pacto thus the contract led it to this he was obedient obedient unto death and unto the death of the Crosse Phil. 2.8 By bloud and not onely by comming into this world and assuming our nature which humiliation was an act of infinite value and not by the bloud of his Circumcision or Agony but bloud to death and by no gentler nor nobler death then the death of the Crosse was this peace to be made by him Though then one drop of his bloud had beene enough to have redeemed infinite worlds if it had beene so contracted and so applyed yet he gave us a morning showre of his bloud in his Circumcision and an evening showre at his passion and a showre after Sunset in the piercing of his side And though any death had beene an incomprehensible ransome for the Lord of life to have given for the children of death yet he refused not the death of the Crosse The Crosse to which a bitter curse was nayled by Moses Deut. 21 23. from the beginning he that is hanged is not onely accursed of God as our Translation hath it but he is the curse of God as it is in the Originall not accursed but a curse not a simple curse but the curse of God And by the Crosse which besides the Infamy was so painfull a death as that many men languished many dayes upon it before they dyed And by his bloud of this torture and this shame this painfull and this ignominious death was this peace made In our great work of crucifying our selves to the world too it is not enough to bleed the drops of a Circumcision that is to cut off some excessive and notorious practice of sin nor to bleed the drops of an Agony to enter into a conflict and colluctation of the flesh and the spirit whether we were not better trust in Gods mercy for our continuance in that sin then lose all that pleasure and profit which that sin brings us nor enough to bleed the drops of scourging to be lashed with viperous and venemous tongues by contumelies and slanders nor to bleed the drops of Thornes to have Thornes and scruples enter into our consciences with spirituall afflictions but we must be content to bleed the streames of naylings to those Crosses to continue in them all our lives if God see that necessary for our confirmation and if men will pierce and wound us after our deaths in our good name yea if they will slander our Resurrection as they did Christs if they will say that it is impossible God should have mercy upon such a man impossible that a man of so bad life and so sad and comfortlesse a death should have a joyfull Resurrection here is our comfort as that piercing of Christs side was after the Consummatum est after his passion ended and therefore put him to no paine as that slander of his Resurrection was after that glorious triumph He was risen and had shewed himselfe before and therefore it diminished not his power so all these posthume wounds and slanders after my death after my God and my Soule shall have passed that Dialogue Veni Domine Iesu and euge bone serve That I shall have said upon my death-bed Come Lord Jesu come quickly and he shall have said Well done good and faithfull servant enter into thy Masters joy when I shall have said to him In manus tuas Domine Into thy hands O Lord I commend my spirit And he to me Hodie mecum eris in paradiso This day this minute thou shalt be now thou art with me in Paradise when this shall be my state God shall heare their slanders and maledictions and write them all downe but not in my booke but in theirs and there they shall meet them at Judgement amongst their owne sinnes to their everlasting confusion and finde me in possession of that peace made by bloud made by his bloud made by the bloud of his Crosse which were all the peeces laid out for this second part with which we have done and passe from the qualification of the person It pleased the Father that in him all fulnesse should dwell which was our first part and the Pacification and the way thereof by the bloud of his Crosse to make peace which was our second to the Reconciliation it selfe and the Application thereof to all to whom that Reconciliation appertaines That all things whether they be things in earth or things in heaven might be reconciled unto him All this was done 3. Part. He in whom it pleased the Father that this fulnesse should dwell had made this peace by the bloud of his Crosse and yet after all this the Apostle comes upon that Ambassage 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray ye in Christs stead that ye be reconciled to God So that this Reconciliation in the Text is a subsequent thing to this peace The generall peace is made by Christs death as a generall pardon is given at the Kings comming The Application of this peace is in the Church as the suing out of the pardon is in the Office Ioab made Absaloms peace with his Father Bring the young man againe sayes David to Ioab 2 Sam. 14.22.2.28.24.16 but yet he was not reconciled to him so as that he saw his face in two yeare God hath sounded a Retreat to the Battle As I live saith the Lord I would not the death of a sinner He hath said to the destroyer It is enough stay now thy hand He is pacified in Christ and he hath bound the enemy in chaines Now let us labour for our Reconciliation for all things are reconciled to him in Christ that is offered a way of reconciliation All things in heaven and earth sayes the Apostle And that is so large as that Origen needed not to have extended it to Hell too Origen and conceive out of this place a possibility that the Devils themselves shall come to a Reconciliation with God But to all in Heaven and Earth it appertaines Consider we how First then there is a reconciliation of them in heaven to God In coelis and then of them on earth to God and then of them in heaven and them in earth to one another by the blood of his Crosse If we consider them in heaven to be those who are gone up to heaven from this world by death they had the same reconciliation as we Animae either by reaching the hand of faith forward to lay hold upon Christ before he came which was the case of all under the Law or by reaching back that hand to lay hold upon all that hee had done and suffered when he was come which is the case of those that are dead before us in the profession of the Gospell All that are in heaven and were upon earth are reconciled one way by application of Christ in the Church so that though they be now in heaven yet they had their reconciliation here upon earth But
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost yet we see out of the formes of the Heretiques themselves still so farre as they conceived the Godhead to extend so farre they extended Glory in that holy acclamation those who beleeved not the Son to be God or the Holy Ghost not to be God left out Glory when they came to their Persons but to him that is God in all confessions Glory appertains Now Glory is Clara cum laude notitia sayes S. Ambrose It is an evident knowledge and acknowledgement of God by which others come to know him too which acknowledgement is well called a recognition for it is a second a ruminated a reflected knowledge Beasts doe remember but they doe not remember that they remember they doe not reflect upon it which is that that constitutes memory Every carnall and naturall man knowes God but the acknowledgement the recognition the manifestation of the greatnesse and goodnesse of God accompanied with praise of him for that this appertaines to the godly man and this constitutes glory If God have delivered me from a sicknesse and I doe not glorifie him for that that is make others know his goodnesse to me my sicknesse is but changed to a spirituall apoplexy to a lethargy to a stupefaction If God have delivered us from destruction in the bowels of the Sea in an Invasion and from destruction in the bowels of the earth in the Powder-treason and we grow faint in the publication of our thanks for this deliverance our punishment is but aggravated for we shall be destroyed both for those old sins which induced those attempts of those destructions and for this later and greater sin of forgetting those deliverances God requires nothing else but he requires that Glory and Praise And that booke of the Scriptures of which S. Basil sayes That if all the other parts of Scripture could perish yet out of that booke alone we might have enough for all uses for Catechizing for Preaching for Disputing That whole Booke which containes all subjects that appertaine to Religion is called altogether Sepher Tehillim The Booke of praises for all our Religion is Praise And of that Book every particular Psalme is appointed by the Church and continued at least for a thousand and two hundred yeares to be shut up with that humble and glorious acclamation Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wonderfull works that he doth for the sons of men Nil quisquam debet nisi quod turpe est non reddere sayes the Law It is Turpe an infamous and ignominious thing not to pay debt And infamous and ignominious are heavy and reproachfull words in the Law and the Gospell would adde to that Turpe Impium It is not onely an infamous but an impious an irreligious thing not to pay debts As in debts the State and the Judge is my security they undertake I shall be paid or they execute Judgement so consider our selves as Christians God is my security and he will punish where I am defrauded Either thou owest God nothing And then if thou owe him nothing from whom or from what hath shestollen that face that is faire or he that estate that is rich or that office that commands others or that learning and those orders and commission that preaches to others or they their soules that understand me now If you owe nothing from whom had you all these all this Or if thou dost owe Turpe est Impium est It is an unworthy it is an unhonest it is an irreligious thing not to pay him in that money which his owne Spirit mints and coynes in thee and of his owne bullion too praise and thanksgiving Not to pay him then when he himselfe gives thee the money that must pay him the Spirit of Thankfulnesse falls under all the reproaches that Law or Gospell can inflict in any names How many men have we seene molder and crumble away great estates and yet pay no debts It is all our cases What Poems and what Orations we make how industrious and witty we are to over-praise men and never give God his due praise Nay how often is the Pulpit it selfe made the shop and the Theatre of praise upon present men and God left out How often is that called a Sermon that speakes more of Great men Psal 148.2 then of our great God Laudate eum omnes Augeli ejus laudate eum omnes virtutes ejus David calls upon the Angels and all the Host of Heaven to praise God and in the Romane Church they will employ willingly all their praise upon the Angels and the Host of Heaven it selfe and this is not reddere debitum here is mony enough spent but no debt paid praise enough given but not to the true God Ver. 10. Laudate eum ligna fructifera universa pecora volucres pennatae sayes David there David calls upon fruits and fowle and cattle to praise God and we praise and set forth our lands and fruits and fowle and cattle with all Hyperbolicall praises and this is not reddere debitum no paiment of a debt where it is due Laudate eum juvenes senes virgines sayes David too He calls upon old men and young men and virgins to praise the Lord and we spend all our praises upon young men which are growing up in favour or upon old men who have the government in their hands or upon maidens towards whom our affections have transported us and all this is no paiment of the debt of praise Laudate eum Reges terrae Principes omnes Iudices V. 11. He calls upon Kings and Judges and Magistrates to praise God and we employ all our praise upon the actions of those persons themselves Beloved God cannot be flattered he cannot be over-praised we can speake nothing Hyperbolically of God But he cannot be mocked neither He will not be told I have praised thee in praising thy creature which is thine Image would that discharge any of my debt to a Merchant to tell him that I had bestowed as much or more mony then my debt upon his picture Though Princes and Judges and Magistrates be pictures and Images of God though beauty and riches and honour and power and favour be in a proportion so too yet as I bought not that Merchants picture because it was his or for love of him but because it was a good peece and of a good Masters hand and a good house-ornament so though I spend my nights and dayes and thoughts and spirits and words and preaching and writing upon Princes and Judges and Magistrates and persons of estimation and their praise yet my intention determines in that use which I have of their favour and respects not the glory of God in them and when I have spent my selfe to the last farthing my lungs to the last breath my wit
First then 1 Part. for that Blessednesse which we need not be afraid nor abstaine from calling the Recompence the Reward the Retribution of the faithfull for as we consider Death to grow out of Disobedience and Life out of Obedience to the Law as properly as Death is the wages of sin Life is the wages of Righteousnesse If I be asked what it is wherein this Recompence this Reward this Retribution consists if I must be put to my Speciall Plea I must say it is in that of the Apostle Omnia cooperantur in bonum That nothing can befall the faithfull that does not conduce to his good and advance his happinesse For he shall not onely find S. Pauls Mori lucrum That he shall be the better for dying if he must dye but he shall find S. Augustines Vtile cadere He shall be the better for sinning if he have sinned So the better as that by a repentance after that sin hee shall find himselfe established in a neerer and safer distance with God then he was in that security which he had before that sin But the Title and the Plea of the faithfull to this Recompence extends farther then so It is not onely that nothing how evill soever in the nature thereof shall be evill to them but that all that is Good is theirs properly theirs Psal 34.9 theirs peculiarly There is no want to them that fear the Lord sayes David The young Lions doe lack and suffer hunger but they that seeke the Lord shall not want any good thing The Infidel hath no pretence upon the next world none at all No nor so cleare a Title to any thing in this world but that we dispute in the Schoole whether Infidels have any true dominion any true proprietie in any thing which they possesse here And whether there be not an inherent right in the Christians to plant Christianity in any part of the Dominions of the Infidels and consequently to despoile them even of their possession if they oppose such Plantations so established and such propagations of the Christian Religion For though we may not begin at the dispossessing and displanting of the native and naturall Inhabitant for so we proceed but as men against men and upon such equall termes we have no right to take any mens possessions from them yet when pursuing that Right which resides in the Christian we have established such a Plantation if they supplant that we may supplant them say our Schooles and our Casuists For in that case we proceed not as men against men not by Gods Common Law which is equall to all men that is the Law of Nature but we proceed by his higher Law by his Prerogative as Christians against Infidels and then it is God that proceeds against them by men and not those men of themselves to serve their owne Ambitions or their other secular ends 1 Cor. 3.20 All things are yours saies the Apostle By what Right You are Christs saies he And Christ is Gods Thus is a Title convayed to us All things are Gods God hath put all things under Christs feete And he under ours as we are Christians And then as the generall profession of Christ entitles us to a generall Title of the world for the World belongs to the Faithfull and Christians as Christians and no more are Fideles Faithfull in respect of Infidels so those Christians that come to that more particular more active more operative faith which the Apostle speaks of in all this Chapter come also to a more particular reward and recompence and retribution at Gods hands God does not onely give them the naturall blessings of this World to which they have an inherent right as they are generall Christians but as they are thus faithfull Christians he gives them supernaturall blessings he enlarges himselfe even to Miracles in their behalfe Which is a second consideration First God opens himselfe in nature and temporall blessings to the generall Christian but to the Faithfull in Grace exalted even to the height of Miracle In this we consider first That there is nothing dearer to God then a Miracle Miracula There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once Nay the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles then the extraordinary which we admire most if they were done but once The standing still of the Sun for Iosuahs use was not in it selfe so wonderfull a thing as that so vast and immense a body as the Sun should run so many miles in a minute The motion of the Sun were a greater wonder then the standing still if all were to begin againe And onely the daily doing takes off the admiration But then God having as it were concluded himself in a course of nature and written downe in the booke of Creatures Thus and thus all things shall be carried though he glorifie himselfe sometimes in doing a miracle yet there is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world and a tacite reprehension of them who require or who need miracles Therefore hath God reserved to himselfe the power of Miracles as a Prerogative For the devill does no miracles the devill and his instruments doe but hasten Nature or hinder nature antedate Nature or postdate Nature bring things sooner to passe or retarde them And howsoever they pretend to oppose nature yet still it is but upon nature and but by naturall meanes that they worke onely God shakes the whole frame of Nature in pieces and in a miracle proceeds so as if there were no Creation yet accomplished no course of Nature yet established Facit mirabilia magnasolus saies David Psal 136.4 There are Mirabilia parva some lesser wonders that the devill and his Instruments Pharaohs Sorcerers can do But when it comes to Mirabilia magna Great wonders so great as that they amount to the nature of a Miracle Facit solus God and God onely does them And amongst these and amongst the greatest of these is the raising of the Dead and therefore we make it a particular consideration the extraordinary Joy in that case when Women received their dead raised to life againe Wee know the dishonour and the infamy that lay upon barrennesse among the Jews Mortui how wives deplored and lamented that When God is pleased to take away that impediment of barrennesse and to give children we know the misery and desolation of orbity when Parents are deprived of those children by death And by the measure of that sorrow which follows barrennesse or orbitie we may proportion that joy which accompanies Gods miraculous blessings when Women receive their dead naised to life againe In all the secular and prophane Writers in the world in the whole bodie of Story you shall not finde such an expressing of the misery of a famine as that of the Holy
no inconvenience averts Christ and his Spirit from his sweet and gracious and comfortable visitations But yet this that is called here The Sea of Galile was not properly a Sea but according to the phrase of the Hebrews who call all great meetings of waters by that one name A Sea this which was indeed a lake of fresh water is called a Sea From the roote of Mount Libanus spring two Rivers Jor and Dan and those two meeting together joyning their waters joyne their names too and make that famous river Jordan a name so composed as perchance our River is Thamesis of Thame and Isis And this River Jordan falling into this flat makes this Lake of sixteene miles long and some sixe in breadth Which Lake being famous for fish though of ordinary kinds yet of an extraordinary taste and relish and then of extraordinary kinds too not found in other waters and famous because divers famous Cities did engirt it and become as a garland to it Capernaum and Chorazim and Bethsaida and Tiberias and Magdalo all celebrated in the Scriptures was yet much more famous for the often recourse which our Saviour who was of that Countrey made to it For this was the Sea where he amazed Peter with that great draught of fishes that brought him to say Exi à me Domine Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinfull man Luk. 5.8 This was the Sea where himselfe walked upon the waters Matt. 14.25.8.23 And where he rebuked the tempest And where he manifested his Almighty power many times And by this Lake this Sea dwelt Andrew and Peter and using the commodity of the place lived upon fishing in this Lake and in that act our Saviour found them and called them to his service Why them Why fishers First Christ having a greater a fairer Jerusalem to build then Davids was Cur Piscatores a greater Kingdome to establish then Juda's was a greater Temple to build then Solomons was having a greater work to raise yet he begun upon a lesse ground Hee is come from his twelve Tribes that afforded armies in swarmes to twelve persons twelve Apostles from his Iuda and Levi the foundations of State and Church to an Andrew and a Peter fisher-men sea-men and these men accustomed to that various and tempestuous Element to the Sea lesse capable of Offices of civility and sociablenesse then other men yet must be employed in religious offices to gather all Nations to one houshold of the faithfull and to constitute a Communion of Saints They were Sea-men fisher-men unlearned and indocil Why did Christ take them Not that thereby there was any scandall given or just occasion of that calumny of Iulian the Apostat That Christ found it easie to seduce and draw to his Sect such poore ignorant men as they were for Christ did receive persons eminent in learning Saul was so and of authority in the State Nicodemus was so and of wealth and ability Zacheus was so and so was Ioseph of Arimatliea But first he chose such men that when the world had considered their beginning their insufficiency then and how unproper they were for such an employment and yet seene that great work so farre and so fast advanced by so weake instruments they might ascribe all power to him and ever after come to him cheerfully upon any invitation how weake men soever he should send to them because hee had done so much by so weak instruments before To make his work in all ages after prosper the better he proceeded thus at first And then hee chose such men for another reason too To shew that how insufficient soever he received them yet he received them into such a Schoole such an University as should deliver them back into his Church made fit by him for the service thereof Christ needed not mans sufficiency he took insufficient men Christ excuses no mans insufficiency he made them sufficient His purpose then was that the worke should be ascribed to the Workman Nequid Instrumentis August not to the Instrument To himselfe not to them Nec quaesivit per Oratorem piscatorem He sent not out Orators Rhetoricians strong or faire-spoken men to work upon these fisher-men Sed de piscatore lucratus est Imperatorem By these fisher-men hee hath reduced all those Kings and Emperours and States which have embraced the Christian Religion these thousand and six hundred yeares When Samuel was sent with that generall Commission 1 Sam. 16.6 to anoint a sonne of Ishai King without any more particular instructions when hee came and Eliab was presented unto him Surely sayes Samuel 1 Sam. 30. noting the goodlinesse of his personage this is the Lords Anointed But the Lord said unto Samuel Looke not on his countenance nor the height of his stature for I have refused him for as it followeth there from Gods mouth God seeth not as man setth Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord beholdeth the heart And so David in apparance lesse likely was chosen But if the Lords arme be not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to the Instrument For so when David himselfe was appointed by God to pursue the Amalekites the Amalekites that had burnt Ziklag and done such spoile upon Gods people as that the people began to speak of stoning David from whom they looked for defence Ver 6. when David had no kind of intelligence no ground to settle a conjecture upon which way he must pursue the Amalekites and yet pursue them he must in the way he findes a poore young fellow a famished sicke young man derelicted of his Master and left for dead in the march and by the meanes and conduct of this wretch David recovers the enemy recovers the spoile recovers his honour and the love of his people If the Lords arme bee not shortned let no man impute weaknesse to his Instrument But yet God will alwayes have so much weaknesse appeare in the Instrument as that their strength shall not be thought to be their owne When Pete and Iohn preached in the streets Acts 4.13 The people marvelled sayes the Text why for they had understood that they were unlearned But beholding also the man that was healed standing by they had nothing to say sayes that story The insufficiency of the Instrument makes a man wonder naturally but the accomplishing of some great worke brings them to a necessary acknowledgement of a greater power working in that weake Instrument For if those Apostles that preached Acts 8.10 had beene as learned men as Simon Magus as they did in him This man is the great power of God not that he had but that he was the power of God the people would have rested in the admiration of those persons and proceeded no farther It was their working of supernaturall things that convinced the world For all Pauls learning though hee were very learned never brought any of the Conjurers to burne his bookes or to renounce
employment to which his education had apted him yet the King denied their requests and having a discerning spirit replyed I know M. Donne is a learned man an excellent Divine and will prove a powerfull Preacher After that as he professeth * In his Devotions Expost 8. the King descended almost to a solicitation of him to enter into sacred Orders which though he denied not he deferred for the space of three yeares All which time he applyed himselfe to an incessant study of Textuall Divinity and attained a greater perfection in the learned Languages Greek and Hebrew Forwardnesse and inconsideration could not in him as in many others argue an insufficiencie for he considered long and had many strifes within himselfe concerning the strictnesse of life and competencie of learning required in such as enter into sacred Orders And doubtlesse considering his owne demerits did with meek Moses humbly aske God Who am I And if he had consulted with flesh and bloud he had not put his hand to that holy plough But God who is able to prevaile wrastled with him as the Angel did with Iacob Gen. 32. and marked him for his owne marked him with a blessing a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit And then as he had formerly asked God humbly with Moses Who am I So now being inspired with the apprehension of Gods mercies he did ask King Davids thankfull question Lord who am I that thou art so mindfull of me So mindfull of me as to lead me for more then forty years through a wildernesse of the many temptations and various turnings of a dangerous life So mindfull as to move the learnedst of Kings to descend to move me to serve at thine Altar So merciful to me as to move my heart to embrace this holy motion Thy motions I will embrace take the cup of salvation call upon thy Name and preach thy Gospell Such strifes as these S. Augustine had when S. Ambrose indeavoured his conversion to Christianity with which he confesseth he acquainted his deare friend Alippius Our learned Author a man fit to write after no meane Copy did the like and declaring his intentions to his deare friend D. King the then worthy Bishop of London who was Chaplaine to the Lord Chancellor in the time of his being his Lordships Secretary That Reverend Bishop most gladly received the newes and with all convenient speed ordained him Deacon and Priest Now the English Church had gained a second S. Augustine for I think none was so like him before his conversion none so like S. Ambrose after it And if his youth had the infirmities of the one Father his age had the excellencies of the other the learning and holinesse of both Now all his studies which were occasionally diffused were concentred in Divinity Now he had a new calling new thoughts new imployment for his wit and eloquence Now all his earthly affections were changed into divine love and all the faculties of his soule were ingaged in the conversion of others in preaching glad tidings remission to repenting sinners and peace to each troubled soule To this he applyed himselfe with all care and diligence and such a change was wrought in him Psal 84. that he was gladder to be a doore-keeper in the house of God then to enjoy any temporall employment Presently after he entred into his holy Profession the King made him his Chaplaine in Ordinary and gave him other incouragements promising to take a particular care of him And though his long familiarity with persons of greatest quality was such as might have given some men boldnesse enough to have preached to any eminent Auditory yet his modesty was such that he could not be perswaded to it but went usually to preach in some private Churches in Villages neere London till his Majestie appointed him a day to preach to him And though his Majestie and others expected much from him yet he was so happy which few are as to satisfie and exceed their expectations preaching the Word so as shewed he was possest with those joyes that he laboured to distill into others A Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory sometimes with them alwayes preaching to himselfe like an Angel from a cloud though in none carrying some as S. Paul was to heaven in holy raptures enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives and all this with a most particular grace and un-imitable fashion of speaking That Summer the same month in which he was ordained Priest and made the Kings Chaplaine his Majestie going his Progresse was intreated to receive an entertainment in the University of Cambridge and M. Donne attending his Majestie there his Majestie was pleased to recommend him to be made Doctor in Divinity Doctor Harsnet after Archbishop of York being then their Vice-Chancellour who knowing him to be the Author of the Pseudo-Martyr did propose it to the University and they presently granted it expressing a gladnesse they had an occasion to entitle and write him Theits His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent and he so much loved by many persons of quality that within one yeare after his entrance into Sacred Orders he had fourteen Advowsons of severall Benefices sent unto him but they being in the Countrey could not draw him from his long loved friends and London to which he had a naturall inclination having received his birth and breeding in it desiring rather some preferment that might fixe him to an employment in that place Immediately after his returne from Cambridge his wife died leaving him a man of an unsetled estate And having buried five the carefull father of seven children then living to whom he made a voluntary promise being then but forty two years of age never to bring them under the subjection of a Step-mother which promise he most faithfully kept burying with his teares all his sublunary joyes in his most deare and deserving Wives grave living a most retired and solitary life In this retirednesse he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincolns Inne once the friends of his youth to accept of their Lecture which by reason of M. Gatakers removall was then void of which he accepted being glad to renew his intermitted friendship with them whom he so much loved and where he had been a Saul not so far as to persecute Christianity yet in his irregular youth to neglect the practise of it to become a Paul and preach salvation to his brethren Nor did he preach onely but as S. Paul advised his Corinthians to be followers of him as he was of Christ so he also was an ocular direction to them by a holy and harmlesse conversation Their love to him was exprest many wayes for besides the faire lodgings that were provided and furnisht for him other curtesies were daily accumulated so many and so freely as though they meant their gratitude if possible should exceed or at least equall his merit In
August 1630. being with his daughter Mistris Harvy at Abrey-Hatch in Essex he fell into a Feaver which with the helpe of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as S. Paul of himselfe he dyes daily And he might say with Iob Job 30.15 Job 7.3 My welfare passeth away as a cloud The dayes of affliction have taken hold of me And weary nights are appointed for me This sicknesse continued long not onely weakning but wearing him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest And that thou judge it no impertinent digression before I speake of his death to looke backe with me upon some observations of his life which while a gentle slumber seises him may I hope fitly exercise thy Consideration His marriage was the remarkable error of his life which though he had a wit apt enough and very able to maintaine paradoxes And though his wives competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate a severe censure yet he never seemed to justifie and doubtlesse had repented it if God had not blest them with a mutuall and so cordiall an affection as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquet of fooles The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature with all her varieties had been made to exercise his great wit and high fancy And in those pieces which were carelesly scattered in his younger daies most of them being written before the twentieth yeare of his age it may appeare by his choice Metaphors that all the Arts joyned to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wisht they had been abortive or so short-liv'd that he had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so falne out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake it no not in his declining age witnessed then by many divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious composures yea even on his former sick bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy he then had in the assurance of Gods mercy to him A Hymne to God the Father VVIlt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And doe run still though still I doe deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin and made my sin their dore Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A yeare or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of feare that when I have spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But sweare by thy selfe that at my death thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I feare no more And on this which was his Death-bed writ another Hymne which bears this Title A Hymne to God my God in my sicknesse If these fall under the censure of a soule whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many devout and learned men have thought the soule of holy Prudentius was most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning with a new and spirituall Song justified by the examples of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his yeares payed his gratefull vowes to God in a royall hymne Esay 38. which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of our life in the Temple of my God The later part of his life was a continued studie Saturdaies onely excepted which he usually spent in visiting friends and resting himselfe under the weary burthen of his weeks Meditations And he gave himselfe this rest that thereby he might be refresht and inabled to doe the work of the day following not negligently but with courage and cheerfulnesse Nor was his age onely so industrious but in his most unsetled youth he was being in health never knowne to be in bed after foure of the clock in the morning nor usually out of his chamber till ten and imployed that time constantly if not more in his Studie Which if it seeme strange may gain beliefe by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remaine to testifie what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them analyzed with his owne hand He left sixscore Sermons also all writ with his owne hand A large and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatose wherein all the Lawes violated by that act are diligently survayed and judiciously censured A Treatise written in his youth which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many profest Scholars that labour to be thought learned Clerks and to know all things Nor were these onely found in his Studie but all businesses that past of any publique consequence in this or any of our neighbour Kingdoms he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of the Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the Copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his solutions and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himselfe He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his Will when no facultie of his soule was dampt or defective by sicknesse or he surprized by sudden apprehension of death But with mature deliberation expressing himselfe an impartiall Father by making his Childrens Portions equall a constant lover of his friends by particular Legacies discreetly chosen and fitly bequeathed them And full of charity to the poore and many others who by his long continued bounty might entitle themselves His almes-people For all these he made provision so largely as having six children might to some appeare more then proportionable to his estate The Reader may think the particulars tedious but I hope not impertinent that I present him with the beginning and conclusion of his last Will. IN the name of the blessed and glorious Trinitie Amen I Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus and the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good and perfect understanding praised be God therefore doe hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soule with my most humble thanks for
faithfull of whom as the Apostle sayes that he hoped beyond hope we may say that he beleeved beyond faith for as he sayes he followed God not knowing whither he led him Abraham came to another manner of expostulation with God Gen. 18.22 in the behalfe of Sodome He sayes to God wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked Absit be that farre from thee and he repeats it Absit be that farre from thee and he pleads it with God Shall not the Iudge of all the earth doe right Now as St. Paul sayes of Esay Esay was bold when he said thus and thus so we may say of Abraham Abraham was bold when he could conceive such an imagination that God would destroy the righteous with the wicked or that the Judge of all the earth should not doe right yet Abraham is not blamed for this Consider St. Peters proceeding with Christ Mat. 16.23 he comes to a rebuking of Christ and to a more vehement absit Lord be this far from thee this shall not be unto thee speaking of his going up to Jerusalem upon which journey dependeth the whole work of our redemption And though S. Peter incurred an increpation from Christ yet that which he did was rooted in love and piety though it were mixt with inconsideration S. Peter went farther then Abraham but Abraham farthen then Moses As therefore that first Revelation which Moses may seeme to have received when he was forty yeares before this in Egypt did not so binde him to a present prosecution of that work of their deliverance but that upon occasion he did withdraw himselfe from Egypt and continue from thence in a forty yeares absence so neither did this intimation which he received from God now so binde him up but that hee might piously present his owne unfitnesse for that emploiment for it does not so much imply a deniall to undertake the service as a petition that God would super-endow him with parts and faculties fit for that service It is farre from that stubborne sonnes non ibo I will not goe to work in that Vineyard But it is onely this except God doe somewhat for me before Lgoe I shall be very unfit to goe And that any Ambassadour may say to his Prince any Minister of State to his Master any Messenger of God to God himselfe And therefore good occasion of doctrines of edification offering it selfe from that consideration wee shall insist a little upon each of his excuses though they be foure His first prospect that he looks upon in himself Quis ego his first object that by way of objection he makes to God is himself and his owne unworthinesse To consider others is but to travaile to be at home is to consider our selves upon others we can looke but in oblique lines onely upon our selves in direct Man is but earth T is true but earth is the center That man who dwels upon himself who is alwaies conversant in himself rests in his true center Man is a celestiall creature too a heavenly creature and that man that dwels upon himselfe that hath his conversation in himselfe hath his conversation in heaven If you weigh any thing in a scale the greater it is the lower it sinkes as you grow greater and greater in the eyes of the world sinke lower and lower in your owne If thou ask thy self Quis ego what am I and beest able to answer thy selfe why now I am a man of title of honour of place of power of possessions a man fit for a Chronicle a man considerable in the Heralds Office goe to the Heralds Office the spheare and element of Honour and thou shalt finde those men as busie there about the consideration of Funerals as about the consideration of Creations thou shalt finde that office to be as well the Grave as the Cradle of Honour And thou shalt finde in that Office as many Records of attainted families and escheated families and empoverished and forgotten and obliterate families as of families newly erected and presently celebrated In what heighth soever any of you that sit here stand at home there is some other in some higher station then yours that weighs you downe And he that stands in the highest of subordinate heighths nay in the highest supreme heighth in this world is weighed downe by that which is nothing for what is any Monarch to the whole world and the whole world is but that but what but nothing What man amongst us lookes Moses way first upon himselfe perchance enow doe so but who lookes Moses way and by Moses light first upon himselfe and in himselfe first upon his owne insufficiencies what man amongst us that is named to any place by the good opinion of others or that cals upon others and begs and buyes their good opinion for that place begins at Moses Quis ego What am I where have I studied and practised sufficiently before that I should fill such or such a place of Judicature Quis ego What am I where have I served and laboured and preached in inferiour places of the Church that I should fill fuch or a such a place of Dignity or prelacy there Quis ego What am I where have I seene and encountred and discomfited the enemy that I should fill such or such a place of Command in an army There is not an Abraham left to say Pulvis Cinis O my Lord I am but dust and ashes not a Iacob left to say Non sum dignus O my Lord I am not worthy of the least of these preferments not a David left to say Canis mortuies pulex O my Lord I am but a dead dog and a flea But every man is vapor'd up into ayre and as the ayre can hee thinkes he can fill any place Every man is under that complicated disease and that ridling distemper not to be content with the most and yet to be proud of the least thing hee hath that when he lookes upon men he dispises them because he is some kind of Officer and when he looks upon God hee murmures at him because he made him not a King But if man will not come to his Quis ego who am I to a due consideration of himselfe God will come to his Quis tu who art thou and to his Amice quomodo intrasti friend how came you in To every man that comes in by undue meanes God shall say as first to us in our profession what hadst thou to doe to take my word into thy mouth so to others in theirs what hadst thou to doe to take my sword into thy hand Onely to those who are little in their owne eyes shall God say as Christ said to his Church Noli timere feare not little flock for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdome It is not called a Kingdome but the Kingdome that Kingdome which alone Luk. 12.32 is worth all the kingdomes that the devill shewed Christ
bee new every morning too and all that he did in eighty eight in the last Centutry he shall doe if we need it in twenty eight in this Century And though he may be angry with our prayers as they are but verball prayers and not accompanied with actions of obedience yet he will not be angry with us for ever but re-establish at home zeale to our present Religion and good correspondence and affections of all parts to one another and our power and our honour in forraign Nations Amen SERMON VI. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas Day 1628. Lord who hath beleeved our report Domine quis credidit auditui nostro I Have named to you no booke no chapter no verse where these words are written But I forbore not out of forgetfulnesse nor out of singularity but out of perplexity rather because these words are written in more then one in more then two places of the Bible In your ordinary conversation and communication with other men I am sure you have all observed that many men have certaine formes of speech certaine interjections certaine suppletory phrases which fall often upon their tongue and which they repeat almost in every sentence and for the most part impertinently and then when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence and confounds or troubles the hearer And this which some doe out of slacknesse and in-observance and infirmity many men God knowes do out of impiety many men have certaine suppletory Oathes with which they fill up their Discourse then when they are not onely not the better beleeved but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections Now this which you may thus observe in men sometimes out of infirmity sometimes out of impiety out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himselfe to man out of desire and a study to shed himselfe the more familiarly and to infuse himselfe the more powerfully into man you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himselfe in the Scriptures which are the discourse and communication of God with man There are certaine idioms certaine formes of speech certaine propositions which the holy Ghost repeats severall times upon severall occasions in the Scriptures It is so in the instrumentall Authors of the particular Bookes of the Bible There are certaine formes of speech certaine characters upon which I would pronounce That 's Moses and not David that 's Iob and not Solomon that 's Esay and not Ieremy How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus and Ego vivo As the Lord liveth and As I live saith the Lord How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum All is vanity How often does our blessed Saviour repeat his Amen Amen and in another sense then others had used that word before him so often as that you may reckon it thirtie times in one Evangelist so often as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason why S. Iohn called Christ by that name Amen Rev. 3.14 Thus saith Amen He whose name is Amen How often does S. Paul especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy and to Titus repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo This is a true and faithfull saying And how often his juratory caution Coram Domino before the Lord As God is my witnesse And as it is thus for particular persons and particular phrases that they are often repeated so are there certaine whole sentences certaine intire propositions which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture And except we except that proposition of which S. Peick makes his use That God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 for that is repeated in very many places that every where upō every occasiō every man might be remembred of that that God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge or your actions for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you condemne another man for an Heretique because he beleeves not just as you beleeve or for a Reprobate because he lives not just as you live for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you relie wholly upon the outward means that you are wrapped in the covenant that you are bred in a reformed Church for God is no accepter of persons except you will except this proposition I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures as this which is our Text Lord who hath beleeved our report For it is first in the Prophet Esay There the Prophet is in holy throws and pangs Esay 53.1 and agonies till he be delivered of that prophecy the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of Christ Jesus and yet is put to this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report And then you have these words in the Gospell of S. Iohn John 12.38 where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person actually really visibly evidently doing great works executing great judgements multiplying great Miracles and yet put to the application of this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report And then you have these words also in S. Paul Rom. 10.16 where we doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ nor a history of a present Christ but an application of that whole Christ to every soule in the fetling of a Church in that concatenation of meanes for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter sending and preaching and hearing and yet for all these powerfull and familiar assistances Domine quis crodidit Lord who hath beleeved that report So that now beloved you cannot say that you have a Text without a place for you have three places for this Text you have it in the great Prophet in Esay in the great Evangelist in S. Iohn and in the great Apostle in S. Paul And because in all three places the words minister usefull doctrine of edification we shall by yours and the times leave consider the words in all three places In all three the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God with God himselfe that his Meanes and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him being faithfully transmitted by him to the people were neverthelesse fruitlesse and ineffectuall I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes the Prophet Esay I prophecy I foretell the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world and I know that none of them that heare me can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world by fatisfaction to thy Justice but this and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes Christ himselfe in S. Iohn I come in person I glorifie thy name I doe thy will I preach thy Gospell I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles and I seale
sheep God and Man Him and Them Them indefinitely all them all men I came sayes Christ I alone that they all they might have life And secondly we consider the action it self as it is wrapped up in this word veni I came for that is first that he who was alwaies omnipresent every where before did yet study a new way of comming communicating himself with man veni I came that is novo modo veni I came by a new way And then that he who fed his former stock but with Prophesies and promises that he would come feeds us now with actuall performances with his reall presence and the exhibition of himself And lastly we shall consider the end the purpose the benefit of his comming which is life And first ut daret that he might give life bring life offer life to the world which is one mercy and then ut haberent that we might have it embrace it possesse it which is another and after both a greater then both that we might have this life abundantiùs more abundantly which is first abundantiùs illis more abundantly then other men of this world and then abundantiùs ipsis more abundantly then we our selves had it in this world in the world to come for therefore he came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly First then in our first part we consider the Persons The Shepheard and the Sheepe 1 Part. Persone Him and Them God and Man of which Persons the one for his Greatnesse God the other for his littlenesse man can scarce fall under any consideration What eye can fixe it self upon East and West at once And he must see more then East and West that sees God for God spreads infinitely beyond both God alone is all not onely all that is but all that is not all that might be if he would have it be God is too large too immense and then man is too narrow too little to be considered for who can fixe his eye upon an Atome and he must see a lesse thing then an Atome that sees man for man is nothing First for the incomprehensiblenesse of God the understanding of man Deus hath a limited a determined latitude it is an intelligence able to move that Spheare which it is fixed to but could not move a greater I can comprehend naturam naturatam created nature but for that natura naturans God himselfe the understanding of man cannot comprehend I can see the Sun in a looking-glasse but the nature and the whole working of the Sun I cannot see in that glasse I can see God in the creature but the nature the essence the secret purposes of God I cannot see there There is defatigatio in intellectualibus sayes the saddest and soundest of the Hebrew Rabbins R. Moses the soule may be tired as well as the body and the understanding dazeled as well as the eye It is a good note of the same Rabbi upon those words of Solomon fill not thy selfe with hony lest thou vomit it that it is not said that if thou beest cloyd with it thou maist be distasted Pro. 25.16 disaffected towards it after but thou maist vomit it and a vomit works so as that it does not onely bring up that which was then but that also which was formerly taken Curious men busie themselves so much upon speculative subtilties as that they desert and abandon the solid foundations of Religion and that is a dangerous vomit To search so farre into the nature and unrevealed purposes of God as to forget the nature and duties of man this is a shrewd surfet though of hony and a dangerous vomit It is not needfull for thee to see the things that are in secret sayes the wife man nonindiges Ecclus. 3.23 thou needest not that knowledge Thou maist doe well enough in this world and bee Gods good servant and doe well enough in the next world and bee a glorious Saint and yet never search into Gods secrets Ps 65.1 Te decet Hymnus so the vulgar reades that place To thee O Lord belong our Hymnes our Psalmes our Prayses our cheerefull acclamations and conformably to that we translate it Praise waiteth for thee O God in Sion But if we will take it according to the Originall it must be Tibi silentium laus est Thy praise O Lord consists in silence That that man praises God best that sayes least of him of him that is of his nature of his essence of his unrevealed will and secret purposes O that men would praise the Lord is Davids provocation to us all but how O that men would praise the Lord and declare his wondrous works to the sons of men but not to goe about to declare his unrevealed Decrees or secret purposes is as good a way of praising him as the other And therefore O that men would praise the Lord so forbeare his Majesty when he is retired into himselfe in his Decrees and magnifie his Majesty as he manifests himselfe to us in the execution of those Decrees of which this in our Text is a great one that he that is infinitely more then all descended to him that is infinitely lesse then nothing which is the other person whom we are to consider in this part ille illis I to them God to us The Hebrew Doctors almost every where repeat that adage of theirs lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum Illis God speakes mens language that is the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures descends to the capacity and understanding of man and so presents God in the faculties of the minde of man and in the lineaments of the body of man But yet say they there is never braine nor liver nor spleene nor any other inward part ascribed to God but onely the heart God is all heart and that whole heart that inexhaustible fountaine of love is directed wholly upon man And then though in the Scriptures those bodily lineaments head and feet and hands and eyes and eares be ascribed to God God is never said to have shoulders for say they shoulders are the subjects of burdens and therein the figures of patience and so God is all shoulder all patience he heares patiently he sees patiently he speakes patiently he dyes patiently And is there a patience beyond that In Christ there is he suffers patiently a quotidian Crucifying we kill the Lord of Life every day every day we make a mock of Christ Jesus and tread the blood of the Covenant under our feet every day And as though all his passion and blood and wounds and heart were spent by our former oathes and blasphemies we crucifie him dayly by our dayly sins that we might have new blood and heart and wounds to sweare by and all this hee suffers patiently and after all this ille illis to this man this God comes He to us God to man all to nothing for upon that we insist first as the first
qui jam invocamus te deliver us O Lord who do now call upon thee Et libera eos qui nondum invocant ut invocent te liberes eos and deliver them who do not yet call upon thee that they may call upon thee and be farther delivered by thee But it is time to passe from this first part the consideration of the Persons Ille Illis that God who is infinitely more then All would come to man who is infinitely lesse then nothing that God who is the God of peace would come to man his professed enemy that God the only Son of God would come to the reliefe of man of all men to our second generall part the action it self so far as it is enwrapped in this word Veni I came I came that they might have life Through this second part veni I came we must passe apace because upon the third 2 Part. the end of his comming that they might have life we must necessarily insist sometime In this therefore wee make but two steps And this the first that that God who is omnipresent alwayes every where in love to man studyed a new way of comming of communicating himselfe to man veni I came novo modo so as I was never with man before The rule is worth the repeating lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum God speakes mans language that is so as that he would be understood by man Therefore to God who alwayes fills all places are there divers Positions and Motions and Transitions ascribed in Scriptures In divers places is God said to sit Sedet Rex The Lord sitteth King for ever Howsoever the Kings of the earth be troubled and raysed Psal 29.10 and throwne downe againe and troubled and raised and throwne downe by him yet the Lord sitteth King for ever Habitat in Coelis sayes David Psal 102.13 and yet sedet in circulis terrae sayes Esay The Lord dwelleth in the heavens and yet hee sits upon the compasse of this earth Where no earth-quake shakes his seat Esay 40.22 for sedet in confusione as one Translation reads that place Psal 29.10 The Lord sitteth upon the flood so wee reade it what confusions soever disorder the world what floods soever surround and overflow the world the Lord sits safe Other phrases there are of like denotation Esay 26.21 Exit de loco Behold the Lord commeth out of his place that is he produces and brings to light things which he kept secret before And so Revertar ad locum I will goe Hose 5.15 and returne to my place that is I will withdraw the light of my countenance my presence my providence from them So that heaven is his place and then is he said to come to us when he manifests himself unto us in any new manner of working In such a sense was God come to us when he said I lift up my hands to heaven and say I live for ever Deut. 52.40 Where was God when he lifted up his hands to heaven Here here upon earth with us in his Church for our assurance and our establishment making that protestation denoted in the lifting up of his hands to heaven that he lived for ever that he was the everliving God and that therefore we need feare nothing God is so omnipresent as that the Ubiquitary will needs have the body of God every where so omnipresent as that the Stancarist will needs have God not only to be in every thing but to be every thing that God is an Angelin an Angel and a stone in a stone and a straw in a straw But God is truly so omnipresent as that he is with us before he comes to us Qâ—id peto ut venias in me August qui non essem si non esses in me why doe I pray that thou wouldst come into me who could not only not pray but could not bee if thou wert not in me before But his comming in this Text is a new act of particular mercy and therefore a new way of comming What way by assuming our nature in the blessed Virgin That that Paradoxa virgo as Amelberga the wife of one of the Earls of Flanders who lived continently even in mariage and is therfore called Paradoxa virgo a Virgin beyond opinion that this most blessed Virgin Mary should not only have a Son for Manes the Patriarch of that great Sect of Heretiques the Manichees boasted himselfe to be the son of a Virgin and some casuists in the Romane Church have ventured to say that by the practice and intervention of the devill there may be a childe and yet both parents father and mother remain Virgins But that this Son of this blessed Virgin should also be the Son of the eternall God this is such a comming of him who was here before as that if it had not arisen in his own goodnesse no man would ever have thought of it no man might ever have wished or prayed for such a comming that the only Son of God should come to die for all the sons of men August For Aliud est hîc esse aliud hîc tibi esse It is one thing for God to be here in the world another thing to be come hither for thy sake born of a woman for thy salvation And this is the first act of his mercy wrapped up in this word Veni I came I who was alwayes present studied a new way of comming I who never went from thee came again to thee The other act of his mercy enwrapped in this word Veni actu veni I came is this that he that came to the old world but in promises and prophecies and figures is actually really personally and presentially come to us of which difference that man will have the best sense who languishes under the heavy expectation of a reversion in office or inheritance or hath felt the joy of comming to the actuall possession of such a reversion Christ was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world appointed for a Sacrifice from that first promise of a Messias in Paradise long before that from all eternity For whensoever the election of the elect was date it when you will Christ was at that election and not only as the second person in the Trinity as God but Christ considered as man and as the propitiation and sacrifice for man for whosoever was elected was elected in Christ Christ was alwayes come in Gods purpose and early come in Gods promise and continually comming in the succession of the Prophets with such a confidence as that one of them sayes Esay 9.6 Puer datus filius natus A childe is given unto us a Son is born unto us Born and given already because the purpose of God in which he was born cannot be disappointed the promise of God by which he was given cannot be frustrated the Prophets of God by whom he was presented cannot be mistaken But yet
