again Thou must though thou be loath Fortasse sayes S. Augustine That word of contingency of casualty Perchance In omnibus ferme rebus praeterquam in morte locum habet It hath roome in all humane actions excepting death He makes his example thus such a man is married where he would or at least where he must where his parents or his Gardian will have him shall he have Children Fortasse sayes he They are a yong couple perchance they shall And shall those Children be sons Fortasse they are of a strong constitution perchance they shall And shall those sons live to be men Fortasse they are from healthy parents perchance they shall And when they have lived to be men shall they be good men Such as good men may be glad they may live Fortasse still They are of vertuous parents it may be they shall But when they are come to that Morientur shall those good men die here sayes that Father the Fortasse vanishes here it is omnino certè sine dubitatione infallibly inevitably irrecoverably they must die Doth not man die even in his birth The breaking of prison is death and what is our birth but a breaking of prison Assoon as we were clothed by God our very apparell was an Embleme of death In the skins of dead beasts he covered the skins of dying men Assoon as God set us on work our very occupation was an Embleme of death It was to digge the earth not to digge pitfals for other men but graves for our selves Hath any man here forgot to day that yesterday is dead And the Bell tolls for to day and will ring out anon and for as much of every one of us as appertaines to this day Quotidiè morimur tamen nos esse aeternos putamus sayes S. Hierome We die every day and we die all the day long and because we are notabsolutely dead we call that an eternity an eternity of dying And
be strong enough to make benefit of that assistance And so death adheres when sin and Satan have weakned body and minde death enters upon both And in that respect he is Vltimus hostis the last enemy and that is Sextum vestigium our sixth and next step in this paraphrase Death is the last and in that respect the worst enemy In an enemy Novisssnsâ—s hostis that appeares at first when we are or may be provided against him there is some of that which we call Honour but in the enemie that reserves himselfe unto the last and attends our weake estate there is more danger Keepe it where I intend it in that which is my spheare the Conscience If mine enemie meet me betimes in my youth in an object of tentation so Iosephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife yet if I doe not adhere to this enemy dwell upon a delightfull meditation of that sin if I doe not fuell and foment that sin assist and encourage that sin by high diet wanton discourse other provocation I shall have reason on my side and I shall have grace on my side and I shall have the History of thousand that have perished by that sin on my side Even Spittles will give me souldiers to fight for me by their miserable example against taht sin nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman whom I sollicite will assist me But when I lye under the hands of that enemie that hath reserved himselfe to the last to my last bed then when I shall be able to stir no limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or a Palsie shall shake them when everlasting darknesse shal have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine eyes and the everlasting gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth and the everlasting worme in the present gnawing of the Agonies of my body and anguishes of my minde when the last enemie shall watch my remedilsse body and my desconsolate soule there there where not the Physitian in his way perchance not the Priist in hi shall be able to give any assistance And when he hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage my death-bed shall shift the Scene and throw me from that bed into the grave and there triumph over me God knowes how many generations till the Redeemer my Redeemer the Redeemer of all me body aswell as soule come againe As death is Novissimus hostis the enemy which watches me at my last weaknesse and shall hold me when I shall be no more till that Angel come Who shall say and sweare that time shall be no more in that consideration in that apprehension he is the powerfullest the fearefulest enemy and yet evern there this enemy Abolebitur he shall be destroyed which is Septimum vestigium our seventh and last step in this paraphrase This destruction this abolition of this last enemy is by the Resurrection Abolebieur for the Text is part of an argument for the Resurrection And truly it is a faire intimation and testimony of an everlasting end in that state of the Resurrection that no time shall end it that we have it presented to us in all the parts of time in the past in the present and in the future We had a Resurrection in prophecy we have a Resurrection in the present working of Gods Sprit we shall have a Resurrection in the finall consummation The Prophet speaks in the furture He will swallow up death in victory there it is Abolebit Esay 25.8 All the Erangelists speak historically of matter of fact in them it is Abolevit And here in this Apostle it is in the present Aboletur now he is destroyed And this exhibites unto us a threefold occasion of advancing our devotion in considering a threefold Resurrection First a Resurrection from dejections and calamities in this world a Temporary Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection from sin a Spirituall Resurrection and then a Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection A calamitate When the Prophets speak of a Resurrection in the old Testament 1. A calamitate for the most part their principall intention is upon a temporall restitution from calamities that oppresse them then Neither doth Calvin carry those emphaticall words which are so often cited for a proofe of the last Resurrection Job 19.25 That he knows his Redeemer lives that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth that though his body be destroyed yet in his flesh and with his eyes he shall see God to any higher sense then so that how low soeve he bee brought to what desperate state soever he be reducedin the eyes of the world yet he assures himself of a Resurrection a reparation a restitution to his former bodily health and worldly fortune which he had before And such a Resurrection we all know Iob had In that famous and most considerable propheticall vision which God exhibited to Ezekiel where God set the Prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the severall joynts to knit again tyes them with their old sinews and ligaments clothes them in their old flest wraps them in their old skin and cals life into them again Gods principall intention in that vision was thereby to give them an assurance of a Resurrection from their present calamity not but that there is also good evidence of the last Resurrection in that vision too Thus far God argues with them áre nota from that which they knew before the finall Resurrection he assures them that which they knew not till then a present Resurrection from those pressures Remember by this vision that which you all know already that at last I shall re-unite the dead and dry bones of all men in a generall Resurrection And them if you remember if you consider if you look upon that can you doubt but that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present desperation and give you a Resurrection to your former temporall happinesse And this truly arises pregnantly necessarily out of the Prophets answer God asks him there Son of man cna these bones live And he answers Domine tu nósti O Lord God thou knowest The Prophet answers according to Gods intention in the question If that had been for their living in the last Resurrection Ezekiel would have answered God as Martha answered Christ John 11.24 when he said Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again I know that he shall rise again at the Resurrection at the last day but when the question was whether men so macerated so seattered in this world could have a Resurrection to their former temprorall happinesse here that puts the Prophet to his Domine tu nósti It is in thy breast to proposeit itis in thy hand to execute it whether thou do it or do it not thy name be glorisied It fals not within our conjecture which way it shall please thee to take for this Resurrection Domine tu nósti Thou
from sin Inter abjectos abjectissimus peccator Grego No man falls lower then he that falls into a course of sin Sin is a fall It is not onely a deviation a turning out of the way upon the right or the left hand but it is a sinking a falling In the other case of going out of the way a man may stand upon the way and inquire and then proceed in the way if he be right or to the way if he be wrong But when he is fallen and lies still he proceeds no farther inquires no farther To be too apt to conceive scruples in matters of religion stops and retards a man in the way to mistake some points in the truth of religion puts a man for that time in a wrong way But to fall into a course of sin this makes him unsensible of any end that he hath to goe to of any way that he hath to goe by God hath not removed man not with-drawne man from this Earth he hath not given him the Aire to flie in as to Birds nor Spheares to move in as to Sun and Moone he hath left him upon the Earth and not onely to tread upon it as in contempt or in meere Dominion but to walk upon it in the discharge of the duties of his calling and so to be conversant with the Earth is not a falling But as when man was nothing but earth nothing but a body he lay flat upon the earth his mouth kissed the earth his hands embraced the earth his eyes respected the earth And then God breathed the breath of life into him and that raised him so farre from the earth as that onely one part of his body the soles of his feet touches it And yet man so raised by God by sin fell lower to the earth againe then before from the face of the earth to the womb to the bowels to the grave So God finding the whole man as low as he found Adams body then fallen in Originall sin yet erects us by a new breath of life in the Sacrament of Baptisme and yet we fall lower then before we were raised from Originall into Actuall into Habituall sins So low as that we think not that we need know not that there is a resurrection and that is the wonderfull that is the fearfull fall Though those words Quomodo cecidisti de Coelo Lucifer Esay 14.12 How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning be ordinarily applied to the fall of the Angels yet it is evident that they are literally spoken of the fall of a man It deserves wonder more then pity that man whom God had raised to so Noble a heighth in him should fall so low from him Man was borne to love he was made in the love of God but then man falls in love when he growes in love with the creature he falls in love As we are bid to honour the Physitian and to use the Physitian but yet it is said in the same Chapter Ecclus. 