it is truly all for our light is the light of good works and that light proceeds from all the other three and so is all those and then it goes beyond all three and so is none of them It proceeds from all for if we consider the first light the light of nature Ephes 2.10 in our creation We are sayes the Apostle his workmanship created in Christ Iesus unto good works So that we were all made for that for good works even the naturall man by that first light Consider it in the second light in baptisme there we dye in Christ and are buried in Christ and rise in Christ and in him we are new creatures and with him we make a covenant in baptisme for holinesse of life which is the body of good works Consider the third that of faith and as every thing in nature is so faith is perfected by working Jam. 2.26 for faith is dead without breath without spirit if it be without workes So this light is in all those lights we are created we are baptized we are adopted for good works and it is beyond them all even that of faith for though faith have a preheminence because works grow out of it and so faith as the root is first yet works have the preheminence thus both that they include faith in them and that they dilate and diffuse and spread themselves more declaratorily then faith doth Therefore as our Saviour said to some that asked him John 6.28 What shall we do that we might work the work of God you see their minde was upon works something they were sure was to be done This is the work of God that ye beleeve in him whom he hath sent and so refers them to faith so to another that asks him What shall I do that I may have eternall life Mat. 19.16 all goe upon that that something there must be done works there must be Christ sayes Keepe the Commandements and so refers him to works He hath shewed thee O man what is good Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to shew mercy and to walk humbly with thy God This then is the light that lighteth every man that goes out of the world good works for their works follow them Their works they shall be theirs Apoc. 14.13 even after their death which is our second branch in this first part the propriety lux vestra let your light shine I cannot alwaies call the works that I do my works for sometimes God works them Proprietas vestra Esay 28.21 and sometimes the devill Sometimes God works his owne worke The Lord will do his worke his strange worke and bring to passe his act his strange act Sometimes he works my works Thou Lord hast wrought all our workes in us In us and in all things else Esay 26.12 1 Cor. 12.6 Ephes 1.11 Esay 43.13 Rom. 7.15 Operatur omnia in omnibus he worketh all in all And all this in all these Secundum consilium voluntatis suae After the counsaile of his owne will for I will worke and who shall let it But for all this his generall working his enemy works in us too That which I doe I allow not saies the Apostle nay I know it not for saies he what I hate that I doe And if I doe that I would not doe it is no more I that doe it but sin that dwelleth in me Yet ver 20. for all this diverse this contrary working as S. Augustine sayes of the faculty of the will Nihil tam nostrum quam voluntas there is nothing so much our owne as our will before we worke August so there is nothing so much our owne as our workes after they are done They stick to us they cleave to us whether as fomentations to nourish us or as corrasives to gnaw upon us that lyes in the nature of the worke but ours they are and upon us our works work Our good works are more ours then our faith is ôurs Our faith is ours as we have received it our worke is ours as we have done it Faith is ours as we are possessors of it the work ours as we are doers actors in it Faith is ours as our goods are ours works as our children are ours And therefore when the Prophet Habakkuk saies Fide sua Hab. 2.4 The just shall live by his faith that particle His is a word of possession not a word of Acquisition That God hath infused that faith into him and so it is his not that he hath produced that faith in himselfe His faith must save him his own and not anothers not his parents faith though he be the son of holy parents not the Churches faith if he be of yeares though he be within the covenant but his own personall faith yet not his so as that it grew in him or was produced in him by him by any plantation Rom. 1.17 Gal. 3.11 Heb. 10.36 or semination of his own And therefore S. Paul in citing that place of Habakkuk as he doth cite it three severall times in all those places leaves out that particle of propriety and acquisition his and still sayes The just shall live by faith and he sayes no more And when our blessed Saviour sayes to the woman with the bloody issue Fides tua Daughter Mar. 5.34 thy faith hath made thee whole it was said then when he had seen that woman come trembling and fall down at his feet he saw outward declarations of her faith he saw works And so in divers of those places where Christ repeats that fides tua thy faith we finde it added Iesus videns fidem Iesus seeing their faith With what eyes he looked upon them with his humane eyes not his divine he saw not that is considered not at that time their hearts but their outward declarations and proceeding as a good man would out of their good works concludes faith Velle nolle nostrum est to assent or to dis-assent is our own Hieron we may choose which we will doe Ipsumque quod nostrum est sine Dei miseratione nostrum non est But though this faculty be ours it is ours but because God hath imprinted it in us So that still to will as well as to doe to beleeve as well as to work is all from God but yet they are from God in a diverse manner and a diverse respect and certainly our works are more ours then our faith is and man concurres otherwise in the acting and perpetration of a good work then he doth in the reception and admission of faith Sed quae non fecimus ipsi sayes the Poet and he was Vates a Prophet in saying so Vix ea nostra voco nothing is ours but that which we have done our selves and all that is ours And though Christ refer us often to beliefe in this life because he would be sure to plant and fasten
sayes Praescribimus adulteris nostris Wee prescribe above them which counterfeit our doctrine for we had it before them and they have but rags and those torn from us Fabulae immissae quae fidem infirmarent veritatis They have brought part of our Scriptures into their Fables that all the rest might seem but Fables too Gehennam praedicantes iudicium ridemur decachinnamur They laugh at us when we preach of hell and judgement Et tamen Elysii campi fidem praeoccupaverunt And yet they will needs be beleeved when they talk of their Elysian fields Fideliora nostra quorum imagines fidem inveniunt Is it not safer trusting to our substance then their shadows To our doctrine of the judgement in the Scriptures then their allusions in their Poets So far Tertullian considers this But to say the truth and all the truth Howsoever the Gentiles had some glimmering of a judgement that is an account to be made of our actions after this life yet of this judgement which we speak of now which is a generall Judgement of all together And that judgement to be executed by Christ and to be accompanied with a Resurrection of the body of this the Gentiles had no intimation this was left wholly for the holy Ghost to manifest And of this all the world hath received a full convincing from him because he hath delivered to the world those Scriptures which do so abundantly so irrefragably establish it And therfore Ecclus. 7.36 Bernard Memorare novissima non peccabis Remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse Non dicitur memorare primordia aut media If thou remember the first reproofe that all are under sin that may give occasion of excusing or extenuating How could I avoid that that all men do If thou remember the second reproofe That there is a righteousnesse communicable to all that sin that may occasion so bold a confidence Since I may have so easie a pardon what haste of giving over yet But Memorare novissima consider that there is a judgement and that that judgement is the last thing that God hath to doe with man consider this and thou wilt not sin not love sin not doe the same sins to morrow thou didst yester-day as though this judgement were never the nearer but that as a thousand yeares are as one day with God so thy threescore yeares should be as one night with thee one continuall sleep in the practise of thy beloved sin Thou wilt not think so if thou remember this judgement Now in respect of the time after this judgement which is Eternity the time between this and it cannot be a minute and therefore think thy self at that Tribunall that judgement now Where thou shalt not onely â—â—are all thy sinfull workes and words and thoughts repeated which thou thy selfe hadst utterly forgot but thou shalt heare thy good works thine almes thy comming to Church thy hearing of Sermons given in evidence against thee because they had hypocrisie mingled in them yea thou shalt finde even thy repentance to condemne thee because thou madest that but a doore to a relapse There thou shalt see to thine inexpressible terror some others cast downe into hell for thy sins for those sins which they would not have done but upon thy provocation There thou shalt see some that occasioned thy sins and accompanied thee in them and sinned them in a greater measure then thou didst taken up into heaven because in the way they remembred the end and thou shalt sink under a lesse waight because thou never lookedst towards him that would have eased thee of it Bernard Quis non cogitans haec in desperationis rotetur abyssum Who can once thinke of this and not be tumbled into desperation But who can think of it twice maturely and by the Holy Ghost and not finde comfort in it when the same light that shewes mee the judgement shewes me the Judge too Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord we perswade men 1 Cor. 5.15 but knowing the comforts too we importune men to this consideration That as God preceeds with judgement in this world to give the issue with the tentation and competent strength with the affliction as the Wiseman expresses it Wisd 12.21 That God punishes his enemies with deliberation and requesting as our former Translation had it and then with how great circumspection will he judge his children So he gives us a holy hope That as he hath accepted us in this first judgement the Church and made us partakers of the Word and Sacraments there So he will bring us with comfort to that place which no tongue but the tongue of S. Paul and that moved by the Holy Ghost could describe and which he does describe so gloriously and so pathetically You are come unto Mount Sion Heb. 12.22 and to the City of the living God The heavenly Ierusalem And to an innumerable company of Angels To the generall Assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to Iesus the Mediator of the new Covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then the blood of Abel And into this blessed and inseparable society The Father of lights and God of all comfort give you an admission now and an irremoveable possession hereafter for his onely Sons onely sake and by the working of his blessed Spirit whom he sends to work in you This reproofe of Sin of Righteousnesse and of Iudgement Amen SERMONS Preached upon Trinity-Sunday SERM. XXXVIII Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 2 COR. 1.3 Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort THere was never Army composed of so many severall Nations the Towre of Babel it self in the confusion of tongues gave not so many severall sounds as are uttered and mustered against God and his Religion The Atheist denies God for though David call it a foolish thing to do so The foole hath said it in his heart And though David speake it in the singular number The foole as though there were not many so very fooles as to say and to say in their heart There is no God yet some such fooles there are that say it in their very heart and have made shift to think so indeed But for such fools as say it in their actions that is that live as though there were no God Stultorum plena sunt omnia We have seen fooles in the Court and fooles in the Cloister fooles that take no calling and fooles in all callings that can be taken fooles that heare and fooles that preach fooles at generall Councells and fooles at Councell-tables Stultorum plena sunt omnia such fooles as deny God so far as to leave him out are not in Davids singular number but super-abound in every profession So that Davids manner of expressing it is not so much singular as though there were but
thou be tempted with over-valuing thine owne purity finde an Example to answer that Job 14.27 Pro. 20.9 Quis mundum Who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Or that Who can say I have made my heart cleane I am pure from sinne There is no Example No man ever did it No man can say it If thou be tempted to worship God in an Image be able to answer God something to that To whom will yee liken God or what likenesse will yee compare unto him Esay 40.18 There can be no example no patterne to make God by for that were to make God a Copy and the other by which he were made the Originall If thou have a tentation to withdraw thy selfe from the Discipline of that Church in which God hath given thee thy Baptisme finde an Example to satisfie thy Conscience and Gods people in what age in what place there was any such Church instituted or any such Discipline practised as thou hast fancied to thy selfe Beleeve nothing for which thou hast not a Rule Doe nothing for which thou hast not an Example for there is not a more dangerous distemper in either Beliefe or Practise then singularity for there onely may we justly call for Miracles if men will present to us and binde us to things that were never beleeved never done before David therefore in this Psalme his Psalme of Instruction as himselfe calls it doth both He lays downe the Rule he establishes it by Example and that was our first Consideration and we have done with that Our second is That he goes not far for his Example 2 Part. Exemplum ipse He labors not to shew his reading but his feeling not his learning but his compunction his Conscience is his Library and his Example is himselfe and he does not unclaspe great Volumes but unbutton his owne breast and from thence he takes it Men that give Rules of Civill wisedome and wise Conversation amongst men use to say that a wise man must never speak much of himselfe It will argue say they a narrow understanding that he knows little besides his own actions or els that he overvalues his own actions if he bring them much into Discourse But the wise men that seeke Christ for there were such wise men in the world once Statesmen in the kingdome of heaven they goe upon other grounds and wheresoever they may finde them they seeke such Examples as may conduce most to the glory of God And when they make themselves Examples they doe not rather choose themselves then others but yet they doe not spare nor forbeare themselves more then other men David proposes his owne Example to his owne shame but to Gods glory For David was one of those persons Qui non potuit solus perire Bernar. He could not sin alone his sin authorized sin in others Princes and Prelates are Doctrinall men in this sense and acceptation that the subject makes the Princes life his Doctrine he learns his Catechisme by the eye he does what he sees done and frames to himselfe Rules out of his Superiors Example Therefore for their Doctrine David proposes truly his own Example and without disguising tells that of himselfe which no man else could have told Christ who could doe nothing but well proposes himselfe for an example of humility Iohn 3.15 Titus 2.7 I have given you an example Whom what That you should doe as I have done So S. Paul instructs Titus In all things shew a patterne of good works But whom for Titus might have shewed them many patternes but Shew thy selfe a patterne sayes the Apostle and not onely of assiduous and laborious preaching but of good works 1 Cor. 16.10 And this is that for which he recommends Timothy to the Church Hee works the work of the Lord And not without a patterne nor without that patterne which S. Paul had given him in himselfe He works so as I also doe S. Paul who had proposed Christ to himselfe to follow might propose himselfe to others and wish as he does I would all men were even as my selfe 1 Cor. 7.7 For though that Apostle by denying it in his owne practise 2 Cor. 4.5 seeme to condemne it in all others To preach our selves We preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord yet to preach out of our owne history so farre as to declare to the Congregation to what manifold sins we had formerly abandoned our selves how powerfully the Lord was pleased to reclaime us how vigilantly he hath vouchsafed to preserve us from relapsing to preach our selves thus to call up the Congregation to heare what God hath done for my soule is a blessed preaching of my selfe And therefore Solomon does not speak of himselfe so much nor so much propose and exhibit himselfe to the Church in any Book as in that which he calls the Preacher Ecclesiastes In that Book he hides none of his owne sins none of those practises which he had formerly used to hide his sins He confesses things there which none knew but himselfe nor durst nor should have published them of him the King if they had knowne them So Solomon preaches himself to good purpose and poures out his owne soule in that Book Which is one of the reasons which our Interpreters assigne why Solomon cals himselfe by this name Lorin Proleg C. 5. Ecclesiastes Coheleth which is a word of the Foeminine gender and not Concionator but Concionatrix a Shee-preacher because it is Anima Concionatrix It is his soule that preaches he poures out his owne soule to the Congregation in letting them know how long the Lord let him run on in vanities and vexation of spirit and how powerfully and effectually he reclaimed him at last For from this Book the Preacher the she-Preacher the soule-Preacher Solomon preaching himselfe rather her selfe the Church raises convenient arguments and the best that are raised for the proofe of the salvation of Solomon of which divers doubted And though Solomon in this Book speak divers things not as his owne opinion but in the sense of worldly men yet as we have a note upon Plato's Dialogues that though he doe so too yet whatsoever Plato sayes in the name and person of Socrates that Plato alwayes meanes for his owne opinion so whatsoever Solomon sayes in the name of the Preacher the Preacher sayes this or sayes that that is evermore Solomons own saying When the Preacher preaches himselfe his owne sins and his owne sense of Gods Mercies or Judgements upon him as that is intended most for the glory of God so it should be applied most by the hearer for his own edification for he were a very ill natured man that should think the worse of a Preacher because he confesses himselfe to be worse then he knew him to be before he confessed it Therefore David thought it not enough to have said to his Confessor to Nathan in private Peccavi I have sinned but here before
the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort pa. 375 SERM. XXXIX 1 PET. 1.17 And if ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth according to every mans works passe the time of your sojourning here in feare pa. 384 SERM. XL. 1 COR. 16.22 If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha pa. 393 SERM. XLI PSAL. 2.12 Kisse the Son lest he be angry pa. 403 SERM. XLII GEN. 18.25 Shall not the Iudge of all the Earth do right pa. 412 SERM. XLIII MAT. 3.17 And lo A voyce came from heaven saying This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased pa. 423 SERM. XLIV REV. 4.8 And the foure Beasts had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes within And they rest not day and night saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come pa. 432 SERM. XLV APOC. 7.2 3. And I saw another Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God and he cryed with a loud voyce to the foure Angels to whom power was given to hurt the Earth and the Sea saying Hurt yee not the Earth neither the Sea neither the Trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads pa. 445 SERM. XLVI ACTS 9.4 And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me pa. 459 SERM. XLVII ACTS 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more pa. 468 SERM. XLVIII ACTS 28.6 They changed their minds and said That he was a God pa. 476 SERM. XLIX ACTS 23.6 7. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadduces and the other Pharisees he cryed out in the Councel Men and Brethren I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question And when he had so said there arose a dissention between the Pharisees and the Sadduces and the multitude was divided pa. 487 SERM. L. PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure pa. 499 SERM. LI. PSAL. 6.2 3. Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weake O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed My soule is also sore vexed But thou O Lord how long pa. 209 SERM. LII LIII PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercies sake For in death there is no remembrance of thee and in the grave who shall give thee thanks pa. 522. pa. 530 SERM. LIV. PSAL. 6.6 7. I am weary with my groaning All the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my teares Mine eye is consumed because of griefe It waxeth old because of all mine enemies pa. 535 SERM. LV. PSAL. 6.8 9 10. Depart from me all yee workers of iniquitie for the Lord hath heard the voyce of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed let them returne and be ashamed suddenly pa. 548 SERM. LVI PSAL. 32.1 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquitie and in whose spirit there is no guile pa. 560 SERM. LVII PSAL. 32.3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moysture is turned into the drought of Summer Selah pa. 571 SERM. LVIII PSAL. 32.5 I acknowledged my sinne unto thee and mine iniquitie have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquitie of my sin pa. 582 SERM. LIX PSAL. 32.6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him pa. 592 SERM. LX. PSAL. 32.7 Thou art my hiding place Thou shalt preserve me from trouble Thou shalt compasse me about with songs of deliverance pa. 601 SERM. LXI PSAL. 32.8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye pa. 609 SERM. LXII PSAL. 32.9 Be not as the Horse or the Mule which have no understanding whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come neere unto thee p. 619 SERM. LXIII PSAL. 32.10 11. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked But he that trusteth in the Lord Mercy shall compasse him about Be glad in the Lord and rejoyce ye righteous And shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart pa. 629 SERM. LXIV PSAL. 51.7 Purge me with Hyssope and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow pa. 639 SERM. LXV PSAL. 62.9 Surely men of low degree are vanitie and men of high degree are a lie To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter then vanity pa. 643 SERM. LXVI PSAL. 63.7 Because thou hast been my help Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce pa. 663 SERM. LXVII PSAL. 64.10 And all the upright in heart shall glory pa. 673 SERM. LXVIII PSAL. 65.5 By terrible things in righteousnesse wilt thou answer us O God of our salvation who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth and of them that are a far off upon the Sea pa. 683 SERM. LXIX PSAL. 66.3 Say unto God How terrible art thou in thy works Through the greatnesse of thy Power shall thine Enemies submit themselves unto thee pa. 695 SERM. LXX PROV 25.16 Hast thou found Honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it 709 SERM. LXXI LXXII MAT. 4.18 19 20. And Iesus walking by the Sea of Galile saw two brethren Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the Sea for they were fishers And he saith unto them Follow me and I will make you fishers of men And they straightway left their nets and followed him pa. 717. 726 SERM. LXXIII JOHN 14.2 In my Fathers house are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you pa. 737 SERM. LXXIV PSAL. 144.15 Blessed are the people that be so Yea blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. pa. 749 SERM. LXXV ESAY 32.8 But the liberall deviseth liberall things and by liberall things he shall stand pa. 758 SERM. LXXVI MARK 16.16 He that beleeveth not shall be damned pa. 766 SERM. LXXVII LXXVIII 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they doe which are baptized for the dead if the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for the dead pa. 777. 790 SERM. LXXIX PSAL. 90.14 O satisfie us early with thy mercy that we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes pa. 803 SERM. LXXX
to diminish mercy The names of first or last derogate from it for first and last are but ragges of time and his mercy hath no relation to time no limitation in time it is not first nor last but eternall everlasting Let the Devill make me so far desperate as to conceive a time whē there was no mercy and he hath made me so far an Atheist as to conceive a time when there was no God if I despoile him of his mercy any one minute and say now God hath no mercy for that minute I discontinue his very Godhead and his beeing Later Grammarians have wrung the name of mercy out of misery Misericordia praesumit miseriam say these there could be no subsequent mercy if there were no precedent misery But the true roote of the word mercy through all the Prophets is Racham and Racham is diligere to love as long as there hath been love and God is love there hath been mercy And mercy considered externally and in the practise and in the effect began not at the helping of man when man was fallen and become miserable but at the making of man when man was nothing So then here we consider not mercy as it is radically in God and an essentiall attribute of his but productively in us as it is an action a working upon us and that more especially as God takes all occasions to exercise that action and to shed that mercy upon us for particular mercies are feathers of his wings and that prayer Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee is our birdlime particular mercies are that cloud of Quailes which hovered over the host of Israel and that prayer Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us is our net to catch our Gomer to fill of those Quailes The aire is not so full of Moats of Atomes as the Church is of Mercies and as we can suck in no part of aire but we take in those Moats those Atomes so here in the Congregation we cannot suck in a word from the preacher we cannot speak we cannot sigh a prayer to God but that that whole breath and aire is made of mercy But we call not upon you from this Text to consider Gods ordinary mercy that which he exhibites to all in the ministery of his Church nor his miraculous mercy his extraordinary deliverances of States and Churches but we call upon particular Consciences by occasion of this Text to call to minde Gods occasionall mercies to them such mercies as a regenerate man will call mercies though a naturall man would call them accidents or occurrences or contingencies A man wakes at mid-night full of unclean thoughts and he heares a passing Bell this is an occasionall mercy if he call that his own knell and consider how unfit he was to be called out of the world then how unready to receive that voice Foole this night they shall fetch away thy soule The adulterer whose eye waites for the twy-light goes forth and casts his eyes upon forbidden houses and would enter and sees a Lord have mercy upon us upon the doore this is an occasionall mercy if this bring him to know that they who lie sick of the plague within passe through a furnace but by Gods grace to heaven and hee without carries his own furnace to hell his lustfull loines to everlasting perdition What an occasionall mercy had Balaam when his Asse Catechized him What an occasionall mercy had one Theefe when the other catechized him so Art not thou afraid being under the same condemnation What an occasionall mercy had all they that saw that when the Devil himself fought for the name of Jesus and wounded the sons of Sceva for exorcising in the name of Jesus Act. 19.14 with that indignation with that increpation Iesus we know and Paul we know but who are ye If I should declare what God hath done done occasionally for my soule where he instructed me for feare of falling where he raised me when I was fallen perchance you would rather fixe your thoughts upon my illnesse and wonder at that then at Gods goodnesse and glorifie him in that rather wonder at my sins then at his mercies rather consider how ill a man I was then how good a God he is If I should inquire upon what occasion God elected me and writ my name in the book of Life I should sooner be afraid that it were not so then finde a reason why it should be so God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons and day and night and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies In paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute and in heaven it is alwaies Autumne his mercies are ever in their maturity We ask panem quetidianum our daily bread and God never sayes you should have come yesterday he never sayes you must againe to morrow but to day if you will heare his voice to day he will heare you If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion in North and South as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions so large an extent East and West as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions much more hath God mercy and judgement together He brought light out of darknesse not out of a lesser light he can bring thy Summer out of Winter though thou have no Spring though in the wayes of fortune or understanding or conscience thou have been benighted till now wintred and frozen clouded and eclypsed damped and benummed smothered and stupified till now now God comes to thee not as in the dawning of the day not as in the bud of the spring but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadowes as the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries all occasions invite his mercies and all times are his seasons If it were not thus in generall it would never have been so in this particular in our case Achaz case in the Text in King Achaz If God did not seeke occasion to doe good to all he would never have found occasion to doe good to King Achaz Subjects are to look upon the faults of Princes with the spectacles of obedience and reverence to their place and persons little and dark spectacles and so their faults and errors are to appeare little and excusable to them Gods perspective glasse his spectacle is the whole world he looks not upon the Sun in his spheare onely but as he works upon the whole earth And he looks upon Kings not onely what harme they doe at home but what harme they occasion abroad through that spectacle the faults of Princes in Gods eye are multiplyed farre above those of private men Achaz had such faults and yet God sought occasion of Mercy Iotham his Father is called a good King and yet all Idolatry was not removed in his time and he
