of the angels of heaven would break out into sinne but for that confirmation which those angels have received in the bloud of Christ This rednesse he carried to heaven and this rednesse he hath left upon earth that all we miserable clods of earth might be tempered with his bloud that in his bloud exhibited in his holy blessed Sacrament our long robes might be made white in the bloud of the Lambe that though our sinnes be robes habits of long continuance in sinne yet through that rednesse which our sinnes have cast upon him we might come to participate of that whitenesse that righteousnesse which is his own We that is all we for as to take us in who are of low condition and obscure station a cloud is made white by his sitting upon it He sat upon a white cloud so to let the highest see that they have no whitenesse but from him he makes the throne white by sitting upon it He sat upon a great white throne It had been great if it had not been white white is the colour of dilatatiō Goodnesse enlarges the throne It had not been white if he had not sat upon it That goodnesse onely which consists in glorifying God and God in Christ and Christ in the sinceritie of the truth is true whitenesse God hath no rednesse in himself no anger towards us till he considers us as sinners God casts no rednesse upon us inflicts no necessitie no constraint of sinning upon us we have died our selves in sinnes as red as scarlet we have drowned our selves in such a red sea But as a garment that was washed in the Red sea Psal 106.22 would come out white so wonderfull works hath God done at the Red sea sayes David so doth his whitenesse work through our red and makes this Adam this red earth Calculum candidum that white stone that receives a new name not Ish not Enosh not Gheber no name that tasts of miserie nor of vanitie but that name renewed and manifested which was imprinted upon us in our elections the sonnes of God the irremoveable the undisinheritable sonnes of God Be pleased to receive this note at parting that there is Macula alba a spot and yet white as well as a red spot a whitenesse that is an indication of a leprosie as well as a rednesse It is whole-Pelagianisme to think nature alone sufficient half-Pelagianisme to think grace once received to be sufficient super-Pelagianisme to think our actions can bring God in debt to us by merit and supererogation Catharisme imaginarie puritie in canonizing our selves as present saints and condemning all that differ from us as reprobates All these are white spots and have the colour of goodnesse but are indications of leprosie So is that that God threatens Joel 1.7 Decorticatio ficûs albi rami that the fig-tree shall be barked and the boughs thereof left white To be left white without bark was an indication of a speedy withering Ostensa candescunt arescunt sayes S. Gregorie of that place the bough that lies open without bark looks white but perisheth The good works that are done openly to please men have their reward sayes Christ that is shall never have reward To pretend to do good and not mean it to do things good in themselves but not to good ends to go towards good ends but not by good wayes to make the deceiving of men thine end or the praise of men thine end all this may have a whitenesse a colour of good but all this is a barking of the bough and an indication of a mischievous leprosie There is no good whitenesse but a reflexion from Christ Jesus in an humble acknowledgement that we have none of our own and in a confident assurance that in our worst estate we may be made partakers of his We are all red earth In Adam we would not since Adam we could not avoid sinne and the concomitants thereof miseries which we have called our West our cloud our darknesse But then we have a North that scatters these clouds in the next word Adimaginem that we are made to another pattern in another likenesse then our own Faciamus hominem So farre we are gone East and West which is half our compasse and all this dayes voyage for we are struck upon the sand and must stay another tide and another gale for our North and South FINIS THE SECOND SERMON PREACHED BEFORE KING CHARLES Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of GENESIS By Dr. DONNE DEAN OF PAVLS ¶ Printed by the Printers to the Vniversitie of CAMBRIDGE MDCXXXIIII Genesis 1.26 And God said Let us make man in our image after our likenesse BY fair occasion from these words we proposed to you the whole compasse of mans voyage from his launching forth in this world to his anchoring in the next from his hoysing sail here to his striking sail there in which compasse we designed to you his foure quarters first his East where he must begin the fundamentall knowledge of the Trinitie for that we found to be the specification distinctive character of a Christian where though that be so we shewed you also why we were not called Trinitarians but Christians and we shewed you the advantage that man hath in laying hold upon God in these severall notions That the prodigall sonne hath an indulgent father that the decayed father hath an abundant sonne that the dejected spirit hath a Spirit of comfort to fly to in heaven And as we shewed you from S. Paul that it was an Atheisme to be no Christian Without God sayes he as long as without Christ so we lamented the slacknesse of Christians that they did not