heaven c. Serm. 31. Matth. VI. 9. Our Father which art in heaven Serm. 32. Matth. VI. 9. Hallowed be thy Name Serm. 33. Matth. VI. 10. Thy Kingdom come Serm. 34. Matth. VI. 10. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Serm. 35. Matth. VI. 10. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Serm. 36. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 37. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 38. Matth. VI. 11. Give us this day our daily bread Serm. 39. Matth. VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as Luke XI 4. And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us Serm. 40. Matth. VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as Luke XI 4. And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us Serm. 41. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 42. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 43. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 44. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 45. Matth. VI. 13. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Serm. 46. Matth. VI. 13. But deliver us from evil Serm. 47. Matth. VI. 13. But deliver us from evil Serm. 48. Matth. VI. 13. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever Amen TWO SERMONS Preached at the Parish-Church OF St. MARY MAGDALENE Milk-street LONDON By a Friend of the AUTHORS Upon his being in the late Troubles Silenced LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott MDCLXXIV The First SERMON JEREM. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk or reason the case with thee of thy Judgments Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously THE most general Question which hath troubled the world almost ever since it began is that great Dispute concerning the just and equal distribution of temporal blessings how to reconcile the prosperity of the wicked and the miseries of the righteous with those common Attributes which we assign unto God how it can consist with the Divine Wisdom and Justice to promote the designs of the ungodly whom he abhors at the very Soul and to crush and bear down those whom he calls by his own Name stiles his peculiar people and whom he esteems as the Apple of his Eye For this objection hath gone through all degrees and qualities of men high and low rich and poor miserable and happy good and bad the glorious flourishing and lofty sinner whom God smiles upon as Job speaks he proves there is no Providence from his own success because he goes smoothly on in his wickedness without the least check or interruption Therefore pride compasses him therefore he sets his mouth against heaven and Psal 73. 9. his tongue walks through the earth scorning both God and Man And not only they but the very people of God too seeing this unequal dispensation even they say How does God know and is there knowledge in the most v. 11. high v. 11. Nay David himself professes the thought of this came so cross him as it had almost beat him down My feet were almost gone my v. 2. steps had well-nigh slipt v. 2. of the same Psalm and he very hardly recovered himself but breaks out into this amazement Behold these are the ungodly Psal 73. 12. who prosper they encrease in riches as if he had said I lookt to see the righteous upon thrones and the vertuous gay and flourishing but contrary to all expectation Behold these are the ungodly who prosper they increase in riches which makes him cry out in the next verse Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain in vain have I washed my hands in innocency a most desperate speech and means thus Let who will stand upon forms and niceties hereafter let who will betray his being and livelyhood to a timorous conscience I will be scrupulous no longer no longer shall the formality of Laws and Religion tye me to be undone if wickedness only thrives I can be wicked too Thus David thus Habakkuk and thus the Prophet Jeremy in this Chapter complains who seeing the falsness and treachery both of his friends and enemies still prevail against him and seeing the conspiracies of those Priests of Anathoth where he was born too never fail though God had told him in the first Chapter He had made him a defenced City an iron Pillar a brazen Wall and that he would enable him by his Divine assistance to oppose the whole Nation whilest he alas found himself but a Reed shaken with the wind blown into a prison with every breath of a base Informer Seeing and considering this cross-dealing and debating within himself what this should mean falls out into this Exclamation Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee c. Where you have a Proposition or Doctrine laid down as certain and then an Objection rais'd against this Doctrine The Proposition Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee The Objection which seems to oppose it in these words Yet let me talk with thee of thy Judgments Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously I begin with the Proposition it self Righteous art thou O Lord when I Proposition plead with thee Where you may observe the most singular piety and resolution of the Prophet though Gods design look't never so strange unto him and seem'd as it were a meer contradiction yet still he held fast to his Principle That God was just whatsoever became of him or his Cause That whensoever he did plead and argue with God concerning his Dispensations He assured himself thus much before hand that God would overcome when he was judg'd and that his Righteousness like a glorious Sun would break through all the clouds of opposition cast about it Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee The Prophet did not preposterously conclude God just from the justice of his action but arguing backwards inferred his proceeding to be just because he himself is righteous He does not first examine Gods wayes and then pronounce him just because he finds him so but first takes this as granted that God is true be the action what it will and then afterwards inquires into the Reason of it And whosoever in reasoning about Gods actions shall argue otherwise or use any other method will run himself upon many rocks and perplexities and at last find blasphemy in the conclusion For we read of many actions commended in Scripture so horrid in themselves as no Orator can invent a colour to excuse them
we look towards the mercy-seat and if God extreamly mark what is done amiss whose joynts of his loins are not loosed whose knees smite not one against another who is there able to abide it God is our Judge and he alone must quit us He is offended and he must forgive us Come and let us return unto him for he hath suffered us to be spoiled and he will heal us to be wounded and he will bind us up After two dayes he will revive us and the third he will raise us up He is our Creditour and hath taught us to pray unto him to forgive us our debts Every sin properly is against him either immediately when we sin against the first Table or mediately when we sin against the second when we strike God through our neighbour's side and so by breaking the Law wrong the Law-giver And therefore he only can forgive our sins against whom our sins are most properly committed Nathan indeed pronounced Davids pardon Deus transtulit peccatum and so may be said to remit his sin ministerialiter by way of office and ministery but God did it autoritativè by way of power right and autority Nathan had his commission from God and if comfort had not shined from thence David had still lain in sorrow and as yet remained in the dust of Death Ten moneths were now passed since his sin was committed and yet we read of no compunction He lay stupefied in sin and was like a man sleeping in the midst of his enemies Oh then whose heart can conceive those thoughts which possessed him when he awaked His river of tears could not now express his grief He saw God who was wont to guide him in his paths and direct him in his wayes now withdrawing himself hiding his face from him and leaving him under the burden of his sin And high time it was to call him back again to seek him by importunity of prayer to send after him sighs and groans to sow in tears that he might reap in joy Look now upon David whosoever thou art that carriest Man and Frailty about thee Behold him lying on the ground see him pressed down with the burden of his sin and then think his case thine Think the time may come when thou mayest have no feeling of Christ at all and thy poor soul may be as a man desolate in the night without comfort that it may be beaten down to the dust and thy belly cleave unto the earth Tell me whom then wilt thou fly unto for succour what balme wilt thou search out to refresh thee The Pope may be liberal and open his treasuries and let fly an Indulgence But it is not a Pardon from him can help thee Alass miserable comfort is this A merry tale well told is far better Yet it may be thou hopest to make the law of Unrighteousness thy strength to drown thy sorrows in a cup of wine to leave them behind thee and lose them amongst merry company In this thou dost but like the Dog break the chain and draw a great part of it after thee O then if thou fall with David with David trust in the Lord. What if his Jealousie burn like fire let thy tears quench it Let thy prayers like pillars of smoke mount upwards and pierce the clouds and offer an holy violence to God Then when Hope is almost changed into Despair thou shalt find Christ and feel him coming again then Faith shall revive and lay faster hold on him then shall the joy of thy salvation be restored And when thy soul is heavy and thy heart is disquieted and thy bowels vexed within thee then will he look upon thy misery and cause his face to shine and the peace of conscience like a sweet sleep shall fall upon thee I come now in the third place to speak of the Person King David Restore to me And who can look upon him but thorough tears Who can behold him and not look down unto his own steps Whose pride can lift him up so high as to make him think the Devil cannot reach him and pull him down Or is not David sent to us as Nathan was to him to tell us by his example that unless God put under his hand he that stands surest may take a fall and that he who thinks himself like mount Sion may be moved Surely if there be such Perfectionists such proud Pharisees that dare fling a stone at an adultress and proclaim themselves without sin if there be any whose Purity dare stand out with God and answer him more then for one of a thousand they might well take leave to demand that priviledge which that cursed Sect in Saxony bragged of of whom Sleidan reporteth Who boasted that they had private conference with God and a command from him to kill all the wicked of the earth and so to make a new world whose purity should plead for it self and not need the help of a Mediatour But these men were possessed with more then a Novation spirit and in their adventure to hell out-bid the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which the manners of many turbulent spirits in our Church have long since Englished Whose Religion as Nazianzene speaketh was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose piety was boasting whose purity was impure We craftily made as he after observes the elegancy of the name a bait to catch the ignorant and unwary multitude Cursed and cruel men who have not so much pity in them as the Levite in the Gospel He saw the man wounded vouchsafed him a look and then passed by These by a witty and new kind of cruelty as Cyprian calls it till him that is already wounded take away even the hope of recovery and oppose the thunder of an excommunication even to the least noise of sin refusing the penitency and contrition of their brother and denying the mercy of their Father which is in heaven justly deserving a hell because they threaten it and the surest heirs of damnation because they make all others so But what is this the state of Mankind that we must either be viler then the worms of the earth only fuel for hell-fire or else stand out with God and contend for purity with the Most High No foolish Sectary we have better learned Christ Each Christian if he look upon David will quickly see upon what ground he stands and that if every fall after Baptism were as far as hell Gods promise would be suspected and Repentance which is offered to the greatest sinner would be proposed to mock not to comfort us like a staff held out to look on not to help us or like a mess of meat upon a dead mans grave for which we should be never awhit the better We behold the Saints throwing down their crowns before the Throne and can we either with the Anabaptist think we can attain to a perfect Rev. 4. degree of regeneration or with the supererogating Papist rob God of his honor pull heaven
heart is stone enough to beat it back no soul so stubborn as to resist it neither height nor depth nor the Devil nor Sin it self can evacuate it The Recipiatis is unavoidable and the in vanum impossible And every man is a St. Paul a priviledged person not sweetly water'd with abundance but violently driven on with a torrent and inundation of Grace We must therefore find out another sense of the word Although for ought that can be said the Exhortation may concern us in this sense also and teach us to hear when God speaks to open when he knocks not to be deaf to his thunder nor to hide our selves from his lightning nor to quench the spirit nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to resist and fall cross with Acts 7. 51. the holy Ghost But in the Scripture two words we find by which the Graces of God are expressed There is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here in the Text and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual gifts Plainly there are more common and necessary Graces which 1 Cor. 12. concur to sanctification of life to uprightness and common honesty And there are peculiar graces as Quickness of Will Depth of Understanding Skill in languages or supernatural as gifts of Tongues gifts of Healing of Miracles of Prophesie and the like These are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather gifts then graces and are distributed but to certain persons in such measure as seems best to Gods Wisdome Why men are not as strong as Samson or as learned as Solomon why they prophesie not as Jeremy and work not miracles as Paul all this is from God But why men are not righteous as Noah devout as David zealous as Elias we must find the cause in our selves and not lay the defect on God Now the Grace in the Text is none of all these but is that gratia Evangelii the Grace of reconciliation by Christ the Doctrine of the Gospel which Christ commanded to be preached to all Nations And in this sense it is most frequently used in holy Scripture in the Epistles of St. Paul where we so often find it placed in opposition to the Works of the Law This is it which he so oft commends unto us This is it which he here exhorts us to receive This is it for the propagation of which he was in afflictions necessities distresses in stripes in prisons in labors in tumults which are a part of the catalogue of his sufferings in this Chapter And this is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a grace and a gift too without which all other gifts and graces aut nihil sunt aut nihil prosunt deserve not that name Strength is but weakness Learning is but folly Prophesies are but dreams Miracles are sluggish all are not worth the receiving or are received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vain Shall I say it is a greater gift then that robe of Righteousness with which God clothed Adam in Paradise It so far exceeds it that we dare not compare them There is a MULTO MAGIS set upon it by St. Paul Rom. 5. 