ordained that upon this day the Church should burne no Oyle but Balsamum in her Lamps so let us ever celebrate this day with a thankfull acknowledgment that Christ who is unctus Domini The Anointed of the Lord hath anointed us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes and given us life more abundantly then others in making us partakers of these meanes of salvation in his Church But I bring it closer then so now and here within these wals and at this houre comes Christ unto you in the offer of this abundance and with what penuriousnesse penuriousnesse of devotion penuriousnesse of reverence do you meet him here Deus stetit saies David Psal 82.1 God standeth in the Congregation does God stand there and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele I would speake so as the congregation should not know whom I meane but so as that they whom it concernes might know I meane them I would speake for I must say that there come some persons to this Church and persons of example to many that come with them of whom excepting some few who must therefore have their praise from us as no doubt they have their thanks and blessings from God I never saw Master nor servant kneele at his comming into this Church or at any part of divine service David had such a zeale to Gods service as that he was content to be thought a foole for his humility towards the Arke S. Paul was content to be thought mad so was our blessed Saviour himselfe not onely by his enemies but by his owne friends and kinsfolke John 10.20 Mar. 3.21 Indeed the roote of that word Tehillim which is the name of the Psalmes and of all cheerefull and hearty service of God is Halal and Halal is Insanire To fall mad And if humility in the service of God here be madnesse I would more of us were more out of our wits then we are I would all our Churches were to that purpose Bedlams S. Hieroms rule is not onely frequenter orandum to come often to prayers but Flexo corpore orandum to declare an inward humiliation by an outward As our comming to Church is a testification a profession of our religion to testifie our fall in Adam the Church appoints us to fall upon our knees and to testifie our Resurrection in Christ Jesus Just Mar. the Church hath appointed certaine times to stand But no man is so left to his liberty as never to kneele Genuflexio est peccatorum kneeling is the sinners posture if thou come hither in the quality of a sinner and if thou do not so what doest thou here the whole need not the Physitian put thy selfe into the posture of a sinner kneele We are very far from enjoyning any one constant forme to be alwaies observed by all men we onely direct you by that good rule of S. Bernard Habe reverentiam Deo ut quod pluris est ei tribuas Doe but remember with what reverence thou camest into thy Masters presence when thou wast a servant with what reverence thou camest to the Councell table or to the Kings presence if thou have beene called occasionally to those high places and Quod plur is est such reverence as thou gavest to them there be content to afford to God here That Sacrifice that struggled at the Altar the Ancients would not accept for a Sacrifice But Caesar would not forbeare a sacrifice for struggling but sacrificed it for all that He that struggles and murmures at this instruction this increpation is the lesse fit for a sacrifice to God for that But the zeale that I bear to Gods house puts so much of Caesars courage into mee as for all that struggling to say now and to repeat as often as I see that irreverence continued to the most impatient struggler Deus stetit God stands in the Congregation and wilt thou sit sit and never kneele Venite saies David Let us come hither let us be here what to doe Venite adoremus Ps 95.6 Let us come and worship How will not the heart serve no Adoremus procidamus Let us fall downe and kneele before the Lord our Maker Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification and as without this without holinesse no man shall see God though he pore whole nights upon the Bible so without that without humility no man shall heare God speake to his soule though hee heare three two-houres Sermons every day But if God bring thee to that humiliation of soule and body here hee will emprove and advance thy sanctification abundantiùs more abundantly and when he hath brought it to the best perfection that this life is capable of he will provide another abundantiùs another maner of abundance in the life to come which is the last beating of the pulse of this text the last panting of the breath thereof our anhelation and panting after the joyes and glory and eternity of the kingdome of Heaven of which though for the most part I use to dismisse you with saying something yet it is alwaies little that I can say thereof at this time but this that if all the joyes of all the Martyrs from Abel t◠him that groanes now in the Inquisition were condensed into one body of joy and certainly the joyes that the Martyrs felt at their deaths would make up a far greater body then their sorrowes would doe for though it bee said of our great Martyr or great Witnesse Apoc. 1.5 as S. Iohn calls Christ Jesus to whom all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs witnesses that testifie his testimony Non dolor sicut dolor ejus there was never sorrow like unto his sorrow Lam. 3.12 Heb. 12.2 it is also true Non gaudium sicut gaudium ejus There was never joy like unto that joy which was set before him when he endured the crosse If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs which would no doubt be such a joy as would worke a liquefaction a melting of my bowels yet I shall have it abundantiùs a joy more abundant then even this superlative joy in the world to come What a dimme vespers of a glorious festivall what a poore halfe-holyday is Methusalems nine hundred yeares to eternity what a poore account hath that man made that saies this land hath beene in my name and in my Ancestors from the Conquest what a yesterday is that not six hundred yeares If I could beleeve the transmigration of soules and thinke that my soule had beene successively in some creature or other since the Creation what a yesterday is that not six thousand yeares What a yesterday for the past what a to morrow for the future is any terme that can be comprehendred in Cyphar or Counters But as how abundant a life soever any man hath in this world for temporall abundances I have life more abundantly then hee if I have the spirituall life of grace so what measure soever I have of this spirituall life of
gainefull workes those workes thou maist not doe upon the Sabbath But those workes in the vertue of the precept of this text thou must doe in the sight of men those that are hard for thee to doe David would not consecrate nor offer unto God 2. Sam. 24.24 that which cost him nothing first he would buy Araunahs threshing floare at a valuable price and then he would dedicate it to God To give old cloathes past wearing to the poore is not so good a worke as to make new for them Mar. 12.42 To give a little of your superfluities not so acceptable as the widows gift that gave all To give a poore soule a farthing at that doore where you give a Player a shilling is not equall dealing Amos 8.6 for this is to give God quisquilias frumenti The refuse of the wheat But doe thou some such things as are truly works in our sense such as are against the nature and ordinary practice of worldly men to doe some things by which they may see that thou dost prefer God before honour and wife and children and hadst rather build and endow some place for Gods service then poure out money to multiply titles of honour upon thy selfe or enlarge joyntures and portions to an unnecessary and unmeasurable proportion when there is enough done before Let men see that that thou doest Opera Bona. to be a worke qualified with some difficulty in the doing and then those workes to be good workes Videant opera bona that they may see your good works They are not good works how magnificent soever if they be not directed to good ends A superstitious end or a seditious end vitiates the best worke Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given to build and endow Seminaries and schooles and Colledges in forraine parts but that hath a superstitious end Great contributions have beene raised and great summes given at home for the maintenance of such refractary persons as by opposing the government and discipline of the Church have drawne upon themselves silencings and suspensions and deprivations but that hath a seditious end But give so as in a rectified conscience and not a distempered zeale a rectified conscience is that that hath the restimony and approbation of most good men in a succession of times and not to rely occasionally upon one or a few men of the separation for the present give so as thou maist sincerely say God gave me this to give thus and so it is a good worke So it must be A worke something of some importance and a good worke not depraved with an ill end and then your worke Vt videant opera vestra That they may see your good works They are not your works if that that you give be not your owne Nor is it your own Opera bona vâ—stra if it were ill gotten at first How long soever it have beene possessed or how often soever it have beene transformed from money to ware from ware to land from land to office from office to honour the money the ware the land the office the honour is none of thine if in thy knowlege it were ill gotten at first Zacheus in S. Luke Luke 19.8 gives halfe his goods to the poore but it is halfe of his his owne for there might be goods in his house which were none of his Therefore in the same instrument he passes that scrutiny If I have taken any thing unjustly I restore him foure-fold First let that that was ill gotten be deducted and restored and then of the rest which is truly thine owne give cheerefully When Moses saies that our yeares are three score and ten Psal 90.20 if we deduct from that terme all the houres of our unnecessary sleep of superfluous sittings at feasts of curiosity in dressing of largenesse in recreations of plotting and compassing of vanities or sinnes scarce any man of chreescore and ten would be ten years old when he dyes If we should deale so with worldly mens estates defalse unjust gettings it would abridge and attenuate many a swelling Inventory Till this defalcation this scrutiny be made that you know what 's your owne what 's other mens as your Tombe shall be but a monument of your rotten bones how much gold or marble soever be bestowed upon it so that Hospitall that free-schoole that Colledge that you shall build and endow will bee but a monument of your bribery your extortion your oppression and God who will not be in debt though he owe you nothing that built it may be pleased to give the reward of all that to them from whom that which was spent upon it was unjustly taken for Prov. 13.22 The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous saies Solomon The sinner may doe pious works and the righteous may be rewarded for them the world may thinke of one founder and God knowes another That which is enjoyn'd in the name of light here is works not trifles and good works made good by the good ends they are directed to and then your workes done out of that which is truly your owne and by seeing this light men will be mov'd to glorifie your Father which is in Heaven which is the true end of all that men may see them but see them therefore To glorisie your Father which is in Heaven He does not say that by seeing your good works Patrem non Filios men shall glorifie your sonnes upon earth And yet truly even that part of the reward and retribution is worth a great deale of your cost and your almes that God shall establish your posterity in the world and in the good opinion of good men As you have your estates you have your children from God too As it is Davids recognition Dominus pars haereditatis meae Psal 16.5 Gen. 4.1 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance so the Possedi virum à Domino was Eves Recognition upon the birth of her first son Cain I have gotten I possesse a man from the Lord. Now that that man that thou possessest from the Lord thy son may possesse that land that thou possessest from the Lord it behooves thee to be righteous for so by that righteousnesse thou becomest a foundation for posterity Prov. 10.25 Prov. 13.9 Prov. 14.23 The righteous is an everlasting foundation his light his good workes shall be a chearefull light unto him for The light of the righteous reioyceth him They shall be so in this life and He shall have hope in his death saith Solomon that is hope for himself in another world hope of his posterity in this world for saies he He leaveth an inheritance to his childrens children that is an inheritance Prov. 23.22 out of which hee hath taken and restored all that was unjustly got from men and taken a bountifull part which he hath offered to God in pious uses that the rest may descend free from
enemy It does not binde the Magistrate to favour Theeves and Murderers at land nor Pirates at Sea who are truly Inimici nostri our enemies even as we are men enemies to mankinde It does not binde Societies and Corporations Ecclesiasticall or Civill to sinke under such enemies as would dissolve them or impaire them in their priviledges for such are not onely Inimici vestri but Vestrorum enemies of you and yours of those that succeed you And all men are bound to transferre their jurisdictions and priviledges in the same integrity in which they received them without any prevarication In such cases it is true that Corporations have no soules that is they are not bound to such a tendernesse of conscience for there are divers lawes in this doctrine of patience that binde particular men that doe not binde States and Societies under those penalties Much lesse does the Commandment bind us to the Inimicus homo which is the devill Inimicus homo to farther him by fuelling and advancing his tentations by high dyet wanton company or licencious discourse and so upon pretence of maintaining our health Luk. 10.19 or our cheerefulnesse invite occasions of sinne S. Hierome tells us of one sense in which wee should favour that enemy the devill and that in this text we are commanded to doe so Benevolus est erga Diabolum saies he he is the devils best friend that resists him for by our yeelding to the devils tentations wesubmit him to greater torments then if he mist of his purpose upon us he should suffer But betweene this enemy and us God himselfe hath set such an enmity that as no man may separate those whom God hath joyned Gen. 3.15 so no man may joyne those whom God hath separated God created not this enmity in the devill he began it in himselfe but God created an enmity in us against him and upon no collaterall conditions may wee bee reconciled to him in admitting any of his superstitions It is not then Inimicus vester the common enemy the enemy of the State lesse Inimicus homo the spirituall enemy of Mankinde the devill least of all Inimicus Dei they who oppose God so as God can be opposed in his servants who professe his truth David durst not have put himselfe upon that issue with God Doe not I hate them Psal 139.21 that hate thee if hee had beene subject to that increpation which the Prophet Iehu laid upon Iehoshaphat Shouldst thou helpe the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord 2 Chron. 19.2 But David had the testimony of his conscience that hee hated them with a perfect hatred which though it may admit that interpretation that it is De perfectione virtutis that his perfect hatred was a hatred becomming a perfect man a charitable hatred yet it is De perfectione intentionis a perfect hatred is a vehement hatred and so the Chalde paraphrase expresses it Odio consummato a hatred to which nothing can be added Hilar. Odio religioso with a religious hatred not onely that religion may consist with it but that Religion cannot subsist without it a hatred that gives the tincture and the stampe to Religion it selfe The imputation that lyes upon them who doe not hate those that hate God is sufficiently expressed in S. Gregory He saw how little temporisers and worldly men were moved with the word Impiety and ungodlinesse and therefore he waves that He saw they preferred the estimation of wisdome before and above piety and therefore hee saies not Impium est but stultum est si illis placere quaerimus quos non placere domino scimus It is a foolish thing to endeavour to be acceptable to them who in our own knowledge doe not endeavour to be acceptable to God But yet Beloved even in those enemies that thus hate God Solomons rule hath place There is a time to hate and a time to love Though the person be the same Eccles 3.8 De singularit Cleric the affection may vary As S. Cyprian saies if that booke be not rather Origens then Cyprians for it is attributed to both Ama foeminas inter Sacra solennia Love a woman at Church that is love her comming to Church though as S. Augustine in his time did we in our times may complaine of wanton meetings there But Odio habe in communione privata Hate that is forbeare women in private conversation so for those that hate God in the truth of his Gospell and content themselves with an Idolatrous Religion we love them at Church we would be glad to see them here and though they come not hither wee love them so far as that we pray for them and we love them in our studies so far as we may rectifie them by our labours But wee hate them in our Convocations where wee oppose Canons against their Doctrines and we hate them in our Consultations where we make lawes to defend us from their malice and we hate them in our bed-chambers where they make children Idolaters and perchance make the children themselves We acknowledge with S. Augustine Perfectio odii est in charitate the perfect hatred consists with charity Cum nec propter vitia homines oderimus nec vitia propter homines amemut when the greatnesse of the men brings us not to love their religion nor the illnesse of their Religion to hate the men Moses in that place is S. Augustines example whom he proposes Orabat occidebat he prayed for the Idolaters and he slew them he hated saies he Iniquitatem quam puniebat that sin which he punished and he loved Humanitatem pro qua or abat that nature as they were men for whom he prayed for that saies he is perfectum odium quod facti sunt diligere quod fecerunt odiisse to love them as they are creatures to hate them as they are Traytors Thus much love is due to any enemy that if God be pleased to advance him De ejus profectu non dejiciamur sayes S. Gregory His advancement doe not deject us to a murmuring against God or to a diffidence in God And that when God in his time shall cast him downe againe Congaudeamus justitiae Iudicis condoleamus miseriae pereuntis Wee may both congratulate the justice of God and yet condole the misery of that person upon whom that judgement is justly fallen for though Inimicus vester the enemy that malignes the State and Inimicus Dei the enemy that opposes our religion be not so far within this text as that we are bound to feed them or to doe them good yet there are scarce any enemies with whom wee may not live peaceably and to whom we may not wish charitably We have done with all Ciba which was intended and proposed of the person we come to the duty expressed in this text Ciba feed him and give him drinke Here there might be use in noting the largenesse the fulnesse the abundance of
of sinnes But with this man in our Text Christ goes farther and comes sooner to an end He exercises him with no disputation he leaves no roome for any diffidence but at first word establishes him and then builds upon him Now beloved which way soever of these two God have taken with thee whether the longer or the shorter way blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for that If God have setled and strengthned thy faith early early in thy youth heretofore early at the beginning of a Sermon now A day is as a thousand yeares with God a minute is as sixe thousand yeares with God that which God hath not done upon the Nations upon the Gentiles in six thousand yeares never since the Creation which is to reduce them to the knowlege and application of the Messias Christ Jesus that he hath done upon thee in an instant If he have carried thee about the longer way if he have exposed thee to scruples and perplexities and stormes in thine understanding or conscience yet in the midst of the tempest the soft ayre that he is said to come in shall breath into thee in the midst of those clouds his Son shall shine upon thee In the midst of that flood he shall put out his Rainbow his seale that thou shalt not drowne his Sacrament of faire weather to come and as it was to the Thiefe thy Crosse shall be thine Altar and thy Faith shall be thy Sacrifice Whether he accomplish his worke-upon thee soone or late he shall never leave thee all the way without this Confide fili a holy confidence that thou art his which shall carry thee to the Dimittuntur peccata to the peace of conscience in the remission of sins In which two words we noted unto you that Christ hath instituted a Catechisme an Instruction for this new Convertite and adopted Son of his in which the first lesson that is therein implyed is Antequam rogetur That God is more forward to give Antequam rogetur then man to aske It is not said that the sick man or his company in his behalfe said any thing to Christ but Christ speakes first to them If God have touched thee here didst thou aske that at his hands Didst thou pray before thou camest hither that he would touch thy heart here perchance thou didst But when thou wast brought to thy Baptisme didst thou ask any thing at Gods hands then But those that brought thee that presented thee did They did in thy Baptisme but at thine election then when God writing downe the names of all the Elect in the book of Life how camest thou in who brought thee in then Didst thou aske any thing at Gods hands then when thou thy selfe wast not at all Dat prius that 's the first lesson in this Catechisme God gives before we aske Meliora and then Dat meliora rogatis God gives better things then we aske They intended to aske but bodily health and Christ gave spirituall he gave Remission of sinnes And what gain'd he by that why Beati quorum remissae iniquitates Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven But what is Blessednesse Any more then a consident expectation of a good state in the next world Yes Blessednesse includes all that can be asked or conceived in the next world and in this too Christ in his Sermon of blessednesse saies first Blessed are they for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven and after Blessed are they Mat. 5.3 5. for they shall in her it the earth Againe Blessed for they shall obtaine mercy and Blessed for they shall be filled Remission of sins is blessednesse and as Godlinesse hath the promise of this world and the next so blessednesse hath the performance of both He that hath peace in the remission of sinnes is blessed already and shall have those blessings infinitely multiplied in the world to come The farthest that Christ goes in the expressing of the affections of a naturall Father here is That if his Son aske bread he will not give him a stone Luk. 11.12 and if he aske a Fish he will not give him a Scorpion He will not give him worse then he ask'd But it is the peculiar bounty of this Father who adopted this Sonne to give more and better spirituall for temporall Another lesson which Christ was pleased to propose to this new Convertite Causa morborum in this Catechisme was to informe him That sins were the true causes of all bodily diseases Diseases and bodily afflictions are sometimes inflicted by God Ad poenam non ad purgationem Not to purge or purifie the soule of that man by that affliction but to bring him by the rack to the gallowes through temporary afflictions here to everlasting torments hereafter As Iudas his hanging and Herods being eaten with wormes Acts 12. was their entrance into that place where they are yet Sometimes diseases and afflictions are inflicted onely or principally to manifest the glory of God in the removing thereof So Christ saies of that man that was borne blinde that neither he himselfe had sinned John 5. nor bore the sinnes of his parents but he was borne blinde to present an occasion of doing a miracle Sometimes they are inflicted Ad humiliationem for our future humiliation So S. Paul saies of himselfe That least he should be exalted above measure 2 Cor. 12.7 by the abundance of Revelations he had that Stimulum carnis That vexation of the flesh that messenger of Satan to humble him And then sometimes they are inflicted for tryall and farther declaration of your conformity to Gods will as upon Iob. But howsoever there be divers particular causes for the diseases and afflictions of particular men the first cause of death and sicknesse and all infirmities upon mankinde in generall was sin and it would not be hard for every particular man almost to finde it in his owne case too to assigne his fever to such a surfet or his consumption to such an intemperance And therefore to breake that circle in which we compasse and immure and imprison our selves That as sinne begot diseases so diseases begot more sinnes impatience and murmuring at Gods corrections Christ begins to shake this circle in the right way to breake it in the right linke that is first to remove the sin which occasioned the disease for till that be done a man is in no better case then as the Prophet expresses it If he should flie from a Lion Amos 5.19 and a Beare met him or if he should leane upon a wall and a Serpent bit him What ease were it to be delivered of a palsie of slack and dissolv'd sinews and remaine under the tyranny of a lustfull heart of licentious eyes of slacke and dissolute speech and conversation What ease to be delivered of the putrefaction of a wound in my body and meet a murder in my conscience done or intended or desired upon my neighbour To
be delivered of a fever in my spirits and to have my spirit troubled with the guiltinesse of an adultery To be delivered of Cramps and Coliques and Convulsions in my joynts and sinewes and suffer in my soule all these from my oppressions and extortions by which I have ground the face of the poore It is but lost labour and cost to give a man a precious cordiall when he hath a thorne in his foote or an arrow in his flesh for as long as the sinne which is the cause of the sicknesse remaines Deterius sequetur A worse thing will follow we may be rid of a Fever and the Pestilence will follow rid of the Cramp and a Gout will follow rid of sicknesse and Death eternall death will follow That which our Saviour prescribes is Noli peccare ampliùs sinne no more first non ampliùs sinne no more sins take heed of gravid sins of pregnant sinnes of sins of concomitance and concatentation that chaine and induce more sins after as Davids idlenesse did adultery and that murder the losse of the Lords Army and Honor in the blaspheming of his name Noli ampliùs sin no more no such sin as induces more And Noli ampliùs sinne no more that is sin thy owne sin thy beloved sin no more times over And still Noli ampliùs sin not that sin which thou hast given over in thy practise in thy memory by a sinfull delight in remembring it And againe Noli ampliùs sin not over thy former sins by holding in thy possession such things as were corruptly gotten by any such former practises for Deterius sequetur a worse thing will follow A Tertian will be a Quartan and a Quartan a Hectique and a Hectique a Consumption and a Consumption without a consummation that shall never consume it selfe nor consume thee to an unsensiblenesse of torment And then after these three lessons in this Catechisme Sanitas spiritualis That God gives before we aske That he gives better then we aske That he informes us in the true cause of sicknesse sinne He involves a tacit nay he expresses an expresse rebuke and increpation and in beginning at the Dimittuntur peccata at the forgivenesse of sinnes tels him in his eare that his spirituall health should have beene prefer'd before his bodily and the cure of his soule before his Palsie that first the Priest should have beene and then the Physitian might bee consulted That which Christ does to his new adopted Sonne here the Wiseman saies to his Son Ecclus. 38.9 My Son in thy sicknesse be not negligent But wherein is his diligence required or to be expressed in that which followes Pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole But upon what conditions or what preparations Leave off from sin order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickednesse Is this all needs there no declaration no testimony of this Yes Give a sweet savour and a memoriall of fine floure and make a fat offering as not beeing that is as though thou wert dead Give and give that which thou givest in thy life time as not beeing And when all this is piously and religiously done thou hast repented restor'd amended and given to pious uses Then saies he there give place to the Physitian for the Lord hath created him For if we proceed otherwise if wee begin with the Physitian Physick is a curse He that sinneth before his Maker V. 15. let him fall into the hands of the Physitian saies the Wiseman there It is not Let him come into the hands of the Physitian as though that were a curse but let him fall let him cast and throw himselfe into his hands and rely upon naturall meanes and leave out all consideration of his other and worse disease and the supernaturall Physick for that 2. Chron. 16. Asa had had a great deliverance from God when the Prophet Hanani asked him Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubins a huge Host but because after this deliverance he relied upon the King of Syria and not upon God the Judgement is From henceforth thou shalt have wars That was a sicknesse upon the State then he fell sick in his own person and in that sicknesse saies that story He sought not to the Lord but to the Physitian and then he dyed To the Lord and then to the Physitian had beene the right way If to the Physitian and then to the Lord though this had beene out of the right way yet hee might have returned to it But it was to the Physitian and not to the Lord and then he died Omnipotenti medico nullus languor insanabilis saies S. Ambrose there is but one Almighty and none but the Almighty can cure all diseases because hee onely can cure diseases in the roote that is in the forgivenesse of sins We are almost at an end when we had thus Catechised his Convertite thus rectified his patient Scribae Pharisci hee turnes upon them who beheld all this and were scandaliz'd with his words the Scribes and Pharisees And because they were scandaliz'd onely in this that he being but man undertooke the office of God to forgive sins he declares himselfe to them to be God Christ would not leave even malice it selfe unsatisfied And therefore do not thou thinke thy selfe Christian enough for having an innocence in thy selfe but be content to descend to the infirmities and to the very malice of other men and to give the world satisfaction Nec paratum habeas illud ètrivio sayes S. Hierome do not arm thy self with that vulgar and triviall saying Sufficit mihi conscientia mea nec curo quid loquantur homines It suffices me that mine own conscience is cleare and I care not what all the world sayes thou must care what the world sayes and thinks Christ himself had that respect even towards the Scribes and Pharisees For first he declared himself to be God in that he took knowledge of their thoughts for they had said nothing and he sayes to them why reason you thus in your hearts and they themselves did not could not deny but that those words of Solomon appertained only to God 2 Chron. 6.30 Thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men And those of Ieremy The heart is deceitfull above all things Jer. 17.9 and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and I try the reines Let the Schoole dispute infinitely for he that will not content himself with means of salvation till all Schoole points be reconciled will come too late let Scotus and his Heard think That Angels and separate soules have a naturall power to understand thoughts though God for his particular glory restraine the exercise of that power in them as in the Romane Church Priests have a power to forgive all sins though the Pope restraine that power in reserved cases And the Cardinals by their Creation have a voice in the
least in the making of lice A man may stand a great tentation and satisfie himselfe in that and thinke he hath done enough in the way of spirituall valour and then fall as irrecoverably under the custome of small I were as good lie under a milstone as under a hill of sand for howsoever I might have blowne away every graine of sand if I had watched it as it fell yet when it is a hill I cannot blow it nor shove it away and when I shall thinke to say to God I have done no great sins God shall not proceed with me by waight but by measure nor aske how much but how long I have sinned And though I may have done thus much towards this purity as that for a good time I have discontinued my sin yet if my heart be still set upon the delight and enjoying of that which was got by my former sins though I be not that dog that returnes to his vomit yet I am still that Sow that wallowes in her mire though I doe not thrust my hands into new dirt yet the old dirt is still baked upon my hands though mine owne cloathes doe not defile me againe as Iob speakes Iob. 2.22 though I do not relapse to the practise of mine old sin yet I have none of Ieremies Nitre and Sope none of Iobs Snow-water to wash me cleane except I come to Restitution As long as the heart is set upon things sinfully got thou sinnest over those yeares sins every day thou art not come to the purity of this text for it is pure and pure in heart But can any man come to that purenesse to have a heart pure from all foulenesse Corde Iob 14.4 Prov. 20. can a man be borne so Who can bring a cleane thing out of filthinesse is Iobs unanswerable question can any man make it cleane of himselfe Who can say I have made cleane my heart is Solomons unanswerable question Beloved when such questions as these are asked in the Scriptures How can who can doe this Sometimes they import an absolute impossibility It cannot be done by any meanes And sometimes they import but a difficulty It can hardly be done it can be done but some one way When the Prophet saies Quid proderit sculptile What good can an Idoll or an Idolatrous Religion do us Habak 2. It shall not helpe us in soule in reputation in preferment it will deceive us every way it is absolutely impossible that an Idoll or an Idolatrous Religion should doe us any good But then when David saies Domine quis habitabit Lord who shall ascend to thy Tabernacle Psal 15.2 and dwell in thy holy hil David does not mean that there is no possibility of ascending thither or dwelling there though it be hard clambring thither hard holding there And therefore when the Prophet saies Quis sapiens intelliget haec Hos 14.8 Who is so wise as to finde out this way he places this cleannesse which we inquire after in Wisdome What is Wisdome we may content our selves with that old definition of Wisdome that it is Rerum humanarum divinarum scientia The Wisdome that accomplishes this cleannesse is the knowledge the right valuation of this world and of the next To be able to compare the joyes of heaven and the pleasures of this world and the gaine of the one with the losse of the other this is the way to this cleanenesse of the heart because that heart that considers and examines what it takes in will take in no foule no infectious thing 1 Thes 4.7 God hath not called us to uncleannesse but to holinesse saies the Apostle If we be in the waies of uncleannesse God hath not called us thither We may slip into them by the infirmity of our nature or we may run into them by a custome of sin wee may bee drawne into them by the inordinatenesse of our affections or we may be driven into them by feare of losing the favour of those great Persons upon whom we depend and so accompany or assist them in their sins So we may slip and run and be drawne and be driven but we are not called not called by God into any sin not called by any Decree of God not by any profession or calling not by any complexion or constitution to a necessity of committing any sin All sin is from our selves But if we be in the waies of holinesse it is God that call'd us thither we have not brought our selves God calls us by his Ordinance and Ministery in the Church But when God hath call'd us thither we may see what he expects from us by that which the Apostle saies 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthinesse that is let us employ that faculty that is in our selves let us be appliable and supple easie and ductile in those waies to which God hath called us Since God by breeding us in the Christian Church and in the knowledge of his word by putting that balance into our hand to try heavenly and earthly things by which we may distinguish Lepram à non lepra what is a leprous and sinfull what is an indifferent and cleane action let us be content to put the ware and the waights into the balance that is to bring all objects and all actions to a consideration and to an examination by that tryall before wee set our hearts upon them for God leaves no man with whom he hath proceeded so far as to breed him in the Christian Church without a power to doe that to discerne his owne actions if he do not winke Upon those word Gen. 26.18 Isaac digged the Wels of water which they had digged in the daies of Abraham Homil. 13. in Gen. and the Philistims had stopped Origen extends this power far though not very confidently Fortè in uniuscuiusque nostrûm anima saies he perchance in every one of our soules there is this Well of the water of Life and this power to open it whether Origens Nostrûm our soule be intended by him of us as we are men or of us as wee are Christians I pronounce not but divide it In all us as we are naturall men there is this Well of water of Life Abraham digged it at first The Father of the faithfull our heavenly Abraham infused it into us all at first in Adam from whom as wee have the Image of God though defaced so we have this Well of water though stopped up But then the Philistims having stopped this well Satan by sinne having barred it up the power of opening it againe is not in the naturall man but Isaac diggs them againe Isaac who is Filius laetitiae the Son of Joy our Isaac our Jesus he opens them againe to all that receive him according to his Ordinance in his Church he hath given this power of keeping open in themselves this Well of Life these meanes of Salvation Peccata tua alios
and he from a Rabbi of the Jews Aben Ezra takes this to be an adjuration of the Earth as Gregory does but not as Gregory does in the person of Christ but of Iob himselfe That Iob adjures the earth not to cover his blood that is not to cover the shedding of his blood not to conspire with the malice of his enemies so much as to deny him buriall when he was dead that they which trod him downe alive might not triumph over him after his death or conclude that God did certainly forsake him alive since he continued these declarations against him when he was dead And this also may have good use but yet it is too narrow and too shallow to bee the sense of this phrase this elegancy this vehemency of the Holy Ghost in the mouth of Iob. S. Chrysostome I think was the first that gave light to the sense of this place He saies that such men as are as they thinke over-punished have naturally a desire that the world knew their faults that so by comparing their faults with their punishments there might arise some pitty and commiseration of their state And surely this that Chrysostome sayes is true and naturall for if two men were to be executed together by one kinde of death the one for stealing a Sheep perchance in hunger the other for killing his Father certainly he that had but stollen the Sheep would be sorry the world should think their cases alike or that he had killed a Father too And in such an affection Iob sayes I am so far from being guilty of those things that are imputed to me that I would be content that all that ever I have done were knowne to all the world This light which S. Chrysost gave to this place shined not out I think till the Reformation for I have not observed any Author between Chrysostome and the Reformation that hath taken knowledge of this interpretation nor any of the Reformation as from him from Chrysostome But since our Authors of the Reformation have somewhat generally pursued that sense Calvin hath done so and so Tremellius and so Piscator and many many more now one Author of the Romane Church one as curious and diligent in interpreting obscure places of Scripture as any amongst them and then more bold and confident in departing from their vulgar and frivolous and impertinent interpretations of Scriptures then any amongst them the Capuchin Bolduc hath also pursued that sense That sense is that in this adjuration or imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood Blood is not literally bodily blood but spirituall blood the blood of the soule exhausted by many and hainous sins such as they insimulated Iob of For in this signification is that word Blood often taken in the Scriptures When God sayes when you stretch forth your hands Esay 1.15 Psal 51.14 they are full of blood there blood is all manner of rapine of oppression of concussion of violence When David prayes to be delivered from blood-guiltinesse it is not intended onely of an actuall shedding of blood for it is in the Originall à sanguinibus in the plurall other crimes then the actuall shedding of blood are bloody crimes Ezech 7.23 Therefore sayes one Prophet the land is full of bloody crimes And another blood toucheth blood Hosea 4.2 whom the Chalde Paraprase expresses aright Aggregant peccata peccatis blood toucheth blood when sin induces sin Which place of Hosea S. Gregory interprets too then blood touches blood cum ante oculos Dei adjunctis peccatis cruentatur anima Then God sees a soule in her blood when she wounds and wounds her selfe againe with variation of divers or iteration of the same sins This then being thus established that blood in this Text is the blood of the soule exhausted by sin for every sin is an incision of the soule a Lancination a Phlebotomy a letting of the soule blood and then a delight in sin is a going with open veines into a warme bath and bleeding to death This will be the force of Iobs Admiration or Imprecation O Earth cover not thou my blood I am content to stand as naked now as I shall doe at the day of Judgement when all men shall see all mens actions I desire no disguise I deny I excuse I extenuate nothing that ever I did I would mine enemies knew my worst that they might study some other reason of Gods thus proceeding with me then those hainous sinnes which from these afflictions they will necessarily conclude against me But had Iob been able to have stood out this triall Was Iob so innocent as that he need not care though all the world knew all Perchance there may have been some excesse some inordinatenesse in his manner of his expressing it we cannot excuse the vehemence of some holy men in such expressions We cannot say that there was no excesse in Moses his Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy booke or that there was no excesse in S. Pauls Anathema pro fratribus That he wished to be accursed to be separated from Christ for his brethren But for Iob we shall not need this excuse for either we may restraine his words to those sins which they imputed to him and then they have but the nature of that protestation which David made so often to God Iudge me O Lord according to my righteousnesse according to mine innocency according to the cleannesse of my hands which was not spoken by David simply but respectively not of all his sins but of those which Saul pursued him for Or if we enlarge Iobs words generally to all his sins we must consider them to be spoken after his repentance and reconciliation to God thereupon If they knew may Iob have said how it stood between God and my soule how earnestly I have repented how fully he hath forgiven they would never say these afflictions proceeded from those sins And truly so may I so may every soule say that is rectified refreshed restored re-established by the seales of Gods pardon and his mercy so the world would take knowledge of the consequences of my sins as well as of the sins themselves and read my leafes on both sides and heare the second part of my story as well as the first so the world would look upon my temporall calamities the bodily sicknesses and the penuriousnesse of my fortune contracted by my sins and upon my spirituall calamities dejections of spirit sadnesse of heart declinations towards a diffidence and distrust in the mercy of God and then when the world sees me in this agony and bloody sweat in this agony and bloody sweat would also see the Angels of heaven ministring comforts unto me so they would consider me in my Peccavi and God in his Transtulit Me in my earnest Confessions God in his powerfull Absolutions Me drawne out of one Sea of blood the blood of mine owne soule and cast into another Sea the
erected Iegar-Sehadutha by an extraction from the last word of our Text Sahad Jacob calls it by the first word And the reason is given in the body of the Text it selfe in the vulgat Edition though how it got thither we know not for in the Originall it is not Vterque juxta proprietatem lingua suae Laban spake in his language Syriaque Jacob spake in his Hebrew and both called that heape of stones a witnesse Now our bestowing this little time upon the clearing of the words hath saved us much more time for by this meanes we have shortned this clause of our Text and all that we are to consider is but this My witnesse is in heaven And truly that is enough I care not though all the world knew all my faults I care not what they conclude of Gods not granting my prayers my witnesse is in heaven To be condemned unjustly amongst men to be ill interpreted in the acts of my Religion is a heavy case but yet I have a reliefe in all this my witnesse is in heaven The first comfort is Quia in Coelis Quia in Coelis because he whom I rely upon is in heaven For that is the foundation and Basis upon which our Saviour erects that prayer which he hath recommended unto us Qui es in coelis Our Father which art in heaven when I lay hold upon him there in heaven I pursue cheerefully and confidently all the other petitions for daily bread for forgivenesse of sins for deliverance from tentations from and for all Psal 〈◊〉 Acts. 〈◊〉 Est in coelis he is in heaven and then Sedet in coelis be sits in heaven That as I see him in that posture that Stephen saw him standing at the right hand of the Father and so in procinctu in a readinesse in a willingnesse to come to my succour so I might contemplate him in a judiciary posture in a potestative a soveraigne posture sitting and consider him as able as willing to relieve me He is in heaven and he sits in heaven and then habitat in coelis he dwels in heaven Psal 113.5 he is and he is alwayes there Baals Priests could not alwaies finde him at home Iobs God and our God is never abroad He dwels in the heavens and as it is expressed there In excelsis he dwels on high so high that as it is there added God humbles himselfe to behold the things that are in heaven With what amazednesse must we consider the humiliation of God in descending to the earth lower then so to hell when even his descending unto heaven is a humiliation God humbles himselfe when he beholds any thing lower then himselfe though Cherubins though Seraphins though the humane nature the body of his owne and onely eternall Son and yet he beholds considers studies us wormes of the earth and no men This then is Iobs Testis and our first comfort Quia in coelis because he is in heaven and sits in heaven and dwels in heaven in the highest heaven and so sees all things But then if God see and say nothing David apprehends that for a most dangerous condition and therefore he sayes Psal 28.1 Psal 1â—â— 1 Be not silent O Lord lest if thou be silent I perish And againe Hold not thy peace O God of my praise for the mouth of the wicked is opened against me And Lord let thy mercy be as forward as their malice And therefore as God from that heighth sees all and the strictest examination that we put upon any Witnesse is that if he pretend to testifie any thing upon his knowledge we aske how he came by that knowledge and if he be oculatus testis a Witnesse that saw it this is good evidence as God is to this purpose all eye and sees all so for our farther comfort he descends to the office of being a Witnesse There is a Witnesse in heaven But then Testis meus God may be a Witnesse and yet not my Witnesse and in that there is small comfort 〈◊〉 29.22 if God be a Witnesse on my adversaries side a Witnesse against me Even I know and am a Witnesse saith the Lord that is a Witnesse of the sins which I know by thee Job 10.27 And that is that which Iob with so much tendernesse apprehended Thou renewest thy witnesses against me Thou sent'st a witnesse against me in the Sabaeans upon my servants and then thou renewedst that witnesse in the Caldaeans upon my cattell and then thou renewedst that in thy stormes and tempests upon my children All this while God was a Witnesse but not his witnesse but a witnesse on his adversaries side Now if our own heart our owne conscience condemne us this is shrewd evidence saies S. Iohn 1 Iohn 3.20 for mine owne conscience single is a thousand witnesses against me But then saies the Apostle there God is greater then the heart for saies he he knowes all things He knowes circumstances of sinne as well as substance and that we seldome know seldome take knowledge of If then mine owne heart be a thousand God that is greater is ten thousand witnesses if he witnesse against me But if he be my Witnesse a Witnesse for me as he alwaies multiplies in his waies of mercy he is thousands of thousands millions of millions of witnesses in my behalfe for there is no condemation no possible condemnation Rom. 8.1 to them that are in him not if every graine of dust upon the earth were an Achitophel and gave counsell against me not if every sand upon the shoare were a Rabshakeh and railed against me not if every atome in the ayre were a Satan an Adversary an Accuser not if every drop in the Sea were an Abaddon an Apollyon a Destroyer there could be no condemuation if he be my Witnesse If he be my Witnesse he proceeds thus in my behalfe his Spirit beares witnesse with my spirit for mine inward assurance that I stand established in his favour and either by an actuall deliverance or by some such declaration as shall preserve me from fainting if I be not actually delivered he gives a farther testimony in my behalfe For he is in Heaven and he sits in Heaven and he dwels in Heaven in the highest Heaven and sees all and is a Witnesse and my Witnesse there is the largenesse of our comfort But will all this come home to Iobs end and purpose Iudeâ— That he need not care though all men knew all his faults he need not care though God passed over his prayers because God is his Witnesse what declarations soever he had in himselfe would the world beleeve that God testified in his behalfe when they saw his calamities multiplied upon him and his prayers neglected If they will not herein lyes his and our finall comfort That he that is my Witnesse is in the highest Heaven there is no person above him and therefore He that is my Witnesse is my
constitutions or onely a testimony of outward conformity which should be signaculum viaticum a seale of pardon for past sins and a provision of grace against future But he that is well prepared for this strips himselfe of all these vae desiderantibus of all these comminations that belong to carnall desires and he shall be as Daniel was vir desideriorum a man of chast and heavenly desires onely hee shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies affliction here with David Psal 119.17 Bonum est mihi quòd humiliasti me I am mended by my sicknesse enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weaknesse and with S. Bern. desire Irascar is mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me for if thou chidest me not thou considerest me not if I taste no bitternesse I have no Physick If thou correct me not I am not thy son And he shall desire that day of the Lord as that day signifies the last judgement with the desire of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo Domine How long O Lord ere thou execute judgement And he shall desire this day of the Lord as this day is the day of his own death with S. Pauls desire Cupio dissolvi I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ And when this day of the Lord as it is the day of the Lords resurrection shall come his soule shall be satified as with marrow and with fatnesse in the body and bloud of his Saviour and in the participation of all his merits as intirely as if all that Christ Jesus hath said and done and suffered had beene said and done and suffered for his soule alone Enlarge our daies O Lord to that blessed day prepare us before that day seale to us at that day ratifie to us after that day all the daies of our life an assurance in that Kingdome which thy Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud To which glorious Son of God c. SERMON XV. Preached at VVhite-hall March 8. 1621. 1 COR. 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death THis is a Text of the Resurrection and it is not Easter yet but it is Easter Eve All Lent is but the Vigill the Eve of Easter to so long a Festivall as never shall end the Resurrection wee may well begin the Eve betimes Forty yeares long was God grieved for that Generation which he loved let us be content to humble our selves forty daies to be fitter for that glory which we expect In the Booke of God there are many Songs there is but one Lamentation And that one Song of Solomon nay some one of Davids hundred and fiftie Psalmes is longer then the whole booke of Lamentations Make way to an everlasting Easter by a short Lent to an undeterminable glory by a temporary humiliation You must weepe these teares teares of contrition teares of mortification before God will wipe all teares from your eyes You must dye this death this death of the righteous the death to sin before this last enemy Death shal be destroyed in you and you made partakers of everlasting life in soule and body too Our division shall be but a short Divisio and our whole exercise but a larger paraphrase upon the words The words imply first That the Kingdome of Christ which must be perfected must be accomplished because all things must be subdued unto him is not yet perfected not accomplished yet Why what lacks it It lacks the bodies of Men which yet lie under the dominion of another When we shall also see by that Metaphor which the Holy Ghost chooseth to expresse that in which is that there is Hostis and so Militia an enemie and a warre and therefore that Kingdome is not perfected that he places perfect happinesse and perfect glory in perfect peace But then how far is any State consisting of many men how far the state and condition of any one man in particular from this perfect peace How truly a warfare is this life if the Kingdome of Heaven it selfe have not this peace in perfection And it hath it not Quia hostis because there is an enemy though that enemy shall not overthrow it yet because it plots and workes and machinates and would overthrow it this is a defect in that peace Who then is this enemy An enemy that may thus far thinke himselfe equall to God that as no man ever saw God and lived so no man ever saw this enemy and lived for it is Death And in this may thinke himselfe in number superiour to God that many men live who shall never see God But Quis homo is Davids question which was never answered Is there any man that lives and shall not see death An enemie that is so well victualled against man as that he cannot want as long as there are men for he feeds upon man himselfe And so well armed against Man as that he cannot want Munition while there are men for he fights with our weapons our owne faculties nay our calamities yea our owne pleasures are our death And therefore he is Novissimus hostis saith the Text The last enemy We have other Enemies Satan about us sin within us but the power of both those this enemie shall destroy but when they are destroyed he shall retaine a hostile and triumphant dominion over us But Vsque quo Domine How long O Lord for ever No Abolebitur wee see this Enemy all the way and all the way we feele him but we shall see him destroyed Abolebitur But how or when At and by the resurrection of our bodies for as upon my expiration my transmigration from hence as soone as my soule enters into Heaven I shall be able to say to the Angels I am of the same stuffe as you spirit and spirit and therefore let me stand with you and looke upon the face of your God and my God so at the Resurrection of this body I shall be able to say to the Angel of the great Councell the Son of God Christ Jesus himselfe I am of the same stuffe as you Body and body Flesh and flesh and therefore let me sit downe with you at the right hand of the Father in an everlasting security from this last enemie who is now destroyed death And in these seven steps we shall passe apace and yet cleerely through this paraphrase We begin with this Vestig 1. Quia desunt Corpora That the Kingdome of Heaven hath not all that it must have to a consummate perfection till it have bodies too In those infinite millions of millions of generations in which the holy blessed and glorious Trinity enjoyed themselves one another and no more they thought not their glory so perfect but that it might receive an addition from creatures and therefore they made a world a materiall world a corporeall world they would have bodies In that noble part of that world which Moses
Resurrection and in the Ascension And so that which is the last step of our first stage That that Iesus is made Lord as well as he is made Christ enters us upon our second stage The meanes by which we are to know and prove all this to our selves Therefore sayes the Text let all know it wherefore why because God hath raised him after you had crucified him Because God hath loosed the bands of death Ver. 23 24 25 26 27. because it was impossible that he should be holden by death Because Davids prophecy of a deliverance from the grave is fulfilled in him Therefore let all know this to be thus So that the Resurrection of Christ is argument enough to prove that Christ is made Lord of all And if he be Lord he hath Subjects that do as he does And so his Resurrection is become an argument and an assurance of our Resurrection too and that is as far as we shall go in our second part That first Christs Resurrection is proofe enough to us of his Dominion if he be risen he is Lord and then his Dominion is proofe enough to us of our Resurrection if he be Lord Lord of us we shall rise too And when we have paced and passed through all these steps we shall in some measure have solemnized this day of the Resurrection of Christ and in some measure have made it the day of our Resurrection too First then 1. Part. Domus Israel the Apostle applies himself to his Auditory in a faire in a gentle manner he gives them their Titles Domus Israel The house of Israel We have a word now denizened and brought into familiar use amongst us Complement and for the most part in an ill sense so it is when the heart of the speaker doth not answer his tongue but God forbid but a true heart and a faire tongue might very well consist together As vertue it self receives an addition by being in a faire body so do good intentions of the heart by being expressed in faire language That man aggravates his condemnation that gives me good words and meanes ill but he gives me a rich Jewell and in a faire Cabinet he gives me precious wine and in a clean glasse that intends well and expresses his good intentions well too If I beleeve a faire speaker I have comfort a little while though he deceive me but a froward and peremptory refuser unsaddles me at first I remember a vulgar Spanish Author who writes the Iosephina the life of Ioseph the husband of the blessed Virgin Mary who moving that question why that Virgin is never called by any style of Majesty or Honour in the Scriptures he sayes That if after the declaring of her to be the Mother of God he had added any other Title the Holy Ghost had not been a good Courtier as his very word is nor exercised in good language and he thinks that had been a defect in the Holy Ghost in himself He meanes surely the same that Epiphanius doth That in naming the Saints of God and especially the blessed Virgin we should alwayes give them the best Titles that are applyable to them Epiphan Haeres 78. Quis unquam ausus saies he proferre nomen Mariae non statim addidit virgo Who ever durst utter the name of that Mary without that addition of incomparable honour The Virgin Mary That Spanish Author need not be suspitious of the Holy Ghost in that kinde that he is no good Courtier so for in all the books of the world you shall never reade so civill language nor so faire expressions of themselves to one another as in the Bible When Abraham shall call himself dust and ashes and indeed if the Son of God were a worme and no man what was Abraham If God shall call this Abraham this Dust this Worme of the dust The friend of God and all friendship implyes a parity an equality in something when David shall call himself a flea and a dead dog even in respect of Saul and God shall call David A man according to his own heart when God shall call us The Apple of his own eye The Seale upon his own right hand who would go farther for an Example or farther then that example for a Rule of faire accesses of civill approaches of sweet and honourable entrances into the affections of them with whom they were to deale Especially is this manner necessary in men of our profession Not to break a bruised reed nor to quench smoaking flaxe not to avert any from a will to heare by any frowardnesse any morosity any defrauding them of their due praise and due titles but to accompany this blessed Apostle in this way of his discreet and religious insinuation to call them Men of Iudea ver 14. and Men of Israel ver 22. and Men and Brethren ver 29. and here Domus Israel the ancientest house the honourablest house the lastingest house in the world The house of Israel He takes from them nothing that is due Accusat tamen that would but exasperate He is civill but his civility doth not amount to a flattery as though the cause of God needed them or God must be beholding to them or God must pay for it or smart for it if they were not pleased And therefore though he do give them their titles Apertè illis imputat crucifixionem Christi sayes S. Chrysostome Plainly and without disguise he imputes and puts home to them the crucifying of Christ how honourably soever they were descended he layes that murder close to their Consciences You you house of Israel have crucified the Lord Iesus There is a great deale of difference between Shimeis vociferations against David 2 Sam. 16.5 Thou man of blood thou man of Belial And Nathans proceeding with David and yet Nathan forbore not to tell him 2 Sam. 12.7 Thou art the man Thou hast despised the Lord Thou hast killed Vriah Thou hast taken his wife It is one thing to sow pillows under the elbows of Kings flatterers do so another thing to pull the chaire from under the King and popular and seditious men do so Where Inferiours insult over their Superiours we tell them Christi Domini they are the Lords anointed and the Lord hath said Touch not mine anointed And when such Superiours insult over the Lord himselfe and think themselves Gods without limitation as the God of heaven is when they doe so we must tell them they doe so Etsi Christi Domini though you be the Lords anointed yet you crucifie the anointed Lord for this was S. Peters method though his successor will not be bound by it When he hath carried the matter thus evenly betweene them I doe not deny Omnes but you are the House of Israel you cannot deny but you have crucified the Lord Jesus you are heires of a great deale of honour but you are guilty of a shrewd fault too stand or fall to your Master
