experience of did acknowledge as much as hath been formerly delivered out of Gods word to wit That men are usually misdrawn to do those things in particular which in general they desired not to do and to leave those things undone which in the calm of composed affections they desired to do either by the hope of some bodily pleasures or by fear of some bodily pain And unto this two-fold inconvenience he prescribed this brief Receipt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That men in youth especially should accustome themselves to abstinence and sufferance to abstinence from evil and to sufferance of evil that is unto abstinence from unlawful pleasures which we call Malum culpae or Evil of Sin and to endure with patience malum poenae the evil of pain or of some loss rather then hazard The quiet of Conscience by doing that which is evil or unlawful or by not doing that which is good specially when we are thereto required But this brief receipt or diet of the Soul without some other addition will rather serve to condemn us Christians then enable us to live a true and Christian life The Receipt though is good in the General but defective in these Particulars First Unless he knew more of Gods Will or of the mysteries of Christian Religion then we know any means by which he could possibly know either being an Heathen he was ignorant of many evils from which he was bound to abstain and altogether as ignorant what those good things were for whose love he was to suffer malum poenae the evil of pain loss or grievance rather then disclaim them Secondly Albeit he had known what was to be done what to be left undone yet being ignorant of this main Article of Christianity to wit of A Life everlasting which is the reward of well-doing the Crown of Holiness and of an everlasting Death which is the wages of sin and issue of unlawful pleasures His Receipt of Sustine Abstine was altogether as fruitless and vain as if a Physician should prescribe a Dosis or Recipe to his Patient of such Simples or compounded Medicines as cannot be had in this part of the world but must be sought for at the East or West-Indies or at the Antipodes whence there is no hope they can be brought before the Patient be laid in his Grave The Medicine which he prescribes is no where to be found but in the Word of God The Simples whereof it is compounded can grow from no other root or branch then from The Articles of everlasting Life and everlasting death The Belief of the One is the root of Abstinence from sinful or unlawful Pleasures The Belief of the other is the root of Patience or sufferance of malum Poenae or of sufferance for well-doing Howbeit to speak exactly both parts of his Receipt may be had from the Belief either of Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death but most compleatly from the belief of both The manner how thence they may be gathered is expressed by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 8. 16. c. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together for I reckon that the suffrings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us c. 2. If all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us as the Rule of Faith teacheth us then conscience and reason it self bindes us to suffer all the Persecutions or Grievances which can be laid upon us rather then hazard our hopes or forfeit our Interests in the Glory that shall be revealed in all such as with patience suffer persecution or other temporal loss or detriment for the truths sake And this hope of Glory is as the Root whence Christian patience or sufferance must grow So is the fear of everlasting Death the root of our abstinence from evil or of repentance for former want of this abstinence This is the same Apostles Doctrine 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men To what doth he perswade men To do those things which are good and which being done shall be rewarded not in Judgement but in mercy and loving kindness Those things by which we shall be reconciled unto God But were not these Corinthians reconciled to God before our Apostle thus perswaded them Yes so saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 18. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ And when our Apostle and those to whom he wrote were reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ we that are now living were by the same means reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself Now if the world that is not this or that man not this or that generation of men but all generations the world of mankind were reconciled unto God when our Apostle wrote this Epistle yea when Christ offered himself upon the Crosse what need is there of any further reconciliation For that which God doth he doth most perfectly most compleatly 3. It is true Our reconciliation was most perfectly most compleatly wrought on Gods part by Christs death upon the Crosse he payed the full price of our Redemption of our reconciliation nothing may or can be added thereto Yet A Reconciliation there is to be wrought on our parts though wrought it cannot be but by the spirit of God and wrought it is not ordinarily but by the ministry of men as Gods Deputies or Embassadors So the Apostle adds ver 19. God hath committed to us to wit his Ministers the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though Christ did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God So then God hath reconciled us all unto himself from the hour of Christs death and yet every one of us for his own particular must be reconciled to God by the Ministry of his Embassadors And the efficacy of their Ministry is demonstrated by working true repentance in us The means again by which they work this true repentance must be by representing the Terrour of the Lord or as our Apostle saith Act. 17. 30. by putting them in mind of the last and dreadful day The times of this ignorance to wit of the old world before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus
the first day preserved but here was a new creation out of that which Philosophers properly term The mater that is the common mother of generation or corruption And thus God at the last day shall command not the earth only but the Sea also with the other Elements to give up their dead Rev. 20. 13. Lastly they extended this similitude too far which hence imagined that as the corn often dies and is often quickned and dies again So by the doctrine of Christians there should be a death after the Resurrection and a Resurrection after death or such a continual vicissitude between life and death as is between light and darkness This objection is punctually resolved by Tertullian in the 48. Chapt. of his Apologie The sum of his answer is That so it might be if the Omnipotent Creator had so appointed for he is able to work this continual interchange or vicissitude of life and death as well in mens bodies as in the bodies of corn sown or reaped or as he doth the perpetual vicissitude of light and darkness in the two Hemispheres of the world but he hath revealed his Will to the contrary And the reason is not the same but rather contrary in Gods crop or harvest as it is in the crops or harvests of mortal men As men in this life are mortal so is their food or nutriment and for this reason their nutriment must be supplied by continual sowing and reaping But God is immortal and so shall the crop of his harvest be Our Resurrection from the dead is his general crop or harvest and this needs to be no more then One because our bodies being once raised up to life again shall never die but enjoy immortalitie in his presence Heaven is his Granary and what is gathered into it cannot perish or consume 10. The general use of this Doctrine is punctually made to our hands by our Apostle in the last verse of this Chapt. Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. And more particulary 1 Thessal 4. 13. c. I would not have you ignorant brethren concerning them which are a sleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope c. The Apostle there doth not forbid all mourning for the dead but the manner of mourning only that they mourn not as they which have no hope no expectation of any Resurrection after death Nature will teach us as it did these Thessalonians to mourn for the death of our friends and kindred And our belief of this Article will give us the true mean and prescribe the due manner or measure of mourning Our sorrow though natural and just yet if it be truly Christian and seasoned with Grace will still be mingled with comfort and supported by hope To be either impatient towards God or immoderatly dejected for the death of our dearest friends whose bodies God hath in mercy committed to the custody of the earth of the sea or other Elements is but A Symptome of heathenish ignorance or infidelity of this Article A Barbarism in Christianitie If we of this Land should live amongst Barbarians whom we had taught to make bread of Corn and accustomed to the tast of this bread as unknown to their forefathers as Manna at first appearance was to the Israelites but not acquainted them with the mystery of sowing and reaping they would be as ready in their hunger or scarcitie of bread to stone us as the Israelites were to stone Moses in their thirst if they should see us offer to bury that corn in the earth with which their bowels might be comforted yet if they were but so far capable of reason as to be perswaded or we so capable of trust or credit with them as to perswade them that there were no possibilitie left either to have bread without supply of corn or for corn to increase and multiply unless it did first die and putrifie in the ground hope of a more plentiful crop or harvest would naturally incline them to brook the present scarcity w th patience and to be thankfull towards such as would so carefully provide for them Now besides that the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God the committing of their bodies to the grave is but as a solemn preparation of seed for a future crop or harvest If in these premisses we do rely and trust in God our sorrow and heaviness for the dead though it may endure for a while will be swallowed up in comfort our mournfull tears and weeping will be still accompanied with praises and thanksgiving unto him that hath so well provided for them that live in his fear and die in his favour 11. But as this Doctrine administreth plentie of comfort in respect of friends deceased so it should move us to make choice of such only for our dearest friends as we see inclined to live in the fear of the Lord. Or if we have prevented our selves and this advice in making such choice yet let us never be prevented by others for making the main and principal end of our friendship or delight in any mans company to be this A serious study and endevour to prepare others and to be prepared by them to live and die in the Lord. As there is no greater comfort in this life then a faithfull and hearty friend So can no greater grief befall a man at the hour of death then to have had a friend trusty and hearty in other offices and services but negligent and backward in cherishing the seeds of faith of love or fear of the Lord or other provision of our way-fare towards the life to come No practise of the most malicious or most inveterate or most provoked foe can breed half so much danger to any man as the affectionate intentions of a carnal friend always officious to entertain him with pleasant impertinences which will draw his mind from the fear and love of God and either divert or effeminat his cogitations from resolute pitching upon the means and hopes of a joyfull Resurrection to everlasting life Even to minds and affections already sweetned with sure hope of that life to come what grief must it needs breed in this life if he be a loving husband to think he shall be by death eternally divorced from the companie of his dearest consort Or if he be an affectionate friend to consider that the league of mutual amitie in this life never interrupted but secured from danger of impairment whilst their pilgramage lasts here on earth should be everlastingly dissolved after the one hath taken up his lodging in the dust that all former dearest kindness should not only be forgotten but be further estranged from performance of any common courtesie then any Christian in this life can be in regard of any Jew or Turk or any Jew or
