26.8 This argument David's devotion framed because he loved the beauty of God's house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We render it the habitation Which giveth us thus much to understand Psal 96.7 110.3 That God doth dwell in the beauty of holiness I will not shew you the face of Antiquity For we must either fling durt at it or else hide our own either censure our fore-fathers too-much devotion or be ashamed of our own miserable neglect and profaneness I will not shew you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beauty and glory of their Churches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most worthy to be looked upon I will not shew you them raised up to an height unmeasurable as Eusebius speaketh more beautiful then their first founders had made them nor with what joy the Christians then more devout I fear more sincere nay more zealous then they of after-ages beheld them in their rich and better attire I might repeat many of their penegyrical exsultations when it was so and their sad complaints when it was otherwise Even they did allow it who seemed to speak against it Vestiant parietes marmorum crustis faith Hierome Let them line the walls with marble and gild them which feel it not Non reprehendo non abnuo I do not censure it I am not against it This is good and laudable But better it were the temples of the holy Ghost were made glorious with piety And indeed in those dayes when Devotion cryed up the building and beautifying of Churches and they did much glory in it yet in time of necessity and persecution they would strip their Churches to cloth their naked and sell their rich vessels to buy bread for the hungry Their pious affection to God and Religion made them account such cost very convenient and useful but they never looked upon it as a matter of absolute necessity without which Religion would fall to the ground While they could they were willing in some measure to take from themselves that they might adde to the splendour of God's house But when they were in streights they comforted themselves in this That God would accept the largeness of their hearts and their zealous affections They well knew necessaria praeferenda esse non necessariis that those duties which are absolutely necessary are to be preferred before those which have no such binding necessity to commend them And this is enough and they that quarrel it say nothing These are the best arguments till better are brought and till better are brought we may well rest in these Call the place appointed for publick worship by the name which God himself hath given it call it God's house and count it holy but for no other reason but because it is his and then for his sake for Religions sake for our own sake give it that honour which is due unto it fit and prepare it for that end for which it was set up Psal 96.7 that so we may meet together and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness What I would adde by way of application I shall defer till the next opportunity The Three and Twentieth SERMON PART II. PSAL. CXXII 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us or We will go into the house of the Lord. 1. THey were many that went to the house of the Lord the tribes even the tribes of the Lord go up And though there be no virtue nor power in Number yet we see it was that which made David glad at the heart that God was praised in the great congregation and among much people Psal 35.18 Therefore let us also exhort and provoke one another to go up to the Lord's house and gather as much company as we can to his service In the Devil's work one is too many but in God's many are too few For no number but All are fit for him who hath right and title to every man and whose dominion reacheth over all For other ends a number a multitude is soon gathered together How do men run to see a man clothed in soft raiment How hastily have we seen thousands joyn in a Covenant and within a while after as hastily engage to the contrary How many confused assemblies have we seen where the greatest part knew not why they were met together Acts 19.32 yet being met how have they kept tune and cried up they knew not what like Demetrius and his fellow-crafts-men they cry Great is their Diana though it be but a puppet Vbi plures erant omnes fuere as Tacitus saith Where the moâ—â— are there will soon be more and all will joyn with the many And shall Ambition and Covetousness shall Malice and Envy shall Folly it self have such force as to muster multitudes yea armies of men and shall Religion and Christ have so thin and poor a retinue Shall the Devil's chappel receive more then God's Church But for us the question had never been put Luke 13.23 Are there few that shall be saved For God calleth all and we may resolve for that which is good as well as for that which is evil for God as well as for Mammon 2. DIXERUNT They said and they resolved that they would serve the Lord. And so must we not say and promise onely but say and resolve it not onely see that which is good but see to the end contemplate the beauty and glory of it till we have drawn it in and in a manner consubstantiated it with our souls It is a strange thing to consider how resolute we are in that which we should abhor as Death it self that no law no terrour no danger can beat us from it what decrees we make in our selves to be rich how peremptory we are to revenge with what wings we fly to honour what fiery spirits we have in lust and how we put on the courage of a horse and even neigh after that which is forbidden how we hold up our resolution till the twilight in which time we might have parleyed with our selves and reasoned down our resolution On the contrary what shaking and paralytical thoughts have we about that which most concerneth us and what weak and feeble approches do we make towards it Isa 37.3 When the child is ready for the birth we have no strength to bring forth We resolve to be chast yet pollute our selves we resolve to go to Church yet upon the weakest inducement stay at home we resolve to be honest yet break our faith not to take God's name in vain and yet are perjured The reason is plain The Prince of this world hath more power over us then that God who made it And therefore if we will resolve to serve the Lord we must do what our Saviour hath done already and what he hath taught and enabled us to do John 12 31. We must cast the Prince of this world out 3. They agreed in their resolution IBIMUS We will go In like manner we must
accepted as if we had never been lost as if we had alwayes been free-denizons of the City of God and never wandred from thence as if we had never forfeited our right In a word Our sins are wiped out as if they had never been And thus we were made free 1. à reatu peccati from the Guilt of sin which whosoever feeleth bath his Tophet his Hell here and whosoever committeth it doth at some time or other feel it It made Hezekiah chatter like a crane and mourn like a dove It withered David's heart like grass and burned up his bones as an hearth It made Peter's tears flow in bitterness What should I say more It made Judas hang himself Quis enim potest sub tali conscientiâ vivere For who can live under the guilt and conscience of sin But there is Balm in Gilead for this 2. We are made free à dominio peccati from the Power and tyranny of Sin Which many times taketh the chair and setteth us hard and heavy tasks biddeth us make brick but alloweth us no straw biddeth us please and content our selves but affordeth us no means to work it out condemneth one to the mines to dig for that money which will perish with him fettereth another with a look or with a kiss driveth a third as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword through all the checks of conscience the terrours of the Law every thing that standeth in its way to the pit of destruction This power Sin may have and too oft hath in us But the power of the Gospel is greater then the power of Sin then the power of any Act and can abolish it of any Habit and may weaken and scatter it and is able to pull Sin from its throne and put down all its authority and power 3. We are made free à rigore Legis from the rigour from the strict and exact observation of the Moral Law which God at first required From the Law I say as it was a killing letter For this yoke is cast away when we put on the yoke of Christ who indeed requireth as you have heard before more holiness more integrity and greater perfection then the Law did but yet is not so extreme to mark what is done amiss nor doth he under this gracious dispensation punish every infirmity inadvertency and imperfection which the Law did HOC FAC ET VIVES Do this and thou shalt live And not to do it exactly is to break it and die 4. We are made free à servitute legis Ceremonialis from the servitude of the Ceremonial Law a busie and toilsome and expensive servitude in quâ non vivebant sed puniebantur saith S. Hierom in which they did not live but were punished A burthen saith the Apostle which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear This deliverance may seem more proper to the Jew For how could the Gentiles be freed from that Law of Ceremonies to which they were never bound For where S. John telleth us that if the Son make us free we shall be free indeed he speaketh of the freedom from the guilt and condemnation of sin which S. Paul in no place that I remember calleth our Christian liberty although he speaketh of it in many places but not under that name 5. Last of all this Law of Liberty passeth over to us as by patent the free use of the Creature that we are not bound by any Religion to these or these meats but may indifferently use or not use them The earth is the Lord's and all that there in is and he hath given it to the children of men But yet he was pleased upon some reasons to grant some meats for use and to forbid others as unclean Not that any were in their own nature unclean For whatsoever he made was good Sed ut homines mundarentur pecora culpata sunt But to reform and purge the manners of men he seemed to lay an imputation of Uncleanness upon the creature which could not be unclean in it self because it was the work of his hands In the Camel saith the Father he condemneth a crooked and perverse life in the Sow that walloweth in the mire he forbiddeth all pollution of sin in the Lizard our inconstancy and uncertain variety of life in the Hare our lust in the Swan our pride in the Batt our delight in darkness and errour These and the like enormities the Law did exsecrate in these creatures And the Jews were subject to these ordinances TOUCH NOT TASTE NOT HANDLE NOT. Which indeed were not so much prohibitions as directions and remedies that what was taken from their lusts might be added to their manners And such a restraint was fit for them who preferred the onions and garlick of Egypt before Manna it self and would not have liberty that they might still stay by the flesh pots of their enemies who were Lords over them But now claves macelli Christus nobis tradidit saith Tertullian Christ hath put the keys of the shambles or market into our hands The great sheet is let down from heaven and we may rise and kill and eat Every creature of God is good 1 Tim. 4.4 and none to be refused but to be received with thanksgiving and requireth no more sanctification or cleansing but by the word of God and by prayer And Whatsoever is set before you eat asking no question for conscience sake 1 Cor. 10.25 27. And The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Ghost And he that is scrupulous in this Rom 14.17 and is fearful to touch or taste hath his face set as if he were returning to Jerusalem calleth that common which God hath cleansed as weak and vain as that Philosopher who would not venture into a ship because he thought it a sin to spit into the Sea These are the particulars of that Liberty which this perfect Law bringeth with it All which I once intended severally and more fully to handle But it would require more time then the present Power that is over us hath been willing to allow us We will therefore more strictly keep our selves to the words of the Text and see how we may reconcile these two things in appearance so contrary a Law which hath a severe and rigorous aspect and Liberty which hath so pleasing and flattering a countenance the Law which tieth us up and Liberty which seemeth to let us loose to do what we please For in this sense the world seemeth to take it which is fuller of Libertines then of Christians Who when they are under a Law are in bonds and never think themselves free but when they are a Law unto themselves that is when they are the veriest slaves in the world Et libertas libertate perit Liberty is made a gulf to swallow up it self It was a grave complaint of S. Hierom Non reddimus unicuique rei suum vocabulum We
is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Micah 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good c. Micah 6.8 What doth the Lord require of thee c. Micah 6.8 But to do justly c. Micah 6.8 To love Mercy c. Micah 6.8 And to walk humbly with thy God Gal. 4.29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so is it now 1 Thes 4.11 And that yee study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you 1 Thes 4 11. And to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore for yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore c. Jam. 1.27 Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the World 1 Sam. 3.18 And Samuel told him every whit and hid nothing from him And he said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good John 6.56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Turn yee turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Turn ye turn ye c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. A Preparation to the holy Communion 1 Cor. 11.25 This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come 1 Cor. 11.28 But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Gal. 1.10 the last part of the ver For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Coloss 2.6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Whitmore Knight Psal 119.19 I am a stranger in the earth hide not thy commandments from me A SERMON Preached on Christmas-Day HEBR. II. 17. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren THis high Feast of the Nativity of our blessed Saviour is called by S. Chysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Metropolitane Feast For as to the chief City the whole Countrey resorts Thither the Tribes go up saith David even the tribes of the Lord Psal 122. so all the Feast-dayes of the whole year all the passages and periods of the blessed oeconomy of that great work of our Redemption all the solemn commemorations of the Saints and Martyrs meet and are concentred in the joy of this Feast If we will draw them into a perfect circle we must set the foot of the compass upon this Deus homini similis factus God was made like unto Man But if we remove the compass and deny this Assimilation the Incarnation of Christ there will be no room then for the glorious company of the Apostles for the goodly fellowship of the Prophets for the noble army of Martyrs the Circumcision is cut off the Epiphany disappears our Easter is buried and the Feast of the holy Ghosts Advent is past and gone from us as that mighty wind which brought it in Blot out these two words PVER NATVS A Child is born The Son of God is made like unto us and you have wip'd the Saints all out of the Kalendar at once We will not now urge the solemn celebration of the Day That hath been done already by many who have thought it a duty not only of the closet but the Church and a fit subject for publick devotion And upon this account Antiquity lookt upon it with joy and gratitude as upon a day which the Lord had made And S. Augustine commends this anniversary Solemnity as either delivered to after-ages by the Apostles themselves Vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel plenariis Conciliis instituta c. Aug. p. 118. or decreed by Councels and devoutly retained in all the Churches of the world But we do not now urge it For when Power speaks every mouth must be stopped Logick hath no sinews an Argument no strength Antiquity no authority Councels may erre the Fathers were but children all Churches must yeild to one and the first age be taught by the last Job 12.20 Speech is taken away from the trusty and understanding from the aged But yesterday that monstre was discovered which the Churches for so many centuries of years heard not of and so made much of it and embraced it but they must have run from it or abolisht it if their eye had been as clear and quick as theirs of after-times I do not stand up against Power I say I should then forget him whose memory we so much desire to celebrate who was the best teacher and greatest example of obedience What cannot be done cannot oblige And where the Church is shut up every mans chamber every mans breast may be a Temple and every day a Holy-day and we may offer up in it the sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to the blessed Son of God who came and dwelt amongst us and was made like unto us which is the only end of the celebration of this Feast Christ is made like unto us is as true when every man tells himself so and makes melody in his heart as when it is preached in the great congregation But it is heard further and soundeth better and is the sweeter Musick when all the people say Amen when with one heart and soul and in one place they give glory to their Saviour who that he might be so factus est similis was made like unto them My Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle in Divinity and is laid down unto us in the form of a Modell proposition Which as we are taught in Logick consists of two parts the Dictum and the Modus Here is 1. the Proposition CHRISTVS FACTVS SIMILIS Christ is made like us 2. the Modification or Qualification of it with an OPORTVIT or DEBVIT It dehoved him so to be In the Proposition our meditations are directed to Christ and to his Brethren And we consider Quid Christus Quid nos What Christ is and What we we were God he was
his own Like a man a man of sorrows a worm and no man a despised rejected man He will have us call him so he hath put it into our Creed and counts it no disparagement He set a time for it and when the appointed time came he was made like unto us and all generations may speak it to his glory to the end of the world Before he appeared darkly wrapped up in Types veiled in Dreams beheld in Visions That hee appeareth in the likeness of our flesh that he appeareth and speaketh and suffereth in our flesh is the high prerogative of the Gospel And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Image or likeness in the form of a servant our very picture a living picture a picture drawn out to life indeed such a picture as one man is of another 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Comparison For how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons He is a Shepherd to guide and feed us a Captain to lead us a Prophet to teach us He is a Priest and he is the Sacrifice for us He is Bread to strengthen us a Vine to refresh us a Lamb that we may be meek a Lion that we may be valiant a Worm that we may be patient a Door to let us in and the Way through which we pass into life He is any thing that will make us like him Sin and Error and the Devil have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us then Christ hath to save us 3. Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his exemplary Virtues and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection that neither the cursed Hereticks nor the miscreant Turk nor the Devil himself could reach and blemish it Never was Righteousness in its vertical point but in him where it cast not the least shadow for Envy or Detraction to walk in Amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal we read of none that called his piety into question And all this for our sakes that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger in his Humility abate our Pride in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness in his Bounty spend our selves in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion He appeared not in the Cloud or the fiery Pillar not in Darkness and Tempest not in those wayes of his which are as hard to finde out as the passage of an arrow in the air or a ship in the sea but in tegmine carnis as Arnobius speaks under no other covert than that of our flesh so like us that we may take a pattern by him This indeed may seem an indignity to God And in all ages there have been found some who have thought so Not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betray too great a folly in believing it but even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaketh Christians themselves and children of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls them ill lovers of Christ who did rob him with a complement and to uphold his honour did devest him of his Deity Marcian and Valentinus could not endure to hear that Christ took the same nature and substance with Man but will have him to have brought a body from heaven The Manichees would not yield so much but ran into the phansie of an aereous imaginary body Arius circumscribed him within the nature of Man and brought him within the circle and circumgyration of Time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a time when he was not was an article of his Creed Nestorius did not in terminis divide Christ into two Persons but denying the Communication of Idiomes did in effect bring in what he seemed to deny a Duality of Sons Homo Christus nascitur non Deus The Man Christ was born not God saith he And it was his common proverb Noli gloriari Judaee The Jew had no cause to boast who had crucified not the Lord of life but a man Bimestrem trimestrem Deum nunquam confitebor was his reply to Cyril at Ephesus and so he flung out of the Councel Whilest with great shew of piety and reverence they stood up to remove from God the Nature they unadvisedly put upon him the Weakness of Man drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution as if God were like unto us in our worst complexion who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take and affect that similitude alone which presents us greater and fairer than we are Our pictures present not us but a better face and a more exact proportion and with it the best part of our wardrobe We are but grashoppers but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders in the largeness and height of the Anakim This opinion we have of our selves and therefore are too ready to perswade our selves that God is of our mind and that God will descend so low as to take the likeness of a mortal though he tell us so himself yet we will not believe it Which is to measure out the immense Goodness and Wisdome of God by our digit and scantling by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick phansie to bound and limit his determinate will by a piece of sophistry and subtle wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. to teach God to put our own shapes upon him to confine him to a thought And then Christ hath two Persons or but one Nature a Body and not a Body is a God alone or a Man alone The whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith must shiver and flie into pieces But we have not so learned Christ not learned to abuse and violate his great love and to call it good manners not to make shipwrack of our faith and then to urge our fears and unprescribed and groundless jealousies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why should we fear where no fear is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes Shall he lose in his esteem because he fell so low for our advancement Or can we be afraid of that Humility which purchased us glory and returned in triumph with the keyes of Hell and of death He made himself a Shepherd and laid down his life for his Sheep and shall we make that an argument that he is not a King He clothed himself with our flesh lights a candle sweeps the house descends to low offices for our sake so far from being ashamed of our nature that he made hast to assume it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dost thou impute this to God No to us his Humility is as full of wonder as his Majesty Non erubescimus de Christo
narrow understandings could receive it would not add one hair to our stature and growth in grace That Christ is God and Man that the two Natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediatour is enough for thee to know and to raise thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ This is Christ and that is Christ Thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half-Christ a created Christ a phansied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poor and miserable comfort of conjecture in that which so far as it concerneth us is so plain easie to be known Do thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee doth thy wit and thy reason forsake thee and leave thee in thy search at a loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr Thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of all scruples and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and express word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen immense yet circumscribed Immortal yet dying the Lord of life yet crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his Love and call it thy Reverence Why should thoughts arise in thy heart His Power is not the less because his Mercy is great nor doth his infinite Love shadow or eclipse his Majesty For see he counteth it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any loss by being thus like us Our Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be so is the wonder and extasie of our joy That he would descend is mercy but that he must descend is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding terms words of duty Had the Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the Debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it behoved as much But to put a Debet upon the Son of God and make it a beseeming thing for him to become flesh to be made like unto us is as if one should set a Rubie in clay a Diamond in brass a Chrysolith in baser metall and say they are placed well there as if one should worry the lambs for the woolf or take the master by the throat for the debt of a Prodigal and with an Opertet say it should be so To give a gift and call it a Debt is not our usual language On earth it is not but in heaven it is the proper dialect fixed in capital letters on the Mercy-seat It is the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme SALVATOR NATVS A Saviour is born And if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship DEBET he must it behoveth him he is as deeply engaged as the party whose Surety he is And oh our numberless accounts that engaged God! Oh our prodigality that made him here come sub ratione debiti Adam had brought God in debt to death to Satan to his own Justice and God in Justice did ow us all to the Grave and to Hell Therefore if he will have us if he will bring his children unto glory he must pay down a price for us Heb. 2.14 he must take us out of his hands who hath the power of death if he will have his own inheritance he must purchase it And let us look on the aptness of the means and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men 1 Cor. 1.26 and this weakness of God is stronger than men and that the Debuit is right set For medio exsistente conjunguntur extrema If you will have extremes meet you must have a middle line to draw them together And behold here they meet and are made one The proprieties of either Nature being entire yet meet and concentre as it were in one Person Majesty putteth on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality By the one our Saviour dyeth for us by the other he â—â—seth again By the one he suffereth as Man by the other he conquereth as God by both he perfecteth and consummateth the great work of our Redemption This Debuit reacheth home to each part of the Text First to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessel when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit ought to repair and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life Qui fecit nos debuit reficere Our Creation and Salvation must be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheel Next we may set the debuit upon Christ's Person He is media Persona a middle Person the office therefore will best fit him even the office of Mediatour Further as he is the Son of God and the Image of his Father most proper it may seem for him to repair that Image which was defaced and well near lost in us We had not onely blemished God's Image but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coyn For righteousness there was sin for purity pollution for beauty deformity for rectitude perversness for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which God might know us Venit Filius ut iterum signet The Son cometh and with his blood reviveth the first character marketh us with his own signature imprinteth the graces of God upon us maketh us current money and that his Father may know us and not cast us off for refuse silver sheweth him his face Indeed the Father and the holy Ghost dignified the Flesh but took it not filled it with their Majesty but not with their Persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not Incarnate As three may weave a garment and but one wear it as Hugo And as in Musick saith St.
