where there was not one dead p. 285 SERMON XXII A Sermon Preached at the Temple Esther 4.16 Go and assemble all the Jews that are found in Shushan and fast ye for me and eat not nor drink in three days day nor night I also and my Maids will fast likewise and so I will go in to the King which is not according to the Law And if I perish I perish p. 298 SERMON XXIII A Sermon Preached at Lincolns-Inne Ascension-day 1622. Deut. 12.30 Take heed to thy self that thou be not snared by following them after they be destroyed from before thee and that thou inquire not after their gods saying How did these Nations serve their gods Even so will I do likewise p. 311 SERMON XXIV A Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24 Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland Prov. 22.11 He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend p. 322 SERMON XXV A Sermon Preached at the Spittle upon Easter-Monday 1622. 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ P. 357 SERMON XXVI Psal 68.20 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of Death from Death P. 397 A Lent-SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL February 20. 1617. SERMON I. Serm. 1. Luc. 23.40 Fearest not thou God being under the same condemnation THe Text it self is a Christning-Sermon and a Funeral-Sermon and a Sermon at a Consecration and a Sermon at the Canonization of himself that makes it This Thief whose words they are is Baptized in his blood there 's his Christning He dyes in that profession there 's his Funeral His Diocess is his Cross and he takes care of his soul who is crucified with him and to him he is a Bishop there 's his Consecration and he is translated to heaven there 's his Canonization We have sometimes mention in Moses his book of Exodus according to the Romane Translation Operis Plumarii of a kind of subtle and various workmanship imployed upon the Tabernacle for which it is hard to finde a proper word now we translate it sometimes Embroidery sometimes Needle-work sometimes otherwise It is evident enough that it was Opus variegatum a work compact of divers pieces curiously inlaid and varied for the making up of some figure some representation and likelyest to be that which in sumptuous buildings we use to call now Mosaick work for that very word originally signifies to vary to mingle to diversifie As the Tabernacle of God was so the Scriptures of God are of this Mosaick work The body of the Scriptures hath in it limbs taken from other bodies and in the word of God are the words of other men other authors inlaid inserted But this work is onely where the Holy Ghost is the Workman It is not for man to insert to inlay other words into the word of God It is a gross piece of Mosaick work to insert whole Apocryphal books into the Scriptures It is a sacrilegious defacing of this Mosaick work to take out of Moses Tables such a stone as the second Commandment and to take out of the Lords Prayer such a stone as is the foundation-stone the reason of the prayer Quia Tuum For thine is the kingdom c. It is a counterfeit piece of Mosaick work when having made up a body of their Canon-Law of the raggs and fragments torne from the body of the Fathers they attribute to every particular sentence in that book not that authority which that sentence had in that Father from whom it is taken but that authority which the Canonization as they call it of that sentence gives it by which Canonization and placing it in that book it is made equal to the word of God Thesaurus Catholicus It is a strange piece of Mosaick work when one of their greatest authors pretending to present a body of proofs for all controverted points from the Scriptures and Councels and Fathers for he makes no mention in his promise of the Mothers of the Church doth yet fill up that body with sentences from women and obtrude to us the Revelations of Brigid and of Katherine and such She-fathers as those But when the Holy Ghost is the workman in the true Scriptures we have a glorious sight of this Mosaick this various this mingled work where the words of the Serpent in seducing our first parents The words of Balaams Ass in instructing the rider himself The words of prophane Poets in the writings and use of the Apostle The words of Caiaphas prophesying that it was expedient that one should dye for all The words of the Divel himself Jesus I know and Paul I know And here in this text the words of a Thief executed for the breach of the Law do all concur to the making up of the Scriptures of the word of God Now though these words were not spoken at this time when we do but begin to celebrate by a poor and weak imitation the fasting of our Saviour Jesus Christ but were spoken at the day of the crucifying of the Lord of life and glory yet as I would be loath to think that you never fast but in Lent so I would be loath to think that you never fulfill the sufferings of Christ Jesus in your flesh but upon Goodfriday never meditate upon the passion but upon that day As the Church celebrates an Advent a preparation to the Incarnation of Christ to his coming in the flesh in humiliation so may this humiliation of ours in the text be an Advent a preparation to his Resurrection and coming in glory And as the whole life of Christ was a passion so should the whole life especially the humiliation of a Christian be a continual meditation upon that Christ began with some drops of blood in his infancy in his Circumcision though he drowned the sins of all mankinde in those several channels of Blood which the whips and nailes and spear cut out of his body in the day of his passion So though the effects of his passion be to be presented more fully to you at the day of his passion yet it is not unseasonable now to contemplate thus far the working of it upon this condemned wretch whose words this text is Division as to consider in them First the infallibility and the dispatch of the grace of God upon them whom his gracious purpose hath ordained to salvation how powerfully he works how instantly they obey This condemned person who had been a thief execrable amongst men and a blasphemer execrating God was suddainly a Convertite suddainly a Confessor suddainly a Martyr suddainly a Doctor to preach to others In a second consideration we shall see what doctrine he preaches not curiosities
God and live in his fear to be mercinarij per laborem to be the workmen of God and labour in his Vineyard to be filij per lavacrum to be the sons of God and preserve that Inheritance which was sealed to us at first in Baptism and last of all Amici per virtutem by the good use of his gifts the King of Kings shall be our friend That which he said to his Apostles his Spirit shall say to our spirit here and seal it to us for a Covenant of Salt an everlasting John 15.14 an irrevocable Covenant Henceforth call I you not servants but I have called you friends for all things that I have heard of my Father have I made known unto you And the fruition of this friendship which neither slackens in all our life nor ends at our death the Lord of Life for the death of his most innocent Son afford to us all Amen A Serm. 25. SERMON Preached at the SPITTLE Vpon Easter-Munday 1662. SERMON XXV 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ THe first Book of the Bible begins with the beginning In principio says Moses in Genesis In the beginning God created heaven and earth and can there be any thing prius principio before the beginning Before this beginning there is The last Book of the Bible in the order as they were written the Gospel of St. John begins with the same word too In principio says St. John In the beginning was the Word and here Novissimum primum the last beginning is the first St. John's beginning before Moses Moses speaking but of the Creature and St. John of the Creator and of the Creator before he took that name before he came to the act of Creation as the Word was with God and