done in every body The Judge is of pure and fiery eyes sees down through darkness to our hearts and reins no casting of mists no deluding of this Judge and then no need of long proceedings frequent siftings and tedions Cribrations of the cause for all things are naked and bare in his sight all evident and clear before this Lord for this Lord is God The Lord God is his name 7. Now the names of God are referred to two heads 1. Simple and absolute or 2. In Relation to us Of the first sort Some respect his Essence or Nature as that name which we know not certainly how but we are taught to pronounce Jehovah Some respect that which we call but yet in tender sense dare scarce call it so his Personality as the names of Father Son and Spirit And some his Attributes Essential as Just Holy c. The second kind of relative names are such as King Governor Preserver and this of Dominus here the Lord 8. First for the Name and so the Nature of God it is an Ocean too immense and boundless for our discovery An Abyss for the sounding of our light and frail reason to propound And concerning this Title Lord I will not enter though my Text lie near the Creation into that curious dispute which yet amused Tertullian and St. Austin afterwards whether this stile then only and properly began in the worlds beginning and could not be attributed to God before Such speculation is but drie and useless stuff I will rather tell you what the School tells us of all Gods Names in relation that is such Names are not really in God but in the Creature So as God is called Summum Bonum not because God cannot admit a composition of those two or any pieces but because his Bonitas as comprehensive of all other and diffusive to all so supereminently above all And because all that retains the name of Good as derivative from him so in it self defective and to us deficient in compare with him saith Aquinas and yet even in affecting and accepting such names God delivers himself to us in a gracious way of endearment For where men aspire to Honor and ascend to titular additions therefore that the swelling vapor of a Longa Pagina as he calls it may lift them like a Pageant high in the air and hal'd from the community of baser earth God in a wonderfull descending still vouchsafes rather to honor his servants and Clients by sometimes assuming names of particular and individual reference as the God of Abrabam the fear of Isaac sometimes of general appliance to all the Israel of God as is the large extended and branching Tree the spreading Sun in an Expansion Dilatation Emanation Communication Consolation to all his servants in this full and chearfull name of Dominus the Lord. 9. Which name in the strict and proper acceptation they say can belong of right to none but God by reason it includes these two conditions First He that is exactly Dominus may at his pleasure use the thing whereof he is Lord enlarge diminish change annihilate that is as far as the nature of the thing will bear And who is so supream on earth Secondly The absolute Lord stands in need of nothing but is endued with a proper innate and self-sufficiency Aad who can boast himself to be so absolute Vnxi te in Regem in caput are notes of humane eminence in the Old and as plain is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New One from Samuels testimony a Seer and a chief Prophet of God and the other from St. Peter a prime Apostle both instructed in the Will of the Lord here And yet no Saul nor Roman Emperor nor any supream Head and Governor on earth since those times can ever say and say truly so much as to the foot of his body Politick I have no need of you much less then can the feet or legs the sides or arms or bulk of the body though never so big say to the head mistaking it for a Perruke say We have no need of thee 10. It was as is imaginable for this Energie in the restrained sense of the word that the Septuagint everywhere render Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and some such reverence to the name made Augustus sure so respective and nice as not to endure it and Suetonius reproves Domitian of incredible arrogance for not disclaiming that usual acclamation in the Amphitheatre of Dominofoeliciter Well might his Poet then recant and repent his Inscription of Dominus Deusque noster And yet we know what he that sits in that Emperors Throne the triple miter'd man of sin or if not so yet surely sinfull man doth dully and damnably retain and blushes not to this day to wear and hear from his Poets and Parasites in Print of Dominus Deus noster our Lord God the Pope And yet for the term of Dominus alone as in our language t is cheap enough The words Lord and Sir being very near allied in sense so in the Latine now and all those crums and drops of Spanish French Italian Eloquence into which the Latine is broken and dissolved it signifies no more it confers no more in usual phrase And in the very Greek of the New Testament so near Augustus dayes it is evident enough that their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was but equivalent to our Sir for it is observed that Mary Magdaleus gives it there to our blessed Saviour and at the same time envies it not but affords her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir to the very Gardiner 11. But a more usefull Note from both these Names together we may make out of St. Bernards rule Omne nomen Dei in Scripturis c. Every Name of God in Scripture sounds of Mercy or of Justice and both these are in this judicatorie to shew that Adam had now provoked not only a glorious God holy and just but his Lord Gracious and full of kindness to him This raises the wind into a foul storm swels a brook of disobedience to a Sea when man the master-piece the favorite turns against his God that had made him a kind of under-god given him dominion too For the Habendum enters with a Dominamini It was my Lord Adam from the beginning a Lord Lieutenant under the Lord of Hosts in three great Counties of the earth and air and Seas and of all things therein with power of life and death Ingratefull man to make offence against his maked the creature rise against his Creaâ—our that rais'd him from the dust sustain'd planted pleasur'd him with infinite varieties of sure and â—al favours This on the Remorse was it that cut David to the heart Against thee O Lord against thee have I â—inned and done this evill in thy sight No wonder if traiterous man on this recognition of the Judge offended hid himself and sought for shelter among the trees and even there remained startling
SERMONS AND DEVOTIONS OLD and NEW Revived and publisht as an Oblation of gratitude to all such of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy as retain the noble conscience of having ministred to the weak Condition of the Author now aged 73. The SERMONS at Court were before the War brake forth betwixt King and Parliament Also a Discourse of DUELS being a Collection and Transtation of other mens Opinions with some Addition of his own And this in special dedicated for their Use To the Right Honourable THOMAS LORD VISCOVNT BEAVMONT of Coleorton and Mr. ROBERT SVTTON Heir to Mr. Rich. Sutton of Tongue in Leicestershire By THOMAS PESTEL the meanest amongst his late Majesties Chaplains in ordinary Nonumque premantur in annum Hor. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Ekins at the Gun in Pauls Charch-yard 1659. DEVOTIONS ON Certain Anniversary FEASTS and other Occasions First on Ascension Day 1625. TO day white Saints and holy Angels sing To that pure Lamb some new triumphant thing Whereat the whole frame of the world ascends Each Bird on wings across his Journeys bends Upright and from the most exalted twist His voioe proclaims his Joyes above consist Earth swels to rise and heaves her Issue fair In swift perfumes to latch the mounting Air. Rise then my soul and every power awake Can wals of Dust so strong Resistance make Lo Thy Redeemer that brave Eagle flies With Cage and all breaking the marble skies His way to climb was fitst to be deprest Lay then his bloody Cross upon thy brest Which will be such a load as birds wings are To bear thee where his pleading wounds prepare A Crown of Glory made by conquest thine Was his by Nature where he will refine Thee and thy case of clay bright as his own When join'd in Glory both ascend one Throne The Relief on EASTER EVE LIke an Hart the live-long day That in thorns and thickets lay Rouse thee soul thy flesh forsake Got to relief from thy brake Shuddring I would have thee part And at every motion start Look behind thee still to see If thy frailties follow thee Deep in silence of the night Take a sweet and stoln delight Graze on Clover by this calm Precious spring of bleeding Balm Thou remembrest how it ran From his side that 's God and man Taste the pleasures of this stream Thou wilt think thy fâ—â—sh a dream Nightly this Repast go take Got to Relief from thy brake On WHITSUNDAY or God is Light GOD is all Light All eye who first gave sight To the dark Caos yielding no delight To him the double Parent whiles it lay So deep in night that nothing yet was day Wherein nought pleas'd his eye that blindly stood But when it saw He saw that all was good He whose eternal Essence House and Robe Are all one Light one boundless Christal Globe Fathers of Lights whose Son is from on high The day-spring and whose spirit an inward eye Which through this worlds wide Engine moves and rouls But dwels in us illumining our souls To search and find that whole and only Bliss Which of all three in one the Vision is Expostulation on the loss of a noble Gentlemans eye Mr. H. Ha. 1634. THou dreadfull Potter may thy humble clay Ask if Deformities or Darkness may Be pleasing in thy sight or why we find So many born so many striken blind Troops of diseases Change of chance to marr Thy work and leave a cloud where was a star If sin still made thy wrath thus heavy fall Alas thou mightst rain Darkness on us all If sins excess their pride that have their eyes Would all exceed for they would all despise But what on sins slaves as a plague is thrown Like manna fals and mercy to thine own The Sodomites were blind so Tobie was It fell on Paul as well as Elymas And to thy book thy glass when we repair Where as all scruples all solutions are That blind-born man so pos'd and quarrel'd there His parents too by thine own doom are clear And opening his thou giv'st us eyes to see That Natures Blemish may thy Glory be So canst thou blend these things and make us wealth Of Poverty and of a sickness health Want teaches Plenties use were night away We should grow wanton-weary of the day Blows Bruises Blindness ere thy work be done May into Medcine Balm and Eye-salve run God that through Darkness se'st down through my Rains And knowst how close this grief my heart constrains How this blow striks my eyes still that to weep I find them apter then to look or sleep Thou know'st the Muse was no phantastick fit Brought forth this verse I am not sick of wit But these disordered lines like Amraes deep Fetcht srom my soul in lowly murmur creep Up to thy Throne of Grace The rest is lost On New-years Day a New-years Gift Out of Gal. 4.4 God sent his Son made of a woman made under the Law First God sent his Sone GOD sent his Son to make mans joy begun From first to last in endless circle run Without Beginning God who never ends From boundless Being mans Beginning sends Mans double guard of Sun and stars we see Angels unseen all of his sending be A foodfull Garden after food came rest Then woman came of Visibles the best Her seed in Promise then in Gods intent Before all worlds into the world was sent But till all other sendings fail and fade The Blood that seal'd this mission was unmade Man first was sent to Reasons goodly Lamp Which dul'd he found and dim'd in sinful damp Then Sacrifice and Prayer which heard he saw New Light down sent him in a flaming Law Wild sinners scourge But School and Guide to those That tir'd by sin by Faith on him repose To make whose joyes in endless circle run From first to last Behold God sent his Son Made of a Woman MAde of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace The Lord of Glory leaves his place To Bour with Mary full of Grace God above all that 's great or good Is made of womans flesh and blood How rare a Vivary was this Our Lord within our Lady is O look Amazed Angels look But cannot read this my stick Book Till that Babes blood unclose the seal And so himself himself reveal The woman first that wrought our wo Remember first from man did grow Here all by Virgins blood was done Gods only Partner in his Son Made of a woman Heark you Race Of men no more this Sex disgrace Made under the Law UNder the Law He that the Ground-work laid Of Earth and gave the seas a Law was made Who gives the charge to this Eternal Word Supream-and-sole-law-giving mighty Lord. Proud slime and worms God bows our yoak to bear Put on in love to put us out of fear To service homage vassalage descends * Jan. 1. To day and first fruit of his blood he spends What Feind Eccentrick then shall force our souls
From motions regular about his Poles Shall even deadly sins in disaray Keep off our minds from his Diurnal sway Under the Law made he his resting place And chose the cutse to leave us under Grace But still to morals tied our hearts and hands Scorn not his easie yoak nor break his bands Without those Grates all fire of vertue cools None lawless thus but Devils Popes and Fools An Hymn on Trinity Sunday 1625. Tuned according to S. Bernards Cur mundus militat c. SIDesideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus agere gratias O pater Luminum pater illius Qui pater noster est tibi filius Per quem Coelestia singula feceris Quicum fundamina terrae conjeceris Quorum mens agitat molem mirabilis Atque operarius est ineffabilis OTRINE rejici quanquam sim meritus Me tamen refici dignare spiritus Re visas obsecro sol semper oriens In Lutum recidens Cor meum moriens Vt quae refulserit exinde Puritas Sit illi salus sancta securitas Heu sines animam hac in putredine Mundani pulveris omni dulcedine Supernae Gratiae privatam degere Quam nutu facili possis protegere Si Desideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus reddere gratias Ad Iesum Redemptorem Tu qui Serpentis caput contuderis Qui Preces Lachrymas sanguinem fuderis Orcum post tumulum qui penetraveris Et mortis Dominum morte prostraveris Et super nubium tractus ascenderis Ac modis milites mille defenderis Labimur labimur Heu dicto citiùs Jesu suavissime ni sis propitius Menteis irradians faveris lumine Ac labes diluens cruoris flumine Et sancti spiritus accendens flamine Nos incredibili leves solamine Si Desideria cordium satias Aeternas volumus habere gratias On the Holy SACRAMENT LOrd to thy flesh and blood when I repair Where dreadfull joyes and pleasing tremblings are Then most I relish most it doth me good When my soul faints and pines and dies for food Did my sins murder thee To make that plain Thy pierc'd-dead-living body bleeds again Flow sad sweet drops what diffring things you do Reveal my sins and seal my pardon too A Psalm for Christmass day morning 1 FAirest of morning Lights appear Thou blest and gaudy day On whom was born our Saviour dear Make haste and csme away 2 See See our pensive breasts do pant Like gasping Land we lie Thy holy Dews our souls do want We faint we pine we die 3 Let from the skies a joyfull Rain Like Mel or Manna fall Whose searching drops our sins may drain And quench our sorrows all 4 This day prevents his day of Doom His mercy now is nigh The mighty God of love is come The day-spring from on high 5. Behold the great Creator makes Himself an house of clay A Robe of Virgin flesh he takes Which he will wear for ay 6 Heark heark the wise Eternal Word Like a weak Infant cries In form of servant is the Lord And God in Cradle lies 7 This wonder struck the world amaz'd It shook the stary frame Squadrons of spirits stood and gaz'd Then down in Troops they came 8 Glad Shepherds ran to view this sight A quire of Angels sings And Eastern Sages with delight Adore this King of Kings 9 Bis. Joyn then all hearts that are not stone And all our voices prove To celebrate this holy One The God of Peace and Love PRAYER and PRAISE TO work