Reformation when in no long time the number of them that had forsaken Rome was as great as of them that staid with her Now to give way to this ascent of this Angel in thy selfe make the way smooth and make thy soule souple finde thou a growth of the Gospel in thy faith and let us finde it in thy life It is not in thy power to say to this Angel as Ioshua said to the Sun Siste Iosh 10.12 stand still It will not stand still If thou finde it not ascending it descends If thy comforts in the Gospel of Christ Jesus grow not they decay If thou profit not by the Gospel thou losest by it If thou live not by it nothing can redeeme thee thou dyest by it Wee speake of going up and downe a staire it is all one staire of going to and from the City it is all one way of comming in and going out of a house it is all one doore So is there a savour of life unto life and a savour of death unto death in the Gospel but it is all one Gospel If this Angel of the East have appeared unto thee the light of the Gospel have shined upon thee and it have not ascended in thee if it have not made thee wiser and wiser and better and better too thou hast stopped that light vexed grieved quenched that Spirit for the naturall progresse of this Angel of the East is to ascend the naturall motion and working of the Gospel is to make thee more and more confident in Gods deliverance lesse and lesse subject to rely upon the weake helps and miserable comforts of this world To this purpose this Angel ascends that is proceeds in the manifestation of his Power and of his readinesse to succour us Of his Power in this That he hath the seales of the living God I saw an Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God which is our next Consideration Of the living God The gods of the Nations are all dead gods Sigillum Dei viventis either such Gods as never had life stones and gold and silver or such gods at best as were never gods till they were dead for men that had benefited the world in any publique and generall invention or otherwise were made gods after their deaths which was a miserable deification a miserable godhead that grew out of corruption a miserable eternity that begun at all but especially that begun in death and they were not gods till they dyed But our Angel had the Seale of the living God that is Power to give life to others Now if we seeke for this seale in the naturall Angels they have it not for this Seale is some visible thing whereby we are assisted to salvation and the Angels have no such They are made keepers of this seale sometimes but permanently they have it not This Seale of comfort was put into an Angels hand Ezek. 9.4 when he was to set a marke upon the foreheads of all them that mourned He had a visible thing Inke to marke them withall But it was not said to him Vade signa omnes Creaturas Go and set this marke upon every Creature as it was to the Minister of the Gospel Go and preach to every Creature Marke 16.15 If wee seeke this seale in the great Angel the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus It is true he hath it for Omnis potestas dâ—ta All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth and Omne judicium Mat. 28.18 Iohn 5.22 The Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Christ as the Son of man executes a Judgement and hath a Power which he hath not but by gift by Commission by vertue of this Seale from his Father But because it is not onely so in him That he hath the Seale of the living God but He is this Seale himselfe Colos 1.15 Heb. 1.3 Iohn 6.27 Hee is the Image of the invisible God He is the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse Image of his Person It is not onely his Commission that is sealed but his Nature He himselfe is sealed Him hath God the Father sealed since I say naturall Angels though they have sometimes this seale they have it not alwaies they have not a Commission from God to apply his mercies to man by any ordinary and visible meanes since the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus hath it but hath it so as that he is it too the third sort of Angels the Church-Angels the Ministers of the Gospell are they who most properly can be said to have this Seale by a fixed and permanent possession and a power to apply it to particular men in all emergent necessities according to the institution of that living God whose seale it is Now the great power which is given by God in giving this seale to these Angels hath a lively representation such as a shadow can give in the history of Ioseph Pharaoh sayes to him Thou shalt be over my house and over all the land of Egypt Gen. 41.40 steward of the Kings house and steward of the Kingdome And at thy word shall all my people be armed Constable and Marshall too and to invest him in all these and more Pharaoh gave him his ring his seale not his seale onely to those severall patents to himselfe but the keeping of that seale for the good of others This temporall seale of Pharoh was a representation of the seale of the living God But there is a more expresse type of it in Exodus Thou shalt grave sayes God to Moses upon a plate of pure gold Lxod. 28.36 as Signets are graved Holinesse to the Lord and it shall be upon the forehead of Aaron What to do That the people may be accepted of him There must be a holinesse to the Lord and that presented by Aaron the Priest to God that the people may be acceptable to the Lord So that this seale of the living God in these Angels of our text is The Sacraments of the New Testament and the Absolution of sinnes by which when Gods people come to a Holinesse to the Lord in a true repentance and that that holinesse that is that repentance is made knowne to Aaron to the Priest and he presents it to the Lord that Priest his Minister seals to them in those his Ordinances Gods acceptation of this degree of holinesse he seals this Reconciliation between God and his people And a contract of future concurrence with his subsequent grace This is the power given by God to this ascending Angel and we extend that no farther but hasten to his haste his readinesse to succour us in which we proposed for the first consideration That this Angel of light manifested and discovered to us who our enemies were He cryed out to them who were ready to do mischiefe with a loud voyce so that we might heare him and know them Though in all Court-cases it be
