but at the word 's speaking He crieth Lo I come to do it my self Look upon this object of Majesty and Humility yet once again and see the power and omnipotencie of his Love In this laying down his life for us he was pleased to give a price infinitely above the merchandize and as in the world some buyers are wont to do to buy his own affection to us to pay down not a talent for a talent but a talent for a mite Himself for a worm and his Love for the world nay by his infinite Love to bound as it were his infinite Power his infinite Wisdom and his illimited Will For here his Power Wisdom and Will find a NON ULTRA and are at the furthest He cannot do He cannot find out He cannot wish for us more then he hath done then being equal with God to take upon him the form of a servant and in that form to humble himself to the death of the cross How should this spectacle of Love and Power of Majesty and Humility affect and ravish our souls How should this fire of Love these everlasting burnings kindled in our flesh enflame us That benefit is great which preventeth our prayers That is greater which is above our hope That is greatest which pre-occupateth and forestalleth our desires But what is that which over-runneth our opinion and even swalloweth it up in victory Had not he revealed his will and told us he would die we could not have desired it but our prayers had been turned into sin our hope had been madness and our opinion impiety All that we can say is that it was his infinite Love And his Love defendeth his Majesty and exalteth the Humility of his Cross and maketh it as glorious as his Throne For when he was fastned to it when he died it was his Throne and from it he threw down Principalities and Powers and Sin and Death it self Love hath this priviledge that it cannot be defamed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plato By a kind of law it hath the prerogative of Honour and maketh Bondage free Disgrace honourable Infirmity omnipotent Death life it worketh a harmony out of these two inconsistent terms Death and the Lord which is the joy of the whole earth Thus is Christ's Death made a spectacle unto us and his Love bespeaketh us to behold it and there needeâ—h no other Oratour to perswade us For where Love is denied the tongues of Men and of Angels are but as a tinckling cymbal But this is not all For In the second place Christ hangeth not on the cross onely as a sacrifice That every eye is willing to behold even the eye of flesh the eye that is full of adulteries But he standeth there as an Ensample to us of Humility Patience Obedience Love This Altar hath an inscription TOLLITE CRUCEM Take up your cross and follow me Not an Ensample alone that cometh too short Nor a Sacrifice alone for shall he be offered up for those who deny him Not an Ensample alone For flesh and bloud may follow him but never overtake him no not in those wayes which he marked out with his bloud of Obedience and Love Nor Satisfaction alone For how can he satisfie for those who will be in evil what he is in good yesterday and to day and the same for ever 1 Pet. 2.21 Christ suffered for us saith S. Peter leaving us an ensample that we should follow his steps Can an humble Saviour be a sacrifice for the proud Can a meek Saviour dye for a revenger Can a poor Christ give himself for him who will neither clothe nor feed him Can he in whom there was found no guile plead for him who is full of deceit Can a Lamb be a sacrifice for a Fox a Wolf or a Lion He is sacrificed and all is done on his part There is a CONSUMMATUM EST It is finished But our Obedience is not shut up in that but beginneth where Christ's did end and by the power and force of his Love must be carried on in an even and constant course unto our Consummatum est till we end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We have redemption Ephes 1.7 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a pattern Jussit fieri qui fecit He sacrificed himself for us 1 Tim. 1.16 that we might offer our selves a lively sacrifice to the Lord. Jesus Christ is a pattern to them who shall believe on him to life everlasting We dare not say with some that Christ came into the world non ad satisfactionem sed exemplum not to satisfie at all but to direct us by his example in the wayes of life not to pay down our debts but to teach us an art of thrift to be able to pay them our selves But most true it is if we make him not an ensample he will not be a sacrifice nor will there remain any sacrifice for sin God forbid that our Malice should shelter it self in his Love that his Meekness should be a buckler for our Revenge that his Righteousness should shadow our Unrighteousness that all our Obedience should be lost in his Sacrifice that because he suffered so much to lead us the way we should take the less care to follow after him that by the Gospel as by the Law Sin should revive that the Law should convince the conscience and the Gospel flatter it that the Law should affright sinners and Christ encourage them that the Cross of Christ which is a School of virtue should be made a Sanctuary for wilful offenders that Christ should nail the handwriting against us to his cross and then let fall a Dispensation from all righteousness and make it less necessary for us to observe so strictly the moral Law that this ease and benefit should accrue to Christians by the death of Christ that we may be more indulgent to our selves do what we list Pardon lying so near at hand that we should destroy our selves because he is a Jesus pollute our selves because he is Christ to anoint us be more rebellious because he is our Lord and live in sin because he died for it A conceit so unreasonable that even common reason abhorreth it Had our Saviour given up his ghost and left no precept behind him had his Apostle been silent and said no more but that he died for our sins the weakest understanding might easily draw out this conclusion that we are to forsake them For why should he dye for that which he was willing should survive Or who would lay his axe to the root of the tree and not cuâ— it down to the ground And yet as gross a conceit as it is we open our hearts to receive it And it is summus seculi reatus the great guilt of the age the pit out of which locusts swarm which are as scorpions to bring evil on the earth Were it not for this Physick men would not be so sick were it not for hope of reconciliation men would
the Church is and not like unto the world Wonder not then for the Church hath its peace even in persecution And that we may not think it strange let us not frame and fashion to our selves a Church by the world For by looking too stedfastly upon this world we carry the impression it maketh in us whithersoever we go and that maketh Persecution appear to us in such a monstrous shape that we begin to question the providence of God in suffering it to rage within his territories How doth it amaze us to see Innocency trod down by Power to see a Saint whipped by a Devil But in the world we are born in the world we are the world is the greatest part of our study and hence it cometh to pass that in the pursuit of the knowledge of Christ and his Church we are ready to phansie something to our selves like unto the world Temporal Felicity and Peace is the desire of the whole world and upon this some have made it a note and mark of the true Church like the Musician in Tully who being asked what the Soul was answered that it was an harmony is à principiis artis suae non recessit He knew not saith he how to leave the principles of his own art From hence it is that when we see persecution and the sword and fire rage against the true professours we are at our wits end and think that not onely the glory is departed but the light of Israel is quite put out that when desolation hath shaken a Kingdom the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church As groundless a conceit well near as if we should take the description of Heaven in the Revelation to be true in the letter and that it is a City of pure Gold that the foundations of the walls are adorned with pretious stones that every gate is a pearl and the streets shine like glass Let us then wipe out this carnal errour out of our hearts That the Kingdom of Christ doth hold proportion with the form and managing of these Kingdoms below here on earth that the same peace doth continue and the same division and pâ—â—secution dissolve and ruine both that the same violence which removeth the Candlestick doth blow out the light And let us abstract and wean our selvâ—â— from the world let us be dead to the world let us crucifie the world in a word let us not love the world nor the things of the world and we shall then begin to think persecution a blessing and all these conceits of outward peace and felicity will vanish into nothing And therefore in the third place let us cast down these imaginations these bubbles of wind blown and raised up by the flesh the worser part which doth soonest bring on a persecution and soonest fear one and let us in the place of these build up a royal fort build up our selves in our most holy faith and so fit and prepare our selves against this fiery tryal For as those are called mysteries which are precedaneous and go before the mysteries and he may be said to fight who doth but flourish and arm and fit himself for the battel so the blessed Spirit of God every where calleth upon those who are his souldiers to watch and stand upon their guard to put on the whole armour of God that when the devil assaulteth them in a storm of persecution they may be able to stand Eph. 6.11 to look upon the sword beforehand to take it up and handle it to dispute it out of its force and terrour and so by a familiar conversing with it beforehand by opposing our hopes of happiness and the promises of life to the terrours that death may bring opposing the second part of my Text to the first the Kingdom of heaven to persecution we may abate its force and violence and so by a due preparation conquer before we suffer and leave the persecutor no more power but to kill us And to this end let us view and well look upon the beauty and glory of Righteousness and learn to love it to make it our counsellour our oracle whilest the light shineth upon our heads to let it have a command over us and when it saith Do this to do it For if we thus make it our joy and our crown display it abroad in every action of our life in the time of peace we shall not part with it at a blast nor fling it off and forsake it in time of persecution If we love Righteousness Righteousness will love us and cleave close to us when our friends and acquaintance leave us and fall away like leaves in Autumn A good conscience is an everlasting never-failing foundation but the clamours and checks of a polluted one will give us no leisure at all to build up an holy resolution For when we have a long time detained the truth in righteousness kept it down as a prisoner and not suffered it to work in us when in the whole course of our life we have kept her captive under our sensual lusts and affections it is not probable that in time of danger and astonishment it should have so much power over us as to win us to suffer for its sake but these sensual lusts which in time of peace did keep the Truth and Righteousness under will now shew themselves again in time of persecution and be as forcible to deter us from those evils which are so but in shew and appearance as they were to plunge us into those evils of sin which are true and real If then thou wilt be fitted for Persecution and so for Blessedness first persecute thy self crucifie thy flesh with the lusts and affections raise up a persecution in thy own breast banish every idle thought silence every loud and clamorous desire whip and correct every wandring phansie beat down every thing that standeth in opposition to Righteousness be thus dead unto thy self and then neither death nor life neither fear of death nor hopes of life neither principalities nor powers neither present evils nor those to come shall ever be able to shake thy confidence or separate thee from the love of Righteousness which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And now as we have brought the Righteous person into this Field of bloud and prepared and strengthned him against the horror of it so must we bring the Persecutor also that he may behold what desolation he hath made Why boastest thou thy self in thy mischief O mighty man That thou hast sped that thou hast divided the prey that thou hast made Innocence it self to lick the dust of thy feet that thou hast spilt the bloud of the righteous as water on the ground Thus did the tyrants of old triumph and dance in the bloud which they shed Behold thou persecutest thy self and though the righteous fall under thee yet thou sufferest most Every blow thou givest them entereth into thy own soul that power with which
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
narrow understandings could receive it would not add one hair to our stature and growth in grace That Christ is God and Man that the two Natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediatour is enough for thee to know and to raise thy nature up to him Take the words as they lye in their native purity and simplicity and not as they are hammered and beat out and stampt by every hand by those who will be Fathers not Interpreters of Scripture and beget what sense they please and present it not as their own but as a child of God Then Lo here is Christ and there is Christ This is Christ and that is Christ Thou shalt see many images and characters of him but not one that is like him an imperfect Christ a half-Christ a created Christ a phansied Christ a Christ that is not the Son of God and a Christ that is not the Son of Man and thus be rowled up and down in uncertainties and left to the poor and miserable comfort of conjecture in that which so far as it concerneth us is so plain easie to be known Do thoughts arise in thy heart do doubts and difficulties beset thee doth thy wit and thy reason forsake thee and leave thee in thy search at a loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Justine Martyr Thy Faith is the solution and will soon quit thee of all scruples and cast them by thy Faith not assumed or insinuated into thee or brought in as thy vices may be by thy education but raised upon a holy hill a sure foundation the plain and express word of God and upheld and strengthned by the Spirit Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then seen thy God in the flesh from Eternity yet born Invisible yet seen immense yet circumscribed Immortal yet dying the Lord of life yet crucified God and man Christ Jesus Amaze not thy self with an inordinate fear of undervaluing thy Saviour wrong not his Love and call it thy Reverence Why should thoughts arise in thy heart His Power is not the less because his Mercy is great nor doth his infinite Love shadow or eclipse his Majesty For see he counteth it no disparagement to be seen in our flesh nor to be at any loss by being thus like us Our Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there was a Decorum in it and it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren That Christ was made like unto us is the joy of this Feast but that he ought to be so is the wonder and extasie of our joy That he would descend is mercy but that he must descend is our astonishment Oportet and Debet are binding terms words of duty Had the Apostle said It behoved us that he should be made like unto us it had found an easy belief the Debuit had been placed in loco suo in its proper place on a sweating brow on dust and putrefaction on the face of a captive All will say it behoved as much But to put a Debet upon the Son of God and make it a beseeming thing for him to become flesh to be made like unto us is as if one should set a Rubie in clay a Diamond in brass a Chrysolith in baser metall and say they are placed well there as if one should worry the lambs for the woolf or take the master by the throat for the debt of a Prodigal and with an Opertet say it should be so To give a gift and call it a Debt is not our usual language On earth it is not but in heaven it is the proper dialect fixed in capital letters on the Mercy-seat It is the joy of this Feast the Angels Antheme SALVATOR NATVS A Saviour is born And if he will be a Saviour an Undertaker a Surety such is the nature of Fidejussion and Suretiship DEBET he must it behoveth him he is as deeply engaged as the party whose Surety he is And oh our numberless accounts that engaged God! Oh our prodigality that made him here come sub ratione debiti Adam had brought God in debt to death to Satan to his own Justice and God in Justice did ow us all to the Grave and to Hell Therefore if he will have us if he will bring his children unto glory he must pay down a price for us Heb. 2.14 he must take us out of his hands who hath the power of death if he will have his own inheritance he must purchase it And let us look on the aptness of the means and we shall soon find that this Foolishness of God as the Apostle calls it is wiser than men 1 Cor. 1.26 and this weakness of God is stronger than men and that the Debuit is right set For medio exsistente conjunguntur extrema If you will have extremes meet you must have a middle line to draw them together And behold here they meet and are made one The proprieties of either Nature being entire yet meet and concentre as it were in one Person Majesty putteth on Humility Power Infirmity Eternity Mortality By the one our Saviour dyeth for us by the other he â—â—seth again By the one he suffereth as Man by the other he conquereth as God by both he perfecteth and consummateth the great work of our Redemption This Debuit reacheth home to each part of the Text First to Christ as God The same hand that made the vessel when it was broken and so broken that there was not one sherd left to fetch water at any pit ought to repair and set it together again that it may receive and contain the water of life Qui fecit nos debuit reficere Our Creation and Salvation must be wrought by the same hand and turned about upon the same wheel Next we may set the debuit upon Christ's Person He is media Persona a middle Person the office therefore will best fit him even the office of Mediatour Further as he is the Son of God and the Image of his Father most proper it may seem for him to repair that Image which was defaced and well near lost in us We had not onely blemished God's Image but set the Devil's face and superscription upon God's coyn For righteousness there was sin for purity pollution for beauty deformity for rectitude perversness for the Man a Beast scarce any thing left by which God might know us Venit Filius ut iterum signet The Son cometh and with his blood reviveth the first character marketh us with his own signature imprinteth the graces of God upon us maketh us current money and that his Father may know us and not cast us off for refuse silver sheweth him his face Indeed the Father and the holy Ghost dignified the Flesh but took it not filled it with their Majesty but not with their Persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not Incarnate As three may weave a garment and but one wear it as Hugo And as in Musick saith St.
say Why didst thou this Had Marcion Photinus and Arius well weighed the force and priviledge of Love their needless I may say their bold and irreverent fear would have soon vanished nor would they have denied Christ to be the Son of God because God delivered him up for us but would have seen as great glory in his Humility as in his Glory and would have faln down and worship God and Man even this crucified Lord of life Christ Jesus Love will do any thing for those whom she looketh and stayeth upon If you ask a coat she giveth the cloak also Matth. 5.40 If you desire her to go a mile she will go with you twain and is never weary though she passes through places of horror and danger If you be in the most loathsome dungeon in the valley and shadow of death she forsaketh you not but will go along with you Must the Son of God be delivered Love sendeth him down Charitas de coelo demisit Christum It was Love that bowed the heavens when he descended Must he suffer Love nayleth him to the Cross and no power could do it but Love Must he be sacrificed Love calleth it a Baptisme Luke 12.50 and is straitned till the Sacrifice be slain Must he dye Must the Son of God dye Love calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his perfection So though he be the Son of God Hebr. 2.10 though we were his enemies yet Love reconcileth all these seeming contradictions resolveth every doubt tuneth these jarring strings and out of this discord maketh that melody which delighteth both Men and Angels and God himself even that melody whereof our love should be the resultance He loved us and then the conclusion doth sweetly and naturally follow He spared not his own Son but delivered him up And so from the Person we pass to the Delivery it self II. HE DELIVERED AND SPARED HIM NOT The oeconomy and glorious dispensation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is here termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a delivery And delivered he was First into the Virgins womb That was a strange descent and even then at his birth began his passion De patient Nasci se patitur saith Tertullian He suffered himself to be fashioned in the womb took of Man what was proper and natural to him to be born and die Here he was drawn out and fitted made an object for the malice of men and the rage of the Devil to work on Here he was made a mark for his enemies to shoot at Here he got a back for the whip flesh to be ploughed a face to be spit upon a body to be nayled to the cross and an heart to be pierced Here he was built up as a Temple to be beat down again with axes and hammers with misery and affliction A strange delivery this was of the Son of God into the womb of a mortal yet God thus delivered him But further being born what was his whole life but Delivery from sorrow to sorrow and from misery to misery from poverty to shame from derision to malice from malice to death This was the pomp and ceremony with which he was brought to his cross Psal 27.12 and from thence to his grave Deliver me not over to the will of my enemies saith David Behold Christ's friends were his enemies What creature was there to whom he was not delivered Delivered he was to the Angels Psal 91.11 to keep him you will say in all his wayes But what need had he of an Angel's assistance whose wisdome reached over all Luke 22.43 What needed he an Angel's tongue to comfort him who was Lord of the Angels and who with his voice could have destroyed the Universe What need had he who could turn stones into bread yea work bread out of nothing as he did in the multiplying of the loaves to receive Almes from the hand of his Minister Luke 1.51 He was delivered to Joseph and Mary to whom he was subject and obedient Delivered he was to an Occupation and Trade For as Justine Martyr saith he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ploughs and yokes He was delivered from Annas to Caiaphas from Caiaphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herode from Herode to Pilate again and from Pilate to the Jews to do with him what they pleased He was delivered to all the creatures to Heat and to Cold to the Thorns which gored him to the Whip which made long furrows in his flesh to the Nayls which fastned him to the Spear which pierced him to the Cross which racked him to the Grave which swallowed him He was delivered to the Devil himself and to the power of darkness There was no creature from the highest to the lowest to which he was not delivered He was delivered in his body and in his soul in every part of his body even in those which seemed free from pain His Tongue which his enemies cruelty toucht not for though he was man yet had he nothing of the impatience of man complained of thirst John 19.28 he said I thirst He was delivered up to a quick and lively sense of pain Many times extremity of pain taketh pain away and it is lost in it self but Christ's pain did quicken his sense The more he endured the more sensible he was the more he suffered the more feeling he had His last gasp was breathed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 27.50 Matth. 27.18 with a strong loud voyce Delivered he was to Envy which delivered him to Treachery which betrayed him to Malice which laid on sure strokes to Pride which scorned him to Contempt which spate upon him to all those furious Passions which turn Men into Devils And From such a Delivery we all cry Good Lord deliver us But thus was our blessed Saviour delivered not onely to Men but to the Passions of men to the wild and brutish Passions of his enemies yea to the rage of Devils Further yet he was delivered not only to their Passions but to his own also which as Man he carryed about with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soul is troubled saith he He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an agony John 12.27 Luke 22.44 quae sentitur prùs quà m dicitur which none can tell what it is but he that hath felt it and none ever felt such an agony but he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 26.37 he is grievously vexed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His soul was very sorrowful Matth. 26.38 These several expressions the Evangelists give us Trouble Vexation Agony Heaviness and Sorrow in his soul These were the bitter ingredients which filled up his cup so full that he made it his prayer to have it taken out of his hand Mark 14 36. The consideration of which hath induced some to conceive that sense of pain had so weakned his intellectual faculties that he forgat himself Non fuit haec meditata Christi oratio
We have also the testimony of Martyrs who took their death on 't and when they could not live to publish it laid down their life and sealed it with their Blood And therefore we on whom the ends of the world are come have no reason to complain of distance and that we are removed so many ages from the time wherein it was done For now Christ risen is become a more obvious object than before the diversity of mediums have increased and multiplyed it We see him in his Word we see him through the Blood of Martyrs and we see him with the eye of faith Christ is risen and alive 1 Cor. 15.3 4. secundum scripturas saith S. Paul and he repeateth it twice in the same chapter Offenderunt Judaei in Christum lapidem it is S. Augustines and let it pass for his sake When the Jew stumbled at him he presented but the bigness of a stone but our Infidelity will find no excuse if we see him not now when he appeareth as visible as a mountain There is more in this VIVO than a bare rising to life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He liveth in as much as He giveth life There is vertue and power in his Resurrection a power to abolish Death 2 Tim. 1.10 and to bring life and immortality to light a power to raise our vile bodies and a power to raise our viler souls He will raise them nay he hath done it already Col. 2.12 3.1 We are risen together with him and we live with him We cannot think that he that made such haste out of his own grave can be willing to see us rotting in ours From this VIVO it is that though we dye yet we shall live again Christ's Living breatheth life into us In his Resurrection he cast the modell of ours Idea est eorum quae fiunt exemplar aeternum saith Seneca And this is such a one an eternal pattern Plato 's Idea or common Form by which he thought all things have their existence is but a dream to this This is a true and real an efficacious and working pattern For as an Artificer hath not lost his art when he hath finished one piece no more did Christ lose his power when he had raised himself but as he is so it is everlasting and worketh still to the end of the world Perfectum est exemplar minùs perfecti That which Christ wrought upon himself is most exact and perfect a fit pattern of that which he meaneth to work on us which will be like to his indeed but not so glorious And now VIVO I live is as loud to raise our Hope as the last trump will be to raise our Bodies And how shall they be able to hear the sound of the trump who will not hear the voice of their Saviour Christ's life derives its vertue and influence on both Soul and Body on the Body with that power which is requisite to raise a body now putrified and incinerated and well near annihilated and on the Soul with such a power as is fitted to a soul which hath both Understanding and Will though drawn and carried away from their proper operations for which they were made We do not read of any precept to bind us or any counsel â—o perswade us to contribute any thing or put a hand to the resurrection of our bodies nor can there be it will be done whether we will or no But to Awake from the pleasant sleep of sin to be Renewed and raised in the inward man to Die to sin and Live to righteousness we have line upon line and precept upon precept And though this Life of Christ work in us both the will and the deed Phil. 2.12 Phil. 2.13 yet a necessity and a law lieth upon us and wo will be unto us if we work not out our salvation By his power we are raised in both but not working after the same manner There will be a change in both As the flesh at the second so the soul at the first resurrection must be reformata Angelificata spiritualized refined and angelified or rather Christificata If I may so speak Christified drawing in no breath but Christs Phil. 2.5 Job 17.13 14 having the same mind which was in Christ Jesus Whilst our bed is in the darkness whilst Corruption is our father and the Worm our mother and sister we cannot be said to be risen and whilest all the alliance we have is with the World and it is both Father and Mother and Sister to us whilest we mind earthly things we are still in our graves nay in hell it self Death hath dominion over us For let us call the World what we please our Habitation our Delight our Kingdome where we would dwell for ever yet indeed it is but our Grave If we receive any influence from Christ's life we shall rise fairly not with a mouth which is a sepulchre but with a tongue which is our glory not with a withred hand but with a hand stretched out to the needy not with a gadding eye but an eye shut up by covenant not with an itching but with an obedient ear not with a heart of stone but with a heart after Gods own heart Our Life Col. 3.3 saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God and whilest we leave it thereby a continual meditation of his meritorious suffering by a serious and practical application of his glorious resurrection we hide it in the bosome of Majesty and no dart of Satan can reach it When we hide it in the minerals of the earth in the love of the world the Devil who is the Prince of the world is there to seize on it when we hide it in malicious and wanton thoughts they are his baits to catch it when we hide it in sloth and idleness we hide it in a grave which he digged for us we entomb our selves alive and as much as in us lies bury the Resurrection it self But when we hide it in Christ we hide it in him who carrieth healing and life in his wings Mal. 4.2 When we worship God through Jesus Christ our Lord and put our life in his hands 2 Cor. 4.11 then the life of Jesus is made manifest in our mortal flesh then we have put off the old man yea in a manner put off our mortality we are candidati aeternitatis as Tertullian speaketh Candidates for eternity and stand for a place with Abraham and Isaac for we have the same God and he is not the God of the dead Matth. 21.32 but of the living We see now what virtue and power there is in this VIVO in the Life of Christ But we must rise yet higher even as high as Eternity it self Hebr. 6.20 Hebr. 7.16 For as he liveth so behold he is alive for evermore a Priest for ever and a King for ever being made not after the law of a carnal commandment after that law which was given to
can imagine there can be any man that can so hate himself as deliberately to cast himself into hell and run from happiness when it appeareth in so much glory He cannot say Amen to Life who killeth himself For that which leaveth a soul in the grave is not Faith but Phansie When we are told that Honour cometh towards us that some Golden shower is ready to fall into our laps that Content and Pleasure will ever be near and wait upon us how loud and hearty is our Amen how do we set up an Assurance-office to our selves and yet that which seemeth to make its approach towards us is as uncertain as Uncertainty it self and when we have it passeth from us and as the ruder people say of the Devil leaveth a noysome and unsavoury sent behind it and we look after it and can see it no more But when we are told that Christ liveth for evermore and is coming is certainly coming with reward and punishment vox faucibus haeret we can scarce say Amen So be it To the World and the pomp thereof we can say Amen but to Heaven and Eternity we cannot say Amen or if we do we do but say it For conclusion then The best way is to draw the Ecce and the Amen the Behold and our Assurance together so to study the Death and the Life the eternal Life and the Power of our Saviour that we may be such Proficients as to be able with S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.11 to meet the Resurrection to look for and hasten the coming of the Lord when his Life and Eternity and Power shall shine gloriously to the terrour of those who persecute his Church and to the comfort of those who suffer for Righteousness sake when that Head which was a forge of mischief and cruelty and that Hand which touched the Lords anointed Psal 105.15 and did his Prophets harm shall burn in hell for ever when that Eye which would not look on vanity shall be filled with glory when that Ear which hearkned to his voice shall hear nothing but Hallelujahs and the musick of Angels when that Head which was ready to be laid down for this living everling powerful Lord shall be lifted up and crowned with glory and honour for evermore Which God grant unto us for Christ's sake A SERMON Preached on Whitsunday JOHN XVI 13. Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth WHen the Spirit of truth is come c. And behold he is come already and the Church of Christ in all ages hath set apart this day for a memorial of his Coming a memorial of that miraculous and unusual sound Acts 2.2 3. that rushing wind those cloven tongues of fire And there is good reason for it that it should be had in everlasting remembrance For as the holy Ghost came then in solemn state upon the Disciples 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 that we may remember it though not in a mighty wind yet he rattleth our hearts together though no house totter at his descent yet the foundations of our very souls are shaken no fire appeareth yet our breasts are inflamed no cloven tongues yet our hearts are cloven asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every day to a Christian is a day of Pentecost his whole life a continued holy-day wherein the holy Ghost descendeth both as an Instructer and as a Comforter secretly and sweetly by his word characterizing the soul and imprinting that saving knowledge which none of the Princes of this world had not forcing or drawing by violence but sweetly leading and guiding us into all truth In the words we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Epiphany or Apparition of the blessed Spirit as Nazianzene speaketh or rather the Promise of his coming and appearance And if we will weigh it there is great reason that the Spirit should have his Advent as well as Christ his that he should say Lo I come Psal 40.7 For in the volume of the book it is written of him that the Spirit of the Lord should rest upon him Isa 11.2 and I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh Joel 2.28 Christus Legis Spiritus Sanctus Evangelii complementum Christ's Advent for the fulfilling of the Law and the Spirit 's for the fulfilling and compleating of the Gospel Christ's Advent to redeem the Church and the Spirit 's to teach the Church Christ to shed his blood and the Spirit to wash and purge it in his blood Christ to pay down the ransome for us captives and the Spirit to work off our fetters Christ Isa 61.2 Luke 4.19 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Spirit to interpret it For we may soon see that the one will little avail without the other Christ's Birth Death and Passion and glorious Resurrection are but a story in Archivis good news sealed up a Gospel hid till the Spirit come and open it and teach us to know him and the virtue and power of his resurrection and make us conformable to his death Phil 3.10 This is the sum of these words And in this we shall pass by these steps or degrees First we will carry our thoughts to the promise of the Spirit 's Advent the miracle of this day Cùm venerit When he the Spirit of truth is come in a sound to awake the Apostles in wind to move them in fire to enlighten and warm them in tongues to make them speak Acts 2.2 3. Secondly we will consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work and employment of the Holy Ghost He shall lead you into all truth In the first we meet with 1. nomen Personae if we may so speak a word pointing out to his Person the demonstrative pronoun ILLE when He 2. nomen Naturae a name expressing his Nature He is the Spirit of truth and then we cannot be ignorant whose Spirit he is In the second we shall find nomen Officii a name of Office and Administration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a leader or conducter in the way For so the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to be the Apostles leader and conducter that they might not erre but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep on in a straight and even course in the way And in this great Office of the Holy Ghost we must first take notice of the Lesson he teacheth It is Truth Secondly of the large Extent of this Lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He leadeth into all truth Thirdly of the Method and Manner of his discipline It is a gentle and effectual leading He driveth us not he draweth us not by violence but he taketh us as it were by the hand and guideth and leadeth us into all truth Cùm venerit ille Spiritus veritatis First though we are told by some
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
born and in the souls of just men made perfect Hebr. 12.23 It is now indeed his will which primarily was not his will to see it in the Devil and his Angels God is best pleased to see his creature Man to answer to that pattern which he hath set up to be what he should be and what he intended And as every artificer glorieth in his work when he seeth it finished according to the rule and that Idea which he had drawn in his mind and as we use to look upon the work of our hands or wits with that favour and complacency we do upon our children when they are like us So doth God upon Man when he appeareth in that shape and form of obedience which he prescribed For then the Glory of God is carried along in the continued stream and course of all our actions breaketh forth and is seen in every work of our hands is the echo of every word we speak the result of every thought that begat that word It is Musick in Gods ears which he had rather hear then the weeping and howling of the damned which he will now hear though the time was when he used all fitting means to prevent it even the same means by which he raised those who now glorifie him in the highest heaven God then is no way willing we should die not by his natural Will which is his prime and antecedent Will. For Death cannot issue from the Fountain of Life By this Will was the Creature made in the beginning and by this preserved ever since by this are administred all the means to bring it to that perfection and happiness for which it was first made For the Goodness of God it was which first gave being to Man and then adopted him in spem regni designed him for immortality and gave him a Law by the fulfilling of which he might have a taste of that joy and happiness which he from all eternity possessed And therefore secondly not voluntate praecepti not by his Will exprest in his commands precepts and laws For under Christ this Will of his is the onely destroyer of Death and being kept and observed swalloweth it up in victory For how can Death touch him who is made like unto the living Lord or how should Hell receive him whose conversation is in heaven Phil. 3.20 Ezek. 20.11 13 21. If we do them we shall even live in them saith the Prophet And he repeateth it often as if Life were as inseparable from God's Laws as it is from the living God himself by which as he is Life in himself so to Man whom he had made 2 Tim. 1.10 he brought life and immortality to light And these his Precepts are defluxions from him the proper issue of his natural and primitive Desire of that general Love of good-will which he did bear to his Creature and the onely way to draw on that Love of friendship that nearer relation by which we are one with him and he with us Rom 8.16 by which he calleth us his children and we cry Abba Father His first Will ordained us for good his second Will was published and set up as a light to bring us to that good for which we were made and created But we are told there is in God voluntas permissionis a permissive Will or a Will of permission And indeed some have made great use of this word permission and have made it of the same necessitating power and efficacy with that by which God made the heaven and the earth For we find it in terminis in their writings Positâ peccati permissione necesse est ut peccatum eveniat That upon the permission of sin it must necessarily follow that sin must be committed They call it permission but before they wind up their discourses the word I know not by what Logick or Grammar hath more significations put upon it then God or Nature ever gave it Romani ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant say the antient Britons in Tacitus The Romanes Vita Agricol◠where by fire and sword they lay the land waste and turn all to a wilderness call it Peace So here the word is permission but currente rotâ whilst they are hot and busie in their work at last it is excitation stirring up inclining hardning Permittere is no less then Impellere Permission is Compulsion and by their Chymistry they are able to extract all this out of this one word and more as That God will have that done which he forbiddeth us to do That God doth not will what he telleth us he doth will That some are cast asleep from all eternity that they may be hardned And all this with them is but permission And to make this good we are told That God hath on purpose created some men with an intent to permit them to fall into sin And this at first sight is a fair Proposition that carrieth truth written in the very forehead But indeed it is deceitful upon the weights One thing is said and another meant God hath created some And why some and not all For no doubt the condition of creation is the same in all And why with a purpose to permit them to fall into sin Did he not also create them with a purpose that they should walk in his commandments Certainly both and rather the last then the former For God indeed permitteth sin but withal forbiddeth it but he permitteth nay he commandeth us to do his will Permission looketh upon both both upon Sin and upon Obedience on the one side it meeteth with a check on the other with a command that we may not do what is but permitted and forbidden and that we may yield ready obedience to that which is not permitted onely but commanded It was a custome amongst the ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 3. to number and cast up their accounts with their fingers as we do by figures and counters whence Orontes the Persian was wont to say Eundem digitum nunc decem millia nunc unum ostendere that the same finger with some alteration and change did now signifie Ten thousand and in another posture and motion but One. The same use some men have made of this word permission which they did of their fingers In its true sense and natural place it can signifie no more then this A purpose of God not to intercede by his Omnipotency and hinder the committing of those sins which if he permitted not could not once have a being But men have learnt so to place it that it shall stand for Ten thousand for Inclination and Excitation and Induration and all those fearful expressions which leave men chained and fettered with an inevitable necessity of sinning and so they make that which in God is but merely permission infallibily effective and so damn men with gentler language and in a softer phrase He permitteth them That he doth that he must do but their
Body and his Bloud and S. Paul calleth it the Bread and the Cup Nor is S. Paul contrary to Christ but determineth and reconcileth all in the end both of Christ's suffering and our receiving in the words of my Text As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's death till he come In which words the Death of the Lord of life is presented to us and we called to look up upon him whom our sins have pierced through to behold him wounded for our transgressions ex cujus latere aqua sanguis Isa 53.5 utriusque lavacri paratura manavit as Tertullian out of whose side came water and bloud to wash and purge us which make the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper And the effect of both is our Obedience in life and conversation that we should serve him with the whole heart who hath bought us at so dear a price that we should wash off all our spots and stains and foul pollutions in the laver of this Water and the laver of this Bloud And therefore as he offered himself for us on the Cross so he offereth himself to us in the Sacrament his Body in the Bread and his Bloud in the Cup that we may eat and drink and feed upon him and taste how gracious he is Which is the sum and complement and blessed effect of the duty here in the Text to shew the Lord's death till he come For he that sheweth it not manducans non manducat eating doth not as Ambrose doth eat the Bread but not feed on Christ But he that fully acquitteth himself in this shall be fed to eternal life Let us then take the words asunder And there we find What we are to do and How long we are to do it the Duty and the Continuation of it the Duty We must shew forth Christ's death the Continuation of it We must do it till he come again to judgment In the Duty we consider first an Object what it is we must shew the death of the Lord Secondly an Act what it is to shew and declare it The death of the Lord a sad but comfortable a bloudy but saving spectacle And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew a word of as large a compass as Christianity it self And the duration and continuation of it till he come that is to the end of the world Of these in their order The object is in nature first and first to be handled the death of the Lord. And this is most proper for us to consider For by his stripes we are healed and by his death we live And in this he hath not onely expressed his Love but made himself an example that we may take it out and so shew forth his death First it is his Love which joyned these two words together Death and the Lord which are farther removed then Heaven is from the Earth For can the Lord of life die Yes Amor de coelo demisit Dominum That Love which brought him down from his throne to his footstool that united the Godhead and Manhood in one Person hath also made these two terms Death and the Lord compatible and fastned the Son of God to the Cross hath exprest it self not onely in Beneficence but also in Patience not onely in Power but also in Humility and is most lively and visible in his Death the true authentick instrument of his Love He that is our Steward to provide for us who supplieth us out of his rich treasur◠who ripeneth the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields who draweth us wine out of the vine and spinneth us garments out of the bowels of the worm and the fleece of the flock will also empty himself and pour forth his bloud He who giveth us balm for our bodies will give us physick for our souls will give up his ghost to give us breath and life And here his love is in its Zenith and vertical point and in a direct line casteth the rayes of comfort on his lost creature This Lord cometh not naked but clothed with blessings cometh not empty but with the rich treasuries of heaven cometh not alone but with troops of Angels with troops of promises and blessings Bonitas foecunda sui Goodness is fruitful and generative of it self gaineth by spending it self swelleth by overflowing and is increased by profusion When she poureth forth her self and breatheth forth that sweet exhalation she conveyeth it not poor and naked and solitary but with a troop and authority with ornament and pomp For Love bringeth with it whatsoever Goodness can imagine munera officia gifts and offices doth not onely give us the Lord but giveth us his sufferings his passion his death not onely his death but the virtue and power of it to raise us from the lethargy and death of Sin that we may be quick and active to shew and express it in our selves Olim morbo nunc remedio laboramus The remedy is so wonderful it confoundeth the patient and maketh health it self appear but fabulous Shall the Lord of Life die why may not Man whose breath is in his nostrils be immortal Yes he shall and for this reason Because it pleased the Lord of Life to die We need not adopt one in his place or substitute a creature a phantasm as did Arius and Marcion in his office For he took our sins and he will take the office himself Isa 63.3 he will tread the wine press alone and will admit none with him Nor doth this Humility impair his Majesty but rather exalt it Though he die yet he is the Lord still The Father will tell us that they who denied this for fear were worse then those who denied it out of stomach and the pretense of his honour is more dangerous then perversness For this is to confine and limit this Lord to shorten his hand palos terminales figere to set up bounds and limits against his infinite Love and absolute Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shape and frame him out to their own phansie and indeed to blaspheme him with reverence to take from him his heavenly power and put into his hand a sceptre of reed His Love and his Will quiet all jealousies and answer all arguments whatsoeever It was his will to die and he that resteth in God's Will doth best acknowledge his Majesty For all even Majesty it self doth vail to his Will and is commanded by it What the Lord of life equal to the Father by whom all things were made shall he die Yes quia voluit because he would For as at the Creation he might have made Man as he made other creatures by his Word alone yet would not but wrought him out of the clay and fashioned him with his own hands so in the great work of our Redemption he did not send an Angel one of the Seraphim or Cherubim or any finite creature which he might have done