3. My Factious humour will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for the love of Christ Rom. 13. Resist not the power in one age t is glossed bound in with limitations and exceptions or rather let loose to run along with men of turbulent spirits against it self In another when the wind is turned it is a plain Text and needeth no interpreter Bid the angry Gallant bow to his enemy Luk. 18.22 he will count you a fool Bid the Covetous sell all that he hath he will think you none of the wisest and pity or scorn you Bid the Wanton forsake that strumpet which he calleth his Mistress and he will send you a challenge and for attempting to help him out of that deep ditch will send you to your grave Prov. 23.27 We may talk what we please of Marcion and Manes of Hereticks and of the Devil as interpolatours and corrupters of Scripture but it is the wickedness of mens hearts that hath cut and mangled it and made it what we please made it joyn and comply with that which it forbiddeth and severely threatneth Now to conclude this In the midst of so many passions and perturbations in the throng of so many vices and ill humours in this Chaos and confusion where is the Man There is a body left behind inutile pondus an unweildy and unprofitable outside of a Man the garment the picture or rather the shadow of a Man and we may say of him as Jacob did when he saw Josephs coat Gâ—n 37.33 It is my sons coat but evil beasts have devoured him Here is the shape the garment the outside of a Man but the Man without doubt is rent in pieces distracted and torn asunder by the Perturbations of his mind corrupted and annihilated and unmanned by his Vices and there is nothing left but his coat his body his carcass and the name of a Man This is not the Man and then no marvel if he do not see this great sight In his day whilest he was a Man his Reason not clouded his Understanding not darkned in this his day it was shewn to him and it was fair and radiant but now all is night about him and it is hid from his eyes For if it be hid 2 Cor. 4.3 it is hid to them that perish to them that will perish He hath shewed thee O man The Good inviteth the Man and the Man cannot but look upon that which is Good Draw then thy soul out of prison take the Man out of his grave draw him out of these clouds of Sloth of Passion of Prejudice and this Good here Piety and Religion will be as the Sun when it shineth in its strength For conclusion then Let us cleave fast to this Good and uphold it in its native and proper purity against all external rites and empty formalities and in the next place against all the pomp of the world against that which we call good when it maketh us evil I am almost ashamed to name this or make the comparison For what is Wealth to Righteousness What is Policy to Religion What is Earth to Heaven But I know not how men have been so vain as to attempt to draw them together and to shut up the world in this Good or rather this Good in the world to call down God from heaven not only to partake of our flesh but of our infirmities and sins and to draw down that which is truly good and make it an assistant and auxilary to that which is truly evil For how do mens countenances nay how doth their Religion alter as they see or hear how the world doth go Now they are of this faction and then of that anon of a third Now Protestants anon Brownists anon Papists anon but I cannot number the many Religions and the No-religions But wheresoever they fasten they see it and say it is Good It was observed of the Romanes that before the corruption and decay of manners they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape but afterwards when luxury and riot had prevailed and were in credit with them they diligently sought out and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue dwarfs and monsters and men of prodigious appearance ludibria naturae those errours and mockeries of nature So hath it also fallen out with Religion At the first rise and dawning of it men did lay hold on that Faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints and went about doing good Jude 3. Acts 10.38 but when this light had passed more degrees men began to play the wantons in it and to seek out divers inventions and this Good the Doctrine of faith Eccl. 7.29 was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humours which did pollute and defile it and instead of following that which was shewn men set up something of their own to follow and countenance them in whatsoever they should undertake and then did look upon it alone and please and delight themselves in it although it was as different from the true pattern which was first shewn as a monster is from a man of perfect shape As Quintilian speaketh of some professours of his art Illa quaecunque deflexa tanquam exquisitiora mirabantur that was cryed up with admiration which had nothing in it marvellous or to be wondred at but its deformity We have a proverb that It is ill going in procession where the Devil saith Mass but most certain it is there be too many who never move nor walk but where he is the leader If the Prince of the ayre if the God of this world go before we follow nay we fly after If any child or slave of his hold out his sceptre we bow and kiss it The World the World is the mint where most mens Religion is coyned and if you well mark the stamp and superscription you may see the Prince of the ayr on one side and the World on the other the Devil on one side like an Angel of light and the World on the other with its pomp and glories And then when we have brought our desires home to their ends when we have raised our state and name how good how religious are we When the purse is full the conscience is quiet When we are laden with earthly blessings we take them as a fair pledge of eternal We say to our selves as Micah did Judg. 17.13 Now I know that the Lord will do me good because I have a Priest said he Because we have great possessions say we as great Idolaters as Micah For what are our shekels of silver but as his graven and molten image And thus we walk on securely all the dayes of our life not as the children of this world but as the children of light and out of our great abundance sometimes we
Scripture Eph. 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest in Sloth and Idleness thou that sleepest in a tempest in the midst of thy unruly and turbulent Passions arise from the grave and sepulchre wherein thy Sloth hath intombed thee arise from the dead from that nasty charnel-house of rotten bones where so many vitious Habits have shut thee up Break up thy monument Hebr. 12.1 cast aside every weight and every sin that presseth down and rise up and be but a Man improve thy Reason to thy best advantage and this Good shall shine upon thee with all its beams and brightness and Christ shall give thee light if not to see things to come to satisfie thy Curiosity yet to see things to come which shall fill thy soul as with marrow and fatness Psal 63.5 if not to know the uncertain yet certain wayes of Gods providence yet to know the certain and infallible way to bliss if not to know things too high for thee yet to know that which shall exalt thee to heavenly places in Christ Jesus He hath shewn thee O man what is good Dost thou see it dost thou believe it Thou shalt see greater things then these Thou shalt see what thou dost believe and enjoy what thou dost but hope for Thou shalt see God who hath shewed thee this Good that thou mightest see him Thou shalt then have a more exact knowledge of his Wayes and Providence a fuller tast of his Love and Goodness a clearer sight of his Beauty and Majesty and with all his Angels and all his Saints behold his Glory for evermore Thus much of this Good as it is an Object to be lookt on We shall in the next place consider it as a Law QVID REQVIRIT What doth the Lord require The Third SERMON PART III. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly c. HE hath shewed thee O man what is good what it is thou wert made for even that which is fitted and proportioned to thy Soul that which is lovely and amiable and so a fit object to look on that which will fill and satisfy thy Soul and turn the greatest evil the world can lay as a stone of offense in thy way into good and raise it self upon it to its highest pitch of glory And this he hath made plain and manifest drawn out in so visible a character that thou mayest run and read it And thus far we have already brought you We must yet lead you further even to the foot of mount Sinai What doth the Lord require of thee This is as the publication of it and making it a Law Hebr. 12.19 For with the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the trumpet Exod. 20.2 and the voice of words this voice was heard I AM THE LORD THVS SAITH THE LORD is the Prophets Warrant or Commission I THE LORD HAVE SPOKEN IT is a seal to the Law By this every word shall stand by this every Law is of force It is a word of power and command and authority For he that can do what he will may also require what he will in heaven or in earth So then if he be the Lord he may require it In this one word in this Monosyllable all power in heaven and in earth is contained For in calling him Lord he assigneth unto him an absolute Will which must be the rule of our Will and of all our actions which are the effects and works of our Will and issue from it as from their first principle and mover And this his Will is attended 1. with Power 2. with Wisdome 3. with Love By his Power he made us and still protecteth and preserveth us and from this issueth his legislative Power Again as by his Wisdome he made us so by the same Wisdome he giveth us such a Law as shall sweetly and certainly lead us to that end for which he made us And last of all his Love it is to the work of his own hands thus to lead us And all these are shut up in this one word Lord. Let us view and consider all these and so look upon them as to draw down their influence and virtue into our souls to work that obedience in us which this Lord requireth and will reward First it is the Lord requireth I need not trouble you with a recital of those places of Scripture where God is called the Lord. For if the Scripture be as the Heaven this is a Star of the greatest magnitude and spreadeth its beams of Majesty and Power in the eyes of all men And to require is the very form of a Law I will I require if Power speak it is a Law It will be more apposit and agreeable to our purpose that we may the more willingly embrace and entertein this Good which is publisht as a Law to look upon this word Lord as it expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God He is therefore said to be the Lord because he is omnipotent and can do all things that he will He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene a vast and boundless Ocean of Essence and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a boundless and infinite Sea of Power Take the highest pitch of Dominion and Lordship that our imagination can reach yet it falleth short of his who is Lord of Lords to whom all earthly Majesty must vail and at whose feet all Princes lay down their Crowns and Sceptres And therefore Dionysius Longinus falling upon the story of the Creation De sublimi genere orat Sect. 7. maketh that expression of Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let there be light and there was light Let there be earth and there was earth the highest and most sublime that the art or thought of man could reach 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for thus the Majesty of God is best set forth He no sooner speaketh but it is done Nor can it be otherwise For as he is a Lord and hath an absolute and uncontrollable Will so his Will is attended by an infinite Power which is inseparable from it You may find them both joyned together Acts 4.28 All things are done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever his hand and his counsel determined to do Because he can do all things therefore he bringeth to pass whatsoever he will And his Hand and Power hath here the first place because all Counsell falleth to the ground if Power be not as a pillar and supporter to uphold it What is the strength of a strong man if there be a stronger then he to bind and disarm him What is it to conceive something in the womb of the mind to shape and form and fashion it and to bring it even to the door of life if there be no strength to bring it forth What is my Will if it be defeated Libera voluntas in nullum habet imperium praeterquam in se Hierocles apud
second Apol c. 4. Lycurgi leges emendatae saith Tertullian Lycurgus his Laws were so imperfect so ill fitting the Commonwealth that they were brought under the hammer and the file to be beat out and fashioned in another form more proportionable to that body for which they were made were corrected by the Lacedemonians Which undervaluing of his wisdom did so unman him that he would be a man no longer but starved himself to death Vetus squalens sylva legum edictorum securibus truncatae the whole wood of the old Laws now sullied and weakned with age was cut down by the edicts and escripts of after-Emperours at the very root as with an ax All of them are in the body of time and worn out with it either fail of themselves or else are cast aside humane Laws being but as shadows cast from men in power and when they fall to the ground are lost with them and are no more to be seen Gel. Noct. Att. l. 20. c. 1. nec uno statu consistunt sed ut coeli facies maris ità rerum atque fortunae tempestatibus variantur nor do they remain in one state but alter as the face of the Heavens and the Sea now smile anon frown now a calm and by and by a tempest Now the strong man saith Do this anon a stronger then he cometh and I forfeit my head if I do it Laws are too oft written with the point of the sword and then the character followeth the hand that beareth it Thus it is with the Laws of men But the Laws of this our Law-giver can no more change then he that made them No bribe can buy out their power no dispensations wound them no power can disannul them but they are the same Dispensationes vulnera legum and of the same countenance They moult not a feather they alter not in one circumstance but direct the obedient and stare the offender in the face and by the power of this Lord kindle a hell in him in this life and will appear at the great day to accuse him For we either stand or fall in judgment according to these Laws In a word humane Laws are made for certain climates and fitted to the complexion and temper of certain Commonwealths but these for the whole world Rome and Brittany and Jerusalem all places are bound alike and as his Dominion so his Laws reach from one end of the earth to another And these which he publisht at the first are not onely Laws but promises and pledges of his second coming For he made them not for nought but hath left them with us till he come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead according to his Gospel Besides the Laws of men are too narrow and cannot reach the whole body of Sin cannot comprehend all not the inward man the thoughts and surmises of the heart no not every visible act Leges non omnia comprehendunt non omnia vetant nec absolvunt Sen. they forbid not all they absolve not all Some irregularities there be which these Laws look not upon nor have they any other punishment then the common hatred of men who can pass no other sentence upon them then this That they dislike them and we are forced to leave them to the censure and anger of the Highest saith Seneca Quoties licet non oportet Every thing that is lawful for me to do is not fit to be done And his integrity is but lame that walketh on at pleasure and knoweth no bounds but those which the Laws of men have set up and never questioneth any thing he doth till he meeteth with a check is honest no further then this that he feareth not a prison nor the gibbet is honest because he deserveth not to be hanged How many are there who are called Christians who yet have not made good their title to that honour which we give to a just man How many count themselves just men yet do those things which themselves if they would be themselves would condemn as most unjust and do so when others do them and how many have carried so much honesty with them into hell The Laws of men cannot reach home to carry us to that height of innocency to which no other Law but that within us might lift us up But the Laws of this Lord like his Power and Providence reach and comprehend all the very looks and profers and thoughts of the mind which no man seeth which we see not our selves which though they break not the peace nor shake any pillar of the Commonwealth for a thought troubleth no heart but that which conceiveth it yet stand in opposition to that policy which this our Lord hath drawn out and to that end for which he is our Lord and are louder in his ears then an evil word in ours and therefore he looketh not onely on our outward guilt but also on the conscience it self and pierceth to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and regulateth the very thoughts and intents of the heart which he looketh upon not as fading and vanishing characters in the soul but as killing letters imprinted and engraven there as S. Basil speaketh De virgin as full and complete actions wrought out in the inward man S. Bernard calleth them passivas actiones passive actions which he will judge secundum evangelium according to these Laws which he hath published in his Gospel Secondly that he is a Lord appeareth by the virtue and power of his Dominion For whereas all the power on earth which so often dazleth us can but afflict the body this woundeth the soul rippeth up the very heart and bowels and when those Lords which we so tremble at till we fall from him Matth. 10.28 can but kill the body this Lord can cast both soul and body into hell nay can make us a hell unto our selves make us punish and torment our selves and being greater then our Conscience can multiply those strokes Humane Laws have been brought into disgrace because they had not power enough to attend and hold them up and even the common people who fear them most have by their own observation gathered the boldness to call them cobwebs for they see he that hath a full purse or a good sword will soon break through them or find a besome to sweap them away What speak you of the Laws I can have them and bind them up in sudariolo saith Petrus Damianus in the corner of my handkerchief Nay many times for want of power victae leges the Laws must submit as in conquest and though they have a tongue to speak yet they have not a hand to strike And as it is in punishment so it is sometimes in point of reward Men may raise their merit and deserts so high that the Exchequer it self shall not find a reward to equal them We have a story in our own Chronicles of a Noble-man who
did such service for his friend then but a private man that he made him first a Conquerour then a King the Historian giveth this note That Kings love not to be too much beholding to their Subjects nor to have greater service done then they are able to reward and so how truly I know not maketh the setting on of the Crown on his friends head one cause of the losing of his own But it is not so with this our Lord who being now in his throne of Majesty cannot be outdared by any sin be it never so great never so common and can break the hairy scalp of the most giant-like offender and shiver in pieces the tallest cedar in Libanus Who shall be able to stand up in his sight In his presence the boldest sinner shall tremble and fall down and see the horrour of that profitable honourable sin in which he triumpht and called it Godliness The Hypocrite whose every word whose every motion whose every look was a lye shall be unmaskt And the man of Power who boasted in malice and made his Will a Law and hung his sword on his Will to make way to that at which it was levelled shall be beat down into the lowest pit to howl with those who measured out justice by their sword and thought every thing theirs which that could give them Before him every sin shall be a sin and the wages thereof shall be Death Again he hath rewards and his Treasury is full of them Not onely the powring forth my blood as water for the Truths sake Matth. 10.42 but a cup of cold water shall have its full and overflowing recompense nor shall there ever any be able to say What profit is it that we have kept his Laws No Mal 3.14 saith S. Paul Non sunt condignae Put our Passions to our Actions Rom. 8.18 our Sufferings to our Alms our Martyrdome to our Prayers they are not worthy the naming in comparison of that weight of glory which our Lord now sitting at the right hand of God 1 Cor. 2 9. hath prepared for them that fear him Nec quisquam à regno ejus subtrahitur Nor can any go out of his reach or stand before him when he is angry He that sitteth on the throne and he that grindeth at the mill to him are both alike Psal 76.7 And now in the third place that every knee may bow to him Rom. 14.11 and every tongue confess him to be the Lord let us a little take notice of the large compass and circuit of his Dominion The Psalmist will tell us that he shall have dominion from sea to sea Psal 72 8. and from the river unto the ends of the earth Adam the first man and he that shall stand last upon the earth every man is his subject For he hath set him Eph. 1.20 21. saith S. Paul at his right hand in heavenly places and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the Head over all things to his Church And what a thin shadow what a Nothing is all the overspreading power of this world to this All other Dominion hath its bounds and limits which it cannot pass but by violence and the sword Nor is it expedient for the world to have onely one King nor for the Church to have one universal Bishop or as they speak one visible Head For as a ship may be made up to that bulk that it cannot be managed so the number of men and distance of place may be so great that it cannot subsist under one Government Thus it falleth out in the world but it is not so in the Kingdom of this our Lord. No place so distant or remote to which this Power cannot reach Libyam remotis Gadibus jungit All places are to him alike and he sees them all at once It is called the Catholick Church and in our Creed we profess we believe SANCTAM CATHOLIC AM ECCLESIAM the holy Catholick CHVRCH that is That that Church which was shut up within the narrow confines of Judea now under the Gospel is as large as the world it self The invitation is to all and all may come They may come who are yet without and they might have come who are bound hand and foot and cannot come The gate was once open to them but now it is shut Persa Gothus Indus philosophantur saith S. Hierom The Persian and the Goth and the Indian and the Egyptian are subjects under this Lord. Barbarism it self boweth before him and hath changed her harsh notes into the sweet melodie of the Cross Judg. 6.37 â—0 There was dew onely upon the Fleece the people of the Jews but now that flâ—ece is dry Matth. 24.14 and there is dew upon all the earth The Gospel saith our Saviour must be Preached to all nations And when the holy Ghost descended to seal and confirm the Laws of this Lord there were present at this great sealing or confirmation some Acts 2.5 11. saith the Text of all nations under heaven that did hear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wonderful things of God every one in his own language so that the Gospel might seem to have been Preached throughout the world before the Apostles did stir a foot from Jerusalem But here we may observe that Christ who hath jus ad omnem terram hath not in strictness of speech jus in omni terrâ The right and propriety is his for ever but he doth not take possession of it all at once but successively and by parts It is as easie for him to illuminate all the world at once as the least nook and corner of it but this Sun of righteousness spreadeth his beams gloriously but is not seen of all because of the interposition of mens sins who exclude themselves from the beams thereof John 1. This true Light came into the world but the world received him not But yet what our sensuality will not suffer him to do at once he doth by degrees and passeth on and gaineth ground that so successively he may be seen and known of all the world But suppose men shook off their allegiance as too many the greatest part of the world the greatest part of Christendome do suppose there were none found that will bow before him which will never be suppose they crucifie him again yet is he still our King and our Lord the King and Lord of all the world Such an universal falling away and forsaking him would not take away from him his Dominion nor remove him from the right hand of God and strip him of his Power If all the world were Infidels yet he were a Lord still and his Power as large and irresistible as ever For his Royalty dependeth not on the duty and fidelity of his subjects If it did his Dominion would be indeed but of a very narrow compass the Sheep not so many as the Goats his flock but little Indeed he could have
that as the old world perished by water so this shall by fire For what guilty person doth not study to drive the thought of a Judge coming out of his mind He that hath his delight and his heaven in this world is not willing to hear of another to come VENIT The Lord cometh is not in his Creed Sed nulla est mora ejus quod cerâ—ò eveniet The deferring or delay of that which will certainly come should not come into our consideration Come he will though he come not yet and when he is come all the time past and before in which we grew wanton and presumptuous and beat our fellow-servants Luke 12.45 is not in true esteem so much as a moment or the twinkling of an eye It is not slackness it is not delay That is our false Gloss who when we break the Law are as willing to misinterpret the Law-giver The Hypocrite thinketh him as very a dissembler as himself and is well perswaded that though he threaten yet he meaneth it not though he hath denounced judgment against those that sin and repent not yet he will not be so good or rather so bad as his word The Sacrilegious person looketh upon him as an enemie to Churches and him that putteth the hammer into his hand to beat down his own Temple The Profane person would excaecare providentiam Dei Tertull. de Animi put out the eye of Gods Providence and the moral Atheist would pull him from his throne and thrust him out of the world Every man frameth such a God as will fit him and proportioneth him to his lusts We draw God out as the Painter did the Goddess in the likeness of those vanities which we most dote on and so we entitle him to our fraud and oppression Invenimus quomodo etiam avarum faceremus Petrarch We have found an art to bring him in as an abettour and a promoter of our covetousness and ambition and so as much as in us lieth make him as ambitious and covetous as our selves Psal 50.21 Thou thoughtest verily that I was like unto thee saith God to the Hypocrite Behold Christ sitteth at the right hand of God in full power and majesty ready to descend but he cometh not yet and hence the scorner concludeth he will never come This is a false gloss and a false conclusion the result and inference of flesh and blood For it is not slackness that is the dictate of our lusts but if Truth interpret it it is long suffering and his long-suffering should end and be eased in our repentance 2 Pet. 3 15. S. Peter telleth us it is salvation It is what it should be If it be not salvation we have drove it from it self and see now it is nothing but wrath and indignation His long suffering is either our salvation or our condemnation And this is the true reason why Christ is not yet come but as it were a coming For Time is nothing unto him nor is it any thing in it self nec intelligitur nisi per actus humanos Isid l. V. nor can we conceive or understand it but by those actions which we do now and again and which we cannot do at once Psal 90.4 A thousand years in his sight are but as yesterday but not so long not so long as a thought He delayeth not but he beareth with us in this our time We look upon the day of judgment as upon a day to come but to him it is present That he is not come to us is for our sakes For the Church of Christ till the consummation of all things is in fluxu in corpore temporum as Tertullian speaketh is wrapt up in the body of Time cometh not simul semel at once but successively gaineth the addition of parts S. Paul calleth it a body And though it be not such a body as the Stoicks phansied quod more fluminum in assiduâ diminutione adjectione est which like Rivers receiveth every day encrease and every day diminution and is not the same to day which it was yesterday yet is it corpus aggregatum a collected body which is not made up at once in every part but receiveth its parts successively She is terrible as an army with banners Cant. 6.4 as it is said of the Spouse in the Canticles and in an army you know the van may lodge there to night where the rere cometh not till the morning So it is with the Church it hath alwaies its parts yet hath alwaies parts to be added So we read Acts 2.47 that the Lord added to the Church daily that is successively such as should be saved Quantum iniquitatis grassatur tantum abest regnum Dei quod secum affert plenam rectitudinem saith the Father Christ is come and yet is still a coming Whilst there are heresies and schismes in the Church whilst the one undermineth the bulwarks without and the other raiseth a mutany within whilst the Devil rageth and men sin there be yet some to be gathered to Christs sheepfold and though in respect of his power he be already come yet for his elects sake he will not execute it yet And this is the very reason which Justine Martyr giveth of the proroguing and delay of his coming and why the consummation and end of all things is not yet Apol. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for mankinds sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the seed of Christians which is yet to be propagated For by his eternal wisdome he foreseeth that many there be who will believe and turn to him by repentance and some that be not even many who are yet unborn For the promise is made to you and to your children saith S. Peter Acts 2.39 Et natis natorum qui nascentur ab illis and to all that are afar off even to as many as the Lord our God shall call How many thousands are not yet who shall be Saints For their sakes it is that the Lord doth not consume the world with fire that he doth not come to judge the world that wicked men are permitted to revel on the earth and the devil to rage that he suffereth that which he abhorreth suffereth injustice to move its arms at large and spread it self like a green bay-tree and leaveth Innocency bound in chains that he suffereth men to break his commands to question his providence to doubt of his being and essence that we see this disorder and confusion the world in a manner dissolved before its end But when that number is full a number which we know not or if we did cannot know when he will fill it up when that is complete then Time shall be no more then lo he cometh and will purge the world of heresie and schism will appear in that majesty that the Atheists shall confess he is God and see all those crooked wayes in which his providence seemed to walk made even and