though some have taken so too Yet we doe not deliver Moses from all infirmity herein Iratus Deus Exod. 32.32 no nor from all errour and mistaking no more then wee doe in that other prayer of his dele me pardon this people or blot my name out of thy Booke where Moses capitulated too narrrowly and upon too strict conditions with God Therefore in this place it followes presently upon this prayer That God was angry with him Unseasonable prayers though because they may be rooted in piety they may be in some sort excusable in him that makes them yet may be unacceptable to God S. August prayed for a dead Mother Monica and S. Ambrose prayed for a dead Master Theodesiâ—s God forbid wee should condemne Augustine or Ambrose of impiety in doing so But God forbid wee should make Augustine or Ambrose his example our rule to doe so still This sending of Christ which Moses solicites here was de Arcanit Dei It was one of the secrets of his State and of his government It was one of his bosome Counsels and Cabinet Decrees One of those reserved cases which he had communicated to no man as the day of Christs second comming his comming to Judgement is now which God hath communicated to no man as the cleare understanding of the state of the dead who are departed this life God hath imparted to no man nor some circumstances of time and place and person in Antichrist God hath revealed these to no man not to his whole Church These are acts of his Regality and of his Prerogative and as Princes say of their Prerogative nolumus disputari wee will not have it disputed nor called into question so for these Reserved cases and unrevealed Counsels of God such as was the first comming of Christ in Moses time and such as is the second comming of Christ now in our time God would not be importuned God meant to give the children of Israel a King from the beginning we presume hee meant it because it is the best blessing of all formes of government And wee see hee meant it because long before hee established Lawes by which Deut. 17. they should governe themselves in their chusing their King and by which their King should governe them when he was chosen yet God was angry when they importuned him for a King at such a time and upon such termes as he intended not to doe it But now because in Moses case though there were not a present obedience yet there was no disobedience the fault being no greater the anger was not great neither and therefore we may safely say with Rupertus that the iratus fuit was but non propitius fuit God was so angry as that hee did not grant nor accept Moses petition nor entertaine any farther discourse with him concerning the sending of Christ In Abrahams solicitation in the behalfe of Sodome it is said that God went not away as long as Abraham had any thing to say But here God was so farre angry as to break off Moses discourse But his anger was not so much an Increpation that he had said any thing as an Instruction that hee should say no more of Gods unrevealed purposes Therefore God does not continue his anger so as to discontinue his worke Tamen consolidat It was but a Catechisticall anger such an anger as S. Bernard begges at Gods hands Irascaris mihi Domine O Lord be angry with me and leave mee not to my selfe thou hast an anger that instructs in the way but thou hast a heavy indignation that confounds and exterminates in the end Therefore our prayer in the Litany is not O Lord bee never angry with us but O Lord be not angry with us for ever David was a man according to Gods heart yet no doubt but God was angry with David for the matter of Vriah as himselfe calls it God was not angry with Moses so as that he gave over his purpose of delivering Israel or of delivering Israel by him and him established in a cheerefull assurance to undertake it for in the same breath in the same words V. 14. in the same verse wherein his anger is expressed his Benignity and his Benevolence is expressed also for there he saies Is not Aaron thy Brother I know he can speake well and also behold he commeth forth to meet thee God had laid it so that Moses should be setled this way by having so able a man and then a man in whom he might be so confident as a brother joyned in commission with him Slide wee in this note by the way God loves not singularity God bindes us to nothing that was never said but by one As God loves Sympathy God loves Symphony God loves a compassion and fellow-feeling of others miseries that is Sympathy and God loves Harmony and fellow beleeving of others Doctrines that is Symphony No one man alone makes a Church no one Church alone makes a Catholique Church Christ sent his owne Disciples by couples two and two And Aquinas sayes out of his observation Monachus solus est Daemon solitarius Though naturally a Monk must love retirednesse yet a single Monk a Monk alwaies alone saies he is plotting some singular mischiefe Deus qui habitat in nobis etiam nos custodiet ex nobis is excellently said by that excellent Father August God that dwels in us will sustaine the building and repaire the building out of our selves that is he will make us Tutelar Angels to one another and a holy and reverentiall respect to one another in good conversation shall keep us from many sinfull actions which we would commit if we were alone So then God was not so angry nor angry so with Moses as that he did not pursue his first purpose upon him of sending him sending him so as might best speed advance his Negotiation And therfore as Moses praying for Christs first coÌ„ming which was one of Gods reserved cases and an act of his regality and Prerogative though he had not that prayer granted yet was not left unsatisfied nor unaccommodated by God so which is the end that wee drive all to when the calamities and distresses of this life oppresse us and we pray for the second comming of Christ in the consummation of all in glory though because this second comming of Christ is one of Gods Reserved cases and an act of his Regality and Prerogative hee doe not grant that that Christ doe not come so yet in his blessed Spirit he will come to us in an assurance that when he shall come so in judgement wee in his right shall stand upright even in that Judgement And if in extraordinary distresses wee pray for extraordinary reliefes though extraordinary helps and miracles bee Reserved cases and acts of his Regality and Prerogative yet as he remembers his mercies of old hee will remember his miracles of old too and as his mercies are new every morning his miracles shall
bee new every morning too and all that he did in eighty eight in the last Centutry he shall doe if we need it in twenty eight in this Century And though he may be angry with our prayers as they are but verball prayers and not accompanied with actions of obedience yet he will not be angry with us for ever but re-establish at home zeale to our present Religion and good correspondence and affections of all parts to one another and our power and our honour in forraign Nations Amen SERMON VI. Preached at S. Pauls upon Christmas Day 1628. Lord who hath beleeved our report Domine quis credidit auditui nostro I Have named to you no booke no chapter no verse where these words are written But I forbore not out of forgetfulnesse nor out of singularity but out of perplexity rather because these words are written in more then one in more then two places of the Bible In your ordinary conversation and communication with other men I am sure you have all observed that many men have certaine formes of speech certaine interjections certaine suppletory phrases which fall often upon their tongue and which they repeat almost in every sentence and for the most part impertinently and then when that phrase conduces nothing to that which they would say but rather disorders and discomposes the sentence and confounds or troubles the hearer And this which some doe out of slacknesse and in-observance and infirmity many men God knowes do out of impiety many men have certaine suppletory Oathes with which they fill up their Discourse then when they are not onely not the better beleeved but the worse understood for those blasphemous interjections Now this which you may thus observe in men sometimes out of infirmity sometimes out of impiety out of an accommodation and communicablenesse of himselfe to man out of desire and a study to shed himselfe the more familiarly and to infuse himselfe the more powerfully into man you may observe even in the holy Ghost in himselfe in the Scriptures which are the discourse and communication of God with man There are certaine idioms certaine formes of speech certaine propositions which the holy Ghost repeats severall times upon severall occasions in the Scriptures It is so in the instrumentall Authors of the particular Bookes of the Bible There are certaine formes of speech certaine characters upon which I would pronounce That 's Moses and not David that 's Iob and not Solomon that 's Esay and not Ieremy How often does Moses repeat his Vivit Dominus and Ego vivo As the Lord liveth and As I live saith the Lord How often does Solomon repeat his vanitas vanitatum All is vanity How often does our blessed Saviour repeat his Amen Amen and in another sense then others had used that word before him so often as that you may reckon it thirtie times in one Evangelist so often as that that may not inconveniently be thought some reason why S. Iohn called Christ by that name Amen Rev. 3.14 Thus saith Amen He whose name is Amen How often does S. Paul especiallly in his Epistles to Timothy and to Titus repeat that phrase Fidelis Sermo This is a true and faithfull saying And how often his juratory caution Coram Domino before the Lord As God is my witnesse And as it is thus for particular persons and particular phrases that they are often repeated so are there certaine whole sentences certaine intire propositions which the holy Ghost does often repeat in the Scripture And except we except that proposition of which S. Peick makes his use That God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 for that is repeated in very many places that every where upō every occasiō every man might be remembred of that that God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you presume upon your own knowledge or your actions for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you condemne another man for an Heretique because he beleeves not just as you beleeve or for a Reprobate because he lives not just as you live for God is no accepter of persons Take heed how you relie wholly upon the outward means that you are wrapped in the covenant that you are bred in a reformed Church for God is no accepter of persons except you will except this proposition I scarce remember any other that is so often repeated in the Scriptures as this which is our Text Lord who hath beleeved our report For it is first in the Prophet Esay There the Prophet is in holy throws and pangs Esay 53.1 and agonies till he be delivered of that prophecy the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of Christ Jesus and yet is put to this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved our report And then you have these words in the Gospell of S. Iohn John 12.38 where we are not put upon the consideration of a future Christ in prophecy but the Evangelist exhibits Christ in person actually really visibly evidently doing great works executing great judgements multiplying great Miracles and yet put to the application of this exclamation Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved this report And then you have these words also in S. Paul Rom. 10.16 where we doe not consider a prophecy of a future Christ nor a history of a present Christ but an application of that whole Christ to every soule in the fetling of a Church in that concatenation of meanes for the infusion of faith expressed in that Chapter sending and preaching and hearing and yet for all these powerfull and familiar assistances Domine quis crodidit Lord who hath beleeved that report So that now beloved you cannot say that you have a Text without a place for you have three places for this Text you have it in the great Prophet in Esay in the great Evangelist in S. Iohn and in the great Apostle in S. Paul And because in all three places the words minister usefull doctrine of edification we shall by yours and the times leave consider the words in all three places In all three the words are a sad and a serious expostulation of the Minister of God with God himselfe that his Meanes and his Ordinances powerfully committed to him being faithfully transmitted by him to the people were neverthelesse fruitlesse and ineffectuall I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes the Prophet Esay I prophecy I foretell the comming of the Messiah the incarnation of thy Son for the salvation of the world and I know that none of them that heare me can imagine or conceive any other way for the redemption of the world by fatisfaction to thy Justice but this and yet Domine quis credidit Lord who hath beleeved my report I doe Lord as thou biddest me sayes Christ himselfe in S. Iohn I come in person I glorifie thy name I doe thy will I preach thy Gospell I confirm my doctrine with evident Miracles and I seale
sheep God and Man Him and Them Them indefinitely all them all men I came sayes Christ I alone that they all they might have life And secondly we consider the action it self as it is wrapped up in this word veni I came for that is first that he who was alwaies omnipresent every where before did yet study a new way of comming communicating himself with man veni I came that is novo modo veni I came by a new way And then that he who fed his former stock but with Prophesies and promises that he would come feeds us now with actuall performances with his reall presence and the exhibition of himself And lastly we shall consider the end the purpose the benefit of his comming which is life And first ut daret that he might give life bring life offer life to the world which is one mercy and then ut haberent that we might have it embrace it possesse it which is another and after both a greater then both that we might have this life abundantiùs more abundantly which is first abundantiùs illis more abundantly then other men of this world and then abundantiùs ipsis more abundantly then we our selves had it in this world in the world to come for therefore he came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly First then in our first part we consider the Persons The Shepheard and the Sheepe 1 Part. Persone Him and Them God and Man of which Persons the one for his Greatnesse God the other for his littlenesse man can scarce fall under any consideration What eye can fixe it self upon East and West at once And he must see more then East and West that sees God for God spreads infinitely beyond both God alone is all not onely all that is but all that is not all that might be if he would have it be God is too large too immense and then man is too narrow too little to be considered for who can fixe his eye upon an Atome and he must see a lesse thing then an Atome that sees man for man is nothing First for the incomprehensiblenesse of God the understanding of man Deus hath a limited a determined latitude it is an intelligence able to move that Spheare which it is fixed to but could not move a greater I can comprehend naturam naturatam created nature but for that natura naturans God himselfe the understanding of man cannot comprehend I can see the Sun in a looking-glasse but the nature and the whole working of the Sun I cannot see in that glasse I can see God in the creature but the nature the essence the secret purposes of God I cannot see there There is defatigatio in intellectualibus sayes the saddest and soundest of the Hebrew Rabbins R. Moses the soule may be tired as well as the body and the understanding dazeled as well as the eye It is a good note of the same Rabbi upon those words of Solomon fill not thy selfe with hony lest thou vomit it that it is not said that if thou beest cloyd with it thou maist be distasted Pro. 25.16 disaffected towards it after but thou maist vomit it and a vomit works so as that it does not onely bring up that which was then but that also which was formerly taken Curious men busie themselves so much upon speculative subtilties as that they desert and abandon the solid foundations of Religion and that is a dangerous vomit To search so farre into the nature and unrevealed purposes of God as to forget the nature and duties of man this is a shrewd surfet though of hony and a dangerous vomit It is not needfull for thee to see the things that are in secret sayes the wife man nonindiges Ecclus. 3.23 thou needest not that knowledge Thou maist doe well enough in this world and bee Gods good servant and doe well enough in the next world and bee a glorious Saint and yet never search into Gods secrets Ps 65.1 Te decet Hymnus so the vulgar reades that place To thee O Lord belong our Hymnes our Psalmes our Prayses our cheerefull acclamations and conformably to that we translate it Praise waiteth for thee O God in Sion But if we will take it according to the Originall it must be Tibi silentium laus est Thy praise O Lord consists in silence That that man praises God best that sayes least of him of him that is of his nature of his essence of his unrevealed will and secret purposes O that men would praise the Lord is Davids provocation to us all but how O that men would praise the Lord and declare his wondrous works to the sons of men but not to goe about to declare his unrevealed Decrees or secret purposes is as good a way of praising him as the other And therefore O that men would praise the Lord so forbeare his Majesty when he is retired into himselfe in his Decrees and magnifie his Majesty as he manifests himselfe to us in the execution of those Decrees of which this in our Text is a great one that he that is infinitely more then all descended to him that is infinitely lesse then nothing which is the other person whom we are to consider in this part ille illis I to them God to us The Hebrew Doctors almost every where repeat that adage of theirs lex loquitur linguam filiorum hominum Illis God speakes mens language that is the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures descends to the capacity and understanding of man and so presents God in the faculties of the minde of man and in the lineaments of the body of man But yet say they there is never braine nor liver nor spleene nor any other inward part ascribed to God but onely the heart God is all heart and that whole heart that inexhaustible fountaine of love is directed wholly upon man And then though in the Scriptures those bodily lineaments head and feet and hands and eyes and eares be ascribed to God God is never said to have shoulders for say they shoulders are the subjects of burdens and therein the figures of patience and so God is all shoulder all patience he heares patiently he sees patiently he speakes patiently he dyes patiently And is there a patience beyond that In Christ there is he suffers patiently a quotidian Crucifying we kill the Lord of Life every day every day we make a mock of Christ Jesus and tread the blood of the Covenant under our feet every day And as though all his passion and blood and wounds and heart were spent by our former oathes and blasphemies we crucifie him dayly by our dayly sins that we might have new blood and heart and wounds to sweare by and all this hee suffers patiently and after all this ille illis to this man this God comes He to us God to man all to nothing for upon that we insist first as the first
a determined purpose to doe some good works and yet this light not shine out No man can more properly be said to hide his light under a bushell which because Christ sayes in the verse before our Text no man does certainly no man should doe then he who hath disposed some part of his estate to pious uses but hides it in his will and locks up that will in his cabinet For in this case though there be light yet it does not shine out Your gold and your silver is cankered sayes S. Iames and the rust of them shall be a witnesse James 5.3 and shall eate your flesh as it were fire He does not say the gold and the silver it self as reproving the ill getting of it but the rust the hiding the concealing thereof shall be this witnesse against thee this executioner upon thee That man dyes in an ill state of whose faith we have had no evidence till after his death his executors meet and open his Will and then publish some Legacies to pious uses And we had no evidence before if he had done no good before For shew me thy faith without thy works James 2.18 sayes the Apostle and he proposes it as an impossible thing impossible to shew it impossible to have it And therefore as good works are our owne so are they never so properly our owne as when they are done with our owne hands for this is the true shining of our light the emanation from us upon others And so have you the three peeces which constitute our first part the precept Let your light shine before men The light it selfe not the light of nature nor of Baptisme nor of Adoption but the light of good works And then the Appropriation of this light how these workes are ours though the goodnesse thereof be onely from God And lastly the emanation of this light upon others which cannot well be said to be an emanation of our light of light from us except it be whilst we are we that is alive And so we passe to those many particulars which frame our second part the reason and the end of this That men may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven In this end our beginning is ut videant that men may see it The apparitions in old times were evermore accompanied with lights but they were private lights 2. Part. Vt videant such an old woman or such a child saw a light but non videbant homines it did not shine out so that men might see this light We have a story delivered by a very pious man Cantiprat l. 1. c. 9. and of the truth whereof he seemes to be very well assured that one Conradus a devout Priest had such an illustration such an irradiation such a coruscation such a light at the tops of those fingers which he used in the consecration of the Sacrament as that by that light of his fingers ends he could have reade in the night as well as by so many Candles But this was but a private light non viderunt homines It did not shine out Epist 205. ad Cyrill Jerosolym so that men might see it Blessed S. Augustine reports if that Epistle be S. Augustines that when himselfe was writing to S. Hierome to know his opinion of the measure and quality of the Joy and Glory of Heaven suddenly in his Chamber there appeared ineffabile lumen sayes he an unspeakable an unexpressible light nostr is invisum temporibus such a light as our times never saw and out of that light issued this voyce Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art writing who this houre dyed at Bethlem and am come from thence to thee c. But this was but a private light and whatsoever S. Augustine saw who was not easily deceived nor would deceive others non videbant homines this light did not shine so as that men might see it Here in our Text there is a light required that men may see Those lights of their apparitions we cannot see There is a light of ours which our adversaries may see and will not which is truly the light of this Text the light of good works Though our zeale to good works shine out assiduously day by day in our Sermons and shine out powerfully in the Homilies of our Church composed expresly to that purpose and shine out actually in our many sumptuous buildings and rich endowments in which works we of this Kingdome in this last Century since the Reformation of Religion have perhaps exceeded our Fathers in any one hundred of yeares whilst they lived under the Romane perswasion yet still they cry out we are enemies of this light and abhorre good works As I have heard them in some obscure places abroad Preach that here in England we had not onely no true Church no true Priesthood no true Sacraments but that we have no materiall Churches no holy Convocations no observing of Sundayes or Holy dayes no places to serve God in so I have heard them Preach that we doe not onely not advance but that we cry downe and discredit and disswade and discountenance the doctrine of good works It is enough to say to them as the Angel said to the Devill Increpet te Dominus The Lord rebuke thee Iude 9. And the Lord does rebuke them in enabling us to proceed in these pious works which with so notorious falshood they deny And we doe rebuke them Heb. 10.24 the best and most powerfull way in that as the Apostle sayes we consider one another consider the necessities of others and provoke one another to love and good workes But then if this be Gods end in our good works ut videant homines that men may see them Mat. 6.1 why is Christ so earnest in this very sermon as to say Take heed you do not your almes before men to be seene of them Is there no contradiction in these far from it The intent of both precepts together make up this doctrine That we doe them not therefore not to that end that men may see them So far we must come that men must see them but we must not rest there for it is but Sic luceat Let your light shine out so it is not let it shine out therefore Our doing of good workes must have a farther end then the knowledge of men as we shall see towards our end anon Men must see them then Opera and see them to be workes Vt videant opera That they may see your works which is a word that implies difficulty and paine and labour and is accompanied with some loathnesse with some colluctation Doe such workes for Gods sake as are hard for thee to doe In such a word does God deliver his Commandement of the Sabbath not that word which in that language signifies ordinary and eafie works but servile and laborious workes toylesome and
that blessed Sermon of our Saviours which is called the Sermon of Beatitudes So that we shall make it a part apart to consider the Sermon from which this Text is taken before we dilate the Text it self into a Sermon for there will arise some usefull observations out of these three doubts first Quae concio what this Sermon it self was and then Quibus to what Auditory it was preached And lastly Quomodo in what manner Christ preached this Sermon And these three the Sermon the Auditory the disposition of the Preacher will also be three branches of this which we shall make our first part before we come to the other three of the Text it self First then there is this doubt made of this Sermon altogether 1 Part. whether this Sermon which S. Matthew records here be the same Sermon which S. Luke mentions in his sixth Chapter or whether they were preached at severall times The greater part of the ancients but yet not all take them to be severall Sermons The greater part of the later men and yet not all neither take them to be but one and the same Sermon If it be so if both be but one Sermon this may be justly considered that since S. Luke remembers but a few passages and a few parts of that Sermon in respect of S. Matthew for S. Matthews relation is large and particular and S. Lukes more briefe and summary they that come to heare Sermons and would make benefit by them by a subsequent meditation must not think themselves frustrated of their purposes if they do not understand all or not remember all the Sermon Scarce any Sermon is so preached or so intended as that all works upon all or all belongs unto all The Lord and his Spirit puts into the Preachers mouth a judgement against oppression against extortion against usury and he utters that judgement But perchance thou hast no lands to rack tenants no office to grinde suitors no mony to devoure a debtor by usury and so that passage of the Sermon bent against oppression or extortion or usury concernes not thee affects not thee But next to thee there may sit an oppressor or extortioner or usurer and he needed that and by Gods grace receives benefit by that which found nothing to work upon in thee And then thy turn comes after and God speaks to thy soul in a discovery of those sins to which thou art enclined and then he gives thy neighbour who was pinched and brought to a remorse before that refreshing which thou hadst before that is a thankfull acknowledgement that though he be subject to other sins yet God hath preserved him from that particular God directs the tongue of his Ministers as he doth his showres of rain They fall upon the face of a large compasse of earth when as all that earth did not need that rain The whole Congregation is oftentimes in common entendment conformable and well setled in all matters of Doctrine and all matters of Discipline And yet God directs us sometimes to extend our discourse perchance with a zeale and a vehemence which may seem unnecessary and impertinent because all in the Church are presumed to be of one minde in the proofe of our doctrine against Papists or of our discipline against Non-conformitans For Gods eye sees in what seat there sits or in what corner there stands some one man that wavers in matters of Doctrine and enclines to hearken after a Seducer a Jesuit or a Semi-Jesuit a practising Papist or a Sesqui-Jesuit a Jesuited Lady And Gods eye sees in what seat there sits or in what corner there stands some weak soul that is scandalized with some Ceremony or part of our Discipline and in danger of falling from the unity of the Church And for the refreshing of that one span of ground God le ts fall a whole showre of rain for the rectifying of that one soul God poures out the Meditations of the Preacher into such a subject as perchance doth little concern the rest of the Congregation S. Matthew relates Christs Sermon at large and S. Luke but briefly and yet S. Luke remembers some things that S. Matthew had left out If thou remember not all that was presented to thy faith all the Citations of places of Scriptures nor all that was presented to thy reason all the deducements and inferences of the Schooles nor all that was presented to thy spirituall delight all the sentences of ornament produced out of the Fathers yet if thou remember that which concerned thy sin and thy soul if thou meditate upon that apply that thou hast brought away all the Sermon all that was intended by the Holy Ghost to be preached to thee And if thou have done so as at a donative at a Coronation or other solemnity when mony is throwne among the people though thou light but upon one shilling of that money thou canst not think that all the rest is lost but that some others are the richer for it though thou beest not so if thou remember or apply or understand but one part of the Sermon doe not think all the rest to have been idly or unnecessarily or impertinently spoken for thou broughtest a feaver and hast had thy Julips another brought a fainting and a diffident spirit and must have his Cordials Thus then if S. Lukes Sermon be the same that S. Matthews was we see by S. Lukes manner of repeating it That a Sermon may be well remembred and well applyed though all the parts thereof be not so And then if these were divers Sermons and so preached by Christ at severall times there arises also this consideration That Christ did not and therefore we need not forbeare to preach the same particular Doctrines or to handle the same particular points which we or others in that place have handled before A preachers end is not a gathering of fame to himselfe but a gathering of soules to God and his way is not novelty but edification If we consider the Sermon in Saint Matthew and the Sermon in S. Luke the purpose and the scope of both the matter and the forme of both the body and the parts of both the phrase and the language of both is for the most part the same and yet Christ forbore not to preach it twice This excuses no mans ignorance that is not able to preach seasonably and to break and distribute the bread of life according to the emergent necessities of that Congregation at that time Nor it excuses no mans lazinesse that will not employ his whole time upon his calling Nor any mans vain-glory and ostentation who having made a Pye of Plums without meat offers it to sale in every Market and having made an Oration of Flowres and Figures and Phrases without strength sings it over in every Pulpit It excuses no mans ignorance nor lazinesse nor vain-glory but yet it reproaches their itching and curious eares to whom any repetition of the same things is irk some and