the places of the earth Divisie doe the Scriptures of God exceed Paradise In the midst of Paradise grew the Tree of knowledge and the tree of life In this Paradise the Scripture every word is both those Trees there is Life and Knowledge in every word of the Word of God That Germen Iehovae as the Prophet Esay calls Christ that Off-spring of Jehova that Bud that Blossome that fruit of God himselfe the Son of God the Messiah the Redeemer Christ Jesus growes upon every tree in this Paradise the Scripture for Christ was the occasion before and is the consummation after 1 Iohn 5.13 of all Scripture This have I written sayes S. Iohn and so say all the Pen-men of the holy Ghost in all that they have written This have we written that ye may know that ye have eternall life Knowledge and life growes upon every tree in this Paradise upon every word in this Booke because upon every Tree here upon every word grows Christ himselfe in some relation From this Branch this Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send we shall not so much stand to gather here and there an Apple that is to consider some particular words of the Text it selfe as endeavour to shake the whole tree that is the Context and coherence and dependance of the words for since all that passed between God and Moses in this affaire and negotiation Gods employing of Moses and Moses presenting his excuses to God and Gods taking of all those excuses determines in our Text in our Text is the whole story virtually and radically implyed And therefore by just occasion thereof we shall consider first That though for the ordinary duties of our callings arising out of the evidence of expresse Scriptures we are allowed no haesitation no disputation whether we will doe them or no but they require a present and an exact execution thereof yet in extraordinary cases and in such actions as are not laid upon us by any former and permanent notification thereof in Scripture such as was Moses case here to undertake the deliverance of Israel from Egypt in such cases not onely some haesitation some deliberation some consultation in our selves but some expostulation with God himselfe may be excusable in us We shall therefore see that Moses did excuse himself four wayes And how God was pleased to joyn issue with him in all foure and to cast him and overcome him in them all And when we come to consider his fift which is rather a Diversion upon another then an Excuse in himselfe and yet is that which is most literally in our Text O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send because this was a thing which God had reserved wholly to himselfe The sending of Christ we shall see that God would not have been pressed for that but as it followes immediately and is also a bough of this tree that is grows out of this Text God was angry But yet as we shall see in the due place it was but such an anger as ended in an Instruction rather then in an Increpation and in an Encouragement rather then in a Desertion for he established Moses in a resolution to undertake the worke by joyning his brother Aaron in commission with him So then wee have shak'd the tree that is resolv'd and analyz'd the Context of all which the Text it selfe is the root and the seale And as we have presented to your sight we shall farther offer to your tast and digestion and rumination these particular fruits First that ordinary Duties require a present execution Secondly that in Extraordinary God allowes a Deliberation and requires not an implicite a blind obedience And in a third place wee shall give you those foure circumstances that accompanied or constituted Moses deliberation and Gods removing of those foure impediments And in a fourth â—oome that Consultation or Diversion The sending of Christ And in that How God was affected with it He was angry angry that Moses would offer to looke into those things which he had lockt up in his secret counsels such as that sending of Christ which he intended But yet not angry so as that he left Moses unsatisfied or un-accommodated for the maine businesse but setled him in a holy and chearfull readinesse to obey his commandement And through all these particulars we shall passe with as much clearnesse as the waight and as much shortnesse as the number will permit First then our first Consideration constitutes that Proposition Ordinary Duties Ordinary Duties arising out of the Evidence of Gods Word require a present Execution There are Duties that binde us semper and Adsemper as our Casuists speak we are Alwayes bound to doe them and bound to doe them Alwayes that is Alwayes to produce Actus elicitos Determinate acts Successive and Consecutive acts conformable to those Duties whereas in some other Duties we are onely bound to an