to the present infirmity and condition of the Jews who were strongly affected to this kind of worship Populum pronum idololatriae ejusmodi officiis religioni suae voluit astringere Adv. Marcion l. 2. saith Tertullian God put this command as it were a bridle into their mouthes who were too prone to run out beyond their limits and that they might not offer unto Idols he confineth and tyeth them up to do it to himself alone And so they were good but ex comparatione by being compared with something that was worse If they will sacrifice it is better they sacrifice to God then to Devils better do this then do worse better do that which had it not been commanded had been neither good nor evil then that which is absolutely evil better do that which God can bear with then that which he hateth better they should be under the restraint and managing of an indulgent hand then that they should run into those abominations which a Father cannot pardon and which will make a loving and tender God a consuming fire Thus they are good being compared with something that is worse Being put into the scales together they are valuable because they outweigh the other Et quale est Bonum quod mali comparatio commendat saith Tertullian What Good is that which were not so if the evil which it shutteth out and with which it is compared did not commend it 3. That which is good in it self and in its own nature is alwaies so Piety and true Religion is older then the World For it is a part and beam of that Wisdome which was with God from everlasting and it shineth forth from one end of the world to the other It hath the same splendour and brightness when the fashion of the world changeth every day It bindeth alike all the men in the world and endeth not but with it yea in its effects it will continue when the world shall be dissolved even to all eternity As it was breathed from God and floweth from his eternal law so it is alwaies the same and remaineth the same till it end in glory For this there is no Consummatum est no end The vail of the Temple is rent in twain the Temple it self is buried in ruines and not a stone left upon a stone every Altar is thrown down the Sacrifices and Ceremonies abolisht but quicquid condidit virtus coelum est that which is truly good is as lasting as the heavens Heaven and earth may pass away Matth. 5.18 but not one tittle of this Good shall fall to the ground 4. These Ceremonies were confined to Time and Place Gal. 4.10 You observe dayes and moneths saith the Apostle Yea and they observed places too Yee say that Jerusalem is the place John 4.20 saith the woman of Samaria to our Saviour But that which is truly good and in it self is of that nature that Time and Place have no power or influence on it either to shrink it up and contract it or to bound and circumscribe it or to put a period to it and cut it off It is never out of season never out of place Evâ—â—y day is the good mans Holiday and his Sacrifice may be offered up at any time It stayeth not for the New-moon or Sabbath-day but is res omnium horarum may shew and display it self at any day in every hour of that day in every minute of that hour Every day every hour every minute is the good mans Sabbath and rest And as it is not tied to Time no more is it to Place All the ends of the world shall remember the Lord Psal 22.27 saith the Psalmist and this Good in the Text may be set up in any part of it The Church is the place and the Market is the place and the Prison may be the place Pietas in plateis sibi secretum facit Religion may build it self an oratory a chapel in the midst of the streets nay in stews in Sodom it self for there Lot was And it is the greatest commendation to be good amongst the worst 5. Last of all the Ceremonious part of Religion was many times omitted many times dispensed with but this Good which is here shewn admitteth no dispensation Circumcision was dispensed with Sacrifice was dispensed with the Sabbath was dispensed with but the true Service of God was ever in force Who ever was dispensed with in a moral and positive law Who ever had this indulgence granted him to defraud or oppress his brother to be cruel and unmerciful to him or to walk contrary to his God Who ever was unjust on earth by a grant and prerogative from heaven Aliud sunt imagines aliud definitiones Imagines prophetant definitiones gubernant saith Tertullian De Monogamia c. 6. Our lives are not regulated by Ceremonies which pass away as a shadow but by that law of God which is indispensable God himself hath dispensed with the one but never with the other When Sacrifices were omitted and the Sabbath for some reasons was not observed God complained not We find that in a manner he doth disclaim Sacrifice as in this place and Isa 1. and Psal 50. but where doth he hold a controversie with his people for omitting it What Ceremony was there almost which was not at some time and upon some just occasion neglected How many Easters how many Jubilees do we read of But that Good which is the rule of life is indispensable No occasion must withdraw us no place can bind us no time hinder us no necessity force us from it because it requireth no more then our Will which is the same in every place and at every time and is imputed to us as the Deed it self when we cannot do it when we have not that power which will reach so far as to bring it into act That which is good in it self Nazianz. Orat de morte 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is so to every man and at all times and in every place is like to him who is the Fountain and Authour of it is so yesterday Hebr. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever This Good then in the Text may subsist in its full beauty and perfection though no altar smoke but a hecatomb all the beasts in the forrest offered up ten thousands rivers of oyl will not make up a just and merciful man For it was observed even by some of the Jews themselves that the greatest Sacrificers were most commonly the greatest Sinners who conversing so much with shadows and lost in the admiration of them had no thought left empty enough to entertein the more substantial and harder parts of the Law were so busie on the one that they cast no look on the other but in the strength of their Sacrifice and a high conceit of this their formal worship walkt carelesly and delicately over them even to that which they forbad So that to say He is a
is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Micah 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good c. Micah 6.8 What doth the Lord require of thee c. Micah 6.8 But to do justly c. Micah 6.8 To love Mercy c. Micah 6.8 And to walk humbly with thy God Gal. 4.29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit even so is it now 1 Thes 4.11 And that yee study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you 1 Thes 4 11. And to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore for yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Yee know not what hour your Lord doth come Matth. 24.42 Watch therefore c. Jam. 1.27 Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the World 1 Sam. 3.18 And Samuel told him every whit and hid nothing from him And he said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good John 6.56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him Ezek. 33.11 As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Turn yee turn ye from your evil wayes For why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Turn ye turn ye c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 From your evil wayes c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Why will ye dye c. A Preparation to the holy Communion 1 Cor. 11.25 This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11.26 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come 1 Cor. 11.28 But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Gal. 1.10 the last part of the ver For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ Coloss 2.6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Sir George Whitmore Knight Psal 119.19 I am a stranger in the earth hide not thy commandments from me A SERMON Preached on Christmas-Day HEBR. II. 17. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren THis high Feast of the Nativity of our blessed Saviour is called by S. Chysostome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Metropolitane Feast For as to the chief City the whole Countrey resorts Thither the Tribes go up saith David even the tribes of the Lord Psal 122. so all the Feast-dayes of the whole year all the passages and periods of the blessed oeconomy of that great work of our Redemption all the solemn commemorations of the Saints and Martyrs meet and are concentred in the joy of this Feast If we will draw them into a perfect circle we must set the foot of the compass upon this Deus homini similis factus God was made like unto Man But if we remove the compass and deny this Assimilation the Incarnation of Christ there will be no room then for the glorious company of the Apostles for the goodly fellowship of the Prophets for the noble army of Martyrs the Circumcision is cut off the Epiphany disappears our Easter is buried and the Feast of the holy Ghosts Advent is past and gone from us as that mighty wind which brought it in Blot out these two words PVER NATVS A Child is born The Son of God is made like unto us and you have wip'd the Saints all out of the Kalendar at once We will not now urge the solemn celebration of the Day That hath been done already by many who have thought it a duty not only of the closet but the Church and a fit subject for publick devotion And upon this account Antiquity lookt upon it with joy and gratitude as upon a day which the Lord had made And S. Augustine commends this anniversary Solemnity as either delivered to after-ages by the Apostles themselves Vel ab ipsis Apostolis vel plenariis Conciliis instituta c. Aug. p. 118. or decreed by Councels and devoutly retained in all the Churches of the world But we do not now urge it For when Power speaks every mouth must be stopped Logick hath no sinews an Argument no strength Antiquity no authority Councels may erre the Fathers were but children all Churches must yeild to one and the first age be taught by the last Job 12.20 Speech is taken away from the trusty and understanding from the aged But yesterday that monstre was discovered which the Churches for so many centuries of years heard not of and so made much of it and embraced it but they must have run from it or abolisht it if their eye had been as clear and quick as theirs of after-times I do not stand up against Power I say I should then forget him whose memory we so much desire to celebrate who was the best teacher and greatest example of obedience What cannot be done cannot oblige And where the Church is shut up every mans chamber every mans breast may be a Temple and every day a Holy-day and we may offer up in it the sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to the blessed Son of God who came and dwelt amongst us and was made like unto us which is the only end of the celebration of this Feast Christ is made like unto us is as true when every man tells himself so and makes melody in his heart as when it is preached in the great congregation But it is heard further and soundeth better and is the sweeter Musick when all the people say Amen when with one heart and soul and in one place they give glory to their Saviour who that he might be so factus est similis was made like unto them My Text is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a principle in Divinity and is laid down unto us in the form of a Modell proposition Which as we are taught in Logick consists of two parts the Dictum and the Modus Here is 1. the Proposition CHRISTVS FACTVS SIMILIS Christ is made like us 2. the Modification or Qualification of it with an OPORTVIT or DEBVIT It dehoved him so to be In the Proposition our meditations are directed to Christ and to his Brethren And we consider Quid Christus Quid nos What Christ is and What we we were God he was
saved and make them nigh unto him to follow in the same method à morte ad vitam from suffering to glory from death to life Tota ecclesia cum Christo computatur ut una persona Hebr. 2.10 Christ and his Church are in computation but one person He ought to suffer and they ought to suffer They suffer in him and he in them Luke 24.26 to the end of the world Nor is any other method answerable either to his infinite Wisdome and Justice which hath set it down in indeleble characters or to our mortal and frail condition which must be bruised before it can be healed and be levelled with the ground before it can be raised up Quicquid Deo convenit homini prodest saith Tertullian that which is convenient for Christ is profitable for us That which becometh him we must wear as an ornament of grace unto our head There is an oportet set upon both Luke 24.26 He ought and we ought first to suffer and then to enter into glory to die first that we may rise again First it cannot consist with the Wisdome of God that Christ should suffer and die and that we might live as we please and then reign with him and so pass à deliciis in delicias from one paradise to another that he should overcome the Devil for those who will be his vassals that he should foil him in his proud temptations for those who will not be humble and beat off his sullen temptation for those who will distrust and murmure that he should make his victorious death commeatum delinquendi a licence and charter for all generations to fling away their weapons and not strike a stroke If he should have done this we could not have taken him for our Captain and if we will not enter the lists he will not take us for his Souldiers Non novimus Christum si non credimus We do not know Christ if we believe him not to be such a one as he is a Captain that leadeth us as Moses did the children of Israel through a wilderness full of fiery Serpents into Canaan through the valley of death into life Nor is it expedient for us who are not born but made Christians and a Christian is not made with a thought whose lifting up supposeth some dungeon or prison in which we formerly were whose rising looketh back into some grave Tolle certamen nè virtus quidem quicquam erit Take away this combat with our spiritual enemies with afflictions and tentations and Religion it self will be but a bare name and Christianity as Leo the tenth is said to have called it but a fable What were my Patience if no Pain did look towards it What were my Faith if there were no Doubt to assault it What were my Hope if there were no Scruple to shake it What were my charity if there were no Misery to urge it no Malice to oppose it What were my Day if I had no Night or what were my Resurrection if I were never dead I was dead saith the Lord of life And his speech is directed to us who do but think we live being indeed in our graves entombed in this world which we so love compassed about with enemies covered with disgraces raked up as it were in those evils that are those locusts which come out of the smoke of the bottomless pit Rev. 9 3. And when we hear this voice and by the virtue and power of it look upon these and make a way through them we rise with Christ 1 John 5.4 our hope is lively and our faith is that victory which overcomeh the world Nor need this method seem grievous unto us For these very words I was dead may put life and light into it and commend it not onely as the truest but as a plain and easie method For by Christ's Death we must understand all those miseries that he suffered before which were as the train and ceremony of his Death as the officers of the High priest to lead him to it as Poverty Scorn and Contempt the Burden of our sins his Agony and bloody Sweat These we must look upon as the principles of this heavenly Science by which our best Master learned to succour us in our sufferings to lift us up out of our graves and to raise us from the dead There is life in his death and comfort in his sufferings For we have not such an High priest who will not help us Hebr. 4.15 2.17 but which is one and a chief end of his suffering and death who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities and is merciful and faithful hath not only power for that he may have and not shew it but will and propension also desire and diligent care to hold up them who are ready to fall and to bring them back who were even brought to the gates of death Indeed Mercy without Power can beget but a good wish S. James his complemental charity Be ye warmed and Be ye filled and Be ye comforted Jam. 2.16 which leaveth us cold and empty and comfortless And Power without Mercy will neither strengthen a weak knee nor heal a broken heart It may as well strike us dead as revive us But Mercy and Power when they meet and kiss each other will work a miracle will uphold us when we fall and raise us from the dead will give eyes to the blind and strength to the weak will make a fiery furnace a bath a rack a bed and persecution a blessing will call those sorrows that are as if they were not Such a virtue and force such life there is in these three words I was dead For though his Compassion and Mercy were coeternal with him as God yet as Man he learnt them He came into the world as into a school and there learnt them by his sufferings and death Hebr. 5.8 For the way to be sensible of anothers misery is first to feel it our selves It must be ours or if it be not ours we must make it ours before our heart will melt I must take my brother into my self I must make my self as him before I help him I must be that Lazar that beggeth of me Luke 16. Luke 10.30 34. and then I give I must be that wounded man by the way-side and then I powre my oyl and wine into his wounds and take care of him I must feel the Hell of sin in my self before I can snatch my brother out of the fire Compassion is first learnt at home and then it walketh abroad Job 29.15 and is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and so healeth two at once both the miserable and him that comforts him They were both under the same disease one as sick as the other I was dead and I suffered are the main strength of our salvation For though Christ could no more forget to be merciful then he could leave off to be
that Jordan yet have been saved but it is necessary to have the laver of regeneration and to cleanse our selves from sin It is not absolutely necessary to eat the Bread and drink the Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper for some cross accident may intervene and put me by but it is necessary to feed on the Bread of life as necessary as my meat to do Gods will True Piety is absolutely necessary because none can hinder me from that but my self but it is not alwaies in every mans power to bring himself to the Font or approch the Lord's Table All that can be said is That when they may be had they are absolutely necessary but they are therefore not absolutely necessary because they cannot alwaies be had And they who stretcht beyond this stretcht beyond their line and lost themselves in an ungrounded and unwarranted admiration of these Ordinances which whilest we look upon them in their proper orb and compass can never have honour and esteem enough Some put the Communion into the mouthes of Infants who had but now their being and into the mouthes of the Dead who had indeed a being but not such a being as to be fit Communicants And S. Augustine thought Baptisme of Infants so absolutely necessary that Not to be baptized was to be damned and therefore was forced also to create a new Hell that was never before heard of and to find out mitem damnationem a more mild and easie damnation more fit as he thought for the tenderness and innocency of Infants Now this was but an errour in speculation the errour of devout and pious men who in honour to the Authour of the Sacraments made them more binding and necessary then they were And we may learn thus much by this overgreat esteem the first and best Christians and the most learned amongst them had of them that there is more certainly due then hath been given in these latter times by men who have learnt to despise all Learning whose great devotion it is to quarrel and cry down all Devotion who can find no way to gain the reputation of wisdome but by fierce and loud impugning of that which hath been practised and commended to succeeding ages by the wisest in their generation by men who first cry down the determinations of the Church and then in a scornful and prophane pride and animosity deny there is any such collection or body as a Church at all But our errours in practise are more dangerous more spreading more universal For what is our esteem of the Sacraments More a great deal then theirs and yet less because it is such as we should not give them even such as they whom they are so bold to censure would have anathematized We think or act as if we did that the water of Baptisme doth cleanse us though we make our selves more Leopards fuller of spots then before that the Bread in the Eucharist will nourish us up to eternal life though we feed on husks all the remainder of our dayes We baptize our children and promise and vow for them and then instill those thriving and worldly principles into them which null and cancel the vow we made at the Font Hither we bring them to renounce the world and at home teach them to love it And for the Lords Supper what is commonly our preparation A Sermon a few hours of meditation a seeming farewel to our common affairs a faint heaving at the heart that will not be lifted up a sad and demure countenance at the time and the next day nay before the next day this mist is shaken off and we are ready to give Mammon a salute and a chearful countenance the World our service to drudge and toyl as that shall lead us to rayl as loud to revenge as maliciously to wanton it as sportfully to cheat as kindly as ever we did long before when we never so much as thought of a Sacrament And shall we now place all Religion nay any Religion in this or call that good that absolutely good and necessary for which we are the worse absolutely the worse every day Well may God ask the question Will he be pleased with this Isa 1.12 Well may he by one Prophet ask Who hath required it 1 Cor. 12.31 and by another instruct us and shew us yet a more excellent way It was not the errour of the Jew alone to forget true and inward Sanctity and to trust upon outward Worship and Formality but sad experience hath taught us that the same errour which misled the Jew under his weak and beggerly elements Gal. 4.4 9. hath in the fulness of time found admittance and harbour in the breasts of Christians under that perfect law of liberty James 2.25 Tit. 2.11 in which the grace of God hath appeared unto all men I am unwilling to make the parallel It carrieth with it some probability that some of them had that gross conceit of God that he fed on the flesh of bulls and drunk the blood of goats For God himself standeth up and denieth it Psal 50.12 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats If I be hungry I will not tell thee If there were not such a conceit why doth God thus expostulate And is there no symptome no indication of this disease in us Do we not believe that God delighteth in these pageants and formalities that he better liketh the devotion of the Ear then of the Heart Do we not measure out our devotion rather by the many Sermons we have heard then the many Almes we have given or which is better the many evil thoughts we have stifled the many unruly desires we have supprest the many passions we have subdued the many temptations we have conquered Hath not this been our Arithmetick to cast up our accounts not by the many good deeds we have done which may stand for figures or numbers but by the many reproches we have given to the times the many bitter censures we have past upon men better then our selves the many Sermons we have heard which many times God knoweth are no better then cyphers and by themselves signifie no more Do we not please our selves with these conceits and lift our selves up into the third heaven Do we not think that God is well pleased with these thoughts do we not believe they are sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour unto him And what is this less then to think that God will eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats nay may it not seem far worse to think that God is fed and delighted with our formalities which are but lyes and that he is in love with our hypocrisie I may be bold to say it is as gross an errour and as opposite to the wisdome of God as the other It is truly said Multa non illicita vitiat animus That the mind and intention of man may draw an obliquity
