first end of letting our light to shine before men is that they may know Gods proceedings but the last end to which all conduces is that God may have glory Whatsoever God did first in his own bosome in his own decree what that was contentious men will needs wrangle whatsoever that first act was Gods last end in that first act of his was his own glory And therefore to impute any inglorious or ignoble thing to God comes too neare blasphemy And be any man who hath any sense or taste of noblenesse or honour judge whether there be any glory in the destruction of those creatures whom they have raised till those persons have deserved ill at their hands and in some way have damnified them or dishonoured them Nor can God propose that for glory to destroy man till he finde cause in man Now this glory to which Christ bends all in this Text that men by seeing your good works might glorifie your Father consists especially in these two declarations Commemoration and Imitation a due celebration of former founders and benefactors and a pious proceeding according to such precedents is this glorifying of God When God calls himself so often The God of Abraham of Isaac and of Iacob Gloria ex Commemoratione Ezech. 14.14 God would have the world remember that Abraham Isaac and Iacob were extraordinary men memorable men When God sayes Though these three men Noah Daniel and Iob were here they should not deliver this people God would have it knowne that Noah Daniel and Iob were memorable men and able to doe much with him When the Holy Ghost is so carefull to give men their additions Gen. 4.20 That Iabal was the father of such as dwell in Tents keep Cattell Iubal the father of Harpers and Organists and Tubal-Cain of all Gravers in Brasse and Iron And when he presents with so many particularities every peece of worke that Hiram of Tyre wrought in Brasse for the furnishing of Solomons Temple 1 Reg. 7.13 God certainly is not afraid that his honour will be diminished in the honourable mentioning of such men as have benefited the world by publique good works The wise man seemes to settle himselfe upon that meditation let us now praise famous men sayes he Ecclus. 44.1 and our fathers that begot us and so he institutes a solemne commemoration and gives a catalogue of Enoch and Abraham and Moses and Aaron and so many more as possesse six Chapters nor doth he ever end the meditation till he end his booke so was he fixt upon the commemoration of good men Heb. 11. as S. Paul likewise feeds and delights himselfe in the like meditation even from Abel It is therefore a wretched impotency not to endure the commemoration and honourable mentioning of our Founders and Benefactors God hath delivered us and our Church from those straights in which some Churches of the Reformation have thought themselves to be when they have made Canons That there should be no Bell rung no dole given no mention made of the dead at any Funerall lest that should savour of superstition The Holy Ghost hath taught us the difference between praising the dead and praying for the dead betweene commemorating of Saints and invocating of Saints We understand what David meanes when he sayes This honour have all his Saints and what S. Paul meanes Psal 149.9 1 Tim. 1.17 when he sayes Vnto the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever God is honoured in due honour given to his Saints and glorified in the commemoration of those good men whose light hath so shined out before men that they have seen their good workes But then he is glorified more in our imitation then in our commemoration Herein is my Father glorified sayes Christ that ye beare much fruit Gloria ex Imitatione Iohn 15.8 Mar. 4.20 The seed sowed in good ground bore some an hundred fold the least thirty The seed in this case is the example that is before you of those good men whose light hath shined out so that you have seene their good workes Let this seed 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 hinderance that passes through many of you that is that when your Will lyes 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 Debtor break if your state be any way empaired the first that suffers the first that is blotted out of the Will is God and his Legacy and if your estates encrease portions encrease and perchance other legacies but Gods portion and legacy stands at a stay Christ left two uses of his passion application and imitation He suffered for us 1 Pet. 2.22 sayes the Apostle for us that is that we might make his death ours apply his death and then as it follows there he left us an example So Christ gives us two uses of the Reformation of Religion first the doctrine how to doe good works without relying upon them as meritorious and then example many very many men and more by much in some kindes of charity since the Reformation of Religion then before even in this City whose light hath shined out before you and you have seen their good works That as this noble City hath justly acquired the reputation and the testimony of all who have had occasion to consider their dealings in that kinde that they deale most faithfully most justly most providently in all things which are committed to their trust for pious uses from others not only in a full employment of that which was given but in an improvement thereof and then an employment of that emprovement to the same pious use so every man in his particular may propose to himselfe some of those blessed examples which have risen amongst your selves and follow that and exceed that That as your lights are Torches and not petty Candles and your Torches better then others Torches so he also may be a larger example to others then others have been to him for Herein is your Father glorified if you beare much fruit and that is the end of all that we all doe That men seeing it may glorifie our Father which is in heaven SERMON IX Preached upon Candlemas day ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues The Text being part of the Epistle of that day that yeare THe largenesse of this short Text consists in that word Therefore therefore because you have been so particularly taught your particular duties therefore perform them therefore practise them Reddite omnibus debita Render therefore to every man his due The Philosopher might seem to have contracted as large a law into a few words in his suum cuique as the Holy Ghost had done in his Reddite
world immediatly after a pardon received and reconciliation sealed to him for all his sins No doubt but he shall have a good Resurrection But then we cannot doubt neither but that to him that hath been carefull in all his wayes and yet crost in all his wayes to him whose daily bread hath been affliction and yet is satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse with that bread of affliction and not only contented in but glad of that affliction no doubt but to him is reserved a Better Resurrection Every Resurrection is more then we can think but this is more then that more Almighty God inform us and reveale unto us what this Better Resurrection is by possessing us of it And make the hastening to it one degree of addition in it Come Lord Jesus come quickly to the consummation of that Kingdome which thou hast purchased for us with inestimable price of thine incorruptible blood Amen SERMON XXIII Preached at S. Pauls for Easter-day 1628. 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a Glasse darkly But then face to sace Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne THese two termes in our Text Nunc and Tunc Now and Then Now in a glasse Then face to face Now in part Then in perfection these two secular termes of which one designes the whole Age of this world from the Creation to the dissolution thereof for all that is comprehended in this word Now And the other designes the everlastingnesse of the next world for that incomprehensiblenesse is comprehended in the other word Then These two words that design two such Ages are now met in one Day in this Day in which we celebrate all Resurrections in the roote in the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus blessed for ever For the first Term Now Now in a glasse now in part is intended most especially of that very act which we do now at this present that is of the Ministery of the Gospell of declaring God in his Ordinance of Preaching his word Now in this Ministery of his Gospell we see in a glasse we know in part And then the Then the time of seeing face to face and knowing as we are knowne is intended of that time which we celebrate this day the day of Resurrection the day of Judgement the day of the actuall possession of the next life So that this day this whole Scripture is fulfilled in your eares for now now in this Preaching you have some sight and then Then when that day comes which in the first roote thereof we celebrate this day you shall have a perfect sight of all Now we see through a glasse c. That therefore you may the better know him Divisio when you come to see him face to face then by having seen him in a glasse now and that your seeing him now in his Ordinance may prepare you to see him then in his Essence proceed we thus in the handling of these words First That there is nothing brought into comparison into consideration nothing put into the balance but the sight of God the knowledge of God It is not called a better sight nor a better knowledge but there is no other sight no other knowledge proposed or mentioned or intimated or imagined but this All other sight is blindnesse all other knowledge is ignorance And then we shall see how there is a twofold sight of God and a twofold knowledge of God proposed to us here A sight and a knowledge here in this life and another manner of sight and another manner of knowledge in the life to come For here we see God In speculo in a glasse that is by reflexion And here we know God In aenigmate sayes our Text Darkly so we translate it that is by obscure representations and therefore it is called a Knowledge but in part But in heaven our sight is face to face And our knowledge is to know as we are knowne For our sight of God here our Theatre the place where we sit and see him is the whole world the whole house and frame of nature and our medium our glasse is the Booke of Creatures and our light by which we see him is the light of Naturall Reason And then for our knowledge of God here our Place our Academy our University is the Church our medium is the Ordinance of God in his Church Preaching and Sacraments and our light is the light of faith Thus we shall finde it to be for our sight and for our knowledge of God here But for our sight of God in heaven our place our Spheare is heaven it selfe our medium is the Patefaction the Manifestation the Revelation of God himselfe and our light is the light of Glory And then for our knowledge of God there God himself is All God himself is the place we see Him in Him God is our medium we see Him by him God is our light not a light which is His but a light which is He not a light which flowes from him no nor a light which is in him but that light which is He himself Lighten our darknesse we beseech thee O Lord O Father of lights that in thy light we may see light that now we see this through this thy glasse thine Ordinance and by the good of this hereafter face to face The sight is so much the Noblest of all the senses as that it is all the senses Visio As the reasonable soul of man when it enters becomes all the soul of man and he hath no longer a vegetative and a sensitive soul but all is that one reasonable soul so sayes S. Aug. and he exemplifies it by severall pregnant places of Scripture Visus per omnes sensus recurrit Aug. All the senses are called Seeing as there is videre audire S. Iohn turned to see the sound Apoc. 1. Psal 34.9 and there is Gustate videte Taste and see how sweet the Lord is And so of the rest of the senses all is sight Employ then this noblest sense upon the noblest object see God see God in every thing and then thou needst not take off thine eye from Beauty from Riches from Honour from any thing S. Paul speaks here of a diverse seeing of God Of seeing God in a glasse and seeing God face to face but of not seeing God at all the Apostle speaks not at all When Christ tooke the blinde man by the hand Mark 8.23 though he had then begun his cure upon him yet hee asked him if hee saw ought Something he was sure he saw but it was a question whether it were to be called a sight for he saw men but as trees The naturall man sees Beauty and Riches and Honour but yet it is a question whether he sees them or no because he sees them but as a snare But he that sees God in them sees them to be beames and evidences of that Beauty
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
