doe just thus cannot be a rule of Iustice but the generall doctrine that every body needs at some times some helpes some meanes is certainly true Shall the riotous the voluptuous man stay till this something bee a surfet or a fever 'T is true this surfet and this fever will subdue the body but then thou doest it not Shall a lascivious wanton stay till a consumption or such contagious diseases as shall make him unsociable and so unable to exercise his sinne subdue his body These can doe it but this is Perimere non subjugare not a subduing of the body alone but a destroying of body and soule together Moderate disciplines subdue the body as under the government of a King a father of his people that governs them by a law But when the body comes to bee subdued by paines and anguish and loathsome diseases this becomes a tyranny a conquest and he that comes in by conquest imposes what lawes hee will so that these subduings of the body brought in by sinne may worke in us an obduration we shall feel them but not discerne the hand of God in them or if his hand yet not his hand to that purpose to relieve us but to seale our condemnation to us Beloved because our Adversaries of the Romane heresie have erroneously made a pattern for their Eremiticall and Monasticall life in Iohn Baptist and coloured their idlenesse by his example some of the Reformation have bent a little too far the other way and denied that there was any such austerity in the life of St. Iohn as is ordinarily conceived They say that his conversation in the Desert may well be understood to have been but a withdrawing of himself from publique and civill businesses home to his fathers house for his father dwelt in that Desert and thither went Mary to salute Elizabeth And Ioab had his house in this Desert and in this Desert are reckoned five or fixe good Townes so that indeed it was no such savage solitude as they fancie But yet for a Sonne of such Parents an onely Sonne a Sonne so miraculously afforded them to passe on with that apparellâ— and that diet is certainly remarkable and an evidence of an extraordinary austerity and an argument of an extraordinary sanctity Especially to the Jewes it was so amongst them this austerity of life and abstaining from those things which other men imbraced procured ordinarily a great estimation We know that amongst them the Essaei a severe Sect had a high reverence They did not marry they did not eate flesh they did not ease themselves by servants but did all their own work they used no proprietie they possessed nothing called nothing their own Vicatim habitant urbes fugiunt they forsake all great Townes and dwell in Villages And yet flying the world they drew the world so much afterâ— them as that it is noted with wonder per saeculorum Milia gens aeterna in qua nemo nascitur that there was an eternall Nation that had lasted many Generations and yet never any borne amongst them I am foecunda illis aliorum vitae poenitentia for every man that was crossed or wearied in his owne course of life applied himselfe to their Sect and manner of living as the onely way to Heaven And Iosephus writing his owne life and forwardnesse and pregnancy perchance a little too favourably or gloriously in his owne behalfe to be throughly beleeved for he saith that when he was but fourteen yeares old the greatest Doctours of the Law came to him to learne penitiorem sensum juris the secretest Mysteries of the Law and their Law was Divinity thought himselfe unperfect till he had spent some time in the strictnesse of all the three Sects of the Jewes and after he had done all that he spent three yeares more with one Bannus an Ermit who lived in the wildernesse upon herbs and roots Iohn Baptists austerity of life made him a competent and credible witnesse to them who had such austeritie in estimation And truely hee that will any way bee a witnesse for Christ that is glorifie him hee must endevour even by this outward holinesse of life to bee acceptable to good men Vox Populi vox Dei the generall voyce is seldome false so also Oculi populi Oculi Dei In this case God looketh upon man as man doth Singuli decipi decipere possunt One man may deceive another be deceived by another Nemo omnes neminem omnes fefellerunt no man ever deceived all the world nor did all the world ever joyn to deceive one man The generall opinion the generall voyce is for the most part good evidence with or against a man Every one of us is ashamed of the prayse and attestation of one whom all the world besides taketh to be dishonest so will Christ be ashamed of that witnesse that seeketh not the good opinion of good men When I see a Iesuit solicite the chastity of a daughter of the house where he is harboured and after knowledge taken by the Parents upon her complaint excuse it with saying that he did it but to trie her and to be the better assured of her religious constancy when I see a Iesuit conceale and foment a powder Treason and say he had it but in Confession and then see these men to proclaim themselves to be Martyrs witnesses for Christ in the highest degree I say still the Devill may be a witnesse but I ground not my Faith upon that Testimony A competent witnesse must be an honest man This competency Iohn Baptist had the good opinion of good men And then he had the seale of all Missus est he had his Commission He was sent to bear witness of that Light Though this word Missus est He was sent be not literally in the Text here yet it is necessarily implyed and therefore providently supplyed by the Translatours in this verse and before in the sixt verse it is literally expressed There was a man sent from God whose name was John The Law saith concerning witnesses Qui se ingerunt offerunt suspecti habentur those that offer their testimony before they be cited are suspicious witnesses Therefore they must have a Mission a sending For by Saint Pauls rule How can they preach except they be sent Preach they may but how with what successe what effect what blessing So that the good successe of Iohn Bapstists preaching For the multitudes The people came to him and not light people carried about with every winde of rumour and noise and noveltie but Pharises and Sadduces men of learning of sadnesse and gravity and not onely Scholars affected with subtilties but Publicans too men intent upon the world and other men whose very profession submits them to many occasions of departing from the strict rules which regularly binde other men and therefore may be in some things which tast of injustice more excusable
