enough by it to meet Davids question Quis homo what man with Christs answer Ego homo I am the man in whom whosoever abideth shall not see death SERMONS Preached upon WHITSUNDAY SERMON XXVIII Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1627. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you THis day is this Scripture fulfilled in your cares saith our Saviour Christ having read for his Text that place of Esay Esay 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me And that day which we celebrate now was another Scripture fulfilled in their eares and in their eyes too For all Christs promises are Scripture They have all the Infallibility of Scripture And Christ had promised that that Spirit which was upon him when he preached should also be shed upon all his Apostles And upon this day he performed that promise when Acts 2.1 They being all with one accord in one place there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty winde and filled the house and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sate upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost And this very particular day in which we now commemorate and celebrate that performance of Christs promise in that Mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles are all these Scriptures performed again in our eares and eyes and in our hearts For in all those Congregations that meet this day to this purpose every Preacher hath so much of this Vnction which Vnction is Christ upon him as that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him and hath anointed him to that service And every Congregation and every good person in the Congregation hath so much of the Apostle upon him as that he feeles This Spirit of the Lord this Holy Ghost as he is this cloven tongue that sets one stemme in his eare and the other in his heart one stemme in his faith and the other in his manners one stemme in his present obedience and another in his perseverance one to rectifie him in the errours of life another to establish him in the agonies of death For the Holy Ghost as he is a Cloven tongue opens as a Compasse that reaches over all our Map over all our World from our East to our West from our birth to our death from our cradle to our grave and directs us for all things to all persons in all places and at all times The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things c. The blessed Spirit of God then the Holy Ghost the third person in the Trinity Divisio and yet not Third so as that either Second or First Son or Father were one minute before him in that Co-eternity that enwraps them all alike this Holy Ghost is here designed by Christ in his Person and in his Operation Who he is and what he does From whence he comes and why he comes And these two Hee and His office will constitute our two parts in this text In the first of which which will be the exercise of this day we shall direct you upon these severall Considerations First that the Person designed for this Mission and true Consolation is the Holy Ghost You shall not be without comfort saies Christ But mistake not false comforts for true nor deceitfull comforters for faithfull It is the Holy Ghost or it is none His Comfort or no comfort Him the Father will send sais Christ in a second branch though the Holy Ghost be God equall to the Father and so have all Missions and Commissions in his owne hand yet he applies himselfe accommodates himselfe to order and he comes when he hath a Mission from the Father and this Father saies Christ which is a third branch in this part sends him in my name Though he have as good interest in the name of Adonai which is all our Powerfull name and in the name of Iehâ—vah which is all our Essentiall name as I or my Father have the holy Ghost is as much Adonai and as much Ichovah as we are yet he is sent in my Name that is to proceed in my way to perfect my worke and to accomplish that Redemption by way of Application which I had wrought by way of Satisfaction And then lastly that which qualifies him for this Mission for this Imployment is his Title and Addition in this Text That he is the Comforter Discomfortable doctrines of a primary impossibility of Salvation to any man And that impossibility originally rooted in God and in Gods hating of that man and hating of that man not onely before he was a sinfull man but before he was any man at all not onely before an actuall making but before any intention to make him in Gods minde That God cannot save that man because he meant to damne him before he meant to make him are not the way in which the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father in the Sons Name For they that sent him and he that comes intend all that is done in that capacity as he is a Comforter as he is the Comforter And this is the Person and this will be the extent of our first part It is the Holy Ghost No deceiving Spirit He though as high as the Highest respects order attends a Mission staies till he be sent And thirdly he comes in anothers name in anothers way to perfect anothers worke And he does all in the quality and denomination of a Comforter not establishing not countenancing any discomfortable Doctrines First then 1. Part. Spiritus sanctus the Person into whose hands this whole worke is here recommended is the Holy Ghost The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The manifestation of the mysterle of the Trinity was reserved for Christ Some intimations in the Old but the publication only in the New Testament Some irradiations in the Law but the illustration onely in the Gospell Some emanation of beames as of the Sun before it is got above the Horizon in the Prophets but the glorious proceeding thereof and the attaining to a Meridianall height only in the Euangelists And then the doctrine of the Trinity thus reserved for the time of the Gospell at that time was thus declared So God loved the World as that he sent his Son So the Son loved the World as that he would come into it and die for it So the Holy Ghost loved the World as that he would dwell in it and inable men in his Ministery and by his gifts to apply this mercy of the Father and this merit of the Son to particular souls and to whole Congregations The mercy of the Father that he would study such a way for the Redemption of our souls as the death of his only Son a way which
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
lesse Idolum Aeternitatis Perpetuity is but an Idol compared to eternity And an Idol is nothing sayes the Apostle Our soules have a blessed perpetuity our soules shall no more see an end then God that hath no Beginning and yet our soules are very far from being eternal But those gods are so far from being eternall as that considered as Gods that is celebrated with Divine worship they are not perpetual Psal 48.14 Psal 102.11 But God is our God for ever and ever ever without beginning and ever without end My dayes are like a shadow that fadeth and I am withered like grasse but thou O Lord dost remaine for ever and thy remembrance from generation to generation It is a remaining and it is a remembrance which words denote a former being So that God our God and onely he is eternall To conclude all with that which must be the conclusion of all at last this Eternity of our God is expressed here in a phrase which designes and presents the last Judgement that is which was and is and is to come For though it be Qui fuit Which was and Qui est Which is yet it is not Qui futurus Which is to be but Qui venturus Which is to come that is to come to Judgement as it is in divers other places of this Book Qui venturus Which is to come For though the last judiciary Power the finall Judgement of the World be to be executed by Christ as he is the Son of Man visibly apparantly in that nature yet Christ is therein as a Delegate of the Trinity It is in the vertue and power of that Commission Data est mihi omnis potestas He hath all Power but that Power that he hath as the Son of man is given him For as the Creation of the World was so the Judgement of the World shal be the Act of the whole Trinity For if we consider the second Person in the Trinity in both his Natures as he redeemed us God and Man so it cannot be said of him that He was that is that he was eternally for there was a time when that God was not that man when that Person Christ was not constituted And therefore this word in our Text which was which is also true of the rest is not appropriated to Christ but intended of the whole Trinity So that it is the whole Trinity that is to come To come to Judgement And therefore let us reverently embrace such provisions and such assistances as the Church of God hath ordained for retaining and celebrating the Trinity in this particular contemplation as they are to come to Judgement And let us at least provide so far to stand upright in that Judgement as not to deny nor to dispute the Power or the Persons of those Judges A man may make a pety larceny high treason so If being called in question for that lesser offence he will deny that there is any such Power any such Soveraigne any such King as can call him in question for it he may turne his whipping into a quartering At that last Judgement we shall be arraigned for not cloathing not visiting not harbouring the poore For our not giving is a taking away our withholding is a withdrawing our keeping to our selves is a stealing from them But yet all this is but a pety larceny in respect of that high treason of infidelity of denying or doubting of the distinct Persons of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity To beleeve in God one great one universall one infinite power does but distinguish us from beasts For there are no men that do not acknowledge such a Power or that do not believe in it if they acknowledge it Even they that acknowledge the devill to be God beleeve in the devill But that which distinguishes man from man that which onely makes his Immortality a blessing for even Immortality is part of their damnation that are damned because it were an ease it were a kind of pardon to them to be mortall to be capable of death though after millions of generations is to conceive aright of the Power of the Father of the Wisdome of the Son of the Goodnesse of the Holy Ghost Of the Mercie of the Father of the Merits of the Son of the Application of the Holy Ghost Of the Creation of the Father of the Redemption of the Son of the Sanctification of the Holy Ghost Without this all notions of God are but confused all worship of God is but Idolatry all confession of God is but Atheisme For so the Apostle argues When you were without Christ you were without God Without this all morall vertues are but diseases Liberality is but a popular baite and not a benefit not an almes Chastity is but a castration and an impotency not a temperance not mortification Active valour is but a fury whatsoever we do and passive valour is but a stupidity whatsoever we suffer Naturall apprehensions of God though those naturall apprehensions may have much subtilty Voluntary elections of a Religion though those voluntary elections may have much singularity Morall directions for life though those morall directions may have much severity are all frivolous and lost if all determine not in Christianity in the Notion of God so as God hath manifested and conveyed himself to us in God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost whom this day we celebrate in the Ingenuity and in the Assiduity and in the Totality recommended in this text and in this acclamation of the text Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come SERM. XLV PREACHED VPON ALL-SAINTS DAY 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 THe solemnity and festivall with which the sonnes of the Catholique Church of God celebrate this day is much mistaken even by them who thinke themselves the onely Catholiques and celebrate this day with a devotion at least near to superstition in the Church of Rome For they take it for the most part to be a festivall instituted by the Church in contemplation of the Saints in heaven onely and so carry and employ all their devotions this day upon consideration of those Saints and invocation of them onely But the institution of this day had this occasion The heathen Romans who could not possibly house all their gods in severall Temples they were so over-many according to their Law Deos frugi colunto to serve God as cheape as they could made one Temple for them all which they called Pantheon To all the Gods This Temple Boniface the Pope begd of the Emperour Phocas And yet by the way this was some hundreds of
to a particular consideration of the waight of his sins nor to a comparison betwixt his sin and the mercy of God yet he comes to a Miserere mei Domine To a sudden ejaculation O Lord be mercifull unto me how dare I doe this in the sight of my God It is much such an affection as is sometimes in a Felon taken in the manner or in a condemned person brought to execution One desires the Justice to be good to him and yet he sees not how he can Baile him the other desires the Sherife to be good to him and yet he knowes he must doe his Office A sinner desires God to have mercy upon him and yet he hath not descended to particular considerations requisite in that businesse But yet this spirituall Malefactor is in better case then the temporall are They desire them to be good to them who can doe them no good but God is still able and still ready to reprieve them and to put off the execution of his Judgements which execution were to take them out of this world under the guiltinesse and condemnation of unrepented sins And therefore as S. Basil sayes In scala prima ascensio est ab humo Basal He that makes but one step up a staire though he be not got much nearer to the top of the house yet he is got from the ground and delivered from the foulnesse and dampnesse of that so in this first step of prayer Miscrere mei O Lord be mercifull unto me though a man be not established in heaven yet he is stept from the world and the miserable comforters thereof He that committeth sin is of the Devill Yea he is of him in a direct line 1 Iohn 3.8 and in the nearest degree he is the Off-spring the son of the Devill Iohn 8.44 Ex patre vestro estis sayes Christ You are of your father the Devill Now Qui se à maligni patris affinitate submoverit He that withdraws himself from such a Fathers house though he be not presently come to meanes to live of himself Basil Quam feliciter patre suo orbatus How blessed how happy an Orphan is he become How much better shall he finde it to be fatherlesse in respect of such a father then masterlesse in respect of such a Lord as he turnes towards in this first ejaculation and generall application of the soule Miserere mei Have mercy upon me O Lord so much mercy as to looke graciously towards me And therefore as it was by infinite degrees a greater work to make earth of nothing then to make the best creatures of earth So in the regeneration of a sinner when he is to be made up a new creature his first beginning his first application of himselfe to God is the hardest matter But though he come not presently to looke God fully in the face nor conceive not presently an assurance of an established reconciliation a fulnesse of pardon a cancelling of all former debts in an instant Though hee dare not come to touch God and lay hold of himselfe by receiving his Body and Blood in the Sacrament yet the Euangelist calls thee to a contemplation of much comfort to thy soule in certaine preparatory accesses and approaches Behold sayes he that is Look up and consider thy patterne Behold Mat. 9.20 a woman diseased came behinde Christ and touched the hem of his garment for she said in her self If I may but touch the hem of his garment onely I shall be whole She knew there was vertue to come out of his Body and she came as neare that as she durst she had a desire to speake but she went no farther but to speak to her selfe she said to her selfe sayes that Gospel if I may but touch c. But Christ Jesus supplied all performed all on his part abundantly Presently he turned about sayes the Text And this was not a transitory glance but a full sight and exhibiting of himselfe to the fruition of her eye that she might see him He saw her sayes S. Matthew Her he did not direct himselfe upon others and leave out her And then hee spake to her to overcome her bashfulnesse he called her Daughter to overcome her diffidence He bids her be of comfort for she had met a more powerfull Physitian then those upon whom she had spent her time and her estate one that could cure her one that would one that had already for so he sayes presently Thy faith hath made thee whole From how little a spark how great a fire From how little a beginning how great a proceeding She desired but the hem of his garment and had all him Beloved in him his power and his goodnesse ended not in her Mat. 14.36 All that were sick were brought that they might but touch the hem of his garment and as many as touched it were made whole It was farre from a perfect faith that made them whole To have a desire to touch his garment seemes not was not much Neither was that desire that was alwayes in themselves but in them that brought them But yet come thou so farre Come or be content to be brought to be brought by example to be brought by a statute to be brought by curiosity come any way to touch the hem of his garment yea the hem of his servant of Aarons garment and thou shalt participate of the sweet ointment which flowes from the head to the hem of the garment Come to the house of God his Church Joyne with the Congregation of the Saints Love the body and love the garments too that is The Order the Discipline the Decency the Unity of the Church Love even the hem of the garment that that almost touches the ground that is Such Ceremonies as had a good use in their first institution for raising devotion and are freed and purged from that superstition which as a rust was growne upon them though they may seeme to touch the earth that is to have been induced by earthly men and not immediate institutions from God yet love that hem of that garment those outward assistances of devotion in the Church Bring with thee a disposition to incorporate thy selfe with Gods people here and though thou beest not yet come to a particular consideration of thy sins and of the remedies Though that spirit that possesses thee that sin that governes thee lie still a while and sleepe under all the thunders which wee denounce from this place so that for a while thou beest not moved nor affected with all that is said yet Appropinquas nescis as S. Augustine said when he came onely out of curiosity to heare S. Ambrose preach at Milan Thou doest come nearer and nearer to God though thou discerne it not and at one time or other this blessed exorcisme this holy Charme this Ordinance of God the word of God in the mouth of his servant shall provoke and awaken that spirit of security in
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
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
