for the age to come Amen Thirdly he is sayde to wayght for the consolation of Israel The Euangelists purpose is Symeons ioye to shewe vs wherein the ioy of this olde father consisted Namely that whether he did eate or drinke or whatsoeuer he else did therin he neyther tooke more then was méete and sufficient or made his bâ—lly his pleasant God or any worldly thing else but that his ioye was fixed in his féeling fayth fastened in the Messias our annoynted Christ which he knewe by the studie of the Scriptures to be at hande by whome he sawe his synnes to bée forgiuen and hys whole Countrye and brethren with him to haue their full and only consolation And here agayne is noted Symeons iustification in that he beléeued in Iesus Christ promised in the worde of God to haue the forgiuenesse of hys synnes and in hym eternall lyfe His fyrme fastened fayth is here noted vnder thys worde He wayted which expresseth as well his constancie as his fortitude against those perillous tymes wherein he was The common welth of Israell so ruyned and the Church of God in Iewry so corrupted that it mighte seeme all her hope of recouerie from their woes or consolation in their hartes to be vtterly extinguished We may not forget here howe the Euangelist significantly noteth the corruption and degenerate condition of the Citie Ierusalem which sometymes being the holyest place vnder Heauen is nowe become so estranged from her God so plunged in securitie and synne Shadow of Englands securitie so hardened in hart against the truth and so ignorante of her estate that neyther shée féeleth her present miserie or wayteth for her consolation Christ the Messiah Onely this one man in a whole Citie is here named to féele the one and with long expectation and pacient abode for the Lords leasure hopeth after the other and that bicause he had the warrante of God by his holy worde for the same and was fylled with the spirite whereby he was in mercye preserued from that déepe and iuste iudgement of blyndnesse wherein the wicked Pharysies and the whole people and Princes of Iewrie a few with Symeon excepted were ouerwhelmed which is vehemently noted by the Euangelist in this worde Ecce beholde O beloued England thou mayest lawfully mourne fostering a great number of such people which be as wandring as carelesse as bolde in their synne and hardned in heart as euer were the inhabitants of Ierusalem They talke of Christ and they are myraculously preserued by this our Messiah but as in their déeds they doe denie him So they counte him to them eyther vnprofitable or think him not their consolation For truely they desire not hys presence they hate his Gospel Iere. 3.19 that bicause their deeds are euill Neyther desire they his comming But as the théefe imprisoned wysheth the Iudgement seate ouerturned the lawe with his Princes and power deade and the day of his execution neuer to come Euen so doe these Caterpillers of the earth whose consciences doe accuse them guyltie and fearing his iudgement they desyre rather that he were not at al then that he should come to giue them the rewarde of synne Eternall death the assured stypende to al wicked actions and thoughts Rom. 6.23 to Princes fyrst and to whomsoeuer men and women which in like wickednesse ioyne with these Princes and prophane Pharysies of Ierusalem Surely lyke desolation shall ouerthrowe them if they séeke not Christ in tyme by repentance and with Symeon wayte for their consolation in him Note with me gentle Reader in the commendation of this good man that the spirite of God ioyneth righteousnesse and Religion in one yoke together saying No godlynesse of lyfe no ryghte Religion Symeon was iust and religious Hereby he teacheth vs that these two are so lincked and connexed by the Fynger of God that they cannot be seperate in twayne but of lyke necessitie with the Sunne which hath his Globe his light and his heate so conioyned that wheresoeuer the one shyneth the other cannot but warme and as the soule body are so compact in one that the bodye cannot but performe the pleasures of the same Euen so in whomsoeuer true Righteousnesse in Christ is in him also there cannot but be the true feare of God and holynes of lyfe which is the singuler seruing of our God in the inwarde desyre of our hartes vnfaynedly and here called Religion or true godlynesse Psal 116. Act. 4.20 I beleeued and therfore I spake sayth Dauid We cannot but testifie the things which we haue heard and seene sayth the Apostle I determined to holde my tongue sayth Ieremy the preaching Prophet the peoples obstinacy was such and my daungers so great but the worde was as fyre within my hart as a burning fyre shut vp within my bones and I was weary with forbearing I could not stay Again I will be their GOD sayth the Lorde by his Prophet and they shall be my people Iere. 20.9 Ier. 31.33 They shall not but serue the Lorde to whome he is God Againe I will poure cleane water into you and you shall bee