of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
conclude this part O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have mercy upon us miserable sinners We are descended now to our second part 2 Part. Expostulatio Iob 31.13 what past between God and Abraham after he had thus manifested himselfe unto him Where we noted first That God admits even expostulation from his servants almost rebukes and chidings from his servants We need not wonder at Iobs humility that he did not despise his man nor his mayd when they contended with him for God does not despise that in us God would have gone from Iacob when he wrestled Gen. 32.26 and Iacob would not let him go and that prevailed with God If we have an apprehension when we beginne to pray that God doth not heare us not regard us God is content that in the fervor of that prayer we say with David Evigila Domine and Surge Domine Awake O Lord and Arise O Lord God is content to be told that he was in bed and asleepe when he should heare us If we have not a present deliverance from our enemies God is content that we proceed with David Eripe manum de sinu Pluck out thy hand out of thy bosome God is content to be told that he is slack and dilatory when he should deliver us If we have not the same estimation in the world that the children of this world have God is content that we say with Amos Pauperem pro calceamentis Amos 2.6 that we are sold for a paire of shooes And with S. Paul that we are the off-scouring of the world God is content to be told that he is unthrifty and prodigall of his servants lives and honours and fortunes Now Offer this to one of your Princes says the Prophet and see whether he will take it Bring a petition to any earthly Prince and say to him Evigila and Surge would your Majesty would awake and reade this petition and so insimulate him of a former drowsinesse in his government say unto him Eripe manum pull thy hand out of thy bosome and execute Justice and so insimulate him of a former manacling and slumbring of the Lawes say unto him we are become as old shooes and as off-scourings and so insimulate him of a diminution and dis-estimation faln upon the Nation by him what Prince would not and justly conceive an indignation against such a petitioner which of us that heard him would not pronounce him to be mad to ease him of a heavier imputation And yet our long-suffering and our patient God must we say our humble and obedient God endures all this He endures more for when Abraham came to this expostulation Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right God had said never a word of any purpose to destroy Sodom but he said only He would go see whether they had done altogether according to that cry which was come up against them and Abraham comes presently to this vehemency And might not the Supreme Ordinary God himselfe goe this visitation might not the supreme Judge God himselfe go this Circuit But as long as Abraham kept himselfe upon this foundation It is impossible that the Iudge of all the earth should not do right God mis-interpreted nothing at Abrahams hand but received even his Expostulations heard him out to the sixt petition Almost such an Expostulation as this Moses uses towards God He asks God a reason of his anger Iudex Exod. 32.11 Lord why doth thy wrath waxe hot against thy people He tels him a reason why he should not doe so For thou hast brought them forth with a great power and with a mighty hand And he tels him the inconveniences that might follow The Egyptians will say He brought them out for mischiefe to slay them in the mountaine He imputes even perjury to God himselfe and breach of Covenant to Abraham Isaac and Iacob which were Feffees in trust betweene God and his people and he sayes Thou sware'st to them by thine owne selfe that thou wouldst not deale thus with them And therefore he concludes all with that vehemence Turne from thy fierce wrath and repent this evill purpose against them But we finde a prayer or expostulation of much more exorbitant vehemence in the stories of the Roman Church towards the blessed Virgin towards whom they use to bee more mannerly and respective then towards her Son or his Father when at a siege of Constantinople they came to her statue with this protestation Looke you to the drowning of our Enemies ships or we will drowne you Si vis ut imaginem tuam non mergamus in mari merge illos The farthest that Abraham goes in this place is That God is a Iudge and therefore must doe right Iob 32.10 for Far be wickednesse from God and iniquity from the Almighty surely God will not do wickedly neither will the Almighty pervert judgement An Usurer an Extortioner an Oppressor a Libeller a Thiefe and Adulterer yea a Traytor makes shift to finde some excuse some flattery to his Conscience they say to themselves the Law is open and if any be grieved they may take their remedy and I must endure it and there is an end But since nothing holds of this oppressor and manifold malefactor but the sentence of the Judge shall not the Judge doe right how must this necessarily shake the frame of all An Arbitrator or a Chancellor that judges by submission of parties or according to the Dictates of his owne understanding may have some excuse He did as his Conscience led him But shall not a Iudge that hath a certaine Law to judge by do right Especially if he be such a Judge as is Iudge of the whole earth which is the next step in Abrahams expostulation Now as long as there lies a Certiorari from a higher Court Omnem terram or an Appeale to a higher Court the case is not so desperate if the Judge doe not right for there is a future remedy to be hoped If the whole State be incensed against me yet I can finde an escape to another Country If all the World persecute me yet if I be an honest man I have a supreame Court in my selfe and I am at peace in being acquitted in mine owne Conscience But God is the Judge of all the earth of this which I tread and this earth which I carry about me and when he judges me my Conscience turnes on his side and confesses his judgement to be right And therefore S. Pauls argument seconds and ratifies Abrahams expostulation Is God unrighteous God forbid for then sayes the Apostle Rom. 3.6 how shall God judge the World The Pope may erre but then a Councell may rectifie him The King may erre but then God in whose hands the Kings heart is can rectifie him But if God that judges all the earth judge thee there is no error to be assigned in his judgement no appeale from God not throughly
in our warres but his peace and that after this fast which in the bodily and ghostly part too we performe to day and vow and promise for our whole lives he will bring us to the Marriage Supper of the Lambe in that Kingdome which our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERM. LV. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.8 9 10. Depart from me all ye workers of iniquitie for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly THis is Davids profligation and discomfiture of his enemies this is an act of true honour a true victory a true triumph to keepe the field to make good one station and yet put the enemy to flight A man may perchance be safe in a Retrait but the honour the victory the triumph lies in enforcing the enemy to fly To that is David come here to such a thankfull sense of a victory in which we shall first confider Davids thankfulnesse that is his manner of declaring Gods mercy and his security in that mercy which manner is that he durst come to an open defiance and protestation and hostility without modifications or disguises Depart from me all yee workers of iniquity And then secondly we shall see his reason upon which he grounded this confidence and this spirituall exultation which was a pregnant reason a reason that produced another reason The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will heare my prayer upon no premises doth any conclusion follow so Logically so sincerely so powerfully so imperiously so undeniably as upon this The Lord hath and therefore the Lord will But then what was this prayer that wee may know whether it were a prayer to be drawne into practise and imitation or no. It is not argument enough that it was so because God heard it then for we are not bound nay we are not allowed to pray all such prayers as good men have prayed and as God hath heard But here the prayer was this Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly But this is a malediction an imprecation of mischiefe upon others and will good men pray so or will God heare that Because that is an holy probleme and an usefull intergatory we shall make it a third part or a conclusion rather to enquire into the nature and into the avowablenesse and exemplarinesse of this in which David seemes to have been transported with some passion So that our parts will be three the building it selfe Davids thankesgiving in his exultation Divisie and declaration Depart from mee all yee workers of iniquitie and then the foundation of this building For God hath heard and therefore God will heare and lastly the prospect of this building David contemplates and lookes over againe the prayer that he had made and in a cleare understanding and in a rectified Conscience he finds that he may persist in that prayer and he doth so Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly First then we consider Davids thankfulnesse But why is it so long before David leads us to that consideration Why hath he deferred so primary a duty to so late a place 1. Part. to so low a roome to the end of the Psalme The Psalme hath a Deprecatory part that God would forbeare him and a Postulatory part that God would heare him and grant some things to him and a Gratulatory part a sacrifice of thankesgiving Now the Deprecatory part is placed in the first place Vers 1. For if it were not so if we should not first ground that That God should not rebuke us in his anger nor chasten us in his hot displeasure but leave our selves open to his indignation and his judgements wee could not live to come to a second petition our sinnes and judgements due to our sinnes require our first consideration therefore David begins with the deprecatory prayer That first Gods anger may be removed but then that deprecatory prayer wherein he desired God to forbeare him spends but one verse of the Psalme David would not insist upon that long When I have penitently confest my sinnes I may say with Iob My flesh is not brasse nor my bones stones that I can beare the wrath of the Lord but yet I must say with Iob too If the Lord kill me yet will I trust in him God hath not asked me What shall I doe for thee but of himselfe he hath done more then I could have proposed to my selfe in a wish or to him in a prayer Nor will I aske God Quousque how long shall my foes increase how long wilt thou fight on their side against me but surrender my selfe entirely in an adveniat regnum and a fiat voluntas thy kingdome come and thy will be done David makes it his first worke to stay Gods anger in a deprecatory prayer but he stayes not upon that long he will not prescribe his Physitian what he shall prescribe to him but leaves God to his own medicines and to his own methode But then the Postulatory prayer what he begs of God employes six verses as well to shew us that our necessities are many as also that if God doe not answer us at the beginning of our prayer our duty is still to pursue that way to continue in prayer And then the third part of the Psalme which is the Gratulatory part his giving of thanks is shall we say deferred or rather reserved to the end of the Psalme and exercises onely those three verses which are our Text. Not that the duty of thankesgiving is lesse then that of prayer for if we could compare them it is rather greater because it contributes more to Gods glory to acknowledge by thanks that God hath given then to acknowledge by prayer that God can give But therefore might David be later and shorter here in expressing that duty of thanks first because being reserved to the end and close of the Psalme it leaves the best impression in the memory And therefore it is easie to observe that in all Metricall compositions of which kinde the booke of Psalmes is the force of the whole piece is for the most part left to the shutting up the whole frame of the Poem is a beating out of a piece of gold but the last clause is as the impression of the stamp and that is it that makes it currant And then also because out of his abundant manner of expressing his thankfulnesse to God in every other place thereof his whole booke of Psalmes is called Sepher tehillim a booke of praise and thankesgiving he might reserve his thanks here to the last place And lastly because naturall and morall men are better acquainted with the duty of gratitude of thankesgiving
swore so many a man prayes and does not remember his own prayer As a Clock gives a warning before it strikes and then there remains a sound and a tingling of the bell after it hath stricken so a precedent meditation and a subsequent rumination make the prayer a prayer I must think before what I will aske and consider againe what I have askt and upon this dividing the hoofe and chewing the cud David avowes to his own conscience his whole action even to this consummation thereof Let mine enemies be ashamed c. Now these words whether we consider the naturall signification of the words Impreeatoria or the authority of those men who have been Expositors upon them may be understood either way either to be Imprecatoria words of Imprecation that David in the Spirit of anguish wishes that these things might fall upon his enemies or els Praedictoria words of Prediction that David in the spirit of Prophecy pronounces that these things shall fall upon them If they be Imprecatoria words spoken out of his wish and desire then they have in them the nature of a curse And because Lyra takes them to be so a curse he referres the words Ad Daemones To the Devill That herein David seconds Gods malediction upon the Serpent and curses the Devill as the occasioner and first mover of all these calamities and sayes of them Let all our enemies be ashamed and sore vexed c. Others referre these words to the first Christian times and the persecutions then and so to be a malediction a curse upon the Jewes and upon the Romans who persecuted the Primitive Church then Let them be ashamed c. And then Gregory Nyssen referres these words to more domesticall and intrinsicke enemies to Davids owne concupiscences and the rebellions of his owne lusts Let those enemies be ashamed c. For all those who understand these words to be a curse a malediction are loath to admit that David did curse his enemies meerly out of a respect of those calamities which they had inflicted upon him And that is a safe ground no man may curse another in contemplation of himselfe onely if onely himselfe be concerned in the case And when it concernes the glory of God our imprecations our maledictions upon the persons must not have their principall relation as to Gods enemies but as to Gods glory our end must be that God may have his glory not that they may have their punishment And therefore how vehement soever David seeme in this Imprecation and though he be more vehement in another place Let them be confounded and troubled for ever yea let them be put to shame Psal 83.17 and perish yet that perishing is but a perishing of their purposes let their plots perish let their malignity against thy