was a good King for all that Achaz is called ill both because himselfe sacrificed Idolatrously And the King was a commanding person And because he made the Priest Vriah to doe so And the Priest was an exemplar person And because he made his Son commit the abominations of the heathen And the actions of the Kings Son pierce far in leading others Achaz had these faults and yet God fought occasion of mercy If the evening skie be red Mat. 16.2 you promise your selves a faire day sayes Christ you would not doe so if the evening were black and cloudy when you see the fields white with corne you say harvest is ready Joh. 4.35 Esay 1.19 you would not doe so if they were white with frost If ye consent and obey you shall eat the good things of the Land sayes God in the Prophet shall ye doe so if you refuse and rebell Achaz did and yet God sought occasion of mercy There arise diseases for which there is no probatum est in all the bookes of Physitians There is scarce any sin of which we have not had experiments of Gods mercies He concludes with no sin excludes no occasion precludes no person And so we have done with our first part Gods generall disposition for the Rule declared in Achaz case for the example Our second part consists of a Rule and an Example too 2 Part. The Rule That God goes forward in his own wayes proceeds as he begun in mercy The Example what his proceeding what his subsequent mercy to Achaz was One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks of God is a Circle and a Circle is endlesse whom God loves hee loves to the end and not onely to their own end to their death but to his end and his end is that he might love them still His hailestones and his thunder-bolts and his showres of bloud emblemes and instruments of his Judgements fall downe in a direct line and affect and strike some one person or place His Sun and Moone and Starres Emblemes and Instruments of his Blessings move circularly and communicate themselves to all His Church is his chariot in that he moves more gloriously then in the Sun as much more as his begotten Son exceeds his created Sun and his Son of glory and of his right hand the Sun of the firmament and this Church his chariot moves in that communicable motion circularly It began in the East it came to us and is passing now shining out now in the farthest West As the Sun does not set to any Nation but withdraw it selfe and returne againe God in the exercise of his mercy does not set to thy soule though he benight it with an affliction Remember that our Saviour Christ himselfe in many actions and passions of our humane nature and infirmities smothered that Divinity and suffered it not to worke but yet it was alwayes in him and wrought most powerfully in the deepest danger when he was absolutely dead it raised him again If Christ slumbred the God-head in himselfe The mercy of God may be slumbred it may be hidden from his servants but it cannot be taken away and in the greatest necessities it shall break out The Blessed Virgin was overshadowed but it was with the Holy Ghost that overshadowed her Thine understanding thy conscience may be so too and yet it may be the work of the Holy Ghost who moves in thy darknesse and will bring light even out of that knowledge out of thine ignorance clearnesse out of thy scruples and consolation out of thy Dejection of Spirit God is thy portion sayes David David does not speak so narrowly so penuriously as to say God hath given thee thy portion and thou must look for no more but God is thy portion and as long as he is God he hath more to give and as long as thou art his thou hast more to receive Thou canst not have so good a Title to a subsequent blessing as a former blessing where thou art an ancient tenant thou wilt look to be preferred before a stranger and that is thy title to Gods future mercies if thou have been formerly accustomed to them The Sun is not weary with sixe thousand yeares shining God cannot be weary of doing good And therefore never say God hath given me these and these temporall things and I have scattered them wastfully surely he will give me no more These and these spirituall graces and I have neglected them abused them surely he will give me no more For for things created we have instruments to measure them we know the compasse of a Meridian and the depth of a Diameter of the Earth and we know this even of the uppermost spheare in the heavens But when we come to the Throne of God himselfe the Orbe of the Saints and Angels that see his face and the vertues and powers that flow from thence we have no balance to weigh them no instruments to measure them no hearts to conceive them So for temporall things we know the most that man can have for we know all the world but for Gods mercy and his spirituall graces as that language in which God spake the Hebrew hath no superlative so that which he promises in all that he hath spoken his mercy hath no superlative he shewes no mercy which you can call his Greatest Mercy his Mercy is never at the highest whatsoever he hath done for thy soule or for any other in applying himselfe to it he can exceed that Onely he can raise a Tower whose top shall reach to heaven The Basis of the highest building is but the Earth But though thou be but a Tabernacle of Earth God shall raise thee peece by peece into a spirituall building And after one Story of Creation and another of Vocation and another of Sanctification he shall bring thee up to meet thy selfe in the bosome of thy God where thou wast at first in an eternall election God is a circle himselfe and he will make thee one Goe not thou about to square eyther circle to bring that which is equall in it selfe to Angles and Corners into dark and sad suspicions of God or of thy selfe that God can give or that thou canst receive no more Mercy then thou hast had already This then is the course of Gods mercy Signum He proceeds as he begun which was the first branch of this second part It is alwayes in motion and alwayes moving towards All alwaies perpendicular right over every one of us and alwayes circular alwayes communicable to all And then the particular beame of this Mercy shed upon Achaz here in our Text is Dabit signum The Lord shall give you a signe It is a great Degree of Mercy that he affords us signes A naturall man is not made of Reason alone but of Reason and Sense A Regenerate man is not made of Faith alone but of Faith and Reason and Signes externall things assist us all In the Creation it was part of
they have not those sins These are great possessions and men do much more easily part with Christ then with these sins But then there are lesse sins light sins vanities and yet even these come to possesse us and separate us from Christ How many men negiect this ordinary meanes of their Salvation the comming to these Exercises not because their undoing lyes on it or their discountenancing but meerely out of levity of vanity of nothing they know not what to do else and yet do not this You heare of one man that was drowned in a vessell of Wine but how many thousands in ordinary water And he was no more drowned in that precious liquor then they in that common water A gad of steele does no more choake a man then a feather then a haire Men perish with whispering sins nay with silent sins sins that never tell the conscience they are sins as often as with crying sins And in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin as many who in a slack in consideration never cast a thought upon that place as that by searing their conscience overcame the sense and feare of the place Great sins are great possessions but levities and vanities possesse us too and men had rather part with Christ then with any possessions which is all we will note out of this first part The Context the situation and prospect of the house the coherence and connexion of the Text. The second part 2 Part. Pretext is the pretext that is the pretense the purpose the disposition of him that moved this question to Christ and occasioned this answer Upon which we make this stop because it hath been variously apprehended by the Expositors for some think he came in an humble disposition to learn of Christ and others think he came in a Pharisaicall confidence in himself with which Epiphanius first and then S. Ierome charge him But in such doubtful cases in other mens actions when it appeares not evidently whether it were well or ill done where the balance is eaven alwayes put you in your charity and that will turne the scale the best way Things which are in themselves but mis-interpretable doe not you presently mis-interpret you allow some graines to your gold before you call it light allow some infirmities to any man before you call him ill For this man in the Text venit sayes this Euangelist he came to Christ he came of himselfe S. Peter himself came not so S. Peter came not till his brother Andrew brought him none of the twelve Apostles came to Christ so they came not till Christ called them Here we heare of no calling no inviting no mention of any motion towards him no intimation of any intimation to him and yet he came Blessed are they that come to Christ Jesus before any collaterall respects draw them before the Laws compell them before calamities drive them to him He onely comes hither that comes voluntarily and is glad he is here He that comes so as that he had rather he were away is not here Venit sayes our Euangelist of this man And then sayes S. Mark Mark 10.17 handling the same story Venit procurrens He came running nicodemus came not so Nicodemus durst not avow his comming and therefore he came creeping and he came softly and he came seldome and he came by night Blessed are they who make haste to Christ and publish their zeale to the encouragement of others For let no man promise himself a religious constancy in the time of his triall that doth not his part in establishing the religious constancy of other men Of all proofes Demonstration is the powerfullest when I have just reason to think my superious would have it thus this is Musique to my soul When I heare them say they would have it thus this is Rhetorique to my soule When I see their Laws enjoyne it to be thus this is Logick to my soul but when I see them actually really clearely constantly do thus this is a Demonstration to my soule and Demonstration is the powerfullest proofe The eloquence of inferiours is in words the eloquence of superiours is in action He came to Christ hee ran to him and when he was come as S. Mark relates it He fell upon his knees to Christ He stood not then Pharisaically upon his own legs his own merits though he had been a diligent observer of the Commandements before Blessed are they who bring the testimony of a forme zeale to Gods service and yet make that no excuse for their present or future slacknesst The benefit of our former goodnesse is that that enables us to be the better still for as all example is powerfull upon us so our own example most of all in this case we are most immediately bound by ourselves still to be so good as we our selves have been before There was a time when I was nothing but there shall never be any time when I shall be nothing and therefore I am most to respect the future The good services that a man hath done to God by pen or sword are wings and they exalt him if he would go forward but they are waights and depresse him and aggravate his condemnation if his presumption upon the merit of those former services retard him for the future This man had done well but he stood not upon that he kneeled to Christ and he said to him Magister bone Good master He was no ignorant man and yet he acknowledged that he had somewhat more to learn of Christ then he knew yet Blessed are they that inanimate all their knowledge consummate all in Christ Jesus The University is a Paradise Rivers of knowledge are there Arts and Sciences flow from thence Counsell Tables are Horti conclusi as it is said in the Canticles Gardens that are walled in and they are Fontes signati Wells that are sealed up bottomlesse depths of unsearchable Counsels there But those Aquae quietudinum which the Prophet speaks of The waters of rest they flow à magistro bono from this good master and flow into him again All knowledge that begins not and ends not with his glory is but a giddy but a vertiginous circle but an elaborate and exquisite ignorance He would learn of him and what Quid boni faciam What good thing shall I do Blessed are they that bring their knowledge into practise and blessed again that crown their former practise with future perseverance This was his disposition that came His though he were a youn man for so he is said to be in the 22. ver and yong men are not ofter so forward in such wayes I remember one of the Panegyriques celebrates magnifies one of the Romane Emperors for is that he would marry when he was yong that he would so soon confine and limit his pleasures so soon determine his affections in one person When
