sure to be in Christ as in the Text Christ Jesus my Lord we are in him and then we have understanding 1 John 5. 20. when in the light then inlightned when betrothed to him it s then promised that we shall know him Hos 2. 20. 2. When once in him endeavour with all Care and Conscience to walk on in the fear of His Name in obedience to his Will in a course of Holiness and Righteousness before him and that 's the best and nearest way yet further to know him Fear in Nature is one of the most quick and apprehensive affections Fear and the Prophet saith of Christ Himself that he was of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. How oft in Scripture is Isa 11. 3. Psal 111. 10. Prov. 1. 7. 9 10. Job 28. 28 Robinson it called the Beginning of Wisdom as both having the promise of it Psal 25. 12 14. and being ever careful and solicitous in using and improving all the means of it And where Gods promise and our endeavour meet something is ever made of it For Obedience Keep and do for this is your wisdom and understanding Obedience Psal 111. 10. saith Moses Deut. 4. 6 7. and if a man will do he shall know saith our Saviour John 7. 17. Here as in other things we learn by practising and come to know by doing Let not our Scholars be like the Athenians of whom it s said Scire quidem quid deceat sed negligere For Theologia vita est non scientia They Erasm Adag pag. 456. knew righteousness in whose heart was the Law Isa 51. 7. for Lex Lux and therefore where that light is there will be the less darkness For Holiness Piety and Purity you may please to hear what Holiness St. Austin saith whatever is in the World yet for the City of God In hâc nulla est hominis sapientia nisi Pietas Piety there is the best De Civit. Dei lib. 14. cap. 28. Policy I know you will believe our Saviour when he saith Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5. 8. And so Aquinas you know makes the Donum Intellectûs to answer to this fifth Beatitude And lastly for righteousness The secret of the Lord is with the Righteousness Righteous saith Solomon Prov. 3. 32. Seminate justitiam illuminate vobis lumen scientiae So the LXX would make the Prophet speak Hos 10. 12. As light is sown for the Righteous so the light Psal 97. 11. of this saving knowledge of Christ is sown in a way of righteousness So David ends his Psalm and I my Sermon Psal 17. ult As for me I shall behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness And thus the Eminency of this saving Knowledge of Christ II. Part. should raise up our hearts in the use of these means to endeavour after it NAY to account all else as loss in Comparison of it At St. Maries April 3. 1653. Which is the second part of the Text and the highest pitch of our duty which our Blessed Apostle had here attained and as it were standing upon the highest round of this Jacob's Ladder by this his example he saith to us as the voice from heaven did to John Revel 4. 1. Come up hither And therefore Sursum Corda that our Souls were indeed on the Wing because it 's an high flight that we are to take above all outward Eminencies or inward Excellencies She that is clothed with the sun hath the Moon under her feet Revel 12. 1. And if ever we would savingly know Christ we with our Apostle must account all things loss for this excellent knowledge of Christ and ex animo even from the heart say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea doubtless and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. All of them very great words and magni animi Blest Noble Soul to which a despised Christ is of so great worth that in comparison of him all other greatest things are less than nothing This is a strain above the Grandees of this Worlds greatest Gallantry which yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven can truly say and the less he is in his own Eyes the more truly and affectionately he can say it as he here in the Text who accounted so meanly of himself as the least of the Apostles and less than the least 1 Cor. 15. 9. Eph. 3. 8. of all Saints yet so highly of Christ that he accounts nothing of worth without him nay all loss for him And that you may not conceive him herein to brag and vapour confider a little his particular words and expressions which I have in part touched before but must here again take them into further consideration that by the pregnancy of his words we may see how full his heart was of the love of Christ and at how high a rate he valued this invaluable transcendent excellent knowledge of him And to this purpose Consider we 1. The Emphatical significancy of his words in themselves 2. His doubling and multiplying of them 3. How he riseth in his expressions when you compare them one with another 1. The words are Emphatical and strongly significant as you will see if you will run over them as they lie in the Text. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold a troop comes Here 's such a cluster of words as we cannot grasp or the best Grecian well tell how to express in English as Tully said the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not be expressed in Latin No fewer than five Greek Particles crowded together the more fully to express not so much the strength of the asseveration as of his affection 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I account upon his serious and diligent casting up the account He sets this down at the foot of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non dubito Duco Judico An Act of his deliberate judgment which he Certò duco Zanch. made no doubt of but was clearly led on to and was fully setled in 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things That 's a great word and contains many particulars as we shall see hereafter But doth he not over-lash as he called his Book Jesuitica liberalitas in their full mouthed Vniversalis Jacobus Laurentius Omnis Nullus Semper Nunquam c. or is he not a careless inconsiderate Prodigal that will thus venture and lose all at one cast before he had viewed and weighed and considered what a great and massy sum this All came to No he had weighed Christ in the one balance and All things else in the other and they in comparison proved lighter than vanity it self and therefore he calls them 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 loss in the very abstract in which is no gain and so Grotus H. Stephan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 7th verse to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 8th 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what was gain I counted loss for Christ But as though he had said that is not enough nor spoken strongly enough I have more to say and that more confidently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quin etiam certè an asseveration not more unusual than strong and expressing his stronger resolution upon further deliberation no fewer than five Greek Particles put together and yet no Pleonasm nor any of them expletive unless to set forth his fuller certainly and setledness in this particular 2. From an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 7. what things or those things to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 8. The indefinite is risen up to an universal to an All things not only his Jewish Priviledges in the former Verses but even to his best Christian Graces in this Nor did he think that he De justificat lib. 1. cap. 19. blasphemed in saying it though Bellarmine be bold to say that we do in so interpreting it 3. From an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have accounted in the time past v. 7. to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this 8th verse I do account them so for the present as not altering his judgment or repenting of his bargain as sometimes men do of a formerly over-valued novelty which afterward they have lower and yet wiser thoughts of But it was not so with him as appears from 4. The 4th step from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the beginning of this verse to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the latter end of it For Christ he accounted all things not only loss which yet in themselves might be precious as many things are with the Seamen in a storm with an unwilling will cast over-board then parts with but afterwards grieves for but upon his better experience and estimate both of him and them even vile dogs meat in comparison of the bread of life 5. Nay fifthly from an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He did not only account them loss in his judgment and readiness to lose them but he had actually lost them And yet 6. Which is the sixth Emphasis he accounted himself no loser but an happy gainer by the bargain as the last words of the verse express it They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That I may win and his winnings were clear gains for so according to the Greek it is to be rendred That I may gain Christ In which words we have these two particulars 1. The purchase or thing valued 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. 2. The price that he rated it at and was willing to come up to and that was to the loss of all things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea doubtless and I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. 'T is pitty these two should be parted that so rich a Pearl should want such a wise Merchant rightly to value it And therefore as I find them together in the Text so I shall put them together in the observation that I shall handle out of it and it is this That there is a surpassing worth and excellency in the knowledge Doct. of Christ Jesus our Lord for which all things are to be accounted loss for a Believer The first branch whereof contains the Doctrinal part and the latter may serve for the Application To begin with the first There is a surpassing worth and excellency in the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. For the subject of which Proposition by the knowledge of Christ 1. Subj Jesus we are to understand the knowledge of whole Christ his Person God Man in Himself and Offices the Prophet Priest and King of his Church In all which Faith finds transcendent Soul-ravishing excellencies and mysteries Nor this barely speculative and notional though even herein it Neg. hath an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above all other learning whatsoever So that Porphyrie needed not to have pittied Paul's rare parts as cast away upon the foolishness of preaching If I would be a Scholar I would be a Christian I would read the Scripture though I were so graceless as to do it only for the excellency of the matter the strength of the argument the variety of choicest stile and story all in it met together which I so over-prize in other Authors though asunder If it were but only for bare learnings sake I would learn Christ and his Gospel For what are all your fine-spun abstractions extractions subtilties demonstrations to this great mystery God manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels 1 Tim. 3. 16. c. Here is work for a Doctor Angelicus study for an Angel If they who always behold the face of God in Heaven have yet their Matth. 18. 10. face towards the mercy-seat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Peter Exod. 25. 20. expresseth it 1 Pet. 1. 12. even stoop down earnestly desiring to have a look what an advancement of learning is it to us whose Eyes you know what the Philosopher compared to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metaphys l. 1. c. 1. 2 Cor. 3. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with an unvailed face to behold the glory of the Lord in the glass of the Gospel The bare Theory whereof is so noble and transcendent But this knowledge I said is not barely speculative and â—â—tional but 1. Fiducial And so in Scripture we have knowledge put for faith Affirm Fiducial Isa 53. 11. John 17. 3. the knowledge of Faith whereby we apply Christ to our selves and know him to be ours as Paul here did when he saith the knowledge of Christ Jesus but he adds my Lord. And so For Christ v. 7. and For the knowledge of Christ here Cum ait propter excellentiam cognitionis ejus intellige excellenti am justitiae ejus quae nobis donatur imputatur Zanchy in the Text are put for the same It 's a knowledge whereby I gain Christ v. 8. and have him and am found in him v. 9. and not only an ability to conceive and discourse of what is in him and comes by him for so the Devilish Renegado may be enlightned Hebr. 6. 4. The Devil himself could say I know who thou art the holy one of God Luke 4. 34. The greatest Scholars have not always been Christs best Friends Time was when the greatest Rabbies were his worst Enemies Lucian and Porphyrie acute men but sharpned against him He was one of the wits of the World that said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that took cognisance of the cause but only to condemn the innocent Unless thou lookest at Christ with Faith's Eye the more quick thine is and the more earnestly thou lookest on him thou wilst either more despise him or despair or Isa 53. 2 3. prove more
desperate against him Either more desperately mad as the man set against the Sun with his Eye-lids cut off Balaam a damned Witch with his Eyes open Numb 24. 3 15 16. None spit more venom on Christ than they that do it on his face who look and loath together Or more deeply sunk in despair when thou hast so much of an eye as to see a wrinkle on thine angry Judges brow In that Case the more good that I know is to be had and I have it not the more is my misery as the famished man 's to see food which he must not tast of or the condemned man 's to behold goodly builddings and pleasant Fields and Gardens which he passeth by as he is led out to execution This knowledge therefore is first fiducial as appears from v. 7 8 9. 2. Experimental as Interpreters bring Experimental that v. 10 11 c. That I may know him c. which is explained in those following words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings such as that woman had that was bealed of her bloudy issue Mark 5. It is said v. 33. that she knew what was done in her when as it is v. 30. virtue had gone out of Christ to her And so Then we know Christ indeed when we feel virtue coming from him and find that we have fellowship with him when whatsoever was in him was done or suffered by him is really proved yea and exemplified by something in us or done by us as the fruit or stamp of something that was first in him As then in this kind we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power virtue and energy of Christs Resurrection as Pauls Phrase is when In point of Justification as the effect of it Rom. 4. 25. by this evidence of his Victory our Consciences are assured that he hath satisfied for our Debts and overcome all the Enemies of our Salvation And in point of sanctification as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of it Col. 3. 1. our dead hearts are raised up to a life of grace and to seek those things which are above This This was the lesson which the Doctor of the Gentiles was yet a learning This fiducial experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ was that which he who was caught up to the third Heaven was all his whole life still further aspiring to because when he was at the highest yet it was still above him which may be one part of the meaning of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Excellency of it Which is here predicated of it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à supereminentia 2. Predicate as Interpreters render it an admirable superlative incomparable Excellency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether an Hâ—braism or Atticism I dispute not but put substantively to express its substantial excellency as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salutare Tuum Luke 2. 30. to signifie such a saving thing as we want a word to English it Such is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as Photius renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such an hyperbolical transcendent excellency is there in this knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord. But more particularly this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive may be Distinctivum speciei vel Gradûs signifying the surpassing worth of it in comparison either of other things or of some lower degrees of it self Zanchy thinks this latter and by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this excellency of the knowledge of Christ understands some further and more eminent degree of it which every Believer had not attained unto nor Paul himself perfectly For whereas there is a threefold knowledge of Christ Ex Lege Ex Evangelio Ex visione from the shadows of the Law the light of the Gospel and the full Vision in Glory the second of them is more excellent than the first and the third than the second The first he had past and attained some measure of the second but the further degrees of it here and the perfection of it in Heaven he makes account is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the top branch of this Tree of knowledge or life rather which therefore as he aspired to v. 10 11 12. so here in the Text he accounts all as loss and dung in comparison of I may not quarrel so grave an Author but yet crave leave to express mine own thoughts viz. that its meant of the whole Gospel-fiducial-experimental saving knowledge of Christ reaching even to the lowest and least degree of it and especially in reference to justification in which sense only some of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text are to be accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet in that sense truly there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a matchless excellency in the least degree and measure of the saving knowledge of Christ And so taking it as distinctivum speciei in worth and excellency it far surpasseth 1. All other things 2. All other knowledge whatsoever First All other things though otherwise and in themselves of Excels all other things greatest worth and price Job goeth over all the Lapidaries most precious Jewels and cannot find its match Cap. 28. 15. to 20. And should you without ground call in question his skill yet you cannot doubt of Solomon's whose incomparable ability joined with his long-studied and dear-bought experience rendred him the ablest Priser of whatever was to be found in the worlds Inventory and yet he brings in the same account Prov. 3. 13 14 15. and 20. 15. where you find that Silver Gold Rubies a multitude of them nay all that you can desire are not once to be compared with it And yet this avouched by these two great men who by reason of their experience and enjoyment could best tell on the one side what the worth of the best things in this World came to To which if you will add a third that in the mouth of two or three Witnesses this truth may be more fully established let it be our Blessed Apostle who had on the other side as deep an insight into the unsearchable riches of Christ as any And he if he would Either wish for others it 's not that of Austins that they might have a sight of Christ in the flesh but that they might have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him Ephes 1. 17. Or vote for himself So as the Beatifical Vision is the top stone of his happiness in Heaven to be with Christ is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there Chap. 1. of this Epistle v. 23. so savingly to know him is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here that in worth and price infinitely surpasseth all other things This should have been further pressed and insisted on if I had now spoken to them whose trade lieth in such inferiour Commodities But seeing that I am especially dealing with you Reverend and Beloved whose more noble and honourable negotiation
youth is frequently taken with and it were well if some that were more gtown up were wholly freed from But this is one kind of having fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and which leads Ephes 5. 11. off from acquaintance with Christ For the Books which for the present we read are wont to leave a tincture and impression upon the spirit of the Reader especially if his judgment be weak as ours in younger years are not very strong And of this make this trial whether when you have been greedy in reading such Books you have thereby any great mind to read the Bible I am sure that when you have been seriously reading it you will have as little delight in reading them as Paul had in the thorn in his flesh when he had before been caught up to Paradise as Hierom saith Ama scientiam scripturarum vitia carnis non amabis 3. All vain and idle studies such were those sciences falsly so called 1 Tim. 6. 20. about Genealogies and questions and those old Wives Fables in the Apostles times answerable to which are our Romanza's too many of our silly Pamphlets and let none be displeased if I add not a few of our Criticks minutiae and argutiae no better than as Elian called some of the great Artists pretty little curious knacks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which shallow and light heads take up as Jet doth straws instead of what is more solid and substantial like Solomon's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. 21. 6. a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death very feathers which we break our arm with by throwing them with our whole might make our spirits vain if not profane and so far from helping us to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. 2. 7. this substantial knowledge of Christ that many of the plainest and strongest Scripture-proofs of the Doctrine of Christ are attempted to be evaded and enervated by these bold Criticisms 4. All over-bold and curious prying into the Ark of Gods secrets measuring his Counsels by our thoughts and his wisdom in them by our reason which instead of studying to know Christ hath stretched many mens wits into wild and tedious disputes and quite crackt others brains into blasphemy and distraction as men grow mad having their eyes long set open against the Sun This tree of Deut. 29. 29. knowledge a forbidden fruit which yet we have an itch and licorish appetite after whilst by being thankfully content with what Judg. 13. 17 18. God in Scripture reveals of Christ and his will we should be wise to sobriety Rom. 12. 3. But for Gods secrets Eorum fides salutem affert Periculum Inquisitio as Hesychius speaks To which let me add that of Scaliger Nescire velle quae magister maximus te scire non vult erudita inscitia est 1. Let this be the first Caveat in our learning to know Christ that we lay aside these and such like studies that either in their own nature estrange us from him or at least as we handle the matter hinder us in our search after him 2. Let the second Caveat be this that as to this end we must lay aside all unlawful studies so we must take heed that we do not overdo in our studies that are lawful Not that I would have you study them less but Christ more Nor them so much as Christ less And this 1. Either for time in spending it so wholly on them that there 's none left for those duties in which we should more immediately acquaint our selves with Christ Many a close student who hath stinted himself to study so many hours a day hath it may be forgotten to put into the account one half hour to pray and read the Scripture which is such a leaning to our own understanding that we acknowledge not God Prov. 3. 5 6. a proud Atheistical self sufficiency as though of themselves they could study it out by their own Candle whilst they shut their window against the light of Heaven Which therefore God may justly so blast and cross as that Either they never come to attain that knowledge they are so eager upon they had no knowledge that called not upon God Psal 14. 4. Such hardest Students have not always proved the best Scholars but have only studied themselves blind and put out their Eyes by their own Candle light Or if often they prove Scholars it 's as often that of all others they are furthest off from being Christs Disciples It hath been no news in the World both in present and former times to find greatest Scholars greatest Atheists The wisest of the World by their wisdom knew not God 1 Cor. 1. 21. The Creature terminated their sight which should have been a transparent glass in and through which they should have seen God and so by poring on it they lost him even there where he was to be found when our other studies so wholly take up our time that our addresses to Christ are either wholly excluded or curtailed he who is thereby so much undervalued cannot but be very much offended It 's a sad story that you read of Origen who in his Lamentation confesseth that he fell into Satan's Snare by his not saying out his Prayers Do not therefore so over-study other matters that Christ be wronged in point of time 2. Nor in point of intention of mind and heart by being eager on them but remiss toward him wearing out the body and beating our brains in boulting out some nice subtilty or knotty difficulty in other Arts and mean while never know what Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the fourteenth verse of this Chapter means never acquainted with that giving all diligence which the Apostle Peter calls for in clearing up our interest in Christ and making our Calling and Election sure Solomon indeed would have thee whatever in thy ordinary calling thy hand finds to do that thou do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with thy might but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All thy might Moses would have thee reserve for God as his due Deut. 6. 5. Such Holocausts are God's Royalty only Such an one David offered to God 2 Sam. 6. 14. where it 's said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and v. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words that both in their rise signify strength and duplicated words to express his double diligence and earnestness putting out all his strength when it is before the Lord according to the Apostles general injunction though we should not be slothful in any other service yet we should be then especially fervent in spirit when it is in serving the Lord. Rom. 12. 12. This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might justly challenge an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in our diligence to be as much more intent in studying of him as the contemplation and knowledge of him exceeds both in its sublime excellency and profitableness all other speculations However it would be well if we did