saies he Inter animas terrenas non autem inter Angelicas beatitudines She is not compared with her owne state in Heaven she shall have a better state in that State then she hath here So when Iohn Baptists Office is highliest extolled that he is called The greatest Prophet it is but Inter natos mulierum Amongst the sons of women he is not compared with the Son of God So this Blessednesse appropriated to the pure in heart gives a present assurance of future joy and a present inchoation of that now though the plenary consummation thereof be respited till we see God And first videbunt non contremiscent Videbunt Deum This is a Blessednesse they shall see God and be glad to see him see him in Judgement and be able to stand in Judgement in his sight They shall see him and never trouble the hils to fall upon them nor call the mountains to cover them upon them he shall not steal as a thiefe in the night but because he hath used to stand at their doore and knock and enter they shall look for his comming and be glad of it First they come to a true valuation of this world in S. Pauls Omnia stercora Phil. 3.8 I count all things but Dung but losse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord When they have found the true value of worldly things they will come to something worth the getting they will come to S. Pauls way of Gain Mors lucrum that to die is gain and advantage Phil. 1.21 When they know that they will conceive a religious covetousnesse of that and so come to S. Pauls Cupio dissolvi to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ When they have entertained that Desire they will declare it make a petition a suite for it with a Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly and they shall have a holy and modest but yet an infallible assurance of this answer to their petition Venite benedicti Come ye blessed of my Father inherite the Kingdome prepared for you from the foundations of the world Mat. 26.34 So Videbunt non contremiscent by this acquainting themselves and accustoming themselves to his presence in all their actions and meditations in this life they shall see him and be glad to see him even in Judgement in the next But the seeing of God principally intended in this place is that Visio beatifica to see God so as that that very seeing makes the seer Blessed They are Blessed therefore because they see him And that is videre Essentiam to see the very Essence and nature of God For that we shall see God in his Essence is evident enough by that place of the Apostle 1 John 3.2 Now we are the Sons of God that is now by this purity of heart and testimony of a rectified conscience we are so And it doth not yet appeare what we shall be that is there are degrees of glory reserved for us that yet do not appeare to our understanding we cannot conceive them But we know that when he shall appeare we shall be like him that is receive incorruption and glory in our bodies as he hath done And then the reason given there of that is For we shall see him sicuti est as he is in his Essence All our Beatification and Glorification in our bodies consists in this that we shall see him sicuti est 1 Cor. 13.12 as he is in his Essence Then sayes S. Paul I shall know even as I am knowne Essentially But whether then in the resurrection and glorification of the body God in his Essence be to be seen with those eyes which the body shall then have is yet and hath been long a question The Scripture goes no farther then to S. Iohns Sicuti est I shall see him as he is and to S. Pauls Cognoscam I shall know him as I am knowne but with what eyes I shall see him without any perplexing curiosities we will look a little into the Fathers and into the School and conclude so as may best advance our edification For the Fathers it may be sufficient to insist upon S. Augustine not because he is alwayes to be preferred before all but because in this point he hath best collected all that were before him and is best followed of all that come after S. Augustine had written against a Bishop who was of the Sect of the Anthropomorphits whose Heresie was that God had a Body and in opposition of him S. Augustine had said Istius corporis oculos nec videre Deum nec visuros That God was so far from having a Body that our bodily eyes howsoever glorified should never see God In that Treatise S. Augustine had been very bitter against that Bishop and being warned of it in another Epistle to another Bishop Fortunatianus he repents and retracts his bitternesse but his opinion his doctrine That our bodily eyes should never see God S. Augustine never retracted He professes ingenuously Longè tolerabilius corpori arrogare quà m Deo derogare That he could be more easily brought to attribute so much too much to the body of man as to say that with these bodily eyes he should see God then to derogate so much from God as to say that he had a body that might be seen but because he saw that one might follow on the other he denyed both and did no more beleeve that mans eyes should see God then that God had a body to be seen And this negative opinion of his S. Augustine builds upon S. Ambrose and upon S. Hierome too who seem to deny that the Angels themselves see the Essence of God and upon Athanasius who against the Arrians opinion That God the Father only was invisible but the Son who was not equall to the Father and the Holy Ghost who was not equall to the Son might be seen argues and maintains that the whole Trinity is equall in it self and equally invisible to us So doth he also assist himself with that of Nazianzen Quando Deus visus salva sua invisibilitate visus howsoever God be said to have been seen it is said in some such sense as that even then when he was seen he was invisible He might have added Chrysostomes testimony too Ipsum quod Deus est nec Angeli viderunt nec Archangeli Neither Angel nor Archangel did ever see that Nature which is the very Essence of God And he might have added Areopagita too who expresses it with equall elegancy and vehemency Dei nec sententia est nec ratio nec opinio nec sensus nec phantasia If we bring the very Nature and Essence of God into question we can give no judgement upon it non sententia we can make no probable discourse of it non ratio we can frame no likely opinion or conjecture in it non opinio we cannot prepare our selves with any thing which hath fallen
very hearts for only such shall see God Omnis meridies diluculum habuit as the same Father continues this Meditation The brightest non had a faint twi-light and break of day The sight of God which we shall have in heaven must have a Diluculum a break of day here If we will see his face there we must see it in some beames here And to that purpose Visus per omnes sensus recurrit as S. Augustine hath collected out of severall places of Scripture Every sense is called sight for there is Odora vide and Gusta vide Taste and See how sweet and Smell and See what a savour of life the Lord is Apoc. 1.12 Luke 24.39 So S. Iohn turned about To see a voice There Hearing was Sight And so our Saviour Christ sayes Palpate videte and there Feeling is Seeing All things concur to this Seeing and therefore in all the works of your senses and in all your other faculties See ye the Lord Heare him in his word and so see him Speak to him in your prayers and so see him Touch him in his Sacrament and so see him Present holy and religious actions unto him and so see him Davids heart was towards Absalon 2 Sam. 14. sayes that Story Ioab saw that and as every man will be forward to further persons growing in favour for so it should be done to him whom the King will honour Ioah plotted and effected Absalons return but yet Absalon saw not the Kings face in two yeares Beloved in Christ Jesus the heart of your gracious God is set upon you and we his servants have told you so and brought you thus neare him into his Court into his house into the Church but yet we cannot get you to see his face to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in his sight and his presence Caesars face and Caesars inscription you can see The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the Sun to see and sit up till mid-night to see but if you do not see the face of God upon every piece of that mony too all that mony is counterfeit If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook Mat. 17.25 that brings the mony in the mouth as he did to Peter that mony is ill fished for If nourishing of suits and love of contention amongst others for your own gain have brought it 〈◊〉 12.14 〈◊〉 24.3 it is out of the way of that counsell Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see God This is the generation of them that seeke him that seek thy face O Iacob Innocens manibus mundus corde either such an innocence as never fouled the hands or such an innocency as hath washed them cleane againe such an innocency as hath kept you from corrupt getting or such an innocency as hath restored us by restoring that which was corruptly got It is testified of Solomon 1 King 10.24 That he exceeded all the Kings of the Earth for Wisedome and for Riches and all the Earth sought the face of Solomon A greater then Solomon is here for Wisedome and Riches your wisedome is foolishnesse and your riches beggery if you see not the face of this Solomon If either you have studied or practised or judged when his back is towards you that is if you have not done all as in his presence You are in his presence now goe not out of it when you goe from hence Amor rerum terrenarum viscus pennarum spiritualium August God hath given you the wings of Doves and the eyes of Eagles to see him now in this place If in returning from this place you returne to your former wayes of pleasure or profit this is a breaking of those Doves wings and a cieling of those Eagles eyes Coge cor tuum cogitare divina compelle urge sayes that Father Here in the Church thou canst not chuse but see God and raise thy heart towards him But when thou art returned to thy severall distractions that vanities shall pull thine eyes and obtrectation and libellous defamation of others shall pull thine eares and profit shall pull thy hands then Coge compelle urge force and compell thy heart and presse even in that thrust of tentations to see God What God is in his Essence or what our sight of the Essence of God shall be in the next world dispute not too curiously determine nor too peremptorily Cogitans de Deo si finivisti Deus non est is excellently said by S. Augustine If thou begin to think what the Essence of God is and canst bring that thought to an end thou hast mistaken it whensoever thou canst say Deus est this is God or God is this non est Deus that is not God God is not that for he is more infinitely more then that But non potes dicere Deus est thou art not able to say This is God God is this Saltem dicas hoc Deus non est Be able to say This is not God God is not this The belly is not God Mammon is not God Mauzzim the God of Forces Oppression is not God Belphegor Licentiousnesse is not God Howsoever God sees me to my confusion yet I doe not see God when I am sacrificing to these which are not Gods Let us begin at that which is nearest us within us purenesse of heart and from thence receive the testimony of Gods Privy Seale the impression of his Spirit that we are Blessed and that leads us to the Great Seale the full fruition of all we shall see God there where he shall make us drink of the Rivers of his pleasures There is fulnesse plenty Psal 36.8 but lest it should be a Feast of one day or of a few as it is said they are rivers so it is added with thee is the Fountaine of life An abundant river to convay and a perpetuall spring to feed and continue that river And then wherein appeares all this In this for in thy light we shall see light In seeing God we shall see all that concernes us and see it alwayes No night to determine that day no cloud to overcast it We end all with S. Augustines devout exclamation Deus bone qui erunt illi oculi Glorious God what kinde of eyes shall they be Quam decori quam sereni How bright eyes and how well set Quam valentes quam constantes How strong eyes and how durable Quid arbitremur quid aestimemus quid loquemur What quality what value what name shall we give to those eyes Occurrunt verba quotidiana sordidata vilissimis rebus I would say something of the beauty and glory of these eyes and can finde no words but such as I my selfe have mis-used in lower things Our best expressing of it is to expresse a desire to come to it for there onely we
nor reconcile after he shall have made up that account with his Son and told him These be all you dyed for these be all you purchased these be all whom I am bound to save for your sake for the rest their portion is everlasting destruction Under this law under this evidence under this sentence vae desiderantibus woe to them that pretend to desire this day of the Lord as though by their owne outward righteousnesse they could stand upright in this judgement Woe to them that say Let God come when he will it shall goe hard but he shall finde me at Church I heare three or foure Sermons a week he shall finde me in my Discipline and Mortification I fast twice a week he shall finde me in my Stewardship and Dispensation I give tithes of all that I possesse When Ezechias shewed the Ambassadors of Babylon all his Treasure and his Armour the malediction of the Prophet fell upon it that all that Treasure and Armour which he had so gloriously shewed should be transported to them to whom he had shewed it into Babylon He that publishes his good works to the world they are carried into the world and that is his reward Not that there is not a good use of letting our light shine before men too for when S. Paul sayes If I yet please men Gal. 1.10 I should not be the servant of Christ and when he saith I doe please all men in all things S. Austine found no difficulty in reconciling those two Navem quaero sayes he sed patriam When I goe to the Haven to hire a Ship it is for the love I have to my Country When I declare my faith by my works to men it is for the love I beare to the glory of God but if I desire the Lords day upon confidence in these works vae scirpo as Iob expresses it woe unto me poore rush Job 8.16 for sayes he the rush is greene till the Sun come that is sayes Gregory upon that place donec divina districtio in judicio candeat till the fire of the judgement examine our works they may have some verdure some colour but vae desiderantibus wo unto them that put themselves unto that judgement for their works sake For ut quid vobis to what end is it for you If your hypocriticall security could hold out to the last if you could delude the world at the last gasp if those that stand about you then could be brought to say he went away like a Lambe alas the Lambe of God went not away so the Lamb of God had his colluctations disputations expostulations apprehensions of Gods indignation upon him then This security call it by a worse name stupidity is not a lying down like a Lamb but a lying down like Issachers Asse between two burdens for two greater burdens cannot be then sin and the senslesnesse of sin Vt quid vobis what will ye doe at that day which shall be darknesse and not light God dwels in luce inaccessibili 1 Tim. 6.16 in such light as no man by the light of nature can comprehend here but when that light of grace which was shed upon thee here should have brought thee at last to that inaccessible light then thou must be cast in tenebras exteriores Mat. 8.12 into darknesse and darknesse without the Kingdome of heaven And if the darknesse of this world which was but a darknesse of our making could not comprehend the light when Christ in his person brought the light and offered repentance certainly in that outward darknesse of the next world the darknesse which God hath made for punishment they shall see nothing neither intramittendo nor extramittendo neither by receiving offer of grace from heaven nor in the disposition to pray for grace in hell For as at our inanimation in our Mothers womb our immortall soule when it comes swallowes up the other soules of vegetation and of sense which were in us before so at this our regeneration in the next world the light of glory shall swallow up the light of grace To as many as shall be within there will need no grace to supply defects nor eschew dangers because there we shall have neither defects nor dangers There shall be no night no need of candle Apoc. 22.5 nor of Sun for the Lord shall give them light and they shall raigne for ever and ever There shall be no such light of grace as shall work repentance to them that are in the light of glory neither could they that are in outward darknesse comprehend the light of grace if it could flow out upon them First you did the works of darknesse sayes the Apostle Rom. 13.12 and then that custome that practice brought you to love darknesse better then light and then as the Prince of darknesse delights to transforme himselfe into an Angell of light Iohn 3. so by your hypocrisie you pretend a light of grace when you are darknesse it selfe and therefore at quid vobis what will you get by that day which is darknesse and not light Now as this Woe and commination of our Prophet had one aime 3. Part. to beat down their scorne which derided the judgements of God in this world and a second aime to beat downe their confidence that thought themselves of themselves able to stand in Gods judgements in the next world so it hath a third mark better then these two it hath an aime upon them in whom a wearinesse of this life when Gods corrections are upon them or some other mistaking of their owne estate and case works an over-hasty and impatient desire of death and in this sense and acceptation the day of the Lord is the day of our death and transmigration out of this world and the darknesse is still everlasting darknesse Now for this we take our lesson in Iob Iob. 7.1 Vita militia mans life is a warfare man might have lived at peace Greg. he himselfe chose a rebellious warre and now quod volens expetiit nolens portat that warre which he willingly embarked himselfe in at first though it be against his will now he must goe through with In Iob we have our lesson and in S. Paul we have our Law Eph 63. Take ye the whole armour of God that ye may be able having done all to stand that is that having overcome one temptation you may stand in battle against the next for it is not adoloscentia militia but vita that we should think to triumph if we had overcome the heat and intemperance of youth but we must fight it out to our lives end And then we have the reward of this lesson and of this law limited nemo coronatur no man is crowned except he fight according to this law that is 2 Tim. 2.5 he persever to the end And as we have our lesson in Iob our rule and reward in the Apostle who were both great Commanders
cals the Firmament that great expansion from Gods chaire to his footstoole from Heaven to earth there was a defect which God did not supply that day nor the next but the fourth day he did for that day he made those bodies those great and lightsome bodies the Sunne and Moone and Starres and placed them in the Firmament So also the Heaven of Heavens the Presence Chamber of God himselfe expects the presence of our bodies No State upon earth can subsist without those bodies Men of their owne For men that are supplied from others may either in necessity or in indignation be withdrawne and so that State which stood upon forraine legs sinks Let the head be gold Dan. 2.31 and the armes silver and the belly brasse if the feete be clay Men that may slip and molder away all is but an Image all is but a dreame of an Image for forraine helps are rather crutches then legs There must be bodies Men and able bodies able men Men that eate the good things of the land their owne figges and olives Men not macerated with extortions They are glorified bodies that make up the kingdome of Heaven bodies that partake of the good of the State that make up the State Bodies able bodies and lastly bodies inanimated with one soule one vegetative soule all must be sensible and compassionate of one anothers miserie and especially the Immortall soule one supreame soule one Religion For as God hath made us under good Princes a great example of all that Abundance of Men Men that live like men men united in one Religion so wee need not goe farre for an example of a slippery and uncertaine being where they must stand upon others Mens men and must over-load all men with exactions and distortions and convulsions and earthquakes in the multiplicity of Religions The Kingdome of Heaven must have bodies Kingdomes of the earth must have them and if upon the earth thou beest in the way to Heaven thou must have a body too a body of thine owne a body in thy possession for thy body hath thee and not thou it if thy body tyrannize over thee If thou canst not withdraw thine eye from an object of tentation or withhold thy hand from subscribing against thy conscience nor turne thine eare from a popular and seditious Libell what hast thou towards a man Thou hast no soule nay thou hast no body There is a body but thou hast it not it is not thine it is not in thy power Thy body will rebell against thee even in a sin It will not performe a sin when and where thou wouldst have it Much more will it rebell against any good worke till thou have imprinted Stigmata Iesu Gal. 6.17 The Markes of the Lord Iesus which were but exemplar in him but are essentiall and necessary to thee abstinencies and such discreete disciplines and mortifications as may subdue that body to thee and make it thine for till then it is but thine enemy and maintaines a warre against thee and war and enemie is the Metaphore which the holy Ghost hath taken here to expresse a want a kind of imperfectnesse even in Heaven it selfe Bellum Symbolum mali As peace is of all goodnesse so warre is an embleme a Hieroglyphique of all misery And that is our second step in this paraphrase If the feete of them that preach peace be beautifull And Vestig 2. Pax bellum O how beautifull are the feete of them that preach peace The Prophet Isaiah askes the question 52.7 And the Prophet Nahum askes it 1.15 and the Apostle S. Paul askes it Rom. 10.15 They all aske it but none answers it who shall answer us if we aske How beautifull is his face who is the Author of this peace when we shall see that in the glory of Heaven the Center of all true peace It was the inheritance of Christ Jesus upon the earth he had it at his birth he brought it with him Glory be to God on high peace upon earth Luke 2.14 Colos 1.20 It was his purchase upon earth He made peace indeed he bought peace through the blood of his Crosse It was his Testament Iohn 14.27 when he went from earth Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you Divide with him in that blessed Inheritance partake with him in that blessed Purchase enrich thy selfe with that blessed Legacy his Peace Let the whole world be in thy consideration as one house and then consider in that in the peacefull harmony of creatures in the peacefull succession and connexion of causes and effects the peace of Nature Let this Kingdome where God hath blessed thee with a being be the Gallery the best roome of that house and consider in the two walls of that Gallery the Church and the State the peace of a royall and a religious Wisedome Let thine owne family be a Cabinet in this Gallery and finde in all the boxes thereof in the severall duties of Wife and Children and servants the peace of vertue and of the father and mother of all vertues active discretion passive obedience and then lastly let thine owne bosome be the secret box and reserve in this Cabinet and then the best Jewell in the best Cabinet and that in the best Gallery of the best house that can be had peace with the Creature peace in the Church peace in the State peace in thy house peace in thy heart is a faire Modell and a lovely designe even of the heavenly Jerusalem which is Visio pacis where there is no object but peace And therefore the holy Ghost to intimate to us that happy perfectnesse which wee shall have at last and not till then chooses the Metaphor of an enemy and enmity to avert us from looking for true peace from any thing that presents it selfe in the way Neither truly could the holy Ghost imprint more horror by any word then that which intimates war as the word enemy does It is but a little way that the Poet hath got in description of war Iam seges est that now that place is ploughed where the great City stood for it is not so great a depopulation to translate a City from Merchants to husbandmen from shops to ploughes as it is from many Husbandmen to one Shepheard and yet that hath beene often done And all that at most is but a depopulation it is not a devastation that Troy was ploughed But when the Prophet Isaiah comes to the devastation to the extermination of a war Esay 7.23 he expresses it first thus Where there were a thousand Vineyards at a cheape rate all the land become briars and thornes That is much but there is more Esay 13.13 The earth shall be removed out of her place that Land that Nation shall no more be called that Nation nor that Land But yet more then that too Not onely not that people Esay 13.19 but no othe shall ever inhabit it It shall
straite may say to those gates Psal 24.7 Elevamini portae aeternales Be ye lifted up ye eternall gates and be ye enlarged that as the King of glory himself is entred into you for the farther glory of the King of glory not only that hundred and foure and forty thousand of the Tribes of the children of Israel but that multitude which is spoken or in that place which no man can number of all Nations and Kindreds Apoc. 7.19 and People and friends may enter with that acclamation Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever And unto this City of the living God Heb. 12.22 23 24. the heavenly Ierusalem and to the innumerable company of Angels to the generall assembly and Church of the first bâ—â—n which are written in heaven and to God the Iudge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Iesus the Mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things then that of Abel Blessed God bring us all for thy Sons sake and by the operation of thy Spirit Amen SERMON XXV Preached at S. Pauls upon Easter-day 1630. MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay THese are words spoken by an Angel of heaven to certain devout Women who not yet considering the Resurrection of Christ came with a pious intention to do an office of respect and civill honour to the body of their Master which they meant to embalme in the Monument where they thought to finde it How great a compasse God went in this act of the Resurrection Here was God the God of life dead in a grave And here was man a dead man risen out of the grave Here are Angels of heaven imployed in so low an office as to catechize Women and Women imployed in so high an office as to catechize the Apostles I chose this verse out of the body of the Story of the Resurrection because in this verse the act of Christs rising which we celebrate this day is expresly mentioned Surrexit enim for he is risen Which word stands as a Candle that shews it self and all about it and will minister occasion of illustrating your understanding of establishing your faith of exalting your devotion in some other things about the Resurrection then fall literally within the words of this verse For from this verse we must necessarily reflect both upon the persons they to whom and they by whom the words were spoken and upon the occasion given I shall not therefore now stand to divide the words into their parts and branches at my first entring into them but handle them as I shall meet them again anon springing out and growing up from the body of the Story for the Context is our Text and the whole Resurrection is the work of the day though it be virtually implicitely contracted into this verse He is not here for he is risen as he said Come and see the place where the Lord lay Our first consideration is upon the persons Mulieres and those we finde to be Angelicall women and Euangelicall Angels Angels made Euangelists to preach the Gospell of the Resurrection Mal. 3.1 Apoc. 1.20 and Women made Angels so as Iohn Baptist is called an Angel and so as the seven Bishops are called Angels that is Instructers of the Church And to recompence that observation that never good Angel appeared in the likenesse of woman here are good women made Angels that is Messengers publishers of the greatest mysteries of our Religion For howsoever some men out of a petulancy and wantonnesse of wit and out of the extravagancy of Paradoxes and such singularities have called the faculties and abilities of women in question even in the roote thereof in the reasonable and immortall soul yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create a doubt almost an assurance in the negative whether S. Ambroses Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul be truly his or no that in that book there is a doubt made whether the woman were created according to Gods Image Therefore because that doubt is made in that book the book it self is suspected not to have had so great so grave so constant an author as S. Ambrose was No author of gravity of piety of conversation in the Scriptures could admit that doubt whether woman were created in the Image of God that is in possession of a reasonable and an immortall soul The faculties and abilities of the soul appeare best in affaires of State and in Ecclesiasticall affaires in matter of government and in matter of religion and in neither of these are we without examples of able women For for State affaires and matter of government our age hath given us such a Queen as scarce any former King hath equalled And in the Venetian Story I remember that certain Matrons of that City were sent by Commission in quality of Ambassadours to an Empresse with whom that State had occasion to treate And in the Stories of the Eastern parts of the World it is said to be in ordinary practise to send women for Ambassadours And then in matters of Religion women have evermore had a great hand though sometimes on the left as well as on the right hand Sometimes their abundant wealth sometimes their personall affections to some Church-men sometimes their irregular and indiscreet zeale hath made them great assistants of great Heretiques as S. Hierome tels us of Helena to Simon Magus Hieror and so was Lucilia to Donatus so another to Mahomet and others to others But so have they been also great instruments for the advancing of true Religion as S. Paul testifies in their behalf at Thessolonica Of the chiefe women not a few Great and Many For Acts 17.4 many times women have the proxies of greater persons then themselves in their bosomes many times women have voices where they should have none many times the voices of great men in the greatest of Civill or Ecclesiasticall Assemblies have been in the power and disposition of women Hence is it that in the old Epistles of the Bishops of Rome when they needed the Court as at first they needed Courts as much as they brought Courts to need them at last we finde as many letters of those Popes to the Emperours Wives and the Emperours Mothers and Sisters and women of other names and interests in the Emperours favours and affections as to the Emperours themselves S. Hierome writ many letters to divers holy Ladies for the most part all of one stocke and kindred and a stock and kindred so religious as that I remember the good old man saies That if Iupiter were their Cousin of their kindred he beleeves Iupiter would be a Christian he would leave being such a God as he was to be their fellow-servant to the true God Now if women were brought up according to S.