was God from all Eternity Our present Text is an Epitome of both those beginnings of the first beginning the Creation when God commanded light to shine out of darkness and of the other beginning which is indeed the first of Him in whose face we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God Christ Jesus The first Book of the Bible is a Revelation and so is the last in the order as they stand a Revelation too To declare a production of all things out of nothing which is Moses his work that when I do not know and care not whether I know or no what so contemptible a Creature as an Ant is made of but yet would fain know what so vast and so considerable a thing as an Elephant is made of I care not for a mustard seed but I would fain know what a Cedar is made of I can leave out the consideration of the whole Earth but would be glad to know what the Heavens and the glorious bodies in the Heavens Sun Moon and Stars are made of I shall have but one answer from Moses for all that all my Elephants and Cedars and the Heavens that I consider were made of nothing that a Cloud is as nobly born as the Sun in the Heavens and a begger as nobly as the King upon Earth if we consider the great Grand-father of them all to be nothing to produce light of darkness thus is a Revelation a Manifestation of that which till then was not this Moses does St. John's is a Revelation too a Manifestation of that state which shall be and be for ever after all those which were produced of nothing shall be return'd and ressolv'd to nothing again the glorious state of the everlasting Jerusalem the Kingdom of Heaven Now this Text is a Revelation of both these Revelations the first state that which Moses reveals was too dark for man to see for it was nothing The other that which St. John reveals is too bright too dazling for man to look upon for it is no one limited determined Object but all at once glory and the seat and fountain of all glory the face of Christ Jesus The Holy Ghost hath shewed us both these severally in Moses and in St. John and both together in St. Paul in this Text where as the Sun stands in the midst of the Heavens and shews us both the Creatures that are below it upon Earth and the Creatures that are above it the Stars in Heaven so St. Paul as he is made an Apostle of the Gentiles stands in the midst of this Text God hath shin'd in our hearts Ours as we are Apostolical Ministers of the Gospel and he shows us the greatness of God in the Creation which was before when God commanded light out of darkness and the goodness of God which shall be hereafter when he shall give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus So that this Text giving light by which we see light commanded by God out of darkness and the Object which we are to see the knowledge of the glory of God and this Object being brought within a convenient distance to be seen in the face of Jesus Christ And a fit and well-disposed Medium being illumin'd through which we may see it God having shin'd in our hearts established a Ministry of the Gospel for that purpose if you bring but eyes to that which this Text brings Light and Object and Distance and Means then as St. Basil said of the Book of Psalms upon an impossible supposition If all the other Books of Scripture could perish there were enough in that one for the catechising of all that did believe and for the convincing of all that did not so if all the other Writings of St. Paul could perish this Text were enough to carry us through the body of Divinity from the Cradle of the world in the Creation when God commanded light out of darkness to the Grave and beyond the Grave of the world to the last Dissolution and beyond it when we shall have fully the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Now whilst I am to speak of all this this which is Omne scibile all and more then can fall within the comprehension of a natural man for it is the beginning of this world and it is the way to the next and it is the next world it self I comfort my self at my first setting out with that of St. Gregory Purgatas aures hominum gratiam nancisci nonne Dei donum est I take it for one of Gods great blessings to me if he have given me now an Auditory Purgatae auris of such spiritual and circumcised Ears as come not to hear that Wisdom of Words which may make the Cross of Christ of none effect much less such itching Ears as come to hear popular and seditious Calumnies and Scandals and Reproaches cast upon the present State and Government For a man may make a Sermon a Satyr he
may make a Prayer a Libel if upon colour of preaching or praying against toleration of Religion or persecution for Religion he would insinuate that any such tolerations are prepared for us or such persecutions threatned against us But if for speaking the mysteries of your salvation plainly sincerely inelegantly inartificially for the Gold and not for the Fashion for the Matter and not for the Form Nanciscor populi gratiam my service may be acceptable to Gods people and available to their Edification Nonne Dei donum shall not I call this a great Blessing of God Beloved in him I must I do And therefore because I presume I speak to such I take to my self that which follows there in the same Father that he that speaks to such a people does not his duty if he consider not deliberately Quibus Quando Quantum loquatur both to whom and at what time and how much he is to speak I consider the persons and I consider that the greatest part by much are persons born since the Reformation of Religion since the death of Idolatry in this Land and therefore not naturaliz'd by Conversion by Transplantation from another Religion to this but born the natural children of this Church and therefore to such persons I need not lay hold upon any points of controverted Doctrine I consider also Quando the time and I consider that it is now in these days of Easter when the greatest part of this Auditory have or will renew their Hands to Christ Jesus in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood that they will rather loose theirs then lack his and therefore towards persons who have testified that disposition in that seal I need not depart into any vehement or passionate Exhortations to constancy and perseverance as though there were occasion to doubt it And I consider lastly Quantum how much is necessary to be spoken to such a people so disposed and therefore farther then the custom and solemnity of this day and place lays an Obligation upon me I will not extend my self to an unnecessary length especially because that which shall be said by me and by my Brethren which come after and were worthy to come before me in this place is to be said to you again by another who alone takes as much pains as all we and all you too Hears all with as much patience as all you and is to speak of all with as much and more labour then all we Much therefore for your ease somewhat for his a little for mine own with such succinctness and brevity as may consist with clearness and perspicuity in such manner and method as may best enlighten your understandings and least encumber your memories I shall open unto you that light which God commanded out of darkness and that light by which he hath shin'd in our hearts and this light by which we shall have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Divisio Our parts therefore in these words must necessarily be three three Lights The first shows us our Creation the second our Vocation the third our Glorification In the first We who were but but what but nothing were made Creatures In the second we who were but Gentiles were made Christians In the third we who were but men shall be made saints In the first God took us when there was no world In the second God sustains us in an ill world In the third God shall crown us in a glorious and joyful world In the first God made us in the second God mends us in the third God shall