Phot. Bibl. 1394. Thus it falleth out with dust and ashes with Man whose will is free when his hands are bound who may propose miracles but can do nothing who may will the dissolution of the world when he hath not power to kill a fly or the least gnat that lighteth upon him But Gods Power is infinite nor can any thing in heaven or earth limit it but his Will which doth regulate and restrain it for otherwise it must needs have a larger flow If he cut off or shut up or gather together who can hinder him Job 11.10 The voice of the Lord that is his Power for his word is power is full of majesty Ps 29.3 6. It breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon and maketh them skip like a calf Ps 19.4 5. It hath set a tabernacle for the Sun he biddeth it run its race and commandeth it to stand still He doth whatsoever he will in heaven or in earth Ps 135.6 I need not here enlarge my self Every work of his is a miracle every miracle is eloquent to declare his Power Ps 150.6 Every thing that hath breath speaketh it and that which hath neither breath nor life speaketh it That which hath voice speaketh it and that which is dumb speaketh it Day unto day uttereth speach and night unto night sheweth knowledge Ps 19.2 3. There is no speach nor language where their voice is not heard The Power of this Lord is the proper language of the whole world Non ut ait ille Apul. de mundo silere melius est sed vel parùm dicere It is not good to be silent nay we cannot be silent but yet it is not good to speak too much of the Power of this Lord because we cannot speak enough nor can any finite understanding comprehend it Now by this Power first God created Man and breathed into him a living soul made him as it were wax fit to receive the impressions of a Deity Psal 139.14 made him a subject capable of a Law I am fearfully and wonderfully made saith David marvellously made excellently made set apart selected culled out as it is Psal 4.4 from all the other creatures of the earth Gen. 17.1 to walk with God and be perfect My members were curiously wrought drawn as with a needle for so the word there signifieth embroidered with all variety as with divers colours every part being made instrumental either to the keeping or breaking of the Divine Law I am as it were built and set up on purpose to hearken what that Power which thus set me up will require of me Psal 100.3 In a word It is he that made us not we our selves And he made us to this end to his glory to be united to himself to bowe under his power to be conformed to his will and so to gain a title to that happiness which is ready to meet them that run unto it by doing what he requireth at their hands Again by his Power as God createth so he continues Man and protecteth him doth not leave him as an artificer doth his work to the injuries of time to last or perish as the strength of the materials is of which it consisteth but as by his power he made him so by the same power he upholdeth and preserveth him that in this life he may move and press forward to a better he moveth in him and moveth with him that in this span of time he may make a way to Eternity Acts 17.25 He giveth to all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 life and breath but in a more eminent manner to Man to whom he hath communicated part of his Power and given him Dominion over himself and other creatures 27. He is not far from every one of us he is near us Wisd 6.7 with us within us He hath made the small and the great and careth for all alike Sceleratis sol exoritur saith Seneca His Sun riseth upon the evil and the good Matth. 5.45 saith our Saviour His Power moveth in the hand that smiteth his brother and in the hand that lifteth him out of the dust in the Tyrant which walketh in his palace and in that poor man who grindeth at the mill 2 Sam. 6.6 7. Deus salus est perseverantia earum quae effecerit rerum Apul. de Mundo Psal 31.15 By it Uzzah's hand was stretched out to uphold the Ark and by it he was smitten and dyed It moveth in the eye that is open to vanity and in the eye that is shut up by covenant All the creatures all men all motions and actions of men are in manutenentia Divina My times are in thy hand saith David And in this sense the Schools tell us that the Creation of Man and his Conversation are but one continued act that we may say of every creature so long as it is that so long God createth it because Creation respecteth the being of the creature as made out of nothing and Conservation the being of the same creature as continually quickned and upheld that it fall not back again into that Nothing out of which it was made For God's Power is the Being of the creature and the withdrawing of it is its Annihilation 2 Pet. 3.5 7. The Heavens and the Earth are by the word of God and are established by his power and when he will no longer uphold them all shall be dissolved 12. and the Elements shall melt with heat It is no more but the withdrawing of his Power and the world is at an end Now in the next place from this Ocean of God's Power naturally issueth forth his Power of giving Laws of requiring what he please from his creature For as there is but one omnipotent God so there is but one Lawgiver James 4.12 who is able to save and to destroy For the one is the ground and foundation of the other Psal 100.3 If he made us and not we our selves if he preserve us and not we our selves then not we our selves but he is to give us Laws It is here Do ut des and Facio ut facias He giveth us our Being and Continuance that we should give him our Obedience and Subjection he doth this for us that we may do something for him even whatsoever he shall require The Stoicks say well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All duties are measured out by relations Epict. Enchir. c. 28. The Care of the Father calleth for the Honour of the Son The Oversight of the Master commandeth the Obedience of the Servant And the Father and the Master are to the Son and Servant as Moses is said to be to Pharaoh Exod. 4.16 instead of God domestici magistratus saith Seneca De Benef. 3.11 domestick Lords or Magistrates He is my Father if he speak the word it is done He is my Master and Lord if he say Go I go The reason of this is plain For
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For this Law was not of yesterday but eternal and I ought not for fear of any man to break the Law of God and Nature And what better answer can a Christian make to all unlawful commands either of those we love or of those we fear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. God hath not enacted these I see more of the claw of the Devil then finger of God in them These are Novellae institutionis but of yesterday the breathings and dictates it may be of Lust and Covetousness of Pride and Ambition and I must not consider what Man what this Man this Lord or this Potentate but what the Lord of Lords and King of Kings requireth at my hands When his Laws are publisht all others must be silent or as little hearkened to as if they were as when the Sun appeareth the Stars are not seen nor seen at any time-but with that light which they borrow from it For again as he is Lord paramount and hath an absolute Will so his Will is attended with Power with that Power which made thee And he did not make thee a Man that thou shouldest make thy self a beast of burden to couch under every load which the hand of a Pharisee will be ready to lay upon thee He did not make thee capable of a Law that thou shouldst keep the Laws of the Flesh or of Men. He did not publish his will that upon this or that pretense thou shouldest resist it that the fear of a frown or the love of the world should be stronger and prevail with thee more then his Will For if thou wilt not do what he requireth he will not do what thou expectest but leave thee to thy choice to those new Lords and Masters under the same wrath and curse to walk delicately along with them to that vengeance which will fall upon the heads of those who will not hearken to this Lord. For thirdly by the same Power he preserveth and protecteth thee which all Power that is over us doth not For then the Thief may be said to protect him he robbeth the Strong man may be said to protect him he bindeth the Oppressour him whom he hath eaten up and Cain to have protected Abel when he knockt out his brains But the power of God is a saving and preserving Power and under the shadow of his wings we shall be safe And to this end he spreadeth his wing over us he guideth and holdeth us up that we may walk before him in all obedience in the land of the living bowing to his will against our Lust against our Ambition against all those machinations and temptations which press upon us to break his will even whilst we are under his wing What should a Wanton an Oppressour a man of Belial do under God's wing And yet we see many times they play and revel it in the shadow when they that do his will are beaten with the tempest and yet are safer there then the others are in their Paradise are the miracles of God's Providence to be manifested at last to all the world It is true the wicked are in some sort under God's wing for he upholdeth and continueth them and prolongeth their daies And if an eye of flesh may judge they are the greatest favourites of this Lord and if the world were heaven they were the onely Saints 1 Cor. 2.15 But the spiritual man judgeth all things and to his eye they are but a sad and ruful spectacle as condemned men led with musick to execution For God preserveth and protecteth them no otherwise then he doth Serpents and Vipers and Beasts of prey He upholdeth them no otherwise then he doth the Earth and the Devils and Hell it self which he preserveth for them as he reserveth them for it as S. Jude speaketh in his Epistle And then Jude 6. as Abraham said to the Rich man Son remember Luke 16.25 thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things so shall this Lord say to those to a Cain to a Nimrod an Ahab a Pharisee a Hypocrite Remember you were under my wing under my protection and remember what you did there how you beat your fellow-servants how you stripped one dispossessed another killed a third how even then when you were under my wing when I upheld and preserved you you said in your hearts there was no God Psal 14.1 This is a fearful and hideous change like the fall of Lucifer Onely he fell from heaven indeed these from an imaginary one a heaven built up with a thought but both fall into the same place Oh then since he made us since in him we live Acts 17.28 and move and have our being let us live unto this Lord let our motion be regular and let us be what he would have us to be Let it be our wisdome to follow him in those waies which his infinite Wisdome hath drawn out for us Let our Love be the echo of his Love This Wisdome is from above and this Love is kindled from the coal of a Cherubin is a fire from heaven kindled in our hearts and it will lick up all fluid and unbounded desires in us Let us remember that God hath endowed us with faculty and ability to do what he requireth that he hath committed and entrusted this unto us for this end that he doth now as it were manu suâ tenere debitores that he hath us in his power obliged and bound fast unto him by this his gift as by an instrument or bond 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Apostle's word Rom. 3.2 and it is the very word which the Civilians use He hath committed and entrusted his commandments and requireth something of us And as he that entrusteth his money doth not lose the propriety of it no more doth God of that substance of our intellectual and practick faculties which he hath put into our hands He hath not passed them over to us as a free and absolute gift Luke 19.13 but left them onely to traffick with and improve till he come For in receiving the Law and will and faculty to observe it Arist. Eth. 5. we make a kind of contract with God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle For the Law it self is a kind of contract or covenant because he that cometh under a Law hath bound himself to keep it Let us remember then that we come under many obligations I cannot name the several waies we stand obliged to this Lord. We may comprehend all in that axiome of the Civilians Tot obligationes praesumuntur quot sunt scripturae We have as many engagements and obligations as there be instruments and writings betwixt us and there are as many as there be precepts and commands which are the best helps to promote us to perfection Let us then provide against the day of trial For not to keep covenant with this Lord but when he cometh to make inquisition whither
he hath a morrow And we may easily reconcile these Texts by the two persons the Covetous and the Careless for both Texts do not so apparently fit both Let then the Careless and negligent person have this goad set in his side That if he provide not for his family he is worse then an infidel this Text is infallibly true for him And then hold back the Covetous beast with this bit and bridle That he must not care for the morrow and this Text will fit him qui ipsa quiete fatigatur as Hilary speaketh who is weary of nothing more then rest and is in labour if he labour not and drudge in the world And thus may the Careless learn to labour and the Covetous forget to care the Sluggard may awake from his lethargy and the Covetous not rise so early nor make such hast to be rich The one Text is as a whip on the back of the Slothful and the other as a chain to bind the desires of the Covetous To the one Labour not to the other Labour cannot be spoken with accent sharp enough Our Saviour could not be too expressive against Covetousness because it is a vice which beareth up and carrieth a fair name and credit in the world Men speak well of it and call it Wisdome and Providence Again S. Paul could not speak loud enough to the Idle person because Idleness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a flattering and pleasing evil and which we do not easily shake off especially when it hath got a mask on and cometh forth with the varnish and colour of Piety and can shrowd and shelter it self under the beauty of holiness We must not pass by the idle and boistrous Gallant but give him a salute because he looketh for it For we see too many who have no calling no profession qui volitant velut umbrae who flutter up and down like shades and apparitions like Ghosts which leave no impression behind them or such a one as is as dishonourable as the hole in a slave's ear or the mark in the forehead of an impostour They plough not Matth. 6.26 29. they trade not they preach not they plead not they neither sow nor reap yet Solomon in all his royalty was not clothed like one of these nor yet so wise as they are in their own conceits Salve Getulice Why should we now bow the knee and do them reverence Nay rather we may be bold to tell them that they are carcinomata reipub the cankers and impostumes of their Countrey that they are pinned to the Common-wealth as their Feathers are to their caps for shew but for no use at all like those parasitical plants as the Herbalists call them which spring out of other plants and have their juyce and nourishment and vegetable life from their roots or as Warts upon a mans hand which grow up with it and trouble and deface it or indeed as Idoles which though drest up and painted and gilt yet are nothing in this world I know they may reply that they are born rich and what they possess is theirs by inheritance This may be true but yet they were not born Fools nor were Luxury and Idleness entailed upon them at the same time They were born Men and not as the Beasts of the field to eat and drink and straggle up and down and then fall to the ground Were they born to great possessions It is then most unnatural to draw this conclusion from hence That they may do what they list It will follow rather That they are more bound to be active in doing of good That they are more obliged to God which putteth that bread into their mouthes that he maketh others stoop for to the ground I will not put the Sheephook into their hands and yet the Patriarchs were Shepherds I will not bind them to a Trade yet Kings and Emperours have bound themselves to one and made it their recreation I will not reach to them the Ax or the Chizel Matth. 13.55 Mark 6.3 and yet Joseph of the house of David and according to the letter Christ himself was a Carpenter I will not pull their hands to the Plough for then I should take them from Complement and the Gentleman were lost But I cannot think that God gave them plenty to make them idle that he did so much for them that they should do nothing or which is worse learn to defie him that he gave them strength to make it the law of unrighteousness wit Wisd 2.11 to descant on his Providence to derogate from his Miracles to baffle Religion to laugh at Judgment and to mock at Hell We cannot think he made them rich to make them Atheists For nothing else can be raised upon Idleness not those mountains of Piety and Charity but big and swelling imaginations which exalt themselves against God 2 Cor. 10.5 There be other Trades besides those that are Manual vivendi artes the Art of good life the Art of composing our affections the Art of ordering our private affairs and of being subservient to the publick quae non sub manu nascuntur which cannot be learnt in the midst of riot and wantonness which will cost us more pains then they take who work with their hands For should the Plough-man turn Student he would look back upon his former dayes as upon so many festivals and on his labour as not so great compared with that toil and contention of mind which stretch and rack him in the dayes of his Gown To conclude this Non otiosè vivit qui qualitercunque utiliter vivit saith Aquinas He liveth not idly who imployeth himself in doing good whether as a Divine or Lawyer or Tradesman or Gentleman or Lord or King He doth many times more then labour with his hands who doth stretch his endeavours to the furthest to be profitable to himself and others to act his part upon the common stage to make good his place in the Commonwealth who bindeth himself to those acts which are proper to him and therefore do most become him Facito aliquid operis ut te semper Diabolus inveniat occupatum Aegyptiorum monasteria hunc morem tenent ut nullum absque operis labore suscipiant non tam propter victus necessitatem quâ—m animae salutem Hier Rustico saith S. Hierom be alwaies doing some work or other that the Devil may find thee full and imployed so busie in thy calling that he shall not spy any place where he may fasten his dart If he thus find thee he hath lost his craft and his strength and will neither be a Serpent to deceive nor a Lion to devour thee This is S. Pauls Counsel and part of his Method and he setteth his seal to it and doth not onely counsel but command it Study to be quiet Do your own business Work with your own hands SICVT PRAECEPIMVS as we commanded you We may look upon it and we can but look upon it
no right at all if it could be taken from him Neither deceit nor violence can take away a right No man can lose his right till he forfeit it which was impossible for this supreme Lord to do All the contradictions of all the men in the world cannot weaken his title or contract his power If all should forsake him Luke 19.14 if all should send this message to him We will not have thee reign over us yet in all this scorn and contempt in this open rebellion and contradiction of sinners he is still the Lord. And as he favoureth those subjects who come in willingly whom he guideth with his staff so he hath a rod of iron to bruise his enemies And this Lord shall command and at his command his servants and executioners shall take those his enemies who would not have him reign over them 27. and slay them before his face He will not use his power to force and drag them by violence to his service but if they refuse his help abuse the means which he offereth them and turn his grace into wantonness then will he shew himself a King and his anger will be more terrible then the roaring of a lion They shall feel him to be a Lord when it will be too late to call him so when they shall weep and curse and gnash with their teeth and howl under that Power which might have saved them For the same Power openeth the gates of heaven and of hell Psal 75.8 In his hand is a cup saith the Psalmist and in his hand is a reward and when he cometh to judge he bringeth them both along with him The same Power bringeth life and death as Fabius did peace or war to the Carthaginians in the lap of his garment and which he will he powreth out upon us and in both is still our Lord. When Faith faileth and Charity waxeth cold and the world is set on wickedness when there be more Antichrists then Christians he is our Lord yesterday and to day Hebr. 13.8 and the same for ever In the last place as the Dominion of our Lord is the largest that ever was so is it most lasting and shall never be destroyed Dan. 2.44 It shall break in pieces and destroy all the Kingdoms of the earth but it self shall stand fast for ever No violence shall shake it no craft undermine it no time wast it but Christ shall remain our Lord for ever The Apostle indeed speaketh of an end of delivering up his Kingdom 1 Cor. 15.24 28. and of subjection It is true there shall be an end but it is when he 〈◊〉 delivered up his Kingdom and he shall deliver up his Kingdom but not till he hath put down all authority Finis hic defectio non est nec traditio amissio nec subjectio infirmitas saith Hilary This end is no fayling this delivery no loss this subjection no weakness nor infirmity Regnum regnans tradet He shall deliver up his power and yet be still a Lord. Take Nazianzen's interpretation and then this Subjection is nothing else but the fuâ—filling of his Father's will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he in his 36th Oration which he made against the Arians Take others and by Christ is meant his Church which in computation is but one Person with Christ and when his Church is perfected then doth he deliver up his Power and Dominion But let us but observe the manner of the ending of this Kingdom and the fayling and period of others and we shall gain light enough to guide us in the midst of all these doubts and difficulties Either Kingdoms are undermined by craft and shaken by the madness of the people who shun the whip and are beaten with Scorpions cast off one yoke and put on a heavier as the young men in Livy complained or Kingdoms are changed and altered as it pleaseth those who are victorious whose right hand is their God But the Power of this Lord is then and onely in this sense said to have an end when indeed it is in its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection when there will be no enemy stirring to subdue no use of laws when the subjects are now made perfect when this Lord shall make his subjects Kings and crown them with glory and honour for ever Here is no weakness no infirmity no abjuration no resignation of the Crown and Power but all things are at an end his enemies in chains and his subjects free free from the fear of Hell or temptations of the Devil the World or the Flesh And though there be an end yet he reigneth still though he be subject yet he is as high as ever he was though he hath delivered up his Kingdome yet he hath not lost it but remaineth a Lord and King for evermore And now you have seen this Lord that is to come you have seen him sitting at the right hand of God his Right and Power of government his Laws just and holy and wise the Virtue and Power the Largeness and the Duration of his government A sight fit for those to look on who love and look for the coming of this Lord. For they that long to meet him in the clouds cannot but delight to behold him at the right hand of God Look upon him then sitting in majesty and power and think you now see him moving towards you and descending with a shout For his very sitting there should be to us as his coming it being but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preparation to that great day Look upon him and think not that he there sitteth idle but beholdeth the children of men those that wait for him and those that think not of him And he will come down with a shout not fall as a timber-log for every frog every wanton sinner to leap upon and croak about but come as a Lord with a reward in one hand and a vengeance in the other Oh it is far better to fall down and worship him now then not to know him to be a Lord till that time that in his wrath he shall manifest his power and fall upon us and break us in pieces Look then upon this Lord and look upon his Laws and write them in your hearts For the Philosopher will tell us that the strength and perfection of Law consisteth not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the wise and discreet framing of them but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the right and due performance of them For Obedience is the best seal and ratification of a Law Christ is Lord from all eternity and cannot be devested of his Royal office yet he counteth his Kingdome most complete when we are subject and obedient unto him when he hath taken possession of our hearts where he may walk not as he did in Paradise terrible to Adam who had forfeited his allegiance but as in a garden of pleasures to delight himself with the sons of men Behold
him in his mount to the Hypocrite and cannot strike off his mask to the Politician 2 Tim. 3.15 and cannot make him wise unto salvation that cannot make us displease our selves that cannot make us love our selves not aw an eye not bind an hand not silence a word not stifle a thought but leaveth us with as little power and activity as they who have been dead long ago although the VENTVRVS EST the doctrine of Christs second advent sound as loud as the Trump shall do at the last day Faith shall we call this or a weak and faint perswasion or a dream or an echo from an hollow heart which when all the world proclaimeth he will come resoundeth it back again into the world a Faith which can speak but not walk or work a Faith which may dwell in the heart of an hypocrite a murderer a devil For all this one may believe or at least profess and yet be that liar that Antichrist 1 Joh. 2.22 4.3 which denieth Jesus to be Lord or that he ever came in the flesh or will come again to judge both the quick and the dead Secondly as it casteth an aspect upon our Faith so it doth upon our Hope Padag 1. which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the blood of our Faith saith Clemens Alexandrinus without which it will grow faint and pale and languish Oportet habere aliquem spei cumulum Advers â—â—ostic c. 6. saith Tertullian and therefore this addition of Hope to Faith is necessary For if we had all Faith and had not Hope this Faith would profit us nothing Faith without Hope may be in hell as well as on the earth Believe who does not or at least say so But how many expect Christs coming how many are saved The Apostle speaketh of a fearful looking for of judgement Heb. 10.27 Indeed they who hope not for Christs coming who do but talk of it and are unwilling to believe themselves may be said to look for it because they ought to do it And his coming is as certain as if they did Truly and properly they cannot be said to expect it For how should that be in their expectation which is not so much as in their thought Hope will not raise it self upon every Faith nor is that Faith which most of the world depend on a fit basis for hope to build upon Even he that despaireth believeth or else he could not despair For who will droop for fear of that veniet of that Judgement which he is so willing to perswade himself will never come Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us that we should glory in Faith and hope and make them the subjects of our songs and rejoycing when our Faith is but such a one as is dead and our Hope at last will make us ashamed when our Faith is the same which is in hell and our Hope will leave us with the Devil and his angels a Faith worse then Infidelity and a Hope more dangerous then Despair Faith when we do not believe and a Hope when there is great reason we should despair and which will serve onely to add to the number of our stripes yet this is the Faith this is the Hope of the Hypocrite of the formal Christian These are thy Gods O Israel Therefore in the last place that we may joyn these two together Faith and Hope we must draw in that excellent gift of Charity which is Copulatrix virtus saith Cyprian the uniting and coupling Virtue not onely of men but of these two Theological Virtues which will not meet together but in Love or if they do with so little truth and reality that they will rather disadvantage then help us For where Virtue is not the name is but an accusation I told you before that Hope doth suppose Faith For we cannot hope for that which we do not believe Yet Faith such as it may be may shew it self and speak proud words when Charity is thrust out of doors Many there be who have subscribed to the VENIVRVS EST that the Lord will come who have little reason to hope for his coming Rev. 22.12 How many believe he will come and bring his reward with him and yet strike off their own chariot-wheels and drive but heavily towards it How many believe there is a Judge to come and wish there were none Rom. 5.5 Faith saving Faith Hope Hope that will not make ashamed cannot dwell in the heart till Charity hath taken up a room But when she is shed and spread abroad in our hearts then they are in conjunction meet together and kiss each other Faith is a foundation and on it our Love raiseth it self as high as heaven in all the several branches and parts of it Because I believe I love And when my Love is real and perfect my Hope springeth up and bloometh and flourisheth My Faith seeth the object my Love imbraceth it and the means unto it and my Hope layeth hold on it and even taketh possession of it And therefore this Coming of the Lord is a threat and not a promise if they meet not If Faith work not by Love and both together raise not a Hope VENTVRVS EST he will come is a thunderbolt And thus as it looketh upon Faith and Hope so it calleth for our Charity For whether we will or no whether we believe or no whether we hope or no he will certainly come but when we love him 2 Tim. 4.8 then we love also his appearance and his coming and our Love is a subscription to his Promise by which we truly testifie our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to his Promise that he will come we echo it back again to him Even so come Rev. 22.20 Lord Jesus For that of Faith may be in a manner forced that of Hope may be groundless but this of Love is a free and voluntary subscription Though I know he will come yet I shall be unwilling he should come upon me as an enemy that he should come to me when I sit in the chair of the scornful or lie in the bed of lust or am wallowing in the mire or weltring in my own blood or washing my feet in the blood of my brethren For can any condemned person hope for the day of execution But when I love him and bow before him when I have improved his talent and brought my self to that temper and constitution that I am of the same mind with this Lord and partaker of his divine nature 2 Pet. â— 4 then Faith openeth and displayeth her self and Hope towreth us up as high as the right hand of God and would bring him down never at rest never at an end but panting after him till he do come crying out with the souls under the altar How long Lord How long How long This is the very breathing and language of Hope Then Substantia mea apud te Psal 39.7 as