seriously and particularly consider the persons of the Trinitie and especially the holy Ghost in their particular actions And then we came to that consideration whether this doctrine were established or directly insinuated in this plurall word of our text Faciamus Let us make man and we found that doctrine to be here and here first of any place in the Bible and finding God to speak in the plurall we accepted for a time that interpretation which some had made thereof That God spake in the person of a Soveraigne Prince and therefore as they do in the plurall We And thereby having established reverence to Princes we claymed in Gods behalf the same reverence to him that men would demean themselves here when God is spoken to in prayer as reverently as when they speak to the King But afterwards we found God to speak here not onely as our King but as our Maker as God himself and God in councel Faciamus And we applied thereunto the difference of our respect to a person of that honourable rank when we came before him at the councel-table and when we came to him at his own table and thereby advanced the seriousnesse of this consideration God in the Trinitie And farther we sailed not with our Eastern winde Our West we considered
but took a form a pattern a modell for that work This is the North-winde that is called upon to carrie out the perfumes of the garden Cant. 4.16 to spread the goodnesse of God abroad this is that which is intended in Job Job 37.22 Fair weather cometh out of the North. Our West our declination is in this that we are but earth our North our dissipation of that darknesse is in this that we are not all earth though we be of that matter we have on another form another image another likenesse And then whose image and likenesse it is is our Meridionall height our Noon our South-point our highest elevation In imagine nostra Let us make man in our image Though our sunne set at noon Amos 8.9 as the prophet Amos speaks though we die in our youth or fall in our height yet even in that sunne-set we shall have a noon for this image of God shall never depart from our soul no not when that soul departs from our bodie And that is our South our Meridionall height and glory And when we have thus seen this East in the Faciamus that I am the workmanship and care of the whole Trinitie and this West in the Hominem that for all this my matter my substance is but earth But then a North a power of overcoming that law and miserable state In imagine that though in my matter the earth I must die yet in my form in that image which I am made by I cannot die And after all a South a knowledge that this image is not the image of angels themselves to whom we shall be like but it is by the same life by which those angels themselves were made the image of God himself when I have gone over this East and West and North South here in this world I should be sorie as Alexander was if there were no more worlds But there is another world which these considerations will discover and leade us to in which our joy and our glorie shall be to see that God essentially and face to face after whose image and likenesse we were made before But as that Pilot which hath harboured his ship so farre within land as that he must have change of windes in all the points of the compasse to bring her out cannot hope to bring her out in one day so being to transport you by occasion of these words from this world to the next and in this world through all the compasse all the foure quarters thereof I cannot hope to make all this voyage to day To day we shall consider our longitude our East and West and our North and South at another tide and another gale First then we look towards our East I. Part. Oriens the fountain of light and life There this world began The creation was in the East and there our next world began too there the gates of heaven opened to us and opened to us in the gates of death for our heaven is the death of our Saviour and there he lived and died there and there he looked into our West from the East from his terrasse from his pinacle from his exaltation as himself calls it the Crosse The light which arises to us in this East the knowledge which we receive in this first word of our text Faciamus Let us where God speaking of himself speaks in the plurall is the manifestation of the Trinitie The Trinitie which is the first letter in his Alphabet that ever thinks to reade his name in the Book of life the first note in his Gammut that ever thinks to sing his part in the Triumphant Church Let him have done as much as all the worthies and suffer as much as all natures martyrs the penurious Philosophers let him have known as much as they pretend to know Omne scibile all that can be known nay and In-intelligibilia In-investigabilia as Tertullian speaks un-understandable things unrevealed decrees of God let him have writ as much as Aristotle writ or as is written upon Aristotle which is multiplication enough yet he hath not learned to spell that hath not learned the Trinitie he hath not learned to pronounce the first word that cannot bring three persons into one God The subject of naturall Philosophers are the foure elements which God made the subject of supernaturall Philosophie Divinitie are the three elements which God is and if we may so speak which make God that is constitute God notifie God to us Father