38.1 V. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hands of the Physitian It is a blessing to use him it is a curse to rely upon him so it is a blessing to glorifie God in the right use of his creatures but to grow in love with them is a fall For we love nothing that is so good as our selves Beauty Riches Honour is not so good as man Man capable of grace here of glory hereafter Nay as those things which we love in their nature are worse then we which love them so in our loving them we endeavour to make them worse then they in their own nature are by over-loving the beauty of the body we corrupt the soule by overloving honour and riches we deflect and detort these things which are not in their nature ill to ill uses and make them serve our ill purposes Man falls as a fall of waters that throwes downe and corrupts all that it embraces Nay beloved when a man hath used those wings which God hath given him and raised himselfe to some heighth in religious knowledge and religious practise Acts 29.9 as Eutichus out of a desire to hear Paul preach was got up into a Chamber and up into a window of that Chamber and yet falling asleep fell downe dead so we may fall into a security of our present state into a pride of our knowledge or of our purity and so fall lower then they who never came to our heighth So much need have we of a resurrection So sin is a fall and every man is affraid of falling even from his temporall station Mâ—rs Clem. Alex. more affraid of falling then of not beeing raised And Qui peccat quatenus peccat fit seipso deterior In every sin a man falls from that degree which himselfe had before In every sin he is dishonoured he is not so good a man as he was impoverished he hath not so great a portion of grace as hee had Infatuated hee hath not so much of the true wisedome of the feare of God as he had disarmed he hath not that interest and confidence in the love of God that he had and deformed he hath not so lively a representation of the Image of God as before In every sin we become prodigals but in the habit of sin we become bankrupts affraid to come to an account A fall is a fearfull thing that needs a raising a help but sin is a death and that needs a resurrection and a resurrection is as great a work as the very Creation it selfe It is death in semine in the roote it produces it brings forth death It is death in arbore in the body in it selfe death is a divorce and so is sin and it is death in fructu in the fruit thereof sin plants spirituall death and this death produces more sin Obduration Impenitence and the like Be pleased to returne and cast one halfe thought upon each of these Sin is the roote of death Death by sin entred and death passed upon all men for all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 It is death because we shall dye for it But it is death in it selfe We are dead already dead in it Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead was spoken to a whole Church Apoc. 3.1 It is not evidence enough to prove that thou art alive to say I saw thee at a Sermon that spirit that knowes thy spirit he that knowes whether thou wert moved by a Sermon melted by a Sermon mended by a Sermon he knows whether thou be alive or no. That which had wont to be said That dead men walked in Churches is too true Men walk out a Sermon or walk out after a Sermon as ill as they walked in they have a name that they live Iohn 5.25 and are dead But the houre is come and now is when the dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God That is at
these houres they may heare if they will and till they doe heare they are dead Sin is the root of death the body of death and then it is the fruit of death August S. Augustine confesses of himselfe that he was Allisus intra parietes in celebritate solemnitatum tuarum that in great meetings upon solemne dayes in the Church there within the walls of Gods house Egit negotium procurandi fructus mortis he was not buying and selling doves but buying and selling soules by wanton lookes cheapning and making the bargaine of the fruits of death as himselfe expresses it Sin is the root and the tree and the fruit of death The mother of death death it selfe and the daughter of death and from this death this threefold death death past in our past sins present death in our present in sensiblenesse of sin future death in those sins with which sins God will punish our former and present sins if he proceed meerly in justice God affords us this first resurrection How Resurrectio Thus. Death is the Divorce of body and soule Resurrection is the Re-union of body and soule And in this spirituall death and resurrection which we consider now and which is all determined in the soule it selfe Grace is the soule of the soule and so the departing of grace is the death and the returning of grace is the resurrection of this sinfull soule But how By what way what meanes Consider Adam Adam was made to enjoy an immortality in his body He induced death upon himselfe And then as God having made Marriage for a remedy against uncleannesse intemperate men make even Marriage it selfe an occasion of more uncleannesse then if they had never married so man having induced and created death by sin God takes death and makes it a means of the glorifying of his body in heaven God did not induce death death was not in his purpose Cyril Alex. but veluti medium opportunum quo vas confractum rursus fingeretur As a means whereby a broken vessell might be made up againe God tooke death and made it serve for that purpose That men by the grave might be translated to heaven So then to the resurrection of the body there is an ordinary way The grave To the resurrection of the soule there is an ordinary way too The Church In the grave the body that must be there prepared for the last resurrection hath wormes that eat upon it In the Church the soule that comes to this first resurrection must have wormes The worme the sting the remorse the compunction of Conscience In those that have no part in this first resurrection the worme of conscience shall never die but gnaw on to desperation but those that have not this worme of conscience this remorse this compunction shall never live In the grave which is the furnace which ripens the body for the last resurrection there is a putrefaction of the body and an ill savour In the Church the wombe where my soule must be mellowed for this first resurrection my soul which hath the savour of death in it as it is leavened throughout with sin must stink in my nostrils and I come to a detestation of all those sins which have putrified her And I must not be afraid to accuse my selfe to condemne my selfe to humble my selfe lest I become a scorne to men Augusâ— Nemo me derideat ab eo medico aegrum sanari à quo sibi praestitum est ne aegrotaret Let no man despise me or wonder at me that I am so humbled under the hand of God or that I fly to God as to my Physitian when I am sick since the same God that hath recovered me as my Physitian when I was sick hath been his Physitian too and kept him from being sick who but for that Physitian had been as ill as I was At least he must be his Physitian if ever he come to be sick and come to know that he is sick and come to a right desire to be well Spirituall death was before bodily sinne before the wages of sin God hath provided a resurrection for both deaths but first for the first This is the first resurrection Reconciliation to God and the returning of the soule of our soule Grace in his Church by his Word and his seales there Now every repentance is not a resurrection It is rather a waking out of a dreame then a rising to a new life Nay it is rather a startling in our sleep then any awaking at all Ephes 5.14 Esay â—0 1 to have a sudden remorse a sudden flash and no constant perseverance Awake thou that sleepest sayes the Apostle out of the Prophet First awake come to a sense of thy state and then arise from the dead sayes he from the practise of dead works and then Christ shall give thee light life and strength to walk in new wayes It is a long work and hath many steps Awake arise and walke and therefore set out betimes At the last day in those which shall be found alive upon the earth we say there shall be a sudden death and a sudden resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In an instant in the twinckling of an eye but do not thou trust to have this first Resurrection In raptu in transitu in ictu oculi In thy last passage upon thy death-bed when the twinckling of the eye must be the closing of thine eyes But as we assign to glorified bodies after the last Resurrection certaine Dotes as we call them in the Schoole certaine Endowments so labour thou to finde those endowments in thy soule here if thou beest come to this first Resurrection Amongst those Endowments we assigne Subtilitatem Agilitatem The glorified bodie is become more subtile more nimble not encumbred not disable for any motion that it would make So hath that soule which is come to this first Resurrection by grace a spirituall agility a holy nimblenesse in it that it can slide by tentations and passe through tentations and never be polluted follow a calling without taking infection by the ordinary tentations of that calling So have those glorified bodies Claritatem a brightnesse upon them from the face of God and so have these soules which are come to this first resurrection a sun in themselves an inherent light by which they can presently distinguish betweene action and action what must what may what must not bee done But of all the endowments of the glorified body we consider most Impassibilitatem That that body shall suffer nothing and is sure that it shall suffer nothing And that which answers that endowment of the body most in this soule that is come to this first resurrection is as the Apostle speaks That neither persecution sicknesse nor death Rom. 8. shall separate her from Christ Iesus In Heaven we doe not say that our bodies shall devest their mortality so as that naturally they could not dye
