compelled to come as it is expressed in the Gospell when the Master of the feast sends into the streets and to the hedges to compell blind and lame to come in to his feast A fountaine breaks out in the wildernesse but that fountaine cares not whether any Man come to fetch water or no A fresh and fit gale blowes upon the Sea but it cares not whether the Mariners hoise saile or no A rose blowes in your garden but it calls you not to smell to it Christ Jesus hath done all this abundantly he hath bought an Hospitall he hath stored it with the true balme of Palestine with his bloud which he shed there and he calls upon you all to come for it Hoe every one that thirsteth you that have no money come buy Wine and Milke without money eate that which is good and let your soules delight in fatnesse and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you even the sure mercies of David This Hospitall this way and meanes to cure spirituall diseases was all that Christ had for himselfe but he improved it he makes it a Church and a glorious Church which is our last consideration Quis sinis to what end he bestowed all this cost His end was that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle but that end must be in the end of all here it cannot be Cum tot a dicat ecclesia quamdiu hîc est Dimitte debita nostra non utique hîc est sine macula et ruga Since as yet the whole Church says forgive us our Trespasses the Church as yet is not without spots or wrinkles The wrinkles are the Testimonies of our age that is our sinne derived from Adam and the spots are the sinnes which we contract our selves and of these spots and wrinkles we cannot be delivered in this world And therefore the Apostle says here that Christ hath bestowed all this cost on this purchase ut sisteret sibi Ecclesiam that he might setle such a glorious and pure Church to himselfe first ut sisteret that he might setle it which can onely be done in heaven for here in Earth the Church will always have earthquakes Opartet haereses esse stormes and schismes must necessarily be the Church is in a warfare the Church is in a pilgrimage and therefore here is no setling And then he doth it ut sisteret sibi to setle it to himselfe for in the tyranny of Rome the Church was in some sort setled things were carried quietly enough for no Man durst complaine but the Church was setled all upon the Vicar and none upon the Parson the glory of the Bishop of Rome had eclipsed and extinguished the glory of Christ Iesus In other places we have seen the Church setled so as that no man hath done or spoken any thing against the government thereof but this may have been a setling by strong hand by severed discipline and heavy Lawes we see where Princes have changed the Religion the Church may be setled upon the Prince or setled upon the Prelates that is be serviceable to them and be ready to promote and further any purpose of theirs and all this while not be setled upon Christ this purpose ut sisteret sibi to setle such a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle holy to himselfe is reserved for the Triumphant time when she shall be in possession of that beauty which Christ foresaw in her long before when he said Thou art all faire my love and there is no spot in thee and when we that shall be the Children of the Mariage Chamber◠shall be glad and rejoice and give glory to him because the Mariage of the Lambe is come and his wife hath made her selfe ready that is we that are of that Church shall be so clothed as that our own clothes shall not defile us againe as Io◠complaines that they doe as long as we are in this world for though I make me never so cleane yet mine own clothes defile me againe as it is in that place But yet Beloved Christ hath not made so improvident a bargaine as to give so great a rate himselfe for a Church so farre in reversion as till the day of Judgement That he should enter into bonds for this payment from all eternity even in the eternall decree between the Father and him that he should really pay this price his precious bloud for this Church one thousand six hundred years agoe and he should receive no glory by this Church till the next world◠Here was a long lease here were many lives the lives of all the men in the world to be served before him But it is not altogether so for he gave himselfe that he might settle such a Church then a glorious and a pure Church but all this while the Church is building in heaven by continuall accesse of holy Soules which come thither and all the way he workes to that end He sanctifies it and cleanses it by the washing of water through the word as we find in our Text. He therefore stays not so long for our Sanctification but that we have meanes of being sanctified here Christ stays not so long for his glory but that he hath here a glorious Gospell his Word and mysterious Sacraments here Here then is the writing and the Seale the Word and the Sacrament and he hath given power and commandement to his Ministers to deliver both writing and Seale the Word and Baptisme to his children This Sacrament of Baptisme is the first It is the Sacrament of inchoation of Initiation The Sacrament of the Supper is not given but to them who are instructed and presum'd to understand all Christian duties and therefore the Word if we understand the Word for the Preaching of the Word may seeme more necessary at the administration of this Sacrament then at the other Some such thing seems to be intimated in the institution of the Sacraments In the institution of the Supper it is onely said Take and eate and drinke and doe that in remembrance of me and it is onely said that they sand a Pslame and s◠departed In the institution of Baptisme there is more solemnity more circumstance for first it was instituted after Christs Resurrection and then Christ proceeds to it with that majesticall preamble All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth◠and therefore upon that title he gives power to his Apostles to joine heaven and earth by preaching and by baptisme but here is more then singing of a Psalme for Christ commands them first to teach and then to baptize and then after the commandement of Baptisme he refreshes that commandement againe of teaching them whom they baptized to observe all things that he had commanded them I speake not this as though Baptisme were uneffectuall without a Sermon S. Angustines words Accedat yerbum fiat Sacramentum when the Word is
was come and gone for so much as belonged to the accomplishing of the types of the old law then Christ came againe to us by water and bloud in that wound which he received upon his side from which there flowed out miraculously true water true bloud This wound Saint Augustine calls Ianuam utriusque Sacramenti the doore of both sacraments where we see he acknowledges but two and both presented in this water and bloud and so certainely doe most of the fathers make this wound if not the foundation yet at least a sacrament of both the sacraments And to this water and bloud doth the Apostle here without doubt aime principally which he onely of all the Evangelists hath recorded and with so great asseveration and assurednesse in the recording thereof He that saw it bare record and his record is true and he knoweth that he saith truth that yee might beleeve it Here then is the matter which these six witnesses must be beleeved in here is Integritas Iesu quae non solvenda the intirenesse of Christ Jesus which must not be broken That a Saviour which is Iesus appointed to that office that is Christ figured in the law by ablutions of water and sacrifices of bloud is come and hath perfected all those figures in water and bloud too and then that he remaines still with us in water and bloud by meanes instituted in his Church to wash away our uncleannesses and to purge away our iniquities and to apply his worke unto our Soules this is Integritas Iesu Iesus the sonne of God in heaven Jesus the Redeemer of man upon earth Jesus the head of a Church to apply that to the end this is Integritas Iesu all that is to be beleeved of him Take thus much more that when thou comest to hearken what these witnesses shall say to this purpose thou must finde something in their testimony to prove him to be come not onely into the world but into thee He is a mighty prince and hath a great traine millions of ministring spirits attend him and the whole army of Martyrs follow the Lambe wheresoever he goes Though the whole world be his Court thy soule is his bedchamber there thou maist contract him there thou maist lodge and entertaine Integrum Iesum thy whole Saviour And never trouble thy selfe how another shall have him if thou have him all leave him and his Church to that make thou sure thine owne salvation When he comes to thee he comes by water and by bloud If thy heart and bowels have not yet melted in compassion of his passion for thy soule if thine eyes have not yet melted in tears of repentancâ— and contrition he is not yet come by water into thee If thou have suffered nothing for sinne nor found in thy selfe a chearfull disposition to suffer if thou have found no wresting in thy selfe no resistance of Concupiscences he that comes not to set peace but to kindle this war is not yet come into thee by bloud Christ can come by land by purchases by Revenues by temporall blessings for so he did still convey himselfe to the Jewes by the blessing of the land of promise but here he comes by water by his owne passion by his sacraments by thy tears Christ can come in a mariage and in Musique for so he delivers himselfe to the spouse in the Canticles but here he comes in bloud which comming in water and bloud that is in meanes for the salvation of our soules here in the militant Church is the comming that he stands upon and which includes all the Christian Religion and therefore he proves that comming to them by these three great witnesses in heaven and three in earth For there are three which beare record in heaven The Father the word and the holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three which bear record in the earth The spirit and the water and the bloud and these three agree in one By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed says Christ out of the law That 's as much as can be required in any Civill or Criminall businesse and yet Christ gives more testimony of himselfe for here he produces not Duos testes but Duas Classes two rankes of witnesses and the fullest number of each not two but three in heaven and three in earth And such witnesses upon earth as are omni exceptione majores without all exception It is not the testimony of earthly men for when Saint Paul produces them in abundance The Patriarch the Iudges the Prophets the elders of the old times of whom he exhibits an exact Catalogue yet he calls all them but Nubes testium cloudes of witnesses for though they be cloudes in Saint Chrysostomes sense that they invest us and enwrap us and so defend us from all diffidence in God we have their witnesse what God did for them why should we doubt of the like though they be cloudes in Athanasius sense they being in heaven showre downe by their prayers the dew of Gods grace upon the Church Though they be cloudes they are but cloudes some darkenesse mingled in them some controversies arising from them but his witnesses here are Lux inaccessibilis that light that no eye can attaine to and Pater Luminum the father of lights from whom all these testimonies are derived When God imployed a man to be the witnesse of Christ because men might doubt of his testimony God was content to assigne him his Compurgators when Iohn Baptist must preach that the kingdome of God was at hand God fortifies the testimony of his witnesse then Hic enim est for this is he of whom that is spoken by the prophet Esay and lest one were not enough he multiplies them as it is written in the prophets Iohn Baptist might be thought to testifie as a man and therefore men must testifie for him but these witnesses are of a higher nature these of heaven are the Trinity and those of earth are the sacraments and seales of the Church The prophets were full of favor with God Abraham full of faith Stephen full of the Holy Ghost many full of grace and Iohn Baptist a prophet and more then a prophet yet never any prophet never any man how much soever interessed in the favor of Almighty God was such an instrument of grace as a sacrament or as Gods seales and institutions in his Church and the least of these six witnesses is of that nature and therefore might be beleeved without more witnesses To speake then first of the three first the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost it was but a poore plot of the devill to goe about to rob us of their testimony for as long as we have the three last the spirit the water and bloud we have testimony enough of Christ because God is involved in his ordinance and though he be not tyed to the worke of the
all that belonged to our faithâ— All consists in this that he was Iesus capable in his nature to be a Saviour that he was Christus ordained and sent for that office and then Quod venit that be was come and come in aqus sanguine in water and bloud in sacraments which might apply him to us That he was Iesus a person capable his miracles testified aloud and frequently that he was Christ anointed and sent for that his reference of all his actions to his Father testified both these were enwrapped in that that he was the Sonne of God and that he professed himselfe upon the earth to be so for so it appeares plainely that he had plainely done We have a law say the Jews to Pilate and by our law he ought to die because he made himselfe the Sonne of God And for the last part that he came In aqua sanguine in water and bloud in such meanes as were to continue in the Church for our spirituall reparation and sustentation he testified that in preaching so piercing Sermons in instituting so powerfull Sacraments in assuring us that the love of God expressed to mankind in him extended to all persons and all times God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Sonne that whoseever beleeveth in him should not perish but have life everlasting And so the words beare record De Integritate of this Intirenesse of the whole worke of our Redemption and therefore Christ is not onely truely called a Martyr in that sense as Martyr signifies a witnesse but he is truly called a Martyr in that sense as we use the word ordinarily for he testified this truth and suffered for the testimony of it and therefore he is called Jesus Christ Martyr a faithfull witnesse And there is Martyrium a Martyrdome attributed to him where it is said Jesus Christ under Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession so he was a speaking and a doing and a suffering witnesse Now for the third witnesse in heaven which is the holy Ghost we may contract our selves in that for the whole work was his Before Ioseph and Mary came together she was found with Child of the holy Ghost which if we take it as Saint Basil and divers others of the Fathers doe that Ioseph found it by the holy Ghost that is the holy Ghost informed him of it then here the holy Ghost was a witnesse to Ioseph of this Conception but we rather take it as it is most ordinarily taken that the Angell intimated this to Ioseph That that which was conceived in her was of the holy Ghost and then the holy Ghost did so