the devill gives us is affliction upon affliction and to that there belongs a woe Per tenuitatem assimilamur Deo saies the same Author The attenuation the slendernesse the deliverance of the body from the encumbrance of much flesh gives us some assimilation some conformity to God and his Angels The lesse flesh we carry the liker we are to them who have none That is still the lesse flesh of our owne making for for that flesh which God and his instrument Nature hath given us in what measure or proportion soever that does not oppresse us to this purpose neither shall that be laid to our charge but the flesh that we have built up by curious diet by meats of provocation and witty sawces or by a slothfull and drowsie negligence of the works of our calling All flesh is sinfull flesh sinfull so as that it is the mother of sin it occasions sin naturall flesh is so But this artificiall flesh of our owne making is sinfull so as that it is also the daughter of sin It is indeed the punishment of former sins and the occasion of future The soule then requires not so large so vast a house of sinfull flesh to dwell in Macerationes corporis But yet on the other side we may not by inordinate abstinencies by indiscreet fastings by inhumane flagellations by unnaturall macerations and such Disciplines as God doth not command nor authorize so wither and shrinke and contract the body as though the soule were sent into it as into a prison or into fetters and manacles to wring and pinch and torture it Nihil interest saies S. Hierome It is all one whether thou kill thy selfe at one blow or be long in doing it if thou do it All one whether thou fall upon thine own sword or sterve thy selfe with such a fasting as thou discernest to induce that effect for saies he Descendit a dignitate viri not as insaniae incurrit He departs from that dignity which God hath imprinted in man in giving him the use and the dominion over his creatures and he gives the world just occasion to thinke him mad And as Tertullian adds Respuit datorem qui datum deserit He that does not use a benefit reproaches the Benefactor and he is ungratefull to God that does not accept at his hands the use of his blessings Therefore is it accepted as a good interpretation which is made of Christs determining his fast in forty daies Ne sui homicida videretur Lest if he continued it longer he might have seemed to have killed himselfe by being the author of his owne death And so do they interpret aright his Esuriit That then he began to be hungry that he began to languish to faint to finde a detriment in his body for else a fasting when a man is not hungry is no fasting but then he gave over fasting when he found the state of his body empaired by fasting And therefore those mad doctrines so S. Hierom cals them Notas insaniae habent yea those devilish doctrines so S. Paul cals them that forbid certaine meats and that make un-commanded macerations of the body meritorious that upon a supposititious story of an Ermit that lived 22. yeares Abbasll sperg without eating any thing at all And upon an impertinent example of their S. Francis that kept three Lents in the yeare which they extoll and magnifie in S. Francis and S. Hierom condemned and detested in the Montanists who did so too have built up those Carthusian Rules That though it appeare that that and nothing but that would save the patients life yet he may not eat flesh that is a Carthusian And have brought into estimation those Apocryphall and bastardly Canons which they father upon the Apostles That a man must rather sterve then receive food from the hand of a person excommunicate or otherwise detected of any mortall sin And that all that can be done with the almes of such a person is that it be spent in wood and coales and other fuell that so as the subtile philosophy of their Canon is it may be burnt and consumed by fire for to save a mans life it must not be spent upon meat or drink or such sustentation These Doctrines are not the Doctrines of this Resurrection by which man considered in Composito as he consists of soule and body by a sober and temperate life makes his body obsequious and serviceable to his soule but yet leaves his soule a body to worke in and an Organ to praise God upon both in a devout humiliation of his body in Gods service and in a bodily performance of the duties of some calling for this is our first Resurrection A casu separationis from having falne into a separation of body and soule for they must serve God joyntly together because God having joyned them man may not separate them but as God shall re-unite them at the last Resurrection so must we in our Resurrections in this life And farther we extend not this Resurrection from this separation this divorce The second fall of man in naturall death Casus in dissolutionem is Casus in dissolutionem The man being fallen into a divorce of soule and body the body fals by putrefaction into a dissolution of dust and the Resurrection from this fall is a re-efformation when God shall recompact that dust into that body This fall and this resurrection we have in our spirituall death too for we fall into daily customes and continuall habits of those sins and we become not onely as that Lazarus in the parable to have sores upon us but as that Lazarus in the Gospell that was dead Domine jam faetemus quatriduani sumus Lord we stinke in thy nostrils and we have beene buried foure dayes All the foure changes of our life Infancy Youth Middle Age and Old have beene spent and worne out in a continuall and uninterrupted course of sin In which we shall best consider our fall and best prepare our Resurrection by looking from whence we are fallen and by what steps and they are three First Nardus nostra Cant. 1.12 Perdidimus nardum nostrā We have lost the sweet savour of our own Spikenard for so the Spouse saies Nardus mea dedit odorem suum My Spikenard hath given forth her sweet savour There was a time when we had a Spikenard and a sweet savour of our own when our own Naturall faculties in that state as God infused them in Adam had a power to apprehend and lay hold upon the graces of God Man hath a reasonable soule capable of Gods grace so hath no creature but man man hath naturall faculties which may be employed by God in his service so hath no creature but man Onely man was made so as that he might be better whereas all other creatures were but to consist in that degree of goodnesse in which they entred Miserable fall Only man was made to mend and only man does grow
of particular sins Now after all this there is in naturall death a third fall casus in dispersionem In dispersionem the man is fallen in separationem into a divorce of body and soule the body is fallen in dissolutionem to putrifaction and dissolution in dust and then this dust is fallen in dispersionem into a dispersion and scattering over the earth as God threatens Comminuam in pulverem I will break the wicked as small as dust and scatter them with the winde Psal 18. For after such a scattering no power but of God onely can recollect those grains of dust and re-compact them into a body and re-inanimate them into a man And such a state such a dispersion doth the heart and soule of an habituall sinner undergoe For Pro. 17.24 as the eyes of a foole are in the corners of the earth so is the heart and soule of a sinner The wanton and licentious man sighs out his soule weeps out his soule sweares out his soule in every place where his lust or his custome or the glory of victory in overcomming and deluding puts him upon such solicitations In the corrupt taker his soul goes out that it may leave him unsensible of his sin and not trouble him in his corrupt bargaine and in a corrupt giver ambitious of preferment his soule goes out with his money which he loves well but not so well as his preferment This yeare his soule and his money goes out upon one office and next yeare more soul and more money upon another He knowes how his money will come in againe for they will bring it that have need of his corruptnesse in his offices But where will this man finde his soule thus scattered upon every woman corruptly won upon every office corruptly usurped upon every quillet corruptly bought upon every fee corruptly taken Thus it is when a soule is scattered upon the daily practise of any one predominant and habituall sin but when it is indifferently scattered upon all how much more is it so In him that swallowes sins in the world as he would doe meats at a feast passes through every dish and never askes Physitian the nature the quality the danger the offence of any dish That baits at every sin that rises and poures himselfe into every sinfull mold he meets That knowes not when he began to spend his soule nor where nor upon what sin he laid it out no nor whether he have whether ever he had any soule or no but hath lost his soule so long agoe in rusty and in incoherent sins not sins that produced one another as in Davids case and yet that is a fearfull state that concatenation of sins that pedegree of sins but in sins which he embraces meerely out of an easinesse to sin and not out of a love no nor out of a tentation to that sin in particular that in these incoherent sins hath so scattered his soule as that he hath not soule enough left to seek out the rest And therefore David makes it the Title of the whole Psalme Domine ne disperdas O Lord doe not scatter us Psal 58. And he begins to expresse his sense of Gods Judgements in the next Psalme so O Lord thou hast cast us out thou hast scattered us turn again unto us for even from this aversion there may be conversion and from this last and lowest fall a resurrection But how In the generall resurrection upon naturall death God shall work upon this dispersion of our scattered dust as in the first fall which is the Divorce by way of Re-union and in the second which is Putrifaction by way of Re-efformation so in this third which is Dispersion by way of Re-collection where mans buried flesh hath brought forth grasse and that grasse fed beasts and those beasts fed men and those men fed other men God that knowes in which Boxe of his Cabinet all this seed Pearle lies in what corner of the world every atome every graine of every mans dust sleeps shall recollect that dust and then recompact that body and then re-inanimate that man and that is the accomplishment of all In this resurrection from this Dilpersion and scattering in sin the way is by Recollection too That this sinner recollect himselfe and his own history his own annalls his own journalls and call to minde where he lost his way and with what tendernesse of conscience and holy startling he entred into some sins at first in which he is seared up now and whereas his triumph should have been in a victory over the flesh he is come to a triumph in his victory over the spirit of God and glories in having overcome the Holy Ghost and brought his conscience to an unsensiblenesse of sin If hee can recollect himselfe thus and cast up his account so If he can say to God Lord we have sold our selves for nothing he shall heare God say to him as he does there in the Prophet You have sold your selves for nothing Esay 52.3 and you shall be redeemed without money But how is this recollecting wrought God hath intimated the way Ezek. 37. in that vision to the Prophet Ezekiel He brings the Prophet into a field of dead bones and dry bones sicca vehementer as it is said there as dry as this dust which we speak of And he asks him fili hominis thou that art but the son of man and must judge humanely Putasne vivent ossa ista Dost thou think that these bones can live The Prophet answers Domine tu nosti thou Lord who knowest whose names are written in the Book of Life and whose are not whose bones are wrapped up in the Decree of thy Election and whose are not knowest whether these bones can live or no for but in the efficacy and power of that Decree they cannot Yes they shall sayes God Almighty and they shall live by this meanes Dices eis Thou shalt say unto them O ye dry bones heare the word of the Lord As dry as desperate as irremediable as they are in themselves God shall send his servants unto them and they shall heare them And as it is added in that place Prophetante me factus sonitus commotio As I Prophesied there was a noyse and a shaking As whilst Peter spake The Holy Ghost fell upon all them that heard the word So whilst the Messengers of God speak in the presence of such sinners there shall be a noyse and a commotion a horrour of their former sins a wonder how they could provoke so patient and so powerfull a God a sinking down under the waight of Gods Judgements a flying up to the apprehension of his mercies and this noyse and commotion in their soules shall be setled with that Gospell in that Prophet Dabo super vos nervos I will lay sinewes upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath into you and you shall live and ye
own dust It is not an entring into a new state when they dye but a returning to their old They return to dust Psal 104.29 And it is not to that dust which is cast upon them in the grave for that may be another mans dust but to that dust which they carried about them in their bodies They returne and to dust and to their own dust Nor is dust so inglorious a thing but that God gives a dignity to dust when he admits it into comparison to expresse the multiplication the accumulation of his blessings upon Abraham I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth not for weaknesse Gen. 13.16 but for infinitenesse And so to the same purpose of expressing greatnesse Balaam uses this Metaphore of dust Who can count the dust of Iacob and the number of the fourth part of Israel Numb 23.10 Neither does Abraham think it any diminution to lie in the dust of the earth when he is dead for he professes that he walks in the dust of the earth in himself whilst he is aliye Gen. 18.27 I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord being but dust And when David seemes to fear the dust of death lighten mine eyes lest they sleep the sleep of death it is not that he suspects any detriment to himself by death that he shall be the worse by dying Psal 13.1 but that God may lose of his glory when as he addes there the enemy shall say we have prevailed against him For as in the Primitive Church those that seeme prayers for the dead at Funeralls are indeed but thanksgivings to God in their behalf that are departed so as often as David expresses himself in that Patheticall manner Awake O Lord why sleepest thou arise Psal 44.23 and cast us not off for ever it is a thanksgiving that he hath not and a prayer that he would not forget them When he sayes Will God be favourable no more he meanes Psal 77.7 I am sure he will Is his mercy cleane gone for ever Doth his promise faile for ever Hath God forgot to be gracious Hath he shut up his mercy in anger All these imply a kinde of confidence that he hath not And as it is in that Resurrection of which David speaks most literally in those places that is The Resurrection from the calamities and oppressions of this world so is it in the Resurrection from the dust of the grave too Psal 22.15 19. Thou hast brought me to the dust of the grave but be not thou farre from me That is when thou shalt bring me to the dust of the grave thou wilt not be farre from me And when he sayes in apparence by way of expostulation Psal 39.10 and jealousie and suspition Will God shew wonders to the dead shall the dead arise and praise him shall his loving kindnesse be declared in the grave or his faishfulnesse in destruction All these passionate interrogatories and vehement expostulations may safely be resolved into these Doctrinall propositions Yes God will shew wonders to the dead The dead shall rise and praise him His loving kindnesse shall be declared in the grave Psal 74.19 and his faithfulnesse in destruction For God will not forget the Congregation of his poore for ever The poore of this world are our poore Gods poore are they that lie in the dust the dust of the grave the dead of whom God hath a greater Congregation under ground then of the living upon the face of the earth And God will not forget the congregation of his poore for ever Finitus est eorum pulvis That which we translate Their Extortioner is at an end Esay 16.4 their Oppressor is at an end is in S. Hierome Their dust is at an end that is there comes a time when the dust of the grave shall oppresse them no longer When Truly that time is virtually and in an infallibility come already as those other words of the same Prophet may admit an accommodation in the person of Christ Esay 26.19 Thy dead men shall live When Together with my dead body they shall rise Consider by occasion of those words a promise long before Christs Resurrection that all they which slept in Christ should rise in him with my dead body they shall rise And then consider the performance of this promise in the Apostle Eph. 2.6 Consurrexerunt together with Christ all that slept in him nay all that fell asleep since he waked all that dyed since he rose did arise Virtually and infallibly they did And for the actuall accomplishment of this Resurrection in every individuall person they that were laid in the grave in the first ages lose no time For there is no time of entring into heaven till the Lord come to fetch us And then they that are dead shall be so farre from being pretermitted as that they shall first be raised before any thing be done upon us But how shall they be raised by what power for that is a second Consideration induced also by this first word of our Text Then when the Lord shall have descended from heaven to raise them Then when they are raised In virtute Christi in the vertue and power of Christ Then In virtute Christi Mat. 13.43 sayes our blessed Saviour speaking of the Resurrection then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun And wheresoever we are called the Sun compared assimilated to the Sun Christ is our Zodiake In him we move from the beginning to the end of our Circle And therefore as the last point of our Circle our resurrection determines in him in Christ so the first point of our Circle our first adoption began in him in Christ too And if I were adopted in Christ in Christ who is a Redeemer of sinners I was adopted in the condition and in the consideration of a sinner and such a sinner as should as would lay hold upon this Christ this Redeemer Christ is the Resurrection so Christ is the Adoption If there be a Resurrection in him there were some dead before If there bean Adoption in him there are some sinners before The first look that God casts upon us is in Christ and therefore the first consideration that he takes of us is as we are sinners He adopts none but penitent sinners he reproves none but impenitent sinners In him also the dead are raised that is in that power which he was raised by The power of God For still that phrase is ingeminated iterated multiplied Suscitavit Deus Mat. 28.6 suscitatus à Deo God raised Christ from the dead and Christ was raised from the dead by God And when it is said by the Angell to the women Surrexit He is risen risen of himself as the word sounds And when by those two which went with Christ to Emaus Luke 24.34 it is said at their return to Jerusalem to the eleven Apostles surrex it verè Hee
is risen indeed risen of himself as the word sounds yet that phrase and expression He is risen if there were no more in it but that expression and that phrase would not conclude Christs rising to have been in virtute propria in his own power For of Dorcas who was raised from the dead Aâ—â— 9 4◠〈◊〉 11. it is said Resedit she sate up and of Lazarus Prodiit he came forth and yet these actions thus ascribed to themselves were done in virtute aliena in the power of another Christs Resurrection was not so In virtute aliena in the power of another if you consider his whole person God and Man but it was aliena à filio Mariae Christ as the Son of Mary rose not by his own power It was by his own but his own because he was God as well as man Nor could all the Magick in the world have raised him sooner then by that his power his as God he that is that person God and man was pleased to rise So sits he now at the right hand of his Father in heaven nor can all the Consecrations of the Romane Priests either remove him from thence or multiply him to a bodily being any where else till his time of comming to Judgment come Then and not till then The Lord himself shall descend from heaven in clamore sayes the Text in a shout with the voyce of the Arch-angell and with the Trumpet of God which circumstances constitute our third and last Branch of this first Part The dead shall rise first They shall rise in the power of Christ therefore Christ is God for Christ himself rose in the power of God and that power shall be thus declared In a shout in the voyce of the Arch-Angell in the Trumpet of God The dead heare not Thunder nor feele they an Earth quake In clamore If the Canon batter that Church walls in which they lye buryed it wakes not them nor does it shake or affect them if that dust which they are be thrown out but yet there is a voyce which the dead shall heare The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of God Iohn 5.25 sayes the Son of God himself and they that heare shall live And that is the voyce of our Text. It is here called a clamour a vociferation a shout and varied by our Translators and Expositors according to the origination of the word to be clamor hortatorius and suasorius and jussorins A voyce that carries with it a penetration all shall heare it and a perswasion all shall beleeve it and be glad of it and a power a command all shall obey it Since that voyce at the Creation Fiat Let there be a world was never heard such a voyce as this Surgite mortui Arise ye dead That was spoken to that that was meerely nothing and this to them who in themselves shall have no cooperation no concurrence to the hearing or answering this voyce The power of this voyce is exalted in that it is said to be the voyce of the Archangel In voce Archangeli Though legions of Angels millions of Angels shall be employed about the Resurrection to recollect their scattered dust and recompact their ruined bodies yet those bodies so recompact shall not be able to heare a voyce They shall be then but such bodies as they were when they were laid downe in the grave when though they were intire bodies they could not heare the voice of the mourner But this voyce of the Archangel shall enable them to heare The Archangel shall re-infuse the severall soules into their bodies and so they shall heare that voyce Surgite mortui Arise ye that were dead and they shall arise And here we are eased of that disputation whether there be many Archangels or no for if there be but one yet this in our text is he for it is not said In the voyce of An Archangell but of The Archangell if not the Onely yet he who comprehends them all Colos 1.16 and in whom they all consist Christ Jesus And then the power of this voyce is exalted to the highest in the last word that it is Tuba Dei Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God For that is an Hebraisme and in that language it constitutes a superlative to adde the name of God to any thing As in Sauls case when David surprised him in his dead sleepe it is said that Sopor Domini 2 Sam. 26.12 The sleepe of the Lord was upon him that is the heaviest the deadest sleepe that could be imagined so here The Trumpet of God is the loudest voice that we conceive God to speake in All these pieces that it is In clamore In a cry in a shout that it is In the voyce of the Archangell that it is In the Trumpet of God make up this Conclusion That all Resurrections from the dead must be from the voice of God and from his loud voice In clamore It must be so even in thy first Resurrection thy resurrection from sin by grace here here thou needest the voice of God and his loud voyce And therefore though thou thinke thou heare sometimes Gods sibilations as the Prophet Zechary speaks Gods soft and whispering voyce in ward remorses of thine owne and motions of the Spirit of God to thy spirit yet thinke not thy spirituall resurrection accomplished till in this place thou heare his loud voyce Till thou heare Christ descending from Heaven as the text sayes that is working in his Church Till thou heare him In clamore in this cry in this shout in this voyce of Penetration of perswasion of power that is till thou feele in thy selfe in this place a liquefaction a colliquation a melting of thy bowels under the commination of the Judgements of God upon thy sin and the application of his mercy to thy Repentance And then In voce Archangeli this thou must heare In voce Archangeli In the voice of the Archangel S. Iohn in the beginning of the Revelation cals every Governour of a Church an Angel And much respect and reverence much faith and credit behoves it thee to give to thine Angell to the Pastour of that Church in which God hath given thee thy station for he is thine Angel Mal. 2.7 thy Tutelar thy guardian Angell Men should seeke the Law at the mouth of the Priest saies God in Malachi of that Priest that is set over him For the lips of the Priest of every Priest to whom the soules of others are committed should preserve knowledge should be able to instruct and rectifie his flock Quia Angelus Domini Exercituum because every such Priest is the Angell of the Lord of Hosts Hearken thou therefore to that Angel thine Angel But here thou art directed above thine Angell to the Archangell Acts 20.28 Ephes 5.23 Now not the governour of any particular Church but he Who hath purchased the whole Church with his blood
He who onely is head of the whole Church Christ Jesus is this Archangell Heare him It is the voyce of the Archangell that is the trne and sincere word of God that must raise thee from the death of sin to the life of grace If therefore any Angell differ from the Archangell and preach other then the true and sincere word of God Gal. 1.8 Anathema saies the Apostle let that Angell be accursed And take thou heed of over-affecting overvaluing the gifts of any man so as that thou take the voice of an Angell for the voyce of the Archangell any thing that that man saies for the word of God Yet thou must heare this voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God In Tuba Dei The Trumpet of God is his loudest Instrument and his loudest Instrument is his publique Ordinance in the Church Prayer Preaching and Sacraments Heare him in these In all these come not to heare him in the Sermon alone but come to him in Prayer and in the Sacrament too For except the voyce come in the Trumpet of God that is in the publique Ordinance of his Church thou canst not know it to be the voyce of the Archangell Pretended services of God in schismaticall Conventicles are not in the Trumpet of God and therefore not the voyce of the Archangell and so not the meanes ordained for thy spirituall resurrection And as our last resurrection from the grave is rooted in the personall resurrection of Christ 1 Cor. 15.17 For if Christ be not raised from the dead we are yet in our sins saies the Apostle But why so Because to deliver us from sin Christ was to destroy all our enemies Now the last enemy is Death and last time that Death and Christ met upon the Crosse Death overcame him and therefore except he be risen from the power of Death we are yet in our sins as we roote our last resurrection in the person of Christ so do we our first resurrection in him in his word exhibited in his Ordinance for that is the voice of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And as the Apostle saies here Ver. 15. This we say unto you by the word of the Lord that thus the last resurrection shall be accomplished by Christ himselfe so this we say to you by the Word of the Lord by the harmony of all the Scriptures thus and no other way By the pure word of God delivered and applied by his publique Ordinance by Hearing and Beleeving and Practising under the Seales of the Church the Sacraments is your first resurrection from sin by grace accomplished So have you then those three branches which constitute our first part That they that are dead before us shall not be prevented by us but they shall rise first That they shall be raised by the power of Christ that is the power of God in Christ That that power working to their resurrection shall be declared in a mighty voyce the voyce of the Archangell in the Trumpet of God And then then when they who were formerly dead are first raised and raised by this Power and this power thus declared then shall we we who shall be then alive and remaine be wrought upon which is our second and our next generall part When the Apostle sayes here 2. Part. Nos Nos qui vivimus We that are alive and remaine would he not be thought to speake this of himselfe and the Thessalonians to whom he writes Doe not the words import that That he and they should live till Christs comming to Judgement Some certainly had taken him so But he complaines that he was mistaken We beseech you brethren 2 Thes 2.2 be not soone shaken in minde nor troubled by word or letter as from us that the day of the Lord is at hand so at hand as that we determine it in our dayes in our life So that the Apostle speakes here but Hypothetically he does but put a case That if it should be Gods pleasure to continue them in the world till the comming of his Son Christ Jesus thus and thus they should be proceeded withall for thus and thus shall they be proceeded with sayes he that shall then be alive Our blessed Saviour hath such a manner of speech of an ambiguous sense in S. Matthew Mat. 16.28 That there were some standing there that should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man comming in his Kingdome And this might give them just occasion to think that that Kingdome into which the Judgement shall enter us was at hand For the words which Christ spoke immediatly before those were evidently undeniably spoken of that last and everlasting kingdome of glory The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his Angels c. Then follows Some standing here shall live to see this And yet Christ did not speak this of that last kingdome of glory but either he spoke it of that manifestation of that kingdome which was shewed to some of them to Peter and Iames and Iohn in the Transfiguration of Christ for the Transfiguration was a representation of the kingdome of glory or else he spoke it of that inchoation of the kingdome of glory which shined out in the kingdome of grace which all the Apostles lived to see in the personall comming of the Holy Ghost and in his powerfull working in the conversion of Nations in their life time And this is an inexpressible comfort to us That our blessed Saviour thus mingles his Kingdomes that he makes the Kingdome of Grace and the Kingdome of Glory all one the Church and Heaven all one and assures us That if we see him In hoc speculo in this his Glasse in his Ordinance in his Kingdome of Grace we have already begun to see him facie ad faciem face to face in his Kingdome of Glory If we see him Sicuti manifestatur as he looks in his Word and Sacraments in his Kingdome of Grace we have begun to see him Sicuti est As he is in his Essence in the Kingdome of Glory And when we pray Thy Kingdome come and mean but the Kingdome of Grace he gives us more then we ask an inchoative comprehension of the Kingdome of Glory in this life This is his inexpressible mercy that he mingles his Kingdomes and where he gives one gives both So is there also a faire beam of comfort exhibited to us in this Text That the number reserved for that Kingdome of Glory is no small number For though David said The Lord looked down from heaven and saw not one that did good no not one Psal 14.2 there it is lesse then a few though when the times had better means to be better when Christ preached personally upon the earth when one Centurion had but replyed to Christ Sir Mat. 8.10 you need not trouble your self to go to my house if you do but say the word here my servant will
dignity First The Father shall send you another Comforter Another then my selfe For Ver. 16. howsoever Christ were the Fountain of comfort yet there were many drammes many ounces many talents of discomfort mingled in that their Comforter was first to depart from them by death and being restored to them again by a Resurrection was to depart againe by another Transmigration by an Ascension And therefore the second mark by which Christ dignifies this Comforter is That he shall abide with us for ever And in the performance of that promise he is here with you now And therefore as we begun with those words of Esay which our Saviour applyed to himselfe The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me Esay 61.1 to binde up the broken hearted and to comfort all them that mourne So the Spirit of the Lord is upon all us of his Ministery in that Commandement of his in the same Prophet Consolamini Esay 40.1 consolamini Comfort ye comfort yee my people and speak comfortably unto Ierusalem Receive the Holy Ghost all ye that are the Israel of the Lord in that Doctrine of comfort that God is so farre from having hated any of you before he made you as that he hates none of you now not for the sins of your Parents not for the sins of your persons not for the sins of your youth not for your yester-dayes not for your yester-nights sins not for that highest provocation of all your unworthy receiving his Son this day Onely consider that Comfort presumes Sadnesse Sin does not make you incapable of comfort but insensiblenesse of sin does In great buildings the Turrets are high in the Aire but the Foundations are deep in the Earth The Comforts of the Holy Ghost work so as that only that soule is exalted which was dejected As in this place where you stand there bodies lie in the earth whose soules are in heaven so from this place you carry away so much of the true comfort of the Holy Ghost as you have true sorrow and sadnesse for your sins here Almighty God erect this building upon this Foundation Such a Comfort as may not be Presumption upon such a Sorrow as may not be Diffidence in him And to him alone but in three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour c. SERMON XXIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1628. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you WE Eipasse from the Person to his working we come from his comming to his operation from his Mission and Commission to his Executing thereof from the Consideration who he is to what he does His Specification his Character his Title Paracletus The Comforter passes through all Therefore our first comfort is Docebimur we shall be Taught He shall teach you As we consider our selves The Disciples of the Holy Ghost so it is a meere teaching for we in our selves are meerly ignorant But wen we consider the things we are to bee taught so it is but a remembring a refreshing of those things which Christ in the time of his conversation in this world had taught before He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you These two then The comfort in the Action we shall be Taught and the comfort in the Way and Manner we shall not be subject to new Doctrines but taught by remembring by establishing us in things formerly Fundamentally laid will be our two parts at this time And in each of these these our steps First in the first we shall consider the persons that is the Disciples who were to learne not onely they who were so when Christ spoke the words but we All who to the end of the world shall seek and receive knowledge from him Vos ye first Vos ignorantes you who are naturally ignorant and know nothing so as you should know it of your selves which is one Discomfort And yet Vos ye Vos appetentes you that by nature have a desire to know which is another Discomfort To have a desire and no meanes to performe it Vos docebimini ye ye that are ignorant and know nothing ye ye that are hungry of knowledge and have nothing to satisfie that hunger ye shall be fed ye shall be taught which is one comfort And then Ille docebit He shall teach you He who cannot onely infuse true and full knowledge in every capacity that he findes but dilate that capacity where he findes it yea create it where he findes none The Holy Ghost who is not onely A Comforter but The Comforter and not onely so but Comfort it selfe He shall teach you And in these we shall determine our first Part. In our second Part The Way and Manner of this Teaching By bringing to our remembrance all things whatsoever Christ had said unto us there is a great largenesse but yet there is a limitation of those things which we are to learne of the Holy Ghost for they are Omnia All things whatsoever Christ hath taught before But then Sola ea Only those things which Christ had taught before and not new Additaments in the name of the Holy Ghost Now this largenesse extending it self to the whole body of the Christian Religion for Christ taught all that all that being not reducible to that part of an houre which will be left for this exercise as fittest for the celebration of the day in which we arenow we shall binde our selves to that particular consideration what the Holy Ghost being come from the Father in Christs Name that is Pursuing Christs Doctrine hath taught us of Himselfe concerning Himselfe That so ye may first see some insolencies and injuries offered to the Holy Ghost by some ancient Heretiques and some of later times by the Church of Rome For truly it is hard to name or to imagine any one sin nearer to that emphaticall sin that superlative sin The sin against the Holy Ghost then some offers of Doctrines concerning the Holy Ghost that have been obtruded though not established and some that have beene absolutely established in that Church And when we shall have delivered the Holy Ghost out of their hands we shall also deliver him into yours so as that you may feele him to shed himselfe upon you all here and to accompany you all home with a holy peace and in a blessed calme in testifying to your soules that He that Comforter who is the holy Ghost whom the Father hath sent in his Sons name hath taught you all things that is awakened your memories to the consideration of all that is necessary to your present establishment And to these divers particulars which thus constitute our two generall parts in their order thus proposed we shall now proceed As when our Saviour Christ received that confession of
of my Election and I depose for the seales and marks of that Decree These two witnesses The Spirit and My spirit induce a third witnesse the world it selfe to testifie that which is the testimony of this text That I am the child of God And so we passe from the two former parts The persons The Spirit and our spirit And their office to witnesse and to agree in their witnesse and we are fallen into our third part The Testimony it selfe That we are the Children of God This part hath also two branches 3. Part. First That the Testimony concernes our selves We are And then That that which we are is this We are the Children of God And in the first branch there will be two twiggs two sub-considerations 1 Wee A personall appropriation of the grace of God to our selves 2 We are we are now a present possession of those Graces First consider we the Consolation in the particle of appropriation Wee In the great Ant-hill of the whole world I am an Ant I have my part in the Creation I am a Creature But there are ignoble Creatures God comes nearer In the great field of clay of red earth that man was made of mankind I am a clod I am a man I have my part in the Humanity But Man was worse then annihilated again When satan in that serpent was come as Hercules with his club into a potters shop and had broke all the vessels destroyed all mankind And the gracious promise of a Messias to redeeme all mankind was shed and spread upon all I had my drop of that dew of Heaven my sparke of that fire of heaven in the universall promise in which I was involved But this promise was appropriated after in a particular Covenant to one people to the Jewes to the seed of Abraham But for all that I have my portion there for all that professe Christ Jesus are by a spirituall engrafting and transmigration and transplantation in and of that stock and that seed of Abraham and I am one of those But then of those who doe professe Christ Jesus some grovell still in the superstitions they were fallen into and some are raised by Gods good grace out of them and I am one of those God hath afforded me my station in that Church which is departed from Babylon Now all this while my soule is in a cheerefull progresse when I consider what God did for Goshen in Egypt for a little parke in the midst of a forest what he did for Jury in the midst of enemies as a shire that should stand out against a Kingdome round about it How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from famins how many Genevaes from plots and machinations against her all this while my soule is in a progresse But I am at home when I consider Buls of excommunications and solicitations of Rebellions and pistols and poysons and the discoveries of those There is our Nos We testimonies that we are in the favour and care of God We our Nation we our Church There I am at home but I am in my Cabinet at home when I consider what God hath done for me and my soule There is the Ego the particular the individuall I. This appropriation is the consolation We are But who are they or how are we of them Testimonium est clamor ipse sayes S. Chrysostome to our great advantage Even this that we are able to cry Abba Ver. 15. Father by the Spirit of Adoption is this testimony that we are his Children if we can truly do that that testifies for us The Spirit testifies two wayes Directly expresly personally Luke 5.20 as in that Man thy sins are forgiven thee And so to David by Nathan Transtulit The Lord hath taken away thy sin And then he testifies Per indicia by constant marks and infallible evidences We are not to looke for the first for it is a kind of Revelation nor are we to doubt of the second for the marks are infallible And therefore as S. Augustine said of the Maniches concerning the Scriptures Insani sunt adversus Antidotum quo sani esse possunt They are enraged against that which onely can cure them of their rage that was the Scriptures so there are men which will still be in ignorance of that which might cure them of their ignorance because they will not labour to finde in themselves the marks and seales of those who are ordained to salvation they will needs thinke that no man can have any such testimony They say Sumus It is true there is a blessed comfort in this appropriation if we could be sure of it They may we are we are already in possession of it The marks of our spirituall filiation are lesse subject to error then of temporall Shall the Mothers honesty be the Evidence Alas we have some such examples of their falshood as will discredit any argument built meerely upon their truth He is like the Father Is that the evidence Imagination may imprint those Characters He hath his land A supposititious child may have that Spirituall marks are not so fallible as these They have so much in them as creates even a knowledge 1 Iohn 3.2 Iohn 5.19 Now we are the Sons of God and we know that we shall be like him And we know that we are of God Is all this but a conjecturall knowledge but a morall certitude No tincture of faith in it Can I acquire and must I bring Certitudinem fidei an assurance out of faith That a Councell cannot erre And then such another faithfull assurance That the Councell of Trent was a true councell And then another That the Councell of Trent did truly and duly proceed in all wayes essentiall to the truth of a Councell in constituting their Decree against this doctrine And may I not bring this assurance of faith to S. Paul and S. Iohn when they say the contrary Is not S. Pauls sumus and S. Iohns scimus as good a ground for our faith as the servile and mercenary voices of a herd of new pensionary Bishops shovelled together at Trent for that purpose are for the contrary A particular Bishop in the Romane Church cites an universall Bishop Catarinus a Pope himselfe in this point and he sayes well Legem credendi statuit lex supplicandi Whatsoever we may pray for we may we must beleeve Certitudine fidei With an assurance of faith If I may pray and say Pater noster if I may call God Father I may beleeve with a faithfull assurance that I am the childe of God Stet invicta Pauli sententia Idem Let the Apostles doctrine sayes that Bishop remain unshaked Et velut sagitta sayes he This doctrine as an arrow shot at them will put out their eyes that think to see beyond S. Paul It is true sayes that Bishop there are differences Inter Catholicos Amongst Catholiques themselves in this point And then why do they charge us
is not onely sent by God but is God Therefore does the Apostle inlarge and dilate and delight his soule upon this comfort Blessed be God 2 Cor. 1.3 even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations that we may be able to comfort them which are in any affliction by that comfort wherewith our selves are comforted of God The Apostle was loath to depart from the word Comfort And therefore as God because he could sweare by no greater Heb. 6.13 sware by himselfe So because there is no stronger adjuration then the comfort it selfe to move you to accept this comfort as the Apostle did so we intreat you by that If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellow ship of the Spirit if any bowels Phil. 2.1 and mercie Lay hold upon this true comfort the comming of the Holy Ghost and say to all the deceitfull comforts of this world not onely Vanè consolati est is Zach. 10.2 Job 16.2 Your comforts are frivolous but Onerosi consolatores Your comforts are burdensome there is not onely a disappointing of hopes but an aggravating of sin in entertaining the comforts of this world As Barnabas that is Filius consolationis The son of consolation that he might bee capable of this comfort devested himselfe of all worldly possessions so as such sons Acts 4.36 Suck and be satisfied at the breasts of this consolation that you may milke out Esay 66.11 Ver. 13. and be delighted with the abundance of his glory And as one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you and you shall be comforted in Ierusalem Heaven is Glory and heaven is Joy we cannot tell which most we cannot separate them and this comfort is joy in the Holy Ghost This makes all Iobs states alike as rich in the first Chapter of his Booke where all is suddenly lost as in the last where all is abundantly restored This Consolation from the Holy Ghost makes my mid-night noone mine Executionera Physitian a stake and pile of Fagots a Bone-fire of triumph this consolation makes a Satyr and Slander and Libell against me a Panegyrique and an Elogy in my praise It makes a Tolle an Ave a Va an Euge a Crucifige an Hosanna It makes my death-bed a mariage-bed And my Passing-Bell an Epithalamion In this notion therefore we receive this Person and in this notion we consider his proceeding Ille He He the Comforter shall reprove This word that is here translated To reprove Arguere Arguet hath a double use and signification in the Scriptures First to reprehend to rebuke to correct with Authority with Severity So David Ne in furore arguas me O Lord rebuke me not in thine dnger Psal 6.1 And secondly to convince to prove to make a thing evident by undeniable inferences and necessary consequences So in the instructions of Gods Ministers the first is To reprove 2 Tiâ— and then To rebuke So that reproving is an act of a milder sense then rebuking is Auguâ—â— S. Augustine interprets these words twice in his Works and in the first place he followes the first signification of the word That the Holy Ghost should proceed when he came by power by severity against the world But though that sense will stand well with the first act of this Reproofe That he shall Reprove that is reprehend the world of sin yet it will not seeme so properly said To reprehend the world of Righteousnesse or of Judgement for how is Righteonsnesse and Judgement the subject of reprehension Therefore S. Augustine himselfe in the other place where he handles these words imbraces the second sense Hoc est arguere mundum ostendere vera esse quae non credidit This is to reprove the world to convince the world of her errours and mistakings And so scarce any excepted doe all the Ancient Expositors take it according to that All things are reproved of the light Ephes 5.13 and so made manifest The light does not reprehend them not rebuke them not chide not upbraid them but to declare them to manifest them to make the world see clearely what they are this is to reprove That reproving then Elenchus which is warrantable by the Holy Ghost is not a sharp increpation a bitter proceeding proceeding onely out of power and authority but by inlightning and informing and convincing the understanding The signification of this word which the Holy Ghost uses here for reproofe Elenchos is best deduced and manifested to us by the Philosopher who had so much use of the word who expresses it thus Elenchus est Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem A reproofe is a proofe a proofe by way of argument against another man who holds a contrary opinion All the pieces must be laid together For first it must be against an opinion and then an opinion contrary to truth and then such an opinion held insisted upon maintained and after all this the reproofe must lie in argument not in force not in violence First it must come so farre Opinio as to be an opinion which is a middle station betweene ignorance and knowledge for knowledge excludes all doubting all hesitation opinion does not so but opinion excludes indifferency and equanimity I am rather inclined to one side then another Lactant. Bernard when I am of either opinion Id opinatur quisque quod nescit A man may have an opinion that a thing is so and yet not know it S. Bernard proposes three wayes for our apprehending Divine things first understanding which relies upon reason faith which relies upon supreme Authority and opinion which relies upon probability and verisimilitude Now there may arise in some man some mistakings some mis-apprehensions of the sense of a place of Scripture there may arise some scruple in a case of conscience there may arise some inclinations to some person of whose integrity and ability I have otherwise had experience there may arise some Paradoxicall imaginations in my selfe and yet these never attaine to the setlednesse of an opinion but they float in the fancy and are but waking dreames and such imaginations and fancies and dreames receive too much honour in the things and too much favour in the persons if they be reproved or questioned or condemned or disputed against For often times even a condemnation nourishes the pride of the author of an opinion and besides begets a dangerous compassion in spectators and hearers and then from pitying his pressures and sufferings who is condemned men come out of that pity to excuse his opinions and from excusing them to incline towards them And so that which was but straw at first by being thus blown by vehement disputation sets fire upon timber and drawes men of more learning and authority to side and mingle themselves in these impertinencies Every fancy should not be so
of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
the annointing Oyle and powre it upon his head The Mitre as you may see there was upon his head then but then there was a Crowne upon the Mitre There is a power above the Priest the regall power not above the function of the Priest but above the person of the Priest 1 Sam. 10.1 24. But Unction was the Consecration of Kings too Samuel saluted Saul with a kisse and all the people shouted and sayd God save the King but Is it not sayes Samuel because the Lord hath annointed thee to be captaine over his inheritance Kings were above Priests and in extraordinary cases God raysed Prophets above Kings for there is no ordinary power above them But Unction was the Consecration of these Prophets too Elisha was annointed to be Prophet in Elias roome and such a Prophet as should have use of the Sword 1 Reg. 19.16 17. Him that scapes the Sword of Hazael Hazael was King of Syria shall the Sword of Iehu slay and him that scapes the Sword of Iehu Iehu was King of Israel shall the Sword of Elisha slay In all these in Priests who were above the people in Kings who in matter of Government were above the Priests in Prophets who in those limited cases expressed by God and for that time wherein God gave them that extraordinary employment were above Kings The Unction imprinted their Consecration they were all Christs and in them all thereby was that Nuncupatio potestatis which Lactantius mentions Unction Annointing was an addition and title of honour Psal 109. Psal 2.6 Deut. 18. Much more in our Christ who alone was all three A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek A King set upon the holy hill of Sion And a Prophet The Lord thy God will rayse up a Prophet unto him shall yee harken And besides all this threefold Unction Humanitas uncta Divinitate He had all the unctions that all the other had and this which none other had In him the Humanity was Consecrated anointed with the Divinity it selfe So then Nazian Cyrill Psal 95.7 unio unctio The hypostaticall union of the Godhead to the humane nature is his Conception made him Christ for oleo laetitia perfusus in unione Then in that union of the two natures did God annoint him with the oyle of gladnes above his fellows There was an addition something gained something to be glad of and to him as he was God The Lord so nothing could be added If he were glad above his fellows it was in that respect wherein he had fellows and as God as The Lord he had none so that still as he was made Man he became this Christ In which his being made Man if we should not consider the last and principall purpose which was to redeem man if we leave out his part yet it were object inough for our wonder and subject inough for our praise and thankesgiving to consider the dignity that the nature of man received in that union wherin this Lord was thus made this Christ for the Godhead did not swallow up the manhood but man that nature remained still The greater kingdom did not swallow the lesse but the lesse had that great addition which it had not before and retained the dignities and priviledges which it had before too Damasc Christus est nomen personae non naturae The name of Christ denotes one person but not one nature neither is Christ so composed of those two natures as a man is composed of Elements for man is thereby made a third thing and is not now any of those Elements you cannot call mans body fire or ayre or earth or water though all foure be in his composition But Christ is so made of God and Man as that he is Man still for all the glory of the Deity and God still for all the infirmity of the manhood Idem Divinum miraculis lucet humanum contumeliis afficitur In this one Christ both appear The Godhead bursts out as the Sun out of a cloud and shines forth gloriously in miracles even the raysing of the dead and the humane nature is submitted to contempt and to torment even to the admitting of death in his own bosome sed tamen ipsius sunt tum miraculae Idem tum supplicia but still both he that rayses the dead and he that dyes himself is one Christ his is the glory of the Miracles and the contempt and torment is his too This is that mysterious person who is singularis and yet not individuus singularis There never was never shall be any such but we cannot call him Individuall Idem as every other particular man is because Christitatis non est Genus there is no genus nor species of Christs it is not a name which so as the name belongs to our Christ that is by being annointed with the divine nature can be communicated to any other as the name of Man may to every Individuall Man Christ is not that Spectrum that Damascene speaks of nor that Electrum that Tertullian speakes of not Spectrum so as that the two natures should but imaginarily be united and only to amaze and astonish us that we could not tell what to call it what to make of it a spectre an apparition a phantasma for he was a Reall person Neither was he Tertullians Electrum a third metall made of two other metals but a person so made of God and Man as that in that person God and Man are in their natures still distinguished He is Germen Davidis Iere. 23.5 Isa 4.2 in one Prophet The branch the Off-spring of David And he is Germen Iehovae The Branch the Off-spring of God of the Lord in another When this Germen Davidis the Sonne of Man would do miracles then he was Germen Iehovae he reflected to that stock into which the Humanity was engrafted to his Godhead And when this Germen Iehovae the Son of God would indure humane miseries he reflected to that stock to that humanity in which he had invested and incorporated himself This person 1 Cor. 15.3 Tertul. this Christ dyed for our sins says S. Paul but says he He dyed according to the Scriptures Non sine onere pronunciat Christum mortuum The Apostle thought it a hard a heavy an incredible thing to say that this person this Christ this Man and God was dead And therefore Vt duritiam molliret scandalum auditoris everteret That he might mollifie the hardnes of that saying and defend the hearer from being scandalized with that saying Adjecit secundùm scripturas He adds this Christ is dead according to the Scriptures If the Scriptures had not told us that Christ should die and told us againe that Christ did die it were hard to conceive how this person in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily should be submitted to death But therein principally is he Christus as he was capable of dying As he was Verbum naturale and innatum
conclude this part O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have mercy upon us miserable sinners We are descended now to our second part 2 Part. Expostulatio Iob 31.13 what past between God and Abraham after he had thus manifested himselfe unto him Where we noted first That God admits even expostulation from his servants almost rebukes and chidings from his servants We need not wonder at Iobs humility that he did not despise his man nor his mayd when they contended with him for God does not despise that in us God would have gone from Iacob when he wrestled Gen. 32.26 and Iacob would not let him go and that prevailed with God If we have an apprehension when we beginne to pray that God doth not heare us not regard us God is content that in the fervor of that prayer we say with David Evigila Domine and Surge Domine Awake O Lord and Arise O Lord God is content to be told that he was in bed and asleepe when he should heare us If we have not a present deliverance from our enemies God is content that we proceed with David Eripe manum de sinu Pluck out thy hand out of thy bosome God is content to be told that he is slack and dilatory when he should deliver us If we have not the same estimation in the world that the children of this world have God is content that we say with Amos Pauperem pro calceamentis Amos 2.6 that we are sold for a paire of shooes And with S. Paul that we are the off-scouring of the world God is content to be told that he is unthrifty and prodigall of his servants lives and honours and fortunes Now Offer this to one of your Princes says the Prophet and see whether he will take it Bring a petition to any earthly Prince and say to him Evigila and Surge would your Majesty would awake and reade this petition and so insimulate him of a former drowsinesse in his government say unto him Eripe manum pull thy hand out of thy bosome and execute Justice and so insimulate him of a former manacling and slumbring of the Lawes say unto him we are become as old shooes and as off-scourings and so insimulate him of a diminution and dis-estimation faln upon the Nation by him what Prince would not and justly conceive an indignation against such a petitioner which of us that heard him would not pronounce him to be mad to ease him of a heavier imputation And yet our long-suffering and our patient God must we say our humble and obedient God endures all this He endures more for when Abraham came to this expostulation Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right God had said never a word of any purpose to destroy Sodom but he said only He would go see whether they had done altogether according to that cry which was come up against them and Abraham comes presently to this vehemency And might not the Supreme Ordinary God himselfe goe this visitation might not the supreme Judge God himselfe go this Circuit But as long as Abraham kept himselfe upon this foundation It is impossible that the Iudge of all the earth should not do right God mis-interpreted nothing at Abrahams hand but received even his Expostulations heard him out to the sixt petition Almost such an Expostulation as this Moses uses towards God He asks God a reason of his anger Iudex Exod. 32.11 Lord why doth thy wrath waxe hot against thy people He tels him a reason why he should not doe so For thou hast brought them forth with a great power and with a mighty hand And he tels him the inconveniences that might follow The Egyptians will say He brought them out for mischiefe to slay them in the mountaine He imputes even perjury to God himselfe and breach of Covenant to Abraham Isaac and Iacob which were Feffees in trust betweene God and his people and he sayes Thou sware'st to them by thine owne selfe that thou wouldst not deale thus with them And therefore he concludes all with that vehemence Turne from thy fierce wrath and repent this evill purpose against them But we finde a prayer or expostulation of much more exorbitant vehemence in the stories of the Roman Church towards the blessed Virgin towards whom they use to bee more mannerly and respective then towards her Son or his Father when at a siege of Constantinople they came to her statue with this protestation Looke you to the drowning of our Enemies ships or we will drowne you Si vis ut imaginem tuam non mergamus in mari merge illos The farthest that Abraham goes in this place is That God is a Iudge and therefore must doe right Iob 32.10 for Far be wickednesse from God and iniquity from the Almighty surely God will not do wickedly neither will the Almighty pervert judgement An Usurer an Extortioner an Oppressor a Libeller a Thiefe and Adulterer yea a Traytor makes shift to finde some excuse some flattery to his Conscience they say to themselves the Law is open and if any be grieved they may take their remedy and I must endure it and there is an end But since nothing holds of this oppressor and manifold malefactor but the sentence of the Judge shall not the Judge doe right how must this necessarily shake the frame of all An Arbitrator or a Chancellor that judges by submission of parties or according to the Dictates of his owne understanding may have some excuse He did as his Conscience led him But shall not a Iudge that hath a certaine Law to judge by do right Especially if he be such a Judge as is Iudge of the whole earth which is the next step in Abrahams expostulation Now as long as there lies a Certiorari from a higher Court Omnem terram or an Appeale to a higher Court the case is not so desperate if the Judge doe not right for there is a future remedy to be hoped If the whole State be incensed against me yet I can finde an escape to another Country If all the World persecute me yet if I be an honest man I have a supreame Court in my selfe and I am at peace in being acquitted in mine owne Conscience But God is the Judge of all the earth of this which I tread and this earth which I carry about me and when he judges me my Conscience turnes on his side and confesses his judgement to be right And therefore S. Pauls argument seconds and ratifies Abrahams expostulation Is God unrighteous God forbid for then sayes the Apostle Rom. 3.6 how shall God judge the World The Pope may erre but then a Councell may rectifie him The King may erre but then God in whose hands the Kings heart is can rectifie him But if God that judges all the earth judge thee there is no error to be assigned in his judgement no appeale from God not throughly