walk by faith and not by sight we are absent from the Lord. 2 Cor. 5.6 Faith is a blessed presence but compared with heavenly vision it is but an absence though it create and constitute in us a possibility a probability a kinde of certainty of salvation yet that faith which the best Christian hath is not so far beyond that sight of God which the naturall man hath as that sight of God which I shall have in heaven is above that faith which we have now in the highest exaltation Therefore there belongs a consideration to that which is added by our Apostle here That the knowledge which I have of God here even by faith through the ordinances of the Church is but a knowledge in part Now I know in part That which we call in part the Syriack translates Modicum ex multis Ex parte Though we know by faith yet for all that faith it is but a little of a great deale that we know yet because though faith be good evidence yet faith is but the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11.1 And there is better evidence of them when they are seen For if we consider the object we cannot beleeve so much of God nor of our happinesse in him as we shall see then For when it is said that the heart comprehends it not certainly faith comprehends it not neither And if we consider the manner faith it self is but darknesse in respect of the vision of God in heaven For those words of the Prophet I will search Ierusalem with Candles are spoken of the times of the Christian Church Zeph. 1.12 and of the best men in the Christian Church yet they shall be searched with Candles some darknesse shall be found in them To the Galatians well instructed and well established Gal. 4.9 the Apostle sayes Now after ye have knowen God or rather are knowen of God The best knowledge that we have of God here even by faith is rather that he knows us then that we know him And in this Text it is in his own person that the Apostle puts the instance Now I I an Apostle taught by Christ himselfe know but in part And therefore as S. Augustine saith Sunt quasi cunabula charitatis Dei quibus diligimus proximum The love which we beare to our neighbour is but as the Infancy but as the Cradle of that love which we beare to God so that sight of God which we have In speculo in the Glasse that is in nature is but Cunabula fidei but the infancy but the cradle of that knowledge which we have in faith and yet that knowledge which we have in faith is but Cunabula visionis the infancy and cradle of that knowledge which we shall have when we come to see God face to face Faith is infinitely above nature infinitely above works even above those works which faith it self produces as parents are to children the tree to the fruit But yet faith is as much below vision and seeing God face to face And therefore though we ascribe willingly to faith more then we can expresse yet let no man think himself so infallibly safe because he finds that he beleeves in God as he shall be when he sees God The faithfullest man in the Church must say Domine adauge Lord increase my faith He that is least in the kingdome of heaven shal never be put to that All the world is but Speculum a glasse in which we see God The Church it self and that which the Ordinance of the Church begets in us faith it self is but aenigma a dark representation of God to us till we come to that state To see God face to face and to know as also we are knowen Now Calum Sphaera as for the sight of God here our Theatre was the world our Medium and glasse was the creature and our light was reason And then for our knowledge of God here our Academy was the Church our Medium the Ordinances of the Church and our Light the light of faith so we consider the same Termes first for the sight of God and then for the knowledge of God in the next life First the Sphear the place where we shall see him is heaven He that asks me what heaven is meanes not to heare me but to silence me He knows I cannot tell him When I meet him there I shall be able to tell him and then he will be as able to tell me yet then we shall be but able to tell one another This this that we enjoy is heaven but the tongues of Angels the tongues of glorified 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 all place that was created shall be dissolved God did not plant a Paradise for himself and remove to that as he planted a Paradise 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 Suns then there are Stars in the Firmament for all the Saints are Suns And more light in another Sun The Sun of righteousnesse the Son of Glory the Son of God then in all them in that illustration that emanation that effusion of beams of glory which began not to shine 6000. yeares ago but 6000. millions of millions ago had been 6000. millions of millions before that in those eternall in those uncreated heavens shall we see God This is our Spheare Medium Revelatio sui and that which we are fain to call our place and then our Medium our way to see him is Patefactio sui Gods laying himself open his manifestation his revelation his evisceration and embowelling of himselfe to us there Doth God never afford this patefaction 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 Schoole so many affirm so many deny that God hath been seen in his Essence in this life There are that say That it is fere de fide little lesse then an article of faith that it hath been done 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 S. Augustine speaking of discourses that passed between his mother and him not long before her death sayes Perambulavimus cuncta mortalia ipsum coelum We talked our selves above this earth and above all the heavens Venimus in mentes nostras transcendimus eas We came to the consideration of our owne mindes and our owne soules and we got above our own soules that is to
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
see he did in the Councell of Nice when after many disputations amongst the great Men of great estimation the weakest Man in the Councell rose up and he o◠whom his owne party were afraid lest his discourse should disadvantage the cause overthrew and converted that great Advocate and defender of Arius whom all the rest could never shake for though this man said no more then other men had said yet God at this time disposed the understanding and the abilities of the Adversaries otherwise then before sometimes God will have glory in arming his friends sometimes in disarming his enemies sometimes in exalting our abilities and sometimes in evacuating or enfeebling theirs And so as the Apostles were as many of us as celebrate this day as they did are filled with the Holy Ghost that is with so much knowledge as is necessary to Gods purpose in us Enough for our selves if we be private men and enough for others if wee have charge of others private men shall have knowledge enough where to seeke for more and the Priest shall have enough to communicate his knowledge to others And though this knowledge were delivered to the Apostles as from a print from a stampe all at once and to us but as by writing letter after letter syllable after syllable by Catechismes chismes and Sermons yet both are such knowledges as are sufficient for each As the glory of heaven shall fall upon us all and though we be not all of equall measure and capacity yet we shall be equally full of that glory so the way to that glory this knowledge shall be manifest to us all and infallible to us all though we do not all know alike The simplest soul that heares me shall know the way of his salvation as well as the greatest of those Fathers whom he heares me cite And upon us all so disposed the holy Ghost shall fall as he did here in fire and In tongues In fire to inflame us in a religious zeal and in Tongues to utter that in confession and in profession that is to glorifie God both in our words and in our actions This then is our portion in this Legacy A sober seeking after those points of knowledge which are necessary for our salvation and these in this text Christ derived into these three That I am in my Father That you are in me That I am in you The first of these is the knowledge of distinction of persons and so of the Trinity Ego in Paetre Trinitas Principale munus scientiae est cognoscere Trinitatem saith Origen The principall use and office of my knowledge is to know the Trinity for to know an unity in the Godhead that there is but one God naturall reason serves our turn to know a creation of the world of nothing reason serves us too we know by reason that either neither of them is infinite if there be two Gods and then neither of them can be God or if both be infinite which is an impossibility one of them is superfluous because whatsoever is infinite can alone extend to all So also we can collect infallibly that if the world were not made of nothing yet that of which the world shall be pretended to have been made of must have been made of nothing or else it must be something eternall and untreated whatsoever is so must necessarily be God it self To be sure of those two an unity in the Godhead and a creation of the world I need no Scriptures but to know this distinction of Persons That the Son is in the Father I need the Scriptures and I need more then the Scriptures I need this Pentecost this comming this illustration of the holy Ghost to inspire a right understanding of these Scriptures into me For if this knowledge might be had without Scriptures why should not the heathen beleeve the Trinity as well as I since they lack no naturall faculties which Christians have And if the Scriptures themselves without the operation of the holy Ghost should bring this clearnesse why should not the Jews and the Arians conform themselves to this doctrine of the Trinity as well as I since they accept those Scriptures out of which I provethe Trinity to mine own cōscience We must then attend his working in us we must not admit such a vexation of spirit as either to vex our spirit or the Spirit of God by inquiring farther then he hath been pleased to reveale If you consider that Christ sayes here You shall know That I am in the Father and doth not say You shall know How I am in the Father and this to his Apostles themselves and to the Apostles after they were to be filled with the holy Ghost which should teach them all truth it will out off many perplexing questions and impertinent answers which have been produced for the expressing of the manner of this generation and of the distinction of the persons in the Trinity you shall know That it is you shall not ask How it is It is enough for a happy subject to enjoy the sweetnesse of a peaceable government though he know not Arcana Imperii The wayes by which the Prince governes So is it for a Christian to enjoy the working of Gods grace in a faithfull beleeving the mysteries of Religion though he inquire not into Gods bed-chamber nor seek into his unrevealed Decrees It is Odiosa exitialis vocula Quomodo sayes Luther A hatefull a damnable Monosyllable How How God doth this or that for if a man come to the boldnesse of proposing such a question to himself he will not give over till he finde some answer and then others will not be content with his answer but every man will have a severall one When the Church fell upon the Quomodo in the Sacrament How in what manner the body of Christ was there we see what an inconvenient answer it fell upon That it was done by Transubstantiation That satisfied not as there was no reason it should And then they fell upon others In Sub and Cum and none could none can give satisfaction And so also have our times by asking Quomodo How Christ descended into Hell produced so many answers as that some have thought it no Article at all some have thought that it is all one thing to have descended into hell and to have ascended into heaven and that it amounts to no more then a departing into the state of the dead But Servate depositum Make much of that knowledge which the holy Ghost hath trusted you withall and beleeve the rest No man knows how his soul came into him whether ther by infusion from God or by generation from Parents no man knows so but that strong arguments will be produced on the other side And yet no man doubts but he hath a soul No man knows so as that strong arguments may not be brought on the other side how he sees whether by reception of species from without or
of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
