had need be so for he found our measure full of sin towards God and Gods measure full of anger towards us for our parts as when a River swels at first it will finde out all the channels or lower parts of the bank and enter there but after a while it covers and overflowes the whole field and all is water without distinction so though we be naturally channels of concupiscencies for there sin begins and as water runs naturally in the veines and bowels of the earth Gen. 6.5 so run concupiscencies naturally in our bowels yet when every imagination of the thoughts of our heart is onely evill continually Then as it did there it induces a flood a deluge our concupiscence swells above all channels and actually overflowes all It hath found an issue at the eare we delight in the defamation of others and an issue at the eye Psal 50.18 Psal 12.4 If we see a thiefe we run with him we concurre in the plots of supplanting and destroying other men It hath found an issue in the tongue Our lips are our owne who is Lord over us We speak freely seditious speeches against superiours obscene and scurrile speeches against one another prophane and blasphemous speeches against God himselfe are growne to be good jests and marks of wit and arguments of spirit It findes an issue at our hands they give way to oppression by giving bribes and an issue at our feet They are swift to shed bloud and so by custome sin overflowes all Omnia pontus all our wayes are sea all our works are sin This is our fulnesse originall sin filled us actuall sin presses down the measure and habituall sins heap it up And then Gods measure of anger was full too from the beginning he was a jealous God and that should have made us carefull of our behaviour that a jealous eye watched over us But because wee see in the world that jealous persons are oftnest deceived because that distemper disorders them so as that they see nothing clearely and it puts the greater desire in the other to deceive because it is some kinde of Victory and Triumph to deceive a jealous and watchfull person therefore we have hoped to goe beyond God too and his jealousie But he is jealous of his honour jealous of his jealousie he will not have his jealousie despised nor forgotten for therefore he visits upon the children to the third and fourth generation when therefore the spirit of jealousie was come upon him Numb 5.14 and that he had prepared that water of bitternesse which was to rot our bowels that is when God had bent all his bowes drawne forth and whetted all his swords when he was justly provoked to execute all the Judgements denounced in all the Prophets upon all mankinde when mans measure was full of sin and Gods measure full of wrath then was the fulnesse of time and yet then Complacuit It pleased the Father that there should be another fulnesse to overflow all these in Christ Jesus But what fulnesse is that Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse And this was onely in Christ Omnis plenitudo 2 Reg. 2.9 Acts 6.5 Acts 9.36 Elias had a great portion of the spirit but but a portion Elizaeus sees that that portion will not serve him and therefore he asks a double portion of that spirit but still but portions Stephen is full of faith a blessed fulnesse where there is no corner for Infidelity nor for doubt for scruple nor irresolution Dorcas is full of good works a fulnesse above faith for there must be faith before there can be good works so that they are above faith as the tree is above the roote and as the fruit is above the tree The Virgin Mary is full of Grace and Grace is a fulnesse above both above faith and works too for that is the meanes to preserve both That we fall not from our faith Eccles 10.1 and that dead flyes corrupt not our ointment that worldly mixtures doe not vitiate our best works and the memory of past sins dead sins doe not beget new sins in us is the operation of Grace The seaven Deacons were full of the Holy Ghost and of Wisedome Acts 6.3 full of Religion towards God and full of such wisedome as might advance it towards men full of zeale and full of knowledge full of truth and full of discretion too And these were plenitudines fulnesses but they were not all Omnis plenitudo all fulnesse I shall bee as full as St. Paul in heaven I shall have as full a vessell but not so full a Cellar I shall be as full but I shall not have so much to fill Christ onely hath an infinite content and capacity an infinite roome and receipt and then an infinite fulnesse omnem capacitatem and omnem plenitudinem He would receive as much as could be infused and there was as much infused as he could receive But what shall we say Deus adimplendus was Christ God before and are these accessory supplementary additionall fulnesses to be put to him A fulnesse to be added to God To make him a competent person to redeeme man something was to be added to Christ though he were God wherein we see to our inexpressible confusion of face and consternation of spirit the incomprehensiblenesse of mans sin that even to God himselfe there was required something else then God before we could be redeemed there was a fulnesse to be added to God for this work to make it omnem plenitudinem for Christ was God before there was that fulnesse but God was not Christ before there lacked that fulnesse Not disputing therefore what other wayes God might have taken for our redemption but giving him all possible thanks for that way which his goodnesse hath chosen by the way of satisfying his justice for howsoever I would be glad to be discharged of my debts any way yet certainly I should think my selfe more beholden to that man who would be content to pay my debt for me then to him that should entreat my creditor to forgive me my debt for this work to make Christ able to pay this debt there was something to be added to him First he must pay it in such money as was lent in the nature and flesh of man for man had sinned and man must pay And then it was lent in such money as was coyned even with the Image of God man was made according to his Image That Image being defaced in a new Mint in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin there was new money coyned The Image of the invisible God the second person in the Trinity was imprinted into the humane nature And then that there might bee omnis plenitudo all fulnesse as God for the paiment of this debt sent downe the Bullion and the stamp that is God to be conceived in man and as he provided the Mint the womb of the Blessed Virgin so hath he provided an Exchequer where this
vehementi Spiritu semper habet diem Pentecostes He that-loves the exercise of prayer so earnestly as that in prayer he feeles this vehemence of the Holy Ghost that man dwels in an everlasting Whitsunday for so he does he hath it alwayes that ever had it aright Oditeos Deus qui unam putant diem festum Domini God hates that man saies Origen also that celebrates any Holy-day of his but one day that never thinks of the Incarnation of Christ but upon Christmas-day nor upon his Passion and Resurrection but upon Easter and Good-friday If you deale so with your soules as with your bodies and as you cloath your selves with your best habits to day but returne againe to your ordinary apparell to morrow so for this day or this houre you devest the thought of your sins but returne after to your vomit you have not celebrated this day of Pentecost you have not beene truly in this place for your hearts have beene visiting your profits or pleasures you have not beene here with one accord you have not truly and sincerely joyned with the Communion of Saints Christ hath sent no Comforter to you this day neither will he send any till you be better prepared for him But if you have brought your sins hither in your memory and leave them here in the blood of your Saviour alwaies flowing in his Church and ready to receive them if you be come to that heavenly knowledge that there is no comfort but in him and in him abundant consolation then you are this day capable of this great Legacy this knowledge which is all the Christian Religion That Christ is in the Father and you in him and he in you We are now come to our third part Our portion in this Legacy 3 Part. the measure of the knowledge of these mysteries which we are to receive of which S. Chrysostome sayes well Scientiae magnum argumentum est nolle omnia scire It is a good argument that that man knowes much who desires not to know all In pursuing true knowledge he is gone a good way that knowes where to give over When that great Manichean Felix would needs prove to S. Augustine that Manes was the holy Ghost because it was said that the holy Ghost should teach all truths and that Manes did so because he taught many things that they were ignorant of before concerning the frame and motion and nature of the heavens and their stars S. Augustine answered Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Mathematicos The Holy Ghost makes us Christians not Mathematicians If any man thinke by having his station at Court that it is enough for him to have studied that one booke and that if in that booke The knowledge of the Court he be come to an apprehension by what meanes and persons businesses are likeliest to be carried If he by his foresight have provided perspective glasses to see objects a far off and can make Almanacks for next yeare and tell how matters will fall out then and thinke that so he hath received his portion as much knowledge as he needs Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Politicos He must remember that the Holy Ghost makes Christians and not Politians So if a man have a good foundation of a fortune from his Parents and thinke that all his study must be to proceed in that and still to adde a Cyphar more to his accounts to make tens hundreds and hundreds thousands Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Arithmeticos The Holy Ghost makes Christians and not such Arithmeticians If men who desire a change in Religion and yet thinke it a great wisdome to disguise that desire and to temporise lest they should be made lesse able to effect their purposes if they should manifest themselves but yet hope to see that transmutation of Religion from that copper which they esteeme ours to be to that gold which perchance for the venality thereof they esteeme theirs If others who are also working in the fire though not in the fire of envy and of powder yet in the fire of an indiscreet zeale and though they pretend not to change the substance of the metall the body of our Religion yet they labour to blow away much of the ceremony and circumstances which are Vehicula and Adminicula if not Habitacula Religionis They are though not the very fuell yet the bellowes of Religion If these men I say of either kinde They who call all differing from themselves Error and all error damnable or they who as Tertullian expresses their humour and indisposition prophetically Qui vocant prostrationem Disciplinae simplicitatem which call the abolishing and extermination of all Discipline and Ceremony purenesse and holinesse If they thinke they have received their portion of this legacie their measure of true knowledge in labouring onely to accuse and reforme and refine others Spiritus sanctus facit Christianos non Chymistas The holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Alchymists To contract this If a man know wayes enow to disguise all his sins If no Exchequer take hold of his usurious contracts no High Commission of his licentiousnesse no Star-chamber of his misdemeanors If he will not to sleepe till he can hold up his eyes no longer for feare his sins should meet him in his bed and vexe his conscience there If he will not come to the Sacrament but at that time of the yeare when Laws compel him or good company invite him or other civill respects and reasons provoke him If he have avoydances to hide his sins from others and from himself too by such disguisings This is all but Deceptio visus a blinding of his owne internall eyes and Spirtus sanctus facit Christianos non Circulatores The Holy Ghost makes men Christians and not Jugglers This knowledge then which we speake of is to know the end and the way Heaven and Christ The Kingdome to which he is gone and the meanes which he hath taught us to follow Now in all our wayes in all our journies a moderate pace brings a man most surely to his journies end and so doth a sober knowledge in matters of Divinity and in the mysteries of Religion And therefore the Fathers say that this comming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles this day though it were a vehement comming did not give them all kinde of knowledge a knowledge of particular Arts and Sciences But he gave them knowledge enough for their present worke and withall a faithfull confidence that if at any time they should have to doe with learned Heathens with Philosophers the Holy Ghost would either instantly furnish them with such knowledge as they had not before as wee see in many relations in the Ecclesiasticall Story That men spoke upon the sudden in divers cases otherwise then in any reason their education could promise or afford or else he would blunt the sharpnesse of the Adversaries weapons and cast a damp upon their understandings as wee
called Christians that said Qui pius est summè Philosophatur The charitable man is the great Philosopher Trismeg and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee and hope that he hath done so upon another It is a moderation to be imbraced that Peter Martyr leads us to The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits we have not And therefore though by way of definition we may say This is that sin yet by way of demonstration let us say of no man This is that sinner I may say of no man This sin in thee is irremissible Now in considering this word Irremissible That it cannot be forgiven wee finde it to be a word rather usurped by the Schoole then expressed in the Scriptures Irremissibilitas for in all those three Euangelists where this fearfull denunciation is interminated still it is in a phrase of somewhat more mildnesse then so It is It shall not be forgiven It is not it cannot be forgiven It is an irremission it is not an irremissiblenesse Absolutely there is not an impossibility and irremissiblenesse on Gods part but yet some kinde of impossibility there is on his part and on ours too For if he could forgive this sin he would or else his power were above his mercy and his mercy is above all his works But God can doe nothing that implies contradiction and God having declared by what meanes onely his mercy and forgivenesse shall be conveyed to man God should contradict himselfe if he should give forgivenesse to them who will fully exclude those meanes of mercy And therefore it were not boldly nor irreverently said That God could not give grace to a beast nor mercy to the Devill because either they are naturally destitute or have wilfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace and mercy When we consider that God the Father whom as the roote of all we consider principally in the Creation created man in a possibility and ability to persist in that goodnesse in which he created him And consider that God the Son came and wrought a reconciliation for man to God and so brought in a treasure in the nature thereof a sufficient ransome for all the world but then a man knowes not this or beleeves not this otherwise then Historically Morally Civilly and so evacuates and shakes off God the Son And then consider that the holy Ghost comes and presents meanes of applying all this and making the generall satisfaction of Christ reach and spread it selfe upon my soule in particular in the preaching of the Word in the seales of the Sacraments in the absolution of the Church and I preclude the wayes and shut up my selfe against the holy Ghost and so evacuate him and shake him off when I have resisted Father Son and holy Ghost is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me If I blaspheme that is deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost my sin is irremissible therefore because there is no body left to forgive it nor way left wherein forgivenesse should work upon me So farre it is irremissible on Gods part and on mine too And then take it there in that state of irremissiblenesse and consider seriously the fearefulnesse of it Mat. 5.22 I have been angry and then as Christ tells me I have been in danger of a judgement but in judgement I may have counsell I may be heard I have said Racha expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Councell but a Councell does but consult what punishment is fit to be inflicted and so long there is hope of mitigation and commutation of penance But I have said fatue I have called my brother foole and so am in danger of hell fire August Chrysost In the first there is Ira an inward commotion an irregular distemper In the second there is Ira vox In the first it is but Ira carnis non animi It is but my passion it is not I that am angry but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it selfe but in the third there is Ira vox vituperatio A distemper within a declaration to evill example without and an injury and defamation to a third person and this exalts the offence to the height But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost in all the other cases there is danger danger of judgement danger of a Councell danger of hell but here is irremissiblenesse hell it selfe and no avoiding of hell no cooling in hell no deliverance from hell Irremissible Those hands that reached to the ends of the world in creating it span the world in preserving it and stretched over all in redeeming it those hands have I manacled that they cannot open unto me That tendernesse that is affected to all have I damped retarded that pronenesse stupified that alacrity confounded that voyce diverted those eyes that are naturally disposed to all And all this Irremissibly for ever not though he would but because he will not shew mercy not though I would but because I cannot ask mercy And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin from which there is no returning no redemption We are come now In quibus Script in our order to our third and last Branch of this last Part That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost is not a dreame of the Schoole-men though they have spoken many things frivolously of it but grounded in evident places of Scriptures Amongst which we looke especially how farre this Text conduces to that Doctrine There are two places ordinarily cited which seeme directly to concerne this sin and two others which to me seeme not to doe so Those of the first kinde are both in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Heb. 6.4 There the Apostle sayes For those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost If they fall away it is impossible to renew them by repentance Now if finall impenitence had been added there could have been no question but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost And because the Apostle speaks of such a totall falling away as precludes all way of repentance it includes finall impenitence and so makes up that sin The other place from which it rises most pregnantly Heb. 10.29 is Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace Ver. 26. As he had said before If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation But yet though from these places there arises evidence that such a sin there is as naturally shuts out