fefellit All the world never joyned to deceive one man nor was ever any one man able to deceive all the world Contemptu famae contemnuntur virtutes was so well said by Tacitus as it is pity S. Augustine said it not They that neglect the good opinion of others neglect those vertues that should produce that good opinion Therefore S. Hierom protests to abhor that Paratum de trivio as he cals it that vulgar that street that dunghill language Satis mihi as long as mine owne conscience reproaches me of nothing I care not what all the world sayes We must care what the world sayes and study that they may say well of us But when they doe though this be a faire stone in the wall it is no foundation to build upon for They change their minds Who do Populus our text does not tell us who The story does not tell us of what quality and condition these men of Malta were who are here said to have changed their minds Likeliest they are to have beene of the vulgar the ordinary the inferiour sort of people because they are likeliest to have flocked and gathered together upon this occasion of Pauls shipwrack upon that Iland And that kinde of people are alwaies justly thought to be most subject to this levity To change their minds The greatest Poet layes the greatest levity and change that can be laid to this kinde of people that is In contraria That they change even from one extreame to another Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus Where that Poet does not onely meane that the people will be of divers opinions from one another for for the most part they are not so for the most part they think and wish and love and hate together and they doe all by example as others doe and upon no other reason but therefore because others doe Neither was that Poet ever bound up by his words that hee should say In contraria because a milder or more modified word would not stand in his verse but hee said it because it is really true The people will change into contrary opinions And whereas an Angel it selfe cannot passe from East to West from extreame to extreame without touching upon the way betweene the people will passe from extreame to extreame without any middle opinion last minutes murderer is this minutes God and in an instant Paul whom they sent to be judged in hell Prov. 14.28 is made a judge in heaven The people will change In the multitude of people is the Kings honour 2 Sam. 24.3 And therefore Ioab made that prayer in the behalfe of David The Lord thy God adde unto thy people how many soever they be a hundred fold But when David came to number his people with a confidence in their number God tooke away the ground of that confidence and lessened their number seventy thousand in three dayes Therefore as David could say Psal 3.6 I will not be afraid of ten thousand men so he should say I will not confide in ten thousand men though multiplied by millions for they will change and at such an ebbe the popular man will lye as a Whale upon the sands deserted by the tide We finde in the Roman story many examples particularly in Commodus his time upon Cleander principall Gentleman of his Chamber of severe executions upon men that have courted the people though in a way of charity and giving them corne in a time of dearth or upon like occasions There is danger in getting them occasioned by jealousie of others there is difficulty in holding them by occasion of levity in themselves Therefore we must say with the Prophet Ier. 17.5 Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arme and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For They the people will change their minds But yet there is nothing in our text Principes that binds us to fixe this levity upon the people onely The text does not say That there was none of the Princes of the People no Commanders no Magistrates present at this accident and partners in this levity Neither is it likely but that in such a place as Malta an Iland some persons of quality and command resided about the coast to receive and to give intelligence and directions upon all emergent occasions of danger and that some such were present at this accident and gave their voyce both wayes in the exclamation and in the acclamation That hee was a murderer and that he was a God For They will change their minds All High as well as low will change A good Statesman Polybius sayes That the people are naturally as the Sea naturally smooth and calme and still and even but then naturally apt to be moved by influences of Superiour bodies and so the people apt to change by them who have a power over their affections or a power over their wils So sayes he the Sea is apt to be moved by stormes and tempests and so the people apt to change with rumors and windy reports So the Sea is moved So the people are changed sayes Polybius But Polybius might have carried his politique consideration higher then the Sea to the Aire too and applied it higher then to the people to greater persons for the Aire is shaked and transported with vapours and exhalations as much as the sea with winds and stormes and great men as much changed with ambitions in themselves and flatteries from others as inferiour people with influences and impressions from them All change their minds Mal. 3.6 High as well as low will change But I am the Lord I change not I and onely I have that immunity Immutability And therefore sayes God there ye sons of Iacob are not consumed Therefore because I I who cannot change have loved you for they who depend upon their love who can change are in a wofull condition And that involves all all can all will all do change high and low Therefore It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in man What man Psal 118.8 Ver. 9. Psal 146.3 Any man It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in Princes Which David thought worth the repeating for he sayes it againe Put not your trust in Princes Not that you may not trust their royall words and gracious promises to you not that you may not trust their Counsailes and executions of those Counsailes and the distribution of your contributions for those executions not that you may not trust the managing of affaires of State in their hands without jealous inquifitions or suspitious mis-interpretations of their actions In these you must trust Princes and those great persons whom Princes trust But when these great persons are in the balance with God there they weigh as little as lesse men Nay as David hath ranked and disposed them lesse for thus he conveyes that consideration Surely men of low degree
holinesse of life and fast and pray and submit my selfe to discreet and medicinall mortifications for the subduing of my body any man will say this is Papisticall Papists doe this it is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and brethren I am a Papist that is I will fast and pray as much as any Papist and enable my selfe for the service of my God as seriously as sedulously as laboriously as any Papist So if when I startle and am affected at a blasphemous oath as at a wound upon my Saviour if when I avoyd the conversation of those men that prophane the Lords day any other will say to me This is Puritanicall Puritans do this It is a blessed Protestation and no man is the lesse a Protestant nor the worse a Protestant for making it Men and Brethren I am a Puritan that is I wil endeavour to be pure as my Father in heaven is pure as far as any Puritan Now of these Pharisees who were by these means so popular Sadducaei the numbers were very great The Sadduces who also were of an exemplary holinesse in some things but in many and important things of different opinions even in matter of Religion from all other men were not so many in number but they were men of better quality and place in the State then for the most part the Pharisees were And as they were more potent and able to do more mischiefe so had they more declared themselves to be bent against the Apostles then the Pharisees had done In the fourth Chapter of this Booke Ver. 1. The Priests and the Sadduces no mention of Pharisees came upon Peter and Iohn being grieved that they preached thorough Iesus the resurrection of the dead And so againe Act. 5.17 The high Priest rose up and all they that were with him which is sayes that Text expresly the sect of the Sadduces and were filled with indignation And some collect out of a place in Eusebius that this Ananias who was high Priest at this time and had declared his ill affection to S. Paul as you heard before was a Sadduce But I thinke those words of Eusebius will not beare at least not enforce that nor be well applied to this Ananias Howsoever S. Paul had just cause to come to this protestation I am a Pharisee and in so doing he can be obnoxious to nothing if he be as safe in his other protestation all is well for the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question consider we that It is true that he was not at this time called in question Resurrectio Act. 21.23 directly and expresly for the Resurrection you may see where he was apprehended that it was for teaching against that people and against that law and against that Temple So that he was endited upon pretense of sedition and prophanation of the Temple And therefore when S. Paul sayes here I am called in question for preaching the Resurrection he means this If I had not preached the Resurrection I should never have been called in question nor should be if I would forbeare preaching the Resurrection No man persecutes me no man appeares against me but onely they that deny the Resurrection The Sadduces did deny it The Pharisees did beleeve it and therefore this was a likely and a lawfull way to divide them and to gaine time with such a purpose so far as David had when he prayed O Lord Psal 55.9 divide their tongues For it is not alwayes unlawfull to sowe discord and to kindle dissention amongst men for men may agree too well to ill purposes So have yee then seen That though it be not safe to conclude S. Paul or any holy man did this therefore I may do it which was our first part yet in this which S. Paul did here there was nothing that may not be justified in him and imitated by us which was our second part Remains onely the third which is the accommodation of this to our present times and the appropriation thereof to our selves and making it our own case The world is full of Sadduces and Pharisees and the true Church of God arraigned by both The Sadduces were the greater men the Pharisees were the greater number 3 Part. Sadducaei so they are still The Sadduces denied the Resurrection and Angels and Spirits So they do still For those Sadduces whom we consider now in this part are meere carnall men men that have not onely no Spirit of God in them but no soule no spirit of their owne meere Atheists And this Carnality this Atheisme this Sadducisme is seene in some Countries to prevaile most upon great persons the Sadduces were great persons upon persons that abound in the possessions and offices and honours of this world for they that have most of this world for the most part think least of the next These are our present Sadduces Pharisaei and then the Pharisee hath his name from Pharas which is Division Separation But Calvin derives the name not inconveniently from Pharash which is Exposition Explication We embrace both extractions and acceptations of the word both Separation and Exposition for the Pharisee whom we consider now in this part is he that is separated from us there it is Pharas separation and separated by following private Expositions there it is Pharash Exposition with a contempt of all Antiquity and not only an undervaluation but a detestation of all opinions but his owne and his whom he hath set up for his Idol And as the Sadduce our great and worldly man is all carnall all body and beleeves no spirit so our Pharisee is so superspirituall as that he beleeves that is considers no body He imagines such a Purification such an Angelification such a Deification in this life as though the heavenly Jerusalem were descended already or that God had given man but that one commandement Love God above all and not a second too Love thy neighbour as thy selfe Our Sadduces will have all body our Pharisees all soule and God hath made us of both and given us offices proper to each Now of both these Duplex Sadducaus the present Sadduce the carnall Atheist and the present Pharisee the Separatist that overvalues himself and bids us stand farther off there are two kinds For for the Atheist there is Davids Atheist and S. Pauls Atheist Davids that ascribes all to nature Psal 14.2 and sayes in his heart There is no God That will call no sudden death nor extraordinary punishment upon any enormous sinner a judgement of God nor any such deliverance of his servants a miracle from God but all is Nature or all is Accident and would have been so though there had been no God This is Natures Sadduce Davids Atheist And then S. Pauls Atheist is he who though he doe beleeve in God yet doth not beleeve God in
troubling these Sadduces and these Pharisees I be content to let them agree and to divide my life between them so as that my presumption shall possesse all my youth and desperation mine age I have heard my sentence already The end of this man will be worse then his beginning How much soever God be incensed with me for my presumption at first he will be much more inexorable for my desperation at last And therefore interrupt the prescription of sin break off the correspondence of sin unjoynt the dependency of sin upon sin Bring every single sin as soon as thou committest it into the presence of thy God upon those two legs Confession and Detestation and thou shalt see that as though an intire Iland stand firme in the Sea yet a single clod of earth cast into the Sea is quickly washt into nothing so howsoever thine habituall and customary and concatenated sins sin enwrapped and complicated in sin sin entrenched and barricadoed in sin sin screwed up and riveted with sin may stand out and wrastle even with the mercies of God in the blood of Christ Jesus yet if thou bring every single sin into the sight of God it will be but as a clod of earth but as a graine of dust in the Ocean Keep thy sins then from mutuall intelligence That they doe not second one another induce occasion and then support and disguise one another and then neither shall the body of sin ever oppresse thee nor the exhalations and damps and vapors of thy sad soule hang between thee and the mercies of thy God But thou shalt live in the light and serenity of a peaceable conscience here and die in a faire possibility of a present melioration and improvement of that light All thy life thou shalt be preserved in an Orientall light an Easterne light a rising and a growing light the light of grace and at thy death thou shalt be super-illustrated with a Meridionall light a South light the light of glory And be this enough for the explication and application of these words and their complication with the day for the justifying of S. Pauls Stratagem in himselfe and the exemplifying and imitation thereof in us Amen That God that is the God of peace grant us his peace and one minde towards one another That God that is the Lord of Hosts maintaine in us that warre which himself hath proclaimed an enmity between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent between the truth of God and the inventions of men That we may fight his battels against his enemies without and fight his battels against our enemies within our own corrupt affections That we may be victorious here in our selves and over our selves and triumph with him hereafter in eternall glory SERMONS Preached upon the PENITENTIALL PSALMES SERM. L. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine Anger neither chasten me in thy het Displeasure GOD imputes but one thing to David but one sin The matter of Vriah the Hittite nor that neither but by way of exception not till he had first established an assurance that David stood well with him First he had said 1 King 25.5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he had commanded him all the dayes of his life Here was rectitude He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord no obliquity no departing into by-wayes upon collaterall respects Here was integrity to Gods service no serving of God and Mammon Hee turned not from any thing that God commanded him And here was perpetuity perseverance constancy All the dayes of his life And then and not till then God makes that one and but that one exception Except the matter of Vriah the Hittite When God was reconciled to him he would not so much as name that sin that had offended him And herein is the mercy of God in the merits of Christ a sea of mercie that as the Sea retaines no impression of the Ships that passe in it for Navies make no path in the Sea so when we put out into the boundlesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus by which onely wee have reconciliation to God there remaines no record against us for God hath cancelled that record which he kept and that which Satan kept God hath nailed to the Crosse of his Son That man which hath seene me at the sealing of my Pardon and the seale of my Reconciliation at the Sacrament many times since will yet in his passion or in his ill nature or in his uncharitablenesse object to me the fins of my youth whereas God himselfe if I have repented to day knowes not the sins that I did yesterday God hath rased the Record of my sin in Heaven it offends not him it grieves not his Saints nor Angels there and he hath rased the Record in hell it advances not their interest in me there nor their triumph over me And yet here the uncharitable man will know more and see more and remember more then my God or his devill remembers or knowes or sees He will see a path in the Sea he will see my sin when it is drowned in the blood of my Saviour After the Kings pardon perchance it will beare an action to call a man by that infamous name which that crime which is pardoned did justly cast upon him before the pardon After Gods reconciliation to David he would not name Davids sin in the particular But yet for all this though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sinnes when God hath so far exprest his love as to bring that sinner to that repentance and so to mercy yet that he may perfect his owne care he exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinall corrections as may inable him to stand upright for the future And to that purpose was no man evermore exercised then David David broke into anothers family he built upon anothers ground he planted in anothers Seminary and God broke into his family his ground his Seminary In no story can wee finde so much Domestick affliction such rapes and incests and murders and rebellions from their owne children as in Davids storie Under the heavy waight and oppression of some of those is David by all Expositors conceived to have conceived and uttered this Psalme Some take it to have beene occasioned by some of his temporall afflictions either his persecution from Saul or bodily sicknesse in himselfe of which traditionally the Rabbins speake much or Absoloms unnaturall rebellion Some others with whom wee finde more reason to joyne finde more reason to interpret it of a spirituall affliction that David in the apprehension and under the sense of the wrath and indignation of God came to this vehement exclamation or deprecation O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure In which words we shall consider
Divisio first the person upon whom David turned for his succour and then what succour he seeks at his hands First his word and then his end first to whom and then for what he supplicates And in the first of these the Person we shall make these three steps first that he makes his first accesse to God onely O Lord rebuke me not doe not thou and though I will not say I care not yet I care the lesse who doe And secondly that it is to God by Name not to any universall God in generall notions so naturall men come to God but to God whom he considers in a particular name in particular notions and attributes and manifestations of himselfe a God whom he knowes by his former workes done upon him And then that name in which hee comes to him here is the name of Iehovah his radicall his fundamentall his primarie his essentiall name the name of being Iehovah For he that deliberately and considerately beleeves himselfe to have his very being from God beleeves certainely that he hath his well being from him too He that acknowledges that it is by Gods providence that he breathes beleeves that it is by his providence that he eates too So his accesse is to God and to God by name that is by particular considerations and then to God in the name of Iehovah to that God that hath done all from his first beginning from his Being And in these three we shall determine our first part First 1. Part. To God in this first branch of this part David comes to God but without any confidence in himselfe Here is Reus ad rostra sine patrono here is the prisoner at the Barre and no Counsell allowed him He confesses Indictments faster then they can be read If he heare himselfe indicted that he looked upon Bathsheba that he lusted after Bathsheba he cryes Alas I have done that and more dishonored her and my selfe and our God and more then that I have continued the act into a habit and more then that I have drowned that sinne in bloud lest it should rise up to my sight and more then all that I have caused the Name of God to be blasphemed and lest his Majesty and his greatnesse should be a terrour to me I have occasioned the enemy to undervalue him and speake despightfully of God himselfe And when he hath confest all all that he remembers he must come to his Ab occultis meis Lord cleanse me from my secret sinnes for there are sins which we have laboured so long to hide from the world that at last they are hidden from our selves from our own memories our own consciences As much as David stands in feare of this Judge he must intreat this Judge to remember his sinnes Remember them O Lord for els they will not fall into my pardon but remember them in mercy and not in anger for so they will not fall into my pardon neither Whatsoever the affliction then was temporall or spirituall we take it rather to be spirituall Davids recourse is presently to God 1 Sam. 16.14 He doth not as his predecessour Saul did when he was afflicted send for one that was cunning upon the Harp to divert sorrow so If his Subjects rebell he doth not say Let them alone let them goe on I shall have the juster cause by their rebellion of confiscations upon their Estates of executions upon their persons of revocations of their lawes and customes and priviledges which they carry themselves so high upon If his sonne lift up his hand against him he doth not place his hope in that that that occasion will cut off his sonne and that then the peoples hearts which were bent upon his sonne will returne to him againe David knew he could not retyre himselfe from God in his bedchamber Guards and Ushers could not keepe him out He knew he could not defend himselfe from God in his Army for the Lord of Hosts is Lord of his Hosts If he fled to Sea to Heaven to Hell he was sure to meet God there and there thou shalt meet him too if thou fly from God to the reliefe of outward comforts of musicke of mirth of drinke of cordialls of Comedies of conversation Not that such recreations are unlawfull the minde hath her physick as well as the body but when thy sadnesse proceeds from a sense of thy sinnes which is Gods key to the doore of his mercy put into thy hand it is a new and a greater sin to goe about to overcome that holy sadnesse with these prophane diversions to fly Ad consolatiunculas creaturulae as that elegant man Luther expresses it according to his naturall delight in that elegancy of Diminutives with which he abounds above all Authors to the little and contemptible comforts of little and contemptible creatures And as Luther uses the physick Iob useth the Physitian Luther calls the comforts Miserable comforts and Iob calls them that minister them Onerosos consolatores Miserable comforters are you all David could not drowne his adultery in blood never thinke thou to drowne thine in wine The Ministers of God are Sonnes of Thunder they are falls of waters trampling of horses and runnings of Chariots and if these voyces of these Ministers cannot overcome thy musick thy security yet the Angels trumpet will That Surgite qui dermitis Arise yee that sleepe in the dust in the dust of the grave is a Treble that over-reaches all That Ite maledicti Goe yee accursed into Hell fire is a Base that drowns all There is no recourse but to God no reliefe but in God and therefore David applied himselfe to the right method to make his first accesse to God It is to God onely and to God by name and not in generall notions To God by Name for it implies a nearer a more familiar and more presentiall knowledge of God a more cheerfull acquaintance and a more assiduous conversation with God when we know how to call God by a Name a Creator a Redeemer a Comforter then when we consider him onely as a diffused power that spreads it selfe over all creatures when we come to him in Affirmatives and Confessions This thou hast done for me then when we come to him onely in Negatives and say That that is God which is nothing els God is come nearer to us then to others when we know his Name For though it be truly said in the Schoole that no name can be given to God Ejus essentiam adaequatè repraesentans No one name can reach to the expressing of all that God is And though Trismegistus doe humbly and modestly and reverently say Non spere it never fell into my thought nor into my hope that the maker and founder of all Majesty could be circumscribed or imprisoned by any one name though a name compounded and complicated of many names as the Rabbins have made one name of God of all his names in the Scriptures Gen.
comprehends all his Attributes all his Power upon the world and all his benefits upon him The Gentiles were not able to consider God so not so entirely not altogether but broke God in pieces and changed God into single money and made a fragmentarie God of every Power and Attribute in God of every blessing from God nay of every malediction and judgement of God A clap of thunder made a Iupiter a tempest at sea made a Neptune an earthquake made a Pluto Feare came to be a God and a Fever came to be a God Every thing that they were in love with or afraid of came to be canonized and made a God amongst them David considered God as a center into which from which all lines flowed Neither as the Gentiles did nor as some ignorants of the Roman Church do that there must be a stormie god S. Nicholas and a plaguie god S. Rook and a sheepshearing god a swineherd god a god for every Parish a god for every occupation God forbid Acknowledg God to be the Author of thy Being find him so at the spring-head then thou shalt easily trace him by the branches to all that belongs to thy well-being The Lord of Hosts and the God of peace the God of the mountaines and the God of the valleyes the God of noone and of midnight of all times the God of East West of all places the God of Princes and of Subjects of all persons is all one and the same God and that which we intend when we say Iehovah is all Hee And therefore hath S. Bernard a patheticall and usefull meditation to this purpose Every thing in the world sayes he can say Creator meus es tu Lord thou hast made me All things that have life and growth can say Pastor meus es tu Lord thou hast fed me increast me All men can say Redemptor meus es tu Lord I was sold to death through originall sin by one Adam and thou hast redeemed me by another All that have falne by infirmity and risen againe by grace can say Susceptor meus es tu Lord I was falne but thou hast undertaken me and dost sustaine me But he that comes to God in the name of Iehovah he meanes all this and all other things in this one Petition Let me have a Being and then I am safe for In him we live and move and have our Being If we solicite God as the Lord of Hosts that he would deliver us from our enemies perchance he may see it fitter for us to be delivered to our enemies If we solicite him as Proprietarie of all the world as the beasts upon a thousand mountaines are his as all the gold and silver in the earth is his perchance he sees that poverty is fitter for us If we solicite him for health or long life he gives life but he kills too he heales but he wounds too and we may be ignorant which of these life or death sicknesse or health is for our advantage But solicite him as Iehovah for a Being that Being which flowes from his purpose that Being which he knowes fittest for us and then we follow his owne Instructions Fiat voluntas tua thy will be done upon us and we are safe Now that which Iehovah was to David Iesus is to us Iesus Man in generall hath relation to God as he is Iehovah Being We have relation to Christ as he is Iesus our Salvation Salvation is our Being Iesus is our Iehovah And therfore as David delights himself with that name Iehovah for he repeats it eight or nine times in this one short Psalm and though he ask things of a diverse nature at Gods hands though he suffer afflictions of a diverse nature from Gods hands yet still he retains that one name he speaks to God in no other name in all this Psalm but in the name of Iehovah So in the New Testament he which may be compared with David because he was under great sins and yet in great favour with God S. Paul he delights himself with that name of Iesus so much as that S. Ierome says Quē superfluè diligebat extraordinariè nominavit As he loved him excessively so he named him superabundantly It is the name that cost God most and therefore he loves it best it cost him his life to be a Iesus a Saviour The name of Christ which is Anointed he had by office he was anointed as King as Priest as Prophet All those names which he had in Isaiah The Counsellor The Wonderfull The Prince of Peace Esay 9. and the name of Iehovah it self which the Jews deny ever to be given to him and is evidently given to him in that place Christ had by nature But his name of Iesus a Saviour he had by purchase that purchase cost him his bloud And therefore as Iacob preferred his name of Israel Gen. 32.28 before his former name of Iacob because he had that name upon his wrastling with God and it cost him a lamenesse so is the name of Iesus so precious to him who bought it so dearly that not only every knee bows at the name of Iesus here but Jesus himself and the whole Trinity bow down towards us to give us all those things which we ask in that name For even of a devout use of that veryname do some of the Fathers interpret that Oleū effusum Nomen tuu That the name of Iesus should be spread as an ointment breathed as perfume diffused as a soul over all the petitions of our prayers As the Church concludes for the most part all her Collects so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus sake And so much does S. Paul abound in the use of this name as that he repeats it thrice in the superscription of one of his Letters the title of one of his Epistles his first to Timothy And with the same devotion S. August sayes even of the name Melius est mihi non esse quā sine Iesu esse I were better have no being then be without Jesus Melius est non vivere quam vivere sine vita I were better have no life then any life without him For as David could finde no beeing without Iehovah a Christian findes no life without Iesus Both these names imply that which is in this Text in our Translation The Lord Dominus to whom only and intirely we appertaine his we are And therefore whether we take Dominus to be Do minas to threaten to afflict us or to be Do manus to succour and relieve us as some have pleased themselves with those obvious derivations as David did still we must make our recourse to him from whom as he is Iehovah Beeing or being our wel-beeing our eternall beeing our Creation Preservation and Salvation is derived all is from him Now when he hath his accesse to the Lord 2 Part. to this Lord the Lord that hath all and gives all
and is all the first part of Davids prayer and all his prayer which falls into our Text is but Deprecatory he does but pray that God would forbeare him He pretends no error he enterprises no Reversing of Judgement no at first he dares not sue for pardon he onely desires a Reprieve a respit of execution and that not absolutely neither but he would not be executed in hot blood Ne in ira ne in furore not in Gods anger not in his hot displeasure First then Deprecation Deprecari is not Refragari to Deprecate is not to Contend against a Judge nor to defend ones selfe against an Officer but it is onely in the quality and in the humility of a Petitioner and Suppliant to begge a forbearance The Martyrs in the Primitive Church would not doe that Nihil de causa sua deprecatur qui nihil de conditione sua miratur sayes Tertullian and in that he describes a patience of Steele and an invincible temper He meanes that the Christians in those times of Persecution did never intreat the Judge for favour because it was not strange to them to see themselves whose conversation was in heaven despised and contemned and condemned upon earth Nihil mirantur de conditione They wondred not at their misery they thought it a part of their Profession a part of the Christian Religion to suffer and therefore Nihil deprecati de causa They never solicited the Judge for favour They had learnt by experience of daily tribulation the Apostles Lesson Think it not strange when tentations and tribulations fall That is make that your daily bread and you shall never sterve use your selves to suffering at least to the expectation the contemplation of suffering acquaint your selves with that accustome your selves to that before it come and it will not be a stranger to you when it comes Tertullians Method may be right and it may work that effect in very great afflictions a man may be so used to them as that he will not descend to any low deprecation or sute to be delivered of them But Davids affliction was spirituall and howsoever as a naturall man nay as a devout and religious man for even in rectified men there are affections of a middle nature that participate of nature and of grace too and in which the Spirit of God moves and naturall affections move too for nature and grace doe not so destroy one another as that we should conclude Hee hath strong naturall affections therefore he hath no grace David I say that might justly wonder at his own condition and think it strange that he that put his trust so intirely in God should so intirely be delivered over to such afflictions might also justly deprecate and boldly say Ne facias O Lord deale not thus with thy servant Our Saviour Christs Transeat calix Let this cup passe from me was a deprecation in his owne behalfe And his Pater dimitte illis Father forgivethem they know not what they doe was a deprecation in the behalfe of his enemies And so was Stephens Ne statuas illis O Lord lay not this sin to their charge A deprecation in the behalfe of his Executioners And these Deprecations for others for our selves are proposed for our imitation But for Moses his Dele me Pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Booke and for S. Pauls Anathema rather then his brethren should not be saved let himselfe be condemned for such Deprecations for others as were upon the matter Imprecations upon themselves those may not well be drawne into consequence or practise for in Moses and S. Paul themselves there was if not an irregularity and an inordinatenesse at least an inconsideration not to be imitated by us now not to be excused in them then but for the Prayer that is meerly deprecatory though some have thought it lesse lawfull then the postulatory prayer because when God is come to the act of afflicting us he hath then revealed and declared and manifested his will to be such and against the revealed and manifested will of God we may not pray yet because his afflictions are not peremptory but we have ever day to shew cause why that affliction should be taken off and because all his judgements are conditionall and the condition of every particular judgement is not alwaies revealed to us and this is alwaies revealed to us Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus That his mercy is above all his judgements therefore we may come to that Deprecation that God will make his hand lighter upon us and his corrections easier unto us As the Saints in heaven have their Vsqucquo How long Lord holy and true before thou begin to execute judgement So the Saints on earth have their Vsquequo How long Lord before thou take off the execution of this judgement upon us For our Deprecatory prayers are not Mandatory they are not Directory they appoint not God his waies nor his times but as our Postulatory prayers are they also are submitted to the will of God and have all in them that ingredient that herb of grace which Christ put into his owne prayer that Veruntamen Yet not my will but thy will be fulfilled And they have that ingredient which Christ put into our prayer Fiat volunt as Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven In heaven there is no resisting of his will yet in heaven there is asoliciting a hastning an accelerating of the judgement and the glory of the Resurrection So though we resist not his corrections here upon earth we may humbly present to God the sense which we have of his displeasure for this sense and apprehension of his corrections is one of the principall reasons why he sends them he corrects us therefore that we might be sensible of his corrections that when we being humbled under his hand have said with his Prophet I will beare the wrath of the Lord Micah 7.9 because I have sinned against him He may be pleased to say to his Correcting Angell as he did to his Destroying Angell This is enough and so burne his rod now as he put up his sword then For though David doe well for himselfe and well for our example deprecate the anger of God exprest in those Judgements yet we see he spends but one verse of the Psalme in that Deprecation In all the rest he leaves God wholly to his pleasure how farre he will extend or aggravate that Judgement and he turns wholly upon the Postulatory part That God would have mercy upon him and save him and deliver his soule And in that one verse hee does not deprecate all afflictions all corrections David knowes what moves God to correct us It is not onely our ilnesse that moves him for he corrects us when we are not ill in his sight but made good by his pardon But his goodnesse as well as our ilnesse moves him to correct us If he were not good not only good
for so is it twice taken in one verse Psal 58.4 Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent so that this Hot displeasure is that poison of the soule obduration here and that extention of this obduration a finall impenitence in this life and an infinite impenitiblenesse in the next to dye without any actuall penitence here and live without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter David therefore foresees that if God Rebuke in anger it will come to a Chastening in hot displeasure 1 Sam. 2.25 For what should stop him For If a man sinne against the Lord who will plead for him sayes Eli Plead thou my cause sayes David It is onely the Lord that can be of counsell with him and plead for him and that Lord is both the Judge and angry too So Davids prayer hath this force Rebuke me not in anger for though I were able to stand under that yet thou wilt also Chasten mee in thine hot displeasure and that no soule can beare for as long as Gods anger lasts so long he is going on towards our utter destruction In that State it is not a State in that Exinanition in that annihilation of the soule it is not an annihilation the soule is not so happy as to come to nothing but in that misery which can no more receive a name then an end all Gods corrections are borne with grudging with murmuring with comparing our righteousnesse with others righteousnesse Job 7.20 In Iobs impatience Quare posuisti me contrarium tibi Why hast thou set me up as a marke against thee O Thou preserver of men Thou that preservest other men hast bent thy bow I. am 3.12 and made me a mark for thine arrowes sayes the Lamentation In that state we cannot cry to him that he might answer us If we doe cry and he answer we cannot heare Job 9.16 if we doe heare we cannot beleeve that it is he Cum invocantem exaudierit sayes Iob If I cry and he answer yet I doe not beleeve that he heard my voyce We had rather perish utterly Ver. 23. then stay his leisure in recovering us Si flagellat occidat semel sayes Iob in the Vulgat If God have a minde to destroy me let him doe it at one blow Et non de poenis rideat Let him not sport himselfe with my misery Whatsoever come after we would be content to be out of this world so we might but change our torment whether it be a temporall calamity that oppresses our state or body or a spirituall burthen a perplexity that sinks our understanding or a guiltinesse that depresses our conscience Vt in inferno protegas Job 14.13 as Iob also speaks O that thou wouldest hide me In inferno In the grave sayes the afflicted soule but in Inferno In hell it selfe sayes the dispairing soule rather then keepe me in this torment in this world This is the miserable condition or danger that David abhors and deprecates in this Text To be rebuked in anger without any purpose in God to amend him and to be chastned in his hot displeasure so as that we can finde no interest in the gracious promises of the Gospel no conditions no power of revocation in the severe threatnings of the Law no difference between those torments which have attached us here and the everlasting torments of Hell it selfe That we have lost all our joy in this life and all our hope of the next That we would faine die though it were by our own hands and though that death doe but unlock us a doore to passe from one Hell into another This is Ira tua Domine faror tuus Thy anger O Lord and Thy hot displeasure For as long as it is but Ira patris the anger of my Father which hath dis-inherited me Gold is thine and silver is thine and thou canst provide me As long as it is but Ira Regis some mis-information to the King some mis-apprehension in the King Cor Regis in manu tua The Kings heart is in thy hand and thou canst rectifie it againe As long as it is but Furor febris The rage and distemper of a pestilent Fever or Furor furoris The rage of madnesse it selfe thou wilt consider me and accept me and reckon with me according to those better times before those distempers overtooke me and overthrew me But when it comes to be Ira tua furor tuus Thy anger and Thy displeasure as David did so let every Christian finde comfort if he be able to say faithfully this Verse this Text O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure for as long as he can pray against it he is not yet so fallen under it but that he hath yet his part in all Gods blessings which we shed upon the Congregation in our Sermons and which we seale to every soule in the Sacrament of Reconcilation SERM. LI. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long THis whole Psalme is prayer And the whole prayer is either Deprecatory as in the first verse or Postulatory Something David would have forborne and something done And in that Postulatory part of Davids prayer which goes through six verses of this Psalme we consider the Petitions and the Inducements What David asks And why of both which there are some mingled in these two verses which constitute our Text. And therefore in them we shall necessarily take knowledge of some of the Petitions and some of the Reasons For in the Prayer there are five petitions First Miserere Have mercy upon me Thinke of me looke graciously towards me prevent me with thy mercy And then Sana me O Lord heale me Thou didst create me in health but my parents begot me in sicknesse and I have complicated other sicknesses with that Actuall with Originall sin O Lord heale me give me physick for them And thirdly Convertere Returne O Lord Thou didst visit me in nature returne in grace Thou didst visit me in Baptisme returne in the other Sacrament Thou doest visit me now returne at the houre of my death And in a fourth petition Eripe O Lord deliver my soule Every blessing of thine because a snare unto me and thy benefits I make occasions of sinne In all conversation and even in my solitude I admit such tentations from others or I produce such tentations in my selfe as that whensoever thou art pleased to returne to me thou findest me at the brinke of some sinne and therefore Eripe me O Lord take hold of me and deliver me And lastly Salvum me fac O Lord save me Manifest thy good purpose upon me so that I may never be shaken or never overthrown in the faithfull hope of that salvation which thou hast preordained for me These are
the five petitions of the Prayer and two of the five The Miserere Have mercy upon me and the Sana O Lord heale me are in these two verses And then the Reasons of the prayer arising partly out of himselfe and partly out of God and some being mixt and growing out of both roots together some of the Reasons of the first nature that is of those that arise out of himselfe are also in this Text. Therefore in this Text we shall consider first the extent of those two petitions that are in it Quid miserere what David intends by this prayer Have mercy upon me And then Quid sana me what he intends by that O Lord heale me And secondly we shall consider the strength of those Reasons which are in our text Quia infirmus why God should be moved to mercy with that Because David was weake And then Quia turbata ossa why Because his bones were vexed And againe Quia turbata anima valde Because his soule was sore vexed And in a third Consideration we shall also see that for all our petitions for mercy and for spirituall health and for all our Reasons weaknesse vexation of bones And sore vexation of the soule it selfe God doth not alwayes come to a speedy remedy but puts us to our Vsquequò But thou O Lord how long How long wilt thou delay And then lastly That how long soever that be yet we are still to attend his time still to rely upon him which is intimated in this That David changes not his Master but still applies himselfe to the Lord with that Name that he begun with in the first verse he proceeds and thrice in these few words he calls upon him by this name of Essence Iehova O Lord have mercy upon me O Lord heale me O Lord how long wilt thou delay He is not weary of attending the Lord he is not inclinable to turn upon any other then the Lord Have mercy upon me O Lord c. First then in our first part 1 Part. Quid misereri that part of Davids postulatory prayer in this Text Have mercy upon me This mercy that David begs here is not that mercy of God which is above all his works for those works which follow it are above it To heale him in this Text To returne to him To deliver his soule To save him in the next verses are greater works then this which he calls here in that generall name of Mercy For this word Chanan used in this place is not Dele iniquitates Have mercy upon me so as to blot out all mine iniquities It is not Dimitte debita Have mercy upon me so as to forgive all my sins but it is onely Des mihi gratiam Lord shed some drops of grace upon me or as Tremellius hath it Gratiosus sis mihi Be a gracious Lord unto me For this word is used where Noah is said to have found grace in the eyes of the Lord Gen. 6.8 which grace was that God had provided for his bodily preservation in the Arke And this word is used not onely of God towards men Psal 102.14 but also of men towards God when they expresse their zeale towards Gods house and the compassion and holy indignation which they had of the ruines thereof they expresse it in this word Thy servants delight in the stones of Sion miserti sunt pulveris ejus They had mercy they had compassion upon the dust and rubbish thereof So that here this Miserere mei which is the first grone of a sick soule the first glance of the soule directed towards God imports onely this Lord turne thy countenance towards me Lord bring me to a sense that thou art turned towards me Lord bring me within such a distance as my soule may feele warmth and comfort in the rising of that Sunne Miserere mei Look graciously upon me At the first meeting of Isaac and Rebecca Gen. 24.63 he was gone out to meditate in the fields and she came riding that way with his fathers man who was imployed in making that mariage and when upon asking she knew that it was he who was to be her husband she tooke a vaile and covered her face sayes that story What freedome and nearnesse soever they were to come to after yet there was a modesty and a bashfulnesse and a reservednesse required before and her first kindnesse should be but to be seen A man would be glad of a good countenance from her that shall be his before he asked her whether shee will be his or no A man would be glad of a good countenance from his Prince before he intend to presse him with any particular suit And a sinner may be come to this Miserere mei Domine to desire that the Lord would think upon him that the Lord would look graciously towards him that the Lord would refresh him with the beams of his favour before he have digested his devotion into a formall prayer or entred into a particular consideration what his necessities are Upon those words of the Apostle 1 Tim. 2.1 Bern. De 4. modis orandi I exhort you that supplications and prayers and Intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men S. Bernard makes certaine gradations and steps and ascensions of the soule in prayer and intimates thus much That by the grace of Gods Spirit inanimating and quickning him without which grace he can have no motion at all a sinner may come Ad supplicationes which is S. Pauls first step To supplications which are à suppliciis That out of a sense of some Judgement some punishment he may make his recourse to God And then by a farther growth in that grace he may come Adorationes which are Oris rationes The particular expressing of his necessities with his mouth and a faithfull assurance of obtaining them in his prayer And after he may come farther Ad Intercessiones to an Intercession to such an interest in Gods favour as that he durst put himselfe betwixt God and other men as Abraham in the behalfe of Sodome to intercede for them with a holy confidence that God would doe good to them for his sake And to a farther step then these which the Apostle may intend in that last Ad gratiarum actiones to a continuall Thanksgiving That by reason of Gods benefits multiplyed upon him he finde nothing to aske but his Thanksgivings and his acknowledgements for former blessings possesse and fill all his prayers Though he be growne up to this strength of devotion To Supplications to Prayers to Intercessions to Thanksgivings yet sayes S. Bernard at first when he comes first to deprehend himselfe in a particular sin or in a course of sin he comes Verecunde affectu Bashfully shamefastly tremblingly he knows not what to aske he dares ask no particular thing at Gods hand But though he be not come yet to particular requests for pardon of past sins nor for strength against future not
thee and thou shalt feele him begin to storme and at first that spirit thy spirit 1 Kings 18. will say to the spirit of the Preacher Tune qui conturbas Art thou he that troublest Israel as Ahab said to Eliah Art thou he that troublest the peace of my conscience and the security of my wayes And when the Spirit of God shall search farther and farther even ad occulta to thy secretest sins and touch upon them and that that spirit of disobedience 1 King 21.20 when he feeles this powerfull Exorcisme shall say in thee and cry as Ahab also did Invenisti me Hast thou found me O mine enemy God shall answer Inveni te I have found thee and found that thou hadst sold thy selfe to worke wickednesse in the sight of the Lord And so shall bring thee to a more particular consideration of thine estate and from thy having joyned with the Church Psal 1â—2 13 in a Dominus miserebitur Sion In an assurance and acknowledgement that the Lord will arise and have mercy upon Sion that is of his whole Catholique Church Psal 67.1 And then come to a Dominus misereatur nostri God be mercifull unto us and blesse us and cause his face to shine upon us upon us that are met here according to his Ordinance and in confidence of his promise upon this Congregation of which thou makest thy selfe a part thou wilt also come to this of David here Domine miserere mei Have mercy upon me me in particular and thou shalt heare God answer thee Miserans miserebor tibi With great mercy will I have mercy upon thee upon thee For with him is plentifull Redemption Mercy for his whole Church mercy for this whole Congregation mercy for every particular soule that makes her selfe a part of the Congregation Accustome thy selfe therefore to a generall devotion to a generall application to generall ejaculations towards God upon every occasion and then as a wedge of gold that comes to be coyned into particular pieces of currant money the Lord shall stamp his Image upon all thy devotions and bring thee to particular confessions of thy sins and to particular prayers for thy particular necessities And this we may well conceive and admit to be the nature of Davids first prayer Miserere mei Have mercy upon me And then the reason upon which this first petition is grounded for so it will be fittest to handle the parts first the prayer and then the reason is Quia infirmus Have mercy upon me for I am weak First then Quia how imperfect how weak soever our prayers be yet still if it be a prayer it hath a Quia a Reason upon which it is grounded It hath in it some implied some interpretative consideration of ourselves how it becomes us to aske that which wee doe ask at Gods hand and it hath some implied and interpretative consideration of God how it conduces to Gods glory to grant it for that prayer is very farre from faith which is not made so much as with reason with a consideration of some possibility and some conveniency in it Every man that sayes Lord Lord enters not into heaven Every Lord Lord that is said enters not into heaven but vanishes in the ayre A prayer must be with a serious purpose to pray for else those fashionall and customary prayers are but false fires without shot they batter not heaven It is but an Interjection that slips in It is but a Parenthesis that might be left out whatsoever is uttered in the manner of a prayer if it have not a Quia a Reason a ground for it And therefore when our Saviour Christ gave us that forme of prayer which includes all he gave us in it a forme of the reason too Quia tuum For thine is the Kingdome c. It were not a prayer to say Adveniat Regnum Thy Kingdome come if it were not grounded upon that faithfull assurance that God hath a Kingdomehere Nor to say Sanctificetur nomen Hallowed be thy name If he desired not to be glorified by us Nor to aske daily bread nor forgivenesse of sins but for the Quia potestas Because he hath all these in his power We consider this first accesse to God Miserere mei Have mercy upon me to be but a kind of imperfect prayer but the first step but it were none at all if it had no reason and therefore it hath this Quia infirmus Because I am weake This reason of our own weaknesse is a good motive for mercy Quia infirmus Iohn 11.3 if in a desire of farther strength we come to that of Laâ—arus sisters to Christ Ecce quam amas infirmatur Behold Lord that soule that thou lovest and hast dyed for is weak and languishes Christ answered then Non est infirmitas ad mortem This weaknesse is not unto death but that the Son of God might be glorified He will say so to thee too if thou present thy weaknesse with a desire of strength from him he will say Quare moriemini domus Israel why will ye die of this disease Gratia mea sufficit you may recover for all this you may repent you may abstaine from this sin you may take this spirituall physick the Word the Sacraments if you will Tantummodo robustus esto as God sayes to Ioshuah Only be valiant and fight against it and thou shalt finde strength grow in the use thereof But for the most part De infirmitate blandimur sayes S. Bernard De gradibus humilitatis we flatter our selves with an opinion of weaknesse ut liberiùs peccemus libenter infirmamur we are glad of this naturall and corrupt weaknesse that we may impute all our licentiousnesse to our weaknesse and naturall infirmity But did that excuse Adam sayes that Father Quòd per uxorem tanquam per carnis infirmitatem peceavit That he took his occasion of sinning from his weaker part from his wife Quia infirmus That thou art weak of thy selfe is a just motive to induce God to bring thee to himselfe Qui verè portavit languores tuos who hath surely borne all thine infirmities Esay 53.4 But to leave him againe when he hath brought thee to refuse so light and easie yoake as his is not to make use of that strength which he by his grace offers thee this is not the affection of the Spouse Languor amantis when the person languishes for the love of Christ but it is Languor amoris when the love of Christ languishes in that person And therefore if you be come so far with David as to this Miserere quia infirmus that an apprehension of your owne weaknesse have brought you to him in a prayer for mercy and more strength goe forward with him still to his next Petition Sana me O Lord heale me for God is alwayes ready to build upon his owne foundations and accomplish his owne beginnings Acceptus in gratiam hilariter veni ad
postulationes Sanae When thou art established in favour thou maist make any suit when thou art possest of God by one prayer thou mayst offer more This is an encouragement which that Father S. Bernard gives in observing the diverse degrees of praying That though servandae humilitatis gratia divina pietas ordinavit To make his humility the more profitable to him God imprints in an humble and penitent sinner this apprehension Vt quanto plus profecit eo minus se reputet profecisse That the more he is in Gods favour the more he feares he is not so or the more he fears to lose that favour because it is a part and a symptome of the working of the grace of God to make him see his owne unworthinesse the more manifestly the more sensibly yet it is a religious insinuation and a circumvention that God loves when a sinner husbands his graces so well as to grow rich under him and to make his thanks for one blessing a reason and an occasion of another so to gather upon God by a rolling Trench and by a winding staire as Abraham gained upon God in the behalfe of Sodome for this is an act of the wisedome of the Serpent which our Saviour recommends unto us in such a Serpentine line as the Artists call it to get up to God and get into God by such degrees as David does here from his Miserere to a Sana from a gracious looke to a perfect recovery Luke 10. from the act of the Levite that looked upon the wounded man to the act of the Samaritane that undertooke his cure from desiring God to visit him as a friend as Abraham was called the friend of God to study him as a Physitian Iames 2.23 Esay 55.1 Esay 53.4 Because the Prophet Esay makes a Proclamation in Christs name Ho every one that thirsteth c. And because the same Prophet sayes of him Verè portavit He hath truly born upon himselfe and therefore taken away from us all our diseases Tertullian sayes elegantly that Esay presents Christ Praedicatorem Medicatorem as a Preacher and as a Physitian Indeed he is a Physitian both wayes in his Word and in his Power and therefore in that notion onely as a Physitian David presents him here Now Physitians say That man hath in his Constitution in his Complexion a naturall vertue which they call Balsamum suum his owne Balsamum by which any wound which a man could receive in his body would cure it selfe if it could be kept cleane from the anoiances of the aire and all extrinsique encumbrances Something that hath some proportion and analogy to this Balsamum of the body there is in the soule of man too The soule hath Nardum suam Cant. 1.12 her Spikenard as the Spouse sayes Nardus meadedit odorem suum Basil she had a spikenard a perfume a fragrancy a sweet savour in her selfe For Virtutes germaniùs attingunt animam quà m corpus sanitas Vertuous inclinations and a disposition to morall goodnesse is more naturall to the soule of man and nearer of kin to the soule of man then health is to the body And then if we consider bodily health Nulla oratio nulla doctrinae formula nos docet morbum odiisse sayes that Father There needs no Art there needs no outward Eloquence to perswade a man to be loath to be sick Ita in anima inest naturalis citra doctrinam mali evitatio sayes he So the soule hath a naturall and untaught hatred and detestation of that which is evill The Church at thy Baptisme doth not require Sureties at thy hands for this Thy Sureties undertake to the Church in thy behalfe That thou shalt forsake the flesh the world and the devill That thou shalt beleeve all the Articles of our Religion That thou shalt keepe all the Commandements of God But for this knowledge and detestation of evill they are not put to undertake them then neither doth the Church Catechize thee in that after for the summe of all those duties which concerne the detestation of evill consists in that unwritten law of thy conscience which thou knowest naturally Scis quod boni proximo faciendum sayes that Father Naturally thou knowest what good thou art bound to doe to another man Idem enim est quod ab aliis tute tibi fieri velis for it is but asking thy selfe What thou wouldest that that other man should do unto thee Non ignoras quid sit ipsum malum Thou canst not be ignorant what evill thou shouldest abstaine from offering to another Est enim quod ab alio fieri nolis It is but the same which thou thinkest another should not put upon thee So that the soule of man hath in it Balsamum suum Nardum suam A medicinall Balsamum a fragrant Spikenard in her selfe a naturall disposition to Morall goodnesse as the body hath to health But therein lyes the souls disadvantage that whereas the causes that hinder the cure of a bodily wound are extrinsique offences of the Ayre and putrefaction from thence the causes in the wounds of the soule are intrinsique so as no other man can apply physick to them Nay they are hereditary and there was no time early inough for our selves to apply any thing by way of prevention for the wounds were as soone as we were and sooner Here was a new soule but an old sore a yong childe but an inveterate disease As S. Augustin cannot conceive any interim any distance between the creating of the soule and the infusing of the soule into the body but eases himselfe upon that Creando infundit and infundendo creat The Creation is the Infusion and the Infusion is the Creation so we cannot conceive any Interim any distance betweene the infusing and the sickning betweene the comming and the sinning of the soule So that there was no meanes of prevention I could not so much as wish that I might be no sinner for I could not wish that I might be no Child Neither is there any meanes of separation now our concupiscencies dwell in us and prescribe in us and will gnaw upon us as wormes till they deliver our bodies to the wormes of the grave and our consciences to the worme that never dyes From the dangerous effects then of this sicknesse David desires to be healed and by God himselfe Sana me Domine O Lord heale me for that physick that Man gives is all but drugs of the earth Morall and Civill counsailes rather to cover then recover rather to disguise then to avoid They put a clove in the mouth but they do not mend the lungs To cover his nakednesse Adam tooke but fig-leaves Esay 38.11 but to recover Ezechias God tooke figs themselves Man deales upon leaves that cover and shadow God upon fruitfull and effectuall meanes 2 King 20.7 that cure and nourish And then God tooke a lumpe of figs God is liberall of his graces and gives not over a