perfect us First God commanded light out of darkness that man might see the Creature then he shin'd in our hearts that man might see himself at last he shall shine so in the face of Christ Jesus that man may see God and live and live as long as that God of light and life shall live himself Every one of these Parts will have divers Branches and it is time to enter into them In the first the Creation because this Text does not purposely and primarily deliver the Doctrine of the Creation not prove it not press it not enforce it but rather suppose it and then propose it by way of Example and Comparison for when the Apostles says God who commanded light out of darkness hath shin'd in our hearts he intimates therein these two Propositions first that the same God that does the one does the other too God perfects his works and then this Proposition also As God hath done the one he hath done the other God himself works by Patterns by Examples These two Propositions shall therefore be our two first Branches in this first Part. First Idem Deus the same God goes through his works and therefore let us never fear that God will be weary and then Sicut Deus as God hath done he will do again he works by pattern and so must we and then from these two we shall descend to our third Proposition Quid Deus what God is said to have done here and it is that he commanded light out of darkness In these three we shall determine this Part and for the Branches of the other two Parts our Vocation and our Glorification it will be a less burden to your memories to open them then when we come to handle the Parts themselves then altogether now Now we shall proceed in the Branches of the first Part. Part 1. Memb. 1. Idem Deus In this our first Consideration is Idem Deus the same our God goes through all Those divers Hereticks who thought there were two Gods for Cordon thought so and Marcion thought so too the Gnostiques thought so and the Maniches thought so too though they differ'd in their mistakings for errour is always manifold and multiform yet all their errours were upon this ground this root They could nor comprehend that the same God should be the God of Justice and the God of Mercy too a God that had an earnestness to punish sin and an easiness to pardon sin too Cordon who was first though he made two Gods yet he used them both reasonable well for with him Alter Bonus Alter Justus Iren. 1.28.29 one of his Gods is perfectly good merciful and the other though he be not so very good yet he is just Marcion who came after says worse because he could not discern the good purposes of God in inflicting Judgements nor the good use which good men make of his Corrections but thought all acts of his Justice to be calamitous and intolerable and naturally evil therefore with him Alter Bonus Alter Malus he that is the merciful God is his good God and he that is so just but just is an ill God Hence they came to call the God of the New Testament a good God because there was Copiosa Redemptio plentiful Redemption in the Gospel and the God of the Old Testament Malum Deum an ill God
Serpent was wiser then any beast It is so still Satan is wiser then any man in natural and in Civil knowledge 'T is true he is a Lyon too but he was a Serpent first and did us more harm as a Serpent then as a Lyon But now as Christ Jesus hath nail'd his hand-writing which he had against us to the Cross and thereby cancelled his evidence so in his descent to hell and subsequent acts of his glorification he hath burnt his Library annihilated his wisdom in giving us a wisdome above his craft he hath shin'd in our hearts by the knowledge of his Gospel Measure not thou therefore the growth and forwardness of thy Child by how soon he could speak or go how soon he could contract with a man or discourse with a woman but how soon he became sensible of that great contract which he had made with Almighty God in his Baptism how soon he was able to discharge those sureties which undertook for him then by receiving his confirmation in the Church how soon he became to discern the Lords Spirit in the preaching of his Word and to discern the Lords body in the Administration of the Sacrament A Christian Child must grow as Christ when be was a Child in wisdom and in stature Luc. 2. first in wisdom then in stature Many have been taller at sixteen then ever Christ was but not any so learned at sixty as he when he disputed at twelve He grew in favour says that Text with God and man first with God then with man Bring up your children in the knowledge and love of God and good and great men will know and love them too It is a good definition of ill love that St. Chrysost gives that it is Animae vacantis passio a passion of an empty soul of an idle mind For fill a man with business and he hath no room for such love It will fit the love of God too so far as that that love must be in anima vocante at first when the soul is empty disencumbred from other studies disengaged in other affections then to take in the knowledge and the love of God for Amari nisi nota possunt says St. August truely however we may slumber our selves with an opinion of loving God certainly we do not we cannot love him till we know him and therefore hear and read and meditate and confer and use all means whereby thou mayst increase in knowledge If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them says Christ you are not happy till you do them that 's true but ye can never do them till ye know them Zeal furthers our salvation but it must be Secundum scientiam Zeal according to knowledge Works further our salvation but not works done in our sleep stupidly casually nor erroniously but upon such grounds as fall within our knowledge to be good Faith most of all furthers and advances our salvation but a man cannot believe that which he does not know Conscience includes science it is knowledge and more but it is that first It is as we express it in the School Syllogismus practicus I have a good Conscience in having done well but I did that upon a former knowledge that that ought to be done God hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge that was the first and then of the knowledge of the glory of God that is our second term in this first acceptation of the Word The light of the knowledge of the glory of this world Gloria Dei is a good and a great peece of learning To know that all the glory of man is as the flower of grass that even the glory 1 Pet. 1.24 and all the glory of man of all mankind is but a flower and but as a flower somewhat less then the Proto-type then the Original then the flower it self and all this but as the flower of grass neither no very beautiful flower to the eye no very fragrant flower to the smell To know that for the glory of Moab Auferetur Esai 16.24 it shall be contemned consumed and for the glory of Jacob it self Attenuabitur It shall be extenuated 17. â—4 that the glory of Gods enemies shall be brought to nothing and the glory of his servants shall be brought low in this word To know how near nothing how meer nothing all the glory of this world is is a good a great degree of learning It is a Book of an old Edition to put you upon the consideration what great and glorious men have lost their glory in this world Give me leave to present to you a new Book a new consideration not how others have lost but consider onely how you have got that glory which you have in this world consider advisedly and confess ingeniously whether you have not known many men more industrious then ever you were and yet never attained to the glory of your Wealth Many wiser then ever you were and yet never attained to your place in the Government of State and valianter then ever you were that never came to have your command in the Wars Consider then how poor a thing the glory of this world is not onely as it may be so lost as many have lost it but as it may be so got as you have got it Seneca Nullum indifferens