even in the infusing of Faith he works by the ministery of the Gospel but there he shall be all in all do all in all immediately by himselfe for Christ shall deliver up the Kingdome to God even the Father his Kingdome is the administration of his Church by his ordinances in the Church at the resurrection there shall be an end of that Kingdome no more Church no more working upon men by Preaching but God himselfe shall be all in all therefore it is said in heaven there is no Temple but God himselfe is the Temple Apoc. 21. 22. God is the service and musick Psalm and Sermon and Sacrament and all We shall live upon the word and heare never a word Here God is not all in all where he is at all in any man that man is well Wisedom in Solomon it was well with Solomon because God was wisedom with him and patience in Job and faith in Peter and zeal in Paul but there was something in all these that God was not But in heaven he shall be so all in all that every soul shall have every perfection in it's selfe and the perfection of these perfections shall be that their sight shall be face to face and their knowledge as they are known But now for the first of these privileges how shall we see God face to face is it allwaies a declaration of Gods favour when God shewes his face No I will set my face against that soul Levit. 17. 10. but when there is light joyned with it it is a declaration of favour this was the blessing that God taught Moses for Aaron Num. 6 25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee And there we shall see him face to face by the light of his countenance which is the light of glory But what shall we see by seeing God so face to face we shall see whatever we can be the better for seeing First all things that men believed here they shall see there and therefore let us me ditate upon no other thing on earth then we would be glad to think on in heaven and this consideration would put many frivolous and many fond thoughts out of our mind This then we shal get concerning our selvs by seeing God face to face but what concerning God Wee shall see God as he is in his essence Why did all that are said to have seen God face to face see his essence No. In earth God assumed some material things to appear in and is said to have been seen face to face when he was seen in those assumed forms But in heaven there is no material thing to bee assumed and if God be seen face to face there hee is seen in his essence Saint Augustine summs it up fully upon those words In thy light we shall see light te scil in te Wee shall see thee in thee i. e. saith he face to face And then secondly what is it To know him as wee are known it is not expressed in the Text so that is onely that we shall know so not that we shall know God so but the frame and context of the place hath drawn that unanime Exposition from all that it is meant of our knowledg of God then A comprehensive knowledg of God it cannot bee to comprehend is to know a thing as well as that thing can be known and wee can never know God so but that he will know himself better Our knowe ledge cannot be so dilated nor God condens'd or contracted so as that we can know him that way comprehensively It cannot bee such a knowledge of God as God hath of himself nor as God hath of us for God comprehends us and all this world and all the worlds that hee could have made and himself But it is not a similitudinis non aequalitatis as God knows mee so shall I know God but I shall not know God so as God knows me It is not quantum but sicut not as much but as truly As the fire does as truly shine as the Sun shines though it shine not out so far nor to so many purposes So then I shall know God so as that there shall be nothing in me to hinder me from knowing God which cannot be said of the nature of man though regenerate upon earth no nor of the nature of an Angel in heaven left to it self till both have received a super-illustration from the light of glorie And so it shall be a knowledge so like his knowledge as it shall produce a love like his love we shall love him as he loves us For say the Fathers whom Oecumenius hath compacted I shall know him i. e. embrace him adhere to him What an holiday shall this be which no working day shall ever follow By knowing and loving the unchangeable the immutable God mutabimur in immutabilitatem we shall be changed into an unchangeablenesse saith that Father that never said any thing but extraordinarie Saint Augustine Hee saith more If God should be seen and known in hell hell in an instant would be heaven How many heavens are there in heaven how is heaven multiplied to every soul in heaven where infinite other happinesses are crown'd with this sight and this knowledge of God there And how shall all those heavens be renewed to us every day that shall bee as glad to see and to know God millions of ages after every daies seeing and knowing as the first hour of looking upon his face And as this seeing this knowing of God crowns all other joies and glories even in heaven so this very crown is crown'd there grows from this an higher glorie which is that we shall be made partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. Immortal as the Father righteous as the Son and full of all comfort as the Holy Ghost To which blessed Trinitie bee ever as is most due ascribed all Honour and Glorie Dominion and Power now and for ever Amen FINIS THE Fifth Sermon Which is that in the INDEPENDENT Style or Way of Preaching Never delivered before any Congregation and now proposed onely as a pattern or example of that way of preaching HEB. 11. 