15. and a NON SIC Not as the offense so is the free gift The Loss not so great as the Recovery Nay cui Angelorum What speak we of Adam To whom of the Angels did God give such a gift What a glory would we count it out of Nothing to be made an Angel a Seraphim By this gift by the Grace of Christ we are raised from Sin above the perfection and beauty of any created substance whatsoever above the Hierarchy of Angels and Archangels A Christian as he is united to Christ is above the Seraphims For take the substance of a Seraphim by it self and compare it to a Man reconciled to God by this Grace and the difference will be as great as between a Picture and a Man An Artificer may draw his own Picture but he can only express his likeness his color his lineaments he cannot represent his better part his Soul which constitutes and makes him what he is Take all the creatures of the Universe and they are but weak and faint shadows and adumbrations of Divine perfection God is not so exprest by an Angel as by a Christian who is his lively image as the Son is the image of his Father by a kind of fellowship and communication of nature The Creature represents God as a Statue doth the Emperor but a Christian as the Son his Father between whom there is not only likeness but identity and a participation of the same nature For by this gift by these promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature saith St. Peter ◠Pet. 1. 4. And as a Father takes more delight to look upon his Son then upon his Picture and Figure so God looks more graciously upon a Christian then upon any created essence then upon the nature of Angels He that gave the Gift he that was the Gift pray for us John 17. 21 22. that we may be all one and as his Father is in him and he in his Father so we may be one in them as they are one This is the Gift by which God did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle gather together and re-establish the decay'd nature of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysostome knit and joyn together Heaven and Earth And as Christ spake of John Baptist Matth. 11. 14. Hic est Elias si vultis recipere He shall be Elias to you if you will receive him so Haec est gratia Dei The Gospel the Reconciliation made by Christ is the Grace of God if we will receive it Which is my next part And what is a Gift if it be not received Like a mess of pottage on a dead mans grave like Light to the blind like musick to the deaf The dead man feeds not the blind man sees not the deaf man hears not What were all the beauty of the Firmament if there were no eye to descry it What is the Grace of God without Faith The Receiving of it is it which makes it a Grace indeed which makes it Gospel If it be not received it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vain An unbelieving heart turneth this bread into gravel this honey into gall and as much as in him lyes doth not only crucifie but annihilate the Lord of Life We usually compare Faith to a Hand which is reached forth to receive this Gift Without a Hand a Jewel is a trifle and the treasure of both the Indies is nothing and without Faith the Gospel is but Christus cum suâ fabulâ as the Heathen spake in reproach but a fable or relation And therefore an absolute necessity there is that we receive it For without this receipt all other receipts are not worth the casting up Our Understanding receives light to mislead her our Will power to overthrow her our Afflictions which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
thy self what thou meanst when thou art to thy self a barbarian How can thy soul parley with thy God in such a Fayre and concourse of evil thoughts How canst thou ask a blessing from the Father which is now in heaven when thou hast so many companions about thee from the earth earthly Thou askest for bread but thou desirest a stone Thou askest for grace but thy mind is on riches Thou askest fish but thy hand is reached out to that Serpent which will sting thee to death It might be said unto thee as St. Hierome once said to his Friend when he found him in ill company What make you in such a troop What dost thou on thy knees when so many loose thoughts round thee about What should a beadsman do in such a throng But this miserable men that we are many times befalls us because we do not retire and call our thoughts out of the world It is true that Devotion may mingle it self with the common actions of our life Arator ad stivam HALLELUIAH cantat The plowman may sing an Halleluiah at the plow-tail He may collect some sacred colloquie SERERE NE METUAS If I miss this season I shall have no harvest If I remember not God in my youth he will forsake me in my age And God hears from heaven that prayer of his which he makes with his bow or hammer in his hand But yet many times in the affairs of our life there is a kind of dust gathered which soyls and darkens the brightness of our Devotion Which when we have brushed off by sequestring our thoughts from the world it will be more cleer Sometimes we must as St. Hierome speaks Intrinsecùs esse cum Deo be within in our hearts with God alone so busie in our colloquie with him so amazed at his Majesty so trembling at his Justice so ravisht at his Mercy so swallowed up in the contemplation of him that we even forget our selves that we lose our selves that we annihilate our selves that we have eyes and see not ears and hear not that when a covetous thought would steal in at the windows of our eyes we may be blind and if musick be loud we may not hear it Some have so wrought upon themselves that they have forgot to eat to taste to speak The Legend tells us of St. Agnes as I remember that in her devotion she was lifted three foot above the ground And he that wrote the life of St. Bernard reports it of him that he was so given to prayer and meditation that living a whole year in his cell or chamber in a Monastery when he came forth he knew not whether it were cieled or no and when there were several windows in it obvious to the eye he thought there had been but one In these whether fables or truths this truth is pointed to That when we tender our prayers to God we should abstract our selves from our selves and from the things of the world That we should not come to him till we have cast our cares our thoughts behind us The Beads-mans Motto is NON ALIUD NUNC CURO QUAM NE CUREM I have but one care in this world and that is that I may never have more When I call upon God God doth as it were put forth his hand and beckon to me to escape from the world not to be multiplex varium animal not to divide and distract my self and part my self out to variety of objects but be one in my self that I may be one with him The Psalmist prays unto God Psal 86. 11. Unite my heart to fear thy name The Vulgar rendereth it LAETETUR COR MEUM Let my heart rejoyce Hierome out of the Hebrew UNICUM FAC COR MEUM Make my heart one and alone And so Symmachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same Aquila SIT COR MEUM 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let my heart be alone Let it be more retired and secluded from the world then any Monk that it may be free from the thought of things below that it may behold nothing but thee that it may be all thine that in respect of the world it may be like unto those who have been dead long ago Thus when the Mind is taken from the Sensual part it begins to reflect upon it self and then beholds its own wants its want of piety its want of sincerity then it beholds ictus laniatus those gashes and wounds which Sin hath made in it then it sees clearly to behold that receptacle which should have been a temple of the holy Ghost turned into a stews a place for Ohini and Ziim to dance in for the Devil to sport in And after this sad survey of it self it is restless and unquiet it strives to empty it self of sin to vent it self out in sighs and groans unspeakable to send it self gushing out of the eyes in rivers of tears and to breath it self forth at the mouth by an humble confession And now whether in the body or out of the body we cannot well tell but it makes haste to be at rest it presseth forward towards the Mercy-seat and is as restless in her importunity as she was in her sin never gives over till those wounds and gashes be cured by the bloud of her Saviour till his sighs and groans speak for ours never rests till the hand of Mercy wipe all tears from our eyes and treasure them up in a bottle This is the work of a devout soul And he that will be such a Beads-man must make his Senses follow his Mind and not his Mind his Senses which may be brought saith Pliny to have no other object then that which the Mind hath when they are taken from their own And thus I learn to be blind though I have light to be deaf though I have my hearing with our Saviour to go out of the world into the wilderness or by my Christian art make the world it self a desart And here to shut up what hath been said with a short application to our selves We of this Nation in the first place have great reason to be jealous over our selves with a godly jealousie and just cause to fear that we have not come so prepared to duty as we ought For what hath been the fruit and effect of these our many Fasts of these our many Prayers Certainly the cloud which hung over our heads is more thick and dark then before And as the Prophet speaks The Syrians before and the Philistines behind Isa 9. 12. and they both devour Israel with open mouth For all this his anger is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still What shall we say Hath God forgotten to be merciful or is that inexhausted fountain of Goodness drawn dry Or can the God of peace delight in those civil or uncivil broyls Can he that shed his bloud for us delight to see ours spilt as water on the ground No We must seek for the
as their argument It is plain we must not understand here Moses 's Heaven the Ayr for the Firmament but St. Pauls third Heaven This is the City of the great King the City of the living God the Psal 48. 2. Hebr. 12. 22. Hebr 1 10. 1 Tim. 6 16. Psal 103. 19. heavenly Jerusalem a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Here our Father dwelleth in light inaccessible unconceivable Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here he keepeth his glorious residence and here he hath prepared his throne Here thousand thousands minister unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stand Dan. 7. 9. before him Here he still sheweth the brightness of his countenance and to all eternity communicateth himself to all his blessed Angels and Saints Beloved the consideration of this stately Palace of the King of Kings should fill our hearts with humility and devotion and make us put-up our petitions at the throne of Grace with all reverence and adoration Is our Father Psal 104. 1. Gen. 18. 27. in heaven clothed with honor and majesty Then let us who are but dust and ashes vile earth and miserable sinners when we make our approaches to this great and dreadful God not be rude and rash and inconsiderate vainly multiplying Dan. 9 4. words before him without knowledge and using empty and heartless repetitions but let us first recollect our thoughts compose our affections bring our minds into a heavenly frame take to our selves words fit to Hos 14. 2. express the desires of our souls and then let us worship and bow down and Psal 95. 6. kneel before the Lord our Maker and let us pour forth our prayers into the bosome of our heavenly Father our Tongue all the whiâ—e speaking nothing but what the Heart enditeth This counsel the Preacher giveth us Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before Eccl. 5. 2. God For God is in heaven and thou upon earth therefore let thy words be few Again is our Father in heaven Then our heart may be glad and our Psal 16. 9 10. glory rejoyce and our flesh also rest in hope God will not leave us in the grave nor suffer us to live for ever under corruption but in due time we shall be brought out of that bonaage into a glorious liberty and be admitted into those Rom. 8. 21 happy mansions in our Fathers house He will have his children like unto John 14. 2 3. himself Therefore we may be assured that as now he guideth us with his counsel Psal 73. 25. so he will afterwards receive us into glory Our elder Brother who is gone before and hath by his ascension opened the gate of Heaven and prepared a place for us will come again at the end of the world and awake us John 14. 3. Psal 17. 15. Mat. 25. 21 23. 1 John 3. 2. 1 Cor. 15. 49. out of our beds of dâ—st and receive us unto himself that we may enter into the joy of our Lord for ever behold his face see him as he is be satisfied with his likeness and as we have born the image of the earthy so bear the image of the heavenly And now Beloved having this hope in us let us purifie our 1 John 3. 3. selves even as our Father which is in heaven is pure While we remain here below and pass through this valley of Tears let us ever and anon lift up our Psal 84. 6. Psal 121. 1. Isa 57. 15. eyes unto the hills even to that high and holy place wherein dwelleth that high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity yet not boldly to gaze and busily to pry within the veil For Heaven is too high and bright an object for our Eye to discern and discover for our Tongue to discourse and dispute of But SURSUM CORDA Let us look up to heaven that we may learn not to mind earthly things but to set our affections on those things which are above to Col. 3. 2. have our conversation in heaven and our heart there where our everlasting Phil. 3. 20. Matth. 6. 21. treasure is Let us still wish and long and breathe and pant to mount that holy hill and often with the Spirit and the Bride say Come Come Lord Rev. 22. 17 20 Jesus come quickly and sigh devoutly with the Psalmist When shall we come Psal 42. 2. and appear before God And in the mean time let us sweeten and lighten those many tribulations we must pass through with the sober and holy contemplation Acts 14. 22. of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory of the fulness of joy 2 Cor. 4. 17. that is in Gods presence and of those pleasures for evermore that are at the Psal 16. 11. right hand of OUR FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN To whom with the Son and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory now and ever Amen The Two and Thirtieth SERMON PART IV. MATTH VI. 9. Hallowed be thy Name WE have past the Preface or Frontis-piece and must now take a view of the Building the Petitions themselves We find a needless difference raised concerning the number of them Some have made seven Petitions and have compared them to the seven Stars in heaven to the seven golden Candlesticks to the seven Planets to the river Nilus which as Seneca tells us per septena ostia in mare effunditur ex his quodcunque elegeris mare est is divided into seven streams and every stream is an Ocean Others have fitted them to the seven Gifts of the Spirit Those we will not call with A. Gellius nugalia or with Seneca ineptias toyes and trifles but we may truly say Aliquid habent ingenii nihil cordis Some shew of wit we may perhaps descry in them but not any great savor or relish of sense and judgment What perfection there can be in one number more than in another or what mystery in the number of seven I leave it to their inquiry who have time and leasure perscrutari interrogare latebras numerorum as the Father speaks to search and dive into the secrets of Numbers who by their art and skill can digg the ayr and find precious metal there where we of duller apprehension can find no such treasure I confess men of great wits have thus delighted themselves numeros ad unquem excutere to sift and winnow Numbers but all the memorial of their labor was but chaff The number of Fourty for Christ after his Resurrection staid so long upon earth they have divided into four Denaries and those four they have paralleld with the four parts of the World into which the sound of the Gospel should go The number of Ten they have consecrated in the Law and the number of Seven in the holy Ghost Perfecta lex in Denario numero