strong lines and wreath a Crown of Baies For Jesus Brows Take servent Prayer and Praise 1. That runs and flows and bears a deeper sense Then winding Verse or ratling Eloquence It rises first and breaks through hearts of stone But not till Aarons rod be struck thereon Cleft with Remorse then climbs through weeping eyes With silver feet transcending far the skies To wash his feet whose purple drops divine Will turn this water into Angels wine 2. This made of words which are but vapor pent In forge of flesh by panting bellows sent To mix with mother Air yet this to me Shall both a blessing and an honor be Saith God who cals those things as if they were Which are not so or do not so appear To us And look how sweet it strikes the sense When vernal winds inspire their Influence On flowery Meads so thanks like Incense rise And Heavan takes praise as perfum'd sacrifice A Psalm for Sunday Nights 1 COme Ravisht souls with high Delight In sweet immortal Verse To crown the day and welcome night Jehovahs praise Reherse 2 O sing the Glories of our Lord His Grace and Truth resound And his stupendious acts Record Whose mercies have no bound 3 He made the All informing Light And hosts of Angles fair 'T is he with shadows cloaths the night He clouds or clears the Air. 4 Those restless skies with stars enchaste He on firm hindges set The wave embraced earth he plac'd His hanging Cabinet 5 Wherein for us all things comply Which he hath so decreed That each in order faithfully Shall evermore proceed 6 We in his Sommer sun-shine stand And by his favour grow We gather what his bounteous hand Is pleased to bestow 7 When he contracts his brow we mourn And all our strength is vain To former dust in death we turn Till he inspire again 8. Then to this mighty Lord give praise And all our voices prove The Glory of his name to raise The God of Peace and Love The Christians Reply to Christs Venite POssum good Lord by thee inclinal Volo sometimes with ease I find Nolo yet runs so in mind Male still makes me lag behind PRIDE will fall but Grace to the Humble 1. THis fall Fell Lucifer first tries Who endlong fell never to rise Woman the next then man and all Proud flesh from them have caught the fall 2. From this foul falling sickness shall The fall of one recover all Mankind that medcin'd by his Spirit His best of Graces shall inherit Whereby he still in it doth fall Upon his humble servants all His conjugal Prayer Domestick GOD infinitely Great and Good Purge all our sins by Jesus blood From serpentine three deadly foes The Gardens of our souls enclose That Spirit which Grace and Truth affords Rule all our actions thoughts and words Our hearts into his Temples raise Our tongues loud Organs of his praise Lord make our selves and Race throughout Pure humble sober chast devout Loyal and gratefull wise and just On thee and industrie to trust Blest with a low but glad estate In food and Rayment moderate Nor rich of poor to be en ied Nor poor to be by rich supplied Give freedom Order Health and Peace Then in thy favour to decease When Nature here by Grace prepar'd May look for Glory afterward Vpon a Bible presented to a young Lady the Lady Kath. C. 1624. THE world is Gods large Book wherein we learn Him in his glass of wonders to discern But
and defiled both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 soon after they were made There 's opprobrium ab origine Thence all slanderers may count their Pedigree For the devil infusing this venom into those Giants enflamed them to the scaling of Joves Throne or if not that we will believe the Scripture that if Nimrod the mighty light upon a rout of Populorum such babling and bawling sots as he found in Shinar all of one lip Gen. 11.1 they in their wicked conspiracy so it is called Wisd 10.5 would soon be at it for a City and Tower unperishable Make it of Brick incombustible and for drowning they 'l take order with the Almighty for the top shall reach to Heaven 9. So deduce Opprobrium from the old Dragon to a Serpentine Cadmean Nimrodian race of Giants mixt of Populorum and Maximorum too And what shamefull work will they make a mad work indeed even a world of wickedness time to look to the Circumference For if these have all one language concur in voting for a new frame and have a mind to be towring aloft nothing will stay them but Sidera feriam ero sicut Altissimus then that 's reaching Heaven right but the wrong way for they are not at Heaven yet Such a piece of work in hand and they bragged of a mountain-birth But Quid exit You know who blasted the business by a consusion first and a diffusion and dispersion afterwards and observe the just recompence the Sentence ex ore tuo Nequam Their babling to marr their building their own tongues to make them to fall fall out and fall off no longer able to stand to their great work because unable to understand one another 10. But for all that sundring at Babel soderd again we find them in the Text. This Generation of Nimrod Belus let him be and these right sons of Belial for no yoak will hold them for observe this confluence of Omnium Populorum Maximorum and find Jusque datum sceleri ex plebiscitis Senatus consultis seelera exercentur all exceeded When mens hands are once at liberty no King in Jsrael why then every man doth what seems good in his own eyes and so here when their tongue 's once loose the Lords anointed shall be reproacht The Lord himself blasphem'd And what Lord shall controul them so floats the ship without an Helm so flings the horse without a Bridle and so their tongues run madding through the world far worse so that the Apostle St. James cries it thrice Fire Fire Fire How great a mischief comes of this Fire setting on fire the the course of nature and is set on fire of Hell thirher still it brings us you see this untuly evil full of deadly and divelish poison all contract in this Malady all concentered in opprobrium 11. But be this poison of Populorum never so noxious and those that ejaculate never so mighty What are these all to the Almighty these Maximi to him Christ is opt max. Shall Jehovab suffer by such a Typhoeus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be liable to such aspersion No Inimici tui Domine shall not be able to do this violence to thy anointed David nor move a tongue to infest the meanest of thy servants This is indeed the point under tryal for all this seems asserted in holy Scripture 1. First Servi are servati They should indeed be sure to be pelted and dusted and stoned from this Center painted with infamous spots and tokens of this plague in their bosom but for Jehovah here a good Domine that hath chosen and though not quite taken them out of this present evil world yet as good for they use it as if they used it not their Conversation is in Heaven and themselves within three steps In Eph. 2. He hath quickned us together with Christ and hath raised us together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus And is not that high and aloof far and free from Opprobrium 2. Next is David the Lords anointed his body secured in the Sepulchre and this Monster is no Hyena Pascitur in vivis His immortal part is mounted not on Doves but Angels wings and past the clouds and storms of Populorum here hath met those acclamations on mount Zion and made one of that innumerable company the general Assembly and Church of the first-born among the Spirits of just men made perfect and in a Kingdom that cannot be moved all this in Heb. 12.22 23. So David himself is free body and soul from the strife of tongues and left above this world of wickedness 3. Much more is Davids Lord advanced set on the right hand of his Father all his enemies made his foot-stool far above all Principalities and Powers and at his coronation all knees have bowed and all tongues confessed that Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father 4. And for God the Father What can Opprobrium do to him The Lord is King be the people never so impatient the earth never so unquiet God that is very high exalted higher then the highest far aboue all Gods above all men sure out of their reach 't is he too that can still the raging of the waves and the madness of the people If the Fremuerunt be never so loud against the Lord and against his anointed He that sits in Heaven shall laugh The Lord shall have them in derision And now where is Davids Petition What is become of our Circumserence Servi Christus Domini Jehovah all free from Opprobrium nay never a one of all these for all this begin with the highest first and if this Monster set on Jehovah flie in his face he will sure spare none of the rest 1. And we need not go far for proof they corrupt others and speak of wicked Blasphemy their talking is against the most high they blasphem thee dayly saith David even weeping ripe that God would not redress and repress those Blasphemies We need go but to this very Text Remember it O Lord thy enemies have blasphemed thee we need not so much Alas We cannot stop our ears against words cloathed in death and jeasts flumine dignos and those execrable Oaths and Perjuries for which the land mourns spent in despight of God and of his Prophets flying roul full of plagues against such Swearers who yet roul on and roul out their hours in hellish Blasphemies as if they practised here against their coming thither No wonder then if earthly Gods put up and bosome many and mighty reproaches and abuses when it is here upon Record and evidence too much every where of this Crimen laesae Majestatis as high as Heaven 2. Next for Christ Jesus Pursue his story but from his Baptism for all the opening of Heaven and the Doves descent and his Fathers attestation coming among his own How did they receive him Not as the Lord Messiah but as a Messiah in
and none able to answer him a word yet were they still offended at him and even in that offended because he was unanswerable nay the lustre of his Grace and Goodness his temper and sweetness and clearness dis-illustring the highest of their Priests and Princes and Rulers of the people being dazled and madded with the splendor of his Vestigia the prints and proofs the tracts and evidences of his meekness and innocence all along in his active and passive obedience when there was nothing else for the tooth and tongue of envy they took indignation at his very vertues and Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered him to his Judgement 12. And now methinks we have been all this while in America among Negroes black slaves not so much as an Albus dextris but all black toothed and black-mouthed and black-tongued and black-sould people A generation viperous and rising strangly from the earth with spears and swords not in their hands but in their mouths And yet Negroes can but poison arrows to take away mens lives but these opprobrious people corrode the very honour of Gods best servants far more precious then life it self O foul presumption How camest thou into the world to cover and blast both carth and skie and all the Children of the Light and him that is the Father of Light overrunning all with this new Chaos this foul Reconfusion 13. Indeed some read for all the people here all the Mighty and if so that will make Infamy yet more infamous and this world of wickedness worse then it was 'T is best to hold us to our old belief for if with Copernicus we turn the skeme and so let Servi Rex David Christus Domini himself that is the whole Church militant on earth which is his Spouse his Dove his dearly Beloved one body and one Spirit with Christ and dear as his eyes or heart be under a power of such Populorum with the sway and addition of Maximorum that is if Might be added to multitude then will the Church of God be but a miserable Center when those other wheel aloft and thwart their underlinings like the Zodiaque All the bosoms then of all the servants of Jehovah Christus Domin would soon be filled with Reproaches and with deadly arrows like the poor Anatomy in the Almanack Cancer would not only go against the stomack while others lie heavy on the head and heart but every pelting petty Sagittary would be dribbling at the legs and very Aquarius pour out the venom and dregs and bottom of his Tankard upon Vestigia here the Footsteps of Gods people PART 2. ANd then what Remedy against Opprobrium populorum truly if we intend it of Faex populi the skum it is like Babylon they cannot because they will not be cured born and bred like a wild Asses colt saith Job worse saith Isaiah then Ox or Asse know not their own Owner not God that made them Subjects nor Gods anointed set over them for their good Rom. 13. Such stuborn stomacks as are irreducible by moral swasion or any power of Eloquence not Orpheus nor any from hell tune them to a temperate obedience either of that Command in the beginning of the old Testament which God gave Laban concerning Jacob Nequid durius speak no harsh language nor to a fear of that Commination in the end of the New Testament against such as despise Dominions and speak evil of Dignities and of things they know not raging waves foaming out their own shame and concludes the Lord is coming with 10000 of his Saints to execute Judgement upon such impious sinners for all their ungodly deeds and for all their hard speeches Will these regard a Prophet or a Preacher against whom their usual fence is to strike him with the tongue when with such the Lords anointed shall be no longer so if they list to bring their Expurgatory for they can do it as fast as Jesuits or Anababtists That brace of Sects whose Dignity proceeds of themselves like those Chaldeans in the Prophet and who scoff at Kings and Princes are a scorn unto them Hab. 1.10 Nay What Cure for such mad men as think themselves all Kings or as the Devil boasts that all the Kingdoms of the earth are their Doles and Donatives as mad as he that fate in the haven and counted all the ships arriving there his own proper goods Such sots as these may have at times some Lucida but never continue in one mind David for a fit shall be the breath of their Nostrils they will sing his Glory and challenge ten parts in the King But the Son of Bichri a man of Belial may turn all this with one blast and every one of them gone with Opprobrium We have no part in the Son of Jesse 2 Sam. 20. So one while the barbarous people call St. Paul a Murderer and presently a God Gods are come down to us in the shapes of men O run and fetch Garlands and let us sacrifice All on a suddain the wind changes and then this fine speaker Mercury must be stoned But what speak we of Servi Christus Domini was not our Lord himself so tost from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to crucâ—fige He They 'l none of him give them Barabbas What was he A thief he was a Robber made Insurrection in the City and committed Murder Did they not make a rare choice Yet such wise men as these are those who to this day first elect themselves and then clep and call their friends and fellows by the names of Saints and Children of God As for Moses and Aaron they are too proud and officious but Core and his complicies are called the people of the Lord and when they saw them go down quick to hell yet next morning at it again the people of the Lord still But is there no Balm no Physitian Yes enough if Mountbanks not mistaken for Doctors and if they prescribed not poison instead of medicine Such leaders seduce and cause a mad people to err The divisions of Reuben were from great thoughts of heart But might not Simeon and Levi these were their Writers and Teachers be the Raisers and Fomenters of such Divisions Sure I am in Num. 16. where the Rubenites conspite against Moses the meekest man on earth and Aaron the Saint of the Lord it is Corah and his company of Levites and that coar of envy in their hearts for the high Priesthood that began the mischief And how oft do we read forewarnings of false Prophets and in Act. 20.20 among your selves saith the Apostle shall rise up men speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them And I wish such Incendiaries only came from Rome with their charm of the Church Catholique and that we were free from Impostors and Seducers in this sence for drawing Disciples after them and infusing such Doctrines that with Satyrâ—k Sermons and incentive vociferations they have filled the State and Church both with