a slumbring of our Religion for a time and that excludes the temporisers the Statist the Politician And so beloved I recommend unto you Integritatem Iesu Jesus and his truth and his whole truth and this whole Truth in your whole lives SERMON VII Preached at a Christning GAL. 3. 27. For all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. THis text is a Reason of a Reason an Argument of an Argument The proposition undertaken by the Apostle to prove is That after faith is come we are no longer under the Schoolmaster the law The reason by which he proves that is For yee are all the Sonnes of God by faith in Christ Jesus And then the reason of that is this text for all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Here then is the progresse of a sanctified Man and here is his standing house here is his journey and his Lodging his way and his end The house the lodging the end of all is faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sinne To be sure that you are in the right way to that you must find your selves to be the Sonnes of God And you can prove that by no other way to your selves but because you are baptized into Christ. So that our happinesse is now at that height and so much are we preferred before the Iews that whereas the chiefest happinesse of the Jews was to have the law for without the law they could not have known sinne and the law was their Schoolmaster to find out Christ we are admitted to that degree of perfection that we are got above the law It was their happinesse to have had the law but it is ours not to need it They had the benefit of a guide to direct them but we are at our journies end They had a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ but we have proceeded so farre as that we are in possession of Christ. The law of Moses therefore binds us not at all as it is his Law Whatsoever binds a Christian in that law would have bound him though there had been no law given to Moses The Ceremoniall part of that law which was in the institution Mortale it was mortall It might die and by Christs determination of those Typicall things Mortuum It did die is now also Mortiferum deadly so that it is sinne to draw any part of that law into a necessity of observation because the necessary admission of any Type or figure implies a confession that that which was signified or figured is not yet come So that that law and Christ cannot consist together The Iudiciall law of Moses was certainly the most absolute and perfect law of government which could have been given to that people for whom it was given but yet to thinke that all States are bound to observe those lawes because God gave them hath no more ground then that all Men are bound to goe clothed in beasts skinnes because God apparelled Adam and Eve in that fashion And for the morall part of that law and the abridgement of that morall part the decalogue that begunne not to have force and efficacy then when God writ it in the tables but was always and always shall be written in the hearts of Men And though God of his goodnesse was pleased to give that declaration of it and that provocation to it by so writing it yet if he had not written it or if which is impossible that writing could perish yet that morall law those commandements would bind us that are Christians after the expiration of that law which was Moses law as it did de Iure bind all those which lived before any written law was So that he that will perfectly understand what appertaines to his duty in any of the ten Commandements he must not consider that law with any limitation as it was given to the Iews but consider what he would have done if he had lived before the Tables had been written For certainely even in the Commandement of the Sabbath which was accompanied with so many Ceremonies amongst the Iews that part onely is morall which had bound us though that Commandement had never been given and he that performes that part keepes the Sabbath the Ceremoniall part of it is not onely not necessary but when it is done with an opinion of necessity it is erroneous and sinfull For neither that Commandement nor any other of the ten began to bind them when they were written nor doth bind now except it bound before that Thus far then we are directed by this Text which is as far as we can goe in this life To prove to our selves that we have faith we must prove that wee need not the law To prove that emanecipation and liberty we must prove that we are the sonnes of God To prove that ingraffing and that adoption we must prove that we have put on Christ Iesus And to prove that apparelling of our selves our proofe is that we are baptized into him All proofes must either arrest and determine in some things confessed and agreed upon or else they proceed in infinitum That which the Apostle takes to be that which is granted on all sides and which none can deny is this that to be baptized is to put on Christ And this putting on of Christ doth so far carry us to that Infinitissimum to God himselfe that we are thereby made Semen Dei the seed of God The field is the world and the good seed are the Children of the kingdome And we are translated even into the nature of God By his pretious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature yea we are discharged of all bodily and earthly incombrances and we are made all spirit yea the spirit of God himselfe He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit with him All this we have if we doe put on Christ and we doe put on Christ if we be baptized into him These then are the two actions which we are now to consider Baptizari To be washed Induere To be cloathed Induere is to cover so far as that Covering can reach A hat covers the head a glove the hand and other garments more But Christ when he is put on Covers us all If we have weake heads shallow brains either a silexce and a reservednes which make the foole and the wise equall or the good interpretation of friends which put good Constructions upon all that we say or the dignity of autority and some great place which we hold which puts an opinion in the people that we are wise or else we had never been brought thither these cover our heads and hide any defect in them If we have foule hands we can cover them with excuses If they be foule with usurious Extortion we can put on a glove an excuse and say He that borrowed my money got more by it then I that lent it If with bribery in an office we