not dare so oft to offend and which is most strange had not Christ so loved us we had not persecuted him had he not been a sacrifice we had been more willing to have made him an ensample For we hope his Love that nailed him to the cross will be ready to meet and succour and embrace us in any posture in any temper whatsoever though we come towards him clothed with vengeance Zeph. 1.8 in anger and fury with strange apparel in wantonness and lust polluted and spotted with the world Thus doth the sophistry of our Sensual part prevail against the demonstrations of Reason which doth bring Christ in as dead for our sins but withall as a Lord to help us to destroy Sin by the power of his death For both these are friendly linked together in the Lord's Death his Love and his Ensample Et magnum nobis quà m parvo constat exemplum And this great example how little doth it cost us Not to be spit upon and buffeted and crucified not to suffer and die It is no more then this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew it forth in our selves till he come Which is the Act here required and my next Part. And this we must do if we will be fitted for this Feast and be welcome guests at the Lord's Table Divines have told us of a threefold manner of feeding on the flesh of Christ a Sacramental alone a Spiritual alone and a Sacramental and Spiritual both Which distinction may not be rejected if it be rightly understood 1. They that come to this Table and receive the Sacrament without faith and devotion may be said indeed to eat the Body of Christ as that name is usually given to the Sacrament and sign and the Sacrament of the body of Christ after a manner is the Body of Christ and yet that of S. Augustine is true He that sheweth not forth his death eateth not his flesh but is guilty of the body and bloud of Christ a Communicant and no Communicant an enemy and not a guest fitter to be dragged to the bar then to be placed at his Table And what a morsel is that with which we take down Death and the Devil together 2. Some there be whom not contempt and neglect but necessity the great patroness of humane infirmitie keepeth from the Lord's Table and Sacrament and yet they shew his death look up upon his cross draw it out in their heart in bleeding characters apply it by faith and make it their meditation day and night And these though they feed not on him Sacramentally yet spiritually are partakers of his body and bloud and so made heirs of salvation though they eat not this bread nor drink of this cup. For what cannot be done cannot bind Some Actions are counted as done though they be never brought forth into act If the heart be ready though the tongue be silent as a viol on the wall yet we sing and give praise Persecution may shut up the Church-doors yet I may love the place where God's honour dwelleth Persecution may seal up the Priest's lips shut me up in prison and feed me with no other bread then that of affliction yet even in the lowest dungeon I may feed on this Bread of life I may be valiant and not strike a blow I may be liberal and not give a mite hospital when I have not a hole to hide my head in He that taketh my purse from me doth not rob me of my piety he that sequestereth my estate yet leaveth me my charity and he that debarreth me the Table cannot keep me from Christ As I told you out of Ambrose Manducans non manducat I may eat the Bread and not be partaker of the Body so Non Manducans manducat Though I take not down the outward elements yet I may feed on Christ But happy yea thrice happy is their condition who can do both so receive panem Domini the Lord's bread that they may receive also pane 〈◊〉 Dominum be partakers of the Lord himself who is the Bread of life Blessed is he that thus eateth Bread with him at his Table For he feedeth on him Sacramentally and spiritually both Here he findeth those gracious advantages his Faith actuated his Hope exalted his Charity dilated the Covenant renewed the Promises and Love of Christ sealed and ratified to him with his bloud And this we shall do this comfort and joy we shall find even a new heaven in our souls if we shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 preach and publish his death Which we may look upon at first as a duty of quick dispatch but if we look upon it again well weigh and consider it we shall find that it calleth for and requireth our greatest care and industry For it is not to turn the story of Christ's passion into a Tragedy to make a scenical representation of his death with all the art and colours of Rhetorick to declaim against the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilate's in justice but rather to declaim preach against our selves to hate and abhor crucifie our selves Nos nos homicidae We we alone are the murtherers Our Treachery was the Judas that betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury â—pit upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings pricked with his thorns our sores lanced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life This indeed doth shew his death This consideration doth present the Passion but in a rude and imperfect piece The death of the Lord is shewn almost by every man and every day Some shew it but withal shew their vanity and make it manifest to all men Some shew it by shewing the Cross by signing themselves with the sign of it Some to shew it shew a Body which cannot be seen being hid under the accidents of Bread and Wine Some shew their wit instead of Christ's Passion lift it up as he was upon the cross shew it with ostentation Some shew their rancour and malice about a feast of Love and so draw out Christ with the claw of a Devil Phil. 1.15 Some preach it as S Paul speaketh out of envy and strife and some also of good will Some preach it and preach against it Some draw out Christ's Passion and their Religion together and all is but a picture and then sound a trumpet make a great cry as the painter who had drawn a Souldier with a sword in his hand did sound an alarm that he might seem to fight But this doth not shew the Lord's death but as Tertullian speaketh id negat quod ostendit denieth what it sheweth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew to preach the death of the Lord is more We may observe that
and grind him with our oppression not build him a tabernacle in his glory and deny him at his cross No Love speaketh to Christ as the Israelites did to Joshua Josh 1. Whatsoever he commandeth it will do and whithersoever he leadeth it will go against powers and principalities against tribulation and persecution against the power of darkness and the Devil himself This is the dialect of Love And if Love wax cold that it doth not plainly speak this holy tongue here is the Altar and from it thou mayst take a live cole to touch it that it may revive and burn within thee And that heart is not cold but dead which the Love of Christ presented and tendered in the Sacrament cannot quicken and stir up into a flame If this work not a miracle in us and dispossess us of the dumb spirit it is because of our unbelief Again we shew the Lord's death by our Repentance which speaketh in grones and sighs unutterable When we dye to sin we then best shew the death of the Lord. Then his sorrow is seen in ours and his agony in our strugling and contention with our selves His complaints are heard in ours and are the very same My God my God why hast thou forsaken me We are lifted up as it were on a cross the powers of our soul are stretched and dilated our hearts are pierced our Flesh is crucified and Sin fainteth and when all is finished will give up the ghost And then when we rise to newness of life it will be manifest that Christ is in us of a truth A penitent sinner is the best shew of the best Sermon on a crucified Saviour And here in this so visible presentment of his Body and Bloud our wounds must needs bleed afresh our Anger be more hot our Indignation higher our Revenge more bitter and our Complaints louder Here we shall repent of our Repentance it self that it is not so serious so true so universal as it should be Here our wounds as David speaketh will corrupt and putrefie But the bloud of Christ is a precious balm to cure them Christ shall wash away our tears still our complaints take away our sorrow and by the power of his Spirit seal us to the day of Redemption Last of all we must shew the Lord's death with Reverence With Reverence why the Angels desire to look into it Thrones and Dominations bow and adore it and shall not Dust and ashes sinning dying men fall down and worship that Lord who hath taken away the sting of Death which is Sin and swallowed up Death it self in victory Let us then shew the Lord's death with fear and rejoyce with trembling By Reverence I do not mean that vain unnecessary apologizing Reverence which withdraweth us from this Table and detaineth us amongst the swine at the husks because we have made our selves unworthy to go to our Father's house a Reverence which is the daughter and nurse of Sin begot of Sin and multiplying Sin the Reverence of Adam behind the bush who was afraid and hid himself unwilling to come out of the thicket when God called him a Reverence struck out of these two Conscience of sin and Unwillingness to forsake it And what Reverence is that which keepeth the sick from the Physician maketh the wounded afraid of balm and a sinner run from his Saviour This Reverence we must tread under foot with the mother that bare it and dash it against the Rock the Rock Christ Jesus First be reverent and sin no more and then make our approches to Christ with reverence Shew our death to sin that we may shew the death of the Lord for it First leave our sin behind us and then draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith When as Job speaketh we are afraid of all our works of our Faith that it is but weak and call to him to strengthen it of our Love that it is not hot enough and then stir it up of our Hope that it is but feeble and then feed it with the bloud of Christ of our Sorrow that it is not great enough and then drop a tear of our Repentance that it is not sincere enough and then smite our hearts look upon the wounds of Christ and then rip up our own that they may open and take in his bloud when we are afraid of our Reverence that it is not low enough and then lay the cross of Christ upon it all the benefits of a Saviour and our own sins to press it down lower and make him more glorious and us more vile in our own eyes When we have thus washed our hands in innocencie and our souls in the bloud of the immaculate Lamb then Faith will quicken us and Hope embolden us and Love encourage us and Repentance lead us on with fear and reverence to compass his Altar For these are operative and will evaporate will break thy heart humble thy look cast down thy countenance bow thy knee and lay thee prostrate before the Mercy-seat the Table of the Lord. Thus if we shew his Death he will shew himself to us a Lord and a Saviour he will shew us his hands and his side he will shew his wounds and his bloud the virtue of his sufferings shall stream out upon our souls and water and refresh them and we shall return from his Table as the Disciples did from his sepulchre with great joy even with that joy which is a pledge and type of that eternal jubilating joy at his Table in the Kingdom of Heaven The Six and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 28. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. AMongst all the duties of a Christian whether Moral or Ceremonial there is not one but requireth something to be done before it be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clemens Those velitations and trials which are before the sight are a part of that exercise and they are called Mysteries which do but make way and lead us to the mysteries themselves Preparation to the duties of Christianity we must count as a part of those duties or else we shall come short in the performance of them so do them as that it had been better we had left them undone Eccl. 5.1 It is good to go up to the house of the Lord but we must first keep our feet subdue our foul and irregular affections It is good to offer sacrifice but we must first clense our hands or else we shall but give the sacrifice of fools It is good to give alms with our right hand but so that our left hand know it not It is good to pray but not standing in the synagogues or the corners of the streets It is good to fast but vvithout a disfigured face In all our approches to God vve must keep our feet vvalk forvvard vvith reverence and preparation for the place is not onely holy but dangerous to stand in
suum ad peccata populi They lifted up their soul anhelabant they even panted after their sin desired that they might sin that they might make advantage and so made them evil to make themselves rich For from hence from that for which we cannot find a name nor have a thought bad enough from a Desire to be rich breaketh forth that mark of a slave our desire to please S. Paul hath made a window into their breasts that we may see them with the same hand coyning their Doctrine and Money Rom. 16.18 They that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Serpents they are to deceive and the curse of the Serpent is upon them Vpon their belly they go and they eat dust all the dayes of their life For a wonderful thing it is to see how the Love of the world will transform Men into any shape sometimes to fawn like a Dog sometimes to rage like a Lion and then to lurk like a Fox how like the Charity of the Gospel it maketh them to bear all things 1 Cor. 13.7 believe all things endure all things yea contumelias in questu habere injuriis pasci to count-contumelies gain and to feed sweetly on injuries to speak what they do not think to like what they condemn to mortifie themselves to lye and cringe and bow and fall to the ground which is a kind of Mortification more then they will do for Christ who bringeth poverty disgrace and contempt and hath no reward but that which is laid up for the future This brought Plato the great Philosopher a ship-board to sayl to Dyonisius his Court and there laid him down at his feet Orat. 3. 1 King 22. this made him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Nazianzene speaketh prefer a half-peny before his Gods This was the evil spirit in the mouth of those lying Prophets which did prevail with Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead This maketh men speak not with mens Persons but with their fortunes not with the sinner but with the rich and noble man And this Spirit is abroad still and perswadeth some into their graves and some into hell rayseth every storm and every tempest and maketh that desolation which we see upon the earth Val. Max. l. 4. c. 3. We read that Aristippus found Diogenes washing his herbs and roots his daily food and in a kind of pity or scorn told him that if he would flatter Dionysius he need not eat these nor tye himself to such course fare But Diogenes replieth like a Philosopher and returneth his saying upon him Si tu ista esse velles Dionysio non adulareris If thou couldest content thy self and feed on these thou wouldst never be so base as to flatter Dionysius And certainly if we could with the Cynick be content with Nature for our purveyour and look for no supply but from her hand 1 Tim. 6.8 â—ab 2.5 1 Joh. 2.15 having food and raiment as S. Paul speaketh could we be therewith content did we not enlarge our desires as Hell and send our hopes afar off did we not love the world and the things of this world we should not thus debase and annihilate our selves aâ— being men our selves to make our selves the shadows of other in their morning to rise with them at their noon and highest to come up and close with them and then at their night to fall out and leave them in the dark we should not mould and fit our best part to their worst our Reason to their Lust nor make our phansie the elaboratory to work out such essaies as may please and destroy them we should not foment the anger of the Revenger to consume him nor help the Covetous to bury himself alive nor the Ambitious to break his neck nor the Schismatick to rend the seamless coat of Christ nor the Seditious to swim to hell in a river of bloud but we should bind the Revengers hands break the Misers idoles bring down the Ambitious to the dust make up those rents which Faction hath made and confine the Seditious to his own sphere and place For who would favour or uphold such Monsters as these but for pay and salary In a word if every man did hate the world every man would love his brother Jam. 1.27 If every man did keep himself unspotted of the world every man would be his Brothers keeper When the world pleaseth us we are as willing to please the world and we make it our stage and act our parts we call our selves Friends and are but Parasites we call our selves Prophets and are but Wizards and Juglers we call our selves Apostles and are Seducers we call our selves Brethren though it be in evil and like Hippocrites his Twins we live and dye together We flatter and are flattered we are blind and leaders of the blind Matth. 15.14 and fall together with them into the ditch and bring our burden after us We please men to please our selves lull them into a pleasant dream 2 Pet. 2.3 and our damnation sleepeth not You see now what it is to please men and from whence it proceedeth from whence it springeth even from that bitter root the root of all evil the Love of the world Let us now behold that huge distance and inconsistency which is between these two the pleasing of men and the Service of Christ. If I yet please men I am not the servant of Christ I am thy servant saith David Psal 119.125 grant me understanding to know what it is to be thy servant In Loc. Latet sub familiaribus verbis maxima fidei conscientiae professio saith Hilary By this familiar word Servant we bind our Faith and Conscience to the will and command and beck of him we serve The servant of Christ is a title too great too high an honour for a mortal Man too high for an Emperour for an Apostle for an Angel for a Seraphim But since he is pleased to give it we are bound to make it good that every action and motion and thought of ours may be to him that whether we live we may live unto him and whether we die Rom. 14 8. we may die unto him that whatsoever we do we may be the Lords And first we cannot do both not serve Men and Christ no more then you can draw the same streight line to two points to touch them both You cannot saith Christ serve God and Mammon Matth. 6.24 One master may have many servants but one servant cannot have many masters Imperium dividi potest Amor non potest Power and Command may stretch and spread and divide it self to many but Love and Observance cannot be carried levelled but on one Nor can the mind saith Quintilian seriously intend many things at once Quocunque respexerit desinit intueri quod propositum fuerat
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
and whatsoever the Premisses are stand out against the Conclusion Of God's Power we may cry out with the Prophet Who hath believed our report or to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed And his Will we do but pray it may be done and fulfil our own What now will move us Our last part presenteth a most winning motive And it is God's hand still but his hand not armed with a thunder-bolt but holding out a reward an Exaltation stronger then a Demonstration Goodness is more persuasive then Power and a Promise more rhetorical then a Command Omnes mercede ducimur He that commandeth with promise he that cometh with a reward shall more prevail then seven wise men that can render a reason Of the Duty we have spoken already in general We called it an Exercise and we shewed you in what it doth consist We gave you the extent of it and told you that it is an exercise full of pain and toilsome in which we fight against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness and against the wantonness of the flesh beating down imaginations all aversness in the Understanding and all frowardness in the Will subduing both Soul and body to the obedience of the truth working wonders in the Soul and manifesting it self also in the outward man in a cast-down eye in a weak hand in a feeble knee glorifying God both in soul and body Let us now descend to a more particular delineation And there is a word in my Text which if well and rightly placed giveth all the lines and dimensions of it and that word is but a Preposition and the Preposition but a monosyllable But the sound of it is harsh in our ear and findeth no better entertainment and welcome with us then if it were a Satyre or a Libel It is the Preposition SUB We must humble our selves under Et quantum turbat monosyllabon How are we troubled with this one monosyllable Our nature is stiff and stubborn and this Preposition this monosyllable is a yoke SUB TUTORIBUS under tutors a hard Text for the Heir G l 4.2 O how doth he expect and long for the appointed time when he shall be his own man and Lord of all SUB POTESTATE DOMINI under the power of the Master so should Servants be Eph. 6.5 But they are not so alwayes with good will doing service It is many times but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the down-cast of the eye You see them on the ground at your feet but in their mind they are on horse-back SUB POTESTATE VIRI under the power of the husband Gen. 3.16 is scarce good Scripture with every Wife No set the Servant on horse-back make the Heir a Lord and the Wife the head either no coming under no SUB at all or else misplace it But SUB PRAECEPTO under the Command there we should be For as that was made for us so were we elemented and made up and sitted for that for a Law and Precept Which whilest we keep under we are in the way to perfection In Religion there is Order and in Order there is a SUB a coming under Here there is a precept Humble your selves How come we under it No otherwise then if we were brought under a yoke Every command is our captivity every injunction an imprisonment Lex ligat Enact a Law and we are in fetters Nay Lex occidit the Law is a killing letter in this sense too He that bringeth us a command might as well present us with poison or a sword and bid us kill our selves At the first hearing one goeth away sorrowful another angry another laborem fingit in praecepto hath seen a lion some perillous difficulty in the way Every man is ill-affected and wisheth him silenced that bringeth it Nay further yet The Gospel of peace an Angel bringeth it yet we know what enterâ—ainment it found Nay how was he intreated who is α and ω the Beginning and the End the Author and Finisher of the Gospel Let him be crucified say the Jews Ecquis Christus cum suâ fabula say the Heathen Away with Christ and his Legend And now we who name Christ and delight in that name and make our boast of the Gospel all our life long how do we struggle and strive under it as dying men do for breath Deny your selves Take up your cross they are the voice of Wisdom crying out unto us and no man regardeth it Not SUB LEGE under the Law the Gospel hath taken away that SUB but not SUB GRATIA we are unwilling to come under Grace and SUB CHRISTO under Christ himself The shadow of his wings is as full of terrour to us as the shadow of Death This this was it which killed God's Prophets stoned his Messengers burned his Martyrs crucified the Lord of life himself and at this day crucifieth him afresh and putteth him to open shame our want of Humility our falling out with and not obeying the Gospel of Christ. It is the Apostle's phrase 2 Thes 1.8 This trampleth under foot the bloud of the new Testament as if it were a profane and unholy thing But we must remember that this SUB this neglected and scorned Preposition is that we hold by all we can shew all the Patent we have for heaven Had not Christ come SUB TEGMINE CARNIS as Arnobius speaketh under the covert of our flesh in the form of a servant had he not been made SUB LEGE under the Law had he not been brought SUB CULTRO under the knife at his circumcision had he not been SUB CRUCE undergone the Cross we had been SUB PECCATO under sin under the cross and as low as Hell it self It it most true Nothing but Humility could save us And when we could not bring an Humility equal to our Pride nor a Repentance answerable to our Disobedience then He that was above all was made under the Law Col. 1.24 and humbled himself But yet there be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something behind of the afflictions and humility of Christ Not that his Humility was imperfect but that ours be also his required For an humble Head and proud Members an humble Christ and a stiff necked Christian is a foul incongruity a monster made up of God and Belial Something then of Christ's Humility is behind not that his Humility was imperfect but that ours is also requisite not ex parte operationis suae as if he had not fully accomplished the work of our Redemption but ex parte cooperationis nostrae in respect of something to be performed by us not that it was his Talent and our mite his three parts and our one No he payed down the price of our Redemption at one full and entire payment and that de suo of his own he borrowed not of us His SUB his Humility was able to raise a thousand worlds and yet our Humility must come in with a SUB too we must be under his
furta fidei the thefts and pious depredations of Faith But that Faith should be idle or speechless or dead is contrary to its nature and proceedeth from our depraved dispositions from Love of the world and Love of our selves which can silence it or lull it asleep or bury it in oblivion Thus we may have Faith as if we had it not and use it as we should use the world as if we used it not or worse abuse it not believe and say it but believe and deny it not believe and be saved but believe and be damned For the Devil can haereticare propositiones make propositions which are absolutely true heretical Believe and be saved is as true as Gospel nay it is the Gospel it self but by his art and deceit many believe and are by so much the bolder in the wayes which lead unto Death believe Jesus to be the Lord and contemn him believe him to be a Saviour and upon presumption of mercy make themselves uncapable of mercy and because he saveth sinners will be such sinners as he cannot save because they believe he taketh away the sins of the world will harden themselves in those sins which he will not take away Many there be who do veritatem sed non per vera tenere maintain the Truth but by those wayes which are contrary to the Truth make that which should confirm Religion destroy Religion and their whole life a false gloss upon a good Text having a form of godliness but denying the power of it crying Jesus is the Lord but scourging him with their blasphemies as if he were a slave and fighting against him with their lusts and affections as if he were an enemy sealing him up in his grave as if he were not that Jesus that Saviour that Lord but in the Jews language that deceiver that blasphemer But this is a most broken and imperfect language And though we are said to believe it when we cannot believe it to have the habit of Faith when we have not the use of Reason and so cannot bring it forth into act as some Divines conceive though it be spoke for us at the Font when we cannot speak and though when we can speak it we speak it again and again as often almost at we speak Lord Lord though we gasp it forth with our last breath and make it the last word we speak yet all this will not make up the Dicere all this will not rise to thus much as to say JESUS IS THE LORD Therefore In the third place that we may truly say it we must speak it to God as God speaketh to us whose word is his deed who cannot lie who Numb 23.19 if he saith it will doe it if he speak it will make it good And as he speaketh to us by his Benefits which are not words but blessings the language of Heaven by his Rain to water the earth by his Wool to clothe us and by his Bread to feed us so must we speak to him by our Obedience by Hearts not hollow by Tongues not deceitful by Hands pure and innocent Our heart conceiveth and our obedience is the report made abroad And this is indeed LO QUI to speak out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make our works vocal and our words operative to have lightning in our words and thunder in our deeds as Nazianzene spake of Basil that not onely Men and Angels may hear and see and applaud us but this Lord himself may understand our dialect and by that know us to be his children and accept and reward us In our Lord and Saviour's Alphabet these are the Letters in his Grammar these are the Words Meekness and Patience Compassion and Readiness to forgive Self-denial and Taking up our cross This must be our Dialect We cannot better express our Jesus and our Lord then idiomate operum by the language of our works by the language of the Angels whose Elogium is They doe his will the Tongue of Angels is not so proper as their Ministery for indeed their Ministery is their Tongue by the language of the Innocents who confessed him to be the Lord not by speaking but by dying by the language of the blessed Martyrs who in their tumultuary executions when they could not be heard for noise were not suffered to confess him said no more but took their death on it And this is truly to say Jesus is the Lord. For if he be indeed our Lord then shall we be under his command and beck Not a thought must rise which he would controll not a word be uttered which he would silence not an action break forth which he forbideth not a motion be seen which he would stop The very name of Lord must awe us must possess and rule us must inclose and bound us and keep us in on every side Till this be done nothing is done nothing is said We are his purchase and must fall willingly under his Dominion For as God made Man a little World so hath he made him a little Commonwealth Tertullian calleth him Fibulam utriusque substantiae the Clasp or Button which tieth together two diverse substances the Soul and the Body the Flesh and the Spirit And these two are contrary one to the other saith S. Paul are carried diverse wayes the Flesh to that which is pleasing to it and the Spirit to that which is proportioned to it looking on things neither as pleasing nor irksom but as they may be drawn in to contribute to the perfection and beauty of the soul Gal. 5.17 They lust and struggle one against the other and Man is the field the theatre where this battel is fought and one part or other still prevaileth Many times nay most times the Flesh with her sophistry prevaileth with the Will to joyn with her against the Spirit against those inclinations and motions which the Word and the Spirit beget in us And then Sin taketh the chair the place and throne of Christ and is Lord over us reigneth as S. Paul speaketh in our mortal bodies If it say Go we go and if it say Come we come and if it say Doe this we doe it It maketh us lay down that price for dung with which we might purchase heaven See how Mammon condemneth one to the mines to dig for metalls and treasure for that money which will perish with him See how Lust fettereth another with a look and the glance of an eye and bindeth him with a kiss which will at last bite like a serpent See how Self-love driveth on thousands as Balaam did his beast on the point of the sword And thus doth Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 6.12 Lord it and King it over us And in this bondage and slavery can we truly say Jesus is the Lord when he is disgraced deposed and even crucified again Beloved whilest this fighting and contention lasteth in us something or other will lay hold on us and draw us within its
jurisdiction something or other will have the command of us either the World or the Flesh or Jesus Therefore we ought to consider what it is that beareth most sway in our hearts what it is we are most unwilling to lose and afraid to depart from Whether we had rather dwell in the world with all its pomp and pageantry in the flesh in a Mahumetical paradise of all sensual delights or with Jesus the Lord though it be with persecutions Suppose the Devil should make an overture to thee as he did to our Saviour of all the Kingdoms of the world and the Flesh should plead for her self as she will be putting in for her share and shew thee Pleasure and Honour and Power and all that a heart of flesh can desire in those Kingdomes and on the other side Jesus the Lord should check thee as he doth in his Gospel and pull thee back and tell thee that all this is but a false shew that this present shew will rob thee of future realities that the pleasures which are but for a season are not to be compared to that eternal weight of glory that in this terrestriall Paradise thou shalt meet with the sword and wrath of God and from this seeming painted heaven fall into hell it self Here now is thy trial here thou art put to thy choice If thy heart can now truly say I will have none of these if thou canst say to thy Flesh Who gave thee authority over me What hast thou to doe with me if thou canst say with thy Jesus Avoid Satan and then bow to Jesus and acknowledge no power in heaven or in earth no Dominion but his then thou hast learned this holy language perfectly and mayst truly say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And now to apply it in a word Is it not pity nay a great shame that Man who was created to holiness who was made for this Lord as this Lord was made man for him whose perfect liberty is his service whose greatest honour is to be under his Dominion and whose crown of glory it is to have Jesus to be his King should wait and serve under the World which passeth away should be a parasite to the Flesh which hath no better kin then Rottenness and Corruption should yield and comply with the Devil who seeketh to devour him and fling off the service of Christ as the most loathsome painful detestable thing on earth who is a Jesus to save him and a Lord that hath purchased him with his bloud Is Jesus the Lord Nay but the World is the Lord and the Flesh is the Lord and the Devil is the Lord. This is Vox populi the language of the world And therefore Saint Cyprian bringeth in the Devil thus bragging against this Jesus and magnifying his power above his and laughing us to scorn whom he hath filled with shame Ego pro istis sanguinem non fudi I have not spent one drop of bloud for these I gave them wine to mock them I presented them beauty to burn them I made riches my snare to take them I flattered them to kill them All my study was to bring them to death and everlasting destruction Tuos tales demonstra mihi Jesu Thou that openedst thy bowels and pouredst forth thy bloud for them shew me so many servants of thine so ready so officious so ambitious to serve thee And what a shame is this to all that bear the name of Christ and call him both their Jesus and their Lord that the malice of an enemy should win us and the love of a Saviour harden us that a Murtherer should draw us after him and a Redeemer drive us from him that Satan an Adversary and the Devil an Accuser should more prevail then Jesus the Lord Lacrymis magìs opus est quà m verbis Here let us drop our tears and lay our hands upon our mouths and abhor our selves in dust and ashes go into the house of mourning the school of Repentance and there learn this blessed dialect learn it and believe it and speak it truly JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For conclusion Ye that approch the Table of the Lord to receive the Sacrament of his Body and Bloud consider well whose Body and Bloud it is Draw near for it is Jesus but draw near with reverence for it is the Lord. And as he was once offered upon the Cross so in these outward elements he now offereth himself unto you with all the benefits of his death For here is comprehended not onely Panis Domini but Panis Dominus not onely the bread of the Lord John 6. but also the Lord himself who is that living Bread which came down from heaven And how will ye appear before your Jesus but with love and gratitude and with that new song of the Saints and Angels Rev. 5.12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And how will ye appear before your Lord but with humility and reverence with broken hearts for your neglect and strong and well-made resolutions to fall down and worship and serve him all the dayes of your life For if the ancient Christians out of their high esteem of the Sacrament were scrupulous and careful that not one part of the consecrated Bread nor one drop of the consecrated Wine should fall to the ground but thought it a sin though it were but a chance or misfortune quanti piaculi erit Deminum negligere what an unexpiable crime will it be to neglect the Lord himself If the Sacrament hath been thought worthy of such honour what honour is due to Jesus the Lord Bring then your offerings and oblations and offer them here as he offered himself upon the cross your Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh your Temporal goods your Prayers your Mortification that this Lord may hold forth his golden sceptre to you that you may touch the top of it and be received into favour For what else doth the Eucharist signifie We call the Sacraments the signs and seals of the Covenant of Grace But they are also saith Contarene the protestations of our Faith by which we believe not onely the articles of our Creed but the Divine Promise and Institution And Faith is vocal and will awake our Viol and Harp our Tongue and all the powers and faculties of our soul and breathe it self forth in songs of thanksgiving And they are the protestations of our Repentance also which will speak in sighs and grones unutterable And they also are the protestations of our Hope which is ever looking for and rejoycing in and talking of that which is laid up And they are the protestations of our Charity which maketh the tongue and hand as the pen of a ready writer whose words are more sweet whose language is more delightful then that which is uttered by the tongues of men and of Angels And if ye thus
They had a full harvest we our sheaf yet our sheaf may make an offering Though our coyn be smaller yet the same image and stamp is on them both and the Spirit will own us though we weigh less All this is true But yet I must still remember you that whilest I build up the power of the Spirit I erect no asylum or sanctuary for illusions and wilful mistakes and when I have raised a fort and strong-hold for sober Christians I mean it not a shelter or refuge for mad-men and phantasticks God forbid that Truth should be banished out of the world because some men by false illations have made her factious or that Errour should straight be crowned with approbation because perhaps we read of some men who have been bettered with a lie The teaching of the Spirit it were dangerous to teach it were there not means to try and distinguish the Spirit 's instructions from the suggestions of Satan or the evaporations of a sick and loathsome brain or our own private Humour which is as great a Devil Beloved 1 John 4.1 saith the Apostle believe not every spirit that is every inspiration but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false prophets are gone out into the world that is have taken the chair and dictate magisterially what they please in the name of the Spirit when themselves are carnal And he giveth the rule by which we should try them Vers 2 Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God that is Whosoever striveth to advance the Kingdom of Christ and to set up the Spirit against the Flesh to magnifie the Gospel to promote and further men in the wayes of innocency and perfect obedience which infallibly lead to happiness is from God that is every such inspiration is from the Spirit of God For therefore doth the Spirit breathe upon us that he may make us like unto God and so draw us to him that where he is we may be also But those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal which cry up Religion to gain the world which call their own discipline Christ's Discipline which he never framed and spurn at his to maintain their own which tread down Peace and Charity and all that is indeed praise-worthy under their feet to make way for their unguided lust to pace it more delicately to its end which sigh out Faith and Grace and Christ like mourners about the streets which attend a funeral when the World and Satan hath filled their hearts and thus sow in tears that they may reap the profits and pleasures of this present world with joy which magnifie God's will that they may do their own these men these spirits cannot be from God By their fruits ye shall know them For their hypocrisie as well and cunningly wrought as it is is but a poor cobweb-lawn and we may easily see through it even see these spiritual men sweating and toiling for the Flesh these Saints digging in the minerals labouring for the bread that perisheth and making haste to be rich For though many times their wine be the poison of dragons and their milk not at all sincere yet they are not to be bought without money or money-worth Though GLORIA PATRI Glory to God on high be the Prologue to the Play for what doth a Hypocrite but play yet the whole drift and business of every Scene and Act is chearfully to draw altogether in this From hence we have our gain The Angel speaketh the Prologue and Mammon and the Flesh make the Epilogue Date manus Why should not every man give them his hands Surely such Roscii such cunning Actors deserve a Plaudite By their fruits ye shall know them For what though the voice be Jacobs Ye may know Esau by his hands What though the Devil turn Angel of light Ye may know him by his claws by his malice and rage For how can an Angel of light tear men in pieces By their fruits ye may know them So ye see this inconvenience and mischief which sometimes is occasioned by the Doctrine of the Spirit 's Teaching is not unavoidable It is not necessary though I mistake and take the Devil for an Angel that the holy Ghost should be put to silence Though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings yet God forbid that all Israel should be swallowed up in the same gulf Samuel runneth to Eli 1 Sam. 3. Vers 9. when the voice was God's but was taught at last to answer Speak Lord for thy servant heareth Though there were many false Prophets yet Micaiah was a true one Though there be many false Prophets come into the world yet the Spirit of God is a Spirit of truth and is not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our chief but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our sole Instructor Our last Part In which we shall be very brief We are told in the verse next after the Text There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit And we may say There are diversities of teachers but the same Spirit because be the conveyances and conduits never so many through which the knowledge of our Lord Jesus is brought unto us if the Sririt move not along with it it may be water indeed but not of life Because all means are but instrumental but He the prime Agent we may well call him not onely the chief but the sole Instructor The Church of Christ is DOMUS DOCTRINAE the House of learning as it is called in the Chaldee Paraphrase and COLUMNA VERITATIS 1 Tim. 3.15 the Pillar of the truth because it presenteth the knowledge of Christ as a Pillar doth an Inscription and even offereth and urgeth it to every eye that it may not slip out of our memories and SCHOLA CHRISTI the School of Christ in respect of his Precepts and Discipline Such glorious things have been spoken of the Church But now methinks this House is ruinous this Pillar shaken this School broken up and dissolved and the Church which bore so great a name standeth for nothing but the walls A Jesuite telleth us that at the very name of the CHURCH hostis expalluit the Enemy that is such as he called Hereticks did look pale and tremble But what is it now amongst us Nothing or but a Name and in truth a Name is nothing And that too is vanishing for it is changed into another And yet it is the same for they both signifie one and the same thing So prevalent amongst us is that Phansie and Folly which is taken for the Spirit A Church no doubt there is and will be but we onely see it as we do the Church Triumphant through a glass darkly Or she may be fair as the Moon clear as the Sun but sure she is not terrible as an army with banners Secondly the Word is a Teacher And Christ by open proclamation hath commanded us to have recourse unto it
the Anabaptists call it if it be not levelled to its right end which is not to afflict but to purge and refine us to withdraw us from the present momentany pleasures that we may be fitted for the future for those which are not seen which are eternal that we may so abstain from meats ut solo Deo alamur as Tertullian speaketh of Moses and Elias that we may feed on God alone which is to seek him Last of all Prayer is of great force and availeth much saith Saint James It is the best guide and conduct to lead us in our way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nyssene it addeth wings unto us even the wings of a Dove that we may fly after God and be at rest It is impossible that it should return empty if we ask for grace not wealth that we may do God's will and not that we may bring our own purposes about and then say it is his will The wicked are not heard for God regardeth not their prayers but loatheth them as an abomination And yet they are heard and have that which they request granted them but for another end even as God gave the Israelites a King in his wrath and indignation and to their further condemnation But when we bow before God and desire power and ability to seek him that is to walk in his wayes we pray for that which God is alwayes ready to give We pray that we may seek him who beseecheth and commandeth us to seek him who sendeth his Prophets to call upon us to seek him Such prayers are as musick in the ears of the Almighty and our diligence in seeking him is the resultance We may call Prayer with Dionysius the Areopagite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bright and radiant chain by which we ascend unto God and God descendeth unto us by which we are drawn to follow and seek the Lord. To conclude this part then these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer as they are helps to forward our repentance so are they signs of a troubled spirit probable symptoms of a heart thirsting and panting after God and yet through the corruptions of our hearts they are nothing else but bare signs and types and shadows Signs but such as signifie nothing Types but such as have no Antitypes Shadows of which the substance was never seen For as it was observed of the Jews that the greatest sacrifices so it may be amongst Christians that the most frequent hearers the greatest fasters and they that are longest and loudest in prayer may be the greatest sinners It is well we can be brought to these if it be in God's name but commonly some other wind driveth us to the Temple some other hand putteth on our sackcloth and our love nay the Prince of this world may bring us on our knees and then in these our devotion is terminated and if we can well pass over these as we may well for we delight and pride our selves in them we think we have God in a chain and bound him with our merits that we have past through as many punishments as they did who were to be consecrated to Mithras the God of the Persians In a word in these three Hearing Fasting and Prayer our devotion our seeking is at an end We please and content our selves with the service of the ears of the body of the lips with a Sermon I should say many Sermons with a Fast and that is not complete without something which they call by that name with the labour of the lips with a Prayer and that too must have something of the Sermon and something of the Libel when as indeed our turning to God is the best commendation of a Sermon to loose the bonds of wickedness of that wickedness we now stand guilty of before God and men is the best sanctifying of a Fast and to seek the Lord with all the heart the most effectual Prayer we can make To this end are these duties enjoyned and to this end alone they are useful and serviceable that we may seek the Lord. We have beheld the Object which we must seek the Lord who is the sole and adequate object of our desires in whom alone they may rest If we desire Wealth the earth is the Lord's and all that therein is if Strength he is the Lord of Hosts if Wisdom he created her and poured her out upon all his works if Life he is the living God if Immortality he onely is immortal And if we seek not him our riches are snares our greatest wisdom the greatest folly our strength will overthrow us and our momentany life will deliver us over to eternal death We have also seen what it is to seek the Lord namely to seek him in Christ to seek him in those wayes of obedience and humility which he hath drawn out unto us in his Gospel in a word to bow our wills and receive him into our hearts that God in us may be all in all Now we pass from the Act to the Time when we must seek the Lord while he may be found my last part And do we ask when we should seek the Lord We do not well to ask it because we should not stay so long as to ask the question before we seek him Huic rei perit omne tempus quodcunque alteri datur All time is lost to this which we bestow in any thing else For shall we prefer our pleasure our profit our health our life before God Nor is there need of deliberation in that action wherein all the danger is not to do it Fides pura moram non patitur If we love God and truly believe in him we cannot be so patient as to endure the least delay We may miss of happiness but certainly we cannot meet it too soon I know God may be found at any time which we can call ours at any time of our life in the morning or at noon in the heat of the day or in the cool of the evening But a great presumption it is to promise to our selves to seek and find him when we please He may be found in our old age but it is most safe to remember him in our youth he may be found in affliction but it is not good to stay till the rod be on the back he may be found in war and yet it is hard to find the God of peace in war and therefore it is a folly to delay seeking him till we see the glittering spear and hear the noise of the whip and the prauncing of the horses If we will determine and fix a time we must take the first opportunity lay it to the first beam and dawning of our reason The second or third opportunities though they come not peradventure too late to find him yet they come too late for us to begin to seek him because we lost the first which for ought we knew might have been the last To morrow may be but Now is the while
he hath put a pardon into our hands We must therefore seek out another Righteousness And we may well say we must seek it for it is well near lost in this Imputed Righteousness is that we hold by and Inherent righteousness is Popery or Pâ—lagianism We will not be what we ought because Christ will make us what we would be We will not be just that he may justifie us and we will rebell because he hath made our peace As men commonly never more forfeit their obedience then under a mild Prince But if the love of the world would suffer us to open our eyes we might then see a Law even in the Gospel and the Gospel more binding then ever the Law was Nor did Christ bring in that Righteousness by faith to thrust out this that we may do nothing that we may do any thing because Faith can work such a miracle No saith S. Paul he establisheth the Law He added to it he reformed it he enlarged it made it reach from the act to the look from the look to the thought Nor is it enough for the Christian to walk a turn with the Philosopher or to go a Sabbath-day's journey with the Jew or make such a progress in Righteousness as the Law of Moses measured out No Christ taught us a new kind of Righteousness and our burthen is not onely reserved but increased that this Righteousness may abound a Righteousness which striketh us dumb when the slanderer's mouth is open and loud against us which boundeth our desires when vanity wooeth us setteth a knife to our throat when the fruit is pleasant to the eye giveth laws to our understanding chaineth up our will when Kingdoms are laid at our feet shutteth up our eyes that we may not look upon a second woman which a Jew might have embraced calleth us out of the world whilest we are in the world and maketh us spiritual whilest we are in the flesh Justitia sincera a sincere Righteousness without mixture or sophistication and justitia integra an entire and perfect Righteousness Righteousness like to the love of our Saviour integros tradens integrum se danti a Righteousness delivering up the whole man both body and soul unto him who offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world For conclusion of this point and to make some use of it Beloved this is the Object we must look on And we must use diligence and be very wary that we mistake it not that we take not that to be our Juno which is but a cloud that to be Righteousness which flesh and bloud our present occasions our present necessities our unruly lusts and desires may set up and call by that name This is the great and dangerous errour in which many Christians are swallowed up and perish not to take Righteousness in its full extent and compass in that form and shape in which it is tendered and so fulfil all righteousness but to contract and shrink it up to leave it in its fairest parts and offices and to vvork all unrighteousness and then make boast of its name And thus the number of the Righteous may be great the Goats more then the Sheep the gate vvide and open that leadeth unto the Kingdom of God Thus the Hypocrite vvho doth but act a part is righteous the Zelote vvho setteth all on fire is righteous the Schismatick vvho teareth the seamless coat of Christ is righteous he whose hands yet reek vvith the bloud of his brethren is righteous righteous Pharisees righteous Incendiaries righteous Schismaticks righteous Traitours and Murtherers not Abel but Cain the righteous All are righteous For this hath been the custom of vvicked men to bid defiance to Righteousness and then comfort themselves with her name We vvill not mention the Righteousness of the heathen For they being utterly devoid of the true knowledge of Christ it might perhaps diminish the number of their stripes but could not adde one hair to their stature or raise them nearer to the Kingdom of God Nor will we speak of the Righteousness of the Jew For they vvere in bondage under the Elements of the world nor could the Lavv make any of them perfect We Christians on vvhom the Sun of Righteousness hath clearly shined depend too much upon an Imputed Righteousness An imputed Righteousness why that is all It is so and will lift us up unto happiness if we adde our own not as a supplement but as a necessary requisite not to seal our pardon for that it cannot do but to further our admittance For we never read that the Spirit did seal an unrighteous person that continued in his sin to the day of his redemption No Imputed Righteousness must be the motive to work in us inherent Righteousness and God will pardon us in Christ is a strong argument to infer this conclusion Therefore we must do his will in Christ. For Pardon bringeth greater obligation then a law Christ dyed for us is enough to win Judas himself those that betray him and those that crucifie him to repentance The death of Christ is verbum visibile saith Clement a visible word For in the death of Christ are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Righteousness If you look upon his Cross and see the inscription JESUS OF NAZERETH KING OF THE JEWS you cannot miss of another HOLINESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO THE LORD There hung his sacred body and there hung all those bracelets and ornaments as Solomon calleth them those glorious examples of all vertues There hung the most true and most exact pictures of Patience and Obedience and unparallel'd Love And if we take them not out and draw them in our selves imputed Righteousness will not help us or rather it will not be imputed What Righteousness imputed to a man of Belial Christ's Love imputed to him that hateth him his Patience to a revenger his Truth to the fraudulent his Obedience to the traitour his Mercy to the cruel his Innocency to the murtherer his Purity to the unclean his Doing all things well to those who do all things ill God forbid No let us not deceive our selves Let us not sleep in sin and then please our selves with a pleasant dream of Righteousness which is but a suggestion of the enemy whose art it is to settle that in the phansie which should be rooted in the heart and to lead us to the pit of destruction full of those thoughts which lift us up as high as heaven Assumed names false pretences forced thoughts these are the pillars which uphold his kingdom and subvert all Righteousness Vera justitia hoc habet omnia in se vertit True Righteousness complieth with nothing that is contrary or diverse from it It will not comply with the Pharisee and make his seeming a reality it will not comply with the Schismatick and make his pride humility it will not comply with the prosperous Traitour and make him a Father of his