he alone for the salvation of all men as it is expresly said for this word in our Text they hath no limitation I came I alone that they all they might be the better Some of the ancient Fathers delivering the mercies of God so Illis omnibus as the articles of our Church enjoyne them to bee delivered that is generally as they are delivered in the Scriptures have delivered them so over-generally that they have seemed loth to thinke the devill himselfe excluded from all benefit of Christs comming Some of the later Authors in the Roman Church who as pious as they pretend to be towards the Fathers are apter to discover the nakednesse of the Fathers then we are have noted in Iustin Martyr and in Epiphanius and in Clement of Alexandria and in Oecumenius and Oecumenius is no single Father but Pater patratus a manifold Father a complicated father a Father that collected Fathers and even in S. Ierome himselfe and S. Ambrose too some inclinations towards that opinion that the devill retaining still his faculty of free will is therefore capable of repentance and so of benefit by this comming of Christ And those Authors of the Roman Church that modifie the matter and excuse the Fathers herein excuse them no other way but this that though that opinion and doctrine of those Fathers bee not true in it selfe yet it was never condemned by any Councell nor by any ancient Father So very far did very many goe in enlarging the mercies of God in Christ to all But waiving this over-large extention and profusion thereof and directing it upon a more possible and a more credible object that is Man S. Cyril of Alexandria speaking of the possibility of the salvation of all men saies by way of objection to himselfe Omnes non credunt How can all be saved since all doe not beleeve but saies he Because actually they do not beleeve is it therefore impossible they should beleeve And for actuall beleefe saies he though all doe not yet so many doe utfacilè qui pereant superent that by Gods goodnesse more are saved then lost saies that Father of tender and large bowels Moses S. Cyril And howsoever he may seeme too tender and too large herein yet it is a good peece of counsaile which that Rabbi whom I named before gives Ne redarguas ca falsitatis de quorum contrariis nulla est demonstratio Be not aptto call any opinion false or hereticall or damnable the contrary whereof cannot be evidently proved And for this particular the generall possibility of salvation all agree that the merit of Christ Jesus is sufficient for all Whether this all-sufficiency grow ex intrinseca ratione formali out of the very nature of the merit the dignity of the person being considered or grow ex pacto acceptatione out of the acceptation of the Father and the contract betweene him and the Son for that let the Thomists and the Scotists in the Roman Church wrangle All agree that there is enough done for all And would God receive enough for all and then exclude some of himselfe without any relation any consideration of sinne God forbid Man is called by divers names names of lownesse enough in the Scriptures But by the name of Enosh Enosh that signifies meere misery Man is never called in the Scriptures till after the fall of Adam Onely sinne after and not any ill purpose in God before made man miserable The manner of expressing the mercy of God in the frame and course of Scriptures expresses evermore the largenesse of that mercy Very often in the Scriptures you shall finde the person suddenly changed and when God shall have said in the beginning of a sentence I will shew mercy unto them them as though he spoke of others presently in the same sentence he will say my loving kindnesse will I not draw from thee not from thee not from them not from any that so whensoever thou hearest of Gods mercy proposed to them to others thou mightest beleeve that mercy to bee meant to thee and whensoever they others heare that mercy proposed to thee they might beleeve it to be meant to them And so much may to good purpose be observed out of some other parts of this Chapter in another translation In the third verse it is said His sheepe heare his voice In the Arabique tranflation it is Oves audit His sheepe in the plurall does heare in the singular God is a plurall God and offers himselfe to all collectively God is a singular God and offers himselfe to every man distributively So also is it said there Nominibus suo He cals his sheepe by their names It is names in the plurall and theirs in the singular whatsoever God proposes to any he intends to all In which contemplation S. Augustine breaks out into that holy exclamation O bone omnipotens qui sic cur as unumquemque nostrûm tanquam solum cures sic omnes tamquam singulos O good and mighty God who art as loving to every man as to all mankind and meanest as well to all mankind as to any man Be pleased to make your use of this note for the better imprinting of this largenesse of Gods mercy Moses desires of God Exod. 33.13 V. 18. V. 19. that he would shew him Vias suas His waies his proceedings his dealings with men that which he calls after Gloriam suam His glory how he glorifies himselfe upon man God promises him in the next verse that he will shew him Omne bonum All his goodnesse Exod. 346. God hath no way towards man but goodnesse God glorifies himselfe in nothing upon man but in his owne goodnesse And therefore when God comes to the performance of this promise in the next Chapter he showes him his way and his glory and his goodnesse in shewing him that he is a mercifull God a gracious God a long-suffering God a God that forgives sins and iniquities and as the Hebrew Doctors note there are thirteen attributes thirteen denotations of God specified in that place and of all those thirteen there is but one that tasts of judgement That he will punish the sins of Fathers upon Children All the other twelve are meerly wholly mercy such a proportion hath his mercy above his justice such a proportion as that there is no cause in him if all men be not partakers of it Shall we say sayes S. Cyril Melius agriculturam non exerceri si quae nocent tolli non possunt It were better there were no tillage then that weeds should grow Melius non creasse better that God had made no men then that so many should be damned God made none to be damned And therefore though some would expunge out of our Litany that Rogation that Petition That thou wouldst have mercy upon all men as though it were contrary to Gods purpose to have mercy upon all men yet S. Augustine enlarges his charity too far Libera nos Domine
Ephemerides his journals he writes them downe under that Title sins and he reads them every day in that booke as such and they grow greater and greater in his sight till our repentance have washed them out of his sight Casuists will say that though a dead man raised to life againe be not bound to his former marriage yet he is bound to that Religion that he had invested in Baptisme and bound to his former religious vowes and the same obedience to Superiours as before We were all dead in Adam and he that is raised againe even by Election though he be not so married to the world as others are not so in love with sin not so under the dominion of sin yet he is as much bound to an obedience to the Will of God declared in his Law and may no more presume of a liberty of sinning before nor of an impunity of sin after then he that pretends no such Election to confide in Prospeâ— For this is excellently said to be the working of our election by Prosper the Disciple of S. Augustines Doctrines and the Eccho of his words Vt fiat permanendi voluntaria foelixque necessitas That our assurance of salvation by perseverance is necessary and yet voluntary Consider it in Gods purpose easily it cannot consider it in our selves it might be resisted For we are no better then those Angels and In those servants he put no trust and those Angels he charged with folly But such as they are Numerus â—â—â— 130.7 we shall be And since with the Lord there is Copiosa Redemptio Plenteous Redemption that overflowing mercy of our God those super-superlative Merits of our Saviour that plenteous Redemption may hold even in this particular blessednesse in our assimilation to them That as though there fell great numbers of Angels yet great and greater then they that fell stood So though The way to Heaven be narrow and the gate strait which is said by Christ to excite our industry and are rather an expression arising out of his mercy lest we should slacken our holy endeavours then any intimidation or commination for though the way be narrow and the gate strait yet the roome is spacious enough within why by this plenteous redemption may we not hope 〈◊〉 12. â— that many more then are excluded shall enter there Those words The dragons taile drew the third part of the stars from Heaven the Fathers generally interprete of the fall of Angels with Lucifer and it was but a third part And by Gods grace whose mercy is overflowing whose merits are super-abundant with whom there is plenteous redemption the serpent gets no farther upon us I know some say that this third part of the stars is meant of eminent persons illustrated and assisted with the best meanes of salvation and if a third of them how many meanlier furnished fall But those that we can consider to be best provided of meanes of salvation nextto these are Christians in generall and so may this plenteous Redemption be well hoped to worke that but a third part of them of Christians shall perish and then the God of this plenteous Redemption having promised us that the Christian Religion shall be carried over all the world still the number of those that shall be saved is enlarged Apply to thy selfe that which S. Cyril saies of the Angels Tristaris quia aliqui vitam amiserunt Does it grieve thee that any are fallen At plures meliorem statum apud Deum obtinent Let this comfort thee even in the application thereof to thy selfe that more stood then fell As Elisha said to his servant in a danger of surprisall Feare not 2 King 6.16 for they that be with us are more then they that are with them so if a suspition of the paucity of them that shall be saved make thee afraid looke up upon this overflowing mercy of thy God this super-abundant merit of thy Saviour this plenteous Redemption and thou maist finde finde in a faire credulity and in a well regulated hope more with thee then with them that perish Live so in such a warfare with tentations in such a colluctation with thy concupiscences in such a jealousie and suspition of thine indifferent nay of thy best actions as though there were but one man to be saved and thou wouldst be that one But live and die in such a sense of this plenteous Redemption of thy God as though neither thou nor any could lose salvation except he doubted of it I doubt not of mine own salvation and in whom can I have so much occasion of doubt as in my self When I come to heaven shall I be able to say to any there Lord how got you hither Was any man lesse likely to come thither then I There is not only an Onely God in heaven But a Father a Son a Holy Ghost in that God which are names of a plurality and sociable relations conversable notions There is not only one Angel a Gabriel But to thee all Angels cry alond and Cherubim and Seraphim are plurall terminations many Cherubs many Seraphs in heaven There is not only one Monarchall Apostle a Peter but The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee There is not onely a Proto-Martyr a Stephen but The noble army of Martyrs praise thee Who ever amongst our Fathers thought of any other way to the Moluccaes or to China then by the Promontory of Good hope Yet another way opened it self to Magellan a Straite it is true but yet a way thither and who knows yet whether there may not be a North-East and a North-West way thither besides Go thou to heaven in an humble thankfulnesse to God and holy cheerfulnesse in that way that God hath manifested to thee and do not pronounce too bitterly too desperately that every man is in an errour that thinkes not just as thou thinkest or in no way that is not in thy way God found folly weaknesse in his Angels yet more stood then fell God findes weaknesse wickednesse in us yet hee came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance and who that comes in that capacity a Repentant sinner can be shut out or denied his part in this Resurrection The key of David opens and no man shuts The Son of David is the key of David Christ Jesus He hath opened heaven for us all let no man shut out himself by diffidence in Gods mercy nor shut out any other man by overvaluing his own purity in respect of others But forbearing all lacerations and tearings and woundings of one another with bitter invectives all exasperations by odious names of subdivision let us all study first the redintegration of that body of which Christ Jesus hath declared himselfe to be the head the whole Christian Church and pray that he would and hope that he will enlarge the means of salvation to those who have not yet been made partakers of it That so he that called the gates of heaven
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
Mission There fals lastly into this harmonious consort Dismissio occasioned by this Mission of the Holy Ghost a Dismission A dismissing out of this world Not onely in Simeons Nunc dimittis To be content that we might but in S. Pauls Cupio dissolvi To have a desire that we might be dissolved and be with Christ But whether the incumbrances of this World Psal 120.5 extort from thee Davids groane Heu mihi Woe is me that I so journe so long here Or a slipperinesse contracted by former habits of sin make every thing a tentation to thee so that thou canst not performe Iobs covenant with thine eyes of not looking upon a maid nor stop at Christs period which is Looke but doe not lust but that every thing is a tentation to thee and to be out of this haile-shot this batrery of tentations thou wouldst faine come to a dismission to a dissolution to a transmigration Or whether a vehement desire of the fruition of the presence and face of God in Heaven constitute this longing in thee yet all these reasons arise in thy selfe and determine in thy selfe and are referred but to thine owne ease and to thine owne happinesse and not primarily to the glory of God and therefore since the Holy Ghost staid for his Mission stay thou for thy Dismission too Gather up these scattered eares and binde up this loose sheafe Recollect these pieces of this branch The Holy Ghost was sent by the Son but the Son in his exemplar humility ascribes all to the Father The Holy Ghost had absolute power to come at his pleasure but he staid the order of the Decree and Gods leasure for his Mission Doe thou so too for thy Permission exercise not all thy liberty And for thy Commission execute not all thy authority And for thy Remission presume not upon thy pardon too soon And for thy Manumission hope not for an exemption from tentations till death And for thy Dismission practice not nay wish not thy death only in respect of thine own ease no nor only in respect of thine own salvation In this act of the Holy Ghost That he staid his Mission we have one instruction that we relie not upon our selves but accommodate our selves to the disposition of others And then another in the next That the Father should send him in the Sons name The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name The Holy Ghost comes not so in anothers name as that he hath not a full interest In nomine meo in all the names of Power and of Wisdome and of Essence it self that are attributed to God For not to extend to the particular attributes the Radicall name the name of Essence That name The name Iehovah is given to the Holy Ghost Iehovah sayes to Esay Go and tell this people this and this And then S. Paul making use of those words in the Acts sayes Well said the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay So that Esayes Iehovah Esay 6.9 Acts 28.5 is S. Pauls Holy Ghost And yet the Holy Ghost being in possession of the highest names and of the highest power implyed in those names comes in the name of another How much more then may the powerfullest men upon earth the greatest Magistrates the greatest Monarchs who though they be by God himself called gods are but representative gods but metaphoricall gods and God knows sometimes but ungodly gods confesse that they are sent in anothers name inanimated with anothers power and least of all their own or made that that they are for themselves How much more are we we considered in nature and not in office men and not Magistrates Wormes and not men Serpents and not Wormes For we are as S. Chrysostome speaks Spontanei daemones Serpents in our own bosomes devils in our own loynes bound to confesse that all the faculties of our soul are in us In nomine alieno In the name of another That will which we call Freewill is so far from being ours as that not only that Freedome but that Will it self is from another from God Not only the rectitude of the faculty but the faculty it self is his Nay though God have no part in the perversnesse and the obliquity of my will but that that perversnesse and that obliquity are intirely mine own yet I could not have that perversnesse and that obliquity but from him so far as that that faculty in which my perversnesse works is his and I could not have that perverse will from my self if I had not that will it self from God first And that very perversnesse and obliquity of the will is so much his as that though it were not his but mine in the making yet when it is made by me he makes it his that is he makes it his instrument and makes his use of it so far as to suffer it to flow out into a greater sin or to determine in a lesser sin then at first I in my perversnesse intended When I intended but an approach to a sin and meant to stop there to punish that exposing of my self to tentation God suffers me to proceed to the act of that sin And when I intend the act it self God interrupts me and cuts me off by some intervening occasion and determines me upon some approach to that sin that by going so far in the way of that sin I might see mine own infirmity and see the power of his mercy that I went no farther The faculties of my soule are his and the substance of my soul is his too And yet as I pervert the faculties I subvert the substance I damnifie the faculties but I damne the substance it self It would taste of uncharitablenesse to cast more coales of fire upon the devill himself then are upon him in hell now Or not to assist him with our prayers if it were not declared to us that he is incapable of mercy If the devill were now but under the guiltinesse of that sin which he committed at first and not under such an execution of judgement for that sin as induced or at least declared an obstination an obduration a desperation and impenitiblenesse if the devill were but as the worst sinner in this world can be but In via and not In exilio In the way to destruction and not under destruction it self we might pray for the devill himself And these poore souls of ours these glorious souls of ours none of ours but Gods own souls which now at worst God loves better then ever he did the devill when he was at best when he was an Angell uncorrupted and better then he doth those Angels which stand uncorrupted stil for he hath not taken the nature of Angels but our nature upon him we think those souls our own to do what we list with and when we have usurpt them we damne them As Pirates take other mens subjects and then make them slaves we usurp the faculties of the
Abrahams taske was an easie taske to tell the stars of Heaven so it were to tell the sands or haires or atomes in respect of telling but our owne sins And will God say to me Confide Fili My Son be of good cheere thy sins are forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Does he meane all my sins He knowes what originall sin is and I doe not and will he forgive me sin in that roote and sin in the branches originall sin and actuall sin too He knowes my secret sins and I doe not will he forgive my manifest sins and those sins too He knowes my relapses into sins repented and will he forgive my faint repentances and my rebellious relapses after them will his mercy dive into my heart and forgive my sinfull thoughts there and shed upon my lips and forgive my blasphemous words there and bathe the members of this body and forgive mine uncleane actions there will he contract himselfe into himselfe and meet me there and forgive my sins against himselfe And scatter himselfe upon the world and forgive my sins against my neighbour and emprison himselfe in me and forgive my sins against my selfe Will he forgive those sins wherein my practise hath exceeded my Parents and those wherein my example hath mis-led my children Will he forgive that dim sight which I have of sin now when sins scarce appeare to be sins unto me and will he forgive that over-quick sight when I shall see my sins through Satans multiplying glasse of desperation when I shall thinke them greater then his mercy upon my death bed In that he said all he left out nothing Heb. 2.8 is the Apostles argument and he is not almighty if he cannot his mercy endures not for ever if he doe not forgive all Sin and all sin even blasphemy now blasphemy is not restrained to God alone Blasphemia other persons besides God other things besides persons may be blasphemed 1 Tim. 6.1 Iude 8 10. The word of God the Doctrine Religion may be blasphemed Magistracy and Dignities may be blasphemed Nay Omnia quae ignorant saies that Apostle They blaspheme all things which they know not And for persons the Apostle takes it to his owne person 1 Cor. 4.13 Being blasphemed yet we intreat and he communicates it to all men Neminem blasphemate Tit. 3.2 Blaspheme no man Blasphemy as it is a contumelious speech derogating from any man that good that is in him or attributing to any man that ill that is not in him may be fastned upon any man For the most part it is understood a sin against God and that directly and here by the manner of Christ expressing himselfe it is made the greatest sin All sin even blasphemy And yet a drunkard that cannot name God will spue out a blasphemy against God A child that cannot spell God will stammer out a blasphemy against God If we smart we blaspheme God and we blaspheme him if we be tickled If I lose at play I blaspheme and if my fellow lose he blasphemes so that God is alwayes sure to be a loser An Usurer can shew me his bags and an Extortioner his houses the fruits the revenues of his sinne but where will the blasphemer shew mee his blasphemy or what hee hath got by it The licentious man hath had his love in his armes and the envious man hath had his enemy in the dust but wherein hath the blasphemer hurt God In the Schoole we put it for the consummation of the torment of the damned Aquin. 221. q. 13. ar 4. that at the Resurrection they shall have bodies and so be able even verbally to blaspheme God herein we exceed the Devill already that we can speake blaspemously There is a rebellious part of the body that Adam covered with figge leaves that hath damned many a wretched soule but yet I thinke not more then the tongue And therefore the whole torment that Dives suffered in hell Luke 16.24 is expressed in that part Father Abraham have mercy upon me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and coole my tongue The Jews that crucified God will not sound the name of God and we for whom he was Crucified belch him out in our surfets and foame him out in our fury An Impertinent sin without occasion before and an unprofitable sin without recompence after and an incorrigible sin too for almost what Father dares chide his son for blasphemy that may not tell him Sir I learnt it of you or what Master his servant that cannot lay the same recrimination upon him How much then do we need this extent of Gods mercy that he will forgive sin and all sin and even this sin of blasphemy and which is also another addition blasphemy against the Son This emphaticall addition arises out of the connexion in the next verse In filium A word that is a blasphemous word against the Son shall be forgiven And here wee carry not the word Son so high as that the Son should be the eternall Son of God Though words spoken against the eternall Son of God by many bitter and blasphemous Heretiques have beene forgiven God forbid that all the Photinians who thought that Christ was not at all till he was borne of the Virgin Mary That all the Nativitarians that thought he was from all eternity with God but yet was not the Son of God That all the Arians that thought him the Son of God but yet not essentially not by nature but by grace and adoption God forbid that all these should be damned and because they once spoke against the Son therefore they never repented or were not received upon repentance We carry not the word Son so high as to be the eternall Son of God for it is in the text Filius hominis The Son of Man And in that acceptation we doe not meane it of all blasphemies that have beene spoken of Christ as the Son of man that is of Christ invested in the humane nature though blasphemies in that kind have beene forgiven too God forbid that all the Arians that thought Christ so much the Son of Man as that he tooke a humane body but not so much as that he tooke a humane soule but that the Godhead it selfe such a Godhead as they allowed him was his soule God forbid that all the Anabaptists that confesse he tooke a body but not a body of the substance of the Virgin That all the Carpocratians that thought onely his soule and not his body ascended into Heaven God forbid all these should be damned and never called to repentance or not admitted upon it There were fearfull blasphemies against the Son as the Son of God and as the Son of Man against his Divine and against his Humane Nature and those in some of them by Gods grace forgiven too But here we consider him onely as the Son of Man meerely as Man but as such a Man so good a
