conclude this part O holy blessed and glorious Trinity three Persons and one God have mercy upon us miserable sinners We are descended now to our second part 2 Part. Expostulatio Iob 31.13 what past between God and Abraham after he had thus manifested himselfe unto him Where we noted first That God admits even expostulation from his servants almost rebukes and chidings from his servants We need not wonder at Iobs humility that he did not despise his man nor his mayd when they contended with him for God does not despise that in us God would have gone from Iacob when he wrestled Gen. 32.26 and Iacob would not let him go and that prevailed with God If we have an apprehension when we beginne to pray that God doth not heare us not regard us God is content that in the fervor of that prayer we say with David Evigila Domine and Surge Domine Awake O Lord and Arise O Lord God is content to be told that he was in bed and asleepe when he should heare us If we have not a present deliverance from our enemies God is content that we proceed with David Eripe manum de sinu Pluck out thy hand out of thy bosome God is content to be told that he is slack and dilatory when he should deliver us If we have not the same estimation in the world that the children of this world have God is content that we say with Amos Pauperem pro calceamentis Amos 2.6 that we are sold for a paire of shooes And with S. Paul that we are the off-scouring of the world God is content to be told that he is unthrifty and prodigall of his servants lives and honours and fortunes Now Offer this to one of your Princes says the Prophet and see whether he will take it Bring a petition to any earthly Prince and say to him Evigila and Surge would your Majesty would awake and reade this petition and so insimulate him of a former drowsinesse in his government say unto him Eripe manum pull thy hand out of thy bosome and execute Justice and so insimulate him of a former manacling and slumbring of the Lawes say unto him we are become as old shooes and as off-scourings and so insimulate him of a diminution and dis-estimation faln upon the Nation by him what Prince would not and justly conceive an indignation against such a petitioner which of us that heard him would not pronounce him to be mad to ease him of a heavier imputation And yet our long-suffering and our patient God must we say our humble and obedient God endures all this He endures more for when Abraham came to this expostulation Shall not the Iudge of all the earth do right God had said never a word of any purpose to destroy Sodom but he said only He would go see whether they had done altogether according to that cry which was come up against them and Abraham comes presently to this vehemency And might not the Supreme Ordinary God himselfe goe this visitation might not the supreme Judge God himselfe go this Circuit But as long as Abraham kept himselfe upon this foundation It is impossible that the Iudge of all the earth should not do right God mis-interpreted nothing at Abrahams hand but received even his Expostulations heard him out to the sixt petition Almost such an Expostulation as this Moses uses towards God He asks God a reason of his anger Iudex Exod. 32.11 Lord why doth thy wrath waxe hot against thy people He tels him a reason why he should not doe so For thou hast brought them forth with a great power and with a mighty hand And he tels him the inconveniences that might follow The Egyptians will say He brought them out for mischiefe to slay them in the mountaine He imputes even perjury to God himselfe and breach of Covenant to Abraham Isaac and Iacob which were Feffees in trust betweene God and his people and he sayes Thou sware'st to them by thine owne selfe that thou wouldst not deale thus with them And therefore he concludes all with that vehemence Turne from thy fierce wrath and repent this evill purpose against them But we finde a prayer or expostulation of much more exorbitant vehemence in the stories of the Roman Church towards the blessed Virgin towards whom they use to bee more mannerly and respective then towards her Son or his Father when at a siege of Constantinople they came to her statue with this protestation Looke you to the drowning of our Enemies ships or we will drowne you Si vis ut imaginem tuam non mergamus in mari merge illos The farthest that Abraham goes in this place is That God is a Iudge and therefore must doe right Iob 32.10 for Far be wickednesse from God and iniquity from the Almighty surely God will not do wickedly neither will the Almighty pervert judgement An Usurer an Extortioner an Oppressor a Libeller a Thiefe and Adulterer yea a Traytor makes shift to finde some excuse some flattery to his Conscience they say to themselves the Law is open and if any be grieved they may take their remedy and I must endure it and there is an end But since nothing holds of this oppressor and manifold malefactor but the sentence of the Judge shall not the Judge doe right how must this necessarily shake the frame of all An Arbitrator or a Chancellor that judges by submission of parties or according to the Dictates of his owne understanding may have some excuse He did as his Conscience led him But shall not a Iudge that hath a certaine Law to judge by do right Especially if he be such a Judge as is Iudge of the whole earth which is the next step in Abrahams expostulation Now as long as there lies a Certiorari from a higher Court Omnem terram or an Appeale to a higher Court the case is not so desperate if the Judge doe not right for there is a future remedy to be hoped If the whole State be incensed against me yet I can finde an escape to another Country If all the World persecute me yet if I be an honest man I have a supreame Court in my selfe and I am at peace in being acquitted in mine owne Conscience But God is the Judge of all the earth of this which I tread and this earth which I carry about me and when he judges me my Conscience turnes on his side and confesses his judgement to be right And therefore S. Pauls argument seconds and ratifies Abrahams expostulation Is God unrighteous God forbid for then sayes the Apostle Rom. 3.6 how shall God judge the World The Pope may erre but then a Councell may rectifie him The King may erre but then God in whose hands the Kings heart is can rectifie him But if God that judges all the earth judge thee there is no error to be assigned in his judgement no appeale from God not throughly
upon beauty in that face that misleads thee or upon honour in that place that possesses thee And let the opening of thine eyes be to look upon God in every object to represent to thy self the beauty of his holinesse and the honour of his service in every action And in this rapture and in this twinkling of an eye will thy Resurrection soon though not suddenly speedily though not instantly be accomplished And if God take thee out of the world before thou think it throughly accomplished yet he shall call thine inchoation consummation thine endeavour performance and thy desire effect For all Gods works are intire and done in him at once and perfect as soon as begun And this spirituall Resurrection is his work and therefore quickned even in the Conception and borne even in the quickning and grown up even in the birth that is perfected in the eyes of God as soone as it is seriously intended in our heart And farther we carry not your consideration upon those two Branches which constitute our second Part That some shall be alive at Christs comming That they that are alive shall receive such a change as shall be a true death and a true Resurrection And so shall be caught up into the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Aire and so be with the Lord for ever which are the Circumstances of our third and last Part. In this last part we proposed it for the first Consideration 3 Part. Resurrectio justorum that the Apostle determines the Consideration of the Resurrection in those two Them and Us They that slept in Christ and We that expect the comming of Christ Of any Resurrection of the wicked here is no mention Not that there is not one but that the resurrection of the wicked conduced not to the Apostles purpose which was to minister comfort in the losse of the dead because they were to come again and to meet the Lord and to be with him for ever whereas in the Resurrection of the wicked who are only to rise that they may fall lower there is no argument of comfort And therefore our Saviour Christ determines his Commission in that This is the Fathers will that sent me John 6.39 that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day This was his not losing if it were raised again but he hath only them in charge to raise at the last day whom the Father had given him given him so as that they were to be with him for ever for others he never mentions And upon this much very much depends For Chiliasts this forbearing to mention the resurrection of the wicked with the righteous gave occasion to many in the Primitive Church to imagine a two-fold a former and a later Resurrection which was furthered by their mistaking of those words in S. Iohn Apoc. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection which words being intended of the Resurrection from sin by grace in this life the Chiliasts the Millenarians interpreted of this Resurrection in our Text That at Christs comming the righteous should rise and live a thousand yeares as S. Iohn sayes in all temporall abundances with Christ here in recompence of those temporall calamities and oppressions which here they had suffered and then after those thousand yeares so spent with Christ in temporall abundances should follow the resurrection of the wicked and then the wicked and the righteous should be disposed and distributed and setled in those Mansions in which they should remain for ever And of this errour as very many of the Fathers persisted in it to the end S. Augustine himself had a touch and a tincture at beginning And this errour S. Hierome also though truly I think S. Hierome was never touched with it himselfe out of a reverence to those many and great men that were Irenaeus Tertullian Lactantius and the rest would never call an Heresie nor an Errour nor by any sharper name then an opinion which is no word of heavy detestation And as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels Pagani enlarged themselves in this distribution and apportioning the mercy of God that it consisted best with the nature of his mercy that as his Saints had suffered temporall calamities in this world in this world they should be recompenced with temporall abundances so did they inlarge this mercy farther and carry it even to the Gentiles to the Pagans that had no knowledge of Christ in any established Church You shall not finde a Trumegistus a Numa Pompilius a Plato a Socrates for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father or some Ancient and Reverend Author an Advocate In which liberality of Gods mercy those tender Fathers proceed partly upon that rule That in Trismegistus and in the rest they finde evident impressions and testimonies that they knew the Son of God and knew the Trinity and then say they why should not these good men beleeving a Trinity be saved and partly they goe upon that rule which goes through so many of the Fathers Facienti quod in se est That to that man who does as much as he can by the light of nature God never denies grace and then say they why should not these men that doe so be saved And upon this ground S. Dionyse the Areopagite sayes That from the beginning of the world God hath called some men of all Nations and of all sorts by the ministry of Angels though not by the ministry of the Church To me to whom God hath revealed his Son in a Gospel by a Church there can be no way of salvation but by applying that Son of God by that Gospel in that Church Nor is there any other foundation for any nor other name by which any can be saved but the name of Jesus But how this foundation is presented and how this name of Jesus is notified to them amongst whom there is no Gospel preached no Church established I am not curious in inquiring I know God can be as mercifull as those tender Fathers present him to be and I would be as charitable as they are And therefore humbly imbracing that manifestation of his Son which he hath afforded me I leave God to his unsearchable waies of working upon others without farther inquisition Neither did those tender Fathers then Angeli lopsi in Coelis much lesse the School after consist in carying this overflowing and inexhaustible mercy of God upon his Saints after their Resurrection in temporall abundances nor upon the Gentiles who had no solemne nor cleare knowledge of Christ Psal 138.2 Psal 17.7 which is Magnificare misericordiam to magnifie to extend to stretch the mercy of God but Mirificant misericordiam as David also speaks they stretch this mercy miraculously for they carry this mercy even to hell it self For first for the Angels that fell in heaven from the time that they
