a right value upon Holinesse and to give a due respect to holy men For so where we read Psal 78.63 Their Maidens were not given in Marriage we finde this word of our Text Their Maidens were not praised that is there was not a due respect held of them nor a just value set upon them So that this retribution intended for the upright in heart as in the growth and extension of the word it reaches to Joy and Glory and Eminency and Respect so in the roote it signifies Praise And it is given them by God as a Reward That they shall be Praised now Praise sayes the Philosopher is Sermo elucidans magnitudinem virtutis It is the good word of good men a good testimony given by good men of good actions And this difference we use to assigne betweene Praise and Honour Laus est in ordine ad finem Honor eorum qui jam in fine Praise is an encouragement to them that are in the way and so far a Reward a Reward of good beginnings Honour is reserved to the end to crowne their constancy and perseverance And therefore where men are rewarded with great honours at the beginning in hope they will deserve it they are paid beforehand Thanks and Grace and good countenance and Praise are interlocutory encouragements Honours are finall Rewards But since Praise is a part of Gods retribution a part of his promise in our text They shall be praised we are thereby not onely allowed but bound to seeke this praise from good men and to give this praise to good men for in this Coine God hath promised that the upright in heart shall be paid They shall be praised To seeke praise from good men by good meanes Laus à bonis quaerenda Prov. 22.1 Bernar. is but the same thing which is recommended to us by Solomon A good name is rather to be chosen then great riches and loving favour then silver and Gold For Habent mores colores suos habent odores Our good works have a colour and they have a savor we see their Candor their sincerity in our owne consciences there is their colour for in our owne consciences our works appeare in their true colours no man can be an hypocrite to himselfe nor seriously deliberately deceive himselfe And when others give allowance of our works and are edified by them there is their savour their odor their perfume their fragrancy And therefore S. Hierom and S. Augustin differ little in their manner of expressing this Hieron Non paratum habeas illud è trivio Serve not thy selfe with that triviall and vulgar saying As long as my conscience testifies well to me I care not what men say of me August And so sayes that other Father They that rest in the testimony of their owne consciences and contemne the opinion of other men Imprudenter agunt crudeliter They deale weakly and improvidently for themselves in that they assist not their consciences with more witnesses And they deale cruelly towards others in that they provide not for their edification by the knowledge and manifestation of their good works For as he adds well there Qui à criminibus vitam custodit bene facit He that is innocent in his owne heart does well for himselfe but Qui famam custodit in alios misericors est He that is known to live well he that hath the praise of good men to bee a good man is mercifull in an exemplary life to others and promoves their salvation For when that Father gives a measure how much praise a man may receive and a rule how he may receive it when he hath first said Nec totum nec nihil accipiatur Receive not all but yet refuse not all praise he adds this That that which is to be received is not to be received for our owne sakes sed propter illos quibus consulere non potest si nimia dejectione vilescat but for their sakes who would undervalue goodnesse it selfe if good men did too much undervalue themselves or thought themselves never the better for their goodnesse And therefore S. Bernard applies that in the Proverbs to this case Prov. 25.16 Hast thou found Honey eate that which is sufficient Mellis nomine favor humanae laudis sayes he By Honey favour and praise and thankfulnesse is meant Meritóque non ab omni sed ab immoderato edulio prohibemur We are not forbid to taste nor to eate but to surfet of this Honey of this praise of men S. Augustine found this love of praise in himselfe and could forbid it no man Laudari à bene viventibus si dicam nolo mentior If I should say that I desired not the praise of good men I should belie my selfe He carries it higher then thus He does not doubt but that the Apostles themselves had a holy joy and complacency when their Preaching was acceptable and thereby effectuall upon the Congregation Such a love of praise is rooted in Nature and Grace destroyes not Nature Grace extinguishes not but moderates this love of praise in us nor takes away the matter but onely exhibits the measure Certainly he that hath not some desire of praise will bee negligent in doing praise-worthy things and negligent in another duty intended here too that is To praise good men which is also another particular branch in this Part. The hundred forty fift Psalme is Laus danda aliis in the Title thereof called A Psalme of Praise And the Rabbins call him Filium futuri Seculi A child of the next World that sayes that Psalme thrice a day We will interpret it by way of Accommodation thus that he is a child of the next World that directs his Praise every day upon three objects upon God upon himselfe upon other men Of God there can be no question And for our selves it is truly the most proper and most literall signification of this word in our Text Iithhalelu That they shall praise themselves that is They shall have the testimony of a rectified conscience that they have deserved the praise of good men in having done laudible service to God And then for others That which God promises to Israel in their restauration Zephan 3.19 belongs to all the Israel of the Lord to all the faithfull I will get thee praise and fame in every land and I will make thee a name and a praise amongst all the people of the earth This God will doe procure them a name a glory By whom When God bindes himselfe he takes us into the band with him and when God makes himselfe the debtor he makes us stewards when he promises them praise he meanes that we should give them that praise Be all waies of flatterings and humourings of great persons precluded with a Protestation with a detestation Be Philo Iudaeus his comparison received His Coquus and his Medicus One provides sweetnesse for the present taste but he is but a
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
Dominc Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be all glory given They would have made him King He would not and Judge to divide the Inheritance and he would not He sent the Holy Ghost And yet he saies I will pray the Father to send him So the Holy Ghost was sent by them both Father and Son But not so as that he was subject to a joynt command of both or to a diverse command of either or that he came unwillingly or had not a hand even in his owne sending But howsoever he were perfect God and had alwales an absolute power in himselfe and had ever a desire to assist the salvation of man yet he submitted himselfe to the Order of the Decree He disordered nothing prevented nothing anticipated nothing but staid till all that which lay upon Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension was executed and then in the due and appointed time issued his Mission It is a blessed Termination Mission It determines and ends many words in our Language Missio as Permission Commission Remission and others which may afford good instruction that as the Holy Ghost did for his so we may be content to stay Gods leasure for all those Missions A consideration which I presume S. Bernard who evermore embraced all occasions of exalting devotion from the melodious fall of words would not have let passe Nor S. Augustine for all his holy and reverend gravity would have thought Nimis juvenile Too light a consideration to have insisted upon And therefore I may have leave to stay your meditations a little upon this Termination these Missions You may have a Permission Many things are with some circumstances Permitted Permissio Mat. 19.8 which yet in discretion are better forborne Moses permitted divorces but that was for the hardnesse of their hearts and Christ withdrew that Permission S. Paul saies he had a Permission Liberty to forbeare working with his owne hands 1 Cor. 9.6 and so to live upon the Church but yet he did not What Permission soever thou have by which thou maist lawfully ease thy selfe yet forbeare till thou see that the glory of God and the good of other men may be more advanced by the use then by the forbearance of that indulgence and that Permission and afford not thy selfe all the liberty that is afforded thee but in such cases The Holy Ghost staid so for his Mission so stay thou for the exercise of thy Permission Thou maist have a Commission too In that of the Peace Commissio in that for Ecclesiasticall causes thou maist have part But be not hasty in the execution of these Commissions Come to an Inquisition upon another man so as thou wouldst wish God to enquire into thee Satan had a Commission upon Iob but he procured it so indirectly on his part by false suggestions against him and executed it so uncharitably as that he was as guilty of wrong and oppression as if he had had no Commission Thou canst not assist in the execution of those Commissions of which thou art till thou have taken the oathes of Supremacie and of Allegeance to thy Soveraigne Do it not till thou have sworne all that to thy Super-soveraigne to thy God That in all thy proceedings his glory and his will and not thine owne passion or their purposes upon whom thou dependest shall be thy rule The holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Commission till it be sealed over againe in thine owne bosome sealed on one side with a cleerenesse of understanding and on the other with a rectitude of conscience that thou know what thou shouldst doe and doe that There is also a Remission Remissio a Remission of sins It is an Article of Faith therefore beleeve it Beleeve it originally and meritoriously in Christ and beleeve it instrumentally and ministerially in the power constituted by Christ in the Church But beleeve it not too hastily in the execution and in the application thereof to thine owne case A transitory sin a sin that spent a few minutes in the doing thereof was by the penitentiall Canons which were the rule of the Primitive Church punished with many yeares penance And doest thou thinke to have Remission of thy seventy yeares sins for one sigh one groane then when that sigh and that groane may be more in contemplation of the torment due to that sin then for the sin it selfe Nay more that thou canst sinne that sin no longer then for that sin Hast thou sought thy Remission at the Church that is August in Gods Ordinances established in the Church In qua remittuntur extra quam non remittuntur peccata In which Ordinances there is an Infallibility of Remission upon true repentance and in a contempt or neglect of which Ordinances all Repentance is illusory and all Remission but imaginary Hieron For Quodammodo ante diem Iudicii judicant God refers causes to the Church to be prepared and mature there before the great Hearing and so hath given the Church a Power to judge before the day of Judgement And therefore August Nemo sibi dicat occultè ago apud Deum ago Let no man say I repent in secret God sees that I repent It was scarce in secret that thou didst sin and wilt thou repent but in secret At least let us know thy repentance by the amendment of thy life and wee shall not much presse the knowing of it any other way Onely remember that the holy Ghost staid for his Mission Presume not thou of thy Remission till thou have done not onely something towards it that might induce it from God that is Repentance but something by it that may testifie it to man that is amendment of life There is a Manumission also Manumission an emancipation an enfranchisement from the tyranny from the thraldome of sin That which some Saints of God particularly S. Paul have importuned at Gods hand so vehemently so impatiently as he did to be delivered from the messenger of Satan and from the provocations of the flesh exprest with that passion O wretched man that I am Rom. 7.22 who shall deliver me from the body of this death He comes immediately there to a thanksgiving I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord But his thanksgiving was not for a Manumission hee had not received a deliverance from the power and oppresssion of tentation But he had here as he had every where an intimation from the Spirit of God of that Gratia mea sufficit That God would be as watchfull over him with his grace as the Devill could be with his tentations And if thou come to no farther Manumission then this in this life that is to be delivered though not from tentations by his power yet in tentations by his grace or by his mercy after tentations have prevailed upon thee attend Gods leasure for thy farther Manumission for the holy Ghost staid for his
for God does not onely threaten to make his enemies drunke and to make others drunke is a circumstance of drunkennesse so Jerusalem being in his displeasure complaines Inebriavit absynthio Lam. 3.15 Esay 49.26 He hath made me drunke with wormewood and againe They shall be drunke with their owne blood as with new Wine Nor onely to expresse his plentifull mercies to his friends and servants does God take that Metaphore Inebriabo animam Sacerdotis I will make the soule of the Priest drunke fill it Ien. 31.14 Ver. 25. satiate it and againe I will make the weary soule and the sorrowfull soule drunke But not onely all this though in all this God have a hand not onely towards others but God in his owne behalfe complaines of the scant and penurious Sacrificer Non inebriasti me Esay 43.24 Thou hast not made me drunke with thy Sacrifices And yet though for the better applying of God to the understanding of man the Holy Ghost impute to God these excesses and defects of man lazinesse and drowsiness deterioration corruptiblenesse by ill conversation prodigality and wastfulnesse sudden choler long irreconciablenesse scorne inebriation and many others in the Scriptures yet in no place of the Scripture is God for any respect said to be proud God in the Scriptures is never made so like man as to be made capable of Pride for this had not beene to have God like man but like the devill God is said in the Scriptures to apparell himself gloriously Psal 104.2 Psal 45.13 God covers him with light as with a garment And so of his Spouse the Church it is said Her cloathing is of wrought gold and her raiment of needle worke and as though nothing in this world were good enough for her wearing she is said to be cloathed with the Sun Rev. 12.1 But glorious apparell is not pride in them whose conditions require it and whose revenews will beare it God is said in the Scriptures to appeare with greatnesse and majesty Dan. 7.10 A streame of fire came forth before him thousand thousands ministred unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him And so Christ shall come at Judgement with his Hosts of Angels in majesty and in glory But these outward appearances and acts of greatnesse are not pride in those persons to whom there is a reverence due which reverence is preserved by this outward splendor and not otherwise God is said in the Scriptures to triumph over his enemies and to be jealous of his glory The Lord whose name is Iealous Exod. 34.14 is a jealous God But for Princes to be jealous of their glory studious of their honour for any private man to be jealous of his good name carefull to preserve an honest reputation is not pride For Pride is Appetitus celsitudinis perversus It is an inordinate desire of being better then we are Now there is a lawfull nay a necessary desire of being better and better And that not onely in spirituall things for so every man is bound to be better and better better to day then yesterday and to morrow then to day and he that growes not in Religion withers There is no standing at a stay He that goes not forward in godlinesse goes backward and he that is not better is worse but even in temporall things too there is a liberty given us nay there is a law an obligation laid upon us to endeavour by industry in a lawfull calling to mend and improve to enlarge our selves and spread even in worldly things The first Commandement that God gave man was not prohibitive God Gen. 1.28 in that forbad man nothing but enlarged him with that Crescite multiplicamini Increase and multiply which is not onely in the multiplication of children but in the enlargement of possessions too for so it followes in the same place not onely Replete but Dominamini not onely replenish the world but subdue it and take dominion over it that is make it your owne For Terram dedit filiis hominum As God hath given sons to men so God gives the possession of this world to the sons of men For so when God delivers that commandement the second time to Noah for the reparation of the world Crescite multiplicamini Gen. 9.1 Increase and multiply he accompanies it with that reason The feare of you and the dread of you shall be upon all and all are delivered into your hands which reason can have no relation to the multiplying of Children but to the enlarging of possessions God planted trees in Paradise in a good state at first at first with ripe fruits upon them but Gods purpose was that even those trees though well then should grow greater God gives many men good estates from their parents at first yet Gods purpose is that they should increase those estates He that leaves no more then his father left him if the fault be in himselfe shall hardly make a good account of his stewardship to God for he hath but kept his talent in a handkercheif Mat. 18.25 Prov. 18.9 And the slothfull man is even brother to the waster The holy Ghost in Solomon scarce prefers him that does not get more before him that wasts all Ier. 48.10 He makes them brethren almost all one Cursed be he that does the worke of God negligently that does any Commandement of God by halves And this negligent and lazy man this in-industrious and illaborious man that takes no paines he does one part of Gods Commandement He does multiply but he does not the other he does not increase He leaves Children enow but he leaves them nothing not in possessions and maintenance nor in vocation and calling And truly 1 Tim. 6.10 1 Tim. 9. howsoever the love of money be the roote of all evill He cannot mistake that told us so Howsoever they that will be rich that resolve to be rich by any meanes shall fall into many tentations Howsoever a hasty desire of being suddenly and prematurely rich be a dangerous and an obnoxious thing a pestilent and contagious disease for what a perverse and inordinate anticipation and prevention of God and nature is it to looke for our harvest in May or to looke for all grainst at once and such a perversnesse is the hasty desire of being suddenly and prematurely rich yet to go on industriously in an honest calling and giving God his leasure and giving God his portion all the way in Tithes and in Almes and then still to lay up something for posterity is that which God does not onely permit and accept from us but command to us and reward in us And certainly that man shall not stand so right in Gods eye at the last day that leaves his Children to the Parish as he that leaves the Parish to his Children if he have made his purchases out of honest gaine in a lawfull Calling and not out of oppression In all which I