Text which is a Resurrection to Judgement and to an account with God that God whom we have displeased exasperated violated wounded in the whole course of our life lest we should be terrified and dejected at the presence of that God the whole worke is referred to the Son of Man which hath himselfe formerly felt all our infirmities and hath had as sad a soule at the approach of death as bitter a Cup in the forme of Death as heavy a feare of Gods forsaking him in the agony of death as we can have And for sin it self I would not I do not extenuate my sin but let me have fallen not seven times a day but seventy seven times a minute yet what are my sins to all those sins that were upon Christ The sins of all men and all women and all children the sins of all Nations all the East and West and all the North and South the sins of all times and ages of Nature of Law of Grace the sins of all natures sins of the body and sins of the mind the sins of all growth and all extentions thoughts and words and acts and habits and delight and glory and contempt and the very sin of boasting nay of our belying our selves in sin All these sins past present and future were at once upon Christ and in that depth of sin mine are but a drop to his Ocean In that treasure of sin mine are but single money to his Talent And therefore that I might come with a holy reverence to his Ordinance in this place though it be but in the Ministery of man that first Resurrection is attributed to the Son of God to give a dignity to that Ministery of man which otherwise might have beene under-valued that thereby we might have a consolation and a cheerefulnesse towards it It is He that is the Son of God and the Son of man Christ which remembers us alfo that all that belongs to the expressing of the Law of God to man must be received by us who professe our selves Christians in and by and for and through Christ We use to ascribe the Creation to the Father but the Father created by the Word and his Word is his Son Christ When he prepared the Heavens I was there saies Christ Prov. 8.27 of himselfe in the person of Wisdome and when he appointed the foundations of the earth then was I by him as one brought up with him It is not as one brought in to him or brought in by him but with him one as old that is as eternall as much God as he We use to ascribe Sanctification to the Holy Ghost But the Holy Ghost sanctifies in the Church And the Church was purchased by the blood of Christ and Christ remaines Head of the Church usque in consummationem till the end of the world I looke upon every blessing that God affords me and I consider whether it be temporall or spirituall and that distinguishes the metall the temporall is my silver and the spirituall is my Gold but then I looke againe upon the Inscription Cujus Imago whose Image whose inscription it beares and whose Name and except I have it in and for and by Christ Jesus Temporall and Spirituall things too are but imaginary but illusory shadows for God convayes himselfe to us no other way but in Christ The benefit then in our Text the Resurrection is by him but it is limited thus Christum It is by hearing him They that are in their Graves shall heare c. So it is in the other Resurrection too the spirituall resurrection v. 25. There they must heare him that will live In both resurrections That in the Church now by Grace And that in the Grave hereafter by Power it is said They shall heare him They shall which seemes to imply a necessity though not a coaction But that necessity not of equall force not equally irresistible in both In the Grave They shall Though they be dead and senslesse as the dust for they are dust it selfe though they bring no concurrence no cooperation They shall heare that is They shall not chuse but heare In the other resurrection which is in the Church by Grace in Gods Ordinance They shall heare too that is There shall be a voice uttered so as that they may heare if they will but not whether they will or no as in the other cafe in the grave Therefore when God expresses his gathering of his Church in this world it is Sibilabo congregabo I will hisse or chirpe for them Zecha 10.8 and so gather them He whispers in the voyce of the Spirit and he speaks a little louder in the voice of a man Let the man be a Boanerges a Son of thunder never so powerfull a speaker yet no thunder is heard over all the world Mat. 24.31 But for the voyce that shall be heard at the Resurrection He shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet A great sound such as may be made by a Trumpet such as an Angell all his Angels can make in a Trumpet and more then all that 1 Thes 4.16 The Lord himselfe shall descend from Heaven and that with a shout and with the voice of an Archangel that is saies S. Ambrose of Christ himselfe And in the Trumpet of God that is also Christ himselfe So then you have the Person Christ The meanes A Voyce And the powerfulnesse of that voyce in the Name of an Archangell which is named but once more in all the Scriptures And therefore let no man that hath an holy anhelation and panting after the Resurrection suspect that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voyce that will be heard he must rise Let no man who because he hath made his course of life like a beast would therefore be content his state in death might be like a beast too hope that he shall sleepe in the dust for ever for this is a voice that must be heard And all that heare shall come forth they that have done good c. He shall come forth Procedent even he that hath done ill and would not shall come forth You may have seene morall men you may have seen impious men go in confidently enough not afrighted with death not terrified with a grave but when you shall see them come forth againe you shall see them in another complexion That man that dyed so with that confidence thought death his end It ends his seventy yeares but it begins his seventy millions of generations of torments even to his body and he never thought of that Indeed Iudicii nisi qui vitae aeternae praedestinatus est non potest reminisci saies S. Ambrose No man can no man dares thinke upon the last Judgement but he that can thinke upon it with comfort he that is predestinated to eternall life Even the best are sometimes shaked with the consideration of the Resurrection because it
keepes it from dying then that it cannot dye We magnifie God in an humble and faithfull acknowledgment of the immortality of our soules but if we aske quid homo what is there in the nature of Man that should keepe him from death even in that point the question is not easily answered It is every mans case then every man dyes Videbit and though it may perchance be but a meere Hebraisme to say that every man shall see death perchance it amounts to no more but to that phrase Gustare mortem To taste death yet thus much may be implied in it too That as every man must dye so every man may see that he must dye as it cannot be avoided so it may be understood A beast dyes but he does not see death S. Basil sayes he saw an Oxe weepe for the death of his yoke-fellow Basil orat de Morte but S. Basil might mistake the occasion of that Oxes teares Many men dye too and yet doe not see death The approaches of death amaze them and stupifie them they feele no colluctation with Powers and Principalities upon their death bed that is true they feele no terrors in their consciences no apprehensions of Judgement upon their death bed that is true and this we call going away like a Lambe But the Lambe of God had a sorrowfull sense of death His soule was heavy unto death and he had an apprehension that his Father had forsaken him And in this text the Chalde Paraphrase expresses it thus Videbit Angelum mortis he shall see a Messenger a forerunner a power of Death an executioner of Death he shall see something with horror though not such as shall shake his morall or his Christian constancy So that this Videbunt They shall see implies also a Viderunt they have seene that is they have used to see death to observe a death in the decay of themselves and of every creature and of the whole World Almost fourteene hundred yeares agoe Cyprian ad Demetrianum S. Cyprian writing against Demetrianus who imputed all the warres and deaths and unseasonablenesses of that time to the contempt and irreligion of the Christians that they were the cause of all those ils because they would not worship their Gods Cyprian imputes all those distempers to the age of the whole World Canos videmus in pueris saies hee Wee see Children borne gray-headed Capilli deficiunt antequam crescant Their haire is changed before it be growne Nec aetas in senectute desinit sed incipit asenectute Wee doe not dye with age but wee are borne old Many of us have seene Death in our particular selves in many of those