Begin with me againe as thou begunst with Adam in innocency and see if I shall husband and governe that innocency better then Adam did for for this heart which I have from him I have it in corruption and Job 4. who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Therefore Davids prayer goes farther in the same place Renew a constant spirit in me Present cleannesse cannot be had from my selfe but if I have that from God mine owne cloathes will make me foule againe and therefore doe not onely create a cleane spirit but renew a spirit of constancy and perseverance Therefore I have also another Prayer in the same Psalme Psal 51.12 Spiritu principali confirma me Sustaine me uphold me with thy free spirit thy large thy munificent spirit for thy ordinary graces will not defray me nor carry me through this valley of tentations not thy single money but thy Talents not as thou art thine owne Almoner but thine owne Treasurer It is not the dew but thy former and later raine that must water though it be thy hand that hath planted Not any of the Rivers though of Paradise but the Ocean it selfe that must bring me to thy Jerusalem Create a clean heart Thou didst so in Adam and in him I defiled it Renew that heart Thou didst so in Baptisme And thy upholding me with thy constant spirit is thy affording me means which are constant in thy Church But thy confirming me with thy principall spirit is thy making of those meanes instituted in thy Church effectuall upon me by the spirit of Application the spirit of Appropriation by which the merits of the Son deposited in the Church are delivered over unto me This then is the force of Davids reason in this Petition Ossa implentur vitiis Iob 20.11 as one of Iobs friends speaks My bones are full of the sins of my youth That is my best actions now in mine age have some taste some tincture from the habit or some sinfull memory of the acts of sin in my youth Adhaeret os meum carni as David also speaks Psal 102.5 Lam. 4.8 My bones cleave to my flesh my best actions taste of my worst And My skin cleaves to my bones as Ieremy laments That is My best actions call for a skin for something to cover them And Therefore not Therefore because I have brought my selfe into this state but because by thy grace I have power to bring this my state into thy sight by this humble confession Sana me Domine O Lord heale me Thou that art my Messias be my Moses Exod. 13.19 and carry these bones of thy Ioseph out of Egypt Deliver me in this consideration of mine actions from the terror of a self-accusing and a jealous and suspicious conscience 1 King 13.31 Bury my bones beside the bones of the man of God Beside the bones of the Son of God Look upon my bones as they are coffind and shrowded in that sheet the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus Accedant ossa ad ossa as in Ezekiels vision Let our bones come together Ezek. 37.7 bone to bone mine to his and looke upon them uno intuitu all together and there shall come sinews and flesh and skin upon them and breathe upon them and in Him in Christ Jesus I shall live My bones being laid by his though but gristles in themselves my actions being considered in his though imperfect in themselves shall bear me up in the sight of God And this may be the purpose of this prayer this sanation grounded upon this reason O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed c. But yet David must and doth stop upon this step he stayes Gods leisure and is put to his Vsquequo But thou O Lord how long David had cryed Miserere he had begged of God to look towards him Vsquequo and consider him He had revealed to him his weak and troublesome estate and he had entreated reliefe but yet God gave not that reliefe presently nor seemed to have heard his prayer nor to have accepted his reasons David comes to some degrees of expostulation with God but he dares not proceed far it is but usquequo Domine which if we consider it in the Originall and so also in our last Translation requires a serious consideration For it is not there as it is in the first Translation How long wilt thou delay David charges God with no delay But it is onely Et tu Domine usquequo But thou O Lord how long And there he ends in a holy abruptnesse as though he had taken himselfe in a fault to enterprise any expostulation with God He doth not say How long ere thou heare me If thou heare me how long ere thou regard me If thou regard me how long ere thou heale me How long shall my bones how long shall my soule be troubled He sayes not so but leaving all to his leisure he corrects his passion he breaks off his expostulation As long as I have that commission from God Dic animae tuae Salus tua sum Psal 35.3 Say unto thy soule I am thy salvation my soule shall keep silence unto God of whom commeth my salvation Silence from murmuring how long soever he be in recovering me not silence from prayer that he would come for that is our last Consideration David proposed his Desire Miserere and Sana Looke towards me and Heale me that was our first And then his Reasons Ossa Anima My bones my soule is troubled that was our second And then he grew sensible of Gods absence for all that which was our third Proposition for yet for all this he continues patient and solieites the same God in the same name The Lord But thou O Lord how long Need we then any other example of such a patience then God himselfe Domine who stayes so long in expectation of our conversion But we have Davids example too who having first made his Deprecation Ver. 1. That God would not reprove him in anger having prayed God to forbeare him he is also well content to forbeare God for those other things which he asks till it be his pleasure to give them But yet he neither gives over praying nor doth he encline to pray to any body else but still Domine miserere Have mercy upon me O Lord and Domine fana O Lord heale mee Industry in a lawfull calling favour of great persons a thankfull acknowledgement of the ministery and protection of Angels and of the prayers of the Saints in heaven for us all these concur to our assistance But the root of all all temporall all spirituall blessings is he to whom David leads us here Dominus The Lord Lord as he is Proprietary of all creatures He made All and therefore is Lord of All as he is Iehovah which is the name of Essence of Being as all things have all their being from him their very being and their well-being their Creation
and their Conservation And in that Name of Recognition and acknowledgement that all that can be had is to be asked of him and him onely Him as he is Iehovah The Lord does David solicite him here Acts 4.12 for as there is no other Name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved but the Name of Iesus Christ So is there no other Name above in heaven proposed to men whereby they should receive these blessings but the Name of Iehovah for Iehovah is the name of the whole Trinity and there are no more no Queen-mother in heaven no Counsaylors in heaven in Commission with the Trinity In this Name therefore David pursues his Prayer for from a River from a Cisterne a man may take more water at once then he can from the first spring and fountaine head But he cannot take the water so sincerely so purely so intemerately from the channell as from the fountaine head Princes and great persons may rayse their Dependants faster then God does his But sudden riches come like a land-water and bring much foulnesse with them Esay 5.7 We are Gods vineyard The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah are his pleasant plant sayes the Prophet And God delights to see his plants prosper and grow up seasonably More then once Christ makes that profession That he goes downe into the Garden of Nuts Cant. 6.10 Cant. 7.12 to see the fruits of the valley And to see whether the Vine flourished and whether the Pomegranet budded And he goes up early into the vineyard to see whether the tender grape appeared He had a pleasure in the growth and successive encrease of his plants and did not looke they should come hastily to their height and maturity If worldly blessings by a good industry grow up in us it is naturall But if they fall upon us Psal 11.6 Exod. 9.23 Rev. 16.21 Pluit laqueos God rains downe springes and snares occasions of sinne in those abundances and Pluit grandinem He will raine downe Hailstones Hailstones as big as Talents as in the Revelation as big as Milstones He will make our riches occasions of raysing enemies and make those enemies Grindstones to grinde our fortunes to powder Make not too much haste to be rich Even in spirituall riches in spirituall health make not too much haste Pray for it for there is no other way to get it Pray to the Lord for it For Saints and Angels have but enough for themselves Make haste to begin to have these spirituall graces To desire them is to begin to have them But make not too much haste in the way Doe not thinke thy selfe purer then thou art because thou seest another doe some such sins as thou hast forborne Beloved at last when Christ Jesus comes with his scales thou shalt not be waighed with that man but every man shall be waighed with God Be pure as your Father in heaven is pure is the waight that must try us all and then the purest of us all that trusts to his owne purity must heare that fearfull Mene Tekel Vpharsin Thou art waighed Thou art found too light Thou art divided separated from the face of God because thou hast not taken the purity of that Son upon thee who not onely in himselfe but those also who are in him in him are pure as his and their Father in heaven is pure Neither make so much haste to this spirituall riches and health as to think thy self whole before thou art Neither murmure nor despaire of thy recovery if thou beest not whole so soone as thou desiredst If thou wrastle with tentations and canst not overcome them If thou purpose to pray earnestly and finde thy minde presently strayed from that purpose If thou intend a good course and meet with stops in the way If thou seeke peace of conscience and scruples out of zeale interrupt that yet discomfort not thy selfe God 〈…〉 in the Creation before he came to make thee yet all that while he wrought for thee Thy Regeneration to make thee a new creature is a greater worke then that and it cannot be done in an instant God hath purposed a building in thee he hath sat down and considered Luke 14.28 that he hath sufficient to accomplish that building as it is in the Gospel and therefore leave him to his leisure When thou hast begun with David with a Domine ne arguas O Lord rebuke me not and followed that with a Domine miserere O Lord looke graciously towards me and pursued that with a Domine sana me O Lord heale me If thou finde a Domine usqucquo Any degree of wearinesse of attending the Lords leisure arising in thee suppresse it overcome it with more and more petitions and that which God did by way of Commandement in the first Creation doe thou by way of prayer in this thy second Creation First he said Piat lux Let there be light Pray thou that he would enlighten thy darknesse God was satisfied with that light for three daies and then he said Fiant luminaria Let there be great lights Blesse God for his present light but yet pray that hee will inlarge that light which he hath given thee And turne all those his Commandments into prayers till thou come to his Faciamus hominem Let us make man according to our own Image Pray that he will restore his Image in thee and conforme thee to him who is the Image of the invisible God our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus Coloss 1.15 He did his greatest work upon thee before time was thine Election And he hath reserved the confummation of that work till time shall be no more thy Glorification And as forthy Vocation he hath taken his own time He did not call thee into the world in the time of the Primitive Church nor perchance call thee effectually though in the Church in the dayes of thy youth So stay his time for thy Sanctification and if the day-spring from on high have visited thee but this morning If thou beest come to a fiat lux but now that now God have kindled some light in thee hee may come this day seaven-night to a siant luminaria to multiply this light by a more powerfull meanes If not so soone yet still remember that it was God that made the Sun stand still to Ioshaah as well as to run his race as a Giant to David And God was as much glorified in the standing still of the Sun as in the motion thereof And shall be so in thy Sanctification though it seeme to stand at a stay for a time when his time shall be to perfect it in a measure acceptable to thee Nothing is acceptable to him but that which is seasonable nor seasonable except it come in the time proper to it And as S. Augustine sayes Natura rei est quam indidit Deus That is the nature of every thing which God
hath imprinted in it So that is the time for every thing which God hath appointed for it Pray and Stay are two blessed Monosy lables To ascend to God To attend Gods descent to us is the Motion and the Rest of a Christian And as all Motion is for Rest so let all the Motions of our soule in our prayers to God be that our wills may rest in his and that all that pleases him may please us therefore because it pleases him for therefore because it pleases him it becomes good for us and then when it pleases him it becomes seasonable unto us and expedient for us SERM. LII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercies sake For in Death there is no Remembrance of thee and in the Grave who shall give thee thanks THe whole Psalme is Prayer and Prayer is our whole service to God Earnest Prayer hath the nature of Importunity Wee presse wee importune God in Prayer Yet that puts not God to a morosity to a frowardnesse God flings not away from that God suffers that importunity and more Prayer hath the nature of Impudency Wee threaten God in Prayer as Gregor Nazi adventures to expresse it He saies his Sister in the vehemence of her Prayer would threaten God Et honesta quadam impudentiae egit impudentem She came saies he to a religious impudency with God and to threaten him that she would never depart from his Altar till she had her Petition granted And God suffers this Impudency and more Prayer hath the nature of Violence In the publique Prayers of the Congregation we besiege God saies Tertul and we take God Prisoner and bring God to our Conditions and God is glad to be straitned by us in that siege This Prophet here executes before what the Apostle counsailes after Pray incessantly Even in his singing he prayes And as S. Basil saies Etiam somniajustorum preces sunt A Good mans dreames are Prayers he prayes and not sleepily in his sleepe so Davids Songs are Prayers Now in this his besieging of God he brings up his works from a far off closer He begins in this Psalme at a deprecatory Prayer He asks nothing but that God would doe nothing that he would forbeare him Rebuke me not Correct me not Now it costs the King lesse to give a Pardon then to give a Pension and lesse to give a Reprieve then to give a Pardon and lesse to Connive not to call in Question then either Reprieve Pardon or Pension To forbeare is not much But then as the Mathematician said That he could make an Engin a Screw that should move the whole frame of the World if he could have a place assigned him to fix that Engin that Screw upon that so it might worke upon the World so Prayer when one Petition hath taken hold upon God works upon God moves God prevailes with God entirely for all David then having got this ground this footing in God he brings his works closer he comes from the Deprecatory to a Postulatory Prayer not onely that God would doe nothing against him but that he would doe something for him God hath suffered man to see Arcana imperii The secrets of his State how he governs He governs by Precedent by precedents of his Predecessors he cannot He hath none by precedents of other Gods he cannot There are none And yet he proceeds by precedents by his owne Precedents He does as he did before Habenti dat To him that hath received hee gives more and is willing to bee wrought and prevailed upon and prest with his owne example And as though his doing good were but to learne how to do good better still he writes after his owne copy And Nulla dies sine linea He writes something to us that is hee doth something for us every day And then that which is not often seene in other Masters his Copies are better then the Originals his later mercies larger then his former And in this Postulatory Prayer larger then the Deprecatory enters our Text Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O save me c. David Divisio who every where remembers God of his Covenant as he was the God of Abraham remembers also how Abraham proceeded with God in the behalfe of Sodom And he remembers that when Abraham had gained upon God and brought him from a greater to a lesse number of righteous men for whose sakes God would have spared that City yet Abraham gave over asking before God gave over granting And so Sodom was lost A little more of S. Augustines Importunity of Nazi Impudence of Tertul violence in Prayer would have done well in Abraham If Abraham had come to a lesse price to lesse then ten God knowes what God would have done for God went not away saies the text there till he had left communing with Abraham that is till Abraham had no more to say to him In memory and contemplation of that David gives not over in this text till he come to the utter most of all as far as man can aske as far as God can give He begins at first with a Revertere Domine Returne O Lord and higher then that no man can begin no man can begin at a Veni Domine no man can pray to God to come till God be come into him Quid peto ut venias in me saies S. August Qui non essem si nonesses in me How should I pray that God would come into me who not onely could not have the Spirit of praying but not the Spirit of being not life it selfe if God were not in me already But then this prayer is that when God had been with him and for his sins or his coldnesse and slacknesse in prayer was departed aside from him yet he would vouchsafe to returne to him againe and restore to him that light of his countenance which he had before Revertere Domine O Lord returne And then he passes to his second petition Eripe animam Deliver my soule That when God in his returne saw those many and strong snares which entangled him those many and deepe tentations and tribulations which surrounded him God being in his mercy thus Returned and in his Providence seing this danger would not now stand neutrall betweene them and see him and these tentations fight it our but fight on his side and deliver him Eripe animam Deliver my soule And then by these two petitions hee makes way for the third and last which is the perfection and consummation of all as far as he can carry a Prayer or a Desire Salvum me fac O Lord save me that is Imprint in me a strong hope of Salvation in this life and invest me in an irremoveable possession in the life to come Lord I acknowledge that thou hast visited me heretofore and for my sins hast absented thy selfe O Lord returne Lord now thou art returned and seest me unable
to stand in these tentations and tribulations Deliver thou my soule Lord thou hast delivered me againe and againe and againe and againe I fall back to my former danger and therefore O Lord save me place me where I may be safe safe in a constant hope that the Saviour of the World intended that salvation to me And these three Petitions constitute our first part in Davids postulatory Prayer And then the second part which is also within the words of this text and consists of those reasons by which David inclines God to grant his three Petitions which are two first Propter misericordiam tuam Do this O Lord for thine own mercy sake And then Quia non in morte Doe it O Lord for thine owne honours sake Because in death there is no remembrance of thee that second part will be the subject of another exercise for that which belongs to the three Petitions will imploy the time allowed for this First then the first step in this Prayer Revertere O Lord return implies first a former presence Revertere and then a present absence and also a confidence for the future Whosoever saies O Lord returne sayes all this Lord thou wast here Lord thou art departed hence but yet Lord thou maiest returne hither againe God was with us all before we were any thing at all And ever since our making hath beene with us in his generall providence And so we cannot say O Lord Returne because so he was never gone from us But as God made the earth and the fruits thereof before he made the Sun whose force was to work upon that earth and upon the naturall fruits of that earth but before he made Paradise which was to have the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge he made the Sun to doe those offices of shining upon it and returning daily to it So God makes this earth of ours that is our selves by naturall wayes and sustaines us by generall providence before any Son of particular grace be seene to shine upon us But before man can be a Paradise possest of the Tree of life and of Knowledge this Sun is made and produced the particular graces of God rise to him and worke upon him and awaken and solicite and exalt those naturall faculties which were in him This Son fils him and fits him compasses him and disposes him and does all the offices of the Sun seasonably opportunely maturely for the nourishing of his soule according to the severall necessities thereof And this is Gods returning to us in a generall apprehension After he hath made us and blest us in our nature and by his naturall meanes he returnes to make us againe to make us better first by his first preventing grace and then by a succession of his particular graces And therefore we must returne to this Returning in some more particular considerations There are beside others three significations in the Scripture of this word Shubah which is here translated to Returne appliable to our present purpose The first is the naturall and native the primary and radicall signification of the word And so Shubah To Returne is Redire ad locum suum To returne to that place to which a thing is naturally affected So heavy things returne to the Center and light things returne to the Expansion So Mans breath departeth Psal 146.4 sayes David Et redit in terr am suam He returnes into his Earth That earth which is so much his as that it is he himselfe Of earth he was and therefore to earth he returnes But can God returne in such a sense as this Can we finde an Vbi for God A place that is his place Yes And an Earth which is his earth Surely the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts Esay 5. is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah are his pleasant plant So the Church which is his Vineyard is his Vbi his place his Center to which he is naturally affected And when he calls us hither and meets us here upon his Sabbaths and sheds the promises of his Gospel upon the Congregation in his Ordinance he returnes to us here as in his Vbi as in his own place And as he hath a place of his owne here so he hath an Earth of his owne in this place Our flesh is Earth and God hath invested our flesh and in that flesh of ours which suffered death for us he returnes to us in this place as often as he maketh us partakers of his flesh and his bloud in the blessed Sacrament So then though in my dayes of sinne God have absented himselfe from me for God is absent when I doe not discerne his presence yet if to day I can heare his voyce as God is returned to day to this place as to his Vbi as to his own place so in his entring into me in his flesh and bloud he returnes to me as to his Earth that Earth which he hath made his by assuming my nature I am become his Vbi his place Delitiae ejus His delight is to be with the sonnes of men and so with me and so in the Church in the Sermon in the Sacrament he returnes to us in the first signification of this word Shubah as to that place to which he is naturally affected and disposed In a second signification this word is referred not to the place of God not to the person of God but if we may so speake to the Passion of God to the Anger of God And so the Returning of God that is of Gods Anger is the allaying the becalming the departing of his Anger and so when God returnes God stayes his Anger is returned from us Esay 5.25 but God is still with us The wrath of the Lord was kindled sayes the Prophet Esay and He smote his people so that the mountaines trembled and their carkasses were torne in the midst of the streets Here is the tempest here is the visitation here is Gods comming to them He comes but in anger and we heare of no returne nay we heare the contrary Et non redibat furor For all this his wrath his fury did not returne that is did not depart from them for as God never comes in this manner till our multiplied sinnes call him and importune him so God never returnes in this sense in withdrawing his anger and judgements from us till both our words and our works our prayers and our amendment of life joyne in a Revertere Domine O Lord Returne withdraw this judgement from us for it hath effected thy purpose upon us And so the Originall which expresses neither signification of the word for it is neither Returne to me nor Returne from me but plainely and onely Returne leaves the sense indifferent Lord thou hast withdrawne thy selfe from me therefore in mercy returne to me or else Lord thy Judgements are heavy upon me and therefore returne withdraw these Judgements from me which shewes the ductilenesse the
appliablenesse of Gods mercy that yeelds almost to any forme of words any words seeme to fit it But then the comfort of Gods returning to us comes nearest us in the third signification of this word Shubah not so much in Gods returning to us nor in his anger returning from us Psal 80.3 as in our returning to him Turne us againe O Lord sayes David Et salvi erimus and we shall be saved There goes no more to salvation but such a Turning So that this Returning of the Lord is an Operative an Effectuall returning that turnes our hearts and eyes and hands and feet to the wayes of God and produces in us Repentance and Obedience For these be the two legges which our conversion to God stands upon Deut. 32.2 For so Moses uses this very word Returne unto the Lord and heare his voyce There is no returning without hearing nor hearing without beleeving nor beleeving to be beleeved Mat. 11.21 without doing Returning is all these Therefore where Christ saies That if those works had been done in Tyre and Sidon Tyre and Sidon would have repented in sackcloth and ashes In the Syriack Translation of S. Matthew we have this very word Shubah They would have Returned in sack-cloth and ashes So that the word which David receives from the Holy Ghost in this Text being onely Returned and no more applies it selfe to all three senses Returne thy selfe that is Bring backe thy Mercy Returne thy Wrath that is Call backe thy Judgements or Returne us to thee that is make thy meanes and offers of grace in thine Ordinance powerfull and effectuall upon us Now when the Lord comes to us by any way though he come in corrections in chastisements not to turne to him is an irreverent and unrespective negligence If a Pursevant if a Serjeant come to thee from the King in any Court of Justice though hee come to put thee in trouble to call thee to an account yet thou receivest him thou entertainest him thou paiest him fees If any Messenger of the Lord come to attach thee whether sicknesse in thy body by thine own disorder decay in thy estate by the oppression of others or terrour in thy Conscience by the preaching of his Ministers turne thou to the Lord in the last sense of the word and his mercy shall returne to thee and his anger shall returne from thee and thou shalt have fulnesse of Consolation in all the three significations of the word If a Worme be trodden upon it turnes againe We may thinke that is done in anger and to revenge But we know not The Worme hath no sting and it may seeme as well to embrace and licke his foote that treads upon him When God treads upon thee in any calamity spirituall or temporall if thou turne with murmuring this is the turning of a Serpent to sting God to blaspheme him This is a turning upon him not a turning to him But if thou turne like a Worme then thou turnest humbly to kisse the rod to licke and embrace his foot that treads upon thee that is to love his Ministers which denounce his judgements upon thy sinnes yea to love them from whom thou receivest defamation in thy credit or detriment in thy state We see how it was imputed to Asa when God trod upon him that is 2 Chro. 16.12 diseased him in his feete and exalted his disease into extremity Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord but to the Physitians He turned a by-way at least though a right way too soone to the Physitian before the Lord. This is that that exasperated God so vehemently Esay 9.13 Because the people turneth not to him that smiteth them neither do they seeke the Lord of Hosts when the Lord of Hosts lies with a heavy Army upon them Therefore sayes the Prophet there The Lord will cut off from Israel head and tayle branch and rush in one day God is not so vehement when they neglected him in their prosperity as when though he afflicted them yet they turned not to him Measure God by earthly Princes for we may measure the world by a Barly corne If the King come to thy house thou wilt professe to take it for an honour and thou wilt entertaine him and yet his comming cannot be without removes and troubles and charges to thee So when God comes to thee in his word or in his actions in a Sermon or in a sicknesse though his comming dislodge thee remove thee put thee to some inconvenience in leaving thy bed of sinne where thou didst sleepe securely before yet here is the progresse of the Holy Ghost intended to thy soule that first he comes thus to thee and then if thou turne to him he returnes to thee and settles himselfe and dwels in thee This is too lovely a Prospect to depart so soone from therefore looke we by S. Augustines glasse upon Gods comming and returning to man God hath imprinted his Image in our soules and God comes sayes that Father Vt videat imaginem Where I have given my Picture I would see how it is respected God comes to see in what case his Image is in us If we shut doores if we draw Curtaines between him and his Image that is cover our soules and disguise and palliate our sinnes he goes away and returnes in none of those former senses But if we lay them open by our free confessions he returnes againe that so in how ill case soever he finde his Image he may wash it over with our teares and renew it with his own bloud and Vt resculpat imaginem that he may refresh and re-engrave his Image in us againe and put it in a richer and safer Tablet And as the Angel which came to Abraham at the promise and conception of Isaac Gen. 18.10 gave Abraham a farther assurance of his Returne at Isaaes birth I will certainly returne unto thee and thy wife shall have a Sonne So the Lord which was with thee in the first conception of any good purpose Returnes to thee againe to give thee a quickning of that blessed childe of his and againe and againe to bring it forth and to bring it up to accomplish and perfect those good intentions which his Spirit by over-shadowing thy soule hath formerly begotten in it So then he comes in Nature and he returnes in Grace He comes in preventing and returnes in subsequent graces He comes in thine understanding and returnes in thy will He comes in rectifying thine actions and returns in establishing habits He comes to thee in zeale and returnes in discretion He comes to thee in fervour and returnes in perseverance He comes to thee in thy peregrination all the way and he returns in thy transmigration at thy last gaspe So God comes and so God returnes Yet I am loath to depart my selfe loath to dismisse you from this ayre of Paradise of Gods comming and returning to us Therefore we consider againe that as God
of presumptuous sins and a Saviour in the vallies in the dejection of inordinate melancholy too A Saviour of the East of rising and growing men and a Saviour of the West of withering declining languishing fortunes too A Saviour in the state of nature by having infused the knowledge of himselfe into some men then before the light and help of the Law was afforded to the world A Saviour in the state of the Law by having made to some men then even Types Accomplishments and Prophesies Histories And as himself Cals things that are not as though they were So he made those men see things that were not as though they were for so Abraham saw his day and rejoyced A Saviour in the state of the Gospel and so as that he saves some there for the fundamentall Gospels sake that is for standing fast in the fundamentall Articles thereof though they may have been darkned with some ignorances or may have strayed into some errors in some Circumstantiall points A Saviour of all the world of all the conditions in the world of all times through the world of all places of the world such a Saviour is no man called but Christ Jesus only For when it is said that Pharaoh called Ioseph Salvatorem mundi A Saviour of the world besides Gen. 41.45 that if it were so that which is called all the world can be referred but to that part of the world which was then under Pharaoh as when it is said that Augustus taxed the world that is intended De orbe Romano so much of the world as was under the Romanes there is a manifest error in that Translation which cals Ioseph so for that name which was given to Ioseph there in that language in which it was given doth truly signifie Revelatorem Secretorum and no more a Revealer a Discoverer a Decypherer of secret and mysterious things according to the occasion upon which that name was then given which was the Decyphering the Interpreting of Pharaohs Dreame Be this then thus establisht that David for our example considers and referres all salvation Psal 98.2 to salvation in Christ As he does also where he sayes after Notum fecit salutare tuum The Lord hath made known his salvation Quid est salutare tuum saies S. Basil Luke 2. What is the Lords salvation And he makes a safe answer out Simeons mouth Mine eyes have seene thy salvation when he had seen Christ Iesus This then is he which is not only Satvator populi sui The Saviour of his people the Jews to whom he hath betrothed himselfe In Pacto salis A Covenant of salt an everlasting Covenant Nor onely Salvator corporis sui The Saviour of his own body as the Apostle calls him of that body which he hath gathered from the Gentiles in the Christian Church Nor only Salvator mundi A Saviour of the world so as that which he did and suffered was sufficient in it selfe and was accepted by the Father for the salvation of the world but as Tertullian for the most part reads the word he was Salutificator not only a Saviour because God made him an instrument of salvation as though he had no interest in our salvation till in his flesh he died for us but he is Salutificator so the Author of this salvation as that from all eternity he was at the making of the Decree as well as in the fulnesse of time he was at the executing thereof In the work of our salvation if we consider the merit Christ was sole and alone no Father no Holy Ghost trod the Wine-presse with him And if in the work of our salvation we consider the mercy there though Christ were not sole and alone for that mercy in the Decree was the joynt-act of the whole Trinity yet even in that Christ was equall to the Father and the Holy Ghost So he is Salutificator the very Author of this salvation as that when it came to the act he and not they died for us and when it was in Councell he as well as they and as soone as they decreed it for us As therefore the Church of God scarce presents any petition any prayer to God but it is subscribed by Christ the Name of Christ is for the most part the end and the seale of all our Collects all our prayers in the Liturgy though they be but for temporall things for Plenty or Peace or Faire-weather are shut up so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus sake So David for our example drives all his petitions in this Text to this Conclusion Salvum me fac O Lord save me that is apply that salvation Christ Jesus to me Now beloved you may know that your selves have a part in those means which God uses to that purpose your selves are instruments though not causes of your own salvation Salvus factus es pro nihilo non de nihilo tamen Bernard Thou bringest nothing for thy salvation yet something to thy salvation nothing worth it but yet somthing with it Thy new Creation by which thou art a new creature that is thy Regeneration is wrought as the first Creation was wrought God made heaven and earth of nothing but hee produced the other creatures out of that matter which he had made Thou hadst nothing to doe in the first work of thy Regeneration Thou couldst not so much as wish it But in all the rest thou art a fellow-worker with God because before that there are seeds of former grace shed in thee And therefore when thou commest to this last Petition Salvum me fac O Lord save me remember still that thou hast something to doe as well as to say that so thou maist have a comfortable answer in thy soule to the whole prayer Returne O Lord Deliver my soule and Save me And so we have done with our first Part which was the Prayer it selfe and the second which is the Reasons of the Prayer we must reserve for a second exercise SERM. LIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercie sake For in Death there is no Remembrance of thee and in the Grave who shall give thee thanks WEE come now to the Reasons of these Petitions in Davids Prayer For as every Prayer must bee made with faith I must beleeve that God will grant my Prayer if it conduce to his glory and my good to doe so that is the limit of my faith so I must have reason to ground a likelyhood and a faire probability that that particular which I pray for doth conduce to his glory and my good and that therefore God is likely to grant it Davids first Reason here is grounded on God himselfe Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercy sake and in his second Reason though David himselfe and all men with him seeme to have a part yet at last we shall see the Reason it selfe to
fainting with that After his weeping and dissolving with that After his consuming and withering with that foresees no rescue no escape Inveteravit he waxes old amongst his enemies Who were his enemies and what was this age that he speaks of It is of best use to pursue the spirituall sense of this Psalme and so his enemies were his sins And David found that he had not got the victory over any one enemy any one sin Anothers bloud did not extinguish the lustfull heat of his owne nor the murther of the husband the adultery with the wife Change of sin is not an overcomming of sin He that passes from sin to sin without repentance which was Davids case for a time still leaves an enemy behind him and though he have no present assault from his former enemie no tentation to any act of his former sin yet he is still in the midst of his enemies under condemnation of his past as well as of his present sins as unworthy a receiver of the Sacrament for the sins of his youth done forty yeares agoe if those sins were never repented though so long discontinued as for his ambition or covetousnesse or indevotion of this present day These are his enemies and then this is the age that growes upon him the age that David complaines of I am waxenold that is growne into habits of these sins There is an old age of our naturall condition We shall waxe old as doth a garment Psal 102.26 David would not complaine of that which all men desire To wish to be old and then grudge to be old when we are come to it cannot consist with morall constancy There is an old age expressed in that phrase The old man which the Apostle speaks of which is that naturall corruption and disposition to sin cast upon us by Adam Rom. 6.6 But that old man was crucified in Christ sayes the Apostle and was not so onely from that time when Christ was actually crucified one thousand six hundred yeares agoe but from that time that a second Adam was promised to the first in Paradise And so that Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world from the beginning delivered all them to whom the means ordained by God as Circumcision to them Baptisme to us were afforded and in that respect David was not under that old age but was become a new creature Nor as the Law was called the old Law which is another age also for to them who understood that Law aright the New Law the Gospel was enwrapped in the Old And so David as well as we might be said to serve God in the newnesse of spirit and not in the oldnesse of the Letter Rom. 7.6 so that this was not the age that opprest him The Age that oppresses the sinner is that when he is growne old in sin he is growne weak in strength and become lesse able to overcome that sin then then he was at beginning Blindnesse contracted by Age doth not deliver him from objects of tentations He sees them though he be blind Deafnesse doth not deliver him from discourses of tentation he heares them though he be deafe Nor lamenesse doth not deliver him from pursuit of tentation for in his owne memory he sees and heares and pursues all his former sinfull pleasures and every night every houre sins over all the sins of many yeares that are passed That which waxeth old is ready to vanish sayes the Apostle Heb. 8.13 If we would let them goe they would goe and whether we will or no they leave us for the ability of practise But Thesaurizamus we treasure them up in our memories Rom. 2.5 and we treasure up the wrath of God with them against the day of wrath And whereas one calling of our sins to our memories by way of confession would doe us good and serve our turnes this often calling them in a sinfull delight in the memory of them exceeds the sin it selfe when it was committed because it is more unnaturall now Ezek. 23.19 then it was then and frustrates the pardon of that sin when it was repented To end this branch and this part So humble was this holy Prophet and so apprehensive of his own debility and so far from an imaginary infallibility of falling no more as that after all his agonies and exercises and mortifications and prayer and sighs and weeping still he finds himselfe in the midst of enemies and of his old enemies for not onely tentations to new sins but even the memory of old though formerly repented arise against us arise in us and ruine us And so we passe from these pieces which constitute our first Part Quid factum what David upon the sense of his case did to the other Quid faciendum what by his example we are to doe and what is required of us after we have repented and God hath remitted the sin Out of this passage here in this Psalme and out of that history 2 Part. where Nathan sayes to David The Lord hath put away thy sin and yet sayes after 2. Sam. 12.13 The child that is borne to thee shall surely dye and out of that story where David repents earnestly his sin committed in the numbring of his people and sayes Now now that I have repented 2 Sam. 24.10 Now I beseech thee O Lord take away the iniquity of thy servant for I have done very foolishly yet David was to indure one of those three Calamities of Famine Warre or Pestilence And out of some other such places as these some men have imagined a Doctrine that after our repentance and after God hath thereupon pardoned our sin yet he leaves the punishment belonging to that sin unpardoned though not all the punishment not the eternall yet say they there belongs a temporary punishment too and that God does not pardon but exacts and exacts in the nature of a punishment and more by way of satisfaction to his Justice Now Stipendium peccati mors est There is the punishment for sin The reward of sin is death If there remaine no death there remaines no punishment For the reward of sin is death And death complicated in it selfe death wrapped in death and what is so intricate so intangling as death Who ever got out of a winding sheet It is death aggravated by it selfe death waighed downe by death And what is so heavy as death Who ever threw off his grave stone It is death multiplied by it selfe And what is so infinite as death Who ever told over the dayes of death It is Morte morieris A Double death Eternall and Temporary Temporall and Spirituall death Now the Temporary the Naturall death God never takes away from us he never pardons that punishment because he never takes away that sin that occasioned it which is Originall sin To what Sanctification soever a man comes Originall sin lives to his last breath And therefore Heb 9.27 Statutum est That Decree stands
in our warres but his peace and that after this fast which in the bodily and ghostly part too we performe to day and vow and promise for our whole lives he will bring us to the Marriage Supper of the Lambe in that Kingdome which our Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible bloud Amen SERM. LV. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.8 9 10. Depart from me all ye workers of iniquitie for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly THis is Davids profligation and discomfiture of his enemies this is an act of true honour a true victory a true triumph to keepe the field to make good one station and yet put the enemy to flight A man may perchance be safe in a Retrait but the honour the victory the triumph lies in enforcing the enemy to fly To that is David come here to such a thankfull sense of a victory in which we shall first confider Davids thankfulnesse that is his manner of declaring Gods mercy and his security in that mercy which manner is that he durst come to an open defiance and protestation and hostility without modifications or disguises Depart from me all yee workers of iniquity And then secondly we shall see his reason upon which he grounded this confidence and this spirituall exultation which was a pregnant reason a reason that produced another reason The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will heare my prayer upon no premises doth any conclusion follow so Logically so sincerely so powerfully so imperiously so undeniably as upon this The Lord hath and therefore the Lord will But then what was this prayer that wee may know whether it were a prayer to be drawne into practise and imitation or no. It is not argument enough that it was so because God heard it then for we are not bound nay we are not allowed to pray all such prayers as good men have prayed and as God hath heard But here the prayer was this Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly But this is a malediction an imprecation of mischiefe upon others and will good men pray so or will God heare that Because that is an holy probleme and an usefull intergatory we shall make it a third part or a conclusion rather to enquire into the nature and into the avowablenesse and exemplarinesse of this in which David seemes to have been transported with some passion So that our parts will be three the building it selfe Davids thankesgiving in his exultation Divisie and declaration Depart from mee all yee workers of iniquitie and then the foundation of this building For God hath heard and therefore God will heare and lastly the prospect of this building David contemplates and lookes over againe the prayer that he had made and in a cleare understanding and in a rectified Conscience he finds that he may persist in that prayer and he doth so Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly First then we consider Davids thankfulnesse But why is it so long before David leads us to that consideration Why hath he deferred so primary a duty to so late a place 1. Part. to so low a roome to the end of the Psalme The Psalme hath a Deprecatory part that God would forbeare him and a Postulatory part that God would heare him and grant some things to him and a Gratulatory part a sacrifice of thankesgiving Now the Deprecatory part is placed in the first place Vers 1. For if it were not so if we should not first ground that That God should not rebuke us in his anger nor chasten us in his hot displeasure but leave our selves open to his indignation and his judgements wee could not live to come to a second petition our sinnes and judgements due to our sinnes require our first consideration therefore David begins with the deprecatory prayer That first Gods anger may be removed but then that deprecatory prayer wherein he desired God to forbeare him spends but one verse of the Psalme David would not insist upon that long When I have penitently confest my sinnes I may say with Iob My flesh is not brasse nor my bones stones that I can beare the wrath of the Lord but yet I must say with Iob too If the Lord kill me yet will I trust in him God hath not asked me What shall I doe for thee but of himselfe he hath done more then I could have proposed to my selfe in a wish or to him in a prayer Nor will I aske God Quousque how long shall my foes increase how long wilt thou fight on their side against me but surrender my selfe entirely in an adveniat regnum and a fiat voluntas thy kingdome come and thy will be done David makes it his first worke to stay Gods anger in a deprecatory prayer but he stayes not upon that long he will not prescribe his Physitian what he shall prescribe to him but leaves God to his own medicines and to his own methode But then the Postulatory prayer what he begs of God employes six verses as well to shew us that our necessities are many as also that if God doe not answer us at the beginning of our prayer our duty is still to pursue that way to continue in prayer And then the third part of the Psalme which is the Gratulatory part his giving of thanks is shall we say deferred or rather reserved to the end of the Psalme and exercises onely those three verses which are our Text. Not that the duty of thankesgiving is lesse then that of prayer for if we could compare them it is rather greater because it contributes more to Gods glory to acknowledge by thanks that God hath given then to acknowledge by prayer that God can give But therefore might David be later and shorter here in expressing that duty of thanks first because being reserved to the end and close of the Psalme it leaves the best impression in the memory And therefore it is easie to observe that in all Metricall compositions of which kinde the booke of Psalmes is the force of the whole piece is for the most part left to the shutting up the whole frame of the Poem is a beating out of a piece of gold but the last clause is as the impression of the stamp and that is it that makes it currant And then also because out of his abundant manner of expressing his thankfulnesse to God in every other place thereof his whole booke of Psalmes is called Sepher tehillim a booke of praise and thankesgiving he might reserve his thanks here to the last place And lastly because naturall and morall men are better acquainted with the duty of gratitude of thankesgiving
iniquity there is one Declinate one word that implies a withdrawing of our selves for that must be done not out of the world but out of that ill ayre we must not put our selves in danger nor in distance of a tentation but all the other words are words of a more active vehemence Amputate and Projicite it is Discedite and not Discedam a driving away and not a running away Wee proceed now in our second part 2 Part. to the reasons of Davids confidence and his opennesse and his publique declaration why David was content to be rid of all his company and it was because he had better he sayes The Lord had heard him and first He had heard vocem fletus the voice of his weeping Here is an admirable readinesse in God that heares a voyce in that which hath none They have described God by saying he is all eye an universall eye that pierceth into every darke corner but in darke corners there is something for him to see but he is all eare too and heares even the silent and speechlesse man and heares that in that man that makes no sound histeares When Hezekias wept Esay 38. he was turned to the wall perchance because he would not be seene and yet God bad the Prophet Esay tell him Vidi lacrymam though the text say Hezekias weptsore yet Vidit lacrymam God saw every single teare his first teare and was affected with that But yet this is more strange God heard his teares And therefore the weeping of a penitent sinner Gregor is not improperly called Legatio lacrymarum An embassage of teares To Embassadours belongs an audience and to these Embassages God gives a gracious audience Abyssus abyssum invocat One depth cals upon another Psal 43.7 And so doth one kinde of teares call upon one another Teares of sorrow call upon teares of joy and all call upon God and bring him to that ready hearing which is implied in the words of this text Shamang a word of that largenesse in the Scriptures that sometimes in the Translation of the Septuagint it signifies hearing Shamang is audit God gives eare to our teares sometimes it is beleeving Shamang is Credit God gives faith and credit to our teares sometimes it is Affecting Shamang is Miseretur God hath mercy upon us for our teares sometimes it is Effecting Shamang is Respondet God answers the petition of our teares and sometimes it is Publication Shamang is Divulgat God declares and manifests to others by his blessings upon us the pleasure that he takes in our holy and repentant teares And therefore Lacrymae foenus sayes S. Basil Teares are that usury by which the joyes of Heaven are multiplied unto us the preventing Grace and the free mercy of God is our stock and principall but the Acts of obedience and mortification fasting and praying and weeping are Foenus sayes that blessed Father the interest and the increase of our holy joy That which we intend in all this is that when our heart is well disposed toward God God sees our prayers as they are comming in the way before they have any voyce in our words When Christ came to Lazarus house before Mary had asked any thing at his hands as soone as she had wept Christ was affected He groaned in the spirit Iohn 11. he was troubled and he wept too and he proceeded to the raysing of Lazarus before shee asked him her eyes were his glasse and he saw her desire in her tears There is a kind of simplicity in teares which God harkens to and beleeves Rom. 8.26 We know not what we should pray for as we ought Quid nescimus orationem dominicam Can we not say the Lords Prayer sayes S. Augustin Yes we can say that but Nescimus tribulationem prodesse sayes he we doe not know the benefit that is to be made of tribulation and tentation Et petimus liberari ab omni malo we pray to be delivered from all evill and we meane all tribulation and all tentation as though all they were alwaies evill but in that there may be much error The sons of Zebedee prayed but ambitionsly and were not heard Mat. 20.22 2 Cor. 12.8 S. Paul prayed for the taking away of the provocation of the flesh but inconsiderately and mist the Apostles made a request for fire against the Samaritans but uncharitably and were reproved But when Iehosaphat was come to that perplexity by the Moabites 2 Chro. 20.12 that he knew not what to doe nor what to say Hoc solum residui habemus sayes he ut oculos nostros dirigamus ad te This we can doe and we need doe no more wee can turne our eyes to thee Now whether he directed those eyes in looking to him or in weeping to him God heares the voyce of our looks God heares the voyce of our teares sometimes better then the voyce of our words for it is the Spirit it selfe that makes intercession for us Rom. 8.26 Gemitibus inenarrabilibus In those groanes and so in those teares which we cannot utter Ineloquacibus as Tertullian reads that place devout and simple teares which cannot speak speake aloud in the eares of God nay teares which we cannot utter not onely not utter the force of the teares but not utter the very teares themselves As God sees the water in the spring in the veines of the earth before it bubble upon the face of the earth so God sees teares in the heart of a man before they blubber his face God heares the teares of that sorrowfull soule which for sorrow cannot shed teares From this casting up of the eyes and powring out the sorrow of the heart at the eyes Supplicatio at least opening God a window through which he may see a wet heart through a dry eye from these overtures of repentance which are as those unperfect sounds of words which Parents delight in in their Children before they speake plaine a penitent sinner comes to a verball and a more expresse prayer To these prayers these vocall and verball prayers from David God had given eare and from this hearing of those prayers was David come to this thankfull confidence The Lord hath heard the Lord will heare Now Beloved this prayer which David speaks of here which our first translation calls a Petition is very properly rendred in our second translation a Supplication for Supplications were à Suppliciis Supplications amongst the Gentiles were such sacrifices as were made to the gods out of confiscations out of the goods of those men upon whom the State had inflicted any pecuniary or capitall punishment Supplicationes à Suppliciis and therefore this prayer which David made to God when his hand was upon him in that heavy correction and calamitie which occasioned this Psalme is truly and properly called a Supplication that is a Prayer or Petition that proceeds from suffering And if God have heard his supplication if God have regarded him
swore so many a man prayes and does not remember his own prayer As a Clock gives a warning before it strikes and then there remains a sound and a tingling of the bell after it hath stricken so a precedent meditation and a subsequent rumination make the prayer a prayer I must think before what I will aske and consider againe what I have askt and upon this dividing the hoofe and chewing the cud David avowes to his own conscience his whole action even to this consummation thereof Let mine enemies be ashamed c. Now these words whether we consider the naturall signification of the words Impreeatoria or the authority of those men who have been Expositors upon them may be understood either way either to be Imprecatoria words of Imprecation that David in the Spirit of anguish wishes that these things might fall upon his enemies or els Praedictoria words of Prediction that David in the spirit of Prophecy pronounces that these things shall fall upon them If they be Imprecatoria words spoken out of his wish and desire then they have in them the nature of a curse And because Lyra takes them to be so a curse he referres the words Ad Daemones To the Devill That herein David seconds Gods malediction upon the Serpent and curses the Devill as the occasioner and first mover of all these calamities and sayes of them Let all our enemies be ashamed and sore vexed c. Others referre these words to the first Christian times and the persecutions then and so to be a malediction a curse upon the Jewes and upon the Romans who persecuted the Primitive Church then Let them be ashamed c. And then Gregory Nyssen referres these words to more domesticall and intrinsicke enemies to Davids owne concupiscences and the rebellions of his owne lusts Let those enemies be ashamed c. For all those who understand these words to be a curse a malediction are loath to admit that David did curse his enemies meerly out of a respect of those calamities which they had inflicted upon him And that is a safe ground no man may curse another in contemplation of himselfe onely if onely himselfe be concerned in the case And when it concernes the glory of God our imprecations our maledictions upon the persons must not have their principall relation as to Gods enemies but as to Gods glory our end must be that God may have his glory not that they may have their punishment And therefore how vehement soever David seeme in this Imprecation and though he be more vehement in another place Let them be confounded and troubled for ever yea let them be put to shame Psal 83.17 and perish yet that perishing is but a perishing of their purposes let their plots perish let their malignity against thy Church be frustrated for so he expresses himselfe in the verse immediately before Fill their faces with shame but why and how That they may seeke thy Name O Lord that was Davids end even in the curse David wishes them no ill but for their good no worse to Gods enemies but that they might become his friends The rule is good which out of his moderation S. Augustine gives that in all Inquisitions and Executions in matters of Religion when it is meerly for Religion without sedition Sint qui poeniteant Let the men remaine alive or else how can they repent So in all Imprecations in all hard wishes even upon Gods enemies Sint qui convertantur Let the men remaine that they may be capable of conversion wish them not so ill as that God can shew no mercy to them for so the ill wish falls upon God himselfe if it preclude his way of mercy upon that ill man In no case must the curse be directed upon the person for when in the next Psalme to this David seemes passionate when hee asks that of God there which he desires God to forbear in the beginning of this Psalme when his Ne arguas in ira O Lord rebuke not in thine anger is turned to a Surge Domine in ira Arise O Lord in thine anger S. Augustine begins to wonder Quid illum quem perfectum dicimus ad iram provocat Deum Would David provoke God who is all sweetnesse and mildnesse to anger against any man No not against any man but Diaboli possessio peccator Every sinner is a slave to his beloved sin and therefore Misericors or at adver sus cum quitanque or at How bitterly soever I curse that sin yet I pray for that sinner David would have God angry with the Tyran not with the Slave that is oppressed with the sin not with the soule that is inthralled to it And so as the words may be a curse a malediction in Davids mouth we may take them into our mouth too and say Let those enemies be ashamed c. If this then were an Imprecation a malediction yet it was Medicinall and had Rationem boni a charitable tincture and nature in it he wished the men no harm as men But it is rather Pradictorium Praedictoria a Propheticall vehemence that if they will take no knowledge of Gods declaring himselfe in the protection of his servants if they would not consider that God had heard and would heare had rescued and would rescue his children but would continue their opposition against him heavy judgements would certainly fall upon them Their punishment should be certaine but the effect should be uncertaine for God only knowes whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to their mollifying or to their obduration Those bitter and waighty imprecations which David hath heaped together against Iudas Psal 109 Acts 1.16 seeme to be direct imprecations and yet S. Peter himselfe calls them Prophesies Oportet impleri Scripturam They were done sayes he that the Scripture might be fulfilled Not that David in his owne heart did wish all that upon Iudas but only so as fore-seeing in the Spirit of Prophesying that those things should fall upon him he concurred with the purpose of God therein and so farre as he saw it to be the will of God he made it his will and his wish And so have all those judgements which we denounce upon sinners the nature of Prophesies in them when we reade in the Church that Commination Cursed is the Idolater This may fall upon some of our owne kindred and Cursed is he that curseth Father or Mother This may fall upon some of our owne children and Cursed is he that perverteth judgement This may fall upon some powerfull Persons that we may have a dependance upon and upon these we doe not wish that Gods vengeance should fall yet we Prophesie and denounce justly that upon such such vengeances will fall and then all Prophesies of that kinde are alwaies conditionall they are conditionall if we consider any Decree in God they must be conditionall in all our denunciations if you repent they shall not fall upon you if
Summum bonum this Happinesse this Blessednesse was For they considered only some particular fruits thereof and it is much easier how high soever a tree be to come to a taste of some of the fruits then to digge to the root of that tree They satisfied themselves with a little taste of Health and Pleasure and Riches and Honour and never considered that all these must have their root in heaven and must have a relation to Christ Jesus who is the root of all And as these Philosophers could never tell us what this blessednesse was so Divines themselves and those who are best exercised in the language of the Holy Ghost the Originall tongue of this Text cannot give us a cleare Grammaticall understanding of this first word in which David expresses this Blessednesse Ashrei which is here Translated Blessed They cannot tell whether it be an Adverb And then it is Bene viro Well is it for that man A pathetique a vehement acclamation Happily Blessedly is that man provided for Or whether it be a Plurall Noune and then it is Beatitudines such a Blessednesse as includes many all blessednesses in it And one of these two it must necessarily be in the Rules of their Construction That either David enters with an Admiration O how happily is that man provided for Or with a Protestation That there is no particular Blessednesse which that man wants that hath this This Reconciliation to God Eusebius observes out of Plato that he enjoyned the Poets and the Writers in his State to describe no man to be happy but the good men none to be miserable but the wicked And his Scholar Aristotle enters into his Book of Ethiques and Morall Doctrine with that Contemplation first of all That every man hath naturally a disposition to affect and desire happinesse David who is elder then they begins his Book of Psalmes so The first word of the first Psalme is the first word of this Text Blessed is the man He comprehends all that belongs to mans knowledge and all that belongs to mans practise in those two first in understanding true Blessednesse and then in praising God for it Davids Alpha is Beatus vir O the Blessednesse of righteous men And Davids Omega is Laudate Dominum O that men would therefore blesse the Lord And therefore as he begins this Book with Gods blessing of man so he ends it with mans praising of God For where the last stroak upon this Psaltery the last verse of the last Psalme is Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord Yet he addes one note more to us in particular Praise ye the Lord and there is the end of all And so also our Saviour Christ himselfe in his owne preaching observed that Method Mat. 5.3 He begun his great Sermon in the Mount with that Blessed are the poore inspirit Blessed are they that mourne Blessed are the pure in heart Blessednesse alone was an abundant recompence for all And so the subject of Iohn Baptists Commission before and of his Disciples Commission after Mat. 3.2 was still the same to preach this Blessednesse That the Kingdome of God that is Mat. 10.7 Reconciliation to God in his Visible Church was at hand was forthwith to be established amongst them Though then the Consummation of this Blessednesse be that Visio Dei That sight of God which in our glorified state we shall have in heaven yet because there is an inchoation thereof in this world which is that which we call Reconciliation it behooves us to consider the disposition requisite for that It is a lamentable perversenesse in us that we are so contentiously busie in inquiring into the Nature and Essence and Attributes of God things which are reserved to our end when we shall know at once and without study all that of which all our lives study can teach us nothing And that here where we are upon the way we are so negligent and lazy in inquiring of things which belong to the way Those things we learne in no Schoole so well as in adversity As the body of man and consequently health is best understood and best advanced by Dissections and Anatomies when the hand and knife of the Surgeon hath passed upon every part of the body and laid it open so when the hand and sword of God hath pierced our soul we are brought to a better knowledge of our selves then any degree of prosperity would have raised us to All creatures were brought to Adam and because he understood the natures of all those creatures he gave them names accordingly In that he gave no name to himselfe it may be by some perhaps argued that he understood himselfe lesse then he did other creatures If Adam be our example in the time and Schoole of nature how hard a thing the knowledge of our selves is till we feele the direction of adversity David is also another example in the time of the Law who first said in his prosperity Psal 30.6 He should never bee moved But When sayes he Thou hidest thy face from me I was troubled and then I cryed unto thee O Lord and I prayed unto my God Then but not till then The same Art the same Grammar lasts still and Peter is an example of the same Rule in the time of grace who was at first so confident as to come to that Si omnes scandalizati if all forsook him Si mori oportuit If he must die with him or dye for him he was ready and yet without any terror from an armed Magistrate without any surprizall of a subtile Examiner upon the question of a poore Maid he denied his Master But then the bitternesse of his soule taught him another temper and moderation when Christ asked him after Amas me Lovest thou me not to pronounce upon an infallible confidence I have loved and I doe and I will doe till death but Domine tu scis Lord thou knowest that I love thee My love to thee is but the effect of thy love to me and therefore Lord continue thine that mine may continue No study is so necessary as to know our selves no Schoole-master is so diligent so vigilant so assiduous as Adversity And the end of knowing our selves is to know how we are disposed for that which is our end that is this Blessednesse which though it be well collected and summed by S. Augustine Beatus qui habet quicquid vult nihil mali vult He onely is blessed that desires nothing but that which is good for him and hath all that we must pursue in those particulars which here in Davids Catechisme constitute this Blessednesse and constitute our third Part and are delivered in three Branches first The forgiving of our transgressions And then The covering of our sinnes And thirdly The not imputing of our iniquities First then that in this third Part we may see in the first Branch 3 Part. Transgression the first notification of this Blessednesse we