in manu consilii sui in his own hands and disposing yet in his goodness and mercy to his chosen ones he would set bounds to wicked persons that he would shackle though not their wills yet their hands that he would cut off the designs infatuate the counsels scatter the imaginations of all those who like serpents were only born to do mischief and to sin against heaven and earth So much of this point Now that we may say something of that which we call voluntatem praecepti of God's Law and Precept and Command which every where in Scripture is called his Will and indeed doth most of all concern us we will draw and wind up all in this main conclusion That every Christian who will truly say this Petition Thy will be done must bring with him a heart prepared to yield ready obedience to do whatsoever God commands and a chearful patience to suffer what his hand shall lay upon him THY WILL BE DONE is the thing we pray for And that we may do his will God hath opened and revealed his will and made it as manifest as the day Jam autem praecipitur quià non rectè curritur si quò currendum sit nescitur saith St. Augustine He hath taught us before-hand because he runs not well that knows neither his way nor journeys end Therefore God did as it were evaporate and open his will writ his eternal law in our hearts engraved it in tables of stone publisht it by the voice of Angels by the sound of that trumpet which the Evangelists and Apostles did blow declared it fully and plainly that we may run and read it and not turn aside to seek any other rule but conform our selves unto it by a voluntary Obedience which like an hand-maid may wait upon his Will and by an humble and obedient Patience which alwayes hath an eye not upon the blow but the hand that gives it and bows under it when he speaks or when he strikes returns no answer but this FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA Thy will be done This is the sum of this Petition and indeed of all Religion For if we level our actions by that rule which is naturally right we can do no evil and whatsoever befalls us judicio bonitatis ejus accidit saith Hilary befalls us not by chance but by the judicious Providence of Gods goodness and therefore we can suffer no evil And this one would think were enough What can God teach us more than to pray that we may do his will We might now well pass to the next Petition and not once glance upon these words In earth as it is in heaven But the word of God as it is no way defective so hath nothing redundant and superfluous not a versicle not a clause which doth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome which carries not its weight with it and presents us with plenty and riches of wisdome If we do Gods will we can do no more the Angels can do no more Yet if we look upon our selves and reflect a while upon our own tempers and dispositions we shall find that what is in it self enough and sufficient is not enough and sufficient for us and that this clause In earth as it is in heaven was a necessary addition put in by our Saviour by way of caution and prevention It is not enough for us to be taught to pray that we may do God's will we shall fall short in our obedience if we be not taught also the manner how this must be accomplished For we are naturally prone jussa magìs interpretari quà m exsequi to boggle at every duty that is enjoyned and if we be left at loose instead of executing what is commanded to sit down and seek out shifts and evasions and inventions of our own and so to do it by halves to do it as St. Basil saith either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unseasonably or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scantly and not in that measure which is required to content our selves with Agrippa's modicum When indeed we are subjects to every duty we become Justitiaries and set it bounds and limit and restrain it Do his will As Men made up and composed of weakness and infirmities as Men bruised and maimed with the fall of our first parents as Men in terris dust and ashes But sicut in coelis to do the will of God as it is done in heaven our contemplation would never have set it at this altitude Nullum morosius animal est nec majore arte tractandum quam homo saith Seneca There is not a more waiward and curious creature than Man nor to be handled with more art He must be taught not only what to do but how and how far to do it He must be instructed in each circumstance he must have a pattern as well as a duty otherwise he will start and slip aside he will neither do it constantly nor equally he will do it and omit it Were he not taught to do it as it is done in heaven he would not do it at all Were he not commanded to be like the Angels in heaven he would degenerate from himself and become worse than the beasts that perish You see then this clause was not added in vain but is operatoria as the Civilians speak carries with it great force and efficacy And whether we interpret it of the material Spheres quae iterum eunt per quae venerant as Seneca speaks which are alwayes in motion yet never alter their course or of those super-coelestial Powers the Angels those mystical wheels as Dionysius calls them turning themselves about in an everlasting gyre of obedience it must needs lift up our thoughts to this consideration That the performance of Gods will by us must be most exact and perfect heavenly and angelical That we must make it our endeavour to be like them as Angels here on earth who make it our ambition to be equal to them in heaven I will not take those several interpretations I find although I censure none of them especially since none of them swerve from the analogy of faith nor from that doctrine which was delivered to the Saints and all of them are profitable to instruction You may take earth and heaven for the Flesh and the Spirit with St. Cyprian or for Men which are of the earth earthy and those coelestial Orbs for the Just and Wicked with others and thence extract this Christian duty To pray for your enemies All these may be useful and with St. Augustine I condemn no sense upon which any good duty may be raised and built But I rather understand with the same Father by heaven the Angels and by earth Men because the words do best bear it and we cannot take a better pattern than the Angels And in this sense we pray ut sint homines similes Angelis That Men may be as obedient to Gods will here in earth as those
dicere nomen and had I not the warrant of so grave and judicious a Divine I should scarcely have dar'd to have taught it in this age of the world where we are taught that we must begin from our selves that we must not tempt God by making our selves destitute of means or other such thriving Doctrines which strongly savour of Love to the World and Distrust in Gods Providence I deny not but that there may be many reasons of mollifying and restraining some Texts but amongst these that must be the least which is drawn from our Commodity For thus to tamper with those Texts which seem to stand in our light and cross us in our way to Riches and Honors gives just cause of suspicion that our hearts are set upon them and that if no hard and fearful command came between we would be nailed to them In respect of our Persons or our Purses to restrain any part of Scripture from that latitude of sense whereof it is naturally capable makes it manifest that we are willing magìs emendare Deos quà m nosipsos rather to correct the Gods nay to conform the word of the true and everliving God to our own humor than to subdue our humor to the word of God and that we are well content to deal with our souls as the Athenians sometimes dealt with their ground When they will not bear good corn to sow leeks and onions there When the Gospel and Christs precepts thwart our corrupt dispositions we learn to make them void with our traditions with our Pharisaical limitations and restrictions And thus much be spoken concerning this word NOSTER and the reasons why this Bread is called Our Bread The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON PART III. MATTH VI. 11. Give us this day our daily Bread WHat is meant by Bread and why it is called Our Bread we have already shewn at large And in this word NOSTER we found a Goad to put in the sides of the Sluggard to awaken him out of his slumber and lethargie and a Chain to fetter the hands of the Deceitful to keep them from picking and stealing from fraud and cousenage and a Spur to our Charity to make us cast our bread upon the waters NOSTER is verbum operativum a word full of efficacie to open the fountain of our Liberality and to set up banks to regulate our desires in the pursuit of wealth We proceed now to enquire in the next place why we are taught to pray for our daily Bread or what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And here as the streams in which Interpreters run are divers so the fountain is hard to find out Some take the word properly some metaphorically Some render it Supersubstantialem as the Vulgar and so with Tertullian and Cyprian take in Christ who is the Bread of life So that to pray for Bread is perpetuitatem postulare in Christo individuitatem à corpore ejus to desire a perpetuity in Christ and to be united to him for ever Others make it Sacramental Bread Castellio expounds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then it is supercaelestial or heavenly Bread by which the Soul is sustein'd to wit the Grace of God by which we overcome and remove all difficulties which stand in our way between us and that happiness which is the mark and the price of the high calling in Jesus Christ Others by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eximium and call it that bread which is singular and peculiar to us Others interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is profitable and fit to nourish us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostom that bread which is turned into the very substance of our bodies Others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Vulgar which in St. Matthew renders it super substantial in St. Luke calls it QUOTIDI ANUM our daily Bread 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom used to speak We may embrace all senses For why should not Righteousness be as our daily Bread to feed us Why should we not with joy put it on to clothe us and make it as a robe or a diadem Why should we not thirst for that water which is drawn out of the wells of salvation Why should we not long for our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Fathers call the Eucharist For that holy Bread which is our provision and supply in our way For every one of these we may solicit the Majesty of heaven and earth and press upon God with an holy opportunity Lord evermore give us of this bread of the Bread of Righteousness of the Bread which thou breakest and of the Bread which thou art of the Bread of thy Word and of the Bread of thy Sacrament Which are primitiae futuri panis the first-fruits of the Bread of eternal Life We may embrace all senses For superflua non nocent or as the Civilians speak non solent quae abundant vitiare scripturas these superfluities and superabundancies are not dangerous where every exposition is true though non ad textum not truly fitted to the Text. But that Christ meant not Sacramental Bread is more than evident 1. Because the Sacrament was not yet instituted And it is not probable that our Saviour when he taught his Disciples to pray would speak in parables 2. We do not every day receive the Sacrament but we are taught thus every day to pray Quia quotidiana est oratio quotidiè quoque videtur dici oportere It was so determined in the Fourth Councel of Toledo It is our daily prayer and to be said every day against some Priests in Spain who would say the Lords Prayer only upon the Lords day as we find it in the Ninth Canon of that Councel And as it may be said every day so every hour of the day Which we cannot apply to the Eucharist 3. If we will lay upon the word all senses it will bear without injurie to the truth we need no other form than that one Petition Thy will be done For in that as in a Breviary all that we can pray for is comprised Indeed as Seneca in his Natural Questions speaks of the river Nilus Nilus per septena ostia in mare emittitur quodcunque ex his elegeris mare est Nilus is emptied into the Sea by seven chanels and every one of these is a Sea So here we see this word conveyed unto us by divers interpretations as by so many chanels and every one of these is a sea yielding us abundance of matter And as it is said of that river Ortus mirari non nosse licuit that men with wonder and admiration might search but not find out the fountain-head from whence it sprang So this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not found in any Ethnick writer whatsoever And the formation and etymon is as hard and full of difficulty to find out From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence it is commonly derived it cannot come For if