to a not being that which it was before onely the name of God is I am In which name God gave Moses and does give us who are also his Embassadors so much knowledge of himselfe as that we may tell you though not what God is yet that God is God in the notification of this name sends us sufficiently instructed to establish you in the assurance of an everlasting and an ever-ready God but not to scatter you with unnecessary speculations and impertinencies concerning this God He is no fit messenger between God and his Church that knowes not Gods name that is how God hath notified and manifested himselfe to man God hath manifested himselfe to man in Christ and manifested Christ in the Scriptures and manifested the Scriptures in the Church the name of God is the notification of God how God will be called by man and that is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and how God will be called upon by man that is that all our prayers to God be directed in and through and by and for Christ Jesus If we know the name of God Qui sum I am that is beleeve Christ Jesus whom we worship to have been from all eternity to be God and then for more particular points beleeve those Doctrines quae sunt which are that is Quae sunt ubique semper as Lyrinensis sayes which have been alwayes beleeved and alwayes beleeved to have been necessary to be beleeved as articles of Faith through the whole Catholique Church if we know the name of God thus we have our Commission and our qualification in that Gospell Goe and teach all Nations Mat. 28.19 and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost that is the name of God to a Christian the Trinity And least that Commission so delivered in the generall and fundamentall manner professing the Trinity should not seem enough it is repeated and paraphrased in the verse following Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you First there is a Teaching good life it self is but a commentary an exposition upon our preaching that which is first laid upon us is preaching and then teach them to observe that is to practise breed them not in an opinion that such a faith as is without workes is enough and teach them to observe All For for matter of practice He that breakes one Law is guilty of all and he that thinkes to serve God by way of compensation that is to recompense God by doing one duty for the omission of another sins even in that in which he thinkes he serves God and for matter of beleefe he that beleeves not all solvit Iesum as S. Iohn speakes he takes Jesus in peeces and after the Jews have crucified him he dissects him and makes him an Anatomy We must therefore teach all but then it is but all which Christ hath commanded us additionall and traditionall doctrines of the Papist speculative and dazling riddling and entangling perplexities of the Schoole passionate and uncharitable wranglings of Controverters these fall not in Moses Commission nor ours who participate of his we are to deliver to you by the Ordinance of God Preaching The name of God that is how God hath manifested himself to man and how God will be called upon by man That God is your God in Christ if you receive Christ in the Scriptures applyed in the Church And farther we carry not our consideration upon this second excuse of Moses in which as in the former he considered his insufficiency in the generall he considers it in this that he had not studied he had not acquired he had not sought the knowledge of those Mysteries which appertained to that calling implyed in that that he did not know Gods name His third excuse which induces a great discouragement Non eloquens arises out of a defect in nature whereas the former is rather of art and study and consideration and to be naturally defective in those faculties which are essentiall and necessary to that work which is under our hand is a great discouragement Lamenesse is not alwayes an insupportable calamity but for Mephibosheth to have been hindred by lamenesse then when he should have received favour from the King and setled his inheritance this was a heavy affliction Lownesse of stature is no insupportable thing but when Zacheus came with such a desire to see Christ then to be disappointed by reason of his lownesse this might affect him It is not alwayes insupportable to lack the assistance of a servant or a friend But when the Angel hath troubled the water and made it medicinall for him that is first put in and no more then to have lyen many yeares in expectation and still to lack a servant or a friend to do that office this is a misery And this was Moses case God will send him upon a service that consisted much in perswasion and good speech and he sayes O my Lord I am not eloquent neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken to thy servant Ver. 10. Where we see there is some degree of eloquence required in the delivery of Gods Messages There are not so eloquent Bookes in the world as the Scriptures neither should a man come to any kinde of handling of them with uncircumcised lips as Moses speaks or with an extemporall and irreverent or over-homely and vulgar language Prov. 16.1 The preparation of the heart is of the Lord sayes Solomon but it is not only that The preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. To conceive good things for the glory of God and to expresse them to the edification of Gods people is a double blessing of God Therefore does Hester form and institute her prayer to God so Ester 14.12 Give me boldnesse O Lord of all power but she extends her prayer farther And give me eloquent speech in my mouth And the want of this in a naturall defect and unreadinesse of speech discouraged Moses And when God recompenses and supplyes this defect in Moses he does it but thus I will be with thy mouth and I will teach thee what thou shalt say Still it is Moses that must say it still Moses mouth that must utter it Beloved it is the generall Ordinance of God of whom as we have received mercy we have received the Ministery and it is the particular grace of God that inanimates our labours and makes them effectuall upon you All that is not of our planting nor watring but of God that gives the increase But yet we must labour to get and labour to improve such learning and such language and such other abilities as may best become that service for the naturall want of one of these retarded Moses from a present acceptation of Gods imployment And so truly should put any man that puts himself or puts his son upon this profession upon that consideration whether he
is done sayes the Apostle So that here is the case if the naturall man say alas they are but dark notions of God which I have in nature if the Jew say alas they are but remote and ambiguous things which I have of Christ in the Prophets If the slack and historicall Christian say alas they are but generall things done for the whole world indifferently and not applyed to me which I reade in the Gospell to this naturall man to this Jew to this slack Christian we present an established Church a Church endowed with a power to open the wounds of Christ Jesus to receive every wounded soule to spread the balme of his blood upon every bleeding heart A Church that makes this generall Christ particular to every Christian that makes the Saviour of the world thy Saviour and my Saviour that offers the originall sinner Baptisme for that and the actuall sinner the body and blood of Christ Jesus for that a Church that mollifies and entenders and shivers the presumptuous sinner with denouncing the judgements of God and then consolidates and establishes the diffident soule with the promises of his Gospell a Church in contemplation whereof God may say Quid potui Vineae what could I doe more for my people then I have done first to send mine only Son to die for the whole world and then to spread a Church over the whole world by which that death of his might be life to every soule This we preach this we propose according to that commission put into our hands Ite praedicate Goe and preach the Gospell to every creature and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report In this then the Apostle and this Text places the inflexible the incorrigible stiffenesse of mans disobedience in this he seales up his inexcusablenesse his irrecoverablenesse first that he is not afraid of future judgements because they are remote then that he does not beleeve present judgements to be judgements because he can make shift to call them by a milder name accidents and not judgements and can assigne some naturall or morall or casuall reason for them But especially in this that he does not beleeve a perpetuall presence of Christ in his Church he does not beleeve an Ordinance of meanes by which all burdens of bodily infirmities of crosses in fortune of dejection of spirit and of the primary cause of all these that is sin it selfe may be taken off or made easie unto him he does not beleeve a Church Now as in our former part we were bound to know Gods hand and then bound to reade it to acknowledge a judgement to be a judgement and then to consider what God intended in that judgement so here we are bound to know the true Church and then to know what the true Church proposes to us The true Church is that where the word is truely preached and the Sacraments duly administred But it is the Word the Word inspired by the holy Ghost not Apocryphall not Decretall not Traditionall not Additionall supplements and it is the Sacraments Sacraments instituted by Christ himself and not those super-numerary sacraments those posthume post-nati sacramēts that have been multiplyed after and then that which the true Church proposes is all that is truly necessary to salvation and nothing but that in that quality as necessary So that Problematical points of which either side may be true in which neither side is fundamentally necessary to salvation those marginal interlineary notes that are not of the body of the text opinions raised out of singularity in some one man and then maintained out of partiality and affection to that man these problematicall things should not be called the Doctrine of the Church nor lay obligations upon mens consciences They should not disturb the general peace they should not extinguish particular charity towards one another The Act then that God requires of us is to beleeve so the words carry it in all the three places The Object the next the nearest Object of this Belief is made the Church that is to beleeve that God hath established means for the application of Christs death to all in all Christian Congregations All things are possible to him that beleeveth Mar. 9 23. saith our Saviour In the Word and Sacraments there is Salvation to every soule that beleeves there is so As on the other side we have from the same mouth and the same pen He that beleeveth not is damned Faith then being the root of all Mar. 16.16 and God having vouchsafed to plant this root this faith here in his terrestriall paradise and not in heaven in the manifest ministery of the Gospell and not in a secret and unrevealed purpose for faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching which are things executed and transacted here in the Church be thou content with those meanes which God hath ordained and take thy faith in those meanes and beleeve it to be influxus suasorius that it is an influence from God but an influence that works in thee by way of perswasion and not of compulsion It convinces thee but it doth not constraine thee It is as S. Augustine sayes excellently Vocatio congrua it is the voice of God to thee but his voice then when thou art fit to heare and answer that voice not fitted by any exaltation of thine own naturall faculties before the cōming of grace nor fitted by a good husbanding of Gods former grace so as in rigor of justice to merit an increase of grace but fitted by his preventing his auxiliant his concomitant grace grace exhibited to thee at that time when he calls thee for so saies that Father Sic eum vocat quo modo seit ei congruere ut vocantē non respuat God calls him then when he knows he wil not resist his calling But he doth not say then when he cānot resist that needs not be said But as there is podus glcriae as the Apostle speaks an eternall weight of glory which mans understanding cannot cōprehend so there is Pondus gratiae a certain weight of grace that God layes upon that soule which shall be his under which that soule shall not easily bend it self any way from God This then is the summe of this whole Catechisme which these words in these three places doe constitute First that we be truely affected with Gods fore-warnings and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve that judgement to be denounced against my sin And then that we be duely affected with present changes and say there Domine credo Lord I beleeve that report I beleeve this judgement to come from thee and to be a letter of thy hand Lord enlighten others to interpret it aright for thy more publique glory and me for my particular reformation And then lastly to be sincerely and seriously affected with the Ordinances of his Church and to rest in them for the means of our salvation and to
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
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
middle nature above the Philosophers and below the Scriptures the Apocryphall books and I know it is said there Comfort thy selfe for thou-shalt do him no good that is dead Ecclus. 38.6 Et teipsum pessimabis as the vulgat reads it thou shalt make thy self worse and worse in the worst degree But yet all this is but of inordinate lamentation for in the same place the same Wise man sayes My Son let thy tears fall down over the dead weep bitterly and make great moane as he is worthy When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatum est all was finished and their rage could do him no more harm when he had uttered his In manus tuas he had delivered and God had received his soul yet how did the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses and tremble in earth-quakes and dissolve and shed in pieces in the opening of the Temple Quia mortuus because he was dead Truly to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch that hand that hath governed the civill sword the sword of Justice at home and drawn and sheathed the forraigne sword the sword of war abroad to see that hand lie dead and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own wormes and then Quis homo what man though he be one of those men of whom God hath said Ye are gods yet Quis homo what man is there that lives and shall not see death To see the brain of a great and religious Counsellor and God blesse all from making all from calling any great that is not religious to see that brain that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell tables stormes in Parliaments tempests in popular commotions to see that brain produce nothing but swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse them To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted Heretiques Schismatiques all his life fall like one of them by death perchance be called one of them when he is dead To re-collect all to see great men made no men to be sure that they shall never come to us not to be sure that we shall know them when we come to them to see the Lieutenants and Images of God Kings the sinews of the State religious Counsellors the spirit of the Church zealous Prelates And then to see vulgar lgnorant wicked and facinorous men thrown all by one hand of death into one Cart into one common Tide-boate one Hospitall one Almeshouse one Prison the grave in whose dust no man can say This is the King this is the Slave this is the Bishop this is the Heretique this is the Counsellor this is the Foole even this miserable equality of so unequall persons by so foule a hand is the subject of this lamentation even Quia mortuus because Lazarus was dead Iesus wept He wept even in that respect Quia non abhibita media Quia mortuus and he wept in this respect too Quia non adhibita media because those means which in appearance might have saved his life by his default were not used for when he came to the house one sister Martha sayes to him Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed and then the other sister Mary sayes so too Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dyed They all cry out that he who only only by comming might have saved his life would not come Our Saviour knew in himself that he abstained to better purpose and to the farther glory of God for when he heard of his death he said to his Disciples I am glad for your sakes that I was not there Christ had certain reserved purposes which conduced to a better establishing of their faith and to a better advancing of Gods Kingdome the working of that miracle But yet because others were able to say to him it was in you to have saved him and he did not even this Quia non adhibita media affected him and Iesus wept He wept Etsi quatriduanus Etsi quatriduanus though they said unto him He hath been foure dayes dead and stinkes Christ doth not say there is no such matter he doth not stink but though he do my friend shall not lack my help Good friends usefull friends though they may commit some errors and though for some misbehaviours they may stink in our nostrils must not be derelicted abandoned to themselves Many a son many a good heire findes an ill ayre from his Father his Fathers life stinkes in the nostrils of all the world and he heares every where exclamations upon his Fathers usury and extortion and oppression yet it becomes him by a betterlife and by all other means to rectifie and redeem his Fathers fame Quatriduanus est is no plea for my negligence in my family to say My son or my servant hath proceeded so far in ill courses that now it is to no purpose to go about to reform him because Quatriduanus est Quatriduanus est is no plea in my pastorall charge to say that seducers and practisers and perswaders and sollicitors for superstition enter so boldly into every family that now it is to no purpose to preach religious warinesse religious discretion religious constancy Quatriduanus est is no plea for my Usury for my Simony to say I do but as all the world doth and hath used to do a long time To preach there where reprehension of growing sin is acceptable is to preach in season where it is not acceptable it is out of season but yet we must preach in season and out of season too And when men are so refractary as that they forbeare to heare or heare and resist our preaching we must pray and where they dispise or forbid our praying we must lament them we must weep Quatriduanus erat Lazarus was far spent yet Iesus wept He wept Etsisuscitandus Though he knew that Lazarus were to be restored and raised to life again for as he meant to declare a great good will to him at last so he would utter some by the way he would do a great miracle for him as he was a mighty God but he would weep for him too as he was a good natured man Truly it is no very charitable disposition if I give all at my death to others if I keep all all my life to my self For how many families have we seen shaked ruined by this distemper that though the Father mean to alien nothing of the inheritance from the Son at his death yet because he affords him not a competent maintenance in his life he submits his Son to an encumbring of his fame with ignominious shiftings and an encumbring of the estare with irrecoverable debts I may mean to feast a man plentifully at Christmas and that man may starve before in Lent Great persons may think it in their power to give life to persons and actions by their benefits when they will and before that will be up and ready both