consider the two termes in which it is expressed what this is which is translated Transgression and then what this Forgiving imports The Originall word is Pashang and that signifies sin in all extensions The highest the deepest the waightiest sin It is a malicious and a forcible opposition to God It is when this Herod and this Pilat this Body and this soule of ours are made friends and agreed that they may concurre to the Crucifying of Christ When not onely the members of our bodies but the faculties of our soul our will and understanding are bent upon sin when we doe not only sin strongly and hungerly and thirstily which appertain to the body but we sin rationally we finde reasons and those reasons even in Gods long patience why we should sin We sin wittily we invent new sins and we thinke it an ignorant a dull and an unsociable thing not to sin yea we sin wisely and make our sin our way to preferment Then is this word used by the Holy Ghost when he expresses both the vehemence and the waight and the largenesse and the continuance all extensions all dimensions of the sins of Damascus Amos 1.3 Thus saith the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus and for foure I will not turne to it because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of Iron So then we consider sin here not as a staine such as Originall sin may be nor as a wound such as every actuall sin may be but as a burden a complication a packing up of many sins in an habituall practise thereof This is that waight that sunke the whole world under water in the first floud and shall presse downe the fire it selfe to consume it a second time It is a waight that stupifies and benums him that beares it August so as that the sinner feeles not the oppression of his owne sins Et quid miserius miscro non miserante seipsum What misery can be greater then when a miserable man hath not sense to commiserate his owne misery Our first errors are out of Levity and S. Augustin hath taught us a proper ballast and waight for that Amor Dei pondus animae The love of God would carry us evenly and steadily if we would embarke that But as in great tradings they come to ballast with Merchandise ballast and fraight is al one so in this habituall sinner all is sin plots and preparations before the act gladnesse and glory in the act sometimes disguises sometimes justifications after the act make up one body one fraight of sin So then Transgression in this place in the naturall signification of the word is a waight a burden and carrying it as the word requires to the greatest extension it is the sin of the whole World And that sinne is forgiven which is the second Terme The Prophet does not say here Forgiven Blessed is that man that hath no transgression for that were to say Blessed is that man that is no man All people all Nations did ever in Nature acknowledge not onely a guiltinesse of sin but some meanes of reconciliation to their Gods in the Remission of sins for they had all some formall and Ceremoniall Sacrifices and Expiations and Lustrations by which they thought their sins to be purged and washed away Whosoever acknowledges a God acknowledges a Remission of sins and whosoever acknowledges a Remission of sins acknowledges a God And therefore in this first place David does not mention God at all he does not say Blessed is he whose transgression the Lord hath forgiven for he presumes it to be an impossible tentation to take hold of any man that there can be any Remission of sin from any other person or by any other meanes then from and by God himselfe and therefore Remission of sins includes an Act of God But what kinde of Act is more particularly designed in the Originall word which is Nasa then our word forgiving reaches to for the word does not onely signifie Auferre but ferre not onely to take away sin by way of pardon but to take the sin upon himselfe and so to beare the sin and the punishment of the sin in his owne person And so Christ is the Lambe of God Qui tollit not onely that takes away Esay 53.4 but that takes upon himselfe the sins of the world Tulit portavit Surely he hath borne our griefes and carried our sorrowes Those griefes those sorrowes which we should he hath borne and carried in his owne person So that as it is all one never to have come in debt and to have discharged the debt So the whole world all mankinde considered in Christ is as innocent as if Adam had never sinned And so this is the first beame of Blessednesse that shines upon my soule That I beleeve that the justice of God is fully satisfied in the death of Christ and that there is enough given and accepted in the treasure of his blood for the Remission of all Transgressions And then the second beame of this Blessednesse is in The covering of sins Now to benefit our selves by this part of Davids Catechisme Sinne. we must as we did before consider the two termes of which this part of this Blessednesse consists sin and covering Sin in this place is not so heavy a word as Transgression was in the former for that was sin in all extensions sinne in all formes all sin of all men of all times of all places the sin of all the world upon the shoulders of the Saviour of the world In this place the word is Catah and by the derivation thereof from Nata which is to Decline to step aside or to be withdrawne and Kut which is filum a thread or a line that which we call sin here signifies Transilire lineam To depart or by any tentation to be withdrawne from the direct duties and the exact straightnesse which is required of us in this world for the attaining of the next So that the word imports sins of infirmity such sins as doe fall upon Gods best servants such sins as rather induce a cofession of our weaknesse and an acknowledgement of our continuall need of pardon for some thing passed and strength against future invasions then that induce any devastation or obduration of the conscience which Transgression in the former branch implied For so this word Catah hath that signification as in many other places there where it is said Iudg â—â— 16 That there were seven hundred left-handed Benjamits which would sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile that is not misse the marke a haires breadth And therefore when this word Catah sin is used in Scripture to expresse any weighty hainous enormous sin it hath an addition Peccatum magnum peccaverunt sayes Moses Exod. 32.31 when the people were become Idolaters These people have sinned a great sin otherwise it signifies such sin as destroyes not the foundation such as in the nature
thereof does not wholly extinguish Grace nor grieve the Spirit of God in us And such sinnes God covers saies David here Now what is his way of covering these sins As Sin in this notion is not so deepe a wound upon God as Transgression in the other Covering so Covering here extends not so far as Forgiving did there There forgiving was a taking away of sin by taking that way That Christ should beare all our sins it was a suffering a dying it was a penall part and a part of Gods justice executed upon his one and onely Son here it is a part of Gods mercy in spreading and applying the merits and satisfaction of Christ upon all them whom God by the Holy Ghost hath gathered in the profession of Christ and so called to the apprehending and embracing of this mantle this garment this covering the righteousnesse of Christ in the Christian Christ In which Church and by his visible Ordinances therein the Word and Sacraments God covers hides conceales even from the inquisition of his owne justice those smaller sins which his servants commit and does not turne them out of his service for those sins So the word the word is Casah which we translate Covering is used Prov. 12.23 A wise man concealeth knowledge that is Does not pretend to know so much as indeed he does So our mercifull God when he sees us under this mantle this covering Christ spread upon his Church conceales his knowledge of our sins and suffers them not to reflect upon our consciences in a consternation thereof So then as the Forgiving was Auferre ferendo a taking away of sin by taking all sin upon his owne person So this Covering is Tegere attingendo To cover sin by comming to it by applying himselfe to our sinfull consciences in the meanes instituted by him in his Church for they have in that language another word Sacac which signifies Tegere obumbrando To cover by overshadowing by refreshing This is Tegere obumbrando To cover by shadowing when I defend mine eye from the offence of the Sun by interposing my hand betweene the Sun and mine eye at this distance a far off But Tegere attingendo is when thus I lay my hand upon mine eye and cover it close by that touching In the knowledge that Christ hath taken all the sins of all the world upon himselfe that there is enough done for the salvation of all mankinde I have a shadowing a refreshing But because I can have no testimony that this generall redemption belongs to me who am still a sinner except there passe some act betweene God and me some seale some investiture some acquittance of my debts my sins therefore this second beame of Davids Blessednesse in this his Catechisme shines upon me in this That God hath not onely sowed and planted herbs and Simples in the world medicinall for all diseases of the world but God hath gathered and prepared those Simples and presented them so prepared to me for my recovery from my disease God hath not onely received a full satisfaction for all sinne in Christ but Christ in his Ordinances in his Church offers me an application of all that for my selfe and covers my sin from the eye of his Father not onely obumbrando as hee hath spread himselfe as a Cloud refreshing the whole World in the value of the satisfaction but Attingendo by comming to me by spreading himself upon me as the Prophet did upon the dead Child Mouth to mouth Hand to hand In the mouth of his Minister he speaks to me In the hand of the Minister he delivers himselfe to me and so by these visible acts and seales of my Reconciliation Tegit attingendo He covers me by touching me He touches my conscience with a sense and remorse of my sins in his Word and he touches my soule with a faith of having received him and all the benefit of his Death in the Sacrament And so he covers sin that is keepes our sins of infirmity and all such sins as do not in their nature quench the light of his grace from comming into his Fathers presence or calling for vengeance there Forgiving of transgressions is the generall satisfaction for all the world and restoring the world to a possibility of salvation in the Death of Christ Covering of sin is the benefit of discharging and easing the conscience by those blessed helps which God hath afforded to those whom he hath gathered in the bosome and quickned in the wombe of the Christian Church And this is the second beame of Blessedness cast out by David here and then the third is The not imputing of iniquity Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity In this also Impute as in the two former we did we consider this Imputing and then this Iniquity in the roote and Original signification of the two words When in this place the Lord is said not to impute sinne it is meant That the Lord shall not suffer me to impute sinne to my selfe The word is Cashab and Cashab imports such a thinking such a surmising as may be subject to error and mistaking To that purpose we finde the word where Hannah was praying 1 Sam. 1.12 and Eli the Priest who saw her lips move and heard no prayer come from her thought she had been drunke Imputed drunkennesse unto her and said How long wilt thou be drunke put away thy wine So that this Imputing is such an Imputing of ours as may be erronious that is an Imputing from our selves in a diffidence and jealousie and suspition of Gods goodnesse towards us To which purpose we consider also that this word which we translate here Iniquity Gnavah is oftentimes in the Scripture used for punishment as well as for sinne and so indifferently for both as that if we will compare Translation with Translation and Exposition with Exposition it will be hard for us to say Gen. 4.13 whether Cain said Mine iniquity is greater then can be pardoned or My punishment is greater then I can beare and our last Translation which seems to have been most carefull of the Originall takes it rather so My punishment in the Text and lays the other My sinne aside in the Margin So then this Imputing being an Imputing which arises from our selves and so may be accompanied with error and mistaking that we Impute that to our selves which God doth not impute And this mis-imputing of Gods anger to our selves arising out of his punishments and his corrections inflicted upon us That because we have crosses in the world we cannot beleeve that we stand well in the sight of God or that the forgiving of Transgressions or Covering of sinnes appertains unto us we justly conceive that this not Imputing of Iniquity is that Serenitas Conscientiae That brightnesse that clearnesse that peace and tranquillity that calme and serenity that acquiescence and security of the Conscience in which I am delivered from all scruples and
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit the craft of the Serpent eyther the poyson of the Serpent in a self-despaire or the sting of the Serpent in an uncharitable prejudging and precondemning of others when a man comes to suspect Gods good purposes or contract Gods generall propositions for this forgiving of transgressions is Christs taking away the sins of all the world by taking all the sins of all men upon himselfe And this Guile this Deceit may also be in the second in the Covering of sins which is the particular application of this generall mercy by his Ordinances in his Church He then that without Guile will have benefit by this Covering must Discover Covering Qui tegi vult peccata detegat is S. Augustines way He that will have his sins covered let him uncover them He that would not have them known let him confesse them He that would have them forgotten let him remember them He that would bury them let him rake them up There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid Mat. 10.26 that shall not be knowne It is not thy sending away a servant thy locking a doore thy blowing out a candle no not though thou blow out and extinguish the spirit as much as thou canst that hides a sin from God but since thou thinkest that thou hast hid it by the secret carriage thereof thou must reveale it by Confession If thou wilt not God will shew thee that he needed not thy Confession He will take knowledge of it to thy condemnation and he will publish it to the knowledge of all the world to thy confusion Tufecisti absconditè sayes God to David by Nathan Thou didst it secretly 2 Sam. 12.12 but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun Certainly it affects and stings many men more that God hath brought to light their particular sins and offences for which he does punish them then all the punishments that he inflicts upon them for then they cannot lay their ruine upon fortune upon vicissitudes and revolutions and changes of Court upon disaffections of Princes upon supplantations of Rivalls and Concurrents but God cleares all the world beside Perditio tua ex te God declares that the punishment is his Act and the Cause my sin This is Gods way and this he expresses vehemently against Jerusalem Behold I will gather all thy Lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure Ezch. 16.37 and all them that thou hast loved with all them that thou hast hated and I will discover thy nakednesse to all them Those who loved us for pretended vertues shall see how much they were deceived in us Those that hated us because they were able to looke into us and to discerne our actions shall then say Triumphantly and publiquely to all Did not we tell you what would become of this man It was never likely to be better with him I will strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was borne Hos 2.3 Howsoever thou wert covered with the Covenant and taken into the Visible Church howsoever thou wert clothed by having put on Christ in Baptisme yet If thou sin against me sayes God and hide it from me I am against thee and I will shew the Nations thy nakednesse and the Kingdomes thy shame Nahum 3.5 To come to the covering of thy sins without guile first cover them not from thy self so as that thou canst not see yester-daies sin for to daies sin nor the sins of thy youth for thy present sins Cover not thy extortions with magnifique buildings and sumptuous furniture Dung not the fields that thou hast purchased with the bodies of those miserable wretches whom thou hast oppressed neither straw thine alleys and walks with the dust of Gods Saints whom thy hard dealing hath ground to powder There is but one good way of covering sins from our selves Si bona factamalis superponamus Gregor If we come to a habit of good actions contrary to those evils which we had accustomed our selves to and cover our sins so not that we forget the old but that we see no new There is a good covering of sins from our selves by such new habits and there is a good covering of them from other men for he that sins publiquely scandalously avowedly that teaches and encourages others to sin Esay 3.9 That declares his sin as Sodom and hides it not As in a mirror in a looking glasse that is compassed and set about with a hundred lesser glasses a man shall see his deformities in a hundred places at once so hee that hath sinned thus shall feele his torments in himselfe and in all those whom the not covering of his sins hath occasioned to commit the same sins Cover thy sins then from thy selfe so it be not by obduration cover them from others so it be not by hypocrisie But from God cover them not at all Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Even in confessing without forsaking there is Dolus in spiritus Guile and deceit in that spirit Noluit agnoscere maluit ignoscere S. Augustine makes the case of a customary sinner He was ready to pardon himselfe alwaies without any confession But God shall invert it to his subversion Maluit agnoscere noluit ignoscere God shall manifest his sin and not pardon it Sin hath that pride that it is not content with one garment Adam covered first with fig-leaves then with whole trees He hid himselfe amongst the trees Then hee covered his sin with the woman she provoked him And then with Gods action Quam tu dedisti The Woman whom thou gavest me And this was Adams wardrobe David covers his first sin of uncleannesse with soft stuffe with deceit with falshood with soft perswasions to Vriah to go in to his Wife Then he covers it with rich stuffe with scarlet with the blood of Vriah and of the army of the Lord of Hosts And then he covers it with strong and durable stuffe with an impenitence and with an insensiblenesse a yeare together too long for a King too long for any man to weare such a garment And this was Davids wardrobe But beloved sin is a serpent and he that covers sin does but keepe it warme that it may sting the more fiercely and disperse the venome and malignity thereof the more effectually Adam had patched up an apron to cover him God tooke none of those leaves God wrought not upon his beginnings but he covered him all over with durable skins God saw that Davids severall coverings did rather load him then cover the sin and therefore Transtulit He tooke all away sin and covering for the coverings were as great sins as the radicall sin that was to be covered was yea greater as the armes and boughs of a tree are greater then the roote Now to this extension and growth and largenesse of
with an outward sanctity and call God to witnesse and testifie to the Congregation that we are saints when we are devils for this is a suborning of God and a drawing of God himselfe into a perjury We hide our sinnes in his house by hypocrisie all our lives and we hide them at our deaths perchance with an Hospitall And truely wee had need doe so when we have impoverished God in his children by our extorsions and wounded him and lam'd him in them by our oppressions wee had need provide God an Hospitall As men that rob houses thrust in a child at the window and he opens greater doores for them so lesser sins make way for greater De minimis non curat Lex The law is faine to passe over small faults but De minimis cur at lux That light of grace by which a sinner disposes himselfe to confession must discover every sinne and hide none suffer none to hide it selfe nor lie hidden under others When God speaks so much of Behemoth and Leviathan Iob 40. 41. the great land and seaoppressors he calls us to the consideration of the insupportablenesse of great sinnes but in the plaines of Egypt by haile and locusts and lice little and contemptible things hee calls us to the consideration of these vermine of the soule lesser and unconsidered sins David had not accomplished his work upon himselfe his reflected his preparatory Act till he had made both those steps notum feci non operui first I tooke knowledge of my sinfull condition and then I proceeded to a particular inquisition of my Conscience I tooke knowledge of my sinne and mine iniquity I have not hid and then he was fit to thinke of an accesse to God by confession Dixi confiteber c. This word Dixi meditando Dixi Amar I said is a word that implies first meditation deliberation considering and then upon such meditation a resolution too and execution after all When it is said of God dixit and dixit God said this and said that in the first Creation Cave ne cogites strepitum Basil Doe not thinke that God uttered any sound His speaking was inward his speaking was thinking So David uses this word in the person of another Dixit insipiens Psal 14.1 The foole hath said that is In corde said in his heart that is thought that there is no God There speaking is thinking and speaking is resolving too So Davids son Solomon uses the word 1 King 5.5 Behold I purpose to build a house unto the Lord where the word is I say I will doe it Speaking is determining and speaking is executing too Dixi custodiam I said I will take heed to my wayes Psal 39.1 that is I will proceed and goe forward in the paths of God And such a premeditation such a preconsideration doe all our approaches and accesses to God and all our acts in his service require God is the Rocke of our salvation God is no Occasionall God no Accidentall God neither will God be served by Occasion nor by Accident but by a constant Devotion Our communication with God must not be in Interjections that come in by chance nor our Devotions made up of Parentheses that might be left out They erre equally that make a God of Necessity and that make a God of Contingency They that with the Manichees make an ill God a God that forces men to doe all the ill that they doe And they that with the Epicures make an idle God an indifferent God that cares not what is done God is not Destiny Then there could be no reward nor punishment but God is not Fortune neither for then there were no Providence If God have given reason onely to Man it were strange that Man should exercise that reason in all his Morall and Civill actions and onely do the acts of Gods worship casually To go to Court to Westminster to the Exchange for ends and to come to Church by chance or for company or for some collaterall respects that have no relation to God Not to thinke of our Confession till the Priest have called upon us to say after him We have erred and straied from thy wayes like lost sheepe To come for Absolution Dan. 2.3 as Nebuchadnezzar came to Daniel for the interpretation of his Dreame who did not onely not understand his Dreame but not remember it Somnium ejus fugit ab eo He did not onely not know what his Dreame meant but hee did not know what his Dreame was Not to consider the nature of Confession and Absolution not to consider the nature of the sins we should confesse and be absolved of is a stupidity against Davids practise here Dixit He said he meditated he considered Gods service is no extemporall thing But then Dixit He resolved too for so the word signifies Consideration but Resolution upon it And then that he Resolved he Executed This is not only Davids dixit in corde Dixi statuendo Luke 15.12 where speaking is thinking nor only Solomons dixi adificabo I resolved how I might build but it is also the Prodigals Dixi revertar I said I will go to my Father A resolving and executing of that Resolution for that that execution crownes all How many thinke to come hither when they wake and are not ready when the houre comes And even this mornings omission is an abridgement or an essay of their whole lives They thinke to repent every day and are not ready when the bell tolls Cajetan It is well said of Gods speaking in the Creation It was Dictio practica diffinitiva Imperativa Ambrose It was an Actuall speaking a Definitive an Imperative speaking And Dicto absolvit negotium His saying he would doe it that is his meaning to doe it was the very doing of it Our Religious duties require meditations for God is no extemporall God Those produce determinations for God must not be held in suspence And they flow into executions for God is not an illusible God to be carried with promises or purposes onely And all those linkes of this religious Chaine Consideration Resolution Execution Thought Word and Practise are made out of this golden word Amar Dixi I said I will doe it And then Dixi confitebor I considered that my best way was to confesse and I resolved to doe so and I did it Dixi confitebor It is but a homely Metaphor Confitebor Origen but it is a wholesome and a usefull one Confessio vomitus Confession works as a vomit It shakes the frame and it breakes the bed of sin and it is an ease to the spirituall stomach to the conscience to be thereby disburdened It is an ease to the sinner to the patient but that that makes it absolutely necessary is that it is a glory to God for in all my spirituall actions Apprecations or Deprecations whether I pray for benefits or against calamities still my Alpha and Omega my first and
last motive Iosh 7.19 must be the glory of God Therefore Ioshuah sayes to Achan My Son give I pray thee glory unto the Lord God of Israel and make Confession unto him Now the glory of God arises not out of the Confessing but because every true Confessing is accompanied with a detestation of the sin as it hath separated me from God and a sense of my re-union and redintegration with God in the abjuration of my former sins for to tell my sin by way of a good tale or by boasting in it though it be a revealing a manifesting is not a Confession in every true confession God hath glory because he hath a straid soule re-united to his Kingdome And to advance this Glory David confesses Peccata sins which is our next Consideration I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First he resents his state All is not well Then he examines himselfe Peccata vera Thus and thus it stands with me Then he considers then he resolves then he executes He confesses so far we are gone and now he confesses sins For the Pharisees though he pretended a Confession was rather an exprobration how much God had beene beholden to him for his Sabbaths for his Almes for his Tithes for his Fasting David confesses sins first such things as were truly sins For as the element of Ayre that lyes betweene the Water and the Fire is sometimes condensed into water sometimes rarified into fire So lyes the conscience of man betweene two operations of the Devill sometimes he rarifies it evaporates it that it apprehends nothing feeles nothing to be sin sometimes he condenses it that every thing falls and sticks upon it in the nature and takes the waight of sin and he mis-interprets the indifferent actions of others and of his owne and destroyes all use of Christian liberty all conversation all recreation and out of a false feare of being undutifull to God is unjust to all the world and to his owne soule and consequently to God himselfe who of all notions would not be received in the notion of a Cruell or Tyrannicall God In an obdurate conscience that feeles no sin the Devill glories most but in the over-tender conscience he practises most That is his triumphant but this is his militant Church That is his Sabbath but this is his six dayes labour In the obdurate he hath induced a security in the scriptures which the Holy Ghost hath exprest in so many names as Sin Sin Wickednesse Iniquity Transgressions Offences Many many more And all this that thereby we might reflect upon our selves often and see if our particular actions fell not under some of those names But then lest this should over-intimidate us there are as many names given by the Holy Ghost to the Law of God Law Statutes Ordinances Covenants Testimony Precept and all the rest of which there is some one at least repeated in every verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalme that thereby we might still have a Rule to measure and try our actions by whether they be sins or no. For as the Apostle sayes He had not knowne sinne if he had not knowne the Law So there had beene no sin if there had beene no Law And therefore that soule that feeles it selfe oppressed under the burden of a Vow must have recourse to the Law of God and see whether that Vow fall under the Rule of that Law For as an over-tender conscience may call things sins that are not and so be afraid of things that never were so may it also of things that were but are not now of such sins as were truly sins and fearfull sins but are now dead dead by a true repentance and buried in the Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus and sealed up in that Monument under the seale of Reconciliation the blessed Sacrament and yet rise sometimes in this tender conscience in a suspition and jealousie that God hath not truly not fully forgiven them And as a Ghost which we thinke we see afrights us more then an army that we doe see So these apparitions of sins of things that are not against any Law of God and so are not sins or sins that are dead in a true repentance and so have no being at all by the Devils practise worke dangerously upon a distempered conscience for as God hath given the Soule an Imagination and a Fancy as well as an Understanding So the Devill imprints in the conscience a false Imagination as well as a fearefull sense of true sin David confesses sins sins that were truly sins But the more ordinary danger is Omniae in our not calling those things which are truly sins by that name For as sometimes when the Baptisme of a Child is deferred for State the Child dyes unbaptized So the sinner defers the Baptisme of his sin in his teares and in the blood of his Saviour offered in the blessed Sacrament till he dye namelesse namelesse in the booke of Life It is a Character that one of the ancientest Poets gives of a well-bred and well-governed Gentleman That he would not tell such lyes as were like truths not probable lyes nor such truths as were like lyes not wonderfull not incredible truths It is the constancy of a rectified Christian not to call his indifferent actions sins for that is to slander God as a cruell God nor to call sins indifferent actions for that is to undervalue God as a negligent God God doth not keepe the Conscience of man upon the wrack in a continuall torture and stretching But God doth not stupifie the conscience with an Opiate in an insensiblenesse of any sin The law of God is the balance and the Criterium By that try thine actions and then confesse David did so Peccata he confessed sinnes nothing that was not so as such neither omitted he any thing that was so And then they were Peccata sua His sins I said I will confesse my sins unto the Lord. First Sua. Sua His sinnes that is à se perpetrata sins which he confesses to have been of his voluntary committing He might and did not avoyd them When Adam said by way of alienation and transferring his fault The woman whom thou gavest me And the woman said Gen. 3.12 The Serpent deceived me God tooke this by way of Information to finde out the Principall but not by way of extenuation or alleviation of their faults Every Adam eats with as much sweat of his browes and every Eve brings forth her Children with as much paine in her travaile as if there had been no Serpent in the case If a man sin against God who shall plead for him If a man lay his sins upon the Serpent upon the Devill it is no plea but if he lay them upon God it is blasphemy Iob finds some ground of a pious Expostulation with God in that My flesh is not brasse nor my strength stones And such as I am thou hast made me
why then doest thou set me up as a marke to shoot at But Iob never hopes for ease in any such allegation Thou hast made my soule a Cisterne and then powred tentations into it Thou hast enfeebled it with denying it thy Grace and then put a giant a necessitie of sinning upon it My sins are mine own The Sun is no cause of the shadow my body casts nor God of the sins I commit David confesses his sinnes that is he confesses them to be His And then he confesses His He meddles not with those that are other mens The Magistrate and the Minister are bound to consider the sins of others Non alienae for their sins become Qaodammodo nostra in some sort ours if we doe not reprove if the Magistrate doe not correct those sins All men are bound to confesse and lament the sins of the people It was then when Daniel was in that exercise of his Devotion Confessing his sinne Dan. 9.12 and the sinne of his people that he received that comfort from the Angel Gabriel And yet even then the first thing that fell under his Confession was his own sin My sin And then The sinne of my people When Iosephs brethren came to a sense of that sin in having sold him none of them transfers the sin from himselfe neither doth any of them discharge any of the rest of that sin Gen. 42.21 They all take all They said to one another sayes that Text we all we are verily guilty and therefore is this distresse come upon us upon us all Nationall calamities are induced by generall sins and where they fall we cannot so charge the Laity as to free the Clergy nor so charge the people as to free the Magistrate But as great summes are raysed by little personall Contributions so a little true sorrow from every soule would make a great sacrifice to God and a few teares from every eye a deeper and a safer Sea about this Iland then that that doth wall it Let us therefore never say that it is Aliena ambitio The immoderate ambition of a pretending Monarch that endangers us That it is Aliena perfidia The falshood of perfidious neighbours that hath disappointed us That it is Aliena fortuna The growth of others who have shot up under our shelter that may overtop us They are Peccata nostra our own pride our own wantonnesse our own drunkennesse that makes God shut and close his hand towards us withdraw his former blessings from us and then strike us with that shut and closed and heavy hand and multiply calamities upon us What a Parliament meets at this houre in this Kingdome How many such Committees as this how many such Congregations stand as we doe here in the presence of God at this houre And what a Subsidy should this State receive and what a sacrifice should God receive if every particular man would but depart with his own beloved sin We dispute what is our own as though we would but know what to give Alas our sins are our own let us give them Our sins are our own that we confesse And we confesse them according to Davids Method Domino to the Lord I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord. After he had deliberated Domino peecavi and resolved upon his course what he would doe he never stayed upon the person to whom His way being Confession he stayed not long in seeking his ghostly Father his Confessor Confitebor Domino And first Peccata Domino That his sins were sins against the Lord. For as every sin is a violation of a Law so every violation of a Law reflects upon the Law-maker It is the same offence to coyne a penny and a piece The same to counterfait the seale of a Subpoena as of a Pardon The second Table was writ by the hand of God as well as the first And the Majesty of God as he is the Law-giver is wounded in an adultery and a theft as well as in an Idolatry or a blasphemy It is not inough to consider the deformity and the foulnesse of an Action so as that an honest man would not have done it but so as it violates a law of God and his Majesty in that law The shame of men is one bridle that is cast upon us It is a morall obduration and in the suburbs next doore to a spirituall obduration to be Voyce-proofe Censure-proofe not to be afraid nor ashamed what the world sayes He that relyes upon his Plaudo domi Though the world hisse I give my selfe a Plaudite at home I have him at my Table and her in my bed whom I would have and I care not for rumor he that rests in such a Plaudite prepares for a Tragedy a Tragedy in the Amphitheater the double Theater this world and the next too Even the shame of the world should be one one bridle but the strongest is the other Peccata Domino To consider that every sin is a violation of the Majesty of God And then Confitebor Domino sayes David I will confesse my sinnes to the Lord Domino confitebor sinnes are not confessed if they be not confessed to him and if they be confessed to him in case of necessitie it will suffice though they be confessed to no other Indeed a confession is directed upon God though it be made to his Minister If God had appointed his Angels or his Saints to absolve me as he hath his Ministers I would confesse to them Ioshuah tooke not the jurisdiction out of Gods hands when he said to Achan Josh 7.19 Give glory unto the God of Israel in making thy confession to him And tell me now what thou hast done and hide it not from me Levit. 14.2 The law of the Leper is That he shall be brought unto the Priest Men come not willingly to this manifestation of themselves nor are they to be brought in chains as they doe in the Roman Church by a necessitie of an exact enumeration of all their sins But to be led with that sweetnesse with which our Church proceeds in appointing sicke persons if they seele their consciences troubled with any weighty matter to make a speciall confession and to receive absolution at the hands of the Priest And then to be remembred that every comming to the Communion is as serious a thing as our transmigration out of this world and we should doe as much here for the settling of our Conscience as upon our death-bed And to be remembred also that none of all the Reformed Churches have forbidden Confession though some practise it lesse then others If I submit a cause to the Arbitrement of any man to end it secundùm voluntatem sayes the Law How he will yet still Arbitrium est arbitrium boni viri his will must be regulated by the rules of common honesty and generall equity So when we lead men to this holy ease of discharging their heavy spirits by such private Confessions
yet this is still limited by the law of God so far as God hath instituted this power by his Gospel in his Church and far from inducing amongst us that torture of the Conscience that usurpation of Gods power that spying into the counsails of Princes supplanting of their purposes with which the Church of Rome hath been deeply charged And this usefull and un-mis-interpretable Confession which we speake of Adversum me is the more recommended to us in that with which David shuts up his Act as out of S. Hierome and out of our former translation we intimated unto you that he doth all this Adversum se I will confesse my sinnes unto the Lord against my selfe The more I finde Confession or any religious practise to be against my selfe and repugnant to mine owne nature the farther I will goe in it For still the Adversum me is Cum Deo The more I say against my selfe the more I vilifie my selfe the more I glorifie my God As S. Chry sostome sayes every man is Spontaneus Satan a Satan to himselfe as Satan is a Tempter every man can tempt himselfe so I will be Spontaneus Satan as Satan is an Accuser an Adversary I will accuse my selfe I consider often that passionate humiliation of S. Peter Exi à me Domine He fell at Iesus knees saying Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord Luk. 5.8 And I am often ready to say so and more Depart from me O Lord for I am sinfull inough to infect thee As I may persecute thee in thy Children so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances Depart in withdrawing thy word from me for I am corrupt inough to make even thy saving Gospel the savor of death unto death Depart in withholding thy Sacrament for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh and to make the balme of thy blood poyson to my soule Depart in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and rebellion into their nature And if I be too foule for God himselfe to come neare me for his Ordinances to worke upon me I am no companion for my selfe I must not be alone with my selfe for I am as apt to take as to give infection I am a reciprocall plague passively and actively contagious I breath corruption and breath it upon my selfe and I am the Babylon that I must goe out of Gen. 32.10 Mat. 8.8 or I perish I am not onely under Iacobs Non dignus Not worthy the least of all thy mercies nor onely under the Centurions Non dignus I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe That thy Spirit should ever speake to my spirit which was the forme of words in which every Communicant received the Sacrament in the Primitive Church Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roofe Nor onely under the Prodigals Non dignus Luke 15.21 Not worthy to be called thy sonne neither in the filiation of Adoption for I have deserved to be dis-inherited nor in the filiation of Creation for I have deserved to be annihilated Mark 1.7 But Non dignus procumbere I am not worthy to stoop down to fall down to kneele before thee in thy Minister the Almoner of thy Mercy the Treasurer of thine Absolutions So farre doe I confesse Adversum me against my selfe as that I confesse I am not worthy to confesse nor to be admitted to any accesse any approach to thee much lesse to an act so neare Reconciliation to thee as an accusation of my selfe or so neare thy acquitting as a self-condemning Be this the issue in all Controversies whensoever any new opinions distract us Be that still thought best that is most Adversum nos most against our selves That that most layes flat the nature of man so it take it not quite away and blast all vertuous indeavours That that most exalts the Grace and Glory of God be that the Truth And so have you the whole mystery of Davids Confession in both his Acts preparatory in resenting his sinfull condition in generall and survaying his conscience in particular And then his Deliberation his Resolution his Execution his Confession Confession of true sins and of them onely and of all them of his sins and all this to the Lord and all that against himselfe That which was proposed for the second Part must fall into the compasse of a Conclusion and a short one that is Gods Act Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin This is a wide doore 2 Part. and would let out Armies of Instructions to you but we will shut up this doore with these two leaves thereof The fulnesse of Gods Mercy He forgives the sin and the punishment And the seasonablenesse the acceleration of his mercy in this expression in our text that Davids is but Actus inchoatus He sayes he will confesse And Gods is Actus consummatus Thou forgavest Thou hadst already forgiven the iniquity and punishment of my sin These will be the two leaves of this doore and let the hand that shuts them be this And this Particle of Connection which we have in the text I said And thou didst For though this Remission of sin be not presented here as an effect upon that cause of Davids Confession It is not delivered in a Quia and an Ergo Because David did this God did that for mans wil leads not the will of God as a cause who does all his acts of mercy for his mercies sake yet though it be not an effect as from a cause yet it is at least as a consequent from an occasion so assured so infallible as let any man confesse as David did and he shall be sure to be forgiven as David was For though this forgivenesse be a flower of mercy yet the roote growes in the Justice of God If wee acknowledge our sin 1 John 1.9 he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sin It growes out of his faithfulnesse as he hath vouchsafed to binde himselfe by a promise And out of his Justice as he hath received a full satisfaction for all our sins So that this Hand this And in our Text is as a ligament as a sinew to connect and knit together that glorious body of Gods preventing grace and his subsequent grace if our Confession come between and tie the knot God that moved us to that act will perfect all Here enters the fulnesse of his mercy Plenitudo Rev. 3 20. at one leafe of this doore well expressed at our doore in that Ecce sto pulso Behold I stand at the doore and knock for first he comes here is no mention of our calling of him before He comes of himselfe And then he suffers not us to be ignorant of his comming he comes so as that he manifests himself Ecce Behold And then he expects not that we should wake with that light and look out of our selves but he knocks
next Quid in via What is to be done in the way for that counsell of the Apostle See that ye walk circumspectly presumes a man to be in the way Eph. 5.15 else he would have cried to have stopped him or to have turned him and not bid him goe on how circumspectly soever But In my path sayes David Psal 140.5 not making any doubt but that he was in a right path in my path the proud have laid a snare for me and spread a net with cords Ad manum orbitae sayes the Originall even at the hand of the path That path which should as it were reach out a hand to lead me hath a snare in it And therefore sayes David with so much vehemence in the entrance of that Psalme Deliver me O Lord from the evill man who purposeth to overthrow my goings Though I goe in the right way the true Church yet purposes to overthrow mee there This Evill man workes upon us The man of sin in those instruments that still cast that snare in our way in our Church There is a minority an invisibility and a fallibility in your Church you begun but yesterday in Luther and you are fallen out already in Calvin So also works this Evill man amongst us in those Scismatiques who cast that snare in our way Your way though it be in part mended hath yet impressions of the steps of the Beast and it is a circular and giddy way that will bring us back againe to Rome And therefore beloved though you be in the way see ye walk circumspectly for the snares that both these have cast in the way the reproaches and defamations that both these have cast upon our Church But when thou hast scaped both these snares of Papist and Scismatique pray still to be delivered from that Evill man that is within thee Non tantùm potest hominem decipere Hieron quà m per Organum hominis The Devill hath not so powerfull an instrument nor so subtile an engine upon thee as thy selfe August Quis in hoc seculo non patitur hominem malum Who in this world or if he goe so farre out of this world as never to see man but himselfe is not troubled with this evill man When thou prayest with David to be delivered from this evill man if God aske thee whom thou meanest must thou not say thy selfe Canst thou shew God a worse Chrysost Qui non est malus nihil à malo mali patitur If a man were not evill in himself the worst thing in the world could not hurt him the Devil would not offer to give fire if there were no powder in thy heart What that evill man is that is in another I cannot know I cannot alwayes discerne anothers snare for What man knoweth the things of a man 1 Cor. 2.11 save the spirit of a man which is in him Thy spirit knowes what the evill man that is in thee is Deliver thy selfe of that evill man that ensnares thee in thy way though thou come to Church yea even when thou art there David repeats this word A viro malo from the evill man twice in that Psalme In one place A viro malo is in that name Meish which is a name of man proper onely to the stronger sexe and intimates snares and tentations of stronger power As when feare or favour tempts a man to come to a superstitious and idolatrous service In the other it is but Meadam and that is a name common to men and women and children and intimates that omissions negligences infirmities may encumber us ensnare us though we be in the way even in the true place of Gods service and the eye may be ensnared as dangerously and as damnably in this place as the eare or the tongue in the Chamber As S. Hierome sayes Nugae in ore Sacerdotis sunt sacrilegium An idle word in a Church-mans mouth is sacriledge so a wanton look in the Church is an Adultery Now when God hath thus taught us the way what it is that is brought us to the true Church for till then all is diversion all banishment and taught us In via what to doe in that way To resist tentations to superstition from other imaginary Churches tentations to particular sins from the evill men of the world and from the worst man in the world our selfe the Instruction in our Text is carried a step farther that is to proceed and goe forward in that way Qua gradieris I will teach thee to walk in that way When S. Augustine saith upon this place Qua gradieris It is via qua gradieris non cui haerebis A way to walke in not to sticke upon he doth not meane That wee should ever change this way or depart from it that any crosse in this should make us hearken after another religion It is not that we should not sticke to it but that we should not sticke in it nor loyter in the way Thou hast beene in this way in the true Church ever since thy Baptisme and yet if a man that hath lived morally well all his life and no more then so finde by Gods grace a doore opened into the Christian Church and a short turning into this right way at the end of his life hee by the benefit of those good Morall actions shall be before thee who hast lived lazily though in the right way at his first step For though those good Morall actions were not good workes when hee did them yet then that grace which he layes hold upon at last shall reflect a tincture upon them and make them good in the eyes of God ab initio If thou have not beene lazie in thy way in thy Christian profession hitherto yet except thou proceed still except thou goe from hence now better then thou camest better in thy purpose and come hither next day better then thou wentest better in thy practise thou hast not learned this lesson in this Instruction I will teach thee to walke in this way A Christian hath no Solstice no highest point where he may stand still and goe no farther much lesse hath hee any Aequator where dayes and nights are equall that is a liberty to spend as much time ill as well as many houres in sinfull pleasures August as in religious exercises Quicquid citra Deum est via est nec immorandum in ea Hee doth not say praeter Deum much lesse contra Deum For whatsoever is against God nay whatsoever is besides God is altogether out of the way But citra Deum on this side of God Till we come to God in heaven all our best is but our way to him All the zeale of gathering knowledge all the growth of faith all the practise of sanctification is but via the way and non immorandum in ea since wee have here a promise of Gods assistance in it in the way we are sure there is an obligation upon
it as upon a duty in this way humbly and patiently and laboriously to walke towards him without stopping upon any thing in this world either preferments on the right or disgraces on the left hand for a Cart may stop us as well as a Coach low things as well as high with as much trouble and more anoyance Which is more especially intended in the last words of the Text Firmabo super te oculos meos I will settle my providence fixe mine eye upon thee I will guide thee with mine eye Thus farre hath our blessed Lord assured us That he will make us understand 3 Part. which is his Instruction de credendis what to Beleeve And that he will teach us to walke in his way which is his Instruction de agendis what to Doe how to avoide tentations This last is That hee will guide us with his eye which is his Instruction de sperandis what wee are to Hope for at his hand if in this way we doe stumble or fall into some sinnes of infirmities But it is but de sperandis not de praesumendis when by infirmity thou art fallen thy Hope must begin then but if the Hope begun before so as thou fellest upon hope that God would raise thee then it was presumption and there the Lords eye shuts in and guides thee no longer Otherwise he directs thee with his eye that is with his gracious and powerfull looking upon thee to the meanes of thy recovery Wee heare of no blowes wee heare of no chiding from him towards Peter but all that is said is Luke 22.65 The Lord turned back and looked upon Peter and then he remembred his case The eye of the Lord lightned his darknesse The eye of the Lord thawed those three crusts of Ice which were growne over his heart in his three denials of his Master A Candle wakes some men as well as a noyse The eye of the Lord works upon a good soule as much as his hand and hee is as much affected with this consideration The Lord sees me as with this The Lord strikes me Wee reade in Naturall story of some creatures Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova Plin. l. 10. c. 9. which hatch their egges onely by looking upon them What cannot the eye of God produce and hatch in us Plus est quod probatur aspectu quà m quod sermone Ambrose A man may seeme to commend in words and yet his countenance shall dispraise His word infuses good purposes into us but if God continue his eye upon us it is a farther approbation for He is a God of pure eyes and will not looke upon the wicked Deut. 11.12 This land doth the Lord thy God care for and the eyes of the Lord are alwayes upon it from the beginning of the yeare even to the end thereof What a cheerefull spring what a fruitfull Autumne hath that soule that hath the eye of the Lord alwayes upon her The eye of the Lord upon mee makes midnight noone and S. Lucies day S. Barnabies It makes Capricorne Cancer and the Winters the Summers Solstice The eye of the Lord sanctifies nay more then sanctifies glorifies all the Eclipses of dishonour makes Melancholy cheerefulnesse diffidence assurance and turnes the jealousie of the sad soule into infallibility Upon his people his eye shined in the wildernesse his eye singled them in Egypt and in Babylon they were sustained by his eye They were and we are Ezra 5.5 Psal 33.18 The eye of their God was upon the Elders of Israel And Behold the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him The Proverb is not onely as old as Aristotle Oculus domini and Pes domini The eye of the Master fattens the horse and the foot of the Master marles the ground but it is as old as the Creation God saw all that he had made and so it was very good It was visio approbationis Hieron and his approbation was the exaltation thereof This guiding then with the eye we consider to be his particular care and his personall providence upon us in his Church For a man may be in the Kings presence and yet not in his eye and so he may in Gods Gods whole Ordinance in his Church is Gods face For that is the face of God by which God is manifested to us But then August that eye in that face by which he promises to guide us in this Text is that blessed Spirit of his by whose operation he makes that grace which does evermore accompany his Ordinances effectuall upon us The whole Congregation sees God face to face in the Service in the Sermon in the Sacrament but there is an eye in that face an eye in that Service an eye in that Sermon an eye in that Sacrament a piercing and an operating Spirit that lookes upon that soule and foments and cherishes that soule who by a good use of Gods former grace is become fitter for his present And this guiding us with his eye manifests it selfe in these two great effects Convertit conversion to him and union with him First his eye works upon ours His eye turnes ours to looke upon him Still it is so expressed with an Ecce Behold Psal 33.18 the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him His eye cals ours to behold that And then our eye cals upon his to observe our cheerefull readinesse Behold Psal 123.2 as the eye of a servant lookes to the hand of his Master so our eyes waite upon the Lord our God till he have mercy upon us Where the Donec Vntill is an everlasting Donec as the blessed Virgins was A Virgin Donec till she brought forth her first Son and a Virgin ever after So our eyes waite upon God till hee have mercy that is while he hath it and that he may continue his mercy for it was his mercifull eye that turned ours to him and it is the same mercy that we waite upon him And then when as a well made Picture doth alwaies looke upon him that lookes upon it this Image of God in our soule is turned to him by his turning to it it is impossible we should doe any foule any uncomely thing in his presence Will any man solicite a Wife or a Daughter and call the Father or Husband to looke on Will any man breake open thy house in the night and first wake thee and call thee up Can any man give his body to uncleannesse his tongue to prophanenesse his heart to covetousnesse and at the same time consider that his pure and his holy and his bountifull God hath his eye upon him Can he looke upon God in that line in that Angle upon God looking upon him and dishonour him Psal 25.15 August Upon those words of David Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord Quasi diceretur quid agitur depedibus as though it were objected Is all thy care of thine
upon the Action on Gods part Lavabis Thou shalt wash mee and the Effect on our part Dealbabor I shall be white and the Degree the Extent the Exaltation of that Emundation that Dealbation that Cleansing supra nivem I shall be whiter then snow And then we shall conclude all with that consideration That though in the first part we finde two persons in action for God works but man prayes that God would worke yet in the other part the worke it selfe Though the worke bee divers a purging and then a washing of the soule the whole worke is Gods alone David doth not say no man can say Doe thou purge me and then I will wash my selfe nor doe thou make the Medicine and I will bring the Hyssope nor doe thou but wash mee begin the worke and I will goe forward with it and perfit it and make my selfe whiter then snow but the intire worke is his who onely can infuse the desire and onely accomplish that desire who onely gives the will and the ability to second and execute that will He He purges me or I am still a vessell of peccant humors His His is the hyssope or there is Mors in olla Death in the cup He He washes me or I am still in my blood He He exalts that cleannesse which his his washing hath indued or I returne againe to that red earth which I brought out of Adams bowels Therefore Doe thou purge mee with Hyssope and I shall be cleane Do thou wash me and I shal be whiter then snow First then 1. Part. for our first part wee consider the persons Of these God is the first Esay spoke boldly Deus saith the Apostle when hee said God is found by them that seeke him not But still we continue in that humble boldnesse Rom. 10.20 to say God is best found when we seeke him and observe him in his operation upon us God gives audiences and admits accesses in his solemne and publike and out-roomes in his Ordinances In his Cabinet in his Bed-chamber in his unrevealed purposes wee must not presse upon him It was ill taken in the Roman State when men enquired in Arcana Imperii the secrets of State by what wayes and meanes publike businesses were carried Private men were to rest in the generall effects peace and protection and Justice and the like and to enquire no more But to enquire in Arcana Domus what was done in the Bed-chamber was criminall capitall inexcusable We must abstaine from enquiring De modo how such or such things are done in many points in which it is necessary to us to know that such things are done As the maner of Christs presence in the Sacrament and the maner of Christs descent into Hell for these are Arcana Imperii secrets of State for the maner is secret though the thing bee evident in the Scriptures But the entring into Gods unrevealed and bosome-purposes are Arcana domus a man is as farre from a possibility of attaining the knowledge as from an excuse for offering at it That curiosity will bring a man to that blasphemy of Alfonsus King of Castile the great Astronomer who said That if hee had beene of Gods Counsell in the creation of the world hee could have directed him to have done many things better then he did They that looke too farre into Gods unrevealed purposes are seldome content with that that they thinke God hath done but stray either into an uncharitable condemning of other men or into a jealous a suspitious a desperate condemning of themselves Here in this first branch of this first part wee seeke God and because we seeke him where he hath promised to be we are sure to find him Because we joyne with David in an humble confession of our sins the Lord joyns us with David in a fruition of himselfe And more of that first Person God himselfe we say not but passe to the other to the petitioner to the penitent to the patient to David himselfe His example is so comprehensive so generall that as a well made David and well placed Picture in a Gallery looks upon all that stand in severall places of the Gallery in severall lines in severall angles so doth Davids history concerne and embrace all For his Person includes all states betweene a shepherd and a King and his sinne includes all sinne between first Omissions and complications of Habits of sin upon sin So that as S. Basil said hee needed no other Booke for all spirituall uses but the Psalmes so wee need no other Example to discover to us the slippery wayes into sin or the penitentiall wayes out of sin then the Author of that Booke David From his Example then we first deduce this That in the war-fare of this life there are no Emeriti milites none of that discipline that after certaine yeares spent in the warres a man should returne to ease and honour and security at home A man is not delivered from the tentation of Ambition by having overcome the heats and concupiscences of his youth nor from the tentation of Covetousnesse in his age by having escaped ambition and contented himselfe with a meane station in his middle yeares David whom neither a sudden growth into such degrees of greatnesse as could not have fallen into his thought or wish before nor the persecution of Saul which might have enraged him to a personall revenge considering how many advantages and occasions hee might have made shift to thinke that God had put into his hands to execute that revenge David whom neither the concourse and application of the people who tooke knowledge of him as of a rising Sun nor the interest and nearenesse in the love and heart of Ionathan the Kings Son which fals seldome upon a new and a popular man David whom not that highest place to which God had brought him in making him King nor that addition even to that highest place that he made him Successor to a King of whom the State was weary for as the Panegyrique sayes Onerosum est succedere bono principi It is a heavy thing and binds a Prince to a great diligence to come immediately after one whom his subjects loved So had David an ease in comming after one with whom the Kingdome was discontented David whom this sudden preferment and persecutions and popularity did not so shake but that wee may say of him as it is said of Iob That in all this height David did not sin nor in all these afflictions He did not charge God foolishly Though he had many victories he came not to a Triumph but him whom an Army and an armed Giant Goliah neare hand could not hurt a weaker person and naked and farre off overthrowes and ruines It is therefore but an imperfect comfort for any man to say I have overcome tentations to great sins and my sins have beene but of infirmity not of malice For herein more then in any other contemplation appeares the