said nothing else but Love one another 491. A reason given why some are so slow to actions of Ch. 281 282. Rules to try our Ch. by 492. v. Faith and Mercy Charles the V. quitted his Palace for a Cell 284. Children if virtuous are blessings if wicked curses 987. Chiliasts errour confuted 243. Choice We are here put to our choice 767 CHRIST The miserable estate of Man without him 2 3. If he had not been God he could not have saved us 3 4. How he is the Son of God 4 5. His Generation a mystery to be believed not curiously inquired into 5. ¶ His Incarnation the greatest expression of God's Love and bond of ours 6 22. His wonderful humility in taking our nature 6. He representeth himself to us three wayes 7. Christ's Incarnation by many thought absurd and unworthy of God 8. but we must not out of good manners either abuse God's love or make shipwrack of our own faith 8. 20 21. He took not onely our Flesh but our Soul also with the Affections 9. but without that disorder that our Passions are guilty of 10. 25. Of the manner how the two Natures are united 11. This is a mystery not impossible yet inexplicable 11. It behoved Christ for our redemtion to become Man 13 14. The other persons wrought in the Incarnation but were not incarnate 14. Christ's Incarnation was most free yet in some sense also necessary 14 15. ¶ As Christ was made like unto us so must we be like unto him 16. No easie matter to be like him 16. How we may be made like him 16. Nothing so absurd and mis-becoming as for a Christian to be unlike Christ 17. Conformity to him is that one thing necessary 17. It is a joy to God and his holy Angels 18. ¶ Christ is the chief of God's gifts and the fountain of all the rest 19 20. 33 34. God's Love to us in giving his Son is highly to be admired but upon no pretense to be denied 20 c. 470. This act flowed from God's mere pleasure 22. 28. God herein appeared more kind to us then to his own dear Son 20. and Christ to have loved us more then himself 29. God's Love herein exceeded his Power Wisdome Will yea far exceeded our Hopes Desires Opinion 22. 471. His Mercy alone was it that moved his Will to send C. 23 24. ¶ The manifold wayes that C. was delivered for us 24 c. ¶ Of his Fear and Grief at his Passion 25. Of his desire that the Cup might pass from him 266. How the Martyrs seemed more couragious at their deaths then He 26. In his greatest extremity he despaired not 25. yet were his sufferings without the least allay of comfort 27. Why He died for us Men and for our salvation and not for the Angels some conjectures are produced 28. The true cause is shewn 29. We had more hand in our Saviour's death then his Judge or Executioners 29. It was Love that made him die for us 470. 492. How since he died for all all are not saved by him 29 c. There is no difficiencie in him the fault is wholely in us 30 31. ¶ Every worldly thing is good with Christ but nothing without him 32. All things are loss and dung without him 714 715. How all things are ours by our being Christ's 33. We have all things by him which tend to our salvation 33. His Death the strongest motive to holiness and righteousness of life 872 c. From his Cross as from a Professor's chair we may learn Innocencie Obedience Humility Patience Love 34. He died not for us that we might live as we list 38. He died not onely to be a Sacrifice for us but also an Example to us 471 472. His Death should not make any but it doth make many presume 472. What it is to shew forth Christ's Death 473 c. Our part is to condemn our selves rather then to declaim against the Actors in that Tragedy 473. His Humility doth not empair his Majesty but exalt it 470. His experience of sufferings taught him to compassionate ours 39 40. His Compassion not to be denied but followed 147 148. What hand God had in Christ's death 301. What we should behold and admire in Christ's Cross 310. His Death and our Repentance must go together 327. ¶ Why Christ after his Resurrection would not shew himself openly 41. Arguments to prove his Resurrection 42 718. The efficacie of his Resurrection on our Bodies and on our Souls 43. 719 c. Christ and all that floweth from him everlasting 44 45. 48. ¶ Of Christ's Ascension 726 c. Why the Disciples were present at their Master's Ascension 727. They are checked at their wondring at it 728. Now Christ is ascended what it is that we must look upon and look to 731 732. Why He abode not still upon earth 733 734. ¶ How and why Christ is said to sit at God's right hand 229. ¶ Of his Intercession 45. ¶ Of his Dominion over Hell and Death 49 49. He hath bought us 739 c. It cost him more to redeem us then it did to create us 763. v. Redemtion That Jesus is the Lord his Resurrection declared 759. v. JESVS If we make him our Lord he will be our Jesus else not 760 c. 1069. What contradiction of sinners Christ suffereth in all ages 761. Few love to hear of his Lordship 761 c. The Arians less e-enemies to Christ then many Christians now 762. Many confess Christ but few do it heartily 763 c. What a shame it is to own any other for our Lord but Christ 768. The Devil brought in bragging he hath more Disciples then Christ 768. His humility offendeth many 560. The Majesty of Christ is to be discovered and admired by us even amidst the scorn and disgrace the world casteth upon him 311. 493. Of his Dominion 762. its nature 228 c. its power 232. 240. its extent 233. How he is Lord of all though most refuse him 234. 240. The acknowledgment of God's power in Christ is the foundation of Christianity 313. He is our Lawgiver 1066. v. Law They grosly erre who think Christ came to be our Redeemer but not our Lawgiver 1068. How his Laws excel all humane Laws 240 c. How men are wont to deal with his precepts 823. We must be ruled by his command 312. and depend on his protection 313. He is terrible to his enemies and gratious to his servants 37. ¶ How we must receive Christ 35. What it is to dwell in him 310 c. The benefits we have by his dwelling in us 314 c. Power and virtue still go out of him 314 315. He quickneth our Knowledge 315. and our Faith 316. and worketh in us an universal constant and sincere Obedience 316 317. There is a reciprocation between Christ and the Soul 317 318. Christ may bear with our infirmities but not with wilfulness and hypocrisie 319. No Church can
words and syllables so that at last it was shut up and lost in phrases and second notions and terms of art which brought little improvement to the better part and made men rather talkative then wise For we may observe that the same noysome and pestilent wind which so withered Philosophy till it was shrunk up into a name being nothing but a body of words hath blown also upon Divinity and blasted that which was ordained to be the very life of our souls Which was more pure and plain when mens lives were so but is now sullied with much handling and made much unlike it self daubed over with glosses as with untempered morter wrought out into Questions beat out into Distinctions and is made an Art which is the Wisdome of God to Salvation The Schoolmen did toze and draw it out and then made it up in knots The Postillers played with it and made it well-neer ridiculous And we have seen some such unseemly Jigs in our dayes And there have been too many Theorical Divines who have stretched beyond their line beyond the understanding of their hearers and beyond their own wrought darkness out of light made that obscure which was plain that perplexed which was easie have handled Metaphors as Chymists do metals and extracted that out of them which Christ never put into them made them less intelligible by pressing them so far and by beating them out have made them nothing made them more obscure then the thing which they should shew yield us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sea of words but not a word of sense To be regenerate is something more then to be made good who were evil To be a new creature is something more if we could tell what it were then to be a just and righteous man and we are born and made what we are against our will And what hath followed this bold obtruding of our own thin and forced conceits upon the Church under the high commanding form of necessary truths Even that which hath been observed of Philosophy When men made Wisdom the only aim and end of their studies then Philosophy was it self in its prime and natural glory being drawn up unto its proper end But when they applied themselves to it only to fill up their time or satisfie their ambition or delight their wits then she lost her native complexion or strength and degenerated into folly then Epicurus raised a swarm of Atomes Diogenes made him a Tub and the Stoicks brought in their Decrees and Paradoxes then were there Mille familiarum nomina so many sects that it is not easie to draw them into a catalogue some there were who declared their different opinions and disputed one against the other by outward signes alone as by Weeping and Laughing So we find it also in the Church of Christ that Divinity never suffered so much as when it was made matter of wit and ambition and Policy and Faction became moderatours and staters of questions Then every man became an interpreter of Scripture and every interpreter had need of another to interpret him Then men taught the Law as Moses received it out of a thick cloud and Darkness was drawn over the face of Life it self and men received it as it was taught and did understand them who did not understand themselves received it as newes out of a far country and conceived of it either more or less then it vvas received it in parcels and fragments which hung like meteors in their phansie or as indigested lumps in their minds which soon broke out into sores and ulcers and one was a Libertine another an Anabaptist another a Leveller and some there were vvho did distinguish themselves by the motion and gesture and some vvhich is strange by the nakedness of their bodies And thus mischief grew up and multiplied through the blindness or deceitfulness of teachers and the folly and madness of the people Which evil had not certainly so far over-run the Church if men vvould have kept themselves vvithin their own limits and not took upon them to be vviser then God if the Truth had been as plainly taught as it vvas first delivered and not held out by mens ignorance or ambition and set forth vvith vvords and phrases and affected notions of our own if all men would have contended for and rested in that Faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints Jude 3. And this I markt and avoided and in the course of my Ministery run from as far as a good will with my weakness could carry me And as I strook at those errours which are most common and did strive to set up in their place those truths which are most necessary so I did indeavour to do it to the very eye with all plainness and evidence and as near as I could in the language of him who for us men and for our salvation did first publish them to the world To which end and to which alone next to the glory of God these my rude and ill-polished papers are consecrate And if they attein this in many or few or but one I have a most ample recompense for my labour and Praise and Dispraise shall be to me both alike for the one cannot make these Sermons better nor the other worse I know others before me have raised themselves up to a higher pitch and strook at Errour with more art and brought more strength to the building up of the Truth and I have seen Truth exalted and Falshood led in triumph gloriously by those whom God and their industry hath more fitted to the work I have therefore offered my self up to it but as some Succours which come when the day and heat is over who though they do not help yet shew their good will And we know that even they who bring on the baggage do some service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Orat. 20. The God of patience and consolation grant that we may be like-minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that we may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 15.5 6. A Table directing to the Texts of Scripture handled in the following Sermons Four Festival Sermons ON Christmass-day Hebr. 2.17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be like unto his brethren On Good Friday Rom. 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things On Easter-day Rev. 1.18 I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of Death On Whitsunday Joh. 16.13 Howbeit when He the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth Twenty eight Sermons more Micah 6.6 8. WHerewith shall I come before the Lord and bow my self before the high God Shall I come before him with burnt offerings c. v. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what
his own Like a man a man of sorrows a worm and no man a despised rejected man He will have us call him so he hath put it into our Creed and counts it no disparagement He set a time for it and when the appointed time came he was made like unto us and all generations may speak it to his glory to the end of the world Before he appeared darkly wrapped up in Types veiled in Dreams beheld in Visions That hee appeareth in the likeness of our flesh that he appeareth and speaketh and suffereth in our flesh is the high prerogative of the Gospel And here he publisheth himself in every way of representation 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our Image or likeness in the form of a servant our very picture a living picture a picture drawn out to life indeed such a picture as one man is of another 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Comparison For how hath he spread and dilated himself by a world of comparisons He is a Shepherd to guide and feed us a Captain to lead us a Prophet to teach us He is a Priest and he is the Sacrifice for us He is Bread to strengthen us a Vine to refresh us a Lamb that we may be meek a Lion that we may be valiant a Worm that we may be patient a Door to let us in and the Way through which we pass into life He is any thing that will make us like him Sin and Error and the Devil have not appeared in more shapes to deceive and destroy us then Christ hath to save us 3. Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his exemplary Virtues and those raised to such a high pitch of perfection that neither the cursed Hereticks nor the miscreant Turk nor the Devil himself could reach and blemish it Never was Righteousness in its vertical point but in him where it cast not the least shadow for Envy or Detraction to walk in Amongst all the Heresies the Church was to cope withal we read of none that called his piety into question And all this for our sakes that in his Meekness we may shut up our Anger in his Humility abate our Pride in his Patience still and charm our Frowardness in his Bounty spend our selves in his Compassion and Bowels melt our stony hearts and in his perfect Obedience beat down our Rebellion He appeared not in the Cloud or the fiery Pillar not in Darkness and Tempest not in those wayes of his which are as hard to finde out as the passage of an arrow in the air or a ship in the sea but in tegmine carnis as Arnobius speaks under no other covert than that of our flesh so like us that we may take a pattern by him This indeed may seem an indignity to God And in all ages there have been found some who have thought so Not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Heathen who in Tatianus in plain terms tell the Christians they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betray too great a folly in believing it but even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justine Martyr speaketh Christians themselves and children of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzene calls them ill lovers of Christ who did rob him with a complement and to uphold his honour did devest him of his Deity Marcian and Valentinus could not endure to hear that Christ took the same nature and substance with Man but will have him to have brought a body from heaven The Manichees would not yield so much but ran into the phansie of an aereous imaginary body Arius circumscribed him within the nature of Man and brought him within the circle and circumgyration of Time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was a time when he was not was an article of his Creed Nestorius did not in terminis divide Christ into two Persons but denying the Communication of Idiomes did in effect bring in what he seemed to deny a Duality of Sons Homo Christus nascitur non Deus The Man Christ was born not God saith he And it was his common proverb Noli gloriari Judaee The Jew had no cause to boast who had crucified not the Lord of life but a man Bimestrem trimestrem Deum nunquam confitebor was his reply to Cyril at Ephesus and so he flung out of the Councel Whilest with great shew of piety and reverence they stood up to remove from God the Nature they unadvisedly put upon him the Weakness of Man drew him out to our distempers and sick constitution as if God were like unto us in our worst complexion who are commonly very tender and dainty what likeness we take and affect that similitude alone which presents us greater and fairer than we are Our pictures present not us but a better face and a more exact proportion and with it the best part of our wardrobe We are but grashoppers but would come forth and be seen taller than we are by the head and shoulders in the largeness and height of the Anakim This opinion we have of our selves and therefore are too ready to perswade our selves that God is of our mind and that God will descend so low as to take the likeness of a mortal though he tell us so himself yet we will not believe it Which is to measure out the immense Goodness and Wisdome of God by our digit and scantling by the imaginary line of a wanton and sick phansie to bound and limit his determinate will by a piece of sophistry and subtle wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. to teach God to put our own shapes upon him to confine him to a thought And then Christ hath two Persons or but one Nature a Body and not a Body is a God alone or a Man alone The whole body of Religion and our Christian Faith must shiver and flie into pieces But we have not so learned Christ not learned to abuse and violate his great love and to call it good manners not to make shipwrack of our faith and then to urge our fears and unprescribed and groundless jealousies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why should we fear where no fear is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene Shall his honour be the less because he hath laid it down for our sakes Shall he lose in his esteem because he fell so low for our advancement Or can we be afraid of that Humility which purchased us glory and returned in triumph with the keyes of Hell and of death He made himself a Shepherd and laid down his life for his Sheep and shall we make that an argument that he is not a King He clothed himself with our flesh lights a candle sweeps the house descends to low offices for our sake so far from being ashamed of our nature that he made hast to assume it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and dost thou impute this to God No to us his Humility is as full of wonder as his Majesty Non erubescimus de Christo
yet the wrath of God was more visible to him than those that do who bear but their own burthen whereas he lay pressed under the sins of the whole world God in his approaches of Justice when he cometh toward the sinner to correct him may seem to go like the Consuls of Rome with his Rods and his Axes carried before him Many sinners have felt his Rods And his Rod is comfort his Frown favour his Anger love and his Blow a benefit But Christ was struck as it were with his Ax. Others have trembled under his wrath Psal 39.10 but Christ was even consumed by the stroke of his hand Being delivered to God's Wrath that wrath deliverth him to these Throws and Agonies delivereth him to Judas who delivereth nay betrayeth him to the Jews who deliver him to Pilate who delivered him to the Cross where the Saviour of the world must be murthered where Innocency and Truth it self hangeth between thot Thieves I mention not the shame or the torment of the Cross for we Thieves endured the same But his Soul was crucified more than his Body and his Heart had sharper nails to pierce it than his Hands or Feet TRADIDIT ET NON PEPERCIT He delivered him and spared him not But to rise one step more TRADIDIT ET DESERVIT He delivered and in a manner forsook him restrained his influence denied relief withdrew comfort stood as it were afar off and let him fight it out unto death He looked about and there was none to help Isa 63.5 even to the Lord he called but he heard him not Psal 18 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He roared out for the very grief of his heart and cryed with a loud voyce My God my God Matth. 27.46 why hast thou forsaken me And could God forsake him Psal 38.8 When he hung upon the cross did he not see the joy which was set before him Yes he did Heb. 12.2 but not to comfort but rather torment him Altissimo Divinitatis consilio actum est ut gloria militaret in poenam saith Leo By the counsel of the Godhead it was set down and determined that his Glory should add to his Punishment that his knowledge which was more clear than a Seraphins should increase his Grief his Glory his Shame his Happiness his Misery that there should not only be Vinegar in his Drink and Gall in his Honey and Myrrhe with his Spices but that his Drink should be Vinegar his Honey Gall and all his Spices as bitter as Myrrhe that his Flowers should be Thorns and his Triumph Shame This could Sin do And can we love it This could the Love and tht Wrath of God do his Love to his Creature and his Wrath against Sin And what a Delivery what a Desertion was this which did not deprive Christ of strength but enfeeble him with strength which did not leave him in the dark but punish him with light What a strange Delivery was that which delivered him up without comfort nay which betrayed and delivered up his comforts themselves What misery equal to that which maketh Strength a tormenter Knowledge a vexation and Joy and Glory a persecution There now hangeth his sacred Body on the cross not so much afflicted with his passion as his Soul was wounded with compassion with compassion on his Mother with compassion on his Disciples with compassion on the Jews who pierced him for whom he prayeth when they mock him which did manifest his Divinity as much as his miracles Tantam patientiam nemo unquam perpetravit Tert. de Patientia with compassion on the Temple which was shortly to be levelled with the ground with compassion on all Mankind bearing the burden of all dropping his pity and his blood together upon them feeling in himself the torments of the blessed Martyrs the reproach of his Saints the wounds of every broken heart the poverty diseases afflictions of all his Brethren to the end of the world delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not and to a sense of theirs who grone under them delivered up to all the miseries and sorrows not only which himself then felt but which any men which all men have felt or shall feel to the time the Trump shall sound and he shall come again in glory The last Delivery was of his Soul which was indeed traditio a yielding it up a voluntary emission or delivering it up into his Fathers hands praevento carnificis officio saith the Father He preventeth the spear and the hand of the executioner and giveth up the ghost What should I say or where should I end Who can fathome this depth The Angels stand amazed the Heavens are hung with black the Earth openeth her mouth and the Grave hers and yieldeth up her dead the veyl of the Temple rendeth asunder the Earth trembleth and the Rocks are cleft But neither Art nor Nature can reach the depth of this Wisdom and Love no tongue neither of the living nor of the dead neither of Men nor Angels is able to express it The most powerful eloquence is the threnody of a broken heart For there Christ's death speaketh it self and the virtue and power of it reflecteth back again upon him and reacheth him at the right hand of God where his wounds are open his merits vocal interceding for us to the end of the world We have now past two steps and degrees of this scale of Love with wonder and astonishment and I hope with grief and love we have passed through a field of Blood to the top of mount Calverie where the Son of God the Saviour of the World is nailed to the cross and being lifted up upon his cross looketh down upon us to draw us after him Look then back upon him who looketh upon us whom our sins have pierced and behold his blood trickling down upon us Which is one ascent more and bringeth in the Persons for whom he was delivered First for us Secondly for us all III. Now that he should be delivered FOR VS is a contemplation full of delight and comfort but not so easie to digest For if we reflect upon our selves and there see nothing but confusion and horrour we shall soon ask the question Why for us Why not for the lapsed Angels who fell from their estate as we did They glorious Spirits we vile Bodies they heavenly Spirits we of the earth earthly ready to sink to the earth from whence we came they immortal Spirits we as the grass withered before we grow Yet he spared not his Son to spare us but the Angels that fell he cast into Hell 2 Pet. 2.4 and chained them up in everlasting darkness We may think that this was munus honorarium that Christ was delivered for us for some worth or excellency in us No it was munus eleemosynarium a gift bestowed upon us in meer compassion of our wants With the Angels God dealeth in rigor and relenteth
not with us in favour and mercy He seeketh after us and layeth hold on us being gone from him as far as Sin and Disobedience could carry us out of his reach It was his love it was his will to do so and in this we might rest But Divines will tell us that Man was a fitter object of mercy than the Angels quia levius est alienâ mente peccare De Angelis quibusdam suâ sponte corruptis corruptior gens Daemonum evaâ—it Tert. Apol c. 22. quà m propriâ because the Angels sin was more spontaneous wrought in them by themselves Man had importunam arborem that flattering and importuning Tree and that subtile and seducing Serpent to urge and sway him from his obedience Man had a Tempter the Angels were both the temptation and tempters to themselves Man took in death by looking abroad but the Angels reflecting upon themselves gazed so long upon their own beauty till they saw it changed into horrour and deformity And the offence is more pardonable where the motive is ab extrinseco than where it groweth up of it self Besides the Angels did not all fal but the whole lump of Mankind was leavened with the same leaven and pity it may seem that so noble a Creature made up after Gods own Image should be utterly lost These reasons with others we may admit though they may seem rather to be conjectures than reasons and we have not much light in Scripture to give them a fairer appearance Hebr. 2.16 but the Scripture is plain that he took not the Angels he did not lay his hands upon them to redeem them to liberty and strike off their bonds And we must go out of the world to find the reason and seek the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his heart It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the love of God to mankind Tit. 3.4 And what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sin and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on love And yet God loved us and hated sin and made hast to deliver us from it Dilexisti me Domine plusquà m te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Augustine Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soul was dearer to thee then thy self Such a high esteem did he set upon a Soul which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us Men then and for us Sinners was Christ delivered The Prophet Isaiah speaketh it and he could not speak it properly of any but him Isa 53.5 He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities So that he was delivered up not only to the Cross and Shame but to our Sins which nayled him to the cross which not only crucified him in his humility but crucified him still in his glory now he sitteth at the right hand of God and put him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur Why complain we of the Jews malice or Judas's treason or Pilates injustice We we alone are they who crucified the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him our Malice the Jew which accused him our Perjury the false witness against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him Our Pride scorned him our Envy grinned at him our Luxury spate upon him our Covetousness sold him Our corrupt Blood was drawn out of his wounds our Swellings prickt with his thorns our Sores launced with his spear and the whole body of Sin stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life He delivered him up for us Sinners No sin there is which his blood will not wash away but final Impenitency which is not so much a sin as the sealing up of the body of sin when the measure is full For us sinners for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he Take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us And if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent For us sinners he was delivered for us when we were without strength for us when we were ungodly Rom. 5.6.8 So we were considered in this great work of Redemption And thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of Love There is one step more He was delivered for us all ALL not considered as Elect or Reprobate but as Men as Sinners Rom. 5.12 for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plain and easie For all This some will not touch and yet they do touch and press it with that violence that they press it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certain men and turn all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people nations and languages and out of Christendome it self leave some few with Christ upon the Cross whose persons he beareth whom they call the Elect and mean themselves So God loved the world that is the Elect say they They are the world John 3.16 where it is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is the Scripture discovereth them not unto us in that place If the Elect be the world which God so loved then they are such Elect as may not believe such Elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they do not believe It is true none have benefit of Christ's death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had Theirs is the kingdome but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith S. Peter 2 Pet. 3 9. would not that any should perish and God is the Saviour of all men saith S. Paul 1 Tim. 4.10 but especially of those that believe all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they do The blood of Christ is poured forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkleth his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish The blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world nay of a thousand worlds Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeem all that are ' or possibly might be under captivity But none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captain and do as he commandeth that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the Believer
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
them were not an act of our Faith but of our Knowledge Therefore Christ shewed not himself openly to all the people at his resurrection Tert. Apol. ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata non nisi difficultate constaret that faith by which we are destined to a crown might not consist without some difficulty but commend it self by our obedience the perfection and beauty whereof is best seen in making its way through difficulties And so Hilary Habet non tam veniam quà m praemium ignorare quod credis Lib. 8. De Trin Not perfectly to know what thou certainly believest doth so little stand in need of pardon that it is that alone which draweth on the reward For what obedience can it be for me to assent to this That the whole is greater then the part that the Sun doth shine or any of those truths which are visible to the eye What obedience it is to assent to that which I cannot deny But when the object is in part hidden in part seen when the truth we assent to hath more probability to establish it then can be brought to shake it then our Saviour himself pronounceth John 20.29 Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed Besides it were in vain he should afford us more light who hath given us enough For to him that will not rest in that which is enough nothing is enough When God had divided the Red sea when he rained down Manna upon the Israelites and wrought many wonders amongst them the Text saith For all this they sinned still Psal 78.31 and believed not his wondrous works The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles yet would have stoned him They saw him raise Lazarus from the dead and would have killed them both The people said He hath done all things well Mar. 7.37 John 7.48 yet these were they that crucified the Lord of life Did any of the Pharisees believe in him We might ask Did any of his Disciples believe in him Christ himself calleth them Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Prophets had foretold Luke 24.25 Their Fear had sullied the evidence that they could not see it the Text sayth they forsook him and fled Matth. 26.56 And the reason of this is plain For though Faith be an act of the Understanding yet it dependeth upon the Will and men are incredulous nor for want of those means which may raise a faith but for want of will to follow that light which leadeth unto it they do not believe because they will not and so bear themselves strongly upon opinion preconceived beyond the strength of all evidence whatsoever When our affections and lusts are high and stand out against it the evidence is put by and forgot and the object which calls for our eye and faith begins to disappear and vanish and at last is nothing Quot voluntates tot fides saith Hilary So many Wills so many Creeds For there is no man that believeth more than he will To make this good we may appeal to men of the slendrest observation and least experience we may appeal to our very eye which cannot but see those uncertain and uneven motions in which men are carried on in the course of their life For what else is that that turneth us about like the hand of a Dial from one point to another from one perswasion to a contrary How cometh it to pass that I now embrace what anon I tremble at What is the reason that our Belief shifteth so many scenes and presenteth it self in so many several shapes now in the indifferency of a Laodicean anon in the violence of a Zealot now in the gaudiness of Superstition anon in the proud and scornful slovenry of factious Profaneness that many make so painful a peregrination through so many modes and forms of Religion and at last end in Atheists What reason is there There can be none but this the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason and the mutability yea and stubbornness of our Will which cleaveth to that which it will soon forsake but is strongly set against the Truth which bringeth with it the fairest evidence but not so pleasing to the sense This is it which maketh so many impressions in the mind Self-love and the Love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root and pull down build up a faith and then beat it to the ground and then set up another in its place James 1.8 2 Tim. 2 8 A double-minded man saith S. James is unstable in all his wayes Remember saith S. Paul that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised up from the dead according to my Gospel That is a sure foundation for our faith to build on There we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fair and certain pledges of faith as it were a commentary upon EGO VIVO or as so many beams of light to make it open and manifest to every eye which give up so fair an evidence that the malice of the Jew cannot avoid it Matth. 28.13 Let them say His Disciples stole him away whilest their stout watchmen slept What stole him away and whilest they slept It is a dream and yet it is not a dream it is a studied lye and doth so little shake that it confirmeth our faith so transparent that through it we may behold more clearly the face of Truth which never shineth brighter than when a lye is drawn before it to vail and shadow it Matth. 28.6 He is not here he is risen if an Angel had not spoken it yet the Earthquake the Clothes the Clothes so diligently wrapt up the Grave it self did speak it And where such strange impossibilities are brought in to colour and promote a lye they help to confute it Id negant quod ostendunt They deny what they affirm and Malice it self is made an argument for the truth 1 Cor. 15.5 6. For it we have a better verdict given by Cephas and the twelve yea we have a cloud of witnesses above five hundred brethren at once who would not make themselves the fathers of a lye to propogate that Gospel which either maketh our yea yea and nay nay or damneth us Nor did they publish it to raise themselves in wealth and honour For it teacheth them to contemn these matters maketh Poverty a beatitude and sheweth them a sword and persecution which they were sure to meet with and did afterwards in the prosecution of their office and publication of that faith Nor could they take any delight in such a lye as would gather so many clouds over their heads which would at last dissolve in that bitterness that would make life it self a punishment and at last take it away And how could they hope that men would ever believe that which themselves knew to be a lye These witnesses then are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many and beyond exception
men that one should succeed another but after the power of an endless life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a life that cannot be dissolved that cannot part from the body And thus as he liveth for evermore so whatsoever issueth from him is like himself everlasting the beams as lasting as the light His Word endureth for ever his Law is eternal his Intercession eternal his Punishments eternal and his Reward eternal Not a Word which can fall to the ground like ours who fall after it and within a while breathe out our souls as we do our words and speak no more Not Laws which are framed and set to the times and alter and change as they do and at last end with them but which shall stand fast for ever Psal 62.11 aeternae ab aeterno eternal as he is eternal He hath spoken once and he will speak no more Not an Intercession which may be silenced with power but imprinted in him and inseparable from him and so never ceasing an Intercession which Omnipotency it self cannot withstand Not a a transitory Punishment which time may mitigate or take away but an everlasting Worm Not a Reward which may be snatched out of our hands but lasting as the heavens nay as Christ himself And they who would contract and shrink it up into one and so make a temporary perishing everlastingness that shall last as long as it lasteth do stretch beyond their line which may reach the Right hand as well as the Left and do put an end to the Reward as they would do to the Punishment For of the one as well as of the other it is said that it shall be everlasting All that floweth from Christ is like himself yesterday Hebr. 13.8 Hebr. 7.26 and to day and the same for ever And such an High Priest became us who was to live for ever For what should we do with a mortal Saviour or what could a mortal Saviour do for us What could an arm of flesh a withering dying arm avail us Shadow us to day and leave us to morrow raise us up now and within a while let us fall into the dust and at last fall down and perish with us Man is weak Job 14.10 and dieth man giveth up the ghost and where is he Where is I will not say Alexander or Caesar but where is Moses that led his people through the Red-Sea where are his lawes Where is David S. Peter speaketh it freely that he is both dead and buried Acts 2.29 and that his Sepulchre was with them unto that day But the son of David is ascended into heaven is our Priest for ever and liveth for evermore And this title of Eternity is wrought in his Girdle and Garment may be seen in his Head and Eyes of fire adorneth his burning Feet is engraven on his Sword may be read in his Countenance and platted in his Crown and doth well become his Power his Wisdome his Justice his Goodness For that which is not eternal is next to nothing What Power is that which sinketh What Wisdome is that which faileth What Riches are they that perish What Mercy is that which is as the morning dew which soon falleth and is as soon exhaled and dryed up again Virtue were nothing Religion were nothing Faith it self were nothing but in reference to Eternity Heaven were nothing if it were not eternal Eternity is that which maketh every thing something maketh every thing better than it is and addeth lustre to Light it self I live evermore giveth life unto all things Eternity is a fathomless Ocean and carrieth with it Power and Wisdome and Goodness an efficacious Activity a gracious and benevolent Power a wise and provident Goodness If Christ live for evermore then is he independent if independent then most powerful if most powerful then blessed and if blessed then good He is powerful but good good but wise And these Goodness and Power and Wisdome and a diligent Care for us meet in him who liveth for evermore and worketh on us for our eternal salvation And first as he liveth for evermore so he intercedeth for us for evermore and he can no more leave to entercede for us than he can to be Christ His Priesthood must fail before his Intercession because this power of helping us is everlastingly and inseparably inherent in him St. Paul joyneth them together his Sitting at the right of God and his interceding for us Rom. 8.34 So that to leave interceding were to leave the right hand of God where he looketh down upon us is present with us and prepareth a place for us His wounds are still open his merits are still vocal his sufferings are still importunate his everlasting presenting of himself before his Father is an everlasting prayer Jesus at the right hand of the Father is more powerful than the full vials the incense the prayers the groans the sighs the roarings of all the Saints that have been or shall be to the end of the world If he sate not there if he interceded not they were but noise nay they were sins but his Intercession sanctifieth them and offereth them up and by him they are powerful By his power the sighs and breathings and desires of mortal men ascend the highest heavens and draw down eternity And this is a part of Christ's Priestly office which he began here on earth and continueth for us maketh it compleat holdeth it up to the the end of the world Again this title of Eternity is annexed to his Regality and is a flower of his Crown not set in any but his Thou art a King for ever cannot be said to any mortal Did he not live for evermore he could not threaten eternal death Nor promise everlasting life For no mortal power can rage for ever but passeth as lands do from one Lord to another lyeth heavy on them and at last sinketh to the ground with them all Nor can the hand that must wither and fall off reach forth a never-failing reward Infinitude cannot be the issue and product of that which is finite and bounded vvithin a determined period And this might open a vvide and effectual door unto Sin and but leave a sad and disconsolate entrance for Virtue and Piety vvhich is so unsatisfying to flesh and blood that the perseverance in it requireth no less a povver than that vvhich Eternity bringeth along with it to draw it on How bold and daring would men be before the Sun and the People What joy and delight vvould fill them did not the thought of a future endless estate pierce sometimes through them and so make some vent to let it out When the evil that hangeth over is but a cloud vvhich vvill soon vanish few men are so serious as to look about and seek for shelter Post mortem nihil est ipsáque mors nihil est There is nothing after death and Death it self is nothing setteth up a chair for the Atheist to set at ease in
it self and fill the world with Atheists which will learn by no Masters but such as instruct fools nor acknowledge any Keyes but those which may break their head But indeed we have had these Keyes too long in our hands For though they concern us yet are they not the keyes in the Text nor had we lookt upon them but that those of the Romish party wheresoever they find keys mentioned take them up and hang them on their Church But we must observe a difference betwixt the keyes of the kingdome of heaven Matth. 16.19 which were given to Peter and the keyes of Hell and of Death although with them when the Keyes are seen Heaven and Hell are all one For the key of David Rev. 3.7 which openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth was not given to the Apostles but is a regality and prerogative of Christ who only hath power of Life and Death over Hell and the Grave who therefore calleth himself the first and the last because although when he first publisht his Gospel he died and was buried yet he rose again to live for ever so to perfect the great work of our salvation and by his power to bind those in everlasting chains who stood out against him and to bring those that bow to his sceptre out of prison into liberty and everlasting life The power is his alone and he made it his by his sufferings Phil. 2.8 9. He was obedient to death therefore God did highly exalt him Phil. 2.7 11. He became a Lord by putting on the form of a servant But he hath delegated his power to his Apostles and those that succeed them to make us capable and fit subjects for his power to work upon which nevertheless will have its operation and effect either let us out or shut us up for ever under the power of Hell and of Death Were not he alive and to live for evermore we had been shut up in darkness and oblivion for ever But Christ living infuseth life into us that the bands of Hell and of Death can no more hold us than they can him There is such a place as Hell but to the living members of Christ there is no such place For it is impossible it should hold them You may as well place Lucifer at the right hand of God as a true Christian in Hell For how can Light dwell in Darkness How can Purity mix with stench How can Beauty stay with Horrour If Nature could forget her course and suffer contradictories to be drawn together and be both true yet this is such a contradiction as unless Christ could die again which is impossible can never be reconciled Matth. 5.18 Heaven and earth may pass away but Christ liveth for evermore and the power and virtue of his Life is as everlasting as Everlastingness it self Rev. 6.8 And again There was a pale horse and his name that sat on him was Death and he had power to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth But now he doth not kill us he doth but stagger us and fling us down that we may rise again and tread him under our feet and by the power of an everliving Saviour be the death of Death it self Job 18.14 Death was the King of terrors and the fear of Death made us slaves Heb. 2.15 and kept us in servility and bondage all our life long made our pleasures less delightful and our virtues more tedious made us tremble and shrink from those Heroick undertakings for the truth of God But now they in whom Christ liveth and moveth and hath his being as in his own dare look upon Death in all his horror expeditum morti genus saith Tertullian and are ready to meet him in his most dreadful march with all his army of Diseases Racks and Tortures Man before he sinned knew not what Death meant then Eve familiarly conversed with the Serpent so do Christians with Death Having that Divine Image restored in them they are secure and fear it not For what can that Tyrant take from them Col. 3.3 Their life That is hid with Christ in God Psal 37.4 It cannot cut them off from pleasure for their delight is in the Lord. Matth. 6.20 It cannot rob them of their treasure for that is laid up in heaven It can take nothing from them but what themselves have already crucified Gal. 5.24 their Flesh It cannot cut off one hope one thought one purpose for all their thoughts purposes and hopes were leveld not on this but on another life And now Christ hath his keyes in his hand Death is but a name it is nothing or if it be something it is such a thing as troubled S Augustine to define what it is We call it a punishment but indeed it is a benefit a favour even such a favour that Christ who is as omnipotent as he is everlasting who can work all in all though he abolished the Law of Moses and of Ceremonies yet would not abrogate the law by which we are bound over unto death because it is so profitable and advantageous to us It was indeed threatned but it is now a promise or the way unto it for Death it is that letteth us into that which was promised It was an end of all it is now the beginning of all It was that which cut off life it is now that through which as through a gate we enter into it We may say it is the first point and moment of our after-eternity for it is so neer unto it that we can hardly sever them We live or rather labour and fight and strive with the World and with Life it self which is it self a temptation and whilst by the power of our everliving Christ we hold up and make good this glorious contention and fight and conquer and press forward towards the mark either nature faileth or is prest down with violence and we dye that is our language but the Spirit speaketh after another manner we sleep we are dissolved we fall in pieces our bodies from our souls and we from our miseries and temptations and this living everliving Christ gathereth us together again breatheth life and eternity into us that we may live and reign with him for evermore And so I have viewed all the parts of the Text being the main articles of our Faith 1 Christs Death 2. his Life 3. his eternal Life and last of all his Power of the Keyes his Dominion over Hell and Death We will but in a word fit the ECCE the Behold in the Text to every part of it and set the Seal Amen to it and so conclude And first we place the ECCE the Behold on his Death He suffered and dyed that he might learn to have compassion on thy miseries and on thy dust and raise thee from both and wilt thou learn nothing from his compassion
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
