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
be strong enough to make benefit of that assistance And so death adheres when sin and Satan have weakned body and minde death enters upon both And in that respect he is Vltimus hostis the last enemy and that is Sextum vestigium our sixth and next step in this paraphrase Death is the last and in that respect the worst enemy In an enemy Novisssnsâ—s hostis that appeares at first when we are or may be provided against him there is some of that which we call Honour but in the enemie that reserves himselfe unto the last and attends our weake estate there is more danger Keepe it where I intend it in that which is my spheare the Conscience If mine enemie meet me betimes in my youth in an object of tentation so Iosephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife yet if I doe not adhere to this enemy dwell upon a delightfull meditation of that sin if I doe not fuell and foment that sin assist and encourage that sin by high diet wanton discourse other provocation I shall have reason on my side and I shall have grace on my side and I shall have the History of thousand that have perished by that sin on my side Even Spittles will give me souldiers to fight for me by their miserable example against taht sin nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman whom I sollicite will assist me But when I lye under the hands of that enemie that hath reserved himselfe to the last to my last bed then when I shall be able to stir no limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or a Palsie shall shake them when everlasting darknesse shal have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine eyes and the everlasting gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth and the everlasting worme in the present gnawing of the Agonies of my body and anguishes of my minde when the last enemie shall watch my remedilsse body and my desconsolate soule there there where not the Physitian in his way perchance not the Priist in hi shall be able to give any assistance And when he hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage my death-bed shall shift the Scene and throw me from that bed into the grave and there triumph over me God knowes how many generations till the Redeemer my Redeemer the Redeemer of all me body aswell as soule come againe As death is Novissimus hostis the enemy which watches me at my last weaknesse and shall hold me when I shall be no more till that Angel come Who shall say and sweare that time shall be no more in that consideration in that apprehension he is the powerfullest the fearefulest enemy and yet evern there this enemy Abolebitur he shall be destroyed which is Septimum vestigium our seventh and last step in this paraphrase This destruction this abolition of this last enemy is by the Resurrection Abolebieur for the Text is part of an argument for the Resurrection And truly it is a faire intimation and testimony of an everlasting end in that state of the Resurrection that no time shall end it that we have it presented to us in all the parts of time in the past in the present and in the future We had a Resurrection in prophecy we have a Resurrection in the present working of Gods Sprit we shall have a Resurrection in the finall consummation The Prophet speaks in the furture He will swallow up death in victory there it is Abolebit Esay 25.8 All the Erangelists speak historically of matter of fact in them it is Abolevit And here in this Apostle it is in the present Aboletur now he is destroyed And this exhibites unto us a threefold occasion of advancing our devotion in considering a threefold Resurrection First a Resurrection from dejections and calamities in this world a Temporary Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection from sin a Spirituall Resurrection and then a Resurrection Secondly a Resurrection A calamitate When the Prophets speak of a Resurrection in the old Testament 1. A calamitate for the most part their principall intention is upon a temporall restitution from calamities that oppresse them then Neither doth Calvin carry those emphaticall words which are so often cited for a proofe of the last Resurrection Job 19.25 That he knows his Redeemer lives that he knows he shall stand the last man upon earth that though his body be destroyed yet in his flesh and with his eyes he shall see God to any higher sense then so that how low soeve he bee brought to what desperate state soever he be reducedin the eyes of the world yet he assures himself of a Resurrection a reparation a restitution to his former bodily health and worldly fortune which he had before And such a Resurrection we all know Iob had In that famous and most considerable propheticall vision which God exhibited to Ezekiel where God set the Prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the severall joynts to knit again tyes them with their old sinews and ligaments clothes them in their old flest wraps them in their old skin and cals life into them again Gods principall intention in that vision was thereby to give them an assurance of a Resurrection from their present calamity not but that there is also good evidence of the last Resurrection in that vision too Thus far God argues with them áre nota from that which they knew before the finall Resurrection he assures them that which they knew not till then a present Resurrection from those pressures Remember by this vision that which you all know already that at last I shall re-unite the dead and dry bones of all men in a generall Resurrection And them if you remember if you consider if you look upon that can you doubt but that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present desperation and give you a Resurrection to your former temporall happinesse And this truly arises pregnantly necessarily out of the Prophets answer God asks him there Son of man cna these bones live And he answers Domine tu nósti O Lord God thou knowest The Prophet answers according to Gods intention in the question If that had been for their living in the last Resurrection Ezekiel would have answered God as Martha answered Christ John 11.24 when he said Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again I know that he shall rise again at the Resurrection at the last day but when the question was whether men so macerated so seattered in this world could have a Resurrection to their former temprorall happinesse here that puts the Prophet to his Domine tu nósti It is in thy breast to proposeit itis in thy hand to execute it whether thou do it or do it not thy name be glorisied It fals not within our conjecture which way it shall please thee to take for this Resurrection Domine tu nósti Thou
of all And if there should be no other bodies in heaven then his yet yet now he is Lord of all as he is Head of the Church Aske of me sayes his Father and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance Psal 2.8 and the utter most parts of the Earth for thy possession And as it is added ver 6. I have set my King upon my holy hill of Sion So he hath made him Lord Head of the Jews and of the Gentiles too of Sion and of the Nations also Hee hath consecrated his person raised his humane nature to the glorious region of blessed Spirits to Heaven and he hath dignified him with an office made him Lord Head of the Church not only of Jews and Gentiles upon earth but of the Militant and Triumphant Church too Our two generall parts were Scientia 2. Part. modus what we must all know and by what we must know it Our knowledge is this Exaltation of Jesus and our meanes is implied in the first word of the Text Therefore Therefore Therefore because he is raised from the Dead for to that Resurrection expressed in three or foure severall phrases before the Text is this Text and this Exaltation referred Christ was delivered for our sins raised for our justification and upon that depends all Christs descending into hell and his Resurrection in our Creed make but one Article and in our Creed we beleeve them both alike Quis nisi Infidelis negaverit apud inferos fuisse Christum saies S. Augustine Who but an Infidell will deny Christs descending into hell And if he beleeve that to be a limme of the article of the Resurrection His descent into hell must rather be an inchoation of his triumph then a consummation of his Exinanition The first step of his Exaltation there rather then the last step of his Passion upon the Crosse But the Declaration the Manifestation that which admits no disputation was his Resurrection Factus id est declaratus per Resurrectionem saies S. Cyrill He was made Christ and Lord that is declared evidently to be so 1 Cor. 1.20 by his Resurrection As there is the like phrase in S. Paul God hath made the wisdome of this world foolishnesse that is declared it to be so And therefore it is imputed to be a crucifying of the Lord Jesus againe Heb. 6.6 Non credere eum post mortem immortalem Not to beleeve that now after his having overcome death in his Resurrection he is in an immortall and in a glorious state in heaven For when the Apostle argues thus 1 Cor. 15.14 If Christ be not risen then is our preaching in vaine and your faith in vaine he implies the contrary too If you beleeve the Resurrection we have preached to good purpose Mortuum esse Christum August pagani credunt resurrexisse propria fides Christianorum The Heathen confesse Christs death To beleeve his Resurrection is the proper character of a Christian for the first stone of the Christian faith was laid in this article of the Resurrection In the Resurrection onely was the first promise performed Ipse conteret He shall bruise the Serpents head for in this he triumphed over Death and Hell And the last stone of our faith is laid in the same article too that is the day of Judgement of a day of Judgement God hath given an assurance unto all men saies S. Paul at Athens In that he hath raised Christ Iesus from the dead Acts 17.31 In this Christ makes up his circle in this he is truly Alpha and Omega His comming in Paradise in a promise his comming to Judgement in the clouds are tied together in the Resurrection And therefore all the Gospell all our preaching is contracted to that one text To beare witnesse of the Resurrection onely for that Acts 1.22 was there need of a new Apostle There was a necessity of one to be chosen in Iudas roome to be a witnesse of the Resurrection Non ait caeterorum sed tantùm Resurrectionis saies S. Chrysostome He does not say to beare witnesse of the other articles but onely of the Resurrection he charges him with no more instructions he needs no more in his Commission but to preach the Resurrection Athan. for in that Trophaeum de morte excitavit indubitatum reddidit corruptionem deletam Here is a retreat from the whole warfare here is a Trophee erected upon the last enemy The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death and here is the death of that enemy in the Resurrection And therefore to all those who importuned him for a signe Christ still turnes upon the Resurrection Iohn 2.38 Mat. 12.38 The Jewes pressed him in generall Quod signum What signe showest thou unto us and he answers Destroy this Temple this body and in three dayes I will raise it In another place the Scribes and the Pharisees joyne Master we would see a signe from thee and he tels them There shall be no signe but the signe of the Prophet Ionas who was a type of the Resurrection And then the Pharisees and Sadduces joyn now they were bitter enemies to one another but as Tertullian saies Semper inter duos latrones crucifixus Christus It was alwaies Christs case to be crucified betweene two Thieves So these though enemies joyne in this vexation They aske a signe as the rest and as to the rest Christ gives that answer of Ionas So that Christ himselfe determines all summes up all in this one Article the Resurrection Now Nos if the Resurrection of this Jesus have made him not onely Christ Anointed and consecrated in Heaven in his owne person but made him Lord then he hath Subjects upon whom that dominion and that power works and so we have assurance of a resurrection in him too That he is made Lord of us by his Resurrection is rooted in prophecie It pleased the Lord to bruise him saies the Prophet Esay But he shall see his seed Esay 53.10 and he shall prolong his daies that is he shall see those that are regenerate in him live with him forever It is rooted in prophecy and it spreads forth in the Gospell To this end saies the Apostle Christ died and rose that he might be Lord of the dead and of the living Now Rom. 14.9 Gregor what kinde of Lord if he had no subjects Cum videmus caput super aquas when the head is above water will any imagine the body to be drowned What a perverse consideration were it to imagine a live head and dead members Or consider our bodies in our selves and Our bodies are Temples of the Holy Ghost and shall the Temples of the holy Ghost lye for ever for ever buried in their rubbidge They shall not for the day of Judgement is the day of Regeneration as it is called in the Gospell Mat. 19.28 August Quia caro nostra ita generabitur per