the annointing Oyle and powre it upon his head The Mitre as you may see there was upon his head then but then there was a Crowne upon the Mitre There is a power above the Priest the regall power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest 1 Sam. 10.1 24. But Unction was the Consecration of Kings too Samuel saluted Saul with a kisse and all the people shouted and sayd God save the King but Is it not sayes Samuel because the Lord hath annointed thee to be captaine over his inheritance Kings were above Priests and in extraordinary cases God raysed Prophets above Kings for there is no ordinary power above them But Unction was the Consecration of these Prophets too Elisha was annointed to be Prophet in Elias roome and such a Prophet as should have use of the Sword 1 Reg. 19.16 17. Him that scapes the Sword of Hazael Hazael was King of Syria shall the Sword of Iehu slay and him that scapes the Sword of Iehu Iehu was King of Israel shall the Sword of Elisha slay In all these in Priests who were above the people in Kings who in matter of Government were above the Priests in Prophets who in those limited cases expressed by God and for that time wherein God gave them that extraordinary employment were above Kings The Unction imprinted their Consecration they were all Christs and in them all thereby was that Nuncupatio potestatis which Lactantius mentions Unction Annointing was an addition and title of honour Psal 109. Psal 2.6 Deut. 18. Much more in our Christ who alone was all three A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek A King set upon the holy hill of Sion And a Prophet The Lord thy God will rayse up a Prophet unto him shall yee harken And besides all this threefold Unction Humanitas uncta Divinitate He had all the unctions that all the other had and this which none other had In him the Humanity was Consecrated anointed with the Divinity it selfe So then Nazian Cyrill Psal 95.7 unio unctio The hypostaticall union of the Godhead to the humane nature is his Conception made him Christ for oleo laetitia perfusus in unione Then in that union of the two natures did God annoint him with the oyle of gladnes above his fellows There was an addition something gained something to be glad of and to him as he was God The Lord so nothing could be added If he were glad above his fellows it was in that respect wherein he had fellows and as God as The Lord he had none so that still as he was made Man he became this Christ In which his being made Man if we should not consider the last and principall purpose which was to redeem man if we leave out his part yet it were object inough for our wonder and subject inough for our praise and thankesgiving to consider the dignity that the nature of man received in that union wherin this Lord was thus made this Christ for the Godhead did not swallow up the manhood but man that nature remained still The greater kingdom did not swallow the lesse but the lesse had that great addition which it had not before and retained the dignities and priviledges which it had before too Damasc Christus est nomen personae non naturae The name of Christ denotes one person but not one nature neither is Christ so composed of those two natures as a man is composed of Elements for man is thereby made a third thing and is not now any of those Elements you cannot call mans body fire or ayre or earth or water though all foure be in his composition But Christ is so made of God and Man as that he is Man still for all the glory of the Deity and God still for all the infirmity of the manhood Idem Divinum miraculis lucet humanum contumeliis afficitur In this one Christ both appear The Godhead bursts out as the Sun out of a cloud and shines forth gloriously in miracles even the raysing of the dead and the humane nature is submitted to contempt and to torment even to the admitting of death in his own bosome sed tamen ipsius sunt tum miraculae Idem tum supplicia but still both he that rayses the dead and he that dyes himself is one Christ his is the glory of the Miracles and the contempt and torment is his too This is that mysterious person who is singularis and yet not individuus singularis There never was never shall be any such but we cannot call him Individuall Idem as every other particular man is because Christitatis non est Genus there is no genus nor species of Christs it is not a name which so as the name belongs to our Christ that is by being annointed with the divine nature can be communicated to any other as the name of Man may to every Individuall Man Christ is not that Spectrum that Damascene speaks of nor that Electrum that Tertullian speakes of not Spectrum so as that the two natures should but imaginarily be united and only to amaze and astonish us that we could not tell what to call it what to make of it a spectre an apparition a phantasma for he was a Reall person Neither was he Tertullians Electrum a third metall made of two other metals but a person so made of God and Man as that in that person God and Man are in their natures still distinguished He is Germen Davidis Iere. 23.5 Isa 4.2 in one Prophet The branch the Off-spring of David And he is Germen Iehovae The Branch the Off-spring of God of the Lord in another When this Germen Davidis the Sonne of Man would do miracles then he was Germen Iehovae he reflected to that stock into which the Humanity was engrafted to his Godhead And when this Germen Iehovae the Son of God would indure humane miseries he reflected to that stock to that humanity in which he had invested and incorporated himself This person 1 Cor. 15.3 Tertul. this Christ dyed for our sins says S. Paul but says he He dyed according to the Scriptures Non sine onere pronunciat Christum mortuum The Apostle thought it a hard a heavy an incredible thing to say that this person this Christ this Man and God was dead And therefore Vt duritiam molliret scandalum auditoris everteret That he might mollifie the hardnes of that saying and defend the hearer from being scandalized with that saying Adjecit secundùm scripturas He adds this Christ is dead according to the Scriptures If the Scriptures had not told us that Christ should die and told us againe that Christ did die it were hard to conceive how this person in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily should be submitted to death But therein principally is he Christus as he was capable of dying As he was Verbum naturale and innatum
enarrabit who shall declare this carries the answer with it Nemo enarrabit No man shall declare it But a manifestation of the Beeing of the Trinity they have alwayes apprehended in these words Hic est Filius This is my beloved Son To that purpose therefore we take first the words to be expressed by this Euangelist S. Matthew as the voyce delivered them rather then as they are expressed by S. Marke and S. Luke both which have it thus Tu es Thou art my beloved Son and not Hic est This is They two being onely carefull of the sense and not of the words as it fals out often amongst the Euangelists who differ oftentimes in recording the words of Christ and of other persons But where the same voice spake the same words againe in the Transfiguration there all the Euangelists expresse it so 2 Pet. 1.17 Hic est This is and not Tu es Thou art my beloved Son And so it is where S. Peter makes use by application of that history it is Hic est and not Tu es So that this Hic est This man designs him who hath that marke upon him that the holy Ghost was descended upon him and tarried upon him for so far went the signe of distinction given to Iohn The holy Ghost was to descend and tarry Manet sayes S. Hierome The holy Ghost tarryes upon him because he never departs from him sed operatur quando Christus vult quomodo vult The holy Ghost works in Christ when Christ will and as Christ will and so the holy Ghost tarryed not upon any of the Prophets They spoke what hee would but he wrought not when they would S. Gregory objects to himselfe that there was a perpetuall residence of the holy Ghost upon the faithfull out of those words of Christ The Comforter shall abide with you for ever But as S. Gregory answers himselfe This is not a plenary abiding and secundùm omnia dona in a full operation according to all his gifts as he tarried upon Christ Neither indeed is that promise of Christs to particular persons but to the whole body of the Church Now this residence of the holy Ghost upon Christ was his unction properly it was that by which he was the Messias That he was anointed above his fellowes And therefore S. Hierome makes account that Christ received his unction and so his office of Messias at this his Baptisme and this descending of the holy Ghost upon him And he thinks it therefore because presently after Baptisme he went to preach in the Synagogue and he took for his Text those words of the Prophet Esay Esay 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me that I should preach the Gospel to the poore And when he had read the Text he began his Sermon thus This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your eares But we may be bold to say that this is mistaken by S. Hierome for the unction of Christ by the holy Ghost by which he was anointed and sealed into the office of Messias was in the over-shadowing of the holy Ghost in his conception in his assuming our nature This Descending now at his baptisme and this Residence were onely to declare That there was a holy Ghost and that holy Ghost dwelt upon this person It is Hic Est This person And it is Hic est This is my Son It is not onely Fuit He was my Son when he was in my bosome Nor onely Erit He shall be so when he shall return to my right hand againe God does not onely take knowledge of him in Glory But Est He is so now now in the exinanition of his person now in the evacuation of his Glory now that he is preparing himselfe to suffer scorne and scourges and thornes and nailes in the ignominious death of the Crosse now he is the Son of the glorious God Christ is not the lesse the Son of God for this eclipse Hic est This is he who for all this lownesse is still as high as ever he was Filius and that height is Est Filius He is the Son He is not Servus The Servant of God or not that onely for he is that also Behold my servant Esay 41.1 sayes God of him in the Prophet I will stay upon him mine elect in whom my soule delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him and he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles But Christ is this Servant and a Son too And not a Son onely for so we observe divers filiations in the Schoole Filiationem vestigii That by which all creatures even in their very being are the sons of God as Iob cals God Pluviae patrem The father of the raine And so there are other filiations other wayes of being the sons of God But Hic est This person is as the force of the Article expresses it and presses it Ille Filius The Son That Son which no son else is neither can any else declare how he is that which he is This person then is still The Son And Meus Filius sayes God My Son Meus He is the sonne of Abraham and so within the Covenant as well provided by that inheritance as the son of man can be naturally He is the Son of a Virgin conceived without generation and therefore ordained for some great use He is the son of David and therefore royally descended But his dignity is in the Filius meus that God avows him to be his Son for Vnto which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my sonne Heb. 1.5 But to Christ he sayes in the Prophet I have called thee by thy name And what is his name Meus es tu Thou art mine Quem à me non separat Deitas sayes Leo non dividit potestas non discernit aeternitas Mine so as that mine infinitenesse gives me no roome nor space beyond him hee reaches as far as I though I be infinite My Almightinesse gives me no power above him he hath as much power as I though I have all My eternity gives me no being before him though I were before all In mine Omnipotence in mine Omnipresence in mine Omniessence he is equall partner with me and hath all that is mine or that is my selfe and so he is mine My Son And My beloved Son but so we are all who are his sons Deliciae ejus Dilectus Prov. 8.31 sayes Solomon His delight and his contentment is to be with the sons of men But here the Article is extraordinarily repeated againe Ille dilectus That beloved Son by whom those who were neither beloved nor Sons became the beloved Sons of God For there is so much more added in the last phrase In quo complacui In whom I am well pleased Now these words are diversly read S. Augustine sayes In quo some Copies that he had seen read them thus Ego hodie genui te