and the winter house Solomons house in Jerusalem and that in the Green and that in the forest of Libanon 1 King 7. And if many houses for a man for a King What for the King oâ— Kings Why the Scripture besides this in the Text mentions very many houses of the Lord a multiplicity a Zodiack of houses for the Sun of Righteousness for our Lord and Master Christ Jesus both to receive our service and to do us service in them all c. 1. First Mundi machina the Universe the whole round world with many fair and goodly rooms 2. then that named Habitaculum ejus sacrum Heaven his dwelling place the new Jerusalem of miraculous Structure past Amphions or Apollo's fingring The work of thy fingers saith David yet he speaks it only of this rough cast out-building stuck with stars which though a glorious sight yet is but the cover or shell of this great hollow Egg wherein as in a perfect Vivary full of Cages and Parks and ponds he hath ark't and housed together us and all inferiour Creatures But of his higher Palace His Empyreal in most court imperial for his Saints and Angels the Apostle calls it an House not made with hands but as he is light and his robe is so cloaths himself with light so is the house Light inaccessible Domine bonum est Let us dwell here No more go down from this mount but 3. we must descend as he vouchsafed to do to the womb of the Virgin Sol in Virgine sometime it s one of his houses in the Zodiack and now the Son of Righteousness was there there was God hid and housed for a time nay Gemini in virgine not in a Nestorian but in a sober sence and to crie up the Miracle such as never was God and Man together though in two natures yet in one person remaining what he was yet taking and made what he was not There was a right vivary indeed when the Lord of Glory blessed for ever took lise blood of the blessed Virgin our Lady O what a Store-house Treasure house Jewel house was that that confined that reserved such a Rarity What a strange new earthly heaven for God to dwell and dress himself in and yet behold without breaking that house forth he comes and brings a fourth house on his back another new house of his own making still though assisted in the nchoation yet terminated in his person 4. he only of the blessed Trinity wearing that garment they all wrought upon which creando assumpsit sumendo creavit non extra sed in persona sua which rayment was a body real not phantastick as Marcion that eldest child of Satan so Polycarpus called him and the Marichees imagined For then is all our faith imaginary too if no true conception then nor birth nor death nor resurrection true then is our preaching and your believing vain This destroyes all but we have not so learned Christ if we have been taught as the Truth is in Jesus We have learned that our Lord here took our very nature and true flesh woven with sinews a clay-house moated round about like one of ours that is compast with all mans infirmities sin except but very man of the substance of his mother No substance out of God or new caelestial or sidereal or Elementary matter as Valentinus thought A body then like ours yet in this unlike that in ipso articulo in the very moment of Conception it was proved entire and perfect in all the parts and endued with a rational soul at once which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saâ—tb Damascen the very extract of all novelty when that invisible and incommunicable verity by the Spirit took a soul and by the soul a body saith both Damascen and St. Cyprian when not by any addition or aggregation of Parts by degrees and leisurely sed uno conâ—extu the whole figure and frame of the body set 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the mighty work of Gods holy Spirit faith St. Austin and the School into which though a flow of manifold Graces from the divine nature of Wisdom Power Glory yet in the two natures united we preserve those adverbs all of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that is without Mutation Confusion Division Separation as the Council of Chalcedon against Eutyches Corpus aptasti it is in the Psalm Never so fitted for an house For in this house dwels the fulness of the God-head bodily that is not by a simple Inhabitation nor Assistance or Habitude or Dignity or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 willing consent or what they call Equality of honor or Nuncupation or Beneplacitum only None of all these will serve but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Union or Unition rather hypostatical In this house dwelt our Lord many years submitting to clouds and waves of Our Infirmities and in this house new-raised from ruine and made glorious this blessed Eagle flew Cage and all This holy Inhabiter of Eternity ascended house and all to his Holy Habitation in Heaven and is there enthroned on the right hand of his heavenly Father 5. But while he was an infant Lord in the hand of his blessed Virgin Mother here he dwelt a while in his Cradle-house the stable-cratch then the Palace of a great King at the sign of the Star in Bethlehem then the right house of Bread Panis Angelorum The true Bread-house and true Head-house though low and little of all his greater Houses his famous Churches after at those great Cities of Jerusalem Caesarea Antioch and in good time their sister Rome her self their little Sister earst that had no brests but since ovationed for Mater Domina as if Domus Cultus Dominus himself had been born and upbrought there ab Origine 6. But stay a while Let us observe Dominus Domus yet better and we shall find him returned from AEgypt abiding at Nazareth and Capernaum and Jerusalem but commonly in the dwelling houses and banqueting houses of his Converts 7. Let these then if I staied too long at the former serve briefly for two Removes of our Lord. And because the Sea of Tiberias is near at hand we may safely walk with him on the water or see him take ship or hear him preach from thence and then a Ship is more then Domus 't is Domus Domini the house of the Lord then indeed 8. From the Press of people he was fain to hide himself in that house But no house must hide or hold him long Over the brook Cedron there was a Garden and oft he resorted thither and thence betrayed was brought from house to house to Annas house and Caiphas to Pilats's Judgement-hall to Heroa's and back again to Pilate's so to his Cross and never rested till the noble Joseph laid him in his Garden-house in a new Sepulchre where never man lay yet that the common house and lodging of mankind the Grave 9. There Kings and Counsellors of the
earth build desolate places for themselves lie still and are at rest saith Job but so did not he we know better then so what he did I believe The third day he rose again and ascended into Heaven and at that house we have toucht already but yet from none of these houses not that eternal house of our Lord comes any comfort to us till that Spirit of the Lord the Comforter come from him to us to dwell in us so putting us all into one houshold of Faith the common faith and making us all the habitation of God by the Spirit 10. And to make fit this house this Lord the blessed Carpenter was put to work it out of the rough and troubled to take to break down a Partition-wall whose more then Alpine rockiness no Hannibal but he could conquer and no fire no liquor but his heart blood could penetrate Nothing but his living-dead body raise this dead living frame of Saints built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly framed together grows into an holy Temple in the Lord Eph. 2.20 21. There 's right Dominicum every way The house of the Lord In the Lord On the Lord By the Lord. This house then in no case to be left out nor we left out of it you know who would allow us no room in their Inn at the Popes head and by that device exclude us out of the Church which is called a great house 2 Tim. 2. and the foundation stands sure but sure it stands not all upon the cloudy Apennine This is just like private Mass that 's proper Communion a right Bull to pin down Universal in a particular corner as if to thrust twenty royal Courts into one Room like that people wise in their own conceit that to make sure of Conquest pinned and riveted the Goddess Victory to their City wals So these Reckoners go to it stilo novo the Romane Computation this and it is a good confession their fat Bishop Spalatâ— makes in all their names Ecclesians Catholicam nobiscum esse vel cogitamus vel cogimus They would fain think so and fain force us to think so but we are not much to trouble our selves at their Cogitamus God knows the thoughts of men to be but vain and the divisions of Reuben were from great thoughs of heart but from their Cogimus Libera nos Domine He hath and doth and will deliver us if we embrace our Creed and by vertue thereof belong to this house of the Catholick Church 11. Nay we our selves our souls and bodies are his Church and Temple which house we are 1 Cor. 6. wherein God remains under our roof gracing even the houses of his Saints bodies while they stand and faln watches over their Atoms while the spirits return to him and will recollect and raise them up in far greater State and Glory So that Mors shall not be ultima not the last line strectht upon this building but a linea yet more ultimate reaching from Earth to Heaven And so with much ado having so many houses to call at by the way which very calling yet hath done us some service and may do us more we are come Christo auspice to this very house in the Text and seen in a quarter of an hour this Sun pass through all those houses to this which is the last in our Zodiack The Temple which David prepared and Solomon built for the service of the Lord and in which house God hath a propriety stiled therefore by way of Excellency The house of the Lord. 12. Where the first service we can do for Domus Dominus both is to wake them meet with and meet for one another For is there not a mighty discrepance betwixt them the Temple a stately piece the Joy of the whole earth Par domus haec coelo But you know what follows will not serve his turn though as God by his Eternity transcendently and supereminently comprehends all time so by his immensity all places And Dominus here though true of Christ as we heard and may hear more anon is Jehovah and he dwell in Temples Temples plural if set altogether made with hands Heaven of Heavens cannot What house can contain him then What house will you build for me no house Lord to comprehend thee who art God incomprehensible but for thy name and an house for thy worship and service that may comprehend us But what matter if no such houses at all neither on this Mount nor yet at Jerusalem but right service in Spirit and Truth So say some haunted perchance with a worldly and dangerous spirit we deny not our best sacrifice on the heartaltar best worship in Spirit Yet if God were undelighted with a set local Worship why would the Scripture mention Hannahs motion 1 Sam. 2. And another Anna the Prophetess residing in the Temple why our Saviour dayly in the Temple and Synagogues and his Apostles Peter the chief and John the beloved of Jesus ascending at the hour of prayer Or would the Spirit of God have put it into the heart of David a man after Gods own heart to prepare him service in a Temple or his Prophet in his name so cry out upon this deserting this house of God and bring his double action of Wast vain Wast on our own ceiled houses and laying wast this house of God My house lie wast Hgg. 1. so the propriety held then and if we follow it to the spring-head we find indeed Cultus Domini before Domus Abel sacrificed and in Enos time they invocated Immolation and Invocation both in the beginning of Genesis but go on and you come to a place framed before you go out of Exodus and even in Genesis we have Noahs and Abrahams Altars and Jacobs Bethel But to clear this at once only that in Deut. 12. The reason why Cultus was not set in order because no proper Domus for this Dominus ver 8. Now you serve me as you lâ—â—â— hievery man what is right in his own eyes and why no Reformation v. 9. you are not yet come to the rest and inheritance which the Lord your God gives you but when you go over Jordan a better order then then there shall be a place which the Lord shall chuse to cause his name to dwell there So far is Dominus from dis-avowing Domus that he ordains both Domus Cultus and therefore let them remain all there as we find them here in order Cultus Domus Domini Do you not find too every precious stone and string appointed to Moses by pattern in the Mount and David had the Platform of the Temple in writing 1 Chron. 28.19 And Dominus then took possession of Domus his Glory appeared before the Tabernacle and filled the Temple at Solomons dedication yea he made his Residence in both took up his seat in the Tabernacle his Mercy seat too wherein
he most delights to shew and shine forth in perfect beauty and majesty and of the Temple he saith Mine eyes and my heart shall be there continually This is my rest for ever Here I will dwell The place where his honor dwels which he owns My house and gives it a name An house of Prayer and our Saviour confirms it in the New Testament too it shall be so My Fathers house shall be so called and therefore I pray you in Gods name let him have it so The house of the Lord let it be Let him rest and dwell in this house for ever but a thousand pities he should dwell alone no body to attend him What! The Courts of the Lords house and no Courtiers Are there no Places no Pensions no Offices in this Court where are then the servants of his Majesty I hope they be even here even all the true and loyal and faithfull servants of the earthly majesty will rejoyce and be glad by the benign Influence of a royal example to become faithful and obedient Worshippers of the Majesty in Heaven PART 3. THis comes in right and puts us on Cultus our next particular Service 't is no domineering word an humble expression this and must be co nomine therefore exalted for it is indeed the word in the Text most predominant in a sense above Dominus and all for take out Dominus and what becomes of Domus Domus and Rus may then be likewise used that is as Rustically as Rudely as you will Well! Take out Cultus and I am sure Dominus will never abide it All staies or goes with this Cultus the main and mainly to be insisted on and Cultus absolute is due to Dominus first In Equiparence to his other houses and service in them all why this house far worse then all the rest as many as we called at in all Gods houses before I told you they might do us more service yet 1. First In the Maorocosm all things serve this their Lord up at Matins of Prayer seeking their meat at God at Vespers of Laws with the Anthem 1. It is He that hath made us and not We our selves 2. In Heaven his Angels ministring Spirits with Holy Holy Holy and a great voice of much people Rev. 19. saying Hâ—lelujahs Salvation and Glory and Honor and Power unto the Lord. 3. And in the womb of the blessed Virgin the house is aired and consecrated for his Conception by the holy Ghost And when he first brings in his first begotten Son into the world and Let all the Angels of of God worship him The Baptist did him service then unborn springing in the womb for joy and his own blessed mother Mary sings her service to to him while yet in her body My soul doth magnifie the Lord my Spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour In one and the same little house and Chappel royal of her great and mighty Lord the first St. Maries that ever was at once conceiving and containing him and her Devotion 4. And as for the house of flesh and Bethlems manger put them both together not all those clouds and swadling clouts of obscurity could dim the Light of the world nor hide this glorious Lord from the attendance of an host of Heavenly Courtiers and Souldiers running down the hill of Heaven to salute him Imperator with an Hymn of Gloria Deo in excelsis nor conceal him from those Kings some say wise men we are sure that came from the East to worship this Oriens who fell down before him opened their Treasures and presented him They could not hide him from