primarily testifie this decree of God to send a Iesus and a Christ for our Redemption that himselfe was a blessed and bountifull actor in that Conception he was conceived by him by his overshadowing So that the holy Ghost did not onely testifie his comming but he brought him And then for his comming in Aqua sanguine in water and bloud that is in Sacraments in meanes by which he might be able to make his comming usefull and appliable to us first the holy Ghost was a pregnant witnesse of that at his Baptisme for the holy Ghost had told Iohn Baptist before-hand That upon whomsoever he should descend and tarry still that should be he that should baptize with the holy Ghost and then according to those Markes he did descend and tarry still upon Christ Iesus in his baptisme And after this falling upon him and tarrying upon him which testified his power in all his life expressed in his doctrine and in his Sermons after his death and Resurrection and Ascension the holy Ghost gave a new testimony when he fell upon the Apostles in Cloventongues and made them spirituall channells in which this water and bloud the meanes of applying Christ to us should be convey'd to all Nations and thus also the third witnesse in heaven testified De integritate of this intirenesse of Iesus Of these three witnesses then which are of heaven we shall need to adde no more but that which the text addes that is That these three are one that is not onely one in Consent they all testifie of one point they all speake to one Intergatory Ad integritatem Christi to prove this intirenesse of Christ but they are Vnum Essentia The Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost are all one Godhead and so meant and intended to be in this place And therefore as Saint Hierome complained when some Copies were without this seventh verse that thereby we had lost a good argument for the unity of the three Persons because this verse said plainely that the three witnesses were all one so I am sorry when I see any of our later expositors deny that in this place there is any proofe of such an unity but that this Vnum sunt They are one is onely an unity of consent and not of essence It is an unthrifty prodigality howsoever we be abundantly provided with arguments from other places of Scriptures to prove this Vnity in Trinity to cast away so strong an argument against Iew and Turke as is in these words for that and for the consubstantiality of Christ which was the Tempest and the Earthquake of the Primitive Church raised by Arius and his followers then and God knowes not extinguished yet Thus much I adde of these three witnesses that though they be in heaven their testimony is upon the earth for they need not to testifie to one another this matter of Jesus The Father heares of it every day by the continuall intercession of Christ Jesus The Sonne feeles it every day in his new crucifying by our sinnes and in the perfecution of his Mysticall body here The holy Ghost hath a bitter sense of it in our sinnes against the holy Ghost and he hath a loving sense of it in those abundant seas of graces which flow continually from him upon us They need no witnesses in heaven but these three witnesses testifie all this to our Consciences And therefore the first author that is observed to have read and made use of this seventh verse which was one of the first Bishops of Rome he reads the words thus Tres in nobis there are three in us which beare witnesse in heaven they testifie for our sakes and to establish our assurance De Integritate Iesu that Jesus is come and come with meanes to save the world and to save us And therefore upon these words Saint Bernard collects thus much more that there are other witnesses in heaven which restifie this worke of our Redemption Angels and Saints all the Court all the Quire of heaven testifie it but catera nobis occults says he what all they doe we know not but according to the best dispositions here in this world we acquaint our selves and we choose to keep company with the best and so not onely the poore Church s the earth
will confesse many fleshly infirmities and then it is the sounder for that though not for the infirmity yet for the confession of the infirmity Neither let that hand that reaches out to this body in a guiltinesse of pollution and uncleannesse or in a guiltinesse of extortion or undeserved see ever hope to signe a conveyance that shall fasten his inheritance upon his children to the third generation ever hope to assigne a will that shall be observed after his death ever hope to lift up it selfe for mercy to God at his death but his case shall be like the case of Iudas if the devill have put in his heart to betray Christ to make the body and bloud of Christ Jesus false witnesses to the congregation of his hypocriticall sanctity Satan shall enter into him with this sop and seale his condemnation Beloved in the bowels of that Jesus who is coming into you even in spirituall riches it is an unthrifty thing to anticipate your monies to receive your rents before they are due and this treasure of the soule the body and bloud of your Saviour is not due to you yet if you have not yet passed a mature and a severe examination of your conscience It were better that your particular friends or that the congregation should observe in you an abstinence and forbearing to day and make what interpretation they would of that forbearing then that the holy Ghost should deprehend you in an unworthy receiving lest as the Master of the feast said to him that came without his wedding garment then when he was set Amice quomodo intrâsti friend how came you in so Christ should say to thee then when thou art upon thy knees and hast taken him into thy hands Amice quomodo intrabo friend how can I enter into thee who hast not swept thy house who hast made no preparation for me But to those that have he knocks and he enters and he â—ups with them and he is a supper to them And so this consideration of making Churches of our houses and of our hearts leads us to a third part the particular circumstances in Iacobs action In which there is such a change such a dependence whether we consider the Metall or the fashion the severall doctrines or the sweetnesse and easinesse of raising them as scarce in any other place a fuller harmony The first linke is the Tunc Iacob then Iacob which is a Tunc consequentiae rather then a Tunc temporis It is not so much at what time Iacob did or said this as upon what occasion The second linke is Quid operatum what this wrought upon Iacob It awaked him out of his sleep A third is Quid ille what he did and that was Et dixit he came to an open profession of that which he conceived he said and a fourth is Quid dixit what this profession was And in that which is a branch with much fruit a pregnant part a part containing many parts thus much is considerable that he presently acknowledged and assented to their light which was given him the Lord is in this place And he acknowledged his owne darknesse till that light came upon him Et ego nesciebam I knew it not And then upon this light received he admitted no scruple no hesitation but came presently to a confident assurance Verè Dominus surely of a certainty the Lord is in this place And then another doctrine is Et timuit he was afraid for all his confidence he had a reverentiall feare not a distrust but a reverent respect to that great Majesty and upon this feare there is a second Et dixit he spoke againe this feare did not stupifie him he recovers againe and discerned the manifestation of God in that particular place Quam terribilis how fearfull is this place And then the last linke of this chaine is Quid inde what was the effect of all this and that is that he might erect a Monument and marke for the worship of God in this place Quia non nisi domus because this is none other then the house of God and the gate of heaven Now I have no purpose to make you afraid of enlarging all these points I shall onely passe through some of them paraphrastically and trust them with the rest for they insinuate one another and trust your christianly meditation with them all The first linke then is the Tunc Iacob the occasion then Iocob did this which was that God had revealed to Iocob that vision of the ladder whose foot stood upon earth and whose top reached to heaven upon which ladder God stood and Angels went up and down Now this ladder is for the most part understood to be Christ himselfe whose foot that touched the earth is his humanity and his top that reached to heaven his Divinity The ladder is Christ and upon him the Angels his Ministers labour for the edifying of the Church And in this labour upon this ladder God stands above it governing and ordering all things according to his providence in his Church Now when this was revealed to Iacob now when this is revealed to you that God hath let fall a ladder a bridge between heaven and earth that Christ whose divinity departed not from heaven came downe to us into this world that God the father stands upon this ladder as the Originall hath it Nitzab that he leanes upon this ladder as the vulgar hath it Innixus scalae that he rests upon it as the holy Ghost did upon the â—ame ladder that is upon Christ in his baptisme that upon this ladder which stretches so farre and is provided so well the Angels labour the Ministers of God doe their offices when this was when this is manifested then it became Iacob and now it becomes every Christian to doe something for the advancing of the outward glory and worship of God in his Church when Christ is content to be this ladder when God is content to govern this ladder when the Angels are content to labour upon this ladder which ladder is Christ and the Christian Church shall any Christian Man forbeare his help to the necessary building and to the sober and modest adorning of the materiall Church of God God studies the good of the Church Angels labour for it and shall Man who is to receive all the profit of this doe nothing This is the Tunc Iacob when there is a free preaching of the Gospell there should be a free and liberall disposition to advance his house Well to make haste the second linke is Quid operatum what this wrought upon Iacob and it is Iacob awoke out of his sleep Now in this place the holy Ghost imputes no sinfull sleep to Iacob but it is a naturall sleep of lassitude and wearinesse after his travell there is an ill sleep an indifferent and a good sleep which is that heavenly sleep that tranquillity which that soul which is at peace with
covered himself with a cloud so that prayer could not passe thorough That was the misery of Ierusalem But in the acts and habits of sin we cover our selves with a roof with an arch which nothing can shake nor remove but Thunder and Earthquakes that is the execution of Gods fiercest judgments And whether in that fall of the roof that is in the weight of Gods judgments upon us the stones shall not brain us overwhelm and smother and bury us God only knows How his Thunders and his Earthquakes when we put him to that will work upon us he onely knows whether to our amendment or to our destruction But whil'st we are in the consideration of this arch this roof of separation between God and us by sin there may be use in imparting to you an observation a passage of mine own Lying at Aiâ— at Aquisgrane a well known Town in Germany and fixing there some time for the benefit of those Baths I found my self in a house which was divided into many families indeed so large as it might have been a little Parish or at least a great lim of a great one But it was of no Parish for when I ask'd who lay over my head they told me a family of Anabaptists And who over theirs Another family of Anabaptists and another family of Anabaptists over theirs and the whole house was a nest of these boxes severall artificers all Anabaptists I ask'd in what room they met for the exercise of their Religion I was told they never met for though they were all Anabaptists yet for some collaterall differences they detested one another and though many of them were near in bloud alliance to one another yet the son would excommunicate the father in the room above him and the Nephew the Uncle As S. Iohn is said to have quitted that Bath into which Cerinthus the Heretique came so did I this house I remembred that Hezekiah in his sicknesse turn'd himself in his bed to pray towards that wall that look'd to Ierusalem And that Daniel in Babylon when he pray'd in his chamber opened those windows that look'd towards Ierusalem for in the first dedication of the Temple at Ierusalem there is a promise annext to the prayers made towards the Temple And I began to think how many roofs how many floores of separation were made between God and my prayers in that house And such is this multiplicity of sins which we consider to be got over us as a roof as an arch many arches many roofs for though these habituall sins be so of kin as that they grow from one another and yet for all this kindred excommunicate one another for covetousnesse will not be in the same roome with prodigality yet it is but going up another stair and there 's the tother Anabaptist it is but living a few years and then the prodigall becomes covetous All the way they separate us from God as a roof as an arch then an arch will bear any weight An habituall sin got over our head as an arch will stand under any sicknesse any dishonour any judgement of God and never sink towards any humiliation They are above our heads sicus tectum as a roofe as an arch and they are so toe sicut clamor as a voice ascending not stopping till they come to God O my God I am confounded and ashamed to lift up mine eyes to ther O my God why not thine eyes there is a cloud a clamour in the way for as it follows Our iniquities are encreased over our heads and our trespasse is grown up to the heaven I think to retain a learned man of my counsell and one that is sute to be heard in the Court and when I come to instruct him I finde mine adversaries name in his book before and he is all ready for the other party I think to finde an Advocate in heaven when I will and my sin is in heaven before mee The voice of Abels bloud and so of Cains sin was there The voice of Sodomes transgression was there Bring down that sin again from heaven to earth Bring that voice that cries in heaven to speake to Christ here in his Church upon earth by way of confession bring that clamorous sin to his bloud to be washed in the Sacrament for as long as thy sin cries in heaven thy prayers cannot be heard there Bring thy sinne under Christs feet there when hee walks amongst the Candlesticks in the light and power of his Ordinances in the Church and then thine absolution will be upon thy head in those seals which he hath instituted and ordained there and thy cry will be silenced Till then supergrâ—sse caput thine iniquities will be over thy head as a roof as a cry and in the next place sicut aqua as the overflowing of waters We consider this plurality this multiplicity of habituall sinnes to bee got over our heads as waters especially in this that they have stupefied us and taken from us all sense of reparation of our sinfull condition The Organ that God hath given the naturall man is the eye he sees God in the creature The Organ that God hath given the Christian is the ear he hears God in his Word But when we are under water both senses both Organs are vitiated and depraved if not defeaâ—ed The habituall and manifold sinner sees nothing aright Hee sees a judgement and cals it an accident He hears nothing aright He hears the Ordinance of Preaching for salvation in the next world and he cals it an invention of the State for subjection in this world And as under water every thing seems distorted and crooked to man so does man himself to God who sees not his own Image in that man in that form as he made it When man hath drunk iniquity like water then The flouds of wickadnesse shall make him afraid The water that he hath swum in the sin that he hath delighted in shall appear with horrour unto him As God threatens the pride of Tyrus I shall bring the deep upon thee and great waters shall cover thee That God will execute upon this sinner And then upon every drop of that water upon every affliction every tribulation he shall come to that fearfulnesse Waters flowed over my head then said I I am câ—â— off Either he shall see nothing or see no remedy no deliverance from desperation Keep low these waters as waters signifie sin and God shall keep them low as they signifie punishments And his Dove shall return to the Ark with an Olive leaf to shew thee that the waters are abated he shall give thee a testimony of the return of his love in his Oyle and Wine and Milk and Honey in the temporall abundances of this life And si impleat Hydrias aqua if he doe fill all your vessels with water with water of bitternesse that is fill and exercise all your patience and