owne will thou hadst quenched hell If thou couldst be content willing to be in hell hell were not hell So if God save a man against his will heaven is not heaven If he be loath to come thither sorry that he shall be there he hath not the joy of heaven and then heaven is not heaven Put not God to save thee by miracle God can save an Image by miracle by miracle he can make an Image a man If man can make God of bread certainly God can make a man of an Image and so save him but God hath made thee his own Image and afforded thee meanes of salvation Use them God compels no man Luke 14.23 The Master of the feast invited many solemnly before hand they came not He sent his servants to call in the poore upon the sudden and they came so he receives late commers And there is a Compelle intrare He sends a servant to compell some to come in But that was but a servants work The Master onely invited he compelled none We the servants of God have certaine compulsories to bring men hither The denouncing of Gods Judgements the censures of the Church Excommunications and the rest are compulsories The State hath compulsories too in the penall Laws But all this is but to bring them into the house to Church Compelle intrare We can compell them to come to the first seale to Baptisme we can compell men to bring their children to that Sacrament But to salvation onely the Master brings and in that Parable the Master does onely invite he compells none Though his corrections may seeme to be compulsories yet even his corrections are sweet invitations His corrections are so farre from compelling men to come to heaven as that they put many men farther out of their way and worke an obduration rather then an obsequiousnesse With those therefore that neglect the meanes that he hath brought them to in sealing them in the fore-head this Angel hath no more to doe but gives them over to the power of the foure destroying Angels With those that attend those meanns he proceeds and in their behalfe his Donec Spare them till I have sealed them becomes the blessed Virgins Donec Mat. 1.25 Psal 110.1 she was a Virgin till she had her Child and a Virgin after too And it becomes our blessed Saviours Donec He sits at his Fathers right hand till his enemies bee made his foot-stoole and after too So these destroying Angels that had no power over them till they were sealed shall have no power over them after they are sealed but they shall passe from seale to seale after that seale on the fore-head Ne erubeseant Euangelium Rom. 1.16 We signe him with the signe of the Crosse in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confesse the faith of Christ Crucified He shall come also to those seales which our Saviour recommends to his Spouse Cant. 8.6 Set me as a seale on thy heart and as a seale on thine arme S. Ambrose collects them and connects them together Signaculum Christi in corde ut diligamus in fronte ut confiteamur in brachio ut operemur God seales us in the heart that we might love him and in the fore-head that we might professe it and in the hand that we might declare and practise it and then the whole purpose of this blessed Angel in our Text is perfected in us and we our selves are made partakers of the solemnity of this day which we celebrate for we our selves enter in the Communion of Saints by these three seales Of Beliefe Of Profession Of Works and Practise SERMONS Preached upon THE CONVERSION OF S. PAVL SERM. XLVI Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 1624. ACTS 9.4 And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me LEt us now praise famous Men and our Fathers that begat us Ecclus. 44.1 saies the Wiseman that is that assisted our second generation our spirituall Regeneration Let us praise them commemorate them The Lord hath wrought great glory by them Ver. 2. through his power from the beginning saies he there that is It hath alwaies beene the Lords way to glorifie himselfe in the conversion of Men by the ministery of Men. For he adds Ver. 4. They were leaders of the people by their counsaile and by their knowledge and learning meet for the people wise and eloquent men in their instructions and that is That God who gives these gifts for this purpose looks for the employment of these gifts to the edification of others to his glory There be of them that have left a name behinde them Ver. 8. as it is also added in that place that is That though God can amply reward his servants in the next world yet he does it sometimes in this world and though not with temporall happinesses in their life yet with honor and commemorations and celebrations of them after they are gone out of this life they leave a name behind them And amongst them in a high place shines our blessed and glorious Apostle S. Paul whose Conversion the Church celebrates now and for the celebration thereof hath appointed this part of Scripture from whence this text arises to be the Epistle of the Day And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persccutest thou me There are words in the text that will reach to all the Story of S. Pauls Conversion Divisio embrace all involve and enwrap all we must contract them into lesse then three parts we cannot well those will be these first The Person Saul He He fell to the earth and then his humiliation his exinanition of himselfe his devesting putting off of himselfe He fell to the earth and lastly his investing of Christ his putting on of Christ his rising againe by the power of a new inanimation a new soule breathed into him from Christ He heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Now a re-distribution a sub-division of these parts into their branches we shall present to you anon more opportunely as we shall come in due order to the handling of the parts themselves In the first the branches will be but these Sauls indisposition when Christ tooke him in hand and Christs worke upon him what he found him what he left him will determine our first part The person First then what he was at that time 1. Part. Quid ante the Holy Ghost gives evidence enough against him and he gives enough against himselfe Of that which the Holy Ghost gives you may see a great many heavy pieces a great many appliable circumstances if at any time at home you do but paraphrase and spread to your selves the former part of this Chapter to this text Take a little preparation from me Adhuc spirans saies the first verse Saul yet breathing threatnings and slaughter Then when he was
of man returnes to God that gave it Eccles 12.7 As God breathed into man so man breathes unto the nostrils of God a savour of rest as it is said of Noah an acceptable sacrifice when he sighes for his sins This fighing this groaning expressed in this word Anach Gemitus is Vox Turturis Turtur gemit It is that voyce that sound which the Turtle gives Plin. li. 18. c. 28. And we learne by Authors of Naturall Story and by experience Turturis gemitus indicium veris The voyce of the Turtle is an evidence of the Spring When a sinner comes to this voyce to this sighing there is a Spring of grace begun in him Then Vox Turturis audita in terra nostra sayes Christ to his Spouse The voyce of the Turtle is heard in our Land And so he sayes to thy soule Gan. 2.12 This voyce of the Turtle these sighs of thy penitent soul are heard interra nostra in our Land in the Kingdome of heaven And when he heares this voyce of this Turtle these sighs of thy soule then he puts thy name also into that List which he gave to his Messenger in which Commission this very word of our Text Ezek. 9.4 Anach is used Signabis signum super frontibus virorum suspirantium gementium Upon all their fore heads that sigh and groane imprint my mark Which is ordinarily conceived by the Ancients to have been the letter Tau of which though Calvin assigne a usefull and a convenient reason that they were marked with this letter Tau which is the last letter of the Hebrew Alphabet in signe that though they were in estimation of the world the most abject and the out-casts thereof yet God set his mark upon them with a purpose to raise them yet S. Hierome Hieron and the Ancients for the most part assigne that for the reason why they were marked with that letter because that letter had the forme of the Crosse Not for any such use or power as the Roman Church hath ascribed to that sign but as in the Persecutions of the Primitive Church the Martyrs at the stake when a cry was raised that they dyed for Treason for Rebellion for Sedition and could not be heard for the clamour to cleare themselves used then in the sight of all who though they could not heare them could see them to signe themselves with the Crosse not to drive away devils or to strengthen themselves against tentations by that signe but by that signe to declare the cause of their death to be the profession of the Christian Religion and not Treason nor Sedition And as we in our Baptisme have that Crosse imprinted upon us not as a part of the Sacrament or any piece of that armour which we put on of spirituall strength but as a protestation whose Souldiers wee became so God imprinted upon them that sighed and mourned that Tau that letter which had the forme of the Crosse that it might be an evidence that all their crosses shall be swallowed in his Crosse their sighs in his sighs and their agonies in his And therefore Beloved these sighs are too spirituall a substance to be bestowed upon worldly matters All the love all the ambitions all the losses of this world are not worth a sigh If they were yet thou hast none to spare for all thy sighs are due to thy sins bestow them there Gemit Laboravit he sighs he groanes And then Laboravit in gemitu he laboured he travailed he grew weary he fainted with sighing Not to be curious we meet with a threefold Labour in Scriptures First there is Labor communis the Labour which no man may avoid Iob 5.7 Man is borne unto travailt as the sparks fly upward Where wee may note in the Comparison that it is not a dejection a diminution a depressing downward but a flying upward the true exaltation of a Man that he labours duly in a lawfull calling and this is Labor communis Secondly there is Labor impii The labour of the wicked for They have taught their tongues to speake lyes sayes David and take great paines to deale wickedly Iob 15.20 As it is also in Iob The wicked man travaileth with paine all his dayes And as our former Translation had it he is continually as one travailing with Child Indeed the labour is greater to doe ill then well to get hell then Heaven Heaven might be had with lesse paines then men doe bestow upon hell and this is Labor impiorum And lastly there is Labor justorum The labour of the Righteous which is To rise early to lie downe late and to eate the bread of sorrow for though in that place this seemes to be said to bee done in vaine Psal 127.2 It is in vaine to rise early in vaine to lye downe late in vaine to eate the bread of sorrow yet it is with the same exception which is there specified that is Except the Lord build it is in vaine to labour Except the Lord keepe the City it is in vaine to watch So except the Lord give rest to his beloved it is in vaine torise early In vaine to travaile except God give a blessing But when the Lord hath given thee rest in the remission of thy sins then comes this Labor justorum the labour that a righteous man is bound to that as God hath given him a good nights rest so he gives God a good dayes worke as God hath given him rest and peace of conscience for that which is past so hee take some paines for that which is to come for such was Davids case and Davids care and Davids labour Ephrem an ancient Deacon and Expositor in the Christian Church takes this labour of David Laboravi in gemitu to have beene in gemitu but in comprimendo gemitu that he laboured to conceale his penance and mortification from the sight and knowledge of others Beloved this concealing of those things which we put our selves to in the waies of godlinesse hath alwaies a good use when it is done to avoid ostentation and vaine glory and praise of men And it hath otherwise sometimes a good use to conceale our tribulations and miseries from others because the wicked often take occasion from the calamities and pressures of the godly to insult and triumph over them and to dishonour and blaspheme their God and to say Where is now your God and therefore it may sometimes concerne us to labour to hide our miseries to swallow our owne spittle as Iob speaks and to spunge up our teares in our braines and to eate and smother our sighs in our own bosomes But this was not Davids case now But as he had opened himselfe to God he opened himselfe to the world too and as he sayes in another place Come and I will tell you what God hath done for my soule So here he sayes Come and I will tell you what I have done against my God So he