Church be frustrated for so he expresses himselfe in the verse immediately before Fill their faces with shame but why and how That they may seeke thy Name O Lord that was Davids end even in the curse David wishes them no ill but for their good no worse to Gods enemies but that they might become his friends The rule is good which out of his moderation S. Augustine gives that in all Inquisitions and Executions in matters of Religion when it is meerly for Religion without sedition Sint qui poeniteant Let the men remaine alive or else how can they repent So in all Imprecations in all hard wishes even upon Gods enemies Sint qui convertantur Let the men remaine that they may be capable of conversion wish them not so ill as that God can shew no mercy to them for so the ill wish falls upon God himselfe if it preclude his way of mercy upon that ill man In no case must the curse be directed upon the person for when in the next Psalme to this David seemes passionate when hee asks that of God there which he desires God to forbear in the beginning of this Psalme when his Ne arguas in ira O Lord rebuke not in thine anger is turned to a Surge Domine in ira Arise O Lord in thine anger S. Augustine begins to wonder Quid illum quem perfectum dicimus ad iram provocat Deum Would David provoke God who is all sweetnesse and mildnesse to anger against any man No not against any man but Diaboli possessio peccator Every sinner is a slave to his beloved sin and therefore Misericors or at adver sus cum quitanque or at How bitterly soever I curse that sin yet I pray for that sinner David would have God angry with the Tyran not with the Slave that is oppressed with the sin not with the soule that is inthralled to it And so as the words may be a curse a malediction in Davids mouth we may take them into our mouth too and say Let those enemies be ashamed c. If this then were an Imprecation a malediction yet it was Medicinall and had Rationem boni a charitable tincture and nature in it he wished the men no harm as men But it is rather Pradictorium Praedictoria a Propheticall vehemence that if they will take no knowledge of Gods declaring himselfe in the protection of his servants if they would not consider that God had heard and would heare had rescued and would rescue his children but would continue their opposition against him heavy judgements would certainly fall upon them Their punishment should be certaine but the effect should be uncertaine for God only knowes whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to their mollifying or to their obduration Those bitter and waighty imprecations which David hath heaped together against Iudas Psal 109 Acts 1.16 seeme to be direct imprecations and yet S. Peter himselfe calls them Prophesies Oportet impleri Scripturam They were done sayes he that the Scripture might be fulfilled Not that David in his owne heart did wish all that upon Iudas but only so as fore-seeing in the Spirit of Prophesying that those things should fall upon him he concurred with the purpose of God therein and so farre as he saw it to be the will of God he made it his will and his wish And so have all those judgements which we denounce upon sinners the nature of Prophesies in them when we reade in the Church that Commination Cursed is the Idolater This may fall upon some of our owne kindred and Cursed is he that curseth Father or Mother This may fall upon some of our owne children and Cursed is he that perverteth judgement This may fall upon some powerfull Persons that we may have a dependance upon and upon these we doe not wish that Gods vengeance should fall yet we Prophesie and denounce justly that upon such such vengeances will fall and then all Prophesies of that kinde are alwaies conditionall they are conditionall if we consider any Decree in God they must be conditionall in all our denunciations if you repent they shall not fall upon you if
ordained that upon this day the Church should burne no Oyle but Balsamum in her Lamps so let us ever celebrate this day with a thankfull acknowledgment that Christ who is unctus Domini The Anointed of the Lord hath anointed us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes and given us life more abundantly then others in making us partakers of these meanes of salvation in his Church But I bring it closer then so now and here within these wals and at this houre comes Christ unto you in the offer of this abundance and with what penuriousnesse penuriousnesse of devotion penuriousnesse of reverence do you meet him here Deus stetit saies David Psal 82.1 God standeth in the Congregation does God stand there and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele I would speake so as the congregation should not know whom I meane but so as that they whom it concernes might know I meane them I would speake for I must say that there come some persons to this Church and persons of example to many that come with them of whom excepting some few who must therefore have their praise from us as no doubt they have their thanks and blessings from God I never saw Master nor servant kneele at his comming into this Church or at any part of divine service David had such a zeale to Gods service as that he was content to be thought a foole for his humility towards the Arke S. Paul was content to be thought mad so was our blessed Saviour himselfe not onely by his enemies but by his owne friends and kinsfolke John 10.20 Mar. 3.21 Indeed the roote of that word Tehillim which is the name of the Psalmes and of all cheerefull and hearty service of God is Halal and Halal is Insanire To fall mad And if humility in the service of God here be madnesse I would more of us were more out of our wits then we are I would all our Churches were to that purpose Bedlams S. Hieroms rule is not onely frequenter orandum to come often to prayers but Flexo corpore orandum to declare an inward humiliation by an outward As our comming to Church is a testification a profession of our religion to testifie our fall in Adam the Church appoints us to fall upon our knees and to testifie our Resurrection in Christ Jesus Just Mar. the Church hath appointed certaine times to stand But no man is so left to his liberty as never to kneele Genuflexio est peccatorum kneeling is the sinners posture if thou come hither in the quality of a sinner and if thou do not so what doest thou here the whole need not the Physitian put thy selfe into the posture of a sinner kneele We are very far from enjoyning any one constant forme to be alwaies observed by all men we onely direct you by that good rule of S. Bernard Habe reverentiam Deo ut quod pluris est ei tribuas Doe but remember with what reverence thou camest into thy Masters presence when thou wast a servant with what reverence thou camest to the Councell table or to the Kings presence if thou have beene called occasionally to those high places and Quod plur is est such reverence as thou gavest to them there be content to afford to God here That Sacrifice that struggled at the Altar the Ancients would not accept for a Sacrifice But Caesar would not forbeare a sacrifice for struggling but sacrificed it for all that He that struggles and murmures at this instruction this increpation is the lesse fit for a sacrifice to God for that But the zeale that I bear to Gods house puts so much of Caesars courage into mee as for all that struggling to say now and to repeat as often as I see that irreverence continued to the most impatient struggler Deus stetit God stands in the Congregation and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele Venite saies David Let us come hither let us be here what to doe Venite adoremus Ps 95.6 Let us come and worship How will not the heart serve no Adoremus procidamus Let us fall downe and kneele before the Lord our Maker Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification and as without this without holinesse no man shall see God though he pore whole nights upon the Bible so without that without humility no man shall heare God speake to his soule though hee heare three two-houres Sermons every day But if God bring thee to that humiliation of soule and body here hee will emprove and advance thy sanctification abundantiùs more abundantly and when he hath brought it to the best perfection that this life is capable of he will provide another abundantiùs another maner of abundance in the life to come which is the last beating of the pulse of this text the last panting of the breath thereof our anhelation and panting after the joyes and glory and eternity of the kingdome of Heaven of which though for the most part I use to dismisse you with saying something yet it is alwaies little that I can say thereof at this time but this that if all the joyes of all the Martyrs from Abel t◠him that groanes now in the Inquisition were condensed into one body of joy and certainly the joyes that the Martyrs felt at their deaths would make up a far greater body then their sorrowes would doe for though it bee said of our great Martyr or great Witnesse Apoc. 1.5 as S. Iohn calls Christ Jesus to whom all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs witnesses that testifie his testimony Non dolor sicut dolor ejus there was never sorrow like unto his sorrow Lam. 3.12 Heb. 12.2 it is also true Non gaudium sicut gaudium ejus There was never joy like unto that joy which was set before him when he endured the crosse If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs which would no doubt be such a joy as would worke a liquefaction a melting of my bowels yet I shall have it abundantiùs a joy more abundant then even this superlative joy in the world to come What a dimme vespers of a glorious festivall what a poore halfe-holyday is Methusalems nine hundred yeares to eternity what a poore account hath that man made that saies this land hath beene in my name and in my Ancestors from the Conquest what a yesterday is that not six hundred yeares If I could beleeve the transmigration of soules and thinke that my soule had beene successively in some creature or other since the Creation what a yesterday is that not six thousand yeares What a yesterday for the past what a to morrow for the future is any terme that can be comprehendred in Cyphar or Counters But as how abundant a life soever any man hath in this world for temporall abundances I have life more abundantly then hee if I have the spirituall life of grace so what measure soever I have of this spirituall life of
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
of excommunication That others should esteem them so and avoid them as such persons is sometimes debated amongst us in our books If the Apostle say it by way of Imprecation if it sound so you are to remember first That many things are spoken by the Prophets in the Scriptures which sound as imprecations as execrations which are indeed but prophesies They seeme to be spoken in the spirit of anger when they are in truth but in the spirit of prophesie So in very many places of the Psalmes David seemes to wish heavy calamities upon his and Gods enemies when it is but a declaration of those judgements of God which hee prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them They seeme Imprecations and are but Prophesies and such wee who have not this Spirit of Prophesie nor foresight of Gods wayes may not venture upon If they be truly Imprecations you are to remember also that the Prophets and Apostles had in them a power extraordinary and in execution of that power might doe that which every private man may not doe So the Prophets rebuked so they punished Kings So a 2 King 2.24 Elizeus called in the Beares to devoure the boyes And so b 2 Kings 1. Elias called downe fire to devoure the Captaines So S. Peter killed c Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira with his word And d Acts 13.8 so S. Paul stroke Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse But upon Imprecations of this kinde wee as private men or as publique persons but limited by our Commission may not adventure neither But take the Prophets or the Apostles in their highest Authority yet in an over-vehement zeale they may have done some things some times not warrantable in themselves many times many things not to be imitated by us In Moses his passionate vehemency Dele me Exod. 32.32 If thou wilt not forgive them blot me out of thy booke And in the Apostles inconfiderate zeale to his brethren Optabam Anathema esse I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 In Iames and Iohns impatience of their Masters being neglected by the Samaritans when they drew from Christ that rebuke You know not of what spirit you are In these Luke 9.55 and such as these there may be something wherein even these men cannot be excused but very much wherein we may not follow them nor doe as they did nor say as they said Since there is a possibility a facility a proclivity of erring herein and so many conditions and circumstances required to make an Imprecation just and lawfull the best way is to forbeare them or to be very sparing in them But we rather take this in the Text Excommunicatio to be an Excommunication denounced by the Apostle then an Imprecation So Christ himselfe If he will not heare the Chruch let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican That is Have no conversation with him So sayes the Apostle speaking of an Angel Anathema If any man if we our selves Gal. 1.9 if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Now the Excommunication is in the Anathema and the aggravating thereof in the other words Maranatha The word Anathema had two significations They are expressed thus Quod Deo dicatum Just Mart. Quod à Deo per vitium alienatum That which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum Ab hoc recedebant Chrysost tanquam à Deo abalienatum From the first kinde men abstained because they were consecrated to God and from the other because they were aliened from God and in that last sense irreligious men such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ are Anathema aliened from God Amongst the Druides with the Heathen they excommunicated Malefactors and no man might relieve him in any necessity no man might answer him in any action And so amongst the Jews the Esseni who were in speciall estimation for sanctity excommunicated irreligious persons and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields By the light of nature by the light of grace we should separate our selves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons and that with that earnestnesse which the Apostle expresses in the last words Maran Atha In the practise of the Primitive Church Maran Atha by those Canons which we call The Apostles Canons and those which we call The penitentiall Canons we see there were different penances inflicted upon different faults and there were very early relaxations of penances Indulgences and there were reservations of cases in some any Priest in some a Bishop onely might dispense It is so in our Church still Impugners of the Supremacy are excommunicated and not restored but by the Archbishop Impugners of the Common prayer Booke excommunicated too but may bee restored by the Bishop of the place Impugners of our Religion declared in the Articles reserved to the Archbishop Impugners of Ceremonies restored when they repent and no Bishop named Authors of Schisme reserved to the Archbishop maintainers of Schismatiques referred but to repentance And so maintainers of Conventicles to the Archbishop maintainers of Constitutions made in Conventicles to their repentance There was ever there is yet a reserving of certaine cases and a relaxation or aggravating of Ecclesiasticall censures for their waight and for their time and because Not to love the Lord Iesus Christ was the greatest the Apostle inflicts this heaviest Excommunication Maran Atha The word seemes to be a Proverbiall word amongst the Jews after their returne and vulgarly spoken by them and so the Apostle takes it out of common use of speech Maran is Dominus The Lord and Athan is Venit He comes Not so truly in the very exactnesse of Hebrew rules and terminations but so amongst them then when their language was much depraved Dan. 4.16 Deut. 33.2 but in ancienter times we have the word Mara for Dominus and the word Atha for Venit And so Anathema Maran Atha will be Let him that loveth not the Lord Iesus Christ be as an accursed person to you even till the Lord come S. Hierom seems to understand this Dominus venit That the Lord is come come already come in the flesh Superfluum sayes he odiis pertinacibus contendere adversus eum qui jam venit It is superabundant perversnesse to resist Christ now Now that he hath appeared already and established to himselfe a Kingdome in this world And so S. Chrysostome seemes to take it too Christ is come already sayes he Et jam nulla potest excusatio non diligentibus eum If any excuse could be pretended before yet since Christ is come none can be Si opertum sayes the Apostle If our Gospel be hid now it is hid from them who are lost that is they are lost from