of this world I should scarce have vouchsafed to mention an errour so gross and which carrieth absurdity in the very face of it but that we have seen this monster drest up and brought abroad and magnified in this latter age and in our own times which as they abound with iniquity so they do with errours which to study to confute were to honour them too much who make their sensual appetite a key to open Revelations and to please and satisfie that are well content here to build their tabernacle and stay on earth a thousand years amongst those pleasing objects which our Religion biddeth us to contemn and to be so long absent from that joy and peace which is past understanding Their Heaven is as their virtues are full of dross and earth and but a poor and imperfect resemblance of that which is so indeed and their conceit as carnal as themselves which Christianity and even common Reason abhorreth For look upon them and you shall behold them full of debate envy malice covetousness ambition minding earthly things and so they phansie a reward like unto themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Like embraceth like as mire is more pleasing to swine then the waters of Jordan And it is no wonder to hear them so loud and earnest for riches and pleasure and a temporal Kingdome who have so weak a title to and so little hope of any other But God forbid that our Lord should come and Flesh and Blood prescribe the manner For then how many several shapes must he appear in He must come to the Covetous and fill his cofers to the Wanton and build him a Seraglio to the Ambitious and crown him No his advent shall be like himself He shall come in power and majesty in a form answerable to his Laws and government And as all things were gathered together in him Eph. 1.10 22. which are in heaven and which are in earth and God hath put all things under his feet so he shall come unto all to Angels to the Creature to Men. And first he may well be said to come unto the Angels For he is the Head of all Principality and Power Colos 2.10 And as at his first coming he confirmed them in their happy estate of obedience which we believe as probable though we have no plain evidence of Scripture for it so at his second he shall more fully shew to them that which they desired to look into as S. Peter speaketh 1 Pet. 1.12 give them a clearer vision of God and increase the joy of the good as he shall the torments of the evil Angels For if they sang for joy at his birth what Hosannahs and Hallelujahs will they sound forth when they attend him with a shout 1 Thess 4 16. If they were so taken with his humility how will they be ravisht with his glory And if there be joy in heaven for one sinner that repenteth Luke 15 7 10. how will that joy be exalted when those repentant sinners shall be made like unto the Angels when they shall be of the same Quire Luke 20.36 and sing the same song Glory and honour to him that sitteth upon the throne Rev. 5.13 and to this Lord for ever more Secondly he cometh unto the Creatures to redeem them from bondage Rom. 8 19-22 For the desire of the creature is for this day of his coming and even the whole creation groneth with us also But when he cometh they shall be reformed into a better estate There shall be new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness 2 Pet. 3 13. Now the Creature is subject to vanity not onely to change and mutability but also to be instrumental to evil purposes to rush into the battle with us to run upon the Angels sword to be our drudges and our parasites to be the hire of a whore and the price of blood They grone as it were and travail in pain under these abuses and therefore desire to be delivered not out of any rational desire but a natural inclination which is in every thing to preserve its self in its best condition To these the Lord will come Acts 3.21 and his coming is called the restitution of all things that which maketh all things perfect and restoreth every thing to its proper and natural condition The Creature shall have its rest the Earth shall be no more wounded with our plowshares nor the bowels of it digged up with the mattock there shall be no forbidden fruit to be tasted no pleasant waters to be stolen no Manna to surfet on no crowns to fight for no wedge of gold to be a prey no beauty to be a snare The Lord will come and deliver his Creature from this bondage perfect and consummate all and at once set an end both to the World and Vanity Lastly the Lord will come to men both good and evil He shall come in his glory Matth 25.31 32. and gather all nations and separate the one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and by this make good his Justice and manifest his Providence in the end His Justice is that which when the world is out of order establisheth the pillars thereof Sin is an injury to the whole Creation and inverteth that order which the Wisdom of God had first set up in the World My Adultery defileth my body my Oppression grindeth the poor my Malice vexeth my brother my Craft removeth the land-mark my particular sins have their particular objects but they all strike at the Universe disturb and violate that order which Wisdom it self first established And therefore the Lord cometh to bring every thing back to its proper place to make all the wayes of his Providence consonant and agreeable to themselves to crown the repentant sinner that recovered his place and bind and fetter the stubborn and obstinate offender who could be wrought upon neither by promises nor by threats to move in his own sphere The Lord will come to shew what light he can strike out of darkness what harmony he can work out of the greatest disorder what beauty he can raise out of the deformed body of Sin Sin is a foul deformity in nature and therefore he cometh in judgment to order and place it there where it may be forced to serve for the grace and beauty of the whole where the punishment of sin may wipe out the disorder of sin Act 1 25. Gerson Then every thing shall be placed as it should be and every man sent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his proper place Nec pulchrius in coeâ—o angelus quam in gehennâ diabolus Heaven is a fit and proper place for an Angel of light for the children of God and Hell is as fiâ— and proper for the Devil and his Angels Now the wayes of men are crooked and intricate and their actions carried on with that contrariety and contradiction that to quit
and help himself out of them and take himself off from that amazement Marcion ran dangerously upon the greatest blasphemy Duos Ponticus Deos tanquam duaâ— Symplegadas naufragit sui adfert quem negare non potuit i. e. creatorem i. e. nostrum quem probare non poterit i. e. suum Tertull. 1. adv Marcion c. 1. and brought in two Principles one of Good and another of Evil that is two Gods But when the Lord shall come and lay judgment to the line all things will be even and equal and the Heretick shall see that there is but one Now all is jarring discord and confusion but the Lord when he cometh will make an everlasting harmony He will draw every thing to its right and proper end restore order and beauty to his work fill up those breaches which Sin hath made and manifest his Wisdome and Providence which here are lookt upon as hidden mysteries in a word he will make his glory shine out of darkness as he did Light when the earth was without form 1 Cor. 15.28 That the Lord may be all in all Here in this world all lyeth as in a night in darkness in a Chaos or confusion and we see neither what our selves nor others are We see indeed as we are seen see others as they see us with no other eyes but those which the Prince of this world hath blinded Our Judgment is not the result of our Reason but is raised from by and vile respects If it be a friend we are friends to his vice and study apologies for it If it be an enemy we are angry with his virtue and abuse our wits to disgrace it If he be in power our eyes dâ—zle and we see a God come down to us in the shape of a man and worship this Meteor though exhaled and raised from the dung with as great reverence and ceremony as the Persians did the Sun What he speaketh is an oracle and what he doth is an example and the Coward the Mammonist or the Beast giveth sentence in stead of the Man which is lost and buried in these If he be small and of no repute in the world he is condemned already though he have reason enough to see the folly of his Judges and with pitty can null the censure which they pass If he be of our faction we call him as the Manichees did the chiefest of their sect one of the Elect But if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any we cast him out and count him a Reprobate The whole world is a theatre or rather a Court of corrupt Judges which judge themselves and one another but never judge righteous judgment For as we judge of others so we do of our selves Judicio favor officit our Self love putteth out the eye of our Reason or rather diverteth it from that which is good and imployeth it in finding out many inventions to set up evil in its place as the Prophet speaketh We feed on ashes Isa 44.20 a deceived heart hath turned us aside that we cannot deliver our soul nor say Is there not a lye in our right hand Thus he that soweth but sparingly is Liberal he that loveth the world is not covetous he whose eyes are full of the adulteress is chast he that setteth up an image and falleth down before it is not an Idolater he that drinketh down bloud as an ox doth water is not a Murderer he that doth the works of his father the Devil is a Saint Many things we see in the world most unjustly done Multa injustè fieri possunt quae nemo possit reprehendere Cic. de Finibus Mic. 6.16 which we call Righteousness because no man can commence a suit against us or call us into question and we doubt not of Heaven if we fall not from our cause or be cast as they speak in Westminster-hall If Omri's statutes be kept we soon perswade our selves that the power of this Lord will not reach us and if our names hold fair amongst men we are too ready to tell our selves that they are written also in the book of life This is the judgment of the world Thus we judge others and thus we judge our selves so byassed with the Flesh that for the most we pass wide of the Truth Others are not to us nor are we to our selves what we are but the work of our own hands made up in the world and with the help of the world For the Wisdome of this world is our Spirit and Genius that rayseth every thought dictateth all our words begetteth all our actions and by it as by our God we live and move and have our being And now since Judgment is thus corrupted in the world even Justice requireth it Et veniet Dominus qui malè judicata rejudicabit the Lord will come and give judgment against all these crooked and perverse judgements and shall lay Righteousness to the plummet Isa 28.17 and with his breath sweep away the refuge of lyes and shall judge and pass another manner of sentence upon us and others then we do in this world Then shall we be told what we would never believe though we have had some grudgings and whisperings and half-informations within us which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure and Aliud est judicium Christi aliud anguli su surrorum Hier. though we have talked of him all the day long tell us we forgot him If we set up a golden image he shall call us Idolaters though we intended it not and when we build up the sepulchres of the Prophets and flatter our selves and accuse our forefathers tell us we are as great murderers as they and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against and haters of that which we think we love and lovers of that which we think we detest and take us from behind the bush from every lurking hole from all shelter of excuse take us from our rock our rock of ayr on which we were built and dash our presumptuous assurance to nothing Nor can a sigh or a grone or a loud profession or a fast or long prayers corrupt this Lord or alter his sentence but he shall judge as he knoweth who knoweth more of us then we are willing to take notice of and is greater then our Conscience which we shrink and dilate at pleasure 1 John 3.20 and fit to every purpose and knoweth all things and shall judge us not by our pretense Rom. 2.16 our intent or forced imagination but according to his Gospel VENIET He shall come when all is thus out of Order to set all right and straight again And this is the end of his Coming And now being well assured that he will come we are yet to seek and are ready with the Disciples to ask Matth. 24.3 When will these things be and What hour will he
see danger and by this we avoid it By this we see beauty in ashes and vanity in glory And as other Creatures are so made and framed that without any guide or leader without any agitation or business of the mind they turn from that which is hurtful and chuse that which is agreeable with their nature as the Goddess which saith Pliny Nat. Hist l. 9. c. 30. carent omni alio sensu quà m cibi periculi have no sense at all but of their food and danger and naturally seek the one and fly the other So this Light this Power is set up in Man which by discourse and comparing one thing with another the beginning with the end shews with realities and fair Promises with bitter effects may shew him a way to escape Death and pursue Life through rough and rugged wayes even through the valley of Death it self And this is it which we call Vigilancy or Watchfulness Deut. 4.9 Take heed to thy self saith Moses Tom. 1 and Basil wrote a whole Oration or Sermon on that Text and considereth Man as if he were nothing else but Mind and Soul and the Flesh were the garment which clotheth and covereth it and that it is compast about with Beauty and Deformity Health and Sickness Friends and Enemies Riches and Poverty from which the Mind is to guard and defend it self that neither the glory nor terrour of outward objects have any power or influence on it to make a way through the flesh to deface and ruine it and put out its light 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Take heed to thy self PRAE OMNI CVSTODIA SERVA COR TVVM Keep thy heart with all diligence AB OMNI CAVTIONE Prov. 4.23 so it is rendred by Mercer out of the Hebrew from every thing that is to be avoided AB OMNI VINCVLO so others from every tye or bond which may shackle or hinder thee in the performance of that duty to which thou art obliged whether it be a chain of gold or of iron of pleasure or of pain whether it be of a fair and well promising or a black temptation keep it with all diligence and keep it from the incumbrances And the reason is given For out of it are the issues of Life PROCESSIONES VITARVM the Proceedings of many lives So many conquests as we gain over temptations so many lively motions we feel animated and full of God which increase our crown of joy All is comprehended in that of our Saviour Watch Matth. 26.41 and prâ—y lest you enter into temptation If you watch not your heart will lie open and tentations will enter and as many deaths will issue forth Evil thoughts Fornications Murders Adulteries Blasphemy as so many locusts out of the bottomless pit To watch then is to fix our mind on that which concerneth our peace to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2.12 to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 Heb. 12.28 2 John 8. to serve him with reverence and godly fear to look to our selves that we lose not those things which we have wrought So that by the Apostle our Caution and Watchfulness is made up of Reverence and Fear And these two are like the two pillars in the porch of the Temple of Solomon 1 Kings 7.11 Jachin and Boaz to establish and strengthen our Watch. This certainly must needs be a sovereign antidot against sin and a forcible motive to make us look about our selves when we shall think that our Lord is present every where and seeth and knoweth all things when we shall consider him as a Witness who shall be our Judge that all we do we do as Hilary speaketh in Divinitatis sinu in his very presence and bosome that when we deceive our selves when we deceive our brethren when we sell our Lord to our Fears or our Hopes when we betray him in our craft crucifie him in our Revenge defile and spit upon him in our Uncleanness we are even then in his presence If we did firmly believe it we would not suffer our eyes to sleep nor our eye lids to slumber How careful are we how anxious how solicitous in our behaviour how scrupulous of every word and look and gesture what Criticks in our deportment if we stand before them whom we call our Betters indeed our fellow dust and ashes And shall we make our face as adamant in the presence of our Lord shall we stand idle and sport and play the wantons before him Shall we beat down his Altars blaspheme his Name beat our fellow servants before his face Shall we call him to be witness to a lie make him an advocate for the greatest sin suborn his Providence to own our impiety his Wisedome to favour our craft his Permission to consecrate and ratifie our sin Can we do what a Christian eye cannot look upon which Reason and Religion condemn and even Pagans tremble at Eccl. 23.17 Tertul. de Testm animae c. 2. Vnde haec tibi anima non Christiani can we do it and do it before his face whose Eye is pure and ten thousand times brighter then the Sun DEVS VIDET and DEVS JVDICAT God will see and God will Judge is taken out of the common treasury of Nature and the Heathens themselves have found it there who speak it as their language And if his awful Eye vvill not open ours our Lethargie is mortal We are Infidels if vve believe it not and if vve do believe it yet dare do those things vvhich afflict his eye vve are vvorse then Infidels Let us then look upon him think him present and stand upon our guard Psal 4.4 Let us stand in aw and not sin Let one Fear call upon another the Fear of this Lord upon the Fear of cautelousness and circumspection which is as our angel-keeper to keep us in all our vvayes in the smooth and even vvayes of peace and in the rough and rugged vvayes of adversity to lead us against our enemies vvhich are more then the hairs of our head as many as there are temptations in the world and to help us to defeat them to be our best buckler to keep off the darts of Satan and as a canopy to keep our virtues from soyl to keep our Liberality cheerful our Chastity fresh and green our Devotion fervent our Religion pure and undefiled to wast the body of Sin and perfect and secure our Obedience in a vvord to do that vvhich the Heathens thought their Goddess Pellonia did to drive and chase all evil out of our coasts For let us well weigh and consider it let us look upon our enemies the World with all its pageantry the Flesh with all its lusts the Devil with all his snares and wiles and enterprises let us look upon him coming towards us either as an Angel of light to deceive us or as a Lion to devour us and then let us consider our Lord and
this to perswade a polluted sinful soul that when he hath scornfully rejected the substance that piety which should make him strong in the Lord at the last in the time of danger and the furious approach of the enemy a shadow should stand forth and fight for him when he had broken the Law and the Testimony not regarded the Oracles forgot all the mercies of God and robbed him of his glory that then I say the shell the Ark the Shittim-wood should be as the great power of God to maintain his cause that he should anger God with his sin and appease him with his name forfeit his soul by deceit and cruelty by intemperance and lust and then save it by hearing a Sermon against it Certainly if this be not a wile of the Devil I know no snare he hath that can catch us if this be not to deceive our selves I shall think there is no such thing as Errour in the world But again in the second place and on the contrary as they did deificare Arcam as the Father speaketh even deifie the Ark attribute more unto it then God ever gave it or was willing it should have so they did also depretiare vilifie and set it at naught They called it their strength their glory their God but imployed it in baser offices then ever the Heathen did their Gods Pulcra Laverna Da mihi fallere c. Hor. l. 1. Epist 16. who called upon them to teach them to steal and deceive Not long since their Priests committed rapes at the very door of the Tabernacle and now they expect the Ark should help those profane miscreants who had so polluted it Oh the Ark the Ark the glory of God! that is able to becalm and slumber a tempest to binde the hands of the Almighty that he shall not strike to scatter an army to make Kings fly to crown a sinful nation with victory to bring back an adulterer laureate a ravisher with the spoils of a Philistine That shall be a buckler and a protection to defend them who but now defiled it that shall be their God which they made their abomination Bring forth the Ark and then what are these uncircumcised Philistines God heard this Psal 78.59 saith the Psalmist and was wroth and greatly abhorred Israel And seeing that all the cry was for the Ark no thought for the Statutes and Testimonies which lay shut up in the Ark and oblivion together seeing the Sign of his presence had quite shut him out of whose presence it was a sign seeing it so much honoured so much debased so sanctified and so polluted he delivereth up the people and the Ark together into the Philistines hands that they might learn more from the Ark in the temple of Dagon then they did when it stood in their own Tabernacle learn the right use of it now which they had so fouly abused when they enjoyed it In a word God striketh off their embroydery that they might learn to be more glorious within I remember there is a constitution in the Imperial Law Si feudatarius rem feudi c. If he that holdeth in fee-farm useth contrary to the will and intent of the Lord redit ad Dominum it presently returneth into the Lord's power And we may observe that the great Emperour of heaven and earth proceedeth after the same manner with his liege-men and homagers the Jews Hos 2.9 When they fell to idolatry and bestowed the corn and the wine which God gave them upon Baal then presently God taketh to himself away the corn in the time thereof and the wine in the season thereof and recovereth his flax and his wooll recovereth it as his own thus unjustly usurped and detained by idolaters V. 11. I will also cause all her mirth to cease her feast dayes her new-moons and her sabbaths as if he had said I will defeat my own purpose I will nullifie my own ordinance I will abolish my own law I will put out the light of Israel which to my peopl◠hath been but as a meteor to make them wander in the crooked wayes of their own imaginations Rom. 8.21 22. I will deliver the creature from the bondage of corruption which seemeth to groan and travel in pain under these abuses it being a kind of servitude and captivity to the creature to be dragged and haled by the lusts and phansies and disordinate affections of profane men to be put to the drudgery of the Gibeonite which I made to be as free as the Israelite himself to be kept in bondage and slavery under the pride and extravegant desires under the most empty and brutish phansies of corrupt men I will take them away from such unjust usurpers What should a prodigal do with wealth what should a robber do with strength what should a boundless oppressour do with power what should Hophni and Phinehas adulterers oppressours what should a sinful nation a people laden with iniquity do with the Ark of the covenant of the Lord I will begin and I will also make an end 1 Sam. 3.12 This glory shall depart from Israel and the Ark shall be taken And here when the Ark is taken and the glory departed from Israel the word and inscription is still the same DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. Now to apply this last particular shall I desire you to look up upon the Inscription It is the Lord Behold the Prophet hath done it to my hand Go to my place which was in Shiloh where I set my name at the first Jer. 7.12 and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Go unto Shiloh and there purge the corruption the plague of your hearts wash off the paint of your hypocrisie with the blood of those four and thirty thousand Israelites Look upon the Ark but not so as to be dazled therewith and to dote on the glory and beauty of it not so as to lose the sight of your selves and of those sins which pollute it Look upon the Word and Sacraments but not so as to make them the non ultrà of your worship and to rest in them as in the end to eat and wash and hear and no more to say The word of God is sweet yet not to taste and digest it to attribute virtue and efficacy to the Sacrament yet be fitter to receive the Devil then the sop at once to magnifie and profane it to call it the Bread of life and make it poyson This is to come neer the Ark and to handle these holy things without feeling in a word this is to make them first an idole and then nothing in this world My brethren it is a very dangerous thing thus to overvalue those things which in themselves are highly to be esteemed and are above comparison with any thing in the world For when we make them more then they are we in effect make them less then they are and at last nothing
erecteth a pillar a saving Hope a Hope which is not ashamed to enter the Holy of Holies and lay hold on the Mercy-seat which was hidden and veyled before Why art thou cast down O my soul Psal 42. 43. and why art thou troubled within me Trust thou in the Lord And if thou fear him and leave thy evil wayes thou mayest trust him He will not he cannot fail thee Thou hast him fettered and entangled with his own promises which are Yea and Amen and all the powers on earth 2 Cor. 1.20 all the Devils in hell nay his own Power cannot reverse them For his Justice his Wisdom his Mercy hath sealed them Read his character and he made it himself Psal 116.5 He is merciful righteous and full of compassion And S. Ambrose it was that observed it that here is Mercy twice mentioned and Justice but once And he addeth for our encouragement what to hope nay but to turn that we may hope In medio Justitia est gemino septo inclusa Misericordiae Justice is shut up in the midst and hedged in on every side with Mercy If thou turn from thy evil wayes Mercy shineth upon thy tabernacle and Justice is the same it was but confined and bound up that it cannot that it shall never reach thee to destroy thee When thou sinnedst he was just to punish thee and now thou turnest from thy evil wayes unto him 2 Tim. 4.8 he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a righteous Judge still but to receive and reward thee They in the Primitive times who fell away for fear of persecution and afterwards returned to the bosome of the Church and confessed and bewailed their apostasie though it were rather a verbal then a real one having been drawn thereunto rather by fear of smart then by hatred of the Gospel were said by the Greek Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. De Lapsis which S. Cyprian interpreteth elatum primâ victoriâ hostem secundo certamine superare to recover the field and by a second onset to foil that enemy who did glory in a former conquest and to defie the Tempter after a fall The Novations called themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Puritanes of those times And they had good reason so to do as good reason as a deformed man hath to call himself Boniface or a wicked man to write himself Innocent For they were proud merciless and covetous Nazianzene layeth it to their charge goodly and fit ingredients to make up that sweet composition of Purity These withstood the receiving of lapsed persons into the Church but not without the Churches heaviest censure Saint Hierome for all their name calleth them by one quite contrary immundissimos the impurest men of all the world pietatis paternae adversarios the enemies of Gods mercy and goodness Orat. 14. And Nazianzene telleth them their Religion was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impudence and uncleanness which had nothing but the name of Purity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. which they made saith he a bait to catch and cajol the ignorant and unwary multitude who are taken more with the Trumpet of a Pharisee then with his almes and are fed with shews and pretenses as they say Chamelions are with air For as Basil and Nazianzene observe that severe doctrine of those proud and covetous men drove the offending brethren into despair and despair plunged them deeper in sin and left them wallowing in the mire in their blood and pollution being held down by a false opinion that no hand could draw them out and that pardon was impossible whereas a Convertimini the doctrine of Repentance might have raised them from the ground drawn them out of their blood and filth Hebr. 12.12 strengthned their feeble knees and hands that hung down put courage and life into them to turn from that evil which had cast them down and to stand up to see and meet the salvation of th Lord. And this is the proper and natural effect of Mercy to give sight to the blind that they may see to bind up a broken limb that it may move to raise us from the dead that we may walk to make us good who were evil For this it shineth in brightness upon us every day to enlighten not onely them who sit in darkness but many times the children of light themselves who though they sit not in darkness yet may be under a cloud raised up and setled in the brain not from a corrupt but from a tender and humble heart For we cannot think that every man that saith he despaireth is cast away and lost or that our erroneous judgement of our state and condition shall be the rule by which God will proceed against us and judge us at the last day that though we have set our hearts to serve God and have been serious in all our wayes though we have made good the condition that is our part of the Covenant as far as the Covenant of Grace and the equity and gentleness of the Gospel doth exact yet God will refuse to make good his part because we cannot think well of our selves but though we have done what is required perswade our selves that we are fallen so short in the performance of our duty that we shall never reach to the end in a word that God will forbear to pronounce the EVGE Well done because we are afraid and tremble at all our works that he will put us by and reject us after all the labour of our charity for a melancholick fit that he will condemn the soul of any man for the distemper of his body or for some perturbation of his mind which he had not strength enough to withstand though he were strong in the Lord Ephes 6.10 and in the power of his might did cheerfully run the wayes of his commandments It were a great want of charity thus to judge of those whose troublesome and most afflicting errour was conceived and formed in the very bowels of charity For sometimes it proceedeth from some distemper of the body from some indisposition of the brain And if we have formerly striven and do yet strive to do God service he is not so hard and austere a Master as to punish us for being sick Sometimes it ariseth from some defect in the Judicative faculty through which as we make more Laws to our selves and so more sins then there are so we are as ready to pass sentence against our selves not only for the breach of those laws which none could bind us to but our selves but even of those also which we were so careful to keep For as we see some men so strong or rather so stupid that they think they do nothing amiss so there be others but not many so weak or rather so scrupulous that they cannot perswade themselves they ever did any thing well This is an infirmity and disease but not epidemical The first are a great multitude
the wayes of righteousness and yet drooped how many have fainted even in their Saviours arms when his Mercies did compass them in on every side how many have been in the greatest agony when they were nearest to their exaltation how many have condemned themselves to hell who now sit crowned in the highest heavens I know nothing by my self 1 Cor. 4.4 saith S. Paul yet am not thereby justified Hoc dicit Dialogo adv Pelagium nè forte quid per ignorantiam deliquisset saith S. Hierom Though he knew nothing yet something he might have done amiss which he did not know Though our conscience accuse us not of greater crimes yet our conscience may tell us we may have committed many sins of which she could give us no information And this may cast a mist about him who walketh as in the day Rom. 13.13 In a word a man may doubt and yet be saved and a man may assure himself and yet perish A man may have a groundless hope and a man may have a groundless fear And when we see two thus contrarily elemented the one drooping the other cheerful the one rejoycing in the Lord whom he offendeth the other trembling before him whom he loveth we may be ready to pity the one and bless the condition of the other cast away the elect and chuse the reprobate Therefore we must not be too rash to judge but leave the judgment to him who is Judge both of the quick and dead and will neither condemn the innocent for his fear nor justifie the man that goeth on in his sin for his assurance Take comfort then thou disconsolate soul Psal 44.19 which art strucken down into the place of dragons and art in terrour and anguish of heart This fear of thine is but a cloud and it will drop down and distill in blessings upon thy head This agony will bring down an Angel This sorrow will be turned into joy this doubt be answered this despair vanish that Hope may take its proper place again the heart of a penitent Thy fear is better then other mens confidence thy anxiety more comfortable then their security thy doubting more favoured then their assurance Timor tuus securitas tua Thy fear of death will end in the firm expectation of eternal life Though thou art tost on a tumultuous sea thy mast spent and thy tackling torn yet thou shalt at last strike in to shore when those proud Saylers shall shipwrack in a calm Misinterpret not this thy dejection of spirit thy sad and pensive thoughts nor seek too suddenly to remove them An afflicted conscience in the time of health is the most hopeful and soveraign Physick that is Thy fear of death is a certain symptome and an infallible sign of life There is no horrour of the grave to him that lieth in it Death onely is terrible to the living And then there can be no stronger argument that thou art alive then this that thou doubtest thou art dead already And lift up thy head too thou despairing and almost desperate sinner whom not thy many sins but thy unwillingness to leave them hath brought to the dust of death who first blasphemest God Psal 22.15 and then drawest the punishment nearer to thee then he would have it and art thy own hangman and executioner not that pardon is denyed but that thou wilt not sue it out Look about thee and thou mayest see Hope coming towards thee and many arguments to bring it in An argument from thy Soul which is not quite lost till it be in hell and if thou wilt possess it it shall not be lost An argument from thy Will which is free and mutable and may turn to good as well as evil An argument from the very habit of Sin that presseth thee down which though it be strong yet is it not stronger then the Grace of God and the activity of thy Will It is very difficult indeed but the Christian mans work is to overcome difficulties An argument from those sholes and multitudes of Offenders who have wrought themselves out of the power of death and the state of damnation from many who have committed as many sins as thou but this one of Despair from those Publicanes and sinners who have entred into the kingdome of heaven An argument from thy own Argument which thou so unskilfully turnest against thy self It is no argument it is but a weak peremptory Conclusion held up without any Premisses or Reason that can enforce it For Despair is but Petitio principii proveth and concludeth the same by the same maketh our Sins greater then Gods Mercies because they are so and Repentance impossible because it is so Though the Soul be not quite lost till it be lost for ever though the Will be free and Grace offereth it self though the voice of God be Turn though multitudes have turned and that which hath been done may be done again though the argument be no argument yet Despair doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against what reason soever hold up the Conclusion Thou sayest that God cannot forgive thee If he cannot then he is not merciful neither is he just and so he is not God and then what needest thou despair We begin in sin proceed to blasphemy and so end in despair But a God he is and merciful But thy sins are greater then his mercies which is another blasphemy and bringeth in something more infinite then God taketh Gods office from him dispenseth his Mercies of which he alone is Lord shutteth up his rich treasury of Goodness when he is ready and willing to lay it open and so ruineth us in despite of God But thou sayest thou canst not repent which is thy greatest errour and the main cause of thy despair For when the heart is thus hard it beateth off all succours that are offered all those means that might be as oyl to supple it Thou canst not is not true Thou shouldst say Thou wilt not repent for if thou wilt thou mayest For thou canst not tell whether thou canst repent or no because thou never yet didst put it to the tryal but being in the pit didst shut the mouth of it upon thy self and stop it up with a false opinion of God and of thy self with dark notions and worthless conceits of impossibilities Behold God calleth after thee again and again His Grace as a devout Writer speaketh is most officious to take thee out his Mercy ready to embrace thee if thou do not stubbornly cast her off Behold a multitude of Penitents who having escaped the wrath to come becken to thee by their example to follow after them and retire from these hellish thoughts and conclusions unto the same shadow and shelter where they are sale from those false suggestions and fiery darts of the enemy And if this will not move thee then behold the blood of an immaculate Lamb streaming down to wash away thy sins and with them thy despair