all our other faculties were August so omnium voluntates in Adam all our wils were in Adam and we sinned wilfully when he did so and so Originall sin is a voluntary sin Our will is poysoned in the fountaine and as soone as our will is able to exercise any election we are willing to sin as soone as we can and sorry we can sin no sooner and sorry no longer we are willing before the Devill is willing and willing after the Devill is weary and seek occasions of tentation when he presents none And so as the breach of the Law of Nature and as the deluge of Originall sin hath surrounded the whole world the whole world is under sinne That all the world is so requires not much proofe But then does the Holy Ghost An arguat Spiritus sanctus by his comming reprove that is convince the whole world that it is so The Holy Ghost is able to doe it and he hath good cause to doe it But does he doe it Is this Cum venerit when he comes come Is he come to this purpose to make all the world know their sinfull condition God knowes they know it not Howsoever they may have some knowledge of the breach of the Law of Nature yet they have no knowledge of any remedy after and so lack all comfort and therefore this is no knowledge from the Holy Ghost from the Comforter And for the knowledge of Originall sin which lies more heavy upon them then upon us who have the ease of Baptisme which slackens and weakens Originall sin in us they are so farre from knowing that that sin is derived from Adam as that they doe not know that they themselves are derived from Adam not that there is such a sin not that there was such an Adam How then doth the Holy Ghost who is come according to Christs promise according to his promise Reprove that is Convince the world of sinne since this being to bee done by the Holy Ghost implies a knowledge of Christ and a way of comfort in the doing thereof This one word Arguet He shall reprove convince admits three acceptations First Antequam abierit in the future as it is here presented He shall and so the Cum venerit When he comes signifies Antequam abierit Before he departs He came at Pentecost and presently set on foot his Commission by the Apostles to reprove convince the world of sin and hath proceeded ever since by their successors in reducing Nation after Nation and before the consummation of the world before he retire to rest eternally in the bosome of the Father and the Son from whom he proceeded he shall reprove the whole world of sin that is bring them to a knowledge That in the breach of the law of nature and in the guiltinesse of originall sin they are all under a burthen which none of them all of themselves can discharge This work S. Paul seemes to hasten sooner Rom. 10.18 To convince the Jews of their infidelity he argues thus Have not they heard the Gospell They that is the Gentiles and if They much more You And that They had heard it he proves by the application of those words In omnem terram Psal 19.3 Their voice is gone through all the earth and their words to the end of the world That is the voice of the Apostles in the preaching of the Gospell Hence grew that distraction and perplexity which we finde in the Fathers Whether it could be truly said that the Gospell had been preached over all the world in those times If we number the Fathers most are of that opinion That before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem this was fulfilled Of those that think the contrary some proceed upon reasons ill grounded particularly Origen Quid de Britannis Germanis Origen qui nec adhuc audierunt verbum Euangelii What shall we say of Britanny and Germany who have not heard of the Gospell yet For before Origens time though Origen were 1400. yeares since in what darknesse soever he mistook us to be we had a blessed and a glorious discovery of the Gospell of Christ Jesus in this Iland S. Hierome Hierom. who denies this universall preaching of the Gospell before the destruction of the Temple yet doubts not but that the fulfilling of that prophecy was then in action and in a great forwardnesse I am completum aut brevi ternimus complendum Already we see it performed sayes he Or at least so earnestly pursued as that it must necessarily very soon be performed Nec puto aliquam remanere gentem quae Christi nomen ignor at I do not think sayes that Father more then 1200. yeares since that there is any nation that hath not heard of Christ Et quanquam non habuerit praedicatorem ex viciais c. If they have not had expresse Preachers themselves yet from their neighbours they have had some Echoes of this voice some reflexions of this light The later Divines and the School that finde not this early and generall preaching over the world to lye in proofe proceed to a more safe way That there was then Odor Euangelii A sweet savour of the Gospell issued though it were not yet arrived to all parts As if a plentifull and diffusive perfume were set up in a house we would say The house were perfumed though that perfume were not yet come to every corner of the house But not to thrust the world into so narrow a straite as it is when a Decree is said to have gone out from Augustus Luk. 2.1 Acts 2.5 to taxe all the world for this was but the Romane world Nor That there were men dwelling at Ierusalem devout men of every nation under heaven for this was but of nations discovered and traded withall then nor when S. Paul sayes Rom. 11.18 Mat. 24.14 That the faith of the Romanes was published to the world for that was as far as he had gone those words of our Saviour This Gospell of the kingdome shall be preached in all the world for a witnesse to all nations and then shall the end come have evermore by all Ancient and Modern Fathers and School Preachers and Writers Expositors and Controverters been literally understood that before the end of the world the Gospell shall be actually really evidently efectually preached to all nations and so Cum venerit When the holy Ghost comes that is Antequam abierit Before he go he shall reprove convince the whole world of sin and this as he is a Comforter by accompanying their knowledge of sin with the knowledge of the Gospell for the remission of sins It agrees with the nature of goodnesse to be so diffusive communicable to all It agrees with the nature of God Gen. 7.11 who is goodnesse That as all the fountaines of the great Deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and so came the flood over all
mine because I gave the example and we aggravate one anothers sin and both sin both But there is a publication of sin that both alleviates nay annihilates my sin and makes him that hates sin Almighty God love me the better for knowing me to be such a sinner then if I had not told him of it Therefore doe we speak of the mystery of Confession for it is not delivered in one Rule nor practised in one Act. In this Confession of Davids Divisie I acknowledged my sin unto thee c. We shall see more then so for though our two Parts be but the two Acts Davids Act and Gods Act Confession and Absolution yet is there more then one single action to be considered in each of them For first in the first there is a reflected Act that David doth upon himselfe before he come to his Confession to God Something David had done before he came to say I will confesse As he did confesse before God forgave the iniquity of his sin Now that which he did in himselfe and which preceded his Confession to God was the Notum feci I acknowledged my sin which was not his bringing it to the knowledge of God by way of Confession for as you see by the Method of the Holy Ghost in the frame of the Text it preceded his purpose of confessing but it was the taking knowledge of his sin in himselfe It was his first quickning and inanimation that grace gave his soul as the soule gives the child in the Mothers womb And then in Davids act upon himselfe followes the Non operui I have not hid mine iniquity none of mine iniquities from mine owne sight I have displayed to my selfe anatomized mine own conscience left no corner unsearched I am come to a perfect understanding of mine own case Non operui This is Davids act upon himselfe the recalling and recollecting of his sins in his own memory And then finding the number the waight and so the oppression of those sins there he considers where he may discharge himselfe of them And Dixi sayes David which is a word that implies both Deliberation and Resolution and Execution too I thought what was best to doe and I resolved upon this and I did it Dixi Confitebor That I would make a true a full a hearty Confession to God of all those sins for such we see the Elements and the Extent of his Confession to be He will confesse Peccata Transgressions Sins Neither by an over-tendernesse and diffidence and scrupulosity to call things sins that are not so nor by indulgent flattering and sparing of himself to forbear those things which are truly so He will confesse Peccata Sins and Peccata sua His sins First Sua that is A se perpetrata He will acknowledge them to have proceeded and to have been committed by himself he will not impute them to any other cause least of all to God And then Sua non aliena he will confesse sins that are his own sins and not meddle with the sins of other men that appertain not to him This is the subject of his Confession Sins His sins and then Peccata sua Domino His sins unto the Lord both in that consideration That all sins are committed against the Lord and in that also That Confession of all sins is to be made unto the Lord And lastly all this as S. Hierome reads this text and so also did our former Translation Adversum se Against himself that is without any hope of reliefe or reparation in himself He begins to think of his own sinfull state and he proceeds to a particular inquisition upon his conscience There is his preparation Then he considers and thereupon resolves and thereupon proceeds to confesse things that are truly sins And then all them as his own without imputing them to others If they be his own without medling with others And these to the Lord against whom all sin is committed and to whom all Confession is to be directed And all this still against himself without any hope from himself All this is in Davids action preparatorily in himself and then declaratorily towards God and doe but make up our first Part. In the other which is Gods Act towards David the Absolution the Remission the Forgivenesse we shall consider first the fulnesse for it is both of the sin and the punishment of the sin for the word imports both and our two Translations have expressed it between them for that which one Translation calls the Iniquity of the sin the other calls The punishment And then we shall consider the seasonablenesse the speed the acceleration of Gods mercy in the Absolution for in David it is but Actus inchoatus and Actus consummat as in God David did but say I will confesse and God forgave the iniquity and the punishment of his sin Now as this Distribution is Paraphrase enough upon the text so a little larger Paraphrase upon every piece of the Paraphrase will be as much as will fall into this exercise For as you see he branches are many and full of fruit and I can but shake them and leave every one to gather his own portion to apply those notes which may most advance his edification First then in this mystery of Confession 1 Part. Notum seci we consider Davids reflected act his preparatory act preceding his confession to God and transacted in himselfe of which the first motion is the Notum feci I acknowledged in my selfe I came to a feeling in my selfe what my sinfull condition was This is our quickning in our regeneration and second birth and til this come a sinner lies as the Chaos in the beginning of the Creation before the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the waters Dark and voyd and without forme He lies as we may conceive out of the Authors of Naturall Story the slime and mud of the River Nilus to lie before the Sun-beames strike upon it which after by the heat of those beames produces severall shapes and formes of creatures So till this first beame of grace which we consider here strike upon the soule of a sinner he lies in the mud and slime in the dregs and lees and tartar of his sinne Hee cannot so much as wish that that Sunne would shine upon him he doth not so much as know that there is such a Sunne that hath that influence and impression But if this first beame of Grace enlighten him to himselfe reflect him upon himselfe notum facit as the Text sayes if it acquaint him with himselfe then as the creatures in the Creation then as the new creatures at Nilus his sins begin to take their formes and their specifications and they appeare to him in their particular true shapes and that which hee hath in a generall name called Pleasure or Wantonnesse now cals it selfe in his conscience a direct Adultery a direct Incest and that which he hath called Frugality and
was a good King for all that Achaz is called ill both because himselfe sacrificed Idolatrously And the King was a commanding person And because he made the Priest Vriah to doe so And the Priest was an exemplar person And because he made his Son commit the abominations of the heathen And the actions of the Kings Son pierce far in leading others Achaz had these faults and yet God fought occasion of mercy If the evening skie be red Mat. 16.2 you promise your selves a faire day sayes Christ you would not doe so if the evening were black and cloudy when you see the fields white with corne you say harvest is ready Joh. 4.35 Esay 1.19 you would not doe so if they were white with frost If ye consent and obey you shall eat the good things of the Land sayes God in the Prophet shall ye doe so if you refuse and rebell Achaz did and yet God sought occasion of mercy There arise diseases for which there is no probatum est in all the bookes of Physitians There is scarce any sin of which we have not had experiments of Gods mercies He concludes with no sin excludes no occasion precludes no person And so we have done with our first part Gods generall disposition for the Rule declared in Achaz case for the example Our second part consists of a Rule and an Example too 2 Part. The Rule That God goes forward in his own wayes proceeds as he begun in mercy The Example what his proceeding what his subsequent mercy to Achaz was One of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks of God is a Circle and a Circle is endlesse whom God loves hee loves to the end and not onely to their own end to their death but to his end and his end is that he might love them still His hailestones and his thunder-bolts and his showres of bloud emblemes and instruments of his Judgements fall downe in a direct line and affect and strike some one person or place His Sun and Moone and Starres Emblemes and Instruments of his Blessings move circularly and communicate themselves to all His Church is his chariot in that he moves more gloriously then in the Sun as much more as his begotten Son exceeds his created Sun and his Son of glory and of his right hand the Sun of the firmament and this Church his chariot moves in that communicable motion circularly It began in the East it came to us and is passing now shining out now in the farthest West As the Sun does not set to any Nation but withdraw it selfe and returne againe God in the exercise of his mercy does not set to thy soule though he benight it with an affliction Remember that our Saviour Christ himselfe in many actions and passions of our humane nature and infirmities smothered that Divinity and suffered it not to worke but yet it was alwayes in him and wrought most powerfully in the deepest danger when he was absolutely dead it raised him again If Christ slumbred the God-head in himselfe The mercy of God may be slumbred it may be hidden from his servants but it cannot be taken away and in the greatest necessities it shall break out The Blessed Virgin was overshadowed but it was with the Holy Ghost that overshadowed her Thine understanding thy conscience may be so too and yet it may be the work of the Holy Ghost who moves in thy darknesse and will bring light even out of that knowledge out of thine ignorance clearnesse out of thy scruples and consolation out of thy Dejection of Spirit God is thy portion sayes David David does not speak so narrowly so penuriously as to say God hath given thee thy portion and thou must look for no more but God is thy portion and as long as he is God he hath more to give and as long as thou art his thou hast more to receive Thou canst not have so good a Title to a subsequent blessing as a former blessing where thou art an ancient tenant thou wilt look to be preferred before a stranger and that is thy title to Gods future mercies if thou have been formerly accustomed to them The Sun is not weary with sixe thousand yeares shining God cannot be weary of doing good And therefore never say God hath given me these and these temporall things and I have scattered them wastfully surely he will give me no more These and these spirituall graces and I have neglected them abused them surely he will give me no more For for things created we have instruments to measure them we know the compasse of a Meridian and the depth of a Diameter of the Earth and we know this even of the uppermost spheare in the heavens But when we come to the Throne of God himselfe the Orbe of the Saints and Angels that see his face and the vertues and powers that flow from thence we have no balance to weigh them no instruments to measure them no hearts to conceive them So for temporall things we know the most that man can have for we know all the world but for Gods mercy and his spirituall graces as that language in which God spake the Hebrew hath no superlative so that which he promises in all that he hath spoken his mercy hath no superlative he shewes no mercy which you can call his Greatest Mercy his Mercy is never at the highest whatsoever he hath done for thy soule or for any other in applying himselfe to it he can exceed that Onely he can raise a Tower whose top shall reach to heaven The Basis of the highest building is but the Earth But though thou be but a Tabernacle of Earth God shall raise thee peece by peece into a spirituall building And after one Story of Creation and another of Vocation and another of Sanctification he shall bring thee up to meet thy selfe in the bosome of thy God where thou wast at first in an eternall election God is a circle himselfe and he will make thee one Goe not thou about to square eyther circle to bring that which is equall in it selfe to Angles and Corners into dark and sad suspicions of God or of thy selfe that God can give or that thou canst receive no more Mercy then thou hast had already This then is the course of Gods mercy Signum He proceeds as he begun which was the first branch of this second part It is alwayes in motion and alwayes moving towards All alwaies perpendicular right over every one of us and alwayes circular alwayes communicable to all And then the particular beame of this Mercy shed upon Achaz here in our Text is Dabit signum The Lord shall give you a signe It is a great Degree of Mercy that he affords us signes A naturall man is not made of Reason alone but of Reason and Sense A Regenerate man is not made of Faith alone but of Faith and Reason and Signes externall things assist us all In the Creation it was part of
