all fuluess is and dwells Col. ii 9. God blessed for ever Rom. ix 5. Let 's make this acknowledgment of him profess and proclaim it as they do here call him the ever blessed Blessed 6. be all his works actions and passions the works of our Redemption Justification Sanctification Glorification which all come to us only through his Name and Merits Attribute we all to him and to his Name Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be the praise and glory of all these great and wonderful things Blessed lastly be all his purposes and intentions towards us he came to reveal his Fathers will unto us bless him for that bless we should all such that make known unto us the will of God Beati pedes Evangelizantium Blessed be the feet of the Ministers of the Gospel much more this great Archbishop of our Souls that sends them He came to glorifie the Father S. Iohn viii to teach us to do so bless him for that He came to save and deliver us from all kind of evil however we wilfully thrust daily into it some or other bless him for that say all good of him that wishes and works all good to us but which is only truly to bless further we all purposes what we can and help them forward that he and we may be glorified by the hand For this blessing is not meerly a form of words we must 1. earnestly and heartily desire God to bless to bless all Christs ways of coming to us that we may joyfully and chearfully and devoutly entertain him Desire God 2. to bless him that cometh in his name him whoe're he be that he sends to us but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 especially that his coming may come abroad to all the world all come in unto him Desire 3. that man may bless him incite the sons of men to sing praise too unto him Praise him all ye Nations praise him all ye people strive what we can to get all we come nigh to come with us and bear a part in blessing him In a word bless we our selves in him think and profess and proclaim our selves blessed that Christ is come to us that we have our part and portion in him place all our joy all our rejoycing all our triumph that he is with us that the name of the Lord is declared unto us that by his coming the name of the Lord is called upon us that we are now of his retinue that we now belong unto him that he is daily coming in us And for this Hosanna now 3. in excelsis indeed Hosanna to him in the highest sing we it as loud as we can reach as loud as we can cry it And that may pass for the first interpretation of in excelsis that we are to cry it as loud as we can cry it do what we can to express our joy how we can to give him thanks to exalt his praise what we are able in excelsis to the highest of our power so Psal. cxlviii 1. Praise him in the height We all of us in excelsis in our highest yea and 2. the very highest the very most in excelsis of us all the highest of us is too low to praise him worthily yet praise him O ye highest ye Kings and Princes of the earth Kings of the earth and all people Psal. cxlviii 11. come down from your excelsis and lay your Crowns and Scepters at the feet of this King as S. Luke that cometh and submit all your Kingdoms to the Kingdom of Christ make ye all your Kingdoms to bless his that your Kingdoms also may be blessed Nay and yet there are higher then these highest who are to praise him Praise him all ye heavens Psal. cxlviii 4. Praise him all ye Angels praise him all his Hosts ver 2. So S. Luke intimates it when he expresses it peace on earth in Heaven and glory in the highest glory in Heaven for the peace that is made between Heaven and Earth by him that cometh here in the name of the Lord by whom says the Apostle all things are reconciled Whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven Col. i. 20. Hosanna in the highest for this peace with the highest sung be it by Heaven and Earth by Angels and Men the Angels sung somewhat a like Song at his Birth when he was coming into the world according as St. Luke interprets it and will sing it again if we invite them as the Psalmist does to sing with us and we must desire it that God may be prais'd all glory both in Heaven and Earth That 's the way indeed to Hosanna in the highest as it is a Song of Praise but 't is also we told you a prayer that even our praises and the ground of them may continue A prayer 1. to God in excelsis the most highest as the Psalmist speaks Save us O thou most highest No salvation but from those everlasting hills of mercy salvation to be look'd for from none else the very meanest of the multitude know that A prayer 2. for salvation in excelsis that he would deliver us with a high hand work salvation with a mighty arm such as all the world might see it that he would magnifie this King that cometh and exalt his Kingdom that cometh to the clouds set it above the reach and power of malicious men make it grow and prosper maugre all contradiction and opposition of the highest and strongest of the earth A prayer 3. for salvation in excelsis indeed for salvation in the highest Heavens not only to be delivered here but to be sav'd hereafter not only for Grace and Righteousness here of the highest pitch but for glory of the highest order a prayer that God as he has exalted him that here came in his name so he would exalt us all that call upon his name to sit at his right hand in heavenly places in the highest right So these multitudes pray and so pray we so praise they and so praise we Do what we can our selves to praise and bless him and do what we can to get others do it call upon the Angels to joyn with us do it with all our might and strength stretch out our voices scrue up our strings nothing content or satisfie us in our prayers or praises but the highest the highest thankfulness the highest devotion the highest expression and way of both that either the multitudes before or the multitudes that follow Iews or Christians former or latter Saints ever used before us All perhaps cannot spread carpets cloths and garments to entertain him nor have all Boughs of Palms or Olives to meet him with all have not wherewith to make a solemn shew and flourish but all have tongues all may sing Hosanna's to him or if that word be hard all may cry Save us Lord and Blessed be he that came and cometh If we have neither substance to praise him with nor solemn Ceremonies allowed
exceeding glory Wonder we 1. stand we and wonder or cast our selves upon the earth upon our faces in amazement at it that God should do all this for us thus remember thus visit thus crown such things as we That 2. he should pass by the Angels to crown us leave them in their sins and misery and lift us out of ours That 3. he should not take their nature at the least and honour those that stood among them but take up ours and wear it into heaven and seat it there And there is a visit he is now coming to day to make us as much to be wondred at as any that he should feed us with his Body and yet that be in Heaven that he should cheer us with his Blood and yet that shed so long ago that he should set his Throne and keep his Table and presence upon the Earth and yet Heaven his Throne and Earth his Foot-stool that he should here pose all our understandings with his mysterious work and so many ages of Christians after so many years of study and assistance of the Spirit not yet be able to understand it What is man or the Son of man O Blessed Iesu that thou shouldst thus also visit and confound him with the wonders of thy mercy and goodness Here also is glory and honour too to be admitted to his Table no where so great to be made one with him as the meat is with the body no glory like it Here is the crown of plenty fulness of pardon grace and heavenly Benediction Here 's the crown of glory nothing but rays and beauties Iustres and glories to be seen in Christ and darted from him into pious souls Come take your crowns come compass your selves with those eternal circlings Take now the cup of salvation and remember God for so remembring you call upon the name of the Lord and give glory to your God If you cannot speak out fully as who can speak in such amazements as these thoughts may seriously work in us cast your selves down in silence and utter out your souls in these or the like broken speeches What is man Lord what is man What am I How poor a thing am I How good art thou What hast thou done unto him How great things What glory what honour what crown hast thou reserved for me What shall I say How shall I sufficiently admire What shall I do again unto thee What shalt thou do Why 1. if God is so mindful of us men Let us be mindful of him again remember he is always with us and do all things as if we remembred that so he were 2. Is he so mindful of us Let us be mindful of our selves and remember what we are that we may be humbled at it 3. Does he remember us Let us then again remember him with our prayers and services 2. Has he visited us Let us in thankfulness visit him again visit him in his Temple visit him at his Table visit him in his poor members the sick the imprisoned 3. Has he made us lower then the Angels Let us make our selves lower and lower still in our own sights Is it yet but a little lower then the Angels Let us raise up thoughts and pieties and devotions to be equal with them 4. Has he crown'd us with glory Let us crown his Altars then with offerings and his name with praise let us be often in corona in the congregation of them that praise him among such as keep Holy-day Let us crown his Courts with beauty crown our selves with good works they should be our glory and our crown And for the worship that he crowns us with too let us worship and give him honour so remember so visit so crown him again so shall he as he has already so shall still remember us last and bring us to his own palace there to visit him face to face where he shall make us equal to the Angels we are now below and crown us with an incorruptible crown of glory through Christ c. THE NINTH SERMON ON Christmas-Day S. LUKE ii 30 31 32. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel SAlvation cannot but be a welcome then at any time I know no day amiss But in Die salutis at such a time as this on Christmas-day especially Then it first came down to bless this lower world But salvation so nigh as to be seen is more much more if we our selves have any interest in it if it be for the Gentiles too that we also may come in Far more if it be such salvation that our friends also may be saved with us none perish if it be omnium populorum to 'um all in whatsoever Nation Add yet if it be salvation by light not in the night no obscure deliverance we like that better and if it be to be saved not by running away but gloriously Salvation with Glory that 's better still Nay if it be all salvation on a day of salvation not afar off but within ken not heard of but seen to us and ours an universal salvation a gladsome a lightsome a notable a glorious salvation as it is without contradiction Verbum Evangelii good Gospel joyful tidings so it must needs be verbum diei too the happiest news in the most happy time These make the Text near enough the day and yet 't is nearer What say you if this salvation prove to be a Saviour and that Saviour Christ and that Christ new born the first time that viderunt oculi could be said of him no time so proper as Christmas to speak of Christ the Saviour born and sent into the world He it is that is here stiled salutare tuum Christ that blessed sight that restores Simeons decaying eyes to their youthful lustre that happy burthen that makes Simeon grasp heaven before he enter it Indeed the good old man begins not his Christmas till Candlemas 'T was not Christmas-day with him he did not see his Saviour till he was presented in the Temple The Feast of Purification was his Christmas This the Shepherds the worlds and ours This day first he was seen visibly to the world Being then to speak of salvation which is a Saviour or a Saviour who is salvation 1. First of the Salvation it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Then of its certainty and manifestation so plain and evident that the eye may see it Salvation to be seen More 2. prepared to be seen 3. Of the universality before the face of all people 4. Of the Benefits They are two 1. A light 2. A glory with the twofold parties 1. The Gentiles 2. The Iews Of each both severally and joyntly When we have done with the salvation then of the other sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Saviour himself that 's the prime meaning of salutare here 1. Of his natures
earth the Son of the Almighty Father clothed with flesh like unto us Four Vowels and two Consonants shall his name consist of and the number of them be eight unites eight tens and eight hundred that is 888. So here 's wonder upon wonder to make it wonderful 3. In the Latin we have five letters IESVS and by the old short way of writing among the Romans of the first letter for the whole word the subtle fanciers of the Cabala will tell us these five letters in the Name of Iesus intimate the fulness of its perfection that it is jucundum efficax sanctum verum salutiferum that it is full of joy efficacy sanctity verity and salvation Thus you see we have so rendred it as to find the Mystery in English name that it is a sweet and joyful Name an efficacious and powerful Name a sanctifying and justifying Name a Name verifying all Types and Prophesies and Promises and a salutiferous and saving name too Five glories to himself five benefits to us by it or as I may have otherwise as fully exprest them Justification Election Sanctification Victory and Salvation And now let the Iew come with his Rasche Theboth with his first letter for a word and write 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Iesus meaning thereby maliciously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let his Name be blotted out it will fall upon himself His name will surely be blotted out of the Book of Life who goes about to abuse this or who has not his portion in the Name of Iesus I should add one Mystery more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in the Hebrew Name of Iesus is say they a letter with three equal fangs joyn'd all together and may denote the Trinity where the three Persons are equal and all united And then we have a mysterious Name indeed the whole God-head Trinity in Vnity in it and yet a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides as we told you before for the Humanity So a perfect Saviour of both Natures expressed perfectly in his Name God and Man and all the whole Trinity employed in the business of our salvation A wonderful Name indeed But 2. 't is also wonderful without a Cabala full of plain wonders as well as of mysterious 1. 'T is a new Name and yet Ioshuah the Prince and Iosuah the Priest and Ioshua or Iesus the Son of Syrach had the same name all and is it not then a wonder that it should yet be new But theirs were given them by men this him by an Angel Theirs signified only a temporal deliverance this spiritual and temporal both their 's a particular this a general salvation Theirs lastly meerly signified this very name effects also our salvation and deliverance 2. A name that no man knew but himself Rev. xix 12. No man can tell the wonders of it No man can pronounce it right neither without an immediate assistance from above 1 Cor. xii 3. No man can say the Lord Iesus but by the Holy Ghost 3. The wonders that are wrought by it make it truly wonderful that in it or by it or through it such mighty things both are and have been done even by men that only outwardly profest it and only sounded the letters of it as you have heard already 'T is wonderful lastly sure that it should force even the Devils to bow down to it not only depart their Lodgings to give it room but even be compelled themselves to worship it yet so we find it Phil. ii 10. Those things under the earth that is the Devils also so doing and confessing And shall we now think much to do as much to do what all things in Heaven and Earth and under it even in Hell too do to it bow the knee and worship it It is a Name says the Apostle given him to that purpose for us to pay our duty and homage to ver 9. 'T is a Name of blessing and adoration says our last point Venerandum nomen Iesu a Name to be blessed and adored First then bless we God for his holy Name for the benefits and comfort we receive by it Bless we 2. the Name it self praise and magnifie and glorifie and give thanks unto it They are the expressions of the Holy Pen Psal. cxlv 2. cxxxviii 2. lxxxvi 9. cxl 13. they are not mine so you have authority enough to do it if you think the Holy Ghost knows how to speak Bless we 3. our selves in this Name when we lie down and when we rise up when we go out and when we come in for in thy Name O blessed Iesu shall we tread them under that rise up against us Nothing shall be able to hurt or damage us when we put our selves under the protection of it If afflictions and troubles press hard upon thee and embitter all thy days this Name is the tree whose wood will sweeten the bitterest waters cut down a branch of it and throw it in Do thy sins and conscience rent and tear thee this Name is the Oyl to lenifie and cure them pour it out upon them Art thou to encounter death it self in this Name thou shalt overcome it deliver up thy soul but in it 'T is a Name of truth and fidelity thou canst not distrust it 'T is a Name of might and power thou mayest rest upon it 'T is a Name of Majesty and glory thou must exalt it 'T is a Name of Grace and Mercy thou must praise him for it and commit thy self unto it 'T is a Name of sweetness and comfort thou must rejoyce and be glad in it 'T is a Name of wonder and admiration thou must admire and declare it 'T is a Name of adoration thou must now adore it too Bow the knee says the Apostle or bow down at it Holy and reverend is his Name says the Psalmist Psal. cxi 9. And if reverend it may be rever'd it may be worshipped I speak not of the syllables and letters but of the sense When we hear the Name of Iesus I suppose there is none so little Christian but that he will confess I may lift up my heart and praise him for the mercy and benefits that I remember and am put in mind of by it and where I bow my soul may I not bow my body The Text is plain enough That at the Name of Iesus every knee should bow Phil. ii 10. Should though they do not or else shall when they will not and where they would not when they come among those that are under the earth and was ever more need to do it than in an age where 't is doubted whether he be or God or Saviour where it is question'd so often whether there were ever such a Name to be sav'd by and we not rather sav'd every one in his own Is it not high time to revive this honour to it that the world may know we acknowledge him to be God to be the Lord and are not ashamed to confess it But to sift
with the multitudes before and behind the whole multitude of Saints of so many Ager then with a few scattered headless heedless companies forbear it better pray and praise with them then prattle and prate with these better their Hosanna and Benedictus to him that cometh in the name of the Lord then these mens sensless Sermons and Discourses who come in their own name and of their own heads without Gods sending them at all Having then so full a Choir so many voices to bear us company let us also now sing with them Yet that we may be sure to sing in Tune let 's first listen a little to the key and more they bless in 'T is a loud one for 't is a crying they cried not in the sense we often take it for a mournful tone or note for 't is an expression of joy and gladness So S. Luke xix 37. They began to rejoyce c. but with a loud voice it was they praised him that 's the meaning so expressed in the same verse by that Evangelist Indeed true it is God has turn'd our songs of joy into the voice of weeping as the Prophet complains taken away our Feasts and gaudy days and we may well cry and cry aloud in that sadder sense of the word crying yet for all that must we not lay down the other or forget the Song of prayer and praise especially upon the point of Christs coming to us Here it must be crying in another tone singing speaking proclaiming the great favour and honour of him that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessing and honour and glory to him that so cometh Now that we be not out in tune or note let 's mind the word we shall find the sweetest ways of blessing in it 1. 'T is a loud crying such is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that teaches us to be devout and earnest in our prayers and praises in blessing Christ. 2. 'T is loud and to be heard to instruct us not to be asham'd of our way of serving Christ he that is Christ will be asham'd of him so Christ professes S. Mark viii 38. 3. 'T is the crying of a multitude many multitudes and intimates to us what prayer and praise does best even the Puâ—lick and Common Service 4. 'T is the crying of several multitudes the same thing and insinuates peace and unity that 's the only Christian way of praising God one God and one Faith and one Christ says the Apostle and one heart and mind of all that profess them and 't were best one way of doing it the same Hosanna the same Benedictus the same voice and form of prayer and praise and Worship if it could be had 5. 'T is of some before and some that follow 't is not a confused or disorderly note or way hudling and confounding all together but the voice of Order where every one sings in time in tune and place some begin and others follow and the Chorus joyns all in decency and order this to preach decency and order to them that come in at any time or call any where upon the name of Christ even the very multitude here in Christs praise keep their parts and order 6. 'T is a crying yet of joy we told you the voice of mirth and gladness that we may know Christ is best served with a chearful spirit Christianity is no such dull heavy thing as some have fancied it it admits of Mirth and Songs so they be in nomine Domini either to the praise of God or not to his dishonour so they be not light or wanton or scurrilous or such like 7. This crying here is general and our praises of God must be so too all that is without me and all that is within me praise his holy name all the powers of my soul superiour and inferiour all the organs of my body all the instruments of my life and living my estate and means all to concur in giving praise to God in celebrating the mercies the humilities the condescensions the out-goings and in-comings of my Redeemer Thus we have the key and tune of blessing God and Christ devoutly confidently publickly unanimously orderly chearfully and universally with all our faculties and powers Let 's now hear the Song of praise Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he c. And that we may sing in tune let 's know our parts Three parts there are in it as in other Songs Bassus Tenor and Altus the Bass the Tenor and the Treble Hosanna to the Son of David there 's the Bass the deepest and lowest note the humanity of Christ in filio David being the Son of David the Bass sings that that 's low indeed for him we can go no lower Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord there 's the Tenor or middle part he and the name of the Lord joyn'd together God and Man united that 's a note higher then the first the Mediator between God and Man God in the highest Son of David in the lowest the middle note then follows And Hosanna in altissimis the Altus or Treble the highest note of all we can reach no higher strain we never so high We begin low that 's the way to reach high Hosanna to the Son of David Yet as low as it is 't is hard to hit hard to reach the meaning of it Hosanna a hard note so Interpreters have found it St. Augustine will have it an Interjection only to express rejoycing like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks or Io triumphe among the Latines The truth is 't is an expression and voice of joy and gladness though no Interjection an expression us'd by the Jews at the Feast of Tabernacles a joyful acclamation enough to authorize common and received expressions of joy though it may be they that use them do not perfectly understand them especially joy inexpressible such as ours should be for the Son of Davids coming may be allow'd to express it self as it can or as it does in other rejoycings when it can do no better Some interpret it Redemption others an Hymn or Praise others Grace others Glory others Boughs to the Son of David All yet concur in this that 't is a joyful wish for prosperity to Christ under the title of the Son of David Grace Redemption Praise and Glory Psalms and Hymns and all the other outward expressions of Thanks Respect and Joy be given to him who now comes to restore the Kingdom of his Father David Nothing too much to be given to the Messiah for him they always mean by the Son of David No inward or outward joy enough for the coming of our Redeemer But though Hosanna mean all these several rendrings yet the construction is no more then Salvum fac or salva obsecro Save we beseech thee like our Vivat Rex God save the King Save the Son of David we beseech thee and save us by the Son of David For
as they as Ants and Conies and Locusts and Spiders and 't is a shame we should not we would by the experience of our former evils Prepare 1. in good days with the Ant for bad ones We would 2. with the Conies build our dwellings in the Rock St. Paul says was Christ having felt sufficiently already there is no sure building else We would 3. go forth as the Locusts do to gather all by bands unite in the bond of peace and charity not straggle into factions and divide in parties remembring what that lately came to and may quickly come to again if we look not to it We would 4. with the Spider catch hold with our hands keep our selves employed in our own business trades or studies and not meddle with things we either understand not or belong not to us We would learn of them besides to be in the palaces of the great King the houses of God a little more constantly than we are This would be to be exceeding wise And if to these we add the wisdom of the Serpent as our blessed Saviour commends it to us St. Mark x. 16. make it our care above all as they say the Serpent does to save our heads Caput Christum and Caput Regem Christ our head and the King our Head make it our business to keep our Religion and obedience safe Be who will else thought never so wise I am sure there is none wiser as God counts wisdom than they that do so Yet lastly if you had rather take the rule of your wisdom from above take it from St. Iames That wisdom says he is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie St. James iii. 17. So to be wise is to wash our hands of what is past to live peaceably and orderly friendly and kindly together for the time to come heartily promoting one anothers good without grudging or dissembling For in returning and quietness it seems is the Apostle wisdom as well as the Prophets strength Isa. xxx 15. wisdom it seems and strength both I would some would understand it that or this nay that and this we are to consider next The condition we are in that 't is we are now to understand For Intelligentia perspicit quae sunt so St. Augustin defines it and this hoc is most naturally the present So to understand this which is the second particular in the wish is to be truly sensible how things now go with us Where 1. what it is we are to understand and then what it is to understand it What this is we take in two particulars Gods dealing with us and our dealing with him again These two the this the business we are wish'd to understand I. And how God deals with Vs the high places of the earth we ride on ver 13. the places and offices we enjoy the increase of the Fields we eat of the plenty we abound with the Honey we suck out of the rock and the oil that issued to us out of the flinty rock the same verse those blessings which we could no more expect than those sweet dews out of stones and flints the butter and milk ver 14. the smoothness and evenness of our conditions now the fat of lambs and rams and goats in the next words the full tables we well nigh groan at and the pure blood of the grape the mirth and jollity we live in tell us as plain I say how he deals with us as they did Israel how he dealt with them One day tells another how the Almighty commands it to dart blessings on us and one night certifies another how he enjoyns it to shadow us with protections both speak loud enough to have their voices heard among us But how 2. we deal with him again I would there were no voice abroad I would no body heard I would Gath did not speak it nor the streets of Askelon ring of it that the day might be clouded with darkness to cover it and that the night were as the shadow of death to bury it for ever that thou O God however wouldst not reckon the days of our ingratitude in the number of our months We are surrounded with plenty and we abuse it to excess We are encompassed with peace and we disturb it with petty quarrels We are loaded with wealth and riches and we lash them out in lusts and vanities We are cloathed with honours and we dishonour them with meannesses Our friends are given into our bosoms and we envy some of them and slight the rest Our Laws are restored us and we live as if we had none Our Religion is returned and we laugh it out of countenance Good discipline reviving and we are doing what we can to break the bonds in sunder Our Churches now stand open to us and we pass by them with neglect Our King God has set upon his holy Hill and the people still imagin vain things against him In a word we are filled with all good things and we do all the evil we can with them We fill up our days with iniquities and our nights with transgressions We neither consider Gods dealings nor mind our own We understand neither that nor this For to understand this which is the second branch of this particular is to understand both whence and whither these mercies are whence they come and whither they tend For the first we are too ready to say with the Heathen ver 27. Our hand is high and God hath not done it God hath not done it why tell me then I pray what were the counsels that brought things about where were the Armies that forced our passage whence the mony that smooth'd the way who confounded the devices who fettered the forces who divided the strengths that were against us who turned the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the hearts of the Children to the Fathers who softned our enemies who strengthned our friends who suppled strangers at last to pity us who calm'd the Seas who held the winds who guided our happiness into our harbours and even threw it into our bosoms This Cloud that arose like Eliah's out of the Sea 1 Kings xviii 44. out of the vast Sea of Gods endless mercy and covered Heaven and Earth with blessings till we are grown black I fear sadly black and sinful with them it was not as his servant took it like a mans hand at all it was like Gods all the way it was meerly Gods Non nobis therefore Domine non nobis must be our Psalm Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name only be the glory And this the first way to understand his mercies to confess from him they come and so give him thanks The second is to learn also whether they tend They are in St. Pauls understanding to lead us to repentance Rom. ii 4. and the time is proper for it In the Psalmists to