gloriosum says that Moral man In that which is so obvious as that any man may compass it truly this can be no glory But this is not fully the knowledge of the glory of this Text though this Moral knowledge of the glory of this world conduce to the knowledge of this place which is the glory of God yet not of the Majestical and inaccessible glory of the Essence or Attributes of God of inscrutable points of Divinity for scrutator Majestatis opprimetur a gloria Prov. 25.27 as St. Hiero and all those three Rabbins whose Commentaries we have upon that Book read that place He that searches too far into the secrets of God shall be dazled confounded by that glory But here Gloria Dei is indeed Gloria Deo the glory of God is the glorifying of God it is as St. Ambro. expresses it Notitia cum laude the glory of God is the taking knowledge that all that comes comes from God and then the glorifying of God for whatsoever comes And this is a heavenly art a divine knowledge that if God send a pestilence amongst us we Come not to say it was a great fruit year and therefore there must follow a plague in reason That if God swallow up an invincible Navy we come to say There was a storm and there must follow a scattering in reason That if God discover a Mine we come not to say there was a false Brother that writ a Letter and there must follow a discovery in reason but remember still that though in Davids Psalms there be Psalms of Prayer and Psalms of Praise
Psalms of Deprecation and of Imprecation too how divers soever the nature of the Psalm be yet the Church hath appointed to shut up every Psalm with that one Acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. Whether I pray or praise depricate Gods Judgements from my self or imprecate them upon pods enemies nothing can fall from me nothing can fall upon me but that God may receive glory by it if I will glorifie him in it So that then in a useful sense Gloria Dei is Gloria Deo but yet more literally more directly the glory of God in this place is the glorious Gospel of Christ Jesus which is that which is intended and expressed in the next phrase which is the last Branch in this first acceptation of these words in facie The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ In facie When our Saviour Christ charged the Sadduces with errour it was not meerly because they were ignorant the Sadduces were not so Mat. 22.29 but Erratis nescientes Scripturas says Christ You erre because you understand not the Scriptures All knowledge is ignorance except it conduce to the knowledge of the Scriptures and all the Scriptures lead us to Christ Heb. 1.3 He is the brightness of his Fathers glory Sap. 2. 26. and the express image of his person The brightness of the everlasting light and the image of his goodness And to insist upon a word of the fittest signification Jo. 6. 27. Hillari Him hath God the Father sealed Now Sigillum imprimitur in Materia diversa A Seal graven in gold or stone does not print in stone or gold in Wax it will and it will in Clay for this Seal in which God hath manifested himself we consider it not as it is printed in the same metal in the eternal Son of God but as God hath sealed himself in Clay in the humane Nature but yet in Wax too in a person ductile pliant obedient to his will And there Signatum super nos Lumen vultus tui says David The light of thy countenance that is the image of thy self is sealed that is derived imprinted upon us that is Ps 4. upon our nature our flesh Signatum est id est significatum est Tertul. God hath signified this pretence manifested revealed himself in the face of Jesus Christ For that is the Office and service that Christ avows himself to have done O Father I have manifested thy Name that is thy Name of Father as thou art a Father for Qui Solum Deum novit Creatorem Cipri Judaicae mensuram prudentiae non excedit Knowest thou that there is a God and that that God created the world What great knowledge is this The Jews know it too Non est Idem nosce Deum opificem esse habere filium It is another Religion another point of Faith Chrysost to know that God had a Son of eternal begetting and to have a world of late making God therefore hath shin'd in no mans heart till he know the glory of GOD in the face of Jesus Christ till he come to the manifestation of God in the Gospel So that that man comes short of this light that believes in God in a general in an incomprehensible power but not in Christ and that man goes beyond this light who will know more of God then is manifested in the Gospel which is the face of Christ Jesus the one comes not to the light the other goes beyond and both are in blindness Christ is the Image of God and the Gospel is the face of Christ and now I rest nor in Gods picture as I find it in every Creature though there be in every Creatare an Image of God I have a livelier Image of God Christ And then I seek not for Christs face as it was traditionally sent to Agabarus in his life nor for his face as it was imprinted in the Veronica in the womans Apron as he went to his death nor for his face as it was described in Lentulus his Letter to the Senate of Rome but I have the glory of God in Christ I and I have the face of Christ in the Gospel Except God had taken this very person upon him this individual person me which was impossible because I am a sinful person he could not have come nearer then in taking this nature upon him Now I cannot say as the man at the Pool Hominem non habeo I have no man to help me the Heathen cannot say I have no God but I cannot say I have no man for I have a Man the Man Jesus him who by being Man knows my misery and by being God can and will show mercy unto me Rom. 13.12 The night is far spent says the Apostle the day is at hand Gregor Nox ante Christum Aurora in Evangelio Dies in Resurrectione Till Christ all was night there was a beginning of day in the beginning of the Gospel and there was a full noon in the light and glory thereof but such a day as shall be always day and overtaken with no night no cloud is onely the day of Judgement the Resurrection And this hath brought us to our last step to the consideration of these three terms 1. knowledge 2. glory 3. the face of Christ Jesus in that everlasting Kingdom For this purpose did God command light out of darkness that men might glorifie God in the contemplation of the Creatures and for this purpose hath God shin'd in our hearts by the Scriptures in the Church that man might be directed towards him here but both these hath God done therefore to this purpose this is the end of all that man might come to this light in that everlasting state in the consummation of happiness in Soul and body too when we shall be call'd out of the solitariness of the grave to the blessed and glorious society of God and his Angels and his Saints there Nazianzen Hoc verbo re-concinnor componor in alium virum migro with that word Surgite mortui Arise yee that sleep in the dust all my peeces shall be put together again Reconcinnor with that word Intra in gaudium Enter into thy Masters joy I am settled I am established Componor and with that word Sede ad dextram sit down army right hand I become another manner of man In alium virum migro another manner of Miracle then the same Father makes of man in this world Quodnam Mysterium says he What a Mystery is man here Parvus sum Magnus I am less in body then many Creature in the World and yet greater in the compass and extent of my Soul then all the World Humillimus sum Excelsus I am under a necessity of spending some thoughts upon this low World and yet in an ability to study to contemplate to lay hold upon the next Mortalis sum immortalis in a Body that may that