ground and fell flat on his face yet he rose again and took courage to betray the Israelites to that sin with the Midianitish women which brought a curse upon them and death upon himself Num. 31.8 for he was slain for it with the sword What evidence can prevail with what terrour can move a wicked man hardned in his sin who knoweth well enough and can draw the picture of Christ coming and look upon it and study to forget it and then put on an ignorance of his own knowledge and though he know he will yet perswade himself he will not come And he that can thus stand out against his own knowledge in the one may be as daring and resolute in the other and venture on though Hell it self should open her mouth against him and breathe vengeance in his face For howsoever we pretend ignorance yet most of the sins we commit we commit against our knowledge Tell the Foolish man that the lips of the harlot will bite like a Cocatrice he knoweth it well enough and yet will kiss them Prov. 20.1 Tell the Intemperate that wine is a mocker he will taste though he know he shall be deceived The cruel Oppressour will say and sigh it out that the Lord is his God and yet eat up his people as he eateth bread Psal 14.4 53.4 Matth. 7.12 Who knoweth not that we must do to others as we would have others do to us and yet how many are there I may ask the question that make it good in practice Who knoweth not what his duty is and that the wages of sin is death Rom. 6.23 and yet how many seek it out and are willing to travail with it though they die in the birth Cannot the thought of judgment move us and will the knowledge of a certain hour awake us Will the hardned sinner cleave to his sin though he know the Lord is coming and would he let it go and fling it from him if the set determined hour were upon record No they wax worse and worse saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 3.13 Earth is a fairer place to them then Heaven it self nor will they part with one vanity nor bid the Devil avoid though they knew the very hour I might say though they now saw the Lord coming in the clouds For wilt not thou believe God when he cometh as near thee as in wisdome he can and as his pure Essence and infinite Majesty will suffer and art thou assured thou wilt believe him if he would please to come so near as thy sick phansie would draw him Indeed this is but aegri somnium the dream of a sick and ill-affected mind that complaineth of want of light when it shineth in thy face For that information which we so long for we cannot have or if we could it would work no more miracles then that doth which we already have but leave us the same lethargicks which we were In a word if Christ's doctrine will not move us the knowledge which he will not teach would have little force And though it were written in capital letters At such a time and such a day and such an hour the Lord will come we should sleep on as securely as before and never awake from this death in sin till the last Trump To look once more upon the Non nostis horam and so conclude We may learn even from our Ignorance of the hour thus much That as the Lords coming is uncertain so it will be sudden As we cannot know when he will come so he will come when we do not think on it cum totius mundi motu Apol. c. 33. cum horrore orbis cum planctu omnium si non Christianorum saith Tertullian with the shaking of the whole world with the horrour and amazement of the Vniverse every man howling and lamenting but those few that little flock which did wait for his coming It is presented to us in three resemblances 1 Thes 5.2 3. Luke 21.35 1. of travel coming upon a woman with child 2. of a Thief in the night and 3. of a Snare Now the Woman talketh and is chearful now she layeth her hands to the spindle and her hands hold the distaff and now she groaneth Now the Mammonist locketh his God up in his chest layeth him down to sleep and dreameth of nothing else and now the Thief breaketh in and spoileth him Now our feet are at liberty and we walk at large walk on pleasantly as in fair places Now the bitterness of death is past and now the Snare taketh us Now we phansie new delights send our thoughts afar off dream of Lordships and Kingdoms Now we enlarge our imaginations as Hell anticipate our honours and wealth and gather riches in our mind before we grasp them in our hand Now we are full now we are rich now we reign as Kings now we beat our fellow-servants and beat them in our Lord's name and in this type and representation of hell we entitle our selves to eternity of bliss we are cursed and call our selves Saints and now even now he cometh Now sudden surprisals do commonly startle and amaze us but after a while after some pause and deliberation we recover our selves and take heart to slight that which drove us from our selves and left us as in a dream or rather dead But this bringeth either that horrour or that joy which shall enter into our very bones settle and incorporate it self with us and dwell in us for evermore Other assaults that are made upon us unawares make some mark and impression in us but such as may soon be wiped out We look upon them and being not well acquainted with their shapes they disturb our phansie but either at the sight of the next object we lose them or our Reason chaseth them away Aul Gel. Noct. Att l. 19. c. 1. The tempest riseth and the Philosopher is pale but his Reason will soon call his blood again into his cheeks He cannot prevent these sudden and violent motions but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he doth not consent he doth not approve these unlookt-for apparitions and phantasies He doth not change his counsel but is constant to himself Sudden joy and sudden fear with him are as short as sudden But this coming of our Lord as it is sudden so it bringeth omnimodam desolationem an universal horrour and amazement seiseth upon all the powers and faculties of the Soul chaineth them up and confineth them to loathsome and terrible objects from which no change of objects can divert no wisdome redeem them No serenity after this darkness no joy after this trembling no refreshing after this consternation For no coming again after this coming for it is the last Ser. 140. de Tempore And now to conclude Veniet fratres veniet sed vide quomodo te inveniet saith Augustine He shall come he shall come my brethren His coming is uncertain and his coming is sudden
is made familiar to us winneth our affection to it delighteth and overcometh us and what did at first stand at the door and beg an entrance at last entreth in and taketh full possession of us and commandeth in chief Heb. 3.1 Last of all let us consider the Apostle and high Priest of our profession CHRIST JESVS even this Lord who is to come who hath opened the treasuries of heaven brought down Life and Immortality displayed his rich and precious promises of heaven and everlasting happiness all which he will make ours if we make good but this one word but this one syllable Watch. This is the price of Heaven This he dyed for that we should be a peculiar people unto him even his Watch-men that as he for the joy which was set before him endured the Cross despised the shame Heb. 12.2 3. 13.8 suffered the contradictions of sinners and yet was yesterday and to day and the same for ever so we by his power and the efficacy of his Spirit by the virtue of his Precepts and the glory of his Promises may establish our selves watch over our selves secure our selves in the midst of snares and so be in the world as out of the world walk in the midst of temptations and be untoucht Dan. 3.25 walk in the midst of all these fiery trials as the three Children did in the furnace and have no hurt hear the Musick of the world but not hearken to it behold its allurements and not be moved be one and the same in all the changes and variety of temptations the same when they flatter and the same when they threaten which is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be like unto our Lord Christ And because the Watch-man watcheth in vain unless the Lord keepeth the City we must call upon this Lord to watch with us Psal 127.1 and to watch over us who is not gratiae angustus as S. Ambrose speaketh no niggard of his grace but as he hath given us a command to watch so he hath given us another to depend upon him for assistance Greg. Hom. 36. Et scimus quia petentes libenter exaudit quando hoc petitur largiri quod jubet We know it is impossible he should deny us our requests when we desire him to grant us that which he desireth we should have his help and assistance to do that which he commandeth Do we desire it He wisheth it Do we beg it of him He beseecheth us to accept it Do we beg his assistance against the lusts of the Flesh He commandeth us to crucifie them against the pollutions of the world Gal. 5.24 His will is our sanctification Against the Devil If we will 1 Thes 4.3 he will tread him under our feet He commandeth us who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master of the race Rom. 16 2◠and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Overseer and captain of the watch by whose power and wisdom we may keep back all our enemies If the Devil suggest evil thoughts he inspireth good If the enemy lay hard at us that we may fall his mercy is ready to hold us up If he be subtle our Lord is Wisdom it self In all our trials in all time of our tribulation in all time of our wealth in the hour of death and in the day of judgement he is our Lord and his grace is sufficient for us If we fail and miscarry it is because we will not joyn him with us because we beg his assistance and will not have it call upon him for help and weary him with our refusals beseech him to do that which we will not suffer him to do bespeak him to watch over us and fall fast asleep If you will repent repent Is 21.11 If you will enquire enquire Vide Castalionis perutilem Tract de quinque impedimentis honae mentis Job 8.9 Psal 39.5 saith the Watchman If you would watch why do ye not How many years have you worn out in this spiritual exercise Nay to fall lower have we devoted two or three moneths Nay lower yet how many weeks have we spent A week is not long but how many dayes Our dayes on earth are but a shadow but how many hours And Hours we say have wings and fly away I am ashamed to ask again How many minutes hath it cost us Our life is but a span how much of this Span How little of this Little what a nothing of this Nothing hath this great business took up O that we could say with Job Job 14.14 Psal 119.164 Psal 55.17 Acts 24.25 All the dayes of my appointed time or with David Seven times a day or were it his morning his noon his evening But I fear all is shut up in Felix his convenient season that is when the World and our Flesh when our Lusts and the Devil will give us leave And then what faint and feeble breathings what thin and empty conceptions nay what noysom exhalations what contradictions what sins are our prayers Let us then call upon the Lord to be present with us and to assist us in our watch Eph 6.14 But let us gird up our loyns when we call upon him Let us watch and pray pray and watch Let us endeavour vvhen vve pray and God vvill help our indeavours Let us intend vvhat vve desire and he vvill grant it Let us mean vvhat vve speak and he vvill hear us For he never shutteth his ears against his ovvn vvords Matth. 7.7 and his ovvn words are Ask and it shall be given you Ask the blessings of the right hand or the left and he vvill give you them or that vvhich is better for you But if you ask his grace his assistance you are heard before you speak For he is all Grace all Goodness all Rayes all Beauty and vvill fill you vvith himself Prov. 8.31 for his delight is to be in the sons of men and to make them like him Trouble not your selves then vvith vvhat he vvill do or not do but be busie in your watch watch and pray in this your hour that you may knovv him and be knovvn of him that at your last day and hour you may knovv and find him vvhat novv you believe him to be your Righteousness your Lord your Saviour This is your hour This span of time this moment is that on vvhich dependeth your Eternity If in this your hour you watch and be ready to go out and meet him he vvill receive you vvith joy Math. 8.11 even receive you to his table there to rest and sit down Luk. 13.28 and delight your selves with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets and all the Apostles and all the Martyrs all your fellow-watchmen and with them to sing praises to this Lord for evermore The Thirteenth SERMON JAMES 1.27 Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and widows in their
and speak more faintly and remisly when we call after the Presumptuous sinner to turn as if his last period were near and it were almost too late for him to begin We must not magnifie Repentance too much lest he make it a Pass and Warrant to sin again and so have more need of it We may tell him what is most true Repentance is a command indeed but praeceptum ex suppositione as Aquinas speaketh a command not absolute but upon a Si a supposition We are not commanded to repent as we are to believe as we are to fear God and to honour our Parents but upon supposition If we sin we have an Advocate that will plead for us if we repent The command which is absolute is to do Gods will Repentance is tabula post naufragium saith S. Hierom a plank reacht out after shipwrack But it is better to ride in the ship in a calm then to hang on the mast in a tempest Repentance is a virtue but of that nature that the less we stand in need of it the more virtuous we are It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a purgative potion but it is better never to be sick then to rise from our beds by the help of a Physician It was commendable in him that could say He thanked God he was now reconciled to his mother but he was more praise-worthy who replyed that he thanked God that he was never reconciled to his for he never offended her It is good to repent but it is better not to sin Oh it is a great happiness to be restored to the favour of God but it is a greater never to lose it It is good to appease him but it is our safest course never to anger him In a word It is better to be ever with God then by famine or pestilence to be forced to return better not acquire an evil habit then shake it off better never set a step in evil wayes then be called out of them with so much noise better never erre then turn It will concern us then not to put too much trust and confidence in our helps not to be careless of our health upon presumption of remedy Rom. 6.1 not to sin because grace hath abounded not to spend prodigally upon hope of supply not to oblige our selves too far because we see a hand of Mercy ready to cancel the bill How many have these hopes deluded How many have been betrayed by their helps How many Cities had now stood Fit ut ea parte capiantur urbes qua suut munitissime Polyb l. 7. had they had no other walls but their men Whilest we trust in these we neglect our selves and so make them not onely useless but disadvantagious to us We are foyled by our strength poysoned with our physick lost and betrayed in the midst of our fort with all our succours and artillery about us We trust in God and offend him look stedfastly towards the Mercy-seat and fall into the bottomless pit Therefore let us not be too bold with God's Mercy but learn to fear the Lord and his goodness Hos 3.5 not make Mercy an occasion of sin and so consequently of judgment which she is so ready to remove At the very name of Mercy at the sound of this Musick we lie down and rest in peace It is Mercy that saveth us and we wound our selves to death with Mercy As he that looketh upon the Sun with a steady eye when he removeth his eye hath the image of the Sun presented almost in every object so when we have long gazed on the Mercy-seat our eye beginneth to dazzle and Mercy seemeth to shine upon us in all our actions and at all times and in every place We see Mercy in the Law quite abolishing and destroying it silencing the many Woes denounced against sinners When we sin Mercy is ready before us that we may do it with less regret that no worm may gnaw us When our Conscience chideth Mercy is at hand to make our peace And this in the time of health And when our strength fayleth and sickness hath laid us on our bed we suborn and corrupt Mercy to give us a visit then when we can scarce call for it to stand by us in the evil day when we can do no good that we may die in hope who had no charity and be saved by that Jesus whom we have crucified And as it falleth out sometimes with men of great learning and judgement who though they can resolve every doubt and answer the strongest argument and objection yet are many times puzzled with a piece of Sophistry so it is with the formal Christian He can stand out against all motives and beseechings against all the batteries of God all his Calls and Obtestations against the terrours of hell and sweet allurements of promises but is shaken and foyled with a Fallacie with the Devils Fallacie à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter That Mercy doth save sinners that repent and therefore it saveth all And upon this ground which glideth away from us upon this reason which is no Reason the Pleasures which are but for a season shall prevail with us Hebr. 11.25 when Heaven with its bliss and eternity cannot move us and the trouble which Repentance bringeth to the flesh shall affright us from good more then the torments which are eternal can from sin And therefore to conclude let us fear the Mercy of God so fear it that it may not hurt us so fear it that it may embrace us on every side so fear it that it mave save us in the day of the Lord Jesus Let our song be made up as David's was of these discords Mercy and Judgment Psal 101.1 Let us set and compose our life by Judgment that we may not presume and tune our Fear by Mercy that we may not despair Remember we were prisoners and remember we were redeemed Remember we were weak and impotent and remember we were made whole Remember what Christ hath done for us and remember what we are to do for our selves Phil. 2.12 and so work out our salvation with fear and trembling and then draw near with a true heart Hebr. 10.22 in full assurance of faith to the throne of Grace that Gods Wisdom and Justice and Mercy may guide us in all our wayes till they bring us into those new heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness where God shall be glorified in us 2 Pet. 3.13 and we glorified in him to all eternity The Eighteenth SERMON PART III. EZEKIEL XXXIII 11. Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes c. THE word is loud the call sudden and vehement And we have heard it loud in the ears of them that despair Turn ye turn ye it is not too late and terrible to them that presume Turn ye turn ye it is not soon enough And to these it cannot sound with terrour enough For we see Presumption is a
flattereth the Flesh rebelleth we may set up this thought against them That this may be our last moment and if we yield now we shall be slaves for ever 2 Pet. 3.15 For as the long-suffering of God is salvation so is every day every hour of our life such a day and such an hour as carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss That thou mayest therefore turn now think that a time may come when thou shalt not be able to turn Sen De Benef. 2.5 Tardè velle nolentis est Not to be willing to turn to thy God now is to deny him Delay is no better then defiance And why shouldest thou hope to be willing hereafter who art not willing now and art not willing now upon this false and deceitful hope that thou shalt be willing hereafter Wilful and present folly is no good presage of after-wisdome It is more probable that a froward Will will be more froward and perverse then that after it hath joyned with the vanities of this world and cleaved fast unto them it should bow and bend it self to that Law which maketh it death to touch them He that leapeth into the pit upon hope that he shall get out hath leapt into his grave at least deserveth to be covered over with darkness and buried there for ever Fear then least the measure of thy iniquity be almost full and perswade thy self thy next sin may fill it Think this is thy Day thy hour thy moment And though peradventure it may not be yet think it may be thy last It is no errour though it be an errour For if it be not thy last yet in justice God might make it so for why should heaven be offered more then once And if it be an errour it is an happy errour for it will redeem us from all those errours which Delay bringeth in and multiplieth even those errours which make us worse then the Beasts that perish A happy errour I may say an Angel that layeth hold on us and snatcheth us out of the fire out of the common ruine and hasteneth us to our God A happy errour which freeth us from all other errours of our life And yet though it may be an errour for it is no more then it may be it is a truth For onely one Now is true There may be many more Nows it is true a now to morrow and a now hereafter and a now on our death-bed but these are but May-bees and these potential truths concern us not for that which may be may not be That which concerneth us is an everlasting truth To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you harden them to day and stand upon May-bees then they may be hard for ever Therefore if you expect I should point out to a certain time the time is now Turn ye turn ye even now Now the Prophet speaketh now the words sound in your ears Now if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts For why was it spoken but that we should hear it It is an earnest call after us and if we obey not it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more We are willing that what we speak should stand not a word not a syllable not one tittle must fall to the ground If we speak to our servant and say Go he must go and if we say Do this he must do it nunc now dicto citiùs as soon as it is spoke A deliberative pausing obedience obedience in the future tense to say he will do it when he pleaseth strippeth him of his livery and thrusteth him out of doors And shall Man who is dust and ashes seek a convenient time to turn from his evil wayes Shall our now be when we please Shall one morrow thrust on another and that a third Shall we demur and delay till we are ready to be thrust into our graves or which will follow into hell If the Lord saith Turn ye turn ye there can be no other time no other Now but Now. All other Nows and opportunities as our dayes are in his hands and he may close and shut them up if he please and not open them to give thee another Domini non servi negotium agitur The business is the Lord's and not the servant's and yet the business is ours too but the time is in his hands and not in ours Now then turn ye now the word soundeth and echoeth in your ears Again Now now hast thou any good thought Deus ad homines imò quod propius est in homines venit Sen. Ep. 73. any thought that hath any relish of salvation For that thought if it be not the voice is the whisper of the Lord but it speaketh as plain as his thunder If it be a good thought it is from him who is the Fountain of all good and he speaketh to thee by it as he did to the Prophets by visions and dreams In a dream Job 33.15 16. in a vision of the night I may say In a thought he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction And why should he speak once and twice and we perceive it not Why should the Devil who seeketh to devour us prevail with us more then our God that would save us Why should an evil thought arise in our hearts and swell and grow and be powerful to roll the eye to lift up the head to stretch out the hand to make our feet like hinds feet in the wayes of death and a holy thought a good intention which is as it were the breath of the Lord be stopped and checked and slighted and at last chased away into the land of oblivion Why should a good thought arise and vanish and leave no impression behind it and an evil thought increase and multiply shake the powers of the soul command the Will and every faculty of the mind and every part of the body and at last bring forth a Cain an Esau a Herode a Pharisee a profane person an adulterer a murderer Why should we so soon devest our selves of the one and morari stay and dwell and fool it in the other sporting our selves as in a place of pleasure a Seraglio a paradise Let us but give the same friendly entertainment to the good as we do to the bad let us but as joyfully imbrace the one as we do the other let us be as speculative men in the wayes of God as we are in our own and then we shall make haste and not delay to turn unto him We talk much of the Grace of God and we do but talk of it It is in all mouthes in some but a sound in others scarse sense in most a loud but faint acknowledgment of its power when it hath no power at all to move us an acknowledgement of what God can do when we are resolved he shall work nothing in us We commend it Tit.