Sonne and holy Ghost The naturall man that hearkens to his own heart and the law written there may produce actions that are good good in the nature and matter and substance of the work he may relieve the poore he may defend the oppressed but yet he is but as an open field and though he be not absolutely barren he bears but grasse The godly man he that hath taken in the knowledge of a great and powerfull God and inclosed and hedged in himself with the fear of God may produce actions better then the meer nature of man because he referres his actions to the glorie of an imagined God but yet this man though he be more fruitfull then the former more then a grassie field is but a ploughed field and bears but corn and corn God knows choked with weeds But the man that hath taken hold of God by those handles by which God hath delivered and manifested himself in the notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost he is no field but a garden a garden of Gods planting paradise in which grow all things good to eat and good to see spirituall refection and spirituall recreation too and all things good to cure he hath his being and his diet and his physick there in the knowledge of the Trinitie his being in the mercie of the Father his physick in the merits of his Sonne his dier his daily bread in the daily visitations of the holy Ghost God is not pleased not satisfied with our bare knowledge that there is a God for it is impossible to please God without faith Hebr. 11.6 and there is no such exercise of faith in the knowledge of a God but that reason and nature will bring a man to it When we professe God in the Creed by way of belief Credo in Deum I beleeve in God in the same article we professe him to be a Father too I beleeve in God the Father Almightie and that notion the Father necessarily implies a second person a Sonne And then we professe him to be maker of heaven and earth and in the creation the holy Ghost the Spirit of God is expressely named so that we do but exercise reason and nature in directing our selves upon God we exercise not Faith and without faith it is impossible to please God till we come to that which is above nature till we apprehend a Trinitie we know God we beleeve in the Trinitie The Gentiles multiplied gods there were almost as
Jesus So that the Christians took many names to themselves for distinction Brethren Disciples Faithfull and they had many names put upon them in scorn Nazarites Galileans Jews Christians yet they were never by custome amongst themselves never by commandment from the Church never in contempt from others called Trinitarians the profession of the Trinitie being their specifick form and distinctive character Why so Beloved the name of Christ involved all not onely because it is a name that hath a dignitie in it more then the rest for Christ is an anointed person a King a Messiah and so the profession of that name conferres an unction a regall and a holy unction upon us for we are thereby a royall priesthood but because in the profession of Christ the whole Trinitie is professed How often doth the Sonne say that the Father sent him And how often that the Father will and that he will send the holy Ghost John 17.3 This is life eternall sayes he to know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent and sent with all power in heaven and in earth This must be professed Father and Sonne and then no man can professe this no man can call Jesus the Lord but by the holy Ghost So that as in the persecutions in the Primitive Church the Martyrs which were hurried to tumultuary executions and could not be heard for noise in excusing themselves of treason and sedition crimes imputed to them to make their cause odious did use in the sight of the people who might see a gesture though they could not heare a protestation to signe themselves with the signe of the Crosse to let them know for what profession they died so that the signe of the Crosse in that use thereof in that time was an Abridgement and a Catechisme of the whole Christian religion So is the professing of the name of Christ the professing of the whole Trinitie As he that confesseth one God is got beyond the meer naturall man And he that confesseth a Sonne of God beyond him so is neither got to the full truth till he confesse the holy Ghost too The fool sayes in his heart There is no God The fool sayes David the emphaticall fool in the highest degree of folly But though he get beyond that folly he is a fool still if he say There is no Christ for Christ is the wisdome of the Father And a fool still if he denie the holy Ghost Etiam Christiani nomen superficies est is excellently said by Tertullian The name and profession of a Christian is but a superficiall outside sprinkled upon my face in Baptisme or upon my outward profession in actions if I have not in my heart a sense of the holy Ghost that applies the mercies of the Father and the merits of the Sonne to my soul As S. Paul said Whilest you are without Christ you are without God It is an Atheisme with S. Paul to be no Christian So whilest you are without the holy Ghost you are without Christ It is Antichristian to denie or not to confesse the holy Ghost For as Christ is the manifestation of the Father so the holy Ghost is the application of the Sonne Therein are we Christians that in the profession of that name