of rising as some exaltation of his power that he is to Judge And that place in the beginning of that Psalme many of the antients read in the future Dijudicabit God shall judge the Gods because the frame of the Psalme seems to referre it to the last Judgment Turtullian reads it Dijudicavit as a thing past God hath judged in all times and the letter of the text requires it to be in the present Dijudicat Collect all and Judgment is so essentiall to God as that it is coeternall with him he hath he doth and he will judge the world and the Judges of the world other Judges die likemen weakely and they fall that 's worse ignominiously and they fall like Princes that 's worst fearfully and yet scornfully and when they are dead and faln they rise no more to execute Judgment but have Judgment executed upon them the Lord dyes not nor he falls not and if he seem to slumber the Martyrs under the Altar awake him with their Vsque quo Domine how long O Lord before thou execute Iudgment And he will arise and Judge the world for Judgment is his God putteth downe one and setteth up another says David where hath he that power Why God is the Judge not a Judge but the Judge and in that right he putteth downe one and setteth up another Now for this Judgment which we place in God we must consider in God three notions three apprehensions three kinds of Judgment First God hath Iudicium detestationis God doth naturally know and therefore naturally detest evill for no man in the extreamest corruption of nature is yet fallen so far as to love or approve evill at the same time that he knows and acknowledges it to be evill But we are so blind in the knowledge of evill that we needed that great supplement and assistance of the law it self to make us know what was evill Moses magnifies and justly the law Non appropinquâ—vit says Moses God came not so neare to any nation as to the Iews Non taliter fecit God dealt not so well with any nation as with the Iews and wherein because he had given them a law and yet we see the greatest dignity of this law to be That by the law is the knowledge of sinne for though by the law of nature written in our hearts there be some condemnation of some sinnes yet to know that every sinne was Treason against God to know that every sinne hath the reward of death and eternall death annexed to it this knowledge we have onely by the law Now if man will pretend to be a Judge what an exact knowledge of the law is required at his hand for some things are sinne to one nation which are not to another as where the just authority of the lawfull Magistrate changes the nature of the thing and makes a thing naturally indifferent necessary to them who are under his obedience some things are sinnes at one time which are not at another as all the ceremoniall law created new sinnes which were not sinnes before the law was given nor since it expir'd some things are sinnes in a man now which will not be sinnes in the same man to morrow as when a man hath contracted a just scruple against any particular action it is a sinne to doe it during the scruple and it may be sinne in him to omit it when he hath devested the scruple onely God hath Iudicium detestationis he knows and therefore detests evill and therefore flatter not thy self with a Tush God sees it not or Tush God cares not Doth it disquiet him or trouble his rest in heaven that I breake his Sabbath here Doth it wound his body or draw his bloud there that I swear by his body and bloud here Doth it corrupt any of his virgins there that I sollicit the chastity of a woman here Are his Martyrs withdrawn from their Allegeance or retarded in their service to him there because I dare not defend his cause nor speake for him nor fight for him here Beloved it is a degree of superstition and an effect of an undiscreet zeale perchance to be too forward in making indifferent things necessary and so to imprint the nature and sting of sin where naturally it is not so certainly it a more slippery and irreligious thing to be too apt to call things meerely indifferent and to forget that even in eating and drinking waking and sleeping the glory of God is intermingled as if we knew exactly the prescience and foreknowledge of God there could be nothing contingent or casuall for though there be a contingency in the nature of the thing yet it is certain to God so if we considered duly wherein the glory of God might be promov'd in every action of ours there could scarce by any action so indifferent but that the glory of God would turne the scale and make it necessary to me at that time but then private interests and private respects create a new indifferency to my apprehension and calls me to consider that thing as it is in nature and not as it is considered with that circumstance of the glory of God and so I lose that Iudicium detestationis which onely God hath absolutely and perfectly to know and therefore to detest evill and so he is a Judge And as he is a Judge so Iudicat rem he judges the nature of the thing he is so too as he hath Iudicium discretionis and so Iudicat personam he knows what is evill and he discernes when thou committest that evill Here you are fain to supply defects of laws that things done in one County may be tryed in another And that in offences of high nature transmarine offences may be inquir'd and tryed here But as the Prophet says Who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or meted 〈◊〉 the heavens with a span who comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a scale So I say who hath divided heaven into shires or parishes or limited the territories and Jurisdictions there that God should not have Iudicium discretionis the power of discerning all actions in all places When there was no more to be seen or considered upon the whole earth but the garden of Paradise for from the beginning Deliciae ejus esse cum filiis hominum Gods delight was to be with the sons of men and man was only there shal we not deminish God nor speak too vulgarly of him to say that he hovered like a Falcon over Paradise and that from that height of heaven the piercing eye of God saw so little a thing as the forbidden fruit and what became of that and the reaching â—are of God heard the hissing of the Serpent and the whispering of the woman and what was concluded upon that Shall we think it little to have seen to have things done in Paradise when there was nothing else to divert