Grace It 's Christ the Everlasting Father who in this sense of his own good will begets us James 1. 18. P. Martyr conceiveth that for the Godly Parents sake God may do much to their Children at least in a tendency hereto ut ad fidem adducantur donis spiritûs i◠Rom. 11. 16. Minimè sanctitatem ur à cum semine transfundi◠imò potius peccatum naturae vitium instruantur And I deny it not but yet so as that he there confesseth that they do not propagate grace with nature but sin rather Such a propagation of holiness had been by the first Covenant in the first Adam if he had stood but in the second Covenant it 's not so derived by Parents but infused by Christ the second Adam immediately from himself So that although it be sometimes called the holy seed yet that 's meant of federal holiness or of the Mal. 2. 15. Isa 6. 13. former advantages to true holiness not of any necessary or constant bestowing much less of any natural propagating it to their posterity Though the mother was an elect Lady yet it was only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 John 1 4. not all but well that some of her Children walked in the truth For 3. Very often good mens Sons prove as bad as others indeed sometimes very good and it was Jacob's preheminence above his Gen. 49. 26. Progenitors that all his Children were taken into the Church But Josiah was a very good man too and yet whereas he had but four Sons 1 Chron. 3. 15. they all proved stark naught A just man Of three of them See 2 Chron. 36. of the fourth See Jer. 22 Anonym Annot. Cantabrigiae begets a robber and shedder of blood Ezek. 18. 10. as we read Judg. 20. 16. there were seven hundred men left-handed of Benjamin who had his name from the right hand Upon which one not more argutely than truly and piously Ità non rarò scaevolae nascuntur à Benjamin dextrae filio and imitate them rather in their deformities and sins than in their graces and beauties 4. Nay too often best mens Sons prove the very worst Adam had a Cain Noah a Cham Abraham an Ishmael Isaac an Esau 1 Sam. 2. 12. Hezekiah a Manasseh Elies Sons the Sons of Belial Many of Davids Sons proved notoriously wicked and the unworthy base Nabal is 1 Sam. 25. 3. registred to have been of the most noble and generous Caleb's posterity The Jews who claimed Abraham for their father John 8. 33 39. our Saviour Matth. 3. 7. calls a generation of vipers and saith they were of their father the Devil V. 44. Nati de amico Dei Abraham vitio suo facti sunt quasi filii Cham as Hierom saith on Jer. 2. 14. A sad truth so notoriousl known that it came to be a Proverb both with the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acetum vini proles Wine begets Vinegar and with the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heroum filii noxae And I wish that our sad experience here in the University of many promising blossoms cankered in the bud of very many godly mens Sons if not wofully debauched yet much degenerated did not prove this too true and that the Papists had not such occasion to condemn our Ministers marriages by reason of the frequent abominable miscarriages of their Children as of old the seven Sons of Sceva the chief of the Priests proved Vagabond Exorcists Acts 19. 13 14. Thus Corruptio optimi est pessima and best mens Sons prove oft the worst of Sinners whilst pinning their faith on their Parents Sleeves they do not only thereupon not accept of Christ as the Jews upon this account rejected him because they were Abraham's Seed John 8. 33. but also think it will bear them out in their grossest impieties 5. And as thus they are often most enormously sinful so of all most extreamly miserable 1. For a Godly Parents Covenant will not in this secure and exempt their ungodly Children when by their degenerateness they cut off the entail of those mercies which would otherwise follow upon it Not from temporal Judgments here Sad is that word of such that they that found them devoured them and that because they Jer. 50. 7. had sinned against the Lord the hope of their fathers Because God had been the hope of their Godly Fathers therefore it made their wicked Childrens Case desperate So that as Ezekiel adds even Noah Daniel and Job three men eminent for piety and for protracting or diverting of God's judgments from others should not be able to deliver either Sons or Daughters Ezek. 14. 16 20. Nor from eternal at the last day And here Consider 1. With what face wilt thou then look upon thy godly Parent A sad last meeting who wilst remember what Prayers he made for thee what counsel and admonitions he gave thee and what care every way he took about thee to keep thee from that place of torment and all in vain It was a piercing word of that man of God on his Death-Bed Mr. R. Bolton which he charged his Children standing about him that they should not dare then to appear before him much less before Christ in an unregenerate Condition 2. Again think what sinking over-whelming grief and confusion A sadder last parting it will be then as our Saviour said to see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and so your godly Parents and Friends in the Luke 13. 28. Kingdom of heaven and your selves thrust out and so vast a gulf set between them that were by nature so nearly united Parting of friends though but for a time and for necessary and good occasions do now oft-times occasion tears and at parting at death or by some heavy outward judgment very sad ones when one is taken and the other left Luke 17. 34. though they be taken away to heaven whither we have hope to follow after them But such a sad parting as this is when we shall go away into everlasting punishment and our godly Parents into life eternal never never Matth. 25. 46. never to enjoy or see them more unless it should be as the Rich man that saw Abraham afar off he himself being in torment The Luke 16. 23. thoughts of this should sink into our hearts now else it will sink us into the very lowest depths of despair and Hell then Unless 3. This prove yet a lower that those Godly Parents of thine And the close of all saddest of all who whilest they did not know whether God would have mercy on thee as David for his sick Child 2 Sam. 12. 22. fasted and prayed and wept over thee when they see the issue and the good will of God accomplisht upon thee they will then quietly acquiesce in it Nay as then God will laugh at thy destruction and mock when Prov. 1. 26. thy fears then are come so that godly Woman when she had used all
of God by accident often do as the Prophet Jeremiah was set over Nations and Kingdoms as well to root up and pull down as to build and to plant As soon as ever Jer. 1. 10. Matth. 3. 10. the Gospel began to be preached to the Jews then was the axe laid to the root of their tree if they brought not forth fruit to hew them down and the sharper the Axe the sooner it cuts the barren tree down and the more powerful the Ministry is the speedier it doth the same to an unfruitful and rebellious people as the purer the air the sooner sometimes it dispatcheth a corrupt Consumptive body This was sadly exemplified in the destruction of the Jews their City and Temple when as Nazianzen faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their defiled Orat. 1. filed Altars first burnt their City and their blood was not only mixed with their Sacrifices but shed instead of the blood of their Sacrifices The present state of that forlorn people in this kind is most sad and so of the other Eastern Churches The death of seventy thousand of the Bethshemites for their rude entertainment 1 Sam. 6. 19. Hos 4. 15. 5. 8. Jer. 7. 12. Isa 29. 1. of the Ark. That Bethel became Beth-Aven that Shilo was forsaken that a Wo was proclaimed to Ariel to Ariel the City where David dwelt That that peoples abuse of Ordinances brought them to such a pass that they must perish without Remedy 2 Chron. 36. 16. and without pity for so v. 15. when God out of compassion had afforded Ordinances and they abused them he v. 17. sends Enemies which would shew them no mercy nor have any compassion These are sad instances of this Truth and strong proofs that as the Prophet saith Gods fire is in Zion and his furnace in Isa 31. 9. Jerusalem to consume Enemies as well Domestick as Strangers though the latter there especially meant For although the usual Psal 128. 5. word was The Lord bless thee out of Zion yet it hath proved as true the Lord curse thee out of Zion too for in the Revelation we shall find the seven Angels that have the seven Plagues and pour out the seven vials of the wrath of God upon the Antichristian State came out of the Temple and that the Angel took coals of Revel 15. 6. 16. 1. fire from the Altar and cast them upon the Earth from which came such thundrings and lightnings and Earth-quakes in the World Revel 8. 5. Temple-Ordinances if profaned and despised nay if not walked worthy of bring down heavy judgments and it were well if it were sadly considered whether this amongst and above other sins of ours did not cause our present Earth-quakes and unsettlements and so repented of as to prevent future and now impendent heavier judgments which so sorely threaten us for so we find it of old when Israel was so stupid and obstinate that like to dull and froward Scholars line must be upon line and precept upon Isa 28. 9 10 11 17. precept to them that God laid judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet and because he was fain to lisp as it were and stammer and speak to them with another tongue and they yet would not understand and obey therefore he would bring Strangers and Enemies upon them of a deep speech and a stammering tongue which they should not understand A most heavy judgment which Isa 33. 19. the Lord keep us from that such vexation do not make such froward dullards as we are understand doctrine as some read and interpret Margin English Annot. that 19th verse of the 28th of Isaiah To conclude this we may certainly conclude upon it that as in the former part of this point we shewed as God's Ordinances duly entertainâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 walked worthy of use to bring in outward mercies wiâ—◠〈…〉 if abused they will as certainly pour in upon us heaviâ—â—◠〈…〉 judgments for as Gods way is in the Sanctuary Psaâ—◠〈…〉 in the sea too v. 19. as to conduct Israel into Canaan 〈…〉 overwhelm Egyptians even with heaviest temporal miseries 2. But with more heavy spiritual judgments they are judgments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jude v. 4. and such are the permitting and giving over to stupid senslesness most enormous outragious sins obstinate obdurateness and final impenitency in them But of these we spake before Only consider them here in genere poenae as judicially but most justly inflicted as the recompense of mens ingrate and impious neglect and despising of God in the profane abuse of his holy and blessed Ordinances Sion sinners usually are the greatest Sinners and Ordinance-despisers as of all most obstinate so their case most desperate and it 's a righteous thing with God to leave them so The very Remonstrants who will not allow God the liberty and freedom of his Decrees do yet freely subscribe to the equity and justice of this dispensation that when means of Salvation have been non-improved and despised men may by God be judicially and irrecoverably hardned that he may by his Prophets justly say we would have healed Babylon but she is not healed therefore forsake her Jer. 51. 9. Nay we read him saying it even to Jerusalem Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more Ezek. 24. 13. Nay it is a Gospel-Sanction and we read it in the very end and close of the New Testament in the two and twentieth of the Revelation after all the fore-going Revelation in that Book yea after the full manifestation of the will of God in the whole Scripture when he now comes to seal the Canon of it v. 18 19. if any notwithstanding all this will still continue ignorant and obstinate he seals him up under this most heavy doom He that is unjust let him be unjust still He that is filthy let him be filthy still v. 11. God with such hath as a Physician gone through all his methods of Physick and if by none of them the Cure be wrought it 's given over as desperate as in that place of Jeremy 51. 9. Or as in Isaiah as an Husband-man he hath been planting and dressing and watering his Vineyard if after all nothing but sour grapes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what could I have done more or rather as some otherwise and it may be better render it what is 〈◊〉 to be done in so desperate a Case Isa 5. 4. but what he adds and answers v. 5. but to take away the hedg that it may be eaten up and trodden down Or as a founder of metal he hath been about melting and refining and purging their dross from them but the bellows are burnt and the lead is consumed and the dross not taken away Reprobate silver then call them for the Lord hath rejected them Jer. 6. 29 30. Ezek. 22. 18 19 20. The saddest judgment that in this life can befal a man and
no sadder sight in the World than to behold such a triste bidental such an Heaven-struck forlorn-Sinners grown blind by seeing the light and deaf as they that dwell near the out-falls of Nilus by hearing a more pleasing sound even the word of life more filthy for washing more barren or rather fruitful of poysonous weeds for watering and more desperately and irrecoverably sick by the best Physicians greater care of the Cure so that it cannot be written on his door The Lord be merciful to him It 's pity you say that fair weather should do any hurt but a thousand pities to see a miserably blinded sinner to go into everlasting darkness by the light of the Sun shine of the Gospel to see an unruly stray Sheep that would not be kept in the Shepherds Fold in the Wolfs or Lions mouth dragged through all mire and dirt into his Den and there to be devoured Seest thou this thou seest a miserable forlorn Sinner whom the good Shepherds Rod and Staff could not keep in to be fed in green pastures and led by still waters now forsaken of God like another Cain or Judas made sensless and obdurate in sin and dragged into the pit-fall of Hell to his everlasting destruction 3. Which is the third and last particular before mentioned that eternal wrath and judgment that irrecoverable loss which such Sinners in another World procure to themselves by their abuse of Ordinances when they have not gain'd Christ by them Of all others the Sinners in Sion shall be most afraid when it shall once come to dwelling with devouring fire and everlasting burnings Isa 33. 14. Then Capernaum that in enjoyment of Ordinances was once lifted up as high as heaven shall be thrown as low as hell Matth. 11. 23 24. nay to the lowest depths of it where Sodom and Gomorrha's fire shall be more tolerable this furnace being heated seven times hotter whilst the breath of the Lord as a stream of brimstone shall kindle it Isa 30. 33. Mark 9. 43. 45. that Tophet intolerable that fire unquenchable when the sometimes sweet breathings of the Gospel-Spirit and Word and Ministry shall blow it up and keep it burning to Eternity Oh! No Condemnation to Gospel-Condemnation No wrath so fierce as that when after grace turned into wantonness patience shall be turned into fury How low low will that for-ever-lost Soul be sunk that in those unsupportable torments shall everlastingly have time and cause to think and say How shall I ever escape that have neglected abused despised so great Salvation That of all other aggravates and perpetuates such mens damnation Gospel-Grace and Ordinances which are the Key to open Heaven to Believers lock up neglecters and despisers in the Prison of Hell and roul the heaviest stone upon the mouth of the bottomless pit the unsupportable weight whereof will not only prevent all removal or escape but above all things will pinch and press and sink them down to Eternity Then they will be fully convinced of the truth of the point in hand that all things are loss and dung in comparison of Christ when they shall sadly but unprofitably and despairingly say Oh of how much greater worth is Christ above all other comforts even best Ordinances when notwithstanding them for want of him we are now everlastingly lodged and tormented in Hell whereas had we by the enjoyment of them come to have gained and enjoyed him we had with him in Heaven been happy for ever Which in the Application of it should most seriously advise and Use perswade us in our due both estimate and abearance both to Christ and his Ordinances respectively 1. And first for Ordinances as the former part of the point called upon us highly to prize them and diligently and constantly to attend upon them so what hath been said in this latter should with all sadness warn us 1. Not to rely on or to rest in the bare enjoyment of them 1. They may do us no good therefore rest not in them for as we have heard as they may be so should we thus do certainly they will be empty and at best we shall get no good by them Circumcision is nothing 1 Cor. 7. 19. The Letter without the Spirit signifieth little and the best Ordinances without Christ as to our Salvation will prove just nothing They are indeed in themselves and by God's Institution Wells of Salvation but to us in the issue they will prove but dry empty Cisterns if this water of life be not conveyed to us by them and therefore in this our journeying to Heaven let us not take up and dwell in our Inne and although the way of Ordinances lead thither yet if we sit down in our way we shall never come to our journeys end In this therefore follow the Psalmists example Psal 121. who when in the first verse he had said I will lift up mine eyes to the Hills of Zion and Moriah the seat of God's Ordinances as Interpreters expound it from whence cometh my help as though he had said too much of them or any Ordinances that his help should come from them as it were correcting himself in the second verse he presently adds my help cometh from the Lord which hath made Vide Augustinum Tract â— in Joannem mox ab initie Heaven and Earth It 's God and Christ only who made Heaven and Earth that can create the fruit of the best Ministers lips to be peace to his people Isa 57. 19. and therefore some Expositors read that first verse of the Psalm interrogatorily should I lift up mine eyes to the Hills as though from them should come my help The lifting up of eyes and soul in Scripture-Phrase expresseth not only delight and desire but expectance and dependance and then although we should come to Ordinances with encouraging expectations of help from God in them yet should we thus lift up our Eyes to the Hills themselves to the highest towring Eloquence or most raised abilities or most sublime piety of the Ministers that we most admire so as to expect saving help from them No. Alas Either They or at least the Event will tell thee that they are but empty Cisterns and dry Breasts which cannot afford the least drop but what Christ the fountain hath put into them and it may be out of thy experience thou maist be able to say to thy self that thou never wentest away more empty and less satisfied than when not making out after Christ in way of a Carnal-Creature-confidence thou expectedst most from them Though thou beest therefore on the Mount of Transfiguration where Christ was Matth. 17. 4. transfigured but they were not Do not sit down with Peter and say It 's good to be here unless Christ be there and in such pure glasses thou seest the face of Christ and art changed from glory to 2 Cor. 3. 18. glory into the image of Christ by the spirit of Christ sit not down satisfied That
as to justification is only on the receiving hand John 1. 12. takes all giveth or brings nothing to God but faults to pardon and debts to discharge and an empty hand to receive all of Gods free largess Christ shall be All in All saith faith Nay saith Pride if I be not all I must at least be something Pride filleth us with our selves but faith wholly emptieth us of our selves Pride which at first aspired to make us like God would have us speak like him I am that I am i. e. in and of my Exod. 3. 14. self but although faith may say too I am that I am yet ever remembers to add by the grace of God I am that I am 1 Cor. 15. 10. And can any things then be more contrary 2. Another sin inconsistent with Christ which yet exactest if it be but bare morality breeds at least beareth with yea usually runneth out in is a contemptuous dislike hatred and opposition yea oftentimes as occasion serves persecution of the grace and ways of Christ and the spiritual Professors of both for such thinking goodly of themselves as best and highest cannot endure to be over-top'd out-vied eclipsed by any and therefore cannot so far deny themselves as not to malign and oppose that way and those persons that do or seem to exceed them So the Pharisees did Christ Simon Magus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Peter And some think that Stevens eminency and his face shining like an Angel's was an eye sore to our Saul heated his hot young bloud and natural fervid spirit into an inflammation against him and proved such Wild-fire that catched as it went and bred a further combustion in the whole Church which he here confesseth that out of his zeal he persecuted So the grave vertuous Philosophers proved the greatest opposers and persecutors of Christianity so that what was said of him sobrius ad evertendam Rempublicam may be said of them and others sobrii ad evertendam Ecclesiam so we find Paul at Athens encountred with by their Philosophers but it 's worth considering by which Sects of them especially and for that it 's said Acts 17. 18. that they were the Epicureans and Stoicks duo genera Philosophorum maximè alienorum à Christianâ Religione as Grotius well noteth upon the place two sorts of Philosophers that were most averse from the Christian Religion and what were they not only the more loose Epicureans but also See Gatakers Praeloquium ad M. Antoninum the most sober Stoicks whose discipline some conceive came nearest to Christianity and Hierom seemeth to be of that mind when he saith * Com. in Isa 11. Stoici nostro dogmati in plerisque concordant But by this appears the truth of that saying Quae minimè differunt maximè opponuntur The less they differed the more they opposed for so we do not only find here the Epicureans opposing Paul and afterward Crescens the Cynick persecuting Justin Martyr to the death Porphyrie the Pythagorean a profest bitter Enemy to Christianity but the grave Stoicks also here in a passion as your so famed Hierocles See praefat in Hieroclem of that Sect a cruel persecutor It seems this Enmity to Christ and his Gospel was an Epidemical Disease of all the Tribes of the Philosophers and that the most most sober and dispassionate Stoicks escaped it not It were well if they were not most deeply infected with it as to this very day many of our most sober moralists are the most bitter Enemies to the power of Godliness And can that then make us pleasing to God which entertaineth and nourisheth such displeasure against his grace wayes and servants 3. And as such bitter Enmity against the ways of grace seldom goeth alone but by God's just judgment is usually accompanied with some outwardly foul and filthy miscarriages so the more accurate morality if rested in God delighting to stain the glory of all that we think so goodly of is by him permitted to be oftentimes foully blemished with some filthy vices and practises for so it is observed that those that lifted up themselves as Miriam Vzziah and Gehezi were wont for their greater debasement Numb 12. 10. 2 Chron. 26. 19 20 21. 2 King 5. 27. to be smitten with the filthy and loathsome plague of Leprosie So the more to debase the pride of these self-admiring and self-exalting Moralists God suffereth them oft-times to be loathsomely defiled with some more filthy leprous blemishes It seems our Saul's unblameableness could consist with his persecuting the Church and however his being besmeared with the blood of Saints made him seem beautiful in his own and some others eyes yet surely it looked ugly in the sight of God and all good men and as grave and demure as the Philosophers looked yet they are belied by their own and why should they if the very best of them their very Socrates and Seneca were not soul enough the one for unnatural defilements and the other for unjust practâ—ses I shall not insist on or now inquire after the like miscarriages of the like persons in after-times or in our days Which yet may be found out without secret search as the Prophet speaketh of the blood that was openly to be seen in the skirts of Judah and the Jer. 23. 4. like without any strict or prying observation may be easily taken notice of in the lives and practises of the men we speak of and if so then as the same Prophet in the words immediately going before said to Adulterous Judah why trimmest thou thy way to seek Jer. 2. 33. V. 22. love for though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap yet thy iniquity is marked before me saith the Lord. So I may say to such why think you by your outward modes and composures to impose upon God when you cannot so delude men But sorex suo indicio perit For what meaneth this lowing of the Oxen 1 Sam. 15. 14. and bleating of the sheep If you be so intirely blameless and vertuous as you pretend what mean those ugly bleaches and deformities Think not by wiping of your mouth with the Harlot to Prov. 30. 20. wooe God when your inward abominable pride and enmity against the ways of God shew that your purgative vertues have been so far from making you clean in his eyes that they could not keep your inward corruption from breaking out into loathsome practises in the sight of men and if so your other sober composed deportment will not so much cover those defilements with a Robe of honour as those foul blemishes render both you and your garish beauties deformed and ridiculous as the more neat the man is and his cloaths are the more conspicuous are foul blashes upon him and the more unsightly do they make him But oh then how much more glorious and desireable is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Garment of Jesus Christ the Lamb without spot