old Simeons eyes after in the Temple for he then saw clearly the presence of the Lord in him that was there presented to the Lord even the Lords Christ whom he served with gladness and carolled out a blessing on him in his arms 5. Nor was this worship wanting in the very dwelling and banqueting houses of his servants 6. Simeon entertains him Levi makes him a great Feast and even there was Wisdom justified of her children One example above all in the house of that Simon the Pharisee that which went beyond his banquet and all the service there was the poor sinners service from her box of precious oyntment and her more precious tears serving to wash his feet 7. Next apply to him on shipboard and behold him not only heard with reverence by the shore-audience but St. Peter down at his knees with his Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord. 8. But in or at his grave no service That house so ill and low situate that none obliged to pay or tender service there 9. That 's the desolate house even of Kings saith Job the train forsakes them there Yet behold even in that house as Joseph and Nicodemus spare no coft of linnen cloaths and spices with a mixture of Myrrhe and Aloes of an hundred weight so the two Maries faild not with their oyntment and early visitation at the Sepulchre But as it was Johns eager spirit that out-ran Peter so Magdalen her loving spirit out-went them all in a constant service and devotion for when left alone she stood she wept she stoopt she lookt into the Sepulchre and there at length she lights on other fellow-servants of her Lord even two Angels in white sitting at the head and feet that is where those blessed head and feet of their Lord where the body of Jesus had layn John 20.12 10. As for service in his next house the Catholick Church we know as in the Jewish he was the only Lord of Israel and Moses and David wear that name of his servants So in the Christian Church What stile take Peter and Paul but servants of Jesus Christ and even the weaker sex behold the lowliness of his hand-maid an humblâ— Maid-servant at 16. and a blessed woddow-servant Anna in her great Climackterick Luke 2. That departed not from the Temple but served the Lord with fasting and prayer night and day 11. Lastly Our own souls and bodies what are they if rightly used but Organs and living Oratories and when here assembled a Box or Nest of little temples in His Temple which houses all his Saints and servants are carefull to possess in honor and keep them clean not for Bacchus or Venus but the pure and sacred Spirit of the Lord to keep out the Tempter to escape the pollutions of the world For if God be well served in these inner Temples the service of this house of the Lord would be the better set in order and that 's the last in our Zodiack There we are now again at service in this very place proper to Divine service this very place inclining as the cell to study the grove to Contemplation a Church or Chappel to Devotion ever this the house of the Lord both by way of excellency and propriety But remember I am upon Cultus absolute due to Dominus upon another double ground first Qua
Dominus and then qua Servus 1. As Dominus For we may ask Pharoahs question but not with Pharoahs mind Whois the Lord and nothing but Jehovah will answer that in excellency which takes in all the three persons of the glorious Trinity but yet as we are forbidden by the Christian verity to say there be three but one Lord so observing both old and new Testament the second person by joynt assent of both the other is made made both Lord and Christ Lord every way Lord by Creation 〈◊〉 him were all things made Lord by preservation The Government upon his shoulder who is the mighty Lord and all things upheld by him who is the mighty word Lord by Redemption too The Lord our Righteousness made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 1 Cor. 1.20 So to him all Power and Dominion is given in Heaven and Earth and at his exaltation his Coronation confirmed The homage of knees and tongues That Jesus is the Lord is was and is to come yesterday to day and the same for ever so goes our hope He shall come to judge so begins our Christian Creed In Jesus Christ our Lord so end our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord so every Christian with St. Thomas makes a glad profession My Lord and my God If our eyes be not held that we shall not know him if once out of weakness we be made strong in the Lord if once out of darkness we be made light in the Lord if anointed with the eye-salve of the Sanctuary we then in him in whom the eye of Judas the worlds eye the Jews eye could see no beauty in that Worm they trod and spit upon that slave they scourged that Malefactor they crucified shall clearly find to our everlasting comfort both a gracious man and a glorious God breaking through all those clouds darting majestick raies contracting all our sight and uniting and fixing all our eyes on that only lovely Object who after all the Eclipses and shadows of the earth and hell gone over him shines forth in perfect beauty crowned with the Sun and under his feet a Moon with deaths pale head and a red Dragon upòn his thigh his name inscribed Dominus Dominorum Men and Brethren what shall we do What manner of men ought we to be in holiness and fear What think you Is not our obedience due in reason a reasonable service to this Lord above others Other Lords have ruled over us Satan and our vices have been Lords of Misrule But there goes vertue still out of this Dominus and vertue there is in Dominus a magnetick intrinsique vertue to draw even Ironhearts to his service Stands not Dominus over Domus here and so over every Church and Chappel like the herald star to beckon us to invite all that are wise to salvation O come let us worship and fall down before the Lord. Down O down with every high thing and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ Jesus our Lord This qua Dominus 2. And then qua servus still more reasonable service if such a Dominus stoop to Servus strange if all those houses you heard of prove our houses another while and he 'l do us service in them all first in the great house of the round world it is so both in the Mechaniks and Oeconomicks In the beginning of his book we find him as a Carpenter at work by the week making partitions measuring and figuring with his Elements in square and skies in circle stricking up Lights and pinning them to the body of the Sun then mixing other mysteries of Gardiner and Painter limming to the life his pieces this our Lords doing all Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation the work of thy hands Heb. 1.10 And for whose sake so fair a frame for Birds or Beasts the Heathen could tell you no 〈◊〉 Sanctius his Man made Lord to name his vassals at his pleasure and when God gives him possession the very word is Dominamini all at his service So in Occonomy as built so all upheld for us Habendum Tenendum by his Manu-tenency kept in repair from crumbling out to Atoms and not an empty house that would do us no service but herein by 10000 hidden providential quils distils and works out food and rayment by whole loads saith David Psal 68. and changes fresh every morning saith Jeremie Lam. 3.22 And therein descending past Offices of Stateâ—eward Treasurer Chamberlane to the meanest of Baker Cook and Butler with his bottles of Heaven clouds droping fatness finest wheat and liquor of the Grape so low in this great Domus is this greatest Dominus diminisht doing his servants all these Services 2. Secondly As Terram dedit so Coelum dabit His upper house shall be ours after one life that but a span long 'T is his by nature ours by conquest we come in with the Conqueror therefore we look at it still in hope as Travellers going home that abiding City whose Builder and Maker he is and where he is still at work for us preparing a place many Mansions Crescit sub principe Coelum where he keeps possession for us in our name and in our nature and whence he sends to us continually his holy Angels to serve us and thence will come with all those Angels to fetch us up to his last supper and there again serve us himself while we sit down with Abraham Jsaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven 3. Thirdly In the womb of the blessed Virgin he was an humble servant abased himself in not abhorring that whereon we dare not stay our trembling thoughts so many minutes as he endured it moneths and this service only for us for us men and for our salvation he was incarnate to burn out our stains and corrosive the leprosie of our nature For he by the holy Ghost which at first moving on the Chaos created a world of beauty being there conceived was thereby filled with Grace in out Nature which Grace in our measure was from him to be spread and shed in our hearts by the same holy Ghost which is given us Rom. 5. So was he our servant there and Factor for us and therefore stript of all that might unfit him for that Ministry 4. In the fourth house of our flesh he comes lowly with love I come to do service in the form of a servant to minister to serve the curt of souls and bodies too See the great Arch-Prelate Primate of Heaven and Earth Lord and Bishop of our souls whose Sea is from sea to sea and from the River to the worlds end to whom we may give all Bellarmines fifteen great names and all too little is yet content and that not in jest but in Deed and in Truth with servus servorum Domini who though he served his foes for a mocking-stock and never was man so shamefully served yet despising the shame he served out his time and counted it his
meat and drink to do service And here again Corpus aptasti I am sure we sure were â—â—â—er so fitted for a body and for an house For were it not for this house in woful state were all the great houses of the Land all the Princely houses of all Christian lands the famous houses of York and Laneaster Valois Burbon Medices and Austria The right descent and purest royal blood is from this house of flesh but for this house and his wearing it and bearing all ours sins on the top of it For into the house they came not What Title but from this Ancestour to Paradise the Palace the Nonsuch above not a Tarquin Priscus or Superbus but beholden to this Servius nay the best and purest votaties in this house of God the place of his service not David or Solomon or good King Ezekiah not Constantine or Theodosius or Jacobus or Carilaus no gratious King of famous Memory or present Merit no body though never so embellisht or embraved shall ever joyn in that Quire of his Saints and holy Angels above without the mediation of the body of Jesus our Lord and the service done in that body 5. But what service in that Inn at Bethlem where was no room for him it was yet made serviceable for us for there we Inn to this day all at that Star we Gentiles claim by those that were Primitiae first Guests to that house of Gold and Incense we find there he had and we Partakers of his fine Gold and good service hath his Incense done us I am sure We pray Lord increase our faith and he that could help our unbelief Lord might do us good service if so surely a hundred Sermons in this house not more available then the dumb Cradle of our Lord in that cratch The Scripture speaks evidently saith the Apostle the Scripture lies mute thâ— Cradle house yet therein is an herald to proclaim the fulfilling of two great Prophecies one was Et tu Bethlem there Christ to be born The other that of his poverty A Worm shame of men out-cast of the people Upon the very Pillars of this house which are but the staves of the Cratch may we safely relie and build our Faith this blinded and madded the Jew but thus it must be thus must Christ be born if ever he do us good this obscureness to manifest him this emptiness to be his fulness of a Messiah to fulfill the Scripture that so our joy might be full full of joy and Peace in believing This the service he doth our Faith and no less service in making us humble I believe Lord and may not every one say I am humble Lord too but Lord help our unhumility Help us off with the double lets of outward Pomp and inward Pride Behold this Royal Insant reaches out his hand to serve us from his Cratch in our Bed-chambers and by his powerfull his high and mighty and stupendious Humility thrusts it to our hearts and strips off all from the souls and bodies of his faithfull servants all that may offend the eye of his heavenly Father and in that voice comes from him in this Cradle though yet inarticulate we hear him in the evidence of his holy Word and Spirit say Learn of me Put on the Lord Jesus Christ who thus in this House serves us and helps his servants both in their Faith and their Humility 6. and 7. In the sixth and seventh the private houses and banqueting houses of his servants the Lord serves as a Builder and a Watch-man and a â—â—aplain to say Grace and bless and loves to do â—â—vice there in the freedom of his conversation said in his dish by the proud Pharisee and in dayly working that Miracle of warry juice turned into Wine concoct into fresh and cheerfull blood 8. Next he serves us in those water-houses Wilt not thou O Lord go forth with our Armies saith the Psalmist so we may say The Lord hath gone forth with our Navies as in 88. so Quadragesimus octavus too Mirabilis Annus And then it is the Lord and the Power of his Might that hath saved the Metaphorical ships of Church and State kept those Bottoms from forreign invasive storms and dangerous Schisms and Leaks at home Skilfull Mariners may do well but he the Pilote at the Helm Christo Duce auspice regno is a Right Prophetick and true Inscription by Land and Water His bloody Cross a braver Flag and nobler Badge then Lucida sidera Castor Pollux This Pollens Lux ipsa the true Light to guide the whole feet He did us worthy service who first came by ship to conveigh the Light of the Gospel hither some years before a spark of fire at Rome What doth Lux by whose blessing on our ships we may by the same way derive the Light to other Nation yet in darkness as importing so thus exporting too the unsearchable Riches of Christ to which all Treasures of East and West are pale and drowsie and muddy things as a little Gravel in comparison Thus venture I still on with my frail bark and well enough if still Cesarem veho bear his well tryed Patience and attention along while Dominum Caesarem vebo That Lord who now could find no further house-room on earth or water but ceas'd not yet to do us further service in his very Sepulchre 9. For till he came thither thither we were come dead and buried bound hand foot in the grave-cloaths of our sins sealed up and claspt down with a stony weight of the wrath of God which would have prest us to the nethermost Hell But behold in that short time of his abode in this house what Rare Redoubts and Mines this mighty Engineer casts and contrives works a descent through the Iron jaws of death down to Hell and like a Conqueror ascends leading in Triumph Captivity Captive opening so and seasoning and sweetning so this house before so dreadfull filled with ultimum terribilium that his Disciples all that love and seek him in Life and Death shall never find discomfort in a Grave Nothing but a Requiem and Dormitory with Angels sitting at the head and feet till he awake them in Tuba novissima and raise them to a meeting in the clouds where all his servants shall enter into the joy of that their Lord. 10. As for the Catholick Church to demand his service there is to ask What good the Vine the Head the Bridegroom the Corner-stone do to the Branches Members Spouse and Building in those strict Unions nay closer then all those per euâ—dem spiritum Behold so am with you never to offer to part from you never to suffer you to part from me to the end of the world in the end and world without end which will be soon discovered by the Service done to each particular Member in every â—fâ—nr Souls and Bodies in that house For is not our body his house wonderfully and fearfully built that little world of beauty shaken