no husband such a superiority no father such a soverainty but that there lies a burden upon them too to consider with a compassionate sensiblenesse the grievances that oppresse the other part which is coupled to them For if the servant the wife the sonne be oppressed worne out annihilated there is no such thing left as a Master or a husband or a father They depend upon one another and therefore he that hath not care of his fellow destroys himselfe The wife is to submit herselfe and so is the husband too They have a burden both There is a greater subjection lies upon her then upon the Man in respect of her transgression towards her husband at first Eyen before there was any Man in the world to sollicite or tempt her chastity she could sinde another way to be salfe and treacherous to her husband both the husband and the wife offended against God but the husband offended not towards his wife but rather eate the Apple Ne contristaretur delicias suas as S. Hierome assignes the cause left by refusing to cate when she had done so he should deject her into a desperate sense of her sinne And for this fault of hers her Subjection was so much aggravated Thy desire shall be subject to thy husband and he shall rule over thee But if she had not committed that fault yet there would have been a mutuall subjection between them as there is even in Nature between both the other couples for if Man had continued in innocency yet it is most probably thought that as there would certainly have been Mariage and so children so also there would have been Magistracy and propriety and authority and so a mutuall submitting a mutuall assisting of one another in all these three relations Now that submitting of which the Apostle speakes of here is a submitting to one another a bearing of one anothers burthens what this submission is on the wives part is expressed in the two former verses And I forbeare that because husbands at home are likely enough to remember them of it but in the duty in the submitting of the husband we shall consider first what that submitting is and that is love Husbands love your wives Even the love of the husband to the wife is a burthen a submitting a descent and secondly the patterne and example of this love Even as Christ loved his Church In which second part as sometimes the accessory is greater then the principall the Symptome the accident is greater then the disease so that from which the comparison is drawn in this place is greater then that which is illustrated by it the love of Christ to his Church requires more consideration then the love of the husband to the wife and therefore it will become us to spend most of our thoughts upon that and to consider in that Quod factum and Quis sinis what Christ did for his Church and that was a bounty which could not be exceeded seipsum tradidit he gave he delivered himselfe for it And then secondly what he intended that should worke and that was first that he might make it to himselfe a glorious Church and without spot and wrinkle in the Triumphant state of the Church at last And then that whilst it continues in a Militant state upon Earth it might have preparations to that glory by being sanctified and cleansed by the washing of water through his Word he provides the Church meanes of sanctification here by his Word and Sacraments First then De Amoremaritali of this contracting a Mans love to the person of a wife of one woman as we find an often exclamation in the Prophets Onus visionis The burden of my prophecy upon Nineveh and Onus verbi Domini The burden of the word of God upon Israel so there is Onus amoris a burden of love when a Man is appointed whom he shall love When Onan was appointed by his father Iudah to goe in to his brothers widow and to doe the office of a kinsman to her he conceived such an unwillingnesse to doe so when he was bid as that he came to that detestable act for which God slew him And therefore the Panegyrique that raised his wit as high as he could to praise the Emperour Constantine and would expresse it in praising his continence and chastity he expressed it by saying that he waried young that as soon as his years endangered him formavit animum maritalem nihil de concessu atati voluptatibus admittens he was content to be a husband and accepted not that freedome of pleasure which his years might have excused He concludes it thus Novum jam tum miraculum Iuvenis â—xorius Behold a miracle such a young Man limiting his affections in a wife At first the heates and lusts of youth overflow all as the waters overflowed all at the beginning and when they did so the Earth was not onely barren there were no Creatures no herbs produced in that but even the waters themselves that did overflow all were barren too there were no fishes no fowls produced out of that as long as a Mans affections are scattered there is nothing but accursed barrennesse but when God says and is heard and obeyed in it Let the waters be gathered into one place let all thy affections be setled upon one wife then the earth and the waters became fruitfull then God gives us a type and figure of the eternity of the joyes of heaven in the succession and propagation of children here upon the earth It is true this contracting of our affections is a burden it is a submitting of our selves All States that made Lawes and proposed rewards for maried Men conceived it so that naturally they would be loth to doe it God maried his first couple as soone as he made them he dignified the state of Mariage by so many Allegories and figures to which he compares the uniting of Christ to his Church and the uniting of our soules to Christ and by directing the first Miracle of Christ to be done at a Mariage Many things must concurre to the dignifying of Mariage because in our corrupt nature the apprehension is generall that it is burdenous and a submitting and a descending thing to mary And therefore Saint Hierome argues truly out of these words Husbands love your Wifes Audiant Episcopi audiant presbyteri audiant doctores subjectis suis se esse subjectos let Bishops and Priests and Doctors learne in this that when they have maried themselves to a charge They are become subject to their Subjects For by being a husband I become subject to that sex which is naturally subject to Man though this subjection be no more in this place but to love that one woman Love then when it is limited by a law is a subjection but it is a subjection commanded by God Nihil majus à te subjecti animo factum est quam quod imper are coepistiâ— A Prince
but every poore soule in the Church may heare all these three witnesses testifying to him Integrum Iesum suum that all which Christ Jesus hath done and suffered appertaines to him but yet to bring it nearer him in visible and sensible things There are tres de terra three upon earth too The first of these three upon earth is the Spirit which Saint Augustine understands of the spirit the soule of Christ for when Christ commended his spirit into the hands of his Father this was a testimony that he was Verus hemo that he had a soule and in that he laid downe his spirit his soule for no Man could take it from him and tooke it againe at his pleasure in his resurrection this was a testimony that he was Verus Deus true God And so says Saint Augustine Spiritus The spirit that is anima Christi the soule of Christ did testifie De integritate Iesu all that belonged to Jesus as he was God and as he was Man But this makes the witnesses in heaven and the witnesses in earth all one for the personall testimony of Christs preaching and living and dying the testimony which was given by these three Persons of the Trinity was all involv'd in the first rank of witnesses Those three which are in heaven Other later Men understand by the Spirit here the Spirit of every Regenerate Man and that in the other heavenly witnesses the spirit is Spiritus sanctus the spirit that is holy in it selfe the holy Ghost and here it is Spiritus sanctificatus that spirit of Man which is made holy by the holy Ghost according to that The same spirit beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God But in this sense it is too particular a witnesse too singular to be intended here for that speakes but to one Man at once The spirit therefore here is Spiritus oris the word of God the Gospell and the preaching and ministration thereof We are made Ministers of the New testament of the spirit that giveth life And if the ministration of death were glorious how shall not the ministration of the spirit be more glorious It is not therefore the Gospell meerly but the preaching of the Gospell that is this spirit Spiritus sacerdotis vehioulum Spiritus Dei The spirit of the Minister is not so pure as the spirit of God but it is the chariot the meanes by which God will enter into you The Gospell is the Gospell at home at your house and there you doe well to read it and reverence it as the Gospell but yet it is not Spiritus it is not this Spirit this first witnesse upon earth but onely there where God hath blessed it with his institution and ordinance that is in the preaching thereof The stewardship and the dispensation of the graces of God the directing of his threatnings against refractary and wilfull sinners the directing of his promises to simple and supple and conâ—rite penitents the breaking of the bread the applying of the Gospell according to their particular indigences in the preaching thereof this is the first witnesse The second witnesse here is The water and I know there are some Men which will not have this to be understood of the water of Baptisme but onely of the naturall effect of water that as the abtutions of the old law by water did purge us so we have an inward testimony that Christ doth likewise wash us cleane so the water here must not be so much as water but a metaphoricall and figurative water These men will not allow water in this place to have any relation to the sacrament and Saint Ambrose was so far from doubting that water in this place belonged to the sacrament that he applies all these three witnesses to the Sacrament of Baptisme Spiritus mentem renovat All this is done in Baptisme says he The Spirit renewes and disposes the mind Aqua perficit ad Lavacrum The water is applied to cleanse the body Sanguis Spectat ad preâ—lium and the bloud intimates the price and ransome which gives force and virtue to this sacrament And so also says he in another place In sanguine mors in the bloud there is a representation of death in the water of our buriall and in the spirit of our owne life Some will have none of these witnesses on earth to belong to baptisme not the water and Ambrose will have all spirit and water and bloud to belong to it Now both Saint Ambrose who applies all the three witnesses to Baptisme and those later men which deny any of the witnesses to belong to baptisme doe both depart from the generall acceptation of these words that water here and onely that signifies the Sacrament of baptisme For as in the first creation the first thing that the spirit of God is noted to have moved upon was the waters so the first creature that is sanctified by Christs institution to our Salvation is this element of water The first thing that produced any living sensible creature was the water Primus liquor qnod viveret edidit ne mirum sit quod in Baptismo aquae aâ—nimare noverunt water brought forth the first creatures says Tertullian That we should not wonder that water should bring forth Christians The first of Gods afficting miracles in Egypt was the changing of water into bloud and the first miracle of grace in the new Testament was the changing of water into wine at the mariage So that water hath still been a subject and instrument of Gods conversation with man So then Aqua janua ecclesiae we cannot come into the Church but by water by baptisme for though the Church have taken knowledge of other Baptismes Baptisma sanguinis which is Martyrdome and Baptisma Flaminis which is a religious desire to be baptized when no meanes can be got yet there is no other sacrament of Baptisme but Baptisma Fluminis the Baptisme of water for the rest Conveniunt in causando sed non in significando says the Schoole that is God doth afford a plentifull retribution to the other baptismes Flaminis and Sanguinis but God hath not ordained them to be outward seales and significations of his grace and to be witnesses of Iesus his comming upon earth as this water is And therefore they that provide not duly to bring their children to this water of life not to speake of the essentiall necessity thereof they take from them one of the witnesses that Iesus is come into them and as much as they can they shut the Church dore against them they leave them out of the Arke and for want of this water cast them into that generall water which overflowes all the rest of the world which are not brought within the Covenant by this water of baptisme For though in the first Translation of the new Testament into Syriaque that be said in the sixth verse that Jesus is come per manus