the places of the earth Divisie doe the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge and the tree of life In this Paradise the Scripture every word is both those Trees there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God That Germen Iehovae as the Prophet Esay calls Christ that Off-spring of Jehova that Bud that Blossome that fruit of God himselfe the Son of God the Messiah the Redeemer Christ Jesus growes upon every tree in this Paradise the Scripture for Christ was the occasion before and is the consummation after 1 Iohn 5.13 of all Scripture This have I written sayes S. Iohn and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost in all that they have written This have we written that ye may know that ye have eternall life Knowledge and life growes upon every tree in this Paradise upon every word in this Booke because upon every Tree here upon every word grows Christ himselfe in some relation From this Branch this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send we shall not so much stand to gather here and there an Apple that is to consider some particular words of the Text it selfe as endeavour to shake the whole tree that is the Context and coherence and dependance of the words for since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire and negotiation Gods employing of Moses and Moses presenting his excuses to God and Gods taking of all those excuses determines in our Text in our Text is the whole story virtually and radically implyed And therefore by just occasion thereof we shall consider first That though for the ordinary duties of our callings arising out of the evidence of expresse Scriptures we are allowed no haesitation no disputation whether we will doe them or no but they require a present and an exact execution thereof yet in extraordinary cases and in such actions as are not laid upon us by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture such as was Moses case here to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in such cases not onely some haesitation some deliberation some consultation in our selves but some expostulation with God himselfe may be excusable in us We shall therefore see that Moses did excuse himself four wayes And how God was pleased to joyn issue with him in all foure and to cast him and overcome him in them all And when we come to consider his fift which is rather a Diversion upon another then an Excuse in himselfe and yet is that which is most literally in our Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himselfe The sending of Christ we shall see that God would not have been pressed for that but as it followes immediately and is also a bough of this tree that is grows out of this Text God was angry But yet as we shall see in the due place it was but such an anger as ended in an Instruction rather then in an Increpation and in an Encouragement rather then in a Desertion for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the worke by joyning his brother Aaron in commission with him So then wee have shak'd the tree that is resolv'd and analyz'd the Context of all which the Text it selfe is the root and the seale And as we have presented to your sight we shall farther offer to your tast and digestion and rumination these particular fruits First that ordinary Duties require a present execution Secondly that in Extraordinary God allowes a Deliberation and requires not an implicite a blind obedience And in a third place wee shall give you those foure circumstances that accompanied or constituted Moses deliberation and Gods removing of those foure impediments And in a fourth â—oome that Consultation or Diversion The sending of Christ And in that How God was affected with it He was angry angry that Moses would offer to looke into those things which he had lockt up in his secret counsels such as that sending of Christ which he intended But yet not angry so as that he left Moses unsatisfied or un-accommodated for the maine businesse but setled him in a holy and chearfull readinesse to obey his commandement And through all these particulars we shall passe with as much clearnesse as the waight and as much shortnesse as the number will permit First then our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition Ordinary Duties Ordinary Duties arising out of the Evidence of Gods Word require a present Execution There are Duties that binde us semper and Adsemper as our Casuists speak we are Alwayes bound to doe them and bound to doe them Alwayes that is Alwayes to produce Actus elicitos Determinate acts Successive and Consecutive acts conformable to those Duties whereas in some other Duties we are onely bound to an Habituall disposition to doe them in such and such necessary cases And those Actions of the later sort fall in Genere Deliberativo we may consider Circumstances before we fall under a necessity of doing them that is of doing them Then or doing them Thus Of which kind even those great duties of Praying and Fasting are for we are alwayes bound to Pray and alwayes bound to Fast but not bound to fast alwayes nor alwayes to pray But for Actions of the first kind such as are the worshipping of God and the not worshipping of Images such as are the sanctifying of Gods Sabbaths and the not blaspheming of his Name which arise out of cleare and evident commands of God they admit no Deliberation but require a present Execution Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of his Father a posture that denotes first a readinesse to survay and take knowledge of our distresses and then a readinesse to proceed and come forth to our assistance so in our Liturgie in our Service in the Congregation we stand up at the profession of the Creed at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith thereby to declare to God and his Church our readinesse to stand to and our readinesse to proceed in that Profession The commendation which is given of Andrew and Peter for obeying Christs call Mark 1.18 lyes not so much in the Reliquerunt retia that they left their nets as in the Protinus reliquerunt that forthwith immediately without farther deliberation they left their nets the meanes of their livelyhood and followed Christ The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach Esay 61.1 sayes the Prophet Esay To preach what Acceptabilem annum to preach the acceptable yeare of the Lord. All the yeare long the Lord stands with his armes open to embrace you and all the yeare long we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 Psal 95.8 But yet God would
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
your Master hath dealt thus mercifully with you all that to you all all he sends a message Sciant omnes Let all the house of Israel know this Needs the house of Israel know any thing Needs there any learning in persons of Honour We know this characterizes this distinguishes some whole Nations In one Nation it is almost a scorn for a gentleman to be learned in another almost every gentleman is conveniently and in some measure learned But I enlarge not my self I pretend not to comprehend Nationall vertues or Nationall vices For this knowledge which is proclaimed here which is the knowledge that the true Messias is come and that there is no other to bee expected is such a knowledge as that even the house of Israel it self is without a Foundation if it be without this knowledge Is there any house that needs no reparations Is there a house of Israel let it be the Library the depositary of the Oracles of God a true Church that hath the true word of the true God let it be the house fed with Manna that hath the true administration of the true Sacraments of Christ Jesus is there any such house that needs not a farther knowledge that there are alwaies thieves about that house that would rob us of that Word and of those Sacraments The Holy Ghost is a Dove and the Dove couples paires is not alone Take heed of singular of schismatical opinions what is more singular more schismaticall then when all Religion is confined in one mans breast The Dove is animal sociale a sociable creature and not singular and the Holy Ghost is that And Christ is a Sheep animal gregale they flock together Embrace thou those truths which the whole flock of Christ Jesus the whole Christian Church hath from the beginning acknowledged to be truths and truths necessary to salvation for for other Traditionall and Conditionall and Occasionall and Collaterall and Circumstantiall points for Almanack Divinity that changes with the season with the time and Meridionall Divinity calculated to the heighth of such a place and Lunary Divinity that ebbes and flowes and State Divinity that obeyes affections of persons Domus Israel the true Church of God had need of a continuall succession of light a contiuall assistance of the Spirit of God and of her own industry to know those things that belong to her peace And therefore let no Church no man think that he hath done enough or knowes enough If the Devill thought so too we might the better think so but since we see that he is in continuall practise against us let us be in a continuall diligence and watchfulnesse to countermine him We are domus Israel the house of Israel and it is a great measure of knowledge that God hath afforded us but if every Pastor look into his Parish and every Master into his own Family and see what is practising there sciat domus Israel let all our Israel know that there is more knowledge and more wisdome necessary Be every man farre from calumniating his Superiours for that mercy which is used towards them that are fallen but be every man as far from remitting or slackning his diligence for the preserving of them that are not fallen The wisest must know more though you be domus Israel the house of Israel already Crucifixistis and then Etsi Crucifixistis though you have crucified the Lord Jesus you may know it sciant omnes let all know it S. Paul saies once If they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of life but he never saies if they have crucified the Lord of life 1 Cor. 2.8 they are excluded from knowledge I meane no more but that the mercy of God in manifesting and applying himself to us is above all our sins No man knowes enough what measure of tentations soever he have now he may have tentations through which this knowledge and this grace will not carry him and therefore he must proceed from grace to grace So no man hath sinned so deeply but that God offers himself to him yet Sciant omnes the wisest man hath ever something to learn he must not presume the sinfullest man hath God ever ready to teach him he must not despaire Now the universality of this mercy Sciant hath God enlarged and extended very farre in that he proposes it even to our knowledge Sciant let all know it It is not only credant let all beleeve it for the infusing of faith is not in our power but God hath put it in our power to satisfie their reason and to chafe that waxe to which he himself vouchsafes to set to the great seale of faith And that S. Hierome takes to be most properly his Commission Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide natur alibus rationibus adjuvare Let us indevour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are objects of faith so as that we are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to be deduced and proved that is the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these Books to be or not to be Canonicall Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a naturall man God does not seale in water in the fluid and transitory imaginations and opinions of men we never set the seale of faith to them But in Waxe in the rectified reason of man that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seale of faith They are not continuall but they are contiguous they flow not from one another but they touch one another they are not both of a peece but they enwrap one another Faith and Reason Faith it self by the Prophet Esay is called knowledge Esay 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many sayes God of Christ that is by that knowledge that men shall have of him So Zechary expresses it at the Circumcision of Iohn Baptist That hee was to give knowledge of salvation Luke 1.77 for the remission of sins As therefore it is not enough for us in our profession to tell you Qui non crediderit damnabitur Except you beleeve all this you shall be damned without we execute that Commission before Ite praedicate go and preach work upon their affections satisfie their reason so it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easinesse in beleeving except you know also what and why and how you come to that beliefe Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever he must chaw and pick bones before he come to assimilate him
accused in this case of torture Ignorantia Iudicis est calamitas plerumque innocentis sayes that Father for the most part even the ignorance of the Judge is the greatest calamity of him that is accused If the Judge knew that he were innocent he should suffer nothing If he knew he were guilty he should not suffer torture but because the Judge is ignorant and knowes nothing therefore the Prisoner must bee racked and tortured and mangled sayes that Father There is a whole Epistle in S. Hierome full of heavenly meditation and of curious expressions It is his forty ninth Epistle Ad Innocentium where a young man tortured for suspition of adultery with a certaine woman ut compendio cruciatus vitaret sayes he for his ease and to abridge his torment and that he might thereby procure and compasse a present death confessed the adultery though false His confession was made evidence against the woman and shee makes that protestation Tu testis Domine Iesu Thou Lord Jesus be my Witnesse Non ideo me negare velle ne peream sed ideo mentiri nolle ne peccem I doe not deny the fact for feare of death but I dare not belie my selfe nor betray mine innocence for feare of sinning and offending the God of Truth And as it followes in that story though no torture could draw any Confession any accusation from her she was condemned and one Executioner had three blowes at her with a Sword and another foure and yet she could not be killed And therefore because Storie abounds with Examples of this kinde how uncertaine a way of tryall and conviction torture is though S. Augustine would not say that torture was unlawfull yet he sayes It behoves every Judge to make that prayer Erue me Domine à necessitatibus meis If there bee some cases in which the Judge must necessarily proceed to torture O Lord deliver me from having any such case brought before me But what use soever there may be for torture for Confession in the Inquisition they torture for a deniall for the deniall of God and for the renouncing of the truth of his Gospell As men of great place think it concernes their honour to doe above that which they suffer to make their revenges not only equall but greater then their injuries so the Romane Church thinks it necessary to her greatnesse to inflict more tortures now then were inflicted upon her in the Primitive Church as though it were a just revenge for the tortures she received then for being Christian to torture better Christians then her selfe for being so In which tortures the Inquisition hath found one way to escape the generall clamour of the world against them which is to torture to that heighth that few survive or come abroad after to publish how they have been tortured And these first oppose Gods purpose in the making and preserving and dignifying the body of man Transgressors herein in the second kinde are they that defile the garment of Christ Jesus the body in which he hath vouchsafed to invest and enwrap himselfe and so apparell a Harlot in Christs cloathes and make that body which is his hers That Christ should take my body though defiled with fornication and make it his is strange but that I in fornication should take Christs body and make it hers is more Know ye not 1 Cor. 6.15 V. 16. sayes the Apostle that your bodies are the members of Christ And againe Know you not that he that is joyned to a harlot is one body Some of the Romane Emperours made it treason to carry a Ring that had their picture engraved in it to any place in the house of low Office What Name can we give to that sin to make the body of Christ the body of a harlot And yet the Apostle there as taking knowledge that we loved our selves better then Christ changes the edge of his argument and argues thus ver 18. He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body If ye will be bold with Christs body yet favour your own No man ever hated his own body and yet no outward enemy is able so to macerate our body as our owne licentiousnesse Christ who tooke all our bodily infirmities upon him Hunger and Thirst and Sweat and Cold tooke no bodily deformities upon him he tooke not a lame a blinde a crooked body and we by our intemperance and licentiousnesse deforme that body which is his all these wayes The licentious man most of any studies bodily handsomenesse to be comely and gracious and acceptable and yet soonest of any deformes and destroyes it and makes that loathsome to all which all his care was to make amiable And so they oppose Gods purpose of dignifying the body Transgressors in a third kinde are they that sacrilegiously prophane the Temple of the Holy Ghost by neglecting the respect and duties belonging to the dead bodies of Gods Saints in a decent and comely accompanying them to convenient Funerals Heires and Executors are oftentimes defective in these offices and pretend better employments of that which would be say they vainly spent so But remember you of whom in much such a case that is said in S. Iohn John 12.6 This he said not because he cared for the poore but because he was a Thiefe and had the bagge and bore that which was put therein This Executors say not because they intend pious uses but because they beare and beare away the bagges Generally thy opinion must be no rule for other mens actions neither in these cases of Funerals must thou call all too much which is more then enough That womans Ointment poured upon Christs feet that hundred pound waight of perfumes to embalme his one body was more then enough necessarily enough yet it was not too much for the dignity of that person nor for the testimony of their zeale who did it in so abundant manner Now as in all these three waies men may oppose the purpose of God in dignifying the body so in concurring with Gods purpose for the dignifying thereof a man may exceed and goe beyond Gods purpose in all three God would not have the body torne and mangled with tortures in those cases but then hee would not have it pampered with wanton delicacies nor varnished with forraigne complexion It is ill when it is not our own heart that appeares in our words it is ill too when it is not our own blood that appeares in our cheekes It may doe some ill offices of blood it may tempt but it gives over when it should doe a good office of blood it cannot blush If when they are filling the wrinkles and graves of their face they would remember that there is another grave that calls for a filling with the whole body so even their pride would flow into a mortification God would not have us put on a sad countenance nor disfigure our face not in our fastings and other disciplines God would not have
to speak to others This therefore is the comming and this is the teaching of the Holy Ghost Acts 2.3 promised and intended in this Text and performed upon this Day that he by his power enables and authorises other men to teach thee That he establishes a Church and Ordinances and a Ministery by which thou maist be taught how to apply Christs Merits to thy soul He needed not to have invested and taken the form of a Tongue if he would have had thee think it enough to heare the Spirit at home alone but to let thee see that his way of teaching should be the ministery of men he came in that organ of speech the Tongue And therefore learn thou by hearing what he sayes And that that he sayes he sayes here here in his Ordinance And therefore heare what he hath declared inquire not what he hath decreed Heare what he hath said there where he hath spoken ask not what he meant in his unrevealed will of things whereof he hath said nothing For they that do so mistake Gods minde often God protests It never came into my minde that they should sin thus God never did it God never meant it that any should sin necessarily Ier. 32.35 without a willing concurrence in themselves or be damned necessarily without relation to sin willingly committed Therefore is S. Augustine vehement in that expostulation Quis tam stultè curiosus est qui filium suum mittat in scholam ut quid magister cogitat discat Doth any man put his son to schoole to learn what his Master thinks The Holy Ghost is sent to Teach he teaches by speaking he speaks by his Ordinance and Institution in his Church All knowledge and all zeale that is not kindled by him by the Holy Ghost and kindled here at first is all smoke and then all flame Zeale without the Holy Ghost is at first cloudy ignorance all smoke and after all crackling and clambering flame Schismaticall rage and distemper Here we we that are naturally ignorant we we that are naturally hungry of knowledge are taught a free Schoole is opened unto us and taught by him by the Holy Ghost speaking in his Delegates in his Ministers which were the pieces that constituted our first part And the second to which we are now come is the manner of the Holy Ghosts comming and teaching in his Ordinance that is by remembring He shall bring to your remembrance c. They had wont to call Pictures in the Church 2 Part. Reminiscentia the lay-mans book because in them he that could not reade at all might reade much The ignorantest man that is even he that cannot reade a Picture even a blinde man hath a better book in himself In his own memory he may reade many a history of Gods goodnesse to him Quid ab initio How it was in the beginning is Christs Method To determine things according to former precedents And truly the Memory is oftner the Holy Ghosts Pulpit that he preaches in then the Understanding How many here would not understand me or not rest in that which they heard if I should spend the rest of this houre in repeating and reconciling that which divers authors have spoken diversly of the manner of Christs presence in the Sacrament or the manner of Christs descent into Hell or the manner of the concurrence and joynt-working of the grace of God and the free-will of man in mens actions But is there any man amongst us that is not capable of this Catechisme Remember to morrow but those good thoughts which you have had within this houre since you came hither now Remember at your last houre to be but as good as you are this minute I would scarce ask more in any mans behalf then that he would alwayes be as good as at some times he is If he would never sink below himself I would lesse care though he did not exceed himself If he would remember his own holy purposes at best he would never forget God If he would remember the comfort he had in having overcome such a tentation yesterday he would not be overcome by that tentation to day The Memory is as the conclusion of a Syllogisme which being inferred upon true propositions cannot be denied He that remembers Gods former blessings concludes infallibly upon his future Therefore Christ places the comfort of this Comforter the Holy Ghost in this that he shall work upon that pregnant faculty the Memory He shall bring things to your remembrance And then Omnia All those things which I have said unto you Christ gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles Omnia Mat. 18.18 John 20.22 John 15.15 when he gave them the power of absolution in his life time He gave them the Holy Ghost more powerfully when after his Resurrection He breathed on them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost He opened himself to them in a large fulnesse when he said All things that I have heard of my Father I have made knowen unto you But in a greater largenesse then that when upon this day according to the promise of this Text the holy Ghost was sent unto them for this was in the behalf of others And upon this fulnesse out of Tertullian it is argued Nihilignorarunt crgo nihil non docuerunt As the Apostles were taught all things by Christ so they taught the Church all things There is then the spheare and the compasse and the date of our knowledge not what was thought or taught in the tenth or fourteenth Century but what was taught in Christ and in the Apostles time Christ taught all things to his Apostles and the Holy Ghost brought all things to their remembrance that he had taught them that they might teach them to others and so it is derived to us But it is Omnia Sola Sola John 15.26 It is All but it is Only those things He shall testifie of me saith Christ concerning the Holy Ghost Now the office of him that testifies of a witnesse is to say all the truth but nothing but the truth When the Romane Church charges us not that all is not truth which we teach but that we do not teach all the truth And we charge them not that they do not teach all the truth but that all is not truth that they teach so that they charge us with a defective we them with a superfluous religion our case is the safer because all that we affirm is by confession of all parts true but that which they have added requires proofe and the proofe lies on their side and it rests yet unproved And certainly many an Indian who is begun to be catechized and dies is saved before he come to beleeve all that we beleeve But whether any be saved that beleeve more then we beleeve and beleeve it as equally fundamentall and equally necessary to salvation with that which we from the expresse word of God do beleeve is a Probleme not easily