Man as to calumniate him to blaspheme him was an inexcusable sin To say of him who had fasted forty dayes and forty nights Mat. 11.19 Mar. 12.14 Ecce homo vorax Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber To say of him of whom themselves had said elsewhere Master we know that thou art true and carest for no man that he was a friend of Publicans and sinners That this man who was The Prince of Peace Heb. 12.3 should indure such contradiction This was an inexcusable sin If any man therefore have had his good intentions mis-construed his zeale to assist Gods bleeding and fainting cause called Innovation his proceeding by wayes good in themselves to ends good in themselves called Indiscretion let him be content to forgive them any Calumniator against himselfe who is but a worme and no man since God himselfe forgave them against Christ who was so Filius hominis The Son of Man as that he was the Son of God too There is then forgivenesse for sin for all sin even for blasphemy Infuturo for blasphemy against the Son but it is Infuturo remittetur It shall be forgiven It is not Remittebatur It was forgiven Let no man antidate his pardon and say His sins were forgiven in an Eternall Decree and that no man that hath his name in the book of life hath the addition sinner that if he were there from the beginning from the beginning he was no sinner It is not in such a sense Remittebatur It was forgiven nor it is not Remittitur that even then when the sin is committed it is forgiven whether the sinner think of it or no That God sees not the sins of his Children That God was no more affected with Davids adultery or his murder then an indulgent Father is to see his child do some witty waggish thing or some sportfull shrewd turne It is but Remittetur Any sin shall be that is may be forgiven if the meanes required by God and ordained by him be entertained If I take into my contemplation the Majesty of God and the uglinesse of sin If I devest my selfe of all that was sinfully got and invest my self in the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus for else I am ill suted and if I clothe myself in Mammon the righteousnesse of Christ is no Cloke for that doublet If I come to Gods Church for my absolution and the seale of that reconciliation the blessed Sacrament Remittetur by those meanes ordained by God any sin shall be forgiven me But if I relie upon the Remittebatur That I had my Quietus est before hand in the eternall Decree or in the Remittuntur and so shut mine eyes in an opinion that God hath shut his and sees not the sins of his children I change Gods Grammer and I induce a dangerous solecisme for it is not They were forgiven before they were committed nor They are forgiven in the committing but They shall be by using the meanes ordained by God they may be And so They shall be forgiven unto men saies the Text and that is first unto every man The Kings of the earth are faire and glorious resemblances of the King of heaven Omni homini they are beames of that Sun Tapers of that Torch they are like gods they are gods The Lord killeth and maketh alive He bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up 1 Sam. 2.6 This is the Lord of heaven The Lords anointed Kings of the earth do so too They have the dispensation of judgement and of mercy they execute and they pardon But yet with this difference amongst many other that Kings of the earth for the most part and the best most binde themselves with an oath not to pardon some offences The King of heaven sweares and sweares by himselfe That there is no sinner but he can and would pardon At first Illuminat omnem hominem He is the true light John 1.9 which lightneth every man that commeth into the world Let that light because many do interpret that place so let that be but that naturall light which only man and every man hath yet that light makes him capable of the super-naturall light of grace for if he had not that reasonable soule he could not have grace and even by this naturall light he is able to see the invisible God in the visible creature and is inexcusable if he do not so But because this light is though not put out brought to a dimnesse by mans first fall Therefore Iohn Baptist came to beare witnesse of that light that all men through him might beleeve Ver. 7. God raises up a Iohn Baptist in every man every man findes a testimony in himselfe that he draws curtaines between the light and him that he runs into corners from that light that he doth not make that use of those helpes which God hath afforded him as he might Thus God hath mercy upon all before by way of prevention thus he enlightneth every man that commeth into the world but because for all this men do stumble even at noon God hath given Collyrium an Eye-salve to all Apoc. 3.18 by which they may mend their eye-sight He hath opened a poole of Bethesda to all where not only he that comes at first but he that comes even at last he that comes washed with the water of Baptisme in his infancy and he that comes washed with the teares of Repentance in his age may receive health and cleannesse For the Font at first and the death-bed at last are Cisterns from this poole and all men and at all times may wash therein And from this power and this love of God is derived both that Catholique promise Quandocunque At what time soever a sinner repents And that Catholique and extensive Commission Quorum remiseritis Whose sins soever you remit shall be remitted All men were in Adam because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any be without sin All men were in Christ too because the whole nature mankinde was in him and then can any man be excluded from a possibility of mercy There were whole Sects whole bodies of Heretiques that denied the communication of Gods grace to others The Cathari denied that any man had it but themselves The Novatians denied that any man could have it again after he had once lost it by any deadly sin committed after Baptisme But there was never any Sect that denied it to themselves no Sect of despairing men We have some somewhere sprinkled One in the old Testament Cain and one in the new Iudas and one in the Ecclesiastique Story Iulian but no body no Sect of despairing men And therefore he that abandons himself to this sin of desperation sins with the least reason of any for he prefers his sin above Gods mercy and he sins with the fewest examples of any for God hath diffused this light with an evidence to all That all sins may be forgiven unto men that is
repentance and so is thereby irremissible yet there arise no markes by which I can say This man is such a sinner not though hee himselfe would sweare to me that he were so now and that he would continue so till death The other places that doe not so directly concerne this sin and yet are sometimes used in this affaire 1 Iohn 5.16 are one in S. Iohn and this text another That in S. Iohn is There is a sin unto death I doe not say that he shall pray for it It is true that the Master of the Sentences and from him many of the Schoole and many of our later Interpreters too doe understand this of the sin against the Holy Ghost because we are almost forbidden to pray for it but yet we are not absolutely forbidden in that we are not bidden And if we were forbidden when God sayes to Ieremy Pray not thou for this people neither lift up cry Ier. 7.16 nor prayer for them neither make intercession to me for I will not heare thee And againe Ier. 11.14 Pray not for them for I will not heare them Not them though they should come to pray for themselves God forbid that we should therefore say that all that people had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost And for this particular place of S. Iohn that answer may suffice which very good Divines have given Pray not for them is indeed pray not with them admit them to no part in the publique prayers of the Congregation but if they sin a sin unto death a notorious an inexcusable sin let them be persons excommunicated to thee For the words in this text which seeme to many appliable to that great sin it is not cleare it is not much probable that they can be so applied Take the words invested in their circumstance in the context and coherence and it will appeare evident Christ speaks this to the Pharisees upon occasion of that which they had said to him and of him before and he carries it intends it no farther That appeares by the first word of out text Propterea Therefore I say unto you Therefore that is Because you have used such words unto me And S. Marke makes it more cleare He said this to them because they said Marke 3.30 He had an uncleane spirit because they said he did his Miracles by the power of the Devill Now this was certainely a sin against the Holy Ghost so far as that it was distinguished from the sins against the Son of Man But it was not the sin against the Holy Ghost for Christ being a mixt person God and Man did some things in which his Divinity had nothing to doe but were onely actions of a meere naturall man and when they slandered him in these they blasphemed the Son of Man Some things he did in the power of his God head in which his humanity contributed nothing as all his Miracles and when they attributed these works to the Devill they blasphemed the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Augustine sayes That Christ in this place did not so much accuse the Pharisees that they had already incurred the sin of the Holy Ghost they might at last fall into The sin that impenitible and therfore irremissible sin But that sin this could not be because the Pharisees had not embraced the Gospel before and so this could not be a falling from the Gospel in them Neither does it appeare to have continued to a finall impenitence so far from it as that S. Chrysost makes no doubt but that some of these Pharisees did repent upon Christs admonition Now beloved since we see by this collation of places that it is not safe to say of any man he is this sinner nor very constantly agreed upon what is this sin but yet we are sure that such a sin there is that captivates even God himself and takes from him the exercise of his mercy and casts a dumnesse a speechlesnesse upon the Church it selfe that she may not pray for such a sinner and since we see that Christ with so much earnestnesse rebukes the Pharisees for this sin in the text because it was a limbe of that sin and conduced to it let us use all religious diligence to keep our selves in a safe distance from it To which purpose be pleased to cast a particular but short and transitory glaunce upon some such sins as therefore because they conduce to that are sometimes called sins against the holy Ghost Sins against Power that is the Fathers Attribute sins of infirmity are easily forgiven sins against Wisdome that is the Sons Attribute sins of Ignorance are easily forgiven but sins against Goodnesse that is the Holy Ghosts Attribute sins of an hard and ill nature are hardly forgiven Not at all when it comes to be The sin not easily when they are Those sins those that conduce to it and are branches of it For branches the Schoolemen have named three couples which they have called sins against the Holy Ghost because naturally they shut out those meanes by which the Holy Ghost might work upon us The first couple is presumption and desperation for presumption takes away the feare of God and desperation the love of God And then they name Impenitence and hardnesse of heart for Impenitence removes all sorrow for sins past and hardnesse of heart all tendernesse towards future tentations And lastly they name The resisting of a truth acknowledged before and the envying of other men who have made better use of Gods grace then we have done for this resisting of a Truth is a shutting up of our selves against it and this envying of others is a sorrow that that Truth should prevaile upon them And truly to reflect a very little upon these three couples again To presume upon God that God cannot damne me eternally in the next world for a few half-houres in this what is a fornication or what is an Idolatay to God what is a jest or a ballad or a libel to a King Or to despaire that God will not save me how well soever I live after a sin what is a teare what is a sigh what is a prayer to God what is a petition to a King To be impenitent senslesse of sins past I past yesterday in riot and yesternight in wantonnesse and yet I heare of some place some office some good fortune fallen to me to day To be hardned against future sins shall I forbeare some company because that company leads me into tentation Why that very tentation wil lead me to preferment To forsake the truth formerly professed because the times are changed and wiser men then I change with them To envy and hate another another State another Church another man because they stand out in defence of the truth for if they would change I might have the better colour the better excuse of changing too al these are shrewd and slippery approaches towards the sin against the Holy Ghost and therefore
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
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
of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
root and bring that comfort to the fruit and confesse that God who is both is the God of all comfort Follow God in the execution of this good purpose upon thee to thy Vocation and heare him who hath left East and West and North and South in their dimnesse and dumnesse and deafnesse and hath called thee to a participation of himselfe in his Church Go on with him to thy justification That when in the congregation one sits at thy right hand and beleeves but historically It may be as true which is said of Christ as of William the Conquerour and as of Iulius Caesar and another at thy left hand and beleeves Christ but civilly It was a Religion well invented and keeps people well in order and thou betweene them beleevest it to salvation in an applying faith proceed a step farther to feele this fire burning out thy faith declared in works thy justification growne into sanctification And then thou wilt be upon the last staire of all That great day of thy glorification will breake out even in this life and either in the possessing of the good things of this world thou shalt see the glory and in possessing the comforts of this World see the joy of Heaven or else which is another of his wayes in the want of all these thou shalt have more comfort then others have or perchance then thou shouldest have in the possessing of them for he is the God of all comfort and of all the wayes of comfort And therefore Blessed be God even the Father c. SERM. XXXIX Preached upon Trinity-Sunday 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 YOu may remember that I proposed to exercise your devotions and religious meditations in these exercises with words which might present to you first the severall persons in the Trinity and the benefits which we receive in receiving God in those distinct notions of Father Son and holy Ghost And then with other words which might present those sins and the danger of those sins which are most particularly opposed against those severall persons Of the first concerning the person of the Father we spoke last and of the other concerning sins against the Father these words will occasion us to speak now It is well noted upon those words of David Psal 51.1 Have mercy upon me O God that the word is Elohim which is Gods in the plurall Have mercy upon me O Gods for David though he conceived not divers Gods yet he knew three divers persons in that one God and he knew that by that sin which he lamented in that Psalme that peccatum complicatum that manifold sin that sin that enwrapped so many sins he had offended all those three persons For whereas we consider principally in the Father Potestatem Power and in the Son Sapientiam Wisdome and in the holy Ghost Bonitatem Goodnesse David had sinned against the Father in his notion In potestate in abusing his power and kingly authority to a mischievous and bloody end in the murder of Vriah And he had sinned against the Son in his notion In sapientia in depraving and detorting true wisdome into craft and treachery And he had sinned against the holy Ghost in his notion In bonitate when he would not be content with the goodnesse and piety of Vriah who refused to take the eases of his owne house and the pleasure of his wifes bosome as long as God himselfe in his army lodged in Tents and stood in the face of the Enemy Sins against the Father then we consider especially to be such as are In potestate Either in a neglect of Gods Power over us or in an abuse of that power which we have from God over others and of one branch of that power particularly of Judgement is this Text principally intended If ye call on the Father who without respect of persons judgeth c. In the words we shall insist but upon two parts Divisio First A Counsaile which in the Apostles mouth is a commandement And then a Reason an inducement which in the Apostles mouth is a forcible an unresistible argument The Counsell that is The commandement is If ye call on the Father feare him stand in feare of him And the reason that is the Argument is The name of Father implyes a great power over you therefore feare him And amongst other powers a power of judging you of calling you to an account therefore feare him In which Judgement this Judge accepts no persons but judges his sons as his servants and therefore feare him And then he judges not upon words outward professions but upon works actions according to every mans works and therefore feare him And then as on his part he shall certainly call you to judgement when you goe hence so on your part certainly it cannot be long before you goe hence for your time is but a sojourning here it is not a dwelling And yet it is a sojourning here it is not a posting a gliding through the world but such a stay as upon it our everlasting dwelling depends And therefore that we may make up this circle and end as we begun with the feare of God passe that time that is all that time in fear In fear of neglecting and undervaluing or of over-tempting that great power which is in the Father And in feare of abusing those limnes and branches and beames of that power which he hath communicated to thee in giving thee power and authority any way over others for these To neglect the power of the Father or To abuse that power which the Father hath given thee over others are sinnes against the Father who is power If ye call on the Father c. First then for the first part the Counsell Si invocatis If ye call on the Father In timore 1. Part. Doe it in feare The Counsell hath not a voluntary Condition and arbitrary in our selves annexed to it If you call then feare does not import If you doe not call you need not feare It does not import That if you professe a particular forme of Religion you are bound to obey that Church but if you doe not but have fancied a religion to your selfe without precedent Or a way to salvation without any particular religion Or a way out of the world without any salvation or damnation but a going out like a candle if you can think thus you need not feare This is not the meaning of this If in this place If you call on the Father c. But this If implyes a wonder an impossibility that any man should deny God to be the Father If the author the inventer of any thing usefull for this life be called the father of that invention by the holy Ghost himselfe Gen. 4.20 Iabal was the father of such as dwell in Tents and Tubal his brother
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