24. By Faith Moses when he came to years refused to bee called the son of Pharaoh's daughter LONDON Printed for Edward Archer at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain Anno Dom. 1656. Luke 9. 23. And he said to them all If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow mee AFter our blessed Saviour had made known to his Disciples and the rest that the Son of man must suffer many things and be reproved of the Elders and of the High Priests and be slain vers 22. fore-seeing that a great many who now did cry him up and highly magnifie him would then be ashamed of him hee tells all such ver 26. That whosoever shall bee ashamed of mee and of my words of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall
will new trim and varnish it hereafter turning these lights into Glories and everlasting shines and those shadows into utter darknesse Thus have you from a rude pencil the chief lines of this Landskip of the Church and my present discourse of all which as they lie in the frame of the text where you are first presented with the lights of this piece the Lillie and the Spouse As the Lillie so is my Love The Lillie is a flower of that brightnesse not Solomon saies our Saviour exalted on his throne shin'd with that majestie as one of these humbled in the valley noâ— were his robes half so glorious as their leaves And as this flower excels in an outward bravery and gadâ—nesse of leaves so in an inward goodnesse of the stemme out-shining not onely the King but all his plants from his Cedar of Lebanus to the Hisope that groweth on the wall being of that medicinall virtue with the Herbalist idolatrous Israell might have receiv'd from hence an antidote against the Serpents sting and rebellious Pharaoh a new skin for his blister'd flesh Now though Christs spouse in the text answers all and more then hath been spoken of the Lilly yet for the present I will drawe out this paralel but onely in two lines the one pointing to the humility of Christs Chuch in the groweth of the Lilly which is but low and therefore called the Lilly of the vallies the other to her Virgine purity and innocency of life from the whitenesse of the same flower a colour nature doth die simple and so fittest for religion I 'le take my rise from the humility of Christs spouse As the lilly so is my love Aquinas his humility the lowest of acts and yet the highest of virtues would scarce speake good schoole divinity had not our Saviour preached it by his actions who not onely died but lived for our salvation teaching us a way to mount upwards by descending and to be exalted through humility Thus he that was the fullnesse of the Godhead exinanivit se emptied himselfe into a man he that dwelt in the highest regarded the lowlinesse of his Handmaiden as 't is in the Magnificat and the brightnesse of the Father became over-shadowed with a vaile of flesh And as if for a God to be borne and a Diety to enter a body were not sufficient humiliation his whole life was but the Schooles twelve rounds or degrees of humility For though we hear Christ preaching upon the mount in the 5. of Saint Matth yet were his doctrines there onely of the vallies To rejoice when men shall revile to bee exceeding glad for a persecution so the twelâ—t period of that sermon again to have a cheeke to receive an injury to go to law not to recover but give away a garment in the 40 ver of the same chap last of all to blesse for a curse to wish heaven to such as desire your damnation to deny even our selves that is saies a Father our great parts and eminent endowments duri sermones hard lessons and yet all tooke out by our Saviour his hand directing the same way with his voice and what he taught was but his owne example shewing he enioyn'd no impossibilities in that he acted his owne commands Thus I find him on the crosse in the greatest agony for his persecutors their blasphemies wrestling with his benedictions the Jewes curse ascending heaven and Christs blessing keeping it downe who not suffering them to enjoy their damnation resolved upon with so much plaudite acclamation his blood be upon us and our children opened the mouth of that blood into a praier and made it crie Father forgive them for they know not what they do And this my God was according to thy promise the giving of a new commandement for whereas the old runns I will visit the sinns of the fathers upon the children thy law of the Gospell proclaimes I will remit those sinns unto the third and fourth generation I will shew mercy upon thousands of them that hate me and not keepe my commandements Now for the second act of our Saviours humility the deniall of his eminent gifts what greater could there be then the forbidding his patients to declare their cure and desiring his miracles might be as invisible as his Godhead As if a miraculous health were the shame of the physitian and a Lazarus raised to life the spoiling of his practise Or else how is it we read in the Gospell of our Saviours unlocking the mouth of the dumb and then crying See you tell no man which was to tie up that organ which he had before loosed as he did