answered not safely affirmed Truly I had rather put my salvation upon some of those ancient Creeds which want some of the Articles of our Creed as the Nicene Creed doth and so doth Athanasius then upon the Trent Creed that hath as many more Articles as ours hath The office of the Holy Ghost himself the Spirit of all comfort is but to bring those things to remembrance which Christ taught and no more They are many too many for many revolutions of an houre-glasse Spiritus Sanctus Therefore wee proposed at first That when we should come to this Branch for the proper celebration of the day we would only touch some things which the Holy Ghost had taught of himself that so we might detect and detest such things as some ancient and some later Heretiques had said of the Holy Ghost Now those things which the ancient Heretiques have said are sufficiently gain-said by the ancient Fathers The Montanists said the Holy Ghost was in Christ and in the Apostles but in a farre higher exaltation in Montanus then in either but Tertullian opposed that Manes was more insolent then the Montanist for he avowed himselfe to be the Holy Ghost and S. Augustine overthrew that Hierarchas was more modest then so and did but say That Melchisedech was the Holy Ghost and S. Cyprian would not indure that The Arrians said the Holy Ghost was but Creatura Creaturae made by the Son which Son himselfe was but made in time and not eternally begotten by the Father but Liberius and many of the Fathers opposed that as a whole generall Councell did Macedonius when he refreshed many Errours formerly condemned concerning the Holy Ghost and few of these have had any Resurrection any repulullation or appeared again in these later daies But in these later times two new Herefies have arisen concerning the Holy Ghost About foure hundred yeares since Euangelium Spiritus Sancti came out that famous infamous Booke in the Roman Church which they called Euangelium Spiritus Sancti The Gospel of the Holy Ghost in which was pretended That as God the Father had had his time in the government of the Church in the Law And God the Son his time in the Gospel so the Holy Ghost was to have his time and his time was to begin within fifty yeares after the publishing of that Gospel and to last to the end of the world and therefore it was called Euangelium aeternum The everlasting Gospel By this Gospel the Gospel of Christ was absolutely abrogated and the power of governing the Church according to the Gospel of Christ utterly evacuated for it was therein taught that onely the literall sense of the Gospel had been committed to them who had thus long governed in the name of the Church but the spirituall and mysticall sense was reserved to the Holy Ghost and that now the Holy Ghost would set that on foot And so which was the principall intention in that plot they would have brought all Doctrine and all Discipline all Government into the Cloyster into their religious Orders and overthrown the Hierarchy of the Church of Bishops and Priests and Deacons and Cathedrall and Collegiate Churches and brought all into Monasteries He that first opposed this Book was Waldo hee that gave the name to that great Body that great power of Men who attempted the Reformation of the Church and were called the Waldenses who were especially defamed and especially persecuted for this that they put themselves in the gap and made themselves a Bank against this torrent this inundation this impetuousnesse this multiplicy of Fryars and Monks that surrounded the world in those times And when this Book could not be dissembled and being full of blasphemy against Christ was necessarily brought into agitation yet all that was done by them who had the government of the Church in their hands then was but this That this Book this Gospel of the Holy Ghost should be suppressed and smothered but without any noyse or discredit and the Booke which was writ against it should be solemnly publiquely infamously burnt And so they kindled a Warre in Heaven greater then that in the Revelation Rev. 12.7 where Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and his Angels For here they brought God the Son into the field against God the Holy Ghost and made the Holy Ghost devest dethrone disseise and dispossesse the Sonne of his Government Now when they could not advance that Heresie Scrinium pectoris when they could not bring the Holy Ghost to that greatnesse when they could not make him King to their purposes that is King over Christ They are come to an Heresie cleane contrary to that Heresie that is to imprison the Holy Ghost And since they could not make him King over Christ himselfe they have made him a Prisoner and a flave to Christs Vicar and shut him up there In scrinio pectoris as they call it in that close imprisonment in the breast and bosome of one man that Bishop And so the Holy Ghost is no longer a Dove a Dove in the Ark a Dove with an Olive-Branch a Messenger of peace but now the Holy Ghost is in a Bull in Buls worse then Phalaris his Bull Buls of Excommunication Buls of Rebellion and Deposition and Assassinates of Christian Princes The Holy Ghost is no longer Omni-present Psal 139.7 as in Davids time Whither shall I goefrom thy Spirit but he is onely there whither he shall be sent from Rome in a Cloak-bagge and upon a Post-horse as it was often complained in the Councell of Trent The Holy Ghost is no longer Omniscient to know all at once 1 Cor. 2.10 .. as in S. Pauls time when the Spirit of God searched all things yea the deep things of God but as a Sea-Captaine receives a Ticket to be opened when he comes to such a height and thereby to direct his future course so the Holy Ghost is appointed to aske the Popes Nuntio his Legate what he shall declare to be truth So the Holy Ghost was sent into this Kingdome by Leo the tenth with his Legate that brought the Bull of Declaration for Hcnry the eights Divorce but the Holy Ghost might not know of it that is not take knowledge of it not declare it to be a Divorce till some other conditions were performed by the King which being never performed the Holy Ghost remained in the case of a new created Cardinall Ore clauso he had novoyce and so the Divorce though past all debatements and all consents and all determinations at Rome was no Divorce because he that sent the Holy Ghost from Rome forbad him to publish and declare it So that the style of the Court is altered from the Apostles time Acts 15.28 Then it was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us First to the Holy Ghost before others and when it is brought to others it is to us
to others in the plurall to many others But now it is Visum est mihi Spiritui Sancto It seemes good unto me to one man alone and when it does so it shall seeme good to the Holy Ghost too And of these two Hereticall violences to the Holy Ghost we complaine against that Church first that they put the Holy Ghost in a Rebellion against the Son of God from whom he proceeds And then as for the most part the end of them who pretend right to a Kingdome and cannot prove it is to lie in Prison That they have imprisoned the Holy Ghost in one mans breast and not suffered that winde to breathe where it will as Christ promised the Holy Ghost should doe For neither did the Holy Ghost bring any such thing to their remembrance as though Christ had taught any such Doctrine neither can they that teach it come nearer the sin The unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost then thus to make him a supplanter of Christ or supplanted by Antichrist But we hold you no longer in this ill Aire Charismata Spiritus blasphemous and irksome contumelies against the Holy Ghost we promised at first to dismisse you at last in a perfume with the breath of the Holy Ghost upon you and that is to excite you to a rectified sense and knowledge August that he offers himselfe unto you and is received by you Facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit That is alwaies the face of God to us by which God vouchsafes to manifest himselfe to us So his Ordinance in the Church is his face And Lux Dei qua nobis illucescit The light of God to us is that light by which he shines upon us Lex Dei Lux Dei his word in his Church And then the Evidence the Seale the Witnesse of all that this face which I see by this light is directed upon me for my comfort is The Testimony of the Holy Ghost when that Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit that he is in us And therefore in his blessed Name and in the participation of his power I say to you all Accipite Spiritum sanctum Receive ye the holy Ghost Not that I can give it you 2 Cor. 3.5 but I can tell you that he offers to give himselfe to you all Our sufficiency is of God sayes the Apostle Acknowledge you a sufficiency in us a sufficient power to be in the Ministery for as the Apostle addes He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament Not able onely in faculties and gifts requisite for that function those faculties and gifts whether of nature or of acquisition be in as great measure in some that have not that function but able by his powerfull Ordinance as it is also added there to minister not the letter not the letter onely but The Spirit the Spirit of the New Testament that is the holy Ghost to you Therefore as God said to Moses I will come downe Numb 11.17 and talk with thee and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and put it upon them God in his Spirit does come downe to us in his Ministery and talke with us his Ministers at home that is assist us in our Meditations and lucubrations and preparations for this service here and then here in this place he takes of that Spirit from us and sheds upon you imparts the gifts of the holy Ghost to you also and makes the holy Ghost as much yours by your hearing as he made him ours by our study Be not deceived by the letter by the phrase of that place God does not say there that he will take of the Spirit from us and give it you that is fill you with it and leave us without it but he will take of that Spirit that is impart that Spirit so to you as that by us and our present Ministery he will give you that that shall be sufficient for you to day and yet call you to us againe in his Ordinance another day Learne as much as you can every day and never thinke that you have learnt so much as that you have no more need of a Teacher for though you need no more of that man you may be perchance as learned as he yet you need more of that Ordinance We give you the holy Ghost then when we open your eyes to see his offers Those words of the Apostle Our selves have the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 S. Ambrose interprets so Our selves we the Ministers of God have the first fruits of the Spirit the pre-possession the pre-inhabitation but not the sole possession nor sole inhabitation of the Holy Ghost but we have grace for grace the Spirit therefore to shed the Spirit upon you that that precious Oyntment Psal 133.2 the Holy Ghost is this Unction which was poured upon the Head upon Christ may run downe upon Aarons beard and from those gray and grave and reverend haires of his Ministers may also go downe to the skirts of his garments to every one of you who doe not onely make up the garment that is the visible but the mysticall body it selfe of Christ Jesus Ver. 3. The dew of Hermon descends upon the mountaines of Sion But the waters that fall upon the mountaines fall into the valleyes too from thence The Holy Ghost fals through us upon you also so as that you may so as that you must finde it in your selves The Holy Ghost was the first Person that was declared in the Creation The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 that was the first motion This is eternall life to know God and him whom he sent Christ Iesus But this you cannot doe but by him whom they both sent the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Iohn Baptist who was to baptize Christ was filled with the holy Ghost from the wombe You who were baptized in Christ were filled in your measure with the holy Ghost from that wombe from the time that the Church conceived you in Baptisme And therefore as the Twelve said to the multitude Acts 6.3 Looke yee among ye seven men full of the holy Ghost So we say to the whole Congregation Looke every man to himselfe that he be one of the seven one of that infinite number which the holy Ghost offers to fall upon That as ye were baptized in the holy Ghost and as your bodies are Temples of the holy Ghost so your soules may be Priests of the holy Ghost and you altogether a lively and reasonable sacrifice to God in the holy Ghost Eph. 1.13 That as you have beene sealed with the holy Spirit of promise you may finde in your selves the performance of that promise finde the seale of that promise in your love to the Scriptures for as S. Chrysostome argues usefully Christ gave the Apostles no Scriptures but
concealing which were the pieces that constitute our first Part in the second Part which is the time when this Legacy accrues to us is to be given us In die illo at that day At that day shall yee know c. It is the illumination the illustration of our hearts and therefore well referred to the Day The word it selfe affords cheerefulnesse For when God inflicted that great plague to kill all the first-borne in Aegypt Exod. 12. Luke 20. that was done at Midnight And when God would intimate both deaths at once spirituall and temporall he sayes O foole this night they will fetch away thy soule Against all supply of knowledge he cals him foole and against all sense of comfort in the day he threatens night It was In die Illo and In die illo in the day and at a certaine day and at a short day For after Christ had made his Will at this supper given strength to his Will by his death and proved his Will by his Resurrection and left the Church possest of his estate by his Ascension within ten dayes after that he poured out this Legacy of knowledge For though some take this day mentioned in the Text Calvin to be Tanqnam unius diei tenor à dato Spiritu ad Resurrectionem from the first giving of the Holy Ghost to the Resurrection And others take this day Osiand to bee from his Resurrection to the end of his second Conversation upon earth till his Ascension and S. Augustine referre it Ad perfectam visionem in Coelis to the perfect fruition of the sight of God in Heaven yet the most usefull and best followed acceptation is This Day of the comming of the Holy Ghost That day we celebrate this day and we can never finde the Christian Church so farre as we can judge by the evidence of Story to have been without this festivall day The reason of all Festivals in the Church was and is Ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio August Lest after many ages involved and wrapped up in one another Gods particular benefits should bee involved and wrapped up in unthankfulnesse And the benefits received this day were such as should never be forgotten for without this day all the rest had been evacuated and uneffectuall If the Apostles by the comming of the Holy Ghost had not been established in an infallibility in themselves and in an ability to deale with all Nations by the benefit of tongues the benefit of Christs passion had not been derived upon all Nations And therefore to This day and to Easter-day all publike Baptismes in the Primitive Church were reserved None were baptized except in cases of necessity but upon one of these two dayes for as there is an Exaltation a Resurrection given us in Baptisme represented by Easter so there belongs to us a confirmation an establishing of grace and the increase thereof represented in Pentecost in the comming of the Holy Ghost As the Jews had an Easter in the memory of their deliverance from Aegypt and a Pentecost in the memory of the Law given at Mout Sinai So at Easter we celebrate the memory of that glorious Passeover when Christ passed from the grave and hell in his Resurrection and at this Feast of Pentecost we celebrate his giving of the Law to all Nations and his investing and possessing himselfe of his Kingdome the Church for this is Festum Adoptionis as S. Chrysostome cals it The cheerefull feast of our Adoption in which the Holy Ghost convaying the Son of God to us enables us to be the Sons of God and to cry Abba Father This then is that day Acts 2. when the Apostles being with one accord and in one place that is in one faith and in one profession of that faith not onely without Heresie but without Schisme too the Holy Ghost as a mighty winde filled them all and gave them utterance As a winde to note a powerfull working And he filled them to note the abundance And he gave them utterance to inferre that which we spoke of before The Communication of that knowledge which they had received to others This was that Spirit whom it concerned the Apostles so much to have as that Christ himselfe must goe from them to send him to them If I goe not away sayes Christ the Comforter will not come to you How great a comfort must this necessarily be which must so abundantly recompence the losse of such a comfort as the presence of Christ was This is that Spirit who though hee were to be sent by the Father and sent by the Son yet he comes not as a Messenger from a Superiour for hee was alwaies equall to Father and Son But the Father sent him and the Son sent him as a tree sends forth blossomes and as those blossomes send forth a sweet smell and as the Sun sends forth beames by an emanation from it selfe He is Spiritus quem nemo interpretari potest sayes S. Chrysostome hee hath him not that doth not see he hath him nor is any man without him who in a rectified conscience thinks he hath him Illo Prophetae illustrantur Illo idiotae condiuntur sayes the same Father The Prophets as high as their calling was saw nothing without this Spirit and with this Spirit a simple man understands the Prophets And therefore doth S. Basil attribute that to the Holy Ghost which seemes to be peculiar to the Son he cals him Verbum Dei because sayes he Spiritus interpres Filii sicut Filius Patris As the Son hath revealed to us the will of the Father and so is the Word of God to us so the Holy Ghost applies the promises and the merits of the Son to us and so is the Word of God to us too and enables us to come to God in that voyce of his blessed Servant S. Augustine O Deus secretissime patentissime Though nothing be more mysterious then the knowledge of God in the Trinity yet nothing is more manifest unto us then by the light of this person the Holy Ghost so much of both the other Persons as is necessary for our Salvation is Now it is not onely to the Apostles that the Holy Ghost is descended this day but as S. Chrysostom saies of the Annunciation Non ad unam tantùm animam It is not onely to one Person that the Angel said then The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and overshadow thee but sayes he that Holy Ghost hath said Super omnem Ioel 2. I will poure out my selfe upon all men so I say of this day This day if you be all in this place concentred united here in one Faith and one Religion If you be of one accord that is in perfect charity The Holy Ghost shall fill you all according to your measure and his purpose and give you utterance in your lives and conversations Qui ita vacat orationibus Origen ut dignus fiat illo