all these Titles The first is Grace Gratiâ plena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that always the ground of Gods favour and all our blessedness So she tells us in her Hymn Respexit humilitatem It was the humility of his Hand-maid that God in this high favour of the Incarnation of his Son respected in her Humility the ground of all grace within us all grace without us of Gods grace to us of his graces in us the very grace that graces them all too Humility makes them the most lovely pride disgraces them all be they never so many though indeed they can be truly none that are not founded in and adorned with humility The second ground of blessedness is in the Text too Dominus tecum the Lords being with her From Christs being with her and with us it is that we are blessed From his Incarnation begins the date of all our happiness If God be not with us all the world cannot make us happy much less blessed From this grace of his Incarnation first riseth all our glory So that Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give the praise must she sing as well as we and they do her wrong as well as God that give his glory unto her who will not give his glory to another though to his Mother because she is but his earthly Mother a thing infinitely distant from the heavenly Father Nor would that humble Hand-maid if she should understand the vain and fond and almost idolatrous stiles and honours that are given her some where upon earth be pleased with them she is highly favoured enough that her Lord and Son is with her and she with him she would be no higher sharer You may see it in the last particular the bounds and limitations of her titles and blessedness For first how full soever she be of Grace 't is yet but grace and favour 't is no more Gods meer favour so exalted her respexit only his respect to her his free looking on her no merit or desert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath highly favoured her indeed but he has done done it in the praeter before she could conceive or imagine it 2. The salutation here except the titles given her by the Angels is not much more than what he gave to Gideon or what Boaz to his Harvesters enough to make the Papists afraid one would think of those extravagant at least if not blasphemous titles they give her of their closing their Books and Studies with Laus Deo Virgini Maria joyning her in partnership with God as if they were as much beholding to her as him I am sure they learn'd not this from the Angel he brings no divine but humane titles and salutations to her And he knew how to give titles though not flattering ones as Elihu speaks in Iob. 3. All her honour and blessedness is from Dominus tecum the Lords being with her He is her Lord as well as ours More indeed he is with her than with us or with Angels either plus tecum quà m mecum as some gloss it but he is her Lord still for all that and she is content so to acknowledge it and leave us a penn'd Hymn in witness of it to give him the sole honour of her magnifying and being magnified Lastly Though it be Benedicta 't is but inter mulieris among women all this is and they are but creatures a creature-blessedness a blessedness competible to the creature All to shew us that when we exceed this way of honour to her or this way of blessing her we are all out in our Aves we know not what we say And 't is well for some that their ignorance excuses them that they understand not what they speak Give we her in Gods name the honour due to her God hath stil'd her blessed by the Angel by Elizabeth commanded all generations to call her so and they hitherto have done it and let us do it too Indeed some of late have over-done it yet let us not therefore under-do it but do it as we hear the Angel and the first Christians did it account of her and speak of her as the most blessed among women one highly favoured most highly too But all the while give Dominus tecum all the glory the whole glory of all to him give her the honour and blessedness of the chief of Saints him only the glory that she is so and that by her conceiving and bringing our Saviour into the world we are made heirs and shall one day be partakers of the blessedness she enjoys when the Lord shall be with us too and we need no Angel at all to tell us so Especially if we now here dispose our selves by chastity humility and devotion as she did to receive him and let him be new-born in us The pure and Virgin Soul the humble Spirit the devout Affection will be also highly favoured the Lord be with them and bless them above others Blessed is the Virgin Soul more blessed than others in St. Paul's opinion 1 Cor. vii blessed the humble spirit above all For God hath exalted the humble and meek the humble Hand-maid better than the proudest Lady Blessed the devout affection that is always watching for her Lord in Prayer and Meditations none so happy so blessed as she the Lord comes to none so soon as such Yet not to such at any time more fully than in the Blessed Sacrament to which we are now a going There he is strangely with us highly favours us exceedingly blesses us there we are all made blessed Maries and become Mothers Sisters and Brothers of our Lord whilst we hear his word and conceive it in us whilst we believe him who is the word and receive him too into us There Angels come to us on heavenly errands and there out Lord indeed is with us and we are blessed and the Angels hovering all about to peep into those holy mysteries think us so call us so There graces pour down in abundance on us there grace is in its fullest plenty there his highest favours are bestowed upon us there we are fill'd with grace unless we hinder it and shall hereafter in the strength of it be exalted into glory there to sit down with this Blessed Virgin and all the Saints and Angels and sing praise and honour and glory to the Father Son and Holy Ghost for ever and ever Thus by being full of grace and full of those graces we also become Maries and the Mothers of our Lord so he tells us himself he that so does the will of my Father he is my Mother Let us then strive to be so that the Angels may come with heavenly errands to us our Lord himself come to us and vouchsafe to be again born in us and so bless us fill us with grace receive and set us highly in his favour and fill and exalt us hereafter with his glory and with this Blessed
to digest as well as tast there in the mouth is a kind of first digestion made Ruminate we then and meditate upon Christ when we have tasted him Let it be our business to spend much of our time and days henceforth in meditation of him that 's the way indeed to be filled with his Spirit while we thus digest him and chew upon him in our spirits Nor is 3. fire improper any way to bring to that holy Table The fire of charity is to kindle our devotion there to warm our affections and desires to it There 4. our tongues are to be warm'd into praises that they may run a nimble descant upon his benefits and move apace to the glory of his Name Thus are our tongues to be imployed and thus is the fire to be kindled in us that we may speak with our tongues This is the way to be filled with the Holy Spirit this blessed Sacrament the means to it Come thou therefore O blessed Spirit into our hearts and tongues lighten our understanding with thy heavenly light warm our affections with thy holy fire purge away all our dross burn up all our chaff renew our spirits separate our sins and evils from us unite us in thy love subdue us to thy self teach our hearts to think our tongues to speak our hands to act our feet to move only to thy will settle thy self in us hence forward and dwell with us so teach us with all our tongues and powers to praise thee here upon earth that we may one day praise thee with them in Heaven for evermore A SERMON UPON Trinity Sunday REV. IV. 8. And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come I Need not stretch the Text to reach the Time The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy Holy Holy in it is plain enough to teach the Trinity An Anthem sung here by the Angels and Saints in heaven done so here also by four of the chief Apostles and the Bishops of Iudea signified by the four beasts and twenty four Elders taken up after generally by the Saints on earth commended to us by the Church to day as our Epistle sent from heaven with a pattern in it for our Hymns and Praises to the blessed Trinity Lord God Almighty For 't is a part I must tell you of one of St. Iohn's Visions presenting to us what is done in heaven what Good would have done on earth and what should there be done ere long throughout it beginning at Hierusalem Glory and honour and thanks should be given unto God for the wonders he was doing for his servants for the deliverance he was working for his Church for the judgments he was bringing on their enemies as glory had been of old given him by his Saints and Prophets was now given him by his Apostles and Bishops so it should be given still by the whole Christian Church for ever as he himself was and is and is to come so was his praise and is and is to come we therefore all to learn to bear our parts in that heavenly Anthem against the time we come thither to bear them company Example you see we have here set before us to do it by and a form to do it in better we cannot wish the four Beasts or Cherubims Angels Saints and the Apostles there 's our Pattern for they rest not day and night saying it and Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts which was and is and is to come there 's the form we best do it in In each Part we shall observe a kind of Trinity or three Parts in each In the Pattern 1. the Persons 2. their earnestness and 3. their continuance 1. The persons praising God and saying it They the four beasts or living creatures as the words tell us just before 2. Their earnestness in it They rest not saying they cannot rest for saying it cannot rest without the saying it unless they say it say it over and over Holy Holy Holy cannot rest but doing it that 's their rest they take their praising God ◠Their continuance at it day and night it is and without rest and pause is it they are continually doing it saying and doing all to his honour and glory In the Form of Praise we have a sort of Trinity too three things observable 1. The glory or honour given Holy Holy Holy 2. The Persons to whom it is Lord God Almighty Father Son and Holy Ghost yet all three in one one single Lord one only God one alone Almighty and no more so there 's the Vnity in Trinity into the bargain And 3. here are the benefits intimated we praise him for He was our Creator He is our Redeemer He will be our Glorifier So you see Trinities enough in the Text to make it Trinity Sunday in it to fill all the Trinity Sundays after it The sum is that we are all to bear our parts in this holy Doxology to give glory and honour and power to the blessed Trinity with the four beasts and four and twenty Elders from time to time for evermore and that which may here serve well to perswade us to it is the Company and with them we will begin And they c. But who are they The beginning of the verse tells us the four beasts or as it may more genuinely and handsomly be translated the four living creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but what or who are they That 's the question and a hard one too it seems by the variety of opinions probably to be answered rather by conjecture than resolution We shall take the likeliest of them and pass the rest 1. Some by the four living Creatures this they would have the four Cardinal vertues understood by the Lion fortitude by the Calf or Oxe justice by the Eagle temperance and by the Man prudence And then the sense will be that God is most signally prais'd and glorified by a vertuous life no way like that to praise him To do righteousness to walk wisely to live soberly to stand stoutly to God and goodness that 's the true way to give glory to the whole Trinity 2. Others by the four living Creatures apprehend the four chief faculties of our souls to be insinuated with which we are to praise him The irascible intimated by the Lion the concupiscible by the Oxe the rational by the face of man and the Spirit by the Eagle And here the Lesson is that we are to do it to praise God with all our powers set our affections and desires upon it be moved and angry at every thing that comes in to hinder it search all the means our reason can find out to perfect praise and raise up our Spirits upon Eagles wings to perform it to the highest pitch 3. Some by these four conceive the whole world consisting of the four Elements represented to us as praising God The fire by the Lion whose nature is hot
our pleasures and vagaries our mirths and vanities our successes and prosperities to steal away the time we are to spend in giving God thanks and glory for them Nor 2. to permit our selves so much time to the reflection upon our griefs and troubles as to omit the praising God that they are no worse and that he thus fatherly chastises us to our bettering and amendment does all to us for the best Yet not to cease praising him day and night seems still to have some difficulty to understand it The Angels perhaps that neither eat nor drink nor sleep nor labour they may do it but how shall poor man compass it Why first Imprint in thy soul a fixt and solid resolution to direct all thy words and actions to his glory Renew it 2. every day thou risest and every night thou liest down Renounce 3 all by-ends and purposes that shall at any time creep in upon thee to take the praise and honour to thy self Design 4. thy actions as often as thou canst particularly to Gods service with some short offering them up to Gods will and pleasure either to cross or prosper them and when they be done say Gods Name be praised for them And lastly omit not the times of Prayer and Praise either in publick or in private but use thy best diligence to observe them to be constant and attentive at them Thus with the Spouse in the Canticles when we sleep our hearts awake and whether we eat or drink or walk or talk or whatsoever we do we do all to the glory of God and may be said to praise him day and night and not cease saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come And so I come to the second General The form here set us to praise him in In which first we have to consider the glory it self that is expresly given him Holy Holy Holy To speak right indeed the whole sentence is nothing else yet this evidently referring to that of Isai. vi 3. where the Seraphims use this first part in their Hymn of praise I conceive this the chief and most remarkable part of of it which may therefore bear the name before the rest Now this saying Holy Holy Holy is attributing all purity perfection and glory to God as to the subject of it himself and the original of it to others thereby acknowledging him only to be worship'd and ador'd So that saying thus we say all good of him and all good from him to our selves Thrice 't is repeated which according to the Hebrew custom is so done to imprint it the deeper in our thoughts and may serve us as a threefold cord which is not easily broken to draw us to it But another reason the Fathers give And it is 1. they say to teach us the knowledge of the holy and blessed Trinity Indeed why else thrice and no less or more Why follows Lord God Almighty three more words why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three yet again and yet but three who was who is who is to come Why do the Seraphims in Isaiah say no more yet say so too Why have we in the following verses Glory and Honour and Thanks ver 9. and Glory and Honour and Power so punctually thrice and thrice only offered to them How came it to be so universally celebrated throughout the World and put into all the Catholik Liturgies every where words fall not from Angels and Angelical Spirits by chance or casually The holy Penmen write not words hap hazard Nor is it easie to conceive so hard a doctrine so uneasie to reason should be so generally and humbly entertain'd but by some powerful working of Gods Spirit This may be enough to satisfie us that the blessed Trinity is more then obscurely pointed out to us here And 2. to be sure the Fountain of all Holiness is here pointed to us that we may learn to whom to go for grace that we may see we our selves are but unholy things that nothing is in it self pure or holy none but God And 3. it points us out what we should be Be ye holy as I am holy says God No way otherwise to come near him no way else to come so near him as to give him thanks for out of polluted lips he will not take them For in the second place the Lord God Almighty it is we are to give this glory to The three Persons here me thinks are evident however God the Father the Lord the Son and the Almighty Spirit that made all things that does but blow and the waters flow that does but breath and man lives that with the least blast does what he will Yet these three it seems are still but one one Lord and one God and one Spirit Ephes. iv 4 5 6. all singulars here nounes verbs articles and participles all in the singular number here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we might see though a Trinity there be to be believed yet 't is in unity though three Personalities but one Nature though three Persons but one God All the scruple here can but arise from the setting Lord the Son before God the Father but that 's quickly answered when they tell you there is none here afore or after other none greater and lesser than another and therefore no matter at all for the order here where all is one and one is all Lord God Almighty Yet now to encourage us the better to our Praises and Thanksgivings see we in the last place the benefits they here praise him for and they are intimated to us in the close of all Who was and is and is to come In the first we understand the benefit of our creation God it was that created us In the second we read the benefit of our Redemption the Lord it is that redeems us daily pardons and delivers us In the third we have the benefit of our Glorification still to come the Holy Spirit here sealing us and hereafter enstating us in glory In them all together we may in brief see as in a Prospect that all the benefits we have received heretofore he was the Author of them that all the mercies we enjoy he is the Fountain of them that all the joys or good we hope for he is the donour of them he was he is he must be the bestower of them all without him nothing he was and is and will be to us all in all And now sure though I have not the time to specifie all the mercies we enjoy from this blessed Lord God Almighty and indeed had I all time I could not and all tongues Si mihi sint linguae centum sint oraque centum I could not yet we cannot but in gross at least take up a Song of Praise for altogether say somewhat towards it Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty holy in our Creation Holy in our Redemption holy in our Sanctification Holy in Heaven holy in Earth holy under the Earth
too Holy in glorifying of his Angels holy in justifying his Saints holy in punishing the Devils Holy in his Glory and holy in his Mercy and holy in his Justice holy in his Seraphims and holy in his Cherubims and holy in his Thrones holy in his Power and holy in his Wisdom and holy in his Providence Holy in his Ways and holy in his Laws and Holy in his Promises holy in the Womb and holy in Manger and holy on the Cross holy in his Miracles and holy in his Doctrines and holy in his Examples holy in his Saints and holy in his Sacraments and holy in his Temples holy in Himself holy in his Son holy in his Spirit Holy Father holy Son and Holy Spirit Therefore with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of Heaven and all the Saints in Heaven and Earth we laud and magnifie thy glorious Name evermore praising thee and saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts Heaven and Earth are full of the Majesty of thy Glory Glory be to thee O Lord most High Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Glory and Honour and Thanks be unto Thee for ever and ever Amen Amen Amen THE FIRST SERMON UPON THE Calling of St. Peter St. LUKE v. 8. Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. A Strange Speech for him that speaks to him 't is spoken from St. Peter to his Saviour One would think it were one of the Gadarens who thus intreated him to depart the Coasts Strange indeed to desire him to depart without whom we cannot be stranger to give such a reason for it a reason that should rather induce us to intreat him to tarry than to go for being sinful men we have most need of him to stay with us but strangest of all it is for St. Peter to desire it and upon his knees to beseech it To desire Christ to go away from us to go from us because we have need of his being with us and for such a one as St. Peter and that so earnestly to inintreat it is a business we well skill not at the first dash Yet if we consider what St. Peter was when he so cried out or what made him to do it or how unfit he being a sinful son of man thought himself for the company of the Son of God we shall cease to wonder and know it is the sinners case for ever so to do to be astonished at miracles not to bear suddenly the presence of our Lord and when we first apprehend it to cry out to him with St. Peter here to withdraw from us for a while for that we are not able to endure the brightness and terrour of his Splendour and Majesty It was a miraculous and stupendious draught of Fish after they had given up all hopes of the least suddenly came to Net which thus amazed St. Peter and his Fellows They had drudged and toyl'd all night and not a Fish appeared but when Christ came to them then came whole showles and thrust so fast into the Net that they brake it to get in as if the mute and unreasonable creatures themselves had such a mind to see him by whose Word they were created that they valued not their lives so they might see or serve his pleasure And yet St. Peter makes as much means that he might see him no longer whom if he had not seen and seen again notwithstanding his desires to the contrary it had been better he had never seen nor been at all But such is our mortal condition that we can neither bear our unhappiness nor our happiness unreasonable Creatures go beyond us in the entertainment of them both according to their kinds though it may be here St. Peters humility speaks as loud as his unworthiness or inability to endure the presence of his Lord. St. Peter we must needs say was not thorowly call'd as yet to be a Disciple this humble acknowledgment of his own unworthiness to be so was a good beginning Here it is we begin our Christianity which though it seems to be a kind of refusal of our Master is but a trick to get into his service who himself is humble and lowly and receives none so soon as they that are such none at all but such whom by the posture of their knees and the tenours of hearty and humble words you may discern for such And to sum up the whole meaning of the words to a brief Head they are no other nor no more than St. Peters profession of his own humble condition that he is not worthy that his God and his Redeemer should come so near him and therefore in an Extasie as it were at the sight of so glorious a Guest desires him to forbear to oppress his unworthy servant with an honour he was not yet able to bear Yet we cannot but confess the words may have a harder sense upon them as the voice of a stupid apprehension or an insensibleness of such heavenly favours as our Saviours company brings with it We shall have time to hint at that anon It shall suffice now at first to trouble you only with two evident and general parts Christs absence desired And The Reason alledged for it I. Christ desired to be gone Depart from me And II. Why he is so For I am a sinful man O Lord. The Desire seems to be the voice of a threefold person and such is St. Peters now 1. Of a man 2. Of a sinful man and yet 3. Of an humble man Me that me here confessing my self a sinful man The Reasons equal the variety of the desires or Desirers Three they are too 1. For I am a man 2. For I am a sinful man 3. For thou O Lord thou art God and I a man 'T is a Text to teach us what we are to whom we speak and how to speak to him And if you go hence home without learning this you may say perhaps you have heard a Sermon but you have learnt nothing by it It shall be your faults if you do not And unless we cry in a sense contrary to St. Peters meaning Depart from us O Lord out of a kind of contempt and weariness of his Word and not out of the conscience of our own unworthiness of so great a blessing then though our words be somewhat indiscreet though we sometimes speak words not fitting for our Saviour to hear though they seem to shew a kind of refusal of him yet being no other than the meer expression of the apprehension of his glorious presence and our own unworthiness Christ will comfort us and call out to us presently as he doth to St. Peter ver 10. not to fear we shall not lose by his Word or Presence nor by our so sensible apprehension of his glory though we be but a generation of sinful men That our desires first may be set right though peradventure not always speak so the desires being the hinge upon
after those things which shall come upon the earth what are all these together to them who are thus by those very things redeem'd out of all their troubles Saint Paul is bold to set up a challenge Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword Nay in all these we are more then conquerours through him this him in the Text that loved us Rom. viii 35. 37. And he goes on yet higher For I am perswaded says he that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus ver 38 39. And if thus nothing can ever separate us from Christs love what should trouble us at his coming whose coming is but to draw us nearer to himself Be not troubled be not terrified says he ver 9. but in patience possess your souls ver 18. for there shall not a hair of your heads perish ver 17. Others may fall and sink and perish but do they what they can against you those that hate you yet care not for it look up look up to me I am coming to redeem you lift up your heads and behold the glory into which I am at hand to lift you up The sum of all now is that in the midst of all your troubles all your amazements all your fears and dangers you first still lift up your heads and look to Heaven for comfort and fetch it thence by prayers and petitions 2. That in the midst of all calamities you yet remember your redemption is a coming and so lift up your heads with joy in the heat and fury of them all knowing that they are nothing else but so many forerunners of your glory Lastly that you look up and lift up your heads with thankfulness that he has thus accounted you worthy to see him in his glory and that your redemption is no further off That having thus begun to look up and lift up your voices in praises and thanksgiving upon earth he may lift you up into Heaven in soul and body at his coming there to sing Allelujahs with the Saints and Angels and the four and twenty Elders to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for evermore there to be partakers of all his Glory A SERMON ON The Fourth Sunday in Advent PHILIPPIANS iv 5. Let your moderation be known unto all men The Lord is at hand THE Text is a part of the Epistle for the day chosen you may conceive because the Lord that is the time of his coming is at hand A fit preparation thought by the Church for Christmas now so near to prepare us how to entertain the happy day the joyful news of our Lord Christs coming in the flesh To entertain it I say not with excess and riot but moderation not with rude tricks and gambols but softness and meekness not in vanity of clothes but modesty not in iniquity but equity somewhat departing from our own right and seeking occasions to do others right that all men may see and know we behave our selves like Servants expecting their Lords coming according to all the several senses of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated moderation in the Text but stretching further then any one English word can express it A word chosen by the Apostle to comprehend the whole duty if it might be of a Christian preparing for his Lord in the midst of much affliction and long wearied expectation back'd with an assurance that the Lord was now hard by a coming to deliver them The poor Philippians were somewhat sad or sad-like by the persecutions they suffered from the unbelieving Iews and Gnostick Hereticks that were among them many were daily falling off by reason of them ver 18. of the former Chapter and much hurt those dogs as the Apostle calls them ver 2. of that Chapter the concision that is those Hereticks had done or were like to do them But for all that says he Rejoyce and again Rejoyce in the verse before the Text rejoyce too that all men may see it see your joy in the Lord and in your sufferings for him yet so that they may see your moderation in it too that as you are not sad like men without hope so you are not merry like men out of their wits but as men that know their Lord is nigh at hand as well to behold their actions as to free them from their sufferings to see their patience and moderation as well as their trouble and persecution A perswasion it is or exhortation to patience and meekness and some other Christian Vertues which by examining the word you will see anon from the forementioned consideration A perswasion to moderation from a comfortable assurance of a reward the Lord at hand to give it A perswasion to prepare our selves because our Lord is coming A perswasion so to do it that all may know what we are a doing and what we are expecting that they may see we are neither asham'd of our Religion nor of our Lord that we neither fear mens malice nor our Lords mercy that we are confident he is at hand ready to succour and rescue all that patiently and faithfully suffer for him to take vengeance on his enemies and deliver his Servants out of all The time is now approaching even at the doors And if we apply this as we do all other Scriptures to our selves to teach us moderation and whatever else is contain'd under the word which is so rendred and draw down the Lords being at hand in the Text to all Christs comings in Flesh in Grace in Glory it will no way disadvantage the Text but advance it rather improve the Apostles sense and meaning to all Churches and times to prepare them all to go out to meet the Lord when or howsoever he shall come unto them And moderation must be it we must meet him with be the times what they will come the Lord how or when he please know we time or know it not be what will unknown our moderation must be known and yet his coming as unknown as it may be must be consider'd always in our minds it must be that the Lord is one way or other continually at hand Indeed I must confess the times were troublesom and dangerous when the Apostle thus exhorted and comforted the Philippians but the best times are dangerous danger there is as much of forgetting Christ in prosperity as of falling from him in adversity and as much need there is of moderation when all happinesses flow in upon us as when all afflictions fall upon us so the advice cannot be unseasonable And though we call'd the Text St. Pauls advice or the Christians duty in sad times and his comfort in them and so divide the words yet they will reach