in drawing the curtaine from the blind mans eyes yet commanding him not to see and take notice of his physitian or in restoring the withered hand and straitway drying it up againe in forbidding it's use and saying point not at me And therefore learn of me was our Saviours saying to his Church for I am lowly in heart Mat. 11. In heart aflecting no vain glory in my miracles no high opinion of my great parts which instructs us not to commit Idolatrie with our own bosom and to fall down to the thoughts of our hearts by which wee deifie these moulds of earth as if we could raise eternitie out of ashes or build immortalitie on pillars of dust wherefore learn of Christ to think meanly of our selvs and mistrust even what we know and this saies Aquinas refraenat animum is a bridle to curb and keep in our hot-mettel'd and unweighed minds from running upon every dangerous precipice the want of humility expelled our first parents paradise the angeltheaven and may us too from the same joyes for som mens eminencies are their vices and a good name as dangerous to them as a bad their greatest parts being made their greatest sins and the rationall soul to answer more at the last day for it's knowledg then ignorance Hence it is we hear Phisophy turned into Atheism and a deep discourse to subtle blasphemy which dares censure the holy Ghost for no good Philospher in placing the waters above the firmament cause all their elements are sublunary to dispute the first Chap. of Gen. out of the Canon for that it is no where to be found in the Physicks Thus they cry down Moses by Aristotle as iâ— the Divel were as great a mover of sedition in the study as in the shop they raise a Brownisticall mutiny of the Arts against Divinity setting up that to preach which never tooke Orders Nor stop we here but upon the same proud dotage of our able parts presume to remove those Land-marks in Divinity our Fathers have set to leave the old beaten way of the Church trod by so many ages of Divines and follow a peculiar tracke of our private fancy leading to the-by wayes of heresy and schisme God in his just judgement making all the travel and throwes of our braine abortive like those untimely miscarriages of the wombe not
good opinion of good men The righteous shall have hope in his death Prov. 14. 32. i. e. hope for himself in another world and hope of his posteritie in this world for saith hee hee leaveth an inheritance to his children's children Prov. 13. 22. i. e. an inheritance out of which he hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountiful part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from all claims and incumbrances upon his children's children The righteous is merciful and lendeth Psal 37. 26. merciful as his Father is merciful in perpetual not in transitorie endowments for God did not set up his lights his Sun and Moon for a day but for ever and such should our light our good works be He is mercifull and lendeth To whom for to the poor he giveth he looks for no return from them yet he lendeth he that hath pitie on the poor lendeth to the Lord Prov. 19. 17. The righteous is merciful and lendeth and then as David adds his seed is blessed blessed in this which follows there that he shall inherit the land and dwell therein for ever which he ratifies again Surely he shall not bee removed for ever i. e. he shall never be moved in his posteritie Secondly as he is blessed that way blessed in the establishment of his possession upon his childrens children so he is blessed in this that his honor and good name shall be powred out as a fragrant oyl upon his posteritie The righteous shall bee had in everlasting remembrance Psal 112. 6. Their memorie shall bee alwaies alive and alwaies fresh in their posteritie when the name of the wicked shall rot So then the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life Prov. 11. 30. i. e. the righteous shall produce plants that shal grow up and flourish so his posteritie shall bee a tree of life to many generations The other interpretation of everlasting habitations is in regard of your everlasting reward in the next world but before I speak of your reward in the next world I will speak a word or two of your reward in this world and shew you how God will reward you with grace in this world before he rewards you with glorie in the next by giving you the grace to use those temporal blessings which he hath given you to his glorie here and to your glorie both here and hereafter which shall bee cleared to you from Mat. 5. 16. Let your light so shine c. Your Father is not meant here as if men should glorifie God as the common Father of all by Creation nor as he is the Father of some in a more particular consideration in giving them large portions great patrimonies in this world for thus he may be my Father and yet dis-inherit me he may give me plentie of temporal blessings and withold from me spiritual and eternal blessings These are not the Paternities of the Text that men should glorifie God as the Father of all men by Creation nor as the Father of all rich men by their large patrimonies but as he is your Father as hee is made yours as he is becom yours by that particular grace of using the temporal blessings which he hath given you to his glory In letting your light shine before men Upon which our first doctrinal Observation shall