the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works A Sight have you had as of the Prisoners to be Arraigned the Dead Small and Great of the Judge to pass sentence which though for the Judgement of Principal Authority it shall be every Person in the Trinity for which cause we finde this Day Signally stiled Gods Day 2 Pet. 3.12 Looking for saith he and hastening unto the Day of God yet for the Judgement of Promulging and Pronouncing of sentence it shall be the second Person in that Trinity and that in regard of his Humane Nature The Father saith our Apost. hath given Power to the Son to execute Iudgement because he is the Son of Man Iohn 5.27 So of the Evidence to be given in Recorded in Books and those three principals whereof the first is Gods Statute-Book made up of three Tomes in the first whereof is written the Law of Nature in the second the Law from Sinai in the third the Law from Sion the second his Day-book made up of two whereof the first is of that our own Conscience the second of Gods Remembrance the last his Book of Records and that you have seen to be of a two-fold nature the one that wherein the Church Registreth those for the Sons of God that by an outward Confession of their Faith are received into her Bosome notwithstanding that not a few of them prove afterward Impostours and Hypocrites the other that of his Eternal Fore-knowledge whereby from all Eternity he hath and beyond all Tract of time will acknowledge those for his whom he hath Predestinated to the Adoption of Sons and Ordained to be Heirs of Eternal Life The Equal Proceedings of the Court and the Infallible certainty of all remain only for the present to be discussed And first are we to examine the equal Proceedings of the Court whose impartial Judge shall Examine the whole World upon the works whether Good or Evil they have done And the Dead were Judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works It is the Lords own word to his People Isa. 55.8 My wayes are not as your wayes And this difference of wayes between him and them the same Lord no less justly then precisely may you hear Contesting with them in point of Equity Ezech. 18.29 Are not my wayes Equal saith he and yours Vnequal Betwixt Heaven and Earth there is not so great a Distance as there is Difference between God and more then a good many Men in the exercise of Judiciary Power The Law which the Civilians say is Sanctio Iusta Iubens Honesta Prohibensque Contraria a Just Constitution commanding things that are Honest and Forbidding the Contrary is in the Court of Heaven reputed the only straight Rule whereunto the subjects of that court are to conform their works ways for their Deviation and Declination from its Rectitude are only punishable For which cause our Evangelists description of sin is that it is the Transgression of the Law in the 1. of his Epistle the 3. Chapter and 4. V. And therefore that word of that other Apostle just reason that it obtain with us the Credit of an Oracle Rom. 4.15 where there is no Law there is no Transgression So that then that word of that other Apostle yet 2. Pet. 1.19 for the word of Prophesie our parts it shall be to conceive directed unto every one of us for the Law that we shall do well to take heed thereunto as unto a Light that shineth in a Dark Place No otherwise then you may observe some careful Mariner for the better guidance of his Ship in a Dark Night to heed a Light which from some Eminent watch-towr may discover it self The Conduct of which Light therefore whose Beams every one of us may clearly discern as the Pilot his Light from the Tower darting out from Heaven upon him for the better steering him a course through the surges of this world shall he not heed no marvel if Straying from the right Path of Justice he wander in Darkness and in the shadow of Death The Proceedings of too too many a Man that assumeth unto himself a Power to Execute Justice not seldome runneth a clean contrary Bias to this They say as those in the Wiseman Wisd. 2.11 Our will is the Law of Iustice And therefore take unto themselves a liberty of Proscribing Imprisoning Condemning yea Executing too whom they please though guiltless of the Transgression of any Law Nor shall the Law be the Rule whereby to examine the work of supposed Dilinquents but their causeles fears and Jealousies shall make Delinquents whomsoever they shall please Whilst themselves in the mean time notwithstanding that they are dipped in as deep a Dye of villany as the blackest Fiends of Hell must yet have Precedence of all the Apostles nay the Virgin Mary her self in Saintship as long as did Saul with an Image in stead of David 1 Sam. 19.13 they can impose upon the purblinde World with empty Shadows and semblances in stead of the true and real Body of Religion and what AEschines sometimes objected to Demosthenes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can New-dip Extortion Oppression Perjury Tyranny Sacriledge Murther yea very Atheisme with the fair and specious Names of Reformation Beloved As this Great Judge is far from being so Sophistical as to impose upon us with a Fallacy of Non causa pro Causa and so not so Rigid as to Condemn us without the least transgression