of Christ we professe all the three Persons In Christ is the whole Trinitie because as the Father sent him so sent he the holy Ghost And that is our specifick form that is our distinctive character from Jew Gentile the Trinitie But then is this specifick form this distinctive character the notion of the Trinitie conveyed to us exhibited imprinted upon us in our creation in this word this plurall word in the mouth of our own God Faciamus Let Vs Vs It is here and here first This is an intimation and the first intimation of the Trinitie from the mouth of God in all the Bible It is true that though the same faith which is necessary to salvation now were alwayes necessary and so in the old Testament they were bound to beleeve in Christ as well as in the new and consequently in the whole Trinitie yet not so explicitely nor so particularly as now now Christ calling upon God in the name of the Father sayes I have manifested thy Name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world John 17.6 They were men appropriated to God men exempt out of the world yet they had not a cleare manifestation of Father and Sonne the doctrine of the Trinitie till Christ manifested it to them I have manifested thy Name thy name of Father and Sonne And therefore the Jewish Rabbins say that the Septuagint the first Translatours of the Bible did disguise some places of the Scriptures in their translation lest Ptolomey for whom they translated it should be scandalized with those places And that this text was one of those places which say they though it be otherwise in the copies of the Scriptures which we have now they translated Faciam and not Faciamus that God said here I will make in the singular and not Let us make man in the plurall lest that plurall word might have misled King Ptolomey to think that the Jews had a plurall religion and worshipped divers gods So good an evidence do they confesse this text to be for some kinde of pluralitie in the Godhead Here then God notified the Trinitie and here first For though we accept an intimation of the Trinitie in the first line of the Bible where Moses joyned a plurall name Elohim with a singular verb Bara and so in construction it is Creavit Dii Gods created heaven and earth yet besides that that is rather a mysterious collection then an evident conclusion of a pluralitie of persons though we reade that in that first verse before this in the 26 yet Moses writ that which is in the beginning of this chapter more then 2000. yeares after God spake this that is in our text so long was Gods plurall before Moses his plurall Gods Faciamus before Moses Bara Elohim So that in this text begins our Catechisme here we have and here first the saving knowledge of the Trinitie For when God spake here to whom could God speak but to God Non cum rebus creandis non cum re nihili sayes Athanasius speaking of Gods first speaking when he said of the first creature Let there be light God spake not then to future things that were not When God spake first there was no creature at all to speak to when God spake of the making of man there were no creatures But were there any creatures able to create or able to assist him in the creation of man who Angels some had thought so in S. Basils time and to them S. Basil sayes Súntne illi God sayes Let us make man to our image and could he say so to Angels Are Angels and God all one or is that that is like an Angel therefore like God
the Fathers were expresses it Ille suae splendorem cernere formae Gaudebat It was the Fathers delight to look upon himself in the Sonne Numénque suum triplicique parique Luce nitens And to see the whole Godhead in a threefold and equall glorie It was Gods own delight and it must be the delight of every Christian upon particular occasions to carry his thoughts upon the severall persons of the Trinitie If I have a barre of iron that barre in that form will not nail a doore If a sow of lead that lead in that form will not stop a leak If a wedge of gold that wedge will not buy my bread The generall notion of a mighty God may lesse fit my particular purposes But I coyn my gold into currant money when I apprehend God in the severall notions of the Trinitie That if I have been a prodigall son I have a Father in heaven and can go to him and say Father I have sinned and be received by him That if I be a decayed father and need the sustentation of my own children there is a Sonne in heaven that will do more for me then my own children of what good means or good nature soever they be can or will do If I be dejected in spirit there is a holy Spirit in heaven which shall bear witnesse to my spirit that I am a childe of God And if the ghosts of those sinners whom I made sinners haunt me after their deaths in returning to my memorie reproaching my conscience with the heavy judgements that I have brought upon them If after the death of my own sinne when my appetite is dead to some particular sinne the memorie and sinfull delight of those passed sinnes the ghosts of those sinnes haunt me again yet there is a holy Ghost in heaven that shall exorcise these and shall overshadow me The God of the whole world is God alone in the generall notion as he is so God but he is my God most especially most appliably as he is received by me in the severall notions of Father Sonne and holy Ghost This is our East II. Part. Occidens