not Oportet impleri Scripturam The Scripture must be fulfilled We doe not wish them we do but Prophesie them no nor we doe not prophesie them but the Scriptures have preprophesied them before they will fall upon you as upon Iudas in condemnation and perchance as upon Iudas in desperation too Davids purpose then being in these words to work to their amendment Mollior sensus and not their finall destruction we may easily and usefully discerne in the particular words a milder sense then the words seeme at first to present And first give me leave by the way only in passing by occasion of those words which are here rendred Convertentur Erubescent and which in the Originall are Iashabu and Ieboshu which have a musicall and harmonious sound and agnomination in them let me note thus much even in that that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with a propriety but with a delicacy and harmony and melody of language with height of Metaphors and other figures which may work greater impressions upon the Readers and not with barbarous or triviall or market or homely language It is true that when the Grecians and the Romanes and S. Augustine himselfe undervalued and despised the Scriptures because of the poore and beggerly phrase that they seemed to be written in the Christians could say little against it but turned still upon the other safer way wee consider the matter and not the phrase because for the most part they had read the Scriptures only in Translations which could not maintaine the Majesty nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall Their case was somewhat like ours at the beginning of the Reformation when because most of those men who laboured in that Reformation came out of the Romane Church and there had never read the body of the Fathers at large but only such ragges and fragments of those Fathers as were patcht together in their Decretat's and Decretals and other such Common placers for their purpose and to serve their turne therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue to try controversies by the Fathers But as soon as our men that in braced the Reformation had had time to reade the Fathers they were ready enough to joyne with the Adversary in that issue and still we protest that we accept that evidence the testimony of the Fathers and resuse nothing which the Fathers unanimly delivered for matter of faith and howsoever at the beginning some men were a little ombrageous and startling at the name of the Fathers yet since the Fathers have been well studied for more then threescore yeares we have behaved our selves with more reverence to wards the Fathers and more confidence in the Fathers then they of the Romane perswasion have done and been lesse apt to suspect or quarrell their Books or to reprove their Doctrines then our Adversaries have been So howsoever the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under that imputation that their Scriptures have no Majesty no eloquence because these embellishments could not appeare in Translations nor they then read Originalls yet now that a perfect knowledge of those languages hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those Books we are able to reply to them that there are not in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures and that nothing is more demonstrable then that if we would take all those Figures and Tropes which are collected out of secular Poets and Orators we may give higher and livelier examples of every one of those Figures out of the Scriptures then out of all the Greek and Latine Poets and Orators and they mistake it much that thinke that the Holy Ghost hath rather chosen a low and barbarous and homely style then an eloquent and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe To returne and to cast a glance upon these words in Davids prediction Erubescent upon his enemies what hardnesse is in the first Erubescent Let them be ashamed for the word imports no more our last Translation sayes no more neither did our first Translators intend any more by their word Confounded for that is confounded with shame in themselves This is Virga desoiplinae sayes S. Bernard as long as we are ashamed of sin we are not growne up and hardned in it we are under correction the correction of a remorse As soone as Adam came to be ashamed of his nakednesse he presently thought of some remedy if one should come and tell thee that he looked through the doore that he stood in a window over against thine and saw thee doe such or such a sin this would put thee to a shame and thou wouldest not doe that sin till thou wert fure he could not see thee O if thou wouldest not sin till thou couldst think that God saw thee not this shame had wrought well upon thee There are complexions that cannot blush there growes a blacknesse a sootinesse upon the soule by custome in sin which overcomes all blushing all tend ernesse White alone is palenesse and God loves not a pale soule a soule possest with a horror affrighted with a diffidence and distrusting his mercy Rednesse alone is anger and vehemency and distemper and God loves not such a red soule a soule that sweats in sin that quarrels for sin that revenges in sin But that whitenesse that preserves it selfe not onely from being died all over in any foule colour from contracting the name of any habituall sin and so to be called such or such a sinner but from taking any spot from comming within distance of a tentation or of a suspition is that whitenesse which God meanes when he sayes Thou art all faire my Love Cant. 4.7 and there is no spot in thee Indifferent looking equall and easie conversation appliablenesse to wanton discourses and notions and motions are the Devils single money and many pieces of these make up an Adultery As light a thing as a Spangle is a Spangle is silver and Leafe gold that is blowne away is gold and sand that hath no strength no coherence yet knits the building so doe approaches to sin become sin and fixe sin To avoid these spots is that whitenesse that God loves in the soule But there is a rednesse that God loves too which is this Erubescence that we speak of an aptnesse in the soule to blush when any of these spots doe fall upon it God is the universall Confessor the generall Penitentiary of all the world and all dye in the guilt of their sin that goe not to Confession to him And there are sins of such waight to the soule and such intangling and perplexity to the conscience in some circumstances of the sin as that certainly a soule may receive much ease in such cases by confessing it selfe to man In this holy shamefastnesse which we intend in this outward blushing of the face the soule goes to confession too And it is one of
so you have all that belongs to the Master and his manner of teaching David Catechising And all that belongs to the Doctrine and the Catechisme Blessednesse That is Reconciliation to God notified in those three acts of his mercy And all that belongs to the Disciple that is to be Catechized A docile an humble a sincere heart In whose spirit there is no guile And to these particulars in their order thus proposed we shall now passe That then which constitutes our first part is this That David 1. Part. Catechismus then whom this world never had a greater Master for the next amongst the sonnes of men delivers himselfe by way of Catechising of fundamentall and easie teaching As we say justly and confidently That of all Rhetoricall and Poeticall figures that fall into any Art we are able to produce higher straines and livelier examples out of the Scriptures then out of all the Orators and Poets in the world yet we reade not we preach not the Scriptures for that use to magnifie their Eloquence So in Davids Psalmes we finde abundant impressions and testimonies of his knowledge in all arts and all kinds of learning but that is not it which he proposes to us Davids last words are and in that Davids holy glory was placed That he was not onely the sweet Psalmist That he had an harmonious a melodious 2 Sam. 23.1 a charming a powerfull way of entring into the soule and working upon the affections of men but he was the sweet Psalmist of Israel He employed his faculties for the conveying of the God of Israel into the Israel of God Ver. 2. The spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue Not the spirit of Rhetorique nor the spirit of Poetry Ver. 3. nor the spirit of Mathematiques and Demonstration But The spirit of the Lord the Rock of Israel spake by me sayes he He boasts not that he had delivered himselfe in strong or deepe or mysterious Arts that was not his Rock but his Rock was the Rock of Israel His way was to establish the Church of God upon fundamentall Doctrines Moses was learned in all the wisedome of the Egyptians sayes Stephen Likely to be so Act. 7.22 because being adopted by the Kings daughter he had an extraordinary education Exod. 2.10 And likely also because he brought so good naturall faculties for his Masters to worke upon Vt Reminisci potiùs videretur quà m discere Philo. That whatsoever any Master proposed unto him he rather seemed to remember it then then to learne it but then And yet in Moses books we meet no great testimonies or deepe impressions of these learnings in Moses He had as S. Ambrose notes well more occasions to speak of Naturall philosophy in the Creation of the world and of the more secret and reserved and remote corners of Nature in those counterfeitings of Miracles in Pharaohs Court then he hath laid hold of So Nebuchadnezzar appointed his Officers that they should furnish his Court Dan. 1.4 with some young Gentlemen of good bloud and families of the Jews And as it is added there well favoured youths in whom there was no blemish skilfull in all wisedome and cunning in knowledge and understanding science And then farther To be taught the tongue and the learning of the Chaldeans And Daniel was one of these and no doubt a great Proficient in all these and yet Daniel seemes not to make any great shew of these learnings in his writings S. Paul was in a higher Pedagogy and another manner of University then all this Caught up into the third heavens into Paradise as he sayes 2 Cor. 12.2 and there he learnt much but as he sayes too such things as it was not lawfull to utter That is It fell not within the lawes of preaching to publish them So that not onely some learning in humanity as in Moses and Daniels case but some points of Divinity as in S. Pauls case may be unfit to be preached Not that a Divine should be ignorant of either either ornaments of humane or mysteries of divine knowledge For sayes S. Augustine Every man that comes from Egypt must bring some of the Egyptians goods with him Quanto auro exivit suffarcinatus Cyprianus sayes he How much of the Egyptian gold and goods brought Cyprian and Lactantius and Optatus and Hilary out of Egypt That is what a treasure of learning gathered when they were of the Gentils brought they from thence to the advancing of Christianity when they applied themselves to it S. Augustine confesses that the reading of Cicero's Hortensius Mutavit affectum meum L. 3. c. 4. began in him a Conversion from the world Et ad teipsum Domine mutavit preces meas That booke sayes he converted me to more fervent prayers to thee my God Et surgere jam coeperam ut ad te redirem By that help I rose and came towards thee And so Iustin Martyr had his Initiation and beginning of his Conversion from reading some passages in Plato S. Basil expresses it well They that will dye a perfect colour dip it in some lesse perfect colour before To be a good Divine requires humane knowledge and so does it of all the Mysteries of Divinity too because as there are Devils that will not be cast out but by Fasting and Prayer so there are humours that undervalue men that lacke these helps But our Congregations are not made of such persons not of meere naturall men that must be converted out of Aristotle and by Cicero's words nor of Arians that require new proofes for the Trinity nor Pelagians that must be pressed with new discoveries of Gods Predestination but persons imbracing with a thankfull acquiescence therein Doctrines necessary for the salvation of their soules in the world to come and the exaltation of their Devotion in this This way David calls his a Catechisme And let not the greatest Doctor think it unworthy of him to Catechize thus nor the learnedest hearer to be thus catechized Christ enwraps the greatest Doctors in his Person and in his practise when he sayes Sinite parvulos Suffer little children to come unto me and we do not suffer them to come unto us if when they come we doe not speak to their understanding and to their edification for that is but an absent presence when they heare and profit not And Christ enwraps the learnedest hearers in the persons of his owne Disciples when he sayes Except yee become as these little children yee cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Except you nourish your selves with Catechisticall and Fundamentall Doctrines you are not in a wholesome diet Now in this Catechisme the first stone that David layes and that that supports all the first object that David presents and that that directs to all is Blessednesse Davids Catechisme Blessed is the man Philosophers could never bring us to the knowledge 2 Part. Beatitudo what this