passage for those of the greatest magnitude This is a fallacy saith Aristotle in his Politicks to think that if the particulars be small the sum will be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is not small because it consists of many littles The Philosopher tells us Small expenses if frequent overthrow a family And Demosthenes in his fourth Philippick saith that that neglect which endangers a Common-wealth is not seen in particular actions and miscarriages but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the conclusion and event at last Qui legem in minimis contemserit quomodo in magnis tenebit He that contemns the Law in matters of less how will he observe it in matters of greater moment and difficulty He that cannot check a thought how will he bridle his tongue He that will transgress for a morsel of bread what a villain would he be to purchase a Lordship It will be good wisdom therefore as we behold the finger of God and his Omnipotency not only in the heavens the Sun and the Moon and the Stars but in the lesser creatures in the Emmet and in the Plants of the earth so also to discover the Devils craft and policy not only in Murder and Adultery and the like but in an idle Word and a wandring Thought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to punish the very beginnings of Sin and to be afraid of the cloud when it is no bigger than a mans hand These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Devils machinations his treble false doors by which he may slip-out and return again unseen These are devises by which that great Architect of fraud and deceit doth ensnare our souls and lead us captive under Sin These we have made choice of and cull'd out of his quiver not but that he hath many more darts but because these are they which he casts every day against the professors of Christianity and which in these later times have wounded thousands of souls to death And if we can take the whole armor of God and be strong against these we need not fear his other artillery If these snares hold us not it will be easie to keep our feet out of the rest The Seven and Fourtieth SERMON PART VII MATTH VI. 13. But deliver us from evil EVIL our very nature startles at which is of its self inclinable to that which is good and tends to it as to its center and place of rest Therefore these two words Evil and Deliver look mutually one upon the other The glory of our Deliverance layes open to the view the terror of Evil and the smart of Evil makes Deliverance pleasant and delightful Malum nihil aliud est quà m Boni interpretatio saith Lactantius Evil is nothing else but a fair interpretation and a kind of commentary on that which is Good The very words speak as much For EVIL is a word quod cum ictu audimus which we hear with a kind of smart but DELIVERANCE we hear as good news The voice of joy and deliverance are Psal 118. joyned together and are the same This Petition then for Deliverance is legatio ad supernum Regem as the Father speaks a kind of embassage sent to the high and mighty King of heaven from weak and frail and impotent Man who is to live on the earth as in a strange land in the midst of many enemies which will be as pricks in his eyes and thorns in his sides who must converse as a companion with them and every day meet and cope with that which may every day overthrow him to desire aid and succour from Him that is mightier than they that he will send-in his auxiliary troops and forces his Angels to pitch their tents round about him and his Mercies to compass him in on every side that he will abate their forces and arm him with strength that he may stand up against them and not fall or if he fall he may rise again and so through many afflictions through many temptations pass to the Land of Promise and to that City whose maker and builder is God We have spoken at large of Evil which is the object of our Fear We pass now to shew you what is meant by Deliverance which is the object of our Faith For this Prayer or Deprecation is clamor mentis the cry of our Mind trembling at the apprehension of evil and clamor fidei the language of our Faith nothing wavering but confident of His power and wisdome to whom we pray for Deliverance We look-down upon the evil and are afraid we look-up upon God and are comforted The cup of Affliction is bitter but God can sweeten it and make it a cup of Salvation The Devil is strong but there is a stronger than he who can bind him And as it was sung to Maximinus the Tyrant ELEPHAS GRANDIS EST ET OCCIDITUR LEO FORTIS EST ET OCCIDITUR The Elephant is a great beast yet he is slain the Lion a stout beast yet he is slain too So be the Evil what it will God can and will deliver us And these two Fear of the Evil and Confidence in God do make it orationem alatam add wings to our prayer and by it we place our selves in the presence nay under the wing of God and fly from the evil to come Every prayer is so ascensus mentis ad Deum an ascent of the mind unto God to contemplate his Majesty and those glorious attributes which he is His Wisdom which runneth swiftly throughout the earth and sees things that are not as if they were beholds Evils present and in their approach sees not only in longum afar off but in finem to the very end of every action of every intent and at once considers not only the parts but the whole course of our life His Power to which nothing is difficult by which he doth what he will in heaven and in earth which can raise the poor out of the dust and make the dunghill better than a throne and His Mercy which is over all his works but especially over Man the Master-piece of his works ready at all times to shelter him when he complains In this Petition we make an acknowledgment of these three Divine Attributes especially We profess that we are assured God seeth all our paths such is his Wisdom that he ordereth all our goings such is his power and that he will deliver us from our cruel enemy such is his infinite Mercy We shall pass then by these steps and degrees We will shew 1. What it is to be delivered from evil 2. That it is the work of God alone and 3. That being delivered we must offer-up the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving JOVI LIBERATORI to God our Deliverer and give all the glory of the victory to him alone When we hear of Deliverance from evil we may conceive perhaps such a Deliverance as may set us at such a distance from it that it may not come near us And of such a
Imprimatur C. Smith R. P. D. Episc Lond. a Sacris Domesticis Ex Aed Lond. Jan. 29. 1673 4. FIFTY SERMONS Preached at the Parish-Church OF St. MARY MAGDALENE Milk-street LONDON AND ELSEWHERE Whereof Twenty on the Lords Prayer By the late Eminent and Learned Divine ANTHONY FARINDON B. D. Divinity Reader of His MAJESTIES Chappel-Royal of Windsor The Third and Last Volume Not till now Printed To which is adjoyned Two SERMONS Preached by a Friend of the AUTHORS upon his being Silenced LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Richard Marriott MDCLXXIV TO THE READER THE good welcome and esteem the Two former Volumes of Mr. Farindon's Sermons have met with amongst learned and judicious persons hath encouraged this also to venture abroad hoping to speed as well as its Fellows They who have been conversant in the other need not be told that these are the genuine Works of the same Author for they will soon perceive that the very same spirit breatheth in all and that they are all of one strain and stile The Work is sufficient to commend it self and truly both it and the Author are well worthy of large Encomiums But the Wine is so high and rich that it needeth not a Bush The Sermons on the Lords Prayer our Author did many years since finish but had the great misfortune in the time of the late troubles to loose his Notes they being by a hand then in power forcibly taken from him These thou now hast as near as may be guessed are more then two parts of three of what he did Write and Preach on that subject However I finding upon each Petition several Sermons not inferiour to any our Author hath written I could not think it reasonable because I had not the entire Sermons to deprive thee of the better part of them Which I hope thou wilt accept the rather for being in the affair freely dealt with And so he biddeth thee heartily FAREWEL who is Thine to serve thee R. M. A TABLE directing to the Texts of Scripture handled in the following SERMONS Two Sermons by a Friend of the Authors upon his being Silenced SErmon 1. Jerem. XII 1. Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee yet let me talk or reason the case with thee of thy judgments wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously Serm. 2. Phil. IV. 17. Not because I desire a Gift but I desire Fruit that may abound unto your account A Sermon preached by the Author upon his being restored to the exercise of his Ministry Gal. IV. 12. Brethren I beseech you be as I am for I am as ye are ye have not injured me at all A Sermon preached on Christmass-day Psalm LXXII 6 7. He shall come down like rain upon the mowen grass or into a fleece of wooll as showers that water the earth In his dayes shall the righteous flourish and abundance of peace so long as the Moon endureth Twenty eight Sermons more Serm. 1. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Serm. 2. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 3. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 4. Matth. V. 5. Blessed are the meek c. Serm. 5. Ephes V. 1. Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children Serm. 6. Ephes V. 1. Be ye therefore followers of God c. Serm. 7. Matth. XVIII 1. At the same time came the Disciples unto Jesus saying who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven Serm. 8. 1 Cor. XIII 7. hopeth all things Serm. 9. Psal LI. 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation Serm. 10. 1 Cor. VI. 1. We then as workers together with him or as helpers beseech you also that you receive not the grace of God in vain Serm. 11. Luke XXI 28. And when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh Serm. 12. Rom. XIII 4. He beareth not the sword in vain Serm. 13. 1 Pet. II. 13 14 15 16. Submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supream Or unto Governours as unto them who are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well For so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God Serm. 14. Psal LXVIII 1 2. Let God arise let his enemies be scattered let them also that hate him flee before him As smoke is driven away so drive them away as wax melteth before the fire so let the wicked perish at the presence of God Serm. 15. Gen. III. 12. And the man said the woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the tree and I did eat Serm. 16. Luke X. 5 6. And into whatsoever house ye enter first say peace be to this house And if the Son of peace be there your peace shall rest upon it if not it shall turn to you again Serm. 17. Luke X. 5 6. And into whatsoever house ye enter c. Serm. 18. Rom. XI 20. Well because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith be not high minded but fear Serm. 19. Acts XII 5. Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him Serm. 20. Psal XXXVII 11 12. For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be yea thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be But the meek shall inherit the earth Serm. 21. Matth. XV. 28. O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt Serm. 22. Prov. XII 14. A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth and the recompence of a mans hands shall be rendred unto him Serm. 23. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 24. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness c. Serm. 25. Matth. IV. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 26. Matth. IV. 1. to be tempted of the Devil Serm. 27. Matth. XXII 11 12. And when the King came in to see the guests he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment And he saith unto him Friend how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment and he was speechless Serm. 28. Matth. XXII 11 12. And when the King came in to see the guests Twenty Sermons more on the Lords Prayer Serm. 29. Matth. VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in heaven c. Serm. 30. Matth. VI. 9. After this manner therefore pray ye Our Father which art in
teach us that all this may be done without malice or rancor to their persons whose error we strive against and that the Lords battles may be fought without shedding of bloud Surely Meekness is the best Director in these wars where he gains the greatest conquest who is overcome The Physician is not angry with him whom he intends to cure but he searcheth his books and useth his art and all diligence morbum tollere non hominem to remove the disease and not to kill the man How much more should we be careful how we handle our weak and erring brother lest we make him weaker by our rough and unskilful usage and cure him indeed but in the Tyrant's sense in Suetonius who boasted he had done a cure when he cut off a mans head or otherwise put him to death who had offended him We read that Paul and Barnabas were at some difference about the choice of their Acts 15. companion the one determined to take Mark with them the other thought it not good From whence sprung that paroxysme as the Evangelist terms it which divided them the one from the other Yet St. Hierom will tell us Quos navigatio separavit hoc Christi Evangelium copulavit Though they sailed to several Coasts yet they were both bound for the same negotiation even the preaching of the Gospel Paul withstood Peter to his face yet in Gal. 2. 11. the same Chapter he calls him a Pillar of the Truth A Father may differ from his Son and the Wife from the Husband in opinion yet this difference breaks not the bond of that relation which is betwixt them but the Father may nay must perform the office of love and the Son of duty And why may not Christians be diversly perswaded in some points of Religion in earth and yet the same Heaven hold them both That which deceives us are those glorious things which are spoken of Zeal We read of Phinehas who was blest for thrusting his Javelin through the adulterous couple of the austerity of Elijah the zeal of Simon the Canaanite the severity of Peter which struck Ananias and Sapphira dead the constancy of Paul who struck Elymas the Sorcerer blind And we are told Non est crudelitas pro Deo pietas That in God's cause the greatest piety is to be cruel But we willingly mistake our selves for neither here is the cause alike nor the person the same We know not of what Spirit we are Every man is not a Phinehas an Elijah a Paul a Peter Nor did Elymas loose his sight and Ananias his life for their errors but for their witchcraft and grand hypocrisie Nor are times the same We cannot but commend Zeal as an excellent quality in man but as Agarick or Stibium being prepared and castigated are soveraign Physick but crude and unprepared are dangerous so Zeal which so many boast of seasoned with discretion is of singular use and profit but taken crude and in the Mineral it oft-times proves deleterial and unfortunate Zeal is a light but by occasion it troubles the eye of the understanding and being by degrees enraged by our private ends and phansies at last it puts it quite out and leaves us fighting in the dark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unlearned Zeal and supine Negligence are both so bad that it is not easie to determine which is worst only Negligence lets inconveniencies slily steal into the Church but unguided Zeal much plies those errours which Negligence letteth in and as if error were indeed a Hydra it never strikes off the head of one error but two arise in the place And therefore St. Bernard in his forty ninth Sermon on the Canticles will tell us Semper zelus absque scientia minùs utilis invenitur plerumque etiam perniciosus sentitur Zeal without knowledge is alwaies unprofitable many times most dangerous And therefore the more hot