3. My Factious humour will strike at the very life and heart of Religion in the name of Religion and God himself and destroy Christianity for the love of Christ Rom. 13. Resist not the power in one age t is glossed bound in with limitations and exceptions or rather let loose to run along with men of turbulent spirits against it self In another when the wind is turned it is a plain Text and needeth no interpreter Bid the angry Gallant bow to his enemy Luk. 18.22 he will count you a fool Bid the Covetous sell all that he hath he will think you none of the wisest and pity or scorn you Bid the Wanton forsake that strumpet which he calleth his Mistress and he will send you a challenge and for attempting to help him out of that deep ditch will send you to your grave Prov. 23.27 We may talk what we please of Marcion and Manes of Hereticks and of the Devil as interpolatours and corrupters of Scripture but it is the wickedness of mens hearts that hath cut and mangled it and made it what we please made it joyn and comply with that which it forbiddeth and severely threatneth Now to conclude this In the midst of so many passions and perturbations in the throng of so many vices and ill humours in this Chaos and confusion where is the Man There is a body left behind inutile pondus an unweildy and unprofitable outside of a Man the garment the picture or rather the shadow of a Man and we may say of him as Jacob did when he saw Josephs coat Gâ—n 37.33 It is my sons coat but evil beasts have devoured him Here is the shape the garment the outside of a Man but the Man without doubt is rent in pieces distracted and torn asunder by the Perturbations of his mind corrupted and annihilated and unmanned by his Vices and there is nothing left but his coat his body his carcass and the name of a Man This is not the Man and then no marvel if he do not see this great sight In his day whilest he was a Man his Reason not clouded his Understanding not darkned in this his day it was shewn to him and it was fair and radiant but now all is night about him and it is hid from his eyes For if it be hid 2 Cor. 4.3 it is hid to them that perish to them that will perish He hath shewed thee O man The Good inviteth the Man and the Man cannot but look upon that which is Good Draw then thy soul out of prison take the Man out of his grave draw him out of these clouds of Sloth of Passion of Prejudice and this Good here Piety and Religion will be as the Sun when it shineth in its strength For conclusion then Let us cleave fast to this Good and uphold it in its native and proper purity against all external rites and empty formalities and in the next place against all the pomp of the world against that which we call good when it maketh us evil I am almost ashamed to name this or make the comparison For what is Wealth to Righteousness What is Policy to Religion What is Earth to Heaven But I know not how men have been so vain as to attempt to draw them together and to shut up the world in this Good or rather this Good in the world to call down God from heaven not only to partake of our flesh but of our infirmities and sins and to draw down that which is truly good and make it an assistant and auxilary to that which is truly evil For how do mens countenances nay how doth their Religion alter as they see or hear how the world doth go Now they are of this faction and then of that anon of a third Now Protestants anon Brownists anon Papists anon but I cannot number the many Religions and the No-religions But wheresoever they fasten they see it and say it is Good It was observed of the Romanes that before the corruption and decay of manners they would not entertain a servant or officer but of a perfect and goodly shape but afterwards when luxury and riot had prevailed and were in credit with them they diligently sought out and counted it a kind of elegancy and state to take into their retinue dwarfs and monsters and men of prodigious appearance ludibria naturae those errours and mockeries of nature So hath it also fallen out with Religion At the first rise and dawning of it men did lay hold on that Faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints and went about doing good Jude 3. Acts 10.38 but when this light had passed more degrees men began to play the wantons in it and to seek out divers inventions and this Good the Doctrine of faith Eccl. 7.29 was made to give way to those sick and loathsome humours which did pollute and defile it and instead of following that which was shewn men set up something of their own to follow and countenance them in whatsoever they should undertake and then did look upon it alone and please and delight themselves in it although it was as different from the true pattern which was first shewn as a monster is from a man of perfect shape As Quintilian speaketh of some professours of his art Illa quaecunque deflexa tanquam exquisitiora mirabantur that was cryed up with admiration which had nothing in it marvellous or to be wondred at but its deformity We have a proverb that It is ill going in procession where the Devil saith Mass but most certain it is there be too many who never move nor walk but where he is the leader If the Prince of the ayre if the God of this world go before we follow nay we fly after If any child or slave of his hold out his sceptre we bow and kiss it The World the World is the mint where most mens Religion is coyned and if you well mark the stamp and superscription you may see the Prince of the ayr on one side and the World on the other the Devil on one side like an Angel of light and the World on the other with its pomp and glories And then when we have brought our desires home to their ends when we have raised our state and name how good how religious are we When the purse is full the conscience is quiet When we are laden with earthly blessings we take them as a fair pledge of eternal We say to our selves as Micah did Judg. 17.13 Now I know that the Lord will do me good because I have a Priest said he Because we have great possessions say we as great Idolaters as Micah For what are our shekels of silver but as his graven and molten image And thus we walk on securely all the dayes of our life not as the children of this world but as the children of light and out of our great abundance sometimes we
weigh the danger of them and from what they proceed First if we would find out the fountain from whence they flow we shall find it is nothing else but a strange Distrust in God and a violent Love of the World a Distrust in that God who is so far from leaving Man destitute of that which is convenient for him Psal 147.9 that hee feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him For if the windows of heaven do not open at our call if riches increase not to fill our vast desires we murmur and repine and even chide the Providence of God and by foul and indirect means pursue that which would not fall into our mouthes As Saul in the book of Kings 1 Sam. 28.6 7. Acheronta movemus when God will not answer we ask counsel of the Devil Secondly we may think perhaps that they are the effects of Power and Wisdome the works of men who bear a brain with the best the glorious victories of our Wit and trophies of our Power but indeed they are the infallible arguments of Weakness and Impotency and as the Devils marks upon us Non est vera magnitudo posse nocere It is not true Power or true Greatness to be able to injure our brethren It is not true Wisdome to be cunning artists in evil and to do that in the dark which may be done with more certainty and honour in the light and to raise up that with a lye which will rise higher and stand longer with the truth That Power more emulateth the Power of God by which we can do good that cometh nearer by which we will Nor can we attribute Wisdome to the fraudulent but that which we may give to a Jugler or a Pick-purse or indeed to the Devil himself And commonly these scarabees are bred in the dung of Laziness and Luxury and their crafty insinuating and subtle sliding into other mens estate had its rise and beginning from an indisposition and inability to manage their own He that can bring no Demonstration must play the Sophister And if the body will not do then he that will be rich saith Nevisanus the Lawyer must venture his soul Lastly weigh the danger Though the bread of deceit have a pleasant tast and goeth down glibly yet passing to thee through so foul a chanel as Fraud or Oppression it will fill thee with the gall of Asps The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them Prov. 21.7 saith Solomon shall fall upon them like a talent of lead Zech. 5.7 8. fall upon the mouth of their Ephah and lye heavy upon it Serrabit eos so it is rendred by others shall tear their Conscience as with a saw exossabit so others shall consume them to the very bones and break them as upon a wheel or as others rapina eorum diversabitur that which is got unjustly shall not stay long with them It may give them a salutation a complement peregrinabitur like a traveller on the way it may lodge with them for a night but dwell longer as with a friend it will not but take the wing and fly away from these unjust usurpers Psal 26.6 never at rest but in those hands which are washt in innocency and in that mouth which knoweth no guile 1 Pet. 2.12 will dwell with none but those that do justly To conclude Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man who doth that which is evil and unjust to the oppressour and deceiver Rom. 2.7 9 10. to the man that boasteth himself in his Power and to the man that blesseth himself in his Craft to the proud Hypocrite and the demure Politician but to those that do justly that are as God is just in all their waies Psal 145.17 and righteous in all their dealings that walk holily before God and justly with men shall be glory and honour and peace and immortality and eternal life Thus much of Justice and Honesty The next is the Love of Mercy The Fifth SERMON PART V. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly c. WE have laid hold of one Branch of this Tree of life and beheld what fruit it bare We must now see what we can gather from the second Mercy or Liberality which groweth upon the same stock is watered with the same dew from heaven and bringeth forth fruit meet for repentance and answerable to our heavenly calling Whether you take it in actu elicito or in actu imperato whether you take it in the habit or in the act which is misericordia eliquata that which runneth from it in the melting as it were the Love of Mercy includeth both both a sweet and heavenly disposition a rich treasurie of goodness full and ready to empty it self and those several acts which are drawn out of it or rather which it commandeth And here though miracles be ceased yet this by the blessing of the God of mercy retaineth a miraculous power healeth the sick bindeth up the wounded raiseth the poor out of the dust and in a manner the dead to life again upholdeth the drooping and fainting spirit which is ready to fail intercedeth and fighteth against the cruelty of persecutours filleth up the breaches which they make raiseth up that which they ruine clotheth the naked whom they have stripped buildeth up what they have pulled down and is as a quickning power and a resurrection to those whom the hand of Wickedness and Injustice hath laid low and even buried in the dust A Branch it is which shadoweth and refresheth all those who are diminished and brought low by oppression Psal 107.39 evil and sorrow And these two Justice and Mercy are neighbouring Branches so enwrapped and entwined one within the other that you cannot sever them For where there is no Justice there can be no Mercy and where there is no Mercy there Justice is but gall and wormwood Therefore in the Scripture they go hand in hand Vnto the upright man there ariseth light in darkness Psal 112. he is gracious and full of compassion and righteous There is an eye of Justice a single and upright eye as well as an eye of Mercy There is an eye that looketh right on Prov. 4.25 Prov. 22.9 and there is a bountiful eye and if you shut but one of them you are in darkness He that hath an evil eye to strip his brother can never see to clothe them He whose feet are swift to shed blood will be but a cripple when he is called to the house of mourning and if his bowels be shut up his hand will be scon stretcht out to beat his fellow servants It becometh the Just to be thankful Psal 33.1 In their mouth praise is comely it is a song it is musick And it becometh the Just to be merciful and liberal out of their heart mercy floweth kindly streameth forth like the river out
round about you in arms as we have seen in Germany and other places Men and Brethren I may speak to you of the Patriarch David Acts 2.29 who is dead and buried and though we have not his Sepulchre yet we have the memory of his Mercifulness remaining with us to this day And I ask Had not he Zeal Yes and so hot and intensive that it did consume him Psal 119.139 and yet but three verses before Rivers of waters ran down his eyes And this heat and this moisture had one and the same cause because they kept not thy law in the one because they forgat thy word in the other which is the very same We much mistake if we do not think there may be a weeping as well as a burning Zeal Indeed Zeal is never more amiable never moveth with more decorum nay with more advantage both to our selves and others then when Mercy sendeth it running down the cheeks We cannot better conclude then with that usual advice of Bernard Zelus absque misericordia minùs utilis 46. S. in Cant. plerumque etiam perniciosus c. Zeal without Mercy is alwaies unprofitable and most commonly dangerous and therefore we must pour in this oyl of Mercy quae zelum supprimat spiritum temperet which may moderate our Zeal and becalm and temper our spirit which may otherwise hurry us away to the trouble of others and ruine of our selves but it cannot do so if Mercy be our Assessour To conclude Let us therefore cast off every weight Hebr. 12.1 let us empty our selves fling out all worldly lusts out of our hearts and make room for Mercy Let us receive it naturalize it consubstantiate it as the Greek Fathers speak with our selves that we may think nothing breathe nothing do nothing but Mercy that Mercy may be as an Intelligence to keep us in a constant and perpetual motion of doing good that it may be true and sincere and sweeter to us then the honey or honey comb and so be our heaven upon earth whilst we are here that peace may be upon us Gal. 6.16 and mercy even upon all those who love Mercy who are indeed the true Israel of God The last Branch is our humble Walking with God And that we shall lay hold on in our next The Sixth SERMON PART VI. MICAH VI. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God WE have already gathered fruit from two of the Branches of this Tree of Life this Good which God by his Prophet hath shewed us in the Text. We have seen Justice run down as waters Amos 5.24 and Righteousness as a mighty stream as the Prophet speaketh And we have seen Mercy dropping as the dew on the tender herbs Deut. 32.2 and as rain upon the grass We have beheld Justice filling the hand and Mercy opening it Justice fitting and preparing the hand to give and Mercy stretching it forth to clothe the naked and fill the hungry with good things Justice gathering and Mercy scattering Justice bringing in the seed and Mercy sowing it in a word Justice making it ours and Mercy alienating it and making it his whosoever he be that wanteth it We must now lay hold on the third Branch which shadoweth both the rest from those blasts which may wither them those storms and temptations which may shake and bruise them from Covetousness Ambition Amos 5.7 Pride Self-love Self-deceit Hypocrisie which turn Justice into gall and wormwood and eat out the very bowels of Mercy For our Reverent and humble deportment with God is the mother of all good counsel the guard and defense of all holy duties and the mistress of Innocency By this the Just and Merciful man liveth and moveth and hath his being His whole life is an humble deportment with God every motion of his is Humility I may say his very essence is Humility for he gathereth not he scattereth not but as in Gods eye and sight When he filleth his garners and when he emptieth them he doth it as under that all-seeing Eye which seeth not onely what he doth but what he thinketh The Christian still moveth and walketh with Psal 116.18 or before his God not opening his eyes but to see the wonders of his Laws not opening his mouth but in Hallelujahs not opening his ears but to Gods voice not opening his hand but in his name not giving his Almes but as in the presence of his Father which seeth in secret Matth. 6.4 and so doing what he requireth with fear and trembling Humility spreadeth and diffuseth it self through every vein and branch through every part and duty of his life When he sitteth in judgment Humility giveth the sentence when he trafficketh Humility maketh the bargain when he casteth his bread upon the waters Eccl. 11.1 his hand is guided by Humility when he boweth and falleth down before his God Humility conceiveth the prayer when he fasteth Humility is in capite jejunii and beginneth the fast when he exhorteth Humility breatheth it forth when he instructeth Humility dictateth when he correcteth Humility maketh the rod whatsoever he doth he doth as before or under or with the Lord. Humility is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all in all In a word Singularum virtutum proprii actus say the Schools Virtues both Moral and Theological like the celestial Orbs have their peculiar motion proceeding from their distinct Habits and Forms but Humility is the Intelligence which keepeth and perpetuateth that motion as those Orbs are said to have their motion held up and regulated by some assistent Form without And now being here required to walk humbly with our God it will not be impertinent to give you the picture of Humility in little to shew you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 summarily and in brief what it is and so we may better see in what this our walking humbly consisteth And indeed we look upon Humility as we do upon a picture Mirantur omnes divinam formam sed ut simulacrum fabrè politum mirantur omnes as Apuleius speaketh of his Psyche Every man doth much admire it as a beautiful piece but it is as men admire a well-wrought statue or picture every man liketh it but which was the lot of Psyche no man loveth it no man wooeth it no man desireth to take her to his wife Yet it will not be a miss to give you a short view of her And the Oratour will tell us Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit Every virtue is commended by its proper act and operation and is then actually when it worketh Temperance doth bind the appetite Liberality open the hand Modesty compose the countenance Valour guard the heart and work out its contrary out of the mind And Humility worketh out every thing that riseth up 2 Cor. 10.5 12.20 every swelling and tumour
vipers honourable Murderers of their Father the Devil John 8.44 who was so from the beginning ambitious humourous covetous discontent forlorn and desperate persons Quósque suae rapiunt sceleratae in praelia causae These are the Grandees and the honourable persons of this world But in the Court and Heraldry of Heaven we find no such Titles of Honour No Jer. 22.30 Write these men desolate who shall not prosper though they do prosper Rom. 1.30 31. Write them down Haters of God Despiteful Proud Boasters Inventers of evil things Fools without understanding But the man who is quiet and peaceable he is the honourable man though he lye on a dunghil though he sit amongst the dogs of the flock Job 30.1 like unto the Angels nay like unto God 2 Cor. 3.18 and holding resemblance with him transformed from glory to glory the same though the fashion of the world change every day Not stealing into honour as those great Thieves of the world Alexander and Hanibal and Marius and Sylla errore hominum by the error and mistake of men who call fools Politicians and Madmen valiant but judicio Dei by the judgment and sentence of God himself made proprietary of it being his Souldier who hath fought against none but himself being his Priest who hath sacrificed himself all his lusts and desires and animosities being his King too who hath awed and commanded and governed himself in peace and subdued every thing that might disquiet either himself or others and so made a Royal Priesthood unto the Lord. Thus thus shall it be done to the man whom the King of Kings will honour Esâ—h 6.9 11. Psal 149.9 This honour have all his Saints in this life and in the next everlasting glory 1 Thess 4.7 You see then Brethren your calling You are called to holiness and you are called to peace and quietness You see the study you are imployed in by the blessed Apostle as a hard so an honourable study And in the wayes of Honour who would not move We must therefore make one step further and learn the Method which is prescribed or the Means to keep us at peace with our selves and others We must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do our own business and labour with our hands as he hath commanded But of this in the next The Ninth SERMON PART II. 1 THESS IV. 11. And to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you OUr progress in our studies and endeavours is commonly answerable to our method and to the rules we observe If they be proper and connatural to the end we have set up omnia breviora fiunt our labour and pains are the less and our profit and improvement the more Every man would be quiet in his own place and pretendeth he is so when he is busie and tumultuous abroad The Covetous man is in his place when he joyneth house to house and layeth field to field till there be no place The Ambitious is in his place when he flyeth out of it never at rest till he reach that height where he cannot rest The Revenger is in his place when he is digging in the bowels of his brother The Parasite the Calumniatour the Tale-bearer the Libeller the Seditious all desire peace and quietness when they move as a tempest drive down all before them and are at last lost themselves in the ruine which they make The Flatterer is poysoned with his own oyl the Calumniatour is wounded with his own lye and it returneth back upon him into his own bowels the Tale-bearer is consumed in the fire which he kindleth The wit which the Libeller scattereth flyeth back upon him and many times is writ in his forehead the Seditious are oft struck down with the noise which they make they divide the Common-wealth and are distracted themselves And though their craft or violence their hypocrisie and perjury bring them home to that which their overdaring Hope first looked upon yet there they find no rest but move uneasily in the midst of those cares and fears which came not near them when their thoughts were at home For they have never more business to do then when they do not their own neither have they their end when they have their end because they went not that way nor trod those paths those plain and easie paths which did lead unto it Now there cannot be a truer Method in our study and endeavour to be quiet then this which our Apostle hath here laid down and which 1 Cor. 7.20 he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to abide in our calling 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to abide patiently Grot to abide there as in our own proper place and sphere as in our castle as in our Sanctuary where we are safe safe from those incursions and affronts which will meet together and multiply about us to shake and disturb us when we are out of it The surest way to be quiet is to abide in our calling in that state and condition in which the hand of Providence hath placed us and not to be drawn out of it by the splendour or glory the benefit and fairer appearance and shew of anothers man Not to swell 2 Cor. 12.20 For when we swell we svvell over and out of our place and so nearer and nearer to danger to that opposition which will beat against us to shrink us into our own measure and compass and either in ordinem redigere as the phrase is either drive us back to our own place or leave us none to move in Again not to stretch beyond our line 2 Cor. 10.14 For God in confining us unto our calling hath given us as it were our measure hath drawn out a line which we must not pass Peccare est tanquam lineas transilire Partit 16. saith Tully Every action of ours hath its limits and boundaries and if we pass them we sin If we stretch beyond these if we break through our bounds 1 Pet. 4.15 and are busie-bodies in other mens matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alieni speculatores as Tertullian rendreth it we take off our eye and care from our own and send them abroad as spyes and observers of that which concerneth us not we hold our Visitations and exercise our jurisdiction there where we have no power Our Eye wandreth our Ear is itching our Tongue is walking through the earth our Hand is reaching at every forbidden tree our Feet are in every mans house our Heart is the forge where we fashion out every mans business but our own a Praetorium or place of State where we appoint out every mans Commission set other men tasks and neglect our own and as it is in the Proverb aedilitatem gerimus sine populi suffragio we invest our selves with a power which was never given us and usurp authority which we were never voted to and are neither quiet our selves nor suffer others to be so The
second Apol c. 4. Lycurgi leges emendatae saith Tertullian Lycurgus his Laws were so imperfect so ill fitting the Commonwealth that they were brought under the hammer and the file to be beat out and fashioned in another form more proportionable to that body for which they were made were corrected by the Lacedemonians Which undervaluing of his wisdom did so unman him that he would be a man no longer but starved himself to death Vetus squalens sylva legum edictorum securibus truncatae the whole wood of the old Laws now sullied and weakned with age was cut down by the edicts and escripts of after-Emperours at the very root as with an ax All of them are in the body of time and worn out with it either fail of themselves or else are cast aside humane Laws being but as shadows cast from men in power and when they fall to the ground are lost with them and are no more to be seen Gel. Noct. Att. l. 20. c. 1. nec uno statu consistunt sed ut coeli facies maris ità rerum atque fortunae tempestatibus variantur nor do they remain in one state but alter as the face of the Heavens and the Sea now smile anon frown now a calm and by and by a tempest Now the strong man saith Do this anon a stronger then he cometh and I forfeit my head if I do it Laws are too oft written with the point of the sword and then the character followeth the hand that beareth it Thus it is with the Laws of men But the Laws of this our Law-giver can no more change then he that made them No bribe can buy out their power no dispensations wound them no power can disannul them but they are the same Dispensationes vulnera legum and of the same countenance They moult not a feather they alter not in one circumstance but direct the obedient and stare the offender in the face and by the power of this Lord kindle a hell in him in this life and will appear at the great day to accuse him For we either stand or fall in judgment according to these Laws In a word humane Laws are made for certain climates and fitted to the complexion and temper of certain Commonwealths but these for the whole world Rome and Brittany and Jerusalem all places are bound alike and as his Dominion so his Laws reach from one end of the earth to another And these which he publisht at the first are not onely Laws but promises and pledges of his second coming For he made them not for nought but hath left them with us till he come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead according to his Gospel Besides the Laws of men are too narrow and cannot reach the whole body of Sin cannot comprehend all not the inward man the thoughts and surmises of the heart no not every visible act Leges non omnia comprehendunt non omnia vetant nec absolvunt Sen. they forbid not all they absolve not all Some irregularities there be which these Laws look not upon nor have they any other punishment then the common hatred of men who can pass no other sentence upon them then this That they dislike them and we are forced to leave them to the censure and anger of the Highest saith Seneca Quoties licet non oportet Every thing that is lawful for me to do is not fit to be done And his integrity is but lame that walketh on at pleasure and knoweth no bounds but those which the Laws of men have set up and never questioneth any thing he doth till he meeteth with a check is honest no further then this that he feareth not a prison nor the gibbet is honest because he deserveth not to be hanged How many are there who are called Christians who yet have not made good their title to that honour which we give to a just man How many count themselves just men yet do those things which themselves if they would be themselves would condemn as most unjust and do so when others do them and how many have carried so much honesty with them into hell The Laws of men cannot reach home to carry us to that height of innocency to which no other Law but that within us might lift us up But the Laws of this Lord like his Power and Providence reach and comprehend all the very looks and profers and thoughts of the mind which no man seeth which we see not our selves which though they break not the peace nor shake any pillar of the Commonwealth for a thought troubleth no heart but that which conceiveth it yet stand in opposition to that policy which this our Lord hath drawn out and to that end for which he is our Lord and are louder in his ears then an evil word in ours and therefore he looketh not onely on our outward guilt but also on the conscience it self and pierceth to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and regulateth the very thoughts and intents of the heart which he looketh upon not as fading and vanishing characters in the soul but as killing letters imprinted and engraven there as S. Basil speaketh De virgin as full and complete actions wrought out in the inward man S. Bernard calleth them passivas actiones passive actions which he will judge secundum evangelium according to these Laws which he hath published in his Gospel Secondly that he is a Lord appeareth by the virtue and power of his Dominion For whereas all the power on earth which so often dazleth us can but afflict the body this woundeth the soul rippeth up the very heart and bowels and when those Lords which we so tremble at till we fall from him Matth. 10.28 can but kill the body this Lord can cast both soul and body into hell nay can make us a hell unto our selves make us punish and torment our selves and being greater then our Conscience can multiply those strokes Humane Laws have been brought into disgrace because they had not power enough to attend and hold them up and even the common people who fear them most have by their own observation gathered the boldness to call them cobwebs for they see he that hath a full purse or a good sword will soon break through them or find a besome to sweap them away What speak you of the Laws I can have them and bind them up in sudariolo saith Petrus Damianus in the corner of my handkerchief Nay many times for want of power victae leges the Laws must submit as in conquest and though they have a tongue to speak yet they have not a hand to strike And as it is in punishment so it is sometimes in point of reward Men may raise their merit and deserts so high that the Exchequer it self shall not find a reward to equal them We have a story in our own Chronicles of a Noble-man who
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
the Vulgar readeth that of the Psalmist My expectation my substance my being is with the Lord and I do not onely subscribe to his Coming because he hath decreed and resolved upon it but because I can make an hearty acknowledgement that the will of the Lord is just and good and I assent not of necessity but of a willing mind and I am not onely willing but long for it and as he testifieth these things Rev. 22.20 and confirmeth this Article of his Coming with this last word ETIAM VENIO Surely I come so shall I be able truly to answer Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly And now the Lord will come And you may see the necessity of his coming in the end of his coming For qualis Dominus talis adventus As his Dominion is such is his Coming his Kingdome spiritual and his Coming to punish sin and reward Obedience to make us either prisoners in darkness or Kings and Priests to reign with him and offer up spiritual sacrifices for evermore He cometh not to answer the Disciples question to restore the Kingdome to Israel Acts 1.6 Matth. 20.21 Luk. 14.15 for his Kingdome is not such a one as they dreamt of nor to place Zebedee's children the one at his right hand and the other at his left nor to bring the Lawyer to his table to eat bread with him in his kingdome These carnal conceits might suit well with the Synagogue which lookt upon nothing but the Basket And yet to bring in this errour the Jews as they killed the Prophets so must they also abolish their Prophecies Isai 53.2 Zech. 9.9 Isa 9.6 7. which speak plainly of a King of no shape or beauty of his first coming in lowliness and poverty of a Prince of Peace and not of war of the increase of whose government there shall be no end Nor doth he come to lead the Chiliast the Dreamer of a Thousand years of temporal happiness on earth into a Mahometical Paradise of all corporal contentments that after the Resurrection the Elect and even a Reprobate may think or call himself so may reign with Christ a thousand years in all state and pomp and in the affluence of all those pleasures which this Lord hath taught them to renounce A conceit which ill becometh Christians Heb. 10.34 11.13 Phil. 3.20 who must look for a better and more enduring substance who are strangers and pilgrims and not Kings on earth whose conversation is in heaven and whose whole life must be a going out of the world Why should we be commanded and that upon pain of eternal separation from this our Lord to wean our selves from the world and every thing in the world if the same Lord think these flatteries of our worser part these pleasures which we must loath a fit and proportionable reward for the labour of our Faith and Charity which is done in the inward man Can he forbid us to touch and taste these things and then glut us with them because we did not touch them And can they now change their Nature and be made a recompense of those virtues which were as the wings on which we did fly away and so kept our selves untoucht and unspotted of this evil But they urge Scripture for it And so they soon may for Scripture is soon misunderstood and soon misapplyed It is written they say in Revel 20.6 that the Saints shall reign with Christ a thousand years Shall reign with Christ is evidence fair enough to raise those spirits which are too high or rather too low already 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No sooner is the word read but the crown is on To let pass the divers interpretations of that place some making the number to be definite others indefinite some beginning the thousand years with the persecution of Christ and ending it in Antichrist others beginning it with the reign of Constantine when Christianity did most flourish and ending it at the first rising of the Ottoman-Empire others beginning it at the year 73 and drawing it on to conclude in the year 1073 when Hildebrand began to tyrannize in the Church To let pass these since no man is able to reconcile them we cannot but wonder that so gross an errour should spread so far in the first and best times of the Church as to find entertainment with so many but less wonder that it is revived and fostered by so many in ours who have less learning but more art to misinterpret and wrest the Scriptures to their own damnation For what can they find in this Text to make them Kings no more then many of them can find in themselves to make them Saints And here is no mention of all the Saints but of Martyrs alone who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus v. 4. But we may say of this Book of the Revelation as Aristotle spake of his books of Physicks that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 publisht and not publisht publisht but not for every man to fasten what sense he please upon it Though we cannot deny but some few of later times and so few as are but enough to make up a number by their multiplicity of reading and subtil diligence of observation and by dextrous comparing those particulars which are registred in story with those things which are but darkly revealed or plainly revealed to S. John but not so plainly to us have raised us such probabilities that we may look upon them with favour and satisfaction till we see some fairer evidence appear some more happy conjectures brought forth which may impair and lessen that credit which as yet for ought that hath been seen they well deserve But this is not every mans work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every mans eye is not so quick and piercing to see at such distance And we see since so many men have taken the courage and been bold to play the interpreters of dark Prophesies they have shaped out what phansies they please and instead of unfolding Revelations have presented us with nothing but dreams as so many divers Morals to one Fable Rev. 11. 13. And so for two witnesses we have a cloud for one Beast 1 John 2. almost as many as be in the forrest and for one Antichrist every man that displeaseth us But let men interpret the thousand years how they please Mark 12.24 27. our Saviour calleth it an errour an errour that striketh at the very heart of Christianity which promiseth no riches nor power nor pleasure but that which is proportioned to those virtues and spiritual duties of which it consisteth For in the resurrection neither do they marry wives nor are married Matth 22.30 We may adde Neither are there high nor low neither rich nor poor Gal. 3.28 but all are one in Christ Jesus And his words are plain enough John 18.36 Quaedam sic digna revinci ne gravitate adorentur Tert adv Valentin My Kingdom is not
and help himself out of them and take himself off from that amazement Marcion ran dangerously upon the greatest blasphemy Duos Ponticus Deos tanquam duaâ— Symplegadas naufragit sui adfert quem negare non potuit i. e. creatorem i. e. nostrum quem probare non poterit i. e. suum Tertull. 1. adv Marcion c. 1. and brought in two Principles one of Good and another of Evil that is two Gods But when the Lord shall come and lay judgment to the line all things will be even and equal and the Heretick shall see that there is but one Now all is jarring discord and confusion but the Lord when he cometh will make an everlasting harmony He will draw every thing to its right and proper end restore order and beauty to his work fill up those breaches which Sin hath made and manifest his Wisdome and Providence which here are lookt upon as hidden mysteries in a word he will make his glory shine out of darkness as he did Light when the earth was without form 1 Cor. 15.28 That the Lord may be all in all Here in this world all lyeth as in a night in darkness in a Chaos or confusion and we see neither what our selves nor others are We see indeed as we are seen see others as they see us with no other eyes but those which the Prince of this world hath blinded Our Judgment is not the result of our Reason but is raised from by and vile respects If it be a friend we are friends to his vice and study apologies for it If it be an enemy we are angry with his virtue and abuse our wits to disgrace it If he be in power our eyes dâ—zle and we see a God come down to us in the shape of a man and worship this Meteor though exhaled and raised from the dung with as great reverence and ceremony as the Persians did the Sun What he speaketh is an oracle and what he doth is an example and the Coward the Mammonist or the Beast giveth sentence in stead of the Man which is lost and buried in these If he be small and of no repute in the world he is condemned already though he have reason enough to see the folly of his Judges and with pitty can null the censure which they pass If he be of our faction we call him as the Manichees did the chiefest of their sect one of the Elect But if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any we cast him out and count him a Reprobate The whole world is a theatre or rather a Court of corrupt Judges which judge themselves and one another but never judge righteous judgment For as we judge of others so we do of our selves Judicio favor officit our Self love putteth out the eye of our Reason or rather diverteth it from that which is good and imployeth it in finding out many inventions to set up evil in its place as the Prophet speaketh We feed on ashes Isa 44.20 a deceived heart hath turned us aside that we cannot deliver our soul nor say Is there not a lye in our right hand Thus he that soweth but sparingly is Liberal he that loveth the world is not covetous he whose eyes are full of the adulteress is chast he that setteth up an image and falleth down before it is not an Idolater he that drinketh down bloud as an ox doth water is not a Murderer he that doth the works of his father the Devil is a Saint Many things we see in the world most unjustly done Multa injustè fieri possunt quae nemo possit reprehendere Cic. de Finibus Mic. 6.16 which we call Righteousness because no man can commence a suit against us or call us into question and we doubt not of Heaven if we fall not from our cause or be cast as they speak in Westminster-hall If Omri's statutes be kept we soon perswade our selves that the power of this Lord will not reach us and if our names hold fair amongst men we are too ready to tell our selves that they are written also in the book of life This is the judgment of the world Thus we judge others and thus we judge our selves so byassed with the Flesh that for the most we pass wide of the Truth Others are not to us nor are we to our selves what we are but the work of our own hands made up in the world and with the help of the world For the Wisdome of this world is our Spirit and Genius that rayseth every thought dictateth all our words begetteth all our actions and by it as by our God we live and move and have our being And now since Judgment is thus corrupted in the world even Justice requireth it Et veniet Dominus qui malè judicata rejudicabit the Lord will come and give judgment against all these crooked and perverse judgements and shall lay Righteousness to the plummet Isa 28.17 and with his breath sweep away the refuge of lyes and shall judge and pass another manner of sentence upon us and others then we do in this world Then shall we be told what we would never believe though we have had some grudgings and whisperings and half-informations within us which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure and Aliud est judicium Christi aliud anguli su surrorum Hier. though we have talked of him all the day long tell us we forgot him If we set up a golden image he shall call us Idolaters though we intended it not and when we build up the sepulchres of the Prophets and flatter our selves and accuse our forefathers tell us we are as great murderers as they and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against and haters of that which we think we love and lovers of that which we think we detest and take us from behind the bush from every lurking hole from all shelter of excuse take us from our rock our rock of ayr on which we were built and dash our presumptuous assurance to nothing Nor can a sigh or a grone or a loud profession or a fast or long prayers corrupt this Lord or alter his sentence but he shall judge as he knoweth who knoweth more of us then we are willing to take notice of and is greater then our Conscience which we shrink and dilate at pleasure 1 John 3.20 and fit to every purpose and knoweth all things and shall judge us not by our pretense Rom. 2.16 our intent or forced imagination but according to his Gospel VENIET He shall come when all is thus out of Order to set all right and straight again And this is the end of his Coming And now being well assured that he will come we are yet to seek and are ready with the Disciples to ask Matth. 24.3 When will these things be and What hour will he
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
the professours of it Hebr. 11 â—7 but when they are slain with the sword and wander up and down destitute afflicted tormented is still the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil of the same hue and complexion and in true esteem more fair and radiant when her poor witnesses are under a cloud and in disgrace Nay I will be bold to say and whosoever rightly understandeth the nature of Religion will never gainsay it that if it had not one professour breathing on the earth not one that did dare to name and own it as Elijah once thought there was but one yet Religion were still the same 1 Kings 19.10 14. reserved in the surest archives we can imagin even in sinu Dei in the bosome of God the Law-giver Religion being nothing else but a defluxion and emanation from him a beam of his eternal Law So that that which maketh and constituteth a true Israelite which is one inwardly Rom. 2.29 as S. Paul speaketh and in the spirit hath too much of Immortality of God in it to fall to the ground or exspire and be lost with the Israelite Let not your hearts be troubled Religion can no more suffer then God himself For seconly If Religion could suffer it suffered more by the Priests and peoples sins then by the Philistines sword for by them the name of God and Religion was evil spoken of Isa 52.5 Rom 2.24 and that which cannot suffer was made the object of malice and scorn and as Nazianzene spake of Julian's persecution it was both a Comedy and a Tragedy Invect 2. a Comedy full of scoffs and obtrectations and a Tragedy full of horrour and yet the Comedy was the more Tragical and bloody of the two God jealous of his honour awaketh as one out of sleep Psal 78.65 returneth the scoff upon the Philistine and maketh up the last Act of the Tragedy in his blood First he punisheth the guilty Israelite and then the Executioner Psal 78.66 The Psalmist saith He smote them in the hinder parts and put them to perpetual shame forcing them to make the similitude of their Emerods in gold and to send them back with the Ark as an oblation for their sin So you see here Gods method by which he ordinarily proceedeth First he prepareth a sacrifice as we read Zeph. 1.7 that is appointeth his people to slaughter then bids his guests sanctificat vocatos suos as the Vulgar readeth it he sanctifieth that is setteth apart these Philistines that they may be as Priests to kill and offer them up And when this is done God falleth upon the Priests themselves and maketh them a sacrifice Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon a desolation Zeph 2.4 they shall drive out Ashdod at noon day and Ekron shall be rooted out And now we may conclude that God is just in all his wayes Psal 145.17 and righteous in all his judgements and fix up our Inscription upon this particular also When Israel is delivered up into the hand of the Philistine DOMINVS EST It is the Lord. And now if we look well upon the Inscription we shall find it to be like the pillar of the cloud Exod. 14.20 a cloud of darkness to the Philistine but giving light to the Israelite First the Philistine hath no reason to boast of this as a preferment that he is made the instrument of God in the execution of his judgements upon his people We shall find that this hath been one of the most dangerous and fatal offices in the World Nebuchadnezzar was by God called into it Jer. 50.21 Go up against the land of Merothaim or of Rebells And he did lead Israel into captivity V. 23. But hear the word of the Lord Jer. 51.41 Jer. 25.18 How is the hammer of the Lord cut asunder and broken Jerusalem is taken but Sheshach also shall fall That cup which was sent to Jerusalem and the Cities of Judah and the Kings thereof V. 26 c. and put into their hands to drink is afterward put into the hand of the King of Sheshach to drink and to be drunken to spew and fall and rise no more Thus saith the Lord yee shall certainly drink it And he giveth the reason V. 29. For lo I begin to bring evil upon the City which is called by my Name or where my Name is called upon and shall ye go free shall ye go utterly unpunished If ye can raise such a hope then hear a voice from heaven which shall dash it to pieces I have said it and I will make it good Ye shall not go unpunished I have begun with my own house but I am coming towards you in a tempest of fire to devour yours I have shaken my own tabernacle and the house of Dagon shall not cannot stand They whom God appointeth executioners of justice upon his people are like the Image which the Tyrant saw in his dream partly iron Dan. 2.42 and partly clay partly strong and partly broken God findeth them apt and fit full of malice and gall Whose hands were fitter to fling stones at David then his whose mouth was full of curses Who fitter to keep Gods people in bondage then Pharaoh Who fitter to lead them into captivity then he whom God did afterwards drive into the fields amongst the beasts Who could have crucified the Lord of life but the Jews Then finding them apt and fit he permitteth these serpents to spit their poison giveth these hang-men leave to do their office This his not hindring them was all the warrant and commission they had Jer. 50.21 Go up against the land can be no more then this I know you are upon your march and I will not stand in your way to stay youâ— but you shall do me service against your wills with that malice which my Soul hateth For we cannot think that God inspired the Tyrant or sent a Prophet to him with the message to bid him do that which he threatneth to punish No he doth but permit them and give them leave to be his executioners And in this his permission is their strength They pursue the Israelite and lay on sure strokes Their Malice is carried on in a chariot of four wheels made up of Cruelty Impatience Ambition Impudence and drawn as Bernard expresseth it In Cant. Ser. 39 with two wild horses earthly Power and secular Pomp. And now they drive on furiously and God is as one asleep as one that marketh them not because he will not hinder them But within a while he will awake strike off their chariot-wheels and restrain them Job 38.11 say to them as he doth to the swelling Sea Hitherto you shall go and no farther And then they are but clay they crumble and fall to nothing Why should the Philistine boast himself in his mischief Psal 52.2 the goodness of God endureth yet dayly It is every day and in every age the same
my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him THese words are our Saviours And it was usual with this our good Master by things visible to the eye to lift up his hearers minds and thoughts to spiritual and heavenly things and to draw his discourse from some present occasion or business in hand He curseth the fig-tree which had nothing but leaves Matth. 21.19 Sterelitas nostra in ficâ—â— Luke 11.39 to correct our sterility and unfruitfulness At the table of a Pharisee upon the sight of the clean outside of his cup he discovereth his inward parts full of ravening and wickedness At Jocob's well he powreth forth to the woman of Samaria the water of life John 4. After he had supped with his disciples he taketh the cup John 15. and calleth the wine his Blood and himself the true Vine Thus did Wisdom publish it self in every place upon every occasion The Well the Table the High-way-side every place was a pulpit every occasion a text and every good lesson a Sermon To draw this down to our present purpose In the beginning of this chapter Christ worketh a miracle multiplyeth the loaves and fishes that the remainder was more then the whole A miracle of it self able to have made the power of God visible in him and something indeed it wrought with them For behold they seek him they follow him over the Sea v. 24. the ask him Rabbi when camest thou hither v. 25. But our Saviour knowing their hypocrisie answereth them not to what they ask but instructeth them in that they never thought on Verily verily you seek me v. 26. not for the miracle but the loaves But behold I shew you yet a more excellent way I shew you bread better then those loaves better then Moses his manna I am that bread of life My flesh is meat indeed v. 48. v. 55. and my blood is drink indeed And he commendeth it unto them by three virtues or effects 1. That it filleth and satisfieth which neither the Loaves nor Moses his manna could do He that cometh to me v. 35. that devoteth himself to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst 2. That it is living bread bread that giveth life v. 51. which Moses manna could not do but was destroyed with them that ate it in the wilderness 3. v. 49. That it was bread which had power to incorporate them to embody them to make them one and give them union and communion with the Lord of life in the words of my Text He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood that is as Christ himself who best knew his own meaning interpreteth it that believeth in me v. 35. that so feedeth on the mystery of my Incarnation that can look upon my cross to which my flesh was fastned and there with the eye of faith behold and wonder at those rich treasuries of Wisdome of Patience of Humility of Obedience of Love which are the truest title and superscription that could be written on my cross that can look upon the several passages of my blessed oeconomy and receive and digest them and turn them into nourishment that can look upon my Birth and be regenerate and born again upon my Precepts and make them his daily bread upon my Cross and be crucified to the world upon my Resurrection and be raised to newness of life He that thus eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him You have the occasion and sum of these words For more then an allusion to our eating and drinking in the Sacrament I cannot see and that too though the Church of Rome would have more is more then we can prove I may call it the true Character of a Christian And who could draw it better then Christ It consisteth as you see of two parts 1. The Christian's or the Believer's part He dwelleth in Christ 2. Christs part He dwelleth in every man that is regenerate So that in this our Union with Christ there passeth a double action one from us to Christ another from Christ to us And as in arched buildings all the stones do mutually uphold each other and if you remove and take one away the rest will fall so do these two interchangeably hold up and prove one another For if we dwell not in Christ Christ will not dwell in us and if he dwell not in us it is impossible we should dwell in him Or we may resemble these two our relation to Christ and Christ's to us to the two Cherubins covering the Mercy-seat with their wings Exod. 25. and having their faces one to the other with the Covenant in the midst between them The Cherubins though they were both Cherubins and very like yet were two distinct Cherubins So though our dwelling in Christ and Christ's dwelling in us tend to the same end yet they are two and the Covenant is in the midst between them If we will be his people he will be our God If we dwell in him he will dwell in us Take it then in these two propositions or doctrines 1. That something some act is required on our parts which is here exprest by dwelling in him 2. Something is done by Christ some virtue some efficacy proceedeth from him which is here called dwelling in us In both which is seen that mutual and interchangeable reciprocation between Christ and a regenerate Soul As he dwelleth in Christ so Christ dwelleth in him and as Christ dwelleth in him Cant. 6.3 so he dwelleth in Christ I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine We begin with the first That some act of ours is required which is here exprest by dwelling in him Now to dwell in Christ is a phrase peculiar to this our Evangelist and he often useth it both here and in his first Epistle It is full and expressive and operative implying a real and durable interest in Christ a reliance and dependance on him alone not onely on his Person that they are bold to do who crucifie him again but also on his Offices as he is a King to govern us a Priest to mediate and intercede for us and a Prophet to teach us such a dependance as maketh us truly his Subjects his Purchase his Disciples We usually say the lover dwelleth not in himself but in him he loveth He dwelleth there and delighteth in such an habitation nor is ever satisfied with the pleasures of it Gen. 44.30 as we read that Jacob's soul was bound up with the soul of Benjamin his life was knit with the young mans life his life hanged and depended on his And by this we may discover what is meant by this phrase When our souls are bound up with Christ's when our understandings wills and affections are bound up vvith his vvill for vvhat Cassian speaketh of his Monk is true of the Christian Nescit judicare Nescit judicare quisquis