see he did in the Councell of Nice when after many disputations amongst the great Men of great estimation the weakest Man in the Councell rose up and he o◠whom his owne party were afraid lest his discourse should disadvantage the cause overthrew and converted that great Advocate and defender of Arius whom all the rest could never shake for though this man said no more then other men had said yet God at this time disposed the understanding and the abilities of the Adversaries otherwise then before sometimes God will have glory in arming his friends sometimes in disarming his enemies sometimes in exalting our abilities and sometimes in evacuating or enfeebling theirs And so as the Apostles were as many of us as celebrate this day as they did are filled with the Holy Ghost that is with so much knowledge as is necessary to Gods purpose in us Enough for our selves if we be private men and enough for others if wee have charge of others private men shall have knowledge enough where to seeke for more and the Priest shall have enough to communicate his knowledge to others And though this knowledge were delivered to the Apostles as from a print from a stampe all at once and to us but as by writing letter after letter syllable after syllable by Catechismes chismes and Sermons yet both are such knowledges as are sufficient for each As the glory of heaven shall fall upon us all and though we be not all of equall measure and capacity yet we shall be equally full of that glory so the way to that glory this knowledge shall be manifest to us all and infallible to us all though we do not all know alike The simplest soul that heares me shall know the way of his salvation as well as the greatest of those Fathers whom he heares me cite And upon us all so disposed the holy Ghost shall fall as he did here in fire and In tongues In fire to inflame us in a religious zeal and in Tongues to utter that in confession and in profession that is to glorifie God both in our words and in our actions This then is our portion in this Legacy A sober seeking after those points of knowledge which are necessary for our salvation and these in this text Christ derived into these three That I am in my Father That you are in me That I am in you The first of these is the knowledge of distinction of persons and so of the Trinity Ego in Paetre Trinitas Principale munus scientiae est cognoscere Trinitatem saith Origen The principall use and office of my knowledge is to know the Trinity for to know an unity in the Godhead that there is but one God naturall reason serves our turn to know a creation of the world of nothing reason serves us too we know by reason that either neither of them is infinite if there be two Gods and then neither of them can be God or if both be infinite which is an impossibility one of them is superfluous because whatsoever is infinite can alone extend to all So also we can collect infallibly that if the world were not made of nothing yet that of which the world shall be pretended to have been made of must have been made of nothing or else it must be something eternall and untreated whatsoever is so must necessarily be God it self To be sure of those two an unity in the Godhead and a creation of the world I need no Scriptures but to know this distinction of Persons That the Son is in the Father I need the Scriptures and I need more then the Scriptures I need this Pentecost this comming this illustration of the holy Ghost to inspire a right understanding of these Scriptures into me For if this knowledge might be had without Scriptures why should not the heathen beleeve the Trinity as well as I since they lack no naturall faculties which Christians have And if the Scriptures themselves without the operation of the holy Ghost should bring this clearnesse why should not the Jews and the Arians conform themselves to this doctrine of the Trinity as well as I since they accept those Scriptures out of which I provethe Trinity to mine own cōscience We must then attend his working in us we must not admit such a vexation of spirit as either to vex our spirit or the Spirit of God by inquiring farther then he hath been pleased to reveale If you consider that Christ sayes here You shall know That I am in the Father and doth not say You shall know How I am in the Father and this to his Apostles themselves and to the Apostles after they were to be filled with the holy Ghost which should teach them all truth it will out off many perplexing questions and impertinent answers which have been produced for the expressing of the manner of this generation and of the distinction of the persons in the Trinity you shall know That it is you shall not ask How it is It is enough for a happy subject to enjoy the sweetnesse of a peaceable government though he know not Arcana Imperii The wayes by which the Prince governes So is it for a Christian to enjoy the working of Gods grace in a faithfull beleeving the mysteries of Religion though he inquire not into Gods bed-chamber nor seek into his unrevealed Decrees It is Odiosa exitialis vocula Quomodo sayes Luther A hatefull a damnable Monosyllable How How God doth this or that for if a man come to the boldnesse of proposing such a question to himself he will not give over till he finde some answer and then others will not be content with his answer but every man will have a severall one When the Church fell upon the Quomodo in the Sacrament How in what manner the body of Christ was there we see what an inconvenient answer it fell upon That it was done by Transubstantiation That satisfied not as there was no reason it should And then they fell upon others In Sub and Cum and none could none can give satisfaction And so also have our times by asking Quomodo How Christ descended into Hell produced so many answers as that some have thought it no Article at all some have thought that it is all one thing to have descended into hell and to have ascended into heaven and that it amounts to no more then a departing into the state of the dead But Servate depositum Make much of that knowledge which the holy Ghost hath trusted you withall and beleeve the rest No man knows how his soul came into him whether ther by infusion from God or by generation from Parents no man knows so but that strong arguments will be produced on the other side And yet no man doubts but he hath a soul No man knows so as that strong arguments may not be brought on the other side how he sees whether by reception of species from without or
by emission of beames from within And yet no man doubts whether he see or no. The holy Ghost shall tell you when he tels you the most that ever he shall tell you in that behalf That the Son is in the Father but he will not tell you how Our second portion in this Legacy of knowledge Incarnatio is That we are in Christ And this is the mystery of the Incarnation For since the devill had so surprized us all as to take mankinde all in one lump in a corner in Adams loynes and poysoned us all there in the fountain in the roote Christ to deliver us as intirely took all mankinde upon him and so took every one of us and the nature and the infirmities and the sins and the punishment of every singular man So that the same pretence which the devill hath against every one of us you are mine for you sinned in Adam we have also for our discharge we are delivered for we paid our debt in Christ Jesus In all his tentations send him to look upon the Records of that processe of Christs passion and he shall finde there the names of all the faithfull recorded That such a day that day when Christ dyed I and you and all that shall be saved suffered dyed and were crucified and in Christ Jesus satisfied God the Father for those infinite sins which we had committed And now Second death which is damnation hath no more title to any of the true members of his mysticall body then corruption upon naturall or violent death could have upon the members of his naturall body The assurance of this grows from the third part of this knowledge Redemptio That Christ is in us for that is such a knowledge of Christs generall Redemption of mankinde as that it is also an application of it to us in particular For for his Incarnation by which we are in him Cyril that may have given a dignity to our humane nature But Quae beneficiorum magnitudo fuisset erganos si hominem solummodo quem assumpserat salvaret What great benefit how ever the dignity had been great to all mankinde had mankinde had if Christ had saved no more then that one person whom he assumed The largenesse and bounty of Christ is to give us of his best treasure knowledge and to give us most at last To know Christ in me For to know that he is in his Father this may serve me to convince another that denies the Trinity To know that we are in Christ so as that he took our nature this may shew me an honour done to us more then the Angels But what gets a lame wretch at the poole how soveraign soever the water be if no body put him in What gets a naked beggar by knowing that a dead man hath left much to pious uses if the Executors take no knowledge of him What get I by my knowledge of Christ in the Father and of us in Christ so if I finde not Christ in me How then is Christ in us Here the question De modo How it is is lawfull for he hath revealed it to us It is by our obedience to his inspiration and by our reverent use of those visible meanes which he hath ordained in his Church his Word and Sacraments As our flesh is in him by his participation thereof so his flesh is in us by our communication thereof And so is his divinity in us by making us partakers of his divine nature and by making us one spirit with himself which he doth at this Pentecost that is whensoever the holy Ghost visits us with his effectuall grace for this is an union in which Christ in his purpose hath married himself to our souls inseparably and Sine solutione vinculi Without any intention of divorce on his part But if we will separate him à mensa toro If either we take the bed of licentiousnesse or the board of voluptuousnesse or if when we eat or drink or sleep or wake we do not all to the glory of God if we separate he will divorce If then we be thus come to this knowledge let us make Ex scientia conscientiam Enlarge science into conscience for Conscientia est Syllogismus practicus Conscience is a Syllogisme that comes to a conclusion Then only hath a man true knowledge when he can conclude in his own conscience that his practise and conversation hath expressed it Who will beleeve that we know there is a ditch and know the danger of falling into it and drowning in it if he see us run headlong towards it and fall into it and continue in it Who can beleeve that he that separates himself from Christ by continuing in his sin hath any knowledge or sense or evidence or testimony of Christs being in him As Christ proceeds by enlarging thy knowledge and making thee wiser and wiser so enlarge thy testimony of it by growing better and better and let him that is holy bee more holy If thou have passed over the first heats of the day the wantonnesses of youth and the second heat the fire of ambition if these be quenched in thee by preventing venting grace or by repenting grace be more and more holy for thine age will meet another sin of covetousnesse or of indevotion that needs as much resistance God staid not in any lesse degree of knowledge towards thee then in bringing himselfe to thee Doe not thou stay by the way neither not in the consideration of God alone for that Coeli enarrant all creatures declare it stay not at the Trinity Every comming to Church nay thy first being brought to Church at thy Baptisme is and was a profession of that stay not at the Incarnation That the Devill knowes and testifies But come to know that Christ is in thee and expresse that knowledge in a sanctified life For though he be in us all in the work of his Redemption so as that he hath poured out balme enough in his blood to spread over all mankinde yet onely he can enjoy the chearfulnesse of this unction and the inseparablenesse of this union who as S. Augustine pursues this contemplation Habet in memoria servat in vita who alwayes remembers that he stands in the presence of Christ and behaves himselfe worthy of that glorious presence Qui habet in Sermonibus servat in operibus That hath Christ alwaies at his tongues end and alwaies at his fingers ends that loves to discourse of him and to act his discourses Que habet audiendo servat faciendo That heares Gods will here in his house and does his will at home in his owne house Qui habet faciendo servat perseverando who having done well from the beginning persevers in well doing to the end he and he onely shall finde Christ in him SERMON XXXI Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1629. GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters THe
Church of God celebrates this day the third Person of the Holy Blessed and Glorious Trinity The Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost is the God the Spirit of Comfort A Comforter not one amongst others but the Comforter not the principall but the intire the onely Comforter and more then all that The Comfort it selfe That is an attribute of the Holy Ghost Comfort And then the office of the Holy Ghost is to gather to establish to illumine to governe that Church which the Son of God from whom together with the Father the Holy Ghost proceeds hath purchased with his blood So that as the Holy Ghost is the Comforter so is this Comfort exhibited by him to us and exercised by him upon us in this especially that he hath gathered us established us illumined us and does governe us as members of that body of which Christ Jesus is the Head that he hath brought us and bred us and fed us with the meanes of salvation in his application of the merits of Christ to our soules in the Ordinances of the Church In this Text is the first mention of this Third Person of the Trinity And it is the first mention of any distinct Person in the God-head In the first verse there is an intimation of the Trinity in that Bara Elohim That Gods Gods in the plurall are said to have made heaven and earth And then as the Church after having celebrated the memory of All Saints together in that one day which we call All Saints day begins in the celebration of particular Saints first with Saint Andrew who first of any applied himself to Christ out of Saint Iohn Baptists Schoole after Christs Baptisme so Moses having given us an intimation of God and the three Persons altogether in that Bara Eloim before gives us first notice of this Person the Holy Ghost in particular because he applies to us the Mercies of the Father and the Merits of the Son and moves upon the face of the waters and actuates and fecundates our soules and generates that knowledge and that comfort which we have in the knowledge of God Now the moving of the Holy Ghost upon the face of the waters in this Text cannot be literally understood of his working upon man for man was not yet made but when man is made that is made the man of God in Christ there in that new Creation the Holy Ghost begins again with a new moving upon the face of the waters in the Sacrament of Baptisme which is the Conception of a Christian in the wombe of the Church Therefore we shall consider these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters first literally in the first and then spiritually in the second Creation first how the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the Waters in making this world for us And then how he moves upon the face of the Waters againe in making us for the other world In which two severall parts we shall consider these three termes in our Text both in the Macrocosme and Microcosme the Great and the Lesser world man extended in the world and the world contracted and abridged into man first Quid Spiritus Dei what this Power or this Person which is here called the Spirit of God is for whether it be a Power or a Person hath been diversly disputed And secondly Quid ferebatur what this Action which is here called a Moving was for whether a Motion or a Rest an Agitation or an Incubation of that Power or that Person hath been disputed too And lastly Quid super faciem aquarum what the subject of this Action the face of the waters was for whether it were a stirring and an awakening of a power that was naturally in those waters to produce creatures or whether it were an infusing a new power which till then those waters had not hath likewise beene disputed And in these three the Person the Action the Subject considered twice over in the Creation first and in our regeneration in the Christian Church after we shall determine all that is necessary for the literall and for the spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters First then 1 Part. Aug Con. 11.2 undertaking the consideration of the literall sense and after of the spirituall we joyne with S. Augustine Sint castae deliciae meae Scripturae tuae Lord I love to be conversant in thy Scriptures let my conversation with thy Scriptures be a chast conversation that I discover no nakednesse therein offer not to touch any thing in thy Scriptures but that that thou hast vouchsafed to unmask and manifest unto me Nec fallar in eis nec fallam ex eis Lord let not me mistake the meaning of thy Scriptures nor mis-lead others Ibid. by imputing a false sense to them Non frustra scribuntur sayes he Lord thou hast writ nothing to no purpose thou wouldst be understood in all But not in all by all men at all times Confiteor tibi quicquid invenero in libris tuis Lord I acknowledge that I receive from thee whatsoever I understand in thy word for else I doe not understand it This that blessed Father meditates upon the word of God he speakes of this beginning of the Book of Genesis and he speaks lamenting Scripsit Moses abiit a little Moses hath said C. 3. and alas he is gone Si hic esset tonerem eum per te rogarem If Moses were here I would hold him here and begge of him for thy sake to tell me thy meaning in his words of this Creation But sayes he since I cannot speake with Moses Te quo plenus vera dixit Veritas rogo I begge of thee who art Truth it selfe as thou enabledst him to utter it enable me to understand what he hath said So difficult a thing seemed it to that intelligent Father to understand this history this mystery of the Creation But yet though he found that divers senses offered themselves he did not doubt of finding the Truth C. 18. For Deus meus lumen oculorum meorum in occulto sayes he O my God the light of mine eyes in this dark inquisition since divers senses arise out of these words and all true Quid mihi obest si alindego sensero quam sensit alius eum sensisse qui scripsit What hurt followes though I follow another sense then some other man takes to be Moses sense for his may be a true fense and so may mine and neither be Moses his C. 30. Hee passes from prayer and protestation to counsell and direction In diversitate sententiarum verarum concordiam pariat ipsa veritas Where divers senses arise and all true that is that none of them oppose the truth let truth agree them But what is Truth God And what is God Charity Therefore let Charity reconcile such differences 1.12 C. 30. Legitimè lege ut amur sayes he let us