steps in which the morall Man expresses it Seneca Wee have seene Mortem infantiae pueritiam The death of infancy in youth and Pueritiae adolescentiam and the death of youth in our middle age And at last we shall see Mortem senectutis mortem ipsam the death of age in death it selfe But yet after that a step farther then that Morall man went Mortem mortis in morte Iesu We shall see the death of Death it self in the death of Christ As we could not be cloathed at first in Paradise till some Creatures were dead for we were cloathed in beasts skins so we cannot be cloathed in Heaven but in his garment who dyed for us This Videbunt this future sight of Death implies a viderunt they have seene they have studied Death in every Booke in every Creature and it implies a Vident they doe presently see death in every object They see the houre-glasse running to the death of the houre They see the death of some prophane thoughts in themselves by the entrance of some Religious thought of compunction and conversion to God and then they see the death of that Religious thought by an inundation of new prophane thoughts that overflow those As Christ sayes that as often as wee eate the Sacramentall Bread we should remember his Death so as often as we eate ordinary bread we may remember our death Bern. Aug. for even hunger and thirst are diseases they are Mors quotidiana a daily death and if they lasted long would kill us In every object and subject we all have and doe and shall see death not to our comfort as an end of misery not onely as such a misery in it selfe as the Philosopher takes it to be Mors omnium miseriarum That Death is the death of all miserie because it destroyes and dissolves our beeing Prov. 16.14 but as it is Stipendium peccati The reward of sin That as Solomon sayes Indignatio Regis nuncius mortis The wrath of the King is as a messenger of Death so Mors nuncius indignationis Regis We see in Death a testimony that our Heavenly King is angry for but for his indignation against our sinnes we should not dye And this death as it is Malum ill for if ye weigh it in the Philosophers balance it is an annihilation of our present beeing and if ye weigh it in the Divine Balance it is a seale of Gods anger against sin so this death is generall of this this question there is no answer Quis homo What man c. We passe then from the Morte moriemini 2 Part. to the fortè moriemini from the generality and the unescapablenesse of death from this question as it admits no answer to the Fortè moriemini perchance we shall dye that is to the question as it may admit a probable answer Of which we said at first that in such questions nothing becomes a Christian better then sobriety to make a true difference betweene problematicall and dogmaticall points betweene upper buildings and foundations betweene collaterall doctrines and Doctrines in the right line Aug. for fundamentall things Sine haesitatione credantur They must be beleeved without disputing there is no more to be done for them but beleeving for things that are not so we are to weigh them in two balances in the balance of Analogy and in the balance of scandall we must hold them so as may be analogall proportionable agreeable to the Articles of our Faith and we must hold them so as our brother be not justly offended nor scandalized by them wee must weigh them with faith for our own strength and we must weigh them with charity for others weaknesse Certainly nothing endangers a Church more then to draw indifferent things to be necessary I meane of a primary necessity of a necessity to be beleeved De fide not a secondary necessity a necessity to be performed and practised for obedience Without doubt the Roman Church repents now and sees now that she should better have preserved her selfe if they had not denied so many particular things which were indifferently and problematically disputed before to bee had necessarily De fide in the Councell of Trent Taking then this Text for a probleme Quis homo What man lives and shall not
said also That the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine Ver. 2. Sin is wine at first so farre as to allure to intoxicate It is water at last so farre as to suffocate to strangle Christ Jesus way is to change water into wine sorrow into joy The Devils way is to change wine into water pleasure and but false pleasure neither into true bitternesse The watrish wine which is spoken of there and called fornication is idolatry and the like And in such a respect Jer. 2.18 God sayes to his people What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt In the way of Egypt we cannot chuse but have something to doe some conversation with men of an Idolatrous religion we must needs have But yet What hast thou to doe in the way of Egypt to drinke of the waters of Sihor Or what hast thou to doe in the wayes of Assyria to drink the waters of the River Though we be bound to a peaceable conversation with men of an Idolatrous perswasion we are not bound to take in to drink to taste their errours For this facility and this indifferency to accompany men of divers religions in the acts of their religion Ver. 13. this multiplicity will end in a nullity and we shall hew to our selves Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water We shall scatter one religion into many and those many shall vanish into none Praise we God therefore that the Spirit of God hath so moved upon these waters these sinfull waters of superstition and idolatry wherein our fore-Fathers were overwhelmed that they have not swelled over us Ecclus. 43.20 For then the cold North-winde blowes and the water is congealed into Ice Affliction overtakes us damps us stupifies us and we finde no Religion to comfort us Affliction is as often expressed in this word Tribulatio Esay 43.2 Waters as sin When thou passest through waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee But then the Spirit of God moves upon these waters too and grace against sin and deliverance from affliction is as often expressed in waters as either Where God takes another Metaphore for judgement Ezek. 36.5 Ver. 25. yet he continues that of water for his mercy In the fire of my jealousie have I spoken against them speaking of enemies but then speaking of Israel I will sprinkle cleane water upon you and you shall be cleane This is his way and this is his measure He sprinkles enough at first to make us cleane even the sprinkling of Baptisme cleanses us from originall sin but then he sets open the windowes of heaven and he inlarges his Flood-gates Esay 44.3 I will poure out water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground To them that thirst after him he gives grace for grace that is present grace for an earnest of future grace of subsequent grace and concomitant grace and auxiliant grace and effectuall grace grace in more formes more notions and in more operations then the Schoole it selfe can tell how to name Thus the Spirit of God moves upon our waters Mat. 14. By faith Peter walked upon the waters so we prevent occasions of tentation to sin and sinke not in them but walke above them By godly exercises we swim through waters so the Centurion commanded that they that could swim Acts 27.43 should cast themselves into the sea Men exercised in holinesse can meet a tentation or tribulation in the face and not be shaked with it weaker men men that cannot swim must be more wary of exposing themselves to dangers of tentation A Court does some man no harme when another finds tentation in a Hermitage By repentance we saile through waters by the assistance of Gods ordinances in his Church which Church is the Arke we attaine the harbour peace of conscience after a sin But this Arke this helpe of the Church we must have God can save from dangers though a man went to Sea without art Sine rate saies the Vulgat without a Ship Wisd 14.4 But God would not that the worke of his Wisedome should be idle God hath given man Prudentiam navifactivam saies our Holkot upon that place and he would have that wisdome exercised God can save without Preaching and Absolution and Sacraments but he would not have his Ordinance neglected To end all with the end of all Death comes to us in the name Mors. 2 Sam. 14.14 and notion of waters too in the Scriptures The Widow of Tekoah said to David in the behalfe of Absalon by the Counsaile of Ioab The water of death overslowes all We must needs dye saies she and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up againe yet God devises meanes that his banished be not expelled from him So the Spirit of God moves upon the face of these waters the Spirit of life upon the danger of death Consider the love more then love the study more then study the diligence of God he devises meanes that his banished those whom sins or death had banished be not expelled from him I sinned upon the strength of my youth and God devised a meanes to reclaime me an enfeebling sicknesse I relapsed after my recovery and God devised a meanes an irrecoverable a helpless Consumption to reclaime me That affliction grew heavy upon me and weighed me down even to a diffidence in Gods mercy and God devised a meanes the comfort of the Angel of his Church his Minister The comfort of the Angel of the great Counsell the body and blood of his Son Christ Jesus at my transmigration Yet he lets his correction proceed to death I doe dye of that sicknesse and God devises a meanes that I though banished banished into the grave shall not be expelled from him a glorious Resurrection We must needs dye and be as water spilt upon the ground but yet God devises meanes that his banished shall not be expelled from him And this is the motion and this is the Rest of the Spirit of God upon those waters in this spirituall sense of these words He brings us to a desire of Baptisme he settles us in the sense of the obligation first and then of the benefits of Baptisme He suffers us to goe into the way of tentations for Coluber in via and every calling hath particular tentations and then he settles us by his preventing or his subsequent grace He moves in submitting us to tribulation he settles us in finding that our tribulations do best of all conforme us to his Son Christ Jesus He moves in removing us by the hand of Death and he settles us in an assurance That it is he that now lets his Servants depart in peace And he who as he doth presently lay our soules in that safe Cabinet the Bosome of Abraham so he keepes an eye upon every graine and atome of our dust whither soever it be blowne and keepes a