Cause And we may safely Infer First That unless the Son of God had been incarnate Gods Goodness to us had not been so admirably manifested Secondly Unless the Son of God had become man man could not have been delivered from the fetters and chains of sin much less restored to his first dignitie And yet more in that the Son of God became man this is an Argument evident to us from the Effect that man by sin had become the Son of Satan Sin then was the cause of Christs Incarnation and Christs Incarnation is the cause or means of our deliverance or Redemption from sin Again Unless man by Sin had become the servant of sin and bond-man of Satan the Son of God had not taken upon him the Form of a Servant But in as much as the Son of God was found in the true Form of a Servant this is an Argument from the Effect evident to convince our consciences that we Sons of men were by nature the servants or bond-men of Satan Lastly Unless the wages of sin and of our service done to Satan by working the works of sin had been death the true and natural Son of God had not been put to death Our sins then and the wages due to our sins that was death were the Causes of his death And in that he truly dyed for us This is an Argument evident from the Effect Therefore we were dead in our sins Be it so Yet seeing the Son of God died for our sins before he was raised from the dead how saith our Apostle in the 17. verse If Christ be not raised ye are yet in your sins Could these Corinthians or any others be still in their sins after their sins were taken away Or will any man deny that their sins were taken away by Christ's death at the very instant of his souls departure from the bodie or when he said Consummatum est it is finished What was finished The work which he undertook and that was the Taking away of our sins or the work of our Redemption Now if this work were finished when our Saviour Christ said It is finished these Corinthians sins were taken away before Christs Resurrection And if sin by Christs death had been actually and utterly taken away our Apostles Inference in this place had been unsound none had remained in their sins albeit Christ had not risen again Sin then even the sins of the world were taken away by Christs death but not actually and utterly taken away If sin had been so taken away by Christs death there had been no such necessity of Christs Resurrection from the dead as our Apostle here presseth upon the Corinthians not as matter of Opinion but as a Fundamental Principle of Faith It remains then to be declared In what sense or how far sin was taken away by Christs death In what sense it hath been or how far it shall be taken away by his Resurrection 7. First then Christs death was a Ransome all-sufficient for the sins of the world the full price of redemption for all mankind throughout the world from the beginning to the end of it But did not many who died before Christ die in their sins They did yet He was promised to our first Parents To the end that even these might not die in their sins How these come to forfeit their Interest in the Promise made to Adam and to all that came after him That we leave to the Wisdom of God Of this we are sure That the Wisdom and Son of God did die for all men then living and for all that were to live after unto the worlds end And in as much as he dyed for all he is said to take away the sins of all that is he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all and purchased A General Pardon at his Fathers hands and he himself by dying became an universal inexhaustible soveraign Medicine for all sins that were then extant in the world or should be extant in man untill the worlds end So then by his death he took away the sins of the world in a Twofold Sense First In that he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all men Whatsoever sins were past could be no prejudice to any so they would imbrace Gods Pardon sealed by Christs death and proclaimed by his Apostles and Disciples after his death In this sense we may say The Kings General Pardon takes away all offences and misdemeanors against his Crown and Dignitie albeit many afterwards suffer for such Misdemeanors only because they do not sue out their Pardons or crave allowance of them Christ is said again to take away the sins of the world by his death in as much as by his death he became the universal and soveraign medicine for all mens sins But many dyed in Israel not because there was no Balm in Gilead as many do amongst us not so much for want of good Physick or soveraign Medicines as for want of will to seek for them in due time or for wilfulness in not using Medicines profered unto them So then it will not follow That no man dies in his sin since Christs Death Albeit we grant that the sins of all were taken away by his death For They were not so taken away as that men might not resume or take them again And the greatest condemnation which shall befal the world will be That when God had taken away their sins they would not part with their sins That when God would have healed them they would not be healed But had these Corinthians been any further from having their sins taken away by Christs death if Christ had truly died for them and yet but only died for them and not risen again Yes Though Christ had dyed for All yet all had died in their sins if He had only died and had not been raised again This Inference is expresly avouched by our Apostle in the 17 and 18 verses If Christ be not raised then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished and yet he supposeth that they believed in Christs Death But though the Inference be most true because avouched by our Apostle yet is it not Universally but Indefinitely true How far and in respect of what sins or in what degree of perishing it is true That is the Question 8. Christ was delivered saith the Apostle his meaning is He was delivered unto death for our sins and he was raised again for our Justification Rom. 4. 25. Are we then Otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then we are by His Death So our Apostles words import And if otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then by His Death Then are our sins Otherwise taken away by vertue of His Resurrection then by vertue of His Death they were taken away What shall we say then That Christs Death did not Merit all the benefits which God had to bestow upon us God forbid all this notwithstanding We do not receive
of this disease then such as cherish and pamper the sense of taste and touching What is the reason Daintiness of diet improves the capacitie of the sense of feeling and makes it more tender and so more apt to receive the impression of noisom humours and the same daintiness or excesse of delicate fare is more apt and forcible to breed plentie of forcible and peircing humours then courser fare or moderate dyet is For the same reason he whose sense of smelling or tast is by natural disposition of Bodie or by accustomance more subtle or accurate will be more offended with loathsome smells and nastie food then he which hath the same senses by a natural disposition more dull or more dis-used from delicate odours or daintie meats And a musical ear accustomed to melodious consorts will be more displeased with jarring or discording sounds then he which hath the same sense of hearing unpolished by Art or accustomed to ruder noises The more accurate a mans sight is by natural disposition or the more insight a man hath in the Art of limning or painting or the more accustomed he is to view fresh colours and proportions the more impatient he is to behold unsightly Objects or deformed prospects And according to the increase of unsightliness or ugliness in the object his offence or grief doth still grow and increase The Rule then is general That the discontent the grief or pain of every one of the five outward senses still accrues from the capacitie or aptitude of the sense to receive ingrateful impressions And from the potencie or efficacie of the Agent to make such impressions The same Rule holds as true in our internal faculties or senses A man by natural disposition of immoderate appetite for meat and drink is far more tormented with the same want of them then a moderate or less greedie appetite is And this sense which is none of the five hath this peculiar propertie that it is tormented with its own Capacitie without any agent or object to inflict pain upon it The meer want of food is more grievous to it then any positive pain that can befal it by any external Agents To a man again of a curious Phansie or accurate Judgment an ignorant or slovenly discourse is more unpleasant then to an illiterate man or to one of duller capacitie for wit To an ambitious or popular man the least touch of dis-esteem or jealousie of dis-respect is more bitter then an open affront or disgrace unto an honest upright heart which looks no way but one to that which leads to truth and honestie And he that labors to improve this appetite of honor or popular esteem doth but sollicit the multiplication of his own woes For seeing Honor est in Honorante honor is seated in them that do the honor not in them that are honored seeing popular applause depends upon the breath of the multitude the man that sets his mind upon it doth but as one that exposeth his naked body to the lash or scourge or at the best to others courtesie A man that much mindeth his gain and hath his senses exercised in cunning bargainings takes the loss of opportunitie or fair advantage to increase his wealth more deeply to heart then another man whose mind is weaned from the world doth his very want or penury So that though the want or loss of the one be much greater then the others yet the Capacitie of his appetite or desire of gain is much less and therefore no way so apt to receive the impression of discontentment or grief from the same occurrences or occasions which torment the other 6. Now to put all these together Let us suppose one and the same man to be immoderately desirous of worldly honors and riches And by this means of an extraordinary Capacitie for receiving all those parts of grief or sorrow which can accrue from loss of goods from contempt disgrace and scorn and yet withall as capable of and as much inclined to all the pleasures of bodily senses whereby his Capacitie of pain or torture may be improved to the uttermost Let us also suppose or imagine the same man to be daily exposed to all the temptations to all the vexations that his bodily senses or internal faculties are capable of from the occurrences or impressions of objects most ingrateful as to be daily cheated daily