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
employment to which his education had apted him yet the King denied their requests and having a discerning spirit replyed I know M. Donne is a learned man an excellent Divine and will prove a powerfull Preacher After that as he professeth * In his Devotions Expost 8. the King descended almost to a solicitation of him to enter into sacred Orders which though he denied not he deferred for the space of three yeares All which time he applyed himselfe to an incessant study of Textuall Divinity and attained a greater perfection in the learned Languages Greek and Hebrew Forwardnesse and inconsideration could not in him as in many others argue an insufficiencie for he considered long and had many strifes within himselfe concerning the strictnesse of life and competencie of learning required in such as enter into sacred Orders And doubtlesse considering his owne demerits did with meek Moses humbly aske God Who am I And if he had consulted with flesh and bloud he had not put his hand to that holy plough But God who is able to prevaile wrastled with him as the Angel did with Iacob Gen. 32. and marked him for his owne marked him with a blessing a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit And then as he had formerly asked God humbly with Moses Who am I So now being inspired with the apprehension of Gods mercies he did ask King Davids thankfull question Lord who am I that thou art so mindfull of me So mindfull of me as to lead me for more then forty years through a wildernesse of the many temptations and various turnings of a dangerous life So mindfull as to move the learnedst of Kings to descend to move me to serve at thine Altar So merciful to me as to move my heart to embrace this holy motion Thy motions I will embrace take the cup of salvation call upon thy Name and preach thy Gospell Such strifes as these S. Augustine had when S. Ambrose indeavoured his conversion to Christianity with which he confesseth he acquainted his deare friend Alippius Our learned Author a man fit to write after no meane Copy did the like and declaring his intentions to his deare friend D. King the then worthy Bishop of London who was Chaplaine to the Lord Chancellor in the time of his being his Lordships Secretary That Reverend Bishop most gladly received the newes and with all convenient speed ordained him Deacon and Priest Now the English Church had gained a second S. Augustine for I think none was so like him before his conversion none so like S. Ambrose after it And if his youth had the infirmities of the one Father his age had the excellencies of the other the learning and holinesse of both Now all his studies which were occasionally diffused were concentred in Divinity Now he had a new calling new thoughts new imployment for his wit and eloquence Now all his earthly affections were changed into divine love and all the faculties of his soule were ingaged in the conversion of others in preaching glad tidings remission to repenting sinners and peace to each troubled soule To this he applyed himselfe with all care and diligence and such a change was wrought in him Psal 84. that he was gladder to be a doore-keeper in the house of God then to enjoy any temporall employment Presently after he entred into his holy Profession the King made him his Chaplaine in Ordinary and gave him other incouragements promising to take a particular care of him And though his long familiarity with persons of greatest quality was such as might have given some men boldnesse enough to have preached to any eminent Auditory yet his modesty was such that he could not be perswaded to it but went usually to preach in some private Churches in Villages neere London till his Majestie appointed him a day to preach to him And though his Majestie and others expected much from him yet he was so happy which few are as to satisfie and exceed their expectations preaching the Word so as shewed he was possest with those joyes that he laboured to distill into others A Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory sometimes with them alwayes preaching to himselfe like an Angel from a cloud though in none carrying some as S. Paul was to heaven in holy raptures enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives and all this with a most particular grace and un-imitable fashion of speaking That Summer the same month in which he was ordained Priest and made the Kings Chaplaine his Majestie going his Progresse was intreated to receive an entertainment in the University of Cambridge and M. Donne attending his Majestie there his Majestie was pleased to recommend him to be made Doctor in Divinity Doctor Harsnet after Archbishop of York being then their Vice-Chancellour who knowing him to be the Author of the Pseudo-Martyr did propose it to the University and they presently granted it expressing a gladnesse they had an occasion to entitle and write him Theits His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent and he so much loved by many persons of quality that within one yeare after his entrance into Sacred Orders he had fourteen Advowsons of severall Benefices sent unto him but they being in the Countrey could not draw him from his long loved friends and London to which he had a naturall inclination having received his birth and breeding in it desiring rather some preferment that might fixe him to an employment in that place Immediately after his returne from Cambridge his wife died leaving him a man of an unsetled estate And having buried five the carefull father of seven children then living to whom he made a voluntary promise being then but forty two years of age never to bring them under the subjection of a Step-mother which promise he most faithfully kept burying with his teares all his sublunary joyes in his most deare and deserving Wives grave living a most retired and solitary life In this retirednesse he was importuned by the grave Benchers of Lincolns Inne once the friends of his youth to accept of their Lecture which by reason of M. Gatakers removall was then void of which he accepted being glad to renew his intermitted friendship with them whom he so much loved and where he had been a Saul not so far as to persecute Christianity yet in his irregular youth to neglect the practise of it to become a Paul and preach salvation to his brethren Nor did he preach onely but as S. Paul advised his Corinthians to be followers of him as he was of Christ so he also was an ocular direction to them by a holy and harmlesse conversation Their love to him was exprest many wayes for besides the faire lodgings that were provided and furnisht for him other curtesies were daily accumulated so many and so freely as though they meant their gratitude if possible should exceed or at least equall his merit In
August 1630. being with his daughter Mistris Harvy at Abrey-Hatch in Essex he fell into a Feaver which with the helpe of his constant infirmity vapours from the spleene hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as S. Paul of himselfe he dyes daily And he might say with Iob Job 30.15 Job 7.3 My welfare passeth away as a cloud The dayes of affliction have taken hold of me And weary nights are appointed for me This sicknesse continued long not onely weakning but wearing him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest And that thou judge it no impertinent digression before I speake of his death to looke backe with me upon some observations of his life which while a gentle slumber seises him may I hope fitly exercise thy Consideration His marriage was the remarkable error of his life which though he had a wit apt enough and very able to maintaine paradoxes And though his wives competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate a severe censure yet he never seemed to justifie and doubtlesse had repented it if God had not blest them with a mutuall and so cordiall an affection as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then the banquet of fooles The recreations of his youth were Poetry in which he was so happy as if nature with all her varieties had been made to exercise his great wit and high fancy And in those pieces which were carelesly scattered in his younger daies most of them being written before the twentieth yeare of his age it may appeare by his choice Metaphors that all the Arts joyned to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wisht they had been abortive or so short-liv'd that he had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so falne out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake it no not in his declining age witnessed then by many divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious composures yea even on his former sick bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy he then had in the assurance of Gods mercy to him A Hymne to God the Father VVIlt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And doe run still though still I doe deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin and made my sin their dore Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A yeare or two but wallowed in a score When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more I have a sin of feare that when I have spun My last thred I shall perish on the shore But sweare by thy selfe that at my death thy Sonne Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I feare no more And on this which was his Death-bed writ another Hymne which bears this Title A Hymne to God my God in my sicknesse If these fall under the censure of a soule whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high illuminations let him know that many devout and learned men have thought the soule of holy Prudentius was most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning with a new and spirituall Song justified by the examples of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his yeares payed his gratefull vowes to God in a royall hymne Esay 38. which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of our life in the Temple of my God The later part of his life was a continued studie Saturdaies onely excepted which he usually spent in visiting friends and resting himselfe under the weary burthen of his weeks Meditations And he gave himselfe this rest that thereby he might be refresht and inabled to doe the work of the day following not negligently but with courage and cheerfulnesse Nor was his age onely so industrious but in his most unsetled youth he was being in health never knowne to be in bed after foure of the clock in the morning nor usually out of his chamber till ten and imployed that time constantly if not more in his Studie Which if it seeme strange may gain beliefe by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remaine to testifie what is here written for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them analyzed with his owne hand He left sixscore Sermons also all writ with his owne hand A large and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatose wherein all the Lawes violated by that act are diligently survayed and judiciously censured A Treatise written in his youth which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many profest Scholars that labour to be thought learned Clerks and to know all things Nor were these onely found in his Studie but all businesses that past of any publique consequence in this or any of our neighbour Kingdoms he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of the Nation and kept them by him for a memoriall So he did the Copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his solutions and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himselfe He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his Will when no facultie of his soule was dampt or defective by sicknesse or he surprized by sudden apprehension of death But with mature deliberation expressing himselfe an impartiall Father by making his Childrens Portions equall a constant lover of his friends by particular Legacies discreetly chosen and fitly bequeathed them And full of charity to the poore and many others who by his long continued bounty might entitle themselves His almes-people For all these he made provision so largely as having six children might to some appeare more then proportionable to his estate The Reader may think the particulars tedious but I hope not impertinent that I present him with the beginning and conclusion of his last Will. IN the name of the blessed and glorious Trinitie Amen I Iohn Donne by the mercy of Christ Iesus and the calling of the Church of England Priest being at this time in good and perfect understanding praised be God therefore doe hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and forme following First I give my gracious God an intire sacrifice of body and soule with my most humble thanks for