thought or said or done any thing offensive to him It is therefore onely in the third sense of this word as it is Verbum Ecclesiasticum A word which S. Paul and the other Scriptures and the Church and Ecclesiasticall Writers have used to expresse our Righteousnesse our Justification by And that is onely by the way of pardon and remission of sins sealed to us in the blood of Christ Jesus that what kinde of sinners soever we were before yet that is applied to us Such and such you were before But ye are justified by the name of the Lord Iesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6 11. Now the reproofe of the World the convincing of the World the bringing of the World to the knowledg that as they are all sub peccato under sin by the sin of another so there is a righteousnesse of another that must prevaile for all their Pardons this reproof this convincing this instruction of the World is thus wrought That the whole World consisting of Jews and Gentiles when the Holy Ghost had done enough for the convincing of both these enough for the overthrowing of all arguments which could either be brought by the Jew for the righteousnesse of the Law or by the Gentile for the righteousnesse of Works all which is abundantly done by the Holy Ghost in the Epistles of S. Paul and other Scriptures when the Holy Ghost had possessed the Church of God of these all-sufficient Scriptures Then the promise of Christ was performed and then though all the world were not presently converted yet it was presently convinced by the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost had provided in those Scriptures of which he is the Author that nothing could be said in the Worlds behalfe for any other Righteousnesse then by way of pardon in the blood of Christ Thus much the Holy Ghost tels us And if we will search after more then hee is pleased to tell us that is to rack the Holy Ghost to over-labour him to examine him upon such Intergatories as belongs not to us to minister unto him Curious men are not content to know That our debt is paid by Christ but they will know farther whether Christ have paid it with his owne hands or given us money to pay it our selves whether his Righteousness before it do us any good be not first made ours by Imputation or by Inhesion They must know whose money and then what money Gold or Silver whether his active obedience in fulfilling the Law or his passive obedience in shedding his blood But all the Commission of the Holy Ghost here is To reprove the World of righteousnesse To convince all Sects in the World that shall constitute any other righteousnesse then a free pardon by the incorruptible and invaluable and inexhaustible blood of Christ Jesus By that pardon his Righteousnesse is ours How it is made so or by what name we shall call our title or estate or interest in his Righteousnesse let us not enquire The termes of satisfaction in Christ of acceptation in the Father of imputation to us or inhesion in us are all pious and religious phrases and something they expresse but yet none of these Satisfaction Acceptation Imputation Inhesion will reach home to satisfie them that will needs inquire Quo modo by what meanes Christs Righteousnesse is made ours This is as far as we need go Ad eundem modum justi sumus coram Deo quo cor am eo Christus fuit peccator So as God made Christ sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 we are made the righteousnesse of God in him so but how was that He that can finde no comfort in this Doctrine till he finde How Christ was made sin and we righteousnesse till he can expresse Quo modo robs himself of a great deale of peacefull refreshing which his conscience might receive in tasting the thing it selfe in a holy and humble simplicity without vexing his owne or other mens consciences or troubling the peace of the Church with impertinent and inextricable curiosities Those questions are not so impertinent but they are in a great part unnecessary which are moved about the cause of our righteousnesse our justification Alas let us be content that God is the cause and seeke no other We must never slacken that protestation That good works are no cause of our justification But we must alwaies keepe up a right signification of that word Cause For Faith it selfe is no cause no such cause as that I can merit Heaven by faith What doe I merit of the King by beleeving that he is the undoubted Heire to all his Dominions or by beleeving that he governes well if I live not in obedience to his Laws If it were possible to beleeve aright and yet live ill my faith should doe me no good The best faith is not worth Heaven The value of it grows Ex pacto That God hath made that Covenant that Contract Crede vives onely beleeve and thou shalt be safe Faith is but one of those things which in severall senses are said to justifie us It is truly saîd of God Deus solus justificat God only justifies us Efficienter nothing can effect it nothing can worke towards it but onely the meere goodnesse of God And it is truly said of Christ Christus solus justificat Christ onely justifies us Materialiter nothing enters into the substance and body of the ransome for our sins but the obedience of Christ It is also truly said Sola fides justificat Onely faith justifies us Instrumentaliter nothing apprehends nothing applies the merit of Christ to thee but thy faith And lastly it is as truly said Sola opera justificant Onely our works justifie us Declaratoriè Only thy good life can assure thy conscience and the World that thou art justified As the efficient justification the gracious purpose of God had done us no good without the materiall satisfaction the death of Christ had followed And as that materiall satisfaction the death of Christ would do me no good without the instrumentall justification the apprehension by faith so neither would this profit without the declaratory justification by which all is pleaded and established God enters not into our materiall justification that is onely Christs Christ enters not into our instrumentall justification that is onely faiths Faith enters not into our declaratory justification for faith is secret and declaration belongs to workes Neither of these can be said to justifie us alone so as that we may take the chaine in pieces and thinke to be justified by any one link thereof by God without Christ by Christ without faith or by faith without works And yet every one of these justifies us alone so as that none of the rest enter into that way and that meanes by which any of these are said to justifie us Consider we then our selves as men fallen downe into a darke and deepe pit and justification as a chaine consisting of
it shewed that there might be such a thing He that curseth Father or Mother shall surely dye sayes Moses Exod. 21.17 Deut. 21.18 And he that is but stubborne towards them shall dye too The dutifull love of children to Parents is so rooted in nature that Demosthenes sayes it is against the impressions and against the Law of nature for any child ever to love that man that hath done execution upon his Father though by way of Justice And this naturall Obligation is not conditioned with the limitations of a good or a bad Father Natura te non bono patri sed patri conciliavit Epictetus sayes that little great Philosopher Nature hath not bound thee to thy father as hee is a good Father but meerely as he is thy Father Now for the power of Fathers over their children by the Law of Nations that is the generall practise of Civill States the Father had power upon the life of his child It fell away by discontinuance in a great part and after was abrogated by particular Laws but yet by a connivence admitted in some cases too For as in Nature man is Microcosmus a little World so in nature a family is a little State a little Commonwealth and what power the Magistrate hath in that Aristor the Father hath in this Ipsum regnū suaptenatura imperium est paternum The power of a King if it be kept within the bounds of the nature of that Office Tertul. is onely to be a Father to his people And Gratius est nomen pietatis quam potestatis Authority is presented in a more acceptable name when I am called a Father then when I am called a Master and therefore sayes Seneca our Ancestors mollified it thus Vt invidiam Dominis contumcliam servis detraherent That there might accrue no envy to the Master for so great a title nor contempt upon the servant for so low a title they called the Master Patremfamilias The Father of a houshould and they called the servants familiares parts and pieces of the family So that in the name of Father they understand all power and the first Law that passed amongst the Romans against Parricides L. Pompeia was Contra interfectores Patrum Dominorum They were made equall Fathers and Soveraignes And in the Law of God it selfe Honour thy Father wee see all the honour and feare and reverence that belongs to the Magistrate is conveyed in that name in that person the Father is all as in the State of that people before they came to be settled both the Civill part of the Government and the Spirituall part was all in the Father that Father was King and Priest over all that family Present God to thy self then as a Father and thou wilt feare him and take knowledg that the Son might not sue the Father Enter no actiō against God why he made thee not richer nor wiser nor fairer no nor why he elects or refuses without respect of good