consideration upon David or upon the Jews Thereupon doe the Father truly I think more generally more unanimely then in any other place of Scripture take that place of Ezekile which we spake of before to be primarily intended of the last resurrection but secundarily of the Jews restitution But Gasper Sanctius a learned Jesuit that is not so rare but an ingenuous Jesuit too though he be bound by the Councel Trent to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers yet he here ackowledges the whole truth that Gods purpose was to prove by that which they did know which was the generall resurrection that which they knew not their temporall restitution Tertullian is vehement at first but after more supple Allegoricae Scripturae saies he resurrectionem subradiant aliae aliae determinant Some figurative places of Scripture doe intimate a resurrection and some manifest it and of those manifest places he takes this vision of Ezekiel to be one But he comes after to this Sit corporum rerum meánihilinterest let it sighnifie a temporall resurrection so it may signifie the generall resurrection of our bodies too saies he and I am well satisfied and then the truth satisfies him for it doth signifie both It is true that Tertullian sayes De vacuo similitudo non competit If the vision be but a comparison if there were no such thing as a resurrection the comparison did not hold De nullo par abola non convenit saies he and truly If there were no resurrection to which that Parable might have relation it were no Parable All that is true but there was a resurrection alwaies knowne to them alwaies beleeved by them and that made their present resurrection from that calamity the more easie the more intelligible the more credible the more discernable to them Let therefore Gods method be thy method fixe thy self firmly upon that beliefe of the penerall resurrection and thou wilt never doubt of either of the particular resurrections either from sin by Gods grace or from worldly calamities by Gods power For that last resurrection is the ground of all By that Verévicta mors saies Irenaeus this Last enemy death is truly destroyed because his last spoile the body is taken out of his hands The same body eadem ovis as the same Father notes Christ did not fetch another sheep to the flock in the place of that which was lost but the same sheep God shall not give me another abetter body at the resurrection but the same body made better for Sinon haberet caro salvari neutiquam verbum Dei caro factum fuisset If the flesh of man were not to be saved Idem the Anchor of salvation would never have taken the flesh of man upon him The punishment that God laid upon Adam In dolore in sudore In sweat and in sorrow sbalt thou eate thy bread is but Donecreverteris till man returne to dust but when Man is returned to dust Gen. 3.17 God returnes to the remembrance of that promise Awake and sing yethat dwell in the dust A mercy already exhibited to us in the person of our Saviour Christ Jesus Esay 26.19 in whom Per primitias benedixit campo saies S. Chrysostome as God by taking a handfull for the first Fruits gave ablessing to the wholw field so he hath sealed the bodies of all mankind to his glory by pre-assuming the body of Christ to that glory For by that there is now Commercium inter Coelum terram there is a Trade driven a Staple established betweene Heaven and earth Bernard Ibi caronostra hic Spiritus ejus Thither have we sent our flest and hither hath he sent his Spirti This is the last abolition of this enemy Death for after this the bodies of the Saints he cannot touch the bodes of the damned he cannot kill and if he could hee were not therein their enemy but their friend This is that blessed and glorious State of which when all the Apostles met to make the Creed they could say no more but Credo Resurrectionem I heleeve the Resurrection of the body and when those two Reverend Fathers to whom it belongs shall come to speake of it upon the day proper for it in this place and if all the Bishops that ever met in Councels should meet them here they could but second the Apostles Credo with their Anathema We beleeve and woe be unto them that doe not beleeve the Resurrection of the body but in gong about to expresse it the lips of an Angell would be uncircumcised lips and the tongue of an Archangell would stammer I offer not therefore at it but in respect of and with relation to that blessed State according to the doctrine and practise of our Church we doe pray for the dead for the militant Church upon earth and the trimphant Church in Heaven and the whole Catholique Church in Heaveen and earth we doe pray that God will be pleased to hasten that Kingdome that we with all others departed in the true Faith of his holy Name may have this perfect consummation both of body and soule in his everlasting glory Amen SERMON XVI preached at VVhite-hall the first Friday in Lent 1622. JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept I Am now but upon the Compassion of Christ There is much difference between his Compassion and his Passion as much as between the men that are to handle them here But Lacryma pass ionis Chrisi est vicaria August A great personage may speake of his Passion of his blood My vicargae is to speake of his Compassion and his teares Let me chafe the wax and melt your soules in a bath of his Teares now Let him set to the great Seale of his effectuall passion in his blood then It is a Common place I know to speake of teares I would you knew as well it were a common practise to shed them Though it be not so yet bring S. Bernards patience Libenter audiam qui non sibi plausum sed mihi planctum moveat be willing to heare him that seeks not your acclamation to himselfe but your humiliation to his and your God not to make you praise with them that praise but to make you weepe with them that weepe And Iesus wept The Masorites the Masorites are the Critiques upon the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament cnnot tell us who divided the Chapters of the Old Testament into verses Neither can any other tell us who did it in the New Testament Whoever did it seemes to have stopped in an amazement in this Text and by making an intire verse of these two words Iesus wept and no more to intimate that there needs no more for the exalting of our devotion to a competent heighth then to consider how and where and when and why Iesus wept There is not a shorter verse in the Bible not a larger Text. There is another as short Semper gaudete Rejoyce evermore and of that holy Joy
pleasure of God In which first part you have also had the qualification of the person that came this day to establish Redemption for us that in Him there was fulnesse infinite capacity and infinite infusion and all fulnesse defective in nothing impassible and yet passible perfit God and perfit man and this fulnesse dwelling in Him in Him as he is Head of the Church that is visible sensible meanes of salvation to every soule in his Church And so we passe to our second part from this Qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell to the Pacification it selfe for which it pleased the Father to doe all this that Peace might be made through the bloud of his Crosse In this Part St. Chrysostome hath made our steps our branches It is much sayes he 2 Part. that God would admit any peace magis per sanguinem more that for peace he should require effusion of bloud magis quod per ejus more that it must be His bloud his that was injured his that was to triumph Et adhuc magis quod per sanguinem Crucis ejus That it must be by the bloud of his Crosse his heart bloud his death and yet this was the case He made Peace through the bloud of his Crosse There was then a warre before and a heavy warre for the Lord of hosts was our enemy and what can all our musters come to Bellum ante if the Lord of Hosts of all Hosts have raised his forces against us There was a heavy war denounced in the Inimicitias ponam when God raised a warre betweene the Devill Gen. 3.15 and us For if we could consider God to stand neutrall in that warre and meddle with neither side yet we were in a desperate case to be put to fight against Powers and Principalities against the Devill How much more when God the Lord of Hosts is the Lord even of that Host too when God presses the Devill and makes the Devill his Soldier to fight his battles and directs his arrowes and his bullets and makes his approaches and his attempts effectuall upon us That which is fallen upon the Jews now Basil for their sinne against Christ that there is not in all the world a Soldier of their race not a Jew in the world that beares armes is true of all mankinde for their sin against God there is not a Soldier amongst them able to hurt his spirituall enemy or defend himselfe It is a strange warre where there are not two sides and yet that is our case for God uses the Devill against us and the Devill uses us against one another nay he uses every one of us against our selves so that God and the Devill and we are all in one Army and all for our destruction we have a warre and yet there is but one Army and we onely are the Countrey that is fed upon and wasted From God to the Devill we have not one friend and yet as though we lacked enemies we fight with one another in inhumane Duels Vbi morimur homicidae Ad milites Templa Ser. 1. 