gate into Heaven in thy selfe If thou beest not sensible of others mens poverties and distresses yet Miserere animae tuae have mercy on thine own soule thou hast a poor guest an Inmate a sojourner within these mudwals this corrupt body of thine be mercifull and compassionate to that Soule cloath that Soul which is stripp'd and left naked of all her originall righteousnesse feed that Soule which thou hast starv'd purge that Soule which thou hast infected warm and thaw that Soul which thou hast frozen with indevotion coole and quench that Soul which thou hast inflamed with licentiousness Miserere animae tuae begin with thine own Soule be charitable to thy self first and thou wilt remember that God hath made of one bloud all Mankind and thou wilt find out thy selfe in every other poor Man and thou wilt find Christ Jesus himselfe in them all Now of those divers gates which God opens in this life those divers exercises of charity the particular which we are occasion'd to speak of here is not the cloathing nor feeding of Christ but the housing of him The providing Christ a house a dwelling whether this were the very place where Solomons Temple was after built is perplexedly and perchance impertinently controverted by many but howsoever here was the house of God and here was the gate of Heaven It is true God may be devoutly worshipped any where In omni loco dominationis ejus benedic anima mea Domino In all places of his dominion my Soule shall praise the Lord sayes David It is not only a concurring of men a meeting of so many bodies that makes a Church If thy soule and body be met together an humble preparation of the mind and a reverent disposition of the body if thy knees be bent to the earth thy hands and eyes lifted up to heaven if thy tongue pray and praise and thine ears hearken to his answer if all thy senses and powers and faculties be met with one unanime purpose to worship thy God thou art to this intendment a Church thou art a Congregation here are two or three met together in his name and he is in the midst of them though thou be alone in thy chamber The Church of God should be built upon a Rock and yet Iob had his Church upon a Dunghill The bed is a scene and an embleme of wantonnesse and yet Hezekiah had his Church in his Bed The Church is to be placed upon the top of a Hill and yet the Prophet Ieremy had his Church in Luto in a miry Dungeon Constancy and setlednesse belongs to the Church and yet Ionah had his Church in the Whales belly The Lyon that roares and seeks whom he may devour is an enemy to this Church and yet Daniel had his Church in the Lions den Aquae quietudinum the waters of rest in the Psalme were a figure of the Church and yet the three children had their Church in the fiery furnace Liberty life appertaine to the Church and yet Peter Paul had their Church in prison and the thiefe had his Church upon the Crosse. Every particular man is himselfe Templum Spiritus sancti a Temple of the holy Ghost yea Solvite templum hoc destroy this body by death and corruption in the grave yet there shall be Festum encaeniorum a renuing a reedifying of all those Temples in the generall Resurrection when we shall rise againe not onely as so many Christians but as so many Christian Churches to glorifie the Apostle and High-priest of our profession Christ Jesus in that eternall Sabbath In omni loco domiâ—ationis ejus Every person every place is fit to glorifie God in God is not tyed to any place not by essence Implet continendo implet God fills every place and fills it by containing that place in himselfe but he is tyed by his promise to a manifestation of himselfe by working in some certain places Though God were long before he required or admitted a sumptuous Temple for Solomons Temple was not built in almost five hundred years after their returne out of Egypt though God were content to accept their worship and their sacrifices at the Tabernacle which was a transitory and moveable Temple yet at last he was so carefull of his house as that himselfe gave the modell and platforme of it and when it was built and after repaired again he was so jealous of appropriating and confining all his solemne worship to that particular place as that he permitted that long schisme and dissention between the Samaritans and the Iews onely about the place of the worship of God They differed not in other things but whether in Mount Sion or in Mount Garizim And the feast of the dedication of this Temple which was yearly celebrated received so much honor as that Christ himselfe vouchsafed to be personally present at that solemnity though it were a feast of the institution of the Church and not of God immediatly as their other festivalls were yet Christ forbore not to observe it upon that pretence that it was but the Church that had appointed it to be observed So that as in all times God had manifested and exhibited himselfe in some particular places more then other in the Pillar in the wildernesse and in the Tabernacle and in the poole which the Angell troubled so did Christ himselfe by his owne presence ceremoniously justifie and authorise this dedication of places consecrated to Gods outward worship not onely once but anniversarily by a yearly celebration thereof To descend from this great Temple at Jerusalem to which God had annexed his solemne and publique worship the lesser Synagogues and Chappell 's of the Iews in other places were ever esteemed great testimonies of the sanctity and piety of the founders for Christ accepts of that reason which was presented to him in the behalfe of the Centurion He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him for he loveth our Nation And how hath he testified it He hath built us a Synagogue He was but a stranger to them and yet he furthered and advanced the service of God amongst them of whose body he was no member This was that Centurions commendation Et quanto commedatior qui adificat Ecclesiam How much more commendation deserve they that build a Church for Christian service And therefore the first Christians made so much haste to the expressing of their devotion that even in the Apostles time for all their poverty and persecution they were come to have Churches as most of the Fathers and some of our later Expositors understand these words Have ye not houses to eate and drinke or doe ye despise the Church of God to be spoken not of the Church as it is a Congregation but of the Church as it is a Material building Yea if we may beleeve some authors that are pretended to be very ancient there was one Church dedicated to the memory
the Church is his standing house there are his offices fixed there are his provisions which fat the Soule of Man as with marrow and with fatnesse his precious bloud and body there work his seales there beats his Mint there is absolution and pardon for past sinnes there is grace for prevention of future in his Sacraments But the Church is not onely Domus Dei but Basilica not onely his house but his Court he doth not onely dwell there but reigne there which multiplies the joy of his houshold servants The Lord reigneth let all the earth rejoyce yea let the multitude of the Islands be glad thereof That the Church was usually called Martyrium that is a place of Confession where we open our wounds and receive our remedy That it was called Oratorium where we might come and aske necessary things at Gods hands all these teach us our severall duties in that place and they adde to their spirituall comfort who have been Gods instruments for providing such places as God may be glorified in and the godly benefited in all these ways But of all Names which were then usually given to the Church the name of Temple seems to be most large and significant as they derive it à Tuendo for Tueri signifies both our beholding and contemplating God in the Church and it signifies Gods protecting and defending those that are his in his Church Tueri embraces both And therefore though in the very beginning of the Primitive Church to depart from the custome and language and phrase of the Iews and Gentiles as farre as they could they did much abstain from this name of Temple and of Priest so that till Ireneus time some hundred eighty years after Christ we shall not so often find those words Temple or Priest yet when that danger was overcome when the Christian Church and doctrine was established from that time downward all the Fathers did freely and safely call the Church the Temple and the Ministers in the Church Priests as names of a religious and pious signification where before out of a loathnesse to doe or say any thing like the Iews or Gentiles where a concurrence with them might have been misinterpretable and of ill consequence they had called the Church by all those other names which we passed through before and they called their Priests by the name of Elders Presbyteros but after they resumed the use of the word Temple againe as the Apostle had given a good patterne who to expresse the principall holinesse of the Saints of God he chooses to doe it in that word ye are the Temples of the holy Ghost which should encline us to that moderation that when the danger of these ceremonies which corrupt times had corrupted is taken away we should returne to a love of that Antiquity which did purely and harmelesly induce them when there is no danger of abuse there should be no difference for the use of things in themselves indifferent made necessary by the just commandement of lawfull authority Thus then you see as farre as the narrownesse of the time will give us leave to expresse it the generall manner of the best times to declare devotion towards God to have been in appropriating certaine places to his worship And since it is so in this particular history of Iacobs proceeding in my text I may be hold to invert these words of David Nisi Deus aedificaverit domum unlesse the Lord doe build the house in vaine doe the labourers work thus much as to say Nisi Domino aedificaveritis domum except thou build a house for the Lord in vaine dost thou goe about any other buildings or any other businesse in this world I speake not meerly literally of building Materiall Chappell 's yet I would speake also to further that but I speake principally of building such a Church as every man may build in himselfe for whensoever we present our prayers and devotions deliberately and advisedly to God there we consecrate that place there we build a Church And therefore beloved since every master of a family who is a Bishop in his house should call his family together to humble and powre out their soules to God let him consider that when he comes to kneele at the side of his table to pray he comes to build a Church there and therefore should sanctifie that place with a due and penitent consideration how voluptuously he hath formerly abused Gods blessings at that place how superstitiously and idolatrously he hath flatter'd and humour'd some great and usefull ghests invited by him to that place how expensively he hath served his owne ostentation and vain-glory by excessive feasts at that place whilest Lazarus hath lien panting and gasping at the gate and let him consider what a dangerous Mockery this is to Christ Iesus if he pretend by kneeling at that table fashionally to build Christ a Church by that solemnity at the table side and then crucifie Christ again by these sinnes when he is sat at the table When thou kneelest down at thy bed side to shut up the day at night or to beginne it in the morning thy servants thy children thy little flock about thee there thou buildest a Church too And therefore sanctifie that place wash it with thy tears and with a repentant consideration That in that bed thy children were conceived in sinne that in that bed thou hast turned mariage which God afforded thee for remedy and physique to voluptuosnesse and licenciousnesse That thou hast made that bed which God gave thee for rest and for reparation of thy weary body to be as thy dwelling and delight and the bed of idlenesse and stupidity Briefly you that are Masters continue in this building of Churches that is in drawing your families to pray and praise God and sanctifie those severall places of bed and board with a right use of them And for you that are servants you have also foundations of Churches in you if you dedicate all your actions consecrate all your services principally to God and respectively to them whom God hath placed over you But principally let all of all sorts who present themselves at this table consider that in that receiving his body and his bloud every one doth as it were conceive Christ Jesus anew Christ Jesus hath in every one of them as it were a new incarnation by uniting himselfe to them in these visible signes And therefore let no Man come hither without a search and a privy search without a consideration and re-consideration of his conscience Let him that beganne to think of it but this morning stay till the next When Moses pulled his hand first out of his bosome it was white as snow but it was leprous when he pulled it the second time it was of the color of flesh but it was sound When thou examinest thy conscience but once but flightly it may appear white as snow innocent but examine it againe and it
not harbouring for not visiting The sum of all is that this is the overflowing goodnesse of God that he deales with man by the sonne of man and that hee hath so given all judgement to the Sonne as that if you would be tryed by the first judgement are you elected or no The issue is doe you believe in Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the second judgement are you justified or no The issue is doe you find comfort in the application of the Word and Sacraments of Christ Jesus or no If you would be tryed by the third Judgement do you expect a Glorification or no The issue is Are you so reconcil'd to Christ Jesus now by hearty repentance for sinnes past and by detestation of occasion of future sin that you durst welcome that Angel which should come at this time and sweare that time should be no more that your transmigration out of this world should be this minute and that this minute you might say unfeignedly and effectually Veni Domine Iesu come quickly come now if this be your state then are you partakers of all that blessednesse which the Father intended to you when for your sake he committed all Judgment to the Son SERMON XIII Preached at Lincolns Inne JOHN 8. 