and fervent it is and the more profuse our Charity with the more care and diligence should we set our Knowledge and Reason as a Sentinel quae Zelum supprimat spiritum temperet ordinet charitatem which may abate and cool our Zeal temper our spirit and compose and order our Charity For if we do not keep our souls with diligence and carry a strict and observant eye upon our Zeal our Meekness will be consumed in this fire and with it the whole crop and harvest of spiritual Wisdom lost We shall be heady and high-minded lovers of our selves unwilling to pardon one error to our brethren and to acknowledge any of our own This is it which hath been the mother and nurse too of all those outrages in the Church of Christ that Story hath transmitted to Posterity and those too which later and our present times have been too guilty of that men will neither subscribe to the opinion of others lest they may be thought not to have found the Truth but have borrowed it nor will yet retain so much meekness as to give their brother leave to erre but when they cannot convince him by Argument fall heavy upon him with Reproach A fault sometimes in him that errs and sometimes in him who holds the truth the one obstinate the other indiscreet both ready to maintain with violence what they cannot perswade by reason The Arians betook themselves to this guard and called in the temporal Sword to defend their Cause against the Orthodox and when they could not prevail by Argument they made use of outward force And so this faction saith the Father plainly shewed quà m non sit pia nec Dei cultrix how destitute it was of piety and the fear of God The Donatists stiled themselves filios Martyrum the off-spring of Martyrs and all other Christians progeniem traditorum the progeny of those who basely delivered up the sacred things They broke the Chalices demolisht the Altars ravisht Virgins and Matrons flung the holy Eucharist to the Dogs slew those who were not of their faction beat down the Bishop Maximinian with batts and clubs even as he stood at the Altar and did those outrages on Christians which Christian Meekness would have forbidden them to commit on a Jew or Infidel the Monks of Aegypt were indeed devout and religious men but for the most part Anthropomerphites holding that God had hands and feet and all the parts that a Man hath and was in outward shape and proportion like unto one of us That having got Theophilus a learned Bishop of Alexandria into their hands so roughly used him that he could not get out of their fingers till he made use of his wits and sophistry and told them in a kind of complement that he had seen their face as the face of God Nor did this evil rest here amongst the vulgar and discontented persons quibus opus erat bello civili as Caesar spake who could not subsist but in times of noise and hurry but it blasted the fairest plants in all the Church
of Sheba to draw near unto it and prove it in your selves And when you shall have practiced it in your selves you will say it was true indeed that you heard but you will feel more then you have heard or could hear by report We will therefore yet awhile longer detain you You have beheld the face of Meekness in her proper Subject which is every private man and in her proper Object which is as large as the whole world and takes in not only the Israel of God but the Amorite the Hittite the Amalekite not only the Christian but the Turk the Jew and the Pagan any man that is subject to the same passions any man that can suffer any man that can do an injury For Meekness runs round the whole circle and compass of mankind and binds every evil spirit conjures down every Devil she meets with Lastly we presented unto your view the Fitness and the Applicableness of this virtue to the Gospel and Church of Christ and told you that it is as it were the very breath of the Gospel the echo of that good news the best gloss and comment on a silent weeping crucified Saviour the best explanation of his last Prayer Father forgive them For the notes and characters of a Christian as they are described in the Gospel are Patience are easie putting up and digesting of injuries Humility a preferring of all before our selves And St. James tells us that the wisdom which is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated where he giveth the first place unto Purity It would be a sin almost to compare Christian virtues together and make them strive for precedency and place yet he that shall mark how every where the Scripture strives to commend unto us Gentleness and Meekness and that Peace is it quam nobis Apostoli totis viribus Spiritûs Sancti commendant as Tertullian speaks which the Apostles endeavour with all the strength and force of the Holy Ghost to plant amongst us might be bold a little to invert the words of St. James and read them thus The wisdom which is from above is first peaceable gentle easie to be intreated then pure For the Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father and who for us men came down from above first and above all other virtues commended this unto the world At his birth the Song of the Angels was Peace on earth and Good-will towards men All his Doctrine was Peace his whole life was Peace and no man heard his voice in the streets And as Christ so Christians For as in the building of Solomons Temple there was no noise of any hammer or other instrument of iron so in the spiritual building and frame of a Christian there is no sound of any iron no noise of weapons nothing but Peace and Gentleness and Meekness Ex praecepto fidei non minùs rea est Ira sine ratione suscepta quà m in operibus legis Homicidium saith Augustine Unadvised Anger by the law of Faith and the Gospel is as great a sin as Murder was in the Law of Moses Thus you have seen how proper Meekness is to the Gospel and Church of Christ Now in the last place we shall draw this Virtue forth to you as most necessary to the well-being not only of a Church but of every particular member of it necessary to lift us up to the Reward the inheritance of the earth Which whither you take for that Earth which is but earth or that Earth which by interpretation is Heaven ad omnia occurrit mansuetudo Meekness reacheth both both the Footstool and the Throne of God it gives us title to the things below and it makes us heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven Without this we can have no mansion in Heaven nor any quiet and peaceable possession of the earth And thus with our last hand we shall set you up that copy which you may draw out in your selves For Meekness in character in leaves of paper in our books is rather a shadow than a picture and soon vanisheth away but being drawn out in the soul and practice of a Christian it is a fair and lasting piece even the image of Christ himself which the Angels and God himself desire to look upon And with these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time And first Meekness may seem most necessary to Christians if we consider the nature of Christianity it self which stands in opposition to all other Professions in the world confutes the Philosopher silenceth the Scribe strikes Oracles dumb cryes to every man in the world to go out of it Behold saith our Saviour to his Disciples I send you forth as sheep in the Matth. 10 16. midst of wolves which will tear you to pieces for no other reason but because you are sheep It is a disease very incident to men to be jealous of every breath which blows in opposition to that which they have already received to swell against that which is contrary to them and though it be true to suspect it to wonder what it should mean to be troubled and affraid of it as Herode and all Jerusalem were when the new Star appear'd and though it be as visible to any wise man as the Star was in the East yet to seek to put it out or if they cannot to destroy those over whom it stands And therefore Tertullian tells us Cum odio sui coepit that Christianity was hated as soon as known and did no sooner shew it self in the world but it found enemies who were ready to suppress and cast it out men that could hate it for no other reason but because it taught to love that could be angry with the Christian because he was meek and destroy him because he made it his profession to forgive men who counted Revenge no sin as the ancient Grecians did sometimes Theevery because it was so commonly practis'd amongst them Again as it was planted in rerum colluvie in the corruption of men and manners so it doth in a manner bid defiance to the whole world It tells the Jew his Ceremonies are beggerly the wise man of this world that his Philosophy is but deceit and his wisdom madness It plucks the Wanton from the harlots lips tumbles down the Ambitious from his pinacle disarms the Revenger strips the Rich. It writes over the Rich mans Gates Blessed are the poor over the Doctor 's Chair Where is the disputer of this world over the Temple NON LAPIS SUPER LAPIDEM That not a stone shall be left upon a stone which shall not be thrown down For a NON OCCIDES it brought down a NE IRASCARIS and made Anger Murder for a NON MAECHABERIS a NON CONCUPISCES and made Desire adultery It brought down sin to a look to a thought and therefore no marvell if there arose against Christians tot hostes quot extranei as many enemies as there were Heathen or Jews
which a Minister may be arraigned no Sermons more applauded then those that strike at the Ephod nothing that the peoples ears do more itch after or more greedily suck in than the Disgrace or Weakness of their leaders I will speak it and as Salvian spake in another case utinam mentirer I would to God in this I were a liar I would you might accuse I would you might justly reprove me no news more welcome especially to the wicked then that which carrieth with it the sin of a Teacher No calling more spurned I mean by the wisest then that of Priesthood As Job speaketh they whose fathers he refused to set with the dogs of his flock mockt him so the children of fools more vile then the earth make their Pastours their song and the greatest sinners the most debaucht sinners when they have outcries within them when they have a tempest within them when their conscience affrights them with doleful alarums will still the noise will becalm the tempest will drown the cryes with this breath with this poysonous blast with a defamation of the Messengers and Ministers of the Lord. But let these men know that a day will come when no excuse shall lull them asleep when their conscience shall awake them when the billows shall rise higher when the tempest shall be louder when the cry shall be more hideous when they shall know that though God will require their bloud at their Pastors hand yet it is a poor comfort to them to dye in their sin whenas he shall be punished for giving and they for following a bad example But as this concerns most especially the Ministers of the Lord and those that serve at the Altar so in the next place it concerneth the people too and that nearly as nearly as the safety of their souls concerns them For Beloved the womb of Sin is not barren but she is very fruitful and brings forth too without sorrow or travel The Devil hath his Crescite multiplicate Increase and multiply It is enough for Sin to shew her self and be delivered And therefore most true it is Plus exemplo peccatur quà m scelere We sin more against God by example then by the sin it self Adultery whilst it lyes close in the thought is only hurtful at home but if it break forth into act it spreads its contagion and it seizeth upon this Christian and that Christian and in them it multiplies and like the Pestilence goeth on insensible invisible inavoidable If the father be given to that great sin of Taking Gods name in vain it will soon be upon the tongue of the little infant and he will speak it as his own language nay he will speak it before he can speak his own language before he knows whether it be a sin or no he will be as by birth so by sin a child It was held a miracle that Nicippus Sheep did yean a Lion and almost impossible it is that he should swear that never heard an oath before that the child should be like a Lion greedy of the prey and the father as innocent as a Lamb that so many should trace the paths of Death the broad way to Destruction without a leader Hence it is that in punishing of sin God looks not only with the eye of Justice upon it as it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a transgression of the law but as it is exemplary as it hinders the edification of the body of Christ and the gathering together of the Saints and is the milstone that hangs upon the neck of the sinner and sinketh him not only for the particular sin it self but because he hath been an occasion of his brothers fall Thus then you see we must be careful in the performance of this duty in respect both of our selves and of others also of our selves in removing the lets and observing the rules of Imitation of others in so going before them that we lay not a stumbling-block for them in the way And thus much the general doctrine of Imitation implyed here hath afforded us Behold now the love of a good Father the tender care of our best Master He will not only set his best Scholars over us and teach us by others but he will read the lecture himself and be a patern for our Imitation And so I come to the more especial Object of Imitation here proposed and that is GOD Be yee followers of God The Soul of man as it takes not the infection of original sin before its union with the Body so makes the Body her minister as it were and helper to abate Corruption to keep down Concupiscence to make the shafts of the Devil less mortal She sees with the eyes and hears with the ears and reacheth forth the hands and walks with the feet But yet all this is an argument of weakness and imperfection that we stand in need of these helps that I must learn of him whose pedigree is the same with mine who is an Adamite as well as I who was conceived in sin as I was nay more that a rational and immortal creature must be sent to School to an Ox and an Ass nay to the Pismire Therefore Isa 1. 3. Prov. 6. 6. the Soul is then most her self and comes nighest to her former estate when forgetting the weight and hinderance of the body she enjoyes her self and takes wings as it were and soars up in the contemplation of God and his goodness cùm id esse incipit quod se esse credit as Cyprian speaks when she begins to be that which she must needs believe her self to be of a celestial and heavenly beginning When the inward man lifts it self up with the contempt of the outward then we are illuminated with blindness we are cloathed with nakedness we see without eyes we walk without feet we hear without ears and we encrease our spiritual wealth by not making use of those outward gifts which seem to enrich us Hence it is that God so often calls upon us to take up our thoughts from the earth and imploy them above and to have our conversation in heaven And to this end he speaks to us in Scripture after the manner of men and tells us that he is gracious and merciful and long-suffering And when he calls that cruel servant to account for pulling his fellow by the throat he condemns him by example O thou wicked servant I forgave thee all that debt because Matth. 18. 32 33. thou desiredst me Oughtest not thou also to have had pity on thy fellow-servant even as I had of thee Not that these virtues are in God as accidents To say this were to be blasphemous and to deny him to be God They are so indeed in Man and admit degrees of perfection and imperfection but in God they are essential He is Justice he is Mercy he is Truth he is Wisdom it self And therefore the Schoolmen call them as they are in God exemplares virtutes no
