King Agrippa's leave almost a Christian was three parts an Atheist Such a glimmering light of zeal is like a Morning mist which quickly vanisheth away and it is Christus suffuratus as the Souldiers said Christ stoln away and pilfered out of our heart I know not how He that never saw the Sea is as near his journeys end to pass it over as he that wades but to the ankles The hands of Zorobabel have laid the foundation of this house and his hands shall finish it Zach. iv 9. that was a blessing from the Lord. To be of Caesars mind Nil actum credens cum quid superesset agendum to think nothing done when any thing was undone that was a Spirit to make a Conquerour My love is a bundle of Myrrh Cant. xiii As if she were like Seleucus shafts which could not be broken in the cluster Such a bundle of Myrrh is in St. Peter 2 Epist i. 5. Give all diligence and add to your faith vertue to your vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to all these charity What will all these serve the turn when they stand as thick as corn in harvest Yes says the Apostle Si abundaverint if they abound in you they will make you you shall not be barren and fruitless Thus then Truth and Mercy will forsake us if we do not further the gift of God take away the single Talent and give it to him that hath ten more The next way to make our heart cast this happy brood and to miscarry when it travels with Truth and Mercy is admotione contrarii by taking part both with God and Belial Asahal was not more nimble than St. John to fly away when he spied Cerinthus the eldest Son of Satan in the same Bath with him and therefore do not think to make your soul an Ark for the clean and unclean beasts to lie together A little frosty air is so forcible that it bursts the clouds and forceth out the hot exhalation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is spirted out between the fingers and gone before you can think of it Beloved that field in Israel was hated like Aceldama which was sown with divers seeds and Nehemiah cursed the children that spake one half in the Hebrew Tongue and another part in the Language of Ashdod Covetousness is so wealthy and it thrives so fast that it easily purchaseth the whole heart of man and whom at first you entertained like a foreiner to have one moyety in your heart it buys the whole possession over Mercies head Veios migrate coloni and so casts it forth And likewise so incompatible is truth with the least falshood that the haters of the Lord were found liars at our Saviours arraignment when he spake nothing Is it not strange Very strange That Christ should come before unrighteous Judges be impeached by malicious Adversaries all this while hold his peace and yet the Witness not agree Will you know the reason There came two false Witnesses Mat. xxvi Averring that this fellow said I am able to destroy the Temple of God and to build it again in three days There is another tale told Mar. xiv We heard him say I will destroy this Temple made with hands and will build another without hands But what said our Saviour in very deed You shall find his saying Joh. ii 19. Neither I can destroy with the former nor I will destroy with the latter But vos solvite do you destroy and solvite templum hoc the Temple of his body and in three days I will raise it up You cannot clap good and bad together but with waxen pins if you move them a little they fly asunder the wax melteth and it confounds the Chariot and his Rider For what agreement hath light with darkness or the Temple of the Lord with Idols Touching the third manner and the last how a quality may cease to be desitione subjecti when that faileth wherein it is it hath no place only in Truth and Mercy Other things indeed we can expect to remain no longer than the house of our body lasteth beauty ceaseth with the bloud and strength faileth with the sinews nay tongues shall cease and knowledge shall vanish away but mercy and charity abideth for ever Yea and truth also but veritas in visione not in fide Truth in the clear vision of God and not darkly in faith In a word as Joseph furnished his Brethren both with food for their travel and Corn to keep house with in the Land of Canaan So there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says St. James gifts for our Pilgrimage in this life and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gifts to abide with us in our Country above perfect gifts descending from the Father of lights So some endowments drop away with this house of flesh but after glorification this voice shall no more be heard in our ears let not Mercy and Truth forsake thee But this uncomfortable deserant that Gods gifts may forsake us is to view Jacob but as a Criple halting and failing in his combate but nè deserant let them not forsake thee shews Israel wrestling with the Angel and keeping God as I may speak it with reverence fast unto him with a chain of Faith To begin therefore with Mercy there are two ways to keep a firm possession of it by Meditation and by Petition The Meditations also shall be twain and very short ones for the time sake First Consider that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers call it