roome at his owne right hand for that body when that shall be re-united in a blessed Resurrection And so The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters SERM. XXXII Preached upon Whitsunday 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost WE read that in the Tribe of Benjamin Iudg. 20.16 which is by interpretation Filius dextrae The Son of the right hand there were seven hundred left-handed Men that could sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile S. Paul was of that Tribe and though he were from the beginning in the purpose of God Filius dextrae A man ordained to be a dextrous Instrument of his glory yet he was for a time a left-handed man and tooke sinister wayes and in those wayes a good mark-man a laborious and exquisite persecutor of Gods Church And therefore it is that Tertullian sayes of him Paulum mihi etiam Genesis olim repromisit I had a promise of Paul in Moses Gen 49. Then when Moses said Iacob blessed Benjamin thus Benjamin shall ravin as a Wolfe In the morning he shall devoure the prey and at night he shall divide the spoilc that is At the beginning Paul shall scatter the flocke of Christ but at last he shall gather and re-unite the Nations to his service Acts 9.1 Chrysost As he had breathed threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord so he became Os orbi sufficiens A mouth loud enough for all the world to heare And as he had drawne and sucked the blood of Christs mysticall body the Church so in that proportion that God enabled him to he recompensed that damage Colos 1.14 by effusion of his owne blood He fulfilled the sufferings of Christ in his flesh as himselfe saies to the Colossians And then he bequeathed to all posterity these Epistles which are as S. Augustine cals them Vbera Ecclesia The Paps the Breasts the Udders of the Church Numb 13.24 And which are as that cluster of Grapes of the Land of Canaan which was borne by two for here every couple every paire may have their load Jew and Gentile Learned and Ignorant Man and Wife Master and Servant Father and Children Prince and People Counsaile and Client how distinct soever they thinke their callings to be towards the world yet here every paire must equally submit their necks to this sweet and easie yoake of confessing Jesus to be the Lord and acknowledging that Confession to proceed from the working of the Holy Ghost for No man can say that Iesus is the Lord without the Holy Ghost In which words Divisio these shall be the three things that we will consider now first The generall impotency of man in spirituall duties Nemo potest no man can do this no man can doe any thing secondly How and what those spirituall duties are expressed to be It is a profession of Jesus to be the Lord to say it to declare it And thirdly the meanes of repairing this naturall impotency and rectifying this naturall obliquity in man That man by the Holy Ghost may be enabled to do this spirituall duty to professe sincerely Jesus to be the Lord. In the first we shall see first the universality of this flood the generality of our losse in Adam Nemo none not one hath any any power which notes their blasphemy that exempt any person from the infection of sin And secondly we shall see the impotency the infirmity where it lies It is in homine no man which notes their blasphemy that say Man may be saved by his naturall faculties as he is man And thirdly by just occasion of that word Potest he can he is able we shall see also the lazinesse of man which though he can doe nothing effectually and primarily yet he does not so much as he might doe And in those three we shall determine our first part In the second what this spirituall duty wherein we are all so impotent is It is first an outward act a profession not that an outward act is enough but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither To thinke it to beleeve it is not enough but we must say it professe it And what why first That Jesus is not only assent to the history and matter of fact that Jesus was and did all that is reported and recorded of him but that he is still that which he pretended to be Caesar is not Caesar still nor Alexander Alexander But Jesus is Jesus still and shall be for ever This we must professe That he is And then That he is the Lord He was not sent hither as the greatest of the Prophets nor as the greatest of the Priests His worke consists not only in having preached to us and instructed us nor in having sacrificed himselfe thereby to be an example to us to walk in those wayes after him but he is Lord he purchased a Dominion he bought us with his Blood He is Lord And lastly he is The Lord not only the Lord Paramount the highest Lord but The Lord the only Lord no other hath a Lordship in our soules no other hath any part in the saving of them but he And so far we must necessarily enlarge our second consideration And in the third part which is That this cannot be done but by the holy Ghost we shall see that in that But is first implyed an exclusion of all means but one And therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed The knowledge and discerning of the holy Ghost is a difficult thing And yet as this But hath an exclusion of all meanes but one so it hath an inclusion an admission an allowance of that one It is a necessary duty nothing can effect it but the having of the holy Ghost and therefore the holy Ghost may be had And in those two points The hardnesse of it And the possibility of it will our last consideration be employed For the first branch of the first part The generality that reaches to us all 1. Part. Generalitas and to us all over to all our persons and to all our faculties Perdidimus per peccatum bonum possibilitatis sayes S. Augustine We have lost our possession and our possibility of recovering by Adams sin Adam at his best had but a possibility of standing we are fallen from that and from all possibility of rising by any power derived from him We have not only by this fall broke our armes or our legs but our necks not our selves not any other man can raise us Every thing hath in it as Physitians use to call it Naturale Balsamum A naturall Balsamum which if any wound or hurt which that creature hath received be kept clean from extrinsique putrefaction will heale of it self We are so far from that naturall Balsamum as that we have a naturall poyson in us Originall sin for that originall sin as it hath relation to God
himselfe but not for a Ransome not for a Satisfaction but onely for a lively example thereby to incline us to suffer for Gods glory and for the edification of one another If we call him Dominum A Lord we call him Messiam Vnctum Regem anointed with the oyle of gladnesse by the Holy Ghost to bee a cheerefull conquerour of the world and the grave and sin and hell and anointed in his owne blood to be a Lord in the administration of that Church which he hath so purchased This is to say that Jesus is a Lord To professe that he is a person so qualified in his being composed of God and Man that he was able to give sufficient for the whole world and did give it and so is Lord of it When we say Iesus est That Jesus is There we confesse his eternity and therein Dominus The Lord. his Godhead when we say Iesus Dominus that he is a Lord therein we confesse a dominion which he hath purchased And when we say Iesum Dominum so as that we professe him to be the Lord Then we confesse a vigilancy a superintendency a residence and a permanency of Christ in his Dominion in his Church to the worlds end If he be the Lord in his Church there is no other that rules with him there is no other that rules for him The temporall Magistrate is not so Lord as that Christ and he are Collegues or fellow-Consuls that if he command against Christ he should be as soone obeyed as Christ for a Magistrate is a Lord and Christ is the Lord a Magistrate is a Lord to us but Christ is the Lord to him and to us and to all None rules with him none rules for him Christ needs no Vicar he is no non-resident He is nearer to all particular Churches at Gods right hand then the Bishop of Rome at his left Direct lines direct beames does alwaies warme better and produce their effects more powerfully then oblique beames doe The influence of Christ Jesus directly from Heaven upon the Church hath a truer operation then the oblique and collaterall reflections from Rome Christ is not so far off by being above the Clouds as the Bishop of Rome is by being beyond the Hils Dicimus Dominum Iesum we say that Jesus is the Lord and we refuse all power upon earth that will be Lord with him as though he needed a Coadjutor or Lord for him as though he were absent from us To conclude this second part To say that Iesus is the Lord is to confesse him to bee God from everlasting and to have beene made man in the fulnesse of time and to governe still that Church which he hath purchased with his blood and that therefore hee lookes that we direct all our particular actions to his glory For this voice wherein thou saiest Dominus Iesus The Lord Iesus must be as the voyce of the Seraphim in Esay Esay 6.2 thrice repeated Sanctus sanctus sanctus Holy holy holy our hearts must say it and our tongue and our hands too or else we have not said it For when a man will make Jesus his companion and be sometimes with him and sometimes with the world and not direct all things principally towards him when he will make Jesus his servant that is proceed in all things upon the strength of his outward profession upon the colour and pretence and advantage of Religion and devotion would this man be thought to have said Iesum Dominum Luke 6.46 That Iesus is the Lord Why call ye me Lord Lord and doe not the things I speake to you saies Christ Christ places a tongue in the hands Actions speake and Omni tuba clarior per opera Demonstratio sayes S. Chrysostome There is not onely a tongue but a Trumpet in every good worke When Christ sees a disposition in his hearers to doe according unto their professing Iohn 13.14 then only he gives allowance to that that they say Dicitis me Dominum bene dicitis You call me Lord and you doe well in doing so doe ye therefore as I have done to you To call him Lord is to contemplate his Kingdome of power to feele his Kingdome of grace to wish his Kingdome of glory It is not a Domine usque quò Iohn 11.21 Lord how long before the Consummation come as though we were weary of our warfare It not a Domine si fuisses Lord if thou hadst beene here our brother had not died as Martha said of Lazarus as though as soon as we suffer any worldly calamity we should thinke Christ to be absent from us in his power or in his care of us It is not a Domine vis mandemus Luke 9.54 Lord wilt thou that we command fire from Heaven to consume these Samaritans as though we would serve the Lord no longer then he would revenge his owne and our quarrel for that we may come to our last part to that fiery question of the Apostles Christ answered You know not of what spirit you are It is not the Spirit of God it is not the Holy Ghost which makes you call Jesus the Lord onely to serve your own ends and purposes and No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost For this Part 3 Part. Difficultas we proposed onely two Considerations first that this But excluding all meanes but one that one must therefore necessarily be difficult and secondly that that But admitting one meanes that one must therefore necessarily be possible so that there is a difficulty but yet a possibility in having this working by the Holy Ghost For the first of those hereticall words of Fanstus the Manichaean That in the Trinity the Father dwelt In illa luce inaccessibili In that light which none can attaine to And the Son of God dwelt in this created light whose fountaine and roote is the Planet of the Sun And the Holy Ghost dwelt in the Aire and other parts illumined by the Sun we may make this good use that for the knowledge of the Holy Ghost wee have not so present so evident light in reason as for the knowledge of the other blessed Persons of the glorious Trinity For for the Son because he assumed our nature and lived and dyed with us we conceive certaine bodily impressions and notions of him and then naturally and necessarily as soon as we heare of a Son we conceive a Father too But the knowledge of the Holy Ghost is not so evident neither doe we bend our thoughts upon the consideration of the Holy Ghost so much as we ought to doe The Arians enwrapped him in double clouds of darknesse when they called him Creaturam Creaturae That Christ himselfe from whom say they the Holy Ghost had his Creation was but a Creature and not God and so the Holy Ghost the Creature of a Creature And Maximus ille Gigas as Saint Bernard cals Plato That Giant in all kinde of
Learning Plato never stopped at any knowledge till he came to consider the holy Ghost Vnum inveni quod cuncta operatur I have saies Plato found One who made all things Et unum per quod cuncta efficiuntur And I have found another by whom all things were made Tertium autem non potui invenire A Third besides those two I could never finde Though all the mysteries of the Trinity be things equally easie to faith when God infuses that yet to our reason even as reason serves faith and presents things to that things are not so equall but that S. Basil himselfe saw that the eternall generation of the Son was too hard for Reason but yet it is in the proceeding of the Holy Ghost that he clearely professes his ignorance Si cuncta putarem nostra cogitatione posse comprehendi vererer fortè ignorantiam profiteri If I thought that all things might bee knowne by man I should bee as much afraid and ashamed as another man to be ignorant but saies he since we all see that there are many things whereof we are ignorant Cur non de Spiritu sancto absque rubore ignorantiam faterer Why should I be ashamed to confesse mine ignorance in many things concerning the Holy Ghost There is then a difficulty no lesse then an impossibility Possibilitas in searching after the Holy Ghost but it is in those things which appertain not to us But in others there is a possibility a facility and easinesse For there are two processions of the holy Ghost Aeterna and Temporaria his proceeding from the Father and the Son and his proceeding into us The first we shall never understand if we reade all the books of the world The other we shall not choose but understand if we study our own consciences In the first the darknesse and difficulty is recompenced in this That though it be hard to finde any thing yet it is but little that we are to seek It is only to finde that there is a holy Ghost proceeding from Father and Son for in searching farther the danger is noted by S. Basil to be thus great Qui quomodo interrogas ubi ut in loco quando ut in tempore interrogabis If thou give thy curiosity the liberty to ask How the holy Ghost proceeded thou wilt ask where it was done as though there were severall roomes and distinct places in that which is infinite And thou wilt ask when it was done as though there were pieces of time in that which is eternall Et quaeres non ut fidem sed ut infidelitatem invenias which is excellently added by that Father The end of thy enquiring will not be that thou mightest finde any thing to establish thy beliefe but to finde something that might excuse thine unbeliefe All thy curious questions are not in hope that thou shalt receive satisfaction but in hope that the weaknesse of the answer may justifie thy infidelity Thus it is if we will be over curious in the first the eternall proceeding of the Holy Ghost In the other the proceeding of the holy Ghost into us we are to consider that as in our naturall persons the body and soul do not make a perfect man except they be united except our spirits which are the active part of the blood do fit this body and soule for one anothers working So though the body of our religion may seem to be determined in these two our Creation which is commonly attributed to the Father Tanquam fonti Deitatis As the fountaine of the Godhead for Christ is God of God And our Redemption which belongs to the Son yet for this body there is a spirit that is the holy Ghost that takes this man upon whom the Father hath wrought by Creation and the Son included within his Redemption and he works in him a Vocation a Justification and a sanctification and leads him from that Esse which the Father gave him in the Creation And that Bene esse which he hath in being admitted into the body of his Son the visible Church and Congregation to an Optimè esse to that perfection which is an assurance of the inhabitation of this Spirit in him and an inchoation of eternall blessednesse here by a heavenly and sanctified conversation without which Spirit No man can say that Iesus is the Lord because he is not otherwise in a perfect obedience to him if he embrace not the means ordained by him in his Church So that this Spirit disposes and dispenses distributes and disperses and orders all the power of the Father and all the wisdome of the Son and all the graces of God It is a Center to all So S. Bernard sayes upon those words of the Apostle We approve our selves as the Ministers of God But by what By watching by fasting by suffering by the holy Ghost by love unfained Vide tanquam omnia ordinantem quomodo in medio virtutum sicut cor in medio corporis constituit Spiritum Sanctum As the heart is in the midst of the body so between these vertues of fasting and suffering before and love unfained after the Apostle places the holy Ghost who only gives life and soule to all Morall and all Theologicall vertues And as S. Bernard observes that in particular men so doth S. Augustine of the whole Church Quod in corpore nostro anima id in corpore Christi Ecclesia Spiritus Sanctus That office which the soule performes to our body the holy Ghost performes in the body of Christ which is the Church And therefore since the holy Ghost is thus necessary and thus neare as at the Creation the whole Trinity was intimated in that plurall word Elohim creavit Dii but no person of the Trinity is distinctly named in the Creation but the holy Ghost The Spirit of God moved upon the waters As the holy Ghost was first conveyed to our knowledge in the Creation so in our Regeneration by which we are new creatures though our Creation and our Redemption be religious subjects of our continuall meditation yet let us be sure to hold this that is nearest us to keep a neare a familiar and daily acquaintance and conversation with the holy Ghost and to be watchfull to cherish his light and working in us Homines docent quaerere solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Bernard Men can teach us wayes how to finde somethings The Pilot how to finde a Land The Astronomer how to finde a Star Men can teach us wayes how to finde God The naturall man in the book of creatures The Morall man in an exemplar life The Jew in the Law The Christian in generall in the Gospell But Solus ipse qui docet invenire habere frui Only the holy Ghost enables us to finde God so as to make him ours and to enjoy him 1 Cor. 2.14 First you must get more light then nature gives for The naturall man perceiveth not the things