apparitions that shall go before his second coming to the end that when they come we may not be dismayed and affrighted at the sight but may entertain them as Angels which bring us good tidings of good things that we may look upon them as Objects of joy rather then of amazement that they may not dead our spirits or change our countenances or trouble our joynts or make us hold down our heads like a bullrush but rowse up our hearts and fill us with joy and make us to say This is the day which the Lord hath made a day of exaltation and redemption a day of jubilee and triumph and so look up and lift up our heads And here methinks I see in my Text a strange conjunction of Night and Day of Brightness and Darkness of Terror and Joy or a chain made up as it were of these three links Terror Exultation and Redemption Yet they will well hang together if Redemption be the middle link For in this they meet and are friends Redemption being that which turns the Night into Day maketh affliction joyful and puts a bright and lovely colour upon Horror it self When these things come to pass Why these things are terrible It is true yet lift up your heads But how can we lift up our heads in this day of terror in this day of vengeance in this day of gloominess and darkness Can we behold this sight and live Yes we may The next words are quick and operative of power to lift up our heads and to exalt our horn and strength as the horn of an Unicorne and make us stand strong against all these terrors Look up lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh Not to detein you longer by way of Preface Four things there are which in these words that I have read are most remarkable 1. The Persons unto whom these words are uttered in the particle Your Lift up your heads 2. What things they are of which our Saviour here speaks in the first words of the Text Now when these things begin to come to pass 3. The Behaviour which our Saviour commends unto us in these words Look up lift up your heads 4. Last of all the Reason or Encouragement words of life and power to raise us from all faintness of heart and dullness of spirit For your redemption draweth nigh I have formerly upon another Text spoken of the two first points the Persons to whom and the Things whereof our Saviour here speaketh Before I come to the third point the Behaviour prescribed to be observed by them who see the signs foretold in this Chapter come to pass it will not be amiss a little to consider whence it comes to pass that in the late declining age of the world so great disorder distemper and confusion have their place And it shall yield us some lessons for our instruction And first of all it may seem to be Natural and that it cannot be otherwise For our common experience tells us that all things are apt to breed somewhat by which themselves are ruin'd How many Plants do we see which breed that worm which eats out their very heart We see the body of Man let it be never so carefully so precisely ordered yet at length it grows foul and every day gathers matter of weakness and disease which at first occasioning a general disproportion in the parts must at the last of necessity draw after it the ruin and dissolution of the whole It may then seem to fall out in this great body of the World as it doth in this lesser body of ours By its own distemper it is the cause of its own ruin For the things here mentioned by our Saviour are nothing else but the diseases of the old decaying World The failing of light in the Sun and Moon what is it but the blindness of the World an imperfection very incident to Age. Tumults in the Sea and Waters what are they but the distemper of superfluous humors which abound in Age Wars and rumors of wars are but the falling out of the prime qualities in the union and harmony of which the very being of the creature did consist It is observed by the Wise Libidinosa intemperans adolescentia effoetum corpus tradit senectuti Youth riotously and luxuriously and lewdly spent delivers up to old age an exhaust and juyceless and diseased body Do we not every day see many strong and able young men fade away upon the sudden even in the flower of their age and soon become subject to impotency and diseases and untimely death These commonly are the issues of riot luxury and intemperance Nor can it be otherwise Therefore we cannot but expect that the World should be exceedingly diseased in its old decaying age whose youthful dayes and not only those but all other parts of its age have been spent in so much intemperance and disorder Scarcely had the World come to any growth and ripeness but that it grew to that height of distemper that there was no way to purge it but by a general Floud purgati baptisma mundi as St. Hierome calls it in which as it were in the Baptism its former sins were done away And after that scarcely had three hundred years past but a general disease of Idolatry over-spread and seized on all well-near Abraham and his Family excepted Yet after this once more it pleased God to take the cure into his hands by sending his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ the great Physician and Bishop of our souls But what of all this After all this was done tantorum impensis operum by so much cost and so much care his Physick did not work as it should and little in comparison was gained upon the World For the Many of us we are still the sons of our fathers Therefore we have just cause of fear that God will not make many more tryals upon us or bestow his pains so oft in vain Christ is the last Priest and the last Physician that did stand upon the earth and if we will not hear him what remains there or what can remain but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the world Ephraim is turned unto Idols let him alone I will spend no more labor in Hos 4. vain upon him Thus as Physicians when they find the disease incurable let the diseased go on unto his end so God having now as it were tryed his skill in vain having invited all and seeing so few come having spoken to all and so few hear having poured out his Sons bloud to purge the World and seeing so few cleansed for ought we know and it is very probable hath now resolv'd the World shall go unto its end which in so great a body cannot be without the disorder and confusion our blessed Saviour here speaketh of But you may peradventure take this for a speculation and no more and I have urged it no further then as a
before our eyes that we cannot see the truth of this promise the meek shall inherit the earth And first we must not look for certainty in moralibus in matters of this nature as we do in natural Philosophy and in the Mathematicks This and the like propositions may be true although that which they affirm fall not out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at all times and in every place It is a Topick proposition and shews what if we consider the nature of the terms and of the things themselves is likely to be we have the very same almost Prov. 2. 21. The just shall live in the land and the righteous shall remain in it And yet no doubt there have been just men who have been driven up and down in the world and not had a hole to hide their heads in And again Mercy doth establish the Throne And yet we have read of Kings who have lost their crowns and that by being too merciful And in another place He that is diligent in his wayes shall stand before Kings Yet we cannot think but that there have been many industrious men who never saw the inside of a Court. There is a fair applicability and correspondency between these Mercy in a King and a long Reign Industry and Honour Meekness and the quiet possession of the earth but there is not so necessary a connexion as there is between these a Man and a living Creature If the world were dissolved yet this proposition is everlastingly true Man is a living Creature But many cross accidents may intervene to make Mercy malevolent which of its own nature is a preservative to keep industry in a corner which of it self doth raise the dilligent out of the dust and to drive the Meek out of possession who carry about with them the strongest title to an Inheritance A second error there is and it is this We are too prone to mistake the nature and quality of God's Promises and when we read that God will preserve and continue the Meek in their estates we presently conceive that God is oblig'd by this promise to exempt us from common casualties and to alter the course of things for our sakes When common calamities like an inundation break in and overflow the world we expect that God who fits in Heaven and looks upon the children of men should bow the Heavens and come down and work a miracle for us even do by us as he did by Noah at the Floud build us an Ark to float in till the waters abate Which is no less then to dictate to the Wisdome of God and to teach him who made the world how to govern it Beloved God never promised to exempt the Meek from the common casualties of the world but he hath promised to uphold them in all and to take care for them in such a sort as the world never useth to do Will you take a line and measure out the circuit of the promise and St. Hierome is ashamed to do it in his Epistle to Dardanus Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae promissionis He was ashamed to draw the map lest he should give occasion to the Heathen to blaspheme For from joppa to Bethlehem are but six and forty miles and yet God made his people there a mighty nation multiplied them as the stars of Heaven and made them a fear and terror to the nations round about them Folow them into captivity and the Psalmist tells us that he gave them favour in the eyes of their enemies and made all those who led them away captive to pitty them And Psal 1â—6 46. it is more to find favour from an enemy than to have no enemy at all more to be pittied of our enemies than to tread them under our feet for this is to gain a conquest even in our chains Whether in captivity or liberty whether in riches or poverty the Meek person is still in manutenentia Divina in the hands of a powerful God who makes good his promise even then when it seems to be broken For in the third place many times God's promise is made good unto us when we believe it not for as the Jews would not receive Christ himself because he came not in that pomp and state in which they lookt for their Messias So if God come short of our desires we are ready to except against and question the truth of his promises We are at a stand and begin to think that Meekness is not so thriving a virtue as the Scripture hath made it Whereas we rather ought to consider that be it much or little that falls unto us it is sufficient to make good Gods promises For that a Meek man thrives at all is meerly from God For consider the malice and craft of the Wicked how his eyes are privily against the Meek with what humility and crouching he waits for the prey and what a Lion he is when he hath caught it how he pretendeth that God himself is his Second and a-better and though the Devil be his leader yet he falls on in the name of the Lord of Hosts consider this and you cannot but cry out Digitus Dei est hic That what part soever the Meek man hath in the earth it is measured to him by the finger of God himself who is miraculous in his preservation Again in the last place this promise is cum conditione not absolute but made over to us upon condition The Inheritance of the earth is given to us as an handmaid to wait on us to a better Inheritance even to an abiding city whose builder and maker is God This is the full extent of the promise And therefore if God see that earthly possessions will be as mountains in our way to the heavenly Jerusalem we have no reason to complain if he romove them His mercies are renewed every morning and he remembreth us in our low estate because his mercy endureth for ever But if the case so stand that my portion shall be in this life only then Nolo Domine hanc miserecordiam saith St. Bernard Lord I will have none of this kind of mercy If this be the case I had rather God should frown than smile on me I had rather he should wound than kiss me and break me on a wheel than lay me in a bed of roses I had rather have no place on earth than loose my mansion in Heaven If we ask God bread should he give us a stone if we ask him fish should he give us a Serpent This bread we ask may be a stone this Fish a Serpent liberalis est Deus dum negat God is very liberal if he deny us what we expect as a promise for the promise is fulfilled though he deny us Still it is true The meek shall inherit the earth To look back and sum up all and so conclude We have first seen the Wicked in his rise followed him with our eye to his very Zenith where like a