disgraced to have his eyes filled with ghastly sights his ears with hideous noises his smell cloyed with loathsome savours and his tast vexed with bitter and unpleasant meats or rather poison which cannot be digested and his sense of touch daily infested with deadly pain his appetite of meat and drink daily tormented with hunger and thirst And from a man in this woful estate and piteous plight we may take the surface or first dimension of the second death but not the Thicknesse or Soliditie of it That we must gather thus first by Negatives How capable soever a mans bodily senses may be of pain or pleasure or his internal faculties of joy or sorrow yet it is Generally true in this life Vehemens sensibile corrumpit sensum The vehemencie or excessive strength of the Agent or sensible Object doth corrupt or dead the sense Huge noises though in their nature not hideous or for qualitie not displeasing will breed a deafness in the ear And though light be the most grateful object that the eye can behold yet the too much gazing upon it or the admission of too much of it into the eye will strike it with blindness Long accustomance unto daintie meats doth dull the taste and take away the appetite Likewise too much cold or too much heat doth either dissolve or benumme the sense of feeling and a man may loose not the smelling onely but even the common sense or Animal Facultie by strong perfumes much more by loathsome and abominable smels There is not one of the five outward senses but if its proper object be too violent or too vehement may let in death to all the rest A man may be killed without a wound either at the eye or at the ear at the nose or at the mouth so he may be by the sense of hunger or thirst without any weapon or poison only by meer want of food The Gangrene or other like disease which works only upon the sense of touch or feeling brings many to an end without any forraign enemie Some have died a miserable death by close imprisonment in a nastie prison without violence to any other sense save only to the sense of smelling Many have died of surfets though of delicate and in their kind wholsome meats Regulus that famous Romane Senator did die as miserable a death as his enemies could devise against him without any other instrument of crueltie besides the force or strength of the most grateful object which the eye can behold that is of the sun unto whose splendent beams his eyes were exposed without the mask or
presence is of the two the worse And certain it is that it cannot be less seeing that Everlasting Life which is The Gift of God and Crown of holiness is at the least so much better as the second death or pains of hell are worse then this mortal life But if I mistake not the Members of this Distinction concerning the punishment of losse and the punishment of sense by pain are not altogether Opposite but Co-incident The very conceit or remembrance of this infinite loss and of their folly in procuring it cannot but breed an insufferable measure of grief and sorrow unto the damned which will be fully equivalent to all their bodily pain And this fretting remembrance and perpetual reflection upon the folly of their former wayes is as I take it That Worm of Conscience that never dies But of this hereafter The miserable estate of the damned or such as shall suffer the second death may be reduced to these two Heads to Punishment Essential or to Punishment Accidental or concomitant The Essential Punishment comprehends both Poena damni and Poena sensus The positive pains of that brimstone Lake and the Worm of Conscience which gnaweth upon their souls The Punishment Accidental or concomitant is that Loathsomnesse of the Region or place wherein they are tormented and of their Companions in these torments In this life that Saying is generally true Solamen miseris Socios habuisse doloris it is alwayes some comfort to have Consorts in our pain or distress But this Saying is out of date in the Region of death the more there be that suffer these pains the less comfort there is to every one in particular For there is no concord or consort but perpetual discord which is alwayes so much greater by how much the parties discording are more in number And to live in continual discord though with but some few is a kind of Hell on earth And thus much in brief of the second death wherein it exceeds the First 10. If any one that shall read this should but suspect or fear that God had inevitably ordained him unto this death or created him to no better end then to the day of wrath This very cogitation could not but much abate his love towards God Whom no man can truly love unless he be first perswaded That God is good and loving not towards his Elect only but toward all men towards himself in particular But this opinion of Absolute Reprobation or ordination to the day of wrath I pray may never enter into any mans brains But flesh and blood though not polluted with this Opinion will if not repine and murmur yet perhaps demur a while upon another Point more questionable to wit How it may stand with the Justice of the most righteous Judge to recompence the pleasures of sin in this life which is but short with such exquisite and everlasting torments in the life to come Specially seeing the pleasures of sin are but transient neither enjoyed nor pursued but by interposed Fits whereas the torments of that Lake are uncessantly perpetual and admit no intermission The usual Answer to this Quaere is That every sin deserves a punishment infinite as being committed against an infinite Majestie But seeing this answer hath no Ground or warrant from the Rule of Faith in which neither the Maxim it self is expresly contained nor can it be deduced thence by any good Consequence we may examine it by the Rule of Reason Now by the Rule of Reason and proportion the punishment due to offences as committed against an infinite Majestie should not be punishment infinite for time and duration but infinite for qualitie or extremitie of pain whiles it continues If every minute of sinful pleasures in this world should be recompenced with a thousand years of Hell-pains this might seem rigorous and harsh to be conceived of him that is as infinite in Goodness as in Greatness as full of Mercie as of Majestie But whatsoever our thoughts or wayes be his wayes we know are equal and just most equal not in themselves only but even unto such as in sobrietie of spirit consider them But wherein doth the equalitie of his wayes or justice appear when he recompenceth the momentany pleasures of sin with such unspeakable everlasting torments It appears in this That he sentenceth no creatures unto such endlesse pains but only such as he had first ordained unto an endlesse life so much better at least then this bodily and mortal life as the second death is worse then it Adam had an immortal life as a pledge or earnest of an eternal life in possession and had not lost it either for himself or us if he had not wilfully declined unto the wayes of death of which the righteous Judge had fore-warned him Now when life and death are so set before us as that Hold is given us of life to recompence the wilful choice of death with death it self this is most equal and just And if the righteous Lord had sentenced our first Parents unto the second death immediately upon their first transgression his sentence had been but just and equal their destruction had been from themselves Yet as all this had been no more then just so it had been less then justice moderated or rather over-ruled by mercie Now instead of executing justice upon our first Parents the righteous Lord did immediately promise a gratious redemption and as one of the Antients said Foelix peccatum quod talem meruit Redemptorem it was a happy sin which gave occasion of the promise of such a Redeemer 11. But did this extraordinary mercy promised to Adam extend it self to all or to Adam only or to some few that should proceed from him Our publick Liturgie our Articles of Religion and other Acts of our Church extend it to Adam and to all that came after him But how the Nations whom God as yet hath not called unto the light of his Gospel or whose fore-elders he did not call unto the knowledge of his Laws given unto Israel how either Fathers or Children came to forsake the mercies wherein the whole humane nature in our first Parents was interested is A Secret known to God and not fit to be disputed in particular This we are sure of in the General That God did not forsake them till they had forsaken their own mercies But for our selves All of us have been by Baptism re-ordained unto a better estate then Adam lost Now if upon our first second third or fourth open breach or wilful contempt of our Vow in Baptism the Lord had sentenced us unto everlasting death or given Satan a Commission or warrant to pay us the wages of sin this had been but just and right his wayes in this had been equal because our wayes were so unequal But now he hath so long time spared us and given us so large a time of repentance seeking to win us unto his love by many blessings and
you see how the terrour of the last day or fear of everlasting death must work in us an Abstinence from evil or repentance for evil past as the Hope of Everlasting Life doth work patience and constancie in persecution Yet both parts of that brief Receipt Sustine et Abstine may be effected by our serious meditation upon either branch of our belief concerning life and death everlasting For if all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of or equivalent unto the glory which shall be revealed in us we must needs be worthy of and obnoxious to everlasting death if we do not with patience suffer persecution in this life rather then hazard our hopes of Life Eternal Again if the sufferance of everlasting death be much worse then the suffering of all persecutions possible in this life our not repentance at the Terrour of it doth make us uncapable of everlasting life Our hopes of avoiding it by repentance if they be sound and firm will animate and in a manner impell us to follow the wayes of life to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance 4. Seeing then we are thus invironed on the right hand and on the left having the hopes of Eternal Life set before us to encourage us to constancy and resolution and are so strongly beset with inevitable fear of everlasting death if like faint hearted souldiers we should retreat or revoke our vow in Baptisme may not the Lord in Justice take up that complaint against us which sometimes he did against Jerusalem and Judah What could I have done more for my vineyard that I have not done unto it Other means to make men either good men or good Citizens the old world knew none nor could the wit of the wisest Law-givers devise any besides poena et praemium Reward and punishment Now what Kingdom or Common-wealth had either so bountiful Rewards or so dreadful punishments proposed unto them as we Christians have What then is the reason why we of all others are more defective in good duties most fruitful in evil lesse observant or more desperate transgressors of our Princes Lawes then the subjects or Citizens of any other well governed Kingdoms ever were how often do we pawn our hopes of everlasting life upon less occasions then Esau did his birth-right and set Christ our acknowledged Lord and Redeemer to sale at a lower price then Judas did The original of this our desperate neglect or contempt must either be misbelief or unbelief of the Reward promised to well doing or of the