the consideration of that place where our soules should be for ever and we could consider God then but then wee could not see God in his Essence As it may be fairely argued that Christ suffered not the very torments of very hell because it is essentiall to the torments of hell to be eternall They were not torments of hell if they received an end So is it fairely argued too That neither Adam in his extasie in Paradise nor Moses in his conversation in the Mount nor the other Apostles in the Transfiguration of Christ nor S. Paul in his rapture to the third heavens saw the Essence of God because he that is admitted to that sight of God can never look off nor lose that sight againe Only in heaven shall God proceed to this patefaction this manifestation this revelation of himself And that by the light of glory The light of glory is such a light as that our School-men dare not say confidently Lux Cloris That every beam of it is not all of it When some of them say That some soules see some things in God and others others because all have not the same measure of the light of glory the rest cry down that opinion and say that as the Essence of God is indivisible and he that sees any of it sees all of it so is the light of glory communicated intirely to every blessed soul God made light first and three dayes after that light became a Sun a more glorious Light God gave me the light of Nature when I quickned in my mothers wombe by receiving a reasonable soule and God gave me the light of faith when I quickned in my second mothers womb the Church by receiving my baptisme but in my third day when my mortality shall put on immortality he shall give me the light of glory by which I shall see himself To this light of glory the light of honour is but a glow-worm and majesty it self but a twilight The Cherubims and Seraphims are but Candles and that Gospel it self which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel but a Star of the least magnitude And if I cannot tell what to call this light by which I shall see it what shall I call that which I shall see by it The Essence of God himself and yet there is something else then this sight of God intended in that which remaines I shall not only see God face to face but I shall know him which as you have seen all the way is above sight and know him even as also I am knowne In this Consideration God alone is all in all the former there was a place Deus omnia solus and a meanes and a light here for this perfect knowledge of God God is all those Then sales the Apostle God shall be all in all Hic agit omnia in omnibus sayes S. Hierome 1 Cor. 15.28 Here God does all in all but here he does all by Instruments even in the infusing of faith he works by the Ministery of the Gospel But there he shall be all in all doe all in all immediately by himself for Christ shall deliver up the Kingdome to God even the Father Ver. 24. His Kingdome is the administration of his Church by his Ordinances in the Church At the resurrection there shall be an end of that Kingdome no more Church no more working upon men by preaching but God himself shall be all in all Ministri quasi larvae Dei saies Luther It may be somewhat too familiarly too vulgarly said but usefully The ministery of the Gospell is but as Gods Vizar for by such a liberty the Apostle here calls it aenigma a riddle or as Luther sayes too Gods picture but in the Resurrection God shall put of that Vizar and turne away that picture and shew his own face Therefore is it said That in heaven there is no Temple but God himselfe is the Temple God is Service Apoc. 21.22 August and Musique and Psalme and Sermon and Sacrament and all Erit vita de verbo sine verbo We shall live upon the word and heare never a word live upon him who being the word was made flesh the eternall Son of God Hîc nonest omnia in omnibus Hieron sed pars in singulis Here God is not all in all where he is at all in any man that man is well In Solomone sapientia saies that Father It was well with Solomon because God was wisdome with him and patience in Iob and faith in Peter and zeale in Paul but there was something in all these which God was not But in heaven he shall be so all in all Idem Vt singuli sanctorum omnes virtutes habeant that every soule shall have every perfection in it self and the perfection of these perfections shall be that their sight shall be face to face and their knowledge as they are known Since S. Augustine calls it a debt a double debt a debt because she asked it Facie ad faciem a debt because he promised it to give even a woman Paulina satisfaction in that high point and mystery how we should see God face to face in heaven it cannot be unfit in this congregation to aske and answer some short questions concerning that Is it alwaies a declaration of favour when God shewes his face No. I will set my face against that soule Levit. 17.10 that eateth blood and cut him off But when there is light joyned with it it is a declaration of favour This was the blessing that God taught Moses for Aaron to blesse the people with The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee Numb 6.25 And there we shall see him face to face by the light of his countenance which is the light of glory What shall we see by seeing him so face to face not to inlarge our selves into Gregories wild speculation Qui videt videntem omnia oninia videt because we shall see him that sees all things we shall see all things in him for then we should see the thoughts of men rest we in the testimony of a safer witnesse a Councell Senon In speculo Divinit at is quicquid eorum intersit illucescet In that glasse we shall see whatsoever we can be the better for seeing First all things that they beleeved here they shall see there and therefore Discamus in terris Hicron quorum scicntia nobiscum perseveret in Caelis let us meditate upon no other things on earth then we would be glad to think on in heaven and this consideration would put many frivolous and many fond thoughts out of our minde if men and women would love another but so as that love might last in heaven This then we shall get concerning our selves by seeing God face to face but what concerning God nothing but the sight of the humanity of Christ which only is visible to the eye So Theodoret so some
things as are problematicall if thou love the peace of Sion be not too inquisitive to know nor too vehement when thou thinkest thou doest know it Come then to ask this question 3. Part. not problematically as it is contracted to them that shall live in the last dayes nor peremptorily of man as he is subject to originall sin but at large so as the question may include Christ himself and then to that Quis homo What man is he We answer directly here is the man that shall not see death And of him principally August and literally S. Augustine as we said before takes this question to be framed Vt quaeras dictum non ut desperes saith he this question is moved to move thee to seek out and to have thy recourse to that man which is the Lord of Life not to make thee despaire that there is no such man in whose self and in whom for all us there is Redemption from death For sayes he this question is an exception to that which was said before the text which is Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain Consider it better sayes the Holy Ghost here and it will not prove so Man is not made in vain at first though he do die now for Perditio tua ex te This death proceeds from man himself and Quare moriemini domus Israel Why will ye die ô house of Israel God made not death â—ap 1.13 neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living The Wise man sayes it and the true God sweares it As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner God did not create man in vain then though he die not in vain for since he will needs die God receives glory even by his death in the execution of his justice not in vaine neither because though he be dead God hath provided him a Redeemer from death in his mercy Man is not created in vain at all nor all men so neare vanity as to die for here is one man God and Man Christ Jesus which liveth and shall not see death And conformable to S. Augustines purpose 〈◊〉 speakes S. Hierome too Scio quòd nullus homo carneus evadet sed novi Deum sub velamento carnis latentem I know there is no man but shall die but I know where there is a God clothed in mans flesh and that person cannot die But did not Christ die then Shall we joyne with any of those Heretiques which brought Christ upon the stage to play a part and say he was born or lived or dyed In phantasmate In apparance only and representation God forbid so all men were created in vain indeed if we had not a regeneration in his true death Where is the contract between him and his Father that Oportuit pati All this Christ ought to suffer and so enter into glory Is that contract void and of none effect Must he not die Where is the ratification of that contract in all the Prophets 〈◊〉 53.4.9 Where is Esays Verè languores nostros tulit Surely he hath born our sorrows and he made his grave with the wicked in his death Is the ratification of the Prophets cancelled Shall he not must he not die Where is the consummation and the testification of all this Where is the Gospell Consummatum est And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost Is that fabulous Did he not die How stands the validity of that contract Christ must die the dignity of those Prophecies Christ will die the truth of the Gospell Christ did die with this answer to this question Here is a man that liveth and shall not see death Very well For though Christ Jesus did truly die so as was contracted so as was prophecied so as was related yet hee did not die so as was intended in this question so as other naturall men do die For first Christ dyed because he would dye other men admitted to the dignity of Martyrdome are willing to dye but they dye by the torments of the Executioners they cannot bid their soules goe out and say now I will dye And this was Christs case 〈◊〉 10.15 It was not only I lay down my life for my sheep but he sayes also No man can take away my soule And I have power to lay it down And De facto he did lay it down he did dye before the torments could have extorted his soule from him Many crucified men lived many dayes upon the Crosse The thieves were alive long after Christ was dead and therefore Pilate wondred that he was already dead His soule did not leave his body by force 〈…〉 but because he would and when he would and how he would Thus far then first this is an answer to this question Quis homo Christ did not die naturally nor violently as all others doe but only voluntarily Again the penalty of death appertaining only to them who were derived from Adam by carnall and sinfull generation Christ Jesus being conceived miraculously of a Virgin by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost was not subject to the Law of death and therefore in his person it is a true answer to this Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he need not see death he hath not incurred Gods displeasure he is not involved in a general rebellion and therfore is not involved in the generall mortality not included in the generall penalty He needed not have dyed by the rigour of any Law all we must he could not dye by the malice or force of any Executioner all we must at least by natures generall Executioners Age and Sicknesse And then when out of his own pleasure and to advance our salvation he would dye yet he dyed so as that though there were a dis-union of body and soule which is truly death yet there remained a Nobler and faster union then that of body and soule the Hypostaticall Union of the God-head not onely to his soule but to his body too so that even in his death both parts were still not onely inhabited by but united to the Godhead it selfe and in respect of that inseparable Union we may answer to this question Quis homo Here is a man that shall not see death that is he shall see no separation of that which is incomparably and incomprehensibly a better soul then his soule the God-head shall not be separated from his body But that which is indeed the most direct and literall answer to this question is That whereas the death in this Text is intended of such a death as hath Dominion over us and from which we have no power to raise our selves we may truly and fully answer to his Quis homo here is a man that shall never see death so but that he shall even in the jawes and teeth of death and in the bowels and wombe of the grave and in the sink and furnace of hell
himselfe but not for a Ransome not for a Satisfaction but onely for a lively example thereby to incline us to suffer for Gods glory and for the edification of one another If we call him Dominum A Lord we call him Messiam Vnctum Regem anointed with the oyle of gladnesse by the Holy Ghost to bee a cheerefull conquerour of the world and the grave and sin and hell and anointed in his owne blood to be a Lord in the administration of that Church which he hath so purchased This is to say that Jesus is a Lord To professe that he is a person so qualified in his being composed of God and Man that he was able to give sufficient for the whole world and did give it and so is Lord of it When we say Iesus est That Jesus is There we confesse his eternity and therein Dominus The Lord. his Godhead when we say Iesus Dominus that he is a Lord therein we confesse a dominion which he hath purchased And when we say Iesum Dominum so as that we professe him to be the Lord Then we confesse a vigilancy a superintendency a residence and a permanency of Christ in his Dominion in his Church to the worlds end If he be the Lord in his Church there is no other that rules with him there is no other that rules for him The temporall Magistrate is not so Lord as that Christ and he are Collegues or fellow-Consuls that if he command against Christ he should be as soone obeyed as Christ for a Magistrate is a Lord and Christ is the Lord a Magistrate is a Lord to us but Christ is the Lord to him and to us and to all None rules with him none rules for him Christ needs no Vicar he is no non-resident He is nearer to all particular Churches at Gods right hand then the Bishop of Rome at his left Direct lines direct beames does alwaies warme better and produce their effects more powerfully then oblique beames doe The influence of Christ Jesus directly from Heaven upon the Church hath a truer operation then the oblique and collaterall reflections from Rome Christ is not so far off by being above the Clouds as the Bishop of Rome is by being beyond the Hils Dicimus Dominum Iesum we say that Jesus is the Lord and we refuse all power upon earth that will be Lord with him as though he needed a Coadjutor or Lord for him as though he were absent from us To conclude this second part To say that Iesus is the Lord is to confesse him to bee God from everlasting and to have beene made man in the fulnesse of time and to governe still that Church which he hath purchased with his blood and that therefore hee lookes that we direct all our particular actions to his glory For this voice wherein thou saiest Dominus Iesus The Lord Iesus must be as the voyce of the Seraphim in Esay Esay 6.2 thrice repeated Sanctus sanctus sanctus Holy holy holy our hearts must say it and our tongue and our hands too or else we have not said it For when a man will make Jesus his companion and be sometimes with him and sometimes with the world and not direct all things principally towards him when he will make Jesus his servant that is proceed in all things upon the strength of his outward profession upon the colour and pretence and advantage of Religion and devotion would this man be thought to have said Iesum Dominum Luke 6.46 That Iesus is the Lord Why call ye me Lord Lord and doe not the things I speake to you saies Christ Christ places a tongue in the hands Actions speake and Omni tuba clarior per opera Demonstratio sayes S. Chrysostome There is not onely a tongue but a Trumpet in every good worke When Christ sees a disposition in his hearers to doe according unto their professing Iohn 13.14 then only he gives allowance to that that they say Dicitis me Dominum bene dicitis You call me Lord and you doe well in doing so doe ye therefore as I have done to you To call him Lord is to contemplate his Kingdome of power to feele his Kingdome of grace to wish his Kingdome of glory It is not a Domine usque quò Iohn 11.21 Lord how long before the Consummation come as though we were weary of our warfare It not a Domine si fuisses Lord if thou hadst beene here our brother had not died as Martha said of Lazarus as though as soon as we suffer any worldly calamity we should thinke Christ to be absent from us in his power or in his care of us It is not a Domine vis mandemus Luke 9.54 Lord wilt thou that we command fire from Heaven to consume these Samaritans as though we would serve the Lord no longer then he would revenge his owne and our quarrel for that we may come to our last part to that fiery question of the Apostles Christ answered You know not of what spirit you are It is not the Spirit of God it is not the Holy Ghost which makes you call Jesus the Lord onely to serve your own ends and purposes and No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost For this Part 3 Part. Difficultas we proposed onely two Considerations first that this But excluding all meanes but one that one must therefore necessarily be difficult and secondly that that But admitting one meanes that one must therefore necessarily be possible so that there is a difficulty but yet a possibility in having this working by the Holy Ghost For the first of those hereticall words of Fanstus the Manichaean That in the Trinity the Father dwelt In illa luce inaccessibili In that light which none can attaine to And the Son of God dwelt in this created light whose fountaine and roote is the Planet of the Sun And the Holy Ghost dwelt in the Aire and other parts illumined by the Sun we may make this good use that for the knowledge of the Holy Ghost wee have not so present so evident light in reason as for the knowledge of the other blessed Persons of the glorious Trinity For for the Son because he assumed our nature and lived and dyed with us we conceive certaine bodily impressions and notions of him and then naturally and necessarily as soon as we heare of a Son we conceive a Father too But the knowledge of the Holy Ghost is not so evident neither doe we bend our thoughts upon the consideration of the Holy Ghost so much as we ought to doe The Arians enwrapped him in double clouds of darknesse when they called him Creaturam Creaturae That Christ himselfe from whom say they the Holy Ghost had his Creation was but a Creature and not God and so the Holy Ghost the Creature of a Creature And Maximus ille Gigas as Saint Bernard cals Plato That Giant in all kinde of