of any of his Laws so neither may we conceive him to be so Facile and Easie as that he shall be wone to accept of a bare Shew and Profession of Saint-Ship for a perfect observation of this Law of his That Rule of this great Judge By their Fruits you shall know them Mat. 7.16 holdeth as true for all manner false Pretenders as Prophets They are the Fruits of good works only and not the Leaves or Blossoms of vain Ostentation or Profession that shall Acquit or condemn us at the last Day And the Dead were Iudged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works But how The Dead to be Judged according to their works Durus est hic Sermo this is an hard saying and who may abide it What hope of Salvation then shall the most Righteous have to entertain Yea and then as is St. Peters passionate Quaere in the 1. of his Epistle Chapter 4.18 Where shall the Vngodly and the Sinners appear So that then well may David Holy David deprecate this manner of Trial before God Psal. 143.2 Enter not into Iudgement with thy Servant O Lord for in thy sight shall no Man living be Iustified He that hath found no stedfastness in his Servants but hath charged his very Angels with Folly how much more then Man which dwelleth in an House of Clay whose Foundation is in the Dust Alas As the Priest
Nature we shall content us with Melancthons definition thereof that it is a knowledge of certain principles and of conclusions thence naturally deduced agreeable to the Eternal Rule of truth directing him to live well and to worship his Creatour The very Oratour can say of this Law that it is Non scripta sed Nata quam non Didicimus Legimus Accepimus Verum ex Natura Arripuimus Hausimus Expressimus that it is not a written but an inbred Law and such as we have not learned or read or by Tradition received but such as we have derived and drawn and sucked out of the very Entrails of Nature Easie it were by a particular Induction to evince that not only the most eminent Divinity-Maximes as that Tithes are to be paid as may clearly appear in the History of Melchizedeck and Abraham Gen. 14. that some Places are above other sanctified by Gods special Presence as the Place of Iacobs repose in his journey to Haran where God appeareth to him Gen. 28. that some Persons are more then others dedicate to his service as the First-born of every Family Exod. 13. of which by the way you shall do well specially to take notice that they were every one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Cohen Princes and Priests in one Person but that every particular Precept of the Moral Law hath from the beginning been and still is by this Laws meer instinct imprinted and engraven in the hearts of those that are meer strangers to the Israel of God and Aliens from the Covenant of promise St. Pauls word Rom. 2.14 you may safely take for the whole summe the Gentiles saith he having no Law i. e. no Law written as the Iews in Tables of stone do yet by nature the things contained in the Law and so are a Law unto themselves And the Maxume therefore Verse 12. he premiseth cannot but be entertained for irrefragable As many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law So that even of such as these just reason shall we have to say in this case what the same Apostle of the same Gentiles clearly convinced of a Godhead by those things that are seen from the creation of the world Rom. 16. that they are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} without all manner of Excuse For the second the Law from Sinai you know by whom and how it was given By Moses yet God still dictating with lightning and Thunder and as is this judgement to be auspicated with the sound of the Trumpet yea and this seconded with a curse far more dreadful then either Lightning-flash or Thunder-clap Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 Nay to make sure that this Curse want not its proper matter of sin to work upon Lex subintravit ut abundaret delictum the Law was given that sin might abound Rom. 5.20 Not that the Law is sin as the Apostle glosseth himself in the 7. of the same Epistle and 8th but sin taking occasion by the Commandement is his own ingenuous confession of himself wrought in me all manner of concupiscence So that then such an occasion of and Incentive unto sin is the Law Sicut fraenum equo indomito saith Paraeus upon the words as is a Bridle of a young Horses fierceness which whilst we use as an Instrument for the taming him by accident it makes him the more untamed Sic ego Torrentem quâ nil obstabat eunti or as a Bank or Rock to a Torrent which whilst they strive to Bound they enrage the more and so occasion it to bear and break down all before it with the greater violence Nitimur in vetitum to long for things forbidden is the current we know our desires all naturally run which is the reason saith the Oratour why Solon would by no means be drawn to hear of a Law to be enacted against Parricide veritus ne si legem de eo tulisset magis incitaret Homines quam reprimeret fearing saith he lest such a Law might rather spur men on unto then restrain them from so unnatural and horrid an act So that then so little advantage God wot is this Law likely to afford us at our last standing