Belial in this Text. For the adhering of persons born within the Church of Rome to the Church of Rome our law sayes nothing to them if they come But for reconciling to the Church of Rome by persons born within the Allegeance of the King or for perswading of men to be so reconciled our law hath called by an infamous and Capitall name of Treason and yet every Tavern and Ordinary is full of such Traitors Every place from jest to earnest is filled with them from the very stage to the death-bed At a Comedy they will perswade you as you sit as you laugh And in your sicknesse they will perswade you as you lye as you dye And not only in the bed of sicknesse but in the bed of wantonnesse they perswade too and there may be examples of women that have thought it a fit way to gain a soul by prostituting themselves and by entertaining unlawfull love with a purpose to convert a servant which is somewhat a strange Topique to draw arguments of religion from Let me see a Dominican and a Jesuit reconciled in doctrinall papistry for freewill and predestination Let me see a French papist and an Italian papist reconciled in State-papistry for the Popes jurisdiction Let me see the Jesuits and the secular priests reconciled in England and when they are reconciled to one another let them presse reconciliation to their Church To end all Those men have their bodies from the earth and they have their soules from heaven and so all things in earth and heaven are reconciled but they have their Doctrine from the Devill and for things in hell there is no peace made and with things in hell there is no reconciliation to be had by the blood of his Crosse except we will tread that blood under our feet and make a mock of Christ Jesus and crucifie the Lord of Life againe SERMON II. Preached at Pauls upon Christmas Day in the Evening 1624. ESAIAH 7.14 Part of the first Lesson that Evening Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel SAint Bernard spent his consideration upon three remarkable conjunctions this Day First a Conjunction of God and Man in one person Christ Jesus Then a conjunction of the incompatible Titles Maid and Mother in one blessed woman the blessed Virgin Mary And thirdly a conjunction of Faith and the Reason of man that so beleeves and comprehends those two conjunctions Let us accompany these three with another strange conjunction in the first word of this Text Propterea Therefore for that joynes the anger of God and his mercy together God chides and rebukes the King Achaz by the Prophet he is angry with him and Therefore sayes the Text because he is angry he will give him a signe a seale of mercy Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin c. This Therefore shall therefore be a first part of this Exercise That God takes any occasion to shew mercy And a second shall be The particular way of his mercy declared here Divisie The Lord shall give you a signe And then a third and last what this signe was Behold a Virgin c. In these three parts we shall walk by these steps Having made our entrance into the first with that generall consideration that Gods mercy is alwaies in season upon that station upon that height we shall look into the particular occasions of Gods mercy here what this King Achaz had done to alien God and to avert his mercy and in those two branches we shall determine that part In the second we shall also first make this generall entrance That God persists in his own waies goes forward with his own purposes And then what his way and his purpose here was he would give them a signe and farther we shall not extend that second part In the third we have more steps to make First what this sign is in generall it is that there is a Redeemer given And then how thus First Virgo concipiet a Virgin shall conceive she shall be a Virgin then And Virgo pariet a Virgin shall bring forth she shall be a Virgin then And Pariet filium she shall beare a Son and therefore he is of her substance not only man but man of her And this Virgin shall call this Son Immanuel God with us that is God and Man in one person Though the Angel at the Conception tell Ioseph That he shall call his name Jesus Mat. 1.21 and tell Mary her selfe that she shall call his name Jesus Luc. 1.31 yet the blessed Virgin her selfe shall have a further reach a clearer illustration She shall call his name Immanuel God with us Others were called Iesus Iosuah was so divers others were so but in the Scriptures there was never any but Christ called Immanuel Though Iesus signifie a Saviour Ioseph was able to call this childe Iesus upon a more peculiar reason and way of salvation then others who had that name because they had saved the people from present calamities and imminent dangers for the Angel told Ioseph that he should therefore be called Iesus because he should save the people from their sins and so no Iosuah no other Iesus was a Iesus But the blessed Virgin saw more then this not only that he should be such a Iesus as should save them from their sins but she saw the manner how that he should be Immanuel God with us God and man in one person That so being Man he might suffer and being God that should give an infinite value to his sufferings according to the contract passed between the Father and him and so he should be Iesus a Saviour a Saviour from sin and this by this way and meanes And then that all this should be established and declared by an infallible signe with this Ecce Behold That whosoever can call upon God by that name Immanuel that is confesse Christ to bee come in the flesh that Man shall have an Ecce a light a sign a token an assurance that this Immanuel this Jesus this Saviour belongs unto him and he shall be able to say Ecce Behold mine eyes have seen thy salvation We begin with that which is elder then our beginning 1 Part. Psal 101.1 and shall over-live our end The mercy of God I will sing of thy mercy and judgement sayes David when we fixe our selves upon the meditation and modulation of the mercy of God even his judgements cannot put us out of tune but we shall sing and be chearefull even in them As God made grasse for beasts before he made beasts and beasts for man before he made man As in that first generation the Creation so in the regeneration our re-creating he begins with that which was necessary for that which followes Mercy before Judgement Nay to say that mercy was first is but to post-date mercy to preferre mercy but so is
of sinnes But with this man in our Text Christ goes farther and comes sooner to an end He exercises him with no disputation he leaves no roome for any diffidence but at first word establishes him and then builds upon him Now beloved which way soever of these two God have taken with thee whether the longer or the shorter way blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for that If God have setled and strengthned thy faith early early in thy youth heretofore early at the beginning of a Sermon now A day is as a thousand yeares with God a minute is as sixe thousand yeares with God that which God hath not done upon the Nations upon the Gentiles in six thousand yeares never since the Creation which is to reduce them to the knowlege and application of the Messias Christ Jesus that he hath done upon thee in an instant If he have carried thee about the longer way if he have exposed thee to scruples and perplexities and stormes in thine understanding or conscience yet in the midst of the tempest the soft ayre that he is said to come in shall breath into thee in the midst of those clouds his Son shall shine upon thee In the midst of that flood he shall put out his Rainbow his seale that thou shalt not drowne his Sacrament of faire weather to come and as it was to the Thiefe thy Crosse shall be thine Altar and thy Faith shall be thy Sacrifice Whether he accomplish his worke-upon thee soone or late he shall never leave thee all the way without this Confide fili a holy confidence that thou art his which shall carry thee to the Dimittuntur peccata to the peace of conscience in the remission of sins In which two words we noted unto you that Christ hath instituted a Catechisme an Instruction for this new Convertite and adopted Son of his in which the first lesson that is therein implyed is Antequam rogetur That God is more forward to give Antequam rogetur then man to aske It is not said that the sick man or his company in his behalfe said any thing to Christ but Christ speakes first to them If God have touched thee here didst thou aske that at his hands Didst thou pray before thou camest hither that he would touch thy heart here perchance thou didst But when thou wast brought to thy Baptisme didst thou ask any thing at Gods hands then But those that brought thee that presented thee did They did in thy Baptisme but at thine election then when God writing downe the names of all the Elect in the book of Life how camest thou in who brought thee in then Didst thou aske any thing at Gods hands then when thou thy selfe wast not at all Dat prius that 's the first lesson in this Catechisme God gives before we aske Meliora and then Dat meliora rogatis God gives better things then we aske They intended to aske but bodily health and Christ gave spirituall he gave Remission of sinnes And what gain'd he by that why Beati quorum remissae iniquitates Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven But what is Blessednesse Any more then a consident expectation of a good state in the next world Yes Blessednesse includes all that can be asked or conceived in the next world and in this too Christ in his Sermon of blessednesse saies first Blessed are they for theirs is the Kingdome of Heaven and after Blessed are they Mat. 5.3 5. for they shall in her it the earth Againe Blessed for they shall obtaine mercy and Blessed for they shall be filled Remission of sins is blessednesse and as Godlinesse hath the promise of this world and the next so blessednesse hath the performance of both He that hath peace in the remission of sinnes is blessed already and shall have those blessings infinitely multiplied in the world to come The farthest that Christ goes in the expressing of the affections of a naturall Father here is That if his Son aske bread he will not give him a stone Luk. 11.12 and if he aske a Fish he