God in Heaven sanctifying all their crosses in this World inanimating all their worldly blessings rayning downe his blood into their emptinesse and his balme into their wounds making their bed in all their sicknesse and preparing their seate where he stands soliciting their cause at the right hand of his Father And so the Minister hath the wings of an Eagle that every soule in the Congregation may see as much as hee sees that is a particular interest in all the mercies of God and the merits of Christ So then these Ministers of God have that double use of their Eagles wings first Vt volent ad escam Job 9.26 as it is in Iob that they may flie up to receive their own food their instructions at the mouth and word of God And then Vt ubi cadaver sit ibi statim adsit as it is in Iob also where the dead are Job 39.33 they also may be That where any lie Pro mortuis as S. Paul speaks for dead 1 Cor. 13.29 as good as dead ready to die upon their death-bed they may be ready to assist them and to minister spirituall Physick opportunely seasonably proportionably to their spirituall necessities That they may powre out upon such sick soules that name of Iesus which is Oleum effusum An oyle and a balme alwaies powring and alwaies spreading it selfe upon all greene wounds and upon all old sores That they may minister to one in his hot and pestilent presumptions an Opiat of Christs Tristis anima A remembrance that even Christ himself had a sad soule towards his death and a Quare dereliquisti some apprehension that God though his God had forsaken him And that therefore no man how righteous soever may presume or passe away without feare and trembling And then to minister to another in his Lethargies and Apoplexies and damps and inordinate dejections of spirit Christs cordials and restoratives in his Clarifica me Pater In an assurance that his Father though he have laid him downe here whether in an inglorious fortune or in a disconsolate bed of sicknesse will raise him in his time to everlasting glory So these Eagles are to have wings to flie Ad cadaver to the dead to those that are so dying a bodily death and also where any lie dead in the practise and custome of sinne to be industrious and earnest in calling them to life againe so as Christ did Lazarus by calling aloud Not aloud in the eares of other men so to expose a sinner to shame and confusion of face but aloud in his own eares to put home the judgments of God thereby to plough and harrow that stubborn heart which will not be kneaded nor otherwise reduced to an uprightnesse For these uses to raise themselves to heavenly contemplations and to make haste to them that need their assistance the Ministers of God have wings wings of great use especially now when there is Coluber in via A snake in every path a Seducer in every house When as the Devill is busie because he knows his time is short so his instruments are busie because they thinke their time is beginning againe therefore the Minister of God hath wings And then Sex alae their wings are numbred in our Text They have six wings For by the consent of most Expositors those whom S. Iohn presents in the figure of these foure Creatures here Esa 6.3 and those whom the Prophet Esay cals Seraphim are the same persons The same Office and the same Voice is attributed unto those Seraphim there as unto these foure Creatures here Those as well as these spend their time in celebrating the Trinity an in crying Holy Holy Holy The Holy Ghost sometimes presents the Ministers of the Gospel as Seraphim in glory that they might be knowne to be the Ministers and dispensers of the mysteries and secrets of God and to come A latere From his Councell his Cabinet his Bosome And then on the other side that you might know that the dispensation of these mysteries of your salvation is by the hand and means of men taken from amongst your selves and that therefore you are not to looke for Revelations nor Extasies nor Visions nor Transportations but to rest in Gods ordinary meanes he brings those persons down againe from that glorious representation as the Seraphim to creatures of an inferiour of an earthly nature For though it be by the sight and in the quality and capacity of those glorious Seraphim that the Minister of God receives his commission and instructions his orders and his faculties yet the execution of his commission and the pursuing of his instructions towards you and in your behalfe is in that nature and in that capacity as they have the courage of the Lyon the laboriousnesse of the Oxe the perspicuity of the Eagle and the affability of Man These winged persons then winged for their own sakes and winged for yours these Ministers of God thus designed by Esay as heavenly Seraphim to procure them reverence from you and by S. Iohn as earthly Creatures to teach you how neere to your selves God hath brought the meanes of your Salvation in his visible and sensible in his appliable and apprehensible Ordinances are in both places that of Esay and this in our Text said to have six wings And six to this use in Esay with two they cover their face with two their feete and with two they flie They cover their face Not all over for then neither the Prophet there nor the Euangelist here could have knowne them to have had these likenesses and these proportions The Ministers of God are not so covered so removed from us as that we have not meanes to know them We know them by their face that is by that declaration which the Church hath given of them to us in giving them their orders and their power over us and we know them by their voyce that is by their preaching of such doctrine as is agreeable to those Articles which we have suckt in from our infancy The Ministers face is not so covered with these wings as that the people have no meanes to know him For his calling is manifest and his doctrine is open to proofe and tryall But they are said to cover their face because they dare not looke confidently they cannot looke fully upon the majesty of the mysteries of God The Euangelists themselves and they that ground their doctrine upon them all which together as we have often said make up these foure persons whom Esay cals Seraphim and S. Iohn inferiour Creatures have not seene all that belongs to the nature and essence of God not all in the attributes and properties of God not all in the decrees and purposes of God no not all in the execution of those purposes and decrees we do not know all that God intends to do we do not know all that God intends in that which he hath done Our faces are covered from having seene
Reformation when in no long time the number of them that had forsaken Rome was as great as of them that staid with her Now to give way to this ascent of this Angel in thy selfe make the way smooth and make thy soule souple finde thou a growth of the Gospel in thy faith and let us finde it in thy life It is not in thy power to say to this Angel as Ioshua said to the Sun Siste Iosh 10.12 stand still It will not stand still If thou finde it not ascending it descends If thy comforts in the Gospel of Christ Jesus grow not they decay If thou profit not by the Gospel thou losest by it If thou live not by it nothing can redeeme thee thou dyest by it Wee speake of going up and downe a staire it is all one staire of going to and from the City it is all one way of comming in and going out of a house it is all one doore So is there a savour of life unto life and a savour of death unto death in the Gospel but it is all one Gospel If this Angel of the East have appeared unto thee the light of the Gospel have shined upon thee and it have not ascended in thee if it have not made thee wiser and wiser and better and better too thou hast stopped that light vexed grieved quenched that Spirit for the naturall progresse of this Angel of the East is to ascend the naturall motion and working of the Gospel is to make thee more and more confident in Gods deliverance lesse and lesse subject to rely upon the weake helps and miserable comforts of this world To this purpose this Angel ascends that is proceeds in the manifestation of his Power and of his readinesse to succour us Of his Power in this That he hath the seales of the living God I saw an Angel ascending from the East which had the seale of the living God which is our next Consideration Of the living God The gods of the Nations are all dead gods Sigillum Dei viventis either such Gods as never had life stones and gold and silver or such gods at best as were never gods till they were dead for men that had benefited the world in any publique and generall invention or otherwise were made gods after their deaths which was a miserable deification a miserable godhead that grew out of corruption a miserable eternity that begun at all but especially that begun in death and they were not gods till they dyed But our Angel had the Seale of the living God that is Power to give life to others Now if we seeke for this seale in the naturall Angels they have it not for this Seale is some visible thing whereby we are assisted to salvation and the Angels have no such They are made keepers of this seale sometimes but permanently they have it not This Seale of comfort was put into an Angels hand Ezek. 9.4 when he was to set a marke upon the foreheads of all them that mourned He had a visible thing Inke to marke them withall But it was not said to him Vade signa omnes Creaturas Go and set this marke upon every Creature as it was to the Minister of the Gospel Go and preach to every Creature Marke 16.15 If wee seeke this seale in the great Angel the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus It is true he hath it for Omnis potestas dâ—ta All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth and Omne judicium Mat. 28.18 Iohn 5.22 The Father hath committed all judgement to the Son Christ as the Son of man executes a Judgement and hath a Power which he hath not but by gift by Commission by vertue of this Seale from his Father But because it is not onely so in him That he hath the Seale of the living God but He is this Seale himselfe Colos 1.15 Heb. 1.3 Iohn 6.27 Hee is the Image of the invisible God He is the brightnesse of his glory and the expresse Image of his Person It is not onely his Commission that is sealed but his Nature He himselfe is sealed Him hath God the Father sealed since I say naturall Angels though they have sometimes this seale they have it not alwaies they have not a Commission from God to apply his mercies to man by any ordinary and visible meanes since the Angel of the Covenant Christ Jesus hath it but hath it so as that he is it too the third sort of Angels the Church-Angels the Ministers of the Gospell are they who most properly can be said to have this Seale by a fixed and permanent possession and a power to apply it to particular men in all emergent necessities according to the institution of that living God whose seale it is Now the great power which is given by God in giving this seale to these Angels hath a lively representation such as a shadow can give in the history of Ioseph Pharaoh sayes to him Thou shalt be over my house and over all the land of Egypt Gen. 41.40 steward of the Kings house and steward of the Kingdome And at thy word shall all my people be armed Constable and Marshall too and to invest him in all these and more Pharaoh gave him his ring his seale not his seale onely to those severall patents to himselfe but the keeping of that seale for the good of others This temporall seale of Pharoh was a representation of the seale of the living God But there is a more expresse type of it in Exodus Thou shalt grave sayes God to Moses upon a plate of pure gold Lxod. 28.36 as Signets are graved Holinesse to the Lord and it shall be upon the forehead of Aaron What to do That the people may be accepted of him There must be a holinesse to the Lord and that presented by Aaron the Priest to God that the people may be acceptable to the Lord So that this seale of the living God in these Angels of our text is The Sacraments of the New Testament and the Absolution of sinnes by which when Gods people come to a Holinesse to the Lord in a true repentance and that that holinesse that is that repentance is made knowne to Aaron to the Priest and he presents it to the Lord that Priest his Minister seals to them in those his Ordinances Gods acceptation of this degree of holinesse he seals this Reconciliation between God and his people And a contract of future concurrence with his subsequent grace This is the power given by God to this ascending Angel and we extend that no farther but hasten to his haste his readinesse to succour us in which we proposed for the first consideration That this Angel of light manifested and discovered to us who our enemies were He cryed out to them who were ready to do mischiefe with a loud voyce so that we might heare him and know them Though in all Court-cases it be
in the height of his fury Christ laid hold upon him It was for the most part Christs method of curing Then when the Sea was in a tempestuous rage Mat. 8.24 when the waters covered the ship and the storme shaked even that which could remove mountaines the faith of the Disciples then Christ rebukes the winde and commands a calme Then when the Sun was gone out to run his race as a Giant as David speaks then God by the mouth of another of Ioshuah bids the Sun stand still Then when that uncleane spirit foam'd and fum'd and tore and rent the possessed persons then Christ commanded them to go out Let the fever alone say our Physitians till some fits be passed and then we shall see farther and discerne better The note is S. Chrysostomes and he applies it to Christs proceeding with Saul Non expectavit ut fatigatus debacchando mansuesceret sayes he Christ staid not till Saul being made drunke with blood were cast into a slumber as satisfied with the blood of Christians Sed in media insania superavit but in the midst of his fit he gave him physick in the midst of his madnesse he reclaimes him So is it also part of the evidence that the Holy Ghost gives against him Quod petiit Epistolas that he sued to the State for a Commission to persecute Christians When the State will put men to some kinde of necessity of concurring to the endamaging or endangering of the cause of Christ and will be displeased with them if they doe not men make to themselves and to their consciences some faint colour of excuse But when they themselves set actions on foote which are not required at their hands where is their evasion Then when Saul sued out this Commission That if he found any of that way that is Christians for he had so scattered them before that he was not sure to finde any They did not appeare in any whole body dangerous or suspicious to the State but If hee found any Any man or woman That he might have the Power of the State so as that he need not feare men That hee might have the impartiality and the inflexibility of the State so as that he need not pity women Then when his glory was to bring them bound to Ierusalem that he might magnifie his triumph and greatnesse in the eye of the world Then then sayes Christ to this tempest Be calme to this uncleane spirit Come out to this Sun in his own estimation Go no farther Thus much evidence the Holy Ghost gives against him and thus much more himselfe Act. 22.4 I persecuted this way unto the death I bound and delivered into prison both men and women Act. 26.11 And after more then this I punished them and that oft and in every Synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme and was exceedingly mad against them and persecuted them even unto strange Cities What could he say more against himselfe And then sayes Christ to this tempest Quiesce Be still to this glaring Sunne Siste stand still to this uncleane spirit 1 Cor. 15.2 Veni foras come forth In this sense especially doth S. Paul call himselfe Abertivum a person borne out of season That whereas Christs other Disciples and Apostles had a breeding under him and came first ad Discipulatum and then ad Apostolatum first to be Disciples and after to be Apostles S. Paul was borne a man an Apostle not carved out as the rest in time but a fusil Apostle an Apostle powred out and cast in a Mold As Adam was a perfect man in an instant so was S. Paul an Apostle as soone as Christ tooke him in hand Now Beloved wilt thou make this perverse use of this proceeding God is rich in Mercy Therefore I cannot misse Mercy Wouldest thou say and not be thought mad for saying so God hath created a West Indies therefore I cannot want Gold Wilt thou be so ill a Logician to thy selfe and to thine own damnation as to conclude so God is alwayes the same in himselfe therefore he must be alwayes the same to me So ill a Musician as to say God is all Concord therefore He and I can never disagree So ill a Historian as to say God hath called Saul a Persecutor then when he breathed threatnings and slaughter then when he sued to the State for a Commission to persecute Christ God hath called a theife then when he was at the last gaspe And therefore if he have a minde to me he will deale so with me too and if he have no such minde no man can imprint or infuse a new minde in God God forbid It is not safe concluding out of single Instances It is true that if a soure and heavy and severe man will adde to the discomforts of a disconsolate soule and in that souls sadnesse and dejection of spirit will heap up examples that God hath still suffered high-minded sinners to proceed and to perish in their irreligious wayes and tell that poore soule as Iobs company did him It is true you take God aright God never pardons such as you in these cases these singular these individuall examples That God hath done otherwise once have their use One instance to the contrary destroys any peremptory Rule no man must say God never doth it He did it to Saul here He did it to the Theife upon the Crosse But to that presumptuous sinner who sins on because God shewed mercy to One at last we must say a miserable Comforter is that Rule that affords but one example Nay is there one example The Conversion of Saul a Persecutor and of the Theife upon the Crosse is become Proverbium peccatorum The sinners proverb and serves him Gregor and satisfies him in all cases But is there any such thing Such a story there is and it is as true as Gospel it is the truth of Gospel it selfe But was this a late Repentance Answer S. Cyril Rogo te frater Tell me Beloved Thou that deferrest thy Repentance doest thou do it upon confidence of these examples Non in fine sed in principio conversus latro Thou deludest thine own soule The Theife was not converted at last but at first As soone as God afforded him any Call he came And at how many lights hast thou winked And to how many Cals hast thou stopped thine eares that deferrest thy repentance Christ said to him Hodie mecum eris This day thou shalt be with me in paradise when thou canst finde such another day looke for such another mercy A day that cleft the grave-stones of dead men A day that cleft the Temple it selfe A day that the Sunne durst not see A day that saw the soule of God may we not say so since that Man was God too depart from Man There shall be no more such dayes and therefore presume not of that voyce Hodie This day thou shalt be with me if thou make thy last minute that day though