〈◊〉 as St. Bernard expresses it powerfully and elegantly that in those Duels and Combats he that is murdered dyes a murderer because he would have beene one Occisor laethaliter peccat occisus aeternaliter perit He that comes alive out of the field comes a dead man because he comes a deadly sinner and he that remaines dead in the field is gone into an everlasting death So that by this inhumane effusion of one anothers bloud we maintaine a warre against God himselfe and we provoke him to that which he expresses in Esay My sword shall be bathed in heaven Inebriabitur sanguine Esay 34.5 The sword of the Lord shall be made drunk with bloud Their land shall be soaked with bloud and their dust made fat with fatnesse The same quarrell which God hath against particular men and particular Nations for particular sinnes God hath against all Mankinde for Adams sin And there is the warre But what is the peace and how are we included in that That is our second and next disquisition That peace might be made A man must not presently think himselfe included in this peace Pax. because he feeles no effects of this warre If God draw none of his swords of warre or famine or pestilence upon thee no outward warre If God raise not a rebellion in thy selfe nor fight against thee with thine owne affections in colluctations betweene the flesh and the spirit The warre may last Gellius for all this Induciarum tempore bellum manet licet pugna cesset Though there be no blow striken the warre remaines in the time of Truce But thy case is not so good here is no Truce no cessation but a continuall preparation to a fiercer warre All this while that thou enjoyest this imaginary security the Enemy digges insensibly under ground all this while he undermines thee and will blow thee up at last more irrecoverably then if he had battered thee with outward calamities all that time So any State may be abused with a false peace present or with a fruitlesse expectation of a future peace But in this text there is true peace and peace already made present peace and and safe peace Bernard Pax non promissa sed missa sayes St. Bernard in his musicall and harmonious cadences not promised but already sent non dilata sed data not treated but concluded Non prophetata sed praesentata not prophesied but actually established There is the presentnesse thereof And then made by him who lacked nothing for the making of a safe peace Esay 9.6 For after his Names of Counsellor and of the Mighty God he is called for the consummation of all princeps pacis A Counsellor There is his wisdome A mighty God There is his Power and this Counsellor This Mighty God this wise and this powerfull Prince hath undertaken to make our peace But how that is next per sanguinem Peace being made by bloud Is effusion of bloud the way of peace Per sanguinem effusion of bloud may make them from whom bloud is so abundantly drawne glad of peace because they are thereby reduced to a weaknesse But in our warres such a weaknesse puts us farther off from peace and puts more fiercenesse in the Enemy But here mercy and truth are met together God would be true to his owne Justice bloud was forfeited and he would have bloud and God would be mercifull to us he would make us the stronger by drawing bloud and by drawing our best bloud Gen. 34. the bloud of Christ Jesus Simeon and Levi when they meditated their revenge for the rape committed upon their sister when they pretended peace yet they required a little bloud They would have the Sichemites circumcised but when they had opened a veyne they made them bleed to death when they were under
pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
those that were under the law that is all but to Adopt those whom he had chosen us And those are the persons the subjects that he works upon by his comming First then to begin with the persons those of the first kinde Sub lege those that were under the Law for them as we told you before the law must not be so narrowly restrained here as to be intended onely of Moses Law for Christs purpose was not onely upon the Jews for else Naaman the Syrian by whom God fought great battailes 2 Reg. 5. before he was cured of his leprosie and who when he was cured was so zealous of the worship of the true God that he would needs carry holy earth to make Altars of from the place where the Prophet dwelt And else Iob who though he were of the land of Hus hath good testimony of being an upright and just man and one that feared God And else the Widow of Sarepta 1. Reg. 17. whose meale and oyle God preserved unwasted and whose dead sonne God raised againe at the prayer of Eliah All these and all others whom the searching Spirit of God seales to his service in all the corners of the earth because they are strangers in the land of Israel should not be under the Law and so should have no profit by Christs being made under the Law if the Law should be understood onely of the Law of Moses And therefore to be under the Law signifies here thus much To be a debter to the law of nature to have a testimony in our hearts and consciences that there lyes a law upon us which we have no power in our selves to performe that to those lawes To love God with all our powers and to love our neighbour as our selves and to doe as we would be done to we finde our selves naturally bound and yet wee finde our selves naturally unable to performe them and so to need the assistance of another which must be Christ Jesus to performe them for us And so all men Jews and Gentiles are under the Law because naturally they feele a law upon them which they breake And therefore wheresoever our power becomes defective in the performance of this law if our will be not defective too if we come not to say God hath given us an impossible Law and therefore it is lost labour to goe about to performe it or God hath given us another to performe this Law for us and therefore nothing is required at our hands If we abstaine from these quarrels to the law and these murmurings at our owne infirmity wee shall finde that the fulnesse of time is this day come this day Christ is come to all that are under the Law that is to all mankinde to all because all are unable to performe that Law which they all see by the light of nature to lye upon them These then be the persons of the first kinde Redemit All all the world Dilexit mundum God so loved the world that he gave his Son for it for all the world And accordingly venit salvare mundum the obedience of the Son was as large as the love of the Father Hee came to save all the world and he did save all the world God would have all men and Christ did save all men It is therefore fearefully and scarce allowably said that Christ did contrary to his Fathers will when he called those to grace of whom he knew his Fathers pleasure to bee that they should have no grace It is fearefully and dangerously said Absurdum non esse Deum interdum falsa loqui falsum loquenti credendum that it is not absurd to say that is that it may truly be said that God does sometimes speake untruly and that we are bound to beleeve God when he does so for if we consider the soveraigne balme of our soules the blood of Christ Jesus there is enough for all the world if we consider the application of this physick by the Ministers of Christ Jesus in the Church hee hath given us that spreading Commission To goe and preach to every creature we are bid to offer to apply to minister this to all the world Christ hath excommunicated no Nation no shire no house no man Hee gives none of his Ministers leave to say to any man thou art not Redeemed he gives no wounded nor afflicted conscience leave to say to it selfe I am not Redeemed There may be meat enough brought into the house for all the house though some be so weake as they cannot which is the case of the Gentiles some so stubborne as they will not eate which is the case of the carnall man though in the Christian Church He came to all There are the persons and to Redeeme all there is his errand but how to Redeeme S. Hierome saies Gentes non Redimuntur sed emuntur The Gentiles saies hee are not properly Christs by way of Redeeming but by an absolute purchase To which purpose those words are also applied which the Apostle saies to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 Ye are bought with a price S. Hieroms meaning therein is that if we compare the Jews and the Gentiles though God permitted the Jews in punishment of their rebellions to bee captivated by the devill in Idolatries yet the Jews were but as in a mortgage for they had beene Gods peculiar people before But the Gentiles were as the devils inheritance for God had never claimed them nor owned them for his and therefore God sayes to Christ Ps 2.8 Postula à me Aske of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance as though they were not his yet or not his by that title as the Jews were So that in S. Hieromes construction the Jewes which were Gods people before were properly Redeemed the Gentiles to whom God made no title before are rather bought then redeemed But Nullum tempus occurrit Regi against the King of Kings there runnes no prescription no man can devest his Allegeance to his Prince and say he will be subject no longer And therefore since the Gentiles were his by his first title of Creation for it is he that hath made us and not we our selves nor the devill neither when all we by our generall revolt and prevarication as we were all collectively in Adams loynes came to be under that law morte morieris Thou shalt dye the death when Christ came in the fulnesse of time and delivered us from the sharpest and heaviest clause of that Law which is the second death then he Redeemed us properly because though not by the same title of Covenant as the Jews were yet we were his and sold over to his enemy These then were the persons All none can say that he did not need him none can say that he may not have him And this was his first worke to Redeeme to vindicate them from the usurper to deliver them from the intruder to emancipate them
is there comfort in that state why that is the state of hell it self Eternall dying and not dead But for this there is enough said by the Morall man that we may respite divine proofes for divine points anon for our severall Resurrections for this death is meerly naturall and it is enough that the morall man sayes Mors lex tributum officium mortalium First it is lex you were born under that law upon that condition to die Sencea so it is a rebellious thing not to be content to die it opposes the Law Then it is Tributum an imposition which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us and which she will take when and where se lift here a yong man there an old man herea happy there a miserable man And so itis a seditious thing not to be content to die it opposes the prerogative And lastly it is Officium men are to have rheir turnes to take their time and then to give way by death to successors and so it is Incivile inofficiosum not to be content to die it opposes the frame and form of government It comes equally to us all and makes us all equall when it comes The eshes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of that Oak to tell me how high or how large that was It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood nor what men it hurt when it fell The dust of great persons graves is speechlesse too it sayes nothing it distinguishes nothing As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not as of a Prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the winde blow it thither and when a whirle-winde hath blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Church-yard who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce This is the Patrician this is the noble flowre and this the yeomanly this the Plebeian bran Sois the death of Iesabel Ieabel was a Queen expressed They shall not say this is Iesabel not only not wonder that it is not pity that it should be but they shall not say they shall not know This is Iesabel It comes to all to all alike but not alike welcome to all To die too willingly out ofimpatience to wish or out of violence to hasten death or to die too unwillingly to murmure at Gods purpose reveled by age or by sicknesse are equall distempers and to harbour a disobedient loathnesse all the way or to entertain it at last argues but an irreligious ignorance An ignorance that death is in nature but Expiratio a breathing out and we do that every minute An ignorance that God himself took a day to rest in and a good mans grave is his Sabbath An ignorance that Abel the best of those whom we can compare with him was the first that dyed Howsoever whensoever all times are Gods times Vocantur obni ne diutiús vexentur á noxiis mali ne diutiús bonos persequantur God cals the good to take them from their dangers and God takes the bad to take them from their trumph And therefore neither grudge that thou goest nor that worse stay for God can make his profit of both Aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut utper allum bonus exerceatur God reprieves him to mend him or to make another better by his exercise and not to exult in the misery of another but to glorifie God in the wayes of his justice let him know Quantumcunque seró subitó ex hac óitatollitur qui finem praevidere nescivit How long soever he live how long soever he lie sick that man dies a sudden death who never thought of it If we consider death in S. Pauls Statutum est It is decréed that all men must die there death is indifferent If we consider it in his Mori lucrum that is an advantage to die there death is good and so much the vulgat Edition seemes to intimate when Deut. 30. 