holdeth forth to us first the freeness of the conveyance 2. The perpetuity of the enjoyment That was sufficiently implyed in the former particular for the more substantial things are the more lasting they use to be But if withal it come by way of inheritance that speaks it to be more than an ordinary gift or the portion of the sons of the Concubines more than spending-money or what perisheth in the use of it more than a moveable or an Annuity it 's a perpetuity an Inheritance being that which descendeth from Father to Son from one generation to another Firma possessio that which a man liveth on abides by of all else can least indure to be thrust out of as we see in Naboth's example 1 Kings 21. 3. and find by our own experience So the law was Israels inheritance which they should always observe Deut. 33. 4. and so was the land of Canaan out of which they should not remove 2. Sam. 7. 10. Indeed by reason of their sins that good land hath Levit. 18. 28. 20. 22. spewed them out so that according to that threat Jer. 17. 4. they now discontinue from their heritage such prodigals were they and so are many more like them and so vain and unstable are all outward enjoyments that even inheritances prove not perpetuities But this in the Text doth And therefore Mercer thus rendreth the words Vt haereditare faciam esse perpetuum This substance here promised is an enduring substance Hebr. 10. 34. This Inheritance is for ever Psal 37. 18. is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away that which cannot be corrupted from without nor decay from within and so every way incorruptible and moreover is reserved in heaven for us and we by the power of God through faith preserved and kept to it 1 Pet. 1. 4 5. More could not be said for its stability in it self and for our sure and indefeizible estate and interest in it An inheritance setled upon us by God the Father's Eternal Decree Matth. 25. 34. Purchased for us at a very high rate by Christ who himself is Heir of all things Hebr. 1. 2. and therefore if we claim under him our Title to it is strong and sure And we kept in possession by the spirit of God and this as he is the Power of God 1 Pet. 1. 5. and therefore no fear of an Ejectio Firmae No cause of a distrustful desponding fear either of the decay of what is so substantial or of being cast out of this inheritance so purchased setled and maintained with all the security of Heaven and the distinct and yet joint care and work of all the Persons in the Blessed Trinity Away then with that uncomfortable Doctrine of the Saint's Vse 1 Apostasie which would make their Inheritance moveables and disinherit the heirs of life But Blessed be God who according to the former particulars hath so setled this inheritance that the intail can by no craft of man or Devil be cut off Though the servant abideth not in the house for ever yet the Son the heir abideth ever John 8. 35. what 's ours as duties and performances may be intercepted what is of God's common bounty as good things of this life and common graces may be lost what are his special largesses as accessories as feelings and enlargements may fail but the substance and inheritance abides and remains inviolable When leaves fade or are blown off yet the substance Isa 6. 13. the root Job 19. 28. remaineth But not to go out of the Text to inherit substance are two very great and strong words Substance and inheritance speak Perseverance But it were well if our lives did speak as much too and that on Vse 2 the contrary the desperate Apostasies after profession of some that were never sound and the woful decays of others that were more sincere did not afford men of corrupt minds a Topick head of arguments to impugn and shake the setled stability of God's Peoples Inheritance Such Asahel's and Amasa's wallowing in their 2 Sam. 2. 23. 20. 12. blood make many stand still not knowing what to say Wo to them by whom such offences come which should make us the more watchful and careful to maintain this our best inheritance Young Heirs want not usually such as would either gull or thrust them out of their inheritance We live in such times of errour and danger that the heirs of life had never more need than now to look to it that they be not wiped of theirs whose care therefore should be to take view of their goodly inheritance and if it be Psal 16. 6. Christ and his Truth and Grace and Heaven then to look to it that neither by fair means nor foul they be either cheated or more violently thrust out of their freehold or any part of it The Ephes 4. 14. Col. 2. 18. 2 John 7. 8. Revel 3. 11. Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee was Naboth's answer to Ahab who spake and offered fair to get it from him 1 King 21. 2 3. And let it be ours to any whosoever they be that with fairest words promises or pretensions would cheat and bribe us out of this our Interest Now the Lord forbid it to us to sell our birthright with profane Esau to part with that inheritance which our Heavenly Father hath purchased for us with the blood of his dear Son And for outward violence our times are not so secure but that although this our inheritance cost us nothing in one kind for the purchase yet it may cost â—s much to keep possession And what Contests Suits yea riots and tumults often are there to keep possession of earthly freeholds and inheritances I am far from endeavouring to raise or foment outward stirs and tumults but yet I am sure this inheritance I now speak of is of infinite more value and challengeth proportionably more standing for in a way of God and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 10. 23. nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 1. 9. if we have let us hold and that fast and that against all violence that would wrest out of our hands such a treasure Whatever else we lose be it estate liberty life it self which are but circumstances accessories yet let us not part with Christ his Grace and Truth which is substance and Inheritance And therefore as Ambrose observes out of Gen. 2. 15. Adam had De Paradiso Cap. 4. a double task in Paradise operari custodire to work and keep so let it be ours in managing this our inheritance to which we have a better Title upon better promises that we both get and keep possession Let no man beguile you of your reward saith Paul to his Colossians Cap. 2. 18. Hold fast saith Christ to the Church of Philadelphia that which thou hast let no man take thy
but four thousand men to entertain his disciples asked the question and knew not how to answer it whence shall we have bread in the wilderness to fill so great a multitude Matth. 15. 33. Now blessed be God that our Christ is no such barren wilderness but that in other greatest wildernesses he can and doth and will feed far greater companies And not one of them not the least meanest poorest neglected or sent away empty Such in other crowds are often overlooked But our good Housholder comes in to see his Guests takes notice of all that none may be without their dimensum You heard that he filleth every sorrowful soul a little Benjamin's mess may be the greatest To be sure whatever the man be he will have the best and fullest meal that feeleth himself most empty and therefore hungreth most and feedeth heartiliest The poorest Christian that knoweth not what other treasures mean in Christ hath them and filled too and that with the fullest In that entertainment of Christ even now mentioned his guests besides four thousand men were women and little children His Provisions therefore must needs be full which could welcome so many But it may be you will say though they were many yet it was not much that they received Philip indeed then spake of every one of them taking a little John 6. 7. But I am sure It was as much as they would v. 11. and the next verse saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were filled and that 's the word in my Text other Matth. 15. 37. Mark 8. 8. Evangelists say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that word signifieth a more full repletion 2. Which is a second proof of the Point that there is full provision in Christ in that as he gives to many so that it is so much Not only to all but to all liberally James 1. 5. The same Lord over all is rich unto all Rom. 10. 12. which argues infinite both sufficiency and Bounty For man's that is bounded The more it gives to the less it is that every one of them receives but this heap is so great that one man hath not the less because another carrieth away the more from it This Ocean so vast and full that one Vessel is never the emptier because another is fill'd by it whilest both are full O the bottomless abyss of God's Bounty in Christ that notwithstanding the vast multitudes of persons and capacities however some receive more than others yet all so much as they are all filled and that so fully as if it were for them only In Christ there must needs be a full supply when so much for so many Much very much 1. Because indeed all things So the Apostle styles him All in All Col. 3. 11. And therefore might well say All are yours when he could add And ye are Christ's 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. And elsewhere I have all saith Jacob Gen. 33. 11. and I have all saith Paul Phil. 4. 18. Mark what Bills of Receipts his Servants bring in And truly if by knowledge the Chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant Riches Prov. 24. 4. then it 's no wonder if the Eternal and Essential Wisdom of God here in the Text be able to fill our Treasures with all varieties and fulness of whatever is more substantial To him that overcometh he promiseth that he shall inherit all things Revel 21. 7. It 's very much when in the general first it 's All. 2. More particularly fully able to supply all our wants and that in the greatest extremities of them as Bethsaida's Pool cured every patient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of whatever disease he had John 5. 4. so truly in Christ there is a salve for every sore He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All and in All both persons and wants And ours are very great and many Our Souls and selves without Christ are a very Tohu and Bohu wholly empty and void a vast emptiness and every Creature though in its kind never so useful and helpful though never so full as we think of comfort is but empty And emptiness put to emptiness will not make up any fulness At best is but bonum particulare helps but in part Our meat satisfieth our hunger but doth not cover our nakedness and our garments cloath us but do not feed us But Christ as God is Bonum Vniversale is All doth All. There is no pit of destruction so deep which he cannot fill nor any want so great which he cannot supply And that in their greatest Extremity 3. So full as to satisfie all our desires and that in their utmost capacity You heard of a mouth promised to be filled when wide open Psal 81. 10. And this is more than the former Your ordinary plain saying is that you may better fill a wantons belly than his eye Truly such wantons often are many foolish men The Psalmist speaks of their bellies being filled Psal 17. 14. when yet the Preacher saith the eye is not satisfied Eccles 1. 8. So naturally capacious are the rational Souls of men and so sinfully and unreasonably greedy are their desires and lusts that nothing in the World can fill them But it 's well that God and Christ can As God He satisfieth the desire of every living thing Psal 145. 16. and as Mediatour he saith Drink yea drink abundantly O beloved Cant. 5. 1. Spare not my cost but enlarge your appetite Man's desires may be large but God's Goodness and Bounty in Christ is infinite able to supply all our wants in their extremity and all the desires of our Souls in their utmost capacity But of this I spake something in the first Point and therefore here forbear 4. Yet let me add this in the fourth place as an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only good measure pressed down and shaken together but also running Fons est qui vincit sitientem over that Christ doth not only fully answer our wants and desires but abundantly infinitely exceeds them as a full well-head doth not only feed the Conduit but hath a slaker When he is the Entertainer though his Guests be never so many or hungry there will be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when all are filled and have received Matth. 14. 20. 15. 37. John 6. 11 12. as much as they will there will be so many baskets of what remained more of the fragments than the first provisions came to He being able 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do abundantly above all we can ask or think Ephes 3. 20. David's Cup is so full that it runs over Psal 23. 5. Some of his Servants have been so filled with spiritual joys that they have desired him to hold his hand as not being able to receive or hold or bear any more Yea so full and exuberant is this fountain of life that it runs over in many common bounties even to Strangers and Enemies so that not only the Children are fed but even the Dogs
should here labour for an enlarged heart and when others enlarge theirs as Hell Hab. 2. 5. we should ours as the expansum of Heaven Christ and Heaven-ward The more we move towards the Earth the more we are straitned He that here promiseth to fill our Treasures would not have us spare his cost but bids us open our mouth wide Psal 81. 10. even widen and enlarge our hearts to their utmost extent and capacity that we may not only taste of his Goodness but take in as much of it as we can As the Prophet bad the Widow borrow Vessels and not a few 2 King 4. 4. and the water-pots were to be filled up to the brim when Christ was to work the miracle John 2. 7. Let the everlasting doors of our Souls be set wide open when it is this King of Glory who is to come in He that hath received most of Christ Psal 24. hath not enough and he who here thinks he hath received enough hath as yet received nothing Our largest draughts are but tasts and those tasts should but quicken the appetite Indeed our Saviour saith that he that drinks of the water that he will give him shall never thirst John 4. 14. But that is Not after other things but yet the more after more of himself not with a feverish hellish thirst as the rich man in those flames and as some Souls here in an hellish anguish but yet with an heavenly enlargement of desire after that which he finds so sweet and hath not yet enough of After fullest in-flows here our emptiness is not perfectly filled nor his fulness exhausted but after fullest communications the thirsty Soul saith Lord one drop one draught more and Christ as the Widow 2 King 4. 6. saith Bring me yet a Vessel and prove me if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out such a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it Mal. 3. 10. Let not the thirsty Earth cease gaping the thirsty Soul craving yet more and yet more till it be filled with all the fulness of God till that as it is in the Text he hath filled our Treasures Ephes 3. 19. 3. How fully should we rest satisfied with Christ alone Will he fill us And would we have any more Doth he fill our Treasures and that with himself and can we desire any thing better or more precious O Naphtali satisfied with favour and full with the Blessing of the Lord said Moses in his blessing of that Tribe Deut. 33. 23. and O blessed Soul say I though thou beest a Naphtali a Wrestler and in never so great conflict as that name signifieth how full may thy joy be How full of comfort if full John 16. 24. 1 John 1. 4. of Christ Though never so empty of other comforts nay though never so full of outward miseries though as it was with the Psalmist thy body be filled with loathsome Diseases Psal 38. 7. and thy soul exceedingly filled with the scorn and contempt of the proud Psal 123. 4. yet if thou beest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the old word was Plenus Deo Full of God and his Spirit if Christ do but fill thy treasures how shouldst thou rejoice in the Lord and joy in the Hab. 3. 17 18. God of thy salvation though there be no herd in the stall nor meal left in the empty barrel no nor oyl in the cruse yet what a feast of fat things full of marrow art thou entertain'd with Isa 25. 6. whilst thou feedest on Christ How doth thy Cup with David's run over when he fills it When God had said I have replenished every sorrowful soul Jer. 31. 25. the Prophet in v. 26. immediately adds Vpon this I awaked and behold my sleep was sweet to me If God please but to undertake from himself in Christ to fill up whatever our dish cup purse or heart wants of full should it be in the darkest night of all wants and miseries and we know not how dark ours may yet prove yet truly our sleep in them might be sweet and our Souls brim-full of comfort And therefore it is our duty as well for our own comfort as for the more full manifestation of his Glory to make up all our wants out of him our emptiness with his fulness Whilest led by sense and not supported by faith this is a very hard Lesson as it was for Moses to believe that Israel's whole Camp should be victualled and filled with flesh for a whole month in a Wilderness and for Philip Numb 11. 21 22. to conceive how so many thousands should be fed in a desert place with five barly loaves and two small fishes In such straits wants John 6. 5 7 8. desertions we cannot believe that Christ will that he can relieve and supply us But O fools and slow of heart to believe where is our faith Is it Christ the Wisdom and Power of God the Amen the faithful and true witness who here promises that he will fill our Treasures and can he not or will he not fulfil his word Though we wrong our selves let us not wrong Christ too If thou canst not believe that he can fill thee thou makest him an empty Saviour If not to fill thy treasure thou sayst he is but a poor Christ If not a friend in the want of a friend and habitation when thou art thrust out of Doors if not all in the want of all thou indeed makest him nothing and he will be nothing Gal. 5. 4. at least not what he truly is and what he here truly promiseth thee and that is to fill thy treasures 4. This might call upon us to follow God fully Numb 14. 24. and to stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God Col. 4. 12. Numb 32. 11. 1 King 11. 6. that our duty and his mercy may hold some proportion 5. But I end all with that which the Text affords And in it we find that all this of Christ's making us to inherit substance and to fill our treasures is promised only to them that love him The love of Christ As it is the condition of the thing promised or rather of the persons to whom it is promised so it is and should be the effect of it when enjoyed For if Christ do all this for us then to love him for it is a very easie demand I am sure but a very poor requital The things promised fall nothing short of perfect happiness Perfecta beatitudo Cartwr They were solid substantial reality an everlasting perpetuity and over-flowing fulness and plenty And what is Heaven more Did they all meet in any earthly commodity that it were a solid staple commodity and such as would last and were there enough of it we should not wish more it would not want high prizers and many buyers Christ we have heard is all this And therefore methinks it would be very hard if he may
Taste it but now afresh and thou shalt find it as fresh and give thee as much Refreshment as ever If it hath been thy greatest Joy in thy joyful Youth I tell thee it hath as much Joy in it for thy sad Old-age That may be said of God's Word which the Prophet saith of God himself Isa 46. 4. And even to Old-age I am he and even to hoare hairs I will carry you Doth not the Psalmist say as much in the 160. Verse of this Psalm Thy Word is true from the Beginning It 's well it begins well But will it last as well Yes He adds And every one of thy righteous Judgments endureth for ever Answerable to which is that other Expression ver 152. Concerning thy Testimonies I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever For ever and founded for ever O sweet Expression O grounded Comfort Brethren get acquainted with God's Word and Promise as soon as you can and maintain that Acquaintance everlastingly and your knowledg of it shall not either go before or go beyond its Truth Know it as soon and as long as you will or can and you shall never find it tripping or failing But you may after long Experience of God and it say I have known of old that thou hast founded it for ever And so I have done with the First Breadth of God's Word reaching to all Times II. There is a Second answerable to it for God's Word and the New Jerusalem Rev. 21. 16. in this are like Both the Length and Breadth of them are equal God's Word and Promise as it reacheth to all Times that 's the first Breadth so also to all Occasions and Wants That 's the Second Just like the Israelites There I shall have full peace to entertain my self a plentiful store of Ingredients to every Malady to quiet every doubt c. as Dr. Hammond paraphraseth the Text. Garments in the Wilderness which waxed not Old for Forâ—â— years There 's Length and Continuance But withal 〈◊〉 they must grow too as their Children did or else they would not serve their turn So truly here a gracious Promise will be better than a good Garment that will keep a poor Soul warm at heart Forty years together and much longer than so And which is the best of all we cannot out-grow it It will serve to lap the tender Babe in and yet not leave the tallest Christian in any place bare if he will but wear it This is the Second Breadth It will reach to all Needs and Wants which may be further considered in two Particulars 1. Some Word and Promise of God or other is able to reach to all our outward Wants and Evils which no one outward Contentment can do Health only cures Sickness but as many a Man is healthful and poor together it reacheth not to cure his Poverty And Riches take away Poverty but cannot sometimes buy Health Honour persumes a Man and keeps him from stinking in Man's nostrils but many a Man that is well esteemed of may be poor enough One Contentment helps usually but one Want and one Plaister useth not to cover many Sores and truly for outward Matters scarce any Man hath a Plaster for every Sore Say those of you that have most in this kind Have you so much as you want nothing Now truly herein especially is seen the Exceeding breadth of God's Word and Promises Had we but so much Skill as to go to every Box of precious Oyntment in this Myrotheke we might find certainly a Salve for every outward Sore And had we but so much Faith but as to apply it we should find it sovereign too Here 's a Promise that might heal that Wound which a slanderous Tongue hath given me there another which might be my best Cordial on my Sick-bed in another the poor Hunger-starved Body might these hard Times meet with a good Meals-meat yea I assure you and Dainties too I name not more particulars nor have I time to exemplifie any But in general consider only the 92. ver of this Psalm and think whether it speak not one word for all Vnless thy Law had been my delights I had perished in mine Affliction Affliction is a large word and may contain under it many particular Evils Now where 's his Cure for all Truly he hath one Catholicon one Receipt for all Thy Law in the singular number But what of it What can Delectationes in plurali significans nullum esse genus doloris cui non inveniatur in verbo Dei remedium Mollerus one Law do to so many Evils He tells you it's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We read it Vnless it had been my delight But the word in the Original is wonderfully significant in a double respect it s both 1. In numero plurali 2. Forma duplicata In plural number Delights and they doubled too Is my Affliction sickness In God's Word had I but Faith I might get Health and Health again Is it Nakedness I might get Clothes yea and double Clothing And so of the rest Brethren did we but walk so in Obedience to the Word that we were fit for Mercies and then had but Faith to rely upon the Promise for them in this one Bible we might find many Delights and them doubled too Health and Health by the Word is double Health Food and Food with and from a Promise is double Food both first and second Course too So God's Word reacheth to all Wants of the outward Man and in that respect is exceeding broad 2. But secondly It can reach to cover all the Nakedness and heal all the Wounds of the inward Man and if so then sure it is exceeding exceeding broad In this respect though a Man were so outwardly happy that he were clothed and harnessed Cap-a-pe as you say from top to toe in regard of outward Man yet for all this as the Prophet speaks in a like Case Isa 28. 20. This Covering may be narrower than that a Man can wrap himself in it Though harnessed from top to toe in this kind yet truly this is not Armour of Proof Brethren a Man may have a poor naked Soul under all our warm and gay Clothes and truly the Arrow of God's Wrath can wound the Soul through all such Clothes and Armour O Blessed then be God who hath given us his Word which as it can clothe the Body so it can Cover the Soul too that cannot only keep off many a heavy Stroke from the outward Man but can keep the Conscience from many a deadly Wound yea and can heal those which we had got when carelesly we had not it about us I Brethren herein is seen the infinite Breadth of God's Word that one Promise of it can quiet and heal and refresh a weary wounded Conscience which no finite Creature not all the Creatures joyned together can Well are those two joyned together The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul You read