in himselfe but good to us he would let us alone and never correct us But Wisd 12.1 Ideo cos qui errant corripis quia bonus suavis es Domine as the Vulgate reades that place The Lord corrects us not onely as he is good but as he is gentle he were more cruell more unmercifull if he did alwayes shew mercy That David intends when he sayes Propitius fuisti Thou wast a Mercifull God because thou didst punish all their inventions So then our first worke is to consider that that in the Prophet is a promise Ier. 30.11 and hath the nature of a mercy I will correct thee in measure where the promise does not fall only upon the measure but upon the correction it selfe and then since this is a promise a mercy a part of our daily bread we may pray as the same Prophet directs us Psal 10.24 O Lord correct me but with judgement not in thine anger Where also the petition seems to fall not onely upon the measure but upon the correction it selfe and then when I have found some correction fit to be prayed for and afforded me by God upon my praier if that correction at any time grow heavy or wearisome unto me I must relieve my self upon that consideration Whether God have smitten me as he smote them that smote me Esay 27.7 Whether it be not another manner of execution which God hath laid upon mine enemies then that which he hath laid upon me in having suffered them to be smitten with the spirit of sinfull glory and triumph in their sin and my misery and with excecation and obduratenesse with impenitence and insensiblenesse of their owne case Or at least let me consider as it is in the same place Whether I be slain according to the slaughter of them that were slaine by me That is whether my oppression my extortion my prevarication have not brought other men to more misery then God hath yet brought me unto And if we consider this as no doubt David did and finde that correction is one loafe of our daily bread and finde in our heaviest corrections that God hath been heavier upon our enemies then upon us and we heavier upon others then God upon us too we shall be content with any Rebuke and any Chastisement so it be not in anger and in hot displeasure which are the words that remaine to be considered Now these two phrases Argui in furore and Corripi in ira which we translate To rebuke inanger and to chasten in hot displeasure are by some thought to signifie one and the same thing that David intends the same thing and though in divers words yet words of one and the same signification But with reverence to those men for some of them are men to whom much reverence is due they doe not well agree with one another nor very constantly with themselves S. Ierome sayes Furor ira maxime unum sunt That this anger and hot displeasure are meerly absolutely intirely one and the same thing and yet he sayes that this Anger is executed in this world and this hot Displeasure reserved for the world to come And this makes a great difference no waight of Gods whole hand here can be so heavy as any finger of his in hell the highest exaltation of Gods anger in this world can have no proportion to the least spark of that in hell nor a furnace seaven times heat here to the embers there So also S. Augustine thinks that these two words to Rebuke and to Chasten doe not differ at all or if they doe that the latter is the lesser But this is not likely to be Davids method first to make a praier for the greater and that being granted to make a second praier for the lesser included in that which was askt Ayguanus and granted before A later man in the Roman Church allowes the words to differ and the later to be the heavier but then he refers both to the next life that to Rebuke in anger should be intended of Purgatorie and of a short continuance there and to be Chastened in hot displeasure should be intended of hell and of everlasting condemnation there And so David must make his first petition Rebuke me not in thine anger to this purpose Let me passe at my death immediately to Heaven without touching at any fire and his second petition Chasten me not in thy hot displeasure to this purpose If I must touch at any fire let it be but Purgatory and not Hell But by the nature and propriety and the use of all these words in the Scriptures it appeares that the words are of a different signification which S. Ierome it seemes did not thinke and that the last is the heaviest which S. Augustine it seemes did not thinke and then that they are to be referred to this life which Ayguanus did not think For the words themselves all our three Translations retaine the two first words to Rebuke and to Chasten neither that which we call the Bishops Bible nor that which we call the Geneva Bible and that which wee may call the Kings depart from those two first words But then for the other two Anger and Hot displeasure in them all three Translations differ The first cals them Indignation and Displeasure the second Anger and Wrath and the last Anger and Hot displeasure To begin with the first Rebuke to be Rebuked was but to be chidden but to be Chastened was to be beaten and yet David was heartily afraid of the first of the least of them when it was to be done in anger This word that is here to Rebuke Iacach is for the most part to Reprove Esay 1.18 to Convince by way of argument and disputation So it is in Esay Come now and let us reason together saies God The naturall man is confident in his Reason in his Philosophy and yet God is content to joyne in that issue If he doe not make it appeare even to your reason that he is God Chuse whom ye will serve as Ioshuah speakes If he doe not make it appeare that he is a good God change him for any other God that your reason can present to be better Micah 6.2 In Micah the word hath somewhat more vehemence The Lord hath a quarrell against his people and he will plead with Israel This is more then a Disputation it is a Suite God can maintaine his possession other waies without Suite but he will recover us by matter of Record openly and in the face of the County he will put us to a shame and to an acknowledgement of having disloially devested our Allegeance Yea the word hath sometimes somewhat more sharpnesse then this for in the book of Proverbs it comes to Correction The Lord correcteth him whom he loveth even as the father doth the child in whom he delighteth Though it be a fatherly correction yet it is a correction and that is more then
they hide the marks and infect others and wrastle against Gods notifications of their former sinnes And then the last of these three words which is here rendred Griefe Indignatio does properly signifie Indignation and Anger And therefore S. Augustine upon this place puts himselfe to that question If Davids constitution be shaken if his complexion and countenance be decayed and withered Prae indignatione for Indignation for Anger from whom proceeds this Indignation and this Anger sayes that blessed Father If it proceede from God sayes he it is well that he is but Turbatus and not Extinctus that he is but troubled and not distracted but shaken and not overthrowne but overthrowne and not ground to powder not trodden as flat as durt in the streets as the Prophet speaks For David himselfe had told us but a few Psalmes before Psal 2. ult That when the Sonne is angry and when we speake of the Sonne we intend a person more sensible and so more compassionate of our miseries then when we speake of God of God considered in the height of his Majesty and but a little angry which amounts not to this provocation of God which David had falne into here we may perish and perish in the way perish in a halfe repentance before we perfect our Reconciliation In the way so before we come to our end or in the way in these outward actions of repentance if they be hypocritically or occasionally or fashionally or perfunctorily performed and not with a right heart towards God Though this be the way we may perish in the way Now Aquinas places this fury as the Vulgat calls it this indignation in Absolom and not in David He takes Davids sorrow to rise out of his sons rebellion and furious prosecution thereof That David was thus vehemently affected for the fault of another And truly it is a holy tendernesse and an exemplar disposition to be so sensible and compassionate for the sins of other men Though Absolom could not have hurt David David would have grieved for his unnaturall attempt to doe it So in Aquinas sense it is Excandescentia pro inimicis a sorrow for his enemies Not for his owne danger from them but for their sin in themselves But Gregory Nyssen takes it de excandescentia in inimicos for an indignation against his enemies And that David speaks this by way of confession and accusation of himselfe as of a fault that he was too soone transported to an impatience and indignation against them though enemies And taking that sense we see how quickly even the Saints of God put themselves beyond the hability of making that Petition sincerely Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us How hard it is even for a good man to forgive an enemy Heg And how hard it is Nihil in peccatore odisse nisi peccatum to sever the sin from the sinner and to hate the fault and not the man But leaving Thomas and Gregory Aquinas and Nyssen to that Exposition in which I think they are singularly singular either that this sorrow in David was a charitable and compassionate sense of others faults which is Aquinas way or that it was a confession of uncharitablenesse in himself towards others which is Gregories way the whole stream for the most part of ancient Expositors divide themselves into these two channels Either that this indignation conceived by David which withered and decayed him was a holy scorn and indignation against his owne sins that such wretched things as those should separate him from his God and from his inheritance according to that chaine of Affections which the Apostle makes 2 Cor. 7. That godly sorrow brings a sinner to a care He is no longer carelesse negligent of his wayes and that care to a clearing of himselfe not to cleare himselfe by way of excuse or disguise but to cleare himselfe by way of physick by humble confession and then that clearing brings him to an indignation to a kind of holy scorne and wonder how that tentation could worke so Such an affection as we conceive to have been in the Spouse when she said Lavi pedes I have washed my feet how shall I defile them I have emptied my soul by Confession is it possible I should charge it with new transgressions Or else they place this affection this indignation in God And then they say it was an apprehension of the anger of God to be expressed upon him in the day of Judgement And against this Vermination as the Originall denotes against this gnawing of the worme that may bore through and sink the strongest vessell that sailes in the seas of this world there is no other varnish no other liniment no other medicament no other pitch nor rosin against this worme but the bloud of Christ Jesus And therefore whensoever this worme this apprehension of Gods future indignation reserved for the Judgement bites upon thee be sure to present to it the bloud of thy Saviour Never consider the judgement of God for sin alone but in the company of the mercies of Christ It is but the hissing of the Serpent and the whispering of Satan when he surprises thee in a melancholy midnight of dejection of spirit and layes thy sins before thee then Looke not upon thy sins so inseparably that thou canst not see Christ too Come not to a confession to God without consideration of the promises of his Gospel Even the sense and remorse of sin is a dangerous consideration but when the cup of salvation stands by me to keep me from fainting David himselfe could not get off when he would but as he complaines there which is the last act of his sorrow to be considered in this which is all his part and all our first part Inveteravit He waxed old because of all his enemies The difference is not of much importance Inveteravit whether it be Inveteravi or Inveteravit in the first or in the third person Whether Davids eyes or David himselfe be thus decayed and waxen old imports little But yet that which Bellarmine collects upon this difference imports much For because the Vulgat Edition and the Septuagint such a Septuagint as we have now reade this in the first person of David himselfe Inveteravi and the Hebrew hath it in the third Inveteravit Bellarmine will needs think that the Hebrew the Originall is falsified and corrupted still in advancement of that dangerous Position of theirs That their Translation is to be preferred before the Originall and that is an unsufferable tyrannie and an Idolatrous servility The Translation is a reverend Translation A Translation to which the Church of God owes much but gold will make an Idol as well as wood and to make any Translation equall or better then the Originall is an Idolatrous servility It is true that that which is said here in the third person implyes the first And it is David that after his sighing and