shall come to the glory of Heaven that hath not a holy ambition of this glory in this world for this glory which we speake of is the evidence and the reflexion of the glory from above for the glory of God shines through godly men and wee receive a beame and a tincture of that glory of God when we have the approbation and testimony and good opinion and good words of good men which is the Glory of our Text as far as this world is capable of glory All the upright in heart shall glory that is They shall be celebrated and encouraged with the glory and praise of good men here and they shall be rewarded with everlasting glory in Heaven In these words we propose to you but two parts Divisio First The disposition of the Persons Omnes recti corde All the upright in heart and then The retribution upon these Persons Gloriabuntur They shall Glory or as it is in the Vulgat and well Laudabuntur They shall be celebrated they shall be praised In the first The qualification of the persons wee shall passe by these steps First that God in his punishments and rewardings proposes to himselfe Persons Persons already made and qualified God does not begin at a retribution nor begin at a condemnation before he have Persons Persons fit to be rewarded Persons fit to be condemned God did not first make a Heaven and a Hell and after thinke of making man that he might have some persons to put in them but first for his Glory he made Man and for those who by a good use of his grace preserved their state Heaven and for those who by their owne fault fell he made Hell First he proposed Persons Persons in being And then for the Persons as his delight is for the most part to doe in this Text he expresses it which is rather to insist upon the Rewards which the Good shall receive then upon the condemnation and judgements of the wicked If he could chuse that is If his owne Glory and the edification of his Children would beare it he would not speake at all of judgements or of those persons that draw necessary judgements upon themselves but he would exercise our contemplation wholly upon his mercy and upon Persons qualified and prepared for his gracious retributions So he does here He speakes not at all of perverse and froward and sinister and oblique men men incapable of his retributions but onely of Persons disposed ordained prepared for them And in the qualification of these Persons he proposes first a rectitude a directnesse an uprightnesse declinations downeward deviations upon the wrong hand squint-eyed men splay footed men left-handed men in a spirituall sense he meddles not withall They must be direct and upright And then upright in heart for to be good to ill ends as in many cases a man may be God accepts not regards not But let him be a person thus qualified Vpright upright because he loves uprightnesse Vpright in heart And then he is infallably imbraced and enwrapped in that generall rule and proposition that admits no exception Omnes recti corde All the upright in heart shall be partakers of this retribution And in these branches we shall determine our first Part first That God proposes to himselfe Persons Persons thus and thus qualified he begins at them Secondly That God had rather dwell himselfe and propose to us the consideration of good persons then bad of his mercies then his judgements for he mentions no other here but persons capable of his retributions And then the goodnesse that God considers is rectitude and rectitude in the roote in the heart And from that roote growes that spreading universality that infallibility Omnes All such are sure of the Reward And then in our second Part in the Reward it selfe though it be delivered here in the whole barre in the Ingot in the Wedge in Bulloyn in one single word Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory yet it admits this Mintage and coyning and issuing in lesser pieces That first we consider the thing it selfe The metall in which God rewards us Glory Praise And then since Gods promise is fastened upon that We shall be praised As we may lawfully seeke the praise of good men so must wee also willingly afford praise to good men and to good actions And then since we finde this retribution fixed in the future We shall be praised we shall be in glory there arises this Consolation That though we have it not yet yet we shall have it Though wee be in dishonour and contempt and under a cloud of which we see no end our selves yet there is a determined future in God which shall be made present we shall overcome this contempt and Gloriabimur and Laudabimur we shall Glory we shall be celebrated In which future the consolation is thus much farther exalted that it is an everlasting future the glory and praise the approbation and acclamation which we shall receive from good men here shall flow out and continue to the Hosannaes in Heaven in the mouth of Saints and Angels and to the Euge bone serve Well done good and faithfull Servant Mat. 25.21 in the mouth of God himselfe First then God proposes to himselfe in his Rewards and Retributions Persons 1 Part. Personae qualificatae Persons disposed and qualified Not disposed by nature without use of grace that is flat and full Pelagianisme Not disposed by preventing grace without use of subsequent grace by Antecedent and anticipant without concomitant and auxiliant grace that is Semi-pelagianisme But persons obsequious to his grace when it comes and persons industrious and ambitious of more and more grace and husbanding his grace well all the way such persons God proposes to himselfe God does not onely reade his own works nor is he onely delighted with that which he hath writ himselfe with his own eternall Decrees in heaven but he loves also to reade our books too our histories which we compose in our lives and actions and as his delight is to be with the sonnes of men Pro. 8.31 Ephes 3.7 so his study is in this Library to know what we doe S. Paul sayes That God made him a Minister of the Gospel to preach to the Gentils to the intent that the Angels might know the manifold wisdome of God by the Church That is by that that was done in the Church The Angels saw God Did they not see these things in God No for These things were hid in God sayes the Apostle there And the Angels see no more in God then God reveales unto them and these things of the Church God reserved to a future and to an experimentall knowledge to be knowne then when they were done in the Church So there are Decrees in God but they are hid in God To this purpose and entendment and in this sense hid from God himselfe that God accepts or condemnes Man Secundum allegata Probata according
there is wholesome meat before too The cleare light is in the Gospel but there is light in Nature too Revel 19.9 At the last Supper the Supper of the Lambe in Heaven there is no bill of fare there are no particular dishes named there It is impossible to tell us what we shall feed upon what we shall be feasted with at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb Our way of knowing God there cannot be expressed At that Supper of the Lambe which is here here in our way homewards that is in the Sacramentall Supper of the Lambe it is very hard to tell what we feed upon How that meat is dressed how the Body and Blood of Christ is received by us at that Supper in that Sacrament is hard to be expressed hard to be conceived for the way and manner thereof So also in the former meale that which we have called the Dinner which is The knowledge which the Jews had in the Law it was not easie to distinguish the taste and the nature of every dish and to finde the signification in every Type and in every Ceremony There are some difficulties if curious men take the matter in hand and be too inquisitive even in the Gospel more in the Law most of all in Nature But yet even in this first refection this first meale that God sets before man which is our knowledge of God in Nature because wee are then in Gods House all this World and the next make God but one House though God doe not give Marrow and fatnesse Psal 63.6 81.16 as David speaks though he doe not feed them with the fat of the wheat nor satisfie them with honey out of the Rock for the Gospel is the honey and Christ is the Rock yet even in Nature hee gives sufficient meanes to know him though they come to neither of the other Meales neither to the Jews Dinner The benefit of the Law nor to the Christians Supper either when they feed upon the Lamb in the Sacrament or when they feed with the Lamb in the possession and fruition of Heaven Though therefore the Septuagint in their Translation of the Psalms have in the Title of this Psalme added this A Psalme of Ieremy and Ezekiel when they were departing out of the Captivity of Babylon intimating therein that it is a Psalme made in contemplation of that blessed place which we are to go to as literally it was of their happie state in their restitution from Babylon to Jerusalem And though the ancient Church by appropriating this Psalme to the office of the dead to the service at Burials intimate also that this Psalme is intended of that fulnesse of knowledge and Joy and Glory which they have that are departed in the Lord yet the Holy Ghost stops as upon the way before we come thither and since we must lie in an Inne that is Lodge in this World he enables the World to entertaine us as well as to lodge us and hath provided that the World the very world it selfe before wee consider the Law in the World or the Church in the World or Glory in the next World This very World that is Nature and no more should give such an universall light of the knowledge of God as that he should bee The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea And therefore as men that come to great places and preferments when they have entred by a faire and wide gate of Honour but yet are laid downe upon hard beds of trouble and anxiety in those places for when the body seemes in the sight of men to go on in an easie amble the minde is every day if not all day in a shrewd and diseasefull trot As those men will sometimes say It was better with me when I was in a lower place and fortune and will remember being Bishops the pleasures they had when they were Schoole-boyes and yet for all this intermit not their thankfulnesse to God who hath raised them to that height and those meanes of glorifying him so howsoever we abound with joy and thankfulnesse for these gracious and glorious Illustrations of the Law and the Gospel and beames of future Glory which we have in the Christian Church Let us reflect often upon our beginning upon the consideration of Gods first benefits which he hath given to us all in Nature That light Iohn 1.9 by which he enlighteneth every man that commeth into the World That he hath given us a reasonable soule capable of grace here that he hath denied no man and no other creature hath that That he hath given us an immortal soul capable of glory hereafter and that that immortality he hath denied no man and no other creature hath that Consider we alwaies the grace of God to be the Sun it selfe but the nature of man and his naturall faculties to be the Sphear in which that Sun that Grace moves Consider we the Grace of God to be the soule it self but the naturall faculties of man to be as a body which ministers Organs for that soule that Grace to worke by That so as how much soever I feare the hand of a mighty man that strikes yet I have a more immediate feare of the sword he strikes with So though I impute justly my sins and my feares of judgements for them to Gods withdrawing or to my neglecting his grace yet I looke also upon that which is next me Nature and naturall light and naturall faculties and that I consider how I use to use them whether I be as watchfull upon my tongue that that minister no tentation to others and upon mine eye that that receive no tentation from others as by the light of Nature I might and as some morall Men without addition of particular Grace have done That so first for my selfe I be not apt to lay any thing upon God and to say that hee starved me though he should not bid me to the Jews dinner in giving me the light of the Law nor bid me to the Christians Supper in giving me the light of the Gospell because he hath given me a competent refection even in Nature And then that for others I may first say with the Apostle Rom. 1.20 11.33 That they are without excuse who doe not see the invisible God in the visible Creature and may say also with him O altitudo The wayes of the Lord are past my finding out And therefore to those who doe open their eyes to that light of Nature in the best exaltation thereof God does not hide himselfe though he have not manifested to me by what way he manifests himselfe to them For God disappoints none and he is The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them who are a farre off upon the Sea Commit thy way unto the Lord Psal 37.5 sayes David And he sayes more then our Translation seemes to expresse The Margin hath