judges right Let us do nothing but with moderation and not think much to shew it unto all when we are sure to be rewarded for it and those that observe it not are sure to be punished 8. The Lord is at hand in the blessed Sacrament and that is also now at hand but a week between us and it And moderation of all kinds is but a due preparation to it some special act of it to be done against it Righteousness and equity is the habitation of his seat says David the Lord sits not nor abides where they are not The holy Sacrament that is his Seat a Seat of wonder is not set but in the righteous and good soul has no efficacy but there Modesty and humility are the steps to it into the modest and humble soul only will he vouchsafe to come All reverence and civility is but requisite in our addresses unto it But moderation meekness and patience and sweetness and forgiving injuries is so requisite that there is no coming there no offering at the altar till we be first reconciled to our Brother Go be first reconciled to thy Brother says our Lord himself S. Mat. v. 24. so that now if we desire a blessing of the blessed Sacrament unto us if we desire the Lord should there come to us let our moderation be known to all men before we come Let us study the art of reconcilement let us not stand upon points of honour or punctilio's with our Brother upon quirks and niceties let us part with somewhat of our right let us do it civilly use all men with courtesie and civility express all modesty and sweetness in our conversation all softness and moderation patience and meekness gentleness and loving kindness towards all even the bitterest of our enemies considering the Lord is at hand the Lord of Righteousness expects our righteousness and equity the Lord in his body and looks for the reverent and handsom behaviour of our bodies the Lord of pure eyes and cannot endure any unseemliness or intemperance either in our inward or outward man the Lord that died and suffered for us and upon that score requires we should be content to suffer also any thing for him not to be angry or troubled or repine or murmur at it or at them that cause it At the Holy Sacrament he is so near at hand that he is at the Table with us reaches to every one a portion of himself yet will give it to none but such as come in an universal Charity with all the forementioned moderations Give me leave to conclude the Text as I began it and fix the last Argument upon the time The time is now approaching wherein the Lord came down from Heaven that he might be the more at hand Fit it is we should strive to be the more at hand to him the readier at his command and service the time wherein he moderated himself and glory as it were to teach us moderation appeared so to all that our moderation also might appear to all of what size or rank or sect whatsoever I remember a story of Constantia Queen of Arragon who having taken Charles Prince of Salerno and resolving to sacrifice him to death to revenge the death of her Nephew Conradinus basely and unworthily put to death by his Father Charles of Anjon sent the message to him on a Friday morning to prepare himself for death The young Prince it seems not guilty of his Fathers cruelty returns her this answer That besides other courtesies received from her Majesty in Prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on that day whereon Christ died innocent The answer related so much mov'd Constantia that she sends him this reply Tell Prince Charles if he take contentment to suffer death on a Friday because Christ died on it I will likewise find my satisfaction to pardon him also on the same day that Iesus sign'd my pardon and the pardon of his Executioners with his Blood God forbid I shed the blood of a man on the day my Master shed his for me I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him Behold a Speech of a Queen worthy to command the world worthy a Christian indeed To apply it is only to tell you we may often take excellent occasions of vertue and goodness from times and days and bid you go and do likewisâ— The time that is at hand is a time to be celebrated with all Christian joy and moderation some particular and special act of Charity Equity Modesty Meekness Moderation to be sought out to be done in it or to welcome it The Feast of Love to be solemnized with an universal Charity the Lord at hand to be honoured with the good works of all our hands His coming to pardon and save sinners to be accompanied with a general reconcilement and forgiveness of all enemies and injuries of a moderation to be exhibited unto all Let your moderation then keep time as well as measure be now especially shewn and known and felt and magnified by all with whom we have to do that thus attending all his comings he may come with comfort and carry us away with honour come in grace and hear us come in mercy and pardon us come in his word and teach us come in spirit and dwell with us come in his Sacrament and feed and nourish us come in power and deliver us come in mercy and reward us come in glory and save us and take us with him to be nearer to him more at hand to sit at his right hand for evermore THE FIRST SERMON ON Christmas-Day ISAIAH Xi 10. And in that day there shall be a root of Iesse which shall stand for an Ensign of the People to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious AND in that day there shall be And in this day there was a root of Iesse that put forth its branch That day was but the Prophesie this day is the Gospel of it Now first to speak it in the Psalmists phrase truth flourished out of the earth now first the truth of it appeared Some indeed have applied it to Hezekiah and perhaps not amiss in a lower sense but the Apostle who is the best Commentator ever upon the Prophets applies it unto Christ Rom. xv 10. There we find the Text and him it suits to more exactly every tittle of it and of the Chapter hitherto than to Hezekiah or any else He was properly the branch that was then to grow out of old Iesse's root For Hezekiah was born and grown up already some years before thirteen at least He 2. it is whom the Spirit of the Lord does rest upon ver 2. upon Hezekiah and all of us it is the Dove going and returning Upon him 3. only it is that the Spirit in all its fulness with all its gifts wisdom and
us stand up to it and stand for it to the last A Souldier will venture all to save his colours rather wrap himself up in them and dye so than part with them For Christ for his Word for his Sacraments for his Cross for our Gospel and Religion we should do as much But I am asham'd the age has shewed us too many cowards that have not only run away from this Standard but betray'd it too the more unworthy certainly that they should ever reap fruit or benefit twig or branch from the root of Iesse The very Gentiles in the next words will sufficiently shame them For to it to this Ensign do all the Gentiles seek III. Shail it is I confess in the future tense here reach'd no further in the Prophets time but now it does the Prophesie is fulfill'd it so came to pass And it quickly came so after the Ensign was set up the Cross reared and the Resurrection had display'd it For I if I be lifted up from the earth says he himself will draw all men to me St. Iohn xii 32. Parthians and Medes and Elamites the dwellers in Mesopotamia and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphylia Egypt and Lybia Rome and Cyrene as well as the dwellers in Iudea Cretes and Arabians as well as Israelites Proselites as well as Iews he will draw all in to him The vast multitudes that came daily in from all quarters of the world so many Churches of the Gentiles so suddenly rais'd and planted are a sufficient evidence to this great truth And the term the Iews at this day give the Christians of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word in the Text for Gentiles confirms as much by their own confession So true was both Isaiah's Prophesie here and Father Iacob's so long before that to him should the gathering of the people be Gen. xlix 10. But that which is an evidence as great as any if not above all is St. Paul applies the Text as fulfilled then Rom. xv 12. And there is this only to be added for our particular that we still go on and continue seeking him IV. But there is Rest and Glory here added to the success of this great design His rest shall be glorious Now by his Rest we in the first place understand the Church the place where the Psalmist tells us his honour dwells Psal. xxvi 3. the place of which himself says no less than This shall be my rest for ever here will I dwell for I have delight therein Psal. cxxxii 14. And glorious it is the Apostle tells us a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle Ephes. v. 27. glorious all over so glorious that the Prophet says the Gentiles shall come to its Light and Kings to the brightness of its rising Isa. lx 3. they shall bring Gold and Incense from Shebah the flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth shall come with acceptance to his Altar ver 7. the glory of Lebanon shall come unto it ver 13. They shall call the walls of it salvation and the gates praise ver 18. The Lord is an everlasting light unto it and God is its glory ver 19. So that we may well cry out with David Glorious things are spoken of thee O thou City of God thy Church thy Congregation O thou root of Iesse thou Son of David which thou hast gathered and thy Churches or holy Temples too which are rais'd to thee exceed in glory the beauty of Holiness thy holy mysteries thy blessed self art there And indeed in the holy Mysteries of the Blessed Sacrament is his second place of Rest. There it is that the feeds his flock and rests at noon Cant. i. 7. And he is glorious there glorious in his Mercies illustrious in his Benefits wonderful in his being there No such wonder in the world as his being under these consecrated Elements his feeding our souls with them his discovering himself from under them by the comforts he affords us by them His Cratch to day was a third place of his Rest glorious it was because 1. the God of Glory rested there because 2. the glorious Angels displaid their Wings and gave forth their light and sung about it St. Luke ii 13 14. because 3. Kings themselves came from far to visite it and laid all their glories down there at his feet There his rest was glorious too Nay 4. his Sepulchre the place of his rest in Death was as glorious is as glorious still as any of the other And I must tell you the Latin reads it Sepulchrum ejus Gloriosum From thence it is he rose in glory by that it was he gain'd the glorious victory over Death and Hell from thence he came forth a glorious Conqueror Thither have devout Christians flock'd in incredible numbers There have Miracles been often wrought there have Kings hung up their Crowns there have millions paid their homage And thence have we all receiv'd both Grace and Glory from his Sepulchre where he lay down in Death and rose again to Life There is one Rest still behind and it is not only glorious but it self is glory His rest himself calls it Heb. iii. 11. yet a rest into which he would have us enter too Heb. iv 9 11. And in Heaven it is no rest to this no rest indeed any where but there and perfect glory no where else And now to wind up all together This rest and glory or glorious rest which ends the Text and 't is the best end we can either make or wish springs from the root at the beginning The Church it self and all the rest and glory the Churches ever had or have or shall enjoy grows all from that Our Holy Temples our Holy Sacraments our Holy Days this day the first of all the rest all the benefits of his Death Resurrection and Ascension into Glory nay our greatest glory in Heaven it self comes from this little Branch of Iesse this humble Root and the way to all is by him and his humility And the time suits well and the day hits fair for all In that day says the Text all this you have heard shall be and that day now is this To day the Root sprang forth the Branch appeared To day the Ensign was displaid to all the people From this day the Gentiles began their search This day he began to call in his Church and the Shepherds were the first To day he first was laid to mortal rest To day the glory of his Star appeared to wait upon his Cradle To day we also may enter into his rest one or other of them One of his places of rest we told you was in the Church or holy place let us seek him there Another Rest of his we mentioned to be in the Blessed Sacrament let us seek him there His Ensign is there set up let us go in to him and offer our lives and fortunes at his feet proffer to fight his Battels and obey his Commands strive we
companion of Beasts from the bosom of his Father to the concave of a Manger is such a descent of humility that we have no more understanding than the very beasts to express it Go man and sit down now in the lowest room thou canst thou canst not sit so low as lay thy Saviour S. Ierome was so much devoted to the contemplation of this strange humility of his Master in this particular that he spent many of his years near the place of this hallowed Manger And S. Luke in S. Ambrose's interpretation pleases himself much in the recounting of this circumstance of his Saviour's Birth and indeed any may so conjecture it that considers how often he repeats it in so little compass thrice within ten verses the 7. 12. and 16. And say I let others seek him in the Courts of Princes in the head of an Army under a Canopy of State in a Cradle of Gold or Ivory I will seek him to day where he was laid whither the Angel sent the Shepherds to seek him where the Shepherds found him in a Manger in a Stable in the humble and lowly heart that in an humble sense of his own unworthiness cries out with Agur Prov. xxx 2. Surely I am more brutish than man and have not the understanding of a man even thinks himself fit for a Manger nay not worthy of it since his Lord lay in it 6. But the Manger is not the worst the dis-respect that forc'd him thither that 's the hardest that there was no room for them in the Inn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eis no room for them mark that 't is not said there was no room no room at all in the Inn but none for them they were so poor it seems and their outward appearance so contemptible that notwithstanding the condition of a Woman great with Child and so near her time they were put away without respect or regard To have fall'n by chance or some accident into so mean a place or have been driven thither by some sudden storm or tempest and so frighted into travel had been no such wonder peradventure but to be driven thither by the unkindness and inhumanity of ones own Countrymen and Tribe too is a trial of humility indeed but to choose to be so for he knew all from the beginning before it came to pass so to contrive all things for it and suffer the uncivil ruggedness of men to drive him out to dwell and lodge among Beasts to have contempt thrown upon his poverty and neglect added to all inconveniences is sure to teach us humility in the harshest usages we meet with He that made all places finds none himself and is content He that hath many Mansions for others in his Fathers house hath not the least lobby in an Inn and repines not at it He that would have given this churlish Host an eternal house in Heaven for asking for cannot have a Cabin for any hire because his parents seem so poor and yet he fetches not fire from Heaven to consume him for his inhumanity How unlike us I pray for whom no downy pallets are soft enough no room sufficiently spacious and Majestick no furniture enough costly no attendance sufficient all respect too little Do we ever call to mind this our Saviours first entertainment in the world or think we are no better then our Master He could have come in state in glory in all magnificence and pomp attended with all respect and honour but would not for our sakes most that we might see what he most delights in and learn it as much by his example as his precept 7. And yet there is a seventh degree of his humility to let all this be done to him in such a publick time and place when the whole world was met together to be taxed where so many were gathered in such a place of meeting as an Inn when the whole City is filled from one corner to another there and then to be so used so despised so scorned as a sign of men and the out-cast of the people ranked with the Horse and Ass to have so many witnesses of affroâ—ts and contempts put upon him to condescend and order so to have it done is the highest of humility for not only to think meanly of our selves but to desire to have all others think meanly of us is so hard a Text that I fear me few can bear it Whatever we suffer or to whatsoever meannesses and under offices we condescend we would not willingly have others think the worse of us for it there is too oft a pride in our good works that lies lurking under them we scarce can throw it off but 't is that 't is that above the rest that we should endeavour to be content to be trampled on and despised for him who was so for us Sum we up now the points of Christs humility to leave his Fathers bosom for the Virgins Womb the great riches in Heaven for great poverty upon earth to wrap up his immensity in Swadling-clothes his Robes of glory in Clouts and Rags forsake his Throne for a Manger the adoration of Saints and Angels for the dis-respects of a surly Host to be seen in this mean pickle to all the world Domine in quis similis tui O Lord who is like to thee who is like to thee may we say this way also in thy humility as well as in thy glory And sure we cannot hereafter any of us grudge to be in rags in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins in Dens and Caves of the earth destitute neglected forsaken repuls'd contemned but humble our selves to the meanest condition without any great reflection upon our Birth or former estates and conditions if Christ shall at any time require it of us seeing the Servant is not better than his Master nor the dry tree than the green and if to him all this was done we should frame our minds at least to a humility ready to undergo it I have run over the plain song of the words the plain lesson of humility that is in them without straining I must back over again to descant out the mysteries that lie under them And she brought forth Before she travell'd she brought forth before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child so prophesied Isaiah Isa. lxvi 7. and so the Fathers do apply it She conceived without corruption and brought forth without sorrow the very Text may bear witness to it for she wrapt it in the Swadling-clothes and she laid it in the Manger says St. Luke No women it seems near to help her for she who needed not the help of man to conceive needed no help of woman sure to bring forth no corruption no sorrow A great mystery none ever like it to begin with But she a Virgin thus bringing forth affords us a second too to instruct us what souls they are of whom Christ is born Pure and Virgin Chaste and Holy only that bring forth him And the
needs be full of that Full 5. with the fulness of Riches too the unsearchable riches of Christ says St. Paul Eph. iii. 8. so full that we can find out no bottom of it come to no end of it unsearchable His fulness 6. was the fulness of Glory too we saw it says St. Iohn two verses before the Text such a glory as of the onely begotten Son of the Father and that sure is all the fulness of God Yet to put all out of doubt this fulness was the fulness of the God-head too expresly all the fulness of it and all of it bodily too says St. Paul Col. ii 3. Bodily how 's that why that 's full in all dimensions in all dimensions of a body length and breadth and heighth and depth the length and infinity of his Power the extent and breadth of his Love the height and eminency of his Majesty the depth and unfathomedness of his Wisdom all met together in Christ. 3. Nor will this seem strange at all if we consider for our third point in this fulness how and in what respect 't is his and 't is his both as he is God and as man He could not be thus full as I have told you unless he were God could not have the God-head dwell in him bodily unless God were in the body unless he were incarnate God Nor could other kinds of his fulness be in him unless he were man He could not be a full and sufficient Sacrifice and so offered for one had he not been man nor a perfect High Priest to mediate for us if not taken from among men the great promise that contains all the rest that of the seed of the Woman could not have been fulfilled would not have had its fulness from him but as man The very attribute of fulness speaks him God none full but God no fulness or satisfaction but in him yet some kinds of his fulness evidence him man are not the fulnesses of God as God but as God made man and so the Evangelist by the Context delivers it as the fulness of the word made flesh of the eternal word becoming man This fulness is the fulness of Christ and Christ is both God and Man so the fulness of both 4. And such a fulness that none runs over anointed with the oyl of gladness above his fellows that 's fulness but that 's not all so above them too it is as it runs down upon his fellows he is not full only for himself for us it was that he was born that he was given that he was anointed that he was full full of grace and full of truth and full of glory that we might be fill'd with grace and truth and glory He indeed is the head that was anointed with oyl but that head is ours the Church is the body upon which it runs down from the head 5. And that not to the near parts alone to the beard or shoulders but even to the skirts of the garment it runs so full it runs Ex hoc omnes all the members nay all the clothes not only those that are true members of the Church but even those who have but an outward relation to it all that have but an external right or adherence as skirts and clothes have yet some benefit of this oyl of this fulness of his Christ is no niggard his fulness nothing so stinted as some narrow and envious souls will have it here 's enough for all enough for the whole world to take and yet leave all full still You may light a thousand candles at one and yet the light of it no way lessened by it You may fill a thousand worlds if there were so many from his fulness and yet he never a whit the less full Take all you can cope all that will nay all that are or shall be here 's still for all as much as at the first O the depth of the riches of the fulness of Christ I could fill the hour I could fill the day I could fill all the remnant of my days with the discourses of it and should I do it I could yet say nothing of it near the full but be as far from sounding the depth of it at the end as I was at the beginning I pass therefore to that which we can better comprehend easier reach our filling out of this fulness the second general 2. Our filling is here said to be receiving Be our fulness never so great it is no other we have received it all Alas poor things we have nothing of our selves What hast thou that thou hast not received says the Apostle 1 Cor. iv 7. Is it grace that grows not in our gardens it comes from Paradise what we have is transplanted from thence Is it nature why that too is received We did not make our selves we received as well our natural as our spiritual endowments from him that made us Is it glory why God calls it his glory a thing he will not share but by beams and glances What should I now mention worldly Riches Estate and Honour they are too evidently received to be denied they are so 'T is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich Prov. xx 22. so Riches are received I shall deliver him and bring him to honour says God Psal. xci 15. so Honour is received And the earth hath God given to the children of men Psal. cxv 16. so our Estates and Lands every Clod and Turf of them is received For the earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and from his fulness we receive of it what we have Enough this to humble us for if thou hast received it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not 't is St. Paul's inference upon it Thou hast no reason to boast thy self O man thy Honour thy Riches thy good Parts thy Graces they are not from thy self thou didst but receive them thou hast nothing of thine own why art thou proud And 2. if all received all we have nothing but so many receipts look we then well to our accounts they are things we are to reckon for we had best see how we expend them that at the general Audit we may give up our accounts with joy To do so 't will be convenient to think often of our receipts our own poverty and indigence a third business we may learn hence to grow sensible of our emptinesses and necessities that we are a meer bill of receipts so much received to day so much yesterday so much day by day item our souls item our bodies item our health item our wealth and so on ward nothing but received and without receiving nothing Upon this reflection upon our own vacuities we cannot 4. but open our hearts to receive our hands to take any thing from his fulness to supply us to desire to have them fill'd our selves fill'd out of his fulness something thence to make us full 2. Yet 2. we must not expect to be so
the lowest price a man could be thirty pieces of Silver So poor he could scarce speak out Non clamabit says the Prophet he shall not cry he did not says the Evangelist S. Mat. xii 18. It was fulfilled You could scarce hear his voice in the streets ver 19. In a word so poor that he was as I may say asham'd of his name denied it as it were to him that called him by it S. Matth. xix 17. Why callest thou me good when yet he only was so Lastly poor he was in his Death too betray'd by one Disciple denied by another forsaken by the rest stript off to his very skin abus'd derided despis'd by all died the most ignominious death of all the death of Slaves and Varlets And can you now tell me how he should become poorer or can you tell me why we should think much at any time to become poor like him or not rather cry out O Blessed Poverty that art now sanctified by Christs putting on How canst thou but be desirable and becoming since Christ himself became poor If God become man what man would be an Angel though he might If Christ the eternal riches think it becomes him to be poor who would make it his business to be rich Give me rags for clothes bread for meat and water for drink a Stable for a Palace the earth for a bed and straw for a covering so Christ be in them so he be with them so this poverty be his so it be for him I will lay me down in peace and take my rest upon the hardest stone or coldest ground and I will eat my brownest bread and pulse and drink my water or my tears with joy and gladness now they are seasoned by my Masters use I will neglect my body and submit my spirit and hold my peace even from good words too because he did so I will be content with all because he was so The servant must not be better than his Lord nor the Disciple than his Master Our Lord poor our Iesus poor our Christ poor and we striving to be rich what an incongruity The Camel and the needles eye never fitted worse Poverty we must be contented with if we will have him poor at least in spirit we must be ready for the other when it comes and when it comes we must think it is becoming very much become the Disciple to be like the Master the servant wear his Lords livery For our sakes he became poor and we must not therefore think much to be made so for his be it to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the extreamest Especially seeing poverty is no such Gorgon no such terrible lookt Monster since Christ wore it over his richest Robes even chose to be poor though he was rich would needs be poor and appear to be so for all his riches Indeed it was the riches of his grace that made him poor had he not been rich superlatively rich in that in grace and favour to us he would never have put on the tatters of humanity never at least have put on the raggedest of them all not only the poverty of our nature but even the nature of poverty that he might become like one of us and dwell among us And it was the riches of his glory too that could turn this poverty to his glory What glory like that which makes all things glorious rags and beggary what riches like his or who so rich as he that can make poverty more glorious then the Robes and Diadems of Kings and Emperours who so often for his Religion sake have quitted all their secular glories plenties delicates and attendants for russet coats and ordinaty fare and rigours and hardships above that which wandring beggars suffer in the depth of Winter Christianity no sooner began to dawn into day but that we find the professors selling all Acts iv as if they thought it an indecency at least to possess more than their Master did though they were rich they became poor because their Lord became so though he was rich But when men of rich become poor the case is much different yet from that of Christs men cease to be rich when they come to poverty but not so Christ he is poor and rich together 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being rich he yet shewed poor Prov. xxii 2. The rich and poor meet together never truer any way then here utriusque operator est Dominus the Lord is both himself as well as worker of them both in others For in this low condition of his it is that S. Paul yet talks so often of the riches of Christ the riches of his grace Eph. i. 7. the riches of his Glory Eph. iii. 16. the riches of the glory of his inheritance Eph. i. 18. the exceeding greatness of his power Eph. i. 19. the exceeding riches Eph. ii 7. the unsearchable riches of Christ Ephes. iii. 8. Christ he in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. ii 3. his very reproach and poverty greater riches then all the treasures of Egypt Heb. xi 26. So Moses thought and reckon'd says the Apostle when he saw his riches but under a veil saw but a glimpse and shadow of them at two thousand years distance too So rich is Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only rich so great are his riches Indeed the riches of the Godhead that is all riches indeed dwell all in him though he became man he left not to be God our rags only cover'd the Robes of the Divinity his poverty only serv'd for a veil to cover those unspeakable riches to teach us not to boast and brag at any time of our riches not to exalt our selves when we are made rich or when the glory of our house is increased but to be as humble notwithstanding as the poorest and lowest wretch to teach us 2. that riches and poverty may stand together as well in Christians as in Christ the riches of grace and the poverty of estate and again the riches of estate and poverty of Spirit To teach us 3. not to put off the riches of grace for fear of poverty not quit our Religion or our innocence for fear of becoming poor by them to teach us lastly that we may be rich in Gods sight In truth and verity how poor soever we are in the eyes of the world how needy and naked soever we appear He that being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God even whilst he was so made himself of no reputation of as low a rank as could be and being the brightness of his Fathers Glory the express image of his person and upholding all things with the word of his power veils all this glory darkens all this brightness conceals all this power under the infirmities and necessities of flesh and poverty yet only veils all this great riches hides and lays it up for us that through his poverty we might be