remedio laboramus By our own folly and the Devils craft our disease doth not hurt us so much as our remedy Repentance which was ordained as the best Physick to purge the soul is turned into that poyson that corrupteth and killeth it What wandring thought what idle word what profane action is there which is not laid upon this fair foundation Hope of pardon which yet will not bear up such hay and stubble We call Sin a disease and so it is a mortal one But Presumption is the greatest the very corruption of the blood and spirits of the best parts of the soul We are sick of Sin it is true but that we feel not But we are sick very sick of Mercy sick of the Gospel sick of Repentance sick of Christ himself and of this we make our boast And our bold relyance on this doth so infatuate us that we take little care to purge out the plague of our heart which we nourish and look upon as upon Health it self We are sick of the Gospel for we receive it and take it down and it doth not purge out but enrage those evil humours which discompose the soul John 13.27 We receive it as Judas did the sop we receive it and with it a devil For this bold and groundless Presumption of pardon maketh us like unto him hardeneth our heart first and then our face and carrieth us with the swelling sails of impudence and remorselessness to an extremity of daring to that height of impiety from which we cannot so easily descend but must fall and break and bruise our selves to pieces Praesumptio invericundiae portio saith Tertullian Presumption is a part and portion and the upholder of Immodesty It falleth and careth not whither it ruineth us and we know not how it abuseth and dishonoureth that Mercy which it maketh a wing to shadow it It hath been the best purveiour for Sin and the kingdome of Darkness We read but of one in the Gospel that despaired Matth. 27.5 Acts 1.25 and hanged himself and so went to his place but how many thousands have gone a contrary way with less anguish and reluctancy with fair but false hopes with strong but feigned assurances and met him there Oh it is one of the Devils subtilest stratagemes to make Sin and Hope of heaven to dwell under the same roof to teach him who is his vassal to walk delicately in his evil wayes to rejoyce alwaies in the Lord even then when he fights against him to assure himself of life in the chambers of death And thus every man is sure The Schismatick is sure and the Libertine is sure the Adulterer is sure and the Murderer is sure the Traitour is sure they are sure who have no savour no relish of salvation The Schismatick hath made his peace though he have no charity The Libertine looketh for his reward though he do not onely deny good works but contemn them The Adulterer absolveth himself without Penance The Murderer knoweth David is entred heaven and hopeth to follow him The prosperous Traitour is in heaven already His present success is a fair earnest of another inheritance That God that favoureth him here will crown him hereafter Every man can do what he list and be what he list do what good men tremble to think of and yet fear not at all but expect the salvation of the Lord first damne and then canonize himself For the greatest part of the Saints of this world have been of their own Creation made up in the midst of the land of darkness with noise with thunder and earthquakes We may be bold to say If Despair hath killed her thousands Presumption hath slain her ten thousands Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us that we lay hold on Christ when we thrust him from us make him our own and appropriate him when we crucifie and persecute him every day that we had rather phansie and imagine then make our election sure that we will have health and yet care not how we feed or what poison we let down that we make salvation an arbitrary thing to be met with when we please and can as easily be Saints as we can eat and drink as we can kill and slay Good God! what mist and darkness is this which maketh men possessed with Sin that is an enemy ready to devour them to be thus quiet and secure Could we or would we but a little awake and consult with the light of our Faith and Reason we should soon let go our confidence and plainly see the danger we are in whilst we are in our evil wayes and find Fear tied fast unto them So saith S. Paul But if you sin Rom. 13.4 fear Christian Security and Hope of life is the proper and alone issue of a good Conscience through faith in Christ purged from dead and evil works If we will leave our Fear Hebr. 9.14 we must leave our Evil works behind us Assurance is too choice a piece to be beat out by the phansie and to be made up when we please at a higher price then to be purchased with a thought It is a work that will take up an age to finish it the engagement of our whole life to be wrought out with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 not to be taken as a thing granted as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so set up as a pillar of hope when there is no better basis and foundation for it then a forced and fading thought which is next to air and will perish sooner The young man in the Gospel had yet no knowledge of any such Assurance-office and therefore he putteth up his question to our Saviour thus Good Master Matth. 19.16 Mark 10.17 what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life He saw no hope of entring in at that narrow gate with such prodigious sins And our Saviour's answer is Keep the commandments that is Turn from thy evil wayes Be not Envious Malitious Covetous Cruel False Deceitful Despair is the daughter of Sin and Darkness but Confidence is the emanation of a good Conscience What Flesh and Blood maketh up is but a phantasme which appeareth and disappeareth is seen and vanisheth so soon gone that we scarce know whether we saw it or no. There can be no firm hope raised but upon that which is as mount Sion Psal 125.1 and standeth fast for ever which is our best guard in our way nay which is our way in this life and when we are dead will follow us Eras Adag Nothing can bear and afford it but this Vnum arbustum non alit duos erithacos Sin and Assurance are birds too quarrelsome to dwell in the same bush Therefore if you sin fear or rather turn from your evil wayes 1 John 3 21. and then you shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 boldness and confidence towards God We must therefore sink and fall low and mitigate our voice
fell back at two or three words from a silly maid To keep us from such distempers it will be good to set Gods judgments alwaies before our eyes And as Faith so Hope which is as the blood of the soul to keep it in life and cheerfulness may be over heated Our Expectation may prove unsavoury if it be not seasoned with some grains of this salt and Hope like strong wine may intoxicate and stupify our sense if as with water we do not mix and temper it with this Fear Therefore the Prophet David maketh a rare composure of them both TIMENTES CONFIDITE Ye that fear the Lord trust in the Lord As if where there is no Fear Psal 115.11 there were no confidence And without Fear there would be a strange a taxie and disorder in the soul and our hope would breath out it self and be no more Hope but Presumption Navigamus saith S. Hierom spei velo We hoyse up the sayls of Hope Now if the sayls be too full there may be as much danger in the sayl as in a rock and not onely a Temptation but our Hope may wreck us Then our Hope sayleth on in an even course when Fear as a contrary wind shortneth and stayeth her Tert. de Idol c. ult then inter sinis scopulos she passeth by every rock and by every reach tuta si cauta secura si solicita safe if wary and secure if solicitous To recollect all and conclude Thus may Fear temper our Love that it be not too bold our Faith that it be not too forward and our Hope that it be not too confident It may make our Love reverent our Faith discreet and our Hope cautelous that so we may go on in a straight and even course with all the riches and substance of our Faith from virtue to virtue from one degree of perfection to another I made Fear but a buttress Tertullian calleth it fundamentum De cultu Foem c. 2. the foundation of these three Theological virtues Faith Hope and Charity And when is the foundation most necessary Not when the timber is squaring and the walls rising but when it is arched and vaulted and compact by its several contignations and made into an house Then if the foundation be not sure mole suâ ruit not the rain and the wind the floods but even it s own weight will shake and disjoynt and throw it down When we are shaped and framed and built up to be Temples of the holy Ghost then Ecclus. 27.3 if thou keep not thy self diligently in the Fear of the Lord in the Fear of his displeasure and his wrath and in the fear of the last account this house this Temple will soon be overthrown For as the Temple was said to be built in great joy and great mourning that they could not discern the shout of joy for the noise of weeping Ezr. 3.12 13. so our spiritual building is raised and supported with great hope and great fear and it may be sometimes we shall not discern which is greatest our fear or our hope But when we are strong 1 Cor. 12.10 then are we weak when we are rich then are we poor when we hope then we fear and our weakness upholdeth our strength our poverty preserveth our wealth and our Fear tempereth our Hope that our strength overthrow us not that our riches begger us not that our hope overwhelm us not Quantò magìs crescimus tantò magìs timemus the more we increase in virtue the more we fear Thus manente timore stat aedificium whilst this butteress this foundation of Fear lasteth the house standeth Thus we work out our salvation with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 I speak not this to dead in any soul any of those comforts which Faith or Love or Hope have begotten in them or to choke and stifle any fruit or effect of the Spirit of love Phil. 1.9 10. No I pray with S. Paul that your love may abound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet more and more but as it follows there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in knowledge and in all judgment that you may discern things that differ one from another a phansie from a reality a flash of Love from the pure flame of love a notion of Faith from true Faith and Hope from Presumption For how many sin and yet how few think of punishment How many offend God and yet call themselves his friends How many are wilfull in their disobedince and yet peremptory in their hope How many run on in their evil wayes and leave Fear behind them which never overtaketh them but is furthest off when they are nearest to their journeys end and within a step of the Tribunal For that which made them sinful maketh them senseless And they easily subborn false comforts the weakness of the flesh which they never resisted and the Mercy of God which they ever abused to chace away all fear and so they depart we say in peace but are lost for ever For as the Historian observeth of men in place and authority Curtius de Alexandro Cùm se fortunae permittunt etiam naturam dediscunt when they rely wholly upon their greatness and authority they lose their very nature and turn savage and quite forget that they are Men in like manner it befalleth these spiritualized men who build up to themselves a pillar of assurance and lean and rest themselves upon it They lose their nature and reason and forget to fear or be disconsolate and become like those whom the Philosopher calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because their boast was they did not fear a thunder-bolt Fear not them that can kill the body Matth. 10.28 Isa 53.1 Psal 29.5 Psal 72.18 saith our Saviour Whom do they fear else Who hath believed our report or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed That arm which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus in pieces that arm which onely doth wondrous works is ever lifted up and we sport and walk delicately under it when we tremble and couch under that which is as ready to wither as to strike Behold dust and ashes invested with power behold Man who is of as near kin to the Worm and Corruption as our selves and see how he aweth us and boundeth us and keepeth us to on every side If he say Do this we do it We subscribe to that as a truth which we know to be false we make our Yea Nay and our Nay Yea we renounce our understandings and enslave our wills change our Religion as we do our clothes and fit them to the times and fashion we pull down resolutious cancel oathes we are votaries to day and break to morrow we surrender up our souls and bodies we deliver up our Conscience in the midst of all its cryings and gain-sayings and lay it down at the foot of a fading and transitory Power which breatheth it self forth as the wind whilst it seeketh
not dare so oft to offend and which is most strange had not Christ so loved us we had not persecuted him had he not been a sacrifice we had been more willing to have made him an ensample For we hope his Love that nailed him to the cross will be ready to meet and succour and embrace us in any posture in any temper whatsoever though we come towards him clothed with vengeance Zeph. 1.8 in anger and fury with strange apparel in wantonness and lust polluted and spotted with the world Thus doth the sophistry of our Sensual part prevail against the demonstrations of Reason which doth bring Christ in as dead for our sins but withall as a Lord to help us to destroy Sin by the power of his death For both these are friendly linked together in the Lord's Death his Love and his Ensample Et magnum nobis quà m parvo constat exemplum And this great example how little doth it cost us Not to be spit upon and buffeted and crucified not to suffer and die It is no more then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew it forth in our selves till he come Which is the Act here required and my next Part. And this we must do if we will be fitted for this Feast and be welcome guests at the Lord's Table Divines have told us of a threefold manner of feeding on the flesh of Christ a Sacramental alone a Spiritual alone and a Sacramental and Spiritual both Which distinction may not be rejected if it be rightly understood 1. They that come to this Table and receive the Sacrament without faith and devotion may be said indeed to eat the Body of Christ as that name is usually given to the Sacrament and sign and the Sacrament of the body of Christ after a manner is the Body of Christ and yet that of S. Augustine is true He that sheweth not forth his death eateth not his flesh but is guilty of the body and bloud of Christ a Communicant and no Communicant an enemy and not a guest fitter to be dragged to the bar then to be placed at his Table And what a morsel is that with which we take down Death and the Devil together 2. Some there be whom not contempt and neglect but necessity the great patroness of humane infirmitie keepeth from the Lord's Table and Sacrament and yet they shew his death look up upon his cross draw it out in their heart in bleeding characters apply it by faith and make it their meditation day and night And these though they feed not on him Sacramentally yet spiritually are partakers of his body and bloud and so made heirs of salvation though they eat not this bread nor drink of this cup. For what cannot be done cannot bind Some Actions are counted as done though they be never brought forth into act If the heart be ready though the tongue be silent as a viol on the wall yet we sing and give praise Persecution may shut up the Church-doors yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth Persecution may seal up the Priest's lips shut me up in prison and feed me with no other bread then that of affliction yet even in the lowest dungeon I may feed on this Bread of life I may be valiant and not strike a blow I may be liberal and not give a mite hospital when I have not a hole to hide my head in He that taketh my purse from me doth not rob me of my piety he that sequestereth my estate yet leaveth me my charity and he that debarreth me the Table cannot keep me from Christ As I told you out of Ambrose Manducans non manducat I may eat the Bread and not be partaker of the Body so Non Manducans manducat Though I take not down the outward elements yet I may feed on Christ But happy yea thrice happy is their condition who can do both so receive panem Domini the Lord's bread that they may receive also pane 〈◊〉 Dominum be partakers of the Lord himself who is the Bread of life Blessed is he that thus eateth Bread with him at his Table For he feedeth on him Sacramentally and spiritually both Here he findeth those gracious advantages his Faith actuated his Hope exalted his Charity dilated the Covenant renewed the Promises and Love of Christ sealed and ratified to him with his bloud And this we shall do this comfort and joy we shall find even a new heaven in our souls if we shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach and publish his death Which we may look upon at first as a duty of quick dispatch but if we look upon it again well weigh and consider it we shall find that it calleth for and requireth our greatest care and industry For it is not to turn the story of Christ's passion into a Tragedy to make a scenical representation of his death with all the art and colours of Rhetorick to declaim against the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilate's in justice but rather to declaim preach against our selves to hate and abhor crucifie our selves Nos nos homicidae We we alone are the murtherers Our Treachery was the Judas that betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury â—pit upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings pricked with his thorns our sores lanced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life This indeed doth shew his death This consideration doth present the Passion but in a rude and imperfect piece The death of the Lord is shewn almost by every man and every day Some shew it but withal shew their vanity and make it manifest to all men Some shew it by shewing the Cross by signing themselves with the sign of it Some to shew it shew a Body which cannot be seen being hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine Some shew their wit instead of Christ's Passion lift it up as he was upon the cross shew it with ostentation Some shew their rancour and malice about a feast of Love and so draw out Christ with the claw of a Devil Phil. 1.15 Some preach it as S Paul speaketh out of envy and strife and some also of good will Some preach it and preach against it Some draw out Christ's Passion and their Religion together and all is but a picture and then sound a trumpet make a great cry as the painter who had drawn a Souldier with a sword in his hand did sound an alarm that he might seem to fight But this doth not shew the Lord's death but as Tertullian speaketh id negat quod ostendit denieth what it sheweth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew to preach the death of the Lord is more We may observe that
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
not please and flatter our selves in our formalities in a lazy and unsignificant devotion cast-down looks forced sighs open confessions some-few dayes sequestration of our selves from the noise and business of the world which we delight in from those sins which we carry about with us when we seem to leave them and which we cast a look of love back upon when we renounce them Be not deceived God is the purest essence Heaven and Happiness are realities the Lord's Table is not a phantasm or apparition but presenteth that food which will feed and nourish us all God's promises gifts and blessings whatsoever he speaketh whatsoever he doth are real and will not enter the heart which is not like them and fitted for them These realities are not bought with shews and shadows this dew from heaven will not fall upon the hairy scalp of him that goeth on still in his sins A thousand looks and trials are not so effectual as one single victory over one single lust Examination is but lost labour without amendment A survey is the extremity of folly if I look and search and see the errours and faults in my spiritual building and then let it sink and fall to the ground Realities must be answered with realities We must be good ground for the good seed If it fall upon stony places a look of the Sun will scorch it and having no roâ—t it will soon wither away Not a drop of mercy can fall but into a broken heart The Sacrament is but the sign of the thing and yet it conveyeth the thing it self into a prepared heart For as the Priest consecrateth and setteth apart the Bread and Wine to this holy use so doth the Receiver after a manner consecrate them to himself and by complete and perfect Examination and Approving of himself receiveth the outward signs and with them Christ and all the riches and glories of the Gospel all the blessings and comforts it affordeth This is the true Examination this is the true preparation Silent and hearty Devotion receiveth the promises and blessings sealeth the promises maketh them blessings when they withdraw themselves or rather prove curses to them who fill up their Examination and Trial of themselves with noise and shews I urge this the rather because we see some care taken for the one but the other laid aside and buried in the land of oblivion We can forbear for a time our common imployments nay our common delights We can enter our chamber and commune with our hearts but leave off before the Dialogue be perfect We can confess and fast and pray go mournfully and hang down our heads like a bulrush And all this is requisite and praise-worthy but all this doth not fill up nor fully express the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not bring our Examination home to its end The main is a Good Christian a Just man The sum and end of all is Eecl 12.13 the fear of God and Obedience to his commandements Let the bridegroom go out of his chamber and the bride out of her closet as the Prophet Joel exhorteth let us take off our thoughts from lawful contents but we then approve and prepare our selves for that mercy of God which shineth in these pledges of his love casteth its beams upon us even from these outward Elements when we sequester our selves from our selves Let the bridegroom go out of his chamber yea and let the sinner go out of himself Let the Bloud thirsty man stifle murther his malice and crucifie his lusts and affections Let the Covetous rise from the dead rouse himself from the earth wherein he lieth buried and tread it under his feet Let the Proud degrade himself and make himself equal to them of low degree Let the Contentious bind himself in the bond of peace Let the Wanton make himself an eunuch for the kingdome of heaven Let every man fight against that lust which is predominant and prevaileth in him And then he hath past and gone through his Trial he hath duely examined and approved himself and may eat of this bread and drink of this cup. This is as that clean linen cloth in which the body of Jesus must be wrapped It will not lie in noise and shews and shadows in the thin cobwebs of our own spinning much less will it abide in a soul torn and distracted or bespotted with the world and the flesh To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices Isai 1. saith the Lord. To what purpose is this outward pomp and formality Why do we send out our thoughts and fasten them upon these and not imploy them on that which will take them up and exercise them to their utmost extent and which indeed deserveth our greatest care These things we ought to do and not to leave the other undone Let me tell you A good Christian is fitted and prepared for the Lord's Table at all times And accordingly in the first and purest times they did receive almost at every meeting and refreshment This was their practice till Iniquity broke in and made Religion a trade and merchandise to promote mens ends to fill their purses not to purifie their souls Nor did they forget that other ceremonious preparation nor was it possible they should For he that hath sweat in the heat of the day will not fail or fall short to perform those offices which may be done in the cool He that stood out and shewed his strength in that great work of mortification will not shrink in or contract himself and neglect that part of piety which is more easie and not so terrible to flesh and bloud He that can deny himself can deny his affairs He that flieth from sin may easily abstain from meat He that can shut himself out of the world will find it no hard task to retire for a while from the business of the world He whose whole life is a seeking of God or as the Father speaketh one continued prayer cannot but lift up his heart and pour forth his soul in earnest supplications on this solemn occasion In a word they are both necessary the one as the end the other as the means We must trouble our selves in those things but one thing is necessary indeed Holiness of life without which we cannot see God and with which we shall see him with which we receive Christ in the Sacrament and without which we receive but a sop but bread and with it the Devil our own condemnation The other without this are but the noise of those who cry Lord Lord open unto us and receive no other answer from him but this I know you not This is the main the chief ingredient I may say the very essence of our Preparation He is most meet to receive Christ who carrieth him alwaies about with him but into a froward heart into a heart fiâ—led with nothing but sin and formality into a hollow heart he will not enter The Love
down to meat and will come forth and sâ—rve thee that is will fill thee with all those comforts enrich thee with all those blessings give thee all that honour which he hath promised to those who trie and examine and make themselves fit to be guests at his Table I must conclude though I should proceed to the second Part the Grant and the Privilege But he that hath performed the first is already intitled to the second and may nay ought to eat of that bread â—nd drink of that cup For even the Privilege it self is a Duty But the time is spent and I fear your patience I will but re-assume my Text and there needeth no more Use For you see my Text it self is an Exhortation Let a man examine himself A man that is every man Let him that taketh the tribunal and sitteth upon the life and death of his brethren that exalteth himself as God and taketh the keyes out of his hand and bindeth and looseth at pleasure that wondereth how such or such a man who is not his brother in evil as factious as himself dareth approch the Table of the Lord let him examine himself Let him look into himself and there he shall see a great wonder a Wolf and a Lamb a John Baptist and a Herod a Devil and a Saint bound up together in one man the greatest prodigy in the world and as ominous as any ominous to his neighbours ominous to Commonwealths and ominous to all that live in the same coasts And let them examine themselves who with their Tribunitial VETO forbid all to come to this Feast who will not submit to their Examination Young men and maids old men as well as children they that have been catechised and instructed in season and out of season whom they themselves have taught for many years all must pass by this door of Trial to the Table of the Lord. I shall be bold to ask them a question since they ask so many WHERE IS IT WRITTEN Ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina It is plain in my Text that we are bound to examine our selves but that some should be set apart to examine others we do not read And quorsum docemur si semper docendi simus why are we taught so much if we are ever to learn Certainly that Charity believeth little which will suspect that a man full of years and who hath sate at his feet many of them should now in his old age and gray hairs be to be instructed in the principles of faith It is true we cannot be too diligent in instructing one another in the common salvation we cannot labour enough in this work of building up one another in our holy faith and it concerneth every man to seek knowledge at those lips that preserve it and if he doubt to make them his oracle who are set over him in the Lord For Ignorance as well as Profaneness maketh us uncapable of this Privilege unfit to come to this Feast But this formal and magisterial Examination for ought we can judge can proceed from no other Spirit then that which was sent from Rome to Trent in a Cloke-bag and there at the XIII Session made Auricular Confession a necessary preparative for the receiving of the Sacrament Sacramental Confession and Sacramental Examination may have the same ends and the same effects and there may be as idle and as fruitless questions asked at the one as at the other But I judge them not onely call upon them in the Apostle's words Let them examine themselves whether Love of the world Love of preeminence or Love of mens souls do fan that fiery zele which is so hot in the defence of it Let them also examine themselves who are God's familiars and yet fight against him who know what is done in his closet and do what they please at his footstool and so upon a feigned assurance of life build nothing but a certainty of death who think nay profess and write it that the Elect of which number you may be sure they make themselves may fall into the greatest sins Adultery Murther and Treason and yet still remain men after God's heart and the members of Christ and that to think the contrary is an opinion Stygiae infernalis incredulitatis which upholdeth a Stygian and hellish incredulity and can proceed from none but the Devil himself Let these I say examine themselves And if this Luciferian pride will once bow to look into this charnel-house of rotten bones if the hypocrite will pluck off his visour and behold his face naked as it is in the glass of God's Word we need not call so loud on open and notorious offenders Intestinum malum periculosius These intestine secret applauded errours are most dangerous and that wound which is least visible must be most searched But the exhortation concerneth all Let the Pharisee examine himself and let the Publican examine himself Let the Oppressour examine himself and melt in compassion to the poor Let the Intemperate examine himself and wage war with his appetite Let the Covetous person examine himself and tread Mammon under his feet Let the Deceitful man examine himself and do that which is just Let him that is secure and let him that feareth Let him that is confident and let him that wavereth Let the proud spirit and let the drooping spirit examine himself Let every man examine himself Let every man that nameth Christ and in that Name draweth near to his Table depart from all iniquity And then behold here is a Grant passed over to them a Privilege enrolled and upon record They may eat of this bread and drink of thiâ— cup taste and see how gracious the Lord is be partakers of his body and bloud that is of all the benefits of his Cross Redemption Justification his continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us Peace of conscience unspeakable Joy in the holy Ghost And when he shall come again in glory they shall have a gracious reception and admittance to sit down at his Table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and all the Apostles and that noble army of Martyrs in the Kingdom of heaven And with these ravishing thoughts I shut up all and leave them with you to dwell and continue and abound in you and to bring you with comfort on the next great Lord's day to the Table of the Lord. The Seven and Twentieth SERMON GAL. I. 10. The last part of the Verse For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ WHich words admit a double sense but not contrary for the one is virtually included in the other As first If I should yet do as I did when I was a Jew seek to please men and to gain repute and honour and wealth fit my doctrine to their corrupt disposition I should never have entred into Christs service which setteth