Habituall disposition to doe them in such and such necessary cases And those Actions of the later sort fall in Genere Deliberativo we may consider Circumstances before we fall under a necessity of doing them that is of doing them Then or doing them Thus Of which kind even those great duties of Praying and Fasting are for we are alwayes bound to Pray and alwayes bound to Fast but not bound to fast alwayes nor alwayes to pray But for Actions of the first kind such as are the worshipping of God and the not worshipping of Images such as are the sanctifying of Gods Sabbaths and the not blaspheming of his Name which arise out of cleare and evident commands of God they admit no Deliberation but require a present Execution Therefore as S. Stephen saw Christ standing at the right hand of his Father a posture that denotes first a readinesse to survay and take knowledge of our distresses and then a readinesse to proceed and come forth to our assistance so in our Liturgie in our Service in the Congregation we stand up at the profession of the Creed at the rehearsing the Articles of our Faith thereby to declare to God and his Church our readinesse to stand to and our readinesse to proceed in that Profession The commendation which is given of Andrew and Peter for obeying Christs call Mark 1.18 lyes not so much in the Reliquerunt retia that they left their nets as in the Protinus reliquerunt that forthwith immediately without farther deliberation they left their nets the meanes of their livelyhood and followed Christ The Lord and his Spirit hath anointed us to preach Esay 61.1 sayes the Prophet Esay To preach what Acceptabilem annum to preach the acceptable yeare of the Lord. All the yeare long the Lord stands with his armes open to embrace you and all the yeare long we pray you in Christs stead that you would be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.20 Psal 95.8 But yet God would
shall know that I am the Lord God shall restore them to life and more to strength and more to beauty and comelinesse acceptable to himselfe in Christ Jesus Your way is Recollecting gather your selves into the Congregation and Communion of Saints in these places gather your sins into your memory and poure them out in humble confessions to that God whom they have wounded Gather the crummes under his Table lay hold upon the gracious promises which by our Ministery he lets fall upon the Congregation now and gather the seales of those promises whensoever in a rectified conscience his Spirit beares witnesse with your spirit that you may be worthy receivers of him in his Sacrament and this recollecting shall be your resurrection Beatus qui habet partem Apâ—â— 20.6 sayes S. Iohn Blessed is he that hath part in the first Resurrection for on such the second death hath no power He that rises to this Judgement of recollecting and of judging himselfe shall rise with a chearfulnesse and stand with a confidence when Christ Jesus shall come in the second Auâ— And Quando exacturus est in secundo quod dedit in primo when Christ shall call for an account in that second judgement how he hath husbanded those graces which he gave him for the first he shall make his possession of this first resurrection his title and his evidence to the second When thy body which hath been subject to all kindes of destruction here to the destruction of a Flood in Catarrhs and Rheums and Dropsies and such distillations to the destruction of a fire in Feavers and Frenzies and such conflagrations shall be removed safely and gloriously above all such distempers and malignant impressions and body and soule so united as if both were one spirit in it selfe and God so united to both as that thou shalt be the same spirit with God God began the first World but upon two Adam and Eve The second world after the Flood he began upon a greater stock upon eight reserved in the Arke But when he establishes the last and everlasting world in the last Resurrection he shall admit such a number as that none of us who are here now none that is or hath or shall be upon the face of the earth shall be denied in that Resurrection if he have truly felt this for Grace accepted is the infallible earnest of Glory SERMON XXII Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1627. HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection MErcy is Gods right hand with that God gives all Faith is mans right hand with that man takes all David Psal 136. opens and enlarges this right hand of God in pouring out his blessings plentifully abundantly manifoldly there And in this Chapter the Apostle opens and enlarges this right hand of man by laying hold upon those mercies of God plentifully abundantly manifoldly by faith here There David powres downe the mercies of God in repeating and re-repeating that phrase For his mercy endureth for ever And here S. Paul carries up man to heaven by repeating and re-repeating the blessings which man hath attained by faith By faith Abel sacrificed By faith Enoch walked with God By faith Noah built an Arke c. And as in that Psalme Gods mercies are exprest two waies First in the good that God did for his servants He remembred them in their low estate Ver 23. Ver. 24. for his mercy endureth for ever And then againe He redeemed them from their enemies for his mercy endureth for ever And then also in the evill that he brought upon their enemies He slew famous Kings for his mercy endureth for ever And then He gave their land for an heritage for his mercy endureth for ever So in this Chapter the Apostle declares the benefits of faith