cleane yea from all your filthynes and from all your Idols will I clense you A newe harte will I giue you and a newe spirite will I put into you and I will take away the stony harte out of your bodye and will giue you an harte of fleshe And I will put my spirite within you and cause you to walke in my statutes and you shall keepe my iudgements and doe them To conclude it is the Lorde Christ which hath created his seruaunts after the Image of God in righteousnesse and true holynesse which is the perfect newe man in whom both these graces be ioyned Ephes 4.24 as Paule sayth to the Ephesians So that true righteousnesse wyll effectually shewe faythfull holynes in one and selfe same Christian But as for such as onely haue Christ in their lyppes and denye him in their déedes whose whole course of lyfe is set vpon sensuall appetite to worldly lustes and yet can crye Lorde Lorde Thou knowest deare Reader what the Lord hath denouÌ„ced against them Luc. 13.26 We haue eaten and dronke at thy Table saye these men yea wee haue preached and taught in thy name and therein cast out Deuils But they haue this sentence Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not That is I approoue not your acts for godly or you for mine therfore departe from me into the Lake of burning fyre that neuer shall be quenched These be those Atheists of our dayes which because the gracious Prince godly lawes laye hande to the Plowe of the Gospels profession the which the Lord in mercy continue and increase therfore to winne fauour in the Courte to maintayne their carnall countenance they wil be Temporarij for the time Gospellers they will heare the Preacher they will curteouslye salute hym they will giue him séemely entertaynment
the preaching of his worde then at any tyme he hath bene since the Apostles tyme. This only remayneth that with hart and will by the motion of his holy spirite we ioyntly enter our Churches where Iesus Christ is graciously offred not into our armes but into our harts and soules not in a body subiect to myseries and death but in the Maiestie of his worde which is his eternall power Rom. 1.16 1. Cor. 1.18 to bring vs by his light to that saluation assured in him and to engraffe quyetnesse in Conscience perswaded in his truth by the testimony of his sayde spirite of the full forgyuenesse of our sinnes That we shall with newe raysed hartes as men risen from a most déepe Dungeon of death most ioyfully with Symeon syng and saye in heart and truth Lorde nowe whensoeuer thou callest vs from this naturall lyfe 1. Cor. 1.30 Ephe. 1.7 Mat. 20.28 at thy good pleasure thou lettest vs departe to quiet rest in christian peace For the eyes of our fayth haue and doe sée Christ Iesus and receyue hym as he is to vs in mercy giuen our onely raunsome and full matter of our spirituall health and celestiall ioy to whom with thée our best father and the holy spirite be praise and glory for euer and euer Amen Thus much receyued by the Gospels wordes touching Symeon nowe let vs lende eare attentiuely vnto the words deliuered vs in this his ioyful song Thus he sayth Lorde now lettest thou thy seruaunt departe in peace according to thy worde For mine eyes haue seene thy Saluation This olde holye fathers song conteyneth shorte wordes and long matter wherein he giueth the Lorde his due praise by publique spéeche in ioyed hart and after the example of the former church for the present benefite receyued according the faythfull promise of God that he hath not departed to his Fathers before he sawe the Lordes Christ he singeth the Lords truth and blaseth the honorable armes of our Captaine Christe manifesting his power efficacie and glory in this his pithy encomia That done he setteth downe the perfite platforme of a quyet cōscience and the ancor of her health in the middle of many miseries in his owne person saying Now Lorde all if by the Romaine Tyranny thy people of Israell haue béene sore oppressed our fayth sore assaulted so that twixt hope and sorrow we haue wayted for Consolation in thy promise Now that thou hast giuen vs thy Christ our glory I ioy so much in him my Sauiour that death shall be to me welcome and my departure shall be in peace bicause by this Christ my Consolation Gods wrath to me is pacified my syns in him pardoned my selfe for him of my heauenly father dearely beloued and my soule shall rest in ioy for I am thy seruant wherfore Now let me I praye thee departe in peace I am satisfyed that I haue séene thée and the dayes of my age are in thy hande But whereas Symeon sayth Lorde Nowe doth thy mercy let me departe in peace he plainely sheweth that vntill he perfitely had the fruition of his hope he was in auxietie and griefe and walked with a heauie harte for the affliction of Israell This argueth not an absolute weakenesse of fayth in Father Symeon but rather expresly an ardent expectation of the promise of God nothing pleasured with the forreine matters of this lyfe albeit they