then to make it for in the Creation there was no reluctation of the Creature for there was no Creature but to divert Nature out of her setled course is a conquest upon a resisting adversary and powerfull in a prescription The Recedat Mare Let the Sea go back and the Sistat Sol Let the Sun stand still met with some kinde of opposition in Nature but in the Fiat Mare and Fiat Sol Let there be a Sea and a Sun God met with no opposition no Nature August he met with nothing And therefore Interrogemus Miracula quid nobis de Christo loquantur Let us aske his Miracles and they will make us understand Christ Habent enim si intelligantur linguam suam If wee understand them that is If wee would understand them they speake loud enough and plaine enough In his Miraculous birth of a Virgin In his Miraculous disputation with Doctors at twelve yeares of age in his fasting in his invisibility in his walking upon the Sea in his re-assuming his body in the Resurrection Christ spoke in himselfe in the language of Miracles So also had they a loud and a plaine voyce in other men In his Miraculous curing the sick raising the dead dispossessing the Devill Christ spoke in other men in the language of Miracles And he did so also as in himselfe and in other men so in other things In the miraculous change of Water into Wine in the drying up of the Fig-tree In feeding five thousand with five loaves in shutting up the Sun in darknesse and opening the graves of the Dead to light in bringing plenty of Fish to the Net and in putting money into the mouth of a Fish at the Angle Christ spoke in all these Creatures in the language of Miracles So the Scriptures testifie of his Deity and so doe his Miracles and so doe those Conclusions which arise from thence though we consider but that one which is expressed in this part of the Text that he is the Lord If any love not the Lord c. We reason thus God gives not his glory to others Dominus and his glory is in his Essentiall Name and in his Attributes and to whomsoever he gives them because they cannot be given from God he who hath them is God Of these none is so peculiar to him as the name of Iehova the name which for reverence the Jews forbore to sound and in the room therof ever sounded Adonai and Adonai is Dominus the name of this Text The Lord Christ by being the Lord thus is Jehovah and if Jehovah God It is Tertullians observation Et ss Pater sit dicatur Dominus Filius sit dicatur Deus That though the Father be the Lord and be called the Lord and though the Son be God and be called God yet sayes he the manner of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament is to call the Father God and the Son the Lord. He is Lord with the Father as he was Con-creator his Collegue in the Creation But for that Dominion and Lordship which he hath by his Purchase by his Passion Calcavit solus I le trod the Wine-presse alone not onely no man but no Person of the Trinity redeemed us by suffering for us but he For the ordinary appellation of Lord in the New Testament which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is but a name of Civility not onely no name implying Divine worship but not implying any distinction of ranke or degree amongst men Mary Magdalen speaks of Christ and speakes to the Gardiner as she thought and both in one and the same word it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dominus Lord to both when she sayes They have taken away my Lord meaning Christ Iohn 20.15 and when she saies to the Gardiner Sir if thou hast borne him hence it is the same word too But all that reaches not to the style of this Text The Lord for here The Lord is God 1 Cor. 12.3 And no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost All that was written in the Scriptures all that was established by Miracles all that is deduced by reason conduces to this determines in this That every tongue should confesse that Iesus Christ is the Lord in which essentiall name the name of his nature he is first proposed as the object of our love Now this Lord Lord for ever is become that which he was not for ever Christus otherwise then in a secondary consideration that is Christ which implies a person prepared and sitted and anointed to a peculiar Office in this World And can the Lord the ever-living Lord the Son of God the onely Son of God God himselfe have any preferment preferment by an Office in this World Was it a preferment to Dionysius who was before in that height over men to become a schoole-master over boyes Were it a preferment to the Kings Son to be made governour over a Bee-hive or over-seer over an Ant-hill And men nay Mankinde is no more not that not a Bee-hive not an Ant-hill compared to this Person who being the Lord would become Christ As he was the Lord we considered him as God and that there is a God naturall reason can comprehend As he is Christ we consider him God and Man and such a Person naturall reason not rooted in the Scriptures not illustrated by the Scriptures cannot comprehend Man will much easilier beleeve the Lord that is God then Christ that is God and Man in one Person Christ then is the style the title of his Office Non Nomen sed Appellatio Tertul. Christ is not his Name but his Addition Vnctus significatur sayes he unctus non magis nomen quam vestitus calceatus Christ signifies but anointed and anointed is no more a Name then apparelled or shod is a name So as hee was apparelled in our flesh and his apparell dyed red in his owne blood so as he was shod to tread the Wine-presse for us So he was Christ That it is Nomen Sacramenti as S. Aug. cals it A mystery is easily agreed to for all the mysteries of all the Religions in the World are but Milke in respect of this Bone but Catechismes in respect of this Schoole-point but Alphabets in respect of this hard Style God and Man in one person That it is Nomen Sacramenti as Augustine says is easie but that it is Nuncupatio potestatis as Lactantius cals it is somewhat strange that it is an office of power a title of honour for the Creator to become a Creature and the Lord of life the object of death nay the seat of death in whom death did sojourn three dayes can Lactantius call this a declaration of power is this Nuncupatio potestatis a title of honour Beloved he does and he may for it was so for it was an Annointing Exod. 29.7 Christas is unctus and unction was the Consecration of Priests Thou shalt take
power Via miraculorum Miracles no man may ground his beliefe upon that which seems a Miracle to him Moses wrought Miracles and Pharaohs instruments wrought the like we know theirs were no true Miracles and we know Moses were but how do we know this By another voyce by the Word of God who cannot lie for for those upon whom those Miracles were to worke on both sides Moses and they too seemed to the beholders diversly disposed to do Miracles One Rule in discerning and judging a Miracle is to consider whether it be done in confirmation of a necessary Truth otherwise it is rather to be suspected for an Illusion then accepted for a Miracle The Rule is intimated in Deuteronomy where Deut. 13. though a Prophets prophecy do come to passe yet if his end be to draw to other gods he must be slaine What Miracles soever are pretended in confirmation of the inventions of Men are to be neglected God hath not carried us so low for our knowledge as to Creatures to Nature nor so high as to Miracles but by a middle way By a voyce But it is Vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven S. Basil applying indeed with some wresting and derorting those words in the 29 Psalme vers 3. De Coelis The voyce of the Lord is upon the waters the God of glory maketh it to thunder to this Baptisme of Christ he sayes Vox super aquas Ioannes The words of Iohn at Christs Baptisme were this voyce that David intends And then that manifestation which God gave of the Trinity whatsoever it were altogether that was the Thunder of his Majesty so this Thunder then was vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven And in this voyce the person of the Father was manifested as he was in the same voyce at his Transfiguration Since this voyce then is from Heaven and is the Fathers voyce we must looke for all our knowledge of the Trinity from thence For to speake of one of those persons Mat. 11.27 of Christ no man knoweth the Sonne but the Father Who then but he can make us know him If any knew it yet it is an unexpressible mystery no man could reveale it Mat. 16.17 Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven If any could reveale it to us yet none could draw us to beleeve it No man can come to me except the Father draw him Iohn 6.44 So that all our voyce of Direction must be from thence De Coelis from Heaven We have had Voces de Inferis voyces from Hell in the blasphemies of Heretiques De Inferis That the Trinity was but Cera extensa but as a Rolle of Wax spread or a Dough Cake rolled out and so divided unto persons That the Trinity was but a nest of Boxes a lesser in a greater and not equall to one another And then that the Trinity was not onely three persons but three Gods too So far from the truth and so far from one another have Heretiques gone in the matter of the Trinity and Cerinthus so far in that one person in Christ as to say That Jesus and Christ were two distinct persons and that into Jesus who sayes he was the sonne of Ioseph Christ who was the Spirit of God descended here at his Baptisme and was not in him before and withdrew himselfe from him againe at the time of his Passion and was not in him then so that he was not borne Christ nor suffered not being Christ but was onely Christ in his preaching and in his Miracles and in all the rest he was but Jesus sayes Cerinthus We have had Voces de Inferis de profundis from the depth of hell De Medio in the malice of Heretiques And we have had Voces de medio voyces from amongst us Inventions of men to expresse and to make us understand the Trinity in pictures and in Comparisons All which to contract this point are apt to fall into that abuse which we will onely note in one At first they used ordinarily to expresse the Trinity in foure letters which had no ill purpose in it at first but was a religious ease for their memories in Catechismes The letters were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the two last belonged to the last person for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so there was Father Sonne and Holy Ghost as if we should expresse it in F and S and H and G. But this came quickly thus far into abuse as that they thought there could belong but three letters in that picture to the three persons and therefore allowing so many to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost they tooke the last letter P for Petrus and so made Peter head of the Church and equall to the Trinity So that for our knowledge in this mysterious doctrine of the Trinity let us evermore rest in voce de coelis in that voice which came from heaven But yet it is Vox dicens Dicens A voice saying speaking A voice that man is capable of and may be benefited by It is not such a voice as that was which came from heaven too when Christ prayed to God to glorifie his name Iohn 12.28 That the people should say some that it was a Thunder some that it was an Angel that spake They are the sons of Thunder and they are the Ministeriall Angels of the Church from whom we must heare this voice of heaven Nothing can speak but man No voice is understood by man but the voice of man It is not Vox dicens That voyce sayes nothing to me that speaks not And therefore howsoever the voice in the Text were miraculously formed by God to give this glory and dignity to this first manifestation of the Trinity in the person of Christ yet because he hath left it for a permanent Doctrine necessary to Salvation he hath left ordinary means for the conveying of it that is The same voice from heaven the same word of God but speaking in the ministery of man And therefore for our measure of this knowledge which is our third and last Part we are to see how Christian men whose office it hath been to interpret Scriptures that is how the Catholike Church hath understood these words Hic est Filius This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased How we are to receive the knowledge of the Trinity 3 Part. Athanasius hath expressed as far as we can goe Whosoever will be saved hee must beleeve it but the manner of it is not exposed so far as to his beliefe That question of the Prophet Quis
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
came long agoe six thousand years agoe in nature when we were created in Adam and then in nature returned to us in the generation of our Parents so our Saviour Christ Jesus came to us long agoe sixteene hundred yeares agoe in grace and yet in grace returnes to us as often as he assembles us in these holy Convocations He came to us then as the Wisemen came to him with treasure and gifts and gold and incense and myrrhe As having an ambition upon the soules of men he came with that abundant treasure to purchase us And as to them who live upon the Kings Pension it is some comfort to heare that the Exchequer is full that the Kings moneyes are come in so is it to us to know that there is enough in Gods hands paid by his Son for the discharge of all our debts He gave enough for us all at that comming But it is his returning to us that applyes to us and derives upon us in particular the benefit of this generall satisfaction When he returns to us in the dispensation and distribution of his graces in his Word and Sacraments When he calls upon us to come to the receipt When the greater the summe is the gladder he is of our comming that where sinne abounds grace might abound too When we can pursue this Prayer Revertere Domine Returne O Lord in grace in more and more grace and when we are in possession of a good measure of that grace we can pray againe Revertere Domine Returne O Lord in glory Come Lord Jesus come quickly When we are so rectified by his Ordinances here that in a sincerity of soule we are not onely contented but desirous to depart from hence then have we religiously followed our example that man according to Gods heart David in this prayer of his If Christ have not beene thus fully in thine heart before this is his comming entertaine him now If he have been there and gone againe this is his returning blesse him for that And meet him and love him and embrace him as often as he offers himselfe to thy soule in these his Ordinances Wish every day a Sunday and every meale a Sacrament and every discourse a Homily and he shall shine upon thee in all dark wayes and rectifie thee in all ragged wayes and direct thee in all crosse wayes and stop thee in all doubtfull wayes and returne to thee in every corner and relieve thee in every danger and arme thee even against himselfe by advancing thy worke in which thou besiegest him that is this Prayer and enabling thee to prevaile upon him as in this first Petition Revertere Domine O Lord returne so in that which followes next Eripe animam Deliver my soule In this Prayer Eripo animaÌ„ we may either consider David in that affection which S. Paul had when he desired to be delivered ab angelo Satanae from the messenger of Satan that buffeted him that so that Stimulus carnis which he speaks of that vexation and provocation of the flesh might have been utterly removed from him whereby he might have past his life in Gods service in a religious calme without any storme or opposition or contradiction arising in his flesh Or we may consider it as a Prayer agreeable to that Petition in our Lords Prayer Libera nos à malo Deliver us from evill which is not from being attempted by evill but by being swallowed up by it Eripe me may be Deliver me from rebellions or Deliver me in rebellions Either that they come not or that they overcome not In that prayer of S. Paul that God would remove Angelum Satanae and take away Stimulum carnis first S. Paul is not easily understood