or bad works But take knowledge too that when by the Law the Father might punish the Son with death he might not kill his Son before he was passed three yeares in age before hee was come to some demonstration of an ill and rebellious nature and disposition Whatsoever God may doe of his absolute Power beleeve that he will not execute that power upon thee to thy condemnation till thine actuall sins have made thee incapable of his love What he may do dispute not but be sure he will do thee no harme if thou feare him as a Father Now to bring that nearer to you Sacerdotalis which principally we intended which is the consideration and precaution of those sins which violate this Power of God notified in this name of Father we consider a threefold emanation or exercise of Power in this Father by occasion of a threefold repeating of this part of the Text in the Scripture The words are waighty alwayes at the bottome for we have these words in the last of the Prophets in Malachie and in the last of the Euangelists in Iohn And here in this Apostle we have them of the last Judgement Mal. 1.6 In Malachi he sayes A Son honoureth his Father if then I be a Father where is my honour This God speaks there to the Priest to the Levite Exod. 32.29 for the Tribe of Levi had before as Moses bade them consecrated their hands to God and punished by a zealous execution the Idolatry of the golden Calfe and for this service God fastned the Priesthood upon them But when they came in Malachies time to connive at Idolatry it selfe God who was himselfe the roote of the Priesthood and had trusted them with it and they had abused that trust and the Priesthood Then when the Prophet was become a foole Hose 9.7 and the spirituall Man mad or as S. Hierom reads it Arreptitius that is possessed by others God first of all turnes upon the Priest himselfe rebukes the Priest interminates his judgement upon the Priest for God is our high Priest And therefore feare this Father in that notion in that apprehension as a Priest as thy high Priest that refuses or receives thy sacrifices as he finds them conditioned and if he looke narrowly is able to finde some spot in thy purest Lambe some sin in thy holiest action some deviation in thy prayer some ostentation in thine almes some vaine glory in thy Preaching some hypocrisie in thy hearing some concealing in thy confessions some reservation in thy restitutions some relapses in thy reconciliations since thou callest him Father feare him as thy high Priest So the words have their force in Malachie and they appertaine Ad potestatem Sacerdotalem To the power of the Priest despise not that And then Civilis Iohn 8.42 in the second place which is in S. Iohn Christ sayes If God were your Father you would love me And this Christ speakes to the Pharisees and to them not as Sectaries in Religion but as to persons in Authority and command in the State as to Rulers to Governours to Magistrates So Christ sayes to Pilate Iohn 19.11 Rom. 13.11 Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above And so S. Paul There is no power but of God The powers that be be ordained of God Christ then charges the Pharisees that they having the secular Power in their hands they went about to kill him when he was doing the will of his Father who is the roote as of Priesthood so of all Civill power and Magistracy also Feare this Father then as the Civill Sword the Sword of Justice is in his hand He can open thee to the malicious prosecutions of adversaries and submit thee to the penalties of those Lawes which in truth thou hast never transgressed Thy Fathers thy Grandfathers have sinned against him and thou hast been but reprieved for two sessions for two generations and now maiest come
not good to take knowledge of enemies Manifestat inimicos many times that is better forborne yet in all cases it is good to know them Especially in our case in the Text Eph. 6.12 because our enemies intended here are of themselves Princes of darknesse They can multiply clouds and disguisings their kingdome is in the darknesse Sagittant in obscuro Psal 11.2 Psal 143.3 They shoot in the darke I am wounded with a tentation as with the plague and I know not whence the arrow came Collocavit me in obscuris The enemy hath made my dwelling darknesse I have no window that lets in light but then this Angel of light shews me who they are But then Inimici Angeli if we were left to our selves it were but a little advantage to know who our enemies were when we knew those enemies to be Angels persons so far above our resistance Eph. 6.12 For but that S. Paul mollifies and eases it with a milder word Est nobis colluctatio That we wrestle with enemies that thereby we might see our danger is but to take a fall not a deadly wound if we look seriously to our worke we cannot avoyd falling into sins of infirmity but the death of habituall sin we may Quare moriemini domus Israel He does not say why would ye fall but why will ye die ye house of Israel it were a consideration inough to make us desperate of victory to heare him say that this though it be but a wrestling is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spirituall wickednesses in high places None of us hath got the victory over flesh and blood and yet we have greater enemies then flesh and blood are Some disciplines some mortifications we have against flesh and blood we have S. Pauls probatum est his medicine if we will use it Castigo corpus 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection for that we have some assistance Even our enemies become our friends poverty or sicknesse will fight for us against flesh and blood against our carnall lusts but for these powers and principalities I know not where to watch them how to encounter them I passe my time sociably and merrily in cheerful conversation in musique in feasting in Comedies in wantonnesse and I never heare all this while of any power or principality my Conscience spies no such enemy in all this And then alone between God and me at midnight some beam of his grace shines out upon me and by that light I see this Prince of darknesse and then I finde that I have been the subject the slave of these powers and principalities when I thought not of them Well I see them and I try then to dispossesse my selfe of them and I make my recourse to the powerfullest exorcisme that is I turne to hearty and earnest prayer to God and I fix my thoughts strongly as I thinke upon him and before I have perfected one petition one period of my prayer a power and principality is got into me againe Esay 29.10 Spiritus soporis The spirit of slumber closes mine eyes and I pray drousily Esa 19.14 Or spiritus vertiginis the spirit of deviation and vaine repetition and I pray giddily and circularly and returne againe and againe to that I have said before Luk. 9.55 and perceive not that I do so and nescio cujus spiritus sim as our Saviour said rebuking his Disciples who were so vehement for the burning of the Samaritans you know not of what spirit you are I pray and know not of what spirit I am I consider not mine own purpose in prayer And by this advantage this doore of inconsideration enters spiritus erroris 1 Tim. 4.1 The seducing spirit the spirit of error and I pray not onely negligently but erroniously dangerously for such things as disconduce to the glory of God and my true happinesse Hosea 4.12.5.4 if they were granted Nay even the Prophet Hosea's spiritus fornicationum enters into me The spirit of fornication that is some remembrance of the wantonnesse of my youth some mis-interpretation of a word in my prayer that may beare an ill sense some unclean spirit some power or principality hath depraved my prayer and slackned my zeale And this is my greatest misery of all that when that which fights for me and fights against me too sicknesse hath laid me upon my last bed then in my weakest estate these powers and principalities shall be in their full practise against me And therefore it is one great advancement of thy deliverance to be brought by this Angel that is by the Ministery of the Gospel of Christ to know that thou hast Angels to thine enemies And then another is to know their number and so the strength of their confederacy for in the verse before the Text they are expressed to be foure I saw foure Angels c. Foure legions of Angels foure millions nay Quatuor Angeli foure Creations of Angels could do no more harme then is intended in these foure for as it is said in the former verse They stood upon the foure corners of the earth they bestrid they cantoned the whole world Thou hast opposite Angels enow to batter thee every where and to cut off and defeat all succours all supplies that thou canst procure or propose to thy selfe absolute enemies to one another will meet and joyne to thy ruine and even presumption will induce desperation We need not be so literall in this as S. Hierome who indeed in that followed Origen to thinke that there is a particular evill Angel over every sin That because we finde that mention of the spirit of error and the spirit of slumber and the spirit of fornication we should therefore thinke that Christ meant by Mammon Mat. 6.24 a particular spirit of Covetousnesse and that there be severall princes over severall sins This needs not when thou art tempted never aske that Spirits name his name is legio for he is many Mar. 5.9 Take thy selfe at the largest as thou art a world there are foure Angels at thy foure corners Let thy foure corners be thy worldly profession thy calling and another thy bodily refection thy eating and drinking and sleeping and a third thy honest and allowable recreations and a fourth thy religious service of God in this place which two last that is recreation and religion God hath been pleased to joyn together in the Sabbath in which he intended his own glory in our service of him and then the rest of the Creature too let these foure thy calling thy sleeping thy recreation thy religion be the foure corners of thy world and thou shalt find an Angel of tentation at every corner even in thy sleep even in this house of God thou hast met them The Devill is no Recusant he will come to Church and he will lay his snares there When that day