up before this High-Court of Justice when we are at such a natural Antipathy against it that the more it laboureth to reclaim us the more we recoil and rebel against it that for any ground of comfort we can herein meet with too just reason shall we have as the Disciples to our Common-Master in the Gospel Luke 18.26 to cry out Domine quis Salvus erit Lord who can be saved Especially seeing that as St. Peter sometimes to the Jews Acts 15.10 we cannot but be tenderly sensible that this Law putteth such an heavy Yoak upon our Necks as neither we nor our Fathers are able to bear For the last the Law from Sion the Law of faith as Rom. 3.27 it is stiled as it is so far from being Contra-distinct to either of the former Laws but hath in it rather the summe and substance and Pith of either as hath the Intellective of the vegetative and sensitive souls so is Christ the main scope of all they all looking toward him as did the Cherubins towards the Mercy-seat Exod. 37.9 In either of the former he discovered himself but as through the Lattice as it is Cant. 2.9 In this latter he doth not only present him clearly to our views but so graciously and affectionately offer him to our embraces that we have now the happy opportunity and advantage of laying such fast hold of him as not to let him go as it is Cant. 3.4 The former either of them holdeth us to Hard-meat as we say making us a proffer of Heaven indeed but upon very unfeisable yea indeed impossible conditions Fac hoc vives as our Saviour to the Lawyer Luke 10.28 Do this and thou shalt live The latter tendereth us a Bargain in our apprehension at least much easier to compass Crede Salvus eris as Paul and Silas to the Jaylor Acts 16.31 and now little question to be made but that as the Jew of the Almighty Rom. 2.5 there is more then a good many amongst us will be present to make our Boast of this Law that having the advantage both of Jew and Gentile in times past to turn over a new Leaf from the Law of Nature the Law from Sinai unto this Law of Sion the Law of Faith we shall not need to distrust but that we shall be sped of an happy Acquital and Discharge when we come to stand up before this dreadful Tribunal Our Pulpits now for a long time have resounded with no other Doctrin but those revived Reliques of an old Heretical Maxime that we shall need to act nothing our selves in order to the accomplishment of the great work of our Salvation a bare naked Faith apprehending the free
The Unspotted HIGH-COVRT OF IVSTICE Erected and Discovered in Three SERMONS Preached in LONDON and other Places By THOMAS BAKER Rector of St. Mary the More in EXON. Jam. 5.9 Behold the Iudge standeth before the Door Ambros. l. 5. d. Fid. c. 8. Cum cuncta futuri Iudicii momenta nescimus semper tanquam in Excubiis constituti in quadam virtutis Specula collocati peccandi consuetudinem declinemus ne nos inter vitia Dies Domini deprehendat Printed for the Author 1657. THE EPISTLE To his justly honoured friend Jonathan Prickman Esq the happiness of this life and a better SIR THe diet of Ephraim in the Prophet cannot but by al that have tried it be interpreted and entertained for very spare and thin that is nothing else but what the Apostle disclaimeth the fighting with a poor blast of empty Aire That Ixion is in a very sorry condition that embraceth a cloud of such vacuity in stead of the Iuno of a well-furnished table Mine entertainment Sir by you from time to time hath been of another nature that have still every day more and more abounded in pregnant testimonies of your real favours towards me These poor labours which when preached you were pleased highly to approve of shall you but now vouchsafe to look upon in a dead letter where they cannot but lose much of their lustre with a favourable eye you shall every day more then other lay a strong obligation of a continued sacrifice of prayer still to be offered up before the Throne of grace for all manner of blessings both spiritual and temporal to be showred down upon you and yours by Sir Your most humbly devoted Friend and Servant T. B. The Epistle to the Reader Courteous Reader FOr for the general upon my late trial of thee by the three Sermons of mine lately published I finde thee to deserve no other compellation however some Magni nominis umbrae shadows of great names have winced and so upon the result professed themselves galled with a passage in the Epistle to the first of the Knaves every day turning beest thou Presbyterian or Independent wilt thou be but pleased to lay aside thy self-interest the less reason shalt thou have as Felix to startle at this theam of Iudgement Beest thou a right unbiassed Protestant Christian as with the Creature in the Apostle thou wilt find in the an inclination to a restless groaning till thou beest delivered from the bondage of corruption so withal a propension every day more and more to lift up thine head in a joyful assurance that the day of thy Redemption draweth nigh Beest thou what thou wilt leaving this following discourse upon the Text for thee to advise with that thou mayest so demean thy self that the sound of the last Trumpet may not affright thee is and shall be the assiduous prayer of Thine in our common Iudge and Saviour