the deep engagement of our Charity in the Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our brethren and no otherwise Lord what a deep curse do we bring upon our soul if this be not said in earnest Secondly Consider the compassion of all the Members in that mystical body whereof Christ is the head He that is hard hearted against a Christian is cruel against a part of himself Nero might fill the streets with the slaughtered bodies of the Saints For why he was none of ours but a Lion in the Sheepfold but a little bitterness a disdaining contempt a reviling malediction the neglect of the misery of a Christian at the hands of a Christian is more unnatural It was St. Basils counsel and most elegant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that as he that looks upon the sore eye of another man may chance to provoke the rheum in his own eyes so our eyes should grow feeble and conceive tears when we see the tears of our brother If we chance to offend against Mercy and to forget one of these Meditations it is very likely that it will stop at the other but if both fail then we must fly unto uncessant Prayer and Petition That is Anchora sacra for the last refuge let us fall down before his footstool and confirm Gods grace to our soul as Elias made the heavens of brass I do not mean so
in domo charitatis in a charitable Hospital family every man hastened to a good work as if he had flown like a Dove Was not Paul a brave wing'd Apostle that traversed much of Asia and preacht the Gospel in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum Seventhly The Doves eyes are fixt upon the Rivers of waters Cant. v. 12. some say out of vigilancy to espy therein the gliding of the Kite that flies above and to save it self So the spiritual man looks backward to the first waters wherein he was dipt to the Vow which he made in Baptism There he remembers his Garment was made white and he must not stain it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only to wash away filth but to give tincture or colour to that which is died So in Baptism the foul spots of iniquity are taken forth and by sanctification a clear gloss is set upon our soul It was the exhortation of old at Baptism Accipe vestem candidam immaculatam c. Take this white garment pure and undefiled it was their Ceremony to put on such and keep it undefiled against the day of the Lord. Et grege de niveo gaudia pastor habet says Lactantius The Shepherd rejoyceth to see the fleeces of his Lambs fair and unspotted These are pennae deargentatae as the Psalmist says the Doves wings are silver wings and if they be bright Silver here it will be changed into a better Metal hereafter a Crown of Gold whose wings are silver wings and the feathers of Gold Lastly As it was toucht before in the days of Noah the Dove was a presager of a better world to come and in this Text likewise it is Nuncia futuri seculi the happy annuntiate that there is a better world to come when these evil days of sin and misery are ended So we are sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance the Spirit is a pledge of that possession which is purchased for us in the Kingdom of heaven whither he bring us c. THE SIXTH SERMON UPON THE Baptism of our Saviour MAT. iii. 17. And loe a voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased SPeak O Heaven and hearken O Earth unto the word of the Lord. The Earth must keep silence and give ear when God is his own Orator himself and utters his pleasure with his own voice As it is usual when some great Palace is raising fron the Foundation that the Master of the Possession will lay the first stone with his own hands So the Church being to be built up again in the New Testament not upon the foundation of Works but upon Faith not upon Moses but upon Jesus Christ Loe the mighty God publisheth the first tidings of reconciliation from his own mouth and himself in the Prophet Isaiahs Phrase doth lay in Sion a chief corner stone elect and precious for the Foundation which sustains the whole body of the Saints is no other but such as is contained in that brief Proclamation which I have read unto you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Some of the Fathers very aptly call the Text Gods ample testimonial given to his Son that the world might receive him gladly being about to preach the glad tidings of salvation Moses you know would not offer himself to the Children of Israel to be the means that should release them from Pharaohs bondage before he had a token of Credence who did send him to the People and the Lord said unto him Thou shalt say I am hath sent me unto you So our High Priest and anointed Saviour would keep that form to have a clear testificate to commend him to the World Now a Dove was but a dumb shew and might be interpreted many ways wherefore an articulate and a majestical voice was heard from heaven which would pierce the ears of all that were gathered together and could not be mistaken In that nature therefore as a Testimonial given to him that was now about to be the great Preacher of righteousness I will divide the Text 1. The Person that did bear witness it is the Father 2. The manner how