desires or place our affections upon earthly rubbish not to precount our lands or houses our clothes or furniture our full bags or our numerous stock and daily encrease our riches but to reckon Christ our riches his Grace our wealth his reproach our honour his poverty our plenty his glory the sum and crown of all our riches and glory For if you know the grace of the Lord Iesus Christ this you know also that 't is worth the seeking that 't is riches and honour and glory how poor soever it look to the eye of the world The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ it is only that makes us rich and poverty his way to enrich us by contrary to the way of the world and this ye know says the Apostle 'T is so plain and evident I need not tell you it for ye know it The third point the evidence of all that has been said 3. For ye know it for ye know nothing if you know not this It was a thing not done in a corner all the corners of the world rang of it from the utmost corners of Arabia to the ends of the earth The wise men came purposely from the East to see this poor little new-born Child tibi serviet ultima Thule sang the Poet the utmost confines of the West came in presently to serve him the whole world is witness of it long ago Nor were ever Christians ashamed either of this grace or poverty until of late It was thought a thing worth knowing worth keeping in remembrance by an anniversary too Indeed were it not a thing well known it would not be believed that the Lord of all should become so poor as to have almost nothing of it all But we saw it says St. Iohn i. 14. the word made flesh this great high Lord made little and low enough heard it saw it with our eyes lookt upon it and our hands too handled it 1 St. Iohn i. 1. had all the evidence possibly could be had the evidence of ear and eye and hand know it by them all And not we only not St. Iohn only but all men know it For this grace of God that bringeth salvation that is the true grace of our Lord Jesus Christ hath appeared unto all men says St. Paul Titus ii 11. So that they either know it or if they know it not 't is their own fault for it has appeared and has been often declared unto them so that 't is no wonder that the Apostle should tell the Corinthians that they know it they could not be Christians without knowing it nor it seems men in those days neither that knew it not And yet as generally as it was known it was a grace to know it one of the most special gifts and graces the knowledge of the grace of Christ. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and that ye know it is his grace You could not know it without it none but they to whom it is given can know it as they should 4. That we may know it so as well as they we are now in the last place to consider what the Apostle would infer upon us by it what should be the issue of this knowledge 1. The acknowledgment of the grace and then 2. the practice of it For ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet he so lov'd the poor as to bestow all his riches freely upon them upon us that were poor and naked and miserable and being thrust out of our first home never since could find any certain dwelling-place And therefore we 2. after his example being now enricht by him should be rich in our mercy and bounty to the poor for if his grace was such to us when we were poor we should shew the like to the poor now we are rich But that we may be the readier to this we must first be sensible of the other throughly sensible of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ acknowledge it for a grace a thing meerly of his own good will and favour that he would thus become poor to make us rich Know we and acknowledge many graces in this one grace A grace to our humanity that he would grace it with putting on A grace to poverty that he would wear that too A grace to our persons as well as to our natures that it was for our sakes he did it A grace to our condition that it was only to enrich it Know we then again and acknowledge it from hence 1. That poverty is now become a grace a grace to which the Kingdom of God is promised St. Mat. v. 3. poverty of spirit Nay the poor and vile and base things too hath God chosen saith St. Paul 1 Cor. i. 28. the poor are now elect contrary quite to the fancy that the Iews had of them whose proverb it was that the Spirit never descended upon the poor answerable to which it was then the cry Can any good thing come out of Nazareth any Prophet or great good come out of so poor a place as that 2. Know we again that Christs poverty above all or poverty for his sake is a grace indeed for to you 't is given given as a great gift of grace and honour to suffer for his name Phil. i. 29. And 't is a part of our calling says St. Peter 1 S. Pet. ii 21. a specialty of that grace 3. Know we 3. that our Riches are his Grace too In vain we rise up early and go late to bed all our care and pains and labour is nothing to make us rich without his blessing The blessing of the Lord it is that maketh rich 4. Know we however these may prove the riches of Christ can prove no other All the vertues and graces of our souls all the spiritual joy fulness and contentment are meerly his they the proper Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ no grace above them no grace near them nothing can render us so gracious in the eyes of God as they they are above Gold and Rubies and precious Stones These and all the rest being acknowledged in the Text we may well acknowledge that there was good reason to put an Article an Emphasis upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grace Yet to make all up all these graces you must know all the several graces outward and inward come all from this one grace of Christs becoming poor being made man and becoming one of us To this it is we owe all we have or hope to the Grace of Christ at Christmas and therefore now are to add some practice to all this knowledge to return some grace again for all this grace Gratia is thanks let 's return that first thank God and our Saviour for this grace of his whence all grace flows and for all the several graces as they at any time flow down upon us Gratia Deo thanks to God 2. Gratia is good will and favour let 's shew
that to others Good will towards men 3. But good will is not enough good works are graces let 's study to encrease and abound and to be rich in them 4. Yet Gratia is in St. Pauls stile in this Chapter ver 1. and elsewhere bounty and liberality to the poor rich in this grace especially we are to be 'T is the peculiar grace of Christmas hospitality and bounty to the poor 'T is the very grace St. Paul here provokes the Corinthians to by the example of those of Macedonia and Achaia ver 1. who to their power and beyond their power he bears them witness were not only willing to supply the necessities of the Saints but even entreated him and them to take it By the example 2. of Christ who both became himself poor that we might be the more compassionate to the poor now he was in the number and made us rich that we might have wherewith to shew our compassion to them Now surely if Christ be poor and put himself among them who would not give freely to them seeing he may chance even to give to Christ himself among them when he gives however what is given to any of them he owns it as to himself S. Mat. xxv 40. What ye dâ— to any of the least of these my brethren ye do it unto me And can any that pretends Christ be so wretchedly miserable as not to part with his mony upon this score Can any be so ungrateful as not to give him a little who gave them all shall he become poor for our sakes and we not shew our selves rich for his it were too little in reason not to make our selves poor again for him not to be as free to him as he to us Yet he will be contented with a little for his all that we should out of our abundance supply the want of his poor Members He is gracious Behold the grace of our Lord I in this too in complying with our infirmities not commanding us as he might to impoverish our selves with acts of mercy but to be only rich and abundant in them to which yet he promises more grace still the reward of glory Come ye blessed of my Father ye who supply and help my poor ones come inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world where ye that have followed me in my poverty or become poor for my sake or have been rich in bounty to the poor as it were to a kind of poverty shall then reign with me amidst all the riches of eternal Glory THE EIGHTH SERMON ON Christmas-Day PSAL. viii 4 5. What is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him Thou madest him lower then the Angels to crown him with glory and worship BUT Lord What is man or the Son of man that thou didst this day visit him that thou this day crownedst him with that glory didst him that honour so we may begin to day for 't is a day of wonder of glory and worship to stand and wonder at Gods mercy to the sons of men and return him glory and worship for it For Lord what is man that the Son of God should become the Son of man to visit him that God should make him lower then the Angels who is so far above them that he might crown us who are so far below them with glory and honour equal to them or above them It was a strange mercy that God should make such a crum of dust as man to have dominion over the works of his own hands that he should put all things in subjection under his feet that he should make the Heavens the Moon and Stars for him and the Psalmist might very well gaze and startle at it But to make his Son such a thing of nought too such a Quid est that no body can tell what it is what to speak low enough to express it such a Novissimus hominum such an abject thing as man such a cast-away as abject man as the most abject man bring him below Angels below men and then raise him up to Glory again that he might raise up that vile thing called man together with him and restore the Dominion when he had lost it is so infinitely strange a mercy that 't is nearer to amazement than to wonder And indeed the Prophet here is in amaze and knows not what to say Both these mercies he saw here but he saw not how to speak them Gods mercy in mans Creation and Gods mercy in mans Redemption too What God made man at first and to what he exalted him when he had made him What God made his Son for man at last what he made him first and last lower then the Angels first higher then they at last that he might shew the wonders of his mercy to poor man both first and last But if David did not see both in the words he spake the Apostle did for to Christ he applies them Heb. ii 6 7. And that 's authority good enough for us to do so to bring it for a Christmas Text especially Christ himself applying the second verse Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength as spoken in relation to himself St. Matth. xxi 16. And that 's authority somewhat stronger Yet to omit nothing of Gods mercy to do right on all hands to Prophet and Apostle and Christ too we shall take them in both senses To refer them to man the plain letter with the whole design and context of the Psalm is sufficient reason To understand them yet of Christ he himself and his Apostle will bear us out And though the Text be full of wonder it is no wonder that it has two senses most of the old Testament and Prophesies have so a lower and a higher a literal and a more sublime sense Thus out of Egypt have I called my son Hos. xi i. Rachels weeping for her children Jer. xxxi 14. I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion Psal. ii 6. all applied to Christ or his business and affairs and yet spoken first to other purposes of Israel or David I should lose time to collect more places 'T is better I should tell you the sum of this that it is the Prophet Davids wonder at Gods dealing towards man and his dealing towards Christ that he should deal so highly mercifully towards man and so highly strangely towards Christ so mercifully with man as to remember him to visit him to make him but little lower then the Angels and crown him with glory and worship So strangely with Christ as to make him a Son of man and lower then the Angels first then afterward to crown him with glory and worship Things all to be highly wondered at And the Text best to be divided into Gods mercy and Davids wonder I. Gods mercy manifested here in three particulars 1. In his dealing with man What is man
c. In the literal sense of the words 2. In his dealing with Christ in respect to man What is the Son of man 3. In his dealing with man in the sublimer sense of the Text again in respect to Christ what is man and the Son of man in the same sense too I. His mercy in his dealing with man will best appear 1. by what he did And 2. for whom he did it that he should do so much for man that he should do it for so little so little so inconsiderable a thing as man Six branches there are here of what he did 1. He was and is ever mindful of him 2. He visits him 3. He made him but a little lower then the Angels but one step below 4. He did that only too to exalt him to crown him as we read it 5. He crown'd him also 6. He crown'd him with glory and with worship too If you will know 2. for whom all this 'T is 1. For man Adam a piece of clay 2. For the Son of man Enos a piece of misery 3. For a meer quid est for a thing we know not what to call it 4. 'T is for one that the Prophet wonders God should mind or think on that he should come into Gods mind much more into his eye to be visited by him such a one that 't is a wonder he should be thought on II. His dealing with Christ in respect to man which is the Apostles interpretation of the words is a second manifesto of his mercy and shew'd 1. In his Exinanition that God for mans sake should 1. make him lower then the Angels That 2. he should make him so low as man As man 3. and the Son of man Such a Son of man 4. that we cannot know how to name him such a quid est such a we cannot tell what a wonder a gazing-stock not worth seeing or remembring and all only that man by him might be visited and remembred 2. In his Exaltation That notwithstanding all this God should a while afterwards remember him visit him crown him crown him with glory and honour III. And both Exinanition and Exaltation 3. that he might yet visit man the more remember him with greater mercies crown him with richer graces crown him with higher honours here then he did in the Creation and with higher glory hereafter then the first nature could pretend to Upon all these the second general the Prophets wonder comes in well will follow handsomely as the conclusion of all the application of all to teach us to wonder and admire at all this mercy and take up the Text and say it after David What is man Lord what is man that thou c. That we may wonder and worship too and give God Glory and Worship for this wonderful mercy for the glory and worship that he has given us I begin now to shew you his mercy in all the acts here specified and the first is his being mindful of us or remembring us 1. And he remembers that we are but dust Psal. ciii 14. and so deals accordingly blows not too hard upon us lest he should blow us clean away that 's a good remembrance to remember not to hurt us and the Lord hath been mindful of us says the Psalmist again Psal. cxv 12. hath and will ever be mindful of his Covenant Psal. cxi 5. though we too often forget ours The Bride may forget her ornaments Jer. ii 32. and the Mother her sucking child Isa. xlix 15. Yet will not I says God forget you The Hebrew here is in the future as the Latin is in the present but all times are alike with God what he is he will be to us even when he seems to forget us he is mindful of us Recordaris operationum ei says the Chaldee Thou remembrest his works to reward them but that 's too narrow Thou remembrest his substance all his bones and members forgettest none to preserve them Thou remembrest his soul to speak comfortably to it Thou remembrest his body to feed and clothe it Thou remembrest his goings out and his comings in to direct and prosper them Thou remembrest his very tears and puttest them up in bottles all these things are noted in his book Psal. cxxxix 15. put down there When we are shut up in the Ark and all the Floods about us then he remembers us as he did Noah and in due time calls us out When we are unhappily fall'n into Sodom among wicked hands and the City ready to be all on fire about our ears then he remembers us as he did Lot nay as he did Abraham rather when he delivered Lot Gen. xix 29. He is so good that he remembers us for one another remembers us for Abrahams Isaacs Iacobs and Davids sake remembers the Son for the Father the Nephew for the Uncle the Friend for the Friends Iobs friends for Iobs sake Iob xlii 8. So mindful is God of us so continually minding us such a care of us he has he careth for all no God like him for the care of all Wisd. xii 13. I would we were as careful again to please him as mindful of him 2. And yet 2. he is not only mindful of man but visits him too And thy visitation says Holy Iob has preserved my spirit Job x. 12. Will you know what that is Thou hast granted me life and favour so the words run just before not life only for his being mindful of us says that sufficiently but favour also his visiting intimates some new favour somewhat above life and safety Indeed visiting is sometimes punishing I will visit their sin Exod. xxxii 34. And 't is a mercy to man sometimes that God visits and punishes him it keeps him from sin increases him in grace advances him in glory And what is man that thou thus visitest him O Lord and sufferest him not to run headlong to destruction though he so deserve it But visiting here 2. is in a softer milder way 't is to bestow some favour on us Thus holy Iob in words somewhat like the Text What is man that thou shouldst magnifie him and that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him and that thou shouldst visit him every morning and try him every moment Job vii 17 18. So Gods visiting in Iobs interpretation is a magnifying of man a setting of his heart upon him to do him good a visiting him with some mercy or other every morning a purging and purifying him from tin and dross In the Prophet Ieremiah's stile it is the performing his good word unto us Ier. xxix 10. And in the Psalmists a Visiting with his salvation Psal. cvi 4. Great mercy without question Hence it is that he visits us by his Son to bring us to salvation Thus good old Zachariah understood it when he starts out as it were on a sudden with his Benedictus Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people S. Luke i. 68. He visits
dash against a stone would not suffer a bone of him to be broken or one tittle of his Covenant to fail him sent his Angels too to look after to minister to him a whole host of them to declare him this day to the world Nay 2. came and visited him himself he and his Holy Spirit with him at his Baptism he and Moses and Elias with him in the Mount where he gave testimony he was his Son his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased Nay 3. that which might seem in one sort a diminution was in another an exaltation he made him but a little lower then the Angels was an exalting him when it made even his Body little inferiour to their Spirit and that it did when he could pass through a crowd of people as invisible as an immaterial Spirit S. Luke iv 30. Nay before that when he came into the world without any blemish to his Mothers Virginity as if he had been a Spirit not a Body and after that when he arose out of his Tomb the stone upon it when he entred and the doors were shut when he vanish'd out of sight c. they knew not how he went Paulo minus angelis indeed this is little less then Angels I can tell you But St. Austin tells you more Naturâ humanâ Christi Deum solum majorem That God only is greater then Christs humane nature The Hypostatical union to the Deity has made it so and those infinite graces of his soul are somewhat more then paulo minus above the Angels rarest endowments Yet this is nothing to the Crown that follows for we see Iesus says the Apostle Heb. ii 9. Who was made a little lower then the Angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Enthymius thinks it may be read without a comma above the Angels with glory and honour hast thou crowned him with a glory beyond theirs Indeed four Crowns he was crowned with a Crown of Flesh with that his Mother crown'd him in his Incarnation Cant. iii. 11. A Crown of Thorns with that the Souldiers crown'd him at his Passion St. Iohn xix 2. A Crown of Precious Stones De lapide pretioso at his Resurrection The four endowments of glorious Bodies Charity Agility Impossibility and Incorruptibility were the Stones of it And a Crown of pure Gold at his Ascension when he shone like the Son in gloria and went up cum corona with a crown or ring of blessed Saints into the highest Heavens With these two last God crowned him these two were his exaltation and the crown or reward of the two other And to make this Crown the more glistering and glorious here 's honour added to it A name given him above every name that at the mention of it every knee is now to bow both of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth Phil. ii 9 10. made better then the Angels Heb. i. 4. so much better that all things even the Angels themselves Authorities and Powers all sorts of Angels are made subject unto him 1 S. Pet. iii. 22. and are therefore bid all to worship him says St. Paul Heb. i. 6. Such honour has Christ after his humiliation and we may expect some after ours If we humble our selves we also shall be exalted and crowned with glory And so it seems we are entitled to it by the sufferings of the Son of man and by his visiting us our glory is much encreased by his Glory our honour higher by his Redemption then in our first Creation so that we may now well take up the words again and pronounce them with greater astonishment still that he should so remember visit and crown his redeemed people as he does For what is man indeed that God should redeem him at so great a price what access can it be to God to raise him out of his ruines might he not more easily have made a new stock of men of better natures than have redeemed Adam's Or 2. if he would have needs so much magnified his love as to have redeem'd him because he had made him would not a restoring of him to his first estate have been well enough but that he must raise him to a higher Without doubt it had but that God in mercy thinks nothing too much for him It appears so by his remembring him Man was a true Enos and that is obliviscens a forgetful piece yet God remembers him and comes down in the evening of his fall a few minutes after it and raises him up with a promise of the seed of the Woman to set all streight again There he did as well visit as remember him And in the pursuance of this singular mercy he still 2. visits him every morning morning and evening too visits by his Angels by his Priests by his Prophets by his Mercies by his Iudgments by his Son by his Holy Spirit by daily motions and inspirations These are the visits he hourly makes us since he visited us by his Son far more plentifully than before more abundant grace more gracious visits for if his Son be once formed in us he will never give over visiting till he crown us Yet 3. by degrees he raises us up to some Angelical purities and perfections before he crown us our nature is much elevated by the Grace of Christ and what the Iew did only to the outward letter we are enabled to do to the Spirit of it to inward purity as well as the outward Thus and thus you heard of old says Christ S. Matth. v. 21. but I say more not a wanton look not a murtherous thought not a reproachful word not the slightest Oath He would refine us fain somewhat near the Angels to be pure as they But 4. we shall not do it gratis he will crown us for it quicken us together with Christ raise us up together and make us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. ii 5 6. Honours us with the name of friends reveals himself unto us fills us with the riches of Christ adopts us to be his Sons makes us members of Christ partakers of his Spirit makes himself one with us and we with him washes us by one Sacrament feeds us by another comforts us by his word compasses with the ministrations of righteousness that exceeds in glory pardons our sins heals our infirmities strengthens our weaknesses replenishes us with graces urges us with favours makes us with open face behold them as in a glass behold the glory of the Lord and changes us at last into the same image from glory to glory Eph. iii. 18. What is man O Lord or the Son of man that thou shouldst do thus unto him And what are we O Lord what are we that we are so insensible of thy mercies what base vile unworthy things are we if we do not now pour out our selves in thanks and wonder in praise and glory for this
but to all the people the whole people But in conspectu totius populi it might be for all one people and the rest ne're a whit the nearer to salvation the further off rather when it is so restrain'd â—niuscujusque populi would be better for all the people of the world 'T is somewhat near the height that of what we can desire yet omnium populorum 't is we need for all people whatsoever not only all that then were but all before up to Abraham up to Adam and all since down to us that live this day down to all that shall survive us as long as there shall be people upon earth Vniuscujusque populi had been enough for the whole world then alive Omnium populorum it must be or the Fathers before and we since are men most miserable But do not Simeons old eyes deceive him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all I know some quicker sights some younger eyes that can construe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into pauci can see no such matter It may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the glory of the elect Israel at the end of the Text dims their weak eyes or peradventure like men overwhelm'd with the news of some unexpected fortune they think themselves in a dream and dare not give credit to their eyes though they behold it so great and undeserv'd a blessing that 't is a labour to perswade 'um that they see it though they cannot but see it Simeons eyes are old enough to ponder objects he knows what he sees and he speaks what he knows and he speaks no more then the Angel before told the Shepherds gâ—udium quod erit omni populo tidings of joy which shall be to all people erit shall be for ever And say not the Apostles the same also The Saviour of all men says St. Paul 1 Tim. iv 10. specially of them that believe of them especially not them only Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 Tim. ii 4. The Saviour of the world St. John iv 14. A ransom for all 1 Tim. ii 6. God not willing that any perish not any 2 St. Peter iii. 9. Nay God himself says more Ezek. xxxiii II. I will not the death no not of the wicked not of a sinner Much less his death before he be or man or sinner That 's no kin to salutare tuum that 's not salvation but destruction prepar'd And 't is not nollem I would fain not have it so but plain nolo I will not or more to the word I not will it I deny it utterly Thy destruction is from thy self 't is none of my doings Salutare meum I will the contrary To put all out of question take his oath Vivo ego as I live I do not And accordingly does the Saviour himself send out his general proclamation St. Mat. xi 28. Come to me all that are heavy laden and who is not yet do but come come who will and I will ease He calls 'um all by that grace they may come if they will except you think he mocks 'um when they are come He will refresh them To take away all plea of ignorance or excuse we proceed further In conspectu omnium not only prepared for all but in the sight of all before their faces So prepar'd that they may see and know it know it to be prepar'd not that it might be and is not as if indeed the salvation were sufficient in it self but God would not suffer it to be so So though universal yet so hidden under obscure and nice distinctions that few can see it but withal so evident that all may see it in conspectuomnium none with good reason deny it Had it been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they migh have had some pretence and colour if they had not seen it had it been only in sight many things are so which we oft-times do not see But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is just before our faces we must be blind if we see not that If for all this they close their eyes and will not see then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is contra against 'um to confute to confound their vain imaginations So 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will be against those that cry out the light of righteousness rose not upon us to prove the contrary now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their faces There is no idle word in Scripture every Adverb and Preposition and Article the dictate of the Spirit There are other words he might have used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many more but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 methinks on purpose 1. It may be besides what has been said to distinguistâ— the Iews and Vs since this salvation came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before our faces When the light 's before the shadows are behind So it is with us ever since the Sun of Righteousness arose this day since this light of Salvation left the clouds When the light 's behind the shadows are before So to the Jewish Synagogue Salvation behind the cloud to them Nothing before their eyes but veils and shadows nothing else took up their eye-sight but we with open face behold the glory of the Lord. 2. Or may it not be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the face of the world clean contrary That 's for nothing but glory and pomp God works not as man works but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the hair will have an humble Saviour lowly born of poor Parentage in a Stable wrapt in Rags laid in a Manger no Royal Cradle no Princely Palace without Attendants without State The Angels themselves at such a sight as this could not but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bow down and look and look again and mistrust their eye-sight to see God in a Cratch Heaven in a Stable and bow down we must our high towring thoughts and lay 'um level with that from whence we were taken if we would bless our eyes with so hidden secrets or be partakers of so great Salvation They were poor Shepherds that first saw this happy sight as it were on purpose to inform us that the poor humble Spirit has the first rank among those whoever see Salvation 3. Or lastly is it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the inclination and capacity of all people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 durum genus stony-hearted people those that set their faces against Salvation to soften them if possible or else to break them in pieces like a potters vessel Or again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 people so call'd from the Corner-stone Christ Iesus such as had already turn'd their faces towards salvation to further and encourage them Or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only of the people to their capacity but to theirs too who were neither his people nor people whose