fainting with that After his weeping and dissolving with that After his consuming and withering with that foresees no rescue no escape Inveteravit he waxes old amongst his enemies Who were his enemies and what was this age that he speaks of It is of best use to pursue the spirituall sense of this Psalme and so his enemies were his sins And David found that he had not got the victory over any one enemy any one sin Anothers bloud did not extinguish the lustfull heat of his owne nor the murther of the husband the adultery with the wife Change of sin is not an overcomming of sin He that passes from sin to sin without repentance which was Davids case for a time still leaves an enemy behind him and though he have no present assault from his former enemie no tentation to any act of his former sin yet he is still in the midst of his enemies under condemnation of his past as well as of his present sins as unworthy a receiver of the Sacrament for the sins of his youth done forty yeares agoe if those sins were never repented though so long discontinued as for his ambition or covetousnesse or indevotion of this present day These are his enemies and then this is the age that growes upon him the age that David complaines of I am waxenold that is growne into habits of these sins There is an old age of our naturall condition We shall waxe old as doth a garment Psal 102.26 David would not complaine of that which all men desire To wish to be old and then grudge to be old when we are come to it cannot consist with morall constancy There is an old age expressed in that phrase The old man which the Apostle speaks of which is that naturall corruption and disposition to sin cast upon us by Adam Rom. 6.6 But that old man was crucified in Christ sayes the Apostle and was not so onely from that time when Christ was actually crucified one thousand six hundred yeares agoe but from that time that a second Adam was promised to the first in Paradise And so that Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world from the beginning delivered all them to whom the means ordained by God as Circumcision to them Baptisme to us were afforded and in that respect David was not under that old age but was become a new creature Nor as the Law was called the old Law which is another age also for to them who understood that Law aright the New Law the Gospel was enwrapped in the Old And so David as well as we might be said to serve God in the newnesse of spirit and not in the oldnesse of the Letter Rom. 7.6 so that this was not the age that opprest him The Age that oppresses the sinner is that when he is growne old in sin he is growne weak in strength and become lesse able to overcome that sin then then he was at beginning Blindnesse contracted by Age doth not deliver him from objects of tentations He sees them though he be blind Deafnesse doth not deliver him from discourses of tentation he heares them though he be deafe Nor lamenesse doth not deliver him from pursuit of tentation for in his owne memory he sees and heares and pursues all his former sinfull pleasures and every night every houre sins over all the sins of many yeares that are passed That which waxeth old is ready to vanish sayes the Apostle Heb. 8.13 If we would let them goe they would goe and whether we will or no they leave us for the ability of practise But Thesaurizamus we treasure them up in our memories Rom. 2.5 and we treasure up the wrath of God with them against the day of wrath And whereas one calling of our sins to our memories by way of confession would doe us good and serve our turnes this often calling them in a sinfull delight in the memory of them exceeds the sin it selfe when it was committed because it is more unnaturall now Ezek. 23.19 then it was then and frustrates the pardon of that sin when it was repented To end this branch and this part So humble was this holy Prophet and so apprehensive of his own debility and so far from an imaginary infallibility of falling no more as that after all his agonies and exercises and mortifications and prayer and sighs and weeping still he finds himselfe in the midst of enemies and of his old enemies for not onely tentations to new sins but even the memory of old though formerly repented arise against us arise in us and ruine us And so we passe from these pieces which constitute our first Part Quid factum what David upon the sense of his case did to the other Quid faciendum what by his example we are to doe and what is required of us after we have repented and God hath remitted the sin Out of this passage here in this Psalme and out of that history 2 Part. where Nathan sayes to David The Lord hath put away thy sin and yet sayes after 2. Sam. 12.13 The child that is borne to thee shall surely dye and out of that story where David repents earnestly his sin committed in the numbring of his people and sayes Now now that I have repented 2 Sam. 24.10 Now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly yet David was to indure one of those three Calamities of Famine Warre or Pestilence And out of some other such places as these some men have imagined a Doctrine that after our repentance and after God hath thereupon pardoned our sin yet he leaves the punishment belonging to that sin unpardoned though not all the punishment not the eternall yet say they there belongs a temporary punishment too and that God does not pardon but exacts and exacts in the nature of a punishment and more by way of satisfaction to his Justice Now Stipendium peccati mors est There is the punishment for sin The reward of sin is death If there remaine no death there remaines no punishment For the reward of sin is death And death complicated in it selfe death wrapped in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding sheet It is death aggravated by it selfe death waighed downe by death And what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his grave stone It is death multiplied by it selfe And what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death It is Morte morieris A Double death Eternall and Temporary Temporall and Spirituall death Now the Temporary the Naturall death God never takes away from us he never pardons that punishment because he never takes away that sin that occasioned it which is Originall sin To what Sanctification soever a man comes Originall sin lives to his last breath And therefore Heb 9.27 Statutum est That Decree stands
then when he was in his displeasure if God have turned to him when he was turned from him and stroakt him with the same hand that struck him God will much more perfect his own worke and grant his prayer after if God would endure to looke upon him in his deformitie he will delight to looke upon him then when he hath shed the light and the lovelinesse of his owne countenance upon him It is the Apostles argument as well as Davids If when we were enemies Rom. 5.10 we were reconeiled to God by the death of his Sonne much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life When David found that God had heard his Supplications the voyce of his suffering of his punishment he was sure he would heare his Prayer the voyce of his thankfulnesse too And this was Davids second reason Oratio for his alacrity and confidence that God would never be weary of hearing he had heard him and he would heare him still he had heard the Supplication and he would heare his Prayer for this word which signifies Prayer here is derived from Palal which signifies properly Separare As his Supplication was acceptable which proceeded à Suppliciis from a sense of his afflictions so this Prayer which came Post separationem after he had separated and divorced himselfe from his former company after his Discedite his discharging of all the workers of iniquitie must necessarily be better accepted at Gods hand He that heares a Suppliant that is a man in misery and does some small matter for the present ease of that man and proceeds no farther Ipsum quod dedit perit That which he gave is lost it is drowned by that floud of misery that overflows and surrounds that wretched man he is not the better to morrow for to dayes almes Et vitam producit ad miseriam that very almes prolongs his miserable life still without to dayes almes he should not have had a to morrow to be miserable in Now Christ onely is the Samaritane which perfected his cure upon the wounded man He saw him Luk. 10.33 sayes the text so did the rest that passed by him but He had compassion on him so he might and yet actually have done him no good but He went to him so he might too and then out of a delicatenesse or fastidiousnesse have gone from him againe but to contract he bound up his wounds he powred in oyle and wine he put him upon his own beast he brought him to an Inne made provision for him gave the Host money before-hand gave him charge to have a care of him and which is the perfection of all the greatest testimony of our Samaritans love to us he promised to come againe and at that comming he does not say He will pay but He will recompence which is a more abundant expressing of his bountie Christ loves not but in the way of marriage if he begin to love thee Hosea 2.19 he tells thee Sponsabo te mihi I will marry thee unto me and Sponsabo in aeternum I will marry thee for ever For it is a marriage that prevents all mistakings and excludes all impediments I will marry thee in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies and in faithfulnesse many and great assurances And as it is added Seminabo te mihi which is a strange expressing of Gods love to us I will sow thee unto me in the carth when I have taken thee into my husbandry thou shalt increase and multiply Seminabo te and all that thou doest produce shall be directed upon me Seminabo te mihi I will sowe thee to my selfe therefore thy soule may be bold to joyne with David in that thankfull confidence He hath heard my supplication and therefore He will heare my prayer He lookt upon me in the dust of the earth much more will he doe so having now laid me upon Carpets he lookt upon me in my sores sores of mine enemies malice and sores of mine own sinnes much more will he doe so now when he hath imprinted in me the wounds of his own Sonne for those that were so many wounds upon him are so many starres upon me He lookt upon me may David say when I followed the Ewes great with young much more will he doe so now now when by his directions I lead out his people great with enterprizes and victories against his enemies First David comes to that holy noblenesse he dares cast off ill instruments and is not afraid of conspiracy he dares divorce himselfe from dangerous company and is not afraid of melancholy he dares love God and is not afraid of that jealousie that he is too religious to be imployed too tender conscienced to be put upon businesse he dares reprehend them that are under his charge and is not afraid of a recrimination he dares observe a Sabbath he dares startle at a blasphemy he dares forbeare countenancing a prophane or a scurrill jest with his praise he dares be an honest man which holy confidence constituted our first part Depart from mee all yee workers of iniquity And then he grounds this confidence upon an undeceivable Rocke upon Gods seale God hath heard me therefore God will heare mee And when God heares God speaks too and when God speaks God does too and therefore I may safely proceede as I doe which was our second Consideration And then the third which remains is that upon this he returnes to the consideration what that was that he had done he had either imprecated or denounced at least heavy judgements upon his enemies and he finds it avowable and justifiable to have done so and therefore persists in it Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly All cleane beasts had both these marks they divided the hoofe 3 Part. and they chewed the cud All good resolutions which passe our prayer must have these two marks too they must divide the hoofe they must make a double impression they must be directed upon Gods glory and upon our good and they must passe a rumination a chawing of the cud a second examination whether that prayer were so conditioned or no. We pray sometimes out of sudden and indigested apprehensions we pray sometimes out of custome and communion with others we pray sometimes out of a present sense of paine or imminent danger and this prayer may divide the hoofe It may looke towards Gods glory and towards our good but it does not chew the cud too that is if I have not considered not examined whether it doe so or no it is not a prayer that God will call a sacrifice You see Christ brought his own Prayer Si possibile If it be possible c. through such a rumination Veruntamen yet not my will c. As many a man sweares and if he be surprized and askt what did you say he does not remember his owne oath not what he
not Oportet impleri Scripturam The Scripture must be fulfilled We doe not wish them we do but Prophesie them no nor we doe not prophesie them but the Scriptures have preprophesied them before they will fall upon you as upon Iudas in condemnation and perchance as upon Iudas in desperation too Davids purpose then being in these words to work to their amendment Mollior sensus and not their finall destruction we may easily and usefully discerne in the particular words a milder sense then the words seeme at first to present And first give me leave by the way only in passing by occasion of those words which are here rendred Convertentur Erubescent and which in the Originall are Iashabu and Ieboshu which have a musicall and harmonious sound and agnomination in them let me note thus much even in that that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with a propriety but with a delicacy and harmony and melody of language with height of Metaphors and other figures which may work greater impressions upon the Readers and not with barbarous or triviall or market or homely language It is true that when the Grecians and the Romanes and S. Augustine himselfe undervalued and despised the Scriptures because of the poore and beggerly phrase that they seemed to be written in the Christians could say little against it but turned still upon the other safer way wee consider the matter and not the phrase because for the most part they had read the Scriptures only in Translations which could not maintaine the Majesty nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall Their case was somewhat like ours at the beginning of the Reformation when because most of those men who laboured in that Reformation came out of the Romane Church and there had never read the body of the Fathers at large but only such ragges and fragments of those Fathers as were patcht together in their Decretat's and Decretals and other such Common placers for their purpose and to serve their turne therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue to try controversies by the Fathers But as soon as our men that in braced the Reformation had had time to reade the Fathers they were ready enough to joyne with the Adversary in that issue and still we protest that we accept that evidence the testimony of the Fathers and resuse nothing which the Fathers unanimly delivered for matter of faith and howsoever at the beginning some men were a little ombrageous and startling at the name of the Fathers yet since the Fathers have been well studied for more then threescore yeares we have behaved our selves with more reverence to wards the Fathers and more confidence in the Fathers then they of the Romane perswasion have done and been lesse apt to suspect or quarrell their Books or to reprove their Doctrines then our Adversaries have been So howsoever the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under that imputation that their Scriptures have no Majesty no eloquence because these embellishments could not appeare in Translations nor they then read Originalls yet now that a perfect knowledge of those languages hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those Books we are able to reply to them that there are not in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures and that nothing is more demonstrable then that if we would take all those Figures and Tropes which are collected out of secular Poets and Orators we may give higher