he testified to the honour of his Son by a voice Loe a voice 3. The authority of that voice which was every way to be accepted because it was from heaven 4. The Person to whom the witness is born to a Son This is my Son 5. What is witnessed of him in respect of himself that he was beloved This is my beloved 6. What is witnessed of him in respect of our consolation that he is filius complacentiae in whom and through whom the Father is well pleased That is to say not only beloved in himself but procures us to be beloved likewise for his sake for all that by Baptism have put on Christ are unto God as Christ himself is Filii dilecti complacentes Sons beloved well pleasing So the Text is our Saviours Testimonial and our own Consolation And loe a voice c. The Father is become a witness to glorifie his Son that is the first consideration to be made upon my Text. The Spirit hath done his part before now the voice the Father is come to perfect this great solemnity and so the justice of God agrees with his own Law Ex ore duorum aut trium testium Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established was ever any truth so strongly confirmed so undeniably maintained that the Father which made all things should ratifie it sensibly in the audience of men Never was it heard of but only in this case which is the top of all truth that Jesus was the Son of God Other truths we are well perswaded of which come from the light of reason or from the testimony of man yet reason may be blind and man may err but it is impossible that God should lie Heb. vi And admit it to be good for who can controul it that the Prophets and Apostles were inspired from God so that the contents which they have written are certain and infallible then his divine wisdom which gave them that instinct whatsoever he utters immediately from himself it may well stand upon comparisons that it is much more infallible So St. Hierom distinguisheth between that truth which is increate and which is infused and participate that the truth of the Saints is called a lie in respect of that verity which abideth in the Father Yea let God be true and every man a liar in which words says he it is implied that God alone is true even as he alone is said to have immortality for although he hath communicated immortality to Angels and to the souls of men yet it is not their own immortality but his love and favour to give it to them So the Prophets and holy men were inspired with true knowledge yet it was not their own truth
to do The ordinary means of salvation is to lend an ear to them who bring the glad tydings of peace for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. x. 17. The very Heathen could say that the most barbarous Nations would be civilized and brought to good nurture if they would but hear Philosophy taught among them Nemo adeo ferus est qui non mitescere posset si modo culturae patientem accommodet aurem but far better effects must needs follow where Christianity is publickly taught and well observed in every mans private attention There are three sorts of them whose ear is shut when the Lord knocketh at the door to have them open First the Ignorant that doth not listen when he calls I fear there are too many so ungrounded in the first rudiments of Faith so unacquainted with the Text of Holy Screpture that they conceive as little of that which is taught as if we preacht in an unknown Language whose illiterate dulness makes plain English as unfruitful as Latin Popery These I may liken to Davids description of Idols They have ears and hear not noses but they smell not they do not apprehend nor smell the sweet savour of life in the Word of life therefore they set like Images in the Congregation they have ears and hear not Secondly there is the wilful and perverse that will not hear what is taught if it rub up his conscience and offend him this is like Davids deaf adder that stoppeth her ear which will not hearken to the voice of charmers charming never so wisely Psal lviii 5. such were the Jews that could not endure to hear of the eternal glory of Christ as soon as ever Stephen had said I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God they cried with a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him Acts vii 27. God did open heaven unto him and they shut their ears against him And well they deserved says Nyssen to be left to such obdurateness they deserved not to receive such heavenly harmony into their ears as the sinful Samaritans shut their Gates against our Saviour for they deserved not to entertain him There is a third Auditor whom I may call the distracted man and cannot listen when God calls so many fancies and affairs buz in his brains when he comes into this sacred Assembly that he is presens absens as little here as if he were quite away When there is such a noise within we must needs lose our Errand when we knock at the ear without I called this the distracted Auditor because he is like that man in the Gospel possessed with an unclean Spirit that was both deaf and dumb and he that is deaf to hear I conclude he will be dumb to pray Out of this it is easie to deduce ignorance must learn to understand the