Punishment threatned to evil doers And it would be a point very hard to determine Whether of such as make any conscience of their wayes especially since the reformation of Religion more have miscarried through misbelief or through unbelief of this Great Article of our Creed Everlasting life and everlasting death Our Misbelief for the most part concerns the Article of everlasting life Of everlasting death we are rather unbelievers then misbelievers Misbelief alwayes includes a strong belief but the stronger our belief the more dangerous it is if it be wrested or misplaced and the worst way we can misplace our belief of heavenly joyes is when we make our selves certain of our salvation before our time or ranke our selves amongst the elect or heirs not disinheritable of the heavenly kingdom before we have made our Election sure 5. As the absolute infallibilitie of the present Romish Church doth make up the measure of heathenish Idolatry or iniquity So the immature belief of our own salvation or Election doth make up the measure of Jewish or Pharisaical Hypocrisie The manner how it doth so is this If no covetous if no sacrilegious person if no slanderer of his brethren or reviler of his betters can enter into the Kingdom of heaven as it is certain they cannot untill they repent then no man which is certain of his salvation can perswade himself or be perswaded that he is a covetous or sacrilegious person that he is a slanderer of his brethren or a reviler of his betters and hence the Conclusion arising from the Premisses is inevitable that albeit such men as presume of their Election or salvation before their time before they be throughly sanctified do all that covetous or sacrilegious men do be continual slanderers or malicious revilers of their brethren yet it is impossible that they should suspect much less condemn themselves of these crimes until they correct their former errours and rectifie their misbelief or presumption of their immutable estate in grace Yea their errour not being corrected makes them confident in these wicked practises and causes them to mistake hatred to mens persons or envy to others good parts for zeal to Religion and stubbornness in Schisme and faction for Christian charitie or good affection unto truth And if any man of better insight in the Stratagems of Satan shall go about to detect their error or convince them by strength of Reason grounded upon Scripture that their mis-perswasions do branch into Blasphemie and can bring forth no better fruit then Pharisaical hypocrisie yet they usually requite his pains as that young Spanish spark did the Physician which had well nigh cured him of a desperate Phrensie no sooner had he brought him to know what he was indeed no more then a Page though to a great Duke or Grandee of Spain but the Youth instead of a Fee or thankful acknowledgement began to revile and curse the Physician for bringing him out of a pleasant dream of golden mountains much richer then the King of Spain had any it seemed as a kind of hell unto him to see himself to be but a Page who in his raving fits had taken upon him to create Dukes and Earls and to exercise the Acts of Royal Authoritie Very much like him in Horace Epistol Libr. 2. Ep. 2. Fuit haud ignobilis Argis Qui se credebat miros audire Tragoedos In vacuo laetus sessor plausorque Theatro Hic ubi cognatorum opibus curisque refectus Expulit helleboro morbum bilemque meraco Et redit ad sese pol me occidistis amici Non servastis ait cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error But with the Originals of Mis-belief besides what is said in our Fifth Book of Comments upon the Creed in this particular we shall have fitter occasion to meet hereafter And the greater part of men amongst us I am perswaded offend more in Unbelief then in Mis-belief 6. And by Unbelief lest we should be mistaken we understand somewhat less then the lowest degree of Infidelity Now of Infidels there be two degrees or ranks Infideles Contradictionis and Infideles purae Negationis He is an Infidel in the former sense that contradicts or opposeth the truth of Scriptures especially concerning Everlasting Life and Everlasting Death and such Infidels I presume there are none amongst us He is an Infidel in the Later Sense that doth not believe the
Heaven and if those of Sardis were to walk with him in white robes Because they were Worthie The Controversie may seem Concluded That Good Works are meritorious of heavenly Ioyes or of Eternal Life 5. To the latter Objections or frame of Arguments drawn from these and the like places For I was an hungry and you gave me meat c. Calvin makes Answer That these and the like particles Quia Etenim For or Because do not alwayes import or denote The true Cause of things but sometimes only the Order or connexion betwixt them But However this may be True it is not so Punctuall but that Bellarmine and others take their advantage from it as having the Authoritie of the Grammer Rule against it For the particles used in all the places alleged by them are Conjunctions not Copulative or Connexive but Causal And it may seem harsh to say That some conjunction causal doth not import a causalitie It is true Yet sometimes they import no cause at all of the thing it self but onely of our knowledge of it Oft-times again they import no Efficacious causalitie of the thing it self but only Causam sine qua non that is some necessary means or condition without which the Prime and Principal cause doth not produce its Effect To give you examples or Instances of both these observations If there should come into This or the like Corporation A stranger who knowes not any Magistrate by sight he would say surely this is the chief Magistrate Because all others give place unto him because the Ensignes of Authoritie are carried before him Here the word Because must necessarily denote A true cause but not the cause why he is the chief Magistrate for that is only his true and just Election What cause doth it then denote The cause of his knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate Thus when we come to the knowledge of the cause by the Effect The effect is the cause of our knowledge of the cause As others giving place unto him or the carrying of the Ensignes of Authority before him is not the cause why this or that man is the chief Magistrate for the time being but rather his being the chief Magistrate is the cause why all others give him place and why the Ensignes of Authoritie are born before him Yet these and the like Effects are the true cause or reason of a strangers knowledge of him to be the chief Magistrate And by this Rule we are to interpret that saying of our Saviour many sins are forgiven her for she loved much In which speech it may not be denied but that the Particle For imports A true cause yet no cause of the thing it self to wit of her love For this were utterly to reverse or thwart our Saviours meaning which was no other then this That the forgivenesse of her sins was the cause of her love so was not her Love the cause of the forgiveness of her sins which by our adversaries confession being of Free Grace and of the First Grace which was bestowed upon her could not be merited or deserved Howbeit the manner of expressing of her loue by washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hairs was The true cause of every understanding or Observant mans knowledge that many sins were forgiven her and unlesse she had an apprehension of her manifold sins thus freely forgiven her she could not have loved him so much or made such expression of her Love 6. Sometimes again this Particle For or the like causal speech imports only a subordinate or instrumental cause or A necessary means or condition required without which the Positive the Principal and only efficacious cause especially if it work freely doth not produce its intended Effect To put the case home in this present business Suppose a great and potent Prince out of his own meer motion and free grace should proclaim a pardon to an Army of Traytors and Rebels which had in Justice deserved death if a man should ask What is the cause or reason why the Law doth not proceed against them no other cause could be assigned besides the gracious favour of the Prince But if one should further ask Why the pardon being freely promised to all the principal malefactors it may be are pardoned or restored to their blood or advanced to dignities whereas others which were included in the same pardon are exiled or put to death The speech would be proper and in its kinde Truly causal if we should say the one part submitted themselves and craved allowance of their pardon whereas the other stood out and rejected it For it is to be presumed that no Prince being able to quell his rebellious adversaries will suffer any to enjoy the benefit of a General Pardon how freely soever it be granted unlesse they submit themselves unto it and crave the benefit of it with such humility as becomes malefactors or men obnoxious Much lesse will he restore any to blood or advance them to dignities whom he knowes or suspects still to continue ill affected or disloyal in heart So then the not-submission or continuance in rebellion is The true and Positive Cause why the one sort enjoy no benefit of the General Pardon but are more severely dealt withall for rejecting the princes Grace then they should have been dealt withall if no Pardon had been granted The humble submission of the other and their penitence for their former misdeeds is Causa sine qua non that is a necessarie means or Condition without which the Prince how gracious soever would not suffer them to enjoy the benefit of their Pardon would not restore them to their blood would not advance them to greater dignities This is the very Case of Adam and all his sons All of us were Traytors and Rebels against the Great God and King of Heaven who is better able to quell the whole host of mankinde than any Prince his meanest Rebellious subjects yet it pleased him to pardon us more freely then any earthly Magistrate can do a malefactor If then the reason be demanded Why any of mankinde are saved Why they are restored unto their blood and advanced to greater dignitie then Adam in Paradise enjoyed no other true cause can be assigned of these Effects besides The meer grace and mercy of the Almighty Judge But if it be further demanded Why some of mankinde enjoy the benefit of this Pardon and inherit Eternal Life Why others are sentenced to everlasting death When as the free Pardon with its benefits were seriously and sincerely tendred to all The Answer is Orthodoxal and True Because some in true humilitie accepted of the Pardon and craved allowance of it whereas others rejected it and sleighted such Proclamations or significations of it as the God of mercy and compassion had given out not to this or that man only but To all the World So that the Omission of those good works which our Saviour mentions in the