15. I judge no man THe Rivers of Paradise did not all run one way and yet they flow'd from one head the sentences of the Scripture flow all from one head from the holy Ghost and yet they seem to present divers senses and to admit divers interpretations In such an appearance doth this Text differ from that which I handled in the forenoon and as heretofore I found it a usefull and acceptable labour to employ our Evening exercises upon the vindicating of some such places of Scripture as our adversaries of the Roman Church had detorted in some point of controversie between them and us and restoring those places to their true sense which course I held constantly for one whole year so I think it a usefull and acceptable labour now to employ for a time those Evening exercises to reconcile some such places of Scripture as may at first sight seem to differ from one another In the morning we saw how Christ judged all now we are to see how he judges none I judge no man To come then to these present words here we have the same person Christ Jesus and hath not he the same Office Is not he Judge certainly though he retain'd all his other Offices though he be the Redeemer and have shed his blood in value satisfactory for all our sins though he be our Advocate and plead for us in heaven and present our evidence to that Kingdome written in his blood seal'd in his wounds yet if hee bee not our Judge wee cannot stand in judgement shall hee bee our Judge and is hee not our Judge yet Long before wee were hee was our Judge at the separation of the Elect and Reprobate in Gods eternall Decree Was he our Judge then and is hee not so still still he is present in his Church and cleares us in all scruples rectifies us in all errors erects us in all dejections of spirit pronounces peace and reconciliation in all apprehensions of his Judgements by his Word and by his Sacraments was hee and is he and shall he not be our Judge still I am sure my Redeemer liveth and he shall stand the last on earth So that Christ Jesus is the same to day and yesterday and for ever before the world begun and world without end Sicut erat in principio as he was in the beginning he is and shall be ever our Judge So that then these words are not De tempâ—re but De modo there was never any time when Christ was not Judge but there were some manner of Judgements which Christ did never exercise and Christ had no commission which he did not execute for hee did all his Fathers will 1. In secularibus in civill or criminall businesses which belong meerly to the Judicatures and cognisance of this world Iudicat neminem Christ judges no man 2. Secundum carnem so as they to whom Christ spake this who judged as himself says here according to fleshly affections Iudicat neminem he judges no man and 3. Ad internecionem so as that upon that Judgement a man should despair of any reconciliation any redintegration with God again and be without hope of pardon and remission of sins in this world Iudicat neminem he judges no man 1. Christ usurps upon no mans Jurisdiction that were against justice 2. Christ imputes no false things to any man that were against charity 3. Christ induces no man to desperation that were against faith and against Justice against charity against faith Iudicat neminem First then Christ judgeth not in secular judgements and we note his abstinence therein first in civill matters when one of the company said to him Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me as Saint Augustine says the Plaintiffe thought his cause to be just and hee thought Christ to bee a competent Judge in the cause and yet Christ declines the judgement disavows the authority and he answers Homo quis me constituit Iudicem Man who made me a Judge between you To that Generall which we had in the morning Omne judicium the Son hath all judgement here is an exception of the same Judges own making for in secular judgements Nemo constituit he had no commission and therefore Iudicat neminem he judges no man he forbore in criminall matters too for when the woman taken in adultery was brought before him he condemned her not It is true he absolv'd her not the evidence was pregnant against her but he condemned her not he undertook no office of a Judge but of a sweet and spirituall Counsellor Go and sinne no more for this was his Element his Tribunall When then Christ says of himself with such a pregnant negative Quis me constituit Iudicem may not we say so too to his pretended Vicar the Bishop of Rome Quiâ—te Who made you Judge of Kings that you should depose them in criminall causes Or who made you proprietary of Kingdomes that you should dispose of them as of civill inheritances when to countenance such a pretence they detort places of Scripture not onely perversly but senselesly blasphemously ridiculously as ridicolously as in their pasquils wheÌ„ in an undiscreet shamlesnes to make their power greater then it is they make their fault greater then it is too fil their histories with examples of Kings deposed by Popes which in truth were not depos'd by them for in that they are more innocent then they will confesse themselves to be when some of their Authors say that the Primitive Church abstain'd from deposing Emperors onely because she was not strong enough to do it when some of them say That all Christian Kingdomes of the earth may fall into
well to be angry even unto death Ieremy was under this tentation too Ionas was angry because his Prophesie was not performed because God would not second his Prophesie in the destruction of Nineveh Ieremy was angry because his Prophesie was like to be performed he preached heavy Doctrin and therfore his Auditory hated him Woe is me my Mother says he that thou hast born me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth I preach but the messages of God and vae mihi si non wo be unto me if I preach not them I preach but the sense of Gods indignation upon mine own soul in a conscience of mine own sins I impute nothing to another that I confesse not of my selfe I call none of you to confession to me I doe but confesse my self to God and you I rack no mans memory what he did last year last week last night I onely gather into my memory and powr out in the presence of my God and his Church the sinfull history of mine own youth and yet I am a contentious man says Ieremy a worm and a burthen to every tender conscience says he and I strive with the whole earth I am a bitter and satyricall preacher This is that that wearies mee says hee I have neither lent on usury nor men have lent me on usury yet as though I were an oppressing lender or a fraudulent borrower every one of them doth curse me This is a naturall infirmity which the strongest men being but men cannot devest that if their purposes prosper not they are weary of their industry weary of their lifes But this is Summa ingratitude in Deum mâ—lle non esse quà m miserum esse There cannot be a greater unthankfulnesse to God then to desire to be Nothing at all rather then to be that that God would have thee to be To desire to be out of the world rather then to glorifie him by thy patience in it But when this infirmity overtakes Gods children Patiuntur ut homtines sustinent ut Dei amici They are under calamities as they are râ—en but yet they come to recollect themselves and to beat those calamities as the valiant Souldiers as the faithfull servants as the bosome friends of almighty God Si vis discere qualis esse debiâ—s disce post gratiam says the same Father Learn patience not from the stupidity of Philosophers who are but their own statues men of stone without sense without affections and who placed all their glory in a Non facies ut te dicam analum that no pain should make them say they were in pain nor from the perâ—iâ—acy of Heretiques how to bear a calamity who gave their bodies to the fire for the establishing of their Disciples but take out a new lesson in the times of Grace Consider the Apostles there Gaudentes Gloriantes They departed from the Councell rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer rebuke for his name It was Ioy and all Ioy says S. Iames It was Glory and all Glory says S. Paul Absit mihi God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ And if I can glory in that to glory in that is to have a conscience testifying to me that God receives glory by my use of his correction I may come to God reason with God plead with God wrastle with God and be received and sustained by him This was Davids case in our Text therefore he doth not stray into the infirmities of these great and good Men Moses Iob Elias Ieremy and Ionah whose errours it is labour better bestowed carefully to avoid then absolutely to excuse for that cannot be done But David presents onely to God the sense of his corrections and implies in that that since the cure is wrought since Gods purpose which is by corrections to bring a sinner to himself and so to God is effected in him God would now be pleased to remember all his other gracious promises too and to admit such a zealous prayer as as he doth from Esay after Be not angry O Lord above measure that is above the measure of thy promises to repentant souls or the measure of the strength of our bodies Neither remember iniquities for ever But loe wee beseech thee Behold we are thy people To end this first part because the other extends it self in many branches Then when we are come to a sense of Gods purpose by his corrections it is a seasonable time to flie to his mercy and to pray that he would remove them from us and to present our Reasons to spare us for thy corrections have wrought upon us Give us this day our daily bread for thou hast given us stones and scorpions tribulations and afflictions and we have fed upon them found nourishment even in those tribulations and afflictions and said thee grace for them blessed and glorified thy name for those tribulations and afflictions Give us our Cordials now and our Restoratives for thy physick hath evacuated all the peccant humour and all our naturall strength shine out in the light of thy countenance now for this long cold night hath benum'd us since the drâ—sse is now evaporated now withdraw thy fire since thy hand hath anew cast us now imprint in us anew thine Image since we have not disputed against thy corrections all this while O Lord open thou our lips now and accept our remembring of thee that we have not done so Accept our Petition and the Reason of our Petition for thine Arrows stick fast in us and thy hand presseth us sore David in a rectified conscience findes that he may be admitted to present reasons against farther corrections And that this may be received as a reason That Gods Arrows are upon him for this is phrase or a Metaphore in which Gods indignation is often expressed in the Scripture He sent out his Arrows and scattered them sayes David magnifying Gods goodness in his behalf against his enemies And so again God will ordaine his Arrrowes for them that persecute me Complebo sagittas says God I will heap mischiefs upon them and I will spend mine arrows upon them yea Inebriabo sanguine I will make mine Arrows drunk in their bloud It is Idiotismus Spiritus sancti a peculiar character of the holy Ghosts expressing Gods anger in that Metaphore of shooting Arrows In this place some understand by these Arrows foul and infectious diseases in his body derived by his incontinence Others the sting of Conscience and that fearfull choice which the Prophet offered him war famine and pestilence Others his passionate sorrow in the death of Bethsheba's first childe or in the Incest of Amnon upon his sister or in the murder upon Amnon by Absolon or in the death of Absolen by Ioab or in many other occasions of sorrow that surrounded David and his family more perchance then any such family in the
to declare the sins or to denounce the punishments of those sins upon the people to call it by this word Onus visionis Onus Babylonis Onus Ninives O the burden of Babylon the burden of Niniveh And because some of those woes those Iudgements those burdens did not always fall upon that people presently they came to mock the Prophets and say to them New what is the burden of she Lord What Burden have you to preach to us and to talke of nowâ— Say unto them says God to the Prophet there This is the Burden of the Lord I will even forsake you And as it is elegantly emphatically vehemently added Every mans word shall be his burden That which he says shall be that that shall be laid to his charge His scorning his idle questioning of the Prophet What burden now what plague what famine what warre now Is not all well for all your crying The burden of the Lord Every mans word shall be his burden the deriding of Gods Ordinance and of the denouncing of his Judgements in that Ordinance shall be their burden that is aggravate those Judgements upon them Nay there is a heavyer weight then that added Ye shall say no more says God to the Prophet the burden of the Lord that is you shall not bestow so much care upon this people as to tell them that the Lord threatens them Gods presence in anger and in punishments is a heavy but Gods absence and dereliction a much heavyer burden As if extremes will admit comparison the everlasting losse of the fight of God in hell is a greater torment then any lakes of inextinguishable Brimstone then any gnawing of the incessant worme then any gnashing of teeth can present unto us Now let no man ease himself upon that fallacy sin cannot be nor sin cannot induce such burdens as you talk of for many men are come to wealth and by that wealth to honour who if they had admitted a tendernesse in their consciences and forborn some sins had lost both for are they without burden because they have wealth and honour In the Originall language the same word that is here a burden Châ—bad signifies honour and wealth as well as a burden And therefore says the Prophet Woe unto him that loadeth himselfe with thick clay Non densantur nisi per laborem There goes much pains to the laying of it thus thick upon us The multiplying of riches is a laborious thing and then it is a new pain to bleed out those riches for a new office or a new title Et tamen lutum says that Father when all is done we are but rough-cast with durt All those Riches all those Honours are a Burden upon the just man they are buâ— a multiplying of fears that they shall lose them upon the securest man they are but a multiplying of duties obligations for the more they havet he more they have to answer and upon the unjust they are a multiplying of everlasting torments They possess months of vanity and wearisom nights are appointed them Men are as weary of the day upon Carpets and Cushions as at the plough And the labourers wearinesse is to a good end but for these men They weary themselves to commit iniquity Some doe and some doe not All doe The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them Why Because he knows not how to goe to the City He that directs not his labours to the right end the glory of God he goes not to Jerusalem the City of holy peace but his sinfull labours shall bee a burden to him and his Riches and his Office and his Honour hee shall not be able to put off then when he puts off his body in his death-bed He shall not have that happinesse which he till then thought a misery To carry nothing out of this world for his Riches his Office his Honour shall follow him into the next world and clog his soule there But we proposed this consideration of this Metaphor That sinne is a burden as there is an infinite sweetnesse and infinite latitude in every Metaphor in every elegancy of the Scripture and therefore I may have leave to be loath to depart from it in some particular inconveniences that a burden brings and it is time to come to them SERMON XXIII Preached at Lincolns Inne The third Sermon on PSAL. 38. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy Burden they are too heavy for mee AS a Torch that hath been lighted and used before is easier lighted then a new torch so are the branches and parts of this Text the easier reduced to your memory by having heard former distributions thereof But as a Torch that hath been lighted us'd before will not last so long as a new one so perchance your patience which hath already been twice exercised with the handling of these words may be too near the bottom to afford much And therefore much I have determined not to need God did his greatest work upon the last day and yet gave over work betimes In that day he made man and as the context leades us most probably to thinke he made Paradise and placed man in Paradise that day For the variety of opinions amongst our Expositors about the time when God made Paradise arises from one errour an errour in the Vulgat Edition in the translation of the Roman Church that reads it Plantaver at God had planted a garden as though God had done it before Therefore some state it before the Creation which Saint Hierome follows or at least relates without disapproving it and others place it upon the third day when the whole earth received her accomplishment but if any had looked over this place with the same ingenuity as their own great man Tyr an active man in the Councell of Trent hath done over the Book of Psalms in which one Booke he hath confessed 6000 places in which their translation differs from the Originall they would have seen this difference in this place that it is not Plantaver at but Plantavit not that God had before but that he did then then when hee had made man make a Paradise for man And yet God made an end of all this days work betimes in that day He walked in the garden in the cool of the Evening The noblest part of our work in handling this Text falls upon the conclusion reserved for this day which is the application of these words to Christ. But for that I shall be short and rather leave you to walke with God in the cool of the Evening to meditate of the sufferings of Christ when you are gone then pretend to expresse them here The Passion of Christ Jesus is rather an amazement an astonishment an extasie a consternation then an instruction Therefore though something we shall say of that anone First we pursue that which lies upon our selves the Burden in those four mischievous