not by parts now this then another and Christs Body was framed all at once not membratim one member after another as other infants 2. Light enters through solid bodies as Glass Crystal or the like without either penetration of dimensions or cracking the glass So Christ from the Virgin Body of blessed Mary without the least hurt to her Virginity 3. The light shines in the midst of noisom vapours yet it self is kept pure and sincere In like manner the Deity of Christ joyn'd to the humanity mixes not with its corruption nor is defiled by it Marcion need not fear the truth of his body lest our corruption should pollute his Godhead when the light it self confutes him and convinces him by the infinite distance between it self and the power of the Creator There wants but one thing more to compleat the mystery of this wonderful Saviour that 's his Offices if we can find them too in the Text if we can bring them to viderunt oculi to be seen there and stray no further we have lighted upon a happy Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed a salvatition and a Saviour to whom nothing can be added Let 's try He is a King there 's one of his Offices that from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thence the Prophet David seems to gather it Psal. 2. Yet have I set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion How proves he that why within a verse in comes I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance He is a Priest next in gloria Israelis there 's another of his Offices The Priesthood the glory of the Jew The glory is departed from Israel cries out Phinehas his dying Wife why because the Ark of God was taken 1 Sam. iv 20. and because of her Father-in-law and her Husband they dead and gone what were they the Priests of the Lord when the Ark and Priests are gone the glory of Isoael is departed too They rise and fall together A Priest then but not to Israel after the flesh alone or after the Order of Aaron but Israelis tui of the true Israel more properly entituled to this glory as being a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck Lastly he 's a Prophet in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there 's his third Office his Prophetical the light of Prophesie is the light of Revelation A Prophet then he is to reveal unto us Divine Mysteries the will of his heavenly Father to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins S. Luke ii 77. A compleat Saviour now God and man God begotten the Son co-eternal with the Father born into the world of a Virgin pure and immaculate took our nature without sin without imperfection a King for the Gentiles a Priest for Israel a Prophet for both a King to defend us a Priest to purge us a Prophet to instruct us This the Saviour God the Son He our salvation too Yet comes not salvation from him alone from all three Persons the whole Trinity that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there 's the Father preparing sending 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there 's the Son prepared coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how 's that but by the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit there 's the Holy Ghost opening and enlightening our eyes that we may see him All three plain enough in the Text as in the day Viderunt oculi your own eyes are witnesses Here 's a sight indeed might well make old Simeon now desire to close up his eyes to see no more Ne vitam hanc posthà c aliquâ contaminet aegritudine all objects henceforth would but defile his eyes But what tell you me of Simeons theory what of salvation though ne're so great what of in conspectu omnium though ne're so general what of light and glory though ne're so excellent if I may not back again to viderunt oculi mei if I my self cannot perceive it if it be so far distant off that I cannot lay hold of it by mine own eyes of Faith and Hope If I cannot see it to be mine and with St. Paul apply it Who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. ii 20. Omnium populorum is too large all may but all shall not be saved Viderunt oculi mei that 's somewhat when mine own eyes can fix and dwell upon it Nay that 's not full enough if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these very eyes that so long expected it the eyes of my body shall not be partakers of it if they when they are fall'n into dust shall lie for ever folded up in eternal darkness if eyes that weep out themselves in devout tears with looking and expectation shall not rise with these very bodies to that blessed vision what reward for all these sufferings what recompence I 'le tell you how to see all and stay no longer nor go no further This is the day of salvation salvation day and if ever to day he will be seen Cast but your eyes up to the Holy Table thither your very sense may there almost see salvation behold your Saviour There it is there he is in the blessed Sacrament There it is prepared for you a body hast thou prepared his body flesh and blood prepared well nigh to be seen to be tasted O taste and see how gracious the Lord is Psal. xxxiv 8. Go up thither and with old Simeon take him in your hands take him yet nearer into your bowels Take eat you shall hear one say so by and by But stay not there upon your sense upon the outward element Look upon him with your other eye the eye of Faith let it be viderunt oculi let it be both Let it be viderunt mei the applying eye of a special Faith And that you may be sure not to go away without beholding him there 's lumen in the Text and it would do well in your hands to search the dark corners of your hearts to examine them While our hearts are darkened with sins and errours we cannot see him And if after strict examination we be not found in charity we are yet in tenebris St. Iohn tells us do but love your brother He that loves his brother abideth in the light S. John ii 10. The sum is Faith must be the eye Repentance and Charity the light by which you shall this day see your Saviour and apprehend salvation the three requisites those to a worthy Communicant So shall you there find light to guide you out of the darkness of sin and misery Glory to enstate you in the adoption of the Sons of God Salvation with Glory salvation here Glory hereafter And when you have satisfied your eyes and hearts with this heavenly sight Go return home to your private Closets shut up your eyes never set ope those windows to the vanities of the world again but with a holy scorn disdain these painted glories and let a veil of forgetfulness pass over
' um For our viderunt must not end when the Eucharist is past when we depart this sacred place I will take the cup of salvation says the Psalmist there it is do that here But I will rejoyce in thy salvation do so both here and at home Et exultabo and let me see you do so Let not your joy be stifled in your narrow bosoms but break out into expression into your lips into your hands Not in idle sports excess of diet or vain pomp of apparel not that joy the joy of the world but the joy of the Holy Ghost It is salvation that you have heard and seen and are yet to see to day what 's our duty now If it be salvation let us work it out with fear and trembling It is salvation to be seen some eminent work let us then confess we have seen strange things to day A most certain sure salvation it is let not a sacrilegious doubtful thought cast a mist upon it It is prepared let us accept it prepared for all let us thank God for so fair a compass and not uncharitably exclude our selves or others God has enlarg'd the bowels of his mercy let us not streighten ' um It is a light let us arise and walk after it It is a glory let us admire and adore it Was our Saviour seen so should we be every day in the Congregation was he prepared to day let us be always shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace Does he enlighten us O let us never extinguish or hide that light till this light be swallowed up by the light of the Lamb till this day-spring from on high prove mid-day till Gentium and Israelis be friendly united in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and no darkness to distinguish them no difference between light and glory till the beginning and end of the Text meet together in the circle of eternity till viderunt oculi meet with gloriam till our eyes may behold that light which is inaccessible that light and glory which know no other limits but infinite nor measure but eternity To which he bring us who this day put off his glory to put on salvation that by his salvation we might at length lift up our heads in glory whither he is again ascended and now sits together with his Father and the Holy Ghost To which three Persons and one God be given all praise and power and thanks and honour and salvation and glory for ever and ever Amen A SERMON ON St. Stephens Day ACTS vii 55 56. But he being full of the Holy Ghost looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God and Iesus standing on the right hand of God And said Behold I see the Heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God YEsterdays Child is to day you see become a man He that yesterday could neither stand nor go knew not the right hand from the left lay helpless as it were in the bosom of his Mother is to day presented to us standing at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father he whom earth yesterday entertained so poorly and obscurely heaven here this day openly glories in Now the horn of our salvation is raised up indeed the Church thus shewing us plainly to day what yesterday we could not see for the rags and stable that it was not a meer silly creature a poor child or man only that came to visit us but the Lord of Glory so making him some recompence as we may say to day for the poor case she shew'd him in yesterday But that 's not the business Yesterday was Christs Birth-day to day St. Stephens for Natalitia Martyrum the Birth-days of the Martys were their death-days call'd they then first said to be born when they were born to execution A day plac'd here so near to Christs that we might see as clear as day how dear and near the Martyrs are to him they lie even in his bosom the first visit he makes after his own death was to them to encourage them to theirs The first appearance of him in heaven after his return up was to take one of them thither And yet this is not all Christs Birth and the Martyrs Death are set so near to intimate how near death and persecution are to Christs Disciples how close they often follow the Faith of Christ so thereby to arm us against the fear of any thing that shall betide us even Death it self seeing it places us so near him seeing there are so fine visions in it and before it so fair glories after it as St. Stephen's here will tell you And if I add that Death is a good memento at a Feast a good way to keep us within our bounds in the days of mirth and jollity of what sort soever it may pass for somewhat like a reason why St. Stephen's death is thus serv'd in so soon at the first course as the second dish of our Christmas-Feast Nor is it for all that any disturbance to Christmas Joys The glorious prospect of St. Stephens Martyrdom which gives us here the opening of Heaven and the appearance then of Gods glory and of Christ in glory may go instead of those costly Masques of imagin'd Heavens and designed Gods and Goddesses which have been often presented in former times to solemnize the Feast We may see in that infinitely far more ravishing and pleasing sights than these which all the rarity of invention and vast charges could ever shew us Here 's enough in the Text to make us dance and leap for joy as if we would leap into the arms of him in Heaven who stands there as it were ready to receive us as he was to day presented to St. Stephen I may now I hope both to season and exalt our Christmas-Feast bring in St. Stephens story that part of it especially which I have chosen so full of Christ so full of glad and joyful sights and objects that it must needs add instead of diminishing our joy and gladness And yet if I season it a little now and then with the mention of Death it will do no hurt I must do so that you may not forget St. Stephens Martyrdom in the midst of the contemplation of the glory that preceded it That must not be for the day is appointed to remember it And though we shall not designedly come so far to decipher it having no more then the praeludium of his death before us we will not so far forget it but that we will take it into the division of the Text in which we shall consider these four particulars 1. His accommodation to his Death His being full of the Holy Ghost that fitted and disposed him to it 2. His preparation for it He looked up stedfastly into Heaven so that he prepared himself for it 3. His confirmation to it He saw the glory of God and Iesus standing on the right hand of God that
the matter and speak home Is this doing any other than only one particular way of praising glorifying and magnifying of the Name and are not all the Scriptures expressions so for doing that and for declaring it and is this any more How ordinary are the phrases of exalting and blessing and praising and sanctifying of his Name and making of it to be glorious of a glory due to his Name Psal. xxix 2. of the honour of his Name to be sung forth Psal lxvi 2. And sure the Scripture knows how to speak And though the Name of Iesus be not I confess directly and immediately meant in those places but the Name of God yet thus much we have certain thence that 1. the honour done to his Name be it by words or any expression else for all our outward expressions have the same ground and reason are duties of the Text And that 2. the Name of Iesus being now the Name of God it can be no superstition to do the same to that Now the Jews I must tell you never mentioned the Name of God without an adoration and a Benedictus when ever they mentioned it they bowed themselves and added always Blessed for ever or blessed for evermore as you have St. Paul Rom. i. 25. 2 Cor. i. 3. Ephes. i. 3. 1 Pet. i. 3. 2 Cor. xi 21. 1 Tim. vi 15. nay doing no less to the Name of Christ Rom. ix 5. mentioning him there with the same words after it So that it is but reasonable to suppose the Christians should do as much to the Name of Iesus thereby to possess themselves that he was God and to possess others against those rising Heresies that were then starting up to rob him of the honour of his God-head And I cannot but fear that such as obstinately deny this worship to it do as inwardly grudge at that Article of Faith that believes him to be God and are little better in their hearts than old Arians or new Socinians or well looking towards them But I add no more only remember you that we daily cry out in the Te Deum We worship thy Name ever world without end and if we do not why do we say so But say that or not say good of it however I hope we will and as David's phrase is speak good of his Name omnia bona dicere say all the good speak of all the good we receive by it Say good of it and make others 3. say good of it not give others occasion to speak ill of it to blaspheme that holy Name by which we are called not blaspheme it our selves neither by our words nor by our actions not blaspheme it by Oaths and Curses not blaspheme it by our evil lives not use it irreverently not speak of it slightly not cause others to say Lo these are your Christians these your professors to worship Iesus men that cannot so much as speak well of his Name which they pretend to be saved by Carry our selves we will I hope as men that have a portion in Jesus a share in salvation Praise his Name 4. and give thanks to it that sure no body will deny him praise and thanks for what he has done by it And 5. love his Name we must too love to think of it love to be speaking of it 'T is reported of the holy Ignatius that the Name of Iesus was so frequently in his mouth that it was even found written in his heart when he was dead found written there in golden Characters And 't is affirmed by good Authors Oh that this sweet Name were written in our hearts too while we are living that it were daily meditated upon and heartily lov'd by us as it should We would then 6. call upon it oftner than we do be ever calling on it We have a promise to be heard for whatever we ask in it St. Iohn xiv 13 14. And we have an authentick example Christs first Martyr so to do Acts vii 59. Be we not afraid then of the tongues of foolish men but open we the morning and shut in the evening with it begin and end our days with it in our months Nay lastly begin and end all our works and actions with it do all in the name of the Lord Iesus Col. iii. 17. whatsoever we do in word or deed says the Apostle there we can neither begin nor end better How sweet is the Name of Iesus or a Saviour at the on-set of our work to save and keep us from all miscarriage in it How sweet is it again when we have done if we can say Iesus again that we have sav'd by it been saved in it and shall one day be saved through it that Iesus runs through all with us So then remember we to begin and end all in Iesus the New Testament the Covenant of our Salvation begins and ends so The generation of Iesus so it begins and come Lord Iesus so it ends May we all end so too and when we are going hence commend our spirits with St. Stephen into his hands and when he comes may he receive them to sing Praises and Allelujahs to his blessed Name amidst the Saints and Angels in his glorious Kingdom for ever THE FIRST SERMON ON THE EPIPHANY St. MAT. ii 11. And when they were come into the house they saw the young Child with Mary his Mother and fell down and worshipped him and when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frankincense and Myrrhe A Day this of the luckiest Aspect a Text this of the happiest success that ever Travellers met with Never had Journey better success never pains more happily bestowed than in the Text and on the Day Christ the end of all our travel the full reward of all our pains was here this Day found by the Wise men after a twelve days Journey And what wise man would not think himself well paid for all his labour were it not so many days but years not so many years but ages so that after all he might bless his eyes with this happy sight Well may these fortunate Travellers in thankfulness fall down and worship and offer presents Wise men could do no other and we if we be wise will do no less For ordinary and common blessings we bend our knees and present our offerings to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ but for the Lord Iesus Christ himself 't is not bending but falling down not offering of all praises only but praises and offerings of all our selves and all we have which can any way look like a thankfulness correspondent to so great a benefit This is a mercy not to be forgotten this Day especially so falling out affordeth us by its double holiness as our Lords Day and our Lord Epiphany an invincible occasion to remember and praise him in it Double holiness said I trebble I may say and more Three Epiphanies the Church reckons upon this Day Christ three sundry and divers ways
is they are so Good but by the Covenant of the Gospel not the rigour of the Law Good by an Evangelical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods favourable interpretation and acceptance not by the strictness of worth and merit Good but overpoised with many bad ones Davids Delicta sua quis c. Who knows how oft he offends Enough to remember us we may offend when we think we are doing good may do best therefore and shall do safest not too much to remember them our selves but leave God in his goodness to remember them IV. And that we may do without any presumption put God in mind of them now and then 'T is my Fourth Particular plain in the Text. And plain too it is other good men have done so as well as Nehemiah Hezekiâ—h does so 2 Kings xx 3. I beseech thee O Lord remember how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight Some of it was good deeds to this House we speak of Holy David particularizes his Psal cxxxii 1 2 and so on Lord says he remember David Why What of him Why How he sware unto thee O Lord and vowed a vow unto the Almighty God of Iacob Well What was that Why That he would not come within the Tabernacle of is house nor climbe up into his bed he would not suffer his eyes to sleep nor his eye-lids to slumber nor the Temples of his head to take any rest till he had found out a place for the Temple of the Lord an habitation for the mighty God of Iacob This he prays there that God would remember him and all his troubles for it how he was troubled till he had found it Him in all his troubles too whensoever he should come in any to deliver him out of all because of the good he had vowed and intended to the House V. But is it only a Prayer that God would remember Is it not a Record too 5. that he does He truly does you see it here upon Record he does in the books of his eternal Remembrance It is here remembred in every Chapter Your memories cannot be so short but they can tell you it The Gospel will tell you it too tell you God remembers all such deeds as these Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preacht and it shall be as long as there is any preaching there also that which this woman has done shall be told for a memorial of her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Mat. xxvi 13. Told and told again every body shall speak of it and it shall never shall be forgotten The Beam out of the Roof and the Timber out of the Wall shall tell it The Ointment upon Aarons head shall run down upon his beard to wet even the skirt of his cloathing and the dust it self shall not be able to lick it up If we speak of the House it self that stands an everlasting monument of the Founders Piety The very Walls of holy buildings that scarce now raise their heads so high as to be seen speak yet plainly forth their Founders and Benefactors God raises up some good soul or other even in the worst of times to revive their Names and blessed be they for it If we speak of the good done to the Offices of it those very Offices are but so many Records therefore from Generation to Generation Not a Rams not a Goats not a Badgers skin offered to the building of the Tabernacle but stands upon Gods File Not a Cherubs head not a Lilly a Flower or Pomgranate not a foot or Inch in the sacred Fabrick not a Farthing not a Mite to the Treasure of it falls to the ground unremembred un-numbred Nay even Sacriledge and Atheism after so many Centuries of thriving wickedness have not yet had the power to obliterate the memories of the Houses of God in the Land So are the good deeds themselves remembred Nor shall they that have ever done them or shall ever do them be forgotten Remember Me prays Nehemiah and he was heard in what he pray'd And you not only see it here but in the Catalogue made by the Son of Syrach and long since added near to the very Book of Gods own remembrances Among the Elect says he was Nehemias his renown is great who raised up for us the Walls and some of them were to the house of God that were fallen and raised up our ruines Ecclus. xlix 13. There are others reckoned there upon the same account Zorobabel was a Signet the right hand so was Iesus the Son of Iosedec who in their time builded the House and set us an holy Temple to the Lord which was prepared for everlasting glory v. 11 12. there 's a memorial indeed And if you would know what this to be remembred is the parallel verses will tell you three things of it Connive super me and parce mihi Wink at and pardon me ver 22. and Memento in bonum remember me for good ver 31. To have our weaknesses winck'd at our sins pardon'd and our good with good rewarded these three make up Gods remembring us And he shews it particularly to those who do good to the place where his honour dwelleth 1. Many a default had Iacob made and done some more than justifiable sleights in his transactions with his Brethren but one vow for Bethel Gen. xxviii 22. sets all straight again and makes God go on his journey with him There are weaknesses wink'd at and no reason so probable as Bethel for it 2. David had some faults and great ones yet God says he turned not aside save only in the matter of Vriah the Hittite 1 Kings xv 5. Save that save many other that we could tell you of but that we will not rake up those sins that God passed by But why is God so tender in the point Why David was tender over Sion could not pray for the very pardon of his sins in that great Penitential Psalm of his but he must needs in the same breath as it were remember Sion Psal. li. 18. O be gracious unto Sion as if God else could not be gracious unto him or as if otherwise either the pardon of his sins would do him little good or else there were no readier orsurer way to get them pardon'd than by remembring Sion Ther 's the pardon of sins upon the score 3. Would you have a remembrance for your good as well as a forgetting for your evil Would you have God remember you with a blessing too Why your kindness to his house will do it God blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that appertained unto him because of the Ark of God 2 Sant vi 12. All that appertained 'T is good dwelling nigh such a man as he Again David would fain have been building God a house had gotten many materials and much money ready for it and God promises him upon it that He will build him a House for it and