and death at once which are seldom entertained but when they please and when they please do as seldom profit I speak not this to disparage Preaching I know Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God I confess with the Fathers Principale munus est aedificare ecclesiam docere populum That it is the greatest office upon earth to edifie the Church of Christ and teach the people an office which the Angels themselves do reverence But all that is spoken is to no other intent but to root-out opinionem tam insitam tam inveteratam so setled so inveterate an opinion which hath gained place and power in mens hearts That Preaching is nothing else but ad clepsydram perorare to speak an hour out of the Pulpit Look into the primitive times and there you shall see a particular office and calling in the Church of Catechizers And these were then the two solemn wayes of teaching the people per catechesin conciones by Catechism and Preaching Of the which that of Catechizing seemeth to be the more ancient Not children and infants but men of ripe understanding and perfect use of reason together with grave and ancient matrons were brought unto the sacred Lavatory to be baptized into that Faith which they had already entertained but were not yet perfectly instructed in Who being yet but strangers in religion and not well skil'd in those sacred mysteries which Christianity is enriched with were sent in cryptas solitudinem into the wilderness unto caves and dens to those whose office it was to instruct them whom the fear of cruel and bloudy tyrants and of the sword of persecution had confined to those grots But when this tempest was over and peace did shine upon the Church when Religion began to spread it self through the Kingdomes of the world then every Church almost had one allotted for this office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by chawing as it were and breaking to pieces by exposition to give light to the tenents and doctrine of the Church A laborious and troublesome calling in those times being performed every day and the same or like things being to be inculcated and urg'd so often in that variety of men and manners whereof some were rude some perverse some proud in their opinion to teach whom many times was but to loose labor and all the fruit the doing of it Which did weaken and infeeble that glorious contention and ambition of teaching which before was strong amongst them A Deacon of Carthage put up his complaint to St. Augustine That in those large and cold expressions in which he was forced to instruct the Catechumeni he many times grew not only tedious to others who thought themselves ripe for more accurate discourses but to himself And this occasioned that tract of his De Catechizandis rudibus Of the manner of instructing the simple and ignorant where he tells him that there is not so great difference between a weak expression and a quick and lively apprehension as there is between a mortal Man and God and yet Christ who was equal to God took upon him the form of a servant that he might become weak to them who are weak and so gain the weak Why then should men of deeper reach think it tedious to descend to low expressions quum charitas quantò officiosiùs descendit in infima tantò robustiùs recurrit ad intima whenas true Charity the more officious it is to condescend to the lowest the more strongly it reflects with comfort upon the inward man through a good conscience which seeketh nothing from them to whom it doth descend but their salvation Nor did this office confine it self within their Temples but was brought into their Schools Amongst which that of Alexandria was most famous where Origen at eighteen years of age took upon him that office Who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius speaks of Socrates a living and a walking statue of spiritual wisdome Where Pantaenas Heractas Dionysius and Clemens Alexandrinus were glorious in this respect And indeed what else is Clemens his Paedagogus but a Catechisme For we must not think that it is only to Catechise when we instruct by way of question and answer because our common Catechisins are shaped out unto us in the form of Dialogues No 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no more then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be catechized no more than to be instructed In which acception we find the word used in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof thou hast been instructed saith St. Luke to Theophilus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 1. 4. Gal. 6. 6. Let him that is taught in the word make him that hath taught him partaker in all his goods When St. Augustine took the Epistle and Gospel and Psalm for the day for his subject for one Sermon he did then Catechize When Athanasius made one Sermon and that a very short one contra omnes haereses against all heresies he did then Catechize St. Chrysostome hath divers Orations catechistical When Chrysologus makes six or seven several Sermons upon the whole Creed and not one of them a quarter of an hour long what doth he then but Catechize What need I tell you of the several constitutions of Councels and provincial Synods decreed for the institution of the Catechumeni The state and face now of Christendom is altered nor have we Converts of the Jews and Gentiles on whom to bestow this necessary labour but yet I fear we have many as weak and ignorant as they and here is as much need of this kind of instruction as then I will no longer insist upon this argument nor did I think so much as once to have toucht upon it but to have begun without a preface Only I was willing to remove all jealousie out of such mens minds as are ready to believe that there is a snake under every leaf and who from the most happy conjunction can presage some dangerous effect and withall to take off all expectation of any curious discourse My discourse shall be like my subject Prayer which as Quintilian spake of Grammar Plus operis habet quà m ostentationis is a painful work indeed but is then most truly performed when it hath nothing of ostentation It hath alwayes been my aim and labor that what I delivered from the Pulpit should be catechetical but I will now affect it Nor will I strive to help my speech by art or phansie but there where it may perhaps be needful Abundè dixit bene quisquis rei satisfecit In these kind of discourses the language must be equally proportioned to the matter in hand and he hath spoken well that hath fully spoken all And to this end I have chosen the Lord's Prayer for my subject which conteins whatsoever we should request and desire as the Creed doth whatsoever we must believe and the Decalogue whatsoever we ought to do And yet in this short Prayer upon due observation
rather That he who thus loveth riches may cry as loud as he will but cannot call God his Father Ye have heard of the Goodness and Love of God a Love infinite as Himself It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perpetual circle beginning proceeding from and ending in himself All which is wrapt up and comprehended in this one word Father This is Gods peculiar title and all other fathers in comparison are not fathers Hence Christ saith Call no man your father upon the earth for one is your Father which is in heaven Yet some there have been found who have made God not a Father but a Tyrant a mighty Nimrod to destroy men for delight and pleasure perinde atque injuriam facere id demum esset imperio uti as if to set-up his children for a mark and to kill them with the same liberty a hunter doth a Deer were to be a Father What is become of Gods Goodness now Or shall we call him Father whose hands do reek in the bloud of his own children Or is it possible that his Goodness should make them to destroy them We should call it cruelty in Man whose Goodness is nothing and can we imagine it in God whose Goodness is infinite Doth a fountain send-forth at the same place sweet water and bitter saith St. James What can this James 3. 11. argue but a dissolution of that internal harmony which should be in Nature All men are made after Gods own image Now to hate some and love others of his best creatures would infer as great a distraction in the Indivisible Divine Essence as to have a Fig-tree bear olive berries or a Vine figs and imputes a main contradiction to his infinite Goodness All things were made out of meer love and to love the work of his hands is more essential to God then for Fire to burn And Gods Love being infinite extends to all for even All are less then Infinite God cannot hate any man till he hate him nor indeed can any man hate God till he hate himself God is a Fountain of Love he cannot hate us and he is a Sea of Goodness we cannot hate him Tam Pater nemo tam pius nemo No such Father none so loving none so good He that calls him Father hath answered all arguments that can call his Goodness into question But yet there is a devise found out and we are taught to believe that God is a Father though he damn us that the reprobate must think he hath done them a kind of favor in condemning them that they are greatly indebted to him and bound very much to thank him for appointing them to death and for casting them into hell-fire for ever with the Devil and his Angels Imò neque reprobi saith one habent cur de Deo conquerantur sed potiùs cur ei gratias agant The Reprobate have no cause to complain but rather heartily to give God thanks A bloudy position and which these men would not run away with such ease but that they have made a shift to perswade themselves that they are none of the number of those on whom God hath past such a sentence For should God reveal it to them that he had past such a decree upon them to damn them to hell and withal that he did it to manifest his power and glory I much doubt whether they would for their own particular in judgment and resolution be well-pleased or be so grateful as to thank him or so submissive as to call him Father Melius est matulam esse quà m simplex lutum It is better to be a vessel of dishonor than bare clay It is better to be miserable eternally than not to be are thoughts which they only can entertain who are too secure of their honorable estate here and of their eternal happiness hereafter Our Saviour who knew better than these men spake it of such a one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 simply and without such qualification by distinction that it had been good for that man that he had never been born I will not build a controversie upon such a word of Love as FATHER but rather admire and adore Gods Love which he hath pledged and pawned bonis suis malis suis not only doing us good but suffering evil for us buying us with his bloud his labor his death not that we were of any worth but that we might be so even worthy of the Gospel of Christ worthy of immortality and eternal life We proceed now from the contemptation of Gods Goodness and Providence to that which we proposed in the next place the Liberal diffusion of it on all his children by which we are enjoyned to call him ours God is Christs Father peculiariter saith St. Ambrose and there is no Pater noster for him but Ours communiter by a full communion of himself unto all and therefore we are taught to pray Our Father For by the same Goodness by which he hath united us unto himself by the same hath he linkt us together amongst our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene with spiritual ligaments From the same fountain issue our Union with Christ and our Communion with one another Therefore if we diligently observe Christs institution as we are bound then as often as we pray so often must we exercise this act of Charity towards our brethren and that in gradu supremo in the highest and greatest extent as far as concerns their good And we must do it often because every good man every disciple of Christ must make it his delight and practise to speak to the Father in the language of his Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene How long do we hear of Mine and Thine in the Church It is not Paul is mine and Gospel is mine and Christ is mine but Paul is ours and The Gospel is ours and Christ is ours and Christ Gods Where there is Charity there MEUM and TUUM are verba frigida but icy words which melt at the very heat of that celestial fire If the Church be a Body then must every Rom. 12. 5. member supply The Foot must walk for the Eye and for the Ear and the Eye must see and the Ear hear for the Foot saith Chrysostom If a House then must every part every beam and rafter help to uphold the building If she be the Spouse of Christ then is she the mother of us all The Philosopher building up his Commonwealth tells us Civis non est suus sed civitatis Sure I am Christianus non est suus sed ecclesiae As a Citizen is not a Citizen for himself but for the whole Commonwealth so each action of a Christian in respect of its diffusive operation should be as catholick as the Church Without this friendly communication the Christian world would be as Caligula spake of Seneca commissiones merae arena sine calce stones heapt together without morter or as pieces of boards without
by which we may do it our selves That it is not enough to pray for blessings or against evils unless we be careful and industrious to procure the one and avoid the other HALLOWED BE THY NAME is soon said But every man that says it doth not hallow Gods Name Else what a sanctified world should we have We should hear no blasphemy see no uncleanness meet with no profaneness but every man would be holy as our heavenly Father is holy and the earth which is over-run with weeds would become a Paradise of perfection The reason of this may be that when we pray for these graces we imagine that so soon as we kneel God will come down from heaven and sow this seed of holiness in our hearts whilst we are asleep that though we every day corrupt our selves he will purge and refine them though we breathe out blasphemies against him he will take us at a time when he will strike us to the ground as he did St. Paul and make us holy on the sudden And this is an epidemical error which hath long possest the hearts of men mentis gratissimus error an error with which we are much taken and delighted Our beloved bosome error which whoso strives to remove shall have no better reward than St. Paul had of the Athenians when he preacht of the Resurrection of the dead He shall be accounted a setter-forth of strange Doctrines But the weak conceit of our hearers must not make us leave off to call upon them and put them in mind of the danger they are in and remember them in the words of the Father Deum orare ut nobis prestet quod nos facere recusamus ridiculum est imò ludibriosum in Deum To pray to God that he will do that for us which we refuse to do our selves is a great folly in respect of our selves and contumelious to God We mistake our selves if we think Holiness and Obedience are such tares as will grow up in our hearts whilst we sleep They are indeed the gifts of God but they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Clemens speaks not so easily atchieved as we suppose For howsoever the things of this world are then best purchast when they cost least yet these gifts of God are taken up upon the best terms when we do pay most for them Laetiùs est magno quoties sibi constat honestum They are cheapest when they are dearest For in this our labor we never fail God alwayes working with us and blessing the work of our hands Indeed to think our Prayers are but matter of complement or to deny the assistance of God in every good work were not only to be Pelagians but worse then the Heathen Nulla bona mens sinè Deo saith Seneca No man is good but with the help of God Ille dat consilia magnifica recta All good counsels and heroick thoughts are from him When Pliny had the day against Regulus he professeth openly Sentio mihi Deos affuisse I perceive the Gods were present to help me And it was a common Proverb amongst them VIRTUTE DEORUM ET NOSTRA What they did they did by the help of the Gods The Greek Fathers who did so highly extoll the Martyrs and other Saints and it may be elevated the power of Nature beyond the sphere of its activity yet referred all these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these powers unto God as the first fountain and did acknowledge every where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the grace of God did all and whatsoever the best of men did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the gift of God that no man might boast All this is true and it is impossible we should attribute too much to God Our fault is that we shrink and contract his Grace and shorten his hand where he hath stretched it forth We pray for Grace and can we think that God who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Goodness it self who is emissivus as the Schools speak liberal and free of himself and doth naturally send forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beams of his goodness every where will deny us that which he commands us to ask nay which he gives us that we may ask We are dead and Grace is the breath by which we live We are blind and Grace is the eye by which we see We are lame and