two wayes also First how faith enriches us and accommodates us in the wayes of prosperity By faith Abraham went to a place which he received for an inheritance And so By faith Sarah received strength to conceive seed Ver. 8. Ver. 11. Ver. 34. And then how faith sustaines and establishes us in the wayes of adversity By faith they stopt the mouthes of Lions by faith they quencht the violence of fire by faith they escaped the edge of the sword in the verse immediatly before the Text. And in this verse which is our Text the Apostle hath collected both The benefits which they received by faith Women received their dead raised to life againe And then the holy courage which was infused by Faith in their persecutions Others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might receive a better Resurrection And because both these have relation evidently pregnantly to the Resurrection for their benefit was that the Women received their dead by a Resurrection And their courage in their persecution was That they should receive a better Resurrection therefore the whole meditation is proper to this day in which wee celebrate all Resurrections in the Root in the Resurrection of the First fruits of the dead our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus Our Parts are two How plentifully God gives to the faithfull Divisio Women receive their dead raised to life againe And how patiently the faithfull suffer Gods corrections Others were tortured not accepting c. Though they be both large considerations Benefits by Faith Patience in the Faithfull yet we shall containe our selves in those particulars which are exprest or necessarily implyed in the Text it selfe And so in the first place we shall see first The extraordinary consolation in Gods extraordinary Mercies in his miraculous Deliverances such as this Women received their dead raised to life again And secondly we shall seethe examples to which the Apostle refers here What women had had their dead restored to life againe And then lastly in that part That this affection of joy in having their dead restored to life againe being put in the weaker sexe in women onely we may argue conveniently from thence That the strength of a true and just joy lies not in that but that our virility our holy manhood our religious strength consists in a faithfull assurance that we have already a blessed communion with these Saints of God though they be dead and we alive And that we shall have hereafter a glorious Association with them in the Resurrection though we never receive our dead raised to life again in this world And in those three considerations we shall determine that first part And then in the other The Patience of the Faithfull Others were tortured c. we shall first look into the examples which the Apostle refers to who they were that were thus tortured And secondly the heighth and exaltation of their patience They would not accept a deliverance And lastly the ground upon which their Anchor was cast what established their patience That they might obtaine a better Resurrection
the consideration of that place where our soules should be for ever and we could consider God then but then wee could not see God in his Essence As it may be fairely argued that Christ suffered not the very torments of very hell because it is essentiall to the torments of hell to be eternall They were not torments of hell if they received an end So is it fairely argued too That neither Adam in his extasie in Paradise nor Moses in his conversation in the Mount nor the other Apostles in the Transfiguration of Christ nor S. Paul in his rapture to the third heavens saw the Essence of God because he that is admitted to that sight of God can never look off nor lose that sight againe Only in heaven shall God proceed to this patefaction this manifestation this revelation of himself And that by the light of glory The light of glory is such a light as that our School-men dare not say confidently Lux Cloris That every beam of it is not all of it When some of them say That some soules see some things in God and others others because all have not the same measure of the light of glory the rest cry down that opinion and say that as the Essence of God is indivisible and he that sees any of it sees all of it so is the light of glory communicated intirely to every blessed soul God made light first and three dayes after that light became a Sun a more glorious Light God gave me the light of Nature when I quickned in my mothers wombe by receiving a reasonable soule and God gave me the light of faith when I quickned in my second mothers womb the Church by receiving my baptisme but in my third day when my mortality shall put on immortality he shall give me the light of glory by which I shall see himself To this light of glory the light of honour is but a glow-worm and majesty it self but a twilight The Cherubims and Seraphims are but Candles and that Gospel it self which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel but a Star of the least magnitude And if I cannot tell what to call this light by which I shall see it what shall I call that which I shall see by it The Essence of God himself and yet there is something else then this sight of God intended in that which remaines I shall not only see God face to face but I shall know him which as you have seen all the way is above sight and know him even as also I am knowne In this Consideration God alone is all in all the former there was a place Deus omnia solus and a meanes and a light here for this perfect knowledge of