doe so in the time of his Consecration And yet as easily as they come by it they will givesus none They have told us that we had it per Concomitantiam by a necessary concomitancy That because we had the body in the bread and that body could not be without the bloud that therefore we had the bloud also But if the bread alone be enough if the Cup be impertinent why did Christ give it If we have no losse in their detaining it from us what gain have they in retaining it to themselves let all have it or none It is true that they can performe all the ill that they would doe by the bread alone They can worke the spirituall ill of inducing adoration to a Creature by the bread alone And they could work the temporall ill of poysoning an Emperour in the Sacrament by the bread alone They can come to all their purposes to all their ill by the bread alone but we have not all our good because we have not Christs intire Institution And so in this troubling and in this stopping of these waters in these confusions we challenge any Babylon in the behalfe of this Italian Babylon Rome All these oppressions are aggravated by the last and as weightiest things sink to the bottome so is this in the bottome the heaviest pressure that they did this with their feet they corrupted the grasse with their feet and troubled the waters with their feet Now in the Scriptures when this word feet doth not signifie that part of mans body which is ordinarily so called but is transferred to a Metaphoricall signification as in our text it is it does most commonly signifie Affections or Power So the Lord will keep the feet of his Saints that is direct their desires and affections in the ways of holinesse And then for Power which is the more frequent acceptation of the word he will not suffer thy foot to be moved that is thy power to be shaked And all such places qui festinus he hath hasteth with his feet sinneth our interpreters expound of a hasty abuse of Power And those they have not refrained their feet and then thy feet are sunk in the mire are still interpreted of Power of a wonton abuse of Power or of a withdrawing this Power from man by God feet signifies Affections and them corrupted and depraved and power and that abused David seems to have joyned them as when they are joyned they must necessarily be the most heavy in that prayer Let not the foot of pride come against me The hand of pride nay the sword of pride affects not a tender soule so much as the foot of pride to be oppressed and that with scorne not so much in an anger as in a wantonnesse Rehoboams people were more confounded with that scornfull answer of his to them when they were come My little finger shall be thicker then my Fathers loynes my father chastised you with whips but I will chastise you with Scorpions then they were with the grievances themselves for which they came when the King would not onely be cruelly sharp but wittily sharp upon them this cut on every side and pierced deep And so doe the Rabbins the Jewish expositors expound this text literally that in the captivity of Babylon the great men of their Synagogues compounded with the State and for certain tributes had commissions by which they governed their people at their pleasure and so milked them to the last drop the last drop of bloud and sheared them to the naked skin then flead off that al this while laughed at them contemned them because they had no where to appeal nor relieve themselves And this we complain to have been the proceeding in the Italian Babylon Rome with our Fathers They oppressed them with their feet that is with Power and with scorne First for their illimited and enormous Power they had so slumbred so intoxicated the Princes of the Earth the weaker by intimidations the stronger by communicating the spoile and suffering those Princes to take some fleeces from some of the sheep in their dominions as there was no reliefe any way They record nay they boast gloriously triumphantly of three score thousand of the Waldenses slain by them in a day in the beginning of the Reformation and Possevine the Jesuit will not lose the glory of recording the five hundred thousand slain in a very few years onely in France and the low Countrey for some declarations of their desire of a Reformation Let all those innumerable numbers of wretches but now victorious Saints in the Triumphant Church who have breathed out their souls in the Inquisition where even the solicitations of Kings and that for their own sons have not prevailed confess the power the immensness of that power then when as under some of the Roman Emperours it was treason to weep treason to sigh treason to look pale treason to fall sicke and all these were made arguments of discontent and ill affection to the present government so in Rome there were Hereticall sighes Hereticall teares palenesse and Hereticall sicknesse every things was interpreted to be an accusation of the present times and an anhelation after a Reformation and that was formall heresie three pil'd deep-died heresie so that a man durst scarce have prayed for the enlarging of Gods blessings to the Church because to with it better seemed a kind of accusing of it that it was not well already and it was heresie to thinke so Let those Israelites which found no way from this Egypt but by the red sea no way out of Idolatry but by Martyrdome as they have testified for Christ so testifie against Antichrist how heavy his feet as feet signifie Power trod upon the necks of Princes and people But that that affected and afflicted most was the scorne and the contempt that accompanied their oppressions To bring Kings to Kisse his feet was a scorne but that scorne determined in man but it was a scorne to God himselfe to say that he had said it should be so to apply Scripture to the justification thereof Kings and Queens shall bow down to thee their faces towards the Earth and lick up the dust of thy feet But limit we all considerations of their scorne in one In this that they did these wrongs professedly and without any disguise Great men will oppress and ruine others a great while before they will be content to be seen and known to doe it There is such a kinde of reverence not onely to Law but even to honour and opinion as that men are lothe to publish their evill actions To sinne as Sodome did and not to hide it is an evidence of neglecting and scorning of all the world And therefore the Roman Historiographers would not forbeare to note the insolency of that young gallant who knowing what any man whom he strook could recover by action against him would strike