Grace is the staff by which we walk God knows that without his grace our hearts are but styes of sin and pollution It is likely then he will take his Grace from Man and so make himself if not the author yet the occasioner of sin Is it justice with God to put out our eyes and then punish us for stumbling Or is God delighted to try conclusions to see what Men will do if Grace be not with them God doth not take our souls as Chirurgeons do dead bodies to practise on No when we pray he hears us nay he hears us before we pray And if we do not hallow his Name it is not for want of grace but of Will You will say perhaps that God is an omnipotent Agent can unty our tongues to speak his praise and lead us on in the wayes of holiness though our feet be shackled though we have no feet to go But the Proverb will answer you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If God will you may sail over the Sea in a sive But we must remember that God as he is a powerful Agent so is a free Agent and works and dispenseth all things according to the pleasure of his will He will not lead thee if thou wilt not go He will not whisper Holiness into thee whilst thou sleepest nor enlighten thee when thou shuttest thine eyes Proposuit pulcherrimo cuique operi difficultatem He that placed some rubs and difficulties in that way between us and Holiness that we should digg out our way with the sweat of our brows to find this rich treasure Frequent and hearty Prayers daily Exercise of virtuous actions a kind of Violence offered to our selves these are a sign that Grace worketh kindly and hath its natural operation in us Holiness is a treasure but we do not find it as we may find some kind of treasure It may be we read the examples of some who have not paid so dear for it but without any great labor have attained to those virtues which they afterwards constantly improved to their own end Pontius the Deacon tells us of St. Cyprian Praeproperâ velocitate pietatis penè antè caepit perfectus esse quà m disceret At his first setting-out for piety and Christianity he used such incredible speed that he was almost perfect before he began Tam maturâ coepit fide quà m pauci perfecerunt Few men ended in that perfection in which he began Be it so But this is no good argument for me to put my hands into my bosome and sit still and expect the good hower Christian virtues are gifts but are not
not that alone which is enough for a day but that which may suffice for many generations may be PANIS QUOTIDIANUS our daily Bread And so at last we have presented you with all that is material in this Petition The Nine and Thirtieth SERMON PART I. MATTH VI. 12. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Or as LUKE XI 4 And forgive us our sins for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us HAving lifted up our eyes to him that filleth all things living of his good pleasure we here fall down on our knees for mercy and forgiveness before the Father of mercies who is as ready to forgive as to open his hand and as willing to receive us into his bosome and favour as to give us our meat in due season on the earth which is but his foot-stool Having adored his Liberality we beseech his Clemencie And as Tertullian well observes it was most necessary that we should observe this methode For first unless we be heard in this Petition we have no reason to be confident in commencing the other nor to expect that God should feed us as a Father till we be reconciled unto him and called his Sons What man is there which if his son ask him bread will give him a stone saith our Saviour Which implies we must be sons before we put up our petitions For God never denies us without a cause and the cause many times is no other but this that we deny him Was the Lord angry against the Rivers saith the Prophet Habakkuk when he sent a tempest or is he angry with the earth when he sends barrenness Is he angry with our Basket when he fills it not No Peccatum homicida est Sin is the murderer and the thief to spoil and rob us Sin makes the beasts of the field and the stones of the street at enmity with us terram eunucham the heavens as brass and the earth as iron not able to bring forth in due season Sin dislocates and perverts the course of Nature and changeth it saith Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into contrary tempers This puts supernatural aspects upon events which have natural causes If it be a comet it makes it ominous if a cloud that is the cataclysm if a vapor that damps it into a plague This sets up all the creatures in arms against us and makes us like Cain no better then Vagabonds and Runnagates upon the earth REMITTE NOBIS must be put up else DA NOBIS will return empty We must sue out our pardon or else the windows of heaven will not open to rain down Manna upon us Again though our corn and our wine abound for we cannot entail these temporal blessings on the righteous alone yet our Bread will be turn'd into a stone and our Wine will be as bitter as gall nor can they feed our hungry souls sed ipsam esuriem animarum pascere as St. Bernard speaks bring that Leanness into them which is the forerunner of death Blessings we may call them and so they are but till we be reconciled to God they are such blessings as will stop up our way to true happiness and stand as a barricado between us and those everlasting habitations Laqueus in auro viscum in argento saith St. Ambrose There will be a snare in our Gold to entrap us and aviscosity in our Silver to retard us The rust of them shall be as a witness against James 5. 3. us and eat our flesh as it were fire Et quid alimenta proderunt si illis reputamur quasi taurus ad victimam What is Gold to Piety What is Wealth to Grace What is a Palace to Heaven What is our Food and Nourishment if we be fed and fatted only as the Oxe is to be sacrificed What are all the Riches of the world but as the Tyrants ropes of silk and daggers of gold or what use do they serve to but this ut cariùs pereamus that we may tread those paths which lead unto death with more state and pomp than other men do I would have spared this observation although it be a Fathers and one as learned as the best but that the general love to Riches and the things of this Life which now reigns and rageth in the world may raise a jealousie and just suspition that some there are who as they have excluded others and made themselves proprietaries of all and that by no other title than this That they are the children of God so again when they have with Ahab killed and taken possession when they have by unjust means filled their coffers they begin to clap their hands and applaud themselves and to make their being rich an argument that they are good and the beloved of God And though with great zeal they dare call the Pope Antichrist yet they joyn hands with the Papists in this in making Temporal happiness a true note of the Church and counting Poverty a curse and the just punishment of a wicked conversation Indeed ask them their opinion and they will deny it as heretical we may be sure because it hath no shew of reason to commend it But surely even their 's it is For their speech and behaviour bewrayeth them For do they not lye down and sleep on their heaps Do they not batten in their wealth Do they not flatter themselves when such a golden showre falls into their laps and think that it cannot be but God himself is in it And do they not flourish like green olive-trees in the house of the Lord when they have nothing but this dung about them Do they not count them as smitten of God who stay below in the valley and are there content to dwell with Poverty rather than to climb up that ladder and with these seeming Angels to aspire to that height from whence they are in danger to break their necks And this is a dangerous error But there is nothing more easie than thus to erre than to say nay than to think that we are in the favour of God when his Sun doth shine upon our tabernacle to say AVE Hayl to our selves as highly favoured when the world smiles upon us and flatters us and to draw this conclusion from no other premisses than a full Purse and large Possessions So that the Apostles axiome is inverted quite For to these men Godliness is not great Gain but Great Gain is Godliness And therefore that we dash not against this rock let us put up this Petition also in Gods Court of Requests Let us be diligent to make our election sure and not only with Esau lift up our voyce and howl after our Bread after plenty of wheat and wine but with the Publican lift up our hearts and smite them that the sound of a broken heart may go up into the ears of the Almighty and return with this delightful echo REMITTUNTUR PECCATA That our sins are forgiven us For being thus reconciled we
blessed Spirits are in heaven who readily fulfill all his commands And this is an holy ambition in the performance of our duty to look upon the best Ambitio non respicit saith the Philosopher True Ambition and Christian Aemulation never look down upon those who are in the valley below but on those who are in culmine Sion in the top of perfection Optimi mortalium altissima sapiunt The best men look highest Go to School to the Pismire is a reproach as well as a precept To learn of the Lilies of the field is a task for those who will not take notice of Gods providence at home in themselves The examples of good men are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 helps and supplies to us in our way and it is good to have them continually before our eyes But yet the best men being full of imperfections Luther tells us Nihil est periculosius gestis Sanctorum That there is nothing more dangerous than the deeds and actions of the Saints because we are so prone to mistake them Safer it is to take those actions of theirs which were done beyond and without the authority of Scripture for faults than to set them up for examples We may learn of Beasts of the Ox and of the Ass we may learn of Men of the same mould with our selves but the safest and most excellent pattern we can take is from Heaven the blessed Angels whose elogium it is that they do God's commandments and hearken unto the voice of his word that they Psal 103. are his hosts and ministers of his to do his pleasure I will not trouble you with any of those nice speculations of the Schools concerning the Nature Motion Locality Speech of Angels For I alwayes accounted it a grave and judicious censure of Hilary Stultum est calumniam in eo disputationis intendere in quo comprehendi id unde quaeritur per naturam suam non potest Lib. 3. de Trin. It is a great folly to make any anxious inquisition after that which before we set out we know cannot be found Of the Nature and Motion and Locality of those blessed Spirits we have no light in Scripture And if we carry not this light along with us we do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 make search for that which is past finding out We win no ground at all but tantum deerit discere quantum libuerit in quirere the more we search the more we are at loss But because the Philosopher and common Reason teach us that he who will compare two things together must necessarily know them both and since we are in this Petition taught to level our Obedience by this heavenly form by the obedience of Angels though we cannot gain any certain knowledge of their Nature Motion Locality and Manner of conveighing their minds one to another which notwithstanding the Schools with more boldness than warrant have defined yet we shall find light enough to walk by and to direct our obedience that it may be like theirs that we may strive forward to perfection and do Gods will in earth as it is in heaven First we are taught that the word Angel is a name of office not of nature Spirits they are alwayes but they cannot alwayes be called Angels but then only when they are sent saith Gregory And this office of theirs they execute speedily and without delay We will not positively say with Parisiensis that their motion from place to place upon command is instantaneous as sudden as their Will by which alone they move But many expressions of their Swiftness we have in Scripture Zech. 1. 10. they are said to stand as ready to hear and dispatch Gods will Isa 6. to have wings and to fly They are said to go forth like lighning Which note their prompt alacrity in executing all Gods commands Unum corum solidúmque officium est servire nutibus Dei their office is ever to be ready at Gods beck This is a true and perfect pattern of a Christians obedience Festina fides festina charitas saith Ambrose Faith and Charity are on the wing Devotion is active Obedience is ever ready to run the way of Gods commandments Though advice and deliberation commend other actions yet in this of Obedience counsel is unreasonable neither can there be any reason of delay Delicata est obedientia quae transit in causae genus deliberativum saith Petrus Blesensis It is a nice obedience which takes time of deliberation For when the command is past every moment after the first is too late nor can there be any need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it Fac quod tibi praeceptum est saith St. Cyprian to the magistrate now ready to pass sentence of death upon him but counselling him to advise better Do saith he what you have commission to do In so just an action as this there is no need of consultation Those that write of Husbandry have a common precept and Pliny calls it an oracle SERRERE NE METUAS Be not afraid to cast thy seed into the ground Delay not time And their reason is full of wisdome Villicùs si unam rem serò fecerit nihil proficit The Husbandman if he do but one thing too late hath endangered the expectation of the whole year nor can he recover that loss Negligentia enim multò operosior diligentia For neglect makes more business and trouble than Diligence and that which in time might have been done with ease and a quick hand being put off to a longer time will either not be done at all or require treble diligence It is so in our spiritual Husbandry If our Obedience had wings or feet readily to put in execution what is commanded we should find that of St. John to be most true His commands are not grievous But Procrastination and Delay doth bemire and clog us makes the command more horrid than that Death which is threatned to disobedience and we are ready to cry out it is impossible He who defers to do Gods will till death would not do it saith Basil if he were made immortal But this is not to do his will here in earth as it is in heaven Further the obedience of the heavenly host is orderly Qui minima nuntiant Angeli qui summam annuntiant Archangeli vocantur There be Angels which are sent on messages of lesser moment and there be Archangels which declare greater things as Gabriel to the blessed Virgin Nec tamen invident Angeli Archangelis saith Augustine in his last book De Civitate Dei yet no Angel doth envy an Archangel nor an Archangel a Cherubim or Seraphim nor desire they to change offices no more than my Finger desires to be an Eye In respect of the diversity of their ministery saith Hilary the Angels and Archangels and Thrones and Dominations have the observances of divers precepts laid upon them And they differ not only in name but in