19 whereas we reade I have set before you life and death that reades it Vitam honum Life and that which is good If then death be at the worst indifferent and to the good good how is it Hostis an enemy to the Kingdome of Christ for that also is Vestigium quintum the fift and next step in this paraphrase First God did not make death saies the Wiseman And therefore S. Augustine makes a reasonable prayer to God Ne permittas Domine quod nonfecisti dominari Creatur ae quam fecisti Suffer not O Lord death whom thou didst not make to have dominion over me whom thou didst Whence then came death The same Wiseman hath shewed us the father Through envy of the devill came death into the world and a wiser then he the holy Ghost himselfe hath shewed us the Mother By sin came death into the world But yet if God have naturalized death taken death into the number of his servants and made Death his Commissioner to punish sin and he doe but that how is Death an enemy First he was an enemy in invading Christ who was not in his Commission because he had no sin and still he is an enemie because still he adheres to the enemy Death hangs upon the edge of every persecutors sword and upon the sting of every calumniators and accusers tongue In the Bull of Phalaris in the Bulls of Basan in the Buls of Babylon the shrewdest Buls of all in temporall in spirituall persecutions ever since God put an enmity between Man and the Serpent from the time of Cain who began in a murther to the time of Antichrist who proceeds in Massacres Death hath adhered to the enemy and so is an enemy Death hath a Commission Stipendium peccati mors est The reward of sin Death but where God gives a Supersedeas upon that Commission Vivo Ego nolo mortem As I live saith the Lord I would have no sinner dye not dye the second death yet Death proceeds to that execution And where as the enemy whom he adheres to Serpent himselfe hath power but In calcaneo upon the heele the lower the mortall part the body of man Death is come up into our windowes saith the Prophet into our best lights Jer. 9.21 our understandings and benights us there either with ignorance before sin or with senselesnesse after And a Sheriffe that should burne him who were condemned to be hanged were a murderer though that man must have dyed To come in by the doore by the way of sicknesse upon the body is but to come in at the window by the way of sin is not deaths Commission God opens not that window So then he is an enemy for they that adhere to the enemy are enemies And adhering is not only a present subministration of supply to the enemy for that death doth not but it is also a disposition to assist the enemy then when he shall
Lord and thou only knowest Which is also the sense of those words Heb. 11.35 Others were tortured and accepted not a deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection A present deliverance had been a Resurrection but to be the more sure of a better hereafter they lesse respected that According to that of our Saviour Mat. 10.39 He that findes hi life shall lose it He that fixeth himself too earnestly upon this Resurrection shall lose a better This is then the propheticall Resurrection for the future but a future in this world That if Rulers take counsell against the Lord the Lord shall have their counsell in derision If they take armes against the Lord the Lord shall break their Bows and cut their Spears in sunder Psal 2.4 If they hisse and gnash their teeth and say we have swallowed him up If we be made their by-word their parable their proverb their libell the theame and burden of their songs as Iob complaines yet whatsoever fall upon me dmage distresse scorn or Hostis ultimus death it self that death which we consider here death of possessions death of estimation death of health death of contentment yet Abolebitur it sahll be destroyed in a Resurrection in the return of the light of Gods countenance upon me even in this world And this is the first Resurrection But this first Resurrection 2. Apeecatis which is but from temporall calamities doth so little concerne a true and established Christian whether it come or no for still Iobs Basis is his Basis and his Centre Etiamsi occiderit though he kill me kill me kill me in all these severall deaths and give me no Resurrection in this world yet I will trust in him as that as though this first resurrection were no resurrection not to be numbred among the rersurrections S. Iohn calls that which we call the second which is from sin the first resurrection Blessed and holy is be who hath part in the firstresurrection And this resurrection Christimplies Apoe 20.6 John 5.25 when he saies Verely verely I say unto you the houre is comming and now is when the dead shall heare the ovyce of the Son of God and they that heare it shall live That is by the voyce of the word of life the Gospell of repentance they shall have a spirituall resurrection to a new life S. Austine and Lactantius both were so hard in beleeving the roundnesse of the earth that they thought that those homines pensiles as they call them those men that hang upon the other cheek of the face of the earth those Antipodes whose feet are directly against ours must necessarily fall from the earth if the earth be round But whither should they fall If they fall they must fall upwards for heaven is above them too as it is to us So if the spirituall Antipodes of this world the Sons of God that walk with feet opposed in wayes contrary to the sons of men shall be said to fall when they fall to repentance to mortification to a religious negligence and contempt of the pleasures of this life truly their fall is up wards they fall towards heaven God gives breath unto the people upon the earth sayes the Prophet Et spiritum his qui calcant illam Esay 45.5 Our Translation carries that no farther but that God gives breath to people upon the earth and spirit to them that walk thereon But Irenaeus makes a usefull difference between afflatus and spiritus that God gives breath to all upon earth but his spirit onely to them who tread in a religious scorne upon earthly things Is it not a strange phrase of the Apostle Mortifie your members fornication uncleanenesse inordinate affections He does not say mortifie your members against those sins Col. 3.5 but he calls those very sins the members of our bodies as though we were elemented and compacted of nothing but sin till we come to this resurrection this mortification which is indeed our vivification Till we beare in our body the dying of our Lord Iesus that the life also of Iesus may be made manifest in our body 2 Cor. 4.10 God may give the other resurrection from worldly misery and not give this A widow may be rescued from the sorrow and solitarinesse of that state by having a plentifull fortune there she hath one resurrection but the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 shee hath no second resurrection and so in that sense even this Chappell may be a Church-yard men may stand and sit and kneele and yet be dead and any Chamber alone may be a Golgotha a place of dead mens bones of men not come to this resurrection which is the renunciation of their beloved sin It was inhumanely said by Vitellius upon the death of Otho when he walkedin the field of carcasses where the battle was fought O how sweet a perfume is a dead enemy But it is a divine saying to thy soule O what a savor of life unto life is the death of a beloved sin What an Angelicall comfort was that to Ioseph and Mary in Aegypt after the death of Herod Arise for they are dead that sought the childes life Mat. 2.20 And even that comfort is multiplied upon thy soul when the Spirit of God saies to thee Arise come to this resurrection for that Herod that sin that sought the life the everlasting life of this childe the childe of God thy soule is dead dead by repentance dead by mortification The highest cruelty that story relates or Poets imagine is when a persecutor will not afford a miserable man death not be so mercifull to him as to take his life Thou hast made thy sin thy soule thy life inanimated all thy actions all thy purposes with that sin Miserere animatuae be so mercifull to thy selfe as to take away that life by mortification by repentance and thou art come to this Resurrection and thugh a man may have the former resurrection and not this peace in his fortune and yet not peace in his conscience yet whosoever hath this second hath an infallible seale of the third resurrection too to a fulnesse of glory in body as well as in soule For Spiritus maturam efficit carnem capacem incorruptelae this resurrection by the spirit Irenaeus mellowes the body of man and makes that capable of everlasting glory which is the last weapon by which the last enemy death shall be destroyed A morte Upon that pious ground that all Scriptures were written for us as we are Christians that all Scriptures conduce to the proofe of Christ and of the Christian state 3. A morte it is the ordinary manner of the Fathers to make all that David speaks historically of himselfe and all that the Prophet speaks futurely of the Jews if those place may be referred to Christ to referre them to Christ primarily and but by reflection and in a second
a City or the Martyrdome of an Army This was not a red Sea such as the Jews passed a Sinus a Creek an Arm an Inlet a gut of a Sea but a red Ocean that overflowed and surrounded all parts and from the depth of this Sea God raised them and such was their Resurrection Such as that they which suffered lay and bled with more ease then the executioner stood and sweat and embraced the fire more fervently then he blew it and many times had this triumph in their death that even the executioner himself was in the act of execution converted to Christ and executed with them such was their Resurrection When the State of the Jews was in that depression in that conculcation in that consternation in that extermination in the captivity of Babylon as that God presents it to the Prophet in that Vision in the field of dry bones so Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man dost thou think these bones can live that these men can ever be re-collected to make up a Nation The Prophet saith Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest which is not only thou knowest whether they can or no but thou knowest clearly they can thou canst make them up of bones again for thou madest those bones of earth before If God had called in the Angels to the making of man at first and as he said to the Prophet Fili hominis Son of man as thou art a reasonable man so he had said to them Filii Dei as you are the Sons of God illumined by his face do you think that this clod of red earth can make a man a man that shall be equall to you in one of his parts in his soul and yet then shall have such another part as that he whom all you worship my essentiall Son shall assume and invest that part himself can that man made of that body and that soul be made of this clod of earth Those Angels would have said Domine tu scis Lord thou must needs know how to make as good creatures as us of earth who madest us of that which is infinitely lesse then earth of nothing before To induce to facilitate these apprehensions there were some precedents some such thing had been done before But when the Church was newly conceived and then lay like the egge of a Dove and a Gyants foot over it like a worm like an ant and hill upon hill whelmed upon it nay like a grain of corn between the upper and lower Mill-stone ground to dust between Tyrans and Heretiques when as she bled in her Cradle in those children whom Herod slew so she bled upon her crutches in those decrepit men whom former persecutions and tortures had creepled before when East and West joyned hands to crush her and hands and brains joyned execution to consultation to annihilate her in this wane of the Moon God gave her an instant fulnesse in this exinanition instant glory in this grave an instant Resurrection But beloved the expressing the pressing of their depressions does but chafe the Wax the Printing of the seale is the reducing to your memory your own case and not that point in your case as you were for a few yeares under a sensible persecution of fire and prisons that was the least part of your persecution for it is a cheap purchase of heaven if