go because none stayes behinde so when the holy Spirit which had made himself as a common soule to their foure soules directed one of them to say any thing all are well understood to have said it And therefore when to that place in Matth. 27. 8. where that Evangelist cites the Prophet Ieremy for words spoken by Zachary many medicines are applyed by the Fathers as That many copies have no name That Ieremy might be binominous and have both names a thing frequent in the Bible That it might be the error of a transcriber That there was extant an Apocryph booke of Ieremy in which these words were and sometimes things of such books were vouched as Iannes and Iambres by Paul St. Augustine insists upon and teaches rather this That it is more wonderfull that all the Prophets spake by one Spirit and so agreed then if any one of them had spoken all those things And therefore he adds Singula sunt omnium omnia sunt singulorum All say what any of them say And in this sense most congruously is that of St. Hierome applyable that the foure Evangelists are Quadriga Divina That as the foure Chariot wheeles though they looke to the foure corners of the world yet they move to one end and one way so the Evangelists have both one scope and one way Yet not so precisely but that they differ in words For as their generall intention common to them all begat that consent so a private reason peculiar to each of them for the writing of their Histories at that time made those diversities which seem to be for Matthew after he had preached to the Jewes and was to be transplanted into another vineyard the Gentiles left them written in their owne tongue for permanency which he had preached transitorily by word Mark when the Gospell fructified in the West and the Church enlarged her self and grew a great body and therefore required more food out of Peters Dictates and by his approbation published his Evangile Not an Epitome of Matthewes as Saint Ierome I know why imagines but a just and intire History of our blessed Saviour And as Matthewes reason was to supply a want in the Eastern Church Markes in the Western so on the other side Lukes was to cut off an excesse and superfluitie for then many had undertaken this Story and dangerously inserted and mingled uncertainties and obnoxious improbabilities and he was more curious and more particular then the rest both because he was more learned and because he was so individuall a companion of the most learned Saint Paul and did so much write Pauls words that Eusebius thereupon mistaketh the words 2 Tim. 2. 1. Christ is raised according to my Gospell to prove that Paul was author of this Gospell attributed to Luke Iohn the Minion of Christ upon earth and survivor of the Apostles whose books rather seem fallen from Heaven and writ with the hand which ingraved the stone Tables then a mans work because the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus were rooted who upon this true ground then evident aud fresh that Christ had spoke many things which none of the other three Evangelists had Recorded uttered many things as his which he never spoke Iohn I say more diligently then the rest handleth his Divinity and his Sermons things specially brought into question by them So therefore all writ one thing yet all have some things particular And Luke most for he writ last of three and largeliest for himselfe 1 Act. 1. saith I have made the former Treatise of all that Iesus began to doe and teach untill the Day that he was taken up which speech lest the words in the last of Iohn If all were written which Iesus did the world could not contain the Bookes should condemne Ambrose and Chrysostome interpret well out of the words themselves Scripsit de omnibus non omnia He writ of all but not all for it must have the same limitation which Paul giveth his words who saith Acts 20. in one verse I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the counsell of God and in another I kept back nothing that was profitable It is another peculiar singularity of Lukes that he addresseth his History to one man Theophilus For it is but weakely surmised that he chose that name for all lovers of God because the interpretation of the word suffereth it since he addeth most noble Theophilus But the work doth not the lesse belong to the whole Church for that no more then his Masters Epistles doe though they be directed to particulars It is also a singularitie in him to write upon that reason because divers have written In humane knowledge to abridge or suck and then suppresse other Authors is not ever honest nor profitable We see after that vast enterprise of Iustinian who distilled all the Law into one vessell and made one Booke of 2000. suppressing all the rest Alciate wisheth he had let them alone and thinketh the Doctors of our times would better have drawn usefull things from those volumes then his Trebonian and Dorothee did And Aristotle after by the immense liberality of Alexander he had ingrossed all Authors is said to have defaced all that he might be in stead of all And therefore since they cannot rise against him he imputes to them errours which they held not vouches onely such objections from them as he is able to answer and propounds all good things in his own name which he ought to them But in this History of Lukes it is otherwise He had no authority to suppresse them nor doth he reprehend or calumniate them but writes the truth simply and leaves it to outweare falshood and so it hath Moses rod hath devoured the Conjurers rods and Lukes Story still retains the majestie of the maker and theirs are not Other singularities in Luke of form or matter I omit and end with one like this in our Text. As in the apprehending of our blessed Saviour all the Evangelists record that Peter cut off Malchus eare but onely Luke remembers the healing of it again I think because that act of curing was most present and obvious to his consideration who was a Physician so he was therefore most apt to remember this Prayer of Christ which is the Physick and Balsamum of our Soule and must be applied to us all for we doe all Crucifie him and we know not what we do And therefore Saint Hierome gave a right Character of him in his Epistle to Paulinus Fuit Medicus pariter omnia verba illius Animae languentis sunt Medicinae As he was a Physitian so all his words are Physick for a languishing soule Now let us dispatch the last consideration of the effect of this Prayer Did Christ intend the forgivenesse of the Jewes whose utter ruine God that is himselfe had fore-decreed And which he foresaw and bewaild even then hanging upon the Crosse For those Divines which reverently forbeare to interpret the words