and then it may be not safely imitated It is hard to know what S. Paul means in his Prayer and it may be dangerous to pray as he prayed For the actions of no man how holy soever till we come to Christ himselfe lay such an obligation upon us as that we must necessarily doe as tâ—â—y did Nay the actions of Christ himselfe lay not that obligation upon us to fast as he fasted no nor to pray as he prayed A man is not bound in an Affliction or Persecution at least at all times to that Prayer Si possibile or Transeat calix If it be possible let this cup passe But if God vouchsafe him a holy constancy to goe through with his Martyrdome he may proceed in it without any such Deprecation to God or Petition to the Judge But first before we consider whether he might be imitated if we understood him we find it hard to understand him S. Augustines free confession Se nescire quid sit angelus Satanae That he never understood what S. Paul meant by that Messenger of Satan is more ingenuous then their interpretation who I know not upon what Tradition referre it to an extreame paine in the head that S. Paul should have as Theophylact sayes or refer it Ad morbum Iliacum which Aquinas speaks of or to the Gout or pains in the Stomach as Nazianzen and Basil interpret it Oecumenius understands this Angel this Messenger of Satan to be those Heretiques which were his Adversaries in his preaching of the Gospel according to that signification of the word Satan in which Solomon uses it to Hiram 1 King 5.4 Non est mihi Satan I have no Adversary Others even amongst the Fathers understand it particularly and literally of that concupiscence and those lusts of the flesh which even the most sanctified men may have some sense of and some attempts by Others understand it generally of all calamities spirituall and temporall incident to us in this life But Cajetan goes farthest who reads it not as we do Angelum Satanae but Angelum Satanam not that Angel which comes from Satan but that Angel that is Satan himselfe So that he conceives it to be a prayer against all tentations and tribulations here and hereafter which the Devill or the Devils Instruments can frame against us Now if we think we understand it aright in understanding it so generally then enters our second doubt whether we may imitate S. Paul in so generall a prayer We dispute in the Schoole whether if it were in his powerto doe it man might lawfully destroy any intire species of creatures in the world though offensive and venerhous as Vipers or Scorpions For every species being a link of Gods great chaine and a limb of his great creature the whole world it seemes not to be put into our power to break his chaine and take out a link to maime his great creature and cut off a limb by destroying any intire species if we could So neither does it soeme conduceable to Gods purposes in us which is the rule of all our prayers to pray utterly against all tentations as vehemently as against sins God should lose by it and we should lose by it if we had no tentations for God is
service Ecclus. 13.23 to Gods Angels to the Sonne of God Christ Jesus who is your High Priest and wee fellow-workmen with him in your salvation And as long as we can scape that Imputation Some man holdeth his tongue because he hath not to answer That either we know not what to say to a doubtfull conscience for our ignorance Ecclus. 20.6 or are afraid to reprehend a sinne because wee are guilty of that sinne our selves how farre States and Common-wealths may be silent in connivencies and forbearances is not our businesse now but for us the ministers of God Vaenobis si non evangelizemus Woe be unto us if we doe not preach the Gospel and we have no Gospel put into our hands nor into our mouths but a conditionall Gospel and therefore we doe not preach the Gospel except wee preach the Judgements belonging to the breach of those conditions A silence in that in us would fall under this complaint and confession Because I was silent these calamities fell upon me It becomes not us to thinke the worst of David Silentium malum that hee was fallen into the deepest degree of this silence and negligence of his duty to God But it becomes us well to consider that if David a man according to Gods heart had some degrees of this ill silence it is easie for us to have many For for the first degree wee have it and scarce discerne that we have it for our first silence is but an Omission a not doing of our religious duties or an unthankfulnes for Gods particular benefits Exod. 14.14 When Moses sayes to his people The Lord shall fight for you vos tacebit is And you shall hold your peace there Moses meanes you shall not need to speake the Lord will doe it for his owne glory you may be silent There it was a future thing But the Lord hath fought many battels for us He hath fought for our Church against Superstition for our land against Invasion for this City against Infection for every soule here against Presumption or else against Desperation Dominus pugnavit nos silemus The Lord hath fought for us and we never thank him A silence before a not praying hath not alwayes a fault in it because we are often ignorant of our owne necessities and ignorant of the dangers that hang over us but a silence after a benefit evidently received a dumbe Ingratitude is inexcusable There is another ill silence and an unnaturall one for it is a loud silence Pharisai It is a bragging of our good works It is the Pharisees silence when by boasting of his fastings and of his almes he forgot he silenced his sinnes This is the devils best Merchant By this Man the devill gets all for his ill deeds were his before and now by this boasting of them his good works become his too To contract this If we have overcome this inconsideration if we have undertaken some examination of our conscience yet one survey is not enough Psal 19.12 Delicta quis intelligit Who can understand his error How many circumstances in sin vary the very nature of the sin And then of how many coats and shels and super-edifications doth that sin which we thinke a single sin consist When we have passed many scrutinies many inquisitions of the conscience yet there is never roome for a silence we can never get beyond the necessity of that Petition Ab eccultis Lord cleanse me from my secret sins we shall ever be guilty of sins which we shall forget not onely because they are so little but because they are so great That which should be compunction will be consternation and the anguish which out of a naturall tendernesse of conscience we shall have at the first entring into those sins will make us dispute on the sins side and for some present ease and to give our heavy soule breath we will finde excuses for them and at last slide and weare into a customary practise of them and though wee cannot be ignorant that we doe them yet wee shall be ignorant that they are sins but rather make them things indifferent or recreations necessary to maintaine a cheerefulnesse and so to sin on for feare of dispairing in our sins and we shall never be able to shut our mouths against that Petition Aboccultis for though the sin be manifest the various circumstances that aggravate the sin will be secret And properly this was Davids silence Silentium Davidis He confesses his silence to have been Ex dolese spiritu Out of a spirit in which was deceit And David did not hope directly and determinately to deceive God But by endeavouring to hide his sin from other men and from his owne conscience he buried it deeper and deeper but still under more and more sins He silences his Adultery but he smothers it he buries it under a turfe of hypocrisie of dissimulation with Vriah that he might have gone home and covered his sin He silences this hypocrisie but that must have a larger turfe to cover it he buries it under the whole body of Vriah treacherously murdered He silences that murder but no turfe was large enough to cover that but the defeat of the whole army and after all the blaspheming of the name and power of the Lord of Hosts in the ruine of the army That sin which if he would have carried it upward towards God in Confession would have vanished away and evaporated by silencing by suppressing by burying multiplied as Corne buried in the earth multiplies into many Eares And though he might perchance for his farther punishment overcome the remembrance of the first sin he might have forgot the Adultery and feele no paine of that yet still being put to a new and new sin still the last sin that he did to cover the rest could not chuse but appeare to his conscience and call upon him for another sin to cover that Howsoever hee might forget last yeares sins yet yesterdayes sin or last nights sin will hardly be forgotten yet And therefore Hos 14.2 Tollite vobiscum verba sayes the Prophet O Israel returne unto the Lord But how Take unto you words and turne unto the Lord. Take unto you your words words of Confession Take unto you his word the words of his gracious promises breake your silence when God breaks his in the motions of his Spirit and God shall breake off his purpose of inflicting calamities upon you In the meane time Rugitus when David was not come so far but continued silent silent from Confession God suffers not David to enjoy the benefit of his silence though he continue his silence towards God yet God mingles Rugitum cum silentio for all his filence he comes to a voyce of roaring and howling when I was silent my roaring consumed me Theodor. so that here was a great noyse but no musique Now Theodoret calls this Rugitum compunctionis That
last motive Iosh 7.19 must be the glory of God Therefore Ioshuah sayes to Achan My Son give I pray thee glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him Now the glory of God arises not out of the Confessing but because every true Confessing is accompanied with a detestation of the sin as it hath separated me from God and a sense of my re-union and redintegration with God in the abjuration of my former sins for to tell my sin by way of a good tale or by boasting in it though it be a revealing a manifesting is not a Confession in every true confession God hath glory because he hath a straid soule re-united to his Kingdome And to advance this Glory David confesses Peccata sins which is our next Consideration I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First he resents his state All is not well Then he examines himselfe Peccata vera Thus and thus it stands with me Then he considers then he resolves then he executes He confesses so far we are gone and now he confesses sins For the Pharisees though he pretended a Confession was rather an exprobration how much God had beene beholden to him for his Sabbaths for his Almes for his Tithes for his Fasting David confesses sins first such things as were truly sins For as the element of Ayre that lyes betweene the Water and the Fire is sometimes condensed into water sometimes rarified into fire So lyes the conscience of man betweene two operations of the Devill sometimes he rarifies it evaporates it that it apprehends nothing feeles nothing to be sin sometimes he condenses it that every thing falls and sticks upon it in the nature and takes the waight of sin and he mis-interprets the indifferent actions of others and of his owne and destroyes all use of Christian liberty all conversation all recreation and out of a false feare of being undutifull to God is unjust to all the world and to his owne soule and consequently to God himselfe who of all notions would not be received in the notion of a Cruell or Tyrannicall God In an obdurate conscience that feeles no sin the Devill glories most but in the over-tender conscience he practises most That is his triumphant but this is his militant Church That is his Sabbath but this is his six dayes labour In the obdurate he hath induced a security in the scriptures which the Holy Ghost hath exprest in so many names as Sin Sin Wickednesse Iniquity Transgressions Offences Many many more And all this that thereby we might reflect upon our selves often and see if our particular actions fell not under some of those names But then lest this should over-intimidate us there are as many names given by the Holy Ghost to the Law of God Law Statutes Ordinances Covenants Testimony Precept and all the rest of which there is some one at least repeated in every verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalme that thereby we might still have a Rule to measure and try our actions by whether they be sins or no. For as the Apostle sayes He had not knowne sinne if he had not knowne the Law So there had beene no sin if there had beene no Law And therefore that soule that feeles it selfe oppressed under the burden of a Vow must have recourse to the Law of God and see whether that Vow fall under the Rule of that Law For as an over-tender conscience may call things sins that are not and so be afraid of things that never were so may it also of things that were but are not now of such sins as were truly sins and fearfull sins but are now dead dead by a true repentance and buried in the Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus and sealed up in that Monument under the seale of Reconciliation the blessed Sacrament and yet rise sometimes in this tender conscience in a suspition and jealousie that God hath not truly not fully forgiven them And as a Ghost which we thinke we see afrights us more then an army that we doe see So these apparitions of sins of things that are not against any Law of God and so are not sins or sins that are dead in a true repentance and so have no being at all by the Devils practise worke dangerously upon a distempered conscience for as God hath given the Soule an Imagination and a Fancy as well as an Understanding So the Devill imprints in the conscience a false Imagination as well as a fearefull sense of true sin David confesses sins sins that were truly sins But the more ordinary danger is Omniae in our not calling those things which are truly sins by that name For as sometimes when the Baptisme of a Child is deferred for State the Child dyes unbaptized So the sinner defers the Baptisme of his sin in his teares and in the blood of his Saviour offered in the blessed Sacrament till he dye namelesse namelesse in the booke of Life It is a Character that one of the ancientest Poets gives of a well-bred and well-governed Gentleman That he would not tell such lyes as were like truths not probable lyes nor such truths as were like lyes not wonderfull not incredible truths It is the constancy of a rectified Christian not to call his indifferent actions sins for that is to slander God as a cruell God nor to call sins indifferent actions for that is to undervalue God as a negligent God God doth not keepe the Conscience of man upon the wrack in a continuall torture and stretching But God doth not stupifie the conscience with an Opiate in an insensiblenesse of any sin The law of God is the balance and the Criterium By that try thine actions and then confesse David did so Peccata he confessed sinnes nothing that was not so as such neither omitted he any thing that was so And then they were Peccata sua His sins I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First Sua. Sua His sinnes that is à se perpetrata sins which he confesses to have been of his voluntary committing He might and did not avoyd them When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault The woman whom thou gavest me And the woman said Gen. 3.12 The Serpent deceived me God tooke this by way of Information to finde out the Principall but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his browes and every Eve brings forth her Children with as much paine in her travaile as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him If a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devill it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Iob finds some ground of a pious Expostulation with God in that My flesh is not brasse nor my strength stones And such as I am thou hast made me