we may have it for dying Mat. 13.44 To sell all we have to buy that field where we know the treasure is is not so hard as not to know it To part with all for the great Pearle not so hard a bargaine as not to know that such a Pearle there might have beene had we could not say heaven was kept from us when we might have it for a Fagot and when even our enemies helpt us to it but your greater affliction was as you were long before in an insensiblenesse you thought your selves well enough and yet were under a worse persecution of ignorance and of superstition when you in your Fathers were so farre from expecting a resurrection as that you did not know your low estate or that you needed a Resurrection And yet God gave you a Resurrection from it a reformation of it Now who have their parts in this first resurrection or upon what conditions have you it We see in the fourth verse They that are beheaded for the witnesse of Iesus that is that are ready to be so when the glory of Jesus shall require that testimony In the meane time as it followes there They that have not worshipped the Beast that is not applied the Honour and the Allegiance due to their Soveraign to any forraign State nor the Honor due to God that is infallibility to another Prelate That have not worshipped the Beast nor his Image sayes the Text that is that have not been transported with vain imaginations of his power and his growth upon us here which hath been so diligently Painted and Printed and Preached and set out in the promises and practises of his Instruments to delude slack and easie persons And then as it is added there That have not received his mark upon their foreheads That is not declared themselves Romanists apparently nor in their hands sayes the Text that is which have not under-hand sold their secret endeavours though not their publique profession to the advancement of his cause These men who are ready to be beheaded for Christ and have not worshipped the Beast nor the Image of the Beast nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands these have their parts in this first resurrection These are blessed and holy sayes our Text Blessed because they have meanes to be holy in this resurrection For the Lamb hath unclasped the book the Scriptures are open which way to holinesse our Fathers lacked And then our blessednesse is that we shall raigne a thousand yeares with Christ Now since this first resurrection since the reformation we have raigned so with Christ but 100. yeares But if we persist in a good use of it our posterity shall adde the Cypher and make that 100. 1000. even to the time when Christ Jesus shall come againe and as he hath given us the first so shall give us the last resurrection and to that come Lord Jesus come quickly and till that continue this This is the first resurrection 2 Part. Apeccato in the first acceptation a resurrection from persecution and a peaceable enjoying of the Gospell And in a second it is a resurrection from sin and so it hath a more particular appropriation to every person Aug. So S. Augustine takes this place and with him many of the Fathers and with them many of the sons of the Fathers better sons of the Fathers then the Romane Church will confesse them to be or then they are themselves The Expositors of the Reformed Church They for the most part with S. Augustine take this first resurrection to be a resurrection
own dust It is not an entring into a new state when they dye but a returning to their old They return to dust Psal 104.29 And it is not to that dust which is cast upon them in the grave for that may be another mans dust but to that dust which they carried about them in their bodies They returne and to dust and to their own dust Nor is dust so inglorious a thing but that God gives a dignity to dust when he admits it into comparison to expresse the multiplication the accumulation of his blessings upon Abraham I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth not for weaknesse Gen. 13.16 but for infinitenesse And so to the same purpose of expressing greatnesse Balaam uses this Metaphore of dust Who can count the dust of Iacob and the number of the fourth part of Israel Numb 23.10 Neither does Abraham think it any diminution to lie in the dust of the earth when he is dead for he professes that he walks in the dust of the earth in himself whilst he is aliye Gen. 18.27 I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord being but dust And when David seemes to fear the dust of death lighten mine eyes lest they sleep the sleep of death it is not that he suspects any detriment to himself by death that he shall be the worse by dying Psal 13.1 but that God may lose of his glory when as he addes there the enemy shall say we have prevailed against him For as in the Primitive Church those that seeme prayers for the dead at Funeralls are indeed but thanksgivings to God in their behalf that are departed so as often as David expresses himself in that Patheticall manner Awake O Lord why sleepest thou arise Psal 44.23 and cast us not off for ever it is a thanksgiving that he hath not and a prayer that he would not forget them When he sayes Will God be favourable no more he meanes Psal 77.7 I am sure he will Is his mercy cleane gone for ever Doth his promise faile for ever Hath God forgot to be gracious Hath he shut up his mercy in anger All these imply a kinde of confidence that he hath not And as it is in that Resurrection of which David speaks most literally in those places that is The Resurrection from the calamities and oppressions of this world so is it in the Resurrection from the dust of the grave too Psal 22.15 19. Thou hast brought me to the dust of the grave but be not thou farre from me That is when thou shalt bring me to the dust of the grave thou wilt not be farre from me And when he sayes in apparence by way of expostulation Psal 39.10 and jealousie and suspition Will God shew wonders to the dead shall the dead arise and praise him shall his loving kindnesse be declared in the grave or his faishfulnesse in destruction All these passionate interrogatories and vehement expostulations may safely be resolved into these Doctrinall propositions Yes God will shew wonders to the dead The dead shall rise and praise him His loving kindnesse shall be declared in the grave Psal 74.19 and his faithfulnesse in destruction For God will not forget the Congregation of his poore for ever The poore of this world are our poore Gods poore are they that lie in the dust the dust of the grave the dead of whom God hath a greater Congregation under ground then of the living upon the face of the earth And God will not forget the congregation of his poore for ever Finitus est eorum pulvis That which we translate Their Extortioner is at an end Esay 16.4 their Oppressor is at an end is in S. Hierome Their dust is at an end that is there comes a time when the dust of the grave shall oppresse them no longer When Truly that time is virtually and in an infallibility come already as those other words of the same Prophet may admit an accommodation in the person of Christ Esay 26.19 Thy dead men shall live When Together with my dead body they shall rise Consider by occasion of those words a promise long before Christs Resurrection that all they which slept in Christ should rise in him with my dead body they shall rise And then consider the performance of this promise in the Apostle Eph. 2.6 Consurrexerunt together with Christ all that slept in him nay all that fell asleep since he waked all that dyed since he rose did arise Virtually and infallibly they did And for the actuall accomplishment of this Resurrection in every individuall person they that were laid in the grave in the first ages lose no time For there is no time of entring into heaven till the Lord come to fetch us And then they that are dead shall be so farre from being pretermitted as that they shall first be raised before any thing be done upon us But how shall they be raised by what power for that is a second Consideration induced also by this first word of our Text Then when the Lord shall have descended from heaven to raise them Then when they are raised In virtute Christi in the vertue and power of Christ Then In virtute Christi Mat. 13.43 sayes our blessed Saviour speaking of the Resurrection then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun And wheresoever we are called the Sun compared assimilated to the Sun Christ is our Zodiake In him we move from the beginning to the end of our Circle And therefore as the last point of our Circle our resurrection determines in him in Christ so the first point of our Circle our first adoption began in him in Christ too And if I were adopted in Christ in Christ who is a Redeemer of sinners I was adopted in the condition and in the consideration of a sinner and such a sinner as should as would lay hold upon this Christ this Redeemer Christ is the Resurrection so Christ is the Adoption If there be a Resurrection in him there were some dead before If there bean Adoption in him there are some sinners before The first look that God casts upon us is in Christ and therefore the first consideration that he takes of us is as we are sinners He adopts none but penitent sinners he reproves none but impenitent sinners In him also the dead are raised that is in that power which he was raised by The power of God For still that phrase is ingeminated iterated multiplied Suscitavit Deus Mat. 28.6 suscitatus à Deo God raised Christ from the dead and Christ was raised from the dead by God And when it is said by the Angell to the women Surrexit He is risen risen of himself as the word sounds And when by those two which went with Christ to Emaus Luke 24.34 it is said at their return to Jerusalem to the eleven Apostles surrex it verè Hee
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
Abrahams taske was an easie taske to tell the stars of Heaven so it were to tell the sands or haires or atomes in respect of telling but our owne sins And will God say to me Confide Fili My Son be of good cheere thy sins are forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Does he meane all my sins He knowes what originall sin is and I doe not and will he forgive me sin in that roote and sin in the branches originall sin and actuall sin too He knowes my secret sins and I doe not will he forgive my manifest sins and those sins too He knowes my relapses into sins repented and will he forgive my faint repentances and my rebellious relapses after them will his mercy dive into my heart and forgive my sinfull thoughts there and shed upon my lips and forgive my blasphemous words there and bathe the members of this body and forgive mine uncleane actions there will he contract himselfe into himselfe and meet me there and forgive my sins against himselfe And scatter himselfe upon the world and forgive my sins against my neighbour and emprison himselfe in me and forgive my sins against my selfe Will he forgive those sins wherein my practise hath exceeded my Parents and those wherein my example hath mis-led my children Will he forgive that dim sight which I have of sin now when sins scarce appeare to be sins unto me and will he forgive that over-quick sight when I shall see my sins through Satans multiplying glasse of desperation when I shall thinke them greater then his mercy upon my death bed In that he said all he left out nothing Heb. 2.8 is the Apostles argument and he is not almighty if he cannot his mercy endures not for ever if he doe not forgive all Sin and all sin even blasphemy now blasphemy is not restrained to God alone Blasphemia other persons besides God other things besides persons may be blasphemed 1 Tim. 6.1 Iude 8 10. The word of God the Doctrine Religion may be blasphemed Magistracy and Dignities may be blasphemed Nay Omnia quae ignorant saies that Apostle They blaspheme all things which they know not And for persons the Apostle takes it to his owne person 1 Cor. 4.13 Being blasphemed yet we intreat and he communicates it to all men Neminem blasphemate Tit. 3.2 Blaspheme no man Blasphemy as it is a contumelious speech derogating from any man that good that is in him or attributing to any man that ill that is not in him may be fastned upon any man For the most part it is understood a sin against God and that directly and here by the manner of Christ expressing himselfe it is made the greatest sin All sin even blasphemy And yet a drunkard that cannot name God will spue out a blasphemy against God A child that cannot spell God will stammer out a blasphemy against God If we smart we blaspheme God and we blaspheme him if we be tickled If I lose at play I blaspheme and if my fellow lose he blasphemes so that God is alwayes sure to be a loser An Usurer can shew me his bags and an Extortioner his houses the fruits the revenues of his sinne but where will the blasphemer shew mee his blasphemy or what hee hath got by it The licentious man hath had his love in his armes and the envious man hath had his enemy in the dust but wherein hath the blasphemer hurt God In the Schoole we put it for the consummation of the torment of the damned Aquin. 