to fetch fire at the hearth and incapable of any drop of Christs blood from heaven or of any teare of contrition in themselves not a sheard to fetch water at the pit I will breake them as a Potters vessell quod non potest instaurari says God in Ieremy There shall be no possible meanes of those means which God hath ordained in his Church to recompact them againe no voice of Gods word to draw them no threatnings of Gods judgements shall drive them no censures of Gods Church shall fit them no Sacrament shall cement and glue them to Christs body againe In temporall blessings he shall be unthankfull in temporall afflictions he shall be obdurate And these two shall serve as the upper and nether stone of a mill to grinde this reprobate sinner to powder Lastly this is to be done by Christs falling upon him and what is that I know some Expositors take this to be but the falling of Gods judgements upon him in this world But in this world there is no grinding to powder all Gods judgements here for any thing that we can know have the nature of Physick in them may are wont to cure no man is here so absolutely broken in pieces but that he may be re-united we chuse therefore to follow the Ancients in this That the falling of this stone upon this Reprobate is Christs last irrecoverable falling upon him in his last judgment that when hee shall wish that the Hills might fall and cover him this stone shall fall grinde him to powder He shall be broken and he no more found says the Prophet yea he shall be broken and no more sought No man shall consider him what he is now nor remember him what he was before For that stone which in Daniel was cut out without hands which was a figure of Christ who came without ordinary generation when that great Image was to be overthrown broke not an arme or a leg but brake the whole Image in peeces and it wrought not onely upon the weak parts but it brake all the clay the iron the brasse the silver the gold so when this stone fals thus when Christ comes to judgement he shall not onely condemn him for his clay his earthly and covetous sinnes nor for his iron his revengefull oppressing and rustly sinnes nor for his brasse his shining and glittering sinnes which he hath filed and polished but he shall fall upon his silver and gold his religious and precious sinnes his hypocriticall hearing of Sermons his singular observing of Sabbaths his Pharisaicall giving of almes and as well his subtill counterfeiting of Religion as his Atheisticall opposing of religion this stone Christ himselfe shall fall upon him and a showre of other stones shall oppresse him too Sicut pluit laqueâ—s says David As God rained springs and snares upon them in this world abundance of temporall blessings to be occasions of sinne unto them So plues grandinem he shall raine such haile-stones upon them as shall grinde them to powder there shall fall upon him the naturall Law which was written in his heart and did rebuke him then when he prepared for a sinne there shall fall upon him the written Law which cryed out from the mouthes of the Prophets in these places to avert him from sinne there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done and those sins which he hath not done if nothing but want of means opportunity hindred him from doing them there shall fall upon him those sinnes which he hath done after anothers dehortation and those which others have done after his provocation there the stones of Nineveh shall fall upon him and of as many Cities as have repented with lesse proportions of mercy and grace then God afforded him there the rubbage of Sodom and Gomorrah shall fall upon him and as many Cities as in their ruine might have been examples to him All these stones shall fall upon him and to add weight to all these Christ Jesus himselfe shall fall upon his conscience with unanswerable questions and grinde his soule to powder But hee that overcometh shall not bee hurt by the second death he that feeles his own fall upon this stone shall never feel this stone fall upon him he that comes to a remorse early and earnestly after a sinne and seeks by ordinary meanes his reconcileation to God in his Church is in the best state that man can be in now for howsoever we cannot say that repentance is as happy an estate as Innocency yet certainly every particular man feels more comfort and spirituall joy after a true repentance for a sin then he had in that degree of Innocence which he had before he committed that sinne and therefore in this case also we may safely repeat those words of Augustine Audeo dicere I dare be bold to say that many a man hath been the better for some sin Almighty God who gives that civill wisdome to make use of other mens infirmities give us also this heavenly wisdome to make use of our own particular sins that thereby our own wretched conditions in our selves and our meanes of reparation in Iesus Christ may be the more manifested unto us To whom with the blessed Spirit c. SERMON XXXVI Preached at Saint Pauls upon Christmasse day 1621. JOHN 1. 8. He was not that Light but was sent to bear witnesse of that Light IT is an injury common to all the Evangelists as Irenaeus notes that all their Gospels were severally refused by one Sect of Hereticks or other But it was proper to Saint Iohn alone to be refused by a Sect that admitted all the other three Evangelists as Epiphanius remembers and refused onely Saint Iohn These were the Alogiani a limme and branch of the Arians who being unable to looke upon the glorious Splendour the divine Glory attributed by Saint Iohn to this Logos which gave them their name of Alogiani this Word this Christ not comprehending this Mystery That this Word was so with God as that it was God they tooke a round way and often practised to condemne all that they did not understand and therefore refuse the whole Gospell Indeed his whole Gospell is comprehended in the beginning thereof In this first Chapter is contracted all that which is extensively spred and dilated through the whole Booke For here is first the Foundation of all the Divinitie of Christ to the 15. verse Secondly the Execution of all the Offices of Christ to the 35. verse And then the Effect the Working the Application of all that is who were to Preach all this to the ends of the world the calling of his Apostles to the end of the Chapter for the first Christs Divinity there is enough expressed in the very first verse alone for there is his Eternitie intimated in that word In principio in the beginning The first booke of the Bible Genesis and the last booke that is that