godly men have declared this lothnesse to dye Beloved waigh Life and Death one against another and the balance will be even Throw the glory of God into either balance and that turnes the scale S. Paul could not tell which to wish Life or Death There the balance was even Then comes in the glory of God the addition of his soule to that Quire that spend all their time eternity it selfe only in glorifying God and that turnes the scale and then he comes to his Cupio dissolvi To desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ But then he puts in more of the same waight in the other scale he sees that it advances Gods glory more for him to stay and labour in the building of Gods Kingdome here and so adde more soules then his owne to that state then only to enjoy that Kingdome in himself and that turnes the scale againe and so he is content to live These Saints of God then when they deprecate death and complain of the approaches of death they are at that time in a charitable extasie abstracted and withdrawne from the consideration of that particular happinesse which they in themselves might haye in heaven and they are transported and swallowed up with this sorrow that the Church here and gods kingdome upon earth should lack those meanes of advancement or assistance which God by their service was pleased to afford to his Church Whether they were good Kings good Priests or good Prophets the Church lost by their death and therefore they deprecated that death Esay 38.18 and desired to live The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee But the living the living he shall praise thee as I doe this day sayes Hezekias He was affected with an apprehension of a future barrennesse after his death and a want of propagation of Gods truth I shall not see the Lord even the Lord sayes he He had assurance that he should see the Lord in Heaven when by death he was come thither But sayes he I shall not see him in the land of the living Well even in the land of the living even in the land of life it selfe he was to see him if by death he were to see him in Heaven But this is the losse that he laments this is the misery that he deplores with so much holy passion I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world Howsoever I shall enjoy God my selfe yet I shall be no longer a meanes an instrument of the propagation of Gods truth amongst others And till we come to that joy which the heart cannot conceive it is I thinke the greatest joy that the soule of man is capable of in this life especially where a man hath been any occasion of sinne to others to assist the salvation of others And even that consideration that he shall be able to doe Gods cause no more good here may make a good man loath to die Quid facies magno nomini tuo Jos 7.9 sayes Ioshuah in his prayer to God if the Canaanites come in and destroy us and blaspheme thee What wilt thou do unto thy mighty Name What wilt thou doe unto thy glorious Church said the Saints of God in those Deprecations if thou take those men out of the world whom thou hadst chosen enabled qualified for the edification sustentation propagation of that Church In a word David considers not here what men doe or doe not in the next world but he considers onely that in this world he was bound to propagate Gods Truth and that that he could not doe if God tooke him away by death Consider then this horrour and detestation and deprecation of death in those Saints of the old Testament with relation to their particular and then it must be Quia promissiones obscurae Because Moses had conveyed to those men all Gods future blessings all the joy and glory of Heaven onely in the types of earthly things and said little of the state of the soule after this life And therefore the promises belonging to the godly after this life were not so cleere then not so well manifested to them not so well fixt in them as that they could in contemplation of them step easily or deliver themselves confidently into the jawes of death he that is not fully satisfied of the next world makes shift to be content with this and he that cannot reach or does not feele that will be glad to keepe his hold upon this Consider their horrour and â—etestation and deprecation of death not with relation to themselves but to Gods Church and then it will be Quia operarii pauci Because God had a great harvest in hand and few labourers in it they were loath to be taken from the worke And these Reasons might at least by way of excuse and extenuation in those times of darknesse prevaile somewhat in their behalfe They saw not whither they went and therefore were loath to goe and they were loath to goe because they saw not how Gods Church would subsist when they were gone But in these times of ours when Almighty God hath given an abundant remedy to both these their excuses will not be appliable to us We have a full cleernesse of the state of the soule after this life not onely above those of the old Law but above those of the Primitive Christian Church which in some hundreds of yeares came not to a cleere understanding in that point whether the soule were immortall by nature or but by preservation whether the soule could not die or onely should not die Or because that perchance may be without any constant cleernesse yet that was not cleere to them which concernes our case neerer whether the soule came to a present fruition of the sight of God after death or no. But God having afforded us cleernesse in that and then blest our times with an established Church and plenty of able work-men for the present and plenty of Schooles and competency of endowments in Universities for the establishing of our hopes and assurances for the future since we have both the promise of Heaven after and the promise that the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against the Church here Since we can neither say Promissiones obseurae That Heaven hangs in a Cloud nor say Operarii pauci That dangers hang over the Church it is much more inexcusable in us now then it was in any of them then to be loath to die or to be too passionate in that reason of the deprecation Quia non in morte Because in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Which words being taken literally may fill our meditation and exalt our devotion thus If in death there be no remembrance of God if this remembrance perish in death certainly it decayes in the neernesse to death If there be a possession in death there is an approach in age And therefore Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth
Eccles 12.1 There are spirituall Lethargies that make a man forget his name forget that he was a Christian and what belongs to that duty God knows what forgetfulnesse may possesse thee upon thy death-bed and freeze thee there God knows what rage what distemper what madnesse may scatter thee then And though in such cases God reckon with his servants according to that disposition which they use to have towards him before and not according to those declinations from him which they shew in such distempered sicknesses yet Gods mercy towards them can worke but so that he returnes to those times when those men did remember him before But if God can finde no such time that they never remembred him then he seales their former negligence with a present Lethargy they neglected God all their lives and now in death there is no remembrance of him nor there is no remembrance in him God shall forget him eternally and when he thinkes he is come to his Consummatum est The bell tolls and will ring out and there is an end of all in death by death he comes but to his Secula Seculorum to the beginning of that misery which shall never end This then which we have spoken arises out of that sense of these words which seems the most literall that is of a naturall death But as it is well noted by divers Expositors upon this Psalme this whole Psalme is intended of a spirituall agonie and combat of David wrastling with the apprehension of hell and of the indignation of God even in this world whilst he was alive here And therefore S. Augustine upon the last words of this verse in that Translation which he followed In inferno quis consitchitur tibi Not In the grave but In hell who shall confesse unto thee puts himselfe upon this In Inferne Dives confessus Domino oravit pro fratribus In hell Dives did confesse the name of the Lord and prayed there for his brethren in the world And therefore he understands not these words of a literall and naturall a bodily death a departing out of this world but he calls Peccatum Mortem and then Caecitatem animae Infernum He makes the easinesse of sinning to be Death and then blindnesse and obduration and remorslesnesse and impenitence to be this Hell And so also doth S. Ierome understand all that passionate deploring of Hezekias which seems literally to be spoken of naturall death of this spirituall death of the habit of sin and that he considered and lamented especially his danger of that death of a departing from God in this world rather then of a departing out of this world And truely many pieces and passages of Hezekias his lamentation there will fall naturally enough into that spirituall interpretation though perchance all will not though S. Ierome with a holy purpose drive them and draw them that way But whether that of Hezekias be of naturall or of a spirituall death we have another Author ancienter then S. Augustine and S. Ierome and so much esteemed by S. Iereme as that he translated some of his Works which is Didymus of Alexandria who sayes it is Impia opinio not an inconvenient or unnaturall but an impious and irreligious opinion to understand this verse of naturall death because sayes he The dead doe much more remember God then the living doe And he makes use of