T. B. The first SERMON Apoc. 20.12 I saw the dead small and great stand up before God and the Books were opened and then another Book was opened which was the book of life and the Dead were judged out of those things which were written in the Books according to their works NOt to look back for Cohaerence as but so far as the immediately preceding verses wherein our divine Evangelist acquainteth us with what he has discovered of Gog and Magog devoured by fire from Heaven and their great Lord and Master the Divel cast into a lake that is for ever to burn with fire and brimstone I shall for the present content my self with that Statutum est of the Apostle Heb. 9.27 for an Introduction to lead me into the Text it is appointed for all men once to die and after that the judgement Death is nothing else but as that adversary in the Gospel that delivereth us up to the Judge Or as an alarm for the awaking of us to prepare for a sharp encounter with judgement And then since death hath of late dayes especially and that for a long continued Tract of time been gallopping upon her pale horse amongst us not all-arming us onely but beating up our quarters yea bathing her footsteps in our blood nay and God only knoweth how soon she may be charging us with a fresh Cariere drereful Heralds unto us that it is to probable that ere long we shall be delivered up to this Judges Capital sentence yea that unless those two powerful Advocates a lively faith and hearty repentance shall seasonably interpose must needs doom us to irreparable destruction both of body and soul this sentence of judgement in all rational discourse may not seem strange or uncouth unto us Nay may that the Apostles argument upon his Romans he presseth for their speedier awaking out of sleep Rom. 13.11 pass for irrefragable that their salvation is now nearer then when they first believed of all hands can it not but be agreed upon that a strongerty for the contemplation of this Judgement must needs lieupon us that have far greater reason to say of our times then the Apostle of his above sixteen hundred years ago Cor. 10.11 that we are they upon whom the ends of the world are come then upon any Patriarch or Prophet before or under the Law yea or Evangelist or Apostle since the death or Sepulture thereof that had but a dim sight of this so considerable a spectacle by the glimering light of Prophesie or vision yea or Revelation as hath our divine Evangelist and Apostle here I saw the dead small and great stand up before God c. The Text then you cannot but see what just reason I shall have to term a lively Effigies and Representation of the great and general and unspotted High-Court of Justice that at the last day shall be erected in the Heaven of Heavens wherein I shall only point out unto your considerations these ensuing particulars the Prisoners to be arraigned the Iudge to pass sentence the Evidence to be given in the Legal proceeding of the Court the Infallible certainty of all The Prisoners to be arraigned you may see to be the Dead small and great The judge to pass sentence God The Evidence to be given in Recorded in Books The Legal proceedings of the Court appeareth clearly in that the dead without any the least distinction or discrimination are to be judged according to their works And the infallible certainty of all is conspicuously apparant by that our divine Evangelist and Apostle professeth that he hath been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an eye-witness of all These the parts of these plainly briefly and orderly And first are we to take a view of the Prisoners to be arraigned which we see are the Dead small and great I saw the dead small and great stand up before God Not to mention those that shall alive be caught up with those that are dead to meet the Lord in the Ayre 1 Thes. 4.17 this mention of dead small and great hath ministred matter of
grace of Christ shall be of Energy and Efficacy sufficient to save us St. Augustins Caution in the mean time for the Law of Nature cannot but seem very Poinante Adolet non abolet Naturam Gratia this Law from Sion this Law of Faith doth not disanul but Corroborate and confirm and actuate Natures Law And for the Law from Sinai however Christ by being made a Curse for us hath taken away the Curse thereof Gal. 3.13 yet as that was our School-Master to bring us unto him Gal. 3.24 so is he our Exemplary Guide to lead us to the fulfilling thereof I came not to destroy but to fulfil the Law Mat. 5.17 And this may you see to be the Apostles clear Determination after his most Solicitous Debate of the Point Rom. 3.31 Do we then make void the Law of God through Faith God forbid rather we establish the Law The drift of this Law is far from broaching or countenancing any Doctrin of such a Liberty of conscience as with the Saints of the new Calendar is no better then Licentiousness that Sanctification and Obedience is no less the scope of this then either of the former Lawes And therefore St. Peters Caveat in the 2. of his 1. Epistle to his scattered strangers you may see to be that they use not their Liberty for a Cloak of Malitiousness or wickedness for the word {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Original