now present with us and anon asleep Lastly he dwelleth in him not as Marcion blasphemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a phantasme or apparition for so he is in every hypocrite but true and perfect God by the same power his Father gave him as truly dwelling in him by his virtue and efficacy as he now doth in glory in the highest heavens And now we have have seen both the parts 1. Our part to dwell in Christ 2. His gracious act to dwell in us Let us a little look back upon this great light and see what matter it will further afford us for our instruction First we must look back upon the resemblance the two Cherubins and see how they keep their places and never turn away the face but eye each other continually and by them learn not to turn away from Christ but to look up upon the Finisher of our faith as he looketh upon us and to dwell in him as he dwelleth in us which maketh up our union and communion with Christ and knitteth us together in the bond of love As it is between Christ and his Father so it must be between us and him I am in the Father and the Father in me John 14.11 John 17. and All mine is thine and thine mine and I glorifie him and he glorifies me And this relation betwixt him and his Father is the ground and foundation of that reference and union which is between Christ and a regenerate soul And then see how it echoeth between them My beloved is mine Cant. 6.3 John 10.17 6.56 and I am my wellbeloveds I know my sheep and my sheep know me They dwell in me and I in them O happy interchanges O blessed reciprocation when Christ looketh upon us in love and we look back upon him in faith working by love when he shineth upon us with all his graces and we reflect back again upon him not in his person for he needeth it not being the fulness of him that filleth all things but in our selves searching the inward man and decking and preparing a place for him reflect upon him in that poor Lazar in those his brethren and our brethren nay even in our enemies for even in them he is pleading for them Mat. 5.44 and commanding us to love them I say unto you Love your enemies Nay further yet reflect upon him in his enemies And can Christ be in his enemies Not indeed so near as to dwell in them but so neer unto them as to call unto thee to pray for them to pity them to restore them John 10.16 For even they may be in the number of those his other sheep which he will bring into his fold Oh remember the resemblance but withall remember the thing too and be very careful to uphold this relation this blessed reciprocation between Christ and thy soul Secondly from this great sight Christ dwelling in Man and Man in Christ let us rouse up our selves and take courage to set a price upon our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Pythagoras counselled to honour and reverence our selves to remember we are Men and so have something of God in us are made partakers of the high calling in Jesus Christ and not to debase and dishonour our selves to become vile in our imaginations and place them on that which is far below the exalted nature of Man And shall I perswade you to think well of your selves I may as well make use of Logick and raise arguments to prevail with a hungry man to eat For how greedily do we suck in air What a perfume is the breath of fools In what perfection of beauty would we be seen to every man In what shape of glory would we be fixt up in their phansie What gods would we be taken for Praise is a most sweet note and we delight to hear it But what a thunderclap is a reproach How sick are we of a reprehension What a loss is the loss of another mans thought What an Anathema is it it is a vulgar phrase to be out of his books And yet in the midst of all disgraces and calamities when we are made the scorn of the world when fools laugh at us and drunkards sing of us nay when wisemen condemn us amongst them all there is none who entertaineth a viler thought of us then we do of our selves for we think our selves good for nothing but to be evil We think indeed we highly honour our selves when we take the upper seat and place others at our footstool when with Herode we put on royal apparel and make us a name when men bow before us and call us their Lords we think so and this thought dishonoureth us degradeth us from that high honour we were created to For is not the life better then meat Matth 6.25 and the body then raiment Is not the soul better then all these 1 Cor. 9.27 Then we honour our selves when we beat down our bodies Rom. 12.16 when we beat down our minds and make our selves equal to them of low degree Then we tread the wayes of honour look towards our original Isa 51.1 unto the rock out of which we were hewn are candidates of bliss Matth. 8.11 and stand for a place in heaven to sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God Synes ep 57. For Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an honourable creature of a high and noble extraction honourable no doubt seeing the Son of God was content to die for him onely that he might dwell in him And if Christ who knew well the worth of a soul did so honour us as to unite our nature in his person and lift up himself upon his Cross to draw our persons after him then will it necessarily follow and Ingratitude it self cannot deny the consequence that we also ought to honour our selves and not fall under the vanity of the creature in a base disesteem of our selves as if we were fit for nothing but to be fuel for hell not make that a stews of uncleanness a forge of mischief a work-house of iniquity which Christ did chuse to make his house to dwell in his temple to sit in and his heaven to reign in Oh let us remember our high extraction our heavenly calling and not thus uncover our selves be thus vile and base in the sight and presence of Christ And that we may thus honour our selves our third inference shall be for caution That we do not deceive our selves and think that Christ dwelleth in us when we carry about us but slender evidence that we dwell in him It is an easie matter to be deceived and we never fall with such a slide and easiness into any errour as into that which is most dangerous and fatal to the soul In the affairs of this life Lord how cautelous are we We ask counsel we look about us we use our own eyes and we borrow other mens eyes and if
on them If his gracious and earnest call his Turn and his Turn will not turn us he hath placed Death in the way the King of terrours to affright us If we be not willing to dye we must be willing to turn If we will hear Reason we must hearken to his Voice And if he thus sendeth his Prophets and his voice from heaven after us if he make his Justice and Mercy his joynt Commissioners to force us back if he invite us to turn and threaten us if we do not turn either Love or Fear must prevail with us to turn with all our hearts And in this is set forth the singular mercy of our most gracious God Parcendo admonet ut corrigamur poenitendo Before he striketh he speaketh When he bendeth his bow when his deadly arrows are on the string yet his warning flieth before his shaft his word is sent out before the judgment the lightning is before his thunder Ecce saith Origen antequam vulneramur monemur When we as the Israelites here are running on into the very jaws of Death when we are sporting with our destruction in articulo mortis when Death is ready to seise on us and the pit openeth her mouth to take us in the Lord calleth and calleth again Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes And if all this be too little if we still venture on and drive forward in forbidden and dangerous wayes he draweth a sword against us and setteth before us the horrour of death it self Why will ye die Still it is his word before his blow his Convertimini before his Moriemini his praelusoria arma before his decretoria his blunt before his sharp his exhortations before the sentence Non parcit ut parcat non miseretur ut misereatur He is full in his expressions that he may be sparing in his wrath He speaketh words clothed with death that we may not die and is so severe as to threaten death that he may make room for his mercy and not inflict it Why will ye die There is virtue and power in it to quicken and rowse us up to drive us out of our evil wayes that we may live for ever This is the sum of the words The parts are two 1. an Exhortation 2. an Obtestation or Expostulation or a Duty and a Reason urging and inforcing that Duty The Exhortation or Duty is plain Turn ye turn ye from your evil wayes The Obtestation or Reason as plain Why will ye dye O house of Israel I call the Obtestation or Expostulation a Reason and good reason I should do so For the Moriemini is a good Reason That we may not dye a good Reason why we should turn But it being tendred to us by way of expostulation it is another Reason and maketh the Reason operative and full of efficacy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reason invincible and unanswerable For this very Expostulation is an evidence fair and plain enough that God would not have us die and then it is as plain that if we die we have killed and destroyed our selves against his will Of these two in their order And first of the Exhortation and Duty In which we shall pass by these steps or degrees 1. We will look up upon the Authour and consider whose Exhortation it is 2. Upon the Duty it self and 3. in the last place upon that pugnacem calorem that lively and forcible heat of iteration and ingemination Turn ye turn ye the very life and soul of Exhortation And first we ask Quis Who is he that is thus urgent and earnest And as we read it is Ezekiel the Prophet And of Prophets S. Peter telleth us that they spake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet 1.21 as they were moved by the holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Isai 1. And they received the word non auribus sed animis not by the hearing of the ear but by inspiration and immediate revelation by a divine character and impression made in their souls So that this Exhortation to repentance will prove to be an Oracle from heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine and celestial remedy the prescript of Wisdome it self and to have been written with the finger of God And indeed we shall find that this duty of Turning the true nature of Repentance was never taught in the School of Nature never found in its true effigies and image in all its lines and dimensions in the books of the Heathen The Aristotelians had their Expiations the Platonicks their Purgations the Pythagoreans their Erinnys but not in relation to God or his Divine goodness and providence Tert. De poenit Aratione ejus tantum abfuerunt quantum à rationis autore They were as far to seek of the true reason and nature of Repentance as they were of the God of Reason himself Many useful lessons they have given us and some imperfect descriptions of it but those did rise no higher then the spring from whence they did flow the treasure of Nature and therefore could not lift men up to the sight of that peace and rest which is eternal They were as waters to refresh them and indeed they that tasted deepest of them had most ease and by living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the directions of Nature gained that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that peace and composedness of mind which they 〈…〉 Happiness and which was all they could attain to Tully and Câ—â—â—â—â— not such divided and distracted souls as Cataline and Cethegus Aristot l. 1. Eth. c. 13. 〈◊〉 had not those ictus laniatus those gashes and rents in his heart 〈◊〉 had Even their dreams were more sweet and pleasant then those of other men as being the resultancies and echos of those virtuous actions which they drew out in themselves by no other hand then that of Nature which looked not beyond that frailty which she might easily discover in her self and so measured out their happiness but by the Span by this present life Or if she did see a glimpse and faint shew of a future estate she did but see and guess at it and knew no more Reason it self did teach them thus much that Sin was unreasonable Nature it self had set a mark upon it omne malum aut timore aut pudore suffudit had either struck Vice pale Tert. De poenit or died it in a blush did either loose the joynts of sinners or change their countenance and put them in mind of their deviation from her rules by the shame of the fact and the fear they had to be taken in it These two made up that fraenum naturae that bridle of Nature to give wicked men a check and make them turn but not unto the Lord. For were there neither heaven nor hell neither reward nor punishment yet whilst we carry about with us this light of Reason Sin must needs have a foul face being so unlike unto Reason And if
and opposite to his Wisdome and Goodness and which his soul hateth as That he did decree to make some men miserable to the end he might make his Mercy glorious in making them happy that he did of purpose wound them that he might heal them That he did threaten them with death whose names he had written in the book of life That he was willing Man should sin that he might forgive him That he doth exact that Repentance as our duty which himself will work in us by an irresistable force That he commandeth intreateth beseecheth others to turn and repent whom himself hath bound and fettered by an absolute decree that they shall never turn That he calleth them to repentance and salvation whom he hath damned from all eternity If any certainly such beasts as these deserve to be struck through with a dart No it is not boldness Exod. 19.12 Hebr. 12.20 but humility and obedience to God's will to say He doth nothing but what becometh him and what his Wisdome doth justifie Eph. 1.8 He hath abounded towards us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul in all wisdome and prudence His Wisedome findeth out the means of salvation and his Prudence ordereth and disposeth them His Wisdome sheweth the way to life and his Prudence leadeth us through it to the end Wisdome was from everlasting Prov. 8.23 And as she was in initio viarum in the beginning of God's wayes so she was in initio Evangelii in the beginning of the Gospel which is called the wisedome of God And she fitted and proportioned means to that end means most agreeable and connatural to it She found out a way to conquer Death and him that hath the power of Death the Devil Hebr. 2.14 with the weapons of Righteousness to dig up Sin by the very roots that no work oâ— the flesh might shoot forth out of the heart any more to destroy it in its effects that though it be done yet it shall have no more force then if it were annihilated then if it had never been done and to destroy it in its causes that it may be never done again Immutabile quod factum est Quint. l. 7 to draw together Justice and Mercy which seemed to stand at distance and hinder the work and to make them meet and kiss each other in Christ's Satisfaction and ours for our Turn is our satisfaction all that we can make Condigna estsatisfactio mala facta corrigere correcta non reiterare Bern. de â—ust Dom. c. 1. Satisfactio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Antioch â—â—neil can 2. These she hath joyned together never to be severed Christ's Sufferings with our Repentance his agony with our sorrow his blood with our tears his flesh nailed to the cross with our lusts crucified his death for sin with our death to it his resurrection with our justification For he bore our sins that he might cast them away he shed his blood to melt our hearts he dyed that we might live and turn unto the Lord and he rose again for our justification and to gain authority to the doctrine of Repentance Our CONVERTIMINI our Turn is the best Commentary on his CONSVMMATVM EST It is finished for that his last breath breathed it into the world We may say it is wrapt up in the Inscription John 19.19 JESVS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS For in him even when he hung upon the cross were all the treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge hid Col. 2.3 In him his Justice and Mercy are at peace for to reconcile us unto God he reconciled them one to another The hand of Mercy was lifted up ready to seal our pardon we were in our blood and her voice was Live we were miserable Ezek. 16.6 and she was ready to relieve us our heart was sick and her bowels yerned But then Justice held up the sword ready to latch in our sides God loveth his Creature whom he made but hateth the Sinner whom he could not make And he must strike and yet is unwilling to strike If Justice had prevailed Mercy had been but as the morning dew Hos 6.4 13.3 and soon vanished before this raging heat And if Mercy had swallowed up Justice in victory God's hatred of sin and his fearful menaces against it had been but bruta fulmina and portended nothing but been void and of none effect Psal 130.3 Deus purgari homines à peccato maxime cupit ideoque agere poenitentiam jubet Lact. l. 6. c. 24. If God had been extreme to mark what is done amiss men would have sinned more and more because there would have been no hope of pardon And if his Mercy had sealed an absolute pardon men would have walked delicately and sported in their evil wayes because there would have been no fear of punishment And therefore his Wisdome drew his Justice and Mercy together and reconciled them both in Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice and our duty of Repentance the one freeing us from the guilt the other from the dominion of sin And so both are satisfyed Justice layeth down the sword and Mercy shineth in perfection of beauty Rom. 3.3 God hateth Sin but he seeth it condemned in the flesh of his Son and fought against by every member he hath He seeth it punisht in Christ and punisht also in every repentant sinner that turneth from his evil wayes He beholdeth the Sacrifice on the Cross and the Sacrifice also of a broken heart and for the sweet savour of the one he accepteth the other and is at rest Christ's death for sin procureth our pardon and our death to sin sueth it out Christ suffereth for sin we turn from it His satisfaction at once wipeth out the guilt and penalty our Repentance by degrees destroyeth Sin it self Tert. De anima c. 1. Haec est sapientia de schola caeli This is the method of Heaven This is that Wisdome which is from above Thus it taketh away the sins of the world And now Wisdome is compleat Justice is satisfied and Mercy triumpheth God is glorified Man is saved and the Angels rejoyce Heus tu peccator De poenit c. 8. bono animo sis vides ubi de tuo reditu gaudeatur saith Tertullian Take comfort sinner thou seest what joy there is in heaven for thy return What musick there is in a Turn which beiginneth on earth but reacheth up and filleth the highest heavens A repentant sinner is as a glass or rather Gods own renewed image on which God delighteth to look for there he beholdeth his Wisdome his Justice his Mercy and what wonders they all have wrought Behold the Shepherd of our souls see what lieth upon his shoulders Luke 15.5 6. You would think a poor Sheep that was lost Nay but he leadeth Sin and death and the Devil in triumph And thou mayest see the very brightness of his glory and the express image of his three most glorious
remedio laboramus By our own folly and the Devils craft our disease doth not hurt us so much as our remedy Repentance which was ordained as the best Physick to purge the soul is turned into that poyson that corrupteth and killeth it What wandring thought what idle word what profane action is there which is not laid upon this fair foundation Hope of pardon which yet will not bear up such hay and stubble We call Sin a disease and so it is a mortal one But Presumption is the greatest the very corruption of the blood and spirits of the best parts of the soul We are sick of Sin it is true but that we feel not But we are sick very sick of Mercy sick of the Gospel sick of Repentance sick of Christ himself and of this we make our boast And our bold relyance on this doth so infatuate us that we take little care to purge out the plague of our heart which we nourish and look upon as upon Health it self We are sick of the Gospel for we receive it and take it down and it doth not purge out but enrage those evil humours which discompose the soul John 13.27 We receive it as Judas did the sop we receive it and with it a devil For this bold and groundless Presumption of pardon maketh us like unto him hardeneth our heart first and then our face and carrieth us with the swelling sails of impudence and remorselessness to an extremity of daring to that height of impiety from which we cannot so easily descend but must fall and break and bruise our selves to pieces Praesumptio invericundiae portio saith Tertullian Presumption is a part and portion and the upholder of Immodesty It falleth and careth not whither it ruineth us and we know not how it abuseth and dishonoureth that Mercy which it maketh a wing to shadow it It hath been the best purveiour for Sin and the kingdome of Darkness We read but of one in the Gospel that despaired Matth. 27.5 Acts 1.25 and hanged himself and so went to his place but how many thousands have gone a contrary way with less anguish and reluctancy with fair but false hopes with strong but feigned assurances and met him there Oh it is one of the Devils subtilest stratagemes to make Sin and Hope of heaven to dwell under the same roof to teach him who is his vassal to walk delicately in his evil wayes to rejoyce alwaies in the Lord even then when he fights against him to assure himself of life in the chambers of death And thus every man is sure The Schismatick is sure and the Libertine is sure the Adulterer is sure and the Murderer is sure the Traitour is sure they are sure who have no savour no relish of salvation The Schismatick hath made his peace though he have no charity The Libertine looketh for his reward though he do not onely deny good works but contemn them The Adulterer absolveth himself without Penance The Murderer knoweth David is entred heaven and hopeth to follow him The prosperous Traitour is in heaven already His present success is a fair earnest of another inheritance That God that favoureth him here will crown him hereafter Every man can do what he list and be what he list do what good men tremble to think of and yet fear not at all but expect the salvation of the Lord first damne and then canonize himself For the greatest part of the Saints of this world have been of their own Creation made up in the midst of the land of darkness with noise with thunder and earthquakes We may be bold to say If Despair hath killed her thousands Presumption hath slain her ten thousands Foolish men that we are who hath bewitched us that we lay hold on Christ when we thrust him from us make him our own and appropriate him when we crucifie and persecute him every day that we had rather phansie and imagine then make our election sure that we will have health and yet care not how we feed or what poison we let down that we make salvation an arbitrary thing to be met with when we please and can as easily be Saints as we can eat and drink as we can kill and slay Good God! what mist and darkness is this which maketh men possessed with Sin that is an enemy ready to devour them to be thus quiet and secure Could we or would we but a little awake and consult with the light of our Faith and Reason we should soon let go our confidence and plainly see the danger we are in whilst we are in our evil wayes and find Fear tied fast unto them So saith S. Paul But if you sin Rom. 13.4 fear Christian Security and Hope of life is the proper and alone issue of a good Conscience through faith in Christ purged from dead and evil works If we will leave our Fear Hebr. 9.14 we must leave our Evil works behind us Assurance is too choice a piece to be beat out by the phansie and to be made up when we please at a higher price then to be purchased with a thought It is a work that will take up an age to finish it the engagement of our whole life to be wrought out with fear and trembling Phil. 2.12 not to be taken as a thing granted as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so set up as a pillar of hope when there is no better basis and foundation for it then a forced and fading thought which is next to air and will perish sooner The young man in the Gospel had yet no knowledge of any such Assurance-office and therefore he putteth up his question to our Saviour thus Good Master Matth. 19.16 Mark 10.17 what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life He saw no hope of entring in at that narrow gate with such prodigious sins And our Saviour's answer is Keep the commandments that is Turn from thy evil wayes Be not Envious Malitious Covetous Cruel False Deceitful Despair is the daughter of Sin and Darkness but Confidence is the emanation of a good Conscience What Flesh and Blood maketh up is but a phantasme which appeareth and disappeareth is seen and vanisheth so soon gone that we scarce know whether we saw it or no. There can be no firm hope raised but upon that which is as mount Sion Psal 125.1 and standeth fast for ever which is our best guard in our way nay which is our way in this life and when we are dead will follow us Eras Adag Nothing can bear and afford it but this Vnum arbustum non alit duos erithacos Sin and Assurance are birds too quarrelsome to dwell in the same bush Therefore if you sin fear or rather turn from your evil wayes 1 John 3 21. and then you shall have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 boldness and confidence towards God We must therefore sink and fall low and mitigate our voice
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.
under the Law alone but also under the Gospel as a motive to turn us from sin and as a motive to strengthen and uphold us in the wayes of righteousness not onely as a restraint from sin but as a preservative of holiness and as a help and furtherance unto us in our progress in the wayes of perfection It may indeed seem a thing most unbefitting a Christian who should be led rather then drawn and not a Christian alone but any moral man Therefore Plato calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an illiberal and base disposition to be banisht the School of Morality And our great Master in Philosophy maketh Punishment one of the three things that belong to slaves as the rod doth saith Solomon to the fools back To be forced into goodness Prov. 26.3 to be frighted into health argueth a disposition which little setteth by health or goodness it self But behold a greater then Plato and Aristotle our best Master the Prince of Peace and Love himself striveth to awake and stir up this kind of fear in us telleth us of hell and everlasting darkness of a flaming fire of weeping and gnashing of teeth presenteth his Father the Father of Mercies with a thunderbolt in his hand Luk. 12.5 with power to kill both body and soul sheweth us our sin in a Deaths head and in the fire of hell as if the way to avoid sin were to fear Death and Hell and if we could once be brought to fear to die we should not die at all Many glorious things are spoken even of this Fear The Philosopher calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bas in Psal 31 Tert. De poenit c. 6. the bridle of our Nature S. Basil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bridle of our lusts Tertullian Instrumentum poenitentiae an instrument to work out Repentance Pachomius placeth it supra decem millia paedagogorum maketh it the best Schoolmaster of ten thousand Hearken to the Trumpet of the Gospel be attentive to the Apostles voice What sound more frequent then that of Terrour able to shake and divide a soul from its sin Had Marcion seen our Saviour with a whip in his hand had he heard him cursing the Fig-tree and by that example punishing our sterility had he weighed the many woes he pronounced against sinners perhaps he would not have fallen into that impious conceit of two Gods For though the dispensation have not the same aspect under the Law as under the Gospel yet God is the same God still as terrible to sinners that will not turn as when he thundered from Mount Sinai 2 Cor. 5.11 And if we will not know and understand these terrours of the Lord if we make not this use of them to drive us unto Christ and to root and build us up in him the Gospel it self will be to us as the Law was to the Jews a killing letter For again as humane laws so Christs precepts have their force and life from reward and punishment And to this end we find not onely scripta supplicia those woes and menaces which are written in the Gospel but God hath imprinted a fear of punishment in the very hearts of men Juvenat â—at Esse aliquos manes subterranea regna That there remain punishments after life for sin was acknowledged by the very Heathen And we may easily be perswaded that had not this natural domestick fear come in between the world had been far more wicked then it is We see many are very inclinable to deny that there is either Heaven or Hell and would believe it because they would have it so many would be Atheists if they could but a secret whisper haunteth and pursueth them This may be so There is an appointed time to die and after that judgement may come There can be no danger in obedience there may be in sin and this though it do not make them good yet restraineth them from being worse Quibus incentivum impunitas timor taedium Freedom from punishment maketh sin pleasant and delightsome and so maketh it more sinful but fear of punishment maketh it irksome bringeth reluctancies and gnawings and rebukes of conscience For without it there could be none at all Till the whip is held up there is honey on the harlots lips and we would tast them often but that they bite like a cockatrice Non timemus peccare timemus ardere It is not sin we so much startle at but hell-fire is too hot for us And therefore S. Peter when he would work repentance and humility in us placeth us under Gods hand 1 Pet. 5. â— Humble your selves under the mighty hand of God which expresseth his Power his commanding attribute His omniscience findeth us out his wisdome accuseth us his justice condemneth us Potentia punit but it is his Hand his Power that punisheth us Take away his Hand and who feareth his Justice or regardeth his Wisdome or tarrieth for the twilight to shun his all-seeing Eye But cùm occidat when we are told that he can kill and destroy us then if ever we return and seek God early Psal 78.34 Again as the Fear of death may be Physick to purge and cleanse our souls from the contagion of sin so it may be an antidote and preservative against it It may raise me when I am fallen and it may supply me with strength that I fall not again It is a hand to lift me up and it is an hand to lead me when I am risen inter vada freta through all the dangers that attend me in my way As it is an introduction to piety so is it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Gregorie Nyssene Tract 1. in Psalm c. 8. a watch and a guard upon me to keep me that no temptation no scandal no stone of offense make me turn back again into my evil wayes For we must not think that when we are turned from our evil wayes we have left Fear behind us No she may go along with us in the wayes of righteousness and whisper us in the ear that God is the Lord most worthy to be feared She is our companion and leaveth us not nor can we shake her off till we are brought to our journeys end Our Love such as it is may well consist with Fear with the Fear of judgement Look upon the blessed Saints David a man after Gods own heart yet he had saith Chrysostome L. 1. De compunct c. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 6.1 Isa 38.14 15. Rom. 14 10. the memory of Gods judgements written in his very heart His thoughts were busied with it his meditations fixt here and it forced from him DOMINE NE IN FVRORE Correct me not O Lord in thy anger nor chastise me in thy wrath Hezekiah one of the best of the Kings of Judah yet walked in the bitterness of his soul did mourn like a dove and chatter like a Crane S. Paul buildeth up a tribunal and calleth
against These made Sin to be nothing else but phansy and opinion Regeneration a deposition and putting off all conscience a casting off all fear and scruple and a returning into Paradise where it was a sin to judge between good and evil If they saw a man appalled with checks of conscience they would cry out O Adam adhuc aliquid cernis Oh Adam dost thou yet see and discern any thing The old man is not yet crucified in thee If they saw any trembling or speaking sadly of the judgments of God they would reprove and pass this censure upon them That they had yet a tast and relish of the Apple That that morsel would choke them If they saw any man displeased with himself and cast down because of his sins they called it the abiding of sin in him and a captivity under the sense and motions of the flesh With them Sin the Old man the Flesh were nothing but in opinion and not to think of sin to put off this opinion was to put on the New man And amongst us there have been some men so bold or rather so frantick as to profess it and too many so live as it were true For there be more Libertines then those that go under that name Thus hath the Devil in all ages striven and made it his Master-piece to pluck up Fear by the very roots that no seed of it might remain to remove custodem innocentiae as Cyprian calleth it Epist. ad Damasum this keeper and preserver of Innocency and all other Virtues Like a subtill captain he first setteth upon the watch that he may with the more ease enter the Soul of man and so rob and spoil him of all those riches and endowments which are the onely price of bliss and eternity And in these latter dayes he hath used the same art hath set up Faith and Love against Fear the Gospel against Christ and the Spirit against himself that so faith might die and Love wax cold that the good tidings might make us forget our duty and the Spirit of adoption by which we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 blot out the memory of that lesson which hath declared his power and taught us that he is a Lord. Indeed a weak errour it is and it is an open and easy observation that they who please and hug themselves in it are very weak even children in understanding Gerson the devout School-man telleth us it is most commonly in women quarum aviditas pertinacior in affectu Mulieres omnes propter infirmitatem consilii majores nostri in tutorum â—otestate esse voluerunt Cicero pro Muraena fragilior in cognitione whose affections commonly outrun their understanding who affect more then they know and are then most enflamed when they have least light And it is in men too too many of whom are as fond of their groundless phansies and ill-built opinions as the weakness of the other sex could possibly make them are as weak as the weakest of women and have more need of the bit and bridle then the beasts that perish What greater weakness can there be then to follow a blind guide to deliver our selves up to our phansie and affective Notions and to make them masters of our Reason and the onely Interpreters of that word which should be a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths Psal 119.105 If we check not our Phansy and Affections they will run madding after shadows and apparitions They will shew us nothing but Peace in the Gospel nothing but Love in Christianity nothing but Joy in the Holy Ghost They will set our Love and Joy on wheels and then we are straight carried up to heaven in these fiery chariots One is Elias another John Baptist another Christ himself If the Virgin Mary have an Exultat they have a Jubilee If S. Paul be in the Spirit they are above it and above right Reason too The Spirit is theirs if he put on that shape which best liketh them If he be a Spirit of Counsel we are Secretaries of his closet Isa 11.2 and can tell what he did before all times and number over his Decrees at our fingers ends If a Spirit of strength we bid defiance to Principalities and Powers If a Spirit of wisdome we are filled with him and are the Wise-men and Sages of the world though no man could ever say so but our selves If a Spirit of Joy we are in an ecstasy if of Love we are on fire But if he be a Spirit of fear there we leave him and are at ods with him we seem to know him not and cannot fear at all because we 〈…〉 to think that we have the Spirit It is true whilest we stand thus affected a Spirit we have but it is a Spirit of Illusion which troubleth and distorteth our intellectuals and maketh us look upon the Gospel ex adverso situ on the wrong side on that which may seem to flatter our infirmities not that which may cure them And as Tully told his friend that he did not know totum Caesarem all of Caesar so we know not totum Christum all of Christ We know and consider him as a Saviour but not as a LORD we know him in the riches of his promises but not in the terrour of his judgments we know him in that life he purchased for repentant sinners but not in that death he threatneth to unbelievers For to let pass the Law of Works we dare not come so near as to touch at that we cannot endure that which was commanded Hebr. 12.20 Let us well weigh and consider the Gospel it self which is the Law of Faith Was not that established and confirmed with promises of eternal life and upon penalty of eternal death Matth. 8.12 In the Gospel we are told of weeping and gnashing teeth of a condition worse then to have a mill-stone hanged about our necks Matth. 18.6 and to be thrown into the bottom of the sea and that by no other then by the Prince of Peace Christ himself who would never have put this fear in us if he had known that our Love had had strength enough to bring us to him Therefore he teacheth us how we shall fear rectâ methodo Matth. 10.28 Luke 12.4 5. to be perfect Methodists in Fear and that we misplace not our Fear upon any earthly Power he setteth up a NE TIMETE Fear not them that kill the body and when they have done that have done all and can do no more And having taken away one fear he establisheth another But fear him who can cast both body and soul into hell-fire And that we might not forget it for such troublesome guests lodge not long in our memory he driveth it home with an ETIAM DICO Yea I say unto you fear him Now Him denoteth a Person and no more and then our Fear may be Reverence and no more it may be Love it may be
Heaven before the tribunal of Christ let us change our plea and let us answer the last part of the Text with the first the Moriemini with the Convertimini answer God that we will turn and then he will never ask any more Why will ye die but change his language and assure us we shall not die at all And our answer is penned to our hands by the Prophet Behold Jer. 3.22 23. we come we turn unto thee for in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel And our Saviour hath registred his in his Gospel and left it as an invitation to turn Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that be weary of your evil wayes and are heavy laden feel the burden you did sweat under whilest you were in them and I will ease you that is I will deliver you from this body of Sin Rom. 7.24 fill you with my Grace enlighten your Understandings Hebr. 10.22 sprinkle your hearts from an evil Conscience direct your Eye level your Intentions lead you in the wayes of life and so fit and prepare you for my kingdom in Heaven To which he bring us c. The Four and Twentieth SERMON 1 COR. XI 25. This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me THat which is made to degenerate from its first institution is so much the worse by how much the better it would have been if it had been levelled and carried on to that end for which it was ordained The truth of this is plain and visible as in many others so in this great business of the Administration of the Lords Supper Which in its right and proper use might have been as Physick to purge and as Manna to feed the soul to eternal life but being either raised higher or brought lower than it self either made more or less then it is either made miraculous or nothing hath become fatall and destructive and hath left most men guilty of the body and blood of our Lord. 1 Cor. 11.27 Some we see have quite changed and perverted the Ordinance of Christ scarce left any shadow or sign of its first institution have made of a Supper for the living a Sacrifice for the dead turned the Minister into a sacrificing Priest Bread and Wine into very Flesh and Blood and Bones the Remembrance of Christs death into the Adoration of the outward elements have written books filled many volumes in setting out the miraculous virtue it hath of which we may say as Pliny did of the writings of those magical Physicians that they have been published non sine contemtu irrisu generis humani not without a kind of contempt and derision of all the world as if there breathed not in it any but such who were either so brutish as not to know or such fools as to believe whatsoever fell from the pen of such idle dreamers Others fall short are more coldly affected and lose themselves in a strange indifferency as not fully resolved whether it be an institution that bindeth or no and look upon it rather as an invention of man than the word and command of Christ Others run far enough from Superstition as they think and are great enemies to Popery and yet unawares carry a Pope with them in their belly lean too much to the opus operatum to the bare outward action think what they will not say that if they come to the Feast it is not much material what garment they come in the outward elements are of virtue to sanctifie the profaner himself that though they have been haters of God yet they may come to his Table though they have crucified Christ yet here they may taste and see how gracious he is These extremes have men run upon whilst they did neglect the plain and easie rule by which they were to walk the one upon the rock of Superstition the other as it fâ—lleâ—h out most commonly not only from the Errour which they were afraid of but from the Truth it self which should be set up in its place We see at the first institution almost and when this blessed Table was as it were first spread that many abuses crept in to poyson the Feast Some by factiousness others by partiality and some by drunkenness profaned it v. 21. did come and sit down and eat and drink but to their punishment and damnation Therefore S. Paul having laid open their gross errours and profanations and set their irregularities in order before them prescribeth the remedy and calleth them back to the first institution and the example of Christ himself First he sheweth the Manner of Christs institution v. 23-25 He took the bread and gave thanks brake it and gave it them and secondly the Mystery signified thereby The breaking of the Bread and pouring out of the Wine represent the bruising of his Body and shedding of his Bloud for the remission of sins Last of all the End of the institution and celebration of the Lord's Supper in the words of my Text This do ye as oft as ye do it in remembrance of me These vvords I read to you as S. Pauls but indeed they are Christ's delivered by Paul but received from Christ as he telleth us v. 23. In them you may behold Christ's Love streaming forth as his bloud did on the cross For not content once to die for us he vvill appear unto us as a crucified Saviour to the end of the vvorld and calleth upon us to look upon him and remember him whom our sins have pierced presenteth himself unto us in these outvvard elements of Bread and Wine and in the breaking of the one and pouring out of the other is evidently set forth before our eyes Gal. 3.1 and even crucified amongst us as S. Paul speaketh thus condescending and applying himself to our infirmities that he may heal us of our sins and make and keep us a peculiar people to himself And since the vvords are Christ's vve must in the first place look up and hearken to him who breatheth forth this Love secondly consider what task his Love hath set us what we are to do thirdly ex praescripto agere since it is an injunction whose every accent is Love do it after that form which he hath set down after the manner which he hath prescribed So the parts are four 1. the Authour of the institution 2. the Duty enjoyned to do this 3. to do it often 4. Lastly the End of the institution or the Manner how we must do it we must do it in remembrance of him i. e. of all those benefits and graces and promises which flowed with his bloud from his very heart which was sick with Love And with these we shall exercise your Christian Devotion at this time First we must look upon the Authour of the institution For in every action we do it is good to know by what authority we dot it And this is the very order of Nature Lib
Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so free and ingenuous Arithmetick and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain if they teach men onely metiri latifundia accommodare digitos avaritiae to measure Lordships and to tell money What need we instance in these The Word of God which bringeth salvation may bring death if it be not received with the meekness of a babe that we may grow thereby The Sacrament the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which hath been magnified too much and yet cannot be magnified enough was ordained as Physick to renew and revive and quicken our souls but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted it is not Physick but damnation Non QUID sed QUEMADMODUM vers 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing but the Manner of doing it the driving it on to its right end which giveth it its full beauty and perfection A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life Humility and Repentance sanctifie a fast and Shewing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and bloud Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversie in a word and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers which have been as the raging of the sea and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age John 6.63 even in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the Spirit that quickeneth For to say his flesh profiteth nothing is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's or set a joynt with an axiom of Philosophy Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine with flesh or bloud Although these two parts the Soul and the Body are knit and united rogether and do sympathize so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind and that which cheareth the mind doth strengthen the body yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them the body that which is of a corporeal nature and the soul that which is spiritual and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties Although we see the actions of the body as Hunger and Thirst many times attributed to the soul and the functions of the soul as to Will and the like to the body Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it which are both joyntly necessary but their manner of operation is diverse It was necessary that the flesh and bloud of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross that his most precious bloud should be poured out for remission of sins but to make it a physical potion to make it nourishment to our souls it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours For if it should our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing And the reason is plain Because the merit and virtue of his death which is without us is made ours not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself but 1. by his Will by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us and 2. by our due receiving of it which is made complete by our Consent and Faith and Giving of thanks which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ but not because she conceived and bore him nine moneths in her womb but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart Luke 11.27 28. The womb was blessed that bare him and the paps that gave him suck but they rather were blessed who heard his word and kept it The Flesh and Bloud of Christ doth truly quicken us as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross as a meritorious cause and as he gave it for the salvation of the world But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies but by being received into our souls His merit was enough to save the whole world and yet his merit were nothing if not applied and that application is not wrought without but within us not by the Spirit of life but by the force and power of his death and passion the meritorious cause Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death What need we hear stir this Water of life and turn it into gall and bitterness Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention It is called the Body and Bloud of Christ and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine signa pro rebus accipere to take the signs of things for the things themselves and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light That we may lift up ours let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and bloud and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it And let one end be the measure and rule of the other Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him to follow as he leadeth His body was bruised and his bloud shed to purge us from all iniquity and to make us a peculiar people unto himself That was Christ's end And our end must be proportioned to it So to receive the Sacrament of his body and bloud that it may be instrumental to that end Which cannot be by eating his flesh and bloud that flesh which was crucified and that bloud which was shed One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible or shew us a way which cannot lead to the end Flesh and Bloud taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul then it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven But his Obedience his Humility his Cross and Passion his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction these have power and influence on the Soul These are here presented to us as Manna and better then Manna and if we take them down and digest them they will turn into good bloud and feed us to eternal life His Body and Bloud were thus given and thus we must receive them Our Saviour calleth it his
in Scripture words of Command and Duty carry with them more then they shew and have wrapped up in them both the Act and the End and are of the largest signification in the Spirit 's Dictionary To HEAR is to Hear and to Doe To KNOW is to Know and to Practice To BELIEVE is to Believe and to Obey The Schools will tell us FIDES absque addito in Scriptura formata intelligitur Where Faith is named in Scripture without some addition as a dead Faith a temporary Faith an hypocritical Faith there evermore that Faith is commended which worketh by Charity And so to shew or to preach the death of the Lord is more then to Utter it with the tongue and Profess it For thus Judas might shew it as well as Peter thus the Jews might shew it that crucified him Thus the profane person that crucifieth him every day may shew it Yea Christ's death may be the common subject for discourse and the language of the whole world Therefore our shewing must look farther even to the end For what is Hearing without Doing What is Knowledge without Practice What is Faith without Chariâ—y What is shewing the death of the Lord if we do it not to that end for which he did die Our hearing is but the sensuality of the ear our Knowledge but an empty speculation our Faith but phansie and our shewing the death of the Lord a kind of nailing him again to the cross For to draw his picture in our ear or mind to character him out in our words and yet fight against him is to put him to shame We must then understand our selves when we speak to God as we understand God when he speaketh to us and in the same manner we must shew him to himself and the world as he is pleased to shew and manifest himself unto us Christ did not present us with a picture with a phantasm with a bare shew and appearance of suffering for us Nor must we present him with shadows and shews And what is God's shewing himself Psal 80. Thou that sittest between the Cherubims shew thy self saith the Psalmist shine thou clearly to our comfort and to the terrour of our enemies God manifesteth his Power and breaketh the Cedars of Libanus He maketh known his Wisdom and teacheth the children of men He publisheth his Love and filleth us with good things His Words are his blessings and his demonstrations in glory He speaketh to us by peace and shadoweth us by plenty and our garners are full And see how the creature echoeth back again to him The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work Day unto day uttereth welleth out speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge God's language is Power God's language is Love and God's language is Hope God planted a vineyard Isa 5. that expresseth his Power and built a tower in it and made a wine-press therein there is his Love and he lookâ—d for grapes there Hope speaketh for he that planteth planteth in hope He spake by his Prophets he spake by his judgments and he spake by his mercies but still he spake in hope for he doth neither shine nor thunder but in hope This is the heavenly dialect and we must take it out We must not speak as one that beggeth on a stage but as he that beggeth on the high way naked and cold and pinched with hunger Verba in opera vertenda By a religious Alchymie we must turn words into works and when God speaketh to us by his Prophets answer him by our obedience when he speaketh to us in Love give him our hearts and when he looketh for grapes be full of good works This is Christ's own dialect and he best understandeth it and his reply is a reward But from shews and words he turneth away his ears and will not hear that is for still in God's language more is understood then spoke he will bring us to judgment And now we see what it is to shew the death of the Lord not to draw it out in our imagination or to speak it with the tongue but to express the power and virtue of it in our selves to labour and travel in birth till Christ be fully formed in us till all Christian virtues which are as the spirits of his bloud be quick and operative in us till we be made perfect to every good work And thus we shew his death by our Faith For Faith if it be not dead will speak and make it self known to all the world speak to the naked and clothe him to the hungry and feed him to those who erre and are in darkness and shine upon them This is the dialect of Faith But if the cold frost of temptations as S. Gregorie speaketh hath so niped it that it is grown chil and cold and can speak but faintly if we have talked so long of Faith till we have left her speechless if she speak but imperfectly and in broken language now by a drop of water and now by a mite and then silent shew the death of Christ onely in some rare and slender performance behold this is your hour and the power of light this your time of receiving the Sacrament is the time to actuate and quicken your Faith to make it more apprehensive more operative more lively to give it a tongue that it may shew and preach the wonderful works of the Lord. And as we shew the Lord's death by our Faith so we shew it by our Hope which if it be that Hope which purifieth the heart will awake our glory the Tongue If it be well built and underpropped with Charity it will speak and cry and complain And the language is the same with that of the souls under the Altar How long Lord Rev. 6. How long shall the Flesh fight against the Spirit How long shall we struggle with temptations When wilt thou deliver us from this body of death When shall we appear in the presence of our God Though we fall we shall rise again Though we are shaken we shall not be overthrown Though thou killest us yet we will trust in thee This is the dialect of Hope And here at this Table we must learn to speak out to speak it more plainly to raise and exalt it to a Confidence which is the loudest report it can make Thirdly we shew and preach the Lord's death by our Love Which is but the echo of his Love And we speak it fully as he doth to us fill up the sentence and leave not out a word make it manifest in the equality and universality of our obedience as he offered up himself a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice for us Quicquid propter Deum fit aequaliter fit Our love to Christ must be equal and like himself not meet him at Church and run from him in the streets not embrace him in a Sermon and throw him from us in our conversation not flatter him with a peny