God God is all those Then sales the Apostle God shall be all in all Hic agit omnia in omnibus sayes S. Hierome 1 Cor. 15.28 Here God does all in all but here he does all by Instruments even in the infusing of faith he works by the Ministery of the Gospel But there he shall be all in all doe all in all immediately by himself for Christ shall deliver up the Kingdome to God even the Father Ver. 24. His Kingdome is the administration of his Church by his Ordinances in the Church At the resurrection there shall be an end of that Kingdome no more Church no more working upon men by preaching but God himself shall be all in all Ministri quasi larvae Dei saies Luther It may be somewhat too familiarly too vulgarly said but usefully The ministery of the Gospell is but as Gods Vizar for by such a liberty the Apostle here calls it aenigma a riddle or as Luther sayes too Gods picture but in the Resurrection God shall put of that Vizar and turne away that picture and shew his own face Therefore is it said That in heaven there is no Temple but God himselfe is the Temple God is Service Apoc. 21.22 August and Musique and Psalme and Sermon and Sacrament and all Erit vita de verbo sine verbo We shall live upon the word and heare never a word live upon him who being the word was made flesh the eternall Son of God Hîc nonest omnia in omnibus Hieron sed pars in singulis Here God is not all in all where he is at all in any man that man is well In Solomone sapientia saies that Father It was well with Solomon because God was wisdome with him and patience in Iob and faith in Peter and zeale in Paul but there was something in all these which God was not But in heaven he shall be so all in all Idem Vt singuli sanctorum omnes virtutes habeant that every soule shall have every perfection in it self and the perfection of these perfections shall be that their sight shall be face to face and their knowledge as they are known Since S. Augustine calls it a debt a double debt a debt because she asked it Facie ad faciem a debt because he promised it to give even a woman Paulina satisfaction in that high point and mystery how we should see God face to face in heaven it cannot be unfit in this congregation to aske and answer some short questions concerning that Is it alwaies a declaration of favour when God shewes his face No. I will set my face against that soule Levit. 17.10 that eateth blood and cut him off But when there is light joyned with it it is a declaration of favour This was the blessing that God taught Moses for Aaron to blesse the people with The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious to thee Numb 6.25 And there we shall see him face to face by the light of his countenance which is the light of glory What shall we see by seeing him so face to face not to inlarge our selves into Gregories wild speculation Qui videt videntem omnia oninia videt because we shall see him that sees all things we shall see all things in him for then we should see the thoughts of men rest we in the testimony of a safer witnesse a Councell Senon In speculo Divinit at is quicquid eorum intersit illucescet In that glasse we shall see whatsoever we can be the better for seeing First all things that they beleeved here they shall see there and therefore Discamus in terris Hicron quorum scicntia nobiscum perseveret in Caelis let us meditate upon no other things on earth then we would be glad to think on in heaven and this consideration would put many frivolous and many fond thoughts out of our minde if men and women would love another but so as that love might last in heaven This then we shall get concerning our selves by seeing God face to face but what concerning God nothing but the sight of the humanity of Christ which only is visible to the eye So Theodoret so some
to have beene Gods instrument for the conversion of others by the power of Preaching or by a holy and exemplar life in any calling And with this comfort David proceeds in the recommendation of this duty of Prayer Day and night I have felt thy hand upon me ver 4. I have acknowledged my sinne unto thee and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin thus it stood with me and by my example ver 5. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou maiest be found First then the person that hath any accesse allowed him any title to pray Omnis sanctus is he that is Godly holy Now Omnis Sanctus est omnis Baptismate sanctificatus Those are the holy ones whom God will heare who are of the houshold of the faithfull of the Communion of Saints matriculated engraffed enrolled in the Church Hierom. by that initiatory Sacrament of Baptisme for the house of God into which we enter by Baptisme is the house of Prayer And as out of the Arke whosoever swam best was not saved by his swimming no more is any morall man out of the Church by his praying He that swomme in the flood swomme but into more and more water he that prayes out of the Church prayes but into more and more sin because he doth not establish his prayer in that Grant this for our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus sake It is true then that these holy ones whose prayer is acceptable are those of the Christian Church Onely they but is it all they are all their prayers acceptable There is a second concoction necessary too Not onely to have beene sanctified by the Church in Baptisme but a sanctification in a worthy receiving of the other Sacrament too A life that pleads the first seale Baptisme and claimes the other seale The body and blood of Christ Jesus We know the Wise mans counsaile Ecclus. 