221. q. 13. ar 4. that at the Resurrection they shall have bodies and so be able even verbally to blaspheme God herein we exceed the Devill already that we can speake blaspemously There is a rebellious part of the body that Adam covered with figge leaves that hath damned many a wretched soule but yet I thinke not more then the tongue And therefore the whole torment that Dives suffered in hell Luke 16.24 is expressed in that part Father Abraham have mercy upon me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and coole my tongue The Jews that crucified God will not sound the name of God and we for whom he was Crucified belch him out in our surfets and foame him out in our fury An Impertinent sin without occasion before and an unprofitable sin without recompence after and an incorrigible sin too for almost what Father dares chide his son for blasphemy that may not tell him Sir I learnt it of you or what Master his servant that cannot lay the same recrimination upon him How much then do we need this extent of Gods mercy that he will forgive sin and all sin and even this sin of blasphemy and which is also another addition blasphemy against the Son This emphaticall addition arises out of the connexion in the next verse In filium A word that is a blasphemous word against the Son shall be forgiven And here wee carry not the word Son so high as that the Son should be the eternall Son of God Though words spoken against the eternall Son of God by many bitter and blasphemous Heretiques have beene forgiven God forbid that all the Photinians who thought that Christ was not at all till he was borne of the Virgin Mary That all the Nativitarians that thought he was from all eternity with God but yet was not the Son of God That all the Arians that thought him the Son of God but yet not essentially not by nature but by grace and adoption God forbid that all these should be damned and because they once spoke against the Son therefore they never repented or were not received upon repentance We carry not the word Son so high as to be the eternall Son of God for it is in the text Filius hominis The Son of Man And in that acceptation we doe not meane it of all blasphemies that have beene spoken of Christ as the Son of man that is of Christ invested in the humane nature though blasphemies in that kind have beene forgiven too God forbid that all the Arians that thought Christ so much the Son of Man as that he tooke a humane body but not so much as that he tooke a humane soule but that the Godhead it selfe such a Godhead as they allowed him was his soule God forbid that all the Anabaptists that confesse he tooke a body but not a body of the substance of the Virgin That all the Carpocratians that thought onely his soule and not his body ascended into Heaven God forbid all these should be damned and never called to repentance or not admitted upon it There were fearfull blasphemies against the Son as the Son of God and as the Son of Man against his Divine and against his Humane Nature and those in some of them by Gods grace forgiven too But here we consider him onely as the Son of Man meerely as Man but as such a Man so good a
for thee Martyrium and his blessed Servants the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did so for him and thee for his glory for thy example Can there be any ill any losse in giving thy life for him Is it not a part of the reward it selfe the honour to suffer for him Muk 10.30 When Christ sayes Whosoever loses any thing for my sake and the Gospels he shall have a hundred fold in houses and lands with persecutions wee need not limit that clause of the Promise with persecutions to be That in the midst of persecutions God will give us temporall blessings but that in the midst of temporall blessings God will give us persecutions that it shall be a part of his mercy to be delivered from the danger of being puffed up by those temporall abundances by having a mixture of adversity and persecutions and then Tertul. what ill what losse is there in laying downe this life for him Quid hoc mali est quod martyrialis mali non habet timorem pudorem tergiversationem poenitentiam deplorationem What kinde of evill is this which when it came to the highest Ad malum martyriale to martyrdome to death did neither imprint in our holy predecessors in the Primitive Church Timorem any feare that it would come not Tergiversationem any recanting lest it should come nor Pudorem any shame when it was come nor Poenitentiam any repentance that they would suffer it to come nor Deplorationem any lamentation by their heires and Executors because they lost all when it was come Quid mali What kinde of evill can I call this in laying down my life for this Lord of life Cujus reus gaudet Idem when those Martyrs called that guiltinesse a joy Cujus accusatio votum and the accusation a satisfaction Cujus poena foelicitas and the suffering perfect happinesse Love thy neighbour as thy selfe is the farthest of that Commandement but love God above thy selfe for indeed in doing so thou dost but love thy selfe still Remember that thy soule is thy selfe and as if that be lost nothing is gained so if that be gained nothing is lost whatsoever become of this life Love him then Dominus as he is presented to thee here Love the Lord love Christ love Iesus If when thou lookest upon him as the Lord thou findest frowns and wrinkles in his face apprehensions of him as of a Judge and occasions of feare doe not run away from him in that apprehension look upon him in that angle in that line awhile and that feare shall bring thee to love and as he is Lord thou shalt see him in the beauty and lovelinesse of his creatures in the order and succession of causes and effects and in that harmony and musique of the peace between him and thy foule As he is the Lord thou wilt feare him but no man feares God truly but that that feare ends in love Love him as he is the Lord Christus that would have nothing perish that he hath made And love him as he is Christ that hath made himselfe man too that thou mightest not perish Love him as the Lord that could shew mercy and love him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen Returne againe and againe to that mysterious person Christ And let me tell you that though the Fathers never forbore to call the blessed Virgin Mary Deiparam the Mother of God yet in Damascens time they would not admit that name Christiparam that she was the Mother of Christ Not that there is any reason to deny her that name now but because then that great Heretique Nestorius to avoid that name in which the rest agreed Deiparam for he thought not Christ to be God invented a new name Christiparam Though it be true in it self that that blessed Virgin is Christipara yet because it was the invention of an Heretique and a fundamentall Heretique who though he thought Christ to be anointed by the Holy Ghost above his fellowes yet did not beleeve him to be God Damascen and his Age refused that addition to the blessed Virgin So reverently were they affected so jealously were they enamoured of that name Christ the name which implyed his Unction his Commission the Decree by which he was made a Person able to redeeme thy soule And in that contemplation say with Andrew to his brother Peter Invenimus Messiam I have found the Messias I could finde no meanes of salvation in my selfe nay no such meanes to direct God upon by my prayer or by a wish as hee hath taken but God himselfe hath found a way a Messias His Son shall bee made man And Inveni Messiam I have found him and found that he who by his Inearnation was made able to save me so he was Christ by his actuall passion hath saved me and so I love him as Iesus Christ loved Stephen all the way Iesus for all the way Stephen was disposed to Christs glory but in the agony of death death suffered for him Christ expressed his love most in opening the windowes Acts 7.56 the curtaines of heaven it selfe to see Stephen dye and to shew himselfe to Stephen I love my Saviour as he is The Lord He that studies my salvation And as Christ made a person able to work my salvation but when I see him in the third notion Iesus accomplishing my salvation by an actuall death I see those hands stretched out that stretched out the heavens and those feet racked to which they that racked them are foot-stooles I heare him from whom his nearest friends fled pray for his enemies and him whom his Father forsooke not forsake his brethren I see him that cloathes this body with his creatures or else it would wither and cloathes this soule with his Righteousnesse or else it would perish hang naked upon the Crosse And him that hath him that is the Fountaine of the water of life cry out He thirsts when that voyce overtakes me in my crosse wayes in the world Is it nothing to you all you that passe by Lament 1.12 Behold and see if there by any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger When I conceit when I contemplate my Saviour thus I love the Lord and there is a reverent adoration in that love I love Christ and there is a mysterious admiration in that love but I love Iesus and there is a tender compassion in that love and I am content to suffer with him and to suffer for him rather then see any diminution of his glory by my prevarication And he that loves not thus that loves not the Lord God and God manifested in Christ Anathema Maranatha which is our next and our last Part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the Apostle by way of Imprecation 3 Part. Imprecatio that he wished it so or pronounced by way