bee That it were better God disinherited us so as to give us nothing then that he gave us not the grace to use that that hee gave us well Without this all his bread were stones all his fishes serpents all his temporall liberality and blessings a meer malediction and curse How much happier had that man been that hath wasted thousands in play in riot in wantonnesse in sinfull excesses if his parents had left him no more at first then he hath left himselfe at last how much neerer to the Kingdome of heaven had he been if he had been born a beggar here Nay though he have done no ill of such excessive kindes how much happier had he been if he had had nothing left him if he have don no good The second Observation in this particular shall bee That 't is a fearful thing for rich men not to use their riches for God's glorie There cannot be a more fearefull commination upon man nor a more dangerous dereliction from God then when God saies Psal 50 8 12. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices Though thou offer none I care not I 'le never tell thee of it nor reprove thee for it I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices And when he saith as he does there If I be hungry I will not tell thee I will not awake thy charity I will not excite thee nor provoke thee with any occasion of feeding me in feeding the poor When God shall say to thee I care not whether you come to Church or no whether you pray or noe repent or no confesse receive or no this is a fearefull dereliction so it is when he saith to a rich man I care not whether your light shine out or no whether men see your good workes or no I can provide for my Glory otherwise For certainly God hath not determined his glory and his purpose so much in that to make some men rich that the poore might be releeved for that ends in a bodily releife as in this that he hath made some men poor whereby the rich might have occasion to exercise their charity for that riches to spirituall happiness For which use the poor do not so much need the rich as the rich need the poore the poor may better be saved without the rich then the rich without the poore But when men shall see that that God who is the Father of us all by creating us and the Father of all the rich by enriching them is also become your Father yours by adoption yours by infusion of that particular grace to do good with your goods then are you made blessed instruments to that which God seekes here his glory they shall glorifie your father which is in heaven and then your Father which is in heaven will glorify you Herein is my Father glorified saith Christ John 15. 8. that ye beare much fruit The seed sowed in good ground bore some a Hundred fold the least Thirty Marke 4. 20. The seed in this case is the example that is before you of those good men whose life hath shined out so that you have seen their good workes Let this seede these good examples bring forth Hundreds and Sixties and Thirties in you much fruit for herein is your Father glorified that you beare much fruit Of which plentifull encrease I am afraid there is one great hindrance that passes through many of you i. e. that when your Will lies by you in which some little lamp of this light is set up something given to God in pious uses if a Ship miscarry if a
state an everlasting State and yet a state but of one day because no night shall overtake or determine it but such a day as is not of a thousand yeares which is the longest measure of any day in scripture but a thousand Millions of Millions of generations a day that hath no pridie nor postridie yesterday doth not usher it in nor to morrow shall not drive it out Methusalem with all his hundreds of yeares Gen. 5. Was but a mushrom of a nights growth to this day And all the foure Monarchies with all their thousands of years and all the powerful Kings and all the bueatiful Queenes of the world were but a bed of flowers some gathered at six some at seven some at eight all in one morning in respect of this day In all the two thousand years of nature before the law given by Moses and the two thousand years of law before the Gospel given by Christ and the too thousand years of grace which are runnig now of which last hour we have heard three quarters strike already more then sixteen hundred of this last two thousand spent in all this six thousand and in all those which God may be pleased to add in this house of his Fathers in heaven there was never heard quarter-clock to strike never seen minute glass to run No time lesse then it's self would serve to express this time which is intended in this word mansions which is also exalted with another beam a fourth beam of comfort that they are also many in my Fathers house are many mansions In which circumstance we do consider the comfort of our society and conversation in heaven since society and conversation is noe great element and ingredient into the comfort which we have in this world First we shall have an association with Christ himself for where he is it is his promise that we also shall be John 14. Secondly we shall have an association with the Angels and such an one as we shall be such as they Thirdly we shall have an association with the Saints and not onely to be such as they but to be they and to be with all those who come from the East c. Mat. 9. 