knowest it is wind by that but knowest not whence nor whither So is every one that is born of the Spirit The cause and course is secret but the effect discernable As in Creation our soul and body meet by breathing so here the mystick work is Inspiration and infusion of manifold graces but those graces have activities and such whereby you shall easily perceive that you were once darkness but are now Light in the Lord. These Graces then will give us further Light whose excellencies are laid out in those expressions of Water Floods Fountains and Fire and Milk and Manna and Oyntment and their Efficacies in those names of Seal and Evidence and Earnest and Witness and Joy and Consolation And are there not fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5. Fruits that grow not up from the bitter Root of corrupted nature but from another Principle and which in their bloom and freshness render a man not like those Ethnick Graces only facile and sweet in conversation though they do that too but gracious in Gods aspect and glorious too shining as a Light in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation If we shall taft a fruit or two in specialty I will only trie to do it in this notion here and under this Capacity of Light 1. Knowledge even that of nature is a Light and mans soul still is the Lamp of God saith Solomon and a Wisdom residing therein that Recedes as far from folly as Light ftom Darkness and this was all those great Philosophers Animalia Gloriae had which puft them up so For this hath some tincture of the Serpent and soon inflates yet alas Mans salvation is that Grove and Mysterie Nulli penetrabilis astro not pervious nor peirceable by the star-light of Reason There must come a supernatural Light from Heaven which as in the Giver it is called a Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in his wings the day-spring from on high and the True Light so in the Receiver it is called a great and marvellous Light of which Will you hear St. Paul I count all loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the supereminence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord this indeed is all for in this is all This is Eternal life to know Thee and him whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ to know him for my Jesus to apprehend him for my Justifier by a second Grace by a true and lively Faith 2. Faith then is another Light of the sanctifying Spirit superinduced on the Light of Reason to raise and perfect it for it is not in stones or beasts God can from stones raise up Children unto Abraham but if so the work must first be done by Infusion of a rational soul and the golden Key of this Grace then fitted to the prepared wards of reasonable Nature It is not amiss to compare it to Sybillaes golden bough which grew to and upon the Trce and as he adds Auri per Ramos aura refulsit So this superstructure out-shines the utmost endeavours and perfections of Nature and Reason and resembled it is by some as the Seal to Wax It is not naked and meer reason as Air is Fire but Faith is rather printed reason and there joined Light if we wilfully exstinguish not their flames will yield the bearer fair Direction and Confidence and Consolation There may be there will be a coarctation a compression of this flame in the act of Faith a damp upon the alacrity thereof yet if there be not in us an evil heart desirous nay wilfully set to depart from the living God If you abide in me saith our Saviour then certainly as his Father and he with the sacred Spirit joyntly made Light at first and pin'd it to that Sun which was never wholly darkned since and as he the true Light breaking from the clouds of the blessed Virgins body and joyned to mans nature retains that nature still now glorified so the Spirit of this Grace possessing thy spirit loves never to part again but grieves when we offer to quench his coelestial fires O then learn not to despair of Mercy and Assistance Clouds and Eclipses obscure and wandring and wicked thoughts self-accusings and self-condemnings and Satans suggestions may trouble and affright us But if we abide in him and be strong in the Lord and in the Power of his Might and resist the Devill he will flie from us and our hope in Christ and the Power of his Resurrection like a rising Morn will scatter all the delusions and rebellions of the Night and remember his gracious Promise Hell-gates shall not prevail against a Faith of Adherence All the Powers of Darkness let loose upon St. Paul yet he was safe I know in whom I have believed I live saith he no not I but Ckrist lives in me and it is his Spirit only that can give assurance that whereas I was darkness my Faith in him makes me light in the Lord. 3. As for Love another Grace the Grace of Graces the bond of perfection and especially of that coelestial Armor and Ardor of the soul to God What might we say Whatdo they feel into whose breasts is shot this right coelestial flame and there shed abroad by the holy Ghost which is given them Away then with all wanton fires of earthly Love or ambition set them but by this and they will appear poor and wan discolour'd pale and drousie things and like meretritious females shewn with modest and noble Matrons dasht all out of countenance 4. Lastly for I am not too long to insist on these Graces so perceptible to the Possessors if we would have true and lasting joy Where shall we seek it Is it to be found among those Pangs and Convulsions and Palpitations of an earthly sensuall mind Mala mentis gaudia as the heathen Poet calls them and plac'd by him far within the Porch of hell Meteors of imperfect mixture Scansory and seeming to mine and aim at lightsomness and height of Spirit But having crackt awhile and blaz'd down they slide again and resolve into their first earth and drossiness But he that hath tasted of the heavenly gift the joy in the Holy Ghost wherein the Kingdom of Heaven on earth doth principally consist can tell you of a joy that is full a joy unspeakable and glorious consisting in a dispersion of all that is dark and desolate and a true Light that is Lux in Domine Light in the Lord. Thus have we trac'd this Oriens ex alto and thus far described that Method that Lucidus Ordo of Gods procedure in descent of his Spirit and defluence of his Graces Thus far we are come to meet with this great Bishop of all our souls this blessed Visitor and have observed his way of baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with enthean fire and confirming his People with the manifold Graces of his Spirit But yet since he is in Heaven and that Spirit is to descend on us we are not satisfied till we
course both the Baptist Christ Jesus come preaching the Kingdom of Heaven upon our conversion to God It is observable that as God hath bound himself to a perpetual Revolution of Winter and Summer that Spring and Harvest in Autumn shall never fail So his whole will Word is a miscellany of Law and Gospel and such lightsome and comfortable Texts as this found in Isay many and in David many very many Evidences Evangelical and we in that respect to attend this hour to the Gospel of St. Malachy For not a Prophet of God not the least or last but hath an Inlay of mercy wrought up with Judgement and sweet and gracious Promises mingled with comminations They bring us down to discontent by the waters of Marab and Babylon to bitter weeping in the Valley of Tears to persecution of a red Sea the biting of fiery serpents and a killing letter of the Law But they leave us not without discovery of a Brazen serpent to cure us and many precious assurances that God will put all our tears in his bottle and wâ—pâ— away all tears from our eyes That he will take us out of many waters and bring his own again from the deep of the sea and revive us by the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace and Reconciliation And experimentally Gods servants shall find it so in his actual dealing with them that look how God hath not left himself without witness in his general Providence showring down on earth his balmy Influences from Heaven so in his secret impartments of hidden Manna and in his open appliances to his holy Ones in those celestial dews of mercy which sall only on the fleeces of his Pasture-sheep when t is dry upon all the ground beside we find this exemplified in the head of his Church who as in himself he is a Light shining in darkness so as the darkness comprehends it not so his whole life and death was like light in a Lanthorn or lightnings from summer clouds pauses of sorrow and dejection with various glimpses and coruscations of his glory mixt and interweav'd For crucified dead and buried our Creed assists us with a glorious Resurrection and Ascension and Exaltation of that same crucified dead and buried Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus So to present you with several members of his mystical Body in their interchangeable Robes of sackcloth and tissue their Coronets of thornes and Roses were an easie task I name but two the Father of the faithful and the man after Gods own heart whom one while we find in fear horrour and great darkness and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed them another while rejoycing in hope and assurance of Gods All-sufficiency and with hearts dancing for joy as that sweet singer expresses it and how could I make this truth notorious but without a sailing over to the prime Apostles in the New Testament which I purposely reserve for a new and latter discovery when we come to close with the consummation of this Consolation mean time in this very first opening of the Mine you see enough discovered to consute such as think there is no Golden Vine nor branch of comfort in Gods service but seduced by Satan pretend an inequality a rugged unevenness in the wayes of God which God himself disclaims and imputes it to our wayes It is not the Religion of God that is unprofitable or vain as those foolish people in this Chapter openly profess'd nor does his service incline men inevitably to sadness and melancholy A second Material from this Mine is the connection and combination of this comfort in that God chains this mercy to a preceding mercy He begins here with a conjunction and they shall be mine and then couples it to a succeeding mercy and I will spare them c. Comfort past and present and to come Many feathers of Gods Wing many showers of Manna and of Quailes The whole srame and pile of comfort from the beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth ver is pitcht as a Tabernacle of Joy with courtains coverings with loops and taches of consolations in conjunction God is and ever was a God of conjunction and communion a God of Order and combination Discord and dis-union are from the Devil God in Essence from before all beginning was unsolitary God that in wisdom saw it was not fit for man to be alone in his wisdom saw it was not good for God to be alone He is God alone that is there is no other But I am not alone sayes Christ never was so that is without the Father and the Holy Ghost All the three blessed and glorious persons as co-essential so co-eternal and coequal which makes for us we better apprehend and better apply God in the Trinity of persons so branching and reaching out more fruit to us then the contemplation of the Unity And as in Essence so in works of God which respecting us externally are all co-operations of all three Persons we find in nature first all things produc'd in number weight and measure and all things in connexion still One brother holds another by the heel and as our eyes enwrapt in several tunicles each under other so are those films and skins of sphears imaginary nothing but the vaultages and enwombings and enwrapings and swathings of the constellations and coverings ore those conjoyned Elements which are lodg'd in one anothers laps and inlaid and mortis'd into one anothers bosomes And so in his mornings and evenings dole and distribution in his daily providence and Dispensation all is done in order and by a set conjuncture of his Officers The Heavens appointed to hear the earth the earth to hear the corn and wine and oyl and they to hear us Hos 2.22 Such a chain of causes in things natural while the Cause of causes and the God of all these conjunctures hath the upmost link fastened to his Divine will in heaven But all the Links let down are wrapt about his beloved creature man in mercies that compass him round and embrace him on every side In midst whereof guarded by Angels that pitcht their tents about him man takes Repose and sleeps to the musick of the hollow murmuring winds and waters which seem to whisper in his ears a memento of his service to that Lord for whose sake they are yet in service to man But secondly in works of Grace is God observable to be a God of conjunction In his first gracing of his chosen Israel to enable them for a great and wise people he gave them a Law from heaven Deut. 4.6 which was a Law conjunctive both affirmative Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength and thy neighbour as thy self Two tables joynd by Gods own hands and a Rejoinder by our Saviour This is the first and great Commandement and the second is like unto it keep both or neither he that fails in any one is guilty of all and
invest us with a Light yet inaccessible will also place another Crown of Glory inaccessible And so in the allusion the contemplation of those joyes that go before the entrance into our Masters Joy and those that follow after in fruition will easily stir and fire our souls to cry or sing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to this son of David Blessed be he that comes thus in the name of the Lord and is the Lord that comes thus from the Father and God Totius of all consolation anointed to his great Office and Design of binding up the broken hearted by the Holy Ghost the Comforter Luke 1. and is himself by way of Excellency stil'd the consolation of Israel And thus this first glad priviledge of Gods fearful and faithful servant is refin'd and wrought up to perfection from this Mine in Malachy the last of the Prophets to that Mine of St. John the last and liveliest of the Evangelists or rather that Mine of our Lords own discovery in Iohn 17.10 Thine they are and all mine are thine and thine are mine Mine But who is he All our comfort even now was complicated and conserv'd in Dominus Exercituum And is he so That stile indeed wears out in the New Testament but is abundantly recompenc'd in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only Potentate the Lord of Life and Glory Most of all in that name above all names which all tongues must confess and at which all knees should bow that sweet and powerful that gracious and glorious Name of Jesus a Saviour and able to save to the utmost in whom all fulness dwels and in whose hand is all power in heaven and earth And had not their eyes been held down and the Jews hearts vaild over they would have perceived and received him for the true Messiah in this very notion and nature of a Lord of Hosts For in him were all their Moses's Joshuales all their Captains and Saviours their Baraks and Gideons and Sampsons and Davids and Macchabees all reviv'd and restor'd to the world But they knew not the manner of their King and to mistake a King may be a world of misery nor of his Kingdom nor the force of his Artillery in the dreadful Canon and Ordinance of his Word Spirit Nor that the Scepter of his new Law should prove the Iron Rod to break and subdue both men and Devils They considered not his stupendious Miracles proving him the Lord of Hosts in commanding over the whole frame of Heaven and Earth and Seas and all the host of them and bowing whole created nature to his obedience To rebuke tempestuous winds roaring waves as a Nurse her child with Peace and be still nay suspend and silence and deprive Devils of their possessions with a word To lay his command on Death it self and force him to let go his hold after four dayes seisure in the grave Will Iews or Jewish hearts attend my voice that would not hear the thunder of those Miracles But for support of the true Catholick faith and for the consummation of all our consolation King and people Christ Jesus is become our Dominus Exercituum Christo auspice regno regnabo too and his bloody Cross a braver badge then that of Castor and Pollux This is polleus lux ipsa For is it not he alone destroyes our raging lusts