to doe as the salvation of soules he would make use of my tongue And being to save the world by his word that I should speak that word Docendo vos quod per se faciliùs suaviùs posset That he calls me up hither to teach you that which he could teach you better and sooner at home by his Spirit Indulgentia ejus est non indigentia It is the largenesse of his mercy towards you not any narrownesse in his power that he needs me And so have you this Angel in our text in all the acceptations in which our Expositors have delivered him It is Christ It is the Angels of heaven It is the Ministery of the Gospel And this Angell whosoever whatsoever S. Iohn saw come from the East I saw an Angel come from the East which was our second Branch and fals next into consideration This addition is intended for a particular addition to our comfort Ab oriente it is a particular endowment or inlargement of strength and power in this Angel that he comes from the East If we take it to goe the same way that we went before first of naturall Angels even the Westerne Angels Qui habuere occasum Those Angels which have had their Sun-set their fall they came from the East too Quomodo cecidisti decoelo Lucifer filius orientis Esay 14 12. How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer the Son of the morning He had his begetting his Creation in the East in the light and there might have stayed for any necessity of falling that God laid upon him Take the Angel of the text to be the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus and his name is The East he cannot be knowne he cannot bee said to have any West Zech. 6.12 Ecce vir Oriens nomen ejus so the vulgat reads that place Behold the Man whose name is the East you can call him nothing else for so the other Zachary the Zachary of the New Testament cals him too Luke 1.78 Per viscera misericordiae Through the tender bowels of his mercy Visitavit nos Oriens The East the day spring from on high hath visited us And he was derived à Patre luminum He came from the East begotten from all eternity of the Father of lights Iohn 16.28 I came out from the Father and came into the world Take this Angel to be the Preacher of the Gospel literally really the Gospell came out of the East where Christ lived and dyed and Typically figuratively Paradise which also figured the place to which the Gospel is to carry us Heaven that also was planted in the East and therefore S. Basil assignes that for the reason why in the Church service we turne to the East when we pray Quia antiquam requirimus patriam Wee looke towards our ancient country where the Gospel of our salvation was literally acted and accomplished and where Heaven the end of the Gospel was represented in Paradise Every way the Gospel is an Angel of the East But this is that which we take to be principally intended in it That as the East is the fountaine of light so all our illumination is to be taken from the Gospell Spread we this a little thinner and we shall better see through it If the calamities of the world or the heavy consideration of thine own sins have benummed and benighted thy soule in the vale of darknesse and in the shadow of death If thou thinke to wrastle and bustle through these strong stormes and thick clouds with a strong hand If thou thinke thy money thy bribes shall conjure thee up stronger spirits then those that oppose thee If thou seek ease in thy calamities that way to shake and shipwrack thine enemies In these crosse winds in these countermines to oppresse as thou art oppressed all this is but a turning to the North to blow away and scatter these sadnesses with a false an illusory and a sinfull comfort If thou thinke to ease thy selfe in the contemplation of thine honour thine offices thy favour thy riches thy health this is but a turning to the South the Sun-shine of worldly prosperity If thou sinke under thy afflictions and canst not finde nourishment but poyson in Gods corrections nor justice but cruelty in his judgements nor mercy but slacknesse in his forbearance till now If thou suffer thy soule to set in a cloud a dark cloud of ignorance of Gods providence and proceedings or in a darker of diffidence of his performance towards thee this is a turning to the West and all these are perverse and awry But turne to the East and to the Angel that comes from thence The Ministery of the Gospel of Christ Jesus in his Church It is true thou mayst find some darke places in the Scriptures Basil and Est silentii species obscuritas To speake darkly and obscurely is a kinde of silence I were as good not be spoken to as not be made to understand that which is spoken yet fixe thy selfe upon this Angel of the East the preaching of the Word the Ordinance of God and thine understanding shall be enlightned and thy beliefe established and thy conscience thus far unburthened that though the sins which thou hast done cannot be undone yet neither shalt thou bee undone by them There where thou art afraid of them in judgement they shall never meet thee but as in the round frame of the World the farthest West is East where the West ends the East begins So in thee who art a World too thy West and thy East shall joyne and when thy Sun thy soule comes to set in thy death-bed the Son of Grace shall suck it up into glory Our Angel comes from the East Angelus Ascendens a denotation of splendor and illustration of understanding and conscience and there is more he comes Ascending I saw an Angel ascend from the East that is still growing more cleare and more powerfull upon us Take the Angel here of naturall Angels 1 Sam. 28.13 and then when the Witch of Endor though an evill Spirit appeared to her yet saw him appeare so Ascending she attributes that glory to it I see gods Ascending out of the earth Take the Angel to be Christ and then his Ascension was Foelix clausula totius itinerarii Bernar. The glorious shutting up of all his progresse and though his descending from Heaven to earth and his descending from earth to hell gave us our title his Ascending by which he carried up our flesh to the right hand of his Father gave us our possession His Descent his humiliation gave us Ius ad rem but his Ascension Ius in re But as this Angel is the Ministery of the Gospel God gave it a glorious ascent in the Primitive Church Psal 19.6 when as this Sun Exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam ascended quickly beyond the reach of Heretiques wits and Persecutors swords and as glorious an ascent in the
any other then God Christ Jesus was willing to give us a Rule for Prayer but if hee had intended that his Rule should have beene deflected and declined to Saints he would have taught us to say Frater noster qui es in Coelis and not only Pater noster to pray to our Brethren which are there too and not onely to our Father which is in Heaven If any man have tasted at Court what it is to be ever welcome to the King himselfe and what it is to speake to another to speake for him he will blesse that happinesse of having an immediate accesse to God himselfe in his prayers They that come so low downe the streame as wee said before to London Bridge they will go lower and lower to Gravesend too They that come to Saints they will come to the Images and Reliques of Saints too They come to a brackish water betweene salt and fresh and they come at last to be swallowed up in that sea which hath no limit no bottome that is to direct all their devotions to such Saints as have no certainty not onely not in their ability we know not what those Saints can doe but not in their history we know not that such as they pray to are Saints nay we know not whether they ever were at all So that this may be Idolatry in the strictest acceptation of the word Idol Idolum nihil est let that be true which they say and in their sense Our Images are not Idols for an Idol is nothing represents nothing but our Images are the Images of Men that once were upon the earth But that is not throughout true for they worship Images of those who never were Christophers and other symbolicall and emblematicall Saints which never lived here but were and are yet nothing But let them be true Saints how will they make it appeare to us that those Saints can heare us What surety can we have of it Let us rather pray to him who we are sure can heare that is first and then sure he can give that we pray for that is next The prayer here is forgivenesse of sins And can Saints give that The Hosannaes Qui dant and the Allelujahs and the Gloria in Excelsis Glory in heaven peace upon earth good will amongst men these are good and cheerfull Notes in which the Quire of heaven are exercised Cherubims and Seraphims Prophets and Apostles Saints and Angels blesse God and benefit men by these But the Remittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee is too high a note for any creature in earth or heaven to reach to except where it is set by Gods own hand as it is by his Commission to his Minister in his Church and there onely in the absolution given by his Ordinance to every penitent sinner We see that phrase Dimittuntur peccata Thy sinnes are forgiven thee was a suspicious word even in the mouth of Christ himselfe amongst the Scribes that would not beleeve his Divinity when Christ said to him that had the Palsie My sonne be of good cheare thy sinnes are forgiven thee the Scribes cryed out he blasphemed It strikes any man to heare of forgivenesse of sins from any but God It was not a harder thing to say Fiat lux then to say Dimittuntur peccata Not harder to bring light out of darknesse by Creation then to bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse by Conversion for who can doe that Iob 14. And therefore when the King of Aram sent Naaman to the King of Israel to take order for the curing of his bodily Leprosie the King of Israel rent his Clothes and said Am I a God 2 King 5.7 to kill and to give life The power even of temporall life and death is proper to God for as Witches thinke sometimes that they kill when they doe not and are therefore as culpable as if they did So a tyrannous persecutor so a passionate Judge so a perjured witnesse so a revengefull quarreller thinks he takes away the life of his enemy and is guilty of that murder in the eye of God though the blow be truly from God whose judgements are ever just though not ever declared Let them never say that they aske not these things temporall or spirituall at the hands of those Saints for expresly literally as the words stand and sound they do aske even those very things and if the Church have any other meaning in those prayers the mischiefe is that they never teach the people by Preaching what that their reserved meaning is but leave them to the very letter of the prayer to aske those things which if they could heare yet the Saints could not give And when the prayer is made aright directed to God himselfe yet here in our Text it is limited Propter hoc For this this that was spoken of before every one that is godly shall pray unto thee Now what is this This for that is our third Consideration Si à quo petenda sed non quae petenda petis If thou come to the right Market Propter boc August but buy unwholesome hearbs there If thou come to the Apothecaries shop and aske for nothing but poysons If thou come to God in thy prayer and aske onely temporall blessings which are blessings onely in their use and may be and are ordinarily snares and encumbrances then is this direction of Davids Propter hoc for this shall he pray transgressed For This as appeares in the words immediately before the Text is The forgivenesse of the punishment and of the iniquity of our sinne which is so inexpressible a comfort to that soule that hath wrastled with the indignation of God and is now refreshed and released as whosoever should goe about to describe it should diminish it He hath it not that thinks he can utter it It is a blessed comfort to find my soule in that state as when I last received the Sacrament with a good conscience If I enjoy that peace now that is the peace of a religious and of a wise conscience for there is a wisedome of the conscience not to run into infinite scruples and doubts but Imponere finem litibus to levy a fine in bar of all scruples and diffidences and to rest in the peace and assurednesse of remission of sinnes after due means for the obtaining thereof and therefore if I be as well now as when I received this is a blessed degree of blessednesse But yet there is one cloud in this case Ab occultis my secret sins which even mine own narrowest inquisition extends not to If I consider my selfe to be as well as I was at my Baptisme when I brought no actuall sin and had the hand of Christ to wash away the foulnesse of Originall sin can I pray for a better state then that Even in that there was a cloud too and a cloud that hath thunder and lightning in it that Fomes peccati that fuell and