Congregation will I blesse the Lord But yet I finde the highest exaltations and the noblest elevations of my devotion Psal 35.18 when I give thanks in the great Congregation and praise him among much people for so me thinks I come nearer and nearer to the Communion of Saints in Heaven Apoc. 21.22 Where it is therefore said that there is no Temple I saw no Temple in Heaven because all Heaven is a Temple And because the Lord God Almighty and the Lambe who fill all Heaven are Obviam Domino as S. Iohn sayes there the Temple thereof So far towards that as into the Ayre this text carries us Obviam Domino To meet the Lord. The Lord requires no more not so much at our hands as he does for us When he is come from the right hand of his Father in heaven into the ayre to meet us he is come farther then we are to go from the grave to meet him But we have met the Lord in many a lower place in many unclean actions have we met the Lord in our owne hearts and said to our selves Surely the Lord is here and sees us Gen. â—9 9 and with Ioseph How then can I doe this great wickednesse and sin against my God and yet have proceeded gone forward in the accomplishment of that sin But there it was Obviam Iesu Obviam Christo We met a Iesus We met a Christ a God of mercy who forgave us those sins Here in our text it is Obviam Domino We must meet the Lord He invests here no other name but that He hath laid aside his Christ and his Iesus names of Mercy and Redemption and Salvation and comes only in the name of power The Lord The Judge of quick and dead In which Judgement he shews no mercy All his mercy is exercised in this life and he that hath not received his portion of that mercy before his death shall never receive any There he judges only by our workes Whom hast thou fed whom hast thou clothed Then in judgement we meet the Lord the Lord of power and the last time that ever we shall meet a Iesus a Christ a God of mercy is upon our death-bed but there we shall meet him so as that when we meet him in another name The Lord in the ayre yet by the benefit of the former mercy received from Iesus We shall be with the Lord for ever First Erimus We shall Bee we shall have a Beeing Erimus There is nothing more contrary to God and his proceedings then annihilation to Bee nothing Do nothing Think nothing It is not so high a step to raise the poore out of the dust Psal 113.7 and to lift the needy from the dunghill and set him with Princes To make a King of a Beggar is not so much as to make a Worm of nothing Whatsoever God hath made thee since yet his greatest work upon thee was that he made thee and howsoever he extend his bounty in preferring thee yet his greatest largenesse is in preserving thee in thy Beeing And therefore his own name of Majesty is Jehovah which denotes his Essence his Beeing And it is usefully moved and safely resolved in the School that the devill himself cannot deliberately wish himselfe nothing Suddenly a man may wish himself nothing because that seemes to deliver him from the sense of his present misery but deliberately he cannot because whatsoever a man wishes must be something better then he hath yet and whatsoever is better is not nothing Nihil contrarium Deo August There is nothing truly contrary to God To do nothing is contrary to his working but contrary to his nature contrary to his Essence there is nothing For whatsoever is any thing even in that Beeing and therefore because it is hath a conformity to God and an affinity with God who is Beeing Essence it self In him we have our Beeing sayes the Apostle Act. 17.28 But here it is more then so not only In illo but Cum illo not only In him but With him not only in his Providence but in his Presence The Hypocrite hath a Beeing and in God but it is not with God Cum illc Esay 29.13 Qua cor longe With his lips he honours God but removes his heart far from him And God sends him after his heart that he may keep him at that distance as S. Gregory reads and interprets that place of Esay Redite praevaricatores ad cor Return O sinners follow your own heart Esay 46.8 and then I am sure you and I shall never meet Our Saviour Christ delivers this distance plainly Discedite à me Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire Mat. 25.42 Where the first part of the sentence is incomparably the heaviest the departing worse then the fire the intensnesse of that fire the ayre of that brimstone the anguish of that worm the discord of that howling and gnashing of teeth is no comparable no considerable part of the torment in respect of the privation of the sight of God the banishment from the presence of God an absolute hopelesnesse an utter impossibility of ever comming to that which sustaines the miserable in this world that though I see no Sun here I shall see the Son of God there The Hypocrite shall not do so we shall Bee and Bee with him and Bee with him for ever which is the last thing that doth fall under ours or can fall under any consideration Of S. Hierome S. Augustine sayes Quae Hicronymus neseivit Semper nullus hominum unquam seivit That that S. Hierome knew not no man ever knew And S. Cyril to whom S. Augustine said that said also to S. Augustine in magnifying of S. Hierome That when a Catholique Priest disputed with an Heretique and cited a passage of S. Hierome and the Heretique said Hierome lyed instantly he was struck dumb yet of this last and everlasting joy and glory of heaven in the fruition of God S. Hierome would adventure to say nothing no not then when he was devested of his mortall body dead for as soon as he dyed at Bethlem he came instantly to Hippo S. Augustines Bishoprick and though he told him Hieronymi anima sum I am the soule of that Hierome to whom thou art now writing about the joyes and glory of heaven yet he said no more of that but this Quid quaeris brevi immittere vasculo totum mare Canst thou hope to poure the whole Sea into a thimble or to take the whole world into thy hand And yet that is easier then to comprehend the joy and the glory of heaven in this life Nor is there any thing that makes this more incomprehensible then this Semper in our text the Eternity thereof That we shall be with him for ever For this Eternity this Everlastingnesse is not only incomprehensible to us in this life but even in heaven we can never know it experimentally and
roome at his owne right hand for that body when that shall be re-united in a blessed Resurrection And so The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters SERM. XXXII Preached upon Whitsunday 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost WE read that in the Tribe of Benjamin Iudg. 20.16 which is by interpretation Filius dextrae The Son of the right hand there were seven hundred left-handed Men that could sling stones at a haires breadth and not faile S. Paul was of that Tribe and though he were from the beginning in the purpose of God Filius dextrae A man ordained to be a dextrous Instrument of his glory yet he was for a time a left-handed man and tooke sinister wayes and in those wayes a good mark-man a laborious and exquisite persecutor of Gods Church And therefore it is that Tertullian sayes of him Paulum mihi etiam Genesis olim repromisit I had a promise of Paul in Moses Gen 49. Then when Moses said Iacob blessed Benjamin thus Benjamin shall ravin as a Wolfe In the morning he shall devoure the prey and at night he shall divide the spoilc that is At the beginning Paul shall scatter the flocke of Christ but at last he shall gather and re-unite the Nations to his service Acts 9.1 Chrysost As he had breathed threatnings and slaughter against the Disciples of the Lord so he became Os orbi sufficiens A mouth loud enough for all the world to heare And as he had drawne and sucked the blood of Christs mysticall body the Church so in that proportion that God enabled him to he recompensed that damage Colos 1.14 by effusion of his owne blood He fulfilled the sufferings of Christ in his flesh as himselfe saies to the Colossians And then he bequeathed to all posterity these Epistles which are as S. Augustine cals them Vbera Ecclesia The Paps the Breasts the Udders of the Church Numb 13.24 And which are as that cluster of Grapes of the Land of Canaan which was borne by two for here every couple every paire may have their load Jew and Gentile Learned and Ignorant Man and Wife Master and Servant Father and Children Prince and People Counsaile and Client how distinct soever they thinke their callings to be towards the world yet here every paire must equally submit their necks to this sweet and easie yoake of confessing Jesus to be the Lord and acknowledging that Confession to proceed from the working of the Holy Ghost for No man can say that Iesus is the Lord without the Holy Ghost In which words Divisio these shall be the three things that we will consider now first The generall impotency of man in spirituall duties Nemo potest no man can do this no man can doe any thing secondly How and what those spirituall duties are expressed to be It is a profession of Jesus to be the Lord to say it to declare it And thirdly the meanes of repairing this naturall impotency and rectifying this naturall obliquity in man That man by the Holy Ghost may be enabled to do this spirituall duty to professe sincerely Jesus to be the Lord. In the first we shall see first the universality of this flood the generality of our losse in Adam Nemo none not one hath any any power which notes their blasphemy that exempt any person from the infection of sin And secondly we shall see the impotency the infirmity where it lies It is in homine no man which notes their blasphemy that say Man may be saved by his naturall faculties as he is man And thirdly by just occasion of that word Potest he can he is able we shall see also the lazinesse of man which though he can doe nothing effectually and primarily yet he does not so much as he might doe And in those three we shall determine our first part In the second what this spirituall duty wherein we are all so impotent is It is first an outward act a profession not that an outward act is enough but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither To thinke it to beleeve it is not enough but we must say it professe it And what why first That Jesus is not only assent to the history and matter of fact that Jesus was and did all that is reported and recorded of him but that he is still that which he pretended to be Caesar is not Caesar still nor Alexander Alexander But Jesus is Jesus still and shall be for ever This we must professe That he is And then That he is the Lord He was not sent hither as the greatest of the Prophets nor as the greatest of the Priests His worke consists not only in having preached to us and instructed us nor in having sacrificed himselfe thereby to be an example to us to walk in those wayes after him but he is Lord he purchased a Dominion he bought us with his Blood He is Lord And lastly he is The Lord not only the Lord Paramount the highest Lord but The Lord the only Lord no other hath a Lordship in our soules no other hath any part in the saving of them but he And so far we must necessarily enlarge our second consideration And in the third part which is That this cannot be done but by the holy Ghost we shall see that in that But is first implyed an exclusion of all means but one And therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed The knowledge and discerning of the holy Ghost is a difficult thing And yet as this But hath an exclusion of all meanes but one so it hath an inclusion an admission an allowance of that one It is a necessary duty nothing can effect it but the having of the holy Ghost and therefore the holy Ghost may be had And in those two points The hardnesse of it And the possibility of it will our last consideration be employed For the first branch of the first part The generality that reaches to us all 1. Part. Generalitas and to us all over to all our persons and to all our faculties Perdidimus per peccatum bonum possibilitatis sayes S. Augustine We have lost our possession and our possibility of recovering by Adams sin Adam at his best had but a possibility of standing we are fallen from that and from all possibility of rising by any power derived from him We have not only by this fall broke our armes or our legs but our necks not our selves not any other man can raise us Every thing hath in it as Physitians use to call it Naturale Balsamum A naturall Balsamum which if any wound or hurt which that creature hath received be kept clean from extrinsique putrefaction will heale of it self We are so far from that naturall Balsamum as that we have a naturall poyson in us Originall sin for that originall sin as it hath relation to God
himselfe but not for a Ransome not for a Satisfaction but onely for a lively example thereby to incline us to suffer for Gods glory and for the edification of one another If we call him Dominum A Lord we call him Messiam Vnctum Regem anointed with the oyle of gladnesse by the Holy Ghost to bee a cheerefull conquerour of the world and the grave and sin and hell and anointed in his owne blood to be a Lord in the administration of that Church which he hath so purchased This is to say that Jesus is a Lord To professe that he is a person so qualified in his being composed of God and Man that he was able to give sufficient for the whole world and did give it and so is Lord of it When we say Iesus est That Jesus is There we confesse his eternity and therein Dominus The Lord. his Godhead when we say Iesus Dominus that he is a Lord therein we confesse a dominion which he hath purchased And when we say Iesum Dominum so as that we professe him to be the Lord Then we confesse a vigilancy a superintendency a residence and a permanency of Christ in his Dominion in his Church to the worlds end If he be the Lord in his Church there is no other that rules with him there is no other that rules for him The temporall Magistrate is not so Lord as that Christ and he are Collegues or fellow-Consuls that if he command against Christ he should be as soone obeyed as Christ for a Magistrate is a Lord and Christ is the Lord a Magistrate is a Lord to us but Christ is the Lord to him and to us and to all None rules with him none rules for him Christ needs no Vicar he is no non-resident He is nearer to all particular Churches at Gods right hand then the Bishop of Rome at his left Direct lines direct beames does alwaies warme better and produce their effects more powerfully then oblique beames doe The influence of Christ Jesus directly from Heaven upon the Church hath a truer operation then the oblique and collaterall reflections from Rome Christ is not so far off by being above the Clouds as the Bishop of Rome is by being beyond the Hils Dicimus Dominum Iesum we say that Jesus is the Lord and we refuse all power upon earth that will be Lord with him as though he needed a Coadjutor or Lord for him as though he were absent from us To conclude this second part To say that Iesus is the Lord is to confesse him to bee God from everlasting and to have beene made man in the fulnesse of time and to governe still that Church which he hath purchased with his blood and that therefore hee lookes that we direct all our particular actions to his glory For this voice wherein thou saiest Dominus Iesus The Lord Iesus must be as the voyce of the Seraphim in Esay Esay 6.2 thrice repeated Sanctus sanctus sanctus Holy holy holy our hearts must say it and our tongue and our hands too or else we have not said it For when a man will make Jesus his companion and be sometimes with him and sometimes with the world and not direct all things principally towards him when he will make Jesus his servant that is proceed in all things upon the strength of his outward profession upon the colour and pretence and advantage of Religion and devotion would this man be thought to have said Iesum Dominum Luke 6.46 That Iesus is the Lord Why call ye me Lord Lord and doe not the things I speake to you saies Christ Christ places a tongue in the hands Actions speake and Omni tuba clarior per opera Demonstratio sayes S. Chrysostome There is not onely a tongue but a Trumpet in every good worke When Christ sees a disposition in his hearers to doe according unto their professing Iohn 13.14 then only he gives allowance to that that they say Dicitis me Dominum bene dicitis You call me Lord and you doe well in doing so doe ye therefore as I have done to you To call him Lord is to contemplate his Kingdome of power to feele his Kingdome of grace to wish his Kingdome of glory It is not a Domine usque quò Iohn 11.21 Lord how long before the Consummation come as though we were weary of our warfare It not a Domine si fuisses Lord if thou hadst beene here our brother had not died as Martha said of Lazarus as though as soon as we suffer any worldly calamity we should thinke Christ to be absent from us in his power or in his care of us It is not a Domine vis mandemus Luke 9.54 Lord wilt thou that we command fire from Heaven to consume these Samaritans as though we would serve the Lord no longer then he would revenge his owne and our quarrel for that we may come to our last part to that fiery question of the Apostles Christ answered You know not of what spirit you are It is not the Spirit of God it is not the Holy Ghost which makes you call Jesus the Lord onely to serve your own ends and purposes and No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost For this Part 3 Part. Difficultas we proposed onely two Considerations first that this But excluding all meanes but one that one must therefore necessarily be difficult and secondly that that But admitting one meanes that one must therefore necessarily be possible so that there is a difficulty but yet a possibility in having this working by the Holy Ghost For the first of those hereticall words of Fanstus the Manichaean That in the Trinity the Father dwelt In illa luce inaccessibili In that light which none can attaine to And the Son of God dwelt in this created light whose fountaine and roote is the Planet of the Sun And the Holy Ghost dwelt in the Aire and other parts illumined by the Sun we may make this good use that for the knowledge of the Holy Ghost wee have not so present so evident light in reason as for the knowledge of the other blessed Persons of the glorious Trinity For for the Son because he assumed our nature and lived and dyed with us we conceive certaine bodily impressions and notions of him and then naturally and necessarily as soon as we heare of a Son we conceive a Father too But the knowledge of the Holy Ghost is not so evident neither doe we bend our thoughts upon the consideration of the Holy Ghost so much as we ought to doe The Arians enwrapped him in double clouds of darknesse when they called him Creaturam Creaturae That Christ himselfe from whom say they the Holy Ghost had his Creation was but a Creature and not God and so the Holy Ghost the Creature of a Creature And Maximus ille Gigas as Saint Bernard cals Plato That Giant in all kinde of
house and deprehends himselfe in that sinfull purpose now This is his Advent this is his Pentecost As he came this day with a Manifestation so if he come into thee this evening he comes with a Declaration a Declaration in operation Pater meus usque modo operatur ego operor John 5.17 My Father works even now and I work was Christs answer when he was accused to have broken the Sabbath day that the Father wrought that day as well as he So also Christ assignes other reasons of working upon the Sabbath Luke 14.5 Cujus Bos Whose Oxe is in danger Mat. 12.3 5. and the owner will not relieve him Nonne legistis Have ye not read how David ate the Shew-bread And Annon legistis Did not the Priests breake the Sabbath in their service in the Temple But the Sabbath is the Holy Ghosts greatest working day The Holy Ghost works more upon the Sunday then all the week In other dayes he picks and chooses but upon these dayes of holy Convocation I am surer that God speakes to me Tertul. then at home in any private inspiration For as the Congregation besieges God in publique prayers Agmine facto so the Holy Ghost casts a net over the whole Congregation in this Ordinance of preaching and catches all that break not out If he be come into thee he is come to reprove thee to make thee reprove thy selfe But doe that Cum vencrit when the Holy Ghost is come If thou have beene slack in the outward acts of Religion and findest that thou art the worse thought of amongst men for that respect the more open to some penall Laws for those omissions and for these reasons onely beginnest to correct and reprove thy selfe this is a reproofe Antequam Spiritus vener it before the Holy Ghost is come into thee or hath breathed upon thee and inanimated thine actions If the powerfulnesse and the piercing of the mercies of thy Saviour have sometimes in the preaching thereof entendered and melted thy heart and yet upon the confidence of the readinesse and easinesse of that mercy thou returne to thy vomit to the re-pursuite of those halfe-repented sins and thinkest it time enough to goe forward upon thy death-bed this is a reproofe Postquam abierit Spiritus After the Holy Ghost is departed from thee If the burden of thy sins oppresse thee if thou beest ready to cast thy selfe from the Pinacle of the Temple from the participation of the comforts afforded thee in the Absolution and Sacraments of the Church If this appeare to thee in a kinde of humility and reverence to the Majesty of God That thou darest not come into his sight not to his table not to speake to him in prayer whom thou hast so infinitely offended this is a reproofe Cum Spiritus Sanctus simulatur when the Holy Ghost is counterfaited when Satan is transformed into an Angel of light and makes thy dismayed conscience beleeve that that affection which is truly a higher Treason against God then all thy other sins which is a diffident suspecting of Gods mercy is such a reverend feare and trembling as he looks for Reprove thy selfe but doe it by convincing not by a downe-right stupefaction of the conscience but by a consideration of the nature of thy sin and a contemplation of the infinite proportion between God and thee and so between that sin and the mercy of God for thou canst not be so absolutely so intirely so essentially sinfull as God is absolutely and intirely and essentially mercifull Doe what thou canst there is still some goodnesse in thee that nature that God made is good still Doe God what hee will hee cannot strip himselfe not devest himselfe of mercy If thou couldst doe as much as God can pardon thou wert a Manichaean God a God of evill as infinite as the God of goodnesse is Doe it Cum venerit Spiritus when the Holy Ghost pleads on thy side not cum venerit homo not when mans reason argues for thee and sayes It were injustice in God to punish one for another the soule for the body Much lesse Cum venerit inimicus homo when the Devill pleads and pleads against thee that thy sins are greater then God can forgive Reprove any over-bold presumption that God cannot forsake thee with remembring who it was that said My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Even Christ himselfe could apprehend a dereliction Reprove any distrust in God with remembring to whom it was said Hodiè mecum eris in Paradiso Even the thiefe himselfe who never saw him never met him but at both their executions was carryed up with him the first day of his acquaintance If either thy cheerefulnesse or thy sadnesse bee conceived of the Holy Ghost there is a good ground of thy Noli timere feare neither So the Angel proceeded with Ioseph Feare not to take Mary for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost Feare not thou that a chearefulnesse and alacrity in using Gods blessings feare not that a moderate delight in musique in conversation in recreations shall be imputed to thee for a fault for it is conceived by the Holy Ghost and is the off-spring of a peacefull conscience Embrace therefore his working Qui omnia opera nostra operatus est nobis Thou O Lord hast wrought all our works in us Esay 26.12 And whose working none shall be able to frustrate in us Operabitur quis avertit Esay 43.13 I will worke and who shall let it And as the Son concurred with the Father and the Holy Ghost with the Son in working in our behalfe so Operemur nos let us also worke out our Salvation with feare and trembling by reproving the errors in our understanding and the perversenesses of our conversation that way in which the Holy Ghost is our guide by reproving that is chiding and convincing the conscience but still with comfort that is stedfast application of the merits of Christ Jesus SERM. XXXVII Preached upon Whitsunday JOHN 16.8 9 10 11. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnesse and of judgement Of sin because ye beleeve not on me Of righteousnesse because I goe to my Father and ye see me no more Of judgement because the Prince of this world is judged IN a former Sermon upon these words we have established this That the Person whom our Saviour promises here being by himselfe promised in the verse before the text in the name and quality of The Comforter All that this Person is to do in this text is to be done so as the World upon which it is to be done may receive comfort in it Therfore this word Reproof admitting a double signification one by way of authority as it is a rebuke an increpation the other as it is a convincing by argument by way of instruction and information because the first way cannot be applied to all the