and nails them to his cross and he alone that ' gainst a world of opposition and all the opposition of this evil world cryes to his host be of good comfort I have overcome the world He alone that came to dissolve destroy the works the strong holds of Satan and to vanquish powers and Principalities in high places that had the vantage ground over us He that breaks in on death and sin and hell and like a Conquerer in the triumphal Chariot of his Cross made a shew of them openly and as Triumphers us'd to do when he ascended up on high and led captivity captive he gave gifts unto men But yet more to prove him the Lord of Hosts by being more then that name can imply for this Name is observed to be too yong for the ancient of Dayes that is a Name taken up since and from the Creation A Name indeed that draws and scatters on us all we can look for from our Maker and Preserver But all his powers and mercies are resolved and melted into this Name of Christ Jesus Without Christ without God sayes the Apostle in the world we are but meer pieces of the masse nay far worse is our condition born children of wrath and in state of enimies and so the Lord of Hosts is against us and all the hosts of Heaven and spirits of Hell and all the creatures and our selves against our selves And when there was no Name under heaven to save and deliver us from present and wrath to come then came this Prince of peace and became our Peace pledg'd himself for us gave his life a Ransome so making peace So prevailing over the Lord of Hosts binding his Almighty hands and God content to accept terms of peace may we not say so Came not that Voyce from Heaven This is my beloved Son in quo acquiesco in whom I am at peace with all the world If all this prove him not a Lord of Hosts he will one day to the further consolation of all that love his appearing appear to the consternation of all his Despisers in flaming fire to render vengeance And as in the dayes of his flesh then unglorified and compast about with all mans infirmities he could have been encompast with more then twelve Legions of Angels so then he will meet those two Hosts those droves and flocks of sheep and goats with another Army of his Saints and Angels from Heaven with whom we shall be caught up to meet that Lord in the ayr and so shall be ever with the Lord. If we desire yet higher to raise this Crown of consummate consolation in Christ I will come to Visions and Revelations I will open that of St. Steven Acts 7.56 I see heaven opened and the son of man set on the right hand of God which place being further opened by St. John makes us see him on a Throne of Glory covered with light as with a garment under his feet Deaths pale head and a red Dragon and all his enemies about him stand the Armies of his Angels and of mankind a greater number then any man can number of all Nations Languages On his thigh that Name written Rex Regum Dominus Dominorum The Elders casting down their Crowns adore him that has many Crowns upon his head And we may safely add this Title to those Crowns of Dominus Exercituum and rejoyce to think how those Crowns are encinctur'd and enchas'd with precious stones for the twelve Tribes of Israel and with manifold unions of God and man of grace and glory for the consolation of the Gentiles also thereby fully made perfect
Salvation and I come to feel and know this of a certainty by Gods Power made perfect in my weakness which I discern in finding his Holy fear rooted in my heart and so fixt that no stout words of prophane nor incursions nor invasious nor seas of overwhelming Corruptions in the examples of godless men about me can prevail over me to abandon my Religion which is bottomed on my holy fear and reverend thinking on his blessed Name For as I have said the mercy of our indulgent Father appears not only in tying this amulet to our own bosom that every man is sav'd by his own faith and not another mans bnt also in the manner of this ancorage 'T is his special Grace that my being Gods own is made descernable in the Light imparted to my own soul from his Word and Spirit whereby I perceive the Covenant sealed betwixt God and me in Christ Jesus But this is more wonderfull mercy still that my assurance and modest infallibility of salvation is fastened by his Almighty Power and so surely fastened to so slender a cordage so weak and tender and bruised reeds as my Faith and fear are for these two are to our purpose terms convertible This fear in my Text hath Gold and Treasure in it and contains the precious nature of faith too and discovers the same Efficacy and Properties of lively faith so that he who possesses or is bereft of it is so of God himself See for this Jer. 2.19 This is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of Hosts So he puts Fear for our whole Religion So rare a Builder is that Lord of Heaven that as he made the Heavens themselves and the earth of nothing and hung saith Job the earth in the midst of the air upon just nothing So in this mighty work of Grace when I am afraid of not being fast enough his goodness makes that very fear the means of fastning and confirmation and anchors my assurance to my fear Behold the unsearchable and unspeakable riches of his mercy in this that he forsakes not man therefore because he finds not in flesh and blood the Pority of Angels but as it s said to Levi Mal. 2.5 My Covenant was with him of life and Peace and Life and Peace include all Blessings and I gave them to him For what Observe it well The free Grace of God in this exchange I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my name and just such is the Appliance here of all this consolation for God hears and hearkens at verse 16. and a book of Remembrance is written before him for whom now all this and sor what For them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name and they shall be mine for that I will love them for that inward testimony and qualification and that inward Testimony and Qualification shall assure them of my love Is not this enough to make every one of us say at parting hence Well! I shall think the better of the fear of God as long as I live for this Sermon Do so in the name of God and take this further resolution with us Never to listen to the harsh and cruel doctrine of the Romish which a man would think were enough to throw down all the rest of their building in unstable soules if those souls would but seriously stay to think upon it if they would not like unclean beasts still swallow and never chew the cud and yet since it is fallen from them they must their Priests must by the oath ex officio all desperately maintain it as if they were told openly by one of their own Doctors at the Council of Trent and that is this That God will never be so assured never so contracted and espoused to believers hearts in everlasting love but even after all their Merits and Satisfactions and Penances and Pilgrimages and Supererogations too Is it not strange considering how wide they open their Ark at first and assure all clean and unclean beasts that will come in of never perishing Nay after all Pardons under the swelling seal and all plenary Indulgences Is it not a miserable case The wretched fluctuating Penitent after ablution extream Unction Absolution and all must be content to die in discontent and fall with horror and perplexity of Conscience and all his comfort in a little faint hope that it is not wholly impossible for him to get through long and dreadfull purging flames at length to the joyes of heaven But let us in Gods name still continue to repose our souls on Christ and resting on this ground of comfort in this appropriation we shall find no reason to conceive hardly of him who is the Father of Mercies and God of all consolation or impute a rigidness and tetrical sowerness or rather a tyrannous enwrapping us in inevitable damnation To admit no such jealousies and fears and suspitions of our Lord here but wisely learn to compound and keep close in conjunction that which God hath mixt and and put together That is a rejoycing in the Lord with trembling a worship joined with godly fear and joy in the holy Ghost and so we may return from his service as the women returned from his Sepulchre with fear and great joy PART 2. WE are come to our second part the Prospect the day of our deliverance and making up amongst Gods Jewels which day is fore-fold 1. The day of punishing the ungodly such a day as some think is described here at cap. 4.1 In such burning days the trial shall be made and then God will resolve this scruple here at verse 17. twixt them that serve him and such as serve him not and his Jewels in that day he will save spare as a man spares his own son as men incline to favour their peculiar and their Jewels and Treasure above all their stuff of less value as men in danger of shipwrack reserve a Jewel though forced to unlade the ship of all her other burden or as they catch away in times of war or fire or thieves some precious thing above all other goods And this renews the former consolation that to these Saints which excel in vertue these precious Jewels whose saith is precious sastned on the most precious blood of Christ belong all those precious Promises of compassing hiding embracing covering relieving defending comforting setting his eye heart soul upon them of opening his ears and hearkning to their cries of drawing near helping respecting assisting establishing blessing delivering by Protection Exaltation Coronation and this no empty but a real comfort including all time He hath and doth and will deliver us saith St. Paul He hath done it to his servants in the evil day in all their evil days of sorrow Sickness War Plague Famine Prison Deluge of waters or of ungodliness So Noah was boxed up in his ark
perfect lacking nothing Alas if the unprofitable servant be cast out what shall become of the Malignant the Covetous the Proud the Luxurious How are we then to think of that triple charge of Pasce of Jacobs enduring frost and heat of the shepheards keeping watch by night and then of Leo Rugiens to devour both Pastor and Flock And how are they able to resist if we assist not unless we exhort rebuke exhort and minister a word of consolation to every soul that is weary and then the people to be swift to hear How precious is the treasure we bring though in earthen vessels Is it not the Word of God we bring and offer you To mens words we owe temporary belief if they speak wisely and a Resignation of our Judgements till we hear them out But to the Word of God which is diffused into a Sermon or else woe to him that makes it we owe an absolute Resignation and perpetual captivity Take heed then of contempt or wanton ranging after an heap of such Teachers as are after our own lusts lest we cause God to withold this bread from Heaven and endanger the famishing of our souls Let England remember the error of the Jewish Church once the Jewel and peculiar of the Lord of Hosts the defection of the Romish the Degeneration and then the demolition and abolition of Antioch Ephesus Corinth and many others O think in time for we draw very near it of this peoples sin here at the twelfth and thirteenth verses They held the Table of the Lord contemptible and snuffed at it perchance respecting the gorgeous Idols of the Gentiles In the same corrupt affection as many carnal Gospellers not ashamed to let men hear their wishes for the stately and triumphant shews again of Masse Dirges Processions Pilgrimages God hath blest the Land and Church even to the stupor and envy of our Neighbours with abundance of the Gospel of peace and the blessing of God in his Ordinance and with many curious and exact work-men Jewelers of souls and will we not bless the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever Will we not prize this unsearchable Riches of Christ Shall we rather strive to quench and do despite to the Spirit of his Grace by despising Prophecying and like Swine and Dogs trample upon and turning again rend and tear such as pour these precious Pearls before us stoning them that are sent unto us with hard and bitter censures If the ministration of the Law was glorious what is that of the Gospel Examine it Is it not the Power and Wisdom of God and in the Administration of the Sacrament is not the bread we break the communion of the body and the cup we reach out into you from God the communion of the blood of Jesus Are not the offices of the Church such as distinguish us from Dogs and Infidels Let me then first creep a little into mount Ebal and bitterly curse all those thas have evil will at Sion and then flie into Gerizim and cheerfully bless with blessings of the right band Praise and Honor and Salvation upon the heads of all those Christian Kings Princes and people of all conditions who in their several places seek the advancement of the Truth of God and the encouragement of his faithfull servants while their own hearts strike them with the conscience and guilt of maliciousness and propenseness to Idolatry or schismatick Innovations that dare not say Amen 3. We come briefly to the third day to which we must all come the day of death when Gods own having past the fervor of youth and clean escaped the flesh and worlds contagions and the fiery darts of Satan having in short done what they came for they descend into the grave with their bodies like a rick of corn into the Barn in due season and their spirits return to God that gave them when even death is to them precious as well for rest and security as for that new Newness of life which then begins in death clearing to them that whereof Euripides doubted whether to die were indeed to live and contrary for so St. Paul determines it Christ is to me life and death is to me advantage and therefore desired he this day of his dissolution wherein he might be more perfectly united to his Jesus For these his holy Jewels are never so well set as when inset in the joy and Glory of their Lord and Master which makes that in such souls even the approaching towards death fils and purifies with high and heavenly apprehensions as it is in natural motions nearer still to the center or as in Diggers in a Myne who work most earnestly when near the Treasure But if it happen that any of these Jewels be so far dignified as his Lord accepts his life in sacrifice by Martyrdome consummate in sealing the Truth of Jesus with his blood how doth this add fresh ornament and addition of honor to these Servants of God as came to pass with that Protomartyr St. Stephen first made up a Jewel after his Master those stones the Persecutors threw surrounding his head as a precious Crown of Glory However they are all that die in the Lord enfranchised from those chains of corruption which abide the best alive for we dare not boast our Saints as Bellarmine doth Gouraga or his Fellow doth Phil. Nerius who was fain to pray God to depart from him and draw back his mind from heavenly things No we have learnt another way of humble acknowledgement from St. Paul I know that in me that is in my flesh dwels no good thing and St. James In many things we sin all and the day of absolute absolution from sin is not till this day of dissolution wherein these Jewels by death come to take possession of everlasting life 4. The last is the last of dayes Novissimus and the day of Renovation which none but the ancient of days can know and of which also there is a mixt mention in the beginning of this fourth chapter The day of the Lord comes as a furnace and Rev. 6. The great day of his wrath called the day of the Lord Jesus and the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ Rom. 16. The first day we spake on the day of affliction and the last we spake on the day of death do roule up sometime all together It befals alike saith the Preacher to the clean and unclean to him that swears and to him that fears an oath and for the second the day of powerfull preaching the word Hypocrites elude it The devil can transform himself into an Angil of Light and his zanies may make a fair shew in the flesh saith the Scripture But at this great day shall be a real Partition of Sheep and Goats of Wheat and Tares which yet flock and grow together then he will gather his elect from the four winds and declare his mighty Power in glorifying both their souls and