was so horrid to the Iew become his happiness which was the others great affliction the poor womans offering that it might sanctifie poverty to the poor and offer it henceforward as an acceptable service unto God That 2. the Christian might hence know what to offer gemtus turturum columbarum a sorrowful and contrite heart bewail themselves like Turtles that have lost their mates and mourn sore like Doves offer up chast and harmless souls the chastity of the Turtle and the innocence of the Dove That 3. we might no more hereafter censure poverty even when it falls to the great mans share seeing Blessed Mary and Ioseph of the seed Royal both are become so poor that they can offer no more than this nay though they should have no more to offer than their own sighs and moanings That 4. we might learn now that God will accept even the least and poorest presents two Turtles two Pigeons two Mites where there is no more with convenience to be spar'd Yet somewhat he will have offered be it never so little that all might acknowledge his right none at all excepted Thus this offering concerns us but how it concerns the Child Iesus is to be enquired The one Turtle could not possibly the sin-offering to be sure but the other might It was a burnt-offering that a kind of thanksgiving only for his safe birth as well as for his Mothers safe deliverance It was to have been a Lamb could the womans poverty have reach'd it though the sin-offering for no woman at her purification had been above a Turtle it may be to tell 'um that they are to give thanks both for themselves and their Child great thanks more than double though they offer but little and single for their own natural imperfections a Lamb for them both though but a Turtle for themselves The Child 's original guilt to be purged with another kind of sacrifice better sacrifices than those Yet besides he taking on him our persons the sin-offering might also so far concern him as he concerned us And if so the greater sure is our obligation to him that he would not only take on him the form of a servant but go also under the fashion of a sinner that he would be brought into so dishonourable appearance to be thus done for after the custom of the Law not only offered himself but himself offered for as if he needed an offering to cleanse him But so it was not for that it was not that he thus submitted to the Law of offerings but for these ensuing reasons and so we consider the reason of the doing 1. To avoid scandal not to offend the Iews to teach us to be very scrupulous how we offend our brother that we use neither but our own right nor our Christian liberty with offence 2. To teach obedience not to dispute commands nor plead priviledges too much against Laws and Customs 3. To be a pattern of humility not to exalt or cry up our selves or think much to be accounted like other men 4. To shew his approbation of the Law and that however he might seem yet indeed he did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil it 5. That he might thus receive the testimony of Simeon and Anna and be made manifest from his very beginning who he was that he might appear to the world what before he did only to the Wise men and the Shepherds to be a light to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel and to be this day so proclaimed by the spirit of Prophesie in both the Sexes 6. He was done for according to the Law that he might redeem us from the bondage of the Law offered as the first-born as a son of man that he might thereby make us the children of God 7. He that needed no offering for himself was thus offered that we might with holy Iob suspect the best and perfectest of our works and though we be never so righteous not answer nor know but despise our selves and make supplication to our judge Iob ix 15 21 28. Lastly He was thus presented to God that so he might be embraced by man that Simeon not for himself only but for us might take seisin of him and we be thus put in possession of a Saviour For so it follows as on purpose Then took he him up in his arms and blessed God We have done with Christs offering Come we now to our receiving his Parents presented him to God Simeon received him for us And these the particulars of the receiving Suscipiens suscipiendi modus susceptionis Tempus suscipientis benedictio The Receiver Simeon he 2. The manner of taking or receiving him took him up in his arms 3. The time then when he was brought into the Temple 4. The thanksgiving for it and blessed God But our receiving takes me from Simeons I must defer his till anon till after ours only I shall glance at it as I speak of ours For which I would to God we were all as well prepared as he for his The same man was just and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him ver 25. I would I could say so of us here this day Sed nunquid hos tantum salvabis Domine says holy Bernard Wilt thou O Lord save only such and answers it out of the Psalm Iumenta homines salvabis Domine Thou Lord shalt save both man and beast Us poor beasts too wandering sheep at best but too often as unreasonable as sensual as groveling downward as any beast dirty and filthy as Sows churlish as Dogs fierce as Lions lustful as Goats cruel as Tygers ravenous as Bears Accomplish we but the days of our purification purifie we our hearts by Faith and Repentance bring we this gemitus columbae sorrow for our sins though we cannot this simplicitatem columbae innocense and purity the mourning of the Turtle though we cannot the innocence of the Dove and notwithstanding all shall be well 'T is Candlemas to day so called from the lighting up of Candles offering them consecrating them and bearing them in procession a custom from the time of Iustinian the Emperour at the latest about 1100. years ago or as others say Pope Gelastus Anno 496. or thereabouts to shew that long expected light of the Gentiles was now come was now sprung up and shined brighter than the Sun at noon and might be taken in our hands let the Ceremony pass reserve the substance light up the two Candles of Faith and good Works light them with the fire of Charity bear we them burning in our hands as Christ commands us meet we him with our lamps burning consecrate we also them all our works and actions with our prayers offer we them then upon the Altars of the Lord of Hosts to his honour and glory and go we to the Altars of the God of our salvation bini bini as St. Bernard speaks as in
Sun beams 'T is a day the fullest of all good tidings as the seal and assurance of all the good news we heard before it The Angels fly every where about to day even into the grave with comfortable messages Why Weepest thou says one Fear not says another St. Mat. xxviii 6. Why seek you among the dead says a third What do you at the Grave He is risen says the whole Choir He whose rising is all your risings who is your Saviour now compleat and the lifter up of all your heads and go but into Galilee and you shall see him But this only hearing of him must for this time content us we shall one day see him as he is till then if we hear of him with our ears and feel him in our hearts and see him in our conceits if so hear as to believe him risen and our hearts listen to it for the heart has two ears as well as the head nature has given to it such a form as has been observed in the dissections to teach us that our hearts within us as well as our ears without us are to give ear to him that made to him that saves 'um if they do we need not be the least perplexed for not visibly seeing him All believers that then were did not see him so five hundred indeed we read of all at once but they were not all that were then believers Not to all says St. Peter expresly but unto witnesses chosen before of God Acts x. 41. There is a blessedness and it seems by the manner of speaking somewhat greater for them that have not seen and yet have believed St. Ioh. xx 29. Be we then content to day to hear that he is risen with the first news and tidings of it From a good mouth it comes to good souls it comes in good time it comes From the mouths of Angels to good women and very seasonably when they were much perplexed much afraid and much cast down for want of such a message And though we cannot here see Christ as we desire yet be we pleas'd to see our selves our own sad condition upon the loss of him in these womens perplexities fears and down-cast looks our way to seek him humbly with our faces down as not worthy to look up reverently with fear and trembling as afraid to miss him solicitously much perplex'd to want him as they were in the Text. And that we may not give up our hope be afraid or cast down for ever look we upon the bright shining garments of the two Angels here for these men are no less 't is a joyful sight and rejoyce at the good success that always follows them that so seek him Angels and good news The women found it here heard the good news from the Angels lips You must be content to hear it from mine yet you know who says it Angelus Domini exercituum est the Priest is the Angel or Messenger that 's enough of the Lord of Hosts too much for me poor sinful wretch But look not upon me but upon them that here first told the news and see in the Text these three Particulars I. The sad condition for a while of those that either are without or cannot find their Saviour Christ in three Particulars They are perplexed they are afraid they bow down their faces to the earth they go all the while with down-cast looks II. The only ready way to find him after a while by being here perplexed for his loss and absence by being afraid to miss him by looking every where up and down to find him or nevvs of him going poring up and dovvn looking vvhere vve lookt before and casting down not our faces but our selves also to the earth in all humility to search after him III. The good success at last of them that thus diligently reverently and humbly seek him in three points more to see Angels to be directed right and be made partakers of the joyful news of a Resurrection of Christs Resurrection by them who is both the ground of ours and the first fruits of them that rise The sum of all is this That though it sometimes fall out to us that we lose Christ or cannot find him for a while and so fall into perplexities and fears and go up and down dejected with down-cast looks yet if we so seek him with a solicitous love a reverent fear and humble diligence we shall meet Angels after a while to comfort us and bring us news of our beloved Lord and find him risen or rising in us ere we are aware And the close of all will be our duty and the duty of the day 1. to make our selves sensible of the perplext and sad estate of those that are without Christ who have lost him in the Grave or know not where he is or how to find him and thereupon 2. so set our selves to seek him that we may be sure at last to hear of him and be made partakers of his Rerection 'T is a glad day I confess yet I begin with the gloomy morn that seem'd to usher it in to these poor women their sadness upon the imagined loss of their dear Lord truly representing to us the sad condition of those who are deprived of Christ or think they are so The glory of the day will appear brighter by this morning cloud the news of the Resurrection will be the welcomer when we first see what poor troubled frighted dejected pieces we are without it we will have the higher thoughts of him now risen when we feel how disconsolate a thing it is to be without him even without his body here though dead and buried And it came to pass says the Text that they were perplexed thereabout and it will quickly come to pass that the best of us all will be perplexed to lose any thing of our Lords much more his body if we love him They were good souls such whose devotion and affection death it self could neither quench nor alter that were so here that we might know even devout and pious souls may both err concerning Christ and sometimes want him too seek him sometimes vvith these here vvhere he is not vvhere vve falsly imagine him to be and not find him presently neither vvhen vve look him vvhere vve left him No vvonder they here poor vvomen vvere so perplext Men the great St. Peter knevv not vvhat to say to it ver 12. departed wondring Indeed it seems a vvonder at the first that such vvho love Christ so dearly seek him so early should yet miss of him that such too should be in so great an error about him as to think the Lord of life could be held in death but so poor a thing is man that as such he is perpetually subject to error and mistake and may thereupon easily lose the sight and presence of his Lord. The Spouse in the Canticles complains her Beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone she sought him but could
to wait upon their Lord that had now set them at liberty from the Grave and divulge the greatness and glory of his Resurrection When Moses and Elias appeared upon the holy Mount at Christs transfiguration talking with him St. Luke tells us they spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Hierusalem St. Luke ix 31. And 't is highly credible the discourse of these Saints with those to whom they appeared was of his Resurrection Their going into the City was not meerly to shew themselves nor their appearance meerly to appear but to appear Witnesses and Companions of their Saviours Resurrection Nor is it probable that the Saints whose business is to sing praise and glory to their Lord should be silent at this point of time of any thing that might make to the advancement of his glory Yet you may do well to take notice that it is not to all but to many only that they appeared to such as St. Peter tells us of Christs own appearance after his Resurrection as were chosen before of God witnesses chosen for that purpose Acts x. 41. that we may learn indeed to prize Gods favours yet not all to look for particular revelations and appearances 'T is sufficient for us to know so many Saints that slept arose to tell it that so many Saints that are now asleep St. Peter and the Twelve St. Paul and five hundred brethren at once all saw him after he was risen so many millions have faln asleep in this holy Faith so many slept and died for it that it is thus abundantly testified both by the dead and living both by life and death even standing up and dying for it and a Church raised upon this faith through all the corners of the earth and to the very ends of the world But to know the truth of it is not enough unless we know the benefits of Christs Resurrection they come next to be considered and there is in the words evidence sufficient of four sorts of them 1. The victory over sin and death both the Graves were opened 2. The Resurrection of the soul and body the one in this life the other at the end of it many dead bodies that slept arose 3. The sanctification and glorification of our souls and bodies the dead bodies that arose out of the graves went into the holy City 4. The establishing us both in grace and glory they appeared unto many All these says the Text after his Resurrection by the force and vertue of it Indeed it seems the graves were opened death almost vanquished and the grave near overcome whilst he yet hung upon the Cross before he was taken thence deaths sting taken out by the death of Christ and all the victories of the grave now at an end that it could no longer be a perpetual prison yet for all that the victory was not complete all the Regions of the Grave not fully ransackt nor the forces of it utterly vanquisht and disarm'd nor its Prisoners set at liberty and it self taken and led captive till the Resurrection 'T is upon this Point St. Paul pitches the victory and calls in the Prophets testimony 1 Cor. xv 54. upon this 't is he proclaims the triumph ver 55. O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy victory even upon the Resurrection of Iesus Christ which he has been proving and proclaiming the whole Chapter through with all its benefits and concludes it with his thanks for this great victory ver 57. So it is likewise for the death and grave of sin the chains of sin were loosed the dominion of it shaken off the Grave somewhat opened that we might see some light of grace through the cranies of it by Christs Passion but we are not wholly set at liberty not quite let out of it the Grave-stone not perfectly removed from the mouth of it till the Angel at the Resurrection or rather the Angel of the Covenant by his Resurrection remove it thence remove our sins and iniquities clean from us 2. Then indeed 2. the dead soul arises then appears the second benefit of his Resurrection then we rise to righteousness and live 1 Pet. ii 24. then we awake to righteousness and sin no more So St. Paul infers it That like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father even so should we also walk in newness of life Rom 6. 4. This Resurrection one of the ends of his our righteousness attributed to that as our Redemption to his death From it it comes that our dead bodies arise too Upon that Iob grounds it his Resurrection upon his Redeemers Iob xix 25. I know that my Redeemer liveth well What then Why I know too therefore that though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God The Apostle interweaves our Resurrection with Christs and Christs with ours his as the cause of ours ours as the effect of his a good part of 1 Cor. 15. If Christ be risen then we if we then he if not he not we if not we not he And in the Text 't is evident no rising from the dead how open soever the graves be till after his Resurrection that we may know to what Article of our faith we owe both our deliverance from death and our deliverance into life here in soul and hereafter in our bodies by what with holy Iob to uphold our drooping spirits our mangled martyr'd crazy bodies by the faith of the Resurrection that day the day of the Gospel of good tidings to be remembred for ever 3. So much the rather in that 't is a Day yet of greater joy a messenger of all fulness of grace and glory to us of the means of our sanctification 3. of our rising Saints living the lives of Saints holy lives and of our glorification our rising unto glory both doors opened to us now and not till now liberty and power given us to go into the holy City both this below and that above now after his Resurrection and through it He rose again says St. Paul for our justification Rom. iv 25. to regenerate us to a lively hope blessed be God for it says St. Pet. i. 3. that we might be planted together in the likeness of his Resurrection says St. Paul Rom. vi 5. grow up like him in righteousness and true holiness and when the day of the general Resurrection comes rise then also after his likeness be conformed to his Image bear his Image who is the heavenly as we have born the Image of the earthly our vile body chang'd and fashioned like his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. iii. 21. whereby in the day of his Resurrection he subdued death and grave and sin and all things to him 4. And to shew the power of his Resurrection to the full there is an appearing purchast to us by it an appearing here in the fulness
the body to make some expression in their way and order But not the powers of the body alone but all the powers of the soul too Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy name Psal. ciii 1. Our souls magnifie the Lord our Spirits rejoyce in God our Saviour our memory recollect and call to mind his benefits and what he has done for us our hearts evaporate into holy flames and ardent affections and desires after him our wills henceforward to give up themselves wholly to him as to their only hope and joy 'T is no perfect joy where any of them is wanting 'T is but dissembled joy where all is outward 'T is but imperfect gladness where all is within It must be both God this day raised the body the body therefore must raise it self and rise up to praise him He this day gave us hope he would not leave our souls in hell fit therefore it is the soul should leave all to praise him that sits in heaven He is not worthy of the day or the benefit of the day worthy to be raised again who will not this day rise to praise not worthy to rise at the Resurrection of the just who will not rise to day in the Congregation of the righteous to testifie his joy and gladness in the Resurrection of his Saviour and his own He is worthy to lie down in darkness in the Land of darknes who loves not this day who stands not up this day to sing praises to him that made it And now I shall give you reason for it out of the last words In eâ in it In it and for it As short as they are they contain arguments and occasions as well as time and opportunity to rejoyce in Rejoyce first in it because this day it is a particular day of gladness and rejoycing Let us do what the day requires 'T is a day of joy designed for it let us therefore rejoyce in it Rejoyce 2. because the Lord made it All the works of the Lord are matters of joy to the spiritual man even sad Days too much more glad days such as this Rejoyce 3. because the Lords people have ever made it such God has always made them to rejoyce in it to contend and strive who should do it best or nearest to the point Be glad 4. for the occasion of it the Resurrection of our Lord and Master and the hopes thereby given us of our own all benefits of Christ were this day sealed unto us all his promises made good all so hang upon this day that without it we of all men says the Apostle had been most miserable none so fool'd so wretched so undone so miserable as we Rejoyce 5. because God bids us 't is an easie and pleasant Precept If we will not be glad when he commands us certainly we will do nothing that he commands us especially when he gives us so great occasion of joy when he commands it Rejoyce 6. because the very Jewish people do it here They had but little cause of joy compared to ours they saw but a glimmering of this joy at most saw the Resurrection but afar off and yet you hear they cry out We will rejoyce and be glad in it And is it not a shame that we Christians who see it clearly and pretend to believe it fully should not as much exceed them in our joy as in our sight in our gladness as in our faith Clearly so it is Rejoyce 7. because it is a good thing to rejoyce to rejoyce in Gods mercies and favours to us in Christs Crown and glory in his day and way The very Angels themselves put on this day the white garments of joy and gladness we find them in them St. Luke xxiv 4. Rejoyce lastly to day because this day is the first of all our Lords days ever since We count them feasts and days of joy and we meet together upon them to rejoyce in to give God praise and thanks and glory 'T is a piece of worse than non-sence to say we are to do it upon these days and not on this from which only and no other they had their rise and being All that we commemorate or rejoyce in on every Sunday is more eminently and first in this this the great yearly anniversary of that weekly Festival the time as near as the Paschal circle can bring it to the time that the Resurrection fell upon For these and for this day so made to mind us of all these let us now take up the resolution of these pious souls We will rejoyce and be glad in it in the day and on the day and for the day that 's the very work and business of the day opus diei in die suo the proper work of the day in the day it self And here is now a way particularly before us to rejoyce in Laetari is taken sometimes for laetè epulari To rejoyce is to eat and drink before the Lord in his House or Temple so Deut. xiv 26. And thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God and thou shalt rejoyce thou and thy houshold Here now we are before him the Table spread and our banquet ready let us eat drink and be merry and rejoyce before him only rejoyce in fear and be glad with reverence This is the day which the Lord made and all Christians observed for the celebration of this holy Banquet and Communion Never let the day pass without it excommunicated them that did not one day or other of or about Easter receive the blessed Sacrament the greatest expression of our Communion with God and Christ and all his Saints and our rejoycing in it You may see this people in the Psalm within one verse blessing him that cometh in the name of the Lord blessing the Minister that comes with it wishing him and all the rest that be of the House of the Lord good luck with their business Gods assistance in his Office and Administration And in the next verse calling out aloud God is the Lord which hath shewed us light Bind the Sacrifice with cords even to the horns of the Altar God has shewed us light and made us a day let us now bind the Sacrifice the living Sacrifice of our souls and bodies with all the cords of holy vows and resolutions even to the horns of the Altar and there sacrifice and offer up our selves even unto our blouds if God call to it all our fat and entrails the inwards of our souls our hearts and all our inward spirits the fat of our estates our good works and best actions the best we have the best we can do all we have or are even at the Altar of our God with joy and gladness glad that we have any thing to serve him with any thing that he will accept that we have yet day and time to serve him that he has not cut us off in the midst of our days but
and joyful Resurrection But Christs grave 2. or Sepulchre has more in it than any else There sit Angels to instruct and comfort us there lie cloths to bind up our wounds there lies a napkin to wrap up our aking heads there is the fine linnen of the Saints to make us bright white garments for the Resurrection You may now descend into the grave with confidence it will not hurt you Christs body lying in it has taken away the stench and filth and horrour of it 'T is but an easie quiet bed to sleep on now and they that die in Christ do but sleep in him says St. Paul 1 Thes. ix 14. and rest there from their labours says St. Iohn Revel xiv 13. Come then and see the place and take the dimensions of your own graves thence Learn there how to lie down in death and learn there also how to rise again to die with Christ and to rise with him T is the principal Moral of the Text and the whole business of the day In other words to die to sin and live to righteousness that when we must lie down our selves we may lie down in peace and rise in glory I have thus run through all the Parts of the Text. And now I hope I may say with the Angel I know ye also seek Iesus that was crucified and are come hither to that purpose But I must not say with the Angel He is not here He is here in his Word Here in his Sacraments Here in his poor members Ye see him go before you when ye see those poor ghosts walk you hear him when you hear his Word or read or preacht You even feel him in the blessed Sacraments when you receive them worthily The eyes and ears and hands of your bodies do not cannot but your souls may find see and him in them all Some of you I know are come hither even to seek his body too to pour out your souls upon it and at you holy Sepulchre revive the remembrance of the crucified Iesus yet take heed you there seek him as you ought Not the living among the dead I hope Not the dead elements only or them so as if they were corporally himself No He is risen and gone quite off the earth as to his corporal presence All now is spirit though Spirit and Truth too truly there though not corporally He is risen and our thoughts must rise up after him and think higher of him now then so and yet beleive truly he is there So that I may speak the last words of the Text with greater advantage then they are here Come see the place where the Lord lies And come see the place too where he lay go into the grave though not seek him there Go into the grave and weep there that our sins they were that brought him thither Go into the grave and die there die with him that died for us breath out your souls in love for him who out of love died so for us Go into his grave and bury all our sins and vanities in that holy dust â— Go we into the grave and dwell there for ever rather than come out and sin again and be content if he see it fit to lie down there for him who there lay down for us Fill your daily meditations but now especially with his death and passion his agony and bloudy sweat his stripes and wounds and griefs and pains But dwell not always among the Tombes You come to seek him seek him then 1. where you may find him and that is says the Apostle at the right hand of God He is risen and gone thither And seek him 2. so as you may be sure find him Not to run out of the story seek him as these pious women did 1. Get early up about it hence forward watch and pray a little better he that seeks hâ—m early shall be sure to find him Seek him 2. couragiously be not afraid of a guard of Souldiers be not frighted at a grave nor fear though the earth it self shake and totter under you Go on with courage do your work be not afraid of a crucified Lord nor of any office not to be crucified for his service Seek him 3. with your holy balms and spices the sweet odours of holy purposes and the perfume of strong Resolutions the bitter Aloes of Repentance the Myrrhe of a patient and constant Faith the Oil of Charity the spicie perfumes of Prayers and Praises bring not so much as the scent of earth or of an unrepented sin about you seek him so as men may know you seek him know by your eyes and know by your hands and know by your knees and feet and all your postures and demeanors that you seek Iesus that was crucified let there be nothing vain or light or loose about you nothing but what becomes his Faith and Religion whom you seek nothing but what will adorn the Gospel of Christ. You that thus seek Iesus which was crucified shall not want an Angel at every turn to meet you to stand by support and comfort you in all your fears and sorrows nor to encourage your endeavours nor to assist you in your good works nor to preserve you from errors nor to inform you in truths nor to advance your hopes nor to confirm your faiths nor to do any thing you would desire You shall be sure to find him too whom your souls seek and He who this day rose from his own Sepulchre shall also raise up you from the death of sin first to the life of righteousness and from the life of righteousness one day to the life of glory when the Angel shall no longer guide us into the grave but out of it out of our Graves and Sepulchres into Heaven where we shall meet whole Choires of Angels to welcome and conduct us into the place where the Lord is where we shall behold even with the eyes of our bodies Iesus that was crucified sitting at the right hand of God and sit down there with him together in the glory of the Father To which He bring us who this day rose again to raise us thither Iesus which was crucified To whom though crucified to whom for that he was crucified and this day rose again to lift us up out of the graves of sins and miseries and griefs be all honour and power praise and glory both by Angels and Men this day henceforward and for ever Amen THE FIFTH SERMON UPON Easter Day 1 COR. xv 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable ANd if this Day had not been we had been so Miserable indeed and without hope of being other If Christ had not risen there had been no Resurrection and if no Resurrection no hope but here then most miserable we Christians to be sure who were sure to find nothing but hard usage here tribulation in this World and could expect no other or no better