will not give him a Scorpion He will not give him worse then he ask'd But it is the peculiar bounty of this Father who adopted this Sonne to give more and better spirituall for temporall Another lesson which Christ was pleased to propose to this new Convertite Causa morborum in this Catechisme was to informe him That sins were the true causes of all bodily diseases Diseases and bodily afflictions are sometimes inflicted by God Ad poenam non ad purgationem Not to purge or purifie the soule of that man by that affliction but to bring him by the rack to the gallowes through temporary afflictions here to everlasting torments hereafter As Iudas his hanging and Herods being eaten with wormes Acts 12. was their entrance into that place where they are yet Sometimes diseases and afflictions are inflicted onely or principally to manifest the glory of God in the removing thereof So Christ saies of that man that was borne blinde that neither he himselfe had sinned John 5. nor bore the sinnes of his parents but he was borne blinde to present an occasion of doing a miracle Sometimes they are inflicted Ad humiliationem for our future humiliation So S. Paul saies of himselfe That least he should be exalted above measure 2 Cor. 12.7 by the abundance of Revelations he had that Stimulum carnis That vexation of the flesh that messenger of Satan to humble him And then sometimes they are inflicted for tryall and farther declaration of your conformity to Gods will as upon Iob. But howsoever there be divers particular causes for the diseases and afflictions of particular men the first cause of death and sicknesse and all infirmities upon mankinde in generall was sin and it would not be hard for every particular man almost to finde it in his owne case too to assigne his fever to such a surfet or his consumption to such an intemperance And therefore to breake that circle in which we compasse and immure and imprison our selves That as sinne begot diseases so diseases begot more sinnes impatience and murmuring at Gods corrections Christ begins to shake this circle in the right way to breake it in the right linke that is first to remove the sin which occasioned the disease for till that be done a man is in no better case then as the Prophet expresses it If he should flie from a Lion Amos 5.19 and a Beare met him or if he should leane upon a wall and a Serpent bit him What ease were it to be delivered of a palsie of slack and dissolv'd sinews and remaine under the tyranny of a lustfull heart of licentious eyes of slacke and dissolute speech and conversation What ease to be delivered of the putrefaction of a wound in my body and meet a murder in my conscience done or intended or desired upon my neighbour To
is not onely sent by God but is God Therefore does the Apostle inlarge and dilate and delight his soule upon this comfort Blessed be God 2 Cor. 1.3 even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations that we may be able to comfort them which are in any affliction by that comfort wherewith our selves are comforted of God The Apostle was loath to depart from the word Comfort And therefore as God because he could sweare by no greater Heb. 6.13 sware by himselfe So because there is no stronger adjuration then the comfort it selfe to move you to accept this comfort as the Apostle did so we intreat you by that If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellow ship of the Spirit if any bowels Phil. 2.1 and mercie Lay hold upon this true comfort the comming of the Holy Ghost and say to all the deceitfull comforts of this world not onely Vanè consolati est is Zach. 10.2 Job 16.2 Your comforts are frivolous but Onerosi consolatores Your comforts are burdensome there is not onely a disappointing of hopes but an aggravating of sin in entertaining the comforts of this world As Barnabas that is Filius consolationis The son of consolation that he might bee capable of this comfort devested himselfe of all worldly possessions so as such sons Acts 4.36 Suck and be satisfied at the breasts of this consolation that you may milke out Esay 66.11 Ver. 13. and be delighted with the abundance of his glory And as one whom his mother comforteth so will I comfort you and you shall be comforted in Ierusalem Heaven is Glory and heaven is Joy we cannot tell which most we cannot separate them and this comfort is joy in the Holy Ghost This makes all Iobs states alike as rich in the first Chapter of his Booke where all is suddenly lost as in the last where all is abundantly restored This Consolation from the Holy Ghost makes my mid-night noone mine Executionera Physitian a stake and pile of Fagots a Bone-fire of triumph this consolation makes a Satyr and Slander and Libell against me a Panegyrique and an Elogy in my praise It makes a Tolle an Ave a Va an Euge a Crucifige an Hosanna It makes my death-bed a mariage-bed And my Passing-Bell an Epithalamion In this notion therefore we receive this Person and in this notion we consider his proceeding Ille He He the Comforter shall reprove This word that is here translated To reprove Arguere Arguet hath a double use and signification in the Scriptures First to reprehend to rebuke to correct with Authority with Severity So David Ne in furore arguas me O Lord rebuke me not in thine dnger Psal 6.1 And secondly to convince to prove to make a thing evident by undeniable inferences and necessary consequences So in the instructions of Gods Ministers the first is To reprove 2 Tiâ— and then To rebuke So that reproving is an act of a milder sense then rebuking is Auguâ—â— S. Augustine interprets these words twice in his Works and in the first place he followes the first signification of the word That the Holy Ghost should proceed when he came by power by severity against the world But though that sense will stand well with the first act of this Reproofe That he shall Reprove that is reprehend the world of sin yet it will not seeme so properly said To reprehend the world of Righteousnesse or of Judgement for how is Righteonsnesse and Judgement the subject of reprehension Therefore S. Augustine himselfe in the other place where he handles these words imbraces the second sense Hoc est arguere mundum ostendere vera esse quae non credidit This is to reprove the world to convince the world of her errours and mistakings And so scarce any excepted doe all the Ancient Expositors take it according to that All things are reproved of the light Ephes 5.13 and so made manifest The light does not reprehend them not rebuke them not chide not upbraid them but to declare them to manifest them to make the world see clearely what they are this is to reprove That reproving then Elenchus which is warrantable by the Holy Ghost is not a sharp increpation a bitter proceeding proceeding onely out of power and authority but by inlightning and informing and convincing the understanding The signification of this word which the Holy Ghost uses here for reproofe Elenchos is best deduced and manifested to us by the Philosopher who had so much use of the word who expresses it thus Elenchus est Syllogismus contra contraria opinantem A reproofe is a proofe a proofe by way of argument against another man who holds a contrary opinion All the pieces must be laid together For first it must be against an opinion and then an opinion contrary to truth and then such an opinion held insisted upon maintained and after all this the reproofe must lie in argument not in force not in violence First it must come so farre Opinio as to be an opinion which is a middle station betweene ignorance and knowledge for knowledge excludes all doubting all hesitation opinion does not so but opinion excludes indifferency and equanimity I am rather inclined to one side then another Lactant. Bernard when I am of either opinion Id opinatur quisque quod nescit A man may have an opinion that a thing is so and yet not know it S. Bernard proposes three wayes for our apprehending Divine things first understanding which relies upon reason faith which relies upon supreme Authority and opinion which relies upon probability and verisimilitude Now there may arise in some man some mistakings some mis-apprehensions of the sense of a place of Scripture there may arise some scruple in a case of conscience there may arise some inclinations to some person of whose integrity and ability I have otherwise had experience there may arise some Paradoxicall imaginations in my selfe and yet these never attaine to the setlednesse of an opinion but they float in the fancy and are but waking dreames and such imaginations and fancies and dreames receive too much honour in the things and too much favour in the persons if they be reproved or questioned or condemned or disputed against For often times even a condemnation nourishes the pride of the author of an opinion and besides begets a dangerous compassion in spectators and hearers and then from pitying his pressures and sufferings who is condemned men come out of that pity to excuse his opinions and from excusing them to incline towards them And so that which was but straw at first by being thus blown by vehement disputation sets fire upon timber and drawes men of more learning and authority to side and mingle themselves in these impertinencies Every fancy should not be so
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
one or few such fooles but emphaticall because that foole that any way denies God is the foole the veryest foole of all kinds of foolishnesse Now as God himselfe so his religion amongst us hath many enemies Enemies that deny God as Atheists And enemies that multiply gods that make many gods as Idolaters And enemies that deny those divers persons in the Godhead which they should confesse The Trinity as Jews and Turks So in his Religion and outward worship we have enemies that deny God his House that deny us any Church any Sacrament any Priesthood any Salvation as Papists And enemies that deny Gods house any furniture any stuffe any beauty any ornament any order as non-Conformitans And enemies that are glad to see Gods house richly furnished for a while that they may come to the spoile thereof as sacrilegious usurpers of Gods part But for Atheisticall enemies I call not upon them here to answer me Let them answer their own terrors and horrors alone at mid-night and tell themselves whence that proceeds if there be no God For Papisticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me Let them answer our Laws as well as our Preaching because theirs is a religion mixt as well of Treason as of Idolatry For our refractary and schismaticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me neither Let them answer the Church of God in what nation in what age was there ever seen a Church of that form that they have dreamt and beleeve their own dream And for our sacrilegious enemies let them answer out of the body of Story and give one example of prosperity upon sacriledge But leaving all these to that which hath heretofore or may hereafter be said of them I have bent my meditations for those dayes which this Terme will afford upon that which is the character and mark of all Christians in generall The Trinity the three Persons in one God not by way of subtile disputation as to persons that doubted but by way of godly declaration as to persons disposed to make use of it not as though I feared your faith needed it nor as though I hoped I could make your reason comprehend it but because I presume that the consideration of God the Father and his Power and the sins directed against God in that notion as the Father and the consideration of God the Son and his Wisedome and the sins against God in that apprehension the Son and the consideration of God the Holy Ghost and his Goodnesse and the sins against God in that acceptation may conduce as much at least to our edification as any Doctrine more controverted And of the first glorious person of this blessed Trinity the Almighty Father is this Text Blessed be God c. In these words Divisio the Apostle having tasted having been fed with the sense of the power