can resolve thee scatter thee annihilate thee with a word and yet afford so many words so many houres conferences so many Sermons to reclaime thee why persecutest Thou Him Answer this question with Sauls answer to this question by another question Domine quid me vis facere Lord what wilt thou have me do Deliver thy selfe over to the will of God and God shall deliver thee over as he did Saul to Ananias provide thee by his Ministery in his Ordinance means to rectifie thee in all dejection of spirit light to cleare thee in all perplexities of conscience in the wayes of thy pilgrimage and more and more effectuall seals thereof at the houre of thy transmigration into his joy and thine eternall rest SERM. XLVII Preached at S. Pauls The Sunday after the Conversion of S. PAUL 27. Ian. 1627. ACT. 20.25 And now Behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone preaching the kingdome of God shall see my face no more WHen S. Chrysostome calls Christmas day Metropolin omnium festorum The Metropolitan Holyday the principall festivall of the Church he is likely to intend onely those festivalls which were of the Churches later institution and means not to enwrap the Sabbath in that comparison As S. Augustine sayes of the Sacrament of Baptisme that it is Limen Ecclesiae The threshold over which we step into the Church so is Christmas day Limen festorum The threshold over which we step into the festivall celebration of some other of Christs actions and passions and victorious overcommings of all the Acts of his Passion such as his Resurrection and Ascension for but for Christmas day we could celebrate none of these dayes And so that day is Limen festorum The threshold over which we passe to the rest But the Sabbath is not onely Limen or Ianua Ecclesiae The doore by which we enter into the Church and into the consideration what the Church hath done but Limen mundi The doore by which we enter into the consideration of the World how and when the World was made of nothing at the Creation without which we had been so far from knowing that there had been a Church or that there had been a God as that we our selves had had no being at all And therefore as our very being is before all degrees of well-being so is the Sabbath which remembers us of our being before all other festivalls that present and refresh to us the memory of our well-being Especially to us to whom it is not onely a Sabbath as the Sabbath is a day of Rest in respect of the Creation but Dies Dominicus The Lords day in respect of the Redemption of the world because the consummation of that worke of Redemption for all that was to be done in this world which was the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus was accomplished upon that day Levit. 23. which is our Sabbath But yet as it did please God to accompany the Great day the Sabbath with other solemne dayes too The Passeover and Pentecost Trumpets and Tabernacles and others and to call those other dayes Sabbaths as well as the Sabbath it selfe so since he is pleased that in the Christian Church other dayes of Holy Convocations should also be instituted I make account that in some measure I do both offices both for observing those particular festivalls that fall in the weeke and also for the making of those particular festivalls to serve the Sabbath when upon the Sabbath ensuing or preceding such or such a festivall in the weeke I take occasion to speake of that festivall which fell into the compasse of that weeke for by this course that festivall is not pretermitted nor neglected the particular festivall is remembred And then as God receives honour in the honour of his Saints so the Sabbath hath an honour when the festivalls and commemorations of those Saints are reserved to waite upon the Sabbath Hence is it that as elsewhere I often do so that is Celebrate some festivall that fals in the weeke upon the Sabbath so in this place upon this very day I have done the like and returne now to do so againe that is to celebrate the memory of our Apostle S. Paul to day though there be a day past since his day was in the ordinary course to have been celebrated The last time that I did so I did it in handling those words And he fell to the earth and heard a voyce saying Saul Saul why persecutest thou me which was the very act of his Conversion A period and a passage which the Church celebrates in none but in S. Paul though many others were strangely converted too she celebrates none but his In the words chosen for this day And now behold I know c. wee shall reduce to your memories first His proceeding in the Church after he was called I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you And then the ease the reposednes the acquiescence that he had in that knowledge which God by his Spirit had given him of the approach of his dissolution and departure out of this life I know that all you shall see my face no more As those things which we see in a glasse for the most part must be behinde us so that that makes our transmigration in death comfortable unto us must be behinde us in the testimony of a good Conscience for things formerly done Now behold I know that all yee among whom I have gone c. In handling of which words our Method shall be this Our generall parts Divisio being as we have already intimated these two His way and his End His painfull course and his cheerfull finishing of his course His laborious battaile and his victorious triumph In the first I have gone preaching the kingdome of God among you wee shall see first That there is a Transivi as well as a Requievi acceptable to God A discharge of a Duty as well in going from one place to another as in a perpetuall Residence upon one Transivi sayes our Apostle I have gone among you But then in a second consideration in that first part That that makes his going acceptable to God is because he goes to preach Transivi praedicans I have gone preaching And then lastly in that first part That that that makes his Preaching acceptable is that he preached the kingdome of God Transivi praedicans regnum Dei I have gone amongst you preaching the kingdome of God And in these three characters of S. Pauls Ministery first Labour and Assiduity And then Labour bestowed upon the right means Preaching And lastly Preaching to the right end to edification advancing the kingdome of God we shall determine our first part In our second part we passe from his Transition to his Transmigration from his going up and downe in the world to his departing out of the world And now behold I know that yee shall see my face no more In which we
fefellit All the world never joyned to deceive one man nor was ever any one man able to deceive all the world Contemptu famae contemnuntur virtutes was so well said by Tacitus as it is pity S. Augustine said it not They that neglect the good opinion of others neglect those vertues that should produce that good opinion Therefore S. Hierom protests to abhor that Paratum de trivio as he cals it that vulgar that street that dunghill language Satis mihi as long as mine owne conscience reproaches me of nothing I care not what all the world sayes We must care what the world sayes and study that they may say well of us But when they doe though this be a faire stone in the wall it is no foundation to build upon for They change their minds Who do Populus our text does not tell us who The story does not tell us of what quality and condition these men of Malta were who are here said to have changed their minds Likeliest they are to have beene of the vulgar the ordinary the inferiour sort of people because they are likeliest to have flocked and gathered together upon this occasion of Pauls shipwrack upon that Iland And that kinde of people are alwaies justly thought to be most subject to this levity To change their minds The greatest Poet layes the greatest levity and change that can be laid to this kinde of people that is In contraria That they change even from one extreame to another Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus Where that Poet does not onely meane that the people will be of divers opinions from one another for for the most part they are not so for the most part they think and wish and love and hate together and they doe all by example as others doe and upon no other reason but therefore because others doe Neither was that Poet ever bound up by his words that hee should say In contraria because a milder or more modified word would not stand in his verse but hee said it because it is really true The people will change into contrary opinions And whereas an Angel it selfe cannot passe from East to West from extreame to extreame without touching upon the way betweene the people will passe from extreame to extreame without any middle opinion last minutes murderer is this minutes God and in an instant Paul whom they sent to be judged in hell Prov. 14.28 is made a judge in heaven The people will change In the multitude of people is the Kings honour 2 Sam. 24.3 And therefore Ioab made that prayer in the behalfe of David The Lord thy God adde unto thy people how many soever they be a hundred fold But when David came to number his people with a confidence in their number God tooke away the ground of that confidence and lessened their number seventy thousand in three dayes Therefore as David could say Psal 3.6 I will not be afraid of ten thousand men so he should say I will not confide in ten thousand men though multiplied by millions for they will change and at such an ebbe the popular man will lye as a Whale upon the sands deserted by the tide We finde in the Roman story many examples particularly in Commodus his time upon Cleander principall Gentleman of his Chamber of severe executions upon men that have courted the people though in a way of charity and giving them corne in a time of dearth or upon like occasions There is danger in getting them occasioned by jealousie of others there is difficulty in holding them by occasion of levity in themselves Therefore we must say with the Prophet Ier. 17.5 Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arme and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For They the people will change their minds But yet there is nothing in our text Principes that binds us to fixe this levity upon the people onely The text does not say That there was none of the Princes of the People no Commanders no Magistrates present at this accident and partners in this levity Neither is it likely but that in such a place as Malta an Iland some persons of quality and command resided about the coast to receive and to give intelligence and directions upon all emergent occasions of danger and that some such were present at this accident and gave their voyce both wayes in the exclamation and in the acclamation That hee was a murderer and that he was a God For They will change their minds All High as well as low will change A good Statesman Polybius sayes That the people are naturally as the Sea naturally smooth and calme and still and even but then naturally apt to be moved by influences of Superiour bodies and so the people apt to change by them who have a power over their affections or a power over their wils So sayes he the Sea is apt to be moved by stormes and tempests and so the people apt to change with rumors and windy reports So the Sea is moved So the people are changed sayes Polybius But Polybius might have carried his politique consideration higher then the Sea to the Aire too and applied it higher then to the people to greater persons for the Aire is shaked and transported with vapours and exhalations as much as the sea with winds and stormes and great men as much changed with ambitions in themselves and flatteries from others as inferiour people with influences and impressions from them All change their minds Mal. 3.6 High as well as low will change But I am the Lord I change not I and onely I have that immunity Immutability And therefore sayes God there ye sons of Iacob are not consumed Therefore because I I who cannot change have loved you for they who depend upon their love who can change are in a wofull condition And that involves all all can all will all do change high and low Therefore It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in man What man Psal 118.8 Ver. 9. Psal 146.3 Any man It is better to trust in the Lord then to put confidence in Princes Which David thought worth the repeating for he sayes it againe Put not your trust in Princes Not that you may not trust their royall words and gracious promises to you not that you may not trust their Counsailes and executions of those Counsailes and the distribution of your contributions for those executions not that you may not trust the managing of affaires of State in their hands without jealous inquifitions or suspitious mis-interpretations of their actions In these you must trust Princes and those great persons whom Princes trust But when these great persons are in the balance with God there they weigh as little as lesse men Nay as David hath ranked and disposed them lesse for thus he conveyes that consideration Surely men of low degree
Life or that I should bee separated from Christ though all the world beside were to be blotted out and separated if I staid in The benefit that we are to make of the errors of holy men is not that That man did this therefore I may doe it but this God suffered that holy man to fall and yet loved that good soule well God hath not therefore cast me away though he have suffered me to fall too Bread is mans best sustenance yet there may be a dangerous surfet of bread Charity is the bread that the soule lives by yet there may be a surfet of charity I may mis-lead my selfe shrewdly if I say surely my Father is a good man my Master a good man my Pastor a good man men that have the testimony of Gods love by his manifold blessings upon them and therefore I may be bold to doe whatsoever I see them doe Be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect Mat. 5.48 1 Cor. 11.1 is the example that Christ gives you Be yee followers of mee as I am of Christ is â—he example that the Apostle gives you Good Examples are good Assistances but no Example of man is sufficient to constitute a certaine and constant rule All the actions of the holiest man are not holy Hence appeares the vanity and impertinency of that calumny with which our adversaries of the Roman perswasion labour to oppresse us That those points in which we depart from them cannot be well established because therein we depart from the Fathers As though there were no condemnation to them that pretended a perpetuall adhering to the Fathers nor salvation to them who suspected any Father of any mistaking And they have thought that one thing enough to discredit and blast and annihilate that great and usefull labour which the Centuriators the Magdeburgenses tooke in compiling the Ecclesiasticall Story that in every age as they passe those Authors have laid out a particular section a particular Chapter De navis Patrum to note the mistakings of the Fathers in every age This they thinke a criminall and a hainous thing inough to discredit the whole worke As though there were ever in any age any Father that mistook nothing or that it were blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to note such a mistaking And yet if those blessed Fathers now in possession of heaven be well affected with our celebrating or ill with our neglecting their works certainly they finde much more cause to complaine of our adversaries then of us Never any in the Reformation hath spoken so lightly nay so heavily so negligently nay so diligently so studiously in diminution of the Fathers as they have done One of the first Jesuits proceeds with modesty and ingenuity and yet sayes Quaelibet aetas antiquitati detulit Salmeron Every age hath been apt to ascribe much to the Ancient Fathers Hoc autem asserimus sayes he Iuniores Doctores perspicaciores This we must necessarily acknowledge that our later Men have seen farther then the elder Fathers did His fellow Jesuit goes farther Hoc omnes dicunt Maldon sed non probant sayes he speaking of one person in the Genealogy of Christ This the Fathers say sayes he and later men too Catholiques and Heretiques All But none of them prove it He will not take their words not the whole Churches though they all agree But a Bishop of as much estimation and authority in the Council of Trent as any Cornel. Mussuâ— goes much farther Being pressed with S. Augustins opinion he sayes Nec nos tantillum moveat Augustinus Let it never trouble us which way S. Augustine goes Hoc enim illi peculiare sayes he ut alium errorem expugnans alteri ansam praebeat for this is inseparable from S. Augustine That out of an earnestnesse to destroy one error he will establish another Nor doth that Bishop impute that distemper onely to S. Augustine but to S. Hierome too Of him he sayes In medio positus certamine ar dore feriendi adversarios premit socios S. Hierome laies about him and rather then misse his enemy he wounds his friends also But all that might better be borne then this Turpiter errarunt Patres The Fathers fell foully into errors And this better then that Eorum opinio opinio Haereticorum The Fathers differ not from the Heretiques concurre with the Heretiques Who in the Reformation hath charged the Fathers so farre and yet Baronius hath If they did not oppresse us with this calumny of neglecting or undervaluing the Fathers we should not make our recourse to this way of recrimination for God knowes if it be modestly done and with the reverence in many respects due to them it is no fault to say the Fathers fell into some faults Yet it is rather our Adversaries observation then ours That all the Ancient Fathers were Chiliasts Millenarians and maintained that error of a thousand yeares temporall happinesse upon this earth betweene the Resurrection and our actuall and eternall possession of Heaven It is their observation rather then ours That all the Ancient Fathers denied the dead a fruition of the sight of God till the day of Judgement It is theirs rather then ours That all the Greek Fathers and some of the Latin assigned Gods foreknowledge of mans works to be the cause of his predestination It is their note That for the first six hundred yeares the generall opinion and generall practise of the Church was To give the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to Infants newly baptized as a thing necessary to their salvation They have noted That the opinion of the Ancient Fathers was contrary to the present opinion in the Church of Rome concerning the conception of the blessed Virgin without Originall sin These notes and imputations arise from their Authors and not from ours and they have told it us rather then we them Indeed neither we nor they can dissemble the mistakings of the Fathers The Fathers themselves would not have them dissembled Hieron De me sayes S. Hierom ubicunque de meo sensu loquor arguat me quilibet August For my part wheresoever I deliver but mine owne opinion every man hath his liberty to correct me It is true S. Augustine does call Iulian the Pelagian to the Fathers but it is to vindicate and redeeme the Fathers from those calumnies which Iulian had laid upon them that they were Multitudo caecorum a herd a swarme of blinde guides and followers of one another And that they were Conspiratio perditorum Damned Conspirators against the truth To set the Fathers in their true light and to restore them to their lustre and dignity and to make Iulian confesse what reverend persons they were S. Aug. cals him to the consideration of the Fathers but not to try matters of faith by them alone Lactant. For Sapientiam sibi adimit qui sine judicio majorum inventa probat That man devests himselfe of all discretion who
came to put a war upon us The zeale of his glory and the course of this world fight against one another It is not against all warre nay it is not against all victory that David prayes He cannot hope that he should be overcome by no Tentations but against such a war and such a victory as should bring him to servility and bondage to sinne That sin entring by Conquest upon him should governe as a tyran over him against such a sicknesse as should induce a consumption it is that he directs this prayer Sana me Domine Not Lord make me impeccable but Lord make me penitent and then heale me And he comes not to take physick upon wantonnesse but because the disease is violent because the accidents are vehement so vehement so violent as that it hath pierced Ad ossa and Ad animam My bones are vexed and my soule is sore troubled Therefore heale me which is the Reason upon which he grounds this second petition Heale me because my bones are vexed c. We must necessarily insist a little upon these termes Ossa The Bones The Soule The Trouble or Vexation First Ossa Bones We know in the naturall and ordinary acceptation what they are They are these Beames and Timbers and Rafters of these Tabernacles these Temples of the Holy Ghost these bodies of ours But Immanebimus nativae significationi sayes S. Basil Shall we dwell upon the native and naturall signification of these Bones Et intelligentia passim obvia contenti erimus Shall we who have our conversation in heaven finde no more in these Bones then an earthly a worldly a naturall man would doe By S. Basils example we may boldly proceed farther Membra etiam animae sunt Esay 42. sayes he The soule hath her limbs as well as the body Surdi audite caeci aspicite sayes God in Esay If their soules had not eares and eyes the blinde could not see the deafe could not heare and yet God cals upon the deafe and blinde to heare and see As S. Paul sayes to the Ephesians The eyes of your understanding being enlightned so David sayes Psal 3.7 Dentes peccatorum contrivisti Thou hast broken the teeth That is the pride and the power the venom and malignity of the wicked Membra etiam animae sunt The soule hath her Bones too and here Davids Bones were the strongest powers and faculties of his soule and the best actions and operations of those faculties and yet they were shaken For this hereditary sicknesse Originall sinne prevayles so far upon us that upon our good dayes we have some grudgings of that Fever Even in our best actions we have some of the leaven of that sinne So that if we goe about to comfort our selves with some dispositions to Gods glory which we finde in our selves with some sparks of love to his precepts and his commandements with some good strength of faith with some measure of good works yea with having something for the Name and glory of Christ Jesus yet if we consider what humane and corrupt affections have been mingled in all these Conturbabuntur ossa our Bones will be troubled even those that appeared to be strong works and likely to hold out will need a reparation an exclamation Sana me Domine O Lord heale these too or els these are as weake as the worst Ossa non dolent The Bones themselves have no sense they feele no paine We need not say That those good works themselves which we doe have in their nature the nature of sinne That every good worke considered alone and in the substance of the act it selfe is sinne But membranae dolent Those little membrans those filmes those thin skins that cover and that line some bones are very sensible of paine and of any vexation Though in the nature of the worke it selfe the worke be not sinne yet in those circumstances that invest and involve the worke in those things which we mingle with the worke whether desire of glory towards men or opinion of merit towards God Whensoever those bones those best actions come to the examination of a tender and a diligent Conscience Si ossa non dolent membranae dolent If the worke be not sinfull the circumstances are and howsoever they may be conceived to be strong as they are Ossa Bones works in a morall consideration good yet as they are Ossa mea sayes David as they are My bones such good works as taste of my ill corruptions so long they are vexed and troubled and cannot stand upright nor appeare with any confidence in the sight of God Thus far then first David needed this sanation this health that he prayes for Anima that his best actions were corrupt But the corruption went farther to the very roote and fountaine of those actions Ad ipsam animam His very soule was sore vexed It is true that as this word Anima the soule is sometimes taken in the Scriptures this may seeme to goe no farther then the former no more that his soule was vexed then that his bones were so for Anima in many places is but Animalis Homo The soule signifies but the naturall man And so opponitur spiritui The soule is not onely said to be a diverse thing but a contrary thing to the Spirit When the Apostle sayes to the Thessalonians 1 Thes ult 23. Now the very God of peace sanctifie you throughout that your whole spirit and soule and body may be kept blamelesse unto the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ And where the same Apostle sayes to the Hebrews The word of God divideth asunder the soule and the spirit Heb. 4.12 here is a difference put between corrupt nature and the working of the Spirit of God the Holy Ghost in man for here the soule is taken for Animalis home The naturall man and the Spirit is taken for the Spirit of God But besides this these two words Soule and Spirit are sometimes used by the Fathers in a sense diverse from one another and as different things and yet still as parts of one and the same man Man is said by them not onely to have a body and a soule but to have a soule and a spirit not as Spirit is the Spirit of God and so an extrinsecall thing but as Spirit is a constitutive part of the naturall man So in particular amongst many Gregory Nyssen takes the Body to be spoken De nutribili The flesh and bloud of man And the soule De sensibili The operation of the senses And the Spirit De Intellectuali The Intellectuall the reasonable faculties of man That in the body Man is conformed to Plants that have no sense In the soule to Beasts that have no reason In the spirit to Angels But so The Spirit is but the same thing with that which now we doe ordinarily account the soule to be for we make account that the Image of God is imprinted in the soule and that gives him his
to stand in these tentations and tribulations Deliver thou my soule Lord thou hast delivered me againe and againe and againe and againe I fall back to my former danger and therefore O Lord save me place me where I may be safe safe in a constant hope that the Saviour of the World intended that salvation to me And these three Petitions constitute our first part in Davids postulatory Prayer And then the second part which is also within the words of this text and consists of those reasons by which David inclines God to grant his three Petitions which are two first Propter misericordiam tuam Do this O Lord for thine own mercy sake And then Quia non in morte Doe it O Lord for thine owne honours sake Because in death there is no remembrance of thee that second part will be the subject of another exercise for that which belongs to the three Petitions will imploy the time allowed for this First then the first step in this Prayer Revertere O Lord return implies first a former presence Revertere and then a present absence and also a confidence for the future Whosoever saies O Lord returne sayes all this Lord thou wast here Lord thou art departed hence but yet Lord thou maiest returne hither againe God was with us all before we were any thing at all And ever since our making hath beene with us in his generall providence And so we cannot say O Lord Returne because so he was never gone from us But as God made the earth and the fruits thereof before he made the Sun whose force was to work upon that earth and upon the naturall fruits of that earth but before he made Paradise which was to have the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge he made the Sun to doe those offices of shining upon it and returning daily to it So God makes this earth of ours that is our selves by naturall wayes and sustaines us by generall providence before any Son of particular grace be seene to shine upon us But before man can be a Paradise possest of the Tree of life and of Knowledge this Sun is made and produced the particular graces of God rise to him and worke upon him and awaken and solicite and exalt those naturall faculties which were in him This Son fils him and fits him compasses him and disposes him and does all the offices of the Sun seasonably opportunely maturely for the nourishing of his soule according to the severall necessities thereof And this is Gods returning to us in a generall apprehension After he hath made us and blest us in our nature and by his naturall meanes he returnes to make us againe to make us better first by his first preventing grace and then by a succession of his particular graces And therefore we must returne to this Returning in some more particular considerations There are beside others three significations in the Scripture of this word Shubah which is here translated to Returne appliable to our present purpose The first is the naturall and native the primary and radicall signification of the word And so Shubah To Returne is Redire ad locum suum To returne to that place to which a thing is naturally affected So heavy things returne to the Center and light things returne to the Expansion So Mans breath departeth Psal 146.4 sayes David Et redit in terr am suam He returnes into his Earth That earth which is so much his as that it is he himselfe Of earth he was and therefore to earth he returnes But can God returne in such a sense as this Can we finde an Vbi for God A place that is his place Yes And an Earth which is his earth Surely the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts Esay 5. is the house of Israel and the men of Iudah are his pleasant plant So the Church which is his Vineyard is his Vbi his place his Center to which he is naturally affected And when he calls us hither and meets us here upon his Sabbaths and sheds the promises of his Gospel upon the Congregation in his Ordinance he returnes to us here as in his Vbi as in his own place And as he hath a place of his owne here so he hath an Earth of his owne in this place Our flesh is Earth and God hath invested our flesh and in that flesh of ours which suffered death for us he returnes to us in this place as often as he maketh us partakers of his flesh and his bloud in the blessed Sacrament So then though in my dayes of sinne God have absented himselfe from me for God is absent when I doe not discerne his presence yet if to day I can heare his voyce as God is returned to day to this place as to his Vbi as to his own place so in his entring into me in his flesh and bloud he returnes to me as to his Earth that Earth which he hath made his by assuming my nature I am become his Vbi his place Delitiae ejus His delight is to be with the sonnes of men and so with me and so in the Church in the Sermon in the Sacrament he returnes to us in the first signification of this word Shubah as to that place to which he is naturally affected and disposed In a second signification this word is referred not to the place of God not to the person of God but if we may so speake to the Passion of God to the Anger of God And so the Returning of God that is of Gods Anger is the allaying the becalming the departing of his Anger and so when God returnes God stayes his Anger is returned from us Esay 5.25 but God is still with us The wrath of the Lord was kindled sayes the Prophet Esay and He smote his people so that the mountaines trembled and their carkasses were torne in the midst of the streets Here is the tempest here is the visitation here is Gods comming to them He comes but in anger and we heare of no returne nay we heare the contrary Et non redibat furor For all this his wrath his fury did not returne that is did not depart from them for as God never comes in this manner till our multiplied sinnes call him and importune him so God never returnes in this sense in withdrawing his anger and judgements from us till both our words and our works our prayers and our amendment of life joyne in a Revertere Domine O Lord Returne withdraw this judgement from us for it hath effected thy purpose upon us And so the Originall which expresses neither signification of the word for it is neither Returne to me nor Returne from me but plainely and onely Returne leaves the sense indifferent Lord thou hast withdrawne thy selfe from me therefore in mercy returne to me or else Lord thy Judgements are heavy upon me and therefore returne withdraw these Judgements from me which shewes the ductilenesse the