and livelier examples of every one of those Figures out of the Scriptures then out of all the Greek and Latine Poets and Orators and they mistake it much that thinke that the Holy Ghost hath rather chosen a low and barbarous and homely style then an eloquent and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe To returne and to cast a glance upon these words in Davids prediction Erubescent upon his enemies what hardnesse is in the first Erubescent Let them be ashamed for the word imports no more our last Translation sayes no more neither did our first Translators intend any more by their word Confounded for that is confounded with shame in themselves This is Virga desoiplinae sayes S. Bernard as long as we are ashamed of sin we are not growne up and hardned in it we are under correction the correction of a remorse As soone as Adam came to be ashamed of his nakednesse he presently thought of some remedy if one should come and tell thee that he looked through the doore that he stood in a window over against thine and saw thee doe such or such a sin this would put thee to a shame and thou wouldest not doe that sin till thou wert fure he could not see thee O if thou wouldest not sin till thou couldst think that God saw thee not this shame had wrought well upon thee There are complexions that cannot blush there growes a blacknesse a sootinesse upon the soule by custome in sin which overcomes all blushing all tend ernesse White alone is palenesse and God loves not a pale soule a soule possest with a horror affrighted with a diffidence and distrusting his mercy Rednesse alone is anger and vehemency and distemper and God loves not such a red soule a soule that sweats in sin that quarrels for sin that revenges in sin But that whitenesse that preserves it selfe not onely from being died all over in any foule colour from contracting the name of any habituall sin and so to be called such or such a sinner but from taking any spot from comming within distance of a tentation or of a suspition is that whitenesse which God meanes when he sayes Thou art all faire my Love Cant. 4.7 and there is no spot in thee Indifferent looking equall and easie conversation appliablenesse to wanton discourses and notions and motions are the Devils single money and many pieces of these make up an Adultery As light a thing as a Spangle is a Spangle is silver and Leafe gold that is blowne away is gold and sand that hath no strength no coherence yet knits the building so doe approaches to sin become sin and fixe sin To avoid these spots is that whitenesse that God loves in the soule But there is a rednesse that God loves too which is this Erubescence that we speak of an aptnesse in the soule to blush when any of these spots doe fall upon it God is the universall Confessor the generall Penitentiary of all the world and all dye in the guilt of their sin that goe not to Confession to him And there are sins of such waight to the soule and such intangling and perplexity to the conscience in some circumstances of the sin as that certainly a soule may receive much ease in such cases by confessing it selfe to man In this holy shamefastnesse which we intend in this outward blushing of the face the soule goes to confession too And it is one of
the principall arguments against Confessions by Letter which some went about to set up in the Romane Church that that took away one of the greatest evidences and testimonies of their repentance which is this Erubescence this blushing this shame after sin if they should not be put to speak it face to face but to write it that would remove the shame which is a part of the repentance But that soule that goes not to confession to it selfe that hath not an internall blushing after a sin committed is a pale soule even in the palenesse of death and senslesnesse and a red soule red in the defiance of God And that whitenesse to avoid approaches to sin and that rednesse to blush upon a sin which does attempt us is the complexion of the soule which God loves and which the Holy Ghost testifies when he sayes Cant. 5.12 My Beloved is white and ruddy And when these men that David speaks of here had lost that whitenesse their innocency for David to wish that they might come to a rednesse a shame a blushing a remorse a sense of sin may have been no such great malediction or imprecation in the mouth of David but that a man may wish it to his best friend which should be his own soule and say Erubescam not let mine enemies but let me be ashamed with such a shame In the second word Conturbentur Let them be sore vexed he wishes his enemies no worse then himselfe had been For he had used the same word of himselfe before Ossa turbata My bones are vexed Ver. 2. 3. and Anima turbata My soule is vexed and considering that David had found this vexation to be his way to God it was no malicious imprecation to wish that enemy the same Physick that he had taken who was more sick of the same disease then he was For this is like a troubled Sea after a tempest the danger is past but yet the billow is great still The danger was in the calme in the security or in the tempest by mis-interpreting Gods corrections to our obduration and to a remorselesse stupefaction but when a man is come to this holy vexation to be troubled to be shaken with a sense of the indignation of God the storme is past and the indignation of God is blowne over That soule is in a faire and neare way of being restored to a calmnesse and to reposed security of conscience that is come to this holy vexation In a flat Map there goes no more to make West East though they be distant in an extremity but to paste that flat Map upon a round body and then West and East are all one In a flat soule in a dejected conscience in a troubled spirit there goes no more to the making of that trouble peace then to apply that trouble to the body of the Merits to the body of the Gospel of Christ Jesus and conforme thee to him and thy West is East Zoch 6.12 thy Trouble of spirit is Tranquillity of spirit The name of Christ is Oriens The East Esay 14.12 And yet Lucifer himselfe is called Filius Orientis The Son of the East If thou beest fallen by Lucifer fallen to Lucifer and not fallen as Lucifer to a senslesnesse of thy fall and an impenitiblenesse therein but to a troubled spirit still thy Prospect is the East still thy Climate is heaven still thy Haven is Jerusalem for in our lowest dejection of all even in the dust of the grave we are so composed so layed down as that we look to the East If I could beleeve that Trajan or Tecla could look East-ward that is towards Christ in hell I could beleeve with them of Rome that Trajan and Tecla were redeemed by prayer out of hell God had accepted sacrifices before but no sacrifice is call Odor quiet is Gen. 8.21 It is not said That God smelt a savor of rest in any sacrifice but that which Noah offered after hee had beene variously tossed and tumbled in the long hulling of the Arke upon the waters A troublesome spirit and a quiet spirit are farre asunder But a troubled spirit and a quiet spirit are neare neighbours And therefore David meanes them no great harme when hee sayes Let them be troubled For Let the winde be as high as it will so I sayle before the winde Let the trouble of my soule be as great as it will so it direct me upon God and I have calme enough And this peace Convertantur this calme is implyed in the next word Convertantur which is not Let them be overthrowne but Let them returne let them be forced to returne he prayes that God would do something to crosse their purposes because as they are against God so they are against their owne soules In that way where they are he sees there is no remedy and therefore he desires that they might be Turned into another way What is that way This. Turne us O Lord and we shall be turned That is turned the right way Towards God And as there was a promise from God to heare his people not onely when they came to him in the Temple but when they turned towards that Temple in what distance soever they were so it is alwaies accompanied with a blessing occasionally to turne towards God But this prayer Turne us that we may be turned is that we may be that is remaine turned that we may continue fixed in that posture Lots Wife turned her selfe and remained an everlasting monument of Gods anger God so turne us alwaies into right wayes as that we be not able to turne our selves out of them For God hath Viam rectam bonam as himselfe speakes in the Prophet A right way and then a good way which yet is not the right way that is not the way which God of himselfe would go For his right way is that we should still keepe in his way His good way is to beat us into his right way againe by his medicinall corrections when we put our selves out of his right way And that and that onely David wishes and we wish That you may Turne and Be turned stand in that holy posture all the yeare all the yeares of your lives That your Christmas may be as holy as your Easter even your Recreations as innocent as your Devotions and every roome in the house as free free from prophanenesse as the Sanctuary And this he ends as he begun with another Erubescant Let them be ashamed and that Valde volociter Suddenly for David saw that if a sinner came not to a shame of sin quickly he would quickly come to a shamelesnesse to an impudence to a searednesse to an obduration in it Now beloved this is the worst curse that comes out of a holy mans mouth even towards his enemie that God would correct him to his amendment And this is the worst harme that we meane to you when we denounce the judgements of
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Berna◠then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
providence for family and posterity tells him plainly My name is Oppression and I am the spirit of covetousnesse Many times men fall into company and accompany others to houses of riot and uncleannesse and doe not so much as know their sinfull companions names nay they doe not so much as know the names of the sins that they commit nor those circumstances in those sinnes which vary the very name and nature of the sin But then Gregor Oculos quos culpa claudit poena aperit Those eyes which sinne shut this first beame of Grace opens when it comes and works effectually upon us Till this season of grace Ier. 2.29 this sinner is blind to the Sunne and deafe to Thunder A wild Asse that is used to the wildernesse and snuffeth up wind at her pleasure in her occasion who can turne her away An habituall sinner that doth not stumble but tumble as a mighty stone downe a hill in the wayes of his sin in his occasion who can turne him in his rage of sin what law can withhold him But sayes the Prophet there of that wild Asse All they that seeke her will not weary themselves Friends Magistrates Preachers doe but weary themselves and lose their labour in endeavouring to reclaime that sinner But in her Month they shall finde her sayes the Prophet That is say our Expositors when she is great and unweildy Some such Moneth God of his goodnesse brings upon this sinner Some sicknesse some judgement stops him and then we find him God by his Ordinance executed by us brings him to this Notum feci into company with himselfe into an acquaintance and conversation with himselfe and hee sees his sinnes looke with other faces and he heares his sins speake with other voyces and hee findes then to call one another by other names And when hee is thus come to that consideration Lord how have I mistaken my selfe Am I that thought my selfe and passed with others for a sociable a pleasurable man and good company am I a leprous Adulterer is that my name Am I that thought my selfe a frugall man and a good husband I whom fathers would recommend to their children and say Marke how hee spares how hee growes up how he gathers am I an oppressing Extortioner is that my name Blessed be thy name O Lord that hast brought me to this notum feci to know mine own name mine owne miserable condition he will also say may that blessing of thine enlarge it selfe farther that as I am come to this notum feci to know that I mistooke my selfe all this while so I may proceed to the non operui to a perfit sifting of my conscience in all corners which is Davids second motion in his act of preparation and our next consideration I acknowledged my sin and I hid none disguised none non operui Sometimes the Magistrate is informed of an abuse Non operni and yet proceeds to no farther search nor inquisition This word implies a sifting of the conscience He doth not onely take knowledge of his sins then when they discover themselves of his riot and voluptuousnesse then when he burnes in a fever occasioned by his surfets nor of his licentiousnesse then when he is under the anguish and smart of corrosives nor of his wastfulnesse and pride then when hee is laid in prison for debt Hee doth not seeke his sinnes in his Belly nor in his Bones nor in his Purse but in his Conscience and he unfolds that rips up that and enters into the privatest and most remote corners thereof And there is much more in this negative circumstance non operui I hid nothing then in the former acknowledgement notum feci I tooke knowledge of my sinnes When they sent to sift Iohn Baptist whether he were The Christ because he was willing to give them all satisfaction Ioh. 1.20 hee expressed himselfe so Hee confessed and denied not and said I am not the Christ So when Ioshuah pressed Achan to confesse his trespasse Iosh 7.19 he presses him with this negative addition Shew mee what thou hast done and hide it not that is disguise nothing that belongs to it For the better to imprint a confidence and to remove all suspition Men to to their Masters Wives to their Husbands will confesse something but yet operiunt they hide more Those words In multitudine virtutis tuae Psal 66.3 Through the greatnesse of thy power thine enemies shall submit S. Ierome and the Septuagint before and Tremellius after and all that binde themselves to the Hebrew letter reade it thus Mentientur tibi inimici tui when thy power is shewed upon them when thy hand lies upon them thine enemies will lie unto thee They will counterfait a confession they will acknowledge some sins but yet operiunt they hide they cover others 1 Sam. 15. Saul in the defeat of the Amalekites reserved some of the fattest of the spoile and being deprehended and reprehended hee said hee intended it for sacrifice Many times men in great place abuse their owne soules with that imagination or palliation That they doe God good service in some sinne and that they should more hurt the cause of God if they should proceed earnestly to the punishment of those that oppose it then if they let them alone and so leave lawes unexecuted and Gods truth endangered But Davids issue was non iniquitas non operui I left none iniquity unsearched I hid none But any thing serves us for a cover of sin even from a Net that every man sees thorow to such a cloud of darkenesse as none but the prince of darkenesse that cast that cloud upon us can see us in it nor we see our selves That wee should hide lesser sinnes with greater is not so strange That in an Adultery wee should forget the circumstances in it and the practises to come to it But we hide greater sins with lesser with a manifold and multiplied throng and cloud of lesser sins all comes to an indifferency and so wee see not great sins Easines of conversation in a woman seemes no great harme Adorning themselves to please those with whom they converse is not much more To heare them whom they are thus willing to please praise them and magnifie their perfections is little more then that To allow them to sue and solicit for the possession of that which they have so much praised is not much more neither Nor will it seeme much at last to give them possession of that they sue for nay it will seeme a kinde of injustice to deny it them We hide lesser sinnes with greater greater with lesser Nay we hide the devill with God wee hide all the weeks sins with a Sabbaths solemnity And as in the Romane Church they poysoned God when they had made their Bread-god they poysoned the Emperour with that bread so this is a Possessing of God a making the devill to enter into God when we hide our sins