equally importeth both but that by well-doing they put to silence the Ignorance of Foolish Men And St. Iames his peremptory conclusion it is in the 1. of his Epistle and 25. whoso looketh into the perfect Law of Liberty this Law of Faith is a Law of Liberty indeed but such an one as is far from taking off the Yoak of Obedience from our Necks and therefore immediately may you see to follow and continueth therein being not a forgetful Hearer but a Doer of the work that Man only shall be Blessed in his Deed Indeed it cannot be denied but that Christ beareth a great part of this Yoak for us that which may justly cause him to minde us that that part of the Yoak he hath left for us to bear Is easie Mat. 11.30 Howbeit {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} there are as the Apostle seasonably Itemeth his Colossians in the first of that Epistle 24. as after-sufferings so After-doings of his likewise to go thorough with in the weak Endeavours and Evidences of which poor Patience and Performance shall we at last notwithstanding all this our Book-learning prove defective or faulty so that if either our chearfulness in suffering after his example or promptness in Acting according to his commands shall not prove such as shall become this our Prime Book his glorious Gospel too just reason shall we at last finde for our Concluding and complaining as the Preacher Eccles. 12.12 There is no end of making and setting before us many Books and with Nero when he was sometimes to Signe a sentence of Death the mildest Speech that ever fell from so Bloody a Monster in extream Anguish of Spirit wish utinam nescirem Literas O! that I had never known Letter in a Book I can but turn over the Books in haste The second that shall be opened is Gods Day-book which yet hath two Tomes that serve to the making it up whereof the one is that of our own Conscience the other of Gods Remembrance For the first of these Annals and Diaries I finde thus distinguished by Tacitus that the former is a Register of the greater the latter of the less matters of State In this Diary or Day-book you shall be sure to meet with a Rhapsody of all sorts of matters both greater and less together not the works of your Hands only and the words of your Mouths but even of the most secret and recluse thoughts of your Hearts No sooner is there any Evil acted or Spoken or but conceived by us but that Inimici viri Domestici ejus our conscience which is our House-hold Enemy is ready accordingly as Iob sometimes wished in the 31. of his Book and 35. to write a Book So that for whatever sin of ours whether Manual or Vocal or but Mental our Conscience will still be present to put in Execution what the Lord sometimes gave in charge to his Prophet Esay 30.8 to note it in a Book And however a Malefactor here may have just reason to interpret his being put to his Book for a special Act of Mercy whence the old word amongst us of a mans being saved by his Book this Book-trial of all we shall in conclusion finde to be the most Severe for that this Great Judge himself shall at the time of our Arraignment without any just censure of Entrenchment or Usurpation assume the Ordinaries Place and will then without the least Extention of any favour to be looked for clearly and candidly publish and proclaim in the Audience of the whole Earth whatsoever he shall finde written In Libro Aperto in this Book when it commeth to be opened The first way of writing I ever read of was in Stone and the first Writer God himself who writeth the Law in two Stony Tables with his own Hand Exod 30.18 Conscience is not Ignorant of this way of writing but after the example of God himself whose vicegerent she is writeth as is Iudahs sin written Ier. 17.1 with a Pen of Iron with the Point of a Diamond the Characters of our several misdeeds in the Stony Tables of our Hearts Whose Thoughts therefore as the Apostle Rom. 2.5 shall at the last Day either Accuse or Excuse us After this another way of writing in Barks of Trees was found out whence our Books amongst the Latins still retain their Names Libri Barks or Books Nor is Conscience unacquainted with this way of writing neither A Book a Register-Book she keepeth of all our Enormities and Impieties whereof every Page shall appear filled with the sad Items of our Blasphemies our Perjuries our Debaucheries our Dalliances our Oppressions our Extortions our Murthers So that every one of us by way of an heavy Position shall have too just reason to bespeak our Consciences for all these as doth David the Lord by way of an anxious question for his Members Psal. 139.15 In thy Book are all these things written The Egyptians after this found out another way of writing by Hieroglyphicks strange and uncouth Characters and these impressed in Paper then made of Reeds as now amongst us of Rags And the Destruction of these Reeds the Prophet Isaiah seemeth to bewail as a dreadful part of Gods doom upon Egypt in the 19. of his Prophesie and 7. The Paper-reeds saith he by the Brooks shall wither and be no more And at this time of the standing up of the Dead Small and Great before this Righteous Judge of the whole Earth as we shall see the sign of the Son of Man Mat. 24.30 which even by the