must that does that did dye ever since it was made I carry a Soul nay a Soul carries me to such a perpetuity as no Saint no Angel God himself shall not survive me over-live me And lastly says he Terrenus sum Coelestis I have a Body but of Earth but yet of such Earth as God was the Potter to mold it God was the statuary to fashion it and then I have a Soul of which God was the Father he breath'd it into me and of which no matter can say I was the Mother for it proceeded of nothing Such a Mystery is man here but he is a Miracle hereafter I shall be still the same man and yet have another being And in this is that Miracle exalted that death who destroys me re-edifies me Mors veluti medium excogitata Cyril ut de integro restauraretur homo man was fallen and God took that way to raise him to throw him lower into the grave man was sick and God invented God studied Physick for him and strange Physick to recover him by death The first faciamus hominem the Creation of man was a thing incomprehensible in Nature but the Denuo nasci to be born again was stranger even to Nicodemus who knew the former the Creation Joh. 4.3 well enough But yet the Immutabimur is the greatest of all 1 Cor. 15.57 which St. Paul calls all to wonder at Behold I shew you a Mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed A Mystery which it Nicodemus had discern'd it would have put him to more wonder then the Denuo nasci to enter into his mothers womb as he speaks to enter into the Bowels of the Earth and lie there and lie dead there not nine months but many yeers and then to be born again and the first minute of that new Birth to be so perfect as that nothing can be better and so perfect as that he can never become worse that is that which makes all strange accidents to natural Bodies and Bodies Politike too Scientia all changes in man all revolutions of States easie and familiar to us I shall have another being and yet be the same man And in that state I shall have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus Of which three things being now come to speak I am the less sorry and so may you be too if my voice be so sunk as that I be not heard for if I had all my time and all my strength and all your patience reserv'd till now what could I say that could become what that could have any proportion to this knowledge and this glory and this face of Christ Jesus there in the Kingdome of Heaven But yet be pleased to hear a word of each of these three words and first of Knowledge In the Attributes of God we consider his knowledge to be Principium agendi dirigens The first proposer and Director This should be done and then his Will to be Principium imperans the first Commander This shall be done and then his Power to be Principium exequens the first Performer This is done This should be done this shall be done this is done expresses to us the Knowledge the Will and the Power of God Now we shall be made partakers of the Divine Nature and the Knowledge and the Will and the Power of God shall be so far communicated to us there as that we shall know all that belongs to our happiness and we shall have a will to doe and a power to execute whatsoever conduces to that And for the knowledge of Angels that is not in them per essentiam for whosoever knows so as the Essence of the thing flows from him knows all things and that 's a knowledge proper to God only Neither doe the Angels know per species by those resultances and species which rise from the Object and pass through the Sense to the Understanding for that 's a deceiveable way both by the indisposition of the Organ sometimes and sometimes by the depravation of the Judgment and therefore as the first is too high this is too low a way for the Angels Some things the Angels do know by the dignity of their Nature by their Creation which we know not as we know many things which inserior Creatures do not and such things all the Angels good and bad know Some things they know by the Grace of their confirmation by which they have more given them then they had by Nature in their Creation and those things only the Angels that stood but all they do know Some things they know by Revelation when God is pleased to manifest them unto them and so some of the Angels know that which the rest though confirm'd doe not know By Creation they know as his Subjects by Confirmation they know as his servants by Revelation they know as his Councel Now Erimus sicut Angeli says Christ There we shall be as the Angels The knowledge which I have by Nature shall have no Clouds here it hath that which I have by Grace shall have no reluctation no resistance here it hath That which I have by Revelation shall have no suspition no jealousie here it hath sometimes it is hard to distinguish between a respiration from God and a suggestion from the Devil There our curiosity shall have this noble satisfaction we shall know how the Angels know by knowing as they know We shall not pass from Author to Author as in a Grammar School nor from Art to Art as in an University but as that General which Knighted his whole Army God shall Create us all Doctors in a minute That great Library those infinite Volumes of the Books of Creatures shall be taken away quite away no more Nature those reverend Manuscripts written with Gods own hand the Scriptures themselves shall be taken away quite away no more preaching no more reading of Scriptures and that great School-Mistress Experience and Observation shall be remov'd no new thing to be done and in an instant I shall know more then they all could reveal unto me I shall know not only as I know already that a Bee-hive that an Ant-hill is the same Book in Decimo sexto as a Kingdom is in Folio That a Flower that lives but a day is an abridgment of that King that lives out his threescore and ten yeers but I shall know too that all these Ants and Bees and Flowers and Kings and Kingdoms howsoever they may be Examples and Comparisons to one another yet they are all as nothing altogether nothing less then nothing infinitely less then nothing to that which shall then be the subject of my knowledge for it is the knowledge of the glory of God Gloria Dei Before in the former acceptation the glory of God was our glorifying of God here the glory of God is his glorifying of us there it was his receiving here it
by saying by speaking the making of Man was in in sermone in a consultation In this first Creation thus presented there is a shadow a representation of our second Creation our Regeneration in Christ and of the saving knowledge of God for first there is in Man a knowledge of God sine sermone without his word in the book of Creatures Non sunt loquelae sayes David Psal 19. They have no language they have no speech and yet they declare the glory of God The correspondence and relation of all parts of Nature to one Author the consinuity and dependance of every piece and joynt of this frame of the world the admirable order the immutable succession the lively and certain generation and birth of effects from their Parents the causes in all these though there be no sound no voice yet we may even see that it is an excellent song an admirable piece of musick and harmony and that God does as it were play upon this Organ in his administration and providence by naturall means and instruments and so there is some kind of creation in us some knowledge of God imprinted sine sermone without any relation to his word But this is a Creation as of heaven and earth which were dark and empty and without form till the Spirit of God moved and till God spoke Till there came the Spirit the breath of Gods mouth the word of God it is but a faint twilight it is but an uncertain glimmering which we have of God in the Creature But in sermone in his word when we come to him in his Scriptures we finde better and nobler Creatures produced in us clearer notions of God and more evident manifestations of his power and of his goodness towards us for if we consider him in his first word sicut locutus ab initio as he spoke from the beginning in the Old Testament from thence we cannot only see but feel and apply a Dixit fiat lux that God hath said let there be light and that there