so pay my debts with my bones and recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth with the beggery of mine age Let me wither in a spittle under sharpe and foule and in famous diseases and so recompence the wantonnesse of my youth with that loath somnesse in mine age yet if God with draw not his spirituall blessings his Grace his Patience If I can call my suffering his Doing my passion his Action All this that is temporall is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corne The body of all the substance of all is safe as long as the soule is safe But when I shall trust to that which wee call a good spirit and God shall deject and empoverish and evacuate that spirit when I shall rely upon a morall constancy and God shall shake and enfeeble and enervate destroy and demolish that constancy when I shall think to refresh my selfe in the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience and God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell it selfe and spread a cloud of diffidence and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience when health shall flie from me and I shall lay hold upon riches to succour me and comfort me in my sicknesse and riches shall flie from me and I shall snatch after favour and good opinion to comfort me in my poverty when even this good opinion-shall leave me and calumnies and misinformations shall prevaile against me when I shall need peace because there is none but thou O Lord that should stand for me and then shall finde that all the wounds that I have come from thy hand all the arrowes that stick in me from thy quiver when I shall see that because I have given my selfe to my corrupt nature thou hast changed thine and because I am all evill towards thee therefore thou hast given over being good towards me When it comes to this height that the fever is not in the humors but in the spirits that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy fortune nor a transitory enemy malice in great persons but a reall and an irresistible and an inexorable and an everlasting enemy The Lord of Hosts himselfe The Almighty God himselfe the Almighty God himselfe onely knowes the waight of this affliction and except hee put in that pondus gloriae that exceeding waight of an eternall glory with his owne hand into the other scale we are waighed downe we are swallowed up irreparably irrevocably irrecoverably irremediably This is the fearefull depth this is spirituall misery to be thus fallen from God But was this Davids case was he fallen thus farre into a diffidence in God No. But the danger the precipice the slippery sliding into that bottomlesse depth is to be excluded from the meanes of comming to God or staying with God And this is that that David laments here That by being banished and driven into the wildernesse of Judah hee had not accesse to the Sanctuary of the Lord to sacrifice his part in the praise and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation for Angels passe not to ends but by wayes and meanes nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church but by participation of the Communion of the Militant To this note David sets his Harpe in many many Psalms Sometimes Psal 78.60 that God had suffered his enemies to possesse his Tabernacle Hee for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh Hee delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hands But most commonly he complaines that God disabled him from comming to the Sanctuary In which one thing he had summed up all his desires all his prayers One thing have I desired of the Lord Psal 27.4 that will I looke after That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple His vehement desire of this Psal 42.2 he expresses againe My soule thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appeare before God He expresses a holy jealousie a religious envy Psal 84.3 even to the sparrows and swallows yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for her selfe and where she may lay her yong Even thine Altars O Lord of Host my King and my God Thou art my King and my God and yet excludest me from that Luk. 12.7 which thou affordest to sparrows And are not we of more value then many sparrows And as though David felt some false ease some half-tentation some whispering that way Psal 84.3 That God is in the wildernesse of Iudah in every place as well as in his Sanctuary there is in the Originall in that place a patheticall a vehement a broken expressing expressed O thine Altars It is true sayes David thou art here in the wildernesse and I may see thee here and serve thee here but O thine Altars O Lord of hosts my King and my God When David could not come in person to that place yet he bent towards the Temple Psal 5.7 In thy feare will I worship towards thy holy Temple Which was also Daniels devotion when he prayed Dan. 6.10 his Chamber windowes were open towards Ierusalem And so is Hezekias turning to the wall to weepe Esa 38.2 and to pray in his sick bed understood to be to that purpose to conforme and compose himselfe towards the Temple In the place consecrated for that use God by Moses fixes the service and fixes the Reward And towards that place Deut. 31.11 when they could not come to it doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple 1 King 8.44 when they are in the warres when they are in Captivity and pray towards this house doe thou heare them For as in private prayer when according to Christs command we are shut in our chamber there is exercised Modestia fidei The modesty and bashfulnesse of our faith not pressing upon God in his house so in the publique prayers of the Congregation there is exercised the fervor and holy courage of our faith Tertull. for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum It is a Mustering of our forces and a besieging of God Therefore does David so much magnifie their blessednesse that are in this house of God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Those that looke towards it may praise thee sometimes but those men who dwell in the Church and whose whole service lyes in the Church have certainly an advantage of all other men who are necessarily withdrawne by worldly businesses in making themselves acceptable to almighty God if they doe their duties and observe their Church-services aright Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities Excommunicatio and spirituall calamities being incomparably heavier then temporall and the greatest danger of falling into such
and that dejection of spirit which the Adversary by temporall afflictions would induce upon me is an act of his Power So this Metaphor The shadow of his wings which in this place expresses no more then consolation and refreshing in misery and not a powerfull deliverance out of it is so often in the Scriptures made a denotation of Power too as that we can doubt of no act of power if we have this shadow of his wings For in this Metaphor of Wings doth the Holy Ghost expresse the Maritime power the power of some Nations at Sea in Navies Woe to the land shadowing with wings that is Esay 18.1 that hovers over the world and intimidates it with her sailes and ships In this Metaphor doth God remember his people of his powerfull deliverance of them Exod. 19.14 You have seene what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on Eagles wings and brought you to my selfe In this Metaphor doth God threaten his and their enemies what hee can doe Ezek. 1.24 The noise of the wings of his Cherubims are as the noise of great waters and of an Army So also what hee will doe Hee shall spread his wings over Bozrah Ier. 49.22 and at that day shall the hearts of the mighty men of Edom be as the heart of a woman in her pangs So that if I have the shadow of his wings I have the earnest of the power of them too If I have refreshing and respiration from them I am able to say as those three Confessors did to Nebuchadnezzar My God is able to deliver me I am sure he hath power And my God will deliver me Dan. 3.17 when it conduces to his glory I know he will But if he doe not bee it knowne unto thee O King we will not servethy Gods Be it knowne unto thee O Satan how long soever God deferre my deliverance I will not seeke false comforts the miserable comforts of this world I will not for I need not for I can subsist under this shadow of these Wings though I have no more The Mercy-seat it selfe was covered with the Cherubims Wings Exod. 25.20 and who would have more then Mercy and a Mercy-seat that is established resident Mercy permanent and perpetuall Mercy present and familiar Mercy a Mercy-seat Our Saviour Christ intends as much as would have served their turne if they had laid hold upon it when hee sayes That hee would have gathered Ierusalem Matt. 23.37 as a henne gathers her chickens under her wings And though the other Prophets doe as ye have heard mingle the signification of Power and actuall deliverance in this Metaphor of Wings yet our Prophet whom wee have now in especiall consideration David never doth so but in every place where hee uses this Metaphor of Wings which are in five or sixe severall Psalmes still hee rests and determines in that sense which is his meaning here That though God doe not actually deliver us nor actually destroy our enemies yet if hee refresh us in the shadow of his Wings if he maintaine our subsistence which is a religious Constancy in him this should not onely establish our patience for that is but halfe the worke but it should also produce a joy and rise to an exultation which is our last circumstance Therefore in the shadow of thy wings I will rejoice I would always raise your hearts and dilate your hearts to a holy Joy Gaudium to a joy in the Holy Ghost There may be a just feare that men doe not grieve enough for their sinnes but there may bee a just jealousie and suspition too that they may fall into inordinate griefe and diffidence of Gods mercy And God hath reserved us to such times as being the later times give us even the dregs and lees of misery to drinke For God hath not onely let loose into the world a new spirituall disease which is an equality and an indifferency which religion our children or our servants or our companions professe I would not keepe company with a man that thought me a knave or a traitor with him that thought I loved not my Prince or were a faithlesse man not to be beleeved I would not associate my selfe And yet I will make him my bosome companion that thinks I doe not love God that thinks I cannot be saved but God hath accompanied and complicated almost all our bodily diseases of these times with an extraordinary sadnesse a predominant melancholy a faintnesse of heart a chearlesnesse a joylesnesse of spirit and therefore I returne often to this endeavor of raising your hearts dilating your hearts with a holy Joy Joy in the holy Ghost for Vnder the shadow of his wings you may you should rejoyce If you looke upon this world in a Map you find two Hemisphears two half worlds If you crush heaven into a Map you may find two Hemisphears too two half heavens Halfe will be Joy and halfe will be Glory for in these two the joy of heaven and the glory of heaven is all heaven often represented unto us And as of those two Hemisphears of the world the first hath been knowne long before but the other that of America which is the richer in treasure God reserved for later Discoveries So though he reserve that Hemisphear of heaven which is the Glory thereof to the Resurrection yet the other Hemisphear the Joy of heaven God opens to our Discovery and delivers for our habitation even whilst we dwell in this world As God hath cast upon the unrepentant sinner two deaths a temporall and a spirituall death so hath he breathed into us two lives Gen. 2.17 for so as the word for death is doubled Morte morieris Thou shalt die the death so is the word for life expressed in the plurall Chaiim vitarum God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives of divers lives Though our naturall life were no life but rather a continuall dying yet we have two lives besides that an eternall life reserved for heaven but yet a heavenly life too a spirituall life even in this world And as God doth thus inflict two deaths and infuse two lives so doth he also passe two Judgements upon man or rather repeats the same Judgement twice For that which Christ shall say to thy soule then at the last Judgement Matt. 25.23 Enter into thy Masters joy Hee sayes to thy conscience now Enter into thy Masters joy The everlastingnesse of the joy is the blessednesse of the next life but the entring the inchoation is afforded here For that which Christ shall say then to us Verse 24. Venite benedicti Come ye blessed are words intended to persons that are comming that are upon the way though not at home Here in this world he bids us Come Luk. 15.10 there in the next he shall bid us Welcome The Angels of heaven have joy in thy conversion and canst thou bee without that joy in thy selfe