and of the mercies of God in his gracious deliverance delivers a short Catechisme of all our duties So short as that there is but one action Benedicamus Let us blesse Nor but one object to direct that blessing upon Benedicamus Deum Let us blesse God It is but one God to exclude an Idolatrous multiplicity of Gods But it is one God notified and manifested to us in a triplicity of persons of which the first is literally expressed here That he is a Father And him we consider In Paternitate aeterna As he is the eternall Father Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ sayes our Text And then In Paternitate interna as we have the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father As he is Pater miserationum The Father of mercies And as he expresses these mercies by the seale and demonstration of comfort as he is the God of comfort and Totius consolationis Of all comfort Receive the summe of this and all that arises from it in this short Paraphrase The duty required of a Christian is Blessing Praise Thanksgiving To whom To God to God onely to the onely God There is but one But this one God is such◠tree as hath divers boughs to shadow and refresh thee divers branches to shed fruit upon thee divers armes to spread out and reach and imbrace thee And here hee visits thee as a Father From all eternity a Father of Christ Iesus and now thy Father in him in that which thou needest most A Father of mercy when thou wast in misery And a God of comfort when thou foundest no comfort in this world And a God of all comfort even of spirituall comfort in the anguishes and distresses of thy conscience Blessed bee God even the Father c. First then 1 Part. Benedictus the duty which God by this Apostle requires of man is a duty arising out of that which God hath wrought upon him It is not a consideration a contemplation of God sitting in heaven but of God working upon the earth not in the making of his eternall Decree there but in the execution of those Decrees here not in saying God knowes who are his and therefore they cannot faile but in saying in a rectified conscience God by his ordinary marks hath let me know that I am his and therefore I look to my wayes that I doe not fall S. Paul out of a religious sense what God had done for him comes to this duty to blesse him There is not a better Grammar to learne then to learne how to blesse God and therefore it may be no levity to use some Grammar termes herein God blesses man Dativè He gives good to him man blesses God Optativè He wishes well to him and he blesses him Vocativè He speaks well of him For though towards God as well as towards man 1 Sam. 25.27 2 King 5.15 reall actions are called blessings so Abigail called the present which she brought to David A blessing and so Naaman called that which he offered to Elisha A blessing though reall sacrifices to God and his cause sacrifices of Almes sacrifices of Armes sacrifices of Money sacrifices of Sermons advancing a good publique cause may come under the name of blessing yet the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a blessing in speech in discourse in conference in words in praise in thanks The dead doe not praise thee sayes David The dead men civilly dead allegorically dead dead and buryed in an uselesse silence in a Cloyster or Colledge may praise God but not in words of edification as it is required here and they are but dead and doe not praise God so and God is not the God of the dead but of the living of those that delight to praise and blesse God and to declare his goodnesse We represent the Angels to our selves and to the world with wings they are able to flie and yet when Iacob saw them aseending and descending Gen. 28.12 even those winged Angels had a Ladder they went by degrees There is an immediate blessing of God by the heart but God
have of the plurality of the persons in the Scriptures And because we are not now in a Congregation that doubts it nor in a place to multiply testimonies we content our selves being already possest with the beliefe thereof with this illustration from the old Testament That the name of our one God is expressed in the plurall number in that place which we mentioned before where it is said Deut. 6.4 The Lord thy God is one God that is Elohim unus Dii one Gods And though as much as that seem to be said by God to Moses Eris Aaroni in Elohim Thou shalt be as Gods to Aaron Exod. 4.16 Yet that was because Moses was to represent God all God all the Persons in God and therefore it might as well be spoken plurally of Moses so as of God But because it is said Gods appeared unto Iacob And againe Dii Sancti ipse est Hee is the Holy Gods Gen. 35.7 Ios 24.19 Iob 35.10 Gen. 1.26 Gen. 3 22. And so also Vbi Deus factores mei Where is God my Makers And God sayes of himselfe Faciamus hominem and Factus est sicut unus ex nobis God sayes Let us make man and he sayes Man is become as one of us We imbrace humbly and thankfully and profitably this shall we call it Effigiationem ansarum This making out of handles Or Protuberationem mammarum This swelling out of breasts Or Germinationem gemmarum This putting forth of buds and blossomes and fruits by which we may apprehend and see and taste God himself so as his wisedome hath chosen to communicate himself to us in the notion and manifestation of divers persons Of which in this Text we lay hold on him by the first handle by the name of Father Blessed be God even the Father c. Now we consider in God Pater Essentialiter a two-fold Paternity a two-fold Father-hood One as he is Father to others another as to us And the first is two-fold too One essentially by which he is a Father by Creation and so the name of Father belongs to all the three Persons in the Trinity Eph. 4.6 for There is one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Which is spoken of God gathered into his Essence and not diffused into persons Esay 9.6 In which sense the Son of God Christ Jesus is called Father Vnto us a Son is given and his name shall be The Everlasting Father And to this Father even to the Son of God Mat. 9.2 in this sense are the faithfull made sons Son be of good cheare thy sins are forgiven thee Mark 5.34 sayes Christ to the Paralytique And Daughter thy faith hath made thee whole sayes he to the woman with the bloody issue Thus Christ is a Father And thus Per filiationem vestigii By that impression of God which is in the very beeing of every creature Iob 38.28 God that is the whole Trinity is the Father of every creature as in Iob Quis pluviae Pater Hath the raine a Father or who hath begotten the drops of dew And so in the Prophet Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one Father hath not one God created us But the second Paternity is more mysterious in it selfe and more precious to us as he is a Father not by Creation but by Generation Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ Now Personaliter Generationem istam quis enarrabit who shall declare this generation who shall tell us how it was who was there to fee it Since the first-borne of all creatures the Angels Esay 53.8 who are almost sixe thousand yeares old and much elder in the opinion of many of the Fathers who think the Angels to have been created long before the generall Creation since I say these Angels are but in their swathing clouts but in their cradle in respect of this eternall generation who was present Quis enarrabit who shall tell us how it was who shall tell us when it was when it was so long before any time was as that when time shall be no more and that after an end of time wee shall have lived infinite millions of millions of generations in heaven yet this generation of the Son of God was as long before that immortall life as that Immortality and Everlastingnesse shall be after this life It cannot be expressed nor conceived how long our life shall be after nor how long this generation was before This is that Father Nazian that hath a Son and yet is no elder then that Son for he is à Patre but not Post Patrem but so from the Father as he is not after the Father He hath from him Principium Originale Biel. but not Initiale A root from whence he sprung but no spring-time when he sprung out of that root Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ Wherefore blessed Quia potuit Because he could have a Son Non generavit potentia sed natura God did not beget this Son because he had alwayes a power to doe so for then if this Son had ever been but in Potentia onely in such a condition as that he might have been then this had not been an eternall generation for if there were a time when only he might have been at that time he was not He is not blessed then because cause he could is he blessed that is to be blessed by us because he would beget this Son Non generavit voluntate sed natura God did not beget this Son then when he would that is had a will to doe so for if his will determined it now I will doe it then till that there had been no Son and so this generation had not been eternall neither But when it was or how it was Turatiocinare ego mirer sayes S. Augustine Let others discourse it let me admire it Tu disputa ego credam Let others dispute it let me beleeve it And when all is done you have done disputing and I have done wondring that that brings it nearer then either is this That there is a Paternity notby Creation by which Christ and the Holy Ghost are Fathers too nor by generation by which God is though inexpressibly the Father even of our Lord Jesus Christ but by Adoption as in Christ Jesus he is Father of us all notified in the next appellation Pater miserationum The Father of mercies In this alone Pater we discerne the whole Trinity here is the Father and here is Mercy which mercy is in the Son And the effect of this mercy is the Spirit of Adoption by which also we cry Rem 8.15 Abba Father too When Christ would pierce into his Father and melt those bowels of compassion he enters with that word Abba Father All things are possible to thee Mark 14.36 take away this Cup from me When Christ apprehended an absence a
dereliction on Gods part he cals not upon him by this name not My Father but My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Mat. 27.37 But when he would incline him to mercy mercy to others mercy to enemies he comes in that name wherein he could be denied nothing Father Father forgive them they know not what they doe He is the Lord of Hosts Luke 23.24 There hee scatters us in thunder transports us in tempests enwraps us in confusion astonishes us with stupefaction and consternation The Lord of Hosts but yet the Father of mercies There he receives us into his own bowels fills our emptinesse with the blood of his own Son and incorporates us in him The Lord of Hosts but the Father of mercy Sometimes our naturall Fathers die before they can gather any state to leave us but he is the immortall Father and all things that are as soone as they were were his Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to waste and dissipate that state which was left them to be left us but this is the Father out of whose hands and possession nothing can be removed and who gives inestimably and yet remaines inexhaustible Sometimes our naturall Fathers live to need us and to live upon us but this is that Father whom we need every minute and requires nothing of us but that poore rent of Benedictus sit Blessed praised glorified be this Father This Father of mercies of mercies in the plurall David calls God Miserationum Psal 59.17 Numb 14.19 Psal 51.1 Misericordiam suam His mercy all at once God is the God of my mercy God is all ours and all mercy Pardon this people sayes Moses Secundùm magnitudinem misericordiae According to the greatnesse of thy mercy Pardon me sayes David Have mercy upon me Secùndum multitudinem misericordiarum According to the multitude of thy mercies His mercy in largenesse in number extends over all It was his mercy that we were made and it is his mercy that we are not consumed David calls his mercy Multiplicatam and Mirificatam Psal 17.7 Psal 31.22 It is manifold and it is marvellous