delivered from this body of death Nor is it enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stoop and look into it as Peter and John did into our Saviours For quod ferè fit non fit A perfunctory and flight examination is none at all and that which is but almost done is not done No. Scelera propiùs admovet Thou must draw thy sin nearer and nearer unto thee that it may appear in its full horrour without its dress and paint that monster which it is that thou mayest revile and destroy it When the Patriarchs had sold their brother Joseph into Egypt for ten years space and above they saw it not to be a sin or at such a distance that it never troubled them but when affliction drew it nearer to them they then cried Guilty We are verily guilty said they of our bother's bloud How still and quiet are the most crying sins because we will not hearken to them and what a Nothing is the greatest sin because we will not look stedfastly upon it Nor is it enough to look upon it thy self with distaste as upon a loathsom and stinking carcase for Sin cannot but work some distaste if it be looked upon But thou must try it by all the killing circumstances which made it a sin and made it more sinful that Contrariety it beareth to God and his purity that huge Incongruity it carrieth to that image after which thou wert created that Opposition it standeth into a most just Law so fitted and proportioned to thee and that sting it hath nay that Sting it is for it is the very sting of Death And then if thou grone in the spirit and trouble thy selfe as thy Saviour did at Lazarus's tomb if thou cry loud unto the Lord and send up strong grones and supplications this Lazarus this dead sinner will come forth And this thou must do in every sin Find it out and so find out and deprehend thy self Not onely those grosser sins which are open as the Apostle speaketh and manifest to all men and carry shame in their very foreheads as Adultery Drunkenness Murther quae suâ se corpulentiâ produnt which betray themselves by their bulk and corpulency which are like those rocks that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eminent in sight above the waters But those sins also which are as rocks covered with waves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 close and invisible as Malice Revenge Ambition Love of the world Evil thoughts Loose desires which are of a closer and more retired nature and so much the more dangerous by how much they are the less sensible even all those speculative sins which are acted within the compass of the heart and which no man can see and as they are espied by none so neither can they be restrained by any but our selves Those grosser sins which commonly disturb and break the peace of that Commonwealth whereof we are a part outward Laws and the authority of those who are set over us may cut down as the Angel did the branches and the body of the Tree Dan. 4. but we may bind the stump and preserve it in our hearts For to grub up the root to rectifie the heart to take away speculative and secret sins which no other eye can search and find out but our own this every man after due examination must do himself every man must be his own Angel For In the next place to draw out the full compass of this Duty and so give it you in its utmost extent and latitude this Examination reacheth further then the word in its native signification can import For To Examine is but To weigh and ponder To bring thy self and thy actions to a trial To behold thy own shape To see what thou art and in what state and condition and in what relation towards thy God To open and spread thy conscience which S. Augustine calleth stolam animae the garment of the soul and observe what is loose and ravelled by negligence what is stained and defaced by luxury what is sindged by anger what is cut and mangled by envy what is sullied by covetousness This is a good and advantageous work But then this work must not end in it self but we must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 propose the true end and draw all up to it which is To purge the conscience To supply what is defective To repair what is defaced To beautifie what is slurred To complete what is imperfect which is to renew our selves in the inward man Finis specificat actionem It is the end that commendeth the action and giveth it its perfection Therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to prove and examine here in the Text the Apostle ver 31. interpreteth by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What is here to examine is there to judge our selves Which includeth Repentance Revenge on our selves Tears and Fasting and Contrition and Humiliation all that severe discipline of Striving and Fighting with our selves of Denying our selves of Demollishing imaginations and of Crucifying our flesh that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great Circumcision of the heart all this we must pass through before we have brought our Trial and Examination to an end before we can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect fit to be received into the presence of God and admitted to his Table For what a vain work were it to examine a thief if we do not judge him to implead him and bring witnesses if after the bill is found we proceed not to sentence and condemn him Or wouldest thou find a thief lurking in a corner of thy house and not drive him out Canst thou see a sin rising up in thy soul ready to devour thee and not drown it with thy tears behold Oppression and not strike out its teeth Adultery and not stone it Deceit and Fraud and not put it to shame Hast thou found out the Devil in a garment of light and wilt thou still be a Pharisee Or again after a survey hast thou found thy soul run to ruine and decay and wilt not thou take pains to repair it a feeble Faith and not strengthen it A wavering Hope and not uphold and support it Or canst thou see thy Charity waxing cold and not stir it up and enliven it Shall thy House the Temple of the holy Ghost fall upon thee whilest thou standest and lookest on and at last art sunk and lost in the ruines This were like that unwise builder to begin and not be able to make an end or as the custom at feasts was at the beginning to bring forth good wine and when we have well tasted of it then that which is worse Which is to make the beginning nothing nay worse then nothing For it is the greatest folly in the world to discover an ambush and yet fall into it to see an enemy and not avoid him The sin groweth greater if we look upon it and not run from it If we behold its ugly threatning countenance and not bid defiance to it
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
Adversùs publicos hostes omnis homo miles est saith Tertullian in another case Against traytours and common enemies every man is a souldier Every one that is of strength to pull a soul out of the fire is for this business by counsel by advise by rebuking is a Priest Nor must he let him lie there to expect better help Thou shalt not see thy brother sin but thou shalt rebuke and save thy brother Lev. 19.17 Common charity requireth thus much at thy hand And to make question of it is as if thou shouldst ask with Cain Am I my brother's keeper This is the true and surest method of pleasing one another For Flattery like the Bee carrieth honey in its mouth but hath a sting in its tayl but Truth is sharp and bitter at first but at last more pleasant than Manna He that would seal up thy lips for the Truth which thou speakest will at last kiss those lips and bless God in the day of his visitation And this if we do we shall please one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to edification Rom. 15.2 and not unto ruine And thus all shall be pleased the Physician that he hath his intent and the Patient in his health The strong shall be pleased in the weak and the weak in the strong the wise in the ignorant and the ignorant in the wise And Christ shall be well pleased to see Brethren thus to walk together in unity strengthening and inciting one another in the wayes of righteousness And when we have thus walkt hand in hand together to our journeys end he shall admit us into his presence Psal 16.11 where there is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore The Eight and Twentieth SERMON COLOSS. II. 6. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him NOthing more familiar in Scripture then to compare a Christian mans life to a Walk and Christianity to a Way Acts 24.14 After the way which they call Heresie so worship I the God of my Fathers saith S. Paul And the resemblance fitteth very well For as they who travel in the way meet with variety of objects it may be a Plant or Flower In Psal 1. saith S. Basil it may be a Serpent or a Lyon objects to delight them and objects to terrifie them all to retard and detein them and stay them longer from their journeys end so in the course of Religion in our way to happiness every step is with danger our paths are ensnared and our progress intangled If a Plant or Flower the pomp and glory of the world Prov. 22.13 stay us not yet there is a Lion in the way difficulties we must struggle with 2 Cor. 7.5 Serm. 1. in Matth. and there are Fears in the way fightings without and terrours within Inter casus ambulamus saith Augustine We walk in the midst of ruine where every object may prove a temptation and every temptation an overthrow nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidore with our ruine about us Not onely the way but our feet also are slippery We need not go far for instance for every man may find one in himself But we will take this which S. Paul hath put into our hands of the Colossians the occasion of my Text. And of them S. Paul professeth in this Epistle that they had made a fair onset in Christianity and were forward in their way v. 5. He beholdeth them with joy and rejoyceth to see them walk to see their order and their stedfast faith in Christ But withal perceiving some uneven steps some dangerous swervings and declinations from the will of Christ and those wayes which his wisdome drew out in the Gospel he calleth loud upon them and at once commendeth and instructeth them and armeth them against those false teachers who by their mixtures and additions had made another Gospel He commendeth them for their choice of their way and directeth them how to walk in it v. 8 But there was Philosophus in via the Philosopher in their way with his subtilties to spoil and rob them And then the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no man make a spoil of you draw you by force out of the vvay by the vain deceit of philosophical speculations And there was Angelus in via an Angel in the way v. 18. with his glorious excellencies to amaze them And here the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no man defraud you of your reward of that liberty which Christ hath granted you which maketh a fair and open way to you without the mediation of Angels Last of all there was Lex in via the Law in the way with her shadows and ceremonies to detein them And there the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no man judge or condemn v. 16. you of a holy-day or new-moon or the sabbath dayes Hearken not to the Philosopher but to him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily v. 9. and to that wisdome which the holy Ghost teacheth Bow not to an Angel 1 Cor. 2.13 Col. 2.10 but to him who is head of all Principality and Power And look not unto the Law which is but a shadow but to the body the truth and solidity of the things themselves which is in Christ. These three are all And these three are one I may say these three cautions and directions are but one at least drawn up and collected in this one which I have read unto you Three several lines but meeting in this centre Walk in Christ as ye have received him which is as a light from heaven to direct us in our way that we be not taken by the deceit of Philosophy that we stoop not to the glory of Angels that we catch not at the Shadow when we should lay hold on the Substance In a word this keepeth us close to Christ and his doctrine which must not be mixed or blended either with the Law or Philosophy or that voluntary humility and worshipping of Angels which is Idolatry As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him At the very hearing of this Exhortation I know every man will say that it is good and wholsome counsel well fitted and applyed by S. Paul to the errours and distempers of that Church to which he writ but not so proper and applyable to ours For so far are we from being ensnared with Philosophy that we see too many ready to renounce both their Sense and Reason to be less then Men nay to be inferiour to the Beasts neither to discourse nor see not to see what they see nor to know what they cannot be ignorant of that they may be Christians as if Christ came to put out our eyes and abolish our Reason And for Voluntary worship there is no fear of that in them who will scarce acknowledge any obligation and can with ease turn a Law into a Promise
hopes or satisfie his lusts or justifie his anger or answer his love or look friendly on that which his wild passions drive him to Opinion is as a wheel on which the greatest part of the world are turned and wheeled about till they fall of several waies into several evils and do scarce touch at Truth in the way Opinion buildeth our Church chuseth our Preacher formeth our Discipline frameth our Gesture measureth our Prayers methodizeth our Sermons Opinion doth exhort instruct correct teach and command If it say Go we go and if it say Do this we do it We call it our Conscience and it is our God and hath more worshippers then Truth For though Opinion have a weaker ground-work then Truth yet she buildeth higher but it is but hay and stubble fit for the fire Good God! what a Babel may be erected upon a thought I verily thought Acts 26.9 12 14. saith S. Paul and what a whirlwind was that thought It drove him to Damascus with letters and made him kick against the pricks Psal 74.6 Shall I tell you that it was but Phansie that in Davids time beat down the carved works with axes and hammers that it was but a thought that destroyed the Temple it self that killed the Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and crucified the Lord of life himself And therefore it will concern us to watch our Phansie and to deal with it as mothers do with their children who when they desire that which may hurt them deny them that but to still and quiet them give them some other thing they may delight in take away a knife and give them an apple So when our Phansie sporteth and pleaseth it self with vain and aery speculations let us suspect and quarrel them and by degrees present unto it the very face of Truth as the Stoick speaketh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epictet sift and winnow our imaginations bring them to the light and as the devout Schoolman speaketh Gerson resolve all our affectual notions by the Accepistis by the Rule and so demolish all those idoles which our Passions by the help of Phansie have set up For why should such a deceit pass unquestioned why should such an imposture scape without a mark 3. But now if we may not walk SICVT VISVM EST as it seemeth good unto us yet we may SICVT VISVM EST SPIRITVI SANCTO as it seemeth good to the holy Ghost Yes for that is to walk according to the Rule for he speaketh in the Word And to walk after the Spirit and to walk by this Rule are one and the same thing But yet the World hath learned a cursed art to set them at distance and when the Word turneth from us and will not be drawn up to our Phansie to carry on our pleasing but vain imaginations we then appeal to the Spirit we bring him in either to deny his own word or which in effect is the same to interpret it against his own meaning and so with reverence be it spoken make him no better then a Knight of the post to witness a lie This we would do but cannot For make what noise we will and boast of his name we are still at Visum est nobis it is but Phansie still it is our own Spirit not the holy Ghost Matth. 24.24 1 John 4.1 For as there be many false Christs so there are many false spirits and we are commanded not to believe but to try them and what can we try them by but by the Rule And as they will say Lo here is Christ or there is Christ so they will say Lo here is the Spirit and there is the Spirit The Pope layeth claim to it and the Enthusiast layeth claim to it and whoso will may lay claim to it on the same grounds when neither hath any better argument to prove it by then their bare words no evidence but what is forged in that shop of vanities their Phansie Idem Accio Titióque Both are alike in this And if the Pope could perswade me that he never opened his mouth but the Spirit spake by him I would then pronounce him Infallible and place him in the Chair and if the Enthusiast could build me up in the same faith and belief of him I would be bold to proclaim the same of him and set him by his side and seek the Law at his mouth Would you know the two grand Impostours of the world which have been in every age and made that desolation which we see on the earth They are these two a pretended Zeal and a pretense of the Spirit If I be a Zelote what dare I not do And when I presume I have the Spirit what dare I not say What action so foul which these may not authorize what wickedness imaginable which these may not countenance What evil may not these seal for good and what good may they not call evil Oh take heed of a false light and too much fire These two have walkt these many ages about the earth not with the blessed Spirit which is a light to illuminate and as fire to purge us but with their Father the Devil transformed into Angels of light and burning Seraphim and have led men upon those Precipies into those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover I might here much enlarge my self for it is a subject fitter for a whole Sermon then a part of one and for a Volume then a Sermon but I must conclude And for conclusion let us whilst the light shineth in the world walk on guided by the Rule which will bring us at last to the holy mount For objects will not come to us but have onely force to move us to come to them Eternal happiness is a fair sight and spreadeth its beams and unvaileth its beauty to win our love to allure and draw us And if it draw us we must up and be stirring and walk on to meet it What that devout writer saith of his Monk Climacus is true of the Christian He is assidua naturae violentia His whole life is a constant continued violence against himself against his corrupt nature which as a weight hangeth upon him and cloggeth and fettereth him which having once shaken off he not onely walketh but runneth the wayes of Gods commandments Psal 119.32 Rom. 13.13 Again let us walk honestly as in the day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh Christians in our several stations and conditions of life and not think Christ dishonoured if we mingle him with the common actions of our life We never dishonour him more then when we take him not in and use him not as our guide and rule even in those actions which for the grossness of the subject and matter they work on may seem to have no savour or relish of that which we call Religion Be not deceived He that thus taketh him in is a Priest and a King the most honourable person
in the world Behold the Profane Gallant who walketh and talketh away his life Malunt Remp. turbari quà m comam Sen. who divideth himself between the comb and the glass and had rather the Common-wealth should flie in pieces then one hair of his periwig should be out of its place whom we bow and cringe and fall down to as to a golden Calf I tell you the meanest Artizan that worketh with his hands even he that grindeth at the mill is more honourable then he Take the speculative phantastick Zelote the Christian Pharisee that shutteth himself up between the ear and the tongue between hearing much and speaking more and doing contrary the worst Anchorete in the world bring full of oppression deceit and bitterness I may be bold to say The vilest person he that sitteth with the dogs of your flock Job 30.1 Phil. 3.18 is more honourable more righteous then he and of such as these S. Paul spake often and he spake it weeping that they did walk but walk as enemies to the cross of Christ. Let then every man move in his own sphere orderly 1 Cor. 7.20 abide in the calling wherein he is called And in the last place that we may move with the first Mover Christ the Beginner and Authour of our Walk let us take him along with us in all our wayes Heb. 12.28 hearken what Christ Jesus the Lord will say that we may walk before him with reverence and godly fear Psal 85.8 Exod. 37.9 Not SICVT VIDIMVS as we have seen but look we upon one another as the two Cherubims touching and moving one another but with the Ark of the testimony in the midst betwixt us and by that either inciting or correcting one another in our walk Nor SICVT VISVM FVERIT as it shall seem good in our own eyes for nothing can be more deceitful then our own thoughts Nor SICVT VISVM SPIRITVI S. as every Spirit may move us which we call Holy for it may be a lying spirit and â—ead us out of our way into those evils which grieve that blessed Spirit whose name we have thus presumptuously taken in vain But SICVT ACCEPIMVS as we have received Christ Jesus Let us joyn example with the Word and it will be no more as a meteor to mislead us but a bright morning-star to direct us to Christ Correct our Phansie by the Rule and it will be sanctum cogitatorium an alembick an holy elaboratory of such thoughts as may fly as the doves to the windows of heaven And last of all try the Spirit by the Word for the Word is nothing else but the breathing and voice of the Spirit and then thou shalt be baptized with the Spirit and fire The Spirit shall enlighten thee Matth. 3.11 John 16.13 and the Spirit shall purge and cleanse thee and lead thee into all truth The Spirit shall breathe comfort and strength into thee in this thy walk and pilgrimage and thou shalt walk from strength to strength Psal 84.7 from virtue to virtue even till thou come to thy journeyes end to thy Father's house to that Sabbath and rest which remaineth to the people of God Hebr. 4.9 A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL Sir George Whitmore Knight Sometime Lord Mayor of the City of LONDON Who departed this life Decemb. 12. 1654. at his house at Bawmes in MIDDLESEX PSAL. CXIX 19. I am a stranger in the earth hide not thy commandments from me THis Psalm is a Psalm of David So S. Augustine and Hilary and others or gathered by him or out of him And it is nothing else but a collection of Prayers and Praises a body of devout ejaculations which the Greek Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lively sparkles breathed forth from a heart on fire and even sick with love And they fly so thick that observation can hardly take the order of them The method of Devotion followeth and keepeth time with the motion of the Heart which is as various and different as those imprâ—ssions which Joy or Grief Fear or Hope make in it Which either contract and bind it up and then it struggleth and laboureth within it self and conceiveth sighs and grones which cannot be expressed or breaketh forth into complaints and strong supplications v. 39. v. 77. Take away the rebuke that I fear Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live and the like or else dilate and open it and then it leapeth out of it self and breatheth it self forth with exultation and triumph in songs of praise and Hallelujahs v. 57. v. 97. v. 72. O Lord thou art my portion O how I love thy Law The Law of thy mouth is better unto me then thousands of gold and silver In this verse which I have read unto you and chosen as the fittest subject for this present occasion the Heart having looked abroad out of it self and reflected back into it self draweth out in it self the Picture of a Stranger or a Pilgrime and having well lookt upon it with the serious eye of Contemplation which is the heart of the Heart and the soul of the Soul having surveyed the place of its habitation how frail and ruinous it is as a tent subject to the winds beat upon by every storm and at last to be removed it goeth out of it self and seeketh for shelter under the shadow of Gods wing sendeth forth strong desires for supply and support in hoc inquilinatûs sui tempore as Tertullian speaketh in this time of its so journing and pilgrimage for that supply which is most answerable to the condition of a stranger upon earth and which may best conduct him to the place for which he was born and bound He asketh not for Riches they have wings Prov. 23 5. and will fly away and leave him in his walk or if they stay with him they will but mock and delude him Not for Honour that is but a breath but air and may breathe upon him at one stage and at the next leave him but never forward him in his way Not for Delightful vanities these are but ill companions and will lead him out of his way The best supply for a stranger here upon earth is from heaven from the place not where he sojourneth but to which he is going the best convoy the will and commandments of God the word of God the best lantern to his feet Psal 119.105 Whilest these are in his eye and heart he shall pass by slippery places and not fall he shall pass through fire and water he shall walk upon the Lion and the Asp Psal 66.12 91.13 he shall meet with with flattering objects and loath them with terrours and contemn them use the world as if he used it not be in poverty 1 Cor. 7.31 and yet not poor in affliction but not distrest in many a storm and pass through and rejoyce in it live in the world and
not work to the end and have that effect which was intended and is proper to it Again if Christ urge forvvard his vvork and desisteth not but follovveth us still to find us out vvhen vve think all is done maketh a miracle but the preface and forerunner of a greater vvork it vvill concern us to uphold this course of love both to others and our seâ—â—es 1. To others To be instant in season and out of season in our leisure and in our business To stir up and quicken in them the beginings of grace Not upon ill success to go back and fall off but still to labour and travel with them as S. Paul speaketh till Christ that is all Christian duties be fully formed in them To be their solicitours their advocates their remembrancers and vvhâ—n God hath vvrought a miracle and delivered them from poverty or prison or death to speak to them â—â—â—ok back and behold What though vve prevail not yet let us 〈◊〉 desist The husbandman doth not take off his hand from the plough for one bad year nor doth the merchant leave off navigation for one wreck at sea Spargenda est manus saith Seneca succedet aliquando multa tentanti We must scatter again and again all will not be lost after many attempts The sower in the Gospel sowed his seed in four places though it came up and yielded increase but in one Jer. 20.8 9. The word of the Lord saith the Prophet was made a reproch unto me and a derision daily Then I said I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name But it followeth His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay He then that cannot expect his brother that cannot hope well of his brother is neither a true Prophet nor a good Christian That plain Axiom of S. Augustine is of good use De nullo vivente desperandum We may not despair of any man alive but whilest he breatheth we must hope we must pray for him and find him out and instruct him That common speech of some in S. Chrysostom's time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Leave off from admonishing and counselling these kind of men the Father calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the deceit of the Devil an engine made by him to undermine and shake all religion and piety Some we have had of late who have pronounced it unlawful to pray for the salvation of all men An errour of so monstrous a shape that former ages were afraid of it and it was reserved for this last and worst age to wait upon its mishapen damme that ill-begotten phansie of the absolute decree of Reprobation I could not easily believe that any should take delight in such a speculation which striketh off all hope of salvation and all care of our brother withall that he may go whither he will For whithersoever he goeth he is lost for ever never to be found This doctrine leaveth some men in worse case then the Swine in the Gospel The Devils entered into them indeed but presently carried them violently into the sea and drowned them but by this doctrine some men there be prepared on purpose to be an habitation of Devils for ever But withall I see they who cut off all hope of life from some and with it the prayers and instructions of the Church are all sheep themselves pure and innocent and so sure of their salvation that in this they rest as in a miracle as if nothing more were to be done and therefore they will not work it out They tell us That some be vessels of wrath and therefore that we ask and attempt an impossible thing That the condemnation of many and the Salvation of all cannot both be brought to pass because this implieth a contradiction I answer It is true it implieth indeed a contradiction that â—ll should be saved yet many damned but yet I see no force in the contradiction to fright us from our devotion or shut up our mouths that we may not instruct and remember every man of his present condition that when we have begun we may not follow and find him out and instruct him yet more fully This foundation standeth very sure The Lord knoweth who are his But we do not read in Scripture that God hath any where imparted this knowledge unto any man Suppose it were true that God doth indeed sit in heaven and pass an irreversible sentence upon the lives of some certain men yet doth this nothing concern us nor can we judge by any outward marks upon our brother what God doth in his secret closet and counsel Judgement belongeth unto him and duty unto us Let God do what he please in heaven or in earth a necessity lieth upon us and wo-will be unto us if we instruct not our brother Nor is the secret will of God any rule of our actions nor can it be For it is the property of a Rule to be manifestly known and if it be not known it is not a Rule The rule that concerneth us is as manifest as the light That we must love our brother That we must find him out and instruct and save him That we must begin and promote and as far as in us lieth perfect and finish this work That we must seek the conversion of all men Haec regula ab initio Evangelii decucurrit This is a constant and everlasting rule and hath run along in a continued stream of light ever since the Son of righteousness did arise in the hemisphere of the Church But for what God will do with particulars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is a thick cloud cast a veil drawn before it that no mortal eye can discern the least glimpse or scintillation of it We read in the Scripture that the number of true believers is but small but my duty to my brother in praying for him and promoting his spiritual health is not grounded upon that act which apprehendeth the number of the elect to be but few but upon that which apprehendeth the mercies of God to be infinite and that it cannot stand with his goodness to make any man purposely to destroy him And it is an act of our Charity which like some artificial glasses multiplieth the object a thousand times And this is a kind of privilege and prerogative which Charity hath above Faith Christ hath already begun with my brother the miracle is wrought his wounds are still open and they will drop their medicinal power and virtue upon the weakest member he hath yea upon him that is yet no member and my care must be to help him to apply it There is no heart so much stone which Christ's bloud cannot soften and out of it raise a child unto Abraham No piece so crooked ever sprung from Adam's root but of it God can erect a statue of himself None is so miserably desperate of whom we are not
it threatned in these words Lest a worse thing come unto thee That these words Sin no more are plain and that Christ meant as he spake appeareth by this Commination Lest a worse thing come unto thee For if we will read his meaning in his words we may say this is machaera conditionalis his conditional sword as the Father calleth it which if we sin again will be latched in our sides If one evil will not cure us God's quiver is full and he hath more arrows to shoot Sin no more Take heed thou be not the same thou wert before those thirty eight years nor commit that sin again which crippled thee and brought thee to the pool's side If thou darest yet venture a worse punishment standeth at thy doors ready to seize upon thee Now a Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one living creature made up of two diverse substances the Soul and the Body so the danger which besetteth him the evils which compass him about and threaten him are of a diverse nature Some strike at the body others enter the soul There are terrours by night and the arrow that flyeth by day and there is another plague the plague of the Heart A worse thing will come unto thee worse to thy Body and worse to thy Soul Thou shalt be a worse Paralytick and a worse Man nearer to death and nearer to hell The reiteration of thy sin shall awake heavier judgments which shall fall both on thy outward and on thy inward man We shall speak something of them both and first of God's Temporal judgments The last is the worst It was so with Pharaoh The death of the First-born in Egypt was more terrible then the Frogs or the Locusts or the Hail or the Murrain It was so with God's own people He punished them and they sinned still and he increased their punishment When they were fed to the full they did commit adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses As fed horses in the morning they neighed after their neighbours wives God hireth out forein enemies Egypt and Assyria he sendeth out his great army his Caterpillars and Palmer-worms he hireth out Nebuchadnezzar and calleth him his servant and payeth him his wages How oft did they provoke him and how oft did he punish them He leadeth them into Captivity and bringeth them back again For all this they sinned yet more against him and committed those sins which even the Heathen were ashamed of And at last they killed the Prince of life and crucified their Messias who was manifested unto them by signs and wonders And now behold their house is left desolate and they are become the scorn of Nations and a proverb to all the world Afflictions and calamities sometimes are corrections sometimes executions In the first God cometh as a Father in the last as a Judge God goeth like the Consuls of Rome Virgas habet secures He hath a Rod and an Axe carried before him At first he chastiseth us with his Rods and then with his Axe Job on the Dunghil David flying before Absalom these felt his Rod But the old World before the Floud the Cananite and the Amorite when their wickedness was full the Jews and Jerusalem these were hewen down with the Axe This impotent man at the pool's side was but under the Rod but when Christ telleth him if he sin again a worse thing should fall unto him he sheweth him the Axe and holdeth it over his head Quod solus fulmen mittit Jupiter placabile est saith Seneca perniciosum de quo deliberat The first thunderbolt God sendeth carrieth not so much fire with it but rather light to shew us our danger But if we put him to deliberate and to enter into controversie with us if we put him to the question What shall I do that I have not done the next will scatter us and dash us to pieces The first is light the second is a consuming fire Correct us O Lord in thy judgment not in thy fury is a prayer for the first kind against the second Pius Quintus lying on his death bed grievously tormented with the Stone was often heard to send forth this pious prayer Domine addas ad dolorem modò addas ad patientiam Lord adde unto my grief so thou adde unto my patience Patience in this kind as it is the best remedy of a disease so doth increase our crown and glory O felicem servum cujus emendationi instat Dominus cui dignatur irasci Oh happy servant whom the Lord taketh such pains to correct whom he loveth so well as thus to be angry with him But if we will not hearken to his Rod then he whetteth his Axe and maketh it ready Perdidimus utilitatem calamitatis We have lost all the profit which we might have received He hath spent his rods in vain and therefore if we take not heed he will strike us so as to cut us off and will give us our portion with sinners The judgments of God are like unto the Waters which came out of the Temple At first they are shallow and come up but to the ankles anon they are deeper Ezek. 47. and come up to the loins and at last they are so deep that we can gain no passage over them Thus doth the Justice and Providence of God follow us in all our wayes Aeschylus calleth it the harmony of God others his Geometry by which he observeth a kind of method and measure and proportion Librat iter ad iram suam saith the Psalmist Psal 78.50 He maketh a way to his anger He weigheth the Punishment and the Sin as in the scales He correcteth us if we fall and if we will fall again Hos 5.5 he layeth on heavier strokes He maketh our iniquity testifie against us maketh what we do witness and proclaim that to be just which we suffer Which though it be not alwaies visible to the eye for Deo constat justitiae suae ratio The reason as of God's Mercy so also of his Justice is ever with himself yet is it certain and judgment followeth the wicked whithersoever they go and hangeth over them as the sword did over Damocles by a hair ready to fall And that it falleth not but leaveth them in their ruff and jollity in their pride going on in their sin is to their greatest punishment Nam quanta est poena nulla poena Not to be punished at all is the greatest punishment of all and nothing is more deplorable then the happiness of a wicked man For the delay of punishment is but to make it more seasonable to stay it now and inflict it at such a time and in such a place and after such a manner as God's wisdome knoweth to be fittest God's wayes are in the whirlwind saith Nahum and his footsteps are not known saith the Psalmist yet his end is certain to work an harmony out of the greatest disorder to raise beauty
those means which he findeth most proper and fit for that end which commonly run in a contrary course from that which humane infirmity flesh and bloud would find out Isa 55.8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your wayes my wayes saith the Lord but as far removed as Heaven from Earth And as he hath made the Heavens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Basil speaketh the veile of his Divine majesty so in all his proceedings upon men he is Deus sub velo a God under a veile hidden but yet seen in a dark character but read not toucht but felt tunc optimus cum nobis videtur non bonus then most favourable when he seemeth to frown merciful when he seemeth angry gracious when he seemeth to put the sword into the persecutour's hand the same God yesterday in the calm and to day in the storm raising the righteous as high as heaven when in appearance he hath opened the gates of hell to devour them whilest flesh and bloud stand at gaze and wonder at his counsels and dispositions and understand them not till the spirit revealeth them as David speaketh in the sanctuary Psal 73. Were flesh and bloud to build a Church it should not be an House subject to the wind and waves but some house of pleasure a royal palace it should not be in Egypt or Babylon or in the land of the Philistines but in Paradise For we would go to heaven without any condition or difficulty have fathers and brethren and houses a hundred-fold without persecution march to the Land of Canaan and meet with no serpents in the wilderness not see a son of Anak to oppose us we would reign but not suffer hear God but not in the whirlwind see him but not in the fire would have the Kingdom without persecution that is would have God neither provident nor just nor wise that is would have no God at all These are these dictates the results the evaporations of flesh and bloud But God's method is best and is drawn out by his manifold wisdom Eph. 3.10 Nor indeed considering what materials we be made of could it possibly be otherwise Perversitas quam putas ratio est That is good order which we take to be confusion and that which we call Persecution is favour and mercy For could we be brought to God any other way he would not so much as touch us with his rod Or could we take possession of his kingdom without it he would not thus chase us into it by the fury and sword of the persecutor But our corruption can hardly be let out but with the lance The Old man must sit heavy on us that we may put him off and the World must breathe fire and brimstone in our faces that we may loath it Persecution sheweth what a prison what a hell the world is how ready it is to overflow our fading delights with gall that we may fly out of it to a better place If we will we may make our persecutor our Apostle to preach Jesus Christ unto us And therefore as Theodoret calleth the Redemption of man the most excellent part of God's providence so the manner of bringing it about by these sad and unwelcome means to flesh and bloud is from the same Providence Which as it set an Oportet upon Christ though his dispensation was most free Heb. 2.10 It became him for whom are all things c. to consecrate the Captain of our salvation through sufferings so there is an Oportet set upon the righteous Acts 14.22 We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God Nor indeed take us as we are polluted and unclean could we possibly enter any other way we could not enter the new heavens but purged and refined by persecution into the new creature cured by diseases healed by bruises raised by falls and made happy by misery taught by the counsel of the wise and taught by the contradiction of sinners helped by Prophets and advantaged by Tyrants directed by the Apostles and hastned by Persecutours to our inheritance For in some sense we may say Persecution giveth us livery and seisin and maketh it ours The Text it self implyeth so much Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven I have now brought you into this Aceldama this Field of bloud where you may behold the ungodly for their own lust persecuting the poor where you may behold hypocrites and deceitful men bending their bow and shooting at the righteous in secret and mighty men drawing their swords and drenching them in their bloud A sad sight to see righteousness under the whip and harrow But withall you may discover not onely an Angel going before them as before the children of Israel in the wilderness but Christ himself leading them through these terrours and amazements to a place of refreshing to a City not made with hands to the kingdom of heaven Oportet they must suffer but there remaineth a Sabbath for the children of God Persecution is the lot the inheritance of the righteous that was our first part We will now present you with the second That every man that suffereth hath not title to this Blessedness in the Text but onely those who are persecuted for righteousness sake Which comprehendeth all those duties which the Gospel requireth at their hands who have given up their names unto Christ For it is possible that a man may suffer for one virtue and neglect the rest may suffer to preserve his chastity and yet be covetous may keep his virgin and be a thief may give up his goods rather then bow to an Idol and be an yet adulterer may sacrifice to no God but the God of Israel and yet bow in the house of Rimmon nay may suffer for some truth which he is fully perswaded of and yet hold the truth of God in unrighteousness For tell me May not a Jew stand more for the circumcision of his flesh then of his heart for the Sabbaths bodily rest then that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that quietness of mind which is the proper effect of righteousness For the one he will lose his life for the other he doth not lay out many thoughts He will starve before he will eat a piece of swines-flesh and yet not put his knife to his throat to keep off intemperance He can suffer for the Law and yet break it Bid a Christian deny the Lord that made him and Christ that redeemed him and he will rather suffer his tongue to be cut out then to speak that word but yet will in his life deny him every day he will curse the Jew and yet crucifie Christ he will venture sea and land put his fortunes and life in hazard for a new discipline and yet take no pains to be a disciple of Christ Such an advantage many times hath education and custome upon us such a power hath the love of the
Though it cannot yet better Nothing then be at loss But our Accountant here S. Paul when he hath reckoned all sitteth down a loser For you see his Particulars are many but his Sum is Nothing and which is worse then Nothing Loss and lower yet but Dung ver 8. the most unsavoury loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Circumcision is concision and the teachers of it dogs ver 2. that will not onely bark but bite evil workers that work to pull down and build to ruine His confidence in the flesh he castest away his privileges disenable him his zele is madness the Law and the righteousness thereby oh he is ashamed of it He will by no means be found in it ver 9. His gain is loss all things but dung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 garbage and filth to be thrown to dogs ver 8. Obsecro expone te paululum saith the Father Good Apostle what paradoxes what riddles are these Unfold thy self What Circumcision Nothing Thy self bledst under the knife The Law Nothing Why it was just and true and holy and good And Righteousness the very name is pretious Expone te paululum We are in a cloud and besieged with darkness we cannot believe S. Paul himself without an exposition Verily a strange contemplation it is and we may at first conceive S. Paul now to have been not in the third heaven but in a cloud Every step is in darkness every word a mystery But yet follow him to ver 8. and some day appeareth the day-spring from on high hath visited us And then the Philosopher will tell us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which is most excellent is most desirable Bring in the knowledge of Christ and righteousness by faith and the righteousness which is of the Law is not a wish nor worth the looking on In Comparisons it is so One object may carry that lustre and eminency above another that they will scarce stand together in comparison What is a Bugle to a Crown What is a Cottage to a Kingdom What is Gold to Virtue What is unrighteousness to the Law And what is the Law to Christ My Apostle then concludeth well Circumcision is nothing and the Law is nothing and gain is loss and all things are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. It is now day with us and Christ himself appeareth But every dawning is not a day Every apparition is not a full manifestation A general notion of Christ is not light enough but leaveth him still as it were in shadows and under the veil To know him is life but to know him crucified saith S. Paul As Apelles in every line so Christ is most clearly seen in the several passages of his glorious dispensation and oeconomy Christ crucified Christ risen from the dead Christ on the wings of the wind in his ascension is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great spectacle worthy our contemplation an object as full of light as comfort Who would not go forth to see such a sight Behold then Faith ver 9. draweth and openeth the veil and presenteth Christ not onely in his bloud and sufferings but in his triumph and resurrection with the keyes of Hell and of Death with power and authority And can we wonder to see S. Paul contemn and spurn at all that he hath to sell all that he hath for this Pearl Should he take up dung and leave a diamond Can we think he forgetteth himself when he desireth to be forgetful of those things which he hath cast behind him Or what posture can we think to behold him in but in that of Extension 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 13. stretched forth and earnestly reaching at the object For see his supply far exceedeth what before he could not want and the gain answereth and confuteth each particular of his loss Do the evil workers cry up Circumcision S. Paul doth so little need it that himself is the supply For we our selves are the circumcision ver 3. That which maketh and constituteth a Christian is the Circumcision of the heart Rom. 2.29 Do they thunder out the Law He is as loud for the knowledge of Christ. Do they plead Righteousness He pleadeth it too but his plea is stronger the Righteousness through the faith of Christ they plead the Law which worketh wrath and cannot give life In a word He will renounce his stock his tribe his sect the Law and will be no more a Jew or Pharisee that he may be a Christian That he may know him and the power of his resurrection c. This is the dependence of my Text. Apart it affordeth thus much variety We have here our Apostle's desire levelled on two things To attain and To know To attain to the resurrection of the dead and To know Christ and the virtue of his resurrection and passion The first is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime architectonical end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher would call it that which setteth all a working a Resurrection to glory The second comprehendeth those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intermediate operations which lead us to this end To rise to glory is a glorious end and it is proposed to all but none attain to it but by the knowledge of Christ and by the power of his resurrection and by the fellowship of his sufferings and conformity to his death I know there is a subordination of Ends but here we cannot suddenly determine which is S. Paul's principal and chief end his desire is carried with that vehemency and so fixed on both He desireth to attain and he desireth to know and he would not know but that he might attain nor attain without this knowledâ—â— He would rise with Christ in glory but he would rise and suffer with him here first in this life He would be a Saint in heaven but first a Christian on earth His desire is eager on both and it is not easie to discern where the flame is hottest I told you he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extended and stretched forth And so he is like Elijah on the child on each part and limb of Christ's oeconomy For though he mention onely his Passion and Resurrection yet he includeth the rest And we must remember to take the great work of our Redemption though the passages and periods of it be various for one continued act S. Paul would be born with Christ and he would die with Christ that he might rise with Christ and that he might reign with Christ His desire is eager but not irregular He would not be with Christ if he were not first like him nor have Glory without Grace nor attain if he did not know nor go to heaven without Christ's unction which may make him conformable to him My Division now is easie Our Apostle desireth to know and to attain And as Knowledge hath its Object