11. Where we shall be so far from being enemies to one another as that we shall not be strangers to one another so far from envying one another as that all that every one hath shall be every others possession where all Souls shal be so entirely knit together as if there were but one Soul and God so entirely knit to every Soul as if there were as many Gods as Souls And this is that glimpse of the eternal life I promised you a meer cursorie sight and view of those everlasting habitations and mansions in the Text and here as I have given you a glimpse of the comforts so let me beg leave of your patience to present you with a taste of the joyes of heaven likewise and it shall be a taste most properly so called For it shall be but of one drop of the Fountain of life I meane that drop which Dives in Hel desired to coole his tongue with which must not be so understood as if the paines of hell were so small that they might be quenched by one drop of water but rather thus that one drop of water where Abraham and Lazarus are is of that infinite virtue as could it be but drop'd into the pains of hell it would quench them all Now the greatness of these joies may be comprehended both by the fulnesse of the objects in heaven and also the fulness of our enjoiying the objects there The objects in heaven are many but the summe of all is God whom we shall see face to face and in him all that is good and joifull for as looking in a glasse wee see the glasse our selves and most things that are in the room about it so in the glasse of the blessed Trinitie we shall by the Beatifical Vision see the glorie of that Trinitie our selves an our own glorie and all the Angels Saints and pleasures that are about that Trinitie And as our joy shall be full in regard of the fulnesse of the object so it shall be full too in regard of our fulnesse of enjoying that object Wee shall feel this joy with all the powers and faculties of our souls ever beholding though alwaies satisfied and ever drinking yet still thirsting not with any thirst of drinesse but with a thirst of desire after that water of life those rivers of joy which are said Psal 46. 4. to make glad the citie of the Lord. And thus as I have given you a taste of these joies from the Scriptures drop of water so now should I give you all those rivers of Rhetorical expressions should I open all the flood-gates of Oratorie with which the Primitive Doctors of the Church have endeavored to expresse those joies all would prove but as one drop of water in respect of the infinite ocean of those joies And this may appear from that storie of Saint Augustine concerning Saint Jerome of whom Saint Augustine saith quae Hieronimus nescivit nullus hominum unquam scivit that that S. Jerome knew not no man ever knew and S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to Saint Augustine in magnifying Saint Jerome that when a Catholick Priest disputed with an Heretick and cited a passage of Saint Jerome and the Heretick said Jerome lied instantly he was struck dumb Yet of this last and everlasting joy and glorie of Heaven in the fruition of God Saint Jerome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was divested of his mortal bodie dead for as soon as he died at Bethlem hee came instantly to Hippo Saint Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soul of that Jerome to whom thou art now writing about the joies and glorie of heaven yet hee said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevâ— immittere vascule totum mare Can'st thou hope to pour the whole sea into a thimble or take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is casier then to comprehend the joy and â—he glorie of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then that semper in 1 Thes 4. 17. that we shall be with God for ever For this eternity this everlastingness is not onely incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally no not in heaven and all knowledge in heaven is experimentall as all knowledge in this world is causal we know a thing if we know the cause thereof so the knowledge in heaven is effectuall experimentall we know it because we have found it to be so The endowments of the blessed those which the school calls dotes beatorum are ordinarily delivered to be these three visio dilectio fruitio the sight of God the love of God and the
fruition the enjoying the possessing of God Now as no man can know what it is to see God in heaven but by experimental and actual seeing of him there nor what it is to love God there but by such an actual and experimental love of him nor what it is to enjoy and possesse God but by an actual enjoying and experimental possessing of him so can no man tell what the eternity and everlastingnesse of all these is till he hath passed through that eternity and that everlastingnesse and that he can never do For if it could be passed through then it were not eternity How barren a thing is Arithmetick and yet Arithmetick will tell you how many graines of sand will fill this hollow vault to the firmament How empty a thing is Rhetorick and yet Rhetorick will make absent and remote things present to your understanding How weake a thing is Poetry and yet Poetry is a counterfeit creation and makes things which are not as though they were how infirme how impotent are all assisttances if they be put to expresse this eternity The best help that I can assigne you is to use well aeternum vestrum your own as Saint Gregory cals our whole course of this life aetâ—rnum nostrum our eternity aequum est ut qui in aeterno suo pecaverit in aeterno deâ— puniatur saith he it is but justice that he that hath sinned out his own eternity should suffer out Gods eternity So if you suffer out your own eternity in submitting your selves to God in the whole course of your life in surrendering your will entirely to his and glorifying him in a constant patience under all your tribulations it is a righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble you and to you which are troubled rest with us 2 Thess 1. 