troubling these Sadduces and these Pharisees I be content to let them agree and to divide my life between them so as that my presumption shall possesse all my youth and desperation mine age I have heard my sentence already The end of this man will be worse then his beginning How much soever God be incensed with me for my presumption at first he will be much more inexorable for my desperation at last And therefore interrupt the prescription of sin break off the correspondence of sin unjoynt the dependency of sin upon sin Bring every single sin as soon as thou committest it into the presence of thy God upon those two legs Confession and Detestation and thou shalt see that as though an intire Iland stand firme in the Sea yet a single clod of earth cast into the Sea is quickly washt into nothing so howsoever thine habituall and customary and concatenated sins sin enwrapped and complicated in sin sin entrenched and barricadoed in sin sin screwed up and riveted with sin may stand out and wrastle even with the mercies of God in the blood of Christ Jesus yet if thou bring every single sin into the sight of God it will be but as a clod of earth but as a graine of dust in the Ocean Keep thy sins then from mutuall intelligence That they doe not second one another induce occasion and then support and disguise one another and then neither shall the body of sin ever oppresse thee nor the exhalations and damps and vapors of thy sad soule hang between thee and the mercies of thy God But thou shalt live in the light and serenity of a peaceable conscience here and die in a faire possibility of a present melioration and improvement of that light All thy life thou shalt be preserved in an Orientall light an Easterne light a rising and a growing light the light of grace and at thy death thou shalt be super-illustrated with a Meridionall light a South light the light of glory And be this enough for the explication and application of these words and their complication with the day for the justifying of S. Pauls Stratagem in himselfe and the exemplifying and imitation thereof in us Amen That God that is the God of peace grant us his peace and one minde towards one another That God that is the Lord of Hosts maintaine in us that warre which himself hath proclaimed an enmity between the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent between the truth of God and the inventions of men That we may fight his battels against his enemies without and fight his battels against our enemies within our own corrupt affections That we may be victorious here in our selves and over our selves and triumph with him hereafter in eternall glory SERMONS Preached upon the PENITENTIALL PSALMES SERM. L. Preached upon the Penitentiall Psalmes PSAL. 6.1 O Lord Rebuke me not in thine Anger neither chasten me in thy het Displeasure GOD imputes but one thing to David but one sin The matter of Vriah the Hittite nor that neither but by way of exception not till he had first established an assurance that David stood well with him First he had said 1 King 25.5 David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from any thing that he had commanded him all the dayes of his life Here was rectitude He did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord no obliquity no departing into by-wayes upon collaterall respects Here was integrity to Gods service no serving of God and Mammon Hee turned not from any thing that God commanded him And here was perpetuity perseverance constancy All the dayes of his life And then and not till then God makes that one and but that one exception Except the matter of Vriah the Hittite When God was reconciled to him he would not so much as name that sin that had offended him And herein is the mercy of God in the merits of Christ a sea of mercie that as the Sea retaines no impression of the Ships that passe in it for Navies make no path in the Sea so when we put out into the boundlesse Sea of the blood of Christ Jesus by which onely wee have reconciliation to God there remaines no record against us for God hath cancelled that record which he kept and that which Satan kept God hath nailed to the Crosse of his Son That man which hath seene me at the sealing of my Pardon and the seale of my Reconciliation at the Sacrament many times since will yet in his passion or in his ill nature or in his uncharitablenesse object to me the fins of my youth whereas God himselfe if I have repented to day knowes not the sins that I did yesterday God hath rased the Record of my sin in Heaven it offends not him it grieves not his Saints nor Angels there and he hath rased the Record in hell it advances not their interest in me there nor their triumph over me And yet here the uncharitable man will know more and see more and remember more then my God or his devill remembers or knowes or sees He will see a path in the Sea he will see my sin when it is drowned in the blood of my Saviour After the Kings pardon perchance it will beare an action to call a man by that infamous name which that crime which is pardoned did justly cast upon him before the pardon After Gods reconciliation to David he would not name Davids sin in the particular But yet for all this though God will be no example of upbraiding or reproaching repented sinnes when God hath so far exprest his love as to bring that sinner to that repentance and so to mercy yet that he may perfect his owne care he exercises that repentant sinner with such medicinall corrections as may inable him to stand upright for the future And to that purpose was no man evermore exercised then David David broke into anothers family he built upon anothers ground he planted in anothers Seminary and God broke into his family his ground his Seminary In no story can wee finde so much Domestick affliction such rapes and incests and murders and rebellions from their owne children as in Davids storie Under the heavy waight and oppression of some of those is David by all Expositors conceived to have conceived and uttered this Psalme Some take it to have beene occasioned by some of his temporall afflictions either his persecution from Saul or bodily sicknesse in himselfe of which traditionally the Rabbins speake much or Absoloms unnaturall rebellion Some others with whom wee finde more reason to joyne finde more reason to interpret it of a spirituall affliction that David in the apprehension and under the sense of the wrath and indignation of God came to this vehement exclamation or deprecation O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure In which words we shall consider
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit As then the Prophet Davids principall purpose in this Text is according to the Interpretation of S. Paul to derive all the Blessednesse of man from God so is it also to put some conditions in man comprehended in this That there be no guile in his spirit For in this repentant sinner that shall be partaker of these degrees of Blessednesse of this Forgiving of this Covering of this Not Imputing there is required Integrapoenitentia A perfect and intire repentance And to the making up of that howsoever the words and termes may have been mis-used and defamed we acknowledge that there belongs a Contrition a Confession and a Satisfaction And all these howsoever our Adversaries slander us with a Doctrine of ease and a Religion of liberty we require with more exactnesse and severity then they doe For for Contrition we doe not we dare not say as some of them That Attrition is sufficient that it is sufficient to have such a sorrow for sin as a naturall sense and fear of torment doth imprint in us without any motion of the feare of God We know no measure of sorrow great enough for the violating of the infinite Majesty of God by our transgression And then for Confession we deny not a necessity to confesse to man There may be many cases of scruple of perplexity where it were an exposing our selves to farther occasions of sin not to confesse to man And in Confession we require a particular detestation of that sin which we confesse which they require not And lastly for Satisfaction we imbrace that Rule Condigna satisfactio malè facta corrigere Our best Satisfaction is to be better in the amendment of our lives And dispositions to particular sins we correct in our bodies by Discipline and Mortifications And we teach that no man hath done truly that part of Repentance which he is bound to doe if he have not given Satisfaction that is Restitution to every person damnified by him If that which we teach for this intirenesse of Repentance be practised in Contrition and Confession and Satisfaction they cannot calumniate our Doctrine nor our practise herein And if it be not practised there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in their spirit that pretend to any part of this Blessednesse Forgiving or Covering or Not imputing without this For he that is sorry for sin onely in Contemplation of hell and not of the joyes of heaven that would not give over his sin though there were no hell rather then he would lose heaven which is that which some of them call Attrition He that confesses his sin but hath no purpose to leave it He that does leave the sin but being growne rich by that sin retaines and enjoyes those riches this man is not intire in his Repentanne but there is guile in his spirit He that is slothfull in his work Prov. 18.9 is brother to him that is a great waster He that makes half-repentances makes none Men run out of their estates as well by a negligence and a not taking account of their Officers as by their own prodigality Our salvation is as much indangered if we call not our conscience to an examination as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory And therefore David places the consummation of his victory in that Psal 18.37 I have pursued mine enemies and overtaken them neither did I turne againe till they were consumed We require a pursuing of the enemy a search for the sin and not to stay till an Officer that is a sicknesse or any other calamity light upon that sin and so bring it before us We require an overtaking of the enemy That we be not weary in the search of our consciences And we require a consuming of the enemy not a weakning only a dislodging a dispossessing of the sin and the profit of the sin All the profit and all the pleasure of all the body of sin for he that is sorry with a godly sorrow he that confesses with a deliberate detestation he that satisfies with a full restitution for all his sins but one Dolus in spiritu There is guile in his spirit he is in no better case Berna◠then if at Sea he should stop all leaks but one and perish by that Si vis solvi solve omnes catenas If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy Bonds one chain till that be broke holds as fast as ten And therfore suffer your consideration to turn back a little upon this object that there may be Dolus in spiritu Guile in the spirit in our pretence to all those parts of Blessednesse which David recommends to us in this Catechisme In the Forgivenesse of transgrestions In the Covering of sin In the Not imputing of iniquity First then Forgiving in this Forgiving of transgressions which is our Saviour Christs taking away the sins of the world by taking them in the punishment due to them upon himselfe there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in that mans spirit that will so farre abridge the great Volumes of the mercy of God so farre contract his generall propositions as to restrain this salvation not only in the effect but in Gods own purpose to a few a very few soules When Subjects complaine of any Prince that he is too mercifull there is Dolus in spiritu Guile and deceit in this complaint They doe but think him too mercifull to other mens faults for where they need his mercy for their own they never think him too mercifull And which of us doe not need God for all sins If we did not in our selves yet it were a new sin in us not to desire that God should be as mercifull to every other sinner as to our selves As in heaven the joy of every soule shall be my joy so the mercy of God to every soule here is a mercy to my soule By the extension of his mercies to others I argue the application of his mercy to my selfe This contracting and abridging of the mercy of God will end in despaire of our selves that that mercy reaches not to us or if we become confident perchance presumptuous of our selves we shall despaire in the behalfe of other men and think they can receive no mercy And when men come to allow an impossibility of salvation in any they will come to assigne that impossibility nay to assigne those men and pronounce for this and this sin This man cannot be saved There is a sin against the Holy Ghost and to make us afraid of all approaches towards that sin Christ hath told us that that sin is irremissible unpardonable But since that sin includes impenitiblenesse in the way and actuall impenitence in the end we can never pronounce This is that sin or This is that sinner God is his Father that can say Our Father which art in heaven And his God that can say I beleeve in God And
there is Dolus in spiritu Guile in his spirit the craft of the Serpent eyther the poyson of the Serpent in a self-despaire or the sting of the Serpent in an uncharitable prejudging and precondemning of others when a man comes to suspect Gods good purposes or contract Gods generall propositions for this forgiving of transgressions is Christs taking away the sins of all the world by taking all the sins of all men upon himselfe And this Guile this Deceit may also be in the second in the Covering of sins which is the particular application of this generall mercy by his Ordinances in his Church He then that without Guile will have benefit by this Covering must Discover Covering Qui tegi vult peccata detegat is S. Augustines way He that will have his sins covered let him uncover them He that would not have them known let him confesse them He that would have them forgotten let him remember them He that would bury them let him rake them up There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid Mat. 10.26 that shall not be knowne It is not thy sending away a servant thy locking a doore thy blowing out a candle no not though thou blow out and extinguish the spirit as much as thou canst that hides a sin from God but since thou thinkest that thou hast hid it by the secret carriage thereof thou must reveale it by Confession If thou wilt not God will shew thee that he needed not thy Confession He will take knowledge of it to thy condemnation and he will publish it to the knowledge of all the world to thy confusion Tufecisti absconditè sayes God to David by Nathan Thou didst it secretly 2 Sam. 12.12 but I will doe this thing before all Israel and before the Sun Certainly it affects and stings many men more that God hath brought to light their particular sins and offences for which he does punish them then all the punishments that he inflicts upon them for then they cannot lay their ruine upon fortune upon vicissitudes and revolutions and changes of Court upon disaffections of Princes upon supplantations of Rivalls and Concurrents but God cleares all the world beside Perditio tua ex te God declares that the punishment is his Act and the Cause my sin This is Gods way and this he expresses vehemently against Jerusalem Behold I will gather all thy Lovers with whom thou hast taken pleasure Ezch. 16.37 and all them that thou hast loved with all them that thou hast hated and I will discover thy nakednesse to all them Those who loved us for pretended vertues shall see how much they were deceived in us Those that hated us because they were able to looke into us and to discerne our actions shall then say Triumphantly and publiquely to all Did not we tell you what would become of this man It was never likely to be better with him I will strip her naked and set her as in the day that she was borne Hos 2.3 Howsoever thou wert covered with the Covenant and taken into the Visible Church howsoever thou wert clothed by having put on Christ in Baptisme yet If thou sin against me sayes God and hide it from me I am against thee and I will shew the Nations thy nakednesse and the Kingdomes thy shame Nahum 3.5 To come to the covering of thy sins without guile first cover them not from thy self so as that thou canst not see yester-daies sin for to daies sin nor the sins of thy youth for thy present sins Cover not thy extortions with magnifique buildings and sumptuous furniture Dung not the fields that thou hast purchased with the bodies of those miserable wretches whom thou hast oppressed neither straw thine alleys and walks with the dust of Gods Saints whom thy hard dealing hath ground to powder There is but one good way of covering sins from our selves Si bona factamalis superponamus Gregor If we come to a habit of good actions contrary to those evils which we had accustomed our selves to and cover our sins so not that we forget the old but that we see no new There is a good covering of sins from our selves by such new habits and there is a good covering of them from other men for he that sins publiquely scandalously avowedly that teaches and encourages others to sin Esay 3.9 That declares his sin as Sodom and hides it not As in a mirror in a looking glasse that is compassed and set about with a hundred lesser glasses a man shall see his deformities in a hundred places at once so hee that hath sinned thus shall feele his torments in himselfe and in all those whom the not covering of his sins hath occasioned to commit the same sins Cover thy sins then from thy selfe so it be not by obduration cover them from others so it be not by hypocrisie But from God cover them not at all Prov. 28.13 He that covereth his sin shall not prosper but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy Even in confessing without forsaking there is Dolus in spiritus Guile and deceit in that spirit Noluit agnoscere maluit ignoscere S. Augustine makes the case of a customary sinner He was ready to pardon himselfe alwaies without any confession But God shall invert it to his subversion Maluit agnoscere noluit ignoscere God shall manifest his sin and not pardon it Sin hath that pride that it is not content with one garment Adam covered first with fig-leaves then with whole trees He hid himselfe amongst the trees Then hee covered his sin with the woman she provoked him And then with Gods action Quam tu dedisti The Woman whom thou gavest me And this was Adams wardrobe David covers his first sin of uncleannesse with soft stuffe with deceit with falshood with soft perswasions to Vriah to go in to his Wife Then he covers it with rich stuffe with scarlet with the blood of Vriah and of the army of the Lord of Hosts And then he covers it with strong and durable stuffe with an impenitence and with an insensiblenesse a yeare together too long for a King too long for any man to weare such a garment And this was Davids wardrobe But beloved sin is a serpent and he that covers sin does but keepe it warme that it may sting the more fiercely and disperse the venome and malignity thereof the more effectually Adam had patched up an apron to cover him God tooke none of those leaves God wrought not upon his beginnings but he covered him all over with durable skins God saw that Davids severall coverings did rather load him then cover the sin and therefore Transtulit He tooke all away sin and covering for the coverings were as great sins as the radicall sin that was to be covered was yea greater as the armes and boughs of a tree are greater then the roote Now to this extension and growth and largenesse of
the present This verse is especially an exultation for mercies past and yet the two last clauses are delivered in the future Thou shalt preserve me Thou shalt compasse me And the first is delivered without any limitation at all The present word Thou art is but inserted by our Translators In the Originall it is onely Tu refugium Thou my hiding place There is no fuisti nor es nor eris That he was or is or will be so but it is an expressing of a perpetuall and everlasting mercy for his mercy endureth for ever First then Ecclesia this is an acknowledgement of the Church contemplating her selfe in her low estate for the word Sether implies Tu absconsio Though I were in the darke it was thou that didst overshadow me Though I were in danger it was thou that didst hide mo from them This the Church hath had occasion to say more then once Once in the Primitive plantation thereof and againe in her Reformation At both times God shewed mercy to her that way in hiding her First then God hid the Primitive Church from the eye of envy Primitiva by keeping her poore and from the eye of jealousie and suspition by keeping her in an humble devotion towards him But yet even her poverty and her humility hid her not so but that persecution found her out and raged so against her as that those Emperours which raised the ten Persecutions against the Church seeme to have laboured to have gone beyond God in the ten Plagues of Egypt and to have done more at Rome then he did there All the power of the Roman world was bent against Christians more home-Christians slaine then forraine enemies All the criminall justice of the world bent upon them All other mens crimes even Neroes burning of Rome imputed to the Christians All the wit of the world bent against them All their Epigrammatists Satyrists having their wits exalted with rage with wine with rewards to multiply libels and calumnies and defamations upon the Christians All the Mechaniques of that world bent against them All the Enginiers employed to invent racks and tortures for the Christians Truly if I were to work upon Heathen men Westerne Americans or Easterne Chineses for their conversion to Christ I should scarce adventure to propose to them the histories of the Martyrs of the Primitive Church because to men that had no taste of Religion before they would rather seeme fables then truths and I should as soone be beleeved That a Virgin had a Son or in any maine Article of our Religion as that man could inflict or that man could beare such things as we are sure the Martyrs in the Primitive Church did Then God hid the Church He hid her in a great part in the Wildernesse in Ermitages and such retirings singlely one by one and after in penurious and obscure Monasteries many of these single Ermits gathering themselves together into one house when those Monasteries were both Schooles of learning and shops of Manufactures they taught and wrought in them August Nemo cuiquam onerosus No man was a burden to any others no man fed upon anothers labours nor drunke the sweat of anothers brow But Operabantur manibus ea quibus corpus pasci possit à Deo mens impediri non possit They laboured in such manufactures as might sustaine their bodies and not withdraw their minds from the service of God So God hid the Church not that the persecution did not finde and lop off many a great and top bough but he hid the roote and prevented the extirpation of that Tree which his owne right hand had planted Tu absconsio Reformata Thou art my hiding place sayes the Primitive Church and so may the Reformed Church say too For when the Roman Church had made this Latibulum this hiding place this refuge from Persecution Ermitages and Monasteries to be the most conspicuous the most glorious the most eminent the richest and most abundant places of the World when they had drawne these at first remote corners in the Wildernesse first into the skirts and suburbs then into the body and heart of every great City when for revenew and possession they will confesse that some one Monastery of the Benedictan had ten thousand of our pounds of yearely rent when they were come for their huge opulency to that height that they were formidable to those States that harboured them and for their numbers other Orders holding proportion with that one to reckon out of one Order fifty two Popes two hundred Cardinals seven thousand Archbishops and Bishops and almost three hundred Emperours and Kings and their children and fifty thousand declared and approved Saints when they were come to that over-valuation of their Religious Orders as to say That a Monke a Fryer merited more in his very sleep or meales then any secular man though a Church-man too did in his best works That to enter into any Order of Religion was a second Baptisme and wrought as much as the first Their revenew their number their dignity being come to this And then their viciousnesse their sensuality their bestiality to as great a height and exaltation as that yet in the midst of all these Tu absconsio mea may the Reformed Church say The Lord was their hiding place that mourned for this when they could not helpe and at all times and by all meanes that God afforded them endeavoured to advancea Reformation And though God exposed them as a wood to be felled to a slaughter of twenty of forty of sixty thousand in a day yet Ille absconsio He hath beene our hiding place He hath kept the roote alive all the way And though it hath beene with a cloud yet he hath covered us God came unto Moses though he came In caligine Nubis In a thick Cloud Exod. 19.9 when the glory of the Lord is said to have filled the Tabernacle even that glory was a Cloud Exod. 40.34 And so it was in the second place of his worship too in Solomons Temple 2 Chro. 5.13 that was filled with a Cloud S. Chrysostome when he considered that Christ ascended in a Cloud a Acts 1. Chrysost And that he shall returne againe in a Cloud b Mat. 24. Paternum Currum deligere voluit The Son would make use of his Fathers Chariot and shew mercy nay shew glory in a Cloud as his Father had done often The Primitive Church the Reformed Church must not complaine of having beene kept under Clouds for Ille absconsio God hath made those Clouds their hiding place and wrapped up the seed and the roote safe in that Cloud Though the Church were trodden upon like a worme of the earth yet still she might heare God in that Cloud Noli timere vermis Iacob Be not afraid thou worme of Iacob for I will keepe thee Esay 41.14 saith the Lord thy Redeemer the holy One of Israel God