the time of his imprisonment in Constantinople This Busbequius the Legate there for Ferdinand being requested by some of Sandeus's quondam followers now his companions in captivity to comfort their master by his letters tels us Ego recusabam quod mihi non ratio non oratio suppetebat quâ hominem tam graviter afflictum consolarer It is a true and lively Symptome of a great spirits temper whom the Lord begins to humble once subject to the Almighties discipline which the same Author hath observed upon this occasion Erat Sandeus ingentis spiritus vir spei abundans timoris nescius sed qui sunt hujusmodi ut omnia quae optant sperant sic post quam cuncta retrò ferri et contra animi sententiam evenire experiuntur Ita plerunque animis concidunt ut non sit facile ad aequitatem eos erigere 4. Pearls are precious and as he sayes cara auro contrà though such simple creatures as Aesops cock value them lower then a grain of barley And life at all times is sweet alwayes more worth then any pleasure wealth or honour unless that honour which cometh from God alone however haughty cock-brains or furious hot-spurs esteem it lighter then a puff of popular fame But besides the untimely losse of life or ordinary dread of violent or bloody death the manner how it is God grant we never know by experience but so assuredly it is That When the wrath of God once throughly kindles against any Land or people it puts an unusual terror upon the countenances of their enemies an unusual edge upon their swords It sharpens the sting of natural death and so envenomes the jawes and teeth of famine and his fellow messengers that the smart of their impressions or the mere terror of their threatnings becomes unsufferably grievous beyond all measure of former experience or precedent cogitation Nothing before hath been held so base whereunto greatest spirits will not then be fain to stoop Nothing so cruel or unnatural unto whose practise the mildest and lovingest natures will not be brought upon Condition yea upon Hope nay upon probable Presumption that they might become but half sharers in the Donative which is here bestowed on Baruch Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest Not the most womanish among the weaker sex in this whole Land but would presume of so much manlike resolution as by one means or other to lay down the wearisome burthen of an irksome life rather then she should be inforced to seek the preservation of it by killing them whom she had lately quickened or devouring their flesh whom she lately brought forth with sorrow and dayly fed with her own substance Suppose we then that those mothers of Jerusalem which re-intombed their sucking infants in their wombs were naturally more cruel and savage than other women ordinarily are No! The Lord himself hath fully acquitted them of this imputation The hands of the pittiful women saith the Prophet Lament 4. 10. have sodden their own children they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people And if women women of pitie in the time of War can thus bestrip themselves of all wonted bowels of compassion towards the tender off-spring of their wombes shall not the strong man put off his valour and the valiant forget to fight shall not flight be far from the swift and wisdom perish from the Politick It is the day of the Lords wrath saith the Prophet and who can stand who can abide it Not such as for any motion of fear have stood more immoveable then a rock whilst the strongest wals of their defence have been terribly shaken with the enemies shot The stronger their wonted confidence had been the greater their horrour and confusion when they shall discern the finger of God beginning once to draw the dismall lines of their disasterous Fates or when with Belshazzar they begin to read their Destinyes in visible but Transient and unknown Characters then feebleness wo and sorrow come upon the mightiest men as upon a woman in her travel breeding a dissolution in the loyns and causing their knees to smite one against another The terrors of War or other affrightments whereunto they have formerly been accustomed though oft-times very great did never appear more then finite because alwayes known in part But of these Panici terrores or Representations which usher Gods wrath in the day of vengeance that is most true which the Philosopher gives as the Reason why uncouth wayes seem alwayes long Ignotum quà ignotum infinitum est And as the the Kingdom of God so his judgements and the terrors which accompany them come not by Observation In respect of this sudden dread or un-observable terror wherewith the Almighty blasts their souls whom he hath signed to fearful destruction They may say of their adversaries most furious assaults as he did of his Antagonists most blustering words Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta ferox Dii me terrent et Iupiter hostis One while they shall seek for death but it will not be found of them Another while death shall present it self to them and they shall make from it and yet it in the very next moment wish they had entertained it And though life abide with them still yet shall it not be as a Prey unto them but as a Clogg their persons being exposed unto their enemies pleasure perpetually tortured either between vain hopes of escape and uncertain expectance of an ignominious doom or between their desires of speedy and gentle death and the lingering grievances of miserable and captived life In all these respects the Prophets Advice is good seek ye the Lord all the meek of the earth which have wrought his judgements seek righteousness seek lowlinesse if so be that you may be hid in the day of the Lords wrath 5. But be it true in Thesi That life in its naked substance is sweet That ingenuous Libertie though mixt with povertie is as a pleasant sauce to make it rellish better yet who shall perswade Baruch as The Case stands with him so to accept it Nay me thinks flesh and blood should regurgitate his former murmurings upon this motion made by Jeremy and interpret the Prorogation of his life as a fresh heap of sorrowes laid unto the burthen of griefs under which he fainted Profers made by earthly Princes must be respected by their followers though worth little in themselves for unto them Court holy-water must seem sweet although it have no smel of gain But shall the The King of Kings obtrude That as an Extraordinary blessing upon his poor distressed servant which had been adjudged as his own word bears Record for a bitter curse or grievious plague from which Two Kings the one of Israel the other of Judah were not exempted but upon great humiliation and penitent tears For was it not The word of the Lord which
Secondly There lies open a spacious field for such as affect to expatiate in Common Places or dilate upon that Old Maxim Laici semper sunt infensi Clericis to tax the inveterate enmity of secular men against the Clergie Whose violent out burstings into Prodigious Outrages did never more clearly appear then in the wicked suggestions of the Princes of Iudah unto infortunate King Joash against this Godly High-Priest Zechariah for his zeal unto the House and service of the God of their Fore-fathers But however the like prodigious cruelty had not been exemplified before this time yet in many later ages the Prelacie or Clergie have not come an inch short of these Lay-Princes in working and animating Kings and supream Magistrates to exercise like tyranny and oppressing cruelty not upon Laicks only but upon their Godly and religious Priests or inferior Clergie The Histories almost of all Ages and Nations since the death of Maurice the Emperor unto this last Generation will be ready to testifie whensoever they shall be heard or read more then I have said against the Romish Hierarchy whose continual practises have been to make Christian Kings the Executioners of their furious spleen against their own Clergie or neighbor Princes or to stirre up the rebellion of Lay-subjects against all such of their Leige-Lords or Soveraigns as would not submit themselves their Crowns and Dignities or which is more their Consciences unto Peters pretended Primacie The sum of all I have to say concerning this Point is This As there seldom have been any very Good Kings or extraordinary happy in their Government whether in the line of David or in Christian Monarchies without advice and assistance of a Learned and Religious Clergie so but a few have proved extremely bad without the suggestions of covetous corrupt or ambitious Priests So that the safest way for chief Governors is to keep as vigilant and strong Guards upon their own brests and consciences as they do about their bodies or palaces Now the special and safe guard which they can entertain for their souls and consciences is to lay to heart the Examples of Gods dealing with former Princes with the Kings of Judah especially according to the esteem or reverence or the dis-esteem which they did bear unto his Laws and Services 5. Another special meanes to secure even Greatest Monarches from falling into Gods wrath or revenging hand is not to hearken unto not to meditate too much upon or at least not to misconstrue a Doctrine very frequent in all Ages to wit That Kings and supreme Magistrates are not subject to the authority of any other men nor to the coercive authoritie of humane Laws The Doctrine I dare not I cannot in conscience deny to be most true and Orthodoxal And for the truth of it I can add one Argument more then usual That Gods judgments in all Ages or Nations have not been more frequently executed by Counter-passion or Retaliation upon any sort or state of men then upon Kings or Princes or greatest Potentates which pollute their Crowns and Dignities with innocent blood as King Joash did or with other like out-crying sins As if the most Just and Righteous Lord by innumerable Examples tending to this purpose would give the world to understand That none are fit to exercise Iurisdiction upon Kings or Princes besides himself and withall to instruct even Greatest Monarchs that their Exemption from all Controulment of humane Laws cannot exempt or priviledge them from the immediate judgement of his own hands or from the contrivance of his just punishments by the hands of others as by his instruments though his Enemies Agents I forbear to produce more instances of Divine Retaliation upon most Soveraign Princes besides this one in my Text which a bundantly justifieth both parts of my last Assertion or Observation Ioash as you heard before and may read when you please did more then permit did authorize or command the Princes of Iudah to murther their High-Priest Zachariah in the Court of the Lords House A prodigious liberty or licence for a King to Grant and more furiously executed by the Princes of Iudah his Patentees or Commissioners for this purpose And yet the most righteous Judge of all the world did neither animate nor authorize the Prophets Priests or Levites or other cheif men in this Kingdom to be the avengers of Blood or to execute judgement upon the King or Princes of Iudah This service in Divine Wisdom and Justice was delegated to the Syrians their neighbor Nation And the Hoast not by their own skill or contrivance but by the disposition of Divine Providence did Geometrically and exactly proportion the execution of vengeance to the quality and manner of the fact The Princes of Iudah who had murthered Zechariah in the Courts of the Temple of the Lords House were all destroyed by the Syrian Hoast in their own Land and the spoil of their Palaces sent unto the King of Damascus And King Ioash by whose authority Zechariah was stoned to death in his Pue or Pulpit after the Syrians had grievously afflicted him was slain in his own Palace upon the bed of his desired or appointed rest by the hands of two of his own servants yet neither of them by birth his native Subject the one the son of an Ammonitess the other of a Moabitess both the illegitimate off-spring of two of the worst sort of aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel In all this appears the special finger of God But though all this were done by Gods appointment yet may we no way justifie the conspiracy of Ioash his own servants against him though both aliens unless we knew what speciall warrant they had for the execution of Gods judgments which are alwayes most just However we have neither warrant nor reason to exclaim against them or their sins so farre or so much as by the warrant of Gods Word we might against the Princes of Iudah for the instigating of their lawful King or Liege-Lord to practice such prodigious cruelty as hath been exprest upon Zechariah the Lords High-Priest or against the disposition of the stiffe-necked Jewish Nation in general most perspicuous for the Crisis at that time 6. But to exclaim against the Princes or People of that Age we need not for their posterity hath amplified the cursed Circumstances of this most horrible Fact and charged these their fore-fathers with such a measure of iniquity as No Orator this day living without their directions or instructions could have done Septies in die cadit justus The just man fals seven times a day was an ancient and an authentick Saying if meant at all by the Author of it of sins and delinquences rather then of crosses and greivances which fall upon them or into which they fall was never meant of Grosser sins or transgressions But of that dayes work wherein Zechariah was slain these later Jews say Septem transgressiones fecit Israel in illo die I shall not over-English their