miraculous Shew thy marvellous loving kindnesse and therefore David in severall places carries it Super judicium above his judgements Super Coelos above the heavens Super omnia opera above all his works And for the multitude of his mercies for we are now upon the consideration of the plurality thereof Pater miserationum Father of mercies put together that which David sayes Psal 89.50 Vbi misericordiae tuae antiquae Where are thy ancient mercies His mercy is as Ancient as the Ancient of dayes who is God himselfe And that which another Prophet sayes Omni mane His mercies are new every morning And put betweene these two betweene Gods former and his future mercies his present mercy in bringing thee this minute to the consideration of them and thou hast found Multiplicatam and Mirificatam manifold and wondrous mercy But carry thy thoughts upon these three Branches of his mercy and it will be enough First that upon Adams fall and all ours in him he himselfe would think of such a way of mercy as from Adam to that man whom Christ shall finde alive at the last day no man would ever have thought of that is that to shew mercy to his enemies he would deliver his owne his onely his beloved Son to shame to torments to death That hee would plant Germen Iehovae in semine mulieris The blossome the branch of God in the seed of the woman This mercy in that first promise of that Messias was such a mercy as not onely none could have undertaken but none could have imagined but God himselfe And in this promise we were conceived In visceribus Patris In the bowels of this Father of mercies In these bowels in the womb of this promise we lay foure thousand yeares The blood with which we were fed then was the blood of the Sacrifices and the quickning which we had there was an inanimation by the often refreshing of this promise of that Messias in the Prophets But in the fulnesse of time that infallible promise came to an actuall performance Christ came in the flesh and so Venimus ad partum In his birth we were borne and that was the second mercy in the promise in the performance he is Pater miserationum Father of mercies And then there is a third mercy as great That he having sent his Son and having re-assumed him into heaven againe he hath sent his Holy Spirit to governe his Church and so becomes a Father to us in that Adoption in the application of Christ to us by the Holy Ghost and this as that which is intended in the last word Deus totius Consolationis The God of all Comfort I may know that there is a Messias promised and yet be without comfort Consolatio in a fruitlesse expectation The Jews are so in their dispersion When the Jews will still post-date the commings of Christ when some of them say There was no certaine time of his comming designed by the Prophets And others There was a time but God for their sins prorogued it And others againe God kept his word the Messiah did come when it was promised he should come but for their sins he conceales himselfe from Manifestation when the Jews will postdate his first comming and the Papists will antidate his second comming in a comming that cannot become him That he comes even to his Saints in torment before he comes in glory That when he comes to them at their dissolution at their death he comes not to take them to Heaven but to cast them into one part of hell That the best comfort which a good man can have at his death is but Purgatory Miserable comforters are they all How faire a beame of the joyes of Heaven is true comfort in this life If I know the mercies of God exhibited to others and feele them not in my self I am not of Davids Church Psal 59.1 not of his Quire I cannot sing of the mercies of God I may see them and I may sigh to see the mercies of God determined in others and not extended to me but I cannot sing of the mercies of God if I find no mercy But when I come to that Psal 94.19 Consolationes tuae laetificaverunt In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soule then the true Comforter is descended upon me and the Holy Ghost hath over-shadowed me Mat. 5.4 and all that shall be borne of me and proceed from me shall be holy Blessed are they that mourne sayes Christ But the blessednesse is not in the mourning but because they shall be comforted Blessed am I in the sense of my sins and in the sorrow for them but blessed therefore because this sorrow leads me to my reconciliation to God and the consolation of his Spirit Whereas if I sinke in this sorrow in this dejection
so but it is also to declare that there is none just and righteous Jerem. 5.1 Run to and fro through the streets of Ierusalem sayes God in the Prophet and seeke in the broad places If yee can finde a man if there be any that executeth Iudgement that seeketh Truth and I will pardon it Where God does not intimate that he were unjust if he did not spare those that were unjust but he declares the generall flood and inundation of unrighteousnesse upon Earth That upon Earth there is not a righteous man to be found If God had gone no farther in his promise to man then that if there were one righteous man he would save all this in effect had been nothing for there was never any man righteous in that sense and acceptation He promised and sent one who was absolutely righteous and for his sake hath saved us To collect all Conclusio and bind up all in one bundle and bring it home to your own bosomes remember That though he appeared in men it was God that appeared to Abraham Though men preach though men remit sins though men absolve God himself speakes and God works and God seales in those men Remember that nothing appeared to Abrahams apprehension but men yet Angels were in his presence Though we binde you not to a necessity of beleeving that every man hath a particular Angel to assist him enjoy your Christian liberty in that and think in that point so as you shall find your devotion most exalted by thinking that it is or is not so yet know that you do all that you doe in the presence of Gods Angels And though it be in it selfe and should be so to us a stronger bridle to consider that we doe all in the presence of God who sees clearer then they for he sees secret thoughts and can strike immediately which they cannot do without commission from him yet since the presence of a Magistrate or a Preacher or a father or a husband keeps men often from ill actions let this prevaile something with thee to that purpose That the Angels of God are alwayes present though thou discerne them not Remember that though Christ himself were not amongst the three Angels yet Abraham apprehended a greater dignity and gave a greater respect to one then to the rest but yet without neglecting the rest too Apply thy selfe to such Ministers of God and such Physitians of thy soule as thine owne conscience tels thee doe most good upon thee but yet let no particular affection to one defraud another in his duties nor empaire another in his estimation And remember too That though Gods appearing thus in three persons be no irrefragable argument to prove the Trinity against the Jews yet it is a convenient illustration of the Trinity to thee that art a Christian And therefore be not too curious in searching reasons and demonstrations of the Trinity but yet accustome thy selfe to meditations upon the Trinity in all occasions and finde impressions of the Trinity in the three faculties of thine owne soule Thy Reason thy Will and thy Memory and seeke a reparation of that thy Trinity by a new Trinity by faith in Christ Jesus by hope of him and by a charitable delivering him to others in a holy and exemplar life Descend thou into thy selfe as Abraham ascended to God and admit thine owne expostulations as God did his Let thine own conscience tell thee not onely thy open and evident rebellions against God but even the immoralities and incivilities that thou dost towards men in scandalizing them by thy sins And the absurdities that thou committest against thy selfe in sinning against thine owne reason And the uncleannesses and consequently the treachery that thou committest against thine owne body and thou shalt see that thou hadst been not onely in better peace but in better state and better health and in better reputation a better friend and better company if thou hadst finned lesse because some of thy sins have been such as have violated the band of friendship and some such as have made thy company and conversation dangerous either for tentation or at least for defamation Tell thy selfe that thou art the Judge as Abraham told God that he was and that if thou wilt judge thy selfe thou shalt scape a severer judgement He told God that he was Judge of all the earth Judge all that earth that thou art Judge both thy kingdomes thy soule and thy body Judge all the Provinces of both kingdomes all the senses of thy body and all the faculties of thy soule and thou shalt leave nothing for the last Judgement Mingle not the just and the unjust together God did not so Doe not thinke good and bad all one Doe not think alike of thy sins and of thy good deeds as though when Gods grace had quickned them still thy good works were nothing thy prayers nothing thine almes nothing in the sight and acceptation of God But yet spare not the wicked for the just continue not in thy beloved sin because thou makest God amends some other way And when all is done as in God towards Abraham his mercy was above all so after all Miserere animae tuae Be inercifull to thine owne soule And when the effectuall Spirit of God hath spoken peace and comfort and sealed a reconciliation to God to thy soule rest in that blessed peace and enter into no such new judgement with thy selfe againe as should overcome thine own Mercy with new distractions or new suspitions that thy Repentance was not accepted or God not fully reconciled unto thee God because he judges all the earth cannot doe wrong If thou judge thy earth and earthly affections so as that thou examine clearly and judge truly thou dost not doe right if thou extend not Mercy to thy selfe if thou receive not and apply not cheerfully and confidently to thy soul that pardon and remission of all thy sins which the holy Ghost in that blessed state hath given thee commission to pronounce to thine owne soul and to seale with his seale SERM. XLIII Preached at S. Dunstans upon Trinity-Sunday 1624. MAT. 3.17 And lo A voyce came from heaven saying This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased IT hath been the custome of the Christian Church to appropriate certaine Scriptures to certaine Dayes for the celebrating of certaine Mysteries of God or the commemorating of certaine benefits from God They who consider the age of the Christian Church too high or too low too soone or too late either in the cradle as it is exhibited in the Acts of the Apostles or bed-rid in the corruptions of Rome either before it was come to any growth when Persecutions nipped it or when it was so over-growne as that prosperity and outward splendor swelled it They that consider the Church so will never finde a good measure to direct our religious worship of God by for the outward Liturgies and Ceremonies of the Church But as