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
There is danger in giving Alms danger in a Fast danger in Prayer And as there is danger in forbearing so there is danger also in coming to the Lord's Table And the reason why vve do not perfect every good vvork is because vve do not reverence it as vve should not gird up our loins and lift up our hearts vvith that devotion and preperation vvhich is due unto it We think to Give an alms is but to fling a mite into the treasury to Fast but to abstain for a day to Pray but to say Lord hear me and to shew Christ's death till he come but to sit down at his Table and eat of his bread and drink of his cup. But this is to dishonour and undervalue those duties which duly performed would honour and glorifie us This is to be officiperdae in this sense also to destroy our work before we begin it For what place can a strict obedience have amongst those thoughts which choke and stifle it Or what welcome is he like to find at such a Feast that cometh as the Corinthians did drunk to the Table Where the birth is so sudden so immature how can it chuse but prove abortive No He that will offer up his prayers must offer up more then the calves of his lips He that will have an open hand must first have a melting heart He that will fast must first feed on himself eat and work out all the corruption of his heart Behold here God hath spred his Table and invited you to a Feast to a feast of the Body and Bloud of his Son And the Spirit and the Bride say Come And let him that is athirst come and take of this Bread of life and Water of life freely But what Vers 18 19. shall we come as Schismaticks or Hereticks Shall we come with pride and malice with contempt of the Church and bringing shame to our brethren Shall we come drunken This is not to discern the Lord's body not to discern the Bread which in the Sacrament is to him the Lord's body from common bread He that thus cometh and eateth and drinketh is guilty of the body and bloud of the Lord as guilty as those Jews that crucified him For this is to put him to open shame Hebr. 6.6 to count of him no more then as if he had been an Impostor and so to tread him under foot Here certainly no caution can be enough though we look about us as he speaketh with a thousand eyes This consideration should work and imprint in us such a care and solicitude as should severely and impartially weigh what on either side either fear of danger or hope of advantage love of a Saviour or terrour of a Judge may suggest how better then Manna this spiritual refreshment may be and how it may be turned into poison This the Corinthians laid not to heart And on the same pillow of supine negligence and inconsideration do too many Christians at this day lie and sleep And as men in passion or some sudden amaze cannot have leisure to believe what they feel and suffer so do they not believe what they cannot but know or not consider what they believe which is far worse then to be ignorant They discern not the Lord's body mistake the shadow for the substance rest in the outward act of eating and drinking look upon nothing but that which is visible in the ceremony think not on the end to which it tendeth and so use it not with that spiritual sense and feeling which is answerable to the institution Therefore against this wilfull blindness and ignorance this supine and profane negligence doth our Apostle here draw up his whole force and strength to demolish it He blameth them and he directeth them he useth his rod and he bespeaketh them in the spirit of meekness and like a skilful artist he first openeth and searcheth the wound and then with a gentle hand a hand of love he applieth this soveraign plaister in my Text To avoid this evil Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. The words are plain and we need not descant upon them nor labour in dividing of them Here are two things presented to us 1. Our Qualification for and 2. our Admission to the Feast 1. a Duty To examine our selves 2. a Grant or Privilege To eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Or 1. our Preparation and 2. our Welcome Or 1. our Initiation and 2. our Consignation First we must examine ourselves and then we are received and admitted in Sanctum Sanctorum into the Holy of Holies unto the participation of these Mysteries to eat of this Bread and to drink of this Cup. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. Examination is in order first and therefore first to be handled And this we shall find to be a duty of no quick dispatch but which requireth care and a curious and diligent observation whether we look upon it in the generality or in its particular application and reference to the blessed Sacrament Examine our selves Why that is assoon done almost as said We can do it in the twinkling of an eye some few dayes before the eve before the hour before the time We think we do it though we never do it But if we look nearer on it we shall find it business enough for our whole life For to examine our selves is to take a true and strict survey of all the passages of our life to follow our Thoughts which have wings and flie in and flie out bring in and drive out one another to call to remembrance our Words which have wings too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flie from us but leave an impression and guilt in the soul and to number our Actions and weigh them all in the balance of the Sanctuary to gain a distinct knowledge of our spiritual estate to read an Anatomy-lecture on our selves to anatomize and dissect our Hearts which are deceitful above all things to follow Sin in all the Meanders and Labyrinths it maketh to pluck off its dress to wash off its paint to drive it out of the thicket of excuses and by the light of Scripture to take a full view of our selves Psal 119.59 in a word to consider our wayes to consider not to glance upon them but to look upon them again and again to look through them to look stedfastly and with an impartial eye so to fix our thoughts on them that we may turn our feet unto God's testimonies And by this course we shall find in what Grace we are defective with what Sin we are most stained what is to be mortified and destroyed and what is to be exalted and improved in us And to the right performance of this duty there is I say great care and diligence required because we are to deal with our selves who are commonly the greatest
down to meat and will come forth and sâ—rve thee that is will fill thee with all those comforts enrich thee with all those blessings give thee all that honour which he hath promised to those who trie and examine and make themselves fit to be guests at his Table I must conclude though I should proceed to the second Part the Grant and the Privilege But he that hath performed the first is already intitled to the second and may nay ought to eat of that bread â—nd drink of that cup For even the Privilege it self is a Duty But the time is spent and I fear your patience I will but re-assume my Text and there needeth no more Use For you see my Text it self is an Exhortation Let a man examine himself A man that is every man Let him that taketh the tribunal and sitteth upon the life and death of his brethren that exalteth himself as God and taketh the keyes out of his hand and bindeth and looseth at pleasure that wondereth how such or such a man who is not his brother in evil as factious as himself dareth approch the Table of the Lord let him examine himself Let him look into himself and there he shall see a great wonder a Wolf and a Lamb a John Baptist and a Herod a Devil and a Saint bound up together in one man the greatest prodigy in the world and as ominous as any ominous to his neighbours ominous to Commonwealths and ominous to all that live in the same coasts And let them examine themselves who with their Tribunitial VETO forbid all to come to this Feast who will not submit to their Examination Young men and maids old men as well as children they that have been catechised and instructed in season and out of season whom they themselves have taught for many years all must pass by this door of Trial to the Table of the Lord. I shall be bold to ask them a question since they ask so many WHERE IS IT WRITTEN Ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina It is plain in my Text that we are bound to examine our selves but that some should be set apart to examine others we do not read And quorsum docemur si semper docendi simus why are we taught so much if we are ever to learn Certainly that Charity believeth little which will suspect that a man full of years and who hath sate at his feet many of them should now in his old age and gray hairs be to be instructed in the principles of faith It is true we cannot be too diligent in instructing one another in the common salvation we cannot labour enough in this work of building up one another in our holy faith and it concerneth every man to seek knowledge at those lips that preserve it and if he doubt to make them his oracle who are set over him in the Lord For Ignorance as well as Profaneness maketh us uncapable of this Privilege unfit to come to this Feast But this formal and magisterial Examination for ought we can judge can proceed from no other Spirit then that which was sent from Rome to Trent in a Cloke-bag and there at the XIII Session made Auricular Confession a necessary preparative for the receiving of the Sacrament Sacramental Confession and Sacramental Examination may have the same ends and the same effects and there may be as idle and as fruitless questions asked at the one as at the other But I judge them not onely call upon them in the Apostle's words Let them examine themselves whether Love of the world Love of preeminence or Love of mens souls do fan that fiery zele which is so hot in the defence of it Let them also examine themselves who are God's familiars and yet fight against him who know what is done in his closet and do what they please at his footstool and so upon a feigned assurance of life build nothing but a certainty of death who think nay profess and write it that the Elect of which number you may be sure they make themselves may fall into the greatest sins Adultery Murther and Treason and yet still remain men after God's heart and the members of Christ and that to think the contrary is an opinion Stygiae infernalis incredulitatis which upholdeth a Stygian and hellish incredulity and can proceed from none but the Devil himself Let these I say examine themselves And if this Luciferian pride will once bow to look into this charnel-house of rotten bones if the hypocrite will pluck off his visour and behold his face naked as it is in the glass of God's Word we need not call so loud on open and notorious offenders Intestinum malum periculosius These intestine secret applauded errours are most dangerous and that wound which is least visible must be most searched But the exhortation concerneth all Let the Pharisee examine himself and let the Publican examine himself Let the Oppressour examine himself and melt in compassion to the poor Let the Intemperate examine himself and wage war with his appetite Let the Covetous person examine himself and tread Mammon under his feet Let the Deceitful man examine himself and do that which is just Let him that is secure and let him that feareth Let him that is confident and let him that wavereth Let the proud spirit and let the drooping spirit examine himself Let every man examine himself Let every man that nameth Christ and in that Name draweth near to his Table depart from all iniquity And then behold here is a Grant passed over to them a Privilege enrolled and upon record They may eat of this bread and drink of thiâ— cup taste and see how gracious the Lord is be partakers of his body and bloud that is of all the benefits of his Cross Redemption Justification his continued and uninterrupted Intercession for us Peace of conscience unspeakable Joy in the holy Ghost And when he shall come again in glory they shall have a gracious reception and admittance to sit down at his Table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and all the Apostles and that noble army of Martyrs in the Kingdom of heaven And with these ravishing thoughts I shut up all and leave them with you to dwell and continue and abound in you and to bring you with comfort on the next great Lord's day to the Table of the Lord. The Seven and Twentieth SERMON GAL. I. 10. The last part of the Verse For do I now perswade men or God or do I seek to please men For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ WHich words admit a double sense but not contrary for the one is virtually included in the other As first If I should yet do as I did when I was a Jew seek to please men and to gain repute and honour and wealth fit my doctrine to their corrupt disposition I should never have entred into Christs service which setteth
wide gate to let Irreligion and Atheism in But from all Sedition and privy Conspiracy from all false Doctrine and Heresie from Hardness of heart and Contempt of Gods Word and Commandment Good Lord deliver us To conclude To the Temple the man went who was made whole and in the Temple Jesus found him In the Temple he praised God and in the Temple Christ instructed him Acts 3.1 To the Temple went Peter and John at the hour of prayer And into the Temple went up the Pharisee and the Publican the one a Sectary the other odious to a proverb yet no scruple no contention between them both went up together to the Temple to pray And as they had a Temple so have we the Church And if theirs was the Holy place as it is called so is ours being ordained to the same end I may say to a better Theirs to offer up the flesh of beasts ours to offer up our selves Theirs for corporal and carnal ours for spiritual sacrifices And why not ours then as Holy as theirs God himself cannot imprint Holiness in a stone All is from the end The Church is a house of prayer let it not be made a den of thieves to rob God of his glory It is Bethel the House of God let it not be made Bethaven a House of vanity Let our devotion and not our vanity here display it self Let the contention be not who shall be most vain most phantastick but who shall be most devout most humble most reverent It is a house of peace oh what pity what shame is it that we should from this place first hear the alarm to war It is a house where God's Honour should dwell let not Ziim and Ochim satyrs and screech-owles profane persons dance and revel here Last of all it is a place consecrate that is set apart for God's worship then if there be such a sin it it will be foul sacrilege to pull it down I will read to you some part of Psalm 83. Keep not thou silence O God hold not thy peace and be not still O God For lo thy enemies make a tumult and they that hate thee have lift up the head They have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones They said let us take to our selves the houses of God in pessession O my God make them like a wheel as the stubble before the wind Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name O Lord. That men may know that thou whose name alone is JEHOVAH art the most High over all the earth Tell me now Is this a Psalm set to those times or a Prophecy of ours He that awaketh not he that trembleth not at this thunder is not asleep but dead Seneca speaketh of some who seem to be made as serpents and vipers for no other end but to hiss and trouble the world And such are they who disgrace and profane places set apart for publick devotion What is there in a Church that a religious mind can check at If we must meet together what scruple can arise concerning the place If any do arise it riseth like a fog and steameth from a foul and corrupt heart from Pride the mother of Pertinacy and Contradiction which will not be brought down to conform to the counsels of the wise no nor to the wisdom of God himself but calleth Truth Heresie because others speak it Bounty waste because others lay it out Reverence superstition because others bow and will pull down Churches because others build them kicketh at every thing that is received nihil verum-putans nisi quod diversum thinketh nothing true but that which is diverse and contrary nothing true but that which breatheth in opposition against the Truth as ridiculously but more maliciously scrupulous then Tyridates in Pliny who would not venture on ship-board nor could endure navigation because he thought it an unlawful thing to spit into the sea For see God hath rained down Manna upon us and we startle and ask What is this God hath given us his Word and we quarrel it He hath given us the Sacrament of Baptism and we ask By whom At what ages and How we must be washed It was a River then a Font now a Bason and can you tell can they tell who trouble these waters what it will be next If God prevent it not it will be Nothing Christ hath invited us to his Table and we know not whether we should sit or stand or kneel whether we must come as subjects or as his fellows and companions whether we receive him really or in a trope and figure whether we may not do it too often As Seneca speaketh of Philosophy so may we of Christianity Fuit simplicior aliquando inter minora peccantes When men were more sincere they were less scrupulous and had no leisure to find knots in every bulrush in that which was made smooth and even to their hands They did do their duty and not run about the world and ask How and When they must do it especially where the duty was open and easie to the understanding that they might run and read it They heard the Word and obeyed it They did submit to those who were supreme and not ask How they should be governed The great question of the world at this day and that which troubleth the world They honoured their Pastours and were not busie to teach them how to teach them They were baptized for remission of sins They received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and fed on Christ They went into the Temple the Church to pray with and in the midst of the congregation but never consulted nor asked counsel how to pull it down In a word they were religious and did not seem so Christ found the man he had cured in the Temple and there taught and instructed him And if he find us there he will teach and instruct us also by them to whom he hath committed the Oracles of God Hitherto we have been in the Temple and yet we are but in the porch of our Text. It is high time now to proceed and to hear what the Oracle what Christ doth say Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worst thing come unto thee Here mercy having freed the man of his Palsie spreadeth her wings further to shadow and protect him from a worse disease even Sin Before she did but walk and seek now she speaketh and poureth her self forth as a precious oyl upon his soul to cleanse and heal it And this though we are not willing to think so is the greater mercy of the two There is far more mercy in the Remembrance Tit. 2.11 in the Precept then in a Miracle The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men A saving grace and appearing Who is not willing to behold such an apparition who doth not clap his hands and rejoyce as if Heaven it self did open to take
and influence upon us to bring forth something answerable and proportioned to them For if these heavens be brass it is because our earth our souls are iron What is all the beauty of the firmament if we be blind What can the Sun and Stars what can the sweat influences of the Pleiades work upon a dead tree or a rotten stick The Philosopher will tell us that that which is not driven to its right end is frustrate and vain For every thing hath its use from its end and if it attain not that it is altogether unprofitable Vnumquodque est propter suam operationem Every thing is and hath its being for that which it hath to do All things even the best things beyond or beside their end are unuseful Seneca telleth his friend that the Arts were then Liberal cùm liberos facerent when they made men free and ingenuous and taxing the vices of the times that Arithmetick and Geometry were of no use at all if they onely taught men metiri latifundia digitos accommodare avaritiae to measure Lordships and tell money What is Health A great blessing without which we move as upon a wheel or rack without which we live as in a prison without which we have a being but in misery Health the peace of the body the lustre of beauty the glory of power the delight of riches the honour of the Physician without which Beauty and Riches and Power aut nihil sunt aut nihil prosunt are either nothing or nothing worth And yet Health it self is nothing if not made use of to that end for which it was given nay worse then nothing worse then a disease It is then worth an ECCE a Behold worth the considering And it was given our Paralytick to this end to work peace and harmony in his soul to draw on a NOLI PECCARE Sin no more that he might take heed of Sin which raiseth a sedition a mutiny a war and maketh a confusion and a chaos in the soul Behold thou art made whole putteth him in remembrance he had been lame and impotent For the present time hath relation to that which is past what we are to what we have been And thus day unto day sheweth knowledge the Present looketh back to the Past and the Past uttereth speech to the Present At the pool's side the impotent man was at school now he is to repeat his lesson and shew his proficiency His disease was his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Preparation the day of his health his great Feast-day Noli peccare ampliùs Sin no more that is the Celebration First Diseases are documents they are sermons better and more powerful saith the Father then those which we preach They were the discipline of the primitive Church the hands of God with which he formeth and fashioneth us to that figure and proportion in which he would see us repaireth a greater loss by a lesser the ruines of the soul with the shakings and vexations of the body 1 Cor. 5. S. Paul in the name of Jesus Christ delivereth the incestuous person unto Satan Which was nothing else but to deliver him as God did holy Job to be afflicted with diseases So that we may well account Sickness a part of Apostolical Discipline onely to the mortifying of the flesh that that part might smart which had offended and the soul be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus In time of health when the bloud danceth in our veins we easily suffer our selves to be abused with false shews Quis sibi verum dicera audet Who then dare tell himself the truth and impartially censure his own actions But when sickness hath corrupted our bloud then the scales fall off from our eyes and we read in an Ague our inconstancy in a Fever our lust in a Dropsie our intemperance In health things appear as upon a stage in disguises and strange apparel but in the time of sickness we see them as in the tiring-house every thing in its own face and shape So that the very Heathen could say Optimi sumus dum infirmi sumus We are never better then when we are sick This is God's method to make a diseased body physick for a sick soul And this effect it should have and sometimes it hath But many times we forget our lesson and therefore have need of an Ecce a Remembrance when we have taken up our bed and walk at large But indeed health is the most fit and proper time to serve God when God shineth upon our tabernacle then not to sin when every part and limb we have may be made an instrument and weapon of righteousness when not onely the will but the body is free then to do good when we have liberty to do either good or evil Now he is a subject capable of advice Remember thou art made whole THOU The consideration of the person importeth much For all advice and counsel are lost if the person to whom they are given be uncapable There were that put the Communion-bread into the mouth of the dead And we read that old Beda by the lewdness of his servant was brought to preach to a heap of stones But when our Saviour delivered this great lesson he did not preach unto a stone but to one that was made whole to one unto whom having been long sick even thirty eight years he had restored his health Nor had he given him the gift of Health in any other measure then such as became the giver even full measure pressed down not penurious scant and with an evil eye We cannot think otherwise but that the man was now become strong and whole perfectly healthy that is by interpretation for it will best bear this sense Christ had made him a fit hearer of this lesson Sin no more and therefore he fixeth an Ecce upon it Behold thou art made whole Whilest he lay sick by the pool of Bethesda our Saviour gave him no such lesson because he was not then capable of it but by making him strong and healthy he made him capable An Ecce upon our Health is an Ecce fixed in its proper place Then is the best time to hear of our duty when we are best able to perform it Who would speak to the Grass to grow or to a stone to lye still and not move 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin no more Sin not again He that is capable of this precept must have an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an again some power and faculty to sin again But when either by sickness or age men have not this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this again when Appetite and Desire fail when the flesh being beat down can scarce raise up a will in them to sin again then they do not forsake sin but sin forsaketh them Sophocles the Poet was wont to say that he was much indebted to his old age and held it as a great benefit that he was freed thereby from the tyranny