should abounde to hym But by trauaile in fyght against temptations in worldly pleasures he hungreth and spiritually thirsteth in approoued hope the Lords promise enduring the griefe of present oppression assuredly by fayth to reape the rewarde of his pacient hope bicause he had the worde of God a most faythfull Norice therto for his warrante 1. Pet. 2.2 For thus sayde the Lorde by Reuelation to Symeon Thou shalt not dye before thou hast seene the Messias Christ the Lorde Luc. 2.26 Note here good Reader the nature of Gods promises giuen to his chosen children They are not performed at the first houre but they are deferred longer then our selues would desyre and they are not performed till the fayth of the parties be perfitly prooued and by the opposite occurrents sore exercised God the Father promised the comming of his beloued sonne Christ here imbraced of Symeon at the fall of Adam and Heuah Gene. 3. Gen. 22.18 Gal. 3.8 Esa 64.1 Mat. 13.16 Luk. 10.24 and renewed it to Abraham and by hys Prophets continued the same but the time prolonged forced many of the best fathers to cry Oh that thou wouldest pierce the heauens and come downe and to say Oh Lorde sende thy glory vnto Syon and thy sauing health vnto Ierusalem And as our Christ doth testifie many kings and Prophets haue desyred to sée Christ and haue not séene him or could the times enioy the performance of this promise till the fulnesse of time by him set were come Heb. 1.1 and that by contrary presumptions the fayth of his chyldren were thorowly exercised But when the tyme by his deuine wisedome appointed was come then did he faythfully giue the same Messias into the worlde that Symeon and the godlye then might beare wytnesse to vs his children nowe of his euerlasting faythfulnesse In this worde Nowe lyeth an Emphasis as if he had sayd The worde of my promise hath fed my fayth stablished my hope to wayte for thys our consolation Christ and sythe in thy mercy thou hast performed the word of truth Now let me depart in peace Here is to be well marked the force of true and lyuely fayth it doth persist in one it resteth vpon the promise of the worde The force of true fayth albeit that heauen and earth should séeme to runne on heaps together This is that most excellent gift of God that excelleth al vertues in whatsoeuer man Ephe. 3.17 Pray the Lorde therefore to giue thée fayth in Christ christian Reader and Christ thereby to dwell in thée then shalt thou abyde stedfast in hope after the worde of Gods promise whatsoeuer obstact shal arise against thée The Lord by his seruant Moyses promised the Israelits delyuerance out of the bondage of Egypt Exod. 4.29.30.31 But straight wayes wyth this promise arose such presumptions to the contrary as the hardnesse of Pharaos hart and cruelty their oppression and more labor thereby their sharpe correction for wants in worke and in the hower of their deliuerance his huge army persecuting them on the one syde the high Mountaynes and swallowing Seas to hold them in on the other syde that it might haue séemed to Israel Moyses warrant from God to haue bene rather a dreame of their desolation then the day of their delyuerance But they by this spirite confirmed in fayth did suppresse the present calamities by the Ancor of hope which from the shyp of their beléeuing consciences in these terrible Seas tossed they cast fyrmely pitched vpon the worde of promise which thus they had vz I will in a
last hower the spirite of God lightened the harte of the théefe vpon the Crosse Luck 23.40 Ezech. 18. Eph. 1.4.5 Ioh. 1.9 1. Tim. 2.4 Eph. 1.18 Heb. 1.3 so that in yéelding to death he sawe Christ onely to be his lyfe So the same most louing father who wylleth not the death of a synner hath euen in the hower of death and in all the dayes of Popery tourned the hartes of as many as were predestinate before all tymes in Christ to lyue eternally And that our Christ which lighteneth all men that come into the worlde and would haue all men that is to say of euerye country nation people and families some to be saued and come to the knowledge of the truth Hath also illuminated the hartes of all those whome the father hath by his spirite drawne out of the Dungeon of Papistrie to thys brightnesse of his glory wherby they haue with the eyes of their fayth séene this Iesus Christ to be the onely saluation of Iewe Turke Pagan Papist and Gentyle and consequently haue in harte felt him for theirs to their greate and synguler consolation After which sight they haue in the integritie of their soules 1. Cor. 3.12 Phil. 3.8 accounted al the hey tymber stubble and Popishe stuffe as fylthie doung and paciently abode the paine of death for their former ignorance and rest in hope of eternall peace and in the assurance of hys spirite that their synnes in his bloude are washed awaye They are perswaded that death is to them lyfe in cause whereof they haue in Christ banished that feare which bringeth paynefulnesse 1. Io. 4.18 