5.5 concerning propitiation Be not without feare Though thou have received the propitiatory Sacrament of Baptisme be afraid that thou hast not all Will the milke that thou suckedst from a wholesome Nurse keepe thee alive now Or canst thou dine upon last yeares meat to day Hee that hath that first holinesse The holinesse of the Covenant the holinesse of Baptisme let him pray for more For Omnis Sanctus is Quantumcumque Sanctus How holy soever he be that holinesse will not defray him all the way but that holinesse is a faire letter of credit and a bill of exchange for more When canst thou thinke thy selfe holy enough when thou hast washed thy selfe in snow water In penitent teares Iob 9.30 as the best purity of this life is expressed why even then Abominabuntur te vestimenta tua Thine owne cloathes shall make thee abominable Is all well when thou thinkest all well Prov. 16.2 why All the wayes of a man are cleane in his owne eyes but the Lord weigheth the spirit If thine owne spirit thine owne conscience accuse thee of nothing 1 Cor. 3.4 Iob 4.18 nothing unrepented is all well why I know nothing by my selfe yet am I not thereby justified It is God onely that is Surveyor of thy holinesse And Behold he found no stedfastnesse in his Servants and laid folly upon his Angels how much more in them that dwell in houses of clay Gregor whose foundation is in the dust Sordet in conspectu aeterni Iudieis When that eternall Judge comes to value our transitory or imaginary our hollow and rusty and rotten holinesse Sordet quod in intentione fulget operantis Even that which had a good lustre a good speciousnesse not onely in the eyes of men that saw it who might be deceived by my hypocrisie but in the purpose of him that did it becomes base more allay then pure metall more corruption then devotion Though Iacob Gen. 31.31 when he fled from his Father in law Laban were free enough himselfe from the theft of Labans Idols yet it was dangerously pronounced of him With whomsoever thou findest thy gods let him not live For his owne Wife Rachel had stollen them August And Caro conjux Thy Wife thy flesh thy weaker part may insinuate much sin into thine actions even when thy spirit is at strongest and thou in thy best confidence Onely thus these two cases may differ Rachel was able to cover those stollen Idols from her Fathers finding with that excuse The custome of Women is come upon me But thou shalt not be able to cover thy stollen sins with saying The infirmity of man is come upon me I do but as other men do Though thou have that degree towards sanctification that thou sin not out of presumption but out of infirmity though thou mayest in a modified sense fall within Davids word Omnis sanctus A holy man yet every holy and godly man must pray that even those infirmities may be removed too Qui sanctificatur sanctificetur adhuc Apoâ— 22.11 He that is holy let him be holy still not onely so holy still but still more and more holy For beloved As in the firmament of those stars which are reduced into Constellations and into a certainty of shapes of figures and images we observe some to be of one greatnesse some of another wee observe divers magnitudes in all them but to all those other Stars which are not reduced into those formes and figures we allow no magnitude at all no proportion at all no name no consideration So for those blessed soules which are collected into their eternall dwelling in Heaven which have their immoveable possession position at the right hand of God as one Star differs from another in glory so do these Saints which are in Heaven But whilst men are upon this earth though they be stars Saints of God though they be in the firmament established in the true Church of God yet they have no magnitude no proportion no certainty no holinesse in themselves nor in any thing formerly done by God in their behalfe and declared to us but their present degrees of godlinesse give them but that qualification that they may pray acceptably for more He must be so godly before he pray and his prayer must be for more godlinesse and all directed to the right object of prayer To God Vnto Thee shall every one that is godly pray which is our next the second of our foure Considerations in this first part Ad Te Ad Te. To God because he can heare And then Ad te to God because he can give Certainely it were a strange distemper a strange singularity a strange circularity in a man that dwelt at Windsor to fetch all his water at London Bridge So is it in him that lives in Gods presence as he does that lives religiously in his Church to goe for all his necessities by Invocation to Saints David was willing bee our example for Prayer but he gives no example of scattering our prayers upon