evidence or confirmation at all And therefore saith Tertullian Christ shewed not himself openly to the people after his resurrection ut fides non mediocri praemio destinata difficultate constaret that faith which is destined to a crown might not consist without some difficulty but commend it self by our obedience Nec tam veniam quà m praemium habet ignorare quod credis Not perfectly to know what thou believest doth so little stand in need of pardon that it will procure and bring with it a reward What obedience is it for a man to assent to this That the whole is greater then the part That the Sun doth shine or to any of those truths which are so visible to the eye that they force the understanding and leave there an impossibility â—o dissent But when the object is in part hidden and in part seen when the truth which I assent to hath more probability to speak for it and persuade it then can be brought to shake and weaken it John 20.29 then our Saviour himself pronounceth Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed Again it were in vain that Christ should thus visibly every day shew himself We have Moses and the Prophets We have the testimony of his Disciples who saw him ascend And if we will not believe them neither would we have believed if we had been with them on mount Olivet and seen him received up into the cloud For if we will not believe God's word we should soon learn to discredit his miracles though they were done before the Sun and the people God rained down Manna upon the Israelites For all this they sinned still and believed not his wondrous works The Pharisees saw Christ's miracles yet would have stoned him The people said He hath done all things well yet these were they who crucified the Lord of Life And the reason is plain For though Faith be an act of the Understanding yet it dependeth upon the Will Whence it cometh to pass that many men build up an opinion without any basis or foundation at all without any evidence nay against all evidence whatsoever Quot voluntates tot fides So many Wills as there are nay so many Humours so many Creeds there be For every man believeth as he will I dare appeal to men of the poorest observation and least experience What else is that which turneth us about like the hand of a dial from one point to another from one persuasion to a contrary What is that that wheeleth and circleth us about that we touch at every opinion and settle on none How cometh it to pass that I now tremble at that which anon I embrace though I have the same evidence that that is not Perjury to day which was so yesterday that that is Devotion and Zeal now which from my youth upwards to this present I branded with the loathsom name of Sacrilege How is it that my belief shifteth so many scenes and presenteth it self in so many several shapes Beloved it is the prevalency and victory of our Sensitive part over our Reason that maketh so many several so many contrary impressions in the mind Self-love and the Love of the world these frame our Creeds these plant and build these root out and pull down build up a belief and then beat it down to the ground and then set up another in its place For commonly we believe and disbelieve for the same reason We are Atheists for advantage and we are Christians for advantage We embrace the Truth for our profit and convenience and for our profit we renounce it and we make the same overture for heaven which we do for destruction will believe any thing for a truth that flattereth our humour and count that Truth it self a heresie that thwarteth it In a word that we believe not the Truth is not for want of evidence but for want of will Last of all the knowledge a Christian hath of these high mysteries can be no other but by Faith Novimus si credimus Christian dost thou believe Thou hast then been at mount Olivet and seen thy crucified Saviour ascend into heaven With S. Stephen thou hast seen the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand And though thou canst not argue or dispute though thou canst not untie every knot and resolve every doubt though thou canst not silence the Jew nor stop the mouth of the unbelieving Arheist yet qui credit satis est ei quod credat there is required of thee no more then to believe and to believe is salvation One man saith the Father hath faith another hath also skill and ability to stand out against all the world and comâ— forth a defender of the faith another is strong and mighty in faith but not so able with art and skill to maintain it The one is doctior non fidelior The one hath advantage and preeminence over the other in learning and knowledge but not in faith may be the deeper scholar but not the better Christian may be of necessary use titubantibus to men who doubt but not credentibus to those who stand fast in the faith and liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free Both have the same evidence and it may be as powerful in the one for practice as it is in the other for speculation and argument We know those who saw Christ suscitantem mortuos raising up men from the dead believed not when he believed and confessed him who saw him pendentem in ligno hanging on the cross Surgunt indocti Simple and unlearned men take the kingdom of heaven by violence when the great Rabbies stand below and make no approch Illi ratiocinentur nos credamus Let the wise and the scribe and the disputer of this world argue and doubt our rejoycing is in our faith Let them dispute we will fall down at this great sight Let them reason we will believe not onely that this Jesus was thus taken up but that he shall come again Which is another article of our Creed and our last part and must now serve onely for conclusion And it is good to conclude with comfort And VENIET He shall come again was not onely a Resolve but a Message of comfort by two Angels who stood by in albis in the colours of joy to comfort the Disciples who were now troubled and did stoop for heaviness of heart because Christ was taken away He shall come again Prov. 12.25 was that good word which did make their hearts glad made them return to Jerusalem as Christ ascended into heaven in Jubilo in triumph But now it may be a word of comfort yet not unto all that shall hear it That which is comfort to one may be a sentence of condemnation to another The VENIET He shall come again may open as the heavens to receive the one and as the gates of hell to devour the other For what is a promise to him that is not partaker of
we love him then we love also his appearance and his coming 2 Tim. 4.8 And our Love is a subscription to his promise by which we truly testifie our consent and sympathize with him and say Amen to the Angels promise Amen Even so come Lord Jesus That of Faith may be 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 to 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 that he should come to me and find me with a strumpet in my arms or a sword in my hand fighting against that Power which is his ordinance For doth any condemned person hope for a 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 can idem velle idem nolle will and nill the same things and be of the same mind with that Jesus who is to come when I have made my self the friend of the Judge then Spes festina then Hope is on the wing then substantia mea apud Christum as the Vulgar readeth it my expectation my substance my being is with Christ Nec pareo Deo sed assentior And I do not onely subscribe to the VENIET to his coming because he hath decreed and resolved it but because I can make an hearty acknowledgment that the will of Christ is just and good and I assent not of necessity but of a willing mind And as he who testifieth these things confirmeth the Angels promise with this last word Surely I come quickly so shall I be able truly to answer Even so come Lord Jesus In the last place this VENIET this foretelling of Christ's second coming hath another operation and is powerful to work in us Fear and Circumspection the very prop and foundation of those three Theological vertues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preservative of all the good we have It tempereth our Love that it be not too bold our Faith that it be not too forward and our Hope that it be not too confident It is as a watch and guard upon us to keep us in all our wayes VENIET is of the future tense and though it be most certain that Christ will come yet the time is not determined that we may so love Christ as that we may be fit to believe and hope and long for his coming The VENIET may end this moment and the promise be made good as well this day or the next as a thousand years hence The When God hath kept as a secret in his own breast ut pendulâ expectatione solicitudo fidei probetur saith Tertullian that by suspending our expectation and leaving us uncertain of the time he may make trial of the watchfulness of their faith whom he meaneth to place among the few but great examples of eternal happiness Semper diem observant qui semper ignorant semper timent qui quotidie sperant Whilest men are ignorant of the day they observe every day and fear that Christ may come this minute who they know will come at last Veniet fratres veniet sed vide quomodo te inveniet saith Augustine Brethren he will come he will come assuredly and we must be careful how he findeth us when he cometh He will come not as at the first in the form of a servant but as a King not as a sheep that openeth not his mouth but with a mighty voice shaking the heaven and earth with Angels and with Archangels by the power of his Trump raising the dead out of their graves and bringing them all to his seat of judgment He shall come in great majesty and glory So come say the Angels as ye have seen him go into heaven Which pointeth to the manner of Christ's coming and should now come to be handled But the time will not permit Onely for conclusion let us remember that he shall come and shall not keep silence that a fire shall devour before him and a tempest round about him that he shall come cum totius mundi motu cum horrore orbis cum planctu omnium si non Christianorum with an earthquake and the horrour of the world and with the lamentation of all except Christians Et qui nunc ventilat gentes per fidem tunc ventilabit per judicium And he that now winnoweth the nations and separateth them one from the other by faith will then search and divide the whole world by his last and decretory sentence And let this noise startle the Adulterer in his twilight strike the sword out of the hand of the Rebellious and awake the Atheist out of his deep sleep and lethargy For this Jesus this same Jesus shall so come who placed Adultery in the eye and Murther in the thought and commanded to give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar'◠and he shall judge the Adulterer and the seditious Rebel according to that Gospel which he preached in great humility and which many Christians Atheistical Christians trample under their feet with as great pride 2 Cor. 5.11 And let this terrour of the Lord as S. Paul calleth it persuade men to lay aside every weight and those sins which do so easily beset us our Covetous desires which fasten us to the dust our Pride which though it lift up our heads on high yet at last will have a fall our Ambibition which though it reach the pinnacle yet cannot build its nest in heaven our Seditious and Atheistical imaginations which can never enter that place where Obedience and Humility sit crowned for neither Covetousness nor Pride nor Rebellion can ascend with Christ who was humble and yet the Prince of peace But SURSUM CORDA Let us lift up our hearts even lift them up unto the Lord. Let our conversation be in heaven Imitemur quod futuri sumus Let our life be a type of the Ascension and our present holiness an imitation of our future bliss Let us mortifie our earthly members now that then they may be glorified Let us ascend in heart and with all the powers of our soul now in this life that when this Jesus shall come again in glory and great Majesty we may be caught up in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air and be with him for evermore The Fifteenth SERMON PART I. 1 COR. VI. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's WE have in our last presented before your eyes the bloudy and victorious Passion and glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ The later our Apostle mentioneth ver 14. And God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power raise us not onely out of the grave but out of that deep prison and dungeon
we sit down aâ—d dispute As he is a Saviour we will find him work enough but as he is a Lord we will do nothing When we hear he is a Stone we think onely that he is LAPIS FUNDAMENTALIS a sure stone to build on or LAPIS ANGULARIS a corner stone to draw together and unite things naturally incompatible as Man and God the guilty person and the Judge the Sinner and the Law-giver and quite forget that he may be LAPIS OFFENSIONIS a stone of offence to stumble at a stone on which we may be broken and which may fall upon us and dash us to pieces And so not looking on the Lord we shipwreck on the Saviour For this is the great mistake of the world To separate these two terms Jesus and the Lord and so handle the matter as if there were a contradiction in them and these two could not stand together Love and Obedience nay To take Christ's words out of his mouth and make them ours MISERICORDIAM VOLO NON SACRIFICIUM We will have mercy and no sacrifice We say he is the Lord it is our common language And though we are taught to forget our Liturgy yet we remember well enough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord have mercy And here Mercy and Lord kiss each other We say the Father gave him power and we say he hath power of himself Psal 2. Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance saith God to Christ And Christ saith I and the Father are one We believe that he shall judge the world John 5.22 and we read that the Father hath committed this judgment to the Son Dedit utique generando non largiendo God gave him this commission when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternal generation as the Son of God So Ambrose But S. Augustine is peremptory Whatsoever in Scripture is said to be committed to Christ belongeth to him as the Son of Man Here indeed may seem to be a distance but in this rule they meet and agree God gave his commission to Christ as Man but he had not been capable of it it he had not been God As he is the Son of God he hath the capacity as the Son of man the execution Take him as Man or take him as God this Jesus is the Lord. Cùm Dominus dicatur unus agnoscitur saith Ambrose There is but one Faith Vers 4 5 6. and but one Lord. In this chapter operations are from God gifts from the Spirit and administrations from the Lord. Christ might well say You call me Lord and Master and so I am a Lord as in many other respects so jure redemtionis by the right of Redemption and jure belli by way of conquest His right of Dominion by taking us out of slavery and bondage is an easie Speculation For who will not be willing to call him Lord who by a strong arm and mighty power hath brought him out of captivity Our Creation cost God the Father no more but a DIXIT He spake the word and it was done But our Redemption cost God the Son his most precious bloud and life onely that we might fall down and worship this our Lord A Lord that hath shaken the powers of the Grave and must shake the powers of thy soul A Lord to deliver us from Death and to deliver us from Sin to bring life and immortality to light and to order our steps and teach us to walk to it to purchase our pardon and to give us a Law to save us that he may rule us and to rule us that he may save us We must not hope to divide Jesus from the Lord for if we do we lose them both Save us he will not if he be not our Lord and if we obey him not Our Lord he is still and we are under his power but under that power which will bruise us to pieces And here appeareth that admirable mixture of his Mercy and Justice tempered and made up in the rich treasury of his Wisdom his Mercy in pardoning sin and his Justice in condemning sin in his flesh Rom 8.3 and in our flesh his Mercy in covering our sins and his Justice in taking them away his Mercy in forgetting sins past and his Justice in preventing sin that it come no more his Mercy in sealing our pardon and his Justice in making it our duty to sue it out For as he would not pardon us without his Son's obedience to the Cross no more will he pardon us without our obedience to his Gospel A crucified Saviour and a mortified sinner a bleeding Jesus and a broken heart a Saviour that died once unto sin and a sinner dead unto sin Rom. 6.10 these make that heavenly composition and reconcile Mercy and Justice and bring them so close together that they kiss each other For how can we be free and yet love our fetters how can we be redeemed from sin that are sold under sin how can we be justified that resolve to be unjust how can we go to heaven with hell about us No Love and Obedience Hope and Fear Mercy and Justice Jesus and the Lord are in themselves and must be considered by us as bound together in an everlasting and undivided knot If we love his Mercy we shall bow to his Power If we hope for favour we shall fear his wrath If we long for Jesus we shall reverence the Lord. Unhappy we if he had not been a Jesus and unhappy we if he had not been a Lord Had he not been the Lord the world had been a Chaos the Church a Body without a Head a Family without a Father an Army without a Captain a Ship without a Pilot and a Kingdom without a King But here Wisdom and Mercy and Justice Truth and Peace Reconcilement and Righteousness Misery and Happiness Earth and Heaven meet together and are concentred even in this everlasting Truth in these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. And thus much of the Lesson which we are to learn We come now to our task and to enquire What it is to say it It is soon said It is but three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. The Indian saith it and the Goth saith it and the Persian saith it totius mundi una vox CHRISTUS est Christ Jesus is become the language of the whole world The Devils themselves did say it Matth. 8.29 Jesus thou Son of God And if the Heretick will not confess it dignus est clamore daemonum convinci saith Hilary What more fit to convince an Heretick then the cry of the Devils themselves Acts 19. The vagabond Jews thought to work miracles with these words And we know those virgins who cried Lord Lord open unto us were branded with the name of fools and shut out of doors Whilest we are silent we stand as it were behind the wall we lie
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
So there is nothing in the Church to drive any out of it nothing in the We to divide it Whatsoever things are true â—it 4.8 whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise these make a company a congregation at unity within it self these make many one and carry them together to the house of God with joy and triumph We must then seek for the cause of dis-union abroad For Religion can no more make it then the Sun when it shineth can produce darkness Light and darkness may assoon meet in one as true Religion and Division No Inimicus homo the envious man the Devil doth this It is Covetousness and Pride and Malice and Envy the fruitless fruits of the evil Spirit that have torn the seamless coat of Christ yea that have divided his body that have set up the partition-wall and made of one many 1. Aemulatio mater schismatum saith Tertullian Envy is the mother of division An evil eye which striketh and hurteth when others are in glory which when it cannot behold its own good delighteth in others evil Arius will break forth and trouble all if Alexander be in the chair before him 2. Covetousness that would not onely depopulate but gather in the whole world unto it self Etiam avaritia quaerit unitatem saith S. Augustine Even Covetousness is a great lover of unity would swallow all into it self And then where were the WE It is the observation of Aristotle that that friendship which is enterteined for pleasure is subject but to few quarrels that which is for vertue and honesty to none but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all complaints and quarrels arise from that which is grounded upon profit While they are assistant to one anothers designs so long they have but one purse but one soul but when they come short and fail then they flie asunder and keep distance and look back upon one another as enemies They are one to day and to morrow they are divided Quòd unum velimus duo sumus We therefore disagree because we are so like we are not one and the same because we love one and the same thing Quod vinculm amoris esse debebat seditionis odii causa idem velle That which should draw and knit us together divideth and separateth us namely having the same desires the same mind the same will Covetousness neither careth for union nor community And this is it which raiseth seditions in the Common-wealth and maketh rents in the Church This sent that swarm of Flies and Locusts the Novations the Puritanes of those times disciples of Novatus who would be stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure But saith Nazianzene as pure as he was he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very covetous A disease which may seem to have cleaved to his sect and followers throughout all generations to this day Consider of it judge and give sentence 3. Ambition looketh not back leaveth all behind will be on the top of the ladder Pride lifteth up the nose as the Psalmist speaketh keepeth distance and her word is a Isa 65.5 Go from me for I am holier then thou b Rev. 18.7 I sit as a queen c Isa 47.8 I am and none else besides me The proud man loveth to be alone and would have no companion but would be learned alone beautiful alone rich alone strong alone religious alone d Luk. 18.11 I am not as other men I am not as this Publicane was the Manifesto of a Pharisee and he was proud To conclude These vices which distract us in our selves can never make nor keep us at one with others No it is Humility and Patience and Contempt of the world and the Love of Christ which alone knit this love-knot e Eâ—h 2.14 15. break down the partition wall and make them one cause f Psal 133.1 brethren to dwel together in unity draw them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Septuagint have it to the same thing to have the same faith the same purpose the same mind the same wealth the same wit the same understanding or to be as assistant to one another as if they were the same in a word which make them one in Christ as g Joh. 10.30 Christ and the Father are one that they be of the same quire and sing the same song with the people of Israel IBIMUS Let us or We will go into the house of the Lord. I have been carried away ye see as with a stream but the waters were pleasant Bonum jucundum saith the Psalmist Psal 133.1 Good and pleasant it is for brethren to go together There is but one stage more and we shall be at the journeys end even at the Temple-gates but one circumstance to consider and we shall lead you in and that is 4. Their alacrity and chearfulness in going I told you their long absence rendred the object more glorious For what we love and want we love the more and desire the more earnestly When Hezekiah having been sick unto death had a longer lease of life granted him Isa 38.1 22. he asketh the question What is the sign not that I shall live but that I shall go up to the house of the Lord Love is on the wing chearful to meet its object yea it reacheth it at a distance and is united to it while it is afar off But when it draweth near and a probable hope leadeth us towards it then is Loves triumph and jubilee Love saith one is a Sophister and a Philosopher witty and subtile to compass its own ends a Magician able to conjure down all difficulties and oppositions that lie in its way How doth the Covetous hast to be rich the Ambitious fly to the pinnacle of State the Glutton run to a banquet When the fool had filled his barns he sung a Requiem to his soul When Haman was advanced by the King Luk. 12.19 Esth 5.10 11. he sent and called for his friend and Zerish his wife and told them of his glory We read of one who hired a horse from the cirk to ride to a feast Love is alwayes in hast delighting it self in thoughts of hope and carried on them as on the wings of the wind Thus it is in sensual Love and thus it is also in spiritual When we have once tasted the good word of God Hebr 6.5 and the powers of the world to come when our hearts are possessed with love of God's glory when our minds are truly principled when as the Apostle speaketh Colos 2.6 7. we have received Christ Jesus the Lord and are rooted and built up in him Lord what an heaven is virtue what glory is there in obedience what beauty in holiness what a holy place is a Church how do we faint and pant not onely after religion
in evil as from Gods Grace in good proceed both the Will and the Deed. For when this Persuasion is wrought in us when by degrees we have lessened that honour and detestation of Sin which God hath imprinted in the mind of every man when we have often tasted those delights which are but for a season when this false inscription From hence is our gain hath blotted out the true one The wages of Sin is Death for we seldom take down this sop but the Devil enters when either Fear of inconvenience or Hope of gain hath made us afraid of the Truth and by degrees driven us into a false persuasion and at last prevailed with us to conclude against our own determinations and to approve what we condemn then every part of the body and faculty of the soul may be made a weapon of unrighteousness then we rejoyce like giants to run our race though the way we go be the way that leads unto Death Good Lord what a world of wickedness may be laid upon a poor thin and groundless Persuasion What a burden will Self-deceit bear What mountains and hills will wilfull Errour lie under and never feel them Hamor and Shechem must fall by the sword Gen. 34.26 and their whole city must be spoyled and what 's the ground Nothing but a mongrel Persuasion made up of Malice and Religion vers 31. Should he deal with our Sister as with an harlot Joseph must be sold and what 's the reason Behold the dreamer cometh Absalom would wrest his fathers sceptre out of his hand What puts him in arms Ambition and that which commends Ambition a thought that he could manage it better Oh that I might do justice King and Nobles and Senators all must perish together at one blow For should Hereticks live Holy things must be devoured For should Superstition flourish Such inconsequences and absurdities doth Self-deceit fall upon having no better props and pillars to uphold her then open Falshood or mistaken or misapplied Truth For as we cannot conclude well from false premisses so the premisses may be true and yet we may not conclude well For he that saith Thou shalt not commit adultery hath said also Thou shalt not kill He that condemns Heresie hath made Murder a crying sin He that forbids Superstition abhorreth Sacrilege All that we call Adulterers are not to be slain All that we term Hereticks are not to be blown up All that is or seems to be abused is not presently to be abolished For Adulterers may be punished though not by us Hereticks may be restrained though not by fire and things abused may be reserv'd and put to better uses And yet see upon what a Nothing this Self-deceit upholds it self For neither were they all adulterers that were slain by those brethren in evil nor were they Hereticks who were to be blown up nor is that Superstition which appears so to them whom the prince of this world hath blinded Oh what a fine subtle webb doth Self-deceit spin to catch it self What a Prophet is the Devil in Samuels mantle How do our own Lusts abuse us when the name or thought of Religion is taken in to make up the cheat How witty are we to our own damnation O Self-deceit from whence art thou come to cover the earth the very snare of the Devil but which we make our selves his golden fetters which we bear with delight and with which we walk pleasantly and say The bitterness of death is past and so we rejoyce in evil triumph in evil boast of evil call evil good and dream of paradise when we are falling into the bottomless pit Secondly this Self-deceit which our Apostle forbiddeth hath brought an evil report upon our Profession upon Christianity it self there having scarce been found any of any Religion who have so wilfully mistaken and deceived themselves in the rules of their Profession as Christians Christianity is a severe Religion and who more loose then Christians Christianity is an innocent Religion and full of simplicity and singleness and who more deceitful then Christians The very soul of Christianity is Charity and who more malitious then Christians The Spirit that taught Christianity came down in the shape of a Dove and who more vultures then Christians What an incongruity what a soloecism is this The best Religion and the worst men Men who have learnt an art to make a Promise overthrow a Precept and one precept supplant another sometimes wasting and consuming their Charity in their Zeal sometimes abating their Zeal with unseasonable Meekness now breaking the second Table to preserve the first and defying the image of God in detestation of Idolatry now losing Religion in Ceremony and anon crying down Ceremony when all their Religion is but a complement Invenit diabolus quomodo nos boni sectationibus perdat saith Tertullian By the deceit of the Devil we take a fall many times in the pursuit of that which is good and are very witty to our own damnation What evasions what distinctions do we find to delude the precepts of our Saviour and his Apostles As it hath been observed of those God-makers the Painters and Statuaries of the Heathen that they were wont to paint their Goddesses like their mistresses and did then think them most fair when they were most like that which they most loved so hath it been with many professors of Christian Religion they temper the precepts of it to their own phansie and liking they lay upon them glosses and interpretations as it were colours to make them look like unto that which they most love So that as Hilary observes quot voluntates tot fides there be as many Religions as there be Tempers and Dispositions of men as many Creeds as Humours We have annuas menstrnas fides We change our Religion with our Almanach nay with the Moon and the rules of Holiness are made to give attendance on those sick and loathsome humours which do pollute and defile it If I will set forth by the common compass of the world I may put in at shore when my vessel is sunk I may live an Atheist and dye a Saint I may be covetous disobedient merciless I may be factious rebellious and yet religious still a religious Nabal a religious Schismatick a religious Traytor I had almost said a religious Devil For this saith S. Paul the name of Christ is evil spoken of that worthy Name as S. James calleth it by those who by our conversation should be won to reverence that Name For this that blessed Name is blasphemed by which they might be saved Omnes in nobis rationes periclitantur that I may use Tertullians words though with some change We are in part guilty of the bloud of those deceived Jews and Pagans who now perishing in their errour might have been converted to the faith had not the Christian himself been an argument against the Gospel It might well move any man to wonder that well
that deceived me every man vvould be ready to say Ah my brother or Ah his glory but vvhen it is I my self deceive my self when I my self am the cheater and the fool and never think my self vviser then vvhen I beguile my self it is a thing indeed to be lamented with tears of bloud but yet it deserves no pity at all Nulla est eorum habenda ratio qui se conjiciunt in non necessarias angustias saith the Civilian The Law helps not those vvho entangle themselves with intricate perplexities nor doth the light of the Gospel shine comfortably upon those vvho vvill not see it It is a true saying He that will not be saved must perish Dyed Abner as a fool dyeth saith David Doth this man erre as a fool erreth or is he deceived for want of understanding or because of the remoteness and distance of the object Then our Saviour himself will plead for him John 9. If you were blind you should have no sin But in the Self-deceiver it is not so His hands are not bound nor his feet tyed in fetters of brass His eye is clear but he dimms it The object is near him even in his mouth and his heart but he puts it from him The law is quick and lively but he makes it a dead letter He turns the day into darkness gropeth at noon as at midnight and turns the morning it self into the shadow of death We have a worthy Writer who himself was Ambassadour in Turky that hath furnisht us with a polite narration of the manners of the people and the customes of the places Amongst the rest he tells us what himself observed that when the Turks did fall to their cups and were resolved to fill themselves with such liquor as they knew would intoxicate and make them drunk they were wont to make a great and unusual noyse with which they called down their Soul to the remotest part of their bodies that it might be as it were at distance and so not conscious of their brutish intemperance Beloved our practice is the very same When we venture upon some gross notorious sin which commends and even sanctifieth it self by some profit or pleasure it brings along with it we straight call down our Reason that it may not check us when we are reaching at the prey nor pull us back when we are climbing to honour nor work a loathing in us of those pleasures which we are drinking down as the ox doth water we say unto it Art thou come to blast our riches and to poyson our delights Shall we now part with the wedge of gold shall we fly the harlots lips as a cocatrice Shall we lay our honour in the dust Shall every thing which our soul loveth be like the mountain which must not be toucht Avoid Reason not now Reason but Satan to trouble and torment us What have we to do with thee Thou art an offense unto us a stone of offense a scandal And now if there be a Dixit Dominus against us if the Lord say it he doth not say it if a Prophet speak it he prophesies lyes if Christ speak it we bid him Depart from us for we will be sinful men And hence it comes to pass that our errour is manifest and yet not seen that our errour is known but not acknowledged that our errour is punisht but not felt Hence it comes to pass that we regard not the truth we are angry with the truth we persecute the truth that admonitions harden us that threatnings harden us that judgments harden us that both the sunshine and the storm when God shines upon us and when he thunders against us we are still the same knowing enough but basely prostituting our knowledge and experience to the times and our lusts false to God and our selves and so walking on triumphantly in the errours of our life dreaming of eternity till at last we meet with what we never dreamt of death and destruction Read 2 Kings 8. and see the meeting of Elisha and Hazael The Text saith v. 11 12 13. The man of God wept And when Hazael askt him Why weepeth my Lord the Prophet answered Because I know the evil that thou wiâ—t do to the children of Israel Their strong holds thou wilt set on fire and their young men thou wilt slay with the sword and wilt dash their children and rip up their women with child What did Hazael now think Even think himself as innocent as those children What is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing Should the same weeping Prophet have wept out such a Prophesie to some of after ages and have told them Thus and thus you shall do actions that have no savour of Man or Christian actions which the Angels desire not to look upon and which Men themselves tremble to think on would they not have replied as Hazael did Are we Dogs and Devils that we should do such things And yet we know such things have been done I might here enlarge my self and proceed to discover yet a further danger For Errour is fruitful and multiplies it self It seldom ends where it begins but steals upon us as the Night first in a twilight then in thicker darkness Onely the difference is it is commonly night with us when the Sun is up and in our hemisphere We run upon Errour when Light it self is our companion and guide First we deceive our selves with some gloss some pretense of our own Our passion our lust our own corrupt heart deceiveth us And anon our Night is dark as Hell it self and we are willing to think that God may be of our mind well pleased with our errour Now against this we must set up the Wisdom of God Be not deceived It is not so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is not mocked saith our Apostle This I call'd the Vindication of Gods Wisdom my second part Of which in the next place The Nine and Twentieth SERMON PART II. GALAT. VI. 7. Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap HAving done with the first part of the Text a Dehortation from Errour in these words Be not deceived I proceed to the second which I call a Vindication of God's Wisdome in the next words God is not mocked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an undeniable position The eyes of the Lord saith the Prophet 2 Chron. 16.9 run to and fro throughout the whole earth Deus videt and Deus judicat are common notions which we receive è censu naturae out of the stock and treasury of Nature there being such a sympathy betwixt these principles and the mind of Man that so far forth as the acknowledgment of these will bring us the soul is naturaliter Christiana a Christian by nature it self without the help of Grace There was no man ever who acknowledged a God but gave him a bright and piercing eye This is
Providence and Grace is sufficient for them We are too bold with Scripture and with the precepts and comforts it conteins When we are unwilling to do what we should or in trouble for what we have done we are like men pent up and yet eager after liberty who strive to make a way to escape though they beat out their Brains at the door of the Prison The Covetous man comforts himself by the laborious Ant in the Proverbs the Ambitious by that good Ointment in Ecclesiastes The Hypocrite hath his Text too let your light so shine though his doth but blaze The Contentious man is glad to see Saul and Barnabas at odds The bloudy Gallant sleeps with David in his tent The Schismatick is bold upon his Christian Liberty The Lethargick Christian walks along in the strength of Gods Mercy And he that hath no part in the first resurrection challenges as great an interest as Abraham and Isaac in the second Few there be saith our Saviour yet all believe they shall be saved The gate is streight yet all enter the Miser with his baggs the Ambitious with his train the Revenger with his sword the Wanton with his lusts the Hypocrite with his masque Balaam with his wages Corah with his complices the Covetous in his sweat the Schismatick in fire the Tyrant in bloud All have sinned and all are saved All fall and all rowse themselves up with some misapplyed text of Scripture And if this were true if it were as they thought we might conclude with Pliny Major caelitum populus quà m terrae that Heaven was better peopled then the Earth But it is ill walking through a painted Paradise into torment ill pleasing our selves with those thoughts which will perish and leave us to destruction It is ill building up a Heaven in our phansy and loosing of that which hath a foundation whose builder and maker is God to be happy in a flying thought and then to dwell with Misery for ever O that so many should be saved in this world and yet so many perish in the next These are solatia deceptoria as the Father calls them truly though barbarously deceitful rather lies then comforts the Devils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which he doth stupefie us and take from us all pain and sense of evil comforts that betray us tormenting easments Davids musick to remove the fit that will return again And in carking after these we are as foolish as the shipwrackt person in Hierocles who instead of a planck of the ship laid hold on the anchor which sunk him with a swinge and violence into the bottom of the sea The Scripture it is most true is full fraught with the waters of Comfort but we must be very wary how we draw them Sometimes we draw them out of curiosity to pry into the closet of Gods secrets Sometimes out of pleasure and delight for not only the story but the precepts therein conteined must needs please our reason being so fitted and proportioned to it But they are never more deadly then when we make that a Cordial which we should use as a Purge the Comforts of the Gospel are milk and honey to the humble soul but deadly poyson to him that runs on in his Sin Experience will teach us that a foul corrupt stomach turns that which should nourish the body into a disease And as it is in our bodies if they be distempered good diet is so offensive to them and our appetite is only to trash and phantastical diet so if the crasis and constitution of our soul be vitiated and overthrown the comforts of the Gospel will be but like the sop which Christ gave Judas occasions of diseases and death To think of these as Comforts is but to deceive our selves for though we seem to relish and maintein some shew of life yet these false and misapplied comforts are but as physical and confectionary diet With it we cannot continue long and there is but a span between us and Death Thus then you see the Comforts drawn out of Scripture be best but not unless they be well used and fitly applied We have some reason to be afraid of our Comforts as well as to desire them for they may come too soon when we are not fit for them or we may take draw those to us that are not fit for us We may take them as the Stoick speaks ex adverso situ on the wrong side by a wrong handle and so sink under them as under a burden As it was said of the Fountain of all Comfort Christ himself We may fall upon them and be broken and they may fall upon us and grind us to powder And so we shall walk delicately to our death and dye in our Physicians arms with our Cordials about us We conclude From all evil and mischief from the crafts and assaults of the Devil and from all false and misapplied comforts good Lord deliver us And thus much be spoken in General and by way of deduction and in sensu quem faciunt in that sense which the words will naturally yeeld We come now to take them in sensu quo fiunt in that sense in which the Apostle took them in this particular and we will but touch upon it by way of conclusion Comfort you one another with this article of your faith the coming of the Lord and the Resurrection of the dead And to speak truly this is the ground of all comfort and without this all the rest were but a phansie all the promises all our hopes our faith it self were vain and we were yet in our sinnes under a burden and none to help us under misery and none to comfort us Virtue indeed and Piety are amiable in themselves being the beauty of that Image in which we were made If there were no future estate yet they would be the fairest garment that a reasonable creature could be seen in they would be still what they are but of small use Malo nullum bonum quam vanum saith the father I had rather have no good at all then that which is in vain Quid prodest esse quod esse non prodest What profit is it that they think should be which when it is doth not profit us at all But the coming of Christ will bring us to the Vision of God which like Aristotles Sophia in his Ethicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suum in se continet conteins all contents and comforts and is to be desired for it self alone This s the true fountain then of consolation but it is like the pool of Bethesda which was not medicinal till an Angel had stirred it Our phansied and humours may be as so many evil Angels and defile and take away the virtue from it We may a little change St. Paul's words Why should it be thought a thing so desirable with some men Acts 26. that Christ should come again For should he come to meet the Adulterer in the twilight the
time of age it was best for men to marry it was answered That for old men it was too late and for young men too soon This was but a merry reply But the truth is many of our civil businesses whensoever they are done are either done too soon or too late for they are seldome done without some inconvenience But this our Rising may peradventure be too late for old men but it can never be too timely for the young It is a lesson in Husbandry Serere nè metuas Be not afraid to sow your seed when the time comes delay it not And it is a good lesson in Divinity Vivere nè metuas Be not afraid to live You cannot be alive too soon Vult non vult He wills and he wills not is the character of a Sluggard which would rise and yet loves his grave would see the light and yet loveth darkness better then light like the twin Gen. 38. puts forth his hand and then draws it back again doth make a shew of lifting up himself and sinks back again into his sepulchre Awake then from this sleep early and stand up from the dead at the first sound of the trump at the first call of grace But if any have let pass the first opportunity let him bewail his great unhappiness that he hath stayed longer in this place of horrour in these borders of hell then he should and as travellers which set out late moram celeritate compensare recompense and redeem his negligence by making greater speed And now we should pass to our last consideration That the manifestation of this our Conversion and Rising consists in the seeking of those things which are above But the time is welnear spent and the present occasion calls upon me to shorten my Discourse For conclusion Let me but remember you that this our Rising must have its manifestation and as S. James calls upon us to shew our faith by our works so must we shew and manifest our Resurrection by our seeking those things which are above It is not enough with S. Paul to rise into the third heaven but we must rise and ascend with Christ above all heavens Nor can we conceal our Resurrection and steal out of our graves but as Christ arose and was seen 1 Cor. 15. as S. Paul speaks of above five hundred brethren at once and as S. Luke having told us of Christ The Lord is risen presently adds and hath appeared unto Simon so there must be after our Resurrection an Apparuit we must appear unto our brethren appear in our Charity forgiving them in our Patience forbearing in our Holiness of life instructing them in our Hatred of the world and our Love of those things which are above Indeed some mens rising is but an apparition a phantasme a shadow a visour and no more But this hinders not us when we are risen but we may make our appearance nor must the Pharisee fright away the Christian Quaedam videntur non sunt Many things appear to be that which indeed they are not But this action cannot be if it do not appear If there be no apparition there is no Resurrection It is natural to us when we rise to shâ—w our selves If we rise to honour Acts 25. you may see us in the streets like Agrippa and Bernice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with great pomp If we rise in our Estates for that is the Worldlings Resurrection and not to rise thus with him is indeed to be dead you may see it in the next purchase If we rise and increase in knowledge which is a rising from the grave of Ignorance then scire meum nihil est we are even sick till we vent knowledge is nothing it the world cry us not up for men of knowledge And shall we be so ready to publish that which the world looks upon with an evil eye and conceal that from mens eyes which onely is worth the sight and by beholding of which even evil-doers may glorifie God in the day of visitation Shall Dives appear in his purple and Herod in his royal apparel and every scribler be in print and do we think that rising from sin is an action so low that it may be done in a corner that we may rise up and never go abroad to be seen in albis in our Easter-day-apparel in the white garment of Innocency and Newness of life never make any shew of the riches and glory of the Gospel have all our Goodness locked up in archivis in secret nothing set forth and publisht to the world What is this but to conceal nay to bury our Resurrection it self Nay rather since we are risen with Christ let us be seen in our march accoutred with the whole armour of God Ephes 2. â—0 Let us be full of those good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them for by these we appear to be risen and they make us shine as stars in the firmament We may pretend perhaps that God is the searcher and seer of the heart Well he is so sed tamen luceat opera saith the Father yet let thy light shine forth make thy apparition For as God looketh down into thy heart so will thy good works ascend and come before him and he hath pleasure in them Lift up your hearts They are the words we use before the Administration and you answer We lift them up unto the Lord. Let it appear that you do And therefore as you lift up your hearts so lift up your hands also Lift up pure and clean hands such hands as may be known for the hands of men risen from the dead Let us now begin to be that which we hope to be spiritual bodies that the Body being subdued to the Spirit we may rise with Christ here to newness of life which is our first Resurrection and when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead we may have our second Resurrection to glory in that place of bliss where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God To which he bring us who is our Resurrection and Life even Jesus Christ the righteous who died for our sins and rose again for our justification To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be all honour and glory for evermore The Six and Thirtieth SERMON PHILIPP I. 23. For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Or For I am greatly in doubt on both sides desiring to be loosed and to be with Christ which is best of all WE may here behold our blessed Apostle S. Paul as it were between heaven and earth doubtfully contemplating the happiness which his Death and the profit which his Life may bring perplexed and labouring between both and yet concluding for neither side To be with Christ is best for him to remain on earth is best for the Philippians