Conscientiâ scrupulosâ when the conscience hath received any single scruple or suspicion to the contrary and so too in conscientiâ opinante in a conscience that hath conceived but an opinion which is far from a debated and deliberate determination yea in conscientiâ errante though the conscience be in an error yet it is sin to do aright against the conscience but then as it is a sin to do against the conscience labouring under any of these infirmities so is it a greater sin not to labour to recover the conscience and devest it of those scruples by their advise whom God hath indued with knowledg and power for that purpose For as it is in civill Iudicature God refers causes to them and according to their reports Gods ordinary way is to decree the cause to loose where they loose to binde where they binde Their imperfections or their corruptions God knowes how to punish in them but thou shalt have the recompense of thy humility and thy obedience to his ordinance in hearkning to them whom he hath set over thee for the rectifying of thy conscience Neither is this to erect a parochiall popacy to make every minister a Pope in his own parish or to re-enthrall you to a necessity of communicating all your sinnes or all your doubtfull actions to him God forbid God of his goodnesse hath delivered us from that bondage and butchery of the conscience which our Fathers suffered from Rome and Anathema and Anathema Maran-atha cursed be he till the Lord comes and cursed when the Lord comes that should go about to bring us in a relapse in an eddy in a whirlepoole into that disconsolate estate or into any of the pestilent errors of that Church But since you think it no diminution to you to consult with a Physician for the state of your body or with a Lawyer for your Lands since you are not borne nor grown good Physicians and good Lawyers why should you think your selves born or grown so good Divines that you need no counsell in doubtfull cases from other men And therefore as for the Law that governs us that is the Scripture we go the way that Christ did to receive the testimony of man both for the body that Scriptures there are and for the limbs of that body that these books make up those Scriptures and for the soule of this body that this is the sense of the holy Ghost in that place so for our Iudge which is the conscience let that be directed before hand by their advise whom God hath set over us and setled and quieted in us by their testimony who are the witnesses of our conversation And so we have done with our Problematicall part we have asked and answered both these questions Why this light requires any testimony and that is because exhalations and damps and vapours arise first from our ignorance then from our incredulity after from our negligence in practising and lastly from our slipperinesse in relapsing and therefore we need more and more attestations and remembrances of this light and the other question Why after so many other testimonies from himself from his Father from the Angell from the Star from the Magi from Simeon from Anna from many many very many more he required this testimony of Iohn and that is because all those other witnesses had testified long before and because God in all matters belonging to Religion here or to salvation hereafter refers us to man but to man sent and ordained by God for our direction that we may do well and to the testimony of good men that we have done well And so we passe to our dogmaticall part what his testimony was what Iohn Baptist and his successors in preaching and preparing the ways of Christ are sent to do he was sent to beare witnesse of that light Princes which send Ambassadors use to give them a Commission containing the generall scope of the businesse committed to them and then Instructions for the fittest way to bring that businesse to effect And upon due contemplation of both these his Commission and his Instructions arises the use of the Ambassadors judgement and discretion in making his Commission and his Instructions which do not always agree in all points but are often various and perplext serve most advantagiously towards the ends of his negotiation Iohn Baptist had both therefore they minister three considerations unto us first his Commission what that was and then his Instructions what they were and lastly the execution how he proceeded therein His Commission was drawn up and written in Esa◠and recorded and entred into Gods Rolls by the Evangelists It was To prepare the way of the Lord to make streight his paths that therefore every valley should be exalted every mountaine made law and all this he was to cry out to make them inexcusable who contemne the outward Ministery and relie upon private inspirations This Commission lasts during Gods pleasure and Gods pleasure is that it should last to the end of the world Therefore are we also joyned in Commission with Iohn and we cry out still to you to all those purposes First that you prepare the way of the Lord. But when we bid you do so we do not meane that this preparing or pre-disposing of your selves is in your selves that you can prevent Gods preventing grace or mellow or supple or fit your selves for the entrance of that grace by any naturall faculty in your selves When we speak of a co-operation a joint working with the grace of God or of a post-operation an after working upon the virtue of a former grace this co-operation this post-operation must be mollified with a good concurrent cause with that grace So there is a good sense of co-operation and post-operation but praeoperation that we should work before God work upon us can admit no good interpretation I could as soon beleeve that I had a being before God was as that I had a will to good before God moved it But then God having made his way into you by his preventing grace prepare that way not your way but his way sayes our Commission that is that way that he hath made in you prepare that by forbearing and avoiding to cast new hinderances in that way In sadnesse and dejections of spirit seek not your comfort in drinke in musique in comedies in conversation for this is but a preparing a way of your owne To prepare the Lords way is to look and consider what way the Lord hath taken in the like cases in the like distresses with other servants of his and to prepare that way in thy self and to assure thy selfe that God hath but practised upon others that he might be perfect when he comes to thee and that he intends to thee in these thy tribulations all that he hath promised to all all that he hath already performed to any one Prepare his way apply that way in which he hath gone