it threatned in these words Lest a worse thing come unto thee That these words Sin no more are plain and that Christ meant as he spake appeareth by this Commination Lest a worse thing come unto thee For if we will read his meaning in his words we may say this is machaera conditionalis his conditional sword as the Father calleth it which if we sin again will be latched in our sides If one evil will not cure us God's quiver is full and he hath more arrows to shoot Sin no more Take heed thou be not the same thou wert before those thirty eight years nor commit that sin again which crippled thee and brought thee to the pool's side If thou darest yet venture a worse punishment standeth at thy doors ready to seize upon thee Now a Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one living creature made up of two diverse substances the Soul and the Body so the danger which besetteth him the evils which compass him about and threaten him are of a diverse nature Some strike at the body others enter the soul There are terrours by night and the arrow that flyeth by day and there is another plague the plague of the Heart A worse thing will come unto thee worse to thy Body and worse to thy Soul Thou shalt be a worse Paralytick and a worse Man nearer to death and nearer to hell The reiteration of thy sin shall awake heavier judgments which shall fall both on thy outward and on thy inward man We shall speak something of them both and first of God's Temporal judgments The last is the worst It was so with Pharaoh The death of the First-born in Egypt was more terrible then the Frogs or the Locusts or the Hail or the Murrain It was so with God's own people He punished them and they sinned still and he increased their punishment When they were fed to the full they did commit adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses As fed horses in the morning they neighed after their neighbours wives God hireth out forein enemies Egypt and Assyria he sendeth out his great army his Caterpillars and Palmer-worms he hireth out Nebuchadnezzar and calleth him his servant and payeth him his wages How oft did they provoke him and how oft did he punish them He leadeth them into Captivity and bringeth them back again For all this they sinned yet more against him and committed those sins which even the Heathen were ashamed of And at last they killed the Prince of life and crucified their Messias who was manifested unto them by signs and wonders And now behold their house is left desolate and they are become the scorn of Nations and a proverb to all the world Afflictions and calamities sometimes are corrections sometimes executions In the first God cometh as a Father in the last as a Judge God goeth like the Consuls of Rome Virgas habet secures He hath a Rod and an Axe carried before him At first he chastiseth us with his Rods and then with his Axe Job on the Dunghil David flying before Absalom these felt his Rod But the old World before the Floud the Cananite and the Amorite when their wickedness was full the Jews and Jerusalem these were hewen down with the Axe This impotent man at the pool's side was but under the Rod but when Christ telleth him if he sin again a worse thing should fall unto him he sheweth him the Axe and holdeth it over his head Quod solus fulmen mittit Jupiter placabile est saith Seneca perniciosum de quo deliberat The first thunderbolt God sendeth carrieth not so much fire with it but rather light to shew us our danger But if we put him to deliberate and to enter into controversie with us if we put him to the question What shall I do that I have not done the next will scatter us and dash us to pieces The first is light the second is a consuming fire Correct us O Lord in thy judgment not in thy fury is a prayer for the first kind against the second Pius Quintus lying on his death bed grievously tormented with the Stone was often heard to send forth this pious prayer Domine addas ad dolorem modò addas ad patientiam Lord adde unto my grief so thou adde unto my patience Patience in this kind as it is the best remedy of a disease so doth increase our crown and glory O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus cui dignatur irasci Oh happy servant whom the Lord taketh such pains to correct whom he loveth so well as thus to be angry with him But if we will not hearken to his Rod then he whetteth his Axe and maketh it ready Perdidimus utilitatem calamitatis We have lost all the profit which we might have received He hath spent his rods in vain and therefore if we take not heed he will strike us so as to cut us off and will give us our portion with sinners The judgments of God are like unto the Waters which came out of the Temple At first they are shallow and come up but to the ankles anon they are deeper Ezek. 47. and come up to the loins and at last they are so deep that we can gain no passage over them Thus doth the Justice and Providence of God follow us in all our wayes Aeschylus calleth it the harmony of God others his Geometry by which he observeth a kind of method and measure and proportion Librat iter ad iram suam saith the Psalmist Psal 78.50 He maketh a way to his anger He weigheth the Punishment and the Sin as in the scales He correcteth us if we fall and if we will fall again Hos 5.5 he layeth on heavier strokes He maketh our iniquity testifie against us maketh what we do witness and proclaim that to be just which we suffer Which though it be not alwaies visible to the eye for Deo constat justitiae suae ratio The reason as of God's Mercy so also of his Justice is ever with himself yet is it certain and judgment followeth the wicked whithersoever they go and hangeth over them as the sword did over Damocles by a hair ready to fall And that it falleth not but leaveth them in their ruff and jollity in their pride going on in their sin is to their greatest punishment Nam quanta est poena nulla poena Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all and nothing is more deplorable then the happiness of a wicked man For the delay of punishment is but to make it more seasonable to stay it now and inflict it at such a time and in such a place and after such a manner as God's wisdome knoweth to be fittest God's wayes are in the whirlwind saith Nahum and his footsteps are not known saith the Psalmist yet his end is certain to work an harmony out of the greatest disorder to raise beauty
be looked upon by others in his Church militant and to look upon himself in the Church triumphant a glorious spectacle a picture of great use a speaking image encouraging the good and perswading the evil to become good prevailing many times with those Tyrants and executioners whose hands God made use of in this his work and making them take up that cross and bear it which before they laid upon other mens shoulders teaching them to be martyrs who were the greatest murtherers Therefore in the second place this is the reason why God suffereth this mixture of good and evil why he suffereth Tyrants and bloud-thirsty men to go on and prosper in their wayes Ideo tolerantur mali ut probentur boni saith Augustine Therefore is there a toleration of evil men that good men might be manifested to the world The Disposer of all things suffered the Church to be rent and torn with Heresies and Schisms ut Basilius meus cognosceretur saith Nazianzene that Basil might be known that his piety and wisdom might be seen in making them up If there were not evil men there could be no persecution For I cannot see how good men should persecute one another It is more probable that Satan should rise up against Satan and one Devil cast out another then that one righâ—â—ous man should pursue another Evil men may rage against evil men because they are evil For that that made them brethren in evil may make them enemies Herod and Pilate may fall out and then be made friends Luke 23.12 and joyn their forces against Christ and then fall out again Many there may be that may pursue the innocent as one man and hold out their swords together and bend their forces to rob and spoil them and then when they are to divide the spoil turn the points of their swords at anothers breasts Evil changeth its countenance but Goodness is alwaies like it self and loveth it self and every man that loveth it A good man can no more do evil to him that is like him then one minister of light can to another or a Seraphin to a Cherubin Nor can he persecute an evil man for it is the greatest part of his goodness to bless him No Persecution is the first-born of the Prince of this world and he sendeth it into the world to be entertained and made much of by the children of this world For from whence cometh it but from Envy and Malice and Covetousness and Ambition which if they cannot find an occasion of doing evil will make one and force it out of Good it self As the Apostle every where joyneth Covetousness with Uncleanness so may we with Hatred and Persecution These are they that make that desolation on the earth these are those Phaethons which set the world on fire Look back upon every age of the Church and tell me was there ever rent or schism which these made not was there ever heresie which these coyned not was there ever fire which these kindled not was there ever torment which these invented not was there ever evil in a city which these have not done Howsoever we talk like Saints and walk like Angels though we oppress our brethren with more formality of devotion then ever the Pharisees devoured widows houses and pretend with Cillicon that we are going to sacrifice when we are about to set a city on fire these are but as the voice of Jacob when the blow falleth we shall feel that the hands were Esau's The righteous are led as sheep to the slaughter but Covetousness leadeth them on in the name of righteousness Persecution never rageth more then when a worldling a man of Belial striketh in the name of the Lord. Again as the men of this world cannot pass to the end of their hopes but by striking down those who seem to stand in their way cannot be rich but by making others poor not be mighty but by making others weak not be at liberty but by binding others not soar to their desired height but by laying others in the dust not live at ease unless they see others in their grave which are the several kinds of persecution as it were the stings of that Scorpion so the righteous are fitted and qualified for all are ready to be diminished and brought low to be poor to be weak to be bound to be disgraced to sit in the dust â—o lie in the grave suspecting riches afraid of liberty loving the lowest place and dying daily set forth as S. Paul speaketh as a spectacle 1 Cor. 4.9 as men appointed to die Tertullian rendereth it elegit veluti bestiarios culled out and set apart to fight with beasts a mark for Envy to shoot out her eye at for Malice to strike at spit at for every Shimei to fling a stone at and a curse together for every Zibah to couzen for every Judas to betray a mark for all the Devil's artillery for all the fiery darts the malice and subtilty of the Devil can draw out of hell They must appear saith Seneca as fools that they may be wise as weak that they may be strong as ignoble that they may be more honourable and this for no other reason but because they are righteous For they are made contentious men men that strive with the whole earth as Jeremiah speaketh of himself They shake every corner of the earth every thing that is earthy Their Liberality shameth the miser their Chastity stoneth the adulterer their Mercy accuseth the oppressor and their Honesty arraigneth the thief occasion enough to raise a persecution For nihil scandalosius justitiâ There is not a more scandalous thing in the world then Righteousness For as it knitteth all righteous men together in a bond of peace so it upbraideth and condemneth the wicked and so maketh them Enemies Heb. 11.7 By this Noah condemned the world And nihil periculosius justitiâ there is nothing in the world more dangerous then Righteousness For as it condemneth the world leaveth it open to the sentence of condemnation so doth the world also condemn it first by reproching it and bringing an evil report on it as an unnecessary thriftless troublesome seditious thing secondly by selling it as the Wanton doth for a smile the Covetous for that which is not bread the Ambitious for a breath a blast the Superstitious for a picture an Idol which is nothing and thirdly by seeking to drive it out of the world by violence against the friends and lovers of it Duo amores duas faciunt civitates Two several kind of Loves make up two Cities one of the World and another of the Lord and these two are ever up in arms one against the other Righteousness conquereth the World and the World persecuteth Righteousness The world saith S. John knoweth not the godly and therefore handleth them as spies and traitors Whilst the righteous are in the world which is one of their greatest enemies they must needs suffer persecution
but Imbecillity and Weakness of faith Which further sheweth it self in the Disciples admiration and amazement For it was a stedfast look fastned on the object as if they were troubled wondring at what they had seen and not satisfied with seeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gazing still and ready to let out their souls at their eyes And now Why gaze ye into heaven is no more then needs For though the ascension of a body into heaven be indeed wonderful yet if the body be Christ's the Lord of heaven and earth why should they put on wonder or stand gazing Magni est ingenii saith Tully revocare mentem à sensibus It is a great part of wisdom to take the mind from the burthen of the senses to call and free her from the toil and pressure of admiration to consider every thing in it self to abstract it from all those outward appearances and accidentals which are but the creatures of our phansie And it is the strength nay the victory of Faith to consider Religion the same in times of persecution and in times of peace to see Christ's glory as well on the cross and in the grave as in his taking up into heaven A true Disciple should be like the Philosopher's Magnanimous person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not given to wonder like Cyrus his Souldier in Xenophon wondring at nothing but intent upon the General 's command not looking after shews For Admiration is a kind of apoplexie of the soul it maketh us like them that dream nay like unto the dead So we lose Christ by looking after him For when we wonder we can do nothing else but are lost and swallowed up in this gulf And why should they wonder at Christ's Ascension They should have wondred rather saith the Father that he came down from heaven then that he returned thither that he was born that he did descend into the earth nay into the lowest parts even hell it self This was the far greater miracle But such is our frailty and so much addicted we are to our sense that what is least familiar to it affecteth it most and the greatest things decrease and are even lost by being seen too often Not the greatest but the rarest things are matter of our admiration Sol spectatorem nisi cùm deficit non habet The Sun is not looked upon nor the Moon observed but when they are in the Eclipse Si quid turbatum est If any thing cross the order of Nature then presently we look up Doth a man rise from the dead we are amazed and besides our selves Tot quotidie nascuntur nemo miratur Every day so many are born before our eyes and we wonder not Doth Christ turn water into wine we are straight astonished See saith Augustine quod semel fecit in hydriis unoquoque anno facit in vitibus what he did once in the water-pots he doeth every year in the Vines Thus we wonder and admire and it is a wonder we should so We stand amazed and troubled at that which is not worth our thought We are deeply affected and even transported beyond our selves with that from which we should wean our affection We wonder that Christ will not do that for us which will undo us that he will not stay and walk with us when we are not fitted for his company We wonder what is become of him when he is but gone to send us a Comforter We wonder he should withdraw himself when his absence is for our sakes 2 Cor. 5.16 Though the Apostles had known Christ in the flesh yet now henceforth they were to know him so no more but to have considered him as the King of Heaven and Judge of all mankind and according to his command not to have spent or misplaced a look which might stay them from their duty and their return to Jerusalem We need not further enlarge this But yet further to enforce the Angels Question the Text telleth us that a cloud received him out of their sight a cloud as if it had on purpose not onely been prepared as the chariot for Christ but drawn too as a veil before the Disciples eyes to turn them away from seeking any longer after him For why should any gaze up into heaven when Christ was in the cloud We may see Christ but not look after him then We may see him on mount Olivet we may see him ascending when one foot is as it were in the cloud but when the cloud hath received him out of our sight we must make a covenant with our eyes and gaze no more We believe that he is the eternal Son of God and Faith is all our vision here But if we still gaze to know how the Father begot the Son being of the same essence with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Father there is a cloud cast a veil drawn and we must look no further We believe the Divine Nature is united to the Manhood But if we look for the manner of this union 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may gaze our eyes out and receive no answer We see he lifteth up one on high and layeth another in the dust He shineth upon the tabernacle of the wicked and beateth down his own Temple He crowneth a man of Belial and bindeth his own servants to the mill or brick-kiln Sequere Deum Do thou follow God in those wayes he hath appointed for thee and not gaze after him in those of his which are past finding out The reasons of God's operations and proceedings are unfoordable and in many things he will be a God afar off out of thy ken and eye seen and yet invisible felt but not touched near at hands and yet at an infinite distance from his creature And here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene is better then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is better to shut our eyes then to gaze better to do nothing then to be busie and curious For what shall we gain by our intentive look by our gaze by our curious search No satisfaction not the sight of Christ but coelum pro Christo as the Disciples here gaze upon the heaven but see not Christ or rather nubem pro Christo see a cloud and darkness and distraction but Christ we shall not see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Father Gaze not after Christ for thou canst not see him And now you see Why gaze ye up into heaven is a good question But we must take in and urge the other Why stand ye gazing For indeed had they not stood they had not gazed Had they remembred our Saviour's command which but now sounded in their ears that they were to go and remain at Jerusalem and expect the coming of the holy Ghost they had not now been at Bethany nor had been seen by the Angels in this posture of standing We may now think perhaps that Curiosity is res operosa a busie and toilsome thing And so it is It treadeth mazes and
crop and harvest of our Devotion This is truly cum parvo peccato ad ecclesiam venire cum peccatis multis ab ecclesia recedere to bring some sins with us to Church but carry away more for fear of the smoke to leap into the fire for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwreck on Profaneness for fear of Will-worship not to worship at all like Haggards to check at every feather to be troubled at every shew and appearance to startle at every shadow and where GLORY TO THE LORD is engraven in capital letters to blot it out and write down SUPERSTITION I see I must conclude Beloved fly Idolatry fly Superstition you cannot fly far enough But withal fly Profaneness and Irreverence and run not so far from the one as to meet and embrace the other Be not Papists God forbid you should But be not Atheists that sure talk what we will of Popery is far the worse Do not give God more then he would have but be sure you do not give him less Why should you bate him any part who giveth you all Behold he breathed into you your Souls and stampt his Image upon them Give it him back again not clipt not defaced but representing his own graces unto him in all holiness and purity And his hands did form and fashion your Bodies and in his book are all your members written Let THE GLORY OF GOD be set forth and wtitten as it were upon every one of them and he shall exalt those members higher yet and make thy vile Body like to his most glorious body In a word Let us glorifie God here in soul and body and he shall glorifie both soul and body in the day of the Lord Jesus The Seventeenth SERMON PART I. 1 COR. XII 3. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost THat Jesus is the Lord was seen in his triumph at Easter made manifest by the power of his Resurrection The earth trembled the foundations of the hills moved and shook the graves opened at the presence of this Lord. Not the Disciples onely had this fire kindled in their hearts that they could not but say The Lord is risen but the earth opened her mouth and the Grave hers And now it is become the language of the whole world Jesus is the Lord. All this is true But we ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is it What profit is it if the Earth speak and the Grave speak and the whole World speak if we be dumb Let Jesus be the Lord but if we cannot say so he may and will be our Lord indeed but not our Jesus we may fall under his power but not rise by his help If we cannot say so we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall cross with him nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak the quite contrary If we cannot call him Lord then with the accursed Jew we do indeed call him Anathema we call the Saviour of the world an accursed thing Si confiteamur exsecramur If we confess him not we curse him And he that curseth Jesus needeth no greater curse We must then before we can be good Christians go to school and learn to speak not onely Abba Father but Jesus the Lord. And where now shall we learn it Shall we knock at our own breasts and awake our Reason to lead us to this saving truth Shall we be content with that light which the Laws and Customs of our Country have set up and so cry him up for Lord as the Ephesians did their Diana for company and sit down and rest our selves in this resolution because we see the Jew hated the Turk abhorred and Hereticks burned who deny it Shall we alienis oculis videre make use of other mens eyes and so take our Religion upon trust These are the common motives and inducements to believe it With this clay we open our eyes thus we drive out the dumb Spirit And when we hear this noise round about us that Jesus is the Lord our mouth openeth and we speak it with our tongue These are lights indeed and our lights but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceitful My Reason is too dim a light and cannot shew me this great conjunction of Jesus and the Lord. Education is a false light and misleadeth the greatest part of Christians even when it leadeth them right For he that falleth upon the Truth by chance by this blind felicity erreth when he doth not erre having no better assurance of the Truth then the common vogue He walketh indeed in the right way but blindfold He embraceth the Truth but so as for ought he knoweth it may be a lye And last of all the greatest Authority on earth is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a faint uncertain and failing proof a windy testimony if it blow from no other treasury then this below No we must have a surer word then this or else we shall not be what we so easily persuade our selves we are We must look higher then these Cathedram habet in coelo Our Master is in heaven And JESUS IS THE LORD is a voice from heaven taught us saith the Apostle by the holy Ghost who is vicarius Christi as Tertullian calleth him Christ's Vicar here on earth and supplieth his place to help and elevate our Reason to assure and confirm our Education and to establish and ratifie Authority Would you have this dumb spirit dispossessed The Spirit who as on this day came down in a showre of tongues must do it Would you be able to fetch breath to speak The holy Ghost must spirare breathe into us the breath of spiritual life inable us by inspiration Would we say it we must teach it If we be ignorant of this the Apostle here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have us to understand that No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And now we have fitted our Text to the Time the Feast of Pentecost which was the Feast of the Law For then the old Law was given then written in tables of stone And whensoever the Spirit of the living God writeth this Law of Christ THAT HE IS THE LORD in the fleshly tables of our hearts then is our Pentecost the Feast of the holy Ghost then he descendeth in a sound to awake us in wind to move and shake us in fiery tongues to warm us and make us speak The difference is This ministration of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaketh far more glorious And as he came in solemn state upon the Disciples this day in a manner seen and heard so he cometh though not so visibly yet effectually to us upon whom the ends of the world are come Though not in a mighty wind yet he rattleth our hearts together Though no house totter
at his descent yet the foundations of our souls are shaken No fire appeareth yet our breasts are inflamed No cloven tongues yet our hearts are cleft asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every day to a Christian should be the day of Pentecost the Feast of the holy Ghost We may now draw the lines by which we are to pass and take our Text into those material parts it will afford And they are but three 1. the Lesson we are to learn To say Jesus is the Lord 2. the Teacher the holy Ghost 3. his Prerogative he is not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our chief Instructer but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our sole Instructer Not onely none to him but none but him Without him all other helps are obstacles all directions deceits all instructions but noise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle None can say Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost Of these parts in their order In the first part we must consider first What the Lesson is secondly What it is to say it The Lesson is but short Jesus is the Lord but in it is comprised the sum of the whole Gospel Here is JESUS a Saviour and DOMINUS the Lord And as they are joyned together in one Christ so no man must put them asunder If we will have Christ our Saviour we must make him our Lord And if we make him our Lord he will then be our Saviour Now to hear of a Saviour is Gospel the best news we can hear Gospellers we all would be and when this trumpet soundeth then Hear O Israel is a good preface and we are willing to be attentive But the Lord is a word that startleth us that carrieth thunder with it calleth for our knee and subjection As if we were again at mount Sinai and the mountain smoking we remove our selves and stand afar off A Saviour is musick to every ear but a Lord is terrible In the first and best times of the Church the first and greatest labour was to win men from Idols to the living God to teach them to love that Name besides which there is no other name under heaven to be saved by No strife or variance then unless it were whose zele should be most fervent whose devotion most intensive who should most truly serve him as a Lord whom they believed to be their Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Onely Piety and Profaneness divided the world But when the Church had stretched the curtains of her habitation and peace had sheathed the sword which had hewen down thousands that professed the Gospel and sealed their Profession with their bloud then arose hot debates and contentions about the Person of Christ his Godhead and his Lordship were called into question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DOMINUS DOMINICUS the Lord but half a Lord The word indeed S. Augustine himself had used but after retracted it Some would mak him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere man adopted to the participation of Divine honour Some contracted him some divided him like men who had found a rich Diamond and then fell to quarrel what it was worth In all ages Christ hath suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 12.3 the contradictions of sinners For every sinner standeth in a contradiction to Christ not onely Judas who betrayed him to the Jews and the Jews which crucified him but the sinner who for less then thirty pieces of silver selleth and betrayeth him every day Not onely the Heretick who denieth him to be the Lord but the Hypocrite who calleth him Lord Lord and doeth not his will the Wanton who betrayeth him for a smile the Covetous that giveth him up for bread for that which is not bread the Ambitious that selleth him for breath for air and the Superstitious that selleth him for his picture for an Idol which is nothing For we know saith S. Paul that an Idol is nothing in the world Every sin every sinner is a contradiction to this Lord. Not onely Judas and Christ and Pilate and Christ are terms contradictory but the rich man and Christ the profane person and Christ Not onely they that persecute him but even they that fight for him not onely they who say he is not the Lord but they who cry Lord Lord may stand at as great a distance from him as that which is not doth from that which hath a being For in this respect they are not they have no Entity at all They have nothing of Christ nothing of his Innocency his Meekness his Goodness And as an Idol is nothing in the world so are they nothing in the Church All the being they have is to be without God in this world which is far worse then not to be How many give to themselves flattering titles They call themselves the Regenerate the Elect the Children Servants Friends of this Lord when they are but contradictions to him as contradictory to him as Nothing is to Eternity as that which is worse then Nothing is to Goodness and Happiness it self To this day there are that make his Honour not their practice but dispute and whilest they are busie to set the bounds of his Dominion let Jesus slip and lose him in controversie Nor did ever Christian Religion receive more wounds then from them who stood up as champions in her defence who let go the Law in the bold inquisition after the Law-giver and forget the service which they owe by putting it too often to the question How he is the Lord. For the greatest errour is in our practice and as it is more dangerous so it is more universal Salvian will tell us of the Arians in his time Errant sed bono animo errant non odio sed affectu Dei They erred indeed but with a good mind not out of hatred but affection to Christ And though they were injurious to his Divine Generation yet they loved him as a Saviour and honoured him as a Lord. But we are more puzzled in agendis quà m in credendis in our Practicks then in our Creed and are sick rather in the heart then in the head Preach the Gospel we are willing to hear it and we kiss the lips that bring it But let Christ speak to us as a Lord Keep my commandments we are deaf and place all Religion in bringing the very principles of Religion into question and make that our argument which should be our rule Or if we give him the hearing the Good news hath swallowed up the Law the Gospel our Duty and Jesus the Lord. The truth is our Religion for the most part wanteth a rudder or stern to guide and carry us in an even course between Love and Fear between God's Goodness and his Power As Tully said Totum Caesarem so we Totum Christum non novimus We know not all of Christ When we hear he is a Saviour we fetter our selves the more And when we are told he is a Lord