intended by Maldonate and others That the plagues here threatned by our Saviour must wholly be ascribed to the murthering of Him and his Apostles without any Reference to the slaughter of Gods Prophets The Infiniteness of the Person offended makes up but one and not the greatest Dimension in the body of sin the Soliditie or heynousness of it must be derived from another Root And though it be most true that every sin is an offence against an Infinite Majestie yet is He whose Majestie is Infinite in a manner infinitely more offended with some sinnes then with others 2. Ignorance of those great mysteries which we beleive and acknowledge did somewhat mitigate the Iews offences as personal against our Saviour and excuse their Persons a Tanto though not a Toto We speak the Wisdom of God which none of the Princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory 1 Cor. 2. 7 8. And again They of Jerusalem and their Rulers because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets they have fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. St. Peter hath avouched as much upon his own knowledge as St. Paul did in mitigation of these Jews offence And now brethren I wot that out of ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers Act. 3. verse 17. Some rigid Accuser of these hateful men would perhaps reply that they were ignorant through their own default All this being granted their fault lies properly in the true and immediate Cause of their Ignorance not in that ignorance which was no otherwise Cause of their actual murther then by not restraining their malice which first brought forth ignorance and then murther What then were the true and proper Causes of their malitious Ignorance Self-conceit of their own righteousness pride ambition covetousness unto all which as also to their obdurateness in all these and like enormities such partial apprehensions of their fathers idolatry and cruelty in killing the Prophets as we have of their hypocrisie and cruelty against Christ did concurre as Accessarie or Causes Collateral Being so much addicted to covetousness to pride and ambition and so self-conceited of their own righteousness in respect of other men it was impossible they should not do as they did These Collections to my apprehension are the same with that of our Saviour He that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God And this is their condemnation What That they went about to kill Christ No but that light is come into the world and men loved darkness rather then light But why did they so Because their deeds were evil For every one that doth evil hateth the light He that now is otherwise as evil as they were before Christ came would have hated him and his Disciples as much as they did and is as liable as they were to any punishment which they suffered for their trespasses against him Suppose he had come into the world in the dayes of Joash who put Zachariah to death done the same works used the same admonitions and reproofs to have recalled that headstrong generation from Idolatry which he did to reclaim the Scribes and Pharisees from their hypocrisie and malice Gods Prophets which knew their temper would not I am perswaded have been too forward to have been their Bails for much better behaviour towards their Lord and Master then they had shewed towards themselves his servants St. Stephen's Censure of this people from time to time Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost As your fathers did so do ye gives us occasion to suspect that they were sometimes afore Christs time so wicked as if he had come in their dayes they would have done as this later generation did But these have killed him De Facto Their sin notwithstanding is not hereby greater then theirs that would have been as forward to kill him if he had given them the like provocation For so his manifestation in the flesh should necessarily have made this later Generation worse then any former had been and God had dealt less graciously with them in presenting his Son unto them then with their wicked fathers which never had seen him But against these and the like necessary Consequences of the former Position our Saviour protests God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved John 3. 17. And this salvation was first out of love no doubt to be tendred unto Ierusalem and her children 3. The Issue of these Deductions in brief is this The Scribes and Pharisees did no way exceed their fathers in wickedness unless perhaps in Hypocrisie or unwillingness to be reclaimed Christ was a better Teacher then the Prophets were and unto us it is manifest that these Scribes and Pharisees which would not learn goodness of him were most wickedly wilful But whether more wicked or wilful then any of their fathers before or others that lived since that time have been is more then man can determine It must be left to his judgment which judgeth not as man doth by the Event but by clear sight of the heart For the same reason it cannot be resolved whether they that put our Saviour to death were greater sinners then King Ioash and his Princes Only this we know and must believe That these later did fill up the measure of their fore-fathers iniquity that the complement of their iniquity being come the vials of Gods wrath were poured more plentifully upon this last Generation then upon any former but should not have been so plentifully poured upon it unless Zacharias and the Prophets had been so desperately slain by their fathers And for any Argument that can be brought to the contrary had Christ been crucified when Zacharias was slain and Zacharias slain when he was crucified all other proper Circumstances of each Fact besides this change of time continuing the same it is probable from my Text That Gods judgments upon this Nation had been less in the former age then they were and more greivous more sudden and terrible in the later then are now recorded Nor can this Consequence be any whit prejudiced albeit we grant the practises of cruelty against our Saviour to have been seven hundred thousand times more heynous in themselves then any could have been attempted against Zacharias The destruction of our Saviours Enemies upon the first Arrest or shameless abuse of His sacred Body in justice might and without his Intercession perhaps would have been more sudden and dreadful then Sodoms was Obdurate pride unrelenting cruelty and general impenitencie for other foul sins as they concerned the Whole Trinity or were matter of sin against the Holy Ghost he could not remit or make intercession for them in the dayes of his flesh but is to call their Authors to strict account as he is the Judge
husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Matth. 21. Luke 20. Most men I doubt not understand the General meaning of the Parable And it is in effect the same with the Prophets Song of his Beloved concerning his vineyard Esay 5. 1. The one is as a Paraphrase upon the other The histories of this Nation from that time to this is as a full and just Commentary upon both The vineyard of the Lord of hoasts saith the Prophet v. 7. is the house of Israel and the men of Judah his pleasant plants And being reasonable plants they were also the husbandmen here meant The fruits looked for were Iudgment and in stead of it behold oppression righteousness and in lieu hereof behold a Cry These were wild grapes If any list to descend to more particulars By the fruitful hill wherein the vineyard was seated he may understand the hill of Sion or Jerusalem by the Tower the Temple By the hedge the fortifications of Hierusalem begun by David without which our Saviour who is the heir meant in the Gospel was crucified being sentenced to execution within the vineyard The judgment which the chief Priest and Elders gave against themselves was by the Prophet referred unto the Inhabitants of Hierusalem and men of Judah The Tenour of it is the same in the Prophet and the Evangelist I will tell you saith the Prophet what I will do to my vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be troden down And I will lay it waste and it shall not be pruned or digged But there shall come up briars and thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it That is Not whiles it remained in Judah whose mountains are now become like the mountains of Gilboah accursed for the slaughter of the King of Israel The execution of this Sentence was fitted to divers times in different measure according to their unfruitfulness or fertility in bringing forth wild grapes when good grapes were most expected More exactly parallel to the Parable as it is proposed by our Saviour we may besides all other particular diseases or distempers of this flourishing State observe Three principal Climacterical Seasons In the first and second it escapes very hardly and dies in the last The First we take from Zachariah's death a Season wherein God the men or Iudah being Judges might justly expect extraordinary fruit of his vineyard For Jehoiada the High-Priest father in Zachariah had lastly pruned and drest it re-ingrafting Joash as a forlorn Plant into the stock of David from which he had been for a while dis-planted by Athaliah the Queen Regent through whose cruelty all the rest of the Royal Branches utterly perished But instead of grapes the Princes bring forth wild grapes After the death of Jehoiada Came the Princes and made obeysance to the King who hearkened unto them And they left the House of the Lord and served groves So wrath came upon Judah for this trespass Yet he sent Prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord and they testified against them but they would not give ear After all this the Spirit of the Lord came upon Zachariah and he said unto them Thus saith God Why transgress ye the Lords Commandements that ye cannot prosper 2 Chron. 24. 