them 〈…〉 feet of the meanest Christian soul whom thou at at any time despoiled'st of them and either shrink away confounded with our glory or else be glad of a Resurrection as well as we Whilst those miserable wretches that thou so much courtedst and delightedst in and that thy Prince who rul'd and abus'd thee to all his lusts shall down together into eternal misery when those poor despised Christians whom thou so much maligned'st shall reign in glory Miserable they were not here maugre all the world could do against them they had that peace that joy that contentment still within which the world could neither give nor take away They found an unspeakable as well pleasure as glory in their very afflictions and bitterest sufferings being exceeding glad and counting all joy to be made so like their Master whose Ministers or whose Servants they were with him despising the shame and trouble of a contemptible and afflictive life or death for the joy set before them for the hope they saw at the right hand of the Throne of God Thus feeling nothing that could be truly or properly called misery whilst they took pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake as St. Paul professes he did 2 Cor. xii 10. whilst it all serv'd only to their contentment here and augment their happiness and glory hereafter they sure lost nothing then they are not miserable now who are so faln asleep And lift up your heads ye drooping Christians still they shall not be miserable that so at any time fall asleep but rise and live again and be yet more happy every one in their order every star their glory every star a different ray according to their hope and sufferings here as no men so little miserable here if all things be truly pondered so no men so happy hereafter as the Christians they of all men above all men souls and bodies both Pastor and People all that live and die under the glorious hope of a Resurrection by Christ who place not their hopes or affections in this life but in Him and in the other of all men they most blessed most eternally blessed To which blessed estate after this life ended He who is our Hope and who we hope will keep us in it He in whom we trust and I trust shall do so still not for this life only but the other too but for ever He of his mercy convey and bring us all every one in his due time and order even our Lord Iesus Christ. To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all praise and glory not in this life only but for ever and ever Amen A SERMON UPON Ascension Day PSAL. xxiv 3 4. Vho shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand up in his holy place Even he that hath clean hands and a pure heart and hath not lift up his soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour WHo shall ascend indeed if none must ascend but he that is clean and pure and without vanity and deceit The question is quickly answered None shall for there is none so dust is our matter so not clean defiled is our nature so not pure lighter the heaviest of us than vanity and deceitful upon the balance the best of us Psal. lxii 9. so no ascending so high for any of us Yet there is one we hear of or might have heard of to day that rose and ascended up on high was thus qualified as the Psalmist speaks of all clean and pure no chaff at all no guile sound in his mouth 1 Pet. ii 22. Yea but it was but one that was so What 's that to all the rest Yes somewhat ' t is He was our head and if the head be once risen and ascended the members will all follow after in their time Indeed 't is not for every one to hope any but such as are of his that follow him that belong to him 'T is a high priviledge that the Psalmist stands admiring at and therefore not for all yet for all that will for a who shall here is a who will set up for all that will accept of the condition Quis ascendet is who will as well as who shall They that will take the pains will do what they can to be clean and pure they shall His innocence and purity shall help out for the rest when they have done their best But if any man will ascend he must do his best must be clean and pure with Christ and through him or he shall not ascend and rise up after him 'T is the Lesson we are to learn from Ascension day to Whitsunday how to ascend after Christ into the hill of the Lord how to rise up in his holy place even to have clean hands and pure hearts not to lift up our minds to vanity or swear to deceive our neighbour to have our hands ascend and our hearts ascend and our minds ascend and our words ascend as into his presence all ascend after him The Psalm is one of them which the Church appoints for Ascension day and I see not but it may very well pass for a kind of Prophesie by way of an extatical admiration at the sight of Christs Ascension So it pass'd with the Fathers and with our Fathers too may so with us for never was it so fulfill'd to a tittle as by Christ and his Ascension He the only he of clean hands and pure heart and holy mouth and holy all he the first that entred heaven that got up the hill that entred into the holy place not made with hands Heb. ix 24 c. Not any doors so properly everlasting as those of heaven nor they ever open'd for any King of glory to come in as it is ver 7. but him I cannot tell how we should expound it otherwise without much more metaphor and figure Yet I will allow it too for the Prophets admiration at the fore-sight of the happiness of Gods peculiar people and their condition that God whose the whole earth is and all its fulness ver 1. should out of all its places choose Sion for his place he whose the World is and all that dwell therein as it follows there should choose out the Iews amongst all the dwellers to dwell among them only to serve him upon that hill that further this God whose all is should still of this all so particularly honour some as to give them the priviledge of his hill and holy place his solemn Worship and Service to go up first into his holy places upon earth and then afterwards ascend into the holy places the heavens for the words mean the one as well as the other Who are they What a sort of people are they that are so happy so much exalted upon the earth and over it 'T is worth the admiring worth the enquiring and we find it presently who they be even such as have clean
hands and pure hearts that lift not up their minds to vanity not their mouths to wickedness or deceit In Sum these are the only men that shall ascend those everlasting hills those eternal holy places that are only worthy to enter into Gods houses and holy places of the earth too obtain those admirable priviledges that are innocent and pure and just and true the only men worth the admiring as the Church and heaven the hill of the Lord and his holy place are the only things are worth it Heaven is for none but such and when we enter into the holy places we should all be such as none have right to enter them indeed but such Well now the business of the Text is in brief the way to Sion and to Heaven to the hill of the Lord and his holy place both that here and that hereafter where we have First the Condition of being admitted thither Then the Condition of them that are The first in the former of the two verses the second in the latter I. The Condition of being admitted or ascending into the hill of the Lord or standing up in his holy place what it is that is what or how great a business it is to be Gods peculiar people to be allow'd to enter into his Courts here and into Heaven at last what it is why 'T is 1. a priviledge some one not every one some few not all Who shall Is all shall not 'T is 2. a high one 'T is an ascent a rise 't is to a hill and the hill of the Lord who shall ascend who shall rise up Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord Who shall rise up 'T is 3. a holy one 't is to the hill of the Lord to a holy place 'T is 4. an admirable one the Prophet starts aside as it were from his discourse and wonders at it who it is should be so honoured 'T is 5. a glorious one For the hill of the Lord is not only an earthly hill his holy place not that only made with hands the words are as appliable to that of Heaven and Glory and so understood 'T is yet 6. hard to be come by 'T is an ascent hard and steep a high Hill no easie Plain raise and rouze our selves up we must to get it stand up to get and keep it And lastly that we may take in all the possible senses of the Text 't is Christs proper priviledge his prae aliis his first and above all others therefore delivered in the Singular Quis not Qui who is he not who are they that shall Though they others also shall yet they but by him he first they after he properly rises and ascends they more properly are rais'd and drawn after him II. The Condition now 2. of them that are so thus admitted to all these priviledges is 1. That they have clean hands That 2. they have pure hearts too That 3. they lift not up their mind to vanity That 4. they swear not deceitfully or to deceive The Priviledge we are to speak of is a real one a high one a holy one an admirable one a glorious one and though hard to be come by yet to be come by though through him The condition upon which we are to come by it 1. Innocency 2. Purity 3. Righteousness 4. Truth yet all too little without him He ascended to this purpose that we also might ascend after him that 's the Lesson we are now to teach you two parts it has the Condition of the Priviledge of the hill of the Lord and the Conditions of our Performance for it the one the Condition to be obtained and the other the Conditions to be performed the admission into the hill of the Lord and his holy place that the Condition to be obtained Innocence and Purity freeness from vanity and deceit they the Conditions to obtain it I now enter upon the first to shew what is the Condition we may ascend to what a great and glorious one it is to ascend into the hill of the Lord and to rise up in his holy place I. Several senses I intimated to you of the words 1. Some understanding by the hill of the Lord and his holy place the material hill and house of Sion and thence our Christian Churches 2. Others the spiritual house and building the faithful and true members of the Church 3. Others the eternal house of heaven the hill of Sion which is above Each of them is called Gods hill or holy place Sion Gods hill Psal. ii 6. and lxviii 15. The Temple his holy place Exod. xxvi 33. The Church the house of God not to be us'd like our own houses and therefore a holy place 1 Cor. xi 22. The Faithful the Temples the Dwellings the Buildings the House of God 1 Cor. iii. 17. 2 Tim. i. 14. 1 Cor. iii. 9. Heb. iii. 6. Heaven lastly is called Mount Sion Heb. xii 2. Rev. xiv 1. The holy place Heb. ix 12. The true Tabernacle and Sanctuary Heb. viii 2. Be it which of these it will or be it all to ascend into any of them is a condition worth the considering to be admitted into Gods House and Temple to be admitted into the Family of true Believers especially to be exalted so high as into heaven To be in any of these Conditions is to be in good condition a Condition which is 1. A Priviledge a peculiar favour not for every body to arrive at 't is a question who shall get it not every one says Christ. The faithful they are a little flock St. Luk. xii 32. A chosen Generation 1 Pet. ii 9. Few there are of such St. Mat. xx 16. only a parcel that Christ has given him by his Father St. Iohn vi 39. To you it is given says he himself St. Mat. xiii 11. to some it is given to some it is not So a priviledge it is to stand thus upon Mount Sion with the Lamb Rev. xiv 1. to be in the number of those that follow him whithersoever he goes And it will prove a Priviledge 2. to be of those that go up to the House of the Lord among them that keep holy day that is that go up to serve him there Now he has not dealt so with any Nation any but his own Psal. cxlvii 20. If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord then he will bring me again and shew me his Ark and his Habitation says David 2 Sam. 15. 25. And if a favour it be not to be debarr'd the House of God in Shiloh or Hierusalem is it less think we to be allowed the liberty of Christian Churches to praise God in the great Congregations St. Paul counts it a mercy 2 Thes. ii 1. this gathering together unto him much comfort in it as in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ which is there joyn'd with it Non omnis I am sure we find it all have not the Priviledge we are out of Gods favour
a cold sweat to think of it before 't was built Gen. xxviii 17. Will the Lord dwell on earth Is it true says Solomon Can it be so Lord What am I says Holy David and my people that we should but offer to it Lord What is it that we should be allow'd to touch so holy ground with our unhallowed feet look upon so holy a sight with our unholy eyes that such a glo-worm as Man should be set upon a Hill But above all 3. Lord what is man Lord what is man that thou should'st so regard him as to advance him also into the holy Hill of Heaven too Lord what can we say what can we say Shall corruption inherit incorruption dust Heaven a worm creep so high What he that lost it for an Apple come thither after all he in whom dwelleth no good thing be let stay there where none but good and all good things are He that is not worth the Earth worth nought but Hell be admitted Heaven Lord What is Man or rather what art Thou O Lord how wonderful in mercies that thus priviledg'st the sons of men Admirable it is worth the whole course of your days to admire it in and you can never enough It will appear yet the more by the glory that accompanies it It is a glorious priviledge indeed even admirable for its glory Even in all the senses we take the words 't is 5. a Glorious Priviledge Glorious to be Sains they are heirs of Glory Glorious to be Saints in Churches for the Angels that are there 1 Cor. xi 10. to wait upon us and carry up our Prayers for the beauty of holiness that is seated there for the God of Glory whose presence is more glorious there But it is without comparison to be Saints in Glory Grace is the portion of Saints that 's one ray of Glory The Church the House of God is the Gate of Heaven Gen. xxviii 17. that 's the entrance into Glory What then is Heaven it self What is it to enter there into the very Throne of the King of Glory Lift up your heads O ye Gates lift up your heads and let us poor things in to see the King of Glory the Hill of the Lord can be no other then a Hill of Glory His holy place is no less than the very place and seat of Glory And being such you cannot imagine it 6. but hard to come by the very petty glories of the World are so This is a Hill of Glory hard to climb difficult to ascend craggy to pass up steep to clamber no plain campagnia to it the broad easie way leads some whether else St. Mat. vii 13. the way to this is narrow ver 14. 't is rough and troublesome To be of the number of Christs true faithful servants is no slight work 't is a fight 't is a race 't is a continual warfare fastings and watchings and cold and nakedness and hunger and thirst bands imprisonments dangers and distresses ignominy and reproach afflictions and persecutions the worlds hatred and our friends neglect all that we call hard or difficult is to be found in the way we are to go A man cannot leave a lust shake off bad company quit a course of sin enter upon a way of vertue profess his Religion or stand to it cannot ascend the spirtual Hill but he will meet some or other of these to contest and strive with But not only to ascend but to stand there as the word signifies to continue at so high a pitch to be constant in Truth and Piety that will be hard indeed and bring more difficulties to contrast with And yet to rise up to keep to that Translation that is to rise up in the defence of holy ways of our Religion is harder still to bloud it may come at last but to sweat it comes presently cold and hot sweats too fears and travels that 's the least to be expected Nor is it easie as it often proves to gain places to serve God in Temples are long in building that of Hierusalem 64 years together Great preparation there was by David and Solomon to that before and no little to the rearing of the Tabernacle It was 300 years and upward that Christianity was in the World before the Christians could get the priviledges of Sanctuaries and Churches The more ought we sure to value them that we come so hardly by them We would make more of the priviledge if we considered what pains and cost and time they cost how unhandsom Religion looks without them how hard it is to perform many of the holy offices where we want them how hard it would be to keep Religion in the minds of men if all our Churches should be made nests of Owls and Dragons and beds of Nettles and Thistles Yet I confess it is hard too to enter into those holy places with the reverence that becomes them to rise up holy there Every one that comes into the Church does not ascend he leaves his soul too oft below comes but in part his body that gets up the Hill the mind lies grovelling in the Valley amongst his Grounds and Cattel Nor may every one be said to rise up or stand in his holy place that stand or sits there in it unless his thoughts rise there unless his attention stands erect and stedfast up to Heaven when he is there he is indeed in the place but he unhallows it it is no longer holy in respect of him He must ascend in heart and soul raise up eyes and hands voice and attention too that can be properly said to ascend into the Hill of the Lord or rise up in his holy place Which how hard it is the very stragling of our own thoughts there will tell us we need not go to the Prophet to find a people that sit there as if they were Gods people and yet are not that hear his Word and stand not to it that raise up their voices and yet their hearts are still beneath We can furnish our selves with a number too great of such enow to tell us how hard it is to ascend into the Hill of the Lord and rise up in his holy place so few do it And if these two ascensions be so hard what 's the third the very righteous are scarcely sav'd 1 Pet. iv 18. If by any means I may says St. Paul 1 Cor. ix 27. supposes he may not he is afraid at least after all his Preaching he should become a cast-away fall short of the goal miss the Crown come short of the top of the Hill of the holy Place So hard a thing is Heaven so clogg'd are the wings of our soul so heavy and drossie are our spirits and our earth so earthy that it is hard to ascend so high We feel we find it and they but deceive themselves that think 't is but a running leap into Heaven a business to be done wholly or easily upon our Death-beds when we can
and fiery the earth by the Ox that tills it the air by man that breaths it the water by the Eagle which as other fowl was made out of it Gen. i. 20. All these indeed we find called in by the holy Psalmist to make up the song of praise Psal. cxlviii and by the three Children in the fiery furnace to make up theirs that we may know the Fire and all the Elements Beasts and all Creatures praise him as well as man nay better are readier commonly to do it than he that he is fain even the devoutest he of all of us to cry out to them to come in with their notes to help him out and fill up the Choir 4. Some think Gods title of slow to anger and swift to mercy is by these four here exprest by way of Hieroglyphick by the Oxe slowness by the Lion anger by the Eagle swiftness and by the Man mercy represented to us And without doubt or question in this slowness to wrath and swiftness to have mercy is Gods greatest glory and for them we most willingly give him glory must not cease at any time to give him glory 5. Others suppose it an Hieroglyphick of Christ himself who in his Incarnation appear'd in the form or face of a man in his Passion like a Calf or Oxe for sacrifice in his Resurrection like a Lion the Lion of the Tribe of Iudah in his Ascension like an Eagle and if this pass the meaning is that by Christ Gods glory is most advanced by his Incarnation Passion Resurrection and Ascension heaven and earth is filled with his glory and for this above all the rest for him and his benefits we are to give God the greatest glory there as it were begins all our praise thence the twenty four Elders first throw down their Crowns and fall down and worship as it were acknowledging him the beginning of all the good we receive both of grace and glory Christ the Author and Original of them all But 6. to come a little near These four living Creatures say others represent the four Evangelists that preach Christs Life and Death Resurrection and Ascension into glory The Lion St. Mark for he begins his Gospel as it were with the voice of a Lion roaring in the Wilderness The Calf or Oxe St. Luke who begins his with the story of a Levitical Priest whose Ministry was about the Sacrifice of Calves and Oxen. The Man St. Matthew who takes his rise from the Genealogy of men The Eagle St. Iohn who at the very first soars up on high that we had need of Eagles wings and eyes to follow and discern him By these four indeed Gods grace and mercy Christs name and glory is spread over the face of all the earth and by this we learn that to preach and teach and publish the things of Christ is to give God praise and glory a singular and notable way to do so 7. Some that suppose they yet hit it nearer conceive God here brought in in the Vision sitting as the Bishop of Ierusalem with all the Bishops of Iudea in council all about him as Acts xv it seems they did and these four living Creatures about the Throne to be those four chief Apostles St. Peter St. Iohn St. Barnabas and St. Paul there present rank'd here higher than the rest St. Peter for his primacy set first and resembled by the Lion for his fiery zeal and fervour St. Paul deciphered by the Oxe in respect of his labours more abundantly than they all St. Barnabas intimated by the Man as being a Son of consolation humanity and mercy by the interpretation of his name St. Iohn pointed at by the Eagle for those sublime and high speculations of the Divinity of Christ above all the rest These were the four great Standard-bearers of the Christian Israel for these four living Creatures were born in the standard of old Israel and here alluded to these the four great Champions and Defenders the Planters and Propagators of the Christian Faith of the blessed Trinity of the glory of God and Christ throughout the world And thus we see to undertake the business of the Gospel to take pains and labour to defend and propagate it with all our might and main is an actual and real glorifying of God and Christ. Yet lastly whatever these may be imagined to represent to us or whomsoever to point out or what council or persons or judicature soever to resemble Angels to be sure they were that thus represented the Vision to St. Iohn and as such if we consider them we may conclude all the business with this Lesson that the business of heaven as well as earth of Angels as well as men is to be imployed in Praises and thanksgivings to the Almighty an imployment therefore well worth our time and pains and study Now put all these together and I cannot give you a fuller description of the way to praise and glorifie him than these have given you For to do it as we should is 1. to live vertuously 2. To employ all the powers and faculties of soul and body to his service 3. To call in all the Creatures to help us to do it and to use them to it 4. To reflect often upon both his mercies and his judgments and acknowledge his goodness in them both 5. To meditate upon the Life the Death the Resurrection the Ascension of Christ with all devotion and humility 6. To preach and publish it what we can 7. To defend and maintain it to our utmost power 8. To reckon it lastly an Angels work a heavenly piece of business thus to spend our days and years in giving glory to the most highest And if heaven and earth and all the creatures else besides sinful man become thus the Trumpets of their Creators glory and in all their several ways and orders ambitiously contrive themselves into the instruments of it what strange creatures must we needs be that either neglect it or forget it Heaven and earth says our morning Hymn are full of the Majesty of thy glory we can be no other than hell then that are empty of it that do not resound it Dragons and all deeps says the Psalmist Psal. cxlviii 7. all but the old Dragon and the bottomless deep the deep of hell all praise him else You see what we bring our selves to by our unthankfulness what a sad condition they are in who give not glory unto God who delight not in magnifying and praising him who are against the Hymns and Anthems to that purpose Thus you see it done in the Text by Saints and Angels in the Heavens by Apostles and Evangelists on the Earth Thus de facto so it was then But 't is as well a Prediction of what should be after that not only the present Age of the Apostles and holy Bishops then but the succeeding Ages also of the Church should acknowledge the glory of the undivided Trinity And it fell out accordingly Not
only that meek and merciful man St. Gregory that valiant Lion St. Ambrose that laborious Oxe St. Ierome that sublime Eagle St. Augustine as some please to fancy these four beasts or the four first Patriarchates as others have interpreted them but all the four corners of the earth have since profest it and with the twenty four Elders faln down and worshipt it The lustre and glory of that glorious mystery has shone thorow all the quarters of the World and all his famous mercies to his people and his judgments against their enemies are still daily celebrated and magnified in all the Congregations of the Saints This St. Iohn foresaw and here foretels the poor persecuted Christians then that how hard soever things went with them then they should ere long turn all their sighs and lamentations into Songs of praise for their deliverance and salvation This they should and 3. we should as much It was foretold of them they should it is commanded us we should Therefore glorifie him says the Apostle 1 Cor. vi 20. glorifie him in your bodies and glorifie him in your spirits glorifie him with the bodies that glorifie him and glorifie him with the Spirits that glorifie him bear them all company in so doing do it all the ways you can you can neither do it too many nor too much Put on the faces of Eagles in the Temple and raise your souls up there and praise him Put on the faces of men at home and let the holiness of your conversation praise him there Put on the appearance of Oxen in your Callings and let the diligence of your Actions and Vocations praise him Put on the appearance of Lions abroad in all places of temptations and let your courage in the resisting and repelling them praise him there Thus we truly copy out our pattern Yet to transcribe it perfectly well we must now secondly also transcribe their earnestness For here they not only give praise and glory unto God but they do it earnestly they rest not doing it they rest not saying that is 1. They cannot rest unless they say it And I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep nor mine eye-lids to slumber neither the temples of my head to take any rest till I have found out a way to praise my God till I have offered up the service of my thanks and added something to his glory must be the Christians resolution 2. They rest not saying is they say it and say it again say it over and over Holy Holy Holy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in some Copies nine times read Holy nine times repeated they think they can never say it enough No more it seems did David when he so oft repeated For his mercy endureth for ever in one single Psalm Psal. cxxxvi And hence it is the Church to imitate this holy fervour so often reiterates the Doxologie and inserts so many several Hymns and even either begins almost all its Prayers and Collects with an acknowledgment either of his Mercy Goodness and Providence or ends them with acknowledgment of his Majesty Power and Glory this both to imitate the glorious Saints and to obey the Apostles injunction of being fervent in Prayers and Praises 3. They rest not saying is they rest not but in so doing That 's their rest their joy their happiness to do so thus to be always praising God It would be ours too had we the same affections to it or the same senses of it We could not go to rest nor lie down to sleep could not sit down and take our rest till we had first lift up our eyes and hearts nay and voices too sometimes till we had first paid our thanks and given him praise for his protections in our ways and labours untill then 3. But to be thus eager and earnest at it is not all So we might be for a start and give over presently but 't is day and night that Angels and good men do it There is no night indeed properly with the Angels 'T is with them eternal day yet all that time which we call day and night they are still a saying it The Morning comes and they are at it the Night comes and they are at it still Let me go for the day breaketh says the Angel that strove with Iacob Gen. xxxii 26. And I must sing my Mattens adds the Chaldee Paraphrase as if he had said I can stay no longer I must go take my Morning course in the heavenly Choirs And in the depth of night we find them by whole hosts and multitudes at their Gloria in Excelsis Glory be to God in the highest St. Luke ii 13. The first fervours of Christian Piety were somewhat like this of the Angels You might have seen their Churches full at midnight all the Watches of the night you might have heard them chanting out the praises of their God and all the several hours of the day you might have found some or other continually praising God in his holy Temples as well as in their Closets Nay in the Iewish Temple they ceased not to do so Ye that by night stand in the House of the Lord Psal. cxiv 2. Praise him ye says holy David for indeed ye stand there to praise him and the Temple it self stood open all the day for all comers to that purpose when they would Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing says the Psalmist Psal. xxx 13. 'T is a good thing to do so Psal. xcii 1 2. To tell of thy loving kindness early in the morning and of thy Truth in the night season so good that David himself resolves upon it Psal. cxlv 2. Every day will I give thanks unto thee and praise thy Name for ever and ever prays also that his mouth may be filled with Gods praise that he may sing of his glory and honour all the day long Psal. lxxi 7. from morning to night and from night again to morning he would willingly do nothing else Nay be the night and day taken either in their natural or moral sense either properly for the spaces and intervals of light and darkness or morally for the sad hours of affliction and adversity and those bright ones of jollity and prosperity good men praise God in them both do not cease to do it if sorrows curtain up their eyes with tears and put out all their light of joy and comfort yet blessed be the Name of the Lord cry they out with patient Iob Chap. i. 21. Again if their paths be strow'd with light and the Sun gild all their actions with lustrous beams if Heaven shine full upon them they are not yet so dazell'd but they see and adore Gods mercy in them and in the mid'st of all their glories and successes they are still upon his praise and render all to him Neither the one night nor this other day make them at any time forget him A good item to us hence 1. not to suffer