falls that does not lie in those round drops in which it falls but diffuses and spreads and inlarges it selfe He fell upon all But then it was because all heard They came not to see a new action preaching not a new Preacher Peter nor to see one another at a Sermon He fell upon all that heard where also I think it will not be impertinent to make this note That Peter is said to have spoke these words but they on whom the holy Ghost fell are said to have heard The word It is not Many words long Sermons nor good words witty and eloquent Sermons that induce the holy Ghost for all these are words of men and howsoever the whole Sermon is the Ordinance of God the whole Sermon is not the word of God But when all the good gifts of men are modestly employ'd and humbly received as vehicuia Spiritus as S. Augustine calls them The chariots of the holy Ghost as meanes afforded by God to convey the word of life into us in Those words we heare The word and there the word and the Spirit goe together as in our case in the Text While Peter yet spake those words the holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard The word 1 Part. Tempus When we come then to consider in the first place the Time of this miracle we may easily see that verified in S. Peters proceeding which S. Ambrose sayes Nescit tarda molimina Spiritus sancti gratia The holy Ghost cannot goe a slow pace It is the devill in the serpent that creeps but the holy Ghost in the Dove flyes And then in the proceeding with the Centurion we may see that verified which Leo sayes Vbi Deus Magister quà m citò discitur Where God teaches how fast a godly man learnes Christ did almost all his miracles in an instant without dilatory circumstances Christ sayes to the man sick of the palsey Mark 2.11 Tolle grabatum Take up thy bed and walk and immediately he did so To the deafe man he sayes Mark 7.34 Ephphatha Be thine eares opened and instantly they were opened He sayes to the woman with the issue of bloud Mark 5.34 Esto sana à plagatua and she was not onely well immediately upon that but she was well before when she had but touched the hem of his garment Upon him who had lyen in his infirmity thirty eight yeares at the poole Christ makes a little stop but it was no longer then to try his disposition with that question John 5.5 Mark 8. Vis sanus fieri Christ was sure what his answer would be and as soone as he gives that answer immediately he recovered Where Christ seems to have stayed longest which was upon the blind man yet at his first touch that man saw men walke though not distinctly but at the second touch he saw perfectly As Christ proceeds in his miracles Chrysost so doth the holy Ghost in his powerfull instructions It is true Scientiae sunt profectus There is a growth in knowledge and we overcome ignorances by degrees and by succession of more and more light Christ himselfe grew in knowledge as well as in stature But this is in the way of experimentall knowledge by study by conversation by other acquisitions But when the holy Ghost takes a man into his schoole he deales not with him as a Painter which makes an eye and an eare and a lip and passes his pencill an hundred times over every muscle and every haire and so in many sittings makes up one man but he deales as a Printer that in one straine delivers a whole story We see that in this example of S. Peter S. Peter had conceived a doubt whether it were lawfull for him to preach the Gospell to any of the Gentiles because they were not within the Covenant This was the sanus fieri This very scruple was the voyce and question of God in him to come to a doubt and to a debatement in any religious duty is the voyce of God in our conscience Would you know the truth Doubt and then you will inquire And facile solutionem accipit anima quae prius dubitavit sayes S. Chrysost As no man resolves of any thing wisely firmely safely of which he never doubted never debated so neither doth God withdraw a resolution from any man that doubts with an humble purpose to settle his owne faith and not with a wrangling purpose to shake another mans Ver. 11. God rectifies Peters doubt immediately and he rectifies it fully he presents him a Book and a Commentary the Text and the Exposition He lets downe a sheet from heaven with all kinde of beasts and fowles and tels him that Nothing is uncleane and he tells him by the same spirit Ver. 19. that there were three men below to aske for him who were sent by God to apply that visible Parable and that God meant in saying Nothing was uncleane that the Gentiles generally and in particular this Centurion Cornelius were not incapable of the Gospell nor unfit for his Ministery And though Peter had beene very hungry and would faine have eaten as appeares in the tenth verse yet after he received this instruction we heare no more mention of his desire to eat but as his Master had said Cibus meus est My meat is to doe my Fathers will that sent me so his meat was to doe him good that sent for him and so he made haste to goe with those Messengers The time then was Cum locutus when Peter thus prepared by the Holy Ghost was to prepare others for the Holy Ghost and therefore it was Cum locutus When he spoke that is preached to them For Si adsit palatum fidei cui sapiat mel Dei saies S. Augustine To him who hath a spirituall taste no hony is so sweet as the word of God preached according to his Ordinance If a man taste a little of this honey at his rods end as Ionathan did 1 Sam. 14.27 though he thinke his eyes enlightned as Ionathan did he may be in Ionathans case I did but taste a little honey with my rod Et ecce morior and behold I dye If a man read the Scriptures a little superficially perfunctorily his eyes seeme straight-waies enlightned and he thinks he sees every thing that he had pre-conceived and fore-imagined in himselfe as cleare as the Sun in the Scriptures He can finde flesh in the Sacrament without bread because he findes Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and he will take no more of that hony no more of those places of Scripture where Christ saies Ego vitis and Ego porta that he is a Vine and that he is a Gate as literally as he seemes to say that that is his Body So also he can finde wormewood in this honey because he finds in this Scripture Stipendium peccati mors est that The reward of sin is death and he will take no
whom they defame by the name of Heretiques with beginning this doctrine which was amongst themselves before we were at all if they did date us aright Attestatur spiritus ei damus fidem inde certi sumus sayes that Bishop The holy Ghost beares witnesse and our spirit with him and thereby we are sure but sayes he they will needs make a doubt whether this be a knowledge out of faith which doubt sayes he Secum fert absurditatem There is an absurdity a contradiction in the very doubt Ex Spiritu sancto humana Is it a knowledge from the holy Ghost and is it not a divine knowledge then But say they as that Bishop presses their objections The holy Ghost doth not make them know that it is the holy Ghost that assures them This is sayes he as absurd as the other For Nisi se testantem insinuet non testatur Except he make them discern that he is a witnesse he is no witnesse to them He ends it thus Sustinere coguntur quod excidit and that is indeed their case in very many things controverted Then when it conduced to their advantage in argument or to their profit in purse such and such things fell from them and now that opposition is made against such sayings of theirs their profit lyes at stake and their reputation too to make good and to maintain that which they have once how undiscreetly soever said Some of their severest later men even of their Jesuits acknowledges that we may know ourselves to be the children of God with as good a knowledge as that there is a Rome or a Constantinople And such an assurance as delivers them from all feare that they shall fall away Vegas Pererius and is not this more then that assurance which we take to our selves We give no such assurance as may occasion security or slacknesse in the service of God and they give such an assurance as may remove all feare and suspition of falling from God It was truly good counsell in S. Gregory when writing to one of the Empresses bed-chamber a religious Lady of his own name who had written to him that she should never leave importuning him till he sent her word that he had received a revelation from God that she was saved for sayes he Rem difficilem postulas inutilem It is a hard matter you require and an impertinent and uselesse matter for I am not a man worthy to receive revelations and besides such a revelation as you require might make you too secure And Mater negligentiae solet esse securitas sayes he Such a security might make you negligent in those duties which should make sure your salvation S. Augustine felt the witnesse of The Spirit but not of his spirit when he stood out so many solicitations of the holy Ghost and deferred and put off the outward meanes his Baptisme In that state when he had a disposition to Baptisme he sayes of himselfe Inferbui exultando sed inhorrui timendo Still I had a fervent joy in me because I saw the way to thee and intended to put my selfe into that way but yet because I was not yet in it I had a trembling a jealousie a suspition of my self Insinuati sunt mihi in profundo nutus tui In that halfe darknesse in that twi-light I discerned thine eye to be upon me Et gaudens in fide laudavi nomen tuum And this sayes he created a kinde of faith a confidence in me and this induced an inward joy and that produced a praising of thy goodnesse Sed ea fides securum me non esse sinebat But all this did not imprint and establish that security that assurance which I found as soon as I came to the outward seales and marks and testimonies of thine inseparable presence with me in thy Baptisme and other Ordinances S. Bernard puts the marks of as much assurance as we teach in these words of our Saviour Surge tolle grabatum ambula Arise Take up thy bed and walk Surge ad divina Raise thy thoughts upon the next world Tolle corpus ut non te ferat sed tu illud Take up thy body bring thy body into thy power that thou govern it and not it thee And then Ambula non retrospicias Walk on proceed forward and looke not backe with a delight upon thy former sins Remigius And a great deale an elder man then Bernard expresses it well Bene viventibus perhibet testimonium quòd jam sumus filii Dei To him that lives according to a right faith the Spirit testifies that he is now the childe of God Et quòd talia faciendo perseverabimus in ea filiatione He carries this testimony thus much farther That if we endeavour to continue in that course we shall continue in that state of being the children of God and never be cast off never disinherited Herein is our assurance an election there is The Spirit beares witnesse to our spirit that it is ours We testifie this in a holy life and the Church of God and the whole world joynes in this testimony That we are the children of God which is our last branch and conclusion of all The holy Ghost could not expresse more danger to a man then when he calls him Filium saeculi Luk. 16.18 Ephes 5.6 Acts 13.10 The childe of this world Nor a worse disposition then when he cals him Filium diffidentiae The childe of diffidence and distrust in God Nor a worse pursuer of that ill disposition then when he calls him Filium diaboli as S. Peter calls Elymas The childe of the devill Nor a worse possessing of the devill then when he calls him Filium perditionis John 17. Mat. 23.15 The childe of perdition Nor a worse execution of all this then when he calls him Filium gehennae The childe of hell The childe of this world The childe of desperation The childe of the devill The childe of perdition The childe of hell is a high expressing a deep aggravating of his damnation That his damation is not only his purchase as he hath acquired it but it is his inheritance he is the childe of damnation So is it also a high exaltation when the holy Ghost draws our Pedegree from any good thing and calls us the children of that Iohn 12.36 Mat. 9.15 As when he cals us Filios lucis The children of light that we have seen the day-star arise when he cals us Filios sponsi The children of the bride-chamber begot in lawfull marriage upon the true Church these are faire approaches to the highest title of all to be Filii Dei The children of God And not children of God Per filiationem vestigii so every creature is a childe of God by having an Image and impression of God in the very Beeing thereof but children so as that we are heires and heires so as that we are Co-heires with Christ as it follows in the next verse
mala sunt in ordine That even disorders are done in order that even our sins some way or other fall within the providence of God But that is not the order nor judgement which the holy Ghost is sent to manifest to the world The holy Ghost works best upon them which search least into Gods secret judgements and proceedings But the order and judgement we speak of is an order a judgement-seate established by which every man howsoever oppressed with the burden of sin may in the application of the promises of the Gospel by the Ordinance of preaching and in the seales thereof in the participation of the Sacraments be assured that he hath received his Absolution his Remission his Pardon and is restored to the innocency of his Baptisme nay to the integrity which Adam had before the fall nay to the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus himselfe In the creation God took red earth and then breathed a soule into it When Christ came to a second creation to make a Church he took earth men red earth men made partakers of his blood for Ecclesiam quaesivit acquisivit Bernard Hee desired a Church and he purchased a Church but by a blessed way of Simony Adde medium acquisitionis Sanguine acquisivit Acts 20.28 He purchased a Church with his own blood And when he had made this body in calling his Apostles then he breathed the soule into them his Spirit and that made up all Quod insufflavit Dominus Apostolis dixit August Accipite Spiritum sanctum Ecclesiae potestas collata est Then when Christ breathed that Spirit into them he constituted the Church And this power of Remission of sins is that order and that judgement which Christ himselfe calls by the name of the most orderly frame in this or the next world A Kingdome Dispono vobis regnum Luk. 22.29 I appoint unto you a Kingdome as my Father hath appointed unto me Now Faciunt favos vespa faciunt Ecclesias Marcionitae As Waspes make combs Tertul. but empty ones so do Heretiques Churches but frivolous ones ineffectuall ones And as we told you before That errors and disorders are as well in wayes as inends so may we deprive our selves of the benefit of this judgement The Church as well in circumstances as in substances as well in opposing discipline as doctrine The holy Ghost reprovcâ—thee convinces thee of judgement that is offers thee the knowledge that such a Church there is A Jordan to wash thine originall leprosie in Baptisme A City upon a mountaine to enlighten thee in the works of darknesse a continuall application of all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered to thee Let no soule say she can have all this at Gods hands immediatly and never trouble the Church That she can passe her pardon between God and her without all these formalities by a secret repentance It is true beloved a true repentance is never frustrate But yet if thou wilt think thy selfe a little Church a Church to thy selfe because thou hast heard it said That thou art a little world a world in thy selfe that figurative that metaphoricall representation shall not save thee Though thou beest a world to thy self yet if thou have no more corn nor oyle nor milk then growes in thy self or flowes from thy self thou wilt starve Though thou be a Church in thy fancy if thou have no more seales of grace no more absolution of sin Grego then thou canst give thy self thou wilt perish Per solam Ecclesiam sacrificium libenter accipit Deus Thou maist be a Sacrifice in thy chamber but God receives a Sacrifice more cheerefully at Church Sola quae pro errantibus fiducialiter intercedit Only the Church hath the nature of a surety Howsoever God may take thine own word at home yet he accepts the Church in thy behalfe as better security Joyne therefore ever with the Communion of Saints August Et cum membrum sis ejus corporis quod loquitur omnibus linguis crede te omnibus linguis loqui Whilst thou art a member of that Congregation that speaks to God with a thousand tongues beleeve that thou speakest to God with all those tongues And though thou know thine own prayers unworthy to come up to God because thou liftest up to him an eye which is but now withdrawne from a licentious glancing and hands which are guilty yet of unrepented uncleannesses a tongue that hath but lately blasphemed God a heart which even now breaks the walls of this house of God and steps home or runs abroad upon the memory or upon the new plotting of pleasurable or profitable purposes though this make thee thinke thine own prayers uneffectuall yet beleeve that some honester man then thy selfe stands by thee and that when he prayes with thee he prayes for thee and that if there be one righteous man in the Congregation thou art made the more acceptable to God by his prayers and make that benefit of this reproofe this conviction of the holy Ghost That he convinces thee De judicio assures thee of an orderly Church established for thy reliefe and that the application of thy self to this judgement The Church shall enable thee to stand upright in that other judgement the last judgement which is also enwrapped in the signification of this word of our Text Iudgement and is the conclusion for this day As God begun all with judgement Iudicium finale Sap. 11. for he made all things in measure number and waight as he proceeded with judgement in erecting a judiciall seat for our direction and correction the Church so he shall end all with judgement The finall and generall judgement at the Resurrection which he that beleeves not beleeves nothing not God for Heb. 11.6 He that commeth to God that makes any step towards him must beleeve Deum remuner atorem God and God in that notion as he is a Rewarder Therefore there is judgement But was this work left for the Holy Ghost Did not the naturall man that knew no Holy Ghost know this Truly all their fabulous Divinity all their Mythology their Minos and their Rhadamanthus tasted of such a notion as a judgement And yet the first planters of the Christian Religion found it hardest to fixe this roote of all other articles That Christ should come againe to judgement Miserable and froward men They would beleeve it in their fables and would not beleeve it in the Scriptures They would beleeve it in the nine Muses and would not beleeve it in the twelve Apostles They would beleeve it by Apollo and they would not beleeve it by the Holy Ghost They would be saved Poetically and fantastically and would not reasonably and spiritually By Copies and not by Originals by counterfeit things at first deduced by their Authors out of our Scriptures Tertul. and yet not by the word of God himself Which Tertullian apprehends and reprehends in his time when he
gods as there are Creatures from God and more then that as many gods as they could fancie or imagine in making Chimera's of their owne for not onely that which was not God but that which was not at all was made a God And then as in narrow channels that cannot containe the water the water over-flowes and yet that water that does so over flow flies out and spreads to such a shallownesse as will not beare a Boat to any use so when by this narrownesse in the Gentiles God had over-flowne this bank this limitation of God in an unity all the rest was too shallow to beare any such notion any such consideration of God as appertained to him They could not think him an Omnipotent God when if one God would not another would nor an Infinite God when they had appeales from one God to another and without Omnipotence and without Infinitenesse they could not truly conceive a God They had cantoned a glorious Monarchy into petty States that could not subsist of themselves nor assist another and so imagined a God for every state and every action that a man must have applied himselfe to one God when he shipped and when he landed to another and if he travailed farther change his God by the way as often as he changed coynes or post-horses Deut. 6.4 But Heare O Israel the Lord thy God is one God As though this were all that were to be heard all that were to be learned they are called to heare and then there is no more said but that The Lord thy God is one God There are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make God the Author of sin but yet when they say That God made man therefore that he might have something to damne and that he made him sin therefore that he might have something to damne him for truly they come too neare making God the Author of sin for all their modest protestation of abstaining So there are men that will say and sweare they do not meane to make Saints Gods but yet when they will aske the same things at Saints hands which they do at Gods and in the same phrase and manner of expression when they will pray the Virgin Mary to assist her Son nay to command her Son and make her a Chancellor to mitigate his common Law truly they come too neare making more Gods then one And so do we too when we give particular sins dominion over us Quot vitia tot Deos recentes sayes Hierom As the Apostle sayes Covetousnesse is Idolatry so sayes that Father is voluptuousnesse and licentiousnesse and every habituall sin Non alienum sayes God Thou shalt have no other God but me But Quis similis sayes God too Who is like me Hee will have nothing made like him not made so like a God as they make their Saints nor made so like a God as we make our sins Wee thinke one King Soveraigne enough and one friend counsellor enough and one Wife helper enough and he is strangely insatiable that thinks not one God God enough especially since when thou hast called this God what thou canst Hâ—â—â—r he is more then thou hast said of him Cum definitur ipse sua definitione crescit When thou hast defined him to be the God of justice and tremblest he is more then that he is the God of mercy too and gives thee comfort When thou hast defined him to be all eye He sees all thy sins he is more then that he is all patience and covers all thy sins And though he be in his nature incomprehensible and inaccessible in his light yet this is his infinite largenesse that being thus infinitely One he hath manifested himselfe to us in three Persons to be the more easily discerned by us and the more closely and effectually applied to us Now these notions that we have of God as a Father as a Son as a Holy Ghost Trinitas as a Spirit working in us are so many handles by which we may take hold of God and so many breasts by which we may suck such a knowledge of God as that by it wee may grow up into him And as wee cannot take hold of a torch by the light but by the staffe we may so though we cannot take hold of God as God who is incomprehensible and inapprehensible yet as a Father as a Son as a Spirit dwelling in us we can There is nothing in Nature that can fully represent and bring home the notion of the Trinity to us There is an elder booke in the World then the Scriptures It is not well said in the World for it is the World it selfe the whole booke of Creatures And indeed the Scriptures are but a paraphrase but a comment but an illustration of that booke of Creatures And therefore though the Scriptures onely deliver us the doctrine of the Trinity clearely yet there are some impressions some obumbrations of it in Nature too Take but one in our selves in the soule The understanding of man that is as the Father begets discourse ratiocination and that is as the Son and out of these two proceed conclusions and that is as the Holy Ghost Such as these there are many many sprinkled in the Schoole many scattered in the Fathers but God knowes poore and faint expressions of the Trinity But yet Praemisit Deus naturam magistram Tertul. submissurus prophetiam Though God meant to give us degrees in the University that is increase of knowledge in his Scriptures after yet he gave us a pedagogy he sent us to Schoole in Nature before Vt faciliùs credas prophetiae discipulus naturae That comming out of that Schoole thou mightest profit the better in that University having well considered Nature thou mightest be established in the Scriptures He is therefore inexcusable that considers not God in the Creature that comming into a faire Garden sayes onely Here is a good Gardiner and not Here is a good God and when he sees any great change sayes onely This is a strange accident and not a strange Judgement Hence is it that in the books of the Platonique Philosophers and in others much ancienter then they if the books of Hermes Trismegistus and others be as ancient as is pretended in their behalfe we finde as cleare expressing of the Trinity as in the Old Testament at least And hence is it that in the Talmud of the Jews and in the Alcoran of the Turks though they both oppose the Trinity yet when they handle not that point there fall often from them as cleare confessions of the three Persons as from any of the elder of those Philosophers who were altogether dis-interested in that Controversie But because God is seene Per creaturas ut per speculum per verbum ut per lucem Aleus In the creature and in nature but by reflection In the Word and in the Scriptures directly we rest in the knowledge which we