next place it 's a word of both comfort and direction Vse 5 in the end of all other Perfections that God 's Commandment is exceeding broad I say first Comfort that whereas all other imperfect Contentments are but short and narrow if I have but my share in God's Word and Promise I have that which in the loss of all them will reach me comfort to all Times and in all Wants Truly Brethren all outward Contentments be they never so glorious and comfortable they will not last long nor reach far not longer than Life not so far as Heaven no not so far as mine inward Man Babylon's broad Walls are thrown down Jer. 51. 58. they are unstedfast as Waters and as it is said in anokind the face of such Waters is soon straitned Fair large Job 37. 10. Estates soon brought into a narrow compass great Families soon reduced to a small number To speak to the present occasion pretty little Children are like pretty little Books in which a Parent sometimes reads much that very well likes him But it may be he cannot read long for tears when the Book is taken away and at best he cannot read much because it is but a little one But blessed be God may a Child of God say who is sure that he hath part in God and his Promise that I have another Book of a larger Volumn of a far broader Page than all these outward comforts come to They are but narrow Rivers at the best and they soon dried up too But God in his Word in his Kingdom hath broad Rivers that you read of Isa 33. 21. and they deep ones too in which I may bathe and not be straitned and out of which I may drink for ever and yet they never dried up but spring up to everlasting life This is a Christian's comfort in such cases and it should be his direction too in them that when he sees an end come of this perfection and of that to be still thinking that there will at last come an end of all and yet in the end of all even then to look unto this Commandment and word and promise of God which the Text saith is so exceeding broad As Hath God straitned me in my estate Take that out of the breadth of Gods Word Hath he taken this pretty little child this pretty little book out of my hand that I cannot read in it as formerly Truly let us get a better a bigger a broader book into our hands God's book and see what we can read there if not enough to make a full supply of all such wants that whereas other men shuffle and shift have this fetch and that reach and as they use to say when the Lion's skin is not big enough to cover all they sew the Fox skin to it to make it broad enough and yet all will not do because there will be an end of all perfection a Christian is or at least should be able out of God's Word and Promises as out of a rich Treasury to make a supply of all such wants Here he gets a promise for himself and there another for his friend Here one for a live-dead parent and there another for himself though his child be dead In a word that 's it I call for as much as we are straitned in outward comforts let us labour to be so much enlarged in God and as much as he takes from us of outward contentments to get as much and more from him in this broad Commandment and large Promises and then we shall be no losers This one word also that Gods Commandment is exceeding broad Vse 6 is ground of great comfort to other of God's children in other cases as much satisfying them in two main doubts they stick at 1. The first is They are so sinful and so unworthy and set so far off and estranged from God that his mercy they think will never reach them But let such think then of this exceeding broad Commandment There is breadth and length and heighth and depth in Gods love passing knowledge Ephes 3. 18 19. And there is such a breadth and exent in Gods promises that they can cover our greatest sores reach the furthest out-liers if they would but come in Boaz hath a skirt to cast upon Ruth though a poor handmaid Ruth 3. 9. And much more hath Christ to cover the Ne cogitemus ad nos non pertinere promissionem sicut enim perpetuò durat et persistit verbum quod primum erat ita latum est valde i. e. undique ad omnia tempora aetates ad omnes homines qui fide hanc doctrinam amplectuntur se extendit M. nakedness of his poorest servants Mens blessings and favours are strait and when Jacob hath got away the blessing Esau may cry bitterly and say bless me even me also O my father and Isaac have it not for him But God hath for all that will unfeignedly ask and beg of him He hath a blessing for me and another for thee and a third for a third and even for them that are afar off Acts 2. 38 39. though never so far off yet if with the like bitterness but not the like profanesse that Esau had thou cryest blesse me even me also O my father If thou canst but call him Father thy Father hath a blessing for thee also for his Commandment is exceeding broad to reach to all thy needs and wants and sins 2. And to all times and by that a second trouble is removed for a child of God though he hath gotten beyond the former doubt that God hath had mercy for him to bring him at first to him yet he sees his weakness such and his lusts so strong that he fears he shall never hold out in grace to heaven but that there will be as well an end of this as of all other perfections but let such remember that however their strength reacheth not far is scant and soon spent yet that God's promise and truth and mercy ne cogitemus fieri posse ut nos in medio cursu destituamur Molerus is of a far broader extent and longer continuance for God's Word those that have had longest experience of it have yet cause to say as vers 152. Concerning thy testimonies thy promises I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever and in the end of health and peace and strength and life to end all with this word last in his mouth I have seen an end of all perfection but thy Commandment is exceeding broad SERMON XXIV EXOD. 28. 36. August 19. 1634. Before Sir Nathanael Brent Visitor for the Arch-Bishop of Cant erbury in his Metropolitical Visitation Holiness to the Lord. VErbum Diei in die suo A fit time had it been by an abler hand to bring forth the Priests garments out of the Scripture's vestry whilst the eye of Authority is present to see them put on and here the first peece
that in the very forefront I light on is Aarons Frontlet in the Text. Thou shalt make a plate of pure gold and grave upon it like the ingraving of a signet sanctitas Jehovae or sanctum Domino Holiness to the Lord. For the literal sense as meant of Aaron I find no difficulty some would who doubt whether both words were ingraven on this golden plate or the word Jehova only But P. Fagius rightly concludes for both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holiness to the Lord both ingraven to let Aaron know what God was and what he should be especially in his holy Ministrations God was holy and he would have him so especially when he came before him For the mystical signification as applied to Christ the High-Priest 1 Pet. 1. 19. John 1. 29. of our profession it agrees fully That spotless Lamb took away the sins of the world who had none of his own so full of holiness he that on his very fore-head all might have read this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holiness to the Lord. For such an High-Priest it became us to have who was holy and harmless and separate from sinners Hebr. 7. 26. And therefore passing by both these the moral application of it especially to Ministers and partly to all Christians will be the subject of my present discourse Which that it may be more orderly give me leave in this Aarons Frontlet out of this and the adjacent verses to observe and handle these particulars 1. Quid what 's expressed and required and that 's Holiness 2. Vbi where it 's to be sought and seen on his very forehead and the forefront of his miter vers 37 38. 3. Quomodo how ingraven there with the ingraving of a signet 4. The Finis cui to whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all this to the Lord. 5. The Finis cujus for what cause that the peoples holy gifts might be accepted and the iniquity of them pardoned vers 38. And of these now briefly 1. The thing here ingraven on the Priest in the Law and required of the Preacher of the Gospel is especially and above all Holiness Not outward riches and greatness they to us but like wings A Sanctus Valerius in the Church of God is a better man than a Valerius Maximus to the Ostrich which she cannot fly with but only flutter and get the faster away By these we only get to outgo other men but by themselves they do not help us to fly up to heaven our selves or to carry others along with us No nor so much inward gifts of Learning and such like abilities though such polishing necessary to the Priest yet it 's not it but Holiness that 's here ingraven in his Crown Knowledge without Grace Learning in the head without Holiness in the forehead is but like a precious stone in a Toad's head or like flowers stuck about a dead body which will not fully keep it from smelling the less half by much of a Minister's accomplishment And therefore they that have it only at best are but like a ship ballasted only on one side that thereby sinks the sooner Or like David's messengers their 2 Sam. 10. priestly garment which should be talaris is cut off by the middle to their greater shame And yet well were it if many were not seen daily go so half naked and yet not ashamed of it The Mathematicians observe that a man that compasseth the earth his head goeth many thousand miles more than his feet but in ascent to heaven the feet would have the greater journey I so it is whilst we rather go about to compass the earth than to get up to heaven our heads outgo our feet our knowledge our practice but yet in the Church of God although there be sixty Queens and eighty Concubines and Virgins without number yet his Love and Dove is his undefiled one and she is but one Cant. 6. 8. And therefore I envy you not your sixty-Queens and eighty Concubines and Virgins without number your numerous numberless perfections of Arts and Tongues had you skill in as many Languages as ever Mithridates could speak or in as many Authors as Ptolomy's library could hold had you the life and strength of Paul or the eloquence of Apollo's preaching had you Chrysostom's tongue or Austin's pen had you all the perfections that could be named or thought of I should not be like profane Porphyrie who accounted it pity that such an accomplished man as Paul was should be cast away upon our Religion nor like profane parents in our days that think much to offer to the Lord a male any that have strength of body or mind but the halt and the blind the impotent of body and Mal. 1. it may be more in mind Cripples and blocks whom they know not what else to do with are they which they think fittest to bestow on the Ministry but cursed deceivers at length learn not to envy God your choisest jewels for the ornament of his Sanctuary for can they be better bestowed Much less brethren and Gospel-Bezaleels do I envy you your rarest endowments and perfections if you will please but with him to employ them in the helping up of Gods Sanctuary I envy you not all your such like Queens and Concubines and Virgins only upon this double condition first that you commit not folly with them and still that your undefiled one be your love and dove that whatever other engravings you have otherwhere about you yet that holiness be as here engraven on your crown on your heart and fore-head ingraven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holiness to the Lord. Holiness But what is that In general a sequestring and setting either person or thing apart for God whether from common or profane use and in both respects be we holy that bear the vessels of the Lord Isa 52. 11. 1. We Ministers should be holy as separated to the Lord from worldly employments not as though I approved the slow-bellied Romish Monkery of our dayes or yet condemned the Monks of old for having honest callings to be employed in or least of all found fault with St. Paul for tent-making Acts 18. 3. and Working with his own hands 1 Cor. 4. 12. Idleness is unlawful in all And Pauls particular case to avoid scandal made his course in that kind both holy and commendable But yet this notwithstanding this first part of holiness required calls for 1. a sequestration from such homely and sordid imployments as will make our selves and Ministry contemptible St. Jerom saith that sacerdos in foro is as bad an eye-sore as Mercator in Templo both to be whipt out A Minister and a Market-man are not unisons It 's not spade or mattock but the sword of the spirit that must be seen in our hands which is that we should both work and fight with It had been shameful if true that which Litprandus avoucheth of the Bishops Apud Baron Anno 968. Num. 11. c. of
Greece in his time Ipsi Agasones Caupones c. that they were their own market-men and serving-men yea and stable-grooms too that they were hucksters and kept Taverns and Victualling houses But the basenesse was in the base slanderer and not in the Grecian Bishop which other Historians of those times shew Curopalates was far from such sordidnesse But should such soyl stick to any Ministers now adayes should it be out of necessity and want I pity them but if from degenerous covetousness I loath it and so doth God too I wish I confess that the former cause too often held not for whereas the Scripture speaks of giving to Ministers Prov. 3. 9. the vulgar renders it da pauperibus and not much amiss for the Priest and the poor man go often in the same clothes It might indeed have been a lesson which those learned Clericks in former times had taken out In Ecclesiâ omnis immensitas est mensura Anton Rosell part 1. Monarch Cap. 70. as one of their Lawyers complaines But sure if Wickliff were now alive he would not have much cause in many places to complain of the Church now as he did then that Cumulantur temporalia usque ad putredinem All Church-men's livings are not like his Lutterworth If God were not the tribe of Levi's inheritance the Priesthood to many an one would be but a poor one He had need look to be honest for simoniacal Patrons injurious Impropriatours sacrilegious Minister-Conseners will take a course to keep him poor and if sordid too now cursed be they of the Lord in so making him base and his Ministry contemptible in defiling this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aarons miter is called Exod. 29. 6. his holy crown by casting it to the ground and burying it in the earth But if he himself so fall a digging as to bury his talent there now an evil servant is he and an heavier account will he one day without repentance have to make for it which yet I wish too many now adayes were not liable to I have sometimes thought how it comes to pass that so many Mechanicks amongst us prove Ministers and methinks I hear them return answer that they therein do but agere de repetundis according to lex talionis it is to cry quit because so many Ministers incroach on their occupations and prove Mechanicks that so as it were according to the schooles doctrine in another point so many men may be brought in to fill up the number of collapsed Angels but both are blemishes to the Church and well were it if some aqua fortis did eat out such moles from off the face of it for on Aarons forehead is Holiness to the Lord which should sever as common men from such an holy calling so those of such an holy calling from such common employment 1. First if mean and sordid 2. Though more ingenuous and liberal so far as it cometh to the Apostle's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. so far as to intangle him in the world to hinder him in his holy function 2 Tim. 2. 4. And here I wish our Church were noâ— sometimes sick of Physick-divines and Gospel-Lawyers that handle the Code more than the Bible and study the Statutes of the kingdom more than the ten Commandments or at least make account that a Photius his Nomo-canon makes the best medly Not that I condemn all Ministers intermedling if called to it in secular occasions if not to the blemish of the men or hindring of their Ministry That it should be unlawful for a Clergy-man to enter into a Prince's Court was a Canon of the second Roman Synod's making as foolish as the Synod it self was forged Crakanthrop's defence of Constantin pag. 11 12. With God's leave and blessing let them be for the Common-wealth's advantage if it be not with the Church's hindrance But in case they should clash let all Church-men look first to the Church whilst others look to the Senate-house yea and let me add to the Church in the country that I have a charge of rather than the Colledge in the University that I would live idlely in unless I would be like elementary fire that shineth not in its own place or like Jonah who when sent by God to preach at Niniveh flieth to Tarshish which out of Strabo appears to have been an University to be a student or to it as an Emporium to See Doctor Raiâ—old his Sermons upon Obaâ—iah See Doctor Albot on Jonah cap. 1. play as some think the merchant Sure both wayes he made a bad voyage of it which should make us steer aright by shaping our course point-blank on Christ's and his Church's service and instead of Castor and Pollux Acts 28. 11. let these two words be the sign of our ship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holiness to the Lord in this kind of separation from ordinary employments 2. But much more from sinful defilements Thus 2 Chron. 35. 3. Josiah's Levits were not onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Holy as well as learned such as did live as well as they preached and whilst now adayes some affect one method of preaching and others another sure I am Ezra followed the best cap. 7. 10. he first prepares his heart to seek the Law and then to do it and not till then to teach it just as Paul that matchless pattern for preachers that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in regard of his divine contemplations and for his holy life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom calls him you shall observe that he proves his own fidelity from his doctrines truth 2 Cor. 1. 17 18. there was not in him and his promises yea and nay because the word and promises of God which he preached were not yea and nay as though he had said my practice is honest and true because my doctrine is truth a good argument in a holy Paul's mouth but would not many a plain country man's logick say it were a non sequitur in many of ours but sure it should follow Ministers holy doctrine and life should follow and prove and strengthen each other mutually Not a blemish admitted in a Priest of the old Testament and Paul's description excepts against the least blot of a Bishop in the new The Priest was to view and to be amongst Lepers then but was not wont to be infected with their Leprosie It is our calling to be dealing with sinners but should be our care not to be defiled with their sins If our feet be beautiful Rom. 10. 15. sure clean wayes become them If we do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 2. 14. as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 15. we shall go but halting before the flock And here as Paul transferred all in a figure to himself and Apollos 1 Cor. 4. 6. so will you please to give me leave to speak a little to my self nor will it be time ill spent
and that where he may be seen in Providences Ordinances in Word Sacraments and although thy case be ill afflicted and tossed with tempests scorched with heat and spent with thirst yet leave not seeking till there you find him to be all this in the Text even an hiding-place from the wind So first as such seek him As such when found trust and rest and glory in him and improve Vse 2 him Thou mayest then cry aloud thy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found him whom my soul loveth and that as these comparisons express it every way happily for Christ was born in Bethlehem Ephrata Mic. 5. 2. The first word whereof signifieth an house of bread and the other fruitfulness There 's therefore no starving or pining there In thy Fathers house there 's bread enough yea and physick enough too for every disease as St. Ambrose fully on Psal 119. 57. those words Portio mea Domine O Lord thou art my portion And indeed a naked Christ is Portion enough besides all other Bequests and Legacies To this purpose it 's worth the marking that Psal 81. 8. God seems to make way to speak of some great matter which he would with greedy attention have listned to Hearken O my people and I will testifie O Israel if thou wilt hearken unto me as though some great promise were to follow and so there doth but what is it see vers 9 10. That there shall be no strange God amongst them besides him as though he by himself were all-sufficient enough and Abraham's exceeding great reward without them So happy every way thou art if thou hast him but more happy if every way we could improve him for as God would have none of our parts and abilities lye idle so neither would he have any thing in him that we have interest in not improved And therefore seeing Christ and Godliness are profitable for all things we should in greater and lesser wants and evils improve Christ and have recourse to him that even to us and in our particular whether inward or outward blusterings and thirstings and faintings we may find him as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the storm that thy thirsty soul may find him rivers of waters in that dry place and thy tired-out spirit the shadow of a great rock in a weary land This the Application of what Christ is to us For that other what it cost him First see thy sin in the sufferings of thy Saviour what he did Vse 1 endure thou shouldst have done And therefore sinful soul look upon thy Christ arraigned condemned whipt cursed crucified and say all this I should have been Tua O gulosa gula c. as he saith Drunkard it was thy sugred cup that made Christ drink Gall and Vinegar Proud haughty one it was thy pride that hung thy Saviour between thieves thy gayness proud Peacock that crowned him with thorns It was the wantonness of thy flesh that pierced thy Saviour's with nails and tore it with whips and therefore when thou seest thy Saviour's blood arise in his wounds let thine in an holy blush arise in thy face and say all this blast and storm which the roof endured and all that scorching heat which the rock is beaten upon with was procured by my sins and had not Christ interposed had certainly lighted on my person and therefore I 'l first loath both But secondly the more love him yea more than our selves saying with Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Christ as my sins so my love was crucified and by way of thankfulness though it never be a requital I 'l interpose my dearest right hand to save my Head from wounding The servant shall willingly put his own body between his Master and the thrust to save his dishonour who by so doing hath himself saved his soul even by being an hiding-place from the wind a covert from the storm rivers of waters in a dry place the shadow of a great rock in a weary land Tibi Domine Jesu SERMON XXVIII JOHN 5. 14. At St. Paul's Decemb. 27. 1646. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple and said unto him Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee THe prudent Physician 's care is not only perfectly to Medicinae partes duae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cure the present disease but withal to prevent an after-relapse which otherwise might prove more dangerous and accordingly the Lord Jesus our Phaebus Medicus the Son of righteousness that hath healing in his wings in the beginning of the Chapter comes as a loving Physician to the Pool of Bethesda as to a publick Hospital of impotent diseased people vers 2. and of all the multitude he most graciously visits one that had most need of pity and help whose disease Interpreters Dulcis medicus in viset Nosocomium prae caeteris maxime laborantem conceive was most dangerous and for time grown Chronical the Text saith of thirty eight years continuance vers 5. drooping Christian die not of despair for thou shalt not of thy disease though never so desperate if Christ undertake the cure for him he healed vers 7 8. for his body and so much was wrought on his soul that from Bethesda's Porch v. 2. he was now got to the Temple in the Text most likely to return thanks to God Vt mos erat Luc. 18. 10. Act. 3. 1 8. Grotius for his recovery but his Saviour was not as yet savingly made known to him And therefore to perfect the cure in healing his soul and to prevent a relapse of both soul and body into a worse malady he casts about there the second time to meet him and after his cure prescribes him a Diet this Recipe Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee In which words two things are implied and two things injoyned The first thing implied in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sin no more was that after his recovery without better care taken he was in danger to sin again The second this that if he did revolt to his former sin he was in eminent danger to relapse into a worse malady in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. lest a worse thing come unto thee Whereupon the two things prescribed and injoyned and the first a means of the second are 1. A serious consideration of the Mercy he had received in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold thou art made whole 2. A studious care that he would avoid the like sin if he would not incur a greater danger in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee Like as the Angel charged Lot now gotten out of Sodom to flie for his life and not look back lest Vengeance should overtake him Gen. 19. 17. Or as if the Physician before spoken of should say thus to his Patient whose wantonness or