as a command on us to sin no more if such a necessity lay upon us that we must needs sin again For he that is born of God that is is a Christian indeed sinneth not that is falleth not into any sin which is inconsistent with the Covenant of Grace For would we have Christ perform his part of the Covenant and we break ours Can we love him and not keep his commandments or can we keep his commandments and break them Can we lift up our hearts with this talent of lead upon them Can we hope to go to heaven and yet remain in that sin which in the sight of God is as loathsome as hell it self No saith S. John He that is born of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not toucheth him not so as to bring him into his snare toucheth him not so as to strike him down For 1. God requireth no other obedience but that which is given up with all our mind with all our heart with all our understanding and with all our strength He is no such hard Master as to require brick and give no straw to bid us do that which he knoweth we cannot do 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people Deut. 30.6 to love him with all their hearts to teach them to write a new Law in their hearts that they shall do his will and if they do it not the sin must lie at their door and God be true and they lyars 3. God himself beareth witness of many that they did it of the people that they sought the Lord with their whole desire 2 Chr. 15.15 of Asa that his heart was perfect all his dayes 2 Chr. 15.17 2 Kings 22.2 of Josiah that he did that was right in the sight of the Lord and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left Quid disperamus quid deficimus quicquid fieri potuit potest Why then should we despair why should we thus faint and fall under the command as under a burthen which neither we nor our fathers could bear If the dry tree they under the Law could bring forth such fruit shall the green tree watered with more abundant grace be barren and bear none at all Shall temporal blessings and but a shadowed light draw them to that height of Perfection which the rich promises of the Gospel and a full sight of heaven it self and the gracious assistance of a good God cannot lift us up unto Shall Publicans and Sinners shall Jewish worshippers enter before us into the kingdom of God and shall we whom the Sun rising from on high hath visited onely look upon the light and gaze at heaven till we are shut out Shall they be able to do their duty and we shut up all in an humble confession as we call it of our weakness and inability Shall we be strong to nothing but sin Beloved God requireth Obedience as he doth our Almes according to that which we have and not according to that which we have not an obedience answerable and proportioned to our strength Not to sin against the dictate of conscience Not to omit that which we know we ought to do Not to commit that which we condemn before and when we do it To press forward with S. Paul to the mark He requireth that Perfection of parts that it be universal though not total in every part though but in part And this part of the distinction we run away with and delight in and think we are seasoned well enough with sanctifying qualities when we are in the gall of bitterness think our hearts clean when they are receptacles and a very stew of polluted thoughts our Phansies sanctified when they are but the shops of vanity our Wills rectified when they do but look on that which is good and fasten and joyn on that which is evil Therefore besides this Perfection of parts God requireth also that Perfection of degrees not such a perfection to which nothing can be added but to which something is added every day For Perfection in the highest degree which cannot be increased and improved is impossible in this life But such a Perfection as by the assistance of Grace we may attain unto such as is alwaies accompanied with an earnest and serious endeavour of growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the work and business of this life not to be reserved for the future not to be begun in earth and finished in heaven as some of late have loved to speak For that Perfection in the other world is not a duty but a reward When our breath is gone from us we are extra statum merendi aut demerendi Precepts were given for this world not for the next Here we are to work out our salvation there to enjoy it Our labour is in the vineyard there is the peny Our wedding garment must be worn here there we shall put on immortality All that is to be done is to be done in this life the next is either misery or bliss And shall we be content with any degree of perfection in hope that the same hand of Mercy will crown and perfect us at once Shall we yield to God any measure of obedience in this world upon this most dangerous presumption that he will fill it up in the world to come Shall we come short of our duty here because some have taught us what we are willing to learn that God will make it up for us in the highest heavens I am no Pelagian nor Perfectionist nor would I make the way to heaven narrower then it is yet I am unwilling to betray either the Truth or my Text and say Christ doth not require what he doth require that we may do what we list and have what we list They who make the way wider for flesh and bloud to walk in are but false guides and to avoid the needle's eye run into the very mouth of destruction It is good advice that of S. Augustine Nemo sibi promittat quod non promittit Evangelium Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it Let no man take upon him to be wiser then Christ Let no man say that is impossible which he is unwilling to do and which he never attempted Let no man say This cannot be done when he is resolved to do the contrary It is a good observation of the Fathers That many things seem very absurd to weak and unskilful men which wise men embrace as truths eò elatiùs laudant quò abjectiùs stulti aspernantur and do therefore more extoll and magnifie because they who will not understand have set them at a low price And the Philosopher will tell us That those opinions which bear no shew of truth with them are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more powerful to perswade ignorant men then the truth it self though never so
a Lawyer or an Husbandman in the grave But the Truth here as it must be bought so it must never be sold by us It will not leave us at our death but lie down with us in the grave and rise up with us to judgment At the last day it will be our Advocate or our Judge and either acquit or condemn us If now in this our day we lay out our money our substance that is our selves upon it then in that terrible day of the Lord it will look lovelily upon us and as the bloud of Christ doth speak good things for us But if we place it under our brutish desires and lowest affections it will help the Devil to roar against us and he who now hindereth our market will then accuse us for not buying Christ himself is not more gracious then this Truth will be to them that buy it But such as esteem it trash and not worth the looking on to them shall it procure tribulation and anguish to them the Sun turned into darkness and the Moon into bloud the whole world on fire the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God shall not be so terrible as this Truth And now before I was aware I have told you what the Truth here is that we are to buy Shall I say with the Poet cujus non audeo dicere nomen that I dare not utter its name It hath no name Men it seemeth have been afraid to speak of it and therefore have given it no name The Wise-man here in the Text bestoweth on it certain titles calling it Wisdom and Instruction and Vnderstanding but all these do not fully express it being words of a large signification and comprehending a multitude of other Truths beside it Will ye know indeed what this Truth is It containeth all those Precepts and conclusions that concern the knowledge and service of God that conduce to virtue and integrity and uprightness of life and that are carefully observed by all quos Deus in aeternae felicitatis exemplis posuit whom God meaneth to bring to endless felicity and to place among the ensamples of his love If this Truth doth not manage and guide the Will then our passions those pages of opinion and errour will distract and disorder us Lust will inflame us Anger swell us Ambition lift us up to that formidable height from whence we must needs fall into the pit But the Truth casteth down all Babels and casteth out all false imaginations which present unto us appearances for realities yea plagues for peace which make us pour out our souls on variety of unlawful objects and pitifully deceive us about the nature and end of things What a price doth Luxury set on wealth and how doth it abhor poverty and nakedness What an heaven is the highest place to Ambition and what an hell disgrace though it be for goodness it self How doth a jewel glitter in the eye and what a slur is there on virtue What brightness hath the glory of the world and how sad and sullen an aspect have Religion and Piety And all this is till the purchase be made which our Text commendeth No sooner have we bought the Truth but it discovereth all pulleth off every masque and suffereth us no longer to be blinded and beguiled but sheweth us the true face and countenance of things It letteth us see vanity in riches folly in honour death and destruction in the pomp of this world It maketh poverty a blessing misery a mercy a cottage as good as the Seragglio and death it self a passage to an happy eternity It taketh all things by the right end Exod. 4.4 and teacheth us how to handle and deal with them as Moses taking the serpent by the tail had it restored to its own shape In a word the Truth here meant is that which S. Augustine calleth legem omnium artium artem omnipotentis artificis a Law to direct all arts an Art taught by Wisdom it self by the Maker of all things It teacheth us to love God with all our hearts to believe in him and to lead upright lives It killeth in us the root of sin it extinguisheth all lusts it maketh us tread under foot pleasure and honour and wealth it rendreth us deaf to the noyse of this busie world and blind to that glaring pomp which dazleth the eyes of others Hâc praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus It goeth before us in our way and through all the surges of this present world it bringeth us to the vision and fruition of him who is Truth it self Therefore this concerneth us above all other Truths yea others are of no use at all further then by being subservient to this they help us to our chief end our union to God who is the first Truth and our communion with him If I know mine own infirmities what need I trouble my self about the decay of the world If the word of God be powerful in me what need I search the secret operations of the stars Am I desirous to know new things The best novelty is the New creature What folly it is to study the state and condition of the Saints and in the mean time to take no pains to be one to be curiously inquisitive how my soul was conveyed into me and wretchedly careless how it goeth out to dispute who is Antichrist when I my self am not a Christian to spend that time in needless controversies in which I might make my peace with God to be more careful to resolve a doubt then to cure a wounded spirit to to maintain my opinion then to save my soul to be ambitious to reconcile opinions which stand in a seeming opposition and be dull and heavy in composing my own thoughts and ordering my counsels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aescl yl Not he that knoweth much but he that knoweth that which is useful is wise Why gaze we on a bugle or piece of glass when we are to bargain for a pearl for that Truth which doth alone adorn that mind which was made not to joyn with shadows and phantasmes but to receive wisdom and virtue and God himself Thus I have given you some kind of view of the merchandise and shewed you in general what the Truth here meant is Now that it may appear unto you the more desirable and more worth the buying in the next place I will discover the nature and quality of it Neither will I do as those are wont who expose their wares to sale over praise the commodity so to kindle the buyer and make him more easily part with his money or else shew it by an half-light but I will deal plainly with you according to that Law of the Aediles or Clerks of the market in Rome by which he who sold any thing was to disclose to the buyer what fault or imperfection it had If he were selling an house wherein the plague was he was to proclaim Pestilentem domum vendo that he
many times then that which we gain by lawful and prescribed means then that which we buy For it moveth like a tempest and driveth down all even the Truth it self before it Look over the whole catalogue of the sons of Belial and take a view of all the turbulent spirits that have been in the world and ye shall find the most of them to have been Enthusiasts pretenders to an unsought for and suddain revelation most wicked because so soon good and extremely ignorant because wise in an instant James 3.17 But the Truth which is from above and is not thrown down but bought from thence is pure and peaceable and easie to be intreated full of good works and without hypocrisie And it self is conveyed into us the right way so it ordereth every motion and action regulateth the whole progress of our life and maketh it like unto it self That may seem an harsh saying of Metellus Numidicus and had a Christian Divine uttered it Gell. lib. 1. c. 6. he had gone for a Pelagian His demum Deos propitios esse aequum est qui sibi adversarii non sunt Dii immortales approbare virtutem non adhibere debent It is a kind of justice that God should be favourable to those who are not enemies to themselves God sitteth above as one that hath set us our task and observeth our hands and doth not do all himself But his reason certainly is orthodox Quid nos à Deo diutiùs exspectemus nisi errationibus finem faciamus What can we expect from the God of truth if we still follow lies and will make no end of running from the truth God hath so ordered that nothing of great moment can be suddenly done Every work must find us fitted and prepared or else we shall find it will fly out of our reach Hence the Philosopher giveth this reason why there be so few wise men Quia pauci Sapientiam dignam putant nisi quam in transitu cognoscant Because the most have so low an opinion of the Truth that they think her not worth saluting unless it be by the by The reason why men know not the Truth is because they reverence it not but think it is a wind which will blow when they list that it will enter them without entreaty become theirs when they please yea whether they will or no. This is the cause why Truth which is the best merchandise is so seldom bought and phansies of our own are entertained in its place Hence it is that all our silver is dross our coyn counterfeit and our actions bear so little of the image and face of Truth upon them that To be merciful is but to fling a mite into the treasury To fast is to abstain for a day To pray is but to say Lord hear me or which is worse to multiply words without sense To love the Truth is but to hear it preached To be a Christian is onely to profess it To have faith is to boast of it To have hope is to say so and To be full of charity is but to do good to our selves These graces we deny not are infused yet they are gained encreased and confirmed in us by care and diligence Faith cometh by hearing saith the Apostle Rom. 10.17 We cannot but observe that in our greener years we are catechized and instructed and in our riper age when reason is improved in us we look over our evidence again and again and by the miracles and innocency of our Saviour and by the excellency of his doctrine and by the joynt testimony of the Apostles and the huge improbability that they should deceive us Jude 20. we are built up and building implieth labour on our most holy Faith which worketh by Charity Gal. 5.6 When that Faith which is not thus bought but is brought in without any motives or inducements without study or meditation which is not bought but created by our selves and so is a phansie rather then Faith bringeth forth nothing praiseworthy is not a foundation of good works but a mere pillar of our own setting up to lean upon and to uphold and comfort a spirit that would otherwise droop when we have committed evil If mens Faith did cost them more sure they would make more use of it then they do And for Hope What is it but a conclusion gathered by long experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our soul and an exact search of all the actions of our life which if answerable to the Truth produce a firm Hope if not our Hope we may call an anchor Heb. 6.19 but it is of no more use then an anchor painted upon a wall or rather it is not an anchor but a rock at which we may shipwreck and sink I might instance in more For thus it is in all the passages of our life There is nothing wrought in us but with pains at least nothing that is worth possessing Nay those evils which we should dispossess our selves of do not alwayes enter with ease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labour and cost How laborious is thy Revenge how busie thy Cruelty how watchful and studious thy Lust what penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to And if our vices cost us so dear and stand us at so high a rate shall we think that that Truth will run after us and follow us in all our wayes which bringeth along with it an eternal weight of glory Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible can our airy and empty speculations can the wantonness of our ear can our confidence and ignorance straight make us Evangelists Or is it probable that Truth should come è profundo putei out of the bottom of the well and offer her self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it and will let down no pitcher to draw it up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olymp. od 5. as Pinder speaketh Labour and cost wait still upon the Truth Nor will she visit and abide with us unless these usher her in and attend upon her Like Jabez Truth is most honourable but we bear it with pain 1 Chron. 4.9 In a word Truth is the gift of God but conditional given on condition that we fit our selves to receive it It cometh down from heaven but it must be called for here on earth Think not it will fall upon thee by chance or come to thee at any time Eccl. 11.9 12.1 if not in the dayes of thy youth yet in the evil dayes and the years in which thou shalt have no pleasure that it will offer it self in thine old age on thy bed of sickness that it will joyn and mingle it self with thy last breath and carry thy soul to happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now is the market now is the Truth set to sale as it
Truth and the glory of God That the righteous are ordained to suffer for righteousness and so to be like to the Sun of righteousness is laid down in terminis in plain words We need not seek for more proofs out of Scripture These are plain and positive And the reason is as plain even written with the Sun-beams For 1. in this God dealeth with them as a loving father He doth it ad probationem fidei for the tryal or rather the demonstration of their faith to make it appear that they do not gratiam fingere in odio make a profession of their love when they hate him in their heart depend upon him for their salvation and happiness and when persecution cometh leave him and exchange him for the world rather yield and fall under the burthen then stand fast in the faith and retain him as their God Our praying to him our bending our knees our magnifying his name our Hosanna's and Hallelujah's our falling down at his footstool are but communia signa as the Oratour speaketh in the like case but deceitful signs and indications of our affection towards him For the language of an enemy may be as pleasing as that of a friend A Pharisee may be louder in prayer then a disciple of Christ There must some occasion and opportunity be offered some danger some cross that may fright me and when I withstand all and cleave fast unto Christ then it will appear that I am his friend and servant This is it which bringeth forth the true professour in his own shape and unmasketh the Hypocrite Nauclerum tempestas Christianum persecutio probat saith the Father A mariner is best seen in a tempest and a Christian is best known when persecution rageth In a calm sea when the weather is fair and no wind nor tempest stirreth inglorius subit portum the pilote indeed arriveth at the wished for haven but without praise or honour But cùm strident funes strepent gubernacula when the tackling is torn and the mast rent when the storm is violent and the sea high-wrought then to drive to shore commendeth his skill and maketh him glorious to the beholders When our life is becalmed when no temptetion beateth upon it who can tell whether we do not sub alterius habitu alteri militare wear Christ's colours but fight for his enemies And therefore Gregory observeth of Job Si non flagellaretur non agnosceretur Job had never been known had he never been tormented If God had not pulled down his hedge we had seen perhaps the man in the land of Uz but not Job the example of patience Persecution is the matter and occasion of Vertue which is then in her full lustre when she doth eluctari os extra nubem strike and force her self out of that cloud which doth meet her in her course and would obscure her Faith and Hope are not the vertues of the Church triumphant but militant And we must buckle on the whole armour of God and stand ready-harnessed against the day of battel Not to fight is not to overcome For it is opposition that crowneth the conquerour Many professours we have many who say Lord Lord and live and die Christians of whom though we must hope well yet are we not certain that they are Saints For how know we whether he who held fast his profession when all was quiet and still about him would not have let go his hold upon the blast of a strong temptation How know we whether he who spake glorious words in the sun-shine would not have renounced them had the weather altered and the heavens been dark about him whether he who went for a defender of his faith till he fell down into his grave would not have forsook it at the sight of a sword or would have gone along with it to the stake and the fire and have took his death upon it It falleth out with some Christians as it doth with deformed women Non animus illis deest sed corruptor They are indeed very chast but not for want of will in themselves to play the wantons but for want of will in others to defile them and are more beholden to a bad face then a pure mind for their integrity Many are not Achans because there is no wedg◠of Gold before them many are not Judasses because there is no proffer made of thirty pieces many deny not Christ with Peter because there is none to question them Our faith is never seen in its full proportion and beauty till she come forth russata sanguine in her red garment with her back plowed upon in her own gore and bloud Thus doth God bring forth his choicest servants into the field against the sword and persecution his mighty men as if David should imploy the chiefest of his mighty men to break through the host of the Philistines as if Alexander should appoint a Parmenio or Caesar a Scaeva old experienced souldiers to bear the brunt of the battel Thus doth God handle those quos in magnis aeternae beatitudinis constituit exemplis whom he meaneth to make as great examples to draw others to the pursuit of eternal happiness and to fix them in the firmament of the Church for all eyes to behold 1 Pet. 1.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Beza rendereth it experimentum the tryal but it implyeth more the approbation of faith For in this sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often used in Scripture as Rom. 1.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reprobate mind a mind that cannot be approved and Rom. 2.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 approvest the things that are excellent and in divers other places That the tryal the approbation of your faith may be found to praise and glory For it is spoken of the righteous whose minds he must needs see and know who searcheth the heart and reins And therefore well knowing them he approveth them bringeth them forth before the Sun and the people to act their parts as on a theatre putteth them upon difficulties draweth them out as Gideon did his three hundred and sendeth the rest to their tents not tryeth but approveth them as his souldiers and biddeth them fight his battels As Gregory well expresseth When he is disposed to set up a picture in his Church to be well observed of all that shall come after that the people which shall be born may praise the Lord he doth it not by limning and painting but by the art of cutting and embroidery He dealeth not in colours as the Painter which according to his phansie he tempereth and layeth out to the view of the eye but he dealeth as the Embroiderer in more costly matter which he cutteth into pieces and fragments To adorn his Church with some rare pictures of Christian vertues he taketh his children and cutteth and mangleth them as it were into bits and pieces with crosses and calamities and then maketh them up again into most heavenly and angelical forms to
ship and an undefiled Conscience as the rudder If you strike off the rudder or let it go the ship will soon dash against the rocks But yet let us suppose that such a case may fall out though very rarely that the Conscience having been asleep for a long while may at length be awakened by the horrour of a prison and captivity and then break forth with power and strength to make such a man a champion for the Truth We may here say Men and brethren what shall this man do Shall he forsake the Truth against conscience God forbid For if that which is not of faith that is of conscience and a full perswasion of mind be sin then that which is against it is greater But may he not deny it with a mind to gain further time of repentance and so to fit himself to this work to make himself a better and more acceptable sacrifice to God No this is as dangerous as the other For evil is no good foundation to raise up that which is good upon We must not saith S. Paul do evil that good may come thereby And how can we hope that God should give us time to repent of our former sins when we adde this sin to the rest the Denial of the Truth Why may we not rather fear that he will cut us off in this very thought who to flie from the fire of his jealousie run further into it Certainly we cannot merit of God by our demerits We cannot make one sin a way to the remission of the rest It is not likely we should be carried into heaven on the Devil 's back or go through hell into paradise What shall he do then Shall he lay down his life Yes he must for it is better to die then to sin better to breathe out my last then to countermand my conscience better not to be then to be an apostate But then you will say being pressed down with the burthen of his sins how shall he be able to lift up his head What hope can breathe to comfort him in the midst of so many clamours and affrights When Conscience is loud against him what shall silence her Whither should he flie or whither should he go Even let him bow to that power which is over him and now come and desire him and in all humility beg the prorogation of life for so much time in which he may approve his repentance and make it evident both to God and man But if this be not granted as persecutors are alwaves in hast cannot sleep till he that offendeth them be in his grave then let him throw himself down before the throne of God and before his mercy-seat and with the Thief on the cross confess he doth receive the due reward of his deeds and with him cry loud unto Jesus to remember him And why should not we hope well of this man though he came in but at the eleventh hour of the day nay when his sun was even setting and his day well-near shut up Although he hath not the excuse that no man hired him yet he hath this comfort that his Lord may do what he will with his own He may rouse up himself with the extraordinary favour and mercy of God whose eye is good howsoever ours be evil and who though he hath bound us to timely repentance yet hath not bound himself not to accept of the latest if it be serious And that this man's is so no better argument can be brought then that which is written with his own bloud And now what is his hope His hope is even in Christ if not the most certain hope as certain as theirs who have served him in righteousness and holiness all the dayes of their life yet it cometh so near unto it that there cannot be one more certain then this And to conclude this we need not fear to number him amongst those who are persecuted for righteousness sake amongst those of whom that voice from heaven speaketh Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the dead who dye in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who are destined as sacrifices and appointed as children to death for they shall rest from their labours and their works shall follow them And thus have you seen Persecution entailed as it were upon the children of God and What it is to suffer for righteousness sake Thus have we led you through this Field of bloud Let us now look back upon it and see what we can bring along with us for our further use and instruction And it looketh indifferently both upon those whose feet are swift to shed bloud and on those righteous persons who are fitted to poure it forth Eadem catena militem custodiam They are as it were linked together The persecuted and persecutor imply and suppose one another and are never asunder But let them that suffer have the first place And first knowing these terrours as the Apostle speaketh seeing Persecution is as it were entailed upon the righteous person seeing there is a kind of providence and necessity it should be so let us learn first as S. Peter speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to think it strange concerning this fiery tryal not to dote too much upon this outward guilded peace and perpetuity in publick profession or when we see these things think some strange thing is come unto us For what strange thing is it that wicked men should persecute the righteous that a serpent should bite or a lion roar that the world should be the world and the Church the Church Or what is now done which hath not been done in all the ages of the world For let us ask the dayes of old and they will tell us that outward Peace and Perpetuity of profession have more diligently attended Superstition and Idolatry then true Profession Look upon the Kingdom of Judah and see how there as upon a stage the service of God and Idolatry had interchangeably as it were their scenes and mutually succeeded one another But Superstition was still longer-lived and breathed with less trouble then true Religion which did shine for a while in peace but was soon over-shadowed with a cloud All that I shall say is but what our Saviour said to Nicodemus of our new birth Nolite mirari Wonder not at it For whatsoever changes and alterations there be in the outward profession of Religion Religion and the Church are ever the same the same in a cloud and obscurity that they were when they shined gloriously before the sun and the people the same in persecution which they were in peace but far more glorious For from these outward things if we would speak in the holy language befalleth the true Church of Christ neither peace nor war but as the blessed Angels have their motions and qualities and attributes which we are utterly ignorant of yet known to themselves so Peace and War and Persecution and other attributes we give the Church are such as