in thine honor wounds in thy conscience yet we may heare David reply Josh 24.16 Tu Domine As the people said to Ioshuah God forbid we should forsake the Lord we will serve the Lord And when Ioshuah said You cannot serve the Lord for he is a jealous God and if yee turne from him he will turne and doe you hurt and consame you after he hath done you good The people replyed Nay but we will serve the Lord so whatsoever God threatens David of afflictions and tribulations and purgings in fire we may heare David reply Nay but Lord doe Thou doe it do it how Thou wilt but doe Thou do it Thy corrosives are better then others somentations Thy bitternesses sweeter then others honey Thy fires are but lukewarme fires nay they have nothing of fire in them but light to direct me in my way And thy very frowns are but as trenches cut out as lanes that leade me to thy grave or Rivers or Channels that lead me to the sea of thy bloud Let me go upon Crouches so I go to Heaven Lay what waight thou wilt even upon my foule that that be heavy and heavy unto death so I may have a cheerfull transmigration then Domine Tu Lord doe thou doe it and I shall not wish it mended And then when we heare David say Domine Me Lord purge Me wash Me and returne foure times in this short Text to that personall appropriation of Gods worke upon himselfe Purge Me that I may be cleane wash Me that I may be whiter then snow if we heare God say as the language of his mercy is for the most part generall As the Sea is above the Earth so is the blood of my Son above all sin Congregations of three thousand and of five thousand were purged and washed converted and baptized at particular Sermons of S. Peter whole legions of Souldiers that consisted of thousands were purged in their owne blood and became Martyrs in one day There is enough done to worke upon all Examples enow given to guide all we may heare David reply Domine Me Nay but Lord I doe not heare Peter preach I live not in a time or in a place where Crownes of Martyrdome are distributed nor am I sure my Constancy would make me capable of it if I did Lord I know that a thousand of these worlds were not worth one drop of thy blood and yet I know that if there had been but one some distressed and that soule distressed but with one sin thou wouldest have spent the last drop of that blood for that soule Blessed be thy Name for having wrapped me up in thy generall Covenants and made me partaker of thy generall Ordinances but yet Lord looke more particularly upon me and appropriate thy selfe to me to me not onely as thy Creature as a man as a Christian but as I am I as I am this sinner that confesses now and as I am this penitent that begs thy mercy now And now Beloved we have said so much towards enough of the persons God and David The accesse of David to God and the appropriation of God to David as that we may well passe to our other generall part the petitions which David in his own and our behalfe makes to God Purge me with Hyssop and I shall be cleane wash me and I shall be whiter then snow In this 2 Part. Purgabis the first is a great worke That which we translate Purge me And yet how soone David is come to it It is his first period The passage of a Spirit is very quick but it is not immediate Not from extreame to extreame but by passing the way between The Evill spirit passes not so no good soule was ever made very ill in an instant no nor so soone as some ill have been made good No man can give me Examples of men so soone perverted as I can of men converted It is not in the power of the Devill to doe so much harme as God can doe good Nay we may be bold to say it is not in the will not in the desire of the Devill to doe so much harme as God would doe good for illnesse is not in the nature of the Devill The Devill was naturally good made created good His first illnesse was but a defection from that goodnesse and his present illnesse is but a punishment for that defection but God is good goodnesse in his nature essentially eternally good and therefore the good motions of the Spirit of God worke otherwise upon us then the tentations of the evill Spirit doe How soone and to what a height came David here He makes his Petition his first Petition with that confidence as that it hath scarce the nature of a Petition for it is in the Originall Thou wilt purge me Thou wilt wash me Thou hadst a gracious will and purpose to doe it before thou didst infuse the will and the desire in me to petition it Nay this word may well be translated not onely Thou wilt but by the other denotation of the future Thou shalt Thou shalt purge me Thou shalt wash me Lord I doe but remember thee of thy debt of that which thy gracious promise hath made thy debt to shew mercy to every penitent sinner And then as the word implies confidence and acceleration infallibility and expedition too That as soone as I can aske I am sure to be heard so does it imply a totality an intirenesse a fulnesse in the worke for the roote of the word is Peccare to sin for purging is a purging of peccant humors but in this Conjugation in that language it hath a privative signification and literally signifies Expeccabis and if in our language that were a word in use it might be translated Thou shalt un-sin me that is look upon me as a man that had never sinned as a man invested in the innocency of thy Sonne who knew no sin David gives no man rule nor example of other assurance in God then in the remission of sins Not that any precontract or Election makes our sins no sins or makes our sins no hindrances in our way to salvation or that we are in Gods favour at that time when we sin nor returned to his favour before we repent our sin It is onely this expeccation this unsinning this taking away of sins formerly committed that restores me And that is not done with nothing David assignes proposes a meanes by which he looks for it Hyssop Thou shalt purge me with Hyssop The Fathers taking the words as they found them and fastning with a spirituall delight Hyssopo as their devout custome was their Meditations upon the figurative and Metaphoricall phrase of purging by Hyssop have found purgative vertues in that plant and made usefull and spirituall applications thereof for the purging of our soules from sin In this doe S. Ambrose and Augustine and Hierome agree that Hyssop hath vertue in it proper for the lungs in
him but his hinder parts Exod. 33.23 Let that be his Decrees then when in his due time they came to execution for then and not till then they are works And God would not suffer Moses his body to be seene when it was dead Deut. 34.6 because then it could not speake to them it could not instruct them it could not direct them in any duty if they transgressed from any God himselfe would not be spoken to by us but as hee speaks of himselfe and he speaks in his works And as among men some may Build and some may Write and wee call both by one name wee call his Buildings and wee call his Books his Works so if wee will speake of God this World which he hath built and these Scriptures which he hath written are his Works and we speak of God in his Works which is the commandement of this Text when we speak of him so as he hath manifested himselfe in his miracles and as hee hath declared himselfe in his Scriptures for both these are his Works There are Decrees in God but we can take out no Copies of them till God himselfe exemplifie them in the execution of them The accomplishing of the Decree is the best publishing the best notifying of the Decree But of his Works we can take Copies for his Scriptures are his Works and we have them by Translations and Illustrations made appliable to every understanding All the promises of his Scriptures belong to all And for his Miracles his Miracles are also his Works we have an assurance That whatsoever God hath done for any he will doe againe for us It is then his Works upon which we fix this Commemoration Deutipse in operibus illis considerandus and this glorifying of God but so as that wee determine not upon the Work it selfe but God in the Work Say unto God to Him how terrible art thou that God in thy Works It may bee of use to you to receive this note Then when it is said in this Psalme Come and see the Works of God and after Come and heare all yee that feare God in both places it is not Psal 66.5 Verse 16. Venite but Ite It is Lechu not Come but Goe Goe out Goe forth abroad to consider God in his Works Goe as farre as you can stop not in your selves nor stop not in any other till you come to God himselfe If you consider the Scriptures to be his Works make not Scriptures of your owne which you doe if you make them subject to your private interpretation My soule speaks in my tongue else I could make no sound My tongue speaks in English else I should not be understood by the Congregation So God speaks by his Sonne in the Gospel but then the Gospel speaks in the Church that every man may heare Ite goe forth stay not in your selves if you will heare him And so for matter of Action and Protection come not home to your selves stay not in your selves not in a considence in your owne power and wisedome but Ite goe forth goe forth into Aegypt goe forth into Babylon and look who delivered your Predecessors predecessors in Affliction predecessors in Mercy and that God who is Yesterday Heb. 13.8 and to day and the same for ever shall doe the same things which he did yesterday to day and for ever Turne alwayes to the Commemoration of Works but not your owne Ite goe forth goe farther then that Then your selves farther then the Angels and Saints in heaven That when you commemorate your deliverance from an Invasion and your deliverance from the Vault you doe not ascribe these deliverances to those Saints upon whose dayes they were wrought In all your Commemorations and commemorations are prayers and God receives that which wee offer for a Thanksgiving for former Benefits as a prayer for future Ite goe forth by the river to the spring by the branch to the root by the worke to God himselfe and Dicite say unto him say of him Quam terribilis Tu in Tuis which sets us upon another step in this part To consider what this Terriblenesse is that God expresses in his works Though there be a difference between timer and terror Terribilis feare and terror yet the difference is not so great but that both may fall upon a good man Not onely a feare of God must but a terror of God may fall upon the Best When God talked with Abraham a horror of great darknesse fell upon him Gen. 15.12 sayes that Text. The Father of lights and the God of all comfort present and present in an action of Mercy and yet a horror of great darknesse fell upon Abraham When God talked personally and presentially with Moses Exod. 13.6 Moses hid his face for sayes that Text he was afraid to looke upon God When I look upon God as I am bid to doe in this Text in those terrible Judgements which he hath executed upon some men and see that there is nothing between mee and the same Judgement for I have sinned the same sinnes and God is the same God I am not able of my selfe to dye that glasse that spectacle thorow which I looke upon this God in what colour I will whether this glasse shall be black through my despaire and so I shall see God in the cloud of my sinnes or red in the blood of Christ Jesus and I shall see God in a Bath of the blood of his Sonne whether I shall see God as a Dove with an Olive branch peace to my soule or as an Eagle a vulture to prey and to prey everlastingly upon mee whether in the deepe floods of Tribulation spirituall or temporall I shall see God as an Arke to take mee in or as a Whale to swallow mee and if his Whale doe swallow mee the Tribulation devour me whether his purpose bee to restore mee or to consume me I I of my selfe cannot tell I cannot look upon God in what line I will nor take hold of God by what handle I will Hee is a terrible God I take him so And then I cannot discontinue I cannot breake off this terriblenesse and say Hee hath beene terrible to that man and there is an end of his terror it reaches not to me Why not to me In me there is no merit nor shadow of merit In God there is no change nor shadow of change I am the same sinner he is the same God still the same desperate sinner still the same terrible God But terrible in his works Reverendus sayes our Text Terrible so as hee hath declared himselfe to be in his works His Works are as we said before his Actions and his Scriptures In his Actions we see him Terrible upon disobedient Resisters of his Graces and Despisers of the meanes thereof not upon others wee have no examples of that In his word we accept this word in which he hath beene pleased to
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
and in the Cup of Salvation in the Sacrament for so much as concernes him is but spilt upon the ground as though his honey his worldly greamesse were his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Prince and friends and all when that is lost by this vomit he mournes for all in a sad and everlasting mourning in such a disconsolate dejection of spirit as ends either in an utter inconsideration of God or in a desperation of his mercies This is that Incipiamte evomere as the Vulgat reads it in this vomit of worldly things Revel 3.16 God does begin to vomit him out of his mouth and then God does not returne to his vomit but leaves this impatient patient to his impenitiblenesse But we must not lanch into these wide Seas now to consider the scorne or the danger of this vomit but rather draw into the harbor and but repeat the text transferred from this world to the text from temporall to spirituall things Thus far we have beene In melle In honey upon honey but now Super mel Conclusio above honey Psal 19.10 The judgements of the Lord are Dulcia prae melle Sweeter then honey and the honey combe And the judgements of the Lord are that by which the Lord will judge us and this world it is his word His word the sincerity of the Gospel the truth of his Religion is our honey and honey combe our honey and our waxe our Covenant and our Seale we have him not if we have not his truth if we require other honey and wee trust him not if we require any other Seale if we thinke the word of God needs the traditions of men And Invenisti tu Hath God manifested to thee the truth of his Gospell Blesse thou the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever whose day-spring from an high hath visited thee and left so many Nations in darknesse who shall never heare of Christ till they heare himselfe nor heare other voyce from him then then the Ite maledicti Pity them that have not this honey and confesse for thy selfe that though thou have it thou hast but found it couldst thou bespeake Christian Parents beforehand and say I will be borne of such Parents as shall give me a title to the Covenant to Baptisme or couldst thou procure Sureties that should bind themselves for thee at the entring into the Covenant in Baptisme Thou foundest thy selfe in the Christian Church and thou foundest meanes of salvation there thou broughtest none hither thou boughtest none here the Title of S. Andrew the first of the Apostles that came to Christ was but that Invenimus Mesiam We have found the Mesias It is onely Christ himselfe that sayes of himselfe Cant. 5.1 Comedi mel meum I have eat my honey his owne honey We have no grace no Gospel of our owne we find it here But since thou hast found it Comede Eat it do not drinke the cup of Babylon lest thou drink the cup of Gods wrath too but make this Honey Christs true Religion thy meate digest that assimilate that incorporate that and let Christ himself and his merit be as thy soul let the cleere and outward profession of his truth Religion be as thy body If thou give away that body be flattered out of thy Religion or threatned out of thy Religion If thou sell this body be bought and bribed out of thy Religion If thou lend this body discontinue thy Religion for a yeare or two to see how things will fall out if thou have no body thou shalt have no Resurrection and the cleere and undisguised profession of the truth is the body Eat therefore this honey Ad sufficientiam so much as is enough To beleeve implicitly as the Church beleeves and know nothing is not enough know thy foundations and who laid them Other foundations can no man lay then are laid Christ Jesus neither can other men lay those foundations otherwise then they are laid by the Apostles but eat Ad sufficientiam tuam that which is enough for thee for so much knowledge is not required in thee in those things as in them whose profession it is to teach them be content to leave a roome stil for the Apostles Aemulamini charismata meliora desire better gifts and ever think it a title of dignity which the Angel gave Daniel to be Vir desideriorum To have still some farther object of thy desires Do not thinke thou wantest all because thou hast not all for at the great last day we shall see more plead Catechismes for their salvation then the great volumes of Controversies more plead their pockets then their Libraries If S. Paul so great an Argosie held no more but Christum crucifixum what can thy Pinnace hold Let humility be thy ballast and necessary knowledge thy fraight for there is an over-fulnesse of knowledge which forces a vomit a vomit of opprobrious and contumelious speeches a belching and spitting of the name of Heretique and Schismatique and a losse of charity for matters that are not of faith and from this vomiting comes emptiness The more disputing Psal 90.14 the lesse beleeving but Saturasti nos benignitate tua Domine Thou hast satisfied us early with thy mercy Thou gavest us Christianity early and thou gavest us the Reformation early and therefore since in thee we have found this honey let us so eat it Levit. 18.25 and so hold it That the land do not vomit her Inhabitants nor spew us out as it spewed out the Nations that were before us Levit. 18.29 but that our dayes may be long in this land which the Lord our God hath given us and that with the Ancient of dayes we may have a day without any night in that land which his Son our Saviour hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood To which glorious Son of God c. SERM. LXXI At the Haghe Decemb. 19. 1619. I Preached upon this Text. Since in my sicknesse at Abrey-hatche in Essex 1630. revising my short notes of that Sermon I digested them into these two 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 SOLOMON presenting our Saviour Christ in the name and person of Wisdome in the booke of Proverbs puts by instinct of the Holy Ghost these words into his mouth Prov. 8.30 Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum Christs delight is to be with the children of men And in satisfaction of that delight he sayes in the same verse in the person of Christ That he rejoyced to be in the habitable parts of the Earth that is where he might converse with men Ludens in orbe terrarum so the Vulgat reads