these helps is the more ful and the more ready the more able for Church service he be not also thereby made the more bold and the more confident Nec ament decipere verisimili sermone lest because he is able to make any thing seem probable and likely to the people by his eloquence he come to infuse paradoxicall opinions or schismaticall or which may be beleeved either way problematicall opinions for certain and constant truths and so be the lesse conversant and the lesse diligent in advancing plaine and simple and fundamentall doctrines and catechisticall which are truely necessary to salvation as though such plaine and ordinary and catechisticall doctrines were not worthy of his gifts and his great parts In a word in sheep-pastures you may plant fruit trees in the hedge-rowes but if you plant them all over it is an Orchard we may transfer flowers of secular learning into these exercises but if they consist of those they are but Themes and Essays But why insist we upon this Was there any such conformity between the two Babylons as that the Italian Babylon can be said to have troden down the grasse in that kinde with overcharging their Sermons with too much learning Truly it was far very very far from it for when they had prevailed in that Axiome and Aphorisme of theirs that it was best to keep the people in ignorance they might justly keep the Priest in ignorance too for when the people needed no learned instruction what needed the Church a learned instructer And therefore I laid hold of this consideration the treading down of grass by oppressing it with secular learning there by to bring to your remembrance the extreme ignorance that damp'd the Roman Church at that time where Aristotles Metaphysicks were condemned for Heresie and ignorance in generall made not onely pardonable but meritorious Of which times if at any time you read the Sermons which were then preached and after published you will excuse them of this treading down the grass by oppressing their auditories with over-much learning for they are such Sermons as will not suffer us to pity them but we must necessarily scorne and contemne and deride them Sermons at which the gravest and saddest man could not choose but laugh not at the Sermon God forbid nor at the plainness and homeliness of it God forbid but at the Soloecismes the barbarismes the servilities the stupid ignorance of those things which fall within the knowledge of boys of the first forme in every School This was their treading down of grass not with over-much learning but with a cloud a dampe an earth of ignorance After an Oxe that oppresseth the grass after a Horse that devours the grass sheep will feed but after a Goose that stanches the grass they will not no more can Gods sheep receive nourishment from him that puts a scorne upon his function by his ignorance But in the other way of treading down grass that is the word of God by the Additions and Traditions of men the Italian Babylon Rome abounded superabounded overflowed surrounded all And this is much more dangerous then the other for this mingling of humane additions and traditions upon equall necessity and equall obligation as the word of God it selfe is a kneading an incorporating of grasse and earth together so as that it is impossible for the weake sheep to avoid eating the meat of the Serpent Dust shalt thou eate all the days of thy life Now man upon his transgression was not accursed nor woman The sheep were not accursed But the earth was and the Serpent was and now this kneading this incorporating of earth with grasse traditions with the word makes the sheep to eate the cursed meat of the cursed Serpent Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life Now in this treading down this grasse this way this suppressing it by traditions be pleased to consider these two applications some traditions doe destroy the word of God extirpate it annihilate it as when a Hog doth root up the grass In which case not onely that turfe withers and is presently useless and unprofitable to the sheep but if you dig never so low after down to the Center of the earth it is impossible ever to finde any more grass under it so some traditions doe utterly oppose the word of God without having under them any mysterious signification or any occasion or provocation of our devotion which is the ordinary pretext of traditions and Ceremoniall additions in their Church And of this sort was that amongst the Iews of which our blessed Saviour reproches them that whereas by the law children were to relieve decayed parents they had brought in a tradition of Commutation of Compensation that if those children gave a gift to the Priest or compounded with the Priest they were discharged of the former obligation And of this sort are many traditions in the Roman Church where not onely the doctrines of men but the doctrine of Devills as the Apostle calls the forbidding of Mariage and of meats did not onely tread down but root up the true grass The other sort of Traditions and Ceremonies doe not as the Hog root up the grass but as a Mole cast a slack and thin earth upon the face of the grass Now if the shepheard or husbandman be present to scatter this earth againe the sheep receive no great harme but may safely feed upon the wholesome grass that is under but if the sheep who are not able to scatter this earth nor to finde the grass that lies under be left to their own weakness they may as easily starve in this case as in the other the Mole may damnifie them as much as the Hog And of this sort are those traditions which induce Ceremonies into the Church in vestures in postures of the body in particular things and words and actions in Baptisme or Mariage or any other thing to be transacted in the Church These ceremonies are not the institutions of God immediately but they are a kind of light earth that hath under it good and usefull significations which when they be understood conduce much to the encrease and advancement of our devotion and of the glory of God And this is the iniquity that we complaine of in the Roman Church that when we accuse them of multiplying impertinent and insupportable ceremonies they tell us of some mysterious and pious signification in the institution thereof at first They tell us this and it is sometimes true But neither in Preaching nor practise doe they scatter this earth to their own sheep or shew them the grass that lies under but suffer the people to inhere and arrest their thoughts upon the ceremony it selfe or that to which that ceremony mis-leads them as in particular for the time will not admit many examples when they kneel at the Sacrament they are not told that they kneel because they are then in the act of
1000 The infection grew hotter and hotter in Rome their may came to a must those things which were done before de facto came at last to be articles of Faith and de jure must be beleeved and practised upon salvation They chide us for going away and they drove us away If we abstained from communicating with their poysons being now growen to that height they excommunicated us They gave us no room amongst them but the fire and they were so forward to burne Heretiques that they called it heresie not to stay to be burnt Yet we went not upon their driving but upon Gods calling As the whole prophecy of the deliverance of Israel from Babylon belongs to the Christian Church both to the Primitive Church at first and to the Reformed since so doth that voice spoken to them reach unto us Egredimini de Babylone Goe ye out of Babylon with a voice of singing declare show to the ends of the earth that the Lord hath redeemed his servant Iacob For that Rome is not Babylon they have but that one half-comfort that one of their own authors hath ministred that Romae regulariter male agitur that Babylon is Confusion disorder but at Rome all sinnes are committed in order by the book and they know the price and therefore Rome is not Babylon And since that many of their authors confesse that Rome was Babylon in the time of the persecuting Emperours and that Rome shall be Babylon againe in the time of Antichrist how they will hedge in a Ierusalem a holy City between these two Babylons is a cunning peece of Architecture From this Babylon then were our Fathers called by God not onely by that whispering sibilation of the holy Ghost sibilabâ— populum I will hisse for my people and so gather them for I have redeemed them and they shall increase not onely by private inspirations but by generall acclamations every where principall writers and preachers and Princes too as much as could stand with their safety crying out against them before Luther howsoever they will needs doe him that honour to have been the first mover in this blessed revolution They reproach to us our going from them when they drove us and God drew us and they discharge themselves for all by this one evasion That all that we complain of is the fault of the Court of Rome and not of the Church of the extortion in the practise of their Officers not of error in the doctrine of their Teachers Let that be true as in a great part it is for almost all their errors proceed from their covetousness and love of money this is that that we complain most of and in this especially lies the conformity of the Iewish Priests in the Chaldean Babylon and these Prelates in the Roman Babylon that the Court and the Church joined in the oppression But since the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome are united in one head I see no use of this distinction Court and Church If the Church of Rome be above the Court the Church is able to amend these corruptions in the Court If the Court be got above the Church the Church hath lost or sold away her supremacy To oppresse us and ease themselves now when we are gone from them they require Miracles at out hands when indeed it was miracle enough how we got from them But magnum charitatis argumentum credere absque pignoribus miraculorum He loves God but a little that will not beleeve him without a miracle Miracles are for the establishing of new religions All the miracles of and from Christ and his Apostles are ours because their Religion is ours Indeed it behooves our adversaries to provide new miracles every day because they make new articles of Faith every day As Esop therefore answered in the Market when he that sold him was asked what he could do that he could do nothing because his fellow had said that he could do all so we say we can do no miracles because they do all all ordinary cures of Agues and tooth-ach being done by miracle amongst them We confesse that we have no such tye upon the Triumphant Church to make the Saints there do those anniversary miracles which they do by their reliques here upon their own holy days ten days sooner every year then they did before the new computation We pretend not to raise the dead but to cure the sick and that but by the ordinary Physique the Word and Sacraments and therefore need no miracles And we remember them of their own authors who do not onely say that themselves do no miracles in these latter times but assigne diligently strong reasons why it is that they doe none If all this will not serve we must tell them that we have a greater miracle then any that they produce that is that in so few years they that forsook Rome were become equall even in number to them that adhered to her We say with Saint Augustine That if we had no other miracle hoc unum stupendum potentissimum miraculum esse that this alone were the most powerfull and most a mazing miracle ad hanc religionem totius orbis amplitudinem sine miraculis subjugatam that so great a part of the Christian world should become Protestants of Papists without any miracles They pursue us still being departed from them and they aske us How can ye pretend to have left Babylon confusion Dissention when you have such dissentions confusions amongst your selves But neither are our differences in so fundamental points as theirs are for a principall author of their own who was employed by Clement the eight to reconcile the differences between the Iesuits and the Dominicans about the concurrence of the grace of God and the free will of man confesses that the principall articles and foundations of faith were shaken between them between the Iesuits and Dominicans neither shall we finde such heat and animosity and passion between any persons amongst us as between the greatest amongst them The succeeding Pope mangling the body of his predecessor casting them into the river for buriall disannulling all their decrees and ordinations their Ordinations so that no man could be sure who was a Priest nor whether he had truely received any Sacrament or no. Howsoever as in the narrowest way there is most justling the Roman Church going that broad way to beleeve as the Church beleeves may scape some particular differences which we that goe the narrower way to try every thing by the exact word of God may fall into Saint Augustine tells us of a City in Mauritania Caesarea in which they had a custome that in one day in the year not onely Citizens of other parishes but even neighbours yea brethren yea Fathers did fling stones dangerously and furiously at one another in the streets and this they so solemnized as a custome received from their