way we might pretend it uncomfortable Should we want the quickning eyes of beholders we might fear to faulter by the way for want of encouragement were we to run through the furies of flames we might startle at the hardness of the employment or should we be commanded to disavow the pleasures of a convenient life for all the austerities of a poenitential rigour we might stand confounded at the task were the way full of circling Labyrinths we might fear our erring inevitable or were the Race voluntary not set before us we might then use the freedom of our choice or were it of an uncertain length not set out to run in infinitum we might account it vain or were there no Crown to run for despair might kill the life of our affections But having a guide and that from heaven a cloud to compass and defend us that nothing harm us not the Sun look too hot upon us and discolour us so great that the wandring eye cannot lose it so near encircling us that the weary step may almost rest upon it a cloud that cleaves it self into an ample theater where you find both company and spectators where by the examples of a world of Saints surrounded where by the steps of tender Virgins and little Children taught the easiness of the way where by the Crowns and Robes and Palms of Martyrs too transcendently glorious assured of our reward seeing we are to bid adieu to nothing but our misery and our sin to leave only the courting of our own damnation when it is no more than an easie run to heaven no studied torments in the way no tedious or eternal journey a plain certain way directed by him who will as well help us forward as command us what colour of excuse for the least remissness Say no more but that we had a guide a guide is not given to go alone and a guide from heaven deserves not so to be disrespected but guide and company both thence to be neglected what name shall I stile it by Run while you have the Cloud The time may come when we shall have no Habentes when we shall not dare to look upon this Cloud for shame when our sins shall stand so thick about us that we cannot look through them nor up for them when we shall strive to run and this weight and snares so hinder us we cannot stir when these Witnesses shall turn to be Witnesses against us when we shall desire this Cloud to cover us and it will not be when we shall not have so much as cum patientiâ left to help us but weary of our selves run from hill to dale to hide us and cannot run out of sight and were it not better now to run for something than then to run in vain Great certainly is the force of example will that do it 'T is here to the full Did the Iewish Saints who had not so clear a light to run by nor so clear or full promises to run for nor so skilful guides to run after nor so full a glory to run into chearfully fulfil their course And shall we whose knowledge as much excels theirs as theirs did ignorance who do not so much see as enjoy the Promises after so fair a Troop into so perfect glory move on heavily How oft have Royal Virgins met the terrors of a long and subtile death with the same countenance they would have met their Wedding joys and Children run to torments as to play How oft have Kings and Princes fifty of our own within the space of two hundred years chang'd their Kingdoms for the house and bread of poverty O blessed Spirits how lamely do we halt after you How do we dishonour your aged glories by us so often boasted of and scatter as it were your sleeping ashes in the wind by our degenerate Christianity How do ye even hide your selves in clouds and blush to see us call that Religion which ye would not have call'd by so honourable a title as prophaneness What if without example Is it not enough that God propounds it Had it been some greater matter ought we not have done it Will reward But why stand I upon any when we have all And may I not then well add therefore run We have set the Ideoque upon Nubem upon Tantam upon Habentes upon Martyrum upon Circumpositam upon Pondus upon Peccatum upon Circumstans upon Curramus upon Certamen upon all and being now at the end I shall leave it upon the last Propositum nobis the reward of our pains That when this Pondus mortale this body be laid aside and we have done our Race we may sit down with Abraham Isaac and Iacob where for this Cloud we may dwell in light for this sin put off be cloathed upon with long white Robes for that sin which did beset us be circled with Cherubims and Seraphims about us for this Deponeutes find a Depositum for laying off a Crown laid up and for this weight an eternal weight of glory And in that last great Day when for this casting away this earth also now about us shall then cast off its heaviness into lightness and agility shall we our selves be caught up together with these Saints in the Clouds to run and meet the Lord in the air where though to others it be a day of clouds and thick darkness yet shall this Cloud and we in it shine like the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father To which he bring us who going hence ascended up in clouds with triumph and shall one day come again in clouds with power and glory to dispel all clouds and darkness into an everlasting day Iesus Christ. To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Power and Praise and Honour and Thanksgiving and Worship now and for ever Amen A SERMON UPON St. Andrews Day St. MAT. iv 20. And they straightway left their Nets and followed him ' T Is well say I that Sundays and Holy days sometimes meet that 't is as well Sunday as Holy-day to day that so the Lord may be sometimes hallowed in his Saints as here followed by them Davids Praise God in his Saints for so 't is to be rendred Psal. cl 1. may by this means be sung still and preach'd yet sometimes in spite of that peevishness and malice that has so impudently and ungraciously un-sainted all the Saints Not so much as an Apostle allowed that Name Not a Saint left in the whole Christian Kalendar if I may call it Christian that so uses the Saints of Christ. Well though the course of the times has thus robb'd God of his glory in his Saints and the Saints of their honour and of if it could be their very rejoycing in their beds yet the course of the years as it were to confute that frowardness will bring it about ever and anon that the Master and the Disciple the Lord and his Saints shall rejoyce together upon a day and if they
may not be allowed their several Feasts will yet sometimes feast together be remembred together as St. Andrew and his Lord to day do what they can to hinder it For this day as it now falls out is solemn both for Lord and Saint And amongst the Saints St. Andrew is the first in order for here the Christian Church begins her Festivals I know not what or whose Church to call it that has none and fitly too does she begin with him who was the first that followed Christ from Galilee says St. Iohn Chap. i. 41. Fit sure that he should lead the rank that there begun it that brought the great St. Peter as his second ver 42. though afterward for that excellent Confession of his St. Mat. xvi 16. made the first Yet just certainly it is that St. Andrew too should have his Primacy and so the Church has given it him to begin the Army of Saints and Martyrs in her Kalendar that we may see no man shall lose any thing by his speed to Christ the more haste to him the more honour for it I shall not yet this day though it be the first of Advent much meddle with that or primarily or very particularly set my self to speak of Christs Advent or coming I shall be content because we are not like to meet many such opportunities as this day in conjunction brings us to speak this day of the Disciple and only glance at his Lord. We shall have many occasions to speak of the Master few now a days to take notice of the Disciples Yet for all that cannot we well speak of the one without the other The honour of the Servant will redound always to the glory of the Master It is for that that we commemorate the Saints that we may so magnifie the King of Saints both by acknowledging his greatness and goodness in them and by doing gloriously to the honour of our Master by their examples And indeed we cannot separate them and as the Text falls out it ends as all the praises and commendations of his Saints should end in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it begins with a conjunctive Particle which will refer us to him And with an also or an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which to make the Text to be understood will make us look back to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 18. This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this And to another And this their following to Jesus walking this And they left and followed to And Jesus walking and calling them to follow in the two immediately foregoing verses We shall then for the full sense of the Text and the honour of the day not quite separate the Lord and his Saints but joyn the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together speak somewhat of Christs coâ—â—â—ing as well as of their following though more fully of this it being â—xpresly in the words the other but implicitely or implied yet referring this wholly to the glory of that their following here to Christs coming before St. Andrews exite to Christs Advent joyn them both as the day does for us For in the words are both though just as in the day the one swallowed up by the other the Holy-day in the Sunday only with this difference St. Andrew's Feast in the Advent in the day the Advent in St. Andrew's in the Text. The day more evidently for the Lords day the Text for St. Andrews We will forget neither but must follow the Text where we are to consider two Particulars The one exprest the other implied 1. St. Andrews Festival and 2. the Feast of Advent or the grounds of each the ground of St. Andrews Festival expresly his leaving his Nets and following Christ. The ground of Christs Advent implicitely that it was straightway done that is presently upon Christs coming and calling to him You see Sundays and Holy-days are at no such variance but they can stand together their grounds too both Scripture grounds both from the same Text too Our new Reformers may as well deny the one as the other and no doubt if they stand but in their way a little they will too Only some day must be kept up a while to preach the cause when that is done Ye observe days and months and years will be as good a Text against the Lords day as his Saints But not to trouble you with the Division of days we will afford you another Division of the Text. I. St. Andrews and together with him his brothers obedience express They straightway left their nets and followed him II. The ground of it in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first words and the last intimated and implied Jesus came first and walked by the Sea and lookt upon them and spake to them And and what then And they straightway followed Followed Whom Him says the Text. Who 's that One that was worth all their nets one that would make them fishers indeed Jesus ver 18. for him it is they leave their nets and him they follow In their obedience there are three particulars 1. The readiness 2. The sincerity 3. The rightness of it 1. It was straightway there 's the readiness 2. It was to the leaving of their nets their very life and living all the poor living they had there 's their sincerity 3. It was to follow him there 's the right placing and bestowing their obedience In the ground of it we shall see their obedience was not groundless for that it was 1. Not without a just and lawful call Jesus call'd them first and then they followed and not till then 2. Not without a powerful effectual and enabling call which so soon and suddenly could make and enable them to leave their whole course and means of life and very straightway follow him 3. That it was not any but Christ not any thing or hope or interest but only Iesus the true Messiah him they followed whom you shall see anon they had good reason to conceive was worth all they could leave or do The ground of their obedience was neither rash nor light nor sinister It was discreet and wise upon just call it was powerful upon a strange sudden powerful change of their affectionâ—â— and it was right and due to him they paid it Iesus the Christ. I begin with the express parts of the Text with St. Andrews and his Brothers great and ready obedience to Christs Command and Call which is the Lesson you are to learn upon St. Andrews day that which you are to learn now particularly from him as upon the days of other Saints their particular vertues and graces which is or should be our Holy-day business and if it had been but so taught and learnt we had never seen prophane Kalendars for Christian these unhallowed days or our holy-days unhallowed God deprived
you may find all for ever You study to make all as sure as you can Gods Promise is the best assurance and here it is Do what he here commands and you shall not fear what man can do unto you The Lord of Hosts is on your side Else I cannot but tell you All may fail you The wine and delicates you eat and drink the houses and stately Palaces you Lord it in the Lands and Possessions the Riches State and Pomp you have to this day triumphed in your Wives and Children all you think so everlastingly to enjoy by rising up so much to defend them may in a moment vanish and your high flown thoughts die before you You have no assurance from heaven so to settle your estates and fortunes no Dicit Dominus for that This is only Gods way for thriving by Obedience Nay and the Religion you so much seem to contend for against Innovations by the greatest Innovations in Church and State tumults riots and prophanest usages that also will for ever fail you You want men to stand before God for ever and instead of them find men to stand before you Micah's Levites do what seems good in your sight not in Gods so stand before you as to hinder you from standing before God stand in your sight and blind you from seeing the right way to heaven Thus you will want your old honours profits liberties Religion all But if you will return and hear and hearken and submit to your ancient Fathers your King and Church your Magistrates and Clergy observe and keep and do your ancient Laws and Customs I dare warrant you what God promises to the Rechabites he shall perform to you Your City shall flourish your places be renowned your Liberties encrease your persons rise up in honour your estates prosper your affairs succeed your children be famous your Posterity happy your Religion display the glories of her first primitive purity and all go on successfully for ever And when this Ever shall have swallowed up the days of time you shall stand still immovable immortal glorious before him in whose sight is the fulness of joy where you shall one day meet your Children and stand all together Kings and Subjects Priests and People Fathers and Children before your heavenly Father see him face to face in the beatifical vision for ever and ever To which He bring us through his eternal Son who was obedient unto death to teach us obedience of life unto life Iesus Christ to which Two Persons with the Holy Ghost be all Praise and Glory Obedience and Worship for evermore Amen FINIS A Table of the Texts of Scripture handled in the fore-going SERMONS A Sermon on the First Sunday in Advent Folio 1 St. MAT. xxi 9. And the multitudes that went before and that followed cried saying Hosannah to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest A Sermon on the Second Sunday in Advent 13 St. MARK i. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord make his paths streight A Sermon on the Third Sunday in Advent 23 St. LUKE xxi 27 28. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a Cloud with Power and great glory And when these things begin to come to pass then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh A Sermon on the Fourth Sunday in Advent 33 PHIL. iv 5. Let your moderation be known unto all men The Lord is at hand The First Sermon on Christmas-Day 45 ISA. xi 10. And in that day there shall be a root of Iesse which shall stand for an Ensign of the People to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious The Second Sermon on Christmas-Day 53 St. LUKE xi 7. And she brought forth her First-born Son and wrapped him in Swadling-clothes and laid him in a Manger because there was no room for them in the Inn. The Third Sermon on Christmas-Day 63 St. JOHN i. 16. And of his fulness have all we received and grace for grace The Fourth Sermon on Christmas-Day 73 1 TIM i. 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Iesus came into the world to save Sinners of whom I am chief The Fifth Sermon on Christmas-Day 85 PSAL. xlv 3. Thou art fairer then the Children of men full of grace are thy lips because God hath blessed thee for ever The Sixth Sermon on Christmas-Day Folio 97 St. LUKE i. 68 69. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David The Seventh Sermon on Christmas-Day 109 2 COR. viii 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich The Eighth Sermon on Christmas-Day 119 PSAL. viii 4 5. What is man that thou art mindful of him And the Son of man that thou visitest him Thou madest him lower than the Angels to crown him with glory and worship The Ninth Sermon on Christmas-Day 129 St. LUKE ii 30 31 32. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel A Sermon on St. Stephens Day 143 ACTS vii 55 56. But he being full of the Holy Ghost looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God and Iesus standing on the right hand of God And said Behold I see the Heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God A Sermon on Innocents Day 151 St. MAT. ii 16. Then Herod when he saw that he was mocked of the Wise men was exceeding wroth and sent forth and slew all the Children that were in Bethlehem and in all the Coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the Wise men The First Sermon on the Circumcision 163 2 COR. v. 17. Old things are past away behold all things are become new The Second Sermon on the Circumcision 172 St. LUKE ii 21. His Name was called Iesus The First Sermon on the Epiphany 182 St. MAT. ii 11. And when they were come into the house they saw the young Child with Mary his Mother and fell down and worshipped him and when they had opened their Treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frankincense and Myrrhe The Second Sermon on the Epiphany 192 St. MAT. ii 10. When they saw the Star they rejoyced with exceeding great joy The Third Sermon on the Epiphany Folio 202 St. MAT. ii 11. And when they were come into the house they saw the young Child with Mary his Mother and fell down and worshipped him and when they had opened their Treasures they presented unto him gifts Gold and Frankincense and Myrrhe A Sermon upon St. Paul's Day
'T is worthy of it 1. for the Person it brings to us one that is fairer then the children of men Psal. xlv worth entertaining Worthy 2. for the way it brings him to us in an humble and familiar way such was his coming he comes into the world like other men that we may the easier approach him and so the more readily entertain him Worthy 3. for the good things it tells us he brings with him for the salvation he comes with to us a thing worth accepting Worthy 4. for the persons it brings all this good to or for the extent and fulness of that goodness that 't is to sinners sinners indefinitely and at large sinners of all sizes all degrees and latitudes this certainly worthy all acceptation by all to be accepted for all interessed in it And 5. to be accepted too with all acceptance all the best ways we can imagine with soul and body with hand and heart with all the expressions of love and reverence and joy and thankfulness love of his Beauty reverence to his Humility joy in his Salvation and thankfulness for the freeness and fulness of it If a friend come but a long Journey to us we give him all the welcome we can make and think nothing enough This friend came to us as far as Heaven is from us farther then all the corners of the earth If a great person come to visit us we meet him with all the respect and reverence we can contrive none too much This is the greatest person can come to us If there come one to save to when we are now ready to perish how do our hearts leap and our spirits dance for joy how glad are we nothing can be more Here 's one comes to do it and to do it to the utmost that none or nothing of us may be lost what can we now do to him again who is and does all this for us All we can do is all too little all expressions too low to receive him with and this saying that thus assures him to us worthy to be written in tables of Gold with pens of Diamonds to be written however on all our hearts never to be raz'd out nor ever to be brought forth but with devotion and reverence with exultation and joy And now I am fallen upon my second general the use we are to make of this faithful saying and a four-fold use it will be to believe To accept to apply to proclaim it I add to make this the day to begin it in I This is a faithful saying we are first therefore to believe it such it is to them that believe to others not St. Paul I confess says only to them especially cap. iv 10. But that especially is onely too for Christ is effectually the Saviour of none else The Saviour truly of all come down for all set up for all yet not any sav'd by him but Believers for all that Nor all they neither only such as are careful to maintain good works Tit. iii. 8. This saying not faithful but to Believers nor any Believers faithful but such as shew it by good works Thus St. Paul limits the words This is a faithful saying in those two last cited places that we may not cheat our selves out of the Text or the good things in it Indeed if we believe not yet he abideth faithful in himself he and all his sayings too that 's a faithful saying too 2 Tim. iii. 11. 13. But nor he nor any of his sayings faithful to us whatever in themselves if we be not faithful and believing if we distrust either the beginning or end of his coming to us or by our sins or foolish scruples or despairs thrust our selves out of our interests in any of them For the second Use we are to make of this saying is not only to believe it but to accept it Vse 2. Now to accept it is very highly to prize and value it and well we may 't is worthy of it Prize it we then as we do Jewels as that Merchant in the Gospel did the Pearl sell all to buy it there 's none to it Lay it up safe as we do treasures that neither Moth corrupt nor Thief steal it from us nor Sin nor Satan rob us of it there 's no treasure like it Keep it as we do the Records and Tenures of our Estates part with it upon no score Our state in heaven depends upon it 'T is our title to it Lord where were we without this assurance to save sinners where all our hopes if this were lost whereto all our treasures if this were gone We had need prize and value it and keep it sure and this is to accept it And yet to give it all acceptation is somewhat more To accept it as Tertullus tells Felix they did his noble deeds Acts xxiv 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always and every where and with all thankfulness Do we it then 1. not now and then not to day only or one day or two but every day every day we rise every opportunity that presents it self on every occasion that appears that 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do we it again 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all places engrave it upon our doors carve it upon our posts write it upon our hands profess it every where we come not in our Closets and our Chambers only but in the Church in the High-Priests Palace in Pilates Hall at the Pillar and at the Cross no where asham'd or afraid to own it Do it 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with all thankfulness And how is that by some good deeds sure as well as words Present we him ever and anon with some good thing or other now a basket of good Fruits so St. Paul sometimes stiles good works Now a bottle of good Wine the Wine of devout and pious tears Now with a present of Gold or Silver to adorn his House or his Attendants Now with a garment to clothe his naked members Now with a dish to feed his poor and hungry Children Now with this gift now with another This is the way of thankfulness among men that they call good acceptance among themselves These and all the ways we can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so some Greek Copies read for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will take all in But above all our souls and bodies a living Sacrifice will be the most acceptable present we can make him Rom. xii 1. and indeed the fittest for him that came to save them This will do well yet 3. St. Paul's quorum ego primus the Apostles applying the only bad word in the Text with an emphasis to himself his reckoning himself the chief of sinners shews us the best way to apply this faithful saying to our selves the confessing our selves no ordinary sinners The third Use of the Doctrine of the Text. But thou O blessed Apostle the chief of sinners What then O Lord are we Primo primi the chief of
chiefs is a stile too little And yet can either He or We now say it and say truth if not the lye may redound peradventure to Gods Glory but it will work to our own damnation Best look to that 'T is an Hyperbole most think yet 't is no handsom hyperbolizing with God methinks We may find out a way I doubt not so to say it as yet to say nothing but our own bosom thoughts Three things observ'd we may both say and think we are any of us the chief of sinners 1. Look we upon our own sins with the severest eye with all the aggravations of them we can imagine Look we 2. upon other mens with the most favourable one with all the extenuations we can invent And then 3. compare we them so together and the work is done we may really suppose our selves of all men the greatest sinners To begin with our own sins and to aggravate them to purpose consider we them ever in their foulest colours how base and wretched in themselves how dishonourable to God how prejudicial to our Brother how scandalous to our Religion and how destructive to our selves Consider we next upon what poor grounds they were committed upon what slight temptations to what silly ends with what perfect knowledge with what full deliberation with what impudent presumption how wilfully against all good motions how resolutely against all assistances and perswasions to the contrary how desperately against all dangers threatned from them and how in gratefully to God and Christ. In a word what a long train of mischiefs they probably draw after them how many we involve commonly either in the guilt or in the punishment or in the example and thereby lay as it were a seed of wickedness for ever and so sin even in our worms and dust Thus we are to look upon our own transgressions But 2. When we look upon other mens we must do that but cursorily and glancing think they are never so bad as they are represented not so foul by much as they appear at first that their intentions perhaps were good or that it falls out far otherwise than they intended that what was done was upon mistake or error that it was but a slip or weakness or surreption that they have not the light the strength the grace the power that God gives us that they had not the means or opportunity to shun those sins that they were overpowered by strong temptations or were meerly overtaken or plainly forced to it and could not help it or had not the opportunity to do better that they did it ignorantly meant no hurt at all and possibly none may come of it that what e're it be they are heartily sorry for it that however they have a thousand vertues and good things in them to overpoise the evils they have done These are the ways we are to consider the sins of other men And then 3. if after this we compare our sins and theirs together ours under all the circumstances of aggravation with theirs under all extenuating considerations our greatest sins with their little ones our presumptions with their infirmities our vices with their vertues our bad or sinister intentions with their good and fair professions our corrupt natures with their good dispositions our selves as we are by nature and deprest by sin with them as exalted by any grace and vertue it will be no marvel no way strange if we think our selves the greatest sinners And indeed we have no reason to do other we know only our own hearts those we are sure are wicked but we cannot say so of other mens can at the best but suppose theirs of which in charity we ought always to think the best ever at least better than our own especially when even little and ordinary sins in some may be often worse than crying sins in others according to the difference of light and grace and the variety of circumstances that may attend them All which considered if we profess our selves the worst we shall now need no hyperbole to make it good nor fear it will be any whit worse for us though it be true St. Paul it seems held it the surest course thus by the greatest and humblest confession of his own unworthiness to plead his interest in this faithful saying in Christ Iesus coming into the world to save sinners And now sure 4. we may proclaim it must do so too 'T is not a saying to be kept secret no mysterious Cabala not to be revealed or committed only to a few This thing says St. Paul was not done in a corner Into the world he came that came to save us And to the world and through the world let it therefore be proclaimed for ever 'T is good says the Angel to old Tobit to keep close the secret of a King but 't is honourable to reveal the works of God Tob. xii 11. And to day is a good day to do it in A day wherein the Lepers said among themselves 2 Kings vii 9. If we hold our peace some mischief will come upon us I am sure there was enough upon us when men upon this day held their peace Well tell we now our news as they did theirs to the Court to the City to the Country to the world The Church bids us do do so to day Let the Preacher preach it let the people tell it let the singers begin it and go before and the Minstrels and Musick follow and answer it to day that Christ Iesus is come into the world to save sinners Yet to day we must do more then tell it We are to believe to accept to apply it too We have to day the best opportunity to do all to exercise our faith and to advance it to give a proof of our acceptance of Christs saving mercies and the sense of our own sins and miseries Yonder under the blessed Elements we shall meet our Saviour coming to us Shall I tell you how to accept that favour how receive and entertain him why when great Personages are coming to us we make clean the House we trick up the Rooms we set every thing in order we set forth our choicest Furniture put on our best Apparel we look out ever and anon to see if they be coming and when they are we go out to meet them we make our addresses with all humble and lowly reverence we welcome them with the best words we have we present them with some lovely present and take care that nothing unseemly be done before them whilst they stay Let us do so to him that came into the world to day Cleanse we our hearts and purifie our hands dress up all the rooms all the powers and faculties of our souls and bodies with graces and vertues set our affections and passions all in rule and order put on the garments of righteousness and true holiness let us long and thirst and hunger after him let us go out to meet him accost him