heavy burden upon that place but that it was a heavy burden to them to denounce that judgement even upon Gods enemies Our errand our joy our Crowne is Consolation for if we consider the three Persons of the holy blessed and glorious Trinity and their working upon us a third part of their worke if we may so speake is consolation the Father is Power the Son Wisdome and the Holy Ghost Consolation for the Holy Ghost is not in a Vulture that hovers over Armies and infected Cities and feeds upon carcasses But the Holy Ghost is in a Dove that would not make a Congregation a slaughter-house but feeds upon corne corne that hath in nature a disposition to a reviviscence and a repullulation and would imprint in you al the consolation and sense of a possibility of returning to a new and a better life God found me nothing and of that nothing made me Adam left me worse then God found me worse then nothing the child of wrath corrupted with the leaven of Originall sin Christ Jesus found me worse then Adam left me not onely sowred with Originall but spotted and gangrened and dead and buried and putrified in actual and habitual sins and yet in that state redeemed me And I make my selfe worse then Christ found me and in an inordinate dejection of spirit conceive a jealousie and suspition that his merit concernes not me that his blood extends not to my sin And in this last and worst state the Holy Ghost finds me the Spirit of Consolation And he sends a Barnabas a son of Consolation unto me A Barnabas to my sick bed side A Physitian that comforts with hopes and meanes of health A Barnabas to my broken fortune A potent and a loving friend that assists the reparation and the establishing of my state A Barnabas into the Pulpit that restores and rectifies my conscience and scatters and dispels all those clouds that invested it and infested it before That un-imaginable worke of the Creation were not ready for a Sabbath though I be a Creature and a man I could have no Sabbath no rest no peace of conscience That un-expressible worke of the Redemption were not ready for that Seale which our Saviour set to it upon the Crosse in the Consummatum est All were not finished that concerned me if the Holy Ghost were not ready to deliver that which Christ sealed and to witnesse that which were so delivered that that Spirit might ever testifie to my spirit That all that Christ Jesus said and did and suffered was said and done and suffered for my soule Consolation is not all if we consider God but if I consider my selfe and my state Consolation is all Christs meaning then in this place was to establish in his Disciples this Consolation Consolatio vera but thus Si quo minus If it were not thus I would tell you If this were not true consolation I would not delude you I would not entertaine you with false for he is Deus omnium miserationum The God of all mercies and yet he will not shew mercy to them who sin upon presumption So he is Deus omnium Consolationum The God of all Comforts and yet will not comfort them who rely upon the false and miserable comforts of this world How many how very many of us doe otherwise Otherwise to others otherwise to our own Consciences Delude all with false Comforts They would not suffer Christ himselfe to sleepe upon a pillow in a storme but they waked him with that Master carest not thou though we perish When will we wake any Master Mar. 4.38 any upon whom we depend and say Master carest not thou though thou perish We suffer others whom we should instruct and we suffer our selves to passe on to the last gaspe and we never rebuke our Consciences till our Consciences rebuke us at last Alas it is otherwise and you never told us Christ comforts then he disputes not that is not his way He ministers true comfort Domus he flatters not that is not his way And in this true comfort the first beame is That that state which he promises them is a House In my Fathers House c. God hath a progresse house a removing house here upon earth His house of prayer At this houre God enters into as many of these houses as are opened for his service at this houre But his standing house his house of glory is that in Heaven and that he promises them God himselfe dwelt in Tents in this world and he gives them a House in Heaven A House in the designe and survay whereof the Holy Ghost himselfe is figurative the Fathers wanton and the School-men wilde The Holy Ghost in describing this House Rev. 21. fills our contemplation with foundations and walls and gates of gold of precious stones and all materialls that we can call precious The Holy Ghost is figurative And the Fathers are wanton in their spirituall elegancies such as that of S. Augustins if that booke be his Hiems horrens Aestas torrens And Virent prata vernant sata and such other harmonious and melodious and mellifluous cadences of these waters of life But the School-men are wild for as one Author who is afraid of admitting too great a hollownesse in the Earth Munster lest then the Earth might not be said to be solid pronounces that Hell cannot possibly be above three thousand miles in compasse and then one of the torments of Hell will be the throng for their bodies must be there in their dimensions as well as their soules so when the School-men come to measure this house in heaven as they will measure it and the Master God and all his Attributes and tell us how Allmighty and how Infinite he is they pronounce that every soule in that house shall have more roome to it selfe then all this world is We know not that nor see we that the consolation lyes in that we rest in this that it is a House It hath a foundation no Earth-quake shall shake it It hath walls no Artillery shall batter it It hath a roofe no tempest shall pierce it It is a house that affords security and that is one beame And it is Domus patris His Fathers house a house in which he hath interest and that is another beame of his Consolation It was his Fathers and so his And his and so ours Patris for we are not joynt purchasers of Heaven with the Saints but we are co-heires with Christ Jesus We have not a place there because they have done more then enough for themselves but because he hath done enough for them and us too By death we are gathered to our Fathers in nature and by death through his mercy gathered to his Father also Where we shall have a full satisfaction in that wherein S. Philip placed all satisfaction Ostende nobis patrem Lord shew us thy Father and it is enough We shall see his
Son are appropriated to him and made his so intirely as if there were never a soule created but his To enrich this poore soule to comfort this sad soule so as that he shall beleeve and by beleeving finde all Christ to be his this is that Liberality which we speake of now in dispensing whereof The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things shall stand Now you may be pleased to remember that when wee considered this word Cogitabit in our former part he shall Devise we found this Devising Originally to signifie a studying a deliberation a concluding upon premisses upon which we inferred pregnantly and justly that as to support a mans expense he must Vivere de proprio Live upon his owne so to relieve others he must Dare de suo Be liberall of that which is his Now what is ours Ours that are Ministers of the Gospell As wee are Christs so Christ is ours Puer datus nobis filius natus nobis There is a Child given unto us a Son borne unto us Esay 9. Even in that sense Christ is given to us that we might give him to others So that in this kind of spirituall liberality we can be liberall of no more but our owne we can give nothing but Christ we can minister comfort to none farther then he is capable and willing to receive and embrace Christ Jesus When therefore some of the Fathers have said Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris Just Mar. Rectified reason was accepted at the hands of the Gentiles as faith is of the Christians Philosophia per se justificavit Graecos Philosophie alone without faith justified the Grecians Clemens Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was enough for the Gentiles Chrysost if they did not worship false Gods though they knew not the true truly Andrad when we heare Andradius in the Roman Church poure out falvation to all the Gentiles that lived a good morall life and no more when we heare their Tostatus sweepe away Tostatus blow away Originall sin so easily from all the Gentiles In prima operatione bona in charitate In the first good Morall worke that they doe Originall sin is as much extinguished in them by that as by Baptisme in us When we see some Authors in the Reformation afford Heaven to persons that never professed Christ this is spirituall prodigality and beyond that liberality which we consider now for Christ is ours and where we can apply him we can give all comforts in him But none to others Not that we manacle the hands of God or say God can save no man without the profession of Christ But that God hath put nothing else into his Churches hands to save men by but Christ delivered in his Scripture applied in the preaching of the Gospell and sealed in the Sacraments And therefore if we should give this comfort to any but those that received him and received him so according to his Ordinance in his Church we should be over-liberall for we should give more then our owne But to all that would be comforted in Christ we devise liberall things that is wee spend our studies our lucubrations our meditations to bring Christ Jesus home to their case and their conscience And by these liberall things we shall stand In our former part in that Civill liberality Stabit wee did not content our selves with that narrow signification of the word which some gave That the liberall man would stand to it abide by it that is continue liberall still habitually but that he should stand by it and prosper the better for it If this Liberality which we consider now in this second Part were but that branch of Charity which is bodily reliefe by bountifull Almes and no more yet wee might be so liberall in Gods behalfe as to pronounce that the charitable man should stand by it prosper for it and have a plentifull harvest for any sowing in that kinde The Holy Ghost in the 112. Psalme and 9. verse hath taken a word which may almost seeme to taste of a little inconsideration in such a charitable person a little indiscretion in giving in flinging in casting away for it is He hath dispersed Dispersed A word that implies a carelesse scattering But that which followes justifies it He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore Let the manner or the measure be how it will so it be given to the poore it will not be without excuse not without thanks And therefore wee have this liberall charity expressed by S. Paul in the same word too 2 Cor. 9 9. He hath dispersed but dispersed as before Dispersed by giving to the poore For there is more negligence more inconsideration allowed us in giving of Almes then in any other expense Neither are we bound to examine the condition and worthinesse of the person to whom we give too narrowly too severely Hee that gives freely shall stand by doing so Prov. 17.19 for He that pitieth the poore lendeth to the Lord And the Lord is a good Debtor and never puts Creditor to sue And if that bee not comfort enough S. Hicrom gives more in his-translation of that place foeneratur Domino he that pitieth the poore puts his money to use to God and shall receive the debt and more But the liberality which we consider here in this part is more then that more then any charity how large soever that is determined or conversant about bodily reliefe for as you have heard it is consolation applied in Christ to a distressed soule to a disconsolate spirit And how a liberall man shall stand by this liberality by applying such consolation to such a distressed soule I better know in my selfe then I can tell any other that is not of mine owne profession for this knowledge lyes in the experience of it For the most part men are of one of these three sorts Either inconsiderate men and they that consider not themselves consider not us they aske not they expect not this liberality from us or else they are over-confident and presume too much upon God or diffident and distrust him too much And with these two wee meet often but truly with seven diffident and dejected for one presuming soule So that we have much exercise of this liberality of raising dejected spirits And by this liberality we stand For when I have given that man comfort that man hath given me a Sacrament hee hath given me a seale and evidence of Gods favour upon me I have received from him in his receiving from me I leave him comforted in Christ Jesus and I goe away comforted in my selfe that Christ Jesus hath made me an instrument of the dispensation of his mercy And I argue to my selfe and say Lord when I went I was sure that thou who hadst received me to mercy wouldst also receive him who could not be so great a sinner as I And now when I come
away I am sure that thou who art returned to him and hast re-manifested thy selfe to him who in the diffidence of his sad soule thought thee gone for ever wilt never depart from mee nor hide thy selfe from me who desire to dwell in thy presence And so by this liberality I stand by giving I receive comfort We follow our text Rex Christus in the Context our Prophet as he places this liberality in the King in the Magistrate in the People Here the King is Christ The Magistrate the Minister The People the people whether collectively that is the Congregation or distributively every particular soule Afford your devotions a minute to each of these and we have done When we consider the liberality of our King the bounty of God to man in Christ it is Species ingratitudinis It is a degree of ingratitude nay it is a degree of forgetfulnesse to pretend to remember his benefits so as to reckon them for they are innumerable Sicut in visibilibus est Sol Nazlan in intelligibilibus est Deus As liberall as the Sun is in Nature God is in grace Bonitas Dei ad extra liberalitas est It is the expressing of the Schoole and of much use That God is Essentiall Goodnesse within doores in himselfe But Ad extra when he comes abroad when this interiour Goodnesse is produced into action Barnard then all Gods Goodnesse is Liberality Deus est voluntas Omnipotens is excellently said by S. Bernard God is all Almightinesse all Power but he might be so and we never the better Therefore he is Voluntas omnipotens A Power digested into a Will as Willing as Able to doe us all all good What good Receive some drops of it in S. Bernards owne Manna his owne honey Creans mentes ad se participandum So good as that he hath first given us soules capable of him and made us so partakers of the Divine Nature Vivificans ad sentiendum So good as that he hath quickned those soules and made them sensible of having received him for Grace is not grace to me till it make me know that I have it Alliciens ad appetendum So good as that he hath given that soule an appetite and a holy hunger and thirst to take in more of him for I have no Grace till I would have more and then Dilatans ad capiendum So good as that he hath dilated and enlarged that soule to take in as much of God as he will And lest the soule should lose any of this by unthankfulnesse Luke 6.31 God is kind even to the unthankfull sayes God himselfe which is a degree of goodnesse in which God seldome is nay in which God scarce looks to be imitated To be kinde to the unthankfull But if the whole space to the Firmament were filled with sand and we had before us Clavius his number how many thousands would be If all that space were filled with water and so joyned the waters above with the waters below the Firmament and we had the number of all those drops of water And then had every single sand and every single drop multiplied by the whole number of both we were still short of numbring the benefits of God as God But then of God in Christ infinitely super-infinitely short To have been once nothing and to be now co-heire with the Son of God is such a Circle such a Compasse as that no revolutions in this world to rise from the lowest to the highest or to fall from the highest to the lowest can be called or thought any Segment any Arch any Point in respect of this Circle To have once been nothing and now to be co-heires with the Son of God That Son of God who if there had been but one soule to have been saved would have dyed for that nay if all soules had been to be saved but one and that that onely had sinned he would not have contented himselfe with all the rest but would have dyed for that And there is the goodnesse the liberality of our King our God our Christ our Jesus But we must looke upon this liberality as our Prophet leads us in the Magistrate too Magistratus that is in this part The Minister As I have received mercy I am one of them as S. Paul speaks And why should I deliver out this mercy to others in a scanter measure then I have received it my selfe from God Why should I deliver out his Talents in single farthings Or his Gomers in narrow and shallow thimbles Why should I defalke from his generall propositions and against all Grammar and all Dictionaries call his Omnes his All a few Why should I lie to the Holy Ghost Acts 5. as S. Peter charges Ananias Soldest thou the land for so much Yea for so much Did God make heaven for so few yes for so few Why should I say so If we will constitute a place for heaven above and a place for hell below even the capacity of the place will yeeld an argument that God as we can consider him in his first meaning meant more should be saved then cast away As oft as God tells us of painfull wayes and narrow gates and of Camels and needles all that is done to sharpen an industry in all not to threaten an impossibility to any If God would not have all why tooke he me And if he were sorry he had taken me or were wearied with the sins of my youth why did he not let me slide away in the change of sins in mine age or in my sinfull memory of old sins or in my sinfull sorrow that I could not continue in those sins but still make his mercies new to me every morning My King my God in Christ is liberall to all He bids us his Officers his Ministers to be so too and I am even thus far If any man doubt his salvation if any man thinke himselfe too great a sinner to attaine salvation let him repent and take mine for his with any true repentant sinner I will change states for God knowes his repentance whether it be true or no better then I know mine Therefore doth the Prophet here promise this liberality as in the King in Christ Populus and in the Magistrate the Minister so in the people too in every particular soule He cryes to us his Ministers Consolamini Consolamini Comfort O Comfort my people Esay 40.1 and he cryes to every one of you Miscrere animae tuae Have mercy upon thine own soule Ecclus. 30.24 and I will commiserate it too Be liberall to thy selfe and I will beare thee out in it God asks Quid potui What could have been done more to my Vineyard Doe but tell him Esay 5.4 and he will doe that Tell him that he can remove this dampe from thy heart Tell him as though thou wouldest have it done and he will doe it Tell him that he can bring teares into
a phrase very remarkeable by David He bringeth the winde out of his Treasuries And then follow in that place Psal 135.7 all the Plagues of Egypt stormes and tempests ruines and devastations are not onely in Gods Armories but they are in his Treasuries as hee is the Lord of Hosts hee fetches his judgements from his Armories and casts confusion upon his enemies but as he is the God of mercy and of plentifull redemption he fetches these judgements these corrections out of his treasuries and they are the Money the Jewels by which he redeemes and buyes us againe God does nothing God can doe nothing no not in the way of ruine and destruction but there is mercy in it he cannot open a doore in his Armory but a window into his Treasury opens too and he must looke into that But then Gods corrections are his Acts as the Physitian is his Creature God created him for necessity When God made man his first intention was not that man should fall and so need a Messias nor that man should fall sick and so need a Physitian nor that man should fall into rebellion by sin and so need his rod his staffe his scourge of afflictions to whip him into the way againe But yet sayes the Wiseman Ecclus. 38.1 Honour the Physitian for the use you may have of him slight him not because thou hast no need of him yet So though Gods corrections were not from a primary but a secondary intention yet when you see those corrections fall upon another give a good interpretation of them and beleeve Gods purpose to be not to destroy but to recover that man Do not thou make Gods Rheubarbe thy Ratsbane and poyson thine owne soule with an uncharitable misinterpretation of that correction which God hath sent to cure his And then in thine owne afflictions flie evermore to this Prayer Satisfie us with thy mercy first Satisfie us make it appeare to us that thine intention is mercy though thou enwrap it in temporall afflictions in this darke cloud let us discerne thy Son and though in an act of displeasure see that thou art well pleased with us Satisfie us that there is mercy in thy judgements and then satisfie us that thy mercy is mercy for such is the stupidity of sinfull man That as in temporall blessings we discerne them best by wanting them so do we the mercies of God too we call it not a mercy to have the same blessings still but as every man conceives a greater degree of joy in recovering from a sicknesse then in his former established health so without doubt our Ancestors who indured many yeares Civill and forraine wars were more affected with their first peace then we are with our continuall enjoying thereof And our Fathers more thankfull for the beginning of Reformation of Religion then we for so long enjoying the continuance thereof Satisfie us with thy mercie Let us still be able to see mercy in thy judgements lest they deject us and confound us Satisfie us with thy mercie let us be able to see that our deliverance is a mercy and not a naturall thing that might have hapned so or a necessary thing that must have hapned so though there had beene no God in Heaven nor providence upon earth But especially since the way that thou choosest is to goe all by mercy and not to be put to this way of correction so dispose so compose our minds and so transpose all our affections that we may live upon thy food and not put thee to thy physick that we may embrace thee in the light and not be put to seeke thee in the darke that wee come to thee in thy Mercy and not be whipped to thee by thy Corrections And so we have done also with our second Part The pieces and petitions that constitute this Prayer as it is a Prayer for Fulnesse and Satisfaction a Prayer of Extent and Dilatation a Prayer of Dispatch and Expedition and then a Prayer of Evidence and Declaration and lastly a Prayer of Limitation even upon God himselfe Satisfie and satisfie us and us early with that which we may discerne to be thine and let that way be mercy There remaines yet a third Part 3 Part. Gaudium what this Prayer produces and it is joy and continual joy That we may rejoyce and be glad all our dayes The words are the Parts and we invert not we trouble not the Order the Holy Ghost hath laid them fitliest for our use in the Text it selfe and so we take them First then the gaine is joy Joy is Gods owne Seale and his keeper is the Holy Ghost wee have many sudden ejaculations in the forme of Prayer sometimes inconsiderately made and they vanish so but if I can reflect upon my prayer ruminate and returne againe with joy to the same prayer I have Gods Seale upon it And therefore it is not so very an idle thing as some have mis-imagined it to repeat often the same prayer in the same words Our Saviour did so he prayed a third time and in the same words This reflecting upon a former prayer is that that sets to this Seale this joy and if I have joy in my prayer it is granted so far as concernes my good and Gods glory It hath beene disputed by many both of the Gentiles with whom the Fathers disputed and of the Schoolemen who dispute with one another An sit gaudium in Deo de semet Whether God rejoyce in himselfe in contemplation of himselfe whether God be glad that he is God But it is disputed by them onely to establish it and to illustrate it for I doe not remember that any one of them denyes it It is true that Plato dislikes and justly that salutation of Dionysius the Tyran to God Gaude servato vitam Tyranni jucundam that he should say to God Live merrily as merrily as a King as merrily as I doe and then you are God enough to imagine such a joy in God as is onely a transitory delight in deceivable things is an impious conceit But when as another Platonique sayes Plotinus Deus est quod ipse semper voluit God is that which hee would be If there be something that God would be and he be that If Plato should deny that God joyed in himselfe we must say of Plato as Lactantius does Deum potius somniaver at quà m cognoverat Plato had rather dreamed that there was a God then understood what that God was Bonum simplex sayes S. Augustine To be sincere Goodnesse Goodnesse it selfe Ipsa est delectatio Dei This is the joy that God hath in himselfe of himselfe And therefore sayes Philo Iudaeus Hoc necessarium Philosophiae sodalibus This is the tenent of all Philosophers And by that title of Philosophers Philo alwaies meanes them that know and study God Solum Deum verè festum agere That only God can be truly said to keepe holy day and to rejoyce This