it as upon a duty in this way humbly and patiently and laboriously to walke towards him without stopping upon any thing in this world either preferments on the right or disgraces on the left hand for a Cart may stop us as well as a Coach low things as well as high with as much trouble and more anoyance Which is more especially intended in the last words of the Text Firmabo super te oculos meos I will settle my providence fixe mine eye upon thee I will guide thee with mine eye Thus farre hath our blessed Lord assured us That he will make us understand 3 Part. which is his Instruction de credendis what to Beleeve And that he will teach us to walke in his way which is his Instruction de agendis what to Doe how to avoide tentations This last is That hee will guide us with his eye which is his Instruction de sperandis what wee are to Hope for at his hand if in this way we doe stumble or fall into some sinnes of infirmities But it is but de sperandis not de praesumendis when by infirmity thou art fallen thy Hope must begin then but if the Hope begun before so as thou fellest upon hope that God would raise thee then it was presumption and there the Lords eye shuts in and guides thee no longer Otherwise he directs thee with his eye that is with his gracious and powerfull looking upon thee to the meanes of thy recovery Wee heare of no blowes wee heare of no chiding from him towards Peter but all that is said is Luke 22.65 The Lord turned back and looked upon Peter and then he remembred his case The eye of the Lord lightned his darknesse The eye of the Lord thawed those three crusts of Ice which were growne over his heart in his three denials of his Master A Candle wakes some men as well as a noyse The eye of the Lord works upon a good soule as much as his hand and hee is as much affected with this consideration The Lord sees me as with this The Lord strikes me Wee reade in Naturall story of some creatures Qui solo oculorum aspectu fovent ova Plin. l. 10. c. 9. which hatch their egges onely by looking upon them What cannot the eye of God produce and hatch in us Plus est quod probatur aspectu quà m quod sermone Ambrose A man may seeme to commend in words and yet his countenance shall dispraise His word infuses good purposes into us but if God continue his eye upon us it is a farther approbation for He is a God of pure eyes and will not looke upon the wicked Deut. 11.12 This land doth the Lord thy God care for and the eyes of the Lord are alwayes upon it from the beginning of the yeare even to the end thereof What a cheerefull spring what a fruitfull Autumne hath that soule that hath the eye of the Lord alwayes upon her The eye of the Lord upon mee makes midnight noone and S. Lucies day S. Barnabies It makes Capricorne Cancer and the Winters the Summers Solstice The eye of the Lord sanctifies nay more then sanctifies glorifies all the Eclipses of dishonour makes Melancholy cheerefulnesse diffidence assurance and turnes the jealousie of the sad soule into infallibility Upon his people his eye shined in the wildernesse his eye singled them in Egypt and in Babylon they were sustained by his eye They were and we are Ezra 5.5 Psal 33.18 The eye of their God was upon the Elders of Israel And Behold the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him The Proverb is not onely as old as Aristotle Oculus domini and Pes domini The eye of the Master fattens the horse and the foot of the Master marles the ground but it is as old as the Creation God saw all that he had made and so it was very good It was visio approbationis Hieron and his approbation was the exaltation thereof This guiding then with the eye we consider to be his particular care and his personall providence upon us in his Church For a man may be in the Kings presence and yet not in his eye and so he may in Gods Gods whole Ordinance in his Church is Gods face For that is the face of God by which God is manifested to us But then August that eye in that face by which he promises to guide us in this Text is that blessed Spirit of his by whose operation he makes that grace which does evermore accompany his Ordinances effectuall upon us The whole Congregation sees God face to face in the Service in the Sermon in the Sacrament but there is an eye in that face an eye in that Service an eye in that Sermon an eye in that Sacrament a piercing and an operating Spirit that lookes upon that soule and foments and cherishes that soule who by a good use of Gods former grace is become fitter for his present And this guiding us with his eye manifests it selfe in these two great effects Convertit conversion to him and union with him First his eye works upon ours His eye turnes ours to looke upon him Still it is so expressed with an Ecce Behold Psal 33.18 the eye of the Lord is upon all them that feare him His eye cals ours to behold that And then our eye cals upon his to observe our cheerefull readinesse Behold Psal 123.2 as the eye of a servant lookes to the hand of his Master so our eyes waite upon the Lord our God till he have mercy upon us Where the Donec Vntill is an everlasting Donec as the blessed Virgins was A Virgin Donec till she brought forth her first Son and a Virgin ever after So our eyes waite upon God till hee have mercy that is while he hath it and that he may continue his mercy for it was his mercifull eye that turned ours to him and it is the same mercy that we waite upon him And then when as a well made Picture doth alwaies looke upon him that lookes upon it this Image of God in our soule is turned to him by his turning to it it is impossible we should doe any foule any uncomely thing in his presence Will any man solicite a Wife or a Daughter and call the Father or Husband to looke on Will any man breake open thy house in the night and first wake thee and call thee up Can any man give his body to uncleannesse his tongue to prophanenesse his heart to covetousnesse and at the same time consider that his pure and his holy and his bountifull God hath his eye upon him Can he looke upon God in that line in that Angle upon God looking upon him and dishonour him Psal 25.15 August Upon those words of David Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord Quasi diceretur quid agitur depedibus as though it were objected Is all thy care of thine
to call it Peace in the Church and peace in the State when Gods enemies though they be not rooted out though they be not disposed to a hearty Allegeance and just Obedience yet they must be subject they must submit themselves whether they wil or no and though they wil wish no good yet they shall be able to doe no harme For the Holy Ghost declares this to be an exercise of power of Gods power of the greatnesse of Gods power that his enemies submit themselves though with a fained obedience SERMONS Preached at COURT AND ELSE-VVHERE VPON Severall Occasions SERM. LXX Preached at VVhite-hall April 8. 1621. PROV 25.16 Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it THere is a temporall unsatiablenesse of riches and there is a spirituall unsatiablenesse of sin The first Covetousnesse that of riches the Apostle cals The roote of all evill but the second Covetousnesse that of sin is the fruit of all evill for that is The treasure of Gods wrath as the Apostle speaks when he makes our former sins the mother of future sins and then our future sins the punishments of former As though this World were too little to satisfie man men are come to discover or imagine new worlds severall worlds in every Planet and as though our Fathers heretofore and we our selves too had beene but dull and ignorant sinners we thinke it belongs to us to perfect old inventions and to sin in another height and excellency then former times did as though sin had had but a minority and an infancy till now Though the pride of the Prince of Tyrus were ever in some Tyrans who sayes there I am a god and sit in the seat of God in the midst of the Seas Ezek. 28.2 and am wiser then Daniel Yet there is a Sea above these seas a power above this power a spirituall pride above this temporall pride one so much wiser then Daniel as that he is as wise as the Holy Ghost The world hath ever had levities and inconstancies Ecclus. 27.11 and the foole hath changed as the Moone the same men that have cryed Hosanna are ready to cry Crucifige but as in Iobs Wife in the same mouth the same word was ambiguous whether it were blesse God or curse God out of the word we cannot tell so are the actions of men so ambiguous as that we cannot conclude upon them men come to our Prayers here and pray in their hearts here in this place that God would induce another manner of Prayer into this place and so pray in the Congregation that God would not heare the prayers of the Congregation There hath alwaies beene ambiguity and equivocation in words but now in actions and almost every action will admit a diverse sense And it was the Prophets complaint of old You have multiplied your fornications Ezek. 16. and yet are not satisfied but we wonder why the Prophet should wonder at that for the more we multiplie temporally or spiritually the lesse we are satisfied Others have thought that our soules sinned before they came into the world and that therefore they are here as in a prison but they are rather here as in a Schoole for if they had studied sin in another world before they practise it here If they have practised it before they teach it now they lead and induce others into sin But this consideration of our insatiablenesse in sin in my purpose I seposed for the end of this houre But who knowes whether your patience that you will heare or who knowes whether yours or my life that you can heare shall last to the end of this houre and therefore it is an excusable anticipation to have begun with this spirituall covetousnesse of sin though our first paiment be to be made in the literall sense of the text A reprehension and in it a Counsaile against our generall insatiablenesse of the temporall things of this world Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou bee filled therewith and vomit it In which words Divisio there being first a particular Compellation Tu hast thou found it it remembers thee that there be a great many that have not found it but lack that which thou aboundest in And Invenisti thou hast not inherited it nor merited it thou hast but found it and for that which thou hast found it is Honey sweetness but it is but Honey which easily becomes choler and gall and bitternesse Such as it is Comede thou maist eat it and eat it safely it is not unwholesome but Comede sufficientiam eat no more then is sufficient And in that let not the servant measure himselfe by his Master nor the subject by the King nor the private man by the Magistrate but Comede sufficientiam tuam eat that which is sufficient for thee for more then that will fill thee over-fill thee perchance not so full as thou wouldst bee yet certainly so full as that there will bee no roome in thee for better things and then thou wilt vomit nay perchance thou must vomit the malice and plots of others shall give thee a vomit And such a vomit shall bee Evacuans an exinanition leave thee empty and Immundum an uncleannesse leave thee in scorne and contempt and Periculosum a danger breake a veine a veine at the heart breake thy heart it selfe that thou shalt never recover it Hast thou found honey eat so much as is sufficient for thee lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it First then Tu. for that Compellation Tu hast thou found it It is a word first of familiarity and then a word of particularity It is a degree of familiarity that God hath notified himselfe to us in severall Persons that hee hath come so neere to our comprehension as to be considered not onely as an universall and infinite God but as a Father and as a Sonne and opened himselfe unto us in these Notions Tu Pater Tu Fili Thou O Father and Thou O Sonne have mercy upon us A Constable or Beadle will not bee spoke to so to be thou'd and any Person in the Trinity the whole Trinity together is content with it Psal 92.8 Take God altogether and at highest Tu altissimus Thou Lord art most high for evermore Psal 93.2 Take him from before any beginning Tu à seculo Thy throue is established of old and thou art from everlasting Take him from beyond all ending Tu autem permanes Psal 102.27 Thou art the same and thy yeares shall have no end In which we goe not about to condemne or correct the civill manner of giving different titles to different ranks of men but to note the slipperiness of our times where titles flow into one another and lose their distinctions when as the Elements are condensed into one another ayre condensed into water and that into earth so an obsequious