had been well if Bathsheba had bathed within doores and with more caution but yet these errors alone we should not be apt to condemne in such persons except by Gods permitting greater sins to follow upon these we were taught that even such things as seeme to us in their nature to be indifferent have degrees of naturall and essentiall ill in them which must be avoyded even in the probability nay even in the possibility that they may produce sin And as from this Example we draw that Conclusion That sins which are but the Children of indifferent actions become the Parents of great sins which is the industry of sin to exalt it selfe and as it were ennoble it selfe above the stocke from which it was derived The next sin will needs be a better sin then the last So have we also from David this Conclusion that this generation of sin is infinite infinite in number infinite in duration So infinite both waies as that Luther who seldome checks himselfe in any vehement expression could not forbeare to say Si Nathan non venisset If Nathan had not come to David David had proceeded to the sin against the Holy Ghost O how impossible a thing is it then for us to condition and capitulate with God or with our owne Nature and say to him or to our selves We will sin thus long and no longer Thus far and no farther this sin and no more when not onely the frailty of man but even the justice of God provokes us though not as Author or cause of sin to commit more and more sins after wee have entangled and enwrapped our selves in former Who can doubt but that in this yeares space in which David continued in his sin but that he did ordinarily all the externall acts of the religious Worship of God who can doubt but that he performed all the Legall Sacrifices and all the Ceremoniall Rites Yea we see that when Nathan put Davids case in another name of a rich man that had taken away a poore mans onely sheepe David was not onely just but he was vehement in the execution of Justice Hee was saies the text exceeding wroth and said As the Lord liveth that man shall dye But yet for all this externall Religion for all this Civill justice in matter of government no mention of any repentance in all this time How little a thing then is it nay how great a thing that is how great an aggravating of thy sin if thou thinke to bribe God with a Sabboth or with an almes And as a criminall person would faine come to Sanctuary not because it is a consecrated place but because it rescues him from the Magistrate So thou comest to Chuch not because God is here but that thy being here may redeeme thee from the imputation of prophanenesse At last Nathan came David did not send for him but God sent him But yet David laid hold upon Gods purpose in him And he confesses to God he confesses to the Prophet he confesses to the whole Church for before he pleads for mercy in the body of the Psalme in the title of the Psalme which is as Canonicall Scripture as the Psalme it selfe hee confesses himselfe plainly A Psalme of David when the Prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba Audiunt male viventes quaerunt sibi patrocinia peccandi Wee heare of Davids sin August and wee justifie our sins by him Si David cur non ego If David went in to a Bathsheba why may not I That Father tels you why Qui facit quia David fecit id facit quod David non fecit He that does that because David did it does not doe that which David did Quia nullum exemplum proposuit For David did not justifie his sin by any precedent example So that he that sins as David did yet sins worse then David did and hee that continues as unsensible of his sin as David was is more unsensible then David was Quia ad te mittitur ipse David For God sends Nathan to thee August with David in his hand He sends you the Receit his invitations to Repentance in his Scriptures and he sends you a Probatum est a personall testimony how this Physicke hath wrought upon another upon David And so having in this first Part which is the Consideration of the persons in our Text God and David brought them by Nathans mediation together consider wee also for a conclusion of this Part the personall applications that David scatters himselfe upon none but God Tu me and hee repeats it doe Thou purge mee doe Thou wash mee Damascen hath a Sermon of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin which whole Sermon is but a Dialogue in which Eve acts the first part and the blessed Virgin another Tu. It is but a Dialogue yet it is a Sermon If I should insist upon this Dialogue between God and David Tu me Tu me Doe thou worke upon me it would not be the lesse a profitable part of a Sermon for that For first when we heare David in an anhelation and panting after the mercy of God cry out Domine Tu Lord doe thou that that is to be done doe Thou purge doe Thou wash and may have heard God thereby to excite us to the use of his meanes say Purget natura purget lex I have infused into thee a light and a law of nature and exalted that light and that law by a more particular law and a clearer light then that by which thou knowest what is sin and knowest that in a sinfull state thou canst not be acceptable to me Purget natura purget lex let the light of nature or of the law purge thee and rectifie thy selfe by that Doe but as much for thy selfe as some naturall men some Socrates some Plato hath done we may heare David reply Domine Tu Lord put me not over to the catechizing of Nature nor to the Pedagogie of the Law but take me into thine owne hands do Thou Thou that is to be done upon me When we heare God say Purget Ecclesia I have established a Church settled constant Ordinances for the purging and washing of souls there Purget Ecclesia Let the Church purge thee we may heare David reply Domine Tu Alas Lord how many come to that Bath and goe foule out of it how many heare Sermons and receive Sacraments and when they returne returne to their vomit Domine Tu Lord except the power of thy Spirit make thine Ordinance effectuall upon me even this thy Jordan will leave me in my leprosie and exalt my leprosie even this Sermon this Sacrament will aggravate my sin If we heare God say Shall I purge thee Doest thou know what thou askest what my method in purging is That if I purge I shall purge thee with fire with seaven fires with tribulations nay with tentations with temporall nay with spirituall calamities with wounds in thy fortune wounds
in thine honor wounds in thy conscience yet we may heare David reply Josh 24.16 Tu Domine As the people said to Ioshuah God forbid we should forsake the Lord we will serve the Lord And when Ioshuah said You cannot serve the Lord for he is a jealous God and if yee turne from him he will turne and doe you hurt and consame you after he hath done you good The people replyed Nay but we will serve the Lord so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations and purgings in fire we may heare David reply Nay but Lord doe Thou doe it do it how Thou wilt but doe Thou do it Thy corrosives are better then others somentations Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey Thy fires are but lukewarme fires nay they have nothing of fire in them but light to direct me in my way And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out as lanes that leade me to thy grave or Rivers or Channels that lead me to the sea of thy bloud Let me go upon Crouches so I go to Heaven Lay what waight thou wilt even upon my foule that that be heavy and heavy unto death so I may have a cheerfull transmigration then Domine Tu Lord doe thou doe it and I shall not wish it mended And then when we heare David say Domine Me Lord purge Me wash Me and returne foure times in this short Text to that personall appropriation of Gods worke upon himselfe Purge Me that I may be cleane wash Me that I may be whiter then snow if we heare God say as the language of his mercy is for the most part generall As the Sea is above the Earth so is the blood of my Son above all sin Congregations of three thousand and of five thousand were purged and washed converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter whole legions of Souldiers that consisted of thousands were purged in their owne blood and became Martyrs in one day There is enough done to worke upon all Examples enow given to guide all we may heare David reply Domine Me Nay but Lord I doe not heare Peter preach I live not in a time or in a place where Crownes of Martyrdome are distributed nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did Lord I know that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood and yet I know that if there had been but one some distressed and that soule distressed but with one sin thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soule Blessed be thy Name for having wrapped me up in thy generall Covenants and made me partaker of thy generall Ordinances but yet Lord looke more particularly upon me and appropriate thy selfe to me to me not onely as thy Creature as a man as a Christian but as I am I as I am this sinner that confesses now and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now And now Beloved we have said so much towards enough of the persons God and David The accesse of David to God and the appropriation of God to David as that we may well passe to our other generall part the petitions which David in his own and our behalfe makes to God Purge me with Hyssop and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow In this 2 Part. Purgabis the first is a great worke That which we translate Purge me And yet how soone David is come to it It is his first period The passage of a Spirit is very quick but it is not immediate Not from extreame to extreame but by passing the way between The Evill spirit passes not so no good soule was ever made very ill in an instant no nor so soone as some ill have been made good No man can give me Examples of men so soone perverted as I can of men converted It is not in the power of the Devill to doe so much harme as God can doe good Nay we may be bold to say it is not in the will not in the desire of the Devill to doe so much harme as God would doe good for illnesse is not in the nature of the Devill The Devill was naturally good made created good His first illnesse was but a defection from that goodnesse and his present illnesse is but a punishment for that defection but God is good goodnesse in his nature essentially eternally good and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God worke otherwise upon us then the tentations of the evill Spirit doe How soone and to what a height came David here He makes his Petition his first Petition with that confidence as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition for it is in the Originall Thou wilt purge me Thou wilt wash me Thou hadst a gracious will and purpose to doe it before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it Nay this word may well be translated not onely Thou wilt but by the other denotation of the future Thou shalt Thou shalt purge me Thou shalt wash me Lord I doe but remember thee of thy debt of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt to shew mercy to every penitent sinner And then as the word implies confidence and acceleration infallibility and expedition too That as soone as I can aske I am sure to be heard so does it imply a totality an intirenesse a fulnesse in the worke for the roote of the word is Peccare to sin for purging is a purging of peccant humors but in this Conjugation in that language it hath a privative signification and literally signifies Expeccabis and if in our language that were a word in use it might be translated Thou shalt un-sin me that is look upon me as a man that had never sinned as a man invested in the innocency of thy Sonne who knew no sin David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God then in the remission of sins Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation or that we are in Gods favour at that time when we sin nor returned to his favour before we repent our sin It is onely this expeccation this unsinning this taking away of sins formerly committed that restores me And that is not done with nothing David assignes proposes a meanes by which he looks for it Hyssop Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop The Fathers taking the words as they found them and fastning with a spirituall delight Hyssopo as their devout custome was their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop have found purgative vertues in that plant and made usefull and spirituall applications thereof for the purging of our soules from sin In this doe S. Ambrose and Augustine and Hierome agree that Hyssop hath vertue in it proper for the lungs in
of the state of the Christian Church There by the ordinary meanes exhibited there our Scarlet sins are made as white as Snow And the whitenesse of Snow is a whitenesse that no art of man can reach to So Christs garments in his Transfiguration are expressed to have beene as white as Snow Marke 9.3 so as no Fuller on earth could white them Nothing in this world can send me home in such a whitenesse no morall counsaile no morall comfort no morall constancy as Gods Absolution by his Minister as the profitable hearing of a Sermon the worthy receiving of the Sacrament do This is to be as white as snow In a good state for the present But David begs a whitenesse above Snow for Snow melts and then it is not white our present Sanctification withers and we lose that cheereful verdure the testimony of an upright conscience And Snow melted Snow water is the coldest water of all Devout men departed from their former fervor are the coldest and the most irreducible to true zeale true holinesse Therefore David who was metall tried seven times in the fire and desired to be such gold as might be laid up in Gods Treasury might consider that in transmutation of metals it is not enough to come to a calcination or a liquefaction of the metall that must be done nor to an Ablution to sever drosse from pure nor to a Transmutation to make it a better metall but there must be a Fixion a fettling thereof so that it shall not evaporate into nothing nor returne to his former nature Therefore he saw that he needed not only a liquefaction a melting into teares nor only an Ablution a Transmutation those he had by this purging and this washing this station in the Church of God and this present Sanctification there but he needed Fixionem an establishment which the comparison of Snow afforded not That as he had purged him with Hyssop and so cleansed him that is enwrapped him in the Covenant and made him a member of the true Church and there washed him so as that he was restored to a whitenesse that is made his Ordinances so effectuall upon him as that then he durst deliver his soule into his hands at that time So he would exalt that whitenesse above the whitenesse of Snow so as nothing might melt it nothing discolour it but that under the seale of his blessed Spirit he might ever dwell in that calme in that assurance in that acquiescence that as he is in a good state this minute he shall be in no worse whensoever God shall be pleased to translate him We end all the Psalmes in our service Conclusio those of Praise and those of Prayer too with a Gloria Patri Glory be to the Father c. For our conclusion of this Prayer in this Psalme we have reserved a Gloria Patri too This consideration for the glory of God that though in the first Part The Persons the persons were varied God and man yet in our second Part where we confider the worke the whole worke is put into Gods hand and received from Gods hand Let God be true and every man a liar Let God be strong and every man infirme Let God give and man but receive What man that hath no propriety therein can take a penny out of another mans house or a roote out of his Garden but the Law will take hold of him Hath any man a propriety in Grace what had he to give for it Nature Is Nature equivalent to Grace No man does refine and exalt Nature to the height it would beare but if naturall faculties were exalted to their highest is Nature a fit exchange for Grace and if it were is Nature our owne Why should we be loath to acknowledge to have all our ability of doing good freely from God and immediately by his grace when as even those faculties of Nature by which we pretend to do the offices of Grace we have from God himselfe too For that question of the Apostle involves all What hast thou that thou hast not received Thy naturall faculties are no more thine owne then the grace of God is thine owne I would not be beholden to God for Grace and I must be as much beholden to him for Nature if Nature do supply Grace Because he hath made thee to be a man he hath given thee naturall faculties because he hath vouchsafed thee to be a Christian he hath given thee meanes of Grace But as thy body conceived in thy Mothers wombe could not claime a soule at Gods hand nor wish a soule no nor know that there was a soule to be had So neither by being a man indued with naturall faculties canst thou claime grace or wish grace nay those naturall faculties if they be not pre-tincted with some infusion of Grace before cannot make thee know what Grace is or that Grace is To a child rightly disposed in the wombe God does give a soule To a naturall man rightly disposed in his naturall faculties God does give Grace But that Soule was not due to that child nor that grace to that man Therefore as we said at first David does not bring the Hyssop and pray God to make the potion but Doe thou purge me with Hyssop All is thine owne There was no pre-existent matter in the world when God made the world There is no pre-existent merit in man when God makes him his David does not say Do thou wash me and I will perfect thy worke Give me my portion of Grace and I will trouble thee for no more but deale upon that stocke But Qui sanctificatur sanctificetur adhuc Let him that is holy be more holy but accept his Sanctification from him of whom he had his Justification and except he can think to glorifie himself because he is sanctified let him not think to sanctifie himself because he is justified God does all Yet thus argues S. Augustin upon Davids words Tuus sum Domine Lord I am thine and therefore safer then they that thinke themselves their owne Every man can and must say I was thine Thine by Creation but few can say I am thine few that have not changed their Master But how was David his so especially sayes S. Augustine Quia quaesivi justificationes tuas as it followes there Because I sought thy Righteousnesse thy Justification But where did he seeke it Hee sought it and he found it in himselfe In himselfe as himselfe there was no good thing to be found how far soever he had sought But yet he found a Justification though of Gods whole making yet in himselfe So then this is our Act of Recognition we acknowledge God and God onely to doe all But we doe not so make him Soveraigne alone as that we leave his presence naked and empty Nor so make him King alone as that we depopulate his Country and leave him without Subjects Nor so leave all to Grace as that the naturall faculties
so pay my debts with my bones and recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth with the beggery of mine age Let me wither in a spittle under sharpe and foule and in famous diseases and so recompence the wantonnesse of my youth with that loath somnesse in mine age yet if God with draw not his spirituall blessings his Grace his Patience If I can call my suffering his Doing my passion his Action All this that is temporall is but a caterpiller got into one corner of my garden but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of my Corne The body of all the substance of all is safe as long as the soule is safe But when I shall trust to that which wee call a good spirit and God shall deject and empoverish and evacuate that spirit when I shall rely upon a morall constancy and God shall shake and enfeeble and enervate destroy and demolish that constancy when I shall think to refresh my selfe in the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience and God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell it selfe and spread a cloud of diffidence and an impenetrable crust of desperation upon my conscience when health shall flie from me and I shall lay hold upon riches to succour me and comfort me in my sicknesse and riches shall flie from me and I shall snatch after favour and good opinion to comfort me in my poverty when even this good opinion-shall leave me and calumnies and misinformations shall prevaile against me when I shall need peace because there is none but thou O Lord that should stand for me and then shall finde that all the wounds that I have come from thy hand all the arrowes that stick in me from thy quiver when I shall see that because I have given my selfe to my corrupt nature thou hast changed thine and because I am all evill towards thee therefore thou hast given over being good towards me When it comes to this height that the fever is not in the humors but in the spirits that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy fortune nor a transitory enemy malice in great persons but a reall and an irresistible and an inexorable and an everlasting enemy The Lord of Hosts himselfe The Almighty God himselfe the Almighty God himselfe onely knowes the waight of this affliction and except hee put in that pondus gloriae that exceeding waight of an eternall glory with his owne hand into the other scale we are waighed downe we are swallowed up irreparably irrevocably irrecoverably irremediably This is the fearefull depth this is spirituall misery to be thus fallen from God But was this Davids case was he fallen thus farre into a diffidence in God No. But the danger the precipice the slippery sliding into that bottomlesse depth is to be excluded from the meanes of comming to God or staying with God And this is that that David laments here That by being banished and driven into the wildernesse of Judah hee had not accesse to the Sanctuary of the Lord to sacrifice his part in the praise and to receive his part in the prayers of the Congregation for Angels passe not to ends but by wayes and meanes nor men to the glory of the triumphant Church but by participation of the Communion of the Militant To this note David sets his Harpe in many many Psalms Sometimes Psal 78.60 that God had suffered his enemies to possesse his Tabernacle Hee for sooke the Tabernacle of Shiloh Hee delivered his strength into captivity and his glory into the enemies hands But most commonly he complaines that God disabled him from comming to the Sanctuary In which one thing he had summed up all his desires all his prayers One thing have I desired of the Lord Psal 27.4 that will I looke after That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple His vehement desire of this Psal 42.2 he expresses againe My soule thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appeare before God He expresses a holy jealousie a religious envy Psal 84.3 even to the sparrows and swallows yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for her selfe and where she may lay her yong Even thine Altars O Lord of Host my King and my God Thou art my King and my God and yet excludest me from that Luk. 12.7 which thou affordest to sparrows And are not we of more value then many sparrows And as though David felt some false ease some half-tentation some whispering that way Psal 84.3 That God is in the wildernesse of Iudah in every place as well as in his Sanctuary there is in the Originall in that place a patheticall a vehement a broken expressing expressed O thine Altars It is true sayes David thou art here in the wildernesse and I may see thee here and serve thee here but O thine Altars O Lord of hosts my King and my God When David could not come in person to that place yet he bent towards the Temple Psal 5.7 In thy feare will I worship towards thy holy Temple Which was also Daniels devotion when he prayed Dan. 6.10 his Chamber windowes were open towards Ierusalem And so is Hezekias turning to the wall to weepe Esa 38.2 and to pray in his sick bed understood to be to that purpose to conforme and compose himselfe towards the Temple In the place consecrated for that use God by Moses fixes the service and fixes the Reward And towards that place Deut. 31.11 when they could not come to it doth Solomon direct their devotion in the Consecration of the Temple 1 King 8.44 when they are in the warres when they are in Captivity and pray towards this house doe thou heare them For as in private prayer when according to Christs command we are shut in our chamber there is exercised Modestia fidei The modesty and bashfulnesse of our faith not pressing upon God in his house so in the publique prayers of the Congregation there is exercised the fervor and holy courage of our faith Tertull. for Agmine facto obsidemus Deum It is a Mustering of our forces and a besieging of God Therefore does David so much magnifie their blessednesse that are in this house of God Blessed are they that dwell in thy house for they will be still praising thee Those that looke towards it may praise thee sometimes but those men who dwell in the Church and whose whole service lyes in the Church have certainly an advantage of all other men who are necessarily withdrawne by worldly businesses in making themselves acceptable to almighty God if they doe their duties and observe their Church-services aright Man being therefore thus subject naturally to manifold calamities Excommunicatio and spirituall calamities being incomparably heavier then temporall and the greatest danger of falling into such
temporall blessings to men upon whom he hath not set his heart And then in the 27. Verse he sayes Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee If he had onely found it in the Liturgy and in the manner of the Service of that Church to which hee came with an ill will and against his heart he would not have prayed that prayer nay he would not have come to that Church Psal 35.11 40.10 For though David place a great joy in that That he can come to praise God in the Congregation and in the great Congregation And though David seeme even to determine Gods presence in the Church for he multiplies that expostulation that adprecation many times When shall I come in conspectum tuum into thy presence And Restore me O Lord conspectui tuo to thy presence Hee was not right not in the right way if he came not to Church yet there is a case in which David glories in though as hee saith there In corde meo abscondi eloquium tuum Psal 119.11 Thy word have I hidden locked up in my heart Though in another in many other places he rejoyce in that I have not hid thy righteousnesse in my heart Psal 40.10 I have not concealed thy truth from the great Congregation yet here he glories in his Abscondi I have hid it Which as both S. Hilary and S. Ambrose referre it to a discreet and seasonable suppressing of the mysteries of Religion and not to cast pearles before swine may also inferre this Instruction That a man were better serve God at home though not in so right a way if he thinke it right then to come hither against his heart and conscience Not but that there is better meanes of receiving good here then at home in private prayer though made the right way But his end in comming is not to make this meanes his way to that good And therefore his very being here though hee be thereby in the right way because it comes not from an upright heart as it is a greater danger to us who are deluded by their hypocriticall conformity so is it a greater sinne to them who come so against their conscience David prayes thus Psal 119.19 Incola sum ne abscondas I am a stranger hide not thy commandements from mee Let me not be a stranger at Church at thy Service And so it behooves us to pray too That those Doores and those Books may alwayes bee open unto us But yet I will say with David too Abscondam eloquium where I am a stranger and in a place of strange and superstitious worship I will hide my religion so farre as not to communicate with others in a service against my heart It is not safe for us to trust our selves at a superstitious Service though curiosity or company or dependency upon others draw us thither neither is it safe to trust all that come hither if their hearts be not here For the Retribution of our Text that is Thanks and Praise belongs onely to them who are Right and Right of heart and to them it is made due and infallible by this promise from God and made universall Omnes All the upright in heart shall glory How often God admits into his owne Name Omnes this addition of Universality Omne All as though he would be knowne by that especially He is Omnipotent There he can doe All He is Omniscient There he can know All Hee is Omnipresent There he can direct All. Neither doth God extend himselfe to all that he may gather from all but that he may gather all and all might meet in him and enjoy him So God is all Center as that hee looks to all and so all circumference as that hee embraces all The Sunne works upon things that he sees not as Mynes in the wombe of the earth and so works the lesse perfectly God sees all and works upon all and desires perfection in all There is no one word so often in the Bible as this Omne All. Neither hath God spread the word more liberally upon all the lines of this Booke then he hath his gracious purposes upon all the soules of men And therefore to withdraw Gods generall goodnesse out of his generall propositions That he would have all repent That he came to save all is to contract and abridge God himselfe in his most extensive Attribute or Denotation that is his Mercy And as there is a curse laid upon them that take away any part any proposition out of this Booke so may there be a curse or an ill affection and countenance and suspicion from God that presses any of his generall propositions to a narrower and lesse gracious sense then God meant in it It were as easily beleeved that God lookes towards no man as that there should be any man in whom he sees that is considers no sin that he lookes not towards I could as easily doubt of the universall providence of God as of the universall mercy of God if man continued not in rebellion and in opposition If I can say by way of confession and accusing my selfe Lord my wayes have not beene right nor my heart right there is yet mercy for mee But to them who have studied and accustomed themselves to this uprightnesse of heart there is mercy in that exaltation mercy in the nature of a Reward of a Retribution And this Retribution expressed here in this word Glory constitutes our second Part All the upright in heart shall Glory This Retribution is expressed in the Originall in the word Halal And Halal 2 Part. Laus to those Translators that made up our Booke of Common Prayer presented the signification of Gladnesse for so it is there They shall be glad So it did to the Translators that came after for there it is They shall rejoyce And to our last Translators it seemed to signifie Glory They shall Glory say they But the first Translation of all into our Language which was long before any of these three cals it Praise and puts it in the Passive All men of rightfull heart shall be praised He followed S. Hierom who reads it so and interprets it so in the Passive Laudabuntur They shall be praised And so truly Iithhalelu in the Original beares it nay requires it which is not of a praise that they shall give to God but of a praise that they shall receive for having served God with an upright heart not that they shall praise God in doing so but that godly men shall praise them for having done so All this will grow naturally out of the roote for the roote of this word is Lucere Splendere To shine out in the eyes of men and to create in them a holy and a reverentiall admiration as it was Iohn Baptists praise That he was A burning and a shining Lampe Properly it is by a good and a holy exemplary life to occasion others to set
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
our enemies for By terrible things in righteousnesse will the God of our salvation answer us So then Per Iustitiam his Judgements are these Terribilia Terrible fearefull things And hee is faithfull in his Covenant and by terrible Judgements he will answer that is satisfie our expectation And that is a convenient sense of these words But the word which we translate Righteousnesse here is Tzadok and Tzadok is not faithfulnesse but holinesse And these Terrible things are Reverend things and so Tremellius translates it and well Per res Reverendas By Reverend things things to which there belongs a Reverence thou shalt answer us And thus the sense of this place will be That the God of our salvation that is God working in the Christian Church calls us to Holinesse to Righteousnesse by Terrible things not Terrible in the way and nature of revenge but Terrible that is stupendious reverend mysterious That so we should not make Religion too homely a thing but come alwayes to all Acts and Exercises of Religion with reverence with feare and trembling and make a difference between Religious and Civill Actions In the frame and constitution of al Religions these Materials these Elements have ever entred Some words of a remote signification not vulgarly understood some actions of a kinde of halfe-horror and amazement some places of reservation and retirednesse and appropriation to some sacred persons and inaccessible to all others Not to speake of the services and sacrifices of the Gentiles and those selfe-manglings and lacerations of the Priests of Isis and of the Priests of Baal faintly counterfaited in the scourgings and flagellations in the Roman Church In that very discipline which was delivered from God by Moses the service was full of mysterie and horror and reservation By terrible things Sacrifices of blood in manifold effusions God answered them then So the matter of Doctrine was delivered mysteriously and with much reservation and in-intelligiblenesse as Tertullian speaks The Joy and Glory of Heaven was not easily understood by their temporall abundances of Milke and Honey and Oyle and Wine and yet in these and scarce any other way was Heaven presented and notified to that people by Moses Christ a Messias a Saviour of the World by shedding his blood for it was not easily discerned in their Types and Sacrifices And yet so and scarce any other way was Christ revealed unto them Hos 12.10 God sayes I have multiplied visions and used similitudes by the ministery of the Prophets They were Visions they were Similitudes nor plaine and evident things obvious to every understanding that God led his people by And there was an Order of Doctors amongst the Jews that professed that way To teach the People by Parables and darke sayings Sandaei symbulica fol. 108. and these were the powerfullest Teachers amongst them for they had their very name Mosselim from power and dominion They had a power a dominion over the affections of their Disciples because teaching them by an obscure way they created an admiration and a reverence in their hearers and laid a necessity upon them of returning againe to them for the interpretation and signification of those darke Parables Many thinke that Moses cites these obscure Doctors these Mosselim in that place Num. 21.7 in the booke of Numbers when he sayes Wherefore they that speake in Proverbs say thus and thus And so he proceeds in a way and words as hard to be understood Psal 49.4 as any place in all his Books David professes this of himselfe often I will open darke sayings upon my Harpe Psal 77.2 And I will open my mouth in a Parable And this was the way of Solomon for that very word is the Title of his booke of Proverbs And in this way of teaching Matt. 7.19 our Saviour abounded and excelled for when it is said He taught them as one having authority And when it is said They were astonished at his Doctrine Luke 4.32 for his word was with Power they refer that to this manner of teaching that hee astonished them with these reserved and darke sayings and by the subsequent interpretation thereof gained a reverend estimation amongst them that he onely could lead them to a desire to know that darke way encreased their desire and then he onely satisfie them with the knowledge of those things which concerned their salvation For these Parables and comparisons of a remote signification were called by the Jews Potestates Powers Powerfull insinuations as amongst the Grecians the same things were called Axiomata Dignities And of Christ it is said Without a Parable spake he not Mat. 13.34 So that God in the Old and Christ in the New Testament hath conditioned his Doctrine and his Religion that is his outward worship so as that evermore there should be preserved a Majesty and a reverentiall feare and an awfull discrimination of Divine things from Civill and evermore something reserved to be inquired after and laid up in the mouth of the Priest that the People might acknowledge an obligation from him in the exposition and application thereof Nay this way of answering us by terrible things that is by things that imprint a holy horror and a Religious reverence is much more in the Christian Church then it can have beene in any other Religion Because if wee consider the Jews which is the onely Religion that can enter into any comparison with the Christian in this kinde yet we looke more directly and more immediately upon God in Christ then they could who saw him but by way of Prophecie a future thing that should be done after we looke upon God in History in matter of fact upon things done and set before our eyes and so that Majesty and that holy amazement is more to us then ever it was to any other Religion because we have a nearer approximation and vicinity to God in Christ then any others had in any representions of their Gods and it is a more dazeling thing to looke upon the Sun in a direct then in an oblique or side line And therefore the love of God which is so often proposed unto us is as often seasoned with the feare of God nay all our Religious affections are reduced to that one To a reverentiall feare If he be a Master he cals for feare and Mal. 1.6 If he be a Father he calls for honor And honour implies a reverentiall feare And that is the Art that David professes to teach Artem timendi Come ye children and hearken unto me Psal 34.12 and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. That you thinke not Divinity an Occupation nor Church-Service a recreation but still remember That the God of our Salvation God working in the Christian Church will answer you but yet by terrible things that is by not being over-fellowly with God nor over-homely with places and acts of Religion which it may be an advancement to your Devotion and
edification to consider in some particulars in the Christian Church And first consider we it in our manners and conversation Christ sayes In moribus Iohn 15.14 Mat. 22.12 Henceforth I call you not servants but friends But howsoever Christ called him friend that was come to the feast without the wedding garment he cast him out because he made no difference of that place from another First then remember by what terrible things God answers thee in the Christian Church when he comes to that round and peremptory issue Marke 16.16 Qui non credider it damnabitur He that beleeves not every Article of the Christian faith with so stedfast a belief as that he would dye for it Damnabitur no modification no mollification no going lesse He shal be damned Consider too the nature of Excōmunication That it teares a man from the body of Christ Jesus That that man withers that is torne off and Christ himselfe is wounded in it Consider the insupportable penances that were laid upon sinners by those penitentiall Canons that went through the Church in those Primitive times when for many sins which we passe through now without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins men were not admitted to the Communion all their lives no nor easily upon their death-beds Consider how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of Predestination may bring thee to thinke that God is bound to thee and thou not bound to him That thou maiest renounce him and he must embrace thee and so make thee too familiar with God and too homely with Religion upon presumption of a Decree Consider that when thou preparest any uncleane action in any sinfull nakednesse God is not onely present with thee in that roome then but then tels thee That at the day of Judgement thou must stand in his presence and in the presence of all the World not onely naked but in that foule and sinfull and uncleane action of nakednesse which thou committedst then Consider all this and confesse that for matter of manners and conversation The God of thy Salvation answers thee by terrible things And so it is also if we consider Prayer in the Church God House is the house of Prayer In oratione It is his Court of Requests There he receives petitions there he gives Order upon them And you come to God in his House as though you came to keepe him company to sit downe and talke with him halfe an houre or you come as Ambassadors covered in his presence as though ye came from as great a Prince as he You meet below and there make your bargaines for biting for devouring Usury and then you come up hither to prayers and so make God your Broker You rob and spoile and eat his people as bread by Extortion and bribery and deceitfull waights and measures and deluding oathes in buying and selling and then come hither and so make God your Receiver and his house a den of Thieves His house is Sanctum Sanctorum The holiest of holies and you make it onely Sanctuarium It should be a place sanctified by your devotions and you make it onely a Sanctuary to priviledge Malefactors A place that may redeeme you from the ill opinion of men who must in charity be bound to thinke well of you because they see you here Offer this to one of your Princes as God argues in the Prophet and see if he will suffer his house to be prophaned by such uncivill abuses Psal 47.3 And Terribilis Rex The Lord most high is terrible and a great King over all the earth Psal 96.4 and Terribilis super omnes Deos More terrible then all other Gods Let thy Master be thy god or thy Mistresse thy god thy Belly be thy god or thy Back be thy god thy fields be thy god or thy chests be thy god Terribilis super omnes Deos The Lord is terrible above all gods Psal 95.3 Deut. 28.58 A great God and a great King above all gods You come and call upon him by his name here But Magnū terribile Glorious and fearefull is the name of the Lord thy God And as if the Son of God were but the Son of some Lord that had beene your Schoole-fellow in your youth and so you continued a boldnesse to him ever after so because you have beene brought up with Christ from your cradle and catechized in his name Psal 111.4 his name becomes lesse reverend unto you And Sanctum terribile Holy and reverend Holy and terrible should his name be Consider the resolution that God hath taken upon the Hypocrite and his prayer What is the hope of the Hypocrite Iob 27.8 Hos 7.14 when God taketh away his soule Will God heare his cry They have not cryed unto me with their hearts when they have howled upon their beds Consider that error in the matter of our prayer frustrates the prayer and makes it ineffectuall Zebedees Sons would have beene placed at the right hand Mat. 20.21 and at the left hand of Christ and were not heard Error in the manner may frustrate our prayer and make it ineffectuall too Iam. 4.3 Ye ask and are not heard because ye ask amisse It is amisse if it be not referred to his will Luke 5.12 Iam. 1.6 Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me clean It is amisse if it be not asked in faith Let not him that wavereth thinke he shall receive any thing of the Lord. It is amisse if prayer be discontinued 1 Thes 5.17 Luke 22.44 Esay 1.15 intermitted done by fits Pray incessantly And it is so too if it be not vehement for Christ was in an Agony in his prayer and his sweat was as great drops of blood Of prayers without these conditions God sayes When you spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes when you make many prayers I will not heare you Their prayer shall not only be ineffectuall Prov. 28.9 Psal 129.7 but even their prayer shall be an abomination And not only an abomination to God but destruction upon themselves for Their prayer shall be turned to sin And when they shall not be heard for themselves no body else shall be heard for them Though these three men Ezek. 14.14 Noah Iob Daniel stood for them they should not deliver thē Though the whole Congregation consisted of Saints they shall not be heard for him nay they shall be forbidden to pray for him forbidden to mentiō or mean him in their prayers as Ieremy was When God leaves you no way of reconciliation but prayer and then layes these heavy and terrible conditions upon prayer Confesse that though he be the God of your salvation and do answer you yet By terrible things doth the God of your salvation answer you And consider this againe as in manners and in prayer so in his other Ordinance of Preaching Thinke with your selves what God lookes for from you In
expresse himselfe Norah which is rather Reverendus Mal. 2.5 then Terribilis as that word is used I gave him life and peace for the feare wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my Name So that this Terriblenesse which we are called upon to professe of God is a Reverentiall a Majesticall not a Tyrannicall terriblenesse And therefore hee that conceives a God that hath made man of flesh and blood and yet exacts that purity of an Angel in that flesh A God that would provide himselfe no better glory then to damme man A God who lest hee should love man and be reconciled to man hath enwrapped him in an inevitable necessity of sinning A God who hath received enough and enough for the satisfaction of all men and yet not in consideration of their future sinnes but meerely because he hated them before they were sinners or before they were any thing hath made it impossible for the greatest part of men to have any benefit of that large satisfaction This is not such a Terriblenesse as arises out of his Works his Actions or his Scriptures for God hath never said never done any such thing as should make us lodge such conceptions of God in our selves or lay such imputations upon him The true feare of God is true wisedome It is true Joy Rejoice in trembling saith David Psal 2.11 There is no rejoycing without this feare there is no Riches without it Reverentia Ichovae The feare of the Lord is his treasure and that is the best treasure Thus farre we are to goe Heb. 12.28 Let us serve God with reverence and godly feare godly feare is but a Reverence it is not a Jealousie a suspition of God And let us doe it upon the reason that followes in the same place For our God is a consuming fire There is all his terriblenesse he is a consuming fire to his enemies but he is our God and God is love And therefore to conceive a cruell God a God that hated us even to damnation before we were as some who have departed from the sense and modesty of the Ancients have adventured to say or to conceive a God so cruell as that at our death or in our way he will afford us no assurance that hee is ours and we his but let us live and die in anxiety and torture of conscience in jealousie and suspition of his good purpose towards us in the salvation of our soules as those of the Romane Heresie teach to conceive such a God as from all eternity meant to damne me or such a God as would never make me know and be sure that I should bee saved this is not to professe God to be terrible in his works For his Actions are his works and his Scriptures are his works and God hath never done or said any thing to induce so terrible an opinion of him And so we have done with all those pieces which in our paraphrasticall distribution of the text at beginning did constitute our first our Historicall part Davids retrospect his commemoration of former blessings In which he proposes a duty a declaration of Gods goodnesse Dicite publish it speake of it He proposes Religious duties in that capacity as he is King Religion is the Kings care He proposes by way of Counsaile to all by way of Commandment to his owne Subjects And by a more powerfull way then either counsaile or Commandment that is by Example by doing that himselfe which he counsailes and commands others to doe Dicite Say speake It is a duty more then thinking and lesse then doing Every man is bound to speake for the advancement of Gods cause but when it comes to action that is not the private mans office but belongs to the publique or him who is the Publique David himselfe the King The duty is Commemoration Dicite Say speake but Dicite Deo Do this to God ascribe not your deliverances to your Armies and Navies by Sea or Land no nor to Saints in Heaven but to God onely Nor are ye called upon to contemplate God in his Essence or in his Decrees but in his works In his Actions in his Scriptures In both those you shall find him terrible that is Reverend majesticall though never tyrannicall nor cruell Passe we now according to our order laid downe at first to our second part the Propheticall part Davids prospect for the future and gather wee something from the particular branches of that Through the greatnesse of thy power thine enemies shall submit themselves unto thee In this our first consideration is that God himselfe hath enemies and then 2 Part. Habet Deus hostes how should we hope to be nay why would wee wish to be without them God had good that is Glory from his enemies And we may have good that is advantage in the way to glory by the exercise of our patience from enemies too Those for whom God had done most the Angels turned enemies first vex not thou thy selfe if those whom thou hast loved best hate thee deadliest There is a love in which it aggravates thy condemnation that thou art so much loved Does not God recompence that if there be such a hate as that thou art the better and that thy salvation is exalted for having beene hated And that profit the righteous have from enemies God loved us then when we were his enemies Rom. 5.10 and we frustrate his exemplar love to us if we love not enemies too The word Hostis which is a word of heavy signification and implies devastation and all the mischiefes of war is not read in all the New Testament Inimicus that is non amicus unfriendly is read there often very very often There is an enmity which may consist with Euangelicall charity but a hostility that carries in it a denotation of revenge of extirpation of annihilation that cannot This gives us some light how far we may and may not hate enemies God had enemies to whom he never returned The Angels that opposed him and that is because they oppose him still and are by their owne perversenesse incapable of reconciliation We were enemies to God too but being enemies Rom. 5.10 we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son As then actual reconciliation makes us actually friends so in differences which may be reconciled we should not be too severe enemies but maintaine in our selves a disposition of friendship but in those things which are in their nature irreconciliable we must be irreconciliable too There is an enmity which God himselfe hath made and made perpetuall Ponam inimicitias sayes God Gen. 3.15 God puts an enmity betweene the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the woman And those whom God joynes let no man sever those whom God severs let no man joyne The Schoole presents it well wee are to consider an enemy formally or materially that is that which makes him an enemy or that which makes him a man In that
the midst of all those Egypts In all Cities disorderly and facinorous men covet to draw themselves into the skirts and suburbs of those Cities that so they may be the nearer the spoyle which they make upon passengers In all Kingdomes that border upon other Kingdomes and in Islands which have no other border but the Sea particular men who by dwelling in those skirts and borders may make their profit of spoile delight in hostility and have an adversenesse and detestation of peace but it is not so within they who till the earth and breed up cattell and imploy their industry upon Gods creatures according to Gods ordinance feele the benefit and apprehend the sweetnesse and pray for the continuance of peace This is the blessing in which God so very very often expresses his gracious purpose upon his people that he would give them peace and peace with plenty Copia O that my people had hearkned unto me sayes God I would soone have humbled their enemies Psal 81.13 ult there is their peace And I would have fed them with the fat of wheat and with the honey out of the Rocke and there is their plenty Persons who are preferred for service in the warre prove often suspicious to the Prince Ioabs confidence in his own merit and service made him insolent towards the King and the King jealous of him But no man was more suddenly nor more safely preferred then Ioseph for his counsell to resist penury and to preserve plenty and abundance within the Land See Basil in an Homily which he made in a time of dearth and drought in which he expresses himselfe with as much elegancy as any where and every where I thinke with as much as any man where he sayes there was in the skie Tristis severitas ipsa puritate molesta That the ayre was the worse for being so good and the fouler for being so faire and where he inverts the words of our Saviour Messis magna operarii pauci sayes Christ Here is a great harvest Luk. 10.2 but few workmen but Operarii multi messis parva sayes Basil Here are workmen enow but no harvest to gather in that Homily He notes a barrennesse in that which used to be fruitfull and a fruitfulnesse in that which used to be barren Terra sterilis aurum foecundum He prophecyed of our times when not onely so many families have left the Country for the City in their persons but have brought their lands into the City they have brought all their Evidences into Scriveners shops and changed all their renewing of leases every seaven yeares into renewing of bonds every six moneths They have taken a way to inflict a barrennesse upon land and to extort a fruitfulnesse from gold by usury Monsters may be got by unnaturall mixtures but there is no race no propagation of monsters money may be raised by this kinde of use but Non haerebit It is the sweat of other men and it will not stick to thine heire Nay commonly it brings not that outward blessing of plenty with it for for the most part we see no men live more penuriously more sordidly then these men doe The third of these temporall blessings is health without which both the other are no more to any man then the Rainbow was to him who was ready to drowne Quid mihi si peream ego sayes he what am I the better that God hath past his word and set to his seale in the heavens that he will drowne the world no more if I be drowned my selfe What is all the peace of the world to me if I have the rebellions and earth-quakes of shaking and burning Feavers in my body What is all the plenty of the world to me if I have a languishing consumption in my blood and in my marrow The Heathens had a goddesse to whom they attributed the care of the body deam Carnam And we that are Christians acknowledge that Gods first care of man was his body he made that first and his last care is reserved for the body too at the Resurrection which is principally for the benefit of the body There is a care belongs to the health and comelinesse of the body When the Romans canonized Pallorem and Febrim Palenesse and Fevers and made them gods they would as faine have made them Devills if they durst they worshipped them onely because they stood in feare of them Sicknesse is a sword of Gods and health is his blessing For when Hezekias had assurance enough that he should recover and live yet he had still a sense of misery in that he should not have a perfect state of health Esay 38.15 What shall I say sayes he I shall walke weakly all my yeares in the bitternesse of my soule All temporall blessings are insipid and tastlesse without health Now the third branch of this part Populus is the other In quibus not the things but the persons in whom these three blessings are here placed And it is Beatus populus when this blessednesse reaches to all dilates it selfe over all When David places blessednesse in one particular man as he does in the beginning of the first Psalme Beatus vir Blessed is that man there he pronounces that man blessed If he neither walke in the counsell of the wicked nor stand in the way of sinners nor sit in the seate of the scornfull If he doe not all walke and stand and sit in the presence and feare of God he is not blessed So if these temporall blessings fall not upon all in their proportions the people is not blessed The City may be blessed in the increase of accesse And the Lawyer may be blessed in the increase of suits and the Merchant may be blessed in the increase of meanes of getting if he be come to get as well by taking as by trading but if all be not blessed the people is not blessed yea if these temporall blessings reach not to the Prince himselfe the people is not blessed For in favorabilibus Princeps è populo is a good rule in the Law in things beneficiall the King is one of the people When God sayes by David Let all the people blesse the Lord God does not exempt Kings from that duty and when God sayes by him too God shall blesse all the people God does not exempt not exclude Kings from that benefit And therfore where such things as conduce to the beeing and the well-beeing to the substance and state to the ceremony and majesty of the Prince be not chearfully supplied and seasonably administred there that blessing is not fully faln upon them Blessed is that people that are so for the people are not so if the Prince be not so Nay the people are not blessed if these blessings be not permanent for it is not onely they that are alive now that are the people but the people is the succession If we could imagine a blessing of health
for him of whose present beeing in heaven he was already assured surely S. Ambrose could have given no such answer as would have implied a confession or an argument for Purgatory But S. Ambrose is likely to have said to him as he does say there Est in piis affectibus quaedam stendi voluptas In tender hearts and in good natures there is a kinde of satisfaction and more then that a holy voluptuousnesse in weeping in lamenting in deploring the losse of a friend In commemoratione amissi acquiescimus Let me alone give me leave to thinke of my lost Master some way by speaking with him by speaking of him by speaking for him any way I finde some ease some satisfaction in commemorating and celebrating of him But all this would not have amounted to an argument for Purgatory So also if a man should have found S. Augustine in his Meditations after his Mothers death August and heard him say Pro peccatis Matris meae deprecor te Lord I am a suiter now for my Mothers sinnes Exaudi Domine propter medicinam vulnerum tuorum Heare me O Lord who acknowledge no other Balsamum then that which drops out of thy wounds Dimitte Domine Domine obsecro Pardon her O Lord O Lord pardon her all her sinnes And then should have heard S. Augustine with the same breath and the same sigh say Credo quòd jam feceris quae rogo Lord I am faithfully assured that all this is already done which I pray for and then should have asked S. Augustine What he meant to pray for that which was already done S. Augustine could but have said to him as he does to God there Voluntaria oris mei accipe Domine Accept O Lord this voluntary though not necessary Devotion But if a man would have pressed either of them for a full reason of those prayers it would have been hard for him to have received it They prayed for the Dead and they meant no ill in doing so but what particular good they meant they could hardly give any farther account but that it was if not an inordinate yet an inconsiderate piety and a Devotion that did rather transport them then direct them These then prayed for the dead and yet confessed those whom they prayed for to be then in heaven S. Chrysostome prayes for others and yet beleeves them to be in Hell Chrysost Potest infideles de Gehenna dimittere sayes he sed fortè non faciet God can deliver an unbeleeving soule out of hell perchance he will not sayes he but I cannot tell and therefore I will try And yet S. Gregory absolutely forbids all prayer for the dead Gregory where they dyed in notorious sinne As generally their whole Schoole doth at this day either for such sinners as dying in impenitency are presumed to be already in Hell or such as dyed so well that they are already presumed to be in possession of as much as can be asked in their behalfe If then they will still presse and pursue us with that question What could those Fathers meane by their prayer for the Dead but Purgatory We must send them to those Fathers and I pray God they may get to them to aske what they meant So much as any of those Fathers have told us we can tell them and amongst those Fathers Areopag S. Dionyse the Areopagite hath told us most He hath told us the manner and the Ceremonies used at the funeralls of Christians and amongst them the offices and liturgies and services said and read at such funeralls and expressed them so as that we may easily see That first the Congregation made a declaration of their religious and faithfull assurance that they that die in the Lord rest in him And then a protestation in the behalfe of that dead brother that he did die in that faith and that expectation and therefore was then in possession of that rest which was promised to them who dyed so And this testimony for themselves in generall and this application thereof to that dead man sayes he the Church then expressed in the forme of prayer and so seemed to aske and beg at Gods hands that which indeed they did but acknowledge to have received before they gave that the forme of a prayer as of a future thing which was indeed but a recognition of that which was present and past That they did then and that that dead brother had before embraced that beliefe This answer to their question What could they meane but Purgatory by those prayers they may have from those of those ancient times And thus much more from daily practise That every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber and powres out his soule in prayer to God though he have said O Lord enter not into judgement with thy servant forgive me the sinnes of my youth O Lord O Lord blot out all mine iniquities out of thy remembrance though his faith assure him that God hath granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer yea before he made it for God put that petition into his heart and mouth and moved him to aske it that thereby he might be moved to grant it yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his prayer and he solicits and he importunes God for that which his conscience assures him God hath already granted He hath it and yet he asks it and that second asking it implies and amounts but to a thankesgiving for that mercy in which he hath granted it So those Fathers prayed for that which they assured themselves was done before and therefore though it had the forme of a prayer it might be a commemoration of Gods former benefits it might be a protestation of their present faith or an attestation in the behalfe of their dead friend whose first obsequies or yearly anniversary they did then celebrate Add to this the generall disposition in the nature of every man to wish well to the dead And the darknesse in which men were then in what kinde of state the dead were and we shall the lesse wonder that they declined to this custome in those times especially if we consider Chemnicius Exam. De purgator fo 92. b. that even in the Reformation of Religion in these clearer times Luther himselfe and after him if perchance Luther may be thought not to have been enough fined and drawn from his lees The Apology for the Confession of Auspourg which was written after all things were sufficiently debated and had siftings and cribrations and alterations enow allowes of such a forme of prayer for the dead as that of the primitive Fathers may justly seeme to have been All ends in this that neither those prayers of those Fathers nor these of these Lutherans though neither be in themselves to be justified did necessarily imply or presuppose any such Purgatory as the Romane Church hath gone about to evict or conclude out of them Men might pray for the