the people what a temporall dominion in the possessions of the world had the Virgin Mary Queen of heaven and Queen of earth too She was made joint purchaser of the Church with her Sonne and had as much of the worship thereof as he though she paid her fine in milke and he in bloud And till a new Sect came in her Sonnes name and in his name the name of Jesus tooke the regency so farre out of that Queen Mothers hands and sued out her Sonnes Livery so farre as that though her name be used the Virgin Mary is but a feoffee in trust for them all was hers And if God oppose not these new usurpers of the world posterity will soon see Saint Ignatius worth all the Trinity in possessions and endowments as that sumptuous and splendid foundation of his first Temple at Rome may well create a conjecture and suspicion Travaile no farther Survay but this City And of their not one hundred Churches the Virgin Mary hath a dozen The Trinity hath but one Christ hath but one The holy Ghost hath none But not to goe into the City nor out of our selves which of us doth truly and considerately ascribe the comforts that he receives in dangers or in distresses to that God of all comfort the comforter the holy Ghost We know who procured us our Presentation and our dispensation you know who procured you your offices and your honours Shall I ever forget who gave me my comfort in sicknesse Who gave me my comfort in the troubles and perplexities and diffidencies of my conscience The holy Ghost brought you hither The holy Ghost opens your eares and your hearts here Till in all your distresses you can say Veni Creator Spiritus come holy Ghost and that you feel a comfort in his comming you can never say Veni Domine Iesu come Lord Jesus come to Judgement Never to consider the day of Judgement is a fearfull thing But to consider the day of Judgement without the comfort of the holy Ghost is a thousand times more fearfull This Seale then this impression this notion of the Trinity being set upon us in the first Creation in this first plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us for Father Sonne and holy Ghost made man and this seale being re-imprinted upon us in our second Creation our Regeneration in Baptisme Man is Baptized In the name of the Father of the Sonne and of the holy Ghost This notion of the Trinity being our distinctive Character from Iew and Gentile This being our specifique forme why does not this our forme this soule of our Religion denominate us why are we not called Trinitarians a name that would embrace the profession of all the Persons but onely Christians which limits and determines us upon one The first Christians amongst whose manifold Persecutions scorne and contempt was not the least in contempt and scorne were called Nazarai Nazarites in the mouth of the Vulgar and Galilâ—i Galilaeans in the mouth of Iulian and Iudaei Iews in the mouth of Nero when he imputed the burning of Rome his owne act to them and Christiani as Tertullian says that they could accuse Christians of nothing but the name of Christians and yet they could not call them by their right name but Chrestians which was gentle quiet easie patient men made to be troden upon They gave them divers names in scorne yet never called them Trinitarians Christians themselves amongst themselves were called by divers names in the Primitive Church for distinction Fideles the faithfull and Fratres the Brethren and Discipuli Disciples And after by common custome at Antioch Christians And after that they say by a councell which the Apostles held at the same city at Antioch there passed an expresse Canon of the Church that they should be called so Christians And before they had this name at Antioch first by common usage after by a determinate Canon to be called Christians from Christ at Alexandria they were called most likely from the name of Jesus Iesseans And so Philo Iudaeus in that book which he writes De Iessenis intends by his Iessenis Christians and in divers parts of the world into which Christians travell now they find some elements some fragments some reliques of the Christian Religion in the practice of some religious Men whom those Countreys call Iesseans doubtlesly derived and continued from the name of Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples faithfull And they had many names put upon them in scorne Nazarites Galilaeans Iews Chrestians and yet they were never never by Custome amongst themselves never by commandement from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinity being their specifique forme and distinctive Character why so Beloved the name of Christ involv'd all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignity in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that Name conferrs an Unction a regall and a holy Unction upon us for we are thereby a royall Priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinity is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the Holy Ghost This is life eternall says he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent And sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne And then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of Treason and sedition and crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian Religion so is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinity As he that confesses one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesses a Sonne of God beyond him So is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The foole sayes in his heart there is no God The foole says David The emphaticall foole in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a foole still if he say there is no Christ For Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a foole still if he deny the holy Ghost for who shall apply Christ to him but the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani Nomen superficies est
exercise our feares and our jealousies they may raise rebellions and Treasons but they are not fixed and glorious bodies of heaven they are not stars Their non-communions for communions where there are no communicants are no communions when they admit no bread at all no wine at all all is transubstantiated are no communions their semi-communions when they admit the bread to be given but not the wine their sesqui-communions Bread and Wine to the taste and to all other trialls of bread and wine and yet that bread and wine the very body and the very bloud of Christ their quotidian miracles which destroy and contradict even the nature of the miracle to make miracles ordinary and fixed constant and certain for as that is not a miracle which nature does so that 's not a miracle which man can doe certainly constantly infallibly every day and every day every Priest can miraculously change bread into the body of Christ and besides they have certaine fixed shops and Marts of miracles in one place a shop of miracles for barrennesse in another a shop for the tooth-ache To contract this their occasionall Divinity doctrines to serve present occasions that in eighty eight an Hereticall Prince must necessarily be excommunicated and an Hereticall Prince excommunicated must necessarily be deposed but at another time it may be otherwise and conveniencies and dispensations may be admitted these and such as these traditionall occasionall Almanack Divinity they may bee Comets they may be Meteors they may raine bloud and raine fire and raine hailestones hailstones as big as Talents as it is in the Revelation milstones to grinde the world by their oppressions but they are not lux aeternorum corporum the light of the stars and other heavenly bodies for they were made at once and diminish not encrease not Fundamentall articles of faith are always the same And that 's our application of this lux aeternorum corporum the light of those heavenly bodies to the light of our Text Christ working in the Church Now for the consideration of the other light in this third couple which is lux incensionum the light of things which take and give light here upon earth if we reduce it to application and practise and contract it to one Instance it will appeare that the devotion and zeale of him that is best affected is for the most part in the disposition of a torch or a knife ordained to take fire and to give light If it have never been lightned it does not easily take light but it must be bruised and beaten first if it have been lighted and put out though it cannot take fire of it self yet it does easily conceive fire if it be presented within any convenient distance Such also is the soule of man towards the fires of the zeale of Gods glory and compassion of others misery If there be any that never tooke this fire that was never affected with either of these the glory of God the miseries of other men can I hope to kindle him It must be Gods worke to bruise and beat him with his rod of affliction before he will take fire Paulus revelatione compulsus ad fidem St. Paul was compelled to believe not the light which he saw but the power which he felt wrought upon him not because that light shined from heaven but because it strooke him to the earth Agnoscimus Christum in Paulo prius cogentem deinde docentem Christ begun not upon St. Paul with a catechisme but with a rod. If therefore here be any in Pauls case that were never kindled before Almighty God proceed the same way with them and come so neare to a friendship towards them as to be at enmity with them to be so mercifull to them as to seeme unmercifull to be so well pleased as to seeme angry that so by inflicting his medicinall afflictions he may give them comfort by discomfort and life by death and make them seeke his face by turning his face from them and not to suffer them to continue in a stupid inconsideration and lamentable senslesnesse of their miserable condition but bruise and breake them with his rod that they may take fire But for you who have taken this fire before that have been enlightned in both Sacraments and in the preaching of the word in the meanes and in some measure of practise of holinesse heretofore if in not supplying oyle to your Lamps which God by his ordinance had kindled in you you have let this light go out by negligence or inconsideration or that storms of worldly calamities have blowne it out do but now at this instant call to minde what sin of yesterday or t'other day or long ago begun and practised and prevailed upon you or what future sinne what purpose of doing a sinne to night or to morrow possesses you do but thinke seriously what sinne or what crosse hath blown out that light that grace which was formerly in you before that sinne or that crosse invaded you and turne your soul which hath been enlightned before towards this fire which Gods Spirit blowes this minute and you will conceive new fire new zeale new compassion As this Lux incensionum kindles easily when it hath been kindled before so the soule accustomed to the presence of God in holy meditations though it fall asleep in some darke corner in some sinne of infirmity a while yet upon every holy occasion it takes fire againe and the meanest Preacher in the Church shall worke more upon him then the foure Doctors of the Church should be able to do upon a person who had never been enlightned before that is never accustomed to the presence of God in his private meditations or in his outward acts of Religion And this is our third couple of lights that beares witnesse that is admit an application to the light of our Text and then the fourth and last couple which we consider is Lux Depuratarum Mixtionum the light and lustre of precious stones and then Lux Repercussionum the light of Repercussion and Reflexion when one body though it have no light in it self casts light upon other bodies In the application of the first of these lights Depuratarum Mixtionum precious stones we shall onely apply their making and their value Precious stones are first drops of the dew of heaven and then refined by the sunne of heaven When by long lying they have exhal'd and evaporated and breathed out all their grosse matter and received another concoction from the sunne then they become precious in the eye and estimation of men so those actions of ours that shall be precious or acceptable in the eye of God must at first have been conceived from heaven from the word of God and then receive another concoction by a holy deliberation before we bring those actions to execution lest we may have mistaken the roote thereof Actions precious or acceptable in Gods eye must be holy purposes
by a generall forbearance on all sides rather then victory by wrangling and uncharitablenesse And let our right hand forget her cunning let us never set pen to paper to write Let our tongue cleave to the roofe of our mouth let us never open our mouth to speake of those things in which Silence was an Act of Discretion and Charity before but now is also an Act of Obedience and of Allegiance and Loyaltie But that which David said to the Lord Psalme 65. 1. Let us also accommodate to the Lords anointed Tibi laus silentium our best sacrifice to both is to be silent in those things So then this is Concisio corporis that Concision of the body which you are to beware in Doctrinall things first non solvere Iesum not to dissolve not to break Jesus in pieces not to depart in any respect with any fundamentall Article of faith for that is a skin that covers the whole body an obligation that lies upon the whole Church and then for that particular Church in which you have your station first to conform your self to all that in which she had evidently declared herself and then not to impute to her not to call such articles hers as she never avowd And our next consideration is Concisio vestis the tearing of the garment matter of discipline and government To a Circumcision of the garment that is to a paâ—ing and taking away such Ceremonies as were superstitious or superfluous of an ill use or of no use our Church came in the beginning of the Reformation To a CircuÌ„cision we came but those Churches that came to a Concision of the garment to an absolute taking away of all ceremonies neither provided so safely for the Church it self in the substance thereof nor for the exaltation of Devotion in the Church Divide the law of the Iews into 2 halfs and the Ceremoniall will be the greater we cannot cal the Morall law the Iews law that was ours as wel as their peculiar to none but of that law w ch is peculiar to the Jews judicial Ceremonial the Ceremonial is far the greater part So great a care had God of those thing which though they be not of the revenue of Religion yet are of the subsidy of Religion and though they be not the soule of the Church yet are they those Spirits that unite soule and body together H's man did but shave the beards of Davids servants he did not cut off their heads He did not cut their clothes so as that he stripped them naked Yet for that that he did says that story he stanke in Davids sight which is a phrase of high indignation in that language and so much as that it cost him forty thousand of his horsemen in one battell And therefore as this Apostle enters this Caveat in another place If yee bite one another cavete take heed yee be not consumed of one another so cavete take heed of this concision of the garment lest if the garment be torne off the body wither and perish A shadow is nothing yet if the rising or falling Sunne shine out and there be no shadow I will pronounce there is no body in that place neither Ceremonies are nothing but where there are no Ceremonies order and uniformity and obedience and at last and quickely Religion it selfe will vanish And therefore videte concisionem beware of tearing the body or of tearing the garment which will induce the other and both will induce the third concisionem spiritus the tearing of thine owne spirit from that rest which it should receive in God for when thou hast lost thy hold of all those handles which God reaches out to thee in the Ministery of his Church and that thou hast no means to apply the promises of God in Christ to thy soule which are onely applied by Gods Ordinances in his Church when anything falls upon thee that overcomes thy morall constancy which morall constancy God knowes is soon spent if we have lost our recourse to God thou wilt soon sinke into an irrecoverable desperation which is the fearfullest concision of all and videte beware of this concision When God hath made himselfe one body with me by his assuming this nature and made me one spirit with himselfe and that by so high a way as