that place Deus non confunditur Heb. 11.16 God is not ashamed to be called the God of the dead for he hath prepared them a City And therefore reading these words of our Text according to that Translation which prevailed in the Easterne Church which was the Septuagint he argues thus he collects thus that all that David sayes here is onely this Non est in morte qui memor est Dei Not that he that is dead remembers not God but that he that remembers God is not dead not in an irreparable and irrecoverable state of death not under such a burthen of sin as devastates and exterminates the conscience and evacuates the whole power and work of grace but that if he can remember God confesse God though he be falne under the hand of a spirituall death by some sin yet he shall have his resurrection in this life for Non est in morte sayes Didymus He that remembers God is not dead in a perpetuall death And then this reason of Davids Prayer here Doe this and this for in death there is no remembrance of thee will have this force That God would returne to him in his effectuall grace That God would deliver his soule in dangerous tentations That God would save him in applying to him and imprinting in him a sober but yet confident assurance that the salvation of Christ Jesus belongs to him Because if God did not return to him but suffer him to wither in a long absence If God did not deliver him by taking hold of him when he was ready to fall into such sins as his sociablenesse his confidence his inconsideration his infirmity his curiosity brought him to the brinke of If God did not save him by a faithfull assurance of salvation after a sin committed and resented This absence this slipperinesse this pretermitting might bring him to such a deadly and such a hellish state in this world as that In death that is In that death he should have no remembrance of God In hell In the grave that is In that hell In that grave he should not confesse nor praise God at all There was his danger he should forget God utterly and God forget him eternally if God suffered him to proceed so far in sin that is Death and so far in an obduration and remorslesnesse in sin that is Hell The Death and the Hell of this world to which those Fathers refer this Text. In this lamentable state we will onely note the force and the emphasis of this Tui and Tibi in this verse no remembrance of Thee no praise to Thee For this is not spoken of God in generall but of that God to which David directs the last and principall part of his Prayer which is To save him It is to God as God is Jesus a Saviour and the wretchednesse of this state is that God shall not be remembred in that notion as he is Iesus a Saviour No man is so swallowed up in the death of sin nor in the grave of impenitence No man so dead and buried in the custome or senselesnesse of sin but that he remembers a God he confesses a God If an Atheist sweare the contrary beleeve him not His inward terrors his midnight startlings remember him of that and bring him to confessions of that But here is the depth and desperatenesse of this death and this grave habituall sin and impenitence in sin that he cannot remember he cannot confesse that God which should save him Christ Jesus his Redeemer he shall come he shall not chuse but come to remember a God that
uncleannesses from which if they neglected to cleanse themselves by those ceremonies which were appropriated to them then those uncleannesses became sins and they were put to their sacrifices before they could be discharged of them Many levities many omissions many acts of infirmity might be prevented by consideration before or cleansed by consideration now if we did truly value the present grace that is alwayes offered us in these the Ordinances of God What sin can I be guilty of that is without example of mercy in that Gospel which is preached to me here But if you will not accept it when God offers it you can never have it so good cheape because hereafter you shall have this present sin of refusing that offer of grace added to your burthen Ezek. 24.13 Because I have purged thee thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged any more til I have caused my fury to light upon thee But shall we be purged then Then when his fury in any calamity hath lighted upon us Is not this donec this untill such a donec as donec faciam Till I make thine cnemies thy footstoole Such a donec as the donec peperit shee was a Virgin Till shee brought forth her first sonne Is it not an everlasting donec That we shall not be purged till Gods Judgements fall upon us nor then neither Physicke may be ministred too late to worke and Judgements may fall too late to souple or entender the soule For as wee may die with that Physick in our stomach so may we be carried to the last Judgement with that former Judgement upon our shoulders And therefore our later Translation hath expressed it more fully Not that that fury shall light but shall rest upon us This cleansing therefore is that disposition which God by his grace infuses into us That we stand in the congregation and Communion of Saints capable of those mercies which God hath by his Ordinance annexed to these meetings That we may so feele at all times when we come hither such a working of his Hyssop such a benefit of his Ordinance as that we beleeve all our former sins to be so forgiven as that if God should translate us now this minute to another life this Dosis of this purging Hyssop received now had so wrought as that we should be assuredly translated into the Kingdome of heaven This cleansing applies to us those words of our Saviour My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee But yet there is a farther degree of cleanenesse expressed in Christs following words Goe and sin no more And that grace against relapses the gift of sanctification and perseverance is that that David askes in his other Petition Lava me Wash me and I shall be whiter then snow Here we proposed first the action Lava Wash me This is more then a sprinkling Lava A totall and intire washing More then being an ordinary partaker of the outward meanes The Word and Sacraments more then a temporary feeling of the benefit thereof in a present sense for it is a building up of habits of religious actions visible to others and it is a holy and firme confidence created in us by the Spirit of God that we shall keepe that building in reparation and goe forward with it to our lives end It is a washing like Naamans in Jordan to be iterated seaven times seaventy seaven times daily hourly all our life A washing begun in Baptisme pursued in sweat in the industry of a lawfull calling continued in teares for our deficiencies in the workes of our calling and perchance to bee consummated in blood at our deaths Not such a washing as the Washes have which are those sands that are overflowed with the Sea at every Tide and then lie dry but such a washing as the bottome of the Sea hath that is alwayes equally wet It is not a stillicidium a spout a showre a bucket powred out upon us when we come to Church a Sabbath-sanctification and no more but a water that enters into every office of our house and washes every action proceeding from every faculty of the soule And this is the washing A continuall succession of Grace working effectually to present Habits of religious acts and constituting a holy purpose of persevering in them that induces the Whitenesse the Candor the Dealbation that David begs here Lava Dealbabor The purging with Hyssope which we spoke of before Dealbabor which is the benefit which we have by being bred in a true Church delivers us from that rednesse which is in the earth of which wee are made from that guiltinesse which is by our naturall derivation from our Parents imprinted in us Baptisme doth much upon that but that that is not Red is not therefore White But this is our case Our first colour was white God made man righteous Our rednesse is from Adam and the more that rednesse is washed off 2 Cor. 7.1 the more we returne to our first whitenesse And this which is petitioned here is a washing of such perfection as cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all filthinesse of flesh and spirit Those inquinamenta which are ordinary are first in the flesh Concupiscence and Carnality Gal. 5.19 and those other of which the Apostle sayes The works of the flesh are manifest And in the spirit they are Murmuring Diffidence in God and such others But besides these as an over-diligent cleansing of the Body and additionall beauty of the Body is inquinamentum carnis one of S. Pauls filthinesses upon the flesh so an over purifying of the spirit in an uncharitable undervaluing of other men and in a schismaticall departing from the unity of the Church is Inquinamentum spiritus False beauties are a foulnesse of the body false purity is a foulnesse of the spirit But the washing that wee seeke cleanses us Ab omni inquinamento from all foulnesse of flesh and spirit All waters will not cleanse us nor all fires dry us so as wee may be cleane smoaky fires will not doe that I will poure cleane water upon you Ezek. 36.25 and you shall be cleane The Sunne produces sweat upon us and it dries us too Zeale cleanses us but it must be zeale impermixt as the Sun not mingled with our smoaky sooty factious affections Some Grammarians have noted the word Washing here to be derived from a word that signifies a Lambe we must be washed in the blood of the Lambe and we must be brought to the whitenesse the candor the simplicity of the Lambe no man is pure that thinks no man pure but himselfe And this whitenesse which is Sanctification in our selves and charitable interpretation of other men is exalted here to that Superlative Super Nivem Wash me and I shall be whiter then Snow Though your sins be as Scarlet Super nivem Esay 1.18 they shall be as white as snow Esay was an Euangelicall Prophet a propheticall Euangelist and speaks still
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their