is a light produced in us by which we see that this world was not made by chance for then it could not consist in this order and regularity and we see that it was not eternall for if it were eternall as God and so no Creature then it must be God too we see it had a beginning a beginning of nothing and all from God So we find in our self a fiat lux that there is such a light produced And there we may find a fiat firmamentum that there is a kind of firmament produced in us a knowledge of a difference between Heaven and Earth and that there is in our constitutions an earthly part a body and a heavenly part a soul and an understanding as a firmament to separate distinguish and discern between these So also may we find a congregenter aquae that God hath said Let there be a sea a gathering a confluence of all such means as are necessary for the attaining of salvation that is that God from the beginning settled and established a Church in which he was alwayes carefull to minister to man means of eternall happiness The Church is that Sea and into that Sea we launched the water of Baptism To contract this sine sermone till God spake in his Creatures only we have but a faint and uncertain and generall knowledge of God in sermone when God comes to speak at first in the Old Testament though he come to more particulars yet it was in dark speeches and in vails and to them who understood best and saw clearest into Gods word still it was but de futuro by way of promise and of a future thing But when God comes to his last work to make Man to make up Man that is to make Man a Christian by the Gospel when he comes not to a fiat homo Let there be a Man as he proceeded in the rest but to a faciamus hominem Let us make Man Then he calls his Sonne to him and sends him into the world to suffer death the death of the Crosse for our salvation And he calls the Holy Ghost to him and sends him to teach us all truth and apply that which Christ suffered for our souls to our souls God leaves the Nations the Gentiles under the non locutus est he speaks not at all to them but in the speechless creatures He leaves the Jewes under the locutus est under the killing letter of the Law and their stubborn perverting thereof And he comes to us sicut locutus est in manifesting to us that our Messias Christ Jesus is come and come according to the promise of God and the foretelling of all his Prophets for that is our safe anchorage in all storms that our Gospel is in sermone that all things are done so as God had foretold they should be done that we have infallible marks given us before by which we may try all that is done after All the word of God then conduces to the Gospel the Old Testament is a preparation and a poedagogie to the New All the word belongs to the Gospell and all the Gospell is in the word nothing is to be obtruded to our faith as necessary to salvation except it be rooted in the Word And as the locutus est that is the promises that God hath made to us in the Old Testament and the sicut locutus est that is the accomplishing of those promises to us in the New-Testament are thus applyable to us so is this especially Quod adhuc loquitur that God continues his speech and speaks to us every day still we must hear Evangelium in sermone the Gospel in the Word in the Word so as we may hear it that is the Word preached for howsoever it be Gospel in it self it is not Gospel to us if it be not preached in the Congregation neither though it be preached to the Congregation is it Gospel to me except I find it work upon my understanding and my faith and my conscience A man may believe that there shall be a Redeemer and he may give an Historicall assent that there hath been a Redeemer that that Redeemer is come he may have heard utrumque sermonem both Gods wayes of speaking both his voices both his languages his promises in the Old Testament his performances in the New Testament and yet not hear him speak to his own soul Ferme Apostoli plus laborarunt says S. Chrys It cost the Apostles and their Successors the preachers of the Gospell more paines and more labour ut persuaderent hominibus dona Dei iis indulta To perswade men that this mercy of God and these merits of Christ Jesus were intended to them and directed upon them in particular then to perswade them that such things were done they can beleeve the promise and the performance in the generall but they cannot finde the application thereof in particular the voice that is neerest us we least
on put him not off again Christ is not only the Stuff but the Garment ready made he will not be translated and turn'd and put into new fashions nor laid up in a Wardrobe but put on all day all the days of our life though it rain and rain blood how foul soever any persecution make the day we must keep on that Garment the true profession of Christ Jesus follow not these men in their severity to exclude men from salvation in things that are not fundamental nor in their facility to disguise and prevaricate in things that are The second danger and our last Branch of this last Part is Enquire not after their gods c. Ignorance excuses no man What is curiosity Augustine Qui scire vult ut sciat He that desires knowledge only that he may know or be known by others to know he who makes not the end of his knowledge the glory of God he offends in curiosity says that Father But that is only in the end But in the way to knowledge there is curiosity too In seeking such things as man hath no faculty to compass unrevealed mysteries In seeking things which if they may be compassed yet it is done by indirect means by Invocation of Spirits by Sorcery In seeking things which may be found and by good means but appertain not to our profession all these ways men offend in curiosity It is so in us in Church-men si Iambos servemus metrorum silvam congerimus Hieron If we be over-vehemently affected or transported with Poetry or other secular Learning And therefore St. Hierom is reported himself to have been whipt by an Angel who found him over-studious in some of Cicero's Books This is curiosity in us and it is so in you if when you have sufficient means of salvation Preached to you in that Religion wherein you were Baptized you enquire too much too much trouble your self with the Religion of those from whose superstitions you are already by Gods goodness rescued remember that he who desired to fill himself with the husks was the Prodigal It was Prodigality and a dangerous expence of your constancy to open your self to temptation by an unnecessary enquiring into impertinent controversies We in our profession may embrace secular Learning so far as it may conduce to the better discharge of our duties in making the easier entrance and deeper impression of Divine things in you You may inform your selves occasionally when any scruple takes hold of you of any point of their Religion But let your study be rather to live according to that Religion which you have then to enquire into that from which God hath delivered you for that 's the looking back of Lots wife and the distemper and distaste of the children of Israel who remembred too much the Egyptian diet If you will enquire whether any of the Fathers of the Primitive Church did at any time pray for any of the dead you shall be told and truly that Augustine did that Ambrose did but you shall not so presently be told how they deprehended themselves in an infirmity and collected and corrected themselves ever when they were so praying If you enquire whether any of them speak of Purgatory you shall easily finde they do but not so easily in what sense when they call the calamities of this life or when they call the general Conflagration of the world Purgatory If you enquire after Indulgences you may finde the name frequent amongst them but not so easily finde when and how the Relaxations of Penances publickly enjoyned were called Indulgences nor how nor when Indulgences came to be