not aware I took at first no notice of his Fatherly corrections which are indeed his compassions and consolations Thy Rod and thy staff comfort me Psalm 23. But now I feel his coming to visit me is like his visiting the earth which he visits and enriches Psalm 65. like a Physitians visiting an Hospital to cure for if I am sure it is the hand of my God I am sure also that it is in Love for God is Love t is his Essence immutable No reason then his visitation should prove to an irreligious sadness or a melancholy a dejection a jealousie a diffidence So long as the work is his though he purge or cut so he give me not over so he cast me not out of his hands so I hear not that voyce which is more dreadfull then ten thousand thunders Depart from me c. Thus far I am to debate what I am to answer in affliction Surely the best answer is no answer at all Tacui Domine and my soul kept silence not as unaffected remorseless but as subdued by faith repentance obedience working me to a blessed patience captivating and bringing into subjection every exorbitant every wild and wandring imagination Once have I spoken saith holy Job but I will no more or if my heart will vent I have forms and molds ready wherein to cast my words that of Ely It is the Lord c. and David behold here am Is let him do unto me as it seems good in his own eyes and I will confess too to his glory the fruit and the root I find that thou O Lord of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled Psalm 119. and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit Job 10.12 And to draw this into practice in each particular affliction for every one is Gods Embassadour and none to be dismiss'd unanswered The application is a world of matter which I cannot look at now only for that I find my self in a Seminary in a Colledge of Divines I may have the liberty the recreation too to make for you and my self one particular application For we my Brethren that are or should be pars indocili melior grege if your pulse beat like mine are certainly so much infested with no worldly calamity as when saevit malignum ignobile vulgus as when we find our selves disgrac'd counted the seum of those that are indeed the scum of the world when all we can say or do which way soever we frame our doctrine or conversation it is as water spilt upon the ground For though we pipe unto them they will not dance though we mourn they will not weep Let a mans behaviour be like Iohn the Baptist rough austere they cry he hath a Devil or if enlarged in freedom of conversation like our Saviour away with him a glatton a wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and sinners So that the ground of the quarrel rests not in being thus or thus affected or qualified or endowed but they hate us for our very calling But what answer have we I could tell you one a harsh one of the Cynical Philosopher who being demanded How it happened that the great and wealthy people affected rather to be liberal in rewarding Fools and Players and Jesters and beggers then men of his profession answered for that they might perchance have some hope of proving such themselves but no hope of turning Scholars This was bitter But we have learn'd a better of the Apostle I pass not to be judged by you and a better yet of a better master Let not your hearts be troubled they called our Master Belzebub and shall not I drink of the cup which my father gives me saith he so shall we not drink the potion which our Lord hath begun to us which by tasting first he hath sweetened for us Is the Disciple greater so is he daintier then his Master Were we like the Apostles persecuted whipt imprison'd that consideration would make us march on in all these dificulties and like hardy souldiers non gementes sequi Imperatorem But rather rejoycing that we were counted worthy to suffer any thing for his name sake and if it came to death we know our Answer Christ t s to me life and death is to me advantage But I forget my self for I am bound to a further Port to that which is appointed after death for after that to Judgement When God shall visit c. Of this final Judgement the Text informs us two Things It shall be and it shall be most dreadfull therefore needs debating and casting for our Answer First it shall be He will visit Even the Heathen had an Apprehension an expectance of such a day a time quo Mare quo Tellus correptaque regia Coeli Ardeat mundi moles operosa laboret All this frame unling'd unpin'd and burnt And the new-discovered world have discovered this too though who discovered it to them is hard to determine But I speak to Christians who as fully as we believe God in Heaven believe from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead But Where When What Where I know not about Mount Olivet and they think they argue it fairly and probably from what we find in the Prophet of the valley of Jehosophat Joel 3.2 and that of the Angels This Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come again as you have seen him go into Heaven Act. 1.11 However that sure we are of this his Elect by his Angels from the four winds from one end of Heaven to the other shall be gathered into one place Mat. 24.31 When tell us when shall these things be You know who ask'd that question and you know our Saviours Answer Take heed that no man deceive you and when wicked Mockers ask'd it the Apostle sets no day he durst not he could not Job was resolved in the Article he shall stand the last upon earth Job 19. but no time limited The Prophecy father'd on Elias tels us of two thousand yeers Inane two thousand Lex two thousand Dies Messiae and then the Conflagration But our Saviour controuls all over-rules all Of that day and hour knows no man nor Angel nor the Son kimself Only by many signs accomplished by the Apostles calling those the last days then what may we imagine now if but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then a Tantillum then that span of time is now contracted to an inch and he that shall come will come and will not tarry But what what will he come for he will come to visite such a Session Visitation as none before it No Star-chamber no high Commission no Parliament-Bar no Council-table no Inquisition so formidable Why who comes the Circuit the LORD the LORD-Chief-Justice Judge of all the world Wise Incorrupt with Power and great Glory with such a Train all his Saints and his Holy Angels and this is that day the day the day the great day of his wrath Zeph. 1.
yoak or Spanish Inquisition all those poor Tenants and servants that live rackt and opprest and ground to powder under the merciless and rigorous Lords and Masters must advance the eye of their souls with comfort to the comming of this great and glorious Judge and Lord of Heaven for that day of his visitation shall be also the day of their full Redemption My third application is to four sorts of Visitors First You that are authorized over us you see God will discharge his Office Do you set God ever before you his Example and his Fear and first learn his first visitation in Mercy in kindness to us your brethren to do us good 'T is God we confess appoints degres of Superiority and Excellency in all Orders of Angels in Heaven in the Skie greater lesser Lights Lower still Eagles and Flies Cedars and Shrubs among the very Stones the brightest tincture given to the Ruby clearest light to the Diamond But by comparing parts of the body the Apostle proves the head cannot want the foot among uâ— specially of the Clergy no proud infulting for the Rule holds on this side the water too that the Capuchin and Cordelier the poorer part of this Tribe uphold the dignity of Priesthood ballancing with the pomp of some superior Prelates Secondly Do you visit as God ad correctionem and not hold it a vertue Laxare Disciplinam Remember the worlds entertaining Mahumetism is ascribed to three causes Pestis Arriana Manichaei furores and the third Disciplina laxata But wherein do we need your inspection in both our learning and our life First See to our insufficiency ignorance what silly things suffered not only to read but cloathing their sancies with pretext of the Spirit to preach too and then the main way of teaching in many places yet unpractis'd and that is Catechising Alas What is it to enrich the peoples ears for an hour who if they sleep not gape and praise the Sermon as they like the Tune saith Ezekiel as they do a Love-song Ezek. 33.32 Then are you over mens lives too over the Layety to curb their wolvish and fox-like shifts and cousenage in the Lords portion but chiefly in that sin whereto my Text appoints you in Gods stead for Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge he will visit doth it dayly and will then do it dreadfully In the mean time are you his Depuries Delegates Commissioners What though the scornfull fools as Solomon cals them make a mock of this sin a sport and pursue it as an Art and Trade Yet you know it is respecting a mans self unhallowing of Gods Temple a dismembring the body of Christ respecting others a defiling of the most holy and solemn Covenant on earth a kerving asunder those whom God hath joyned and therefore stands the Commandment forbidding it betwixt Thest and Murder Lastly Respecting the Land it is a fire as Job speaks here at verse 12. devouring foundations and hurling the flame round about it And are not they who have the Power of Coertion if they do it not as so many Spreaders of this fire as so many Bawds and Pandars if for Bribes they wilfully palliate or wink at this Disorder or look upon it through a false and coloured Medium And if ever there was cause to cry loud and lift up the Trumpets voyce to waken both you and the whole State is it not now when like Egypt plagu'd with Frogs the Land even stiaks of this corruption and had we no other Infection enough to bring some fearfull curse upon us all But are our lives so ciear they need no visiting need none from you No Is not a debaucht and drunken Minister within your power Drunkenness a crime hatefull in the Lay but hideous in the Clergy-man a sin in them but sacriledge in us And are not you to visit for these things and vindicate our mother from this stain But when when shall we see a great and rich Adulterer perform the open penance of the Church Or when shall I hear an Arch-deacon a Commissary a Chancellor or a Bishop rather for that 's the title of God here an Over-seer rattle and fright some of these swoln and putrid offall of the Levites these hatefull roaring Drunkards in the midst of the assembly of their brethren Remember God in his visitation on Sodom saith he will go down and see whether so or no. So should you stay to enquire and not make the Visitation as the country calls it in scorn a busie taking only or passing over us like a Vision rather then a Visitation But who should help it how can there any thing be reformed without presentment this concerns a second sort of Visitors Church-wardens And what saith your bill my Masters Some poor Rascall will not pay his levy or the piper hath got a bastard but how many hath your Land-lord gotten Alas Sir we are poor people and it would be our undoing to meddle with such But what your Minister they say he is a lewd Tosse-pot a very drunken Sot O no! Omnia bene a good Fellow a little given to company-keeping thus the best of you are content to mince it or some perhaps ready to defend him and reason why they keep the Ale-house and he 's the prime guest if it were not for him they might knock down the sign Blessed be God I am perswaded you know not many such as I describe but yet I fear there be some still within the compass of these marks And dare not you present them Nay dare you present any thing Shall men in office Visitours Wardens nay watchmen sworn thus play with their Oaths What a wretched thing is it thus to fear men and despise God that great Lord Warden of his Church who when he shall visit you for this perjury what will you answer him A third sort of Visitours are our selves Sears called in the old Testament and Over-seers in the New Acts 20. all Bishaps Phil. 1.1 Let us then learn to discharge it first by heeding and visiting our own hearts reflecting on and examining our own souls whether the God in our Books in our Sermons be such in our secret brests and whether we hear or feel our selves rather when we preach or whether our preaching run not through us like a wooden Spout like the old Riddle of Through the wood and never touch it never touch never affect the heart And then ore-look our learning and strive to mend our nets giving our selves as Tully saith recoquendos till we become workmen that need not be asham'd dividing the Word aright able to exhort and convince soundly Tit. 1.3 For this it Ars artium regimen animarum which to perform as commonly t is done flatteringly or lazily and perfunctorily is both easie and acceptable but it is too most miserable and damnable And then ore-see our lives and those exempt and defend from baseness but specially that odious sin which goes too much in black drunkenness The way to
make the Seer overseen to lose the eyes of his mind to drown his holy unction in drink and suffocate the Spirit of Grace he must be apt to teach saith the Apostle and in the same place it follows Not addict to Wine left that disqualifie his Palate and Brain and render him Ineptum unfit to teach or to be taught But I hasten to a fourth and last sort of Visitors that is all Christians in performance of that general Duty which concerns both preacher and People and is indeed a prime part of Christianity and that which St. James calls Pure Religion namely to visit the fatherless and widdows in their adversity and that which will be remembred and enquired after at the great and dreadfull visitation by the Judge of all the world who will demand not what we have preacht or heard or professed bnt what we have done And among those works of mercy that shall follow and felicitate such as die in the Lord and shall then rise in the Power of his Resurrection this is a Chief our visiting the sick and those in prison And the omission of this shall be taken as a neglect and refusing of Christ Jesus in person In as much as you have not done it to them you have not done it to me Consider what I have said and the Lord give you and me and us all Understand in all things Let us pray for a Blessing c. THE FIRST SERMON AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. A Text antient and catholique for all times seasonable fit for all places fit for all places and persons Is it to a King that I preach I may tell him this Sermon whereof my Text is a piece was the first piece of sound Divinity and preacht to the first monarch-Monarch-Lord of all the earth yet preacht by a greater King even the King of Kings and Lord of Heaven and Earth If I were preaching to a Parliament I could tell them this was the first that ever was in which the first malignant-Party was justly sentenc'd and the two first Delinquents in mankind put to Fine and Ransom 2. Take us together without respect of persons and the Text will serve to call upon every man here that professes himself a son and a servant and yet is apt to forget the Law of the Lord his God Where art thou first for the place In whose house in whose Courts in whose presence-Chamber and even this Demand considering our usual inconsideration is enough to shiver us as it did lacob with Surely God is in this place and I was not aware And then where art thou In whose Court of Judicature and even now to be called to thy answer for the same business as Adam here The breach and violation of Gods Commandment For thou hast eaten also of the forbidden fruit for so is the committing of any thing against which Gods prohibition lies and are we like then to be found Recti in Curia Can we answer him any one thing of a thonsand so the Call will concern us and the sense of the words will penetrate to our hearts also if we refuse not if we run not away from God and seek to hide our transgressions in summ it is a Text well worthy our serious attention 3. We may call it an Introduction to a judicial proceeding of God against man after his sin For after sin comes Judgement Premit comes So it was ab origine Adams case