and Whitsontyde except they were surprized with sudden sicknesse and then they were baptized in their death-bed And both wayes the sense stands well That they were baptized pro Mortuis that is pro Derelictis where they were given over for dead when there was no hope of life Or els pro Mortuis that is pro statu Mortuorum onely with respect to their state after this life because they were going to the dead And these be Divina Compendia as S. Cyprian calls them Gods Abridgements who can give his grace in a minute for 7. l. 4. 2d Magnum as he sayes in the end of that Epistle Clinici an peripatetici whether they be walking or bed-rid Christians Sacramenti majestas sanctitas non derogetur The Sacrament hath the same power whether they be baptized for the living or for the dead that is to remaine with us in this world or to depart to them of the next And this Exposition is not so much the Exposition of later men as that it is destitute of the honour of Antiquity Haeres 28. for Epiphanius the eldest whom we have named yet but Tertullian opposes this sense and interpretation of these words to that sense which Tertullian laid hold of De baptismate vicario of his Baptisme by Proxy and Atturney It is so reasonable that we need no better approbation of it but that though it be especially pursued by Calvin that great professor Estius and reader in Divinity whom we spake of before hath given of it that it is Sensus apertus simplicissimus omnibus aliis anteponendus ad probandum id quod Apostolus instituit aptissimus It is the directest sense and the plainest a sense to be preferred before all the rest as being fittest to establish all that the Apostle proposed in this place To be baptized sayes he jamjam moriturus when he is ready to die is to be baptized pro mortuis for the dead with respect onely to the state of the dead and therefore in this interpretation which even the adversary hath approved and justified for us we may safely rest our selves and the rather because our translations have relation to this sense either as it is in our first Edition pro Mortuis for Dead that is as good as dead or as it is in the second pro Mortuis for the Dead for the state of the dead and the hope of the resurrection Thus beloved S. Paul hath made an argument here to prove the Resurrection of the body One of the hardest bones in the body one of the darkest corners in the mysteries of our Religion and yet all the Religions of the Heathens had ever some impressions of it Seculum resurrectionem mortuorum nec cum errat ignorat sayes Tertullian The world knew that there was some resurrection though they were not come to know what it was For he remembers that at their funeralls they prepared great feasts upon the graves of the dead and cried out to them Resurgite comedite bibite Arise and come to us and eat and drink with us They imagined some bodily being and some possibility of conversation with the living in the Dead You have understood S. Pauls Argument and yet perchance you have not understood S. Paul Quocumque respexer is fulmina sunt sayes S. Chrysostome All S. Pauls words work as lightning Et capit omne quod tetigerit It affects and it leaves some marke upon every thing that it touches And if hee have touched thee now his effect is not onely to make thee beleeve a future resurrection of thy body but to feele a present resurrection in thy soule and to make mee beleeve that thou feelest it by expressing it in thy life and conversation Ad intelligendum Paulum vita pura opus est To understand S. Paul a man must be an honest man Chrysost hee must mend his life that will be beleeved to have comprehended S. Paul For if he be onely the wiser and the learneder and not the better and the honester he hath but halfe understood S. Paul S. Paul condemnes Hymenaeus 2 Tim. 2.17 and Philetus for saying The Resurrection was past already That is as S. Augustine interprets it that all the Resurrection which wee are to have is nothing but a resurrection from sin If S. Paul say so bitterly that this doctrine doth fret as a canker because it is not enough what will he say if thou beest not come so farre as to a Resurrection from sin We fall away into manifold and miserable dejections but Qui cadit non resurget Jer. 8.4 Shall we fall and not arise shall we turne away and not turne againe Shall not God be able to multiply our resurrections as well as the Devill our falls from God Wee are dejected when we see the wicked prosper when God seemes to behave himselfe as a Prince that were not well setled in his government and durst not offend nor displease any party nor take knowledge of their insolent and rebellious proceedings When men that tempt God and never pray for any thing before hand nor thank him for it when they have it and yet sweat in their abundances when the children of God starve for their crummes we are dejected But David found a resurrection in this cafe and a strange one which was that he could bie downe and steepe in peace his resurrection was Psal 4.8 Dedisti laetitiam in corde Thou hast put gladnesse into my heart more then in the time that their corne and their wine increased If all Gods promifes be not presently performed unto us temporall supplies in all temporall wants spirituall supplies in all spirituall distresses presently administred wee are dejected But Abraham had a resurrection in this case when God had said to him In Isaac vocabitur semen tuum In Isaac shall all Nations be blessed and then had commanded him to stop up that fountaine to dig up that foundation to pull up that root of all this universall blessing to sacrifice that very Isaac yet Abraham erected himselfe Heb. 11.19 onely with considering That God was able to raise Isaac from the dead Hee left God to his owne will when hee would doe it it was resurrection enough to him to establish himselfe in the assurance that God could doe it If thou be dejected and depressed with the waight of thy sins if the malediction and curses and denunciations of Gods judgements against sinners lie heavy upon thee make hast to thy resurrection raise thy selfe from it as fast as thou canst for it is a grave that putrifies and corrupts and molders away a soule apace Laetetur cor quaerentium Dominum Psal 105.3 sayes David Thou art not in the right way of finding the Lord if thou doe not finde a joy in the seeking of him Though thou canst not setle thy selfe in a sense that thou hast found him yet thou hast if thou canst find a holy melting and joy
give us all for asking so he meant to give us the words by which we should ask As that Prayer consists of seven petitions and seven is infinite so by being at first begun with glory and acknowledgement of his raigning in heaven and then shut up in the same manner with acclamations of power and glory it is made a circle of praise and a circle is infinite too The Prayer and the Praise is equally infinite Infinitely poore and needy man that ever needst infinite things to pray for Infinitely rich and abundant man that ever hast infinite blessings to praise God for Gods house in this world is called the house of Prayer but in heaven it is the house of Praise No surprisall with any new necessities there but one even incessant and everlasting tenor of thanksgiving And it is a blessed inchoation of that state here here to be continually exercised in the commemoration of Gods former goodnesse towards us My voyce shalt thou heare in the morning Psal 5.3 Psal 55.17 O Lord sayes David What voice the voice of his prayer it is true In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee saies David there And not only then but at noone and at night he vowes that Sacrifice Evening and morning and at noone will I pray and cry unto thee But Davids devotion began not when his prayers began one part of his devotion was before morning Psal 119.62 At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee O Lord sayes he Doubtlesse when he lay downe and closed his eyes he had made up his account with God and had received his Quietus est then And then the first thing that he does when he wakes againe is not to importune God for more but to blesse God for his former blessings And as this part of his devotion Praise began all so it passes through all I will blesse the Lord at all times Psal 34.11 and his praise shall be continually in my mouth He extends it through all times and all places and would faine do so through all persons too as we see by that adprecation which is so frequent with him O that men would therefore praise the Lord and declare the wondrous workes that he doth for the children of men If we compare these two incomparable duties Prayer and Praise it will stand thus Our Prayers besiege God as Tertullian speakes especially of publique Prayer in the Congregation Agmine facto obsidemus Deum but our praises prescribe in God we urge him and presse him with his ancient mercies his mercies of old By Prayer we incline him we bend him but by Praise we bind him our thanks for former benefits is a producing of a specialty by which he hath contracted with us for more In Prayer we sue to him but in our Praise we sue him himselfe Prayer is as our petition but Praise is as our Evidence In that we beg in this we plead God hath no law upon himselfe but yet God himselfe proceeds by precedent And whensoever we present to him with thanksgiving what he hath done he does the same and more againe Neither certainly can the Church institute any prayers more effectuall for the preservation of Religion or of the State then the Collects for our deliverances in the like cases before And when he heares them though they have the nature of Praise onely yet he translates them into Prayers and when we our selves know not how much we stand in need of new deliverances he delivers us from dangers which we never suspected from Armies and Navies which we never knew were prepared and from plots and machinations which we never knew were brought into Consultation and diverts their forces and dissipates their counsels with an untimely abortion And farther I extend not this first part of Prayer in generall in which to that which you may have heard often and usefully of the duty and dignity of Prayer I have only added this of the method and elements thereof that prayer consists as much of praise for the past as of supplication for the future We passe now to our second Part To this particular Prayer 2 Part. and those limmes that make up this body those pieces that constitute this Part. They are many as many as words in it Satisfie and satisfie Vs and doe that early and doe that with that which is thine and let that be mercy So that first it is a prayer for fulnesse and satisfaction Satura satisfie And then it is a prayer not onely of appropriation to our selves Satisfie me But of a charitable dilatation and extension to others Satisfie us all us all thy servants all thy Church And then thirdly it is a prayer of dispatch and expedition Satura nos mane Satisfie us early and after that it is a prayer of evidence and manifestation Satisfie us with that which is and which we may discerne to be thine And then lastly it is a prayer of limitation even upon God himselfe that God will take no other way herein but the way of mercy Satisfie us early with thy mercy And because these are the land-markes that must guide you in this voyage and the places to which you must resort to assist your memory be pleased to take another survay and impression of them I may have an apprehension of a conditionall promise of God and I may have some faire credulity and testimony of conscience of an endeavour to performe those conditions and so some inchoations of thoses promises but yet this is not a fulnesse a satisfaction and this is a prayer for that Satura satisfie I may have a full measure in my selfe finde no want of temporall conveniencies or spirituall consolation even in inconveniencies and so hold up a holy alacrity and cheerefulnesse for all concerning my selfe and yet see God abandon greater persons and desert some whole Churches and States upon whom his glory and Gospel depends much more then upon me but this is a prayer of charitable extension Satura nos not me but us all us that professe thee aright This also I may be sure that God will doe at last he will rescue his owne honour in rescuing or establishing his Servants he will bring Israel out of Egypt and out of Babylon but yet his Israel may lye long under the scourge and scorne of his and their enemies 300. yeares before they get out of Egypt seventy yeares before they get out of Babylon and so fall into tentations of conceiving a jealousie and suspition of Gods good purpose towards them and this is a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition Satura nos mane Satisfie us early O God make speed to save us O Lord make hast to help us But he may derive help upon us by meanes that are not his not avowed by him He may quicken our Counsels by bringing in an Achitophell he may strengthen our Armies by calling in the Turke he may establish our peace and friendships by remitting
unto our image let us consider our selves in him and make our case his and remember how lately he was as well as we and how soone we may be as ill as he and then Descendamus confundamus Let us us with all the power we have remove or slacken those calamities that lie upon them This onely is charity to doe all all that we can And something there is which every man may doe There are Armies in the levying whereof every man is an absolute Prince and needs no Commission there are Forces in which every man is his owne Muster-master The force which we spoke of before out of Tertullian the force of prayer In publique actions we obey God when we obey them to whom God hath committed the publique In those things which are in our own power the subfidies and contributions of prayer God looks that we should second his Faciamus with our Dicamus That since he must doe all we would pray him that he would doe it And his Descendamus with our Ascendamus That if we would have him come down and fight our battayls or remove our calamities we should first goe up to him in humble and fervent prayer That he would continue the Gospel where it is and restore it where it was and transfer it where it was never as yet heard Charity is to doe all to all and the poorest of us all can doe this to any I may then I must pray for this fulnesse and fulnesse is sufficiency And for this satisfaction Mane and satisfaction is contentment And that God would extend this and other his blessings upon others too And if God doe leave us in an Egypt in a Babylon without reliefe for sometime I may proceed to this holy importunity which David intimates here Satura nos mane O Lord make haste to helpe us Satisfie us early with thy mercy and God will doe so Weeping may endure for a night sayes David Psal 30.5 David does not say It must indure for a night that God will by no meanes shorten the time perchance God will wipe all teares from thine eyes at midnight if thou pray Try him that way then If he doe not If weeping doe indure for a night all night yet joy commeth in the morning faith David And then he doth not say Joy may come in the morning but it commeth certainly infallibly it comes and comes in the morning God is an early riser In the Marning-watch God laâ—ked upon the hâ—st of the Egyptians Exod. 14.24 Hee looked upon their counsels to see what they would doe and upon their forces to see what they could doe He is not early up and never the nearer His going forth is prepared as the Morning Hos 6.3 there is his generall Providence in which he visits every creature And hee shall come to us in the former and later raine upon the earth Hee makes haste to us in the former and seconds his former mercies to us in more mercies And as he makes hast to refresh his servants so goes he the same pace to the ruine of his enemies In matutina intersâ—oiam Psal 101.8 I will early destroy all the wicked of the land It is not a weakning of them It is a destruction It is not of a squadron or regiment It is all It is not onely upon the Land but the wicked of any band he will destroy upon the Sea too This is his promise this is his practise this is his pace Thus he did in Sennacheriâ—s Army When they arose early in the Morning 2 King 19.35 behold they were all dead carcasses They rose early that saw it but God had been up earlier that had done it And that story God seemes to have had care to have recorded almost in all the divisions of the Bible for it is in the Historicall part and it is in the Propheticall part too and because God foresaw that mens curiosities would carry them upon Apocryphal Books also it is repeated almost in every Book of that kinde in Ecclesiasticus in Tobit in the Maceabees in both Books That every where our eye might light upon that and every soule might make that Syllogisme and produce that conclusion to it selfe If God bee thus forward thus early in the wayes of Judgement much more is he so in the wayes of mercy with that he will satisfie us Mane early and as Tremellius reads this very Text unoquoque mane betimes in the morning and every morning Now if we looke for this early mercy from God we must rise betimes too and meet God early God hath promised to give Matutinam stellam the Morning-star Revel 2 28. but they must be up betimes in the morning that will take the Morning-star He himselfe who is it hath told us who is this Morning star I Iesus am the bright and Morning starre Revel 2â— â—â— God will give us Jesus Him and all his all his teares all his blood all his merits But to whom and upon what conditions That is expressed there Vincenti dabe To hinâ— that overcommeth I will give the Morning-star Our life is a warfare our whole life It is not onely with lusts in our youth and ambitions in our middle yeares and indevotions in our age but with agonies in our body and tentations in our spirit upon our death-bed that we are to fight and he cannot be said to overcome that fights not out the whole battell If he enter not the field in the morning that is apply not himselfe to Gods service in his youth If hee continue not to the Evening If hee faint in the way and grow remisse in Gods service for collaterall respects God will overcome his cause and his glory shall stand fast but that man can scarce be said to have overcome It is the counsell of the Wise man Prevent the Sunne to give thanks to God Wisd 16.28 and at the day-spring pray unto him You see still how these two duties are marshalled and disposed First Praise and then Prayer but both early And it is placed in the Lamentations as though it were a lamentable negligence to have omitted it It is good for a man Lament 3.27 that he beare his yoake in his youth Rise as early as you can you cannot be up before God no nor before God raise you Howsoever you prevent this Sunne the Sunne of the Firmament yet the Sonne of Heaven hath prevented you for without his preventing Grace you could not stirre Have any of you slept out their Morning resisted his private motions to private Prayer at home neglected his callings so Though a man doe sleepe out his forenoone the Sunne goes on his course and comes to his Meridionall splendor though that man have not looked towards it That Sonne which hath risen to you at home in those private motions hath gone on his course and hath shined out here in this house of God upon Wednesday and upon Friday and upon
a phrase very remarkeable by David He bringeth the winde out of his Treasuries And then follow in that place Psal 135.7 all the Plagues of Egypt stormes and tempests ruines and devastations are not onely in Gods Armories but they are in his Treasuries as hee is the Lord of Hosts hee fetches his judgements from his Armories and casts confusion upon his enemies but as he is the God of mercy and of plentifull redemption he fetches these judgements these corrections out of his treasuries and they are the Money the Jewels by which he redeemes and buyes us againe God does nothing God can doe nothing no not in the way of ruine and destruction but there is mercy in it he cannot open a doore in his Armory but a window into his Treasury opens too and he must looke into that But then Gods corrections are his Acts as the Physitian is his Creature God created him for necessity When God made man his first intention was not that man should fall and so need a Messias nor that man should fall sick and so need a Physitian nor that man should fall into rebellion by sin and so need his rod his staffe his scourge of afflictions to whip him into the way againe But yet sayes the Wiseman Ecclus. 38.1 Honour the Physitian for the use you may have of him slight him not because thou hast no need of him yet So though Gods corrections were not from a primary but a secondary intention yet when you see those corrections fall upon another give a good interpretation of them and beleeve Gods purpose to be not to destroy but to recover that man Do not thou make Gods Rheubarbe thy Ratsbane and poyson thine owne soule with an uncharitable misinterpretation of that correction which God hath sent to cure his And then in thine owne afflictions flie evermore to this Prayer Satisfie us with thy mercy first Satisfie us make it appeare to us that thine intention is mercy though thou enwrap it in temporall afflictions in this darke cloud let us discerne thy Son and though in an act of displeasure see that thou art well pleased with us Satisfie us that there is mercy in thy judgements and then satisfie us that thy mercy is mercy for such is the stupidity of sinfull man That as in temporall blessings we discerne them best by wanting them so do we the mercies of God too we call it not a mercy to have the same blessings still but as every man conceives a greater degree of joy in recovering from a sicknesse then in his former established health so without doubt our Ancestors who indured many yeares Civill and forraine wars were more affected with their first peace then we are with our continuall enjoying thereof And our Fathers more thankfull for the beginning of Reformation of Religion then we for so long enjoying the continuance thereof Satisfie us with thy mercie Let us still be able to see mercy in thy judgements lest they deject us and confound us Satisfie us with thy mercie let us be able to see that our deliverance is a mercy and not a naturall thing that might have hapned so or a necessary thing that must have hapned so though there had beene no God in Heaven nor providence upon earth But especially since the way that thou choosest is to goe all by mercy and not to be put to this way of correction so dispose so compose our minds and so transpose all our affections that we may live upon thy food and not put thee to thy physick that we may embrace thee in the light and not be put to seeke thee in the darke that wee come to thee in thy Mercy and not be whipped to thee by thy Corrections And so we have done also with our second Part The pieces and petitions that constitute this Prayer as it is a Prayer for Fulnesse and Satisfaction a Prayer of Extent and Dilatation a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition and then a Prayer of Evidence and Declaration and lastly a Prayer of Limitation even upon God himselfe Satisfie and satisfie us and us early with that which we may discerne to be thine and let that way be mercy There remaines yet a third Part 3 Part. Gaudium what this Prayer produces and it is joy and continual joy That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes The words are the Parts and we invert not we trouble not the Order the Holy Ghost hath laid them fitliest for our use in the Text it selfe and so we take them First then the gaine is joy Joy is Gods owne Seale and his keeper is the Holy Ghost wee have many sudden ejaculations in the forme of Prayer sometimes inconsiderately made and they vanish so but if I can reflect upon my prayer ruminate and returne againe with joy to the same prayer I have Gods Seale upon it And therefore it is not so very an idle thing as some have mis-imagined it to repeat often the same prayer in the same words Our Saviour did so he prayed a third time and in the same words This reflecting upon a former prayer is that that sets to this Seale this joy and if I have joy in my prayer it is granted so far as concernes my good and Gods glory It hath beene disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolemen who dispute with one another An sit gaudium in Deo de semet Whether God rejoyce in himselfe in contemplation of himselfe whether God be glad that he is God But it is disputed by them onely to establish it and to illustrate it for I doe not remember that any one of them denyes it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that salutation of Dionysius the Tyran to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that he should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I doe and then you are God enough to imagine such a joy in God as is onely a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Plotinus Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would be If there be something that God would be and he be that If Plato should deny that God joyed in himselfe we must say of Plato as Lactantius does Deum potius somniaver at quà m cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God then understood what that God was Bonum simplex sayes S. Augustine To be sincere Goodnesse Goodnesse it selfe Ipsa est delectatio Dei This is the joy that God hath in himselfe of himselfe And therefore sayes Philo Iudaeus Hoc necessarium Philosophiae sodalibus This is the tenent of all Philosophers And by that title of Philosophers Philo alwaies meanes them that know and study God Solum Deum verè festum agere That only God can be truly said to keepe holy day and to rejoyce This
should all fall into hell and so there is mercy in hell And therefore saies the same Father Out of an unspeakeable wisdome and Fatherly care as Fathers will speak loudest to their Children and looke angerliest and make the greatest rods when they intend not the severest correction Christus saepius gehennam comminatus est quam regnum pollicitus Christ in his Gospell hath oftner threatned us with hell then promised us Heaven We are bound to praise God saies he as much for driving Adam out of Paradise as for placing him there Et agere gratias tam progehenna quam pro regno And to give him thanks as well for hell as for Heaven For whether he cauterise or foment whether he draw blood or apply Cordials he is the same Physitian and seekes but one end our spirituall health by his divers wayes For us who by this notification of hell escape hell Psal 118.17 We shall not dye but live that is not dye so but that we shall live againe Therefore is death called a sleepe Lazarus sleepeth saies Christ And Coemiteria are Dormitoria Iohn 11.11 Churchyards are our beds And in those beds and in all other beds of death for the dead have their beds in the Sea too and sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof the voyce of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God shall awake them that slept in Christ before and they and we shall be united in one body for as our Apostle sayes here Heb. 11.39 We shall not prevent them so he sayes also That they shall not be made perfect without us Though we live to see Christ we shall not prevent them though they have attended Christ five thousand yeares in the grave they shall not prevent us but united in one body Rapiemur They and we shall be caught c. Rapiemur We shall be caught up This is a true Rapture Rapiemur in which we doe nothing our selves Our last act towards Christ is as our first In the first act of our Conversion we do nothing nothing in this last act our Resurrection but Rapimur we are caught In everything the more there is left to our selves the worse it is done that that God does intirely is intirely good S. Paul had a Rapture too He was caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. 12.4 but whether in the body or out of the body he cannot tell We can tell that this Rapture of ours shall be in body and soule in the whole man Man is but a vapour but a glorious and a blessed vapour when he is attracted and caught up by this Sun the Son of Man the Son of God O what a blessed alleviation possesses that man and to what a blessed levity if without levity we may so speake to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come that comes newly from Confession and with the seale of Absolution upon him Then when nothing troubles his conscience then when he hath disburdened his soule of all that lay heavy upon it then when if his Confessor should unjustly reveale it to any other yet God will never speake of it more to his conscience not upbraid him with it not reproach him for it what a blessed alleviation what a holy cheerefulnesse of spirit is that man come to How much more in the endowments which we shall receive in the Rapture of this text where we do not onely devest all sins past as in Confession but all possibility of future sins and put on not onely incorruption but incorruptiblenesse not onely impeccancy but impeccability And to be invested with this endowment Rapiemur Wee shall be caught up and Rapiemur in Nubibus Wee shall be caught up in the Clouds We take a Sar to be the thickest In Nubibus and so the impurest and ignoblest part of that sphear and yet by the illustration of the Sun it becomes a glorious star Clouds are but the beds and wombs of distempered and malignant impressions of vapours and exhalations and the furnaces of Lightnings and of Thunder yet by the presence of Christ and his employment these clouds are made glorious Chariots to bring him and his Saints together Psal 135.7 Those Vapours and Clouds which David speaks of S. Augustin interprets of the Ministers of the Church that they are those Clouds Those Ministers may have clouds in their understanding and knowledge some may be lesse learned then others and clouds in their elocution utterance some may have an unacceptable deliverance and clouds in their aspect and countenance some may have an unpleasing presence and clouds in their respect and maintenance some may be oppressed in their fortunes but still they are such clouds as are sent by Christ to bring thee up to him And as the Children of Israel received direction and benefit Exod. 13.21 as well by the Pillar of Cloud as by the Pillar of Fire so do the Children of God in the Church as well by Preachers of inferiour gifts as by higher In Nubibus Christ does not come in a Chariot and send Carts for us Acts 1.11 He comes as he went This same Iesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seene him goe into Heaven say the Angels at his Ascension Luk. 24.50 In what manner did they see him go He was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight So he went so he shall returne so we shall be taken up In the Clouds to meete him in the Ayre The Transfiguration of Christ was not acted upon so high a Scene In aëra as this our accesse to Christ shall be That hill was not so high nor so neare to the Heaven of Heavens as this region of the ayre shall be Nor was the Transfiguration so eminent a manifestation of the glory of Christ as this his comming in the ayre to Judgement shall be And yet Peter that saw but that Mat. 17.14 desired no more but thought it happinesse enough to be there and there to fixe their Tabernacles But in this our meeting of Christ in the ayre we shall see more then they saw in the Transfiguration and yet be but in the way of seeing more then we see in the ayre then we shall be presently well and yet improving The Kings presence makes a Village the Court but he that hath service to do at Court would be glad to finde it in a lodgeable and convenient place I can build a Church in my bosome I can serve God in my heart and never cloath my prayer in words God is often said to heare and answer in the Scriptures when they to whom he speaks have said nothing I can build a Church at my beds side when I prostrate my selfe in humble prayer there I do so I can praise God cheerefully in my Chappell cheerefully in my parish Church as David saies Psal 26.12 In Ecclesiis plurally In the Congregations In every
Congregation will I blesse the Lord But yet I finde the highest exaltations and the noblest elevations of my devotion Psal 35.18 when I give thanks in the great Congregation and praise him among much people for so me thinks I come nearer and nearer to the Communion of Saints in Heaven Apoc. 21.22 Where it is therefore said that there is no Temple I saw no Temple in Heaven because all Heaven is a Temple And because the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe who fill all Heaven are Obviam Domino as S. Iohn sayes there the Temple thereof So far towards that as into the Ayre this text carries us Obviam Domino To meet the Lord. The Lord requires no more not so much at our hands as he does for us When he is come from the right hand of his Father in heaven into the ayre to meet us he is come farther then we are to go from the grave to meet him But we have met the Lord in many a lower place in many unclean actions have we met the Lord in our owne hearts and said to our selves Surely the Lord is here and sees us Gen. â—9 9 and with Ioseph How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against my God and yet have proceeded gone forward in the accomplishment of that sin But there it was Obviam Iesu Obviam Christo We met a Iesus We met a Christ a God of mercy who forgave us those sins Here in our text it is Obviam Domino We must meet the Lord He invests here no other name but that He hath laid aside his Christ and his Iesus names of Mercy and Redemption and Salvation and comes only in the name of power The Lord The Judge of quick and dead In which Judgement he shews no mercy All his mercy is exercised in this life and he that hath not received his portion of that mercy before his death shall never receive any There he judges only by our workes Whom hast thou fed whom hast thou clothed Then in judgement we meet the Lord the Lord of power and the last time that ever we shall meet a Iesus a Christ a God of mercy is upon our death-bed but there we shall meet him so as that when we meet him in another name The Lord in the ayre yet by the benefit of the former mercy received from Iesus We shall be with the Lord for ever First Erimus We shall Bee we shall have a Beeing Erimus There is nothing more contrary to God and his proceedings then annihilation to Bee nothing Do nothing Think nothing It is not so high a step to raise the poore out of the dust Psal 113.7 and to lift the needy from the dunghill and set him with Princes To make a King of a Beggar is not so much as to make a Worm of nothing Whatsoever God hath made thee since yet his greatest work upon thee was that he made thee and howsoever he extend his bounty in preferring thee yet his greatest largenesse is in preserving thee in thy Beeing And therefore his own name of Majesty is Jehovah which denotes his Essence his Beeing And it is usefully moved and safely resolved in the School that the devill himself cannot deliberately wish himselfe nothing Suddenly a man may wish himself nothing because that seemes to deliver him from the sense of his present misery but deliberately he cannot because whatsoever a man wishes must be something better then he hath yet and whatsoever is better is not nothing Nihil contrarium Deo August There is nothing truly contrary to God To do nothing is contrary to his working but contrary to his nature contrary to his Essence there is nothing For whatsoever is any thing even in that Beeing and therefore because it is hath a conformity to God and an affinity with God who is Beeing Essence it self In him we have our Beeing sayes the Apostle Act. 17.28 But here it is more then so not only In illo but Cum illo not only In him but With him not only in his Providence but in his Presence The Hypocrite hath a Beeing and in God but it is not with God Cum illc Esay 29.13 Qua cor longe With his lips he honours God but removes his heart far from him And God sends him after his heart that he may keep him at that distance as S. Gregory reads and interprets that place of Esay Redite praevaricatores ad cor Return O sinners follow your own heart Esay 46.8 and then I am sure you and I shall never meet Our Saviour Christ delivers this distance plainly Discedite à me Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Mat. 25.42 Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing worse then the fire the intensnesse of that fire the ayre of that brimstone the anguish of that worm the discord of that howling and gnashing of teeth is no comparable no considerable part of the torment in respect of the privation of the sight of God the banishment from the presence of God an absolute hopelesnesse an utter impossibility of ever comming to that which sustaines the miserable in this world that though I see no Sun here I shall see the Son of God there The Hypocrite shall not do so we shall Bee and Bee with him and Bee with him for ever which is the last thing that doth fall under ours or can fall under any consideration Of S. Hierome S. Augustine sayes Quae Hicronymus neseivit Semper nullus hominum unquam seivit That that S. Hierome knew not no man ever knew And S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to S. Augustine in magnifying of S. Hierome That when a Catholique Priest disputed with an Heretique and cited a passage of S. Hierome and the Heretique said Hierome lyed instantly he was struck dumb yet of this last and everlasting joy and glory of heaven in the fruition of God S. Hierome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was devested of his mortall body dead for as soon as he dyed at Bethlem he came instantly to Hippo S. Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet he said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to poure the whole Sea into a thimble or to take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is easier then to comprehend the joy and the glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then this Semper in our text the Eternity thereof That we shall be with him for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingnesse is not only incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally and
richer yet neither am I poorer then I was for that But if I have no comfort from the Holy Ghost I am worse then if all mankinde had been left in the Putrifaction of Adams loynes and in the condemnation of Adams sin For then I should have had but my equall part in the common misery But now having had that extraordinary favour of an offer of the Holy Ghost if I feele no comfort in that I must have an extraordinary condemnation The Father came neare me when he breathed the breath of life into me and gave me my flesh The Son came neare me when he took my flesh upon him and laid downe his life for me The Holy Ghost is alwaies neare me alwaies with me with me now if now I shed any drops of his dew his Manna upon you With me anon if anon I turne any thing that I say to you now to good nourishment in my selfe then and doe then as I say now With me when I eate or drink to say Grace at my meale and to blesse Gods Blessings to me With me in my sleep to keep out the Tempter from the fancy and imagination which is his proper Sceane and Spheare That he triumph not in that in such dreames as may be effects of sin or causes of sin or sins themselves The Father is a Propitious Person The Son is a Meritorious Person The Holy Ghost is a Familiar Person The Heavens must open to shew me the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father as they did to Steven But if I doe but open my heart to my selfe I may see the Holy Ghost there and in him all that the Father hath Thought and Decreed all that the Son hath Said and Done and Suffered for the whole World made mine Accustome your selves therefore to the Contemplation to the Meditation of this Blessed Person of the glorious Trinity Keep up that holy cheerefulnesse which Christ makes the Ballast of a Christian and his Fraight too to give him a rich Returne in the Heavenly Jerusalem Be alwayes comforted and alwayes determine your comfort in the Holy Ghost For that is Christs promise here in this first Branch A Comforter which is the Holy Ghost And Him sayes our second Branch the Father shall send There was a Mission of the Son Missio God sent his Son There was a Mission of the Holy Ghost This day God sent the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost But betweene these two Missions that of the Son and this of the holy Ghost we consider this difference that the first the sending of the Son was without any merit preceding There could be nothing but the meere mercy of God to move God to send his Son Man was so far from meriting that that as we said before he could not nor might if he could have wisht it But for this second Mission the sending of the holy Ghost there was a preceding merit Christ by his dying had merited that mankinde who by the fall of Adam had lost as S. August speaks Possibilitatem boni All possibilitie of Redintegration should not only be restored to a possibility of Salvation but that actually that that was done should be pursued farther and that by this Mission and Operation of the holy Ghost actually really effectually men should be saved So that as the work of our Redemption fals under our consideration that is not in the Decree but in the execution of the Decree in this Mission of the holy Ghost into the World Man hath so far an interest not any particular man but Man as all Mankind was in Christ as that we may truly say The holy Ghost was due to us Luâ—â— 24. And as Christ said of himselfe Nonne haec oportuit pati Ought not Christ to suffer all this Was not Christ bound to all this by the Contract betweene him and his Father to which Contract himselfe had a Privity it was his owne Act He signed it He sealed it so we may say Nonne hunc oportuit mitti Ought not the holy Ghost to be sent Had not Christ merited that the holy Ghost should be sent to perfect the worke of the Redemption So that in such a respect and in such a holy and devout sense we may say that the holy Ghost is more ours then either of the other Persons of the Trinity Because though Christ be so ours as that he is our selves the same nature and flesh and blood The holy Ghost is so ours as that we we in Christ Christ in our nature merited the holy Ghost purchased the holy Ghost bought the holy Ghost Which is a sanctified Simony and hath a faire and a pious truth in it We we in Christ Christ in our nature bought the holy Ghost that is merited the holy Ghost Christ then was so sent A Patre as that till we consider the Contract which was his owne Act there was no Oportuit pati no obligation upon him that he must have been sent The Holy Ghost was so sent as that the Merit of Christ of Christ who was Man as well as God which was the Act of another required and deserved that he should bee sent Therefore he was sent A Patre By the Father Now not so by the Father as not by the Son too For there is an Ego mittam If I depart I will send him unto you But Iohn 16.7 cleane thorough Christs History in all his proceedings still you may observe that he ascribes all that he does as to his Superiour to his Father though in one Capacity as he was God he were equall to the Father yet to declare the meekenesse and the humility of his Soule still he makes his recourse to his inferiour state and to his lower nature and still ascribes all to his Father Thouh he might say and doe say there I will send him yet every where the Father enters I will send him saies he Whom Luke 24.49 I will send the Promise of my Father Still the Father hath all the glory and Christ sinks downe to his inferiour state and lower nature In the World it is far otherwise Here men for the most part doe all things according to their greatest capacity If they be Bishops if they be Counsellors if they be Justices nay if they be but Constables they will doe every thing according to that capacity As though that authority confined to certaine places limited in certaine persons and determined in certaine times gave them alwaies the same power in all actions And because to some purposes hee may be my superiour he will be my equall no where in nothing Christ still withdrew himselfe to his lower capacity And howsoever worldly men engrosse the thanks of the world to themselves Christ cast all the honour of all the benefits that he bestowed upon others upon his Father And in his Veruntamen Yet not my will but thine O Father be done He humbled himselfe as low as David in his Non nobis
Dominc Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be all glory given They would have made him King He would not and Judge to divide the Inheritance and he would not He sent the Holy Ghost And yet he saies I will pray the Father to send him So the Holy Ghost was sent by them both Father and Son But not so as that he was subject to a joynt command of both or to a diverse command of either or that he came unwillingly or had not a hand even in his owne sending But howsoever he were perfect God and had alwales an absolute power in himselfe and had ever a desire to assist the salvation of man yet he submitted himselfe to the Order of the Decree He disordered nothing prevented nothing anticipated nothing but staid till all that which lay upon Christ from his Incarnation to his Ascension was executed and then in the due and appointed time issued his Mission It is a blessed Termination Mission It determines and ends many words in our Language Missio as Permission Commission Remission and others which may afford good instruction that as the Holy Ghost did for his so we may be content to stay Gods leasure for all those Missions A consideration which I presume S. Bernard who evermore embraced all occasions of exalting devotion from the melodious fall of words would not have let passe Nor S. Augustine for all his holy and reverend gravity would have thought Nimis juvenile Too light a consideration to have insisted upon And therefore I may have leave to stay your meditations a little upon this Termination these Missions You may have a Permission Many things are with some circumstances Permitted Permissio Mat. 19.8 which yet in discretion are better forborne Moses permitted divorces but that was for the hardnesse of their hearts and Christ withdrew that Permission S. Paul saies he had a Permission Liberty to forbeare working with his owne hands 1 Cor. 9.6 and so to live upon the Church but yet he did not What Permission soever thou have by which thou maist lawfully ease thy selfe yet forbeare till thou see that the glory of God and the good of other men may be more advanced by the use then by the forbearance of that indulgence and that Permission and afford not thy selfe all the liberty that is afforded thee but in such cases The Holy Ghost staid so for his Mission so stay thou for the exercise of thy Permission Thou maist have a Commission too In that of the Peace Commissio in that for Ecclesiasticall causes thou maist have part But be not hasty in the execution of these Commissions Come to an Inquisition upon another man so as thou wouldst wish God to enquire into thee Satan had a Commission upon Iob but he procured it so indirectly on his part by false suggestions against him and executed it so uncharitably as that he was as guilty of wrong and oppression as if he had had no Commission Thou canst not assist in the execution of those Commissions of which thou art till thou have taken the oathes of Supremacie and of Allegeance to thy Soveraigne Do it not till thou have sworne all that to thy Super-soveraigne to thy God That in all thy proceedings his glory and his will and not thine owne passion or their purposes upon whom thou dependest shall be thy rule The holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Commission till it be sealed over againe in thine owne bosome sealed on one side with a cleerenesse of understanding and on the other with a rectitude of conscience that thou know what thou shouldst doe and doe that There is also a Remission Remissio a Remission of sins It is an Article of Faith therefore beleeve it Beleeve it originally and meritoriously in Christ and beleeve it instrumentally and ministerially in the power constituted by Christ in the Church But beleeve it not too hastily in the execution and in the application thereof to thine owne case A transitory sin a sin that spent a few minutes in the doing thereof was by the penitentiall Canons which were the rule of the Primitive Church punished with many yeares penance And doest thou thinke to have Remission of thy seventy yeares sins for one sigh one groane then when that sigh and that groane may be more in contemplation of the torment due to that sin then for the sin it selfe Nay more that thou canst sinne that sin no longer then for that sin Hast thou sought thy Remission at the Church that is August in Gods Ordinances established in the Church In qua remittuntur extra quam non remittuntur peccata In which Ordinances there is an Infallibility of Remission upon true repentance and in a contempt or neglect of which Ordinances all Repentance is illusory and all Remission but imaginary Hieron For Quodammodo ante diem Iudicii judicant God refers causes to the Church to be prepared and mature there before the great Hearing and so hath given the Church a Power to judge before the day of Judgement And therefore August Nemo sibi dicat occultè ago apud Deum ago Let no man say I repent in secret God sees that I repent It was scarce in secret that thou didst sin and wilt thou repent but in secret At least let us know thy repentance by the amendment of thy life and wee shall not much presse the knowing of it any other way Onely remember that the holy Ghost staid for his Mission Presume not thou of thy Remission till thou have done not onely something towards it that might induce it from God that is Repentance but something by it that may testifie it to man that is amendment of life There is a Manumission also Manumission an emancipation an enfranchisement from the tyranny from the thraldome of sin That which some Saints of God particularly S. Paul have importuned at Gods hand so vehemently so impatiently as he did to be delivered from the messenger of Satan and from the provocations of the flesh exprest with that passion O wretched man that I am Rom. 7.22 who shall deliver me from the body of this death He comes immediately there to a thanksgiving I thanke God through Iesus Christ our Lord But his thanksgiving was not for a Manumission hee had not received a deliverance from the power and oppresssion of tentation But he had here as he had every where an intimation from the Spirit of God of that Gratia mea sufficit That God would be as watchfull over him with his grace as the Devill could be with his tentations And if thou come to no farther Manumission then this in this life that is to be delivered though not from tentations by his power yet in tentations by his grace or by his mercy after tentations have prevailed upon thee attend Gods leasure for thy farther Manumission for the holy Ghost staid for his
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
there is wholesome meat before too The cleare light is in the Gospel but there is light in Nature too Revel 19.9 At the last Supper the Supper of the Lambe in Heaven there is no bill of fare there are no particular dishes named there It is impossible to tell us what we shall feed upon what we shall be feasted with at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb Our way of knowing God there cannot be expressed At that Supper of the Lambe which is here here in our way homewards that is in the Sacramentall Supper of the Lambe it is very hard to tell what we feed upon How that meat is dressed how the Body and Blood of Christ is received by us at that Supper in that Sacrament is hard to be expressed hard to be conceived for the way and manner thereof So also in the former meale that which we have called the Dinner which is The knowledge which the Jews had in the Law it was not easie to distinguish the taste and the nature of every dish and to finde the signification in every Type and in every Ceremony There are some difficulties if curious men take the matter in hand and be too inquisitive even in the Gospel more in the Law most of all in Nature But yet even in this first refection this first meale that God sets before man which is our knowledge of God in Nature because wee are then in Gods House all this World and the next make God but one House though God doe not give Marrow and fatnesse Psal 63.6 81.16 as David speaks though he doe not feed them with the fat of the wheat nor satisfie them with honey out of the Rock for the Gospel is the honey and Christ is the Rock yet even in Nature hee gives sufficient meanes to know him though they come to neither of the other Meales neither to the Jews Dinner The benefit of the Law nor to the Christians Supper either when they feed upon the Lamb in the Sacrament or when they feed with the Lamb in the possession and fruition of Heaven Though therefore the Septuagint in their Translation of the Psalms have in the Title of this Psalme added this A Psalme of Ieremy and Ezekiel when they were departing out of the Captivity of Babylon intimating therein that it is a Psalme made in contemplation of that blessed place which we are to go to as literally it was of their happie state in their restitution from Babylon to Jerusalem And though the ancient Church by appropriating this Psalme to the office of the dead to the service at Burials intimate also that this Psalme is intended of that fulnesse of knowledge and Joy and Glory which they have that are departed in the Lord yet the Holy Ghost stops as upon the way before we come thither and since we must lie in an Inne that is Lodge in this World he enables the World to entertaine us as well as to lodge us and hath provided that the World the very world it selfe before wee consider the Law in the World or the Church in the World or Glory in the next World This very World that is Nature and no more should give such an universall light of the knowledge of God as that he should bee The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea And therefore as men that come to great places and preferments when they have entred by a faire and wide gate of Honour but yet are laid downe upon hard beds of trouble and anxiety in those places for when the body seemes in the sight of men to go on in an easie amble the minde is every day if not all day in a shrewd and diseasefull trot As those men will sometimes say It was better with me when I was in a lower place and fortune and will remember being Bishops the pleasures they had when they were Schoole-boyes and yet for all this intermit not their thankfulnesse to God who hath raised them to that height and those meanes of glorifying him so howsoever we abound with joy and thankfulnesse for these gracious and glorious Illustrations of the Law and the Gospel and beames of future Glory which we have in the Christian Church Let us reflect often upon our beginning upon the consideration of Gods first benefits which he hath given to us all in Nature That light Iohn 1.9 by which he enlighteneth every man that commeth into the World That he hath given us a reasonable soule capable of grace here that he hath denied no man and no other creature hath that That he hath given us an immortal soul capable of glory hereafter and that that immortality he hath denied no man and no other creature hath that Consider we alwaies the grace of God to be the Sun it selfe but the nature of man and his naturall faculties to be the Sphear in which that Sun that Grace moves Consider we the Grace of God to be the soule it self but the naturall faculties of man to be as a body which ministers Organs for that soule that Grace to worke by That so as how much soever I feare the hand of a mighty man that strikes yet I have a more immediate feare of the sword he strikes with So though I impute justly my sins and my feares of judgements for them to Gods withdrawing or to my neglecting his grace yet I looke also upon that which is next me Nature and naturall light and naturall faculties and that I consider how I use to use them whether I be as watchfull upon my tongue that that minister no tentation to others and upon mine eye that that receive no tentation from others as by the light of Nature I might and as some morall Men without addition of particular Grace have done That so first for my selfe I be not apt to lay any thing upon God and to say that hee starved me though he should not bid me to the Jews dinner in giving me the light of the Law nor bid me to the Christians Supper in giving me the light of the Gospell because he hath given me a competent refection even in Nature And then that for others I may first say with the Apostle Rom. 1.20 11.33 That they are without excuse who doe not see the invisible God in the visible Creature and may say also with him O altitudo The wayes of the Lord are past my finding out And therefore to those who doe open their eyes to that light of Nature in the best exaltation thereof God does not hide himselfe though he have not manifested to me by what way he manifests himselfe to them For God disappoints none and he is The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them who are a farre off upon the Sea Commit thy way unto the Lord Psal 37.5 sayes David And he sayes more then our Translation seemes to expresse The Margin hath
expressed it for according to the Originall word Galal it is in the Margin not Commit but Roll thy way upon the Lord which may very well imply and intend this precept Carry thy Rolling trench up to God and gather upon him Gen. 18.23 As Abraham when he beat the price with God for Sodom from fifty to ten rolled his Petition upon God fo roll thy wayes upon him come up to him in a thankfull acknowledgement what he hath done for thee in the Gospel in the Law and in Nature And then as Tertullian sayes of publique Prayers Obsidemus Deum In the Prayers of the Congregation wee besiege God So this way wee entrench our selves before God so as that nothing can beat us out of our trenches for if all the Canons of the Church beat upon me so that I be by Excommunication removed from the assistances of the Church though I be inexcusable if I labour not my Reconciliation and my Absolution yet before that be effected I am still in my first trench still I am a man still I have a soule capable of Grace still I have the light of Nature and some presence of God in that though I be attenuated I am not annihilated though by my former abuses of Gods graces and my contumacy I be cast back to the ends of the earth and a far off upon the Sea yet even there God is the confidence of all them As long as I consider that I have such a soule capable of Grace and Glory I cannot despaire Thus Nature makes Pearls Thus Grace makes Saints A drop of dew hardens and then another drop fals and spreads it selfe and cloathes that former drop and then another and another and become so many shels and films that invest that first feminall drop and so they say there is a pearle in Nature A good foule takes first Gods first drop into his consideration what he hath shed upon him in Nature and then his second coate what in the Law and successively his other manifold graces as so many shels and films in the Christian Church and so we are sure there is a Saint Roll thy wayes upon God And as it followes in the same verse Spera in eo ipse faciet we translate it Trust in him and he shall bring it to passe Begin at Alpha and hee shall bring it to Omega Consider thy selfe but in the state of Hope for the state of Nature is but a state of Hope a state of Capablenesse In Nature wee have the capacity of Grace but not Grace in possession in Nature Et ipse faciet sayes that Text God shall doe God shall work There is no more in the Originall but so Ipse faciet Not God shall doe it or doe this or doe that but doe all doe but consider that God hath done something for thee and he shall doe all for He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a farre off upon the Sea Here is a new Mathematiques without change of Elevation or parallax I that live in this Climate and stand under this Meridian looke up and fixe my self upon God And they that are under my feete looke up to that place which is above them And as divers as contrary as our places are we all fixe at once upon one God and meet in one Center but we doe not so upon one Sunne nor upon one constellation or configuration in the Heavens when we see it those Antipodes doe not but they and we see God at once How various formes of Religion soever passe us through divers wayes yet by the very light and power of Nature we meet in one God and for so much as may make God accessible to us and make us inexcusable towards him there is light enough in this dawning of the day refection enough in this first meale The knowledge of God which we have in Nature That alone discharges God and condemns us for by that He is that is He offers himselfe to be The confidence of all the ends of the Earth and of them who are a far of upon the Sea that is of all mankinde But then Lunae radiis non matureseit botrus fruits may be seene by the Mooneshine but the Mooneshine will not ripen them Therefore a Sunne rises unto us in the law and in the Prophets and gives us another manner of light then we had in nature Prov. 4.19 The way of the wicked is as Darknesse sayes Solomon Wherein It follows They know not at what they stumble A man that calls himselfe to no kinde of account that takes no candle into his hand never knowes at what he stumbles not what occasions his sin But by the light of nature if he will looke upon his owne infirmities his own deformities his own inclinations he may know at what he stumbles what that is that leads him into tentation For though S. Paul say That by the law is the knowledge of sin And Rom. 3.20 Rom. 5.13 Rom. 7.7 Sin is not imputed when there is no law And againe I had not knowne sin but by the law in some of these places the law is not intended onely of the law of the Jews but of the law of nature in our hearts for by that law every man knows that he sins And then sin is not onely intended of sin produced into act but sin in the heart as the Apostle instances there I had not knowne lust except the law had said Thou shalt not covet Of some sinnes there is no cleare evidence given by the light of nature That the law supplied and more then that The law did not onely shew what was sin but gave some light of remedy against sin and restitution after sin by those sacrifices which though they were ineffectuall in themselves yet involved and represented Christ who was their salvation So then God was to the Jews in generall as he was to his principall servant amongst them Moses He saw the land of promise but he entred not into it The Jews saw Christ Deut. 34.1 but embraced him not Abraham saw his day and rejoyced They saw it that is they might have seen it but winked at it Luther sayes well Iudaei habuere jus mendicandi The Jews had a licence to beg They had a Breve and might gather They had a Covenant and might plead with God But they did not and therefore though they were inexcusable for their neglect of the light of Nature and more inexcusable for resisting the light of the law That they and we might be absolutely inexcusable if we continued in darknesse after that God set up another light the light of the Gospel which is our third and last part wrapped up in those first words of our Text By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation This word Salvation Iashang is the roote of the name of Iesus 3 Part. Ecclesia Christiana In the beginning of