that lame man had attained in the presence of them all Acts 3. 16. The Humours in this great and greatly diseased Body are yet in an hurry we bleed still at best our Wounds are but in healing and not yet fully whole But yet humble and hearty thanks be to our heavenly Physician we cannot but see as it were this poor Man in the Text arising our Sanballats and Tobiahs whom our Healing wounds and cuts to the heart even they to their grief hear and see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the phrase is Neh. 4. 7. that an healing Plaister is mercifully applyed to our bleeding Wounds that unless we be stupid and sensless we cannot but with the Woman when her bloudy Issue was stopt know and feel what is done in us Matth. 5. 33. and unless lothsomly ingrateful say as it is Ezek. 21. 26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is not this we are not what we were that a great change is wrought in the Patient and we hope in a healing way so that though not wholly yet in part though not absolutely yet comparatively in regard of what we were we are made whole And therefore O London O England Behold Behold thy former Wound and thy present Cure Behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from what depths of Misery into which thy sins had cast thee to what hopeful and happy beginnings of Health and Peace the healing hand of thy pitiful Physician hath raised thee thy Religion wofully corrupted now graciously begun to be reformed thy Liberty before inslaved now vindicated a most unnatural and bloody War the other day most eagerly prosecuted by the malice of Man more powerfully and miraculously ceased through the Mercies of God This poor Man that had been sick so long could not have believed that ever he should have been well so soon nor had we Faith to believe that were so hastily dying away in the beginning of the last year we should be so happily recovering by the end of this Let therefore the Voice of the Cryer and through God's Mercy not now as that might have been in a Wilderness call out all your heedfullest attentions and let an unworthy Minister use the holy Prophet's words Come and behold the Works of the Lord we might of late have added as it 's there what desolations he hath made but now what Restaurations what Salvation he hath wrought in the Earth He maketh Wars to cease he breaketh the Bow and cutteth the Spear in sunder and burneth the Chariot in the fire Psal 46. 8 9 c. Truly the Lord hath so wrought his wonderful Works that they ought to be full in our eye and heart for the present and to be had for the future in everlasting remembrance O set up our Eben-ezer with this impress upon it Hitherto hath the Lord helped us Behold thus far O England thou art made whole and what remains but 2. The second duty injoyned in the following word sin O sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee Sin no more Now the Lord be more merciful for I fear many of us sin more than ever Oppressions in many more aggravated Heresies more openly maintained Christ the Holy Ghost and Holy Scriptures more horribly blasphemed Factions and Divisions more multiplied the Scene only changed but the same or a worse part acted the Weapons struck out of the hands of Enemies and more taken up by Brethren and Friends Were Christians ever so mutually estranged and imbittered Were your publick Church-Assemblies ever so neglected In your civil Meetings your Elections and other Affairs ever with such confusion I had almost said brutish rage as of late so transacted as though we had put off Christianity and Civility and Humanity together But think in all your hearts and all your souls Is this to sin no more Is it not to revolt more and more O think that you see God angrily looking upon you and saying but do you thus requite me O foolish people and unwise Think that you see Jesus Christ standing and weeping over you and saying as once O Jerusalem Jerusalem if thou hadst known even thou in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace thou wouldst have made a better return lest before thou art aware they be hid from thine eyes I charge thee once more sin no more serve me thus no more O do not this abominable thing that I hate Jer. 44. 4. at last be thou instructed O Jerusalem O England lest my soul depart from thee lest I make thee desolate a Land not inhabited Jer. 6. 8. Do we remember our former fears and troubles were they not bad enough that we now grow worse that they may be renewed and aggravated Do we remember our resolutions vows and promises that we then made to prevail with God for Mercy were they that we would be worse than ever if God would deliver us and do we think that upon those terms he would have helped us Do we consider to what happiness we have for the present arrived to an Harbour after a Tempest to a day of joy and gladness after the sad times of our griefs and fears And shall our sins damp our joyes drive us again into the deep and overcloud our Sun in a clear day unless we be weary of our Mercies let us not weary Amos 8. 9. our God by our sins Noli gemmam perdere in die festo is an Arabick Proverb O do not that in a good day which will undo all the comfort of it Or lastly do we think what yet we may be Are we so absolutely cured that we are past all possibility of a relapse May not the wound rankle and grow angry and then come to Judab's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there be no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 16. O why should Israel's stubborness when come to the borders of Canaan drive them back to the Red Sea again why should we cast poyson into the wound that 's healing O why will we dye O pity a tender Mother a dear Native Country which beseecheth you by the Womb that bare you and by the Breasts that gave you suck that now that she is recovering you would not be a means of her death that first gave you breath If you will not pity your selves yet pity the excellency of your strength the desire Ezek. 24. 21. of your eyes and that which your soul pityeth your sons and your daughters which may do God more service than ever you have done when you are dead and gone Eat not the sour Grapes that their teeth be not set on edge that instead of rising up and calling us blessed they do not gnash their teeth and curse us that by our sins in this Crisis when we might have made both our selves and them happy have utterly undone both without recovery I might in this kind say much yet when I had said all I could say no more than the Text doth And therefore when I have done speaking let
these words of your Saviour be ever sounding in your ears Behold you are made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto you Amen Lord Jesus SERMON XXIX PSAL. 73. 28. Preached at St. Pauls Febr. 27. 1647 8. After at St. Maries But it is good for me to draw near to God THe Text is a Conclusion strongly inferred upon two great Truths premised in the foregoing part of the Psalm summed up Isa 3. 10 11. Eccles 8. 12 13. The first was that notwithstanding all the evils that the godly endure yet God is good to Israel vers 1. and therefore it 's good to draw near to God It 's good to draw near to a good God nay best of all as the Arabick reads it to keep close to that God who is so good notwithstanding the worst evils The second was that notwithstanding the wicked's present flourish yet their end is destruction vers 2 3 c. and in the Verse immediatly before the Text For lo they that are far from thee shall perish thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee and therefore again it 's good for me to draw near to thee Bernard sums up both in his double Quere Vbi enim benè erit Sermon 1. sine illo aut ubi malè potest esse cum illo If it cannot be ill with him nor well without him then it 's best to draw near to him If it be no less than destruction to go a whoring from him then the Spouse that in running away after her lovers hath met with a sharp Thorn-Hedge had need return home to her first Husband Hos 2. 6 7. If they perish that are afar off then it is my safest course to get and keep near When they of Pharaoh's servants that were in the field were smitten with the hail it concerned those of them that feared God to keep home Exod. 9. 20 21 25. When the sword of man or Angel will destroy them that are abroad it behoves Israel and Rahab's family to keep within doors Exod. 12. 22. Josh 2. 18 19. If the out-lying Deer be in danger to be hunted by every Dog and the stray-Sheep or Chicken to be snatched and torn by every Wolf or Kite it 's best to keep within the Pale and Fold and under the Wing To get and keep as near and close to God and under his Wing as may be The Psalmist's own comfortable experiences of God's goodness whilest he kept close to him and the sad events of others going and keeping far from him made him so wise as elsewhere to resolve Return to thy rest O my soul and here feelingly to conclude Redi anima mea in requiem tuam Psal 116. 7. Mihi autem adhaerere Deo bonum est but it 's good for me to draw near to God In which Proposition the Predicate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By Good is not meant any lower degree or kind of goodness but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that summum bonum that chiefest good in the enjoying whereof mans highest happiness consists And accordingly in the Subject of the Proposition are three things observable 1. Beatitudo Objectiva that chief Good in the enjoyment of which our Happiness consists and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God For so None good but God only Matth. 9. 17. and so he is the Psalmist's goodness Psal 144. 2. 2. Beatitudo Formalis our Union with and Enjoyment of that chief Good whereby we are actually made happy and blessed in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drawing near for the meaning whereof please to take notice of two things 1. That in the Hebrew Text it's indifferent to be understood either of God's drawing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 near to us or of our drawing near to God the former the cause of the latter and the happy meeting of both makes up our blessedness The Summer's Sun drawes near to the Marigold which makes it turn to the Sun and that makes out its full flourish God in Mercy draws near to us and as a Load-stone draws makes us draw near to him whence ariseth our chiefest nay only happiness in Union with him For that likewise is secondly to be observed for the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it signifieth not only Motum to draw near and so by Apollinarius here rendred Not only to draw near but to be near and so to abide 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by some Copies of the Lxx 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also it signifieth the Rest and firm Posture of the Soul upon such an advance and approach not only appropinquare but then adhaerere to keep close and cleave fast agglutinari so Euthymius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as ordinarily as it is here in the Lxx by which word the nearest and straitest ty between Husband and Wife is expressed Eph. 5. 31. and which suits well with the Text which to what was said in the foregoing Verse of the destruction of them that go a whoring from God opposeth the goodness and happiness of an humble loyal drawing near to him and an inseparable fast cleaving to him for ever Here O quam bonum how good is it thus to draw near and thus to cleave fast both begun whilest we are here in the way but completed in Heaven at our Journeys end 3. But the third particular tells you the Subject or Person to whom such an approach is so good and that according to the Philosopher's definition of the chief good should be every man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the Psalmist doth not inclose the Commons when he more particularly applyes it to himself its good for me c. for although all men are ready to enquire after it with a who will shew us any good Psal 4. 6. Yet in their pursuit of it they start so many false Games that instead of that unum necessarium in Varro's time Luke 10. 42. Philosophers did so differ that by ringing the changes of their several Tenents as Austin sheweth there might be not fewer De Câ—vit l. 19. c. 1. than 288 Opinions about it but whilest most men mistake and in the foregoing Verse account it good for them to keep afar off and go a whoring from God it 's the happiness of the Faithful so to be guided as to pitch right and to make that his first main Principle and last resolved Conclusion which the Prophet here makes the beginning and ending of this Psalm that God is good to Israel and therefore whatever other do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quod ad me spectat for my part it 's that which I have felt the comfort of and therefore am resolved to abide by Mihi adharere Deo bonum est It 's good for me to draw near and cleave fast to God A divine Apophthegme which it seems St. Austin's heart was Doct. much taken with that he so oft and
by our Out-runnings we cannot get out of his Reach the further we are from God in one sense the nearer we shall be in another the further from Righteousness Isa 46. 12. the nearer to a Curse Heb. 6. 8. It will be the saddest learning the truth of this Point what a Blessed thing it is to draw nigh to God to be chid from Christ's Presence with that Soul-sinking word Depart from me ye Cursed at the last Day Matth. 25. 41. They are deep and heavy words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thess 1. 9. It 's everlasting Destruction if Expulsi a facie as Beza renders it if it be so from the Presence of the Lord and his Glorious Power And therefore that we may prevent that Howling then how tuneable would it be sweetly and yet sadly to bewail and mourn over 1. Our natural Estrangement from God which the Psalmist Psal 58. 3. saith we were acquainted with from the very Birth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are Estranged from the Womb they go astray as soon as they are Born Now what Monsters are we all from the Birth That before we know to refuse the Evil and chuse the Isa 7. 16. Good by a kind of natural Instinct we can tell how to refuse the Good and chuse the Evil before we can go can run away from God See this in a three-fold Instance 1. When Nature is left to its Swing without renewing or some measure of restraining Grace for were there none we should be very Devils to God and one another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hos 11. 7. Even bent to Back-sliding That may express Suspensi haerent aversioni a me Jun. a more stiff bent of a perverse Heart from a further contracted Averseness but yet so as 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and natural propension of the Heart Animus pendulus dubius haesitat circa conversionem meam as Grotius renders it When as it 's there expressed called upon to turn home to God the Heart naturally sticks and stops and hangs off as you may see some Trees do from others planted by them which from some occult quality in Nature agree not with them What else mean all these Stirs in our Hearts and Tumults in the World but when called to God all is its an uproar Acts 16. 19 20. 19. 28. 21. 28. Wretched Creatures that have an Antipathy to their Creator graceless Natures that do not more ungraciously than unnaturally start back from a Saviour 2. Or if any be more ingenuous and as you call it a little better-natured that with him in the Gospel they be not far from the Kingdom of Heaven Mark 12. 34. yet even that rested in keeps them from ever coming up to Jesus Christ Pity that Rachel should die when it was now but a little way to come Gen. 35. 16. to Ephrath that an Almost should altogether keep so many a towardly Man from Heaven But a thousand pities that my drawing so near the Goal should set me down as having gone far enough and so keep me from ever attaining the Prize that Ingenuity because it 's so near akin to Grace should prove so Disingenuous as to keep a Man from ever being truly Gracious 3. Even in the Godly themselves in whom this perverseness of Nature is not wholly subdued what is their greatest Burden and Moan But as Rom. 7. 18 21 23 24. that makes us so listless and sometimes so averse from drawing near to God in holy Duties and especially in those in which nearest Communion is to be had with him Rather read than hear the Word rather hear than pray and meditate and rather pray than examine our Hearts Mourn we therefore over our bad nay our best Natures that if they walk not contrary to God yet at best cannot be drawn up the Hill near enough to him Mourn Levit. 26. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in occursum I say over our natural Estrangement from God 2. Over our actual Out-runnings and more wild and endless Vagaries in our sinful Courses and Practises It 's a wicked departing from God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Sam. 22. 22. And here as in sin there is a double Irregularity an Aversio a Deo and a Conversio ad Creaturam so in this our sinful not drawing near to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. 1. 14. there is a double Miscarriage which we are to be humbled for 1. Our inordinate Conversion and Turning to the Creature a hankering after something else when a hanging off from God that instead of God there are so many other things which we draw so near and keep so close to as Sin Self the World c. Indeed any thing rather than God Not a sinful Lust but a corrupt Heart is in the earnest pursuit of it Prov. 11. 19. rests not till it overtake it and it then proves a Member cleaves so fast is such a right Eye and Hand and Foot that it's death to part with it here the unchaste Soul amplexibus haeret We are drawn to an Holy God and off from an unholy Lust with the like and very same difficulty For Self Proximus egomet mihi holds here and holds us so fast that too oft it with-holds us from drawing near to God Nothing shall come between us and our selves when any thing almost can be suffered to put in between our God and our Souls We hug Self in the warmest Bosom and clasp about our selves with lovingest Embraces Our own Opinions we do mordicus tenere our Votes we adhere to Our own understandings we lean to Prov. 3. 5. De Verbis Apost Ser. 13. Dicebat Epicuraeus mihi frui carne bonum est dicebat Stoicus mihi frui meâ mente bonum est But for our Psalmist Mihi adhoerere Deo bonum est So St. Austin And for the World Solomon saith God hath set it in Man's heart Eccles 3. 11. He means to contemplate him in it but we pervert his meaning whilst the whole desire and bent of the Heart closeth with it and is fastned in it It 's the Market which you see all going to They say the Earth hath vim magneticam and some think that if you should dig deep enough into it you should find it a perfect Loadstone Sure I am some Men's hearts are so deeply buried in it that they find a perfect Loadstone of it It 's not so much the Centre of the World as of our Hearts as the chief Good which they move to and rest in and cannot be parted from instead of accounting it our chief Good to draw near to God The covetous too-good Husband makes his Goods his chief Good You call him a near Man and not amiss because he desires to be nearer to himself than to God Jer. 22. 17. The Idle Drone with Ass-like Issachar saith That rest is good Gen. 49. 15. And the wanton Epicure places his best good in his Pleasure and a Turkish
of possessing the Soul betrays and enslaves it that it 's no more it self than the Galley slave his own Man The Coolest Spirit in its own Cause is warm in God's as we see in meek Moses Exod. 32. 19. Nor did Christ speak Contradictions Rev. 2. 2. when he said of the Church of Ephesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I know thy patience and that thou canst not bear them which are evil But what cannot Patience bear Any thing for God but nothing against him It 's Impatient of that for which God is angry 2. There is a second kind of Patience which may be called Natural arising from the natural Constitution of the Body or Mind as in a Disease of the Body as a Lethargie or Palsie that feels nothing or from a natural Dulness and Brawniness that is not so sensible of pain and pressure as in the Brawniness of the Hand or Foot in an Ox patient of labour and the dull Ass under a heavy burden Or from the hardiness of the Body patient of Cold and other outward Grievances and from the courage and valour of the Mind patient of wounds and hardship But this is Tolerance rather than Patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it will not possess the Soul 1. In greatest Extremities if long continued The Ox that stands the Butchers stroke with his Ax twice falls flat at the third The Brawn when cut through to the quick proves sensible And Saul though a Stout Man at last falls all along 1 Sam. 28. 20. 2. This Stoutness though it indure pain yet not disgrace but Christian patience can Acts 5. 41. 3. There is that which I called a Moral Patience such as the Though Aristotle counts it but a Demivertue Heathen Philosophers and the Stoicks especially gloried of by which they will tell you they attained to such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such a tranquillity of Mind that no Injury could betide them See Seneca lib. Quod in sapientem non cadit injuria Maximus Tyrius dissert 2. Nothing could trouble them but that like the upper Region they were always serene Homines quadrati which way soever pitcht stood immoveable But as their wise Man was a Notion rather than a Reality so this steady evenness of Mind was sooner to be found in their Books and Disputes than in their Lives and Practices especially when it came to a pinch indeed in the Storm when the poor Skipper was chearful their great Philosopher's heart sunk within him The more Wise and Knowing they were the more sensible they were of their Danger and being always proudly conceited of their own Worth the more fearful they were of their Loss and so the more erect they stood upon their Tip-toes the more flat they fell under that burden which they cold not undergo As Saul higher by the Head than others when such a weight fell upon them with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they fell all along and there was no spirit in them 1 Sam. 28. 20. for although in ordinary cases the spirit of a Man can bear his Infirmities Prov. 18. 14. yet in extraordinary Stresses and Exigencies it 's not a natural Stoutness nor a moral Composedness of spirit but only Christian Faith and Patience that will be able to keep it up from sinking so that it 's indeed a great commendation of patience as Tertullian observes that these Heathen Grandees affected the Counterfeit of it as the chief piece of their Bravery yet in truth as Cyprian affirms it was only Insolens affectatae libertatis audacia De bono patientiae Affectatio caninae aequantmitatis a stupore formata Tertull. exerti seminudi pectoris inverecunda jactantia A vapouring humour rather than any solid settlement of Spirit because upon no good foundation Blown up by Pride in themselves and heartned by Applause of others and so not able to keep possession of the soul in all Emergencies though it may be sometimes parient of Loss and Pain yet usually impatient of Disgrace so that if cut in that Vein none bled more deadly 4. There is a Legal Patience such as the Law requires or rather which the Legal Paedagogie trained them up unto which I think Tertullian somewhat too boldly under-values nay accuses as that which trained them up to a kind of Revenge in allowing to take Eye for Eye and Tooth for Tooth c. Though And so Grotius often speaks that was in a way of Publick Justice and not of private Revenge Sure I am the Law of God was Holy Just and Good and could they have kept it it would have kept them so as to have possessed their Souls with patience This defect was not in the Law but them that lived under it in degree not in kind And accordingly Job then whom Chrysostom calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 6. p. 590. Fortissimus athleta Dei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the Apostle held forth to the whole World now in the time of the Gospel as a Mirrour of patience James 5. 11. And truly when we read and think of Abraham's faith and Job's patience and Moses his meekness c. the Eminency of some of them then may justly cast shame on the Deficiency of many of us now that their Twilight should out-shine our Noon-day as though they had lived under the Grace of the Gospel and not we who fall so exceedingly short of that Conformity to the Law which some of them in a greater measure attained to But yet to my purpose that of Illyricus is observable Quomodo autem V. T. Hebraei hanc patientiam vocant ignoro nec etiane locum novi ubi describatur Patience is seldom mentioned in the Old Testament and they scarce have a proper Name for it but when they speak of it most commonly make use of the word Silence to express it as though for the most part of Men it was then more rare and less known under the Law than it is or at least should be now under the Gospel And therefore although it was a great measure of Patience which the Lord enabled some of the Faithful then unto when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. when they were Stoned and Sawn asunder and Tempted c. Heb. 11. 36 37. Yet it was nothing to that which many Christian Martyrs by the Grace of the Gospel were raised up to under heavier Sufferings 5. And therefore in the last place it 's Christiana Patientia Gospel-Christian Patience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Signanter dictum Your patience yours as Apostles as Followers as Servants of Jesus Christ by which when you are forced it may be to let all else go you may even then keep possession of your Souls Nothing else can do it But that can That whereas Impatience usurps a domineering power over the Man according to that of Tertullian speaking of Adam Facile usurpari ab impatientia caepit c. 5.