crop and harvest of our Devotion This is truly cum parvo peccato ad ecclesiam venire cum peccatis multis ab ecclesia recedere to bring some sins with us to Church but carry away more for fear of the smoke to leap into the fire for fear of coming too near to Superstition to shipwreck on Profaneness for fear of Will-worship not to worship at all like Haggards to check at every feather to be troubled at every shew and appearance to startle at every shadow and where GLORY TO THE LORD is engraven in capital letters to blot it out and write down SUPERSTITION I see I must conclude Beloved fly Idolatry fly Superstition you cannot fly far enough But withal fly Profaneness and Irreverence and run not so far from the one as to meet and embrace the other Be not Papists God forbid you should But be not Atheists that sure talk what we will of Popery is far the worse Do not give God more then he would have but be sure you do not give him less Why should you bate him any part who giveth you all Behold he breathed into you your Souls and stampt his Image upon them Give it him back again not clipt not defaced but representing his own graces unto him in all holiness and purity And his hands did form and fashion your Bodies and in his book are all your members written Let THE GLORY OF GOD be set forth and wtitten as it were upon every one of them and he shall exalt those members higher yet and make thy vile Body like to his most glorious body In a word Let us glorifie God here in soul and body and he shall glorifie both soul and body in the day of the Lord Jesus The Seventeenth SERMON PART I. 1 COR. XII 3. Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost THat Jesus is the Lord was seen in his triumph at Easter made manifest by the power of his Resurrection The earth trembled the foundations of the hills moved and shook the graves opened at the presence of this Lord. Not the Disciples onely had this fire kindled in their hearts that they could not but say The Lord is risen but the earth opened her mouth and the Grave hers And now it is become the language of the whole world Jesus is the Lord. All this is true But we ask with the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What profit is it What profit is it if the Earth speak and the Grave speak and the whole World speak if we be dumb Let Jesus be the Lord but if we cannot say so he may and will be our Lord indeed but not our Jesus we may fall under his power but not rise by his help If we cannot say so we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall cross with him nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak the quite contrary If we cannot call him Lord then with the accursed Jew we do indeed call him Anathema we call the Saviour of the world an accursed thing Si confiteamur exsecramur If we confess him not we curse him And he that curseth Jesus needeth no greater curse We must then before we can be good Christians go to school and learn to speak not onely Abba Father but Jesus the Lord. And where now shall we learn it Shall we knock at our own breasts and awake our Reason to lead us to this saving truth Shall we be content with that light which the Laws and Customs of our Country have set up and so cry him up for Lord as the Ephesians did their Diana for company and sit down and rest our selves in this resolution because we see the Jew hated the Turk abhorred and Hereticks burned who deny it Shall we alienis oculis videre make use of other mens eyes and so take our Religion upon trust These are the common motives and inducements to believe it With this clay we open our eyes thus we drive out the dumb Spirit And when we hear this noise round about us that Jesus is the Lord our mouth openeth and we speak it with our tongue These are lights indeed and our lights but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deceitful My Reason is too dim a light and cannot shew me this great conjunction of Jesus and the Lord. Education is a false light and misleadeth the greatest part of Christians even when it leadeth them right For he that falleth upon the Truth by chance by this blind felicity erreth when he doth not erre having no better assurance of the Truth then the common vogue He walketh indeed in the right way but blindfold He embraceth the Truth but so as for ought he knoweth it may be a lye And last of all the greatest Authority on earth is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a faint uncertain and failing proof a windy testimony if it blow from no other treasury then this below No we must have a surer word then this or else we shall not be what we so easily persuade our selves we are We must look higher then these Cathedram habet in coelo Our Master is in heaven And JESUS IS THE LORD is a voice from heaven taught us saith the Apostle by the holy Ghost who is vicarius Christi as Tertullian calleth him Christ's Vicar here on earth and supplieth his place to help and elevate our Reason to assure and confirm our Education and to establish and ratifie Authority Would you have this dumb spirit dispossessed The Spirit who as on this day came down in a showre of tongues must do it Would you be able to fetch breath to speak The holy Ghost must spirare breathe into us the breath of spiritual life inable us by inspiration Would we say it we must teach it If we be ignorant of this the Apostle here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have us to understand that No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And now we have fitted our Text to the Time the Feast of Pentecost which was the Feast of the Law For then the old Law was given then written in tables of stone And whensoever the Spirit of the living God writeth this Law of Christ THAT HE IS THE LORD in the fleshly tables of our hearts then is our Pentecost the Feast of the holy Ghost then he descendeth in a sound to awake us in wind to move and shake us in fiery tongues to warm us and make us speak The difference is This ministration of the Spirit is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaketh far more glorious And as he came in solemn state upon the Disciples this day in a manner seen and heard so he cometh though not so visibly yet effectually to us upon whom the ends of the world are come Though not in a mighty wind yet he rattleth our hearts together Though no house totter
at his descent yet the foundations of our souls are shaken No fire appeareth yet our breasts are inflamed No cloven tongues yet our hearts are cleft asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every day to a Christian should be the day of Pentecost the Feast of the holy Ghost We may now draw the lines by which we are to pass and take our Text into those material parts it will afford And they are but three 1. the Lesson we are to learn To say Jesus is the Lord 2. the Teacher the holy Ghost 3. his Prerogative he is not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our chief Instructer but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our sole Instructer Not onely none to him but none but him Without him all other helps are obstacles all directions deceits all instructions but noise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle None can say Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost Of these parts in their order In the first part we must consider first What the Lesson is secondly What it is to say it The Lesson is but short Jesus is the Lord but in it is comprised the sum of the whole Gospel Here is JESUS a Saviour and DOMINUS the Lord And as they are joyned together in one Christ so no man must put them asunder If we will have Christ our Saviour we must make him our Lord And if we make him our Lord he will then be our Saviour Now to hear of a Saviour is Gospel the best news we can hear Gospellers we all would be and when this trumpet soundeth then Hear O Israel is a good preface and we are willing to be attentive But the Lord is a word that startleth us that carrieth thunder with it calleth for our knee and subjection As if we were again at mount Sinai and the mountain smoking we remove our selves and stand afar off A Saviour is musick to every ear but a Lord is terrible In the first and best times of the Church the first and greatest labour was to win men from Idols to the living God to teach them to love that Name besides which there is no other name under heaven to be saved by No strife or variance then unless it were whose zele should be most fervent whose devotion most intensive who should most truly serve him as a Lord whom they believed to be their Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Onely Piety and Profaneness divided the world But when the Church had stretched the curtains of her habitation and peace had sheathed the sword which had hewen down thousands that professed the Gospel and sealed their Profession with their bloud then arose hot debates and contentions about the Person of Christ his Godhead and his Lordship were called into question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 DOMINUS DOMINICUS the Lord but half a Lord The word indeed S. Augustine himself had used but after retracted it Some would mak him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mere man adopted to the participation of Divine honour Some contracted him some divided him like men who had found a rich Diamond and then fell to quarrel what it was worth In all ages Christ hath suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 12.3 the contradictions of sinners For every sinner standeth in a contradiction to Christ not onely Judas who betrayed him to the Jews and the Jews which crucified him but the sinner who for less then thirty pieces of silver selleth and betrayeth him every day Not onely the Heretick who denieth him to be the Lord but the Hypocrite who calleth him Lord Lord and doeth not his will the Wanton who betrayeth him for a smile the Covetous that giveth him up for bread for that which is not bread the Ambitious that selleth him for breath for air and the Superstitious that selleth him for his picture for an Idol which is nothing For we know saith S. Paul that an Idol is nothing in the world Every sin every sinner is a contradiction to this Lord. Not onely Judas and Christ and Pilate and Christ are terms contradictory but the rich man and Christ the profane person and Christ Not onely they that persecute him but even they that fight for him not onely they who say he is not the Lord but they who cry Lord Lord may stand at as great a distance from him as that which is not doth from that which hath a being For in this respect they are not they have no Entity at all They have nothing of Christ nothing of his Innocency his Meekness his Goodness And as an Idol is nothing in the world so are they nothing in the Church All the being they have is to be without God in this world which is far worse then not to be How many give to themselves flattering titles They call themselves the Regenerate the Elect the Children Servants Friends of this Lord when they are but contradictions to him as contradictory to him as Nothing is to Eternity as that which is worse then Nothing is to Goodness and Happiness it self To this day there are that make his Honour not their practice but dispute and whilest they are busie to set the bounds of his Dominion let Jesus slip and lose him in controversie Nor did ever Christian Religion receive more wounds then from them who stood up as champions in her defence who let go the Law in the bold inquisition after the Law-giver and forget the service which they owe by putting it too often to the question How he is the Lord. For the greatest errour is in our practice and as it is more dangerous so it is more universal Salvian will tell us of the Arians in his time Errant sed bono animo errant non odio sed affectu Dei They erred indeed but with a good mind not out of hatred but affection to Christ And though they were injurious to his Divine Generation yet they loved him as a Saviour and honoured him as a Lord. But we are more puzzled in agendis quà m in credendis in our Practicks then in our Creed and are sick rather in the heart then in the head Preach the Gospel we are willing to hear it and we kiss the lips that bring it But let Christ speak to us as a Lord Keep my commandments we are deaf and place all Religion in bringing the very principles of Religion into question and make that our argument which should be our rule Or if we give him the hearing the Good news hath swallowed up the Law the Gospel our Duty and Jesus the Lord. The truth is our Religion for the most part wanteth a rudder or stern to guide and carry us in an even course between Love and Fear between God's Goodness and his Power As Tully said Totum Caesarem so we Totum Christum non novimus We know not all of Christ When we hear he is a Saviour we fetter our selves the more And when we are told he is a Lord
on heaven and having an eye fixed and buried in the earth And that he is a Spirit of truth And it is the property of Truth to be alwayes like unto it self to change neither shape nor voice but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak the same things He doth not set up one Text against another doth not disannul his Promises in his Threats nor recall his Threats in his Promises doth not forbid Fear in Hope nor shake our Hope when he biddeth us fear doth not command Meekness to abate my Zele nor kindle my Zele to consume my Meekness doth not preach Christian Liberty to take off Obedience to Government nor prescribe Obedience to infringe and weaken my Chiristian Liberty Spiritus nusquam est aliud The holy Spirit is never different from it self never contradicteth it self And the reason why men who talk so much of the Spirit do fall into so gross and pernicious errours is from hence that they will not be like the Spirit in this but upon the beck of some place of Scripture which at the first blush and appearance looketh favourably on their present inclinations run violently on this side animated and posted on by those shews appearances which were the creatures of their Lust Phansie never looking back to other testimonies of Divine authority that army of evidences as Tertull. speaketh which are openly prest out marshalled against them which might well put them to an halt deliberation which might stay and drive back their intention and settle them at last in the truth which consisteth in a moderation O that men were wise but so wise as to know the Spirit before they engage him to look severely impartially upon their own designs as seriously consider the nature of the blessed Spirit before they voice him out for their abettor or make use of his name to bring their ends about Not to do this I will not say is the sin though perhaps I might but sure I am it is a great sin even Blasphemy against the holy Ghost But I must conclude Let us then as the Apostle speaketh examine our selves and bring our selves and our actions to trial Prove your selves and prove the Spirit Are your steps right and your wayes straight Do your actions answer the rule and still bear the same image and superscription Are you obedient to the Church and do you not think your selves wiser then your Teachers Are you reverent to God's word and receive it with all meekness without respect or distinction of those persons that convey it To come close to the Text Do you not divorce Jesus from the Lord riot it upon his mercy and then bow to him in a qualm and pinch of conscience Do you not fear the Lord the less for Jesus nor love Jesus the less for the Lord Are you as willing to be commanded as to be saved and to be his subjects as his children Are you thus qualified And are you still the same not making in your profession those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crooked and unsteddy bendings those staggerings of a drunken man now meek as Lambs and anon raging like Lions now hanging down the head and anon lifting up your horn on high at the altar forgiveness and in your closet revenge courting your brother to day and to morrow taking him by the throat Are you as ready to bow the knee in Devotion and stretch forth the hand in Charity as you are to incline your ear to a Sermon Are you in all things in subjection unto this Lord Is this proposition true and dare ye subscribe it with your bloud JESUS IS THE LORD Then have ye learnt this language well and are perfect Linguists in the Spirit 's dialect Then let the rainfall and the flouds come let the winds and waters of affliction beat thick upon us and the waves of persecution go over our soul let the windy sophisms of subtil disputants blow with violence to shake our resolution in the midst of all temptations assaults and encounters in the midst of all the busie noise the world can make we shall be at rest upon the rock even upon this fundamental truth That the Spirit is the best teacher and That Jesus is the Lord. In which truth the Spirit of truth confirm us all for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake The Nineteenth SERMON ISA. LV. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call ye upon him while he is near THE withdrawing of every thing from its original from that which it was made to be is like the drawing of a straight line which the further you draw it the weaker it is nor can it be strengthned but by being redoubled and brought back again towards its first point Now the Wiseman will tell us Eccles 7.29 That God hath made man upright that is simple and single and sincere bound him as it were to one point but he hath sought out many inventions mingled himself and ingendered with divers extravagant conceits and so run out not in one but many lines now drawn out to that object now to another still running further and further from the right and from that which he should have staid in and been united to as it were in puncto in a point and so degenerated much from that natural simplicity in which he was first made This our Prophet observeth in the people of Israel that they did their own wayes Chap. 58.13 Chap. 63.17 and erred from God's wayes run out as so many ill-drawn lines one on the flesh another on the world one on idolatry another on oppression every man at a sad distance from him whom he shoud have dwelt and rested in as in his Centre Therefore in every breath almost and passage of this Prophesie he seemeth to bend and bow them as it were a line back again to draw them from those objects in which they were lost and to carry them forward to the rock out of which they were hewen to strengthen and settle and establish them in the Lord. All this you have here abridged and epitomized Seek ye the Lord while he may be found The words are plain and need not the gloss of any learned interpreter If we look stedfastly upon the opening of them we shall behold the heavens open and God himself displaying his rayes and manifesting his beauty to draw men near unto himself to allure and provoke them to seek him teaching dust and ashes how to raise it self to the region of happiness mortality to put on immortality and our sinful nature to make its approches to Purity it self that where he is we may be also The parts are two 1. A Duty enjoyned Seek ye the Lord. 2. The Time prescribed when we must seek him while he may be found But because the Object is in nature before the Act and so to be considered we must know what to seek before we can seek it and because we are ready to mistake and to think that we
black lines of reprobation drawn out by the hand of Justice Oh that thou hadst known now whilest I speak whilest the word is in my mouth yet it is time hitherto is thy day NUNC AUTEM But now the word is spoken that time is past and cannot be recalled Hitherto was DIES TUA thy day but now the night is come Hitherto the light did shine and thou mightest have seen it but now omnium dierum soles occiderunt thy Sun is for ever set and darkness is come upon thee and that which might procure thy peace is hid from thy eyes for ever Beloved compare Jerusalem's state with the age of a man and you shall find as in that so in this there is a HAEC DIES TUA a This thy day in which thou mayest seek God and work thy peace and a NUNC AUTEM a Now when they shall be hidden from thine eyes Every man hath his day his allotted time in which he may seek and find God Hic meus est dixere dies And this day may be a feast-day or a day of trouble it may beget an eternal day or it may end in the shadow of death and everlasting darkness Oh that we men were wise but so wise as the creatures which have no reason so wise as to know our seasons to discover saltem hanc diem nostram this our day wherein we may yet see the things of our peace Oh that we could but behold that decretory moment in which mercy shall forsake us and justice cut off our hopes for ever But though there be such a day such a moment yet this day this moment like the day of Judgment is not known to any and God hath on purpose hid it from our eyes that we might have a godly jealousie of every moment of our life to come lest peradventure it may be the NUNC the Now wherein those things which concern our peace may be hidden from our eyes 2 Pet. 3.15 For as the long-sufferance of the Lord is our salvation so is every day every hour of our life On this hour on this moment Eternity may depend And who would perfunctorily let pass such an hour such a day which carrieth along with it eternity either of pain or bliss Flatter not thy self that thy day may be a long day or that thy last day may be that day Think not in thy heart that the NUNC AUTEM the decretory Now is yet afar off that whensoever thou seekest the Lord he will be found that when every action of thy life hath its proper season thy seeking of God hath none but what thou thy self appointest that thy failing in an hour may forfeit thy estate on earth but thy prodigally mis-spending of many years can no whit endanger thy title to Heaven Repentance indeed hath a blessing whensoever it cometh Pharaoh Judas Julian the Apostate could they have repented might have been saved But God who hath promised to Repentance a blessing at all times hath not promised repentance or power to repent when we list He that hath promised to be found at any time that we seek him hath not promised that we shall seek him when we please If thou pass thy NUNC thy Now thy allotted time he may give thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a heart that cannot repent nor seek him And it is justice with God to punish continuance in sin with final impenitency and to leave that heart which will not be softned unto it self till it be harder then the neither milstone Ephraim is joyned to idols Hos 4.17 let him alone And if the heart be alone it will soon turn stone and harden of it self The examples of Manasseh of him that was called at the eleventh hour of the thief on the cross are solatia poenitentium non subsidia rebellium saith Augustine These are left as comforts to the truly penitent not to chear and strenthen the heart of a rebellious sinner These becken to us and call upon us If you will enquire enquire return come Isa 21.12 but put no dispensation into our hands to seek when we please It will be good then for us if we will not believe this doctrine to be at least jealous of it as if it were most true to make every Now the last now to cast away our sins for fear that they may cleave as fast unto us as the leprosie did on Gehazi and his seed even for ever Pietas etiam tuta pertimescit It is the part of a pious mind sometimes to fear where no fear is and in the most plain and even ground to suspect a stone of offense Nor can we possibly be too scrupulous of our own salvation That thou mayst therefore meet with the Lord IN INVENIRI SUO whilest he may be found think that a time may come when thou mayst not be able to seek him Such a thought if it improve it self into a resolution will enlarge thy feet to seek and run after him Fear lest the measure of thy iniquity be almost full and perswade thy self thy next sin may fill it such a fear will make thee as bold as a lion in the wayes of God Such a perswasion that thou mayst fail and fall is far more safe then a groundless phantastical faith that thou shalt stand fast for ever Think that there is a Rubicon a river Kidron set thee which if thou pass thou shalt dye the death Think this is thy day and time of seeking and though it be not yet think it the last If it be an errour it is a happy errour that hasteneth thee to thy God If it be not the last if thy day have yet more hours more Nows in it yet the night will come when thou canst not seek him a night on thy understanding that thou shalt not have light to seek him a night of spiritual dulness when thou shalt have no mind to seek him and thy last night Death it self when thou canst seek no more And therefore let us seek him in this our day whilest he calleth upon us before our measure be full for then he will speak no more before we are past our bounds for there Death waiteth upon us ready to arrest us before our glass is run our day spent for then time shall be no more Let us seek him IN INVENIRI SUO whilest he may be found And here if you expect I should point out to a certain time the time is Now. Now the Prophet speaketh now the word soundeth in your ears To day now if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts For why is it spoken but that we should hear it Seek him now is an exhortation and if we obey not it is an argument against us that we deserve to hear it no more We are willing that what we speak should stand not a word we utter must fall to the ground If we speak to a friend and he turn away the ear it is a quarrel If