came long agoe six thousand years agoe in nature when we were created in Adam and then in nature returned to us in the generation of our Parents so our Saviour Christ Jesus came to us long agoe sixteene hundred yeares agoe in grace and yet in grace returnes to us as often as he assembles us in these holy Convocations He came to us then as the Wisemen came to him with treasure and gifts and gold and incense and myrrhe As having an ambition upon the soules of men he came with that abundant treasure to purchase us And as to them who live upon the Kings Pension it is some comfort to heare that the Exchequer is full that the Kings moneyes are come in so is it to us to know that there is enough in Gods hands paid by his Son for the discharge of all our debts He gave enough for us all at that comming But it is his returning to us that applyes to us and derives upon us in particular the benefit of this generall satisfaction When he returns to us in the dispensation and distribution of his graces in his Word and Sacraments When he calls upon us to come to the receipt When the greater the summe is the gladder he is of our comming that where sinne abounds grace might abound too When we can pursue this Prayer Revertere Domine Returne O Lord in grace in more and more grace and when we are in possession of a good measure of that grace we can pray againe Revertere Domine Returne O Lord in glory Come Lord Jesus come quickly When we are so rectified by his Ordinances here that in a sincerity of soule we are not onely contented but desirous to depart from hence then have we religiously followed our example that man according to Gods heart David in this prayer of his If Christ have not beene thus fully in thine heart before this is his comming entertaine him now If he have been there and gone againe this is his returning blesse him for that And meet him and love him and embrace him as often as he offers himselfe to thy soule in these his Ordinances Wish every day a Sunday and every meale a Sacrament and every discourse a Homily and he shall shine upon thee in all dark wayes and rectifie thee in all ragged wayes and direct thee in all crosse wayes and stop thee in all doubtfull wayes and returne to thee in every corner and relieve thee in every danger and arme thee even against himselfe by advancing thy worke in which thou besiegest him that is this Prayer and enabling thee to prevaile upon him as in this first Petition Revertere Domine O Lord returne so in that which followes next Eripe animam Deliver my soule In this Prayer Eripo animaÌ„ we may either consider David in that affection which S. Paul had when he desired to be delivered ab angelo Satanae from the messenger of Satan that buffeted him that so that Stimulus carnis which he speaks of that vexation and provocation of the flesh might have been utterly removed from him whereby he might have past his life in Gods service in a religious calme without any storme or opposition or contradiction arising in his flesh Or we may consider it as a Prayer agreeable to that Petition in our Lords Prayer Libera nos à malo Deliver us from evill which is not from being attempted by evill but by being swallowed up by it Eripe me may be Deliver me from rebellions or Deliver me in rebellions Either that they come not or that they overcome not In that prayer of S. Paul that God would remove Angelum Satanae and take away Stimulum carnis first S. Paul is not easily understood and then it may be not safely imitated It is hard to know what S. Paul means in his Prayer and it may be dangerous to pray as he prayed For the actions of no man how holy soever till we come to Christ himselfe lay such an obligation upon us as that we must necessarily doe as tâ—â—y did Nay the actions of Christ himselfe lay not that obligation upon us to fast as he fasted no nor to pray as he prayed A man is not bound in an Affliction or Persecution at least at all times to that Prayer Si possibile or Transeat calix If it be possible let this cup passe But if God vouchsafe him a holy constancy to goe through with his Martyrdome he may proceed in it without any such Deprecation to God or Petition to the Judge But first before we consider whether he might be imitated if we understood him we find it hard to understand him S. Augustines free confession Se nescire quid sit angelus Satanae That he never understood what S. Paul meant by that Messenger of Satan is more ingenuous then their interpretation who I know not upon what Tradition referre it to an extreame paine in the head that S. Paul should have as Theophylact sayes or refer it Ad morbum Iliacum which Aquinas speaks of or to the Gout or pains in the Stomach as Nazianzen and Basil interpret it Oecumenius understands this Angel this Messenger of Satan to be those Heretiques which were his Adversaries in his preaching of the Gospel according to that signification of the word Satan in which Solomon uses it to Hiram 1 King 5.4 Non est mihi Satan I have no Adversary Others even amongst the Fathers understand it particularly and literally of that concupiscence and those lusts of the flesh which even the most sanctified men may have some sense of and some attempts by Others understand it generally of all calamities spirituall and temporall incident to us in this life But Cajetan goes farthest who reads it not as we do Angelum Satanae but Angelum Satanam not that Angel which comes from Satan but that Angel that is Satan himselfe So that he conceives it to be a prayer against all tentations and tribulations here and hereafter which the Devill or the Devils Instruments can frame against us Now if we think we understand it aright in understanding it so generally then enters our second doubt whether we may imitate S. Paul in so generall a prayer We dispute in the Schoole whether if it were in his powerto doe it man might lawfully destroy any intire species of creatures in the world though offensive and venerhous as Vipers or Scorpions For every species being a link of Gods great chaine and a limb of his great creature the whole world it seemes not to be put into our power to break his chaine and take out a link to maime his great creature and cut off a limb by destroying any intire species if we could So neither does it soeme conduceable to Gods purposes in us which is the rule of all our prayers to pray utterly against all tentations as vehemently as against sins God should lose by it and we should lose by it if we had no tentations for God is
glorified in those victories which we by his grace gaine over the Devill Nescit Diabolus quant a bona de illo fiunt etiam cum saevit August Little knowes the Devill how much good he does us when he tempts us for by that we are excited to have our present recourse to that God whom in our former security we neglected who gives us the issue with the tentation Ego novi quid apposuerim Idem I know what infirmities I I have submitted thee to and what I have laid and applied to thee Ego novi unde aegrotes ego novi unde saneris I know thy sicknesse and I know thy physick Sufficit tibi gratiamea Whatsoever the disease be my grace shall be sufficient to cure it For whether we understand that as S. Chrysostome does De gratia miraculorum That it is sufficient for any mans assurance in any tentation or tribulation to consider Gods miraculous deliverances of other men in the like cases or whether we understand it according to the generall voyce of the Interpreters that is Be content that there remaine in thy flesh Matter and Subject for me to produce glory from thy weaknesse and Matter and Subject for thee to exercise thy faith and allegeance to me still these words will carry an argument against the expedience of absolute praying against all tentations for still this Gratiamea sufficit will import this amount to this I have as many Antidotes as the Devill hath poisons I have as much mercy as the Devill hath malice There must be Scorpions in the world but the Scorpion shall cure the Scorpion there must be tentations but tentations shall adde to mine and to thy glory and Eripiam I will deliver thee This word is in the Originall Chalatz which signifies Eripere in such a sense as our language does not fully reach in any one word So there is some defectivenesse some slacknesse in this word of our Translation Delivering For it is such a Delivering as is a sudden catching hold and snatching at the soule of a man then when it is at the brink and edge of a sin So that if thy facility and that which thou wilt make shift to call Good Nature or Good Manners have put thee into the hands of that subtile woman that Solomon speaks of That is come forth to mect thee and seek thy face Prov. 7.10.15 If thou have followed her As an Oxe goeth to the slaughter and as a foole to the correction of the stocks Even then when the Axe is over thy head then when thou hast approacht so neare to destruction then is the season of this prayer Eripe me Domine Catch hold of me now O Lord Gen. 39.10 and Deliver my soule When Ioseph had resisted the tentations of his Masters Wife and resisted them the onely safe way not onely not to yeeld but as the Text sayes not to come in her company and yet she had found her opportunity when there was none in the house but they he came to an inward Eripe me Domine O Lord take hold of me now and she caught and God caught She caught his garment and God his soule She delivered him and God delivered him She to Prison and God from thence If thy curiosity or thy considence in thine owne spirituall strength carry thee into the house of Rimmon to Idolatry to a Masse trust not thou to Naamans request Ignoscat Dominus servo in bacre 2 Kings 5. That God will pardon thee as often as thou doest so but since thou hast done so now now come to this Eripe animam O Lord deliver my soule now from taking harme now and hereafter from exposing my selfe to the like harme For this is the purpose of Davids prayer in this signification of this word that howsoever infirmity or company or curiosity or confidence bring us within the distance and danger within the Spheare and Latitude of a tentation that though we be not lodged in Sodome yet we are in the Suburbs though we be not impailed in a sin yet we are within the purlues which is not safely done no more then it is in a State to trust alwaies to a Defensive Warre yet when we are ingaged and enthralled in such a tentation then though God be not delighted with our danger yet then is God most delighted to help us when we are in danger and then he comes not only to deliver us from that imminent and particular danger according to that signification of this word but according to that Interpretation of this word which the Septuagint have given it in the Prophet Esay Esay 58.11 Iachalitz Pinguefaciet He shall proceed in his worke and make fat thy soule That is Deliver thee now and preserve and establish thee after to the fulfilling of all that belongs to the last Petition of this prayer Salvum me fac O Lord save me Though he have been absent he shall Returne and being Returned shall not stand still nor stand Neutrall but deliver thee and having delivered thee shall not determine his love in that one act of mercy but shall Save thee that is Imprint in thee a holy confidence that his salvation is thine So then Salvum me fac Esay 19.20 in that manner is Gods Deliverance exprest They shall cry unto him till wee cry he takes no knowledge at all and then he sends to them there is his returning upon their cry and then He shall deliver them sayes that Prophet and so the two former Petitions of this prayer are answered but the Consummation and Establishment of all is in the third which followes in the same place He shall send them a Saviour and a great one Esay 62.11 But who is that what Saviour Doubtlesse he that is proclaimed by God in the same Prophet Behold the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world Behold thy salvation commeth For that word which that Prophet uses there and this word in which David presents this last Petition here is in both places Iashang and Iashang is the very word from which the name of Iesus is derived so that David desires here that salvation which Esay proclaimed there salvation in the Saviour of the world Christ Jesus and an interest in the assurance of his merits We finde this name of Saviour attributed to other men in the Scriptures then to Christ In particular distresses when God raised up men to deliver his people sometimes those men were so called Saviours And so S. Ierome interprets those words of the Prophet Ascendent salvatores Obad. 1.21 Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion of Prophets and Preachers and such other Instruments as God should raise for the salvation of soules Those whom in other places he calls Angels of the Church here he calls by that higher name Saviours But such a Saviour as is proclaimed to the ends of the world to all the world a Saviour in the Mountaines in the height
of presumptuous sins and a Saviour in the vallies in the dejection of inordinate melancholy too A Saviour of the East of rising and growing men and a Saviour of the West of withering declining languishing fortunes too A Saviour in the state of nature by having infused the knowledge of himselfe into some men then before the light and help of the Law was afforded to the world A Saviour in the state of the Law by having made to some men then even Types Accomplishments and Prophesies Histories And as himself Cals things that are not as though they were So he made those men see things that were not as though they were for so Abraham saw his day and rejoyced A Saviour in the state of the Gospel and so as that he saves some there for the fundamentall Gospels sake that is for standing fast in the fundamentall Articles thereof though they may have been darkned with some ignorances or may have strayed into some errors in some Circumstantiall points A Saviour of all the world of all the conditions in the world of all times through the world of all places of the world such a Saviour is no man called but Christ Jesus only For when it is said that Pharaoh called Ioseph Salvatorem mundi A Saviour of the world besides Gen. 41.45 that if it were so that which is called all the world can be referred but to that part of the world which was then under Pharaoh as when it is said that Augustus taxed the world that is intended De orbe Romano so much of the world as was under the Romanes there is a manifest error in that Translation which cals Ioseph so for that name which was given to Ioseph there in that language in which it was given doth truly signifie Revelatorem Secretorum and no more a Revealer a Discoverer a Decypherer of secret and mysterious things according to the occasion upon which that name was then given which was the Decyphering the Interpreting of Pharaohs Dreame Be this then thus establisht that David for our example considers and referres all salvation Psal 98.2 to salvation in Christ As he does also where he sayes after Notum fecit salutare tuum The Lord hath made known his salvation Quid est salutare tuum saies S. Basil Luke 2. What is the Lords salvation And he makes a safe answer out Simeons mouth Mine eyes have seene thy salvation when he had seen Christ Iesus This then is he which is not only Satvator populi sui The Saviour of his people the Jews to whom he hath betrothed himselfe In Pacto salis A Covenant of salt an everlasting Covenant Nor onely Salvator corporis sui The Saviour of his own body as the Apostle calls him of that body which he hath gathered from the Gentiles in the Christian Church Nor only Salvator mundi A Saviour of the world so as that which he did and suffered was sufficient in it selfe and was accepted by the Father for the salvation of the world but as Tertullian for the most part reads the word he was Salutificator not only a Saviour because God made him an instrument of salvation as though he had no interest in our salvation till in his flesh he died for us but he is Salutificator so the Author of this salvation as that from all eternity he was at the making of the Decree as well as in the fulnesse of time he was at the executing thereof In the work of our salvation if we consider the merit Christ was sole and alone no Father no Holy Ghost trod the Wine-presse with him And if in the work of our salvation we consider the mercy there though Christ were not sole and alone for that mercy in the Decree was the joynt-act of the whole Trinity yet even in that Christ was equall to the Father and the Holy Ghost So he is Salutificator the very Author of this salvation as that when it came to the act he and not they died for us and when it was in Councell he as well as they and as soone as they decreed it for us As therefore the Church of God scarce presents any petition any prayer to God but it is subscribed by Christ the Name of Christ is for the most part the end and the seale of all our Collects all our prayers in the Liturgy though they be but for temporall things for Plenty or Peace or Faire-weather are shut up so Grant this O Lord for our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus sake So David for our example drives all his petitions in this Text to this Conclusion Salvum me fac O Lord save me that is apply that salvation Christ Jesus to me Now beloved you may know that your selves have a part in those means which God uses to that purpose your selves are instruments though not causes of your own salvation Salvus factus es pro nihilo non de nihilo tamen Bernard Thou bringest nothing for thy salvation yet something to thy salvation nothing worth it but yet somthing with it Thy new Creation by which thou art a new creature that is thy Regeneration is wrought as the first Creation was wrought God made heaven and earth of nothing but hee produced the other creatures out of that matter which he had made Thou hadst nothing to doe in the first work of thy Regeneration Thou couldst not so much as wish it But in all the rest thou art a fellow-worker with God because before that there are seeds of former grace shed in thee And therefore when thou commest to this last Petition Salvum me fac O Lord save me remember still that thou hast something to doe as well as to say that so thou maist have a comfortable answer in thy soule to the whole prayer Returne O Lord Deliver my soule and Save me And so we have done with our first Part which was the Prayer it selfe and the second which is the Reasons of the Prayer we must reserve for a second exercise SERM. LIII Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.4 5. Returne O Lord Deliver my soule O Lord save me for thy mercie sake For in Death there is no Remembrance of thee and in the Grave who shall give thee thanks WEE come now to the Reasons of these Petitions in Davids Prayer For as every Prayer must bee made with faith I must beleeve that God will grant my Prayer if it conduce to his glory and my good to doe so that is the limit of my faith so I must have reason to ground a likelyhood and a faire probability that that particular which I pray for doth conduce to his glory and my good and that therefore God is likely to grant it Davids first Reason here is grounded on God himselfe Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercy sake and in his second Reason though David himselfe and all men with him seeme to have a part yet at last we shall see the Reason it selfe to
colour of that exclude necessary things Howsoever you have delivered your selves to the mercy of God and he hath delivered a seale of his mercy to you inwardly in his Spirit outwardly in his Sacrament yet there are Amarae sagittae ex dulci manu Dei Nazian as Nazianzen calls afflictions after repentance Sharp arrowes out of the sweet hand of God Corrections by which God intends to establish us in that spirituall health to which our repentance by his grace hath brought us Remember still that this which David did for the present and that which he promised be would doe for the future both together made up the reason of his prayer to God by which he desired God in the former verses to returne to him to deliver his soule and to save him He had had no reason no ground of his prayer though he had done something already if he had not proposed to himselfe something more to be done There is a preparation before and there is a preservation after required at our hands if wee studie a perfect recovery and cure of our soules Gregor And as S. Gregory notes well there is a great deale of force in Davids Possessive in his word of appropriation Meus lectus meus and Oculus meus It is his bed that he washed and they are his eyes that washed it He bore the affliction himselfe and trusted not to that which others had suffered by way of Supererogation Sometimes when the children of great persons offend at Schoole another person is whipped for them and that affects them and works upon a good nature but if that person should take Physick for them in a sicknesse it would doe them no good Gods corrections upon others may worke by way of example upon thee but because thou art sick for physicke take it thy selfe Trust not to the treasure of the Church neither the imaginary treasure of the Church of Rome which pretends an inexhaustible mine of the works of other men to distribute and bestow No nor to the true treasure of the true Church that is Absolution upon Confession and Repentance No trust not to the merits of Christ himselfe in their application to thee without a Lectus tuus and an Oculus tuus except thou remember thy sins in thy bed and poure out thy teares from thine eyes and fulfill the sufferings of Christ in thy selfe Nothing can be added to Christs merits that is true but something must be added to thee a disposition in thee for the application of that which is his Not that thou canst begin this disposition in thy selfe till God offer it but that thou maist resist it now it is offered and reject it againe after it is received Trust not in others not in the Church nor in Christ himselfe so as to doe nothing for thy selfe Nor trust not in that which thou doest for thy selfe so as at any time to thinke thou hast done enough and needest do no more But when thou hast past the signet that thou hast found the signature of Gods hand and seale in a manifestation that the marks of his Grace are upon thee when thou hast past his privy Seale That his Spirit beares witnesse with thy spirit that thy repentance hath beene accepted by him When thou hast past the great Seale in the holy and blessed Sacrament publiquely administred doe not suspect the goodnesse of God as though all were not done that were necessary for thy salvation if thou wert to have thy transmigration out of this world this houre but yet as long as thou continuest in the vale of tentations continue in the vale of teares too and though thou have the seale of Reconciliation plead that seale to the Church which is Gods Tribunall and judgement seat upon earth in a holy life and works of example to others and looke daylie looke hourely upon the Ita quod of that pardon upon the Covenants and Conditions with which it is given That if by neglecting those medicinall helps those auxiliary forces those subsidies of the kingdome of Heaven those after-afflictions chuse whether you will call them by the name of Penance or no you relapse into former sins your present repentance and your present seale of that Repentance the Sacrament shall rise up against you at the last day and to that sentence you did not feed you did not cloathe you did not harbour me in the poore shall this be added as the aggravation of all you did Repent and you did receive the Seale but you did not pursue that repentance nor performe the conditions required at your hands But we are here met by Gods gracious goodnesse in a better disposition with a sincere repentance of all our former sinnes and with a deliberate purpose as those Israelites made their powring out of water a testimony of dissolving themselves into holy teares to make this fast from bodily sustenance an inchoation of a spirituall fast in abstinence from all that may exasperate our God against us That so though not for that yet thereby our prayers may be the more acceptable to our glorious God in our gracious Saviour To him that sits upon the throne and to the Lambe first that as he is the King of Kings he will establish and prosper that Crowne which he hath set upon the head of his Anointed over us here and hereafter Crowne that Crowne with another Crowne a better Crowne a Crowne of immarcescible glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and in the meane time make him his Bulwarke and his Rampart against all those powers which seeke to multiply Miters or Crownes to the disquiet and prejudice of Christendome And then That as he is the Lord of Lords he will inspire them to whom he hath given Lordship over others in this world with a due consideration that they also have a Lord over them even in this world and that he and they and we have one Lord over us all in the other world That as he is the Bishop and high Priest over our Souls he vouchsafe to continue in our Bishops a holy will and a competent power to super-intend faithfully over his Church that they for their parts when they depart from hence may deliver it back into his hands in the same forme and frame in which his blessed Spirit delivered it into their hands in their predecessors in the Primitive institution thereof That as he is the Angel of the great Counsayle he vouchsafe to direct the great Counsayle of this Kingdome to consider still that as he works in this world by meanes So it concernes his glory that they expedite the supply of such meanes as may doe his worke and may carry home the testimony of good Consciences now and in their posterity have the thanks of posterity for their behaviour in this Parliament That as he is the God of peace he will restore peace to Christendome That as he is the Lord of Hosts he will fight our battayls who have no other end