in that Church had charged the Jewes That they had rased that clause out of the Hebrew Leo Castr and that it was in the Hebrew at first A learned and a laborious Jesuit for truely Lorinus Schooles may confesse the Jesuits to bee learned for they have assisted there and States and Councell-tables may confesse the Jesuits to be laborious for they have troubled them there hee I say after he hath chidden his fellow for saying That this word had ever been in the Hebrew or was razed out from thence by the Jewes concludes roundly Vndecunque advenerit Howsoever those Additions which are not in the Hebrew came into our Translation Authoritatem habent retineri debent Their very being there gives them Authentikenesse and Authority and there they must be That this in the Title of this Psalme be there wee are content as long as you know that this particular That this Psalme by the Title thereof concerns the Resurrection is not in the Originall but added by some Expositor of the Psalmes you may take knowledge too That that addition hath beene accepted and followed by many and ancient and reverend Expositors almost all of the Easterne and many of the Westerne Church too and therefore for our use and accommodation may well be accepted by us also We consider ordinarily three Resurrections A spirituall Resurrection a Resurrection from sinne by Grace in the Church A temporall Resurrection a Resurrection from trouble and calamity in the world And an eternall Resurrection a Resurrection after which no part of man shall die or suffer againe the Resurrection into Glory Of the first The Resurrection from sinne Esay 60.1 is that intended in Esay Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Of the later Resurrection is that harmonious straine of all the Apostles in their Creed intended I beleeve the Resurrection of the body And of the third Resurrection from oppressions and calamities which the servants of God suffer in this life Calvin Iob 19.26 Ezek. 37. some of our later men understand that place of Iob I know that my Redeemer liveth and that in my flesh I shall see God And that place of Ezekiel all understand of that Resurrection where God saith to the Prophet Sonne of man can these bones live Can these men thus ruined thus dispersed bee restored againe by a resurrection in this world And to this resurrection from the pressures and tribulations of this life doe those Interpreters who interpret this Psalme of a Resurrection refer this our Text Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee Consider how powerfully God hath and you cannot doubt but that God will give them a Resurrection in this world who rely upon him and use his meanes whensoever any calamity hath dejected them ruined them scattered them in the eyes of men Say unto the Lord That he hath done it and the Lord will say unto thee that he will doe it againe and againe for thee We call Noah Divisio Ianus because hee had two faces in this respect That hee looked into the former and into the later world he saw the times before and after the flood David in this Text is a Ianus too He looks two wayes he hath a Prospect and a Retrospect he looks backward and forward what God had done and what God would doe For as we have one great comfort in this That Prophecies are become Histories that whatsoever was said by the mouthes of the Prophets concerning our salvation in Christ is effected so prophecies are made histories so have wee another comfort in this Text That Histories are made Prophecies That whatsoever we reade that God had formerly done in the reliefe of his oppressed servants wee are thereby assured that he can that he will doe them againe and so Histories are made Prophecies And upon these two pillars A thankfull acknowledgement of that which God hath done And a faithfull assurance that God will doe so againe shall this present Exercise of your devotions be raysed And these are our two parts Dicite Deo Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works that part is Historicall of things past In multitudine virtutis In the greatnesse of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee that part is Propheticall of things to come In the History wee are to turne many leafes and many in the Prophecy too to passe many steps to put out many branches in each In the first these Dicite say ye where we consider first The Person that enjoyns this publike acknowledgement and thanksgiving It is David and David as a King for to Him to the King the ordering of publike actions even in the service of God appertains David David the King speaks this by way of counsell and perswasion and concurrence to all the world for so in the beginning and in some other passages of the Psalme it is Omnis terra All yee lands Verse 1. and All the earth Verse 4. David doth what he can that all the world might concurre in one manner of serving God By way of Assistance he extends to all And by way of Injunction and commandement to all his to all that are under his government Dicite say you that is you shall say you shall serve God thus And as he gives counsell to all and gives lawes to all his subjects so he submits himselfe to the same law For as wee shall see in some parts of the Psalme to which the Text refers he professes in his particular that he will say and doe Iosh 24.15 whatsoever hee bids them doe and say My house shall serve the Lord sayes Ioshua But it is Ego domus mea I and my house himselfe would serve God aright too From such a consideration of the persons in the Historicall part wee shall passe to the commandement to the duty it selfe That is first Dicite say It is more then Cogitate to Consider Gods former goodnesse more then Admirari to Admire Gods former goodnesse speculations and extasies are not sufficient services of God Dicite Say unto God Declare manifest publish your zeale is more then Cogitate Consider it thinke of it but it is lesse then Facite To come to action wee must declare our thankfull zeale to Gods cause we must not modifie not disguise that But for the particular wayes of promoving and advancing that cause in matter of action we must refer that to them to whom God hath referred it The Duty is a Commemoration of Benefits Dicite Speake of it ascribe it attribute it to the right Author Who is that That is the next Consideration Dicite Deo Say unto God Non vobis Not to your owne Wisdome or Power Non Sanctis Not to the care and protection of Saints or Angels Sed nomini ejus da gloriam Onely unto his name be
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
E Citation of Scripture the words much more the Chapter and verse not alwayes observed in it 250. C. 325. D Complements of their abuse and use 176. A. B. C. 412. D Comforts how easily we mistake false Comforts for true 279. E. 382. D. 383. A. B 501. A Of the true Comfort of the Holy Ghost 353. D Of that Comfort and consolation which the Minister of the Gospell is to preach to all people 746. A. B C Confession to the Priest in some cases usefull and necessary 558. A 568. A. 589. B. C How necessary to Confesse 569. D. 586. E Confidence true Confidence proceeds onely from true goodnesse 171. E Confirmation whether a Sacrament 329. C The use and benefit of it ibid. D. E Continency that trial not made as should be whether young people can Conteine from marriage 217. B C Contrition Confession and Satisfaction three parts of true Repentance 568. A Conventicles against their private opinions 228. C Against them 455. A They are no Bodies 756. D Consideration of our selves and our insufficiencies how necessary 44. D. 45. A. c. Constitutions No sins to be layd and fathered upon them 90. A Corporations how they have no soules 99. A Covering of sinnes what good and what bad 569. E It is good to cover them from giving other men examples 570. A Counsell not to be given unlesse we love those to whom we give it 93. C How many miscarry in that poynt ibid. D Craft and that cunning and Craft which men affect in their severall Callings 411. D Creatures how farre we may love the Creatures and how farre not 398. E Curiosity against the excesse of it in matter of Knowledge 63. E. 64. A. 411. E. 563. B. 701. A Conscience obdurate and over-tender the effects of either 587. B. C. D Curses and Imprecations whether we may use them 401. C. D. 555. E D DAmned the consummation of their torment wherein it consisteth in the opinion of the Schoole 344. B More shall be saved than damned 765. C Of the torments of the damned 776. B. C The absence of God the greatest torment of the damned ibid. D Day of Judgement the manner of proceeding in it 140. B Fearefull even to the best 200. B. C The certainty and uncertainty of it 271. D To be had ever in remembrance and why 371. B. 389. C. 392. A Death how it may be desired of us and how not 38. A. B. C. D. 148. B. C. 531. D. E Against the ambition of it in the pseudomartyrs 142. C The word Fortasse hath place in all things but Death 147. C. D It is a law a tribute and a duty and how 147. E. 148. A We not to grudge if we dy soon or others live longer ibid. B Death how an enemy to mankinde and how not ibid E God made it not but maketh use of it 188. B Of undergoing Death for Christ 400. A B Not a banishment to good men but a visitation of their friends 463. C Death why so terrible to the good men of former times 532. D The often contemplation of Death takes much from the feare of it 473. E Debts of our Debts to God 87. C To our neighbours 93. E To our superiors 91. C To our selves 94. D Deceit and Deceiving the mischiefe of it 742. B The law will not suppose it either in a father or a master ibid. 42. Decrees of God to be considered only by the Execution 330. C None absolute considering man before a Sinner 675. C. D. E Departing from sinne to be generall 552. A We are not to retaine any one 568. D Deprecating of afflictions whether or no lawfull 504. B. C. D. E Desperation the sin of it greater and worse than that of presumption 398. C Severall sects there have been but never any of Despayring men 346. A Against it 360. D E God brings his servants to humiliation often but never to Desperation 464. Destroying whether man may lawfully destroy any one hurtfull species in the world 527. B 620. C De viâ the name of such as were Christians in the former times that is men of that way according to S. Chrysostome 426. B Devils capable of mercy according to many of the Fathers 66. A The Devils quoting of Scripture 338. C Devotion a serious sedulous and impatient thing 244. E It is good to accompany our selves to a generall Devotion 512 D It must be constant 586. B And not taken up by chance ibid. C Disciplining and mortifying Acts after God hath forgiven us our sinnes commended 546. E They inferre neither Purgatory nor Indulgences nor Satisfaction 547. A They are sharp arrows from a sweet hand ib. The necessity of them to make our Repentance entire 568. B Discretion the mother and nurse of all vertues 577. B What Discretion is to be used in telling people of their sinnes ibid. Division the fore-runner of destruction 138. D. E Not alwayes unlawfull to sow Division amongst men when they agree too well to ill purposes 493. D Doubting the way to know the truth 322. D Duels the inhumanity and sinne of them 5. E Duties of our calling not to be disputed but executed 41. A Of our generall weaknesse and impotency in spirituall Duties 513. C E EArly seeking of God what it is 245. C. D God is an Early God 809. A. B And we to seeke him Early ibid. D. E Eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Word 47. D Enemies profit to be made of them 98. A We come too soone to the name and then carry it too farre 98. C God and Religion both have Enemies 375 D 703. C How we may and how we may not hate our Enemies ibid. D. E Our Enemies are Gods Enemies 704. A Errours in the way almost as dangerous as Errours in the end 639. A. D Of the Errours of the Fathers of the Church 490. A About administring the Sacrament to children about the state of the soule after death c. 739. E Not good for the Church to play with small Errours and tolerate them when shee may as easily redresse them 782. B Esay rather an Evangelist than a Prophet 54. B Evill none from God 168. C. D Nothing is naturally Evill 171. A Example in all our actions and purposes wee to propose unto our selves some patterne or Example 667. D. Examples what power they have in matter of instruction 572. D. 593. A What care is to be taken in making the inordinate acts of some Holy men in Scripture our Examples 155. C. D. 488. D. E. 489. A. 526. E How farre Example works above precept or command 165. B Of giving good Examples to others 420. C God follows his own Examples 522. E Of giving bad Examples unto other men 570. A. 573. E Excommunication the use of it amongst the Druides and the Jewes 402. A Much tendernesse to be used in excommunicating any from the Church 667. A How many men excommunicare themselves without any Church-censure ib. B. C. 418.