hanged himselfe Thou wilt not be drawne to confesse that a Man that hath an office is presently wiser then thou or a man that is Knighted presently valianter then thou Men have preferment for those parts which other men equall to them in the same things have not and therefore they doe but finde them And to things that are but found what is our title Nisi reddantur rapina est sayes the Law If we restore not that which we finde it is robbery S. Augustine hath brought it nearer Qui alienum negat si posset tolleret He that confesseth not that which he hath found of another mans if he durst he would have taken it by force For that which we have found in this world our ealling is the owner our debts are the owner our children are the owner our lusts our superfluities are no owners of all the rest God is the owner and to this purpose the poore is God S. Augustine puts a case to the point Aug. Serm. 19. de verb. Apost He sayes when he was at Milan a poore Usher of a Grammar Schoole found a bag of money 200 Solidorum let it be but one hundreth pounds he set up bills the owner came offered him his tithe ten pounds he would none he pressed him to five to three to two he would none and then he that had lost it in an honorable indignation disclaimed it all Nihil perdidi sayes he it is all your own I lost nothing Quale certamen Theatrum mundus spectator Deus Out of importunity he that found it tooke it all and out of conscience that it was not his gave it all to the poore The things of this world we doe but finde and of the things which we finde we are but Stewards for others This finding is not so meerly casuall as that it implies no manner of seeking Matzah Exuxit vel expressit We must put our selves into the way into a calling The word is Matza and that word is allowed us but a word like it is not allowed us Matza is but Matzah is not if there be an H added an H as it is an aspiration a breathing a panting after the things of this world or an Ache as it is a paine that it make our bones ake or our hearts ake or our conscience ake it is a seeking and a finding not intended in this word Our prosecution and seeking must be moderate our title and interest is but a finding and what hath the most fortunate found Hony it is true but yet but Hony That which Solomon may justly seeme to intend Mel. especially by Hony in this Text is that which the Poets and other Masters of language have called Magnas amicitias and Magnas Clientelas dependance and interest and favour in great persons It appeares by the next verse which depends upon this and paraphrases it Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbours house Where that which we reade Withdraw is in the Originall Hokar which is Fac pretiosum make not thy selfe cheape not vulgar have some respect to thy selfe to thine own ingenuity but principally to the other to thy great friend be not importune and troublesome by any indiscreet assiduity to them who are possessed with businesse though at sometimes they descend to thee This is this Hony where thou hast accesse yet doe not push open every doore fling up every hanging but use thy favour modestly But in this Hony is wrapped up also all that is delightfull in this life and Solomon carries us often to that Comparison Ver. 13. In the Chapter before this for Wisedome My Sonne eat thou Hony because it is good so shall the knowledge of wisedome be to thy soule and in the seaven and twentieth verse of this Chapter 27. he uses it for Glory It is not good to eat much hony so for men to search their own glory is not glory In the sixt Chapter of this booke when Solomon had sent us to the Ant Prov. 6. to learne wisedome betweene the eight verse and the ninth he sends us to another schoole to the Bee Vade ad Apem disce quomodo operationem vener abilem facit Goe to the Bee and learne how reverend and mysterious a worke she works Hieron For though S. Hierome acknowledge that in his time this verse was not in the Hebrew Text yet it hath ever been in many Copies of the Septuagint and though it be now left out in the Complutense Bible and that which they call the Kings In Ezek. 3.3 yet it is in that still which they value above all the Vatican S. Hierome himselfe takes it into his exposition and other Fathers into theirs So far therefore we may hearken to that voyce as to goe to the Bee and learne to worke by that Creature Both S. Basil Basil Hom. 8. in Hexa Chrysost in Psal 110. and S. Chrysostome put this difference in that place between the labour of the Ant and the Bee That the Ants worke but for themselves the Bee for others Though the Ants have a Common-wealth of their own yet those Fathers call their labour but private labour because no other Common-wealths have benefit by their labour but their own Direct thy labours in thy calling to the good of the publique and then thou art a civill a morall Ant but consider also That all that are of the houshold of the faithfull and professe the same truth of Religion are part of this publique and direct thy labours for the glory of Christ Jesus amongst them too and then thou art a religious and a Christian Bee and the fruit of thy labour shall be Hony The labour of the Ant is sub Dio open evident manifest The labour of the Bee is sub Tecto in a house in a hive They will doe good and yet they will not be seene to doe it they affect not glory nay they avoyd it For in experience when some men curious of naturall knowledge have made their Hives of glasse that by that transparency they might see the Bees manner of working the Bees have made it their first work to line that Glasse-hive with a crust of Wax that they might work and not be discerned It is a blessed sincerity to work as the Ant professedly openly but because there may be cases when to doe so would destroy the whole worke though there be a cloud and a curtaine betweene thee and the eyes of men yet if thou doe them clearely in the sight of God that he see his glory advanced by thee the fruit of thy labour shall be Honey Pliny names one Aristomachum Solensem Plin. that spent threescore yeares in the contemplation of Bees our whole time for this exercise is but threescore minutes and therefore wee say no more of this but Vade ad Apem practife the sedulity of the Bee labour in thy calling And the community of the Bee beleeve that thou art called to assist others And the
all claimes and encumbrances upon his childrens children Psal 37.26 The righteous is mercifull and lendeth saies David Mercifull as his Father in Heaven is mercifull that is in perpetuall not transitory endowments for God did not set up his lights his Sun and his Moone for a day but for ever and such should our light or good works be too Hee is mercifull and he lendeth to whom for to the poore he giveth he looks for no returne from them for they are the waters upon which he casts his bread Yet he lendeth Eccles 11.1 Prov. 19.17 He that hath pity on the poore lendeth to the Lord. The righteous is mercifull and lendeth and then as David addes there His seed is blessed Blessed in this which followes there that he shall inherit the land Psal 37.29 Psal 112.4 and dwell therein for ever which he ratifies againe Surely he shall not be moved for ever that is he shall never be moved in his posterity And as he is blessed that way blessed in the establishment of his possession upon his childrens children so is he blessed in this that his honour and good name shall bee poured out as a fragrant oyle upon his posterity Ibid. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance Their memory shall be alwaies alive Prov. 10.7 Prov. 11.30 and alwaies fresh in their posterity when The name of the wicked shall rot So then the fruit of the righteous is the tree of life saies Solomon that is the righteous shall produce plants that shall grow up and flourish so his posterity shall be a tree of life to many generations Prov. 17.6 and then The glory of children are their Fathers saies that wise King As Fathers receive comfort from good children so children receive glory from good parents in this are children glorified that they had righteous Fathers that lent unto the Lord. So that to recollect these peeces it is no small reward that God affords you if men seeing your good workes glorifie that is esteeme and respect and love and honour your children upon earth But it is not onely that your good workes shall bee an occasion of carrying glory upon the right object They shall glorifie your Father which is in heaven It is not the Father which is in Heaven Non Patrem that they should glorifie God as the common Father of all by creation For for that they need not your light your good works The Heavens declare the glory of God Psal 19.1 saies David that is glorifie him in an acknowledgement that he is the Father of them Deut. 32.6 and of all other things by creation Is not hee thy Father hath he not made thee is an interrogatory ministred by Moses to which all things must answer with the Prophet Malachie Malac. 2.10 yes He is our Father for he hath made us But that 's not the paternity of this text as God is Father of us all by creation Nor as he is a 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 disinherit me hee may give me plenty of temporall blessings and withhold from me spirituall and eternall blessings Now to see this men need not your light your good workes for they see dayly That he maketh his sun to shine on the evill Mat. 5.45 and on the good and causeth it to raine on the just and the unjust He feeds Goates as well as Sheepe he gives the wicked temporall blessings as well as the righteous These then are not the paternities of our text that men by this occasion glorifie God as the Father of all men by creation nor as the Father of all rich men by their large patrimonies not as he is the Father not as he is a Father but as he is your Father as he is made yours as he is become yours by that particular grace of using the temporall blessings which he hath given you to his glory in letting your light shine before men For it were better God disinherited us so as to give us nothing then that he gave us not the grace to use that that he gave us well without this all his bread were stone Mat. 7.9 and all his fishes serpents all his temporall liberality malediction How much happier had that man beene 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 nearer to a kingdome in Heaven had hee beene if he had beene borne a begger here Nay though he have done no ill of such excessive kinds how much happier had he beene if he had had nothing left him if hee have done no good There cannot be a more fearfull commination upon man nor a more dangerous dereliction from God Ps 50.8 12. then when God saies 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 saies as he does there If I bee hungry I will not tell thee I will not awake thy charity I will not excite thee not provoke thee with any occasion of feeding me in feeding the poore When God shall say to me I care not whether you come to Church or no whether you pray or no repent or no confesse receive or no this is a fearfull dereliction so is it when he saies to a rich man I care not whether your light shine out or no whether men see your good works or no I can provide for my glory other waies For certainly God hath not determined his purpose and his glory so much in that to make some men rich that the poore might be relieved for that ends in bodily reliefe as in this that he hath made some men poore whereby the rich might have occasion to exercise their charity for that reaches to spirituall happinesse for which use the poore doe not so much need the rich as the rich need the poore the poore 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 doe good with your goods then are you made blessed instruments of that which God seeks here his glory They shall glorifie your father which is in heaven Glory is so inseparable to God as that God himself is called Glory They changed their Glory into the similitude of an Oxe Their glory their true God into an inglorious Idol Gloria Psal 106.20 Psal 85.10 That glory may dwell in our land sayes he that is that God may dwell therein The