The first book-case that ever was And Judgement as St. Peter saith begins at the house and more here it begins with the Son of God for as in fulness of time he sent his only begotten Son in the similitude of sinfull flesh and to condemn sin in the flesh and though he knew no sin yet to be punished for sin being made sin for us and bearing all our sins in his body So here he comes in the beginning of time to arraign and condemn sinfull flesh in his own Son Christ is his honourable true and only Son begoten of his Father before all worlds by an everlasting generation and ineffable that none can declare But all the sons of men are his sons too by a generation declared in Ethnique Poety first and then in antient Catholique and Apostolick Divinity made of that Poety Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are his Off-spring and Generation we all are so but our Forefather was so by a kind of Primogeniture as St. Luke expresly Which was the Son of Adam which was the Son of God Whence even thus early may we make application that certainly it will be then a poor and barren a silly and impotent a base and impudent hope for any son of Adam to look for Impunity Rather all must look in severals one day to hear this Call of God Where art thou Wheresoever thou shalt be or howsoever found dead among those that live in pleasures drowned and soakt in fleshly lusts or choacht in wordly cares or quick from the dead from that dispersion and resolution to watery slime and mud to earthly dust or aerie Atoms All the Mass and Collective body of mankind once made and then at once remade by his mighty Word shall hear his almighty Word that Voyce and Trump of God Return you sons of men Arise and come to Judgement Let us in Gods name and fear do so now Arise quicken our thoughts prepare for since prevent we cannot that last by considering of this first Judgement 5. Wherein the parts are four our two first parts are the two Parties appearing in and at this Judgement God the Judge and man the Delinquent Our third particular is the manner of the process Calling The Lord God called unto the man And the last is the matter of the Summons Where art thou which in the literal sense is Whether art thou fled But in the Mystick it bears a kind of secret Increpation and a touch of pitty Where art thou The glory of my Workmanship become the shame of all the Creatures Into what a miserable condition reduced that thou art ashamed of thy self Alas Adam where art thou and before we finish our Observations on the Text we may come to make use of both these Interpretations 6. The first part of this Judgement is the two persons appearing so I said there were two But yet it is not so The first person spoken of is the Judge and he is present The Lord is at hand But the guilty sinner he flies for 't Et non est inventus But it is not possible for him to escape or lie hid the sin will find him out and we must all appear Rejoyce O young man saith Ecclesiastes Eccle. 11. in th◠youth in excess of Riot Pomp Rage thou canst cover all under the fig leaves of youth but know that for all these things God will bring thee to Judgement young and old without difference every soul to answer for every thing
and umbragious being chas'd away by the fiery indignation of a powerfull God especially with this co-consideration that his treason had been committed against a Lord so gracious But whether this Gracious and great Lord God was the second Person the Lord of Glory our blessed Redeemer Christ Jesus as some will have it conceivd both of this and other apparitions in the old Testament I stay not to determine nor to enquire But thus far only this Note will easily fall upon and into our consciences if we resist not if we despight not the Spirit of this Grace Namely that we should bear an infinite derestation to sin which procured at first and hath that malignant properte intrinsick and everlasting in all successive sin and sinners to provoke still the anger and offence of a most gracious Lord and if so then to think further of that infinite Grace and Love and goodness which even after sin committed could procure that Lord to compassion and could draw so deep a descent of Mercy as to submit himself to his most bitter Passion whereby he gives every wounded soul a clear assurance in an open pardon sealed in his own blood and also in this very Name leaves an Intimation that all our disobedience all our foul and many and weighty sins fall yet within the measure and compass and cannot sink us past or beneath the mercies of a gracious Lord God And therefore we to raise our souls upon this double Name as on a pair of powerfull wings oversoaring despair and flying up into his bosom who is our hope and life our dread and Love our Judge indeed but yet our Advocate that calls to us Come to me and whose blood cryes for us and we therefore to cry to him with that Disciple newly awakened to that frightfull and that delightfull double sight at once both of his sin and his salvation in Christ which made him so resolutely and so cheerfully take and wreath these Names together with Mâ—us in the appliance Dominus Deus meus my Lord and my God 12. This instruction I know and so you will apprehend it fits far better with the â—exts of the new and yet is no stranger in the old Testament For even Isay and Malaâ—hy in their clear and frequent forementions of our Lord retain as well the Relishes of Evangelists as Prophets and David openly sings and playes him on his Harp as Evidently as Elegantly Nay not so vail'd in Moses but that this very place of Genesis so early in the worlds infancy reveals some think the very person sure we are the Office of our Lord and Saviour whose after-manifestation and coming to destroy the works the Devil had made is promised within six verses and call'd a bruising of the Serpents head 13. But let us pursue this same consideration another way that a gracious and so a glorious Lord and God is offended and by sin drawn to an opposition to an enmity with his beloved creature man The vileness of sin is many wayes discovered in the language of the Holy Ghost It is to a main height of expression when God descends to so low a comparison as that in Amos I am prest under your sins as a Care is prest under many sheafs My Rebellion my stubbornness is a dangerous sin done against my Prince or Pastor or Parents And my violences my cruelties are heavy sins because in them I oppress my brother as a good man it may be better in his eye that made us both then my self But did I ever understand till now that I may oppress him that is optimus maximus my God also Is it not enough to weary men sayes the Prophet but shall I dare to vex and weary my God also and afflict and grieve my gracious Lord and his Holy Spirit No wonder we find David complaining My sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to bear when Davids Lord tunes his voice to the same key Your sins are a sore burden too heavy for me to hear Dost thou not see O vain man by this the vileness the odiousness of thy sin which makes him impotent that is Omnipotent As also in that term of Abomination How frequent is the use thereof in holy Scripture to cause us to write this lesson into all our souls from thence Nothing makes us so ugly spectacles to that Lord our God as sin which causes him to turn his face away in displeasure not able to abide us in his sight nay forced to deny his own workmanship Depart I know you not thus making him ignorant that is Omniscient And yet above and beyond and beneath all these we may collect the height and breadth and depth of a sinners dangerous and fearfull condition by those speeches of anger and provocation The wrath of a King is as Messengers of death the Wise man tells us and he that provokes him to anger sins against his own soul What is it when we provoke the holy one of Israel to anger O Lord rebuke me not in thy anger if in that mood I be called into Judgement O Lord who is able to abide it And this is doubtless one of the depths of Satan one of his main aims in provoking us to sin that thereby God being provoked to anger may declare himself our enemy What shall we then say Men and Brethren What will we then do May we not then say justly that other Lords have unjustly reigned over us Infoelix Lolium steriles dominantur our base and barren lusts and pleasures have indeed justly by Gods permission and by way of punishment had dominion over us by our willing submission of our souls to their sway and tyranny And will we still do so continue in sin still make a mock of gross and grievous sins never startle or admit the least umbrage of remorse at open blasphemies and often Adulteries drunkennesses Are not such mens Souls and Bodies States and Children in a fearfull manner engaged to the wrath of God which they hourly provoke by these abominations Alas poor wretched man or woman however titled Preacher or Hearer Lawyer or Courtier Lord or Lady every wickedness every known sin I dwell and delight in and resolve on is not only a touching pitch whence inevitable defilement nor a carrying fire in my bosom impossible to escape detriment but is an opposition a rebellious outstanding and sleighting of my God enmity for the wrath of God is manifoldly proclaimed from Heaven and Wisdom cries it in the streets Gods Declaration we are not ignorant of and dare we then despise If I be a Lord where 's my fear What earthly Monarch the anointed of the Lord unless super-anointed with the spirit of patience and meekness above mortals can endure his lawfull Commands to be vilified And can we look for less then suddain execution of that wrath which is drawn out and ready to fall on sinners and hath been the sinners case from the beginning Adam was our first Father
of his own corruptions by Gods mighty hand and out-stretched arm and a Passover by the Lambs blood sprinkled and flesh eaten with the sowr herbs of Repentance and a leaving behind him those rocky dangers and roaring wilds of sin and sea of vanity from whence when he looks back he stands still and beholding the Salvation of the Lord he fears the Lord and believes the Lord as t is in Exod. 14. ult and sings that song of Moses and the children of Israel Exod. 15. The Lord is my strength the Lord is become my salvation who is like unto thee O Lord glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders If now we should proceed from hence to fall upon the Redargution of such as mind no part of this Learning and hating to be reformed are loth to look into these books I should shew my self unmindfull of this presence and too far stretch my abusing of a Royall patience reserving therefore what may make up another exercise I conclude with prayer S. D. G. THE SECOND SERMON ON THIS TEXT AT COVRT GEN 3.9 The Lord God called unto the man and said Adam where art thou 1. IN the first opening of this Scripture which is an Introduction to Gods judicial Proceeding against Man after his sin and so the first Book-case that ever was recorded and being a loading case should therefore premonish all the sons of Adans to prevent a Second by a timely consideration of this first Judgement I made four parts the two first are the two parties appearing in this Judicature God the Judge and Man the Delinquent The other two are the manner of the Process by way of calling and the matter of the Summons Where art thou Of which the sense is double by way of Question first and then in a way of Commiseration 2. Concerning the first particular and the Judges names of Lord and God I spake fully the last time and of the dangerous nature of sin which provokes so great and then so gracious a Lord God to indignation to hate and then to punishment Finding this boundless Ocean of God his Names and Nature too profound we came to a discovery of Man our second Particular and observing how hard it is for man to search into himself for the advancement of every mans learning in this difficult point I pointed you to two books the first this book of Genesis and therein Principally the fourth Chapter verse 7. wherein is laid down by God such a description of man as will let us easily discern our wretched and earthly materials which to reform I told you of the other book the book of Conscience wherein as in a Glass a man man view himself and see of what fashion he is that is whether yet abiding in Genesis or be past over into an Exodus and escaped in some good measure the corruptions which be in nature and in the world through Lusts And now it is fit we fulfill what was promised of â—nnexing hereunto a Redargution of such proud or dull people as seem to scorn the Perusal of these two volumes full of heavenly Instruction but specially abhor to look into the last and therefore my Reproof shall chiefly intend and pitch upon that part of their Delinquency 3. Two sorts of men then there are both ignorant and arrogant that reject this book of Conscience as Apocryphal nor endure thereby to be put to their Purgation to their Clergy where the Versicle is both Greck and Latine Heathen and Christian too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Miserere mei too both irksom and unpleasant Doctrines to them The first of these is the Painted Pharisee who thinks himself and thinks he is scarce to thank God and thanks himself that he is not like other men but one per se that can predestinate elect call justifie sanctifie and glorifie himself for he can view and review and discover and relate at pleasure those Records above and find or set down there his own certain and it may be the name of a special friend of his too if he think fit in that book of life above without searching those rouls above or examining the book of his own life For as we have Mushrum Preachers Lecturing before reading and a birth before conception miraculous Fellows And I would that were the worst would it were but froth and vanity and a tedious nothing and that they did not conceive mischief and bring forth sedition So their Disciples or rather their Patrons and Matrons too can make sure work of their salvation without working it out with fear and trembling and are pefect in Heavens way by a directory of their own private spirit without book The second is the meer worldling Filius terrae earth-born and bred that comes up like a vernal flower in green and yellow a kind of Narcissus and like him becomes his own glass and book There he studies and pores and doats day and night and esteems himself a rare piece because fairly bound up in Velome with silk strings painted and guilded and embost with his Arms and Empress engraven and printed cum priviligio in a large Folio Stultitiam patiuntur opes But Quid intus He that runs may read him through In the very Frontispice and Title-page in capital Letters stand Caro and Carion and Carcase and nothing else but a few scatterred Principles and Conclusions of flesh and blood Or if Homo be there 't is sunk beneath his species and drowned in Animals in malis not beset with or set on by but set in evil in maligno positus and it is a Permalignancy like a compleat Armor from the Crown of the head saith I saiah to the sole of his foot It is not quartering nor a Party per pale but his whole Scutcheon is una litera Coat and Crest and Supporters and all He walks with a stiff neck saith the Scripture and strengthens himself in his wickedness and makes his boast that he can and will do mischief and yet this wretched thing will brag of Descent and coming in with Conquerors and Kings Alas Where art thou O vain man Here I am sure both he and we were once in Massa corrupta Our prime Ancestor you see a Rebel and the next of our kin Illud quod dicere nolo we can get no Credit by naming him And then in this miserable condition if he be a King on earth never so highly born unless he be born again he can never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless washt and made Kings and Priests in his blood and restored in that second Adam The meer natural man may derive himself from Belus but Gods calls every such man a son of Belial and his condition is Bellual nay worse then that of the brute beast though he be a man still And though this may anger and offend him to be told thus barely of it yet such a man but I shall hope there is no such man here must know that if