we sit down aâ—d dispute As he is a Saviour we will find him work enough but as he is a Lord we will do nothing When we hear he is a Stone we think onely that he is LAPIS FUNDAMENTALIS a sure stone to build on or LAPIS ANGULARIS a corner stone to draw together and unite things naturally incompatible as Man and God the guilty person and the Judge the Sinner and the Law-giver and quite forget that he may be LAPIS OFFENSIONIS a stone of offence to stumble at a stone on which we may be broken and which may fall upon us and dash us to pieces And so not looking on the Lord we shipwreck on the Saviour For this is the great mistake of the world To separate these two terms Jesus and the Lord and so handle the matter as if there were a contradiction in them and these two could not stand together Love and Obedience nay To take Christ's words out of his mouth and make them ours MISERICORDIAM VOLO NON SACRIFICIUM We will have mercy and no sacrifice We say he is the Lord it is our common language And though we are taught to forget our Liturgy yet we remember well enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord have mercy And here Mercy and Lord kiss each other We say the Father gave him power and we say he hath power of himself Psal 2. Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance saith God to Christ And Christ saith I and the Father are one We believe that he shall judge the world John 5.22 and we read that the Father hath committed this judgment to the Son Dedit utique generando non largiendo God gave him this commission when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternal generation as the Son of God So Ambrose But S. Augustine is peremptory Whatsoever in Scripture is said to be committed to Christ belongeth to him as the Son of Man Here indeed may seem to be a distance but in this rule they meet and agree God gave his commission to Christ as Man but he had not been capable of it it he had not been God As he is the Son of God he hath the capacity as the Son of man the execution Take him as Man or take him as God this Jesus is the Lord. Cùm Dominus dicatur unus agnoscitur saith Ambrose There is but one Faith Vers 4 5 6. and but one Lord. In this chapter operations are from God gifts from the Spirit and administrations from the Lord. Christ might well say You call me Lord and Master and so I am a Lord as in many other respects so jure redemtionis by the right of Redemption and jure belli by way of conquest His right of Dominion by taking us out of slavery and bondage is an easie Speculation For who will not be willing to call him Lord who by a strong arm and mighty power hath brought him out of captivity Our Creation cost God the Father no more but a DIXIT He spake the word and it was done But our Redemption cost God the Son his most precious bloud and life onely that we might fall down and worship this our Lord A Lord that hath shaken the powers of the Grave and must shake the powers of thy soul A Lord to deliver us from Death and to deliver us from Sin to bring life and immortality to light and to order our steps and teach us to walk to it to purchase our pardon and to give us a Law to save us that he may rule us and to rule us that he may save us We must not hope to divide Jesus from the Lord for if we do we lose them both Save us he will not if he be not our Lord and if we obey him not Our Lord he is still and we are under his power but under that power which will bruise us to pieces And here appeareth that admirable mixture of his Mercy and Justice tempered and made up in the rich treasury of his Wisdom his Mercy in pardoning sin and his Justice in condemning sin in his flesh Rom 8.3 and in our flesh his Mercy in covering our sins and his Justice in taking them away his Mercy in forgetting sins past and his Justice in preventing sin that it come no more his Mercy in sealing our pardon and his Justice in making it our duty to sue it out For as he would not pardon us without his Son's obedience to the Cross no more will he pardon us without our obedience to his Gospel A crucified Saviour and a mortified sinner a bleeding Jesus and a broken heart a Saviour that died once unto sin and a sinner dead unto sin Rom. 6.10 these make that heavenly composition and reconcile Mercy and Justice and bring them so close together that they kiss each other For how can we be free and yet love our fetters how can we be redeemed from sin that are sold under sin how can we be justified that resolve to be unjust how can we go to heaven with hell about us No Love and Obedience Hope and Fear Mercy and Justice Jesus and the Lord are in themselves and must be considered by us as bound together in an everlasting and undivided knot If we love his Mercy we shall bow to his Power If we hope for favour we shall fear his wrath If we long for Jesus we shall reverence the Lord. Unhappy we if he had not been a Jesus and unhappy we if he had not been a Lord Had he not been the Lord the world had been a Chaos the Church a Body without a Head a Family without a Father an Army without a Captain a Ship without a Pilot and a Kingdom without a King But here Wisdom and Mercy and Justice Truth and Peace Reconcilement and Righteousness Misery and Happiness Earth and Heaven meet together and are concentred even in this everlasting Truth in these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And thus much of the Lesson which we are to learn We come now to our task and to enquire What it is to say it It is soon said It is but three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. The Indian saith it and the Goth saith it and the Persian saith it totius mundi una vox CHRISTUS est Christ Jesus is become the language of the whole world The Devils themselves did say it Matth. 8.29 Jesus thou Son of God And if the Heretick will not confess it dignus est clamore daemonum convinci saith Hilary What more fit to convince an Heretick then the cry of the Devils themselves Acts 19. The vagabond Jews thought to work miracles with these words And we know those virgins who cried Lord Lord open unto us were branded with the name of fools and shut out of doors Whilest we are silent we stand as it were behind the wall we lie
hid in the secret pavilion of our thoughts but the Tongue is the door by which we go out and manifest and expose our selves to the publick view But even this gate this door may be a wall a pavillion to skreen us and many times we are least seen when we are most exposed For words are deceitful upon the balance When you come to weigh them those words which went for talents weigh not a mite and though they present unto us the softness of butter yet upon the touch and trial they have an edge and wound like swords To bless with the mouth and curse with the heart is the Devil's lecture who in these last Atheistical times hath set the heart and tongue at such a distance that they hold no intelligence Hosanna is the word when we wish Christ on the cross and we call him Lord when we trample him under our feet If we look upon the greatest part of Christendom we may take them not for a Church but rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a convention or congregation of idle talking men who say it and never say it say it often but never speak it as they should To say it then is of a more spreading signification and taketh in the Tongue the Heart the Hand taketh in 1. an outward Profession 2. an inward Persuasion 3. a constant Practice answerable to them both This is the best language of a Christian when he speaketh by his Tongue his Eye his Ear his Hand by every member that he hath Rom. 10.9 First we are bound to say it That we may be saved we must confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus 1 John 4.15 God dwelleth in him that confesseth Jesus is the Son of God The Mouth is named by S. Paul in allusion to that of Moses The word is in thy mouth Where by a Synecdoche the Mouth is mentioned when all the other parts of the body are understood For if the Mouth were enough if to say it were sufficient there needed no holy Ghost to descend to teach it We might learn to say Jesus is the Lord as the Pye or Parrot did to salute Caesar and between our Jesu Domine and the birds Ave Caesar the difference would not be great And indeed if we send our eyes abroad and take a survey of the conversation of most Christians we shall find that our Confession is much after the language of birds To name Christ and speak well of his name To bless the child Jesus and to curse the Jews this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the total of our Say of our Confession And if we were to frame a Religion out of mens lives as one is said to have done a Grammar out of Homer's works we should find none but this For what can we discover in most mens lives but noise and words How good is the Lord How beautiful are the feet of Jesus Doth any man speak against Jesus Ad ignem leones Let him die for it And thus some say it because they are inwardly convinced and willing to think so For not onely out of the mouths of babes and sucklings but also out of the mouths of wicked men hath God ordained strength And Jesus is justified and magnified not onely by his children but also by his enemies Again some are Christians in a throng and dare not but say it for very shame dare not oppose it lest the multitude of those they live with should confute or silence them or stone them to death Si nomen Christi in tanta gloria non esset tot professores Christi sancta Ecclesia non haberet saith Gregory If the name of Christ had not been made glorious on the earth the Church of Christ would fall short in her reckoning and number of Professours whereof the greatest part name him but for companie 's sake And that is the reason why so many fall from him in time of persecution and are so ready to forget him For that Religion which we take up by the way will never bring us forward upon the point of the sword Besides the Heart doth not alwayes sympathize and keep time with the Voice but is often dull and heavy when our Hosannas and Hallelujahs are loudest nay most times turneth away from that which our Profession tendeth to The Voice may be for Jesus and the Heart for Mammon the Voice for Christ the Heart on his Patrimony the Voice for his miracles the desire for his loaves We may say he is the Lord when are ready to crucifie him O miserable disproportion and contradiction of Voice and Heart Foolish men that we are to profess the Gospel is true and yet so live as it were most certainly false I did not well to mention this For thus to say it is not to say it This Confession is at best but a beam cast forth from the light of Reason but an acknowledgement against our wills and we may truly say Vox est preterea nihil It is a voice a sound of words and no more Thus they may name him who never name him but in their cursed oaths and exsecrations who shall be said never to have named Jesus because they name him too often and whom he will not know because they have been too familiar with him Thus the Profane person may say it who teareth him pieces the Sacrilegious person who devoureth him the Covetous who selleth him the Ambitious who treadeth upon him the Devil who will have nothing to doe with him and that white Devil the Hypocrite that trumpet of an uncertain sound that monster with the voice of an Angel and the malice of a fiend But this is not to say it And we must learn to distinguish between Samuel and the Devil which the witch brought up in his mantle Outward Profession will not reach home But In the next place as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word floating on the tongue so there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word conceived and shaped in the mind the word of the Heart a kind of dialogue within our selves as Plato calleth it when by due examination and comparing one thing with another and well weighing the inducements and evidences which are brought we are well persuaded of the Truth and settle our selves upon this conclusion That Jesus is the Lord. We commonly call it Faith Which of it self is operative as a fire in the bones which will not be concealed My heart was hot within me and whilst I was musing the fire burned Psal 39. Psal 116. then spake I with my tongue saith David I believed and therefore have I spoken The love of Christ constraineth us saith S. Paul And indeed of its own nature so it will For it is of an active nature Sometimes we read of its valour it stoppeth the mouths Lions Sometimes of its policy it is not ignorant of the Devil's enterprises Sometimes of its strength that it removeth mountains And we find
jurisdiction something or other will have the command of us either the World or the Flesh or Jesus Therefore we ought to consider what it is that beareth most sway in our hearts what it is we are most unwilling to lose and afraid to depart from Whether we had rather dwell in the world with all its pomp and pageantry in the flesh in a Mahumetical paradise of all sensual delights or with Jesus the Lord though it be with persecutions Suppose the Devil should make an overture to thee as he did to our Saviour of all the Kingdoms of the world and the Flesh should plead for her self as she will be putting in for her share and shew thee Pleasure and Honour and Power and all that a heart of flesh can desire in those Kingdomes and on the other side Jesus the Lord should check thee as he doth in his Gospel and pull thee back and tell thee that all this is but a false shew that this present shew will rob thee of future realities that the pleasures which are but for a season are not to be compared to that eternal weight of glory that in this terrestriall Paradise thou shalt meet with the sword and wrath of God and from this seeming painted heaven fall into hell it self Here now is thy trial here thou art put to thy choice If thy heart can now truly say I will have none of these if thou canst say to thy Flesh Who gave thee authority over me What hast thou to doe with me if thou canst say with thy Jesus Avoid Satan and then bow to Jesus and acknowledge no power in heaven or in earth no Dominion but his then thou hast learned this holy language perfectly and mayst truly say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And now to apply it in a word Is it not pity nay a great shame that Man who was created to holiness who was made for this Lord as this Lord was made man for him whose perfect liberty is his service whose greatest honour is to be under his Dominion and whose crown of glory it is to have Jesus to be his King should wait and serve under the World which passeth away should be a parasite to the Flesh which hath no better kin then Rottenness and Corruption should yield and comply with the Devil who seeketh to devour him and fling off the service of Christ as the most loathsome painful detestable thing on earth who is a Jesus to save him and a Lord that hath purchased him with his bloud Is Jesus the Lord Nay but the World is the Lord and the Flesh is the Lord and the Devil is the Lord. This is Vox populi the language of the world And therefore Saint Cyprian bringeth in the Devil thus bragging against this Jesus and magnifying his power above his and laughing us to scorn whom he hath filled with shame Ego pro istis sanguinem non fudi I have not spent one drop of bloud for these I gave them wine to mock them I presented them beauty to burn them I made riches my snare to take them I flattered them to kill them All my study was to bring them to death and everlasting destruction Tuos tales demonstra mihi Jesu Thou that openedst thy bowels and pouredst forth thy bloud for them shew me so many servants of thine so ready so officious so ambitious to serve thee And what a shame is this to all that bear the name of Christ and call him both their Jesus and their Lord that the malice of an enemy should win us and the love of a Saviour harden us that a Murtherer should draw us after him and a Redeemer drive us from him that Satan an Adversary and the Devil an Accuser should more prevail then Jesus the Lord Lacrymis magìs opus est quà m verbis Here let us drop our tears and lay our hands upon our mouths and abhor our selves in dust and ashes go into the house of mourning the school of Repentance and there learn this blessed dialect learn it and believe it and speak it truly JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For conclusion Ye that approch the Table of the Lord to receive the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud consider well whose Body and Bloud it is Draw near for it is Jesus but draw near with reverence for it is the Lord. And as he was once offered upon the Cross so in these outward elements he now offereth himself unto you with all the benefits of his death For here is comprehended not onely Panis Domini but Panis Dominus not onely the bread of the Lord John 6. but also the Lord himself who is that living Bread which came down from heaven And how will ye appear before your Jesus but with love and gratitude and with that new song of the Saints and Angels Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And how will ye appear before your Lord but with humility and reverence with broken hearts for your neglect and strong and well-made resolutions to fall down and worship and serve him all the dayes of your life For if the ancient Christians out of their high esteem of the Sacrament were scrupulous and careful that not one part of the consecrated Bread nor one drop of the consecrated Wine should fall to the ground but thought it a sin though it were but a chance or misfortune quanti piaculi erit Deminum negligere what an unexpiable crime will it be to neglect the Lord himself If the Sacrament hath been thought worthy of such honour what honour is due to Jesus the Lord Bring then your offerings and oblations and offer them here as he offered himself upon the cross your Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh your Temporal goods your Prayers your Mortification that this Lord may hold forth his golden sceptre to you that you may touch the top of it and be received into favour For what else doth the Eucharist signifie We call the Sacraments the signs and seals of the Covenant of Grace But they are also saith Contarene the protestations of our Faith by which we believe not onely the articles of our Creed but the Divine Promise and Institution And Faith is vocal and will awake our Viol and Harp our Tongue and all the powers and faculties of our soul and breathe it self forth in songs of thanksgiving And they are the protestations of our Repentance also which will speak in sighs and grones unutterable And they also are the protestations of our Hope which is ever looking for and rejoycing in and talking of that which is laid up And they are the protestations of our Charity which maketh the tongue and hand as the pen of a ready writer whose words are more sweet whose language is more delightful then that which is uttered by the tongues of men and of Angels And if ye thus
The treasures thereof are infinite the minerals thereof are rich assiduè pleniùs responsura fodienti The more they are digged the more plentifully do they offer themselves that all the wit of men and Angels can never be able to draw them dry But even this Word many times is but a word and no more Sometimes it is a killing letter Such vain and unskilful pioneers we are that for the most part we meet with poisonous damps and vapours instead of treasure I might adde a third Teacher Christ's Discipline which when we think of nothing but of Jesus by his rod and afflictions putteth us in remembrance that he is the Lord. This Teacher hath a kind of Divine authority and by this the Spirit breatheth many times with more efficacy and power then by the Church or the Word then by the Prophets and Apostles and holy Scriptures For when we are disobedient to his Church deaf to his Word at the noise of these many waters we are afraid and yield our necks unto his yoke All these are Teachers But their authority and power and efficacy they have from the Spirit The Church if not directed by the Spirit were but a rout or Conventicle the Word if not quickned by the Spirit a dead letter and his Discipline a rod of iron first to harden us and then break us to pieces But AFFLAT SPIRITUS the Spirit bloweth upon his Garden the Church and the spices thereof flow And then to disobey the Church is to resist the Spirit INCUBAT SPIRITUS The holy Ghost sitteth upon the seed of the Word and hatcheth a new creature a subject to this Lord. MOVET SPIRITUS The Spirit moveth upon these waters of bitterness and then they make us fruitful to every good work In a word The Church is a Teacher and the Word is a Teacher and Afflictions are Teachers but the Spirit of God the holy Ghost is all in all I might here enter a large field full of delightful variety But I forbear and withdraw my self and will onely remember you that this Spirit is a spirit that teacheth Obedience and Meekness that if we will have him light upon us we must receive him as Christ did in the shape of a Dove in all innocency and simplicity He telleth us himself that with a froward heart he will not dwell and then sure he will not enlighten it For as Chrysostom well observeth that the Prophets of God and Satan did in this notoriously differ that they who gave Oracles from God gave them with all mildness and temper without any fanatick alteration but they who gave Oracles by motion from the Devil did it with much distraction and confusion with a kind of fury and madness so we shall easily find that those motions which descend not from above are earthly sensual and devilish that in them there is strife and envying and confusion and every evil work but the wisdom which is from above from the holy Ghost is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated James 3. full of mercy and good fruits Be not deceived When thy Anger rageth the Spirit is not in that storm When thy Disobedience to Government is loud he speaketh not in that thunder When thy Zele is mad and unruly he dwelleth not in that fiery hush When the faculties of thy soul are shaken and dislocated by thy stubborn and perverse passions that thou canst neither look nor speak nor move aright he will not be in that earthquake But in the still voice and the cool of the day in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the calm and tranquility and peace of thy soul he cometh when that storm is slumbred that earthquake setled that thunder stilled that fire quenched And he cometh as a light to shew thee the beauty and love of thy Saviour and the glory and power of thy Lord. And though he be sole Instructor yet he descendeth to make use of means and if thou wilfully withdraw thy self from these thou art none of his celestial Auditory To conclude Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly that Jesus is the Lord and assure thy self that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak Mark well then those symptoms and indications of his presence those marks and signs which he hath left us in his word to know when the voice is his For though as the Kingdom of heaven so the Spirit of God cometh not with observation yet we may observe whether he be come or no. Remember then first that he is a Spirit and the Spirit of God and so is contrary to the Flesh and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it or let it loose to insult over the Spirit For this is against the very nature of the Spirit as much as it is for light bodies to descend or heavy to move upwards Nay Fire may descend and the Earth may be moved out of its place the Sun may stand still or go back Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature but this is one thing which God cannot do he cannot change himself nor can his Spirit breathe any doctrine forth that savoureth of the World or the Flesh or Corruption Therefore we may nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be effects and products of the blessed Spirit when we observe them drawn out and levelled to carnal ends and temporal respects For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the world and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchace When I see a man move his eyes compose his countenance order and methodize his gesture and behaviour as if he were now on his death-bed to take his leave of the world and to seal that Renouncement which he made at the Font when I hear him loud in prayer and as loud in reviling the iniquities of the times wishing his eyes a fountain of tears to bewail them day and night when I see him startle at a mis-placed word as if it were a thunderbolt when I hear him cry as loud for a Reformation as the idolatrous Priests did upon their Baal I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount going up into heaven But after all this devotion this zele this noise when I see him stoop like the Vultur and fly like lightning to the prey I cannot but say within my self O Lucifer son of the morning how art thou fallen from heaven how art thou brought down to the ground nay to hell it self Sure I am the holy Ghost looketh upward moveth upward directeth us upward and if we follow him neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung Remember again that he is SPIRITUS RECTUS a right Spirit as David calleth him Psal 51. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 winding and turning several wayes now to God and anon nay at once to Mammon now glancing
the Anabaptists call it if it be not levelled to its right end which is not to afflict but to purge and refine us to withdraw us from the present momentany pleasures that we may be fitted for the future for those which are not seen which are eternal that we may so abstain from meats ut solo Deo alamur as Tertullian speaketh of Moses and Elias that we may feed on God alone which is to seek him Last of all Prayer is of great force and availeth much saith Saint James It is the best guide and conduct to lead us in our way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nyssene it addeth wings unto us even the wings of a Dove that we may fly after God and be at rest It is impossible that it should return empty if we ask for grace not wealth that we may do God's will and not that we may bring our own purposes about and then say it is his will The wicked are not heard for God regardeth not their prayers but loatheth them as an abomination And yet they are heard and have that which they request granted them but for another end even as God gave the Israelites a King in his wrath and indignation and to their further condemnation But when we bow before God and desire power and ability to seek him that is to walk in his wayes we pray for that which God is alwayes ready to give We pray that we may seek him who beseecheth and commandeth us to seek him who sendeth his Prophets to call upon us to seek him Such prayers are as musick in the ears of the Almighty and our diligence in seeking him is the resultance We may call Prayer with Dionysius the Areopagite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bright and radiant chain by which we ascend unto God and God descendeth unto us by which we are drawn to follow and seek the Lord. To conclude this part then these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer as they are helps to forward our repentance so are they signs of a troubled spirit probable symptoms of a heart thirsting and panting after God and yet through the corruptions of our hearts they are nothing else but bare signs and types and shadows Signs but such as signifie nothing Types but such as have no Antitypes Shadows of which the substance was never seen For as it was observed of the Jews that the greatest sacrifices so it may be amongst Christians that the most frequent hearers the greatest fasters and they that are longest and loudest in prayer may be the greatest sinners It is well we can be brought to these if it be in God's name but commonly some other wind driveth us to the Temple some other hand putteth on our sackcloth and our love nay the Prince of this world may bring us on our knees and then in these our devotion is terminated and if we can well pass over these as we may well for we delight and pride our selves in them we think we have God in a chain and bound him with our merits that we have past through as many punishments as they did who were to be consecrated to Mithras the God of the Persians In a word in these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer our devotion our seeking is at an end We please and content our selves with the service of the ears of the body of the lips with a Sermon I should say many Sermons with a Fast and that is not complete without something which they call by that name with the labour of the lips with a Prayer and that too must have something of the Sermon and something of the Libel when as indeed our turning to God is the best commendation of a Sermon to loose the bonds of wickedness of that wickedness we now stand guilty of before God and men is the best sanctifying of a Fast and to seek the Lord with all the heart the most effectual Prayer we can make To this end are these duties enjoyned and to this end alone they are useful and serviceable that we may seek the Lord. We have beheld the Object which we must seek the Lord who is the sole and adequate object of our desires in whom alone they may rest If we desire Wealth the earth is the Lord's and all that therein is if Strength he is the Lord of Hosts if Wisdom he created her and poured her out upon all his works if Life he is the living God if Immortality he onely is immortal And if we seek not him our riches are snares our greatest wisdom the greatest folly our strength will overthrow us and our momentany life will deliver us over to eternal death We have also seen what it is to seek the Lord namely to seek him in Christ to seek him in those wayes of obedience and humility which he hath drawn out unto us in his Gospel in a word to bow our wills and receive him into our hearts that God in us may be all in all Now we pass from the Act to the Time when we must seek the Lord while he may be found my last part And do we ask when we should seek the Lord We do not well to ask it because we should not stay so long as to ask the question before we seek him Huic rei perit omne tempus quodcunque alteri datur All time is lost to this which we bestow in any thing else For shall we prefer our pleasure our profit our health our life before God Nor is there need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it Fides pura moram non patitur If we love God and truly believe in him we cannot be so patient as to endure the least delay We may miss of happiness but certainly we cannot meet it too soon I know God may be found at any time which we can call ours at any time of our life in the morning or at noon in the heat of the day or in the cool of the evening But a great presumption it is to promise to our selves to seek and find him when we please He may be found in our old age but it is most safe to remember him in our youth he may be found in affliction but it is not good to stay till the rod be on the back he may be found in war and yet it is hard to find the God of peace in war and therefore it is a folly to delay seeking him till we see the glittering spear and hear the noise of the whip and the prauncing of the horses If we will determine and fix a time we must take the first opportunity lay it to the first beam and dawning of our reason The second or third opportunities though they come not peradventure too late to find him yet they come too late for us to begin to seek him because we lost the first which for ought we knew might have been the last To morrow may be but Now is the while