to the Evidence that arises from us and not according to those Records that are hid in himselfe Our actions and his Records agree we doe those things which he hath Decreed but onely our doing them and not his Decreeing them hath the nature of evidence God does not Reward nor Condemne out of his Decrees but out of our actions God sent downe his Commissioners the Angels to Sodome to inquire Gen. 18.17 Gen. 3.9 and to informe him how things went God goes down himselfe to inquire and informe himselfe how it stood with Adam and Eve Not that God was ever ignorant of any thing concerning us but that God would prevent that dangerous imagination in every man That God should first meane to destroy him and then to make him that he might destroy him without having any evidence against him For God made man Ad imaginem suam To his owne Image If he had made him under an inevitable and irresistible necessity of damnation he had made him Ad Imaginem Diabolicam to the Image of the Devill and not to his own God goes not out as a Fowler that for his pleasure and recreation or for his commodity or commendation would kill and therefore seeks out game that he may kill it It is not God that seeks whom he may devoure 1 Pet. 5.8 But God sees the Vulture tearing his Chickens or other birds picking his Corne or pecking his fruit and then when they are in that mischievous action God takes his bowe and shoots them for that When God condemns a man he proposes not that man to himselfe as he meant to make him and as he did make him but as by his sinnes he hath made himselfe At the first Creation God looked upon nothing there was nothing But ever since there have been Creatures God hath looked upon the Creature and as Adam gave every Creature the Name according as he saw the Nature thereof to be so God gives every man reward or punishment the name of a Saint or a Devill in his purpose as he sees him a good or a bad user of his graces When I shall come to the sight of the Booke of life and the Records of heaven amongst the Reprobate I shall never see the name of Cain alone but Cain with his addition Cain that killed his brother Nor Iudas name alone but Iudas with his addition Iudas that betrayed his Master God does not begin with a morte moriendum some body must die and therefore I will make some body to kill But God came to a morte morieris yet thou art alive and mayest live but if thou wilt rebell thou must die God did not call up feavers and pestilence and consumptions and fire Levit. 26.16 and famine and warre and then make man that he might throw him into their mouths but when man threw downe himselfe God let him fall into their mouths Had I never sinned in wantonnesse I should never have had consumption nor feaver if I had not sinned in Riot nor death if I had not transgressed against the Lord of life If God be pleased to looke upon me at the last day as I am renewed in Christ I am safe But if God should looke upon me as he made me in Adam I could not be un-un-acceptable in his sight except he looked farther and saw me in mine own or in Adams sin I would never wish my selfe better then God wished me at first no nor then God wishes me now as manifold a sinner as he sees me now if yet I would conforme my will to his God looks upon persons persons so conditioned as they were which was our first branch in this first part and our second is That he delights to propose to himselfe Persons that are capable of his rewards for he mentions no others in this place All that are upright in heart The first thing that Moses names to have been made Insistit in bonis was Heaven In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth And infinite millions of generations before this Heaven was made there was a Heaven an eternall emanation of beams of glory from the presence of God But Moses tells us of no Hell made at the Creation And before the Creation such a Hell as there was a Heaven there could not be for the presence of God made Heaven and God was equally present every where And they who have multiplied Hells unto us and made more Hells then God hath made more by their two Limboes one for Fathers another for Children and one Purgatory have yet made their new Hells more of the nature of Heaven then of Hell For in one of their Limboes that of the Fathers and in their Purgatory there is in them who are there an infallible assurance of Heaven They that are there are infallibly assured to come to Heaven And an assurance of salvation will hardly consist with Hell He that is sure to come to Heaven can hardly be said to be in Hell God was loath and late in making places of torment He is loath to speake of Judgements or of those that extort Judgements from him How plentifully how abundantly is the word Beatus Blessed multiplied in the Booke of Psalmes Blessed and Blessed in every Psalme in every Verse The Booke seems to be made out of that word Blessed And the foundation raysed upon that word Blessed for it is the first word of the Booke But in all the Booke there is not one Vae not one woe so denounced Not one woe upon any soule in that Booke And when this Vae this woe is denounced in some other of the Prophets it is very often Vox dolentis and not Increpantis That Vae that woe is a voyce of compassion in him that speaks it and not of destruction to them to whom it is spoken God Jerem. 9.1 in the person of Ieremy weeps in contemplation of the calamities threatned Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountaine of teares that I might weepe day and night for the slaine of the Daughter of my people It is God that was their Father and it is God their God that slew them but yet that God their Father weepes over the slaughter So in the person of Esay Esay 16.9 God weeps againe I will bewaile thee with weeping and I will water thee with teares And without putting on the person of any man God himselfe avowes his sighing Esay 1.24 when he comes to name Judgements Heu vindicabor Alas I will revenge me of mine enemies And he sighs when he comes but to name their sinnes Heu abominationes Ezek. 16.11 Alas for all the evill abominations of the house of Israel As though God had contracted an Irregularity by having to doe in a cause of blood He sighs he weeps when he must draw blood from them God delights to institute his discourses and to take and to make his Examples from men that stand in state of grace and are