may drive him from us Pray we therefore our Lord of everlasting goodnesse That he will be our Hiding-place That hee will protect us from tentations incident to our severall Callings That hee will preserve us from troubles preserve us from them or preserve us in them preserve us that they come not or preserve us that they overcome not And that hee will compasse us so as no enemy find overture unto us and compasse us with songs with a joyfull sense of our perseverance but yet with cries too with a solicitous feare that that multiplicity and hainousnesse of our sins may weary even the incessant and indefatigable Spirit of comfort himselfe and chase him from us SERM. LXI Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 32.8 I will Instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye THis verse more then any other in the Psalme answers the Title of the Psalme The title is Davids Instruction and here in the Text it is said I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt goe There are eleven Psalmes that have that Title Psalmes of Instruction The whole booke is Sepher Tehillim The booke of prayses and it is a good way of praysing God to receive Instruction Instruction how to praise him Therefore doth the holy Ghost returne so often to this Catechisticall way Instruction Institution as to propose so many Psalmes expresly under that Title purposely to that use In one of those The manner how Instruction should be given is expressed also Psal 45. Bernard It must be in a loving maner for the Title is Canticum Amorum A song of love for Instruction For Absque prudentia benevolentia non sunt perfecta consilia True Instruction is a making love to the Congregation and to every soule in it but it is but to the soule And so when S. Paul said He was mad for their sakes Insanivit Amatoriam insaniam sayes Theophylact S. Paul was mad for love of them to whom he writ his holy love-letters his Epistles And thereupon doe the Rabbins call this Psalme Leb David Cor Davidis The opening and powring out of Davids heart to them whom he instructs Wee have no way into your hearts but by sending our hearts The Poets counsell is Vt ameris ama If thou wouldst be truely loved doe thou love truely The holy Ghosts precept upon us is Vt credaris crede That if we would have you beleeve wee beleeve our selves It is not to our Eloquence that God promises a blessing but to our sincerity not to our tongue but to our heart All our hope of bringing you to love God is in a loving and hearty maner to propose Gods love to you The height of the Spouses love to Christ came but to that Cant. 2.5 I am sicke of love The love of Christ went farther To die for love Love is as strong as death Cant. 8.6 but nothing else is as strong as either and both Love and Death met in Christ How strong and powerfull upon you then should that Instruction be that comes to you from both these The Love and Death of Christ Jesus and such an Instruction doth this text exhibite I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt goe I will guide thee with mine eye God so loved the world as that he sent his Sonne to die The Sonne being dead so loved the world as that he returned to that world againe and being ascended sent the holy Ghost to establish a Church and in that Church Vsque ad consummationem till the end of the world shall that holy Spirit execute this Catechisticall Office He shall instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt goe He shall guide thee with his eye Though then some later Expositors have doubted of the person who doth this Office Divisio To Instruct who this I in our Text is because the Hebrew word Le David is as well Davidis as Davidi An Instruction from David as an Instruction to David and so the Catechist may seeme to be David and no more yet since this Criticisme upon the word Le David argues but a possibility that it may and not a necessity that it must be so wee accompany S. Hierome and indeed the whole body of the Fathers in accepting this Instruction from God himselfe it is no other then God himselfe that sayes I will instruct thee c. No other then God himselfe can undertake so much as is promised in this text For here is first a rectifying of the understanding I will instruct thee and in the Originall there is somewhat more then our Translation reaches to It is there Intelligere faciam te I will moke thee understand Man can instruct God onely can make us understand And then it is Faciam te I will make Thee Thee understand The worke is the Lords The understanding is the mans for God does not worke in man as the Devill did in Idols and In Pythonissis and In Ventriloquis in possest persons who had no voluntary concurrence with the action of the Devill but were meerely Passive God works so in man as that he makes man worke too Faciam Te I will make Thee understand That that shall be done shall be done by mee but in Thee the Power that rectifies the act is Gods the Act is mans Faciam te sayes God I will make thee thee every particular person for that arises out of this singular and distributive word Thee which threatens no exception no exclusion I wil make every person to whom I present Instruction capable of that Instruction and if he receive it not it is onely his and not my fault And so this first part is an Instruction De credendis of such things as by Gods rectifying of our understanding we are bound to beleeve And then in a second part there followes a more particular Instructing Docebo I will teach thee And that In via In the way It is not onely De via To teach thee which is the way that thou maiest finde it but In via How to keepe the way when thou art in it He will teach thee not onely Vt gradiaris That thou maiest walke in it and not sleepe but Quo modo gradieris How thou mayest walke in it and not stray And so this second part is an Institution De agendis of those things which thine understanding being formerly rectified and deduced into a beliefe thou art bound to do And then in the last words of the text I will guide thee with mine eye there is a third part an establishment a confirmation by an incessant watchfulnesse in God He will consider consult upon us for so much the Originall word imports He will not leave us to Contingencies to Fortune no nor to his owne generall Providence by which all Creatures are universally in his protection and administration but he will ponder us
in thine honor wounds in thy conscience yet we may heare David reply Josh 24.16 Tu Domine As the people said to Ioshuah God forbid we should forsake the Lord we will serve the Lord And when Ioshuah said You cannot serve the Lord for he is a jealous God and if yee turne from him he will turne and doe you hurt and consame you after he hath done you good The people replyed Nay but we will serve the Lord so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations and purgings in fire we may heare David reply Nay but Lord doe Thou doe it do it how Thou wilt but doe Thou do it Thy corrosives are better then others somentations Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey Thy fires are but lukewarme fires nay they have nothing of fire in them but light to direct me in my way And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out as lanes that leade me to thy grave or Rivers or Channels that lead me to the sea of thy bloud Let me go upon Crouches so I go to Heaven Lay what waight thou wilt even upon my foule that that be heavy and heavy unto death so I may have a cheerfull transmigration then Domine Tu Lord doe thou doe it and I shall not wish it mended And then when we heare David say Domine Me Lord purge Me wash Me and returne foure times in this short Text to that personall appropriation of Gods worke upon himselfe Purge Me that I may be cleane wash Me that I may be whiter then snow if we heare God say as the language of his mercy is for the most part generall As the Sea is above the Earth so is the blood of my Son above all sin Congregations of three thousand and of five thousand were purged and washed converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter whole legions of Souldiers that consisted of thousands were purged in their owne blood and became Martyrs in one day There is enough done to worke upon all Examples enow given to guide all we may heare David reply Domine Me Nay but Lord I doe not heare Peter preach I live not in a time or in a place where Crownes of Martyrdome are distributed nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did Lord I know that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood and yet I know that if there had been but one some distressed and that soule distressed but with one sin thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soule Blessed be thy Name for having wrapped me up in thy generall Covenants and made me partaker of thy generall Ordinances but yet Lord looke more particularly upon me and appropriate thy selfe to me to me not onely as thy Creature as a man as a Christian but as I am I as I am this sinner that confesses now and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now And now Beloved we have said so much towards enough of the persons God and David The accesse of David to God and the appropriation of God to David as that we may well passe to our other generall part the petitions which David in his own and our behalfe makes to God Purge me with Hyssop and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow In this 2 Part. Purgabis the first is a great worke That which we translate Purge me And yet how soone David is come to it It is his first period The passage of a Spirit is very quick but it is not immediate Not from extreame to extreame but by passing the way between The Evill spirit passes not so no good soule was ever made very ill in an instant no nor so soone as some ill have been made good No man can give me Examples of men so soone perverted as I can of men converted It is not in the power of the Devill to doe so much harme as God can doe good Nay we may be bold to say it is not in the will not in the desire of the Devill to doe so much harme as God would doe good for illnesse is not in the nature of the Devill The Devill was naturally good made created good His first illnesse was but a defection from that goodnesse and his present illnesse is but a punishment for that defection but God is good goodnesse in his nature essentially eternally good and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God worke otherwise upon us then the tentations of the evill Spirit doe How soone and to what a height came David here He makes his Petition his first Petition with that confidence as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition for it is in the Originall Thou wilt purge me Thou wilt wash me Thou hadst a gracious will and purpose to doe it before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it Nay this word may well be translated not onely Thou wilt but by the other denotation of the future Thou shalt Thou shalt purge me Thou shalt wash me Lord I doe but remember thee of thy debt of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt to shew mercy to every penitent sinner And then as the word implies confidence and acceleration infallibility and expedition too That as soone as I can aske I am sure to be heard so does it imply a totality an intirenesse a fulnesse in the worke for the roote of the word is Peccare to sin for purging is a purging of peccant humors but in this Conjugation in that language it hath a privative signification and literally signifies Expeccabis and if in our language that were a word in use it might be translated Thou shalt un-sin me that is look upon me as a man that had never sinned as a man invested in the innocency of thy Sonne who knew no sin David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God then in the remission of sins Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation or that we are in Gods favour at that time when we sin nor returned to his favour before we repent our sin It is onely this expeccation this unsinning this taking away of sins formerly committed that restores me And that is not done with nothing David assignes proposes a meanes by which he looks for it Hyssop Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop The Fathers taking the words as they found them and fastning with a spirituall delight Hyssopo as their devout custome was their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop have found purgative vertues in that plant and made usefull and spirituall applications thereof for the purging of our soules from sin In this doe S. Ambrose and Augustine and Hierome agree that Hyssop hath vertue in it proper for the lungs in
patterns To beleeve according to ancient beliefes to pray according to ancient formes to preach according to former meditations God does nothing man does nothing well without these Idea's these retrospects this recourse to pre-conceptions pre-deliberations Something then I must propose to my selfe Via Domini to be the rule and the reason of my present and future actions which was our first branch in this second Part And then the second is That I can propose nothing more availably then the contemplation of the history of Gods former proceeding with me which is Davids way here Because this was Gods way before I will looke for God in this way still That language in which God spake to man the Hebrew hath no present tense They forme not their verbs as our Westerne Languages do in the present I heare or I see or I reade But they begin at that which is past I have seene and heard and read God carries us in his Language in his speaking upon that which is past upon that which he hath done already I cannot have better security for present nor future then Gods former mercies exhibited to me Quis non gaudeat August sayes S. Augustine Who does not triumph with joy when hee considers what God hath done Quis non ea quae nondum venerunt ventura sperat propter illa quae jam tanta impleta sunt Who can doubt of the performance of all that sees the greatest part of a Prophesie performed If I have found that true that God hath said of the person of Antichrist why should I doubt of that which he sayes of the ruine of Antichrist Credamus modicum quod restat sayes the same Father It is much that wee have seene done and it is but little that God hath reserved to our faith to beleeve that it shall be done There is no State no Church no Man that hath not this tie upon God that hath not God in these bands That God by having done much for them already hath bound himselfe to doe more Men proceed in their former wayes sometimes lest they should confesse an error and acknowledge that they had beene in a wrong way God is obnoxious to no error and therefore he does still as he did before Every one of you can say now to God Lord Thou broughtest me hither therefore enable me to heare Lord Thou doest that therefore make me understand And that therefore let me beleeve And that too therefore strengthen me to the practise And all that therefore continue me to a perseverance Carry it up to the first sense and apprehension that ever thou hadst of Gods working upon thee either in thy selfe when thou camest first to the use of reason or in others in thy behalfe in thy baptisme yet when thou thinkest thou art at the first God had done something for thee before all that before that hee had elected thee in that election which S. Augustine speaks of Habet electos quos creaturus est eligendos August God hath elected certaine men whom he intends to create that he may elect them that is that he may declare his Election upon them God had thee before he made thee He loved thee first and then created thee that thou loving him he might continue his love to thee The surest way and the nearest way to lay hold upon God is the consideration of that which he had done already So David does And that which he takes knowledge of in particular in Gods former proceedings towards him is Because God had been his helpe which is our last branch in this part Because thou hast beene my helpe From this one word That God hath been my Heâ—â—â— Quia auxilium I make account that we have both these notions first That God hath not left me to my selfe He hath come to my succour He hath helped me And then That God hath not left out my selfe He hath been my Helpe but he hath left some thing for me to doe with him and by his helpe My security for the future in this consideration of that which is past lyes not onely in this That God hath delivered me but in this also that he hath delivered me by way of a Helpe and Helpe alwayes presumes an endevour and co-operation in him that is helped God did not elect me as a helper nor create me nor redeeme me nor convert me by way of helping me for he alone did all and he had no use at all of me God infuses his first grate the first way meerly as a Giver intirely all himselfe but his subsequent graces as a helper therefore we call them Auxiliant graces Helping graces and we alwayes receive them when we endevour to make use of his former grace Lord I beleeve Mar. 9.24 sayes the Man in the Gospel to Christ Helpe mine unbeliefe If there had not been unbeliefe weaknesse unperfectnesse in that faith there had needed no helpe but if there had not been a Beliefe a faith it had not been capable of helpe and assistance but it must have been an intire act without any concurrence on the mans part So that if I have truly the testimony of a rectified Conscience That God hath helped me it is in both respects first That he hath never forsaken me and then That he hath never suffered me to forsake my selfe He hath blessed me with that grace that I trust in no helpe but his and with this grace too That I cannot looke for his helpe except I helpe my selfe also God did not helpe heaven and earth to proceed out of nothing in the Creation for they had no possibility of any disposition towards it for they had no beeing But God did helpe the earth to produce grasse and herbes for for that God had infused a seminall disposition into the earth which for all that it could not have perfected without his farther helpe As in the making of Woman there is the very word of our Text Gnazar God made him a Helper one that was to doe much for him but not without him So that then if I will make Gods former working upon me an argument of his future gracious purposes as I must acknowledge that God hath done much for me so I must finde that I have done what I could by the benefit of that grace with him for God promises to be but a helper Lord open thou my lips sayes David Psal 51.15 that is Gods worke intirely And then My mouth My mouth shall shew forth thy praise there enters David into the worke with God And then sayes God to him Dilata os tuum Open thy mouth It is now made Thy mouth and therefore doe thou open it and I will fill it All inchoations and consummations beginnings and perfectings are of God of God alone but in the way there is a concurrence on our part by a successive continuation of Gods grace in which God proceeds as a Helper and I put him to more
by their Confessors whether they he sins or no And thus it is in divers other points besides this They pretend to give satisfaction and peace in all cases and pretend to be the onely true Church for that and yet leave the conscience in ignorance and in distemper and distresse and distraction in many particulars The Law of the Prince is rooted in the power of God The roote of all is Order and the orderer of all is the King And what the good Kings of Judah and the religious Kings of the Primitive Christian Church did every King may nay should do For both the Tables are committed to him as well the first that concernes our religious duties to God as the other that concernes our Civill duties to men So is the Arke where those Tables are kept and so is the Temple where that Arke is kept all committed to him and he oversees the manner of the religious service of God And therefore it is that in the Schooles we call Sedition and Rebellion Sacriledge for though the trespasse seeme to be directed but upon a man yet in that man whose office and consequently his person is sacred God is opposed and violated And it is impiously said of a Jesuit I may easily be beleeved of that Jesuit Gretzer if any other might be excepted Non est Regum etiam veram doctrinam confirmare The King hath nothing to doe with Religion neither doth it belong to him to establish any forme of Religion in his Kingdome though it bee the right Religion and though it be but by way of Confirmation This then David Omnibus persuadet David as a King takes to be in his care in his office To rectifie and settle Religion that is the outward worship of God And this he intimates this he conveyes by way of counsaile and perswasion to all the world he would faine have all agree in one service of God Ver. 1. Therefore he enters the Psalme so Iubilate omnes terrae Rejoyce all ye lands Ver. 4. and Adoret te omnis terrae All the earth shall worship thee and againe Venite audite omnes Ver. 16. Come and heare all ye that feare God For as S. Cyprian sayes of Bishops That every Bishop is an universall Bishop That is must take into his care and contemplation not onely his owne particular Dioces but the whole Catholique Church So every Christian King is a King of the whole Christian world that is must study and take into his care not onely his own kingdome but all others too For it is not onely the municipall law of that kingdome by which he is bound to see his own subjects in all cases righted but in the whole law of Nations every King hath an interest My soule may be King that is reside principally in my heart or in my braine but it neglects not the remoter parts of my body David maintains Religion at home but he assists as much as he can the establishing of that Religion abroad too David endevours that perswades that every where but he will be sure of it at home Suis imperat There he enjoyns it there he commands it Dicite sayes he Say that is This you shall say you shall serve God thus We cannot provide that there shall be no Wolves in the world but we have provided that there shall be no Wolves in this kingdome Idolatry will be but there needs be none amongst us Idolaters were round about the children of Israel in the land of promise They could not make all those Proselytes but yet they kept their own station When the Arian heresie had so surrounded the world as that Vniversa fere Orientalis Ecclesia Almost all the Eastern Church Nicephor Vinc. Lyra. And Cuncti pene Latini Episcopi aut vi aut fraude decepti Almost all the Bishops of the Westerne Church were deceived or threatned out of their Religion into Arianisme Insomuch Hilar. that S. Hilarie gives a note of an hundred and five Bishops of note noted with that heresie When that one Bishop who will needs be all alone the Bishop of Rome Liberius so far subscribed to that heresie Hieron De Roma pont l. 4. c. 9. as S. Hieroms expresse words are that Bellarmine himselfe does not onely not deny it but finds himselfe bound and finds it hard for him to prove That though Liberius did outwardly professe himselfe to be an Arian yet in his heart he was none yet for all this impetuousnesse of this flood of this heresie Athanasius as Bishop excommunicated the Arians in his Dioces And Constantine as Emperor banished them out of his Dominions Athanasius would have been glad if no other Church Constantine would have been glad if no other State would have received them When they could not prevaile so far yet they did that which was possible and most proper to them they preserved the true worship of the true God in their own Jurisdiction David could not have done that if he had not had a true zeale to Gods truth Ipse facit quod jubâ—â— in his own heart And therefore as we have an intimation of his desire to reduce the whole world and a testimony of his earnestnesse towards his own Subjects so we have an assurance that in his own particular he was constantly established in this truth He cals to all Come and see the works of God And more particularly to all his O blesse our God yee people but he proposes himselfe to their consideration too Ver. 5. Ver. 8. Ver. 16. Psal 145.3 I will declare what he hath done for my soule Great is the Lord and greatly to be feared sayes this religious King in another Psalme And that is a Proclamation a Remonstrance to all the world He addes One generation shall declare thy works to another Ver. 4. Ver. 6. And that is a propagation to the ends of the world But all this is rooted in that which is personall and follows after I will speake of the glorious honour of thy Majesly And that is a protestation for his own particular And to the same purpose is that which follows in the next verse Men shall speake of the might of thy terrible acts They shall that is They should and I would all men would sayes David But whether they doe or no I will declare thy greatnesse sayes he there I will not be defective in my particular And David was to be trusted with a pious endevour amongst his Neighbours and with a pious care over all his own subjects as long as he nourished and declared so pious a disposition in his own person And truly it is an injurious it is a disloyall suspition and jealousie it is an ungodly fascination of our own happinesse to doubt of good effects abroad and of a blessed assurance at home as long as the zeale of Gods truth remains so constantly in his heart and flowes out so declaratorily in his actions
hath suffered more then himselfe needed That is a poore treasure which they boast of in the Romane Church that they have in their Exchequer all the works of supererogation of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church that suffered so much more then was necessary for their owne salvation and those superabundant crosses and merits they can apply to me If the treasure of the blood of Christ Jesus be not sufficient Lord what addition can I find to match them to piece out them And if it be sufficient of it selfe what addition need I seek Other mens crosses are not mine other mens merits cannot save me Nor is any crosse mine owne which is not mine by a good title If I be not Possessor bonae fidei If I came not well by that crosse 1 Cor. 4.7 And Quid habeo quod non accepi is a question that reaches even to my crosses what have I that I have not received not a crosse And from whose hands can I receive any good thing but from the hands of God So that that onely is my crosse which the hand of God hath laid upon me Alas that crosse of present bodily weaknesse which the former wantonnesses of my youth have brought upon me is not my crosse That crosse of poverty which the wastfulnesse of youth hath brought upon me is not my crosse for these weaknesse upon wantonnesse want upon wastfulnesse are Natures crosses not Gods and they would fall naturally though there were which is an impossible supposition no God Except God therefore take these crosses in the way as they fall into his hands and sanctifie them so and then lay them upon me they are not my crosses but if God doe this they are And then this crosse thus prepared I must take up Tollat Forraine crosses other mens merits are not mine spontaneous and voluntary crosses Tollat contracted by mine owne sins are not mine neither are devious and remote and unnecessary crosses my crosses Since I am bound to take up my crosse there must be a crosse that is mine to take up that is a crosse prepared for me by God and laid in my way which is tentations or tribulations in my calling and I must not go out of my way to seeke a crosse for so it is not mine nor laid for my taking up I am not bound to hunt after a persecution nor to stand it and not flye nor to affront a plague and not remove nor to open my selfe to an injury and not defend I am not bound to starve my selfe by inordinate fasting nor to teare my flesh by inhumane whippings and flagellations I am bound to take up my Crosse and that is onely mine which the hand of God hath laid for me that is in the way of my Calling tentations and tribulations incident to that If it be mine that is laid for me by the hand of God and taken up by me that is Sequatur me voluntarily embraced then Sequatur sayes Christ I am bound to follow him with that crosse that is to carry my crosse to his crosse And if at any time I faint under this crosse in the way let this comfort me that even Christ himselfe was eased by Simon of Cyrene in the carrying of his Crosse and in all such cases Mat. 27.32 I must flye to the assistance of the prayers of the Church and of good men that God since it is his burden will make it lighter since it is his yoake easier and since it is his Crosse more supportable and give me the issue with the tentation When all is done with this crosse thus laid for me and taken up by me I must follow Christ Christ to his end his end is his Crosse that is I must bring my crosse to his lay downe my crosse at the foote of his Confesse that there is no dignity no merit in mine but as it receives an impression a sanctification from his For if I could dye a thousand times for Christ this were nothing if Christ had not dyed for me before And this is truly to follow Christ both in the way and to the end as well in doctrinall things as in practicall And this is all that lay upon these two Peter and Andrew Follow me Remaines yet to be considered what they shall get by this which is our last Consideration They shall be fishers and what shall they catch men They shall be fishers of men Piscatores hominum And then for that the world must be their Sea and their net must be the Gospel And here in so vast a sea and with so small a net there was no great appearance of much gaine And in this function whatsoever they should catch they should catch little for themselves The Apostleship as it was the fruitfullest so it was the barrennest vocation They were to catch all the world there is their fecundity but the Apostles were to have no Successors as Apostles there is their barrennesse The Apostleship was not intended for a function to raise houses and families The function ended in their persons after the first there were no more Apostles And therefore it is an usurpation an imposture an illusion it is a forgery when the Bishop of Rome will proceed by Apostolicall authority and with Apostolicall dignity and Apostolicall jurisdiction If he be S. Peters Successor in the Bishopricke of Rome he may proceed with Episcopall authority in his Dioces If he be for though we doe not deny that S. Peter was at Rome and Bishop of Rome though we receive it with an historicall faith induced by the consent of Ancient writers yet when they will constitute matter of faith out of matter of fact and because S. Peter was de facto Bishop of Rome therefore we must beleeve as an Article of faith such an infallibility in that Church as that no Successor of S. Peters can ever erre when they stretch it to matter of faith then for matter of faith we require Scriptures and then we are confident and justly confident that though historically we do beleeve it yet out of Scriptures which is a necessary proofe in Articles of faith they can never prove that S. Peter was Bishop of Rome or ever at Rome So then if the present Bishop of Rome be S. Peters Successor as Bishop of Rome he hath Episcopall jurisdiction there but he is not S. Peters Successor in his Apostleship and onely that Apostleship was a jurisdiction over all the world But the Apostleship was an extraordinary office instituted by Christ for a certaine time and to certaine purposes and not to continue in ordinary use As also the office of the Prophet was in the Old Testament an extraordinary Office and was not transferred then nor does not remaine now in the ordinary office of the Minister And therefore they argue impertinently and collect and infer sometimes seditiously that say The Prophet proceeded thus and thus therefore the Minister may and must proceed so too The Prophets