and so make our seeking a free-will-offering a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour unto God and make it evident that we understand the language of his benefits the miracle which he worketh which is to cure our blindness with this clay with these outward things that we may see to seek him And this is truly to praise the Lord for his goodness Psal 107. Hos 3.5 this is to fear the Lord and his goodness to bear our selves with that fear and reverence that we offend not this God of blessings Negat beneficium qui non honorat He denieth a benefit that doth not thus honour it and is contumelious to that God that gave it Ingratitude is the bane of merit the defacer of vertue the sepulchre the hell of all blessings for by it they are turned into a curse It loatheth the land of Canaan and looketh for milk and honey in Egypt Oh beloved dare we look back upon former times What face can turn that way and not gather blackness God looked favourably upon us and we lifted up the heel against him He gave us light and we shut our eyes against that light He gave us wealth and we abused it to pride and avarice and vanity He made us the envy and we were ambitious to make our selves the scorn of all nations He gave us milk and honey and we turned it into gall and bitterness He sent the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth the blessings of the right hand and of the left plenty and peace the one we loathed as the Jews did their Manna the other we abused He sent peace and we desired war He broke the sword and we furbished it He placed and setled us under our own vines and figtrees and we were in trouble till we were in trouble till we were in a posture of war He spake to us by plenty and we answered him by luxury He spake to us in love and we answered him by oppression He made our faces to shine and we ground the poor's He spake to us by peace and we beat up the drum He spake to us in a still voice and we defied the Holy one of Israel Every benefit of his spake Give me my price and lo instead of seeking him running from him instead of sanctifying his name profaning it instead of calling upon his name calling it down and forcing it to countenance all the imaginations of our heart which have been evil continually This was the goodly price that he was prized at of us Zech. 11.13 And then our Sun did seem to set our day vvas shut up that Now that Then had its end vvhat can vve expect but that the next Now the next time he should come in thunder give us hail for rain and flaming fire in our land But such a Then such an opportunity we had and thus we lost it And if we have let slip this time of peace this acceptable time yet at least let us seek him now when if we seek him not we shall find nothing but destruction seek him in the storm that he may make a calm call upon him in our trouble that he may bring us out of our distress Seek him now when our Sun is darkned and our Moon turned into bloud when the knowledge of his law and of true piety beginneth to wax dim and the true face and beauty of religion to wither when the stars are fallen from heaven the teachers of the truth from the true profession of the truth when the powers of the heaven are shaken when the pillars of the Church are shaken and broken asunder into so many sects and divisions which is as musick to to Rome but maketh all walk as mourners about the streets of Jerusalem vvhen RELIGION vvhich should be the bond of love is made the motto in our banners the title and pretense of vvar the nurse and fomenter of that malice and bitterness vvhich putteth it to shame and treadeth it under foot Novv vvhen the sea and waves thereof do roar vvhen vve hear the noise and tumult of the people vvhich is as the raging of the sea but ebbing and flovviâ—g vvith more uncertainty and from a cause less knovvn vvhen nation riseth up against nation and kingdom against kingdom nay vvhen kingdomes are divided in themselves in this draught and resemblance of the end of the vvorld vvhen he thus speaketh to us in the vvhirlvvind vvhen he thus knocketh vvith his hammer vvhen he calleth thus loud to us to seek him vve should novv bovv dovvn our heads and in all humility ansvver him Thy face O Lord will we seek Matth 18 7. For as our Saviour speaketh of offences so may vve of these afflictions and terrours vvhich God sendeth to fright us It must needs be that they come not onely necessitate consequentiae by a necessity of consequence supposing the condition of our Nature and the changes and chances of a sinful vvorld but necessitate finis in respect of the End for vvhich they are sent for vvhich God in vvhose povver both men and their actions are doth not onely not hinder them by his mighty hand but permitteth them and by a kind of providence sendeth them upon us partly for our tryal but especially for our amendment that finding gall and wormvvood upon every pleasure and vanity of the world finding no rest for our feet in these tumultuous vvaves vve may fly to the Ark and seek him vvith our vvhole heart For vvhen neither the oyl of God's grace vvill soften and supple our stony hearts nor his Word vvhich is his sword pierce them when we cannot be restrained by the â—piâ—it of meekness then Cedo virgam then he cometh with his rod that if we will not make our selves the children of perdition the smart of that may drive us unto him And certainly if afflictions work not this effect they will a far worse If they do not set an end to our sin they are but the beginnings of punishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene a prologue to that long and lasting Tragedy the sad types and fore-runners of everlasting Torments in the bottomless pit As yet they are but an argument of Gods love the blows of a Father to bring us to his hand O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus cui dignatur irasci saith Tertullian O happy servant whom the Lord is carefull thus to correct whom he loveth so well as to be angry with him to whom he giveth so great honour and respect as to chastize him But if we lose this affliction make no advantage of it lose that profit which God intendeth by it then he is no longer a Father but a Judge and this punishment is no longer Correction but Execution He hath spent his rods and now he will take his axe in hand and as the Prophet speaketh he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease Dan. 9.27 and for the over-spreading of abominations he shall make
He is an enemy who telleth me the truth he is an enemy who is not a parasite Can we look for forgiveness out of that breast which is as a troubled sea ever casting out mire and dirt Or have we read of or have we seen the man that will not be pious yet can forgive that can be so cruel to himself and yet mild and merciful to his brother No it requireth a mind well exercised and brought under crucified to the world weaned from vanity the love of which maketh us impatient of others and impatient of our selves yea such haggards as to check at every feather We must know our brother in another shape in another relation before we shall forgive him We must know him in Christ the fountain of love who brought forgiveness into the world when he brought immortality to light And then if we know him in him we shall know nothing in him which may not command our pardon We shall know him in him who purchased our pardon with his bloud we shall forgive him as we are forgiven we shall cover our brother's trespasses for his sake who hath prepared a robe of righteousness to cover ours and for his sake forgive ours brother's debts who payed down our debts to the utmost mite Then shall we feel the power of this virtue and how prevalent it is with God Then as we have manifested our selves to be his children by the performance of the Condition so will he manifest himself to be our Father in removing our transgressions from us as far as the East is from the West Now for conclusion I cannot better bespeak you then in the words of S Paul I pray you brethren in Christ's stead be reconciled unto God And that is done by acknowledgement of the forfeiture by confessing your debts There is no hinderance of it but in your selves for if you will he is presently reconciled He calleth for it he desireth it he waiteth for it and if you arise and go towards him he runneth to meet you falleth on your neck and kisseth you It is but to leave off fighting against him and he is reconciled It is but to run no further in arrears and the writing is cancelled Wash every character the least sin with your tears and Christ's bloud is shed already and floweth as fresh as from the cross to blot them out Tu agnosce Deus ignoscet Do thou acknowledge the debt and God hath forgiven it Perform the condition and the promise will apply it self nay it is applied already At what time soever a sinner repenteth And again I pray you be reconciled unto your brethren You have for that the strongest and most winning motive the Mercy of God the best Topick we can find more persuasive in it self then all the eloquence of the learned then the tongues of men and of Angels of power to ravish a soul and transport it beyond it self and leave it deaf and dead to the flattery of the flesh and to the killing musick of the world For what can move me to pardon if Pardon cannot move me What can make me if Mercy cannot make me merciful And shall my Wealth or Reputation kindle that fire within me which the bowels of God and the bloud of Christ cannot quench Bring not then hither any lurking unrepented sin but bury it in the clifts of a broken heart and in the wounds of thy Saviour Bring not a grudging mind nor the least surmise against thy brother but smother it and bury it in the land of oblivion Leave not thy sin to day to resume and embrace it to morrow nor let thy wrath so set as to rise with more horrour hereafter But destroy the whole body of sin and purge out all the leaven of maliciousness Be reconciled unto God and be reconciled to your brethren and then come and draw near to this feast of Love Take eat This is his body which was broken for you and Take drink This is the New Testament in his bloud which was shed for you and for many for the remission of sins These are the pledges of his love and withall pignora fidei the pledges of our faith to actuate and quicken it to make it more apprehensive more operative more lively Here then confirm your faith exalt your hope enlarge your charity and so declare the Lord's death till he come And when he that came to visit us in great Humility and visiteth us again and again in his Sacrament and by the sweet operation of his blessed Spirit sealeth our pardon and sealeth us up to the day of our redemption shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead we shall be ready to meet him as fearing no bill no indictment against us and we shall be ever with him who hath payed our ransome and he shall call us his friends his children his brethren and he shall make us partakers of that glory which he hath prepared for us from the beginning of the world To which he bring us who dyed for us Jesus Christ the righteous The Two and Twentieth SERMON PART I. PSAL. CXXII 1. I was glad when they said unto me Let us or We will go into the house of the Lord. WHether this Psalm of degrees or excellent Song as some term it were a Psalm of David or to David or delivered to the Masters of Musick by the hands of David Whether it was penned by him when the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Jerusalem and there seated as in its certain place which before had been carried up and down now to this place anon to another as several occasions and the exigence of the times required and so was fitted for the people publickly to sing when they should go up to their solemn Feasts Or whether it was penned by a prophetick spirit for those Jews who being returned out of Babylon should repair Jerusalem and build the second Temple Whether this Psalm were fitted for the Tabernacle or for the first Temple or for the second it is not much material to enquire Nor will it advantage to make diligent search where there is not so much light as that of conjecture to direct us The Psalm might well serve for all for the Tabernacle for the first Temple for the second And almost all agree that it was composed by David And he beginneth it as a Song should begin with LAETATUS SUM I was glad or I rejoyced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Septuagint Jucundatus sum so St. Augustine I was merry at heart as those who meet at a costly banquet I may entitle this Psalm David's Delight or his Triumph or his Jubilee Now when the heart is glad when the countenance shineth when the tongue is loud we may well think there is something more then ordinary presented to the sight For Joy when it is visible in the face when it is set to Musick is a manifest indication and a loud proclamation that there
is somewhat without that hath either flattered our sense or complied with our reason The effect doth in some sort demonstrate the cause And the cause of Joy is the union and presence of some good And as the cause is such is the effect as the object is such is the joy If our joy spring from the earth it is of the same nature earthy muddy gross unclean Eccl The Wise-man calleth it madness But if it be from heaven and those things which are above it is bright serene and clear What is it then that maketh David so glad that he thus committeth his joy to a Song and publisheth it to the world The next words tell us Something that he heard the voice of a company earnest in expectation and loud in expression hasting and even flying to the service of God and to the place where his honour dwelleth They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Now if ye look upon the object so divine and consider David a man after God's own heart ye cannot wonder to find him awakening his harp and viol and tuning his instrument of ten strings to hear him chanting his Laetatus sum and to see him even transported and ravished with joy So now you have the parts of the Text 1. David's Delight 2. the Object or Reason of it In the Object there are circumstances enough to raise his joy to the highest note First a Company either a Tribe or many of or all the people They said unto me So in another place he speaketh of walking to the house of God in company Psal 55.14 A glorious sight a representation of heaven it self of all the Angels crying aloud the Seraphim to the Cherubim and the Cherubim echoing back again to the Seraphim Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth Secondly their Resolution to serve the Lord dixerunt they said it And to say in Scripture is to Resolve We will go is either a Lie or Resolution Thirdly their Agreement and joynt Consent We This is as a Circle and taketh in all within its compass If there be any dissenting unwilling person he is not within this Circumference he is none of the We. A Turk a Jew and a Christian cannot say We will serve the Lord and the Schismatick or Separatist shutteth himself out of the house â—f the Lord. We is a bond of peace keepeth us at unity and maketh many as one Fourthly their Chearfulness and Alacrity They speak like men going out of a dungeon into the light as those who had been long absent from what they loved and were now approching unto it and in fair hope to enjoy what they most earnestly desired We will go We will make haste and delay no longer Ipsa festinatio tarda est Speed it self is but slow-paced We cannot be there soon enough Fifthly and lastly the Place where they will serve God not one of their own chusing not the Groves or Hills or High-places no Oratory which malice or pride or faction had erected but a place appointed and set apart by God himself Servient Domino in domo sua They will serve the Lord in his own house They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Thus much the Object affordeth us enough to fill such an heart as David's with joy Now let us look upon the Psalmist in his garment of joy And we may observe First the nature of his Joy It was as refined as spiritual as heavenly as its object What they said was holy language and his Joy was true and solid the breathing and work of the Spirit of truth Secondly the Publication of it He could not contein himself Psal 39.3 but his heart being hot within him he spake with his tongue and not content with that he conveyed his speech into a song He said it he sung it he committed it to song that the people being met together at Jerusalem might sing it in the house Lord. I was glad when they said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. These are the Parts and of these we shall speak in order We begin with the Object for in nature that is first We cannot tell what a mans Joy is till we see what raised it The Object therefore of David's joy must be first handled Therein the first circumstance is That there were many a Company that resolved to go into the house of the Lord. v. 4. The tribes go up saith the Psalmist even the tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel that is the people of Israel go up according to the covenant made with Israel Psal â—8 11 And The Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it He speaketh as if there were some virtue in Number And so his son Solomon Two and if two Eccles 4.9 then certainly many are better then one Yet such an imputation lieth upon the Many that peradventure I might well have omitted this circumstance Non tam bene cum rebus humanis agitur ut plures sint meliores The world was never yet so happy that the most should be best 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called saith St. Paul And Many are called saith Christ but few are chosen Matth. 20.16 It was the Many that resisted the holy Ghost that stoned the Prophets that persecuted the Apostles It is the Many that now divide the Church that disturbe and shake the common-wealth that work that desolation on the earth What security nay what religion can there be when our estates and our lives when Truth it self must be held by Votes must rise or fall by most voices Christus violentiâ suffragiorum in crucem datus saith Tertullian This is it which layeth the cross upon us which nailed the Son of God himself to the Cross I did not well to mention it For indeed it is the errour not of the Church of Rome alone but of all others also to judge of the Church by the multitude of Professours as the Turk doth of an army by its number nec aestimare sed numerare not to weigh and consider what the professours are but to number them And they have made Multitude a note of the true Church As if to shew you the Sun-rising I should point to the West or where there are but a few cry out Behold a troup cometh Matth 7 14. Luk. 13.23.24 Our Saviour saith there are few that shall be saved But say they if ye will know the true Church indeed behold the multitudes and nations behold the many that joyn with her that fall down and worship her Every faction striveth to improve it self Every Heretick would gain what proselytes he can Every Church would stretch forth the curtains of her habitation All would confirm themselves in their errour by the multitude of those who are taken in it Cùm error singulorum
neminem ausurum coram catone peccare no body had the impudence to do any thing amiss before Cato And Tully saith of him Oh happy man of whom no man ever durst ask any thing that was unfit to be given And Job saith Job 19 8. that when the young men saw him they hid themselves and the aged arose and stood up But there is a reverence due in this place in respect of every man in the place lest we offend some and teach others offend some who know what order and decency is and teach others who understand so little of it that they are not willing to learn more but come to Church one would think on purpose to be irreverent as if it were a part of the Service as if they counted it devotion not to be devout reverence to be profane humility to out-face the Congregation and God himself And indeed why should they thus confidently doe it if they did not place a kind of religion in it especially in this place which is set apart onely for religious duties But let them know that by thus doing they not onely offend God and his holy Angels but also scandalize pious and well-affected persons and confirm and encourage those who are negligent and profane in their unbeseeming and irreligious behaviour Job 32.7 For when dayes do this and multitude of years by their example teach it as a piece of wisdome Job 8.9 they that are but of yesterday that is the younger sort will quickly be as wise that is as irreverent as they I will not press this any further 1 Cor. 11 1â— but onely say with the Apostle Judge in your selves Is this comely And that you may judge aright ye must resolve the thing the action into its first principle from whence it had its rise and beginning as the Schools speak Consider with your selves what it is that moveth you to this careless and graceless deportment Whether Scripture or Reason The Word of God it cannot be for that breatheth nothing but reverence and devotion It biddeth us keep our feet when we go to the house of God Eccles 5.1 I do not find that we are any where bid to take such care of our heads We need no spur for that Neither can Reason plead for us but contrà stat ratio Reason is against us and telleth us in our ear That we should be more reverent before God and his Angels then in the presence of Men in the house of the Lord then in a great mans parlour That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy duties are to be performed holily that is with reverence which ever attendeth and waiteth upon holiness and is inseparable from it as on the contrary no two things are more unlike and at greater distance one from the other then Holiness and Irreverence Dic Quintiliane colorem What colour then have we for rude and unhandsome demeanour in God's house Fear of superstition That hath long since received its deaths blow and it is now buried but not in its proper grave a regular devotion but rudely and disorderly raked up in profaneness Fear that others should imagine we did reverence to the walls Nothing but extreme ignorance can raise such a thought For who knoweth not that a wall is but a wall and that he that setteth up a cottage may build a Church He that passeth this sentence upon thee may as well conclude thou art not a man or that coming into the house of God thou leavest thy reason behind thee But thou art weak and sickly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is but a shift and excuse For if thou art sick thou mayest I might say thou art bound to stay at home God will have mercy and not sacrifice Hos 6.6 Matth. 9.13 12.7 And his mercy shall stay with thee in thy private closet when his sacrifice doth not draw thee to the Church He doth not require thy presence to hasten thy end but looketh favourably upon thy private devotion which prepareth thee for it What is the matter then I fear it is Pride which swelleth in opposition against every plant which it self hath not planted and would root it out Quod ego volo pro canone sit as Constantius the Arian said The continued practice of the Church for many hundred years is no Directory for us What we say or do that must go for Canonical that must be the rule And so to seem wise we become I am unwilling to say what but the best and wisest men have ever accounted it the extremest folly in the world For what wisdom what honour is it first to be unreasonable and then to comfort our selves with this thought That we are wiser then our teachers and then all the holy men of God that went before us In a word then It is but an humour let us purge it out it is pride let us beat it down It is the house of the Lord ye come into and there reverence is due Ye know well enough and are not to seek what Reverence is I am sure that behaviour in Churches which is of common use is so unlike it that ye cannot commit a greater soloecisme then to give it that name unless ye call it so as the Poet calleth Covetousness sacred because it is a cursed thing or as War is termed Bellum that is good and pleasant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it is not so but the worst and most displeasing thing in the world We will go into the house of the Lord. This one word LORD one would think might answer all arguments purge out every evil humour check and pull down our pride bow our hearts and knees I might adde uncover our heads especially in the time when we perform that which we call Divine Service This one word LORD should be of more force to bring in reverence into the Church then any argument that Humour or Pride or Faction have contrived to keep it out We have long insisted upon the Object of David's joy we will now therefore leave it yet so as to have it ever and anon in our eye while we consider the other part of the Text and behold the Psalmist in his triumph and jubilee in these words LAETATUS SUM I was glad Herein we observe 1. The Nature of David's delight It was like the Object like himself after God's own heart a company going to the house of the Lord. Psal 69.9 And what fitter object for him to look upon whom the zele of God's house and a studious care to preserve it holy had even eaâ—â—n up A Temple filled with Tribes falling down and worshiping must needs fill that heart with joy which was before filled with devotion Those things which delight us saith the Philosopher are alwayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fitted and sutable to our nature And this maketh our delights so various so contrary The Philosopher flingeth his money into the sea because he hath a pure and
then evident that it is one thing to say that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us another that faith is imputed for righteousness or which is the very same our sins are not imputed unto us Which two Imputation of faith for righteousness and Not-imputation of sin make up that which we call the Justification of a sinner For therefore are our sins blotted out by the hand of God because we believe in Christ and Christ in God 1 Cor. 1.30 That place where we are told that Christ of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification is not such a pillar of Christ's Imputed righteousness in that sense which they take it as they phansied when they first set it up For the sense of the Apostle is plain and can be no more then this That Christ by the will of God was the onely cause of our righteousness and justification and that for his sake God will justifie and absolve us from all our sins and will reckon or account us holy and just and wise not that he who hath loved the error of his life is wise or he that hath been unjust is righteous in that wherein he was unjust or he that was impure in that he was impure is holy because Christ was so but because God will for Christ's sake accept receive and embrace us as if we were so Unless we shall say that as we are wise with Christ and holy and righteous so with Christ also we do redeem our selves For he who is said to be our righteousness is said also to be our redemption in the next words I would not once have thought this worth so much as a salute by the way but because I see many understand not what they speak so confidently and many more and those the worst are too ready to misapply it are will be every thing in Christ when they are not in him and well content he should fight it out in his own gore then they though they fall under the enemy in him may be styled conquerours Why should not we content our selves with the language of the Holy Ghost That certainly is enough to quiet any troubled conscience unless you will say it is not enough for a sinner to be forgiven not enough to be justified not enough to be made heir of the kingdom of heaven But yet I am not so out of love with the phrase as utterly to cast it out but wish rather that it might either be laid aside or not so grosly misapplied as it is many times by those presumptuous sinners who die in their sins If any eye can pierce further into the letter and find more then Imputation of faith for righteousness and Not imputation of sins for Christ's righteousness sake let him follow it as he please to the glory but not to the dishonour of Christ let him attribute what he will unto Christ so that by his unseasonable piety he lose not his Saviour so that he neglect not his own soul because Christ was innocent nor take no care to bring so much as a mite into the Treasury because Christ hath flung in that talent which at the great day of accounts shall be reckoned as his So that men be wary of those dangerous consequences which may issue from such a conceit quisque abundet sensu suo let every man think and speak as he please and add this Imputation of Christ's righteousness to this which I am sure is enough and which is all we find in Scripture Forgiveness and Not-imputation of sins and the Imputation of faith for righteousness I pass then to this Righteousness the Righteousness of Faith which indeed is properly called Evangelical Righteousness because Christ who was the publisher of the Gospel was also authour and finisher of our Faith And here we may sit down and not move any further and call all eyes to behold it and say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is it Nec curiositate opus est post Jesum Christum When Christ hath spoken and told us what it is our curiosity need not make any further search The Righteousness of faith is that which justifieth a sinner Rom. 1.17 For the just shall live by faith or as some render it the just by faith shall live Mar. 9.23 If thou canst believe saith our Saviour and Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ Acts 16.31 and thou shalt be saved and thy houshould saith S. Paul to the Gaoler Isa 55.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to these waters yea come buy wine and milk without money or money-worth I doubt not but every man is ready to come every man is ready to say I believe Lord help my unbelief But here it fareth with many men as it doth with those who first hear of some great place fallen unto them but afterwards find it is as painful as great The later part of the news sowreth and deadeth the joy of the former and the trouble taketh off the glory and dignity Believe and be saved is a messuage of joy but Believe and repent or Repent and believe is a bitter pill But we must joyn them together nor is it possible to separate them they both must meet and kiss each other in that Righteousness which is the way to the Kingdom of God It is true Faith is imputed for righteousness but it is imputed to those who forsake all unrighteousness Faith justifieth a sinner but a repentant sinner It must be vera fides quae hoc quod verbis dicit moribus non contradicit a faith which leaveth not our manners and actions as so many contradictions to that which we profess Faith is the cause and original of good actions and naturally will produce them and if we hinder not its casuality in this respect it will have its proper effect which is to Justifie a sinner This effect I say is proper to Faith alone and it hath this royal prerogative by the ordinance of God but it hath not this operation but in subjecto capaci in a subject which is capable of it In a word it is the Righteousness of a sinner but not of a sinner who continueth in his sin It is a soveraign medicine but will not cure his wounds who resolveth to bleed to death For to conceive otherwise were to entitle God to all the uncleanness and sins of our life past to make him a lover of iniquity and the justifier not of the sinner but of our sins Christ was the Lamb of God which took away our sins John 1.29 And he took them away not onely by a plaister but also by a purge not onely by forgiveness but also by restraint of sin He suffered those unknown pains that we should be forgiven and sin no more not that we should sin again and be forgiven He fulfilled the Law but not to the end that we should take the more heart break it at pleasure and adde rebâ—â—lion to rebellion because
fear of God They spake it and they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand wisely and soberly and with great care and vigilant observation they spake it and they did it And S. Chrysostome giveth the reason Because God is present with us invisibly and marks every motion of the body as well as every inclination of the mind But I know not how the face of Christendome is much altered and what was Religion and Devotion then hath now changed its name and in this latter age must needs go under that much loathed name of Superstition and Idolatry For tell me are we not ashamed almost to say our prayers are we not afraid to say Amen Is it not become a disgrace to bear a part in the publick service of God A Te Deum or an Hallelujah would be indeed as a clap of thunder to fright us from the Church for we lift up our hearts so high that we have no voice at all Superstition I confess is a dangerous sin but yet not so dangerous as profaneness which will talk with God in private and dare him to his face in his Temple which with the Gnostick will give him the Heart but not vouchsafe the Tongue which will leave the Priest alone to make a noise and sometimes God knoweth it is but a noise in the pulpit And this is but to run out of the smoke into the fire for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwrack on Profaneness for fear of will-worship not to worship at all to imprison Devotion in the soul and lend her neither voice nor gesture though Christ be miraculous in all his wayes and doth wonders in the midst of us to seal up our lips and onely commune with our own corrupt hearts and be still No lifting up of the voice or hands no bowing of the knee in our coasts But I do but beat the ayr and labour in vain For now it is religion not to express it and he is most devout who doth least shew it O when will this dumb devil be cast out A strange thing it is that every thing else even our Vices should be loud and vocal and Religion should be the onely thing that should want a tongue that Devotion should lye hid and lurk and withdraw it self into the inward man For this is not to honour God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with might and main with soul and body with heart and knee and tongue this is not to render to God that which is Gods Which how to do without these outward expressions is as hard for the eye of Reason to see as it is for the eye of Sense to discern that Devotion which is so abstract and spiritual Certainly this poor Woman in the Text will rise up in judgment against this generation who no sooner saw the excellency of Christs person but she lifted up her voice and blessed the womb that bare him and the paps which he had sucked Last of all this Womans voice is yet lifted up and calls upon us to lift up ours even before the Pharisees And such we shall find in every street and in every Synagogue who devoure more then widows houses with long prayers draw bloud with the sword of the Spirit and serve the prince of this world in the name of the Lord. If our fear were not greater then our love amongst these we should lift up our voice like a trumpet and put these monsters to shame strike off their visour with noyse and bring in Truth to tear off the veil of their Hypocrisie For what shall we not lift up our voice for Truth but when she hath most voices on her side Must Truth be never publisht but in the times of peace or must a song of praise be never chaunted out but in a quÃre of Angels Shall we onely walk towards our Saviour as Peter did whilest the face of the sea is smooth then be undaunted and fear nothing but when a wave comes towards us presently sink Whilest all Things go with us smoothly without any rub or wave of difficulty how shall our Faith and Love be discovered who shall distinguish between a true and superficial professour For the Love of man to Christ is no otherwise discovered then the Love of man to man The love of a Christian cannot be known but by a great and strong tentation A Pharisee before us is a tentation Difficulty and danger are nothing else but a tentation which is therefore laid in our way to try if any thing can sever us from the love of Christ and his Truth If we start back in silence we have betraied the Truth to our fears and left it to be trod under foot by a Pharisee We may call it Discretion and Wisdome to start aside at such a sight and to lay our hands upon our mouths but discretio ista tollit omnem discretionem as Bernard speaketh this discretion takes away all discretion this wisdome is but folly For from this cowardise in our profession we first fall into an indifferency and at last into open hostility to the Truth We follow Truth as Peter did Christ afar of and then deny it and at last forswear it and joyn with the Pharisees and help them to persecute those that profess it So the Libellatici of old first bought a dispensation from the judge to profess the name of Christ and at last gave it under their hands that they never were Christians He that can dispense with a sin will soon look friendly upon it and at last count it a duty He that will take an oath in his own sense which indeed is non-sense wlll easily be induced to take it in any sense you shall give it him He that can trifle with his God will at last blaspheme him to his face Beloved you may judge of the Heart by the Voice which falls and rises according to those heats and colds the Heart receives When this is coldly affected we know not how to speak we venture but speak not out we profess and recant we say and unsay and know not what to say quasi super aristas ambulamus we tread as tenderly as if we were walking upon ears of corn and as men that go upon the ice magis tremimus quà m imus we rather tremble then go But when our Heart is hot within us the next occasion sets our Tongue at liberty We read in our Poets that Achilles for a time lurkt in womans apparel but was discovered by Ulysses bringing him a sword which he no sooner saw but he brandisht it So the souldier of Christ is not known till some difficulty like the sword of Ulysses be brought before him then he will bestir and move himself to cope with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we be Christians dangers and difficulties will sharpen and draw us on and our voice will be loudest when a Pharisee is near To conclude When vve hear men speak between their teeth or