the present This verse is especially an exultation for mercies past and yet the two last clauses are delivered in the future Thou shalt preserve me Thou shalt compasse me And the first is delivered without any limitation at all The present word Thou art is but inserted by our Translators In the Originall it is onely Tu refugium Thou my hiding place There is no fuisti nor es nor eris That he was or is or will be so but it is an expressing of a perpetuall and everlasting mercy for his mercy endureth for ever First then Ecclesia this is an acknowledgement of the Church contemplating her selfe in her low estate for the word Sether implies Tu absconsio Though I were in the darke it was thou that didst overshadow me Though I were in danger it was thou that didst hide mo from them This the Church hath had occasion to say more then once Once in the Primitive plantation thereof and againe in her Reformation At both times God shewed mercy to her that way in hiding her First then God hid the Primitive Church from the eye of envy Primitiva by keeping her poore and from the eye of jealousie and suspition by keeping her in an humble devotion towards him But yet even her poverty and her humility hid her not so but that persecution found her out and raged so against her as that those Emperours which raised the ten Persecutions against the Church seeme to have laboured to have gone beyond God in the ten Plagues of Egypt and to have done more at Rome then he did there All the power of the Roman world was bent against Christians more home-Christians slaine then forraine enemies All the criminall justice of the world bent upon them All other mens crimes even Neroes burning of Rome imputed to the Christians All the wit of the world bent against them All their Epigrammatists Satyrists having their wits exalted with rage with wine with rewards to multiply libels and calumnies and defamations upon the Christians All the Mechaniques of that world bent against them All the Enginiers employed to invent racks and tortures for the Christians Truly if I were to work upon Heathen men Westerne Americans or Easterne Chineses for their conversion to Christ I should scarce adventure to propose to them the histories of the Martyrs of the Primitive Church because to men that had no taste of Religion before they would rather seeme fables then truths and I should as soone be beleeved That a Virgin had a Son or in any maine Article of our Religion as that man could inflict or that man could beare such things as we are sure the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did Then God hid the Church He hid her in a great part in the Wildernesse in Ermitages and such retirings singlely one by one and after in penurious and obscure Monasteries many of these single Ermits gathering themselves together into one house when those Monasteries were both Schooles of learning and shops of Manufactures they taught and wrought in them August Nemo cuiquam onerosus No man was a burden to any others no man fed upon anothers labours nor drunke the sweat of anothers brow But Operabantur manibus ea quibus corpus pasci possit à Deo mens impediri non possit They laboured in such manufactures as might sustaine their bodies and not withdraw their minds from the service of God So God hid the Church not that the persecution did not finde and lop off many a great and top bough but he hid the roote and prevented the extirpation of that Tree which his owne right hand had planted Tu absconsio Reformata Thou art my hiding place sayes the Primitive Church and so may the Reformed Church say too For when the Roman Church had made this Latibulum this hiding place this refuge from Persecution Ermitages and Monasteries to be the most conspicuous the most glorious the most eminent the richest and most abundant places of the World when they had drawne these at first remote corners in the Wildernesse first into the skirts and suburbs then into the body and heart of every great City when for revenew and possession they will confesse that some one Monastery of the Benedictan had ten thousand of our pounds of yearely rent when they were come for their huge opulency to that height that they were formidable to those States that harboured them and for their numbers other Orders holding proportion with that one to reckon out of one Order fifty two Popes two hundred Cardinals seven thousand Archbishops and Bishops and almost three hundred Emperours and Kings and their children and fifty thousand declared and approved Saints when they were come to that over-valuation of their Religious Orders as to say That a Monke a Fryer merited more in his very sleep or meales then any secular man though a Church-man too did in his best works That to enter into any Order of Religion was a second Baptisme and wrought as much as the first Their revenew their number their dignity being come to this And then their viciousnesse their sensuality their bestiality to as great a height and exaltation as that yet in the midst of all these Tu absconsio mea may the Reformed Church say The Lord was their hiding place that mourned for this when they could not helpe and at all times and by all meanes that God afforded them endeavoured to advancea Reformation And though God exposed them as a wood to be felled to a slaughter of twenty of forty of sixty thousand in a day yet Ille absconsio He hath beene our hiding place He hath kept the roote alive all the way And though it hath beene with a cloud yet he hath covered us God came unto Moses though he came In caligine Nubis In a thick Cloud Exod. 19.9 when the glory of the Lord is said to have filled the Tabernacle even that glory was a Cloud Exod. 40.34 And so it was in the second place of his worship too in Solomons Temple 2 Chro. 5.13 that was filled with a Cloud S. Chrysostome when he considered that Christ ascended in a Cloud a Acts 1. Chrysost And that he shall returne againe in a Cloud b Mat. 24. Paternum Currum deligere voluit The Son would make use of his Fathers Chariot and shew mercy nay shew glory in a Cloud as his Father had done often The Primitive Church the Reformed Church must not complaine of having beene kept under Clouds for Ille absconsio God hath made those Clouds their hiding place and wrapped up the seed and the roote safe in that Cloud Though the Church were trodden upon like a worme of the earth yet still she might heare God in that Cloud Noli timere vermis Iacob Be not afraid thou worme of Iacob for I will keepe thee Esay 41.14 saith the Lord thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel God
bridles them that they shal not come neare not so neare to destroy and certainely Gods children have not so much sorrow for that which the wicked doe inflict upon them as the wicked have for that which they cannot inflict upon them The wicked are more tormented that they can do no more then the godly are that they have done so much And this is a comfortable and truly the most literall sense of this Ne approximent Their mouths must be held They must though none can hold them but God yet God must God himselfe for his owne glory and the preservation of his Church is reduced to a necessity he must he will hold them in with bit and bridle lest they come neare us But there is a sadder and a heavier sense arising out of these words as S. Hierom accepts and pursues the words with which we shall end all that belongs to them S. Hierom reads these words so as that when God hath said Nolite fieri Be not as the Horse or Mule that have no understanding God hath done and sayes no more and that in the rest of the words In chamo fraeno maxillas eorum constringe hold in their mouthes with bit and bridle who come not neare thee the Church speakes to God and so this inhibition Ne approximent That they come not neare thee may very well be That they come not neare God That God bits and bridles them so afflicts and multiplies afflictions so that even those afflictions drive them farther from God and seale their condemnation in their owne blood Gods Spirit shall fanne them sift them That might do them good Esay 30.28 purifie them cleanse them No it shall do them no good for as it follows God shall sift them with a sieve of vanity In vaine to no purpose without any amendment And there shall be Fraenum erroris a bridle in their jawes causing them to erre Their impatient mis-interpretation of Gods corrections shall turne them upon a wrong way on the left hand and depart them farther and farther from God And then Prov. 29.1 He that being often reproved hardneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy suddenly and irrecoverably suddenly no time given him to deprecate his destruction no reprieve Irrecoverably Jere. 11.14 if he had never so much time I will not heare them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble Shall any be able to cry unto God and not be heard Yes to cry and to cry for their trouble for all this may be done and yet no true prayer made nor right foundation laid when onely impatience upon affliction extorts and presses and vents a cry God will not heare them No nor when they are thus disabled to pray for themselves will God heare any other to pray for them Thrice doth God chide the Prophet Ieremy from that charitable disposition of praying for that people Lift not up a cry nor prayer for them Ibid. 7.16 14.11 Not a Cry by way of remembring me of their pressures and afflictions as though that should move me Not a Prayer by remembring me of my Covenant of mercy towards them as though that should binde me At other times Ezck. 22.30 God sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before him for the land that he might not destroy it but he found none Here Ieremy offers himselfe in the gap and God will not receive him to that Mediatorship to that Intercession for that people When Moses importuned God for the people God tells him for thy selfe thou shalt be no loser Exod. 32.10 whatsoever become of this people I will make thee a great Nation But yet sayes God Let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against this people that I may consume them O how contagious and pestilent are the sinnes of man that can thus if we may so speake infect God himselfe How violent how impetuous how tempestuous are the sinnes of man that can thus if we may so speake transport God himselfe and carry him beyond himselfe for himselfe is mercy and there is no roome for our own prayers no roome for the prayers of others to open any doore any pore of mercy to flow out or to breath out upon us Truly Beloved it is hard to conceive how any height of sin in man should worke thus upon God as to throw him away without any purpose of re-assuming him againe or any possibility of returning to him againe But to impute that distemper to God that God should thus peremptorily hate Man thus irreparably destroy Man before he considered that Man as a sinner and as a manifold sinner and as an obdurate sinner nay before he considered him as a Man as a Creature that first he should mean to damne him if he had him and then mean to make him that he might damne him this is to impute to God a sowrer and worse affected nature then falls into any man Doth any man desire that his enemy had a sonne that he might kill him Doth any man beget a sonne therefore that he might dis-inherit him Doth God hate any man therefore because he will hate him Deliver me O Lord from my sins pardon them and then returne to thy first purposes upon me for I am sure they were good till I was ill and my illnesse came not from thee but may be so multiplied by my selfe as that thou mayest bit me and bridle me so as that I shall not come near thee in any of those accesses which thou hast opened in thy Church Prayer Preaching Sacraments Absolution all shall be unavailable upon me ineffectuall to me And therefore as God would have us conserve the dignity of our nature in his Image and not descend to the qualities of these Beasts Horse and Mule specified by the Holy Ghost to represent to us those two sins which are the wombes and mothers of very many others Pride and Lust the greatest spirituall and the greatest bodily sin because thereby we lose all understanding which is the matter upon which Grace works so would he have us doe it for this also that he might not be put to a necessity of bitting and bridling us of hard usage towards us which may turne us as well to Obduration as Contrition and so come to lose our faith at last as we had done our reason and understanding before SERM. LXIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.10 11. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked But he that trusteth in the Lord Mercy shall compasse him about Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce yee righteous And shout for joy all yee that are upright in heart THe two Elements of which Heaven is proposed to us to be composed are Joy and Glory That which is opposed to these is Sorrow and Contempt Of the sense of contempt and ingloriousnesse Men are not alike capable in this world but of
his anchor Let him that hath any diffident jealousie or suspition of the free and full mercy of God apprehend God as God is his Salvation And him that walks in the ingloriousnesse and contempt of this world contemplate God as God is his Glory Any of these notions is enough to any man but God is all these and all else that all soules can thinke to every man Wee shut up both these Considerations man should not Mic. ult 5. that is not all God should be relied upon with that of the Prophet Trust ye not in a friend put not your confidence in a guide keepe the doores of thy mouth from her that lies in thy bosome there is the exclusion of trust in man and then he adds in the seventh verse because it stands thus betweene man and man I will looke unto the Lord I will looke to the God of my Salvation my God will heare me SERM. LXVI The second of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls Ianuary 29. 1625. PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my helpe Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce THe Psalmes are the Manna of the Church Wisd 16.20 As Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked best so doe the Psalmes minister Instruction and satisfaction to every man in every emergency and occasion David was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ himselfe but a Prophet of every particular Christian He foretels what I what any shall doe and suffer and say And as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum effusum Cant. 1.3 as the Spouse speaks of the name of Christ an Oyntment powred out upon all sorts of sores A Searcloth that souples all bruises A Balme that searches all wounds so are there some certaine Psalmes that are Imperiall Psalmes that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions Catholique universall Psalmes that apply themselves to all necessities This is one of those for of those Constitutions which are called Apostolicall Constitut Apostol one is That the Church should meet every day to sing this Psalme And accordingly S. Chrysostome testifies That it was decreed and ordained by the Primitive Fathers Chrysost that no day should passe without the publique singing of this Psalme Under both these obligations those ancient Constitutions called the Apostles and those ancient Decrees made by the primitive Fathers belongs to me who have my part in the service of Gods Church the especiall meditation and recommendation of this Psalme And under a third obligation too That it is one of those five psalmes the daily rehearsing whereof is injoyned to me by the Constitutions of this Church as five other are to every other person of our body As the whole booke is Manna so these five Psalmes are my Gomer which I am to fill and empty every day of this Manna Now as the spirit and soule of the whole booke of Psalmes is contracted into this psalme so is the spirit and soule of this whole psalme contracted into this verse Divisie The key of the psalme as S. Hierome calls the Titles of the psalmes tells us Hieron that David uttered this psalme when he was in the wildernesse of Iudab There we see the present occasion that moved him And we see what was passed between God and him before in the first clause of our Text Because thou hast been my helpe And then we see what was to come by the rest Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce So that we have here the whole compasse of Time Past Present and Future and these three parts of Time shall be at this time the three parts of this Exercise first what Davids distresse put him upon for the present and that lyes in the Context secondly how David built his assurance upon that which was past Because thou hast been my help And thirdly what he established to himselfe for the future Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce First His distresse in the Wildernesse his present estate carried him upon the memory of that which God had done for him before And the Remembrance of that carried him upon that of which he assured himselfe after Fixe upon God any where and you shall finde him a Circle He is with you now when you fix upon him He was with you before for he brought you to this fixation and he will be with you hereafter for He is yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever For Davids present condition who was now in a banishment in a persecution in the Wildernesse of Judah which is our first part we shall onely insist upon that which is indeed spread over all the psalme to the Text and ratified in the Text That in all those temporall calamities David was onely sensible of his spirituall losse It grieved him not that he was kept from Sauls Court but that he was kept from Gods Church For when he sayes Ver. 1. by way of lamentation That he was in a dry and thirsty land where no water was he expresses what penury what barrennesse what drought and what thirst he meant To see thy power Ver. 2. Ver. 5. Ver. 3. and thy glory so as I have seene thee in the Sanctuary For there my soule shall be satisfied as with marrow and with satnesse and there my mouth shall praise thee with joyfull lips And in some few considerations conducing to this That spirituall losses are incomparably heavier then temporall and that therefore The Restitution to our spirituall happinesse or the continuation of it is rather to be made the subject of our prayers to God in all pressures and distresses then of temporall we shall determine that first part And for the particular branches of both the other parts The Remembring of Gods benefits past And the building of an assurance for the future upon that Remembrance it may be fitter to open them to you anon when we come to handle them then now Proceed we now to our first part The comparing of temporall and spirituall afflictions In the way of this Comparison 1 Part. Afflictio universalis 2 Cor. 4.17 falls first the Consideration of the universality of afflictions in generall and the inevitablenesse thereof It is a blessed Meraphore that the Holy Ghost hath put into the mouth of the Apostle Pondus Gloriae That our afflictions are but light because there is an exceeding and an eternall waight of glory attending them If it were not for that exceeding waight of glory no other waight in this world could turne the scale or waigh downe those infinite waights of afflictions that oppresse us here There is not onely Pestis valde gravis the pestilence grows heavy upon the Land but there is Musca valde gravis Exod. 9.3.8.24 God calls in but the fly to vexe Egypt and even the fly is a heavy burden unto them Job 7.20 2 Sam. 14.26 Lament