and with Symeon haue sayde Now Lorde let vs thy seruants depart in peace for the eyes of our minde nowe in the agony of our soule hath through the day spring which from an high hath visited vs perfitly seene the Lorde thy Christ to be our sauing health â—uc 1.78 in whome wee departe to thee who neuer before this hower in these dayes of ignoraunce could attayne to this grace But now Lord receiue vs in peace through Christ our lord our God of peace and the same to all his chosen children The prouydence of God in tyme of Popery féedeth this our sentence of the forefathers thus blessed in the dayes of ignorance In that he conserued and during those tymes continued among men the Symbole of our fayth which very manye at their death haue constantly repeated and by open declaration haue affirmed in that fayth to ende their lyfe But thys Symbole preacheth onely the gloryous fayth in God the Father God the sonne and God the holy Ghost In Popery no saluation wherfore I conclude that manye of our forefathers were in the daies of Popery saued by fayth alone in Christ and that by Popery no man may or can be saued For the whole course of the Romishe Religion is to disperce Mat. 12.30 and not to gather together the saintes of God to the vnitie of fayth and knowledge in the sonne of GOD but to hayle to the fayth of Rome which maketh as many Sauiours as the sunne shyning giueth shadowes which can in no case permit a man eyther to rest alone in the death of Christ or to assure himselfe of saluation in hym But to attayne lyfe Popishe Treasures the Papists must fetch the treasures of the Church of Rome parte whereof is the blood of Martyrs though some of them be notable Traytors It is to playne that they make such not Mediators onely but Sauiours also from synne Who can forget this solemne Anthemne to that Traytor Thomas Becket sometimes Byshop of Caunterbury which the Popes Portuse and all laten Primers haue farsed in them for men in prayer to vse In the Popishe Primers Tu per Thomae sanguinem quem pro te impendit fac nos Christe scandere quo Thomas ascendit That is graunt vs Christ by the vertue of saint Thomas his bloud which he shedde for thée to ascende whether Thomas is gone where note that Christ hath but that office which else they giue to Peter Namely to be the dore kéeper and to admit those soules into heauen which clayme it by the bloud of Barrabas I should say Thomas and they do refuse bicause they doe distrust the raunsome of Christ our onely way to lyfe Oh horrible and most abhominable blasphemy Ioh. 14.6 But deare Reader No man can come to the father sayth our sufficient Sauyour but by mee And therefore praying for the Papists conuersioÌ„ if it be Gods good will let vs as Paule doth exhort vs Heb. 12.19 seeing by the bloud of Iesus we may be bold to enter into the holy place into heauen by the newe and lyuing way which he hath prepared for vs thorow the vayle that is to say his fleshe and seeing we haue an high Priest ouer the house of God let vs drawe neare with a true hart in assurance of fayth sprinckled made pure in our hearts from an euil conscience and washed in our bodies with pure water Let vs keepe the profession of our hope without wauering for he is faythfull that promised And let vs consider one another to prouoke vnto loue and to good workes not forsaking the felowship that we haue among our selues as the maner of some is but let vs exhorte one another that so much the more bicause ye see the day draweth neere Let vs expect his comming and loue the Lorde so shall we not feare any perrill of death And God graunt our Englishe Papistes once to sée and be ashamed of their wylfulnesse to damnation sléeping in the bedde of the whore of Babilon Reuel 18. which is prepared to desolation and perpetuall fyre And to imbrace his Gospell which is the onely ioy of soule and solace in death â—â—t 3.17 the path to lyfe in that Sauiour in whome God the father is onely pacifyed The second note is that the godly are so farre from fearing naturall death that on the contrary part they humbly many tymes at the hande of God can earnestly pray for it and wyshe it yea and eaten vp of griefe for the dayes of synne they lament that they are not disburdened of the bodye thereof Finally in desyre of the full accomplishment of the bodye of Christ that the same his Church might be thorowly glorifyed in heauen as she is in parte and in earth perfitly sanctifyed The saints in this lyfe praye for the dissolution of the world and Christ to come with speede to iudgement For the fyrst Paule prayeth thus I desyre to be dissolued and to be with Christ and our Symeon here Lorde now let thy seruaunt depart in peace Secondly in the seuenth to the Romaynes Paule cryeth out of synne lamenting and saying O wretched man that I am who shall delyuer me from the body of this death that is from this lumpe of fleshly sinne and death Where note gentle Christian that the saintes of God are subiect to the