we speak to our servant and say Go he must go if we say Do this he must do it and he must do it now dicto citiùs as soon as it is spoken A deliberative pausing obedience obedience in the future tense to say I will do it strippeth him of his livery and thrusteth him out of doors And shall dust and ashes take a convenient time to seek the Lord Shall our Now be when we please Shall one morrow thrust on another and that a third Shall we demur and delay it till we are ready to be thrust into our graves If the Lord say Now this Now is it and no other For all other Nows as our dayes are in his hands and he may shut them up if he please and not open them to give thee another Domini non servi negotium agitur The business is the Lord's and not the servant's and the time is in his hands and not in ours Now then now the word soundeth in thy ears now is the time Again now that thou hast any good thought any thought that hath any relish of salvation For that thought if it be not the voice if the whisper of the Lord. If it be a good thought it is from him who is the fountain of all good and he speaketh to thee by it as he did to the Prophets by visions and dreams In a dream in a vision of the night in a thought then he openeth the ears of men Job 33.15.16 and sealeth their instruction And why should he speak once and twice and we perceive it not Why should the Devil that would destroy us prevail with us more then our God who would save us Why should an evil thought arise in our hearts and swell and grow and be powerful to roule the eye to lift up the head to stretch out the hand to make our feet like hind's feet in the wayes of death and a holy thought a good intention which is it were the breath of the Almighty be stopped and checked and slighted and at last chased away into the land of oblivion Why should a good thought as a bubble vanish as soon as it is seen and an evil thought increase and multiply shake the powers of the soul command the will and every â—aâ—â—â—y of the mind and every part of the body and at last bring forth a Cain an Esau a Herod a Pharisee a profane person an hypocrite an adulterer a murderer Why should vve so soon devest our selves of the one and morari stay and dvvell in the other as in a place of pleasure a Seraglio a Paradise Let us but give the same friendly enterteinment to the good as vve do to the bad let us as joyfully embrace the one as vve do the other let us fix our heart on the things above as vve do on the things belovv let us be as speculative men in the vvayes of God as vve are in our ovvn and then vve shall seek the Lord. I appeal to your selves and shall desire you to ask your selves the question How often do you enjoy ravishing thoughts Hovv often do you feel the good motions of the Spirit and seem as it vvere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to vvalk on the pavement of heaven to converse vvith Seraphim and Cherubim and to be lull'd in your Saviour's lap Hovv often are you so composed and biassed by these svveet and heavenly insinuations that heart and hand are ready to joyn together as partners in the seeking of the Lord the heart ready to endite a good matter and the tongue and hand to be as the pen of a ready writer Hovv often art thou the Preacher and telleth thy self Vanity of vanities all is vanity that there is no rest but in God I speak to those vvho have any sense and feeling of a future estate any tast of the powers of the world to come for too many vve see have not I speak this to our shame novv is the time nunc nunc properandus acri Fingendus sine fine rota novv thou must turn the vvheel about and frame and fashion thy self into a vessel of honour consecrate unto the Lord make up a child of God the new creature Now nourish and make much of these good motions They are fallen upon us and entred into us but how long they will stay how long we shall enjoy them we do not know A smile from the world a dart from Satan if we take not heed may chase them away Let us now run and meet our Saviour whilest he knocketh and lay hold on him lest if we seek him not whilest he cometh crowned with all his rayes and beauty whilest he may be found he withdraw himself that we shall not find him or which is worse so forsake us that we shall not seek to find him or if we do then seek him when we shall find nothing but despair This is the DONEC the While the time the Now. For at another time being fallen from this heaven our cogitations may be from the earth earthy such durty thoughts as will not melt but harden in the sun Our Faculties may be corrupt our Understandings dull and heavy our Wills froward and perverse that we can either not will that which is good or so will it that we shall not act it approve incline to it look towards it and then start back as from an enemy as from that which suiteth not with our present disposition but is distastful to it Now now let us close with it whilest it is amiable in our eyes whilest our heart is towards it For another time Vanity it self may appear in glory and Obedience may be a monster Now God is God but anon the World will be our God and we shall seek and worship that The first Now the first opportunity is the best the next is uncertain the next may be never But now if we will stand to distinguish times by the events by the several complexions they receive either by prosperity or adversity certainly the best time to seek the Lord is when he seeketh us when he shineth upon our tabernacle when he wooeth us by his manifold blessings The best time to call upon him is when he calleth upon us and loadeth us daily with his benefits cùm prata rident when our vallies do stand so thick with corn that they do even laugh and sing when God speaketh to us not out of the whirlwind but in a still voice when Plenty crowneth the Commonwealth and Peace shadoweth it when God appeareth to us not as the Poet 's Jupiter to Semele in thunder but as to Danae in a showre of gold whilest he standeth at the door and knocketh as it were with his finger by the motions of the blessed Spirit and not stay till he knock with the hammer of his judgments till he break in upon us with his sword Because then tâ— seek him in this brightness will rather be an act of our love then of our fear
fecerit publicum errorem singulorum facit publicus First the errour of some few spreadeth it self and is made publick and then being made publick and commended by the Many it soon taketh in and involveth the rest That there are many then is but a weak motive to work a good opinion in us of those we behold or to fulfil our joy I need not stand to confute this Tenent any further Your very eye will discover the falshood of it For take away the Wolves in Sheeps clothing take away Hereticks and Schismaticks take away those sons of Belial open profaners take away the proud the disobedient the traitour the lukewarm professour the formalist take away those who profess Religion onely for companies sake and so because there are many so and then tell me what is become of the Many or how many there be how many to raise a Prophets joy Certainly there is not there cannot be any force or efficacy in number nor hath it any influence at all to make evil good or an hypocrite a saint Devotion is the same in millions and in one single man Etiam tres Ecclesiam faciunt saith Tertullian Even three make up a Church Yea some have thought that at the passion of Christ the Church was in the Virgin Mary alone Thus it is in reality and in respect of the truth But in respect of us whose Charity must give sentence and not our Faith who have indeed a Tribunal within in us but from thence can judge none but our selves many professours a multitude of those who come to serve God is a glorious sight a representation of heaven it self The tribes come up v. 4. even the tribes of Lord saith David To him all Gods people were holy and every one that came up was a true professour Faith maketh up a Church as Gideon did his army taketh not up all she meeteth Judg 7. but out of many thousands selecteth a band of three hundred and no more But Charity seeth not any which may not fight and conquer To Faith Christs flock is a little flock Luke 12.32 but Charity seeth none that call upon the name of God which may not be gathered into his fold If they be the tribes of the Lord if they come up David will rejoyce and the encrease of the number will encrease his joy The more come up the gladder will he be Prov. 14.28 In the multitude of people is the honour of a King And in the multitude of professours is his joy And this God himself requireth not onely modestum fidei our modest and secret tetirements our private devotions in our chamber Yet even there the light of his countenance shineth upon us He whose providence reacheth over all findeth us out even in the wilderness in the closest grot or cave He that heareth all men heareth every man He went out with Isaac into a Gen. 24.63 the field when he prayed he heard Job from the dung-hill he was with David when he b Psal 6.6 washed his bed with his tears with Jonah in c Ion. 2.1 the whales belly with Daniel when d Dan. 6.10 he kneeled upon his knees in his chamber three times a day And though thou prayest in secret d Dan. 6.10 he that seeth in secret will reward thee openly e Matth. 6.6 f Deut. 6.4 1 Pet. 5.7 The Lord our God is one and he careth for every one And now from this the argument will hold well That if God careth for every one he careth for many and is better pleased to see many professours then one and to hear many call upon him then one alone That he is best pleased when many sons are brought unto glory Heb. 2.10 One is no number yet One may make a Church If in that great apostasie and decay of religion 1 Kings 9.10 1 Kings 19. there had been none but Elijah jealous for the Lord God of Hosts Elijah had been the Church Yet the single service of one is not so powerful and prevailing with God as the joynt service of many He is willing to seal as many thousands as will come in Rev. 7. And the more come in the more willing he is to seal them He heareth every man but where men meet together Matth. 18.20 he is in the midst of them Quasi manu factâ like an army they besiege him and in a most accepted way invade the Majesty of heaven Such violence is very welcome to God to this he boweth his ears and is most willing to yield For yield he must to his own glory and his glory shineth brighter in many then in one If his image in one single person delight him how greatly will it delight him to see it in many If he favourably look on one poor beads-man on one penitent upon his knees how brightly will he cause his face to shine upon a thousand Triumphus Dei passio martyris When one Martyr suffereth God triumpheth And if he hath a triumph in one Martyr what hath he in an army This made the holy Fathers oft times break out into expressions of joy and congratulation when they saw the people flocking and thronging into the Church S. Chrysostome falleth into a large commendation of Fear maketh a kind of panegyrick on Persecution it self because it had made the people leave the theatres and driven them in sholes to Gods house S. Hierome telleth us that in the primitive times the Hallelujah of the Congregations was like the noise of many waters and their Amen like a clap of Thunder To conclude this Though there be no virtue in number though the proverb Plures mali be very true that the most are the worst though Heraclitus said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that One may be better then thirty thousand and an innumerable company be of no account though as Chrysostome saith one Elijah or one David put in the scales against a world of ungodly men would far outweigh them all yet as the Apostle exhorteth let not us forsake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the assembling of our selves together Hebr. 10.25 but let us make up a company make the Many as many as we can Evil beginneth haply in one and then spreadeth in many And as many may become evil so many may be made good We see here many the tribes the people resolve on that which was very good and so made David glad They said We will go into the house of the Lord. And so we are fallen upon 2. Their Resolution DIXERUNT They said To Say in Scripture is to Resolve I said I will take heed to my wayes that is Psal 39.1 I resolved to set a watch upon my self For there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word that floateth on the tongue and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word conceived and shaped in the inward man a word spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the very heart verbum operis a
word which is a work which will break forth into action a word like unto that of God who spake and it was done Psal 33.9 Psal 62.11 who speaketh and repenteth not God hath spoken once that is immobiliter saith a Father His word is immutable IBIMUS We will go Here is their Resolution a strong will begotten of Love vehemens bene ordinata voluntas a vehement and well-ordered will Lord Psal 26.8 I have loved the habitation of thy house saith the Psalmist This is invictissimè constantissimè velle as S. Augustine speaketh a preserving and unconquered will a resolution taken up once for all not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoicks speak an assent that it is fit so to do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an active motion by which the mind is carried along and in a manner forced to that it desireth a full perswasion as that of Abraham Rom. 4. as that of S Paul Acts 21. who Rom. 4.21 Acts 21 11-14 though he was so sure to be bound and put in fetters by the Jews at Jerusalem yet he would go up thither and by no arguments nor intreaties nor tears be persuaded to the contrary as that of Martine Luther who would enter the city Wormes though every tile on every house were a devil as that of the blessed Martyrs whom neither threats nor flatteries could at all work upon but their firm and setled purpose of mind added strength to the weaker part animated and quickned and as it were spiritualized their bodies and made them subservient and ministerial to bring their resolution into act Hence in a manner they suffered as if they suffered not They seemed to be ignorant of their stripes senseless of their wounds unconcerned in their torments Death appeared to them in as fair a shape as Life it self yea was desired before it This is it we call Resolution to will and do or to will which is to do For quicquid imperavit sibi animus obtinuit Whatsoever the mind commandeth it self whatsoever it resolveth on is as good as done already For when we have looked upon the object and approved it when we have beheld its glory and confirmed our selves in the liking of it when we have cast by all objections which flesh and bloud may bring in of danger or difficulty when we have fastned the thing to our soul and made it as it were a part of it when it is become as Christ saith our meat John 4.34 then there is such an impression of it made iâ—â—he heart such a character as is indeleble and we are as violently carried towards it as an hungry man is to his food and refreshment neither difficulty nor danger neither principalities nor powers neither life nor death can so stand between as to keep us from it My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed saith David Psal 57.7 and then he cannot but sing and give praise The heart being fixed to the object carrieth it about with it is joyned to it even when it is out of sight when at the greatest distance Finis operi adulatur The end we propose and the glory thereof doth give light and lustre to our endeavours yea and cast a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and loveliness even on that which would deterre us from it and leaveth not in us the consideration or memory of any thing besides it self This is Resolution This maketh an IBIMUS We will go significant without this we cannot clearly pronounce IBIMUS we cannot truly say We will go into the house of the Lord. Such a resolution David here observed at least supposed in the people of Israel For whether the Ark were to be setled or the Temple to be edified or re-edified any of these might well stir up a desire in them and a resolution to see it done For the Ark was a Sam. 4.21 22. Psal 78.61 the glory of Israel and b Jer. 7.4 The Temple of the Lord was a frequent and solemn word in their mouthes they c Psal 44.8 made it their boast all the day long their long absence therefore could not but whet their desire raise their expectation fix and setle their will and make them impatient of delay Oh when shall we appear in the presence of God! When shall we go into the house of the Lord Thence we heard the oracles of God There is the mercy-seat There we offered sacrifices and burnt-offerings There we called upon God's name There are set thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of David There the glory of the Lord appeared and made it as heaven it self We will go This was their Resolution We now pass to behold 3. Their Agreement and joynt Consent Which is visible in the pronoun WE We will go Much hath been said of Pronouns of the power and virtue of them of Meum and Tuum what swords they have whet what bloud they have spilt what fires they have kindled what tumults they have raised in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene How long shall we hear in the Church these quarrelsome words Mine and Thine My understanding and Thy understanding My wit and Thy wit My preacher and Thy preacher My Church and Thy Church It is not Mine or Thine but Ours WE is a bond of peace and love that tieth us all together and maketh us all one We are all Israelites we are one people we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow-citizens and members of the same body We have one Law one Temple one Religion one Faith one God one Heaven cur non omnes unus dicantur saith Origen and why may not all then be one Yes we are all one And there is as great unity between us if we be of the same body saith Cyprian as there is between the beams and the Sun between rivers and their fountain between branches and their root WE taketh in a whole nation a whole people the whole world and maketh them one DECERNIMUS We decree We ordein is taken for a word of state and majesty but it is indeed a word of great moderation and humility an open profession that though Princes command yet they do it not alone but by the advise and counsel of others For in making a Law the King and his Counsel are but one So WE maketh Manasseh and Ephraim all Israel all the Tribes one WE maketh a Common-wealth and WE maketh a Church Though there be Lords and peasants Pastours and people Acts 1.15 though the number of the names together be an hundred and twenty yea many millions yet WE by interpretation is but one 1 Cor. 12.8 c. To one is given the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge to another faith to another the gifts of healing to another the working of miracles c. But it is by one and the same Spirit And as there is but one Spirit so there is but one Christ and in
with admiration then it speaketh nay it cryeth unto the Lord. When S. Paul was caught up into paradise and heard those unspeakable words which he could not utter his admiration supplyed that defect and was as the lifting up of his voice unto God For what is a Miracle if it be not wondered at Or is it fit a Miracle should pass by us as a shadow unregarded Is it fit that that which was done for us men and for our salvation should not move us so much as those common things which are done before our eyes every day that we should be little affected with that Gospel which was thus confirmed by signs and wonders that nothing should be wonderful in our eyes but that which is not worth a thought For what is that we wonder at Even that from which we should wean our affection we wonder at those things in the pursuit of which we our selves become monsters We wonder at Wealth and are as greedy as the Horseleach We wonder at Beauty and become worse then the beasts that perish We wonder at Honour and are those Chamelions that live on air We have mens persons in admiration Jude 16. and make our selves their Horse or Mule which they may ride at pleasure We wonder at Power and become stocks or stones and have no more motion of our own then they These appear to us in glory these dart their beams upon us and we are struck with admiration But mirabilia legis the wonderful things of the Law the wonderful things of the Gospel we scarce open our eyes to behold them and but faintly desire God to do it for us His wonderful counsel in sending his Son we do but talk of The mystery of our Redemption is hidden still God's eternal will that is our sanctification we scarce spare an hour to think on his precepts are not in so much esteem as the statutes of Omâ—i What a glorious spectacle is a clod of earth and what a Nothing is Heaven Behold these are the wonderful things of Christ To unite God and Man to tye them together by a new covenant to raise dust and ashes to heaven this is a great miracle indeed To draw so many nations and people to the obedience of faith to convert rich men by poor learned men by illiterate and by those whom they persecuted and put to death so that they brought in their riches and honours and usual delights and laid them down as it were at the feet of those poor instructers whom they counted as the off-scouring of the world To make not onely his Precepts but the Meekness the Patience the Silence the very Death of his Professors as so many Apostles and Messengers to win them to the faith this if we did truly consider and weigh as we should would busie and intend our thoughts and raise and improve them into that amazement and admiration which would joyn us to that innumerable company of just men and make us of the number of those who shall be saved Many things saith Hillary Christ hath done for the sons of men the blessed effect of which is open as the day though the cause be bid and where Nature comes short Faith steps forward and reacheth home In his quoque quae ignoro non nescio Even in those which my understanding is too narrow to receive I am not utterly ignorant but walk by faith and admire that vvhich my good Master doth and yet vvill not let me know It is no miracle no mystery at all vvhich deserveth not admiration Secondly by her lifting up her voice and blessing the womb that bare Christ vvhich vvas a kind of adoration for Admiration had not so shut up her devotion and love but that it vvas vocal and reverent vve are taught to magnifie our Saviour vvith the Tongue and Hand and Knee and every member vve have as David speaketh For these also have their voice and vve may confess Christ not onely vvith the tongue but vvith our adorations and genuflexions and those outward expressions vvhich are equivalent to it Auditur philosophus dum videtur Though he hold his peace yet the Philosophers very gesture is a lecture of morality Therefore where we read that Man was made a living soul Gen. 2.7 the Chaldee renders it factus est in spiritum loquentem He was made a speaking soul to speak the praises of his Maker with every faculty and part he hath For as God made both Body and Soul so he requires both the inward devotion of the one and the outward expressions of the other a Soul saith Isidore which may 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by its operative devotion call down God from heaven and in her self frame the resemblance of his presence and a Body which may make that devotion and love visible to the very eye It is S. Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians 1 Thes 5. â—3 that God would sanctifie them wholly that the soul and body may be blameless in the day of the Lord that Holiness might be as an impression which from the soul might work upon the body and give force and motion to the whole man This is to sanctifie them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in part but all of them not to sprinkle but to baptize them with holiness Profanus and non integer are the same in Tertullian and it is profaneness not to give God all Athanasius makes the Soul as a Musician and the Body which consists of the Tongue and other members as a Harp or Lute which she may tune and touch till it yield a celestial harmony a song composed of divers parts of Spirit and Flesh of Soul and Body of every faculty of the soul and every part of the body must accord with the elevation of the soul Certainly a sweet note But then the lifting up of the voice mends it and makes it far more pleasant An ejaculation from the Soul yea and the sound thereof from the Tongue and Hands and Knees a holy Thought yea and a zealous and reverent depottment these make a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks perfect and complete Otherwise as the Poet spake of the beggar half wrotten and consumed he is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an half-strung and half-tuned instrument Look back unto former and purer times and you shall see Devotion visible in every gesture in their Walking in their sitting in their Bowing in their Standing up you shall hear it in their Hymns and Psalms in their Hallelujahs and Amens which were saith Hierome as the voice of many waters or as a clap of thunder You shall hear the Priest blessing the people and the people echoing it back again unto the Priest the Priests praying and the people answering the Priests which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Antiphones or Responsals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand decently They did spake it and they did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us stand with the
Powers and Principalities Laws and Precepts and all that is named of God Ambition maketh Laws Jura perjura Swear and forswear Arise kill and eat Covetousness maketh Laws condemneth us to the mines to dig and sweat Quocunque modo rem Gather and lay up Come not within the reach of Omri's statutes of humane Laws and you need not fear any Law of Christ. Private Interest maketh Laws and indeed is the Emperour of the world and maketh men slaves to crouch and bow under every burthen to submit to every Law of man though it enjoyn to day what it did forbid yesterday to raise up our heads and then duck at every shadow that cometh over us but we can see no such formidable power in the Royal Law of Christ because it breatheth not upon it to promote and uphold it but looketh as an enemy that would cast it down biddeth us deny our selves which we do every day for our lusts for our honour for our profit but cannot do it for Christ or for that crown which is laid up for those that do it Thus every thing hath power over us which may destroy us but Christ is not hearkned to nor those his Laws which may make us wise unto salvation For we are too ready to believe what some have been bold to teach that there are no such Laws at all in the Gospel Therefore in the last place let us cast this root of bitterness out of our hearts let us look upon it as a most dangerous and baneful errour an errour which hath brought that abomination of desolation into the world and into the lives and manners of Christians which have made them stink amongst the inhabitants of the earth amongst Jews and Pagans and Infidels which tremble to behold those works of darkness which they see every day not onely done but defended by those who call themselves the children of light Because in that name we bite and devour one another for this they despise the Gospel of Christ because we boast of it all the day long and make use of it as a Licence or Letters patent to be worse then they riot it in the light beat our fellow-servants defraud and oppress them which they do not in darkness and in the shadow of death The first Christians called the Gospel legem Christianam the Christian Law and so lived as under a Law so lived that nothing but the name was accused But the latter times have brought forth subtle Divines that have disputed away the Law and now there is scarce any thing left commendable but the name A Gospeller and worse then a Turk or Pagan a Gospeller and a Revenger a Gospeller and a Libertine a Gospeller and a Schismatick a Gospeller and a Deceiver a Gospeller and a Traitor a Gospeller that will be under no Law a Gospeller that is all for Love and Mercy and nothing for Fear I may say the Devil is a better Gospeller for he believeth and trembleth And indeed this is one of the Devils subtilest engines veritatem veritate concutere to shake and beat down one Truth with another to bury our Duty in the Good news to hide the Lord in the Saviour and the Law in the covering of Mercy to make the Gospel supplant it self that it may be of no effect to have no sound heard but that of Imputative righteousness From hence that irregularity and disobedience amongst Christians that liberty and peace in sin For when Mercy waiteth so close upon us and Judgment is far out of our sight we walk on pleasantly in forbidden paths and sin with the less regret sin and fear not pardon lying so near at hand To conclude then Let us not deceive our selves and think that there is nothing but Mercy and Pardon in the Gospel and so rely upon it till we commit those sins which shall be pardoned neither in this world nor in the world to come Nemo promittat sibi quod non promittit Evangelium saith Augustine Let no man make the promise larger then the Gospel hath made it nor so presume on the Grace of God as to turn it into wantonness so extol it as to depress it so trust to Mercy as to forfeit it but look into the Gospel and behold it in its own shape and face as pardoning sin and forbidding sin as a royal Release and a royal Law And look upon Christ the authour and finisher of our faith as a Jesus to save us Psal 2. and a Lord to command us as preaching peace and preaching a Law Rom. 8.3 condemning sin in his flesh dying that sin might dye and teaching us to destroy it in our selves In a word let us so look into the Gospel that it may be unto us the savour of life unto life and not the savour of death unto death so look upon Christ here that he may be our Lord to govern us and our Jesus to save us that we may be subject to his Laws and so be made capable of his mercy that we may acknowledge him to be our Lord and he acknowledge us before his Father that Death may lose its sting and Sin its strength and we may be saved in the last day through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Two and Fortieth SERMON PART II. JAMES I. 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work this man shall be blessed in his deed THat the Precepts of the Gospel do bind us as Laws ye have heard already and how the Doctrine of the Gospel is a Law We must in the next place see how it is a perfect Law And first That is perfect saith the Philosopher cui nihil adimi nec adjici potest from which nothing can be taken and to which nothing can be added Such is the Gospel You cannot adde to it you cannot take from it one lota or tittle If any shall adde unto these things Rev. 22.18 God shall adde to him the plagues that are written in this book And if any shall take away from them God shall take away his part out of the book of life There needeth no second hand to supply it and that hand deserveth to be cut off that shall corrupt or alter it For look upon the End which is Blessedness There you have it drawn out in the fairest lines that flesh and bloud can read in as large a representation as our humane nature is capable of Then view the Means to bring us to that end They are plainly exprest and set out there in such a character that we may run and read them open to our understanding exciting our faith raising our hope and even provoking us to action There is nothing which we ought to know nothing which we must believe nothing which we may hope for nothing which concerneth us to do nothing which may lift us up to happiness and carry us to the end but it is written