the Text In your Patience possess ye your Souls Superaddenda Should our Spirits sometimes grow hasty and not willing patiently to wait God's leasure Consider 1. That God's Retribution will be full 2. The day of it certain Hab. 2. 3. Heb. 10. 36 37. 3. Though it stay yet let this stay our Stomachs That necdùm vindicatus est ipse qui vindicat Christ himself who hath been more wronged than we and who will at last fully vindicate both himself and us is not yet righted but to this day he waits till his Enemies become his Footstool Heb. 10. 13. And therefore be not so bold to desire that the Servant should be served before his Lord Nec defendi ante Dominum servi irreligiosa inverecundâ festinatione properemus Cyprian S. 15. Dr. Hammond on Matth. 10. Annot. f. makes not this a Precept but an Assertion or Prediction that there was no such way to keep or preserve their lives from that common destruction coming on the People of the Jews as persevering faithful adhering to Christ Patient Men are the only Free-holders Their Comforts forfeited to God their Lord Who can best keep them for them Surrendred by them Purchased by Christ And as the Philosopher's Scholar who having given himself to his Master to teach him when taught was by his Master given back again to be his own Man SERMON XXXIV GEN. 49. 18. I. Sermon Preached at St. Maries in Stur-bridg fair time Sept. 8. 1650. I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. THe dying Swan's Song though now found to be a Fable Brown's vulg Errours yet if moralized of a dying Christian may oftentimes prove a real Truth for whereas the dying Man's Breath useth to savour of the Earth whither he is going the believing Soul then especially breaths Heaven to which it is then ascending Some Books which contain Apophthegmata morientium tell us how when their Tongues Mylius faulter in their Mouthes they are wont to speak Apophthegmes but in God's Book we find them uttering Oracles What a sweet Breath and Divine Air was that in old Simeon's Nunc Dimittis Paul's farewell-Sermon Acts 20. had such a ravishing Luke 2. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it that they could not then hear it without weeping nor can some yet read it heedfully with dry Eyes Above all in that ultimum vale of our Saviour's to his Disciples before his Passion John 14. 15 16 17. The Sun of Righteousness a little before its setting shone out most Gloriously This in the New Testament And for the Old what heavenly strain 's do you meet with in Hezekiah's ultimus singultus Isa 38. in David's verba novissima 2 Sam. 23. in Moses his Songs a little before his death Deut. 32 and 33. and in Jacob's before his as in this whole Chapter so especially in this Text in which the Divine Soul as the Bird before fainting in the snare breaks through it in an abrupt expression and having got it self a little upon the wing as it were on the sudden bolts up Heaven-ward in this Divine Ejaculation I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. Here in Jacob's blessing of Dan we find it but how it should come there what coherence it hath with the foregoing words that 's the question and some think a difficult one So Pererius Quae occasio hujus abrupti sermonis c. Calvin Perobscura est haec sententia multiplex interpretandi ejus ratio Some satisfy themselves with this that the Spirit of God will not be tied to our Artificial Methods as too low and pedantick for him to be confined to who both acts and speaks like himself like a God i. e. with greatest freedome And therefore as his Illapses are sudden and his impulses strong Act. 2. 2. so the ventings of them answerable as the Spirit gives utterance v. 4. and it may be never more abruptly than when those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 11. are utterred and so the Soul now full of God and breaking for the longing it hath to him as Psal 119. 20. cannot always keep rank and file but breaks out to him and is glad to get to him though not in a methodical way And so it is in all strong workings of Passion Love Fear Joy and Desire c. Expressions sudden abrupt for so Passions are and their Expressions accordingly So Judg. 5. 10. on those words Then shall the People of the Lord go down to the Gates Mais thus Videtur hoc hiare c. ut pote ex affectu dictum affectus enim non servat ordinem sed plerumque evagatur In such a rapture Jacob's Soul might here be caught snatcht to God without being led to him by coherence or the thred of the foregoing discourse Zuinglius thinks that this Text might be versus intercalaris and only added to make up the verse in this Divine Poem Others rather think that after the manner of weak fainting vide Pareum Oleastrum old Men or sick Men who are wont whilest they are speaking sometimes out of faintness and sometimes out of devotion to pause and to interpose sighs and prayers so old Jacob here spent with speaking relieves his spent Spirits or rather pours out his fainting Soul into God's Bosom in this parenthetical ejaculation I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. But the first verse of this Chapter tells us that the whole is Prophetical of what was to befal them in the latter days And accordingly some apply it to Judas whom they make Ambros de benedict Isidore Gregor Moral 34. that Serpent in the way in the foregoing verse Others to Antichrist whom so many of the Ancients thought should be of the Tribe of Dan and that Jacob foreseeing what havock he should make of the Israel of God as they expound the former verses cries out in this for Christ and his Salvation But this conceit of this Dan-Antichrist with due Reverence to those Ancient Authors by some of even the Papists themselves is held * Tostatus uncertain by others of them †Oleaster Bellarmine acknowledgeth this Text doth not evince it de Pontif. Rom. lib. 3. c. 12. fabulous and therefore seeing they are sick of it we have no cause to be fond of it To omit other particulars I insist on these two that Jacob 1. Foreseeing both the sins and miseries which his other posterity and especially this Tribe of Dan should fall into by Faith looks up to God for Salvation and Deliverance which was especially effected by Sampson a Judg of that Tribe and he very fitly compared to that Serpent in the way and Adder in the path c. 2. And yet foreseeing notwithstanding this that Sampson should dye and Israel should lye under captivity and affliction and so Sampson's but an half-Salvation he did but begin to save Israel Judg. 13. 5 After the manner of the Prophets who See Junii Annot. in loc Christ as Sampson conquered
dying and by Death Judg. 16. 31. Colos 2. 15. See Light foot Harmony of O. T. p. 40. when they speak of any great Deliverance or Deliverer which did either typify or any way resemble the greater Salvation of the true Messiah they were wont to look through one to the other and so Jacob here looks above that Nazarite to the true Nazaren from Sampson to Christ not resting in that partial and temporal deliverance but in and through and beyond it looking at and waiting for Messiah's Salvation In a word In their foreseen dangers and miseries he waits for deliverance by Sampson and there he rests not but in and above that foreseen deliverance by Sampson he looks and waits for Salvation by Christ And so understand we these words I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. For the handling of them let me but premise this That Salvation presupposeth danger and misery and speaks deliverance and and then the Text will afford us these particulars 1. That it 's the lot of the Seed of Jacob to be in such straits that they shall stand in need of Salvation and so long that they are put to wait for it 2. That it 's their happiness that notwithstanding those straits yet they shall be saved 3. That it 's by the Lord. It 's Jehovah's Salvation 4. That it 's their duty in all their dangers and straits to wait for Deliverance and Salvation 5. And in all outward and temporal deliverances by man to look and wait for spiritual and eternal Salvation by Christ so we shall fully come up to Jacob's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. The three former are more Doctrinal and often spoken to which I shall therefore only briefly touch upon that I may the rather insist on the two latter which are more practical and yet I fear but little practised at least in a right way For the first that the condition of the Israel of God is such Doct. 1 and so exposed to dangers and miseries that they have need of Salvation presupposeth danger and when he saith I wait for Salvation he tells us he needeth it for we do not wait for what we do not want Salvation is so genuine to this Text that it occasioned this expression It was because Jacob foresaw the trouble and miseries that should betide this Tribe of Dan in particular being with the last setled in its inheritance and there sometimes grievously oppressed by the Amorites Judg. 1. 3â—4 and at all times galled and infested by their fast-by-neighbours the * See Josh 19. 47. Judg. 18. 1. vide Junium in loc Philistines Nor did he only relate to the miseries of this Tribe but also to the troubles and dangers of all the rest who while in Egypt were in a Furnace after that in a Wilderness and though after setled in Canaan flowing with Milk and Hony the very Edon of God and the Glory of all Lands yet it bounded on both ends with Wildernesses and on both sides with Seas and round about from all quarters compassed with malicious and enraged Enemies a perfect emblem of the site and posture of the Church of God in this World though supplied with spiritual and heavenly provisions which Canaan's Milk and Hony signified yet so as surrounded with all sorts of Enemies Wildernesses of wants and whole Seas of dangers and miseries that it oft comes to the Disciples Save Lord we perish And how near we now are to Matth. 8. 25. it God knoweth I do not It would be mercy if we could say with Jacob we wait I am sure our case is such that we may all say we have great need of thy Salvation O Lord. More particularly it 's to be observed that Jacob breaths out Prima ad Idololatriam delapsa Piscator 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Israelitica antesignâ—â—i primipili Mede in Apoc. 7. this sigh whilest treating of Dan the Tribe that is first in particular noted for Apostasy to Idolatry that had first a Teraphim in the time of the Judges Chap 18. v. 30 31. and after had a Golden Calf in the time of the Kings 1 King â—â— 29. and therefore left out in the numbring of the sealed ones Revel 7. Of all Churches such as prove Apostatical and Idolatrous though they least deserve yet they will most need God's Salvation as being most in danger of his fiery Indignation it being a sin that divorceth a person and people from God and is wont to bring heaviest judgments upon Men makes the Earth quake as well as Heaven thunder Their sorrows are multiplied that hasten after another God Psal 16. 4. When they chose new Gods then was War in the Gates Judg. 5. 8. So that God will rather lay Cities waste than not make Idols desolate Ezek. 6. 6. like the Devil in the Gospel that would not be cast out without rearing that fretting Leprosie in the Law hardly cured without pulling down the house that it is in This desperate infection our Land hath been extremely sick of the disease of it self deadly and the cure so hard that the Lord grant it prove not mortal If the Ancients expound the Text of Antichrist we may at least apply it to him as the Serpent by the way and the Adder in the path which by his Idolatries and witchcrafts hath so bitten the Horse-heels that the Rider is fallen backward And now between the Stirrup and the ground we all have need to sigh and cry out with fainting Jacob in the Text I have waited for thy Salvation O Lord. Those words speak him so oppressed ut non nisi divinitus servari possit as one paraphraseth Junius it For us our sins have brought us so to the brow of the Hill and such a precipice that man's arm is too short to hold us it must be an hand reached from Heaven only that will be able to uphold us And yet this but the lot of God's people which was the first point Their dangers and miseries so great that they have need of Salvation But is Salvation in that case to be had To which The second point answers Yes for this word Salvation as it implies danger so it speaks deliverance and he saith he waits for it and God suffereth not Faith to wait in vain and we will not wait for what we cannot expect The point is As it is the Lot of God's people to need so it 's their happiness Doct. 2 to obtain Salvation So Faith call's God the hope of Israel and Jer. 14. 8. the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble so that be the case otherwise never so desperate there is yet hope in Israel as long as God is both hope and Saviour what ever comes they are never either hopeless or helpless Thus their stile is the Redeemed of the Psal 107. 2. Ezra 10. 2. Deut. 33. 29. Lord. Though thraldom yet Redemption and saved by the Lord. Though danger yet
on the tops of Paris or Ocila First the Extremities of the Church may be so great that nothing under Heaven or less than God can rescue it Experience proves it is so 2. The good pleasure of God is such that on purpose he will have it so As for Instance For Time though Christ's Disciples be in a Tempest yet he Mat. 14. 25. stayeth till the fourth and last Watch that they are toiled out with Rowing and faint with Waiting that so he may say It Mark 6. 48. is I. For Pressure and Danger not till the Case be in a manner desperate the Ship now covered with Waves and now Conclamatum est when they cry out Lord save us we perish or as the Church Lam. 3. 54. Waters flowed over mine Head then I said I am cut off For Persons most weak and helpless He is the Orphan's Father and the Widow's Judg Psal 68. 5. That is said with an Emphasis Judg. 5. 11. The Righteous Acts of the Lord towards the Inhabitants of his Villages in Israel They most subject to be made a Prey Ezek. 38. 11. If he be a Safeguard it 's especially to his poor open unfenced Villages And there if his Spouse be a Flower it 's not one that 's planted and preserved in the Garden by Man's care but Ego sum flos campi Lilium convallium Cant. 2. 1. the Flower of the Field and the Lilly of the Valleys exposed to every Hand to pluck and every Foot to tread on all to make out the truth in hand Quod non humanâ industriâ sed solâ Divinà benignitate caeli influentiâ floreat as Pineda observes They say It 's a Royalty at Sea to joyn with In Job 12. 4. the weakest I am sure it 's the Royal Bounty of Heaven that God chuseth to help the weakest And that in the last place for present Condition when they are at the weakest When he seeth their power gone and there is none shut up or left Deut. 32. 36. When the Physicians had drained the Woman's Purse and not stopped her bloody Issue Mark 5. 26. and now given her over as a desperate Patient and a Beggar together then is she fittest to be our Saviour's Cure And when the Disciples themselves could not cast out the Devil then bring him to me saith Christ Mat. 17. 17. Who meeteth with the Man when the Jews had cast him out John 9. 35. Takes up David when Father and Mother had cast him off Psal 27. 10. is a Strength to the Poor and Needy but it 's added and that in his distress A Refuge from the Storm but then especially when the Blast of the terrible ones is as a Storm against the Wall Isa 25. 4. That heals Simon Peter's Wive's Mother in the Paroxism of a Fever and height of a Fit Cum duplicantur lateres c. Makes Day break a little after it hath been darkest and brings to an happy Birth by the sharpest Throw In a word that takes Extremities for fittest Opportunities for him to come in with most seasonable Mercies and Deliverances that it may be said What hath God wrought Numb 23. 23. That it may be proclaimed to all that Salvation is of the Lord when his blessing is upon his People that when none else can the Lord Jehovah Psal 3. ult in the Text both can and will save his People command and rather than fail as it becomes a Jehovah create deliverance And all this 1. To stamp an Impress of spiritual and eternal Salvation even Vse on our Temporal deliverances that as it 's the same Saviour and saving Love that effects both so in the one we may have a Glimps Representation and Specimen of the other And hence thou shalt be put into such Circumstances and Exigences that thou shalt see plainly that it was God only that saved thy Body or outward Estate the more to mind thee that it was he only that saved thy Soul And if my case sometimes were such that when all others gave me over he himself saved me from Sickness and Death then it was none but He alone that saved me from Sin and Hell that Christ only trod the Winepress alone and there was none with him and that when he looked and there was none to help and wondered that there was none to uphold then his own Arm brought Salvation to us And when Levite and Priest left us then our good Samaritan relieved us Isa 63. 3 5. 2. And therefore secondly To let us know how for both Salvations we are more beholden to one God than all the World besides when in our greatest straits it's He always especially and at sometimes only saves us Others never can without him But he often-times doth without them Be we never so much beholden to other Friends and Creatures for greatest Deliverances yet then even in and for them we are infinitely more beholden to God If the Inhabitants of Jerusalem be my strength it 's in the Lord of Hosts their God Zech. 12. 5. Though others may be Instruments yet he only is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5. 9. the Author of Salvation And therefore the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon Judg. 7. 20. is but like Caesare Bibulo Consulibus God is the Figure and Gideon is but the Cypher The one but the Sword the other the Arm that smites with it My Physician may Curare valetudinem but it 's my God that works the Cure Counsellers may advise for us and Souldiers may fight for us but it 's God that saves us As they confess We have wrought no Deliverance in the Earth but thy dead Men shall live Isa 26. 18 19. We may Sow and Plant but Heaven's Shine and Showers give the increase For else if the Heaven be Brass the Earth will be Iron When others are and do most Christ even then is All in all Col. 3. 11. and if he be All then all without him are just nothing When others do most it 's all in and from God and He then doth more But sometimes it must needs be God's Salvation only and he do all because all else are and can do nothing When I am in close Prison the best Friend cannot come when in a Pest-House he dare not when on a Death-Bed and I am bidding good night and adieu to all my Physician gives me over and some Friends take leave of me others it may be stand by me and weep over me but cannot help me Oh now none but Christ none but Christ It 's none else but the Living God alone who in that dying Hour can relieve me In a word think what is possible and withal what is certain It is possible that in a more violent way the Man may be stript as naked as ever Job was of all his outward Estate That the Town or City may be so straitly round about begirt that none may come in or go out and only Restat iter caelo
to Christ and Heaven To this purpose God even in Paradise would have some Trees Sacramental and Mystical that Adam in that Garden might rise higher than Philosophical speculation and not perish by a Tree of Knowledg but be fed and live by a Tree of Life And for this end likewise Christ as he useth so many Parables and spiritualizeth outward things so he is set out by the Name of some of the Chief and Choice of all kinds of Beings The Angel of the Covenant amongst the Angels the Sun and Morning-Star in the Heavens The Rock and Precious Stone among the Inanimates The Vine and Apple-Tree amongst Vegetables and both Lion and Lamb amongst Sensitives And so of the rest that as Quaelibet herba Deum so in every Creature we see and feel after and find Christ and that as all of them were Acts 17. at first made by him so by all we might be led to him Which therefore in the last place is that which we should all be seriously exhorted to Vse 3 1. That we would not have our desires terminated and so take up with any or all such outward Mercies and Salvations which in the World we may be entertain'd with but still to seek on till we find a better Saviour and Salvation which we may safely and quietly rest in as Joseph and Mary stay not with their Kinsfolk and Acquaintance till they find the Child Jesus Luke 2. 44 45 46. and mean while they seek him sorrowing ver 48. The Beggar that is ready to die for Hunger though he have never so much else given him if not Food waits still as wanting that which he came for and had most need of When Christ said to the Blind-man What wilt thou that I shall Luke 18. 41. do unto thee His answer is Lord that I may receive my sight A Sinner that hath his Eyes so far open as to see Christ's Worth and his own want of him would have said Lord that I might receive Thee A poor Believer hath a further and greater Errand to Christ than for Corn and Wine or outward Safety and Prosperity which those in Hos 7. 14. howled upon their Beds for He hath a Soul to be both saved and satisfied and nothing can do either of them but Christ only O that we had such hungring thirsting desires after him that nothing might stay our Stomachs without him much-less take away our Stomachs as too too oft they do from him Nor is this all that Speech of Jacob calls upon us for not only not to be taken off or hindred in the out-goings of our Souls to Christ by being satisfied with those outward Mercies and Deliverances But 2. By them as Helps to be drawn out and raised up in our desires after him It 's great Mercy if by any means our Hearts may be led out to him though they be the Horrors of Conscience that prick us the Terrors of the Law that whip us outward Wants that drive us or Dangers that affright us It 's well if any thing will bring us even Chains of Affliction will draw us to him but yet not so well as if they were those Cords of Love If we might be preserved in Sugar rather than in Brine If comfortable Supplies and Deliverances be not as Seats to sit down but as Foot-stools to get up to Christ by In times of Want and Danger to seek Christ may be rather to seek our selves than him and to make our selves our End when we only make use of Christ as a means to it Such may be shaken off with Jephtah's check Ye did thus and thus unto me and why are you come to me now that ye are in distress Judg. 11. 7. more out of love of your selves than to me And the like also may be said if In times of enjoyment of Mercy and Deliverance we rejoyce in God and seem to love and praise him This also may be Self-love rather than the Love of God They might rejoyce in God's great Goodness Neh. 9. 25. who yet did not serve him in his great Goodness ver 35. And he might say Blessed be God for I am rich Zech. 11. 5. who yet never truly praised him This may be but their following of Christ for Loaves John 6. 26. as the Roman Emperours did Populum annonâ demereri Heinsius Exercit. But thus to love God and Christ in his Mercies that He is the Oyl of Gladness swimming on the top of all that we are no way satisfied with them without him and best satisfied when we enjoy Him in them and by them this shews the ingenuity of our Love and that it 's not the World or Self but Christ that is the Object of it That as Paul said to his Corinthians I seek not yours but you so it is not our selves but Christ that we 2 Cor. 12. 14. love and desire and not his Portion but his Person and not so much Man's as his Salvation And therefore to conclude as in all our gettings we are to get Wisdom Prov. 4. 7. So in all our seekings let us seek after Christ And in and above all our Enjoyments let us enjoy and eye Him As Jacob here in Sampson's salvation had a further longing look at His. And so Hannah 1 Sam. 2. in a Samuel looks at a Saviour And therefore as it hath been observed by some her Song at his Birth and Mary's at the news of Christ's in many Passages of both very much agree and are perfect Vnisons And this further that Song of Hannah will to our present purpose inform us that the Eying of Christ in all other Mercies will 1. Make little Mercies great As the Diamond adds Value to the Brass-Ring And the Figure added makes empty Cyphers vastest Numbers And so you shall observe that Hannah in that Song for her gaining a Son and prevailing against her Adversary Peninnah as concerning their Houshold-talk and Womens Brabbles speaks of greater Matters carries it in a very high Key in the strain of a Triumphant Song of some glorious Conquerour And such indeed Christ was whom she in that looked at and where ever Faith seeth him it seeth Magnum though in Parvo which will make little Mercies great 2. Will not be they never so great let the heart rest in The greater Light dims the lesser them which would be a dangerous Disease of a vain love-sick Soul like those Obstructions in the Body when those Vessels that should convey Spirit and Nourishment to the other parts stop and intercept them by the way but like the Tennis-Ball toucheth upon the Ground yet thereby rebounds upward so it from the Earth mounts up Heaven-ward as Jacob here from deliverance by Sampson riseth up to Christ's Though Sampson as the Serpent by the way so bites the Horse heels that his Rider falls backward and so he is saved from him yet that 's not enough not all that he looks for And therefore he adds I have waited for