6. And thus much shall suffice for the joies of these eternal habitations The third and fourth particulars that I mentioned before to illustrate these ever lasting habitations in the text are the sight and the knowledg which the Saints shall have of the blessed Trinitie there And both these are held out unto us in that single text of the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 12. For now we see through a glasse darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as I also am known Now as for the sight of God here our theater is the world our Medium and Glasse is the creature our light is reason and as for our knowledg of God here our Academy is the Church our Medium the Ordinances of the Church and our light the light of Faith so we may consider the same termes First for the sight of God and then for the knowledg of God in the next life First the spheare the place where we shal see him is Heaven He that asks me what heaven is means not to heare me but silence me he knows I cannot tell him When I meet him there I shall be able to tell him then he will be as able to tell me yet then we shall be but able to tell one another this that we enjoy is heaven but the tongue of Angels the tongue of gloried Saints shall not be able to expresse what that heaven is for even in heaven our faculties shall be finite Heaven is not a place that was created for al places that were created shall be dissolved God did not Plant a Paradice for himselfe remove to that as he planted a Paradice for Adam and removed him to that But God is still where he was before the World was made And in that place where there are more Sunns then there are Stars in the firmament for all the Saints are sunnes and more light inanother sun the Son of righteousnesse the Son of glory the Son of God then in all them in that illustration in that emanation that effusion of beames of Glory which began not to shine six Thousand yeares agoe but six Thousand millions of millions agoe and had been six thousand millions of millions before that in those eternall in those uncreated heavensshall we see God This is our sphear and that which we are fain to call our place And then our Medium our way to see them is Patefactio sui Gods laying himselfe open his manifestation his revelation his evisceration and unbowelling of himselfe to us there Doth God never afford this manifestation of himself in his essence to any in this life We cannot answer yea nor no without offending a great part in the School There are that say that it is fere de Fide little lesse then an Article of Faith that it hath been so And Aquinas denies it so absolutely as that his followers interpret him De absoluta potentia that God by his absolute power cannot make a man remaining a mortall man and under the definition of a mortall man capable of seeing his essence As we may truly say that God cannot make a beast remaining in that nature capable of grace or Glory Now as 't is fairly argued that Christ suffred not the very torments of very hel becaus t is essential to the torments of hel to be eternal they were not torments of hel if they received an end So it 's fairly argued too that neither Adam in his extasy in Paradise nor Moses in his conversation in the mount nor the other Apostles in the transfiguration of Christ nor Saint Paul in his rapture to the third heavens saw the essence of God because he that is admitted to the sight of God can never look off nor lose that sight again Onely in heaven shall God proceed to this patefaction this manifestation this revelation of himselfe and that by the light of Glory The light of Glory is such a light as that our Schoolemen dare not say confidently that every beam of it is not all of it For as the essence of God is indivisible he that sees any of it sees al of it so is the light of glory communicated entirely to every blessed soul To this light of glory the light of honour is but a glow-worm and majesty it self but a twilight nay that Gospel its self which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel is but a star of the least magnitude And if I cannot tell what to call this light by which I shal see it what shal I cal that which I shal see by it the essence of God himself and yet there is something else then this fight of God intended in that which remaines I shal not onely see God face to face but I shall know him and know him even as I also am known In this consideration God alone is all in all the former there was a place and a meanes and a light here for this perfect knowledge of God God is all those Then saith the Apostle God shall be all in all 1 Cor. 15. 28. Here God doth all in all but here he doth all by instruments