B. C Expostulation with God how without sin 44. B. We may not excuse the inordinatenesse of all Expostulations of good men in the Scripture 132. C Nor come neere that excesse which we finde in some of them 155. C Of that in the widdow of Zareptha 218. A Against Extortion 94. A Against Extremities in matters of opinion 42. A. B. c. In Religion 326. D F FAith against implicite Faith 178. C. 411. C Faith and Reason how contiguous they are 178. B Faith how it is assisted by Reason 429. A. 612. A Of the imperfection that is in our Faith 818. D Faith and Works 78. E. 368. A. 567. D. E Our Workes more ours than our Faith 79. C. D. E. c. The Faith of others how profitable to us 105. D And how not 106. E Men not to deceive themselves with thinking that if they have Faith once they shall have it ever or have enough 819. B. C Fall sinne is a fall and how 186. D. 187. B. C. 462. D Against impossibility of falling from grace received 240. B. C Of Fame and getting a good name the necessity of it 680. A Fathers of the power of life and death which they had over their owne children 388. A How Jesuites slight the authority of the Fathers of the Church 489. C How they are to be followed 490. C Feare of the Feare of God 386. B The difference between fearefullnesse and Feare 387. B Servile and Filial Feare both good 386. D The Feare of God a blessed disease 466. B It constitutes the best assurance 694. C Not only a Feare but even a terror of God may fall upon the best men 70. A Festivalls the reason of their Institution in the Church 298. B Of applying particular Scriptures to particular Festivalls 423. D Filiation the markes of our spirituall Filiation lesse subject to errour than of our Temporall 338. E Fasting but thrice mentioned by David and he thrice derided for it 535. C The commendation and use of it ibid. D. E Finding of God the severall times of it 597. A Of Finding that which was lost 711. E The passage of the Usher in S. Augustine that found a bag of money and would not take so much as the tithe of it 712. A Fishers of men the Apostles why so called 734. E Flatterers how men may flatter the best men the very Angels yea and God himselfe 332. B Foliantes an Order in the Roman Church who only feed on roots and leaves 731. C Following Christ how we are to Follow in beleeving and in doing 731. E Against Forespeaking the Counsels or Actions of the State 535. E Foretelling of death the passage of the Monks of S. sidorus Monastery about it 473. C Forme of publike Prayer used amongst the very Gentiles 89. A And they had a particular Officer who made Prayers and Collects for them upon emergent occasions ibid. Which were received every five years ibid. Fortune and God how they consist together 711. C Freewill the obliquities of it from whence 283. D The power of it in our conversion 309. A. B Funerals of the duties belonging to them 196. A. 198. B Of the severall manner of them among severall nations 198. D Christian Funerals an evidence of Gods presence 826. B Fulnesse how in Christ and how in others of the Saints 3. C Three Fulnesses in Christ above others 4. A How Full all of us are of originall sin 2. E How Full God is of mercy 12. C Of Fulnesse without satisfaction and of satisfaction without Fulnesse 807. A Abraham why Full of yeares and yet not so old as Methusalem ibid. D Severall Fulnesses ibid. E G GEntiles and their salvation how prone the Fathers were in beleeving of it 261. D. 763. C Of the power of naturall reason in them and what many of the Fathers thought of it 314. C Of their multiplicity of Gods 378. B. 484. D. 502. E They durst not call their Tutelar Gods by their names 608. A Gentlenesse meeknesse and mildenesse the power of it both upon man and God 409. E. 410. A. B Glad God whether he be Glad that he is God 812. B Glorified bodies their Endowments applyed to the soule after her first resurrection 189. A. B. C Gloria Patri after every Psalme how ancient 88. C Glory against our feare of giving God too much Glory 58. E No Glory to God in destroying man only for his pleasure 85. B Glory what it is 88. A The light of Glory in heaven what 231. A All things we doe must be to the Glory of God 636. E Of the disparity and degrees of Glory in the Kingdome of heaven 742. D. 743. A. B. C Gluttony the effects and miseries of it 579. D God not to be loved in consideration of the Temporall Blessings he bestoweth upon us but for himselfe 750. C. D Foure wayes of knowing him 229. B God how present even in hell 226. D. E Seeing of God before us in our actions how necessary 169. E How we see him in a glasse 226. B How we are enemies to God 65. B All his wayes are goodnesse 66. E Severall positions motions and transitions ascribed to him 67. C How omnipresent with the Ubiquetary and the Stancarist 67. E Why he makes some poor others rich 84. E Glories not in destroying man till he finde cause 85. B Proposeth his glory to himselfe as the end of all his works 87. C. D. E All our wealth and honour to be ascribed to him 95. B Whether his Essence shall be seene in heaven 120. D. 230. D No evill from him 168. C Not the Author of sinne 368. E To be reverenced as a Father 388. C Of the reason of many Gods amongst the Gentiles 484. D God hates not any man but as a finner 628. C. D His mercy to all men 679. A. B The numberlesse number of Gods Benefits unto man 765. A Our Goods what care to be taken they be well gotten 83. A. 95. E They are abusively called Goods 168. D Goodnesse speciall in God 167. E. 168. A. B Golden Crowns of the Saints how forged in the Roman Church 743. D Gospell whether yet preached over all the world 363. D Why it is called in Scripture the Kingdome of God 472. A How compared to a net 736. C Grace against irresistible Grace 456. B Grace and Nature how they cooperate 649. D No consummative Grace in this life 735. B Graduall Psalmes which and why they are so called 653. E Great men not alwayes good and why 166. A But when good the more acceptable and their ill the more pardonable ibid. B. C The true end of Greatnesse 321. B. C. D Great men how dangerously obnoxious to their own servants 551 A Gretzer the Jesuite how injurious to the power of Kings in matters of Religion 698. D H AGainst making too much Haste either in Temporall or Spirituall Riches 520. D Hatred how it may consist with Charity 100 A Health Spirituall Health to
Fundamentals every man is bound to have but not of the superstructure and superedification 807. B How Imperfect all our Knowledge is in Arts and Sciences 818. A Knowledge against over-much curiosity in attaining to it 63. E. 308. C. 319. A. B Whether wee shall Know one another in the next world 157. C Of sobriety in Knowledge 270. C. 701. A Knowing of our selves how hard a thing it is 563. C Knowing of God foure ordinary wayes of it in the Schooles 229. B L LAbour three-fold Labour in the Scripture 538. B Law and the Gospell of the severall state of either 284. E. 285. A Of the Law of Nature under which every man is 362. C How the Law is said to shew what is sinne 687. B Lawes of Temporall Princes whether or no they binde the conscience of the Subject wherefore never stated by the Pope or by any Councell 741. B Liberality and Bounty Civill and Spirituall what 759. E Liberality a vertue that begets a vertue ibid. The true body and true soule of Liberalitie what it is 760. C Life the excellencie of it 69. D. E. 70. A All that is good included in it 70. A Light the first creature 759. D Literae Formatae in the Primitive Church their Institution and use 415. A Lord whether God could be called the Lord before there were any creatures a disputable thing 757. A The Judgement of Tertullian and S. Augustine either way ibid. B Love the first Act of the Will 225. D How we may love the creatures 398. E 598. B Against the Love of the things of this world 187. C. 399. C Against loving of God for the Temporall blessings he bestowes upon us 750. C Loving our enemies six degrees observed in it 97. B Lust and Licentiousnesse the burdens that it makes men under goe 623. D Lying whether it be lawfull before one that is no competent Judge 491. B M Macchabees their torture and patience 221. E. 222. A. B. C. c. Man what Man is 64. D. E. 65. A. c. The dignitie and honour of Man 655. C. D Hee cannot deliberately wish himselfe an Angel for he should lose thereby ibid. E Of those helps and assistances which Man affords to Man 656. D. E. c. Man is called every creature in Scripture and why 770. C. D Mary the Crownes of England Scotland Denmark and Hungary much about one time fell upon women whose name was Mary 243. E It is a noble and a comprehensive name and why 244. A Marriage of second Marriages 216. D. E. c Masters of that esteeme and regard is to bee had to such as have taught us or have beene our Masters 288. E. 289. A why called Patres-familias 388. B Mediocrity of Estate the commendation of it 661. A. B. c. 685. D Orders in the Church of Rome from both extremes but not one from the Meane 661. B. What is a Mediocrity to one is not nor ought to be to another 714. C Memory the Holy Ghosts pulpit oftner than the Vnderstanding 290. B. C Of the sinfull Memory of past sins how dangerous it is 542. D Mercie of God how much above his judgements 12. B. 67. A. 71. A How full God is of it C Occasionall Mercies what and how many D The Devils capable of Mercy in the judgement of many Fathers 66. A. 262. D The proper difference betweene Mercy and Truth 530. D Against those that abridge the great volume of Gods Mercies 568. E Of severall Mercies and refreshments which are none of Gods 810. E. 811. A God can doe nothing but in Mercy 811. C Merits foreseene no cause of Graces in us 5. A Millenarii their errour what and how generall almost all the Fathers tainted with it 261. C Miracles against multiplying of them in the Roman Chuch 36. D Mirabilis or the man that workes Miracles the first of those great names given to Christ by the Prophet Esay 58. C Nothing dearer to God than a Miracle 215. A They are his owne Prerogative ibid. B It is more to change Nature by Miracles than to make Nature 394. E No man to ground his Faith upon a Miracle as it seemes to him 429. A How to judge of Miracles whether they bee true or false 429. B Dangerous putting of God to a Miracle in saving us 456. B What is properly a Miracle 683. D The Creation it selfe none ibid. Monuments not in Churches in the Primitive times 730 D Mortification outward Mortification and austerity a specious thing 492. E Mortification to be generall of all the parts and not of one onely 541. B Mosselim a kind of Doctors amongst the Jewes that taught the people by parables and obscure sayings 690. E The Multitude of their levity judgement and changing of opinions 482. B. D Against Murmuring at Gods blessings if they be not as great as we desire 576. C Mute against standing Mute at examinations 491. C Mysteries of two kinds in the Schooles 203. D Every Religion under heaven hath had her Mysteries and some things in-intelligible of all sorts of men 690. D N NAmes and Titles nothing puffeth men up more 734. D The Heathen never called their Tutelar Gods by their Names and why 608. A Of getting a good Name amongst men and against those that neglect it 680. A. E Of mens retaining those Names that are most acceptable 285. B Of the Name of Christian and when it was given and how 426. B Adam named all creatures but himselfe and why 563. B Natalitia Martyrum their dayes of suffering so called and why 268. C. 461. C Nativities three Nativities to every Christian and which they are 424. E Nature of that sight which wee have of God even by the light of Nature 227. B. 686. E Of that power which some of the Fathers attribute to Nature without Grace 314. C Men doe not halfe so much against sin as even by the power of Nature they are able to doe 315. B. C Of the testimony which a Naturall soule gives unto it selfe of it selfe 337. B Nature not equivalent to Grace 649 A Nature not our owne ibid. Nature and Grace how they co-operate ibid. D Neighbour-hood and evill Neighbour-hood and communicating with evill men 420. C Noctambulones men that walk in their sleep wake if they be called by their Names 467. A Nothing there is nothing more contrary to God than to be to doe or to thinke Nothing 265. B The Devill himselfe cannot wish himselfe deliberately to be nothing C An Order of Friars in the Roman Church that in humilitie called themselves Nullanos or Nothings 731. C Of the Numberlesse number of Gods benefits to Man 765. A O OCcasionall instruments of Gods glory what cold affections they meet with in the world amongst men disaffected to Gods cause 154. E Occasionall mercies offered what and how many 12. D Occasionall Convertites who 461. C God no Occasionall God and why 586. B Devotion no Occasionall thing and why 244. E A great
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
no man would ever have thought of of himself nor might have prayed for if he could have imagined it this Mercy of the Father is the object of our Thankfulness The Merit of the Son That into a man but of our nature and equall to us in infirmities there should be superinfused such another nature such a divinity as that any act of that Person so composed of those two natures should be even in the rigour of Justice a sufficient ransome for all the sins of all the Werld is the object of our admiration But the object of our consolation which is the subject of this Text is this That the Holy Ghost by his presence and by inanimating the Ordinances of Christ in the Ministery of the Gospell applies this mercy and this merit to me to thee to every soul that answers his motions In that Contract that past between Solomon and Hiram for commerce and trade between their Nations 1 Kâ—â—g 5. That Solomon should send him Corne and Oyle and Hiram should send him Cedar and other rich materials for Building that people of God received an honor and an assurance in that present Contract for future trade and commerce So did the World in that Contract which past betweene the Father and the Son That the Father should send downe God and the World should deliver up Man The nature of Man to be assumed by that Son and so a Redemption should be wrought after in the fulnesse of Time And then in the performance of this Contract when Hiram sent downe those rich materials from Libanon to the Sea and by Sea in Flotes to the place assigned Ver. 9. where Solomon received them that people of God received a reall profit in that actuall performance of that which was but in contract before So did the World too when in the fulnesse of Time and in the place assigned by God in the Prophet Micah which was Bethlem the Son of God came in our flesh and after dyed for us His Blood was the Substance the Materials of our ransome and actually and really delivered and deposited for us which was the performance of the former Contract between his Father and him But then was the dignity of that people of God accomplisht when those rich Materials so sent were really imploied in the building of the Temple when the Altar and the Oracle were cloathed with that Gold when the Cherubim and the Olive-Trees and the other Figures were made of that rich stuffe which was provided when certaine chiefe Officers and three thousand three hundred under-Officers Ver. 15. Ver. 14. were appointed to over-see the Work and ten thousand that attended by monthly courses and seaven score ten thousand that were alwaies resident upon the Work And so is our comfort accomplisht to us when the Holy Ghost distributes these materials the Blood and the Merits of Christ upon severall Congregations and that by his higher Officers Reverend and Vigilant Bishops and others that have part in the Government of the Church and then by those who like Solomons ten thousand performed the service by monthly courses and those who like his seaven score and ten thousand are alwayes resident upon fixt places that salvation of soules so decreed at first by the Father and so accomplished after by the Son is by the Holy Ghost shed and spred upon particular men When as the world began in a community that every thing was every bodies but improved it selfe to a propriety and came to a Meum Tuum that every man knew his owne so that which is Salus Domini The Salvation of the Lord as it is in the first Decree and that which is Salus Mundi The Salvation of the World as it is in the accomplishment of the Decree by Christ may be Mea Tua My Salvation and thy Salvation as it is applyed by the Holy Ghost in the Ministry of the Church Salvation in the Decree is as the Bezar stone in the maw of that creature there it growes Salvation in Christs death is as that Bezar in the Merchants or Apothecaries provision But salvation in the Church in the distribution and application thereof by the Holy Ghost is as that Bezar working in my veines expelling my peccant humours and rectifying my former defects The last work the Seale and Consummation of all is of the Holy Ghost And therefore as the Manifestation of the whole Trinity seemes to have been reserved for Christ so Christ seemes to have reserved the Manifestation of the Holy Ghost for his last Doctrine For this is the last Sermon that Christ preached And this is a Sermon recorded only by that last Euangelist who as he considered the Divine Nature of Christ more then the rest did and so took it higher so did he also consider the future state and succession of the Church more then the rest did and so carried it lower For S. Iohn was a Prophet as well as an Euangelist Therefore in this last and lasting Euangelist and in this last Sermon Christ declares this last work in this world that is the Consummation of our Redemption in the application of the Holy Ghost For herein consists our comfort that it is He the Holy Ghost that ministers this comfort Christ had told them before that there should be a Comforter sent Ver. 16. But he did not tell them then that that Comforter was the Holy Ghost Here he does at last he does and he ends all in that that we might end and determine our comfort in that too This God gives me by the Holy Ghost For we mistake false comforts for true We comfort our selves in things that come not at all from God in things which are but vanities and conduce not all to any true comfort And we comfort our selves in things which though they doe come from God yet are not signed nor sealed by the Holy Ghost For Wealth and Honour and Power and Favour are of God but we have but stolne them from God or received them by the hand of the Devil if we be come to them by ill meanes And if we have them from the hand of God by having acquired them by good meanes yet if we make them occasions of sin in the ill use of them after we lose the comfort of the Holy Ghost which requires the testimony of a rectified conscience that all was well got and is well used Therefore as Christ puts the Origination of our Redemption upon the Father I came but to doe my Fathers will and as he takes the execution of that Decree upon himselfe I am the way and the truth and the life and the Resurrection I am all so he puts the comfort of all upon the Holy Ghost Discomfort and Disconsolation Sadnesse and Dejection Damnation and Damnation aggravated and this aggravated Damnation multiplied upon that soule that findes no comfort in the Holy Ghost If I have no Adventure in an East-Indian Returne though I be not the