thy Salvation O Lord. And so Lord do thou ever wait to be Gracious Amen and Amen SERMON XXXVII MAT. 24. 45 46. Preached at St. Alphage Church London May. 2. 1648. Who then is a faithful and wise Servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his Honshold to give them Meat in due season Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing IN the Parallel place of St. Luke upon our Saviour's Exhortation Chap. 12. ver 41 42 43. there as here to Watchfulness Peter makes bold to ask him Lord speakest thou this Parable unto us or even to all ver 41. Which Question of his our Saviour answers with another Question in the words of the Text Who then is that faithful and wise Servant c. By which he gives him and us to understand that although in part he meant all †Chrysostom others yet especially * Ambros Hilarius Cartwright them and their Successors to whom he committeth the Government of the Church for if the ordinary Souldier must Watch then much more he that stands Sentinel The Text therefore and the Auditory suit and in it you have these Four particulars 1. Your Office Servants but yet made Rulers over the Lords Houshold 2. Your Work and Employment to give them Meat in due season 3. Your Qualifications requisite for the discharge of it You must be Faithful and Wise ver 45. and so sincere constant and instant about it that the Lord when he comes may find you so doing ver 46. 4. Your Reward Happy Men if you be such and do so it 's no less than Blessedness Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing You see I have much way to rid in a little time I must therefore make the more haste and view some things only in transitu and stay upon nothing long nor need I in so Pious and Judicious an Auditory I begin with the first viz. their Office which may be considered in a double reference 1. To God in that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are but his Servants 2. To his People They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are made Rulers of his Houshold 1. The Governors of the Church are but Servants of Christ Moses a King in Jeshurun Deut. 33. 5 and yet but the Servant of the Lord Josh 1. 1. Faithful in God's House but as a Servant Hebr. 3. 5. Paul not inferior to the chiefest Apostles 2 Cor. 11. 5. and yet acknowledgeth himself to be the Servant of Jesus Christ not only as a Christian but as an Apostle Rom. 1. 1. Though as Aristotle observes Nature makes them that have Politick 1. but weak parts to be Servants to Men yet Grace teacheth Men of greatest Gifts Graces and Places to be Servants to Christ who in the Government of his Family will be sure ever to be the Lord over his own House as the Apostle speaks Heb. 3. 6. whilst highest Church-Officers but Servants and set over it not as their House but Christ's And in this differing from Kings and other Civil Magistrates that Church-Government and Governors are not Despotical but merely Ministerial That whereas Princes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exercise Matth. 20. 25. Luke 22. 26. 1 Pet. 5. 3. Lordly Authority over their people our Saviour's peremptory Interdict is vos autem non sic In his Church he permits no such Lording it over his Heritage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 20. 26 27. a Minister and a Servant is the highest stile he suffers them to aspire to They though Servants Ministers of God Rom. 13. 4. yet are permitted to be such Lords as to create Offices and to enact Laws for all things in their Government provided they be not against the Law of God And so both are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinances of Man 1 Pet. 2. 13. Here though whilst observing the general Rules of the Word the persons may be designed and chosen by Men yet the both erecting of Offices and the enacting of Laws is the Prerogative of the supreme Lord and Law-giver They must be the Ordinances of Jesus Christ which we as Servants must administer and he only as Lord institute No dogmatizing for us here Col. 2. 20. The servants of Christ must not be Lords of his peoples Faith the Lord make us helpers of their Joy 2 Cor. 1. 24. As Church-Governours we are Servants to Christ and in some respects to his Church 2 Cor. 4. 5. Be not therefore highminded but fear If God be a Master Vse upon that account he expects Fear Mat. 1. 6. and if we be Servants though we have cause to be thankful yet I am sure we have none to be Proud and yet Men's Servants often are and 't were well that Christ's Servants never were There is one that stiles himself Servus servorum who the Apostle tells us exalts 1 Thes 2. 4. himself above Dominus Dominantium and therefore we had need be very wary and the rather 1. Because as Pride is a spiritual sin so it 's through our corruption very subject to breed in Spiritual transactions Liquor full of Spirits soon set on a bright flame 2. Especially in Novices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3. 6. not a Novice lest being puft up he fall into both the sin and condemnation of the Devil Whence some collect the Devil's first sin was his being proud of his Office A Novice whether in Christianity or in Office either it new or he newly put into it is subject to be proud as the Child of his new-Coat We had need therefore be the more careful 3. And lastly the rather because to be sure many will be very watchful New things are much viewed and strangers most looked after When Austin and his Company came first into England the direction given to discover whether they were the true Servants of God or no was to mark whether they were proud or humble Look for the like eyes upon us now Some have been so quick or rather maliciously evil that they could foresee that in the managing of these affairs we would be proud as the Devil foretold that Job would be a Blasphemer O that our humility as well as Job's Patience might make the Devil and such devilish malice a Liar and no better way than by knowing our place and the Text tells us it 's to be Servants and that place and relation tells us our duty That what the Scripture requires as due from our Servants Vse 2 to us we owe much more to God calls for Subjection Obedience Ephes 6. Col. 4. Tit. 2. Fear Fidelity not with Eye-service as Men-pleasers but with singleness of heart as unto Christ waiting upon him to appoint you your work Consult his Word and Providences and say as Act. 9. 6. Lord what wilt thou have me to do And for direction assistance and acceptance in your doing of it And then
's an High Place but withal it 's a great Charge which The higher Orb is to carry the inferiour ones about with his motion will bring at last to a great Account Heb. 13. 17. If we be Overseers Acts 20. 28. then as Nehemiah contended with the Rulers Chap. 13. 11. so we shall be accountable for whatever miscarriage in our Charge is occasioned by our over-sight As Diogenes struck the Master for the miscarriage of his rude Scholar By our Offices we are made Debtors Rom. 1. 14. And shall we be proud of such engagements I that cannot answer for one of a thousand of mine own sins Job 9. 3. How shall I for the sins of it may be thousands that I have the Charge of 2. The higher the Place the more in view As a blemish in the Face in the Eye most visible Our Saviour told his Apostles that they were as a ity that is set on an Hill set high but therefore could not be hid Mat. 5. 14. We may be sure to have many Eyes upon us and it 's to be feared too many of them evil enough and what care then need we have that our Nakedness be not discovered in this our ascent to God's Altar Exod. 20. 26. 3. The higher the place the lower and heavier the Fall if we tread awry And no Precipice so dangerous as when Satan prevails with us to cast our selves down from the Pinacle of the Mat. 4. 5 6. Temple The instances of Korah in the Law and of Judas in the Gospel and of many others since say plainly that as God in a way of Judgment begins at the Temple Ezek. 9. 6. so none heavier than such as have been inflicted on evil Church-Men And justly For of them it 's especially spoken the Servant that knoweth his Master's Will and doeth it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be beaten with many stripes Luke 12. 47. And therefore if the higher my Place is the greater is my Charge and Account the more Eyes upon me and the more desperate will be my downfal How should this prick the bladder of my swelling Pride How should it compose our Spirits to an humble meek awful and watchful frame in all our Walkings and especially in our Church-Administrations When Christ the Master of the House was Meek and Lowly how should Mat. 11. 29. we learn of him who are but Servants and at best but Stewards set over the House but not to be on the House-top presently in Passion when at any time we are crossed St. Paul teacheth us a better Lesson The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all Men apt to Teach Patient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. Let not this Superiority be corrupted into a proud Superciliousness Some say it will ruine us I hope they will prove false Prophets I am not in telling you that it will very ill beseem us For In the third place This Height in being over God's Houshold Vse 3 calls upon us as I said before not to be ashamed of the Office so not to be a shame to it But as we are herein much Dignified so to walk worthy of this high and holy Calling and to labour to be as much above others in Grace as we are in Place Is de nobis omnibus judicet qui omnibus melior was once the Vote of the People in the choice of their Censor Think that it 's the Valerianus expectation of our People in each Pastor or other Church-Governor and Censors This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Supervisorship of ours in the name and nature of it speaks more of Care and Labour It will be a shame Mat. 7. 3 4 5. than of Honour and Preferment And therefore let it be our labour and care with Paul to magnifie our Office as in a vigorous asserting it against such as oppose it so in casting Beauty and Glory upon it in our holy just wise grave and faithful Management of it The Law admitted of no Blemishes in their Priests Lev. 21. 17 18. c. And would it not look very ill-favoured to see grosser Deformities in the Gospel's Ministers But what a sweet Note is that of Paul's 1 Thes 2. 10. Ye are Witnesses and God also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved our selves among you that believe I that was for a Paul for a Scholar of the highest Form who as Chrysostom saith of him as for his Divine Contemplations was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so in regard of his heavenly Conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea and for us too to aspire unto and labour after that our Abilities Graces Carriages may in some measure if not answer yet suit with our Offices that when the one is high the other may not be low in the one over others and in the other under all I say no more but with Solomon The Way of Life is above to the Wise that he may depart from Hell beneath Prov. 15. 24. The Lord help us in this kind both to be Wise our selves and to be a means of making others also Wise to Salvation 2. Having thus considered your place Servants and yet Rulers over God's Houshold We come secondly to take notice of the Institution of it and your Investiture in it and both held out in the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom the Lord hath made Ruler over his Houshold Quem constituit A word in the signification and use of it holding forth an Institution and accordingly here signifieth Christ's Instituting the Office and Constituting the Person as here being compared to a Master taking a far Journey Mark 13. 34. and in his absence appointing 1. That one of his Servants shall be in his place And 2. Chusing whom of them he pleaseth to look to the House and to be over the rest of the Family The Institution of the place and choice of the Person being both at the Master's appointment and both necessary that that Servant may take it upon him and act in it with Warrant and Authority which holds here likewise but only that the former the Institution of the Office is immediately and only from our Lord and Master But the latter viz. The calling and putting of fit Persons into it though in extraordinary Functions as of Apostles and Prophets c. that also belongs to God yet in ours Gal. 1. 1. Heb. 5. 1 4 5. Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5. of Ministers and Elders and such like which are ordinary he admits of an intermediate Call of the Church But yet so according to general Rules prescribed by God as that we may say that both Places and Persons are Appointed of God and that he hath made them Rulers over his Houshold Which I earnestly desire that all of you who take upon Vse you this Office do heedfully take notice of that for your Encouragement whilst you are at your Work and for your
Apostle meaneth when he saith to him to live is Christ No this is a false Christ or rather an Antichrist when the true Christ is thus disguised and dishonoured by us as when the Jews had muffled and spit upon Christ then for Pilate to bring him forth and say Behold the John 19. 5. Man was rather in way of Derision than any thing else and no better do we yet deal with him when whilst we profess Him we thus dishonour Him 3. But thirdly Christ is a Christian's Life when He is Causa Finalis when He his Honour and Service is the main End and Scope at which in the course of his Life he chiefly aimeth and labours to promote as knowing or designing no end of his Life than to live to God according to that Psal 119. 17. Deal bountifully with thy Servant that I may live and keep thy Word This is that which Interpreters generally agree in to be the principal thing intended by the Apostle in this Expression which divers of them diversly paraphrase but to the same purpose If I live it is to Christ so the Aethiopick reads it Non alia causa Si vivo Christi causâ vivo si morior meo commodo morior Sasbout in promovenda gloria Christi Piscator volui vivere nisi Christi I would not live for any cause else but Christ's So Hierom I have consecrated my life to Christ and his Gospel So Estius He is the scope of my life So Piscator Si vixero nihil aliud mihi proposui non alia mercede vivo c. I propound nothing else in my whole Life I desire no other Stipend or Wages for all my Work and Warfare but only to honour and serve Christ in the Gospel So Calvin Aquinas methinks well resolveth it Life importeth Motion and is the active Principle In locum of it and therefore as in other Cases the end that moves the Agent to act he properly calls his Life Vt venatores venationem amici amicum So Christ and his Glory as being that which as his main end setteth the Christian on working may well be called his Life in which he liveth and in the Design and Prosecution whereof the strength of his Life is spent and exercised Christ is his A and Ω All he hath or is he hath Rev. 1. 8. from Him and all he is hath or can do is all for him All manner of pleasant Fruits new and old I have laid up for thee O my Beloved saith the Spouse Cant. 7. 13. The Best the All of a Christians Abilities Gifts Graces whatsoever and how precious soever they be they are all for Christ ready prest to serve Him paid in as a Tribute to Him As of Him so to Him are all things Rom. 11. 36. As there is one God the Father of whom are all things and we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Him so one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by Him 1 Cor. 8. 6. yea and to Him and for Him for of Him it 's else-where said Whether we live we live unto the Lord or whether we die we die unto the Lord and so whether we live or die we are the Lords Rom. 14. 8. And these last words give a sufficient Reason of the former if we are the Lords then we should live to the Lord if we be not our own Men but Christ's ransomed Servants then as the Master's Service Honour and Advantage is or ought to be the Servant's aim and scope in his whole Employment so Christ's should be ours and so He becomes our Life For we live much in our Ends and Designs which we project and endeavour to promote and according to them though not only yet especially our Lives are to be judged of as in other Cases so in this Particular if the constant Tendencies and real Intentions of our Souls be seriously for Christ to please honour and serve Him this is to have Christ for our life and thus to live in the Apostle's Phrase here is Christ when as he spake in the Verse foregoing our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earnestest out-lookings of our Souls are that Christ may be glorified by us whether by Life or by Death And this is best when it is in our more frequent actual Thoughts and Intentions of it however it must be in our inward general and habitual Disposition Frame and Purpose of Heart and constant course of Life as a Traveller's resolved intention of his Journies end at his first setting out and after progress in the way to it though at every step he maketh he do not actually think of it In a word when we own no other Interests but Christ's or at least none that are contrary but only such as are reducible and subordinate to it when we neither start nor pursue any other false Games which adversâ fronte broadly look and run counter contrary to him no nor with a squint Eye look aside to these golden Apples of Pleasure Profit or other Self-advantage cast in our way when we seem to take never so speedy and straight course to him but when our Eyes look right on and our Eye-lids look streight before Prov. 4. 25. us as Solomon speaketh as they Jer. 50. 5. who asked the way to Zion with their Faces thitherward and as it 's said of our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his Face was going or as though he would go to Jerusalem Luke 9. 53. so when with a single Eye and Heart we directly and indeclinably eye and look at Christ and his Glory so that all that observe us may well take notice which way our Eye and Heart look this is to have Christ indeed fully both in our Eye and Heart and so Christ is our Life when thus in our Heart the seat of Life Otherwise to drive a Trade for our selves whilst we profess our selves only Factors for Christ to seek our own advantage as Paul Phil. 2 21. saith most do and not the things of Jesus Christ or if at all yet only in subordination to our own Ends and Interests this is Self not Christ to seek and find the Life of our own hand as the Prophet's phrase is Isa 57. 10. not to express Christ living in us as it s said of Gad Deut. 33. 21. that he provided the first part for himself and as Pharaoh said my River is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mine own and I have made it for my self or I have made my self Ezek. 29. 3. as the vulgar Interpreter reads it and both the words and the sense of the place will bear it and so proved his own both Creature and Creator together But the Creature whose Life Christ is knoweth that God hath created all for Prov. 16. 4. himself and therefore in the Apostle's sense here in the Text makes his Life to be Christ Si quidem vita mea mea inquam Christus est as the Syriack renders it Christ