applyed to souls departed If thou enquire without a Melius Inquirendum without a through Inquisition which is not easie for any man who makes it not his whole study and profession thou maist come to think holy men have pray'd for the dead why may not I Holy men speak of Purgatory and Indulgences why should I abhor the names or the things And so thou maist fall into the first snare it hath been done therefore it may be done and into another after It may be done therefore it must be done When thou art come to think that some men are saved that have done it thou wilt think that no man can be saved except he do it From making infirmities excusable necessary which is the bondage the Council of Trent hath laid upon the world to make Problematical things Dogmatical and matter of Disputation matter of Faith to bring the University into Smithfield and heaps of Arguments into Piles of Faggots If thou enquire further then thy capacity enables thee further then thy calling provokes thee How do those Nations serve their gods thou maist come to say as the Text says in the end Even so will I do also To end all embrace Fundamental Dogmatical evident Divinity That is express'd in Credendis in the things which we are to believe in the Creed And it begins with Credo in Deum Belief in God and not in man nor traditions of men And it is expressed in petendis in the things which we are to pray for in the Lords Prayer and that begins with Sanctificetur nomen tuum Hallowed be thy Name not the name of any And it is expressed in Agendis in the things which we are to do in the Commandments whereof the first Table begins with that Thou shalt have no other gods but me God is a Monarch alone not a Consul with a Colleague And the second Table begins with Honor to Parents that is to Magistrates to lawful Authority Be therefore always fat from disobeying lawful Authority resist it not calumniate it not suspect it not for there is a libelling in the ear and a libelling in the heart though it come not to the tongue or hands to words nor actions If it be possible saith the Apostle as much as in you lies have peace with all men with all kind of men Obedience is the first Commandment of the second Table and that never destroys the first Table of which the first Commandment is Keep thy self that is those that belong to thee and thy house intire and upright in the worship of the true God not only not to admit Idols for gods but not to admit Idolatry in the worship of the true God A SERMON Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords of the Council and other Honorable Persons 24. Mart. 1616. It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown and his Majesty being then gone into Scotland SERMON XXIIII Prov. 22.11 He that loveth Pureness of Heart for the grace of his Lipps the King shall be his friend THat Man that said it was possible to carve the faces of all good Kings that ever were in a Cherry-stone had a seditious and a trayterous meaning in his words And he that thought it a good description a good Character of good subjects that they were Populus natus ad servitutem A people disposed
that first our branches in this third part will be three these three terms 1 Knowledge 2 Glory and then the face of Jesus Christ Divisio And then we must look upon all these three terms two ways first Inchoative how we have an inchoation of this knowledge of this glory in this face of Christ Jesus here in the Church and then Consummative how we shall have a consummation of all this hereafter Scientia To us then who were created of nothing in the first part and called from the Gentiles in the second in this third part our preparation to glory is knowledge The Persons in this part of the Text are as in the former Not only we we the Ministers of Gods Word but you also the hearers thereof for there is a knowledge an art of hearing as well as of speaking Students make up the University as well as Doctors and Hearers make up the Congregation as well as Preachers A good hearer is as much a Doctor as a Preacher A Doctor to him that sits by him in example whilst he is here a Doctor to all his Family in his repetition when he comes home a Doctor to that which is more then the whole world to him his own soul all his life Christ appear'd to this Apostle Act. 26.16 and said I have appeared unto thee for this purpose to make thee a Minister and a witness to open the Gentiles eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God There he received his Degree his learning and the use of it but when St. Paul came abroad into the world when he comes to preach 1.12 and to write he says to the Colos The Father hath made us meet to be partakes of the inheritance of the Saints in his light Us says St. Chrysost and so says Theophylact too and many more then they two Us that is all Us Us that preach you that hear you are bound to study this knowledge as well as we And truly a Hearer hath in some respects advantage of the Preacher for a Preacher though in some measure well dispos'd can hardly exuere hominem put off the affections of man by being a Preacher they stick closer to him then his Hood and habit even in the Pulpit Some little Clouds if not of ostentation and vain glory yet of complacencie and self-pleasing will affect him the hearer hath not that tentation but hath herein a more perfect exercise of the most Christian vertue Humility then the preacher hath Though therefore when you cast your eye upon this part of this Text you see in your Book a difference of Character in this word To give to give light c. which seems to fix all upon the person of the Apostle and consequently of the Minister yet that word is not in the Text but the Text is only for the inlightning God hath shin'd for the inlightning c. which is alike upon all and therefore let us all us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light light it self is faith but the armor of light is knowledge an ignorant man is a disarm'd man a naked man Ignorance then is not our Usher into this presence to shew us the face of Christ Jesus almost in every one of the ancient Fathers you shall find some passages wherein they discover an inclination to that opinion that before Christ came in the manifestation of his Gospel for since that coming every man is bound to see him there many Philosophers men of knowledge and learning were sav'd without the knowledge of Christ Christus Ratio says one of them well for Logos is Ratio and not only Verbum Justin Martyr as it is ordinarily translated Christ is Reason rectified Reason and secundum Rationem vixerunt Christiani semper says he Whosoever lives according to rectified Reason which is the Law of nature he is a Christian and therefore when that Father Justin Martyr who had been before a Philosopher amongst the Gentiles came to be a Preacher amongst the Christians he never left off his Philosophers habit because that gave an impression of his learning and an estimation by it That knowledge was a help to salvation the Ancients thought but that is a new Doctrine that men should make a title to God by being ignorant that whereas all the life of man is either an active life or a contemplative they should in the Romane Church make one Order and call them Nullanos men that did nothing in contempt of the active life and in contempt of the contemplative life another Order whom they call Ignorantes men that know nothing There is an annihilation in sin Homines cum peccam nihil sunt August Then when by sin I depart from the Lord my God in whom only I live and move and have my being I am nothing and truly in this sinful profession of thine of doing nothing of knowing nothing they come too neer being nothing What other answer can this knowing nothing here produce at the last day from Christ Jesus but his Nescio vos I know not you As David says of God Psal 18.26 Cum perverso perverteris With the froward God will be froward so Ignorantes ignorabit of the ignorant