all the glory ascribed And then that which fals within this commandement this Consideration is Opera ejus The works of God How terrible art thou in thy works It is not Decreta ejus Arcana ejus The secrets of his State the wayes of his government unrevealed Decrees but those things in which he hath manifested himselfe to man Opera his works Consider his works and consider them so as this commandement enjoynes that is How terrible God is in them Determine not your Consideration upon the worke it self for so you may think too lightly of it That it is but some naturall Accident or some imposture and false Miracle or illusion Or you may thinke of it with an amazement with a stupidity with a consternation when you consider not from whom the worke comes consider God in the worke And God so as that though he be terrible in that worke yet he is so terrible but so as the word of this Text expresses this terriblenesse which word is Norah and Norah is but Reverendus it is a terror of Reverence not a terror of Confusion that the Consideration of God in his works should possesse us withall And in those plaine and smooth paths wee shall walke through the first part The historicall part what God hath formerly done Say unto God how terrible art thou in thy works from thence we descend to the other The Propheticall part what upon our performance of this duty God will surely do in our behalfe he will subdue those enemies which because they are ours are his In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Where we shall see first That even God himselfe hath enemies no man therefore can be free from them And then we shall see whom God cals enemies here Those who are enemies to his cause and to his friends All those if we will speake Davids language the Holy Ghosts language we must call Gods enemies And these enemies nothing can mollifie nothing can reduce but Power faire meanes and perswasion will not worke upon them Preaching Disputing will not doe it It must be Power and greatnesse of power and greatnesse of Gods Power The Law is Power and it is Gods Power All just Laws are from God One Act of this Power an occasionall executing of Laws at some few times against the enemies of Gods truth will not serve there must be a constant continuation of the execution thereof nor will that serve if that be done onely for worldly respects to raise money and not rather to draw them who are under those Laws to the right worship of God in the truth of his Religion And yet all that even all this This power this great power his power shall worke upon these his and our enemies is but this They shall submit themselves sayes the text but how Mentientur tibi as it is in the Originall and as you finde it in the Margin They shall dissemble they shall lie they shall yeeld a fained obedience they shall make as though they were good Subjects but not be so And yet even this Though their submission be but dissembled but counterfaited David puts amongst Gods blessings to a State and to a Church It is some blessing when Gods enemies dare not appeare and justifie themselves and their Cause as it is a heavy discouragement when they dare do that Though God doe not so far consummate their happinesse as that their enemies shall be truly reconciled or throughly rooted out yet he shall afford them so much happinesse as that they shall doe them no harme And Beloved this distribution of the text which I have given you is rather a Paraphrase then a Division and therefore the rest will rather be a Repetition then a Dilatation And I shall onely give some such note and marke upon every particular branch as may returne them and fix them in your memories and not enlarge my selfe far in any of them for I know the time will not admit it First then we remember you in the first branch of the first part that David 1 Part. Rex gubernat Ecclesiā in that Capacity as King institutes those Orders which the Church is to observe in the publique service of God For the King is King of men not of bodies onely but of soules too And of Christian men of us not onely as we worship one God but as we are to expresse that worship in the outward acts of Religion in the Church God hath called himselfe King and he hath called Kings Gods And when we looke upon the actions of Kings we determine not our selves in that person but in God working in that person As it is not I that doe any good 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God in me So it is not the King that commands but the power of God in the King For as in a Commission from the King the King himselfe workes in his Commissioners and their just Act is the Kings Act So in the Kings lawfull working upon his Subjects God works the Kings acts are Gods acts That abstinence therefore and that forbearance which the Roman Church hath used from declaring whether the Laws of secular Magistrates do bind the Conscience or no that is whether a man sin in breaking a Temporall Law or no for though it have beene disputed in their books and though the Bishop of that Church were supplicated in the Trent Councell to declare it yet he would never be brought to it that abstinence I say of theirs though it give them one great advantage yet it gives us another For by keeping it still undetermined and undecided how far the Laws of temporall Princes doe binde us they keepe up that power which is so profitable to them that is To divide Kings and Subjects and maintaine jealousies betweene them because if the breach of any Law constitute a sin then enters the jurisdiction of Rome for that is the ground of their indirect power over Princes In ordine ad spiritualia that in any action which may conduce to sin they may meddle and direct and constraine temporall Princes That is their advantage in their forbearing to declare this doctrine And then our advantage is That this enervates and weakens nay destroyes and annibilates that ordinary argument That there must be alwayes a Visible Church in which every man may have cleare resolution and infallible satisfaction in all scruples that arise in him and that the Roman Church is that Seat and Throne of Infallibility For how does the Roman Church give any man infallible satisfaction whether these or these things grounded upon the temporall Laws of secular Princes be sins or no when as that Church hath not nor will not come to a determination in that point How shall they come to the Sacrament how shall they go out of the world with a cleare conscience when many things lye upon them which they know not nor can be informed
expresse himselfe Norah which is rather Reverendus Mal. 2.5 then Terribilis as that word is used I gave him life and peace for the feare wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my Name So that this Terriblenesse which we are called upon to professe of God is a Reverentiall a Majesticall not a Tyrannicall terriblenesse And therefore hee that conceives a God that hath made man of flesh and blood and yet exacts that purity of an Angel in that flesh A God that would provide himselfe no better glory then to damme man A God who lest hee should love man and be reconciled to man hath enwrapped him in an inevitable necessity of sinning A God who hath received enough and enough for the satisfaction of all men and yet not in consideration of their future sinnes but meerely because he hated them before they were sinners or before they were any thing hath made it impossible for the greatest part of men to have any benefit of that large satisfaction This is not such a Terriblenesse as arises out of his Works his Actions or his Scriptures for God hath never said never done any such thing as should make us lodge such conceptions of God in our selves or lay such imputations upon him The true feare of God is true wisedome It is true Joy Rejoice in trembling saith David Psal 2.11 There is no rejoycing without this feare there is no Riches without it Reverentia Ichovae The feare of the Lord is his treasure and that is the best treasure Thus farre we are to goe Heb. 12.28 Let us serve God with reverence and godly feare godly feare is but a Reverence it is not a Jealousie a suspition of God And let us doe it upon the reason that followes in the same place For our God is a consuming fire There is all his terriblenesse he is a consuming fire to his enemies but he is our God and God is love And therefore to conceive a cruell God a God that hated us even to damnation before we were as some who have departed from the sense and modesty of the Ancients have adventured to say or to conceive a God so cruell as that at our death or in our way he will afford us no assurance that hee is ours and we his but let us live and die in anxiety and torture of conscience in jealousie and suspition of his good purpose towards us in the salvation of our soules as those of the Romane Heresie teach to conceive such a God as from all eternity meant to damne me or such a God as would never make me know and be sure that I should bee saved this is not to professe God to be terrible in his works For his Actions are his works and his Scriptures are his works and God hath never done or said any thing to induce so terrible an opinion of him And so we have done with all those pieces which in our paraphrasticall distribution of the text at beginning did constitute our first our Historicall part Davids retrospect his commemoration of former blessings In which he proposes a duty a declaration of Gods goodnesse Dicite publish it speake of it He proposes Religious duties in that capacity as he is King Religion is the Kings care He proposes by way of Counsaile to all by way of Commandment to his owne Subjects And by a more powerfull way then either counsaile or Commandment that is by Example by doing that himselfe which he counsailes and commands others to doe Dicite Say speake It is a duty more then thinking and lesse then doing Every man is bound to speake for the advancement of Gods cause but when it comes to action that is not the private mans office but belongs to the publique or him who is the Publique David himselfe the King The duty is Commemoration Dicite Say speake but Dicite Deo Do this to God ascribe not your deliverances to your Armies and Navies by Sea or Land no nor to Saints in Heaven but to God onely Nor are ye called upon to contemplate God in his Essence or in his Decrees but in his works In his Actions in his Scriptures In both those you shall find him terrible that is Reverend majesticall though never tyrannicall nor cruell Passe we now according to our order laid downe at first to our second part the Propheticall part Davids prospect for the future and gather wee something from the particular branches of that Through the greatnesse of thy power thine enemies shall submit themselves unto thee In this our first consideration is that God himselfe hath enemies and then 2 Part. Habet Deus hostes how should we hope to be nay why would wee wish to be without them God had good that is Glory from his enemies And we may have good that is advantage in the way to glory by the exercise of our patience from enemies too Those for whom God had done most the Angels turned enemies first vex not thou thy selfe if those whom thou hast loved best hate thee deadliest There is a love in which it aggravates thy condemnation that thou art so much loved Does not God recompence that if there be such a hate as that thou art the better and that thy salvation is exalted for having beene hated And that profit the righteous have from enemies God loved us then when we were his enemies Rom. 5.10 and we frustrate his exemplar love to us if we love not enemies too The word Hostis which is a word of heavy signification and implies devastation and all the mischiefes of war is not read in all the New Testament Inimicus that is non amicus unfriendly is read there often very very often There is an enmity which may consist with Euangelicall charity but a hostility that carries in it a denotation of revenge of extirpation of annihilation that cannot This gives us some light how far we may and may not hate enemies God had enemies to whom he never returned The Angels that opposed him and that is because they oppose him still and are by their owne perversenesse incapable of reconciliation We were enemies to God too but being enemies Rom. 5.10 we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son As then actual reconciliation makes us actually friends so in differences which may be reconciled we should not be too severe enemies but maintaine in our selves a disposition of friendship but in those things which are in their nature irreconciliable we must be irreconciliable too There is an enmity which God himselfe hath made and made perpetuall Ponam inimicitias sayes God Gen. 3.15 God puts an enmity betweene the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the woman And those whom God joynes let no man sever those whom God severs let no man joyne The Schoole presents it well wee are to consider an enemy formally or materially that is that which makes him an enemy or that which makes him a man In that
no inconvenience averts Christ and his Spirit from his sweet and gracious and comfortable visitations But yet this that is called here The Sea of Galile was not properly a Sea but according to the phrase of the Hebrews who call all great meetings of waters by that one name A Sea this which was indeed a lake of fresh water is called a Sea From the roote of Mount Libanus spring two Rivers Jor and Dan and those two meeting together joyning their waters joyne their names too and make that famous river Jordan a name so composed as perchance our River is Thamesis of Thame and Isis And this River Jordan falling into this flat makes this Lake of sixteene miles long and some sixe in breadth Which Lake being famous for fish though of ordinary kinds yet of an extraordinary taste and relish and then of extraordinary kinds too not found in other waters and famous because divers famous Cities did engirt it and become as a garland to it Capernaum and Chorazim and Bethsaida and Tiberias and Magdalo all celebrated in the Scriptures was yet much more famous for the often recourse which our Saviour who was of that Countrey made to it For this was the Sea where he amazed Peter with that great draught of fishes that brought him to say Exi à me Domine Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinfull man Luk. 5.8 This was the Sea where himselfe walked upon the waters Matt. 14.25.8.23 And where he rebuked the tempest And where he manifested his Almighty power many times And by this Lake this Sea dwelt Andrew and Peter and using the commodity of the place lived upon fishing in this Lake and in that act our Saviour found them and called them to his service Why them Why fishers First Christ having a greater a fairer Jerusalem to build then Davids was Cur Piscatores a greater Kingdome to establish then Juda's was a greater Temple to build then Solomons was having a greater work to raise yet he begun upon a lesse ground Hee is come from his twelve Tribes that afforded armies in swarmes to twelve persons twelve Apostles from his Iuda and Levi the foundations of State and Church to an Andrew and a Peter fisher-men sea-men and these men accustomed to that various and tempestuous Element to the Sea lesse capable of Offices of civility and sociablenesse then other men yet must be employed in religious offices to gather all Nations to one houshold of the faithfull and to constitute a Communion of Saints They were Sea-men fisher-men unlearned and indocil Why did Christ take them Not that thereby there was any scandall given or just occasion of that calumny of Iulian the Apostat That Christ found it easie to seduce and draw to his Sect such poore ignorant men as they were for Christ did receive persons eminent in learning Saul was so and of authority in the State Nicodemus was so and of wealth and ability Zacheus was so and so was Ioseph of Arimatliea But first he chose such men that when the world had considered their beginning their insufficiency then and how unproper they were for such an employment and yet seene that great work so farre and so fast advanced by so weake instruments they might ascribe all power to him and ever after come to him cheerfully upon any invitation how weake men soever he should send to them because hee had done so much by so weak instruments before To make his work in all ages after prosper the better he proceeded thus at first And then hee chose such men for another reason too To shew that how insufficient soever he received them yet he received them into such a Schoole such an University as should deliver them back into his Church made fit by him for the service thereof Christ needed not mans sufficiency he took insufficient men Christ excuses no mans insufficiency he made them sufficient His purpose then was that the worke should be ascribed to the Workman Nequid Instrumentis August not to the Instrument To himselfe not to them Nec quaesivit per Oratorem piscatorem He sent not out Orators Rhetoricians strong or faire-spoken men to work upon these fisher-men Sed de piscatore lucratus est Imperatorem By these fisher-men hee hath reduced all those Kings and Emperours and States