addition of comelinesse His aspect was cheerfull and such as gave a silent testimony of a cleere knowing soule and of a conscience at peace with it selfe His melting eye shewed he had a soft heart full of noble pity of too brave a spirit to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others His fancie was un-imitable high equalled by his great wit both being made usefull by a commanding judgement His mind was liberall and unwearied in the search of knowledge with which his vigorous soule is now satisfied and employed in a continuall praise of that God that first breathed it into his active body which once was a Temple of the holy Ghost and is now become a small quantity of Christian dust But I shall see it re-inanimated Iz Wa IOHANNES DONNE SAC THEOL PROFESSOR POST VARIA STUDIA QVIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SPIR S ti MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS IACOBI ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS Aº SUI JESU 1614. ET SUAE AETATIS 42. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIAE INDUTUS XXVII NOVEMBRIS 1621. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus Nomen est ORIENS A Table directing to the severall Texts of SCRIPTURE handled by the Author in this BOOK SERM. I. COLOS. 1.19 20. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulnesse dwell And having made peace through the bloud of his Crosse by Him to reconcile all things to himselfe by Him whether they be things in earth or things in heaven page 1 SERM. II. ESAIAH 7.14 Therefore the Lord shall give you a signe Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and shall call his name Immanuel pa. 11 SERM. III. GALAT. 4.4 5. But when the fulnesse of time was come God sent forth his Sonne made of a woman made under the Law to redeeme them that were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of Sons pa. 20 SERM. IV. LUKE 2.29 30. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word For mine eyes have seene thy salvation pa. 29. SERM. V. EXOD. 4.13 O my Lord send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send pa. 39 SERM. VI. Lord who hath beleeved our report pa. 52 SERM. VII JOHN 10.10 I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly pa. 62 SERM. VIII MAT. 5.16 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven pa. 77 SERM. IX ROM 13.7 Render therefore to all men their dues pa. 86 SERM. X. ROM 12.20 Therefore if thine enemie hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head pa. 96 SERM. XI MAT. 9.2 And Iesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsie My son be of good chear thy sins be forgiven thee pa. 102 SERM. XII MAT. 5.2 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God pa. 112 SERM. XIII JOB 16. ver 17 18 19. Not for any injustice in my hands Also my prayer is pure O earth cover thou not my bloud and let my cry have no place Also now behold my Witnesse is in heaven and my Record is on high pa. 127 SERM. XIV AMOS 5.18 Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord what have ye to doe with it the day of the Lord is darknesse and not light pa. 136 SERM. XV. 1 COR 15.26 The last Enemie that shall be destroyed is Death pa. 144 SERM. XVI JOHN 11.35 Iesus wept pa. 153 SERM. XVII MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God pa. 163 SERM. XVIII ACTS 2.36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly That God hath made that same Iesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ pa. 175 SERM. XIX APOC. 20.6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection pa. 183 SERM. XX. JOHN 5.28 29. Marvell not at this for the houre is comming in the which all that are in the graves shall heare his voice And shall come forth they that have done good unto the Resurrection of life And they that have done evill unto the Resurrection of damnation pa. 192 SERM. XXI 1 COR. 15.29 Else what shall they do that are baptized for dead If the dead rise not at all why are they then baptized for dead pa. 120 SERM. XXII HEB. 11.35 Women received their dead raised to life againe And others were tortured not accepting a deliverance that they might obtaine a better Resurrection pa. 213 SERM. XXIII 1 COR. 13.12 For now we see through a glasse darkly But then face to face Now I know in part But then I shall know even as also I am knowne pa. 224 SERM. XXIV JOB 4.18 Behold he put no trust in his Servants and his Angels he charged with folly pa. 233 SERM. XXV MAT. 28.6 He is not here for he is risen as he said Come See the place where the Lord lay pa. 242 SERM. XXVI 1 THES 4.17 Then we which are alive and remaine shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre and so shall we be ever with the Lord. pa. 254 SERM. XXVII PSAL. 89.47 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death pa. 267 SERM. XXVIII XXIX JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you pa. 277. 286 SERM. XXX JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you pa. 294 SERM. XXXI GEN. 1.2 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters pa. 303 SERM. XXXII 1 COR. 12.3 Also no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost p. 312 SERM. XXXIII ACTS 10.44 While Peter yet spake these words the holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word pa. 321 SERM. XXXIV ROM 8.16 The Spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God pa. 332 SERM. XXXV MAT. 12.31 Wherefore I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men But the Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men pa. 341 SERM. XXXVI XXXVII 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 pa. 351. 361 SERM. XXXVIII 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 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
of that so that that be no occasion of neglecting due respects to others This being then thus fixed An Trinitas that Abraham received them as men that they were in truth no other then Angels there remaines for the shutting up of this Part this Consideration whether after Abraham came to the knowledge that they were Angels he apprehended not an intimation of the three Persons of the Trinity by these three Angels Whether Gods appearing to Abraham which Moses speaks of in the first verse were manifested to him Ver. 13. Ver. 17. when Sarah laughed in her selfe and yet they knew that she laughed Or whether it were manifested when they imparted their purpose concerning Sodome for in both these places they are called neither men nor Angels but by that name The Lord and that Lord which is Jehovah whether I say when Abraham discerned them to be such Angels as God appeared in them and spoke and wrought by them whether then as he discerned the Divinity he discerned the Trinity in them too is the question I know the explicite Doctrine of the Trinity was not easie to be apprehended then as it is not easie to be expressed now It is a bold thing in servants to inquire curiously into their Masters Pedigree whether he be well descended or well allied It is a bold thing too to inquire too curiously into the eternall generation of Christ Jesus or the eternall procession of the Holy Ghost When Gregory Nazianzen was pressed by one to assigne a difference between those words Begotten and Proceeding Dic tu mihi sayes he quid sit Generatie ego dicam tibi quid sit Processio ut ambo insaniamus Doe thou tell me what this Begetting is and then I will tell thee what this Proceeding is and all the world will finde us both mad for going about to expresse inexpressible things And as every manner of phrase in expressing or every comparison does not manifest the Trinity so every place of Scripture which the Fathers and later men have applied to that purpose does not prove the Trinity And therefore those men in the Church who have cryed downe that way of proceeding to goe about to prove the Trinty out of the first words of Genesis Creavit Dii That because God in the plurall is there joyned to a Verb in the singular therefore there is a Trinity in Unity or to prove the Trinity out of this place that because God who is but one appeared to Abraham in three Persons therefore there are three Persons in the God-head those men I say who have cryed downe such manner of arguments have reason on their side when these arguments are imployed against the Jews for for the most part the Jews have pertinent and sufficient answers to those arguments But yet betweene them who make this place a distinct and a literall and a concluding argument to prove the Trinity and them who cry out against it that it hath no relation to the Trinity our Church hath gone a middle and a moderate way when by appointing this Scripture for this day when we celebrate the Trinity it declares that to us who have been baptized and catechised in the name and faith of the Trinity it is a refreshing it is a cherishing it is an awakening of that former knowledge which we had of the Trinity to heare that our onely God thus manifested himselfe to Abraham in three Persons Luther sayes well upon this text If there were no other proofe of the Trinity but this I should not believe the Trinity but yet sayes he This is Singulare testimonium de articule Trinitatis Though it be not a concluding argument yet it is a great testimony of the Trinity Fateor saies he historico sensu nihil concludi praeter hospitalitatem I confesse in the literall sense there is nothing but a recommendation of hospitality and therefore to the Jews I would urge no more out of this place Sed non sic agendum cum auditoribus ac cum adversariis We must not proceed alike with friends and with enemies There are places of Scriptures for direct proofes and there are places to exercise our meditation and devotion in things for which we need not nor aske not any new proofe And for exercise sayes Luther Rudi ligne ad formam gladii utimur We content our selves with a foyle or with a stick and we require not a sharpe sword To cut off the enemies of the Trinity we have two-edged swords that is undeniable arguments but to exercise our owne devotions we are content with similitudinary and comparative reasons He pursues it farther to good use The story doth not teach us That Sarah is the Christian Church and Hagar the Synagogue But S. Paul proves that from that story he proves it from thence Gal. 4.24 though he call it but an Allegory It is true that S. Augustine sayes Figuranihil probat A figure an Allegory proves nothing yet sayes he addit lucem ornat It makes that which is true in it selfe more evident and more acceptable And therefore it is a lovely and a religious thing to finde out Vestigia Trinitatis Impressions of the Trinity in as many things as we can and it is a reverent obedience to embrace the wisdome of our Church in renewing the Trinity to our Contemplation by the reading of this Scripture this day for even out of this Scripture Philo Iudaeus although hee knew not the true Trinity aright found a threefold manifestation of God to man in this appearing of God to Abraham for as he is called in this Story Iehova he considers him Fontem Essentiae To be the fountaine of all Being As hee is called Deus God he considers him in the administration of his Creatures in his providence As he is called Dominus Lord and King he considers him in the judgement glorifying and rejecting according to their merits So though hee found not a Trinity of Persons he found a Trinity of Actions in the Text Creation Providence and Judgement If he who knew no Trinity could finde one shall not we who know the true one meditate the more effectually upon that by occasion of this story Let us therefore with S. Bernard consider Trinitatem Creatricem and Trinitatem Creatam A Creating and a Created Trinity A Trinity which the Trinity in Heaven Father Son and Holy Ghost hath created in our soules Reason Memory and Will and that we have super-created added another Trinity Suggestion and Consent and Delight in sin And that God after all this infuses another Trinity Faith Hope and Charity by which we returne to our first for so far that Father of Meditation S. Bernard carries this consideration of the Trinity Since therefore the confession of a Trinity is that which distinguishes us from Jews and Turks and al other professions let us discerne that beame of the Trinity which the Church hath shewed us in this text and with the words of the Church