truth obstinacy must take no offence at the truth The busie imagination must leave all cares and fancies at home and come to Church to mind the truth and then my Text will take place and prevail upon you This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him I am loath to find fault with them that will but seem to be diligent in these most negligent times Yet that affectation which some have not only to spend but even to waste their time in hearing calls to mind the difference which Isocrates put between his two Scholars Ephorus and Theopompus the one by his good will would never take his Book in his hand the other by his good will would never lay it out of his hand the one said their Master had need of a Spur and the other of a Bridle Let me not be interpreted as if in this place in the sight of God I durst blame them that love to hear for blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness but where Religion is well planted and we rather want obedience than knowledge I would not have well-meaning people make Preaching an every days Tale for too much familiarity breeds contempt but excepting some special occasions to make it Sundays Religion A stomach over-charged is more prone to crudities than good digestion A seasonable rain enricheth the Earth with store but when showers come too fast one after another the fruits of the field are spoyled with must and rottenness And I would have this long-ear'd Age consider that six days practice in the Week are few enough to make use of one days instruction The Horse-leech sucks full and then drops off and is good for nothing take heed of that Especially take heed you be not puffed up in your mind that the number of Sermons which you hear shall be imputed to you for righteousness For as the Superstitious count their Prayers upon their Beads so some count their Religion by the multitude of godly exercises As the woman with the bloudy issue said within her self If I can but touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed So some seduced weak ones If we do but hear and hear often we shall be saved You deceive your selves for still I inculcate it is not audire but obaudire not the bare hearing but the fruit which comes by hearing that is acceptable to him who gives the reward This same simplex auditus to afford God the bare courtesie to hear him Turks and Pagans may do that and yet never believe To go further this same simplex credulitas to hear all and to trust God so far that all which he says is true sinners and reprobates may do that and yet never amend But they that are obedient and dutiful take the charge right who are not only hearers but doers of the Word of God This is that hearing which our Saviour puts into one verse both in the right and the wrong use Jo. viii 47. He that is of God heareth Gods words ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God And as hearing is no vertue unless we obey so obedience and hearing are not matcht right together unless we intend them and apply them unto Christ the voice from heaven said Hear him When God the Father had spoken from above This is my beloved Son and when he had said it twice for the stronger confirmation once at the solemnity of Baptism another time at this miracle of the Transfiguration who would have thought any more needed to be added It is much that we should put him to it to say this moreover Hear him What strange men are we that we should be taught to hear him when we know he is the Son of God in whom alone the Father is well pleased But the begining of this Point shall be to shew that this administers Consolation and removs away some sadness which might have grown upon the Disciples Moses and Elias did appear upon Mount Thabor before they were look'd for and were gone in a trice before their departure
being of our nature and yet I will tell you a vitious filthy sinner doth so ill become the name of a man that there is far more congruity between him and a Beast he is more Swine or Tyger or Fox or locust than man he is not four-footed but he is bruitish hearted in his inward parts he hath put off humanity But if repentance shall restore him out of this bestial conversation if God shall set good men at his right hand that by strength of reason force of perswasion timeliness of admonition yea or by sharpness of correction shall make him feel and know the beauty of an honest life he is redintegrated in the powers and faculties of a man which he had quite lost So that our being in the austerity of Philosophy is connexed with our well-being No good man and by consequent no not a man till he be governed by the Principality of reason civil Education and the conditement of Vertue is such a Parent as reposeth a vile person a transformed Monster into the proper line of his own Praedicament it makes him Man Not to flutter in the air as it were any longer with Paradoxes impious Catives I confess shall stand for men for they shall suffer the curses and punishment of men in Hell-fire What is it therefore which Jerusalem adds unto us that she is called our Mother why the renovation of the mind or the new man created after God in righteousness and true holiness And as the