who refused to hearken to their father Chap. 2.17 or to harden them whose sin was very great before the Lord But we must conclude these two within the four and thirty thousand that were slain And now the delivering up the people in such a number to the sword may seem to prejudice and call in question the Justice of God What his people his own people culled out of the Nations of the earth must these fall by the sword of Aliens of enemies to God Gen. 18.25 that know not his Name Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right Yes he will For even in this DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. Isa 50.1 For as the Lord once said to his people Where is the bill of your Mothers divorcement whom I have put away so here he may ask Where is that bill and obligation which I made to protect you If there be any brought forth we shall finde it rather like a Bill of sale then the Conveyance of an absolute gift On the one side God promiseth something on his behalf on the other there is something required on ours Read the Covenant and Contract between God and his people Gen. 17.8 They had his promise to be their God Exod. 29.45 Gal. 4.28 and were the sons of promise But then these promises were conditional and in every conditional promise there is an obligation and command Lev. 26.12 I will be their God that is his promise and they shall be my people that is their duty and if these meet not the promise is void and of none effect There is not a more true and natural gloss upon this promise than that of Azariah 2 Chron. 15.2 Hear ye me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin The Lord is with you whilst ye are with him and if ye seek him he will be found of you but if ye forsake him he will forsake you Both must go together or both are lost If Israel will be God's people then the promise is firm being founded on the eternal essence of God and so as constant and immutable as himself but if they break his commandment and put it from them then to be their God were not to be their God then to make good his promises were to vilifie and debauch them Tertul. This were liberalitatem ejus mutare in servitutem to turn his liberality into slavery prodigally to pour the pretious oyl of his goodness into a vessel that cannot hold it to protect and countenance a man of Belial because he beareth the name of an Israelite Therefore Isai 27.11 where God upbraideth his people of folly he presently cancelleth the bill and putteth them out of his protection Therefore he that made them will not have mercy upon them and he that formed them will shew them no favour What though they be the people which he hath purchased yet he will take no care of his own purchase Though they be his possession he will give them up He will not do what he promised and yet be Truth it self For if they do not their duty he did not promise Though he made them and formed them yet he will not own them but forsake and abhor his own work he will surrender them up and deliver them to destruction Even here upon the forehead of a desolate and rejected Israelite we may set up this Inscription DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. And now if we look up upon the Inscription we may read and interpret it without a guide and learn not to trifle with God because he is our Lord not to mock him with our Hypocrisie and force our Profession to countenance our Sin to be worse then Philistines because we are Israelites to be his enemies because we call our selves Gods people to be worse then Turks or Jews because we are Christians Oh the happy times of the infant Church when the Pagan could find nothing amongst the Christians to accuse but their Name And then what times are these when you can scarce see any thing commendable in the Christian but his Name You may call it if you please the Dotage or Blindness of the Church For The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord The Israelite Jer. 7.4 The Israelite The Christian The Christian The Protestant The Protestant This is the Musick with which most use to drive away the evil Spirit all sad and melancholick thoughts from their hearts But indeed saith Basil the Devil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth daunce and leap for joy to hear it when he heareth not withall the noise of our gronings of our prayers of our good works nor the harmony of a well tuned and well-composed life to go up to heaven along with it Oh what pity is it that God should place us in Paradise in a place of pleasure and safety and we forfeit it that he should measure out unto us as it were by the line a goodly heritage and we pluck up our own hedges and lay our selves open to every wild-beast that he should make us his people and we force him to be our Enemy in a word that our inheritance should begger us our security betray us and our royal prerogative undo us And further we carry not this consideration but pass to the second particular II. In so great a number as four and thirty thousand I may say in the whole common wealth of Israel for a Common-wealth may suffer in a far less number we cannot doubt but some there were that feared the Lord And shall there be as the Wise-man speaketh Eccl. 9.2 the same event to the righteous and to the wicked to the good and to the clean Horat. od 3.2 and to the unclean to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not Gen. 18.23 Will God Incesto addere integrum will he destroy the righteous with the sinner This indeed is the depth of God and a great part of the world have been troubled at the very sight of it but yet if we behold it with that light which Scripture holdeth forth we shall find it is not so unfordable but we may make some passage through it 1. If we could not make answer or render any reason yet this ought not to prejudice or call in question the justice of God's proceedings especially with us men who are of dull and slow understandings When we have wearied our selves in searching out the causes of natural things yet after all our sweat and oyl we cannot attain so far as to know why the grass under our feet is green rather then purple or of any other colour and therefore we are far below those Supernaturals most unfit to search out those causes which God may seem to have locked up in his own breast God is the Lord of all the earth Josh 3.11 13. and as the Psalmist telleth us a thousand years in his sight are but as one day Psal 90.4 so in the case
we now speak of a thousand a million a world of men are with him but as one man When the Lord Chief Justice of Heaven and Earth shall sit to do judgement upon sinners what Caligula once wantonly wished to the people of Rome all the world before him have but as it were one neck and if it please him by that jus pleni dominii by that full power and dominion he hath over his creature he may as he welnear did in the Deluge strike it off at a blow His judgements are past finding out and therefore not to be questioned A Platone dicitur Deus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Plutarch Quaest. convival l. 8. q. c. He is the great Geometrician of the World which made all things in number weight and measure and doth infinitely surpass all humane inventions whatsoever and therefore we cannot do him less honour then Hiero King of Sicily did to Archimedes the great Mathematician When he saw the engines he made and the marvellous effects they did produce he caused it to be proclaimed that whatsoever Archimedes did after affirm how improbable soever it might seem yet should not once be called into question but be received and entertained as a truth Let the course of things be carried on as it will let Death pass over the door of the Egyptian and smite the Israelite let God's Thunder miss the house of Dagon and shiver his own Tabernacle yet God is just and true and every man a liar that dareth but ask the question Why doth God this Look over the book of Job and you shall see how Job and his Friends are tost up and down on this great deep For it being put to the question why Job was so fearfully handled his Friends ground themselves upon this conclusion That all affliction is for sin and so lay folly and hypocrisie to his charge and tell him roundly that the judgments of God had now found him out though he had been a close irregular and with some art and cunning hid himself from the eye of the World But Job on the contrary as stoutly pleadeth and defendeth his innocency his justice his liberality and could not attain to the sight of the cause for which Gods hand was so heavy on him Why should his Friends urge him any more Job 19.22 or persecute him as God They dispute in vain Job 21.34 for in their answers he seeth nothing but lies At last when the controversie could have no issue Deus è machina God himself cometh down from heaven and by asking one question putteth an end to the rest Job 38.2 Who is this that darkneth counsel by words without knowledge He condemneth Job and his Friends of ignorance and weakness in that they made so bold and dangerous an attempt as to seek out a cause or call God's judgments into question 2. Because this is a point which may seem worthy to be insisted upon for it hath well-nigh troubled the whole world to see the righteous and wicked tyed together in the same chain and speeding alike in general and oecumenical plagues that Mans reason may not take offense and be scandalized we will give you some reasons why God should hold so unrespective a hand First good reason it is that they who partake in the sin should partake also in the punishment Now though in great and crying sins the righteous partake not with the wicked yet in smaller they evermore concur For who is he amongst the sons of men that can presume himself free from these kind of sins And then if the wages of the smallest sin can be no less then death and eternal torment we have no cause to complain if God use his rod who might strike with the sword if he chastise us on earth who might thrust us into hell This is enough to clear God from all injustice For who can complain of temporal who doth justly deserve eternal pains Or why should they be severed in the penalty who are joyned together in the cause But further yet what though the fault of the one be much the less yet it will not therefore follow if we rightly examine it that the punishment should be the less For though it may seem a paradox which I shall speak unto you yet it will stand with very good reason that great cause many times there may be why the smaller sin should be amerced and fined with the greater punishment In the Penitential Canons he that killeth his mother is enjoynd ten years penance but he that killeth his wife is enjoynd far more And the reason is immediately given not because this is the greater sin but because men are commonly more apt to fall into the sin of murdering their wives then their mothers It is true the reason is larger then the instance and it teacheth us thus much That in appointing the mulct for sin men ought not onely to consider the greatness of it but the aptness of men to fall into it For that of St. Augustine is most true Tantò crebriora quantò minora Because they are the less men presume the oftner to commit them And therefore it may seem good wisdome when ordinary punishment will not serve to redress sins to enhance and improve their penalty We read in our books that there was a Law in Rome that he who gave a man a box on the ear was to pay the sum of twelve pence of our money And Aulus Gellius doth tell us that there was a loose but a rich man who being disposed to abuse the Law was wont to walk the streets with a purse of money and still as he met any man he would give him a box on the ear and then twelve pence Now to repress the insolence of such a fellow there was no way but to encrease the value of the mulct Which course the God of heaven and earth may seem to take with us when his ordinary and moderate punishments will not serve to restrain us from falling into smaller sins He sharpneth the penalty that at last we may learn to account no sin little which is committed against an infinite Majesty and not make the gentleness of the Law an occasion of sin And to this end he coupleth both good and bad in those general plagues which by his providence do befall the world He speaketh evil he doth evil to whole Nations amongst whom notwithstanding some righteous persons are Ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers Isa 1.4 10. princes of Sodom people of Gomorrah these are the names by which he stileth the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem amongst whom we cannot doubt but there were many good though no other yet certainly Isaiah the Prophet who spake these words And as he giveth them all one name without regard of difference so he maketh them all good and bad to drink alike of one cup of captivity though no doubt many of great uprightness though
parts which make up the Syntaxis of a Republick And he that endeavoureth not the advancement of the whole is a letter too much fit to be expunged and blotted out But in the Church whose maker and builder is God Heb. 11.10 this is required in the highest degree especially in those transactions which may enlarge the circuit and glory of it Here every man must be his own and under Christ his brothers Saviour For as between these two Cities so between the happiness of the one and the happiness of the other there is no comparison As therefore every Bishop in the former ages called himself Episcopum Catholicae Ecclesiae a Bishop of the Catholick Church although he had jurisdiction but over one Diocess so the care and piety of every particular Christian in respect of its diffusive operation is as Catholick as the Church Every soul he meeteth with is under his charge and he is the care of every soul Jam. 5.20 In saving a soul from death every man is a Priest and a Bishop although he may neither invade the Pulpit nor ascend the Chair I may be eyes unto him as it was said of Hobab Numb 10.31 I may take him from his errour and put him into the way of truth If he fear I may scatter his fear if he grieve I may wipe off his tears if he presume I may teach him to fear and if he despair I may lift him up to a lively hope that neither Fear nor Grief neither Presumption nor Despair swallow him up Thus may I raise a dead man from the grave a sinner from his sin and by that example many may rise with him who are as dead as he and so by this friendly communication we may transfuse our selves into others and receive others into our selves and so run hand in hand from the chambers of Death And thus far we dare extend the Communion of Saints place it in a House a Family a Society of men called and gathered together by Christ raise it to the participation of the privileges and Charters granted by Christ calling us to the same faith leading us by the same rule filling us with the same grace endowing us with several gifts that we may guard and secure each other and so settle it in those Offices and Duties which Christianity maketh common and God hath registred in his Church which is the pillar of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 where all mens Joyes and Sorrows and Fears and Hopes should be one and the same And then to die surrounded with all these helps and advantages of God above ready to help us of Men like unto our selves prest out as auxiliaries to succour and relieve us of Precepts to guide us of Promises to encourage us of Heaven even opening it self to receive us then to die 2 Sam 3.33 34. is to die as fools die to suffer their hands to be bound and their feet put in fetters and to open their breast to the sword For to die alone is not so grievous not so imputable as to die in such company to die where it is no more but to will it and I might live for ever Oh how were it to be wisht that we well understood this one Article of our Faith the Communion of Saints that we knew to be Vessels to receive the Water of life and Conduits to convey it that we would remember that by every sin we bring trouble to a million of Saints and by our obedience make as many Angels merry Luk. 15.13 30. that when we spend our portion amongst harlots we do not onely begger our selves but rob and spoil our brethren that when we yield our selves to the enemy we betray an Army Oh that we knew what it were to give counsel and what it were to receive it what it were to shine upon others and to walk by their light Oh that we knew the power and the necessity of a Precept the riches and glory of a Promise that we would consider our selves as men amongst men invited to happiness invited to the same royal feast If this were rightly considered we should then ask our selves the question Why should we die Why shâ—uld we die not in the wilderness amongst beasts upon our turf or stone where there is none to help but in domo Israelis in a house and in the house of Israel where Health and Safety appear in every room and corner Why should we fall like Samson with the house upon us and so endanger and bruise others with our fall If I be a string why should I jarre and spoil the harmony If I be a part why should I be made a schisme from the body If I be under command why should I beat my fellow-servants If a member why should I walk disorderly in the family Why should I why should any die in the house of Israel And now to reassume the Text Why will ye die O house of Israel What a fearful exprobration is it What can it work in us but shame and confusion of face Why will ye die ye that have Christ for your Physician the Angels for your Ministers the Saints for your example the Church a common shop of precious balm and antidotes ye who are in the House of Israel where you may learn from the Priest learn from the oracles of God learn from one another learn from Death it self not to die In this House in this Order in this Union in this Communion in the midst of all these auxiliary troops to fall and miscarry To have the Light but not to see it the bread of Life but not to tast it To die with our antidotes about us Quale est de Ecclesiâ Dei in Ecclesiam Diaboli tendere de coelo in coenum Tert. De spect c. 25. Aug. De Civ Dei l. 14. c. 15. to go per portâ—â— coeli in gehennam thorow the house of Israel into Tophet thorow the Church of Christ into hell may well put God to ask questions and expostulate and can argue no less then a stubborn and relentless heart and not onely a defect but a distast and hatred of that piety quae una est sapientia in hac domo which is the onely wisdome and most useful in the house of Israel which is our best strength against our enemy Death And here to apply this to our selves Let us compare the state of the house of Israel with the state of the people of this Nation and Jerusalem with this City Isa 5.4 and we may say What could God have done more for us which he hath not done Onely his blessings and privileges will rise and swell and exceed on our side and so make our ingratitude and guilt the greater They had their Priests and Levites we have our Pastours and Ministers They had their Temple and Synagogues we our Parochial Churches They had their Sacraments Circumcision and the Paschal Lamb Acts 15.21 we Baptism and the Lords
Supper They had Moses preacht in their Synagogues every Sabbath day so have we I speak like a fool we have more the Gospel interpreted or abused every Sabbath-day nay every day of the week I had almost said every hour of the day We are baptized with a Sermon and we are married with a Sermon and we are buried with a Sermon When we take our journey a Sermon is our farewell and when we return it is our welcome home If we feast a Sermon is the Grace before it If we sayl a Sermon must weigh ancor And if we fight a Sermon is the alarum to battel If we rejoyce we call to the Preacher to pipe to us that we may dance for many times we chuse our Preachers as we do our Musicians by the ear and phansie not by judgment And it must needs be a rare choice which a Woman and Ignorance makes and such an one is to us as a lovely song of one that hath a very pleasant voice And if we be in grief he must turn the key Ezek. 33.32 and change his note and mourn to as that we may lament A Sermon is the grand Sallet to usher in every dish like Sosia or Davus in the Comedy scarce any scene or part of our life without it It is Prologus galeatus a Prologue that will fit either Comedy or Tragedy every purpose every action every business of our life In a word What had the House of Israel which we have not in measure pressed down They had the favour and countenance of God they had the blessings of the Basket So had we if we could have pinned it and kept them in and not plaid the wantons in this light and so let them fly away from us that we can but look after them and sadly say We had them They had Temporal blessings we have Graces and Spiritual endowments more Light richer Promises mo and more gracious Privileges then they Their administration was with glory but ours is more glorious 2 Cor. 3.7 c Glorious things are spoken of this City glorious things are seen amongst us able to deceive a Prophet nay if it were possible the very Elect. For he that shall see our outward formality the earnestness the demureness the talkativeness of our looks and behaviour when we flock and press to Sermons he that shall hear our noyse and zeal for Religion our anger and detestation against Idolatry even where it is not he that shall scarcely hear a word from us which soundeth not as the word of God he that shall see us such Saints abroad will little mistrust we come so short of the honesty of the Pagans in our shops and dealings He that shall see such a promising form of godliness cannot presently discover the malice the fraud the uncleanness the cruelty that lieth wrapt up in it like a Devil in light He that shall see this in the City cannot but say of it as the Prophet Samuel did of Eliab Surely the Lords anointed is here This is the faithful City 1 Sam. 16.7 This is the City of the Lord. But God who seeth not as man seeth nor looketh on the outward appearance but on the heart may account us dead for all these glories this pageantry this noise which to him is but noise as the found of their trumpet who will not fight his battels but fall off and run to the enemy as a song of Sion in a strange land psal 137.3 4. even in the midst of Babylon We read in our books that it was a custome amongst the Romanes when the Emperour was dead in honour of him to frame his image of wax and to perform to it all ceremonies of state as if the image were the living Emperour The Senate and Ladies attended the Physicians resorted to him to feel his pulse and Doctorally resolved that he grew worse and worse and could not escape a Guard watcht him Nobles saluted him his dinner and supper at accustomed hours was served in with water with sewing and carving and taking away his Nobles and Gentlemen waited as if he had been alive there was no ceremony forgot which State might require Thus hath been done to a dead carcase and if we take not heed our case may be the same All our outward shews of Churches of Sermons of Sacraments our noyse and ostentation which should be arguments of life and antidotes against death may be no more then as funeral rites performed to a carcase to a Christian to a City whose iniquities are loathsome of an ill-smelling savour to God The great company of Preachers whereof every one choseth one according to his lusts may stand about it and do their duty but as to an image of wax or a dead carcase the Bread of life may be served in and divided to it by art and skill as every man phansieth it may be fitted and prepared for every palate when they have no tast nor relish of it and receive no more nourishment then they that have been dead long ago Be not deceived Psal 68.19 Benefits are burdens God loadeth us daily with benefits saith David burdens which if we bear not well and as we should do will grind us to pieces All prerogatives are with conditions and if the condition be not kept they turn to scorpions They either heal or kill us they either lift us up to bliss or throw us down to destruction There is heaven in a privilege and there is hell in a privilege and we make it either to us We may starve whilst we hang on the breasts of the Church we may be poisoned with antidotes Those mouthes that taught us may be opened to accuse us the many Sermons we have heard may be so many bills against us the Sacraments may condemn us the blood of Christ cry loud against us and our profession our holy profession put us to shame John 14.9 Have I been so long with you and knowest thou not me Philip saith our Saviour Hast thou had so good a Master and art thou yâ—t to learn Hast thou been so long with me and deniest thou me Peter Hast thou been so long with me and yet betrayest me Judas Hath Christ wrought so many works among us and do we go about to kill and crucify him Hath he planted Religion true Religion amongst us and do we go about to dig it up by the roots Hath the Gospel sounded so long in our ears and begot nothing but words words that are deceitful upon the balance words which are lies So many Sermons and so many Atheists So much Preaching and so much defrauding So many breathings and demonstrations of love and so much malice in the house of Israel So many Courts of justice and so much oppression So many Churches and so few Temples of the Holy Ghost What profess Religion and shame it cry it up and smother it in the noise and for a member of Christ make thy self the head of a