17 22. He said no more then Moses their Law-giver had expressed in that Divine Song Deut. 32. which this people were to teach their children that it might be a witness against them Notwithstanding in despight of Moses Law and the Spirit of the Lord which emboldened Zachariah to preach it they confirm their desperate league with the Prophets blood that did disswade it Of those other Servants of the Lord sent unto them about the same time we may without breach of charity suspect one at least was beaten and another slain Because it is certain that Zachariah whose Father had deserved so well of King Princes and People of Judah was by the Kings appointment stoned to death And besides the Calamities of warre which befell the Land in the end of that year the Temple in which he died was by his dying curse designed to ruine and destruction It could not be purged from guilt of his guiltless blood but by that fire which in the next generation did devour it Yet before the approach of this Second Climacterical Season The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his Messengers rising up betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place But they mocked the Messengers of God despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose till there was no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16 17. 8. This affectionate description of Gods tender care and compassion in sending Prophets to reclaim them argues what Our Saviour expresseth in the Parable That he sent moe then before And in the age following Zachariah's death lived all the Prophets whose Prophecies are extant But unto all those though moe they did as they had done unto the former Isaiah as the Jews confess was slain by Manasses Uriah as you heard before was killed by Jehoiakim and Jeremiah sometimes beaten sometimes imprisoned perpetually abused during the reign of Iehoiakim and Zedekiah And so at length the plagues threatned and in part executed upon this people immediately after Zechariah's death are multiplied upon that wicked generation The Rod of Gods wrath is for fashion the same but now more sharp and terrible Their fathers had slain Zachariah in the Temple And for this sin not expiated but continued and approved at least by like practises of this Generation The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their Sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maidens old men or him that stoopeth for age he gave them all into his hand And all the vessels of the House of God great and small and the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his Princes all those he brought to Babylon 2 Chron. ch 36. v. 17 18. What are those but meer enlargements of the former calamities which ensued the Butchery of Zacharias which were these It came to pass in the revolution of the year that the hoast of Syria came up against Joash and they came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the Princes of the people from among the people and sent all the spoil of them unto the King of Damascus 2 Chron. 24. 23. Some principal particulars of the spoils here intimated are fully expressed 2 Kings 12. where the rest of this story is omitted And Jehoash King of Judah took all the hallowed things and all the gold found in the treasures of the House of the Lord and in the Kings house and sent it to Hazael King
in his time yet herein indued with wisdom in an higher rank then the stateliest Potentates are wont to trouble themselves withal in that he could so well foresee There was no counsel against the Lord whose Decrees concerning any Land or People then usually take place when as Posterity seeks earnestly by secular Policie to patch up the rents and breaches of a State decayed ruinate by the heavie burthen of their Predecessors sins Such was the temper of Iosiah's States-men Princes though his heart was of another metal and had been fashioned in another mold Wherefore the Book of the Law which had long laid buried is now risen out of the dust to proclaim Ierusalems downfal and Sions burial in her ashes And this sentence of the Law now found is ratified by the Prophetess Huldahs mouth Gods wrath shall presently be kindled against this place and shall not be quenched But unto good Josiah who sought the Prophetesses and not the Politicians advice is this sole comfort left To the King of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord so shall ye say unto him Because thine heart did melt and thou hast humbled thy self before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake against this place and against the Inhabitants of the same to wit that it should be destroyed and accursed and hast rent thy clothes and wept before me I have also heard it saith the Lord. Behold therefore I will gather thee to thy fathers and thou shalt be put in thy grave in peace and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place 2 King 22. 18. 8. But should not his righteousness have saved him Or is this to be put in his grave in peace to be slain by his enemies Yes this his burial was in peace in that he was buried in the Sepulchres of his Fathers and mourned for by all his people without the molestation of their enemies This was a blessing of peace which none of his Sons or Successors enjoyed For of them all not one but dies captive in the enemies Land or in their own without the decencie of Princely funerals And who knows Whether Iosiah's violent death was deserved by going to battel without the Lords advice Yea who knows whether the Lord did not thus suddenly take him away partly to prevent the increase of that disease wherewith no Prince of all the stock of Iudah but had been more or less infected and which now as it seemeth was growing on him All of them in their prosperity began to trade in secular Policie whose practise was Jerusalems ruine and Iudahs wreck howsoever right dear in the sight of the Lord was the death of this holy and religious King who if he had lived the longer should have died the oftner His Childrens and peoples sins are now full ripe for the sword and their vengeance hastens on so fast that either he must suddenly die or else see their manifold miseries farre worse then so many several deaths For what pangs would it have caused in his tender heart which melted even whilest the noise of Ierusalems curse did but approach his ears if his eyes should have beheld the flames of Gods fierce wrath devouring her gates and his ears had been filled with her woful out-cries in the dayes of mourning For Ieremie or Baruch two Prophets so poor that their fore-warnings of these miseries could not merit any credit with this politick generation to live and see the event was a blessing of God and bare life given them a bountiful prey But what benefit could so great a Prince have reaped by life What comfort in length of dayes to have seen the children of his loins born unto higher hopes then any Princes of the world besides either led captive into the enemies land or made a prey unto the birds of heaven in their own Much better an enemies arrow stick once for all fast in his side then that the sword should continually pierce thorow his soul whilst he should see his dearest people cut down like grass and Iudah the Lords inclosure laid open like a common field to their bordering enemies spoil and Ierusalem his hearts joy which the Lord had hedged and walled about laid waste like a forlorn vineyard whose grapes were wild and naught Yet such are the dayes which immediately ensue his death The Land is one while ransackt by the Egyptian another while made tributary to the Chaldean another while forraged by the Aramite Ammonite and Moabite until it was utterly laid waste For judgment is here begun already at the house of God and in godly Iosiah's fall might the ungodly Iudah read her Fatal Destiny registred in Characters of blood And doubtlesse at this his sudden unexpected end the execution of Gods fierce and violent wrath did begin Of the successive degrees whereof I shall God willing hereafter speak For the Manner of it I only note thus much now in general That not all the wisdom of their most Politick Enemies albeit the Lord had given them libertie to have plotted this peoples overthrow at their pleasure could have invented so readie and sure a course for their swift destruction as this people themselves in great Policie to their seeming still make choice of Not one project which they can forecast but proves an inevitablegin to intrap themselves and is as a fatal snare unto their owne feet 9. First good Josias without Warrant from God or his Prophets advice thinks it in Policie the safest course to assault the Egyptian in the confines of his Country lest afterwards he should be enforced to defend himselfe upon harder termes nearer to the heart of Judah from his Enemie strengthned with the spoile of her borders so jealous he is of Nechoh's purpose which meant him no harm that his word will not serve him for warrant albeit his words as the Text saith were from the mouth of God The issue of his policie is that he himself is slain and Pharaoh Nechoh by this his unseasonable provocation took a fair pretence of invading the Land after his death and condemns it in an hundred talents of Silver and a talent of gold And for the effecting of this his purpose the people themselves had given occasion for they no doubt out of some politick purpose had preferred the * younger brother Iehoahaz to the Kingdom who poor Caitiff in stead of swaying Davids Scepter in the promised Land is after three months space led Captive in chains like a Bond-slave into Egypt whence the Lord had redeemed the meanest of this peoples forefathers So contrary hath Iudah been in all her courses that all the glorious hopes of Davids Line run backwards So farre is the Calendar of Ierusalems good dayes run out of date such are the revolutions of times that this Light which they had set up for David hath taken darkness for its habitation The Sun of their Comfort is set before it came to the
Meridian and runs away out of their Hemisphere And in his stead a Comet ariseth out of Egyptian exhalations which portends nothing but war and blood This is Jehoiakim whom Pharaoh Nechoh which slew his father hath now appointed to be King over this people for his purpose the successe of whose Raign in general the people might well prognosticate by his life and manners the Epitome of which Iosephus lib. 10. cap. 5. hath given very pithily in two words He was neither religious towards God nor just towards men And yet besides this his natural disposition was particularly incensed against this people for preferring his younger brother to the Crown and so more ready to wreak his spite by reason of his dependance upon the Egyptian out of whose Country he had the Prophet Uriah brought to satiate his thirst of blood Jer. 26. 23. which bloodie Fact of his and the like with their like successe is the train I have pursued in these present Meditations I will conclude them with that of Solomon Prov. 28. 