here we see God God in all the persons consulting concurring to the making of us But then my West presents it self that is an occasion to humble me in the next word he makes but man a man that is but Adam but Earth I remember 4. names by which man is often called in the scriptures of these foure three do absolutely carry miserie in their significations three to one against any man that he is miserable One name of man is Ish and that they derive à sonitu Man is but a voice but a sound but a noise he begins the noise himself when he comes crying into the world when he goes out perchance friends celebrate perchance enemies calumniate him with a diverse voice a diverse noise A melancholick man is but a groning a sportfull man but a song an active man but a trumpet a mighty man but a thunder-clap every man but Ish but a sound but a noyse An other name is Enosh Enosh is meer calamitie miserie depression It is indeed most properly oblivion And so the word is most elegantly used by David Quid est homo where the name of man is Enosh And so that which we translate What is man that thou art mindfull of him is indeed What is forgetfulnesse that thou shouldest remember it that thou shouldest think of that man whom all the world hath forgotten first man is but a voice but a sound but because fame honour may come within that name of a sound of a voice therefore he is overtaken with another damp man is but oblivion his fame his name shall be forgotten One name man hath that hath some taste of greatnesse and power in it Gheber and yet I that am that man sayes the Prophet for there that name of man Gheber is used I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of Gods wrath Man Ish is so miserable Lam. 3.1 as that he afflicts himself cries and whines out his own time and man Enosh so miserable as that others afflict him and bury him in ignominious oblivion and man that is Gheber the greatest powerfullest of men is yet but that man that may possibly that may justly see affliction by the rod of Gods wrath And from Gheber he made Adam which is the fourth name of man indeed the first name of man the name in this text and the name to which every man must be called and referre himself and call himself by earth and red earth Now God did not say of man as of other creatures Let us or let the earth bring forth herbs and fruits and trees as upon the third day Now let the earth bring forth cattell and worms as upō the sixth day the same day that he made man Non imperiali verbo sed familiari manu sayes Tertullian God calls not man out with an imperious command but he leads him out with a familiar with his own hand And it is not Fiat homo but Faciamus not Let there be but Let us make man Man is but an earthen vessell It is true but when we are upon that consideration God is the potter if God will be that I am well content to be this let me be any thing so that that I am be from my God I am as well content to be a sheep as a lion so God will be my shepherd and the Lord is my shepherd to be a cottage as a castle the house as a citie so God will be the builder and the Lord builds and watches the citie the house this house this citie me to be rye as wheat so God will be the husbandman and the Lord plants me and waters and weeds and gives the increase and to be clothed in leather as well as in silk so God will be the merchant and he clothed me in Adam and assures me of clothing in clothing the lilies of the field and is fitting the robe of Christs righteousnesse to me now this minute Adam is as good to me as Gheber a clod of earth as a hill of earth so God be the potter God made man of earth not of aire not of fire Man hath many offices that appertain to this world and whilest he is here must not withdraw himself from those offices of mutuall societie upon pretence of zeal or better serving God in a retired life A ship will no more come to the harbour without ballast then without sails A man will no more get to heaven without discharging his duties to other men then without doing them to God himself Man liveth not by bread onely sayes Christ Luke 4.4 but yet he liveth by bread too every man must do the duties every man must bear the encumbrances of some calling Pulvis es Thou art earth he whom thou treadest upon is no lesse and he that treads upon thee
And yet even these men these Audians Epiphanius who first took knowledge of them calls but schismaticks not hereticks so loth is charitie to say the worst of any Yet we must remember them of the Romane perswasion that they come too neare giving God a bodie in their pictures of God the Father and they bring the bodie of God that bodie which God the Sonne hath assumed the bodie of Christ too neare in their Transsubstantiation not too neare our faith for so it cannot be brought too neare to our sense so it is as really there as we are there not too neare in the ubi for so it is there there that is in that place to which the Sacrament extends it self for the Sacrament extends as well to heaven from whence it fetches grace as to the table from whence it delivers bread and wine but too neare in modo for it comes not thither that way We must necessarily complain that they make religion too bodily a thing Our Saviour Christ corrected Marie Magdalenes zeal where she flew to him in a personall devotion and said John 20.17 Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father Fix your meditations upon Christ Jesus so as he is now at the right hand of his Father in heaven and entangle not your selves so with controversies about his bodie as to lose reall charitie for imaginarie zeal nor enlarge your selves so farre in the pictures and images of his bodie as to worship them more then him As Damascen sayes of God that he is Superprincipale principium A beginning before any beginning we can conceive and praeterea aeternitas an eternitie infinitely elder then any eternity we can imagine so he is superspiritualis Spiritus such a Superspirit as that the soul of man and the substance of angels is but a bodie compared to this Spirit God hath no bodie though Tertullian disputed it though the Audians preached it though the Papists paint it and therefore this image of God is not in the body of man that way Nor that way neither which some others have assigned That God who hath no bodie as God yet in the creation did assume that form which man hath now and so made man in his image that is in that form which he had then assumed Some of the ancients thought so and some other men of great estimation in the Romane Church have thought so too In particular Oleaster a great officer in the Inquisition of Spain But great inquirers into other men are easie neglecters of themselves The image of God is not in mans bodie this way Nor that third way which others have imagined that is that when God said Let us make man after our likenesse God had respect to that form which in the fulnesse of time his Sonne was to take upon him upon earth Let us make him now sayes God at first like that which I intend hereafter my Sonne shall be for though this were spoken before the fall of man and so before any occasion of decreeing the sending of Christ yet in the School a great part of great men adhere to that opinion That God from all eternitie had a purpose that his Sonne should become man in this world though Adam had not fallen Non ut medicus sed ut Dominus ad nobilitandum genus humanum say they Though Christ had not come as a Redeemer if man had not needed him by sinne but had kept his first state yet as a Prince that desired to heap honour upon him whom he loves to do man an honour by his assuming that nature Christ say they should have come and to that image that form which he was to take then was man made in this text say these imaginers But alas how much better were wit and learning bestowed to prove to the Gentiles that a Christ must come that they beleeve not to prove to the Jews that the Christ is come that they beleeve not to prove to our own consciences that the same Christ may come again this minute to judgement we live as though we beleeved not that then to have filled the world and torn the Church with frivolous disputations Whether Christ should have come if Adam had not fallen Wo unto fomentours of frivolous disputations None of these wayes not because God hath a bodie not because God assumed a bodie not because it was intended that Christ should be born before it was intended that man should be made is this image of God in the bodie of man nor hath it in any other relation respect to the bodie but as we say in the School arguitivè and significativé that because God hath given man a bodie of a noblerform then any other creature we inferre and argue and conclude from thence that God is otherwise represented in man then in any other creature and so farre is this image of God in the bodie above that in the creatures that as you see some pictures to which the very tables are jewels some watches to which the very cases are jewels and therefore they have outward cases too and so the picture and the watch are in that outward case of what meaner stuff soever that be so is this image in this bodie as in an outward case so as that you may not injure nor enfeeble this bodie neither by sinfull intemperance and licentiousnesse nor by inordinate fastings or other disciplines of imaginarie merits while the bodie is alive for the image of God is in it nor defraud the body of decent buriall and due solemnities after death for the image of God is to return to it But yet the bodie is but the outward case and God looks not for the gilding or enamelling or painting of that but requires the labour and cost therein to be bestowed upon the table it self in which this image is immediately that is the soul and that is truely the ubi the place where this image is And there remains onely now the operation thereof how this image of God in the soul of man works The sphere then of this Intelligence the gallerie for this picture the arch for this statue the table and frame and shrine for this image of God is inwardly and immediately the soul of man not immediately so as that the soul of man is a part of the essence of God for so essentially Christ onely is the image of God S. Augustine at first thought so Putabam te Deus corpus lucidum me frustum de illo corpore I took thee O God sayes that Father to be a globe of fire and my soul to be a spark of that fire thee to be a bodie of light and my soul to be a beam of that light But S. Augustine doth not onely retract that in himself but dispute against it in the Manichees But this image is in our soul as the soul is the wax and this image the seal The comparison is S. Cyrils and he addes well that no seal but