the Lord 1 Sam. 15.13 I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Being after taken and detected he shifteth his sails and turneth the point of his compass and tryeth by fair pretenses and excuses whether he can catch God with guile The people v. 15. saith he spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God He breaketh the commandment of God upon pretence of sacrifice and so as much as in him lyeth abuseth the Wisdom of God with a kind of mockery and deceit And this is it which made that great difference between the action of David and the action of Saul and that great breach between Saul and his God What a dangerous thing is it then to study to cover a sin How great is this sin which not onely trespasseth against the highest attribute of God but also defeateth and cutteth off the usual wayes of reconcilement After other sins committed the means to make our way to God's favour are Confession and the Prayers of the Saints one for another St. James telleth us so much chap. 5.15 16. Now covering and excusing our sin evacuateth them both Saul you see made liberal though late confession of his sin Samuel faithful Samuel one of the greatest of the Lord's Prophets earnestly prayeth for him yet neither the delinquent's confession nor the Prophet's prayer procure any thing at the hand of God The prayer of the righteous shall save the sick saith St. James Then certainly covering and excusing a sin is a very desperate sickness which the prayer of so righteous a person as Samuel was could not recover Nay which is more the prayer of the Prophet is not onely refused but he is straightly charged to pray for him no more 1 Sam. 16.1 How long saith God wilt thou mourn for Saul since I have rejected him This sin then of Covering sin is it not a sin unto Death Either it is so or not far from it There is but one sin for which in Scripture we are forbidden to pray There is a sin unto death saith St. John 1 Joh. 5.16 I do not say that thou shouldst pray for it I conclude nothing but wish them who delight to cover their sin who sin often and yet never sin who run away with the dart in their sides and never feel it to lay this to heart For see Samuel here is forbidden to pray for Saul To conclude this What a strange sin is this sin of Excuse which being liker to a circumstance of sin then a sin yet maketh a lesser sin exceed the greatest and the greatest to be greater then it is which maketh a wanton look worse then adultery anger then murder the breach of a temporal Law more dangerous then of an eternal The Schools say well Maximum peccatum excusatio quia quodlibet peccatum facit majus That must needs be the greatest sin which maketh every sin greater Not to leave yet the consideration of the greatness of this sin in respect of God When sin hath entred our heart and shewn it self in the active irregularity of our members there are but these five wayes observed in our deportment and behaviour against it either 1. Concealing or Denyal so Sarah denyed that she laught Gehazi Gen. 18.15 2 Kings 5.25 when he had run after Naaman for a reward boldly told his Master Thy servant went no whither Or 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alleviation and lessening the fault when we excuse our selves à tanto though not à toto let something of our fault appear and cover the rest Or 3. Despair as in Cain and Judas Or 4. penitential Confession as in David and Job Or 5. Excuse as in Saul These five are 〈◊〉 Prophets baskets of figs the good very good Jer. 24.1 2 3. and that is but one 〈◊〉 the evil very evil and naughty but the worst of all is Excuse For in Denyal and Concealment though we deny the fact yet we acknowledge it to be Evil Nolumus nostrum quia malum agnoscimus We would never deny it did we not confess it to be Evil. In Alleviation there is confession made but tenderly Something we confess to be amiss but not much And in Despair there is a large acknowledgment but to no purpose And the despairing sinner though he destroyeth himself yet deserveth our pity more then the former To despair is not so much a sin as the committing those sins which plunged him in that gulf Concealment Denyal and Alleviation are wilful errours to avoyd the punishment which is due unto our sin but Despair is an argument against itself calleth the punishment on the offender further then God is willing executeth the delinquent not for want of pardon which is ready to be sealed but of suing it out But of all the Apologizer who is ready with a veil to cover his sin who can make a circumstance an anvil to forge an excuse on is far the worst In the rest there is some acknowledgment made and so far they partake of the nature of penitential Confession Some confess too little others too much The two first come short of Repentance the third exceedeth The two first confess tenderly the other unprofitably But in him that covereth his sin with excuse there breatheth no air of penitential Confession but instead thereof he maintaineth that to be good which his conscience will tell him is evil I may deceive and cozen the wicked saith the Hypocrite who is more wicked then they I may sin because I am weak and break the command because I cannot keep it and multiply actual sins because of original Gen. 34. Simeon and Levi murder the Shechemites and the excuse is ready Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot The sacrilegious person taketh the houses of God into possession for should they be abused to superstition The foulest sin hath a mantle to cover it and sometimes walketh under a Canopy of state We sin and will not be said or thought to sin and this maketh sin more sinful This doth fores occludere misericordiae not shut out the sin but God himself letteth fall a Portcullis between God's mercy and our soul emptyeth God as it were who of himself is an inexhaust fountain of mercy ever ready to flow and will not suffer him to be what he is to be so good as he is For by our impenitency he cannot do us what good he would we will not suffer him to be merciful we will not suffer him to wipe out our sins by forgiveness but hide them as much as we can from his light and beams cover them that he may not see them and by our evasions and excuses leave him no sin to wipe out To conclude this point If we sport thus with God's Wisdome if we strive to deceive him caecâ die in these dark shops and grots of excuses if we think that any cover will keep us from his eye who is greater
unto death There is lex Factorum the Law of Works For they are not all Credenda in the Gospel all articles of Faith there be Agenda some things to be done Nor is the Decalogue shut out of the Gospel Nay the very articles of our Creed include a Law and in a manner bind us to some duty and though they run not in that imperial strain Do this and live yet they look towards it as towards their end Otherwise to believe them in our own vain and carnal sense vvere enough and the same faith vvould save us vvith vvhich the Devils are tormented No thy Faith to vvhich thou art also bound as by a Law is dead that is is not faith if it do not vvork by a Law Thou believest there is a God Thou art then bound to vvorship him Thou believest that Christ is thy Lord Thou art then obliged to do what he commandeth His Word must be thy Law and thou must fulfill it His Death is a Law and bindeth thee to mortification His Cross should be thy obedience his Resurrection thy righteousness and his Coming to judge the quick and the dead thy care and solicitude In a word in a Testament in a Covenant in the Angel's message in the Promises of the Gospel in every Article of thy Creed thou mayest find a Law Christ's Legacy his Will is a Law the Covenant bindeth thee the Good news obligeth thee the Promises engage thee and every Article of thy Creed hath a kind of commanding and legislative power over thee Either they bind to some duty or concern thee not at all For they are not proposed for speculation but for practice and that consequence vvhich thou mayest easily draw from every one must be to thee as a Law What though honey and milk be under his tongue and he sendeth embassadours to thee and they intreat and beseech thee in his stead and in his name Yet is all this in reference to his command and it proceedeth from the same Love which made his Law And even these beseechings are binding and aggravate our guilt if we melt not and bow to his Law Principum preces mandata sunt the very intreaties of Kings and Princes are as binding as Laws preces armatae intreaties that carry force and power with them that are sent to us as it were in arms to invade and conquer us And if we neither yield to the voice of Christ in his royal Law nor fall down and worship at his condescensions and loving parlies and earnest beseechings we increase our guilt and make sin sinful in the highest degree Nor need we thus boggle at the word or be afraid to see a Law in the Gospel if either we consider the Gospel it self or Christ our King and Lord or our selves who are his redeemed captives and owe him all service and allegeance For first the Gospel is not a dispensation to sin nor was a Saviour born to us that he should do and suffer all and we do what we list No the Gospel is the greatest and sharpest curb that was ever yet put into the mouth of Sin The grace of God saith S. Paul hath appeared unto all men teaching us that is commanding us Tit. 2.11 to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts Libertas in Christo non fecit innocentiae injuriam saith the Father Our liberty in Christ was not brought in to beat down innocency before it but to uphold it rather and defend it against all those assaults which flesh and bloud our lusts and concupiscence are ready to make against it Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world He taketh away those sins that are past by remission and pardon but he setteth up a Law as a rampire and bulwork against Sin that it break not in and reign again in our mortal bodies There Christ is said to take away not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sin of the world that is the whole nature of Sin that it may have no subsistence or being in the world If the Gospel had nothing of Law in it there could be no sin under the Gospel For Sin is a transgression of a Law But flatter our selves as we please those are the greatest sins which we commit against the Gospel And it shall be easier in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah then for those Christians who turn the grace of God into wantonness who sport and revel it under the very wings of Mercy who think Mercy cannot make a Law but is busie onely to bestow Donatives and Indulgences who are then most licencious when they are most restrained For what greater curb can there be then when Justice and Wisdom and Love and Mercy all concur and joyn together to make a Law Secondly Christ is not onely our Redeemer but our King and Law-giver As he is the wonderful Counsellour Isa 9 6. Psal 2.6 so he came out of the loyns of Judah and is a Law-giver too Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion The government shall be upon his shoulder He crept not to this honour Isa 9.6 but this honour returned to him as to the true and lawful Lord With glory and honour did God crown him and set him over the works of his hands Heb. 2.7 As he crowned the first Adam with Understanding and freedom of Will so he crowned the second Adam with the full Knowledge of all things with a perfect Will and with a wonderful Power And as he gave to Adam Dominion over the beasts of the field so he gave to Christ Power over things in heaven and things on earth And he glorified not himself Heb. 5.5 but he who said Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee he it was that laid the government upon his shoulder Not upon his shoulders For he was well able to bear it on one of them For in him the Godhead dwelleth bodily And with this power he was able to put down all other rule autority and power 1 Cor. â—5 24 to spoil principalities and powers and to shew them openly in triumph to spoil them by his death and to spoil them by his Laws due obedience to which shaketh the power of Hell it self For this as it pulleth out the sting of Death so also beateth down Satan under our feet This if it were universal would be the best exorcism that is and even chase the Devil out of the world which he maketh his Kingdom For to run the way of Christ's commandments is to overthrow him and bind him in chains is another hell in hell unto him Thirdly if we look upon our selves we shall find there is a necessity of Laws to guide and regulate us and to bring us to the End All other creatures are sent into the world with a sense and understanding of the end for which they come and so without particular direction and yet unerringly
our strength And this is all 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people Deut. 30. that they should thus love him And his promises are Yea and Amen even in temporal blessings much more in spiritual And if we fail yet his promise is true and we have lied against our own souls He gave us strength enough and we have betrayed it to our lusts and the vanities of the world have fallen with our staff in our hand failed in the midst of all advantages and suffered our selves to be beaten down in our full strength when there were more with us then against us 3. Last of all he hath born witness from heaven and hath registred the names of those in his book who have walked before him with a perfect heart as a 2 Chron. 15.17 1 Kings 15.14 Asa b 1 Kings 3.6 David c 2 Kings 23.25 Josiah And this under the Old Covenant Much more then may we attain to it under the New which was brought in to this end to make every thing perfect For there can be no reason given why Christ who is the Son should not make more perfect men then Moses who was but a Servant why the Gospel should not make as good Saints as the Law Divines usually distinguish between Perfection of parts and Perfection of degrees The first they say must be brought into act by cleaving not to one alone but to every commandment of God and casting down every imagination beating down every tentation that may stand between them and it The second is but in wish But in truth there is no reason why they should thus quite shut out that Perfection of degrees For though in the highest degree it cannot be it being the nature of Love Not to consist within any terms To have no Non ultrà in this world To think not of what is done already but what is further to be done or in the Apostle's phrase To forget that which is behind and to reach forth to those things which are before and never to be at rest but on the holy hill Yet there is no reason why we may not admit of a Perfection of degrees even in this life that is that Perfection may be intended to as high a degree as the assistance of God's grace and the breath of the Spirit if we hinder not will raise it For every stream will rise as high as its spring And this is alwayes joyned with a firm purpose of pressing further of proficiency and being better every day of growing in grace of passing from virtue to virtue from perfection to perfection according as we have more grace more strength more light which will increase with our work and raise it self with our endeavours For to him that hath it shall be given and he that walketh in the light shall have more irradiations and illuminations To this Perfection we may ascend higher and higher adde degree unto degree be more and more perfect more strong against tentations more chearful in our obedience more delighting our selves in the Law of the Lord. But he that denieth the Perfection to be possible even in this life instead of easing his soul endangereth it instead of magnifying the Gospel of Christ denieth the power of it and layeth a pillow of security for flesh and bloud to rest on to sleep out the time in the vineyard even to the last hour and so to pass to torment in a dream Indeed Perfection is so often mentioned in Scripture that men are not unwilling to acknowledge there is such a thing but then consulting with flesh and bloud they have found out an art to make it what they please As it is too common a thing when we cannot raise our endeavours and fit and proportion them to the rule to bend and draw down the Law it self and make it condescend and apply it self to our infirmities and even flatter our most loathsom lusts and affections Thus we find Perfection confined to Orders and Offices to Monks and Votaries nay wrapped up in a Monk's coul Men have counted it a kind of Perfection to be sick and die and be buried in one Some have placed Perfection in a sequestered life When though they leave the world and the company of men they may still carry themselves along with them and in the greatest silence and retiredness have a tumult a a very market in their souls And he that converseth in publick may possess all things and yet use them as if he used them not may have a companion and be alone may be a great commander and yet more humble then his servant may secretum in plateis facere make a cell in the streets and be alone in the midst of an army Perfection we may call it but as one faith there is no greater argument of Imperfection then this non posse pati solem multitudinem not to be able to walk without offence in the publick wayes to entertain the common occasions to meet our enemy and encounter him in all places to act our parts in common life upon the common stage and yet hold fast our uprightness shine in the midst of a froward generation and keep our selves unspotted of the world to be Lambs with Lions and Kids with Leopards to live in the coast where Malice breatheth and yet be meek where Rebellion is loud and not forfeit our obedience where Profaness vaunteth it self and yet be religious to be honest in the tents of Kedar to be Lots in Sodom and so to save our selves from a froward generation Not to be able to do this is a great imperfection For Religion can shew it self in any place in any soil in any air in the closet and in the field in the house and in the Temple This man may have a proud heart in a cottage another a low and humble soul in a palace For every man's thoughts are not as low built as his house nor do every great man's imaginations towre in the air In terra omni non generantur omnia saith the Oratour We cannot find all creatures in every soil But a Perfect man is a creature a plant which may grow up in any place Carry a pure heart with thee and thou art safe in a throng But if thy heart be polluted thou art not safe no not in a grott or cave or in the most retired solitariness Again some have placed Perfection in Poverty and a voluntary abdication of the things of this world And yet we see that as Riches may be a snare so Poverty may be a gulf to swallow us up and that Riches may be an instrument to work out Perfection as well as Want And our skill though it be as great in one as in the other yet it is more glorious in the one then in the other as we look more upon a Diamond that is well cut then upon a pebble-stone He is the poorest man that is poor vvhen he is rich It is
Israel and of England compared 422 423. J. JAmes St. James and St. Paul seem to contradict each other but do not 276. Jealousie vvhat in Man vvhat in God 381. 613. 643. Jer. xxv 18-29 299. JESUS how excellent a name 732 733. That JESUS is the Lord though Law and Custome and Education teach us yet vve cannot say it but by the holy Ghost 759 c. Many say so yet but few say it 763 764. He vvho saith it aright saith it vvith his Tongue 764. 770. with his Heart 765. 770. and vvith his Hand 766. 270 c. Oh vvhat pity and shame it is that Man should suffer the Flesh the World and the Devil to Lord it over him and not Jesus 768. Jews vvhy commanded to offer sacrifice 72. Why blamed sometimes for so doing 80. 82. They pleased themselves exceedingly in this and in other outward servics 108. v. Formality Their great privileges 418. Privileges of Christians greater then theirs 419. Many things vvere permitted to be done by the Jews vvhich are unlawful for a Christian 869. Their course of sinning 611. Jew a term of reproch 194. Job's case 292. 903. Joh. vi 63. 468. ¶ viii 36. 742. 1 Joh. ii 4. 723. ¶ 16. 280. ¶ iv 18. 398. ¶ v. 3. 112. St. John v. Charity St. John Baptist a burning and shining light 549 c. How the Jews at first admired him 553. but vvithin a vvhile disliked him 554. Joy good and bad 338. Sensitive and Rational 553. It is configured to the soul that receiveth it 860. God's Joy over us and our Joy in Him and in one another 861. Against them that rejoyce in the sins or calamities of others 862 863. Joy that ariseth from Contemplation of good is nothing to that which ariseth from Action 1125. True Joy floweth from Love 153. and from Obedience 113. 992. 1125 1126. Sorrow is vvont to go before Joy 560. Judas's repentance 336. his despair 343. Judge neither others sinners because afflicted nor thy self a Saint because prosperous 295 c. 616. We may disannul our former Judgment upon better evidence vvithout inconstancie 676 c. The Judgment of God and of the World how different 964. God's J. and Man's differ much 616. That of Men for the most part corrupt and partial 246 247. Judgment Few believe there shall be a day of Judgment 926. Though scoffers say Nay it will assuredly come 237 238. Why it is so long in coming 238. It cannot be the object of a wicked man's hope 242. 737. v. CHRIST Curious enquiry after the time of the last Judgment condemned 248 c. We ought to exspect and wait for it 250. Signes of the day of Judgment 1043 c. Judgments Of God's temporal Judgements 611. Judgments justly fall even on God's own people vvhen they sin 290. In general J. many times the good are involved vvith the evil vvithout any prejudice to God's Justice 291. Reasons to prove that point 292. A fearful thing to be under J. and not to be sensible of them 643. Judgments should fright us from sin and drive us to God 364. 800. If they vvork not that effect they are forerunners of hell-torments 365. 801. We should especially be afraid of those sins vvhich are vvont to bring general J. on a Nation 297. It is the greatest judgement not to fear J. till they come 502. 615. We must studie God's J. 615. v. Punishment Judge The Judge's calling necessary 821. His office 120. How his autority may be lawfully made use of 822. Julian the Apostate 957. His liberality 143. His malitious slander of the Christians 148. He wounded Religion more with his wit then with his sword 959. His death 959. Justice of how large extent 119. What it is 120. Private J. is far larger then publick 121. Our common Nature obligeth to live justly 123. and so doth the Law of Nature 124. 126. c. 134. and Fear of God's Vengeance 125. and the written Law of God 128. especially Christ's Gospel 129. How strict observers of Justice some Heathens have been 128. How small esteem Justice hath in the world 131. Motives to live justly 134 c. That which is not Just can neither be pleasant nor profitable 126. v. Mercy Justification what 811. The Church of Rome's doctrine confuted 812 813. Faith justifieth but none but penitents 872. The several opinions about Justification may all be true 1074 c. But many nice and needless disputes there be about it 1075. Wherein Justification consisteth 1075. K. KEyes Power of the Keyes neither to be neglected nor contemned 47. Kingdomes v. Fate Kings though mighty Lords on the earth are but strangers in the earth 532. 535. K. love not to be too much beholding to their subjects 232. It is not expedient for the world to have onely one King 233. Kneeling in the service of God proved by Calvine to be of Divine autority 756. Knowledge Want of Knowledge many alledge to excuse themselves but without cause 437. Pretended K. how mischievous 556 557. Three impediments of K. 96 c. Four wayes to get K. 66. Of which Practice is the chief 68 69. K. is the daughter of Time and Industrie 956. What kind of K. it is that we have in this life 678. God's wayes are not to be known by us his will and our duty easily may 93. We should not studie to know things not revealed 248. Though the K. of what is necessary be easy and obvious 93. 95. yet it is to be sought for with all diligence 96. K. even in the Apostles grew by degrees 61. K. of all future things if we had it would do us no good 789. K. of Sin v. Sin K. of Nature Medicine Laws Husbandry is very excellent 656 657. Saving K. is onely necessary 59 60. 248. K. of Christ surpasseth all other K. 715 c. but it must be not a bare speculative K. but practical 723 c. Many know the Truth but love it not 549. 690. Knowledge Will Affections all to be employed in the walk of a Christian 516 c. Speculative K. availeth nothing without Love 517. It is but a phantasm a dream 518 519. 724 725. It is worse then Ignorance 518. 520. 523. 690. 723. Adde therefore to K. Practice 519 725. As K. directeth Practice so Practice encreaseth K. 520. 693. Words of Knowledge in Scripture imply the Affections 463. Love excelleth Knowledge 977. How God is said not to know the wicked 173. L. LAbour is the price of God's gifts 219. It is not onely necessary but honourable 220. No grace gotten by us no good wrought in us without Labour and pains 667 c. v industrie Sin is a laborious thing 927. more laborious then Virtue 928. It is sad to consider that many will not labour so much to be saved as thousands do to be damned 928. Law Whether going to Law be lawfull 821. Good men have alwayes scrupled the point 822. Cautions and rules to be observed 822. 824. Lawfull
Our Sins were they that crucified Christ 29. The Gospel is the sharpest curb of Sin 1065. Of Speculative Sins and Sinners 172. Sincerity necessary in all our actions 369. Slavery None comparable to that under Satan and Sin 740 741. v. Redemtion Sluggards awakened 220. Sobriety to be observed in our diet and Modestie in our attire 639. 1101 1102. Socrates how jeered by Aristophanes 372. Solitary Whether the solitary Retiredness of Monks be as they count it Perfection 1089. Solomon how painted 1069. Of his ECCLESIASTES 534. SON The Son of all the three Persons fittest to be our Mediatour 4. 13. God hath four sorts of Sons 4. Sophocles reproched Euripides 372. He thanked his Old age for freeing him from Lust 593. Sorrow good and bad 338. Worldly S. worketh death 564. Sometimes it ushereth-in Repentance and Comfort 564. Soul v. Body The Soul should be set on heavenly not earthly things 646 c. The Scripture commandeth so 646. The Soul is too noble to mind the earth 647. Nothing below proportionable to it nothing satisfactory 648 c. Every man ought to take care of his brother's Soul 576. The Soul is far more excellent then the Body and therefore chiefly to be cared for 886. Its riches and ornament what 78 79. It s original hard to know 94. Souldiers What S. should do what not 920 Speach The manner of ouâ— Speach varieth with our mind 385. Out of the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh 976. Many speak fair and mean foul 764 c. It is a shame to pretend Religion and to be ashamed to speak out 981 982. v. Confess Spirit That the SPIRIT worketh is evident but the manner of his working cannot be discerned 315. Some presume the Sp. teacheth them immediately without yea against the Word 683 684. What it is to Glorifie God in the Sp. 744. 748. A pretense of the Sp. and a pretended Zele the two grand impostures of the world 528. Many laying claim to the S. we are to try them by the Scripture 527 529. v. H. Ghost Spirits cannot be defiled by intermingling with bodies 166. The fight between the Spirit and the Flesh described 159. 312. 632. 707. Spiritual things far transcend temporal 884 c. 887 895. Stimula a Goddess among the Romans 341. Stoicks condemned for choosing Death rather then Miserie 1011. Strangers We all are but Strangers on earth 530 c. The Word of God is our best supply in this condition 531. That we are S. here proved by Scripture 536. and by reason drawn from the Insufficiency of all things here to satisfie Man's mind 537. Yet few believe the point 538 539. Our Enemies in this our Pilgrimage 539. Our provision and our defense 540. How we should behave our selves as S. 540. We ought to look on all things in the world with the suspicious and jealous ey of a Stranger 541. Strength Attempt nothing above thy Strength 249. 250. Student The Student's calling not so easy as other men think 223. SUB the Preposition much descanted upon 637 c. Subjection we like not but must yield it 637 c. Subordination necessary in Bodies natural Civile Ecclesiastical 640. Success many make an argument to prove themselves and their wayes good 684. But good or ill Success is not an argument of God's love or dislike 712. Sudden surprisalls what effect they have upon us 254. Sufferings for Christ's sake most comfortable 568. Suffering for Righteousness is the highest pitch of a Christian 695. One may suffer for one virtue neglect the rest 704 c. One may suffer for Pleasure for Profit for Humour for Fear for Honour and yet be no Martyr 705 706. v. Martyrdom What shall he do who having not yet repented of his grievous sins must either suffer present death or deny the Truth he believeth 707 c. Superiours v. Obedience Superstition what 462. We must not cry it down in others and cherish it in our selves 462. Many for fear of S. shipwreck on Profaneness 982. But we must shun them both 758. Supper the LORD's Supper not absolutely necessary 81. not to be given to Infants nor to the Dead 81. How slight a preparation serveth many mens turn 81. It is ridiculously abused by the Papists and very grosly by others 449. 462. In this Sacrament we must look I. on the Authour Christ 450. and not be offended at the meanness either of the Minister or of the Elements 451. II. on the Command of Christ 451. which must be so observed as not to rest in the outward action 452. Motives to invite us to the Lord's S. 452. This holy Sacrament fitteth our present condition 452. The manifold and great benefits we receive by it 453. 473. 490. 493. 495. The heavenly joy it putteth into our hearts 453 It is necessary for us to come and that often to the Lord's Table 454. How oft the primitive Christians did receive how oft we should now 454 455. Excuses for not communicating removed 456. He that loveth his sin and will live in it sinneth if he come and sinneth if he come not 456. Every Penitent is a fit Communicant 456. and so is every true Believer 456. Not onely great Proficients but even Beginners in Christ's School whatever some say to the contrary may yea ought to come to the holy Table 458. A conceit of our own Infirmity should not keep us away 456-459 463. Neither should a conceit of the high Dignity of the Sacrament do it 459 c. 476. They who abstein out of reverence seem to condemn them that are more forward 461. and their refraining may keep others away 462. How we ought to remember Christ at his Table 463 c. 473 c. Then especially is our Faith to be actuated 465. 475 489. Then we must examin and renew our Repentance 465. 476. 489. This Sacrament if received to a wrong end is not food nor physick but poison 467. Christ's Body and Bloud are not received corporally but spiritually 468. To receive Christ's flesh corporally would profit us nothing 468. Three manners of eating Christ's Body Sacramental Spiritual Sacramental Spiritual 473. We must come with Faith Hope Love Repentance Reverence 475 c. 489 Preparation necessary 478. 487. How negligently and inconsiderately many come to this Sacrament 479. 487. v. Examination What our Preparation should be 485 c. 834. This Sacrament is a feast of Love â—92 and none but they that are in Charity should come to it 490 c. 834. whether some should be set apart to examin others before admission to the Lord's Supper 494. With what reverence the antient Christians received 768. Wretched we if feeding so oft on Christ in the Sacram. we continue in our sins 813. Coming to the Lord's Table is a protestation of Faith and Repentance 769. 814. What kind of Protestants then are they who neither repent nor believe 814. We should at the H. Table be like unto men on their death-beds 814. Suspicion We