power Via miraculorum Miracles no man may ground his beliefe upon that which seems a Miracle to him Moses wrought Miracles and Pharaohs instruments wrought the like we know theirs were no true Miracles and we know Moses were but how do we know this By another voyce by the Word of God who cannot lie for for those upon whom those Miracles were to worke on both sides Moses and they too seemed to the beholders diversly disposed to do Miracles One Rule in discerning and judging a Miracle is to consider whether it be done in confirmation of a necessary Truth otherwise it is rather to be suspected for an Illusion then accepted for a Miracle The Rule is intimated in Deuteronomy where Deut. 13. though a Prophets prophecy do come to passe yet if his end be to draw to other gods he must be slaine What Miracles soever are pretended in confirmation of the inventions of Men are to be neglected God hath not carried us so low for our knowledge as to Creatures to Nature nor so high as to Miracles but by a middle way By a voyce But it is Vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven S. Basil applying indeed with some wresting and derorting those words in the 29 Psalme vers 3. De Coelis The voyce of the Lord is upon the waters the God of glory maketh it to thunder to this Baptisme of Christ he sayes Vox super aquas Ioannes The words of Iohn at Christs Baptisme were this voyce that David intends And then that manifestation which God gave of the Trinity whatsoever it were altogether that was the Thunder of his Majesty so this Thunder then was vox de Coelis A voyce from heaven And in this voyce the person of the Father was manifested as he was in the same voyce at his Transfiguration Since this voyce then is from Heaven and is the Fathers voyce we must looke for all our knowledge of the Trinity from thence For to speake of one of those persons Mat. 11.27 of Christ no man knoweth the Sonne but the Father Who then but he can make us know him If any knew it yet it is an unexpressible mystery no man could reveale it Mat. 16.17 Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in heaven If any could reveale it to us yet none could draw us to beleeve it No man can come to me except the Father draw him Iohn 6.44 So that all our voyce of Direction must be from thence De Coelis from Heaven We have had Voces de Inferis voyces from Hell in the blasphemies of Heretiques De Inferis That the Trinity was but Cera extensa but as a Rolle of Wax spread or a Dough Cake rolled out and so divided unto persons That the Trinity was but a nest of Boxes a lesser in a greater and not equall to one another And then that the Trinity was not onely three persons but three Gods too So far from the truth and so far from one another have Heretiques gone in the matter of the Trinity and Cerinthus so far in that one person in Christ as to say That Jesus and Christ were two distinct persons and that into Jesus who sayes he was the sonne of Ioseph Christ who was the Spirit of God descended here at his Baptisme and was not in him before and withdrew himselfe from him againe at the time of his Passion and was not in him then so that he was not borne Christ nor suffered not being Christ but was onely Christ in his preaching and in his Miracles and in all the rest he was but Jesus sayes Cerinthus We have had Voces de Inferis de profundis from the depth of hell De Medio in the malice of Heretiques And we have had Voces de medio voyces from amongst us Inventions of men to expresse and to make us understand the Trinity in pictures and in Comparisons All which to contract this point are apt to fall into that abuse which we will onely note in one At first they used ordinarily to expresse the Trinity in foure letters which had no ill purpose in it at first but was a religious ease for their memories in Catechismes The letters were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the two last belonged to the last person for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so there was Father Sonne and Holy Ghost as if we should expresse it in F and S and H and G. But this came quickly thus far into abuse as that they thought there could belong but three letters in that picture to the three persons and therefore allowing so many to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost they tooke the last letter P for Petrus and so made Peter head of the Church and equall to the Trinity So that for our knowledge in this mysterious doctrine of the Trinity let us evermore rest in voce de coelis in that voice which came from heaven But yet it is Vox dicens Dicens A voice saying speaking A voice that man is capable of and may be benefited by It is not such a voice as that was which came from heaven too when Christ prayed to God to glorifie his name Iohn 12.28 That the people should say some that it was a Thunder some that it was an Angel that spake They are the sons of Thunder and they are the Ministeriall Angels of the Church from whom we must heare this voice of heaven Nothing can speak but man No voice is understood by man but the voice of man It is not Vox dicens That voyce sayes nothing to me that speaks not And therefore howsoever the voice in the Text were miraculously formed by God to give this glory and dignity to this first manifestation of the Trinity in the person of Christ yet because he hath left it for a permanent Doctrine necessary to Salvation he hath left ordinary means for the conveying of it that is The same voice from heaven the same word of God but speaking in the ministery of man And therefore for our measure of this knowledge which is our third and last Part we are to see how Christian men whose office it hath been to interpret Scriptures that is how the Catholike Church hath understood these words Hic est Filius This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased How we are to receive the knowledge of the Trinity 3 Part. Athanasius hath expressed as far as we can goe Whosoever will be saved hee must beleeve it but the manner of it is not exposed so far as to his beliefe That question of the Prophet Quis
us nor great persons can advance for us nor any Prince can take from us This is the Lord in this place this is Iehova and Germen Iehovae The Lord Esay 4.2 and the off-spring of the Lord and none is the off-spring of God but God that is the Son and the Holy Ghost So that this perfect blessednesse consists in this the true knowledge and worship of the Trinity And this blessing that is the true Religion and profession of Christ Jesus Populus is to be upon all the people which is our last Confideration Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord Psal 33.12 and the people whom he hath chosen for his Inheritance And here againe as in the former Consideration of temporall blessednesse The people includes both Prince and people and then the blessing consists in this that both Prince and people be sincerely affected to the true Religion And then the people includes all the people and so the blessing consists in this that there be an unanimitie a consent in all in matter of Religion And lastly the people includes the future people and there the blessing consists in this that our posterity may enjoy the same purity of Religion that we doe The first tentation that fell amonst the Apostles carried away one of them Iudas was transported with the tentation of money and how much For thirty peeces and in all likelihood he might have made more profit then that out of the privy purse The first tentation carried one but the first persecution carried away nine when Christ was apprehended none was left but two and of one of those two S. Hierom saies Vtinà m fugisset non negasset Christum I would Peter had fled too and not scandalized the cause more by his stay in denying his Master for a man may stay in the outward profession of the true Religion with such purposes and to such ends as he may thereby damnifie the cause more and damnifie his owne soule more then if he went away to that Religion to which his conscience though ill rectified directs him Now though when such tentations and such persecutions doe come the words of our Saviour Christ will alwayes be true Luke 12.32 Feare not little flocke for it is Gods pleasure to give you the Kingdome though God can lay up his seed-corne in any little corner yet the blessing intended here is not in that little seed-corne nor in the corner but in the plenty when all the people are blessed and the blessed Spirit blowes where he will and no doore nor window is shut against him And therefore let all us blesse God for that great blessing to us in giving us such Princes as make it their care Nebona caducasint ne mala recidiva That that blessednesse which we enjoy by them may never depart from us that those miseries which wee felt before them may never returne to us Almighty God make alwaies to us all Prince and people these temporall blessings which we enjoy now Peace and Plenty and Health seales of his spirituall blessings and that spirituall blessednesse which we enjoy now the profession of the onely true Religion a seale of it selfe and a seale of those eternall blessings which the Lord the righteous Judge hath laid up for his in that Kingdome which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood In which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXV Preached to the King at VVhite-hall April 15. 1628. ESAY 32.8 But the liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand BY two wayes especially hath the Gospell beene propagated by men of letters by Epistles and by Sermons The Apostles pursued both wayes frequent in Epistles assiduous in Sermons And as they had the name of Apostles from Letters from Epistles from Missives for the Certificates and Testimonials and safe-conducts and letters of Credit which issued from Princes Courts or from Courts that held other Jurisdiction were in the formularies and termes of Law called Apostles before Christs Apostles were called Apostles so they executed the office of their Apostleship so too by Writing by Preaching This succession in the Ministery of the Gospell did so too Chrysost Therefore it is said of S. Chrysostome Vbique praedicavit quia ubique lectus He preached every where because he was read every where And he that is said to have beene S. Pelusiota Chrysostomes disciple Isidore is said to have written ten thousand Epistles and in them to have delivered a just and full Commentary upon all the Scriptures In the first age of all they scarce went any other way for writing but this by Epistles Of Clement of Ignatius of Polycarpus of Martial there is not much offered us with any probability but in the name of Epistles When Christians gathered themselves with more freedome and Churches were established with more liberty Preaching prevailed And there is no exercise that is denoted by so many names as Preaching Origen began for I thinke we have no Sermons till Origens And though hee began early early if wee consider the age of the Church a thousand foure hundred yeares since and early if wee consider his owne age for Origens preached by the commandement and in the presence of Bishops before he was a Churchman yet he suffered no Sermons of his to be copied till he was sixty yeares old Now Origen called his Homilies And the first Gregory of the same time with Origen that was Bishop of Neocesaria hath his called Sermons And so names multiplied Homilies Sermons Conciones Lectures S. Augustins Enarrations Dictiones that is Speeches Damascens and Cyrils Orations nay one excercise of Caesareus conveied in the forme of a Dialogue were all Sermons Add to these Church-exercises Homilies Sermons Lectures Orations Speeches and the rest the Declamations of Civill men in Courts of Justice the Tractates of Morall men written in their Studies nay goe backe to your our owne times when you went to Schoole or to the University and remember but your owne or your fellowes Themes or Problemes or Common-places and in all these you may see evidence of that to which the Holy Ghost himselfe hath set a Seale in this text that is the recommendation of Bountie of Munificence of Liberalitie The Liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things hee shall stand That which makes me draw into consideration Divisio the recommendation of this vertue in civill Authors and exercises as well as in Ecclesiasticall is this That our Expositors of all the three ranks and Classes The Fathers and Ancients The later men in the Romane Church and ours of the Reformation are very near equally divided in every of these three rankes whether this Text be intended of a morall and a civill or of a spirituall and Ecclesiasticall liberality whether this prophecy of Esay in this Chapter beginning thus Behold a King shall reigne in righteousnesse Ver. 1. and
his Gomer his explicite knowledge of Articles absolutely necessary to salvation The simplest man as well as the greatest Doctor is bound to know that there is one God in three persons That the second of those the Sonne of God tooke our nature and dyed for mankinde And that there is a Holy Ghost which in the Communion of Saints the Church established by Christ applies to every particular soule the benefit of Christs universall redemption But then for our Quails birds of higher pitch meat of a stronger digestion which is the knowledge how to rectifie every straying conscience how to extricate every entangled and scrupulous and perplexed soule in all emergent doubts how to defend our Church and our Religion from all the mines and all the batteries of our Adversaries and to deliver her from all imputations of Heresie and Schisme which they impute to us this knowledge is not equally necessary in all In many cases a Master of servants and a Father of children is bound to know more then those children and servants and the Pastor of the parish more then parishioners They may have their fulnesse though he have more but he hath not his except he be able to give them satisfaction This fulnesse then is not an equality in the measure our fulnesse in heaven shall not be so Abraham dyed sayes the text Plenus dierum full of yeares Gen. 25.8 It is not said so in the text of Methusalem that he dyed full of yeares and yet he had another manner of Gomer another measure of life then Abraham for he lived almost eight hundred yeares more then he But he that is best disposed to die is fullest of yeares One man may be fuller at twenty then another at seaventy David lived not the tithe of Methusalems yeares not ten to his hundred he lived lesse then Abraham and yet David is said to have dyed Plenus dierum full of yeares he had made himselfe agreeable to God 1 Chro. 29.28 and so was ripe for him So David is said there to have dyed full of honor God knowes David had cast shrowd aspersions upon his own and others honor but as God sayes of Israel Because I loved thee thou wast honorable in my sight so because God loved David and he persevered in that love to the end he dyed full of honor So also it is said of David that he dyed full of Riches for though they were very great additions which Solomon made yet because David intended that which he left for Gods service and for pious uses he dyed full of Riches fulnesse of riches is in the good purpose and the good employment not in the possession In a word the fulnesse that is inquired after and required by this prayer carry it upon temporall carry it upon spirituall things is such a proportion of either as is fit for that calling in which God hath put us And then the satisfaction in this fulnesse is not to hunt and pant after more worldly possessions by undue meanes or by macerating labour as though we could not be good or could doe no good in the world except all the goods of the world passed our hands nor to hunt and pant after the knowledge of such things as God by his Scriptures hath not revealed to his Church nor to wrangle contentiously and uncharitably about such points as doe rather shake others consciences then establish our own as though we could not possibly come to heaven except we knew what God meant to doe with us before he meant to make us S. Paul expresses fully what this fulnesse is Colos 4.12 and satisfies us in this satisfaction Vt sitis pleni in omni voluntate Dei That yee may be filled according to the will of God What is the will of God How shall I know the will of God upon me God hath manifested his will in my Calling and a proportion competent to this Calling is my fulnesse and should be my satisfaction Gen. 8.21 that so God may have Odorem quietis as it is said in Noahs sacrifice after he came out of the Arke that God smelt a savour of rest a sacrifice in which he might rest himselfe for God hath a Sabbath in the Sabbaths of his servants a fulnesse in their fulnesse a satisfaction when they are satisfied and is well pleased when they are so So then this Prayer is for fulnesse Nos and fulnesse is a competency in our calling And a prayer for satisfaction and satisfaction is a contentment in that competency And then this prayer is not onely a prayer of appropriation to our selves but of a charitable extention to others too Satura nos Satisfie us All us all thy Church Charity begins in our selves but it does not end there but dilates it selfe to others The Saints in heaven are full as full as they can hold and yet they pray Though they want nothing they pray that God would powre down upon us graces necessary for our peregrination here as he hath done upon them in their station there We are full full of the Gospel present peace and plenty in the preaching thereof and faire apparances of a perpetuall succession we are full and yet we pray we pray that God would continue the Gospel where it is restore the Gospel where it was and transfer the Gospel where it hath not yet been preached Charity desires not her own sayes the Apostle but much lesse doth charity desire no more then her own so as not to desire the good of others too True love and charity is to doe the most that we can all that we can for the good of others So God himselfe proceeds when he sayes What could I doe that I have not done And so he seems to have begun at first when God bestowed upon man his first and greatest benefit his making it is expressed so Faciamus hominem Let us All us make man God seems to summon himselfe to assemble himselfe to muster himselfe all himselfe all the persons of the Trinity to doe what he could in the favour of man So also when he is drawne to a necessity of executing judgement and for his own honor and consolidation of his servants puts himselfe upon a revenge he proceeds so too when man had rebelled and began to fortifie in Babel Gen. 11.7 then God sayes Venite Let us All us come together And Descendamus confundamus Let us all us goe down and confound their language and their machinations and fortifications God does not give patterns God does not accept from us acts of half-devotion and half-charities God does all that he can for us And therefore when we see others in distresse whether nationall or personall calamities whether Princes be dispossest of their naturall patrimony and inheritance or private persons afflicted with sicknesse or penury or banishment let us goe Gods way all the way First Faciamus hominem ad imaginem nostram Let us make that Man according