God will be ignorant not know them that study not knowledge The miracle that Christ wrought in the conversion of the World was not that he wrought upon men by Apostles that were unlearned for the Apostles were not so they were never unprovided to give a pertinent and satisfactory answer to the learnedest of the Philosophers amongst the Gentiles to any of the Gamaliels and Nicodemusses who were true understanders of the Law amongst the Jews to any of their Scribes the perverters of the Law to any of the Pharisees their Separatists and Schismaticks to any of the Sadduces their formal Hereticks nor to any of their Herodians their State-Divines who made Divinity serve present turns and occasions The Apostles were no ignorant men then when they were imployed but in this consisted the Miracle that in an instant Christ by his Spirit infus'd all knowledge necessary for that great function into them If they had not had it they could not have done his work All must have it Intelligite Reges says David for all their business Kings must study for it Erudimini Judices with their other learning Judges must have this The Prophet denounces it for a heavy curse The Prophet shall be a fool Psa 2. Ose 9.7 he that should teach shall not be able to do it and as it follows The spiritual man shall be mad if he have knowledge he shall not know how to use it St. Hierome translates that word Arreptitius he shall be possessed possess'd with the spirit of fear or of flattery others shall speak in him and he become the instrument of men and not of God It was the Devils first advantage knowledge The
is his giving of glory That prayer which our Saviour Christ makes Glorifie me O Father with thine own self Joh. 17.5 with the Glory which I had before the world was is not a prayer for the Essential Glory of God for Christ in his Divine Nature was never devested never unaccompanied of that glory and for his humane Nature that was never capable of it the attributes and so the Essence of the Glory of the Divinity are not communicable to his Humane Nature neither perpetually as the Ubiquitaries say nor temporarily in the Sacrament as the Papists imply But the glory which Christ asks there is the glory of sitting down at the right hand of his Father in our flesh in his humane Nature which glory he had before the world for he had it in his predestination in the Eternal Decree And that 's the glory of God which we shall know know by having it We shall have a knowledge of the very glory the Essential glory of God because we shall see Sicuti est as God is in himself and Cognoscam at cognitus I shall know as I am known 1 Cor. 13.12 that glory shall dilate us enlarge us give us an inexpressible capacity and then fill it but we shall never comprehend that glory the Essential glory but that glory which Christ hath received in his humane Natute in all other degrees excepting those which flow from his hypostatical union we shall comprehend we shall know by having we shall receive a Crown of glory that sadeth not 1 Pet. 5.4 It is a Crown that compasses round no enterance of danger any way and a crown that fadeth not fears no winter we shall have interest in all we see and we shall see the treasure of all knowledge the face of Christ Jesus Then and there In facio we shall have an abundant satisfaction and accomplishment of all St. Augustines three Wishes He wish'd to have seen Rome in her glory to have heard St. Paul preach and to have seen Christ in the flesh We shall have all we shall see such a Jerusalem as that Rome if that were literally true which is hyperbolically said of Rome In Urbe in Orbe that City is the whole world yet Rome that Rome were but a Village to this Jerusalem We shall hear St. Paul with the whole quire of Heaven pour our himself in that acclamation Saluation to our God that sitteth upon the Throne Apoc. 7.10 and to the Lamb and we shall see and see for ever Christ in that flesh which hath done enough for his Friends and is safe enough from his Enemies We shall see him in a transfiguration all clouds of sadness remov'd and a transubstantiation all his tears changed to Pearls all his Blood-drops into Rubies all the Thorns of his Crown into Diamonds for where we shall see the Walls of his Palace to be Saphyr and Emerald and Amethist Apoc. 21.19 and all Stones that are precious what shall we not see in the face of Christ Jesus and whatsoever we do see by that very sight becomes our Be therefore no strangers to this face see him here that you may know him and he you there see him as St. John did who turned to see a voice see him in the preaching of his Word see him in that seal which is a Copy of him as he is of his Father Apoc. 1. see him in the Sacrament Look him in the face as he lay in the Manger poor and then murmur not at temporal wants suddainly enrich'd by the Tributes of Kings and doubt not but that God hath large and strange ways to supply thee Look him in the face in the Temple disputing there at twelve years and then apply thy self to God to the contemplation of him to the meditation upon him to a conversation with him betimes Look him in the face in his Fathers house a Carpenter and but a Carpenter Take a Calling and contain thy self in that Calling But bring him nearer and look him in the face as he look'd upon Friday last when he whose face the Angels desire to look on he who was fairer then the children of men Psa 45.3 Esai 52.14.53.3 as the Prophet speaks was so marr'd more then any man as another Prophet says That they hid their faces from him despised him when he who bore up the heavens bowed down his head he who gives breath to all gave up the ghost and then look him in the face again as he look'd yesterday not lam'd upon the Cross not putrifi'd in the Grave not singed in Hell rais'd and raised by his own power Victoriously triumphantly to the destruction of the last Enemy death look him in the face in all these respects of Humiliation and of Exaltation too and then as a Picture look upon him that look upon it God upon whom thou keepest thine Eye will keep his Eye upon thee and as in the Creation when he commanded light out of darkness he gave thee a capacity of this light and as in thy Vocation when he shin'd in thy heart he gave thee an inchoation of this light so in associating thee to himself at the last day he will perfect consummate accomplish all and give thee the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus there This is the last word of our Text but we make up our Circle by returning to the first word the first word is For for the Text is reason of that which is in the Verse immediately before the Text that is We preach not our selves but Christ Jesus the Lord and our selves your servants for Jesus sake We stop not on this side Christ Jesus we dare not say that any man is sav'd without Christ we dare say that none can be saved that hath received that light and hath not beleev'd in him We carry you not beyond Christ neither not beyond that face of his in which he is manifested the Scriptures Till you come to Christ you are without God as the Apostle says to the Ephesians and when you goe beyond Christ to Traditions of men you are without God too There is a fine Deo a left handed Atheism in the meer natural man that will not know Christ and there is a sine Deo a right handed Atheism in the stubborn Papist who is not content with Christ They preach Christ Jesus and themselves and make themselves Lords over you in Jesus place and farther then ever he went We preach not our selves but him and our selves your servants for his sake and this is our service to tell you the whole compass the beginning the way and the end of all that all is done in and by and for Christ Jesus that from thence flow and thither lead and there determine all to bring you from the memory of your Creation by the sense of your Vocation to the assurance of your glorification by the manifestation of God in Christ and Christ in