2. For the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof And of Iudah never a good one after Iosiah such they were as might serve to scourge this people until they were cast like Vagabonds and unprofitable Members out of that City and Land which had bred them 10. Thus you see Gods largest Promises have their limits greatest prosperity hath a period and mightiest Kingdomes have their fall You have likewise seen how for the uncircumcised hearts of this people is he slain by uncircumcised hands who had so throughly cleansed Ierusalem and Iudah from all the abominations of the Heathen The Heroical attempts of whose Princely resolution and zeal in restoring the true worship of God unto this people needs not mine it hath the commendations of Gods Spirit who hath been curious in calculating his particular good deeds throughout this Chapter to have been matchless in Davids Race and how then possible to be parallell'd in any other Princes Line And what If through the religious care and industrie of some one or two Princes whom the Lord in mercie had raised up as Lights unto this Land the foggie mists of Superstition Heresie and Idolatry be driven hence This is an Infallible testimonie of Gods former love unto our forefathers no sure Document of our continuance in his favour if yet this Land and People may be taken in the very manner of those capital Crimes which did condemn Iudah his first-born amongst the Nations in the dayes of good Iosiah even whilest it was acquitted from profession of Idolatrie and Superstition What shall it avail us that those forrain hungrie Hell-hounds which brought Commissions of Charter Warrant for hunting out the good things of this Land and made this people a prey for maintenance of the many-headed beast have been long time prohibited to continue their wanted raunge if the Princes which are left within her be as roaring Lions and her Judges as wolves in the evening which leave not the bones until the morrow What availes it that the secular Priests and Jesuite are would God they were transported out of this Land if her owne Prophets be light and wicked persons and her Priests pollute the Sanctuary and wrest the Law Or what shall it avail us that the Light of the Gospel doth shine amongst us if the just Lord be in the midst of us and every morning bring forth judgment unto light and fail not and yet the wicked will not learn to be ashamed Or what avails it that we have cast off all blind obedience to the Sea of Antichrist if we will not suffer Gods providence to be a Rule and Christs word a Light unto our paths but walk on still in the wayes of the heathens making secular observations our chief confidence and worldly policie our greatest trust Or what avails it to have purged our hearts from all conceit of merit if we pollute our hands with bribes Or what availes it to give God the glory in all good actions and yet daily dishonor his name with bad dealings I will speak more plainly What advantageth it us to object unto the Papists that they seek to merit heaven by their works and share with God in the honour of good deeds if they can truly reply upon us That the free Almes of Papists Founders have been by Protestants set on sale unto their brethren Or that secular Appendices and Alliance of Spiritual men devour a great part of that liberal maintenance which was allotted only for Prophets and Prophets children 11. Beloved in our Lord were we our selves without sin without these enormous sins which I have mentioned all of us might freely attempt to stone that filthy Whore and all her foul Adulterers unto death But such of us as seek most to purge the Land of them and seek not withal to cleanse our own hearts of those sins which have procured Gods wrath against it may justly dread lest we find no better success then good Josiah did to provoke the enemie to do more mischief then haply they meant Mistake me not I beseech you as though I misliked such as sollicite severitie against that Nation yet cannot I hope but some will be as jealous of me as these Iews of Iosiah's and Jehoiakim's dayes were alwayes of the Prophet Jeremy whose footsteps I have resolved to follow through good and bad report Give me leave to explain my meaning thus As from my heart I reverence their religious labors who have of late so effectually stirred up our Sovereignes heart to this purpose and earnestly request your heartie prayers unto Almighty God that his Holy Spirit may continually enflame his royal heart with those good motions which have been kindled in it of late so do I desire from the very centre of my soul both that men of place Authoritie Gravitie Learning and Integritie of life may prosecute it and that young Divines whether young in years or manners it skills not would oftentimes even for Sions sake hold their peace or at least be wary where and when they open their mouths in this argument For he that looks into the temper of this present people with a discreet religious not with a turbulent factious eye may easily discerne that many ill tempered and extravagant invectives against Papists made by men whose Persons wanting Authoritie as much as their speeches do Reason do nothing else but set an edge upon our Adversaries sword whilst the light behaviour and bad example of the Inveighers life infuseth courage to their hearts and addeth strength unto their armes In one word Many of our words in this place increase the wrath and many of our lives out of this place increase the number of that Faction 12. Though all of us by Profession are Christs Soldiers yet every Soldier is not fit for any service Albeit I discourage no man I only advise that every man that means to be a valiant Soldier in Christ and would do his
fruit whereby they sought to be like him in Majestie Conscious of this transgression the first Actors immediately hid themselves from his presence And as if this their terror had imprinted a perpetual Antipathy in their posteritie the least glympse of his glory for many generations after made them cry out Alas we shall dye because we have seen the Lord. We stil continue like the off-spring of tame Creatures growen wild alwayes eschewing his presence that seeks to recover us as the Bird doth the Fowler or the beasts of the Forrest the sight of fire And yet unless he shelter us under the shadow of his wings we are as a prey exposed to the destroyer already condemned for Fewel to the flames of hell or as nutriment to the brood of serpents To redeem us from this everlasting thraldome our God came down into the world disguised in the similitude of our flesh made as a stale to allure us with wiles into his net that he might draw us with the cords of Love The depth of Christs humiliation was as great as the difference between God and the meanest man therefore truly infinite He that was equal with God was conversant with us here on earth in the form and condition of a servant But of servants by birth or civil constitution many live in health and ease with sufficient supplies of all things necessary for this life So did not the Son of God his humanitie was charged with all the miseries whereof mortality is capable subject to hunger and thirst to temptations revilings and scornings even of his servants an indignitie which cannot befal slaves or vassals either born or made so by men Or to use the Prophets words He bare mans infirmities not spiritually only but bodily For who was weak and he was not weak Who was sick and he whole No malady of any disease cured by him but was made his by exact and perfect sympathie Lastly He bare our sinnes upon the Crosse and submitted himself to greater torments then any man in this life can suffer And although these were as displeasant to his humane Nature as to ours yet were our sins to him more displeasant As he was loving to us in his death so was he wise towards himself and in submitting himself to this ignominious and cruel death did of two evils chuse the lesse Rather to suffer the punishment due to our sins then to suffer sin stil to reign in us whom he loved more dearly then his own life If then we shall continue in sin after manifestation of this his Love the heinousnesse of our offence is truly infinite in as much as we do that continually which is more distasteful to our gracious God then any torments can be to us So doing we build up the works of Satan which he came purposely to destroy For of this I would not have you ignorant that albeit the end of his death was to redeem sinners yet the only means predestinated by him for our Redemption is destruction of the works of Satan and renovation of his Fathers Image in our souls For us then to re-edifie the works of Satan or abett his Faction is still more offensive to this our God then was his Agony and bloodie Sweat For taking a fuller measure of our sins let us hereunto adde his patient expectation of his enemies Conversion after his Resurrection 15. If the son of Zaleucus before mentioned should have pardoned any as deeply guilty as himself had been of that offence for which he lost one eye and his Father another the world would have taxed him either of injustice folly or too much facility rather then commended him for true Justice or Clemencie But that we may know how far Gods Mercie doth over-beare his Majestie he proceeds not straight way to execute vengeance upon these Jewes which wreaked their malice upon his deare and only Son who had committed nothing worthy of blame much lesse of death Here was matter of wrath and indignation so just as would have moved the most merciful man on earth to have taken speedy vengeance upon these Spillers of innocent blood specially the Law of God permitting thus much But Gods mercy is above his Law above his Justice these did exact the very abolition of these sinners in the very first act of sin committed against God made man for their redemption Yet he patiently expects their repentance which with unrelenting fury had plotted his destruction Forty yeers long had he been grieved with this generation after the first Passeover celebrated in sign of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage and for their stubbornesse he swore they should not enter into his rest And now their posterity after a more glorious deliverance from the Powers of darknesse have fortie yeers allotted them for repentance before they be rooted out of the Land of Rest or Promise Yet hath not the Lord given them hearts to perceive eyes to see or ears to hear unto this day because seeing they would not see nor hearing they would not hear but hardened their hearts against the Spirit of Grace Lord give us what thou didst not give them hearts of flesh which may melt at thy threats ears to hear the admonitions of our peace and eyes to foresee the day of our visitation that so when thy wrath shall be revealed against sin and sinners we may be sheltred from stormes of fire and brimstone under the shadow of thy wings so long stretched out in mercie for us Often O Lord wouldst thou have gathered us and we would not But let there be we beseech thee an end of our stubborn ingratitude towards thee no end of thy mercies and loving kindness towards us Amen CHAP. XLVI HEER 4. verse 12 13. For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper then any two edged Sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit and of the joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Neither is there any Creature that is not manifest in his sight but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do 1. IF a meer Artist altogether unacquainted with the Mysteries contained in Scripture or with the drift on scope of this Epistle should have dipt upon this Text he would have thought the Author of it had intended some Copia Verborum or Poetical Sylva of Epithites the words be so many and so ponderous And yet there be as many several Propositions almost as there be words And of all these Propositions or this weighty structure of words the Foundation or Subject is but One to wit The WORD OF GOD. About the Attributes or Epithites of This Word though these be many there is no difficultie or matter worthy of any disquisition which is not meerly Verbal or Grammatical The Subject though but One admits or rather requires many Disquisitions all truly Theological worthy the search or paines of a true