burden of the day there had been much more cause of complaint because there had passed a contract between them So hath there passed a contract between God and us Beleeve and thou shalt live Do this and thou shalt live And in this especially hath God expressed his love to us and his lothenesse to lose us that he hath passed such a contract with us and manifested to us a way to come to him We say every day in his owne prayer Fiat voluntas tua thy will be done that is done by us as well as done upon us But this petition presumes another the Fiat suposes a Patefiat voluntas if it must be done it must be known If man were put into this world under an obligation of doing the will of God upon damnation and had no meanes to know that will which he was bound to doe of all creatures he were the most miserable That which we read Lord what is man that thou takest knowledge of him the Vulgat edition and the Fathers following the Septuagint read thus Quia innotuisti ei Lord what is man that he should have any knowledge of thee that thou shouldest make thy selfe known to him This is the heighth of the mercy of God this innotescence this manifestation of himselfe to us Now what is this innotescence this manifestation of God to us It is say our old Expositors the law That 's that which is so often called the face of God and the light of his Countenance for facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit that 's Gods face by which God is known to us and that 's his law the declaration of his will to me and my way to him When Christ reproaches those hard-hearted men that had not fed him when he was hungry nor clothed him when he was naked and that they say Lord when did we see thee naked or see thee hungry inconsiderate men or men loth to give the penurious and narrow soule shall not see an occasion of charity when it is presented which is a heavy blindnesse and obcaecation not to see occasions of doing good yet those men doe not say when did we see thee at all as though they had never seen him The blindest man that is hath the face of God so turned towards him as that he may be seen by him even the naturall man hath so for therefore does the Apostle make him inexcusable if in the visible worke he doe not see the invisible God But all sight of God is by the benefit of a law the naturall man sees him by a law written in his heart the Iew by a law given by Moses the Christian in a clearer glasse for his law is the Gospell But there is more mercy that is more manifestation in this text then all this For besides the naturall mans seeing God in a law in the faculties of his owne nature which we consider to be the work of the whole Trinity in that Faciamus hominē Let us make man in our own Image let us shine out in him so as that he may be a glasse in which he may see us in himselfe and besides the Iews seeing of God in the law written in the stone tables which we consider to be the worke of the Father And besides the Christians seeing of God in the law written in bloud in which we consider especially the Sonne there is in this text an operation a manifestation of God proper to the holy Ghost and wrought by his holy suggestions and inspirations That God does not onely speake to us but call upon us not onely give us a Law but Proclamations upon that law that he refreshes to our memories generall duties by such particular warnings and excitations and commonefactions as in this text Videte Beware which is the last branch of this part though it be the first word of our text Videte Beware Nothing exalts Gods goodnesse towards us more then this that he multiplies the meanes of his mercy to us so as that no man can say once I remember I might have been saved once God called unto mee once hee opened mee a doore a passage into heaven but I neglected that went not in then and God never came more No doubt God hath come often to that doore since and knocked and staid at that doore And if I knew who it were that said this I should not doubt to make that suspitious soule see that God is at that doore now God hath spoken once and twice have I heard him for the foundation of all God hath spoken but once in his Scriptures Therefore doth Saint Iude call that fidem semel traditam the faith once delivered to the Saints once that is at once not at once so all at one time or in one mans age the Scriptures were not delivered so for God spoke by the mouth of the Prophets that have been since the world beganne But at once that is by one way by writing by Scriptures so as that after that was done after God had declared his whole will in the Law and the Prophets and the Gospell there was no more to bee added God hath spoken once in his Scriptures and wee have heard him twice at home in our owne readings and againe and againe here in his Ordinances This is the heighth of Gods goodnesse that he gives us his Law and a Comment upon that Law Proclamations declarations upon that Law For without these subsequent helpes even the law it selfe might be mistaken as you see it was when Christ was put to rectifie them with his Audiistis and Audiistis this you have heard and this hath been told you Ego autem dico but this I say ab initio from the beginning it was not so the foundations were not thus laid and upon the foundations laid by God in the Scriptures and not upon the superedifications of men in traditionall additions must wee build In stormes and tempests at sea men come sometimes to cut down Galleries and teare up Cabins and cast them over-board to ease the ship and sometimes to hew downe the Mast it selfe though without that Mast the ship can make no way but no soule weather can make them teare out the keele of the ship upon which the ship is built In cases of necessity the Church may forbeare her Galleries and Cabinets meanes of ease and conveniency yea and her Mast too meanes of her growth and propagation and enlarging of her selfe and be content to hull it out and consist in her present or a worse state during the storme But to the keele of the ship to the fundamentall articles of Religion may no violence in any case be offered God multiplies his mercies to us in his divers ways of speaking to us Caeli enarrant says David The heavens declare the glory of God and not onely by showing but by saying there is a language in the heavens for it is enarrant a verball