so pay my debts with my bones and recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth with the beggery of mine age Let me wither in a spittle under sharpe and foule and in famous diseases and so recompence the wantonnesse of my youth with that loath somnesse in mine age yet if God with draw not his spirituall blessings his Grace his Patience If I can call my suffering his Doing my passion his Action All this that is temporall is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corne The body of all the substance of all is safe as long as the soule is safe But when I shall trust to that which wee call a good spirit and God shall deject and empoverish and evacuate that spirit when I shall rely upon a morall constancy and God shall shake and enfeeble and enervate destroy and demolish that constancy when I shall think to refresh my selfe in the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience and God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell it selfe and spread a cloud of diffidence and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience when health shall flie from me and I shall lay hold upon riches to succour me and comfort me in my sicknesse and riches shall flie from me and I shall snatch after favour and good opinion to comfort me in my poverty when even this good opinion-shall leave me and calumnies and misinformations shall prevaile against me when I shall need peace because there is none but thou O Lord that should stand for me and then shall finde that all the wounds that I have come from thy hand all the arrowes that stick in me from thy quiver when I shall see that because I have given my selfe to my corrupt nature thou hast changed thine and because I am all evill towards thee therefore thou hast given over being good towards me When it comes to this height that the fever is not in the humors but in the spirits that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy fortune nor a transitory enemy malice in great persons but a reall and an irresistible and an inexorable and an everlasting enemy The Lord of Hosts himselfe The Almighty God himselfe the Almighty God himselfe onely knowes the waight of this affliction and except hee put in that pondus gloriae that exceeding waight of an eternall glory with his owne hand into the other scale we are waighed downe we are swallowed up irreparably irrevocably irrecoverably irremediably This is the fearefull depth this is spirituall misery to be thus fallen from God But was this Davids case was he fallen thus farre into a diffidence in God No. But the danger the precipice the slippery sliding into that bottomlesse depth is to be excluded from the meanes of comming to God or staying with God And this is that that David laments here That by being banished and driven into the wildernesse of Judah hee had not accesse to the Sanctuary of the Lord to sacrifice his part in the praise and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation for Angels passe not to ends but by wayes and meanes nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church but by participation of the Communion of the Militant To this note David sets his Harpe in many many Psalms Sometimes Psal 78.60 that God had suffered his enemies to possesse his Tabernacle Hee for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh Hee delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hands But most commonly he complaines that God disabled him from comming to the Sanctuary In which one thing he had summed up all his desires all his prayers One thing have I desired of the Lord Psal 27.4 that will I looke after That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple His vehement desire of this Psal 42.2 he expresses againe My soule thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appeare before God He expresses a holy jealousie a religious envy Psal 84.3 even to the sparrows and swallows yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for her selfe and where she may lay her yong Even thine Altars O Lord of Host my King and my God Thou art my King and my God and yet excludest me from that Luk. 12.7 which thou affordest to sparrows And are not we of more value then many sparrows And as though David felt some false ease some half-tentation some whispering that way Psal 84.3 That God is in the wildernesse of Iudah in every place as well as in his Sanctuary there is in the Originall in that place a patheticall a vehement a broken expressing expressed O thine Altars It is true sayes David thou art here in the wildernesse and I may see thee here and serve thee here but O thine Altars O Lord of hosts my King and my God When David could not come in person to that place yet he bent towards the Temple Psal 5.7 In thy feare will I worship towards thy holy Temple Which was also Daniels devotion when he prayed Dan. 6.10 his Chamber windowes were open towards Ierusalem And so is Hezekias turning to the wall to weepe Esa 38.2 and to pray in his sick bed understood to be to that purpose to conforme and compose himselfe towards the Temple In the place consecrated for that use God by Moses fixes the service and fixes the Reward And towards that place Deut. 31.11 when they could not come to it doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple 1 King 8.44 when they are in the warres when they are in Captivity and pray towards this house doe thou heare them For as in private prayer when according to Christs command we are shut in our chamber there is exercised Modestia fidei The modesty and bashfulnesse of our faith not pressing upon God in his house so in the publique prayers of the Congregation there is exercised the fervor and holy courage of our faith Tertull. for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum It is a Mustering of our forces and a besieging of God Therefore does David so much magnifie their blessednesse that are in this house of God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Those that looke towards it may praise thee sometimes but those men who dwell in the Church and whose whole service lyes in the Church have certainly an advantage of all other men who are necessarily withdrawne by worldly businesses in making themselves acceptable to almighty God if they doe their duties and observe their Church-services aright Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities Excommunicatio and spirituall calamities being incomparably heavier then temporall and the greatest danger of falling into such
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
temporall blessings to men upon whom he hath not set his heart And then in the 27. Verse he sayes Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee If he had onely found it in the Liturgy and in the manner of the Service of that Church to which hee came with an ill will and against his heart he would not have prayed that prayer nay he would not have come to that Church Psal 35.11 40.10 For though David place a great joy in that That he can come to praise God in the Congregation and in the great Congregation And though David seeme even to determine Gods presence in the Church for he multiplies that expostulation that adprecation many times When shall I come in conspectum tuum into thy presence And Restore me O Lord conspectui tuo to thy presence Hee was not right not in the right way if he came not to Church yet there is a case in which David glories in though as hee saith there In corde meo abscondi eloquium tuum Psal 119.11 Thy word have I hidden locked up in my heart Though in another in many other places he rejoyce in that I have not hid thy righteousnesse in my heart Psal 40.10 I have not concealed thy truth from the great Congregation yet here he glories in his Abscondi I have hid it Which as both S. Hilary and S. Ambrose referre it to a discreet and seasonable suppressing of the mysteries of Religion and not to cast pearles before swine may also inferre this Instruction That a man were better serve God at home though not in so right a way if he thinke it right then to come hither against his heart and conscience Not but that there is better meanes of receiving good here then at home in private prayer though made the right way But his end in comming is not to make this meanes his way to that good And therefore his very being here though hee be thereby in the right way because it comes not from an upright heart as it is a greater danger to us who are deluded by their hypocriticall conformity so is it a greater sinne to them who come so against their conscience David prayes thus Psal 119.19 Incola sum ne abscondas I am a stranger hide not thy commandements from mee Let me not be a stranger at Church at thy Service And so it behooves us to pray too That those Doores and those Books may alwayes bee open unto us But yet I will say with David too Abscondam eloquium where I am a stranger and in a place of strange and superstitious worship I will hide my religion so farre as not to communicate with others in a service against my heart It is not safe for us to trust our selves at a superstitious Service though curiosity or company or dependency upon others draw us thither neither is it safe to trust all that come hither if their hearts be not here For the Retribution of our Text that is Thanks and Praise belongs onely to them who are Right and Right of heart and to them it is made due and infallible by this promise from God and made universall Omnes All the upright in heart shall glory How often God admits into his owne Name Omnes this addition of Universality Omne All as though he would be knowne by that especially He is Omnipotent There he can doe All He is Omniscient There he can know All Hee is Omnipresent There he can direct All. Neither doth God extend himselfe to all that he may gather from all but that he may gather all and all might meet in him and enjoy him So God is all Center as that hee looks to all and so all circumference as that hee embraces all The Sunne works upon things that he sees not as Mynes in the wombe of the earth and so works the lesse perfectly God sees all and works upon all and desires perfection in all There is no one word so often in the Bible as this Omne All. Neither hath God spread the word more liberally upon all the lines of this Booke then he hath his gracious purposes upon all the soules of men And therefore to withdraw Gods generall goodnesse out of his generall propositions That he would have all repent That he came to save all is to contract and abridge God himselfe in his most extensive Attribute or Denotation that is his Mercy And as there is a curse laid upon them that take away any part any proposition out of this Booke so may there be a curse or an ill affection and countenance and suspicion from God that presses any of his generall propositions to a narrower and lesse gracious sense then God meant in it It were as easily beleeved that God lookes towards no man as that there should be any man in whom he sees that is considers no sin that he lookes not towards I could as easily doubt of the universall providence of God as of the universall mercy of God if man continued not in rebellion and in opposition If I can say by way of confession and accusing my selfe Lord my wayes have not beene right nor my heart right there is yet mercy for mee But to them who have studied and accustomed themselves to this uprightnesse of heart there is mercy in that exaltation mercy in the nature of a Reward of a Retribution And this Retribution expressed here in this word Glory constitutes our second Part All the upright in heart shall Glory This Retribution is expressed in the Originall in the word Halal And Halal 2 Part. Laus to those Translators that made up our Booke of Common Prayer presented the signification of Gladnesse for so it is there They shall be glad So it did to the Translators that came after for there it is They shall rejoyce And to our last Translators it seemed to signifie Glory They shall Glory say they But the first Translation of all into our Language which was long before any of these three cals it Praise and puts it in the Passive All men of rightfull heart shall be praised He followed S. Hierom who reads it so and interprets it so in the Passive Laudabuntur They shall be praised And so truly Iithhalelu in the Original beares it nay requires it which is not of a praise that they shall give to God but of a praise that they shall receive for having served God with an upright heart not that they shall praise God in doing so but that godly men shall praise them for having done so All this will grow naturally out of the roote for the roote of this word is Lucere Splendere To shine out in the eyes of men and to create in them a holy and a reverentiall admiration as it was Iohn Baptists praise That he was A burning and a shining Lampe Properly it is by a good and a holy exemplary life to occasion others to set
see by the light of this glory shed upon me there In this place and at this time the glory of God is but we lack that light to see it by When my soule and body are glorified in heaven by that light of glory in me I shall see the glory of God But then what must that glory of the Essence of God be which I shall see thorough the light of Gods own glory I must have the light of glory upon me to see the glory of God and then by his glory I shall see his Essence Rom. 11.33 When S. Paul cryes out upon the bottomlesse depth of the riches of his Attributes O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and knowledge of God! how glorious how bottomlesse is the riches of his Essence If I cannot look upon him in his glasse 1 Cor. 13.12 1 Joh. 3.2 in the body of the Sunne how shall I looke upon him face to face And if I be dazeled to see him as he works how shall I see him Sicutiest as he is and in his Essence But it may be some ease to our spirits which cannot endure the search of this glory of heaven which shall shew us the very Essence of God to take this word of our Text as our first translation of all tooke it for one beame of this glory that is Praise Consider we therefore this everlasting future onely so How the upright in heart shall be praised in heaven First The Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with her recommendation That I lived in the obedience of the Church of God That I dyed in the faith of the Sonne of God That I departed and went away from them in the company and conduct of the Spirit of God into whose hands they heard me they saw me recommend my spirit 1 Cor. 6.19 And that I left my body which was the Temple of the Holy Ghost to them and that they have placed it in Gods treasury in his consecrated earth to attend the Resurrection which they shall beseech him to hasten for my sake and to make it joyfull and glorious to me and them when it comes So the Militant Church shall transmit me to the Triumphant with this praise this testimony this recommendation And then if I have done any good to any of Gods servants or to any that hath not been Gods servant for Gods sake If I have but fed a hungry man If I have but clothed a naked childe If I have but comforted a sad soule or instructed an ignorant soule If I have but preached a Sermon and then printed that Sermon that is first preached it and then lived according to it for the subsequent life is the best printing and the most usefull and profitable publishing of a Sermon All those things that I have done for Gods glory shall follow me shall accompany me shall be in heaven before me and meet me with their testimony That as I did not serve God for nothing God gave me his blessings with a large hand and in overflowing measures so I did not nothing for the service of God Though it be as it ought to be nothing in mine own eyes nothing in respect of my duty yet to them who have received any good by it it must not seeme nothing for then they are unthankfull to God who gave it by whose hand soever This shall be my praise to Heaven my recommendation thither And then my praise in Heaven shall be my preferment in Heaven That those blessed Angels that rejoyced at my Conversion before shall praise my perseverance in that profession and admit me to a part in all their Hymns and Hosannaes and Hallelujahs which Hallelujah is a word produced from the very word of this Text Halal My Hallelujah shall be my Halal my praising of God shall be my praise And from this testimony I shall come to the accomplishment of all to receive from my Saviours own mouth that glorious that victorious that harmonious praise that Dissolving and that Recollecting testimony that shall melt my bowels and yet fix me powre me out and yet gather me into his bosome that Euge bone serve Mat. 25.21 Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy And when he hath sealed me with his Euge and accepted my service who shall stamp a Vae quod non upon me who shall say Woe be unto thee that thou didst not preach this or that day in this or that place When he shall have styled me Bone fidelis Good and faithfull servant who shall upbraid me with a late undertaking this Calling or a slack pursuing or a lazy intermitting the function thereof When he shall have entred me into my Masters joy what fortune what sin can cast any Cloud of sadnesse upon me This is that that makes Heaven Heaven That this Retribution which is future now shall be present then and when it is then present it shall be future againe and present and future for ever ever enjoyed and expected ever The upright in heart shall have whatsoever all Translations can enlarge and extend themselves unto They shall Rejoyce they shall Glory they shall Praise and they shall bee praised and all these in an everlasting future for ever Which everlastingnesse is such a Terme as God himselfe cannot enlarge As God cannot make himselfe a better God then he is because hee is infinitely good infinite goodnesse already so God himselfe cannot make our Terme in heaven longer then it is for it is infinite everlastingnesse infinite eternity That that wee are to beg of him is that as that state shall never end so he will be pleased to hasten the beginning thereof that so we may be numbred with his Saints in Glory everlasting Amen SERM. LXVIII The fourth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls 28. Ianuary 1626. PSAL. 65.5 By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea GOd makes nothing of nothing now God eased himselfe of that incomprehensible worke and ended it in the first Sabbath But God makes great things of little still And in that kinde hee works most upon the Sabbath 1 Cor. 1.21 when by the foolishnesse of Preaching hee infatuates the wisedome of the world and by the word in the mouth of a weake man he enfeebles the power of sinne and Satan in the world and by but so much breath as blows out an houre-glasse gathers three thousand soules at a Sermon and five thousand soules at a Sermon as upon Peters preaching in the second and in the fourth of the Acts. And this worke of his to make much of little and to doe much by little is most properly a Miracle For the Creation which was a production of all out of nothing was not properly a miracle A miracle is a thing done