is all the Life which is any way mine because nothing I own as mine which is not Christ's and which I do not enjoy or pursue in a tendency and subordination to Christ For none of us liveth to himself and no Man dyeth to himself but whether we live we live unto the Rom. 14. 7 8. Lord or whether we dy we dy unto the Lord whether we live or dy we are the Lord's as the Apostle speaks in the place before cited 4. Fourthly Christ is a true Christian's life as he is the subject or Object of his Life for so we are said to live not so much in our selves as in those things which our Hearts and Lives are either wholly or chiefly taken up with And so the Christian if true to his rule lives not in himself but Christ in him and he in Christ When the whole Man is fully taken up with Christ as to fear God and keep his Commandments is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the whole Man Eccles 12. 13. So Christ who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 3. 11. all in all in himself and to all his is the whole of a Christian whilst he dwells in his Heart by Faith Ephes 3. 17. and so as to take up all the room there that the whole Soul is full of Christ as that which it liveth upon and the Object which he is possessed entertained and taken up with 1. In his Thoughts and Meditations and we live much in our Thoughts as being the first out-goings of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or emanations and Issues of a rational Life which Solomon speaketh of Prov. 4. 23. and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Possessions of the Heart Job 17. 11. which the Soul of a Man is possessed with Job there speaks of the thoughts of other things but to a true Christian as such Christ is that which his thoughts are chiefly possessed with and which the first natural Issues of his Spiritual Life go out to the Gospel not a Crucifix 2 Cor. 3. 18. being that Glass which he is ever looking into to behold in it the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ It 's made the black Mark of an ungodly Man that God is not in all his thoughts Psal 10. 4. but it's the lively Character of a true Christian that Rom. 3. 25. Christ is ever in his whom as God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath set or held forth as a propitiation as a Brasen Serpent for him that is stung to look upon and be healed so a long-looking wist Eye of Faith is intently fixed upon him in saddest and sweetest most constant and serious Meditations amidst all other most beautiful Objects chuseth out Christ to pitch his Eye on as they John 12. 21. to Philip Sir we would see Jesus and as Statius of Domitian Ipsum Ipsum cupido tantum spectare vacavit Then then Christ is Sylv. l. 4. p. 406. our Life we live very much in Christ and Christ in us when our most serious and least interrupted thoughts are pitched fastned on him as the Eyes of his Hearers were sometimes on him when he Preached Luke 4. 20. and his Disciples when he ascended Act. 1. 10. where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used which signifieth a stedfast and earnest beholding such a steady contemplating of Christ is the Life of the Life of a Christian We live said Paul to his Thessalonians if ye stand fast in the Lord and how happily 1 Thes 3. 8. should we live if our Thoughts and Hearts were more fast fixed on Christ If the Philosopher was born to look on the Sun truly the Christian's Life may well be in a steady eying and contemplating the Sun of Righteousness It is the happiness of the glorious Angels in Heaven always to be beholding the Face of his Father Matth. 18. 10. and it will be ours in that beatifical Vision at last constantly to behold Christ's Glory John 17. 24. But alas It 's here too often hid vailed and overclouded and more often such Fools are we that our Eyes are in the ends of the Earth wandring here and there our thoughts of Christ broken off and shamefully interrupted by others sinful and Praefat. in Comment in Lament impertinent crowding in In contemplationis altitudine libere volant angeli sed saltant tantum homines miseri as Bonaventure speaks Angels and glorified Saints are upon the Wing and make an even and steady flight but alas we poor Grashoppers here on Earth do but hop and leap bolt up sometimes it may be in a holy Meditation or Ejaculation but are presently down Psal 94 19. again and then so intangled and insnared with other multitudes of thoughts as the Psalmist calls them that the Rabbins account may be too true who so cast it up that they say that all the time of Methuselah's idle thoughts being defalked and taken away of the 969 years of his Life he lived but 10 years And truly a great deal of precious Time and of our Life is often spent and little or nothing done through the intercurrence of vain thoughts of other things which if pitched upon Christ would help to make up the best part of our Life whilst Christ thus more fixedly looked and thought on would animate and enliven it This the Apostle in the narrow compass of four Verses expresseth and urgeth with great variety of words very Emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neglect not take heed give attendance meditate on these things give thy self wholly to them be wholly in them 1 Tim. 4. 13 14 15 16. Were Christ and the things of Christ thus heeded and studied so to live and think and live thinking were to live Christ Christ would so be our Life when our thoughts which take up so great a share of our Lives are constantly busied about him 2. When our Hearts and Affections Desire and Love Content Comfort Joy and Delight do as fully and constantly close with him and act towards him and upon him and rest in him Such warm breathings argue Life And as the Party loving lives in the Beloved and the Beloved back again yea though dead may be said to live in him So here a Christian Vbi amat non ubi animat See what in our whole life we most love and prize and cannot live without that we use to call our Life and so Jacob's Life is bound up in Benjamins Gen. 44. 30. See Corn. a Lap. in locum Christus est meus spiritus meus anhelitus mea anima mea Vita Christus est quem spero spiro in quo respiro quem in spiro expiro c. as he goeth on in his devout raptures even lives to love and lives in loving Christ is his very Life when he is the constant Object of his Desire and Love Delight and Comfort The lamenting Church called Josiah the Breath of her Nostrils Lam. 4. 20. typifying out as Interpreters observe
what Christ is to a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theophylact upon my Text Light and Life and Breath and all things whilst he breaths in from Christ Comfort and Joy and breaths out Love and Praise O Lord by these things Men live saith Hezekiah Isa 38. 16. and in these things is the Life of my Spirit saith a true Christian I cannot live without them without Christ and Interest and Comfort in him I am weary of my Life as Rebekah said and what good will my Life do me Gen. 27. 46. Sine Christo enim vanum est omne quod vivimus Hierom It 's vain and to no purpose not worth the while not worth all the vanity and vexation we here meet with to live if we live out of Christ or not to him or not in communion with him Indeed our Riches and Possessions and outward Enjoyments are usually called our Livelihood or Living in the World's Dialect and according to it the Scripture sometimes so stiles them Luke 15. 12 30. and 21. 4. but withal it elsewhere tells us that which our Experience finds to be most true that a Man's Life confists not in the abundance of such Possessions Luke 12. 15. I am sure a Believer's doth not notwithstanding the greatest affluence of such Livelihoods if he want Christ his is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lifeless Life As the Spouse in Christ's absence Cant. 5. 8. is sick of Love so the faithful Spouse dyeth away and cannot live without him The whole World is not a Paradise but a Wilderness without this Tree of Life in it And although they told Naomi that Obed her Grandchild would be the Restorer of her Life Ruth 4. 15. yet it is neither Child nor Father nor Friend that is either Giver or Restorer or Preserver of a Christian's but Christ only and he alone alsufficiently Quamdiu Christi gloria incolumis perstat c. as he saith as long as Christ's Hyperius Glory and my Interest in him is intire and whole I am well I live and am lively amidst all other cool fainting Qualms and Swoons This is the Life-Bloud of my Heart which keeps it warm and alive whilst my Desires Loves Joys close with him and are animated by him SERMON XL. PHIL. 1. 21. II. Sermon Preacht at St. Maries August 15. 1658. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain ANd as thus our Life is seated in the Heart so as I may say it breaks forth in the lips And so 3. In the third place Christ is our Life when in the course of our Life we much breath Christ making him the Subject of our Discourse and ever frequently and freely setting forth his Truth Grace and Praises when whatever we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Word all is in the Name of the Lord Jesus as the Apostle speaks to this purpose Col. 3. 17. This I the rather mention because it 's a great part of the Apostle's meaning here in the Text where when he saith to him to live is Christ he meaneth that if he live his Life shall be spent in preaching Si vixero nihil aliud mihi proposui quam ut Christum glorificem praedicando c and setting forth of Christ in the Ministry of the Gospel as Calvin and others jointly interpret it And he was as good as his word his Practice herein being very observable for our imitation in these following particulars 1. In delighting very often and upon all occasions to make mention of the Name of Jesus Christ above 450 times in his fourteen Epistles hoc patiebatur Paulus ex nimio amore Christi ut In Ephes 1. quem diligebat superflue extraordinarie nominaret as Hierom expresseth it It seems Christ lived much in his Heart when out of the abundance of it he breathes him so fast and his Mouth Assiduum Jesu nomen domi foris ere resonare docuit Gazaei pia hilaria Tom. 2. Pag. 478. It 's said of Anselm Ejus ori nunquam Christus defuit Edinerus in ejus vitâ so abundantly speaks of him and that so very often that by Heathen Elegancy it would be counted a Tautology but yet no Popish Battology which appears in some of their superstitious Prayers too too affectedly repeating the Name of Jesus to make as it were a Charm of it and with the upstart Sect of Jesuits would be known by their continual both at home and abroad naming the Name Jesus But Paul that had none of their superstition had more love of Christ in this his so frequent not affected but affectionate naming of him 2. Observe likewise that to this purpose he studiously taketh nay often in his Writings maketh occasions to make mention of him and as it were casts about to bring him in as we often do to meet with a Friend or to give occasion of Speech of that which our Heart is set upon So the Vain-glorious Man is wont to hook in a Discourse which may give occasion of speech of that by which he might fan to himself his own praise But humble Paul so as that thereby he might take opportunity to Exalt the Honour of Jesus Christ 3. Take notice also when he hath so gotten an Opportunity of mentioning Christ how then he runneth Descant upon it and as though he had left and forgotten what formerly he was speaking of what large and long Excursions he makes into this happy Latifundium even to Hyperbatons and Anantapodotons * Which make sometimes the coherence and sense of his words more difficult which an Heathen Orator would reckon Inter viti◠Sermonis and even Hierom notes in him as Soloecisms But our holy Apostle chose rather to forget himself than Christ and to be esteemed rude and barbarous in Speech than to be tongue-tied nay not exuberant in the Praises of his Lord and Saviour 4. To this purpose in the last place observe when speaking of Christ and the things of Christ how he delights in most emphatical and superlative Expressions in augmentative Compositions of words heaping Comparatives upon Comparatives and Superlatives upon Superlatives when the word signified Eminency adding an augmentative Particle to heighten it as though he could never speak enough or high enough of Christ and his Excellencies in which though something is to be given to that Fervidum ingenium which is observed to be naturally in him yet more to that transcendent high Admiration that Fervour of warm zealous lively vigorous Love of Christ which so abounded in his Heart that it thus burst forth in these Superlative and almost Hyperbolical expressions of it Of this sort are his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 1. 2. 4. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 1. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 1. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 4. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 3. 20. as
spirit of God could effect it for so that particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As by the spirit of the Lord signifieth causam congruam dignam tantae transformationis as C. à Lapide rightly observeth All cometh to this and all fully to my present purpose That now when God is in Christ so fully as I may say exhibited and exposed to our view and in the Gospel so clearly manifested and held forth to us He expecteth and where grace prevaileth he thereby effecteth such a change and transformation that we are not like our former selves but are molded into his likeness and having laid aside our corrupt nature we are made partakers of his Divine Nature This is or should be according to Paul's doctrine there the effect of the Gospel and as Calvin observeth upon my Text according to Peter's doctrine here when he saith that the exceeding great and precious Gospel-promises are given to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that by them we should be partakers of the Divine Nature He telleth us this is the end of the Gospel Notemus hunc esse Evangelii finem ut aliquando Deo conformes reddamur id verò est quasi Deificari that at last we may be conformable to God which is as it were to be Deified or as our Apostle phraseth it to be made partakers of the Divine Nature Which whilst we are so plentifully partakers of the Gospel we should be exceedingly ashamed of that we so far fall short of it which yet the very Heathens so much aspired to who fell so short of us as thus in pattern so 2. In principle for as our pattern is more clear so our principle is more high This conformity to God in true Christians you heard from 2 Cor. 3. 18 is from the spirit of the Lord whilst by the spirit of Christ inlightning and regenerating we are renewed after the Image of God Col. 3. 10. As also from faith in Christ laying hold of thâ—se exceeding great and precious promises of the Gospel and on Christ in them from whose fulness alone God would have us receive grace for grace grace in us answerable and conformable to grace in him and so to be partakers of the Divine Nature Now this faith these promises this Christ and this spirit of Christ those Heathens and their most â—â—â—limate Philosophers were utter strangers to him they knew not to him by faith they went not nay out of themselves they went not but to their Philosophical moral considerations and their purgative vertues to which they ever joyned their heathenish idolatries and superstitious lustrations and sacrifices With Porphyrie to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 charms and sorceries as utterly inconsistent with the Divine nature as the true God is contrary to a vain idol and therefore it is no wonder that it was so wofully deformed a deiformity which they arrived at how trimly soever their admirers do trim it up and turkess it And therefore when there is so much more light and power in the Gospel when our both pattern and principle so far every way exceed theirs Surely God cannot but expect that it should be another-kins likeness to him that we should attain to than what they arrived at And on the contrary let us sadly think what a shame it is to us and to the Gospel too that when there is so much of God in it there should be so little in us who profess it That when we read David's Psalms and the other Prophets writings in the old Testament we should find so much light and life that they both breath and express so much of God in them and we so little so that in truth although as Eusebius observeth they were not called yet indeed they were the true Christians and many of us are really as much without God as we are strangers from that Commonwealth of Israel Especially that even Heathens should herein exceed us that they should so honourably speak of that God whom we so blaspheme that they should express more of God by the twilight of nature than we in the sun-shine of the Gospel that Erasmus should so hardly forbear to pray to Socrates as a Saint whilst many who are named Christians may without breach of charity be called Atheists that any of us should have upon us such black marks of the Devil when on many of them we may discover though ruder yet very lovely characters and lineaments by the help only of their natural Divinity of the Divine nature which we who have better means in all reason should be more possessed of SERMON XX. ON 2 PET. 1. 4. AND should it be here asked what those means are which Quest we should make use of whereby to attain to this high honour and happiness I must answer that all that we of our selves can do as to any Ans inward worth or efficacy operative of so great an effect is just nothing We that can do nothing to make our selves men surely can do as little to make our selves men of God can less concur to the producing of this Divine nature than we did to our humane both are a Creation and therefore the work of God only but yet so as we are to make our addresses to him for the one now that we have a natural being which we could not for the other when he had none And here as the Divine nature essentially considered in God is common to all thâ—â—hree persons so this communicated symbolical Divine nature in us is the common work of them all and therefore to them all we are to make our applications for it 1. To God the Father who as he is Fons Deitatis and communicates Means that Divine nature to the Son and the spirit so he is Fons Gratiae and through the Son by the Spirit imparts this Divine nature to all his children It was his breath that breathed into Adam at first that soul in which especially was his image and it must be his breathing still that must breath into our hearts that divine grace in which consists that his image renewed and this Divine nature God our Creatour is the Author of this new Creature And here the means of it on our parts is by humble and earnest prayer to breath after him for it as the dying man gaspeth for breath that is going away or rather as the dry earth gapeth for heavens rain and influence which it wanteth and so in this systole and diastole upon the out-breathing of our souls and desires followeth in God's way the breathing in of this Divine breath of life the quickning spirit by which we are made spiritual living souls In this case it was said of Saul Behold he prayeth Acts 9. 11. For although it be true that the prayers of the wicked whilst they purpose to go on in sin are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 28. 9. And as true that the prayer
of any in an estate of corrupt nature as it cometh from such is so defiled that in regard of any worth in it instead of meriting an answer it justly deserveth a denial Whereupon our Antinomians and others do wickedly forbid such to pray Yet in such sinners that lie under the burden of sin and misery and are looking out for help and mercy to look up to God in prayer for it A it is the homage which is due from the creature to its Creatour and so to be tendred to him So it is the way ordained by God in and by which the creature in want and misery may come to receive mercy Which therefore God commands and that to a Simon Magus and that upon only a Perhaps to receive mercy Act. 8. 22. pray God if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee And which therefore in obedience to such a command to perform is both in God's intention and ordination on his part and as to the happy success and event on â—ur parts the direct sutable and successful means of our obtaining as all other mercies so of this which is one of the chief of all of being made partakers of the Divine nature and that upon a double account 1. As in a way of moral causality it prevaileth with God and through his indulgence procureth of him the grant of this inestimable gift of the new creature this divine nature as Manasseh in this case by his prayer prevailed with God for his return both from his sin and captivity together 2 Chron. 33. 12 13. and so still the child is born crying 2. So also in a kind of physical efficiency as I may call it In the very act of praying we so nearly converse with God that by looking up to him we are made like him as the stung Israelite by looking to the Brazen Serpent was healed and Moses by near approaches to God and communing with him on the Mount had irradiations of his glory reflected on him so in near and frequent addresses to God by prayer there is much communication of God by such close communion with him Papists are wont to picture their Saints praying with a Glory on their head but true Saints that are much with God have much of God and his glorious grace on their hearts and none more than those that come into his presence oftnest get nearest and keep closest Our Saviour when he was praying in the Mount was transfigured Luke 9. 29. Nor are we ever more transformed into the image of God and Christ than when we have got up our hearts highest and nearest in that duty Be much therefore with God our Father in prayer for this mercy 2. Make nearest applications to Christ the Son and our Saviour by faith in his promises for By the promises we read in the Text we come to be partakers of the divine nature which when sealed to us there is an impress of Christ stamped on us And Christ is wrapt up in those promises who as in his Incarnation was made partaker of our nature so by him and his grace alone we are made partakers of his And faith is the eye and hand which seeth and taketh hold of Christ in the promises and so by beholding him in that glass as intellectus fit idem cum objecto we come to be changed as we heard into the same image from glory to glory There is an image of the thing seen in the eye that looks on it and we by faith wistly eying of Christ have his image so imprinted on us that we prove no longer like our selves As the wise men Matth. 2. when they had seen him turn'd back another way v. 12. So they that by him are made wise to Salvation never savingly saw him but went away with another heart not their former selves but changed into another that is to say this divine nature To these promises and Christ in them apply we our selves for it 's from his fulness as before we heard that we must only receive grace for grace grace in us answerable to the grace in him And content we not our selves with moral and Philosophical considerations as able to work such a change Gehazi may lay 2 King 4. 31. the staff on the child's face and no life come the water will not rise higher than from whence it descended Nature in its highest elevations will not be able of it self to rise up to saving grace nor will any moral speculations or qualifications lift us up to a divine nature Christ is the fountain-head He came down from heaven to work it and therefore to him in heaven by faith must we rise up if ever we would have it wrought in us 3. And to the spirit of Christ for this changing into the same image as we also heard is by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. It was this spirit that breathed the image of God into us in Gen. 2. 7. our first creation and it must be the same spirit that must breath into us this new life the finger of this spirit that only can draw upon us these fair and lovely characters and lineaments of this Divine image the spirit of regeneration that must beget us to this new nature And therefore here again rest not in highest either natural or moral considerations they are but airy and their birth will be answerable prove abortions or like that of the Spanish mares which they say conceive by breathing in the South-wind but their Foals they say too presently languish and die and so at last to be sure will all such births of our own begetting Especially take heed of grieving and resisting the spirit in these his Divine workings If the child would be born if it cannot further it s own birth let it not hinder it by working backward because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do let us Phil. 2. 12 13. not marr his work but in and by his strength work out our own salvation by not being flints to God but as wax to yield to and to receive his Divine impressions Thus applying our selves to God this happy work may and will be wrought and rather than fail God can make even afflictions a means to effect it that what are in themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common to men may further this Divine 1 Cor. 10. 13. nature and as the ball struck down to the earth in the rebound rise as high as heaven So by them we are made partakers of his holiness Heb. 12. 10. and that is no less than to be partakers of the divine nature and whilst we so suffer Peter saith the spirit of glory yea and of God resteth upon us and so most happy participations of the divine glory and nature are communicated to us Never was more of God seen in any than in the Martyrs by the light of the fires they were consumed in Thus upon these considerations and in