worke of ours The wages of sinne is death but eternall life is the gift of God through Iesus Christ our Lord Through Jesus Christ that is as we are considered in him and in him who is a Saviour a Redeemer we are not considered but as sinners So that Gods purpose works no otherwise upon us but as we are sinners neither did God meane ill to any man till that man was in his sight a sinner God shuts no man out of heaven by a lock on the inside except that man have clapped the doore after him and never knocked to have it opened againe that is except he have sinned and never repented Christ does not say in our text Follow me for I will prefer you he will not have that the reason the cause If I would not serve God except I might be saved for serving him I shall not be saved though I serve him My first end in serving God must not be my selfe but he and his glory It is but an addition from his own goodnesse Et faciam Follow me and I will doe this but yet it is as certaine and infallible as a debt or as an effect upon a naturall cause Those propositions in nature are not so certaine The Earth is at such a time just between the Sunne and the Moone therefore the Moone must be Eclipsed The Moone is at such time just betweene the Earth and the Sunne therefore the Sunne must be Eclipsed for upon the Sunne and those other bodies God can and hath sometimes wrought miraculously and changed the naturall courses of them The Sunne stood still in Ioshua And there was an unnaturall Eclipse at the death of Christ But God cannot by any Miracle so worke upon himselfe as to make himselfe not himselfe unmercifull or unjust And out of his mercy he makes this promise Doe this and thus it shall be with you and then of his justice he performes that promise which was made meerely and onely out of mercy If we doe it though not because we doe it we shall have eternall life Therefore did Andrew and Peter faithfully beleeve such a net should be put into their hands Christ had vouchsafed to fish for them and caught them with that net and they beleeved that he that made them fishers of men would also enable them to catch others with that net And that is truly the comfort that refreshes us in all our Lucubrations and night-studies through the course of our lives that that God that sets us to Sea will prosper our voyage that whether he six us upon our owne or send us to other Congregations he will open the hearts of those Congregations to us and blesse our labours to them For as S. Pauls Vaesi non lies upon us wheresoever we are Wo be unto us if wee doe not preach so as S. Paul sayes to we were of all men the most miserable if wee preached without hope of doing good With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules in one day at one Sermon and five thousand in another Acts 2.41.4.4 With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum This is the net Rom. 15.19 with which if yee be willing to bee caught that is to lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious promises of his Gospel then you are fishes reserved for that great Mariage-feast which is the Kingdome of heaven where whosoever is a dish is a ghest too whosoever is served in at the table sits at the table whosoever is caught by this net is called to this feast and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow and with fatnesse in an infallible assurance of an everlasting and undeterminable terme in inexpressible joy and glory Amen SERM. LXXIII Preached to the King in my Ordinary wayting at VVhite-hall 18. Aprill 1626. JOH 14.2 In my Fathers House are many Mansions If it were not so I would have told you THere are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this one Verse And one is whether this be one Verse or no For as there are Doctrinall Controversies out of the sense and interpretation of the words so are there Grammatticall differences about the Distinction and Interpunction of them Some Translations differing therein from the Originall as the Originall Copies are distinguished and interpuncted now and some differing from one another The first Translation that was that into Syriaque as it is expressed by Tremellius renders these words absolutely precisely as our two Translations doe And as our two Translations doe applies the second clause and proposition Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you as in affirmation and confirmation of the former In domo Patris In my Fathers house there are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But then as both our Translations doe the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause and proposition Vado parare I goe to prepare you a place Now Beza doth not so Piscator doth not so They determine this Verse in those two propositions which constitute our Text In my Fathers house c. and then they let fall the third proposition as an inducement and inchoation of the next Verse I goe to prepare a place for you and if I goe I will come againe Divers others doe otherwise and diversly For some doe assume as we and the Syriaque doe all three propositions into the Verse but then they doe not as we and the Syriaque doe make the second a proofe of the first In my Fathers house are many Mansions For If it were not so I would have told you But they refer the second to the third proposition If it were not so I would have told you For I goe to prepare you a place and being to goe from you would leave you ignorant of nothing But we find no reason to depart from that Distinction and Interpunction of these words which our own Church exhibits to us and therefore we shall pursue them so and so determine though not the Verse for into the Verse we admit all three propositions yet the whole purpose and intention of our Saviour in those two propositions which accomplish our Text In my Fathers house c. This Interpunction then offers and constitutes our two parts Divisic First A particular Doctrine which Christ infuses into his Disciples In domo Patris In my Fathers house are many Mansions And then a generall Rule and Scale by which we are to measure and waigh all Doctrines Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you In the order of nature the later part fals first into consideration The rule of all Doctrines which in this place is The word of God in the mouth of Christ digested into the Scriptures In which wee shall have just more then just necessary occasion to note both their
remembred of Death Why are these men thus baptized for the Dead And then here is Sanctum Sanctorum The innermost part of the Church The Holy of Holyes that is the manifestation of all the mysterious salvation belonging to soule and body in the Resurrection Why are these men thus baptized for the dead if there be no Resurrection Our first dayes worke in handling these words was to accept and then to apply that in which all agreed that these words were an argument for the Resurrection And we did both those offices we did accept it and so shew you how the assurance of the Resurrection accrues to us and what is the office of Reason and what is the office of Faith in that affayre And then we did apply it and so shew you divers resemblances and conformities between naturall Death and spirituall Death and between the Resurrection of the body to glory at last and the Resurrection of the soule by grace in the way and wherein they induced and assisted and illustrated one another And those two miles made up that Sabbath dayes journey When we shall returne to the handling of them the next day which will be the last we shall consider how these words have been misapplyed by our Adversaries of the Romane Church and then the severall Expositions which they have received from sound and Orthodoxall men that thence we may draw a conclusion and determination for our selves And in those two miles wee shall also make up that Sabbath Dayes journey when God shall be pleased to bring us to it This dayes Exercise shall be to consider that very point for the establishment whereof they have so detorted and mis-applyed these words which is their Purgatory That this Baptisme for the Dead must necessarily prove Purgatory and their Purgatory So then this Dayes Exercise will bee meerely Polemicall the handling of a Controversie which though it be not alwayes pertinent yet neither is it alwayes unseasonable There was a time but lately when he who was in his desire and intension the Peace-maker of all the Christian world as he had a desire to have slumbred all Field-drums so had he also to have slumbred all Pulpit-drums so far as to passe over all impertinent handling of Controversies meerly and professedly as Controversies though never by way of positive maintenance of Orthodoxall and fundamentall Truths That so there might be no slackning in the defence of the truth of our Religion and yet there might bee a discreet and temperate forbearing of personall and especially of Nationall exasperations And as this way had piety and peace in the worke it selfe so was it then occasionally exalted by a great necessity He who was then our hope and is now the breath of our nostrils and the Anointed of the Lord being then taken in their pits and in that great respect such exasperations the fitter to be forborne especially since that course might well bee held without any prevarication or cooling the zeale of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church But things standing now in another state and all peace both Ecclesiasticall and Civill with these men being by themselves removed and taken away and hee whom we feared returned in all kinde of safety safe in body and safe in soule too whom though their Church could not their Court hath chatechised in their religion that is brought him to a cleere understanding of their Ambition for Ambition is their Religion and S. Peters Ship must saile in their Fleets and with their winds or it must sink and the Catholique and Militant Church must march in their Armies though those Armies march against Rome it selfe as heretofore they have done to the sacking of that Towne to the holding of the Pope himselfe in so sordid a prison for sixe moneths as that some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague to the treading under foot Priests and Bishops and Cardinals to the dishonouring of Matrons and the ravishing of professed Virgins and committing such insolencies Catholiques upon Catholiques as they would call us Heretiques for beleeving them but that they are their owne Catholique Authors that have written them Things being now I say in this state with these men since wee heare that Drums beat in every field abroad it becomes us also to returne to the brasing and beating of our Drums in the Pulpit too that so as Adam did not onely dresse Paradise but keepe Paradise and as the children of God did not onely build but build with one hand and fight with another so wee also may employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting and subverting of error as well as upon the planting and watering of the Truth To which purpose I shall prepare this day for the vindicating and redeeming of these words from the Adversary which will bee the worke of the next day by handling to day that point for which they have misapplied them which is Purgatory and the mother and the off-spring of that for what can that generation of vipers suck from this Text which is not If there be no such Purgatory but If there be no such Resurrection why then are these men baptized for the dead Heaven and earth shall passe away saith Christ but my word shall not passe away Matt 24.35 But rather then Purgatory shall passe away his word must admit such an Interpretation as shall passe away and evacuate the intention and purpose of the Holy Ghost therein How much of the earth is passed away from them wee know who acknowledge the mercy and might and miracle of Gods working in withdrawing so many Kingdomes so many Nations of the earth in so short time from the obedience and superstition of Rome as that if Controversies had been to have been tried by number they would have found as many against them as with them so much of the earth is passed from them How much of heaven is passed from them that is how much lesse interest and claime to heaven they can have now when God hath afforded them so much light and they have resisted it then when they were in so great a part under invincible ignorance God onely who is the onely Judge in such causes knowes and he of his goodnesse enlarge their title to that place by their conversion towards it But how much soever of earth or heaven passe away they will not lose an acre an inch of Purgatory For as men are most delighted with things of their owne making their owne planting their owne purchasing their owne building so are these men therefore inamoured of Purgatory Men that can make Articles of faith of their owne Traditions And as men to elude the law against new Buildings first build sheds or stables and after erect houses there as upon old foundations so these men first put forth Traditions of their owne and then erect those Traditions into Articles of faith as ancient foundations of Religion Men that make God himselfe of a piece of bread
by Aspersion upon the face they are sayes he buried for dead presented by the Church as dead in Christ Et in hoc quòd ad hoc merguntur ut emergant agunt mortuorum resurrectionem In this that they are therefore buried under water because they may bee raised above water againe in this they represent the resurrection of the dead So in the act of Baptisme literally and Sacramentally taken that Cardinall hath found an evident argument and proofe of the Resurrection And then in the next words he hath found that that which is done in this action is done for him that doth it and not with relation to any other In hoc quòd se profitentur mortuos mundo agunt mortuos In this that in the act of Baptisme they professe themselves to bee dead to the world they are baptized for dead And in this sayes hee that they professe themselves to bee dead to the world in Baptisme therefore that by that Baptisme they may rise to a newnesse of life Profitentur resurrectionem mortuorum They professe the Resurrection of the dead And this destroys utterly the purpose of Bellarmine in these words because the Baptisme spoken of here be it a Sacramentall Baptisme literally or a Disciplinary Baptisme metaphysically yet is a Baptisme determined for the benefit thereof upon him that is baptized and not extended to the dead in Purgatory Since then it is the Exposition of a few onely Alii dicunt Aliqui dicunt Others have said so Some few have said so and those few are late men new men and of those new men Jesuits and Readers and Cardinalls have differed from that opinion this Jesuit and Reader and Cardinall Bellarmine needed not to have made that victorious acclamation Hic locus we desire no more then this place for the evident proofe of Purgatory Much lesse did it become that lesser man that Minorite Frier Feuardentius who for names sake it seemes for his name is Burning fire is so over-vehement for this place in defence of Purgatory to pronounce so peremptorily for this interpretation of this Text Qui huic sententiae concordat Catholicus qui discordat Haereticus est He that interprets these words thus is a Catholique and he is an Heretike that interprets them otherwise For thus hee leaves out the Fathers themselves out of the Arke and makes them Heretiques And howsoever they pretend peace amongst themselves he proclaimes at least discovers a warre amongst themselves for they are of themselves whom he calls Heretiques Iob 9.4 Indeed Quis restitit Domino pacem habuit who ever resisted the truth of Gods word and brought in Expositions to serve turns and had peace amongst themselves When they went about this building of Purgatory they thought not of that counsell Luk. 14.28 When you build sit downe before and count the cost lest men mock you They never considered how they were provided of Materialls what they had from the Prophets what from the Euangelists what from the Apostles for the building of this Purgatory They had the disease of our times If they might build they thought it a profitable course If they could raise a Purgatory they were sure they should gaine by it but neither had they leave to build that is to erect new Articles of faith neither had they wherewithall And therefore being destitute of the foundation of all the Scriptures of God and having raked together some strawes and sticks ends of Poetry and Philosophy and some rubbish of the Manichees they have made such a worke under ground as their Predecessors made above ground in the Towre of Babell in which they understand not one another but are in a confusion amongst themselves Quia restiterunt Domino And who ever resisted the Lord and had peace Thus farre we have proceeded in rescuing these words Patres from their captivity from the enemy that enforced them to testifie for Purgatory And according to my understanding of S. Hieromes rule who sayes That in interpreting of Scriptures hee ever proposed to himselfe Necessitatem perspicuitatem The necessity being as I take it the redeeming of the words from the ill interpretation of Heretiques which wee have now done For the perspicuity and cleernesse you shall see first how the Ancients before they suspected any ill use of them for Purgatory received them and then how the later men after they had been mis-applied for Purgatory interpret them All which I shall propose with as much cleernesse as I can as taking my selfe bound thereunto by that other rule of the same Father Qui per me intellecturus est Apostolum nolo ut ad Interpretem cognoscendum alium quaerat Interpretem I would not have them who come hither to understand the Apostle from me be put to seek help from others to understand me when I must tell them what S. Paul meant I would not have them put to aske what I meant and therefore as farre as the matter will beare it I would speake plainly to every capacity First then Tertul. for Tertullian he seemes to understand this Baptisme for the dead De vicario baptismate of Baptisme by an Atturney by a Proxy which should not be such a God-father as should be a witnesse or surety for mee when I am baptized alive but such a God-father as should be baptized for me when I am dead For that perverse and hereticall custome was then come into practise that out of a false opinion though grounded or coloured with a zeale of reverence to the Sacrament that Baptisme was so absolutely necessary as that none could possibly be saved that were not actually baptized When any man died without Baptisme his friends used to baptize another in his name The dead body was laid under the bed and another man that was laid in the bed to represent him answered to all those questions which the Priest should aske concerning Baptisme in the behalfe of him that lay under the bed as the Sureties doe now in the Church for a childe that perchance understands no more then that dead man did and then that person in the bed was baptized for him who lay under the bed Now Tertullian thinks that the Apostle argues out of that custome and disputes thus If there were no Resurrection why doe you thus provide for them that are dead by baptizing others for them To what purpose doe ye this if they for whom you doe it have no Resurrection But besides that it is not much probable that S. Paul would take an Hereticall action and practise for the ground of his Argument to prove so great a mystery of our faith as the Resurrection is and besides that it doth not appeare that this Hereticall practise which is attributed to the Marcionits was entred into the Church in S. Pauls time and therefore he could not take knowledge of it Besides all this all this if it were granted did nothing at all conduce to S. Pauls ends who had undertaken the
that That he knows nothing S. Paul found that to be all knowledge To know Christ And Mahomet thinks himselfe wise therefore because he knows not acknowledges not Christ as S. Paul does Though a man knew not that every sin casts another shovell of Brimstone upon him in Hell yet if he knew that every riotous feast cuts off a year and every wanton night seaven years of his seventy in this world it were some degree towards perfection in knowledge He that purchases a Mannor will thinke to have an exact Survey of the Land But who thinks of taking so exact a survey of his Conscience how that money was got that purchased that Mannor We call that a mans meanes which he hath But that is truly his meanes what way he came by it And yet how few are there when a state comes to any great proportion that know that that know what they have what they are worth We have seen great Wills dilated into glorious uses and into pious uses and then too narrow an estate to reach to it And we have seen Wills where the Testator thinks he hath bequeathed all and he hath not knowne halfe his own worth When thou knowest a wife a sonne a servant a friend no better but that that wife betrayes thy bed and that sonne thine estate and that servant thy credit and that friend thy secret what canst thou say thou knowest But we must not insist upon this Consideration of knowledge for though knowledge be of a spirituall nature yet it is but as a terrestriall Spirit conversant upon Earth Spirituall things of a more rarified nature then knowledge even faith it selfe and all that grows from that in us falls within this Rule which we have in hand That even in spirituall things nothing is perfect We consider this therefore in Credendis Fides In things that we are bound to Beleeve there works our faith And then in Petendis In things that we are bound to pray for there works our hope And lastly in Agendis In things that we are bound to doe and there works our charity And there is nothing in any of these three perfect When you remember who they were Luk. 17.5 that made that prayer Domine adauge That the Apostles themselves prayed that their faith might receive an encrease Lord increase our faith you must necessarily second that consideration with a confession That no mans faith is perfect When you heare Christ so often upbraid sometimes whole Congregations with that Mat. 6.30 Modicae fidei O yee of little faith And sometimes his Disciples alone with the same reproach Mat. 8.26 Modicae fidei O yee of little faith when you may be perplexed with the variety of opinions amongst the ancient Interpreters whether Christ spoke but to the incredulous Jewes Mat. 17.17 or to his own Disciples when he said O faithlesse and perverse generation how long shall I be with you how long shall I suffer you for many Interpreters goe one way and many the other And when you may be cleared without any colour of perplexity that to whom soever Christ spoke in that place he spoke plainly to his owne Disciples Vers 20. when he said Because of your unbeliefe you cannot doe this In which Disciples of his he denies also that there is such a proportion of faith as a graine of Mustard-seed can ye place a perfectnesse of faith in any When the Apostle takes knowledge of the good estate and condition of the Thessalonians and gave God thanks for their Workes of faith for their labours of love for their patience of hope in our Lord Iesus Christ 1 Thes 1.2.3.10 does he conclude them to be perfect No for after this he sayes Night and day we pray exceedingly that we may perfect that which is lacking in your faith And after this he sees the fruit of those prayers We are bound to thanke God alwayes 2 Thes 1.3 because your faith groweth exceedingly still at the best it is but a growing faith and it may be better There are men that are said to be Rich in faith Iames 2.5 men that are come from the weake and beggarly elements of Nature or of the Law to the knowledge of the precious and glorious Gospell Galat. 4.9 and so are Rich in faith enriched emproved by faith 2 Cor. 8.7 There are men that Abound in faith that is in comparison of the emptinesse of other men or of their owne emptinesse before they embraced the Gospell they abound now But still it is Rom. 12.3 As God hath given the measure of faith to every man Not as of his Manna a certaine measure and an equall measure and a full measure to every man no man hath such a measure of faith as that he needs no more or that he may not lose at least some of that When Christ speakes so doubtfully When the Son of man commeth shall he finde faith upon earth Luke 18. â— Any faith in any man If the Holy Ghost be come into this presence into this Congregation does he find faith in any A perfect faith he does not Deceive not your selves then with that new charme and flattery of the soule That if once you can say to your selves you have faith you need no more or that you shall alwaies keepe that alive The Apostle sayes All boasting that is all confidence Rom. 3.27 is excluded By what Law sayes he by the Law of faith Not by faith but by the Law of faith There is a Law of faith a rule that ordinates and regulates our faith by which law and rule the Apostle cals upon us To examine our selves whether we be in the faith or no 2 Cor. 13.5 not onely by the internall motions and private inspirations of his blessed Spirit but by the Law and the Rule which he hath delivered to us in the Gospell The Kings pardon flowes from his meere grace and from his brest but we must have the writing and the Seale that we may plead it So does faith from God But we must see it our selves and shew it to others or else we doe not observe the Law of faith Rom. 4.11 Abraham received the Seale of the righteousnesse of faith sayes the Apostle Hee had an outward testimony to proceed by And then Abraham became an outward testimony and Rule to the faithfull Walke in the steps of the faith of Abraham sayes that Apostle in that place Ver. 12. Not a faith conceived onely but a faith which you saw The faith of Abraham for so the Apostle proposing to us the example of other men sayes Their faith follow you Heb. 13.7 Not faith in generall but their faith So that it is not enough to say I feele the inspiration of the Spirit of God He infuses faith and faith infused cannot be withdrawne but as there is a Law of faith and a practise of faith a Rule of faith and an example of