this they did contradict themselves who brought in their Wiseman sensless of pain even on the rack and wheel When the Body is an unprofitable burden unserviceable to the Soul oportet educere animam laborantem we ought to do drive the Soul out of such an useless habitation Cum non sis quod esse velis non est quod ultrà sies When thou art what thou shouldst be there is no reason thou shouldst be any longer Quare mori voluerim quaeris En quia vivam Would you know the reason why I would dye The onely reason is because I do live These were the speeches of men strangers from the common-wealth of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of those who were without without Christ and so without God in this world But the Christian keeps his station and moves not from it injussu Imperatoris but when the Lord of all the world commands who hath given us a Soul to beautifie and perfect with his graces but hath not given us that power over it when it is disquieted and vexed as he hath given to the Magistrate over us if we offend and break the peace of the common-wealth Qui seipsum occidit est homicida si est homo He that kills himself is a murderer and homicide if he be a man And he that thus desires death desires it not to that end for which it is desireable to be with Christ but to be out of the world which frowns upon him and handles him too roughly which he hath not learnt to withstand nor hath will to conquer This desire is like that of the damned that hills might cover them and mountains fall on them that they migâ—â— be no more No this desire of S. Paul is from the heaven heavenly drawn from that place where his conversation was wrought in him by the will of God and bowing in submission to his will a longing and panting after that rest and sabbath which remains after that crown which was laid up for him And this Desire filled the hearts of all those who with S. Paul loved God in sincerity and truth in whom the Soul being of a divine extraction and like unto God and cleaving and united to him had a kind of striving and inclination to the things above and was restless and unquiet till it came to rest in him who is the centre of all good Here they acted their parts in the world as on a stage contemned hated reviled it trod it under foot and longed for their exit to go out Vae mihi quia incolatus meus prolongatus est saith David Wo is me that I sojourn in it any longer So Elias who could call down fire from heaven give laws to the clouds and shut and open heaven when he would cryes out unto God It is enough Take away my life for I am not better then my fathers And this affection the Gospel it self instills into us in that solemn Prayer Thy kingdome come wherein we desire saith Tertullian maturius regnare non diutiùs servire to reign in heaven sooner and not to stay longer and serve and drudge upon the earth Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death this whole state and generality of sins of Calamities and those evils which the world swarms with life brings along with it So Pharaoh speaking of the Locusts which were sent Intreat saith he the Lord your God to take away this death from me This desire that vvas in S. Paul in some degree possesseth the heart of every regenerate person and is nourished and fomented in them by the operarion of the blessed Spirit as a right spirit a spirit of Love vvorking in us the Love of God and as a spirit of Peace filling our hearts vvith Peace making our conscience a house of Peace as the Ark of God as the Temple of Solomon where no noise was heard We love Christ and would be there where his honour dwelleth our conscience is at rest and we have confidence in God Now first to love God is not a duty of so quick despatch as some imagin It is not enough to speak good of his name to call upon him in the time of trouble to make laws against those which take his name in vain to give him thanks for that he never did and will certainly punish to make our boast of him all the day long For do not even hypocrites and Pharisees the same But to love him is to do his will and keep his commandments John 17. By this we glorifie him I have glorified thee on earth saith Christ and the interpretation follows I have finished the work thou gavest me to do that is I have preached thy law declared thy will publisht both thy promises and precepts by the observation of which men may love thee and long after thee and be delivered from the fear of death Idem velle idem nolle ea demùm est firma amicitia then are we truly servants and friends to God when we have the same will when we have no will of own The sting of Death is sin and there is no way to take it out to spoil this King of terrour of his power but by subduing our Affections to our Reason the Flesh to the Spirit and surrendring up our wills unto God Then we dare look Death in the face and ask him Where is thy terrour Where is thy sting God loves them that love him nay he cannot but love them bearing his Image and being his workmanship in Christ And he that is thus loved and thus loves cannot but hasten and press forward and fly like the Doves as the Prophet speaketh to the windows of heaven It is a famous speech of Martin Luther Homo perfectè credens se esse haeredem Dei non diu superstes merueret A man that perfectly and upon sure grounds doth believe himself to be the child and heir of God would not long survive that assurance but would be swallowed up and dye of immoderate joy This is that transformation and change by which our very nature is altered Now Heaven is all and the World is Nothing All the rivers of pleasures vvhich this world can yield cannot quench this love What is Beauty to him that delights in the face of God what is Riches to him vvhose treasure is in heaven vvhat is Honour to him vvho is candidatus Angelorum vvhose ambition is to be like unto the Angels This true unfeigned Love ravisheth the soul and setteth it as it were in heavenly places This makes us living dying men nay dead before we depart not sensible of Pleasures which flatter us of Injuries vvhich are thrown upon us of Miseries vvhich pinch us having no eye no ear no sense no heart for the world vvilling to loose that being which vve have in this shop of vanities and to be loosed that vve may be with Christ Secondly this Love of God and this Obedience to his will
done we never set a finger to the work But the Emphasis is here in the Object Be ye followers of me and as many as with me follow Christ All the Saints of God are a copy for a Christian to take out And he is scarce a good Christian who though he attain not to it striveth not to be as good as nay better then the best There are no bounds set to our Coveting the best gifts none to this holy Ambition For can we be too like Christ Can we come too near heaven Who would not be the happiest in heaven and therefore who should not be the best on earth It is good to look over this Paradise and pick the choicest flowers As the Orator telleth us that he that will attain to the sublimity and majesty of speech must fansie to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how Demosthenes or Plato or Thucydides would have spoken upon such a subject so should we in the wayes of Christianity contemplate with our selves what St. Paul or St. Peter or some other of the blessed Martyrs would have done in such a case Would they have turned the back in the day of battel or have spoke or sworn against their conscience at the sight of a glittering Sword Would they have strook sail at every Pirat's threat How did they pray and fast and endeavour towards the end What Resolution was there in one what meekness in another what Patience in a third what Perseverance in all Quid ergò non satis est sic omnia facere quemadmodum Paulus fecit Quintilian asketh the question of Tully and I of St. Paul more famous for Piety then he for Eloquence Is it not enough to do all things as St. Paul did and make him our patern Yes certainly And he maketh a glorious on-set that doth but seriously attempt But as he there goeth on it will be very advantageous in the wayes of Eloquence to imitate the force and vigour of Caesar the acuteness of Caelius the diligence of Pollio and the judgement of Calvus So must we look upon St. Paul and withall take notice of the particular vertues of other holy men of God and it well be our spiritual wisdom to make that our own which is best in every man This is that commendable diligence which Nazianzene admired in great Athanasius that he placed before his eyes Moses and Aaron and Samuel and Elias and other men of God and culled out the Meekness of one the Zele of another the Constancy of a third aliorum multa aliorum omnia many vertues from some all from others and so made up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one specious and glorious image of goodness This honour have all Gods Saints Though we may not worship them or pray unto them This were to dishonour not onely that God who crowned them but themselves also for Honour where it is not due is a kind of contumely yet this honour we must give them to follow them on the same ladder by which they ascended up to heaven By this we raise them as it were from the dead again we revive their memories we personate them in the world and act their parts Our actions are the resultances of theirs our praises the echos of their songs and our selves the living pictures of the Saints Nor can any scruple here arise to deter us For though we are offended with their Pictures we need not startle at their Piety Though we will not be Idolaters God forbid we should yet we must be Saints Though we fall not down and worship them yet we must follow them Though there be no profit in their dust yet there may be in their memory Though they hear us not yet we may hear of them with delight and advantage and hear them calling us out of the world to that bliss which they enjoy Though we may not worship their dead bones yet we are bound to imitate their piety and goodness which are verae Sanctorum reliquiae as Cassander speaketh the true relicks of the Saints Nec parva virtus Dei amicos sic honorare saith the Father And it is no small vertue thus to honour the Saints and friends of God For those that thus honour them God will honour everlastingly And thus much be spoken concerning the Use and Benefit of Example and also of the Object here St. Paul and under his name all the Saints of God In whom we must behold that which made them Saints and take it out and express it in our selves that we also may deserve that name We should now descend to take notice of the Abuse of Examples Which we may avoid by having Christ in our eye as well as the Saints Be ye followers of me but then it followeth even as I also am of Christ But let us first make some use of that which hath already been spoken And first let us with thankful hearts lay hold on those helps and means which God hath fairly offered and setteth up in our way to forward us in our passage unto bliss to kindle and revive our hope to strengthen our weak hands and feeble knees that we may run the wayes of Gods commandments which to flesh and bloud are rugged and unpleasant full of rubs and difficulties And why should we despair to trace those paths which so many have trod before us or reach that glory which so many have already attained Heaven was not made for St. Paul alone but for as many as will be like him It is true the Grace of God is sufficient for us nor can we magnifie it enough if we understand what we say But to talke of the Grace of God and not make use of it is to be an enemy to it This is to cry Hosanna to the Son of David and then to crucifie him We have the Grace of God to stir and move us but not to carry us by violence into heaven We have his promises of Peace and Eternal life and that is a Grace We have the ministry of the Angels who do many good offices for us to this end though we perceive it not and this is a Grace a favour For Grace and favour are all one And we have the ministery of Men who either went before us or are our companions in our way and this is a Grace Grace worketh in us by means by the Word by Promises by the ministry of Angels and by the ministry of Men by their Doctrine and by their Ensample And having such a wide open and effectual door Grace doth lead but will not thrust us in And therefore let us glorifie God for his Grace by making use of it by hearkning what the Lord God will say though he speak unto us by men like unto our selves subject to the same passions and infirmities Let us not loath the water of life when it is conveyed to us in earthen vessels but think that God speaketh to us by St. Paul and by all the Saints that he speaketh to us
Joh. 2.6 when in all our carriage and behaviour we can truly say Sic oculos sic Ille manus sic ora ferebat Thus did or thus said my Saviour The lives and actions of men are subject to errour and the best of God's Saints in all ages have had their falls David is said to have been a man after God's own heart yet if we should follow David in all his paths he would lead us into those two fearful precipices Adultery and Murther Peter was a great Apostle but if we should imitate all Peter's actions we should not follow Christ but deny him In our imitation therefore of men we must observe the Apostles Caution here in the Text and be followers of the Saints even as they also are followers of Christ and no further When they go awry from Christ's example we must leave them be they what they will and carefully follow the presedent that our Lord hath set us He is the Way and the Truth and the Life He never went astray himself Joh. 14.6 neither can he mislead us He will be unto us as the Pillar of the cloud and of sire was to the Israelites a sure Guide to the Land of promise to the heavenly Canaan If we keep our eye still fixed upon him and heedfully and constantly follow his conduct we shall walk in the wayes of Truth and Peace walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called worthy of the name whereby we are called CHRISTIANS we shall give testimony of the truth and sincerity of our Faith and perform the promise and profession made at our Baptism which is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ and be made like unto him we shall adorn the Gospel honour our Master and glorifie our Father which is in heaven in a word we shall guide others in the way to happiness by our good example shining among them as lights in the world and we our selves having served our own generation by the will of God shall in the regeneration and the times of restitution of all things be received by him whom we have followed into those mansions of rest and glory which he is gone to prepare for us that where he is there we may be also The Eight and Thirtieth SERMON PROV XXVIII 13. He that covereth his sinnes shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Rom. 12.16 Prov. 3.7 Prov. 26.12 BE not wise in your own conceits It is St. Paul's counsel And it is the Wisemans counsel also And he giveth the reason for it Seest thou a wise man in his own conceit there is more hope of a fool then of him more hope of him that hath no use of reason then of him that hath and abuseth it that draweth it down to vile and base offices that maketh it ministerial and serviceable to his lusts that first imployeth it as a midwife to bring forth that sinne which his lust hath conceived and then when it hath brought it forth maketh it as a nurse to cherish it first to find out wayes to mature and perfect it and then to cast a shadow to cover it Certainly there is more hope of a fool then of him For a fool setteth not up to himself any end and so is not frustrate or defeated of it But he that is wise in his own conceit is the more unhappy fool of the two for he proposeth to himself an end and doth not only fail and come short of it but falleth and is bruised on a contrary He promiseth to himself glory and meeteth with shame he looketh towards Prosperity and is made miserable he flattereth himself with hope of Life and is swallowed up by death he smileth and pleaseth and applaudeth himself and perisheth he lifteth up himself on high and falleth and is buried in the mire and filth of his own conceits That which he seeketh flyeth from him and that which he runneth from overtaketh him The truth of which hath been visible in many particulars and written as it were with the bloud of those who have sought death in the errour of their lives and here Solomon hath manifested it in this Proverb or wise sentence which I have read unto you For how happy do we think our selves if we can sin and then hide and cover our sin from our own and others eyes and yet Wisdom it self hath said He that doth so shall not prosper What a disgrace do we count it to confess and forsake sin and yet he that doth so shall find mercy Our wayes are not as God's wayes That which we gather for a flower is a noysome and baneful weed that which we make our joy is turned into sorrow that which we apply to heal doth more wound our balm is poyson and our Paradise Hell Ye have heard of the wisedom of Solomon Hearken to it in this particular which crosseth the wisedom of this world He that covereth his sins shall not prosper but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Which words teach us these two things 1. The Danger of covering or excusing our sins He that covereth his sins shall not prosper 2. The Remedy or way to avoid this danger but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy The first we shall especially insist upon and shew it you in respect 1. of God 2. of our selves First the danger of covering our sins appeareth in this that sin cannot be covered cannot admit of excuse Omnis excusatio sui aequitate nititur say the Civilians All excuse is founded on equity and none is good but so far as equity commendeth it As far then as Sin may be covered or excused so far it is not sin at least not lyable to punishment For our own experience will tell us that where excuse with reason may run there it exempteth the accused both from fault and punishment We read Levit. 10. Vers 19. that when Aaron's sons had not eaten the goat of the sin-offering according to the Law and Aaron had made that reasonable excuse which we find that his sorrow for his two sons Nadab and Abihu had made him unfit to eat of those Holy things vvhich they vvere to do rejoycing Deut. 12.7 Deut. 26.14 and vvhen they brought their sanctified things they vvere to say I have not eat thereof in my mourning vvhen he had made this excuse the Text telleth us When Moses heard that he was content And this is the difference betwixt Moral and Ceremonial Laws Aliud sunt imagines saith Tertullian aliud definitiones Imagines prophetant definitiones gubernant We are governed not by Ceremonies vvhich pass away as a shadow but by Laws vvhich are immutable and indispensable Ceremonies are arbitrary and not only Reason but God himself doth in this case frame excuses and putteth them in our mouth and covereth what deformity soever they may present to men that cannot but misinterpret what they understand not David in his Hunger eateth of the shew-bread
our strength And this is all 2. God hath promised to circumcise the heart of his people Deut. 30. that they should thus love him And his promises are Yea and Amen even in temporal blessings much more in spiritual And if we fail yet his promise is true and we have lied against our own souls He gave us strength enough and we have betrayed it to our lusts and the vanities of the world have fallen with our staff in our hand failed in the midst of all advantages and suffered our selves to be beaten down in our full strength when there were more with us then against us 3. Last of all he hath born witness from heaven and hath registred the names of those in his book who have walked before him with a perfect heart as a 2 Chron. 15.17 1 Kings 15.14 Asa b 1 Kings 3.6 David c 2 Kings 23.25 Josiah And this under the Old Covenant Much more then may we attain to it under the New which was brought in to this end to make every thing perfect For there can be no reason given why Christ who is the Son should not make more perfect men then Moses who was but a Servant why the Gospel should not make as good Saints as the Law Divines usually distinguish between Perfection of parts and Perfection of degrees The first they say must be brought into act by cleaving not to one alone but to every commandment of God and casting down every imagination beating down every tentation that may stand between them and it The second is but in wish But in truth there is no reason why they should thus quite shut out that Perfection of degrees For though in the highest degree it cannot be it being the nature of Love Not to consist within any terms To have no Non ultrà in this world To think not of what is done already but what is further to be done or in the Apostle's phrase To forget that which is behind and to reach forth to those things which are before and never to be at rest but on the holy hill Yet there is no reason why we may not admit of a Perfection of degrees even in this life that is that Perfection may be intended to as high a degree as the assistance of God's grace and the breath of the Spirit if we hinder not will raise it For every stream will rise as high as its spring And this is alwayes joyned with a firm purpose of pressing further of proficiency and being better every day of growing in grace of passing from virtue to virtue from perfection to perfection according as we have more grace more strength more light which will increase with our work and raise it self with our endeavours For to him that hath it shall be given and he that walketh in the light shall have more irradiations and illuminations To this Perfection we may ascend higher and higher adde degree unto degree be more and more perfect more strong against tentations more chearful in our obedience more delighting our selves in the Law of the Lord. But he that denieth the Perfection to be possible even in this life instead of easing his soul endangereth it instead of magnifying the Gospel of Christ denieth the power of it and layeth a pillow of security for flesh and bloud to rest on to sleep out the time in the vineyard even to the last hour and so to pass to torment in a dream Indeed Perfection is so often mentioned in Scripture that men are not unwilling to acknowledge there is such a thing but then consulting with flesh and bloud they have found out an art to make it what they please As it is too common a thing when we cannot raise our endeavours and fit and proportion them to the rule to bend and draw down the Law it self and make it condescend and apply it self to our infirmities and even flatter our most loathsom lusts and affections Thus we find Perfection confined to Orders and Offices to Monks and Votaries nay wrapped up in a Monk's coul Men have counted it a kind of Perfection to be sick and die and be buried in one Some have placed Perfection in a sequestered life When though they leave the world and the company of men they may still carry themselves along with them and in the greatest silence and retiredness have a tumult a a very market in their souls And he that converseth in publick may possess all things and yet use them as if he used them not may have a companion and be alone may be a great commander and yet more humble then his servant may secretum in plateis facere make a cell in the streets and be alone in the midst of an army Perfection we may call it but as one faith there is no greater argument of Imperfection then this non posse pati solem multitudinem not to be able to walk without offence in the publick wayes to entertain the common occasions to meet our enemy and encounter him in all places to act our parts in common life upon the common stage and yet hold fast our uprightness shine in the midst of a froward generation and keep our selves unspotted of the world to be Lambs with Lions and Kids with Leopards to live in the coast where Malice breatheth and yet be meek where Rebellion is loud and not forfeit our obedience where Profaness vaunteth it self and yet be religious to be honest in the tents of Kedar to be Lots in Sodom and so to save our selves from a froward generation Not to be able to do this is a great imperfection For Religion can shew it self in any place in any soil in any air in the closet and in the field in the house and in the Temple This man may have a proud heart in a cottage another a low and humble soul in a palace For every man's thoughts are not as low built as his house nor do every great man's imaginations towre in the air In terra omni non generantur omnia saith the Oratour We cannot find all creatures in every soil But a Perfect man is a creature a plant which may grow up in any place Carry a pure heart with thee and thou art safe in a throng But if thy heart be polluted thou art not safe no not in a grott or cave or in the most retired solitariness Again some have placed Perfection in Poverty and a voluntary abdication of the things of this world And yet we see that as Riches may be a snare so Poverty may be a gulf to swallow us up and that Riches may be an instrument to work out Perfection as well as Want And our skill though it be as great in one as in the other yet it is more glorious in the one then in the other as we look more upon a Diamond that is well cut then upon a pebble-stone He is the poorest man that is poor vvhen he is rich It is
is the root and foundation of all obedience Ephes 3 1◠upon which we build up as high as heaven For with such a Look we see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God nay coming and having his reward with him It is the same method which our Saviour teacheth Luke 14.28 For you must do in Looking as you do in Building Which of you saith Christ intending to build a house sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it If you will look into this Law of liberty you must count what it may cost you It may cost you your goods It may cost you your credit even with those who profess the same thing with you who are ready to forsake you It may cost you your bloud But all these losses shall be made up and recompensed with eternity Canst thou see that smiling Beauty and turn away the eye Canst thou see that Honour ready to crown thee and defie it Canst thou behold Riches and esteem them as dung Canst thou meet the raging persecutor and pity and pray for him Canst thou meet Death it self with all its pomp and horrour and through all these undauntedly press forward towards Heaven Then thou hast stooped down inclined thy self and looked into this Law of liberty For if we have not this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and full persuasion if we have not laid this foundation and approved this Law of liberty both in our understanding and practice as the onely way to happiness we may look and look again upon it and be stark blind see nothing in it nothing of that heaven and bliss which is promised And then every breath is a storm every temptation will be an overthrow then every light affliction every evil that cometh towards us will remove the eye from this Law and place it on it self which we shall look on till we faint and fall down for fear and forfeit our obedience even study how to make that false which is so contrary to our lusts and affections Faith and a good Conscience make it a just and full look If we put that away 1 Tim. 1.19 presently concerning faith we make shipwreck For as in Scripture we are then said to know God when we love him so do we truly look into and consider this Law not when we make mention of it with our lips when we think of it remember it meditate of it which is but the extension of our thoughts but when we draw it fasten it to our soul make it as our form and principle of motion to promote those actions that obedience in us for which the Law was made This the Fathers call the circular motion of the mind which first settleth upon the object then is carried back into it self and there boweth and swayeth the powers of the soul and collecteth it self into it self from all forein and impertinent occurrences and then joyneth all its forces and faculties its Will and Affections to the accomplishing of that Good to which the Law of liberty inviteth us To look into the Law ye see is of larger extent then the words do import at first sight and is of singular use It poiseth and biasseth us in all our wayes that we may run evenly to that Blessedness which is set before us It is our Compass to steer our course amidst the waves the ebbings and flowings the changes and chances of this world It is our Angel to keep us in all our wayes It is as the opening of a window into the closet of our souls that that light may enter which may manifest every mote and atome where there was nothing before but vacuity It is our Spy to discover the forces of our Enemy and it is the best strength we have against him It is as the balance of the Sanctuary to weigh every blessing in the Gospel to a grain It is the best divider giving to God those things that are God's and to man those things which are man's It wipeth the paint off from sin and discovereth its horrour It taketh temptation from Beauty and sheweth us fading flesh dust and ashes It strippeth Riches of their glory and pointeth unto their wings It seeth a deceiver in the Devil in Christ a Lord and Saviour and in his royal Law it beholdeth Heaven and eternity of bliss All this virtue and power hath this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this looking into the Law and due considering of it Which by being looked into becometh the savour of life unto life but when we take off our eye is made the savour of death unto death A steddy and heedful look purchaseth and a careless glaunce forfeiteth our Liberty To look is to be free and not thus to look is to have Canaan's curse upon us to be servants of servants for ever And now tell me how many be there that thus look into the Gospel how many that thus weigh and consider it Many walk saith S. Paul Many look we may say of whom we may speak weeping that they are enemies to the Law of liberty The Papist looketh into it and there he findeth a Triple crown The Schismatick looketh into it and he findeth a sword to divide him from his brethren The Anti-papist Jesuite looketh into it and findeth the draught and model of a new Discipline The Enthusiast and Spiritual man looketh into it and findeth nothing but Ink and Words The Libertine looketh into it For the Law is in himself Quarunt quod nusquam est inveniunt tamen They look and seek that which cannot be found and yet they find it every man his humour and the corruption of his own heart There is much in the Eye For the Law of liberty is still the same It moulteth not a feather changeth not its shape and countenance But it may appear in as many shapes as there be tempers and constitutions of the eyes that looketh into it An Evil eye seeth nothing but faction and debate A lofty eye seeth nothing but priority and preeminence A Bloud-shot eye seeth nothing but cruelty which they call Justice All the errours of our life as the Philosophers speak of the colours of the Rainbow are oculi opus the work of the Eye For the Law it self can lend nothing towards them but stareth them in the face when the eye hath raised them to shake and demolish them It were good then to clear our eye before we look into the Law lest whilest we find what pleaseth us we find what will ruine us But oh that we should have such Eagles eyes in the things of this world and be such Batts in the Gospel of Christ The Covetous looketh into the world and that hath power to transform his soul into earth The wanton looketh upon beauty and that turneth his into flesh David beholdeth Bathsheba in her bath and is on fire Ahab looketh upon Naboth's vineyard and is sick The eye of flesh pierceth deep into
we hold up our obedience and carry it on in a continued course that he is with us whilest we are with him But we cannot be certain that we shall persevere when we do not persevere that God's grace and favour is the same when we kiss him and when we oppose him when we bow before him and when we lift up our selves against him He doth indeed look upon us in our bloud but we cannot be sure of his favour and loving kindness till we be cleansed The ground of all comfort is to remain in this Law of liberty but what comfort is it to persuade my self I do remain in it even then when I am an enemy to the Gospel of Christ I say this taketh not one drop of comfort from those who love Christ and keep his commandments For their comfort is that they do persevere in the grace and favour of God and that as long as they are obedient they are under his wing If our conscience condemn us not then have we boldness and confidence with God And what greater consolation can there be then this that whilest I remain in the Law of liberty I shall be blessed whilest I abide in the Vine I cannot wither whilest I am built upon the Rock I cannot be shaken And if I seek not my comfort here where shall I find it All the comfort which a Christian can have in this life is that he is in Christ Jesus and by his power hath crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts And it will be in vain to look back on Eternity For in the leaves of Eternity it is written in a character indeleble that none but they that repent shall be saved Thus the fountain of comfort lieth open to those who are obedient to the Gospel but is shut to those who stand out No drop of comfort is due to them who are free from righteousness and servants to sin To these and whilest they are in this condition to these and as they are such belong reprehensions and comminations and woes as the whip is most proper for the fool's back and not a robe of honour tribulation and anguish upon every soul that sinneth and repenteth not that he may repent When Nathan came to David after that complication of sins he doth not smooth him up and tell him Thou art a man after God's own heart Thou art a child of God an elect vessel Be of good comfort thou art faln into this great sin but not from the favour of God thou art fallen but if thou fall never so oft thou canst not fall for ever But when David himself had pronounced the sentence of death against the offendor he telleth him to his face Thou art the man that hast given great ocâ—asion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme and with this rod he smote the rock a heart unsensible of sin and the waters gushed forth and watered his couch and being open to let out those waters of bitterness it was open also to receive those of comfort which stream from the rivers of the Lord and make glad the heart Comfort is the inheritance of him that abideth in Christ not of him that departeth from him and leaveth him upon his Crosâ— and crucifieth him again To say we are certain of perseverance in what condition soever is to say we are certain to persevere when we do not persevere and so maketh Solicitude and Watchfulness in the wayes of Christianity unnecessary divideth and separateth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maketh a look enough and leaveth remaining as a thing arbitrary or at least maketh them both one so that to look into the Gospel will be to remain in it For according to this new doctrine the same certainty of perseverance belongeth to them who fall and to them who stand to them who are weary and to them who continue in well-doing the same certainty may be had without which is and must be acquired and maintained by the exercise of piety alone And this is to tread the air or fluctuate upon the waters when we shall find no rest for our foot but on the Ark This is to set up a heaven in our phansie and gaze upon it till we quite lose the sight of that which is the portion of the Saints This is to build without a foundation or a foundation which is but air But no other foundation can any man lay but that which is laid which is Jesus Christ that is the doctrine of the Gospel of Christ And upon due obedience to this vve may raise our certainty as high as heaven Here it will lye firm and sure no wind shall scatter it no tempest shake it but it will remain in us as long as vve remain in our obedience to this Law of liberty the Gospel of Christ To remain in it and To be certain of happiness are joyned together by God and no man no Devil can put them asunder In a word To fall away and To be certain are incompatible but To remain and To be certain stand fast together for ever and are unseparable I might here enlarge my self and shew you that this denial of the certainty of our Perseverance as it doth not any way deprive the true Christian of his spiritual comfort but is rather an helper or promoter of it so neither doth it derogate from God's power For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene he doth not uphold us against our will And it is power he useth and not violence a power which may beget but not destroy obedience which cannot consist with violence and necessity Nulla laus non facere quod facere non potes It is no commendation not to do that which thou canst not do And what vertue vvhat obedience is it to do that which thou canst not but do The precept or Law supposeth a power left in him to vvhom it is made either to obey or disobey Nor doth it defeat God of his end and purpose For his end was upon condition and his end was to punish him that remaineth not and to crown him that persevereth But I am unwilling to lead you into the briars The truth is the vvay is plain and easie but some men have made it rugged and uneven by walking in it as he told the Orator vvho complained he was fallen in locum spinosum into a thorny and difficult place Pedes hîc non spinas calcant sed habent The thorns were on his feet not in the way Men have raised that dust with vvhich they vvere troubled and made that difficult which vvas easie by groundless and unnecessary doubts For vvhat should we talk of Not-falling vvhen vve see a man lying in the pit of Certainty of standing when he is most certainly on the ground of Remaining when he is gone away of his Perseverance who hath committed those sins of vvhich S. Paul saith He that doeth them shall not inherit the kingdom of
vanity or the next business will drive it away and take its place Nor let us make a room for it in our Phansie For it is an easie matter to think we are free when we are in chains Who is so wicked that he is not ready to persuade himself he is just And that false persuasion too shall go for the dictate of the Holy Ghost Paganism it self cannot shew such monsters as many of them are who call themselves Saints But let us gird up our loins and be up and doing the work those works of piety which the Gospel injoyneth It is Obedience alone that tieth us to God and maketh us free denisons of that Jerusalem which is above In it the Beauty the Liberty the Royalty the Kingdom of a Christian is visible and manifest For by it we sacrifice not our Flesh but our Will unto God and so have one and the same will with him and if we have his will we have his power also and his wisdom to accompany it and to to fulfil all that we can desire or expect Servire Deo regnare est To serve God is to reign as Kings here and will bring us to reign with him for evermore Let us then stand fast in our obedience which is our liberty against all the wiles and invasions of the enemy all those temptations which will shew themselves in power and craft to remove us from our station In a calm to steer our course is not so difficult but when the tempest beateth hard upon us not to dash against the rock will commend our skill Every man is ready to build a tabernacle for Christ when he is in his glory but not to leave him at the Cross is the glory and crown of a Christian And first let us not dare a temptation as Pliny dared the vapour at Mount Vesuvius and died for it Let us not offer and betray our selves to the Enemy For he that affecteth and loveth danger is in the ready way to be swallowed up in that gulf Valiant men saith the Philosopher are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quiet and silent before the combat but in the trial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ready and active But audacious daring men are commonly loud and talkative before encounters but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 flag and fail in them The first weigh the danger and resolve by degrees the other are peremptory and resolve suddenly and talk their resolution away It is one thing to talk of a tempest at sea another to discourse of it leaning against a wall It is one thing to dispute of pain another to feel it Grief and Anguish hath not such a sting in the Stoicks gallery as it hath on the rack For there Reason doth fight but with a shadow and a representation here with the substance it self And when things shew themselves naked as they are they stir up the affections When the Whip speaketh by its smart not by my phansie when the Fire is in my flesh not my understanding when temptations are visible and sensible then they enter the soul and the spirit then they easily shake that resolution which was so soon built and soon beat down that which was made up in haste Therefore let us not rashly thrust our selves upon them But in the second place let us arm and prepare our selves against them For Preparation is half the conquest It looketh upon them handleth and weigheth them before hand seeeth where their great strength lieth and goeth forth in the power of the Spirit and in the name of Christ and so maketh us more then conquerers before the sight And this is our Martyrdom in peace For the practice of a Christian in the calmest times must nothing differ in readiness and resolution from times of rage and fire As Josephus speaketh of the military exercises practised amongst the Romans that they differed from a true battel only in this that their battel was a bloudy exercise and their exercise a bloudless battel So our preparation should make us martyrs before we come to resist ad sanguinem to shed a drop of bloud To conclude as the Apostle exhorteth let us take unto us the whole armour of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand to stand against the horrour of a prison against the glittering of the sword against the terrour of death to stand as expert souldiers of Christ and not to forsake our place to stand as mount Sion which cannot be moved in a word to be stedfast unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord. For 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 The Seven and Fortieth SERMON PART VII 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 TO Persevere or continue in the Gospel and To be blessed for ever are the two stages of a Christian the one here on earth the other in heaven and there is scarce a moment but a last breath between them nothing but a mouldering and decaying wall this tabernacle of flesh which falleth down suddenly and then we pass and enter And that we may persevere and continue means are here prescribed first assiduous Meditation in this Law we must not be forgetful hearers of it but look into it as into a glass vers 23 24. yet not as a man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass and then goeth away and forgetteth himself not as a man who looketh carelesly casteth an eye and thinketh no more of it but rather as a woman who looketh into her glass with intention of mind with a kind of curiosity and care stayeth and dwelleth upon it fitteth her attire and ornaments to her by a kind of method setteth every hair in its proper place and accurately dresseth and adorneth her self by it And sure there is more care and exactness due to the soul then to the body Secondly that we may continue and persevere we must not only hear and remember but do the work For Piety is confirmed by Practice To these we may now add a third which hath so near a relation to Practice that it is even included in it and carrried along with it And it is To be such students in Christ's School as S. Paul was Acts 24.16 To study and exercise our selves to have alwayes a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men Not to triflle with our God or play the wanton with our Conscience Not to displease and wound her in one particular with a resolution to follow her in the rest Not to let our love of the world or fear of danger make that a truth which we formerly
mind whence 554. Men love to hide their sins and to make shew of their good deeds 167 168. Man is never free but while he is obedient to Law 1100 c. v. Liberty How Man is Lord of all his actions 257. Man ever laid open to tentations how and why 280. Few Men fully perswaded of their mortality 250 251. Manichees 8. 165. 171. 412. 705. 752. Many v. Multitude Marcion 8 9. 21. 23. 246. 390. 412. 808. Marie the Mother of our Lord a blessed person 985. Some will not call her Saint 986. Others make her more 986. Mark xiv 36. expounded 25. Marriage v. Husband Perfection may be had as well in a Married as in a single life 1090. The inconveniencies of Marriage nothing so dangerous as Sin 1090. Martyrdome An excellent encomium of it 754. How to be armed for Martyrdome 192. A good life and a good cause go to the making of a Martyr 705. Their gallant and triumphant carriage in their sufferings 26. 568 569. Fear of hell made them so couragious 391. v. Sufferings Every Christian is designed to Martyrdome 573. There may be a Martyrdome before Martyrdome 82. The Devil and Errour have their Martyrs as well as God and the Truth 704 705. 912. Some slain for throwing down Images not allowed the title of Martyrs 215. Massalians 705. Mass-book Some condemn some truths because they are in the Mass-book 671. Masters of families Their Duty 545. Mathematicks No such certainty to be looked for in Ethicks as in M. 1015. Matth. v. 22 28 32 34 39 44. 1079. ¶ 48. 1087. how eluded 690. ¶ vi 25 34. 222. ¶ vii 12. 127. ¶ viii 26. 314. ¶ x. 16. 130. ¶ xi 30. 481. ¶ xxii 30. 939. ¶ xxiv Christ's Sermon in this chapter concerning the signes of his second coming nearly concerneth us 1042 1043. Matrimonie and Virginity weighed together 1090. Meaning A good Meaning or intention a poor excuse for sin 443. 447 448. Means v. End Many gaze and dote on the Means and regard not the end 988 989. Means if not made good use of turne to our great disadvantage 424. 555. Measures v. Weights Meats now under the Gospel may be indifferently used or not used 1098. Mecenas 383. Mechanick A witless etymon of the word 522. Meddling with other mens matters reproved 212. 640 641. It is against not onely the laws of Christianity 213. but also the method of Nature 214 216. Meddling busy-bodies are enemies to others and themselves also 215. They are ridiculous and prodigious 216. Idleness is the root of this vice 218. Meditation on good things how advantageous 206. 691. It is to be seconded by Practice 207. Meditation what 597. 1107. Memorie Of the Memorie 828. What a gratious efficacie the Memorie of God's Mercy hath upon the soul 828 829. Our Memories are apt to forget God's mercies and have need of reviving 589. 596. ¶ What care vvas taken to preserve the Memorie of the Saints 1019. Mercy praised 138. 147. It is an inseparable companion of Justice 138 139. We are as much bound to do acts of Mercy as not to do an injurie 139. 142 143. Nothing more sutable to the Nature of Man then Mercy 140. Mercy maketh Man like unto God 279. What influence God's Mercy and ours have one upon another 815. v. Forgiveness Mercy maketh a sympathie and harmonie in the Church 141. Why worldly men like it not 142. It is often rewarded in this life but in the next infallibly 143. The M. of the primitive Christians how far beyond ours 144 145. Less danger to exceed herein then to fall short 145. Distinctions coyned to elude Texts that enjoyn Mercy 146. Compassion the spring of Mercy 147. 149. v. Almes To love Mercy what 150. Mercie is natural 150. constant 151. sincere 152. delightful 153. Objects of Mercy appear every where 154. Motives to Mercy 153. Our Mercy to others is the rent God respecteth for his M. to us 154. God's Mercy and his Justice reconciled by Christ's Death and our Repentance 347. Why the antient Fathers were so profuse yet sparing tenderers of God's Mercy 349 350. The Mercy of God fearfully abused by some 276. Make not Mercy an occasion of sin 352 353. Mercy and Judgment should compose our song 353. Judgement followeth Mercy at the heels 360. v. GOD. The use we should make of God's Mercies 579. 590. 1072. Sins after Mercy the greater 612 613. Mercy is of most efficacie to humble our hearts 643. Merits The doctrine of Merits overthrown 812 813. 1126. All we can do or suffer is far short of meriting heaven 233. 993. 1126. Messias Christ is not such a Messias as the Jews looked for and as some worldly-minded Christians frame to themselves 33. A glorious Messiah was exspected by the Jews 553 554. 559. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 336. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 336. Metaphors fruitfull of controversie 46. Their use 229. Metellus Numidicus 668. Method and Order how necessarie to be followed 885. as necessarie in Christ's School as in humane Arts and Sciences 68. 947. Want of Method what mischief it worketh in the world 892. c. 945 946. Meum and Tuum quarrelsome vvords 840. Milk by some not allowed to be eaten 752. Mind v. Man The Mind is the Man and the action too 622 623. It cannot intend several things at once 509. Whether it be not necessarie that the Mind should still fluctuate and be lost in uncertainties 678. The Mind is apt to be dazled with some lesser good vvhen it should be intent upon far greater 988 989. Ministers must not flatter 511 512. v. Flattery Miracles v. Conversion The end and use of Miracles 572 c. 957 c. 968 969. 978. 988. In respect of the Agent properly there is no Miracle 969. Why M. are now ceased 970. Of Popish Miracles 970. He that will not believe the Word vvould not believe a Miracle 734. 970. What Christ did in person he doth still spiritually by his Church 970. Christ's Miracles preferred before Moses's 978. Christ's M. were supernaturall publick quick perfect 979. Miracles should fill us with admiration 979. Miracles may be scoffed at by profane men 956 c. Miserie to be chosen rather then Iniquity 127. Mockery Most mens conversation is but a Mockery of God 919 c. 958. How vvicked men are said to mock God vvho in very deed cannot be mocked 923 c. God will return the Mock upon them that mock him 925. v. Scoff Moderation to be observed 56. Moderation in the pursuit of Knowledge commended 248. Modestie in apparel to be used 1101. Monitours vve should be to one another 576. Monks and Friars censured 220. v. Perfection Solitarie Montanus 65. 752. Morality scorned and derided by speculative hypocrites 83. Morall Laws v. Ceremonie Morall virtues are not natural 199. but must be studied and laboured for 205. Of the Morall virtues of the Heathen 663. v. Heathen Morose v. Christianity Mortality Of our Mortality 538. How little believed
must not be apt to suspect others but we cannot be too suspicious of our selves 624. Swearing The Lawfulness of S. is a point but sparingly to be taught 618. T. TAutologies Their use in Scripture 342 Temperance v. Sobriety Temporal things v. Spiritual and Worldly They are given by God to uphold the Body 896. also to be instrumental to the Soul 897. Why Temporal blessings are not so oft mentioned in the N. T. as in the Old 899. To whom the right of these belongeth 900 God withholdeth these from us ofttimes in great mercy 902. Neither to enjoy nor to want these things is pleasing to God or profitable to us but to know how to use and how to want them 903. Tentations what and how they become prevalent 260 261. None can prevail over him who is watchful 259. The beginning and progress of T. 261. 270. T. are not onely occasions but also Arguments 261 262. Some work upon us with a smile 262. others with a frown 263. T. may be in the Senses yea in the Mind without sin 264. and in the Phansie 265. That we may overcome the Tempter let us compare the apparent good he offereth with that which is real 269. T. must not be slighted nor dallied with 270 T. work according to the humours and tempers of men 376 377. 601. We must not thrust our selves upon T. 1118. Tertullian pretended Revelation for justification of his errours 62. Thales 415. Themistocles 216. 1 Thess ii 10.119 2 Thess iii. 10.222 Thieves A Thief who 220. Petty Thieves are oft snapt-up but the greatones none dare meddle with 133. Thoughts are not free but as visible to God's ey as Actions 172. Good Th. are to be cherished 361 362.798 799. Evil Th. are but should not be very active and powerful 362.798 Th. how wavering inconstant 596 Our Th. when overbusied about some lesser good should be diverted to that which is necessary and saving 988 989. Threatnings and Promises sense-in Precepts 398. v. Rewards God threatneth that he may not punish 323 324. Thurisicatores 1121. Time is nothing to God nor in it self 238. 1043. With God there is no difference of T. but all things are present 1043. Times are not for us to know 250. Better to spend the present T. well then to busy ones thoughts about the future 250 251. How very little of our T. is spent in spiritual exercises 271. Time must be taken while T. serveth 355. v. Opportunity There is a T. when a man shall not be able to repent 359 c. 794 c. v. Repentance Nations have their set T. and so have particular persons 359 360. 795 c. Very good to think every day hour moment our last 361. The present T. is the proper season to turn to God in 361 c. 366 c. It is a part of Prudence to make choice of fit Times and seasons 1002. There is no T. amiss to turn unto God 1002. 1 Tim. ii 8.847 ¶ v. 8.222 2 Tim. i. 12.314 ¶ ii 5.282 ¶ iii. 10.222 ¶ 16 17.1073 ¶ iv 3.876 Tit. ii 11.584 Titus the Emperour 's worthy saying 279. Tongues Of the gift of T. at Pentecost 956. There is an harmonie between the Heart and the Tongue 976 977.983 Trades many unnecessary unlawful 219. Tillage and Husbandry the first T. 219. Motives to industry in our T. 521 522. v. Calling Worthy Persons have not disdained mean T. 522. The honest mean Trades man is more honourable then the profane Gallant 528. What Tullie thought of those Trades-men that buy to sell again 655. Traditions how magnified by the Church of Rome 1079 c. Traditores 1121. Transsubstantiation v. Lord's Supper Triall v. Examination Tribute how sordidly raised by some Princes and States 131 132. Trinity why not plainly discovered to the Jews 349. Trust Bad bold men were they who said We will trust God with our souls rather then Men with our estates and lives 673. Why men trust in the Creature for health wealth victory not in God 783 784. Truth It s Authour and effects 57 58. Why so few learn it 65. Four rules for the atteinment of it 66 c. Worldly men take Divine Truths for mere speculations 113 T. is the most offensive thing in the world 187. 656. 659. How it is persecuted by the world 187. Love of the T. maketh a man ready to suffer for it 192 193. 550. God is then most glorified when we lay down our lives for the T. 754. Curious enquiry after things impertinent hinder our finding-out of the T. 248. To press some Truths is sometimes more dangerous then to maintein some errours 349. The worst hearts have some seeds of Divine T. 371. T. is hated by most because like a Satyre it lasheth them 438. 498. v. Errour T. must be taught received without mixture addition subtraction 506 507. That Errour is most dangerous that cometh nearest to the T. 507. T. is to be spoken whatever cometh of it 510. 982 983. T. is seldome welcome unless we like him that teacheth it 534 535. T. is still the same whether she have many advocates or none yet we have need of light to discover it to us 547 548. 971. v. Knowledge Love of the T. resembled to Fire 550. v. Love T. striketh a reverence into those who neglect it 553. 662 1125. T. is to the Understanding as Colours to the Ey or Musick to the Ear 554. T. is a purchase all may all ought to buy 657. 661. What the Truth Prov. xxiii 23. is and how much it benefiteth us 658 c. No Truth so necessary to be known by us as that 659. It s transscendent excellencie 660. It is proportioned to the Soul of Man yea of every man 661. v. Piety It is lovely in the eyes of all even of theirs who oppose it 662. Without this Riches moral Virtues outward Performances will nought avail us 663. On what terms the T. is to be purchased 664. T. is easy and plain to all but such as will not learn 664 665. T. was never more pure then while it was conteined in one short Creed 665. T. will not be had by Fate or Chance we must bestow great pains for it 666 c. Why so few make this purchase 668. How highly some Heathens valued T. 670. We must part with our corrupt Affections as Love Hatred Fear Hope for the Truth 670 c. Yet these are not to be quite parted with but made serviceable to promote the T. 672 c. If we will buy the T. we must cast away all Prejudice 675 c. 974. v. Prejudice T. is not prejudiced by the antiquity of Errour 681. If we would get the T. we must not tie our belief to any man or to any Church 686. but make use of right Reason in the business 686 687. If we will buy the T. we must cast away all Malice to it 688 c. We must receive it not by halves but whole and entire