our prayers In a Sermon God speaks to the Congregation but he answers onely that soule that hath been with him at Prayers before A man may pray in the street in the fields in a fayre but it is a more acceptable and more effectuall prayer when we shut our doores and observe our stationary houses for private prayer in our Chamber and in our Chamber when we pray upon our knees then in our beds But the greatest power of all is in the publique prayer of the Congregation It is a good remembrance that Damascene gives Non quia gentes quaedam faciunt Damase à nobis linquenda We must not forbeare things onely therefore because the Gentiles or the Jewes used them The Gentiles particularly the Romans before they were Christians had a set Service a prescribed forme of Common prayer in their Temples and they had a particular Officer in that State who was Conditor precum that made their Collects and Prayers upon emergent occasions And Omni lustro every five yeares there was a review and an alteration in their Prayers and the state of things was presumed to have received so much change in that time as that it was fit to change some of their Prayers and Collects It must not therefore seeme strange that at the first there were certaine Collects appointed in our Church nor that others upon just occasion be added Gods blessing here in the Christian Church for to that we limit this consideration is that here He will answer us Therefore here we must ask Here our asking is our communion at Prayer And therefore they that undervalue or neglect the prayers of the Church have not that title to the benefit of the Sermon for though God doe speake in the Sermon yet hee answers that is applies himselfe by his Spirit onely to them who have prayed to him before If they have joyned in prayer they have their interest and shall feele their Consolation in all the promises of the Gospel shed upon the Congregation in the Sermon Have you asked by prayer Is there no Balme in Gilead He answers you by me Yes there is Blame Esay 53.5 Hee was wounded for your transgressions and with his stripes you are healed His Blood is your Balme his Sacrament is your Gilead Have you asked by prayer Is there no Smith in Israel 1 Sam. 13.18 No meanes to discharge my selfe of my fetters and chaines of my temporall and spirituall Encumbrances God answers thee Yes there is He bids you but looke about and you shall finde your selfe in Peter case The Angel of the Lord present A light shining Act. 12.7 and his chaines falling off All your manacles locked upon the hands All your chaines loaded upon the legges All your stripes numbred upon the back of Christ Jesus You have said in your prayers here Lord from whom all good counsails doe proceed And God answers you from hence The Angel of the great Counsell shall dwell with you and direct you You have said in your prayers Lighten our darknesse and God answers you by mee Esay 60.19 as he did his former people by Esay The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light and thy God thy glory Petition God at prayers and God shall answer all your petitions at the Sermon There we begin if wee will make profit of a Sermon at Prayers And thither wee returne againe if we have made profit by a Sermon in due time to prayers For Confes l. 1. c. 1. that is S. Augustines holy Circle in which hee walkes from Prayers to the Sermon and from the Sermon next day to Prayers againe Invocat te fides mea sayes he to God Here I stand or kneele in thy presence and in the power of faith to pray to thee But where had I this faith that makes my prayer acceptable Dedisti mihi per ministerium Praedicatoris I had it at the Sermon I had it saith he by the ministery of the Preacher but I had it therefore because thy Spirit prepared me by prayer before And I have it therefore that is to that end that I might returne faithfully to prayers againe As hee is The God of our salvation that is As he works in the Christian Church he answers us If we aske by prayer he applies the Sermon And He answers by terrible things in righteousnesse These two words Terribilia per Iustitiam By Terrible things in Righteousnesse Terribilia per Iustitiam are ordinarily by our Expositors taken to intimate a confidence that God imprints by the Ordinance of his Church that by this right use of Prayer and Preaching they shall alwayes be delivered from their enemies or from what may bee most terrible unto them In which exposition Righteousnesse signifies faithfulnesse and Terrible things signifie miraculous deliverances from and terrible Judgements upon his and our enemies Therefore is God called Deus fidelis The faithfull God for Deut. 7.9 that faithfulnesse implies a Covenant made before and there entred his Mercy that hee would make that Covenant and it implies also the assurance of the performance thereof for there enters his faithfulnesse So he is called Fidelis Creator We commit our soules to God 1 Pet. 4.19 as to a faithfull Creator He had an eternall gracious purpose upon us to create us and he hath faithfully accomplished it So Fidelis quia vocavit Hee is faithfull in having called us 1 Thes 5.24 That he had decreed and that he hath done So Christ is called Fidelis Pontifex Heb. 2.17 A mercifull and a faithfull high Priest Mercifull in offering himselfe for us faithfull in applying himselfe to us So Gods whole word is called so often so very often Testimonium fidele A faithfull witnesse an evidence that cannot deceive nor mislead us Psal 19.8 Therefore we may be sure that whatsoever God hath promised to his Church And whatsoever God hath done upon the enemies of his Church heretofore those very performances to them are promises to us of the like succours in the like distresses he will performe re-performe multiply performances thereof upon us Esay 25.1 Thy counsails of old are faithfulnesse and truth That is whatsoever thou didst decree was done even then in the infallibility of that Decree And when that Decree came to be executed and actually done in that very execution of that former Decree was enwrapped a new Decree That the same should be done over and over againe for us when soever wee needed it So that then casting up our account from the destruction of Babel by all the plagues of Egypt through the depopulation of Canaan and the massacre in Sennacheribs Army to the swallowing of the Invincible Navy upon our Seas and the bringing to light that Infernall that subterranean Treason in our Land we may argue and assume That the God of our salvation will answer us by terrible things by multiplying of miracles and ministring supplies to the confusion of his and
possesse immortality and impossibility of dying onely in a continuall dying when as a Cabinet whose key were lost must be broken up and torne in pieces before the Jewell that was laid up in it can be taken out so thy body the Cabinet of thy soule must be shaked and shivered by violent sicknesse before that soule can goe out And when it is thus gone out must answer for all the imperfections of that body which body polluted it And yet though this soule be such a loser by that body it is not perfectly well nor fully satisfied till it be reunited to that body againe when thou remembrest Mat. 26.36 and oh never forget it that Christ himselfe was heavy in his soule unto Death Mat. 26.39 That Christ himselfe came to a Si possibile If it be possible let this Cup passe That he came to a Quare dereliquisti Mat. 27.46 a bitter sense of Gods dereliction and forsaking of him when thou considerest all this compose thy selfe for death but thinke it not a light matter to dye Death made the Lyon of Judah to roare and doe not thou thinke that that which we call going away like a Lambe doth more testifie a conformity with Christ then a strong sense and bitter agony and colluctation with death doth Christ gave us the Rule in the Example He taught us what we should doe by his doing it And he pre-admitted a fearfull apprehension of death A Lambe is a Hieroglyphique of Patience but not of stupidity And death was Christs Consummatum est All ended in death yet he had sense of death How much more doth a sad sense of our transmigration belong to us to whom death is no Consummatum est but an In principio our account and our everlasting state begins but then Apud te propitiatio Psal 130.4 ut timearis In this knot we tie up all With thee there is mercy that thou mightest be feared There is a holy feare that does not onely consist with an assurance of mercy Pro. 21.15 but induces constitutes that assurance Pavor operantibus iniquitatem sayes Solomon Pavor horror and servile feare jealousie and suspition of God diffidence and distrust in his mercy and a bosome-prophecy of self-destruction Destruction it selfe so we translate it be upon the workers of iniquity Pavor operantibus iniquitatem And yet sayes that wise King Pro. 28.14 Beatus qui semper Pavidus Blessed is that man that alwayes fears who though he alwayes hope and beleeve the good that God will shew him yet also feares the evills that God might justly multiply upon him Blessed is he that looks upon God with assurance but upon himselfe with feare For though God have given us light by which we may see him even in Nature for He is the confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a far of upon the Sea Though God have given us a clearer light in the Law and experience of his providence upon his people throughout the Old Testament Though God have abundantly infinitely multiplied these lights and these helpes to us in the Christian Church where he is the God of salvation yet as he answers us by terrible things in that first acceptation of the words which I proposed to you that is Gives us assurances by miraculous testimonies in our behalfe that he will answer our patient expectation by terrible Judgements and Revenges upon our enemies In his Righteousnesse that is In his faithfulnesse according to his Promises and according to his performances of those Promises to his former people So in the words considered the other way In his Holinesse that is in his wayes of imprinting Holinesse in us He answers us by terrible things in all those particulars which we have presented unto you By infusing faith but with that terrible addition Damnabitur He that beleeveth not shall be damned He answers us by composing our manners and rectifying our life and conversation but with terrible additions of censures and Excommunications and tearings off from his own body which is a death to us and a wound to him He answers us by enabling us to speake to him in Prayer but with terrible additions for the matter for the manner for the measure of our Prayer which being neglected our very Prayer is turned to sin He answers us in Preaching but with that terrible commination that even his word may be the savor of death unto death He answers us in the Sacrament but with that terrible perplexity and distraction that he that seemes to be a Iohn or a Peter a Loving or a Beloved Disciple may be a Iudas and he that seems to have received the seale of his reconciliation may have eat and drunke his own Damnation And he answers us at the houre of death but with this terrible obligation That even then I make sure my salvation with feare and trembling That so we imagine not a God of wax whom we can melt and mold when and how we will That we make not the Church a Market That an over-homelines and familiarity with God in the acts of Religion bring us not to an irreverence nor indifferency of places But that as the Militant Church is the porch of the Triumphant so our reverence here may have some proportion to that reverence which is exhibited there Revel 4.10 where the Elders cast their Crownes before the Throne and continue in that holy and reverend acclamation Thou art worthy O Lord to receive Glory and Honor and Power for as we may adde from this Text By terrible things O God of our salvation doest thou answer us in righteousnesse SERM. LXIX The fifth of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes Preached at S. Pauls PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee IT is well said so well as that more then one of the Fathers seeme to have delighted themselves in having said it Titulus Clavis The Title of the Psalme is the Key of the Psalme the Title opens the whole Psalme The Church of Rome will needs keepe the Key of heaven and the key to that Key the Scriptures wrapped up in that Translation which in no case must be departed from There the key of this Psalm the Title thereof hath one bar wrested that is made otherwise then he that made the Key the Holy Ghost intended it And another bat inserted that is one clause added which the Holy Ghost added not Where we reade in the Title Victori To the chiefe Musician they reade In finem A Psalme directed upon the end I think they meane upon the later times because it is in a great part a Propheticall Psame of the calling of the Gentiles But after this change they also adde Resurrectionis A Psalme concerning the Resurrection and that is not in the Hebrew nor any thing in the place thereof And after one Author
to the last Metaphore my tongue to the last syllable I have not paid a farthing of my debt to God I have not praised him but I have praised them till not only my selfe but even they whom I have so mispraised are the worse in the sight of God for my over-praising I have flattered them and they have taken occasion by that to thinke that their faults are not discerned and so they have proceeded in them This is then our first debt to God glory and praise which is as we said out of S. Ambrose a manifestation of Gods blessing to us for it is not towards God as it is towards great persons under whom we have risen that we should be afraid to let the world know how rich we are lest they that raised us should borrow of us or draw us into bands for them God requires nothing but the glory the manifestation that by knowing what he hath done for thee others may know what to hope and what to pray for at his hands In our debts to God the noverint universi is the quietus est our publishing of them to his praise and glory is his acquittance and discharge for them Our other debt to God is Prayer for that also is due to him and him onely For Oratio August Si quod petendum est petis sed non à quo petendum est impius es If we direct our prayers to any even for temporall things as to the Authors of those benefits we may poure out as many prayers as would have paid that debt if they had been rightly placed but yet by such a paiment our debt is growne a debt of a higher nature a sin This is a circumstance nay an essentiall difference peculiar to our debts to God that we doe not pay them except we contract more we grow best out of debt by growing farther in debt by praying for more we pay our former debt Domus med Domus Orationis my house saies God is a house of prayer for this use and purpose he built himselfe a house upon earth He had praise and glory in heaven before but for Prayer he erected a house here his Church All the world is his Exchequer he gives in all from every creature from Heaven and Sea and Land and all the inhabitants of all them wereceive benefits But the Church is his Court of Requests there he receives our petitions there we receive his answers It is true that neither is that house onely for prayer nor prayer onely for that house Christ in his person consecrated that place the Temple by Preaching too And for prayer elsewhere Christ did much accustome himselfe to private prayer But in him who was truly Head of the Church the whole Church was Christ alone was a Congregation he was the Catholique Church But when we meet in Gods house though by occasion there be no Sermon yet if we meet to pray we pay our debt we doe our duty so doe we not if we meet at a Sermon without prayer The Church is the house of prayer so as that upon occasion preaching may be left out but never a house of preaching so as that Prayer may be left out And for the debt of prayer God will not be paid with money of our owne coyning with sudden extemporall inconsiderate prayer but with currant money that beares the Kings Image and inscription The Church of God by his Ordinance hath fet his stampe upon a Liturgie and Service for his house Audit Deus in corde cogitantis quod nec ipse audit qui cogitat sayes S. Bernard God heares the very first motions of a mans heart which that man till he proceed to a farther consideration doth not heare not feele not deprehend in himselfe That soule that is accustomed to direct her selfe to God upon every occasion that as a flowre at Sun-rising conceives a sense of God in every beame of his and spreads and dilates it selfe towards him in a thankfulnesse in every small blessing that he sheds upon her that soule that as a flowre at the Suns declining contracts and gathers in and shuts up her selfe as though she had received a blow when soever she heares her Saviour wounded by a oath or blasphemy or execration that soule who whatsoever string be strucken in her base or treble her high or her low estate is ever tun'd toward God that soule prayes sometimes when it does not know that it prayes I heare that man name God and aske him what said you and perchance he cannot tell but I remember that he casts forth some of those ejaculationes animae as S. August calls them some of those darts of a devout soule which though they have not particular deliberations and be not formall prayers yet they are the indicia pregnant evidences and blessed fruits of a religious custome much more is it true which S. Bernard saies there of them Deus audit God heares that voice of the heart which the heart it selfe heares not that is at first considers not Those occasionall and transitory prayers and those fixed and stationary prayers for which many times we binde our selves to private prayer at such a time are payments of this debt in such peeces and in such summes as God no doubt accepts at our hands But yet the solemne dayes of payment are the Sabbaths of the Lord and the place of this payment is the house of the Lord where as Tertullian expresses it Agmine facto we muster our forces together and besiege God that is not taking up every tatter'd fellow every sudden ragge or fragment of speech that rises from our tongue or our affections but mustering up those words which the Church hath levied for that service in the Confessions and Absolutions and Collects and Litanies of the Church we pay this debt and we receive our acquittance First we must be sure to pray where we may be sure to speed and onely God can give It is a strange thing saies Iustin Martyr to pray to Esculapius or to Apollo for health as Gods thereof Qui apud Chironem medicinā didicerunt when they who pray to them may know to whom those gods were beholden for all their medicines and of whom they learnt all their physick why should they not rather pray to their Masters then to them why should Apollo Chiroes scholar and not Chiro Apollo's Master be the god of physick why should I pray to S. George for victory when I may goe to the Lord of Hosts Almighty God himselfe or consult with a Seargeant or Corporall when I may goe to the Generall Or to another Saint for peace when I may goe to the Prince of peace Christ Jesus Why should I pray to Saint Nicolas for a faire passage at Sea when he that rebuked the storme is nearer me then S. Nicolas why should I pray to S. Antony for my hoggs when he that gave the devill leave to drowne the Gergesens whole heard of hoggs did not do that