making me partaker of the divine nature so that now in Christ Iesus he and I are one this were solutio Iesus a tearing in peeces a dissolving of Jesus in the worst kinde that could be imagined if I should teare my selfe from Jesus or by any jealousie or suspicion of his mercy or any horror in my own sinnes come to thinke my selfe to be none of his none of him Who ever comes into a Church to denounce an excommunication against himselfe And shall any sad soule come hither to gather arguments from our preaching to excommunicate it selfe or to pronounce an impossibility upon her owne salvation God did a new thing Says Moses a strange thing a thing never done before when the earth opened her mouth and Dathan and Abiram went downe quicke into the pit Wilt thou doe a stranger thing then that To teare open the jawes of Earth and Hell and cast thy self actually and really into it out of mis-imagination that God hath cast thee into it before Wilt thou force God to second thy irreligious melancholy and to condemne thee at last because thou hadst precondemned thy selfe and renounced his mercy Wilt thou say with Cain My sinne is greater then can be pardoned This is Concisio potestatis a cutting off the power of God and Treason against the Father whose Attribute is Power Wilt thou say God never meant to save me this is Concisio Sapientiae a cutting off the Wisdome of God to thinke that God intended himselfe glory in a kingdome and would not have that kingdome peopled and this is Treason against the Son whose Attribute is wisdoms Wilt thou say I shall never finde comfort in Praying in Preaching in Receiving This is Concisio consolationis the cutting off consolation and treason against the holy Ghost whose office is comfort No man violates the Power of the Father the Wisedome of the Sonne the Goodnesse of the holy Ghost so much as he who thinkes himselfe out of their reach or the latitude of their working Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted but why Because they were not If her children had been but gone for a time from her or but sicke with her Rachel would have been comforted but they were not Is that thy case Is not thy soule a soule still It may have gone from thee in sins of inconsideration it may be sicke within thee in sins of habit and custome but is not thy soul a soul still And hath God made any species larger then himself is there more soul then there is God more sin then mercy Truly Origen was more excusable more pardonable if he
Oppresse not that soule by violence by Fraud nor by Scorne which was the other signification of this word Oppression Hoc nos perdit quod divina quoque eloquia in facetias in dicteria vertamus Damnation is a serious thing and this aggravates it that we slight and make jests at that which should save us the Scriptures and the Ordinances of God For by this oppression of thy poore soule by this Violence this Fraud this Scorne thou wilt come to Reproach thy Maker to impute that losse of thy soule which thou hast incurred by often breach of Lawes evidently manifested to thee to his secret purpose and un-revealed will then which thou canst not put a greater Reproach a greater Contumely a greater Blasphemy upon God For God cannot bee God if hee bee not innocent nor innocent if hee draw bloud of mee for his owne Act. But if thou show mercy to this soule mercy in that signification of the word as it denotes an actuall performance of those things that are necessary for the making sure of thy salvation or if thou canst not yet attaine to those degrees of Sanctification mercy in that signification of the word as the word denotes hearty and earnest Prayer that thou couldest Lord I beleeve Lord help mine unbeliefe Lord I stand yet yet Lord raise mee when I fall Honorabis Deum thou shalt honour God in the sense of the word in this Text thou shalt enlarge God amplifie dilate God that is the Body of God the Church both here and hereafter For thou shalt adde a figure to the number of his Saints and there shall bee a Saint the more for thee Thou shalt adde a Theme of Joy to the Exultation of the Angels They shall have one occasion of rejoycing the more from thee Thou shalt adde a pause a stop to that Vsquequo of the Martyrs under the Altar who solicite God for the Resurrection for Thou shalt adde a step to the Resurrection it selfe by having brought it so much nearer as to have done thy part for the filling up of the number of the Saints upon which fulnesse the Resurrection shall follow And thou shalt adde a Voyce to that Old and ever-new Song that Catholique Hymne in which both Churches Militant and Triumphant shall joyne Blessing Honour Glory and Power bee unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lambe for ever and ever Amen SERMON XLIII A Sermon upon the fist of Novemb. 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason Intended for Pauls Crosse but by reason of the weather Preached in the Church LAMENT 4. 20. The breath of our nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits The Prayer before the Sermon O LORD open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise for thou O Lord didst make haste to help us Thou O Lord didst make speed to save us Thou that sittest in heaven didst not onely looke down to see what was done upon the Earth but what was done in the Earth and when the bowels of the Earth were with a key of fire ready to open and swallow us the bowels of thy compassion were with a key of love opened to succour us This is the day and these are the houres wherein that should have been acted In this our Day and in these houres We praise thee O God we acknowledge thee to bee the Lord All our Earth doth worship thee The holy Church throughout all this Land doth knowledge thee with commemorations of that great mercy now in these houres Now in these houres it is thus commemorated in the Kings House where the Head and Members praise thee Thus in that place where it should have been perpetrated where the Reverend Judges of the Land doe now praise thee Thus in the Universities where the tender youth of this Land is brought up to praise thee in a detestation of their Doctrines that plotted this Thus it is commemorated in many severall Societies in many severall Parishes and thus here in this Mother Church in this great Congregation of thy Children where all of all sorts from the Lievtenant of thy Lievtenant to the meanest sonne of thy sonne in this Assembly come with hearts and lippes full of thankesgiving Thou Lord openest their lippes that their mouth may shew forth thy prayse for Thou O Lord diddest make haste to helpe them Thou diddest make speede to save them Accept O Lord this Sacrifice to which thy Spirit giveth fire This of Praise for thy great Mercies already afforded to us and this of Prayer for the continuance and enlargement of them upon the Catholick Church by them who pretend themselves the onely sonnes thereof dishonoured this Day upon these Churches of England Scotland and Ireland shaked and threatned dangerously this Day upon thy servant our Soveraigne for his Defence of the true Faith designed to ruine this day upon the Prince and others derived from the same roote some but Infants some not yet Infants enwrapped in dust and annihilation this day upon all the deliberations of the Counsell That in all their Consultations they may have before their eyes the Record and Registers of this Day upon all the Clergie That all their Preaching and their Governement may preclude in their severall Iurisdictions all re-entrances of that Religion which by the Confession of the Actours themselves was the onely ground of the Treason of this day upon the whole Nobilitie and Commons all involved in one Common Destruction this Day upon both our Universities which though they lacke no Arguments out of thy Word against the Enemies of thy Truth shall never leave out this Argument out of thy Works The Historie of this Day And upon all those who are any wayes afflicted That our afflictions bee not multiplyed upon us by seeing them multiplyed amongst us who would have diminished thee and annihilated us this Day And lastly upon this Auditory assembled here That till they turne to ashes in the Grave they may remember that thou tookest them as fire-brands out of the fire this Day Heare us O Lord and hearken to us Receive our Prayers and returne them with Effect for his sake in whose Name and words wee make them Our Father which art c. The SERMON OF the Authour of this Booke I thinke there was never doubt made but yet that is scarce safely done which the Councell of Trent doth in that Canon which numbers the Books of Canonicall Scriptures to leave out this Book of Lamentations For though I make no doubt but that they had a purpose to comprehend and involve it in the name of Ieremy yet that was not enough for so they might have comprehended and involved Genesis and Deuteronomie and all between those two in one name of Moses and so they might have comprehended and involved the Apocalypse and some Epistles in the name of Iohn and have left out the Book it selfe in the number But one of their
and our North and South at another tyde and another gale First then we looke towards our East the fountaine of light and of life There this world beganne the Creation was in the east And there our next world beganne too There the gates of heaven opened to us and opened to us in the gates of death for our heaven is the death of our Saviour and there he lived and dyed there and there he looked into our west from the east from his Terasse from his Pinacle from his exaltation as himselfe calls it the Crosse. The light which arises to us in this east the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text Faciamus Let us where God speaking of himselfe speakes in the Plurall is the manifestation of the Trinity the Trinity which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to read his name in the book of life The first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Quire of the Triumphant Church Let him him have done as much as all the Worthies and suffered as much as all Natures Martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they that pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and in-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Turtullian speakes un-understandable things unrevealed decrees of God Let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ or as is written upon Aristotle which is multiplication enough yet he hath not learnt to spel that hath not learnt the Trinity not learnt to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three Persons into one God The subject of naturall philosophy are the foure elements which God made the Subject of supernaturall philosophy Divinity are the three elements which God is and if we may so speake which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his owne heart and the law written there may produce Actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the worke He may relieve the poore he may defend the oppressed But yet he is but as an open field and though he be not absolutely barren he bears but grasse The godly man he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and a powerfull God and enclosed and hedged in himselfe with the feare of God may produce actions better then the meere naturall man because he referres his actions to the glory of his imagined God But yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassy field yet he is but a ploughed field and he bears but corne and corne God knowes choaked with weeds But that man who hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himselfe in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a Garden of Gods planting a Paradise in which grow all things good to eate and good to see spirituall resection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure He hath his beeing and his diet and his physique there in the knowledge of the Trinity his beeing in the mercy of the Father his physique in the merits of the Sonne his diet his daily bread in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost God is not pleased not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God For it is impossible to please God without faith and there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of beleefe Credo in Deum I beleeve in God in the same article we professe him to be a Father too I beleeve in God the father Almighty And that notion the Father necessarily implies a second Person a Sonne And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth And in the Creation the holy Ghost the Spirit of God is expresly named So that we doe but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God We exercise not faith and without faith it is impossible to please God till we come to that which is above nature till we apprehend a Trinity We know God we beleeve in the Trinity The Gentiles multiplyed Gods There were almost as many Gods as men that beleeved in them And I am got out of that thrust and out of that noise when I am come into the knowledge of one God But I am got above staires got in the Bedchamber when I am come to see the Trinity and to apprehend not onely that I am in the care of a great and a powerfull God but that there is a Father that made me a Sonne that Redeemed me a holy Ghost that applies this good purpose of the Father and Sonne upon me to me The root of all is God But it is not the way to receive fruits to dig to the root but to reach to the boughs I reach for my Creation to the Father for my Redemption to the Sonne for my sanctification to the holy Ghost and so I make the knowledge of God a Tree of life unto me and not otherwise Truly it is a sad Contemplation to see Christians scratch and wound teare one another with the ignominious invectives and uncharitable names of of Heretique and Schismatique about Ceremoniall and Problematicall and indeed but Criticall verball controversies and in the meane time the foundation of all the Trinity undermined by those numerous those multitudinous Anthills of Socinians that overflow some parts of the Christian world and multiply every where And therefore the Adversaries of the Reformation were wise in their generation when to supplant the credit of both those great assistants of the Reformation Luther and Calvin they impute to Calvin fundamentall error in the Divinity of the second Person of the Trinity the Sonne And they impute to Luther a detestation of the very word Trinity and an expunction thereof in all places of the Liturgy where the Church had received that word They knew well if that slander could prevaile against those persons nothing that they could say could prevaile upon any good Christians But though in our doctrine we keep up the Trinity aright yet God knowes in our practice we doe not I hope it cannot be said of any of us that he beleeves not the Trinity but who amongst us thinkes of the Trinity considers the Trinity Father and Sonne doe naturally imply and induce one another and therefore they fall oftner into our consideration But for the holy Ghost who feels him when he feels him Who takes knowledge of his working when he works Indeed our Fathers provided not well enough for the worship of the whole Trinity nor of the holy Ghost in particular in the endowments of the Church and Consecrations of Churches and possessions in their names What a spirituall dominion in the prayers and worship of