which have embraced the Christian Religion these thousand and six hundred yeares When Samuel was sent with that generall Commission 1 Sam. 16.6 to anoint a sonne of Ishai King without any more particular instructions when hee came and Eliab was presented unto him Surely sayes Samuel 1 Sam. 30. noting the goodlinesse of his personage this is the Lords Anointed But the Lord said unto Samuel Looke not on his countenance nor the height of his stature for I have refused him for as it followeth there from Gods mouth God seeth not as man setth Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord beholdeth the heart And so David in apparance lesse likely was chosen But if the Lords arme be not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to the Instrument For so when David himselfe was appointed by God to pursue the Amalekites the Amalekites that had burnt Ziklag and done such spoile upon Gods people as that the people began to speak of stoning David from whom they looked for defence Ver 6. when David had no kind of intelligence no ground to settle a conjecture upon which way he must pursue the Amalekites and yet pursue them he must in the way he findes a poore young fellow a famished sicke young man derelicted of his Master and left for dead in the march and by the meanes and conduct of this wretch David recovers the enemy recovers the spoile recovers his honour and the love of his people If the Lords arme bee not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to his Instrument But yet God will alwayes have so much weaknesse appeare in the Instrument as that their strength shall not be thought to be their owne When Pete and Iohn preached in the streets Acts 4.13 The people marvelled sayes the Text why for they had understood that they were unlearned But beholding also the man that was healed standing by they had nothing to say sayes that story The insufficiency of the Instrument makes a man wonder naturally but the accomplishing of some great worke brings them to a necessary acknowledgement of a greater power working in that weake Instrument For if those Apostles that preached Acts 8.10 had beene as learned men as Simon Magus as they did in him This man is the great power of God not that he had but that he was the power of God the people would have rested in the admiration of those persons and proceeded no farther It was their working of supernaturall things that convinced the world For all Pauls learning though hee were very learned never brought any of the Conjurers to burne his bookes or to renounce
sayes Praescribimus adulteris nostris Wee prescribe above them which counterfeit our doctrine for we had it before them and they have but rags and those torn from us Fabulae immissae quae fidem infirmarent veritatis They have brought part of our Scriptures into their Fables that all the rest might seem but Fables too Gehennam praedicantes iudicium ridemur decachinnamur They laugh at us when we preach of hell and judgement Et tamen Elysii campi fidem praeoccupaverunt And yet they will needs be beleeved when they talk of their Elysian fields Fideliora nostra quorum imagines fidem inveniunt Is it not safer trusting to our substance then their shadows To our doctrine of the judgement in the Scriptures then their allusions in their Poets So far Tertullian considers this But to say the truth and all the truth Howsoever the Gentiles had some glimmering of a judgement that is an account to be made of our actions after this life yet of this judgement which we speak of now which is a generall Judgement of all together And that judgement to be executed by Christ and to be accompanied with a Resurrection of the body of this the Gentiles had no intimation this was left wholly for the holy Ghost to manifest And of this all the world hath received a full convincing from him because he hath delivered to the world those Scriptures which do so abundantly so irrefragably establish it And therfore Ecclus. 7.36 Bernard Memorare novissima non peccabis Remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse Non dicitur memorare primordia aut media If thou remember the first reproofe that all are under sin that may give occasion of excusing or extenuating How could I avoid that that all men do If thou remember the second reproofe That there is a righteousnesse communicable to all that sin that may occasion so bold a confidence Since I may have so easie a pardon what haste of giving over yet But Memorare novissima consider that there is a judgement and that that judgement is the last thing that God hath to doe with man consider this and thou wilt not sin not love sin not doe the same sins to morrow thou didst yester-day as though this judgement were never the nearer but that as a thousand yeares are as one day with God so thy threescore yeares should be as one night with thee one continuall sleep in the practise of thy beloved sin Thou wilt not think so if thou remember this judgement Now in respect of the time after this judgement which is Eternity the time between this and it cannot be a minute and therefore think thy self at that Tribunall that judgement now Where thou shalt not onely â—â—are all thy sinfull workes and words and thoughts repeated which thou thy selfe hadst utterly forgot but thou shalt heare thy good works thine almes thy comming to Church thy hearing of Sermons given in evidence against thee because they had hypocrisie mingled in them yea thou shalt finde even thy repentance to condemne thee because thou madest that but a doore to a relapse There thou shalt see to thine inexpressible terror some others cast downe into hell for thy sins for those sins which they would not have done but upon thy provocation There thou shalt see some that occasioned thy sins and accompanied thee in them and sinned them in a greater measure then thou didst taken up into heaven because in the way they remembred the end and thou shalt sink under a lesse waight because thou never lookedst towards him that would have eased thee of it Bernard Quis non cogitans haec in desperationis rotetur abyssum Who can once thinke of this and not be tumbled into desperation But who can think of it twice maturely and by the Holy Ghost and not finde comfort in it when the same light that shewes mee the judgement shewes me the Judge too Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord we perswade men 1 Cor. 5.15 but knowing the comforts too we importune men to this consideration That as God preceeds with judgement in this world to give the issue with the tentation and competent strength with the affliction as the Wiseman expresses it Wisd 12.21 That God punishes his enemies with deliberation and requesting as our former Translation had it and then with how great circumspection will he judge his children So he gives us a holy hope That as he hath accepted us in this first judgement the Church and made us partakers of the Word and Sacraments there So he will bring us with comfort to that place which no tongue but the tongue of S. Paul and that moved by the Holy Ghost could describe and which he does describe so gloriously and so pathetically You are come unto Mount Sion Heb. 12.22 and to the City of the living God The heavenly Ierusalem And to an innumerable company of Angels To the generall Assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then the blood of Abel And into this blessed and inseparable society The Father of lights and God of all comfort give you an admission now and an irremoveable possession hereafter for his onely Sons onely sake and by the working of his blessed Spirit whom he sends to work in you This reproofe of Sin of Righteousnesse and of Iudgement Amen SERMONS Preached upon Trinity-Sunday SERM. XXXVIII Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort THere was never Army composed of so many severall Nations the Towre of Babel it self in the confusion of tongues gave not so many severall sounds as are uttered and mustered against God and his Religion The Atheist denies God for though David call it a foolish thing to do so The foole hath said it in his heart And though David speake it in the singular number The foole as though there were not many so very fooles as to say and to say in their heart There is no God yet some such fooles there are that say it in their very heart and have made shift to think so indeed But for such fools as say it in their actions that is that live as though there were no God Stultorum plena sunt omnia We have seen fooles in the Court and fooles in the Cloister fooles that take no calling and fooles in all callings that can be taken fooles that heare and fooles that preach fooles at generall Councells and fooles at Councell-tables Stultorum plena sunt omnia such fooles as deny God so far as to leave him out are not in Davids singular number but super-abound in every profession So that Davids manner of expressing it is not so much singular as though there were but
one or few such fooles but emphaticall because that foole that any way denies God is the foole the veryest foole of all kinds of foolishnesse Now as God himselfe so his religion amongst us hath many enemies Enemies that deny God as Atheists And enemies that multiply gods that make many gods as Idolaters And enemies that deny those divers persons in the Godhead which they should confesse The Trinity as Jews and Turks So in his Religion and outward worship we have enemies that deny God his House that deny us any Church any Sacrament any Priesthood any Salvation as Papists And enemies that deny Gods house any furniture any stuffe any beauty any ornament any order as non-Conformitans And enemies that are glad to see Gods house richly furnished for a while that they may come to the spoile thereof as sacrilegious usurpers of Gods part But for Atheisticall enemies I call not upon them here to answer me Let them answer their own terrors and horrors alone at mid-night and tell themselves whence that proceeds if there be no God For Papisticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me Let them answer our Laws as well as our Preaching because theirs is a religion mixt as well of Treason as of Idolatry For our refractary and schismaticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me neither Let them answer the Church of God in what nation in what age was there ever seen a Church of that form that they have dreamt and beleeve their own dream And for our sacrilegious enemies let them answer out of the body of Story and give one example of prosperity upon sacriledge But leaving all these to that which hath heretofore or may hereafter be said of them I have bent my meditations for those dayes which this Terme will afford upon that which is the character and mark of all Christians in generall The Trinity the three Persons in one God not by way of subtile disputation as to persons that doubted but by way of godly declaration as to persons disposed to make use of it not as though I feared your faith needed it nor as though I hoped I could make your reason comprehend it but because I presume that the consideration of God the Father and his Power and the sins directed against God in that notion as the Father and the consideration of God the Son and his Wisedome and the sins against God in that apprehension the Son and the consideration of God the Holy Ghost and his Goodnesse and the sins against God in that acceptation may conduce as much at least to our edification as any Doctrine more controverted And of the first glorious person of this blessed Trinity the Almighty Father is this Text Blessed be God c. In these words Divisio the Apostle having tasted having been fed with the sense of the power and of the mercies of God in his gracious deliverance delivers a short Catechisme of all our duties So short as that there is but one action Benedicamus Let us blesse Nor but one object to direct that blessing upon Benedicamus Deum Let us blesse God It is but one God to exclude an Idolatrous multiplicity of Gods But it is one God notified and manifested to us in a triplicity of persons of which the first is literally expressed here That he is a Father And him we consider In Paternitate aeterna As he is the eternall Father Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ sayes our Text And then In Paternitate interna as we have the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father As he is Pater miserationum The Father of mercies And as he expresses these mercies by the seale and demonstration of comfort as he is the God of comfort and Totius consolationis Of all comfort Receive the summe of this and all that arises from it in this short Paraphrase The duty required of a Christian is Blessing Praise Thanksgiving To whom To God to God onely to the onely God There is but one But this one God is such◠tree as hath divers boughs to shadow and refresh thee divers branches to shed fruit upon thee divers armes to spread out and reach and imbrace thee And here hee visits thee as a Father From all eternity a Father of Christ Iesus and now thy Father in him in that which thou needest most A Father of mercy when thou wast in misery And a God of comfort when thou foundest no comfort in this world And a God of all comfort even of spirituall comfort in the anguishes and distresses of thy conscience Blessed bee God even the Father c. First then 1 Part. Benedictus the duty which God by this Apostle requires of man is a duty arising out of that which God hath wrought upon him It is not a consideration a contemplation of God sitting in heaven but of God working upon the earth not in the making of his eternall Decree there but in the execution of those Decrees here not in saying God knowes who are his and therefore they cannot faile but in saying in a rectified conscience God by his ordinary marks hath let me know that I am his and therefore I look to my wayes that I doe not fall S. Paul out of a religious sense what God had done for him comes to this duty to blesse him There is not a better Grammar to learne then to learne how to blesse God and therefore it may be no levity to use some Grammar termes herein God blesses man Dativè He gives good to him man blesses God Optativè He wishes well to him and he blesses him Vocativè He speaks well of him For though towards God as well as towards man 1 Sam. 25.27 2 King 5.15 reall actions are called blessings so Abigail called the present which she brought to David A blessing and so Naaman called that which he offered to Elisha A blessing though reall sacrifices to God and his cause sacrifices of Almes sacrifices of Armes sacrifices of Money sacrifices of Sermons advancing a good publique cause may come under the name of blessing yet the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a blessing in speech in discourse in conference in words in praise in thanks The dead doe not praise thee sayes David The dead men civilly dead allegorically dead dead and buryed in an uselesse silence in a Cloyster or Colledge may praise God but not in words of edification as it is required here and they are but dead and doe not praise God so and God is not the God of the dead but of the living of those that delight to praise and blesse God and to declare his goodnesse We represent the Angels to our selves and to the world with wings they are able to flie and yet when Iacob saw them aseending and descending Gen. 28.12 even those winged Angels had a Ladder they went by degrees There is an immediate blessing of God by the heart but God