Birthright which Jacob obteined from Esau was instead of another birth unto Jacob so when such as were vessels of wrath became Heirs of the Promise by Baptism and the Ministry of the Church is not this a Mother that gives them a better life than they had before The Love of God is our life Faith conceives us Hope brings us forth Charity feeds us with her breasts Obedience wraps us in swadling bands and knowledg brings us up God doth inhabit our mind and understanding as the Soul doth inspire the Body As Abram was turned into Abraham and Simon into Peter when they pleased the Lord so take any one that is regenerate and chang'd from his vain conversation though his shape and substance continue as it was before yet the Angels that rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner behold him with their celestial eyes not as the same but as another Creature And no wonder if he become another object in the sight of Heaven the reasonable Soul is that which constitutes the natural man but Faith being superadded a better spirit possesseth him and Christ is the form of a Christian It is St. Paul's Phrase ver 19. of this Chapter My little children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you As Ananias travel'd and earned for a Child till Christ was formed in Paul so Paul travel'd and had the sorrows of a Mother when â—he brings forth in the anxiousness of his heart till Christ was formed in the Galatians First the Church brought him forth then he laboured abundantly and assisted the Church to bring forth others The true solution of the old Riddle Mater me genuit eadem mox gignitur ex me the Son of Grace is begotten of this Mother and afterward filling up a place in the Communion of Saints he is reckoned into the collective Body which is called Jerusalem our Mother But a late Writer puts in his judgment very well I think how far the Motherhood of the Church intends to make us Children of Adoption it travels in birth that by her work Christ may be formed in us The Members of our fleshly body are formed in our Mothers Womb by her natural faculties she can go further for the absolution of the work that is the inhabitation of the Soul is the act of God so the Church doth the part of a Mother it propounds repentance discloseth the mysteries of faith perswades us with the expectation of a great reward in Heaven offers us the use of both the salutiferous Sacraments thus a new fashion a new Creature even the form of Christ doth creep upon us but the life by which we live it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes from without from above from the inspiration of the spirit of Christ But without that efformation or effigeation in the Womb of the Mother never expect the vivification or information of the Holy Ghost a Doctrin best known in those trivial words of St. Austin he cannot have God for his Father that will not have the Church for his Mother Ascribe the top of the blessing to him from whom every good gift especially those which are supernatural descends Of his own good will He begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1.18 His good will moved him to pity us his vertue and power went out from him to beget us and his truth which shined in our hearts was the instrumental cause to convert us Carry it along with you therefore that the invisible Father that is in Heaven works by the visible Mother the Church that is on Earth As Eve was the Mother of all living so she is the Mother of all believing Crescite multiplicamini is spoken to one as well as to the other both were ordeined in their several sorts for that blessing increase and multiply Therefore St. James hath conjoyned the Word of Truth to the Will of God both are mixed together to regenerate a pious people And although some have been too nice in expounding the Phrase Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth not with the words of truth in the plural as if our salvation were effected by pronouncing one word as when first we were made Members of Christ by saying I baptize thee and when we have sinned and return again to the Lord by saying I absolve thee yet be it briefly or largely it is the word spoken and preached by the Church which gives us this heavenly feature to be the holy ones of God Briefly the Mother that doth beget us is the Church Militant but the Mother to whose filiation and inheritance we aspire is the Church Triumphant It is true that in relation to Christ the Church is his Body and all we are his Members and in that reference it doth not make the Elect Servants of God but rather it is compounded of those Servants for properly the Body is not the Mother of the Members the Members are not the effect of the Body but they constitute the Body as integral parts And so Solomon hath more aptly given it honour in those delicious Metaphors of a Bundle of Myrrh a Cluster of Grapes and a Pomegranat which I think is the best resemblance a Pomgranat contains many kernels under one Coat so many thousands of Disciples are under the covering of Christ 2. As many kernels are in the small Pomegranat as in the great so the Graces of Christ are in the little Churches as in the more spacious 3. As